301 - Solo Polyamory with Tristan Taormino
What is solo polyamory?
Tristan Taormino is the host of the podcast Sex Out Loud, as well as the editor of 25 different anthologies and author of 8 books on the subject of sex and relationships, including Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships. She is also a speaker and sex educator, and coined the term “solo polyamory,” which refers to:
“a category of polyamory that covers a wide range of relationships that essentially take a “free agent” approach to polyamory. Many solo polyamorists don’t choose to share a home or finances with intimate partners and generally tend to emphasize themselves as individuals and not part of a couple or triad.”
Throughout this episode Tristan talks about her experiences with and thoughts on solo polyamory, relationship anarchy, and sex positivity, particularly in the midst of a pandemic. Some of the questions and subjects Tristan addresses are:
What sex positivity means to her and why it’s important for the public to be educated on it.
Why relationship anarchy might be emerging more in the past decade than it has in the past.
Sexual politics.
Safe meetings with people during the pandemic.
How the pandemic has altered popular sex negativity (if at all).
Tristan’s website can be found here, and you can learn more about her book Opening Up here. Be sure to also check out Tristan’s podcast, Sex Out Loud, and follow her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at @TristanTaormino.
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this special crossover episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we are joined by Sex Out Loud podcast host Tristan Taormino, to do a little crossover episode, where each of our shows are going to get a different edit of the same conversation. If you want to check out of like parallel universe version of this episode, you can go check out the Sex Out Loud podcast and find that episode with us.
Today we are talking about solo polyamory, relationship anarchy, and we're really going to get into some nuance and talk about these things. We had an amazing conversation with Tristan, where we could really get in-depth and get into some of the nuances of these terms and how they show up in real life. Tristan Taormino is an award-winning author, sex educator, speaker, and host of the very long-running Sex Out Loud podcast.
She is editor of 25 anthologies, and the author of 8 books on sex and relationships, including Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships. She's the founder of the Open List, a list of healthcare and other professionals who are experienced and knowledgeable about alternative sexuality and lifestyles, including open relationships, polyamory, and non-monogamy. Tristan, thank you so much for joining us. We're really excited to do this together.
Tristan: Thanks for having me.
Dedeker: Tristen I don't know if you remember this. This was maybe two or three years ago that you and I were on a panel together at an event in LA.
Emily: We have pictures to prove it.
Dedeker: Okay. Yes, if you deny it, we do have pictures to prove it.
Tristan: It was so much more than two years ago.
Emily: Oh, my gosh.
Jase: I think it might have been four years ago.
Dedeker: It feels like 10 years ago.
Emily: It does feel like that at this point.
Tristan: Okay, I think it was four years ago, I will go with four but it does feel like a century.
Dedeker: Okay. Yes, so some number of years ago, we were on a panel together. What I remember about that panel was, when someone in the audience asked about solo polyamory, specifically, or the term solo poly, and you asked a question, "Who uses that term to identify?" Some hands go up, and you're like, "I'm pretty sure I came up with that term in my book." Now in the intervening four-ish years or so, have you had an opportunity to fact check that or get to the bottom of that? Honestly, I picked that up-
Tristan: I have.
Dedeker: -and ran with it. I was just like, "Oh, she says so. Okay. Yes, that's what I tell other people." I'm like, "Oh, Tristan Taormino."
Tristan: Yes, it's not on my Wikipedia page, but it should be.
Dedeker: Not yet.
Tristan: Yes, it's fun too when I am in a room with people and a sweet 21-year-old will say to me, "Well, okay, but let's talk about solo polyamory. You know what solo polyamory is? It's, blah blah blah."
Right, I'm having someone explain solo polyamory to me. I don't want to burst their bubble. Yes, so what I want to say is people have been practicing solo polyamory, for as long as people have been practicing polyamory, right? As we know, we keep coming up with new names for these things. For my book, I had a lot of reference material for my book, but no one had named that particular style, where someone is polyamorous or non-monogamous and doesn't have a primary partner and doesn't necessarily want one, isn't seeking that out.
Dedeker: Right. Yes, I feel the closest thing I found was, I feel I recall Kathy Labriola, who has written a number workbooks on jealousy and recently wrote a book on polyamorous breakups and stuff like that. I think she did some original research back in the day where she didn't call it solo polyamory, but she set up with this idea of some people practice what she calls the traditional model, the old school model, the classic, primary, secondary.
Then some people practice what she called the multiple primary model, so as that I have multiple partners, but all of them feel primary to me. Then her description of what she called the multiple secondary model felt almost the closest to solo polyamory, and it's been a while since I read her description to it. Again, it was this sense of, "Maybe I've multiple partners, but I'm not slotting anybody into this particularly very couplehood-esque role."
Tristan: I think it was important for me to give it a name, we know language matters. It was important for me to give it a name because in our culture, which is mono normative, these people would be seen as single, right? What single is dating. What's single is, hasn't settled down with someone. Single is single and looking to not be single. In the traditional--
Jase: Right, it's like implied.
.
Tristan: It's implied, right? For me, solo also had this agency to it, right? That word was important to me because it felt like the folks who practice this are solidly this is their choice, and they're not defaulting to anything, that's a norm in society, and they've actually chosen and crafted this style for themselves.
Emily: It seems there's a certain amount of autonomy to solo polyamory like you are your own person and you don't need to be defined by the confines of traditional relationships. Also, even non-traditional, like, polyamorous relationships, still operate within these multiple dyads, or triads, or quads, whatever it is, but it still is so much about the relationship itself.
Whereas solo polyamory is so fascinating to me because you are your own autonomous individual operating potentially within multiple spaces, and other relationships, multiple people. I don't know I am trained to question and figure out like, "Have I ever seen this happen in real life, where it's really been thing and really worked?" I'd be curious to hear the three of you talk about this.
Tristan: That's a really good point, because some of the people that I interviewed for my book, actually said, "I'm my own primary partner." Right?
Dedeker: Yes.
Emily: Yes.
Tristan: That plays into what you said. I can remember, there's a friend of a friend that I know who had this big wedding where she married herself, and she committed to herself.
Dedeker: Wow.
Emily: Wow.
Tristan: I know, it was awesome. I saw the pictures and read accounts from people who were there because I didn't know this person, but I thought, "I don't know if this person is monogamous or not, but that's like a solo, a real strong solo statement, right? "I am my own spouse. I am my own person." Right?
Jase: Yes, it makes me think of just singleness in general because that's also a topic we've discussed on this show before, the idea of being single isn't a bad thing. That the research about the health benefits of being married versus being single is all fundamentally flawed in the way it's put together because it's only looking at people who don't want to be single, and that there's a pretty big difference there.
Yes, we don't really have a term within the monogamous world of, "I'm partnered or I'm married, or I'm seeing someone, or I'm single." But like you said, implicit in single is, "But I don't want to be." We have to append extra words like, "I'm intentionally single, or I'm single by choice." Within polyamory, the fact that we have this word solo poly or solo polyamorous is cool and an awesome thing we have, that I don't think we really have an equivalent of that within the monogamous world.
Tristan: Yes, there's a growing body
of writing about being what you said consciously single or intentionally single. Interestingly in that writing, it is pushing back around these notions that we all are supposed to be a partner that everything is revolving around the two, the dyad. There's some overlap there. Even though the people writing this stuff are not necessarily into polyamory. I think we're starting to talk more about even expanding the term single, but for now, I feel like it has all this other stuff wrapped up in it.
Dedeker: Yes. I think what I see in parallel to that is I am also in the mainstream seeing more people talking about, "Hey, maybe we should appreciate our platonic friendships more. Maybe we can be leaning into those more. Maybe we should be prioritizing having those more and nurturing those more." Again, it's the same thing of like, this is coming from people who are not necessarily relationship radicals or anything like that, but that are wanting to address this.
Tristan: A hundred percent. I do have a platonic wife.
Emily: Oh, I love it.
Dedeker: Oh.
Tristan: Someone recently asked me, "What does that mean to you?" I said, "We're deeply bonded. We have a really intimate relationship. I can tell her absolutely anything. She would be there for me if I got arrested for mass murder incidents."
Jase: Gosh.
Dedeker: Wow.
Tristan: Kind of like ride or die. Not that I'm planning murders or anything.
Dedeker: Goodness. I'm anti-violence.
Tristan: She's my power of attorney.
Dedeker: Oh, wow.
Tristan: If we're going to talk about bringing it into the legal realm, we all need to do those things and name those people.
Emily: Dedeker did that this year too.
Tristan: Yes. It's okay. She's going to make decisions, especially when I'm unable to or about my death because I know she knows in her heart exactly what I want and we've talked extensively about it, but we don't have a romantic or sexual relationship. Now, to me, it's one of the closest relationships in my life. It's one of the closest relationships I've ever had. It is one of the most soul-feeding relationships.
It's just not romantic or sexual. I do feel often that those relationships are immediately devalued against our romantic and sexual partners. It was almost like I wanted to put it out there. I wanted to say it. I want to tell people, "This is my platonic wife," because I do want the recognition that this is a really important person to me and I will go to them to make important decisions, for advice.
Dedeker: It's funny. Emily brought that up that I ran into that because this year I took care of my power of attorney stuff and my will stuff. Of course, it's very non-traditional and of course, all these forms are asking you like, "Okay, who's this person? What's their relationship to you?" The primary people that are in my will most frequently are my partner, Alex, and my partner, Jase, and Emily as well.
It was a weird thing of where I literally was just like, "I'm going to list everybody's a partner. If after I die, some attorney has an issue with that, they'll have to figure it out."
I'll be dead.
Emily: Too bad for them.
Dedeker: Too bad for them. I do want to ask you, Tristan, do you identify with the solo polyamory label now? If so, then I have a follow-up question.
Tristan: Yes, I do but it's new, and it's the first time I've identified as solo poly.
Dedeker: I think that probably answered my follow-up question was just like how does that feel like that's ever fluctuated for you?
Tristan: Yes. I really like to be in relationship and I was in a non-monogamous relationship and a legal marriage for 15 years. I got divorced about five years ago. I very quickly got into another hierarchical non-monogamous relationship where my partner was definitely my partner, my primary. That relationship has changed. That person is still in my life, still really important, but we are not partners and we agree on that.
Right now, I feel like I have multiple partners who I'm engaging in intentional relationships with, but I made a decision to not seek out a primary because when all is said and done, I haven't been not partnered for-- when you look back on it and you're like, "When was the last time?" It's probably been 20 years. I was ready to say, "Hey, let's take a break altogether from the model of the primary." Then the pandemic hit. I was like, "Tristan, this was weird that you made this decision right now." This is going to lead to some strange isolation so yes.
Emily: I really want to touch on that in terms of this moment that we all are in collectively of being in some form of isolation, regardless of whether we're isolating with a partner, or with a family, or with multiple people in a polycule or something along those lines and being a solo polyamorous person, what is that been like and what is that manifested within yourself and how do you think that it'll continue to change and develop throughout the rest of the time this is going to be happening?
Tristan: The person who was my partner, we transitioned and we decided to pick lover-
Dedeker: That's a romantic one.
Tristan: -or lovers. My lover and I decided-- we were living together. We were living together by circumstance rather than choice and we both also articulated that. That was out in the open. Then we decided not to live together anymore. About the time that he was going to move out, the pandemic hit. We said, "Okay, let's just hold on a second. I do really like you. Why don't we quarantine together for a while?" We made that decision. We're going to quarantine together for a while. Then he moved out in August. Now, I live alone.
Before, when I've lived alone, I've had housemates. Now, I actually really live alone. It's me and my dogs and it's a pandemic. It's been a big adjustment for me. Again, it's like 20 years of not alone. I think it might've taken a darker turn, but I feel really strongly about keeping my connections with all my other people. In addition to professional help, group therapy, individual therapy psychiatrist, I also have these deep abiding friendships and relationships. I have more time quite frankly to nurture them.
Emily: That's lovely.
Tristan: I do. I think that's been the difference. I don't feel alone.
Jase: That right there, I really resonate with that because for me, for the past few years, I've been in this weird situation where when I'm with Dedeker like right now we're in separate rooms, but in the same house. She's just breaking through that wall over there.
Emily: They can't stand being in the same room.
Tristan: Which by the way, is kind of amazing--
Jase: Wizard of Oz style. She's right behind the curtain with her little microphone hiding there. Times of living together and having that type of experience, but then also, normally at least having periods of time where I live more of a solo polyamorous life, where she will be in whatever other country, her partner Alex is in. Right now he's in Australia and Dedeker was there for the first part of the pandemic. I was here by myself and then now she's here with me and he's living more of this solo polyamorous life.
There's that dynamic too that's been really interesting of coming in and out of it, but I've definitely found what you're saying, Tristan of especially during the times where I'm not seeing anyone else, or I don't have any other partners besides Dedeker and she's out of the country of really learning to appreciate how much more energy and time I have for my friends and for establishing things like that, my other relationships that aren't just my dating relationships.
I found that really valuable. I agree with you that I haven't felt like, "Oh, I'm lonely." I'm alone and maybe sometimes having more touch would be nice, especially during the pandemic, but I haven't felt lonely or alone and that's been really eye-opening to see gosh, something, I always thought I'd be alone in this situation, I haven't
felt that way.
Tristan: I think you conflated solo with living and nesting.
Dedeker: I would love for you to talk more about that.
Tristan: When Dedeker is in Australia, I don't think you identify as solo polyamory. You're living by yourself, living on your own. Yes or no. Do you identify as solo polyamory?
Jase: That's a tough question. I've honestly gone back and forth over the years of if I identify with that or not because I don't really have an intention, at least anytime in the immediate future of getting into a lease with a partner or living together with a partner. Like you said, the nesting or cohabiting, but also not defining myself by that relationship by getting married or entering into some sort of thing like that.
However, yet, is a very long term relationship and it's a very serious relationship. To me, it always brings up that question of what does really define solo polyamory? It sounds like what I usually get is, it's this desire to not let your life just be subsumed into your relationships or to define yourself by them.
Tristan: Or to just not have a primary. My desire is to have relationships, but at this point in my life, I am not looking for a primary and then everyone identifies and defines polyamory differently.
Jase: That's the question.
Tristan: Primary to me is cohabitating, mixing finances, making important life decisions with. For other people, it might be raising children.
Jase: That's what I mean. I go back and forth on whether I identify with it or not.
Dedeker: I love this discussion. Especially Tristan, since you're the one who coined the term that means that you're the one who gives out the licenses for solo polyamory.
Emily: They have to write to you-
Dedeker: We have to come up with that application-
Emily: -and you have to distribute.
Dedeker: -or at least a consultation.
Tristan: It's a certification program. It's very-- I have had those.
Jase: This is part of my interview process for that, and eventually, I'll have to submit.
Emily: You have to be on Sex Out Loud.
Tristan: Actually I'm going to think about that Jase. You might have to still do it eventually.
Jase: I think I might, yes.
Dedeker: I have had those same questions where it's kind of like, especially during the times where sometimes I'll spend the year where it's like, I spent a chunk of my time cohabiting with one partner, a chunk of my time cohabiting with another partner, a chunk of my time cohabiting by myself, and maybe dating or just doing my own thing. This is weird. For me, it's just this weird confluence of what it feels like because it feels like multiple primaries models.
That's what it feels like to me, is I have these two people who are very primary to me and in my life and stuff like that. Then, of course, I always have these doubts of I'm not doing the financial entanglement but I do do the temporary cohabitation. I'm not doing the kid thing but I am doing that. I'm assuming you're going to be here long-term. Let's talk about the future. It all starts to get just, I don't want to say-
Emily: Amorphous.
Dedeker: -muddied because I feel like muddied makes it sound like it's an inherently bad thing, which I don't think it is. It's intriguing anyway.
Jase: Wibbly wobbly.
Dedeker: Anyway, I'll be pulling together my admissions essay, as soon as I can.
Tristan: I think it's complicated. Part of what these labels and categories do is, it really gives people something to hold on to and hang on to. It gives people a way to communicate their desires and what they want to other people. It's also not meant to be hard and fast, and black and white where we're all going to take these as outlines and then fill them in.
In that way, maybe me challenging Jase about your model revolves around nesting who you're living with, maybe that still can be a solo poly model, that nesting becomes a critical factor. I don't want to say a measure because that sounds so cold like in Excel spreadsheet, but a signifier.
Dedeker: Have you ever seen or picked up on solo polyamory as a label or as a practice being weaponized in any kind of way or applied in ways that are not very healthy?
Tristan: It's interesting because I also feel like I am a super independent person, and I don't need you. Since my divorce, I've really developed an avoidant attachment style.
Dedeker: Let's hear it for avoidant attachment style, people.
Emily: Jase and I are the opposite. I'm the opposite in that sector.
Tristan: I've never expressed that style and I've never been that person. I've never been that person and I wasn't that person in my marriage and in most of my relationships. Now I'm noticing I think this is a backlash/reaction to a very traumatic breakup, that I'm a little more hands-off, I need my space, I need more space than usual and I can take care of myself. In that way, if you go too far over in that sense, I bet I don't need anyone. That's just not true. We're people and we need people.
Jase: We're people who need people.
Tristan: We need that--that’s Barbara Streisand. Thanks for those of you who got it out there. We do need people. We're a social creature. There's some way to make it extreme, where you're like, I don't need anyone ever but again, I feel like that doesn't speak to me at all, because I have this network of people. I have my boos, which is B-O-O-S.
Dedeker: Okay, not booze.
Tristan: I have my lover. I have my platonic wife, and I have someone I think I'm just going to call my amor. Then I have this really serious, dedicated group of friends. I live in community. I feel very conscious about leaning into people in a way that maybe I didn't 10 years ago, but which is really important to me now. Yes, you could take it to the extreme and be like, I owe nothing to no one. We could all take all of these things to the extreme. Solo poly would be, I can do whatever the fuck I want and I don't need anyone and I don't owe anything to anyone.
Emily: I feel like that's liberating in a way, potentially. I don't know, it seems nice that you do have that autonomy that basically, you are the creator of your own destiny and you don't have to be defined by the relationships around you, even though those relationships are incredibly near and dear to your heart and mean so much to you. It's not like the relationship is the thing and is the end all be all.
Jase: It also comes back to something we say over and over again, on this show when we talk about almost anything is don't weaponize this though. Like Tristan you were saying, when you take it to this extreme, you can also use this solo polyamory label as an excuse to just be an asshole and not care about people. It's with anything you can take it and make it into something shitty. I do always like to give that caveat.
Dedeker: Yes. I could see where things get a little tricky is in you can be someone who doesn't want to be part of a couple or part of a triad or doesn't want to get on the relationship escalator with somebody but you do still want your relationships to have moments of tenderness and affection and romance, and maybe even some mutual care. I feel like I could see people interpreting solo polyamory as you just want to keep everybody at absolute arm's length and not let any-- It's only casual fuck buddies. That's it, and nothing else.
Tristan: Oh, yes. I don't think of it at all in terms of sex or casual sex. It's primarily because I'm not having sex with all my people right now because of the pandemic. I don't think of it in terms of physical touch or closeness. I think all those things like tenderness, commitment, meaning, all of those can be present in all kinds of relationships. That includes with someone that you hook up with.
I've had incredible tenderness and intimacy with people whose names I don't remember at this time. I don't recall. I could pick up my phone and ask my best friend from high school, she remembers everything. All of those are possible in any relationship and also the life of relationship could be five hours or could be--
I guess it could be an hour too. I don't know why I went to five hours.
Emily: The threshold.
Tristan: That was a tell. That was a tell or something. I revealed a lot.
Jase: Wow. I love that. What I'm taking away from all of this conversation though is that it seems like maybe those membership cards might not be coming after all, that maybe they don't exist and that it doesn't quite work that way.
Tristan: Certainly. Please, I'm not the purveyor of any kind of-- I can't certify. I wouldn't be able to certify myself. I would fail the test. I'm not certifying anyone else.
Emily: I mean alternate income stream though really.
Tristan: It does sound like an incredible alternate income stream which God knows we all need right now. I think also I could be solo-poly in a relationship with someone else who is solo-poly and we could define that differently. We could each actually define ourselves differently. Hopefully, we come to some agreement on what the relationship is. We have some basic agreements and terms, but ourselves, how we identify and walk in the world could be different with the same label.
Emily: Definitely. It seems like again, we come back to this idea that even at the end of the day whatever label you land on, we're still going to have to meet and talk about it to each other. We are going to be switching gears and switching topics, but before we do that, we are going to take a quick break to talk about the sponsors for this week's episode.
Tristan: One thing that I haven't talked about enough on my show, believe it or not-- Obviously I've talked about non-monogamy a lot and I've talked about this a couple of times but not in a while and that is relationship anarchy. Relationship anarchy I consider to be a style of non-monogamy, so under the non-monogamous umbrella. Just to give folks a basic working definition, again, these are not set in stone, but we like to just see that we can all get on a similar page.
I'm going to quote Katie Heaney in The Cut actually and say, "Relationship anarchy," which is a term coined by Andie Nordgren, "is a relationship philosophy that draws on the tenants of political anarchy." Meaning that all relationships, romantic and otherwise, should not be bound by any rules not agreed upon by the involved parties. What those relationships might look like may vary from pair to pair, but there are several core values shared by relationship anarchists: being non-hierarchical.
In other words, you don't rank your romantic partners as necessarily more important than other romantic partners or even than your friends. Anti-prescriptionist, which is that there's no built-in prescriptions about what a partnership must look like, and often, non-monogamous. Some relationship anarchists are polyamorous and some poly-people practice relationship hierarchy, but the two are more like overlapping circles than synonyms. That was like a quote just to give a sense of what's going on.
I think this style has been practiced as long as polyamory has, but I don't know that it's been as part of the dialogue, the public dialogue. It's like it's made a name for itself and there's more dialogue and more awareness about this and has been in the last decade. I'm wondering if you agree with me. First of all, all three of you, do you agree with me that relationship anarchy is having a moment? It's not going to have its Time magazine cover, but anyway, a tipping point. Then if so, why do you think it's emerging now?
Dedeker: That's really funny because I actually have a Google search alert set up for the phrase relationship anarchy that I think I put in place probably at least two years ago, maybe even three years ago now. I don't remember why I initially put it in place. I've definitely noticed in the past year or two, especially that maybe once a week at most right now, but that's really in contrast to two years previous that I'll get a notification of like, "There was some new site, new article index that's about relationship anarchy, that references relationship anarchy."
Yes, I would agree having a moment, I don't think it's having the moment. We're not at the Time magazine cover quite yet, but yes, it's definitely coming out of the woodworks and as far as why I don't know. I feel like most of the explanations that I see is because it's like damn Millennials and Gen Zers just messing up our ideas about relationship. What do the rest of you think?
Tristan: Can I just say first?
Dedeker: Sure.
Tristan: My heart loves you that you actually can measure this by your Google alert.
Emily: That's so Dedeker.
Tristan: I want to thank you for that and say I see you.
Dedeker: Oh, I feel seen.
Emily: I think those damn Millennials and Gen Zers and stuff are the ones that are like creating a movement to something different than how we believed that relationships always have been and the defaults and they're questioning that default and changing their belief system about it. I think that, yes, relationship anarchy goes along with that.
I'm interested to hear what the other two of you think about that, but it does seem like the more that I hear about kids these days like Willow Smith or whomever talking about their ideas on relationships that is very different and they're more aware of the possibilities of what relationships can look like and not just the strict box of what it always has been.
They're questioning far more than we ever have in the past. I do sometimes think the kids are all right and they're going to be all right and the generations past us are going to do better than maybe the current moment that we're at.
Jase: I believe that children are our future. Let them laugh and let them lead the way. We'll just keep throwing in more '90s song references.
Tristan: There could also be a whole playlist that goes along with this and we could just keep going with the references and then there's--
Emily: None of those kids will get the references because they're like, "These are way too old."
Jase: I love that. I was just going to answer the question about why it's having a moment and it's interesting because I think what Emily was saying is one interesting way to look at it. Another thing I've also seen is that I noticed that term relationship anarchy gaining some popularity amongst the polyamorous communities in L.A. a number of years ago specifically as a way for people to move away from using the word polyamory, which to them had become associated with this very prescriptive hierarchical way of doing things that they wanted to really distance themselves from and to then using relationship anarchy.
Then the other thing I noticed is that I also saw this uptick in people then having a very negative response to the term relationship anarchy because of having experiences in their communities with generally cis men coming along and saying they're relationship anarchists and using it as an excuse to just never be accountable for anything or to be honest with anyone or to be open with anyone.
I don't know if that a cause of its popularity or being used more or if that's more an indicator that it is becoming more common when people are then using it to be shitty. I don't know. I don't know which is which.
Tristan: This brings up two big issues. One maybe is not big at all. It's just mine, which is, the thing that doesn't resonate for me about relation-- When you read the definition, I'm like, "Damn, I'm so down with that. Yes. That's it." The thing that doesn't resonate with me is the word anarchy. In my deepest type A, very organized, very anal-retentive soul, because it's that deep in me. The idea of anarchy seems terrifying.
On the political landscape, I want there to be anarchists and I feel like we need people who are constantly pushing at the very, very edges and not following the rules. That is part of political change. I've seen that. Of course, I want people who are on the very edges and margins of what has become our basic collective understanding of polyamory and of non-monogamy.
I'm for that but then the organized person in me who really
likes structure and for whom agreements make me feel safe and secure, here's anarchy and has a little panic attack right then and there when I'm not even practicing it. There's two things, but I want you to chime in about that.
Dedeker: I think that's totally understandable and I think that's the limitations of language, is that we say a word like that, like anarchy, even political anarchy, I think the popular usage of that term has strayed away from the original ideals. Now you say the word anarchy and the first thing I imagined is gas tanks exploding and there being fire everywhere, and a very mad max style way of living. It's understandable that we associate this sense of anarchy with a lack of structure and just total chaos.
I know for myself that once I, first of all, started reading a little bit more deeper into it, like reading Andie Nordgren's manifesto about relationship anarchy, which I personally think is just great. Then also when I actually finally read this really interesting book of essays called Queering Anarchism, which was just all essays on political anarchy, but specifically from these queer and non-monogamous viewpoints as well. It was like this weird intersection of talking about relationship and sexuality and anarchy, but not relationship anarchy necessarily, that really brought a lot of interesting nuance to the forefront.
The way I see it is I don't see it as no structure and no agreements whatsoever, but I think it's just we're making sure that everyone is fully aware, fully capable, fully autonomous, able to understand the structures that they are agreeing to. Instead of us just like borrowing a structure that we're going to use because it's like, "Well, you're my platonic best friend and so we borrow this particular structure from culture even though maybe that's not serving us." Or, "We're just going to borrow the structure of cohabiting partners even though maybe that structure doesn't really actually serve us or doesn't actually make us happy," and the agreements and expectations that comes along with that.
Anyway, anyone who's listening, I would highly recommend that book, Queering Anarchism.
Tristan: I just wrote it down. I was trying to be very quiet as I can. Also, I think there's great intersection. What does appeal to me about relationship anarchy is I feel like it is the clearest example of challenging the relationship escalator? Of saying we're not going to go by these rules and the script and the steps where you meet someone, and then you eventually become sexually monogamous, and then you make some commitment, and then you live together, and then you get engaged, and then you get married, and then you have children. That dominant narrative.
The relationship escalator is all about the fact that you get on it and you can't really control getting off of it because you're in the middle of it. I think that there's a big connection there, for me at least, about wanting to have relationships unfold more organically and put less pressure on them to behave in a certain way or to be a certain thing by a certain date.
Jase: The deadline one is one I don't usually think of in that list of examples, but by a certain time I expect it to have taken these six steps or whatever. I think to go back to the whole thing about relationship anarchy. It is so interesting I think partly because of the word anarchy. Then also I think just because of people learning about it mostly from whatever blog they read and depending on the opinion of that blogger, they're going to have a different concept of what it really means, what it's really about. I've seen it vary. Anything from, to be a relationship anarchist means you need to actively be trying to dismantle other people's totalitarian, monogamous relationships.
Emily: What? I've never heard that before.
Dedeker: I've seen that interpretation where it's like, this also means I'm not going to respect the structures and agreements in other people's relationships. As in, if I want to enable someone to cheat on their partner, that's fine because that's part of me completely dismantling and burning this all to the ground. That feels more of like--
Jase: Tearing down the system. Most people that I talk to and respect don't share that view. It's everything from that, to some of these things we've been talking about, to even the point of, you could have a relationship that from the outside might look very heteronormative and relationship escalator. He likes that you live together with this partner, that you still could identify as a relationship anarchist in some people's definitions. There really is this big range.
I think that the thing that actually came up when we talk about things like solo polyamory or just intentional singlehood or having the time to really value our friendships and our platonic relationships, to me, that is the heart of what makes relationship anarchy so compelling. This is something that Andie talks about in their treatise or their manifesto about relationship anarchy. Is this idea that a relationship isn't going to take precedence over a different relationship simply by virtue of its type.
Doing away with that assumption that my plus one, if I'm given one, will always go to a person that I'm having sex with. That tends to be society's definition of, "Well that's the real relationship, is that one. The one I'm romantic with and having sex with." Then similarly not assuming that just because I'm invited to something, that means my romantic partner is also invited where I wouldn't assume that then my platonic friend is also invited to come with me. When Andie talks about antihierarchy, it's not about non-monogamous hierarchy so much in my opinion, but it's more about that societal hierarchy that we apply to.
We've all had that experience of, you've got your best friend and they'd disappear off the map for a year when they fall into their new, hot and heavy relationship. It's not until they get out of that NRE or they break up that you get to have your friend back because we've all been taught this hierarchy. Of course, they're always going to prioritize that person. They have to, they're supposed to. I think that aspect of relationship anarchy is what really appeals to me and I think has led to the most epiphanies about how I do my relationships of all kinds, not just my romantic ones.
Tristan: Jase, this really hits a nerve for me.
Jase: I'm glad.
Tristan: We've all lost things because of the pandemic. We've lost people, and we can't forget that we've actually lost people. I had the opportunity, I was invited to speak in Moscow.
Jase: Idaho or Russia.
Tristan: No, Russia, in May. Obviously, I couldn't go but in the planning for it, when I found out about it and I wanted to travel with someone else, I announced to my lover, "I'm going with Wendy," who's my platonic wife. He was deeply hurt by that. He expressed it though. He said, "My feelings are hurt that when you think of who's the number one person I want to have this life-changing experience with, it's not me." For me, I had to get more specific. It's not that I don't want to have life-changing experiences with him. I actually don't want to travel in a stressful situation.
Jase: That's a great realization to have though. Holy cow
Tristan: It's like the Amazing Race. We could be on a game show together, but not the Amazing Race. I see that as real window into conflict there for me. I had to clarify too what about this makes me choose one person or the other, but also see that his feelings obviously are real and are valid, but are also imbued with these norms.
Emily: You literally said the words number one, which implies that somebody takes precedence over another and that because he's your lover, he should take precedent over your platonic friend. That's an interesting thing to parse out there because clearly, you may just want to have this specific experience with your friend and that matters deeply to you. Dedeker may want to go on a trip with me and she's not in a romantic relationship with me, and do something else with Jase. That's interesting.
You talked about solo polyamory and so much of it still felt like it was rooted in relationship anarchy in a lot of ways. I think that's the challenge for all of us, is if you're going to do one of these two things, to get away from that hierarchical mindset that's so deeply ingrained within us. It always such a challenge and will hit us at these inopportune moments, these challenging moments.
Dedeker: Surprising moments. I think that you could be identified as a relationship anarchist for several years and still, sometimes it's surprising the ways that-- I don't necessarily want to say the word programmed, but the ways that we've absorbed in utmost these ways of being in our relationships.
Tristan: We talked about Andie Nordgren but we have to talk about, for me, this book, More Than Two. More Than Two, I consider to be the most comprehensive guide to relationship anarchy. It's a book by Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickert. God, so much comes up for me here. First thing, I feel like I need a disclaimer. First, I want to make clear that there are many past and active allegations of harm from the partners of Franklin Veaux, who is the co-author of the book.
I encourage people, there are survivor accounts and people's experiences, and they have taken the time to write them down and share them and be public with their vulnerabilities. One place to find those, I just want to say to people, is brighterthansunflowers.com, which is Eve Rickert's blog. Now, More Than Two, the book is a joint project. Obviously, Eve is a co-creator of it, plus there are a lot of other women's voices in it.
I still recommend the book, but I need to provide that context because certainly, I read the book at one point and then when these allegations came out, I had to go back and read the book with a lens of, okay, maybe all of this wasn't entirely consensual, or maybe people's yeses in this situation were constrained and constricted in a way that I couldn't see, because I didn't know who they were in the relationship and what they brought to the relationship, and then what Franklin brought to the relationship. Does anyone else have things they want to say before we dive into More Than Two?
Jase: No, I think that was great. That was very well said.
Dedeker: That's great. I think that sums it up.
Jase: It is still a very comprehensive book that I'd say for a lot of people today, was still one of their introductory books to a lot of these concepts.
Tristan: One of the things that struck me as I was reading it is, as my best self, I was like, "This is everything I want." This is everything I want for my best self, when I'm really emotionally regulated and feeling not triggered and feeling really good and abundance and all those things. It was like, yes, man, totally into it. Then I had to think about my own experiences with open relationships. The hundreds and hundreds of people I've talked to about their own relationships. I thought, "God, is this too idealistic a model to really be able to work in practice?" Several weeks ago I had Jessica Fern on the show. She wrote the book, Polysecure. I fucking highly recommend that book like nobody's .
Emily: Oh yes, it's amazing.
Dedeker: Oh yes, all the time. We had her on the show also. It was great.
Jase: Yes, probably around the same time when the book was coming out.
Tristan: One of the things, one of my favorite quotes that she said on my show and she also says in the book, I'm paraphrasing here but it's like, people are like, "Hey, I totally get this poly thing. I love it. I love the values. I love the principles. I've done the negotiation. This is totally working. Oh my God, I feel like I'm going to throw up." People can get it in idea and then they begin to execute it and everything goes wrong.
Dedeker: There are so many directions that we could go in talking about that. Actually, next week or two weeks from when this episode posts, we have a whole episode dedicated to talking about the sometimes idealistic aphorisms that the polyamory community tends to repeat ad nauseum to a lot of newbies that are not necessarily wrong or incorrect, but leave out some nuance and sometimes run perpendicular to people's actual lived experiences.
I think there's certainly, definitely, a big part of that. What I do appreciate about Jessica Fern's book about Polysecure is the fact that while I feel like the More Than Two approach has been the sense of, if you can get your own shit together and keep yourself calm and deal with your own insecurities and communicate well enough, then this is going to go well. I feel like the Polysecure approach puts more of this emphasis on, let's look at what's happening in your attachments with the people around you and with your partners. If those are solid and including if you have a solid sense of attachment to yourself, that's going to set you up for a better foundation for success potentially.
I feel like in reality, it takes a little bit of both approaches, honestly. It's like, there's going to be some times where it is going to be, "Okay, this is my personal growth, and this is the stuff I got to work through and this is the stuff I need to get on lock," but also what's going on in your attachments with your partners and in your relationships with your partners is also very, very relevant. If there's something missing there, if there's something that you're not getting that you need, you can do all the meditation and read all the books and do all the jealousy workbooks and stuff like that and it's not going to feel any better.
Tristan: Yes. It makes me think, the piece missing, maybe it's as simple as saying that the piece missing from More Than Two is a trauma-informed lens.
Emily: Which is ironic.
Jase: Or not ironic at all, I suppose. .
Emily: Perhaps not, yes.
Tristan: Both, and yes, because I think Polysecure, I feel like takes into account that we all have this traumas and baggage and wounds and negative experiences and we bring them into relationship and they're real for people. Someone can say, I'm not jealous. I'm not jealous. I'm not jealous. My partner's out with their other partner right now and I feel like I'm going to die. That's a real feeling.
Something is getting pressed on. Something's getting pushed there, and it often has to do with trauma. Like you said, it was so simple, what you said Dedeker. It was like, "When you have your shit together and you've worked on all your issues and now you're coming--" and I was like, "Right, who is that? Who is that person?" I don't know anyone that would even claim that.
Jase: I think that does bring us back to talking about More Than Two and its explanation of relationships, I guess, in relationship anarchy, ideals or things like that. I actually would say, I think the big flaw with More Than Two is that it is almost this theoretical if every single actor in every situation was hyper rational all the time. It's not realistic. It's not how life works. That's actually something that, I'm going to say again, how good Andie Nordgren's brief manifesto on relationship anarchy is. Is that each of the, what is it? 10 sections in it?
Dedeker: It's like 10 paragraphs, something like that.
Jase: It's 10 paragraphs. That each one is so simple in a way and yet I don't think any of them are ignorant to the fact that life is hard and people have emotions and we've all got trauma. I think particularly because it was written not just by Andie, but by their whole community. That was a community of queer people, not of people who are cisgender and basically heterosexual, which a lot of the other people I see writing about relationship anarchy are. Tend to fit more into that model.
I think that because of that, Andie's manifesto, it's painting this picture of this beautiful way that we could be taking care of each other and examining our own relationships and trying to tear down internally some of this scaffolding that culture has built in us of how we think about our relationships. It's by no means treating it like, "Yes, once you've got this figured out, then you have no problems." It's more like, "This is a thing we can try to do to answer the problems that we do have, to try to address the problems that we do have."
Tristan: I don't necessarily know that it goes back to the identity of the person writing because to me, queer is an identity and a practice and a politics, but it's also a lens.
Emily: Yes, that's a really good point.
Tristan: I know plenty of people who identify as heterosexual who approach life through a queer lens or through a non-normative lens. I think in that way, straight people, you can appropriate this for your use, but be careful with it and acknowledge it. Queer to me can also be a lens that we apply or that we attempt to embody in our lives and in our relationships.
Emily: Well, thank you so much. That was a really amazing conversation. It's so nice to get to do this with someone who's been in the sex positive space for many years and do a 201, 301, 401 course on polyamory and sex positivity. We really appreciate that.
Tristan: That's totally how I felt. That was a really good way to wrap it up. I feel like we got deep into some stuff that was beyond the surface. It was my pleasure. It was my pleasure.
Emily: Thank you so much. Where can people find more out about you?
Tristan: My podcast is called Sex Out Loud. You can find more about it at sexoutloudradio.com because it was a radio show in the beginning. I feel so old. Actually, I got to get that fixed. Okay, sexoutloudradio.com on all podcasts platforms. My website is Tristantaormino.com. Just try to spell it and then Google will probably correct it for you. I am @tristantaormino across all social media.
Emily: Thank you so much. We're going to continue the conversation that we had with Tristan on sex positivity and the pandemic in our very long, bonus episode. We got pretty in-depth into this conversation. We really explored a lot of things regarding sex positivity, which is really in her wheelhouse, and the pandemic. If you want to check that out, become a Patreon of ours at patreon.com/multiamory. I feel like this was a really incredible opportunity to get to talk to someone who's been in this world for a very long time and who has a huge amount of knowledge on it. I sure appreciated this.