496 - Trying Monogamy After Non-Monogamy with Rachel Krantz
Welcome back, Rachel!
We’re excited to welcome back Rachel Krantz to the show! Rachel has been on Multiamory a few times, and today she’s here to discuss being monogamous after non-monogamy.
Rachel is a journalist and the author of OPEN: One Woman's Journey Through Love and Polyamory. She was the namer of Bustle, and one of its three founding editors. She’s the recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the Investigative Reporters and Editors Radio Award, the Peabody Award, and the Edward R. Murrow Award. You can follow her on Instagram @rachelkrantz, and subscribe to her podcast, Help Existing, wherever you get your podcasts.
Some of the questions Rachel answers on this episode are:
How has your identity changed over the last decade?
How has your relationship to non-monogamy changed and how are you feeling, now that you’re in a monogamous relationship?
How does this change in identity feel, especially since your book references a different identity so heavily?
What does it mean to be in a monogamous relationship without shedding relationship anarchy ideals/jumping on the escalator/disavowing non-monogamy entirely?
What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced now that you’ve become monogamous again?
What have you learned about the state of feminism and non-monogamy bias from your publishing experience?
Did you ever worry about what people would think of you now that you are no longer non-monogamous?
Visit Rachel’s website to learn more about her and her work!
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 episode of the Multiamory podcast, we are talking about changing identities with guest Rachel Krantz. Rachel Krantz is a journalist and the author of Open: One Woman's Journey through Love and Polyamory. She's also the person that named Bustle for those of you that didn't know and was one of its three founding editors. She's also the recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the Investigative Reporters and Editors Radio Award, the Peabody Award, and the Edward R. Murrow Award. So many awards. Congratulations on all of those. Well-deserved.
You can also listen to us speak with Rachel on Episode 356, which is about non-monogamy and sexual liberation. If you're interested in learning more about our fundamental communication tools that we reference on this show all the time, you can check out our book as well, Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships, where we do quote Rachel Krantz in there as well. It covers some of our most used communication tools for all types of relationships. You can find links to buy it at Multiamory.com/book or wherever books are sold. Also, check out the first few episodes of our show, where we cover some of our fundamentals and episodes that we reference over and over again in our modern-day episodes. With all that, Rachel, thank you so much for joining us.
Rachel: Thank you for having me. You forgot my most important bio item, which is I wrote the introduction to your book Multiamory.
Jase: Yes.
Dedeker: You're right. I forget that.
Rachel Krantz: That's what I'm proudest of.
Emily: It was a great forward. Thank you.
Rachel: Yes. I was honored, and I'm honored to be back.
Emily: Thank you so much. To start off with, I was really interested in talking with you today because you and I are going on opposite trajectories in our life currently. You were non-monogamous, and now you're entering into a monogamous relationship. I was monogamous after being non-monogamous for many years, and now I'm just tiptoeing back into non-monogamy. To start off with, I guess I wanted to further that conversation by asking all of us how our identities have changed over the last decade, which is the amount of time that we've been doing this show. I feel like the three of us, at least, have grown up almost doing this show at this point.
Jase: We did start it when we were each 10 years old.
Emily: Almost. I meant basically.
Jase: As far as changing identities go, I think since starting the show till now, for me, it's probably been more embracing some queerness for myself that was already there, but learning to be more comfortable with that, I guess. I think part of that's just also getting older and maybe a little more experienced with life and living with myself.
Rachel: That's awesome.
Dedeker: Gosh, I think for me, I don't know, when I try to think about a snapshot of where I was 10 years ago, I mean one trajectory that I feel like I've been on is actually getting a little bit less opinionated and radical about my own non-monogamy, I will say. I do think that working with so many clients over the years has helped to influence that and has maybe softens a lot of my hard-line stances on particular non-monogamy practices.
I think 10 years ago was right before there was this big shift in my life where I had this big breakup and I left Los Angeles and I became this nomad, and I was just nomading around, just a little dandelion sea floating all around the world. Since then, I've definitely become a lot more rooted and have had to figure out what that means for my identity because I think I so identified for so long with being the adventurer who's just halfway across the planet all the time. I still travel quite a bit, but now that I've rooted more to a particular place, I've had to grapple with, "Does that mean I'm a boring normie now who just stays in one place for longer than three months? What does that mean?" I think that's what I've got to report from the last 10 years.
Emily: How about you, Rachel?
Rachel: It's interesting because even though I'm in a monogamous relationship right now, I don't identify as monogamous, I would say. I don't necessarily identify as non-monogamous either. I think I view them more as verbs at this point for me personally, although I think they're really useful as identities, and we'll get into this more. It's been more helpful to hold it lightly as something that is going to potentially change over the course of my life depending on circumstances and relationships and opportunities and all kinds of things.
I think that's been the general trajectory of getting older for me in general. Dedeker, you and I talk about this a lot in terms of Buddhism, like holding identities more lightly. I think writing a memoir is this really paradoxical thing where on the one hand you're solidifying this story of Rachel Krantz on this non-monogamous odyssey, but as you're writing it, you're like, "This is just a story, and the person I'm writing about is never exact, even if I stick to all these transcripts I had and the facts." Then, I would look at the draft the next day and I was already having a different perspective on it.
It was this real lesson on how what we say we are is always this impermanent shifting thing. You can use words and labels in a way that might be helpful, but you can also discard them and shed them when they're not helpful and hold the idea of identity even maybe potentially of there being any solid Rachel to begin with lightly. That said, I do think I am still pretty attached to certain things, like being a vegan or being a woman, or other things that I think are pretty fundamental. Even then, I'm trying to learn to hold lightly and be very agnostic about what the future could hold.
Dedeker: I like that, right out the gate, we're already diving straight into the deep stuff about disillusion of the self.
Jase: Yes.
Rachel: Yes.
Dedeker: Stuff like that.
Emily: Are we embodied or not? Yes.
Dedeker: Yes. It's making me think of when I was writing my book because that was also almost about 10 years ago or so and how even at the time of writing it-- I think about when you write about yourself, it being more like a sketch rather than being able to take a perfect snapshot because you are pulling out of this well of impressions, opinions, the way that your story has changed to yourself over the years. Then, what ends up on the page is a snapshot, but just a sketched snapshot really. It's not static. It doesn't move. It's not dynamic like your actual self is.
I was curious for you, Rachel, if there was any difficulty in that. I know there's definitely a difficulty for myself thinking about the things that I wrote down that are a snapshot of the stuff that I thought ages like 26 to 29 or so. While there's still a lot of that that still describes me and my thoughts, there's a lot that's very different. It's really hard sometimes for me to have this-- Sometimes, it almost feels like a little bit of a dissonance.
Rachel: Yes, totally. I grappled with a lot of that as I was writing it. In Open itself, you can see me grappling with that in time-traveling a little bit, talking to the reader from where I am as a writer, and acknowledging, "Here's where I'm at right now, but I don't--" I did preempt a lot of that because I knew enough. I'd been writing about myself long enough on the internet to know that within a year I was going to be probably far beyond this and maybe I didn't expect just how exactly my path would change, but I knew it knew it would continue to change so long as I'm alive. I sort of made a certain piece with that.
I try to remember that really, once you put it out into the world, it's no longer yours anymore. It's about every reader's going to have their own interaction with it and their own relationship to it, and their own projections on it. Yes, just hearing from readers has been really helpful in that way in terms of people being like, "This made me want to write my own story, or this helped me heal from my own abusive relationship, or this helped me reaffirm my bisexual identity or question my own problematic behaviors." Everyone takes something different from it, so that's a helpful reminder and makes me feel like, "Okay, this is--" even if there's parts of it where I'm like, "Ooh, I'd say that differently now," that I feel good about it.
The other thing that's been so special and unexpected was, I'll use the pseudonym Cade for my current partner. He gave me my own book for my birthday, extremely heavily annotated every page of his reflections.
Jase: Wow.
Dedeker: Awww, it's so sweet.
Rachel: It was the most beautiful gift I've ever gotten. We've been going through each page slowly, deliberately talking about all the things that arise for both of us. He's kind of helped me turn it into this continuing, evolving work of art. His reflections are frozen in time too, and he'll look at and be like, "Oh, I don't feel that way anymore. That doesn't bother me anymore," whatever it is, and then we talk about it and have that conversation, and that's impermanent too and put the book down and pick it up again, and we're further along the next time.
That's been a beautiful reminder, too, and gift of just like my own book. I never would have dreamed as a tool in my own romantic life for talking about where my relationships at and this reminder of relationships hopefully being this collaborative art project that's constantly reiterating itself.
Emily: That's really freaking beautiful. I love that idea that, again, you're in this monogamous relationship currently. Your book was about your ex-partner and the trials and tribulations of going through that really tumultuous time in your life, and what you learned from non-monogamy and having your partner want to read it and want to embrace it so fully is extremely beautiful. That's awesome.
Dedeker: In 2018 or maybe 2019 the Gottmans came out with this great book called Eight Dates. It was like a little workbook. It was these eight prescribed dates that you were supposed to go on with your partner to talk about these different deep topics like money or sex or family or stuff like that. Jase and I, we shared a copy, and we also wrote a bunch of notes in the margin, and it was a lot of snarky commentary about some of the stuff we didn't like about the Gottmans.
Jase: Praising no one.
Dedeker: Then I left it on a plane. I always, to this day, think about who is the person who got this version of the Gottman book with all of our snarky commentary. I hope they liked it. I hope it was somehow helpful to them. Maybe the Gottman parts helped them, but also maybe they took it all with a grain of salt. I don't know. I always think about that person.
Rachel: That's great.
Emily: With all of this change that's happened in your life, I'm not sure how recent it's been, but how is your relationship to non-monogamy changed over that time? How are you feeling about it right now? I also wanted to ask, do you identify with the term ambiamorous at all, because I know that's been thrown around a lot.
Rachel: I like that. I kind of forgot about that as an option. I met Cade about a year ago now, and this was at least six months after the breakup with the person who's at the end of Open, Teo. Our relationship was non-monogamous the whole time. We were together, like, almost four years. Throughout that period of the book coming out, the pandemic, I continued to find so much in non-monogamy and also continued to struggle with certain aspects of it. Continued to struggle with compartmentalization, I would say, like being present with either partner fully while I was with them without feeling kind of--
I was working through that, but it was also relationship-specific. I said, "I don't know. I think I need more time." Also still struggling with jealousy, and when Teo dumped me very suddenly in some semi-worst-fear scenario situation of like the person he was in, and now he, who he just started dating, had been in a long-term relationship with her partner. They just opened up, and a few weeks into dating Teo, she dumped her partner, and then a few weeks later, he just dumped me.
That was like a very abrupt, unexpected ending, and left me jarred and being like, "Maybe I need to really reassess if this is working," because at this point, it had been, I guess, about eight years of non-monogamy and feeling like this continues to bring so much to my life, but also my primary relationships keep not being what I'm looking for, and my nervous system keeps struggling. What if I'm pushing too hard? What if I'm basically being too attached to an identity because I wrote a book about it because I resonate with its ideals better philosophically, but emotionally, what if it continues not to just function, no matter how much work I keep doing?
I just took a step back and really thought about it, and took a lot of time to be with myself. When I re-entered dating, I kind of had on my profile as open to monogamy or not monogamy. I was really just looking for, like, the most important thing to me was more like the person I'm going to start dating. When I met Cade, he identified as monogamous, but he was intrigued by what I'd written a book about and asked me, "Why are you reaching out to me if I have monogamous on my profile?" I said, "Well, because I'm open to trying and explain all those reasons," but that said, I was very clear at the beginning that what was not negotiable for me was being in an open relationship in the sense of complete emotional openness.
That would mean that if I was going to enter into an monogamous relationship with someone, even if it was temporarily monogamous, I'd need to be able to talk about my feelings about that. What that meant, giving up for me? What about when claustrophobia might arise for me? What about my fears of who am I outside of perpetually falling in love? Where does my queerness fit into monogamous relationship with a man? What about if I get a crush on someone else that I needed to be in a relationship where all of that, even when it's scary, cannot be a secret?
He was very much on the same page of that. Just in the way, it felt as we were falling in love, just continued to show up for me in countless ways every day, in a way that I had wanted my whole life, that it just felt like this is the same decision to keep making. Of course, as we talked about it more, found that there's potential monogamish compromises gray areas. A lot of the things that might still be important to me are not necessarily incompatible. That said, it's a monogamous relationship, but there's a commitment on both sides to constantly being in conversation and allowing for the fact that that might change and that that could be okay too, and what matters both is that all people involved feel free and safe as much as possible.
Dedeker: I really like that particular focus. I do think a lot of people in that position, of course, there's this-- I think whenever we're starting a new relationship, there's a very human tendency to think about like, "Well, what damage control can I do up front to try to prevent pain to myself or pain to the other person?" Whether it's I need to give you the laundry list of my mental health issues, or I need to give you the laundry list of, "Hey, I'm thinking about moving within five years or whatever. Or I need to give you a laundry list of all my past trauma and baggage that's going to come up." I think that ultimately we're trying to convey, "Hey, this could be hard. Let's try to bail out if we can identify our incompatibilities now, our deal breakers now."
There can be some validity to that, but I appreciate that. It sounds like in trying to just convey to your new partner, "Hey, time to bail out now if you can't handle this." It was more like, I'm going to be working through some stuff, and I need to be able to work through that with you together. Instead of me just sitting in my corner chewing on stuff that I can't bring you on essentially as a teammate, to also help with working through this.
Rachel: Yes, exactly. That it goes both ways of like if he feels open to certain things now and that turns out not to be true later, that he has to feel safe to say that that's changed, or as I'm bringing up things that might be scary for him to hear about my fears, that he's entitled to his feelings about that too, and that we can hold all of that together, hopefully. There is just this feeling of you get to a certain point, 35 when we met, of just like, "Ah, I've just been on these cycles, these four-year relationships a few times now, and maybe I just can't do it beyond that or you start thinking of what if there's a way to identify the problem sooner?" It's true every time you re-enter the dating pool, or if you never left, if you're non-monogamous the whole time, which is how it felt you know more each time. So it's understandable to be looking out for the things that might get you.
At the same time, a relationship does only exist right now. It's holding both those things of like, yes, you want to make educated guesses or decisions based on past experiences and not just jump into anything that doesn't seem like it'll be compatible in the future because you're attracted. Also, at the end of the day, we don't know who we're going to be in 10 years. To not allow yourself to be in love with someone who's really wonderful for you because you're afraid that in 10 years you're going to feel restless or something. To me, I just saw how that fear was really more self-protective at the end of the day.
Jase: I think that's such an interesting insight to look at. Is this coming from fear, or what's underneath this? Because I've also seen the opposite, where fear is the thing that causes someone to stay in a relationship with someone who wants to do a relationship very differently from how they would like to do it. That's something that comes up a lot on this show.
It's on either side, yes, fear could lead you to either not be in this great relationship or to be in a relationship that's not so great because there's that holding back or this sense of, "Well, I should just settle for what I can get, whether that means no relationships or that means this particular relationship, even though it's not really what I want."
I do think that's worth just taking a moment to appreciate the amount of time and care that you spent thinking about why am I doing this, and that's something I would hope for all of us to be able to take away is more that question of just what's underneath this? Why is this here? What's going on?
Rachel: I wonder if we might have talked about this in our last interview when it was the hardcover release of Open, but the difference between fear and intuition, and it's so subtle sometimes. This one meditation teacher, Kaira Jewel Lingo, who I quote in the book, explained it to me that you might be able to tell a difference in that fear is often, like you'll experience a closing down and intuition tends to feel more expansive. I've also heard the difference practically described by a different Buddhist teacher of intuition tends to come more from the chest, the heart, sometimes the throat. Whereas fear, you might tend to feel more in your stomach and your head if that's helpful.
Dedeker: Interesting.
Jase: Wow. Super interesting. We're going to take a quick break to talk about how our listeners can get some more support if they would like to reflect with others. Get some amazing community in our private Discord and our private Facebook. You can join those communities by going to multiamory.com/join, and that'll give you links there to join. It's an awesome community. Then also, take just a moment to check out our advertisers on the show. If they're interesting to you, use our promo codes that does directly help support our show, and then we will be right back with more Rachel Krantz.
Dedeker: We're back from the break. I think my question is partially directed to both Rachel and Emily, which is how do you cope with being the biggest traitor to team non-monogamy?
Dedeker: Just kidding. That's not the actual question, but there's a seed of a real question underneath that, which is that Emily, I know way back in the day when you entered into a monogamous relationship, you expressed that was a fear of yours, right?
Emily: Oh, yes.
Dedeker: Do I talk about it on the show? Am I open about the fact? Are people going to think that I'm a horrible traitor to the cause? I guess I'm wondering, how did both of you deal with that particular narrative that I imagine must have come up? Or maybe it didn't come up, I don't know.
Emily: For myself, I don't actually think that it came up much. And it wasn't as scary in the outward, like, world at large in terms of our listenership. It was a lot scarier internally in my own home with my ex than it was with any of our listeners. I really don't give a shit what people think now, honestly. It doesn't come up as much. I'm much more grounded and secure with who I am, regardless of what identity I take. I think it's more internal of figuring that out so that I can be as happy and fully realized as possible.
At the time, which was a long time ago, yes, it was terrifying because I felt like a fraud. How can I even talk about these things without doing it anymore? I think the reality is, if you're talking about it often, then you are still open to it in a sense, and you are still at least giving it voice and giving the opportunity to others to think about it, to think about something that's not the norm, which is powerful.
Rachel: Yes, that is powerful. Emily, thank you for doing that and modeling that change, because it's helped me in this moment and stuff, and your podcast just being a space where-- and Multiamory book where this is all allowed to coexist. The values that I don't have to throw the baby out with the bath water, you can still apply many of the same values of non-monogamy to a monogamous relationship or situation. It's not like they're diametrically opposed.
I think keeping that in mind and my friendship, you, Dedeker, has been incredibly helpful too, in just being like, "It's okay. You're not a traitor," just reaffirming that you support where I'm at. I think just for myself, knowing that my commitment as a writer and to the degree that I'm ever talking about my life publicly is to model honesty and radical vulnerability and for it to be not just okay for things to change over the course of their life, but necessary and wise that they continue changing.
I think we're in a time that, understandably, people are maybe clinging to identities more tightly than ever before. I'm not sure that's always really what leads to healthy behavior all the time or just happiness. I think I'm trying to remember that's maybe part of what I have to contribute is just being an example of, like, it's okay to change your mind, and, in fact, you're going to change your mind about many things over your life if you're paying attention because every moment is changing. Life is changed, so that's okay. That's good. All you can do is figure out day to day, moment to moment, what it feels the right direction is and the kindest, most honest way to be in your life is.
Dedeker: You shared that in intentionally entering a monogamous relationship, you didn't want to have to abandon some of the values and behaviors that you found did help you in all your years of being non-monogamous. You shared emotional honesty as being an example of that. I'm curious of what else do you find on a day-to-day basis interesting into your relationship or you're trying to bring into your relationship that you feel like is still a-- this is not a good word to use, but a holdover from your non-monogamy days.
Rachel: Yes. Being able to be honest with each other about being attracted to other people, and that's allowed to be an open dialogue and even conversations about how that can be enjoyed within the context of monogamy as well. Just an open dialogue around what are situations we would find sexy that feel comfortable for both of us, or just ways to create that sense of openness and not being alone on an island together only because of being in a monogamous arrangement.
That's one thing communicating a lot. He's really a great communicator, and so I think there's just been a lot of healthy communication going on about a lot of things in relationships. That's something I just really value about healthy polyamory. Especially as you just have to be such a good communicator about things that people are often uncomfortable talking about, so a willingness to do that.
I think we talk often about avoiding the relationship escalator at the same time as we're excited about some of those things, being conscious of it, and things like he just got a job at the university, so we'll be moving together and we're really excited and we're going to move in together. It was totally on the table of like, if this isn't what's best for our sex life long term, or at this stage in our relationship, then it can be an option to also live apart together, apart in the same city again, if that's what it turns out is best for us. I like that designer relationships book and that approach of everyone should be able to design what works best for them. Again, it's an art project that's going to be continually changing.
Emily: I think there's a lot of books out there that deal with non-monogamy and deal with feminism. I'm interested and curious, after this publishing experience that you've just had, what you've learned about the state of feminism and non-monogamy bias from this experience, going through writing the book, publishing the book, now having a paperback coming out, what's that journey been like?
Rachel: Yes, thanks for asking. I think that Open is a little different than a lot of the books out there in that it was the story of often emotionally abusive, non-monogamous relationship. At the same time, it's not concluding, therefore, non-monogamy is bad. In fact, I closed the book still invested in being in new non-monogamous relationship and having learned a lot about kink and my queerness and all these kinds of things that were really beautiful coming out of it. There's a lot of seeming contradictions that I think the book asked the reader to hold that elicited some strong responses. Maybe most of them really good, honestly. I've been really pleasantly surprised by the people reaching out to me on Instagram or whatever. It's almost always just so nice and so meaningful.
I remember when the book first came out, the only negative review that was in the press was very much a negative review of non-monogamy. I was just not surprised, but it was still disappointing of like, "Oh, wow. Yes, this is so conflated. This is about non-monogamy doesn't work." Not like, is this book good or not? That was hard because that was the first review that came out. Then luckily other ones did after that were better but I think, who knows? Then for a while on Amazon, one of the top reviews it had really, luckily it still does, high ratings, but one of the top-upvoted ones, the post was basically like, "This is a really good book. It held my attention. I read it in a day, but an abusive relationship is at the center." One star.
Dedeker: Oh, no.
Rachel: I was like, "Wow."
Dedeker: Did they actually read it? I'm like, "Did you actually get it?"
Rachel: I don't know. I think just it was an example of what many writers have talked about before me. Many women who write about their lives of like, when you write about your life, especially when you're a woman or non-binary or marginalized in any way, there will be a conflation of you and the writing. It's really more a judgment of who are you as a person and do we like this story. Does this reaffirm our belief or not? I definitely was trying to push that envelope in some pretty deliberately provocative ways of asking the reader to do a fair bit of work of like, you're going to read about some emotionally intense stuff that's contextualized with a lot of research and reporting at the same time as they're going to read a lot of explicit sex scenes.
My statement with the book was like, "Why aren't these two things allowed to coexist? Why is it either you're an award-winning journalist that's investigative," which I am, and that the book is very much an investigation of the state of non-monogamy from a journalistic perspective of that era, but also, it's an entertaining, romantic, erotic story that I'm telling you about my pussy and my orgasms and what's going on in my head during threesomes and all those kinds of things because it's interesting. I'm interested in the blurring of those lines.
I think I was really heartened by the fact that a lot of people were incredibly receptive to that. I also wasn't surprised that many people also weren't, or that there was a reticence on-- it got a lot of recognition from certain outlets, but certain serious outlets also didn't really recognize it as journalism necessarily or recognize it at all. I saw how maybe sometimes when society doesn't know what to do with something, the result is maybe just silence or something like that.
I think I very much felt it was a very emotional thing to put out in the world, and I felt overwhelmed in a good way, but I also felt an instinct to hibernate and hide. That was with even a lot of positive feedback and not that much hate mail. I saw how, yes, fiction plausible deniability is still very important for a woman who wishes to write about sex and sexual psychology, and that if she doesn't have that boundary up, there are consequences still, but less than I thought there would be, I guess.
Dedeker: Yes. I think that you and I have spoken about this already that I do think often, yes, when it comes to any marginalized person writing, and I think especially a woman writing, and if you're sharing a true story about yourself or about your thoughts or your experience, sometimes I think there's a little bit of Madonna-whore complex that goes on with writing where if you're not vulnerable enough, if you're not getting naked enough emotionally, that's going to be criticized. Also, if you're just bearing it all and getting as emotionally naked as you possibly can, that's also going to be criticized for being too much or being too sloppy or being a turnoff, or whatever.
That's been my impression when it comes to just writing about anything, whether it's about sex or about one's frustration with your relationship or motherhood or whatever it is.
I do also think it's interesting, I think, what I saw with the reviews around your book and then also with this most recent burst of interest, again, around non-monogamy with that More memoir that came out. It is still very much, I think, this black-and-white effect of, am I already in the non-monogamy camp, and therefore, it reaffirms my existing beliefs. Then, like, if so, woohoo, great. If I'm not already in that camp, this sucks non-monogamy is unhealthy, and we need to be very vocally critical of it.
I feel like there's yet to be a big population of people who are able to just hold non-monogamy as something that exists that can be separate from them and there doesn't have to be this, I guess, intensive reaction in either direction. I suppose.
Emily: I was curious because, as Dedeker said right now, there has been a lot about non-monogamy and the media, and it feels as though it's a really big time for non-monogamy. I'm hoping that your book will, hopefully, get a lot of press again because it's coming out at this time when people are interested in finding resources about non-monogamy. Yet a lot of the press is still not great. Do you think that there's anything that can be done to change that narrative? Are we all just trying to collectively work on that or, I don't know. From your standpoint as a journalist and as someone who works a little bit more in that realm, what are you seeing there and is there anything that can be done?
Rachel: Yes, I think it is continuing to get more complex than it was even a few years ago, but there still is, I think, a lot of favor given to white people's stories to people of books out with major publishers. That part's just more understandable because there's mechanics behind that but still there's, I think, a bias towards wanting to hear stories of open marriages over queer or more non-traditional structures. I think just the more of us that come forward with narratives to diversify the spectrum of experience, the better it's going to get. I think also the more, as you all have, and we keep continuing to call out that one stock photo that they will not stop using of three white people's feet in bed, like can we just stop using that photo?
Dedeker: I think we need to send a petition around at some point.
Jase: It's so weird too because we've been making the joke about that image since the start of this show 10 years ago and it's still-
Dedeker: Still hasn't died.
Jase: -everywhere.
Rachel: It's because everyone uses the same open-source stock images and it only has a few of them populated. That's why.
Jase: That is an interesting idea for a little project. I remember some years ago there was an initiative to specifically put together this library of freely available open stock images of people of color to say, "Hey, you don't have an excuse that you can't find the stock photos. They're here. They're free. You could do that." We need something like that for non-monogamy because, yes, if you're trying to look for it, we even find that for our own episodes. Luckily, we know the secret that you can actually just look up stuff about friends or you can look up stuff about literally any relationship and it's like, yes, we're all people, it's all relationships but if you don't know that and you're looking specifically for non-monogamy, yes, you're not going to find a lot of stock photos because you don't realize what you're looking for.
Rachel: The other thing I would say is important for listeners is if you read a book about non-monogamy, including Multiamory or Open, please review it on Amazon.
Dedeker: Yes, please.
Rachel: It matters way more than it should. It can even be two sentences, but the algorithms really do drive visibility of everything. Just being sure that on Amazon at the least and maybe Goodreads at the most that you leave a rating and short review of any content you read about non-monogamy, even if it's not a five-star perfect whatever, that's going to help create more visibility too and that's going to help publishers and other content makers be like, "Yes, we should invest in more book deals around this because it's selling and people are buying it." By the same token, to actually buy those books when you can and support writers because that is what drives publishers' decisions about should we be publishing more of these books or do they not really do that well.
My understanding is that how it is now is that mostly the stuff in the advice realm does better, but memoir is a little bit of a harder sell. I think readers in the community continuing to invest in supporting those stories is going to have a chain effect of there being more proliferation of those stories in a wider array of them funded by the decision-makers.
Jase: Yes, that's a great point. I know that even with our book, which falls more into that self-help category that still it was challenging to find a publisher who was willing to take the deal because they think non-monogamy and they think sex. It's like, "Ooh, well, only publishers who deal with sex books would be interested in that." Then we found that that publisher then approaches books very differently when they're used to publishing just a bunch of erotica versus more like researched and educational and self-help type books. It is this challenging thing that hopefully, like you said, having more attention on it and reviews just from people writing that will help show future people writing those sorts of books can have an easier time, I guess, because the publishers can see, "Oh, yes, people are interested in this. I love that."
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For those of our listeners who have not read your book yet and maybe haven't tuned into the previous episode where you were on here talking more about it, what would you say makes it different from the other non-monogamy memoirs and books out there? I know you've hinted at it a little bit so far where you're trying to get people to hold both things, but based on the feedback that you've gotten from people now over the past few years, what would you say is really what defines it and what might make it a unique read for someone if they feel like, "Oh, yes, I've read all those books already."
Dedeker: Yes.
Rachel: I think it's the blend of first-person narrative, so it very much is meant to read like a novel and be page-turning and fun and exciting. It also has a lot of context within it in terms of all the reporting and research I did. It's like my story, but it's contextualized of like, what does this mean for my life? It's swimming between those two things. Then the main relationship it tells the story of was my first open relationship from when I was 27 to 31, and it turned out to be a pretty unhealthy dynamic with someone who did a lot of gaslighting. It's a deep look at exactly how gaslighting works because I had this unusual situation of recording with his consent, a lot of our conversations that I then had therapists look at and sort of dissect.
If you've ever been in a relationship where there was just a lot of confusing dialogue around your feelings being irrational or not valid or that you just felt constantly confused or got to the point where you felt maybe you shouldn't trust your own judgment or intuition and isolated yourself. All those kind of typical things that are hallmarks of emotionally abusive or unhealthy relationships, this is really the story of that as well. I think that it can be informative for people who maybe have a partner who's ever been in that situation or who are healing from a situation like that themselves to look and be like, "What happened here?" It's very confusing because you might not have any physical marks, but you start to feel like you're losing your mind, and it can be really destructive.
The book looks at how that might manifest in non-monogamous dynamics differently as well. Over those years I hung out with swingers and I went to parties and I had threesomes and I also had relationships, so I kind of had a lot of different types of non-monogamous experiences and the book brings in all those perspectives. Even though it's my story, it's actually a pretty diverse array of queer narratives and non-White narratives, and also not just a married person's narrative. It's different in that way of a lot of people kind of more outside those structures.
Dedeker: You have the makings now. I know that this is probably still a little too fresh, but you have the makings now of a prodigal son memoir to write of you coming back to monogamy. That could be a better sell. Right?
Jase: Oh, boy, yes.
Emily: Again, nobody needs that memoir. Hold on. Maybe, they'll--
Dedeker: Could help reaffirm everybody's-- all the people who are threatened by non-monogamy would-
Jase: Oh, dear.
Dedeker: -love--
Rachel: Never. Never.
Dedeker: Okay. You mentioned though that the more narratives we have, it's the better for all of us to have a volume of people's non-monogamy and relationship narratives, not just one particular type or just from one particular group of people. If someone is interested in writing their story, sharing their narrative, what advice would you give people? What would you encourage people to think about when trying to do something like this, like recording their non-monogamous journey or experience?
Rachel: It's really important to not be extractive to the best of your ability, so I think that means being honest with any partners you have or people that you're thinking about maybe one day doing this. All the people who are in my book knew that as I was going through. I was like, I don't know if I ever will, but I might someday. Any recordings I had in the book, I had people's permission before I recorded. It's against the law to record people in most states without their permission, so you definitely don't want to be like sneaky about it or anything like that. If you really want to cover yourself, you can look up release forms and have people sign a release beforehand. Those can also be retroactive later. I think just being transparent and open about the fact that this is a possibility.
That said, beyond that, I think keeping a journal is going to be very important if you want to have any sort of clear memories of what's going on. Then also thinking even if you don't keep a journal every day or you're not recording conversations, there's a lot to the way we live now that you're keeping a record anyway. You have your text messages, you have your emails, you have your dating app messages, you have your period tracker, any of it could be potentially primary source material.
Pay attention to what books you're reading and what you're highlighting in them. Have conversations with people who have more experience than you in your journey because that's going to help you but also those can be interviews that you're conducting along the way. It depends how journalistic you want to be about it, but I think the main things are to be honest and kind and not exploitative in any way.
Also to use the process of recording to help you make sense of your journey because it's very intense to embark on anything that's outside of social norms and to make sure you're continually checking in with yourself that any recording you're doing is not just a coping mechanism for the fact that you're miserable or you're in a really unhealthy dynamic or it's not turning into something that's about having power over your relationships in a way that's not healthy.
Jase: That's great. I just wanted to say that something I did really appreciate about your book, Rachel, is that you approach it not from the sense of "This is my story, and here's all the things I learned, and here's what you should know." Which I do feel like a lot of memoirs can go down that route of, "Let me tell you all the lessons because now I've got the answers." That's something that we, I think, did more of that early on in our show when we were more inexperienced in general with life and podcasting and everything, but then as we've gone, we've realized how much more important it is to share the experiences, or maybe things we've noticed, or things we've seen in our own lives and other people's, but leaving a little bit of this room for people to draw their own conclusions.
I think that for your book having those records of the conversations, so it's not just all filtered through the Rachel at the time she is writing, telling this story as she perceives it now looking back, but having more of that record in the moment, so that people can read it and see--I guess, it had this feeling of, I guess, journalistic is the word, but a little more realistic portrayal of what happened in some of these conversations, even if they don't paint you in the best light, or don't paint the situation in the best light. I think that's a really unique thing there for that book. I just want to say thank you for doing that.
Rachel: Oh, thanks, Jase. I should have you answer the question you asked me, because I feel like you displayed it better. I'm like, "Why is it different?"
Emily: It's more objective maybe than just filtering everything though this cognitive bias that we are clearly going to have, that's so unique to have been able to actually tape conversations that you had with this person and then be able to reflect back on that. I wish I had that opportunity to do that with some of the people in my life, so that's very, very cool.
Dedeker: Hold on. Let this be a lesson. Let's just really quickly. Let this be a lesson to everybody because this is a point I try to drive home on the show in general is keep a journal. I'm serious. It doesn't have to be super elaborate, but especially, if you're going through some shit right now, you're going through a transition, keep a journal. Even if you're just putting in a sentence every single day, because for myself, it has been so incredibly helpful to have that to look back on as a resource, to have it to look back on when I'm evaluating relationships or evaluating my personal growth. Even if you don't end going and writing a bestseller, that's my PSA to everybody listening.
Jase: Yes, I've definitely seen Dedeker take advantage of that when she is trying to make hard decisions or plans in her life is being able to look back and actually get that perspective that the rest of us just wish we could have about, "Oh, how did I feel about this list time, or has this been a trend, or am I just upset about this right now?"
Emily: Rachel, it's been great to have you on the show again. Where can people find more of you and your work?
Rachel: I'm on Instagram, @RachelKrantz. I love getting DMs from readers and people, so feel free to reach out. I have a podcast called Help Existing that has not had a new episode in the last year. I've been on hiatus. I've been busy living my life, falling in love, and all that. I might be bringing it back soon. The archives of the last episodes are really-- I think a lot of stuff that could be interesting to people, including a episode with Dedeker that I love about boundaries. People can check that out. My website's RachelJkrantz.com. People can reach me through that as well.