Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships by Tristan Taormino Read Free Book Online Page A

couple can transition into a relationship without a Dominant/submissive dynamic, and each can find other people to play with. This allows them to keep
a valued relationship intact while also recognizing that a significant
change has occurred and needs to be addressed. Because our desires
are often complex, erotic differences can be much more subtle than
simply bisexual/straight or kinky/nonkinky

    Since I am a bisexual switch with a vanilla streak married to a
nonswitching Dom, if we weren't open sexually we couldn't be
together no matter how deep our love for each other. Having
outside partners to fill in the gaps in our compatibility prevents
resentment and ill will; this way, no one is viewed as deficient in
any way, or seen as inadequate. -Shari
    Perhaps you and your partner have not identified a specific
difference or incompatibility, but you've always had the desire for emotional and erotic diversity with multiple partners. Society would have
us believe that one person should fulfill all of our needs and desires:
physical, emotional, financial, sexual, spiritual, and all the rest. This is
the myth of finding "the One": the one partner you're "meant" to be
with, your soul mate, your Prince Charming, the girl of your dreams.
Nonmonogamous folks reject this myth and acknowledge that no one
person can be, or should be expected to be, everything for another.
People in open relationships enjoy exploring different dynamics with
different people-sexual, emotional, psychological, and spiritual. Nonmonogamy gives them the opportunity to create unique relationships
that nourish and support each other.
    I am someone's soul mate, someone's youth, someone's slut, someone's girlfriend. Sometimes I am all of those at once. My partners
inspire me to love, take care of me, call me their slut, and take
me out for sushi. It's good to have all those qualities, and rare to
find them in one person. -Hannah

    Polyamory helps me not feel frustrated or resentful towards one
partner if they aren't everything to me. -Callie
    Many people in monogamous relationships deal with cheating all
the time: the fear of cheating, the suspicion of cheating, the discovery
of cheating, the aftermath of cheating. Nonmonogamous folks recognize that during a lifetime you can and will be attracted to other people
even if you are in a wonderful, fulfilling relationship; they make room
in their relationship for these attractions rather than allow them to
cause anxiety, jealousy, and unreasonable expectations.
    I get to live in the realness of knowing that my partner and I have
desires for others and we are able to negotiate and explore them
with respect to each other as primaries. -Khane
Mixed-Orientation Marriages
    It is estimated that nationwide about 2 million gay men and lesbians
currently have or formerly had a straight spouse.2 Amity Pierce Buxton,
author of The Other Side of the Closet: The Coming-Out Crisis for Straight
Spouses and Families, has interviewed over 9,000 gay and straight
spouses since the mid-80s. Buxton says that when one partner in a marriage comes out as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, about a third of the couples
break up right away, a third break up after about two years, and a third
stay married indefinitely3 We don't know a whole lot about that last
third-the more than 30 percent of mixed-orientation marriages that
remain intact. From the research I've read, many of them are negotiating open relationships, but few consider themselves polyamorous or
identify with or seek out a nonmonogamous community. As a result,
they are left out of significant discussions about nonmonogamy
    Research and writing on this topic (including Buxton's) makes
a point of distinguishing between partners who come out as gay or
lesbian and partners who come out as bisexual. Those are individual identity choices; I am less concerned with how a person identifies and
more interested in the relationship between the straight spouse