Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships (35 page)

Ginger and her husband are polyamorous and have a daughter
together who has grown up with their lifestyle: "She's grown up in a
poly house, so she's knocked on the bedroom door and seen someone
in bed with us on Saturday morning, but is just like a kid who would
climb into bed with their parents, which she's done her whole life."
However, Ginger also has an older daughter who lives with her exhusband, and that daughter doesn't know:

I would be very comfortable talking about being poly with my
[older] daughter. We have much better communication... than I
had with my own mom. But I'm concerned about what her dad's
reaction would be. I don't think it's okay to say, "I'm telling you
this and you can't tell your father. "... I want her to know she has
a choice between monogamy and responsible nonmonogamy. But
how can I do that without giving my ex a big gun to use against me
if he wants to revisit custody at some point in the future? Waiting
until a 10-year-old is 18 is surely not the answer. I don't want this
to be a secret.

She is also concerned that at some point the younger daughter
will out them to the older daughter inadvertently It's a dilemma she
continues to struggle with.

Parents must interact with all sorts of institutions, organizations, and
groups while raising children, including people involved with childcare
programs, schools, sports teams, extracurricular activities, religious groups,
and camps, not to mention teachers, health care providers, counselors,
and others. It's important to establish who is an emergency contact and
who has the right to pick up the child, make decisions, and sign forms.

When meeting with school officials and others, it's not always
necessary to say "We are polyamorous," or "I have two husbands." Instead, meet with them together and make the simple declaration,
"We are Sunny's parents." In this age of queer parents, blended families, stepparents, and other alternative families, school administrators
have grown familiar with the idea of children having more than two
parents. George and his triad partners are out to many people, including those who interact with their children on a regular basis: "We've
been pretty lucky with people not really blinking too much. I think its
because there's so much divorce and remarriage. The idea that there's
a child who has two separate family units-a primary mother and
father and another family unit [is not unheard of]. It just so happens
we all live together and we're all still together. There are actually ways
in which that ends up making it a little bit easier for us."

PROFILE: SANDRA, DOUG, RICK, GABRIELLE, AND JOAN

"We are a closed circle of five."

TWENTY-THREE YEARS AGO, Sandra met Rick, who was in an open
relationship and was the first person to introduce her to the idea of
nonmonogamy He and Sandra dated for a while, Rick got married,
and they continued to date. Then they lost touch for 12 years. When
they found each other again, Sandra had met and married Doug, and
Rick was married to Gabrielle. Sandra and Rick reconnected and realized they were still in love with each other. Sandra said, "I didn't want
to mess up my marriage and I didn't want to mess up my relationship
with [Rick] either. I said under no circumstances are we going to have
an affair. But I don't know how to do this. We need to figure this out."

She had also been having some difficulties with her husband and
they were in counseling, so she and Rick decided they'd just be friends.
"It sounded almost impossible to do, because it was clear that we were
more than friends and we really loved each other. We kept getting closer and closer and then backing off." She decided to take a year off
from having any contact with Rick, work on her relationship with her
husband, then come back together and see what things looked like.
"During that year off, my husband and I worked on stuff and I explained
to him that I didn't think it was just about this other guy, I thought it
was about who I am as a person, my nature as a polyamorous person."
Her husband, Doug, gave her permission to see other people, and she
started dating; Doug began corresponding with Rick's wife, Gabrielle,
because she too was having issues with her spouse (Rick) being polyamorous. Doug and Gabrielle got to like each other and found they had
a lot in common. At one point, back in touch, Sandra asked Rick, "Are
our spouses falling in love with each other? How interesting is that!"

Four months into the year off, Doug and Gabrielle came to Sandra
and Rick and said, "Let's sit down and have a discussion about what this
is going to look like if we try this. If we're going to have a relationship
that would be polyamorous, what does everybody need?" The four of
them spent a weekend figuring out details such as physical and emotional safety, STDs, and veto power. "We hammered out all these things
without any guidelines at all, except somebody found a book called
Love without Limits," Sandra says. After the talk, they all decided to get
HIV tests. That night, Doug and Gabrielle had sex for the first time.

The couples, who lived four hours apart, began commuting to
spend time together. After a year, Sandra says, "Both the husbands
traveled quite a bit. Gabrielle was trying to raise her two kids and
homeschool them, and take care of her father with dementia. I was
trying to raise my two kids and go to school full-time. We just looked
at each other and went, `This is stupid, why aren't we living together so
there are at least two parents home most of the time?"' So they bought
a house and all moved in together.

Shortly after they moved in, Rick announced that he wanted to
pursue a woman, Joan, from his past whom he had recently reconnected
with. The other three were wary but gave him permission; Rick and Joan started dating. Sandra was having an especially hard time with it,
so she flew to the East Coast to meet Joan, and, unexpectedly, an attraction between the two women developed. Joan divorced her estranged
husband and became part of the group. Joan still lives on the East Coast
and visits every two months. She has talked about eventually moving,
but for now her career keeps her where she is. They all consider themselves a closed circle of five; however, Joan is closest to and has a sexual
relationship with Sandra and Rick. Sandra says, "Joan has a hard time
with being far away. She feels a little marginalized, but she realizes that
it's her choice. I feel that I rearranged my entire life to make it possible
to live with these people, and she's not willing to make that choice
right now."

While the five are committed to one another, four of them are
connected on a different level through daily living, a shared household, finances, and the children they co-parent, so there is definitely
the sense of a quad within the five-person circle. The quad has a legal
contract that delineates what percentage of the house each married
couple owns and what share of household expenses they are responsible for. One of the stipulations of the contract is that it renews every
seven years unless somebody objects.

Sandra has now been married to Doug for 23 years; the quad has
been together for 12 years and the circle of five for a decade. Sandra
and Doug have two daughters who are now 15 and 19. Rick and
Gabrielle have two sons who are now 25 and 21. When the quad got
together, the kids were 13, 10, 7, and 3. "They kind of just took it in
stride," Sandra says:

My youngest daughter [is] a very intuitive young person, very
emotionally in tune with people. She kept saying to Rick, "Don't
touch my mom." She knew something was up, something made
her uncomfortable. The first time she burst into the bedroom first
thing in the morning and she jumped on her dad and his other partner we weren't sure what was going to happen. She said,
"Oh, is that Gabrielle?" And he said, "Yeah." She said, "Okay."
We explained things as they could understand them.

When the oldest son was 16, Sandra says he called a meeting with
all five adults and said, "Look, I think what you're doing is wrong. It's
been really confusing for me, as I develop my sexuality. I need to get
out of this house, this situation, which means I'm moving out of town.
I want to let you know that's why I'm doing it. I need to get out on my
own and figure things out for myself." He had graduated from high
school early, so he moved out. Sandra says, "It was kind of hard for all
of us to hear that from him in the moment. Here he's making a judgment about us and our choice of lifestyle. Yet, at the same time, at the
end of that same conversation he said, `But I want to let you know that
I love you all, and I just need to do this for myself.'

"It was painful for us at the moment that it took place, but in
hindsight we went, `Hey, wait a minute, I could never have had that
conversation with my parents.' We did a good job. We were able to
give him the upbringing whereby he was able to have this really difficult conversation with five parents... After he had that little blowup,
he did go off on his own for about six months and then he came back,
and he continued to come back about twice a year and stay with us.
He finally moved out on his own, found his own place, and he still
loves us all and he still calls on us individually depending on what he
needs."

The other son is in college and still lives at home. "He's said to us
that the best thing he's gained from this is a couple of sisters he wouldn't have had, and he really liked having more siblings." Ultimately,
Sandra believes, growing up with polyamorous parents has helped
them mature and given them options for their future relationships:
"The youngest kids grew up with it and have been very comfortable
with it all along because it's been the norm for them. As they get into their adult and sexuality years, they understand that some people love
more than one person and sometimes that works out and sometimes it
doesn't work out, it just depends on who the people involved are. I
don't know if they're more emotionally mature, but [these kids] are as
emotionally mature as any people their age, possibly more, because
they've had different experiences."

WHILE IT MAY NOT BE FUN, spontaneous, or sexy to some people,
talking about your sexual history and health is crucial for everyone
in relationships, and that's especially true for people who have multiple sexual partners. Defining your needs around sexual health and
safety is a critical boundary that should be discussed, agreed to, and
respected. It's important to arm yourself with as much information as
you can about sexual health to make the most informed decisions.
Remember: fucking without anxiety and doubt is sexy In this chapter,
I cover safer sex practices as well as the most common sexually transmitted infections in America, their symptoms, and their treatments.

While most people are probably familiar with the term sexually
transmitted disease, or STD, in recent years medical professionals have
adopted the term sexually transmitted infection, or STI, to better
describe the realities of infection transmission. The difference is this:
an STD is identified only when symptoms appear, but an STI is an
infection before and after it causes symptoms. In other words, people
can pass STIs to others even when they don't show any symptoms.

Every sexual encounter we have with another person carries physical
and emotional risks, responsibilities, and rewards. While you may not
be able to anticipate or guard against feelings or psychological issues
that arise from an erotic experience, you can do your best to protect
your body from infection and disease. It's important to know what STIs
are, how they are transmitted, and how to protect yourself from them.
It's equally important for you and your partner(s) to get tested regularly
for STIs.

Practicing safer sex can decrease the chances of STI transmission.
Making informed decisions about safer sex with partners is a critical
issue for people involved in nonmonogamous relationships of all
kinds; safer sex was the one issue universally discussed in the interviews
I conducted for this book. Even people who stated they had no rules
when it came to their style of nonmonogamy talked about the importance of STI testing and safer sex. Most interviewees who have one or
more long-term partners decided to become fluid-bonded with them.
Being fluid-bonded mean you have unprotected sex with each other and
regularly come into contact with each other's bodily fluids, including
semen, vaginal secretions, and female ejaculate.

There are several different ways to set up safer sex:

• You practice safer sex with every partner.

• You are fluid-bonded with one partner and practice safer sex
with all other partners.

• You are fluid-bonded with multiple partners in a group unit (like
a triad or quad) and practice safer sex with all other partners.

• You are part of a fluid-bonded chain and practice safer sex
with all partners outside the chain.