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polyamradiotranscripts · 7 years ago

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Ep. 2 Q&A #1

PolyAM Radio EP.2 Q&A #1

[Begin Transcript]

[Sophie]: Hello everybody and welcome to polyam radio the best show on the internet about polyamory that weird relationship thing you do with lots of other people

["Crazy little thing called love" by Queen plays]

[Sophie]: Hello everybody, welcome, my name is Sophie Last-name-redacted'

[Mara]: and I'm Mara Fake-last-name

[Sophie]: This is the second episode of our podcast about polyamory polyam radio

[Mara]: just to remind you again of our pronouns I'm Mara, uh here's my voice and I use they them their pronouns

[Sophie]: I'm Sophie I use she her her's, this episode is gonna be a little bit different than our previous one we're trying out something new, most of our episodes will be like last episode so if you listened to the first episode and you really loved it, don't worry that's how most of them are gonna be, us talking about a topic and trying to give our perspective trying to give some good advice this episode however is something that we wanted to try for a while basically the idea behind it is that we take questions that y'all have sent us and do our best to give you some advice

[Mara]: or, try

[Sophie]: yeah or try, ya know we're uh, I wanna make one thing clear quick, we're speaking from our own perspective here, we are speaking from our experience I don't want to set this up as something that's going to be well ya know I heard ya know Miss Last-name-redacted and Mx. Fake-last-name talking about this and they told me to do it and my whole life came tubmling down and I'm blaming you now, this is now something that if you think something we say isn't going to work for you or is a bad idea you should not do it then, every situation with relationships has a lot of nuance to it, every situation has it's own, ya know, people involved and different things about it so, I don't want to say our advice should never be taken because, we're going to be doing our best to give good advice

[Mara]: but we're not experts

[Sophie]: and our advice should never be taken blindly, that's the main thing that I want to go here and if you take our advice and the situation ends poorly, I'm really sorry that that happened, but I want to make clear that this is your disclaimer that is on you that is not on us, we are doing our best to take this seriously and ya know hopefully you never need advice hopefully everything is always hunky dory, most people don't get through life that way, so we are going to, uh, as you may have guessed just from the fact that our podcast is so new, we don't have a ton of people who have sent in questions so what I'm gonna do is I'm going to take the people that have sent in questions, if you're lookin' to send in questions you can send them to our twitter which is @PolyAM_radio and you can tweet at us, or if you have a problem that is longer than a hundred and forty characters you can email us at our email which is, uh I sound like Perd Haply at our email which is

[Mara]: an email

[Sophie]: an email that I'm going to give to you, right now [email protected] and you can explain your situation fully there, we have a habit of changing people's names and everything and especially not giving out last names so

[Mara]: if you couldn't tell

[Sophie]: yeah if you couldn't tell, all those people CCAP-ing me, uh, to find out what kind of person they were listening to googling last-name-redacted, I'm sure you'd find a lot of interesting things if you googled last-name-redacted just for your saftey and ours we think it's best ya know we're talking about unconventional relationship styles here, not everybody is out to everybody they meet and we don't like to force people out of the closet so you can give us your last name, that's not realy information we want or need, and we won't share it, if you want your first name changed too, that's fine just tell us and we wil change your first name and no one will ever know that it's not you, we also might come up with a fun name for your question like beguiled in brooklyn or something like that because that's generally how advice shows in radio works basically what I have here is a couple questions that were sent in to our email and then a couple questions that I went on yahoo answers and found that people were talking about polyamory uh yahoo answers is the worst platform in the world

[Mara]: it is trash pit it is the arm pit of the internet

[Sophie]: yeah it's the armpit of the world but I was inspired by the Mcelroy brothers and their wonderfully horrible, well their podcast is wonderful the medium they use to do it a lot of times is yahoo answers which is terrible, and I think they would agree with me when I say that but basically we wanted to see what people were talking about on the internet and give our perspective on it, so we're going to hop right into it, first one is yahoo answers user ficus, who asks, isn't polyamory kind of awkward, You might be fine with meeting your wife's boyfriend and the three of you having a coffee together but at a certain point they will gaze into each other's eyes and a sort of intimacy will pass between them and you'll know you're witnessing an intimacy that you cannot be a part of and yet that's your wife, how can you be locked out of a deep part of her emotional experience like that, it's between her and him, you can't share it and indeed you wouldn't want to because you don't wanna get all up close and personal with him the nature of- the nature of romance is to be private, none of her other relationships are like that, she's close to her father, but you can be privy to that emotional experience, she shares here feelings about her family with you quite freely, you're not locked out of that deep part of her soul, her familial closeness isn't private but what she shares with her boyfriend is quite private and her dating him means shes not sharing as much of herself with you and again that's yahoo answers user ficus

[Mara]: I um, my my initial reaction to this is are you sure you didn't go to like literotica.com and like find a cuckholding fantasy story because like holy shit dude that's what this sounds like

[Sophie]: why, are, are you getting hot and bothered? cuz we can go

[Mara]: oh yes, oh baby oh ahh no I thi-

[Sophie]: suprise this just turned into a porn podcast

[Mara]: I, just, [emphatically] at a certain point they will gaze into eachothers eyes and a sort of intimacy will pass between them and you'll know you're witnessing an intimacy that you cannot be a part of and yet, that's your wife

[Sophie]: yeah it does sound, fairly dramatized

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: it's really interesting because, uh I think that, ya know there's a couple big problems here that I want to point out one, and and ya know or I should say there's a couple big things because not all of these are neccecarily problems especially the first one I'm gonna say which is that the author of this, uh, yahoo answer user ficus is obviously a straight male and a straight cis male at that and a lot of times what we see which straight white- well I shouldn't assume white, I'm just so used to saying the phrase straight white men like all in one but a lot of times with straigh cis men what we see if very uncomfortable with intimacy and very uncomfortable especially with intimacy around other men, typically you don't run into a lot of straight cis guys who are like, oh yeah I'm fine being close with other men I'll hug it out or whatever, I'll give 'em a kiss on the cheek but ya know that doesn't mean anything ya know like you don't see that much so there's a fear here as far as ,ya know, being intimate with another man I think, and even by proxy ya know which is is said by well you wouldn't want to be intimate with them so we're not dealing with a triad situation we're dealing with a V where two people are both dating the same person and not dating each other

[Mara]: and some people call that a hinge too we are a hinge

[Sophie]: oh yeah, I've never heard that before that's good but so

[Mara]: close that hinge, make it a triad [laughs]

[Sophie]: well ,ya know, you don't have to but

[Mara]: no, no you don't

[Sophie]: it can be a whole lot of fun sometimes, we have a lot of fun in some triads we're a part of, also I think that the nature of romance is to be private I consider that ya know my romances and whatnot I don't know if i would, I don't know if private's the right word for them because to me private is like you're closing the door and you're not letting anyone else see in, to me the word for romance is personal

[Mara]: yeah

[Sophie]: in that it is something that is near and dear to my heart it's something that matters to me a lot and that,ya know, I wouldn't neccecarily want to just invite the whole world in but it's not neccecarily something that I wanna keep everyone out of and everybody's different,ya know, some people are more insecure and uh some people have a very good reason to be insecure especially if you got trauma or something like that I don't want to set up the the notion that being insecure is this inherently,ya know, that you're flawed because you're insecure uh that's not true at all but there's an insecurity about intimacy in romance here that I think is an issue that needs to be addressed too, and then also what I found qutie interesting about this is the very last clause of the sentence of the last sentence, which is, her dating him means shes not sharing as much of herself with you

[Mara]: oh I know that's just ugh

[Sophie]: yeah well we talk about, there's this theory about love that your love is a pie and that, or a pizza or anything

[Mara]: which like, delicious

[Sophie]: yeah delicious ooey gooey love

[Mara]: mhmmmmmm

[Sophie]: that just came out of the oven,ya know, when you put your love in an oven and they come out all gooey

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: and they stick to the bottom of the pan and you're like oh I should have sprayed my love with pam before I slid them in the hot space

[Mara]: should've greased them up

[Sophie]: yeah should a greased them up and lubed it all good but the nice thing is now the house smells like your partner who is just having a nice good good sauna experience

[Mara]: apparently

[Sophie]: yeah ostensibley at three hundred and fifty degrees

[Mara]: nice and crispy

[Sophie]: yeah, yeah, anyways love is not a pie love is a christmas gift you can give as many christmas gifts as you want as many christmas gifts as you have money to give uh and your christmas gifts you can only give as many as, or birthday gits at different times of the year or however you want to say it, I like christmas gifts uh holiday season gifts whatever you want to say, ya know, I can give as many gifts as I have resources to afford and the fact that I gave a, two people a gift I gave one person a watch and I gave one person a blanket doesn't mean that the value of that watch or blanket has diminished because I gave something to someone else each gift is unique, each gift is personal, and each gift is beautiful and love is a gift and it's a bottomless resource uh as long as you have, ya know, how do you want to say, spoons just to have relationships which in in this in this analogy would be money ya know to purchase the gifts or we were gonna talk about giving several hats or blankets or scarves as long as you have yarn to knit them or something like that you can keep giving gifts until you're out of yarn

[Mara]: well and I think this is an extrordinarily narrow view of uh what polyamory is like this is a very, I don't know if yahoo answers user ficus is in a polyamorous relationship and this is why they were prompted to uh ask this question but it's very much this, ya know, and it's just it's uh your wife, and she has a boyfriend and and and its, ya know, just that and I think that's that's just kind of a narrow view and a narrow way of looking at it because, that's not, in my experience what polyamory is, I mean there are people that do that but like Sophie has her partners I have my partners and we have partners that we share mutually between us just cuz like we we have similar taste in people that's who we've become after six-ish years together uh

[Sophie]: yeah my parents taught me to share my toys so

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: eventually we'll have to do an episode on BSDM to make that comment relevant

[Mara]: yeah right, I think we, we could probably skip that [laughs] but, ya know, I just it's between her and him you can't share in it it's like and why why not why don't you want to, I think there's so much like fear it's, ya know, the question is, isn't polyamory kind of awkward and like, I'm reading this question and I don't see like wow, this would be an awkward situation like I'm reading, this is a fear and insecurity, ya know, and what i- what is that dumb thing that middle schooler's like to say it's only awkward if you make it awkward uh [laughs]

[Sophie]: I guess I don't really have my finger on the pulse of what middle schooler's are saying

[Mara]: oh I don't know my friends and I always said that, I don't know maybe they say something different now-a-days

[Sophie]: it sounds like you were a super gay middle schooler

[Mara]: oh yeah, oh yeah very very repressed gay, that's a different story [laughs] I just I think like this really like there's this narrative of like, love is possesion in our society, there's this idea that if you love a person you never let them go and just kinda like this gross like this is mine, not like it's like this is ours it's this is mine and like a person isn't a possesion

[Sophie]: Yeah, yeah you can't own a person in any sense of it, your relationship with them doesn't mean you own them any more than you own your best friend they're not, yours they're not something that sits on the shelf until you're ready to play with them I really like that you brought that up because actually if you do like a close read of this, ya know, it's it's all talking about your wife and isn't it and actually like I tried to do a decent reading of it and everything but a lot of times, ya know, there's some parts in here where the words are capitalized and everything and uh, ya know, it's that emotional experience that your wife is having and you're locked out of that deep part of her soul and ya know it's, it's, it's rediculous

[Mara]: well and I wonder if this person feels this way about their wife's friends are are you locked out of that deep part of her soul, no, no it's just because like you feel that a relationship is a possesion and not like kinda like a little baby flower that like you're taking care of you have to like nurture relationships you have to put time and energy into it but that's not like your flower that's a flower, that's there and it's and important aspect of your life like I'm not gonna pretend that my relationships aren't important aspects of my life they really are

[Sophie]: yeah I think that there's a big part of this question that is very, when I say self-centered I don't even mean it as a derrogatory thing I think it's self focused it is a looking at the potential of your wife to have a relationship as to how it would affect you and not as to how it would affect her the reality of the situation is not to say that your feelings don't matter or shouldn't be taken into consideration or listened to but her other relationships don't actually affect you in really any way unless you get butt hurt about it

[Mara]: well unless there is some hurtful shit going on because sometimes

[Sophie]: different, different conversation though

[Mara]: yes

[Sophie]: that's a conversation about abuse and toxicity ya know this is a question about uh

[Mara]: new relationships even existing

[Sophie]: yeah exactly yeah this is a question about how can you not feel awkward of the fact that this partner that you have ownership of because there's a commitment and commitment equals ownership ostensibley how can it not be awkward to then share that possesion, and I think that that really breaks the question down in its biggest part I think that a lot of times when we talk about the institution of marriage there's a connotation of ownership uh both literally over history and and uh kind of, ya know, just uh, or I should say a just de facto more recently you know this idea that you're you're giving yourself to this person and everthing and the reality of the situation is that this relationship is something that you both are picking up together and lifting up over your heads and, ya know, working together to keep it in the air it is not an embodiment of either of you and if one of you at some point decides to set it down it is over but as long as both of you are interested and invested it'll keep, ya know, being held up in the air and it'll be good that doesn't mean that you have ownership over your, ya know, holding uh table up in the air buddy moving on to the next question yahoo answers user rico asks, why do people consider polyamory bad or wrong what is wrong with having multiple people in a consenting and loving relationships note, polyamory not polygamy and then there's an update, why do we as a culture, veiw polyamory as bad or wrong, ya know I think that we're not really gonna answer the original uh question here which is why do people consider polyamory bad or wrong which is they're dumb or they're close minded or rather they're stupid or they're close minded, rather what I wanna talk about is why do we as a culture view polyamory as bad or wrong and I feel like this is a very quick answer and I feel like what we were just talking about before leads into it very well, our culture, and you can tell me if you disagree with this although I don't think you do, our culture views love as ownership and possesion and if you love someone, like you said, you never let them go

[Mara]: mhmmmmmm

[Sophie]: and you're always holding on to them and they're yours and you're theirs we literally talk about romance as being possesion and we look at jelousy and possesiveness as things that are natural and even kind of positive because even though yeah they have bad effects

[Mara]: well he wouldn't be so angry if he didn't love you [laughs]

[Sophie]: yeah it goes back to the whole pulling on your pig tails cuz he likes you thing it's really ridiculous and also we view it as something that is natural because oh well of course he's jelous that you're sleeping with someone else you're supposed to be just his or whatever, ya know, and it just gets to, ya know, when you try to look at love through the perspective as I mentioned before as giving a gift, I think that most of these I don't know a single objection to polyamory that when you say, ya know, love is a gift and me giving it to someone else and me giving it to many people does't dimish the fact that I've given it to you I really don't know a single relationship and jelousy based argument about polyamory that hol- stands up to that I just don't

[Mara]: yeah no what it kinda comes down to is morality versus ethics, ya know morality is a very like religiously based kind of idea of what you're supposed to do and how you can have sex and who you can have sex with and what you can eat and all other sorts of things there are a lot of aspects of morality but I think a lot of the prominent uh religions in our society have these ideas about like about who you can and can't have sex with or relationships with or any of those sorts of things it's ya know and even if you don't neccecarily belong to those religions this is still the dominant ideology this is still what a lot of people around you believe even if you're not conciously choosing to like take part in that morality like you can still sub-conciously have similar ideals

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely, even if it's something that you are very conciously choosing to disagree with like we are, the reality is it's the world you live in and a lot of the people around you do think that so it's hard to not let it affect how you go through the world

[Mara]: alright let's move on to the next question yahoo answers user purple pants girl asks how do I bring up polyamory to my boyfriend for my boyfriend this is his first serious relationship don't worry we're not like sixteen or something and I wanna bring up the idea of a polyamorous relationship but I don't think that would be something that he would be interested in, it's just the thing is I wouldn't even know where to start that conversation does anyone have any ideas

[Sophie]: so with this one I think that the first thing we need to address is that you are definitley sixteen or something

[Mara]: right, like we wouldn't have thought that 'till you said it

[Sophie]: yeah, ya know, I think, ya know, if there's any teenagers out there listening to this uh who were going through the explicit tag because we do ocassionally swear and unfortunately I have to put us there but if there's any of you that were looking for something in the explicit tag and you're just a baby queer and everything here's a little advice when you tell people in their twenties and thirties and fourties that this is your first serious relationship they automatically assume that you're like twenty-one twenty-two that you haven't had a very commited relationship yet and that you are now working towards ending up in a place where I think a lot of people that, uh, although certainly not all people in our culture want to end up which is, ya know, commitment and and and the things that that entails, no one assumes that you're sixteen because serious relationship means a very different thing to a sixteen year old than it does to anyone else, ya know, the reality of the situation is you are not actually capable of having a truly serious relationship at sixteen because serious relationships end up in things like, ya know, potentially moving in together or getting a pet together like serious relationships not always and they don't have to but a lot of times end up in those things and you're not even at an age where you have the autonomy to do that so we weren't even worried about it 'till you brought it up purple pants girl

[Mara]: so I think I'd like to break down this question into a couple of different parts because there's there's a lot going on here so the first big thing that sticks out to me besides, ya know, don't worry we're not like sixteen or something which Sophie addressed uh I wanna bring up the idea of a polyamorous relationship but I don't think that would be something that he would be interested in is this, is this it's come up in conversation before, are you making the assumption that since polyamory isn't the default and since monogamy is the default that, uh, he wouldn't be interested like I think you're kind of making a realy big assumption in your relationship and I think this is such a a serious relationship, ya know, this is something that you would have discussed at least a little bit

[Sophie]: yeah at the sam t-, yeah I I agree you don't neccecarily want to assume that your partner isn't going to be interested in this I think that's always the perception though and I don't think that this asker is wrong for maybe assuming that because I think a lot of people aren't really super interested in polyamory again because of the things we talked about they don't want to give up their idea of love as possesion, so let's, let's assume that because she said she doesn't think that that would be something that he would be interested in let's assume that they haven't talked with it so far and that she's working of the premise uh, ya know, cuz we can't give advice to, ya know, oh shit it's Dave well yeah I know Dave and he's

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: and he's been cheated on in the past so ya know there's gonna be that whole aspect like we don't know who this is so let's just assume that she doesn't know for sure and she's working off the assumption that because lots of people in our society view polyamory as a bad thing he wouldn't be interested in it how do you bring up a polyamory to a new partner cuz for me it's of then the firs-, whenever I start flirting with someone or whatever, it's usually one of the first things that I bring up it's like oh I've got other partners and I've got a fiancee and, ya know, I have a lizard

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: who is my child and, ya know, there's uh, it's not something that doesn't come up it' a lot like being trans for me it's something that I feel compelled to mention early on because I don't wanna have this moment, so I guess for me, my best advice for anyone listening, don't get yourself into this situation bring it up early on, uh, but, if you do find yourself in this situation how do you bring it up

[Mara]: well and that's interesting cuz I don't think it's actually a position I personally have ever been in, I've never not been in a relationship and had to, or like not been in a previous relationship before starting a new one so I don't neccecarily know if I can answer this one uh where it's like oh by the way dropping this pretty big bombshell on you about my identity I'm polyamorous, most of the people I'm with know that because I've been with Sophie forever and I probably met them through Sophie if we're being entirely honest [laughs] I'm kinda like a spone, I just hook my way into other people's relationships and it's just cuz I'm not a very outgoing person

[Sophie]: I uh, there's been multiple, there's been multiple occasions where Mara has been talking to me about people that they are now currently with

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: and have said, ya know, oh I realy like them or whatever and I say really, ya know, and and they're like well don't you think like don't you think they're cute or don't you think this or that and I'll be like yeah I think they're cute yeah sure but I didn't know you did because they keep it very under wraps

[Mara]: I play it close to the chest

[Sophie]: yeah yeah literally there's been several occasions where within two hours I go up to that person and say just so ya know Mara [clicks tounge] thinks you're real cute

[Mara]: and then I die of embarassment and tell Sophie that I'm leaving her [laughs]

[Sophie]: yeah, it happens ever time but with every single one of those people, you're now with them and they thought it was really cute and endearing that you were so shy and also keep in mind we've been together for, ya know before you fucking tweet at me and things like that we've been together almost six years, I wouldn't do it if it was something if it was a situation where I knew it wasn't gonna be okay like, ya know, this isn't like a breach of consent here like fuckin put away your ipads and shit

[Mara]: [laughs] I mean I'm not sure

[Sophie]: to me, how I would choose to answer that question I think or rather how I would choose to bring it up would I think the very first thing I would do would be to bring up a love triangle that everyone hates

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: and I'm just going to bring up the most famous love triangle, ya know, in popular media over the last ten years which I feel is Twilight I wanna preface this with the fact that my knowledge about Twilight is entirely tangential I know as much about it as your dad does

[Mara]:[laughs] I uh, I don't know I avidly read them in middle school but that's cuz I wasn't allowed to

[Sophie]: did you really

[Mara]: yeah

[Sophie]: oh, um, I never really read them uh I think I, I think I saw one of the movies but at the time I was more interested in the cis girl I was at the movies with than the movie itself so

[Mara]: that was kina your deal in high school

[Sophie]: yeah uh, that was

[Mara]: we went to see the, ah shit, hunger games together like the first movie and like you didn't watch the movie at all, uh [laughs]

[Sophie]: I, yeah guilty um but so basically I would say hey [unintelligable] find a way to bring up Twilight or something like that and just say like wasn't that just lazy writing with the love triangle

[Mara]: how do you bring up Twilight to a friend or loved one [laughs]

[Sophie]: or any, fuck, if you're, if you're watching uh

[Mara]: hey, remember this piece of trash in our in our pop culture

[Sophie]: um, what you have to do is you have to go get a napkin out of the trash and say look at this trash and hand it to them and they'll be like why are you having me look at this trash and you say cuz I'm going to have you look at another piece of trash and then bring out the Twilight movies

[Mara]: I I feel like Twilight is that thing that we just don't [whispering] talk about anymore

[Sophie]: let's get off Twilight

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: there's a movie called book of life that's very good and one of our Twitter uh one of our twitter followers kenway lights tweeted at me about it and said that um as far as famous monogamy fails, which is something we were talking about on twitter recently, basically the idea was name interactions in movies and situations in movies where there's like a weird love triangle thing going on and your favorite example of how it could be solved by polyamory and basically in this movie there are two boys and there's a girl and basically there's like the entity of life and the entity of death and basically they place bets on which one will be able to woo this litte girl, that's my memory of the movie if I'm wrong don't tweet at me it's irrelevant, it'a a very good movie you should go watch it, it doesn't matter in this moment you can bring up movies like that and just say, ya know what would have really messed up that whole bet what if she would have just dated both of them

[Mara]: [gasps]

[Sophie]: like what if she just would have

[Mara]: [whispering] scandelous

[Sophie]: dated both of them, and, ya know, and and they'll be like well that would be cheating or whatever and it's like oh but what if they were okay with it and what if they were all oh ya know okay with that and everything and, ya know, that's this thing, it's called polyamory have you heard of it, and that's a good way to bring it up and then be like I am polyamorous I like to have commited relationships with many people and that's a thing about me that I feel like you should know about and then I would segue immidiately, don't give them time to start to get defensive don't give them time to uh start to bombard you with questions yet immidiately bring up the love it like a gift thing immidiately bring that up and say, ya know, love isn't like a pizza where there's a finite number of slices and if you're really hungry you can have more than a piece or two and some people eat the whole pizza because they're really hungry but then there's none left for anybody else, that's not how it is, love is like a christmas gift you can give as many of them away as you want and the fact that you gave someone one doesn't, ya know, erode the fact that you gave a bigger one to someone else or something like that people are thankful for the gifts they have and that's just generally how this works, that's how I would handle it and then field the stupid questions that are not the best

[Mara]: and inevitably going to happen

[Sophie]: yeah it's inevitable, it's something that this person doesn't know about

[Mara]: this next question is from a listener, sexless in seattle, and it's about feeling left out of sex my partner and I are both polyamorous and we both have other partners lately he has been having sex with his other partner in excess which leaves him disinterested in being physical with me he's not someone who really has sex more than once a day so just having sex anyways isn't really an option, I know he doesn't owe me sex but given that we have historically had a sexual relationship before this change and there was no conversation about wanting to distance ourselves from sex with each other it's left me feeling unwanted what should I do [pause] talk to your partner [laughs]

[Sophie]: yeah, I would definitley talk to your partner about this there's always the chance that they won't be receptive but that is the first thing that you should try at least and

[Mara]: I mean straight up if you just say to your partner hey I'm feeling kind of unwanted like nobody wants to make their partner feel unwanted right

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely, ya know, we wanna preface some of this with just mentioning sex isn't neccecarily part of a healthy relationship and it shouldn't be the litmus test for if a relationship is good, ya know, obviously there are people who are asexual and are on that spectrum including things like demi-sexual gray-sexual stuff like that uh and there are people who aren't asexual who just aren't in the mood to have sex with you in particular and that's totally fine your partner doesn't owe you sex, that having been said, if you're in a relationship where something new that your partner is doing is making you feel unwanted thats a tricky situation too, so the first thing I would say I would agree with Mara, definitley talk to your partner, what should this person do if they have tried that or if they've talked to their partner and their partner is less than receptive about that

[Mara]: I mean I think this is kinda one of the awesome things about polyamory is outsourcing, uh ya know I don't think this is neccecarily a situation that could be fixed by that though cuz it sounds like it's about being with like this specific partner

[Sophie]: yeah for sure, do you wanna define outsourcing just in ca-

[Mara]: sure, ya, so outsourcing is I mean it's a lot what it sounds like like when a when a company is outsourcing jobs, they're going where they can get cheaper labor right, uh this is not about cheaper labor [laughs]

[Sophie]: could be, could be

[Mara]: this is um, for example, ya know, you might have a partner that doesn't enjoy sex you might just have like an emotional relationship with a person, but you might have another partner who really really really enjoys sex, and you might really really enjoy sex and you don't wanna not be with that partner that doesn't wanna have sex but like it's somebody else that you are able to kind of, ya know, have sex with and that's a brief, brief brief summary of what outsourcing is there can be all sorts of things that that looks like

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely and I think it would be good for us to do a full episode on outsourcing at some point

[Mara]: and I'm positive we will, you've shown me that you have plans for it

[Sophie]: [laughs]

[Mara]: but this doesn't realy seem like a situation where outsourcing would neccecarily fix things, I think like if this is specifically about your partner and you wanting more attention from your partner like I truly think that like talking to him should fix this like thats-

[Sophie]: yeah I agree this is a talking question, um, to me at least yeah this is a or pardon me not a talking question, this is an attention question, this is a question about a type of neglect, and again not neglect in the sense of you're not talking to me and you should talk to people you're in a relationship with this is not something that's owed but it is someth that, ya know, is being witheld

[Mara]: it's like cuddling

[Sophie]: yeah exactly

[Mara]: if you put this in terms of cuddling and, ya know, your partner hasn't been cuddling you lately and you've wanted to be cuddles that' that's that's kind of the same thing umm

[Sophie]: well and I think that the reality of the situation is is your partner I don't know how long this has been going on it just says lately, I believe, but depending on how long this is going on, this might not be something your partner is even aware of, there was a time where I really wasn't having much sex with you

[Mara]: mhmmmmmm

[Sophie]: or really anyone else, I was completely disinterested in sex and a lot of that had to do with medication I was on at the time and it was really fucking me up but it was also hurting some of my relationships because it was a change my partners had noticed, I am a person who enjoys sex, I like having sex uh and I enjoy what I th-, ya know, uh enjoy having healthy sexual relationships with people but so when the floor fell out of that because of some new anti-depressants I was on that really affected my partners and it made them feel like oh like suddenly she's not interested in me so this might be something where your partner is not exactly aware that he's doing, um, if he is aware that he's doing it

[Mara]: then that's shitty

[Sophie]: then that's shitty yeah if he's aware that he's giving you like less or [unintelligable] if he's aware that he's treating you like you're lesser than this other partner or if this is a constant problem where yeah this is the first time this has happened with sex but he always treats my like I'm less with this, like I'm less than this person or than theese people or whatever if you're being treated like the bottom of the totem pole in any regard and it's consistent and you've tried talking about it, might be time to end the relationship that is neglect that is something that if people are not willing to make moves to change what they're doing and their behavior that's something that you shouln't really have to go through and deal with and it's not normal

[Mara]: yeah no, and and and ideally your partner will change cause cause like I said earlier nobody wants to make their partner feel like they're disinterested

[Sophie]: or provide an explanation at least and say ah I'm sorry this is why this is happening and whatnot, and there has to be some change though the change has to be in what your understanding of your relationship is going to be or in your partner's behavior or something but if you're just expected to soldier on when you're feeling left out and neglected

[Mara]: that's shitty

[Sophie]: yeah yeah that's not good that's not a healthy at that point and it's really hard to hear but if this is a consistent problem then it's not a healthy relationship because you're just being deliberatly left out and, ya know, you're not a toy that someone, I I think I said this before you're not a toy that someone can just pick up and put on a shelf and take down whenever they wanna play with you, if you have casual relationships that's fine casual relationships there's nothing wrong with that what so ever where both people are, ya know, uh I'm not super invested in this and when I have time it's gonna be fun and when neither of us have time hey that's fine we've got that understanding but if you're very invested in a relationship and your partner isn't very invested in that relationship

[Mara]: you're gonna wanna get outa there

[Sophie]: yeah that's not a good fit like I'm not even gonna say that that person is inherently toxic maybe you're just not a good fit and that's really really hard to hear and I'm sorry but

[Mara]: but it happens

[Sophie]: yeah it happens all the time, so, ya know, keep in mind I'm not saying go end the relationship it's over, I'm saying talk, talk talk talk and if this is a consistent problem if you already tried that if nothing's changing then maybe try to find some people who value you a little bit more and recognize how awesome you are cause I'm sure you're super awesome

[Mara]: well and and I think too um often times we get up, we get kinda caught up in the idea that like a relationship is sucessful only if it doesn't end which is kind of bullshit like you can have a sucessful relationship that, that just ends, cuz it wasn't working like that's that's fine, ya know, there's nothing wrong with with ending a relationship

[Sophie]: yeah ending a relationship isn't a personal failure for you it just means that maybe it wasn't a great fit

[Mara]: yeah, alright so the final question is a listener question by worried in Washington and they are concerned about manipulation, recently there was a person who I was very into who was in a toxic relationship I didn't realize it when I firt met them but as we got to know each other it became evident that while they were polyam, their partner was on the controling side this partner demanded to know where they were, was monopolizing their time, and was making them feel bad about persuing a new relationship as we got closer and closer they eventually began discusing some of this with me and I told them that my honest opinion was that the relationship didn't sound too healthy, several days later I was informed that they had ended the relationship I was not trying to be manipulative but while I feel it may have been for the best in the long run they and I are now hurtling towards being in a relationship and I can't help but feel that I have exerted a lot of influence over my new beloved very early in the relationship, I don't want to be manipulative and I don't want there to be feelins of resentment later on I'm worried that someday the perception might be that I pushed them to end that relationship for my own gain in an effort to get closer to my new partner, help, should I talk to them about it, and if so, how

[Sophie]: so this is tricky and as someone who is mentally ill and uhh specifically I have borderline personality disorder, this is something that is near and dear to my heart I I am frequently worried about being manipulative because according to the DSM, ya know, the the and psychiatrists and everthing according to them that's something I'm very good at uh not from personal experience that's just something that ostensibley people like me are very good at, we're good at telling people what they wanna hear which is very, uh, that's hard to navigate as someone who has been the victim of abuse many times in her life it's not easy to hear that you could be capable of doing that to someone again or ever that you have done that to people, so, this is something that this is a question that I've gotten many times in the past, before we started this and when it was sent in I figured we really should cover it because it's something that I've dealt with too, ya know, often times with new relationships often times people are positive influences on us and they encourage us to make positive changes in our lives which is all good, except for the fact that this is early on in a new relationship and it can start to feel like you're exerting some control over them even when that's not at all what you intended to do and it can feel very uncomfortable especially if they have a toxic friend or a toxic partner or something like that

[Mara]: well and I I think what's really important to keep in mind as somebody who has been worried about being manipulative before like oh did did I end that relationship umm you're you're completely in the right like you are within your rights to say to somebody hey your relationship doesn't seem healthy to me that's what good people do right like we tell our friends and our loved ones hey I'm I'm worried that you're in a bad situation that that's not manipulative, ya know, so I just want to reasure this listener like no you're not being manipulative for letting somebody know they're in a bad situation

[Sophie]: or anyone with a story similar to this like I said I have been through this many times with myself and others

[Mara]: well and I uh, ya know, if if your partner did think that, I really hope they wouldn't honestly it sounds very much like it was their choice to break of this partner, err to break off this relationship with their partner it doesn't sound like you were like this is a bad situation you need to end this relationship you just you can you expressed concern so

[Sophie]: yeah this is very different from a situation where you came in and said this is toxic it needs to go

[Mara]: and and I don't think anybody could really like umm think that, like hopefully, ideally I umm, yeah I don't know if you should neccecarily talk to your partner about it, cuz that's that's the big question

[Sophie]: I'm gonna make uh like a Staples Easy Button and it's gonna be a talk to me button and or a talk to them button rather and honestly I'm just gonna I'm gonna record all our voices and it's gonna be like three two one

[Sophie]: [Mara]: Talk to them!

[Sophie]: yeah thank you

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: I'm gonna use that recording, like for real always talk to your partner always always always talk to your partner about things if it goes bad it's because your partner's a shithead like I can't think of anything or I mean like som- sometimes a trauma comes up and things like that like I don't wanna be like, like there's valid reasons why people might react poorly to stuff but by in large talking it out is always going to have a more positive impact than not talking it out, so there's that, but also this is a situation where I think that if you don't address this now it's going to fester inside of you speaking from experience it's going to, you are going to feel worse about this three months from now than you do now if you don't talk about it

[Mara]: exactly and the worst thing that happens is you've clarified with your partner a little bit that like they were sure that they wanted to end that relationship

[Sophie]: yeah there's no universe in which your partner says, oh but I did that for you they're gonna be like no like if they think it was a positive thing they're gonna be like sweetie you were the straw that broke the camel's back the writing was on the wall with this friend or this partner or this job that I left or whatever I should have done that a while back and that was a positive thing and you were just one of many people er or that were telling me to leave or maybe you were the only person who had the guts to tell them hey this isn't healthy you should probably leave, this is something that honestly I think that if you tell them about it there's no if, ya know, if they are a good influence on your life they're probably going to be really understanding and they're going to be like no no, ya know, that's not what happened and if anything you're going to, ya know, they might be having some concerns too and you might put them at ease just with being

[Mara]: open and honest

[Sophie]: yeah open and honest about it, ya know, they might have been sitting there worried like oh maybe this, ya know, maybe this partner is worried I'm being a little bit co-dependent on them because they came in and now I made this decision to lea- again this could be a friend this could be a partner a job whatever, to leave this thing and they might be worried that I'm like latching onto them now uh through a power vacuum or somet- or not a power vacuum but like a uh a commitment vacuum or something like that and that'll put their mind at ease that, ya know, that's not what you're thinking and you're not trying to be controlling and that wasn't, ya know, you were just giving your honest opinion

[Mara]: right

[Sophie]: theese are all good things that you did, and you shouldn't have to feel bad about them this feeling shouldn't just fester inside of you should be able to move on and have a great time with your healthy new relationship

[Mara]: ya gotta commmuunicate

[Sophie]: yeah gotta commmuunicate

[Mara]: [laughs] alright well that looks like that is all we have for this time

[Sophie]: yep that's all the questions we have, please send us more questions if you enjoyed this episode we will do more like it let us know on twitter that would be at PolyAM_Radio, a capital P and then a capital AM underscore capital R radio if you wanna send us love letters or hate mail you can also email us and get more than a hundred and forty characters out of it that's at polyamradio all unders- or all lowercase

[Mara]: no underscore

[Sophie]: yeah no underscore all lowercase and that is at gmail dot com we hope to hear from you soon and the next episode will drop pretty much as soon as I finish it so thanks for listening and as always remember don't date your best friend's dad

[Sophie]: [Mara]: and don't date your dad's best friend

[Sophie]: see ya next time folks

["Good old fashioned lover boy" by Queen plays]

[Announcer]: This show was part of the trans podcaster visibility initiative

[End transcript]

#polyam radio #polyamory #transcript #ep2 #queer #trans #lgbt #relationships

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