I really admire such a public figure in the personal development world as Steve Pavlina coming-out and saying that he and his wife, Erin, are going to try an open relationship – specifically one within the realm of polyamory.  They haven’t done it yet, but they are looking and researching and moving forward slowly.

I was reading his post regarding jealousy last night.  In it he says that during the 15 or so years of his marriage he and Erin have never felt jealousy, and he asks:

“Can anyone teach us how to become jealous of each other? What are the steps? What do you have to think, say, or do in order to whip yourself into a jealous frenzy?”

He goes on to say:

“The reason we can’t create jealousy is that we can’t escape unconditional love. We can’t run or hide from it. Love is a constant in our lives. The only way for us to become jealous would be to turn our backs on unconditional love or to pretend it doesn’t exist, and that seems like a pretty lame idea.”

My first reaction is to say “Ummm… Yah.  Just wait.”  But I won’t.  Okay, I did.  Regardless, opening-up your relationship brings feelings and insecurities floating to the surface that you had no idea you harbored.

Steve.  Erin.  Guaranteed one of you, if not both of you, will experience jealousy when one of you actually does take a lover.  It doesn’t matter how much you unconditionally love each other.  Having your partner receive happiness, joy, sexual satisfaction and companionship (things that up to this point only you’ve provided) will expose insecurities you didn’t even know you had.

When Lucretia MacEvil and I first opened-up our relationship I didn’t think I would have any problem with it.  I am a very secure person 99% of the time.  However, after our first experience swinging I felt jealousy.  I rationalized it with all sorts of excuses like “My ex-wife cheated on me and that is making me feel this way now” and others.  Now, I didn’t have any problem with Lucretia having good sex with someone else.  What I had issues with was her developing a relationship in any form with this other couple (particularily the male) outside of the foursome swinging scenario.

It was stupid that I felt that way because I knew that Lucretia loved me unconditionally and she wasn’t going to leave me, but that feeling was still there.  I couldn’t rationalize it away.  What it came down to was me, myself.  Whether I was unconditionally loved or not made no difference.  I didn’t believe in the deepest recesses of my soul that I was everything my rational self thought I was.  This new step in our relationship exposed these feelings and brought them up from the depths of where I had repressed them for 30-plus years.

How’d I get past it?  I didn’t like myself that way.  It wasn’t how I saw myself or who I wanted to be.  So I worked on me and my insecurities to get past these feelings.

Does that mean I am completely over it?  No.  Trying new things as a couple exposes new feelings and issues and insecurities I didn’t know I had.  Call them “triggers” if you will.  And the same goes for Lucretia.  Although she wants me to be happy and enjoy as much of other people as I can, sometimes certain situations or people arise that set-off her triggers.

What makes the difference between a couple who makes it in any kind of open relationship and one that doesn’t is the people in the relationship and how they communicate with each other and how brutally honest they are with themselves.  So many blame their insecurities and feelings of jealousy on their partner, the idea of “If they didn’t do this or that I’d be okay.”  But it’s almost never your partner’s fault unless they are truly stepping over boundaries set-out in your relationship.  Such as cheating.  The real issue lies within yourself, your insecurities and your attempts to control your partner so they won’t do something that makes you feel uncomfortable.  The couples that thrive in an open relationship environment are those that recognize that as long as both people are playing within the boundaries of the playing field, the real issue is not what your partner is doing but your reaction to it.  And that is what needs to be worked-on.

That doesn’t mean that the boundaries are hard-set though, and not movable.  Open relationships are nothing if not fluid; they are changing all the time.  What makes them work is the ability of the people in the relationship to recognize this, be flexible, owning their feelings, communicating their feelings without attacking their partner, and be willing to redraw the white lines on the playing field should they need to be adjusted.

Remember, if something doesn’t benefit the relationship, it hurts it.  Always make every situation turn into a benefit.

~ Lucius Scribbens

Yup, you read that right.  Recently I read this exact question posted on an online advice columnist: “My husband asked me for a threesome, is this grounds for divorce?”

Unfortunately this is how many people think.  They are so afraid of their significant others fantasies that they immediately jump to the most extreme response possible.

If I was answering this question I’d of said: “No, his asking isn’t grounds for divorce, but your reaction to his expressing himself is grounds for him to divorce you.”

Harsh?  Maybe.  But this isn’t even really about threesomes.  It’s about a lack of honest and open communication in a relationship, which is the number one issue that eventually leads to anger and resentment and divorce.

This is all due to the lack of a safe and secure atmosphere within the relationship that a person’s feelings and fantasies can be revealed.  All too often doing so triggers insecurity and jealousy and the ensuing anger, hurt and the defense mechanism, belittling, that they get from their partner.  Things nobody wants to experience.  So it’s safer to just not say anything at all.  Eventually the resentment builds and they strike-out on their own, either through divorce or cheating, to fulfill their fantasies and live their life.  The life their significant other is too jealous to live with them, or even listen to.

We hear this all the time, especially from married men that contact us through swinger dating sites we belong to (that might just be because men so actively seek sex, especially through swingers sites). It’s always the same old story: “I love my wife, but she is just too prudish, reserved, doesn’t like sex, doesn’t like the same kind of sex I do” etc., etc., etc. And one of the most read topics on The Swingers Board is the “How do I talk to my spouse about swinging” threads.  Taken a step further, that could be: “How do I talk to my spouse about any sexual fantasy I have without having them reject me and make me feel stupid for having them.”

It’s always amazed me how people will be more open with complete strangers about their darkest sexual secrets then they will be (can be?) with their spouse, the one person they should be able to talk to about anything.

Being secure enough in yourself to not be threatened by your partner’s sexual fantasies is a paramount of a sexually happy and satisfying relationship.  Being open to hearing your partner’s fantasies without judgment or jealousy doesn’t necessarily mean you have to do those things, it just means you have to validate them and not make them feel that they can’t talk with you about them.

Again, lack of communication (and the willingness of someone else to listen) is the biggest cause of cheating and the resulting emotional trauma associated with it when the cheated spouse finds out.

But, until people can get over themselves, this will continue to be a huge issue with romantic relationships.

~ Lucius Scribbens

A slut is something people call a woman who’s having more sex than themselves.

~ Lucius Q. Scribbens

Rummaging around Yahoo! Answers the other day I came across a question from a distraught boyfriend who was having issues with his girlfriend’s past.  He asked the question: “What kind of woman sleeps with two men in one day?”

Here are the answers that he got:

“Oh please, clearly the woman is a slut. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. Go get yourself tested for stds and never call her again. She gets around the block. And around and around….”

“Oh please. You already know the answer to this… dump her and move on to another girl who’s list of sexual partners is shorter than your local phone book.”

“a very disgusting girl i think you should stay way from her she is probably all loose and has a sexually transmitte disease ewwww”

“…and who’s the idiot who calls this disgusting pig of a woman his girlfriend?”

“she mite not cheat on you but she is a fuckin slut”

“Sluts like that are fun to play with but you don’t want them whoring up your life.”

“S.l.u.t”

“it would be an insult to whores to call her one ! she is just a nasty pig and if I were you I would run for my life. you would really want to have kids with this pig? you will always wonder just what she is doing and will never ever trust her.good luck with the STD”s”

“shes just a plain common SKANK. Do yourself a favor, RUN and very fast at that, look for a decent girl”

“she is a very sexually driven women and has a past of a whore i truly would feel gross just kissing that women”

“dude i feel sorry for you. go to the doctor and get checked for stds. This girl clearly is gonna cheat on you when you get married.”

“marry her and accompany her to all the places where she goes probably u might get some free drinks , air tickets. If ur considering a career as a succesfull PIMP dont lose her..”

“n shez ur GF……..??? poor u…! shez a total SLUT man….! y u still being wid her ..?”

“can you trust her?? dude, are you for real? you’re in love with a ho and you know what to do.. unless all you want cheap sex and and an STD then move on.”

Are all these men?  No, most are women.  And what is sad is that this is general society’s view of sexually strong women.  And why is this?  And why does women, of all people, buy into it and persecute their own gender for being sexual, loving sex and being sexually experienced?

It’s almost understandable for men, after all the insecurity men feel over their sexuality and sexual prowess is deeper than a black hole.  And in truth they make their insecurity a huge emotional black hole for the women in their life.  Men (as evidenced above in the “sluts are fun to play with but you wouldn’t want one whoring-up your life” comment) lust after a sexual, pornstar, “slut” of a woman, as long as they don’t have to have any emotional attachment to her.  For that they want a virgin, or at least a woman with little sexual experience or very few partners her past.  That way he doesn’t have to feel insecure about someone in her past being “bigger”, or “better” or “rocking her world” better than he does.  He doesn’t have to obsess over this every day of their relationship.  He can be King because a sexually inexperienced woman just doesn’t know any better.

But then they get bored with her.  They complain to their friends and coworkers about how boring their wife is in bed, or the infrequency of sex with her, or both.  Then they search-out “sluts” by joining swingers dating sites and pretending to be single to try to hook-up with experienced women who love sex, are experienced and are good at it.  Of course they also get disillusioned quickly when they don’t get allot of response from swinger couples wanting to be his sex surrogate and help him cheat on his wife.  But that is a future blog.

So over years of Puritan conditioning our culture has been brainwashed into the idea that an experienced man is a “stud” and a “playa” and an experienced woman is a “slut” or a “whore”.  We hold men who score with lots of women in high regard, place them high on a pedestal and nearly saint them.  Hell, we even celebrate them through TV shows like “The Pick-up Artist” and “Rock of Love with Brett Michaels” where Brett gets to nail several women he’s thinking about marrying.

If we staged either show with a female lead it would never air, because that kind of behavior is simply not socially acceptable from a woman.

And women, for their part in all this, go along with it.  They vilify their own gender for being like a man and enjoying sex and being experienced. Yet they spend thousands of dollar to be “sexy”. The key message from society is “Be sexy, just don’t do sex. Unless it’s with one man only so that he doesn’t feel all insecure about his johnson.”

Then through all this men can’t figure-out why the woman they sought to marry – the “virgin” – doesn’t all of a sudden become a porn star in the bedroom (like their college girlfriend) once they are married.  Well sir, let me tell you: It’s because she was indrocrinated her whole life to be a “good girl” because men don’t want a “bad girl” for a wife.  She can’t undo 18-plus years of patriarchical brainwashing overnight.

The thing is that men do want a bad girl.  A slut.  They just don’t want them to ever have been a bad girl for someone else. If they have been then you get responses like those above: “She’s a skank, look for a decent girl”; “This girl is going to cheat on you when you get married”; “Go get tested for STD’s” (like a guy who gets around couldn’t have any); “She’s a whore and you can’t trust her”.

Hopefully someday these attitudes will go away.  I personally celebrate the “slut” in my wife.  I know that what attracted me to her in the first place was plain old hormones racing because she was hot and sexy.  I was attracted to her sex.  The emotional part of our relationship developed in the spaces in between fucking each others brains out.  So why would I want her to stop being sexual?  Why would I want her to stop being who she is, what made me want her so bad to begin with?  To ask her to shut this off for me would be asking her to shut it off for everyone, because you can’t be sexy for just one person in the world.  You’re either sexy to allot of people or sexy to none.  Because I love her I could never ask her to stop being her just to make me feel comfortable about being me.

I’m not saying that everyone should have an open relationship, but every relationship should be open in that people can be who they are with each other and everyone should be secure enough in themselves to allow their partner to be who they really are without having to worry about hurting their loved one’s feelings.

Guys, your partner’s past is your problem, not hers.  Get over yourself.  If you are not secure enough in yourself to not let a “slut’s” past bother you, than find someone that is inexperienced and will bore the fuck out of you sexually the rest of your life.  Just don’t complain about it later and don’t ask us, with our good relationship, to make you feel whole.

The first post here. For those that have been in or are currently in an open relationship of any kind, the following information may be old hat. But for those unfamiliar with the different types of open relationships I’ll recap the basics here.

An open relationship is any relationship (usually between two partners) where the participants are allowed to have sexual or otherwise intimate relationships with others. Open relationships take on many forms, the most common being:

Open relationship or marriage: This is where one partner or both date others, usually without their primary partner being an integral part of the outside relationship.

Swinging: This is where a married or otherwise committed couple includes other couples and singles in their sex life. This can be through swapping partners in foursomes or moresomes, or just including another single for a threesome. In a swinging relationship sex is usually the focus and intimate, loving relationships are not the norm.

Polyamory: This is where a person carries-on more than one loving, intimate relationship at a time with the full knowledge and consent of everyone involved. Polyamory differs from swinging and “open marriages” in that much of the time all three or four or more people involved are either mutual lovers or at least good friends. Some polyamorous relationships include cohabitation and others don’t.

Mrs. Scribbens and I started our open relationship status through swinging, mostly to allow her to experiment with her bi-side. We started by having sex with other couples but along the way included a female or two. Eventually we met a single guy that was just the thing we needed. An emotional relationship developed between Mrs. Scribbens and him, and although at first such a thing was absolutely terrifying to us, when it happened it seemed absolutely natural. In fact, our relationship got better between us because her emotional needs were shared between two men. I no longer had to shoulder everything, and she no longer expected me to.

That was our first excursion into polyamory. There have been many swinging partners in between, and many of them have become very good friends, but we are always open to a polyamorous relationship developing. The idea of each other having someone else in their life that helps complete them is not threatening, but rather exciting and welcome. We love each other greatly, and feel that others only add to that, the idea that Love + Love = More Love. And it does.