How To Have an Open Relationship
How To! with Mike Pesca
Peach Fish Projects
4.3 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 17 November 2020
⏱️ 30 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Abe's girlfriend wants to try something different—sleeping with other people. In other words, she wants an open relationship. Abe could be on board, but he has some questions. How does that work exactly? What are the ground rules? And what if it ultimately causes them to break up? After all, they've been a couple for the better part of 10 years, and just moved back in together after some time apart. In this episode of How To!, we bring on Rich Juzwiak and Stoya, columnists for Slate's How To Do It sex advice column. Rich and Stoya have the expert tips—and the personal experience—to help Abe navigate this brave new world and decide whether an open relationship is right for him.
If you liked this episode, check out "How To Talk to Your Son About Sex."
Do you have a question about how to make your relationship work better? Send us a note at howto@slate.com or leave us a voicemail at 646-495-4001 and we might have you on the show. Subscribe for free on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I mean, listen, I'd love to go out and like be able to sleep with whoever I want, right? |
| 0:05.0 | The part that I'm struggling with is like being okay with my partner doing the same thing. |
| 0:10.0 | Welcome to how to, I'm Charles Dewey. This week we're tackling a question that can be somewhat |
| 0:16.1 | hard to ask out loud. How to have a relationship where everyone can sleep with whoever they want. And fair warning, this is kind of an R-rated |
| 0:25.2 | episode. So if you have kids listening with you, let me suggest you turn it off |
| 0:29.6 | and listen to a different episode first, titled How to Talk to your Son about sex. |
| 0:34.7 | You can find that in all of our episodes |
| 0:36.7 | in our podcast feed. |
| 0:38.6 | Okay, so if the kids are out of the room, |
| 0:41.3 | here's our listener. |
| 0:43.4 | My name is Abe, I'm a software engineer. |
| 0:46.7 | Abe is 41 years old, and he's been seeing his girlfriend, |
| 0:49.4 | whom we're going to call Georgina, off and on for about 10 years. They moved in together last year and then a few |
| 0:55.6 | months ago Georgina brought up something unexpected. She was reading about polyamory and a lot of it resonated with her and she was like, |
| 1:06.0 | hey, you know, I've been reading this stuff like what do you think? And it took me aback because on one hand it seemed appealing and on the other hand you know can I have an emotional connection and a sexual |
| 1:24.0 | with more to one person at a time and would I be okay with that? Polyamore is engaging in multiple romantic and sexual relationships at the same time. |
| 1:30.0 | And sometimes Polyamore describes an open relationship where a couple is having sex, |
| 1:34.6 | separately or together with other people. |
| 1:37.4 | Or it can mean a couple is having physical and emotional connections with people outside |
| 1:41.8 | of their immediate relationship. |
| 1:43.3 | Abe, let me ask when Georgina brought up this idea to you. |
| 1:48.6 | It sounds like you were excited but also resistant. |
... |
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