Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships (18 page)

Some of these aspects may not matter to you at all, and that's okay
The details and the lists in the exercise that follow are meant to be
exhaustive (though not definitive, of course). I have attempted to think
of everything for you. It's impossible to negotiate with someone who
says, "Anything is fine with me." You've got to get specific. Naturally,
unforeseen issues will come up; perhaps it never occurred to you to ask
your partner not to bring his other lovers to the local BDSM club, for
example. But it happens, you get upset, you process it, and eventually
amend the agreement. I would just like to save you time and get you
thinking about these matters early on, in the hope of averting even one
argument, one night of hurt and frustration, one misunderstanding.

You can't plan for everything: obstacles will still come up that you
never talked about-that it never even occurred to you to discuss.
Issues that you never anticipated will push your buttons. Behavior that
you thought wouldn't make you jealous will. So, consider as many
details as you can beforehand, and be ready for new ones to pop up.

One of the first things to consider is who you (and your partners, if
you have them) will be having sex with, dating, romancing, or forming
a relationship with. Are there characteristics that limit your potential
partners, such as gender, appearance, or age? For example, an agreement may be as straightforward as "no blondes" or "no one younger than
me." Jimmy says all his relationships must "either serve my primary
relationship or at least be neutral... I would probably be hesitant to
engage with somebody who was a lot like [my primary] ... I wouldn't
duplicate her role." His primary partner is a dominant woman and a
bondage expert. "If I were to take up with [another dominant female
bondage expert], she'd kick my ass."

If you are bisexual or pansexual,' you and your partner may agree
that you can have sex or relationships only with persons of the opposite
gender. For example, Ginger and her husband have agreed that she can have as many female lovers as she wants but only one additional male
lover. Bailey's partner is more comfortable with him playing with men
than with other women.

An important issue to discuss is a potential partner's degree of
familiarity Can you have sex or form relationships with strangers,
acquaintances, neighbors, co-workers, friends, ex-partners, a partner's
relatives? For example, say you have a primary partner with sex mates
on the side. You (or your partner) may prefer that you hook up with
someone you don't know and your friends don't know; for some, this
keeps their sex mates very separate from their lives. If this is a limit of
yours, the sentiment is something like "I'd rather hook up with
strangers or casual acquaintances"; if it reflects your partner's preference, it is more like "I don't want to know the people you have sex
with." In the latter case, perhaps you would rather not encounter your
partner's casual sex partners in your neighborhood, out at the local
bar, or at the meeting of a group you belong to. If so, it's best to agree
that your partner choose people outside your social circle. Depending
on where you live, this may mean someone who is a stranger, belongs
to a different community, or lives in a different town. Or maybe you
don't mind if the person is a casual acquaintance or someone you see
infrequently.

Having a relationship with a co-worker is tricky, since you usually
have daily, extended contact with co-workers, making them impossible to avoid. Sleeping with or dating someone you work with can be
complicated to begin with, and when you throw nonmonogamy into
the mix, it can get even more dicey First, some companies have
explicit policies prohibiting office romances. As much as we might like
to think that our personal relationships have no place at work, that's
just not how it is. From company functions to water cooler chat,
people tend to know who has a partner, who doesn't, and who's doing
whom; if you bring your girlfriend to the annual holiday party and
days later co-workers see you kissing the woman from accounting in the lobby, they will notice. The workplace can be a perfect environment
for speculation, innuendo, and gossip. If you are not out about being
in an open relationship, then people will assume you are cheating,
which can affect people's perception of your character or ethics. If the dalliance or relationship ends, you must continue to work with the
person, which can be stressful and painful-or awkward, at best. I am
not saying that it can't be done. Plenty of folks have found nonmonogamous partners on the job and conducted casual or serious
relationships with discretion and honor. But be forewarned that if you
work with people you're involved with, it can get messy

Who Checklist

(characteristics of potential partners)

When it comes to friends as potential sex or relationship partners,
everyone has a different philosophy Some people are very clear on the
division of friends and partners, as in: "These are my friends. I don't
fuck my friends, and I don't want my partner(s) to fuck them either." If
this statement rings true for you, it's important to make this clear to all
your partners from the get-go. For people who value their friendships
in this way and want to keep them entirely separate from romantic
relationships, it can feel like a betrayal when a partner violates this
boundary

For others, it's the complete opposite: many of their friends are
their lovers or partners. They tend to choose partners from within their
social network or develop ongoing friendships with their sex mates, or
both. Their partners know each other and may even have relationships
with each other. They may be part of an extended yet tight-knit subcommunity of people who have several partners in common, share each
other's partners and ex-partners, and have close ties to one another. Chloe
and her partner Dillon have a network of friends who are also lovers:
"At this point, I have a request on the table that he not sleep with my
girlfriend for my own psychological reasons: basically I feel like every
single one of my female friends is banging him, so could I please have
somebody in my life who is not banging him?" There is the potential
for many thorny issues to come up whenever friendship is intertwined
with a sexual relationship.

When it comes to choosing potential partners, ultimately, you
and your partner(s) need to decide who is fair game and who is off
limits. Often, our libido drives our choice, but I encourage you to step back from the situation if you can to make an honest evaluation of the
person. There is no set of characteristics that describe the ideal secondary partner, boyfriend, play partner, sex buddy, or out-of-town fling;
however, there are universal qualities you can look for.

You want someone who is self-aware, with strong communication
skills, good boundaries, and a clear sense of who they are and what
they want. If you have a primary relationship already, you want someone who will respect that relationship instead of attempting to break it
up or otherwise wreak havoc on it. Trust your instincts and avoid
people who will bring negative energy, a destructive agenda, unresolved baggage, or lots of drama to your life. Theo, a 46-year-old man,
says about his current primary relationship of more than seven years:
"There are people who are off limits: anyone who gives either of us an
`I don't like that person' vibe or anyone I can't trust to be in touch with
their own feelings enough to handle a relationship like ours."

The content of a sexual encounter or relationship-what actually goes
on between you and a partner-is one area where some nonmonogamous people may need or want to set limits for themselves and their
partners. Think about what kinds of things you'd like to do with a new
partner or partners and how you feel about what your partner does
with other people. Are there limits when it comes to your sexual
behavior with a potential partner, and if so, what are they? This covers
a lot of terrain, from kissing to sex toys to dirty talk to anal sex.
Perhaps you don't feel comfortable with your partner having vaginal
intercourse with anyone but you, so that activity is off limits to others.
Or you agree to play with others only when it involves your foot fetish,
so there is no genital contact or sex at all. Here are some examples of
people's limits.

What Checklist

(characteristics of potential interactions/relationships)

BDSM Activities

If you practice BDSM, make the same kind of list as above
with specific activities such as flogging, hot wax, Dominance
and submission.

As part of your discussion about sexual boundaries, you should
have a serious and specific talk about safer sex. To help guide you
through it, read Chapter 18, Safer Sex and Sexual Health.

Individually, we can casually `fool around" with other people, that
is, we can do anything as long as there is no need for latex and we
stay in a public or otherwise peopled place (a bar or party-not
a private bedroom or other place where we would be alone with
the person). -Sam

We can play with other people, but no vaginal or anal intercourse. There can be genital contact, orgasms, fisting, penetration
with toys. -Sadie

If you have multiple relationships, you can also negotiate the
nature of those relationships in terms of what I'll loosely call romantic/affectionate behavior. If you have a partner whom you see on a
regular basis for sex, can you also go out on dates with him? What
about sending naughty emails, flirting, courting, giving gifts, sleeping
over, or traveling together? These are all things people who date do
with one another, but you need to decide if they will be part of a relationship or not. For example, you may want to make the relationships
other than your primary one solely about sex. Or, maybe you socialize
as friends and hang out, but there are no love letters or flowers. It could
be that you have sex and do some of the things listed, but consider
what you have to be a friendship that's sexual. (Some call this "friends
with benefits" or "sex buddies.")

We have no boundaries, we are each free to pursue whoever we
want, whenever we want, and fall as deeply as the relationship
takes us. We recognize where we are in our life, how close we feel,
how much time is available, so we don't enter into relationships
when they might negatively impact our primary relationship.
-Ilana and Luke

Those BDSM practitioners who emphasize the D/s of BDSM thrive on
relationship power dynamics. Because the roles they take on are clearly
(or some would say rigidly) defined, it gives each person a specific set
of expectations. But it also limits the relationship to that particular
dynamic. If you want to explore another part of your identity or a
different dynamic, you can do so with other people. For example, you are the submissive in your relationship with your Dominant, D. You'd
like to try your hand at topping someone, but that is not part of your
dynamic with D. So, you open your relationship to include play and
even other relationships to explore a chance for you to be the top. I can
be a Master and have a slave and a girl, the girl can have a Daddy, and
my slave could herself be Mistress to a girl. Who everyone is to one
another is clear and very distinct.