Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:14 Hi, everyone. This is fair David levels. Um, thank you for joining me and lick,
Speaker 1 00:00:21 Oh, we are doing episode the second episode of the three, um, episode series, um, on polyamory and non ethical ethical non-monogamy could take more minutes to get that. Um, and so two women, wonderful women will be joining today and, um, they were amazing and I'm excited to get started and, um, to talk about and have this conversation. So, um, people can learn more about
Speaker 0 00:00:53 Polyamory. Hi, how are you?
Speaker 1 00:01:04 Good. It's great. Thank you. How are you? I'm good. I, I always get a little nervous before I do these. Yeah. Oh yeah. I have a lot of anxiety about this. My palms are sweaty. No, I always get so sweaty before these I'm like, and then doing this cleanse and so even like more stuff is coming out, so it's smelled great. Yeah. So anyways, welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thank you for being here. Um, I'm going to introduce both of you. Wonderful ladies. Hopefully I don't fuck it up too much. I'm getting better. I'm getting better, but all right, so Leanna, am I saying your name, right? Yes. Okay, good. Um, she's a St. Paul native, a single mother to the most magical daughter, owner of Meraki Meraki. Okay. Wellness, LLC. Her practices include yoga, meditation, breath, work, sole purpose discovery, shocker, energy balancing, and more. It's pretty amazing. I've seen your videos on Facebook for, um, for, uh, vegan cooking our kitchen. It's all with your daughter and then your, um, yoga. So people can find you on Facebook doing those videos, which is great. Um, and you've been, um, practicing, uh, ethical non-monogamy for 15 years. Yeah. About, okay. And then we have Kaitlin. Hi, who's a single mother of two boys. Um, she works in the emergency room of a radiology of radiology at a level one trauma center, which is fucking crazy.
Speaker 2 00:03:08 It is insane.
Speaker 1 00:03:12 Um, she goes to school full time and is very, she's very kink friendly and open about her sexuality and has been practicing polyamorous relationships and F ethical non-monogamy for two years. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:03:30 Thank you.
Speaker 1 00:03:32 Okay. So the Rona's creeping in, huh?
Speaker 2 00:03:37 It's so bad. Yeah. Yeah. A little extra close brush with that today.
Speaker 1 00:03:47 Yeah, that's what I, so my question, I guess, starting out with is Katie. She's got a crazy tale. Um, how do you do, I mean, it's hard to do relationships right now anyways, but how do you, um, navigate these relationships where you have like, you know, multiple partners during this time, or do you, um,
Speaker 2 00:04:16 Really right now I'm just seeing one person, um, or being intimate with one person, I should say I'm still like dating other people, but with the threat of everything right now, I just, haven't been getting intimate and close with multiple people. Um, but I get tested weekly for work in school and stuff. So I'm pretty well known of at least how, where I'm standing with everything's COVID that's good. Yeah. Um, I, I actually, I coronavirus hit, um, when I was coming off of like six months of like celibacy and like just being by myself. Um, and so it extended that into a full year where I was like, I went on like a few dates, but I wasn't intimate with anybody. Um, I was spending a lot of time, like re-evaluating my ideas around relationships and all that kind of stuff after a really difficult breakup. Um, and just kind of, yeah, right now, like I, there was a person in my life, um, um, that I had known for almost two years, I think, and things just kind of like opened up a couple of weeks ago and we've kind of been hanging out more. And so I'm just hanging out with one person. And not that I haven't had opportunity, but uh, it's I have a lot of COVID anxiety like that it's takes a whole level.
Speaker 2 00:05:59 And I added in the layer of like my elderly parents live with us, with me and my daughter. Oh yeah. That's all like, even seeing this one person was like a little risky.
Speaker 1 00:06:15 Yeah. Because you're like welcoming a whole other person's world. Yeah. So that's a big, yeah. And just, I was curious about that and like, I can't even, I can't even think about dating right now just cause it's like, uh, you know, it's just crazy. It's a crazy time.
Speaker 2 00:06:36 Oh my God.
Speaker 1 00:06:42 But like, yeah, there's a bunch of stuff that is that, um, you know, when we're, when you're alone and you can't really go anywhere maybe except for work, like you think about all these things and it makes you face yourself, you know? And so like it brings up all your shit. And so, um, I think it would be hard to date other people for that reason also.
Speaker 2 00:07:06 Yeah. Yeah. And I, like I said, I purposely spent a full year not dating anybody because I had so much trauma. Go ahead.
Speaker 1 00:07:23 I thought you were still celebrate. Cause I hadn't seen for awhile.
Speaker 2 00:07:26 Yeah, no. Uh, she said that a couple of weeks ago, actually on the one-year anniversary. Yeah. I was not intentional. It just happened. And it was the universe society. That was the right time. But yeah, I did that very purposely because I was like, I need to like face my shit and like deal with some other things. And I wasn't owning my power in certain ways. And I was seeing it happen. It was manifesting in a lot of romantic relationships, but I was seeing it happen in like my business and in my relationship with my daughter and all these other things. And I was like, I need to get a handle on this quick. Yeah. It's hard to kind of force yourself to address those like deep rooted issues too. That we're kind of like bred into you since you were younger that you have to like break all these molds from how you were raised and how your parents like had influences on your relationships younger too.
Speaker 1 00:08:25 I totally cut out and went somewhere and then it came back. Okay.
Speaker 2 00:08:29 Oh, I don't know what happened. Welcome back,
Speaker 1 00:08:34 Leanna. Your screen is weird. Do you see that? Caitlin?
Speaker 2 00:08:38 Hold on. Oh, do you notice your screen? I did this thing where I downloaded the, like a background please. Cool. It's not working and I deleted it and I turned it off and it's still not working. So sometimes there, there you go. Here we go.
Speaker 0 00:08:57 I might have to do that a couple of times.
Speaker 1 00:08:58 It's kind of like a holiday number or something there. Okay. You're back. Yeah. But I still, I missed like what, what you guys were talking about with the influences of your parents?
Speaker 0 00:09:10 Oh, I was just saying it can be hard to like, like face those, um, like deep rooted things that your parents instilled in you when you were younger, like coming up in your younger dating life. Um, and to kind of like find your own way with how you want to make your romantic relationships work.
Speaker 1 00:09:34 It's, it's crazy how much that stuff affects our relationships.
Speaker 0 00:09:38 Yeah. Cause I had a lot of, yeah, I had a lot of guilt and I was feeling like, why is it one person satisfying me? You know, having to like deal with that and kind of face those after having my parents split and everything, when I was so young, it was just an odd thing to go through for a couple of years. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:10:02 There's a, um, protest going down my street right now. Really loud. Hello? Sorry. I'm like, Whoa,
Speaker 0 00:10:17 Totally unexpected. Can you hear that? Yeah. That's outside. Like, sounds like it's in your house almost. Wow.
Speaker 1 00:10:39 Okay. Anyways, sorry. Let me let this pass for a minute. Cause it's like kind of overwhelming.
Speaker 0 00:10:57 I live on 31st, so I'm like right in South Minneapolis. Okay. Okay. I'm a little bit, I live over by the falls. Okay. You could probably
Speaker 1 00:11:13 Hear it from, from there.
Speaker 0 00:11:18 I'm in St. Paul. So you know where they like to do their protesting, like middle of the day here. Can we go to bed earlier? Over on the side of the river,
Speaker 1 00:11:29 Paul is like a grandpa and Minneapolis is like kind of like
Speaker 0 00:11:32 A cool OD
Speaker 1 00:11:34 Or like a, you know, like a, like a 30, 40 year old
Speaker 0 00:11:41 Minneapolis, but you marry St. Paul. That's the truth. That
Speaker 1 00:11:51 Part like that, we we're doing nothing that we'll get it out in this part. We'll do like, we'll be like people watching, like what the fuck is going on.
Speaker 2 00:12:01 So my
Speaker 1 00:12:02 Next question is, uh, like what, what, what was it that made you come to this decision or, um, this funny or, you know, whatever. Like how did you decide that you, this is how you do relationships or how you want to do relationships. Leanna. Do you want to go first?
Speaker 2 00:12:24 Sure. Cause mine I've been doing it for a long time. Um, I, when I was in my twenties, I traveled as a yoga teacher. Um, and I went all across the country and lived in a lot of different places. And when I was living in Maryland, um, I started dating this guy and this was like, you know, more than 15 years ago. So ethical non-monogamy was like, not common. Nobody really talks about it. I don't even think the ethical slut hadn't been written yet at this point or if like it hadn't come out. I hadn't heard of it, but I was dating this guy. And, um, and I knew it wasn't going to last because I had intentions of like moving on to another destination within a few months. Um, and I ran into him at a coffee shop with another woman and he was like, I just wanna let you know, like, I'm dating both of you.
Speaker 2 00:13:15 Um, when she's in town, like she goes to school out of town. Um, when she's here, I spend time with her, like she is my priority. And he's like, I dunno, like, I don't know if this is like something you want to be do. Like, what are we doing here? I was like, why is this even a big deal? Um, and then a little while later, I moved to upstate New York and I met someone there and then took a contract down in Houston, Texas. And he, and I started a relationship and that's where he was like, you know, you're gone and we're going to see each other, like once every couple months or whatever it is that we had decided at that time in the early two thousands. And, um, he was like, I feel like this. And by that point, the ethical foot had been written or published.
Speaker 2 00:14:02 He's like, let's read this book. I think this might be a good fit for us because we're both pretty open and like pretty comfortable. And um, so we decided to give it, give it a go and, uh, worked really well for a while. And then at one point he was ready for me to move back to New York and I wanted to go take another contract someplace else. So it was just a different at that point, like I was dating a whole bunch of people and I was really much happier that way. Cause I could have other like different people meet different needs. Um, and then I tried, I was married for five years, four years. I was married for four years and that was monogamous and I was miserable. So, uh, I took some time off of dating after that too, and realized at that point that, um, I
Speaker 0 00:14:52 Want it to be poly or non-monogamous in my relationships moving forward. Uh, I had an open relationship after that. There were some things that made me really question whether it was a path that I wanted to continue. And so that's kind of where I'm at today with my ethical non-monogamy and relationships.
Speaker 1 00:15:14 Okay. What about you Kaitlin?
Speaker 0 00:15:19 Um, for me it was kind of like, so I was with my partner who I, or my kids' dad and I noticed that the relationship was kind of fizzling out and I kind of took some time to think about like, why that happened with every relationship that I was in. Um, cause I always kind of was like, I'm not sad as fighter like fulfilled in every aspect. And then I started kind of questioning that and then I started questioning like, why do I want the, um, like the pressure on myself of satisfying my partner a hundred percent because I started realizing that I wasn't getting it. And so I kind of just when my partner and I split of seven years, I, um, just started dating really casually. I didn't make any sort of commitments. I kind of just like, let relationships flow how they flow and if they fizzle out, that's fine.
Speaker 0 00:16:16 And as long as I'm being like open and honest with the people that I'm with, I've found that it's a much easier way of gating. Honestly it keeps at least myself and my partner is a lot happier cause it takes a lot of the pressure off. So I mean, I really enjoyed it's just when people aren't so ethical about it is when it really starts to like become harder is when there's like lying and deceiving. When you're already be like, I'm open with this, you just need to talk with me about it. So that's kind of the part where I'm navigating right now is just like bridging that gap when that happens.
Speaker 1 00:16:55 Like the communication isn't
Speaker 0 00:16:57 Yeah. Or like, yeah. If like it's not being communicated in healthy ways or if like the trust is being broken, kind of like, that's hard for me to go back with like when people lie and like lose your trust, so, Oh yeah. Yeah. So
Speaker 1 00:17:14 If that, so it sounds to me like, I, it would be so hard for me to do so challenging, which would be really good. Cause I think like everything's challenging for the most part is like really beneficial to your growth, but um, yeah, the jealousy and like all the things that were taught, you know, like first of all, a woman and then like from society and all these things, you know, or like get married and have one partner and all these notes
Speaker 0 00:17:46 The is for sure the hardest part for me. But like,
Speaker 2 00:17:51 I feel like the more you are open and honest, like you realize that jealousy is a totally natural thing to feel and it's okay to feel that way. It's just how you go about expressing it to your partner.
Speaker 1 00:18:02 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:18:04 For me. Right.
Speaker 1 00:18:07 Well that makes total sense. I mean, it's like talking to them and ex explaining how you feel versus like freaking out.
Speaker 2 00:18:14 Exactly. Cause it's, I mean, who's not going to get jealous. I feel like that's just a lie if you're like, Oh, I'm never jealous because it's such a natural feeling it's like saying you mad, like it's just happens, but it's just how you react to those situations.
Speaker 1 00:18:33 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I've been thinking a lot about it because I'm doing these, these shows and I'm like, could I do it? I was dating someone two years ago, who is Polly, but he, and he was navigating it. So he, it was kind of like messy or whatever it is. Like maybe I could do it in the end. It didn't work out, but we're still friends and everything. And I think the communication through that, um, was really what kept us in contact and being friends still. So I think that's a good way to do relationships, obviously, if you can do.
Speaker 2 00:19:12 Yeah. It's just the communication part, which I feel like is true with any relationship. Even if it's monogamy, you just have to have that like ability to be able to communicate things in healthy ways.
Speaker 1 00:19:23 Right? Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:19:26 Yeah. I think everyone and like, I feel like over-communication is a better way to even do things like, yeah, totally. I had a partner who would hook up with other women, but he would tell them about me after the fact. And I was like, I was like, listen, I get, and I felt like I was kind of coaching him through it. I was his first, you know, Holly partner. And I said, you know, I really would encourage you to give people the information upfront so they can make informed decisions about whether or not they want to sleep with you. And uh, yeah, like that's like anytime that I've been in a primary relationship, I practice, I tend to practice more hierarchical where I have a primary person and then I might have like a few secondary partners or whatever. It just works better for me and my mental health state to be honest.
Speaker 2 00:20:33 Um, and I was like, you know, I was always like, this is what my situation is. I feel like you, like, if it was someone else coming in as like, I feel like there's a connection. I feel like there might be something here. Tell me if I'm, and if I'm not, here's what my situation is. Are you comfortable with that? Would you like to, you know, move forward and do something about this? Or if not, it's not a big deal. We can spend time together as friends and see what happens that way. And then I found that people were way more receptive to that kind of communication. Then when we were telling them on the back end that I was that there was a partner or that I existed or that my other partner existed, I was just like, try the wine people play though. I feel like once you get the ball rolling, like once you've had that conversation a few times, it's much easier each time you have,
Speaker 1 00:21:30 And it helped
Speaker 2 00:21:31 Alleviate some of that puritanical guilt and shame that we've been taught to have around this. Like just being really, really open with it and telling people like, this is how I feel. This is who I am. This is how I work relationships, uh, in, in this community. Like, do you want to be a part of this giving people the opportunity to say no is really empowering and important? I think in ethical non-monogamy
Speaker 1 00:21:59 I think it's so amazing, like exploring this topic and finding out how many people, um, are kind of scared to come out and talk about this and show their faces. And it's, it makes me so sad that others aren't accepting of that. And so then they have to feel like they have to hide, you know, and yeah, it makes me really sad that people would just accept that this is people do relationships in so many different ways. It's nobody's fucking business. You know what I mean? Like as far as judging and yeah.
Speaker 2 00:22:42 And it's funny too, cause I feel like a lot of the people that judged people that are polyamorous or non-monogamous are all the people that are like totally fine with being in a relationship and cheating on their partner. You know what I mean? Like as long as you're deceiving about it, you don't need to be open. And like, I don't know. It's just me the openness of it. Not even necessarily what's happening. It's just the fact that you're like comfortable being open about it.
Speaker 1 00:23:16 Yeah. That's, that's what I guess what's so surprising about me is that it's such an open, communicative, uh, practice of relationships. And then, um, people feel like they have to kind of be private about it. So it's like, uh, there's like, uh, a dichotomy we're seeing the right word. Yeah. So there's a duality there. Yeah. To me. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:23:50 Um, yeah. And I also found that the people who are like, Oh, I can't believe you're like, I can't believe you could do that. I don't think I could ever do it. Like a lot of times they have kind of toxic, weird relationship stuff of their own happening. And like, I don't know, deal like deal with your own house, get your house in order. And then we can have a conversation about like what I'm doing in mine.
Speaker 1 00:24:09 Just scary. I think it's, I, I honestly feel like, and because of my own thoughts and feelings of like, like I'm imagining myself doing it, entering into it, I have so much fear. I'm like, Oh my God. You know, just cause my own childhood trauma. And I know why, you know? Um, so that's why I think it would be good to try it out and see if I can sift through those
Speaker 2 00:24:33 The hard time to try it out. I am
Speaker 1 00:24:41 So happy
Speaker 2 00:24:42 With my, yeah. I was going to say too before I feel like a lot of people sometimes are scared to explore it because they're not really willing to do the work that it takes to unlearn. So many of those behaviors,
Speaker 1 00:24:57 It sounds like it's a lot of self work and it's hard to do that work. I mean, you know, people choose to, or they choose not to, but I just, yeah, it was just looking at that. And I was like, wow, this is an interesting duality that it's so open. But then there are, there's a lot of, um, folks that are kind of, you know,
Speaker 2 00:25:15 Yeah. I feel like it's really open, but it's like within a contained community. Yeah. Like if you don't have a way in, you would never know about it. Yeah. Everyone that I know, like all of my friends, I would say, well, it's not all of them, but like 90% of my friends are in some kind of ethical monogamy, kink, friendly relationship and part, it was kind of funny. Like when I, when I joined this community that I'm a part of now because I moved back to Minnesota 10 years ago and I was in a monogamous relationship right away, like within six weeks of moving back here and marriage babies, all that stuff. And moving back towards that community four years ago, they were like, here's Liana right there. Like it was just kind of assumed. And I'm like, Oh, okay. Like, Oh yeah, this is like, I, I had to get back into that mindset of like what it was like to be in an open relationship again. Um, but yeah, it's like within the community and I think there are also sometimes like within a community there's another community. And there's some assumptions about like, because you're friends with this person, you must be like this. I'm like, well, I'm actually really boring.
Speaker 2 00:26:29 As far as polyamory goes. I feel like I'm, I'm one of the more square people
Speaker 1 00:26:34 I was gonna say. You don't seem like you're very boring, you know, a lot of different things and interests and
Speaker 2 00:26:41 Yeah, that part of my life's pretty. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:26:45 I guess my next question goes, it's kind of like, um, connected to that then. Like how was it coming out to your family or people, you know, that are close to you? Was there a lot of judgment? Was it accepted?
Speaker 2 00:27:03 Um, for me, my mom's always been super accepting of my lifestyle. She just wants me to be happy. So she was, I think she kind of expected it. I have never believed in marriage, like ever since I was younger. Um, but my dad and I do not have to talk anymore. He's a trash human it's. Okay. It was my choice. He's a garbage, it sucks for sure. But my mom married an awesome guy and he's been in my life since I was eight, so super supportive. So that'd be, um, I kinda came out to my family. Like I was really out in the community before I was with my family about it. And I came out to my family during a breakup. So that was not great. Um, and what I actually had to happen was like, I'm trying to like, not trash talk people, but there was a boundary cross that was kind of not repairable.
Speaker 2 00:28:13 And I ended up losing two people out of it and it had to do with, you know, communication and boundaries and some other stuff. And like one of these people had like become an kind of a part of my, you know, my more nuclear family, like my, they were part of my daughter's life. They were part of my parents' life. And I was like, this is what happened with these two people that we bought that I really care about. And you know, the boundary was broken and I tried for two months to repair it and I can't. And um, you know, we, this is the kind of relationships that I've been practicing for the last four years. And they never really said anything about, they just said, you know, we're going to cut our ties with these people. Um, cause we don't agree with the way that they treated you.
Speaker 2 00:29:02 And since then they haven't said anything, but I've also been celibate for a year. So they sound like they're pretty supportive though. Yeah. You know, their biggest thing for me is like, we just want you to be happy and we want to make sure that whoever is going to be like really intimately in your life is going to love. Not only you, but your daughter. Right. You know, we didn't come in with, with kids. You are a package deal. Yeah. And it's a whole new ball game dating when there's your other humans that you created in the home. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 1 00:29:34 And then do you tell, do you tell your children and when do you tell them? And you know, I personally haven't
Speaker 2 00:29:42 Brought any partners around my kid. Um, other than one, um, this summer that I was dating through like the beginning of quarantine. Um, but nobody, who's not my kids. I don't bring them around unless I'm like really getting serious and they're going to, you know, I see them in my legs for a long time. So
Speaker 0 00:30:04 Marriage, I'm just kidding marriage party. I'm not doing the piece of paper
Speaker 2 00:30:13 Too expensive. Getting divorced cost me more than my wedding. Um, I don't, I don't bring people around my daughter either. Um, my, my last partner, uh, I, you know, I met him through like more community events. And so I was there with my daughter. So she saw us engaged in like a close friendship. Um, and then, uh, you know, probably like six to eight months and she knew that we were, she kind of understood that like we were boyfriend and girlfriends. Um, and so the breakup was when we broke up, it was hard on her too. And that was kind of a huge wake-up call to me. Cause she's seven now. Like she's getting older, she's starting to understand and seeing a lot of these things. So I just don't really plan to introduce anyone to my child, unless they're going to stick for a very long time. And even then, I'm not sure about multiple partners. Like not totally, I don't know. Part of me is like, I'm not going to tell her about it. And she'll, she's like 25.
Speaker 0 00:31:20 She's going to pick up on it at some point probably. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 00:31:33 Yeah. And so even that it's been an interesting thing. I'm like, all right, like meeting new people, how do I navigate this with a child? Cause you also don't have a ton of time. No, super dumb hours on Wednesday,
Speaker 0 00:31:52 Every other weekend off
Speaker 2 00:31:56 That's my life.
Speaker 0 00:31:58 Yeah. Like when we didn't have COVID back in the good old days and you had like, you know, three, four partners or more than one partner, how did the time thing work out? That sounds like it could kind of be a shit show sometimes.
Speaker 2 00:32:16 Or especially if you're introverted. Like I, um,
Speaker 2 00:32:23 Uh, yeah, it was hard for me, for sure. I got good at using my phone calendar to start scheduling things so I would get reminders. Right. Yeah. Right. You do think like this person, I don't know, have a hard time juggling more than two partners at this point in my life. Um, I would just be like, okay, you like, you get every Wednesday night or whatever it is. Like you get this like the second day of like the second Wednesday of every month, like I could, I could kind of do that kind of stuff. And then like, this person's my primary. So they're gonna get like first dibs on every other weekend. If they're out of town then yeah. Like we can hang out. But I, I don't know. And then if kids stuff comes up, like, sorry, you all get dropped also like spontaneous dates where you're like, Oh, I finished grocery shopping. Really let's grab coffee. And it's just kind of like, like you were saying, whoever's your primary obviously gets your first call and then you have to see if somebody else otherwise just do your own thing, whatever. So, I mean, I've had friends, who've had four or five full time partners. I'm like, Oh, but that's weird though. Cause one's exhausting sometimes too.
Speaker 1 00:33:51 But I think it will be more exhausting with four and five. Oh my gosh. So that must be where you can only do like a certain level. I mean everybody's different, but like a certain level of what put out, you know what I mean, practice.
Speaker 2 00:34:11 Yeah. I was like, H how do you, I was like, did you find time for yourself with like four or five full-time partners? Like how do you, I don't know, like I love being alone. Right. And like I'm pretty introverted person and value my alone time and building a business during a COVID pandemic.
Speaker 2 00:34:32 Yeah. Yeah. Like finding that balance of when and how much emotion you give to each person. And so it's also becomes a communication of like, what kind of relationship is this? Is this just like a fuck buddy situation? Like, I'm just going to come over at like nine o'clock at night, we'll have a cocktail, we'll have sex and then I'm gonna go home or is this like, we're going to have to have like a deep, emotional connection on top of it because there's a certain amount of energy that I have for each one. And who do I give that to? Yeah. Keeping your feelings in check when you have multiple partners is definitely hard sometimes.
Speaker 1 00:35:12 Yeah. So I'm not, I have been, we'll say, cause I haven't been in a relationship for a minute. I haven't been like an all or nothing person. I wonder how I could do you know what I mean? Cause it would be like we're getting married or not together or we're going to beat, you know? And so it'd be interesting, someone so passionate not to say that other people aren't passionate are doing it, but like, it would be interesting. Like, are you like really, um, emotionally balanced? Would you say,
Speaker 2 00:35:49 Is anyone right now ever? Like everything's a shit show right now. Um, I have horrible, horrible abandonment issues. So I feel like non-monogamy is kind of a little bit easier for me than regular relationships because it leaves not that I don't like love with all that I would with a monogamous relationship, but it leaves a little bit more of like self resilience, like on your own. Um, I don't feel like it gets caught up in the relationship when I am like worried about my son with my kids. And then like if I'm talking to multiple people, I'm not going to be like putting all my eggs into one basket, so to speak. Um, so it kind of helps me keep my emotions and like my heart in check a lot of the time too. It makes me date smarter. Honestly, I feel like because I'm allowing myself to be picky and also allowing myself to just like, if I want to just fuck this one person and I don't need to really care how their personality is, but then I have this other awesome person where we have this awesome emotional connection. But maybe like the sexual stuff isn't quite there. You can kind of balance it out.
Speaker 2 00:37:14 Yeah. It kind of like someone I was going to like I'm in a group for a bunch of other witches that I hang out with. And um, we were talking about like, are you monogamous or are you polyamorous? Like how do you identify? And someone brought up some really interesting points about like how we kind of categorized our partners. And like, do you have a partner that you have sex with? Do you have a partner that you have an emotional connection with? Like we even talked about, like, I still consider my ex-husband's to be a partner because even though we don't have any kind of emotional, like I don't have any emotional attachment to him at whatsoever. Um, we don't even have like a great co-parenting relationship and a lot of ways, but we are partners because we are raising this child together. And so that's another area that I was like, Oh my gosh, like that was just mind blowing to me. Like the person that I made a child with is still one of my partners. Even though I hold him at arms length, we don't talk very, like when we talk, it's only about the kids to be an open dialogue with whatever other partners definitely makes sense because you're like this person isn't going anywhere, even though I'm not involved with them romantically, they are still a huge part of your life. Exactly. And so to even start to like, look at those categories and like how like you have, and
Speaker 0 00:38:36 I have platonic partners, right? Like my, my best friend is the platonic partner. And I started to look at it that way and see that I could have, I'm like, Oh, okay. Like you don't, it doesn't have to be like, I give this amount of emotion and sex to every single person that I'm with because that will exhaust you. Yeah. Organic. I mean, it might be something one day and then it could totally blossom into something else the other day. It's the person that you're just sleeping with. You could develop the best emotional connection with ever or the person that you have a great emotional connection with. Could do something to like break your trust. And then all of a sudden they're nobody to you. Yup. My kids might be seeing us for a second.
Speaker 1 00:39:18 Hold on.
Speaker 0 00:39:22 I'm almost,
Speaker 1 00:39:25 It's so interesting how we do that though. How we put like our friendships in one category and then our romantic relationships that another, and like some of the most intimate relationships I have are with my, with my girlfriends.
Speaker 0 00:39:39 Right? Yeah. They know everything about you. They are.
Speaker 1 00:39:43 Yeah. And like, I can go to them, you know, totally shit show. And they're like, all right, Farrah, come lay on my couch and you could cry and do you need anything? And whatever, you know, like, I, I, I haven't been able to do that in most of my romantic relationships.
Speaker 0 00:40:03 Yeah. I mean, it, it's a lot of emotional investment when you think about it. Like it's yeah. It's a powerful relationship when you have people like that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:40:14 Yeah. But it's just so interesting how we do, we sit like separate the type of the relationship when they're all relationships really like, so I liked that
Speaker 0 00:40:26 They require a certain amount of work. Yeah. No relationship comes easy.
Speaker 1 00:40:33 Thank God for that though. Because then we get to like do this work on ourselves, which is so hard and so amazing.
Speaker 0 00:40:40 Yeah. And you, you get really good. I feel like it judge, or like determining who deserves your energy kind of thing.
Speaker 1 00:40:49 Oh, I bet like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was just thinking, as we were all talking, I was just thinking about how far, how far women have come along sexually, you know? Yeah. I mean even, huh?
Speaker 0 00:41:09 That's it even just in like the last five, 10 years, it's huge.
Speaker 1 00:41:14 I love that we're having this conversation and that you both are like amazing, powerful, strong women. And you're like, yeah, I haven't relationships and I'm doing it. You know, your mothers. And I think it's amazing. I think we've come a long way for fucking sure.
Speaker 0 00:41:30 Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to lie. I
Speaker 2 00:41:34 Loosen my grip on my uterus when the election came through. So we had a rough few years there, four years, for sure. Very happy with those results. I know. I was like, Hmm,
Speaker 1 00:41:51 I can't, I couldn't sleep. Um, see ABC or whatever, something along that all the time,
Speaker 2 00:42:00 Just constantly hitting refresh on NPR. Like, it's been five minutes. I got to check it again. And I had done this thing. So like my daughter got super excited about the election, which I was really happy about. And like in spite of everything, like her dad is much more of a conservative person than I am, but like very anti-Trump, which thank God. Um, and so she was like making up cheers for Biden and all of this stuff. And I was like, she's like, I want to stay up and find out the election results. It's was like, you can not yourself.
Speaker 2 00:42:31 I said, I'm gonna make you a deal and said, you can, you can sleep in my bed. And when I find out the election results, I'll wake you up and tell you. And so I'm wait. I'm like, keep it. I'm the person who goes to bed at nine. Like I'm keeping myself up until 11 o'clock and then I'm falling asleep for only 90 minutes and waking back up and checking the feed again. And there's nothing. And I just felt like so much guilt in the morning that I wasn't able to tell my daughter who the president was. And then for five days, yeah, for five days, I was going to say that you sleep in your bed all week. Then my God I'd be so tired, but this is great. Like when the, when he invited me to his acceptance speech, my next door neighbors have, uh, an outdoor projector and they projected it onto the side of their house. So we could sit in our yard and like, watch the, yeah. Then I started crying when higher and higher came on when he was like, Howard, I cried like seven times during those speeches.
Speaker 1 00:43:38 No, we have an amazing vice president, a woman.
Speaker 2 00:43:41 Yeah. Color.
Speaker 1 00:43:44 She's amazing. So like, Ugh. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:43:47 Just a minute. I just have a lot of faith that these next two years we're going to see women progress in so many ways, um, beyond just owning our sexuality. Yeah. Because I think that's part of ethical non-monogamy is like owning that part of yourself
Speaker 1 00:44:03 Or right. Like you're in your power. And like, I think that is so important as a woman. And I definitely, um, I, I have a hard time with that in relationships. I'm always like here's the power. No. So like so important to keep our power.
Speaker 2 00:44:22 Yeah. That was another thing too. It was kind of like a little corny. It was kind of like a breakthrough moment when like that two years ago kind of Mark, where
Speaker 0 00:44:32 I was like, I'm going to stop apologizing for being like a strong woman with a voice. I can read your whole team, like hand in hand with like coming out and being like, I'm going to have the relationships that I want. I'm setting my own terms, not living by anybody else's rules anymore. So like, it all came hand in hand for me. It wasn't a very empowering couple of years for sure.
Speaker 1 00:44:55 That's awesome. Well, I'm, uh, I think it's probably time we wrap it up. Um, your key or boys like
Speaker 0 00:45:09 Macaroons, they got into the macaroons. My three-year-olds. I appreciate you
Speaker 1 00:45:17 Ladies so much
Speaker 0 00:45:19 Kara for having us. Of course.
Speaker 1 00:45:23 Thank you for, and like it helps people understand and educate people who don't know about this. And so I am thankful that there's a platform where we can just like put it out there and, and um, you know, hopefully people will watch it and maybe learn something.
Speaker 0 00:45:40 Yeah. Well have a good night. You too. They have a very different night than I originally had planned every day. So I want to go
Speaker 1 00:45:58 Protest. I don't know. We'll see.
Speaker 0 00:46:00 Um, I'm going to go eat some things I've been on, on zoom since about three o'clock or since about, yeah, since about three o'clock. I spoke at a seminar earlier today and then I had a client and then right into this though, my eyeballs need a break.
