406 - Open to Poly but Unwilling to Communicate (Listener Q&A w/ Dr. Zhana Vrangalova)
Welcome Dr. Zhana!
Dr. Zhana Vrangalova is a relationship scientist, consultant, and NYU adjunct professor of human sexuality. She’s a world-renowned expert in non-monogamy and the creator of Open Smarter™, an online course that guides couples and individuals to identify and navigate the relationship type best suited for their unique personality and life circumstances.
We welcomed her onto the show to help us answer some questions posed by our Patreon supporters. Some of the questions we tackle today are:
How do you navigate exploring a poly relationship with two people who are “open” to the idea of poly but are uncomfortable with or don’t want to have any of the conversations around needs/wants/boundaries that seem so important to building healthy poly relationships?
How do people communicate what they want without asking in such a way that it feels like permission, which can create a problematic power dynamic.
Have you come out to (friendly) exes from previous monogamous relationships? I would like to come out to an ex, because I think they’d understand/validate in a way my platonic connections couldn’t. But! I don’t want coming out to be a threat to them or their current (probably monogamous) partner. …And I also don’t want to feed any fantasies on my end that they will respond “What!? No way! Us too!” :p
How do you keep your RADAR on track when dealing with topics that bring out fear and trauma in one or more people? We want to talk about these things but need another tool as we had to stop our last RADAR and are struggling to get back to it, even though we want to.
Listen to the full episode to get Dr. Zhana’s insight on these topics, and find her on Instagram and Twitter @drzhana!
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multi-Amory podcast, we are back to answer questions from some of our listeners and we are joined by a very special guest, Dr. Zhana Vrangalova. She is a relationship scientist, consultant, and NYU adjunct professor of human sexuality. She's a world-renowned expert in non-monogamy and creator of Open Smarter, an online course that guides couples and individuals to identify and navigate the relationship type best suited for their unique personality and life circumstances. Together, we're going to be talking a little bit about some research that Dr. Zhana has done as well as answering some listener questions.
As always, when we're talking about listener questions, we need to give the caveat that we only get a little snippet of this. We will do our best to answer the question in a way that's helpful, not only for the question asker but for other people who might be in a similar situation, but of course, we are not directly your therapist and, of course, you have to make the choices that are right for your life and your circumstances because ultimately, you are the one who knows your life better than anybody else.
Dedeker: I want to go back to the beginning. I always love asking people how you got into this work and into this particular niche looking at non-monogamy and non-traditional relationships. What was the journey for you?
Zhana: The journey was a very personal one. I was a very sexual kid for as long as I can remember growing up in a fairly conservative traditional culture in Macedonia, a small country in Southeast Europe. I was not supposed to want any of the things that I wanted, that I was curious about, from casual sex to non-monogamy to kinky sex to non-heterosexual attractions and sex and stuff.
All of these things existed as curiosities in me and I was a wild child. I acted on all of them as much as I could, as well as I could do that in the environment of shame and stigma and judgment and lack of role models and lack of information, and lack of respect for anything from consent to sexual health to all of the things that you might want to pay attention to when you're trying to navigate these higher risk behaviors or higher novelty types of experiences. Since that had been such a big part of my teenage years growing up, I did my BA in psychology and I had done some undergraduate research on sex-related topics.
When time came to pick a PhD topic, and I knew I was going to do a PhD, I always was very curious about science and knowledge and I wanted to create more knowledge and that was a dream that I was going to live in New York, and I was going to have a PhD. When time came to decide, okay, what am I going to focus on within the psychology realm? Can I ask myself this one question of what's the one thing that is going to keep your interest for the rest of your life? Once you do a PhD, you're going to get stuck with that topic. You're going to study that for at least five years, probably more like seven years and you don't want that to go to waste then go do something completely different.
It was almost a no-brainer. Of course, it was going to be sexuality. It's the most fascinating topic that I can think of when it comes to humans, especially because we have such an ambivalent relationship with it. Most of us have a need for it in one way, shape or form for sex, love, and relationships and yet we create so many obstacles to people being able to live their true fulfilled authentic selves love lives, especially in a way that's healthy for themselves and for the people that they engage in, especially if they color outside the lines that society gives us, which tends to be a pretty narrow spectrum of things that we can have.
Given my history and disinterest and how can we do this well, I knew I wanted to study these non-traditional sex and relationship lifestyles and how do the people who have those desires, how do we navigate those relationships in a way that is healthy for ourselves and for other people and maintain physical, mental, emotional and social health and connectedness. That's what guided me to Cornell and studying casual sex, non-monogamy sexual orientation and stayed with that topic ever since.
Dedeker: To rewind a bit, and again, thinking about your personal history, you grew up in this much more conservative culture, and then you move to the US and found that we're just so positive and just so great and communicative and knowledgeable and embrace our sexuality.
Zhana: Oh, yes. That's exactly what I experienced. Luckily, in New York, that is somewhat true or it's certainly more true of New York somewhat than in many other parts of the US. Luckily, I had spent a summer in Tampa, Florida when I was 14. I realized that everywhere else in America is not New York. That New York is special and different. That was not a shock. The 14-year-old Zhana was very shocked when she realized that Tampa was not New York. We all have to learn. The secret has to come out at some point. Yes, it was to some extent a culture shock or getting to know a different culture that had different norms and rules around sexuality that in many ways were similar.
A lot of the shame and the stigma that I was seeing and experiencing in Macedonia was certainly present at Cornell amongst the undergrad and grad students and yet other things were different. There was so much more binge drinking, for example, in the US that I'd never really experienced in Macedonia, and that, especially when you talk about casual sex, that adds a whole nother layer of risk and complexity and why are we doing this? What is this doing to the healthy and ethical way of actually engaging in this practice? Yes, it's been fascinating learning how this is playing out in this country.
Dedeker: I guess that makes sense that I do think, not that this is unique to the States but yes, I do think it's like casual sex and like hookup culture, to a certain extent, goes hand in hand with the drinking culture as well, which makes it complicated.
Emily: Can you talk to us also about your course, Open Smarter, and how you created that? What went into that and a little bit about the course itself as well?
Zhana: Sure. I have this online course that people can take on their own time called Open Smarter that helps people figure out what kind of relationship type they want to be in. Of all of the different options that we now have. Finally, we have options, more than just monogamy or celibacy or you have to stay single for the rest of your life. Now we have options. Those are some of the options but there are more and yet these days, there's a lot of confusion. I feel like there are a lot of different terms being thrown around of the different types of relationships that you can have. A lot of these options are not necessarily clear as to what it is and what would be the right one for me.
I wanted to use, especially not in any systematic way. I see a lot of people in my audience, with my clients, my consulting clients, I see a lot of people shooting in the dark, going blind through all of the different options without really thinking it through and without really using any kind of compass to help them orient themselves on this map, which is already very complicated.
The idea behind the Open Smarter course was to some extent simplify and condense the map into a somewhat more manageable landscape and map and then provide compass for people to figure out what is more likely to lead to a successful and fulfilling relationship for them and then how to actually do it well once they are in whatever relationship they're in. After doing a lot of research on the different relationship types in non-monogamy, a lot of consulting, a lot of speaking in writing, that was an obvious next step to give people this more practical applied tool for them.
Dedeker: Yes, because you mentioned clients and this is a trend that I've seen with my own clients and I'm wondering if you've seen the same, and again, this is all anecdotal. I haven't done any of my own empirical research on this. It's purely from my own sample side of my own client base, but where it feels like people who are already partnered and exploring different types of relationships, while that in itself presents its own challenges, I feel like there's a certain amount where it's easier where you have this other person to bounce ideas off of and to like, let's experiment with, let's try swinging or let's try these different versions of group sex or let's try dating separately or whatever.
Then when I work with people who are "single", let's say unpartnered, I feel like those are the people that sometimes feel the most adrift at sea, at least that's the way people have described it. I know that I don't want to go down the traditional track of monogamy, but I'm just in the sea of trying to find partnership. I know it's not going to be monogamy but how do I then tailor what I want? How do I communicate to people if I'm wishy-washy, how do I find the right person? I'm assuming that's something you've also run up against with working with people.
Zhana: Yes, absolutely. When do you have these conversations? Am I going to scare away people too soon before we've had a chance to connect? When do you start if we are going to have some an open arrangement, when does that start? Does it start right away? There are a lot of those questions and I think a lot of the single folks struggle with figuring out what is possible given what their date pool and options are and then how to navigate that.
Even with a couple, there are different ways that you can go through this set of experiences, these different types. A polyamorous relationship is very different from something like swinging or playing separately where there are no feelings involved or what we're trying actively to prevent feelings from happening. That changes the nature of the relationship and the dynamic quite a bit and the work that needs to go into it changes it quite a bit, but people don't know that and they often just blindly go into it, I don't know, we're doing poly or we're doing this, whatever, without really thinking through, does that make sense? Is that what we want to be doing? What does that mean long term?
If we do catch feelings with this person or that be like, how is that going to happen person? There's just so many things that people have to at least be aware that they're going to potentially have to deal with and answer down the line if they go down a particular track.
Jase: Something else I wanted to talk about briefly before we go on to answering listener questions is the fact that so many more people now seem to be expressing an interest in some non-monogamy whether they're already partnered or not. You recently were involved in a nationally representative survey called Unbound Love. It was about sexual desires and fantasies and things like that. Could you tell us a little bit about that and maybe a few of the interesting findings?
Zhana: Sure. I partnered recently with Ashley Madison, the largest married dating site in the world to create a survey, a set of questions that we can ask of their Ashley Madison members, as well as through partnership with YouGov, which is an independent serving, company that, surveyed nationally representative samples to ask people about their sexual fantasies, about the quality of their sex life and also their interest in non-monogamy.
This was all amongst partnered participants, people who are currently in at least one relationship. We found some really sad and alarming numbers on one hand, like that almost 45% of Americans and 65% of Madison users but almost 45% of Americans that of those Americans in long-term partnerships were not very satisfied with the sexual aspect of their relationship.
The sex was not . It's almost half of the people who are currently in a relationship are not having great sex. They weren't necessarily miserable with the sexual aspect, but there's a lot of room for improvement. A lot of that was due to lack of communication. Almost the exact same percentage, 45% were saying that they didn't really feel very comfortable sharing their sexual fantasies with their primary partner.
Jase: That level of shame and fear that comes up with wanting to honestly express what you want. We talk about that anecdotally on the show, and that is validating and also depressing to hear that confirmed by the results from this study.
Zhana: Yes. It's really sad. Of course's not surprising when you look at those who are communicating or who feel comfortable sharing fantasies versus those who don't. Those who feel comfortable sharing have, are much more likely to be satisfied with the sexual aspects of their relationships. Go figure. The people who are satisfied with the sex in their relationships are much more likely to be satisfied with their relationships overall, which increases relationship longevity and decreases risk of conflict and breakup. That's generally a good thing if it's a good relationship.
Jase: Yes.
Zhana: Right. Some of the fantasies that people are having, people are having a lot of fantasies and we found that about 60% of Americans fantasize at least sometimes about sex with multiple people in some way, shape or form. Whether that was some specific non-monogamy fantasies, like having an open relationship or including or threesomes or group play or they just wanted multiple partners and that type of multiple partner interests. 60%, it's not an uncommon thing.
Jase: Yes. That's huge.
Zhana: Weird. It's not a fringe desire. It may still be an uncommon practice for a lot of people, especially doing it in the negotiated way but as a desire, as a fantasy, it's pretty present.
Jase: Yes, absolutely. There was a study just in the last couple years by the Kinsey Institute also validating that more and more people are interested in polyamory specifically as well compared to what a lot of people would have estimated before. Before we started recording today, you also mentioned some statistics about what types of non-monogamous sexual fantasies people had that this study looked at. Do I have that right?
Zhana: Specifically, if you can be assured that having sex with people outside of your primary relationship wouldn't harm your relationship, what would be your ideal scenario? 30% which is now pretty consistent across a number of different of YouGov surveys that have been asked in a slightly different way. Again, we found that 30% said that their ideal scenario would be some form of non-monogamy. 64% were 64.6% prefer not to say 64, would not want to have sex with anyone else and they wouldn't want their partner to have sex with anyone else.
Of course, there is a gender difference with men being more likely to say that they would want to have sex with someone else and they would be fine with their partner occasionally having sex with someone else. What I found really interesting was that one gender stereotype that I hear a lot from my audience about there's a belief, I think that, men are more hypocritical in this regard then women are, that if you give them the option that only they would get to have sex with someone else but they wouldn't want their partners to do it.
There would be many more men saying that that's their preferred option than their women. We did not actually find that it was very similar.
11% and 8% of the population said, I want to have sex with others myself, but I don't want my partner doing it. About 4% of both genders said the opposite, that I don't want to have sex with anyone else, but I'd be okay if my partner did.
Emily: Fascinating.
Dedeker: Oh, wow. It was about the same along ?
Zhana: The only gender difference was in the both. 23% of men and 8% of women that was a significant difference.
Jase: That's significant difference. Wow. Would be okay with having sex with other people and also their partner having sex with other people.
Zhana: Exactly. Yes. This is, as I said, fairly consistent both in terms of the general percentage that are curious or interested in or would be open to some form of non-monogamy and it's consistent the gender differences, especially among heterosexual folks, we see a pretty significant gender difference with men always being more interested than women. We can discuss why and where that comes from, the biology and the socialization that go with it. I'm curious to see if that gaps keeps closing over time.
Dedeker: I think it will because I do feel like I've seen some other studies where the results have been a little bit flipped. Of course, none of this means that it's like set in stone or is the final word on things. I do think that there's more and more evidence to suggest. The opposite of, I think what often our assumptions of women are is that women are the ones who want monogamy and men are the ones who want to play around. I do think that we're seeing that start to change and I am willing to bet that probably things like social stigma and socialization probably get in the way of that as well. As that continues to change, I'm sure that gap is going to continue to close.
Zhana: I've never seen flipped results. In no study has there been more interest shown by women compared to men in either non-monogamy or casual sex. These are actually one of the largest gender differences that exist in human sexuality, which is why many myself included, believe that the stigma and the differential treatment of men and women who are highly sexual plays a huge role. That's not the only reason that there are possibly some biological differences there as well or factors. It's impossible to know how much of each because we don't have an equal society anywhere to see whether that gender difference would completely disappear if we treated men-women the same.
Emily: Well, we also have definitely seen men who might say or believe initially, "Oh yes, I'm going to be totally fine with this." Then when a woman starts having sex with someone else, then they get really defensive and wants their partner to only have sex with them again. Whereas sometimes when it actually happens, the woman flips and decides, "Hey, actually this is great. I really am enjoying this." I am curious also with all of the stuff that you talked about. Those numbers all seem very high.
I do wonder if the prevalence of non-monogamy just being in media and so many people out there talking about it now, having podcasts on it now. When we started this podcast, it was like us and one other person who even was speaking about non-monogamy in this way. I do wonder if those numbers will just continue to grow simply because of the prevalence and people are more interested in it. It's more in our lives now and it's okay or it feels more like, "Hey, this isn't such a fringe idea to be non-monogamous." I don't know what all three of you think.
Zhana: Clearly it is. This is more in the media and it's no longer a fringe option, at least as a possibility in people's mind. If you have 30% of the population saying at least I'm curious or interested in that's not fringe. Now, that's a great point. Are all of these would they actually engage in non-monogamy if given the opportunity? We don't know. There's a difference between interest and actual behavior. How many of them will try but then realize, "Oh, this is not for me. This is way too hard or whatever."
That's another question. I'm actually curious specifically this gender difference that I mentioned or lack of gender difference, I wonder how many of those men who said, "I want to have sex with other people, and I'm okay with my partner doing it as well." How many of them are thinking if it was other women but not other men?
Emily: 100%.
Jase: That's good question.
Dedeker: That's a common one. It's a real common one.
Zhana: Throw it out there.
Jase: Let's get into some listener questions, shall we?
Dedeker: Yes. Let's do it.
Emily: All right. The first one is, how do you navigate exploring a poly relationship with two people who are "open" to the idea of poly, but are uncomfortable with or don't want to have any of the conversations around needs/wants/boundaries that seem so important to building healthy poly relationships?
Dedeker: I feel like this literally ties to what you mentioned earlier Dr. Zhana, about the same thing like, "When do I have this conversation? Is this going to scare them off?" What are your thoughts?
Zhana: You can't have a poly relationship without discussing needs, wants and boundaries unless you want a disaster. That's what I would say. Either if you're curious and open about it okay then, whenever you're ready, let's talk about it and then create whatever it is that we want to. I don't know how you create a poly relationship without discussing and that being a huge risk for a lot of stuff going wrong.
Jase: For me, it makes me want to ask the question of when you say they're uncomfortable with or don't want to have any of the conversations around that, I would want to ask some more specifics there of what is it that they're uncomfortable with? Is it that they don't want to just talk for like a year before doing it? In which case I'm like, "Yes, okay, sure." Some people think you have to do that and you don't. Sometimes it's like, "I need to experience it a little to even know what I care about and what matters to me."
If it's this like I can't even get myself to talk about my concerns or my feelings about this at all, that to me is a sign of some bigger problems, problems is maybe harsh to say, but some bigger things that they would need to get past and work on first before they could even hope to have healthy conversations and healthy polyamorous relationships or honestly, monogamous relationships for that matter.
Emily: The red flag per se that I saw initially with this is the way in which it was talked about two people being open to polyamorous relationships. To me, that almost sounds as though they'd be curious about it or they maybe could try it for a little bit or go along with it, but not necessarily want to do the internal work involved and the restructuring of what relationships are and can be, all of that that goes into having a non-monogamous relationship. I don't know.
I would really want to have a longer conversation with these people about it because at this point it seems like it's a little wishy-washy. Especially if somebody isn't interested in doing the work on needs and boundaries and wants. Why would you even want to get into a polyamorous relationship? Is it just simply because you want to stay in some sort of relationship with this person and that's the only way in which to do it? I think there has to be more of an anchor as Lola Phoenix put it on one of our previous episodes, an anchor for why you want to be non-monogamous in the first place. It can't be, "Oh, I just want to do it because I want to stay in a relationship with this other person."
Dedeker: The flavor that I want to rope in is I want to think about and talk about what makes people uncomfortable talking about these things because I don't think it's purely just pointing the finger off, oh, this person is lazy, or, oh, this person is emotionally stunted or not evolved enough or anything like that. I think there's a lot of cultural forces that discourage feeling comfortable with talking about these things. It reminds me of a story of a friend of mine recently who struck up a flirtation with somebody new. This friend happens to be non-monogamous, struck up a flirtation with somebody new that he just met. This was an extended flirtation.
It was starting to head towards sex or a hookup or whatever. He had a talk with her about like, "Hey, just so you know I'm not interested in monogamy. These are my relationship preferences. This is how I go about my life but if you're cool with that, like great, let's move forward." That the conversation was upsetting for this other person. It turned into a little bit of a falling out. He shared with me that all of his non-monogamous friends were like, "Yes, you did the right thing. You expressed ahead of time and tried to set some expectations and some boundaries and to be clear."
All of his traditional monogamous friends were like, "Why would you bring up that conversation then? That's way too soon. Why do you talk about these things?" I do think that that's a piece here, right? Even with people who maybe say, "Oh yes, I'm open to exploring polyamory." I think there is still a lot of social conditioning around, whoa, whoa, whoa. If you're talking about that kind of stuff, that's like saying right out the gate, "I want to marry you and have your babies." That is going to scare people away. I guess I'm wondering when we think about the cultural level of this. How do you swim in those waters?
Zhana: I don't know that there is one right way to do that. When do you say, when is the right time? Half the people think, or some people think, "Well, you said something too soon." Other people think, "Yes, no, you did the right thing." People are often in the beginning not ready to talk about this or the way they're going to receive it at the beginning of potential relationship is different than after a little bit. I think often people, when the non-monogamy topic is brought up early on, they immediately think, "Well, that means you don't want to commit." Right? If you come from the monogamous world, someone telling you I want an open relationship, or I want to poly relationship if we're going to have relationship says
Emily: You're just dating around. Yes.
Zhana: Yes.
Jase: Right.
Zhana: They don't potentially want that, so we're not even going to go there. If they had a chance to meet this person a little bit, if they had a chance to have a couple of dates, have a couple of sex sessions and the sex was really good and the connection and intimacy were good those first couple of times then you bring up the topic of, "Okay, if we were going to have a relationship, what type of relationship would you be up for?" That might be different.
Jase: That's interesting because I feel like I also want to bring up something I've experienced myself and I've also seen with other people, which is sometimes in having that conversation about non-monogamy, if you are more of a polyamorous type person where it's, oh I've got multiple romantic relationships that sometimes it can actually end up in this thing of I want to explain to you what this is and this is what I do and sets up an expectation that I want to have this very serious emotional relationship with you when maybe that's not even what they wanted.
Maybe they did want something a little more casual and maybe you would have liked that too. It's in trying to not be like, oh, but it's not that sometimes you can then over-commit into implying it's going to be something that neither of you necessarily knows what it's going to be. That's the catch-22 there, right? On the one hand--
Zhana: Jumping to shark.
Jase: Right. To not bring it up is shitty because they would understandably have an expectation that, oh, we're flirting. We're starting to date. That's leading toward monogamy because that's culturally what the narrative is. On the other hand, by bringing this up, maybe they were actually cool with something more casual and you've now made it more serious than it needed to be and screwed it up. I've done that many times, so--
Emily: That's why I bring it up.
Zhana: It's complicated.
Emily: This next question actually has some elements that feel a little similar to the previous one. I'll just say what it is. Let's say, how do people communicate what they want without asking in such a way that it feels like permission, which can create a problematic power dynamic?
Dedeker: Yes. This one, this question did not come with a ton of backstory, we're going to be guessing a little bit. My assumption here is because I think this is a similar question that I seek it asked in our communities a lot, is this idea behind, well for example, I don't know, I'm going to make plans to go on a first date this weekend.
I'm going to communicate that to my live-in partner because they're my live-in partner and so they need to know, oh, I'm not going to be around to feed the cats tonight or whatever. How do I navigate that in such a way where I'm still my own person with the agency but I'm also being considerate to this other person? When does it start to get into this feels like I'm asking permission for my live-in partner to go do something fun. I'm assuming that that's where this is landing. I don't know if you all have seen these situations crop up before if you would agree with that read.
Jase: Definitely. I've also found this to come up where sometimes it's not even just, I've made plans and so I'm telling my existing partner about it so they can plan around it. Sometimes it's this thing of I want to do something with this other partner, we haven't made any concrete plans yet. I haven't even offered dates yet, I'm just thinking about what might be good timing. I'm going to come to my other partner and to float that idea of what might be good is something better or worse for your schedule because I want to collaborate.
Absolutely, I've had that come up where then it does maybe feel like you're asking permission or maybe to that secondary partner, or I don't even want to say secondary, but to that other partner, if they know that's the conversation you had, it might feel like, "Oh, so you're going on a date with me when it's convenient for your other partner and not when you want to with me?" That it can get a little bit tricky in that dynamic. At least that's been my experience from years ago.
Zhana: Well, should understand that we have to navigate multiple schedules and if we have prior arrangements or there are existing dynamics that we need to make sure are not being neglected or forgotten, then I don't know. Then it feels like if you communicate that you want to do something or you've been thinking about doing something and you ask your partner how does that feel? Does that feel good? Does that work for you? When is it work for us? I don't know. I think there's a way to do that.
Jase: I think it's such a great point you made just then about people need to be understanding of that and I think that is something that when people focus a lot on non-hierarchical polyamory, they can almost get into this trap of thinking that that means there's these hard lines about who you can and can't talk to about what or like agency gets confused with total lack of check-in and I will just tell you what I'm doing and not communicate and that there's actually this happier middle ground.
I do think that people can get really attached to that idea of, oh, well you talked to this person about our plans that equals some hierarchy, therefore it's bad, right? That it's like we can get into almost rules lawyering rather than actually looking at what makes sense.
Emily: This makes me think a little bit about the telling my partner that I was going to come and see the two of you in Japan where I am currently, where the three of us are currently after my contract at Hong Kong, Disneyland. The three of us had talked about this. We were pretty much saying, yes, it's going to happen. I'm going to come here for a week and a half. I hadn't talked to my partner about it yet.
When that did come up it was more a conversation of I'm planning to do this. How do you feel about that? To me there's a slight distinction there in that I wasn't particularly asking for permission. It was saying, these are my plans now what feelings do does that instill in you? Is that something that we need to worry about? Is it something that it will delay me coming home a little bit longer, for instance, is that an issue? Are there things that we can do to help you with that?
It didn't end up being an issue at all, but I think that that's a nice compromise that it's not me asking permission of him, it's saying I'm still an autonomous person who's going to do this thing, but I care about your feelings and I want to be able to acknowledge that and work through it with you if need be.
Zhana: Exactly. That you're showing consideration for how they might feel. That's why I said the first question is how do you feel? Yes. How do you feel about this?
Emily: Exactly.
Zhana: I'm either planning on doing or have done well have done is already past permission stage. It's a nice thing to do when you have a partner that is in your life on a regular basis to make sure that what you are doing with the other partners is not going past what they can handle without you providing some additional reassurance or some accommodations of some sort that need that they really need because we can't know that.
Dedeker: I think also there's a step beyond where we're looking more at the ecosystem of the relationship because even to take Emily's example is we still have to look at what happens after you asked that question, right? Let's say that your partner maybe had some difficult feelings that came up maybe it was like, "Oh, I thought you're going to be back earlier. Oh, I'm going to miss you. Oh, what I had these plans."
You know that there's a difference between does your partner express that and then is very clear of, "No, you cannot do this. I'm revoking permission and so you better come back home." Or is it, "Oh gosh, actually I'm having some really difficult feelings about this coming up and also I can understand you wanting to do this fun thing. Can we sit and have a conversation about how we try to get both of those things met?
It also goes into the broader ecosystem of the relationship because yes, you can I think pose a question like that of, hey, I want to do this thing, just wanted to run it by you or check in with you or collaborate with you and someone can still be very controlling and treat it like it's a permission granted or not granted situation.
Zhana: Then that's a problem with that person crossing a boundary in a way or crossing an agreement. Where did I need to ask permission for this? Why are you making me feel like I'm asking permission or why are you going back on what we had agreed that there is no veto powers here and that I can make these autonomous decisions that we can work together and we can work on mitigating some of the negative feelings that come up? You can't say no.
Jase: Yes. We have a couple more questions from listeners that we want to get to today, but first we're going to take a quick break to talk about some ways you can support this show if this is content that you enjoy and you appreciate the fact that we're able to put this out there into the world for everyone for free. The way that we do that is with our sponsors. If you can take a moment to listen to these and if anything seems interesting to you, go check it out. That does directly help support our show.
Dedeker: We are back. We're going to jump into our next listener question. This one has a little bit of backstory. Here it goes. Have you come out to friendly exes from previous monogamous relationships? Here's the explanation. I would like to come out to an ex, and in this context, I'm assuming this person means come out a non-monogamous. I would like to come out to an ex because I think they'd understand or validate in a way that my platonic connections couldn't, but! I don't want coming out to be a threat to them or to their current monogamous partner... Also, I don't want to feed any fantasies on my end that they'll respond, "What? No way us too."
Jase: Adds an extra little layer at the end.
Dedeker: I love this question. Yes, I love all the layers in this question. Who wants to dive into that one first?
Zhana: I think if you feel like that's someone that wouldn't freak out or judge or have a negative reaction to, I totally understand the desire to do that. They could provide a different perspective because they know you sexually, they know you relationally, they know you when there were certain needs that were not being met probably in the monogamous relationship that you had or how have things changed. You can have a very different conversation with an ex about that than you can with a ton of friends.
I think there's a way to make sure or communicate clearly that you are not a threat. That just because you're coming out, you're not offering a threesome, you're not offering a poly scenario or interested in that at all. That you just want to have a lunch date where you discuss this because of the insight-type information that you're going to get. Chances are low that they'll say, "What? No way", but sometimes it does happen. I was just interviewing someone for the book that I'm working on who was in a poly arrangement early in life when they were in their 20s with someone who then when she got married they became monogamous for fast forward 20 years later she's also poly. There you go.
Emily: It comes in waves.
Zhana: My ex-girlfriend, same thing. I had to leave my ex-girlfriend because she was not down with non-monogamy at the time, and I realized I just can't do monogamy anymore. This is so not me. That was in many ways the love of my life. I also knew that incompatibility was too great for us to be happy in that relationship. Fast forward 10, 12 years later, she's now non-monogamous with someone else.
Emily: Interesting.
Jase: Yes. I think something that I could toss out there for specifically the part of the question about not wanting to feel threatening to their current relationship is that something that can help with that is evaluating the situation where you're doing it. At least this has been true for me, I'm curious to hear from the three of you if you think this makes sense, but having that conversation in a scenario where somewhat shortly after that you are going to leave the conversation. It's not like, Hey, I'm having this conversation when we've planned to spend the next four hours together.
It almost sets up this weird expectation of like why did you tell me this now? What are you thinking? What are you planning versus that, oh, I brought it up in this more casual way toward the end of dinner we could chat about it a little bit and then, okay, bye, see you later. To make it clear like I'm not here being like "And what do you think about that?"
Zhana: I would say it depends on how much of a conversation you want to have about it. Do you want to have a 15-minute conversation? Do you want to have a two-hour conversation? How deeply do you and your ex discuss things of this nature and how much insight can they give you in 15 versus two hours? That's a good scenario for many cases I think.
Dedeker: Yes. Maybe that could be appropriate. Again, it depends on how you feel the connection is with the ex but also depending on that I'm usually a big fan of just like, why not just be honest about the things that you're hoping for and also what you don't want? It's clear that this person just expressed. I think you'd understand me or like I really would want to be able to talk to these things to you just literally in a way that I can't talk to anybody else about. I think you can be honest about that. It seems like that's the reason why you want to come out in the first place. It's okay to just put that on the table.
I also think it's okay to, again, if you feel like this would be received, okay, to be honest about like and I'm not doing this with any weird agenda and I'm not trying to make things weird and I also really want to support the happiness of you and your current partner. I think it's okay to just be upfront about this is what I want and this is what I don't want and here's what I have to say.
Emily: I will say for the three of us and potentially this is also a thing that happens to you, Dr. Zhana, that when word gets out that you run a polyamorous podcast or that you've written books on these things or whatever, people will come to you or they will already know that you have been involved in this in some way and be interested in--
Dedeker: They will volunteer the information.
Emily: Exactly and ask a bunch of questions and all of those things. I think even if you are not on a podcast for the last million years about this, it still may get out there, especially if they are on your social media or you have pictures of you with multiple partners, things like that. Although not everybody has that luxury clearly and some people are not out publicly. Maybe that's not going to be the case with everyone.
I think because it is so prevalent now maybe somebody's mind may not initially go to, oh, so you're telling me this because you secretly want to have an affair with me or something again. It can just be a conversation and like, wow, what is that? That's really interesting and fascinating. I've never thought that you would be interested in that but now you are. Yes, I love what you said, Dedeker, about just to be honest and upfront and it doesn't need to be weird. It can just be chill. I don't know.
Zhana: I completely agree. Except that people do react in ways that make it weird.
Dedeker: People can make it weird.
Zhana: Even if the ex isn't if the ex then tells the monogamous partner about conversation, they might be like, "Okay, no more hanging out with them that the last lunch you ever had with them."
Jase: Yes. That is a tricky one. Then also depends on the relationship you have with your ex and what they're like because it's also possible that their partner goes, "Oh my gosh, they're a threat. You can't see them" and they say, "No, actually, you need to chill. I'm going to hang out with them anyway." Maybe evaluate what kind of person your ex is as well because maybe that's a concern or not based on their personality in addition to their partners.
Zhana: Yes. How is the ex going to respond to that veto attempted veto
Emily: Yes, 100%. Should we move on to another question?
Jase: Yes.
Emily: How do you keep your radar on track when dealing with topics that bring out fear and trauma in one or more people? We want to talk about these things that need another tool as we had to stop our last radar and are struggling to get back into it even though we want to. Again, this is discussing our relationship tool which is a relationship check-in method called radar. I believe 147 is our big deep dive into our big deep dive episode into radar if you want to check that out. It sounds like this person is having challenging issues with radar bringing out some trauma for them or their partner.
Dedeker: We could probably extrapolate this to any doesn't have to be specific to a radar, any kind of relationship talk or topic that may come up. Although the first thing I will say is this person clarifies that we do want to. I'm like well that's good. That's something. It wasn't like, oh that went so horribly wrong. Let's never talk about this again. Let's pretend that never happened and then just bury our heads in the sand about it. That's something to feel positive about that you're united and still at least wanting to be able to get back to this.
Zhana: Yes, it sounds like at least one possible avenue is some therapy if there's trauma and fear and it's difficult to talk with each other. Maybe there's some individual or couples or troubles whatever the situation is therapy that needs to happen or some mediated types of conversations about the check-ins to find out what's going on.
Jase: Without knowing any of the context around it it is a little bit hard but they mention here, "bring out fear and trauma in one or more people". It sounds like this may be a number of different topics, maybe there's a few different things that different people involved have stronger reactions to the point where we can't keep having this conversation. It's maybe a little bit about, I think Dr. Zhana you said makes a ton of sense of if it's something that a person reacts to so strongly right away that they can't even talk about it, it's like yes. Absolutely that's something that you don't want to try to force that person to talk about it but they should be proactive in trying to find some help with that.
I know that can be easier said than done depending on finances and availability of therapists or counselors or coaches who are understanding of the type of relationship you're trying to have again depending what's going on. If there's any way to definitely recommend going that direction. That's really important if it's to that degree.
What I'm wondering about though is for us to discuss today, what about those situations where let's say this isn't like a capital T trauma, but this is more of maybe what they mean is this is related to something really explosive that happened in our relationship in the past like some infidelity or some breach of trust or something. It's like we know we want to talk about this and get this resolved but it's still so upsetting to talk about. How do we move past from there or how do we even get to be able to talk about it?
Dedeker: Yes I would solely agree that I do think probably the best option if it's accessible to you is getting some kind of help, some kind of professional help. Someone who can hold the space for both of you or one of you at a time to able to hopefully work through this in a safe and a filling way maybe get some tools for being able to communicate through it.
I think second to that then I start to think about can we play around with our approach to this topic or the shape that this conversation takes to make it a little bit easier on our nervous systems. This I think is where people can get creative and again if the two of you are united and like, "Okay, we want to find a way of this to go, how to have this conversation."
That's already your best highlight here but that can be things like, "Can we just and talk about this for 10 minutes" even have literally a plan for when the 10 minutes is up, we're going to go do other things that calm us down or we're going to switch activities just to see what that's like. I call this building the nest which I think is great for our radar which is like can we literally put ourselves in a situation that's just good for our nervous systems comfortable on the coach, warm, comfortable, covered in stuffed animals?
Literally, it can even be silly but sometimes that can be the thing that you need to help. Even playing around with things like format. Would it be better if we both sat down and wrote an email to each other and had, instead of a real-time conversation, I can sit in my room by myself and really take my time choosing my words. If emotion comes up I can take a pause and sit through that and comfort myself and then go back to it.
My partner could have time to really read through everything that I'm saying and understand it and digest it and then respond to it. I think that playing around, even of the approach if we're still in the same house but we're just in separate rooms emailing each other back and forth can still help. If it really starts to fall apart we can be still be here to talk in real-time or comfort each other.
Sometimes I know that we're so bombarded with all these messages about, "Don't text through a fight," or things like that. Yes, I would agree and also if something is like so activating sometimes having a little bit about obstacles that helps make it a little bit less stimulating and forces you to slow down a little bit I think can be helpful. That's our mind goes to it if you're not able to jump into a space for somebody to help you out right away.
Zhana: I think those letters are great as a way to slow down and reduce some of the emotionality and really be able to pick your words well because oftentimes, some of these fights or communication conflicts happen because people in the moment are not exactly expressing themselves precisely and it's triggering something for no reason. When you sit down and write, you're going think several times before you actually send that or write that letter. You're going to have to be more careful about using your words.
Emily: When radar or something really challenging for me in the past is when multiple topics get compounded and it becomes this big bubble of challenging emotion or really hard feelings and when it's not just one but multiple that occur over a period of time. I think what Dedeker said about taking it slow or doing 10 minutes a day or whatever on maybe one topic, do that over a prolonged period of time, I thing that's important and maybe eases, like softens the blow of it all being potentially at one time.
There are pros and cons to that and I think we developed radar to be like a big container in which we can speak about multiple things so that we don't necessarily have to take as much time over the rest of the month or whatever to continue talking about stuff. That's really challenging when we can do it in a safe space at one predetermined period of time. That might not be the best thing for people. It might be better for them to do it once a week or once a day even until it becomes a little bit easier to speak about. Just tailor it to what your specific relationship needs not just the way in which we presented it in an episode or something along those lines.
Dedeker: Don't listen to us.
Emily: Talking about challenging things is going to be difficult and do it in the manner that's best suited to you and your partners.
Jase: I think that's a great note to end that one on, Emily. Don't listen to us, no, just kidding.
Emily: I don't believe that's what I said but cool.
Jase: Yes, customize and do what's right for you.
Zhana: Then do listen to us.
Jase: Do listen to us.
Zhana: Listen to some experts because this stuff is hard. No, seriously, this stuff is hard. This is treacherous territory, very few role models it's so easy to make mistakes. Please listen to someone if you're going to try to do this and if anyone in your life tries to do this, send them this podcast, give them the books that they need to read, give the Open Smarter course, whatever tools people need to guide them through this because it's playing with fire. It is playing with fire, it's high risk on multiple levels and that doesn't mean we can't play with fire, we just need to have the right tools to know how to do it safely.
Jase: Yes, be a fire dancer.
Emily: Cool, I love that. That's what I was saying.
Dedeker: Like an artisan fireworks creator, that's like
Jase: That's good too.
Dedeker: Love that.
Jase: A lot of good metaphors coming out here. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Zhana, for joining us today and answering some listener questions, and talking about the cool research that you've been doing.
Zhana: Thanks for having me. This is awesome.
Jase: Before you go, can you let our listeners know a little bit about where they can find more of you and can keep up to date on all of the studies and the things that you have going on?
Zhana: Sure, easy to find as long as you can spell my name correctly. It's Dr. Zhana, D-R Z-H-A-N-A is my Instagram, my Twitter, and my website, that's drzhana.com and there people can find links to the Open Smarter course as well as the free Open Smarter training that will give people an idea of what they'll find in the course. That is also super-super helpful in and of itself. I highly recommend everyone even those who have no interest in buying anything to go and take the Open Smarter training. That's how they'll learn what's going on in my world.
Dedeker: The question that we're going to throw up on our Instagram stories this week, we want to hear from you. Have you been able to share your sexual fantasies with a partner and why or why not? What made that possible for you to do or what made it impossible for you to do? Again, that's going to be on our Instagram stories this week. The best place for you to share your thoughts although they are listeners on this episode in the episode discussion channel on our Discord server. You can only post about it in our private Facebook group.