Eve Rickert's Blog, page 3

Awkwardness as the Price of Admission to Being Human

Nearly all relationship advice of any sort, for any kind of relationship, can be dismissed with just one sentence: “But that would be awkward!”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard those words. Suffice it to say that if I had a dime for every time, I’d be quite a lot wealthier than I am right now.

“Talk about STI testing before we have sex? But that would be awkward!” “Meet my partner’s other partner? But that would be awkward!” “Talk to my partner about how I’m feeling? But that would...

The polyamorous emotional labour daisy chain

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

Alex is in a relationship with Kris, who’s in a relationship with Kate. Kris is devoted to both Alex and Kate. Alex is considerate of Kris’ feelings, responsive to Kris’ needs, and has worked to build a healthy, reciprocal relationship with Kris. Kate…well, Kate is happy enough to have Kris in her life, so long as Kris is the one to put the effort in. Kate shows up when she feels like it. Kris rarely knows where they stand with Kate.

Alex has spent cou...

Can polyamorous hierarchies be ethical? Part 2: Influence and control

This is part two of a three-part series inspired by the question Can a hierarchy ever be ethical in polyamory? As I said in Part 1, I have come to the conclusion that this is the wrong question to ask. To get to the right questions, we need to drill down deeper. Part 1 talked about how we define hierarchy, and how hierarchies reflect power dynamics within relationships. In this instalment, we’re going to look closer at some of those power dynamics.

Influence and Control

Any healthy relationsh...

Can polyamorous hierarchies be ethical? Part 1: The tower and the village

Awhile back, Tikva Wolf, creator of the excellent webcomic Kimchi Cuddles, posted a query on her Facebook page: Can hierarchical relationships ever be ethical? I’ve been chewing on a response to that question for some time, because the answer is not simple. I mean, we spend probably a solid 50 pages in More Than Two trying to tease apart how to make relationship agreements ethical—and we still don’t really answer that question. I finally realized, that’s because it’s the wrong question. If we...

On the path to a new book

Eve and I are back in the woods again, in the same cabin where we wrote More Than Two, working on a new book.

The new book is not about polyamory. It’s called Love More, Be Awesome, and it’s our take on a kind of user’s guide for being a human being: tips and ideas for being awesome and living a life of compassion and kindness.

Part of the reason More Than Two turned out like it did is this place. It’s incredibly remote; we’re miles from the nearest convenience store and a half-hour drive to...

7 Things Never to Say to a Polyamorous Lesbian

Or: How to make your coed polyamory group welcoming to lesbians.

This is a guest post by Sophia, a friend on mine & Franklin’s who has organized poly groups and events, especially for women and LGBTQ folks, in the Vancouver area.This post arose out of some thoughts she shared with me, which Franklin and I thought would be useful to make available to a wider audienceas weall work to make our communities as inclusive as we can.

I’ve been a lesbian my whole life and a polyamorous lesbian for t...

Some thoughts on finding love

As we bid goodbye to 2015 (and good riddance, too; it was a tumultuous year) and stand at the doorway to 2016, I find myself thinking about what makes good relationships.

Someone recently asked the question, “What is the difference between a person who finds love easily and a person who finds it difficult to make loving connections?”

This is a question I think I can offer some insight on (at least for people who share most of my privileges), because in my own life I have gone from a person w...

Polyamorous holidays: When you’re the secondary

This is a guest post by longtime poly blogger Noël Figart, author of the Polyamorous Misanthrope blog. A friend of mine sent meaquestion last week about surviving the holidays as a polyamorous secondary partner, and Franklin and I chewed on it for awhile before finally throwing in the towel. It sucks (I’ve been through it), and we empathize…but we couldn’t think of any concrete solutions. So we turned to someone else we trusted.I’ve followed Noël’s blog almost since the inception of my own no...

Book tour and another book tour!

My new book The Game Changer: A Memoir of Disruptive Love is about to come out! It officially publishes September 23 (here’s where you can pre-order it). I’m be doing a 10-city book tour on the West Coast of the United States. If you’re along my route, I hope you’ll be able to make it out!

Then, after the book tour for The Game Changer, my partner Eve Rickert and I are going on a second book tour, this time through Europe for More Than Two. Oh, and along the way, we’ll be speaking at some con...

Franklin and…err…some chick.

Last year, my partner Eve and I wrote a book. It’s quite a massive book, weighing in north of 150,000 words. In it you will find our thoughts, ideas and experiences with polyamory–a rather complex subject, as you might imagine. It took an incredible amount of effort to write. I’m very proud of what we created (and if you haven’t checked it out already, I recommend it. But of course, I might be biased.)

We’ve received a lot of feedback about the book. Not just on Amazon, though 80 five-star re...