Eve Rickert's Blog, page 5

Back in the cabin again!

I’m typing this blog post in front of a huge picture window overlooking a temperate rainforest in rural Washington state, which means I’m back at the cabin where Eve Rickert and I wrote our polyamory book More Than Two. The cabin kitty, Whiskers, has been happy to see us, and has scarcely stopped begging for treats since we got here.

This time, I’m here to write my memoir, The Game Changer, about my relationship with my partner Shelly and the many and varied ways it changed my life. Poly folks...

Evolution of the More Than Two book cover

Like most of the rest of the book, creating the cover for More Than Two was something of an adventure. We’re quite pleased with it, and so are most of our readers—the response to it has been overwhelmingly good. We thought you might enjoy knowing a bit more about the process that took us to the final cover, as it says a lot about the evolution of our own thinking about polyamory and the book itself.

About a year and a half ago, in one of the first posts published on this blog, Franklin wrote a...

#WLAMF no. 35: Staying connected in long-distance relationships

It surprises many people to learn that Franklin and I have a long-distance relationship. Many people who haven’t yet read the bookMore Than Twoactually seem to assume we live together, but we each actually live with other partners. We’ve managed to spend a lot more time together over the past year than we did in our first year, but we still spend huge stretches apart—and it’s hard.

Long-distance relationships seem to often come with the territory in polyamory, for a number of reasons. We may h...

#WLAMF no. 33: Black belt mistakes

Some time ago, I wrote about dating black belts. I prefer to date people who have already demonstrated the skills required to treat others well in a relationship–that is, people who are black belts at relationships.

It’s a common misconception among folks who’ve never done any martial arts that a person with a black belt has mastered the techniques of his discipline. That’s not true; in fact, a black belt merely shows you’ve got a handle on the basics, and are now ready to start learning the m...

#WLAMF no. 32: Relationship negativity

There is a concept in sex-positive circles of “sex negativity.” Sex negativity is the notion that sex is intrinsically bad, dangerous, dirty, or wrong, unless it occurs within certain tightly prescribed conditions (for example, in marriage for procreation).

Sex positivity, by way of comparison, isn’t the idea that sex is always good, but rather the notion that it’s not intrinsically bad–there are many ‘right’ ways to have sex, and sex doesn’t need to be fenced in or constrained in order to be...

#WLAMF no. 32: Relationship Negativity

There is a concept in sex-positive circles of “sex negativity.” Sex negativity is the notion that sex is intrinsically bad, dangerous, dirty, or wrong, unless it occurs within certain tightly prescribed conditions (for example, in marriage for procreation).

Sex positivity, by way of comparison, isn’t the idea that sex is always good, but rather the notion that it’s not intrinsically bad–there are many ‘right’ ways to have sex, and sex doesn’t need to be fenced in or constrained in order to be...

#WLAMF no. 31: There is always missing information

“Did you feed the cat?”

It’s a simple question, right? My husband and I both feed the cat, though to be honest, usually these days it’s him.

So why is it that I feel guilty and defensive when I hear it? (Oh no, was I supposed to feed the cat? She wasn’t acting hungry,I thought he fed her already!)

“Did you scoop the cat box?”

Well, actually, usually my husbanddoes that to. But when I get a text message from him, “Did you scoop the cat box?” I immediately feel defensive. Instead of a simple “No, d...

#WLAMF no. 30: Building up, not tearing down

There’s a common theme to the problem-solving approach we see in many poly relationships: bringing things down to the same level instead of building things up to the same level.

For example, when a new relationship starts, it often comes bundled with a lot of crazy sexual energy. This sexual passion can be intimidating for someone in an existing relationship, and often, people try to deal with feeling intimidated by trying to put dampers on the new relationship. Don’t have sex in that position...

#WLAMF no. 23: Relationship rights

Way back in 2003, I proposed a “secondary’s bill of rights” for polyamorous relationships. This Bill of Rights, much of which was written by my partner Shelly, came out of our attempts to navigate the hierarchical relationship I was in at the time with my ex-wife. My wife and Ihad radically different goals in relationship (I am intrinsically polyamorous, whereas she identifies as monogamous; I wanted to be free to let other people in to my heart, while she preferred to be the only person I lo...

#WLAMF no. 23: Relationship Rights

Way back in 2003, I proposed a “secondary’s bill of rights” for polyamorous relationships. This Bill of Rights, much of which was written by my partner Shelly, came out of our attempts to navigate the hierarchical relationship I was in at the time with my ex-wife. My wife and Ihad radically different goals in relationship (I am intrinsically polyamorous, whereas she identifies as monogamous; I wanted to be free to let other people in to my heart, while she preferred to be the only person I lo...