The Smart Girl's Guide to Polyamory Quotes

“The further you conceptually pull away from the cultural norms of monogamy and traditional marriage, the more important it will be to self-examine.”
― Dedeker Winston, The Smart Girl's Guide to Polyamory: Everything You Need to Know About Open Relationships, Non-Monogamy, and Alternative Love

“You should endeavor to give your body what it needs to be healthy, your mind what it needs to be peaceful and focused, and your soul what it needs to feel content.”
― Dedeker Winston, The Smart Girl's Guide to Polyamory: Everything You Need to Know About Open Relationships, Non-Monogamy, and Alternative Love

“Bible” of polyamory, The Ethical Slut, say: a wedding ring around the finger does not cause a nerve block to the genitals.10”
― Dedeker Winston, The Smart Girl's Guide to Polyamory: Everything You Need to Know About Open Relationships, Non-Monogamy, and Alternative Love

“No amount of reassurance from someone else can change the negative opinions you hold about yourself. If you deeply believe that your tummy is a shameful piece of disgusting flab, that belief will not change after your partner says “You’re sexy!” for the thirty-seventh time.”
― Dedeker Winston, The Smart Girl's Guide to Polyamory: Everything You Need to Know About Open Relationships, Non-Monogamy, and Alternative Love

“The fear of losing a partner and being alone manifests in many ways: jealousy, anger, anxiety, possessiveness, competition, arrogance, indifference, and many other unsavory attitudes. The irony is that all of these are great tactics for driving a partner away. The tighter you squeeze someone you love, the easier it is for them to slip through your fingers.”
― Dedeker Winston, The Smart Girl's Guide to Polyamory: Everything You Need to Know About Open Relationships, Non-Monogamy, and Alternative Love

“The Relationship Escalator Your expectations for relationships may be heavily influenced by the culturally bolstered importance of the relationship escalator. The relationship escalator is the belief that a relationship is not legitimate unless it is following the standard upward trajectory: dating > sex > exclusivity > moving in together > marriage > kids > ’til death do us part. There is a deeply ingrained expectation that if a relationship is truly “serious,” it will automatically lead to these things.1 Once when I was sharing with a family member how happy I was that my new partner shared my relationship values, which included not tying the knot, she was flabbergasted and asked, “If you don’t want to get married, what’s the point of the relationship?”
― Dedeker Winston, The Smart Girl's Guide to Polyamory: Everything You Need to Know About Open Relationships, Non-Monogamy, and Alternative Love

“These old opinions have infiltrated our movies, TV shows, books, and magazines. Girls are learning these traditional ideas about love and sex from the same places that teach them what kind of exercises to do to get a twenty-four-inch waist and which lip shade to buy that will inspire him to ask them to the prom. The disempowering pop culture of womanhood dictates not only how our bodies should look, but how our hearts should feel.”
― Dedeker Winston, The Smart Girl's Guide to Polyamory: Everything You Need to Know About Open Relationships, Non-Monogamy, and Alternative Love

“Old-school cultural opinions on female romantic conduct are not congruent with the polyamorous models of equality, honesty, and sex positivity.”
― Dedeker Winston, The Smart Girl's Guide to Polyamory: Everything You Need to Know About Open Relationships, Non-Monogamy, and Alternative Love