A World Beyond Monogamy: How People Make Polyamory and Open Relationships Work and What We Can All Learn From Them

by Jonathan Kent, Meg-John Barker PhD (Foreword by)

Overview

Skills to make every relationship better. We're living through a relationship revolution. Millions around the world are moving beyond coupledom to explore multiple consensual romantic and/or sexual connections. One in five Americans are thought to have experimented with 'monogamish,' open relationships, swinging, polyamory, or relationship anarchy and more with the knowledge and consent of all those involved. But to make these relationships work consensually, non monogamous people have to supercharge relating skills like communication and negotiation, skills that can benefit us all, whether we love many or just one. In this ground-breaking book former BBC and Reuters journalist Jonathan Kent takes a comprehensive took at the frontiers of love and sex; the triumphs, the pitfalls, the tools one needs, the lessons we can all learn. A World Beyond Monogamy draws on the first hand experience of scores of people from six continents who are writing their own relationship rules, as well as on the expertise of biologists, sociologists, psychologists, and philosophers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781734658743
Publisher:	Luminastra Press
Publication date:	03/15/2022
Pages:	558
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Jonathan Kent read philosophy and theology at Keble College, Oxford. A journalist, broadcaster, and writer, he's been a political reporter and a foreign correspondent and has reported for among others, the BBC, Reuters, Newsweek, The Daily Telegraph, KQED and wrote, produced and presented the BBC Radio 4 series 'Our Daily Bread.' Meg-John Barker is the author of a number of popular books on sex, gender, and relationships, including graphic guides to Queer, Gender, and Sexuality, How To Understand Your Gender, Life Isn't Binary, Enjoy Sex (How, When, and IF You Want To), Rewriting the Rules, and Hell Yeah Self Care. They have also written a number of books for scholars and counsellors on these topics, drawing on their own research and therapeutic practice.
 

Table of Contents

Foreword Dr. Meg-John Barker xiii

Introduction 1

Section 1 There's a Whole Wide World Out There

1 What Is Consensual Non-Monogamy? 11

2 The Naming of Things 15

3 Consent 19

4 The Road To Consensual Non-Monogamy 27

5 Why Consensual Non-Monogamy 33

6 CNM as an Orientation 41

7 Deciding to Explore Consensual Non-Monogamy 45

8 The Culture We're In 51

9 God, Nature and Other Adversaries 65

10 Dealing With Prejudice 79

11 Opening Up a Relationship 87

12 First Steps 101

13 Coming Out 107

Section 2 It Ain't What You Do, It's The Way That You Do It…

14 Relationship Styles 125

15 Monogamish 129

16 Swinging 133

17 Open Relationships and Don't Ask, Don't Tell 143

18 Polyamory 155

19 Hierarchical Polyamory: 'Couple-Plus' 157

20 Being a Treatise Upon Triads, Quads & Divers Polygones 161

21 Polyfidelity 165

22 Poly Families and Poly Networks 171

23 Kitchen Table and Parallel Poly 177

24 Solo Polyamory 181

25 Relationship Anarchy 189

Section 3 Heffalump Traps

26 Managing CNM Relationships 203

27 Poly/Mono Relationships 205

28 The Thing About Couples 213

29 If You're Thinking of Dating a Couple 225

30 Unicomes and the Huntinge Thereof 229

31 The One-Penis Policy and its Discontents 237

32 A Consensually Non-Monogamous Person's Bill of Rights 245

33 Metamours 257

34 New Relationship Energy 265

35 Sex 271

36 Do Consensually Non-Monogamous People Have Better Sex? 277

37 Asexuality and Demisexuality 281

38 Overlaps with Kink/Fetish/BDSM Communities 285

39 Sexual Health 293

40 Mental Health 301

Section 4 It's Illogical Captain

41 Jealousy 311

42 What Titi Monkeys Know 317

43 Does Jealousy Have a Purpose? 321

44 What Attachment Theory Can Tell Us 329

45 Anxiety, Fear and Guilt 337

46 Coping with Anxiety and Other Mental Health Issues 343

47 Insecurity 351

48 Compersion 363

Section 5 Loves Kills Love Skills

49 Healthy Relationships 371

50 Being 'Fair' 375

51 Communication 381

52 Honesty, Radical or Otherwise 401

53 Rules, Agreements and Boundaries 411

54 Negotiating 425

55 Veto 433

56 Commitments 437

57 Celebrating Poly Relationships 443

58 Scheduling 447

Section 6 It's Political, Innit?!

59 The Politics of Consensual Non-Monogamy 453

60 Money, Class and the Social Divide 457

61 Gender, Gender Roles and Feminism 463

62 Poly and Orientation 471

63 Ethnicity 479

64 Neuroatypicality 495

65 Faith and Beliefs 501

Section 7 Hell is Other People

66 Community: Being Part of the Tribe 509

67 Abuse 515

68 Leadership and Justice 527

69 Healing 535

70 Raising Children 539

71 Legal Considerations 547

72 'Trivial' Problems 555

73 Going Monogamous 557

74 Where Does It Go From Here? 559

Thanks and Acknowledgements 563

Section 8 Appendices

Appendix 1 Less Common Poly Configurations 567

Appendix 2 Resources 569

Appendix 3 Acknowledgements and Biographies 571