595 - Does My Metamour Owe Me Their STI Results? - Listener Q&A

We’ve got two questions we’re tackling this week with a Q&A episode! The first one is:

I was in a long term partnership. We both agreed that we would individually ask to see new partners' recent STI screenings before engaging in sex with them. With consent, the results would be shared with other partners that requested to know.

While my long term partner was dating, he was interested in beginning to explore the sexual aspect of a new relationship. I had asked for consent to see her sti results. She told me she was uncomfortable with it. She was concerned about her privacy.

This was a very tricky situation. I wanted to respect her privacy. Yet, I wanted to be knowledgeable about the possible implications of spreading an sti. After I clarified that I was not asking for doctor info or medical center information she was comfortable. Her results were clear.

This situation may arise again in the future. I'm curious what the Multiamory crew thinks about this? How would you handle this situation? How do you navigate disclosing sti testing? Would you trust a partner's risk assessment without having the knowledge yourself?

-Nosey in the sunshine

And the second:

Hi! I'm struggling. I've been poly for 2 1/2 years, have multiple partners, but my boyfriend of two years (Andy), is my only fluid bonded partner. He is in a loving platonic marriage and dates other people as well. We decided that we would use condoms for all other partners and be fluid bonded with each other.

As he has had a sexual awakening, he has realized that being this diligent about condoms is new for him, and he's not a fan. Especially with a new regular partner.

Wednesday we talked about what it would look like for him to fluid bond with his new partner of 6 weeks (Lacy). I said that I would not choose to do that so early, so if he makes that choice, we would need to use condoms for a while until I felt like he knew her better and could trust their ability to communicate about safe sex practices. We continued talking and I thought we came to the conclusion that he would have a thoughtful conversation with her, and then we would reassess.

Well, within 3 days of this conversation he "accidentally" had unprotected sex with her. "I wasn't planning on it," and "I never thought I was going to do that," was said.

I understand things happen. I understand that condoms are less fun. But it feels like, when he's with her, I'm completely forgotten.

This type of rash decision making feels like he's choosing her over me, instead of finding a way we can all be happy… but that takes thought and time.

I'm feeling really hurt and trying to be understanding! How do I balance this?

-Slutty but Safe in Sacramento

Transcript

If you find any transcription errors, please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.

Dedeker: There was this other interesting study that I found. This was actually from the '90s, and it was specifically looking at the sexual health negotiation practices that came out of the AIDS pandemic era, essentially, among gay men. And long story short, the takeaway from this study was if two people who are going to engage in quote-unquote risky sex, as in non-monogamous sex, sex with outside partners, if they have agreements and clear communication about what kind of risks they are each going to take and not take, usually those agreements are typically complied with, and that lowers the risk of infection. However, the biggest, most important piece was that safety didn't depend on the design of the agreement between the two people, but just on whether or not it was actually practiced.

Jase: Welcome to the Multiamory Podcast. I'm Jase.

Emily: I'm Emily.

Dedeker: And I'm Dedeker.

Emily: We believe in looking to the future of relationships, not maintaining the status quo of the past.

Dedeker: Whether you're monogamous, polyamorous, swinging, casually dating, or if you just do relationships differently, we see you and we're here for you.

Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're answering two listener questions about sexual health agreements in non-monogamy. Research has established that CNM people tend to have better communication about sexual health risk and safe sex practices than the monogamous population at large. But what happens when communication breaks down and agreements aren't effective? Today we're going to talk about all of this based on our personal experiences, conversations with clients, as well as what the research says. If you're interested in learning more about our fundamental communication tools that we reference on this show, you can check out our book, Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships, which covers some of our most used communication tools for all types of relationships. You can find links to buy it at multiamory.com/book or wherever fine books are sold.

Emily: We have our quick disclaimer before we start. We have spent a lot of time studying healthy relationship communication. But part of what makes relationships so interesting is that they are all different. Every situation is unique, so we encourage you to use your own judgment and seek professional help if needed. Ultimately, you're the only true expert on your own life, and your feelings and your decisions are your own. These questions have been edited for time and clarity.

Dedeker: I'm going to drop in another disclaimer that falls under the umbrella of seeking professional help, just to remind people that we are not doctors and we're not medical professionals. And so we're going to be talking about sexual health today. But we cannot make any kind of judgment on specific risk profiles of particular people. So just bear that in mind. If you have any questions about those things, go talk to your doctor. Okay, so we have two listener questions today that I decided to put back to back because they're different situations but thematically pretty similar. So question number one: I was in a long-term partnership and we both agreed that we would individually ask to see new partners' recent STI screenings before engaging in sex with them. With consent, the results would be shared with other partners that requested to know. While my long-term partner was dating, he was interested in beginning to explore the sexual aspect of a new relationship. I had asked for consent to see her STI results. She told me that she was uncomfortable with it as she was concerned about her privacy. This was a very tricky situation. I wanted to respect her privacy, and yet I wanted to be knowledgeable about the possible implications of spreading an STI. After I clarified that I was not asking for doctor info or medical information, she was comfortable and her results were clear. This situation may arise again in the future, and I'm curious about what the Multiamory crew thinks about this. How would you handle this situation? How do you navigate disclosing STI testing? Would you trust a partner's risk assessment without having the knowledge yourself? And that was sent in by Nosey in the sunshine. And then I'm going to roll right into question number 2. This is a slightly longer one. So they write, hi, I am struggling. I've been Poly for 2 and a half years. Have multiple partners, but my boyfriend of 2 years, whose name is Andy, is my only fluid bonded partner. He's in a loving platonic marriage and dates other people as well. We decided that we would use condoms for all other partners and be fluid bonded with each other. As he has had a sexual awakening, he has realized that being this diligent about condoms is new for him, and he's not a fan, especially with a new regular partner. On Wednesday, we talked about what it would look like for him to fluid bond with his new partner Lacy, a new partner of 6 weeks. I said that I would not choose to do that so early, so if he makes that choice, we would need to use condoms for a while until I felt like he knew her better and could trust their ability to communicate about safe sex practices. We continued talking, and I thought we came to the conclusion that he would have a conversation with her and then we would reassess. Well, within 3 days of this conversation, he quote-unquote accidentally had unprotected sex with her. Quote, I wasn't planning on it, and quote, I never thought I was going to do that. Was said. Just a commentary. I'm assuming that means was said by him. I understand things happen. I understand that condoms are less fun, but it feels like when he's with her, I'm completely forgotten. This type of rash decision-making feels like he's choosing her over me instead of finding a way we can all be happy, but that takes thought and time. I'm feeling really hurt and trying to be understanding. How do I balance this? And that was sent in by Slutty but Safe in Sacramento. Okay kids, so there's a lot in both of these.

Jase: Yeah, I've already got many things that have jumped out.

Dedeker: Many, many things. And so just to do an initial inventory, these are sort of the high-level questions and themes that I pull from both of these questions. Questions of where does the burden of safety actually sit when it comes to sexual health? When does asking for STI results from someone that you yourself are not having direct sexual contact with stray into privacy concerns? When does it stray into putting the burden of building trust onto the Meta as opposed to onto the partner? There's also this theme of when your partner is the one vouching for a new partner's risk profile, can you trust your partner's judgment in order for there to be that Proxy trust? When is this about getting reassurance of your partner's feelings and commitment to you rather than being an actual question about sexual safety? When are we doing actual sexual risk math versus Emotional risk math? How much Detective work is worth it to do? What's the line here between due diligence and surveillance? And then many more. But to put a cherry on top, what are our feelings about the term Fluid bonding? So those are a lot of the themes and main questions that I saw. I could start with the Fluid bonding one, just because that's maybe some low-hanging fruit.

Jase: Well, first of all, for anyone that doesn't know, that just means having sex without a condom. That's just the romanticized term, I guess, for that.

Emily: Is it romantic?

Dedeker: It kind of is. I mean, fluid to me, I don't associate the word fluid with romance.

Jase: No, but bonding is, you know, bond. Yeah, emotional bond, I guess.

Dedeker: Yeah. I've never liked that term fluid bonding. I know people use it, so I don't want to get after the people who submit the question for using it, or people in the community who use it. I know for myself, the reason why the term tends to bother me is because first of all, A, it does associate, put this kind of emotional weight upon fluid exchange, which we can agree it can be intimate for sure. And also, there are plenty of people who do not exchange fluids, either because they can't, won't, or don't want to, who can still be very intimately and closely emotionally bonded, right? So there's that. And sometimes I think we're doing ourselves a disservice by putting so much emotional weight on that. And then the other thing that I also don't like about the Fluid bonding term is it tends to only refer to a penis ejaculating into a vagina. It tends to not talk about any other types of queer sex. It tends to not talk about oral sex because oral sex is again this weird one where people think that doesn't count as Fluid bonding if I don't use a condom for some reason. There's a lot in that term. So for the sake of our response to this, I will probably be referring to it as just either sex without a condom or sex without barriers, or unprotected sex.

Jase: Have you ever considered, you know, dating a new partner and only giving them very dry, chaste little kisses and be like, sorry, until we're Fluid bonded I can't, can't have our fluids.

Emily: Quite a thing to tell a new person.

Dedeker: Yeah, I'm not ready. I'm not ready for this.

Emily: The fluid—

Dedeker: the spit bonding.

Jase: Yes, spit bonding is much less romantic somehow.

Emily: There you go.

Jase: Well, maybe, I shouldn't yuck anyone's yum. I'm sure to someone spit bonding is the hottest thing you could do. But anyway, okay, so let's just call it what it is instead of giving it a euphemism. So just, they mean penis and vagina intercourse without condoms is what we're talking about here.

Emily: And as you were going through all of that, I was thinking about how quote unquote fluid bonding or unprotected sex— while I think many of us pedestalize that, when you are having sex with someone after 6 weeks without a condom, maybe you're super into this person, but how much do you really know them at this point? And I feel like you can have unprotected sex with anyone, with somebody that you just meet and with somebody that you've been with for a really long time, and therefore, fluid bonding does not necessarily mean that you are more connected to them. That connection happens through so many other ways and not just this one single decision of whether or not we're going to have unprotected sex with one another or not. Because like they said, sometimes things happen. Sometimes in the heat of the moment this occurs. Not that I'm saying that that was necessarily—

Dedeker: Or condoms break.

Emily: Yes.

Jase: There's an actual accident. Unlike the 'accident' that we'll get to when we talk about that, the second question.

Emily: The second question, of course. But sometimes you can make mistakes, and then sometimes those mistakes happen and they shouldn't have happened. So yeah, I think we'll get into that here.

Dedeker: It does feel important to distinguish— something we've already talked about is how, yes, we can pedestalize unprotected penis and vagina sex, and we can put a lot of emotional weight on it that maybe doesn't actually exist in reality or shouldn't exist in reality. So there's that. But also, at the same time, I don't want to dismiss it when I think what's also incorporated into the second question is like, and this is also introducing risk as well. It's not just about, oh wow, 6 weeks is early, quote unquote early, for doing something that seems that intimate with someone. But oh yeah, maybe 6 weeks is early to be taking that kind of risk.

Jase: Well, yeah, and I think that's something to think about there too, is that the argument for not using condoms is convenience. Or as they put it here, condoms are less fun.

Emily: Like, what is that?

Jase: I don't like that we can just say that without question. I mean, I agree, it's an extra thing to do, it's something to think about, but I find it more fun not having as much cleanup, to be totally honest, for myself. That is true. That's very true.

Dedeker: Swings and roundabouts, you know?

Jase: Right, right. I guess I'm just always surprised at how quickly people go to that, to the— that it's not fun or it's inconvenient. And I'm like, sure, kind of, but we do lots of things that are inconvenient and just don't think about them. And they don't take away from our enjoyment of it. To use one of Dedeker's favorite metaphors, it's putting on your seatbelt when you're driving.

Dedeker: There you go.

Jase: That it's like, yeah, a seatbelt is not the most comfortable thing. And I think there were people in our parents' and older generation who did refuse to put on seatbelts. And it's like, I don't like it. That's restrictive. It feels— I don't like how it feels or whatever. But most of us who just grew up doing it all the time and realizing, yes, this will make you less likely to get injured and die in your car. So cool. We just do it and we don't think twice about it. So look, I get it. There's some things that it opens up if you're not worrying about a condom. But I just— I'm always surprised at how much emphasis we put on that, and how big a deal people make this tiny inconvenience of it.

Dedeker: Well, related to that, I want to give props to Slutty but Safe in Sacramento, where their instinct was, oh, if my partner is going to do what I perceive to be this risky thing, then my response is I would feel more comfortable if we use condoms for a while, right? That's excellent.

Jase: Yeah, that's great. That's exactly what we feel.

Dedeker: I feel like maybe that relationship stabilizes, or until I feel like you've had enough sexual health conversation. It's a little fuzzy what the marker is.

Jase: I'm a little unclear on that piece.

Emily: So that's the issue.

Jase: What do you mean?

Dedeker: Yeah, but I am just like, yeah, you're choosing to put your own seatbelt on, right? And ideally this is because this makes you feel safer, not I'm here punishing a partner by taking something away, which is, we're the only ones that can be that intimate or whatever.

Jase: It's like, no, it's just about risk.

Dedeker: So it's just about risk.

Jase: Do what I can to control that.

Dedeker: Yes. Yeah. So, so I don't think that's a terrible instinct But yeah, it is this question though, of getting into, like they were saying, of it feels like my partner is choosing this other person over me, or it feels like they're not thinking about me with this, which this is so tricky. And I think that this, this Slutty but Safe in Sacramento is also, again, they ask, how do I balance this? They're really trying to do this balance between wanting to be compassionate to their partner. I think wanting to be realistic about how people have sex with condoms or not, right? That we don't live in an ideal world there, with also the hurt of, oh, I thought we were on the same page about this, and then this kind of quote-unquote accident happened, and that maybe things are out of control and a little bit scary.

Emily: Yeah, I have had something similar happen with some of my clients recently, that this conversation came up of talking about what should we be doing in terms of testing and in terms of using condoms or not with people outside of maybe the main relationship or the longer-standing relationship. And I agree with you that this question of when we're looking at things like agreements or boundaries, oftentimes in terms of a boundary, that needs to be very much specific to self. And what this person was saying of, I need to exit this situation or put on the seatbelt in this situation, that's probably the best course of action here. I do think, though, it sounded like you were kind of getting at Dedeker that maybe the best course of action over perhaps the next few months or longer is just to continue using condoms with your partner, with your longstanding partner. And maybe that becomes the new normal. Maybe a risk assessment and risk tolerance for yourself is the thing that you truly need to figure out because it's a question of should I decide, well, I don't know if I'm comfortable with my partner potentially having another one of these accidents and therefore just to make sure that nothing happens where my risk goes way up, I'm just going to decide this is—

Jase: Those are two different things. You just hit on it. Those are two different things.

Emily: Well, and also I will say for all of this, condom use doesn't necessarily mean that you are getting rid of risk 100%. There is always risk, especially for certain types of STIs versus others. So the risk will be there as we have more partners regardless.

Dedeker: Yeah, well, okay, so two points I want to make, one of them being that I could see— I think if I put myself in this person's shoes, and I'm not, I'm not the same as you, but if I'm imagining, if I'm in this situation I could see it being like, whoo, okay, my partner wants to do this thing that I perceive to be risky with someone that I don't think they know very well and I don't know very well. And so I'm going to choose for us to reintroduce barriers again. And maybe it is like waiting until I see, does my Metamour stick around? Does it develop into a long-lasting relationship? What do I know about my Metamour's sexual health practices and how often they date and what kind of risk profiles they expose themselves to? And maybe eventually it gets to a point where it feels like you know, maybe quote unquote the polycule feels stabilized in the sense of the amount of risk that I'm comfortable with. And then maybe I'd be like, okay, I think I'm comfortable with my partner, you know, having unprotected sex with somebody else and then also with me, provided that we fall into a rhythm of scheduled testing or whatever it is that makes you feel comfortable, right? So I'm saying there's a pathway forward here if what this person wants is to get back to having unprotected sex with their partner. Again, if you feel like everyone's acting in good faith and communicating to the best of their ability. That's the second piece, though, is like, I hear in this question sort of the underlying nervousness about what if one of these quote-unquote accidents happens again, right? And there is this emotional piece with NRE. Yeah, I actually found some— I found a paper that was hosted on clinicaltrials.gov, and this was called, The Development of a Tailored HIV Prevention Intervention for Young Men. And it references a lot of research on studies of specifically single young men who have sex with men. And they found that people who are in Limerence may increase sexual risk-taking. And it's because the fact that when you're in NRE and in Limerence, your system is just more dysregulated in general, right? It's like your survival system is online, and that means there's this sense of urgency. And you're just— you're not thinking with your noodle is the whole thing. You're thinking with other body parts. You're thinking with everything from the neck down.

Jase: Your other noodle.

Dedeker: Yes. Your other noodle. Yes.

Emily: Not the brain noodle. There you go.

Dedeker: And specifically in one of their earlier studies, they found that single young men who had a stronger desire to find a romantic partner, not only did they have sex with more partners, but they also had more instances of unprotected intercourse over the prior 2 months. Their theorizing around this was that it's because we believe that having sex without a condom is a marker of building intimacy and trust, right? So it may not just be about impulsive, in-the-moment, I want this to feel better, or want to just have sex with you without a condom, that it may function as this sometimes even unconscious intimacy-building move. And when you're in NRE, there's all this urgency of like, get close to this person and bond with this person and build intimacy with this person, right? So all that to say is that I could totally understand for Slutty but Safe in Sacramento feeling like, oh no, my partner's in NRE and they're making some questionable decisions here. Are there other questionable decisions they might make that would negatively impact our relationship in service of trying to fast forward building intimacy with this other person?

Emily: Yeah.

Dedeker: And so we don't have these details, but if this is a relationship where this is the first time that Slutty but Safe is seeing how their partner acts in NRE in general Yeah, that could bring up some concerns of like, oh no, if they get into entering with somebody else, would the same thing happen?

Jase: Yeah. And I think there's a good chance that it would.

Dedeker: I think maybe unless they learn from this situation, there's a non-zero chance, but also to throw the partner a bone, it was like they at least communicated first that it happened.

Emily: Yeah, I was just gonna make sure.

Dedeker: Thank goodness.

Emily: Right?

Dedeker: Yeah. Yeah. So everyone has to learn, right?

Emily: Yes. Yeah. I think Dedeker, what you brought up with that paper is fascinating and doesn't surprise me. That they found that young men wanting to bond and going through NRE, because I have heard from many men in my life that condoms don't feel as good. I don't know if that's true. I don't happen to have a body part that requires that type of condom, but I am always surprised and I understand hashtag not all men and I am still surprised that some women are okay with that from a risk tolerance—

Dedeker: with not using condoms, correct?

Emily: Yeah, from a risk tolerance perspective. And I know that that study wasn't on that, but whenever I encounter people in my client base or just friends anecdotally hearing like, oh yeah, I didn't use a condom the first time I had sex with this person, I'm like, what?

Dedeker: Yeah, really?

Emily: Just because there's so many things can happen, not just STIs, what I'm talking about, pregnancy, etc., etc. Yeah, it's like, well, I'm on birth control, so I don't know, because you don't know this person. So my question also is, what's going on there with everyone involved? Risky behavior.

Dedeker: Yeah, that is another weird part of the conversation that I find people tend to leave out from the due diligence when they're sleeping with someone for the first time, is for some reason people don't talk about pregnancy, or they just say, oh, I'm on birth control, or whatever. And then that—

Emily: I have a friend who has an IUD and she got pregnant 3 times. With an IUD. It can happen. Yeah.

Dedeker: So that is the one of the pieces where I look at, oh, you've known this person for 6 weeks. Do you— are you comfortable enough to have a conversation about pregnancy and what would happen if there was a pregnancy scare, or how you feel about, you know? And maybe you have reached that point, 6 weeks, maybe not. I don't know. Yeah.

Jase: So, boy, okay, I feel like there's a lot of directions we could go here. So to come back to this idea that there's sort of two separate things going on, I think that we have one thing happening, which is about just the risk question, right? Of how do you manage the amount of risk that you're okay with? How do you calculate that with a partner, right? How do you calibrate that with each other so you're on the same page? And then that extends out to your Metamour, and then there are other partners and there are other partners, right? It's kind of this, you only really reasonably have visibility into a certain part of that. And so there's always a certain amount of the only thing you can really control is your own action, which comes down to this whole, okay, making that choice to use condoms yourself, that could be a good way to say, okay, yeah, I'm not quite sure what I feel about this level of risk, so I'm going to play it safe for now. Great. I think that's a great option. I think the second part of this, though, that we're not really hitting on, and I think is part of the problem, and it comes up in that study that you talked about, Dedeker, is the sort of intimacy question and the surprise question, like the fact that this went against what I expected my partner to do. Or that feeling that he's prioritizing this new partner over me. And that's the thing that I think— there's a few pieces to it. Like, one is anytime someone does something we don't expect, that can be hard. It can be this jarring kind of whiplash, a rude awakening of, oh, I didn't think you were someone that did that. And this could be benign things. I remember when a co-worker of mine first discovered that I wasn't a morning person. And he was a little disappointed. He was like, "Oh, you know, you think you know someone." And then, right, that was a big surprise for him when we did something early in the morning and I was struggling. He's like, "Really? I just thought—" And it kind of shattered his perception of me, right?

Emily: Fascinating.

Jase: To something like this of thinking, yeah, you say you're gonna use condoms and that's what we agreed, and then you don't. And then this whole accidentally not doing it. Feels like this rude awakening and kind of this, this breach of trust. And I think that one thing to be aware of is just this thing called the hot-cold empathy gap. I think we maybe talked about this a few years ago on an episode, but it's the idea that when we're in a cold state, meaning not aroused, sober, clear-headed, we will say that we're going to make certain decisions in hot scenarios. And then when we're in those hot scenarios, we make very different decisions. And yeah, from this, this one study that kind of initially did this was specifically just male college students was who they did the study with, but they asked them questions in a cold state, and then the other group they asked while in a hot sexually aroused state. I don't know how they got them. Yeah, it was like, what? But, you know, but the, the jump in— now this isn't even in the pressure of reality of what are you going to do, this is still just in clinical setting of would you use a condom in this situation, or would you want to do this sexual practice, or whatever, that there was a 72% jump in risky behavior when in a state of arousal versus— hypothetical, hypothetical situation, right? And that's not even really taking into account some of the things that came up in that study Dedeker mentioned of this sense that, oh, by not using condoms, I'm gonna build intimacy more quickly, and what I want is a relationship, and I want to establish this. And I think that's a piece that goes to the women question like you were talking about, Emily. It's like even if it's not, oh, it's going to feel better this way, there could be that pressure of, oh, but it's going to be more intimate. I don't want to be difficult. I want to make sure my partner has a good time. Like all that pressure that in an aroused state we just make very different decisions than we do. And this has been replicated in all sorts of different ways. And it's pretty consistent of just when we're in an aroused state, we make very different decisions than we think we'll make. So I guess on one hand, I want to say you don't have to look at this as, my partner lied to me and said they were going to do a thing and then they didn't do it. It's like, yes, there is some of that there, but that's also partly them just not— they don't know how they're going to behave in that situation. But it also means when they say it'll never happen again, there have also been studies of people in situations saying, oh, in that same situation again, I won't do that again. And then they do, because again, they're planning that in a cold state. And not accurately anticipating how they're going to act in a hot state.

Dedeker: Okay, that tees me up for— I want to share one more research finding with you, and then we should take a break, and then, and then I think we need to spend some more time with our first question here. But there was this other interesting study that I found. This was actually from the '90s, and it was specifically looking at the sexual health negotiation practices that came out of the AIDS pandemic era, essentially among gay men. And long story short, the takeaway from this study was if two people who are going to engage in quote-unquote risky sex, as in non-monogamous sex, sex with outside partners, if they have agreements and clear communication about what kind of risks they are each going to take and not take, usually those agreements are typically complied with, and that lowers the risk of infection. However, the biggest, most important piece was that safety didn't depend on the design of the agreement between the two people, but just on whether or not it was actually practiced. And so fascinating. Yeah, I think that sort of what you're saying there is that we also need to think about what agreement is actually going to be practiced, right?

Jase: What does the reality look like?

Dedeker: What's the reality look like? And I think that's when it starts to get tricky, because then we, of course, you know, maybe there's an ideal world where we're all doing absolutely perfect cold state decision-making, right? But we live in a hot world, baby.

Emily: And that's why at the end of the day, if you are worried about this and if you don't know and if you understand that there may be an additional scenario where your partner or your partner's partner or whatever has sex without a condom and that doesn't feel aligned with what it is that you want to do in terms of your own risk tolerance, the only thing that you can do is save yourself. Is use barriers. Just do it. And like we were talking about, be on a regular schedule of testing so that if something does happen, you have all of the data points you need in order to make an informed decision.

Dedeker: Okay. We should talk about our first question, but first, let's take a quick break.

Jase: Yeah, we're going to take a break to talk about our sponsors. Thank you to all of them for supporting this show and letting us do this every week for all of you for free. And then, of course, if you would rather not have any ads and be part of our amazing community and really help to support the work that we do on this show, the best way to do that is to go to multiamory.com/join. We have a sliding scale. So for as little as $5 a month, you can get those ad-free episodes, access to our community, our video groups, things like that. We would love to have you there.

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Dedeker: Okay, so Nosey in the sunshine. Now I've seen this practice crop up in various— I've seen people talk about it in various Poly groups and stuff like that, but the practice of not only wanting to see the STI results of someone that you are going to have direct sexual contact with, but maybe also asking to see a metamour's STI results. Myself personally, I have mixed feelings about this, but before I get into that, I want to hear from the two of you. Have you ever done this, by the way?

Emily: No, I've never—

Jase: I never have asked for this from a metamour, but I did get asked this recently. Oh, but it was because a partner of mine, their other partner was having a baby. And they had been reading up on, these certain STIs can cause issues if the mother's been exposed to them, you know, during this time. And so I was asked, "Hey, how recently have you been tested?" You know, and it was, like, specific asks of, like, these are the two that we're concerned about. And conveniently, I'd literally just had my physical and had those tests done, like, 2 weeks before that. So I just forwarded over the whole results and was like, "Sure, yeah, here's— here's that," to my partner. And they were very appreciative of that. But I haven't ever been asked that without a specific reason like that. I haven't been asked that before, and I haven't ever asked that of another— of a Metamour before. Yeah, this is tough, right?

Emily: Because again, it's only talking about one person, or how many other Metamours you may have, but it stops at the Metamour, and it doesn't take into account all of the people potentially that the Metamour is seeing too. It's like, are we gonna add in those people as well? Yeah, you know, sort of, yes, what complicates it, which is why I'm just kind of, again, you can deal with your stuff and you can deal— maybe you can ask for the people around you, but I don't— but past that feels— invasive is the wrong word, maybe, because, you know, Dedeker, you and I were in a scenario where we were dating someone who had an STI, and that was common knowledge around our polycule. And that was, you know, information that we dealt with and that we were able to make informed decisions based on that information. But that was freely given to us. And I don't know, I mean, had we not known that, I think, I think the point almost is you have to assume that there is the possibility for anything to happen. And so based on that assumption, you should be making your decisions. And not on, well, if I know what their STI results are, then I'm going to be making different decisions.

Dedeker: Well, the first thing I want to say is, again, I want to give points. I'm handing out points left and right in this episode. That's good. I want to give points to Nosey in the sunshine for the way they navigated this tricky situation, right? Yeah, I'm asking, and then we're being, putting up a boundary and being like, no, I'm kind of concerned about my privacy about these things. They were able to clarify what they actually want to know, and then communication happened, right? The thing with wanting to get specific STI results from a Metamour, to me, I'm kind of like, does that mean I do not trust my partner? Yeah, the hinge in between us. Because in my ideal world, my partner and I have had an open conversation around what sort of sexual risks they are comfortable with taking or not. Do they have the skills and comfort to have a sexual health conversation with the people that they sleep with? And if there's something of concern that would be relevant to themselves and to me, will they communicate that? Can they communicate that? And if I trust that— and I realize that does take some time and some conversations and awkward conversations to establish that— but if I can trust that, I'm kind of like, I don't need to do the extra labor. I'm going an extra step to get the Metamour to tell me. If I don't trust my partner, then first of all, I think there's a bigger issue there. Yeah, it's like if I think, oh, my partner would either not ask for test results from somebody, or if there was something in the test results that would be relevant to sexual health, they would not tell me, right? And therefore then I need to kind of place the burden of proof not on my partner to be trustworthy, but on your Metamour. Then I'm like, I don't know about that. Am I myself personally— when I think of— again, when I put myself into this person's shoes, I'm just like, I don't want to be reaching out to a Meta to ask for their STI results. When I imagine pulling up a PDF of their STI results on my phone, I'm just like, I'm not your doctor, I'm not your nurse practitioner. I don't— I don't want to do that, right? Like, I want you to have the STI results, I want you to talk about it with the partner, but I don't want to—

Jase: I don't need to check your work.

Emily: Well, and also exactly, and then what? What's the end goal there? Is it just data points, or are you gonna actually fundamentally change what it is that you're doing based on those test results? It's like, oh well, I'm having unprotected sex with my, you know, long-term partner, but now that I found out this is happening, I'm gonna wear condoms for the next 3 months or whatever. I mean, sure, maybe, but again, like you said, Dedeker, ideally you have a good enough rapport and a good enough trust level with your partner that if something does happen, it's like, hey, maybe we should wear condoms for the next however long amount of time while this person is taking a course of antibiotics, for instance. Sure. Ideally, you're dating people that you trust and that are going to have your best interest, and that's what matters. These are the types of people hopefully that you're with.

Dedeker: I think, and you know, to be honest, I think 10 years ago I would have taken a different stance, a more hardline stance on this. I think I would have too.

Jase: Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

Dedeker: They have changed over time. I have changed. Well, okay, so let's think about, for instance, the scenario that's coming to mind for me is if we actually take it out of just something that can be tested for, as in sexual health-wise, but like, I don't know, let's say that I get a yeast infection, for instance, and I tell my partner that, right? Because I don't want to spread it to my partner, and then I don't want my partner to then spread it to anyone else that they're sleeping with. Now, do I want my partner to share my yeast infection test results with the rest of the polycule? Not really, honestly. I'd rather— if that's my situation, I'd rather be like, hey, this situation is going on me. I'm gonna go on meds to clear this up. You and I, either we need to have sex with condoms or we need to avoid particular types of sex or contact. And then that's up to them to be like, do they need to communicate to other people they're sleeping with of like, hey, just so you know, I'm choosing to do this with this partner because of a health issue or whatever. Like, I realize it starts to get a little sticky, but it— sometimes this is a little bit of a case-by-case basis also of being shared and what needs to be shared with whom.

Emily: Yeah, because I agree, a UTI or a yeast infection probably doesn't need to be shared.

Jase: Well, unless, unless it's like, okay, you've got that, and for some reason we're gonna keep exposing each other to that. Yeah, sure. Then it's like, well, yeah. But I do think it comes back to that trust question of assuming that everyone involved has the best interests of everyone else that they're involved with in mind, then it's like, okay, if I'm gonna decide to do that and keep exposing myself to this yeast infection, that then I'm just not gonna expose anyone else to it. And again, it's like, if you don't wanna talk about it, you gotta find some other reason to give or just avoid those situations. Or something. So I do think it's hard to draw this hard and fast black and white rule of just, oh, always do this, no worries. I do think there's some nuance, but the nuance has to come from the place of, you know, having everyone else's safety in mind and also being able to trust your partners that they'll have that in mind for you. Yeah. And I think that what I mean by trust there isn't trust that you will have the same standards I have. But trust that I understand where you stand on this so that I can make my own educated decisions based on your beliefs and then also your behavior. Like we mentioned, that it's not just what they say they will do, but what do you actually do, right? What have we observed in practice? And the fact that the partner in the second question did communicate it, great props. Like, that's good. I think they're both learning something about how he makes decisions in the moment, and I would say that's more informative of how he'll act in the future than just what he says now. So take that in mind for both of you. Not to say that, oh, he's a bad person because of it, but just if he knows that, hopefully that can influence other decisions he makes, like either not putting himself in situations where that can happen or making sure that his partners also help to hold that boundary. If he does want to hold that of saying, yes, let's always use condoms, let's agree to that. Don't let me not use that, right? Sure. There's different ways you could approach it, but it's not just this black and white rule of this is always good, this is always bad. This is always your issue, this is always not your issue. And kind of like with the baby thing that I mentioned, maybe there's a specific situation where some specific concerns come up. That's also worth checking about. And that's the piece I wanted to come back to actually with this first question, is that the sentence that bugged me was this one that says her results were clear, period. Like, once the Metamour did finally share her results, her results were clear.

Emily: Like clear as in I understand what the results are?

Jase: Okay, if that's what they meant, then I'm fine with it. If it was they were clearly understandable.

Dedeker: That's what I was— I was choosing to read it as that. That is also understandable.

Emily: Choosing to read it as—

Jase: that is not how I read that. I read that as clear meaning clean. Clean, which is a terrible thing to say about STIs. Quote unquote. Yes. Or all negative or something. And it's It bothers me because we still tend to think about STIs in that way of kind of like you have them or you don't. And one, we don't have tests that can even tell you that even if you did a really thorough test. And then two, doctors never do the really thorough test unless they have some specific reason or you specifically ask them to. There's a whole range of, of tests. And it's like I've been to some places where they're more thorough than others in terms of they'll not just do urine and blood, but they'll also do like a throat swab and an anal swab and like all these other things. And then at that very clinic, I was like, oh, and do you test for, for herpes, for HSV? They're like, oh no, we don't ever test for that. And so it's like, yeah, you're more thorough in these other ways, but you don't test for those at all. And most doctors never test for those because when people get the results, it mostly just freaks them out. And the actual health risks of it are low. But it is still a thing to know and that people do worry about, but they think like, ah, clean results or clear test, and they, they just aren't aware. Like, anytime someone says something like that— and again, I'm sorry, question asker, if that's not what you meant, so sorry for going off on this, but I think it's worth bringing up in general because I think a lot of us still have been programmed to think this way— is just that you have to always think of an STI test as a specific test, right? Like, if you think about— maybe COVID's a good analogy— of even doing a COVID test Sometimes it isn't accurate, right? Sometimes it's like, oh yeah, I tested negative and then a week later I tested positive, but I'd been sick the whole time, right? Like that kind of stuff happens with any kind of testing like this. So one is it's never 100% sure. Like the confidence is very high, but it's not 100%. It can't— it can't be. That's just like physically not possible. And then two, the tests are for very specific things and they're done specific ways on specific parts of your body. And so just having negative results in one way only tells you there were negative results on that one test in that one way at that one time. So I do just— I'd love for us all to, I guess, just make an effort to be more specific when we ask those questions of if there's a certain thing, like if there's a specific concern, be concerned about that. Or if you want to know, like, I might say I want to know your test results partly to know that you get tested at all, which means you take this seriously enough. Yes. And that if something did come up, you'd be more likely to find out sooner so I could then know sooner, right? Those, those are all good things. Uh, and then also, so then I do know some things, right? Whether that's knowing, okay, you have HSV-1, okay, I can know that, and then I know, let's communicate about that and try to minimize our risk. It doesn't have to mean we can't ever have sex.

Dedeker: And to clarify, Jace, you're saying asking someone you are going to have sex with—

Jase: that I'm in a relationship with? Yes, not a Metamour in this case. Yeah, if there's like some particular thing that is a real risk factor for you Then again, being specific of saying, "I learned that I have such and such disorder that means that I don't know what hepatitis B is, like, extra deadly for me or something." Then maybe it's like, "Hey, I have this specific concern, right? I want to know about that." Or like, again, to go back to a baby thing, I had another friend who had a baby and was like, wanted to know about my vaccination status and also wanted to know about Dedeker's to be like, I don't want my kid to be exposed to this before he's been old enough to have his vaccines and things like that, right? So like, if there's a reason, I think it's a little bit different. And again, why I don't want to lay out a hard and fast rule here. I just want us all to be more specific when we can be so that we don't either get overconfident about what we're stating. And then two, it keeps us a little humble to realize you can't ever have perfect information. And that's why the whole question of how do you manage risk comes up. It's not how do you eliminate risk, it's how do you manage it? How do you make your decisions around it?

Dedeker: That risk will also be there. Again, just the whole host of other things that we in our brains don't associate with the big three STIs as still things that can travel between vectors of people, like a yeast infection, like a bacterial infection, like a UTI, right? These things that are just the result of ecosystems mixing up with each other. Yeah, absolutely.

Emily: Yeah. And HSV and HPV, you can have sex with a condom and still get them. So yeah, again, a lot of things. And yeah, with a lot of things, risk is going to be there. But like you said, Jase, it's what you do with the information that you have and how you manage your own specific risk tolerance.

Dedeker: Well, let's review the things that we've learned here today. As we said multiple times over the course of this episode, there is no such thing as a 100% reduction of risk if you're going to be having sex with with human beings, and especially with multiple human beings. Making agreements about these things, communicating about these things, is important, but agreements are only going to work as well as the compliance behind it and the honesty behind it. And so there's no perfect Protocol or perfect agreement design that will substitute for having partners and/or metamours who are reliable people who can communicate and who are acting in good faith. And again, it's not about finding what exactly is the perfect protocol or agreement. It's finding what can you trust will actually be followed by people. And don't be afraid to make this case by case, right? That sometimes, depending on your closeness in a relationship, your closeness to a Metamour, the size of the network that we're talking about, and actual risk profile for yourself and others is going to shift how much verification and due diligence you feel like is reasonable in the situation. All right, all of you listening, but we of course want to hear from you. Have you personally ever asked a Meta to share STI results with you? Why or why not? So you can go to our Instagram page to answer that question, but also the best place to share your thoughts about this episode with other listeners is in the episode discussion channel in our Discord server, or you can post about it in our private Facebook group. You can get access to these groups and join our exclusive community by going to Multiamory.com/join. In addition, you can share with us publicly on Instagram @multiamory_podcast.

Dedeker: Multiamory is created and produced by Jace Lindgren, Emily Matlack, and me, Dedeker Winston. Our production assistant is Carson Collins. Our theme song is "Forms I Know I Did" by Josh and Anand from the Fractal Cave EP. The full transcript is available on this episode's page on multiamory.com.