Welcome to part 1 of our non-monogamy research roundup! Today's episode features some interesting research about non-monogamy: who practices non-monogamy, what studies have found motivates people to pursue it, and how healthy non-monogamous relationships are in general. Stay tuned for part 2 coming next week!

Today we're interviewing William Winters, who is on the board of directors for OPEN (Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Non-monogamy). William Winters is a seasoned digital campaign strategist for progressive organizations and causes, and a leader in the Bay Area’s polyamorous and sex-positive communities. He is also the founder of Bonobo Network, a sex-positive, consent-focused, power-aware community, and the founder of Express Yourself, a quarterly gathering uniting people of color in celebrations of the erotic. He has been featured in the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Today we're joined by movie director Sophie Hyde to talk about their new sex-positive and sex-work affirming film, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande. Sophie Hyde is an award-winning filmmaker of both narrative and documentary films. She is a founding member of film collective Closer Productions. She lives and works on the lands of the Kaurna people in South Australia and makes provocative and intimate films and television.

We talk a lot about prioritizing not only romantic and sexual relationships, but also friendships. Today's episode is digging into some of the research and techniques about fostering healthy friendships. In turn, these ideas can help you improve romantic relationships as well by building a better foundation of communication with your partner(s).

Today, Lola Phoenix rejoins us to discuss their new book, "The Anxious Person's Guide to Non-Monogamy," which was published June 21st, 2022.
Lola Phoenix is an American born writer living in Stockholm, working within digital marketing while trying to find an agent to represent their science fiction work. The last time they were on the show was in 2019 for episode 225.

Today's episode is another Q&A where we answer some more listener questions, including some about beginners in polyamory, setting healthy boundaries, and ethical hierarchy.

Sometimes, we carry over trauma from a bad relationship into a good one, and this can make it difficult to have a fulfilling and happy relationship, even if it's with a good person. This episode discusses how PTSD and past baggage can show up in current relationships, how otherwise healthy behavior can be unsettling or confusing if you’re used to a toxic relationship, and as always, some actionable takeaways for recovering from trauma and building healthier relationships.

Today is all about building and maintaining trust in relationships. We're discussing what it means to trust your partner, the process of establishing that trust, and if trust is breached, what you can do to make sure it is reestablished, and more on today's episode.

We've done episodes about de-escalating relationships or decoupling them, but this week we're talking about the opposite! We're discussing what it looks like when a relationship becomes more entangled, like going from friends to lovers, from friends with benefits to more romantic partners, etc., as well as the emotional, social, and logistical aspects of increasing our levels of entanglement with others.

We're back with another Q&A episode! This week we'll be answering some of our patrons' questions with Kate Loree, one of our friends who co-hosts the sex-positive podcast Open Deeply with Sunny Megatron. Kate Loree is also a sex-positive licensed marriage and family therapist with a specialty in non-monogamous, kink, LGBTQ, and sex worker communities and the author of Open Deeply: A Guide to Building Conscious, Compassionate Open Relationships.

This week, we're discussing the differences between needs, wants, expectations, boundaries, rules, agreements, and how these terms tend to be often used interchangeably, as well as how these terms affect our communication in relationships.

For the second part of our series on unhealthy relationship patterns, we're discussing some specific considerations when it comes to unhealthy relationship patterns in non-monogamy, as well as some actionable tools you can use to help break the cycle of unhealthy habits.

This week we're beginning a two-part discussion about unhealthy relationship patterns and why we sometimes tend to repeat them, sometimes even when we know they're unhealthy. We're going to be exploring why we do this, how it relates to past trauma and attachment theory, and attempt to answer the question, “Do people really have a type?”

For those of us with multiple partners, sometimes the idea of navigating a social situation including everyone can be stressful or intimidating. This week, we're talking about some ways to minimize this anxiety as a hinge partner in social situations.

It's time for another episode featuring one of the other podcasts in the network we're a part of. This week we're featuring Sex Talk with My Mom, where Cam and KarenLee talk about sex and sex scripts with Dr. Ian Kerner, author of So Tell Me About the Last Time You Had Sex: Laying Bare and Learning to Repair Our Love Lives.

This week's episode is another Q&A style one with questions pulled from our Patreon group about friends with benefits relationships, transitioning from polyamory back to monogamy, and more!

This week we're covering a tough topic: desirability politics and dating preferences. Analyzing where our preferences come from, especially within the context of sexual and romantic connections, may tell us a lot about society as a whole rather than any individual person’s choices.
Our researcher, Dr. Keyanah Nurse, joins us to day to help us unpack how all desire is political, how these politics play out in dating and partner selection, and how they may show up in managing multiple polyamorous relationships.

This week's episode is focusing on heartbreak, breakup, and recovery, and sorting through all the advice out there to try to narrow down what is helpful during a breakup and what isn't. We’re also going to look at some research about breakups and heartbreak, share some personal experiences, and finally, some suggestions of healthy recovery strategies.

This week's episode is focusing on disability, specifically what it means to have a disability, dating with disabilities, and addressing ableism both in the polyamorous community and within our individual relationships.

We are joined by one of our researchers, Em Mais, to discuss these topics and get their insight on them as a disabled, polyamorous person.

This week we're having a special Q & A session with the hosts of Multiamory to give some personal insight into some of the many questions we get asked. If it's well-received, we'll do another next month!