Knotty Bi Nature
In the realm of long-term love, where time bends and stretches, where passion and intimacy evolve like a living thing, two guides step forward—Dr. Casey Sanders and Kari Sanders. Together, they embark on an odyssey into the heart of relationships, peeling back the layers of connection, desire, and vulnerability.
This podcast is a lantern in the shadows, illuminating the secrets to lasting intimacy. It’s a journey into the delicate art of keeping the flames of love not merely alight but growing ever stronger. Join these seasoned sex educators as they unravel the mysteries of passion, communication, and erotic exploration, sharing their wisdom on how to nurture desire through the years.
If you’ve ever wondered how to deepen your bond or rekindle the spark in your long-term relationship, Dr. Casey and Kari invite you to step into their world—where love isn’t just a moment in time, but a story still unfolding.
Knotty Bi Nature
Part 1 of The Poly Pocket With Fox Eros
One of our most requested topics is about open relationships. There just seems to be so much interest not only from listeners that ARE open, but also from monogamous people simply interested in what these relationships look like.
This week we are joined by Fox Eros AMFT, “The Polyamory Therapist” to discuss all things polyamory. The why, the how, and the what surrounding it all.
About Fox:
Fox Eros (M.A., AMFT), known as "The Polyamory Therapist” has earned a reputation as an incandescent, deeply empathetic and passion filled Psychotherapist, Writer and Speaker. She has a Master’s Degree in Marriage Family Therapy and specializes in Sex Therapy and Consensual Non-Monogamous Relationships. She is currently at work on her first book about polyamory and is a contributing writer and educator in the polyamory field. Fox continues to be sought out to help individuals and people in relationships with life stress, self-worth, impacts of trauma, sex and intimacy related topics.
Fox identifies as a pansexual, panromantic, polyamorous, multi-racial, Black Girl Magic, BIPOC femme person; and lives on the land of the Chumash and Gabrielino-Tongva peoples. Her pleasures include being a Lover, being loved, forest bathing, sun dancing, dreaming in chocolate and crushing on the fantasticalness of it all. Also, rainbows.
Want to know more? You can get to know Fox through these links
Instagram
https://www.foxerosinlove.com/
TikTok
To another episode of come with your day. We have with us joining you with us, one of our good friends who we will introduce in just a second. But in the meantime, we wanted to introduce what the topic of this show is about today. We cover things all the time. We cover kink, we cover BDSM, we cover relationships and, and communication and all sorts of topics. But one of the most Largely asked questions we get from our audience almost more than anything. We learn
Kari:more than anything. What
Casey:do I do if we want to open a relationship? And so in order to give people a better view of this landscape, what that's like, we've brought on our friend Fox. Fox, how are you doing?
Kari:Hi, I'm Fox Eros hi, friends. We're like sexual health alliance friends, aren't we?
Casey:We are. We are. Yes, we
Kari:are.
Casey:That's what, I started in sexual health alliance, Carrie's now with sexual health.
Fox:Yeah, it's our own little like sex positive tribe. I love that. I love that y'all are doing your podcast and you're still doing it. So amazing. There you are. Man.
I'm not mad.
Kari:So he's gonna go off really fast and try and see what is going on with our Wi Fi. Yeah, no problem. Maybe,
Fox:yeah, maybe restarting it. I know it's so funny because I'm like this and I'm like hoping you know that, yeah, okay. You know what I mean.
Kari:Okay. Totally fine. How long have you been with SHA?
Fox:Sorry, say it again? How long have you been with SHA? Well, gosh, I graduated from the sex therapy program, I think, last year. But I did it at the same time as I was in my master's program to be an, you know, marriage family therapist. I'm an associate marriage family therapist. Now I have to, I'm supposed to say that I'm an associate, but yeah, I did it at the same time. It was stressful because I was doing so much, but I was, I, I would do it again. It was so informative. I needed, especially in like sex issues and psychotherapy. It's so detailed and nuanced and complex that I felt like I really needed like a lot of information. So now when I'm with my clients, I have so many, if I don't know the answer, I have the resources. And then if I do know the answers, I feel really competent and confident. Do you, what do you use your sexual health alliance for?
Kari:So I'm in the coaching program. Oh. Dr. Lay had been working very closely with me. And, and it was actually them who. Recommended me actually going more into the coaching program. After meeting with them a few times they read me like a book and they were like, you don't necessarily seem like someone who wants to like dive into like the emotions, but you're probably better suited at like giving really good advice, giving good advice. I love that. And so it just kind of turned into this like beautiful concept that like Casey was going to go into the counseling. I was going to go into the coaching and then we're going to be able to come together and, and really help people. And that was, that was been our goal. That's been our goal this entire time.
Casey:I'm back.
Kari:Well, Batman.
Fox:He was like, Oh, I don't know. Are we using all this? Are you going to like, I think we might,
Kari:I think we can find little bits of it. It's cute. Yeah,
Fox:because y'all have such, let's let's use this. Y'all have the most pleasant, like loving voices, very sexy podcast voice.
Casey:Oh, thank you very much. Yeah,
Fox:that's, that's like 90 percent of why I listen to a podcast is if I resonate and align with the voice, it's like slightly arousing and very informative. And y'all have that.
Kari:Good job. I'm arousing and informative, baby. We. We. Oh I'm not. Yeah, we. Hello. She did say
Casey:we. Oh, okay. You know, we're gonna, we're gonna use, we're probably gonna use all of this, actually.
Kari:That's our new tagline. That's our new tagline. We are arousing and informative. Yes, that's your tagline. You have to use the Batman part.
Yeah,
Kari:but I am not Robin. Damn it. I'm like poison. I'm your own superhero. You're not, I'm my own entity. No, I'm poison. I'd be. All right.
Casey:So back, back on topic. Now that we've sorted through our technical difficulties, Fox, we are super excited to have you on the show to talk all about polyamory. If we understand correctly, Okay. You are an inclusive and informative affirmative. Oh my
Fox:God,
Casey:I'm just dropping balls.
Fox:No, you're
good.
Casey:Inclusive and affirmative therapists for individuals and intimate relationships, correct?
Fox:Yes.
Casey:Okay. So tell us a little bit about yourself and what it is you do.
Fox:Okay. First of all, I always like to acknowledge the land that I'm on of the Chumash native first peoples. And so, yes, I'm an associate marriage therapist. associate marriage and family therapist. And that means that I just work with people to kind of navigate like trauma and emotions where they're stuck life stress. And it's kind of been my calling to work with people in polyamorous relationships and also Cause you know, we're all from the sexual health alliance. That's where we all studied. So I'm also certified in that. And I worked with Dr. Eli chef. I don't know if you know her, I love her, but she's done research in polyamory for like decades and she worked, she's written a book. So I studied with her and now I'm just, I call myself the polyamory therapist. That's I'm on all the social medias as that. And it's like, it's like my life calling. I don't know what it is, but it's like, It just turns me on spiritually and in every other way to work with this population and then to talk about it. I think it's because it's radicalizing love. And it's going back to how we used to be. Like, indigenous people were already doing this. Like, monogamy is not the original or the new. Hello. We are returning back to a new way of relating and loving. I
Casey:love that. Whenever we look back into a lot of the history, one of the things I do the most is reading a lot of research and we look at books like it was like sex, a world history. And we talk about how relationships used to look way back when. And it was never. No, this one thing of monogamy is the only way and you're in this box and that's all you get. There's been a Relationship of styles have shifted and changed and flowed over over centuries Within within humanity. So to see this what I what we're seeing at least this resurgence of polyamory is, has been really cool. We know it's been there, but people are starting to feel more, yeah, people are starting to feel more comfortable discussing it. And so I think that's where a lot of this has come from is a lot of the people online are now going, well, wait a minute. I've always been told that that's an option.
Kari:Yeah,
no, you don't even know.
Fox:You don't even realize that our monogamous mindset and upbringing has completely influenced us. When I learned that it's like part of colonization and Christianity, that's the monogamy thing. And it was this. assimilating indigenous people and taking away the kind of love that they had. Like now it's all about decolonizing love. Yes. What did we used to do? And you know, as our financial climate changes, I believe people will begin relating in different ways. And these younger generations, they're just like, Fuck you marriage, but I also like I'm not shaming monogamy because I've done monogamy most of my life But I've oh my orientations all always been polyamorous But I never knew the name for it and I always felt shamed and different and yeah, just something was wrong But now that I know the name i'm like fuck. Yeah, i'm so polyamorous. My lifestyle is monogamous but I'm not here to shame monogamy. And I always like to say that because that's if, if people shame polyamory, I'm not going to shame back. Like, I'm right.
Absolutely.
Casey:Right. We, we talk about it similarly in the kink scene, whenever it's like, we don't shame, you know, people that want and love being vanilla.
Yeah,
Casey:I think it was, it was late David Elliot that it was on. That was like vanilla is still a great flavor of ice cream. Oh,
Fox:I like chocolate better. Just kidding.
Casey:So she made it really well for us there. So, yeah, exactly. Hear what you're saying. Entirely. So it's really cool to see us getting these questions from people that are like, wait, wait, wait a minute. And then we sift through the different questions because when we're going to get to this in a little bit about how people open up and all that, and what the most common types of longterm monogamous relationships look like when they start to open up, but let's, we get all, all the pitfalls and all the, all the caveats and things like that once we get there, but for now let's start off this whole thing by asking the simple question of. Why do people go from monogamous or monogamous? Why do they start to open up in the first place? What are some things that you think influence that curiosity?
Fox:Yeah, I think that it's becoming more mainstream. So they're realizing it as an option. Some people feel like they've never been good at monogamy and they've had a lot of struggles with infidelity. And they're like, Oh my God, there's another option. Like I find it hard to love one person. I've always loved many people and then I have to shame it and hide it. And then I fuck up. Some people just want more of everything, more intimacy, intimacy, more love, more self expansion and self growth because when you're polyamorous, You are expanding your relational skills because it's not just about fucking Oftentimes there's this emotional component in this romantic component in this really connecting relational component So you are like expanding your fucking relational relational skills so much so you grow a lot in that way It's so freeing like when I realized I was polyamorous I was like, I felt so alive in my soul and turned on because I no longer have to shut down that part of myself. Just because I'm like married and what society looks at as married. I was like, okay, I'm married. I'm only with this one person. But once I was like, wait a minute, I'm called Amherst. I was just like, my eyes opened, my nervous system opened up. Like, do you ever feel that way that you start to feel like, Oh wait, I don't even know how y'all identify. Okay. Wait, sorry.
Kari:We're, we're MAGA monogamist.
Casey:Yeah. It's on the ish side. So we, we tend to, I gotta
Fox:say what you are comfortable saying. No, no,
Casey:we're completely, we've, we've shared everything on the internet. Yeah. We're already all over the place. Everyone already knows. Oh, we, we tend to fluctuate. There's times depending. So we, this, this is, it's going to sound hierarchical, but, and we're okay with that, honestly. It's depending on where our core relationship is typically dictates On if we open up a little bit more or not, you
Kari:know, even if we have the time, sometimes it's a, it's a time management thing, you know, we both know. And like, right now we are considering ourselves closed and that's because we have a lot of things that we're juggling. And. When we don't have the time to, or when it starts to put a strain on us, that is when we make the decision to go ahead and, and close, but we've been open for the last like few years of our relationship. And
Casey:five or so.
Kari:Yeah. And, and so it's definitely brought a lot of amazing opportunities to us. It's, it allowed us to communicate more. It's allowed us to learn a lot about one another individually and who we are together. Yeah. We
Casey:do a lot of discussion around the boundaries around that. Clearly we don't ever want to hurt anybody outside of a relationship. So we make rules. It's like if we're not engaging in a, in a relationship currently, then we can talk, then we talk about opening or closing. We try to steer away from being like, if we're already in a, in a relationship on some level, then we, we try to respect that enough to be like, all right, now we don't talk about opening or closing. Okay. But once we're, once everything is just us, then we'll close it down.
Fox:Yeah. I think that's like a beautiful and ethical way. And I know that was one of y'all's questions is like this new sensationalized conversation about it's unethical to be like have couples privilege. I think that was one of the questions we were going to go over. And I'm just like, if you are doing it with compassion and transparency and kindness, you are being polyamorous and you are ethical. How are you going to marginalize an already marginalized community and start pulling all these rules? Like if y'all are invested in each other and you've known each other longer and that's safe and secure and you want to open up and you meet someone and you say, Hey, just so you know, we're, this is our power dynamic. And they can ask questions. They can say, well, like, could I ever live with you? What if I wanted to have a baby with you? Like, how do you make decisions? If you're transparent with them, they might say, okay, cool. I want that. Or no, I don't want that. And then that's ethical.
Kari:Like,
Fox:yeah. Like live your, live your
Kari:love, right? There's
Casey:low difference in that between. And in the same is in the same sense as talking with somebody that you are looking to say you're monogamous and you're looking at the dating scene, you're sitting down with someone and saying, what are your life goals look like? What did you want to have kids? What are your career?
Kari:It's the same thing. It's the same
Casey:thing. We're just having a slightly larger dynamic here, which can be a difficult thing to navigate, but it can be so rewarding.
Fox:Yeah, and I like sometimes unicorns are exploited and I've been a unicorn and I loved it was one of my favorite loving Experiences of my life, but not everyone has a good experience So I get that too, but I didn't want to be like a full time married person with them I liked my role and I understood it and there was respect and love but other people would be like no way I don't want to be your unicorn and like feel used for the night like it is like get it Have a transaction with a sex worker.
Casey:That's our top, our top piece of advice because we have a number of monogamous friends who have been married and they're like, you know, we're thinking about bringing a third in
Kari:and our
Casey:first thing is like, To what purpose? Yes. Don't, don't bring them in because it's fulfilling some fantasy that you and your wife have. That's not, if you want to do that, sure. If you want to have an experience that's purely sexual and it's something to fulfill a fantasy within your relationship, hire a sex worker.
Fox:Yeah, exactly. I only want sex and see if they're like, yeah, me too. Perfect. Yeah.
Casey:Are you here for a casual relationship? Are you here for just sex? That is consensual amongst all parties involved. Go for it. And if you have to deal with emotions after the fact, do it in a way that can, that can get you out on the other side and a good, and a good light and not something where you're falling apart afterwards.
Fox:Yeah. Well, the tragedy of falling apart afterwards. That's real.
Casey:I
Fox:didn't mean to laugh there. Nervous laughter. I was like, Oh my God, trauma.
Casey:We'll get along just fine. I've, I've, I do that quite a bit. He does nervous nervous. Yes. I laugh at some of the most serious things because it's just,
Fox:it's a release though. Your nervous system is trying to reset.
Casey:Exactly. So, so we talked a little bit about like reasons why couples open up and this may be because they do realize their capacity for relationships does lie outside of, of a single partner. They may be so close and so trusting and so comfortable with their partner that they find themselves able to handle these other relationships.
Fox:Yeah. They have different needs that can be met by other people. Like maybe you're kinky and you really want to go to sex parties and your partner's like, Oh, I'm not interested. Go get your needs met. Be safe. Do your thing. Yeah.
Casey:Yeah. And I'm sure that can be a rough conversation to navigate. I know.
Fox:Yeah. And you know, relying on one person for everything is really difficult. Like we don't do that with friendships. We don't do that at work. Why are we doing it with romance, intimacy, and sex? It's a lot of pressure to be everything to one person.
Casey:Yeah. And that can lead to a lot of sexual problems that can lead to a lot of relationship problems. And so the, the ability to engage in something like that in a safe and consensual manner is important.
Fox:Yeah. Consenting adults. Yeah. We're not promoting like infidelity. We're saying if you are, I think consent is everybody wants to, everybody knows about it and everybody agrees.
Casey:Yes. That's
Fox:why it's exciting.
Casey:Yeah. It's that if it's not a fuck yes, then it's a no.
Fox:Yeah. It's not a hell yes. Exactly. And by the way, like I can keep, I'll just keep talking. So bring me back to the question if you'd like, because I'll just, I don't, I'm in space. I have no idea where I
Casey:am. Not a problem at all. Not a problem at all. So then let's, let's shift a little bit. If we looked at reasons why couples do open up, whether it to be any of the things we discussed, what are some reasons that you tell people, Hey, It's not a good idea, or maybe it's not the best fit for you to open up.
Fox:Yeah, they're starting to, yeah, I think if there's any element of abuse, so we call that domestic abuse or intimate partner violence. So if any of that is going on, I would say, please don't open up right now. Cause it, Opening up is it's complex and it can exasperate current problems. And if you're already not safe, it's gonna, it could make things worse. And I just want to say for the purposes of this, if anyone's listening and they feel that harm or anything, you can go to the hotline. org that's a website for help. If you feel safe to get that help, or you can text 8, 8, 7, 8, 8, just for anyone listening. So if you don't feel safe I wouldn't open up if you are feeling co horsed, manipulated, like it's an ultimatum or pressure. That's not a hell yes.
Like,
Fox:it's like, take a pause cause one person might be pushing it and the other person's like, I'm not sure. Those relationships end up being really complex and like not sustainable. Yeah. A lot of times.
Casey:Yeah, you have, you have that one partner. That's like, I really want this. I want to go for it. And the other partner is
leans
Casey:into it simply because they're afraid that they're going to lose their partner if they don't say yes. Or that if they don't say yes, then it's going to lead to the other partner, a case of infidelity or, or something along those lines.
Fox:Yeah. And, and that happens a lot. So just slow it down and try to go at a similar pace. That's a deep question though, cause I see a lot of that other reasons to pause. If there's past like trauma wounds or like trust ruptures between you and your partner, excuse me, and I'm assuming this is opening up from an already established relationship, then maybe work a little bit on that trust and safety and security, because those are like the pillars, that's what Jessica Fern talks about when those pillars are strong, you can navigate polyamory a little bit better.
Mm hmm.
Fox:And I'm thinking of what other reasons to slow down. I mean, to pause. If you think polyamory is just like a 24 seven fuck fest orgy, which is awesome. But polyamory is the one consensual non monogamy under the ethical non monogamy umbrella that includes romance and intimacy and connection and a lot of fucking communication. Okay, I'm really bad at jokes, but I'm going to try to do a joke right now. You can edit it out. It's not good. What did the monogamous person? Okay. So let me start over. See, I already fucked it up. Like, please don't do any jokes on the podcast. I'm like, I'm not gonna. Okay. 20 minutes in go. Yeah. Okay. Wait. Okay. The monogamous person said to the polyamorous person, God, you're polyamorous. That's amazing. You must have sex all the time. And the polyamorous person said, no, I'm too busy communicating. So that's a very polyamorous joke. It's not that funny, but polyamorous people are talking all the time about their feelings and time management and what's happening. So if you think you're just going to be fucking all the time, can I say fuck on here?
Casey:Yeah. Yeah, you can.
Fox:Okay, fuck. That might be a misconception. And maybe just, yeah, it's, maybe you want to do swinging. Maybe you want to do like an open relationship or something different, but yeah, I think that's, that's all I can think of right now. Why people Maybe slow it down.
Casey:Yeah. I think that a lot of people need a good look at the actual umbrella that, that falls a lot of this into, because they don't understand that there's a difference between polyamory and swinging and all, I mean, there's, there's so many sub genres to having multiple partners. If there's, there's a lot.
Fox:true. You bring up a great point. Not everyone understands the nuances of each defined thing.
Casey:Exactly. And so they sit back and they're in this longterm relationship and like, all right, well, we're going to go out and you can have one partner thinking that this, this experience is going to be in one way. And I don't want to put like, Gender stereotypes on anybody or anything like that. However, What we usually see is we see a male in the relationship who is very centered around the sexual gratification of multiple partners and we see the wife in the relationship who is very centered around the emotional connection and Sex is kind of like the bonus for it. Like I also get to fuck this person.
Fox:Yes, and then you know what I see
Casey:What's that?
Fox:I'm like, I wanted to build anticipation. Then I see a clip where the, like the cis male, like in this, like, maybe cis male, cis female configuration, he doesn't get the amount of dates or the amount of sex he thought he would. And his partner begins to, and is dating more often and maybe being more sexual. Or there's a threesome and he doesn't feel included the way he thought he would be or the two The female and the other person maybe start to have feelings.
Yeah
Fox:So, I mean we got to talk about expectations and boundaries and agreements before we jump into this because so much changes Oh, it's heartbreaking when we just it's like Going, what is it called when you jump from an airplane? Is that parachuting?
Kari:Skydiving?
Fox:It's like skydiving and not even looking at the f cking safety protocol.
Kari:Yeah.
Fox:That's what getting into polyamory without talking first about weight, like, in depth about it is because people get really hurt. Or you can have a fucking great time because you're kind of like, okay, safety, communication, transparency.
Casey:Let's talk about our boundaries. Let's talk about our expectations, but that's such a big thing that we can, that we can discuss is what your initial perception is of the types of relationships you're getting into. So if, and I love that you, you've been in this hypothetical, we've clarified that we, yes, we are talking in this instance about a cis hetero male and possibly like, Let's go with our case cis, cis gendered, heterosexual male and a cis gendered, bisexual female.
Fox:What's up? Hey, I'm pansexual. You're bisexual. We're friends.
Casey:Let's do this. And so it's important for us that one of the things that we were doing or that we learned to over time was figuring out what our ideas are in the first place. What do you think this is going to be? What do you want out of this? How, how to what extent can this go? And we, we fucked up a lot in the
Kari:past. Yes. Yep. we fucked up. All do. Yeah. A lot.
Casey:And that's, that's part of it. And so for us is part of it. It was,
Kari:yeah. For us it was
Casey:coming back to that, that like core of saying, all right, let's regroup. Here's what happened, here's how things went. What can we do in the future to make sure that doesn't happen? So I think that we did what a lot of couples do and just kind of Did exactly that we went skydiving. Well without ever learning how to pull the cord but And I think it came
Kari:after me recently at the time coming out as bisexual I knew it was who I was but I didn't grow up feeling like I had to talk about it I wasn't ashamed of it. I just, yeah, I just didn't, I just didn't, I didn't care. I liked who I liked. I did what I did and I am who I am. Love that. And, and so to like have that need to come out, I never did. And then we kind of started having these conversations a bit more and I was like, oh yeah, by the way, I'm totally bisexual and. And it was really cute and he already knew, you know what I mean? It wasn't a surprise to him. But I do think that that's what initially like kick started it was. This is who I am. You accept me for who I am. But I, I would like the chance to explore what that means. And, and he was very open and understanding, but no, we, we definitely didn't go About it in the most like efficient way. We thought that we found someone that had gone through this process before. And so we thought that that was our parachute. They've done this. They're our guide. Let's let them take a good way to learn to that. I think that was a smart thing to think. Yeah,
it can be,
Kari:it can be. Yes. And, and, and then you, you kind of hit the nail on the head, emotions. Kickstarted very deep emotions got kickstarted and, and on both parties. And so it was something that we had to recognize and understand within ourselves to be able to step back and realize, okay, I like this aspect, but maybe not this aspect.
Mm.
Kari:No. And so it, it, it did take us like diving in a little bit more to even understand what our boundaries were. And so
Casey:yeah, I think we got caught. We got caught up in the experience of it first at the time. Sure.
Kari:We did. It was the worst. We were like, hell yeah.
Fox:so exciting to open up and discover your, and I think that's why people rush in. And Carrie, I just wanna say like, I love your story of coming out. And I had a similar experience of not naming it. But think about it. Straight people don't name it. They just live it. You were just living your fucking life. When I think I came out once in my thirties, I was like, I'm bisexual. And everyone's like, yeah, we know. And I was like, okay. And then the next day I forgot because my life was so filled with trauma and survival that I didn't. I wasn't able to have the privilege of being like, well, for me it would've been a privilege to have the freedom in my mind to be like, yeah, I'm exploring this. I just was focused on surviving. And then now recently, I was like, Mm-Hmm. I think I'm like fluid and my partner's like, I dunno. And I was like, well on, on Google it says I'm fluid. I, I was like, yeah. Quiz. And
Kari:this is what it told Medcom. Yeah,
Fox:I love how everyone already knows we're open and they're, yeah. Like Casey's telling you, yeah, I already knew that. And you're like, Oh, but it's so fun. Some, some people love labels and some don't. It is so fun. I enjoy labels right now and I'll, I get rid of them and use them as I please. But, oh man, I have so many, I have pansexual, panromantic, auto sexual, sapiosexual, eco sexual, panromantic, I just love labels.
Casey:Well, that's what we, I mean, we had discussed previously, we talked about the, how important the use of GSRD. is whenever it comes to just having conversations with, with potential dating partners or anything like that, we would talk about normalizing as opposed to being like, you know, I'm having a conversation, I'm figuring it out if we click, but how casually we can be like, Hey, if you don't mind sharing with me, and we'll recap for any listener that doesn't remember this, but our GSR D. Being our gender, our sexuality and our relationship diversity
to be
Casey:able to casually bring that in to be like, Hey, if you don't mind me asking, like, what is your GSRD? And then be able to be like, Oh, in actuality here, let me lay it all out on the, on the table for you so we can figure out if we click together. And this is something that that'll work out well, or if you're like, Oh, you know, I'm. Partial to this or not that. And it's just a really good way to not make any assumptions about anybody or to just to learn more about them. Are
Fox:there any identities you'd like to share so they don't have to out themselves if they're not ready. But gosh, I love my identities right now. They're so fun, but some people don't feel safe to share their identities. And I want to honor that too, wherever they are in their journey.
Casey:Yeah, for sure.
Fox:I know we got our topic of polyamory. This is fine. This is fine. No, this is,
Casey:this is what our show is about. We're, we're, we're trying to make. Super relaxed and be able to talk about whatever we want to talk about. We have that like core topic and if it just shifts around, and then
Fox:it just like rains. I love that.
Casey:Exactly. So then let's talk about people. Let's go back to, to beginners, people that are just opening up their, their longterm relationship. What are some good. Let's call them reflection questions, stuff that they might be able to ask themselves and their partners to figure out how they're going to begin to navigate this wild ride. That is polyamory.
Fox:Wild, wild, terrifying, beautiful, sexy. Yeah. Okay. So why do you want to open up? Why do you want to open up with the person that you're trying to open up with? How do y'all think it will change you and evolve you? How will you grieve the loss of monogamy? Cause monogamy has so much implicit innate, kind of innate security and safety in it. So how are you going to agree? Cause when you start to shift, there is a loss. And it is. Mm-Hmm. It's good to be unsettling to your brain and your nervous system. How are you gonna help each other soothe and regulate if you big emotions come up? Because I think a lot of people are intellectualizing polyamory these days. Mm-Hmm. And they're trying to be the good polyamorous person and not have jealousy. You're gonna have jealousy. Let's plan for it. Mm-Hmm. how are we going to manage new relationship energy? Because you can get self obsessed. So you want to be able to manage it if the other person's not going through it. How do you want to, do you want to set up rituals? That help us stay connected and what parts of our relationship are we going to be able to allow to be changed and open? Because I think people are like, Oh, it's not going to change anything. We'll still have this. And it's like, bitch, you are fucking with your whole fucking dynamic in a good way. But also let some room in for things to morph. Are you going to be able to take, do you know how to take breaks? What if it's too intense and you don't want to do it? Can you say no? What are your agreements? What are your boundaries? Can we do weekly check ins? What was the question again? No, you just keep on going.
Casey:This is great. We're talking about
reflecting
Casey:questions for beginners, for these people to be like, Hey, here's some things I should ask myself as well as I should ask my partner and clarifications that could be made. Cause you've already given us a fucking
Fox:so many. How do you foresee yourself operating in polyamory? What are you going to do if your partner's dating and you're not? Yeah. So just staying connected, staying compassionate. How are you going to have time to yourself? Because all of a sudden if you've got multiple lovers, you might feel really overwhelmed. So you've got to have good boundaries. You've got to say yes to yourself. So yeah. Gosh, there's so many I could just keep going. It's so.
Casey:You've done well so far. In
Kari:the past we've talked a lot about check ins and I do think that check ins are super important, especially when you're first starting out. And our check ins would have been something as simple as like, Oh, I chatted with this person today, or I. Chatted with this person, but I do feel like whatever works for y'all as a couple works for you. You know what I mean? Like, there's no script. Exactly. There, there really isn't. If y'all sit down and y'all both decide you want to be open. I think the biggest advice that we like to give is just start slow. You know, started in slow, go on a date together. Go on these dating apps together, sit down and, and have a night where y'all scroll through and be like, Ooh, I like her. I like him. Yep. Yep. Nope. Yep. You Aspect of it, which can really get it kind of like moving and evolving into something more.
Casey:Well, it brings them that we can, like you're talking about, if you're going to do check ins deciding on how often are you going to check in? Is this like, Hey, let's check in once a week. And you tell me about the conversations you had. And I tell you about the ones that I had, is it going to be daily? Is it going to be like, as soon as you open up a conversation with somebody, because to us early on in the, in the beginning of a lot of this, Is it can be, it can be hectic. It can be scary and you can have a lot of worry for your, your partner and you can have a lot of, of feelings of envy pop up and be like, who are they talking to? Well, how much are they talking or how far is their conversation going? What are the.
Fox:Like starting to compare yourself and feeling like you have to compete and you might lose something. And all of a sudden, like you've been in this established relationship that was pretty safe and secure. And now you're opening back up to that dating mindset, which brings up like those nervous feelings of how you're being perceived and how far is this going to go? And Oh my God, now you have a relationship with someone else. And it's so, I mean, I just think, yeah.
Casey:And I mean, I love that you had said this earlier. You talked about whenever a person. One of the people in this relationship starts dating more than the other person. Maybe one of the partners is not getting. You know, the, the connections that they were looking for. Yeah. And it's, it is, they're just kind of down here while the other person is scheduling out multiple dates a week and they have juggling all these conversations and all these people. And now you look at that and go, okay, well, what am I supposed to do now?
Because you're
Casey:starting to feel like, well, maybe this wasn't a good idea. Maybe I, maybe we should just shut the whole thing down. And that's not the way to go about doing it.
Fox:Yeah. That's when you want to lean in. That's, that's where you take out the intel exit. Okay. Intellectualization of polyamory and you lean into the feelings and you talk about, Hey, I'm feeling like a little lonely or I'm having FOMO and can we reconnect or you go within yourself? Like, okay, what are my strengths? How do I want to connect? Can I connect with my community? Cause polyamory can be isolating. We have to have a community and resources, educate yourself, read and do blogs, but like good sexual health alliance has a community bloom does these are all in 19. We ho. And then sex positive Los Angeles, like meet other people and have your little tribe of like minded people. But yeah, I wanted to touch too on something that Carrie said about the script of non of consensual non monogamy and not having one That's like such a blessing and a curse because we don't really know how to navigate it because there is no script But we have the freedom of creating a script But yeah If you have an established lover like someone that you've been with and maybe it's a primary You two get to write the script or if you're doing it on solo or whatever. However, you're doing polyamory You Write what you want it to look like and what you expect and what you wish and how you want to show up as a polyamorous person. And then you might have to check some of your thoughts to align with how you want to behave. And that's the part where we go slow and we practice and we have immense compassion for ourselves. You are gonna fuck up. I love that you two are like, we fucked up. That's absolutely gonna happen. How are you gonna repair? Because accidents will be made.
Casey:And if your relationship is not strong enough, this goes back to that whole thing of when, why to open up and why not to open up because your relationship is not strong enough and you go into this and you do fuck up and then you find yourself unable to repair that relationship
and then
Casey:you break up and now you put out the message to the world. Polyamory ruined my relationship. In reality, you were already on a crash course and to begin with,
and
Casey:you're now blaming something, which people tend to do, they're blaming something else. Outside the relationship for fucking everything up.
Fox:Yeah. And let's just name, there are so many happy polyamorous relationships. So many just like monogamy. And then there are many that are struggling just like monogamy.
Casey:Yeah. Guess
Fox:what? The common denominator is people. Relationships are hard. No one teaches us how to do them, but we are taught monogamy. Through the mainstream and the media and our parents usually, but gosh, it's going to be so exciting in the future when people are like, Oh yeah, my parents are polyamorous and now they are like, that's going to be fun.
Casey:I know we always have this behind the scenes conversation because I mean, we're, we're both set up cinephiles. So we watch a lot of movies, we do all this and we consistently see in, in like pop culture with relationships blooming and dying and all this. And you have everybody putting it through the monogamous lens. And so in our heads, we're like, I'm. Guarantee you, if we were able to take a peek behind the curtain, like celebrities lives, I would bet there's an insanely high percentage of them that are just polyamorous. And don't talk.
Fox:Hell yeah. And don't call it that. It depends on the generation too. I've noticed like older generations. They're like, Oh, I don't use that term. They, they just live it. And then younger generations are more like claiming these labels. Either all, all those options are valid. I was thinking about that movie bandits. Have you ever seen that?
Casey:No.
Fox:Oh my gosh. Yeah. Okay, I'm really glad with this one. But this is an older movie, but it's Bruce Willis. Billy Bob Thornton and Kate are I forgot her name. I'm not going to say anything else cause I don't want to spoil or alert it. But when I saw that and I didn't have the name for polyamory, I remember watching it and I was like, Oh, I just felt like my body was like, yes. And I didn't know what it meant, but you'll see, I'm not going to spoil it. Everyone go watch bandits. It's so good. What's her name? Yeah. Kate. No, no. Okay. Anyway.
Casey:Put it on a list.
Kari:Yeah, because we plan on having, so we'll definitely watch it before the next time that we chat. After you watch it, text me. Deal. Or take a
Fox:picture of yourselves watching it. We'll just be
Kari:texting you during it and be like, Yeah, yeah. Oh, I would love that. Please do it.
Casey:So, so then do you, do you feel like whenever it comes to having multiple partners that there should be some ultimate goal or attainable thing that you're trying to reach, or do you feel like it's just about free love and experiencing life as you see fit?
Fox:Gosh, that's a really good question. I think some people really want to relationship escalate naturally. Like some people are naturally monogamous. Some people naturally are like, Oh, I really want to have babies and live with all these people. So that could be your goal because you feel that in your soul that like you foresee yourself having five kids and living with 17 people. And then other people might be like, I just want to have freedom my whole life and kind of hop around. But as long as there's compassion and transparent compassion for self and others and that consent piece, I think you're good. I don't think there needs to be a goal and that's why I love polyamory. The, the goal with monogamy is get married, have kids. The goal with polyamory is love, relate, be intimate, be kind. And if something's ending, talk about it and take care of each other. That's how I see polyamory. I'm waiting for you to, to come back. It looks like you're listening so attentively to me, but really you've been frozen for a while. We might have to restart still recording now. Okay. I'll, I'll exit too.
I was shocked.
Casey:Would you like to? Nope. Go ahead. Me. It's me, me. It's on me. Got it.
Kari:You got this.
Casey:Oh no. I love the fact that you, you talk about the ability to not have to adhere to some sort of track that you're able to just kind of like, I like, I like, I like ride the wave. You can decide as things come up, it doesn't have to be. You go from point A to B to C to D and then you check the boxes off the list because you've been told your entire life that that's what's supposed to make you happy and successful.
Fox:I mean, right. It's like, it's not, it's familiar to capitalism. And like Western colonized culture, right? To be like, now we do this. Now we do this. What about just relating and connecting and just being present? Like, what about being present in polyamory? It's the way you practice it, I think, cause it's a moving, evolving type of love
where
Fox:you are really, it's so relational, right? Yeah.
Casey:Well, there's, I mean, there's, there's just so, it's such a deep concept. It's, it's an amazing thing to discuss because it goes so much deeper, whatever you're talking about, whatever you bring up into it, like, Western culture and capitalism and things like that. This can generate a lot of fear and anxiety in people. Because we are told we are delivered a message from the time we're born to the time that we die of this is what your life is supposed to look like up on the screen in big letters that this this doing these things means you're happy doing these things means that you're successful stray away from that. You're not a good, yeah, there's something wrong with you. And then the way that you would see it, like in a sci fi movie would be like, you are not a good citizen.
Kari:Well, I mean, think about even when we grow up and it's like, okay, well, what do you want to be when you grow up? Oh, okay. So you want to be a nurse. Okay. So you're a nurse and that's it. You don't get to be. Anything else? Yeah. One thing, one thing you picked it and that's all you got. And you better not say artist or musician,
Fox:you better say like doctor or something like,
Kari:but I do think that this like younger generation has really taught us that like, and like the, this whole like entrepreneur concept. Right. But like, that was really eyeopening. And I think that's why so many of millennials got like shit on because we're like, No, we are not going to do just that one thing. We're going to be able to do multiple things because we have multiple abilities within us as a human that is not going to be defied. Yeah. Around one occupation. Right.
Casey:Is the same reason why older generations look at us and go, you are fucking things up because we're making them uncomfortable.
Kari:I love making them uncomfortable. That's my favorite. Favorite demographic to make that
Fox:is my kink. I'm like, hi, I'm BIPOC, polyamorous and queer. Hi. What do you have to say about it? Yeah. Say something to my face.
Kari:I'm covered in tattoos. Boom. Yes. And I love you. I love your tattoos on your legs. Thank you. I got so many. I don't even know how many I have at this point. You
Casey:want to pull your leg up?
Kari:I have some, but it's too hard to see. You can come count them for me. I have no idea how many I have. But I love that. They're so beautiful. But I'm just saying like the, the, the concept of, if you look at the fact that your occupation is not the occupation, you're going to have the rest of your life, maybe do the exact same thing to your relationship. You can do other things than what was like pre like shoved into our brains that like, no, no, no, this is what we have to do. And this is our only option. And I do give so much applaud to this younger generation that have come out and said, this is who I am. This is what I'm going to do. Fuck your mold. Fuck your system. Yes. And, and now I feel like us is like millennials and older millennials. We're really like. That's a great idea. How else can we utilize these concepts of not being stuck in this mold? And I think that if you look at your life as like a career, you can look at your relationship the same way. You don't have to be stuck in one concept just because you're a race thinking one way doesn't mean that you can evolve and understand other joys in life than just what we were brought up to think.
Fox:Yeah, I love what you're saying. And this just connects to as soon as you start to like question sexuality and how you have sex and why and your pleasure and you start to own it. I think it fucks everything up in the paradigm that you exist in. And all of a sudden you're like, Oh my God, I own my pleasure. I own my body. Wait a minute, what am I, am I doing all the things that someone else told me? What do I value about what I've been taught? And how do I really see myself? Because we're fucking like multi dimensional beings. Why would we ever do one thing? I do so many things. I even approach therapy as an art that's like colorful and queer and like spicy. I don't know how to just do one thing. I've never fit into a box and I never want to. And I do make people uncomfortable. And it's my kink. That's not my problem, but I think I'm also inspiring them on some level
Kari:and you are definitely inspiring them.
Fox:Right. We're tickling something in people that wakes them up and reminds them they are so expansive. They can love any way they wish,
but
Fox:it's scary too because then you have to go back on the way your mind is like, you know, conditioned to not be shamed.
Casey:And rewiring that is a complex process. It's one of the reasons why. We're, we're online and we see a lot of, a lot of coaches, sexual sexuality and sex coaches that are out there and that are spouting advice and a lot. So there's some good stuff. There's also a lot of scary stuff. You're supposed to be in it and it's, it's, it's just this whole mix. And so for us looking at it, it's really, really, that's the time whenever we're like, look, if you're trying to, really deconstruct the very core values that we grew up with. Yeah. Of, of things like monogamy. That's whenever it's important to team up with like a really good therapist
that can
Casey:help you do it because navigating that on your own can be potentially hazardous, especially when you live in the era of information. Whenever we have access to All of it. It's you're literally giving a, giving a child explosives and saying, play with these. Yeah.
Fox:Yeah. Because that exciting part of polyamory is like, yeah, let's do it. Let's open up. And then we forget our nervous system is conditioned to think one way is the good way, the safe way, the secure way. Two books I love. Oh, I don't have them on my shelf right now, but Jessica Fern's new poly wise is so good. I'm writing a book. Hello. I'm writing a book. Yes. Yes. I'll let you know when it's out. I'm still writing it. Oh, absolutely. You gotta
Casey:let us know. Yeah,
Kari:cause we'll have
Fox:to have
Kari:you back on to talk about it.
Fox:Oh my gosh, please. Thank you. And then Martha Kelpy wrote a book too. Her book is for clinicians, like therapists, but it's also for polyamorous people. But I would say it is a little more clinically written, but that's the shit you're going to learn when you're in therapy. So I think I go to the root of how do I change my thinking and my perception of myself? How do I increase my self esteem? I see y'all laughing. What's going on?
Casey:That's, that's because that's what I do. I'll get recommendations from people that are like, Hey, Oh, read this book on, like we had, we had somebody more recently be like, we were talking about internal family systems. And so we had talked a little bit and so they'd been like, Hey, read this book on parts work.
And
Casey:so I went, I went through parts work and like an afternoon and then completely like shifted gears. And said, you know what, I'm going to go ahead. And I, so I picked up internal family systems by Richard Schwartz. Yes. And so, I dove into that and that one for me, like on the, from the clinician side of things just spoke so much more depth, like the actual how and why behind it, and I would just felt so much more connected to doing things like that. And I tend to do that with all of the stuff that we recently. Does you yeah, you
Kari:were like the most permanent student I've ever known in my entire life And I admire the shit out of you about that and I'm over here like listening to smut books and he's over here doing like But you compliment each other. This is the beautiful so funny. Y'all can compliment each other in this way. It's beautiful Oh, for
Casey:sure. Because what we ultimately want is the other to feel joy, right?
Kari:Yeah.
Casey:Which brings me to that, that next topic that we have. And that's the biggest topic of compersion. For people that don't understand what compersion is, it's literally the, the, the joy that you get from watching your partner experience joy within and then we use it within polyamory as a way to be like, I'm receiving joy by watching my partner, like happy. Whatever they engage with other people, whatever way that may be. But I, you actually experiencing joy from your partner's joy. And it's such an important and, and, and large thing to try to do, but it can be difficult too. So what tips do you have for people trying to introduce themselves to, to compersion and how they can access these, these feelings?
Fox:You know, it's the first thing I'm going to do is like say, Oh fuck, I don't know if we can access compersion. We can just set up the context to hope that it happens kind of like a orgasm. You can't force an orgasm. It's like a sneeze. It's like a response, but you can set up the context around it to increase the likelihood it will happen. So I want to say like compersion is that fulfillment, like you fulfilled seeing your lover be fulfilled. It's like, Oh, you're being loved. I love that. So not everyone's going to experience that. And it doesn't mean you're doing polyamory right or wrong at all. You may never experience, you may experience it all the time, but to set up the context to make it more. To more likely to happen. I think Dr. Eli SCH talks about this actually is having safety, security, and power in equality, shared power in equality, safety and security. If those are increased in your relationship and strong, I think it's more likely you will experience conversion if you haven't yet. So let that motivate you. Okay. But if you never experience, that's okay.
Casey:Yeah. Well, I love that link. I love that link that you talked about with it being contextually appropriate. I mean, we, we talk about that often whenever it comes to sex and you know, we have people like Emily Nagoski out there who like centers. I'm
Kari:just going to keep doing commercials. We're going to be screenshotting all of these. Come
Casey:as you are was a great book. Her, her newest one come together was a fantastic read. It was just released in January.
Fox:Oh, okay. I'm gonna have to get that. And then this one's great for setting boundaries. Cause you're going to need a lot of. Ability to set boundaries when you, and what's that one? This is set boundaries, find peace by Nedra Glover to walk. And she's a BIPOC fan, so I'm always uplifting my community, but that's a great one because I meet a lot of people that struggle with polyamory because it's really hard. Like if they have like people pleasing tendencies and have trouble setting boundaries, you can polyamory. But anyways, I'm sorry. See how I just. Completely got off track. Where were we?
Casey:By all means, you could continue with any of that. Where are you at?
Fox:We're
Kari:talking
Casey:about compersion and the context and creating the context instead of trying to go for it directly and just navigate your way to it. But I like that you said that
Kari:not everyone's going to ever experience that because I feel like you get like these like expectations that like, no, there'll, there'll come a point that I, I'm so, I don't know. Satisfied by seeing him satisfied. But I do love that you say that, like, because that is an unrealistic expectation that just means that it doesn't mean that what is happening is wrong to mean you may not experience that within the poly world.
Fox:Yes. And I need to do a video. I do little videos on the polyamory therapist on like Instagram and TikTok. I need to do one on this because I think that's part of the intellectualization of polyamory and the good polyamory theory that I have. The good polyamorous. theory I have, where we're trying to do it as if it's on an app and there's buttons and we should be acting certain ways. Hello emotions. We cannot control them. We can navigate them and cope with them and understand them and lean into them. But polyamory is full of big emotions. So compersion may or may not happen. Jealousy may or may not happen. If it does, how can we crease it? How can we navigate it? It's like, that's my therapist brain, but that actually does help. Like I do it to myself all the time. I therapize my own brain. I'm not supposed to.
Kari:It's kind of hard not to though. When you have the information, you kind of turn it on yourself. When
Casey:you watch it, when you watch it helps so many people so often, then you kind of go, well, I'll just use it on myself. Let's do that.
Fox:Yes. Oh, I'm fucking with cognitive behavioral therapy right now. I'm just like, Ooh, what thought did I just think that made me feel like fucking shit? Okay. Oh my God. That was that thought. Well, I don't have to make it like, Oh my God, you're amazing and beautiful. No, I just need a neutral thought. I'm a good person. I'm doing my best. I can't control what they think of me. And I'll be like, Oh my God, all of a sudden I'll feel my nervous system, like leave the threat and be like, Oh, I'm okay. And I'm like, shit, this shit works. And I just practice, practice, practice. Okay, go ahead.
Casey:No, no, that's, that's, that's awesome. We love talking about that. Again, as we set up the, the context for it, that also allows you, as you said, navigate the emotions. Stop, stop worrying about if the emotions are going to happen and start, Focusing more on how can I, when they are occurring, can I a recognize that I'm having the emotion in the first place? Can I be then take that emotion and figure out how I can get to maybe the next closest emotion to it
Kari:brings me
Casey:back towards happiness, right?
Kari:If
Casey:I'm in a place of anger, I can think about what emotions lie closest to anger for me
and then
Casey:try to move myself. And instead of trying to go from angry to happy, Or from angry to this way, the fuck over here.
Kari:Take a small
Casey:step just to the next emotion.
Kari:And
Casey:even if that, even if that motion is not a positive one, just take a step to the next one and then find out what's next to that. And next to that, until you can navigate your way back out of that dark hole that you're in and into something brighter.
Fox:Oh, that dark hole. And it just, it makes me think about, and I just want to say this because I know we're going to end soon.
Our
Fox:bodies perceive a lot of things as threat. And when that happens, we go into fight, flight, fight, fight, fawn, or freeze. And then our rational brain has shut down.
Yes.
Fox:Polyamory can be a threat because our nervous system is like, Oh my God, you're about to lose your beloved. What the fuck are you doing? They're out with someone else. You need to compete. All this shit comes up and we have to find a way to regulate ourselves, self soothe, ask for support, and check in. Is there evidence that I'm in threat right now? And help your brain come back. And I think sometimes at the, like that primal panic, Jessica Fern talks about and polysaccharide, yeah, the nervous system and the attachment shit is real. And that's why therapy, like a therapist who is poly friendly or polyamorous or a poly advocate is really good because we can help. Like help people kind of build some new skills around polyamory. Yeah.
Casey:Well, you don't, you don't always have the ability to recognize what's going on. I mean, that comes from the fact that whenever you enter into these states, we have decreased blood flow and decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex, right? So now that logical brain It's just, and so now you're in the Chilean brain, your amygdala is firing up. You have all these other pieces that are just firing negativity into your head and you don't necessarily recognize because logic's out the window that you're in that state. And so you react emotionally.
Kari:Yeah. Yeah. And you were like, yeah,
Casey:exactly. If we can start to recognize we can start to have a plan in place to recognize it.
Fox:Thank you. Yeah. And compassion for ourselves. We're just human. We're human beings. We're really fragile and we just want to be loved, seen and heard. Really? Exactly. At the end of the day. That's a good place to,
Casey:I was going to say it at that. I think that we're going to, we're going to bring the interview to a conclusion. This is One by for those that didn't already know it, that we're sitting down here with Fox Eros. As we talk about polyamory, we've covered a number of things today and we're going to cumber, cumber, cumber,
cumber,
Casey:cumber, cumber. We're
going
Kari:to come as you are.
Casey:Thank you. Emily Nagoski for that one. But on our, on our next time, our interview part two, we're going to be covering a little bit more about things like the issues within, within genders and issues within some of these very, very real emotions that pop up with polyamory. So stay tuned next time for another episode of come with Casey. We're your hosts. I'm Dr. Casey Sanders
Kari:and I'm Carrie Sanders. I'll
Casey:see you next time.
Fox:See you next time. I'm Fox arrows. Bye. Find me on the polyamory therapists. com.
