Family & Friend Reactions: Coming Out

We decided to tell a select group of family and friends about our adventures outside of monogamy. Part of this for me (K) was about authenticity and honesty in my day-to-day life. I don’t want to feel like I am hiding any part of my identity, and my sexual identity is a major part of who I am. Another part of this for me is a little more intellectual. I feel like our society and culture has a twisted relationship to sex: we are punished for deviating outside the monogamous and married relationship, and yet every advertisement and media message we receive encourages us to dress half-naked, aim to sexually please our partner, and buy products to enhance our attractiveness and sexual appeal. Therefore, it is important to me to begin, in my own small way, to dispel the ideas that sex is “bad,” the only ways to have fulfilling sex is through a married and monogamous relationship, and that having more causal sexual encounters are also “bad.”

We began selecting individuals in our lives that we felt would be open to our new ideas and adventures. These individuals are the same ones that we initially invited to read this blog. All of these individuals had one thing in common: they would still love and accept us regardless of how we decided to create our relationship. We didn’t feel like we would be shunned or lectured; all of these people have open hearts and minds. We anticipated awkward conversations, and knew some of the people we told would be surprised or even shocked. But we decided it was important for our sense of honesty and authenticity to be able to tell people that we care about.

While the circle of people that we have talked to about all of this has grown a little bit, neither of us has talked to our parents about our decision to open up our relationship. Maybe it’s none of their business, but we would both like to. Perhaps a good way of broaching the subject would be to ask “Have you and Dad (or Mom) ever talked about or thought about having an open relationship?” I don’t know if and when I will be ready for this conversation, but it is one I think about often.