We met during our third week of our first year at college. Up to that point, we had each only had monogamous relationships. We dated exclusively all through college, not knowing anything different and yet also very much in love. We had had different sexual adventures growing up, with some similarities. We had both had sex with others at a relatively young age (around 15). J could tell something about monogamy was a bit "off" for him. K could tell that she enjoyed getting to know various people more casually (enjoying a lot of flirting and making out with many different people), but often felt "slutty" for doing so.
We are so grateful that our relationship has been so solid that we could have those initial conversations about monogamy and cheating, and our continuing conversations about love and jealousy and casual sex and fantasies. We moved together to continue school in the Pacific Northwest, live together, have a dog together, love Mexican food, exercising, watching Seinfeld, and baking. We are your next door neighbor, the couple that works out together at the gym, the young woman that scours the vegetable aisle for delicious peppers, the young man that calls his grandma to help fix her computer. We also happen to love group sex and sex clubs, meeting sexy people through Craigslist, building meaningful relationships with new partners, and negotiating the ways in which our new-found open relationship will work for us!
This blog is meant to be a collection of some of our experiences in our relationship and in our relationships with others; commentary on political or values-based issues that come up for us related to sexuality, sex, and love; our thoughts on books that center on human sexuality topics; and a place to put random thoughts that come up for us on our journey. We both love topics related to human sexuality and relationships, and so sometimes posts are not directly related to our relationship, but rather to issues in human sexuality that interest us. Our blog is not only a personal space for us, but a political space advocating for relationship diversity and relationship choice.
This blog also serves as a place for K to document her experiences stripping. While not directly related to our open relationship, if it weren't for opening up our relationship, she would have never discovered her queer identity, exhibitionist tendencies, or her love of performing naked for an audience.
Note: We are not inherently opposed to monogamy. We feel that if two people have an explicit conversation that monogamy is what both people want and can agree on that arrangement, that monogamy can work for those two people. We similarly feel that non-monogamous relationships can work just as well as monogamous ones, given explicit conversations and negotiations about what that relationship will look like.
Also note: our ideas and opinions have changed rapidly and dynamically since opening up. Some blog posts from a few months ago may not be as relevant to what we think and feel now; feel free to post comments or send us an email if you have questions about anything we have written! For example, when we started our journey almost two years ago, we started in the swinging scene but now identify and operate within a more poly framework :-)
Lastly: K primarily writes this blog (the woman half of this couple). I still use the "K" and "J" labels to identify which post was written by who. If you are ever dying to know what J thinks or how he feels about a certain subject, please leave a comment or send us an email. He often experiences things differently than I do! :-)
Okay, for reals, lastly: We used to be identified as "sellwoodcouple" on here. We recently synced up our Google+ profile so K could streamline her DatingAdvice articles with this blog. Just in case you had any confusion about that :)
