208. Too Queer to be Monogamous with Jaime Delgado

[00:00:00] Nicole: Welcome to Modern Anarchy, the podcast, exploring sex, relationships, and liberation. I'm your host, Nicole.

On today's episode, we have Jaime join us for a conversation all about the liberation of queer pleasure. Together we talk about exploring without a roadmap. Reconnecting with the wisdom of our ancestors and the sexiness of nuance. Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Modern Anarchy. I am so delighted to have all of you pleasure activists from around the world tuning in for another episode each Wednesday.

My name is Nicole. I am a sex and relationship psychotherapist with training in psychedelic integration therapy, and I am also the founder of the Pleasure Practice supporting individuals in crafting expansive sex lives and intimate relationships. Dear listener. Too queer to be monogamous. Wow. You know, this was definitely a big pull for me in terms of my non-monogamy journey.

If you wanna learn more about that and you haven't already checked out my year four episode, I go into a much deeper dive of my. Personal journey with non-monogamy. But yeah, I was also simply too queer to be monogamous and what a journey it has been. And I'm so grateful to be here and to feel the capacity to have loving relationship with multiple people.

People. And dear listener, I am excited to share this episode with you about Jai MA's story. And you know, I have so many Patreon members and listeners who reach out and say how grateful they are to find this resource, to be able to learn more and not feel so alone in their journey of sexual and relational exploration.

And so I just wanna let you know, dear listener, that you belong here. You are a part of this community and I am so happy to have you here with everything that is going on in the world to share this space with you. I am so grateful, so please know that you have a home here in this space. Please know that I will be here week after week until I breathe my last breath, exploring what it means for us to collectively liberate our queer pleasure.

All right, dear listener, if you are ready to liberate your pleasure, you can explore my offerings and resources@modernanarchypodcast.com, linked in the show notes below. And I wanna say the biggest thank you to all of my Patreon supporters. You are supporting the long-term sustainability of the podcast, keeping this content free and accessible to all people.

So thank you. If you wanna join the Patreon community, get exclusive access into my research and personal exploration, then you can head on over to patreon.com/modern Anarchy podcast, also linked in the show notes below. And with that dear listener. Please know that I'm sending you all my love and let's tune in to today's episode.

Great. Alright, well then the first question that I ask every guest is how would you introduce yourself to the listeners?

[00:04:01] Jaime: You could ask me that question every day. We'll get a different answer every day, but last night, um, while I was filling out the form, I turned to my partner and I was like, I need a one sentence bio, because I really hate bios.

I feel like I never know what, what to put in them, like what's relevant, what's not. If I'm too casual and honest, then like the stuffy folks who might pay my bills might get put off. If I'm too stuffy, then the people I probably most wanna connect with are turned off.

[00:04:33] Nicole: Right.

[00:04:34] Jaime: And like I said, we're celebrating our anniversary around this little staycation, so I think we're just in a state of whimsy and fun. And so she said, you are a homo who makes people's dreams come true.

[00:04:48] Nicole: Love that. Very fun. Oh, today? Mm-hmm.

[00:04:51] Jaime: Today my bio reads a homo who makes people's dreams come true. Delightful.

[00:04:57] Nicole: Well then we're gonna have a very fun conversation.

[00:05:01] Jaime: I hope so.

[00:05:02] Nicole: Mm-hmm. And I know we had talked a little bit about exploring polyamory and sexual liberation, and I'd love if you could take me and all of the listeners down your personal journey with this.

Where did you start this? I know. Where did you start the path? Take us back.

[00:05:23] Jaime: Well, I was born in Waterbury, Connecticut to a pretty conservative. Immigrant family on my mother's side. Actually both sides were immigrant. My mother's side raised me though. You know, just being a young person, a little bit confused about who you are from the jump, you know, like growing up and people that feel like they're a little bit already displaced.

Um, in the US with all of that, like all of those, I guess heritages, all of them were deeply, deeply Roman Catholic.

[00:05:55] Nicole: Mm.

[00:05:56] Jaime: And, um, I really wanted to take that up. I really enjoyed going to Sunday school. I wanted to go to church. I wanted to do all the things you're supposed to do. I would cry terribly if I felt that I had like sinned.

[00:06:12] Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:06:12] Jaime: And I prayed every night and by the time I was about 14, I actually wanted to be a nun.

[00:06:17] Nicole: Whoa.

[00:06:18] Jaime: Um, and it's really interesting because I'm estranged now from my. You know, family of origin, the family that raised me, and every time I tell this story, I just find it so ironic that those people that raised me or were around as I was coming up don't know a damn thing about me.

Mm. Don't know any of this. These are, you know, uncles who told me I was gonna go to hell, but also, like, hadn't read as much on Roman Catholicism of the Bible of Christian mysticism as I had as a teen. Mm-hmm. I was really up in it, you know, the other uncle once told me I didn't have a reverent bone in my body.

You know, I was different. I looked different, I sounded different. I grew up very early on knowing I was a bastard. That was a word. I don't know how I, I knew that word as a child.

[00:07:11] Nicole: Yeah.

[00:07:11] Jaime: But I was a bastard and I knew I was one of them.

[00:07:13] Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:15] Jaime: I had an aunt by marriage that would call my mother a slut. These are all things that, you know, definitely informed my young ideas around sexuality.

Sure felt scary. There's a lot of shame, but it was maybe around the age of 16 to 17 that I started to realize that there could be something of value in not being monogamous. And I remember dating a lot of boys. I got a lot of attention from boys. I wouldn't even know where to find a queer person to date in.

You know, the eighties, nineties in Waterbury, Connecticut, that everyone was so deeply closeted. With that and a lot of the attention that I got, uh, I just ended up dating a lot of boys. At some, some point I ended up dating like a couple of boys that were friends with each other.

[00:08:12] Nicole: Mm.

[00:08:13] Jaime: And then there was some crossover.

And I remember a well-meaning boy that I had spent time with who is still a close friend. I actually love him dearly. Um, he warned me, he was like, you can't hook up with two boys. Yeah. In the same night. And he was serious and not, I don't, he wasn't being mean or anything. And I don't think he was at all jealous.

It wasn't like that. I think he was like trying to protect me from like, sure, it's just not done. And I'm like, why? Sure. It's

[00:08:45] Nicole: not, I want three boys at the same time. What do you mean? Like,

[00:08:49] Jaime: what, what's going on? Um, and it, and it was strange 'cause uh, as a teen I was kind of always flipping around, back and forth between, hi, I wanna be a nun, I'm gonna be pure and Chaz enough.

If I'm not a nun, then I'm still gonna wait until marriage. Mm. I'm not gonna be a slut. I'm already a bastard. Right. Um, but at the same time, I'm like a young, very, you know, I guess universally at attractive femme person enough to get attention, you know, depending on, you know what people find attractive and horny ass fuck.

Sure. That's what happens when you're a teenager. Absolutely. Once I did have sex, there was something like, well, fuck it. It's all ruined now. It can't be a nun. Right, right. It didn't last till marriage. And I was like, screw this. Like have that. And it was fun. And I was really responsible actually, my dear, dear old friends.

And I would go to the Planned Parenthood. We would educate ourselves because there was no good sex. Right? We were incredibly responsible. And also we came up when, when AIDS was just like taking over everything and there was like so much fear about it and

[00:10:01] Nicole: mm-hmm.

[00:10:01] Jaime: I lost someone close to my family. The literally the only gay person I knew growing up was one of my mom's best friends.

I remember when he died and I was in undergrad, I had to ask, did he die from aids? And she said, yes. And why? Why couldn't I have known that? Why didn't I know when he was dying? Y'all had to know for a hot minute. And I just think about that and I wonder about him. Yeah, so I'm, I'm sitting here in this place.

Uh, I'd given it up. I was ruined,

[00:10:32] Nicole: reputation

[00:10:33] Jaime: ruined, right? Can't find any queers. Don't even know how to be queer. And then, and then I know now, again, at the time I didn't know the pain of the queer femme trying to be seen as queer. Like, I don't look it, I promise I'm queer.

[00:10:50] Nicole: Totally over here. Totally. I got my docs

[00:10:54] Jaime: and now being like trans masc, I'm, uh, you know, it's a completely different situation.

I can't, not queer, there's nowhere to hide. Uh, it's just there, here I am. But for like, uh, decades, it was just invisibility, like how would we even find one another? So the poly stuff started probably because I was like, all my dreams of being virtuous and true fell apart. Um, and I just thought it was irreparable, you know, so the, it's irreparable.

Then I might as well have fun. Do what I want, be what I want. Yeah. And really push back against it as much as I can. 'cause something in me new as much as I like, you know, love the idea of church and I love the idea of faith that there is something horribly wrong about what was going on. But that's, that's where it started.

That's how it started.

[00:11:54] Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thank you for sharing your story and for trusting me to hold this space. Yeah. I've talked to so many different people that have come from fundamental religious backgrounds and yeah, the ways that the problematic nature of purity, culture, set ups, all this sort of pressure and pressure and pressure.

And once you kind of don't meet those standards, then what? Right? Then what, where do you go? Who am I? Do you go to Hell yeah. Yeah, exactly. I go to hell and, uh, am I worthy? You know, like all those deep things. And I think one of the biggest things is, um, you know, from that space, so many people have talked about this inner knowing of it felt wrong, it felt wrong, it felt wrong, it felt wrong.

And once you kind of dismantle that structure, there is such a big question mark to the rest of reality, right? Like, oh, I've just gotten out of the matrix. What else is a lie? What else should I be deconstructing? Right? And I think a lot of people start to then question. Yeah. Monogamy the structures, these imposed ways of being.

And so from there it kind of creates this like, you know, ripple out of just paradigm shifting. And so, uh, your journey at least mirrors a lot of the other conversations I've had on this podcast from people in that way of just dismantling that, that major system and then continuing to ask those questions and.

I'm curious, you know, when I'm working with clients on non-monogamy, relationship anarchy, all these different avenues of expression, I, I am always feeling the ways that we don't have a enough cultural representations of this. Like there is Yeah, I know. You're already shaking your head like, yeah, there is no like rom-com movie I can go watch to just be like, oh, this is how people do it.

And so even my, in my own journey, it's, it's hard when we don't have these narratives to like imagine what we're writing in our own life. And so I'm, I'm curious for you, as you were stepping into multiple relationships, what was that like? 'cause you were kind of like stepping into the reality of like, I, I'm doing this with intention.

[00:13:58] Jaime: Oh yeah. I'm a therapist and I have a lot of like poly queerer clients and, uh. A lot of times I say exactly what you just said, it's okay. It's okay to mess up. Like we don't have a blueprint for this. Your partners don't have a blueprint. The books that are out there, sometimes they've been helpful or serviceable, but they in it we're just sort of scratching the surface with what we need to talk about.

I knew that, I was sure, I knew that I was queer. I knew that I didn't have access to the queer experiences in the queer community that I needed that. I mean, like, it was, I was like suffering and I went to undergrad in Philly and an art school and it was, and far more conservative than one might imagine.

Yeah. I used to go into the bookstore, Giovanni's room just to be around queerness. Hmm. I always hear these stories about, um, folks that before they got connected to any queer community, they would go to bookstores. Like bookstores were there one place. So I still, um, queer bookstores and they feel. They feel a bit holy.

I guess what church couldn't be for me.

[00:15:07] Nicole: Sure.

[00:15:08] Jaime: So I would just read, I would read stories that I wanted to become part of my own story to start. And whenever I got in a relationship, which would usually be with men, I'd be like, Hey, I'm queer, or I'm gay. Like this is non-negotiable. So we'll have this relationship.

I will, you know, I am attracted to you. I want to be having some experience with you, but like, I'm not gonna be monogamous. I'm not gonna be with you forever. And you know, my kid's dad, I've been married to him for, I mean, we've been together over 20 years.

[00:15:52] Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:54] Jaime: You know, and I think this year will be 19 married.

And it's the first thing I said to him. Mm-hmm. I'm gay. I'm like that, that's accurate. And then, you know, at some point I did have a commitment ceremony with a woman and he officiated. And the first thing, yeah, the first thing that Jaime said when we met and started dating was, I'm gay. And then he made a joke.

Like, I didn't realize how gay they were, cute and sweet, but I also, I don't think he did. Um, but I don't think maybe I did either. So I started the journey just being honest. And I didn't have rules. I didn't have the names for all the 20 different ways to be poly in any given moment. I, I didn't have a language for the 45, you know, different things you can call a partner.

[00:16:48] Nicole: Right.

[00:16:48] Jaime: Um, I didn't have a radar worksheet right to, to meet weekly. I did not have like a doodle. Meet scheduling app or anything. All I had was um, a truth which was really simple. It was not fleshed out yet. I didn't know what the details would be, but I simply knew I was queer and I was so queer that I could not be monogamous with the partners that I was having at the time, which happened to be all cis met.

[00:17:19] Nicole: Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. I love that you stated that like first time meeting them, here it is. Right. And it sounds like they were receptive. I think in my own poly journey, I've, I met someone who wasn't and then tried to wonder if I could go down that path. 'cause I was so in love and oh my God, it tore my heart open.

So. You know, you wonder, you're like, well, maybe if this one person, you know, like you, it's almost like I had two parts of myself, right? Like the one part that was like so connected to this liberation, so connected to this space of having the freedom. And then I met someone who I thought was like a dream and I was like, oh, well maybe I don't need that part.

And I tried that for a couple of years and it just tore me apart. And so, like, to be able to be where I'm at now, where I have all partners that are on board, all supportive, it is life changing. So I'm so glad that you had that experience with your partner where like they were supportive right there from the beginning.

[00:18:19] Jaime: Yeah. I mean, I think they came with their truth, which was, I love you and Yes, I'm down. Mm-hmm.

And I, I have things that I wanna maybe explore, look at too, and, and we could be honest with one another and I. It would benefit both of us to sort of figure it out. And we have figured it out for the most part.

It has been very difficult at times. We've gone through a lot of different eras, you know? Sure. That happens when you're with someone for a couple decades. Yeah. It could happen. If the people are growing, it should happen. Um, and I think at this point, you know, we are mostly focused on a relationship as co-parents and raising our children and then supporting each other in our, like, other romantic relationships.

And we're, I think we are entering a new era of defining family differently as he has a lovely partner, regular partner. I have a regular partner and she wants to have a baby. And my other children are, you know, eight. 15, 16. So there's just an expansiveness that is happening. And then with our family, so it started with us too, just being honest and saying, Hey, don't know what all this means, but this is where I'm at.

[00:19:40] Nicole: Yeah.

[00:19:41] Jaime: We've seen it grow in all these different ways. Sure. And it just keeps expanding and expanding. And it's not just us anymore. Right. Six people around our table. And everyone needs different things and wants different things and wants to be living in different places or visiting different places.

And it isn't just about, oh, this is how to have two partners or three partners, and this is how you're going to order them in this hierarchy, or this is how you're gonna say, fuck that. There is no hierarchy. It's not that we have like children, we have seven pets. We have like, you know, home to care for. We have like bills to pay and again, there is nothing for.

Our type of polyamory out there. Not even the books, you know? Right. Uh, that's why I'm saying we're just scratching the surface with what's available as far as resources because mm-hmm. I've never had a book for what I was doing.

[00:20:35] Nicole: Yeah.

[00:20:36] Jaime: I don't have a book for what I was, I'm doing. I don't wanna write a book because it's gonna be obsolete in like a year.

I know. All I can do is have conversations like this and, and keep having conversations as I evolve as Right. Our community evolves and

[00:20:53] Nicole: Totally

[00:20:54] Jaime: less of what you experienced getting ripped open. Yeah. Someone wasn't quite on board. Right. So, so sorry. Experience, I mean, I have experienced things like that as well.

[00:21:08] Nicole: It was helpful too, 'cause I learned a lot, you know, I learned a lot in that process of like, oh, okay, this is what, like, um, I don't know how to say this, where like. I learned what it feels like for my gravity to be off. Like, you know, like you're in your authenticity, you're feeling good, you're like, oh yeah, this is my life.

Like, hmm. And then to meet someone else and feel that relational pole and that relational paradox where there was parts of myself that couldn't be in this relationship and I started to feel how my mind would be spinning all these different scenarios, constantly thinking about it, lost in the thought of it all, and I felt like my, my joy, my gravity was so off.

And I learned a lot in that experience to kind of notice when that happens, to notice when certain relationships pull that away from me. Whether it's as big as something like that of like the non-monogamy question or much smaller pieces, and kind of feel into that. I also learned that don't ask, don't tell, never works in my opinion, because never I,

[00:22:10] Jaime: you right there, like I can't do that.

I'm a therapist. My partner's a therapist. The first thing we do, we meet someone easily. We need the first names of everyone in your poly pool because we need to know right now before we even order drinks if there's a clinical conflict because we will not go there. Yeah. And if people are like put off by that or they fuss, we're just like, you don't understand, um, how careful and cautious we need to be and what kind of responsibility we have.

We can't hang with you. Totally, totally. Can't do it. But I'm with you on that.

[00:22:44] Nicole: I know I recorded with someone who was like, I've met with clients who do do it and it works well. And I was like, oh, okay, okay, okay. Like I'll try and hold space for that, but I'm like, I just don't get how you could do it in logistics.

Like again, maybe in more of like a swinging open, spacious dynamic maybe. But like when you're doing polyamory, relationship anarchy, like how am I gonna tell you that? Like, oh, my partner wants to take me out this weekend to go camping. Like the other person asked, what are you doing this weekend? What? Um.

Can camping by, by myself. Huh. You know, like, I just, like, there's just no world in which when you like really run into this of like love, like I just don't see it happening. So I learned that the hard way, you know, of like, that doesn't work. Um, and, and yeah, so it was definitely a piece of learning some of those things the hard way that I, that I'm thankful for.

But you're right, I, I just think about the ways that like. We're social creatures and we often only dream of what's possible through lived, uh, example. And so when we don't have these examples around us, we can't even dream of where we could go or what we could do. And I, and like you, I just feel like I'm scratching at the surface for books.

I want books. I want something to hold onto. And then I'm like, it's okay. We're pioneering. Here we go. Like, you know, let's just keep going into the unknown. And, and I think a lot about, um, how I'm a rock climber, so that's ends up being a lot of my metaphors for, for polyamory and non-monogamy and pioneering and exploration.

But there's been so many times where there have been, um, walls like true, like, uh, multi-pitch, um, cliffs to climb up. And no one's done it before. No one has done it. It's impossible. It's impossible. And then you have that one person that goes up the wall, does that route that has been so impossible for years.

And then, you know what happens afterwards? Multiple people climb the wall and then do it faster because someone has set the precedent of this is possible and now your brain is not going, is this possible? Am I gonna fall? It's like, I can do this. Can I do it faster? And so I'm really excited for future generations.

Like you and I are climbing right now. Like this is possible, this is possible. But the younger people, your kids, future kids are gonna be sprinting up this wall in ways that we have been struggling. And I'm, I'm so excited for that. I'm so excited for kids to wake live into a world where they're not feeling like a slut for wanting two people in their teenage years.

'cause that makes sense. You know? It makes sense.

[00:25:18] Jaime: It makes sense because I feel like in those years you're figuring out who you are. Mm-hmm. Or of how you figure out who you are is by seeing how you do next to, or with, or alongside of other people.

[00:25:31] Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:32] Jaime: And. It's necessary to know who you are, to look at many different types of other people, um, and engage in many different types of relationships.

And I also think people just assume polyamory or non-monogamy just is all about sex, sex, sex, sex.

[00:25:48] Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:49] Jaime: I do think we, we long for something like a book Yeah. Or answers. I don't think it's there. I don't, I don't feel so much as a pioneer. I feel like what I'm actually doing is digging back.

[00:26:03] Nicole: Mm.

[00:26:03] Jaime: Because people have been doing this.

Sure. It seems existed. And if not even hidden, like if you, you know, go back into any kind of history and, you know, like queer history, queer mythology, all of that, these are some of my special interests. You have tons. You have tons of examples, whether it's in the myths that humans have created, um, whether it's, and the history of some of our, almost like, I guess.

Famous people of history that we're, we're told to look up to. You know, you just find a, you know, two pages in their biography and you're like, wait a second. You know, that means something else. You know, and you dig a little more and you're like, wait a second. This person lived with a roommate for this amount of years and they had fancy parties, and then they were seen with this person.

And I'm like, no, all of these people were doing this.

[00:26:57] Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:57] Jaime: So for me, especially since I can find some, some cultural references in my own lineage to, you know, people living non monogamously, I feel like I'm looking towards my ancestors, both my, my blood ancestors and my communal ancestors for wisdom.

That's kind of gotten lost along the way, uh, because it just didn't suit

[00:27:24] Nicole: right.

[00:27:25] Jaime: Certain narratives, certain people who wanted to be in power, certain people who wanted. Things to look a certain way. I mean, if we're all communicating and we're not giving into feelings of insecurity, if we're not giving into having like a scarcity mindset around love and care and kindness and warmth and intimacy, then we're not gonna be constantly filling the void by buying things and rolling in new courses or looking to, you know, people outside of ourselves who, you know, aren't necessarily great leaders to emulate.

And if you wanna keep power, you have to confuse people. You have to make them feel frightened. And I think when we come together and love one another in genuine and truthful ways, we get strong. Mm-hmm. And brave and bold. Yeah. And there's a practical reason why folks don't want that to happen on mass.

[00:28:27] Nicole: Yeah. That's why I find these conversations to be so political,

[00:28:31] Jaime: like

[00:28:31] Nicole: always.

[00:28:32] Jaime: Well, it's incredibly political. Mm-hmm. Like I was thinking about, I was thinking about us saying, oh, like don't ask, don't tell, never works. And I was like, oh man, I can only imagine the, the comment section. And it would open about 'em going like it does.

And I'm like, I know it does work for some people and some circumstances it does not work for me. Right. Uh, would not work for me. And I understand and relate when you said it does not work for you. Right. Um, but I, I have seen people that I've worked for, but I guess what I'm wishing for is the type of environment where that's not necessary.

Where there's a kind of security and care where. It doesn't, there needs to be no fear about someone finding out who you're camping with over the weekend.

[00:29:17] Nicole: Totally. Yeah. And I think part of that goes back to like your friend who was like, you can't sleep with two people in the same night, let alone like two people at the same time.

Or like 3, 4, 5, I don't know. You know, like that level of ingrained righteousness about the right and the wrong ways to be in relationships and to explore sexuality. So many of us have that and, and including myself in past experiences. Right. As a queer person who grew up in the church deeply like I was.

Spouting out so much hatred towards gay people as a Christian, only to find out I was one later. Right. And then you're like, oh fuck. You know? So like all of that was so deeply ingrained in myself so that anytime I saw someone doing something else, I would lash out of like, you're going to hell. Oh my God.

Right. And some people are literally still there, right. Of like, people who are gay are going to hell. And then if you're not there, you're maybe a little bit further of like, okay, like gay people. Sure. But like you can't have multiple what you know, and like still losing your shit there, you know? And it's like there's so many ways that these cultural narratives, and I love that you pointed out that you know, when you look back in history, this is not actually the case.

So it's very white, western, colonial nature that has been deeply ingrained in all of us that when we see anything outside of that, it is literally so shocking that most people get uncomfortable. And the first thing they say when they hear that is, I could never do that. I wasn't asking you to do it, I was just telling you about my life.

You know what I mean? It's just so, so, so deep. So I think part of this is like literally dismantling, not to say that everyone needs to be poly. 'cause that's absurd. It's just to have this space where it's an option, right? Until it's an option. We're not free, right? Because so many people have that innate, like, I could never, that seems so wrong.

And until it's a valid option where you're looking between both, I don't think we're liberated.

[00:31:13] Jaime: I mean, uh, there's so many stories of infidelity and monogamous relationships and it's very painful. I mean, I have been in monogamous relationship. I've been in poly relationships and had people cheat.

[00:31:26] Nicole: I know.

Isn't it wild? It happens.

[00:31:28] Jaime: It's I cheat. Like, why are you not saying anything? And it's more about like, you know, I care more about, you know, my health. And either my physical health and like, sort of knowing everyone's statuses and, and making sure that, you know, STI and infection statuses are shared openly and there's no stigma.

Um, but also decisions can be made right. You know, that are informed, right? That's, and I'm like, that's kind of my only, I guess, rule. My only thing is like, be honest about that and please, please check in. And you'd be surprised how many times you'd be surprised there's like slip ups over the, I'm like, I don't care what you're doing and who you're doing with, as long as it's not a client.

That obviously is, goes without saying, you know, once I'm, I'm with someone. Like, I make that very clear the areas where there's no goes, but like as long as you let me know what the exposure is, I don't even necessarily know who. I don't need to know who the person is. Long as I have, I'm quite certain it's not a person in the caseload, then it doesn't matter,

[00:32:32] Nicole: right?

[00:32:33] Jaime: There's still sort of this internal thing that makes us feel like we have to keep secrets. Mm-hmm. Or then people are keeping secrets because they have some other personal thing to work out that has nothing to do with. Their relationships where, right, like they have to keep secrets of some sort, which is hurtful because I did at some point think this is great.

I'm like, Polly, no one's ever gonna cheat on me.

I'm not gonna anywhere else. We're just gonna, we're all gonna live. Honesty and everyone's gonna be healthy and safe and supportive and carry. I'm like, oh, okay.

[00:33:11] Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. It's so complicated. I think, um, Esther Perel had quoted something around like up to 70% of monogamous like relationships, experience, and fidelity at Someti Point.

And when I recorded with Jessica Fern, she had pinpointed it around like 40 to 50. I mean, again, so if we're thinking like half of monogamous relationships, experience infidelity, like there's a lot of non-ethical, non-monogamy just happening out there. And then yeah. In the non-monogamous space where we're all talking about, it gets so complicated because there's always these questions of like, oh, am I gonna hurt the other person if I tell them this?

So then maybe they don't want to. There's also obviously the like very self-centered, like, I'm gonna do whatever the fuck I want. I don't care about these other people that exist. And then there's also the people that like, get. Off in like a very kinky way on like the secret nature of like, Ooh, this is the sad thing I'm not telling anyone.

Ooh. You know? Um, so there's a lot of different avenues in non-monogamy where people cheat and are still like it, and it's wild to me. Yes. When you live in a world of such abundance, of such freedom that there is still spaces where Yeah. We can get locked up in the complexities of all of it and, and fuck up.

[00:34:24] Jaime: I mean, I, I just see a lot of times people don't know what certain things mean to them. Like what is sex Sure. Is very biggest things. As a queer person, I'm like, well, a lot of things that are defined as sex don't really apply to me in a lot of instances. Mm-hmm. And then there's a lot of things I consider sex that I guess in the books, you know, when people are formally discussing se sexual intimacy.

What I consider sex isn't represented there at all.

[00:34:58] Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:59] Jaime: So you have people just having conversations around sex. I'm always reminding my children, my partners, my clients, Hey, make sure when you're talking about it, get on the same page. What is sex or what is sexual? Like, what do you consider sexual intimacy?

And then also what do you consider cheating? Right? I think there's such a wide span on like how many people, uh, cheat or, or, you know, commit some kind of infidelity because is such a huge range. Totally defining what these things. Some people think that if you text someone, you know, that's, that's cheating.

If you think about them in a sexual way, that's cheating. Um, some people think it's cheating. If you watch, you know, adult movies, uh, erotic movies or Right magazines and they gen, they're genuinely feeling this way. That's how they define it. It creates conflict of a partner does it and the other partner doesn't consider it cheating.

Right. No one ever, you know, tells you in your pre-marriage classes are true to sort of define what these these things mean to everyone. They wouldn't, I mean, they wouldn't possibly, then they'd have to acknowledge how queer everyone is first and foremost, right. And how sticky things get.

[00:36:16] Nicole: Yeah. I mean, there's some cultures where you're not allowed to hug someone of a different gender.

Right. So, and I think that's another thing is like, people kind of forget how culturally laden these things are, right? Of like, yeah, hugging someone of a different gender could be forbidden. Cheating something that could make you go to hell, right? Maybe in our western culture that's kind of normalized.

And then I start to like extrapolate that out of like, like, oh, having sex with another person, forbidden, wrong. Uh, you know, but like in some really kinky, non-monogamous cultures, that's super your typical Tuesday, right? Like, there's just such a wide spectrum to the culture of sex and where you're at in that.

And so, yeah, getting clear on what it means. Some people think that liking a picture on Instagram is cheating, right? Like, like we, you gotta talk to your people, get really clear. And at some point it almost gets hard. Like, I, I don't know about if this resonates for you, but like. When I first started on my NoMy journey, there was such like a like.

Like I was gripping. Again, my metaphors are all rock climbing. So when I first started rock climbing, you're like, gripping the route's so hard. Like, text me here, text me here, text me here, text me this. Versus like, there's much more freedom now for me, of course, like the people that I'm fluid bonded with.

There's a level of like expectations around that. But then beyond that, there's a lot more breathing room for me these days where I'm like, yeah, go run free. And, and most of my like parameters are in much closer, intimate relationships. Not to say that you can't build romantic, sexual, deeper partnerships with people that are close in my world in terms of like Thanksgiving table folks, or like in terms of like sitting and dinner and having.

Those close people that are a part of my world, but I just wanna know about it. I just wanna be in conversation. If you're starting to fall in love with one of the closest orbiting people in my world, I don't want that to be a surprise and find you like making out in the corner of a party. I wanna like know this is happening.

Other than that, there's like so much freedom now that I, I feel for my partners in ways, at the beginning of my non-monogamous journey, it was like, no, text me here. What are you doing before you kiss? You know, or like something really intense where like the more I'm breathing into it, the more, um, it's easier.

And I think the easier it gets is also a part of me having my own partners and my own people and like kind of, you know. It, it was hard at first 'cause I was opening up and, and I'm in grad school and so there's so much I was doing that it really took up a lot of my free time. So I'd have these other partners that were dating other people while maybe I had just them.

Right. So it was really hard to conceptualize what they were doing, how they're loving multiple people and doing this. And then once I started doing it, it was like, ah, I can love these multiple people and have all these different people meet me in different needs. So, and then starting to put that sort of mind frame onto their experience to have a little bit more understanding than I, I did when I had never done it before.

[00:39:10] Jaime: I've been like some form of non-monogamous since I was 17.

[00:39:14] Nicole: Mm.

[00:39:15] Jaime: I'll speak on it. I mean, it's definitely where my therapy practice is at least partially rooted and I don't know, I don't have any answers for anyone on anything other than to talk to people. Yeah. You know? I can't give you, you know, some try and true way to make it successful, other than to say, be as honest you can as you can with what you have.

[00:39:40] Nicole: Right?

[00:39:40] Jaime: And if you don't have the language that you need to be honest, ask for a break, ask for time. I think it's important not just with this idea of fidelity or not cheating or you know, sort of sexual safety, but I'm also seeing something really frightening that's happening where people are engaging in some form of sexual interaction and they, after the fact, agree on the facts of all the offense that happened.

[00:40:10] Nicole: Mm.

[00:40:11] Jaime: But disagree on whether or not it was consensual.

[00:40:15] Nicole: Mm.

[00:40:17] Jaime: And as a therapist, I'm, I'm seeing a lot of scary things, a lot of weaponization of systemic rhetoric. That's really important that we need to have to fight for rights, victims' rights. They're being weaponized to use in moments where they really have no business being used, where they shouldn't apply.

And I'm seeing that a lot as in their situations where a person will ask multiple times, um, would you like to do this? Can I get an enthusiastic Yes. As by the book, as you can imagine. And afterwards, both people agree that all that happened, but one person insists that the other person should have known that they really didn't want to do it.

[00:41:06] Nicole: Yeah.

[00:41:07] Jaime: You can hear that as a one-off and be like, oh, that's wild. Like, how are we gonna work through it? But I am literally hearing things like this.

[00:41:12] Nicole: Mm-hmm. Circle

[00:41:12] Jaime: left and right and you know, and this happens within my, my friend circle too, and within community. And I feel like everyone's either afraid of accidentally violating consent.

Yeah. Or that they might have been passed and didn't know. Um, and then they're having experiences that later they realize were not enjoyable or don't feel good, and they're like, wait, was was that non-consensual? Totally. Yeah. And I, I don't think we're talking about this enough, and I don't think we have the tools to help people through restorative processes.

Sure. And bad goes down and we immediately go to this place of like, there's a victim, someone was a perpetrator, we need to dox 'em. And, you know, people are really moving quickly and ferociously and I think is righteous, but is, it is more self-righteous than anything else. And I can't say it's anyone's fault.

We, we don't in our culture have I. A place to process and care for one another in a non-punitive way we don't know how. Right. Even in abolitionist movements, I as an abolitionist therapist, like can't point to where to send people, right. Work through these things that don't involve some kind of punitive experience.

[00:42:37] Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:38] Jaime: And that makes it scary. It makes it scary to have multiple partners. Maybe a person wants to have multiple partners, but there's this fear of just how complicated it could get. Sure. Complicated enough with one partner trying, you know, build and sustain something that's honest and you know, intimate and caring suits everyone.

But then when you get miscommunication.

[00:43:02] Nicole: Yeah.

[00:43:03] Jaime: And then if you go in and you dig a little, it's like, oh my gosh, like you met X, Y, and Z. This other person heard a different thing. Sure. Perfect sense. You all are so into whatever fields you're into. Like there may be a lot of hate and hurt and a refusal to acknowledge something really big came from a misunderstanding.

[00:43:21] Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:22] Jaime: And that's hard to just now watch people navigate in their dating and poly journeys.

[00:43:28] Nicole: Oh, totally, totally. Yeah. My, my first word that's coming to mind is just like the nuance of all of this, like the nuance, the nitty gritty, the gray is not black and white and getting into that because it is absolutely tricky.

Right. I'm, I'm thinking about like just, yeah. 'cause because violence does happen and people need to be held in that. Right. And then like, just the nuance of how far that can go. Like, thinking of an example of like, oh, okay, say I meet someone new, right? And I say, oh, I like to be slapped. Cool. We start playing that person, they slap me on my ass, maybe that's okay.

And then they slap me on my face, not okay. Right. And if we had conversations about that beforehand, the next sub subsequent question should have been like, are there specific areas that are okay or off limits? Right. But some people first don't even ask the question of if Slappings. Okay. Right. Some people don't even ask them the subsequent question of where.

And then the further question of like. To what level, where, where is your soft, your like hard limit, you know, could we practice a, you know, like that. Just those levels of conversation not happening right? Then you add maybe something like drugs on top of it. The amount of people that use, because of our society, there's so much shame and I fucking hate it, but there's so much shame.

So something like alcohol can disinhibit some of that and make it a little bit easier. So now we're talking about the complexities of consent on drugs and these altered states of consciousness and um, I've had a lot of episodes on that. But like that also then plays a part into this conversation. And the problem being too, that like so many of us don't have language, like, especially in my own body like that, you'll see those research videos of people like, can you identify the clitoris?

Can you identify? You know, can you identify the mons, the labia, and people just being like, no. You know what? How the fuck am I supposed to have a good sexual experience when I can't name where I wanna be touched on my body? Let alone consent of like, Hey, you can touch here, but not here. Like, we don't even have the literal language for the parts of our body to be able to communicate in this.

So it's a mess. It is a whole mess as of as a culture, because it's been so silent, so quiet. There's a lack of education. And then we lack the community spaces where we can process this, right? Because some of us have had experiences that are deeply traumatic, but we didn't even see it that way until we talk to someone else and they look at us and they say.

How isn't okay. It's just so much of the results of like a, such a quiet taboo, don't talk about a culture. And in my work with psychedelics, I just see that connection so deeply to like drugs, right? How many people die because of not talking about it, the shame, doing drug use alone versus having open spaces and conversations and learning how to do it safely.

I mean, the problem is this like private, quiet, shame-based culture. We have to get out of that.

[00:46:35] Jaime: What we're talking about here, like these ideas of sort of consent, what's appropriate, what's not appropriate. You know, I definitely, I like to say I deal in like nuance on the black market. Like I do consultant work when things sort of hit the fan somewhere on all these topics and it's like they might bring me in and very quickly I'll be like, oh, it was this, this, this, this, and this.

I'm like, y'all are following something from a great like, you know, book that I highly respect the author or a system that works really well for systemic institutes or in these certain specific types of places. But you're applying it here where it doesn't work and it doesn't fit, it's misplaced and it's causing damage.

What we wanna do is actually this, this, this, and this. And then things move very quickly. But yeah, my partner got me a t-shirt once that says nuance is hot.

[00:47:29] Nicole: Yeah.

[00:47:30] Jaime: It's really everything I do is about nuance and I think we miss it often. Um, you can't say anything that is too specific. Right. Or people will have a, like a somatic response and instead of sitting with it and wanting to have more conversation to ask curious questions, it's like an immediate reactive, you know, moment.

Sure. Then we get away from our truth. And like I started with the, the first thing you, you can do is offer your truth, but it may not use the words someone expects or somebody else says is the most appropriate to use in the situation. Um, we don't offer grace for people who are just learning certain things.

And no matter how long you've been doing something, whether it's kink poly, how long you've been out as queer, there are always more questions to ask of ourselves, of others. So we can never just assume the people we with are with are, are like, not going to make an error. Make a mistake.

[00:48:36] Nicole: Totally.

[00:48:37] Jaime: And there has to be space when harm is caused to allow grace and to have a conversation.

Um, and of course this doesn't apply to moments of violence. That's, that's not what we're talking about here. Or, you know, actual sexual assaults. Or sexual impropriety. That is not where we should be asking about nuance. But I will say that there is a lot of gray area in understanding when something actually hits that space.

And if we are in the middle of it. I've definitely experienced many times sex sexual violence. You know, if you're in the middle of it, it's near impossible to sort of get your nervous system regulated enough to determine what happened. And also if the response was proportionate to what someone did or disproportionate based on past traumas and harm.

How to ask the person for accountability if it's just good enough to separate from the person and not engage with them again, and then go through your own healing. Or if there needs to be some sort of accountability. We need to be able to have these conversations. We need to be able to go someplace safe to work through them.

Mm-hmm. And we need to be able to self-reflect and determine if we have caused harm to someone else in these ways.

[00:50:01] Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:02] Jaime: But no place is safe to consider this. No place is safe to question this. No place is safe, um, to come out and say that either you've been the victim of, or you potentially perpetrated something because there's just an immediate visceral response.

And I don't think it is healthy for people. I don't think it's good for people to be telling other people that they've been harmed or haven't been harmed if they weren't, you know, in that space. It gets really sticky if a person wasn't there and is trying to determine what did and didn't happen.

[00:50:39] Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:40] Jaime: That's a lot when people are trying to be like an ally or

[00:50:43] Nicole: mm-hmm.

[00:50:44] Jaime: Leave victims or protect a friend they think was falsely accused of something. Um, we just don't know if we weren't there.

[00:50:50] Nicole: Right.

[00:50:51] Jaime: Um, yeah. And to create some sort of systems to be able to help people involved that's beyond like calling their places of employment and either slut shaming them or saying they're a per perpetrator of violence.

Um,

[00:51:05] Nicole: yeah.

[00:51:06] Jaime: Or calling the cops, you know, 'cause that, just try that.

[00:51:10] Nicole: Let's not do that one

[00:51:11] Jaime: for sure. That's not gonna do anything. Uh, and generally makes things worse. Um, but we just don't want to do, and I don't have an answer. Yeah. Answer. All I can do is sit with people and sort of explore nuance, but I don't think there ever is gonna be an answer.

I think these are questions everyone's always going to be asking. I do hope, like you said before, generations behind us. We'll be quicker at it.

[00:51:35] Nicole: Yeah, totally.

[00:51:37] Jaime: Paths. And turn them into like roads.

[00:51:40] Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Because of course, both you and I are against violence and people being harmed. And also understand the realities of, if we're living in a repressed society and we're growing and learning, we're going to make mistakes through that as we grow and learn.

I don't like violence. I do not want people to be hurt. Be very clear. But yeah, what does abolitionist restorative justice look like as we grow through our fucked up sexual repression Complex, nuanced, right? Mm-hmm. And so it's much easier in these situations, like even for myself, like first getting into the kink community, I knew nothing.

Nothing. Right? So that first person that you play with, I'm going off of. Nothing. And then you might years later look back and now have more awareness of like consent conversations and all these other dynamics to now when I look back on that, I'm like, wow, that person should have really set this up better for me.

And now I'm starting to have this moment of a reaction of, wow, was that, how safe was that experience? And I did feel safe during it, but also now knowing as I look back that there was better ways to have had it done, now I'm at a pivotal point. Where do I consider that person like? An abuser or this, or do I go down that sort of narrative.

And that's a very complex thing. But then I'm also sitting of like, damn, both of us were learning together because we both had no fucking community to teach us how to do these things correctly. Right. And so having that level of nuance to the conversation of like, this isn't how it should have been. And also we were both learning and we both had responsibilities to have known better.

Like that's a much more nuanced story than the like, this is the bad person. I was, you know, hurt. But of course, yeah, I get afraid to talk about these things 'cause I wanna respect people's pain and the, and the journey of all of it. But I, I'm just curious, like you, what does it mean in a society where we've been so repressed, so messed up around this for us to grow and, and actively be held account accountable for it, and actively hold space for our growth?

Like, that's a complex conversation. I don't have the answers for.

[00:53:50] Jaime: I think that's why so many people just say, pray to sweet baby Jesus, because.

[00:54:00] Nicole: Yeah. Well, and I think that's where sometimes I, I don't wanna avoid the question, but like, I do think that like, oh, let's talk about pleasure, let's talk about what it means to have good sexual experiences too. Because the more that we can get into that space too, of like, wow, like I'm gonna tell my friends, you know, with consent, as long as there, it's like culturally, right?

Like when I'm with my, my kinky friends, there's like almost a level of, of communication that's so normalized that when I'm with my non kinky friends, I'm very conscious of how much I drop on the table about this stuff. But sure, I'm with my kinky friends and I'm like. Oh yeah. Like this person tied some food and momos on me.

We had a magic wand. It was so great. Like it was hitting my clit. Like, and the more that we can have that level of conversation, the more I can literally go into my future experiences and quite literally name what I want and don't want. So the more that we can actively talk about the pleasure that we're experiencing, I do think it creates the paradigm where the conversations around consent and harm will decrease because we have more language to just quite literally name what we want and don't want, and how that will actually create a lot of ripple effects.

But when we're so repressed, and I can't tell you about like the, you know, beautiful vanilla sex that I had, the beautiful orgy that I was at, like until that is liberated, I think we're gonna continue to see like sexual violence. And that's why I find it so political to talk about pleasure and these experiences and what happened.

Not in a way to be taboo or, or raunchy, you know, but to literally quite like forward the end of sexual violence.

[00:55:33] Jaime: I don't think there's anything taboo chy about it. That's how bodies work.

[00:55:39] Nicole: Totally.

[00:55:40] Jaime: The more that people know the names for, you know, their own body and also that the names labeled in the book might not be the appropriate name or their anatomy.

[00:55:51] Nicole: Yeah.

[00:55:52] Jaime: You know, they'll be able to feel embodied, they'll be able to have more nuanced conversations. They'll be able to feel right away when something's not right and asked to end something. Yes. And hopefully that will be received. Wow. I think we put too much, far too much weight on the expectation that all the people we're engaging with, uh, be.

Really experienced, confident, really perfect, uh, and not, you know, miss any steps. And I think it's a form of just recreating that same monogamous box that suffocated so many of us, that same religious or culturally imposed flat paper doll. I'm just imagining all of these humans just like, yeah, dimensional humans just sort of carrying out these expectations and that we wanted to break free from.

We're just doing it in our own like poly queerer spaces by saying, oh, you didn't ask this question first. Oh, you don't know how to tie this rope? Oh wait, you are brand new at this. Oh, no. I mean, and you'll see it in people's like dating profiles too. Like they're so specific and I'm like, okay, I love that people know what they want and.

How does that translate into real life? How does it translate into mess and nuance and like the fact that so few of us fit in these boxes?

[00:57:31] Nicole: Yeah.

[00:57:31] Jaime: And, and the, the language that we choose within our communities are, are still so incredibly binary. Top bo bottom.

[00:57:39] Nicole: Yeah.

[00:57:39] Jaime: Um, sub, right, which, yeah. Gosh, so many of those, it doesn't, just doesn't apply.

So it's like, okay, we're still sort of checking boxes that I guess are close enough or just so we can like, get to the next stage of whatever we're doing. And I don't know where we can start to make changes, but, uh, a lot of what we need to do is, um, lean away from shame and be able to have really difficult conversations, really practice, you know, leaning into folks, allowing for all of our feelings, even the ugly ones, even the angry ones, the jealous ones.

You know, not trying to bury them, help them like become embodied, get language for what they need and want difficult conversations with partners or friends or former partners and former friends or families of origin.

[00:58:35] Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. I hope to be a part of like what it means to further the, uh. Again, the nuance of the words.

Yeah, like getting outside of the binary of the top and the bottom. Yet, you know, like I'm reading every book by Dossie and Janet, you know, the writers of the Ethical Slut and all of their top bottoming books, and I'm just like hungry for more language for, again, I think about this as like the, uh, the, you know, the therapist emotion wheel where it's like, yeah, which emotion, fuck.

We need one of those for sexuality, right? Like so many of the, we just have no language for it and that being part of it. So I, I grasp for these books and I'm like, ah, here it is. But you're right. Then it's still a binary. And then I have a client who has never heard of the word aftercare and I'm like, what?

And then I'm reminded of like, oh shit. Okay. There's so many people who are so way back over here without any language. You and I are here like. Let's break the binaries and get even more language. And then I'm just like sitting in the like, wow, like this is such a spectrum of a thing, you know, for people in terms of their psyche of understanding words to describe these experiences.

And so, yeah, I wanna be a part of the like, pleasure movement forward of what does it mean to talk about experiences outside of the binary of top and bottom. What kind of language do we wanna create? Because again, this has been such a repressed piece of our psyche, of our relational experience, that like there's so much space for us to create a new future again for those generations to come up with these words and, and to be start running deep into their pleasure and be able to name it.

I want you to touch my, like mons and pull my hair back and then touch my clit. And I want them to say that with conviction and not a, I actually don't know where the clitoris is on my own body. It's fucking crazy.

[01:00:28] Jaime: I mean, we can create new language. I'm all for that. I love that. I love looking at a word and being like, I don't know what this means.

Can you please tell me?

[01:00:35] Nicole: Yeah.

[01:00:36] Jaime: Like, I don't know what that is. They tell me we could work with the language we have and depending on which language you're speaking, I'm, there's probably a lot more shared language, you know, that we all have that we can draw on from our various languages that we all speak when we're interacting with one another.

I think either could work new language, old language. I think what's most important is that we are checking into, make sure we have a shared definition.

[01:01:04] Nicole: Yeah.

[01:01:05] Jaime: The language. Yeah. Which I think is the problem. I think people are like, okay, let's just just create new language. Things aren't working. I'm like, that's great.

Fine. I'm like, I'm not gonna be stuffy about that. 'cause some, some of the old language is pretty rough, but in the process, let's make sure we understand what all this means. Sure. Sitting across from us, it has the same understanding we do. And then what do we do if we don't? Because it's okay to have different definitions or different understanding.

That's not a big deal either. It's just, oh, well, what's in the next step? Well, what do we want? How do we get it? And which language feels best for us to use given the fact that we maybe are coming from different places? For me, that's, that's the pleasure in all this.

[01:01:45] Nicole: Mm mm-hmm.

[01:01:46] Jaime: It's going on the journey to figure it out.

Having the conversations, I find it incredibly dehumanizing, especially as a mask person that is generally asked to be a top and a dom. That I just come in, I serve as a person, give them aftercare, step out. Maybe they'll be cute and give me a little aftercare, but it's almost like they want me to come in and wave a magic wand.

[01:02:11] Nicole: Mm.

[01:02:11] Jaime: And I'm like, yeah, I guess I can do these basic things that are in the book that you're supposed to do when you're like gonna be a service top. But if I really wanna have a wonderful, amazing, pleasurable experience regardless of the role I'm taking, um, because I'm not gonna just wanna roll up every time and be your service top or your service.

Although I love doing that. I want to sit and talk with you. Sure. Even if it's just for the one night, you know, I wanna know more about you. I wanna know something special that will allow me to create some shared pleasure. That doesn't just come from the pages of a damn book, and that only comes from us, each of us, whoever the uss are, whether it's two people, five people, 12 people, one person, you know, we can be alone doing this.

Having the conversations with ourselves, it only comes if we like stop and take a moment to get a little vulnerable, a little bit intimate. That's what I care about. I don't like playing roles. I like. To be a full human, even if I'm predominantly acting in a certain side of myself, that other person to see me as a whole entire human being.

[01:03:25] Nicole: Right?

[01:03:25] Jaime: Even if I'm performing a service, if they're performing a service for me, I will always want to, I'll always be seeking to see them as whole human beings, and I'm gonna wanna know more and ask more questions. Those are the kinds of pleasure dynamics I'm looking for. Sure. And when I feel like we're doing it that way, there is more room to maybe make a mistake, but catch yourself and fix it.

And so it's not irreparable, you know? Right.

[01:03:51] Nicole: Yeah. The dance conversation.

[01:03:54] Jaime: And so to me, that conversation part is, you know, all of the, the pleasure, all of the warmth, all of the things I value about this life. Start there in that conversation. If that isn't good or somebody just doesn't wanna take part in that.

I've learned myself that that's probably not a great match.

[01:04:14] Nicole: Right? Yeah, totally. Yeah. As you were talking about like the different definitions, I, um, I practice relationship anarchy and I remember meeting someone else and they were like, oh, I practice relationship anarchy too. Like, fuck agreements, no one has control over me.

And they literally flipped the bird and I was like, hell, we practice very different ideas of what that word means and like walked away. I actually, I was like, that's good for you. Like I'm really glad and then like walked away. 'cause I was like, I'm not about to teach this person any, like, I, this is not my job.

But like, just those two words, you would think maybe you're on the same page. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. So there's so many ways where you gotta get clear with someone who even says like, oh, I practice the same thing. What does relationship anarchy mean to you? How do you actually live that? Because it can mean very different things.

[01:05:03] Jaime: I've never met. Other relationship anarchists, like I I, you could have 10 of us in the room and I swear we'd all have different right. Definitions for what it means, which is why I love, and I mean, I mean that's what anarchy is, whether it's relationship anarchy, political anarchy, and I don't think people understand it.

They assume it is disorganized chaos that is just, no one knows what's going on. And I'm like, no. It allows for like really wonderful systems to be built. We could like custom fit. Everyone's like a custom fit car. Like we, everyone gets their own, like choose your fenders. What kind of tires do you want in this relationship?

Totally like an ornament on the hood. Like we get to design it, but it doesn't mean that like there's no body there, there's no structure that Right. It doesn't exist. Right. You know, it's there. We can like, choose the color we want it painted, you know, it's tangible. Um, it just means we're building it together and that.

It could change, which is why we have to have the conversations. These words we have are adequate shorthand for understanding who a human being is or how best we would serve that person, or they would serve us. And just being in community. And you only learn that by like talking about it, asking questions and being brave to try things and step back and say, no, thank you.

This isn't quite working. But we can do this in a way where we could still be in community. This is super idealistic, but remember as like a young kid, I didn't really get much idealism. I was a bastard, you know, born of a slut, going to hell already. So forgive me if in my older age I want to be a bit of an idealist and, and dreaming about us, you know, building these wonderful custom made relationships with one another.

[01:06:50] Nicole: No, totally. That's where I talk about like the blank page of it. All right? Like relationship anarchy, being that blank. White canvas, which is what can be so scary about it. Like, where's my paint by numbers? Where's my relationship escalator? What am I doing? Right? So to get off that and be like, oh, I get to do.

All of this, I can create it. Whoa. And, and then the beauty of that and the complexities of that. And as you're going through these relationships, like figuring out what your appetite is for these different connections. There's connections I wanna see once a month. Mm-hmm. There's connections I wanna see once a year, there are connections I wanna see.

Every day and being able to like figure that out of, okay, where's the space where you and I can come together and feel really good about our dynamic and how can we find that together? That has been such a dance of like figuring out the gravity of my, like my planets and their orbits and to figure out where that is.

And so, yeah, I don't go through breakups. We do reconfigurations and maybe that means spreading it way out. Maybe it means pulling it closer. Right. And just figuring that out and then how that moves through time as you evolve and things shift. Right. Even you talking about your partner and co-parenting now, like all these different eras that you can go through in this constellation.

I mean, yeah. Where's the book on that? Um, I'll write it for you one day. Okay.

[01:08:16] Jaime: I hope so. I, someone writes it in the meantime. Just down to keep talking about it. Yeah. I mean, I think I've grown more through these relationships than probably any other thing I've had in my life. Aside from parenting, nothing can really trump the experience of becoming a parent and having to care for other humans and protect them and, you know, hopefully teach them in a way where they don't have all of the shame that we've carried about totally what they want.

Give them at least language to start, have nuanced conversations around the dining table, although they would prefer like laid off those every now and again, you know, aside from parenting. Yeah. Having the privilege of being in relationship with other poly queerer people who are just trying to have truthful, honest connections has been a great honor.

Great privilege.

[01:09:13] Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It makes me wanna cry. It's just like life changing, truly. Yeah. Uh, well I wanna take a deep breath with you

and I know we're coming towards the end of our time, and so I wanna check in and see if there's anything else you'd like to share with the listeners. Otherwise, I have a closing question that I can guide us towards.

[01:09:43] Jaime: I don't think I have anything, I just kind of ramble on. So I have no idea what census will make.

I assume that you're gonna edit it well and then it will make sense. So, um, no, I don't have anything that I feel like I, I necessarily want to say, but um, yeah, if you have a question,

[01:10:00] Nicole: I do. I do. And I'm just feeling into the emotionality of what you said of these relationships being like life changing. I guess I'm just like feeling the overwhelm of how, how much Yeah.

My queer relationships have absolutely changed my life and I just, I really do believe in our ability to like create a different future through conversations like this, like very intentional conversations. It's been quite the journey and I'm really excited to keep going on it. So I really appreciate you coming on today.

[01:10:27] Jaime: Thank you for having me. It was a prize to get the invitation, so yeah. Thank you.

[01:10:33] Nicole: Yeah. Okay. Well the one question that I ask everyone on the podcast is what is one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal?

[01:10:44] Jaime: Mm. Not knowing what you want. Ooh. Like we literally just spent like an hour plus talking about have language, ask, know what you want.

And I'm like, you know what? Most of the time when we're going in these conversations, we don't actually know exactly what we want.

[01:11:01] Nicole: You Sure.

[01:11:02] Jaime: And I think people have a lot of fear over getting started if they don't know exactly what they're looking for, but. You know, you gotta start somewhere.

[01:11:11] Nicole: Well, totally.

You gotta take the bite, you know, and then you take the bite of the pie and you're like, no, no, no, no. Okay, well that was all right. Do I want the second bite? I dunno, maybe I don't, you know, and like put it back, you know? And like you don't know until you take the bite and then you're like there and you're like, Hmm.

You know, I think that makes me think back to that conversation about having that relationship with the person who didn't want non-monogamy. Like, it, it, I realize what it felt like to be pulled off of my gravity and now trying to be more sensitive to that. Like, yeah, I don't know. I start connecting with a new person.

Maybe we try like twice a week and then I start to feel that feeling. I'm like. Like, okay, we're trying twice a week, but I think I wanna go back to once a week, or maybe now once every two week. Right. Like, I don't know, until I get there. And then, like, this has been such a practice of continually checking in with my pleasure in a way that it's conscious of my community and the people I'm with, but continually coming back to myself of where is my pleasure?

When am I on the right path? And I, I frequently don't know until I'm like slightly off and I'm like, faces on the ground going, Hmm. This doesn't feel right. You know?

[01:12:18] Jaime: Yeah. And I think that's okay. I also think just as people, we can be a little kinder when we're receiving, uh, the message from someone that, uh, something isn't working.

[01:12:28] Nicole: Yeah. Ugh. The ego, the hurt.

[01:12:32] Jaime: I don't know how many times I've tried to like, break up with a person. I'm like, wow, this breakup is, is, I think we're going on year three now. That's happened a couple times to me and I'm like, wow. If I had a wish it would be for people when they, the first time they hear a partner say, I don't think this is working.

Or I think maybe we should call it quits or,

[01:12:52] Nicole: yeah.

[01:12:53] Jaime: Change is to take it seriously immediately and not try to just be better or change it to save it.

[01:13:00] Nicole: Yeah.

[01:13:01] Jaime: Harm comes from this form of consent violation where, no, I don't want this, but sometimes your relationships need to people to agree, help me, like move apart.

If they're quite enmeshed with one another, if they have a lot of shared spaces, shared home, things like that, it can be really hard to let things go. Yeah. Yeah. So, absolutely.

[01:13:26] Nicole: Absolutely. Uh, well that's been such a joy to have you on the podcast today.

[01:13:30] Jaime: Thank you. I hope you got something good. I hope you got some, some bits you can work with if you have questions.

Um, my website is www.soadrevival.com, S-O-D-A-D-E revival.com. I do have a little side project Waldorf on Fire where I advocate for people who have been discriminated against or oppressed within Waldorf schools throughout the world. Whole nother podcast.

[01:14:00] Nicole: Interesting.

[01:14:01] Jaime: Yeah. But you can usually find me through the soda revival page most consistently.

Um, there's a little contact form and I am a therapist licensed in Illinois and I do consulting all over the world, so. Great.

[01:14:20] Nicole: Well, it was such a joy to have you. Thank you for joining me and all of the listeners today. If you enjoy today's episode, then leave us a five star review wherever you listen to your podcast, and head on over to modern anarchy podcast.com to get resources and learn more about all the things we talked about on today's episode.

I wanna thank you for tuning in, and I will see you all next week.