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Andre Shakti is BACK! She has a new project called I Am Poly and So Can You, and we go deep into non-monogamy and polyamory this week after geeking out over Erotic Film School.

When did Andre figure out she was non-monogamous, what advice does she wishes existed when she was a teenager, and what do you do if you cheated on your wife and now she wants to cheat on you?

Well, we talk about allllll of that and more this week. Andre has stellar advice for a couple who are wanting to try a threesome for the first time, and we also get a charming email from R who is in a loving triad but who needs more sex.

Poly pressure to have sex is real and Andre explores why sometimes it’s OK to step off the sex train if everything else in your life feels great.

Don’t forget to send in your sex confessions about May’s theme of FOOD! I created a guidelines page for you.

Follow Sex Gets Real on Twitter and Facebook. It’s true. Oh! And Dawn is on Instagram.

In this episode, Andre and I talk about:

• Erotic Film School and Dawn getting a chance to film Andre in person in San Francisco a few weeks ago. Andre was such a pro and she talks about how the porn industry can be rife with folks who do not know what they’re doing.
• Andre’s new project I Am Poly…And So Can You. It started as a column over at Harlot, but when they shut down, it was clear that Andre’s polyamory advice column was the most visited part of their online magazine. So, Andre decided to keep it going.
• Andre has been giving advice to family, friends, old elementary school teachers, and everyone in her life for so long, it made sense to turn it into work she could share with the world.
• Why she doesn’t only answer white, cis, guy questions who want to get multiple women in their bed and some of the problems with current polyamorous rhetoric and conversation.
• Feeling broken as a young person who was non-monogamous and what Andre would have really loved to have had access to earlier in her life.
• Andre really doesn’t want to be put on a pedestal as a person who gives advice. She openly shares her mistakes, her flaws, and when she messes up because that’s how she connects with all of us that vulnerability and mistakes are OK in relationships.
• The types of questions Andre really dislikes getting, which is also so much of what I get on Sex Gets Real. TALK TO EACH OTHER.
• Dawn confesses something new on the show, and Andre has some thoughts around jealousy and insecurity.
• When does Andre most often find herself lacking in her non-monogamous relationships? And what triggers jealousy for so many of us?
• Salt Lake Lovers wrote in asking for help on how to find a third for the first time. Andre is excited to talk about finding that elusive unicorn. Her advice for finding a woman third is REALLY good and avoids a lot of the creepy, predatory vibes that straight couples can give off. Yay threesomes.
• William wrote in about his wife wanting to cheat on him after he cheated on her. Scorekeeping and tit-for-tat behavior in relationship is really toxic, so Andre and I are a little stumped around this multiple-cheating scenario of toxicity.
• What can you do once trust is shattered in a relationship? Andre has a recommendation.
• R has a question about his poly triad relationship – he loves his wife and he loves his girlfriend and both of them love and support him and each other. But he needs more sex and hates the thought of finding a fuck buddy. What can he do?
• It’s OK to try new things and make mistakes if you’re in a relationship that’s strong enough and healthy enough to have some resilience around little stumbles.

Resources mentioned in this episode

“I Love You, But I Don’t Trust You: The Complete Guide to Restoring Trust in Your Relationship” by Mira Krishenbaum – Andre recommend this for working through trust issues in a relationship.

About Andre Shakti

Andre Shakti is a journalist, educator, performer, activist, and professional slut living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is devoted to normalizing alternative desires, de-stigmatizing sex workers and their clients, and not taking herself too seriously. Andre wrestles mediocre white men into submission and writes about sex work, queerness and non-monogamy for Cosmopolitan, Rewire, Thrillist, MEL, Vice, Autostraddle, and more. She can frequently be found marathoning Law & Order: SVU under a chaotic pile of partners and pitbulls, and yes, she knows how problematic that show is. Andre is the reigning “polyamory pundit” at her non-monogamy advice column, “I Am Poly & So Can You!”, which you can visit – and submit questions to! – via IAmPoly.net. Visit her on Twitter @andreshakti, on FB as “Andre Shakti”, and as a pleasure professional on the new inclusive educational platform O.School.

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Episode Transcript

Dawn Serra: You’re listening to (You’re listening) (You’re listening) You’re listening to Sex Gets Real (Sex Get Real) (Sex Gets Real) Sex Gets Real with Dawn Serra (with Dawn Serra). Thanks, bye!

Guess what? Andre Shakti is back this week. We have an amazing chat all about her new project, “I Am Poly and So Can You.” We answer listener questions. We geek out about her writing. We recap everything that happened at Erotic Film School, which was so fun. If you love this episode with Andre, you can also hear her first interview on the show back on Episode 119. Be sure to check that out if you totally love this. 

Dawn Serra: But before I read her bio, I want to let you know that, of course, we all need to take a little bit better care of ourselves, and taking care of our mental health is no exception. I’m a big fan of self-care and taking care of us. I talk about it all the time on the show. That’s why today’s sponsor Talkspace, the online therapy company actually makes it easy to connect with an experienced, licensed therapist that’s handpicked just for you. I’ve used Talkspace in the past and had a wonderful experience getting online therapeutic support with a therapist that was sex positive and kink aware. It was terrific. 

The best part is, it’s as little as $32 a week. So using Talkspace, you can send your therapist text messages, audio, video messages whenever you want. Or, you can even do a live video chat, which is pretty cool. If you want to vent about work or family or just talk through something that’s been on your mind, your therapist is there ready to help, truly any time of day any day of the week. If you want to sign up or learn more, all you have to do is go to talkspace.com/SGR for Sex Gets Real. It’s super important that you use that link – talkspace.com/SGR. That’s a custom link just for listeners of this show. That gets you a special offer. You can use coupon code SGR to get $30 off your first month, and that helps to show support for the podcast. Of course, that’s coupon code SGR at talkspace.com/SGR for Sex Gets Real, with Talkspace therapy for how we live today. 

Dawn Serra: If you want to support the show in other rad ways, you can go to patreon.com/sgrpodcast because Dylan and I talked this week. We recorded an episode. We had so much fun. Dylan has had so many juicy things going on in her life. A shorter version of our chat is going to be available in a couple of weeks for everyone who listens to the show. But Patreon supporters, even at $1 level, you get access to the full chat of all the juiciness that Dylan’s been getting into, and us just being ourselves. Be sure, patreon.com/sgrpodcast, that you head over there and check it out. 

Let’s talk about this week’s episode. Andre Shakti, as I’m sure many of you know, is a journalist and educator, a performer, activist, and a professional slut living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She’s devoted to normalizing alternative desires, destigmatizing sex workers and their clients, and not taking herself too seriously. Andre wrestles mediocre white men into submission, and writes about sex work, queerness, and non-monogamy for places like Cosmopolitan, Rewire, Thrillist, MEL, Vice, Autostraddle, and more. She can frequently be found marathoning Law and Order: SVU under a chaotic pile of partners and pitbulls, and yes, she knows how problematic that show is. Andre is the reigning “polyamory pundit” at her non-monogamy advice column, “I Am Poly and So Can You,” which you can visit – and submit questions too – via iampoly.net. We talk a whole bunch about polyamory and non-monogamy and her journey and her advice on this episode. So let’s get started.

Dawn Serra: Welcome back to Sex Gets Real, Andre. I’m so excited to have you here.

Andre Shakti: Thank you for having me. I’m really excited to be back.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I know that we are going to have some really fun conversations about a bunch of listener questions. I totally want to geek out about your new “I Am Poly” project. But first, it was so awesome to get to see you in person at Erotic Film School last month. 

Andre Shakti: I know. That’s one of the things that I love about this community is that it’s so small sometimes that– I mean, what city do you even live in? I’m not even sure where you’re based out of.

Dawn Serra: Well, I was in DC, but I’ve spent the past five months in Salt Lake. 

Andre Shakti: OK. Got it. So, yeah. Even sex pros that are in Salt Lake City, somehow we bridge all the miles, and we get to come together and see each other. Yeah, I think that’s great. It was a really fun day. It was a really fun day.

Dawn Serra: I have to tell you, everybody’s been asking me – “Oh, my god. How was it?” The first thing, and I told this to the listeners too the week after I got back, is just like, I was so in awe of how patient you and James were with all of us newbs. Like barely being able to work the camera and stuff, and all the starts and stops. But you two were phenomenal. And it was so awesome and so fun. Yeah, I’m like, “Andre is massive pro status for this,” because it was just so great. You were so awesome.

Andre Shakti: Well, also, I mean, to be honest with you, I know you all were super self-conscious about being novices and just learning the ropes and things were feeling kind of fumbly. But honestly, that is so true, unfortunately, for so many porn sets just in general. The porn industry is so rife with incompetence from all areas, but from my experience as a performer, especially from the production side sometimes. It felt a lot better. We were prepared for you guys to be fumbling around not knowing what you were doing. Madison fully prepared us for it, which is much better than when you come on a porn set expecting a really refined, professional experience. Instead, you get fumbling and craziness and disorganization. We were totally prepared for everything. It actually went a lot smoother than we anticipated.

Dawn Serra: Yay! Oh, my god. I’m so excited to hear that. 

Andre Shakti: Yeah, totally. 

Dawn Serra: It made me hungry to do more work like that. That was like a really awesome experience, Also, I was in love with the rooftop party across the way from us–

Andre Shakti: Oh, my god. 

Dawn Serra: And how you were totes flashing them. Then someone came over and you knew them.

Andre Shakti: Yup. Yeah. For the listeners who are not privy to that experience, during the filming, we were on the fourth or fifth floor of that building. Directly across the street from us, it was a rooftop – a big, very lively rooftop party in the middle of the day. We had these big broad glass windows that you could see right into our studio. At some point, we realized this party going on, and we threw the curtains back. I’m completely naked with a strap on dildo on, and James is completely naked. We just start dancing in front of the windows, trying to get them to notice us. Then they all start noticing us. Then they all come over to the edge of the roof. They’re all screaming and dancing. Then one of the people in the class flashed them, and then one of the rooftop girls flashed us. Then we started resuming filming. This guy comes up the stairs of our building and just walks into the studio and is like, “Oh, hey! We saw you guys over there. Do you want to come to our party? What are you guys doing?” It turns out that it was this very nice gentleman named Jolly. I used to work in Infosec when I first moved to San Francisco. I know him from the security community. I’ve only ever seen this man at a DEFCON conferences in Las Vegas when I’m in full, professional, business attire. He literally just walked into a room where I’m just wearing a cock and nothing else. And we totally made it work. We totally hugged it out and said hi.

Dawn Serra: Yes.

Andre Shakti: But, yeah. Again, small world. Everything is very small.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. It was an awesome day and an awesome experience. That was just such a fantastic end to it all, was a little rooftop party exchange.

Andre Shakti: I know if I had more energy afterwards, I was actually going to go over there and get some free food. But we were so wiped afterwards. We ended up going home and crashing. So next time, next time.

Dawn Serra: I know that you have been talking lately about your super rad, “I Am Poly” project, which is at iampoly.net. The little tagline is “I Am Poly and So Can You.” You’ve been writing advice columns all about non-monogamy and polyamory and answering questions. I’d love it if you could tell us a little bit about how that got started, and why it’s something you’re so excited about.

Andre Shakti: Totally. So, yeah. Last year, I guess, I started really getting into writing. I’ve been writing my whole life ever since I was a kid.  I never really knew where it was going to go, if it was going to go anywhere. I mostly used it as a way of narrating my own experiences, so I didn’t forget them. Because my greatest fear in the whole world is like forgetting all of the amazing stories that I have to tell about things in my life so far. So I started documenting, memoir-style, my life a long time ago. I got really into journalism about two, two and a half years ago. I needed an extra income stream. I’ve been in the sex industry for a decade at this point. Some of my friends shouldered me and they were like, “Hey. The sex industry and kink, those things are really hot topics right now in media. You should pitch a bunch of stories to some publications.” So I started writing for Cosmopolitan and Vice, and this magazine called MEL, which is a really intentional ethical men’s magazine, and Auto straddle and Rewire, and a bunch of other online publications. 

January of last year, 2016, I was on boarded to a feminist magazine called Harlot. Harlot was amazing. Unfortunately, it was a startup before anything else. Like so many startups in the Bay Area, it eventually folded about ten months in. But one of the most popular aspects of the website was this column that my editor, Jetta Rae, and myself came up with. It was a “I Am Poly and So Can You.” We ran it twice a month. So it’s bi-monthly. I would answer two questions, very similar format to what the website is now. It brought the highest analytics on the site. It was wildly popular. 

Andre Shakti: After the first week, we’d never had to make up any questions because kind of not so secret secret about the advice column business is that, especially the beginning, you’re making up most of your questions to get it generated and get the eyes on the column and people interested. We never really had to do that. And that was kind of a beautiful thing. I’ve been answering my friends, my neighbors, my old elementary school teachers, my family’s sexuality and relationship questions for as long as I can remember. It’s just been such a huge part of my life. I feel like, at this point, I’ve solidified myself informally in my webs of networks as this person people can come to for information. And I love that. I love being that person, but that doesn’t pay the bills. I needed to monetize it. 

I ran “I Am Poly and So Can You” through Harlot for about ten months. The magazine folded in July 2016. I tried to find another home for it. I shopped it around to all of my publications that I was writing articles for. No one wanted it, either because they didn’t feel it would fit with the publication or it was too unusual, they won’t take it on. Or, they already had an advice column or two running on the site. But I mean, the main reasons that I wanted to do it… I took a few months off because I didn’t really know if I wanted to generate it myself, I wanted to put all that work in. While I took that time off and our country slowly crumbled towards oblivion with the election cycle, I think we all needed a lot of advice. We all can use a lot of advice. 

Andre Shakti: But I really thought about how important this resource would have been for me. That’s really what I’ve done with a lot of my work. I have a very much a “doctor-heal-thyself” approach to a lot of the work that I do. I basically just try and be the person that I wish existed for me, that I had exposure to or access to when I was growing up and coming into my own, and trying to figure out my sexual identity, what relationship structures worked for me. I would have killed for a resource, an accessible resource, just telling me that I wasn’t broken because I’ve known I was now monogamous since I was 15. I just cheated on all my partners throughout high school. I was miserable because I thought that I was broken. I thought that I was never going to find a partner. No one would ever want to date me. If I ever wanted to have a successful relationship, it was going to have to be one of infidelity. Because I’d always have to be cheating on my partner, at the same time, for me to really feel satisfied and fulfilled. It took me until I was about 20, 21 for somebody to even introduce me to the idea of non-monogamy. Then I was just hungry for everything I could get my hands on. 

With the advice column, when I took that little break, I still kept getting questions. I was still getting questions on social media. I was getting questions to the Harlot email. After a while, I just said, “Screw it. I’m going to do it. I’m going to push my passion project out.” It took me a while because, you know, the election. We were all in mourning for a long time. 

Andre Shakti: So about a month and a half ago, I launched iampoly.net. That is the official home of the “I Am Poly and So Can You” advice column. Every Wednesday, including today, I push out two new questions that people send in to me. All of them are authentic. I don’t make any of them up. While I try to answer them intersectionally, I also try and pick questions intersectionally so I’m not always answering straight, white cis guys asking how they can get these two ladies in the same bedroom with them. You know what I mean? 

I don’t want it to just be the same rhetoric serving the same demographics. Because I feel like a lot of conversation and community around non-monogamy is already really whitewashed. So not only did I want to make this super accessible, financially… I mean, it’s free. It’s the internet. You can go on every Wednesday no matter where you are. But I also wanted to make it accessible from a kink perspective, from a gender identity and sexual orientation perspective, from a sex work-informed perspective, from a trauma-informed perspective. I may not hit all the nails in the head every time, but that’s my intention. 

Andre Shakti: Because I am seeking to monetize it and because it is a huge labor of love for me, I do have an accompanying Patreon, which is patreon.com/iampoly. That’s how I get financial support for not only the column itself, but also for a lot of the sex worker rights activism that I do nationally, and the other articles that I write. Because unfortunately, as you may or may not know, journalists are paid just about as well as teachers in this country. Yeah. I think that’s the spiel. I talked a lot. I’m sorry. I’m Italian it’s a problem.

Dawn Serra: It’s awesome. I have, over the years, encountered a number of poly communities and poly ideals that I really struggled with. The poly’s more evolved than monogamy folks and just seeing these exclusionary-type approaches. One of the things that I loved when I was reading through all of your answers is how, I don’t know, sweet and honest and vulnerable you are in the answers, tying it to mistakes you’ve made or times you’ve been hurt. Also, offering this hopeful aspect of, “It might be hard, and he might be hurt. But there’s a way through. Here’s some things that I suggest.” I just feel so much kindness, and there’s this level of approachability so even if you’re not poly and even if you’re not non-monogamous, if you’re just exclusively monogamous, I feel like there’s still a lot of advice that’s coming through in your column that would just be so relevant to people who want to have open communication and strong connection and resilience through mistakes and oops. I really love reading it.

Andre Shakti: Oh, thank you so much. That means a lot coming from you. I really appreciate it. I remember I was working on– I don’t know if you know Marcia Baczynski at all. She’s another sex educator in the Bay Area. She runs a really great program called “The Good Girl Recovery.” I think it’s “Good Girl Recovery Program” or “Good Girl Recovery Project.” Basically, destigmatizing and deshaming the way women are socialized around their sexuality. She actually is my personal relationship coach. I have a relationship coach. 

The thing that I didn’t want to do with the column is– Despite the fact that I’m in the adult industry, and I’m this very vivacious, outgoing personality, I really don’t like being put on a pedestal because, not to get all self-deprecating on Sex Gets Real, but I’m just as flawed as the next person. I make mistakes. I have tripped and fallen, and had to get up and dust myself off; sometimes with the help of others, sometimes without. I think it’s really easy because there are no credentials to do anything that I do. I never had to… There’s no master’s program in how to be an advice columnist. Everything that I do, I didn’t need a degree to get here. I have some degrees, but I didn’t need a degree to get to whatever I’m doing now that I’ve monetized for my living. And I’m very aware of that. I’m very aware that I’m only speaking from one person’s experiences and one person’s background, which is my own. 

Andre Shakti: Staying humble and reminding myself that it’s OK. Not only that it’s OK that I fuck up, but that it’s really important because of the public stance in a very niche community that I do have because of that privilege. It’s really important for me to own when I’ve made mistakes, both for accountability sake when it’s relevant, and then also so that it’s humanizing. People who are reading the column are like, “Oh. She’s made that mistake, too. That’s happened to her, too. She’s fumbled in this way, too. Someone has affected her in that way, too.” 

In the beginning, when I first started doing the advice column, I was really hesitant to present myself as flawed because I thought that would detract from people seeing me as a resource on this. But then Marcia actually was the person who told me, “No, it’s actually twice as important for you to air when things don’t go well because that’s how you humanize yourself, and that’s how you connect with your audience. That’s how your audience is reminded that vulnerability and mistakes are OK.” That’s the kind of vibe that I want to permeate all of my writing really, but especially when I’m advising someone on something. Because I’m not a god. I’m very much a very boring, somewhat curmudgeon-y human, whether or not people want to believe that is up to them. But, yeah. I’m just one other face.

Dawn Serra: Well, we’ll just say you’re a god in your dog’s eyes, and that’s all that matters.

Andre Shakti: Oh, my gosh. You’re so right. Speaking of which, I’m going to apologize ahead of time because I do have two very large, goofy, dope-headed pitbulls. They’re currently outside, barking their full heads off. If they run by the window, we might hear them. So I apologize. I’m not getting attacked by dogs. It’s just background noise. 

Dawn Serra: Oh, my god. Well, I hope we hear them because that would be delightful.

Andre Shakti: They are pretty great.

Dawn Serra: Yeah, they’re so cute. OK. I’m wondering, for you, as you are in this space and creating this whole new resource and sharing yourself in this really beautiful way, what are your favorite aspects of relationships to give advice on or to roll around in, that when you get a question in that realm, you’re like, “Oh, my god. I can’t wait to answer this?”

Andre Shakti: Oh, it’s so funny. When you said that, I thought of the opposite. I thought of the thing that when I get questions that I’m like, “Ugh, god. Again, I have to answer this.”

Dawn Serra: I can so relate.

Andre Shakti: I don’t know why my brain just went there. But it isn’t even a bad thing, for the record. It’s just those questions that I get where – and I’m sure every advice column is especially around relationships gets this – but every question that you ever get where you literally could just talk to each other, and that’s the best advice you could give them. It’s so hard sometimes to not come across as repetitive. So I try to vary the questions and present them in a way that doesn’t come off as repetitive. But a lot of times, the answer really is as simple as communication. Sometimes I feel like I’m a broken record ‘cause I’m just like, “Ha! Whatever it is, whatever crazy situation is, just tell your partner about it. That’s all you have to do.” But then I have to come up with three paragraphs of answers that sound something flowery just to communicate the sentiment that they need to just open their mouth and like what they told me come out to their people. So that’s frustrating for me. 

The best questions for me… I mean, whenever I get a question I’ve never heard before, that gets me really excited, and anything that involves… I’ve been doing a lot of writing and speaking and internal processing around feminine, the idea of the scarcity complex in relationships, particularly around the idea that men are a scarce resource, and that women, whatever your definition of a woman is, are constantly seeing each other as competition for this supposedly scarce resource, that we’re all calling at each other to get and how that feels, feelings of jealousy and hostility and insecurity and competitiveness, and how that gets in the way of a lot of love and care and opportunity. So I really love speaking to that and holding dialogues around that.

Andre Shakti: Also, interrelational, I don’t know, happenings or issues between metamours between partners of partners. Like Person A has two partners – B and C – and they’re not getting along, and how to bridge that communication gap, and be able to sit down and relate to one another, and have a dialogue with one another. Because that’s something that I’ve always had a lot of ease with with my partner’s partners. I have a very overlapped family style of poly. I really love when I get to show people how they’re actually primed to be really important folks in each other’s lives and how it would be a missed opportunity if they weren’t close, if they didn’t bond. Those are my favorite things to talk about, write about.

Dawn Serra: You know it’s really interesting when you brought up that scarcity kind of worry. Because that’s actually something I’ve never shared on the podcast before. So I’m going to share now with you. I know. It’s exactly around this. I’ve noticed that some of my insecurity gets triggered and some of my fears get triggered because I’ve never been in a relationship with someone of any gender, because I’ve been in lesbian relationships and trans relationships. My husband’s cis man, who I’ve had to do so little emotional labor with, who contributes without my needing to ask, and who knows how to support me in these really beautiful ways, where I don’t feel like I’m secretly running all the household chores or when I’m feeling down, I don’t feel like I have to hide it. It’s just like this beautiful, emotional discussion, and he’s super open about his feelings. I have this fear that comes up sometimes of, “If this doesn’t work out, it took me 38 years, right?” I mean, I guess not really ‘cause I didn’t start dating until I was 16. But it took me 22 years or 20 years to find someone who is this interested in social justice and racial justice and feminism and overturning fatphobia because I’m in a fat body. and who’s trauma-informed. I have this story that runs of, it’s rare to find people like this, and so that graspy feeling comes up for me sometimes of like, “Oh, god. If I lose this, how long is it going to take?” I love that you write about that.

Andre Shakti: It mostly presents with feminine-identified folks just, again, because of the culture that we were all raised in or I should say nationally, the culture that we were raised in. But there’s this thing that I haven’t– There’s a problem that I run into a lot, including with myself, where I find that when we’re talking about jealousy, where feelings of intimidation or insecurity that are brought on by our partner being interested in someone else, nine times out of ten, when people express their feelings about this to me, they make a point of noting, regardless of what gender identity or expression they are, they make a point of noting that one of the reasons they’re so intimidated by this human is because they perceive them to be a lot like them. There is this thing where– We already talked before we started recording about how I literally did not sleep last night so listeners, please bear with me. I’m a little bit more of a loss for words than I normally am.

But there’s this, we call it a phenomenon of folks generally getting mostly triggered, for lack of a better word, by people that they can more easily compare themselves to. I think it speaks to a greater societal issue of how, especially with social media and the internet, it makes it super easy for us to be constantly comparing ourselves to one another. Whether it’s other people in our age demographic, whether it’s other people in our industry, whether it’s other people that look like us, maybe siblings, it makes it really easy. And because everyone is trying to put their best foot forward rather and post about their great vacations they’re going on on Facebook, and they’re, “Oh. Here’s a picture of me with my amazing dogs. Here’s a picture of me and my partner.” It’s personal while being impersonal at the same time because it gives this false idea of what other people’s lives look like. It makes us really tear into ourselves. I find that jealousy pops up for men, for women, for trans men, for trans women, oftentimes when they can really easily compare themselves to the person or people that their partner is interested in. 

Andre Shakti: For me, when my partner’s who are generally more masculine of center folks are interested in other queer, high femme sex workers, I will feel those twinges start, where if my masculine of center partner was interested in a trans man or a cisgender man or even a butch lesbian, it’s much easier for me to welcome that person in because I don’t naturally find myself comparing myself to them, and then inevitably comparing myself to them in my mind, and then finding myself lacking. 

I think this is a really crucial element of jealousy in general, but especially how it presents in non-monogamous relationships. I wish I had the remedy. I wish I had the thing that would make it all better. Maybe I just need time. 

Dawn Serra: Yeah. Well, it’s such an interesting problem that I think lots of us have for lots of different reasons. I love that you’re going to have this space now to start unpacking that as you answer other people’s questions, and think about it and explore it. It’s awesome.

Andre Shakti: Yeah. I told you it’s very much a “doctor-heal-thyself.” It’s like with every… I feel like with every single question that I get, I am dispensing wisdom on whoever is reading it. But also, they are dispensing wisdom on me about situations and experiences that aren’t mine, that I haven’t had in some instances. Then a lot of times, when I post the columns to social media, they’ll start dialogues happening in the comment section. It all just adds to my knowledge. It all just adds to it. It’s like being the teacher and the student at the same time. It’s really cool. 

Dawn Serra: Yeah. That’s one of the things I love too about podcasting. Getting these listener questions, I learned so much from other people’s lives and struggles and perspectives. So I love that. Speaking of listener questions, would you like to help field a few with me?

Andre Shakti: I would love to.

Dawn Serra: OK. Let’s start with one about threesomes, if that’s OK. 

Andre Shakti: Oh, absolutely. 

Dawn Serra: OK. Here we go. It says, “Hi Dawn. My boyfriend and I were a cis couple, and we just recently moved to Salt Lake City and started listening to your podcast. We were so excited to hear that you live in the area, but also so upset to hear that you’re leaving. We have recently been exploring an open relationship, and your podcast has verbalized so well all of the things we’ve been experiencing and feeling as a newly open couple. We’ve been looking for a third female recently and are having trouble figuring out how to approach people to be a third. I am more reserved and quiet and have trouble putting myself out there. My boyfriend is more outgoing and friendly. I’ve also recently started exploring my sexuality with girls, and my sexuality at this time is more fluid. We’ve noticed that it seems to work better for the girl to approach another girl for a threesome because it sometimes can come off as creepy for my boyfriend to ask girls, and he really doesn’t want anyone to feel that way. Do you have any advice for both of us on how to approach a third? Thank you so much for making such an incredible podcast that talks so openly and honestly about sex. Thanks, Salt Lake Lovers.”

Andre Shakti: Yay!

Dawn Serra: Yay!

Andre Shakti: Threesomes! Woo-hoo! OK. This is how dorky I am. I’m sitting here taking analog notes because I don’t want to type and then have the feedback come through. So I’m scribbling furiously while you’re reading these out. Because I have a memory like a sieve. OK, cool. I love unicorn questions so much. I really do. My advice to them… 

First of all, the woman who wrote in, she was definitely accurate in assuming that it would be a much safer feeling and more comfortable situation for her to approach other women versus putting her boyfriend out there, which is true. I mean, a lot of times there’s a fear among unicorns that the woman in the relationship doesn’t really want it. That the boyfriend or the husband is pushing for this to spice up the marriage, to maybe save the marriage or save the relationship. For a responsible, ethically-minded unicorn, the more reassurance and enthusiastic reassurance she can get from the woman in the situation, usually the much more comfortable that is. 

Andre Shakti: However, I would definitely be careful in how you do it. The last couple that I’ve talked to about this, they kept saying, “Yeah. We just go to bars. We try and go out. We go to music venues. We go to bars. We throw the girl out there, and she starts chatting people up, but it never really works out.” I’m like, “Well, first of all, you don’t want to make the woman the lore.” You don’t want to have this very staged scenario, where the man is leaning up against the bar, making direct eye contact with the woman at all times. She’s just out in the middle of the dance floor, like this big, shiny fishing lore. Then as soon as another woman makes contact, he reels both of them in. We want to avoid any of that predatory or perceived predatory behavior. 

I think one of the ways that you can do that and that you might have more success at it is, number one, possibly looking a little closer to home. Possibly, instead of looking for strangers, maybe sitting down as a couple and making a list of friends, female friends, that you have, people that are in your social circles already, who either are single or maybe you know that they swing or they’re open, and see if any of those people who you already have vetted in a way, who are less likely to feel preyed upon would be down for an adventure like that. 

Andre Shakti: I would say, first, to look at your own networks, instead of assuming that it has to be someone you’ve never met before that you’re going to be having this new experience with. Then if you can’t find anyone there, I would honestly suggest going out to queer spaces. Because a lot of times couples, heterosexual or heterosexual appearing, couples will stick to more mainstream venues to try and pick up thirds. That’s not where the queer ladies are.

Generally speaking, that’s not where you’re going to find a woman who’s down to have sex with another woman, and maybe let her boyfriend or husband in on the action. So I would suggest the two of them check out a few queer venues, a few queer events, queer bars in the area. Obviously, not gay male bars or drag bars, but bars that women, that queer women and trans folks frequent. Go a few times to establish your presence there and get comfortable and get a lay of the land, just socially, with no expectation of bringing anyone home. Then after you’ve gotten comfortable in that space, because also queer spaces, it can be a little jarring for straight people and vice versa. 

Andre Shakti: After you’ve got your sea legs, then you can start striking up conversations with people. You can put the woman out there, and maybe the guy goes outside for a cigarette and gives the woman free rein. Maybe they split the levels and he goes downstairs, she goes upstairs. And they just focus on introducing themselves to people and making new connections. That way the man isn’t, obviously, sitting in the corner waiting for the woman to lure them back in, and people are less likely to get creepy vibes. 

Then the last thing that I would say is that if despite all of your tricks, and all of my tricks, and all of maybe Dawn’s tricks things are still not working out, I suggest hiring a sex worker. I would 100% hire an escort. Because I will tell you right now, you have much more of a safe bet of having a good solid, satisfying, fun experience, safe experience, structured experience with a sex worker than you will with just some random person that you pick up at a bar. That goes for sexual safety because sex workers on average are much more diligent about their sexual health and safety than lay people because it’s literally their job. You don’t have to worry about any messy aftermath if the person gets attached, if they want to become your third, if they’re really glomming on to one person in the couple or the other. That way, it’s a business transaction. You wash your hands at the end of it, and you’re good to go. 

Andre Shakti: You get to pick the person who’s in your threesome. You can go online to advertising platforms. It can be this fun date night where you and your partner sit down with some glasses of wine, and go scrolling for a unicorn on an escort directory. That is, I think, all of the potential unicorn wisdom that I have up my sleeve. What about you, Dawn?

Dawn Serra: I love all of that. I especially love giving yourself a chance to just get into some queer spaces and actually get to know people and get to know the vibe. Because that’s also, if nothing else, just a chance to make some community, so that even if it doesn’t turn into threesomes, you still have people that you can talk to about the trials and errors of what you’re going through, who would potentially understand what’s going on. I do know there are queer groups here in Salt Lake City. I also know that the weekly paper just did a feature about a month ago about several poly meetups. 

Andre Shakti: Cool. 

Dawn Serra: They may not be interested in poly relationships, but even just meeting people that are running in non-monogamous spaces, they may know of secret swinger groups or play parties that are happening since this is a little bit more of a conservative town. Also, checking out FetLife and seeing if there’s any things going on there. 

I love your recommendation of hiring a sex worker. I think, especially for people who are brand new to this, having a professional be the one that comes in and gives them a chance to try things out, and see if it really does feel good for them. To have this exchange with another person, and to make some mistakes with somebody who’s a professional, so that by the time they actually do meet that wonderful, majestical unicorn, they’ve figured a couple of things out about the way they need to communicate, and what felt icky, and what felt really great. I think that is such a fantastic recommendation. I know sex workers in Salt Lake City may be a little bit harder to come by than in some other larger cities, but you’re also only four and a half hours away from Las Vegas. There’s definitely opportunities for just getting out there and having some fun.

Andre Shakti: Oh, yeah. I will totally make myself available for this. If anyone has further questions, I’m cool. I am really interested in hiring a sex worker. How do I do that? They can totally hit me up on social media. I’m sure we’ll do the whole litany of places you can find me at the end of the podcast. But I’m totally down to help folks find the resources in their areas that they need for this. Because, yeah. I mean, the more information I bestow on folks who are interested in hiring sex workers, the better experience the sex worker they hire has. That’s really all I want to do is make hoes happy and safe in the world.

Dawn Serra: Perfect. Well, I hope that helps you, Salt Lake Lover. I hope it gives you at least a jumping off point. Do know that sometimes it takes a little while to figure this out and to start seeing who in your circles is even open to these conversations and meeting community, especially since you just moved to a new city. Don’t forget, OkCupid allows for non-monogamous dating advertisements. So that might be a way, if nothing else, just to meet a couple of people who are interested in the same thing, even if they’re not people you necessarily want to hook up with. Just give it some time and have fun. Thank you so much for writing in.

Andre Shakti: Yay!

Dawn Serra: Yay! OK. I got this email from William, and the subject line is, “My wife feels I owe her one.” It’s about some cheating. So you’re up for that?

Andre Shakti: Yeah, let’s do it.

Dawn Serra: OK. Here’s what he says. “I’ve been married to my wife for seven years, and we have three kids together. For the first two years of our marriage, I had four one night stands with random women. My wife never found out. All of the hookups were just for some fun sex and had no emotional ties. I don’t know how to feel. If it’s bad or good, I’m not sure. But if I say I wish I could take it back, I’d be lying. Some of my best memories have been random hookups because it’s just so exciting and makes for a good story. 

I was going to take it to the grave until my ex-best friend threw me under the bus and blew it wide open. My wife left me, and we were apart for about a year. Then we finally got back together. Long story short, about a year later, she tells me that she wishes she got a chance to cheat on me and hook up with a guy. And now holds it over my head that I owe her one. 

Dawn Serra: I absolutely do not want her to get with a guy. It would drive me off the chain. I know everyone is thinking, ‘Well, you didn’t think of that when you were messing around, did you?’ I’ve told her how I felt. Now, I know I’m getting what I deserve. But I have this fear in the back of my head that she’s going to cheat on me. I’d love your thoughts. Thanks.” 

Before we get to Andre’s answer, I just want to remind you, today’s show is sponsored by Talkspace, the online therapy company, as William probably should check out. For as little as $32 a week you can work with an experienced licensed therapist handpicked just for you. On Talkspace, you can send text, audio, and video messages to your therapist and talk about your life, work through what’s keeping you up at night, maybe even some infidelity and cheating situations or just work on feeling a little bit happier. To sign up or to learn more, go to the special Sex Gets Real link talkspace.com/SGR. To show your support for the podcast, you can use coupon code SGR, which gets you $30 off your first month. William, I hope that you’re listening. Here we go with the advice.

Andre Shakti: Oh, man. OK. I don’t know that I have a lot of advice for this one, but I’ll give you my little scribble thoughts. The first is that, Dawn, have you ever seen the show, “Shameless?” 

Dawn Serra: No. 

Andre Shakti: OK. First of all, it’s a phenomenal show. It’s on Netflix, all six seasons. It’s with Emmy Rossum and William H. Macy. It’s really brilliant. It’s a good dramedy. This exact situation was a plotline in the latest season. ‘Cause there’s this couple, Kevin and V, they are this great couple together– It isn’t the exact situation, but V basically goes out to a nightclub. She’s dancing with some strange guy, and she accidentally has an orgasm by grinding up on him. And she feels really guilty. She’s like, “Oh, my god. Was that cheating? Was it not? What does it mean?” She goes back and tells her husband, Kevin. He’s like, “Well, I don’t know how to feel about this.” She’s like, “Well, you need to go fuck someone else to make this even because I feel super guilty about it.” 

Actually, it’s like this situation in inverse, like in the exact inverse. She’s like, “You need to go fuck someone. Because I feel really guilty about this. I’m not going to feel better about it or satisfied or we’re on even keeled again until you go and have an orgasm with another woman.” He’s like, “Ahh. OK.” Then it’s like this whole hilarious comedy of errors of him trying to find some lady to have sex with once, even though he doesn’t really want to do it, but because his wife wants them to be even. That’s what this reminded me of. I’m sure it’s completely unhelpful for this gentleman. 

Andre Shakti: But my other thoughts are that I feel like he’s not being completely forthcoming about his motivations for hooking up initially, when they were first married. Because he says on one hand that the reason he does it or he did it was because it was exciting and “makes for a good story.” But then in the same breath, he says, “I was planning on taking all of this to my grave, until my best friend spilled the beans.” 

First of all, if your best friend knew you weren’t planning on taking it to the grave. There’s some conflicting… I don’t know how much is him convincing himself that he believes something that he doesn’t. I don’t know how much of… Maybe he just didn’t want to paint himself in a super unfavorable light. But there’s something more there. I mean, very rarely, unless you go through some traumatic life event, are you flushed with interest in infidelity, and then never again? I guess, it’s very, very rare. It seems like there wasn’t any kind of correlating traumatic life event around the time of these infidelities. I’m questioning his motives for it, and it makes me concerned for the sustainability of the relationship with his wife now that they’re trying to work through things. 

Andre Shakti: Lastly… Maybe not lastly, but as a follow up, dude, she’s already cheating on you. I can’t help but think that she’s already cheating on you. If my fucking husband pulled that shit, and I was in an otherwise monogamously structured relationship and we went through all that, I’d absolutely go out and get mine on the side. Then wash my hands of it. If he thinks that they are seriously working this out and getting back together, and his wife hasn’t either in the interim while they weren’t speaking for I think a year and/or in the aftermath of them reconnecting was connecting with other people, then he’s diluted himself. 

At this point, in my opinion, whether or not he believes that he truly owes her one, she’s getting it. That’s just going to be, “Do you want to stick it out and stay with her while/after she gets it? Or, can you not handle it, and do you want to call it?” So those are my initial thoughts. What about you?

Dawn Serra: Well, my very first thought when I got this email was get to therapy as fast as possible. 

Andre Shakti: Oh, yeah. 

Dawn Serra: If this is truly a relationship that you want to heal and grow in, then you need a third party to help facilitate some of these conversations because there’s clearly some really deep hurt and resentment going on. I think you’re so right that his motivation for having these one night stands, I don’t think he’s confronted within himself. There’s just some big stuff going on there. Because to me, if you really, really are committed to this marriage and you’re doing this, there’s something else going on that’s really not working already. 

Just like general relationship advice across the board, tit for tat scorekeeping is an incredibly unhealthy behavior. Anytime you’re like, “Well, I wash the dishes five times, and you’ve only done it three. So you owe me two,” that is actually resentment-based behavior that has been shown through research to be really, really detrimental to relationship health in the long term. 

Dawn Serra: So if there’s this, “You owe me one,” situation going on, I mean, you two clearly aren’t communicating very well. Feelings aren’t getting heard. Resentment is there. I think the only place to really go at this point, I think, is to either decide you want out because it’s not worth the work or if you want to do the work, you need to get some professional assistance because this sounds toxic from start to finish.

Andre Shakti: Yeah, I agree. Absolutely. That’s a really good point. That the tit for tat, it hardly ever works. I mean, in my opinion, it’s very similar to the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” setups for non-monogamous relationships. I have very rarely seen that kind of setup, that kind of thinking play out in a healthy way or sustainable way.

Dawn Serra: Yeah, I agree. I think both of them have some pretty serious apologizing to do. But I think it has to start with him. It has to start with him, genuinely apologizing multiple times, over and over again, for the hurt that he caused, for the betrayal, for the lies. He has a lot of work to do to rebuild that trust. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t like hearing this when something like this has happened. But it can take a significant amount of time to rebuild that trust. For some people, years. He has to decide if he’s willing to put in that labor.

Andre Shakti: Totally. Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I actually have a book that I would recommend. Again, if both of them are serious about rebuilding that trust, and reconnecting, and rebuilding some kind of relationship, even if it doesn’t end up being the marriage they had before, there is a book called “I Love You, But I Don’t Trust You: The Complete Guide to Restoring Trust in Your Relationship.” It’s by– I’m going to slaughter her last name. But it’s by Mira Kirshenbaum. I got mine on Amazon. It’s wonderful. It’s applicable for this couple that we’re speaking about. It is written in a very heteronormative way. But it’s really wonderful. 

It’s about assessing whether or not the relationship is… Whether you want to build trust. It’s an assessment process about whether you really want to build this trust or whether you’re doing it out of a feeling of obligation, either to yourself, to society, to the other partner, etc. Then it takes you through another assessment process of how to build trust. It’s like a choose your own adventure novel, and then it gives you the tools towards the end. It was really valuable for me. So I’d recommend it. Again, it’s called “I Love You, But I Don’t Trust You: The Complete Guide to Restoring Trust in Your Relationship.”

Dawn Serra: Awesome. Well, I will link to that for this episode on dawnserra.com for anybody who’s interested. 

Andre Shakti: Yay! 

Dawn Serra: OK. I have one more question that I think we have time for. This one actually just came in yesterday. I knew that we were going to be talking, so I was like, “Ahhh!” Divine timing by this person because it’s all about non-monogamy and sex in multiple relationships.

Andre Shakti: Yes. Give it to me.

Dawn Serra: OK. R writes, “Hello, Dawn. First, like everyone else who emails, your podcast has inspired me and taught a lot. I listen to it before and after work to get caught up, and I mainly focus on talks about feminism, sex, and non-monogamy. Now on to my issue. I’m a 26 year old cis male, but I identify as queer, pansexual, David Bowie-esque. I’m a big extrovert, and I love going out and meeting new people. I’m married, going on five years later this year, and I have a live-in girlfriend. The wife and girlfriend are very good, borderline best friends, and it’s fantastic. The wife has occasional friends with benefits, but is virtually asexual. This is a development that happened over time. We are still incredibly intimate and passionate with each other, and she’s very into rope and I’m not. She’s free to explore that as she wants. My girlfriend and I started out very sexual and incredibly passionate. The NRE was so strong. We fell in love, and I am her longest relationship of over a year. 

I’ve helped both of them through so much in Life, and we are so comfortable. This way of life could go on for a very long time. Everything that we share is amazing, and I consider them both life partners. However, the actual intercourse between my girlfriend and I has started to go away. I’ve explained my concerns, and she reaffirms that it isn’t me. She hasn’t even been sexual with her other partners. And that’s fine. She explained to me that mutual masturbation and sharing fantasies is sex to her. 

Dawn Serra: Both of my partners have encouraged me to seek other partners for sexual purposes, but I don’t know if I can. They’re telling me it seems like I have an inner slut in me, and I need to find someone with an equal sex drive. It just feels wrong to me to find someone for a purely sexual relationship. I feel disgusted with myself whenever I think about it. To me, sex is a way to be open and feel vulnerable, and I don’t want to share it with anyone I’m not close with. 

So my question is, how do I find someone that I can be really good, almost best friends with that I can also be sexual with? Isn’t that just another romantic relationship? This person is probably going to hang out with all of us and our friends. Am I limiting myself by not engaging in a purely sexual act without a deeper connection? Thanks so much in advance, R.”

Andre Shakti: Wow. All right. I’m scribbling furiously again. Hold on for a second. OK. Well, first of all, R, it sounds like this person already appreciates the magnificent situation that they’re in. But I would still like to call attention to it. They have a wife and a girlfriend, both of whom they’re in committed partnerships with, both of whom are super solid relationships, for the most part, both of whom get along fabulously with one another and are very sex positive and encouraging of each other’s explorations and experimentations and desires. That’s a really fabulous place to be in. I would like to acknowledge that. You’re kind of in a poly utopia right now. 

I would hasten the listener – yeah, there’s listeners too – to sit for a moment and just sit in the rays of gratitude. Because it’s really hard to find and either fall into or intentionally construct those kinds of mutually beneficial, little ecosystems. It sounds like they’ve got a lot going for them. 

Andre Shakti: I also really enjoy that while R’s sexuality or sex drive seems to be more intense than either of their partners, that none of the partners are trying to shame them for it. R’s not trying to make either partner feel guilty about not being interested in sex, either right now or just in general. There’s no shaming happening in the relationships. There doesn’t seem to be any resentment happening in the relationships. I think that also is really beautiful and rare, and speaks a lot to their connection and communication strategies.

Then for their actual question, people will disagree with me on this, and that’s totally fine because I don’t mean to be everybody’s best friend. But there is no such thing as a relationship that is purely sexual, in my opinion. You cannot unless you are having that purely sexual experience with yourself, with a toy or with a blow up doll. If there is another individual or individuals involved, it’s never going to be purely sexual. 

Andre Shakti: Even if you never date, even if there’s no romance to the relationship, there’s still a relationship. You’re not just pulling a giant burlap sack over the person, and then cutting a hole for their genitals, and then getting your jollies. There’s communication going on there. There’s a lot of mutual disclosure. There can be vulnerability. There can be  a camaraderie that develops. 

I’m actually curious why this person is so concerned about potentially integrating another human into their little ecosystem, when the two that they already have in there are such stellar examples of their ability to do that. If they already have these two partners that are copacetic with one another, to the point of it sounds like they all consider themselves family. I can very much closely relate to that. It seems like they are encouraging this person to, not only seek other partners, but to not hide it, to form relationships with other people, to include them in on what they already have going on, which sounds like is a really healthy situation. Again, it sounds like a win-win to me. 

Andre Shakti: Although, it also may be the case that this person just doesn’t want to seek other people and is really stuck in this space of wishing that one or both of their partners were more sexually available because they just don’t feel naturally driven at this time to pursue people for any reason, like sexual or otherwise. 

Which, I mean, poly burnout and being poly-saturated are two very common things. Actually, this is very similar to the situation that I’m in. My partner, and they totally will not mind me talking about this, so we’re good. My partner, Jack, is a transgender man, and he’s married to a cisgender man named Jeff. The three of us are all extremely close, in all the ways. However, because I’m a sex worker, and I also unfortunately, have chronic gynecological issues, and because Jeff is a war veteran, who came home with a spinal cord injury that leaves him dependent mostly on erectile dysfunction drugs if he wants to express them. sexually in that way, the two of us aren’t always available for sex. In fact, sometimes Jack will go a week or two weeks, despite having two partners where he doesn’t get laid. 

Andre Shakti: Same thing that the listener was saying, we encourage mutual masturbation. We encourage voyeurism. We encourage watching porn together or all these other creative erotic avenues. We’ve also encouraged him to find another sex buddy. Despite being in this unambiguously poly relationship, he still describes himself as being very monogamously-minded. He says the reason that he doesn’t pursue other sexual or romantic connections is not because he doesn’t think he could or because they might not fill that void for him, but because he just doesn’t want to. He feels, in all other ways, completely satiated by the two relationships that he has. If that is what’s going on with the caller, then I feel for them, but I don’t know that I have any advice.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I love that. I love how you’re talking about how there’s no purely sexual relationships. A couple of weeks ago, Jaclyn Friedman was on the show, and she mentioned this researcher named Lisa Wade, who wrote a book all about hookup culture. She has this quote of, “We have feelings about our breakfast.” Of course, we’re going to have feelings about the people we have sex with. That doesn’t mean we are necessarily going to fall in love or want a long term relationship, but we do have feelings when we engage with other people in this way with our bodies. I think that’s super important to just name. 

I’m also interested that this person is in this triad with these wonderful individuals, and yet they say I feel disgusted with myself whenever I think about having a purely sexual relationship outside of this. It makes me curious, “What does sex mean to you?” I thought it was really interesting that they specifically said the girlfriend feels that mutual masturbation and sharing fantasies equals sex. Because that makes me feel like R doesn’t think that those things count as sex. So I’m wondering what does sex mean? What is it that sex provides to you? Is it pleasure? Is that a release? Is it connection? Is it multiple different versions of those things depending on the day? I think when you understand what needs sex meets for you, that makes it easier to also articulate the types of relationships or the types of activities that might be really interesting. 

Dawn Serra: I love how you’re talking about with your relationships, Andre, encouraging mutual masturbation and encouraging vouyeurism because I’m wondering what are other ways that R could explore pleasurable activities with their current partners that maybe isn’t intercourse and fucking, but maybe that feels really good and engaged and scratches that itch a little bit. 

Part of me wonders if a lot of this strife and this concern is coming up just because there’s this feeling of, “I should be seeking sex from other people.” Whereas, there’s something really beautiful happening here. If both of the other partners in this situation are encouraging R to try these other things out, it sounds to me the relationship is resilient enough that if R did go out and try a fuck buddy situation or a friends with benefits situation, and it felt terrible or it didn’t work, that the three of them would have the resilience to actually heal from that and talk about it and find a new way to move forward. 

Dawn Serra: I think the bottom line is just R needs to articulate, “What does sex mean for me, and what are all the ways that I can experience pleasure and connection?” If sex really is something you want to explore outside of this current triad, then just know it sounds like that you’ve built something so beautiful and so strong that even if there are some mistakes or some hiccups or some regret, that the three of you can really come together and support each other around that. And sometimes you don’t know until you try.

Andre Shakti: Yes. Sometimes it can be really difficult. As a sex worker, I know R did not disclose they do sex work of any kind. But I know as a sex worker, I go through these rollercoaster type periods. I’m actually not that slutty in my personal life. Most of my sluttiness gets encouraged and comes out in my work. So sometimes I’ll go through a very intense work week, where there’s a lot of sexual output for a while. Then the next week, maybe I didn’t get that much work, there’s hardly anything. And it can be really difficult. 

This has happened in personal relationships too, where you go through that new relationship energy period. You’re fucking all the time. Then at some point, before you and your partner know it, you’ve passed through that, and now things are a little more stable, and you’re not having sex as often. Sometimes when we go from periods of high sexual activity to low or no sexual activity, not only can we feel lonely and sad because we genuinely want that connection with someone else, but we can also feel this weird societal pressure almost or this imaginary pressure to keep it up, to keep up the momentum. 

Andre Shakti: I mean, for me, I know that early on in my poly days, my partners would go out with other people. Something that would be really helpful for me would be if I would make dates with people of my own, that corresponded at the same time as my partner’s dates. In that way, I wasn’t sitting at home twiddling my thumbs, feeling all FOMO-ish. 

I realized recently, in the past year, that that doesn’t work for me anymore because I realized when I started using those same tactics that I used to utilize in my early 20s, that I actually, while I was out with these people, no matter how charming or smart or hot or sexually attracted to them that I could be, I realized it wasn’t actually what I wanted. I didn’t actually want to be out fucking other people. I actually probably could have benefited from staying home or maybe taking myself out to see a movie or getting some work done. 

Andre Shakti: I don’t know if that’s just the number of years I’ve been doing poly. I don’t know if that’s me getting older. I don’t know if that’s just another shift that’s happening for me right now. But I’ve had to remind myself multiple times recently that no one is judging me for not having sex. No one in the world is peering through my bedroom blinders with binoculars to my knowledge. If they are, I should probably start charging them. Judging me or saying that I’m any less of a whatever – of a poly person, of an LGBT person, of a sex worker – because I’m not fucking or getting fucked constantly all the time, 24/7. And that’s OK, That is so OK. 

If this person does that internal searching about what sex means to them and what would really make them happy right now, what kinds of connections, and they come up with, “Actually, I really don’t want to be connecting again with anyone right now,” or “I don’t want to be connected with anyone who’s not my partners, who aren’t my partners right now,” that’s OK. That’s OK. You might have to say that to your partners. You might have to do that soul searching and turn around and be like, “Hey, listen. You folks are wonderful. I love that you’re so encouraging of me. You’re so enthusiastic that I seek outside connections, that I explore different things with people, but I’m just really not feeling it right now. When I am, I will totally tell you, and then you guys can be my cheerleaders again. You can totally start cheerleading.”

Dawn Serra: Oh, I love that. 

Andre Shakti: Yeah.

Dawn Serra: Oh. Well, R, it sounds like you have an amazing life and amazing support system. I hope that whatever kind of discomfort you’re experiencing around this that you know that you’ve got this beautiful wife and this beautiful girlfriend who are supporting you. Thank you so much for listening to the show. I hope that some of the stuff that Andre and I offered gives you just a little bit of relief or some new perspective and a way to just approach these problems and feelings from a new way, and I really appreciate it. 

So we are definitely at the hour, Andre, as what happened last time because we have so much fun geeking out.

Andre Shakti: I know!

Dawn Serra: I would love it if you could share with everyone how they can– I know you mentioned iampoly.net earlier and your Patreon. But if you could just remind everyone where you are all over the web, that would be great.

Andre Shakti: Totally. You can find me pretty much– That’s not even remotely true. You can find me pretty much everywhere because I’m an old lady when it comes to technology. I’m not on the Snapchats or the Instagrams or the Tumblrs. I am however on Twitter as @AndreShakti. It’s ANDRE SHAKTI. You can also again visit my website at iampoly.net. You can visit my Patreon at patreon.com/iampoly. I’m also on Facebook as Andre Shakti. Although, Facebook blocks me, on average, about five months out of every year. So if you send me a message or friend requests me and I don’t respond to you, I promise I’m not being a dick. I just can’t get to you right now. But I’ll be back in 30 days when they decide that I’ve served enough time for that photo of my butt in a pair of underwear that was causing so much concern.

Dawn Serra: It makes me so upset because I feel like I’ll see these posts of you with your dog and these cool events that you’re doing, and then like it disappears. Then all of a sudden, it’s banned again.

Andre Shakti: I actually have this whole network of people, and it’s mostly my partners and then people in the porn industry. They’re set people. I have like Jiz Lee, Kitty Stryker, and then like all of my partners who are responsible for telling the internet that I’m blocked on Facebook. So every few months, I’ll just send them all a go. I already have a pre-organized group text in my cellphone text being like, “Hey! It happened again.” Then they’ll diligently go online, trying to reroute as many people as possible. But they can’t keep me down! Goddamnit! They can’t keep me down.

Dawn Serra: Yeah, fuck their stupid, anti-everything policies 

Andre Shakti: For real, for real.

Dawn Serra: Oh, thank you so much for doing this with me today. I always have so much fun talking to you. I think you’re fantastic and gorgeous and amazing. I hope everyone goes and checks out your new project. 

Andre Shakti: Oh, likewise. Good luck with the move. I’m really excited for you. You might have a person crashing on your couch in the not too distant future.

Dawn Serra: You are welcome. To everybody who tuned in, be sure to check out all of Andre’s amazing work. I will, of course, have links to everything that we mentioned today at dawnserra.com for this episode. You can also head there to ask your own questions and to share your own stories. I love hearing from you. Don’t forget you can also support the show at patreon.com/sgrpodcast. While you’re there, check out patreon.com/iampoly and throw a few bucks Andre’s way. I will talk to you next week.

Andre Shakti: Bye!