The Polyamory Breakup Book: Causes, Prevention, and Survival


Kathy Labriola - 2019
    With multiple partners often come more complex relationships to navigate. This practical guide looks at the common causes of polyamorous breakups, identifies strategies to avoid ending relationships, and provides you with the toolkit to survive a breakup. Kathy Labriola uses real life examples and expert insight as a counselor and nurse. From how to handle jealousy to the practicalities of managing money and time with multiple partners, this book includes tips and insights from the polyamory community. It is inevitable that some relationships will end in a breakup. This book helps you maintain friendships and minimize the impact of a breakup on the rest of your polycule and wider community. Unlike traditional breakup guides, Labriola’s book offers insight specific to the polyamory community and addresses the unique challenges that come with multiple partners.

Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships


Tristan Taormino - 2007
    Drawing on in-depth interviews with over a hundred women and men, Opening Up explores the real-life benefits and challenges of all styles of open relationships -- from partnered non-monogamy to solo polyamory. With her refreshingly down-to-earth style and sharp wit, Taormino offers solutions for making an open relationship work, including tips on dealing with jealousy, negotiating boundaries, finding community, parenting and time management. Opening Up will change the way you think about intimacy.

More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory


Franklin Veaux - 2014
    Now the new book More Than Two can help you find your own way. With completely new material and a fresh approach, Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickert wrote More Than Two to expand on and update the themes and ideas in the wildly popular polyamory website morethantwo.com.From partners, authors and practicing polyamorists Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickert comes the long-awaited, wide-ranging resource exploring the often-complex world of living polyamorously. Highlighting the nuances (no, this isn’t swinging), the relationship options (do you suit a V, an N, an open network?), the myths (don’t count on wild orgies and endless sex—but don’t rule them out, either!) and the expectations (communication, transparency and trust are paramount), the authors share not only their hard-won philosophies about polyamory, but also their hurts and embarrassments. More Than Two is entirely without judgment and peppered with a good dose of humor. Franklin and Eve underscore the importance of engaging in ethical polyamory, while gently guiding readers through the thorny issues of jealousy and insecurity. And no, they’re not trying to convert you: they know that polyamory isn’t for everyone. Franklin and Eve simply provide those who might be embarking on this lifestyle, or those who have already begun, with a toolkit to help them make informed decisions and set them on a path to enjoying multiple happy, strong, enriching relationships. More Than Two is the book the polyamory community has been waiting for. And who knows? It may just be the book you didn’t even know you were waiting for.

Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy


Jessica Fern - 2020
    Using her nested model of attachment and trauma, she expands our understanding of how emotional experiences can influence our relationships. Then, she sets out six specific strategies to help you move toward secure attachments in your multiple relationships. Polysecure is both a theoretical treatise and a practical guide.

The Smart Girl's Guide to Polyamory: Everything You Need to Know About Open Relationships, Non-Monogamy, and Alternative Love


Dedeker Winston - 2017
    The Smart Girl's Guide to Polyamory incorporates interviews and real-world advice from women of all ages in nontraditional relationships, as well as exercises for building self-awareness, confidence in communication, and strategies for managing and eliminating jealousy. Chapters include:Polyamory: What It Is and What It Isn’tThe Biggest Question: JealousyThe Second Biggest Question: SexSmart Girl SkillsLand of Love-Craft: Crafting Your Relationships from the Ground UpIf you're curious about exploring group sex, opening up your current monogamous relationship, or ready to “come out” as polyamorous, this book covers it all!Whether you're a seasoned graduate, a timid freshman, or somewhere in between, you'll learn how to discover and craft unique relationships that are healthy, happy, sexy, and tailor-made for you. Because when it comes to your love life, being a know-it-all is actually a great thing to be.

Polyamory and Jealousy: A More Than Two Essentials Guide


Eve Rickert - 2016
    The essential quick guide for coping with jealousy in polyamorous relationships,adapted from materia in More Than Two.

Designer Relationships: A Guide to Happy Monogamy, Positive Polyamory, and Optimistic Open Relationships


Mark A. Michaels - 2015
    These changes can and should empower people with the opportunity to develop partnerships based on their own sexualities, understandings, and agreements. This makes it possible to create what Kenneth Haslam, founder of the Kinsey Institute’s Polyamory Archive, has called “designer relationships.”Designer relationships may encompass: people who bond emotionally but not sexually; people who agree to be non-exclusive; single people who have occasional lovers or friends with benefits; couples who consciously choose to be monogamous; multiple partner configurations where long-term bonds exist among all or some; partnerships in which people are kinky and that make room to explore kink.The possibilities are limitless, and thinking about a partnership as something people can craft allows for flexibility and change. Relationships can open and close or have varying degrees and kinds of openness as circumstances demand. In the context of a designer relationship, decisions are made mutually, consciously, and deliberately.Designer Relationships will show you how to create the relationship that works for you, based on: · Free and enthusiastic choice.· Mutuality in defining the relationship and its structure.· Permission to consider all forms of relating.· Dedication to maintaining radical regard your partner(s).· Transparency about sexual history.Best-selling authors and nationally known relationship experts Patricia Johnson and Mark A. Michaels are exemplars of this life choice. This book explains exactly how you and your loved ones can design your own life and love.Editorial ReviewsReview"Michaels and Johnson's latest book on Designer Relationships takes my book, The New Monogamy one step further, past communication skills about monogamy agreements and into new ways to be transparent about all types of revolutionary forms of commitment that will take us forward into the 21st Century. Where my book left off, theirs continues and includes all the information any couple could ever want or need to create loving, open partnerships. Where most books only offer history and data, Mark and Patricia give practical advice and ground rules for trust, empathy and intimacy for collaborative non-monogamous relationship. We all need a book like this that integrates good tips and techniques and the words to define what we want from a partner; the freedom to choose. Whatever you are looking for, it is in this book. Written by a couple who really love one another and are committed to their work, this book comes at the perfect time, I am convinced it will help a lot of people."–Dr. Tammy Nelson, Author of The New Monogamy and Getting the Sex You Want"Thoughtful, honest and powerful! Reading this book is like rubbing a lamp to get your own Genie – but instead of magic, you’ll get practical guidance on how to create the relationship that’s ideal for you. Mark Michaels and Patricia Johnson speak from experience, lead from the heart, and open a space for true sexual freedom."–– Ricci Joy Levy, Executive Director, The Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance"Patricia Johnson and Mark Michaels explore far beyond one-size-fits-all coupling to a rainbow of choices, showing us all that the only ways our relationships are supposed to be are the ways we choose with one beautifully stated guideline: “Keep kindness as your touchstone.”"–– Dossie Easton, Author of The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures and Radical Ecstasy."How would you live and love if society, religion, and the media weren’t constantly “shoulding” all over you?" –– Jenny Block“Designer Relationships: A Guide to Happy Monogamy, Positive Polyamory, and Optimistic Open Relationships by Mark Michaels and Patricia Johnson is an insightful read into the different types of sexual and romantic relationships, It debunks the myths that tell us there is one type that works for everyone. It also imparts wisdom on how to navigate relationships for whichever type you find yourself in. I found this book to be a great starter guide for designing relationships that work for you."–Dr. Martha Tara Lee, author of Love, Sex and Everything In Between"I would highly recommend Designer Relationships to any couple who wants to explore opening up and wants to strengthen their relationship."–Shervon Laurice, MS, LCPC, LPCFrom the foreword:"Designer Relationships is a guidebook for these changing times and what is now available to anyone with a computer, a modicum of curiosity, and the willingness to take a risk and explore."–Ken Haslam, founder, Polyamory Archives of the Kinsey Institute

When Someone You Love Is Polyamorous: Understanding Poly People and Relationships


Elisabeth Sheff - 2013
    Chances are, you have a lot of questions: Is this just a phase? Won’t they settle down someday? What’s going to happen to their kids? Do I have to invite all their partners over for Thanksgiving dinner? Why can’t they just keep it in the bedroom?When Someone You Love Is Polyamorous offers answers to these and more questions, to help you better understand and support your polyamorous loved ones.

Eight Things I Wish I'd Known About Polyamory: Before I Tried It and Frakked It Up


Cunning Minx - 2014
    Outside of traditional monogamy, relationship structure options and guidelines are often murky at best. This book seeks to demystify the basics of healthy, consensual non-monogamy by sharing the lessons learned from both Minx and thousands of podcast listeners who have built successful polyamorous relationships. While each relationship may be different, some basic guidelines are helpful in constructing one's own version of polyamory, and the eight discoveries outlined in this book seek to provide just that.

The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities


Dossie Easton - 1997
    Experienced ethical sluts Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy dispel myths and cover all the skills necessary to maintain a successful and responsible polyamorous lifestyle--from self-reflection and honest communication to practicing safe sex and raising a family. Individuals and their partners will learn how to discuss and honor boundaries, resolve conflicts, and to define relationships on their own terms. "I couldn't stop reading it, and I for one identify as an ethical slut. This is a book for anyone interested in creating more pleasure in their lives . . . a complete guide to improving any style of relating, from going steady to having an extended family of sexual friends." --Betty Dodson, PhD, author of Sex for One

The Husband Swap


Louisa Leontiades - 2012
    There's a problem in paradise, though: their marriage is going nowhere. Together, they decide to explore polyamory, the idea that it's possible to have more than one lover--and more than one love. They fall in love with another couple and, embarking on a life-changing course, try to make it work as a quad. Their journey liberates them from the constraints of their unhappy marriage and propels them into a world where they embrace a new way of loving. But this liberation comes with a price. They are challenged in ways they didn't expect, and the experiment takes them to a place they didn't anticipate. They must learn to accept a new understanding of relationships, each other and themselves.

Power Circuits: Polyamory in a Power Dynamic


Raven Kaldera - 2010
    Both lifestyles are on the cutting-edge frontiers of romantic and sexual relating, and for a long time practitioners of both have found little sympathy in either camp. This is the first book of its kind that navigates the waters of effective polyamory and power exchanges, with many essays from the brave practitioners who swim there.

Ask Me About Polyamory: The Best of Kimchi Cuddles


Tikva Wolf - 2016
    If your relationships or your gender are unconventional, you’ll find useful advice and plenty of laughs in this compilation of the wildly popular webcomic Kimchi Cuddles. Quirky, endearing and charmingly (and sometimes painfully) realistic characters, many based on real people, explore polyamory, queer and genderqueer issues. Covering practical matters like time management and serious topics like discrimination, this book unites the best of two years of Kimchi Cuddles comics, organized into a practical and entertaining guide to the real world of alternative relationships. Kimchi Cuddles is a rare mix: fearlessly true to the lives of the people it depicts yet relatable enough to entertain and inform anyone (maybe even your parents). Dealing with both lighthearted and serious subject matter, it avoids clichés and easy answers, choosing instead to give examples of different schools of thought and show the humanity behind each one. Wolf’s honesty and gift for clear explanation have made Kimchi Cuddles a hit with the most dedicated polyamorists as well as curious newcomers.

Love's Not Color Blind: Race and Representation in Polyamorous and Other Alternative Communities


Kevin A. Patterson - 2018
    To make polyamorous communities inclusive, we must all acknowledge our part in perpetuating racism and listen to people of color. Love's Not Color Blind puts forward the framework—through research, anecdotal testimony, and analogy—for understanding, identifying, and confronting racism within polyamorous communities.

Redefining Our Relationships: Guidelines for Responsible Open Relationships


Wendy-O Matik - 2002
    this IS a serious, thoughtful (and thought-provoking) comprehensive introduction to, and examination of, a much misunderstood and misused practice. But more than that, it is a witty, provocative, damn fine read, with as much to offer to the faithfully monogamous as to those looking for a bit more out of life, love and relationships. Go on. Dive in. "Wendy-O tackles a touchy subject with clarity and creativity. She is wise beyond her years. This guide teaches you how you can have it all. I gave the jealousy tips to my lover immediately." [Annie Sprinkle]