Are You Wondering If You’re A Poly and If A Poly Is a Good Fit For You?
Cathy: Have you ever wondered if you might be poly or poly might be good for you? This is Reid Mihalko from http://www.ReidAboutSex.com/
Reid: Cathy Vartuli from http://www.TheIntimacyDojo.com/ and someone wrote in and said I would be poly but for STD’s I’m really worried about those that’s the major concern and when I wrote back and said there’s a lot of ways to have safer sex since many but not all. Of course poly folks are going to be talking about their needs are getting tested and using safe sex practices the risk may be lower than you think. She wrote back saying testing is great but someone could always catch something in the waiting period and I want to address that.
Reid: Okay. Address it.
Cathy: I think if the lifestyle is right for you, realize that there are different types of poly’s, too. You might have, if you’re concern of the waiting period but some people are very legitimately, that’s the time when you’re not sure if you have, they can’t test for a certain amount of time for like HIV for example thought it gotten much smaller for a time frame now it used to be 6 months or something like that, not sure but it’s much shorter now. While you’re waiting some people are in close poly relationship so it might be 3 or 4 people that are not sleeping with anyone outside of that relationship or they might be only having safer sex during with other people outside the relationship. I think identifying a good relationship style fit for yourself versus and then also addressing the concerns within that is a powerful way to move forward and you kind have the relationship that really works for you.
Reid: Wherever you’re at its fine there are some people would be like I can be a snow boarder if it wasn’t for breaking bones.
Cathy: For me it’s the cold.
Reid: That’s okay you can do whatever you want Cathy but the idea of the things that there’s nothing wrong with the things you want to avoid. You can be emotionally poly, emotionally non monogamous. There are people out there who loved being in love and not having to be about sex so Polyamory while it includes sex doesn’t have to include sex so you could be poly and have all kinds of intimacy and emotional intimacy and even certain kinds of physical intimacy like maybe you’re just into kissing or exchanging massages or whatever. So if you come up whatever you’re life choices are or other things you considered from, what are my concerns and then educating yourself on the actual concerns going down your rabbit holes which can be scary at first coz oh my god, sex is really unsafe when you really look at statistics but when you go a little bit further down the rabbit hole, here’s the things that are treatable and here’s the things that untreatable and fatal then you start to understand that you get to have your emotional orientation thinking about these things. These are my opinions I’m not saying though way but I’m not worried about getting chlamydia as somebody who has no other autoimmune compromise situations because chlamydia is treatable. If I were to be exposed to Chlamydia in the window and then test positive for it because I get tested 4 to 6 months then I would have caught that I had it. I would learn that I have it before it would done any damage to me so then I could get treated. But you have to lean all those things and figured out what’s your orientation is towards those things. Go down the rabbit holes and figure out statistically if there was a snow boarded and I’m afraid of breaking bones like how many people really do break down bones. What are the common bones that you break?
Cathy: And for the kiddie slope, how bad it is?
Reid: Yeah. And maybe I can learn to snowboard and just stick to the kiddie slope. Do the homework, track your fear a little bit coz sometimes in that homework maybe your views and your position never change and then you have the information out, I’ve done the research and this is where I’m at and these are the choices that are good for me. And sometimes when you’re doing the research a whole of the piece opens up either way it’s more powering I think to go down those rabbit holes. Great that you’re exploring the idea of poly what are the rabbit holes you can go down to be more empowered with your choice.
Cathy: Yeah. I was really, really frightened about STD, STI’s I’ve heard a lot of scary things and I saw something that you teach that really helped me. Reid asked what the common STI’s are and everyone’s like Chlamydia, Gonorrhea and he’s like no it’s a common cold. I have the cold a bunch of time it’s not to stigmatized scary things and then I started going through and realized that most things are curable, the things that aren’t what I do that I need to do to feel safe about it. Once I was informed it made a lot more, I’ve felt like I have my new boundaries and I could play much nicer in that space.
Reid: I hope this was hopeful and I hope it felt non-judgmental. Were all allowed to feel what we feel about the things like that’s great! And in the society where we don’t get a lot of permission to go down rabbit holes of empowerment around sex where could we do some more learning that would allow us to be more empowering and grounded as our selves however we’re feeling. Those are things that I think that’s important.
Cathy: Thanks for writing in.
Reid: Leave us some comments, I hope this video was helpful and leave some more comments.
Cathy: Yeah, what do you think?
Reid: Give us questions. We need things to talk about.