Have you heard of Esther Perel? If not, ohhhhhhh, are you in for a delightful surprise! And if you have, then you already know how brilliant this New York Times bestselling author of The State of Affairs and Mating in Captivity is!
And she’s even MORE scintillating and insightful in person when you get her geeking out about relationships and how they’ve been changing over the years. At a dinner party in Manhattan, I was reunited with Esther and my wonderful friend, Diana Adams, to have a conversation about a talk the three of us gave back in 2014 on the topic of polyamory (see Youtube link below).
We wanted to get together and discuss how well our ideas and thoughts have held up over the past 10 years, and Esther had the brilliant presence of mind to record our dinner conversation!
You can listen in on our 5.5-hour dinner conversation (edited down to some of the best parts!) on Esther’s wonderful podcast, Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel.
This is your chance to be a fly-on-the-wall at a dinner table conversation where Esther, Diana, yours truly, plus a few other relationship/sex ed leaders talk about what’s changed over the last decade with consensual non-monogamy going more mainstream. We also dive into why and how some folks advocate for their choices to be non-monogamous, and the consequences and challenges they’re still up against.
FYI, you won’t hear me talk until later in the podcast, so don’t fret or think you’re listening to the wrong episode.
Listen to the podcast episode here:
- Esther’s website:
https://www.estherperel.com/podcasts/the-arc-of-love—the-poly-dinner-party - Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/where-should-we-begin-with-esther-perel/id1237931798?i=1000663332287 - Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6hJKLRGN1O6ggcmE6yMk96?si=e605e971cee84c83
Watch the Original Discussion Panel from 2014:
Watch our talk from a decade ago, “Special Arrangements: The Changing Face of the 21st Century Relationship,” a discussion panel on non-monogamy and polyamory with Sunny Bates (moderator), Reid Mihalko, Diana Adams, Esq., and Esther Perel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iDluKrMvYw.
Belgian psychotherapist Esther Perel is the New York Times bestselling author of The State of Affairs and Mating in Captivity. Her celebrated TED talks have garnered more than 20 million views and she is also the host of the popular podcast Where Should We Begin? Learn more at EstherPerel.com or by following @EstherPerelOfficial on Instagram.
Diana Adams is the Executive Director of the nonprofit advocacy group www.ChosenFamilyLawCenter.org and a mediator serving families nationwide to negotiate polyamorous agreements with www.DianaAdamsLaw.net.
What you are about to hear is part of a series Esther calls The Arc of Love. Each session centers around a couple’s story. Whether it’s issues of trust and betrayal, care and aggression, closeness and distance, repair and rupture, polyamory or monogamy. The episodes can be listened to in any order you want but were curated with a beginning, middle, and end. This episode is not a session but a fly on the wall conversation. Some of the guests chose to be anonymous, while others allowed us to use their names.