Author: On The Wet Coast

Consent is a topic that has been an essential part of the non-monogamy experience, though not everyone is great at asking for or respecting it, and some feel like we talk about enthusiastic consent too much. In monogamous dating, it has only recently become a more nuanced discussion than the No Means No message that most of us were taught. After all, talking about our wants and boundaries would kill the mood and ruin the magic flow that is supposed to happen in love scenes. With the explosion of the MeToo movement that began with Tarana Burke in 2006 and…

We’re doing something a little different on this episode. Many of you know a whole lot about Kat Stark thanks to their blog posts and book Yelling In Pasties: The Wet Coast Confessions of an Anxious Slut. Their co-host, co-conspirator, and true love is more of a mystery since he doesn’t blurt his shit all over the internet the same way Kat does. On this episode of On The Wet Coast, you get a chance to peek behind the curtain and learn more about self-described Super Villain, Gamer, geek, and resident know-it-all Flick Morrison. Sit back and enjoy while Kat…

Jealousy is a complex emotion that usually arises when we feel threatened or like we’re not getting our needs met. It is almost always the reason people cite when they state that they couldn’t ever be non-monogamous yet plenty of non-monogamous and polyamorous people experience jealousy regularly. The various circumstances that lead to jealousy tend to shift the longer people have lived in open relationships. From sexual jealousy to that over deepening intimacy or relationship milestones. Sometimes it is even very person-specific, cropping up only with regards to one partner, or only one of their partners. On this episode of…

Geekery & non-monogamy crossover in so many ways. So many of the people we’ve met, connected with, and sexed up have been fellow geeks that enjoy much of the same pop culture that we do, whether it’s movies, tv shows, books, musical theatre, roleplaying games, or video games. You need to have something to talk about when the sexin’s done, after all. Despite the chic that many geeky pastimes now enjoy, it wasn’t always the case. Those of us who spent our youth with interests outside the norm of sportsball and Top 40 tunes have always tended to seek others…

Sex, particularly kinky sex, is still a taboo subject in our sex negative culture. We’re not supposed to talk about it so we don’t learn good communication skills around it. It’s one of those things that is supposed to just kinda happen. We hang onto a lot of the messages we got about sex growing up and even those of us who consider ourselves very open about our sexuality still retain many of the hangups and shame feelings. Learning to talk about what we want in the bedroom from the most vanilla of acts (vanilla is a delicious flavour, by…

Click-baity title aside, many people would like to figure out how to get more sex and better sex in their lives. It’s not a priority for everyone, and isn’t required to be, but for those who are looking to get more sex in their lives, it can be a struggle. We’re here to tell you it doesn’t have to be. Reinterpreting what sex is can be a big and helpful start down the path to more sex. As well, reinterpreting what you’re looking for in a sexual encounter can help you figure out how to get your needs met beyond…

Ideally, when we’re meeting, dating, and sexing on people we want to be our best selves. We want to be feeling stable and settled and able to be present and focused for all the newness that might be coming our way. Unfortunately, circumstances are almost never ideal. Life constantly hits us with the unexpected–job loss, divorce, moving house, issues with kids, health issues, mental health issues, breakups–the list goes on and on. Much of the time we need to figure out how to compartmentalize our other life issues so that we can open our hearts to new people and new…

Nearly everyone we know claims to be bad at flirting, the two of us included, but somehow many of us are scoring dates and getting laid. How do we get over our own brains to send that first message or turn a chat into something sexy and sassy? And once we’re in a sexy space, how do we wrap our heads around talking dirty. There’s an art to knowing when to push a conversation to a sexy place or leave an opening for someone else to do so and when to leave it respectfully platonic. And as it turns out,…

Endless amounts of research has been done on the topic of love and relationships – generally focused on the heteronormative pair bonding that is the norm in our western culture. A few books such as Sex at Dawn and Mating in Captivity have been the go to tomes for the non-monogamous looking for science that backs up our choice of lifestyle. Author Brenda Wiebe has written Catch & Release: How I Used Science to Hack my Love Life. She uses her skills as a researcher of sociology and anthropology to write a review of different relationship patterns throughout human history…

Attraction is a mysterious thing. There are physical and personality characteristics in people we’re almost always attracted to: perhaps a certain body type or sense of humour. Other times it can be harder to nail down why a certain person hits all the yes buttons for you, or what makes us override our usual “dealbreakers”. They could be completely different than what normally gets you going and if you lined up 5 similar people, you might not feel anything for any of the others. Attraction can even be situational. You can find yourself interested in someone in a certain time…