Dearest Barries, Berries, and Pedestrians, Have you ever had a caricature drawn of you? No? Come to San Francisco sometime. Some charming artist on the Fisherman’s Wharf will talk you out of 20 bucks and 20 minutes and proceed to draw your picture. When the artist turns his drawing around for you to see, you smile. Obviously, it’s not your exact reflection looking back at you. It IS you, however, with all of your distinct features exaggerated and cartoonish. Your real life full lips are drawn out to look shiny, glossy, bubbly, and Jessica Rabbit-esque. Your hipster beard has been…
Author: Shira B. Katz
Shira B. Katz
Shira B. Katz is a co-host of the Life on the Swingset podcast, bringing a pansexual and polyamorous viewpoint to the show. Shira also hosts Pedestrian Polyamory, a podcast on the Swingset network that focuses on polyamory and all of it's glorious (and not so glorious) features. When not writing articles, podcasting, or otherwise extolling the virtues of polyamory, Shira can be found in the wild getting crushes on nerds, lusting after boykisses, and fussing about in the San Francisco Bay area. To learn more about Shira B. Katz follow her on Twitter
New people and relationships are exciting and fun. But.. what about the old?
The core values of most nonmonogamous relationships are Honesty and Communication. Both are equally important in navigating your way through a nonmonogamous relationship. I won’t bother singing the praise of these values today, because let’s face it… You’ve heard it all before. You know what you haven’t heard? You haven’t heard about the pitfalls of honesty and communication. Now, I don’t know if this is just a Shira B. Katz specialty or not, but from my perspective it seems that there are just loads of polyamorous relationships that never make it past initial boundary negotiations. Here is the scene: You…
Hey there Swingsetters and Pedestrians! There are a few things that make me feel a little weird and isolated: the look from other people I get when I grab a wedge of lemon and happily pop it into my mouth and devour it, the funny feeling I get when I go into a really rich person’s house, and, of course, people’s reactions when I tell them I give blowjobs with condoms. It’s true! I like blowjobs with condoms. They’re hot. You should think so, too. As a partnered polyamorous woman, I can’t take the same risks single people do. My…
Hey guys! I thought I’d share a link from a listener who was inspired by Episode 8 of Pedestrian Polyamory, our interview with Franklin Veaux, to write in with his thoughts on polyamory and rationality: Shira, .. I came to choose to be nonmogamous (in my case somewhere between a swinger and poly) by way of rationity. I found the rational and poly online communities at about the same time after developing similar views on my own. On one of the biggest rationality sites, lesswrong.com, some of the contributors have even put forth polyamory as a rational ideal. They even…
Hey Listeners! The HPV episode is still inspiring some pretty great listener mail. Here is another note from a thoughtful listener: Morning Shira, – Gavin mentioned that it’s the obligation of someone who has an STI to share that information and while I wholeheartedly agree with that, I think that it’s more important to take control of the situation. What I mean by that is don’t rely on someone else to bring up the topic as there people who feel uncomfortable talking about the subject, especially if they have an STI. What I do is always bring it up;…
Hoo, boy! The Katz have gone and stirred up some trouble. In episode 6 of Pedestrian Polyamory Gavin and I talked about HPV, HSV1 & HSV2; discussing dirty details and facts as well as our personal struggle in figuring out how to date people affected by these STI’s. We got quite the explosive (and awesome!) response, some of which we shared on episode 7. In an effort to not talk about HPV and HSV on the show nonstop for months (believe me, we could!), we’re going to start picking up the conversation here. We’ll start off with a really awesome…
Polyamorous relationships are notorious for not making it past the three year mark.. and many polyamorous relationships fall much shorter than even that. For a long time, that knowledge was a source of frustration for me. Yet another reason why polyamory is a less ‘valid’ relationship style, right? However, maybe it’s not a bug in the system. Maybe it’s a feature.
I am by no means an expert on the topic of breaking up. But, since we’re hitting Prime Break-Up Season (note figure 1), I think poly break up styles should be addressed. I, being the lucky girl that I am, was able to get my business done early this year. Mid-October marked a significant break up for me. My secondary partner, Kasher, and I broke up due to all sorts of silliness, none of it being poly-related drama. The cause? Well, mostly normal relationship drama; lifestyle differences, timing conflicts, and general wrong time/wrong place dilemmas. Now.. what is done is…
It is not uncommon amongst the non-monogamous to kick around the idea of having an extra live-in partner or two. For some this musing is more appealing than others, not everyone wants a multi-relationship home. Yet, whether you envision a roommate with benefits, a second wife or husband, or just a nice little fuck-thing that you can play with and then store in your closet, the truth is that the thought of having a new partner living with you has probably crossed your mind at some point during your jaunt to the Swingset. The real question is…jesus. There are so many questions.