Introduction and Setting the Scene

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3.

John Dehlin [00:00:07] Mormon Stories podcast is a production of the Open Stories Foundation. All donations to Mormon Stories are fully tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber today@mormonstories.org. Hello, and welcome to another edition of Marvin Stories Podcast. I'm your host, Shaun De Lin. What's the date today?

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:00:39] I don't think.

John Dehlin [00:00:41] Okay, it's like, oh, no. It's October 11, 2016. We know that because Jake and Amy Maloof are being excommunicated today. So we send our love to Jake and Amy Maloof. If you hear strange female noises in the background, it's not my fault. It's because I am in the car with Dr. Gina Colvin. Hello, Gina Colvin.

Gina Colvin [00:01:10] Hello. Mormon Studies. Stories.

John Dehlin [00:01:12] People Studies. That's a bad word. Yes. So welcome, Gina Colvin. And if you can't distinguish that very distinguished laugh, we also have with us the undoctor, Natasha Helfer Parker. Natasha, welcome back to Mormon Stories.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:01:31] I'm so glad be back. I'm not sure I'm totally consenting to this yet.

John Dehlin [00:01:35] Okay, yo, this is happening. This is happening. Not while I'm talking.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:01:40] Oh, come on.

John Dehlin [00:01:41] Okay, so, okay, let's just recap. We are. We are driving right now. We are driving from Milburn, New Jersey, to an undisclosed location that is a long way away, somewhere in the vicinity of Burlington, Vermont, for a Mormon for an Open Stories foundation board retreat. But while we were doing that, we decided to record an episode, and the topic du jour of this episode is going to be Natasha Helfer Parker's experience with open marriages. What else. What else would we record an episode on? But that. And so it turns out there's been a lot of discussion about this behind the scenes, but as far as I'm aware, no actual podcast, at least in Mormondom, specifically addressing the issue of people opening up their marriages. So to give a little bit of background, from my perspective, kind of the way it works is that a couple in their, let's just say, 30s. Excuse me, Gina. Gina just burped. Gina Colva. Just. We've got a very serious topic. Gina Colvin. Okay, so no one has had any alcohol, by the way, in the recording of this episode. So in Mormonism. In Mormonism, what we find is that, let's just say, for the sake of discussion, there's a couple, let's say they're in their 30s or early 40s they've been orthodox Mormons their whole lives.

Gina Colvin [00:03:34] And can I just say, the light is on. You have a microphone in one hand

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:03:39] and a freaking cell phone.

John Dehlin [00:03:42] Would you guys behave? We're recording an episode. Re.

Guest [00:03:47] Behave.

John Dehlin [00:03:47] Ladies, would you behave?

Gina Colvin [00:03:50] Nervous laughter.

John Dehlin [00:03:51] Behave.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:03:53] John has been pushing the wrong buttons on the car all night.

John Dehlin [00:03:57] No, I have not.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:03:58] And Gina thinks that he's. Well, you know, she's used to riding on the other side of the road, so it's just been an interest ride here in the back seat is all I'm gonna say.

John Dehlin [00:04:08] So Gina's. Gina's traumatized. She's. She's got white knuckles. She's gripping the arm. Armrests of her chair. But she just needs to chill out. Gina just needs to chill. Okay?

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:04:22] I'm laughing about the three of us.

John Dehlin [00:04:24] Okay, Just for the record. So back to the topic at hand, young ladies.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:04:28] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:04:30] So a couple will decide in their 30s, let's just say, or early 40s, that they've been orthodox their whole life. They've been doing exactly what they've been taught they should do. However, you know, they're 10, 15 years into their marriage. They no longer believe the church is true. Their entire sort of moral framework was built upon the church. And all of a sudden, they don't know if they believe in God anymore. They don't know, you know, they sort of don't necessarily follow the law of chastity anymore or believe in it. And so, you know, for some couples, it's sort of anything goes, or at least they want to throw off the shackles of oppression. That was Mormonism and experiment. And as some of you may know, that sex can become a little bit less vivacious or interesting once you hit 10 or 15 or 20 years into marriage. And so one common sort of reaction to all that, one common idea. And when I say common, I mean I've heard of it happening dozens and dozens of times, you know, in the United States, both within sort of the Wasatch front corridor, but also outside in other states. And so I've heard about this enough through the people that I counsel with to know that it's a thing. And so what the idea is that they decide to open up their marriage, which can mean a lot of things. But to me, what that, you know, has meant for a lot of these couples is they. They decide whether they want to sort of date other couples, for example, and sort of the husband dates the wife of another couple and vice versa. They're going to be probably endless variations of they Might do this. And they experiment with swinging, with having sexual congress, as they say, with other people, with other couples, married or not. So call it non monogamy, call it polyamory, call it swinging. Don't call it wife swapping, because apparently that's sexist. But it's happening to some degree. And it turns out that Natasha Alford Parker is one of the very few actual certified, licensed sex therapists that Mormonism has, in addition to my good friend Kristin Bennion. Right?

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:07:15] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:07:16] And there may be one or two others, but. But Natasha actually has some experience with this issue, and so I thought that. What else should we talk about, Gina, than swinging?

Gina Colvin [00:07:31] I think swinging is an amazing topic. Would you like me to drive?

John Dehlin [00:07:35] No, no, no. I'll drive. I'll drive. Will you hold it? I'll let you hold the mic, but how are you gonna give it to Natasha? I better do. When you talk, you got to hold it right up your mouth. Okay, so, Natasha, over Parker, why don't you begin by introducing the topic to us and, you know, outside the Mormon context, and then I'll kind of drive the discussion bit within the Mormon context. Is that all right?

Understanding Open Relationships Outside Mormon Context

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:08:00] Okay. Start outside of the Mormon context. Is that what you just said? Okay, where to start? And by the way, I'm in the backseat of a car with no notes in front of me, so I'm just gonna preface that. So, yes, open marriage is an interesting phenomenon that's usually not talked about very much in our society. It's generally considered taboo. And people who tend to live in that type of lifestyle, well, they tend to be quite private about it. Because there can be some real ramifications, unfortunately, in our society for people who want to live this way.

John Dehlin [00:08:45] What are they scared of?

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:08:47] They're scared of family and friends knowing about it or judging or obviously having misconceptions about it. But especially when people are divorced or divorcing or things like that, things can be. Can get really ugly in that regard. As far as now, who's deemed fit to parent children? There's just all kinds of things that can happen with these types of things. Even in the legal.

John Dehlin [00:09:15] In the legal world, I often hear people really concerned that they could lose a job over this. Is that a concern?

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:09:23] Sure. I mean, people can lose jobs for all kinds of discriminatory reasons. So why not this? I mean, this is. You know, sexuality in our. In our country as a whole is generally pretty taboo if you're doing anything outside of heteronormative type of activities. So there's not A lot of great research on this, basically for this particular reason, because people tend to not want to talk about it very much, even in anonymous studies. What's interesting about an anonymous studies is that especially with sexuality, people will still lie, people will still not be forthcoming because there's something very vulnerable about sharing things around something so intimate and private. And again with, with potentially some of these repercussions. So the best guess is that about 3 to 6% of the United States population is involved in some type of open marriage. And of course that does not include infidelity. Right. So we don't even talk about infidelity in these terms, which in a sense is the worst kind of open marriage where only one person is calling the shots.

John Dehlin [00:10:37] Do you have a sense for, for how prevalent infidelity is? So whether it's for an individual or for the average marriage, what percentage of people or marriages face infidelity at least once within their marriage?

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:10:55] So off the top of my head, I believe that's at about 35% of marriages will face infidelity. And by infidelity, I mean emotional and physical relationships with another person. Not talking about pornography, betrayal. Is that clear?

Gina Colvin [00:11:17] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:11:18] Okay, so, and then the idea too is that amongst younger population, so maybe people who are still in their 20s, maybe open relationships are closer to 15 to 20% in certain areas of the country or even over in Europe. And so these are maybe people who aren't necessarily married or don't have children, but are in relationships with the idea that it's not exclusive. So that's kind of what we know. I have zero information on Mormons as far as how prevalent this might be. Although I do think it's interesting that we come from a marital, relational past where this idea is introduced through our polygamous pasts. And so I do have the sense that a lot of Mormon people I work with have some, maybe fantasy or some type of anxiety or thought process around more than one sexual partner anyway, just because of our, you know, doctrine on polygamy and how that's still kind of open ended for most of us. Were you gonna reach for the mic?

John Dehlin [00:12:32] Yeah.

Guest [00:12:33] So.

John Dehlin [00:12:37] When people. So let's go ahead and switch just right to the, to the Mormon context. And this may or may not directly apply, but when an individual or a couple generally starts thinking about this, are there any patterns that are common? For example, is it usually desired by the male? Is it usually desired by the female? Is it, is it usually, you know, is the impetus, like things aren't exciting anymore in the relationship or, you know, are there any sort of typical patterns that sort of are associated with this idea coming into a relationship?

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:13:23] I haven't necessarily been able to identify particular patterns. I have just as many men initiating this type of conversation with their spouses as I do women, which would, in a sense, I guess, back up the research that we have that men and women aren't really that different when it comes to sexuality. Believe it or not, we think that we have all these differences, but I think for the most part, women have been told that they're not sexual beings for pretty much all of history, but they really turn out to be just as sexual as men in many ways. I'm not trying to say there's absolutely no differences between men and women, but not as many as you'd think. So that's been surprising to me. And I think that there's a lot of reasons that I've come across. So probably the most harmful reason, or maybe the reason I don't think it oftentimes works out is that you're trying to. To save an already toxic marriage. And so you think that maybe opening it up will bring some type of ability to stay together since you're so unhappy in the marriage to begin with. That hasn't been. It hasn't been my. My experience that that ends up working out very well.

John Dehlin [00:14:44] So. So don't try this to, you know, to save your marriage. More often than not, you're saying that's kind of not the way to go about fixing a broken marriage.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:14:59] Yeah, I mean, open marriage of any sort is going to already require a lot of really healthy relational skills. Because if you think it's difficult to manage one relationship, it's obviously much more difficult to manage more than one. And there's lots of implications and relational issues that come up now with multiple partners or with feelings or thoughts that maybe you didn't anticipate happening after you start delving into some of this. And I think a lot of people also, another classic mistake is that they delve into these types of decisions either impulsively or without much preparation. So just kind of on the fly. And that doesn't seem to go very well either. There does tend to be usually one partner who's more interested in it than the other. So that's typical. Just like really most sex acts or most sexuality is usually having to be negotiated. So it doesn't necessarily change for open marriage. I had one of my mentors who is a sex therapist out of California, I believe, and she told me that many are called. But few are chosen when it comes to open marriage. And so. And she's not religious in any sense of the word, but that was kind of a funny way that she put it. So it's this idea that maybe it's common to have fantasies around having different sexual partners. It's very common to have fantasies around different sexual experiences. It's a whole nother, you know, prospect to put that into real life. And one way that people, in a sense, open up their marriage outside of, like, traditional, what you think of monogamy is just through fantasy. You know, like they'll just fantasize about things and talk about things together. And if you want to look at that in a way as not classic monogamy, lots of people are doing that kind of stuff and having a lot of fun, either rolling, playing things or talking about things while they're having sex, but aren't necessarily interested in taking it out into the real world.

John Dehlin [00:17:17] So you're saying that usually one is more interested than the other. And you've just said that healthy marriages are going to be much more likely to be able to do this well, than unhealthy marriages, which to me seems quite kind of a little bit counterintuitive, because I'm thinking, wow, like, only healthy marriages could do open marriages. Well, I'm thinking, why would a healthy marriage even want to try to do an open marriage? Because if they're healthy, they wouldn't need it. So tell me if that's, you know, not accurate. And talk about when this first spouse sort of shows the lead, kind of the leadership role in expressing interest. What are some of the common reasons you've seen in terms of what's making, you know, the leading spouse express interest?

Healthy Relationships and Sexual Negotiation

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:18:21] So to the healthy marriage question, I guess I would just say that the healthier the relationship, usually the better the sexual negotiations go. And this, in a sense, is just another sexual negotiation. It may not jive with a lot of people's values, which is fine, but so don't a lot of other sex acts, you know, and so if you're putting values aside, and this is something that you would consider because it does now fit into a new set of values, or you're redefining your sexual values or your sexual authority as a couple, it can be very exciting or novel or playful to consider new sexual aspects of your relationship. And that usually is done best when people have good communication skills, good differentiated skills, able to be both autonomous yet attached and connected. And it just tends to go better that way. We have grown up of course, in a very, you know, heavy monogamous culture with a lot of messages around what successful sex is like and what it's about. And women in particular have been given lots of messages about being a successful sex object or sexual person, means that you have been able to attain the 100% devotion and attention of a man. And if that man does not have every single sexual fantasy and desire go through you as a woman, that somehow you're failing. I mean, women have been given that message very strongly that a lot of our value is in our sexuality and our attractiveness and our ability to hold a man's sexual interest. And that's unfortunate because most of us, as just normal human beings, will have natural interests, go lots of different places. That doesn't mean we follow them or do anything about them. But most of us will be attracted to more than one person even though we're married, or we might have fantasies even though we're married and be very committed and loyal to our spouse and yet find sexual energies going elsewhere. And we don't have a lot of skills or knowledge or ability to know how to discuss these things or have dialogue about these things. Men also get some of those messages. And it can be just as threatening to be a man with a woman who has interest somewhere else. Again, that kind of challenges his ideas of being the stud, the provider, the man who's going to rock her world if she's looking elsewhere, elsewhere, then he must not be a good lover. He must not be attractive enough, desirable enough. So there's a lot of insecurities that go both ways. And those are the messages we've definitely been given about monogamy and how relationships should go. So you have a lot of unpacking to do if you're going to try this. And it's not just intellectual unpacking. A lot of people can kind of get it in their head that, yeah, I agree, that doesn't really make sense. It doesn't have to be that way. It's a whole other thing to feel emotions or jealousy or insecurity as you're trying new things that can be much more challenging, even if intellectually you're may past some of those ideas. What was your second question, though?

Guest [00:21:50] Yeah,

John Dehlin [00:21:52] so to touch on this idea of why the partner comes wanting to do this. You said novelty. I mean, the way that I would just sort of summarize that is you're looking for something new and exciting and it's just a way to spice things up. Is that what you were saying? And in addition, are there other possible reasons that are common?

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:22:19] Yeah, I think that's a very common reason. But there's lots of reasons. I think that, you know, in the faith transitioning world that we are a part of, there's definitely a common theme of regret for missed experiences. A lot of people feel like they went through, you know, just the life, the lifestyle line that the church provides and may missed out on opportunities to be sexual in their youth or in their college years. They've only had one sexual partner. Not that there's anything wrong with that. There's plenty of people who only have one sexual partner and are perfectly comfortable with that. But there can be that sense of regret or wanting to revisit things that at this point maybe feel like was stolen from them or something along those lines. There's also genuine, maybe exploration of actual committed feelings towards people. So there's all different kinds of open relationships. There's, you know, you mentioned swinging, which is more casual, where the primary couple stay very much committed to one another and are only interested in kind of maybe casual encounters or not really inviting people into their lives emotionally. But there are also people who in a sense, fall in love with another person or have strong feelings towards another person or couple that they want to have, you know, more intimate relationships with, with and yet not have that destroy their primary marriage. There's also some maybe orientation issues. I know that both men and women who are maybe considering themselves bisexual or of a different orientation, maybe closer to homosexual, want the ability to try those types of relationships without necessarily necessarily ending their first marriage. And that tends, I think, to go, I've seen that go for some reason more smoothly for women who want to engage in sexual play with another woman. For some reason, I think our just our general culture tolerates that more that's found as sexy or attractive to the husband, not threatening. Whereas I find that more difficult for men. I think men, once they are giving themselves the permission to really embrace their orientation, it's just more difficult to maybe make a heterosexual lifestyle still happen. Although there's always exceptions to all of these cases that I'm talking about. And so let's see.

John Dehlin [00:25:16] Judah's a question.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:25:17] Yeah. Just trying to remember all the reasons I couldn't come up with.

Normalizing Polyamory and Listener Questions

Gina Colvin [00:25:23] Okay, well, I've got a number of questions. The first question is the way that you're talking about polyamory is it feels like you're normalising it and I understand the reasons why, but I'm a monogamist and I have strong commitments to the peer Bond and also the depth of sexual satisfaction one can get with one partner over time. And when you and others speak of polyamory and swinging and open marriages, it really triggers the whole question of polygyny and polygamy. As a Mormon woman, and I kind of feel is that the polyamory discussion is in some ways reminiscent of the exploitative tradition that we have of polygamy. So kind of talk me out, talk me, no, don't talk me into polyamory. Don't think I can be. But can you kind of address that as, you know, so that polyamory doesn't just become a reason to yet again exploit women and, you know, these sexual relationships that have been so problematic for our community?

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:26:46] Well, so a big way that I differentiate between polygamy and polygyny and polyamory and maybe the amor, you know, from the Italian Latin based root there, is helpful in that regard. I believe that most of our history with polygamy, and this is true of many different systems where there's been polygamy cultures, is that there's an impetus to enter into that type of relationship due to either religious, political, economic reasons. So that. But I'm not sure it's necessarily the choice or the preferred choice of people involved in those situations as it becomes a cultural expectation or even, you know, in our history, a way to attain the highest degree of glory. So a lot of pressure, a lot of shame or guilt if you don't want to somehow go along, and therefore a lot of potential for abuse, for wrong, you know, unrighteous dominion and, and power and people really having to, in a sense, make decisions that are heart wrenching and pretty awful for them. And even as I see programs like Sister Wives, for example, which I think tries to bring this type of lifestyle into more of a modern type of an idea, like I can watch a show like that and, and understand where they're coming from and have a lot of empathy for that situation. But at the end of the day, all of those women, regardless of whether or not they love their husband, there's some level of the decision that they've made due to religious belief and pressure. So for me, when I talk about polyamory, I'm talking about a decision to open up aspects of sexuality and even emotional intimacy. So both physical and emotional intimacy that is really more reclaimed by the authority of the couple or the individual. This is what feels right to me. This is what I want. These are the values that I am now espousing. These are the ways I feel that I can be authentic and responsible and I guess values committed person in my sexual decisions. And that's negotiated then between the couple. And like I said, both women and men are the instigators of this type of discussion oftentimes. And I've seen some, you know, really lovely things come out of it. I've seen some really not so great things come out of it. But I can say that just as much of monogamous relationships as well. Right. So I guess that's just what I would, what I would say about that. But to your point, Gina, just because I'm trying to normalize some people's choices, this is not something that most people want to, you know, I guess explore. It just isn't something most people, I would say are in your boat, that they enjoy a monogamous relationship, want to keep a monogamous relationship, have no trouble, desire to enter into a non monogamous relationship. And if you have a partner who is interested and one who isn't, I want that discussion to go well. That it's not that we're shaming each other for having different interests and we're going to have to negotiate this and maybe one of us isn't necessarily going to get what we want, but we can do that in a way without either blaming you or me for either being too sexual. Not sexual enough, you know, too adventuresome. Not adventuresome enough. I mean, these classic ways that we either self attack or partner attack, those are conversations that we can have and normalize for each other and then decide what are we going to do about it.

John Dehlin [00:30:47] Okay, so Jeannie, you said you had a couple more questions, but I just want to add one to yours really quick and then you can jump back in. I was feeling very similar sort of tensions or concerns similar to what Gene articulated in the sense that, you know, I, Margi and I Marty's the only person I've ever had like sexual intercourse with. Like, I'm still in my sensibilities, very Mormon in many ways. I consider myself 100% monogamous. And I don't envision that ever changing. I know for a fact that Margi has zero interest in that ever changing as well. And so I guess I think about fears that I have of even having this conversation. One is that it's just so un Mormon to sort of 21st century Mormon sensibilities. I mean, we're not even comfortable with, with women showing their shoulders in 2016, let alone, you know, non monogamy. And so part of me is like, well, this is just Evil. This whole conversation is just evil. We shouldn't even be talking about it because it's not congruent with the law of chastity. And it's not even the normal experience outside of Mormonism sexually. And so it's just an unambiguous bad. And then. And then another sort of demon or angel stands on my shoulder and says, in addition, if you start talking about it, you're gonna make it worse, more prevalent. You're gonna make it sound like you're encouraging it, and you're gonna give people all these ideas of trying it. And, you know, I just want to say at the outset, I've never tried it. I don't ever want to try it. Everything I've heard is that it's not. It's not healthy, it's not good. Or at least a lot of what I've heard is in that vein, that it's sort of the thing that a couple does before they get divorced. And, you know, and so talk to me about why we should even be having this conversation and to my fears and anxiety about the risks of having it.

Sexuality, Morality, and the Right to Discuss Non-Monogamy

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:33:15] Well, I think that that goes to a lot of how we talk about sexuality in general. So sexuality and values and morals have been intertwined for forever. And a big piece of who has decided what type of sex is correct or moral or immoral has been religious cultures. And it's interesting, as you look at all the different cultures around the world and you look at history, there's a lot of different ideas about what constitutes healthy sexuality, given whatever time frame or religion you're looking at. And I am talking about this from a sociological and psychological and sexological way. I'm not necessarily talking about. About what I believe is correct in my marriage. Right. Or in my particular personal situation. I think that the classic underlying problem with sexuality in general is that we tend to impose our values onto other people. And that oftentimes does not allow people to really claim their own sexual authority about what is going to work best for them, which many times does come in a trial and error type of way, something that we don't really allow in religious cultures. Like, we're not going to let you try things out or make mistakes or decide what's best for you. We're just going to tell you the correct way to do it. So that doesn't necessarily work for a lot of people. Whether we're talking about polyamory or oral sex or certain types of premarital goodness or not goodness. I mean, this really just is a blanket type of thing that happens with all sexuality. And what we tend to do is whatever I'm comfortable with, whatever I think is moral, whatever I like is kind of how we tend to define what should be okay for everybody else. So my normalizing, I guess, tone or stance on this is just that not everybody fits into that box. I would say the majority do fit in the monogamy box, and that's great. And that works great for a majority of people. It doesn't necessarily fit for everybody. And why do we have the right to shame those for whom it doesn't fit or who can have healthy relationships outside of monogamy? Why do we have the right to impose our values onto them? So that's the one thing that I wanted to say. The other thing is, as far as talking about things, this is a classic sex education type of misnomer. If you talk about things, then people will go do them. There's plenty of information there on pretty much anything that you're interested in. And what we do know, especially about sexually educating teenagers, is actually the more information they have, the less risk taking they are. And so I'm not one that shies away from talking about topics, especially to adults, because, you know, we're afraid that they may go try something. Of course, when you have the thought of something or you see something, you might have a more propensity or curiosity about it. But I don't know. With as much as we've been, I mean, open marriages, and again, infidelities even have been around for centuries and millennia. I don't know that us having a podcast on it is necessarily going to up the ante very much on the, on the amount of honest have a statistical difference on how many people decide to try this out in their marriage or not.

John Dehlin [00:36:49] But let's just say I were to ask the question slightly differently. If I were to said, hey, Natasha, let's have a podcast about eating your children, you would probably say, no, you're crazy. That's just bad. I would never. Let's not talk about that. That's evil. That's bad. You don't eat your children. No, that's a dumb idea. That wasn't your response when I said let's talk about polyamory or non monogamy. So why, especially having us come from a Mormon background, why is this a conversation even worth having?

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:37:27] Well, first and foremost, I believe that any sexual activity or any activity that harms other people is, you know, usually that's either one criminal. I think eating your children would be criminal. Or just, yeah, not socially acceptable in that regard of harming another person. Now, some people would say, well, but opening up your marriage might be harmful. Yeah, so might getting married, so might having sex in the first place. I mean, there's lots of things that we take risks as adults as we try to figure out our lives and what best suits us and best fits our ideas and values. And, I mean, that's the journey we're on as adults. So I tend to hold people responsible for those journeys. And if somewhere along the line they feel like they have a regret or made a mistake, well, then there's ways to handle that as well. You know, going back to this comment that my colleague said about, you know, many are called, few are chosen. I do think some people try open marriage and decide it's really not for them, and so they've learned something along the way. Now, if you allow that mistake to then ruin your marriage, that might happen. But at the same time, there are ways that you can manage that both up front and afterwards. So that doesn't have to be the case. And this goes back to, I think it's not so much are we blaming open marriage marriage, or are we blaming what I think should be blamed more, which is the process? So if you go about it impulsively, if you go about it without much preparation or dialogue, if you go about it when your relationship is already rocky and not in a good place, if you go about it with disrespect of other people or don't have very good ideas or guidelines about what types of open marriages there are, and what are some things that you could have in place to help you navigate that, then that's probably going about it in a risky, maybe irresponsible way. Just like teenagers, if we don't talk to them about sex, they're probably going to have it anyway. But there's lots of ways that we can educate teens about how to do it in a way that there's, you know, consent, there's preparation, there's responsibility, there's safety. And they also can try something and back up from it if they decide, you know what, maybe that's not something I want to do after all. So I think there's a lot of parallels. It's not, are we blaming a certain type of action? But instead, can we focus more on the process of how we go about any type of sexual activity, especially as a married couple, where you have committed to be loyal and, you know, just committed to consent? Which kind of puts an interesting twist on the Whole law of chastity. When you look at the law of chastity through certain behaviors, which is I think unfortunately what we tend to do instead of the principle, which is I agree to have a relationship with another person in a responsible, mature, consensual way. There's just lots of ways to, to interpret some of the teachings around sexual responsibility, caring for yourself sexually and another person sexually and going about your sexuality in ways that enhances pleasure, enhances relationships instead of destroys. And I can tell you that there's plenty of people in single marriages that are not doing a good job at that.

Gina Colvin [00:41:05] Natasha, sometimes as I'm listening to you, and I don't want to be offensive or anything, but I'm still, I'm kind of triggered by it because I kind of think that perhaps these kind of rationale may have been given by Joseph Smith to explain away monogamy as a preferred sexual partnership. Like it feels like a lot of reasons why maybe we should be a little bit more open minded about marriage. So that Mormon part of me where there have been, you know, now generations of people grieving because they were sexually experimental. So that's the first part of me I'd like you to respond to if you could like solve my problems. But the other issue is Mormonism is so much a patriarchy. And I want worry that once again that people are going to hear like as John was saying, people will hear this as permission and because men are so dominant in our culture, we'll use any rationale and exploit women who are already subjected in this, you know, subject in Mormon culture. And I would hate, and we know that if you look at Mormon history, there are all sorts of women who gave their consent to polygamy even though they hated it. And if you ask them, they would say yes, absolutely. Yep, that's exactly the right thing to do. So it's kind of rambly, but talk me through my anxieties.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:42:47] Well, I talk to women every day that are giving consent to sexuality in a monogamous relationship, relationship that they can't stand and that are being sexual and very resentful and harmful ways. So yeah, I mean, this is again, is this an open marriage issue? Is this a patriarchy and coercion issue or manipulation or all kinds of other things that happen in relationships. And that can go both ways. You can have definitely a man who is a patriarchal prick, as I call him, unfortunately, and you know, we'll take these types of any type of message and lord it over his wife or girlfriend or whatever to get his needs and wants met. And, you know, Joseph Smith was not saying, hey, you know, what do you guys think about this concept? And are you open to it? And hey, wife, it sounds like you're open to it, so why don't we try it? No, he's. He's sneaking around, he's lording over with angels and swords who are going to kill people off or send them to hell. I mean, there's all kinds of problems with Joseph Smith's version of, again, polygamy, not polyamory. That was not an invitation for people to join him in some sexual beautiful, who knows, open love type of hippie thing. That was way before our time or something. So he very much used coercive, manipulative ways and of course, harmed people along the way. In fact, I'm number one on the list with Carolyn Pearson to say this is something we have to retract from our doctrine and until it is retracted, we cannot heal from it. So. Absolutely. And I think the other issue too, that we have, and this happens in what I would say more loving relationships where the intent is loving, but patriarchy still maybe plays a role, is that wives will have the sense that to be a good wife, that they should be able to perform in certain ways sexually. So even if the husband isn't necessarily coercive or manipulative, that she is acquiescing or going along with things that don't feel authentic to her because, you know, she's the wife and that's her duty. So there's lots. I mean, we can unpack, like probably 400 different ways that this plays out in people's lives. I see it play out mostly in monogamous marriages, not in open marriages. So, again, I'm not sure that we're blaming the right thing. If you're going to go about an open marriage and you come from a Mormon background, I think these are really good things to be thinking about. You know, I think these are really good things to consider as you try that. Am I, as the wife, feeling pressured into this or going along with it? Because I want to be the good Mormon, you know, the good wife, even if I'm not Mormon anymore, if I'm the man, am I pushing this in ways that maybe my wife feels manipulated? But again, it's not always the husband who, in fact, for me, it's been pretty 50, 50, where it's the wife who's interested in opening up the marriage. But there are still things to consider there through the lens of patriarchy as well. So I'M just saying that here is one of many different sexual acts, one that isn't necessarily super popular, nor am I saying should it be, but if people want to try it, there are better ways to go about it than just being impulsive or reactionary or,

Gina Colvin [00:46:31] you

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:46:31] know, now we're totally pissed off at the church because we've gone through this huge faith transition, and within the first year of us transitioning, which is already a huge impact in your life, we're now opening up our marriage on top of it. You know, I think that you need to be wise and steady and think through some of the implications. See a professional who, who's trained in this type of sexuality specifically, because otherwise you'll get a professional who will basically shame you or tell you it's unhealthy to begin with, because again, therapists are not immune to values system bias, and many, many therapists don't really receive much training in sexuality. Your trigger responses, Gina? I would have said the same thing about me. And I've been through sexuality training now for, for six years that have helped me calm down those triggers that I would have had as well if people had talked to me the way I'm talking now. I'm not trying to normalize it. If it's not your cup of tea, you have an absolute right for that not to be your cup of tea, even if your partner thinks it'd be something fun to try out. You are not less cool or less sexual or less adventuresome or any of those things if you're not wanting to try an open marriage. And I think sometimes in the transitioning world, and why you might also be concerned is that there is this push to try new things. Like, we've been, you know, we've been oppressed for so long, and we've been told what to do for so long. And it can be very easy to almost feel that peer pressure that we think about teens, you know, when they're being told by their friends, well, what's the big deal if you just have one joint of marijuana, right? And you've got that pressure of your peers or your spouse or whomever it is to tell you, basically, if you don't go along with this, you're not cool in some way or another. So by no means is my tone of trying to normalize something that a couple might want to try, meaning that one of the, the persons in that couplehood should feel less cool if it really is not something that they feel comfortable with at all. And I have to pee

Personal Reactions and Anxieties About Open Marriage

Gina Colvin [00:48:55] before you Pee. Can I just ask? I would be absolutely devastated if Nathan came to me and said, I'd like to try open marriage. I would be mortified. I think, did I not give you enough blowjobs? You know, like, what else could I have done? And I'm not sure either way, if he asked me, if I asked him, our marriage would even survive the question.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:49:20] Well, and I think that says a lot for the differentiation that we have in current marriages. And not to like call you out or anything, because I think you're right, that would be a very difficult question. But even what you just said, I think goes right back to so many of the messages that we've been given as women. What, did I not give you enough blowjobs? Am I not enough? What's wrong with me? Why would you have this desire or fantasy? And what we need to understand about our sexual brains is that they're not politically correct. They're not usually understanding that they're Mormon or married or any of those things. Right. Like our erotic thoughts and fantasies and desires are often quite instinctual and somewhat animalistic. I mean, this is what evolutionary theory will tell you, you know, that we're, I guess, in a way just primed to reproduce and keep, you know, going. There's all different kinds of things that go into why we have the fantasies and thoughts that we have. And usually they are not tied at all with the level of love or commitment that we have for one another. And so I think that as a couple, this is an intimacy exercise and a differentiation exercise that whether or not you do any of these things, wouldn't it be interesting if we could really, instead of thinking, you know, your erotic brain is a threat to me, that we could get curious about our erotic brains and say, what is really going on for you? And what kinds of things do you think about? And not with the idea that we're going to do any of those things, but with the idea of I'm curious about you instead of, again, there's something wrong with you, you're perverse or you're non committed, or you don't love me, or there's something wrong with me, I'm not enough, I'm not desirable, I'm not sexy, or there's something wrong with our relationship, like somehow this relationship is failing you. Erotic templates don't have really much to do with any of those things. And there are many couples that I coach through these types of processes where they can start talking about some of their fantasies and sit with that initial discomfort and Those initial maybe, like you're saying, triggers and anxieties around what that can mean. That maybe I'm not the hundred percent place where you're going to meet every single thought, fantasy desire, because it's probably impossible anyway. And start feeling less anxious about the fact that our partner is an individual sexual being and they were that before they met us, and they'll be that, you know, after we part ways through death or whatever that is. And so you can't expect to be a hundred percent of the person that you're, you know, that we put that pressure a lot of times on monogamous marriages and we don't do this in any other area of our lives. So if my husband doesn't like to read, well, I go join a book club. If my wife doesn't like to hunt, well, I've got my hunting buddies. Or if we don't really expect our partner to meet 100% of our needs in any other area of our life other than sexuality. And I think oftentimes that's why a lot of couples fail at those types of expectations. And then there's a lot of unnecessary hurt and tragedy. Whereas if they just had a better way to frame it, again, not that they're opening up their marriage necessarily, but they would be able to frame this in a way that, of course, I'm not going to be 100% of all of that. And that doesn't have to threaten us or our relationship. In fact, we can really revel in the ways that we're different and we can and enjoy those aspects and even maybe become playful in some of those ways through fantasy play, not even real play.

John Dehlin [00:53:10] So there are books that I think that are commonly read or referred to. Sex at dawn comes up as one, but there may be others. And some of these books seem to suggest that monogamy is really a farce, that it's really, like you said, a third of all marriages, I guess, experience, experience at least one infidelity that,

Guest [00:53:35] you

John Dehlin [00:53:36] know, there's just this idea that floats around in some circles that monogamy is just unrealistic. So it's almost as if people suggest, just get over that. That's, you know, 19th century thinking people are going to cheat one way or the other. They're either going to look at pornography and masturbate or they're going to go find some secret thing out there. So just sort of start almost with this idea that monogamy is impractical. If someone's trying to come at a marriage or at a Partner. With that logic, sort of it's unnatural for me to be monogamous. What would you say about that argument?

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:54:19] I don't necessarily think monogamy is unnatural. There's even quite a few species in the animal kingdom that choose a mate for life. And there's lots of benefits that come from monogamy as far as stability and being able to count on a partner to parent. And there's just all kinds of reasons why we would be wired towards monogamy as well. So there's a lot of interesting discussions around those things. And I like Sex at Dawn, but I haven't read it because quite yet. But there's also this book called Sex at Dusk, so I'm going to go through that one as well because I think it's kind of the counterpart. And again, a lot of these theories are. I mean, they have some ways that we can think about sexuality in more complex ways than we normally tend to simplify it because sex is not simplistic. And in that way, I think it's good that we talk about these things. But even with infidelity, it's interesting how people will say, yeah, they were unfaithful, so therefore they were non monogamous. But for a lot of people, unfaithfulness means, you know, maybe two weeks out of 40 years. So it's again, how do we frame it? I mean, that's a highly monogamous relationship. Even though there was maybe a time when a choice was made that wasn't helpful to that relationship, it wasn't helpful to the consent of both partners, for sure. And there's a lot of betrayal involved with that. I'm not trying to minimize that at all. But I'm just saying for the majority of most people's lives, even if there is infidelity involved, it's not a huge part of that relationship. That's different from those who are chronically unfaithful, you know, who even have a second family, you know, that are kind of managing two families without both spouses knowing. Anyway, so if your idea of monogamy is 100% of your thoughts, actions, desires, fantasies, wants will be only directed at me and with me, then Yai. I think that that model fails. But if your idea of monogamy is you have a right to your sexual ideas and fantasies and wants and desires, I expect you to communicate those to me. I would like to communicate mine to you. We're going to negotiate the best way we know how. And that's going to be a fluid negotiation because things are going to change as we age, as we have children, as we shift libidos. You know, there's 500 things that change as you spend a life with someone when it comes to your sexuality. And now we have maybe permission to. And I hate to use the word permission, but may have negotiated things like masturbation or fantasy play or even erotica. You know, it's interesting how women get away with their level of erotica because we like to read romantic novels or watch romantic movies. Men get very shamed if they look at erotic film. So these are all things that we are sexual beings outside of our partners. And the more we recognize that, the more we collaborate and negotiate that, the less threatening it needs to be. And whether that leads to open marriage for a choice view or not. That's something that we should all be doing in our marriages is this constant negotiation of what? How do I show up sexually? How do I allow you to sex, to show up sexually without either shaming you or me in the process or, you know, to your point, Gina, what's the word? I can't think of it now. Coercive.

John Dehlin [00:58:13] Coercive.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:58:14] Coercion. Thank you. I've been up too long. Coercion without coercion being part of the process or manipulation.

How Couples Actually Explore Non-Monogamy

John Dehlin [00:58:23] So, Gina, I think we both have a bunch of questions we want to take Natasha off on. What I want to do is let's talk about how couples actually are trying it and what. Because I want to get to the practical just to make sure we hit the meat and then save our questions. And then. Then we'll hit. Hit those once we've actually explored the practical side of it, if that's okay. Is that okay?

Gina Colvin [00:58:49] Sweet.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:58:50] Okay.

Gina Colvin [00:58:50] Sweet.

John Dehlin [00:58:51] All right, so Natasha triggering.

Gina Colvin [00:58:53] Eugene. I'm white knuckled. I'm sitting here white knuckled.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:58:57] I'm glad I'm in the back seat

John Dehlin [00:58:59] now because I'm driving or because of.

Gina Colvin [00:59:01] There are all sorts of things that have kind of got me nervous right now.

Natasha Helfer Parker [00:59:05] And she doesn't like squirrels. And they can be running around the road.

John Dehlin [00:59:09] No squirrels. Okay. So, Natasha, when a couple. When a couple begins, let's just say this. So I think you. Is there anything else we need to say about the wrong way to look at, you know, polyamory in terms of, you know, don't do it if you're just in the middle of a faith crisis because that's too much. Don't do it if. If you think it's going to save your marriage. It sounds like don't do it. If you don't have a healthy marriage to begin with because it only works, it only has a chance of working under the best of sort of circumstances. Any other before we talk about when it has worked or when it seems functional for some. Anything else about when not to do it?

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:00:03] Well, these are, you know, I hate to say the word don't. I mean, these are just strong suggestions about helping it go well. Yeah, because I mean, there are people who, for example, I know of several marriages where the open marriage was a negotiation instead of divorce. So they decided, look, we want to stay together pretty much as roommates, we want to raise these kids together, we're fairly friendly with each other, we can manage that, but we're really no longer going to be lovers. And so that's an example of couples where an open marriage isn't about drawing them closer together or enhancing their intimacy. It really is about managing their relationship in a way where divorce, for whatever reason, doesn't want to be part of the equation. I've also seen some mixed orientation marriages go this route because again, they're friends, they want to co parent. One of them has now come out as gay. And so for a while or for forever, they will manage an open marriage until they're ready for divorce, if ever. So, you know, there's exceptions to so much of this. I just want to be careful not to be adamant that it has to be a certain way. But yeah, I think we covered most of that, John.

John Dehlin [01:01:17] Okay, so when, so when does it work?

Gina Colvin [01:01:24] When.

John Dehlin [01:01:25] Talk us through some situations where and how it can actually be helpful for somebody.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:01:34] Okay. And I did remind you all that I do need to go as soon

John Dehlin [01:01:39] as I find a place. We're in the middle of Vermont.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:01:41] I know I may need to just. I don't know, I'm not sure that I'm there that yet. But I will tell you that if I'm there. Okay, like, like this niece. And he doesn't edit. Right. So this is all going on. Oh my Lanta. Okay, see, at least I edit. John, I think you're doing really well

Gina Colvin [01:01:59] for a full bladder.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:02:02] Full bladder and up for a long time. Those are my caveats. Okay, so when does it work? Well, and I'm sure I will not think of every single example, but. But probably the one area where I see it working well is the sense that, look, we want to live some of our youth that we never got to. We love each other, we feel like we're committed, we feel like we've had a really great marriage. We're now at a point where we want to just explore and see if this is something that might be fun and might benefit or edify our relationship. And usually with these types of couples, we take it very slow. I mean, we take it from, like, kind of like I said, flirting in a bar, just flirting, you know, see how that feels. Can I manage that? Can I sit in the corner and watch my spouse flirt with somebody else? What is that like? Then we come back, we talk about it. You know, we process through all of that. Was it hot? Was it bothersome? Did it trigger? Was it what you expected? Is it edifying them or is it causing problems? You know, and so this is something that people have to be very honest about. And again, it increases vulnerability. It usually increases intimacy in that regard. And people start finding out pretty quickly, is this something that I want to continue with or not? With those kinds of couples, again, primarily, they want to keep their marriage as the number one priority. They're not interested in inviting other people into their emotional, financial, or daily living type of life. And so then they might go on maybe a dating type of thing. Or there's lots of places where actually people can pick each other up on the Internet. So there's, you know, there's lots of different ways that people can start taking it down a further line than flirting. And we'll even take steps there. So why don't we start with kissing? What is it like to kiss another person? Do we want to do these things in front of each other? So it's kind of like a group thing and I get to watch you, and that's erotic to me, or would I rather not watch you and just know and then hear about it later? These are things that people think about and negotiate. And again, we come back to the table and talk about how that went, what came up, and then things can, you know, obviously go from there. So there tends to be usually, well, several things can happen. Some people like to have sexual experiences together with, like, a third party. And they feel like if we're both involved and we're inviting a third party into our bedroom, then that's fun for both of us. Some like to be more voyeuristic. So I want to watch you with another person, but I don't necessarily want to be involved. Some don't want, you know, it's just the knowledge of it. I don't want to be really be involved, but I want to have the freedom to, you know, have a sexual experience and then come home and talk to you about it. So there's all different. Again, there's all different kinds of things. And it's interesting. I've even heard quite a bit of this happening in more orthodox communities where people are still very much attending church and still consider themselves very active LDS and believing lds. And they will negotiate this in ways that don't include necessarily like intercourse, but might include kissing or maybe abdomen up type of play, if that makes sense. So it's interesting how you, you know, just. People negotiate things according to their values, according to things that they feel is okay for them as a couple. And some people have a lot of fun with it. Some people decide this is not for us. Some people may have a lot of fun with it for a phase. You know, like, they might try this for a year or two and then just kind of be like, okay, well, that's not really novel anymore. We kind of got it out of our system, and we're perfectly happy going back to kind of what we had before, which was good to begin with. Other people, you know, keep it as something that happens either on an ongoing basis or intermittently throughout their lives. So that's one example.

John Dehlin [01:06:22] So immediately my Mormon brain kicks in, which is like. And you've already addressed this, but I'm just gonna have. You need to reassure me. Like, my brain is just saying, well, threesomes are just wrong. Like, that's just wrong. And voyeurism, where you're, like, watching other people have sex, that's just really wrong. That's just bad. Like, there's no good in any of that. So what. What would you say if. Let's just say there's a couple that comes to you. The guy wants to open the marriage, the wife doesn't, and the wife says, that's just wrong.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:06:59] Well, then we're talking about values, and everybody has a right to their values. And if she feels that that's wrong and it doesn't fit with her values and she can't make it fit into her values, then the discussion really becomes, is this a deal breaker? So is this important enough for him that he's, you know, he says, well, okay, then I can't really be married to you. And she says, okay, well, then I can't be married to you. I mean, that's a heartbreaking discussion. That hasn't been usually my experience. Usually at that point, you know, the person says, well, it's not as important to me as our marriage. Sure, I'd like to try it. Or I. It would have been fun. But I, you know, I try to Tell people all the time, there's not one type of sex or sexual experience that's gonna make or break your life. So whether it's, again, oral sex or anal sex or certain positions, I mean, there's 500 bajillion different things we can do sexually. We don't have to get caught up on one type of sex. And if something really either is distasteful, it doesn't even have to go against your values. You just may really not find it erotic. And so it just doesn't work. It doesn't work. And if you were with a different partner, maybe that type of sex would work, and maybe something that you're enjoying now wouldn't work. Right? So, I mean, everybody's different, and it's okay to have your values. So this goes for both John and Gina. It's okay that you don't want to do this. Nothing about what I'm saying is trying to make you feel comfortable with doing this.

John Dehlin [01:08:36] Good, because I'm not. So do you feel reassured, Gina?

Gina Colvin [01:08:41] Well, I tell you what I do think. I think that this probably doesn't happen in many cases. I think in a lot of cases, it doesn't go very well because people

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:08:48] are

Gina Colvin [01:08:51] hasty or not very thoughtful about it or not careful. Somebody on my Facebook page said it's better to do this with the help of a therapist so that if it's not working, the therapist can help them get out of it. But you know what I mean. Speaking personally, I find there's not enough conversation about the possibility of monogamy and the kind of intimacy and depth that can be reached in monogamy. And talking about polyamory seems to privilege the genitalia. Like to say, okay, well, everybody has their sex brains, so there's. Just isolate that from everything else and privilege that for a moment and say, well, what does your sex brain want? And then just follow that. Whereas when I think about sex, my sexual brain doesn't exist in isolation. That there are issues of companionship and there's issues of values, there's issues of the depth of intimacy that I would like to share, and sex being a person, a highly personal expression of that. So it feels like there's a lot more to it than just talking about sex. I don't know. I just said a lot there.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:10:17] Well, I think sex and intimacy are two very different things. And this goes back to my conversations about monogamous marriages, where I think there's a lot of sex and not a lot of intimacy. If we would have been able to Record a lot of the conversation we had prior to when we pushed the record button. What I learned about you, Gina, is that you have a very intimate and sexual relationship with your husband. I hope you don't mind me saying that. Okay, so that's wonderful, and that's amazing. And it seems like whatever the two of you are doing is really working for you both. And halla frickin luya, right? I mean, like, you don't even need to listen to this podcast. And I don't think, again, I don't think the polyamory really then is the discussion when we're talking about those things. I think, you know, sex is sex. Sex is body parts getting together. And that can happen in horrifically traumatic ways, as we know. And that can happen in really sensual and intimate ways. And intimacy can increase. Increase if you feel like, holy cow, my husband is loving watching me, you know, be with another person. And every time I look over at him, he's just like, his eyes are just so full of desire for me. And I can't believe we're being open like this. And I can't believe he's allowing me to have this experience.

Gina Colvin [01:11:40] Does that happen?

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:11:41] Absolutely it happens. Absolutely it does. And for others, it can be a traumatic event. Right. So again, sex, body parts is not the same as intimacy. And there are people. I mean, I don't know that I would totally agree that we don't give monogamy and intimacy enough airtime. I think that's all we talk about. I think that oftentimes, and I don't mean just in Mormonism, I mean, in our overall culture, I think there's very little conversation about polyamory or even letting it be a little legitimate choice for people. But many of the concepts I'm talking about right now are true for whether or not we're talking about polyamory or not. I can't tell you how many Mormon couples I've seen that really are, I think, suffering from what I call honeymoon trauma, which is we basically kissed across the altar and then we were naked that night because that's what was expected of a monogamous marriage consecration or something. Whereas I wish that really people were taught to consent all along the way. Like, let's see if this works, and let's see if this is erotic, and let's see if this gets me warm and bothered and am I noticing my arousal instead of just like you're saying, putting the body parts together because that's what's expected, or that's how we prove Ourselves or for a variety of reasons that are not healthy. So it's. I mean, I know of men, for example, that come to my office and when we talk about masturbation, for example, being something that they have the authority to navigate within their marriage. And I've got, you know, the pregnant wife, and she's like, oh, you're telling me that I can decide if this is okay or not? Like, honey, please, please go masturbate. Like, I can't. I hate not feeling like you don't have your needs met and that I'm supposed to do that when I can't even bother being touched right now. And then he comes back and he's like, I cannot believe how lucky I am to have the wife I have. And now their intimacy has, like, completely skyrocketed because they've allowed masturbation into their marriage. So, again, I don't. Yes, this is a podcast on polyamory, but polyamory is one sexual act. And has it been used in the past to coerce people or manipulate people? Absolutely, as has every other single sexual act out there, including kissing. So it really is more about owning ourselves, owning our sexuality, owning our erotic disorder, desires, deciding, is this an erotic desire that it's just going to be, and it's just there and it's just kind of fun to think about every now and then? Or is this something that I really want to try? How does my partner feel about it? Is this more important to me than the partnership I have with my. With my person? Which I don't want that to seem selfish because there are certain aspects of sexuality where people, I think, can be incompatible enough that it really puts a toxic wedge between them. I don't think it's healthy to just say, oh, that's sex. It shouldn't matter to you. At the same time, there's a relational component to all of this. So it's complicated. And this is why I love doing the work I do. It's complicated. It keeps me, you know, on my toes.

Guest [01:15:06] So.

A Graduated Approach to Opening a Relationship

John Dehlin [01:15:07] Okay, so your suggestion is you've told us about taking a graduated approach where you might start with flirting and then kissing and then. And see where it goes from there. So take it slow. Allow yourself to back out at any time. Allow people's values to sort of reign supreme. What are some of the other important ways to approach this? Some of the things you see people do wrong or right or that you counsel people to consider?

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:15:43] Well, it's really interesting to see what people learn about themselves along the way. So, for example, I don't want to talk about couples so much that I've seen because I don't want them to feel like I'm talking about them on a podcast. But I will say some themes, I guess, that I have seen is that typically we think of the male as the more sexual one and the female is the less sexual one. And I can't tell you how many times I've seen the female, as she opens up her marriage, become quite interested in it, even though maybe she was the one that at first was hesitant and very freed up and, you know, manages it very well. And then the man not being as excited about it as he originally thought he might be, and actually looking for emotional or relational components to the openness as well, not just the sexual part. Back to your point, Gina, that it's all intertwined, right? Most men, actually, the research shows, are very in tune to the relational aspect of their sexuality. We tend to put men in this category that all they care about is, you know, well, crassly putting their dick wherever they can, you know, just to get off. And that's so offensive and so not what men are about. Men are as relational creatures as women are. And so these are interesting things that people kind of tend to learn about themselves. I've had people come back and go, well, we've had some fun, but actually now it's the man who maybe wants to open up a more relational aspect. And sometimes, now that's a different discussion because that's different that. That sometimes can actually feel more threatening to one of the spouses, because, you know, when it was sex and casual, that's one thing. But now, if you want to invite this person to be a more regular part of our lives, what's that going to mean? How are resources going to be attributed? Time, energy, monies? These are. You know, many people are raising kids. Life is busy enough, right. Without trying to manage a whole other relationship. So these are things that have to be really well thought out. And also learning how to grieve when you're not going to necessarily get your way. And that's okay, too. This idea that, oh, just because I want it or think it, that I should get it, it's okay to say, you know what? That's just probably not going to happen at this point. And that's an okay thing as well. So I think I always talk about exploratory time periods. We're going to try this for a few weeks or we're going to try this for a few months, and we're Going to come back to the drawing table. And you do that on a pretty continual basis. And, you know, people can kind of get in a groove. But I usually do checkups with my polyamorous couples. It's like even six months or a year later, they're coming back just to kind of give me a checkup on how things are going. And it's interesting, even at those times, even though things have been going fairly well, that they come back with new information about themselves, about their relationship, etc. Another way that polyamory happens is if one person tends to begin an emotional attachment with somebody, so that the emotional attachment with somebody and the possibility of that becoming romantic and sensualized comes before any type of discussion. An open marriage to begin with. These tend to be trickier to navigate because for the other partner, it can feel like the beginning of an affair. However, if it hasn't reached that, it's really good for a partner to come and tell your spouse, hey, this is what's happening. And I don't know maybe how to manage this or how we would want to manage this. Is this even a possibility? Those are more difficult discussions. However, I've seen several of those relationships over time include this third party and that, you know, has gone okay as well. So just, again, it just kind of depends, and it requires a lot of conversation and time, which means you're controlling your impulses. You're not just going and sleeping with the person before your partner knows that about it or, you know, everything is negotiated. Dishonesty is like, what will ruin anything to do with polyamory. Because as soon as one partner feels like they weren't involved in the process, and that can be very difficult to recover from. Another thing that people need to be prepared for is that you may not have equal experiences. So you may be like, okay, well, we're going to try open marriage, and maybe we want to try the type where both of us just kind of do our own thing. Well, one partner, one spouse, you know, pretty quickly finds somebody to have a relationship with or start having some sexual encounters with, and the other spouse doesn't. It's kind of like going back to dating. Some of us had better luck dating than others. That can be a difficult thing to know how to manage if it doesn't feel equitable. Or you have people, too, that are not that interested. Like, I don't mind my spouse having some of these experiences, but I don't want to have those experiences. So sometimes that works well. Sometimes that feels the spouse who's going out feels guilty or like, why don't they want to experience some of this? Why am I the only one doing this? So again, there's so many different possibilities, but I think it really comes down to a lot of those talking points and those bullet points that really is true whether you're in a monogamous relationship or an open relationship, which is communication, respect, honesty, dialogue, you know, differentiation, figuring out your own triggers and anxieties, being vulnerable, being safe for one another. And what I mean about being safe is not just, oh, sure, anything you tell me is fine. Safety is an ongoing circular process so that I'm safe to maybe tell you something, but you're also safe to respond. Maybe not super great the first times I tell you something, right? Because I can't control the way I'm going to respond all way the.

Gina Colvin [01:22:10] The time.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:22:10] So it's a circular process of safety. I think those are just really good tenants, regardless of what type of relationship you're trying to have.

John Dehlin [01:22:20] So I just. Totally speaking anecdotally, I know of two situations where it was kind of the. Well, in one of them, it was kind of the husband that was just seeking gratification or new experiences. And so he kind of convinced the wife to open things up. So they put themselves sort of on the market, so to speak. And before you know it, she was getting all sorts of opportunities and offers. And he wasn't that attractive, I guess, as attractive of an option. So that was a bummer for him in the sense that he was sort of his wife was getting all sorts of opportunities and he wasn't. But also he discovered how jealous he was when he really thought that he'd be having all this action, when in reality he had a really strong aversive response to his wife being with somebody else. So that was one example. The other example was in a case where a woman fell in love with someone else, but they didn't want to destroy the marriage. So she had this permanent sexual partner. She says to him, yeah, go ahead and see what you can find. And he wasn't able to find much. And so she was having her gratification all the time in a fulfilling, not just sexual, but emotional relationship. And he just felt like he got the short end of the stick, so to speak. So those are just a couple examples that I've heard about. So I guess there's an extent to which, and maybe you've already said this, which is that you can think it's going to be one way, but it may very much be the reality, may play out very differently.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:24:10] Oh, for sure. I think that's true of any relationship. And that's why the timetables, I think, are so helpful to say, you know, let's try this for a few months and come back to the drawing table. We may have to. To renegotiate something we thought was going to be okay. What have we learned about ourselves? And it is interesting. I've had several people, which. They're the ones having the sexual relationship, and they're like, I'm fine with having this sexual relationship, but now as soon as the spouse has a sexual relationship, they're like, I'm not fine with that. And they'll even say it like, I know I'm being totally hypocritical here, but I can't handle that. And for some, I've had a couple where the husband said, that's fine, I don't need this as long as you prioritize our relationship. Because for him, it had become a time management issue. She was spending too much time with her partner, but he wasn't really that into having another partner. And so he just said, as long as you pull back a little and give me more energy and time than you have been, I don't need a partner. I'm perfectly happy, you know, being monogamous with you, even though you're, well, I guess not being monogamous with you. But these terms, you know, being in this relationship where you're going to have some of those experiences and I'm not. So that was okay with him. That wouldn't be okay with a lot of people. So this really gets back to a very individualized process of figuring out what's going to be doable and sustainable for each particular relationship. And some people really take it to the point where they become family systems, you know, where they really invite people to raise children with them, share finances with them, even do some types of ceremonies. I mean, there's all. You know, it really can go to all kinds of different levels of commitment with different partnerships. Did I answer that? I guess, yeah.

Success Rates and Key Considerations for Non-Monogamy

John Dehlin [01:26:11] Is there a known success or failure rate to these sorts of relationships? Do you have any idea?

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:26:17] Yeah, unfortunately I don't, because, like I said, the research, especially with Mormons, I don't know that there's any research with Mormons on this in particular. And again, how do you rate some success or failure when you don't really have divorce rates? Right. Like in marriages, a lot of times, the way we rate success or failure is through divorce rates, which even that is kind of a Misnomer. I think some divorces are very successful either because they should have divorced or because they just divorce successfully, you know, and parent well together and remain amicable. There's marriages that I think are complete failures, but they trudge along, you know, for 50 plus years. So. So it's a kind of objective, subjective question to be able to measure success. Does success mean that the original couple stays married? I mean, even if some people open up their marriage and then end up divorced, I don't know that that's always, oh yeah, let's just blame that they opened up their marriage. Sometimes that was just a normal progression of their relationship and it was maybe the step that they needed to take. I know many people who divorced very amicably after opening up their marriage. It was almost like the way they finally were able to say, yeah, this wasn't a compatible relationship. And this is kind of how we went through that process of figuring that out. So I just, I have a hard time with knowing how to measure success and failure.

John Dehlin [01:27:42] Okay, so in addition to everything we've said so far, maybe talk us through some of the important things to do or to consider if you want to try open marriages or non monogamy or polyamory, and then jump to some of the common pitfalls, some of the mistakes that people make, some of the problems as well that you know about or have seen.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:28:09] Okay, so I wish I had notes in front of me, but I'll do the best to remember. I think a lot of the things that need to be negotiated are really pretty detail specific. So in other words, what type of sex is on or off the table or sexuality? What types of birth control is going to be used? What type of precautions are we going to take about STIs, what places can this type of stuff happen? Who are we going to include as part of our opening up? Who are we going to tell about it? How are we going to divide things such as childcare, monies spent on this, budgeting for it, energies spent on, you know, amount of time with certain other people versus each other. There's, there's a kind of a term like fluid sharing, you know, what types of fluid is allowed to be shared, you know, which maybe is a weird way to think about it, but is important. So sperm or saliva or. So these are all things that people really need to get pretty detailed specific about. Because otherwise if you just assume, you know, what your partner's okay with, you can get into some really unfortunate problems. And I've seen some of those, like for Example, somebody who had a sexual encounter with somebody's cousin, and that was obviously not okay with the other person. Well, I wouldn't say obviously. It just wasn't okay. It shouldn't have been something that should have been assumed or. Or even fantasy. A lot of couples, like I said, stay in the fantasy realm. I had one couple where he was fantasizing about something that he wanted her to do as they were aroused and having sex together. And then she went and actually did it, and that was not his intent at all. He was just wanting to stay in fantasy land and then was devastated when he found out that she had done something. And she was like, I thought this is what you wanted me to do, so it needs to be very communicated. I know another situation where there was stuff happening in their actual bedroom, and that kind of ruined that space for a certain person. So, again, things that you maybe don't think about. Negotiating need to be negotiated. And there are actually a lot of great kind of books on this. There's opening up, there's the new monogamy. There's. Although that one starts out more really for infidelity, but I think it has some good stuff, especially towards the back, as far as how to negotiate these kinds of conversations. There's the ethical slut. There's. There's. There's several of them that are actually pretty good, and I have a lot of them listed on my website@Natashaparker.org under recommendations. So is that. I mean, does that give you kind of an idea of some of the things that people need to negotiate and what can go wrong if you don't? This is not all inclusive.

John Dehlin [01:31:29] Yeah, yeah. And. And just go back through that big old list of, you know, where and with who and when and. And, you know, emotional versus physical fluids, money, time, and all that stuff. If you were to sort of pick. And I know that this is impossible because it's going to be as different as the number of people involved, but. And the combinations of people involved. But if you were to sort of just say, generally, when a couple is able to make this successfully work, here are the standard kind of guidelines that seem to work for the most amount of people, the most amount of time across those dimensions we just mentioned, what would those be? I know I've asked you an impossible question, but do your best to answer it anyway. Dang it.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:32:25] You mean out of all those things that I just mentioned, which ones are the most important?

Gina Colvin [01:32:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:32:29] Or most common, like fluids and with

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:32:32] locations, you know, I think you need to be very Careful about the type of imagery that can happen, especially if you're not going to be both included. If you're going to be doing things away from each other. Usually the imagination is much more erotic and sensual than the actual thing that happened. And so if you're not ready to imagine something that your spouse is maybe doing without your presence, that can be a difficult thing. So, for example, some people will just say, you know, I can handle kissing and that's it, or I can handle inner corner course, but I don't want you to be having oral sex with this person or vice versa, or, you know, so just. And by the way, Gina keeps on looking back at me every now and then when I say things. I just remembered that I was gonna mention that she says, because she's horrified. Great. Anyway,

Gina Colvin [01:33:33] my mind is opening, but my vagina is closing.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:33:40] And it's getting really late here. So I'm not going to take full responsibility for what happens in this conversation going forward. But anyway, so you can just. I think the type of sexuality really needs to be talked about and safe sex needs to be talked about and the people that are going to possibly be involved. So would you like it to be really strangers that you're not really ever going to run into again? I can't tell you how many times I've heard of people kind of in maybe more progressive circles, and they all get together and they like each other. They have all this intimacy around faith transitions, for example, and now they're in the hot tub, and now they're kissing each other, their spouses. And not to shame anybody who maybe has found themselves in this situation. And if you have, then count it as a good learning experience. If it didn't go well, and if it did go well, then great. But I'm just saying there hasn't been a lot of discussion prior to that. And now these are your neighbors, or maybe these are the people that you go to. You know, your kids and their kids go to school in the same location. And so, you know, you kind of got lost in the moment, but then didn't think through all the repercussions. Is this somebody that I want to see on a regular basis or not? Or do I want this to be a more anonymous thing? So is that. I think those are probably the main things that I would really encourage people to think about.

Post-Mormon Communities and Non-Monogamy Challenges

John Dehlin [01:35:08] I've heard some. You know, so let's just say there are various places where there is a critical mass of transition Mormons or post Mormons. And then I've heard of this sort of thing having a certain prevalence in some of these communities. And then I've just heard that in some of those instances, it's really just damaged the community that everything got complicated, you know, feelings were hurt or various families ultimately became upset with each other. And it became something that really, you know, there was really did damage to a community that in some ways was otherwise really positive and thriving for people. Have you, have you found that? Have you heard of that happening?

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:35:58] Yeah, for sure. I mean, these are like breakups. I mean, when you think about back in your dating years and you broke up with somebody or, I mean, those don't usually. It's not. They don't end well. They don't necessarily. It's not like you want to hang out with those people afterwards for lots of time. So again, you have to be really, I think, mindful and intentional about these decisions and have in mind the other people involved too. So maybe. Here's another thing I haven't mentioned yet, but what's the quality of the person you're getting involved with? So I have a couple, for example, that they do a really good job of vetting the other couple before they get involved with them. They want to make sure that they. That the couple is also in a somewhat good place, that they're not taking advantage of somebody in a vulnerable state or that the person is maybe making rash decisions on the other end. Right. So, I mean, not that you can always obviously control for what's going on on the other end or that you're responsible necessarily for that, because we're all adults and we all need to take responsibility for ourselves. At the same time, they want to make sure that they're not inviting some type of, I guess, energy that is more difficult to manage on the other end. So they look for couples that they feel are in somewhat of a healthy relationship, etc. Yeah, I think, again, I'm biased because I do this work on the other side of the table. And I'm not polyamorous myself. And so I'm not really on the other end of this type of experience. And I don't know what it's like necessarily for people who've never been to therapy and try to manage this outside of that realm. I only know those who've done it with me or who've done it with colleagues of mine or presentations I've been at. But it just seems like such a pivotal part of the process to include a professional that can help you really navigate some, you know, some rocky waters or some Potentially rocky waters, especially if things don't end like you'd want to, or you need to place boundaries that weren't placed at first, etc. For a community that is, you know, bonding on faith transitions. And again, that can be a very intimate, emotional, intimate process to bond in that type of situation. It's not surprising to me that that would cross into sexual types of relationships. And it's also not surprising to me that then that crashes and burns. Because, first of all, it's a vulnerable population to begin with. That's a hurting population, that's a population that's trying to heal from something already pretty significant in their lives. And then to add something as complex as sexual relationships, I would hope that these communities can at least have some level of. Of grace and patience for one another as they maybe came involved with or navigated things, and not the best ways. Now having some hindsight. Okay,

Gina Colvin [01:39:08] well, that's kind of what I wanted to say, because when I think about polyamory, I think about these communities who are melting down because of the kind of sexual activity that isn't healthy and it's not happening in a healthy way, in a healthy context. So, and so what you seem to have been trying to do is to separate that out from healthy forms of sexuality and not necessarily providing an excuse or reasons to be polyamorous, but to say, if you're going to do this, this is the responsible way of doing it.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:39:51] Absolutely, as I think it should be for any sexual activity.

John Dehlin [01:39:57] So there sometimes, sometimes gender can really, you know, concerns or trauma around male versus female gender roles can really be triggering for people in these discussions. And I think even in our community, maybe you hear of stereotypically men who are perceived as predatory, that they seek out, you know, quote, you know, vulnerable women and prey on them and that it's sort of this. And maybe this, maybe, Gina, you'd say this comes out of our background with patriarchy, but sort of this, you know, idea that there's these predatory men that are preying on vulnerable female. Even within progressive Mormon circles. Natasha, do you have thoughts or reflections around sort of that stereotype that we sometimes hear or reality? Maybe it's not a stereotype, maybe it's a reality. But what would you say to that?

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:41:14] Well, this is a difficult area to navigate without probably offending or hurting or pissing people off in one way or another. Again, I think it's complex. There's something

Gina Colvin [01:41:29] very

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:41:32] worrisome to me about the rhetoric that we all grew up with to begin with, which is that Men are predators, naturally. The natural man, he's gonna want you, he's gonna want to use you. He's gonna want to have sex with you. He's gonna want to, you know, dress you down with his eyes. He's going to whatever. You know, all the things that we hear that men usually hear about themselves and that we, as women hear about men, and it puts us into this very natural kind of enemy status with one another in gender roles. And women, on the other hand, are sublime and special and spiritual and lovely and fragile and, you know, petals of flowers that are easy, easily crushed. And, you know, and we're the gatekeepers. We're the gatekeepers of male sexuality. So I think that damages both genders. There's plenty of podcasts talking about, you know, this type of rhetoric and modesty rhetoric and how this even fits into rape culture, etc. And I think that my feminism isn't so much about protecting females from males, although there's obviously times when that has to happen. Unfortunately, there's just the statistics, especially with domestic violence, is that men obviously kill women at a much higher rate than women kill men at the same time. I'm not sure that's exactly. That exactly holds up for emotional abuse. I think women can be quite emotionally abusive to men and get away with it because we're the weaker sex. So my feminism is really about

Gina Colvin [01:43:15] all

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:43:16] of us taking responsibility for ourselves

Guest [01:43:20] in

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:43:20] the process of these types of relationships. Now, if you are a male who cognizantly is grooming vulnerable women and that's your intent and approach, that's obviously a problem, and you need to go get some help. If you are a woman who feels like she is in a vulnerable position and any type of sexual advance or flirtation leads you to make decisions that you're not later comfortable with, you need to go get some help. Why are those things happening? Why are you functioning from those types of spaces? But I'm also concerned about this rhetoric that I sometimes hear where men, even in progressive circles, because I think we're so pissed off at patriarchy and males get the brunt of that, is that men still get pigeonholed into that predatory role of, yeah, he's coming on to you. He shouldn't be making advances. He shouldn't be doing this. He shouldn't be doing that. And I think that we, as women, are of perfectly, perfectly capable to say, I am not comfortable with the way you are flirting with me. I'm not comfortable with the type of energy you are sending me right now or Being aware of our own comfort and oftentimes like of something that goes both ways. You know, sometimes attention is seductive. We like attention. We like feeling attractive. We like feeling flirted with. Even if maybe we're not totally comfortable with how it's being done and the reality that we can hold space for both of that. And then how do I want to manage that as an individual? Has this crossed some type of line or boundary that I'm not comfortable with? And if so, what am I going to do about it and empower ourselves to do so? I get that not many of us have been taught or have the skills to know how to do this, and I would include myself in that. But instead of blaming or shaming one gender, either way, I think this is really where we do best. When we become self aware, when we're mindful about our reactions, our intentions, our goals, our energies. Especially when it comes to that realm of sharing sexual energy with another person, which can be as simple as a flirtation. Is that making any sense? And feel free to totally push back on me.

Personal Reflections and Stories from the Conversation

John Dehlin [01:45:55] Okay, Natasha, this is awesome. Gina, as you're sitting there listening and occasionally giving Natasha really deep and intense stares, tell us, tell us some of the things you're. What is this bringing up for you? What are you feeling?

Gina Colvin [01:46:11] Well, I have a combination of horror and fascination. Fascination. And it's triggering all kinds of would I do it? Questions for me. And the answer is categorically as I sit here listening to this. No. But what I was worried about when you began speaking was that you were going to give permission to all of these creepers, progressive Mormon community to go out and, you know, look for extra partners. And I, what I, what I, what I'm hearing is that actually you've kind of shut that down and you've put a lot of provisions around how to do this healthily. And also what I'm hearing is that this is risky business. You've put a lot, a lot of provisions on it. It is risky business.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:47:04] Yes, it is.

Gina Colvin [01:47:04] And just because. Because between your leg parts are beeping does not mean that you should be considering polyamory as an answer to all of your sexual or relationship ills. There are limited instances where this might work.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:47:23] Yes. Many are called, few are chosen. Remember, that's the motto. And also to not forget that there is much exploration that can happen in a monogamous relationship. Right. That most people, I don't think, have tapped into the potential of their monogamous relationships, even to the slightest of what that can be. Sometimes polyamory adds to that possibility. But again, not to be upset or feeling like your life is over if your partner is like, that's a hell no from me, right? As far as me wanting to be involved in something like that. And that's what we call a hard line. There's this great exercise that most of us as sex therapists will do with couples, and we'll just have them go through and list, gosh, anything you can think of that happens sexually, right? And then you can say, yes, I totally like that, or want to try that, or have thought about that. There's the maybes. You know, like, maybe that sounds interesting, or I could see that. Or maybe I've tried it a few times, I'm still not sure about it. And then there's the hell nos. No, I have no interest in that ever. That's not appealing to me. That's not erotic to me. That's scary, seems painful, whatever, you know? And that's okay. And that's a good exercise for couples to go through. And you'll find that you have a lot in common. There's a lot on the yes and maybes that you can really start exploring and then remembering, too, that doing an exercise like that should be something you revisit, because things that you once didn't like, you can learn how to like. I mean, the first time I heard about French kissing, I thought it sounded pretty horrific. And by 15, I changed my mind about that's just kind of things of that nature and things even that you used to like, maybe you no longer find appealing because of all kinds of reasons. Aging or disease or things of that nature being one of them. So this is a fluid, ongoing process. I think polyamory can be something that people choose and that we don't need to shame people about or that people can fantasize about and have it be part of that aspect. I don't think it's common. I don't think it's necessary. I. I just think it's one more thing in the toolbox that for some people, it works and to your point, works well when it's done well. And that takes a lot of energy and space and provision and maturity. And I. I hate to use the word maturity, because, again, it's not like people who don't want to do it are less mature. It just. I think all good sexuality, all good intimacy takes a level of us maturing into our ongoing adult selves.

John Dehlin [01:50:32] So I hear you're saying, if you're gonna do it, make sure you're mature and in a solid and a stable place. Not everyone who does it is. Not that it's a sign of being mature or healthy.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:50:46] No, exactly. I think any kind of sexuality can be done in a healthy, mature, and pleasure enticing way. And any type of sexuality can be done in really immature or traumatic or even very hurtful ways.

Cautions, Risks, and Closing Thoughts

John Dehlin [01:51:03] Okay, and just to make sure we maybe take it even to the, just to the sort of place of caution other than what you've already told us. Do you have any stories or examples of where it really just was very damaging, where it really went wrong or maybe maybe ruined a marriage when the marriage might otherwise have been okay? Like any bad or horror stories are just kind of real dangers to sort of make sure people understand that to some degree they may be playing with fire if they do this.

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:51:43] Well, again, I hesitate to say that people's marriages were only ruined by trying this one thing. I think marriages are more complex than that. I think that I, in my own practice have not had actually that experience. I think it takes for people to come into a setting as personal as my setting is to talk about something like this that already shows that they're kind of taking steps in the right direction. So I've had people try it and then back out and then not continue deciding. You know, that was maybe something we tried and decided wasn't for us. I've had other people who've been in a relationship, in a polyamorous relationship for many years and it's still going well and they're still married. I've had people who've divorced, but not necessarily because they feel it was polyamory that had them divorce. I've had many monogamous couples divorce. It's kind of hard to pin that on one particular aspect of their lives. And I think oftentimes when we do that, we tend to minimize what else is really going on in the relationship. And it's harder to look at all the real things that are happening versus just blame one aspect. It's a lot easier to blame one thing. And sometimes we want to do that to avoid the pain of really doing the harder work of looking at the roles we played in a, in an ongoing relationship. So that's a complicated answer to that question, I guess.

John Dehlin [01:53:23] Okay, so here's a, maybe even a tougher question, I think. I think many people who would try and stereotype or make assumptions about people who enter into non monogamous relationships, you know, might assume that it's sort of only the people who have totally lost their faith or who are agnostic or atheist, you know, because only godless people would even consider such debauchery. And of course, I'm using ridiculous language. But on the flip side, I'll ask you a tough question. Can you see a scenario where someone's a believer in God or in Christ or in religion, and maybe even an active and devout Mormon where non monogamy could actually be consistent with their beliefs and even sort of something that their God could approve of? Have you ever seen that? Or can you envision a way that even an active believing Mormon could actually find this to be a good thing for them as believers?

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:54:43] I don't think that's very common. I think that, you know, the basic framework for active believing Mormons, there's a lot of rigidity around sexuality that goes a lot more vanilla than open marriage. I mean, a lot of my believing active couples are struggling with things like I said, like masturbation or even is it okay to have oral sex together. So there's kind of a whole other level of sexual authority that they're trying to navigate. However, it's not 100% zero. I mean, I know of active believing members who are visiting nudist colonies and feel very comfortable with that idea of being in nature and seeing other people nude and that this is how we were created by God and to celebrate our bodies. I know. I think I mentioned believing members that I know of that are finding ways to swing where they feel like it's not crossing a certain boundary. So maybe it's kissing only, or, you know, the classic word petting only that we used, but not actually moving into the territory of penal vaginal intercourse. So there's definitely ways that people, you know, claim their own authority around their sexual lives and nuance things in ways that feel appropriate to them and their values. I just wish we gave more of that authority to couples to begin with. You know, where it didn't feel so prescribed by the society or the culture and that couples felt more inclined to be able to find out, hey, we're the ones who are married and committed to one another. How are we going to navigate this landscape in ways that we both feel good about, not that some other entity is telling us we should feel good about?

John Dehlin [01:56:41] I almost had the thought that if we figured out a way to think about and do healthy sexuality as couples within Mormonism, maybe we would be less inclined to even entertain the idea of opening the marriage because our monogamous relationships would just be so fulfilling. Is that kind of what you're saying,

Natasha Helfer Parker [01:57:09] I'm not sure that's what I'm saying, because I do think that there are people who have fulfilling, monogamous marriages and still want to try polyamory for whatever reasons. We've talked about several of those throughout this podcast. I think that it's more of this idea that if this is good, why can't something else also be good or add to it? I think that's how polyamory goes. Well, it's not that there's something wrong or missing or resentful in this relationship. So now we're going to look into other places to fill that gap. And so that kind of goes back to my original point that if that's what is trying to be filled, then that's not maybe going to work as well as you had hoped. Now, again, that doesn't mean that there aren't, like, for example, there are some marriages where, for whatever reason, the libido is hugely different. You know, maybe you're married to somebody who's perfectly happy never having sex again or having sex twice a year, and you've got another partner who really is still. You know, their ideal still situation would be to be having sex three to four times a week. That's a drastically different libido. And there are couples who navigate open marriages for those types of reasons. So that, in a sense, would be trying to fill a gap. But the way they go about it, again, is very careful and open and making sure the emotional intimacy isn't altered or damaged in the process. So, again, there's exceptions to what I'm saying. But again, it's how you go about it. Not well. I'm super unhappy with you, you're frigid, and we're in a sexless marriage. So if I can't open this up, then I don't know how we're going to make it together. And I think we're just going to end up divorced. That's a much more coercive process and a threatening process. Even having, having that type of discussion I wish would go a little friendlier. Like, you know, I really love you, but we have this incompatibility that, I don't know, I can manage for the rest of my life. That's different than if you don't do what I want, I'm going to divorce you. Do you see what I'm saying? So, again, how do we talk about these things?

John Dehlin [01:59:38] Well, this has been a wonderfully interesting conversation, especially to do while we're driving to Lake Champlain in Vermont. But Gina, thanks for being a part of this conversation. You've added a very thoughtful and fun element. So thanks for joining co hosting on Mormon Stories.

Gina Colvin [02:00:00] It's been my pleasure and my aura.

John Dehlin [02:00:03] We've traumatized Gina and Natasha. If somebody, if somebody wants or needs some support to try and explore this, are you saying they can come to you?

Natasha Helfer Parker [02:00:16] Well, I'm an option and I would say asect is a good place to go. So aasect.org is where you would be able to find a therapist directory of people who are certified sex therapists and who would not take a shaming approach to this and who would also not shame a non willing partner. Right. So people who are going to take both people's perspectives into account and be trained on how to do this. Well, so yeah, those are. And then like I said, some of the books I mentioned and may if I come up with a few more, John, I'll have you link to them.

John Dehlin [02:00:52] All right. And if they want to get ahold of you, how do they get ahold of you?

Natasha Helfer Parker [02:00:55] NatashaParker.org is my website and yeah, pretty much any way you need to contact me can be done through there.

Outro and Closing Music

John Dehlin [02:01:03] All right, everyone, thanks so much for listening. Thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories podcast. If you have comments or criticisms that are constructive, please share them@mormastories.org we don't want mean spirited or nasty comments there or super judgy comments.

Gina Colvin [02:01:23] Yeah, I'm not being judgy either, so don't get on me.

John Dehlin [02:01:25] Yeah, Gina's not being judgy. She's very.

Natasha Helfer Parker [02:01:28] She's just dealing with her own personal reactions to this. I'll be fine.

John Dehlin [02:01:35] Yeah, so, so please make comments there. Thank you for joining us as always on Mormon Stories. And yeah, and you know, I think it would be interesting if we had a couple or two that possibly wanted to tell their story. I would entertain that. I would want it to be in a way that, where no one would jeopardize their position, where no one would hurt anybody. And everyone felt like that was something they felt good about. So if anybody out there has had experiences, good or bad, with non monogamy, please reach out if you want to tell your story and we'll consider it. So thanks for joining us. Appreciate all your support. Your donations are what makes all this possible. So thanks for the support. Thanks for everything and we'll talk to you again soon on Mormon Stories. Have a good night. Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Music today was provided by the Saber Rattlers. Check them out. @sabre-rattlers.com the Mormon Stories logo was generously donated by StudioCase.com thanks for listening.

Guest [02:02:50] Come, come ye saints. No toil nor labor feast, but with joy wend your way though hard to you this journey may appear Grace shall be as your day. Tis better far for us to strive Our useless cares from us to drive to the San Jo, your hearts will swell. Oh, all is well, all is well. Why should we mourn? Think our all is hard? Tis not so, all is right. Why should we think to earn a great reward if we now shun the fight.

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