Polyamory vs. Monogamy: Are We Doing Relationships Wrong? - Ariana Throne | DSH #1599

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Speaker 1 Sexuality could kill you. Before we had modern medicine and could protect against STD, it was the way a lot of people were dying.

Speaker 1 Polly Amory says, well, biologically, we're attracted to more than one person. It's not really a lifestyle for those with a faint of heart.

Speaker 1 We still live in a world that's very overshadowed by religion and religion kind of demonized sexuality. Right.

Speaker 2 Okay, guys, we got Ariana on here today, a therapist that lives in Las Vegas. Thanks for joining us.
Nice outfit.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Thanks so much.
Thanks for having me. Color of the show.

Speaker 1 This guy went on color scheme.

Speaker 2 I didn't even know you had this blue going yeah and the earrings nice do what i can for the community yeah well let's talk therapy because i just started going to the therapist last week oh good how's it going uh well i'm one session in so it was like an intro session but i'm gonna i'm gonna give it a fair chance because there's a lot of negative stigma around therapy especially as a guy yeah yeah i want to i want to give it a fair shot like me even saying that like some guys would bully me over that you know what i mean so yeah and it takes a while to find the right one sometimes it's not a good fit and you have to try out quite a few people right unfortunately like any field, there's a lot of bad therapists out there.

Speaker 1 There's good ones, there's bad ones, and then there's ones that just aren't quite right for you. So you got to kind of shop around.

Speaker 2 Yeah, this is my second one. I tried one in high school.
It was a guy had like an Ivy League degree and he was just too smart for me, I think. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So you want to dumb it down therapist? Just like walk me through it slowly.

Speaker 2 Not smart. You know, he was too smart, like too logical.
Intimidating. I want that female touch, you know.
So now I have a female and I'm going to give it, you know, five, 10 sessions, try it out.

Speaker 1 Okay. Awesome.

Speaker 2 I'm going to be as open as I can. I love that.
I've struggled to express emotions in the past growing up. So this is like a big change for me.

Speaker 1 Yeah. A lot of men really struggle with that.
There's a lot of stigma around men and emotions in general. So that's kind of what therapy is, is a framework for you to work on whatever your goals are.

Speaker 1 So it's interesting how much stigma there is around it, but really it's just a neutral person to help you see your blind spots and help you achieve your goals.

Speaker 1 So it's kind of like a life excellence tutor. Right.

Speaker 2 What made you want want to pursue that path? Did you have a therapist grown up that just changed your life?

Speaker 1 You know, it's funny. I'm a talk therapist who doesn't believe in talk therapy on its own.
I'm very trauma informed, and I think there's a lot that's held in the body.

Speaker 1 So I'm really excited with the new directions of brain science and

Speaker 1 how our proteins are actually translating our genes, what's held in the body, and how we can use somatic sensation and the body and even imagination to release trauma.

Speaker 1 I think talking is really helpful for integrating it, but I had a lot of therapy through my life and I also added a lot of movement practices, a lot of meditation techniques,

Speaker 1 a lot of actual hands-on body work like

Speaker 1 rolfing and massage and things like that that helped me through my trauma. Rolfing is kind of like deep tissue fascia work.
Okay.

Speaker 1 So I did a lot of different modalities and I have always been everyone's therapist and been very fascinated with how the mind works and how to help people.

Speaker 1 So it just was kind of a natural progression. Okay.

Speaker 2 So you and I agree on talk therapy alone isn't enough, actually.

Speaker 1 For some people, it might be, and for some issues, it might be for sure.

Speaker 1 I, you know,

Speaker 1 I think that as you heal, there's like, if just talking was enough, then, you know, a friend could talk us through it, right?

Speaker 1 And a therapist should be better than a friend if they're a good therapist because they are trained.

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Speaker 1 Trained to listen in a different way, be a different kind of relationship.

Speaker 1 But a lot of us didn't get that secure base growing up to kind of explore life as we were developing coping mechanisms, developing our schemas and beliefs about life.

Speaker 1 We didn't really have the right kind of container to do that. So, therapy can be the container for that.
But most of what makes therapy work is the client's readiness for change.

Speaker 1 So, if you're really ready and you're going to do the work, yeah, it definitely can be enough. But expecting it to be a magic pill,

Speaker 1 no, even pills aren't magic pills, right? It takes a lot of different efforts. So I like to be holistic where you look at the brain science and the chemistry going on.

Speaker 1 Is there something that actually does need medication? You look at the emotional level. You look at even the energetic level

Speaker 1 and move back and forth between the cognitive layer, the body layer, the energy layer, so that hopefully they all kind of weave together. That's cool.

Speaker 2 So you take a full approach. I really like that as a therapist.

Speaker 1 You know, it's part of science and part an art form to be a good therapist. It's definitely

Speaker 1 based on a lot of science, but each brain is different and you have to really play in the moment and meet clients where they're at.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I love that you do both the science and the spiritual stuff because a lot of people are amazing at one.

Speaker 1 That's very true. I'm eclectic and that has its pluses and minuses.
There's definitely pros and cons to being eclectic, right?

Speaker 1 Kind of jack of all trades, but I get interested in lots of different areas. And that helps me to relate to a broad base of clients.
Although, of course, I have my niche as well.

Speaker 1 I see a lot of ethical non-monogamy clients, CNM,

Speaker 1 since that's kind of my focus for the last 15 years. And I also practice non-monogamy.

Speaker 1 It's kind of a buzzword, things that are popping up in culture and people, a lot of people doing it well, a lot of people not doing it well.

Speaker 1 So I focus on LGBTQ and ethical non-monogamy, but I also really relate with a lot of different clients because I've been to 48 countries and I really love digging into different beliefs and different cultures, different ways of doing things.

Speaker 2 The non-monogamy stuff, the polygamy stuff, right?

Speaker 1 So polygamy is marriage. Polyamory is very different.
It's unfortunately a Greek and Latin word shoved together, which makes no sense grammatically.

Speaker 1 But it's the theory that you can love more than one person.

Speaker 1 So I always, I actually have five really simple beliefs, which are why I identify as polyamorous. Even if I go through periods of choosing a monogamous lifestyle, I still identify this way.

Speaker 1 Because one,

Speaker 1 you have a best friend. That doesn't mean you get rid of all your other friends, right? Right.
Like people offer different things. And if you love your mom and your brother, it's not competitive love.

Speaker 1 It doesn't take away one from the other. So why is it different when we add in sexuality, right? A lot of people have this.

Speaker 1 really arbitrary line of what is cheating and we can talk about how different relationships

Speaker 1 draw that line in the sand. Is it at an emotional level? Is it at a sexual level? Is having a crush allowed? But we don't really talk about these things because there's a standard in monogamy.

Speaker 1 Once you go into polyamory, it's like, okay, do we want to give sex this much power where it's on this pedestal and it's the thing that defines our relationship?

Speaker 1 Or are there other things that make it so that we are romantic love?

Speaker 1 My third belief is that my body's mine to say yes with, but also no with. And it's important to own your yes just as much as your no.

Speaker 1 So I've had jealous partners own my body more than even kind of sexual assaults. And I never want to be in that position where I'm an object and I'm owned by someone.

Speaker 1 So those beliefs about sexuality, combined with the fact that we're not penguins, we are attracted to more than one person in our lifetime. Like at least I am.
I think most people are.

Speaker 1 And we fall in love more than one time in a lifetime. And we don't control time.
So

Speaker 1 arguing with biology isn't necessarily going to make that go away. So why don't we talk about it? Why don't we open it up and have a conversation in our relationship?

Speaker 1 Okay, since this is a natural part of biology, do we want to include it in our relationship or not? And if so, how do we want to do that?

Speaker 2 I love that because it does feel like it's human nature to be attracted to multiple people, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, and we get intimacy in lots of different ways, right? So even if you are in a monogamous relationship, what we call it when two people are their only person is codependent.

Speaker 1 So we need lots of people. We're gregarious.
We are herd animals. We need different places to get our intimacy needs met.
And that's why we have big families or we have friend groups.

Speaker 1 And our most satisfying lives are when we have multiple connections and don't rely on one person for everything. That's a lot of pressure for any one person.

Speaker 2 Absolutely. So for the non-monogamy clients that you see doing well, is it just really good communication? Like, what's the secret there?

Speaker 1 So communication is one of those buzzwords, right? Everyone comes into therapy for communication.

Speaker 1 There's usually a dynamic. There's a dance that people are doing and it's stuck.
They're repeating the same patterns over and over and over. And communication is a big part of that.

Speaker 1 But I think people get...

Speaker 1 get lost in that and don't necessarily see the attachment wounds that might be at play their childhoods that they're bringing into the relationship the expectations they have of the relationship that they've just never really talked about because we expect things to just be oh what i think is what everyone else thinks well no there's so many ways to do relationship and we come into it with different definitions of even words.

Speaker 1 So when you're talking about communication, have we talked about what words even mean, right? Like, what is cheating? What is it to you? What is it to me?

Speaker 1 This isn't just something that is handed to us in a neat package and all the rules are explained. We really do have to have these conversations in monogamy.
Right.

Speaker 2 I notice people have different definitions for cheating. Because for me, it's physical, but for other people, a text.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Searching someone's Instagram.
Oh, I'm following this person's Instagram. That's cheating to some people.
Right. Right.
Watching is cheating to some people.

Speaker 1 Everyone kind of defines that differently. For some people, oh, you kissed someone.
That's not a big deal. Just don't sleep with them.

Speaker 1 For others, oh, go ahead and sleep with them, but don't have emotional contact with them, which is more the swinger lifestyle. Right.

Speaker 1 Which, again, biologically, can we prevent having emotions with someone we're having sex with is my qualm with that.

Speaker 1 Right? Like this is

Speaker 1 a can we or can we not? Like really protect ourselves. Um, it seems safer to say just don't fall in love.
You can sleep with someone, but is that a realistic expectation?

Speaker 1 All right, and then Polly Amory says, Well, buy a lot.

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Speaker 1 Logically,

Speaker 1 we're attracted to more than one person. Let's set this line in the sand past the physical and the emotional.
And it is hard. There is a lot of things that come along with it.
It's not a,

Speaker 1 it's not really a lifestyle for those for the faint of heart. Right.
It's a growth mindset over comfort.

Speaker 1 You're going to be uncomfortable a lot of the time, but there's a lot of benefits with it as well. And you don't have to fight with your biology and feel shame for natural attraction.

Speaker 2 That's a good word, shame. A lot of people feel that in relationships or whether they're dating or about being attracted to multiple people, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think shame is huge, especially when it comes to sexuality. We still live in a world that's very overshadowed by religion and by demonizing sexuality.

Speaker 1 And that comes from really real places in history where sexuality could kill you, right? Before we had modern medicine and could protect against STDs, it was the way a lot of people were dying.

Speaker 1 So I believe that that had a lot to do with how religion kind of demonized sexuality. Right.

Speaker 1 And unfortunately, that's carried over. And we see it today, even with how we have lack of sex education in schools.

Speaker 1 And it's really unfortunate because it creates a lot of shame, right?

Speaker 1 We don't know our own bodies. We don't know what we like or don't like.
And we're given a very narrow field of experience that's considered normal.

Speaker 1 If we're anything outside of that, there's a lot of shame.

Speaker 2 Do you think that's the right setting to be teaching something like that sex education class in high school?

Speaker 1 I think even before high school, honestly. Wow.
So there are appropriate ways to talk about consent and sex education and bodies and anatomy for all ages.

Speaker 1 You're not going to talk about it in the same way, obviously. No.
But unfortunately, I used to,

Speaker 1 so my sex ed, even in a very like forward-thinking

Speaker 1 high school,

Speaker 1 was very much not enough. And I was sexually assaulted my first month of college.
Damn. And I, when I look back, I realize, oh, my sex education didn't talk about consent at all.

Speaker 1 It was some pictures of mangled genitals, which are on the far, far, far end of what you might see with an STD that are meant to shock and scare you and were not realistic.

Speaker 1 They were very shame-driven. And that was from a pretty progressive school.
So I actually went back to my old high school and taught a one-woman show that I wrote and produced about culture. Wow.

Speaker 1 And it was really eye-opening because there were people in ninth grade coming to me after that class and saying, well, I've never gotten to tell anyone this, but I've actually already been sexually assaulted.

Speaker 2 Holy crap, in ninth grade? Yeah.

Speaker 1 So we really do need education about all realms of sex before it's too late. And unfortunately, we see a high percentage of sexual assaults happening earlier and earlier.

Speaker 1 And high school is not that far of a reach.

Speaker 2 Do you think parents should

Speaker 2 I guess a lot of them are scared to talk to their kids about sex, right? Do you think they should be more open?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think, you know, my mom was very open with me and I'm so grateful because when I was sexually assaulted, I had someone to turn to. And my first reaction, unlike most women, was not shame.

Speaker 1 It was not feeling blame because I knew, wow, if someone might like me can have this happen, then this really can happen to everyone.

Speaker 1 And I had an immediate support system to go to because we were open about those types of things.

Speaker 1 So it can be uncomfortable to talk to kids about this.

Speaker 1 And I think taking classes or getting more information, maybe filling yourself in on the sex ed you never got is an important first step to then how do I talk to my kids about this in a way that's appropriate, age-appropriate, and also allows them to feel free to ask questions without shame or blame about their body.

Speaker 2 A hot topic right now being debated on social media is birth control. I'm not sure if you've seen the dialogue, but there's a lot of people for it and a lot of people against it.

Speaker 2 Where do you stand on that debate?

Speaker 1 So birth control is one of the most major inventions for women's liberation in our current history. It has completely changed the world.

Speaker 1 Going backwards on that is something that I am very, very against.

Speaker 1 But I also think it's interesting when it comes to the debate about abortion, because most birth control is actually preventation of the implantation, right?

Speaker 1 So you already do have a fertilized egg that is floating in your fallopian tubes that you're irritating the lining in some cases like an IUD versus a pill which is making you shed the lining even if that embryo has implanted.

Speaker 1 So really we're talking about all the same thing. And I think people don't understand the science of that.
So you get into that really

Speaker 1 gooey debate about when does life start? And I don't have

Speaker 1 a like firm opinion on that. I don't think it's my right to make an opinion that then changes the life decision of millions or billions of people.

Speaker 1 So I'm very, very pro-choice in that and pro-birth control because

Speaker 1 the world full of unwanted children is not a world I want to see. The highest risk factors for children is young pregnancies, unwanted pregnancies.

Speaker 1 Parents who are unready to have children is where we see the most trauma. We see the least amount of like positive outcomes.
it affects you for the rest of your life.

Speaker 1 So, I am all for a world where people choose intentionally to have children when they're ready to have children, and they have the agency because of modern science to make that choice.

Speaker 2 Respect. A lot of another debated topic is

Speaker 2 censored on YouTube, throw up a corn emoji. But,

Speaker 2 like, like you said earlier, some people say watching it could be cheating. Like, there's a lot of, I don't know if you've seen the brain scans on fanatics.
Have you seen that?

Speaker 1 No, I haven't. Okay, check that out.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, it's similar to, I guess, cigarette smokers.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 The whole industry of is very interesting because they have made it as addictive as possible, right? Just like video games.

Speaker 1 Now, there's debate on whether that can ever fully mimic substance addiction. But the brain science, it's all working on your PCN, which is your dopamine and serotonin receptors.

Speaker 1 So behavioral addictions are very, very similar to what we're seeing with substance addictions.

Speaker 2 So that being said, where do you stand on the whole thing? Like some people want to ban, some people don't want you watching it if you're in relationships.

Speaker 1 Banning things historically has not gone well. It just shows that further underground,

Speaker 1 whether it's alcohol or anything you try to ban, people are still going to get a hold of it. It's a good point.
Right.

Speaker 1 Sexuality is one of the only things that seems to be universal. Even to asexual people, there's a relationship.
somewhere in there to sex, right?

Speaker 1 So despite the color of our skin or our beliefs, sexuality is one of the things that makes us human. People are not going to stop finding

Speaker 1 and getting

Speaker 1 just because it's banned. True.
Even more so, I think, than alcohol.

Speaker 1 Back during Prohibition days, that did not work so well.

Speaker 1 I was in North Carolina a few weeks ago and a major porn site was blocked. Well, you just search for another one.

Speaker 1 You can't control the internet. There's going to be thousands and thousands and thousands more.
So unfortunately, I don't even think it should be a debate because it's just not plausible.

Speaker 2 But do you think it's damaging to people that are watching it?

Speaker 1 Oh, that's a whole other debate.

Speaker 1 I think there is a certain body, well,

Speaker 1 that's not made with real bodies and real experiences. We're seeing a lot of that is male-gaze.

Speaker 1 We're seeing a lot of that it has a very set script and narrative about what is normal and what is not normal.

Speaker 1 And so I do think that's damaging in that it gives us a sense of shame for anything that's outside of those norms.

Speaker 1 And it can program us to be kind of turned on by those things instead of other things. I have a personal philosophy.

Speaker 1 I don't know if this is science, but if you masturbate enough watching microwaves, the next time you walk by a microwave, you're probably going to get a hard on, right?

Speaker 1 There is a feedback response and it's Pavlovian to our pleasure centers.

Speaker 1 So it tracks for me that if you're watching a certain type of over and over, you're going to have a proclivity for that type of thing. Right.
Now, does that mean you'll act on it? No.

Speaker 1 And there's the other side of the debate you can act out fantasies that you would never do in real life in

Speaker 1 right. And have a, let's say it's something that maybe your partner isn't interested in.
You can still have access to that side of you in a less shameful way. So I'm very pro

Speaker 1 in its existence. I don't think we've seen enough studies yet to show if there's long-term like side effects.

Speaker 1 We're seeing more addictions with,

Speaker 1 but I think that's more to do with the societal shame around sexuality honestly than it is itself

Speaker 2 interesting so i just had dr trish lee on do you know who that is i don't okay so she's basically really against and she's the one doing the brain scans i told you about um she was saying a lot of guys are getting like ed

Speaker 2 i don't know if there's a direct link with the porn usage and ed

Speaker 1 so there is a lot more ed um happening and that can be from a number of sources porn may or may not be one of them i haven't seen the studies so i can't speak to that But we certainly have a much more sedentary lifestyle, which affects our heart rate and our blood going through all of our blood health, our heart health.

Speaker 1 There is a shift in culture right now that could be affecting ED.

Speaker 1 There's

Speaker 1 still the shame aspect, of course, a lot of social anxieties and less intimacy in relationship. We're seeing more and more short relationships where there's

Speaker 1 higher anxiety for those kind of situations.

Speaker 1 The food we're eating has a lot of estrogen mimicking things, the plastics we're microwaving things in. So estrogen is definitely been shown to be linked to ED.
So that could be part of it.

Speaker 1 So I think all of these factors combined are certainly causes. Pointing it to just,

Speaker 1 I think, would be an overreach. Okay.
But is there a link potentially?

Speaker 2 Wow, you know your stuff. I'm impressed.
You just named a lot of bangs. Well done.

Speaker 2 You mentioned shorter relationships.

Speaker 1 Yeah, dating apps, right? They've really changed the dating game for most of us.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 there's a very different culture than our parents grew up with around dating.

Speaker 1 And I think that's greatly increased the anxiety around sexual encounters because they're more normalized, but they're also less intimate.

Speaker 1 There's less space to really get to know someone and have a safe container for those experiences. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 it's there are still long-term relationships, of course, happening out there. And some of them even meet through dating apps.
Right.

Speaker 1 But there's also a lot more kind of shuffling through people than we've seen in recent history. 100%.

Speaker 2 I feel like the outlier in my generation, because like I'm in an eight-year relationship, but all my friends are just, like you said, musical chairs. That seems to be the norm these days.

Speaker 1 And even if you want a serious relationship, it's just kind of the nature of dating apps. That's very hard to do.
Why is that? Well, 90% of dating apps are owned by the same parent company.

Speaker 1 That parent company has a goal, keep you on the app, right?

Speaker 1 So they're actually paying people in India to make fake profiles so that they can up their market shares and make it look like they have more users.

Speaker 1 So when people talk about bots and fake profiles, there's tons of those being intentionally flooded into dating apps.

Speaker 1 And then they're pushing the best matches to the back because why would they want you to get off of the apps, right? That's that's anti-their bottom line.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 So capitalism and dating is an interesting intersectionality.

Speaker 1 And I think a lot of people get disheartened on the apps, but it's important to realize, like, wait, even the smaller ones that seem independent have all been bought out by basically a monopoly. Wow.

Speaker 1 They're using the same algorithms. They have the same business plan.
And it's not trying to find you the love of your life, unfortunately.

Speaker 2 So that being said, what's your advice to people looking to get on some more dates on if the apps are being flooded with bots?

Speaker 1 It's hard, right? It's hard in a modern world, especially in a world where we are shifting cultures around who is the aggressor, who can kind of make the first move, so to speak.

Speaker 1 Right now, we see a lot of men really afraid to make the, you know, especially nice guys. Like, we don't want to bother someone at a bar if they're with their friends.

Speaker 1 We don't want to make the first move. And that's understandable.
It's a scary world for men at the moment.

Speaker 1 However, when women make the first move, that can get into whole other territories. Then men need to be now the sayer of no, and they haven't really caught that memo where they slow down the pacing.

Speaker 1 So it's hard to meet people in public. The only people kind of

Speaker 1 being met, like going and hitting on women in public are really not the good guys.

Speaker 1 And so women are tired of it and don't want to be hit on at all. And it's hard.
I think we have to go back to creating spaces that are safe for people to have conversations and meet in real life.

Speaker 1 I don't know the answer on how we get there.

Speaker 2 That's a good point. Yeah, the guys approaching them in public are drunk at the bar, at the club,

Speaker 2 players or whatever you want to call them, you know? Right.

Speaker 1 If you're a semi-decent guy these days, you're probably not the one approaching someone at a bar. And while that's good in some ways, that also means that the only people who are approaching us are

Speaker 1 insert expletive here. Right.

Speaker 2 What about a burning man? That might be a good spot.

Speaker 1 Burning,

Speaker 1 there's a whole thing called, you know, burning, burn loves. You meet your love, but it's, it's a love for a day or a week.
They're rarely long-term. Sometimes they are.

Speaker 1 I know people who've met their love on playa and gotten married through Burning Man because it is a very in-person world, although that's changing too now because they're with.

Speaker 1 With the addition of cell phone service out there, unfortunately, everyone is now bringing their phone, doing their photo shoots.

Speaker 1 There's a lot less freedom for just really experiencing life because you don't know if someone's filming you.

Speaker 2 See, I'm mixed on that one because it does sound good to not have your phone for three days, but at the same time, wouldn't you want to have some memories?

Speaker 1 I've been to almost 40 burns. I have three selfies of me.
I am not a photo human. I turn my phone off when I go to festival.
It is all about the in-person connections for me.

Speaker 1 I'm not the one to ask. I know other people have a different relationship to phones and photos and might actually look back at those memories where I'll be like, ah, I have to pay more storage.

Speaker 1 I don't like it.

Speaker 2 I'm on the max storage plan on my iPhones.

Speaker 1 But do you ever look back at those photos?

Speaker 2 To be honest, no. But I feel like one day I might.

Speaker 1 Maybe, maybe. But what if you had been in that moment fully and present? Wouldn't you remember that far longer than when your phone breaks or that data plan goes away and all those photos are lost?

Speaker 1 And now you weren't even present to really remember what happened. Right.

Speaker 2 And that's something I'm working on, honestly, because my generation likes to document every meal we have. We like to just just take so many photos, but being present is important too.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think that's a safety barrier, right? It's like, it's a lot easier to see the world through your phone and feel a little safer.

Speaker 1 I think that's something that your generation has kind of gotten used to, this kind of screen between me and you.

Speaker 1 It can be really scary and vulnerable to be in the present moment and actually aware and accountable for that moment.

Speaker 2 100%. Yeah.
It feels weird to me sometimes, you know, to be like having conversations, making eye contact with people. Like, cause I'm just on my phone, like, nine hours a day.

Speaker 2 This podcast definitely helped me like talk to people more.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, when you're talking about ED, like that lack of like even eye contact being scary, to me, that speaks volumes to the lack of intimacy.

Speaker 1 And of course, that would contribute to erectile dysfunction because even men, we like to say, oh, no, they're just ready to go at all times. That's a total myth.
Men need intimacy as well.

Speaker 1 They need safety. They need to feel like there's space to mess up and be human.
And the brain-body link is the number one thing when it comes to sexuality.

Speaker 1 So as a therapist, when I'm doing sex therapy with people and treating it, number one thing is getting people back in their bodies and out of their heads, out of that anxiety mindset and reconnecting with real intimacy.

Speaker 2 I was just going to ask what some common issues were with sex therapy, but you pretty much answered it there.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's a very common thing we see. Couples having desire discrepancies, right? It changes throughout your lifetime.
That's natural. One partner might want more sex than the other.

Speaker 1 And turns out desire is something you can grow. Really? Of course.
But it's something that you have to want to grow, A, and there's a lot of factors that weave together in that.

Speaker 1 The

Speaker 1 trauma factor and looking at if there's anything that's preventing you there, the physical factor, but much more so the mental factors.

Speaker 2 Have you dealt with a sexless marriage yet?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Were you able to help that? Yeah, really? Yeah, definitely. Wow.
Yeah. Even what's interesting is one of them, I only was treating the male partner.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 His wife had no interest in coming to couples therapy. And

Speaker 1 I was able to help him, but through him being helped, they actually increased their sex life just kind of vicariously through that intimacy getting better. Okay.

Speaker 2 So they don't need both partners there? That's interesting to me.

Speaker 1 Not always. I mean, it's ideal to have both people, especially for certain techniques, right? You're going to want the consent of both people.

Speaker 1 And that was something we talked about a lot with him is we're not doing anything without the consent of your partner. Right.

Speaker 1 So you're changing and then you're asking, hey, is this okay to try on or would you like to do this or that?

Speaker 2 I got to hear how you fix that because there's a lot of guys in like whether it's sexless or like one a month, which I consider pretty much sexless, like they're stuck there, you know?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, that's huge.

Speaker 1 Differences in libido is, I think, probably one of the number one things we see for couples counseling.

Speaker 1 So it's normal. If you're out there and experiencing that, it's normal.

Speaker 1 Desire can be grown in some people, but it takes hard work and it takes a lot of that looking inward that I think makes men very afraid, right?

Speaker 1 They haven't been told that they're allowed to do that, that they're allowed to be emotional, that they're allowed to be soft. And

Speaker 1 women sometimes need that for emotional safety in order to really be able to be in their bodies and enjoy the sex that they are having.

Speaker 1 That's number one thing. Like, yeah, you can be having lots of sex, but are both people enjoying the sex that they're having?

Speaker 2 That's important. Sometimes it's one-sided, right?

Speaker 1 Quite often. Unfortunately, that's the socialization of women is kind of, this is our job we're supposed to do.

Speaker 1 So there's a lot of women out there kind of doing it because they're supposed to rather than because they want to. Damn.
Yeah. And it's really unfortunate.
And I even as a, like.

Speaker 1 Even someone who had parents who talked to me about sexuality, someone who thought I very much owned my own body and my own sexuality, those scripts affected me as well we don't escape culture and those subconscious messages right men receive a lot of messages women do we are trained from disney on how to think about ourselves and act appropriately and what we should be ashamed of and what we should be proud of what's masculine what's feminine there's all these scripts that we've been brought up with so to think that anyone is free of that, it's like, I'm sorry, you're not.

Speaker 1 It affected me hugely. And I spent a lot of years in therapy kind of untangling and decolonizing my mind from that automatic programming.
Damn.

Speaker 2 Well done. Well done.
Now I hear this from guys. I want to get your opinion on this, if it's true or not.
Does a woman's sex drive go down after they have kids?

Speaker 1 Statistics are mixed on this. So some women, yes, do have a hormonal shift.

Speaker 1 More so than after, I mean, after kids, it's for different reasons. Like menopause, there can be kind of a decline, but most women actually peak their sexuality in their 30s and 40s.

Speaker 1 So most women are more sexual biologically during that time. However, kids are insanely stressful, y'all, right?

Speaker 1 When you don't even have time to shower, the last thing on your mind is what sexy negligee am I going to wear for my husband tonight. So I think it's less about a biological dip and more about

Speaker 1 what's going on in our lifetime. Is there a life stressor that is preventing us from this? So, if guys really want to get laid more after having kids, help with the baby.

Speaker 1 Help with the chores.

Speaker 1 I bet you she's going to be a little more in the mood when the house is clean and there's nothing in the back of her mind on the to-do list running so that she's not present in her body.

Speaker 1 The more present you can make her in that moment by helping take things off of her plate, the easier it's going to be for her to get in the mood.

Speaker 2 Interesting.

Speaker 1 Good to know as a soon-to-be husband and hopefully having kids soon congrats yeah i will try to help out with the baby as much as i can yeah it's i mean it people think of it oh that's not my responsibility well why not like it takes two to make a child and it is often overstress that kills sex drives for both partners you're not sleeping right first couple years first couple years sleep is gonna be

Speaker 2 less than less than ideal already mentally preparing and now i have guests telling me not to get nannies because it ruins the bond with you and the baby so i'm like all right

Speaker 1 you know one of the things I think with kids is you're going to do the best you can. However, you do it is how you do it.
There's no perfect way.

Speaker 1 There's, you know, you can do as much planning as you want. Some people have nannies and it works great for them.

Speaker 1 Others don't. And that works better.
Right. Right.
What works for you is going to be what works for you. The most important factor for kids is that they are loved.
That's it.

Speaker 1 That's it.

Speaker 1 Just love them.

Speaker 2 Does a non-monogamy lifestyle work with kids, in your opinion?

Speaker 1 You know, one of the hardest things for me in my personal dating life has been finding someone who really wants kids and is non-monogamous.

Speaker 1 But Vegas is not known as a city that people move to because they want to start a family in general. So that could be more of a location issue.

Speaker 1 There are tons of people raising kids in happy polyamorous relationships, especially in the Northwest, but all over the world.

Speaker 1 Some are more out than others, but it is certainly something that has been proven scientifically to be healthy and normal

Speaker 1 and have no ill effects beyond, like in

Speaker 1 other than other types of relationships, there are the same outcomes.

Speaker 2 See, that to me is interesting because I know with divorced parents, the kids have different outcomes than when they're married, right? The worst outcomes. But you're saying with...

Speaker 2 polygamy parents, it's the same outcomes.

Speaker 1 With polyamory, they do not see any diminished outcomes for kids.

Speaker 1 Divorce still in a polyamorous or a monogamous relationship relationship is something that has a hard effect on kids because it's an abrupt change.

Speaker 1 But when you think about it, if you have a polyamorous couple and maybe a thruple, maybe a quad, if you have four parents to share those stressful duties of, I mean, first two years, you're not sleeping, right?

Speaker 1 How much easier would it be with four parents?

Speaker 1 Like having time to yourself to take that shower might make it so that you have the patience to actually really be present with your child and love them. So it's possible to have better outcomes.

Speaker 1 One of the hardest things for polyamorous families is the stigma around it. The kids being teased at school or others not understanding.

Speaker 1 But usually they're getting more healthy adults loving them in their life, more variety of differences and learning how to deal with differences.

Speaker 1 Even financially, right? It's hard to have a kid on two incomes now.

Speaker 1 Three or four incomes? Okay,

Speaker 1 a lot of people are turning to polyamory just for economic reasons. Yeah, now we're talking.

Speaker 2 I saw a throw bowl in Vegas. I was like, damn, I've never seen that before, but she was owning it.
It was her and two guys. Every time one of them would bowl, the other two would be making out.

Speaker 1 So I was like, all right. Yeah.
It's far more common and far healthier than people know, but this is why visibility matters, right? So there's a new show out on polyamory.

Speaker 1 There was a lot of like bad representation before. And I think this is something that needs more representation in media of how it can be healthy.

Speaker 1 Because as it becomes a buzzword, ooh, polyamory or open relationships, right? A lot of people are trying it on, but a lot of people are not getting the guidance and education.

Speaker 1 They need to do it well. So they're not doing it ethically.
They're hurting people in the process. And then when it all burns around them, they're saying, oh, polyamory is the problem.
Well,

Speaker 1 okay, you can have unhealthy monogamy as well. That doesn't mean you turn around and say monogamy is the problem, right? It's just that you're not doing it in an ethical way.

Speaker 1 There's a lot of trip and fall in polyamory, especially in the beginning. There's a lot of hard lessons you just kind of got to learn.

Speaker 1 And the decolonizing of your mind is huge, right? Like there are so many social scripts we have about romantic relationships

Speaker 1 and gender responsibilities and jealousy being love, right? That's one of them.

Speaker 1 Being jealous means love. Well, have we ever explored that? Have we ever really like looked at if that's true? So yeah, polyamory is hard work.

Speaker 1 It's like like i said in the beginning not for the faint of heart and that's why i'm a poly counselor and i help people through those steps it's very important that we see this done well and we don't take the few bad examples as like it meaning that polyamory itself is unhealthy yeah right i mean if we look at the statistics on monogamy 60 of marriages anywhere from 50 to 60 percent percent depending on the study admit to cheating and 50 to 60 percent end in divorce so mathematically

Speaker 1 do we think monogamy is working based on those numbers right and that's you said admit to cheating so it could be even higher than 60 it could be even higher than that right so we're we're we're playing pretend at monogamy but biology comes into play right

Speaker 1 and divorce is now at 50 to 60 percent and is something that's harmful to children so

Speaker 1 With those two things, I'm like, but monogamy does work really, really well for some people. And that's a perfectly valid preference.
But so is polyamory. It's just a different way of doing things.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And it can look very different relationship to relationship.
It's just taking outside of those very prescribed small box of monogamy.

Speaker 1 Outside of that, you have to have conversations about what it looks like. Because it could be, I'm with one person until I'm 80 years old.
And I have one.

Speaker 1 romantic but not sexual partner who I have a romantic relationship and phone calls who lives in London.

Speaker 1 That could be a version of polyamory. Or it could be we have a once a year vacation where we get to go do what we want and, you know, no questions asked and then we come back to our lives.

Speaker 1 That could be a version. Or it could be I live with my partner and his partner and we raise kids together.

Speaker 1 It's just taking away the script. So you have to be someone who's willing to get creative and have those hard conversations and really define everything.

Speaker 1 But that's good communication in any relationship. Right.

Speaker 1 So, when I do premarital counseling for people, it's the same thing. Have you really looked at definitions? Have you really looked at what are the rules? What are the agreements?

Speaker 1 What's the meaning making of different things?

Speaker 1 Because assuming we're coming together, having the exact same upbringing is not going to go well in any type of relationship.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's really good to know. I wonder what the stats are on polyamory relationships lasting compared to monogamy.

Speaker 1 I don't have those off the top of my head. So,

Speaker 2 something to look into.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Chat GPT, help me out here, right? And there's not as many couples to study.
So there's not the longitudinal studies that we see with monogamy yet. But

Speaker 1 I know enough people personally doing it very, very well, raising kids in healthy situations that I can say anecdotally, this is not something that can't work.

Speaker 2 What about when it's closed off on one end?

Speaker 2 Because that's like a big thing in the red pill movement right now, where the guy can sleep with like whoever he wants, but the girl can't sleep with any other guys have you seen that work

Speaker 1 so you use the word can't right so there are people who have an agreement because it just works better for them where one person doesn't want to date and the other does yeah and that's okay if it's by agreement unfortunately most of what we see is this one-sidedness coming from

Speaker 1 patriarchy and misogyny, right? Where the guy has a higher sex drive, the girl kind of gets pressured into, well, fine, you can do it.

Speaker 1 But when it comes to her freedom of her body, the man feels threatened and says, absolutely not. Right.
So in my opinion, that's, that's not an equitable relationship.

Speaker 1 That's something I would really explore and look at consent issues and power dynamics and make sure that everyone was feeling good about that decision or had they been coerced into that decision.

Speaker 2 Makes sense. Yeah, I know that's a big debated topic right now.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 2 Well, this has been really informative. Thank you so much.
I'm excited to go further in my therapy journey now, now, to be honest.

Speaker 1 I'm excited for you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I might even do some premarital stuff.

Speaker 1 It can be transformational. I highly recommend premarital, just like having someone there to neutrally go through all those, hey, what haven't we thought about yet that might become issues later?

Speaker 1 Right. Could save you 10 years of headache down the road.

Speaker 2 Yeah, because I don't really open up about these things with her one-on-one. So I might need that, to be honest.
So thank you. Thank you for your time.
Where can people email you? I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 So Ariana Throne MFT at gmail.com is my email.

Speaker 1 If anyone wants to reach out, if they have comments, or if you want to become a client, I'm licensed as a marriage and family therapist intern in Nevada currently.

Speaker 1 So that's Ariana with one N, thrown like Game of Thrones, MFT at gmail.com.

Speaker 2 Awesome. We'll link it below.
Thanks for coming on.

Speaker 1 Yeah, thank you so much.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so check her out, guys. Email her if you need anything.
Peace.

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