SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Monogamous Marriage Podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We're Kate and Liam, married bisexuals a decade into our non-monogamous journey.
SPEAKER_02: We've been having sex with our friends for years, and we're still madly in love with each other.
SPEAKER_00: We're the authors of the Monogamous Marriage Blog, where we've been overthinking sex and love since 2016.
SPEAKER_00: This podcast is the place where we process our sexual adventures in real time.
SPEAKER_02: We are not experts, and nothing we say should be mistaken for professional advice.
SPEAKER_02: The show contains mature language and sexual content, so if you're under 18, it isn't for you.
SPEAKER_02: But if you're a fellow overthinker and you're not freaked out by unfiltered conversation, you're gonna feel right at home.
SPEAKER_00: Last month we had a really interesting experience with Catherine from Expansive Connection.
SPEAKER_00: So she has been our therapist through some difficult chapters in our life together, some of which were played out on this very podcast.
SPEAKER_01: They all were.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: But this was more of a let's get together and have a fun experimental experience rather than let's get together and try to save our relationship.
SPEAKER_00: And that was to have an MDMA-assisted therapy session.
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: So we need to back up and tell a couple stories before we get to the actual therapy session.
SPEAKER_00: Let's do that.
SPEAKER_02: So the first is we have decided to do a couples retreat in Whistler, BC with only past customers of Sapio Tours, so people we know well.
SPEAKER_02: And the idea is that we will come together in the mountains.
SPEAKER_02: Catherine will lead us in the morning through couples coaching, where we'll do some journaling and some group discussions and some small group sharing.
SPEAKER_02: And then at the end of the week, we will all do an MDMA assisted therapy where she'll lead us through some tantra and we will read our journals to each other, to our partners in that open-hearted state.
SPEAKER_02: And for the people who don't know what MDMA is, it's not exactly a psychedelic.
SPEAKER_00: We call it an empathogen.
SPEAKER_00: So something that encourages greater connection between human beings.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: So it releases serotonin and dopamine, which make you feel good, but also increase your um, you know, kind of feelings of connectedness and love, open heartedness.
SPEAKER_02: It takes away your fear and shame.
SPEAKER_02: And so we've found it just in our own use very therapeutic and helpful for us as we've talked through some of the things that have been difficult for us when we're sober.
SPEAKER_02: And um, so we're really excited about doing this with a group and bringing this to a place where it is legal.
SPEAKER_00: British Columbia, Canada.
SPEAKER_02: And and then having the option after to touch each other because it also increases your good feelings on your body and um makes sex pretty fantastic.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm so excited about this.
SPEAKER_00: I want to pay you to go there.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm your assistant, I get to go for free, but it's just yeah, it's gonna be unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00: So that made us think we should do something of a dress rehearsal.
SPEAKER_00: Is that what we would call it?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: So Catherine didn't have a lot of experience in leading these MDMA assisted therapy sessions.
SPEAKER_02: She hasn't had the opportunity.
SPEAKER_02: So as part of her practice and part of our trying to figure out what would the best um format be for this with a group, we decided to do a practice session with her.
SPEAKER_02: And then the second context we need is that we had just come out of a women's retreat.
SPEAKER_02: So Catherine and I lead women's retreats together.
SPEAKER_02: And we had just done a three-day retreat in the mountains of Tennessee with 29 women.
SPEAKER_02: And it was, as it always is, this life-changing experience, you know, being in a group of women that are just there to be open and explore and are finding peace and joy in their bodies, some of them for the first time, feeling sensual pleasure, just being joyful and free.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
SPEAKER_02: I love watching it happen.
SPEAKER_02: And you you see it happen inevitably over the course of three days.
SPEAKER_03: Right.
SPEAKER_02: So I had come off the high of this.
SPEAKER_02: And one of the reasons I was on a high was because I had made a really um intense connection, both socially and sexually, with one of the women there.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: So now we're in Catherine's therapy space and we take MDMA, and one of the preparations we had done on the afternoon was to write a letter to ourselves from fear, as if fear was writing the note.
SPEAKER_00: What does our fear want us to know?
SPEAKER_00: What is our fear afraid of in our futures?
SPEAKER_00: So we also did a letter from love.
SPEAKER_02: Love and desire.
SPEAKER_00: And desire.
SPEAKER_00: But for the purposes of this podcast, we're just going to focus on the fear one.
SPEAKER_00: So why don't you just tell me what you wrote down in your letter from fear?
SPEAKER_02: I wrote this journal sober during the afternoon.
SPEAKER_02: And what came up was, I am afraid, that had I been able to live in a different world, so a different time, a different religious structure, a different family, I would have been a lesbian.
SPEAKER_03: Right.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and that I have lived my whole life trying to figure out how to have relationships with men.
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, you're my third husband, so I've had some real failures.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you certainly expended an admirable amount of effort.
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
SPEAKER_02: And I've had a lot of sex with a lot of men.
SPEAKER_02: And there's always been something missing, something that felt like I wasn't quite connecting in the way I felt I was capable of connecting.
SPEAKER_03: Right.
SPEAKER_02: And so it became clear as I was writing this letter that um I was really grieving the possibility of having lived a different life and not just in different relationships, but that I internally could have had a different relationship with myself.
SPEAKER_03: Right.
SPEAKER_02: That I could have maybe felt more comfortable in my body, more in tune with my own sexuality and pleasure, because I'm so focused on other people.
SPEAKER_02: I I often say, Don't worry about me, I'm not gonna come.
SPEAKER_03: Right.
SPEAKER_02: And if I had been more authentic and been able to follow, as I trace it back, maybe my most authentic sexual desires and been with women, maybe I could have had a different relationship with sex.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: So how much of that wondering was inspired by the Glenn Doyle story?
SPEAKER_00: Um You can briefly tell her story for those in the audience who don't know her.
SPEAKER_00: She's a big person in your life in terms of influence.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: I hadn't thought about it that way, but uh Glenn and Doyle is an author and a podcaster, and she was married to a man for a long time and then had this moment where Abby Wombach, who is an Olympic soccer player, walked in the room, and the thing that popped into her head was there she is.
SPEAKER_02: And there was this moment of awakening and recognition that this was the person she was supposed to be with.
SPEAKER_02: And she broke up her marriage and, you know, became a lesbian.
SPEAKER_02: And um, I read that book in March of 2020, right at the beginning of the pandemic, and it spoke to me.
SPEAKER_02: And I don't know that I would have said at the time it was because of that lesbian awakening in her.
SPEAKER_02: I think it was more about just like the freedom she described, like the breaking free of the chains or the box that society puts you in.
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I hadn't really thought about it that way.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I think of her as being a precursor for you, providing maybe a mental model for someone who has lived their life as a heterosexual person, basically, although we're going to go through your same-sex history and it is substantial.
SPEAKER_00: But that she was a precursor of a person who kind of switched tracks and felt more at home in her body once she had aligned her sexuality with her being, I guess is a way I would describe it.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, it's only conjecture on my part that you might have been inspired by her.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I wouldn't give her too much credit in in that regard.
SPEAKER_02: So, as you said, I've got a long history of sexual and emotional attraction to women.
SPEAKER_02: My first sexual experience was with another girl.
SPEAKER_02: I've told this story before, but we were like six years old, I think it was first grade, and she went upstairs and got a Hustler magazine from her dad's closet.
SPEAKER_02: And we looked through it, and there was this um photo essay of a woman who was like the mistress of the house and she was seducing her maid.
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, it's very stereotypical, made for men, of course.
SPEAKER_02: But as a six-year-old, I remember going through those photos and feeling a tingling.
SPEAKER_02: And it was so powerful, like wanting to do something about that.
SPEAKER_02: And then she and I, this friend, um, for the next at least year, we would go down to the basement and hide behind a couch and play house, where we'd basically like dry hump each other and French kiss.
SPEAKER_04: Right.
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, as we got a little bit older, I showed her how to masturbate.
SPEAKER_02: And I think we got as far as like taking pants off together.
SPEAKER_02: And I remember that feeling in my body, that like heat and drive toward her.
SPEAKER_02: And she and I stayed best friends up until eighth grade.
SPEAKER_02: And I was jealous.
SPEAKER_02: She had two different boyfriends.
SPEAKER_02: I was so jealous of her boyfriends.
SPEAKER_02: And we would stay after school with one of her boyfriends who I also had a crush on.
SPEAKER_02: And I would play truth or dare with them.
SPEAKER_02: So I would dare them to do sexual things to each other.
SPEAKER_02: And at that time, like a sexual thing was like put your hand up her shirt or like put your hand down his pants or whatever.
SPEAKER_02: And I would stand there with them watching.
SPEAKER_02: Ugh, like, I don't know if I could drip with wetness at that age, but like dripping is kind of conveyed the feeling I had, like so turned on.
SPEAKER_02: And it wasn't about him, it was about her.
SPEAKER_03: Right.
SPEAKER_02: Like I was making him do what I wanted to do to her.
SPEAKER_03: Right.
SPEAKER_02: Ugh.
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, that could could maybe be my earliest threesome.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe I've always been a little non-monogamous that way.
SPEAKER_03: Right.
SPEAKER_02: And then I put that away.
SPEAKER_02: I felt guilty about that.
SPEAKER_00: And did you try to pray the gay away?
SPEAKER_02: Of course I did.
SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_02: Please, Jesus, don't let me be a lesbian.
SPEAKER_02: When I learned the word lesbian, I was really scared.
SPEAKER_02: Because there was this recognition, like, oh, is that me?
SPEAKER_02: Is that what I am?
SPEAKER_02: And I think that was maybe fifth grade.
SPEAKER_02: And so yeah, I prayed so hard.
SPEAKER_02: Like, don't let me be that thing.
SPEAKER_00: I'm curious.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember being explicitly told that's wrong in your religious or family upbringing?
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: And my parents were of the hate the sin, love the sinner kinds of Christians, right?
SPEAKER_02: So they were compassionate to, you know, people who were living in sin or were tempted that way.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but it was very clear from them and from the church that being a homosexual was a sin against God.
SPEAKER_02: And we were to have compassion for those people, but we were also to judge their actions as wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And you believe you were told that explicitly?
SPEAKER_00: Because in my growing up, I think it was just understood.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think anyone at church warned us not to be thinking lustful thoughts of same-sex individuals.
SPEAKER_00: Later, I heard lots of anti-gay stuff, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So I was just curious about what you had or hadn't heard explicitly.
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_02: So compare and contrast that feeling I had for her to um my first boyfriend when I was 17.
SPEAKER_02: And wow, there was no heat.
SPEAKER_02: It was logical.
SPEAKER_02: Like I made a pros and cons list for why I should or should not be in a relationship with this boy who I had grown up with in church.
SPEAKER_02: So there were lots of things in the pro category.
SPEAKER_02: Like our parents were friends, he believed the same things I believed.
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, he was a nice guy.
SPEAKER_00: And good looking.
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
SPEAKER_02: But our whole five years of marriage, I never had an orgasm with him.
SPEAKER_03: Right.
SPEAKER_02: And you could say it's just I didn't know how.
SPEAKER_02: But I don't remember, and I could be, you know, seeing things wrong at this stage.
SPEAKER_02: I don't remember that heat and that lust and that draw toward him.
SPEAKER_00: So even when you never making out in the first time it slipped in, so you've told that story a few times.
SPEAKER_02: It was two years into our relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I know.
SPEAKER_00: But you weren't feeling like a heat, like, get give me that thing.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, maybe.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't as spontaneous as it had been with your best girlfriend.
SPEAKER_02: It certainly didn't start out that way.
SPEAKER_02: It was very logical.
SPEAKER_02: Like, these are the reasons why I should date this boy.
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_02: So I wasn't consciously thinking I should make sure that I'm straight.
SPEAKER_02: By then I had just dismissed those childhood things as like, oh, we were bad.
SPEAKER_02: We did some bad things.
SPEAKER_04: Right.
SPEAKER_02: But anyway, once I started to open myself up to Melissa, and we've told this story of our first encounter where she and I were just friends.
SPEAKER_02: We've been best friends for like three or four years.
SPEAKER_02: And we got a little drunk one night and we went upstairs while my husband was downstairs.
SPEAKER_02: And she kneeled in front of me and started kissing me and rubbing my pussy through my pants.
SPEAKER_02: And I was just like, what is happening?
SPEAKER_02: But that same rush of heat came just like, like I can't breathe.
SPEAKER_02: Like I'm so excited.
SPEAKER_02: And it makes me emotional thinking about it.
SPEAKER_02: Like it was such a contrast to the sex I had been having.
SPEAKER_02: I think we took, took off our clothes down to our underwear and masturbated beside each other.
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, that was such a powerful thing.
SPEAKER_02: I um I went immediately to my husband, told him, hey, this crazy thing just happened.
SPEAKER_02: But I could not, like I couldn't just say, oh, that was silly.
SPEAKER_02: We were drunk.
SPEAKER_02: Like I had to have more.
SPEAKER_02: So I worked to get him to agree to have a threesome with her because that was the only way I could square it in my mind.
SPEAKER_02: Like I have to have sex with her, but I can't cheat on my husband.
SPEAKER_02: So we had threesomes for a while.
SPEAKER_02: And then he said to me, I think you like her more than me.
SPEAKER_03: Right.
SPEAKER_02: And I couldn't say that he was wrong.
SPEAKER_02: Um, so we broke up shortly after that.
SPEAKER_02: And then there was that period of time where, you know, we were best friends and we were doing what best friends do, but we were also going back to her place and having sex after.
SPEAKER_02: And that's when I met you.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: She was a part of our first date story.
SPEAKER_00: Not the first date where we sat in a restaurant and told each other our life stories, but the first time we went to enjoy an afternoon at a waterfront park.
SPEAKER_00: And we had an intense sexual connection without having intercourse, but uh just an amazing time.
SPEAKER_00: And then you were so turned on you went back to her place and had sex with her and sent me video clips of the two of you together.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I knew at that point that there was something powerful here that I was not willing to put away again.
SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, that was part of my condition when I talked to you about a relationship was that I have to continue to explore this in some way.
SPEAKER_02: And I don't know what that's gonna look like, but I'm not willing to ignore it anymore.
SPEAKER_02: So that was strong enough that it, you know, it became a condition of my life going forward.
SPEAKER_00: And by extension, a condition of my life.
SPEAKER_02: Which turned out to be pretty awesome for both of us.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Short-lived though.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think we had more than three threesomes together.
SPEAKER_00: And you two might have played separately together.
SPEAKER_02: But it brought us into the lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: It was like life-changing, but it wasn't this long extended exploration.
SPEAKER_00: It was kind of like another brief stop on your same-sex journey.
SPEAKER_00: So instead of having the continuity of your marriages, you were on the hetero train, but you kept stepping off at stations along the route, and those were like your various same-sex adventures.
SPEAKER_00: So there was continuity, but it was not something that happened regularly for you.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: And unfortunately, when we got into the lifestyle, it became very heteronormative, right?
SPEAKER_02: Like it was very much couples swapping.
SPEAKER_02: So the women might have a few minutes at the beginning to kiss each other and maybe even like lick each other's pussies for a minute or two.
SPEAKER_02: But then the understanding in our practice was quite often that then you switch, and then I'm spending the majority of my time getting fucked by a man.
SPEAKER_02: And so we finally got conscious about changing that script in Antigua.
SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02: So there were three couples who were all by.
SPEAKER_02: So the men were by and the women were by.
SPEAKER_02: And we decided that one night the men were gonna go out into the hot tub and the women were gonna go upstairs, and they were not the men were not allowed to come up until we called them.
SPEAKER_02: So the idea was we're going to take the the urgency of the male energy out of the room and give the women time to just enjoy each other as long as we wanted to.
SPEAKER_02: And that was so powerful for me that I kind of fell in love with one of those women.
SPEAKER_03: Right.
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_02: And I look back now, and you know, she's an awesome human, but probably a lot of the the power of that was the novelty of being in a space with another woman who was also very sapphic.
SPEAKER_02: Like she had a lot of powerful sexual energy.
SPEAKER_00: Without mentioning a name, who was the third woman in that room?
SPEAKER_00: So there were three of us guys in the hot tub.
SPEAKER_00: I can't remember who the third guy was.
SPEAKER_02: The redhead.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00: So she is a firecracker herself.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Like super sexy.
SPEAKER_00: But for some reason, you're with two women, both very sexy, but the sexiness of one just beams right into your soul in that experience.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: So both of us walked out of that room kind of shaky, feeling like, wow, something happened here.
SPEAKER_02: You know, we talked about that in our bisexual episode.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: And so who mentioned it to whom?
SPEAKER_00: Like, did you say to her there's something that we should hold on to here that we shouldn't just let go?
SPEAKER_00: Or did she say it to you, or was it a pure unspoken understanding?
SPEAKER_02: Um, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02: She said to me that night, I feel shaky.
SPEAKER_02: Like, what just happened?
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_02: And um then they found out that we were gonna be at Naughty in New Orleans a couple weeks later, and they're like, Okay, we're coming.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_02: Or or they were gonna be there and we said, Okay, we're coming.
SPEAKER_00: I think we're the ones who signed up.
SPEAKER_02: One of us had already signed up and the other one wasn't sure.
SPEAKER_02: So anyway, so we continued to have a relationship for about a year and just like when we could see each other traveling and we went away together for five days to Miami.
SPEAKER_02: And I was so deeply in love with her.
SPEAKER_03: Right.
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I I think it was the fact that I f for the first time ever had like one-on-one time with a woman that was this sexual intense thing that wasn't dependent on men.
SPEAKER_02: And you know, there she was gorgeous, and we had a lot of things in common.
SPEAKER_00: And I felt it was the first time you had sex with someone or a sexual connection with someone who you couldn't ultimately get a mortgage with someday.
SPEAKER_00: So all of your other connections with men, because it's not like you have a long history.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't date 25 guys before you married your first husband.
SPEAKER_00: He was the first one you dated.
SPEAKER_00: So there was him, your second husband, a boyfriend in between who I think you would have gone all the way to the altar with, and then me.
SPEAKER_00: So there's all these guys who can get you something in life.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying that you were being acquisitive about it, but this was the first time there was no possibility of.
SPEAKER_00: That it was pure either lust or love or a delicious combination of the two that was driving you.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't believe that you'd had that experience in your life.
SPEAKER_00: There was always a practical dimension to your attractions before that.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: So you said that was the first time I'd had sex with someone I couldn't get a mortgage with.
SPEAKER_02: But you mean that was the first time I had been in love with someone I couldn't get a mortgage with?
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: So um, so that was that was kind of life-altering for me to have this adult experience of a relationship that was both sexual and emotional for me.
SPEAKER_02: And I came away from that heartbroken when it was over, but feeling like, wow, I discovered something about myself that it's not just a passing sexual attraction to women.
SPEAKER_02: I can be deeply in love with a woman.
SPEAKER_02: I could even imagine, if I weren't already married to you, living a life with a woman in a romantic partnership.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So that door closes, but other doors open.
SPEAKER_00: So you've had other connections.
SPEAKER_00: Now I would say that those connections have been circumscribed a bit by the hurt you experienced in that first intense all-in relationship with a woman.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_02: Um, two years ago, I went away for a weekend with Mrs.
SPEAKER_02: Honeyspoon and we talked very openly about it.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, we recorded a podcast about it that we never released, um, where we, you know, tried to decide, are we going to be each other's girlfriend?
SPEAKER_02: And what does that mean, practically speaking?
SPEAKER_02: And the conclusion I came to at that time was I already love you as a friend.
SPEAKER_02: And we have this beautiful dynamic between us where our husbands love each other, their besties, and and the four of us have a great social connection and sexual connection.
SPEAKER_02: She and I had the ability to go away and have these, you know, times where that just the two of us were together sexually.
SPEAKER_02: And I didn't want more than that because it made me afraid that I have the ability to have these really big feelings.
SPEAKER_02: I discovered.
SPEAKER_02: And I I felt afraid of like hurting our relationship if things got too intense.
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, that's kind of how it played out with my previous girlfriend, where when we broke up, I had, I would have guessed that we could be, we could continue to be friends after that the four of us had such great social chemistry that it would have been fine.
SPEAKER_02: It would have just been a slight pulling back.
SPEAKER_02: But it wasn't that way.
SPEAKER_02: It was just too painful.
SPEAKER_02: And so I was really, really afraid of doing that to another group of friends.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't want to explode our friend group that way.
SPEAKER_04: Right.
SPEAKER_02: So I've often said that I am capable of closing off my heart.
SPEAKER_02: Like that door has to be deliberately opened.
SPEAKER_02: I need to have permission to open that door, both from myself and from whoever I'm with.
SPEAKER_02: And if the door is closed, it's it's really firmly closed.
SPEAKER_03: Right.
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I'm talking about my emotions here in in this cryptic way.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: So I decided I needed to keep the door closed.
SPEAKER_02: I couldn't open it fully for her.
SPEAKER_03: Right.
SPEAKER_02: And uh I don't know if that hurt her.
SPEAKER_02: I think it did a little bit maybe, but I was just really, really scared of being hurt again and destroying a friendship again.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's that classic conundrum, which is do I risk it all for love?
SPEAKER_00: The heights we can reach together, or the promise of those heights is so great, I'm going to risk that I may be blowing up a relationship, not just my own, but almost within a community, to attain that thing.
SPEAKER_00: So it's interesting that you could say, no, I'm gonna take the defensive position.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna protect what I already have and not try to grasp beyond that and maybe do damage.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, more recently I've had a weekend away with Bay of Thumper and Bay.
SPEAKER_02: So um she and I did a ski weekend together, and we had an incredible like five-hour sex session in front of the fire.
SPEAKER_02: And you know, there was such a great sexual and heart connection there.
SPEAKER_02: And so what I realized is I do love these women, but there's a t there's a little part of me that isn't quite ready to say I am in love.
SPEAKER_03: Right.
SPEAKER_02: Because it could make things complicated and I'm scared of being hurt and I don't want to fuck things up.
SPEAKER_02: So then I experienced the same thing with this woman at the women's retreat.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: So you should talk about that in a little more detail.
SPEAKER_00: Because it didn't happen just at one women's retreat.
SPEAKER_00: It was something that built over that was built over three of them, was it?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Um yeah.
SPEAKER_02: So she is um someone who's come back for a few different retreats, and each time we have a sexual encounter.
SPEAKER_02: The first time was very just passing, like it was a sensual eating experience we had, but there was a real connection.
SPEAKER_00: Did you kiss on that first time?
SPEAKER_02: Uh yes.
SPEAKER_02: As part of the sensual eating, we did taste the fruit on each other's lips.
SPEAKER_03: Okay, how convenient.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's something very intense about her.
SPEAKER_02: Like she has this long, serious eye contact, and I just get pulled into her.
SPEAKER_02: Anyway, so you know, we kind of missed each other that time.
SPEAKER_02: She connected with someone else, and then the next time we we did get to connect sexually.
SPEAKER_00: And there was a real tension the second time, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like we are going to make time for each other.
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: And um, it was really good.
SPEAKER_02: And then this pastime was even better.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: And that was just six weeks ago.
SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, I I struggle to come with most people.
SPEAKER_02: And I told her that.
SPEAKER_02: And we had a couple nights in a row where she kept encouraging me to just let go, enjoy the pleasure.
SPEAKER_02: Don't focus on coming.
SPEAKER_02: It's not important.
SPEAKER_02: And so I tried to do that.
SPEAKER_02: It's hard for me, you know.
SPEAKER_02: I really want to come.
SPEAKER_02: Coming's great.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: So explain to me what the hard part is.
SPEAKER_02: Not being in that tense, focused.
SPEAKER_00: Like I've got an objective to attain, and that's my job.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_02: So on the final night, it was fun.
SPEAKER_02: I took her to one of the rooms where we had a whole bunch of toys laid out, and I said, Pick a couple toys you want to play with tonight.
SPEAKER_02: And she hesitated and wasn't sure what she wanted.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, Do you want me to pick?
SPEAKER_02: She said, Yes.
SPEAKER_02: So I picked up my collar and leash and I handed it to her and I said, I would like you to collar me.
SPEAKER_02: And she turned to Catherine and said, What does that mean?
SPEAKER_02: And Catherine's like, She wants you to make her do whatever you want her to do.
SPEAKER_02: And so there's this moment of hesitation and kind of shyness.
SPEAKER_02: But then as soon as she put that on me and took the leash, my God, there was this transformation.
SPEAKER_02: Like she just came into her power.
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, we went back to the room together.
SPEAKER_02: She led me down the hall on a leash.
SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting how that little strip of leather and that weak little chain with a handle on the end had such an effect, not just on you.
SPEAKER_00: So everyone gets how you put a collar on someone and that changes them.
SPEAKER_00: Some people will hate it, and some people will just love giving up control.
SPEAKER_00: But it also had an effect on her.
SPEAKER_00: I find that interesting.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, I got the idea because I had seen her kind of morphing in and out of this powerful position.
SPEAKER_02: And I guess one of the interesting things when you have two women together is it's not always clear who's going to take the dominant masculine role.
SPEAKER_02: And especially with a newish partner, you might not want to be like just bossy.
SPEAKER_00: Right, because you don't know how much of that they want and how much they're going to be put off by.
SPEAKER_02: So I saw her sometimes be powerful and then sometimes like step back and ask, is this okay?
SPEAKER_02: Is this what you want?
SPEAKER_02: And for me, as you know, I'm a submissive at heart.
SPEAKER_02: And that's probably what was so powerful about my previous girlfriend.
SPEAKER_02: Like she was a physically powerful person.
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: And so for me, seeing someone in their power who's gonna tell me what to do, ugh, so arousing.
SPEAKER_04: Right.
SPEAKER_02: Um, so yeah, so the act of putting that collar on and giving her the leash gave her permission to be bossy and to be powerful.
SPEAKER_02: And I think it was, I think it was a turn on for her, but it was certainly a huge turn on for me.
SPEAKER_02: And I came in ways I had never come before.
SPEAKER_02: You know, she made me come by denying me the vibrator.
SPEAKER_02: So she was fingering me from behind, like um, and then she used a strapless strap on on me and was kind of fucking me from behind, but she wouldn't let me use my vibrator.
SPEAKER_02: And I was getting more and more turned on, and like, and then finally at the end, she let me use the vibrator, and then the orgasm was crazy.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and that's in the context, as you said earlier, of a person who generally struggles to come in lifestyle situations.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but that was my normal way of coming, so I wasn't super surprised.
SPEAKER_02: I was glad I finally got there with her, but then it unlocked something in me that was just I don't know, like feral.
SPEAKER_02: I I it was crazy.
SPEAKER_02: I I was going down on her and fingering her with my legs hanging over the side of the bed.
SPEAKER_02: Like I wasn't touching myself, nothing was touching me.
SPEAKER_02: And as she started to come closer to orgasm, I did too.
SPEAKER_02: And it was like what I was doing to her body, I could feel it in my body.
SPEAKER_03: Right.
SPEAKER_02: And that was that like woman-to-woman thing.
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_02: Like I felt exactly what I was doing.
SPEAKER_00: Because you would know how it feels.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: And so I had a touchless orgasm.
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_02: Just like empathetically connecting with her body that way.
SPEAKER_02: And then and then it was on.
SPEAKER_02: It was just like I had, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02: It was like I had an hour-long orgasm.
SPEAKER_02: It just kept peeking and peaking and peaking, and we were like scissoring and thigh riding and just like, oh my God, it was so good.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: So it's two nights later we're in our session.
SPEAKER_02: So to come back to where we started, a little in media rest.
SPEAKER_02: So we're in the house with Catherine.
SPEAKER_02: I'm on MDMA and I read this letter to you that I am afraid I have missed out on this.
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_02: A life of this.
SPEAKER_03: Right.
SPEAKER_02: And I cried.
SPEAKER_02: It was Yeah, it was such a um and I it was it's hard to say it to you because I love you and we have good sex and um I love our life together.
SPEAKER_02: But it was like it was a thing that was possible for me that I didn't think was possible that made me wonder if like could I have had that my whole life?
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: So do you think those orgasms were symbolic?
SPEAKER_00: They weren't just they weren't just a neurological event in your body, but they were a message that this is something that you've never experienced before, and it might only ever have been possible with another woman.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not talking about the orgasms because they're peaks, but as you said, it was like an hour of just riding from peak to peak to peak in a way that you have never done with a man.
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: And it was uh an awareness of each other's bodies and what would feel good and what would work.
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, it was just a very different sexual energy.
SPEAKER_02: And it felt very like, oh, this is what I can do.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_02: And I don't think it was particular to her either.
SPEAKER_02: Like I wasn't falling in love with her.
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_02: It was like, here's a woman, and she's been a lesbian her whole life who really understands women's bodies.
SPEAKER_02: And she is taking me places I've never been before.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm sure other women could do this too.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I know another woman who did because just two weeks later we were at a birthday party.
SPEAKER_00: Oh it was a lifestyle birthday party, and there were a lot of people there we knew, a lot of people there we didn't know, probably 40 people in total who was big for a house party.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to tell the story of the woman you connected with, but before you tell that story, we're going to take a quick break.
SPEAKER_02: If you're interested in lifestyle travel, but wondering if there's an alternative to the pounding bass and non-stop drinking of keto and desire, we have great news for you.
SPEAKER_02: At Sapio Tours, we take small groups of non-monogamous couples to destinations of cultural interest in Europe like France and Italy and Greece.
SPEAKER_02: It's the best of both worlds.
SPEAKER_02: You get excursions you can actually tell your kids about, and the sexual opportunities that will be your little secret.
SPEAKER_02: That sounds like something you might like?
SPEAKER_02: Go to sapiotures.com s-a-p-i-o-t-o-r-s.com to find out more and to get on our mailing list.
SPEAKER_00: And now back to the monogamous marriage podcast.
SPEAKER_02: So a woman I hadn't even spoken to came up and asked if she could kiss me.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, sure.
SPEAKER_02: So um we kissed, and it was again one of those moments of like whoosh, like heat rushing to my loins, right?
SPEAKER_02: I was just like, holy shit, I gotta go have sex with this girl.
SPEAKER_02: So I think you were getting your pants on, like you were preparing to leave.
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, hold that thought.
SPEAKER_02: I gotta go upstairs.
SPEAKER_02: So we ran upstairs together.
SPEAKER_00: And um What was her opening gambit?
SPEAKER_02: Well, I said, I've gotta pee first, and she said, so do I.
SPEAKER_02: And then the two of us together, this was just like a Mr.
SPEAKER_02: Honeyspoon moment, said, Right, do you want to pee together?
SPEAKER_02: And we were like, Yes, let's go.
SPEAKER_02: So we ran into the bathroom and Dom saw us going in.
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_02: It was his party.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was actually Maria's birthday party.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_00: But he was the host as her husband.
SPEAKER_02: So we said, We're going to the bathroom.
SPEAKER_02: And he's like, Oh he's like, Can you pee on me?
SPEAKER_02: So, sure.
SPEAKER_02: So he just lay down in the tub and we went in there and peed on him.
SPEAKER_02: And that was the beginning of some wild sex.
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, so then the the two of us, just the two women, uh, went to the bed.
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, that was another moment of, oh my God, this is so good.
SPEAKER_02: Like I want this so much, and just scissoring her and her on top of me, and then and both of us kind of coming up dizzy, like what just happened?
SPEAKER_00: And but also very different.
SPEAKER_00: So if I go through your track record, your childhood friend, it's relational before it's sexual.
SPEAKER_00: And then Melissa, she's your best friend for five years, and then it becomes sexual.
SPEAKER_00: And the other girlfriend experiences you had were all social relationships first, and then took a turn for the sexual.
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly this woman appears on the scene, and there are fireworks.
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know what to conclude from that, except that there is a breadth to your same sex attraction that transcends easy categorization.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not just, oh, I see what happens with me.
SPEAKER_00: I become friends, and then I want to make it sexual.
SPEAKER_02: No, there's just a raw sexual attraction to women that I I hate to say this because there might be men listening who I've had sex with.
SPEAKER_02: I don't feel that draw toward men usually.
SPEAKER_02: So I can get there in in the middle of sex.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's an interesting thing because I've seen you really get there.
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
SPEAKER_00: Like in Portugal with Jason, Bay's husband, you had like the most spectacular orgasm of your life.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you said some words to that effect.
SPEAKER_02: Before that women's retreat weekend, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: And we were in Florida recently, and you were with another guy, and you were, to use your word again, feral with him.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: So the interesting thing with men is I don't feel super sexually drawn toward them.
SPEAKER_02: Like I think I wait for their energy.
SPEAKER_03: Right.
SPEAKER_02: I'm, you know, I'm discovering I'm very much an energetic sexually.
SPEAKER_02: And so a male with big sexual energy can pull me in and pull me along with him.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but I don't come at men with strong desire at the beginning.
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_02: They have to bring that energy to me.
SPEAKER_01: Right.
SPEAKER_02: And most of the sexual experiences I've had with men have been playful and fun and light.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like the Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Honey Spoon experiences.
SPEAKER_00: And he's just phenomenal and he's such a sense of hijinks that you've done unbelievable things with him.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: I do not dislike sex with men.
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_02: I've had so much fun, a lot of great sex, and I have gotten very turned on with men.
SPEAKER_02: The difference is my authentic desire does not drive me toward sex with men.
SPEAKER_00: In a way that it does towards.
SPEAKER_02: But I'm finding that it does with women.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: But I want to bring this back to you because I dropped a bomb on you while we were on M.
SPEAKER_02: I basically said, I think I might have been or should have been, or maybe am currently a lesbian.
SPEAKER_00: Or that I might have been part of a lifelong mistake.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: So you're sitting there, a man, my husband, who I think loves me.
SPEAKER_02: How does that land for you?
SPEAKER_00: It definitely rubs up against some very core aspirations of mine.
SPEAKER_00: Meaning that, you know, of course I want to be loved and adored by someone like you.
SPEAKER_00: But I also want to live a fantastic life that is not circumscribed by scripts about what's acceptable and what's not, what's predictable and what's not.
SPEAKER_00: So when you talk about wanting to explore your connection with other women at a deep level, that part of me that wants to be part of an amazing life really lights up.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not like, oh, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I think I can dig deep, and with some hard work and a lot of therapy, I could let you explore that.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, no, my spontaneous response is, oh, let's do this.
SPEAKER_00: How can I help?
SPEAKER_00: And what can I encourage in you?
SPEAKER_00: And it's not because I'm being philanthropic and trying to be selfless.
SPEAKER_00: It really does light something up in me.
SPEAKER_00: Like I've said it before that if I can begin a sentence with my wife's girlfriend said this the other day, it's like, oh, I want to be the kind of guy who starts a sentence like that.
SPEAKER_00: Because most guys never get the chance to say, my wife's girlfriend, and then say whatever comes after.
SPEAKER_00: So that reveals something about who I am.
SPEAKER_00: And I am very self-content.
SPEAKER_00: So if you were to, as I said on another episode, say I have another partner come along with me on a Sapio tourist trip to be my co-host.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just like, okay, that's great, because I've got a lot of things I would like to explore on my own.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about sexual things, maybe artistic and creative things.
SPEAKER_00: So you go do that and have fun and tell me what it was like after.
SPEAKER_00: So I bring that same kind of attitude, I guess, to this situation.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to be, I guess to put it in business terms, I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
SPEAKER_00: And again, that's because that's my deepest desire, not because I'm trying really hard to be understanding of this heartbreaking reality.
SPEAKER_02: Were you afraid at all to hear that?
SPEAKER_00: Nope.
SPEAKER_02: Were you surprised?
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
SPEAKER_00: I have to say honestly, just pleasantly.
SPEAKER_00: I loved it.
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, you have, since these times we've talked about, gone on a couple of dates with women.
SPEAKER_00: Your problem is you keep falling for women who live thousands of kilometers away.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So um, not always thousands, but not convenient.
SPEAKER_00: So, um, so you decided to date locally and you've gone on a couple of dates.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember walking through the house just after you left and feeling a little elation bubbling up in my body.
SPEAKER_00: And it was because of what you were up to.
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't because I was thinking, oh, imagine what they're gonna be like naked together.
SPEAKER_00: It was this kind of emotional openness that for someone like me is extremely exciting, and to be a part of it feels great.
SPEAKER_00: So I don't have a fear.
SPEAKER_00: I feel like there are two things going on.
SPEAKER_00: One, I feel like we've built a very complex life together that it would make no sense to unravel.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it would if I delivered an ultimatum to you and said, You've got to choose because this will not stand.
SPEAKER_00: You're not treating me with the respect a man deserves in his own household.
SPEAKER_00: You should be forsaking all others and cleaving only to me to co-opt the biblical language.
SPEAKER_02: That might turn me on a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So I will try that next time we're in bed.
SPEAKER_00: But I just felt like I wanted to be a part of that thing.
SPEAKER_00: And it was very natural to me to want that for you and very exciting in even a self-centered way.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Because the the next idea was what do we do with this now?
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_02: And so what we have done is I came home and got on a lesbian dating site and have now gone on five dates with three different women.
SPEAKER_02: And two of them are shaping up to be people I'm definitely interested in.
SPEAKER_02: But before we started down this road, you and I had a conversation.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, I've got that door in me that is closed.
SPEAKER_02: I will not open the door of love to someone else if you tell me right now that you don't want me to do that.
SPEAKER_02: Because right now, I'm not in love with anyone else.
SPEAKER_02: I recognize that I have the potential to fall in love with a woman if I allow myself.
SPEAKER_02: And that potential could lead to a problem in our relationship.
SPEAKER_02: Like I can't imagine a world where I find a woman that I fall so desperately in love with that I have to leave you to spend my life with her.
SPEAKER_02: That's a possibility.
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_02: But here at the beginning of this road, I'm not there yet.
unknown: Right.
SPEAKER_02: And I can not go down that road.
SPEAKER_02: Because that would be the safe thing.
SPEAKER_02: That would be the protective thing for our marriage.
SPEAKER_02: But you said, no, I I want you to go.
SPEAKER_02: Like I want you to experience all the things you want to experience and need to experience.
SPEAKER_02: And if that means in the end it takes you away from me, well, that's what is best and right for you.
SPEAKER_02: Um, which is scary and brave of you to say.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it doesn't feel brave to me though.
SPEAKER_00: It just feels like accepting reality and I think as a thought experiment about you falling in love with a woman and dreaming about being with her full time and joining your lives together completely.
SPEAKER_00: And you don't do it because you owe something to Liam.
SPEAKER_00: And that would be the saddest thing to me, because I would know it.
SPEAKER_00: I would be aware of those feelings that you were having for that other person.
SPEAKER_00: And to think that I was the ball and chain that was holding you back, that you were condescending to care for my vulnerabilities would make me very unhappy.
SPEAKER_00: So I feel like I don't have a choice, but I say that in the best way possible.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have a choice because of the level at which I aspire to live emotionally.
SPEAKER_00: So I could let you do that.
SPEAKER_00: I would help you establish even your new life.
SPEAKER_00: Again, not because I'm a martyr, but because that's the thing that would make me happy.
SPEAKER_00: But I began to say this earlier, you know, we've built this complex life together.
SPEAKER_00: If I had to bet, so there's such a thing as betting markets, and you can bet on almost anything these days.
SPEAKER_00: So if I had to bet whether my wife will ever leave me to be with a woman, I will bet against that.
SPEAKER_00: I think that you will always stay here in the life that we've built because you have the freedom to explore those connections.
SPEAKER_00: And I really understand that it's easy to build an infatuation and I want you to explore all your infatuations.
SPEAKER_00: But the likelihood that that turns into I want to set up a household with this person, I personally believe is low.
SPEAKER_00: But even low probability things do happen.
SPEAKER_00: And if it happened, I can live with that.
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, so now I'm dating women.
SPEAKER_02: And the good news for us is that neither one of those connections, even though they're very nice, and you know, when we make out I'm really turned on, um neither of those people are potentially dangerous for us.
SPEAKER_02: There's no chance that they're gonna pull me away from this life.
SPEAKER_02: So I guess the benefit for us here is that we've set up our life in a way that we can explore these things that might otherwise be regrets and resentments in a monogamous life.
SPEAKER_02: So I feel very lucky to be with you and to be with someone who is so I'm gonna get emotional again.
SPEAKER_02: Who's so generous.
SPEAKER_02: And I love you so much.
SPEAKER_00: I love you, baby.
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for letting me try to figure out who I am.
SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks for being an exciting partner who's actually on a journey worth being interested in.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's a gift that you're giving me.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I always wanted in the person I was with.
SPEAKER_00: And I never had until you.
SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks.
SPEAKER_00: I love you.
SPEAKER_01: I love you too.
SPEAKER_01: Ugh, more crying.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, guys.
SPEAKER_00: Bye for now.
SPEAKER_02: Bye.
SPEAKER_02: If you want to get in touch with us or follow any of our socials, we now have so many we cannot list them.
SPEAKER_02: So we've put them all together in one handy place.
SPEAKER_02: If you go to katemonogamish.com, you'll see all of our ventures.
SPEAKER_02: Our Instagram, Twitter, OnlyFans, Travel Company, uh, Patreon, blog and podcasts, all the stuff we do.
SPEAKER_00: During this episode, we talked about our travel business because we're so excited about it.
SPEAKER_00: But we want to take a moment to remind you that there are other individuals putting together amazing lifestyle travel opportunities.
SPEAKER_00: Ones that we have personally taken advantage of.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about Room77, Life.com, who runs their Isla Muharis hotel takeovers, casual swingers, who put together unbelievable events every April at Hedonism.
SPEAKER_00: Naughty Jim, who put together the Be Better at Being Bad event, also at Hedonism.
SPEAKER_00: And Libertine Events, who put together Podcast of Bluza, or PCAP.
SPEAKER_00: So keep that in mind as you're considering your travel.
SPEAKER_00: If Sapio Tours doesn't work for you, there are other great opportunities available.
SPEAKER_02: Go out there and meet all kinds of people and build your community.
SPEAKER_02: Bye.
SPEAKER_00: Bye.