Just in case you’re not totally sick of all the coverage (a lot of which is redundant) of the Spitzer “scandal,” here’s a fabulous piece called “Against Sexual Scandal” by Lauren Berlant. She calls the mainstream media to task for its neverending sex-negativity. A little snip: “I felt sorry for sex during the Larry Craig brouhaha last summer. What if he liked being married and procreating and giving anonymous head? What if that was his sexual preference? What if he really was not gay, as he claims, but had sexual desires that seemed incoherent? Some of the response to Craig was like the response to moralists like Jim Bakker, Ted Haggard and now Spitzer–moralists deserve to suffer the same force of negative judgment they wielded on others. Shame on us? Shame on you, ha ha! But lots of the response was sheer homophobia. And all of it was sheer erotophobia.” I love her line about having sexual desires that seemed incoherent. Because in reality, a lot of us are way beyond gay/straight, kinky/vanilla, etc. and Berlant calls for us to embrace that rather than continue the cycle of shame.

Just saw a review of a new book on swinging called Then They All Got Naked and self-published by its author O. Kay Jackson. She’s not a swinger herself, but apparently researched the book. Hmmm…Has anyone else heard of this book or read it? Got to put it on my list.

With word of Eliot Spitzer’s link to a prostitution agency and his subsequent resignation, monogamous marriage is back under the media microscope. Here is an interesting article by David Barash in the Concord Monitor. He’s the co-author of The Myth of Monogamy, which I cite in Opening Up.

Welcome to OpeningUp.net. I created this site as a resource for folks interested in all kinds of open relationships, including: nonmonogamy, partnered nonmonogamy, polyamory, solo polyamory, polyfidelity, swinging, open marriage, mixed orientation marriage, and mono/poly combinations. Check out the Resources section to see an up-to-date version of the Resource Guide in the book. The Open List is a list of professionals (therapists, psychologists, doctors, coaches, etc.) who are knowledgable and experienced with nonmonogamy. Check them out!