In this episode of PolySoCal, we welcome relationship expert Jim Fleckenstein for an in-depth conversation on emotional intelligence, jealousy, conflict resolution, and communication within polyamorous and non-traditional relationships.

Rather than a roundtable of shared experiences, this episode centers on thoughtful questions from the panel and practical, experience-based insight from Jim. Topics include managing emotional reactions, understanding jealousy as information rather than failure, navigating conflict without escalation, and building healthier relational habits through awareness and accountability.

Alonzo BanX, Jim Fleckenstein, Patty, Jon, Noah, Solana, Lana, Blake

Links from this Episode
7 Lies About Open Relationships – https://openandhappy.com

Sh*t You’re Gonna Hear When You Propose Nonmonogamy ebook – https://unlockingmonogamy.com/sygh-page

To schedule a free Identify-Clarify-Eliminate Obstacles coaching “fit” call – https://tinyurl.com/talk-to-jim

For my book, Love That Works: 38 Awesome Hacks for Amazing Relationships – https://getltw.com

Alonzo Banx (00:00)
Welcome back to the PolysoCal Podcast. I am Alonzo Banks. We’ve got a really cool show tonight. We’ve got an expert with us. Mr. Jim Fleckenstein is going to answer some really cool questions. We got Blake, John, Lana, Noah, Solara, Patty, and me in the house. With that, hi everybody. Welcome to another week.

Lana (00:18)
Hello. ⁓

Blake (00:19)
Hello.

Noah (00:19)
Hi.

Jon (00:20)
Hello.

Jim Fleckenstein (00:20)
and

Solara (00:20)
Bye, great

to be here.

Alonzo Banx (00:21)
Yeah, so Jim, let me read off this great bio I have for you here. Jim Fleckinstein is a relationship coach, educator, longtime advocate for ethical non-monogamy. He’s the founder of the Earth Moved LLC, the creator of Affirmative Intimacy, a model for cultivating healthy, sustainable relationships. With over two decades of leadership in the polyamory movement, Jim has served on the board of the National Coalition

for Sexual Freedom. He currently contributes to the APA Division 44 Committee on Consensual Non-Monogamy. He’s a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Positive Sexuality, a seasoned presentor, a published researcher. Jim is the author of Love That Works in its companion journal, Navigating the Heart. His work bridges personal empowerment,

systematic advocacy and the evolving landscape of alternative relationships. is one hell of an intro. Jim, thanks for being with us tonight.

Blake (01:21)
you

Solara (01:24)
you

Jim Fleckenstein (01:24)
Thank you Alonzo, I appreciate it. That was a real mouthful there.

Alonzo Banx (01:27)
Well, let’s go around

real quick and it was, it was, you’ve got quite a list of accomplishments there. So we’re going to dig into a lot of those tonight. I know everyone here has got some questions, but let’s do the round table real quick so everyone introduces and people know who’s on the podcast tonight. Mr. Blake, good evening.

Blake (01:44)
Hi, good evening. So this is Blake. My partner is Lana and we’ve been together for three and half years and we call ourselves Monogam-ish.

Alonzo Banx (01:54)
And it’s good to have you. Lana, looks like I haven’t seen you in a couple of hours. How you doing?

Blake (01:58)
You

Lana (01:59)
Hello, I’m so happy to be here. My name is Lana and I’m partner with Blake and we are learning lifestyle and exploring and experimenting.

Alonzo Banx (02:09)
And it’s great to have you on tonight. Laura, a voice we don’t get on often. It’s great to have you back tonight. Want to say hi and introduce yourself real quick?

Lana (02:11)
Thank you.

Solara (02:17)
Absolutely, it’s wonderful to be here and I love being here when I can. So Solara, I have about 25 years in the Tantra community practicing. I have a primary partner, have cuddle partners, energetic partners, make out partners, cooking partners, know, just kind of having fun in life.

Alonzo Banx (02:34)
as we should. Mr. Noah, big 18 times tonight. Welcome back.

Solara (02:36)
Mm-hmm.

Noah (02:39)
Hi,

that’s right. Yeah, glad to be back. I’m Noah. My partners are ⁓ Cupcake and Cookie and just happy to be here.

Blake (02:42)
.

Alonzo Banx (02:49)
Good to have you. Patty, welcome.

Patty (02:52)
Hi,

I’m Patti. I am married to John. I’m dating Heather and Bebe. I am dating someone else as well. And John and I have been in the lifestyle for 31 years.

Alonzo Banx (03:03)
to have you and John round it out for us tonight.

Jon (03:06)
All right. Hello. Hello. I’m John. I am married to Patty, as you have heard. I am also dating Heather. Bebe is my metamorph, and so is this other person, this mysterious person that Patty has mentioned, also my metamorph. And yep, in lifestyle for 31 years.

Blake (03:17)
Okay. .

Alonzo Banx (03:22)
Thank you everyone

for being here tonight. I am super excited, Jim. Welcome to our roundtable. It’s really good to have you tonight. So I got, there was a whole mouthful of things I said about you. there anything that I forgot?

Jim Fleckenstein (03:34)
well, the other two thirds of the bio I sent you, you know, but I mean, other than that.

Jon (03:39)
you

Alonzo Banx (03:40)
Hey, I can only say so much at a time, alright?

Lana (03:42)
Yeah.

Alonzo Banx (03:44)
I stumbled through that with only a couple mistakes. What are you… No, please, fill in some of the details for me.

Jim Fleckenstein (03:46)
Yes, that wasn’t bad. That was good. No, I mean, you know,

my unique selling proposition, if you want to have it, if I want to transfer myself to the corporate world, is I’m kind of an octopus in the sense that I have a toe in just about every different kind of pie you can think of across this community. You know, I started off as somebody who discovered non-monogamy fairly late in life and decided it was where I wanted to go.

and ended up being going to a Johns Hopkins University trained psychiatrist who insisted that I was crazy and I didn’t take very well to that. So I wanted to prove that he was full of it and I didn’t have the resources to prove he was full of it so I set out to get them. And that launched me into a career of research and advocacy. And meanwhile, you know, I said, my primary form of non-monogamy is polyamory. That’s my home community.

But I’ve also experienced and helped out in lifestyle community. I was advisors to the folks from the French Connection, November in New Orleans, Miami in May. And so I’ve moved in that community for a while, advised an effort for the swing community leadership to get together and work together. I, as you mentioned, was on the board of the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom for 11 years, 10 years, plus or minus. So I have experience and knowledge of the kink.

BDSM Leather Fetish community, both heterosexual and homosexual, and GLBTQ. So, you know, and again, I’m a coach and I wrote two books and a researcher. so, you know, I’ve done kind of just about everything. Maybe none of it well. I’d like to think I’ve done some of it well, but so anyway, that’s the thing.

Jon (05:23)
you

Lana (05:24)
you

Alonzo Banx (05:24)
Well, we’ve all kind of

done a deep dive into you today, listening to your own podcasts and reading your papers. So I think we’re all into the impression that you did it well. And we’re thrilled to have you with us tonight. So you know what, I’m gonna throw the floor open. Who wants to jump on ⁓ with any thoughts or questions for John from, for Jim, excuse me, for what you looked over? John, was looking at you as I said it.

Jim Fleckenstein (05:33)
Thank you. Thank you very much.

Patty (05:33)
Yes.

Jon (05:47)
you

Alonzo Banx (05:47)
Anyone have anything for Jim? Anyone have any thoughts, any questions?

Yeah, go ahead Noah.

Noah (05:52)
So, you know, we’ve kind of gone over all of your background already. So I’m just going to kind of get into it if you don’t mind. You know, here on the podcast and in Polycircles, we talk about communication a lot as the magic solution to solve all of relationship woes, right? And my question for you is in your experience,

Jim Fleckenstein (06:00)
Please, of course.

Blake (06:11)
Okay. Okay.

Noah (06:18)
Is there something that communication doesn’t fix in relationships?

Jim Fleckenstein (06:24)
Some things are probably broken beyond your ability to communicate about them, to be honest. There’s certain levels of incompatibility,

Lana (06:27)
Okay.

Jim Fleckenstein (06:34)
you that you can talk forever and get nowhere. The interesting thing is, you know, and this is going to be heretical, so stand by, hold on, but there is such a thing as over-communicating as well. Sometimes communication becomes a crutch.

Blake (06:39)
.

Jim Fleckenstein (06:49)
I don’t want to do this thing, so I’ll just talk it to death. And that’s one of the knocks on polyamorous. One of the things I hear in the swing community is like, oh, those polyamorous, all they ever do is talk. They never screw.

And then there’s an old joke about, you know, if any of you are Unitarians, you’ll remember this. And if you’re not, trust me, Unitarians think this is funny too. You know, when a Unitarian reaches heaven, St. Peter says, you know, I’m funny. I don’t see very many of you up here.

Blake (07:02)
.

Jim Fleckenstein (07:18)
And the Unitarian says, why not? And he says, well, you know, there’s a crossroads that you missed down a little below. And the Unitarian walks back and he sees the crossroads and one sign says this way to heaven. The other one says this way to discussion about heaven. And St. Peter says, all you Unitarians always take the one for the discussion. You know, they’d rather talk about it do it. So, yes, I mean, there are some things communication can’t fix. You want to communicate.

Blake (07:31)
You

Noah (07:33)
ha ha ha.

Blake (07:38)
Hahaha.

Jim Fleckenstein (07:43)
But it can’t be a substitute for action. It can’t become a crutch where all you do is talk about things and you try to talk through things that are just, you can’t get past. Some things you just can’t get past. Does that make sense?

Alonzo Banx (07:57)
It does. does. Anyone else?

Noah (07:58)
Absolutely.

Alonzo Banx (08:00)
Patty, go ahead.

Patty (08:00)
I just had a question. I’ve heard you talk about jealousy and how you can, you know, you should analyze it and figure out where it’s coming from and whatnot, but not to sit in it for too long. And so my question for you is when you sit in it for a little bit, then what? Then what do you do at that point?

What are some strategies?

Jim Fleckenstein (08:22)
Well…

Yeah, I’m not a big fan of the sit with it for very long school. ⁓ You know, say, jealousy’s normal. Jealousy’s, you everybody has jealousy. It’s just what you do. You know, it’s natural. Well, so’s the black mamba. You know, that’s a naturally occurring thing. But I don’t pick up a poisonous snake and sit there and sit with it and try to analyze where it came from. Do you come from an egg or, you know? No, it’s going to bite me. It’s going to be a problem.

Patty (08:28)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Blake (08:47)
.

Jim Fleckenstein (08:51)
So once you’ve analyzed it, this is something

Blake (08:51)
.

Jim Fleckenstein (08:53)
I have to deal with. I am facing it. What is this trying to tell me? What’s the message? Because there’s always a message. So what’s the message? Am I insecure? Do I need some care? Do I need some self-care? Is there really a threat? Because sometimes there really is a threat. There are bad people out there, or people who don’t get it, or inexperienced people who make dumb mistakes. OK? But…

Blake (09:11)
.

Jim Fleckenstein (09:17)
Where is this coming from? And it’s my jealousy. I have to own it. And what am I going to do about it? How am I going to manage this? Maybe I need to do more self-care. Maybe I need to have a conversation with a partner. Maybe I just need to say, this is just bullshit and get over it because there’s no real basis for it. But you

Blake (09:19)
you

Jim Fleckenstein (09:37)
don’t wallow. You don’t wallow and you don’t excuse. Not everything that’s natural is beneficial.

Blake (09:41)
.

Jim Fleckenstein (09:45)
So you’ve got to figure out what the message is as quickly as you comfortably can, and then take action on what that message is. What do you need to do? What’s the next step you need to do to get past that? Does that make sense?

Blake (09:46)
.

Patty (09:59)
Yes, yes, thank you.

Jim Fleckenstein (10:01)
Sure.

Alonzo Banx (10:01)
I love that statement, not everything is natural is beneficial. Lana, see you, Blake,

or Noah, see you, but Blake was up first. Blake, go ahead.

Blake (10:08)
Why did I tell it long ago first?

Alonzo Banx (10:11)
Okay,

go on up,

Lana (10:11)
Okay, so we are in a relationship. We are partners for three and a half years and we are learning how to communicate and we are building our foundation. We are building just space with safety and freedom and we are pretty new to lifestyle. What are the tips you can share with us if we are

Jim Fleckenstein (10:13)
There’s preservation of domestic tranquility. Pardon me. Go ahead, please.

Blake (10:16)
Hehehehehe

Lana (10:39)
going to open our relationship and play and experiment and explore what steps would be just to be safe and at the same time be free.

Blake (10:45)
.

Jim Fleckenstein (10:50)
Sure. You have to have your fundamental boundaries. You have to have that boundary talk. And some people will refer to this as rules. I don’t, because rules are things you must not break or there’ll be penalties. There agreements. There’s boundaries. There’s understandings. And there are things that can be renegotiated.

Blake (11:09)
. .

Jim Fleckenstein (11:06)
But as each step of the process of opening up goes along, there’s going to be new things come up. After a while, some of you who have been at this for decades can hopefully

confirm this. After a while there’s very few new situations, there’s new people maybe and so forth, there very few new challenges that you haven’t already encountered. So you want to start out, these are what my boundaries

are, this is what I think I can be comfortable with, this is as far as I think I can go and reach some kind of an agreement of what you’re going to do within those boundaries that you each have. And some things are pretty non-negotiable, safer sex is pretty non-negotiable because

Blake (11:31)
Okay. .

Jim Fleckenstein (11:47)
dying definitely focuses the mind. So there are some things that are just, you know, that this is not something we’re going to mess with. But other things, you know, you think at first, well, is, you know, swing community is great about this. I have to admit there, they have

much more clearly defined kind of a series of steps, if you will, you know, there’s, you know, same sec or excuse me, same room play.

So everybody can kind look over at the other one and say, is this okay? Yeah, this is okay. And then they’ll graduate to different rooms. Okay, that’s all right. How was it for you over there? It’s fine. And then eventually it’s just like, okay, whatever. But there’s this kind of progression. First we just go

Blake (12:25)
.

Jim Fleckenstein (12:26)
and watch. And then we go and we play by ourselves, but not with anybody else. Because we just want to play off the energy.

And then we might try same room with certain restrictions and boundaries. Well, no penetration or only this or only that. And, you know, but the swingers are very good about having this, this sexual stepping, series of stepping stones. It is much more difficult to set up a series of stepping stones for emotional engagement because you really are hard pressed to control emotions. Some people foolishly say, well, you can have as many relationships as you but don’t fall in love.

Blake (12:56)
Okay.

Jim Fleckenstein (12:59)
How are you going to do that? Good luck with that one. So you want to try to communicate as we talked about. If something needs to change or you want something to change, have that conversation and try to find a point where everybody is satisfied again. Test it out. Did that work? Yeah, worked. No,

it didn’t work. Why didn’t it work? OK, what are we going to do differently? And just go with the flow. Be open.

Blake (13:23)
you

Jim Fleckenstein (13:26)
Be curious, understand hopefully that your partner has your best interests at heart and you, they have their best interests at heart. And you’re going to run into some bumps, work through them together. But it’s just a process. Understand it’s a process and you’re going to encounter things that you hadn’t thought of, circumstances

Blake (13:27)
Okay.

Jim Fleckenstein (13:47)
you hadn’t anticipated, and have a process to work through those. That’s the key to it all.

Alonzo Banx (13:52)
I like that. Lana, did that answer your question? Okay, and well, we got to line up now. Noah, Salara, Patty, I see you’re in the queue too, but Blake, you deferred, so I’m gonna put you up now.

Lana (13:54)
Yes, thank you.

Blake (14:02)
Awesome. Well, my question is kind of a follow-up on Lana’s.

And I would say that we call ourselves monogamish. And we’ve defined that for ourselves is that we start with our core relationship. And then if we’re going to play with others at play parties, or if we’re going to date others, that we’ve said that we’re doing this together. Now, we might do that forever together. But what I’m finding or what we’re finding as we get more experienced and we build more trust and, and that I’m dealing with my own triggers better. So

things that used to make me jealous now actually turn me on. And as this is happening, I feel like I’d like her to have more freedom. And so, you know, starting to think about, maybe we might start doing some play separately, or we might start doing some dating separately or that kind of thing. And so my question is, if you could say some things about the pluses and minuses of playing and dating ⁓ others together versus doing it separately, what are some…

Solara (14:45)
Thank

Blake (15:00)
pitfalls, what are some pluses and minuses to those two different approaches?

Jim Fleckenstein (15:04)
Well, the challenge, you know, playing together is fairly easy in the swing world for the reasons I mentioned. Is that there’s kind of these easy categories for sexual play within the swing world. It’s a lot more difficult in the polyamorous world if you want to move into that arena because there’s this huge thing in the polyamorous world about unicorn hunters.

and how unicorn hunters are bad and despicable and to be shunned because they want to take advantage of some poor defenseless, preferably bisexual female. And like all such stereotypes, it’s based on this much truth and that much BS. ⁓ But it’s harder for a couple to date in the polyamorous world because of this fear of unicorn hunters.

Blake (15:46)
. .

Jim Fleckenstein (15:56)
and finding someone who is reasonably equally attracted to and or interested in two people is a lot harder than finding someone who’s interested in or attracted to one person. So it’s a lot more difficult to date as a couple in the polyamorous world than it is to operate as a couple in the swing world. Swing world is very couple-centric. It is much more difficult to operate as a solo person in the swing world.

but it’s much more difficult to operate as a couple in the polyamorous world. So you have to kind of look at that. So if you’re open to the idea of embracing emotions and feelings, not trying to stop feelings at the door, but be open to those, you will find an easier time of it as solos. in very short order, you want to introduce a new partner to your existing partner. They need to at least be civil.

Blake (16:37)
. you

Jim Fleckenstein (16:48)
and see each other. They don’t have to do what’s called kitchen table polyamory where everybody sits down and shares the turkey and stuffing each year. But you need to see each other, that demystification

of this, God, this person must be so gorgeous and they must be so good in bed. All the things we imagine about this other new partner that may not be true at all. And the solution to that is to sit down with them over a cup of coffee or a glass of beer and realize they’re

They’re human beings and they’re not nine feet tall or six feet long or whatever. And it’s great. depending on what you hope to get out of your openness, what your goals are, if the goal is just to enjoy additional sexual outlets and the recreational sex and the variety that that can bring, couplehood is fine. Dating as a pair is fine or participating as a pair is fine.

Lana (17:22)
Thank

Blake (17:26)
.

Jim Fleckenstein (17:43)
But if you want to go into more of an open relationship with emotional content, being a couple can sometimes be a handicap. So that’s not a detailed checklist of pluses and minuses, but that’s the big picture.

Alonzo Banx (17:58)
like that answer your question.

Blake (18:00)
Yeah, pretty much. I guess where I would have a question is, you know, if it comes to looking for other couples that are looking to date, if you have any thoughts about that. I mean, one of the things that we’ve been discovering is that it’s not unusual if we are with another couple.

Jim Fleckenstein (18:09)
Right.

Blake (18:19)
that one member of the couple will be more into one of us than the other. And what I’m discovering about that is, you know, that comes back to like dealing with my own triggers. If I can be a good friend with the female partner and Lana is more, you know, engaged with the male partner, I feel like that can still work or, you know, we’re kind of, you know, exploring some of those dynamics and we’re really enjoying, you know,

Jim Fleckenstein (18:43)
Okay.

Blake (18:46)
going with another couple to go to a dance performance or go to visit a museum or whatever. And so in a lot of ways, we’re really enjoying being with other couples. But I think what you’re saying about it being more difficult, there are certain challenges.

Jim Fleckenstein (19:00)
Yeah, that’s true. I mean, I really didn’t touch on that because I wasn’t sure exactly where you’re going to go with that. But a lot of the research, old research on swinging, you know, showed that there were a lot of people within that community that did in fact interact as couple to couple, both within the play space and in their other lives, in their lives outside. They did go on vacations together and they went to each other’s kids high school graduation ceremonies and they were best of friends.

Solara (19:10)
you

Jim Fleckenstein (19:28)
But there was an ethos in the community that says, can’t say you love a play partner. Love, God, no, love, we can’t do love. But you can do love. And the polyamorous world, yes, there are what’s called quads, people who are either enclosed or open relationships, groups of four. And depending on sexual orientation, could be everybody interacting with everybody or whatever variety. So that is an option as well.

Blake (19:48)
. you

Jim Fleckenstein (19:55)
But it doesn’t have to be equal. It has to be equitable. And so if all four of the partners are straight, the same sex partners don’t have to interact in a sexual way. There’s no mandate that, well, if we’re going to be a good quad, we’ve got to all, you know, no, you don’t have to. It’s whatever is

right for you. ⁓ So.

Alonzo Banx (20:13)
One of the things that

we’ve talked about many times on this podcast is the value of your partner being your wingman or your wingwoman cannot be overemphasized. That as you put it Blake, sometimes just being there to support your partner is a good thing. Okay, so still we’ve got ⁓ Noah, Solana and Patty in the queue. Noah, you had your hand up, you took it down. Did you have something you wanted to bring up or?

Blake (20:14)
you Okay.

Jim Fleckenstein (20:23)
absolutely.

Noah (20:35)
No, I do. So a little change of pace here. I wanted

to ask, and maybe it’s not fair for me to do so, but if we were to separate monogamy and non-monogamy from the conversation, are there any predictors for relationship success that are universal?

Jim Fleckenstein (20:52)
John Gottman and his wife up in Washington state have done a ton, a ton of research on what makes relationships marriages primarily, you know, because they started before cohabitation was a big thing. what makes certainly

Blake (20:53)
Okay. Okay.

Alonzo Banx (21:07)
Jim, I gotta narrate for just a minute. Everyone

outside, you should have seen all the nodding heads and smiles that just went around for Patty and so on and Blake. So yeah, you hit a name that everyone here really, you started jumping, but people at home can’t see all those smiley faces. So please

Jim Fleckenstein (21:14)
you

Right,

sure. So the Gottmans have done a ton, decades of research on what makes marriages work. And they’ve identified characteristics that are destructive and characteristics that are positive. And it’s a matter of you need to get more positive strokes than negative ones in the bank, and you should not be contemptuous of your partner. That’s very destructive and so forth.

Blake (21:30)
Okay.

Jim Fleckenstein (21:50)
So if you’re just interested in what makes relationships work, go look up anything by John Gottman and his wife. I’m blanking on her name, it’s killing me. But they have a website and they have a lot of written material that will help people who just want to understand how do relationships work, irrespective of whether they’re open or closed. Now my book, Love That Works, is not directed at non-monogamy, per se.

It’s fueled by what I learned from working in the non-monogamous community, but it is not directed at that community. It’s all the skill sets that if you practice those skill sets, you’ll have a good relationship open or closed, but you’ll be prepared if you’re closed and you’ll be prepared to try open too. Was kind of the secret hidden agenda, if you will, but it was designed to help people either way because there are certain skills that just make relationships work better.

Blake (22:40)
.

Jim Fleckenstein (22:40)
communication,

maintaining safe space, honesty, openness, trust, transparency, handling your own stuff. You know, I am a big devotee of Albert Ellis and rational motive behavioral therapy, was parallel track created at the time of cognitive behavioral therapy, Aaron Beck. And it’s like, hey, nothing, you it’s almost, it’s almost Nishkin. What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger, but it’s up to me.

So that’s true in relationships and it’s especially true in open and non-monogamous relationships. So yeah, that’s a great resource. All the works have gotten me. Now they’re anti-non-monogamy. They’re dedicated monogamists because that’s just who they are and that’s okay. So don’t look for help in opening a relationship from their material. But if you just want to have a good relationship, period, their stuff is strong.

Alonzo Banx (23:27)
And the wife’s name is Julie. And for those who care, the website is gotman.com. That website. I have the internet. can research things really quick.

Jim Fleckenstein (23:30)
Julie, thank you. I was going to say Sarah.

There you go. Thank you, Alonzo.

Well,

these are real. ⁓

Blake (23:43)
you

Noah (23:44)
Yeah, I think

Jon (23:45)
Thank

Noah (23:45)
so. I guess I just a quick follow up,

Blake (23:48)
Okay. you

Noah (23:49)
you had mentioned contempt for partners being a major problem, which sounds obvious when you say it out loud, right? But is there coming back from that if partners are finding themselves in a situation where they have contempt, where they walk in the room and there’s just this feeling of tension? Is there recovery from that truly? Or are we kidding ourselves?

Jim Fleckenstein (24:12)
I suspect

it is, the answer to your question has, there has to be a predicate to that and that is how long. You know, if it’s someone who’s only been in relationship for a year or two, it’s much easier obviously to recover that than if they’d been that way for two decades. And there are people who just hang on by the skin of their teeth for decades. Another old joke is like, you know, there’s…

a couple in their 90s who appear before the divorce court judge and they want to get divorced. And the judge says, you’ve been married for 65 years. What are you doing here in front of me? What happened? And they said, we had to wait until the children died. ⁓

Blake (24:48)
Ouch.

Solara (24:50)
out.

Jim Fleckenstein (24:51)
You know, there’s

yeah, there’s people who stay in relationships for all the wrong reasons but assuming good goodwill and a desire to Address it. I mean one of the others gonna have to step up and say, you know, I really feel like there’s something going on here I Sense, know always using these I statements, you know, all these good communication skills. I feel like you ⁓

have contempt for me, that you don’t respect me, that my views don’t matter to you. What’s going on? We need to get to the bottom of this or I can’t continue. And then you get help, probably from a therapist, maybe from a therapist and a coach, to get on the table what it is. And it’s like, well, when we first started dating, you swore you were never going to wear…

Cody Cologne and ever since we got married you’ve been wearing that Cody Cologne. I don’t even know where you get it anymore but I hate it and you told me you wouldn’t do it and god I hate when you do that and all of sudden the floodgates open and you begin to be able to get down to what the real issue is and it can sometimes be something as trivial as you never liked my mother. You you never treated my mother with respect.

What do you mean? She’s been dead for 30 years. Yeah, but when she was alive, you never treated her with respect. And I know you’re going to do the same thing to me when I get old. Where did that come from? But sometimes you need someone who will help you facilitate that conversation and bring out those things that are lying within, buried within, those thorns that are buried all the way deep inside and just need careful extraction a little bit at a time.

Alonzo Banx (26:27)
John, see you’re coming up with a question too, but you got Patty and Salar ahead of you. Salar, please jump on in.

Solara (26:33)
Awesome.

I’m really curious to be asking you this, Jim. So what do you, I mean, do you even believe, what do you have to say about primary partners who are poly by choice versus poly by orientation? I I found, you know, if you, if I believe in that, our brains think very differently. And I’m wondering what you have to say about typical pitfalls and how to manage that.

Jim Fleckenstein (26:53)
Yeah, that’s a debate that’s been going on for some time as to whether polyamory is a method of sexual orientation, even sexual orientation or identity. There’s been law review articles written about, know, some people are just inherently polyamorous the same way they are inherently gay or lesbian or, you know, it is more than a choice. is more even than an identity. is inherent.

Solara (26:57)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Fleckenstein (27:19)
But that’s unsettled. That’s still an open question. know, many of us, I’ve known people who swear to God they were polyamorous and utero. You know, they were born polyamorous or non-monogamous. They’ve never wanted an exclusive relationship ever since they were children. And then there are other people who come to it late in life. I came to it in my 40s. I was a straight arrow, monogamous, good guy and whatever. And when my marriage ended for other reasons,

Jon (27:39)
you

Jim Fleckenstein (27:46)
I got involved with a woman and she kind of opened my eyes. And the funny thing is, is that she opened my eyes, but then she later changed her mind and went back and she’s been monogamously married for 20 plus years. But she was like the first person I got involved with outside after my marriage ended. And at the time she was in a place of wanting to be open. And I said, how the hell do you do that? And so I started to try to educate myself about it. So.

Blake (27:48)
.

Jim Fleckenstein (28:10)
You know, I don’t know. It’s a matter of, you know, if you’re polyamorous by choice, good for you. If you’re polyamorous by orientation, that’s just who you are. Okay, even better because now you have no conflict at all. Presumably, that’s just who you are. But, you know, if we make it as a choice, then there are varying degrees of choice. You know, there’s someone who’s that because that’s the circumstances they find themselves in. There people who move…

Blake (28:18)
Okay. Okay.

Jim Fleckenstein (28:38)
relatively seamlessly

Blake (28:39)
.

Jim Fleckenstein (28:39)
between being monogamous, being non-monogamous, and they get into a different relationship and then they’re monogamous again because that’s what fits them at that point in time in their life. And over the life course, people change. Their practices, I won’t say their orientation, but their practices. So that’s an open question right now. Research hasn’t come to grips with a conclusive answer to that. So I don’t know if I’m helping you so far or I’m just muddying the waters further.

Does that resonate?

Solara (29:07)
I think that’s a,

I appreciate the answer. ⁓ I’m wondering if I could take it a little bit deeper and in terms of what ⁓ advice for prospective poly partners who are in different places along their poly journey, like somebody who’s new and somebody who’s like a veteran. Again, that’s just the spectrum.

Blake (29:11)
Okay. Okay.

Jim Fleckenstein (29:13)
Please.

Right. Yeah, mean, clearly,

I mean, there’s people who have this hard and fast rules, they never date outside your species. If you’re a polyamorous person, never date somebody who identifies as monogamous because you’re only in for heartbreak. Well, bullshit. mean, my current secondary partner or my non-resident partner and I have been together for 14 years and she identified as monogamous when we first met.

Jon (29:44)
you

Jim Fleckenstein (29:50)
And I explained to her, this is who I am and this is what I do. And if you’re okay with that, let’s see where this leads. And it’s led to a very fulfilling and satisfying relationship that we’ve had. So if I had said, you identify as monogamous, I’m sorry, I can’t date you, I would have bestowed a very deep and important and rich relationship in my life.

So the more experienced partner is going to have to help the less experienced partner understand their perspective, understand their experiences. This is what happened to me. This is how I got to where I am. I will share with you my mistakes as I see them in the hopes that we can prevent you falling into them. But I’m not going to be you and I’m not going to pull your strings. But this is what I believe and this is what I’ve learned. If that helps you, great.

Blake (30:11)
Okay.

Jim Fleckenstein (30:37)
And if you have questions

Jon (30:38)
Thank

Blake (30:38)
. .

Jim Fleckenstein (30:38)
or you’re unsure, please ask me and I’ll help you. But also let’s get community support. I am a huge believer in community. You know, there are BDSM munches and there are polyamorous munches and there’s various online communities. Take everything you hear and see online with a shaker of salt. But from all of it put together, you may get something good, but you cannot crowdsource your relationship. Don’t make that mistake.

because there’s also

a lot of garbage out there. get in community, talk to people more experienced than you, someone who’s not in relationship with you, but is more experienced than you, and can share their mistakes and their successes. That’s a wonderful use for community. That was one of the reasons why I helped start a community here in the greater Washington area, because we didn’t have one.

Blake (31:10)
.

Jim Fleckenstein (31:29)
And there are a bunch of us who were kind of feeling our way and wanted the benefit of the views of others. And

so we created an organization for it. So if there’s not one in your area, make one, but get with other like-minded people. Or listen to a great podcast,

Alonzo Banx (31:41)
Or I gotta give a fuck or listen to a podcast of a community of people who get together

every Sunday night

Jon (31:47)
you

Alonzo Banx (31:47)
and talk about all of these exact issues. Because we are very much our own community and have become that way. Sorry, I had to give this so that is lying plug there. Was it subtle? Good. I just kind of split that one in.

Jim Fleckenstein (31:50)
the

Of course. Yes. No, absolutely. Absolutely. right. you find communities

Noah (31:58)
It was subtle at work.

Jim Fleckenstein (32:02)
where you find it. If you’re in the middle of the Mojave Desert and you’ve got nobody in person, but you’ve got an internet connection, use that. Use that resource.

Alonzo Banx (32:13)
Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much. Sorry. Patty, you’re up and then John, you’re in the queue next. But Patty, go ahead, please.

Solara (32:13)
you,

Patty (32:20)
You mentioned that there’s a lot of garbage out there and I just wanted to talk about a lot of the misrepresentation when it comes to non-monogamy, particularly in the

Blake (32:29)
.

Patty (32:30)
movies and now the shows that are out and the social media. Can you give us like one or two misconceptions that you’d like to discuss?

Jim Fleckenstein (32:38)
how many hours do we have, Lonzo? No, I there’s literally tons of them. And it depends on what you’re coming from. You know, if you look at mass media, if you’re going to look at mass media, know, movies and television and that sort of thing, streaming, programming and all that, you know, invariably the non-monogamous are young, beautiful, bisexual.

Jon (32:41)
You

Blake (32:41)
Okay.

Okay.

Jim Fleckenstein (33:03)
You know all the all these things that none of us in here around this table I don’t know about the bisexual part. It’s none of my business, but none of us are particularly young or beautiful I don’t I know we’re all beautiful to each each other and our partners, but Conventionally attractive is the words that are often used You wouldn’t find me on an episode of the Bachelor for example But you know so but but polyamorous and non-monogamous of all stripes of all ages of all sizes shapes colors

exist,

but they’re not represented in media depictions. Of course, media still lionizes monogamy. know, I was recently watching a couple of, watching a TV show that was 2018 to 2023, I think, Outpost. And I was just stunned at all of the cross relationship opportunities that were used as a dramatic

Blake (33:33)
. .

Lana (33:41)
you

Jim Fleckenstein (34:00)
tool to create friction and move the story forward. And none of them took advantage of the opportunity to say, I like this guy, I like that guy, why do I have to choose? That didn’t advance the script. And so of course, like all such dramatic story arcs, they kill off the competitors.

And so, well, I can’t marry George anymore because he got eaten by a dragon or whatever, you know, and so at the end they all have a nice, neat, monogamous ending. So, I mean, that’s a problem. The portrayals of non-monogamy are distorted when there are portrayals at all. And it’s portrayed as a very fringy, non-mainstream, edgy kind of thing for, you know, to garner clicks. And it’s not.

Blake (34:25)
Thank

Okay.

Jim Fleckenstein (34:48)
It really isn’t. You’ve probably seen the statistic, 4 % of the American population, which is tens of millions,

Blake (34:55)
you

Jim Fleckenstein (34:56)
have experience, are currently non-monogamous, or have been non-monogamous. And when you look at the younger cohorts, it goes up to as many as one in five, over 20%. And you look at those numbers, that’s equivalent to the entire adult population of the state of Pennsylvania. Okay, this is not a trivial number of people that we’re talking about.

who have experienced this and who are experiencing it. But we’re weird and fringing, and it never works. It never works out, never. Well,

Patty (35:16)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Fleckenstein (35:25)
I know people who are in their 80s and have been polyamorous their entire adult life. Now, the plural of anecdote is not data. But my research colleague, Darrell Cox, and I did a study on people 55 plus who identified as non-monogamous, and it’s a fountain of youth.

For we older folks, we’re happier and healthier and more satisfied than our age cohort peers who are monogamous. So figure that one out. So there’s a lot of things that just ain’t so that one hears about non-monogamy, either in the media or, again, on the internet or other people who have access to grind about non-monogamy, how terrible it is.

Jon (35:52)
you

Jim Fleckenstein (36:03)
The Vatican just came out with a statement about how terrible non-monogamy is.

And that’s another whole discussion. The theology, the theology of monogamy, yeah.

Jon (36:11)
you

Alonzo Banx (36:12)
That is that answer for you.

Patty (36:15)
Yeah, yeah, it did. I

like I’ve known a lot of misconceptions because I’ve seen a lot of it. But now I do see shows that are coming out with Polly people on there. And and I think, my gosh, this stuff is it looks so unhealthy and toxic. But then I think, well, this is reality TV and they’re going to only post the things that are are a struggle. And they have to, you know, if it was all good and everybody got along and it was so loving and wonderful, we wouldn’t tune in to watch.

Blake (36:17)
. you

Alonzo Banx (36:29)
Yeah.

Jim Fleckenstein (36:42)
No drama.

Patty (36:44)
There would be no drama. ⁓

Jim Fleckenstein (36:44)
Yeah, no drama. No, no clickbait. No nothing. Yeah

Alonzo Banx (36:44)
No drama.

No,

Noah, I see we’re getting towards the end of our time here, but John, you’ve been waiting for a bit, so please.

Jon (36:55)
Yes, I first wanted to mention actually kind of a response to Noah and there was a mention about the Gottman’s. and I have been through the Gottman method in therapy before and it was really very life-changing in terms of our relationship and stuff, whatever. ⁓ things were very heavy for us at one point and it really brought us into the light, so to speak, but couldn’t recommend it more. But my question was really about the

Jim Fleckenstein (37:09)
Great.

great.

Jon (37:20)
the poly community. I know you’ve been sort of studying and you’ve done a lot of research around polyamory and CNM and stuff like that. And I was kind of curious if you see any trends within the community itself that might be going in the wrong direction. Is there anything that you would caution us about of where we’re at now?

Jim Fleckenstein (37:39)
Well, now I’m getting close to being in the OK Boomer domain. The community has evolved from where it was when I got involved right at the turn of the century. How old does that make me? But yeah, I didn’t think I would see the level of recognition and visibility and acceptance.

Blake (37:46)
Okay.

Jim Fleckenstein (38:01)
that we

enjoy today in my lifetime. I had no idea. None of us saw marriage equality for the LGBTQ community. None of us foresaw that. We didn’t see that coming. And we didn’t see the visibility and the positive stuff. We didn’t see the city of Somerset, Massachusetts and Cambridge, Massachusetts allowing for multi-partner domestic partnerships and…

Berkeley, California. We didn’t see legal recognition on the horizon 20 years ago. So the community has benefited from and evolved in some very positive ways, but it’s also been captive to changing worldviews and the visible spectrum of the polyamory community in particular has a very left leaning skew.

Now I know, you know, this, the name of this podcast is So Cal Poly. So you folks, presumably men in most of you are Californians. ⁓ and one of things I was telling my partner, my domestic partner, my nesting partner about, you know, it’s like, you know, they’re in moving around the country. Cause I have not physically relocating, but being active and going to meetings and so forth. There are some very distinctive regional characteristics for the non-monogamy community.

The SoCal community is different from the Bay Area community, very different. Bay Area up through Seattle is much more like Bay Area down to LA. And none of the West Coast communities are very much like the East Coast communities. And the Texas and the Southern communities are very different from the Midwestern communities. But I see a very strong emphasis on younger people. I see a very strong emphasis on what I would characterize as left.

Blake (39:19)
.

Jim Fleckenstein (39:39)
oriented political views. for a

lot of people, that’s become a litmus test. You can’t be a good polyamorous if you don’t vote for, you know, Mamdami in New York. You’re just not a good polyamorous. I’ve read this online discussions from people who regret that this great new visibility and so forth of polyamory hasn’t brought about the political millennium that they hoped it would bring about.

Lana (39:50)
you

Jim Fleckenstein (40:02)
A lot of the polyamorous movement in the 70s and 80s was utopian in nature. was driven by hardcore second-wave feminists and others who expected that the destruction of monogamy by way of polyamory would also bring about enormous change in the political environment. And there are some elements of the community that still operate on that assumption. And they have kind of taken over the space.

Blake (40:09)
. .

Jim Fleckenstein (40:28)
in a lot of ways. like if you, if I want to, I’ve spoken to scores of

poly groups over my years of experience, but if I want to get on a program now, I’m sledding uphill because I’m the wrong age, I’m the wrong gender, I’m the wrong orientation, I’m the wrong color. My voice is marginalized now because we want to elevate other voices and that’s fine.

Blake (40:53)
. .

Jim Fleckenstein (40:54)
but we’ve kind of swung a little too far, maybe. So that’s something to be aware of, is you don’t have to be anything but consensual, non-monogamous, honest, and open. That’s the only four boxes you have to check. You don’t have to check a political box, you don’t have to check a sexual orientation box, you don’t have to check a style

box, you don’t have to check any of those other boxes.

Blake (41:22)
Okay.

Jim Fleckenstein (41:22)
to be a good polyamorous or a good non-monogamous. I gave the talk on nine common polyamory shoulds that you can safely ignore. And one of the things I did in that session was I had an online poll, immediate real-time poll, and the people in

Jon (41:32)
you

Jim Fleckenstein (41:40)
the room, asked them, for which party did you vote in the last Senate election in your state? I didn’t want to touch presidential politics because that was a third rail. But I said in the Senate.

Blake (41:40)
.

Okay.

Jim Fleckenstein (41:50)
And do you identify as extremely liberal, liberal, moderate, somewhat conservative, extremely conservative? And it was like 80 % in that room had voted for the Democratic candidate for Senate in their last election in their state. And like 70 plus percent

had voted or identified as either very liberal or liberal or extremely liberal.

Blake (42:15)
.

Jim Fleckenstein (42:15)
Now was not a random sample, it was 40 people in a room, but to me it was exemplary and that made use to make the point. Hey, look around you, you see people like you. But what about all the people who aren’t like you, who aren’t in this room, but you don’t know them and you kind of denigrate them because they’re not in this room and because they’re

different from you. But they’re every bit as much a card carrying non-monogamous as you are.

and you see this replica.

Alonzo Banx (42:43)
One of the things that we’ve

thought since we started this podcast is getting voices on here that aren’t an echo chamber, which is exactly that. We tend to all have the same belief, the same approach, the same ideals. And it’s actually been very difficult to bring in the voices of the minority or the people that are not represented here, not necessarily minority, guess they’re the majority. ⁓

Jim Fleckenstein (43:07)
They may be.

We don’t know.

Alonzo Banx (43:08)
Yeah, it’s

hard to get their voices. Noah, I’m going to give you the last question for the night as we’re getting ready to wrap up. Go ahead, Noah. Lay it on us.

Noah (43:16)
Yeah, this may be a little softball one that’s perfect for the end of the podcast here. But I wanted to ask basically, is there one thing you wish people who were experimenting with love, which is kind of how I see a lot of polyamorous relationships, right? What do you wish there was anything that that they would know sooner, earlier?

Jim Fleckenstein (43:36)
Hmm. That’s harder than it sounds to winnow through all of the potential minefields. What do I wish they knew sooner? That it’s okay. That it’s definitely, you know, my good friend, Ken Haslam, who’s, if he’s still alive, I’ve lost touch with him. He went to an assisted living facility, but he’s probably 90, literally 90 years old.

Blake (43:36)
Okay. Okay.

Jon (43:40)
you

Jim Fleckenstein (44:04)
But one of the things

that he coined in Mark Michaels and Patricia Johnson wrote a book about it called designer relationships. And Ken coined that term, designer relationships. Every relationship is unique. And every person gets to design their own relationship that works for them. That’s a right. And part of the problem is, it goes back to what Alonzo said, echo chamber, because

Blake (44:07)
. .

Jim Fleckenstein (44:30)
There are one or two or three maybe canonical books.

We tend to be an overeducated nerdy kind of community. And so everybody goes and says, well, if you’re going to start with nominon, go read the ethical slut. That’s a canonical book. You’ve to read the ethical slut. And until he was disgraced for being a misogynistic asshole, pardon my French, everybody said, go read Franklin Vaux’s More Than Two, because it’s a canonical book.

Blake (44:44)
Okay. Okay.

Jim Fleckenstein (45:00)
And then there are a few others. Now it’s Jessica

Fern’s, you know, Polysecure. You know, that’s now a new canonical book one should read. But, you know, if everybody, and everybody, it’s never everybody, but if the large majority of people who enter this community had their views about what’s, how to do it, shaped by the same small coterie of canonical books, then they’re not going to realize that you can depart from that whenever it makes sense for you.

Blake (45:04)
. .

Jim Fleckenstein (45:27)
Just

because Dawsey Easton and Catherine List say do it this way doesn’t mean that’s the one right way. You know, it’s the no true Scotsman fallacy. No true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge. Well, my uncle Anka’s put sugar in his porridge and he’s a Scotsman. Well, no true Scotsman puts sugar in his porridge. You know, it’s, you get to make up your own rules as you go on. That’s the beauty of it.

Blake (45:32)
. .

Jim Fleckenstein (45:50)
And everybody should have that freedom. I should be free to make my rules that I want to be monogamous. I should be able to be

free to make my rules I want to be celibate. I should make my rules that I want to marry the Brooklyn Bridge. You know, I have objectum sexuality. Okay, fine. That should be your right as a human being as long as you don’t harm anyone else in the process. So that’s the first thing is the rules in the canonical books are simply guidelines. They’re ideas and concepts. Try them on.

Throw away the ones that don’t work for you. Build off of it to find things that do work for you because you at the end are responsible for your own relationship. Everybody needs to learn that and take that aboard from day one. It’s up to you to make what will make you happy and satisfied within the bounds of human reality. Sure, I’d love to be Elon Musk and have money and all that other stuff, but I mean, I don’t have the control over that.

But other things I have a great deal of control over. And I should exercise that control so I can be happy.

Alonzo Banx (46:47)
I think that’s absolutely brilliantly said. ⁓ so, you know, we’re going to be begging Jim to come back on the podcast again here, clearly, but does anyone have a last like parting? can’t get off this call without asking him kind of question or do we let them off the hook here now and wrap this up? Anyone? Okay. So Jim, please tell us what you’re up to. How can we find you? How can people locate you? Tell us what kind of cool projects you got going on.

Blake (46:47)
. Okay.

Jim Fleckenstein (47:14)
I’m doing lots

of stuff. It’s the nature of what I do. If you’re curious about the seven biggest myths about non-monogamy, what Patty was asking about, you can go to openandhappy.com. Open, A, N, and happy, all one word, dot com. And that will let you get a copy of my book, The Seven Biggest Lies About Non-monogamy.

So that’s one thing you can do. If you’re dealing with, wanna build an open relationship, but you’re afraid your partner’s gonna blow you up. I wrote a mini ebook with 40 examples of shit you’re gonna hear when you propose non-monogamy. All of the nasty ⁓ rebuttals for what you’re trying to bring across. And you can grab that.

If you’re interested in that, if you’re at that stage of your journey of trying to think about, I ever going to be able to even raise this subject? And what am I going to hear when I do? That’s at unlockingmonogamy.com, S Y G H dash page. And that will get you an opportunity to take, get, get that book. And ⁓ my own book, Love That Works is at getltw.com.

Blake (48:06)
. .

Jim Fleckenstein (48:23)
Get love that works, get ltw.com. And if you’re just absolutely infatuated with everything I’ve said and you want to talk to me on a discovery

call about how I might be able to work with you and help you get past something that you’re dealing with as a coach, I would love to do that. And that one is a little bit longer. It’s tinyurl.com slash talk dash two T O dash Jim.

Blake (48:35)
. Okay.

Alonzo Banx (48:53)
And I will put all of those links up on our website. So if you look this up on the website, you’ll find all those links.

Jim Fleckenstein (48:53)
So.

That’d be great. Thank you. I appreciate that. Sure.

Alonzo Banx (49:01)
Anyone have any parting words for Jim before we wrap this up tonight? Go ahead.

Jon (49:05)
you

Noah (49:07)
Thank you so much

for coming on.

Blake (49:08)
Okay.

Jon (49:08)
Yeah, thank you.

Patty (49:08)
Thank you.

Jim Fleckenstein (49:09)
You’re welcome, more than welcome.

Solara (49:10)
It’s really wonderful to have you as an expert on this panel and the information that you provided has been very specific and general, but just

Alonzo Banx (49:10)
Thank

Solara (49:21)
things that we all need to know. So thank you for being here.

Jim Fleckenstein (49:23)
You’re most welcome. Thank you, It’s cute that your name that you go by is my, live in my domestic partner is an author. She’s written 18 novels and that is her pen name. Solara Gordon is her pen name. So when I saw that Solara, that was cool.

Lana (49:38)
Nice. ⁓

Solara (49:40)
How fun.

Alonzo Banx (49:43)
Well, it’s been another amazing night with everyone. We’ve had Jim Flickenstein on, Blake, John, Lana, Noah, Solana, Patty, I am Alonzo Banks. This has been the PolysoCal podcast. It has been a great night. Jim, thank you very much for being our guest. We certainly hope that you’ll come back again. Everyone make sure to check out our website, come to our events, and I’ll see you all soon.