Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships [Paperback]

Tristan Taormino (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2008

Relationship expert and bestselling author Tristan Taormino offers a bold new strategy for creating loving, lasting relationships. Drawing on in-depth interviews with over a hundred women and men, Opening Up explores the real-life benefits and challenges of all styles of open relationships — from partnered non-monogamy to solo polyamory. With her refreshingly down-to-earth style and sharp wit, Taormino offers solutions for making an open relationship work, including tips on dealing with jealousy, negotiating boundaries, finding community, parenting and time management. Opening Up will change the way you think about intimacy.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A luscious smorgasbord of non-monogamy as an opportunity for breaking free of one-way models of sex and love. Taormino's discussion is remarkably nuanced and balanced--and encourages readers to proceed with their eyes wide open." -- Jack Morin, PhD, author of The Erotic Mind

"Bold advice for explorers of open relationships. Comprehensive, clear, and grounded in practical realities, this book is one of the best to come along in a long time!" -- Deborah Anapol, Ph.D., author of Polyamory: The New Love Without Limits

"Courageous, stunningly thorough and inspiring. If you need a pathfinding guide for evolving your relationships, this is it." -- Daphne Rose Kingma, author of The Future of Love

"If you are looking for an everyday, run-of-the-mill relationship guide, this introduction to the world of nonmonogamy is probably not for you. Village Voice sex columnist Taormino, who has authored or edited a handful of guides on physical relationships (e.g., The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex For Women), sheds light on the various types of open relations and shares tips on how these relationships can most successfully be maintained. Those put off by the book's premise shouldn't be: this is not so much an espousal of nonmonogamous relationships as it is a comprehensive guide to the phenomenon, offering numerous firsthand accounts from those involved in open relationships. With its modern twist on conventional relationships, her latest title would be best suited for contemporary nonfiction collections."---Carolann Curry, Mercer Univ. Medical Lib., Macon, GA -- Library Journal--July 2008

"Superbly informative, sympathetic and literate." -- Dr. Gloria Brame, author of Different Loving

"Taormino cuts through all the utopian theory and gets down to what people really need: the nuts and bolts of how open relationships work. I want to give Opening Up to everyone I know who asks, 'How do you do it?'" -- Susie Bright, author of Best American Erotica Series

"This is the book you want to read if you're looking for a voice that is balanced, sensitive and sensible when tackling the thorny question of sexual boundaries in love relationships. Opening Up is sure to open up your mind." -- Esther Perel, author of Mating In Captivity: Unlocking Erotica Intelligence

About the Author

Tristan Taormino is an award-winning author, columnist, editor, and sex educator. She is the author of True Lust: Adventures in Sex, Porn and Perversion, Down and Dirty Sex Secrets, The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women and editor of the Lambda Literary Award-winning anthology series Best Lesbian Erotica. Her popular Village Voice column "Pucker Up" is nationally syndicated. She runs her own adult film production company, Smart Ass Productions, and is currently an exclusive director for Vivid Entertainment. Tristan has been featured in over 250 publications including The New York Times, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Entertainment Weekly, Details, New York Magazine, Men's Health, and Playboy. She has appeared on HBO's Real Sex, The Howard Stern Show, Loveline, Ricki Lake, and on CNN, MTV, and The Discovery Channel. She lectures at top colleges and universities, where she speaks on gay and lesbian issues, sexuality and gender, alternative relationships, and feminism. She teaches sex and relationship workshops around the world.

Product Details

• Paperback: 346 pages
• Publisher: Cleis Press; First Edition edition (May 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 157344295X
• ISBN-13: 978-1573442954
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (70 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #15,451 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #96 in Books > Self-Help > Sex

More About the Author

Tristan Taormino is an award-winning author, sex educator, speaker, filmmaker, and radio host. She is the author of seven books, including The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women, Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships, The Secrets of Great G-Spot Orgasms and Female Ejaculation, The Big Book of Sex Toys, and True List: Adventures in Sex, Porn and Perversion. She is the editor of more than 25 anthologies including The Ultimate Guide to Kink: BDSM, Role Play and the Erotic Edge and Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica, winner of a 2012 Lambda Literary Award. She was creator and series editor of the Best Lesbian Erotica anthology series. Her books have sold over 500,000 copies and been translated into many languages. She's written for a multitude of publications from Yale Journal of Law and Feminism to Penthouse, and served as editor of the magazine On Our Backs. She was a syndicated columnist for The Village Voice for nine and a half years and writes an advice column for Taboo Magazine.

She is the producer and host of Sex Out Loud, a weekly radio show on the VoiceAmerica Network. As the head of Smart Ass Productions, she has directed and produced twenty-four sex education and erotic films; she is currently an exclusive director for Vivid Entertainment. Her films have won more than a dozen awards. Tristan and her work have been featured in over 400 publications including O: The Oprah Magazine, The New York Times, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Entertainment Weekly, Details, New York Magazine, Men's Health, and Playboy. She has appeared on HBO's Real Sex, The Howard Stern Show, Melissa Harris-Perry, Loveline, MTV, CNN, NBC, MTV, Oxygen, Fox News, The Discovery Channel, and on over a hundred radio shows; she was the resident sex expert and a recurring guest on two seasons of Ricki Lake.

Tristan's work, writing and films are routinely used in college courses to explore the complex issues of relationship and sexual diversity, politics and media. As a speaker, she is widely regarded as an expert on a diverse range of topics from sexual empowerment and LGBTQ sexuality to non-monogamy and feminist pornography. She lectures at top colleges and universities including Yale, Cornell, Princeton, Brown, Harvard, Columbia, Smith, Johns Hopkins, and UCLA, where she speaks on gay and lesbian issues, sexuality and gender, and feminism. She teaches sex and relationship workshops around the world.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

159 of 160 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars I was a bit scared to read this. January 15, 2010

By Dan E. Nicholas

Format:Paperback

I bought this book after running into several folks over a ten year period that were into palyamory--having more than one lover at a time.

To be honest, I was half way between fear on this and the weariness of judging my two or three friends who were oriented this way--multiple lovers. I felt their honesty and candor and approach to sexual integrity was scoring far better (not to mention more often!) than many of my church friends, some of whom were defending to the death long dead marriages; lifeless, dry, sexless "relationships".

With Taormino's interviews of 100 plus folks in alternative relationships, a few things stood out for me from my perspective as a traditional type married and sometimes churchy guy. All of us could learn a good deal from Tristan's book on the matter of communication and honesty. I've learned from this book what a joy it is, for example, to have permission from a spouse to notice hot ladies on the street or market. And to have talked out before her where the jealousy thing begins and ends and to simply be able to feel free as a man to appreciate the life force around me. Yes, feel good. Relationship with self. Yes, come out erotically with my thoughts but with the blessing from monogamous spouse. Communication and honesty! Saying out loud who you are and what you want. That's what this book was about for me.

Opening Up will open up a few closed minds. This doesn't have to mean that if you are into traditional marriage that you have to dial down your commitment to monogamy or start groping ladies in elevators. Contrarily, it is an invitation to appreciate how people around us are different and how others approach communication and truth telling, approach honesty with those whom they care deeply.

Another thing that stood out for me with this book is how incredibly mature a couple or an established threesome has to be to have a polyamory-styled relationship that works or seems to work. If anything, the book gave me new faith in why a jealous God just might have designed a more vanilla styled monogamy (dare I say "dumbed down"?) for the rest of us as a matter of course. Let's face it. Most of us just simply are not grown up enough to do this multiple lover thing with the integrity, honesty and full out communication needed for it to work. If it indeed can work over the long haul. But then we high horse church folk must be reminded: just how many of our marriages work or are even long haul these days?

Again, to be honest, Taormino's research and writing is just a fun, voyeuristic read. Like people watching downtown, it's always a kick to see how other folks live. And how sweet to learn of the post WWII "flyboys" that invented palyamory in this country, men who would take on a second woman, a widow, in order to fulfill a dying wish of a comrade in war...that a friend, a war buddy, take care of the woman he loved and must now leave in death.

Couples should read this together as it is sure to fuel many an interesting conversation between traditional spouses! And it will, as I have said, go a long way towards bringing insights into the monogamy path--like how to get over the thoughts and behaviors around "owning" someone; and how to be better at living in the abandonment and falling part of love. Indeed, how does one let oneself be in love in the moment, holding a beloved's heart gently in an open hand rather than tightly in a closed and married fist? Interesting question.

Hey, and this, too: we are getting older. And think about it. Is death not the other lover (eros and thanatos, ever the pair) who will edge in one day and get his or her way soon enough between the monogamous two of you? Indeed.

So maybe all mortal and traditional marriages are threesomes. Foursomes I suppose, if God is watching and participating, or invited to. Hey, open up!

Yes, traditional folk in happy relationships could gain from reading Tristan Taormino's scary work. But then lovers who care for things to stay hot edgy must always be brave I think. For one, I'm a romantic and a one woman kind of man. But I loved this book.

114 of 114 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The book I've been waiting for July 2, 2008

By Harper J. Tobin

Format:Paperback

A number of good and okay books on nonmonogamy and polyamory have been published in the last several years. I read most of them: some were focused on particular forms of nonmonogamy; others dominated by a spiritual bent, others were just poorly written or edited. Some were downright Pollyanna-ish in their superficial treatment of the challenges of open relationships, occasionally reeking of smug superiority over less-evolved monogamous couplings. None of them was the perfect book I wanted to recommend to the curious, the novice, the baffled and disapproving. This is that book.

Among the book's chief strengths is its breadth. Taormino conducted over 120 interviews with a diverse sample of the nonmonogamous - people of varying ages, sexualities, and (most of all) approaches to relationships. This variety is highlighted by six chapters on different types of open relationships, discussing each types particular advantages and challenges and sharing the experiences of individuals, couples, and group relationships.

The later chapters tackle particular issues and problems common to open relationships, from the emotional (managing jealousy, coming out) to the practical (safer sex, legal and financial protections). Taormino moves beyond the platitudes common to discussions of nomonogamy - "Communicate! Be Honest! Own your feelings!" - and provides concrete advice on how to approach difficult conversations, disentangle emotional reactions, develop and follow agreements, and respond to change.

The book's heavy use of quotations and anecdotes from interview subjects, and its effort to be accessible and inclusive, result in an approach that mutes the distinctive voice and focus on sexual exploration that mark Taormino's other work as an author, editor, educator and pornographer. In-depth discussions of group sex are not to be found (Taormino recommends Vicki Vantock's Threesome Handbook); instead, the focus is on the emotional aspect of relationships, and sexual details come up only in the context of forming agreements and protecting your partners. With a few exceptions - such as her criticism of the "radical honesty" school of intimate communication - the book presents varied opinions and approaches in a neutral, descriptive fashion; rather than question the importance of gender and heterosexual intercourse to many people's relationship agreements, for example, she simply recognizes these as emotional facts to be addressed.

This book will be most interesting to those relatively new to thinking about, or doing, open relationships. But while those for whom nonmonogamy is familiar may be tempted to skim or skip this book (or any new book on the subject), nearly everyone will find something thought-provoking, such as the discussion of mono/poly relationships (which poly folk sometimes regard as doomed to fail, in much the way many monogamous folks regard polyamory generally), the evolution of group relationships, and coping with major changes in wants, needs, and circumstances.

[...]

40 of 40 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading for everybody entering into an intimate relationship of any kind June 28, 2008

By Mistress D

Format:Paperback

Tristan Taormino has done it again. Her flair for intelligent, engaging journalism takes a hotly debated subject and demystifies it in a pragmatic, yet charming manner. As a relationship counselor, specializing in alternative affairs, I have, by this time, given all of my initial order copies of Opening Up to clients and friends. This easy to read primer holds priceless value to anyone involved in an intimate liaison and is not only for those in or contemplating open relationships. Taormino's talent for translating thorough research into entertaining reading is made even more beneficial through her use of checklists, guides, definitions and practical advice on etiquette, negotiation and more. What could have easily been just another boring, clinical look at alternative relationship models is presented in a vividly human way and accentuated via the many personal experiences which can be found throughout the book. By shattering countless misconceptions, fabrications, myths and rumors about open relationships, Taormino also brings to light the fact that monogamy is a choice and not an expectation. As well, this delightfully honest author clearly communicates her deep understanding that there is no "right" model. Opening Up vividly illustrates, through tireless research, skillful writing and real life accounts, that all manner of relationships require periodic reevaluation highlighted by meaningful, sincere communication and negotiation in a fearless, loving environment. In her inimitable style, Taormino gently urges the reader to awareness that these are key elements for success in relationships of any kind. I have and will continue to recommend this revealing book to not only those experiencing ambivalence about their current relationship but also to those who are curious about breathing new life into their existing arrangement. Opening Up is so filled with readable, practical information that it is likely to provide the necessary evidence which could change, "I think I'd like to....," into "Be careful what you wish for;" giving it enhanced value for enlightening those who may be impetuous or uninformed thus perhaps avoiding ill conceived forays into potentially treacherous relationship territory. In a world where marriages and families fail at an alarming rate, this refreshingly entertaining "how to" provides essential insight and practical advice - making it near mandatory reading for any and all who are contemplating relationship counseling, marriage or any other intimate, family arrangement.