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| |  | Items by Class Year | Home » » Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships | | | | | | | Description: | | 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: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships explores the real-life benefits and challenges of all styles of open relationships--from partnered nonmonogamy 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. Woven throughout the book are the diverse voices of real people--from a woman with two husbands and a suburban swinger couple to polyamorous parents and a gay male triad--who candidly share their struggles, fears, hopes, and the secrets of their success in open relationships. Opening Up will change the way you think about intimacy--and will help you decide if an open relationship is right for you. | | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Tristan Taormino | | Paperback:
| 346 pages | | Publisher:
| Cleis Press | | Publication Date:
| May 01, 2008 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 157344295X | | Package Length:
| 8.4 inches | | Package Width:
| 5.5 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.0 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.05 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 33 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
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 Here's hoping more people read this!Jul 04, 2010
I have read this numerous times. I've passed it on. I've encouraged friends to read this. I've sent it anonymously to friends of mine who consistently cheat on their girlfriends and lovers, gay or straight -it doesn't seem to matter. Once a cheater, that's the phrase, right? Well. I have hope. I hope that those who read this book learn other ways of being. Honesty isn't just about not saying an untruth. It's giving the whole story, the bigger picture. This book shows how some many of us do this. There is no one way to be non-manogamous. There are so many paths to follow. Her words showed me how to find my own direction, what I can and can't compromise upon. I'd recommend this book, any of her books for you if you want to learn about open sexuality, no longer stuck with old patterns of hiding your lovers and attractions. It doesn't have to be a big deal! Honest!
Sarah Leamy
Author of When No One's Looking.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
The go-to guide for non-monogamy infoFeb 06, 2010
Tristan's books are always fabulous, but this one blows everything out of the water. While former polyamory books such as the Ethical Slut have found their way onto bookshelves across the nation, Opening Up looks at a whole variety of non-monogamy, making for a perfect guide for anyone and everyone, even if they decide that monogamy is actually the right choice for them.
It's formatted in a way that allows the reader to choose whether they want to read it through from beginning to end, or go specifically to the chapter that talks about what they're interested in reading about. Moreover, the combo between regular information and direct quotes from actual people creates welcoming book for anyone. Granted, there are many available books on poly and non-monogamy, but this is the perfect reader for everyone from newbies to educators.
13 of 13 found the following review helpful:
 I was a bit scared to read this.Jan 15, 2010
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 and 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. What a joy to have permission from a spouse, for example, to notice hot ladies and to have talked out before where jealousy begins and ends and to simply be able to feel free as a man to appreciate the life force around me.
Opening Up will open up a few closed minds. This doesn't have to mean 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 with those they care deeply about.
Another thing that stood out for me is how incredibly mature a couple or a threesome has to be to have a polyamory-styled relationship that 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; as 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 folk must be reminded...just how many marriages work or are long haul these days?
Again, to be honest, Taormino's research and writing it is just a fun, voyeuristic read. 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 would take on a second woman/widow to fulfill the dying wish of a comrade in war that his friend 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, letting 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.
Hey, we are getting older. Death is the other lover (eros and thanatos, ever the pair) who will edge in and will get his/her way soon enough between the monogamous two of you. So maybe all mortal and traditional marriages are threesomes? Foursomes I suppose, if God is watching, or invited to. Hey, open up!
Yes, traditional married folk in happy relationships could gain from reading Tristan Taormino's scary work. But then lovers who care for things to stay hot must always be brave I think. For one, I'm a romantic and a one woman kind of man. But I loved this book.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
An unbiased look at polyamoryDec 19, 2009
Just like other reviews have said, this book is a great option for those curious about the polyamorous lifestyle, and it also helps those already involved to mentally explore relationship combinations that don't involve sex. I highly recommend it.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
The best guide to polyamoryDec 03, 2009
This is the absolute-best book on polyamory published to date (2009). It is interestingly written and handles the practicalities of living poly with insight and thoughtfulness.
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