Send us Fan MailSex, Cheating Modern Love: A Conversation with Dr. Tammy Nelson | Episode 199In this episode of The Swing Nation Podcast, the top-rated podcast about non-monogamy and swinging, Dan and Lacy sit down for an insightful and thought-provoking conversation with Dr. Tammy Nelson.Dr. Tammy Nelson, PhD, is a Board Certified Sexologist, AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, Licensed Professional Counselor, Certified Imago Relationship Therapist, and Licensed Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselor with over 30 years of experience working with couples and individuals exploring flexible monogamy and non-traditional relationships. She’s also a TEDx speaker and the host of The Trouble With Sex podcast.Together, Dan, Lacy, and Dr. Tammy dive deep into the connection between sex, intimacy, and relationship health, explore why people cheat, and discuss the growing societal shift toward non-monogamy. Whether you re curious about opening up, navigating long-term connection, or just want expert insight into what makes modern relationships work, this episode is packed with wisdom, real talk, and fresh perspectives from one of the leading voices in the field.Dr. Tammy s Websitehttps://www.drtammynelson.com/- The Swing Nation - Main Website Quick Navigation Website: -- (Find all our social media links more!)- Swinger Society - Our Website to meet, connect events Swinger Society Discord Our Facebook Group- Swinger Websites -Kasadie 90 day free trialUsername: TheSwingNation SDC 14 day free trial Username: TheSwingNation** Use code 36313 for 14 days free! ** SLSUsername: NorthernGuynSouthernGirl- Merch More -Order Your Merch Here!- Lacy’s Fun Links -VIP OnlyFansPREMIUM OnlyFans-- THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS --Wisp : Making sexual healthcare inclusive, cost-effective, and accessible—for everyoneUse Code SWING at checkout for 15% off your oder!Shameless Care: ED Medication and at home STD testingUse Code TSN at checkout for $30 off your order!Promescent® Make Love Longer, It’s Time for Great SexUse Code SwingNation for 5% off!Sing it Bikinis: adjustable one-size styles, thoughtfully crafted to flatter every body type.Support the show- Thank you for the support! -
Transcript
This podcast is intended for adult audiences. Over the age of 18, it contains adult language and situations. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this podcast belong solely to us, and not of any employer, organization, committee, or other group or individuals. This podcast is not intended to be taken as professional advice. Welcome to the Swing Nation podcast, a podcast by swingers and for swingers, where we look to educate others and push back on the negative stigmas and misconceptions associated with our lifestyle.
Come with us and share our pineapple journey as we travel the globe. Interview the activists, learn and grow together. Join the activists. Learn and grow together. Join the nation. So, Lacey, people are asking, how do they get to go to a party or an event with us? They check out swingersociety.net.
You create a profile, you sign up for an event, and you come hang you come hang out with us super easy that's right if you want to party with us in the other faces and names that you know from social media and tiktok head on over to swingersociety.net can't wait to see you there hey there pineapple people and welcome to the swing nation podcast we are your hosts northern guy and southern girl and today we have a special episode for you we are sitting down with dr tammy nelson a phd a renowned sex and relationship therapist a tedx speaker and author of open monogamy and when you're the one that Cheats.
She also happens to be Ashley Madison's resident sex and relationship expert. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks for having me. So we like to start our show kind of the same way we start a lot of our lifestyle interactions with people is the whole tell us about yourself. So, um, and you know, how do you get to be a sex expert? I'm not sure how you, like when I went to college, they didn't, or when I went to high school and I started going to see the guidance counselor and they're like, what do you want to do with your life? I wasn't given that option.
Like sex, uh, expert wasn't on the list of career fields I was offered. So how did you get here, Dr. Tammy? Well, I don't know if that's what my degree is in, but I do have a degree in sexology, which is what my PhD is, sexology and psychology. And I have a certification as a board certified sex therapist. And so there are, you know, ways to be specialists either in sex education, sexuality counseling, sex therapy. And I started and I'm the director of the Integrative Sex Therapy Institute. So I train and certify postgraduate psychotherapists to be sex therapist.
So, you know, sex therapy is just a kind of psychotherapy that helps couples, individuals, or people in open relationships, work on desire issues, relationship issues, physical, anatomical, arousal issues. You know, sex has become, yes, a part of a conversation that is easier to talk about, but people still have a lot of issues around their childhood, around repression, around dysfunction.
And so, you know, working on your sex life has become not just something that we can learn from uh the media but sometimes people need extra help 100 yeah it's funny sex is one of those things like nobody really wants to talk about but it's one of the they also do though in a lot of ways it's like sex and money is like the two biggest reasons people end up getting divorced right so like it's a huge part of our lives it's a huge part of um i think our happiness but it does seem like a subject nobody really is comfortable talking about but i think you're right we are getting better at it well statistically we actually talk the least about sex to the person we're actually having sex with so you know those are the skills that we actually need like how do we continue to talk about sex with the people that we're the closest with yeah that's interesting okay so what gets you interested in in non-monogamy and specifically like cheating and what led you to writing a book on the subject well you know i was writing about how to increase the passion and aliveness in your relationship when you were together for a long period of time.
Because we teach people that, you know, the longer you're together, the better your sex life is supposed to be because you know each other, you feel safer. And it's not really true. Like safety is sort of antithetical to eroticism. So the longer you're together, the more familiar you are with each other, the more family you feel like. And you know, the less you want to have sex with them, because they're your family. And, you know, I would see people that were together for with their partners for a long time, and we'd have to sort of reintegrate the erotic part of their relationship.
You know, it's kind of a meme that you can't stay sexy in a long-term relationship. But I would see people to, you know, sort of juice up things in their marriage or their partnerships. And then I would start to realize that some of the people that were coming, it wasn't just boredom or long term family issues. It was also that there was trauma in their erotic relationship and trauma from betrayal, trauma from affairs, trauma from the past, trauma around their sexuality, around their body. Like there was a whole nother category going on.
So I would either see people for like the desire issues or for the trauma and so I started doing research and writing more about affairs and infidelity and cheating and what that was really about and there was really no books or research for people who were actually having the affairs like why were people doing it and so I wrote when you're the one who cheats and then it seemed to me like the problem wasn't necessarily the person you were with but but the agreement that you had people didn't really want to trade their partner in for someone else but they definitely wanted to upgrade their agreement.
So the problem wasn't really solved by just, you know, ending your relationship and starting a new one over and over. The problems really were around how to agree to what you really wanted. And so I sort of went full circle, like, how do you talk about the fact that you weren't happy? How do you talk about what you really want? How do you talk about what you ultimately might desire or fantasize about? And then how do you make that happen? So all those things are related. And you don't have to have an affair to have that conversation.
And And so when I wrote The the new monogamy it was about redefining your relationship and having an open more open or flexible monogamy agreement even if it's traditionally monogamous you know there's a continuum here and people were like wait do we have to have an affair to have that conversation like shouldn't we shouldn't we all do it right And that's why open monogamy. No, it's such an interesting subject. You know, so me and Lacey both came from previous relationships that were monogamous. And I, you know, in her situation, the other partner cheated. But in my situation, I did.
And I felt in my relationship very much the way you did is, you know, we were in a long-term relationship and we kind of got to that where things weren't sexy. And we kind of, like you said, felt like family and just more like roommates. And, and I was terrified to talk to my partner about that. Like it just, and I think I was terrified because I was afraid of the way she would react. And basically I felt like if I had that conversation, it would basically be ending our marriage anyway.
So then I was like, well, if that's going to end it anyway, let me see if I can just find what I want without talking about what I want and keep it on the down low kind of thing. And I think a lot of people are in that situation.
Now being with Lacey and being in an open relationship where we talk about all our fantasies and then go and explore them together, it's such like a light switch like difference between where we were at before and where i am now um and it's hard for me to like imagine going back to that place so i guess why are people so afraid of talking about it it's scary i can say that i mean just I think back to like previous relationships, just like you said, if I were to say I am having these feelings, I would be made to feel shameful. I mean, like ashamed of myself.
I mean, I think like society tells us that we shouldn't want or need those things. And so I think there's also pressure that we put on ourselves as well. Yeah, I think, you know, monogamy in marriage used to be defined by morality. So particularly for women, but for all of us, like if we, you know, if we just want to be with one person, then that sort of aligns with, you know, being a moral person. I think we've shifted pretty far away from that in that monogamy, even if it's just being married to one person and having an open agreement, it's more defined by integrity and integrity.
I don't mean that in a judgment kind of way. I mean, integrating all the parts of you. So if you can live with someone and feel like you don't have to compartmentalize or split off or disintegrate or dismember those parts of yourself, then you can say, you know, this is all of me.
This is all of who I am and all of what I want and all of what I fantasize about and all of who I think about and all of what I want to do and have somebody really know you and really accept that that's who you are then you're really living in integrity then you don't have to lie then you don't have to cheat like that is real true love and acceptance and that's really what marriage and monogamy are today.
So regardless of what you're into along the monogamy continuum, it's really hard to be transparent and honest with your partner to open all those compartments and share them, particularly if like Laceyacey said, you've been shamed and had to hide those parts of yourself because that's what society told you or your parents or your community or your church or whoever. And it's a real risk to be that vulnerable and open up to somebody about those things. But I mean, how vulnerable you get is really how intimate you are, right? Intimacy is into me see.
Like, can you really let someone see into you and all the parts of you? Yeah. No, I think I can feel that. Like, I think if I compare where I was at before, it's where our relationship is now. It doesn't even seem like it's the same type of relationship. Yeah, it feels like a different level, like a deeper level of love, like true love. Like if you can love me and all my crazy faults and all my weird, sick things I kind of want to do in the bedroom, like you truly love me. And like, that's a very freeing feeling. Yeah. So it's interesting. So cheating is a thing, though.
Like, it's a big thing.
So like like it is how big of a problem i mean i hear all these statistics where half of the couples cheat on each other and then you know you see other things that are like well if you count emotional cheating is up to like 70 or 80 percent of couples are cheating on each other like how big of a problem is cheating in in america well first of all it's hard to know how many people are cheating because you know cheating is based on dishonesty and so people lie to the researchers right they're not even honest to people that are trying to do the research so that's one problem the other problem is how do we even define cheating now like so much around technology that we can do that we couldn't even do 20 years ago I mean you can cheat lying in bed next to your partner because you have a phone there like that's never been a thing we never used to have to say I promise to love honor you and never send a picture of myself on Instagram like like worry about this stuff before.
So what you define as cheating, your partner might be like, porn, I've been doing that since I was 10. Like that's not cheating. But your partner see that as a threat to your relationship. So you know, there's always going to be people that really need a secret life. And other people who say, you know, there's always going to be people that really need a secret life. And other people who say, you know what, I do want a private part of myself. Maybe that's masturbation, maybe that's, you know, a fantasy life in my head.
But those are things you have to negotiate between you, like what is private? What is secret?
because it's the secrets that feel like the betrayal and it's the negotiation that makes it feel like okay you know whatever you need as long as we agree then it's not a betrayal now are some people still going to cheat well there's 80 million people on ashley madison so it was obviously a market for it right you know i think sometimes if you are given permission um to uh to do whatever you want sometimes it's the illicit forbidden naughty kind of getting away with it that turns people on i think that's a smaller percentage than we might think i feel like that's what it is for me that you you enjoy that part i do i do um and i feel like for a long time swinging kind of replaced that for me um because it was like our dirty little secret like our naughty little thing that nobody knew about but now everybody knows but I love our life so much that it's worth it for me not to have that does that make sense like I feel like I'm growing I've grown up or like I really I can acknowledge that and I think me eight years ago probably would never say out loud that that's how I feel and and own up to that yeah I think we all like having naughty little secrets and it's interesting because we've had a lot of people you know we've been so open about being swingers and the swinger lifestyle and you know we've talked about a lot about the different clubs and how you go to these different places and we've had lots of people reach out to us and say what are you doing like the whole point of this is for it to be secret like you're you're like violating the ethics of being a swinger by telling everybody all our secrets and and i agree and i actually had pushed back to you in the beginning like you were like no i want to make swinging um acceptable for everyone and i'm like i like that it's my little secret it's like it feels very naughty to be normal mom appearing on the outside like an everyday person but occasionally you sneak off and have these wild huge sex parties and then you get to come back and and just be normal again and so like a lot of ways that fulfilled that that need for me yeah and then there's always the flip side of that right like it's like well it's nice to be secret and be naughty but then when somebody gets found out that they're not non-monogamous and they lose their job or their kids or you know it's devastating so like how do you balance that well we want to be naughty and sexy and fun but we also don't want people to be like literally discriminated against because they've chosen this lifestyle right so how do you balance the two together yeah well it's interesting because if you look at the people that are claiming to be monogamous there's a huge portion like you mentioned before of those people that are like pretend monogamy yeah oh yeah we're monogamous to the to our community and to our at everyone in our to everyone in our church and our synagogue, but really, we're cheating on each other.
So we're not really monogamous, we're not really playing the morality game. And it's easy to judge. But from from the perspective of, you know, how, what is integrity, integrity is defined by being honest.
So by coming out and saying this is who we are, regardless of, you know, the risk of consequences, you're actually living much more in integrity than a person who is saying that they're monogamous, but they lying about it um but you know like you said there's risks i mean there's always risks with having um some kind of alternative lifestyle like living on the fringe yeah it's true and i guess that's it so to your point like if how do you do you be, how do you keep the sexy fun, but then also advocate for this? No, I mean, I think I feel comfortable with what we're doing.
Like I said before, I feel like I am proud of like the work that we've done and everything, but also like, and I'm aware that that I've lost that leg, but I still also still kind of have it too. So for me, I just think I'm getting older and accepting that I'm okay with where I'm at, for me, anyway. Agreed. I think it's good. Okay, so my next question to you, and this is, you know, everybody wants to know why people cheat.
And I don't think that's, maybe we could probably talk for more than an hour about that uh but i think the answer would surprise people i'm gonna be honest i was cheated on um quite a few times and i wanted to know why too as somebody that you know had an a partner that was cheating i wanted to know what i did wrong what i could have done better so I'm really curious to see what you say because now 10 years removed 10 plus years removed from that I've realized I don't think I could have done anything better I think it was all about them and and the things that they were going through in their life I don't think it was me at all well I can tell you um, after doing this for 35 years, I'm pretty clear that people don't really look for another person.
They look to be another person. So I think you're right. Like even in open relationships, people don't necessarily look for other partners. They look to be another person. So just like you're a different person with everyone you're with, you know, people cheat because there's a part of them that they are looking for that comes out with somebody else. And it really doesn't have anything necessarily to do with you. It doesn't mean that they are a good person for doing it to you, for lying and cheating.
But what I would ask someone who cheated is, you know, who did you become when you were with this other person? And why did you feel like you couldn't integrate that part into your marriage? And a lot of people will blame their partner. Well, she wasn't into it, or she would never let me, or I couldn't be that part with her or him. And sometimes cheating is a can opener. Like sometimes it's like you cheat because you really want out, or you don't even realize you want out until you do it. Or you want to be kind of passive aggressive about it and make the other person do it.
um and in a way it can be a gift it's like saying you know what i'll be the bad guy you can be the one that tells all your friends what a schmuck i am that i cheated on you um you know it's very rare that um that there's uh that cheating is sort of like an accident like people don't fall in bed with someone by accident so it's they've been roofied or they're really drunk and in that case they should call the cops or go to rehab like it's really there's usually some underlying. Now that's not to blame the person that was cheated on.
I don't think that it means that there was something wrong with your relationship or there's, you know, there's like a faulty foundation. Like I don't buy that because that's like blaming the person that was cheated on. Um, I think affairs have three parts. I think there's an outside relationship of some sort, whether it's emotional or, or a paid relationship, or it's an online sex worker or something, there's some kind of, some kind of outside relationship outside of your partnership.
There's something sexual, even if it hasn't physically consummated, even if it's online mutual masturbation there's something sexual about it and but the third part is the dishonesty and the dishonesty can be you know what i did this i should have told you we should go to therapy let's talk about this all the way to gaslighting you like i didn't do that i don't know what you're talking about that wasn't me i know you found the pictures but that's somebody else like you know there's a big Thank you. all the way to gaslighting you like, I didn't do that. I don't know what you're talking about.
That wasn't me. I know you found the pictures, but that's somebody else. Like, you know, there's a big, big continuum of dishonesty. And depending on which part is the most painful, the most difficult to get over, really depends on how your relationship is going to survive it. I mean, a lot of people do survive it.
And some people people are even closer because of it but sometimes it's a good reason to break up yeah do you think men and women cheat for for different reasons so you said that people cheat because they're looking to be somebody else is that true for both genders or do you think it's different for men and women I would not gender code it. I did some research with Ashley Madison when I was writing my book, When You're the One Who Cheats. And they gave me a profile, one of a man and one of a woman. And I didn't interact with anybody, but I didn't have a picture.
I just described myself as a woman, blonde, five, eight, and a man, six feet blonde. And when I got, I got letters from all of males and females, and I actually put myself up as a gay woman and hardly anyone contacted me. I don't think that's the site. But when when I was a woman, the men that contacted me and I got a lot of responses all said, I really don't want a one night stand. I'm not interested in your in you. If you just want to have sex one time, I really want someone who I can text every day and we can have an ongoing relationship.
I'm not going to leave my wife, but I want someone that I can be emotionally attached to. I mean, to a letter, everyone said that. When the women contacted me and I was a man, they all sent me like lingerie pictures, pictures of their boobs. all like look i don't want to hear your problems i don't want you have a wife for that i don't want to hear about your job um i just want to have hot sex after i put the kids on the bus and i want it to be like some really kinky sex and i'm not really interested in an ongoing relationship. I don't have time for it.
I mean, to, to a letter, every woman was like, please, I don't want a relationship with you. Can we just have hot sex? So, I mean, this whole idea that men cheat for sex and women cheat for relationships, it's just not true. I mean, statistically it's not true.
And, um and um you know it's kind of gender coding to think that women particularly of a certain age like when if they have young kids or they're a little bit older um they don't have time for another relationship and they are taking care of so many emotional needs like the last thing they want it's like more emotional needs lacy's nodding her head yeah no i totally agree yeah i i don't want to text you all day i love you but like just check in with me and let me know you're okay like the thought of doing that seems exhausting like just show up fuck the shit out of me and then leave yeah come back next week same time it's interesting because you would think that would be the male perspective yeah you would you know lacy's on only fans and there there are quite a few guys that message her on only fans that just want to chit chat they just want to have a conversation they just want to tell you about their day they're not necessarily looking to be sexual so it is interesting that from what you've just said it sounds like maybe men are looking for more of an emotional connection or probably looking for somebody that they feel like they can be vulnerable with.
Because I think a lot of men at home have to be this big, strong, tough guy and maybe not share their emotions. Yeah. And so having an outlet for that is maybe what they're looking for.
Yeah, and you know what's crazy is if those men gave that attention to their wives and cared and texted and checked, you know what's crazy is if those men gave that attention to their wives and cared and text and checked you know and and was emotionally available to their wives they'd probably get laid more to be honest with you so it's like counterproductive like they're giving their attention elsewhere when if they just watered their own grass it would grow pretty well yeah that's interesting well it may also be that the wives are like okay enough of you especially if you've been married for any amount of time i could totally see that if you if you're taking care of kids and cleaning and cooking and doing all the things or you have an outside job and like the last thing you want to do is hear a grown man be super you know like you don't want to dismiss their feelings but outside job and like the last thing you want to do is hear a grown man be super vulnerable you know like not you don't want to dismiss their feelings but i can kind of get where you could just be like i can't deal with you today well there's a lot of emotional labor that goes into being a wife and a mom so if the if the vulnerability comes off as like neediness like how come i'm not getting anything and women are feeling depleted.
Um, you know, the number one reason that women say they don't have desire for their partner is because they're exhausted.
So when you get to, you know, depleted and you're exhausted and you're tired and there's no room at the end of the day, the last thing you want to feel is somebody else trying to deplete more of your energy it makes more sense to just have hot sex when the kids are at school with a stranger well and to be honest with you some nights i want to have sex with you like after like last night for example i would have loved to have sex with you i was just too tired i got my wand out and made myself come and slept like a baby because i just didn't feel like doing all that even though sex with you is amazing and i would have 100 enjoyed it i just was kind of over the day i wanted quick wham bam let's go to bed it's kind of the same concept oh i get that yeah yeah you're tired yeah all right i think now is the perfect time to take a little break and hear from the partners and sponsors of the Swing Nation podcast.
And then when we get back, I'd like to talk a little bit. You know, you wrote a book on open monogamy. Most people don't put those two words together. And so, you know, we have a lot of people that listen to our podcast that are new, I think. And I think they're new to the idea of non-monogamy. And maybe they don't want to be swingers and go to sex parties and all that stuff, but they want to explore in their own way. So I'm interested in this whole concept of open monogamy. So let's talk about that on the, on the backside. We'll be right back, guys.
my favorite type of swinger is a safe swinger one that has done all the work before they even get to the club before they get to the party and they know that they are sti negative they've got it all figured out before they walk in so that way when it's time to play they don't even have to like skip a beat they're just like here are our results you can look at them on my phone Are you going to fuck like a porn star, you probably should get tested like a porn star.
If we've learned anything over the last four years of doing this podcast is not all tests are the same the tests you're getting at your doctor might not be all the tests that you need if you're going to be actively participating in this lifestyle yeah if you go to your doctor and say i need a full panel std sti test that's whatever they think a full panel is there's not like a rule book that says you should check for these 10 things or 12 things heck we've been to some doctors and they have no idea what even should be tested for and what shouldn't so your best bet is to use i know my status because they know we're swingers they know what we're up to they've been testing porn stars for years so they know how to get you tested and ready to go and have lots of fun yeah they really are the gold standard in sti testing um for the adult industry and swingers we're fucking a lot like uh like porn stars yeah so those are probably the same tests that you need to be so head over to i know my status get signed up um if you're in the florida or vegas or orlando area um there's an office you can go in and get tested and you get your results back as soon as the same day if not they have draw labs located across the country yeah where you can go and you can get tested um and same they'll mail your result your labs into to the lab and you'll get your results back um i think you know as soon as a day or two depending on how long yeah it's pretty quick the mail takes it's worth notating if you go to your family doctor and they're testing for basically everything but maybe they're missing like a mouse swap or an engine test some of the newer things that you know maybe our family doctors are not testing for yeah testing for you can go to i know my saddest and just purchase those tests you don't have to go and spend you know a lot of money to pay for the whole thing you don't have to do that you can just go and be tested for the things that you need right yeah and you could even you know if you want to you could call them and say hey these are the tests i get local doctor.
What am I missing? Yeah. And I'm sure they would have a conversation with you about what they think you should be getting tested for. And then you can order just those tests and go get those done. We had a friend not long ago that somebody that they were engaging with wanted her to be tested for M-Gen. They just go to their local doctor. They know they're swingers. It's not a big deal. And so they went to a draw facility in their town and just were tested for that one test. And, of course, it came back negative, no issues, and they were good to play. Right. So go check out iknowmystatus.com.
Go get tested like a porn star today so that we can play safe at our next event. Yeah. All right, guys. So all of our content is 100% free. 100%. You can listen to the podcast for free. I'll see you next time.
at our next event yeah all right guys so all of our content is 100 free 100 you can listen to the podcast for free all of our tiktoks are free facebook instagram you name it it is for free the only service that we pay we ask you to pay for if you want to of course is our only fans yep that's right if you want to support dan and I and our journey through all of this, OnlyFans is really what pays our bills. It's what keeps us being able to be public and be able to make all of these things. Honestly, it's really hard with a corporate job to have an OnlyFans.
So if you would love to show your support, we would love to have you. If you would like to check out my OnlyFans this month, it is 50% off your first month. If you want to go to theswingnation.info, you'll see all the links there. Lacey, one of the things I make sure I bring to every lifestyle party, every lifestyle event, make sure I stock up before the cruises, before we go to Hedo.
I make sure it's really important to me that i have it i forgot it like one time and yeah i had a small panic attack he did is i need to make sure i have my ed medication correct um performance anxiety is a real thing 100 when there's you know 50 people in a room watching you and you're trying to perform that can be sometimes difficult you can so i like to bring what i call my lifestyle insurance which is that um that ed medication and i get mine from um shameless you do um for a few reasons one you don't have to mess with the pesky um subscriptions right so you're not going to sign up and they send you a bunch of pills every month um and you can't cancel it and you have hundreds of pills around your house that you don't need.
If you need medication, you just go to Shameless. You click on the thing. You fill out a couple of little questionnaires. Well, no, it's actually easier than that. Like once you have your prescription, they actually email you when it's time. Like when it like. Right. They'll send you a little reminder that says, hey, we're just checking in. Do you need any more medication?
And you literally just hit medication literally just hit reply and say yes i'm ready it's that simple it's very because sometimes i do it for you like to kind of help you like to remember you know you're like yeah i need it go ahead and send the email and so i'll do it for you right and every so often that you have to do a little like check in with your doctor and stuff like that and they you know to make sure everything's good and they send that Super simple. It's very simple.
So if you need some, I recommend you go to theswingnation.info, go to the recommended apps and products, click on the Shameless Care icon. It's going to bring you right over to Shameless Care or you can go shamelesscare.com forward slash TSN and get signed up. And we got discount codes for you to save some on that first subscription.
So go check it out guys bye all right guys welcome back welcome back we appreciate you listening to our sponsors lacy loves all of our sponsors i do i do um okay so on the front side of the break we said uh that you wrote a book on open monogamy now most of the time you don't hear those two words together usually you're here you're in an open relationship or you're monogamous so what what is open monogamy what are we talking about here well open monogamy is a guide to co-creating your ideal relationship agreement because what i've seen is that there's a lot of couples that want to be sort of a primary central relationship, but they still want a really flexible and fluid agreement where, you know, anything goes as long as they agree.
So it's kind of like, it's not total anarchy, although it could be as long as they agree. But it means that you have a home base of some sort. And it's not like, oh, it's an anchor partner versus this or that. It really just means that you can be in a relationship and you can make your agreement anything you want it to be.
So this is not your grandparents' monog like it's monogamy is not binary it's not like we are totally closed and grandma's traditional monogamy or we're totally open and it's polyamory we all live together and it's wide open anarchy and no one's more special than anyone else there is a wide range in there a lot of gray areas and and i'm going to tell you no one defines it exactly the same even people that might say oh your guy's relationship is amazing i want to be just like you it won't be just like you right they might want to copy you but it's going to be unique to them like everyone's relationship is unique so the idea is you can create your monogamy your marriage your partnership any way you want as long as you're really open to it and also the important part is like you have to redefine it all the time it's like saying well I told you I loved you when I married you so I'll let you know if I change my mind you know yeah you can't just do it once like you can't just say well this is the kind of relationship I want I'll never cheat on you or you know yes we'll sleep with other people but only on weekends like you really do have to revisit it because we grow and develop as people and our relationship has to grow and develop I mean renew your license.
You got to renew your monogamy agreement. I just really feel strongly that it's an ongoing conversation. You guys seem to be really great about having this ongoing conversation, but that's what people usually do. They have it once, maybe twice. They have it when there's a conflict or a problem or when they come to therapy. But you don't need so much therapy if you have an agreement that you can talk about. No, it is interesting. And I do like that it's not the same for everybody.
Because I know we even look at some of our friends and it's like they're going on dates with other people a couple times a week. They're swapping houses on the weekends. And I look at that and I'm like, how do they make that? Like that would – I could never do that. You know what I mean? But to your point, I think everybody's different than what they're comfortable with and what they want and, and how they make their relationship work. Yeah.
I mean, how you develop it and what also you're making what's implicitly assumed very explicit because you might think, all right, well, swapping houses, that sounds fun. But what does that actually mean? Does that mean that you stay in one house and I stay in the other and we stay with the partners that we want? Or does that mean we're just like doing a VRBO and I'm going, we're all both going over there and they're going over there and then we we're sleeping with the neighbors. Like what exactly does that mean? Super explicit.
And when we're talking about going to a party, are we going to be in separate rooms? Are we going to be in the same room? Are we going to check in? What if I can't find you? What if you're with that person I don't like? What if I told you, you know, no kissing with that person? Like you got to really have a lot of what I call like what if conversations.
I think the what if I told you you know no kissing with that person like you got to really have a lot of what I call like what if conversations I think the what if is really smart I've met several people and we've heard like from people that email us by the podcast that they like they before they even start anything they they go through every single what if scenario to see like what they would do of course you never know until you're really there but if you've talked about it and you kind of have a plan you're at least better set up to make the proper uh decision for your relationship structure well and that's a you know anytime i think we've seen conflict in the lifestyle it's usually because somebody did something that they didn't know was not okay yeah it's never that triggered the other partner and then that turned into drama yeah but it's never like intentional never it's never like oh well i mean maybe sometimes but for the most part it's accidental yeah you you crossed the ruler boundary that you didn't know existed and so that like example i didn't know that you drinking another woman's breast milk would bother me until i turned the corner and dan's getting squirted in the face with breast milk and i was like whoa i didn't know that so like now we know that that's like a conversation that maybe we should have before you partake and said breast milk yes but before that that's not something that had ever came up had ever been like an issue so we didn't know we I don't know we didn't we didn't know what we didn't know basically correct it's hard to have a what if conversation about things that you never would have thought i would have never thought of that one yeah i mean you can have what i call communication fatigue like you could talk about this stuff to death like till you know two or three o'clock in the morning you're like oh my god i don't know we're still talking about this i don't know you know it can really it can go on forever and sometimes people will talk about things and not do it because um there's still a little anxious or nervous about it um but now i bet people listening are going to talk about the breast milk.
I bet they. I mean, I hope so. I mean, I wasn't super mad. I mean, I was a little like, what? I didn't even, you know. But, like, it was just surprising. So, yes, use our story as an example. Yeah. That was definitely, I thought it was hot. But, you know.
You still was hot but you know you still think it's hot we might have to negotiate if that no i would be okay with it now i would probably be okay with it but i just i turned the corner and you were chugging it down i just didn't know i didn't know that i mean might be a little excessive of a term but i i you're right yeah uh okay so as far as do you do you think i have a question and i've always often wondered this do you think Thank you.
but i i you're right yeah uh okay so as far as do you do you think i have a question and i've always often wondered this do you think humans are naturally monogamous or is that like a construct that we've made up oh i have so many answers to this question but i do want to just say i might include the breast milk thing in my next book because yes please please credit for. Well, I'll give credit for it. I'll say that it was cute. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, we were at a swingers club, and I turned the corner, and he's just going to town. I just have this vision of him getting squirted in the face.
Basically, that was it. Basically, yes, yes, that was it. And I was like, like, gasped. I was just living my best life. What are you doing? My best life. Great visual. And he looks at me like, what? Listen, you don't get to play with milky titties every day. So when you get that opportunity, you just enjoy the moment, you know? And now I want you to have that moment. Now I support that. I just didn't know that we needed to talk about that. Caught you off guard the first time. Yeah, a little. Yeah, a little. Yeah. I actually don't know what you don't know. Yeah.
Well, it's funny it's funny you know because we've actually talked through that scenario we're getting a little off track but we talked through that scenario and part of the reason she was triggered by that is because she can't have children you know she can't have she had a hysterectomy and can't have children so she was you know basically what she said to me is i think it triggered me because you clearly enjoyed that and it's not something i can give you or that that we'll ever experience together.
So it just kind of hit somewhere that she didn't expect it to hit, which is kind of interesting. Totally, totally.
And when I hear people talk about things that they are threatened by or there's some jealousy comes up or whatever, I never look at that as if, oh that's about you so you should work on i always see that as like an emotional uh canary in the coal mine so like what what's behind that like what's going on in the relationship that needs to be talked about and so i'm glad that you were able to identify that as you know that's an emotional thing that's a real psychological issue and I kind of encourage people to divide that up into four things time attention affection and sex like which is the part that bothered you like was it the time was it the attention was it the affection was the sex I mean you were able to get pretty specific about what that trigger was and so it's not just like oh i was jealous and i don't ever want you to do that again i mean i i love the fact that you were able to identify this is what it came up for me this is why that bothered me i i know i'm kind of enjoying it now when i think about it like that's probably the healthiest therapy you could have done for each other look at us look at us we're pros well we often you know we're still uh but we've often found when one of us when one of us get triggered or when one of us experiences jealousy there's often some insecurity within us underneath that that jealousy trigger like you know it's It's usually some kind of reflection back on us.
And I think you said you don't like to always assume that but we found that it often is well i think you're in the advanced camp because you're able to talk about together what that feeling was and what's underneath yeah very impressive well thank you we've worked hard to get here relationships not always no we have our own uh we could use some more therapy probably uh okay but back to monogamy so your question was do i think monogamy is like natural in humans um you know and i get this question a lot like are we born monogamous or are we born non-monogamous like the reality is regardless of you know all the anthropological studies and trying to figure this out and what are the birds that are monogamous and none of the primates, blah.
I mean, we're not born knowing how to eat with a fork either. We have to learn. And we have a prefrontal cortex that makes us think as adults and helps us to make choices. So the bottom line we can choose we can choose that's our perspective as a higher mammal like we can choose monogamy we can choose non-monogamy we can choose how that's going to look we can choose how we want our relationships to be and we get to choose every day like today I'm going to choose may choose may not be easy today, but today's gonna be a hard day.
But today, I can choose what it's going to look like tomorrow, I can choose maybe a different. And so it's not whether it's natural or not natural, it's all about choice. And it's all about learning what works for us. That's what separates us. You know, the animals that we thought were naturally monogamous, like some swans and birds, like they've found now with, you know, DNA tests that a lot of those eggs are not the father's eggs.
Like the swan women and the girly girls can be emotionally and materially monogamous with a partner, but they're going to go out and perpetuate the species by making sure they get pregnant with enough eggs that, you know, the pregnancies are going to be viable. So the idea of like men have to spread their seeds, that's based on a 1940s fruit fly experiment that was never replicated. It's just not true.
It actually makes much more sense from a biological perspective and anthropologically, historically, that women would find multiple partners to ensure pregnancy and to ensure the viability of a pregnancy with multiple sperm. So, you know, like the idea that we could prove by assuming that men need to have more partners because they need to spread their seed. That's just not true. It's like made up probably by a man. And it's actually proved through research that women get tired of monogamy a lot faster than men. It doesn't work for women. Women are bored by sex a lot quicker than men.
And this is true in heterosexual relationships and somewhat true in gay relationships as well. Like women just tend to lose interest in monogamous sex and we'll start to seek out external exposure to other partners. Men will just keep having sex because they'll just keep having sex. It's convenient, but women won't. If it's boring, it's not pathological to not want to have boring sex anymore. It's actually quite healthy to say, I don't want to have this kind of sex because it's not good for me. So it's not that women necessarily lose desire and there's something wrong with them.
It's that they lose desire for non-satisfying sex. Yeah. So when you do your you know, you get couples that come to you and they're in that place of, you know, they've been married 20 years and they, they feel like their family or roommates and, and that, you know, I guess there's probably a lot of couples that are listening to this podcast that are considering non-monogamy or swinging as a way to kind of spice up their sex life.
And I'm assuming you would approve of that type of method but i guess what do you tell those couples when they come to you and they say hey we've been married for 20 years you know we're down to having sex you know on my birthday um how do we how do we fix this what's what's some general advice you give couples like that well i don't know if i would just across the board approve because I think some couples want permission to, to continue an affair and they call it an open relationship.
You know, they sort of have parentified their partner, like give me permission to sleep with someone else, even though I don't want you to sleep with anyone else. And I've already been sleeping with this person and now I just want, you know, you off on it like i want to have um some education and some conversation about what that an open relationship actually means and sometimes it means just like watch porn together sometimes it means like talk about your fantasies of other people sometimes it means um go to a party and just walk around and check it out and then go and check it out.
Sometimes it means, you know, have a threesome. Um, sometimes it, you know, but you have to have these conversations first. And so really the first step is like, how do you talk about this stuff? How do you talk about this stuff without your partner saying, Whoa, I thought, you know, we were, we were good. I thought our sex life was okay. And you're telling me that you want to have sex with other women? Like what, what's going on? Or, you know, you should talk about this stuff for a long time before you pick up the phone and call the neighbor and say, come on over.
Like a lot of therapy and the counseling is about how to communicate without hurting your partner how to have conversations that are not boundaries that you set for your partner like boundaries you set for your partner are just rules and rules are meant to be broken and you can't set a rule for your partner because then you have to punish them if they break the rules. And now you're parentified in your relationship. And then that's totally desexualized, right? Because you're back to that family thing. So you can't tell your partner, I don't want you to do this. You have to be home by midnight.
Well, then I have to stay up till 1215 and you're late. and now what right yeah that's a good point do you feel like i know i do if a couple's having sex once or twice a year and now decide to go into like join a lifestyle join have an open to me they need to work on that relationship first they need to get kind of back to basics and probably be having regular sex before they join an open relationship or start exploring that.
Because I feel like if you're not, if you don't have like a solid foundation at home, joining the lifestyle is just going to, to me, it's just going to magnify the problems that you're having.
And if you're only having sex twice a year, there are definitely problems there in my opinion well for sure the people that do the best and are the most successful at these kinds of relationships are the people that have the strongest connection but the the connection really needs to be about communication you know the foundation about um you know respecting each other the ability to the ability to talk about the stressors like oh my god i walked in and you were getting breast milk squirted on you that really upset me like how do you handle conflict um it's not really you know how often do you have sex although people usually have more sex after they start an open relationship yeah i guess i use sex and maybe this is like me putting our relationship if we're communicating well if we're having like a really good like if we're doing all the steps we're probably having a lot of sex do you agree you're saying you use sex as a metric on how for me yeah yeah like if we're not getting along we're not talking we're not communicating properly we're probably not gonna have as much sex so i feel like once you do all the like work that you're saying um which is you know communicate talk to your partner kind of figure out what's going on i think that in my opinion that kind of equals sex in a way I don't know maybe I'm looking at it wrong though well I think it's really about you know expanding the energy that you have if you have a lot of love and connection and affection and sometimes sex in your relationship then you have enough to expand to include other people a lot of restriction and you feel like you don't have enough time attention affection sex like there's not enough energy in your relationship you're going to feel resentful if you try to share it like it's just not enough to go around like i do retreats for couples and i do retreat ketamine retreats with couples and you know what I found is regardless of where they are on that spectrum of open to close or close to open, the more they have together, the more they tend to feel generous about sharing it with other people.
Right. Or they feel like, wait, I'm not getting what I need.
The more likelihood they'll take a break or shut it down interesting yeah i can see that um okay so it sounds like you do you think open relationships or being able to talk to your partner like this that it sounds like to me it's that's a healthier relationship right if you can actually have these conversations with your partner versus we're just monogamous and we're not going to talk about sex or sex with anybody else and and we're just going to be you know well i think that when you do that that's where the cheating happens in my opinion when you're not talking and you're not communicating and you're and somebody's gonna stray but surely there are successful oh for sure There's got to be.
Yeah. I don't know how many, but surely there are, right? But successful ones that are not communicating? Yeah. Well, I think open relationships start with the word open, right? So for them to be successful, they have to be open and open means openly communicating. I don't think we can make assumptions that monogamous relationships aren't openly communicative.
Like, I think we can go too far over to that side of the spectrum and, and, you know, assume that monogamy is a negative for people and that people are going to cheat people cheat in open relationships too yeah so you know whatever your agreement is it's easy to lie and cheat and step outside of that just like it is outside of a monogamous relationship because a monogamous relationship is just an agreement around different things they're just a different place on the spectrum yeah you can be open or closed in any open or closed relationship i mean even if you are in a polyamorous relationship or you know i see six of the partners together if one of them goes out for coffee with someone else and doesn't tell anyone then everyone feels betrayed it is interesting what triggers you you know like we were talking about the breast milk thing lacy's got triggered by just me like me brushing hair out of somebody's another girl's face and stuff before like like that was the thing right because it was intimate right we had a bunch of sex but at the end like we cuddled a little bit and i brushed her hair out of her her eyes and that was like lacy was like i did not like when you did that it was like okay so me bending her over the couch and fucking the shit out of her that was fine but totally but brushing the hair out of her eyes that was where you drew the line yep but it is things like that can trigger you makes total sense okay so uh you just get some consulting forley madison and i just wanted to talk about this a little bit so uh you know by looking at their website and like you mentioned the 80 million users um is there anything you kind of what did you gain from all that right so there's this if anybody doesn't know ashley madison was a website that was really popular in the late 90s, early 2000s, sometime in there, and got over 80 million users.
And this website was particularly marketed at, like, life is short, having an affair. And that was the whole idea behind it. So when you did your research and kind of dug into some of their information, what did you learn from that?
i learned that it's clearly still popular yeah but i also think that their their tagline is really outdated because i don't think life is short i think we live a long time and we stay sexual well into our 80s so that franticness of like you know you don't have a lot of time you better squeeze as much sex in as you can it doesn't really um motivate anymore and that's not why people have affairs like oh my god i have no time um i better have as much sex as i can um more likely a majority of those people want alternative relationships for different reasons.
And there are actually statistics on the site that say that a percentage of those people actually want an open relationship. Some want an open relationship or afraid or don't know how to talk to their partner about it.
Some are actually in open relationships and they're looking with their partner for partners for themselves or partners for the two of them or the three of them because it's such a a large pool of people to choose from and also because it's sort of built-in privacy like they know that people are good at keeping secrets there there's a whole point of the website so you know there's something about that as well like there's a difference between you know again privacy and secrecy and a difference between lying to your partner and finding private secret relationships so you know there's something shifting across society around the meaning of relationships and multiplicity and i even i think since the pandemic you know we've all realized that we do need people in our in our world you know loneliness is the number one cause of mental illness now and you know we need to be able to connect with other people it's the way that we do connect with other people online and it's the way that we find everything it's the way that we shop for toilet paper it's also that we shop for sex and it's the way we shop for love and so it's also going to be the way that we find open partners and so you know we know, we need, you know, God forbid, there's another quarantine.
We need partners going to like forge for forest for toilet paper, forage for toilet paper. And someone's going to stay home with the kids and teach them math and someone else who's going to have sex with us and someone else is going to go to the movies. And, you know, like we found that one person or being alone is not really going to help us.
So I think the idea of moving into multiplicity, moving into multiple relationships is inevitable, you know, moving back into the village if we can, particularly as people get more and more insecure and afraid of sort of a fear-based society that we live in um you know i don't know if um i i feel like it's a numbers game at this point how do you the number one thing that people ask me is how do i find people you know how do i find partners if i want to open my relationship where is everybody um and so i mean i live in los angeles there's a there's a big community here and it's hard to find people here so i think places like ashley madison need to make that cultural shift into including open relationships yeah it's interesting But, you know, I moving in that that direction you know me and lacy started kind of this journey uh during covet as well when we went public on tiktok and you know started the podcast shortly thereafter um and even in these last four or five years you know now there's mainstream television shows about polyamory you know uh it's definitely much more accepted today than it was just four years ago being polyamorous you know there's organizations out there like open that are starting to pass laws in different cities and states um protecting non-monogamous relationship and alternative lifestyle uh structures so it does seem like we're moving in that direction where society is becoming more accepting of different relationship structures.
And I think that's, that's good to see. And I think you're right. You're, there's going to be more of that. So I do think I agree with you that Ashley Madison, maybe, you know, changing their platform a little bit from go cheat on your wife to, Hey, we realize there's different alternative, uh, lifestyles and different ways to connect. Can let's be that platform where, where people can find each other and connect with each other. Um, that makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah. Find your next relationship, whatever that is. Like we all need relationships, however they're going to look. Right. Okay.
Um, so if I think that about wraps it up is there anything else you wanted to that you want to touch on for the swing nation listeners for all the swingers or potential i think we get a lot of potential swingers that are thinking about uh this journey uh anything any last thoughts for them no i mean if they want to contact me and say they heard me here, I can give them like a download, like an excerpt from the book about like how to ask each other questions, like 37 questions for your new monogamy agreement.
It's sort of a way to start the conversation, but also a way to continue the conversation. Like I said, you got to renew your passport. you might as well renew your agreement all the time interesting so if people want to connect with you or or get that that we just talked about there where's the best place to go and find all your information you can go to my website which is dr tammy nelson.com dr tammy nelson.com and just email me through that.
Um can find my books there or on amazon or um at my podcast uh the trouble with sex okay well we definitely appreciate your expertise in this conversation i think it was a good conversation and it's nice it's nice to kind of get the a little more of the clinical like you mean me and lacy kind of talk from personal experience a lot um but we definitely don't have phds and any of this stuff so it's interesting to get your take on a lot of these subjects well you definitely have a lot of personal experience that's incredibly valuable and i appreciate your integrity because you're sharing and being honest and open about it thank you well thank you all right well i All right.
Well, I think with that, in a world full of apples. Be the pineapple. Be the pineapple, guys. Bye. Bye. If you've enjoyed our podcast and want to support us, leave a five-star review wherever you're listening. If you want to see more of our content, you can find links to Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, OnlyFans and more in the show notes. Come join the conversation with us and other Swinger content creators on our Swinger Society Discord server. If you have questions or feedback, email them to us at theswingnation at gmail.com.
Make sure you head on over to the swing nation dot net and keep up to date on all things swing nation. We thank you so much for joining us and we'll see you next time. Goodbye.
