More than One: Sex educator and polyamorous lifer Wry sheds light on his path to many loves

(this interview was conducted as part of a larger, collaborative project surveying LA's sex positive revolution. check out the website by clicking here)

photo: Lauren Mechling

A West Hollywood institution for all goods playful and sexy, The Pleasure Chest does more than purvey the finest crafts of the medical-grade silicone industry. The Pleasure Chest regularly hosts sexual education events, inviting guest speakers to preach and clarify topics ranging from the common sense of cunnilingus, to anal sex 101, and to managing polyamorous relationships. With a backdrop of latex onesies and vials of high-grade lube, a sex educator of 10 years who simply goes by Wry hosts a panel of distinguished girlfriends—also stylishly stage-named Wicked, Nova, and Scorcch—to speak on the ins and outs of their polyamorous set up.

After the panel, Wry was generous enough to weigh in one-on-one about the polyamorous life through his eyes. Turns out, three's company, and two's a pain. 

Could you define polyamory as you’ve come to understand it? What does it look like?

I see it as kind of a catch-all term to describe the multitude of communication styles that occur in a relationship. At the same time, it’s a sexual orientation, it’s a relationship style on a praxis level. It’s a culture. It’s a communication style that can be coopted and adapted into non-poly style. It’s simultaneously all of these things. The only prerequisite is that you have multiple loves. Beyond that, it’s all up to you and your partners.

We’re a hidden sexual minority. You can’t see it. There is no clothing or flag that we’re flying. But, this generation did not invent the threesome! When you look around your city, we look just like anybody else. The reality is that there are millions of people doing this, they’re just not visible like the LGBT community is, despite the overlap between those two sub-cultures. What’s really helped me and so many other people find solidarity is the internet. It hooks you up to the poly community, which is usually so insular that it’d be impossible to connect without online social networking.

So, you see polyamory as a sexual orientation? Like, being gay or bi?

I think the biggest requirement: the feeling that it’s something deep and impulsive. I think I’d be really awful at a gay relationship, for example. I just can’t be with a guy sexually. I think to some extent, we’re born on a spectrum of intrinsic relationship style. Everything else beyond that is some kind of cultural inhibition that shames you into being monogamous.

I fall into the extreme side of polyamory. I yearn to bond with multiple people. I’m a chaser. It’s gone from me 10 years ago, looking for a woman, any woman, that I was gonna marry! I was like, “I don’t care who you are, but you’ll be my wife!” To using trial and error. But, as I develop my relationship with Wicked, I choose to do less error.

How did you come to realize that you had to romantically love multiple people at the same time? What kind of problems did you have in the beginning of your experimentation with polyamory?

A big turning point for me was when I realized that I didn’t want to have children.

That made me rethink everything. When I made that decision, I was deeply involved in a long term relationship and suddenly, this girl’s “maybe”—y’know, in regards to having kids—was definitely, and definitely MY children. It was clear to me that I didn’t want to be a part of that. But, I was in a deep emotional relationship with her. In the end we just weren’t compatible.

Out of love, I dumped her.

After that, I had to really think about what kind of future wanted to look like. That white picket fence burned down. I made a promise to myself was that I’d experiment, date around and see what was out there. So, for two years, I put myself out there, having sex with any girl I could. What I found out was that I was incapable of staying no-strings, or casual. I found a girl who I really connected with, but I also realized that I didn’t want to stop connecting with other women. We talked about it, and she felt the same way. That was my first open relationship. We did a don’t ask don’t tell situation—each new partner was mentioned to the other, but that was the extent of what we had to tell eachother. Upfront on a first date, I’d tell them that I wasn’t looking to be exclusive, that I had other lovers, and that she’d have to be cool with that. So far a while, don’t ask, don’t tell was the communication they wanted.

But things got to a point when it was painful to use that situation. It got to the point where, when it was my birthday, and I’d have to uninvite people to my birthday to avoid any of my lovers meeting. My birthday’s really inspire me. It was painful to have to split my life up into small and separate realities. But, after opening up, I decided that everyone’s invited! And if you opt out, if you don’t wanna go, that’s on you.

It seems like polyamory is having to constantly be dynamic and that the state of the relationship would be under constant surveillance. How do you deal with that? Did feeling burnt out ever tempt you back into monogamy?

No way. For me, monogamy was painful, difficult, and unnatural. I’d get into a relationship full force, and I’d go through a couple months of having a total blast with this girl. Then four or six months down the line I’d invariably feel trapped, not due to anything the girl did. She could be the best damn dream girlfriend in America, but I’d still feel like I needed to connect with other women without the guilt of betrayal that monogamy programs into you.

Like I said, I’m extremely polyamorous. If Kinsey made a poly scale, I’d be a 7 out of 6. But, like the Kinsey model, there are people in the middle. These things are seen as so hard, fast, polar opposites. It’s like, open or closed. It’s not that false dichotomy. There’s middlegrounds to this.

About managing relationships, it’s all about having a game plan. For me and Wicked, we’ve established a system that’s casual and doesn’t demand much emotionally. What happens is that, the next time we see each other—after a few days, a few weeks—we have this sort of communication ritual that we do. I come over, we have a drink, and we tell each other, “Oh, I met up with and had sex with so-and-so.” We just talk and update each other about things we need to know.

My previous relationships didn’t have that structure of communication. It’s an easy way to broach the subject, to break the ice.

But that’s really, us. I bet that every one involved in a non-monogamous set up has their own different parameters, their own rules. Some couples have a threshold of acceptable behavior. Like, making out with another person doesn’t have to be talked about, but anything beyond that needs to be brought up. Sometimes, blowjobs are negotiated as unnecessary sharing.  The thing about poly is that it’s inherently customizable. You just need to be able to communicate what you desire from a relationship.

How do you deal with the jealousy that might blossom when you know your partner is having great sex with people who aren’t you?

It’s really a mantra of call and response. There’s jealousy, then communication, jealousy, communication. Sometimes your jealousies reveal your incompatibilities. And sometimes it’s hard to face those. It’s important to accept the reality of your wants, and the reality of the relationship. You have to be compatible with your partner, and if you’re not you have to explore the possibility that you’re not. And that’s usually where jealousies start to arise—when you’re incompatible.