about open relationships, sex, and hate. {official Thing}
{public post}
hallo loves.
it’s new podcast time! in general, “the art of asking everything” podcast has been going really wonderfully….gaining listenership every week, spreading by word of mouth, and getting outstanding reviews in the press and on social media. i have you all to thank for a lot of that, because i know it’s been you who’s been carrying it out into the world. so thank you. and definitely carry this episode out to the world, it’s one of the more powerful ones. (i know i always say that, but really, this one’s good).
*drum roll*
this week: sex expert (and personal hero) dan savage, in “SEX RULES US”.
an ask, as i put this podcast out…which is to please use this comments section – and the forum – to offload questions, feelings, thoughts, reflections and meandering words about sex, especially sex-in-a-pandemic.
i mean, it’s weird. it’s gotta be weird.
and i think there’s probably a lot to share, especially in the open relationships dept…i’m always here for questions. i made a special thread for patrons to discuss stuff privately here on the shadowbox forum.
……
on a more personal note:
greetings from aoteraoa new zealand…..it’s been a strange week or two. i’ve mostly just been taking care of ash, and knowing that i’m lucky to be able to do so, especially in the venues that we get to inhabit: theaters, playgrounds, public pools, grocery stores where i stop and chat to the neighbors while ash and the other child manhandle one another next to the plums.
(if you want a barrage of ash photos, i suggest heading over to my instagram, where you don’t need to have an account and i’ve been putting that sorta stuff constantly, including yesterday’s adorable first lost tooth. i’ve been trying not to overburden you all with constant ash posts.)
everything feels very strange.
very strange.
for everybody i know.
……..
i’m shutting things down….and i don’t mean that in a bad way. opening up and shutting down – with more mature discernment – seems to be there theme of 2020 for me, personally…as reflected in the giant bleeding soul of society as a whole.
when to open up?
when to shut down?
well, ha. on theme. what does open and closed even mean?
people have been asking me about my tendency towards “open” relationships for as long as i’ve been doing it.
i’ve been in six or seven “big” relationships in my life, starting from when i was a teen, and every one of them explored the question of monogamy. many were open relationships at one point or another. it’s something i’ve thought about deeply, explored in my songwriting, and chatted about with people infinitely as i’ve traveled the globe.
the question i get asked most is: “but i don’t get it. i just don’t GET it. don’t you get jealous? how does it work?”
and i say in the intro to this podcast, open relationships are really hard for many people to understand, espeically when monogamy is the template they can’t help but default to, since it was the way they were raised.
i’ve now been in and out of open relationships for almost thirty years, and it still is a really hard thing for other people to wrap their heads around.
if i had a dollar for every time someone just stared at me with spinning eyes over the last thirty years and said BUT THAT DOES NOT COMPUTE HOW CAN YOU BE AND DO THAT, or my other favorite, WAIT, WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOUR PARTNER CHEATED ON YOU I THOUGH YOU WERE IN AN OPEN RELATIONSHIP, i would be very rich.
enter one of my heroes, columnist, writer and advice-giver dan savage.
i’ve been a fan of dan’s work for a long, long time; since college.
he has spent his LIFE explaining this sorta stuff to people….open relationships, queerness, sex, love, hardcore kink, you name it.
and he’s gotten in a lot of kerfuffles, a lot of times. there are many times he’s been called out, cancelled, un-cancelled, and on and on. we talk about that, too.
i wrote this for the podcast page on the website:
The Queen of Openness talks to King of Sex Advice, and we make a Truth-Sex baby!
No, really, this one’s good. When I made my first wishlist, Dan Savage was one of my fantasy podcast interviews. He’s an author, LGBT community activist, and long-long-time writer of Savage Love, an internationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column. For decades, both Dan and I have been trying to navigate truth, love, hate, and how to navigate (and explain) open relationships – especially when you have children. Also: master-level compartmentalization, how to weed out toxic critics, ACTUAL weed….and the power of the mute button.
photos by ben kersten
photo by amelia zirin-brown
……..
Here we go:
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST and SHARE it, please!…
audio for all of the podcast episodes are embedded on my website, including today’s episode:
http://amandapalmer.net/podcast
OR….
go here, select the podcast venue of your choice (i.e. apple podcasts), and click on the most recent episode.
https://linktr.ee/AskingEverything
FREE! BECAUSE PATRONAGE!
VOILA!
………….
WAIT – HOW DO I LISTEN?
this handy linktree has a round-up of how to tune into the podcast on some of the most popular players. we will have the audio embedded on each episode post on my website: http://amandapalmer.net/podcast
……..
the discussion continues on the shadowbox!
the book club /slash/ disucssion group around topics of this podcast continues over on a thread i made on the shadowbox that is patron-only, and this is a good time to take advantage of a conversation space that isn’t public, isn’t facebook, isn’t instragram, and is mostly )(probably) away from the eyes of most of your social circle and family.
i really encourage you guys to head over there and find each other, share your stories, learn from one other. i know the forum technology is weird and unfamiliar to a lot of you…but get over it and leave facebook and talk about stuff on a nicer corner of the internet even it it means you have to learn a few new buttons and things.
here’s what i posted:
“i’d especially love to hear from the other people in queer, open, polyamorous, or otherwise non-“standard” relationships…we can always learn from each other.
i have learned a lot but feel i still have much to learn, as always, and i learn a lot of it from you.”
…….
more about my guest, DAN SAVAGE…..
Dan Savage is a writer, TV personality, and activist best known for his political and social commentary, as well as his sex advice column, Savage Love, syndicated in newspapers and on websites throughout the world. Since 2006, he has also hosted the “Savage Lovecast,” a weekly podcast version of the column. Savage is editorial director of The Stranger, Seattle’s weekly alternative newspaper, and author of several books, including Savage Love, The Kid, Skipping Towards Gomorrah, The Commitment, and American Savage. In 2010, he created the It Gets Better Project, which as of today has inspired more than 50,000 videos viewed over 50 million times to help combat LGBTQ+ teen suicides.
SHOW NOTES: The Art of Asking Everything, Season 1, Episode 12
Dan Savage: Sex Rules Us
Twitter:
@fakedansavage
Instagram:
@dansavage
Savage Love Podcast:
https://www.savagelovecast.com
Web:
https://www.thestranger.com/authors/259/dan-savage
https://humpfilmfest.com
….
PODCAST CREDITS:
Thanks to guest Dan Savage, listen to the Savage Lovecast and check out all his writing at TheStranger.com
Our engineer was Ben Kersten at Clatter and Din Studios in Seattle.
For all the music you heard in this podcast go to the new and improved AmandaPalmer.net/podcast
Millions of thanks go to my incredible team:
Hayley Rosenblum who makes all things possible — she is the ghost in the machine in our Patreon and also makes sure everything else gets done — words, pics, live chats, and general internet love. I could not do this without her.
My assistant Michael McComiskey who makes sure all the trains run on time and that I am able to do all the things, all the time…
#MerchQueen Alex Knight who is helping us transcribe so these conversations are accessible to ALL!
Kelly Welles my social media guru. And mastermind.
And of course my manager Jordan Verzar who brings it all together.
And last but not least, this whole podcast would not be possible without my patrons. At current count, about 15,000 of them. They make it possible for this podcast to have no ads, no sponsors, no censorship, no bullshit, we are just the media, doing what we do. So special thanks are due to my high level patrons, Simon Oliver, Saint Alexander, Birdie Black, Ruth Ann Harnisch, Leela Cosgrove, and Robert W. Perkins, thank you guys so much for helping me make this.
…..
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
we’ve attached a pdf of the transcript of the podcast the patreon post. to view it, you can download it by visiting this patreon post on the web
(it’s a hyperlink at the very bottom of the post with a little paper clip attachment symbol next to it)
….
THANK YOU TO ALL YOU PATRONS, FOR SUPPORTING THIS PODCAST.
because of you, as usual:
No ads.
No sponsors.
No censorship.
We.
Are.
The.
Media.
x
a
——THE NEVER-ENDING AS ALWAYS———
1. if you’re a patron, please click through to comment on this post. at the very least, if you’ve read it, indicate that by using the heart symbol. that’s always nice for me to see, so i know who’s reading.
2. see All the Things (over 100 of them) i’ve made so far on patreon:
http://amandapalmer.net/things
3. JOIN THE SHADOWBOX COMMUNITY FORUM, find your people, and discuss everything: https://forum.theshadowbox.net/
4. new to my music and TOTALLY OVERWHELMED? TAKE A WALK THROUGH AMANDALANDA….we made a basic list of my greatest hits n stuff (at least up until a few years ago, this desperately needs updating) on this lovely page: http://amandalanda.amandapalmer.net/
5. general AFP/patreon-related questions? ask away, someone will answer: patronhelp@amandapalmer.net