Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association at Loving More's Poly Living

The CPAA at Loving More Conference!

Oct 26th, 2010 

We are back home–inspired, very grateful and exhausted!  The CPAA  attended the American Poly Living 2010 conference in Seattle (organized by Loving More, the leading national polyamory organization in the US) .  And not only did we attend lots of great workshops, but Zoe and I (Carole) presented a workshop on our Canadian court case!  (here at http://www.slideshare.net/polychickbc/cpaa-presentation10-23-2010).   

Read more of this blog post on the CPAA's site, here...

Loving More workshop: Who needs a safer sex elevator speech? YOU do!!

"If someone asks what your safer-sex protocols are, can you answer in two minutes or less?"

Reid Mihalko's workshop: "Creating Your Safer Sex Elevator Speech" tells you just how to do it. Intriguing twist on that oh-so-necessary poly conversation, no? I thought so, which is why I decided to attend this workshop.

I have to confess that I managed to be late for this one, due to the fact that the friend I attended the conference with and myself were staying across town at my lover's home. I'm lucky to have a wonderful partner in Seattle, but I forget sometimes that driving across the city early in the morning (especially a foreign city) takes a bit of extra time. Oops. Anyway, breakfast was delicious and the portion of the workshop I did manage to see was great, especially the group exercise at the end.

Reid, by the way, is an engaging presenter, well-accustomed to talking about sex. He's a polyamorous sex coach, counsellor and spokesperson for healthy relationship choices. His website, reidaboutsex.com, is packed with great advice and links and I recommend checking it out.

Back to the elevator speech. Reid pointed out that it's important to cultivate self knowledge before figuring out what to tell someone else about your safer sex preferences. Sounds familiar, right? It's also sort of difficult, as I found when I tried to write my own speech. To begin with, figuring out what your physical needs are should be balanced with what your emotional needs are regarding sex. Do you feel you just can't live without a fluid bond with an intimate partner? Make sure you say this, so your partner knows that condoms and testing will be mandatory with their other partners. Do you find latex sexy? Do you find condoms awkward for oral? There are many ways to work out a balance between people if you can actually start with your basic needs.

The other really important question we need to ask ourselves is: "What are you ok with getting?" Some STI's are not life threatening, but they may impose a social stigma on the person who carries the infection (HSV is one example). Since NO form of partnered sex (except maybe for web camming and mutual masturbation across the room from each other) is 100% safe, we use the term safer sex because we need to recognise as responsible adults that we are taking a risk. It's up to each of us to decide what our risk limits are and to express them clearly to our potential partners.

If this all sounds rather unsexy, Reid points out that it doesn't have to be. On the contrary, he's honed his matter-of-fact elevator speech to the point where it can actually be used as a great conversation opener at poly conventions and nightclubs. Another benefit to opening a safer sex conversation with a potential partner is that you get to see their reaction to the topic. If they seem uncomfortable or awed by your amazing sense of planning and forethought, you might want to reconsider sleeping with them, since they probably don't think much about testing or safer sex themselves. If, however, they respond with aware enthusiasm and offer their own list of requirements, it's a good bet they've given safer sex some serious thought and you're good to go!

We were then asked to write our own speeches, composed of how we describe ourselves (eg. poly, queer, kinky librarian), when we last got tested, what we were tested for and the results, our safer sex needs (eg. condoms for PIV and anal sex but not oral, disclosure of the STI status of a partner's other partners), what we like, sexually-speaking (eg. cuddling, blow jobs, spanking) and what boundaries we have that we won't cross (definitely NO sex with the cat in the room!).

The moment of truth came, and we paired up to give our elevator pitches. While it was a bit awkward starting out, it was rather fun and I relaxed once I got into it. Talking about sex -- even safer sex requirements -- can be sexy! Wow, go figure!

I think the most valuable thing I got out of the workshop was the clear message that demystifying safer sex into a planned (and not terribly long and rambling) speech helps to separate someone's STI status from their sexual attractiveness. If you're willing to be creative and communicative, there is always *something* sexy two (or more) people can figure out. And hey.. we all know how sexy communication is, don't we, poly people?

Don't let your safer sex communication style (or lack of it) limit your sexual choices!

I caught Reid presumably trying out his elevator speech on Cunning Minx during the book signing.. she seems to have found it pretty amusing!

Poly Living Conference: Workshop on Human Origins and Poly

One of the workshops I really wanted to attend was presented by Leanna Wolfe, PhD and titled:  "Human Origins and Polyamory:  when did it all begin?"   I admit I was especially interested in this workshop because I'd just read Christopher Ryan's Sex at Dawn, the book that is giving scientific credibility to the concept that coexisting peacefully with more than one sexual partner not only has historical validity, it makes anthropological and evolutionary sense as well.  (In fact, as Christopher Ryan put it in his presentation, it's the only explanation that DOES make sense for the way humans have evolved sexually when you consider the volume of research that's accumulated).  I'm not a scientist or psychologist, but I'm a good enough librarian and teacher to know the importance of research.

Leanna Wolfe is one such researcher.  She is a sexual anthropologist who works as a college professor, social theorist and clinical sexologist, and who has had a longstanding interest in polyamory both as a researcher and as a participant.  Her workshop provided factual background on the debate (which is currently heating up) on whether monogamy, or some form of non-monogamy is more "natural" to humans.  


The presentation covered a lot of material, beginning with a detailed summary of human characteristics that researchers have identified as being critical to the development of human social/sexual behaviour.  She discussed the concept of maternal provisioning (the need that mothers caring for dependent infants have for someone else to provide them with food and shelter).  There is, she says, no evidence that "sex for meat" exchanges took the form of monogamous pair bonds, and in fact there is current evidence among cultures that live primarily as "immediate return" hunter gatherers that this exchange takes the form of non-monogamous bonds within a community.


The fact of "sperm competition" (there is ample physiological evidence that this occurs in humans and in our closest primate cousins, chimpanzees and bonobos) means that successful reproduction depends on females having sex with many males within a short timespan rather than with one exclusively.  (This section of the workshop produced one of my favourite quotes of the conference:   "Sperm is complicated!" meaning that different components of human sperm serve different purposes, from blocking and attacking other males' sperm to insemination.)


Cultural and social components were also discussed in the workshop.  The feeling of NRE (New Relationship Energy) that poly people so often refer to is seen as one of the biggest challenges to the poly paradigm (though not impossible to deal with, as many of us have found).  Independence and individuality, so valued in the Western world, are cultural paradigms that can encourage monogamy, which makes being poly a challenge in a world oriented toward "coupledom" (more about this in a future blog post about Pepper Mint's workshop: "Facing a Monogamous World").  


The workshop gave a great overview of anthropological research on this fascinating topic.  In the end, Dr. Wolfe left us with the thought that whatever is most "natural" depends not only on physiological characteristics or environmental conditions, but on culture as well.  We cannot lift ourselves completely out of the context of our current cultural paradigm, but we can (and those of us who are polyamorous DO, all the time) make a conscious choice to creatively adapt a different style of sexual behaviour that feels natural for us.  Whether this style is monogamy, serial monogamy, polyamory or something completely different is up to the many factors and complexities that have combined to evolve human primates.

Loving More's Poly Living Conference, Seattle, 2010: 1st blog of many!!

Whew!  Well, I'm home from the conference and my head is spinning while my heart is happy from all that poly goodness!  I met some fantastic people and heard much poly wisdom and I'm going to be slowly uploading it all to this blog over the course of the week, so stay tuned!

My first impressions are:  "Wow!  What a lot of work conferences are to organize!"  and..  "Robyn Trask and the crew at Loving More make it look sooooo easy!"  Many many thanks and kudos to them for their accomplishment!

The conference took place over the course of a weekend, which meant six workshop slots in total (you can read about them on the conference site, here).  I attended five (ok, I was up a bit too late Saturday night to make it to the early Sunday workshops, but hopefully you'll excuse me because I'd not seen my Seattle sweetheart for several weeks..  I was, uh, busy practicing what I preach).  ;)

Most of the attendees were seasoned poly members of various polyamory and sex positive groups across the globe and many were leaders in their poly communities.  The workshops were not only informative, but were also exciting thinktanks for new and creative ideas on how to think about, learn about and teach about polyamory.  I feel privileged to have been a part of this.

Some of the poly leaders and luminaries in attendance were:  Dossie Easton, author of  The Ethical Slut, Cunning Minx, host of Polyamory Weekly podcast, Alan, the webmaster of Poly in the News, Christopher Ryan, author of Sex at Dawn, Pepper Mint, of Freaksexual, Mim Chapman, author of What Does Polyamory Look Like?, Curt Bergstrand, author of Swinging in America, and several executive committee members of the Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association.

Over the course of the weekend I got to chat, listen to, discuss with and giggle with all of these lovely people, many of whom I look forward to seeing and working with again.  Events like Poly Living remind me that the world can be a friendlier and more connected place, not only through the magic of the internet and air transportation, but through the willingness of people to share themselves, their dreams, and their determination  to be utterly themselves regardless of what our cultural norms tell us we *should* be.  As Dossie herself said to us in her keynote speech:  Success comes from the willingness to appear foolish and to reach outside the box.



Getting to meet Christopher Ryan at the book signing was awesome!

Me, with my first edition of The Ethical Slut.





Sharing a cuddle with Dossie after she signed BOTH my editions of The Ethical Slut!

With Pepper Mint, doing some poly networking!