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The Glory of Period Sex (+ a Bloody Good Giveaway)

Kate Sloan

“I don’t think I can bring myself to send her tongue-spelunking through my bloody cave,” muses the first-ever mention of period sex in my years’ worth of journals. It signals an apprehension I still sometimes feel.

I was sixteen. My partner at the time was achingly enthusiastic about my vulva in its every known state: musky or clean, shaved or stubbly, swollen and aroused or flat and demure. But “bloody” felt like another thing entirely; we had not discussed that.

As it turned out, she was more than fine with bloody tongue-spelunking. But having that initial conversation with a new partner still feels edgy to me, all these years later. There’s a strong chance they’ll wrinkle their nose and shake their head in barely-concealed horror, but it’s just as likely they’ll be blissfully blasé about blood taboos and dive right in.

My go-to approach to this conversation, therefore, is a bit coy. Typically I’ll say, “By the way, I’m on my period, so…” and simply watch what happens. In one case, at a threesome, the boy smiled and replied, “What would you like me to do?” (“DING DING DING, right answer!!” Bex and I yelled when we gleefully revisited this moment over dinner that night.)

Another time, I took home a hookup who would later become my fave fuckbuddy. He wields my favorite BJ dick so I would’ve been content just to blow him and say goodnight – but when I mentioned being on my period, he replied, nonchalantly, without missing a beat: “You know, I also have blood in my body.” He absolutely, 100% deserved the stellar blowjob I then gave him.

This particular FWB has the most exemplary attitude on period sex I’ve ever encountered in a dude, so I asked him to contribute some thoughts on the topic for this post. Here’s what he had to say:

“Period sex can be a lot to handle at first. Maybe you don’t normally see a lot of blood and it feels weird. Maybe it just seems gross because so many people are squeamish about it. But to me, period sex is just a matter of different preparation. An old partner of mine and I had a dark red towel that we put down and folded when Aunt Flo was in town. Periods are natural. Let’s not forget that those of us with penises squirt out a weird body fluid EVERY TIME we come. So if you need to ask your partner to take a shower, do what you need to do. But making a partner feel gross for being on their period is shaming their entire biological makeup. It’s not cool, and it will not win you any points. Instead, you can think of period sex as an opportunity to show your partner that you fully accept them. Additionally, I find that the viscosity of vaginal fluids during menstruation can make sex feel AMAZING. So don’t knock it till you rock it. And remember: You’ve got blood in your body too.“

Likewise, I knew my current boyfriend was a keeper when he “earned his red wings” the very first time we had sex. In our initial negotiation, I set a boundary that I didn’t want anything to happen to my genitals during that session, because “it wasn’t a good day for that” – but as I got turned on from makeouts and blowjobs and spanking, that line I’d drawn in the sand began to waver. I went to the bathroom to make sure my menstrual cup was still doing its job, and then I came back to his sunny bedroom and asked for what I wanted. He was happy to deliver – for at least half an hour.

I don’t know if most cis men really know how deeply their attitude on period sex can affect a menstruating person’s self-esteem. While I understand why someone might not want to stick their face in blood, it makes me feel so sad and rejected to have a partner who finds my bits distasteful one week out of every month. Even the smallest step toward gaining comfort with menstrual sex – pressing a Magic Wand against me through my underwear, say, or talking dirty in my ear while I masturbate – is better than eschewing it altogether (although, of course, consent and boundaries are of utmost importance, so if you don’t want to do it, you never have to!). I crave intimacy and sexual enthusiasm all month long, and that one week each month is the time when a partner can demonstrate these things most readily, most deeply, most impactfully. It’s a small thing but it can change everything.

Of course, loving period sex doesn’t mean I also love the mess that accompanies it. It’s fine when I’m free-bleedin’ in a bathtub (Kennedy Ryan calls this “Lady Macbeth time“), but recklessly sullying my bedsheets and clothes with blood is a bridge too far for me. That’s why I keep a dark towel near my bed, and a few packages of wet wipes within reach. Before I started doing this, I once got fingerbanged by someone who then looked around for somewhere to wipe his bloody hands. I was wearing black thigh-high socks, and said, “Just wipe ’em on these.” It worked in a pinch, but, y’know, wipes would’ve been preferable.

The afterglow is one of the loveliest parts of sex – it’s a shame to have to ruin it with clean-up. I’m a lazy princess and hate having to throw on a bathrobe and waddle to the bathroom on my post-orgasmic jelly legs for a washcloth wipedown. With the right tools by my bedside, I can do a quick-‘n’-easy spot-clean, pop my menstrual cup back in, and resume snugglin’ ASAP. When the person you’re fucking makes you all swoony and starry-eyed, you don’t want to miss out on even ten seconds of precious cuddling.

In the spirit of mitigating mess so you can get back to the fun stuff: I have a giveaway for you today! It’s ideal for those of you who partake of period sex, or other forms of messy sex – or are interested in trying. Aftercourse Wipes has generously offered up a month’s supply of wipes for two lucky winners: one in the USA and one anywhere in the world. These wipes are alcohol-free and use natural ingredients like tea tree oil, aloe, chamomile and lemongrass to get your bits clean after sex. The giveaway will run for two weeks; entrance details are below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Whether or not you decide to enter the giveaway, you can still get a discount on your Aftercourse purchase with the code “GIRLYJUICE.” Enjoy!

 

This post was generously sponsored by the folks at Aftercourse Wipes, and as always, all writing and opinions are my own. Feel free to follow Aftercourse on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!

Book Review: Everything and a Happy Ending

Kate Sloan

Sometimes the point of literature is to give you a glimpse into a world you’ve never known, a life you’ve never led, some feelings you’ve never experienced. But other times, the point of literature is to mirror your feelings back at you, to remind you of what you’ve been through, and to show you that you’re not alone.

I went through that when I read Tia Shurina’s memoir, Everything and a Happy Ending. Though I went into this book knowing essentially nothing about it, I saw myself reflected back to me in its pages. And it felt weirdly affirming to see that the intense unrequited love I’ve experienced over the past couple years is both a common human experience and a valid one.

In her book, Shurina tells the story of her relationships with three men who played key roles in her life: her father, her ex-husband, and (wait for it) actor and comedian Ray Romano. (She refers to him as “Emilio” throughout, a code name, but is open about the fact that Emilio is really Ray.) I was interested in this detail because Romano kinda fucked me up as a kid. On his show Everybody Loves Raymond, a recurring gag shows him trying to initiate sex with his wife, only to be rebuffed with a sardonic “No.” This instilled in my young brain a belief that women are sexual objects to be pursued, not sexual agents capable of desire and initiative. While I don’t necessarily fault Romano for restating an already-rampant cultural trope about sex, I was curious to read about his inner romantic and sexual workings. (Spoiler alert: there’s no sex with Romano described in this book, and what little sex there is is mentioned only obliquely in passing.)

Everything and a Happy Ending chronicles – among other things – Shurina’s reconnection with her dad after a long period of distance, the pain she went through when he died, and her difficult decision to separate from her husband after decades together. It’s a poignant study on how our relationships are all interconnected and feed into each other: when you have a more satisfying connection with a parental figure, for example, it can give you the strength and courage you need to bravely leave a spouse.

But by far, the strangest and most emotional part of Shurina’s story is her romance with Ray Romano. She knew him when she was in college and they worked together at the bank where he also met his eventual wife, Anna. The way Shurina tells it, Romano made a pass at her in the form of a starry-eyed poem he gave her when she quit the bank. Though she didn’t tell him so for many years, his sweet poem boosted her self-confidence at a time when she really needed it. I was reminded of the first boy who ever called me beautiful – a friend of a friend, in an MSN Messenger conversation, when I was about 13 years old – and how much that one small action impacted me for years afterward. It’s funny how our choices can affect other people for far longer than we ourselves even remember them.

Decades after losing touch with Romano, Shurina reconnected with him on a trip to Vegas, by which time he’d risen to fame as a comedian. She describes an intimate, emotional affair they subsequently had via email, sharing their innermost thoughts and feelings on weekly electronic “dates.” Though he eventually cut off contact with her in order to preserve his marriage and remain true to his wife, Shurina fell deeper and deeper in love with him, and came to view this love as a turning point in her life.

I recognized these feelings as I read them. The powerful love for someone who cannot return it in the ways one wishes they could; the aching and hoping for closure that will never come; the irrational and extreme things one does when one is in love. Shurina continued to email Romano and even hand-deliver gifts to his workplace after he ceased contact with her, which frankly is scary and worrisome behavior.

But part of me understood the feelings that might drive that level of obsessiveness, even if I can’t and don’t condone what Shurina did. I remembered the time I bought the same deodorant as a crush because I wanted to be able to smell him whenever I wanted, the time I picked up a receipt a crush had dropped because I wanted a glimpse into the mundanity of his life, the time I kept a dime on my bedroom floor for a year because a crush had left it there and it reminded me of him. Not all the things we do in the name of love are ethical or even forgivable. Sometimes it feels like we can’t help it.

Structurally, Shurina’s book is all over the place: she’s always digressing on mini-monologues about spiritual epiphanies, happenstance meetings, and “winks from the universe.” But it’s charming, in its own way – like listening to your kooky aunt tell you the story of the love of her life. Though sometimes her thoughts felt repetitious or brought out my inner skeptic, I still wanted to keep reading. I wanted to see Shurina get her happy ending.

And happily, she does. As the book comes to a close, its offbeat protagonist has shaken off her toxic marriage, successfully grieved her father’s death, taken at least some steps toward letting go of Romano, and met a man who wants to be with her – in real life, not just in “reel” life. It felt fortuitous for me to read this book at a time when I, too, have just recovered from an unreturned love. It served as a reminder that life can and will go on, and that there are happier adventures awaiting me.

 

You can buy Everything and a Happy Ending on Amazon! This review was sponsored, and as always, all writing and opinions are my own.

The Best One-Night Stands I’ve Ever Had

Kate Sloan

My Best One-Night Stand (Emotionally)

He approached me and a friend late at night in the dungeon of my local sex club – but unlike almost all men who do this, he was respectful, casual, and cute.

He was a comedian, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that he made me laugh, a lot – but I was. It’s so rare that I meet someone in a skeezy environment like a sex club who I actually connect with. “I think we matched on Tinder at one point,” he said, conversationally, between goofy jokes and silly impressions. “I noticed you in the crowd and thought, ‘Who is that? I recognize her!’” I was charmed.

We stepped out onto the balcony to smoke some weed, plush white towels hiding our nudity from the August air. “Do you ladies want to come back to mine and do some coke?” he asked us. (I am sure he put it in cooler terms than that, but not being a “coke person,” myself, I can’t remember what those terms were.)

I waffled, unsure how to say what I needed to say, and eventually decided just to say it. “I don’t want to do cocaine, but I do want to go to your place and make out with you a bunch,” I told him.

“Oh, good,” he said. “I was actually just offering you coke because I wanted you to come to my place and make out with me a bunch.” It should have been an off-putting line, but I was not put off.

He’d been flirting with both my friend and I in equal measure all night, and I was convinced he wanted a threesome. After all, this friend of mine was gorgeous – much moreso than me, I thought – so who could blame him? But she was in a monogamous relationship, so after an appropriate amount of flirting, she had to bow out. “I totally understand if that means you just want to call it a night,” I blurted apologetically as I broke this news to him, utterly certain he wouldn’t want me if my gorgeous pal wasn’t there to sweeten the deal.

His brow furrowed in confusion. “What? No, I totally still want you to come over, if you’re down!” Oh. I realized then that maybe I am actually attractive. Maybe this myth I tell myself about being second-best, an unconventional delicacy, a consolation prize, is indeed a myth. Maybe a charming, hilarious, handsome comedian can hit on me at a sex club and mean it. Maybe I have nothing to worry about. Oh. 

We took an Uber to his house and had a passable hookup. I don’t remember the details; I was drunk and giggly and elated to be wanted. I pulled his floppy hair and laughed at his jokes and basked in desiredness. I didn’t come and I didn’t care; a different type of pleasure was exchanged.

In the morning we went for coffee and he bid me adieu at the subway station. I never saw him again but he had healed something old and gnarled within me. He had made me new and happy. He had shown me I deserve to be happy.

My Best One-Night Stand (Sexually)

“I just realized where I recognize you from,” an OkCupid stranger told me. “I was your server at [restaurant name redacted]. I remember thinking you had an interesting energy.”

I glanced at his photo and recognized him immediately. My friend and I had giggled over half-price martinis about our hot waiter, daring each other to ask him out but never actually doing it. And here was Hot Waiter, in my OkCupid inbox, asking me out. Neat.

We went for drinks the following week. We chatted about our kinks, matter-of-factly, in that way people do when they’re not terribly invested in impressing each other but are still probably gonna bang.

“I can’t wait to take you home and fuck your brains out,” he growled in my ear later when he had me pushed up against a fence in an alley, one thigh shoved between mine. He kissed me so hard our teeth collided, nibbled at my earlobes so insistently I lost an earring.

“I dunno, I don’t usually like to have sex on first dates,” I told him, my indecision clear in the way my words wavered.

“Okay, that’s fine,” he replied, but it was only a few minutes until I decided that yes, actually, we should fuck. Like, ASAP.

A short cab ride later, he tossed me onto his bed like a ragdoll. “What’s your safeword?” he asked as he grabbed his under-the-bed restraints and strapped me into them.

“Red and yellow are fine,” I murmured through breathless giggles. He nodded. And then he fucked me so good and for so long that I felt blessed to have a vagina, blessed to have nerve endings, blessed to have been born.

“I… can’t even form sentences right now,” I slurred slowly in the afterglow. “I think you fucked my brain right out of my head.”

“I told you I was gonna,” he said. Cocky fucker. I grinned at him and he looked like Jesus: the lord and savior of my faith in one-night stands. 

My Best One-Night Stand (Hypothetically)

I never met him. I never got to kiss him or taste his skin. I never felt his hands on me, his mouth, his gaze. But I dreamed about it for weeks and sometimes I still do.

“Tell me five things about you that you think I should know,” he said in our initial lightning-fast exchange on OkCupid. “One of them has to be a pivotal sexual interest or kink of yours.”

I don’t remember what I said. It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to go back and look at our messages to check. It would remind me too much of what I missed out on.

I remember what he said when I asked him the same question, though.

“I am absolutely addicted to giving oral and making people cum. I am pretty handy with a dick but my true addiction lies in eating people out,” he confessed/bragged. “I am beyond into it and have made a point to be Olympian-level good at it. My favorite thing in the world is learning someone’s body to the point where I can make them cum uncontrollably and they physically have to stop me.”

Normally I do not sext with strangers; it makes me uncomfortable and it does not turn me on. But we had been talking openly enough and for long enough that I felt we were not strangers, at least not entirely. They say erotic stories can help relationships thrive, and in this case, the story appealing to me was the one he was weaving. His profile pictures and clever repartee had woven an image of a man I wanted to get to know – and, now, a man I wanted to go down on me.

“A thing about me is that I’m normally not that into people going down on me – but people aren’t normally very good at it,” I informed him. “So. We shall see.”

“Oh, a challenge,” he wrote back. “I have NEVER FAILED when presented with this. I am batting 1.000 with pussy-eating success.”

As I get older, I become increasingly aware that while sex-in-theory is a wonderful thing that excites me greatly, sex-in-practice is often a clunky disappointment. Transcendently good sex still exists, of course, but for me it is often the domain of long-term relationships: a partner has to know my body, my tastes, and my kinks before they can really do me right. This is why one-night stands have never appealed to me much. You can’t build the house without the blueprints, naw’m sayin’?

But this boy’s approach got me so curious. He didn’t just brag about being a good cunnilinguist, like many men do; he talked about enthusiasm for the act, curiosity about partners’ preferences, passion for learning what works for each individual. He wasn’t just sexting my body; he was sexting my brain.

He ghosted me before we actually went out, for reasons that are still unclear. And while ultimately I wouldn’t want to date or go out with someone who would do that to me, I’m still curious about that tongue, those lips, that brain. I wonder if the antidote to bad one-night stands is simply to have them with people who give a shit. People who want to learn your body like a puzzle. People for whom your pleasure isn’t a token bone they’re throwing you, but instead, the entire fucking point.

 

This post was produced in collaboration with Badults, and as always, all writing and opinions are my own.

The Tyranny and Temptation of the Second Date

Kate Sloan

One Friday afternoon in late April, I speed-walked toward a café in Leslieville, heart thudding in my chest. I was on my way to a second date, and I didn’t know why. How was I gonna get out of this one?

The week previous, I’d gotten a cordial DM from a faceless Twitter account, asking me on a date. The dude seemed cool and respectful, so I said yes. We agreed to meet up at Tell Me Something Good, for a low-pressure hang.

We chatted at the bar before the show, then sat together in the front row and listened to stories. I liked talking to him, but felt no immediate desire to kiss him, fuck him, or press my nose against his chest and inhale deeply – no immediate attraction, in other words. At intermission, a friend asked me knowingly, “How’s the date going?” and I replied in earnest, “I dunno; we’re having good chats, but I’m not sure how I feel, chemistry/attraction-wise.” That night, I didn’t invite my new acquaintance back to my house, or even invite him to make out with me in an alley, as I am wont to do when I have fun on a date; I simply said good night and went home.

We’d already planned an afternoon coffee date for a few days later, so I felt I had to go, even though I wasn’t particularly excited about it. On my way to meet him at the café, I idly rehearsed in my head what I could say to let him down gently, if and when I needed to. “I’m not really feeling a connection.” “I’m not in a good headspace for dating right now.” “You’re great, but I don’t think we’re a match.” I arrived at the café and stood outside for a moment, steeling myself. And then I walked through the door.

First dates have their own unique magic which has been discussed to death – but there’s little written about second dates. The thinking behind this, one can assume, is: the first date is where all the nerves and uncertainty congregate. By the second date, you’ll feel more comfortable, more certain, more excited. Right?

Maybe some people feel that way, but I sure don’t. Second dates stress me out arguably more than first dates do, in part because they imply committal feelings that I don’t necessarily have. Going out with someone a second time seems to say, “I like this person and want to see more of them!” but I’ve rarely been that sure about anyone by a second date. Am I just a weirdo, or does everyone secretly feel this way?

Here are two things I deeply believe. First: my attractions take time to develop, and I often need to know someone a little while before I’m able to see what’s hot and interesting about them. And second: when I meet someone I’m attracted to, I’ll know right away. It’ll be like a meet-cute in a movie. Oh. Yes. You.

I believe in both these ideas so strongly, but they directly contradict each other. The problem is, sometimes I know right away that I’m attracted to someone, and sometimes it takes a while. I’ve never had someone turn my “definitely not” into a “yes please,” but I’ve certainly been ambivalent at first about people who later won my heart. Hence going on so many second dates: I never want to throw away a potentially good connection – even one from a Meet and Fuck Site – unless I’m certain it’s not going to work. But where is the line between “hmm, maybe!” and “probably not, but let’s see what happens”?

After my first date with the man who would become my serious boyfriend of three and a half years, my overwhelming feeling was: “What the hell just happened?” I knew we’d had great conversations, and that I liked him and he seemed to like me. But we hadn’t kissed, or really expressed any kind of physical attraction or affection, so I was unsure if I liked him as a romantic interest or just as a fun person to talk to.

Contrastingly, by my second date with an unfeminist, sex-shamey dude who was irrefutably bad for me, I was already asking him if he wanted to be my boyfriend. I rushed headlong into a thing that felt dazzlingly exciting, my inexplicable feelings blinding me to all logic. See: my gut feelings about people are often wrong, which is why I second-guess myself so often now. I don’t trust my gut. It doesn’t know what it’s talking about.

Back to that reluctant second date in a Leslieville café. The dude introduced me to his friend who owned the place, and made my drink himself. We settled into comfy chairs in the back corner, where we launched into philosophical conversation and an intense game of Scrabble. We played with a house rule where you got an extra 10 points for any “sexy” word; he played the word “plead,” and I made an involuntary turned-on sound.

He kept grinning at me every time I made a good joke, like a dorky schoolboy with a crush. Some friends of his stopped into the café, and he not only introduced me to them but also bragged about me to them: how smart I am, how funny and accomplished. We talked about sex, kink, feminism, and literature; he was careful and thoughtful and smart and self-aware. I was swayed.

Toward the end of our second rollicking Scrabble game, I pondered how, just a couple hours earlier, I’d been plotting how to pre-emptively escape from this date – and now, here I was, wishing it would go on longer. “Wanna go do something else?” he asked, and I couldn’t help but giggle. He hadn’t meant to evoke sex, but sex is where my mind went. He giggled back at me.

“I mean, not no,” I admitted.

He smiled. Was he surprised? I was. “I live very close to here and my roommates aren’t home,” he said, real casual-like.

We walked around the corner to his house. We had a brief and respectful negotiation – what we were and weren’t willing to do in bed that day. He rolled us a joint and we smoked it. And then we had sex for five and a half hours.

When finally we slowed down for long enough to catch our breath and check our phones, I realized I was late to meet a friend for a 10PM comedy show we’d agreed to go to. I wondered how I could possibly have been having sex with this boy for that long. Neither of us had even had an orgasm and the sex had nonetheless felt like its own universe, stellar and self-contained.

We threw our clothes back on and he walked me to the bus stop. “Wanna get dinner next week?” he asked me, the hood of his black hoodie pulled up, his hands stuffed in his pockets. He seemed oddly shy for someone who had just fucked the life out of me all day – like he genuinely wasn’t sure how I’d respond, and if I said no, he’d be sad but not surprised.

“Yeah!” I gushed, and meant it. The bus pulled up, and I kissed him good night, wishing I didn’t have to. Wishing our afternoon-coffee-date-turned-evening-sex-date could morph into a sleepover, and then a cozy morning, and then a Relationship-with-a-capital-R.

When I got to Comedy Bar, my friend asked me conversationally how my day had gone, and I told her with disbelief sludgily slurring my words, “I just had sex for like six hours.” She didn’t know what to make of that. Neither did I.

Now it’s months later and that unassuming Adonis in the black hoodie is my boyfriend. I’m still trying to puzzle out what the hell happened, and what it means. How could I have been so ambivalent about someone who was obviously meant to cross my path? How could I have looked at such a sweet, babely human and thought, “Ehh”? How did I not see the supportive, world-shifting partner he could be to me?

I’m still suspicious of second dates. They still stir up questions I don’t know how to answer, and get me up close and personal with my crippling indecision and hatred of confrontation. But I think this experience has taught me, for once and for all, that if I’m not sure about someone, I should go on that second date. If the idea of seeing them again intrigues me on any level, even a little bit, I owe it to myself to give it one more shot.

When you do this, maybe nothing’ll come of it. But maybe you’ll laugh your guts out over Scrabble, have sex for five hours, and feel your stomach flip in that way that means you just met someone you could come to love.

 

Note: this post was sponsored, and as always, all writing and opinions are my own.

How to Disclose Your Non-Monogamy on a Dating App

Kate Sloan

While I’ve been “non-monogamous in theory” for years, I have limited experience being non-monogamous in practice. I recently started dating someone who has been polyamorous for a while, and has two steady partners other than me – and while it’s been difficult, I’m viewing it as an invitation to step up to the plate and take on the challenge I’ve claimed to want for ages. I am finally going to learn some real-life poly skills and see if I can hack it.

One of the first challenges I’ve come up against – other than my old friends, jealousy, greed, and anxiety – is figuring out how to pursue other dates ethically and honestly. I don’t want to downplay or lie about the existence of my boyfriend, but I also don’t want to make new potential beaux feel like there’s no room for them in my life. I don’t want to spend too much time and energy explaining polyamory to diehard monogamists, nor do I want to exclude people who’ve been monogamous thus far but are curious about their other options.

So many considerations! So let’s start with something small: how to communicate on your dating profile that you are, indeed, polyamorous. Here are some suggestions…

Choose your venue wisely. OkCupid and Tinder are full of young and/or socially liberal people, so you may have better luck with those than you would with services geared toward older folks seeking a marriage-track relationship, like Match and eHarmony. If you want to skip the hassle of disclosing your non-monogamy altogether, you could join a dating site designed specifically for non-monogamous people, like SwingTowns.

Consider what level of privacy you need. Whether because of your career, your family, or some other factor, you might not feel comfortable telling the entire internet that you’re non-monogamous. If that’s the case, it might be best for you to use dating sites where your profile isn’t publicly visible, or that have that option (on OkCupid, for example, you can check “Only allow other members to see my profile” in the settings panel). You could also try mentioning your relationship status within your first few messages instead of disclosing it publicly on your profile, though this is likely to be a lot of extra work on your part when monogamous folks decide to respectfully (or not-so-respectfully) ghost you afterward.

Use the app’s built-in relationship status feature, if it has one. Some dating sites allow you to set your relationship status alongside other relevant info like your gender and sexual orientation. Indicating your non-monogamous status makes it easier for monogamous people to filter you out of their search results, and communicates your “deal” to any profile-lurkers at a glance. However, some people don’t read this info (and some dating apps, like Tinder, don’t even have a structured way for you to provide it), so you may still need to do the legwork of explaining yourself in messages after all.

List your important identities upfront. Lots of people I asked on Twitter said this is their main strategy in online-dating while poly: they roll out their most vital identity words in the opening paragraph(s) of their profile. This might look a lot like my current Twitter bio: “Cis bi kinky non-monogamous femme feminist.” I think these are all important things for people to know, especially if they’re considering dating me. Front-loading this info makes it likelier that your potential paramours will actually read it, and will hopefully spare you some grief and lots of time and energy.

Define your terms. Some people don’t have a precise idea of what “polyamorous” means (let alone other non-monogamy terms like “swinger,” “polyfidelity,” “solo poly” or “primary partner”), so it’s helpful to explain exactly what you mean. For example, my Tinder bio currently includes this: “I’m poly: dating someone rad, and looking for dates/adventures/potential relationships with other cuties.” This hopefully reduces some of the stigma, anxiety, and confusion that might fill someone’s head when they read the word “poly” and aren’t sure what it means. It’s a succinct summary of how I am currently doing poly, and what that might mean for my partners.

Be prepared to explain yourself. Even if you think you’ve been clear in your profile text, folks still might have additional questions. Of course, you don’t have to answer missives you find rude, invasive, or exhausting – but it is part of ethical non-monogamy to ensure people know what they’re getting into before they get into it. (Informed, enthusiastic consent, and all that!) These convos might happen in your first few messages, or on your first few dates, but they should happen at some point. Set boundaries, establish expectations, talk about feelings. It’s all part of the process!

Unmatch ruthlessly as needed. Some people will be jerks about you being non-monogamous. That’s just a fact of life as any kind of “sexual deviant,” unfortunately. But you don’t have to put up with it. Hit “unmatch” or “block” or “report” or whatever the site-specific equivalent is, and move on with your day. Fuck the haterz.

Non-monogamous folks: what are your best tips for disclosing and discussing your non-monogamy on a dating site/app? Got any horror stories or success stories to share?

Heads up: this post was sponsored, and as always, all writing and opinions are my own.