Ahead of the February 11 Residence 11 Desire Summit on Sex and Relationships (get tickets here!), we’re conducting a series of livestream interviews with Summit speakers. You can watch them live or after the fact on our YouTube channel, Facebook page or Twitter account, and ask questions for our interviewees.
Watch our interview between Editor-in-Chief Rachel Kramer Bussel and polyamory expert Kevin Patterson, author of Love’s Not Color Blind: Race and Representation in Polyamorous and Other Alternative Communities. They discussed how to get started with polyamory, how jealousy shows up in polyamorous relationships, and relationship advice for those considering polyamory. Read an excerpt from Love’s Not Color Blind here and learn more about Kevin at KevinAPatterson.com.
Select excerpts from our interview with Kevin Patterson:
On how he handles jealousy in his relationships:
Whenever I feel jealous, like, my partner’s doing something, and I feel jealous, [I tell myself] this isn’t about me. They’re not doing this because of me. They’re not even thinking about me right now. They’re doing their own thing and living their best life in a way that makes sense to them. And I’m making it about me and my feelings. Let me figure out why I’m doing that.
You know, if I was in a different situation, if I was in a monogamous situation, I might just be like, That makes me jealous and knock it off. Instead, [I look at] Why am I feeling jealous? [Is it about] they’re going to see that movie without me, but I want to see that movie too. Do I want to see it with them? Do I want to see it by myself? Do I just want to see the movie?
[With jealousy], if you don’t address it, it pops up in other aspects of your life. If you don’t communicate it in a healthy way, it’s gonna come out on its own in an unhealthy way. And who knows where that can go/ That could lead to the end of a relationship. I’d rather just sit back, confront it within myself, and then confronted as calmly and sympathetically as I can.
On the many ways jealousy can show up in relationships, besides being about sex:
Sometimes jealousy is a result of a betrayal, you know, and if that’s the case, it’s not going to feel the same; it’s not going to be dealt with the same as if it’s jealousy over who went to go see what movie without me. So it can really be about anything.
Jealousy’s an emotion. And like every other emotion, it doesn’t always make sense. It doesn’t always come from a specific place. It’s not always something you’re going to understand the second you get it, which is the reason why you have to sit down and examine it.
I was at Everything Everywhere All at Once, which is my movie of the year. It’s such a good movie. It’s so absurd and so profound at the same time. When I asked a partner of mine to go see this movie with me, as we were on the way to go see it, they mentioned having seen it the day before with another partner. And I felt I felt a way about that.
But it wasn’t something that I had ever expressed. I didn’t express, Hey, I want to share this first experience with you. So really, they didn’t owe me anything as far as going to see it with me first. They wanted to see it as well. They saw it the night before. So I had to sit down with my feelings about that. There’s nobody doing something wrong here. If somebody did something wrong, we can address it, but nobody did anything wrong. It’s just me wishing I had brought up something earlier, wishing I had expressed that I wanted to have the first experience of that with someone else who was having their first experience.
Watch the whole interview above and be sure to subscribe to our channels to catch all our interviews!
About the Desire Summit: The Residence 11 Desire Summit, sponsored by sex toy companies FUN FACTORY and Blush, intimate audio platform BLOOM, romance novel publisher Avon Books, and yoga teacher training company Ganja Yoga, will feature extensive educational sessions with over 20 diverse authors and subject matter experts across psychology, physical intimacy, technology innovation, sexual health, music and narrative storytelling. Speakers include writer Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, author of The Sex Lives of African Women, polyamory expert Kevin Patterson, author of Love’s Not Color Blind, sex educator and dating expert Erin Tillman, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling romance author and TikTok favorite Sierra Simone (Priest, American Queen), Mia Hopkins (author of Tanked, one of The New York Times’ best 2022 romances, romance novelist Suzanne Park (The Do Over, The Christmas Clash), and Taylor Hahn, author of swinging novel The Lifestyle, among others. Keynote speakers will be intimacy coach Zoë Kors, author of Radical Intimacy: Cultivate the Deeply Connected Relationships You Desire and Deserve, speaking on 6 Questions That Will Get You Instantly Connected to Anyone, and sex educator Dirty Lola, who appeared as a sexpert on Netflix’s The Principles of Pleasure, speaking on The State of Modern Dating. Get tickets here for the Desire Summit.