Non Monogamy 101 - Sara Bachman-Williams & Kate Kincaid

Non Monogamy 101 is geared towards those new to practicing non monogamy but all experience levels welcome! Non Monogamy 101 will cover terms commonly used in non-monogamy as well as common types of practice. We will also look at the historical context and legacy of non monogamy practices as well as current common pitfalls in practicing non monogamy.

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Painless Poly Dating 101 - Lusty Guy & Cunning Minx

Are you polyamorous and/or kinky? Do you have a lot of awesomeness to offer but get frustrated and end up floundering in the dating sea? Join Lusty Guy and Minx as they share the secrets of painless dating in the poly and kinky scene. Attendees will learn how to build a philosophy of dating, how to navigate the dating waters while loving your existing partners and how to have kick-ass dates every time. Whether you are solo, partnered or practically polysaturated, this class will help you add anesthetic to your dating toolkit and wrestle success from the jaws of dating defeat. By the end of this class, attendees will be able to: construct a kick-ass dating profile, start a conversation with anyone and support your current partners in the process

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Poly Pitfalls: Fixing Things When They Break - Lusty Guy & Cunning Minx

Love may be boundless, but our patience with our partners may not be. Tempers can flare, and even the most emotionally intelligent poly folk can leave a conflict feeling annoyed, hurt or under appreciated. What’s worse, the situation can escalate and cause unnecessary drama for everyone involved, including additional partners! Join Minx and Lusty Guy as they share their favorite high-pressure communication techniques for fighting fair when communications misfire. Bring your partner(s) to this workshop focused on interactive role-playing. By the end of this interactive workshop, participants will have practiced: owning their shit, de-escalating a conflict and doing a post-fight recap.

 

Discrimination against polyamory and non-monogamy and how to fight it - Susan Wright

Fighting for Sexual Freedom We have to fight for our right to live and love how we want. Come learn about the issues we're facing today, and what NCSF is doing to educate professionals and connect them with polyamorous people in need, whether it’s getting a kink aware therapist, child custody attorney or reporting an assault or harassment to the police. NCSF also helps groups, businesses and polyamorous people when they’re being persecuted by the media or local authorities. We'll have an interactive discussion to find out what issues the participants are facing and strategize on what can be done to help.

 

Starting and Managing a Polyamorous Household - Moogle Macabre

Are you and your partners considering nesting together or is that a goal you'd like to work towards? Then this presentation is for you! We'll be going over how to tips, tricks and advice for cohabiting with multiple adults in order to ensure a well organized and smooth running Polyamorous household. From arranging chores and paying the bills to how to ensure everyone has access to important medical information for emergency situations. Whether you're ready to nest or just future planning, you'll be sure to find some helpful information in here for you!

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Magnetic Partners: Mono/Poly Relationships Can Work! - Kenna Cook

“Love is infinite, but time is finite” – this tends to be the polyamory motto. But what happens when your infinitely loving heart falls for someone who is hardwired for monogamy? Is your relationship doomed to fail or is there a hope for opposites who tend to attract? This presentation will explore common mono/poly pitfalls and give you tangible how-to takeaways from my real-life experiences being a pansexual, polyamorous cis woman who has a serious sweet spot for monogamous lovers.

 

Re-Wire Your Triggers - Jessica Cooley
We all have emotional triggers. We all experience moments where the intensity of our reactions seems out of proportion to what’s happening and our better selves get eclipsed by our body’s fight/fight/freeze defense systems taking over. Unfortunately, being in reactivity can stand in the way of creating the life and love you want, it can ruin relationships, break up families and at times make non-monogamy seem near impossible to traverse.

However, your Triggers can be rewired and transformed!

And working with your emotional triggers can actually become a catalyst for deep healing, self-understanding, growth and more fulfilling relationships.

In this Workshop you will:
• Understand how your nervous system is wired for emotional reactivity.
• Increase your awareness of how you get triggered and what your trigger spectrum looks like.
• Learn how you can transform your reactivity into empowered choice.
• Experience a guided process that you can apply to your unique situation and will support you in shifting your personal and relational reactivity patterns.

Couples transitioning from Monogamy to Polyamory and staying together - Jessica Cooley

As many of us know, being poly in a monogamous world has its ups and downs, but taking on the process of going from monogamy to non-monogamy as a couple can have its own unique set of difficulties, as well as gifts. In this session we will explore five specific dynamics and challenges that relate to couples trying to transition from mono to poly while staying together.

In this workshop you will go beyond talking about relationship agreements, communication and jealousy, through exploring:

• How the paradigm shift your are going through is creating your relationship challenges, not non-monogamy.

• How the skills you used to stay healthy in monogamy may not convert in poly. 

• Why the pairing of a Poly-as-Lifestyle partner with a Poly-as-Orientation partner can be particularly challenging. 

• How going Poly can catalyze an awakening of the Authentic Self

• And How going Poly can expose a Crisis of Attachment Style. 

 

Making Peace with Jealousy in Non-Monogamous Relationships - Anita Wagner Illig

Description of Presentation Sound familiar? Just when we think we've got our act together, our relationships are going well and we're maybe even feeling confident, someone we love is attracted to someone new, and all of a sudden the bottom falls out. Or we meet someone new and want to explore our attraction to them, and contrary to what we anticipate, a partner starts freaking out. Why is this happening? Why do our emotions sometimes run so contrary to our will? What's a fair and reasonable person to do?

We need not be jealousy's victims! Come learn to accurately analyze and identify jealousy's complex underlying emotions and devise an effective plan that works for you that will take away their seemingly overwhelming emotional power. With a bit of patience, some love and support, and the right relationship skills, we all have the power to make peace with jealousy.

 

BOUNDARIES “WHAT THE HECK?!” - Diana Ryan

Understanding what they are, who are the violators and how to

enact appropriate boundaries.

Everyone understands that good boundaries are important to be happy, healthy, and wise (so we think); but what are boundaries? Are they just asking what you want from someone? Are they demanding apologies when someone hurts you? We will find out what healthy boundaries are. What types of people commit boundary violations. And lastly how to enact appropriate boundaries. “What is an amazing home if someone continues to trample your flowers and do donuts in your yard?!?!”.

 

Relationship Anarchy - Multiamory

What is it? Who invented it? Does it mean overthrowing the relationship government? If you've never heard of Relationship Anarchy, or have always wanted to learn more about it, think of this class as your introductory 101 course. We will take a close look at the original Relationship Anarchy manifesto written by Andie Nordgren and discuss what it all means and how it can apply to your relationships.

 

Polyamory in Fictional Media - Multiamory

In this class we will discuss the various ways polyamory and non-monogamous relationships are portrayed in fictional movies, TV, and webseries. With a very special multimedia presentation, we explore the hilarious, touching and sometimes bizarre stories that are currently being told in our mainstream media, including clips from Easy, Orange is the New Black, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and many more.

 

The Intersection of Race and Polyamory - Kevin Patterson

While polyamory and polyamorists are often viewed as a very welcome bunch, far too often, our communities and representation appear very limited. While we can be loud and proud when it comes to feminism and LGBT issues, sometimes we are suspiciously silent in regards to race. Beyond that, we sometimes, and often unknowingly, foster a standoffish, stressful or downright unwelcoming atmosphere around people of color. This presentation is a discussion about why diversity is important to our movement. We will tackle ways that we can proactively promote an inclusive environment in our lives, in our communities, and at our events. Most importantly, we will go over what we can do to maintain that diversity.

 

You Let Her Do What?

Examinations of Polyamory and Masculinity - Kevin Patterson

Since the 1960s, many of us have adopted a modern take on polyamory with female-driven resources and ideologies at the forefront. So, how does this mesh with some of the traditional ideas of masculinity that we’ve been socialized to believe. If we’re determined to shed default setting relationship-models, what parts of masculine conditioning do we also need to let go of? What parts do we need to keep? In this workshop, we’ll explore ideas common to polyamory and masculinity and how we intend to rewrite our own scripts to reflect a positive narrative for our communities, our partners, and ourselves. Bring your stories!

 

Predators in Our Midst: Dealing with Abusers in Sex and Gender Minority Communities - Dr. Eli Sheff

Which SGM communities have abusers? Turns out, many of them have problematic members, but deciding who counts as an abuser can be incredibly difficult. This presentation reviews what kinds of abuse goes on in SGM communities, some of the barriers to reporting the abuse, what SGM communities have done about abuse so far, and some recommendations for people who want to curtail abuse in their home communities.

 

Long-Term Impacts of Polyamorous Families on Adults and Kids: The Longitudinal Polyamorous Family Study - Dr. Eli Sheff

Using data from her 20+ year study of polyamorous families with children, Dr. Eli provides a glimpse into the long-term impacts these families have on adults and children. The presentation begins with a brief overview of the research methods and sample and then focuses on the advantages, disadvantages, and ways poly families deal with disadvantages for adults and kids. This session closes with a brief discussion of aging in poly families and what young adults who grew up in poly families report as their long-term impacts, as well as time for questions and group discussion.

 

When the Sex Dies… - Marla Stewart

…Bring it back to life!  You’ve been in a long term relationship and you and your partner(s) (sic) have changed in so many ways. However, you still desire each other, but lust took a detour. This workshop is designed to help you and your partner(s) get back on track, communicate effectively and efficiently, and get turned on psychologically, as well as physically. Master new ways of seduction and experience emotional ferocity. This workshop is for couples or more ONLY.

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Navigating Blackness, Womanhood, & Open Lifestyles- Panel featuring Ruby Johnson, Diana Ryan & Goddess Sadie Hawkins, moderated by Marla Renee Stewart

Realizing that not all women have the same lived experiences, our panel will articulate what it's like to live these intersectional experiences, the challenges associated with these intersections, and how resilience plays a major role when faced with these challenges. Coming from various open lifestyle perspectives, we seek to educate on why these perspectives are important, how these perspectives overlap, and how to use grace when it comes to people's xenophobia and ignorance.

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A Conversation: Family + Community- Margaret Jacobsen

Non-monogamy isn’t just about sharing romantic relationships, but also building beautiful & intimate relationships with others who practice non-monogamy. Because non-monogamy focuses on the unlearning of how society expects our relationships to be, intimacy is able to exist in many ways. Not just sexually, not just romantically, not just with the expectation of becoming romantically entangled. I believe that because non monogamy requires us to be in a constant, honest conversation with ourselves, it gives us the ability to show up honestly in all interactions with those we connect to. That is so important when we exist in a society that places us in boxes, limits how we love and share intimacy, and expects us to only have relationships according to particular “tracks”. Non-monogamy breaks us out of those boxes, shows us love can exist in an array of ways, and our foundations for building intimacy with anyone is based in liberation as opposed to fear of what people will think.

 

So let’s gather, talk about how we build community + family.

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Non-monogamy must be more than an alternative to monogamy- Margaret Jacobsen

Non-monogamy, even if you want to pretend it can’t be, CAN BE a political act. It can and needs to challenge white supremacy, it can and should challenge patriarchy, It can and should challenge capitalism, it MUST include queerness and dismantle the binary, it MUST be anti-racist since like most of the things white folks have taken on as their own, is something people of color have participated in for hundreds of years. Settling into non-monogamy, means you’re already going against the grain, yet it shouldn’t end there. Non-monogamy is a humanity based lifestyle/sexuality/orientation, because of this, dismantling the oppressive systems around us should go hand in hand, with our radical loving. Unless, we only want to be radical within our privilege.

 

This conversation will force you to challenge how you practice non-monogamy, does it still mirror how the average cis-white person practices monogamy? Is it really as radical as we say it is? If you’re a cis-white male, even a cis-white female, I’d encourage you to sit in on those conversation, but also to be aware of your privilege, and the space that you occupy OUTSIDE of non-monogamy spaces, and WITHIN these spaces.

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Liberation is felt, seen, and heard- Ruby Bouie Johnson

Liberation is both the undoing of the effects and the transformation of the causes of social oppression. Within the kink communities, perpetration of oppression is made possible through the conditioning of new generations into oppressed and the role of being oppressive. The institutionalization of oppression includes invalidation, denial, or the non-recognition of the humanness (the goodness, smartness, powerfulness, etc.) of individuals and groups who are the targets of that form of mistreatment. This workshop examines the what, how, when, and where, within the Kink community’s system the dismantling can began.

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What’s love got to do with it? - Ruby Bouie Johnson

Polyamorists are making a new world that lives and reflects the way we do relationships. As we have shameless courage to expose who we are, we are called perverts and deviants. People are afraid that we are making our lifestyle appear normal so that more people we try it. With honor, my keynote addresses shameless love and loving shamelessly.

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Honoring Your Nature - Reclaiming your DNA and Heart - Maria Luisa Ruiz Luna

Why is it difficult to be comfortable in your own skin? That inexplicable emotional pain. That void. That hunger to connect. Could disregarding your nature be the root of it? Your individual, rare nature. Your animal bionature. Mainstream culture assaults and numbs who we truly are. Our ignored genetic design responds with inflammation to today’s hectic rhythm of life; to our pervasive inner critic.

If we, 21st-century Homo sapiens, want to walk in peace –with a sense of well-being and integrity– we will need to be proactive about learning adaptive strategies. How do we change our lifestyle to take advantage of this new version of our world habitat whilst honoring (and leveraging on!) the imperatives of our earlier-human genetic code? Updating the ways in which we love is part of this challenge. This talk will start you on an enjoyable, science-friendly journey that will guide you to your inner truth so you can find your own WellWays. Under the light of a beautiful, new intersection of evolutionary biology, neuroscience, psychology, and spiritual wisdom, we will touch on issues related to the actual causes of chronic stress and addiction to love, self-acceptance, and emerging tools to better honor Your Nature.

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Roundtable on consent and accountability for event and community organizers - Joseph Pred

Learn about a practical tool to help make your next event safer by clearly defining consent and accountability.

 

I've been working on a consent and accountability framework for community events with a small group of other event organizers and we are looking for your feedback. Regardless if you organize events, are a community activist, or just attend events for fun, this workshop is for you. 

 

What are the benefits of using this framework at your event?

• Helps protect participants by use of a common, easily understood framework.

• Sets expectations for consent and that constructive feedback is part of the process.

• Encourages participants to report questionable behavior or consent violations knowing there is coaching and consequences for unintentional or intentional consent violations.

• Creates a shared framework for accountability and consent that strengthens all events and communities that also use this tool.

• Has been legally reviewed to protect event or community organizers from petty lawsuits.

 

You view and download the entire consent and accountability framework here: https://goo.gl/ueMLMj

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