Polyamory-Related Books

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Books on Relationship Skills

Relationship skills are often more important in polyamorous relationships than in monogamous ones. Here are a few books that have provided interesting reading to me... (and here's some more!)

Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Compassion

Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD

PuddleDancer

Thanks to Diane for this contributed review!

Nonviolent Communication teaches the reader skills invaluable for polyamorous relationships. It's a system of communication based on owning your own feelings and needs and learning to express them to others in such a way that you're more likely to get your feelings respected and your needs met. It's also about learning to find the feelings and needs of those close to you, and to give them real empathy around those feelings.

The methods detailed in the book have even worked in creating healing between Israelis and Palestinians and others with deep, long-lasting hurts between them. So it's a relative breeze between people who love each other. :)

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Savage Love

Dan Savage

Plume

This book is a collection of letters from Dan Savage's Savage Love column, a nationally syndicated advice column about sexuality and relationships from a direct, sometimes adversarial, and always funny point of view.

While certainly not about polyamory per se, there are a handful of letters scattered in the book that pertain in one way or another to openly non-monogamous situations, and Dan comes through as being open-minded about that sort of situation (directing one reader to Deborah Anapol's book) without losing his sense of perspective.

The reader letters always begin with the salutation "Hey, Faggot:", which was Dan's original choice for the title of the column Savage Love. I point this out to give you a sense of Dan's tone, I love it's kick-ass style, but if that bothers you, don't apply here.

Personally, I love the book, and ended up laughing out loud several times while I was reading it. Don't miss this one, folks!

kacy rates this book a 9 (Excellent) and says:
Dan Savage writes witty and honest responses to the problems of breeders and gays. I like anybody who encourages virgins to have meaningless sex with the next person that comes along.

Randy rates this book a 1 (Horrible) and says:
I quit reading Dan Savage's advice column along time ago. As a Gay man I find the way he talks about sex vulgar, discusting, and generally juvenile and boring. He reinforces every negative stereotype people have about gay sex for no other reason than to give his mostly straight readership something to giggle, while cementing any ideas they may have about gays not being able to be in commited loving relationships. As far as a book about healthy sex or open positive relationships go, I couln't imagine a worse book to read.

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Constructing the Sexual Crucible: an Integration of Sexual and Marital Therapy

David M. Schnarch

W. W. Norton & Co.

David Schnarch's textbook on sexual and marital relationships covers, better than almost any other book I've read, the complex web of emotional issues surrounding intimacy, differentiation, and security.

Often in the early days of a relationship people fuse together into less separate individuals, an effect of the infatuation and newness of the relationship. However, to create a healthy long-term relationship, some amount of differentiation is required. This is the process of allowing each person to become an individual again, while maintaining the emotional intimacy that forms the foundation of a relationship. Schnarch covers this particularly well.

Be warned, Schnarch is definitely a monogamist. And, to be honest, many of criticisms of some forms of non-monogamy are on-target and to the point. Multiple sexual relationships as an escape from intimacy in a troubled relationship are often more a problem than a solution.

I also take issue with his thesis that people have a natural individual level of security or insecurity that is unchanging, I personally believe that while very difficult, it is possible to learn or unlearn insecurity to a noticable extent.

The book has a thick textbook style which may make some parts of the book a difficult to wade through. It is a textbook, not a pop psychology book. Fortunately, numerous case-studies make his points clearer and more easily accessible.

Despite all these nits, there's a wealth of information here for people wanting to learn about initmate emotional relationships. Recommended.

(NOTES: I haven't yet read, but have heard good things about Schnarch's latest book entitled Passionate Marriage. )

Robin rates this book a 10 (Best Book Available on the Subject) and writes: I have been in a relatively healthy intimate relationship for 15 years, have experienced various forms of relationship therapies, read nearly every relationship book out there, and "The Passionate Marraige" is by far the smartest, most realistic and truthful book about marriage I have ever read.

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