X - Wide open: my adventures in polyamory, open marriage, & loving on my own terms

Gracie X is a writer, actress, and director. She lives in Northern California. Find out more about Gracie at http://GracieX.com, and connect with her online:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GracieXauthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/GracieXauthor

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrpUKF87ojhzmV4uVNNyGAA

Foreword writer Carol Queen, PhD, cofounded the Center for Sex and Culture in San Francisco with her partner, Robert Morgan Lawrence. Queen is also staff sexologist at Good Vibrations, and author of Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture.

Vulnerable and vivacious, Wide Open is a deeply personal, beautifully written tale of one womans erotic journey to find herself and keep her family together. Gracie X bares her soul in this gripping memoir filled with pain and pleasure, growth, endings, and new beginnings. I couldnt put it down!

Elisabeth Sheff, author of The Polyamorists Next Door: Inside Multiple-Partner Relationships and Families (2014), and editor of Stories from the Polycule: Real Life in Polyamorous Families (2015)

Gracie X has written an honest and engaging memoir about taking one of the biggest risks of her lifeopening up her marriage despite warnings from friends and loved ones to not rock the boat and her own fears. While honoring both her deep commitment to her husband and children and her reawakened sexuality, she shows us that, yes, we are capable of loving many people and receiving love back, as well as creating a marriage that is unique to our needsa valuable lesson for all of us, whether polyamorous, monogamous, or monogamish.

Vicki Larson, award-winning journalist and coauthor of The New I Do: Reshaping Marriage for Skeptics, Realists and Rebels

For anyone whos curious about how to approach polyamory or open relationships with your partner, Wide Open is a must-read. Gracie X graciously lays out her complicated journey in a funny, honest, and relatable way that will inspire others to follow their heart. Redefining the family and relationship model is not an easy task; however, Wide Open gives you hope that through honest communication, emotional maturity, and patience, anything is possible.

Natalia Garcia, director and creator of Showtimes Polyamory: Married & Dating

I was moved by Gracie X as she shared a tender, passionate, and vulnerable memoir that inspires as it warns. This book is a must-read, authentic addition to the literature on open relationships and polyamory. As an intimacy counselor, I recommend her book for those who wish to experience the real-life joys, sorrows, challenges, and gifts of alternative relationship.

Francesca Gentille, contributing author of The Marriage of Sex and Spirit, radio host of Sex: Tantra and Kama Sutra, and relationship and intimacy counselor

This is a remarkable book. At a time when liberals and conservatives alike are embracing marriage and the nuclear family, Gracie X sends us a life raftthe bold chronicle of her quest to create a family configuration that works for her, her husband, new lover, and children. Gracie X is not only creative and braveshe is also a consummate storyteller. Be prepared for a riveting tale of her journey into intense new love while her marriage simultaneously evolves and realigns itself. For anyone weary from the dry, didactic tone of poly how-to books, this memoir provides a wealth of information about the triumphs and tribulations of exploring polyamory. And it is an indispensable resource for those seeking to forge a new way with their partners and families, expanding the bounds of even polyamory itself.

Ann E. Tweedy, poet and author of Beleaguered Oases (CreativePress 2010) and White Out (Green Fuse Poetic Arts 2013)

To open her kimono and share how one woman and two families made sense of the paradox that is love, sex, family, intimacy, and honesty in our modern lives, is an act of tremendous courage and generosity. Her sassy, relatable, sexy truth-telling burns away the tarnish that convention can leave on our hearts. Even if our journeys look different than Gracie Xs (as indeed they should), let us stand up and shout out: Viva the moxie of Gracie X to open her heart and her mouth. Say it, sister!

LiYana Silver, mentor for Womens Embodiment: Bringing Your Feminine Genius to Life (http://liyanasilver.com)

Publishers Note

Wide Open is a memoir that describes the life experiences of the author, who writes under the pseudonym Gracie X (and is sometimes identified as Grace in the text).

Real names are used in the Acknowledgments except for the individuals called Hank, Valerie, and Oz, which are fictitious names.

All personal names in the Dedication and the main text are fictitious with the exception of Judy Jones (who is identified by her real first name in the main text), and the individual identified as Deb, who is also called by the nicknames Gentle Bear and Bear. All business names associated with the individual called Susan are fictitious. Berkeley, the setting where much of the story takes place, is used fictitiously in place of the actual setting.

For these reasons, any similarities between the fictitious names used in this book, as described above, and any real people and places are strictly coincidental.

Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books

Copyright 2015 by Gracie X New Harbinger Publications, Inc. 5674 Shattuck Avenue Oakland, CA 94609 www.newharbinger.com

Cover design by Amy Shoup; Acquired by Catharine Meyers;

Edited by Marisa Sols

All Rights Reserved

_____________

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

X, Gracie.

Wide open : my adventures in polyamory, open marriage, and loving on my own terms/ Gracie X ; foreword by Carol Queen.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-62625-058-1 (paperback) -- ISBN 978-1-62625-059-8 (pdf-ebook) -- ISBN 978-1-62625-060-4 (epub) 1. X, Gracie. 2. Open marriage--United States. 3. Sexual freedom--United States. 4. Families--United States. I. Title.

HQ980.5.U5X22 2015

306.84--dc23

2015010145

I wish to dedicate this book to

the warriors in service of love,

those who dare to love uniquely,

in their own way

with whomever they choose,

I toast you,

for the heart may be a lonely hunter

but she is also persistent and unrelenting

and there is no greater engine

than the calling song of the desirous heart.

To my children,

may you be warriors in the service of love,

seeking then finding all you need.

To Hank, for the perfect DNA and the great love.

To Valerie, for the willingness to go off road.

And forever to my beloved Oz,

you are my muse, my love, you are my muse

Foreword

Carol Queen, PhD

Marriage is certainly in a state of flux nowadays. Some want in, some want out, and some want over the top, as though marriage was a wall you could scale to find a different garden on the other side. It speaks volumes, perhaps, that Ia conscientious marriage objector, listed on the Alternatives to Marriage website right there next to Beauvoir and Sartre, as well as an occasional officiant for marriage-minded couples who seek me outshould be tapped to write the introductory words for a book that is so much about marriage and its meaning. In the days of Old Marriage, I would not have been that guy.

But I work very close to the epicenter of what some call Modern Love. Yes, it was a terrific Bowie song, but now its so much more: Its a movement of open-relationship believers, activists, and theorists, an army of lovers who refuse to believe that lifes possibilities close off when they say I door who decide never to use those words at all, preferring, like Molly Bloom, to say. Yes, yes, yes.