Mint - Playing Fair: a Guide to Nonmonogamy for Men into Women

Praise for Playing Fair

In my 30 years of nonmonogamous relationships, Ive made just about every mistake there is to make. I wish Id had a book like Playing Fair to get me going in the right direction all those years ago.Franklin Veaux, co-author of More Than Two and author of The Game Changer

Peppers direct yet compassionate guidance provides apt compensation for the short shrift our society often gives men in terms of self-awareness, empathy, and relationship communication. This book should be required reading for all straight or bi men seeking healthy relationships of any kind!Cunning Minx, creator of the Polyamory Weekly podcast

Nonmonogamy has needed this book and didnt even know it. Pepper Mint offers gentle and frank advice for men who date women on how to ethically navigate nonmonogamy while being aware of power structures and gendered social norms. By addressing and guiding the reader through complex emotional labor, Playing Fair models how to be a supportive partner to women while being supportive to the reader.Kitty Stryker, editor of Ask: Building Consent Culture

A must-read book for the nonmonogamy community and those considering a foray into our world. As a woman who dates men, I may start requiring Pepper Mints book of suggestions, detailed empathy-building opportunities, and tips for mutually satisfying sex to future partners!Katie Klabusich, writer, speaker, and radio host

Everything you ever wanted to say to the single cis/het guy crashing the play party.AV Flox, sex tech and science journalist for the LA Times , Village Voice , LA Weekly , Vice , and Gizmodo

Pepper has, perhaps more than most, thought long and hard about how All This Stuff works. Here he addresses men looking to successfully do polyamory, and such people will find this book very rewarding. But so might anyone interested in excellent analysis of how any flavor of relationship works, because this book is not merely a set of rules (do these steps and everything will work) but also goes deeply into the real-world contexts that generate the considerations offered here. Its not just the what, its the why behind the what. Read this book to understand the why, and the what steps follow naturally.Barry Smiler, BmorePoly

Whether youre new to nonmonogamy and trying to chart a course or an old hand trying to find a better route to your destination, Playing Fair is a brilliant road map for a more conscientious approach to ethical nonmonogamy.from the foreword by Kevin Patterson, creator of Poly Role Models and author of Loves Not Colorblind

Playing Fair

Playing Fair

A Guide to Nonmonogamy for Men Into Women

Pepper Mint

with a foreword by Kevin Patterson

Playing Fair

A Guide to Nonmonogamy for Men Into Women

Text copyright 2017 by Pepper Mint

Foreword copyright 2017 by Kevin Patterson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews.

Thorntree Press, LLC

P.O. B ox 301231

Portland, OR 97294

press@thorntreepress.com

Cover and interior design by Jeff Werner

Substantive editing by Alan MacRobert

Copy-editing by Hazel Boydell

Proofreading by Amy Haagsma

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Mint, Pepper, author.Title: Playing fair : a guide to non-monogamy for men / Pepper Mint.Description: Portland, OR : Thorntree Press, 2017. | Series: Thorntree fundamentals

Identifiers: LCCN 2017016195 (print) | LCCN 2017034598 (ebook) | ISBN 9781944934392 (ePub) | ISBN 9781944934408 (Mobipocket) | ISBN 9781944934415 ( Pdf) | ISBN 9781944934385 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH : Non-monogamous relationships. | Families. | Interpersonal relations. | Love. | BISAC : FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Love & Romance.

Classification: LCC HQ980 (ebook) | LCC HQ980 .M56 2017 (print) | DDC 306.84/23--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017016195

Digital edition v1.0.

Contents

Foreword

At some point in my nonmonogamous journey, I discovered online dating. I stumbled out of the world of monogamy bass ackwards, pretty much by accident. So, I didnt have much of a path laid out in front of me. Away from the relationship that would eventually become my marriage, my dating pool was basically made up of my friend group. It was the only way I could be certain that all parties were aware that exclusivity wasnt an option. Of course, that severely limited my interactions to partners who were essentially killing time between monogamous relationships. I knew that I would have to branch out.

Through some combination of random occurrences, I came across OkCupid. Kasidie and AdultFriendFinder seemed centered on swinging. Thats fine, but not what I was looking for. eHarmony and Plenty of Fish rejected me for being married, which was a condition I wasnt interested in changing. OkCupid was free, accepting of nonmonogamy, and full of people looking for relationships. I created a profile, answered a bunch of questions, and prepared to meet everybody. And then nothing.

What followed was several changes in approach, more profile rewrites than I can count, and at least one complete redo of the questions that determine the sites match percentage algorithm. I tried reading profiles thoroughly and sending thoughtful personally relevant messages. I tried copying and pasting the same polite message to several prospects at once. In one shameful episode, I even attempted to neg someone. But no matter what adjustments I made, even at my most successful, I could never achieve more than minimal communication with the people I was attempting to woo.

When I got more involved in online polyamory communities, I was able to commiserate with tons of other men who had had similar experiences with online dating. Lots of attempts, very few responses. The highlight of that discovery was a guy looking for advice on Reddit. It was a fairly popular story at the time. An entitled young man used an ultimatum to pressure his girlfriend into a nonmonogamous relationship. He was then shocked to discover that, despite being mismatched by conventional beauty standards, her success in dating far outstripped his own. Like the guy on Reddit and many of the other men struggling with getting responses online, it was easy to place the burden of blame on the women we were dating an d/o r the women we were pursuing. Of course, it couldnt be our own ineptitude and womens tales of receiving never-ending streams of messages on online dating sites was just poking fun at our collective plight.

Margaret Atwood said, Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them. I guess thats a concept that none of us stopped to consider. The idea that those we sought to engage with had a different but equally relevant set of experiences just sort of escaped us. Oblivious, self-centered, male entitlement at its finest, right? Sometimes, thats what were best at.

Had any of us bothered to lean out of our own myopic worldview, wed have noticed blogs like Nice Guys of OkCupid on Tumblr or Instagram pages like Bye Felipe and Tinder Nightmares. Wed have listened to all of the stories about men who went from pleasant to creepy to violently dangerous as soon as things didnt go their way. Wed have believed those recounting and wed have done something about it. Done something about our bros. Done something about ourselves. In a monogamous society, its easy to write off any responsibility for the way men treat dating prospects. It can literally be a wide world of every man for himself. But ethical nonmonogamy is smaller. Unlike with monogamy, we dont have lifetimes worth of parental examples and pop culture role models to serve as a template. Our tight-knit, often overlapping dating circles gather in discussion groups, online forums, and lifestyle conferences just to find others like ourselves. Just to prove to ourselves that were not alone. Were forging new paths here, where every new step is someones first step. Were bucking societal trends. So, if thats the case, lets buck this one as well. Lets get away from men being apathetic to the effect we have on the people we intend to date, love, or fuck. Lets stop pretending that we dont have a responsibility to those around us. We have to do better for ourselves, our partners, and our communities.