Rachel Krantz - Open: An Uncensored Memoir of Love, Liberation, and Non-Monogamy

Dearly Beloved Reader,

This story is true. From 2015 to 2019, I obsessively documented my first non-monogamous and Dom/sub relationships. Im talking not just journal entries, but hours and hours, days and days of audio recordings. In an attempt to feel some semblance of control, nothing was off-limits: dates, arguments, role-playing, trips to swingers resorts, moments I was being gaslit, and every single therapy session. Because Im not only a person who clearly needs said therapy but also a journalist, I conducted many, many interviews along the way. These extensive records mean that people in this book are quoted in their own words verbatim where possible.

Despite this emphasis on primary sources, its important to remember that my story and perspective have many limitations. As the plot deepens (and darkens), its increasingly populated with a wider diversity of people and experiences, and with queerer stories. But its still primarily centered on two cisgender, white, non-disabled, U.S.-city-dwelling, middle-class, child-free, college-educated, thin, liberal, often-assumed-heterosexual, Jewish people in an open relationship. Not only that, but two people in a very gender-normative power dynamic, where the man is dominant and the woman is submissive. I implore you to seek out other non-monogamous and BDSM narratives from people with identities and experiences different from mine. This is in part a cautionary tale; a how-not-to manual as much as a how-to. (Content warning: explicit sex, drug use/addiction, sexual assault, self-injurious behavior/disordered eating, unethical BDSM, threesomes, foursomes, sixsomes, nonconsensual non-monogamy, abuse, gaslighting, misogyny and heterosexism, fuckboys, more fuckboys, Jewish mother savior complex, daddy issues, Disney)

Writing memoir is by necessity an act of approximation. Theres a dangerous compounding of that approximation if my specific experience is made to stand as a definitive representation of any lifestyle or identity. I am certainly no perfect role modelI am simply the investigative subject I have most complete access to.

That fact, combined with my myriad privileges in life, drives me to be explicitly honest about my psychosexual reality. Ill weather harassment for it, but Im less likely to be punished or hurt than most. Almost every non-monogamous person in this book was rightly afraid to use their real first name, let alone their last. There is little legal recourse should they lose their job or children simply due to stigma around our lifestyle. This feels like reason enough to help move the needle of public discourse. Besides, Im also very curious as to what happens next. In 2022, is a woman like me allowed to admit to being this fully a sexual being and remain semi-respected as an award-winning investigative journalist? I guess well write that part of the story together.

I put myself forward for naked examination because Im morally opposed to being told to cover up in shame. I am entirely vulnerable. Thank you for helping me find strength in this submission.