Wide Open , livre ebook

327

pages

English

Ebooks

2015

Écrit par
Gracie X

Publié par
New Harbinger Publications

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327

pages

English

Ebooks

2015

Lire un extrait

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus

Publié par

New Harbinger Publications

Date de parution

01 août 2015

EAN13

9781626250598

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

1 Mo

At a time when society no longer imposes many sexual taboos, why is open marriage still considered beyond the pale? Written by Gracie X, Wide Open is an enthusiastic, honest, and sometimes raw account of one woman’s experience living polyamorously within the context of her average American family.

Gracie X—a suburban mother of two—has been married to her loving husband, Hank, for 25 years. The problem is that their once-vibrant sex life has shriveled to nothing. Meanwhile, she has fallen in love with another man, for whom she has an overwhelming physical yearning. Frustrated and conflicted but determined not to give up her hard-won home life and wonderful husband, she is desperate for a creative solution. Can she somehow keep both men in her life without resorting to divorce or dishonesty?

A friend introduces Gracie to polyamory: loving and being faithful to more than one person at a time. “Poly,” it turns out, is a whole new world, with dedicated counselors, parties, and dating sites. Convincing Hank ended up being the easy part: he quickly found a girlfriend and accepted Gracie’s terms. Their children, although upset at first, adjusted to having their parents’ “special friends” around, and having Hank and his girlfriend in one duplex, with Gracie and her new boyfriend, Oz, next-door, seemed like an inspired solution. But would trying to go poly create as many problems as it was trying to solve?

In her candid and provocative memoir, Wide Open, Gracie details the years she has spent exploring the poly lifestyle and creating her “chosen family.” A fiercely intelligent feminist, she challenges traditional ideas about monogamy, fidelity, and sexuality. From swinger parties and strip clubs to sex toys and pornography, this is an edgy and thought-provoking read. Yet erotica and tenderness share space here, with Gracie’s true love for both Hank and Oz—as well as her two children—coming through very clearly.

Wide Open reveals—with humor, integrity and heart—how one woman blended love, sex and marriage in unconventional ways and found the fulfillment she was looking for.

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Publié par

New Harbinger Publications

Date de parution

01 août 2015

EAN13

9781626250598

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

1 Mo

“Vulnerable and vivacious,WideOpenis a deeply personal, beauti-fully written tale of one woman’s 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 couldn’t put it down!”

—ElisabethSheff, author ofThePolyamoristsNextDoor: Inside Multiple-Partner Relationships and Families(2014), and editor ofStoriesfromthePolycule: Real Life in Polyamorous Families(2015)

“Gracie X has written an honest and engaging memoir about taking one of the biggest risks of her life—opening 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 needs—a valuable lesson for all of us, whether polyamorous, monogamous, or monogamish.” —VickiLarson, award-winning journalist and coauthor of TheNewIDo: Reshaping Marriage for Skeptics, Realists and Rebels

“For anyone who’s curious about how to approach polyamory or open relationships with your partner,WideOpenis 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,WideOpengives you hope that through honest communication, emotional maturity, and patience, anything is possible.” —NataliaGarcia, director and creator of Showtime’s 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.”

—FrancescaGentille, contributing author ofTheMarriageofSexandSpirit, radio host of “Sex: Tantra and Kama Sutra,” and relationship and intimacy counselor

“This is a remarkable book. At a time when liberals and conserva-tives alike are embracing marriage and the nuclear family, Gracie X sends us a life raft—the bold chronicle of her quest to create a family configuration that works for her, her husband, new lover, and chil-dren. Gracie X is not only creative and brave—she is also a consum-mate 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 ofBeleagueredOases(CreativePress 2010) andWhiteOut(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 X’s (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!”

—LiYanaSilver, mentor for Women’s Embodiment: Bringing Your Feminine Genius to Life (http://liyanasilver.com)

Wide Open

My Adventures in Polyamory, Open Marriage & Loving on My Own Terms

GRACIEX

New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

Publisher’s Note

Wide Openis 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 excep-tion of Judy Jones (who is identified by her real first name in the main text), and the indi-vidual 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

Cover design by Amy Shoup; Acquired by Catharine Meyers; Edited by Marisa Solís

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

Printed in the United States of America

17 16 15 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 First printing

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 I—a 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 out—should be tapped to write the introduc-tory 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 it’s so much more: It’s a movement of open-relationship believers, activists, and theorists, an army of lovers who refuse to believe that life’s possibilities close off when they say “I do”—or who decide never to use those words at all, preferring, like Molly Bloom, to say. “Yes, yes, yes.” This movement goes by many names: polyamory or polyfidelity, open marriage or open relationship, Marriage 2.0. On one side of its vast net of life possibilities is a playful erotic culture; on another, a resurgent community (something like the communes and village life of yore) within which people raise their children in a nonnuclear fashion, thoroughly modern yet with roots that sink deeply into a way of life many of us postwar and new-century babies never knew till we re-created it. Some participants are creating family of choice because they can, and others because they must: LGBTQ partner-ships are only at this very moment beginning to emerge from a world of alternative relationships, because “alternative” was the only pos-sible flavor those relationships have been able to have.

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