4: Dr Zhana Vrangalova PhD on the relationship preference spectrum – Excitement vs. Safety

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Giancarlo

Hi, welcome. We’re here for the fourth episode of the mangu.tv podcast, and I have the pleasure to have Zhana Vranglova, a young professor of sexuality at NYU university. Welcome, Zhana.

Zhana

Hi, so good to be here.

Giancarlo

So Zhana has been a friend of mine for so many years and she was kind enough to participate in some Q and A after the movie Monogamish.

We actually did have some conversation. Remember in the loft downstairs, we have a 10 question from Zhana, which is on the mangu.tv blog. And that was how many years ago you think?

Zhana

Ouuu that was probably eight years ago or something seven/eight

Giancarlo

So I want to know what happened in those eight years. So tell us a little bit, what are you up to these days, what do you teach? What are you doing?

Zhana

Sure. So as you said, I am a professor at NYU, I’ve been teaching human sexuality classes there for about six or seven years. I have a Ph.D. from Cornell University in developmental psychology, and I studied kind of nontraditional expressions of sexuality, especially things like casual sex non-monogamous relationships, non-heterosexuality; things that are kind of a little bit on the margins of what we consider acceptable and appropriate in our culture. And then how those folks who have those desires, who have those lifestyles, how do they manage to navigate that in a way that’s healthy and maintaining physical health, emotional health, social health and so on, especially when, when having some of these desires that are not acceptable and not welcome by other people. How do you navigate some of those challenges?

And so since getting my Ph.D., I’ve been teaching at NYU, and then I’ve been doing a lot of teaching, writing, speaking, consulting on topics related to these more adventurous ways of being sexual.

So helping folks who are on the more highly adventurous end of the spectrum live lives that are pleasurable, healthy, safe, and ethical. Most recently I worked on creating an online course, for people who are curious about opening up their relationships, it’s called Open Smarter, and it takes a personality-based approach. So we look into the different kinds of relationships that are out there and try to find the ones that might be a good fit for each individual, because we’re not all built for all types of relationships, at least not in the sense of what would be the easiest, the best fit for us. Some relationship types, given our personality and our unique life circumstances. Some of these relationship types are going to be easier for us to manage and be in and draw all the pleasure, minimize harm, and others are going to take a lot more work to do that because you know, our personality or our life circumstances or our values might not be the best fit for that relationship. Doesn’t mean you can do it just means you’re going to struggle a bit more to do it.

Giancarlo

Yes. So talking about struggle let’s start with cultural conditioning. So we are conditioned to believe in our society that monogamy is the default system. That comes from Judeo-Christian morality. But we also know that more than 50% of marriages end up in divorce in America, I think, 60% end up in divorce. So it’s not really working.

Zhana

It’s actually 45% of first marriages, and 50 and 60% of second and third marriages.

Giancarlo

Interesting. It’s not natural, you know, Sex at Dawn Christopher Ryan explained that there’s not one single species that are monogamous for life. Some species mate for life, but have sex outside, even the penguin, which everybody’s taking as the example of the most monogamous species. They change partners every year. So they live 30 years. So that’s not exactly lifelong monogamy. And also reciprocal monogamy is very recent, right? Because in the history of humankind, man, imposed monogamy on women, but never really respected themselves. It’s only with women, the revolution of the sixties, that women impose monogamy also.

So what is it that something with that it’s not working, it’s very recent in evolutionary terms and it’s not working? And yet we keep on taking it as the default system. Can you elaborate a little bit on that?

Zhana

Well, monogamy actually has some great benefits, psychological benefits, that make a lot of people feel safe and loved and special and secure. And I don’t take the ‘either or’ approach. The Christopher Ryan kind of humans are all non-monogamous. I think of it as existing on a spectrum. I think everything in human sexuality exists on a spectrum and some people are higher and some people are low and many people are somewhere in between when it comes to pretty much anything right? Intelligence, extraversion preference for whatever, everything exists on a spectrum often it’s normally distributed, right? So that most people are kind of in the middle of that spectrum with fewer people being on the extreme low, and the extreme high ends. And I think monogamy or our tendency, our proclivity, our predisposition or whatever you want to call it toward monogamy or non-monogamy differs.

So I might be a lot more monogamous than you are, or many other people. And so different things will work for different people to a different extent. But we have, on one hand, our need for non-monogamy, which might be higher in some people than other people. But at the same time, we feel a lot of and we are evolutionarily built to feel distress when our partner is with someone else.

So even though we ourselves might want to have multiple partners, we also feel a fair amount of discomfort, distress, insecurity, jealousy, threat, when our partner does the same. So we kind of have a little bit of this problem of this paradox.

Giancarlo

But how did we develop that tendency? Because historically from the hunter-gatherer time, most tribes were non-monogamous.

Zahana

Well, we don’t quite know that to what extent people were/were not monogamous, probably the complete 100% monogamy was not something that everybody engaged in, but we know that, for example, even though something like 85% of the indigenous culture that we have evidence for is not strictly monogamous in their marital patterns, in most of those cases, men were allowed to marry multiple wives. Right. But in many of those societies, most men still only married one wife. So most men, even though polygamy was allowed in that culture, most men did not have the opportunity to have multiple wives. That was a small percentage of the men who would have that. And most of them were monogamous. And so monogamy does take care of some of that paternity certainty that is relevant for men to make sure that they’re the children that they are taking care of are theirs.

And there is evolutionary mate guarding, and we know that it works when you are engaging in behaviors to make sure that someone doesn’t steal your mate, you’re more likely to keep that mate. And so evolution has built-in that distress response at the possibility of you losing your partner because the loss of a partner is a very stressful, very traumatic, and potentially a deadly outcome back in the day, because pair bonds, humans are built for pair bonding We do like that connection, that’s deep, meaningful, long-lasting, and all of that. We’ve needed that to take care of kids and to build families which allows us to survive and thrive.

Now, pair-bonding does not mean they have to be exclusive pair bonds, right? So we can have a pair bond and we can still have the desire or have sex with other people. Or we might be able to have multiple pair bonds with multiple people, but the pair bond is something that is very human.

And when our pair bond is threatened. And very often we feel that it might be threatened because our partner might show interest, sexual or romantic interest, in someone else that triggers that jealous response, which is why jealousy is actually one of those traits that might not even be normally distributed.

There might be more people in the high jealousy end of the spectrum than there are in the middle or at the low end of the spectrum because it was evolutionary adaptive to show some amount of distress when you felt, “oh, I might be losing my partner to someone else”. And if you are one of those people who engaged in mate guarding behaviors, right, when you saw that threat, and if you’re like, no, no, no, you’re mine, you know, and did some other ways, other things that are strategies to keep that partner, you are more likely to keep that partner. You are more likely to therefore survive, thrive, have your children survive and thrive, and so on.

So. There are these different forces exactly. That is acting on us. And thanks to religion. monotheistic religions and the way social morality has developed, we really focused in the west on this model of monogamy, where you get this need of high stability, high relationship stability, security, dependability, all those things that you know, Esther Perel talks about in that paradox.

Monogamy is the format where you get high relationship stability. Now you do get low erotic freedom. It’s the format where you get the least amount of that sexual and romantic freedom to engage with other people, in these ways. And that works for some people. I mean, it certainly satisfies a need that we all have for that security, stability, dependability, and all that. Some people have that need more than others, but most humans really have a high level of that need.

That’s another thing, and another trate that’s not normally distributed. Most people have a relatively high need for stability. There are few people who have moderate levels and even fewer people who have very low levels of that kind of need for pair bonding in and of itself. Now that’s separate from our need for monogamy, right? So you have a lot of people who have a high need for stability in pair bonding, but our need for non-monogamy is kind of more normally distributed.

Giancarlo

Yeah. So just to precise, the paradox Esther Perel is talking about; on one side, you have security, safety, predictability, and the other side is in need of adventure, excitement, novelty, and 

Zhana

Risk, mystery, the unknown, the unexpected. Exactly.

Giancarlo

And that is more normally distributed.

Zhana

Yeah, so that need for novelty, excitement, adventure that’s a more normal distribution. So you have few people on the super low end of the spectrum. Few people on a super high end of the spectrum, Most people are somewhere in between on that need for novelty. Men are slightly higher on it than women on average, but there’s a full range both within men and within women.

Giancarlo

And how do you explain that difference in distribution because of insecurity, because of jealousy?

Zhana

No, so that is sort of independent. That distribution, the need for novelty and adventure, that’s sort of independent of the jealousy piece.

Giancarlo

But why the need for safety and security and predictability, it’s more skewed towards the left side?

Zhana

Because almost universally humans needed that in order to survive. From the saber tooth tiger all the way to today, people who form these long-lasting, meaningful, deep connections, where they felt that security, where they could build families, have children together with the support of, that other partner, were more likely to survive and thrive and leave offspring. And so it’s kind of more of a universal need, whereas the novelty need well, that can go either way.

In every society, we need people who are low on adventure and novelty, because those are the people who need to kind of run everyday more mundane tasks in society. You can’t have everybody be an explorer and whatnot, but on the other hand, you do need the explorers as well. You need the people who are going to take risks, go to new parts of the country or the area and explore and not be afraid and to invent new things and all of that. So in any society in any social group you kind of need both the low novelty seekers and the high novelty seekers. And of course, most people are kind of in the middle because those who are in the middle are also the most adaptable.

So the people who are in the middle, if they find themselves in an environment where it might be more beneficial for them to be kind of on the low end, can adapt a little bit and be more low novelty seekers. So if you put them in monogamy, because right now, if you look at that distribution, most people who are in monogamy because almost everyone is in monogamy. Well, most of those people are kind of medium on their novelty, sexual novelty, need, but they are suppressing those needs. And so if you’re somewhere in the middle on it, it’s easier to suppress than if you’re super high on it, right? So there’s more leeway if you will, for those who are in the middle of the spectrum.

Giancarlo

Yeah. That’s very clear you split that very well, but so after all monogamy might be more natural than non-monogamy,

Zhana

Not necessarily, I don’t know if it’s more natural, but it certainly serves

Giancarlo 

A more primary need?

Zhana

An important purpose. That a greater number of people have.

Giancarlo

And so how did you come about deciding to spend your life studying this phenomenon?

Zhana

Well, I happen to be one of those people who is extremely high on the novelty side of things. I probably had a more moderate level of need for pair bonding, and that might be related to my childhood and all that, but I certainly had a very, very high need for sexual novelty and adventure and mystery and risk.

It was almost impossible for me to be one of those people who you’re going to put in the monogamous box and you’re going to stay put, I did not stay put, I tried, I tried to convince myself that the monogamy box can work for me that if I’ve really loved someone and I had a couple of relationships, including one where I was absolutely madly, madly, madly in love, I still am. Like, she’s still the love of my life in many ways, but I could not be monogamous. And initially, before I knew a lot about this topic, more on a more academic level, because I grew up in Macedonia, which is a fairly conservative kind of traditional culture. I thought there was something really wrong with me, right? That I was a freak of some sort. And which is probably what led me to study all of these non-traditional forms of sexuality. I was trying to understand myself amongst other things and maybe, primarily, but then that made me realize that, yeah, there is this spectrum and different people find themselves at different points along that spectrum.

And that because of that different relationship formats are going to be a better fit for different people. So if you are someone who is, you know high on that need for stability and relatively low on the need for novelty, and also if you throw in on top of that, that third variable that we discussed, the high sort of distress, the high jealousy, at the thought or the sight potentially of your partner being with someone else, which is also relatively prevalent in human societies.

So yeah, if you’re someone with a high need for stability, relatively high jealousy, and relatively low novelty, then monogamy is actually a pretty good fit, right?

If you are someone who is more in the middle on novelty, which is the majority of humans and relatively high on relationship stability and moderate to high on jealousy or anywhere, really on jealousy, then monogamy is not the perfect fit. You might be able to stick to it, but it’s not going to be the format where you’re thriving the most. right. They’re going to be parts of you that you’re going to have to shut down and pretend it’s not there, channel into other things. You know, you might be traveling, or you know doing other things to kind of feed that need for adventure and novelty.

But it’s yeah it’s You’re not going to feel whole and complete in the full self-actualization way that you potentially could be. What’s the best fit for those people who are somewhere in the middle on the novelty spectrum is a little bit of openness. So I like to call that monogamish, kind of like what Dan Savage calls the couples who occasionally might play together sexually with other people.

So they are very much a couple. So you’re maintaining that relationship unit as the primary unit is a very strong connection and unit. So that relationship’s need for stability is there. And you’re introducing a little bit of novelty on occasion and for a lot of people the playing together also means that it’s easier for them to deal with some of that jealous distress that humans feel about our partners wanting, or being with other people. But when it’s in front of you, for many people that is kind of easier to absorb and, biologically actually makes sense to, for strengthening to some extent the bond between the couple, because when you get novelty, when you get a jolt of novelty in your life, in the brain, you get like a big dose of some really powerful chemicals. Yeah. You get dopamine with that excitement, right? Of the anticipation of this great reward.

So if you’re going to have a threesome with your partner and another person, when that happens first, you’re going to anticipate that reward. So there’s all this dopamine, basically our brain’s own version of cocaine in the brain. And there’s the, when it happens there’s the oxytocin all the bonding that happens especially if the sex is good, you’re experiencing. And so does this, there are endorphins, basically, our version of, opiates in the brain, and all of that are like this chemical soup in the brain, that’s so powerful. And if your partner’s there with you, right, to experience that it can increase the bonding element because they’re there for part of this novelty. So you’re getting the novelty that way.

So that’s a good solution to Esther’s paradox for a lot of people. For most people, I would say because most people are somewhere in that middle.

Giancarlo

Yes. So, you know, you being an academic, you are very sophisticated about, you know, the distribution, but the reality out there is that there is a very strong dichotomy between monogamous and non-monogamous and actually people get very agitated. You know, the monogamous people tell the non-monogamous that they’re like all slut and, you know, like slaves with their desires and the non-monogamy that tells the most people that they are like repressed and boring and, you know, it’s incredible how they get very agitated, right. And so on that, I wanted to mention this other professor of sexuality Jorge Ferrer, he wrote a book on Love and Freedom, and it makes a parallel between what’s happening with gender. How now there is in society this concept of gender fluidity. So the dichotomy between female and male is sort of fading a little bit.

And so he created this new term called novogamy, which is between monogamy and polyamory, where you say, okay, I’m not polyamorous. I’m non-monogamous, I’m novogamous, which means that you know, I’m like saying I am gender fluid. So I am relationship fluid, so there can be a period of my life where I want to cocoon and be one person, may be associated with a big professional project, this period where I feel more adventurous or with a partner was more adventurous and it can be taken that direction this time, where I want to be celibate.

Do you see that? I mean, what happened in the last 8 years, since the last time we spoke, how did the CNM, the consensual non-monogamous movement, evolve?

Zhana

There’s been so much going on in the last five to 10 years. I feel like there’s been so much more media representation of non-monogamy and in kind of positive ways, as opposed to maybe some older representations, that are more judgmental. So we’re seeing a lot more interest in some type of non-monogamy.

There was recently a YouGov poll. That’s supposed to be nationally representative of Americans where only 56% of Americans said that complete monogamy would be their ideal. 56%. That’s it? 44% said either some version of non-monogamy or there was a large percentage of like 12 or 13% who weren’t sure. American adults, 18 plus supposedly nationally representative.

And that number 56 is down from 61, only four years prior. So they did the exact same survey, the exact same question, the kind of the same sampling procedure that they used to get this national representative sample. In 2016 61% of Americans said that their ideal is complete monogamy.

So there’s definitely something happening that there’s more and more interest or at least questioning of monogamy as the default forever and ever. I think yeah partially that’s driven by more media representation. I think partially that’s driven by dating apps, making multiple partners just so easily accessible, more easily accessible than they ever have been in our lives.

I think part of that is the Me too movement, which made consent a really important thing. And even though me too was specifically about sexual consent in that context, just general honesty, transparency, and consent became important, ethical behavior Exactly. And so even though people have been having non-monogamous relationships forever, much of that has been unethical non-monogamy in the form of cheating. Non-consensual exactly.

And I think now it’s becoming more and more important for people that if they’re going to do this thing that it’s consensual and with the agreement of their partner. And then most recently on top of all of that, we had the pandemic, which basically forced all of us into a prolonged period of monotony not just sexual monotony, but every kind of monotony, right.

We couldn’t really go anywhere, and do anything. And so our lives just became so repetitive. And so every day was the same. And the monotony is one of the key things that kind of kills that passion that desire in monogamous long-term relationships. And so when you have monotony on steroids for a very, very long period of time I think that exposed for a lot of people, some of the limitations of complete 100% monogamy now how different people are incorporating that into their lives And to what extent we shall see. I love the idea of Novogamy because that does encompass the people who are kind of in the middle And that is the majority of the population. Are those people who can kind of fluctuate and adapt to their own circumstances or maybe their partner circumstances or the family’s circumstances that they might find themselves in at any given point in time because the reality is you know if one end of the spectrum was the people who need high relationship security and low, relatively low adventure.

And then the middle is the people who want relatively high security and like medium levels of novelty. Then on the other end of the spectrum, where you have greater openness where people will see other people separately. Those relationships might turn into something more serious and you get to the polyamory form of openness where there are these multiple serious ongoing, romantic relationships. That provides very high levels of adventure and novelty and openness, but it also provides lower levels of relationship stability and can cause a fair amount of distress that you then need to be dealing with.

Or you may choose not to deal with and have more of a don’t ask, don’t tell policy. That’s one hack for how to get that high level of adventure without distressing your partner too much. If you choose to see other people separately. So that’s another way of kind of keeping that manageable. I think there are not that many people who want to exist on that far end of the openness spectrum or who can exist on that far end of the openness spectrum.

Just like there are not that many people who can happily thrive in the low end of the novelty spectrum and the full monogamy. Most people, I think based on the kind of partially biologically determined need that we have, most of us are somewhere in the middle. And what that means is some level of fluidity throughout life.

There’s also the fluidity that happens because of relationship trajectories. I think that many people, I mean, does this happen to a lot of relationships? I think it would be a good idea for a lot of relationships to go through that spectrum, in chronological order. So monogamy is actually great for the beginnings of relationships. I think when you’re trying to establish a bond, that serious long-term bond that is going to provide that security stability, that might be a good place to raise kids and all of like a big building, a life partnership, it’s often a really good idea to start with a period of monogamy. And also, in the beginning, you often don’t need other people as much, this new person is new, that you’re just meeting. And so there’s plenty of that novelty within that relationship to keep your needs for novelty satisfied. Even if you are a high novelty person, there’s plenty of novelty and there’s still not a lot of stability established early on. There’s a lot of insecurity and uncertainty at the beginning of relationships, right?

When we don’t know, do you love me as much as I do? Are you going to call me the next day and all that?

So, I think for a lot of relationships it makes total sense to start with a period of monogamy. And that could be whatever works for people, whether two years five years 10 years. And then it’s a good idea I think to go through a period of monogamish, right, where there’s novelty being brought in, but you’re doing it together. And so you’re giving each other a chance to have that novelty together, and not just that you’re giving each other a chance to go through that novelty experience together.

But you’re also learning how to deal with the jealous distress, because you’re kind of doing it together. It’s in front of you. So you’re getting used to what your partner is like with other people. How do they interact? how do they have sex with others? You know, some of those things were if you’re not there. You don’t really know and you can kind of always wonder. So it kind of provides a kind of a cocoon still where you can get used to that idea of your partner being with other people. And then I see many relationships kind of then get to the point of open where they might be seeing other people separately and whether they decide to keep those purely casual or allow for the development of feelings and something more serious to happen and then progress into polyamory.

But polyamory, in particular, I think is a rare form in terms of how many people can do it and do it well without.

Maybe before, before diving into polyamory, which is, I think, a little bit like a different chapter almost. You mentioned the survey that says that 46% of American adults don’t value monogamy as the ideal.

Zhana

44%, Yes.

Giancarlo

But what about, are you aware of any survey that measures happiness among different agreements?

Zhana

Yes. So we do have a number of surveys comparing relationship quality indicators for people in monogamous versus non-monogamous relationships. So they’ve looked at things like relationship satisfaction, happiness, sexual satisfaction, things like passion, intimacy, closest length.

Yeah. The length piece is a difficult one actually. Often when you survey monogamous and non-monogamous people and you ask them how long you’ve been in the relationship, the non-monogamous people have actually been together longer than the monogamous people, but that doesn’t mean it’s because these relationships are more stable or more likely to last longer it’s often because people usually don’t open up right away. It usually takes some years before people get to the point of opening up. We don’t actually know we don’t have studies that can answer the question of which relationship type is more stable in terms of length because what we need is longitudinal research.

You need to get a group of people who are monogamous and non-monogamous and have been together for the same amount of time and are similar in other characteristics as well. They’re similar in age and status and race and sexual orientation. Like any other things that might matter. Comparable groups. Yeah.

And then follow them over time. Maybe get back to them five years later, 10 years later, and see how many of them are still together. And this has not been done. There is only one study that has been done like this. And that at this point almost 30 years ago was then in the eighties and it compared swingers to monogamous folks. And five years down the line the swingers were somewhat more likely to have gotten divorced, so I think the rates of togetherness were something like 68 or 70% for the swingers and something like 80 or 82% for the monogamous folks So there was some difference in that study It actually wasn’t statistically significant because they didn’t have a large enough sample, but there were you know percentage-wise, it was maybe somewhat of a meaningful difference.

But again, we’re talking about a study that was 30 years ago, that was in a very different social and cultural context at the time, swinging was far less socially acceptable than it is now. We know that social acceptability plays a big role in whether couples stay together or not. So if you have a negative judgment for you and your lifestyle and your partner, you’re less likely to stay together.

So that’s literally the only study of that kind ever conducted, these other studies where you just survey people once and you ask them about their relationship quality or satisfaction or whatever. For the most part, those studies find no significant differences between the groups. So in both groups, there are some people who are really happy and some who are not happy and somewhere in the middle, same for the other group as well.

It really is about finding the right fit for you because there are a lot of people in that monogamous camp who really should not be there. There are probably a lot of people in non-monogamous camp who either shouldn’t be there or who are not doing it. Right? Because with the non-monogamy piece, there are so many different ways to do non-monogamy. What I’m seeing a lot of, and I work with clients consulting and I talked to a lot of people, I have these online events where we discuss questions around monogamy and nonmonogamy. And so I hear a lot of people’s stories and what is a very very common story with non-monogamy is people have so little guidance to figure out where to go, how to do this because there are just so many ways to do it. There’s a lot of confusion. There’s not a lot of good advice on how to make some of those decisions. And certainly not a lot of role models, certainly not a lot of support, still some amount of stigma. And so all of that is leading people into choosing the wrong ways to be open for them.

Giancarlo

Yes, so why don’t we try to make some clarity here. So you mentioned, swinging, open, monogamish. Would you agree that these terms describe a situation where you have sexual openness, sexual non-monogamy but emotional monogamy? So you decide that we’re going to open up sexually, but we stay close emotionally.

And then there is polyamory where you also allow yourself to be emotionally non monogamous. So to fall in love with more than one person. So can you comment a little bit on the type of person that can even consider, the true polyamorous people would say things like, you know, you love to children, in the same way, you are able to love to children’s or what would you not be able to love two a woman or two men?

What do you think it requires to have that level of uh openness to be able to have multiple loving partners?

Zhana

If you think of the older relationship types around monogamy non-monogamy and existing on a spectrum, polyamory would be at the far end of the openness spectrum, because yes when you add not just sexual non-monogamy but you also add the emotional non-monogamy component and you are living out that emotional non-monogamy So you’re not just in love with someone or you have some feelings but you’re actively seeing them and you’re actively forming this additional relationship. So that is pretty, I guess extreme level of openness, that I don’t think a lot of people are built for. I think it requires a high need for that kind of openness. It requires relatively low levels of jealousy and just internal levels of insecurity. It requires very good levels of emotional regulation because things are going to trigger your emotional responses, to stress discomfort

Giancarlo

On your birthday or Christmas day.

Zhana

Yup exactly, who’s going to spend Christmas with him or…., I mean there are all sorts of logistical challenges around poly relationships that make it just look from a logistical standpoint, more challenging to navigate. And so on one hand, people who can do that are people who have time to do that. Relationships are demanding in terms of time, energy, emotional bandwidth, and having one is often difficult you know, task to make sure that you’re being a good partner to this one person that you’re in a relationship with trying to be a good partner to two or more people just requires a tremendous amount of time energy and emotional bandwidth.

Giancarlo

It seems exhausting.

Zhana

It does, it is exhausting and poly people will often say there’s more talking than theirs you know fucking in polyamory, and even for the people who really love to talk and process and discuss, communicate about relationships, it can get a lot. And so that’s the one thing you need to have, you have to really like doing that kind of processing work, emotional labor.

You want to communicate a lot about relationships. If that’s something that you like doing, if that’s something you don’t like doing, poly can be quite challenging to do. And so, yeah, high levels of emotional regulation, high levels of relationship communication, or desire for relationship communication and processing, and then time and energy and great boundary setting is another one.

So high levels of assertiveness when it comes to setting boundaries around some of those experiences, and then it also requires tremendous levels of empathy and compassion for yourself. When you fuck up.

Giancarlo

Emotional maturity, self-realization, it really requires two Buddha people.

Zhana

It does cause it is threatening to have your partner have sex with someone else, but for the vast majority of humans and the planet, it is far more threatening to have your partner be in love with someone else and want to have a serious relationship with that other person that they’re in love with.

Giancarlo

Taking time away from you.

Zhana

Taking time, taking resources. It’s very easy to feel special. That’s one thing that monogamy is just perfectly positioned to do sex and romance are some of the most powerful forces that humans can experience and to be the only person, that your partner can experience that with, that sexual excitement and their romantic connection. That makes you feel special in and of itself. Like even if the relationship is not that amazing in other ways, just the fact that these two very important things are reserved for just you you know, that makes you feel special very easily. And so when you open up to sexual non exclusivity but you keep the emotional exclusivity still as a kind of primary focus, there is still that sense of specialness that comes with, oh, you’re my only love or you’re my only relationship, even though we might be having sex with other people. 

But then when you expand that and include other people in the love component, not just in the sex component, then very little is left that is reserved just for you. And so you have to work, it’s not that you can’t be made to feel special in poly relationships by no means, but you have to work harder. You have to put in very intentional time and energy and to know each other really well. Like what makes you feel special, what makes me feel special and how to create that with the limited time that we have, because we also have other partners, and we might have jobs, and we have kids, and all that. So it requires a much higher level of both psychological preparedness and maturity and logistical resources to do it.

There has been so much interest specifically in polyamory more recently. That’s one thing that we’ve been seeing that so much of the media representation of non-monogamy is in the form of polyamory. So they’ve been writing a lot about poly. I’m seeing more and more shows being interested in covering poly. Specifically, Google searches for the term polyamory have increased quite a bit in the last 10 or so years. Whereas things like swinging or open relationships have kind of decreased or stayed the same.

And I think the new generation is very excited about the idea of poly, and there’s a lot to love about the idea of poly; the fact that you can have the freedom to allow relationships to develop in whichever way they could develop, right. They allow you to go with the flow and just things to happen organically.

And so that can be very appealing, especially to people who are young, or kind of untethered who don’t have families who don’t have mortgages who don’t have, you know, all of those trappings, if you will, of adult life. So it can be very seducing, but I think once real feelings get involved, you know if I fall in love with you and you are now falling in love with someone else that is so hard for people to handle and requires all of these skills that honestly, nobody really teaches us.

Nobody teaches us the skills of empathy, compassion, assertiveness, and emotional regulation. You know how to manage your own jealousy, how to even recognize your own jealousy because very often jealousy can come out As in very masked ways It can come out as anger It can come out as frustration. It can come out as envy and all of these things, even just knowing that that’s what’s happening and being able to address it in ways that are constructive and not destructive for you and your partner.

That’s not very easy to do. So I really think of poly as like Jedi levels of relationship management, and also logistically Jedi levels of kind of time and energy to do that.

Giancarlo

Yeah. So for those of us that are not Jedi level, I think we should use the word non-monogamy rather than polyamory,

Zhana

Absolutely. Because that is the umbrella term polyamory fits within that umbrella term It’s one of the many forms but non-monogamy the more universal.

Giancarlo

Yeah, because society still is very prude. This idea of polyamory, you know, since there is love involved, seems more politically correct. Seems more socially accepted, but staying on the non-monogamy and try to dig a little bit on this idea of, sexual desire from your academic observatory, to what extent non-monogamy attract really promiscuous people that might not be aware of their promiscuity, that might have actually a maybe a, pathology with promiscuity.

Zhana

That’s an interesting question of, how much of promiscuity is pathological. And it seems to me that in many cases promiscuity is just the people who are on the high end of the sex drive and sexual novelty spectrum. And there’s nothing inherently pathological about that. Now, what I also think often happens with people who are on the higher ends of the spectrum kind of naturally is very early on as they’re getting into their sexuality and starting to explore their sexuality they often quickly realize that their levels of interest are not widely acceptable? And so there’s a lot of shame and guilt and sometimes harassment and abuse, slut-shaming those kinds of things that get piled on to these folks. And so it’s basically hard to stay healthy because of how society treats your level of desire for promiscuity. There might be nothing pathological about that desire per se. It doesn’t give you the tools for how to do it in a healthy way. And so you end up doing it in ways that are unhealthy because that’s kind of the only way. It often ends up getting mixed up with, you know, with drugs and alcohol and making decisions that you know you later regret, you not using condoms, you should be using condoms not having consent, the important consent communication that you should having, because again, nobody teaches you, oh, you want to be highly promiscuous? You can, but it’s a higher risk lifestyle. Just like, if you want to go rock climbing mountains go out, what’s called trad climbing, up in the mountains where there’s nothing, it’s not a gym, you’re on your own kind of thing. You can do that, but you have to be prepared for it. You have to have the gear. There is a whole set of gear that you have to take with you, you have to know how to use it, you have to be trained, you have to have the skill for how to climb those mountains.

That’s a much higher risk activity than if you go to do what’s called sport climbing, areas where part of the gear is put in. And so you can just clip in now that’s higher risk than climbing at the gym, right? So there are different levels of risk and you need different levels of preparedness for each of those different levels.

Well, if you’re going to be a highly promiscuous person, there’s a whole set of risks that come with that kind of behavior, but there are also strategies to mitigate that risk.

Giancarlo

Can you talk a little bit about those?

Zhana

Okay, Sure. It starts with owning your behavior. So making sure that those things that you’re doing, you actually want to do, so that motivation for doing it is this intrinsic motivation, you’re doing it because you really want to do it, you’re not doing it because other people are doing it or because you feel coerced in some way or pressured into it, or because you’re trying to get something else out of it So it’s important to have your, kind of knowing that this is an authentic, agentic way of, doing it.

And then you’re thinking about what are the potential risks. So what kind of sexual health protocols and protections should I be using with this person? What level of intoxication if we are going to be using some intoxicants. And so I would suggest people not be too wasted when engaging in some of these things. The other pieces that communication around consent and expectations to make sure that not just I am in this, in an authentic way, but that my partner is also in it in an authentic way, and that we have some understanding of what our desires and boundaries are. So we can respect each other’s desires and boundaries, so some level of open communication is important.

Then pleasure is another important thing that kind of gets lost very often in highly promiscuous interactions because in casual sex, often people don’t have the required respect for each other and desire to give like sometimes often sadly, casual interactions can end up being kind of a self pursuit, kind of using the other person as a glorified human dildo almost.

And in that case you have less motivation to try to please this person or give them what they want. And so I think that’s really important to come into some of these interactions thinking that you’re going to try and create the best possible experience that you can create both for yourself and the other person.

And so to try to be as giving and caring and loving, if you will, and passionate as much as you can in that instance, even if you’re never going to see that person again, we can always create some level of casual intimacy and we can have respect for another human being and trying to leave them better than we found them as opposed to worse than we found them.

So, you know those are some of the basic tools for how you can be a promiscuous person and still be healthy and ethical.

I think very often because those tools are not given that permission and that education is not provided to the people who are highly promiscuous by nature, they often end up doing it in ways that are unhealthy and that just piles on and piles on. Now in terms of non-monogamy the people who are on the highly kind of promiscuous ends of the spectrum more naturally they like, I am, you know for us, it’s very difficult to be in monogamy. And so the only way for us to pretend to be monogamous is basically to cheat.

And so you do have a lot of people doing that, but most people who are, especially now that I’m seeing coming into an interest in non-monogamy are not the people who are particularly promiscuous. No, I’m talking to people who are interested in this and they’ve had like two sexual partners their entire life. These are people who have maybe had one or two partners before they got married, and now they’ve got married or got into a long-term relationship and they’ve been in those relationships for 5, 10, 15 years. Some of them have had kids and all that, some may not. But they were not crazy promiscuous, they do not have super-high levels of novelty. They’re the people who are in that moderate level of novelty and they’re realizing, okay, this is good and I’m really enjoying the stability and all of that that this long-term relationship is giving me. I just need a little, a little something extra to feed this desire for sexual excitement and novelty and also the ability to explore a bit my sexuality because very often in these long-term monogamous relationships, we get into a routine in terms of what the sex and the romance might look like.

And there are more parts of us that often can really come out with that one person, because we are going to be somewhat different of a person, in different relationships. And so that’s a really big desire for people to explore. And also many people have desires it needs that no one partner could satisfy, even if they were perfectly matched, let’s say that, you know, they had the same desire for how much sex they were having or what kind of sex they were having They’re both kinky in the same way or whatever. But when you have some of these desires for things like threesomes or group sex or multiple genders, or you have attractions to people who look very different, you know you want people of different not just genders, but races and sizes just general novelty. That can not be met in one person.

Giancarlo

Just switching gear completely. This mangu.tv Podcast covers sex, drugs, and regeneration. Right? So on the drugs category, we’ve been talking a lot, with our documentaries and with our guests about psychedelics, about entheogens.

You gave me permission to ask a question on that. I’m interested in the relationship between this psychedelic practice where some of these compounds, ayahuasca, mescaline, san pedro, peyote, the family of the tryptamines. They change the chemical structure of your brain. They reduce what is called the default mode network, which Michael Pollanexplains very well in his book. It can be the closest thing to an egoic armor, the default mode network is like the director of the orchestra of your brain.

And when the tryptamines reduce the blood supply in this network so that the director falls asleep. And so all of these pieces now are free. So it’s a way of deconditioning. So I’m curious about your personal experience. I don’t know if there are any surveys or statistics yet, but to what extent the shamanic practice and this practice of tryptamines affect sexual desire and non-monogamous behavior, is there some sort of a correlation?

Zhana

Well, I wish I could answer that question but I can’t. I think some people should start doing some more research on that, it’s not my specific area of research and I’ve tried to find some studies on that, and I haven’t really seen much academically, at least, published research on the link between psychedelics and sexuality.

And I’ve been asked that question so many times, Do you know of anything?

Giancarlo

Just intuitively do you agree that the psychedelic practice, can (but is not guaranteed) can offer a better insight into who you are?

Zhana

Oh for sure.

Giancarlo

So that ontological inquiry, that inner journey, that exploration might cut the pathological aspect of the non-monogamous behavior. And maybe that’s my own story, but I think that if society had a regular psychedelic practice, I think that would be more successful than monogamy called for.

Zhana

I like that theory.

Giancarlo

I think people would be more aware of what they want, what they can offer. There will be less noise, which is easily created by desire and pleasure. You tend to get distracted in the arousal and might bend some boundaries that you know you might not have been aware of, does it make sense?

Zhana

Yeah, it does. So I think, you know, psychedelics have such different kinds of effects on different people, depending on where our starting points are, and what some of those struggles that we’re dealing with.

And so it’s going to dig up somewhat different things for different people. When the conductor goes to sleep, you know some of these other instruments, it depends, you know the harpe might be really loud for you and the violin might be really loud for me, and that’s going to be slightly different.

Right. But what I think does happen for a lot of people who use psychedelics in this medicinal way, because one of the things that we experience during that time is being able to see ourselves for more deeply who we are, versus what society tells us that we should be doing. I think a lot of people might just go through some psychedelic experiences and realize, oh, I should not be doing the job that I’m doing. You know, that’s not the most authentic expression of who I am professionally. Very often people will kind of go through that experience and realize, oh, the relationship type that I’m in is not the most authentic expression of who I am in terms of my relationships and because of what we were talking about, that most people are not by nature fully 100% monogamous, right? Most people do have at least moderate levels of that sexual novelty need and adventure need. Most people if they look deeply inside themselves, with the help of psychedelics, they will probably find that yes, strict monogamy is probably not my ideal relationship form. So I think a lot more people would wake up to the idea of at least curiosity about non-monogamy. And then I think what you were hypothesizing would also probably be true that doing psychedelic medicinal work is going to help people be better at non-monogamy. Because some of those skills that are necessary for being a good non-monogamous consensually non-monogamous partner are things that psychedelics really help with like the empathy piece.

That was actually huge for me. Part of my story is that I played with psychedelics when I was a teenager, when I was 16-17, had some really bad trips, and then didn’t touch psychedelics for 20 years.

Giancarlo

That is such a common story.

Zhana

I know. Right. So cliche, and I knew I could, even at that time, I could recognize that that was a substance that I wasn’t ready for.

I literally told myself Zhana, I don’t think you’re ready for this yet. There are other substances that are more fun, that you can have a lot of fun with, go play with, until you’re ready to give back to psychedelics. Exactly 20 years later. So I was 17 when I think I did my last acid trip, and then I was 37 when I did my next one.

And no, actually the first thing was acid. And so for the last, you know, I’m almost 40, so for the last three years, I’ve been kind of experimenting or using LSD, mushrooms, and ayahuasca for these and a huge part of what these substances did for me was wake up empathy and compassion that I didn’t really have a lot of a relationship to prior, and it’s a very necessary skill to have for doing non-monogamy well. Fundamental. 

Giancarlo

And what about if you allow me another personal question? I remember eight years ago. I want to see how psychedelics change you. You were a very scientific materialist believer.

I remember we discussed that back then. And so how has this recent psychedelic experience affected your view of reality, of this idea that the enlightenment of sovereignty of reason has been very important but maybe we went too much towards the replicable reductionist Western materialistic approach.

Do you see now as very radical on that, or you’re open to a non paranormal phenomenon and telepathy and other dimensions stuff more esoteric that we’ll discuss in this podcast sometimes.

Zhana

Yeah. I have definitely softened up a little bit towards some of these things that we cannot yet perhaps measure with the objective scientific method that we have. And I am much more understanding of the value of mystical experiences that people have. But I do not make any claims as to the actual objective reality of those.

Giancarlo

But about the value of this mystical experience? I mean, if there is a sense of transcendence and going behind your ego, then there is a reduction of suffering.

Zhana

Absolutely. Yes And that’s what I’m saying, I think the value of the mystical experience, those transcendental experiences, but the reality is that those realms don’t need to exist objectively speaking, for us to experience them right? So the psychedelics can completely create something that is within our own minds that we might see as an alternative reality or another dimension or whatever. I think that it’s not necessary for those other dimensions to actually exist in order for us to benefit from having traveled to them, they could be purely a creation of our own minds, but I think the experience of going through them is extremely valuable. Yeah.

Giancarlo 

Okay. Very good. So we’re going to meet another eight years, and keep on doing psychedelics.

Zhana

Great.

Giancarlo

So for our audience, because I think you’ve been very clear and you’re a very important voice for all these people that are, you know, culturally conditioned, and suffering in their relationship. So how can they find you? Can you say a little bit of your website and course?

Zhana

Sure so my website is drzhana.com that is the same on Instagram and Twitter , DrZhana. And my course is called Open Smarter, and that’s on my website drzhana.com/open-smarter that’s an online course that people can take on their own time virtually. There are lots of videos, lots of scales, where they can measure where they are on these things like novelty-seeking and jealousy and emotional regulation empathy, all the things that we talked about that can help them figure out what might be the right relationship type for them. And I do these monthly zoom-based events that are open to the public and completely free to sign up for where we discuss specific topics that are related to monogamy and nonmonogamy, and those are called Open Smarter Socials, and same. You can get to them through my website.

Giancarlo

And so if a couple is looking to explore and want to start discussing, opening up, and need some guidance, they can approach you. They should start with the course. I mean, it works for couples also.

Zhana

Absolutely. Yes. And if people want to work with me privately, I do that as well. Also, they can get that information through the website, drzhana.com/consulting. And the way I will work with couples is a set of sessions that we’ll do together. But that also includes the course. We’ll often start with having them go through the first module of the course and then we’ll start the sessions and then I might direct people depending on what they’re specifically working on or what their challenges might be. I might direct them to different parts of the course to go to next and so it’s a combo of the course on one-on-one work.

Giancarlo

Amazing, just before letting you go, I forgot to ask you about the new book. Do you want to talk a little bit about that when it’s going to be ready? What is it about? What’s the title?

Zhana

It’s still in the very very early stages. I just started writing the book proposal at the moment, I don’t quite have a title. The topic is monogamy, non-monogamy and it really is what we talked about a lot today. This spectrum, the monogamy to non-monogamy spectrum, and how people can find their place on it at any given point in time.

Giancarlo

Yes. So I would like to leave the audience with this idea of the spectrum. You know, why would society make us always try to polarize everything? And what’s happening also now in America with the political polarization, it’s like, you know, blue, red, white, male, mono, non mono it’s a spectrum. So I leave you guys on the spectrum. Thank you for being with us.

Zhana

Thank you so much.