I started blogging regularly on June 22, 2014. It was only two or three years ago that I began to cross-post my writing here for public consumption, but in all – I have posted 1145 writings between here and over on Fetlife.
I don’t even have to look to remember what my first post was and who it was about. It was 5 years and two lifetimes ago, and so much has changed.
But I still am willing to ask someone to confirm what I already know when I feel like I need to hear it. That hasn’t changed.
Over the past five years, I have come back to these spaces over and over again to share a little piece of my life. I know that people appreciate my voice. I have heard and felt your support over the years in ways that helped me realize that I’m not alone in anything that I do. You helped me increase my confidence and self worth. Because of these forums, I not only found my voice – I transformed it into something that made my life have meaning again.
Then I took all that confidence and self worth and that sense of purpose and did something completely bananas: I left a 20 year career behind that was stifling my creativity and negatively impacting my health, and started something new.
Last week I quietly launched a patreon campaign. I’m gonna level with you now. Even though I’ve spent 20 years learning how to ask people to fund the intangible, it’s difficult for me to sit here now and ask people to fund what I have essentially been giving away for the past five years.
Yes, I believe that my blog posts help people, and yes – I believe there is value in the time I spend volunteering as a moderator in six different kink and/or poly-related facebook groups serving over 15,000 members.
I even believe that you believe it.
But I have to remember that when I ask for your support, it’s not just about funding a blog or the podcast I will be launching later this month; just like fundraising for the big annual charity gala wasn’t just about scoring tickets to a fancy dinner and a show.
It’s about the mission.
My mission is to use my voice, which you have all helped amplify time and time again, to create a more conscious world by reducing judgement and increasing acceptance around non-traditional relationships, including those involving consensual or ethical non-monogamy and consensual kink.
I’ve seen the power we have as individuals to make a difference in this way. I’ve seen the way people’s faces change when I share with them (without apologies or shame) that my boyfriend has three other partners, and we all get along just fine. They’re not expecting that from me. I don’t “look like” one of “those” kinds of people.
Truth be told – none of us do, because we look like …you know, people.
But, nobody I have told has shunned me yet. Mostly, people are curious about it, and more and more I’m hearing back from people that they know someone else who is in an open relationship as well. Even the ones who had the hardest time with it – my parents – have come to accept …and maybe even appreciate that whatever it is I am doing is making me very, very happy.
These things that I do – the blog, the podcast, and even the events – I’m creating spaces for people who aren’t immersed in this life and lovestyle to access it in a way that helps remove the stigma, the mystery, and the judgement from it.
Hell, I’m hoping that the podcast in particular will help reduce some of the judgement I see within the polyamorous communities (myself included) about what does and does not constitute “polyamory.”
I want to share our stories in positive ways, and help us all feel a little less alone in the world. Kind of like what my readers did for me five years ago when I wrote my first entry on Fetlife.
So, if you want to join me in reducing judgement and increasing acceptance in this thing that we do, or if you are one of the people who has been personally influenced (in a positive way) by something I’ve written – please consider supporting my patreon campaign.
Thank you,
phi
polyammering 