My polyamory metamour sex column for Valentine's Day in Philadelphia City Paper

Sometimes I fall for a title first, as is the case with "Love the one you’re with — and the one they’re with, too," my Philadelphia City Paper column this week on polyamory and how metamour relationships can unfold. Special thanks to Cunning Minx (pictured below) and her podcast Polyamory Weekly for being such a wonderful source of information on this topic.



Yes, I will be reviewing Fifty Shades of Grey this weekend, but I wanted to remember other aspects of Valentine's Day than Ana and Christian, and wanted to use a Valentine's Day sex column to highlight an aspect of polyamorous relationships I haven't seen as much written about in more mainstream venues (even though I'm tasked with writing edgy, alternative sex for my alt weekly column, I still consider it "mainstream" in the sense that most readers probably haven't heard the word "metamour," and apparently neither has the spell checker on Blogger).

And yes, I'm aware that polyamorous people are often portrayed as rich and white. Not everyone I interviewed is white, and my aim with all my columns and writing is to showcase a diversity of sexual experiences, sexual identities, ages, races and genders. I am working especially on trying to cover topics that aren't being covered elsewhere, to the best of my ability, and to that end, I highly welcome pitches. In Philadelphia City Paper Let's Get It On is a short weekly print and online column about almost anything related to sex; my DAME Shameless Sex column runs every other week and focuses on issues around women and sex, and I also freelance widely for places like Salon about assorted other topics. Hence, I always am on the lookout for new ideas, people, events, kinks to cover. You can reach me at rachelkb at gmail.com with "Column" in the subject line.

PB&J jalapeño popppers and other deliciousness at Seattle's Shelter Lounge

Today is my last day in Seattle and I'm going to the Nirvana exhibit at Experience Music Project (my first time) and doing more walking - that has been the biggest blessing of this trip, the several miles of walking I go to do each day. I so wish I had the time for that in New York. Another issue in New York is that unless you are walking on a bridge or some sort of park or path, you're stopping so often for lights it almost makes the walk not worth it.





I hung out in Ballard yesterday for CupcakeCamp Seattle - see Cupcakes Take the Cake for photos of that, but the views were stunning and water was lovely. I highly recommend The Locks and the botanical garden on a nice day, and there were some cute shops as I walked from there up toward 22nd.

Food highlight of the day was eating appetizers afterward at The Shelter Lounge. Whoa. We ordered everything except the corn off the menu and all of it was delicious and at happy hour prices only $4-5 each. YES. Here's some food porn for you from there:






Above: outside and inside the PB&J jalapeño popppers




(note: we at first got the plain flatbread, and then when we got this with cheese, someone remarked that it looked like the chef just came all over it - don't think all cupcake people are prudish, they're so not!)


ahi tuna is big in Seattle, I have found

Then I got to see Cunning Minx, who does the excellent Polyamory Weekly podcast, which you can follow on Facebook and Twitter too (follow @cunningminx too).

Me: "So what are you in town for?"

Cunning Minx: "I live here."

We had a fabulous catchup session and I will get to see her when I'm back in Seattle in late June!

Bonus food porn:



Yesterday's breakfast at my new favorite place, Sweet Iron Waffles: turkey, havarti and raspberry preserves waffle!