Bisexual male swinger Cooper Beckett on life as a swinger

For my latest Philadelphia City Paper column I wrote about swinging. Official title: "Swingers are speaking out and changing the traditional rules" (this column is definitely the one where I'm given the longest titles I've ever had!). If you're in Philadelphia, check it out in print every week. I profiled Cooper Beckett of Life on the Swingset and his new book My Life on the Swingset, and we discussed negotiating, jealousy, how the TV show Hannibal is part of his relationship rules, swinger stereotypes and more. He will also be on my CatalystCon panel Sharing Your Sex Life on the Page and the Stage on March 28th from 9:30- a.m. in Arlington, Virginia. As always, I welcome your suggestions for future columns! Email rachelkb at gmail.com with "City Paper" in the subject line.

If you like the column, I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd share it/like it/etc. It helps let them know people want to read about sex!

Because I love writing about my breasts

Updated July 18 (from my new laptop, the Blogger iPhone app is clearly not the best, or I'm not the best at using it.

My laptop is dying a slow death, which I discovered on my flight Monday to Martha's Vineyard, so I until I get to the Apple store or get a Chromebook replacement, I'm doing most things on my iPhone, including this post, my first time using the Blogger iPhone app. I wrote about why my breasts or any woman's shouldn't be a threat to your marriage for a site I adore, Role Reboot.

2 books I recommend: Rad Dad and It's Hard Not to Hate You

Two books I recommend - the new Rad Dad: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Fatherhood anthology (click here for tour dates!) and the new Valerie Frankel memoir on friendship and jealousy, It's Hard Not to Hate You. Crazy deadline week/month but when I have some time I'll write a bit more, but if you're interested in politics and parenting, Rad Dad is great, and Frankel's book is funny but extremely memorable and tackles questions like how many friends should you have/do you need, what to do about professional jealousy (you can play "figure out the chick lit author she's talking about;" it only takes a wee bit of Googling) and bitchy neighbors and more.

I get jealous over at The Frisky

I wrote a piece for The Frisky called "Girl Talk: Should I Be Jealous of His Female Friends?" about my new guy and his many female friends. So far (in 2 days), it's spawned 80 comments (and a few conversations between me and said guy) and certainly hit a nerve:

The other night, after having sex with the new guy I’m seeing, he said casually, “I’m going out for a drink with my friend. I’ll be back in half an hour.” Fair or not, it bothered me that he was going out with a female friend (I’d still have been a little miffed it had been a male friend, but not in the same way). The fact was, I was exhausted after having flown home on a red eye that morning, so perhaps I was overly sensitive, but still, I was jealous … especially when three hours later I woke up and he wasn’t there.

I almost left, but he apologized, telling me his friend had some major issues to discuss and they’d lost track of time. He rushed back and we fell asleep together. The next night, I got to meet the woman I’ll call Alice when we all went to dinner. She was fun and sweet—and has a boyfriend. In just a few minutes, I could tell she wasn’t a threat to my relationship, but still, the fact that the majority of his friends are women, and there are lots of them, has given me pause.

Read the whole piece at The Frisky.