The “Dating Rules” Idea

What’s up with the spate of rules that fathers make about dating their daughters? I’m sure you’ve all heard some variation of the whole “oh, so you’re dating my daughter, have I mentioned that I have a shotgun?” dating rules. Maybe they’re meant to be jokes, but they also communicate something very specific about what […]

The Misagreement

One of the biggest problems I see people in relationships of all kinds facing is miscommunication. This takes many forms: people not saying what they mean because they’re afraid to be that vulnerable, one person saying something but their partner hearing something else, total communication breakdowns where no one’s even trying, and so on. In this […]

Date People You Admire And Can Learn From

This is a choose-your-own adventure blog post. You can replace “Date” in the title with any verb that’s applicable to you: “hang out with,” “be friends with,” “hop into bed with,” or whatever gets you excited about human connection and is in line with your ethics and your relationship agreements. This is also a blog […]

Compulsory Monogamy Going Mainstream?

Perhaps I should clarify: compulsory monogamy is already mainstream. It’s already the norm, and a largely unexamined one at that. What I mean to discuss here is how the idea of compulsory monogamy is now under discussion in the mainstream, thanks to its application to The Hunger Games movie franchise. This essay, Compulsory Monogamy in The Hunger […]

Teaching Relationships Empowers Everyone (The Case for Sex Ed Part 7)

In this installment of my The Case for Sex Ed blog post series, I’m going to address how teaching the basics of equitable relationships as part of a sex education curriculum can improve the lives of teens and everyone. When we talk about relationships there’s a tendency to assume that we mean sexual and/or romantic […]

Making Poly (And Other) Relationships Work

I caught an interesting summary on Polyamory in the News of five things that make polyamorous relationships work. In the original article, the author (a therapist) describes the five essential components that she believes an open relationship requires in order to succeed. I mention them here because, as I’ve described in the past, often something that […]

Intrinsic or Extrinsic? The Importance of Figuring Out What Makes You Tick

Do you know what makes you excited, motivated, and eager? Psychologists tend to distinguish between two main types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. In this post I’ll discuss some relationship-oriented examples of each and encourage you to figure out your own motivation map. Funnily enough, the idea for this blog post came about while I was procrastinating […]

Would You Do It To A Pet? …and Other Ways to Discuss Deviance & Consent

Here’s a reposted blog from my personal website, jeanajorgensen.com. Enjoy! There’s a journalistic account going around about a young man who identifies as a pedophile in that he’s attracted to children, but he has never acted on that attraction. In fact, he’s actively seeking help in order to keep from acting on it. Pedophilia is […]

The 12 Pillars of Polyamory for Everyone

I believe that understanding how relationships work is key to being happy in them, whether we’re talking about friendships, family relationships, monogamous relationships, non-monogamous relationships, or something else entirely. A friend recently shared The 12 Pillars of Polyamory (by Kenneth R. Haslam, MD) with me, and I thought, gosh, these ideas are just too good to keep […]