Open An uncensored memoir of love, liberation, and non-monogamy

Rachel Krantz

Book - 2022

"When Rachel Krantz met and fell for Jacob, he told her that he was looking to make a commitment--one that did not include exclusivity. Both anxious and excited at the prospect of a different way to commit, Krantz entered a relationship built equally on love and liberation. And as an inveterate journalist and writer of extraordinary perceptiveness and emotional nuance, she not only put her heart on the line, but kept painstakingly detailed notes, interviewed other couples, and relentlessly interrogated her own emotions as she went down the rabbit hole of non-monogamy. What results is a unique combination of memoir and immersion journalism that reads like sexy, page-turning fiction and casts an unflinching eye on non-monogamy, from the ...debilitating jealousy and anxiety spirals to the heart-opening connections and exhilarating eroticism. As she and Jacob attempt to rewrite the way love works, she runs up against power and gender dynamics either written by biology or engrained by culture--and must repeatedly face the question, is Jacob her liberator or her manipulator? Krantz fearlessly takes us inside both her interior and intimate moments as she also interviews experts and tells the stories of other couples who have created a range of relationship styles to fit their desires. Non-monogamy is the way into universal questions about love and happiness, which Krantz confronts with probing analysis and incredible candor: Can a person have both freedom and love? How do we reconcile closeness and lust? How can men and women achieve equality in relationships? What does it mean to trust someone? Can you love without jealousy? And, ultimately, is the pleasure worth the pain?"--

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Location Call Number   Status
2nd Floor 306.8423/Krantz Due Dec 26, 2024
Subjects
Published
New York : Harmony Books [2022]
Language
English
Main Author
Rachel Krantz (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
xi, 329 pages ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN
9780593139554
  • Part 1. Age 27
  • 1. Once Upon a Time, a Solitary Maiden Believed Only Somewhat Ironically in Being Rescued ...
  • 2. A Real Man, Whatever That Means
  • 3. Yes, Daddy
  • 4. And What Would That Give You?
  • 5. I May Be Bisexual
  • 6. When in Roman Orgy ...
  • 7. What a Slut
  • 8. Pure, Uncut Kryptonite
  • Part 2. Age 28
  • 9. Open on Both Sides
  • 10. ... And Here's What Happened
  • 11. Why So Pathetic
  • 12. Meeting the Mentor
  • 13. Hardly Homeostasis
  • 14. Miranda, Spiral, Explode
  • 15. It's About Power
  • 16. FFM
  • 17. The Divine Feminine
  • 18. I Didn't Say No
  • 19. Fuck the Pain Away
  • Part 3. Age 29
  • 20. My Precious
  • 21. If These Walls Could Talk
  • 22. The Accidental Poetry of Everyday Life
  • 23. My Metamour, Myself
  • 24. Reverse Pretty Woman
  • 25. Non-Attachment
  • 26. A Danger to Ourselves
  • 27. How/Why I Stayed
  • 28. Young Swingers Week
  • 29. Taming Dragons
  • Part 4. Age 30
  • 30. Never Been Healthier?
  • 31. Relationship Anarchy
  • 32. The Desire Crew
  • 33. That Deviant and Criminal Box
  • 34. Trespassing
  • 35. Ladybird Is Nesting
  • 36. Not Either/Or
  • 37. What Evidence Do You Have?
  • 38. Sometimes Saying No Is the Experience
  • 39. That Moment of Awakening
  • 40. Whatever Brings Less Suffering
  • Part 5. Age 31
  • 41. Into the Innermost Cave
  • 42. The Initiator, the Author, the Action Hero!
  • 43. ... And She Lived Openly Ever After
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In this evocative debut, Krantz, founding editor of Bustle, chronicles how an open relationship changed her life. Fresh from a breakup in 2015, she met Adam, an academic studying "the psychology of romantic and sexual desire--specifically, the importance of triangulation." After their second date, he confessed he was seeking a life partner, but ultimately wanted an arrangement where neither partner was restricted. Eager to explore her sexuality, Krantz accepted and was promptly whisked into what she recounts was at first an idyllic relationship, a phase commonly referred to by psychologists as "lovebombing." In titillating detail, Krantz chronicles the sex parties, "Dom/sub relationships," and MFM (Male-Female-Male) threesomes her and Adam participated in. "Nothing was off limits: dates, arguments, role playing, trips to swingers' resorts," she writes. Eventually, though, manipulative tendencies from both partners came to the fore. Krantz sweeps readers into a narrative that seduces and educates in equal measure, but it can be difficult to parse her vulnerability from artifice, especially upon learning that Krantz "obsessively documented" her relationships and made audio recordings of "hours and hours, days and days" of sexual encounters after being approached to write this book. Nonetheless, this offers an alluring and insightful look at a life lived outside of conventional structures. Agent: Peter McGuigan, Foundry Literary. (Jan.)

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Once Upon a Time, a Solitary Maiden Believed Only Somewhat Ironically in Being Rescued . . . 6/8/14 Rachel Journal Entry Age 26 I let her convince me to have half a carafe but no more because I knew it would lead me to cheating on Dan. . . . I would have slept with a woman last night if not for him. . . . I feel resentful of not being able to. 8/3/14 Journal Entry I'm waiting for someone to come find me. I believe in being rescued. 2/20/15 brooklyn, ny "Here," I said, presenting the bouquet in a casual thrust. "I brought you flowers." "You brought me flowers?" I'd managed to disarm him, if only for a moment. I hoped the flowers would send a message: I might be twenty-­seven to his thirty-eight, but I was not prey. And I had on the adult-­lady-­dress I'd found in a giveaway box to prove it. "Men deserve flowers, too, you know," I said, as if the idea hadn't occurred to me an hour ago. "Well, thanks. I don't think that's ever happened before." Adam's smile had a slight downward turn to it, amused in a wringed way. It was satisfying to squeeze it out of him. "I think I have a vase here somewhere. . . ." I noted his back muscles through his plain white T-­shirt as he reached for further proof of his civilized life. Jazz played, and I padded my stockinged feet on his spotless wooden floors as he caramelized onions. I admired titles in English and German, picked books up and put them down like a toddler-­cum-­anthropologist. I noted the extensive Philip Roth section, The Professor of Desire nestled between Letting Go and The Prague Orgy , the obvious fondness for Updike, Jung, Lacan, Heidegger, Yeats, Freud, and . . . Edith Wharton? At least I've read all the Diaz and Lahiri. I'd just broken up with Dan, a guy with neither curtains nor more than ten books--­let alone a clean vase. This is progress. Adam and I stood together in a comfortable yet sexually tense silence as he cooked. "You know, I think the Groupon massage therapist I've been seeing might be molesting me?" F***, why did you just say that? I could blame the hit of dried-­out herb I'd had before I came, but it was more than that. There was something about Adam that was like going to Jewish confession--kneeling felt imminent. "Uh, what?" His eyebrows furrowed with concern. "Well, he tells me to get naked, and each session he sort of inches closer and closer to my pussy. Brushing its sides and occasionally over it, but never fingering me or anything. Telling me to breathe deeply over and over in this pretty sexual way, kind of moaning to demonstrate . . ." Ironically, I'd treated myself to the Groupon package in the hopes that it would help me avoid making romantic decisions based solely on a hunger for touch; an investment I hoped would pay dividends tonight. "Maybe I'm imagining it? Or I'm giving him the feeling I'm into it, you know? Which in a way I am, until he pushes it too far and I keep pulling away, but then he just does it again . . ." Why are you telling him this? "I don't know, what do you think?" "I think it sounds like you need a new masseur." Adam had a definitive way of closing conversations I already found comforting. Dinner was skillfully done, but watching him lick rolling paper for dessert was my preferred pornography. His academic research, he told me as I inhaled, was mainly about the psychology of romantic and sexual desire--­specifically, the importance of triangulation. "Like, there being three people?" I asked. "Often, yes. It's one of the most common stories, the love triangle. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Lolita, The Age of Innocence . . ." Twilight , I mentally added. The Hunger Games . "But triangulation is also sometimes just an outside obstacle, maybe not even a person. A war, or distance." "I wonder if that's one subconscious reason people have children," I tried. "To create a safer form of triangulation than another lover, a constant obstacle to being alone together." "Desire can be understood as a feeling of lack," he said, nodding professorially. "If we believe we have someone in every single way, we usually cease to want them sexually." "Seems accurate, but a little sad too, no?" "No, it's not. It's like physics. Knowing how things work only makes them more beautiful." He held my gaze with meaning. "I study what's most important to me. How I might maintain desire. Not just for me, but for my long-­term partner." I nodded, lesson absorbed. I had to admit, I could hardly imagine a topic I'd rather a lover devote their life to studying. My legs were tucked sidesaddle on his wonderfully clean couch. He paused to acknowledge the flesh encased in black tights. "Since your feet are right here and you mentioned earlier you like massage, I'd be happy to work on them for you." Bold move after my story, and kind of a tone-­deaf one? But, I mean, does sound nice . . . just do what you want to do, but don't think that means you owe him anything. You're a grown woman tonight. I'd promised myself that this evening was about ushering in a new era of Adult Dating. I would no longer feel I owed a certain debt if I received "too much," or placed myself "too deep" into a situation. I would do whatever I wanted and nothing more ( or less? )--without judgment. "Okay, sure. Why not," I said, offering my legs toward him like a second bouquet of flower stems. Adam's touch was subtle, consistent, and sure. An exercise in paying attention to what I wanted and taking not a centimeter more, promising me something attuned, patient, giving. His voice deep and at moments gravelly, his highly grabbable biceps flexing as he continued to steer our conversation, my body the clutch. He had a focus more intense than any I'd felt directed at me before. Not even by a therapist, much less a man I found sexy. As he massaged, he kept asking more and more questions, interviewing me as he had on our first date. It was as if he had to get down to the root of me deeply, thoroughly, urgently. Like there was no more pressing subject. Excerpted from Open: An Uncensored Memoir of Love, Liberation, and Non-Monogamy by Rachel Krantz All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.