Dr. Zhana: If there is one big key takeaway from all of my work in all of these areas on casual sex, non-monogamy, kink, anything that would discuss consent, whatever, there is no one way that works for everyone or one thing that works for everyone. It really depends on who we are and what we want.

Fernanda: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Polycurious, the podcast for those curious about non-monogamy. I am Fernanda, your host, and today's episode is probably one of my favorites. I am speaking to Dr. Zhana, a professor of sexuality at New York University. For the past 15 years, Dr. Zhana has been working on research, teaching classes, and consulting clients on both non-monogamy and monogamy. And in this conversation, we dive into some of our research, mostly around casual sex, which she actually gave a great TED talk about. But, uh, what I'm even more excited for you guys to learn about is her new course called Open Smarter. This course is designed to help people determine what type of relationship works for them based on several personality traits. Shib even gives us a taste of the course by asking me some questions to figure out what my traits are. And, um, based on those, what type of relationship works for me. But even if you don't take the course, what I love about Dr. Zhana, uh, is that she believes, like I do, that because we're all different, we all need different types of relationships, whether they are non-monogamous or not. Again, I am not an advocate for non-monogamy. If monogamy works for you, I totally, 100% support you. But I believe most people don't even question whether it works for them or not. And even if you figure out you are non-monogamous, there are so many different ways to do it.

And Dr. Zhana is all about that. She's about identifying your traits and needs to figure out what kind of relationship works for you. But before we even get into all of that, we talked to Dr. Zhana about her own journey. Growing up in Macedonia, which is a fairly traditional country where she sort of felt like an outsider. She tells us how her own sexuality influenced her passion for research. And, uh, she even talks about her previous non-monogamous marriage. Her personal journey is actually something that people don't normally ask her much about.

So I think that makes this episode a little extra special. I can't wait for you guys to listen. So here we go.

F: So today we're here with Dr. Zhana, and I'm so excited to finally meet her. We actually randomly almost met at this, uh, trip. We Were organizing to Stormking, which is a park, uh, with a bunch of art sculptures here in New York. And she was gonna actually ride with me, but then it ended up not happening, which was, uh, a shame. But now I have the opportunity to talk to her.

Dr. Z: Now we're gonna get to know each other.

F: Exactly. She'a researcher, NYU professor, a, uh, podcaster, a speaker. She's so many things and the more I learned about her work, the more inspired I felt. So I'm looking forward to get to know her a little better and also learn more about her research and her new course for open relationships. So, yeah, a lot to cover. Yeah. So why don't you start, uh, telling us a little bit about yourself. You are from Macedonia. I don't know when you move to the US or why, but maybe speak a little bit about your background.

Dr. Z: I was born and raised in Macedonia, which is a small country in southeast Europe that used to be part of Yugoslavia. And I lived there until I was 24. So I moved here for my PhD at, uh, Cornell. And that's how I moved to the U.S. and stayed in the U.S. but growing up there. So I grew up in the capital of the country, Scopia and well, what do you want to know about growing up there?

F: Um, well, on your website you mentioned something like you wanted things that society didn't want you to want, basically.

Dr. Z: It's a good way of putting it.

F: So maybe we can talk about that. Ah, like what kind of things? Um, you know, I was a wild.

Dr. Z: One sexually and just personality wise, I wanted, and certainly sexually, I wanted to have a lot of sex and had a lot of fun. I like casual sex. I was interested in women. I was interested in some sort of non-monogamy. I didn't even know what that was. But just being monogamous didn't make sense to me. I was partying and drinking and staying up really late and doing drugs, um, and having sex with people who are much older than me. And ye getting into all sorts of trouble, all the while being a straight A student. So those two things never interfered. But I definitely was on the wild side. Not a lot of parental supervision during that time. My parents were divorced so I could kind of get away with it. I lived with my dad, who wasn't being the most attentive parent. So I was just kind of running wild. And it was obviously very formative in many ways, but I was a very highly sexual child from as long as I can remember. Some of my first memories of myself are of me masturbating when I was, I don't know, three, four, five, something like that, very early. I know. And I kept masturbating all through pre king kindergarten to my elementary school and middle school years and lost my virginity early. So it was kind of a strange way to grow up. I was the odd person out.

I did not fit in. That was a pretty conservative environment. It wasn't religious. So the flavor of that conservatism is a little different than what conservative would mean to most people in the US today. Because Macedonia and Yugoslavia before that was a socialist country. We didn't have religion, it was an atheist country. But still there was so much kind of very paternalistic and patriarchal and probably sexist. Yeah, sexist to some extent. Socialism was weird. It was sexist. More sexist in some ways than what people are accustomed to in the US and less sexist in other ways. So. But definitely, definitely more slut shaming to women than to men. And I as a woman wanting all these things, wanting threesomes and casual sex and non-monogamy and all that was like, not okay, not accepted. So I received a lot of social stigma, uh, directed in my direction. A lot of people who didn't necessarily want to be friends with me or because of that or some forms of bullying in school around that. A lot of people not wanting to date me because of my reputation. And so, yeah, just dealing with having a reputation in a, um, relatively small town. I mean, Scopia is the capital, so is the biggest town in Macedonia, but it's still. That's a small city, 700,000 people. And that's kind of my background. And one thing I knew always. I mean, I figured it out there. I found my people, I found my friends. I had a very loving long term relationship with a woman who I adored, still do. And we had a great group of friends. But I always knew that that environment was too small for me. I knew I needed New York.

F: Right? Yeah. I mean, I can imagine that after that New York was a little bit like paradise for you.

Dr. Z: Yeah, it was. I had traveled quite a bit. I'd lived in Berlin before I moved to New York. And Berlin is an amazing paradise for sexual misfits like myself. So Berlin was kind of my first experience of sex positivity and openness and play parties, like sex clubs, people being accepting of that, people not being weirded out by any fetishes or any unusual ideas, swingers mixing in with all of it was just such an open environment that I, uh, was like, yes, yes, this Is where I belong or something like this.

F: And what age were you when you were there?

Dr. Z: I was there at uh, 22, I think 22 or 23. A year after, uh, I was finishing up my undergrad and I went there for six months to do an internship. And then I came back to Macedonia, finished my thesis, published a book based on my thesis on sexual orientation.

F: Oh, wow.

Dr. Z: That's what my thesis was on. I thought it would be good and useful to turn it into a book. So I did some research, some more research on sexual orientation. I published a book in Macedonian and then I applied to PhD programs and um, moved to the US so I'been here since 2006.

F: Nice. So did you feel like you wanted to understand better your reality and that's why you went and looked at the research and studyied it?

Dr. Z: I mean, it's pretty obvious. How could it not be that, right? Uh, I don't know. Honestly, I, uh, don't know how much awareness I had at the time of how driven I was to study that because of my own personal. But I must have been because I wanted to study non heterosexuality, so bisexuality. And I then wanted to study casual sex. But I knew I had to study sexuality. Sexuality had been such a huge part of my life, had been the driving force in many ways. And yeah, I had to study that thing that was going to keep my interest for the rest of my life. When you pick a PhD, you better really, really love that topic because you're going to get stuck with that topic. Right.

F: For the rest of the. Yeah. What was your topic?

Dr. Z: Well, I knew I wanted to study sexuality, so um, I applied to work with this professor who studied sexual orientation and I was going to initially study that. I didn't even realize you could study casual sex. I think once I came to the US and started reading some of the literature, then I kind of switched my interest. I mean, I did publish a bunch of stuff on sexual orientation with my advisor on the mostly straight people. People who are not like completely straight, but they're not necessarily B enough. So like the B curious almost kind of thing. But then I also had this other big interest in casual sex and not monogamy. And so I did my dissertation on casual sex and mental health.

F: Yeah, I watch your TED talk on casual sex. You make really good points there, like really good tips on how to of navigate that. Um, so you guys should definitely check it out.

Dr. Z: Yes, thank you. Yeah, uh, I think there are a lot of useful pieces of information for how to go about casual sex. Because that was a big passion of mine, trying to teach people how to do casual sex. Right. I feel a lot of casual sex really gets a bad rep for being all sorts of bad things. And I think a lot of those bad things can be avoided if we went about having casual sex the right way. There is a good way and a bad way to do it across many different things. In terms of pleasure, in terms of consent, in, of, in terms of communication with the partner, in terms of why you're going into it, your intentionality, in terms of sexual health and how you approach that in terms of your feelings and how you manage your emotions around the people that you're having this casual sex with.

And so I think because it's so stigmatized as a bad thing, no one really teaches anyone how to do it well because you don't teach people how to do, well, bad things, in a way. And so I was very passionate about trying to make this story about casual sex more complex and teach people how to do it well.

F: Yeah. I remember two of the things that you mentioned in your TED Talk that I realize are things that I learned maybe too late. And I think you gave your TED Talk at a university to college students. And I thought, I wish I'd known this during my college years. Um, one of them was, if you're just gonna have sex once with a person, you better tell them what you like. Right. So you make it an enjoyable experience. Otherwise, what's the point? Right. Because it's hard to get comfortable with a person enough so that sex is good even after having sex. Many times. It depends. But if you don't communicate, if you're only having sex once, how is that going to work?

Dr. Z: Yeah, assertiveness is really, really important. Telling people what it is that you want and what it is that you don't want. And the less you know your partner and the less they know you, uh, the more important that becomes that you communicate that.

F: Yeah. And at the same time, one can understand why it's hard or it can be hard because you don't know this person. So how can you be completely honest and tell them exactly what you like without, know, feeling shame or whatever?

Dr. Z: Yeah. Anxiety, fear, discomfort. Yeah. It's not easy at all. No, it's not easy. And especially given that we live in a world that doesn't teach us how to communicate about sex, period. Casual or non casual. Also, very often we don't have the language, we don't have these tools that we need in order to communicate that. So it's not at all easy. And I say this to people, casual sex is not for everyone. It really isn't for everyone. Nothing is for everyone, really, sexually speaking. And if there is one big key takeaway from all of my work in all of these areas on casual sex, non-monogamy, kink, anything that would discuss, consent, whatever, there is no one way that works for everyone or one thing that works for everyone. It really depends on who we are and what we want and what's happened to us. And we're a product of, of course, our genetics and our upbringing and everything that we've experienced thus far. But we're different people, our personalities are different, our skill levels of different kinds are, uh, at different levels. Our preferences are all of those things. And we have to take those things into consideration when deciding how to go about it.

So it's funny, at that TED talk, there were a couple of those college women who were in the audience who came up to me and said, I wish I'd known the sooner when I was in high school even they thought it was too late at that point.

F: I mean, I think that their ear earlyt the better. Right? Yeah, yeah. And I think another thing that you talked about in that talk, uh, was about catching feelings for someone. Um, and like, as you said, it might not. Maybe that's one of the reasons why casual sex might not be for everyone. Because I guess some people get too attached too fast. But you also said something very wise, which is like, there are ways to control that as well. There are ways to kind of remind yourself that you don't have to start planning your life with that person the next day and kind of stop yourself from that. And I think not only in casual sex, but in general in relationships. And actually that's one of the things that I want to talk about. Um, I think is one of the traits in your course which I feel like a lot of us experience, uh, which is infatuation, susceptibility.

Dr. Z: Right. Infatuation, suibility. Yeah.

F: But before we go and talk about that.

Dr. Z: No, and we will hold off on that. But the thing is, these are all traits that we all have and they permeate our lives, right. In our relationship lives and sexual lives in particular. So whether we're talking about king or casual sex or non-monogamy or sex orientation or whatever it is, these traits matter in how we go about it. And I think that's why it's so important for people to know themselves and to think about, okay, where am I on this? And then think about it. Maybe I don't want to be here. Maybe I want to be somewhere else on this trade. There are ways to do that and there are ways to work around whatever your levels are currently. And there are ways that you can kind of shift those levels up and down.

F: So that's great. Uh, we're gonna talk about that. But before we move into your course, it sounds like you maybe had non- monogamous experiences throughout your life, even before you came to New York. But how did your experience with non-monogamy kind of start and evolve? Because I know that, uh, you were also in a, uh, non- monogamous marriage for a few years. Right. So can you talk a little bit about that?

Dr. Z: My non-monogamy history? Yeah, sure. I was in non-monogamous relationships pretty much my entire life, except that until I came to the U.S. all of those were no- consensually, non-monogamous. So I was supposed to be monogamous, but I was cheating on people and I cheated on some people more than others. But I never could stay sexually fateful. That just didn't make sense to me. I loved, I just loved so much the novelty factor. Different people, different bodies, different smells, different stories, different flirtations. Like all of those things. I just fucking loved it. I mean, I still do. That's one of the traits we'll talk about novelty seeking. Some of us are really high on novelty seeking. And I was one of those people. I am one of those people who just loves novelty. And it just didn't make sense to me to just be with one person. Sex, actually, no matter how much I loved them or care about them or was connected to them, those things were kind of separate to me. I see someone who I find attractive, I'm like, I wanna fuck you.

F: Yeah.

Dr. Z: I don't need to talk to you. I don't need to know you. I just wanna run my hands up and down your abs and my pussy is wet and let's do it kind of thing.

F: Yeah.

Dr. Z: And so with that set of traits, and clearly I didn't have a very strong moral compass to keep me from doing it. And I don't know, I mean, you.

F: Also probably didn't know that that was an option.

Dr. Z: Oh, I didn't really know.

F: Well, I mean, like, that doing it ethically was an option.

Dr. Z: I tried, actually, I tried every single partner that I had. I think the first one was, I was 13. I was trying to convince him that we should be open. Uh, I think that happened because I think there was a time when I thought, know, when you're on your period, you can't have sex. I don't think that anymore. But there was a time when I thought that pretty religiously. And so I would tell him when I was in my period, I was like: "You should go have some sex with someone else if you can't." And he would be like: "What are you talking about? No," I'm like: "Yeah, why? I don't see why not." And then later on, I really tried to convince these partners to be open. I wanted to do it consensually even though I didn't have the words for what consensual. Non-monogamy is, or poly, or swinging. Like none of those words existed in my vocabulary, but the concept of it existed. And I tried to make it happen, but all my partners just looked at me as if I was crazy. And so I allowed myself to do it non-ethically a lot. And I was, uh, I didn't love that part and I wasn't proud of that. I just felt like my desire was so strong and I thought it was a stupid reason that everyone thought I shouldn't be able to indulge in my desires.

F: Um, when it didn't like affect your other relationships.

Dr. Z: Exactly, exactly. It did not affect how I felt about my partners. You know the woman that I mentioned that I dated for five years and she was the love of my life in many ways and I adored her. I just wanted to have sex with other people too. And it didn't affect it, it did not affect at all how much I was devoted to her.

F: Did she know or that it was before you were able to find someone who you could do it ethically with?

Dr. Z: Yeah, that was before. And she knew about some of them, probably didn't know about all of them, probably didn't want to know about some of those. And after, I mean, we didn't even separate. I left for the US basically, and she stayed in Macedonia. And once that happened and once we realized that probably we're not going to end up together somehow, she wasn't going to move here, I wasn't going to move back. And after that I was like: "Okay, if she's not going to be my partner, then I'm never going to promise monogamy to anyone ever again." There's clearly another way to do it. There are clearly people doing it ethically and without lying.

F: How did you discover those people? Was it in New York or.

Dr. Z: Yeah, it was in New York. I mean, I started my PhD, I started reading and researching and so I found all the terms around swinging and all that. And I had already experienced that, as I mentioned in Berlin, which was about a year or two before I moved to the U.S. uh, that was my stint in Berlin and I had some lovers there that I would go to the sex club in Berlin. And so I knew that that whole subculture existed. And so when I went to the U.S. i was like, I need to find these people because these are my people. And I got on that almost immediately as soon as I.

F: It's not very hard. Like I literally started meeting people from that community the day I arrived in New York City. I mean, it was kind of maybe not normal because I met someone at the airport who introduced me to the Burner community. Like, meaning the Burning Man community. Open minded, uh, sexually open, often, not always community. Like the day I arrived, I met someone who introduced me to everyone and I was just like. Cause I also lived, um, I lived in Amsterdam. I did my undergrad in Amsterdam.

Dr. Z: And where are you from?

F: I'm from Mexico. I'm half Cuban as well. I did my high school in India. So I had kind of lived in many different places and there was not a place where I felt I arrived. And I had like 20 friends already my second day here. It's so easy to make friends here in New York City and there's so many people. Uh, but yeah, anyhow, so, yeah, you found that community when you.

Dr. Z: For us who got lucky. Yeah. New York, I mean, this is a tangent, but New York is interesting. I know a lot of people who have been incredibly lonely here, who've come here and who have not had the luck that we've had to find a community. And New York, if you don't have community, can be a pretty rough place, pretty lonely place to be. And so it's kind of an interesting dichotomy, I think, for different people.

F: But anyway, yeah, definitely, uh, tangent.

Dr. Z: Yeah, so I found the swinger community first and then I kind of connected more with the Burner community and the more poly and kink community. So that was. Once I arrived in New York, really wasn't that hard to find. And it was pretty clear to me. Mean, uh, that was the point, you know, when I was with my ex girlfriend, she would always say, like: "If you really truly love someone, you don't desire other people." And I tried. And she was older than me and when we met, I was I think 19, she was 32 or something like that. I was like, maybe she knows something. I don't know, maybe she's right. But my lived experience of these desires that I had and what happened when I indulged in those desires and how that affected us or really didn't, all of that just was very contradictory. And when I came here, when I kind of started digging a little bit into the literature and reading some of the psychology research, I was like, no, this is clearly we're different. I think that's true for some people and it's not true for other people. And I'm one of those people for whom that's not true. You do desire other people a lot. When even when you love someone a lot. I was like, there is a way to do this that's ethical, that people are okay with, that you can have friends without having to defend these kinds of behaviors every step of the way.

F: Yeah. You didn't have to deal with that stigma that you dealt probably your whole life in Macedonia.

Dr. Z: And even at Cornell, I was dealing with.

F: I mean, there's still that stigma. I mean, I still don't tell everyone I meet about my non-monogamous relationship.

Dr. Z: Right?

F: Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Z: Cornell was very. I mean, America is pretty conservative if it's not New York City. There's a lot of conservative values and lifestyles here. And so I experience, even in college, so much sexism and misogyny around that and slut shaming. So I was experiencing that quite a bit at Cornell. But then I had my New York City, because Cornell and New York are not too far. And I would go to New York party with.

F: Oh my God. That was my experience. I came here to do my Master's in journalism at Columbia. So I live in the Upper west side. Every weekend I would go down to Brooklyn. I would stay at my friend's place. But definitely I was also like having this kind of double life a little bit. Yeah.

Dr. Z: M. Yeah. That's kind of my evolution, I guess, on that front. And I met my husband, ex-husband, at this point in that community, in the New York swinger, Burner community. And from the very beginning, it was negotiated and it's very explicitly negotiated that we would be non-monogamous.

F: Did he have any experience in non- monogamy?

Dr. Z: Yeah, yeah, he had. We had both. Basically at the point that we met, we had both come to the conclusion independently that we are non-monogamous types of people and we've tried monogamy does not work for us. And we were dedicated to finding a non-monogamous partner. And so it was just about figuring out exactly what that non-monogamy was going to look like because there are so many different ways that an open relationship of some sort can go. And that's often something people don't realize when they kind start getting curious about it. It's like: "Oh, I want open relationship, you want open relationship, great. We want the same thing." And you're like um, not necessarily. So that was some adjustment between the two of us in terms of the kind of openness that we wanted. But there was never a question of it being open. And we were open the entire time that we were together, which was about seven or eight years.

F: And what kind of openness did you want that's supposed to him?

Dr. Z: I wanted complete and utter openness.

F: Yeah.

Dr. Z: As open as one can imagine. At least at the time. That's what I was really after. I wanted to. For both of us to be able to have sex with whoever, whenever, however, alone, separately, together, all the ways. And I also didn't have restrictions on like who he could be with or not be with. And he had kind more things that he was uncomfortable with. So in the beginning we went through a period when we had a rule that we would only play separately. We would only play together when we were in the same town and if we wanted to have separate play, that would happen only if we weren't in the same city. Mhm. And we had some rules around disclosure of that stuff. When he wanted to know, he wanted to know only when he was ready to ask as opposed to me just telling him when something has happened. And then there were some restrictions on who I could or could not have sex with. People who were close to him in some way came from his vanilla world or came from some of his other circles that were not from the poly world.

So yeah, we kind of, we tried to figure out what works and try to accommodate as much as possible his needs. I did not do a great job of that throughout the years. I tried, yeah, but I tried. I did not do a great job. But I didn't have a lot of empathy. That's one of the more recent realizations that I've had and um, transformations in a way. I've been developing empathy for the last couple of years. So I would probably, I would do things very differently if I were starting that uh, relationship now. But I think we, we did a fairly good job of communicating and what it is that we respectively needed's just that it's one of those cases where the two people actually want different things.

F: Mhm.

Dr. Z: Different levels or different types of non- monogamy and who gives which because there are not that many solutions very often there's no ideal solution. In those cases, either one person is going to compromise and go to the other person's level, or the other person is going to compromise, sort sacrifice their, whatever it is, uh, that they're sacrificing to move over to the other person's level. You meet somewhere in the middle.

So both people sacrifice something or you go your separate ways caus you're not a good match.

F: Yeah, I feel like it's like even in monogamous relationships there's some sort of sacrifice.

F: Right? In monogamous relationships it might be not to have sex with other people, but even in non-monogamous relationships, like you have to sacrifice some things in order to find that middle ground. I guess. Um, it's always going to be some compromise and some sacrifice.

Dr. Z: Yeah, yeah. And that's often a big conversation and this ongoing discussion to have with your partner at all times, I think who wants what and who's, who's sacrificing what and kind of being aware of that. And sometimes some of us can just have the luxury of being able to sacrifice more than other people. We have more leeway. Right. Like some of us, even though we have our preferred level, we might have quite a bit of flexibility around that preferred level, whereas someone else might not have a lot of flexibility around their preferred level. They might be more rigid and not able to move that much around that.

So all of those things are things that need to be kind of explored, made aware of, acknowledged, negotiated, lifelong skill.

F: Yeah. Um, so I mean, I guess you kind of answered the question that I was going to ask you, which is like, what are some things that you learned in your non-monogamous marriage? Because I kind of wanted to get the personal story before we dive into the research and your professional life, uh, because I'm sure that you've learned different things from experience and then from studying non-monogamy.

Dr. Z: Yeah, absolutely. You learn different things. I mean they're all about the same thing, but they complement each other. They all fill in different pieces of that puzzle. And I learned so much through that relationship. And you also learn so much by being surrounded by other people and negotiating that with all the other people and other partners and talking to clients and working on kind of, um, figuring out their ideal scenarios around this. So all of those things are different sources of knowledge.

F: If you don't mind me asking, why did you eventually break up? I know that it's like a complicated question, but I feel like, uh, Listeners might be wondering, uh, was it because they were non monogamous? You know, I think.

Dr. Z: Our relationship kind of ran its course. It was not because we were non monogamous or anything like that. It was, we'd been together for eight years and I think we were really compatible on many levels and our relationship worked quite well. But I think there was no longer that passion that I really kind of wanted or wanted more of. I don't think, I don't think his needs for affection and closeness were met as well as he would have, uh, liked and. Yeah, so we're good friends.

F: Yeah, I mean, I can imagine that can happen after eight years. That sounds like it's a very normal thing that happens in any, any relationship, type of relationship. Uh, thank you for sharing all of that. So, yeah, so I guess we, uh, can talk about your. More like in your professional life. Uh, you are about to launch a course. It's called Open Smarter. Right.

Dr. Z: Open Smarter.

F: Do you want to give us an overview of what the course is about?

Dr. Z: Sure. The course is already launched up and running. It's an online course that people can take sort of on their own time. It consists of videos and exercises and scales and all this good stuff that's ready for them to engage with it. And there's also going to be a live component, live classroom component, and we will record the live component. So if people missed it, they'll be able to listen to those recordings and see what's happened during the lives as well. But even without the live component, the course is a great course in and of itself. And I think it has a lot of potential to help people make smarter decisions really about their sex and relationship life. The goal of it is to introduce people to the important relationship personality traits. The, the personality traits that we all have that make a difference in what kinds of relationship types are going to work for you or not work for you. In terms, how hard is this going to be, how good of a fit almost certain relationship approaches are for you based on those personality traits and then what to do about that. So it's a deep dive into yourself in a way that informs your relationship decisions.

F: Yeah, I love that because I think that in order to really know what relationship works for you. Yeah. You have to evaluate what your traits are. So, yeah, I guess on that note, I'm going to selfishly, uh, use you right now to maybe explain what some of those traits are and maybe ask me some questions so we can determine where I stand and maybe whether I'm doing my relationship right.

Dr. Z: Oh, My God. All right, we can totally try that. The course goes over basically 12 different important, uh, traits. And it has all these surveys that people can take for each of the traits and then based on where you are kind of low, medium or high, based on these scales, which are all adapted from actual academic research for all the ones that we have scales for, and then all of those kind of inform the differ. So we're not going to go through all of them, but I'm going to ask you about a couple of questions.

F: These ones were the ones that I wanted to know more about. So I'm just gonna tell you guys. Uh, so novelty seeking, social stigma, resilience, pleasure capacity and infatuation susceptibility. I think that probably social stigma resilience is pretty self explanatory. But you know, one that I was like really curious about, pleasure capacity. I was like: "Wow, are some people more able to enjoy pleasure than other people?" Is that.

Dr. Z: Yeah.

F: True?

Dr. Z: Well, we are all built differently, right? Our bodies are built differently physiologically, biologically. And then we all have very different levels of or types of experiences with pleasure at any point, you know, how old are you?

F: 26.

Dr. Z: 26. Uh, you have 26 years of interacting with your body in certain ways that create pleasure or not create pleasure, context that youve learned about what is pleasurable, what is not pleasurable, where can you get pleasure, who can you get pleasure from, which types of factors need to be happening in the environment for you to get pleasure, for you to become, uh, and when I talk about pleasure in this course, and you can certainly take this more broadly or more narrowly, but the way I define it in the course is a combination of how easily you become aroused, physiologically aroused, how quickly and easily versus how quickly and easily you become inhibited, and then also the ease of orgasm, how easily and quickly one can orgasm. And we vary on that so much. Uh, there are people who get it turned on, basically the drop of the hat. Someone looks at you the right way in a sexy way and you might start to feel your body getting aroundous.

F: I mean, as you were saying, when you see someone you want to have sex with, you just want to touch in their abs, like you feel it. Yes, I understand that.

Dr. Z: So you have people like that and then you have people who need quite a bit before they get going. Everything has to be right. There's got to be the right type of person, the right kind of connection or this.

F: Yeah, and actually, uh, I'm sure you've read the commas. You are book uh, she talks about that. I'll link it in the show notes. Um, y.

Dr. Z: Exactly. Yeah. So Emily Nagaski's book "Come as You Are: the bestselling guide to the new science that will transform your sex life" exactly talks about this component of pleasure capacity, the sexual arousability and inhibition that different people have. And so. And then on top of that, you also have this orgasmic capacity. Some of us can come immediately. I had a partner who you barely touched her. It's been 30 seconds maybe of providing some sort of stimulation, and she's coming all over the place. And then she would come 20 times a session. I thought I was highly orgasmic, but when I met that woman, I was like, okay, clearly I'm not anywhere near the pro levels of this. Know. And then you have people who don't orgasm at all. Right.

F: And how does that relate to what kind of relationship you'd like to have?

Dr. Z: Okay, so actually, tell me where you are first.

F: Okay. Um, I definitely think that I'm more on the hornier side. Um, yeah. Uh, I don't know.

Dr. Z: Your body get aroused.

F: I mean, I get aroused. Arsal is not really an issue. But the actual. Having an orgasm might take a little while. And normally I don't orgasm more than once or twice. I'm working on it. But the feeling aroused or feeling horny, just like by looking at someone or having an interaction with someone, uh, that happens very easily.

Dr. Z: Are you. Do you feel that with people that you're not kind of emotionally attached to and committed to, or do you need to have some level of emotional connection with the person?

F: No, I actually think that sometimes it might be even the opposite. It's easier for me to feel aroused, uh, with someone that I might not know as well. So I can fantasize. And it's kind of a novel. Uh, I definitely think that when, you know, read that novelty seeking was one of the traits. I was like: "Wow, I feel like I'm very strong on that too," you know?

Dr. Z: Yeah, yeah, you're in my camp on my side of, um, both of those traits. So say novelty seeking, which is this trait of how much we're drawn new to new. New, shiny new, shiny things, people, objects, experiences. Just new. Right. Our brains are literally. Our brains are different from the people who want less novelty. Our brains need more stimulation in order to kind of keep us engaged. Whereas that same level of stimulation to someone with lower novelty seeking is going to be overwhelming. It's going to be too much. It's going to be like, ah, no, give me less. Give me familiar. If familiar feels comfortable, new often feels scary. Whereas the People who are on the novelty seeking side. Novel feels exciting. The new. The fact that you don't know is kind of the excitement. Do you feel that?

F: Yeah, 100%. And I actually, and this is another thing that I wanted to talk to you about. Um, one of the things I worry is that that trait can actually hurt people because I can very easily feel attracted towards someone and not only in a sexual way because I do like to, to become friends with the people that I have sex with. But um, I might very quickly. It's not like I don't want to continue having sex with that person necessarily, but I might find another person and then that person calls my attention and there's like limited time. So how do you balance that? And I think that I read somewhere in your website, uh, the infatuation susceptibility as well. How do you manage all these relationships when you feel so much or want so much one new things all the time.

Dr. Z: That's such a great question. And yeah, we do sometimes get in trouble because of these things. We end up kind of hurting people or kind of hurting their feelings a little bit when we get sort of distracted away more quickly than they do. But. So, uh, and I'll answer that question but, but thinking about how are these relevant, these traits? If you're a high novelty seeker, chances are monogamy, it'not gonna be the right fit for you. It's just not. You can, if you have amazing impulse control, which some people do. I know some people.

F: But who wants to live like that? Like repressing all your impulses, Know. And a lot of people do.

Dr. Z: A lot of people do that. And you know what, if that's what you want to choose, that's why another trait that I go over, it's less of a trait, it's more our values. Like what are your values? That's important too. Ifyou for some reason think that, look, I'm going to make the sacrifice and I'm okay with making that sacrifice because X, Y or Z because my religion says so or my family says so, or because I have this partner who I really love and I want to stay with them forever, so I'm going to repress my desires for novelty. If that's the decision you want to make, by all means, you know, you should have the freedom to make it. It's a difficult decision to make though. It's not easy to live with that repression long term. Maybe you can find ways to channel it in some other creative outlets or some other way. But. But if you're making that decision, just know that you're setting yourself up for a harder path. So that's the thing with the course and all these traits. You can have whatever kind of relationship you want with whatever kinds of traits you want. You can. It's just going to be harder in some types than in other types.

F: Right.

Dr. Z: So if you're a high sexual novelty seeker, especially monogamy is going to be really hard. There's a very high chance you're going to cheat. There's a very high chance you're going to be frustrated and unsatisfied. And I would highly recommend for people who are high novelty seeking to seek out some sort of non-monogamy. It doesn't have to be all the way, it doesn't have to be orgies every weekend, but some way to incorporate flexibility and uh, openness. Pleasure capacity is kind of a little different that often I think of that as being very useful in directing who you end up having sex with. Like if you're one of those people who gets aroused very easily and very quickly and has no trouble orgasming, uh, you're going to have a lot more fun having casual sex in all sorts of unusual settings. Then uh, then if you are someone who needs a lot more. And so I think for the people who need more time, more connection, more perfect environment, like the music has to be right, the lighting has to be right. You know, some of us are much more sensitive to all of those things. Probably people that you know a little better that you feel more connected to and maybe more of either one on one scenario or uh, yeah, people that you feel closer and in setups that are more predictable might be better. So I think that kind of that trade gives you a different dimension, a look into a different dimension in, in terms of what types. Regardless of whether it's going to be monogamy or non-monogamy, it's more about.

F: The type of sex or relationship with your sexualareness that you want to have.

Dr. Z: Right. So you might, maybe poly would be better for you because that's more about having longer term kind of relationships with people who you get to know as opposed to the super casual swinging type relationships where it might be some strangers that you're fucking and which might be fun on other levels but you might not have as much sexual pleasure out of that then in some other more familiar setting.

F: Right, yeah, that all sounds great. So I guess let's talk about real quick infatuation, susceptibility because. So I'm gonna tell you more about my relationship, which I don't think that, I mean, you're writing, uh, in the things that you are pointing to. I have a non- monogamous relationship. I'm definitely high in the novelty seeking. My partner, on the other hand, is not, uh, so so far, uh, he's not completely close to the idea, but so far he's monogamous. And I think that's one of the reasons why, uh, and when you said it, he's very much like. He likes um, things that he knows and I like things that I don't know. And the unknown is very attractive to me. But yeah, I guess that in my situation I like to have sexual partners that I'm also friends with. I've never actually had another boyfriend or another partner, but I did have, uh, a situation in which I was catching feelings for someone. And at that point I thought maybe that's fine. Maybe I do want to have two partners eventually or whatever. But afterwards I just kind of realized that because of the novelty seeking aspect and also because time and also seeing my friends in really polyamorous relationships, I'm starting to figure out that that might not be all the way from me. So I feel like I'm kind of in between an open relationship and a, uh, polyamorous m relationship. Because what I want is to have friends with benefits kind of thing. So then well, one of my questions I already alluded to, which was how do you deal with that when your friends might catch feelings for you? Even though they know that I have a primary partner, but I don't want to hurt them. Also, what if I catch feelings when I don't want to catch feelings? Cause it just gets messy and I don't want that. So do you have any tips for that?

Dr. Z: Yeah. So one of the things is infatuation hits some of us more than other people. So that's again another trait that we vary on. How easily do you get infatuated?

F: I think that now, with time, I've come to realize that it might just be infatuation. Like I come back from a festival or whatever and I, um, have all the feels. But a week later I might not feel the same way. Right. So now I'm realizing that even though I might be susceptible to it, it doesn't last. On the other hand, it also happens that I do not fall for my friends and they fall for me. So it really does depend on the person. Um, there's been very few times that I've fallen past the first week that I still have feelings after that, you know.

Dr. Z: Yeah, you sound like you're pretty low actually. Or you on the low side of infatuation. Maybe not all the way down, but yeah. So some of us are just a lot more susceptible to it and it holds on to us for a lot longer. And so you might have more issues around trying to manage other people's infatuation with you as opposed to the other way around. Infatuation happens at least sometimes even for us who are relatively low on it. And I'm also relatively low on it. Takes me a while and I don't get infatuate with most people. I'd had sex with hundreds and hundreds of uh, people and I've only got infatuated with, I don't know, you can count them on probably two hands in my entire life. But still, it can happen to us too. And there are ways to manage it. And most of those ways have to do with limiting to some extent the intimacy that you have with those folks. So limiting the amount of time you spend with them, limiting how often you see the same person, how affectionate that time is, spending the night together versus leaving after having sex, having breakfast in the morning and cuddling versus obviously not doing any of those things. There are also distractions. Having a rotation of partner partners often helps and especially when it's about you and your own infatuation. And what helps me often is going through the list of red flags, the things that I. Because infatation is funny. When those feelings start to creep up on us, uh, we lose all objectivity. We have this rose colored lens that just drops over our eyes and we tend to see only the positives and downplay the negatives. And even if we see some negatives, we're like, oh, it's not that big of a deal, know, yeah, he's an alcoholic, uh, it's okay, you know, figure. And so what I tried to do in the few times when I was like, oh, this is probably not a good idea, I should not be catching feelings for this person, but it's happening is reminding myself, looking for those signs and then being very, very cognitively aware and uh, intentional about telling myself, nope, this is not going to work, this is really not going to work. This cannot work long term. What you said earlier was really on point. It really depends on the person. Even for the people who are not super highly susceptible, there will be that one woman, guy, whatever, or those couple of people that will do that for us. And so knowing yourself and kind of playing with that, depending on how far you want to let those feelings go. So if, you know, oh, with this person, it's probably going to take me that direction. If I let go and do all the things that I would normally do with other partners. For me, as someone relatively low on infatuation susceptibility, I could easily spend a really passionate night together and cuddle and have breakfast and shower in the morning and all that and then say goodbye and be like, I'll see you in a month. Right. So you can do those kinds of things and gaze into each other's eyes and talk about our, uh, fears and dreams. I could do all those things. And if that wasn't someone that I was interested in more than just sexually, if I was just like, we're friends with benefits, I could easily do that. But every now and then you meet someone who you're like: "Oh, shit, yeah, I can't. If we spend the night and do all that with you, I can just maybe come over, fuck, leave, and that's it."

F: So that's your advice to, um, limit that. If I find someone that, uh, I do catch feelings for and that's not the kind of thing that I want, just cut it off a little bit or, uh, restricted.

Dr. Z: Restricting it. Yeah. And mixing in other people, having kind of distractions. I mean, ultimately, if nothing helps, you kind of have to stop seeing that person altogether. But yeah, there are some of these ways to kind of limit, restrict on the managing other people's infatuation. There is some shared responsibility in that regard, I would say. I think the, the majority of the responsibility is on that person. On, um, the person who's catching feelings. The responsibility on your side is to be very clear and communicate what you are and aren't available for. And in theory that would be enough. And in theory everybody would just listen to that and follow those rules. But obviously doesn't happen. So I think then becomes kind of a negotiation of how much help they want from you in preventing their infatuation and whether you can trust them for them to take care of themselves. But it's the same set of strategies. If they don't want to limit, then you limit it for them.

F: Yeah, right.

Dr. Z: Like, no, we're only gonna see each other once a month or once every two months or whatever it is. And no, we're not going to spend the night together.

F: Yeah.

Dr. Z: And those are the behavioral strategies that you can do on your end. Obviously you can't make. Them remind themselves of all the negatives that you have. Uh, that's on them.

F: Yeah. You can be responsible for other people. And I find that now it's easier because I have a boyfriend. So that's ah, a very clear message that they really cannot get. But before I was in a committed relationship, I still just wanted friends with benefits with most people and they could catch feelings for me and then I could end up being the bitch and the slot and all those things. So those are all great tips. Well, we're running out of time and I want to be mindful, so I'm just gonna throw my questions to you, uh, so you can take whatever time we have left to respond. Um, yeah. So those are tips. Kind of like for me, you know, in my situation, I'm lucky enough that I have a partner who understands that the fact that I want non monogamy doesn't mean that he wants to have it. I know that's very uncommon, especially given the fact that he's a man and I'm a woman and society looks at it like he's crazy or I'crazy or we're both crazy. Um, but what happens, uh, to people who might need different types of relationships and their partners that might not be okay with that?

Dr. Z: We really are different in the needs that we have, which is why I highly recommend to people to have that conversation from the beginning, early on, before things get very serious. I think people should have the conversation of the kinds of relationship in terms of monogamy, not monogamy they're going to want in the near future and what they expect will happen in the more distant future if things are still going well between us. And even if they don't want the same thing, are they going to be okay with, uh, each person having what they need? Because very often people, when they open up, they think it has to be the same and it really doesn't. Like, you're a perfect example of that each. The ideal scenario is where every person gets what they need from that relationship and are hopefully okay with what their partner needs, even if it's something different. And if you're not on the same page, then there are no ideal solutions. As I said earlier, the options really, uh, there are four options pretty much. You break up and goip your separate ways and find someone who wants something closer. Yours okay with what you want. You restrict your repress your desires for what you want so that you get your partner what they want. Your partner represses their desires so that they can get you what you want. Or you both repress parts of your desires to meet halfway.

F: Those are really the fourions I think Ah, that for the option is what my partner and I have been doing. We both sacrificed a little bit, like, to kind of meet in the middle. Um, yeah, and it's been good because, uh, it's very rare that you find someone that wants exactly what you want.

Dr. Z: Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. And so if you can have some flexibility around that, I think that really helps. And flexibility is one of those traits that actually matters quite a bit. And how are you going toa go about this?

F: Yeah, well, thank you so much for that. Why don't you tell us about what you have going on with your uncesored talks and anything else? Um, how people can connect with you?

Dr. Z: Sure. They can find all information about me at my, uh, website, https://drzhana.com/, which I'm sure you'll link to. Uh, if they're interested in learning about themselves and Open Smarter they should obviously come take the course. And then I have this ongoing series of conversations that I have with people from all over the world called Uncensored with Dr. Zhana, where we discuss all sorts of topics about sex and relationships in a way that's open, honest, uncensored. It's not a presentation, it's not a talk. It's basically me having a conversation with whoever is in the room and people can engage as much or as little as they want. So far we've talked about open relationships, casual sex, squirting, the gray area of consent, of sexual consent, sex work. We're talking about threesomes, we're going to talk about jealousy, anal. I want to talk about everything. I created an Uncensored because I felt like we're missing these long format, open, uncensored conversations where we can ask each other anything and everything about all of these topics and be in the same room, be present in the same room with people who have very different experiences from you. And also at the same time, you get to be in the room with people who share the same kinds of fears and interests and desires and experiences. And so very often people say, this really helped me feel less alone. And if they can't be there live, we also make the recordings, the audio recordings available afterwards. And we're in the process of creating a shorter podcast version of that as well. Well, thank you so much for this. I really enjoyed i.I'm going back home with a lot of tips and things to talk about. And I mean, just in general, thank you for the work you do.

Thank you. This is super fun. I'm glad we got to do this.

F: Well, I hope you guys got out of this episode as much as I did because I learned so much. I really love Dr. Zhana's work and mission, so if you feel like you could benefit from her work like I did, please check out her course Open Smarter or the, uh, Uncensored Conversations which, uh, are both linked in our show notes. But even if you don't, I hope you take from her this idea that everyone is unique and uh, that what works for you might not be what works for other people. If you like this episode and feel like someone could benefit from it, please share it. And if you want to reach out our Instagram is Polycurious podcast and our mail is polycuriouspodcast@gmail.com can't wait to hear from you guys and see you all next week.