After finding Sainsbury's & obtaining bread and juice, I went to the Ethical Non-Monogamy workshop, where I met
skibbley and djm4 and a few other people I already knew. In small groups we discussed a number of non-monogamy scenarios and what should be done if a person was to find themselves in that situation. Lots of "Danger, Will Robinson!" and "Red flag, red flag!" references were made at certain points. Although some of the situations we thought were possibly not a problem at all - like, for example, Scenario 4: D & E. D & E have an open relationship but no other partners at present. D has a low libido due to some health problems (unspecified) and wants to encourage E to have sex with someone else (no one specific). E is tempted.
We thought that it could be possible that D thought there was a problem due to feeling guilty about not wanting sex, or that D felt pressurised to have sex when they didn't want it, or that D felt that E was missing out - but E might actually be perfectly happy to have solo sex only plus snuggling with D - or that it wasn't sex with other people E was missing so much as sex with D, so adding other people to the equation might not help. Also, what happens if the relationship between E & the other person/people stops being purely sex-focused, and became more of a romantic relationship - could D feel jealous about that? Might D feel the urge to have other partners as well, and not know how to go about negotiating "Yes, I would like to have a romantic relationship with you, but not a sexual one"? And what happens if D's libido comes back?
Scenario 8 about X, Y and Z was the one that hit all my buttons: X & Y have been together for six months and have been discussing having an open relationship for this time. Y meets Z and gets involved. X feels much worse about the situation than they thought they would. What should they do?
Ye-es... having been the Z in that situation, and having had both Y & Z but also X & Y's relationships fall apart to the extent that none of us are talking to each other any more, I did feel strongly about that. We all saw a lot of warning signs there.
Another interesting scenario involved J & K being partners who live together and K also having a lover L, and the neighbours thinking that K is cheating on J and feeling sorry for J. The answer to this one involving "well, how out do you want to be?".
You will not be surprised to learn that there were no scenarios that involved less communication between parties involved ;)
After that, I had thought about going to the interesting-sounding Sexuality & Identity workshop, about different sexual & gender identities available in various cultures, but I was too tired for another serious
Following that was a Plenary, where arrangements about workshop movements and meals were made, then I did reception desk for an hour, some of which featured chatting with
barakta. Then the trike & I went to the excellent vegan restaurant Mono with 36 & some others. I had steamed vegetables with brown rice for a main course - intentionally, very low-fat & healthy - then vegan cheesecake with chocolate fudge sauce and vanilla ice cream for dessert! Mmmm. I tell you, I haven't had a chocolate sauce that rich and fudgey since I had to stop eating dairy all those years ago. I must find out how they made it! They also had a small shop where I obtained Montezuma's chocolate and vegan bacon. In the evening was a showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show with actors, which could have been entirely generic, un-inspired BiCon entertainment - but actually, the acting troupe were very, very good. They were called Doctor Scott's Extra Forks - their costumes were spectacular, and they were all very well-suited to their roles. I just hope I didn't offend the lady playing Frank by refusing to dance with her, but I was entirely out of leg-spoons by that point. Soya hot chocolate with vanilla syrup, chatting with
skibbley, and snuggling with artremis also occured. 