Open All the Way: Confessions from My Open Marriage

By Kendra Holliday | July 1, 2011

I first learned about Sadie Smythe when she was featured in the sex blogger calendar that rejected me for being “too controversial.” Her calendar debut was the first time she associated her face with her website. I’ve been impressed with her classy confessional blog ever since.

Most recently, Sadie was the sex blogger correspondent who covered the ~SEX~ portion of ideaCity last month, which featured me, kissing expert Sheril Kirshenbaum, and Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships authors Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha.

It’s rare for sex blogger moms (our daughters are almost the same age!) to fully integrate, associating their identities with their online personas. At first, you hide behind the safety of the screen, but when you become bigger than it, and you’re on stage and pushing more boundaries, you start to eclipse it, absorb it, merging your sexual side with your citizen side.

This is what I have done.

This is what Sadie is doing.

As if she wasn’t confessing ENOUGH on her blog, Sadie has dug even deeper into her sexual psyche to piece her dizzying journey together in the form of this ebook: Open All the Way: Confessions from My Open Marriage (if you prefer a print version, they’ll be available for order soon on her site for $14.99).

I figured she’d slowly ease her readers into her incredible life, but no, she shocked me on the very first page. Immediately, I learned new things about her, and was not prepared for her brutal honesty. You know how people usually wait for their loved ones to die before dishing all the salacious dirt? Not Sadie. She changes names and puts it out there.

She rocks the vulnerability, is liberal with the word “fuck,” and right away packs a punch by tackling the tricky subject of children and sexuality, pointing out that children are NOT asexual. She describes her first orgasm, which happened before age 10. Can you guess what her first sex toy was? I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t a boring white vibrator like mine was, which helped me have my first orgasm when I was 19.

I assumed she would paint a porn fairy tale of her illustrious sex career, but was impressed at how she refused to sugarcoat things, knowing it would help others feel better about their weaknesses. She revealed her issues coping with her lack of sex drive after giving birth, as well as her debilitating struggle with leaky gut syndrome that hijacked two years of her life. Her husband remained faithful to her throughout those trying times, despite her admitted transgressions in other points of their relationship. On that subject, she boldly states:

Every relationship we have with someone, be it sexual or emotional like with lovers and spouses, or platonic and transcendent, as with friends, colleagues or peers, each one has the ability to teach us something. But we have to allow it. Part of why we are here—that I believe anyway, for whatever the fuck that’s worth—is to learn things about ourselves and about each other through the connections that we form. And to be denied this opportunity because [our society] came up with this whacked-out theory that only one person is meant for each of us—which incidentally was conceptualized in an effort to bolster the success of heterosexual marriage and commitment—is completely tragic.

You learn a lot about non-monogamy reading this book, but along with the words of wisdom is plenty of what NOT to do in regards to non-monogamy. Let Sadie learn some things the hard way for you, ok?

Like reality television

Once I started reading her book, I couldn’t stop spying on her. I never knew what would happen next. At one point she mentions how sometimes she wished they could just chill and watch reality television. I’m thinking, honey you ARE reality television! Sometimes she puts Desperate Housewives to shame, I kid you not.

Reading it made me want to pursue this guy harder that I’ve been interested in for a while. And I kept finding threads I had in common with her weaving in and out of the stuff that was out of my scope.

For instance, she receives this amazing fantasy massage that’s complete with a happy ending, and I could happily relate to that. She also meets a bunch of men via Craigslist, which I have done as well, except I was getting paid $300/hr as an escort. Some of the stories are similar to my controversial “Whore Journal” series that ran on SexIs. I have to admit, I was sitting there reading it, thinking, she could have made SO much money… then again, for some people there’s a big difference between the word slut and the word whore.

I’ve heard of many men getting addicted to Craigslist, but haven’t heard about it from a woman’s perspective before. One of the stories that sticks in my mind like a wriggling fly on flypaper is the one featuring a guy with nasty toenails and an A-frame house. I’m glad she got out of that one alive. Yep, plenty of good, bad, and ugly.

I loved her observations from a BDSM dungeon party. She never understand the allure of BDSM until she got to witness true love, BDSM-style, firsthand:

…After he had been pounding her bare ass until it was red and welted and she was shrieking with both agony and felicity, he wrapped his free hand around her neck and pulled her face towards him so that he could kiss her—tenderly—in what might have been the most intimate display of caring affection and nurturing adoration I had seen in a very long time.

And I realized that it must take guts, lots of guts, as well as a strong sense of self and a heaping handful of respect, to be able to strap a person we love to a cross and beat the crap out of their ass simply because they want us to. Or because, it gets us off. Or both.

She’s an amazing writer.

I was surprised to learn her mom knows about her blog, has read it, and accepts her for who she is. My dad is the same way, so it was nice to know others in the older generation being able to work past preconceived notions and trust their children in their search for happiness and fulfillment.

Sadie reminds me a bit of a local poly mom named Charlotte Times – they both have wild dating adventures that leave me feeling a little carsick. It’s insane how harshly I’m judged when I read about their travails. I couldn’t keep up with the obstacle course full of ups and downs they navigate!

I highly recommend Sadie’s book. She has ovaries of steel for laying the truth out like this for everyone to greedily devour. I know how exhausting it can be to be so fucking honest.

Leave a Comment

Please see the Community Policy for comment guidelines and rules.

YouTube RSS

Archives

Twitter

WordPress › Error

There has been a critical error on this website.

Learn more about troubleshooting WordPress.