Dear Pleasure Activists, 

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There is something profoundly psychedelic about unlearning monogamy.

 

I say that as someone trained in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, where we speak about paradigm dissolution. In those journeys, reality does not flip all at once. The structures that once organized your world loosen slowly. What felt unquestionably true reveals itself as constructed. The ground shifts beneath you. Sometimes gently. Sometimes disorientingly.

 

Coming into non-monogamy from the systems that shaped us makes that shift especially intense.

 

Most of us were not raised in neutral relational ecosystems. We were raised inside puritanical, colonized, patriarchal frameworks that taught us love equals ownership. That sexuality must be contained to be worthy. That devotion is proven through restriction. These systems did not just give us ideas. They shaped our nervous systems. They organized our reflexes.

 

So when we step into non-monogamy, we are not simply choosing a different structure.

 

We are attempting to unlearn a worldview embedded for generations.

 

We are not just unlearning personal habits.

We are metabolizing centuries of ownership logic in our bodies.

 

Of course it is hard.

 

Of course red flags do not turn green overnight.

 

The shift is slow. Layered. Sometimes funny in hindsight and intense in real time.

 

I see this every fall when the Pleasure Liberation: Non-Monogamy Program begins.

 

The transformation does not happen because someone memorizes new rules or reads another book. It happens because people sit together and say, “This is what happened in my body,” and someone else replies, “Yes. Mine too.”

 

We laugh.

We cry.

We get curious together.

 

And slowly, the compass begins to rotate.

 

One of the most consistent red-to-green flag journeys I witness is around sexual history.

 

Early in the group, someone will reference their past sexual history with caution still in their voice. You can hear the residue of purity culture. The reflex to minimize the numbers. To brace for judgment.

 

In monogamous conditioning, sexual experience is coded as a red flag. It signals instability, impurity, too muchness.

 

That coding does not dissolve in a single conversation. It dissolves in rooms where stories are met with tenderness instead of scrutiny, something begins to soften.

 

Over weeks, sometimes months, sexual experience starts to read differently.

 

Not as contamination. But as fluency.

 

As familiarity with bodies. As artistic skill. As practice with consent, pacing, negotiation, rupture, repair. As someone shaped by relational encounters rather than sheltered from them.

 

And then, one day, someone laughs, “Gosh, I didn’t realize how much shame I was holding.”

 

And the room understands exactly that felt sense in their own bodies.

 

That is shame metabolizing in community.

 

Being close with an ex follows a similar arc. In earlier conditioning, that detail alone can activate scarcity scripts, competition narratives, unfinished business fears.

 

Inside monogamous frameworks, connection with an ex is a glaring red flag.

 

Inside non-monogamous maturity, it often becomes green.

 

But that green emerges gradually.

 

Sometimes in the program that fear of partners intimacy with an ex enters the room with tension in the voice and bracing in the body, and months later it’s spoken with steadiness.

 

The story hasn’t changed. The nervous system has. The same detail that once triggered panic begins to feel like proof of emotional maturity.

 

The capacity to move through rupture without annihilation.

The capacity to reorganize intimacy without burning it down.

The capacity to tolerate discomfort without reaching for erasure.

 

The fear does not disappear overnight.

 

It loosens through shared reflection.

 

Learning that your partner has had sex with someone already in your relational world carries this same gradual inversion.

 

In earlier conditioning, that information can trigger territorial reflexes. It can feel like contamination. Like ownership disrupted.

 

Inside the group, we do not shame that reflex.

 

We get curious about it.

 

We laugh gently at how predictable it is. We trace its roots. We name how deeply colonized our relational instincts can be.

 

And then, over time, something steadier surfaces.

 

The same information begins to read as vetting.

 

As evidence of someone who has navigated relational ecosystems before. Someone who knows how to communicate across complexity. Someone who can hold care across multiple bonds without secrecy or collapse.

 

It signals a shared trust in the relational field.

 

A trust that creates safety. A safety that enhances exploration. The kind of safety that makes it possible to move closer to our erotic edges with care, presence, and pleasure.

 

Because when trust is embodied, pleasure expands.

 

What once activated panic begins to land as steadiness. The body has learned that safety and freedom can coexist.

 

And then there are the green flags that quietly turn red.

 

Possessiveness once felt intoxicatingly passionate. Jealousy once read as devotion. Control once masqueraded as commitment. These were praised inside monogamous scripts. They were proof that you mattered.

 

Inside non-monogamous integration, they begin to constrict.

 

This one often brings group members to tears. Someone will say, almost surprised, “I used to crave that. Now it just makes my chest feel way too tight. I can't do it anymore”

 

And the room nods.

 

That earlier version of us was doing the best it could with the maps it had. Over time, the body learns something new.

 

Surveillance is not safety.

Restriction is not intimacy.

Love that breathes feels entirely different from love that grips.

 

This is why I call this journey psychedelic. It is a 180-degree reorientation of meaning.

 

And that kind of reorientation is not meant to be done alone.

 

Transformation happens through belonging.

Through shared wisdom.

Through shared tenderness.

Through shared exploration.

 

We remember how intense it once felt. We honor that. And, we keep integrating together.

 

Capacity grows faster in community.

Paradigm shifts settle more gently when witnessed.

Pleasure stabilizes when it is mirrored.

 

If you are in the middle of this inversion, you are not broken.

 

You are metabolizing a new map.

 

Your Pleasure Practice:

 

Journal Practice:
Where in your non-monogamous journey have you felt a slow red-to-green flag shift? Where have you noticed an old green flag beginning to constrict instead?

 

Somatic Practice:
Bring to mind a relational trigger that once felt overwhelming. Notice how your body responds now. Where is there even a millimeter more space than before?

 

Relational Practice:
With someone who shares this paradigm, name one inversion you have lived through. Let yourselves honor how real it felt then and how differently it lands now.

 

As you move through your relationships this week, notice where you feel the pull toward spaces where your desire, curiosity, and tenderness can be held and how trust makes it possible to explore further than you could on your own.

​

Sending All My Love,

Dr. Nicole

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Dr. Nicole Thompson

Sex and Relationship Psychotherapist

Psychedelic-Assisted Liberation 

Clinical Psychology