Endless Thread - Cupcake

Episode Date: January 17, 2019

Chris and Kim have been married for 13 years and things have been going really, really well. So well, in fact, that they wondered... what's next? Their answer: consensual non-monogamy. They think of their additional sexual partners as "cupcakes," sweet additions to the healthy, hearty "meal" that is their marriage.

Support for Endless Thread comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink Software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at Mathworks.com. Support for WBUR comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Merotra Institute at Boston University that explores questions like, why is innovation in healthcare so hard? Is ESG just greenwashing? And, of course, is business broken? Listen, wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, folks, just a heads up. There are some very sexually explicit conversation coming your way in this episode.

So be prepared. Or if that's not your jam, we've got plenty more episodes for you to check out. Jump into the feed. Do it. Produced by the I-Lab at WBUR, Boston. You be rolling? Clearly, we're a little punchy right now. Clearly.

It's because we're about to start an interview at 9 p.m. There is a reason. We'll get to it. For now, let's just say that this particular day last September was a long one for Team Endless Thread. All right, what are we doing? We're going to go talk to Chris and Kim, aka MV, couple on reddy couple.

Mm-hmm. There they are. That's a very... I think I just saw Kim through the window. That is like, when I look at that, I see suburbia. Well, that's where we are.

We're in the Merrimack Valley of Massachusetts. So for people who aren't familiar with that, we're north of Boston by about an hour. And we're going to go talk to them. Cool. Hopefully their kids are asleep. That's the idea. They wouldn't talk to us until they're going.

kids were guaranteed to be asleep. So we're starting the interview after 9 p.m. This point was non-negotiable. And the reason Chris and Kim wanted their kids asleep for our conversation is because we were there to talk about their sex life, which, as it turns out, is very negotiable within a certain set of rules. I'm not looking for a pen pal. I'm not looking for a new friend.

I've got standards. Is this explicitly about the same thing? sex or is part of the attraction hanging out with other people? No, it's just about the sex. Yeah, for me, it's about the sex. I'm Ben Brock Johnson. I'm Amory Sebertson, and you're listening to Endless Thread, the show featuring stories found on Reddit.

One does not walk into our show without saying how it is made. We are coming to you from Boston's NPR station, WBUR. Emery, you came up with the name for this episode. Cupcake. And that will make sense. a bit, but we should start where this story came from on Reddit. It came from the R for R for R for R community. R for R for R for R forditor for Reditor. Really, there's a kind of set of R for R for our for communities. There's the main one. And then there's one for Boston.

There's one for New York. So many more. There's R for R for Midwest. Florida R for R for R. Trol for troll. No idea what that one is. R for R for furry. I know what that one is. Oh, boy. Okay. R for R is a resource for all kinds of Redditors. Looking for all kinds of things. It's described by moderators as, quote, the de facto Reddit community for people meeting people for almost anything. Students looking for study buddies, musicians looking to start a band, marriage prospects, TV and movie watching together, friends with benefits, meme sharing, poetry sharing, but a good amount of what goes on here is some form or another of hooking up. There's a set of rules for the subreddit, which include things like don't offer sex for money.

Don't be homophobic. or racist or sexist. If you're posting something that's not safe for work, tag it not safe for work. Suffice it to say it's kind of a big old stew of stuff on our for R. And we found a post from people specifically looking to explore consensual non-monogamy. What does that mean exactly?

We're about to find out. We made it. We made it. We made it. We're not that hard to find. Hi, Ben. Chris, I'm Amory. Nice to finally meet you.

Nice to meet you, yeah. Thanks for having us. Chris and Kim live in a duplex. It's cozy. The living room is bursting with toys, a well-adorned refrigerator. There's a plaque on the wall that reads, remember, as far as anyone knows, we're a nice, normal family. And when you first sit down with Chris and Kim,

you'd have zero reason to think otherwise. Kim works in accounting, Chris in tech support. They have two kids, both in grade school. They've been married for 13 years. How did you two meet? Well, actually, we met through our respective siblings. My sister and his brother were dating, and so we just kind of happened to know each other, and we hated each other.

A whole lot. A whole lot. Yeah, like despised might be a little underwhelming for describing how we felt about each other. Why did you despise each other? Well, Chris was an asshole. I am an asshole. Chris was married when they met, and he didn't get along with his wife, so he wasn't very generous in how he'd talk about her around Kim,

which made him seem like, well, an asshole. But that marriage ended, time passed, things changed. It was actually really gradual. There was one evening I had just moved into his apartment complex, I think one floor up. Yeah, directly above me, actually. And he dropped by to say, hi and he saw me and all I had was a box that I was sitting on and I was eating a bowl of chips and milk. That was my dinner and I was watching TV and he thought I could do better for a dinner

and so he invited me down to his apartment and he made me chicken stir fry. And he had an extra couch and he's like, you can take my extra couch and he started kind of hanging out after that. Like most long-term relationships, Chris and Kim admit that theirs has been up and down? There are a lot of times that we were kind of out of sync, especially after we had kids, the focus really moved to, you know, we have to take care of the kids, and we neglected our marriage. And we've been to counseling, and we've come back together, and we've kind of decided to experience life together, new things together, and that's really cemented our foundation.

One of the new things they recently decided to experience together? About, I don't know, six months ago, the idea of a threesome came up, and I'm not by at all, so I kind of turned that down really fast. But I was always kind of wondering, you know, is this something that Chris is interested in? And we started talking about it more and more. And I said, I don't want a threesome right now. but maybe we could talk about nominogamy. He's like, okay, talk about it.

And we talked about it for a really long time to make sure that it was something that we would both be comfortable with and not just something we're saying. Was there an instigator here, or is it fair to say that one of you was kind of more interested in branching out from your current, what at the time was your current arrangement? No, I don't think so.

It was more along the lines of, we had been so low in how the relationship was going, and we had grown it all the way up to so high. We were kind of at a point where, like, what's next? What was next was Tinder, Bumble, setting up profiles looking for playmates, as Chris and Kim call them. Which led to frustration, letdowns, and ghosting. Kim got upset.

She was like, I don't know if I want to do this anymore. This is heartbreaking. This is ridiculous. I was having terrible luck on Tinder, and so I was kind of branching out into, you know, maybe Reddit. I'd heard good things from someone I had chatted to about finding someone or Reddit, and that's where I said, how about you let me make a Reddit post? Let's see what happens.

So they did. To the Boston R4R community. Hello out there, Redditors. 36-year-old married black female in a non-monogamous relationship. Husband and I are both under this account. We are looking for friends with benefits individually, so don't worry. About me. 36 light chocolate skin, big soft ass was...

Okay, you get the picture, but what you might not be able to tell is that this post was actually written by Chris. Kim says it's because he's more eloquent, but really, who better than your own husband to brag about your physical attributes? The post also laid down some rules. If you're married and cheating or otherwise need a discreet relationship, I'm not the lady for you, and please remember that. I'm a lady first. My husband is 100% aware of my actions, both here and on Tinder and Bumble.

He's got at least one post out there for himself as well. There are no secrets between us. And it sets some expectations. Neutral ground, drinks, introductions, and maybe a little making out, and if you're a good boy, you can grab my ass. The responses to each of their Reddit posts and dating app profiles started rolling in. albeit more so for Kim than for Chris, but still. It was exciting.

It was fun seeing Chris's interactions with other women, how he talked to them. And I had to help him tweak his bio a little bit, so he sounded more human. That's nice that you helped him out. You kind of tried to put some shine on his profile for him. I just want success. She was actually instrumental in me getting my first good match, because I didn't get much with my initial profile, which apparently pandered a bit too much to the fact that I'm not cheating.

You can talk to my wife, which apparently doesn't go over very well. Can you talk just more about how the first foray into this world went for you and I guess how you kind of set your parameters? There was a lot of conversation about our rules and what we're comfortable with and not comfortable with. So we had four main rules. No falling in love. I'm just going to jump in here real quick

because this is an important one. Chris and Kim identify as non-monogamous, not polyamorous. Polyamory is being in love or romantically involved with multiple people. Chris and Kim say this experiment is purely a physical one. And it's not like the idea of sleeping with other people

and being open about it is new. Free love in the 60s, key parties in the 70s, I don't know what the 80s had, but I'm just going to guess that Huey Lewis and the news was involved somehow. But these days, I don't know if it's my age or the online and app-dating world we're living in or both, I feel like polyamory and consensual non-monogamy are growing in popularity. As of 2016, at least, researchers estimated that 4 to 5% of Americans participate in some form of consensual non-monogamy, meaning their partners are aware, that they're non-monogamous. And a 2016 national U-Gov poll found that 44% of Americans under 30 say they're open to non-monogamy. Now, there isn't exactly a treasure trove of data on this because, well, not everyone is exactly eager to talk about it, but we were eager to talk about it. So I called up an expert. Hi, I'm Dr. Debbie Herbenek. I'm a professor at the Indiana University School of Public

Health, and I've been studying sexual health and behavior for about 20 years, including consensual non-monogamy. Is consensual non-monogamy on the rise in America or around the world? Or how much do we know about that? Well, you know, there's not good historical data in the United States to track changes in time. We do know that people have long engaged in some forms of open sexual behavior. So if you think back, for example, to the earlier 1900s, so 1930s, 40s, 50s, you may have heard of the term wife swapping. And so people would, you know, have sex with other people's spouses and, you know,

often good friends, neighbors, people somewhat in the same social circle. Of course, there have been swinging parties, you know, in more recent history. There have been, you know, orgies over, you know, centuries. And orgies involving right, not necessarily people who are single, but including people who already have, you know, romantic partners or spouses. When we're talking about rules, I'm wondering how important it is to establish rules when you're making the shift from monogamy to non-monogamy? Well, you know, many couples find that it's helpful for them to have some specific rules, especially when they're just starting out. So some couples that might look like, you know, oral sex is okay, but vaginal or anal sex is not okay. It might be like you can have sex with other

people, but you can't spend the night at their house. Sometimes it's about, you know, anyone is fine except not my best friend or not my sister. or not my brother. And those are true rules that people have that help them navigate. The key thing is that you keep talking with each other and you're honest with one another about how your feelings are changing or progressing because if you're not honest,

then someone's going to hurt you without meaning to. What effect could a shift from monogamy to non-monogamy have on a family as a whole? So specifically when kids are involved in the equation? Yeah, you know, kids bring, another layer to, you know, to any relationship and family that they're in. But, you know, what you generally want to think about is how do we still kind of live our lives and live our relationship or marriage in ways that are supporting the well-being and stability of our,

of our family and our children. But, you know, just as we don't talk about all the details of our sexual lives anyway with our children, you know, most of us, there's no mandate for sharing that with your children either. one thing we haven't touched on but we just think is really important to at least address when we're talking about these shifts is also why people are making shifts for many couples who this goes well for they're shifting from monogamy to openness because they have in their estimation so much love to give or so much emotional availability in their relationship already and they feel like they can they can experience. expand and hold more people within that. And so the idea is that for people who are just shifting into consensual non-monogamy because they're bored or they feel like their partner doesn't give them what they want, that's generally not seen as maybe a great time to make that shift.

And again, everyone has to make their own choices, but the limited research that we have, you know, does talk about, you know, what's the reason for the shift in the first place. Even though the research is limited, non-monogamy does seem to be more in the ether these days. From TLC reality shows to Netflix, like the 2018 British show Wanderlust starring Tony Colette and Stephen McIntosh. I mean you, Dad, I want to talk to you and decided to start seeing other people. Together? Yes. In tandem.

At the same time. Different people. But still together, I mean your dad. So very much as we are now. To a lot of people, these kinds of lifestyles, sound intriguing. But the reality is, at least according to some of the people I know who are Polly, things get real complicated real fast. Which is why we should get back to Chris and Kim's rules. No anal play, protection for penetration, and no marks. We weren't really keen on expunging

our lifestyle to everybody. I don't want to have that conversation with random people, I guess, should be the case, as I'm on the radio or the podcast. I was about to say, everybody on the planet, but you don't know who I am, Mr. microphone, so I'm okay with that. So I can live with that. Can you kind of walk us through how one of these matches went? Like, you find someone on Reddit or you find someone on the app. What's the next step to bringing them into your life? How does this work? So what happened for me is I would go out for drinks or dinner. I would determine if this guy was sketchy or not, if I felt safe with him.

I would report back to Chris, like, this guy was nice, and we would talk. I say, I want to, you know, move forward. So I reach out to the guy. We set up a time to get together and to be intimate. And then I come home, shower, brush my teeth, crawl back into bed and cuddle with Chris. We kind of approach this whole thing as we'd like dessert. We already have this wonderful meal of a relationship. Wouldn't we like a cupcake?

Like a cupcake would be great. You can't have a cupcake every day. You can't have a cupcake every time you go out. How often do you want a cupcake? Every couple of weeks. And that was kind of what we came to. I want a cupcake every day. Try scheduling a cupcake with two kids.

It's a little harder. During our interview, Chris and Kim had a good sense of humor about all this. But there's something we haven't told you. This is actually their second attempt. Their shared Reddit account username is actually MV couple two. And that's because

about five months into their first experiment with non-monogamy, they shut the whole thing down. Deleted their account. And this decision came the night before we were originally supposed to interview Chris and Kim. They told us there had been a, quote, breach of trust in the

experiment. We thought that was the last we'd hear from them. But obviously, it wasn't. More in a minute. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But, but we do also like to get into other kinds of stories, stories about policing, or politics, country music, hockey, sex, of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answer. and hopefully make you see the world anew.

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Reach new audiences. Whatever your goal. We can help. Discover how the magic is made at WBUR.org.org slash creative studio. Chris and Kim, aka MV couple on Reddit, had been experimenting with what they call cupcakes, sexual partners outside of their marriage. But about five months in, they hit a roadblock. We had already made our arrangements to go see them. We had our audio kit packed up.

We had extra batteries, the whole deal. We were ready to talk. They were not. And when it happened, they didn't say much about it, just that the whole thing was off. There was a breach of trust of some sort, a little thing that happened that had big implications. We were both kind of in a situation where I didn't want to do anything to hurt Kim, and she didn't want to do anything to hurt me. And with this situation then rose up, we didn't want to, we were very wary about risking it. In what you just talked about, you talked about it as a we,

like we hit this roadblock, which I totally appreciate and is fine if you want to talk about it that way. But I guess I want to make the safe space for you to talk about it more specifically than that. Well, sure. I was out with a guy and I checked his credit card. And that was not what Chris meant by check his ID. And that was unacceptable. And I knew that now. and I didn't know that then, and the damage had already been done. But we've changed the rules now where Chris needs to meet my potentials and I need to meet his.

And that's discovered it. So the checking IDs thing wasn't a sex rule. It was a safety rule. And the new version where any potential sexual partner of Kim has to meet Chris and vice versa, that sounds kind of awkward. Like, hey, before we go to a hotel or whatever, I just need to swing by the house. so my husband can give you the thumbs up. But for them, this new way of doing things, it works.

Are you in touch with each other throughout the course of what you're calling dates? Are you in communication the whole time? We are in communication when we arrive at the location, when we encounter the person and then when we're leaving. We have code words. We have our own little way of talking to each other so that we know that it's real and not distressed. When we go to meet somebody for an intimate meeting, we say where we are.

If it's a hotel, what the number is. Same thing when we're coming home. Say we're on our way home. What typically happens when one of you comes home from a date? Is there a curfew also? Depends the day. Yes, there is a curfew. Yeah. If it's a work night, then it's got to, you know, you have to be able to get up and go to work the next day kind of thing.

wins the curfew. 2 a.m., right? I think it's 2 a.m. Yeah, which is, you know, it's one of those things like the hair of the dog. Like, if you want to come in at 2 a.m., just know your ass has got to get up at 6 to go to work. So you can stay out until 2. But we do have a policy in place for, like, overnights where we have to be home by 7 a.m. the next day, just so they were home when the kids wake up.

So there's no point where, you know, the kids are getting up and said, where's mommy? Where's daddy? We're always home. We've designed everything out to, I don't want to say keep them in the dark, but to affect them as minimally as possible. We don't go out until after they're in bed. We don't ever bring anybody home. Like, they are as close to out of the loop as humanly possible. That's going to change eventually, right?

Like, the oldest one is 10. Yeah, he could be sitting up at the top of stairs listening right now. I don't know. Yeah, but I mean, we can imagine like, we can imagine like 14, this like arrangement starts to become more complicated. If they ever start asking questions, I would be as honest as I think I could be with that age. You know, I'm not going to explain everything to a four-year-old, but, you know, I would be

honest with them and because they deserve that. And if they're uncomfortable with it, then we'll, talk through it. And if that means we need to stop, then we need to stop. How much do you tell each other about dates when you come home? As much as is asked. So that's the policy. It's just, if you ask, I'll tell you whatever you want to know. And if you don't ask, we won't talk about it. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. If asked, do tell. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Kim never asks. I ask occasionally. The first time She went out, like, we turned on all the lights and sat up.

I'm like, tell me everything. But after that, I didn't like, it was more destructive than helpful because I have an overactive imagination. So we work through that. And now I'm, you know, literally she's like, hey, I might be going out of a sudden. I'm like, have fun. Just see when you get home. It's much easier for me now. So familiarity.

I just ask if he has fun. Yeah. That's pretty much it. Do you have a good time? Good. All right. Leave me alone. I'm going to bed.

Okay, if you're thinking what I was thinking at this point in the conversation, you probably want to scream, how? How do they do this? How are they not overcome with jealousy and angst? Chris and Kim say it all comes down to trust. She knows what would make, if she went out and did this, it would make me feel uncomfortable, and I know that she won't do that. There's no reason for me to be worried about that in any way, shape, or form. I trust her like 150%.

And so there's no reason for me to be jealous because she's going to come home to me. And I never doubt that. But what about rule number one? No falling in love. Because it seems like a physical relationship could accidentally evolve into an emotional one, right? If you start to develop feelings for somebody,

there'll be no anger if you come to me and you say, hey, I'm starting to develop feelings from them because we have to take care of. that. What does that mean? Does that mean you want to move them into the house? Does that mean you want to divorce? What does that mean? But we're not looking for something we're not getting at home. We're just looking for something in addition to what we have at home. How many partners have each of you had since the beginning of the experiment? I had four. I've had four. Yeah. So we're pretty much in parity at this point. And do you just have one at a time? Or do you currently each have

Gosh, no. No, only one at a time. I can't manage that many people. Who knows at this point? Your kids don't know. Who in your life knows that you have entered this experiment? My sister and my mom. And that's it. Yeah, that's pretty much, and my brother. So, yeah. But Chris and Kim are starting to become a little more public about their non-monogamy. They recently broadened their search beyond Reddit and dating apps to something I didn't know is still a thing. Swingers parties! Anecdotally, how big is this community? It's a lot bigger than I thought it was.

I was shocked. Yeah, we were at a party last weekend, and they were like 60-some-odd couples. And that was, I guess they would say, a smaller party. There's one coming up around Halloween. they figure there would be about 300 couples at. I mean, I really have no shame about this lifestyle. If people figure out who we are, then fine. It's our secret life.

And if I were to see a coworker at one of the clubs, I'd say, hi, Monday's going to be awkward, huh? What do you both want people to know about non-monogamy or maybe just about your non-monogamous relationship? That it's brought us closer. that it's improved dark communication tenfold, and that it's fun, but it's not for everybody. You have to find your own fun in your marriage, and this is ours. It's funny because I still kind of consider myself monogamous, because there's only one person that I love.

There's only one person that I want to be with. I think sex is a separate entity from marriage. There's much more to marriage than sex, and that this is just exciting. I'm terrified of heights, so I'm not going to jump out of a plane. So this is kind of like my jumping out of a plane. And I'm very pro-monogamy. Don't get me wrong. I mean, I'm very pro-vegetarianism, but I'm nowhere near a vegetarian.

It's what suits you? I think that's all we ever want from anybody who finds out is we're not different. I mean, we go to work, we pay taxes, we love each. other. The non-monogamy thing, it's just the next stage of what we do for fun. What do you do when you reach your mid to late 30s and what do you do? Other people is what you do. Emery, in a way the most surprising thing about this couple was, for me, how completely normal they are. Like being in their house, there's no sex dungeon, they're not like covered in tattoos or following the satanic church. They aren't young supermodels. They don't. They don't. They

just don't fit the stereotypes that people might have about non-monogamous relationships. And that's a really good reminder that stereotypes are often BS when it comes to sex and love. True. And I think we're going to see those stereotypes further squashed because newsflash, wholesome Ben Johnson, it's not that alternative to be covered in tattoos anymore. Just FYI. Hey, you're talking to a guy who used to have a nipple ring, so... Oh my God! I'm down with the cause. Also, What they're trying to do is just really difficult, so difficult and so tenuous that it blew up in their faces once already.

And it's going to get more difficult, too, with kids. I have to admit, Ben, I was afraid that we'd never be able to run this interview because, like, any day, their experiment with trust and non-monogamy could fall apart again. It's a minefield. But for them, it still seems to be working. MV couple two is still on Reddit, still looking, and they're currently seeking other couples to meet up with. So do with that information what you will.

I can't speak for Kim, but I kind of imagine this weird moment where at some point in the future, I'm sitting here and my cupcake will be there and Kim will be here and her cupcake will be here or we'll all be drinking and playing cards against humanity together. I think that's kind of the closest that you'll come for me to seeing what's the future hold? A really good cupcake is what the future holds, hopefully. Endless thread is a production of WBUR, Boston's NPR station, in partnership with Reddit.

Our show is a dream realized by Jessica Alpert, who, when we told her Chris and Kim we're going to try non-monogamy, she said, What could go wrong? Iris Adler is our executive producer and imagines that R-for-R-R-Furry is filled with... Sub-reddit drama. Mix and sound design by John Parati and Paul Vicus, who think of cupcakes as... Forbidden snacks. Our web producer is Megan Kelly, who always says the same thing when she meets new people. Have we met?

Michael Pope is our advisor at Reddit, and he thinks long-term relationships are like... Retro-futurism. Josh Swartz is our producer, and he thinks Hewee Lewis in the news is like... Old People Facebook. Our theme music is by Squelcher. Thanks to Redditor Feger Zen for this week's totally awesome custom artwork he did for us. It is called Endless Love. You can find more of his work on Instagram.

at FK underscore illustration. By the way, if you want to email us, you can hit us up at Endless Thread at WBUR.org. You can give us a juicy story tip so we can tell it like we did today, or you can let us know if you want to make art for an upcoming episode. Please do.

We would love to work with you. My co-host and producer is Amory Sieverts. I'm senior producer and host Ben Brock Johnson. I'll let myself out.