Taormino, speaking from her home in upstate New York, noted cultural changes in the way society views traditional relationships and trends toward a broader acceptance of non-monogamous or open relationships.
“It’s interesting that on a lot of these social networking sites now, which organize a lot of people’s lives — on Facebook, you can say that you’re in an open relationship. That’s a shift, obviously,” she said.
“I think on MySpace, you can say you’re a swinger,” she said. “There are these other options for people. And in terms of meeting other people, with Craigslist and some of these other sites, you can pretty much find anything you want.”
Referring to “The Ethical Slut,” authored in 1997 by Dossie Eastmen, as one of the few books dealing with the topic of open relationships, Taormino was motivated to readdress the subject. Based on her on observations of people in different types of relationships, Taormino spent a year and a half conducting 126 interviews for “Opening Up.”
“I interviewed people from all walks of life and all different backgrounds who are in some kind of relationship that is not monogamous,” she said, “and that could be anything — from someone who’s a swinger, to someone who considers their relationship monogamy ‘with benefits,’ to one spouse is straight and the other has come out as gay and they have an open relationship, to people who identify as polyamorous.”
In addition to the book, Taormino also has launched a new website with resources and community networking features, for those interested in nontraditional relationships, OpeningUp.net.
According to Taormino, the site’s main feature is a constantly updated resource guide, categorized by region, so that users can find national and local support groups, social organizations, as well as research- and spiritually-based groups, all centered around non-traditional relationship lifestyles.
There also is a feature called the Open List, which has contact information for professionals such as doctors and counselors that are “polyamorous-friendly.”
Message boards are available for users to communicate with each other, and Taormino is also hosting a regularly updated blog dealing with open relationships issues, and which will soon feature reports from the author as she travels on the book tour.
“The feedback has been really amazing,” Taormino said. “I’ve gotten a lot of good comments. I feel like that if you read the news — the topics of monogamy, marriage and fidelity, commit, as well as non-monogamy, open marriage — it’s a really hot topic right now.”
“We’ve gotten some conversations going on the message boards, which is always the hardest thing to get going,” she added. “Enough people are still not commenting on my blog posts. I see my traffic, so I know they’re there — so make comments! I would like to have hear what people want to have and what they would find helpful.”
As an adult filmmaker, Taormino continues to helm the Vivid-Ed brand of educational videos, though her role has expanded to include that of executive producer. She plans to nurture other sex educators and adult industry personalities, to direct educational titles for the line.
So far, performer Penny Flame has been the newest addition to the Vivid-Ed roster with the soon-to-released “Penny Flame’s Expert Guide to Hand Jobs,” followed by a second release that will feature the topic of rough sex.
Taormino said she also will continue to direct and, not surprisingly, she expects some crossover, from her writing, website and videos, as well as new educational seminars that she will be teaching, based on “Opening Up.”
“I am shooting the ‘Expert Guide to Threesomes,’ so there will be some things in their about how to negotiate and communicate, which overlap with some of the things in the book,” Taormino said.
As an educator with a diverse platform from which to share her views and information, Taormino said that she feels that an important aspect of her work is to point out to people that they have many options — more now, than ever.
“That’s the important thing — I do not purport that an open relationship is a better type of relationship or is more evolved or is more political — I don’t believe that,” she said. “I just believe that people have to choose their relationship style consciously so that it fits their life and their needs and their desires.”
