We ALL take risks when we get with another person. There’s the risk of pregnancy, emotional damage, the lying and cheating, the risk exploitation, falling in love faster than expected or prepared for—all kinds of things can happen when we roll in the hay with another human.
And if we have the heart capacity and emotional intelligence to sustain multiple interests and relationships, then it gets even MORE risky to balance the challenges of pain and pleasure that can and will manifest from having multiple intimate encounters with various people.
In sex work, we like to say: “There’s no such thing as perfectly safe sex, but there are many ways to make your sex safer.”
5 Tips for Safer Sex
1. Communicate Immediately
This is like condoms for the brain. Mind protection. Peace of mind at night when you sleep. Comfort and trust in your partners in your adult responsibility.
This is something that I request and require from all the people who I get with: Let me know what you’ve done with your other partners either within 48 hours of you doing it if we see each other often, or the next time I see you if we only see each other every few weeks or so.
Communicate your sexual situations as immediately as you are able to emotionally process them to yourself, and then have the kindness to confess them to the people that need to know. I don’t do don’t-ask-don’t-tell polyamory—it’s not healthy to me. I don’t judge it for others. You can fuck 100 people! I’d just like to know it happened, and I just hope it was safe. I feel that is fair and logical.
Read: Parallel Polyamory: Don’t Ask Don’t Tell?
2. Share Test Results Together
To make adult sex truly safe, you have to have conversations about STIs and testing. You don’t have to discuss much, but you have to speak for at least a few minutes about your latest situation. Might not be anything to report at all, but that updated report has to be done with your doctor, and then you have to tell your partners what’s what. They will hopefully do the same for you, and then you will have all been smarter and safer with each other’s health.
You will also build more trust, and the bond that forms from sharing such vital information goes a long way in making the foundation of intimacy stronger.
Read: 3 Ways to Build Intimacy in Poly Relationships
3. Discuss Boundaries before Playtime
Let me share a small practice I engage in before orgies: You go around in a circle to 1) introduce your name, 2) say what you DON’T want to experience, and 3) say what you DO want to experience. This really and truly helps to create a satisfying, joyful, pleasant, and progressive physical experience for all.
There is nothing worse than not having communicated boundaries before, and then someone is deeply hurt by actions that could have been avoided by a few words of friendly chatter. Also, make sure to be constantly communicating with your body, your eyes, your hands, and your words during the encounter. Be comfortable with each other, but be honest with yourself.
Read: Tips for Your First Group Sex Experience
4. Condoms Always, But No Sex Until Testing Clear
With group play, it’s basic automatic protocol to wear condoms on dicks and on strap-ons. Condoms for all penetration is the general standard of play for MOST people. The amount of communication, testing, trusting, confirmation, and work to do to make sure that a big group of people is safely fluid-bonded is challenging to say the least, but it’s not impossible.
I know some people have their own feelings about condoms and safety, and they have their own choices they have made about what they do in group play. But I know I can’t mess around, so I wear condoms in all my orgies and threesomes. If a condom breaks, which happens sometimes, then you just shouldn’t engage in any unsafe sex until your STI tests come back. Let partners know the situation and it should be fine.
5. Get Creative without Penetration
You don’t need to fuck all the time to have orgy-like fun! You don’t always need penetrative sex to have a group sex encounter. You can all engage in BDSM play. You can all just roll around naked and kiss. You can all just have oral sex in a circle. There are so many options you can explore if you don’t actually want to go to home base.
Read: How to Practice Non-Penetrative Sex with Your Partners
First, second, and third base all provide a bunch of sexy options to explore and with multiple people involved, it can be more safe, fun, playful, creative, and unique if you don’t all just try to fuck constantly like single-minded rabbits. Not that there’s ANYTHING wrong with fucking like that, he he.
And with that, you have some ways to be safer with sexy groups of people. I hope you have as much fun as you have the courage to capture!
xoxo,
Addi “Malcolm Lovejoy” Stewart
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