Keynote and presenter
Dossie Easton, MA
Dossie, a longtime player on the San Francisco S/M scene and well-known killer bottom, is co-author with Janet Hardy of The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships and Other Adventures, newly in its second edition, as well as The New Bottoming Book, The New Topping Book, When Someone You Love Is Kinky, and Radical Ecstasy: SM Journeys to Transcendence. She is a licensed psychotherapist working with individuals, couples and more in her private practice, with a particular interest in how unlearning jealousy can bring old wounds into the healing light of consciousness and teach us how to treat ourselves very well.
An active sex radical since 1961, Dossie makes her home in the mountains north of San Francisco, travels to teach at conferences all over the world, and spends her nonexistent free time hiking the hills declaiming filthy poetry to the vultures and hosting outrageous pajama parties. You can check out her website at www.dossieeaston.com.
Special Guest Speaker
Christopher Ryan, PhD
Author of the bestseller Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality, Christopher received a BA in English and American literature in 1984 and an MA and Ph.D. in psychology from Saybrook University in San Francisco twenty years later. He spent the intervening decades traveling around the world, living in unexpected places working at very odd jobs (e.g., gutting salmon in Alaska, teaching English to prostitutes in Bangkok and self-defense to land-reform activists in Mexico, managing commercial real-estate in New York’s Diamond District, and helping Spanish physicians publish their research). Along the way, he decided to pursue doctoral studies in psychology. Drawing upon his multi-cultural experience, Christopher’s research focuses on trying to distinguish the inherently human from the cultural. His doctoral dissertation analyzes the prehistoric roots of human sexuality, and was guided by the world-renowned psychologist Stanley Krippner.
Based in Barcelona since the mid-1990s, Christopher has lectured at the University of Barcelona Medical School and consulted at various local hospitals. He speaks about human sexuality to audiences around the world (in English and Spanish). His work has appeared in major newspapers and magazines in many languages, scholarly journals, and a textbook used in medical schools and teaching hospitals throughout Spain and Latin America. Christopher contributes to Psychology Today and the Huffington Post.
Concert Performers
Bone Poets Orchestra
Bone Poets Orchestra (formerly Gaia Consort) plays psychedelic steampunk in the tradition of Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd and other hallucinogenic masters. The band is well known in the West Coast poly world for its soulful, funny, original music with many appropriately themed songs.
Christopher Bingham composer, conductor and lead singer for BPO got his start as a band leader through an unusual set of circumstances. Orphaned at the tender age of 10 years old by a tragic greased pig accident at church picnic, he learned to buck up and roll with the punches at an early age. Thrust into the limelight by a fortuitous circus orchestra conductor strike, Bingham quickly picked up the basics of songwriting and composing and found that he had a knack. He found the music business almost as fun as street prostitution, though the record company execs were a step below his old clients. When the Psychedelique went bankrupt, the band quickly found out the circus had failed to pay unemployment insurance, so when faced with a choice between starving and playing music in something like the old role, the band flipped a coin and Bone Poets Orchestra was born. Follow these madmen at your own risk, but whatever your poison, be prepared to experience.
Ben Silver
Ben is a singer, musician and poly and bi activist who has been in an open primary relationship for 25 years. He and his partner started a support group for committed non-monogamous relationships in the '80s which met monthly for over 15 years. As a performer, Ben’s music slides through folk, R&B, funk, jazz and back again; he sings about freedom, the environment, LBGT issues, parenting, and love. His writing has been published in Carry it On, Sing Out magazine, and the book Hearing Everyone’s Voice.
Presenters
Allena Gabosch
Allena Gabosch is Executive Director of Seattle's renowned Center For Sex Positive Culture (www.sexpositiveculture.org, formerly known as The Wet Spot). She has been active in the sex-positive movement practically from its beginning; producing educational and social events for the sex-positive community since 1990. She is a frequent speaker on many sex-positive subjects at colleges and conferences around the US and Canada, with an emphasis on BDSM and polyamory. She produces the Seattle Erotic Art Festival (www.seattleerotic.org) and is a past board member of the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (www.ncsfreedom.org). In her non-kinky (but non-mundane) life she is active in Landmark Education, loves good food, walking around Seattle, and is working on several books. She is a former commissioner with the Seattle Commission for Sexual Minorities. She is a kinky, bisexual, polyamorous switch and considers herself extremely blessed as she has a rich and full poly life, with many amazing and loving people in her "polycule."
Angela Smith
Angie is a caring, feisty, kick-ass crone who is a 23 year veteran of the Pacific Northwest/Cascadia Poly and Sex Postive communities. She has successfully co-parented 3 children and been "Nanny" to a plethora of local poly children. Angela has appeared in several major media outlets advocating poly families including; The Tyra Banks Show and The Seattle Times. She is currently a member of the Erosong household. She has loving relationships with 7 wonderful men. Angela is excited to be attending Poly Living to connect with other poly advocates and cultivate her identity as a poly advocate and sex-positive educator.
Anita Wagner
Anita Wagner advocates for the interests of polyamorists with enthusiasm and determination, and loves to help them find joy and happiness by providing educational programs on such subjects as poly and spirituality, jealousy and other pitfalls, poly/mono relationships, and poly for kinky people. She has presented programs at Good Vibrations, Sex 2.0, Dark Odyssey, Black Rose, Building Bridges, Free Spirit Alliance's Beltane Gathering and Fires of Venus, Florida Poly Retreat, Transcending Boundaries, Poly Living, and the Loving More© Conferences. She's a member of the Polyamory Leadership Network and serves as poly community advisor to CARAS. She also serves on the Board of Directors of Loving More© and Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness. She's a veteran community organizer and co-founder of an alternative relationships non-profit organization. Anita regularly works with members of the media and has been quoted in news articles on Newsweek.com, Salon.com, in the Baltimore Sun, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Sun-Times, among others.
Carol C
Carol has been a moderator of the Vanpoly Vancouver based polyamory group (which has a discussion group online as well as regular in person meet ups) for about 5 years. She is also a member of the CPAA and part of the legal team of the CPAA. She has had a day job, working as a negotiator, for a number of years.
Cunning Minx
Minx has been the tireless producer and host of the Polyamory Weekly podcast since the spring of 2005, now with 251 episodes in production. A kinky boobiesexual, Minx founded the show as a resource for the poly and poly-curious to form a community, share experiences, and help guide each other on their journeys of poly exploration.
Curt Bergstrand, PhD
Curt is associate professor of sociology at Bellarmine University in Louisville, KY. Author of Swinging In America: Sex, Love, and Marriage in the 21st Century with Jennifer Sinski, Dr. Bergstrand has published scholarly articles in the areas of medical sociology, social problems, criminology, and the family. His current research interests are in the changing American family and the role non-monogamous relationships will have in the future.
Dawn Davidson
Dawn is a life catalyst and relationship facilitator who seeks to help others discover and express their authentic selves, both individually and through conscious relationships. A Certified Interchange counselor and a Certified Integrative Soul Coach, Dawn has 12+ years of experience coaching, leading workshops and discussion groups, hosting events, and organizing community in the SF Bay Area. She is a past Loving More Board member and has spoken internationally on behalf of polyamory as a joyful relationship choice. Kink-aware, sensitive to issues of gender and sexual orientation, and a proponent of all forms of loving relationship, Dawn believes that the capacity of the heart to love is infinite, and that the forms love may take are limited only by the imagination. Find out more about Dawn Davidson or book a session or workshop at http://www.facebook.com/LoveOTB, http://www.mandalaenterprises.com, or http://www.unchartedlove.com
Erosong House
Erosong translates as Love Song, the music of Family and Joy. Erosong has been the dream and desire of Moonstorm Erosong for more than 20 years. Over the years it has grown and matured from a tribe of 2 to over 50 people today. At the core is the Erosong Household consisting of 5 committed adults. Next is the Erosong Family, a network of family and lovers. All of them are surrounded by the Erosong Tribe, all the friends and community who share in our joys, sorrows and accomplishments. We live in Kenmore, Washington and have Tribe members ranging all over the US and Canada. We are active participants in the Pacific Northwest/Cascadia Polyamory and Sex Postive Communities and have been featured in a few media stories.
Gary M. Jacobson
Gary is a Seattleite born and bred, with the requisite coffee IV installed (Tully's, not Starbucks, please...). Lovers off and on since they met in 1981, Dawn and Gary have subsequently raised eyebrows on a tall-ship, watched their children grow up (occasionally together), and both appeared on the Montel Williams and Tyra Banks shows in support of polyamory as a positive relationship choice. Gary is married to Judith Bennett, is the father of the awesome Koe, and long-term not-partnered with Koe's mom, Angela Smith (yeah, it's complicated). When he is not working in the lab processing blood he can be found volunteering, teaching or doing flogger making at The Center for Sex Positive Culture. And anywhere he is, you'll probably find him telling a story.
Jesus Garcia
Jesus is a native of the San Francisco Bay area who began exploring alternatives to monogamy in 2004. In 2005 he attended his first Loving More Retreat. In September 2006 he was invited to join Loving More’s Board of Directors. He has worked at raising money for many worthy causes and has helped Loving More make its transition to non-profit status. He has worked in the information technology field since 1995. In college he majored in biology and psychology with an emphasis on bio-psychology.
Jim Fleckenstein
Jim is a longtime polyamory activist and researcher. He co-founded the Chesapeake Polyamory Network and the Institute for 21st Century Relationships (now the NCSF Foundation). He has presented on poly topics at CPN, ITCR, AASECT, SSSS, Poly Pride NY, and Poly Living conferences, and recently co-edited What Psychology Professionals Should Know About Polyamory (https://www.ncsfreedom.org/images/pdfs/KAP/2010_poly_web.pdf).
John U
John has been a poly, bi, kinky sex-positive activist for decades. He has been a member of triads, quads, and polycules. He has written about poly on numerous email lists and in Loving More magazine. John has practiced poly since 1967. He has been involved in poly organizations since the early 1980’s, including Family Synergy, HAI, and the Seattle Poly Potluck. He was a member of the board of the Foundation and Center for Sex Positive Culture from 2004 to 2010. John’s academic background is in molecular genetics. Most of his professional life has been spent as an agent and manager of performing artists, with detours into environmental and civil liberties activism.
Leanna Wolfe
Leanna is a sexual anthropologist who works a college professor, social theorist and clinical sexologist. She has had a longstanding interest in polyamory both as a researcher and as a participant.
Linda Y
Linda, a trained educator with a BA in education and graduate work in counseling, has had many years of experience teaching all ages, including thirty years studying, teaching and counseling in the arena of sexuality. From 2000 to 2003, Linda was hostess and director of Club Venus NW, a lifestyle (swing) club near Seattle. Although she says she was born with a polyamorous nature, she began actually living the poly lifestyle in mid-life. Now a post-menopausal woman maintaining an active polyamorous sex life, Linda has presented her class “Loving a Seasoned Woman” in several venues including The Center for Sex Positive Culture, Poly Camp, Paradise Weekend, and senior centers. She recently teamed up with John U to present discussion workshops on senior polyamory and sexuality at the Sex 2.0 Conference and for several PolyCamp audiences.
Mim Chapman Ph.D.
Mim Chapman, Ph.D., is the author of What is Polyamory?, a new book about the forms of poly diversity. She is a relationship coach, keynote speaker, educator, and change agent, and has been entertaining and mentoring people for more years than she chooses to admit. She is a certified Myers-Briggs trainer and has led workshops in various aspects of diversity, learning styles, multiple intelligences, collaboration, anti-harassment, sexuality, and the change process for conferences, schools and businesses. She was Alaska’s “Curriculum Leader of the Year,” Toastmaster’s “Communicator of the Year,” and the YWCA/British Petroleum “Woman of Achievement.” Her current creative passion is her sex education performance-art piece, “The VP (vagina-penis) Dialogues,” which has been performed in a variety of venues.
Pepper Mint
Pepper is a San Francisco educator, organizer, activist, and social theorist in the polyamory and BDSM movements. He has held numerous workshops on polyamory techniques, and recently has been organizing large polyamory dating and dance-clubs events. Pepper's online writings are a mix of how-to advice and deep conceptual strategizing around polyamory and BDSM. www.freaksexual.com
Reid Mihalko
Reid, of www.ReidAboutSex.com, helps people create more self-esteem and health in their relationship and sex lives, no matter what their self-expression of those happens to be. Reid has worked with thousands of individuals from myriad walks of life, orientations, relationship styles, countries and religions. Known for his charisma, wit and emphasis on integrity, Reid travels the country teaching, coaching, consulting and collaborating. He has been a writer and producer on a number of films and television projects about sex and relationships, appears regularly in the media, and is currently working with some of Hollywood's top television show producers to bring polyamory into the mainstream.
Reid has been a featured speaker at dozens of conferences on relationships and sexuality. He has also appeared on the Emmy award-winning talk show Montel, Fox News, VH1’s Scott Baio is 45 and Single, Showtime’s Penn & Teller’s Bulls**t!, Canada’s The Sex Files and SexTV, the short-lived Life & Style, NPR, Sirius’ Maxim Radio and Cosmo Radio, and in Marie Claire, GQ, Details, People, Newsweek and The National Enquirer, as well as media across the globe in thirteen countries and at least seven languages.
Robyn Trask
Robyn is the Executive Director and Editor of Loving More Non-Profit and Magazine ,which she has run since October 2004. She has been openly polyamorous for 21 years and a mom for 23 years. Robyn has been running poly support groups and teaching and facilitating relationship and sexuality workshop since 1999. She has done numerous interviews on polyamory for radio, television, newspapers and magazines, including features in the Denver Post, Hartford Current, Mom Logic, and the Boulder Daily Camera. She has appeared on Baisden After Dark on TV One, the Montel Show, and the Christian Broadcast Network's 700 Club. Robyn works with the media to spread awareness that polyamory is a viable alternative in today's changing styles of love relationships. She was the Keynote for the Florida Poly Retreat in 2007, a featured speaker at New York's Poly Pride Rally in 2006, 2007 and 2008, presented at the 2006 and 2007 Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality Western Conference, and has lectured at Colorado University/Boulder and Denver University. Robyn has dedicated the past five years of her life to working as a full-time volunteer for Loving More and the polyamory movement.
Zoe Duff
Zoe is a director of CPAA and one of five family CPAA witnesses for this court case. She has been moderator/facilitator of Van-Isle Poly which is a Victoria based social and online discussion group with regular monthly meetings since 2001. Zoe works as an archival researcher, and is author of “A Matter of Perspective” a novel with polyamorous characters and seven other books.
What a great list of people. Certainly gonna be there.