Salaciousness in a brown wrapper
This month in Conscious Relationship Design, I share what happened when 14 alpha readers read 3 sample chapters of my book, the timing mismatch that’s breaking relationships, and more
So … the book.
I was walking a fellow writer — a published author, a white CIS male — through my book overview on Conscious Relationship Design. The premise. Who it’s for. What the chapters cover, including some rather personal details from a period of exploration and discovery, I haven’t shared publicly before. He’d been on this journey with me for months and was asking how the book was coming.
He stopped me mid-sentence.
“Do you realise what you’ve done?
You’ve written a systems design book about relationships.
A man can be seen reading this on the train. He’s taking the topic seriously, from a design perspective. Respectable. Professional.
And then he cracks it open and finds the science behind power exchange dynamics, how to have deep intimate conversations about desire, what to do when you’re attracted to someone and - given the world we live in - are at a loss.
What can you say? Do?”
He called it genius.
I’ve been thinking about that word — and whether it’s the right one. Another white CIS male has said what I’ve actually done is built a Trojan horse.
I’ve thought about that some more. And listening to my alpha readers (who are a broader group), I’m realising he was right — but it’s not just one Trojan horse. It’s several, nested inside each other.
This book, for:
Men: grants permission to care about relationships at all. To read about intimacy and desire and emotions — topics they’ve grown up thinking aren’t for them. And then inside: practical answers to things they’re wondering about but have no idea how to ask.
Women: grants permission to want what they want. To stop performing. To question the scripts they inherited. And then inside: validation that their “difficult” questions aren’t difficult at all — they’re design questions.
People in traditional relationships: grants permission to question without blowing everything up. A framework for conversations they’ve been avoiding for years.
People exploring alternative structures: establishes legitimacy. Science. A framework that makes their choices look like what they are — conscious design, not deviance.
The wrapping paper is systems design. The gift inside is permission.
On 15 November, I sent three sample chapters to 14 alpha readers. The chapter where I tell the story of my 20-year marriage — designed with a re-evaluation clause, pivoted with integrity. The chapter on why silence around desire is killing our relationships. And yes, the chapter on power exchange dynamics and what BDSM practitioners know about negotiation that the rest of us desperately need to learn.
I was going out on a ledge. Telling my story. Sharing my clients’ stories. Sharing interviews with hundreds of people from an alternative dating app. Weaving in science and research from sex and relationship experts. I wasn’t sure how any of it would land.
It landed.
What happens when you send your weird, vulnerable thing into the world
The responses started arriving almost immediately.
“This book needs to be written. You are doing something here no one else has done.”
“Never read anything like it. No book that compounds science and tools in ways that are normalising. The world needs this.”
“You make it [power exchange dynamics] sound really lovely, and I’ve never read anyone speak about it that way before.”
One reader — someone well-read on these topics — said they’d never encountered anything quite like it. Another said my writing had taken something “out of the shadows, out of confusing closets” and shone “light and logic” on it.
Several called me courageous.
I don’t feel courageous. I feel, strangely, compelled.
Several readers are discussing the chapters with their partners. Some have asked to share them. The work is already starting conversations that weren’t happening before.
And everyone — everyone — wants to know more about what I learned from talking to hundreds of people on an alternative dating app. The kinky ones, yes. The exploratory. But also the asexual. The living-together-alone. The humans asking the same questions every human on the planet asks about love, connection, trust and hope.
Turns out we’re all more similar than we think. We’re just not talking about it.
Yet.
Field notes
On 24 hours without screens
I’ve been doing weekly digital detoxes (or as I call them, my tech shabbats) since August. Sounds marvellous, doesn’t it? It is — and — it isn’t. If you don’t want to be alone with your feelings and thoughts, do not try this at home.
Last weekend I hiked solo for three hours through a forest, sun glinting through the trees. Gorgeous. I decided I wanted a half-day of solo hiking every week.
But was that decision born of genuine desire — or escape from the weekend before, when rain kept me indoors and an existential grief rose up to meet me?
Still figuring that out.
On the timing mismatch
Here’s something I keep encountering in my research: Men often discover their desires and kinks quite young. Women frequently don’t until their thirties. What happens when they marry and have children — when sex lessens, when men’s needs for belonging (which they often experience through physical intimacy) go unmet? What happens when women finally begin exploring what they want, and their partners respond with jealousy rather than curiosity?
The gap between these timelines is creating a lot of quiet pain. And most of it goes unspoken.
I’ve been paying closer attention to what’s happening in the silences — the pauses, the things left unsaid, the conversations that never quite happen. Sometimes noticing the silence changes more than asking, “Can we talk?”
Silence, though an absence of words, is not an absence of meaning.
On waiting for impulse
I’ve been reading Sanford Meisner on Acting, and there’s an exercise that has revolutionised my weekends: “Don’t do anything until something happens to make you do it.”
Allowing impulse to drive instead of our heads, our lists, other people’s expectations.
Unpremeditated. Genuine.
True.
Currently absorbing
Quiet divorcing
I’ve been corresponding with Eli Finkel (author of The All-or-Nothing Marriage) about something called “quiet divorcing” — the slow erosion of intimacy that ends relationships not with a bang but a whisper.
His insight:
Your question is a good one. I’m not sure about “quiet divorcing” in particular, but it’s certainly the case that people are much more likely today than in the past to view the slow erosion of intimacy as a legitimate justification for divorce. In fact, until the 1970s or so (and in some states into the 21st century), divorce was illegal under those circumstances. People had to make up some lie about abuse or infidelity to get the legal system to allow them to divorce.
I think you’re correct that this sort of relationship erosion is perilous because its so gradual. Affairs and violence require action; passive erosion might yield neglect.
We notice betrayals that happen. But the gradual withdrawal, the creeping disconnection, the silence where conversation used to live — these slip past our defences precisely because they require nothing of us except … nothing.
Chilling.
And worth sitting with.
My book of the year
If you read one book before the year ends, make it Think Again by Adam Grant. We needed it when it first came out. We need it now more than ever.
It’s about the courage to unlearn. To question our certainties. To hold our beliefs lightly enough that they can evolve.
What is one of your beliefs you’ve let evolve recently?
Your monthly invitation
As the year closes and a new one hovers, I offer you Meisner’s exercise:
Don’t do anything until something happens to make you do it.
Try it for an hour. A morning. A whole day if you’re feeling brave.
What wants to emerge when you finally stop forcing it?
P.S. — Happy holidays! And what’s next
Thank you for being here. I am so happy you are. And I wish you the very best for the holidays. Stay warm (or cool), safe, close. Hold someone. Be.
On my end, when I am not BEing with my beautiful family, I’ll be integrating alpha reader feedback this month. Then I’ll be reaching out to acquisition editors in late January. If you’d like to join a second round of feedback on additional chapters for this book — By Design, Not Default — message me. I’d be honoured to have your eyes on this.
And if you want a powerful way to close the year, I do an end-of-year review every December/January that’s become something of a ritual. Drop me a line if you’d like my personalised template — I’d be more than happy to share it.
P.P.S. — On “difficult” women
I keep thinking about a piece by Ellen Scherr I read last week.
She writes about what happens to women as they age — when they become “difficult” or “changed” or less amenable. The neuroscience is fascinating: as we age, the brain undergoes synaptic pruning. Neural pathways that aren’t essential get trimmed. And all those pathways dedicated to hypervigilant people-pleasing? Often first on the chopping block.
What replaces it isn’t bitterness. It’s clarity.
Scherr’s conclusion: “When someone says you’ve changed, when they say you’re not the person you used to be, when they imply something’s wrong with you now? They’re right. You have changed. You’ve changed into someone who’s no longer available for performance. And that’s not difficult. That’s development.”
It’s time we stopped demonising women for the neurological process of pruning — for deciding what actually matters and cutting away the pretence that never served them. This is not a bad thing. It’s a very, very good thing. For everyone.
See you in the new year!
Julie
Thank you
Thanks for reading. Each month, I share:
One deep dive into Conscious Relationship Design
Field notes from my research and life
What’s currently influencing my thinking
One question to spark your own exploration
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