You Can Sleep With Her, But Don’t You Dare Shave Your Bikini Line

For Jess*, it all started with a razor. A few months ago, she was in the shower and mentally running through her week: She was seeing her girlfriend that night, and her new flame the night after that. And then, over the weekend, maybe back to her girlfriend. Razor in hand, she debated: Should I shave now, or wait — and by the way, who, exactly, am I really shaving for?

As ethical nonmonogamy (ENM) becomes increasingly mainstream, so do conversations around how to make it work, with the majority focused on sex and the complications that come with it. But for many people practicing ENM, the trickiest moments aren’t about whom your partner is sleeping with. They’re about the subtle behavioral shifts — whitening your teeth for the first time, hitting the gym with newfound motivation — that can happen when someone new enters the picture and realizing what such shifts say about the relationship dynamic.

“It’s extremely common,” says Moe Ari Brown, LMFT and love and connection expert at Hinge. His therapy clientele spans monogamy and ENM; he also practices ENM himself.

“When someone watches their partner move through new relationship energy, it can bring up a lot of feelings, including jealousy,” Brown says. “But choosing ENM doesn’t mean you’ve signed away your right to feel your emotions. It means you’ve committed to emotional fluency: feeling your feelings, naming them honestly, and bringing them to your partner without weaponizing them.”

So, what’s Jess supposed to do?

Who Gets The Fresh Shave?

Jess, a 34-year-old queer, poly woman in L.A., had been dating her anchor partner, Reese* — a woman in an open marriage — for about eight months when she met someone new. Sparks flew, and soon, Jess was seeing both women.

“The first month and a half of that happening, I started to struggle with ‘When do I shave?’ Because I am now seeing two different people, and I’m often seeing them on back to back nights,” Jess says.

Many women are familiar with the girl math that goes into grooming and dating. You have to shave before you self-tan. You don’t want to shave too far in advance, or you’ll get prickly, but doing it too often can lead to razor burn. Adding a second partner to the mix, with back-to-back sleepovers, turns that delicate system into a logistical nightmare.

“Previously in our relationship, I was always clean-shaven. Body hair is something I’m pretty insecure about, so I always wanted to be clean,” Jess explains. “But my girlfriend started to notice around this time that I was doing it less.”

Jess says, “At first, she brought it up in a positive way.” Reese knew she had struggled with body hair insecurity, and saw her going au naturel as a sign of growing confidence. “Then I made the mistake of explaining that, yes, I was feeling more comfortable, but also that I was being strategic now that I was seeing someone new.”

Even though that was something small, it was symbolic of the larger insecurity she was feeling.

For Reese, the issue wasn’t the shaving itself. “It was more the fact that there was something that I had demonstrated that I cared about — which is being clean-shaven — and all of a sudden, I was prioritizing doing that for someone else instead of her,” Jess says.

And Reese didn’t let it go. “She brought up later as one of a few different examples of how she wasn’t feeling prioritized,” Jess says. “She recognized that even though that was something small, it was symbolic of the larger insecurity she was feeling.”

According to Brown, that’s normal. “Jealousy is usually the surface emotion. Underneath it is a need trying to be met: ‘Does my relationship still matter now that yours is growing? Am I still a priority?’”

Jess always knew that her anchor partner had a wife, but that didn’t make the hypocrisy any less hurtful. Nor did it help when Jess found out Reese was watching Heated Rivalry with her wife, even though she and Jess had started the show together. (It’s tough to say which betrayal is worse.)

Ultimately, it came down to a double standard. “I felt as if she was asking me to put her in a first-place position when I had never been given the first-place position in her life,” she says. ENM didn’t create the problem, but it exposed it. “The breakup was inevitable,” she says.

On the bright side, however, Jess no longer has to shave as much.

You Got Drunk & Railed In A Winery Without Me?

For 28-year-old Riley* and their long-term live-in girlfriend Margot*, having sex with other people was totally kosher. The tension came when those hookups started happening on elaborate wine-soaked dates in Malibu.

The couple had been together for five years and had practiced polyamory for three and a half. “I know that in some form I am not monogamous,” Riley says. “But I was fine being monogamous as we started to really build something.”

“It was also COVID when we met, so it didn’t really make sense to date other people.” Riley says. “But about two years in, COVID got a little lighter, we had moved in together, and that’s when [Margot] came to me and said, ‘Hey, I’m interested in this now.’ And I was like, ‘Great. That’s something that I have wanted, too.’”

She would put on her nice lingerie for some of these dates, and I’d be like, “OK, you’re doing that for somebody else. Got it.”

For the most part, ENM suited them. Neither felt particularly jealous when the other slept with someone else, or even when feelings entered the chat. But things got more complicated when Riley’s girlfriend started going on increasingly thoughtful, over-the-top dates with new partners.

“There was this full-day date to a winery in Malibu,” Riley says. “They got drunk, f*cked in the winery, and it was this whole big thing. She came back glowing, like, ‘Oh, my God, I just went on the best date ever.’” Meanwhile, because they lived together, Riley and Margot’s own dates looked less like having magical sex in a vineyard and more like eating reheated leftovers in front of the TV.

“It felt like, ‘Oh, you’ve got all these really elaborate dates planned with somebody else, but you haven’t put in the effort to do those same things with me,’” Riley says. “She would put on her nice lingerie for some of these dates, and I’d be like, ‘OK, you’re doing that for somebody else. Got it.’”

That’s not necessarily a problem, Brown says. “That feeling is not a flaw in you or in your relationship. It's an invitation to go deeper. The discomfort is pointing at something real, maybe a need for a reconnection ritual with your partner, Maybe a wound that existed long before this relationship did. Maybe it’s pointing at something structural.”

“I feel firmly that polyamory is not what ends relationships,” Riley says, “but it can highlight the things that are not working. I think it all came back to effort, planning, and feeling like she was not as considerate of me as I would have wanted.”

Riley wanted more effort and reciprocation. In her girlfriend’s case, she wanted to get drunk and railed in a winery. The two went their separate ways.

A Spritz Of Perfume Goes A Long Way

For some couples, the green-eyed monster causes rifts. In other relationships, it leads to sparks.

“I wouldn’t say we like being jealous,” says Jenny*, who’s been with her partner Sadie* for eight years and practicing ethical nonmonogamy for four. “But it’s kind of hot, you know? We both get turned on by that, which is why our ENM relationship works really well.”

The 26-year-old had been feeling curious about her sexuality, which motivated her to ask Sadie about opening up their relationship. “I had only had sex with men when I was 16 to 18, and it was really sh*tty, so I was questioning if I had attraction to men,” Jenny says. Nonmonogamy transformed their lives, helping them talk more openly about their wants, needs, and future.

But it hasn’t always been seamless. “A few weeks ago, she was going on a date, and she wore perfume,” Jenny says. “She never wears perfume. So I was like, ‘Why does she never wear perfume for me?’” Jealousy crept in with every whiff.

What looks like envy is often something quieter, and harder to admit: a desire to be considered, to be chosen, and to be worth the extra effort.

Instead of instigating an argument, Jenny offered a compliment with a subtle message: “You smell so good,” she told her partner. “I wish you wore perfume with me.”

The message was received loud and clear. “Since then, she’s been wearing perfume more often,” Jenny says, “even when we’re just hanging out.”

And Jenny has also been open to feedback. “Last summer, I was in a cooking rut, but I was having someone over that I was hooking up with, and I cooked for him,” Jenny says. “Sadie was like, ‘I miss when you cook for me.’ So I just cooked for her the next week.”

“That shift, from feeling excluded to feeling included in their happiness is possible,” Brown says. “It just requires communication.” Something Jenny and Sadie have seemed to master.

Because what looks like envy is often something quieter, and harder to admit: a desire to be considered, to be chosen, and to be worth the extra effort. And sometimes, all it takes to show your partner that is a spritz of your fanciest perfume.

*Names have been changed.