This week on Queerly in Love, Erin and Nālani tackle three questions involving kinky first dates, queer identity, and the complicated logistics of being part of a polycule. In other words: kinky caution, queer confusion, and polycule complications.

🔥 Meeting Your Dom for the First Time

Our first caller is nervous about meeting their Dom in person for the first time—even though he says there won't be anything kinky happening. Erin and Nālani talk about trusting your gut, meeting in public, scouting your escape routes, arranging a safety call, staying out of someone else's car, and asking about experience, references, safewords, and aftercare. Because if you mention safewords and aftercare and your potential Dom looks like a deer in headlights… run.

🏳️‍🌈 When the Baby Queer Meets the Closet Case

A gay man has become close friends with a newly out trans woman and has started helping her find her way around the queer community. Now he's wondering whether it's okay to open up to her about his own questions surrounding gender identity. Erin and Nālani discuss how friends can support one another without turning one person into the designated Trans Encyclopedia, why it's important to ask permission before diving into sensitive topics, and why newly transitioned people shouldn't be expected to have all the answers.

💜 Triad Triage: When Family Comes First

Our final question involves an MFF closed triad facing a difficult family situation. One partner's seriously ill aunt has never accepted her relationships with women, leaving the triad wondering whether everyone should travel together—or whether the newer partner should stay behind. Erin and Nālani discuss disappointment, FOMO, boundaries, and the very important reminder that sometimes it's not about you. Especially when you're visiting someone else's sick relative. Maybe don't make the deathbed the coming-out party for your polycule.

Plus, we get into emergency escape routes, queer mentors, the questionable logic of bathroom windows in movies, and the important distinction between being disappointed and actually getting what you want.

Remember: when being queer is silenced, restricted, and banned, loving your queerness—and loving someone else's queerness—is an act of resistance. ❤️🏳️‍🌈

📞 Have a question for Erin & Nālani?

Leave us a voicemail at 304-315-6369. We want to hear your sexy voices! Texts are also accepted, although apparently they are considerably less sexy.

First, they tackle a listener whose partner wants a vanilla relationship while they still have a serious hankering for kink. Can you keep the love while finding a way to keep the kinky? And if your partner doesn't want to participate, is there a way to get your needs met without opening the relationship?

Then, a 24-year-old trans man wonders whether starting testosterone might change his kinky tastes. Erin and Nālani talk about hormones, changing desires, staying curious, and the surprisingly wild ways our bodies can keep us guessing.

Finally, things get very Greek tragedy when a former poly quad falls apart—but two members keep seeing each other behind the scenes. Is it okay to continue a relationship after the rest of the quad has ended? And can you build something new out of a relationship that started inside a relationship structure that no longer exists?

Spoiler: ethical non-monogamy still requires the “ethical” part. 😏

💌 This Week’s Questions

1. Vanilla With a Side of Kink? 🍦⛓️

Can you stay deeply in love when your partner wants vanilla and you still want things a little… spicier?

2. Testosterone & Tasty Kinks 💉😈

Can starting testosterone change what gets you hot and bothered?

3. Quad Goals or Quadruple Trouble? 🔥🔥🔥🔥

When a poly quad implodes, can two former members keep seeing each other—or is somebody about to get burned?

❤️ In This Episode

• When partners have different sexual and kink needs
• Why it's okay to be disappointed when your relationship changes
• Finding compromises without pressuring a partner into kink
• Separating sex from kink
• Exploring platonic kink and other ways to scratch the itch
• Fantasy, erotica, solo play, and other kinky alternatives
• When professional kink might be an option
• Why love doesn't always make people sexually compatible
• How hormones and transition can affect desires and interests
• Staying curious when your body and sexuality change
• The glorious unpredictability of testosterone
• What happens when a poly quad goes spectacularly sideways
• Consent, boundaries, and respecting a partner's decision to leave
• Why sneaking around can slam the door on future reconciliation
• And several attempts to remember the actual saying about letting someone go and hoping they come back. 🐟🐦❄️

😈 One Thing We Can All Agree On

Whether you're vanilla, kinky, monogamous, polyamorous, transitioning, or some delightful combination of all of the above, communication still beats sneaking around.

And if your relationship changes? You don't necessarily have to stop loving each other. Sometimes recognizing that you can't meet each other's needs—and giving each other the freedom to find what you need—is its own kind of love.

📞 Got a question for Erin & Nālani?

Leave us a voicemail at 304-315-6369. We want to hear your sexy voices!

You can text us, too. But as we've established, texts are apparently less sexy. 😂

Please like, comment, subscribe, and share Queerly in Love with your friends. Help us reach more people who are navigating love, sex, kink, relationships, and all the wonderfully messy stuff in between.

❤️ When being queer is silenced, restricted, and banned, loving your queerness—and loving someone else's—is an act of resistance.

This week on Queerly in Love, Erin and Nālani tackle tops, tucks, and troublesome twosomes. We’ve got a kinky bottom wondering if he should become a Dom just to get dates, a trans woman looking for the secret to squeezing her bits into a micro-thong, and a 20-year marriage facing a very serious polyamory ultimatum. 😳

In other words: things get kinky, cheeky, and emotionally nuclear.

🖤 1. Dom’t Make Me!

Our first caller is a kinky bottom trans man who’s into women—but keeps running into a frustrating problem: the women he’s attracted to seem to be bottoms, while the tops he encounters don’t seem interested in him.

He’s tried Domming before and found it exhausting, so he wonders: Should he try topping again just to get a date?

Erin and Nālani unpack the difference between being a Dom and “managing” someone, why BDSM is supposed to be an exchange rather than a one-way job, and why forcing yourself into a role you don't enjoy probably isn't the best dating strategy. They also discuss experience, aftercare, the value of respecting the work tops put into a scene—and when it might make sense to call in a professional. 😉

👙 2. Tuck, Thong & Roll

Micro Management wants to know what the rest of us are wondering: How the hell do you tuck comfortably into a thong, G-string, or micro bikini when there’s approximately three square inches of fabric to work with?

Erin breaks out a visual aid and demonstrates her personal thong strategy, while Nālani offers some practical advice of her own.

Because sometimes gender euphoria is just finding underwear that stays where the hell it's supposed to stay. 😂

💔 3. Poly Under Duress

After 20 years together, a mostly-monogamous couple is facing a major relationship crossroads. One spouse has realized they're polyamorous and wants to open the marriage. The other isn't interested in polyamory—but is considering agreeing out of fear of losing their spouse.

And then there’s the little problem of wanting to use future partners out of spite.

Erin and Nālani bring some serious tough love to this one, discussing why opening a relationship isn't a good strategy for saving a struggling marriage, why weaponizing other people would hurt everyone involved, and what it might look like to approach the situation with radical honesty, radical listening, and radical love.

Sometimes saving a relationship means changing the relationship. And sometimes it means accepting that the romantic relationship may not be able to continue—but that doesn't necessarily mean the people involved have to disappear from each other's lives.

💋 In This Episode

• Why being a Dom isn't the same as being a manager
• When topping feels like work instead of play
• BDSM, aftercare, and power exchange
• Finding professional help when you can't find the right play partner
• The eternal struggle of tucking into tiny underwear
• Erin's questionable-but-effective thong technique 🍑
• Whether you should open a relationship to save a marriage
• Why revenge dating is a terrible idea
• Radical honesty, radical listening, and radical love
• What happens when two people want fundamentally different relationships

📞 Got a Question for Erin & Nālani?

Have a question about love, sex, dating, kink, polyamory, gender, or relationships?

Leave us a voicemail at 304-315-6369. You can also text us—but, as Erin points out, texts are considerably less sexy than your voice. 😏

And please like, follow, subscribe, and share the podcast with your friends, your lovers, your friends' lovers, or your lovers' friends.

Because when being queer is outlawed, silenced, and banned, loving your queerness—and loving someone else's queerness—is an act of resistance. 🏳️‍🌈❤️

✈️ Kink at the Airport

A long-distance couple is reunited—but someone wants to bring the BDSM toy bag along for the trip. Can you fly with floggers, paddles, canes, and other kinky gear without attracting the attention of airport security? Nālani shares a memorable Folsom Street Fair travel story, and the two discuss when it might make sense to check your gear, ship it ahead, or simply be prepared to explain yourself.

💖 Praise & Panic

A trans man is head-over-heels for his smoking-hot trans girlfriend—but she gets uncomfortable when he compliments her. Why can praise be difficult to receive, especially during transition? Erin and Nālani talk about dysphoria, self-image, affirmation, and the difference between supporting someone and accidentally overwhelming them with praise.

🌈 Does Polyamory Give Women More Power?

A man at a poly mixer argues that women have more dating options and therefore more power in poly relationships. Erin and Nālani unpack the difference between equal permission and equal opportunity, why having more potential matches doesn't necessarily mean having more good options, and how expectations about dating can shape someone's experience of non-monogamy.

In this episode:

• Traveling with BDSM gear
• Airport security and kinky luggage
• When to check, ship, or carry your toys
• Why compliments can sometimes feel uncomfortable
• Gender affirmation and self-acceptance
• Dysphoria and receiving praise
• Equal autonomy vs. equal dating opportunities
• Dating apps and the realities of polyamory
• Why quantity of options doesn't always equal quality

💬 Have a question for Erin & Nālani?

Call and leave a voicemail at 304-315-6369—they want to hear your sexy voice!

And remember: when being queer is silenced, restricted, and banned, loving your queerness and loving someone else's queerness is an act of resistance.