The next time someone invites you to make a third in their marriage, or tells you that they’ve been looking for a hot bi babe to date both husband and wife, smile sweetly and hand them the polyamorous secondary relationship card by Edward Martin and Franklin Veaux.

On the back, you can add these possibilities:

• I will be dumped if I give better head than a primary partner.
• I will be dumped if I refuse to participate in bukkake/anal sex/golden showers/Roman showers/needleplay/other sexual activity one primary partner craves and the other abhors. (“But why else did we want to include you?”)
• I will be dumped if I ask for jealously reserved sexual rights, such as sleepovers, penis-in-vagina sex, or orgasms.
• I will be dumped if I have other plans on Saturday night.
• I will be dumped if I refuse to recruit my attractive younger friends for sex parties.
• I will be dumped if I get upset when important decisions are made without consulting or informing me. (“Of course you can still visit as often as you want, but you’ll find that the plane fare to Irkutsk, Siberia, may be a little steep.”)

Polyamorous relationships have been wonderful for me, and I’m a hot bi babe. Well, bisexual. But I have also seen plenty of committed couples who can’t understand why they can’t find or keep a secondary partner, when it’s obvious that they rank their secondary partner somewhere below the family dog in emotional priority.

Want to maintain a strong, positive, loving relationship with a secondary partner? Treat them like they’re an adult human, not a sex toy.