I used to be a conservative Christian — now I have four lovers (2024)

Welcome toHow I Do It, the series in which we give you a seven-day sneak peek into the sex life of a stranger.

This week we hear from Tanya Fourie, a 32-year-old pansexual working as an occupational therapist in mental health.

She’s solo polyamorous with two official partners, and has two friends with benefits situations on the side. She also regularly goes on dates with other people.

Tanya has sex every day, both by herself and with her four sexual partners. And there’s not a single thing she’d change about her intimate life.

‘The sex I have is wholehearted, fulfilling, curious and experimental,’ she says.

‘It’s built on trust, love, understanding and communication. I have amazingly beautiful partners who are open, share their needs and desires, listen to my needs and desires and communicate consent.’

She only realised she was poly about three years ago, just before her 30th birthday, having been monogamous all her life – especially because of her conservative Christian upbringing – but since then she’s ‘never looked back’.

Tanya has been judged for being polyamorous, but to the haters she says this…

‘I think on the outside, it’s easy to think that loving more than one person is only ‘half love’; but that comes from how we were raised in a capitalist society. “There is not enough for everyone”, “We cannot share”, “If you have something, it means there is less for me” – however, this is just simply not the case!

‘If parents love all their children equally or you have enough love for 15 friends, you can have enough love for multiple partners.’

So, without further ado, here’s how Tanya got on this week…

The following sex diary is, as you might imagine, not safe for work.

Monday

After a busy few weeks, today is the day I’ve made time for myself.

I go to work for the day and once that’s through I begin my wholesome self-love night. I pull out all the stops: I treat a night to myself just as I would a date night with anyone else.

I cook myself a beautiful vegetarian curry (as a South African, food is an absolute love language!) and spend time listening to my favourite music. This is followed by a beautiful candlelit shower, with lavender shower bombs.

I start my foreplay in the shower, touching myself gently, using different sponges for different textures. This involves caressing my breasts and massaging my arms and shoulders, to activate my sensory system.

I’ve transformed my room into the ultimate sensory calming atmosphere with fairy lights, projection lights on the walls and candles and incense. Post shower, I browse through my “self-love and pleasure” sex book and decided which of my toys I’ll use.

This book has various ways to have sex with yourself, through positioning pillows in specific ways to make it feel like you are not doing the work, but also being alone. I play my favourite Spotify sex play list and choose my positions, then spend an hour or two having sex with, and loving, myself.

Tuesday

I have a first date with someone I met on the dating app Feeld. This person is amazing – I don’t think I’ve ever met someone so wholesome but also so sexual.

Let me tell you, he ticks all the boxes and the foreplay starts as soon as we meet (I mean the emotional foreplay that removes all the brakes that pop up in our heads and make us not want to have sex).

He carries my bags, he helps me complete some chores. He also suggests we go and swim in the sea, my all-time favourite activity.

We play in the sea, we kiss in the waves, play games on the beach and, most importantly, we laugh. He makes me feel seen, he listens and shows interest.

We share, over a lovely dinner by the sea, what we want sexually and what we were able or wanting to explore. We joke about the fumbly-ness of first-time sex and discuss the things that make us tick.

I share my (what others might be embarrassed about) sexual things that aren’t so sexy; how often I get tested for STIs and how often my partners get tested and their sexual health too. I shared my experience with BV and how I only use MyBliss condoms and proceed to obsessively talk about them.

They’re amazing and taking charge of providing the condoms for sex was a life changing moment for me – it really plays into my dominant side.

When we get home we get consent and start to have sex. Both he and I have the same kink in which I am dominant and he submissive. I give him instructions which he has to complete, pleasing my every desire before he can be rewarded with his pleasure.

I love the way you can play on D/s dynamics. Instructions include; touch me here, touch me this way. Wait your turn.

We spend a few hours in bed exploring each other before ending the session with aftercare. For us (as pre-decided) it is cuddling, saying what we enjoyed and talking about anything we would change or add for next time.

He leaves and I indulge in an online meditation session before getting ready for bed.

Wednesday

After work I’m anxious but excited because I’m meeting up with a partner to de-escalate our relationship.

We were pursuing a romantic relationship but neither of us felt this was what suited us. We want to talk about reverting to being friends who have sex instead.

Our sexual connection is through the roof and this is something we both value!

The sun is out (can you believe it!) so we go to the pub and sit in the garden, talking for hours about what this new dynamic will look like.

After some flirting and heavy kissing we decided to call it a night and go to mine. I normally host as I have an amazing bed and I live a solo poly lifestyle, so I’m home alone.

Thursday

I normally have two nights to myself a week, and tonight is the next one. I get home and clean my sex toys (again, a never-ending task, but so worth it).

Tonight is my rest night. I’ll watch a movie and have a few org*sms, but this time it’s less romantic. I use a specific vibrator for these nights and a specific dild* that is made of glass and lives in the freezer.

This thing was life changing to me and I love exploring with temperature play. I spend time catching up with partners through text – I can be a very bad texter – before calling my long-distance partner and catching up on our lives.

She lives far away, so we try to make time for each other to call and catch up as much as possible. I also check in with my other partners, to make sure everyone feels loved and cared for.

I ensure my calendar is up to date (this is key in polyamory), then practice meditation.

Friday

I’m very excited for today! I’ve been dating a couple, and they’re incredible. We’ve spent time building a safe connection filled with trust and exploration.

Tonight is the first night I’ll be going out in public with them. My heart feels content. They’re great humans. They come to mine before we go out and we share each other almost immediately.

The dynamics of a threesome (female, female, male, or FFM for short) are new every time and sometimes require some playfulness in the moment. I don’t have penetrative sex with many of my partners, but I do with them, so using protection is so important to me during this time.

At the moment, us two women are his submissives and we find playfulness in teasing him by starting off with just us.

I love exploring the female body, and the one thing I’ve learnt is that every woman is really different. When I go down on men it’s almost always more or less the same, just some differences in speed or pressure when touching the balls.

But every time I’m with her, I learn something new about her. After we head out to town, and I experience them amongst their friends and feel included, cared for and wanted.

Saturday

I meant to see my friend group for a night of cabaret. They’re my queer poly friends, and I love them. We try to schedule a group meet at least once week and often the nights end in afters at mine.

But I’m tired today and need more time alone, so I cancel. The beauty of polyamory is every individual’s autonomy, and when you don’t want to do something that’s okay. Consent can be withdrawn and changed.

I do some chores then hop into bed for movies and masturbation. I use my first ever wand vibrator and can I tell you, the fact that I never invested in one before is an absolute shame.

I recently, thanks to a partner, explored sensory play using face masks that you can freeze. It’s amazing! The elimination of vision when exploring oneself is incredible.

I also often play around in being my own dominant – verbally telling myself what to do, that I’m doing a good job and all of the “yessssssss” and “please, more of this”. I find practicing being verbal on myself empowers me to communicate my needs to my partners.

Sunday

Today I’m meeting a partner I love seeing. He’s a really good friend, and we’ve built a healing, empowering relationship. We always do fun things to build our relationship, and it always involves some games and also going out into nature.

We start our day together by playing board games and laughing with each other. He’s the kind of friend you can feel completely comfortable in bed with. We always play around in our sexual dynamic, we don’t practice d/s like I do with other people.

Our fun lies in laughing. He always teases me when I want him to take his clothes off and I almost have to insist he does.

I take off my clothes as a seduction and he proceeds to play the African drums in my bedroom: “come on, I’m waiting”, “is this going to happen?”. He laughs at my eagerness.

This man knows how to go down on me. What I love about our dynamic is the intentional communication of consent: “is this okay?”, “Do you want to try this?”, “how would you feel about trying this?”.

More often than not, we don’t have penetrative sex, but the sex is still great. We then do things that friends do. We go for a walk in nature and we go and buy ingredients to cook a meal.

We put on some YouTube videos, cook a meal and eat together. I value this relationship so much, as it’s healed the preconceived idea I used to have of ‘friends with benefits’.