Ep. 115: Behind the Film 'Open: A Journey Through Love' with Filmmaker Roderick Stevens II

Episode 115:
Behind the Film, “Open: A Journey Through Love’ with Filmmaker Roderick Stevens II

In this episode of the Relationship Diversity Podcast, I talk with filmmaker Roderick E. Stevens II about his new documentary, 'Open: A Journey Through Love.' The film aims to de-stigmatize ethical non-monogamy and explore its positive impacts on individuals and relationships. Roderick shares his journey into the non-monogamous community, his filmmaking process, and the challenges and rewards of creating the documentary. The conversation delves into various aspects of relationship structures, including swinging, polyamory, and body positivity, while emphasizing the importance of communication and intentionality in relationships.

00:00 Introduction: Challenging Relationship Norms

00:48 Welcome to the Relationship Diversity Podcast

01:50 Introducing Roderick Stevens and His Documentary

03:01 Roderick's Journey into Filmmaking and Non-Monogamy

05:58 The Impact of Non-Monogamy on Relationships

15:41 Creating the Documentary: Inspiration and Process

18:24 Exploring Different Forms of Non-Monogamy

33:02 The Future of Non-Monogamy and Final Thoughts

35:10 Conclusion and How to Watch the Documentary

41:55 Closing Remarks and Additional Resources

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Podcast Music by Zachariah Hickman

Chapters

• 0:00 Exploring Relationship Diversity Through Film
• 6:55 The Evolution of Relationship Dynamics
• 19:39 Exploring Relationship Diversity in Non-Monogamy
• 25:30 Broadening Relationship Perspectives Through Film
• 37:18 Supporting Relationship Diversity Through Film
• 42:43 Transform Your Relationships With Self-Exploration

Transcript

Roderick Stevens II: 0:00

This topic is very threatening to a lot of people. It's not a neutral thing. It's literally aggressively threatening to people because we're telling people that the ideas that they were raised with to believe about how you're supposed to live your life may not be entirely accurate. Again, we're not saying monogamy is bad in the slightest, but we're saying it may not be the only thing. And that is very threatening to people. I've experienced it personally. Just describing to someone that's not in the community the premise of this documentary, I've had people back up for me as if I've just said something really offensive, when literally what I said was it's a documentary that seeks to destigmatize ethical non-monogamy and examine the profound positive impacts it can have on individuals and relationships.

Carrie Jeroslow: 0:51

Welcome to the Relationship Diversity Podcast, where we celebrate, question and explore all aspects of relationship structure diversity, from soloramory to monogamy to polyamory and everything in between, because every relationship is as unique as you are. We'll bust through societal programming to break open and dissect everything we thought we knew about relationships, to ask the challenging but transformational questions who am I and what do I really want in my relationships? I'm your guide, Keri Jaroslow, bestselling author, speaker, intuitive and coach. Join me as we reimagine all that our most intimate relationships can become. Today's episode is part of our conversation series. I'm just one voice in this relationship diversity movement and it's important to bring more unique perspectives into the conversation.

Carrie Jeroslow: 1:50

Today I'm talking with Roderick Stevens, an amazing filmmaker who combined his passion of non-monogamy and his expertise in cinematography into the insightful full-length documentary Open A Journey Through Love. In this episode we'll talk about his inspiration for the film, his filmmaking process and what he learned from all the people he interviewed. But first a little about him. Roderick E Stevens II is a 30-year veteran of the film industry and an award-winning, multi-hyphenate screenwriter, director, cinematographer, editor, producer, production designer, fine artist and architect-builder. A prolific creator with great passion for a variety of disciplines. None more than storyteller. After stumbling onto some podcasts about non-monogamy and discovering how this alternative relationship style could have such profound positive impacts on people and relationships. He brought this newfound passion together with his love of film, and spent two years on the road, traveling over 40,000 miles to gather 100 hours of conversations with people and their experiences with non-monogamy. He and his partner live in a small desert town in Southeastern Arizona.

Carrie Jeroslow: 3:19

Let's get into the conversation. Hello everyone, and welcome to this episode of Relationship Diversity Podcast. Ooh, I've got a great guest for you today. Today I've got Roderick Stevens here, who is an artist, a filmmaker, a cinematographer, and he has just produced, written, directed a new film all about diverse relationships, and it's called Open A Journey Through Love, and I am so excited to talk about it because I have been lucky enough to have an advanced screening of it, and it is not only a well-produced film but also brings up a lot of great conversations about relationships that are non-traditional. So I'm excited to have this conversation and learn more about you, roderick. So first, welcome to the podcast.

Roderick Stevens II: 4:15

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm glad you loved the film.

Carrie Jeroslow: 4:18

I did, I did. I can't wait for more people to see it. I definitely want to get into more of your inspiration for doing the film, because I can tell that it was a labor of love. But first I'd love to learn more about you, who you are and what you're all about.

Roderick Stevens II: 4:34

I'm a filmmaker almost first meaning. When I came out of the womb, I had two thoughts on my mind trying to convince my mom to stop smoking, and I wanted to be a filmmaker. But I also have autism and ADHD, autism being the larger component. So I do a lot of things. I've spent many years as a cinematographer, but I've also written and directed and produced some feature films, short films. As a cinematographer, I've shot close to 30 feature films, but I stopped doing that and got into fine art and became a fine artist. I do a lot of different kinds of work mixed media and drizzle art but what I'm most known for is what's called photorealism, or paintings that look like photographs. My website is yesitsapaintingcom. Ooh, we'll include that. Yes, it's a paintingcom because we'll include that, yes.

Roderick Stevens II: 5:24

It's a painting oh, I love it. Yes, it's a paintingcom. And so I used to travel all over the country doing art shows and selling my art and galleries and so on. And then I got back into film, made a couple more projects and lately I get hired as a production designer or art director on feature films. In fact, I'm about to start on a little sci-fi project filming here in Arizona in the next month or so. So I'm a filmmaker, I'm also a dad and a designer and builder of things. I built my own house. I just love creating things.

Roderick Stevens II: 5:58

And when I sort of stumbled into the non-monogamy community, I spent a year year and a half, as I'll describe later built up this passion for the community and for its impact. I kept trying to figure out how to intersect that with my love of storytelling and filmmaking. But because I work primarily in narrative film, I'm thinking about screenplays and stories and such. And then, finally, I was at a lifestyle event, a hotel takeover, a little over two years ago, and it just hit me like a two by four. Why am I not making a documentary about this? Because I have some very specific passion about very specific aspects of non-monogamy that I didn't feel were being represented that were out there, and so that's when I came up with the idea to do the documentary.

Carrie Jeroslow: 6:50

Would you be open to sharing how you stumbled into non-monogamy?

Roderick Stevens II: 6:54

Absolutely so. My partner and I, jane. Sex is a crucial cornerstone of our relationship. To be honest, we met as a hookup and then accidentally fell in love. Sex and sexuality has always been an integral part of our dynamic and we would do the pillar talk and talk about fantasies and bringing other people into the bedroom and that sort of thing. But it's not anything either of us was actually ready to do. We had insecurities and so on.

Roderick Stevens II: 7:22

But at some point I was on one of my many road trips. I do a lot of traveling for various things art shows, for film projects, the little tangent here. My daughter has a pet relocation business and so when people are moving across the country, they'll reach out to her to help get their pets moved if they don't want to drive with them or whatever. And because she knows I love road trips and I love dogs we're all big dog lovers Every once in a while I'll deliver a dog somewhere around the country. And I was on one of these road trips and decided to listen to some podcasts and came across these lifestyle podcasts, and I'm not sure if I even knew what lifestyle meant at the time. This would have been about three and a half years ago, something like that.

Carrie Jeroslow: 8:05

So I'm going to pause you for one second because will you explain to anyone who doesn't know what that term lifestyle means? Because I have people that listen from all different relationship structures. So for anyone who doesn't know, can you explain what the lifestyle is?

Roderick Stevens II: 8:22

Indeed, I found these lifestyle podcasts and I'd heard the phrase before and had loosely come to understand that it was just another name for swingers or people who basically share physical contact with other people but don't necessarily enjoy the emotional connections like polyamory and sounded titillating and fun. I was just thinking, oh, this will be entertaining to listen to. So I started listening to different podcasts and I ended up listening to one in particular. That was specifically this couple that had been married almost 30 years already when they decided to explore opening up their marriage. And then they ended up making this podcast about those experiences. And because I was on this really long road trip, driving lots and lots of hours every day, I ended up listening to seven years of their podcast, or therefore seven years of their relationship, in one week. And between autism which, in my case, an aspect of it is that I tend to perceive things in an almost kind of mathematical equation way, like things break up into components in a very specific way and between that and having that overview, that compressed timeframe, it was crystal clear to me how this alternative relationship style was impacting their communication, their self-esteem, their authenticity, their intimacy, and it took me a while to realize this is what I've been looking for my entire life, not the sex with other people, but this intense communication and intimacy and authenticity.

Roderick Stevens II: 10:03

Again coming back to part of my experience with autism is that my incoming and outgoing filters are somewhat non-existent. So I'm Mr TMI, I talk about everything. I talk too much. You're probably going to have to interrupt me a few times. I put myself out there very openly. If you spend 10 minutes with me, you're getting to know the real me. I don't know how to present differently, and that's a common thing with autism. So I've always felt discouraged by the fact that so much of the world is so close and guarded and they aren't open with themselves. There's a lot of fear out there, and when I saw that this kind of openness, this kind of communication and intimacy and realness and honesty was attainable there were people living this I was hooked.

Roderick Stevens II: 10:54

And so I literally spent a few weeks distilling all of this and writing my own notes, trying to understand the mechanics of how is this unfolding? How does it happen? How is it that considering having sex with other people is having all this impact on emotions and relationship and so on? And then came and talked to my partner about it and I said, look, here's this thing I've discovered. This is the kind of relationship that I think we could enjoy together and again set aside whether we're actually going to have sex with people. It's just the thing that so many people discover as almost a side effect of this is that if you start even just talking about opening up your relationship, it's first of all going to test your relationship. Can your relationship even endure the conversation? And then what it does, of course, is shine a light on why maybe you can't. If this is really uncomfortable, what's going on? Because it's going to really point out your insecurities and your fears. My partner has discovered some anxieties and fears that she's been carrying around since she was a little girl and she didn't even know it. That's the thing that this does and that's just having the conversation about it.

Roderick Stevens II: 12:09

So many people, as you heard in the documentary, talk about how sex is the most difficult, most uncomfortable thing for people to talk about. It's so hard for people to talk comfortably about sex and about their fantasies, including the weird kinky stuff and the stuff you'd never want to do in real life, but it still turns you on to think about it when you can get to a point where you and your partner can talk comfortably and openly and compassionately with each other. About that. Nothing is hard to talk about.

Roderick Stevens II: 12:41

After that. Everything becomes easier to deal with, and that sort of thing just hooked me and so I said do you trust me enough to know that I'm not saying let's explore this just so I can have an orgy, but explore this because I feel like our relationship can improve from it. And she did, because again she struggles with a lot of insecurities about this stuff. I just said don't worry about whether we're going to engage with other people in that way. And we've dipped our toes here and there and again it's shown like some things that she's working through now and myself as well.

Carrie Jeroslow: 13:17

And how long ago was that? Because I'm curious, I think when people talk about it, when they're maybe at the stage that you're at or I'm at, it seems like, oh, it was just this process and it happened really quickly. But no, for many people it is an ongoing process. So for you, when you introduced it to your partner, how long ago was that?

Roderick Stevens II: 13:38

To your point. We're still in the middle of that process. We are not anywhere close to the end of it.

Carrie Jeroslow: 13:45

Is there an end? I think that's a fallacy.

Roderick Stevens II: 13:48

There's that in the first place, but we're not even past chapter one, so we like to walk across the street here and walk laps around our little city park that we have, and we did a five-lap walk around the park a little over three years ago and that was when I explained all this stuff and that year the very first thing we ever did was gosh. That would be four years ago now, not three. And the very first thing we ever did was we went to Desire RM in Cancun, which is a clothing optional resort At any given time. If you go to Desire, there's probably 50 to 70% of their guests are lifestyle people with some crossover into polyamory.

Roderick Stevens II: 14:29

We weren't anywhere close to wanting to play with people. We just wanted to enjoy the sexy atmosphere and being able to be naked if we wanted and that sort of thing, and it was a magical week. We ended up stumbling into a takeover group that was there from the Northeast and I would say this was not even our tribe of people. These were not people we would necessarily hang out with in our regular lives and yet we had nothing but fantastic engagement with people and great conversations and it was encouraging. We were blown away by the body positivity. That was one of the first things we saw was all these different types and sizes and shapes of people, all unashamedly celebrating their humanness and feeling desired and feeling appreciated.

Carrie Jeroslow: 15:16

Oh, man, that's powerful, that's really powerful.

Roderick Stevens II: 15:20

Yeah, that was fantastic. So that was the first thing. And then we joined an online community and we went to some other events and, for the most part, we just enjoyed the sexy atmosphere, the flirtation and, again, how it brought us closer together. That's what we were really enjoying. And then, like I said, it was two years ago in July that we were at a hotel takeover in Palm Springs and I was talking to a podcaster and he found out that I was a filmmaker. And we got to talking and all of a sudden it hit me why am I not doing a documentary about this?

Roderick Stevens II: 15:56

And part of how that worked out for us is that I'm a filmmaker. I have camera, equipment and lighting and so on. I know how to use it. I am also I'm an editor. I know how to edit. I love road trips.

Roderick Stevens II: 16:10

Most people don't like driving all over the country. I actually do road trips. Most people don't like driving all over the country. I actually do. Last month, I helped my daughter with some of her things and I probably traveled 15,000 miles in a few weeks. Now, some of that was flying.

Roderick Stevens II: 16:23

So I love road trips and so I ended up reaching out and finding people all over the country that I could meet up with to interview for the film, and the process of making the film and meeting with all these people and hearing their stories that alone has been a huge part of our journey into and through this whole experience and just trying to find out who are we, what do we want out of this? And, as I described to you early on, this film was made by curious but cautious people for curious but cautious people. That's who we were making this for. I think my favorite piece of feedback that I've gotten over the course of post-production when I would send it to some people to get feedback as I was editing and some of these people were film industry friends, some were non-monogamy friends, some were neither and they didn't even know this was a project I was working on, so they were really coming in just as people who don't know anything about it. And my favorite feedback was when it would be a couple and they would say they kept having to pause the film and just stop and talk.

Roderick Stevens II: 17:32

Oh yeah, and to me that's what I made this for was for people to watch it and just process it and think, well, how do I feel about this? And if you're a couple, talk about it, and I tried to make it what I call a gentle overview. We don't push non-monogamy. We don't claim non-monogamy is better than monogamy. We don't make it sound like you evolve up into it's like no, no, the whole point is, this is just another option, and so that way, if you have a couple that's watching this as an example, no matter how close that couple is, that's still two individuals with two different ideas of what they're comfortable with, and we wanted this documentary to be something that would help encourage a compassionate conversation as opposed to a see. We should do this, yeah.

Carrie Jeroslow: 18:22

I definitely feel that from watching it. You've talked a lot about the lifestyle and swinging. Do you go into other aspects of non-monogamy, like polyamory, like solo poly, like monopoly, that there's so many different forms and also, just like you said, in terms of swinging in the lifestyle, is that it's not necessarily about what you do and that it has to look this way. It's whatever works for you. You may go to events and not ever engage, but be in the experience and the energy. And I'm curious if you go into other forms of non-monogamy in this film. Yeah, yeah.

Roderick Stevens II: 19:05

So first of all to that point. To me one of the overarching messages in here is that there's no barrier to entry, there's no application process, there's no right or wrong way to do this. Every person and every couple gets to choose for themselves how they want to explore non-monogamy. There's not only so many options, it's infinite, because it's any kind of blend of these things. It didn't used to be that way. There used to be really distinct separation. There were swingers and there was pop hammering.

Roderick Stevens II: 19:39

I feel like in the last decade the population or the community that has exploded the most is this thing. That's in between, that some people call social swinging or swally. There's all kinds of labels that people people call social swinging or swally. There's all kinds of labels that people I would say from millennials and older use. All these definitions and labels. Gen Z doesn't seem to care about all that. They're just like we're doing whatever feels natural. But there's this mass population of people that they don't necessarily want to go full polyamory but they really enjoy the deep connections and the friendships they make with other people that sometimes include sex.

Roderick Stevens II: 20:18

One of the people in the documentary talks about how they had 60 couples over at their house for a birthday party and the only four of those couples had they ever had any kind of physical contact with. So, as straight white couple who were introduced to this through the lifestyle we're swinging or through that community, that aspect of things was very accessible to us. So we had straight white swingers coming out of the woodwork that we could talk to. So it did become a challenge trying to find people in other experiences, including people of color, lgbt polyamory. So I had to really work harder to try to find some representation from those communities, because one of my points in this documentary is that it's not about swinging, it's not about polyamory, it's about the overarching concept of non-monogamy and how that can impact individuals in relationships.

Roderick Stevens II: 21:18

And then it was about destigmatizing it, showing people again not that it's better than monogamy, just that it's different than you probably thought it was. And so, yeah, we ended up not only finding some great folks to talk to us about their polyamory experiences, but we found people of color. We have a trans only finding some great folks to talk to us about their polyamory experiences, but we found people of color. We have a trans person and some gay and lesbian. And then that intersection where we have a story that I've heard so many times in the last three years now three or four years is a couple that has gotten into swinging has no interest in the deeper emotions component of it. They just want to enjoy the sex with other people and then they fall in love with another couple and now all of a sudden they're still swingers, they still play with other people, but now they're in this poly quad that they share home together and that sort of thing. And that sort of thing has happened a lot in the last few years.

Carrie Jeroslow: 22:12

It has, and that's what I love about this concept of relationship diversity, because several years ago, when I started this podcast, I saw a lot of divisiveness, specifically between polyamory and swinging, and I think that we naturally evolve, and so to say I'm not going to catch feelings or I'm not going to have sex with someone is to deny a natural part of ourselves which is evolution. And so the idea of relationship diversity, meaning that let me always check in with myself to understand how am I wanting to evolve, what is working for me, what do I want more of? And to continually have those conversations that you're talking about helps to unite people more than divide people, which is always my intention in the world.

Roderick Stevens II: 23:02

To that point, one of my favorite things, amanda Wilson of Hashtag Open, which is a dating app and site and community that they're building right now. She talks about the idea of, as we move forward in life, embracing consensual monogamy Meaning right now. The problem is it's such a default. We don't even talk about what that means, and the idea of people stopping and saying, okay, let's stop thinking, this is the only way we can do it. There are all these options. So what do we want our relationship to look like? And if it's monogamy, great, but let's talk about what that looks like and what that means, instead of just assuming, well, this is what we do.

Carrie Jeroslow: 23:43

Right and that might work for a certain time in your life, maybe if you're wanting to close the container to conceive, or whatever it is, or maybe we need to work on something within our relationship.

Carrie Jeroslow: 23:55

Let's close the container for right now and strengthen that or whatever it is that. It is intentional and conscious and that is what definitely changes it from I'm just doing this because I hadn't thought about it. I don't know. That's just what you do, and so I appreciate your film because it brings more thoughtfulness into it. It's not saying that non-monogamy is for everyone, but it's saying it's an option and think about it and see what resonates with you and your partner, if you have one. So I'm curious when you started the film, Did you have a direction that you were moving in? Because I know sometimes with documentaries you have a theory that you're wanting to prove or show or you're finding information to support that, and then some documentaries like I'm just going to go in and explore and see what themes come up. How did you go into the filmmaking aspect?

Roderick Stevens II: 24:54

you go into the filmmaking aspect. A documentary in particular is the kind of project that sort of writes itself as you're going, you often find surprises like, oh, it turns out we're going this direction. Basically every interview I did and by the time I was done I compiled over 100 hours of footage of interviews with people. So I have so much content. It's obscene. When I did my first assembly of every topic that I wanted to include and every person talking about each of those topics, it was a seven and a half hour cut. Wow, it took me four months to get that cut down to three and a half hours, down to two and a half hours, down to two hours, down to an hour and a half. But my approach was always with these interviews I would ask people their histories. How did they meet each other? If it was a couple, what was their experience in relationships prior to knowing about non-monogamy, if such a thing existed? How did they discover non-monogamy? And then it was all about tell me how it has impacted you. How do you experience things differently now compared to before? And I would do no prompting about what that was. Just you tell me how has this impacted you One of the interesting things about my perspective as a filmmaker was that, on the one hand, I'm not an outsider trying to create an expose of something.

Roderick Stevens II: 26:10

This is something I'm passionate about. I love this community. I feel like this community is home for me, but at the same time I'm a newbie. So I'm full of wide-eyed wonder Teach me, what can you tell me about all this? And I wouldn't say I was surprised by anything. It's just everybody talked about the same things, and to me that's exactly how I experienced it. Everyone talked about community, the friendships, the value of the friendships that they've made Communication one of the biggest things, in polyamory, for instance. Everybody talks about the calendar, which is all about communication.

Roderick Stevens II: 26:45

But I had someone point out one time that you can have the best communicators in the world, but what they identified was that people communicated with more compassion. So it wasn't so much communication improved, it was that compassion improved Another way of looking at it. Everyone talked about body positivity, about self-esteem, improvements in self-esteem, authenticity a frequent topic and then to me, self-esteem authenticity a frequent topic. And then to me, to sum it all up, that leads to intimacy. On the downside, everybody talked about jealousy. Everybody talked about the nervousness around being exposed, being outed, and if someone had experienced it, oftentimes that resulting in them saying it was the most stressful, most painful, yet most liberating thing they'd ever been through was being outed Like all of a sudden it was like, yeah, that sucked. We went through some painful stuff, but now we get to be real. We get to be real with everyone.

Roderick Stevens II: 27:43

And then I would end the interviews always with what do you see for the future of non-monogamy, or what do you hope for the future of non-monogamy? So that was my approach, as much as in almost every other way in life. Again, because of the autism, I'm Mr Structure and organization and I get all my ducks in a row and I understand what's going on with this. All I could do is go and sit down with people and have a conversation. It really wasn't even an interview as much as it was a conversation, because, as you can see, I'm a talkative person and so yeah.

Carrie Jeroslow: 28:18

Well, I love it and one of the things that I was particularly excited about your film is that there's so much out there that sensationalizes anything other than traditional monogamous relationships, and what I loved is that you showed that if this is just regular people who experience relationships differently and yet deal with a lot of the same things that either people who are in monogamous relationships deal with or should deal with and use monogamy as an elusive protective device to not have communication, to not deal with insecurities, so I really appreciated the way and the context and the energy of which your film was done was that this is just another option.

Roderick Stevens II: 29:14

So thank you for that.

Carrie Jeroslow: 29:15

Because I think that's important. There's a lot of films out there and a lot of different TV shows that I watch them and I say, oh, we're almost to a place where this is neutral. But nope, right at the end you're like, oh, and my relationship blew up because we tried something different. That's in more fictional, dramatic TV and movies, and it's like, oh my gosh.

Roderick Stevens II: 29:39

That, in fact, has proven to be one of our challenges in a way. So, for instance, the point that we're at right now is we've finished post-production on the film and we've begun submitting it to film festivals, and our challenge is twofold. On the one hand, unfortunately, this topic is very threatening to a lot of people. It's not a neutral thing. It's literally aggressively threatening to people because we're telling people that the ideas that they were raised with to believe about how you're supposed to live your life, may not be entirely accurate. Again, we're not saying monogamy is bad in the slightest, but we're saying it may not be the only thing. And that is very threatening to people.

Roderick Stevens II: 30:26

I've experienced it personally. Just describing to someone that's not in the community the premise of this documentary, I've had people back up for me as if I've just said something really offensive, when literally what I said was it's a documentary that seeks to destigmatize ethical non-monogamy and examine the profound positive impacts it can have on individuals and relationships, and somebody will be thrown back by that. And I've had people say, oh, that's for young people, people over 50 don't have sex and my girlfriend and I are doing just fine with that. So, on the one hand, it's a threatening topic to people to challenge monogamy. On the other hand, our documentary isn't full of drama and conflict. It's the warm, fuzzy, gentle overview of things. Film festivals, like something that's going to really engage you, and so we may have a hard time with that. There's people that prefer to have drama. They want to see conflict, and that's a lot of what we run into is the concept of non-monogamy is used as a source of conflict instead of no. This is a potentially valid thing.

Roderick Stevens II: 31:32

Yeah, that's a bigger statement of our world and society All too often people focus on the sexual aspect of all of this, whether it's polyamory or swinging or whatever, and it's like the relationship stuff. Is this incidental thing that happens, whereas my approach is no, that's the focus, and you can have sex with other people or not. That becomes the secondary part to me. We talk about some very specific sexual topics, but we don't get into making it sensationalized.

Carrie Jeroslow: 32:08

We grow up with so much shame around sex and it's so tied into relationships. So there's a lot of wounding as a society, specifically in the US, about relationships and sex and someone who is open to exploring this even watching a movie about it, I think has to be in a place of being open to working on your own shit working on your own wounding because that has been one of the biggest things in my journey is looking at all of the programming that I grew up with about intimacy, love, relationships, sex, body consciousness, all of that and we want to dramatize it all because I think that's our society. What are your biggest goals for the film?

Roderick Stevens II: 33:04

To put it quite bluntly, I would love to get it in front of as many people as possible, front of as many people as possible and, again, just get people at the very least to let go of some of their judgments, whether it interests them or not If they don't want anything to do with it, to just accept that, oh, maybe this is different than I thought. I'm not even saying get people to like it, I'm literally just saying to accept that it's maybe different than you thought it was. But then, as much as get people talking and being more intentional, being more intentional about their relationship. Again, one of my favorite concepts is the idea of a couple, as an example, watching this documentary and then just having deeper conversations than they've ever had before. And if they never explore non-monogamy, great whatever, but at least maybe they'll start talking about.

Roderick Stevens II: 34:02

I've always been turned on by this idea and just the idea of sharing fantasies and talking more openly about sex, because again, as soon as you do that, it's like it opens the floodgates and now you're more comfortable because you've developed more acceptance and compassion for your partner and patience and that sort of thing. So now everything becomes easier to talk about. So that would be. My biggest goals is getting it in front of people.

Carrie Jeroslow: 34:28

I love this inspiration about de-stigmatizing and helping people with judgments that they have, because I think we will always fill in all the blanks about something we don't know about with all of our old wounding and conditioning To meet someone in a different lifestyle and I'm not meaning the swinging lifestyle, I'm just meaning like anyone that lives a different life than you, and hearing their story I think helps to fill in blanks with real life experiences and that's one of the inspirations for my podcast as well.

Carrie Jeroslow: 35:10

So if there's someone out there who is so intrigued and they want to see the film Roderick, how can they do that? Is there any way someone in Australia or Japan or I have people in 85 countries and territories is there any way someone could watch the movie?

Roderick Stevens II: 35:31

Well, a couple of things I wanted to add. One more thought about what we were just talking about. We had our first limited audience screening of the film again when I was still getting feedback for post-production at the Southwest Love Festival in Tucson, arizona, a couple of months ago. We had an audience of about 36 people and I gave them all these forms to fill out feedback forms and they picked their favorite interviews and least favorite interviews and talked about what they liked and didn't like. We had one person who didn't like the film because he's focused on relationship anarchy and he felt like this was too traditional for him and you can't please everybody, but just the irony of this is so threatening to most people but for him this didn't go far enough into alternative relationship styles. But my favorite two bits of feedback from that that were repeated by several people we had a few counselors and therapists in the audience and they all said they couldn't wait to share this film with their clients to give them just this overview of the whole experience. And then several other people in the audience said they couldn't wait to share this film with their friends and family, just to show them this is what we're doing. This shows you some aspect to help explain why you guys think we're weird. But look, this is what it is as far as where we're at with the film. So we've submitted it to film festivals. The idea is to see how and where we end up getting programmed. And then we also have a PR firm engaged and we're just moving things forward to try to find a distributor or streamer to pick up the film. This is a long process, a tedious process. I'm sure it will not be until next year, that it's out to 2025. It's always possible otherwise, but that's what I would expect.

Roderick Stevens II: 37:18

So, in the meantime, for people who are interested, the website is wwwopenjourneylovecom and our Twitter is at Swing Traverts, because we just happen to be introverted people and that was just I love that we got on Twitter and so that stuck.

Roderick Stevens II: 37:37

So we're at Swing Traverts and then on Instagram and YouTube we're at Open Journey Love, if anybody wants to follow us on any of those. I've been releasing short clips from the documentary or from all the extra content that we have that didn't make it in the documentary and I've got tons. So I'm going to keep releasing clips about different topics, but it's also where I'll keep people updated about what film festivals that it's at. If we're doing a film festival in Mobile, alabama, and there's people that live there, they can come check it out. And then also we want people to follow us as much as possible, because those in the world we live in now, social media engagement, is something we can use to show streamers and distributors that look, we have an audience that's eagerly waiting to see this film and then also occasionally we'll post links here and there, and anybody who messages me on any of those platforms I'm happy to send them a link to the first 10 minutes of the film so they can see how it starts.

Carrie Jeroslow: 38:40

That's wonderful. So anyone who is out there and really wants to check out a great film and I agree with you, the film would be great to send to family and friends who don't really understand what you're up to, and also therapists and counselors. I enjoyed watching it. I have many friends that are in that film, which was really fun, and many people that I've interviewed on the podcast here. So I'll have all your links in the show notes so people can connect with you. And if this is something that you feel inspired, following Roderick and following the film is going to really help show that there is a desire out there from people to see the film. That's going to help. So following. If you can do one thing is go follow Roderick in the film on Instagram and YouTube and let's create support for getting this film out there.

Carrie Jeroslow: 39:42

So, anything else, Roderick, that you want to leave us with?

Roderick Stevens II: 39:45

No other than this has been the most exhausting and expensive. I have a mountain of credit card debt that I've incurred making this film, but soul nourishing project I've ever worked on and I've worked on some great projects. Anytime my partner could go with me to do these interviews, she would. In fact she would be the one doing the interviewing then. But a lot of times she couldn't because she has a real job and I would go on these long road trips like two week road trips to just go meet with people in different cities and shoot these interviews, and every night she would have to listen to me gush on the phone about these incredible conversations with amazing people and it really just bolstered my love affair with humanity. It's been an amazing experience making this film.

Carrie Jeroslow: 40:32

Yes, there were amazing conversations. I would love to see some of the uncut stuff, so I'm going to be watching your YouTube and Instagram for some of those bits and pieces that didn't quite make it in the film. For anyone out there who is an artist, I know from one artist to another that it had to have been a passion project, a labor of love, for you to be spending all your own money, all your own time and you can really feel that in the film. You can feel the passion that you have for this and, as someone who is wanting to further this idea of relationship diversity, I want to thank you for all that you did to get this film made, and I would love to ask anyone out there listening to go follow Roderick on all the platforms. It doesn't cost a darn thing, but it really does help. So thank you, yeah, thank you so much, and hopefully maybe we'll come back together in a year or two and you'll say it's won all these awards. That's what I'm hoping.

Roderick Stevens II: 41:41

That'd be swell.

Carrie Jeroslow: 41:43

And all your credit card bills are paid off.

Roderick Stevens II: 41:45

Oh yeah, that'd be even more swell.

Carrie Jeroslow: 41:47

Awesome, roderick. Well, thank you so much, and everyone go connect Roderick. Well, thank you so much, and everyone go connect with Roderick. Thanks so much for listening to the Relationship Diversity Podcast. Want to learn more about relationship diversity? I've got a free guide I'd love to send you. Go to wwwrelationshipdiversitypodcastcom to get yours sent right to you. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe to the podcast. You being here and participating in the conversation about relationship diversity is what helps us create a space of inclusivity and acceptance together.

Carrie Jeroslow: 42:28

The more comfortable and normal it is to acknowledge the vast and varied relating we all do, the faster we'll shift to a paradigm of conscious, intentional and diverse relationships. New episodes are released every Thursday. Stay connected with me through my website, kerryjerislowcom, instagram or TikTok. Stay curious. Every relationship is as unique as you are.

Carrie Jeroslow: 43:00

Are you wondering why you never seem to find lasting fulfillment in your relationships, or do you create the same kinds of relationship experiences over and over again? Can you never seem to find even one person who you want to explore a relationship with? Have you just given up hope altogether? If this sounds like you, my recent book why Do they Always Break Up With Me is the perfect place to start the foundation of any relationship, whether intimate or not, is the relationship we have with ourselves. In the book, I lead you through eight clear steps to start or continue your self-exploration journey. You'll learn about the importance of self-acceptance, gratitude, belief shifting and forgiveness, and given exercises to experience these life-changing concepts. This is the process I use to shift my relationships from continual heartbreak to what they are now fulfilling, soul nourishing, compassionate and loving. It is possible for you. This book can set you on a path to get there. Currently available through Amazon or through the link in the show notes.