Daily Inspiration: Meet Chris Deaton

Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Deaton.

Hi Chris, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
About ten years ago, while working on a graduate research project, I was introduced to the term polyamory. It was pretty quickly that I realized that this relationship structure spoke to my soul; it was what my heart was missing. It was much more authentic to the beliefs I had surrounding love and commitment. I dove down that rabbit hole and had an insatiable appetite to learn more. Where people really doing this? Who was really doing this? How were they doing this successfully? I was driven to learn more and we have now spent more than a last decade living, researching, and educating others on how we make this life work for us. We define polyamory as being open to having multiple, committed relationships with the full knowledge, consent, and often with a lot of conversations, of all parties. This often comes in the form of being married, but dating others with the full knowledge and support of your spouse, but not always. If you can imagine a multiple partner configuration, we probably have someone practicing it somewhere in the community.

For example, my nesting partner, she lives with me, of the last decade has been married to someone else and has been for twice as long as we have been together. Much of the polyamory community we were involved with adheres to a belief in egalitarian relationships, but my partner and I felt that a more hierarchical structure was appropriate for us, one in which some partners have priority over the other(s). We also felt drawn to an authority transfer dynamic that put me as the head of the relationship(s). We struggled with this as it was contradictory to much of what we were being taught in the community. This controversy, the ethical practice of hierarchy and power exchange in long term successful polyamorous relationships, became the focus of my research. About five years into the research I was invited to a large BDSM conference called Thunder in the Mountains in Denver. I went as an exercise in escapism, but what I found was a whole new world. It shook many of the beliefs I had held true. There were hundreds of adults participating that weekend in consensual BDSM activities in a giant adult playground space. I witnessed fascinating acts of sexual abandon, high intensity scenes involving ritualistic pain, and dozens of public displays of intimacy and partnership that I yearned to understand more fully. I was introduced to some of the most well rounded and happiest people I had ever met that weekend. A vast majority were un unequal authority transfer or power exchange dynamic structures. A lot were practicing various flavors of polyamory. This flew in contrast to the ideas we had been peddled that successful polyamory relationships were only possible in an egalitarian model.

After that conference my partner and I, Elisha Thompson, dove deeply into the kink and Leather communities to find out how those folks made it work. We started looking at the behaviors and attitudes that encouraged success and began sharing our findings in the ethical non-monogamy and kink communities. We became one of them. Truly Beloved was formed five years later. We registered as a non-profit in 2020 with a goal to research, educate, and support those folks in polyamorous and power exchange relationships. We do not promote our path as the path for everyone, but we do try to provide people with options and alternatives to the current social norms. We work very hard to set the example in order to give others the permission to live their own authentic and intentional lives. We have successfully done things different than others and enjoy sharing how we make that work. One difference is that Elisha lives with me and not her husband, although he is only 15 minutes away and I do his grocery shopping in the times of COVID. We have been researching and educating in the community since 2014, but our first major publication, as Truly Beloved Foundation, is Elisha’s book, Yoga for Kink. We are really excited about it. It will be published in the first in the first half 2021.

More information will be on the website soon! http://www.yogaforkink.com we also rolled out a new series of monthly discussion groups meetings to give people a save space to share experiences and get feedback on issues that they may be struggling with. We firmly believe in the adage, “it takes a village” and we are hoping that the Truly Beloved community can provide that safe space for authentic and intentional life building. I also facilitate other various discussion groups for the polyamory and power exchange community through Arizona Power Exchange. The outreach we do in effort to give back to those that helped is super important to me.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been a challenge to find our place in the communities. As academics we were seen as outsiders to some in the polyamory community. As cis-heterosexual white folks there was a little bit of apprehension in some Leather circles. We present more as academic yoga influenced hippies than as old Leather folks, or the traditional polyamorous couple, sharing their journey. One of the largest leaps of faith we took was going after one of the Leather titles. In 2018 we ran for the Arizona Master/slave contest. This has a regional and an international leg. We won the state and missed the regional in 2019. COVID cancelled our rerun attempt in 2020, but one day we will go again. The Master/slave title is an educational position. Those that hold the title are expected to travel and educate others on how they live their lives ethically and successfully for all involved parties. The Master/slave community is very strong on intentional actions and personal growth. I have spent the last 3 decades in sales and managerial roles and I am willing to go out a limb and say that the average, long term leader of any Leather community, especially those that adhere to a Master/slave structured intent, have read more self-help books and attendee more weekend retreats on self-improvement than anyone I have worked with in the corporate world.

We wanted to prove to ourselves, and others, that we were also those people. And then came COVID. Prior to March of 2020 we had monthly dinner discussions at a local restaurant. The attendance was between 40-60, depending on the topic. We also taught or facilitated other discussions three to four other times each month. After our quarantine began we went fully online. We also presented at conferences across the nation every month, sometimes more than once a month. That all changed. Our original Truly Beloved business plan and goals required that we spend a lot of time without community at conferences and gatherings. This was our primary path to book sales once we were ready for publication. After March we had to rethink our future and find new ways to tackle our objectives. We have shifted and we will be doing an online presales sometime after the first of the year and will be ready for conferences once the world is a little safer.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Beyond the work I do with Truly Beloved, I am also facilitator of the Arizona Chapter of Loving More, a national polyamory 501(c)3 non-profit, and I am a member of the Executive Committee for 501(c)7 non-profit, Arizona Power Exchange, a local BDSM social and education organization. We just celebrated our 32nd year as a club. Truly Beloved is also a Coalition Partner with the 501(c)3 non-profit National Coalition for Sexual Freedom. Those are the side gigs. Professionally, I am a certified Product Owner and facilitator of various programs for Arizona State University’s University Technology Office. I have been involved in internet and technology work since my early days at America Online. I am currently attached to a number of projects that I am super excited about. I was over 40 when I finished my first Bachelor’s degree, but next year I will have my 3rd Masters, Sociology this time, completed. I have drowned myself in the academic Kool-Aid and one of my current projects is a process in which we can accredit e and validate life long learning that is not attached to a classroom. People spend an awful lot of time learning new things, but past the college degrees and specific certifications, how do you show an employer that you have participated in and expressed knowledge through action in certain things? One project I am current the technical owner of is called XPLOR. XPLOR addresses that challenge. I have been fortunate to be on a number of innovative products over the years. I believe that ASU President Crow has the vision needed to transform education as we know it and I often feel a bit of impostor syndrome of how fortunate I am to be working as a creator of the next wave of education. I have spent a lot of time and energy on personal growth the last few years and I belief it has shown itself in the directions my life has taken and has helped me achieve the things I have set out to accomplish, personally, professionally, and academically. I have found that living an intentional and authentic life really does make your dreams come true. However, sometimes you may learn that what you want wasn’t necessarily what you had been chasing. That can be a hard thing to swallow and accept. What you think you should do is not always what you ought to do.

Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
When my wife and I started looking for places to live many years ago I made a commitment to not live in a city. I stuck with that commitment for more than 20 years. Then a divorce happened and circumstances required that I move to a city. I moved to Tempe. It was the best move I ever made. I love the vibrancy of the ASU community that is at our doorstep. The energy of the students and the residents in our neighborhood keeps my energized and active. Elisha and I found a small home with a nice yard a mile from campus a few years ago. It is our forever home. While people often make the place, our area of Tempe has lots of places along with those people. A year ago, after hearing coworkers complain about the lack of food choices, I made a list of everywhere to eat within a mile of Old Main on Tempe’s ASU campus. I listed over 50. My youngest son once pointed out that we had everything we need within a mile of my house – if you want it, you can walk to it. Our neighborhood is long established and we have multiple parks, bike paths, and trees that are older than I am. 50+ years old aren’t that easy to come by anymore. We have our own little oasis in the desert. In the end, it doesn’t seem like I live in a city. I hope it stays that way. The last few years have been pretty hard on our neighborhood. We have a number of developers that come in and buy up homes to make more luxury apartments for a population that doesn’t exist. Our city government seems to support giving tax breaks to these folks rather than supporting the residents that want to make this place a better city by keeping them out or requiring that we build more affordable housing. There has been a lot of lip service over the years but I haven’t seen the council do much positive. It’s a shame, but there is always hope for the future if we stay and keep fighting, so we will.

Contact Info:

• Email: love@trulybeloved.com
• Website: http://www.trulybeloved.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kayabound/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KayaBound
• Other: https://www.facebook.com/trulybeloved

Image Credits
R. T. Cox, Chris Deaton