All That Glitters

There’s a little thing that comes up now and then at poly and kink munches and such and it’s a thing I support, but it’s got this undercurrent I’d like to kick in the taco.  It’s this kind of radically sex positive, “I can and should do the things I want to do in relationships and/or sexually”.  Yay!!  I love it.

You wanna have sex with a microwaved cantaloupe.  Good on ya.  You wanna get busy with 3 midgets or a guy that’s tall dark and handsome?  Whatever.  You wanna get your jollies draining a woman’s blood into a spray bottle and then dousing her all over in her own blood?  Whatever.  You kink is cool.  Your turning crank is your turning crank’s bidness.  I love it.  I love the freedom and expression, excitement and variety.  I crave kinky play so much I can’t SEE straight.  I want to be spanked till my bottom is ripe as a cherry and then suck my spanker’s cock till he’s close to coming, with his hand roughly in my hair, have him cool a tad and fuck me as hard as he can.  I want to hurt and please and be pleased.  I want to bruise.  I want to be bound and teased and tease.  I want to pet you lovingly and get beaten with a flogger over and over and over.  I want my skin to sing with electricity.  I want to make a girl scream as she cums with my entire hand in her pussy.  I love it all.  I want you to check if it’s turning me on by sticking your fingers in my pussy and seeing that I am soaking wet.  Delicious.

I’m not even going to say the obligatory “except”…. you know it’s there.. blah blah kids, consent.. blah blah.

I’m GGG.  I’m down with YKINMKBYKIO (good giving and game and your kink is not my kink but your kink is okay).  BUT… I have a bone to pick.

Keep your eyes on your own cake!

A long time ago, when we first opened up, I was reading everything I could get my hands on about polyamory and open relationships. I read “Sex at Dawn” and “Opening Up” and “The Ethical Slut”, the gold standards of poly/open/swinger lit. I spent oodles of time at Polyamory.org, reading the message boards. I went to munches and meetups and potlucks. Back then, I heard this analogy that jealousy is kinda like cake.

Post Great Night Saddness

Ahh… things have been a little more peaceful in my life and things are going well with my budding relationships.  I’m pretty into the NRE with Great Date and Roller Girl and I are skirting around getting pretty mushy.  I had a wonderful date again with Traveler.  He’s just so easy to be with and so amazingly sexy and funny and cute.  I like him so damn much. And this morning, I’m feeling a little sad.  I have this weird thing that happens after a very good date.. I get sort of blue.  I am all smiles and kisses and oxytocin and endorphins, and somebody waves goodbye and I feel this emotional post date droop.

I wonder if it’s just me.  I can’t be all honest and disclose about this with dates and tell them that I get all bummed the second the date is over because that seems a little… Uh… clingy.

Ahhh finally NRE

NRE, in case you don’t know, is new relationship energy.  Poly folks talk about it a lot and it’s both The Best Thing Ever and The Devil.  NRE is wonderful.  It’s the energy you get in a new relationship.  It’s first kisses and first fucks and first sleep overs and “You like music!?! What are the odds?  I do too!!”.  It’s giddy, fun, grinning, sending each other spotify tunes and rambly mushy emails and chatting and IM’ing and texting all day long.  It’s the magic of a new shiny.

This is also it’s danger, because it’s also hyper focus on the new shiny and losing sleep and talking incessantly about them.. much to your current partners angst sometimes.  It can be dangerous because it can cause you to attach in an unhealthy way to people that really aren’t actually a good idea to attach to, and in poly that’s a mess because a lot more people than just you are effected by your actions.  It can also make others feel un-special and ignored.  Some people get REALLY crazy with it and the message boards and blogs of poly folks are chock full of stories about just such train wrecks and coping strategies.

I’ve been reading them a lot and joining the ranks of the NRE bashers… everyone had NRE but me and nobody had NRE for me.  UNTIL NOW!!!

Great date said “I’m falling for you pretty slowly, or maybe not so slowly”.  God.  I was aflutter.  I said some mushy stuff and my heart was pounding and my chest was in my throat, but I was happy I choked something out.  Oh.. I have NRE and he has NRE for me.  I take back everything I ever said about NRE.  NRE is wonderful!

F. U. NRE

Oh did I wake up on the wrong side of the bed.

Hubby and I had a date night last night.  Our recent dates haven’t gone too well and I tried to be specific in what I needed.  On past dates he has neglected to tell Roller Girl that we had a date and then spent half the night talking to her.  They had this rule for a bit where they’d talk only after 9 pm to control the NRE (which I hated because it totally ruined my sex life with them talking until 1030 or 11 and us unable to uh.. gain some steam).  I asked him to change it and he just never did.  Okay.  So I asked for dates.  They got messed up.  Ok.  I asked for more dates and got more specific.  There.

Now he and roller girl are all in love and honestly it’s pretty amazing and wonderful.  I really like her too, obviously, and she’s pretty amazing.  I like that she gets how wonderful my hubby (usually is) and that he shares my appreciation of her too.  I like more importantly that he can have this.

But.  But I am struggling, just yesterday and now today with a bit of the green eyed monster.  I feel a little replaced and again I feel that the entire world is deep in NRE.  I asked him if we could concentrate on reconnecting a little and have an uninterrupted date.  I was more specific.  I asked for a “no media” night, to start at 7pm.  We planned to work out, eat dinner and make love.  Excellent.

I asked him to tell Roller Girl and he didn’t, but it came up while we talked and she was totally supportive and awesome about it.  She said we didn’t need to call her later that night to say good night.  Her sister is in town anyway. I told Hubby this and he immediately called her and talked for a bit, ending the call by promising to call or text her goodnight.  Grrr.

It was pretty great date overall and we did talk and connect.  We never made it to the gym because after talking in bed we got to business and when that was done it was like 830 and we were starving.  We went to sushi and had a great talk.  I busted him on the way back checking his facebook because he commented on Roller Girl’s posts.  I gently reminded him that we are on a date and I wanted his attention.  He said “what.. I’m not texting her.  I’m just checking my Facebook”.  I told him I thought that was cheating and that I wanted his attention tonight.  He begrudgingly put away his phone.  He had to bring it with him for work calls, but dammit.

Seriously.. your phone again?!!

We got home and watched a little firefly and he of course again checked his Facebook.  I got tired quickly and asked him to come to bed.  He said he needed a minute and was down there on his phone again.  While I was getting ready for bed and trying to talk to him he came and got into bed, again with his goddamned phone.  I assumed he was texting Roller Girl and he swore he wasn’t.

This morning I woke up a little on the wrong side of the bed, thinking again how last night had been nice except for the fact that my husband can’t go more than an hour without some kind of contact (phone/text/pic/facebook) with Roller Girl and how really it still made me feel replaced that I couldn’t get one night of his attention… that he HAD to keep checking her Facebook and such.  I remembered how he’d been on his phone while we were getting into bed and how I’d told him it really chaps my ass that Roller Girl is the first thing on his mind every morning and the last thing on his mind every night, and that I’d wanted one night of his undivided attention and still hadn’t really gotten it, even though he’d agreed to give it.

I was wrong I know.. but I checked his phone.  Sure enough he’d texted her good night from our bed.  In his defense I had been wrong about the time.  He’d waited until I was asleep and then texted her, but still.  He really can’t go ONE NIGHT?!?!?

I don’t blame Roller Girl, or even really him in a way.  I know it’s just that they are excited and it’s all new and giddy and such.  I remember our own days of poems and sweet nothings and talking hours a day.  It’s not like we don’t talk now or that he ignores me or even that I’m super unhappy with the love he gives me now.  I’m not.  I just… I miss the days when I was the girl of poems and dreams and first thing every morning and last thing every night.  I wanted one night of that for myself and I asked for it as clear as I could and he agreed to it and just couldn’t do it.

Sigh.  It’s not a major thing really, and he’s not the first guy to have NRE or to be giddy to be falling in love with a great girl.  i’m not the first wife to be miffed at her place in the face of NRE.  I’m happy he’s happy, but I really wish he could be less of an asshole about it.  When I laid into him about it this morning (ill advised but I was tired and sore and acted badly) he just got mad and changed the password on his phone.  Awesome.

Exhaustion

I am so unbelievably tired.  I need to figure out a way to have all the time I want with my date and still get to sleep at a semi-decent hour.  I’m not trying to be crass about this either.  I literally mean get all the time with my date and still sleep.  I can’t see the people I care about as much as I’d like to.  I want to see them all 3 times a week and I have only 7 days and 4 people.  This boils down to 3 dates a week and 4 dates with the honey in our arrangement, but it’s never really 3 dates because it just never works out in scheduling.  It’s really 2 dates a week and then 1 to 2 dates with the hubby a week and then just some days to do things like work out and cook and clean the house and do laundry and stuff.

All my relationships are new (or benefiting from the energy of them as my hubby and I are doing) so there is a lot of sexual energy, but there’s also a lot of talking and exploration and just general fun.  I love it and don’t want to miss any of it.  I want to stay up all night soaking up every syllable they speak and every flavor we eat.  I want to taste and smell and touch and hold and just be close and I never want to fall asleep.  I want every precious second.

Problem is that I still require sleep and I am 38, not 18.  I need sleep.  This is taking a toll.  I can’t stay up half the night 2-3 days a week.  I’m too old.  Working out and eating well help, but I’m gonna look like an 85 year old if I keep this up.

Drooooool…..zzzzzz

Having said all that.. Oh Roller Girl.. you were worth every precious second.  I wouldn’t trade a one and I don’t give one freakin’ bit of care that I am a tired sore drooling mess at work today.  I’ll get some espresso and an Advil and think of you and all that you were last night and I’ll be fine.

See my dilemma?

Cherry Popping

Okay.  It’s the cherry popping.  The first blog, the blank page.. ahh the possibilities.  I love possibilities.  Isn’t that a big part of why I identify as polyamorous?

First, I guess I should say what the “rebel yell” of polyamory is to me.  If you want to know what others think it is or find some cool definitions, there’s lots of sources for great info.  I am partial to polyamory.com, which has wonderful message boards and a great little online community.  Just FYI.

To me, to lowly ol’ unofficial me though, polyamory is ethical non-monogamy, or dating/sleeping-with/loving/connecting/partnering/etc with more than one person with the full knowledge and consent of all parties.  It is NOT cheating.  It is NOT random hookups and is different from swinging.  Bear in mind this is all MY opinion.

I know that swingers sometimes have deep and meaningful connections to their partners and sometimes poly people have little connection with a partner other than sex.  Not everyone is PURE poly or PURE swinger.  I am just saying that to me, polyamory is about relationships with more than one person and about ethical non-monogamy.  People can call themselves whatever the hell they choose as far as I’m concerned. I don’t feel the need to define your relationships.

My husband and I are committed to and deeply in love with each other.  We have a great relationship, a great sex life, and have been together 12 years.  Seriously.. he’s the cat’s pajamas.  We played with the idea of swinging for a while, as a way to have some sexual variety and fun, but we just never took the plunge.  The tiny bit of research we did just didn’t pan out and we found the people we were meeting to be kind of … oh.. I’ll just say it, gross.  I’m not saying they weren’t attractive or that I am a fashion plate myself.  I’m just saying that I found the attitude of things to be sort of icky.  I liked casual sex back in the day.  I really did.  I spent my years sowing my wild oats and had a grand ol’ time.  My hubby is more of a “love guy”, but I was good at separating sex and love and caring and such.  It was fun.  But eventually, and this is just for me, I found that I wanted more.  I wanted to have sex with people I liked and that liked me.  I wanted to enjoy the conversation leading up to and after and I wanted to have humor and passion, connection, longing, lust, friction, concern, and sincerity in my sex.  It was just more fulfilling on more levels.  I became monogamous and settled down so I could really connect and more reliably get that.  Going back to random couplings just didn’t interest me enough to actually act.  Hubby felt the same way.

We found out about polyamory, had 47,000,000 conversations, and took the plunge.  To us, polyamory is opening ourselves to the possibility of first kisses and NRE (hopefully controlled- more about this later), learning about new people and new parts of ourselves, sexual variety and exploration, caring and friendship and love with wonderful people without any disrespect or harm to those we already love.  We’ve been dating about a month now, and it feels like more.  I’ve been researching and talking and reading, and now blogging, and it feels like coming home.  It feels like this is who I am and I’m finally allowed to be that.  I’m not an asshole for wanting.  I’m not awful for sometimes having a hard time closing down a whole aspect of my sexuality (I’m bisexual).  I take joy in my partners joy, most of the time, and he in mine.  I want him to be loved and love and to have great sex.  I want him to be free and to share that freedom with me.  We talk like never before and it has been a renaissance to our own relationship.  I feel closer.  He knows me.. really knows me.  He always has, but now he knows even those secret little parts of me, and he loves me.  It’s really hard to explain the joy of loving someone so much you want absolutely everything wonderful and good for them and to have them know every damn thing about you and love you so fiercely.  It’s not easy, at all.  It downright blows sometimes, the work I have to do on myself and on my relationships and communication, but it is right for me and mine.  That’s polyamory to me.  I reserve the right to change that and grow that and learn more, and that’s polyamory to me too.