Trust

We talk a lot about trust in relationships. We trust our partners when they tell us their feelings. We trust them about who they are interested in, why they like us. In order to feel our most profound emotions we need to open up, to trust each other. At least that's part of the story.

I'm not sure that part's true. We can feel all of those feelings—love and excitement, passion and interest—without trust. We can even feel another emotion that isn't fun for everyone, but is part of most relationships anyway—fear.

Of course, some of us thrive on fear. We thrive on either evoking it or experiencing it. We thrive on the thrill of potential rather than trust in the known.

Trust, however, is the safety net. Trust is the emotional condom to stop the infection of real (or nonconsensual) danger. We find people who are worthy of trust so we can relax and experience the emotions we want to.

Becoming Dominant (part 3): submission

When your partner drops into submission, it is unmistakable. All of the worries from when they gave you freedom to do something to their body are magnified because now they want to please you, to make you happy by doing whatever you want.

Becoming Dominant (part 2): the first gift

The first gift I was given as a top was the gift to freely do what I wanted to. After discussing what that meant, of course. She said I could tie her up and hit her lightly. It was amazing to realize that kind of power exchange, that freedom.

2012: A review of the tempest

This year was busy. Even if I just stick with the relationship stuff.

• Sweetie broke up with me. I still have no idea what happened.
• I got into a triad relationship with Ink and Fangirl, it lasted about a month. It just didn't work out.
• Lion and I got together. That's going well, though I would love to have more time with her.
• Straight Ex Wife moved out. It is so nice to have my own space.
• I started dating Bree. Holy fuck that's incredible.
• I dated Carleen for a few weeks.
• I got together with Corvid. That's still new, but very good.
• Bree came to visit. It was an amazing time together and she will be moving here in a few months.

But wait... I also put out a few books.

A busy and good year. Here's to another one next year.

Changing relationship models?

There's been a lot of discussion among my friends about this article on how to treat non-primary partners, and I realized a few things about my own relationship model and how it's changed.

That's too much: consent and risk

If you follow my tumblr, you know that I value consent.

Wait. Let's take a moment and look at that. Nowhere in this world should that even have to be questioned. Everyone should value consent and seek to secure informed consent before doing anything that will impact another—whether we're talking about sex or kink. If I feel the need to preface my remarks like that, our society is broken.

Enough of the rant. The point I was trying to get to is that there are things that everyone can agree are fine so long as the people involved are consenting adults: spankings, light bondage, blindfolds, sensation play, love bites… you get the idea. These are the things that come up in conversations about "spicing things up" in the bedroom.

Then there's what I do. I push limits. I like to see blood and play with it (there's a name for that). I enjoy causing pain for its own sake—real pain (there's a word for that, too). I like tears (guess what?) and sobbing. I enjoy seeing my playmates broken—and having them know how much I care about them and love them.

But it's not abuse—if not from a legal perspective, at least from my perspective (and the perspective of anyone I'm playing with). My partners know what they're getting into, they know the risks—and they've said they want it. I'm not going on guesswork or making assumptions about what I think they'd love. I'm not deciding everything for them even if it is that kind of relationship—we've talked about hard limits and soft limits, we play with safewords.

Consent is why I don't do kink with people who can't tell me exactly what they want at least once, in enough detail that I know where their limits are.

So if you're a top (because this is much less of an issue for bottoms), consider the position you're putting your bottom in. If you're hitting that emotional point where they are breaking, they are not able to make decisions anymore. If their body is flooded with endorphins, there's no way you should be pushing past a hard limit or doing something that wasn't negotiated.

I'm all for edge play, but keep it respectful—your partners are people, too.

More on Costumes

Remember my post about costumes?

I've completely changed my mind. I want to dress up as a goddess and be worshiped.

Let's start with this:

Costumes

It's that time of year again when all the kids (and many adults) dress up in costumes. It's fun and it's magical. We get to be someone else for the day.

Limitations

For the last few years—since my last marriage started falling apart completely—I have been in relationships with a few women.

For some definition of 'few' that is between six and a dozen.

Difficult Conversations

You might have the impression from my essay on fears that I embrace the things that scare me most in relationships. I try to. It saves me so much grief down the road.

I do my best to tackle the difficult conversations as soon as I am sure I probably need to. For instance, there are the conversations with people who are crushing on me where I tell them "you're nice" and "I don't think it would be a good idea," "I don't feel the same way," or "I'm not into guys." Those are pretty routine at this point (it's hard to believe that a few years ago I had no experience with turning anyone down).

Other times the outcome matters more. I really want them to still like me and continue in whatever relationship we have—or move on to bigger and better things with me. Maybe I'm asking someone to move in with me, or to start a relationship, or talking about concerns in a relationship. Maybe I'm telling her that I react by feeling hurt by what she's doing and we need to talk about what's going on. The point is, these are the conversations that grow relationships. These are the ones that allow it to keep going as a healthy relationship and not a spiral of misunderstandings and fears. Without the important, difficult conversations—and regular check-ins—it's hard to gauge how a relationship is going—even if the sex is amazing.

I run to the big, bad, scary conversations because that's the only way to keep going toward the wonderful ones.

Jealousy

Today I had a brief jealousy flail.

It happens to all of us. Someone we want to spend time with makes other plans. For me, it happens most when I expect to have time with one of my girlfriends and she's not available.

Fears

Sometimes our relationships are shaped by fears. Sometimes it's the fear of abandonment or the fear of not being able to have what you really want. Yesterday was a bad day for my fears.

So You've Found the Perfect™ Girl

But they can't stand around like their hetero kin
simply waiting for somebody else to begin.
And so my advice to gay sheep as they graze:
to woo lesbian ewes, use less motionless ways.

from: “The Problem of Lesbian Sheep” by Howard A. Landman

You’ve found someone shiny to go out with on a date, but you haven’t asked her. You’re crushing, hard. Maybe you’re thinking about the wedding. Maybe you want to have her gaybies. Maybe you’re thinking about sex. Maybe she’s giving you potentially meaningful glances from across the bar (or gluten-free-whole-food-vegan cafe). It doesn’t matter.

Becoming Dominant (part 1): the decision

I woke up one day and decided that I wanted to top. It was easy really.

Goals

liriope answered your question: Ideas?

What is your optimality criterion for living? (i.e., what is your main goal in life?)

Mainly, my goal is to love and be loved with integrity. My life really does revolve around love and sex, and I am okay with that.

Polyamorous Introvert

One of the biggest challenges in polyamory is scheduling. I made a joke a while back that sex only happens if you put it in google calendar a week in advance. (In case you're wondering, that's not true. Sleep doesn't happen, because I choose sex over sleep, every time.)

Successful Relationships

When I talk about polyamory, I often get told something along the lines of "that's fine in theory, but it's too unstable. There's no way to have a successful relationship like that."

Let's leave aside the many people who do have long term polyamorous relationships. They exist, but as far as I can tell that's beside the point. Let's talk instead about what a successful relationship is.

Not every relationship needs to follow the happily-ever-after paradigm. Getting married is not the end goal of every relationship. That doesn't mean that those relationships that end at some point are less successful. My most successful relationships have been ones which only lasted a few months or a few years. We communicated, we shared our time and our selves, and we loved without reservation. To me, that's success.

I don't need every relationship to end in a co-mingling of households. I don't want to live with everyone I fall in love with. I can appreciate them for who they are, for how we interact, and for how they love me. In many ways that's easier when we know there isn't going to be a white picket fence at the end.

All of that comes with communication, shared understanding, love, and empathy. That is what makes a successful relationship, not necessarily years or shared living space.

Distance and Polyamory: the good days

I'm not a fan of distance relationships, though I do find myself in them (it's not my fault that all of my favorite people live in fucking Narnia).

That said, I had an amazing day yesterday. I didn't leave my house, but I got to spend time talking with both of my girlfriends on the phone and over text.

It was one of those days where I got to appreciate all that is right with my relationships. I got to spend happy alone time with each of them, laughing and loving, being and enjoying. I was able to say to one, "hey, Lion wants to talk to me, I miss her and really want to talk to her. Would you mind if I went away now?" And everything was fine and happy.

These are the good days.

My polyamory: relationship anarchy

I don't tell my partners who they should or shouldn't date or fuck. I expect the same courtesy. When I am giving someone time and attention, I focus on her (or them).

I love the feeling of having a relationship develop organically without feeling the need to protect an established relationship based on its perceived importance. I don't have a hierarchy of relationships, but some are closer to my heart than others—some will hurt more when they end.

Savages: A poly love story

Twitter has been abuzz about Savages, and about polyamory as a result. Last night I went out to see it for myself. I really enjoyed the movie and would have even if it wasn't a mushy poly love story (with guns, sex, and violence).

So go see it if you like action movies, especially drug war action movies with kidnapping. (Skip it if that's not your thing, though.)

Not giving anything away, the movie is centered on a polyamorous vee (with two men and one woman, presumably the men were not romantically involved with each other).

What they got right:

• How weird a poly relationship can feel when you are new. There were a few instances when the narrator, O, talked about how strange and "wrong" it is.
• How strong the bond between metamours can be.
• The ways metamours accommodate each other (within the first few minutes, Chon "goes on a swim" to give Ben and O alone time together).
• The amount of love that poly relationships can have.

I had some problems with the characters, but I think overall the polyamory elements were handled honestly, truthfully, and tenderly.

There are so many things that aren't shown, but that's the nature of movies. It isn't visually appealing to get into time management or communicating about jealousy (with an aim to get rid of the jealousy rather than start a fight that ends one or more relationships).

The movie left me feeling all sorts of warm and fuzzy about their relationship, though, and that's pretty awesome and rare in an action flick.