Inadequate Language for Play Partners

I really struggle with what to call the people I'm dating when I'm referring to them in conversation. I really dislike the terms "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" because they imply all kind of things about commitment levels and monogamy. I don't want someone I'm talking to (or dating!) to think that I'm unavailable because I'm referring to someone else as my boyfriend. It just comes with too many expectations and connotations.

Calling someone I'm wildly attracted to and dating and fucking regularly my friend, though, is a little ridiculous. And the linguistic contortions that I've tried so far all have a bit of a silly note. "Partner" sounds like a business acquaintance. "Sweetheart" sounds sappy and old-fashioned. "Fuckbuddy" is too crude and doesn't give enough credit to the friendship/intimacy part. "Special friend" is way too euphemistic. "Lover" is the one I'm most inclined to use, but even that sounds pretentious and a little goofy.

There's also the issue of being in that space where you've started dating someone but don't have commitments yet. . . But you might be moving towards that. . . But you don't want to jump the gun or give people wrong ideas before you're ready to embrace a relationship. Kind of like how people don't announce a pregnancy in the first month because it's likely to miscarry. Silly in a way not to tell anyone, and it doesn't give enough credit to how sad and how common it is to have a miscarriage, but you don't want to have to repeatedly explain what's happened to everyone if it doesn't work out.

One of my coworkers calls her most important partner her "jellybean," which is pretty cute. I suppose that could be the answer: an otherwise meaningless word that you can then explain to mean whatever your relationship status happens to be. I wish there was something easier in our language, but I guess that's what poly pioneers and rapid progress are for! Anyone else have any great ideas?

Energy Exchange

I had really great, actually satisfying sex the other night. (The purpose of this post is not to brag, I swear!)

I got to do lots of fun things with my newly frequent play friend, like brief blow jobs in the back room of a Brooklyn speakeasy and rooftop fucking and bottoming like a good girl, and that was certainly part of it. I mean, I love getting to do the things that reallllly get me off. Of course.

One of the things that's been happening often, though, especially as I get better at expressing and asking for what I want, is that I get so excited it's really hard for me to come. Once I'm flying that high, it takes a bit of a push to bring me over the top so I can find my orgasm(s). I still love it even without the Big O, but it's nice to have the body satisfaction and endorphin release and all of that.

Well, this weekend, I was well into that state. I had a vibrator on my clit and my friend was doing naughty and scary (and therefore hot) things to me with this little claw thingie he's got and I was dangling off a roof over a fire escape and it was just very exciting. And I simply could not get myself to come.

But then we moved, and he positioned himself so I could look at his face. As soon as I could look into his eyes and feel him watching me, feel his excitement and see him feeling mine, as soon as I opened myself up to him on a more energetic level, everything suddenly hit home and I finally came.

I think that sometimes when someone's doing things to give me pleasure, be it going down on me or fucking me with hands or dick or just helping me use a vibrator, I close myself off in an attempt to concentrate and come. I hold my breath (a bad habit I'm trying to break). I close my eyes.

It's easy for me to be energetically connected when I'm doing things for someone, tuning into their body and enjoying their pleasure, but it's much harder when I'm receiving. But of course, everything feels so much better, so much more exciting and fulfilling when I let the connection happen and let my pleasure be attached to it. For someone as independent and (sometimes) emotionally skittish as I am, it's a challenge to be open, to relax into that, but one that's clearly worth embracing.

Insatiable

I found the poly community in New York.

Finally!

Of course, what this means is that I've been having a lot more sex lately than I had been in the previous months. It took me a good long time to find a group of people who are all friends and mostly seem to approach sex in the way that I like--respectfully, playfully, and affectionately. But find them I did.

The big bummer of it, though, is that this rediscovered sexual activity has not resulted in that much more sexual or existential satisfaction. It seems that the more sex I get, the more sex I want. I've been leaving bedrooms feeling happy that I just had fun, but not satiated in the least.

One reason for this is that everyone I've been playing with lately is a new partner. They don't know yet the little tricks that make my body work. (Although some have had a faster learning curve than others.) I haven't had a chance yet to communicate about all the things I want, like at least two orgasms in a session (because one really just gets me going), or the occasional scheduled Day o' Sex.

Speaking of which, there also just hasn't been time to devote to having sex the way that I like. My favorite play dates last at least a couple of hours. I like to be languid and absorbed in my fucking and touching and kissing and yum. Everyone in New York is so busy and there's so much here to do that it's hard to find overlapping time in our schedules to go at it like nothing else matters.

So there's all that.

I know, though, that the biggest reason I'm not satisfied is that I haven't yet made the emotional connection I'm looking for. There are a couple of new partners that I really like, or at least think so far that I could really like, but it's just not there yet. I've only been "on the market" for a few weeks. Not enough time to fall in love.

And as much as I love casual sex, as much as I always want new and exciting people and activities in my life, the best sex is always with the people who I love. There's nothing like actually making love, feeling a deep connection with someone on a soul level as we touch each other with our bodies. I just can't get that from someone I barely know, and I can't force it to grow in any way except its own time.

I suppose I'll just have to follow the advice of that old song. I "can't hurry love" and I "just have to wait." At least I'll be having fun in the meantime.

Trouble in Mind

I happen to be listening to Janis Joplin right now and the title of the song playing (now the title of this post) seems appropriate.

I'm starting to meet people in New York to be friends with and hang out with outside of work, finally. I've got new poly and kinky friends, a few really awesome women from my sexuality apprenticeship with Amy Jo who I now feel really close with. I'm getting along well with my roommate finally. (Although technically who knows for how long.)

And yet I still feel listless. I have a million things I want to do (perform in burlesque, maybe, go on a mini-vacation, actually go hang out with some of the new people, bring a slave over to clean and play, work on a short story, clean my room, be an activist again in some way, find the queer community here, whatever) and no motivation or energy to do them. I feel tired all the time. I'm often cranky. I don't enjoy crowds and nights out the way I used to.

In simpler words, I've been really struggling with depression lately, and I've decided it's finally time to do something about it. For years, I rationalized that what my depression (usually dysthymia, sometimes full on major episodes) did was force me to deal with whatever was on my mind. If I had a problem, it'd lay me out flat until I worked through it and solved it. I figured that was a good thing, that it kept me from repressing anything. I thought it made me solve my issues faster.

I'm rethinking that. Something about being out of school and having my life stretched out ahead of me to do with as I choose made me realize that I won't ever run out of problems to solve. It's not like depression is going to make me rush through some finite number of Issues People Have and then I'll be perfect. I'll always have shit to deal with, and if I don't help myself it'll always lay me out and I won't be able to function.

Helping myself, of course, means looking into medication. Another major reason I hadn't done this is that one of the major side effects of SSRIs (Prozac, Zoloft, etc) is a loss of sex drive, inability to orgasm, etc. In other words, a major side effect of these drugs would be the loss of a very important aspect of my life and personality. Kind of defeats the point, no?

I just found out, though, that Wellbutrin is apparently a different kind of drug that doesn't have these side effects. It's also a stimulant so I'd get the added bonus of treating my mild ADHD. My sister is on it, and a friend of mine who values her sexuality as much as I do. I'm thinking this might be a possibility and it would help me feel better.

It's a lovely idea that maybe I'd get to go through life and still have my difficulties and triumphs, but that the littlest thing wouldn't freak me out. It'd be easier to be okay.

I've got an appointment with a psychiatrist at the end of this month at which point I might turn over a new leaf. I'll definitely be writing about this process on here since I know one thing that's majorly helped me is hearing other people's experiences with the drug I'm considering. Wish me luck.

Writing

I've had so much to write about in the last few months that I couldn't quite bring myself to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.

I started to write about what a huge transition this has been, this moving to New York, this being an adult, this not getting into the graduate school I want, this falling in love with and then fighting with and then being good friends again with my roommate, this beginning and yet again swift end of another relationship, this new therapist, this decision to finally look into antidepressants, this foray more deeply into the BDSM community, this missing my life in the queer community. I started to write about it all a billion times and none of it ever came close to being a post here.

Not writing, though, is very bad for me. In therapy every week, I feel at the end of the session like I've got miles more of words in my head that need an outlet, but there's never enough time. That outlet has always been what this blog is about, a place to put my extra words, an incentive to keep writing, and a body of work.

So here I am, coming back to it once again. And I'm going to be structured about it this time. I wrote every day for a couple of months in 2008. I won't accomplish that again (life in New York and as a grown up with shit to do is too busy for that), but if you still read here you'll start seeing updates again twice a week. For real this time, because it's something I need to do.
On living, loving, learning, and fucking with the materials I've got at hand.

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