Poly Times Six

Another reason I've been a naughty blogger lately is that I've been going on dates (I could say "dating" but dear god, people read a lot into that) with six people. Yes, six. I see them all regularly. And I like all of them. This doesn't leave me with a lot of free time.

The thing is, see, six really is a lot of people. Even for me. I've been poly and single for years now, but usually I level out around two or three regular lovers. I've been having a great time and enjoying the company and connections, but in the last couple of weeks I've suddenly felt a bit dissatisfied.

The problem with seeing so many people is that it doesn't leave me with a lot of time for any particular one. It's hard to develop deeper intimacy with someone when I only see them at most once a week. And it's hard to see someone more than once a week when I've got five other people I need to keep up with. As fun as my relationships are, and as much as I do really like all the people I'm seeing, my schedule keeps things superficial.

What I didn't realize until a couple of weeks ago was that, as much as I had theoretically been wanting a more serious relationship for a long time, I hadn't really been ready for one. For the last several years, I've been dealing with huge transitions: graduating college, living on my own for the first time, moving across the country, etc. I was also in a very emotionally complicated relationship and I hadn't realized how little energy that left me for anyone else.

For most of the past year, I felt very much in need. I needed physical comfort from sex and beatings and cuddles, a safe place to go that wasn't my apartment, someone to feed and take care of me while I was caring for my roommate, somebody to advise me on how to be an adult, emotional support while I dealt with the stress and changes. I was a big bundle of longing and I didn't have that much to give.

This is not a very good place from which to approach a relationship. Outsourcing those needs to several people, spreading out the load and doing a lot of work on my self by myself, worked really well when I felt this way. It kept me from feeling lonely while giving me the space I needed to figure out my own shit.

Now that I've settled into my adult life, live in a comfortable and safe place, and have "broken up" with my old roommate, I'm suddenly feeling more self-sufficient. I actually feel pretty happy, and like I've got the time and energy to focus on someone else and to take the risk of letting myself truly be seen. I'd like to explore the deeper intimacy that I haven't experienced since I was with my ex two years ago.

Of course, I can't just say "Okay, I'm ready for a relationship now!" and then magically I'm in one. But I am carefully setting a new intention and sharing my new desires with my partners. The time limitations are still tricky, but at least with this new intention I'll be able to base the amount of time I spend with a particular person on the extent to which we're developing deeper intimacy.

This all amounts to another transition, but with this at least I feel prepared and deliberate. And I'm excited about the future and the possibilities.

Poly and Single

Tristan Taormino wrote about "solo polyamory" in her book Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships. She describes solo polyamorists as those who are "dedicated to polyamory but...choose not to have a primary partner." She writes that they're a group of people who intentionally deviate from the cultural expectation that "everyone wants to be and should be part of a couple." (Pg. 87)

Looking from the outside at my life and how I spend my time, it could seem like I'm a solo polyamorist. I'm currently dating five people (if we don't count the folks who live far away and who I see when we're in the same time zone) and none of them are primary partners. There are a couple of people I've been seeing for a few months, one who I've known for a bit but just started dating, and a couple who are new. I'm different degrees of serious with all of them, but there's nothing I'd put into the "committed" category. I spend a lot of time on my job and on learning things for myself, experimenting. I live alone. I'm financially independent.

I think, in fact, that when I say I'm polyamorous a lot of people assume that means I'm not looking for a relationship. It's kind of a rare thing to find someone who's polyamorous and single. There are far more halves-of-couples and determined bachelors (of all genders). Not as many folks are single in the "more traditional" sense of not being in a partnership and looking for one.

But that's what I am: poly and single. I'm not in a committed relationship, not in a couple, but I want to be. I want a primary partner. It is, in fact, near the top of my priority list. I came to this polyamory thing on my own, not as part of my journey with anyone specific, and I'm looking for someone to share it with.

That's not to say that I'm trying to force every relationship into a primary space. I strongly believe in letting things develop organically and letting every relationship grow into a place that feels comfortable. That's one of the major benefits of polyamory: I can have different relationships at different levels and it's all okay. I am hoping, though, that one of my relationships turns more serious, and I'm ready to nurture anything that goes in that direction. I want to fall in love.

I think these desires give more depth to my meaning of the word "single." When I have the option of saying I'm a solo polyamorist and instead choose to say I'm single, it's more meaningful. I'm not just saying "I'm not in a relationship with anyone right now," I'm saying "I'm looking for a serious relationship along with the other less serious relationships I already have." Which is different. That's all.

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?

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.

Rough Week

There's been so much going on this week that I can't even begin to talk about it coherently. My social interactions have turned awkward once more, and I've got so much work to do that I feel panicky and nauseous whenever I think about it too much. I've got a knot in my left shoulder the size and texture of a baseball. You can actually see it when you look at me straight on; my left shoulder at my neck is slightly higher than my right one.

For the last few weeks I've been letting things pile up and not working efficiently. I didn't want to deal with the stress of it all, and I couldn't even think of it except as a giant cloud looming darkly over me. I finally wrote a to do list and I've been taking my ADD meds, which both have helped. It's still a lot of work, and there legitimately isn't enough time in the week to finish it.

I'm also just feeling really shitty about letting it get backed up like this. I haven't been attending to some of the responsibilities that are actually important to me, like leading the sexual health club or working hard enough on my thesis. I feel really disappointed in myself. I feel like I'm incapable of living up to my own ideas of what I want to accomplish. It's an awful sensation.

I'm also feeling lonely again. That's the part that just makes me feel stupid. Even confessing the details properly makes me feel like an idiot.

I've been having this friendship with a boy, S, who I met in person for the second time and spent week with over winter break in San Francisco. He's the one I was talking about going on a road trip with. I really like him, and we connected powerfully very quickly. That's extremely unusual for me; I'm slow to trust and open up. It helped that he'd been really great when I'd talked to him online about a crisis I had in the fall.

Anyway, after I came back to New York, I let myself rely on him a lot as a person to talk to. Sure, it was online, but it helped a lot. I didn't feel as much at loose ends, like I had all these emotional needs that weren't being met. I was able to go out and have sex with other people without worrying about my baggage coming along. I felt a lot happier.

Recently, though, he's started having sex with a lot of different women, which takes up about eight tons of his time. It's also really emotionally consuming, which I totally get. I'm happy for him, and I'm really glad that he's poly. It's another thing we relate on.

He also, though, has stopped really talking to me. These days, he doesn't even usually ask how I am in conversation, and he's so happy and busy that I don't know how to bring up the fact that I'm as stressed as a horse at a glue factory. I don't feel like I can demand his attention when we only spent a week together and I'm so far away.

The result of all of the above is that I feel really stressed out and pretty disgusted with myself. I also feel terribly alone, like not only can't I deal with my life right now, there's no one to help me. I really just want to be cuddled and soothed, but I have no idea how to make that happen. I can't just turn on the trust and comfort with the next random person that comes along.

So that's been my week. I'm hoping it gets better soon.

The L Word and "Cheaters"

Okay, I'm watching the last season of The L Word in a serious procrastination effort. Yes, the show jumped the shark when Dana died, but yes we all still watch it because it's one of the only TV representations of lesbians. All that's been said before.

One thing, though, that's been driving me crazy about the show for years is that the idea of polyamory never comes up at all. You've got Shane who's happily sleeping with the entire female population of Los Angeles, and then bam she's in a relationship and that ends. She gets all tortured about it, sleeps with someone else, the relationship ends.

Then there's Bette, the "cheater" who "can't keep it in her pants even when she's in love." Bette, too, is in and out of relationships and can't help but fall in love with someone new when she's committed.

Both of these women would clearly benefit from some sort of open relationship situation and yet it never, ever comes up. It's just "oh, let's watch them torture themselves by trying to turn off their perfectly natural attractions to people other than their primary partners. Schadenfreude! Schadenfreude! Let's feel good because they're so bad at being faithful and we're better than that!"

Sure, it's typical of TV not to even hint at other options besides monogamy, but this is The L Word. It's queer TV that makes a point (however ham-handedly) to handle every issue that faces the women-loving-women community. To the point of absurdity. Where is the polyamory? Where's the compassion for those who don't fit so well into monogamy? Where is the workable solution?

I Am a Ridiculous Individual

I just narrowly avoided accidentally having two guys I wanted to fool around with show up in my room at the same time. You know, simultaneous rendezvous.

It was an accident. My friend C had inquired as to my plans for the night and I'd invited him to hang out. He and I hooked up a couple times casually (read: drunk). We've been inching our way closer to sex again for the last few weeks.

The slow pace isn't my usual thing, especially since we've already done the whole sex thing, but I'm liking it. We cuddled and talked for hours the other week and it was lovely. I've been friends with C for years, and while it was weird at first to get sexually involved with him, I really enjoy the time we spend together. I was looking forward to pursuing it more.

He didn't respond, though, to my text telling him I was free and in my room. He'd said he wanted to hang out, but I thought maybe he got sidetracked or was busy. (It happens to the best of us.)

So then I got an instant message from this other fellow, A, who I hooked up with once maybe a month ago. He is in a fraternity, which I find funny, but he's pretty interesting and definitely cute. He's not shy talking in general and about sex, which I like. He asked what I was up to tonight and since I hadn't heard back from C, I invited him over. He said he'd be at my room in a half hour.

Five minutes later, I got a text message from C saying he was on his way to my room.

I had a brief moment of alarm. I would have preferred to see C, but had no easy way to blow off A since he was very definitely coming and was no longer online. I have his phone number, but that would have been either a very awkward conversation or a very rude text message. Since C and I were already friends, I figured I could text him to postpone, see him tomorrow, and it would all be fine.

Two hours later I'm pretty satiated and very much looking forward to tomorrow, when I get to see C. Which is why I am a ridiculous individual.

Lord knows either of said gentlemen could read this post and be miffed, but I'm hoping for the best. Everybody knows I don't do monogamy...it might be time to have a chat and disclose to C just how little monogamy I do, so there are no surprises.

Friendship and Sex, Again

I've had a very strange last 48 hours.

I just had pretty casual sex with a person I admire very much and have been friends with for about three years. I'm not sure how to react to this other than to be pleasantly surprised, especially since the sex was good. I also had oddly sexually charged interactions with a couple of people I've known for some time and see quite often. I'm friends with them, if not close, and very socially interconnected with them through my friends and activities. They've all been romantically or sexually involved with (or the crush objects of) some of my best friends.

I've talked here about how the line between friend and lover is blurred for me, but I think it's more complicated than that. I need a few people around who I don't sleep with, to keep that intensity and drama out of at least a few of my relationships. I do have a line between friendship and sex, it's just an artificial one.

Because I can be attracted to pretty much anyone if I like them at all, I do carefully maintain a physical and sexual distance from some of my friends. If I didn't, I'd probably just jump in bed with them, and then where would I be when I need to dish with someone about my love life? When there's sex involved, jealousy and awkwardness happen, no matter how well one communicates or how open one's mind is. I need a few relationships that skip the sex drama.

Because of all that, casual friends showing sudden sexual or romantic interest in me gives me pause. Part of it is the fact that these friends are so socially intertwined with me. If we have sex, all my buddies will know about it and a lot of my friends will have big reactions. Some of them will be upset, and it'll be a huge pain in my ass. Drama certainly spices things up, but I'm not sure I want to deal with it.

Even though I'm kind of reticent, I should probably be open to whatever happens. These people are all attractive, and I like them. In theory, I love the idea of casual friendships that include sex. I like to deepen interactions with people, to learn more about them. Running away from that would be silly. I think I'm going to let everything play out as it may. It just makes me a little nervous.

Romance? Not Just Fucking? What?

I just realized that in the past four years, I've only had to deal with new romantic partners in terms of putting limits on our intimacy. I am always coming into everything with a caveat.

When I was in the relationship with M, I had to make sure that my lovers understood that he came first. It automatically put a damper on new loves, having a committed primary relationship, and I learned to communicate that early on. I got good at finding people to play with who wouldn't ask too much of me, who would be accommodating of my emotional unavailability.

Even after I broke up with M, officially sometime this spring, I wasn't thinking in terms of actually meeting and opening up to someone. I started dating Z completely casually. One of the first things I told him was that I liked being single and didn't want a real relationship.

His moving into my room and our closeness came about mostly by accident, a matter of convenience and compatibility. I wasn't looking, though, to have a primary partner or start a relationship. It just kind of happened.

I think I haven't really wanted to be serious or close with someone for a long time. In the brief periods when I've been single, I've enjoyed the freedom. When I inevitably found myself in a new relationship, I was usually a little sad that I was giving up my self reliance and self concern. Not to mention total sexual freedom. I exchanged those things for a lot of other wonderful stuff, but it was an uncomfortable change to be responsible to someone else.

Now, though, I've reached a point where I actually do want to be in a relationship. I'm even a little disinterested in casual sex. I want to make looooooove. (My inner proud slut is rolling her eyes so hard, but what can I do?)

Now this doesn't mean I want monogamy. I'd like to get wrapped up in someone for a while, but that doesn't mean I'd close off my polyamorous possibilities. I'm okay with accidental monogamy, the kind where a new relationship is so consuming neither of you happens to sleep with anyone else. I wouldn't mind a little of that. However, I still don't want to have a relationship where my sexual energy with other people gets cut off.

I don't know how to approach my new Relationship goal. I'm so in the habit of making sure that I maintain distance from new lovers. I'm used to dragging my feet into relationships. Even when I started with M four years ago, it took me six months and some infidelity to reluctantly take the relationship seriously.

I'm at a loss over how to say "Hey, yeah, I'd like to get to know you. I want more than just a fuck buddy." It's something new I'll have to figure out.

My PMS Needs

I want somebody around that I can fight with.

I haven't had my period in a long time. I think it's because my IUD thins the lining of my uterus, and I just haven't had anything to bleed out. I still have normal hormone cycles, though, and I'm pretty sure that if I had anything to bleed I'd have my period right now. I've got cramps and everything.

And I'm cranky as hell. I want to get into it with someone, just let a little of the chemical crankiness out. Pick a stupid fight.

But I don't feel comfortable picking a fight with someone I'm not close with. Maybe that's fucked up, but generally speaking people I like enough to get close to can take it. They know me better than to take my fight-picking seriously. I mean, rough sex would work, too. I just need some kind of wrassle.

I can't fight with people I'm not close to because in order to fight you have to show emotion. And I just don't do that until I've known someone for a good long time and trust them really, really well. There's no one like that in my life right now.

I need a primary partner. That's just what it comes down to. There are a million reasons. I'd really like someone around to support me while I'm trying to take care of everyone else. I want someone to have regular sex with. I'd like more cuddling in my life. I want to be able to tell some of my secrets.

And I wanna fight. I want the push-pull that only happens when I respect someone enough to care about their opinion. It'd just be fun. I miss it.

Polyamory and Friendships

I've gotten a lot more comfortable with the idea of being polyamorous in the last six months to a year. It's partly because I had a good relationship with someone who wanted it too, and partly because I've just gotten over some of my fear of rejection. I don't really care if people think I'm a slut or a freak; even if people are ignorant, it's an opportunity for me to push the limits of their open-mindedness.

There's a really great side effect to being "out of the closet" with my polyamory, one that I didn't necessarily expect. I knew it would be nice to be honest and ethical in my sleeping around and to pursue a primary relationship without cutting off my sexual exploration, but I didn't foresee the affect it would have on my friendships.

Jenny Block wrote about this really eloquently in an essay I found posted on the Chesapeake Polyamory Network's Yahoo group. I know, a lot of steps to get to the essay, but I can't link it directly unless you're a member of the group.

Here's some of what she wrote. I've cut this down to get to the parts I want to talk about:

I lived for 15 years in a monogamous relationship, before coming out as bisexual and polyamorous.

During that time, my friendships were strained and wary, because there was "the line". You know the line, right? The one you can't cross, because if you do you will be ‘on the slippery slope that leads to utter disaster.’

Here's the really strange thing about having a non-monogamous relationship - it's not the other sexual relationships that really change the quality of my life. It's the freedom I have in ALL my relationships, because there's no line to fear and avoid.

I now have several very close friends that I DON'T have sex with, but if we did it would be just fine, so we are free to express our love without concerns and fears.

From time to time, with a few of them, the physical affection extends to something decidedly sexual in nature, if it's appropriate and comfortable for all concerned. But it's not really important whether it does or not.

And that's the really surprising thing about non-monogamy - sex is just not as important. Monogamous people have to think about the possibility of sex with others in order to protect themselves against it.

Non-monogamous people just think about it a lot less. It is an element of a relationship, not the defining feature. Not even the most important element, either. I could have a life partner that wasn't a sexual partner at all, quite easily, because my life partnership doesn't depend on having sex, and my having sex doesn't depend on my life partner.

Okay, that's a long excerpt, but I felt like she said most things that I wanted to, and better than I would have myself. If you're interested in polyamory, it's worth joining the Chesapeake group to read this and other essays they've got posted up there.

I've noticed exactly what she's talking about. I have a lot of pretty sexually charged friendships, and I'm really okay with the fact that I'm not in bed or in a relationship with those people. I wouldn't have been okay with that in the past.

I think in the past I would have lost interest in someone I was attracted to if I didn't end up sleeping with them. I'd have found someone else to bang and all of my sexual energy would have gone into the new person. Without the sexual tension, the old friendship would have just fizzled out.

Now, I can live on that tense line between being friends and fucking because if I need to I can have a release elsewhere. It won't detract from the original friendship if I'm getting sex elsewhere, just like it needn't detract from my primary romantic relationship if I'm fucking someone else. The sexual charge, the sexual energy is still there. Sometimes it's even more fun because it's unfulfilled.

I can have as many sexy friends and hot lovers as I want or need. It's so freeing, not to feel limited in the amount of love and sex I can share with people.

Communicating with the Rest of the World

One nice thing about being in San Francisco this summer was the sense of shared language and experience with the people I met. Granted, I was working in the sex field almost exclusively, but even random strangers I met in bars or through out-of-town friends knew what "polyamorous" meant. Relationships would come up and I'd say "I'm non-monogamous" and the response would be "Oh, that's cool."

Here in New York, however, the response is usually "What does that mean?" and "How do you do that?" and, subtextually, "Wow, you must be a sexual deviant extraordinaire."

Of course, I talk to guys in a strip club, but they aren't the only ones. And of course not everyone imagines I'm some crazy sex animal, but a lot of conversations get very awkward as soon as I mention polyamory, even if the other person's been talking about sex and their relationships for a half hour already.

I like educating people about polyamory, and it's really awesome when someone hears me and says "Wow, that's awesome. I never thought about that but it's kind of what I've been doing and I needed a name for it." Or when someone says "Good for you. Do what makes you happy," even if polyamory isn't for them. It gets taxing, though, having to explain every word that I would use to define my identity. Even "bisexual" isn't safe. ("Do you like boys more, or girls?")

The weird thing is that now I'm a senior, there's a new disconnect because the people around me are younger. I met a freshman boy in one of my classes, who was tall, cute, and friendly and followed me around for a while, to lunch and the post office and such. Sex and relationships came up in our conversation, and he's got a girlfriend who lives far away. He hasn't "asked her out" yet, but he also hasn't "messed around" with anyone else since the two of them hooked up. He's thinking he will "ask her out" soon, since she's coming to visit.

So when I try to say "yeah, I don't do monogamy" and explain all of that, I'm even one step further from his understanding. I mean, when I say I'm going to "ask someone out" I mean on a date. And if it goes well, we'll have sex. And then if that goes well, we'll do all it again. Months later, we'll talk about commitment and (not) being monogamous, etc. It's just a different mindset from 18 to 21. It was weird to have a language barrier in conversation with this person I otherwise got along with swimmingly.

So this year should be interesting. It's been my habit not to deal much with younger folks anyway, but I'm at a loss for what to do now that I'm the oldest one around. I want new people to play with. I know I can go off campus to find them and it'll be good practice for the real world, but it's so much harder. I guess I'll manage. Onward, ho!

Poly What?

I do not like monogamy.

I've been in long term relationships. I love intimacy and cuddling and comfort and even commitment, when I get to it. I like living with a lover; I like waking up in the morning to kissing and sex and conversation. I like to debrief at the end of my day with someone I care about and trust. I am looking, constantly, for someone I can share a deep bond with.

But I don't like monogamy. Even when I am in those loving, intimate relationships, I still want sex and excitement outside of them. My animal attraction to other people does not, for me, detract from my feelings towards my partner. In fact, being able to talk about and share the crazier aspects of my life and sexuality makes me feel closer to them. Jayme Waxman wrote in her blog the other week about having a monogamous heart but not a monogamous groin. That's what my anatomy looks like, too.

Through Jayme's post, I found Tristan Taormino's new website (and book) Opening Up. It's a resource site for those who don't want to practice monogamy.

Whenever I stumble upon things like this, a part of me wants to cry with relief. I feel like I am constantly trying to explain myself to everyone. It's hard for anyone to reject monogamy, and I deal with so much misunderstanding and prejudice, especially as a woman. It's so nice to run across other people who go through and can speak about the same things.

I am so tired of feeling guilty for not wanting monogamy. I often feel like there is something wrong with me, that I couldn't handle a monogamous relationship even if I tried. It feels like a failure that I "can't not cheat." I often find myself falling for people who do want monogamy, and I have to tear that apart because in my experience it can't work. People tend not to change their minds.

It's like being "poly" (look up polyamory on Wikipedia if you don't know what this means) for me is similar to what being gay feels like for other people. I never had much trouble with my sexual orientation; I'm from the San Francisco area and was always pretty comfortable being bi. Trying to negotiate and come out of the closet with polyamory, however, feels like such a struggle. I sometimes wish I could feel comfortable being monogamous. "Normal."

Lately, I've been doing much better. My last relationship was with someone who was open to the idea of, well, openness. We aren't really together anymore, but that's due to external circumstances (location mostly). I think we were doing a pretty good job of negotiating relationship boundaries and working with each other. I have been claiming my non-monogamy and trying to be proud of it. Hopefully I can keep that up.

Mish Mosh: Sex, Fire, Feelings, Relationships

I feel very close to people while I'm having sex with them.

I absolutely adore sex. I love nakedness: being naked myself, seeing someone else naked, touching our skins together. I love the texture of skin and hair, I love the heat. It all makes me feel so wonderful, like I'm a hot tub inside, all gurgley and warm, and that kind of happiness makes me feel special and different about my partner. I know it's happy chemicals or whatever released through orgasm and pleasure, but all feelings come from chemicals so I think it's just as valid as an emotion experienced outside the bedroom.

I have a lot of casual sex.

I like to fuck people I don't know very well. I don't do one night stands, but four nights? Mmm. I love exploring a new body, feeling the new bumps and hard places and softness of skin. I like to hear the different ways people moan or gasp or hold their breath or talk in bed. I like having to guess at what's in their head; I like that they can't tell what I'm thinking, that I can enjoy them and enjoy sex without having to give everything away. It's hard for me to guard my face when I'm fucking, but if they don't know how to read it yet, that's fine. I like feeling a physical connection, sharing an experience, laughing and whispering and coming with someone I probably won't see much afterwards.

I like to play with fire.

I get bored in a monogamous relationship. I like to be happy, sure, but I can't just sit still or be complacent. Contented isn't my style. I'm young, I know. I need to get out and get hurt and push things and learn by trial and error, big errors. I like to feel dirty. I like the way it feels to meet someone and just take them home, take off their clothes, let them fuck me. (Yeah, I'm a bottom.) It feels dangerous, it causes trouble, it feels good.

I need to be in a relationship.

I love sharing my bed, coming home to someone at night. When I was little I used to have long talks with my mother as she was tucking me into bed. We were close, and that was our time. I still like to debrief with someone who knows me, who can read my face, who won't take my bullshit. I need to talk things out as I feel them, discuss things as I learn them. I love being close to someone, having a safe place to come back to when I get tired from the fire. I love fucking the same person over and over, knowing their body and loving the familiarity of their responses. Routine and repetition are comforting to me, even sexy. It's a feeling I miss.

I fall in love very easily and somewhat frequently.

I love readily. I care very deeply about other people, and it doesn't take much to make that specific to one person. Love isn't what makes my relationships special. Love doesn't make the difference between a fling and a partner. It's trust. I do not trust easily. I am very reserved; very few people know what I'm actually feeling. If I share, when I stop hiding, that to me is what makes a relationship special, what takes time. The measure of how special you are to me is not how much time I devote to you, how much affection and support I show. It's how much of myself I let you see, how many of my own feelings I invest.