ethical nonmonogamy

Gallery

Over Thanksgiving, I’d had that scary conversation with Sir where I admitted that I ad developed like feelings for Pup and this wasn’t just sort of play partners territory anymore. It’s hard for me to admit stuff is going well in poly, mostly because I never want to hurt anybody’s feelings. So I end up being like, “this person is okay,” when really I find the person awesome but don’t want to hurt Sir’s feelings. And as I’ve gotten into before, this has only ended poorly. So, this time I actually admitted I thought Pup was a really awesome person and I liked him a lot. 

It went really well with Sir, but now I was all anxious about having the same conversation with Pup. I don’t even know what I really wanted out of it, and that was why it was so difficult for me. I wasn’t looking for anything to really change, it was more me wanting to express this and sort of be sure I wasn’t just sort of arbitrary booty or a rebound. It’s hard for me to tell if people like me sometimes or just enjoy the particular experience of whatever we’re doing divorced from me as a person. 

So, the night I got back, I told him. We were in his bed with the lights off. I felt really nervous and silly the whole time. But, he was really sweet and that night we ended up having vanilla sex for the first time.

We didn’t really discuss that, as far as I remember. It just sort of happened. He pulled on a condom and I pulled him on top of me. He didn’t go as hard as he usually did, heis hands didn’t fall to my wrists or my throat.

I don’t want to prioritize vanilla sex over kinky sex as being more serious or more intimate or more emotional. Some of the most serious, intimate, emotional sex I’ve had was kinky sex. But there was something about how the sex was that night, and how we said each other’s names. I know it’s trite and cheesy, but it was really, really nice.

Gallery

The other day I was hanging around with Pup when I got onto the subject of how okcupid has infinitely slim pickings where we are “It’s about 98% gross dudes,” I explained, “and then girls who aren’t interested in all my crap.” That crap being kink and poly.

I pulled up my account to demonstrate, when he pointed out a very cute girl with a high match percentage. “What about her?” he asked.

“Well, that’s new,” I said. “She’s probably not into poly girls or girls who aren’t just gay or into kink.” We opened her profile. She was. “Well, I’m not messaging her,” I said. “I’m shy.”

Pup patted my knee. “You’re going to message her right now.”

I kept insisting there would be some osort of a catch and went through another page of her questions. Eventually, Pup lost patience and said, “you’re messaging her in the next five seconds or I’m giving you a beating.”

I huffed. “Maybe I want a beating.”

“You’re getting a beating either way,” he said. “It’s up to you whether it’s one you enjoy or one that doesn’t stop until you start crying.”

I ended up sending her one of the most awkward, shy, stilted little messages. I even admitted in the message that it was awkward, shy and stilted. But, she responded really warmly and we exchanged phone numbers. Now, we’re getting coffee today.

Eek.

The Golden Ratio

Chat

Background: So I’ve got a date coming up with a guy who seems really cool. I asked him out myself and I’m usually too shy to do that, so I’m pretty proud of myself. Also, he’s pretty good motivation to finish my thesis.
Me: Think of it this way. Three dicks plus three holes equals America.
Me: Or like three dicks:three holes is the golden ratio.
Pup: Your golden ratio is just one to one.
Me: Thats why it’s the golden ratio.
Pup: One?
Me: Yes.

Gallery

Yesterday, I had difficult, vulnerable talks with both of the dudes in my life about all the crazy stuff like expectations and whatnot. Those of you who know me know that I am terrified of communication and vulnerability, so I wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to do this. But, both of these talks turned out really, really positively, and I was clear about what I wanted and needed, and I felt much closer to both of them as a result. So, go me for doing the scary thing. Twice.

Gallery

Leftovers, Part One

A few days after Thanksgiving, Sir and I went to a get-together Star was hosting with some other kinky/poly people to eat leftovers and hang out. Sir’s a little bit more familiar with and closer to these people, but I like Star and it’s always nice to connect within the community. We also had plans to go to a play party afterwords, so I had something fun on underneath my sweaterdress and coat.

I like going places with Sir where we can be “ourselves” because I like our dynamic and I like sharing that with other people. I don’t mean to say that I enjoy showing off (okay, maybe a little) but rather that I really love being able to be submissive to him in interactions that are just not exclusively with him. We talk a lot about the framing of our relationship and how the paradigm is really more of us using the frame of “boyfriend/girlfriend” as sort of a disguise/more palatable way of explaining ourselves on top of our “dominant/submissive” dynamic. So, it’s nice to just sort of go to a place and casually be Sir’s sub. It was enjoyable to put things on his plate for him, to fill his drinks for him, to sit patiently on his knee while he talked to someone.

At some point in the evening, I was feeling a little awkward (I really only knew Sir, Star, and Star’s partner but just barely) and was keeping to myself when Sir said he wanted to have Star show him how to put me in a harness. I got up and walked onto the carpet, where Star asked if I felt comfortable removing my dress.

For a minute, I hesitated, but then removed it and handed it off to Sir. “Thank you, Ivy,” said a guy I then realized I recognized from New Year’s a year ago. Aka, he was the guy who Sir totally messed up my game with. “I’m sorry,” he added, “am I allowed to look? That’s just…that’s super.”

I blushed. “Yeah, you can look. It’s fine.”

He gestured to the two girls sitting with him on the couch. “We like your stockings.”

“He gave them to me,” I said, pointing to Sir.

“Aren’t they nice?” Sir asked, turning me so the people on the couch could get a better look. He’s got this funny little ringleader/auctioneer streak where, when we’re in a group of people who are of our inclinations, he likes to show off. I can’t even pretend that I really mind all that much.

babygirlssweetsurrender:

💋

Gallery

Happy Valentine’s, tumblr. About to go eat Chinese food in my pajamas with Pup and Saltine. I miss Sir like crazy, but I’m thankful for what I have.

Gallery

artoflovingme:

my insides enlist one thousand swarming insects…

(from a poem I wrote, found here)

So, I came out to my mother today as poly. I totally didn’t anticipate this happening like this/today/ever. But it went so, so well. She was supportive and patient.

At first, she asked some silly and infuriating questions, but eventually we were able to sort of get on the same page about the whole thing. It’s really rewarding to me to see her try to understand this and to take me on my own terms, as the person that I am.

Best part though: She’d met Pup once and I had introduced him as a friend. And when I told her today that he’s actually a partner, she went, “oh thank God. I saw him and the way he looked at you and thought you’d messed up and slept with him.”

So uh, thanks Good Guy Mom for sitting on my “illicit affair” for a few months and not saying anything?

Gallery

I wish I could say my trip to see Sir over Thanksgiving was start-to-finish splendid. At the beginning, the whole thing was a little strained. I arrived the night before Thanksgiving in a terribly delayed flight, and then the next afternoon we had to go our separate ways to see our respective families. I got home at about seven, he didn’t get home until much later and I was too tired to do much of anything.

We watched a movie and he made drinks, so I was then way too tired and tipsy to do anything in our dynamic or have sex. And though I wasn’t trying to then, I had been generally evasive about our dynamic since I had arrived, and Sir had clearly picked up on it. Lying in bed, we proceeded to have an argument about how there was something off, we weren’t falling into whatever natural thing we usually did, I was resisting something.

“It’s just that…” I stammered out, and I felt myself start to cry. “So, like, I feel like I’m developing feelings for Pup beyond like sort of just being like fuckbuddies or occasional play partners and so I feel like I’ve been carrying this around since I went on that trip and that I haven’t been able to tell you because I didn’t want you to feel like I was just trying to sub him out for you because that isn’t it.”

It’s weird how – in a relationship complicit in allowing us to date other people – I was ashamed to admit I actually liked those people. I felt like I had somehow betrayed him by letting myself actually care about Pup, and so I was tip-toeing around everything to avoid it.

"I told you to be careful,” Sir said, I realized he misunderstood. “This is what happens when you get vulnerable with people, you have to be careful.”

“No, stupid, he likes me back. I think.” I proceeded to explain the conversations Pup and I had been having. The fact that while I was away on that trip, I’d gotten drunk and went to text him saying I missed him, only to find that he had sent me a text like that, and wound up having this awkwardly frank conversation about liking each other. “You’re not mad, right?”

Sir cracked a smile, “so, sweetheart’s got a little crush, huh?” 

I felt like something had been exorcised from the room. 

Gallery

I met Saltine before Pup did, at a munch a month or two prior. I first introduced them (the individual, preferred pronoun) in my post about being a brilliant wingwoman. But, yes, I’d met them prior to that time at a munch, where they gave me their number.

We texted rather sparsely. They’d send me a message, I’d reply a few hours later, they’d reply the next day. We were perfectly cordial with each other. I was a little taken aback to eventually discover that they were only eighteen years old (call me ageist or whatever else) and I figured that I would keep stuff friendly but not play with them or anything like that. When they asked if I was coming to a play party, I gave a soft maybe and – because my schedule was a little crazy – didn’t end up going.

But at an event in November, I noticed Pup checking Saltine out and I figured I’d help that along. After all, he didn’t mind dating younger the way I do and I was, at the time, his only partner. So, when the event ended, I managed to rally together Pup, Saltine, and some others to go share some fries.

As we walked over, we originally made our way up the block Wizard of Oz style: Pup, Saltine, my friend and I. I grabbed my friend by the arm and made her hang back with me so Pup and Saltine could walk ahead. At the restaurant, I went over to the bar first to talk to someone so that when I finally got to the table, I wasn’t sitting by Pup and he couldn’t just fall back on talking to me.

At the end of the night, Pup and I left together. Once we were outside, I couldn’t hold it in and blurted out, “please tell me you got their number.”

“Yeah,” he said. We high-fived and then he did that awkward walking-on-eggshells poly speech about blah blah how great the other partner is blah blah thank you for understanding. It’s a speech I’ve heard myself give so many times whenever I felt guilty for enjoying someone else, and hearing it out of his mouth, I realized how silly it sounded. 

Over the next few days, I kept pestering to him to make plans with them. And, finally, they’d arranged to go get coffee. But, a few days before their plans, while Pup and I were doing some work at a cafe when they texted asking him for help with their homework. 

“I don’t get why they’re texting me,” Pup said, ever-oblivious, “I don’t even-”

I rolled my eyes. “Jesus Christ. They are trying to hang out with you. Invite them here.”

So, Saltine showed up. I was a little embarrassed – I’d just spent the night at Pup’s place and I was wearing sweatpants and no makeup and my hair was a mess – and I hadn’t planned on being seen by anybody I hadn’t already woken up with. But, I took one for the team and stuck around, making sure everything was going well between them. And, when I knew the time was right, I excused myself and left the two.

That evening, I checked my phone to make sure he wasn’t free to text me. And the next morning, I found a message from him saying they’d spent the night and that the two of them were getting along swimmingly, in addition to having really good energy. I may have high-fived myself in the solitude of my bedroom. 

polyamorousplum:

[Source/MakeOne]