Tag Archives: poly

Happy New Year! It’s 2026 — Let’s Talk Kinky Resolutions

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Happy New Year! It’s 2026, and with a fresh calendar comes a fresh opportunity to reflect, reset, and grow. New Year’s resolutions don’t have to be about productivity or perfection — they can also be about how we show up in our relationships, how we treat others, and how we understand ourselves.

If you’re someone who’s curious, imaginative, or interested in kink and alternative relationship dynamics, here are a few kink-positive New Year’s resolutions worth considering.

1. Resolve to Be More Open and Communicative

Being open-minded doesn’t mean saying yes to everything. It means listening without judgment.

People experience desire, curiosity, and connection in wildly different ways. When we approach those differences with curiosity instead of disgust or fear, we create safer spaces for honesty. Open-mindedness allows conversations to happen before misunderstandings turn into shame or silence.

You don’t have to like everything you hear — but giving ideas room to be expressed matters.

2. Make Consent Non-Negotiable

Consent isn’t just a checkbox. It’s an ongoing conversation.

Resolving to always seek clear, enthusiastic consent means respecting that people can change their minds, feel unsure, or say no without needing to justify themselves. Consent builds trust, and trust is what makes any relationship — kinky or not — feel safe and mutual.

A good rule for 2026: if it’s not a clear yes, it’s a no — and that’s okay.

3. Try New Things (Thoughtfully)

Growth doesn’t happen in our comfort zones.

Trying something new doesn’t mean pushing past your limits; it means being willing to explore curiosity safely and intentionally. Sometimes you discover something you love. Sometimes you learn something isn’t for you. Both outcomes are valuable.

You can’t know what resonates with you until imagination meets reality — and learning what you don’t like is just as important as learning what you do.

4. Respect Your Boundaries — Without Apology

Your boundaries are not obstacles. They’re information.

One of the most important resolutions you can make is to stop forcing yourself to be comfortable with things that genuinely aren’t right for you. Saying “this isn’t for me” doesn’t make you boring, close-minded, or difficult. It makes you honest.

Respecting your own boundaries teaches others how to respect others, too.

5. Let Go of Resentment

People are allowed to want different things.

In kink, as in life, frustration often comes from unmet expectations. Let 2026 be the year you stop resenting others for liking what you don’t — or for not liking what you do. Difference doesn’t mean rejection; it just means diversity.

The goal isn’t sameness. The goal is understanding.

Here’s to 2026

May this year bring better communication, stronger consent, kinder curiosity, and deeper self-knowledge. May you learn what excites you, what grounds you, and what you can happily leave behind.

Happy New Year — and here’s to growing, exploring, and respecting ourselves and each other.

My Kink Is Not Your Kink — And That’s Okay

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Human desire is astonishingly diverse. What excites one person may do absolutely nothing for another, and that difference is not a flaw—it’s simply part of being human. We rarely agree on what is “sexy,” and that disagreement is not only inevitable, but healthy.

There are entire worlds of attraction that I personally don’t understand. Some people find excitement through words on a screen, through imagination alone, crafting entire experiences out of text and suggestion. While it doesn’t resonate with me, it clearly resonates deeply with others.

There are also interests that make me uncomfortable, not because they are unfamiliar, but because they collide with my personal boundaries or values. It’s important to say this plainly: desire is only acceptable when it is consensual, ethical, and confined to adults. Outside of that, it stops being a preference and becomes harm. However –between two adults– many people engage in adult baby play, daddy/daughter play, or Little play. While these aren’t things I’m personally comfortable with, I don’t judge what they enjoy.

And, I recognize that I enjoy things others have no interest in whatsoever. I’m drawn to intensity, to structured fantasies, to the idea of imagination becoming real through shared trust and play. I love the creativity of roleplay—the way it allows people to step outside themselves and explore safely.




The truth is simple: you don’t have to like what I like, and I don’t have to like what you like.

Of course, our reactions aren’t always fixed. Sometimes something that initially feels strange—or even off-putting—changes once it’s understood or experienced in a safe, respectful way. I’ve seen how trying something new can surprise a person, especially when it offers relief from anxiety or allows them to inhabit a role that feels easier than simply being themselves.

There are limits. Some ideas simply never become comfortable, no matter how much time passes. Recognizing that boundary is just as important as exploring new ones. When that happens, it may mean accepting that no single relationship can fulfill every desire—and that’s not a failure.

For me, this realization made room for a broader understanding of relationships. Different people can meet different needs, whether emotional, intellectual, or physical, as long as honesty and consent guide those connections. Not everyone is equipped for that kind of emotional openness, and that’s okay too. For those who can handle it, I think polyamory is a good way to deal with people you love not necessarily sharing all of your kinks.

I always tell people to take some time with each idea. Never refuse anything outright. Let it marinade in your imagination for a while, and then tell your partner what you think. Sometimes you cozy up to an idea when you let it hang out in your head. Other times, you don’t. But you should never say no before giving the idea time to percolate. When people do this, it reminds me of a child being offered a new food and saying: “No, I hate it!” (Before even trying it.) Don’t be a child saying no to watermelon.

Most of the time, it won’t hurt you to try something new.

Trying something doesn’t mean it will define you forever. Sometimes a desire dissolves once it’s explored. Other times, it deepens. There’s no way to know which until experience replaces imagination. Wanting something intensely doesn’t guarantee it will last, and discovering you don’t enjoy something can be just as valuable as discovering that you do.

What matters most is refusing resentment—toward yourself or others. People are allowed to like what they like, and they’re allowed not to like what they don’t. Difference doesn’t make us incompatible by default; it makes the world more interesting.

If we were all the same, desire would be dull, relationships would be simple in the worst way, and curiosity would disappear. Variety is not the problem. The lack of understanding is.

Is it Rape?

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This question has come up recently and I want to talk about it. It seems like some of you didn’t learn from the “me too” movement and that’s a shame. But, this is a serious subject and while I’m loath to serious, here we go:

If a person didn’t consent to what you did to them, then it is rape. If a person is too drunk or stoned to consent, then it is rape.

We need ongoing and enthusiastic consent when we have sex. We need to negotiate beforehand, check in throughout, and do aftercare when it’s over. That’s how we have sex in the kink community, okay?

So let’s take a scenario:

A couple is polyamorous but has rules:

• No sex outside the marriage without using protection.

•  Any sex where a condom could have broken or one of them could have been compromised, and they wait two weeks and get tested before having sex with each other.

•  They agree to be honest about what they do with their sexual partners.

Now the husband goes and has sex with his friend, and he does not use a condom. He comes home to his wife, and asks to have sex with her. He assures her that he was safe when he had sex with his friend, and that there is no chance that he could have caught something. Under this understanding, his wife consents to sex.

About a week later the wife has an itching down there. She trusts her husband and assumes it’s just a yeast infection, but the itching persists and she begins to have delicate flesh in her genital area that tears and bleeds.

She goes to her gynecologist and gets tested, and she tests positive for Chlamydia and HPV-8. The gynecologist is unsure if her flesh tearing is due to her autoimmune diseases being aggravated by the Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), or if she also has HSV-2.

The wife has not had sex with anyone else in years. She has been tested several times during those years when she was only having sex with her husband, and has never tested positive for an STI before.

Later, the friend whom the husband had sex with confesses that she and the husband never used condoms when they had sex.

Now, you tell me: Is this rape?

The wife said yes to sex, didn’t she? She didn’t object during the sex. So how can it be rape?

Well, again:

You have to have informed consent. If you have rules and you break them, then it’s rape. If you say you used a condom and you didn’t, it’s rape. Any time a woman did not consent, or was coerced into consent with lies, it’s rape.

I know this bothers many people.

When I was growing up, men got me drunk and pushed themselves on me. I froze, because I’m Autistic and I didn’t know how to object. Back then, we didn’t call that rape. Men just thought that if you said yes to a drink, then that meant they could have sex with you while you were lying in a pool of vomit rigid and clearly not having fun.

However, we know better now.

We’ve grown as a society. We discussed it. We thought it over, and it turns out that any kind of sex without consent is rape.

A popular show named “Bridgerton” by the delightful Shonda Rhimes features a woman raping a man in the first season. He is trying not to have a child with his wife by using the pullout method. This method is not very effective, but it was the conditions under which he consented to sex. He did not consent to cum inside his wife.

His wife -who wants a child- holds him tightly when he cums so that he cannot pull out.

This is also rape.

They had terms under which they had sex, and she broke them. And folks, that’s also rape. I know back in the 70’s and 80’s men said stuff like: “Men can’t be raped. Sex is like pizza. Even when it’s bad it’s still good.”

That’s the patriarchy speaking, and we don’t listen to that bullshit around here.

If your partner or partners did not consent to sex, it’s rape. If their consent was not enthusiastic and ongoing, then it’s rape. If they were too drunk or stones to consent, then it’s rape.

The End.

Don’t Hunt the Unicorns

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I want to take a moment to talk about some of the most magical people in the polyamorous community. They are called Unicorns.

Unicorns are people (most often women) who enjoy dating couples.

An unfortunate thing I often see in the Polyamorous culture is unhappy couples trying to hunt for a unicorn because they think it will fix their marriage.

Remember: No one wants to date an unhappy couple. Unicorns are attracted to love and joy, and if your marriage isn’t loving and joyful, they won’t want to be part of it.

Even if you have a happy marriage, it’s important to remember that the unicorn may not want to do every single thing together with both of you. Many couples fall into the trap of expecting a unicorn to like each of them equally and only want to do things with both of them together. That’s weird. It’s not natural or normal to expect someone to feel exactly the same about both of you and to always want to be with you together.

Let’s step back for a moment and examine what polyamory actually is.

Polyamory is about a lot of things, but the biggest thing you need to practice is being self-aware and managing jealousy well. You will feel jealous when your partner is with someone else, and moreso if they are with someone else without you. That said, you feeling jealous doesn’t automatically mean you should get everything you want. It also doesn’t mean that what your partner is doing is wrong.



When I was married, my husband would get extremely nosey about anyone I was talking to and everything I said. When I tried to go places with anyone other than him, he would invite himself along. In my experience, men are worse at managing jealousy because they’ve been taught that the only feeling they are allowed to have is anger. Anger is probably the least productive emotion and it only causes conflict, so men who want to practice polyamory need to spend a lot of time working on themselves and learning a few important lessons:

• If anger is your default emotion, then you need to fix that. Anger only causes conflict, and it is the least productive of all the emotions.

• Women are people. They each have their own wants and desires. You can’t make assumptions about what they feel or want based on stereotypes that you learned in elementary school or from other ignorant men. Just let her talk and listen to what she says. It’s not that hard.

• You need to learn to recognize when you are feeling jealous. Then, examine why you feel that way. Are those feelings fair? You want to date other people, so your partner should be able to do the same things as you. Sometimes that means spending time with someone with you. Sometimes that means spending time with someone without you. Either way, it is your responsibility to manage your jealousy, not your partner’s responsibility.

Compresion is the term we use to mean that you are happy that someone else is happy. This is the feeling you want to try to cultivate. If someone wants to spend time with your partner without you, it’s important to focus on being glad that your partner is desired, and happy for them that they are having fun. If you can’t do that, then you are not polyamorous. You shouldn’t be dating unicorns or anyone else.

Here’s something you can think about:

A unicorn is coming into a relationship where he or she doesn’t know any of your inside jokes, and where they don’t have any history with either of you. This can feel lonely. Instead of focusing on yourself or your partner, try to spend time focusing on how the unicorn feels, and try to help them feel comfortable.

Unicorns are special people, and they deserve respect and kindness. So, don’t hunt a unicorn because you’re unhappy and you think it will fix your marriage. It won’t. Adding another person to an unhappy situation will just multiple the unhappiness. Instead, fix your issues on your own, become happy and loving, and then watch the unicorns come to you.




My Favorite Fetish: Making Dreams Real

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I’ve always loved to imagine.

I grew up reading Lord of the Rings, the Drizzt Do’Urden series, and lots of other fantasy. Even before that, my parents met at Berkley at a first addition Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) quest. Imagination is in my blood.

As for sex, I remember figuring out how to masturbate when I was five. Sex and orgasms are an important part of my life and who I am.

It makes sense that I’d want to combine my two favorite things:

Fantasy + Sex = Magically Delicious.

They don’t even have to be my fantasies. I like to take other people’s fantasies and make them real, too. For people I love, making their dreams into truth is one of my very favorite things on Earth.


I learned a few years ago that not everyone sees things inside their heads. Some people can’t re-live experiences in perfect clarity or picture new scenarios and then live them in their minds. There’s a graphic that went around the internet with apples that explains it. That’s actually how I found out that my adopted mom has aphantasia.


As for me, I see things in my head better than I see them in real life. Maybe this is why it’s so easy for me to imagine turning fantasies into reality. I feel like all our fetishes have some explanation behind them, be it childhood issues, subconscious needs, or just the shape of our own minds. I think the shape of my mind -being so visual- leads to me trying to imagine things and then bring those fantasies to life.

Whatever the reason, my favorite memories are of taking a fantasy and turning it into a real-life experience. My ex-husband didn’t appreciate this at all and kept his fantasies secret from me after we got married (forcing me to try to guess what they were). But for those who have been open and told me what they wanted, I have made their dreams come true.

The internet has made this much easier. Now, you can just write about a fantasy that you have, and people will volunteer to get involved (if you’re a good writer). In the past, you really had to search for the right people to play out certain scripts. I am so grateful for the internet.

And hey, thank you to all you kinky folks for being out there in the world. I feel less alone knowing you’re there.

How to Talk About Sex

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When I plan a scene with a person or people whom I do not know well, I use kink negotiation forms. They have boxes to check for things you agree to and do not agree to, blanks to write in ideas, and more. Find an example here. This is good because miscommunication often leads to bad sex, and no one wants to have bad sex.

However, once you get into a long-term relationship, you will probably move away from forms and try to talk to each other about sex without ink and paper being involved.

First, let me start with what my ex-husband did because it’s good to start with what NOT to do.

I would try to bring up a new thing I wanted to try.

Me: “I was thinking that I’d really like to do a role-play scene for my birthday this year.”

Him: “No. I don’t do role play.”

Me: “Well, we can talk about who the characters would be. I’m not saying it has to be anything specific. I just thought we could try being different people.”

Him: “I’m not talking about this. I said no. Respect my boundary.”

End of conversation.

Many of you will point out how he is misusing the language of consent by setting a boundary that subjects cannot be discussed, rather than setting a healthy boundary on something after discussing it. That’s true. But, we won’t spend too much time going into all the issues with his side of the dialog. That’s not the point.

The point is: How could this have gone better?

As I tried to explain to him, it’s not okay to dismiss something out-of-hand before letting your partner explain themselves. There are a lot of reasons for this:

• If you do not let your partner explain what they are asking for in detail first, then they will walk away feeling unheard and disrespected.

• If you create resentment in your partner due to refusing them without hearing them out, they may express that resentment by saying “no” to you in the future, so keep in mind that relationships are about TWO people, not just one.

• If you let your partner explain why they want something, you might find that you are into it after all.

To go back to the ex-husband example:

 Once I asked him if we could try upside-down throat fucking. He immediately said no and refused to discuss it further. I went on a rant about feeling disrespected and unheard, and about how hurtful it was to always be refused when I asked for things. This made him silent, because when he was mad, he would refuse to talk at all and instead would just glare at me. Usually I gave up, but this time I kept talking. I said:

“Look, you probably said no before even thinking it through because from your point of view it seems like something to degrading to do to your wife. All I’m asking is that you consider it from my point of view. I don’t hang out in my own head when I’m having sex because I’m a non-op transsexual. I jump into your head. I have my eyes closed, and I am seeing the scene from your point of view. So, I’m asking you to do something that I want to do to a woman with the dick that I was supposed to have. I think it’s hot because it’s something a woman can’t possibly enjoy. There are no nerves there to give pleasure. There isn’t any clit to stimulate. It’s hot because it’s only for your pleasure and the woman is just being used like an object; a human fleshlight. All I’m saying is, I was born in a female body, but unfortunately, I was also born with the mind of a pretty gross guy. I’m not proud of it, but it’s something that I want. And I just thought you might be able to enjoy the fantasy with me.”

At the time, he sat there in stony silence, quietly hating me for pushing him to discuss things and care what I wanted. However, later I found that he’d been watching a bunch of porn about upside-down throat fucking. It became a fetish of his because I described it in a way that made it sound hot. Now, he continued to pretend that it was gross and refuse to do it with me, but that’s just because my ex-husband is basically the biggest douchebag on Earth.

Why am I telling you this?

Because it’s an example of bullet point three: If you let your partner explain why they want something, you might end up finding it hot after all.

I married my ex because he never said “no” to anything, and he was always up for new adventures. Once he had me trapped in marriage, he began to refuse any new things or anything fun. I have no idea why. I hope he works through that with his therapist or something. But, little-by-little, he became a completely different person after the wedding, and it was not the person I married.

Saying ‘no’ is pretty cruel when someone works up the nerve to ask for a secret sexy desire. And -while I apologize for lacing this post with my own post-marriage trauma- it’s relevant because what he did really hurt me. Yes, I am a Magically Delicious Super Slut. I have made a living for much of my life from writing kink erotica, hitting people for money, and throwing fetish proms. Sex is a huge part of who I am. And yet, even I feel shy when asking a new person for a new thing. It’s putting yourself out there and taking a risk, and being slapped down hurts all the way to the depths of your soul.

So don’t say ‘no.’ Say things like this instead:

• I’m curious to know what about that appeals to you. Would you be willing to tell me about it?

• I’d like to know more about how you visualize that working with us. Can you describe your vision?

• Can you tell me why I might enjoy this fetish?

 Even if you end up not being into the idea, you don’t have to say ‘no.’ My husband liked to say things like: ‘Absolutely not,’ or ‘There is no universe where I would be okay with that.’ Outright refusal is for assholes. Instead, try things like:

• I appreciate you sharing this with me. I’m not feeling it tonight, but let me think about it and do more research.

• I can see that this is important to you. Can you send me some links to some videos of it so I can try to get interested, too?

• I’m not sure if that would be safe for me. I would like to talk with my doctor about it and see what she says, and then I’ll get back to you.

• I won’t say ‘no’ because I know it took courage to ask; but is it okay if I say ‘not right now’ and give it some more thought on my own?

I once saw a meme where a guy is sitting at a computer and he clicks on a link to a porn video. He says: “That is sick! Who the fuck would be into that?” Then it has two frames of him just starring at the screen. In the final panel he says” “Oh shit, I guess I’m into that.” All I’m saying is, you might look into it and realize you are willing to give it a try.

I remember when I first thought about fisting. I have tokophobia (probably wrapped up in being trans,) and so I was instantly turned off by the idea because it was too close to the idea of giving birth.

However, I dated a guy who was amazing with his tongue and used to see how many times he could get me to orgasm in a night. It was like a fetish of his or something. He enjoyed getting me off, and he was good at it. Around the third or forth orgasm he would start putting fingers inside. One, then two, then three… until eventually his whole hand was inside me. He never exactly asked if he could, but then again, I was in too much ecstasy to protest. It reminds me of that old joke:

Her: “I’m not interested. I’m completely straight. I like men.”

Me: “Honey, you are spaghetti. You’re straight until you get hot and wet.”

I realize that sounds a little rapey -and I assure you I only ever said it to tease my good friends- but there is truth to it. Lots of things seem gross when you’re not turned on, but seem less gross after a few orgasms. And, if you have someone who is gifted with their tongue, that can make a lot of things seem less disgusting than you originally thought.

My ex husband said ‘no’ to a lot of things in more than a decade of marriage, and I don’t believe that any of them were fair. Most of them cost me a lot to ask for. After all, I have more than the average amount of shame wrapped up in sex and genitals since I have the wrong ones. (I always tell men: If you’re attracted to me then you’re at least little bit gay because I’m a guy.)

He said ‘no’ to trying romantic sex where we looked into each other’s eyes. He said ‘no’ to anal sex. He said ‘no’ to role-playing. He said ‘no’ to switching roles and topping me once in a while. He said ‘no’ to a MMF threesome. Etc… etc… etc…

I carry a lot of pain from how shitty he was. Some of it is wrapped up in refusing to have conversations about things or seek solutions to problems. Some of it is in how controlling he was. Some of it is in how lazy and mean he was. But the two biggest things that hurt me was:

• Saying ‘no’ to everything I wanted to try in bed.

• Harassing me for dressing up at home and bullying me into buying pajamas; which is not a thing I ever owned before I met him.

Some would say that the wrecking my cars drunk and having secret debt was worse. To each their own, I guess. But I know what hurt me the most, and I’m telling you from experience: Don’t just refuse to talk about things your partner wants to do in bed. It’s cruel.

Remembering Who The Fuck I Am

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The last decade I was married to a narcissistic control freak.

At first, it was little things that should have been red flags, but I was too in love to see them.

Example: I said that I wanted to try role-play, and he said no. Not just no, but an outright refusal to discuss why he said no. It was the casual brutality of it that should have alerted me to an problem. He could have said he’d think about it or asked to hear more. He didn’t. He just said no, and became furious when I wanted to discuss it further.

Example: I threw a kink party and he spent the entire night flirting with someone else. He ignored me when I tried to talk to him, and did not check in with me at all. When I tried to discuss it after the fact, he said that I was making him feel bad about himself and I needed to stop trying to shame him for his behavior. No discussion of how to solve the problem in the future, no explanation of why he behaved that way, and no promises to be more mindful.

Example: He would sit for hours on dating apps talking to people while we were supposed to be hanging out. Not while he was in line at the grocery store or on a smoke break at work, but like, while we were watching TV together and were supposed to be snuggling. I said it made me feel bad and that I thought he should find better times to try to meet women. He refused to discuss it and said he had to no other time to meet women so I shouldn’t have an issue with it.

You can see the pattern. He refused to discuss things. He shut down conversations that needed to be had, and he tried to argue me out of my feelings.

The year that we dated he was attentive, thoughtful, and kind. He never said “no” to trying new things in bed, and acted brave even his first time at a sex club.

As soon as we got married, his behavior changed. He began to snoop through my things, try to track my phone, and disrespect me. I thought he was having trouble adjusting because his parents are bad people who are abusive to each other, so I tried to give him space and understanding. I showed compassion and tried to have conversations about his feelings. He just kept shutting them down.

For a few years, I went into “fuck it” mode and just had fun. If he wouldn’t talk then at least we could have sex and drink. I made dinner at night, made cocktails for dessert, and we had a lot of sex. I mean, I wanted to have a healthy relationship where we discussed things, but I also only have so much energy and I thought if I gave him time and set a good example by being a loving and communicative spouse, that he would eventually pick up the hints.

Eventually, I tried again to talk about things. He would always follow the same pattern:

• Try to argue me out of my feelings.
• Yell at me for making him feel bad.
• Bully me once I became overwhelmed and cried.

Eventually he started telling me that he hated me and that I should kill myself, but since he would always apologize the next day, I found myself torn. He was clearly getting worse instead of better. I should leave. But, I loved him and I had become attached to the pets he insisted we get and the garden he pushed me to grow for them. Comfort does count for a lot. I figured when he got out of the military, he would get into therapy and get better. I thought we could get back to the way things were the first year when he said “yes” to everything. I thought we’d be best friends again.

Instead, he became wildly abusive and eventually physically violent. It took having a tooth knocked out for me to finally get the picture and leave.

I am ashamed that I stayed for so long.

Sure, I had my boyfriends and saw a cute girl for a few years. I had my comets that came around every so often for sex. In the poly lifestyle, we always have more people around to lift us up when one partner is dragging us down. But, I should have given up sooner. I regret the years I spent trying to help him when he clearly didn’t want help.

And that’s the point I want to make: People who shut down conversations are bad people. Discussion is essential to any healthy partnership. Communication is key.

I won’t forget again.


Varying Stages of Attachment

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Note: Someone told me recently that being kinky and being poly are not orientations. In this post, I want to describe how my brain works as a poly person, and why it is fundamentally different than that of a monogamous person. It is absolutely my orientation, and I can’t understand or accept the way monogamous people see relationships.

First you should know that I move around a lot.

This did not start because my husband is in the military. In fact, that actually causes me to stay places longer, since we have to stay until he completes a set of orders.

Long before my husband was a part of my life, I moved a lot.

It started because I was poor and lived in a neighborhood that was in the process of being gentrified. I would sign a six month or one year lease, and then at the end of the lease, the apartment complex would try to double the rent and I would have to move.

After awhile, I just got used to moving a lot. I ended up really liking it, since it is a chance to go through all the things you own and figure out what really matters to you. Do you actually need to keep that receipt from that one date? How much do you really care about that book you read that was only so-so?

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However, the older I got, the farther the moves got. I actually even traveled from state-to-state with the Renaissance Festival for awhile.

This kind of lifestyle means that you will leave people behind. I know that in the movies and on TV, you would never leave someone if you really loved them. But in real life, it’s pretty normal to choose travel and adventure over a person. In particular, it is pretty normal if the relationship is less about love and more about sex.

Don’t get me wrong- I am not some heartless bitch. I have at least a fondness for everyone I sleep with for any respectable length of time. I mean obviously you don’t always get names at an orgy, but other than that, I get names and remember birthdays and cultivate an emotional attachment to some degree.

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And yet, an emotional attachment does not mean that I will stay with that person no matter what. In fact, the one time I chose a person over an experience, I really grew to regret my choice and resent the person I made it for. I had been offered the opportunity to study abroad in Costa Rica for a semester via a scholarship my Spanish teacher put me up for. I said no because the person I was with at the time would have failed out of college without me to wake him up and kick his ass to class. It was a huge mistake, and I wish I would have spent that semester in Costa Rica.

So that being said: What happens to a relationship or attachment when you leave the place where the other person is?

It turns out that most people consider the relationship to be over at that point. I find that extremely sad. Maybe it is because I am poly, but when someone matters to me, they just keep on mattering to me no matter where they are or where I am.

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Example: There is this guy who wouldn’t like me using his name, so let’s call him Chris (just swapping one common name for another.) I met Chris in South Korea when I was a teacher and he was a medic in the air force. We had sex and talked and stuff, and then he got deployed to Afghanistan.

He did two tours in Afghanistan, which was hard for him.

Then, he was shipped to a base in Tucson Arizona when his enlistment was up. I came to see him while he was out-processing from the air force, at his tiny little house with no air conditioning.

Later, he came to see me at a fetish club in Phoenix.

We met up for sex, but also for company.

When someone travels similar paths, you share a bond. We had lived some of the same places, for one. And for another thing, I had seen a lot of violence and death in my teens. We had common ideas because we had common experiences.

Leaving on a jet plane

When he got out, he moved to Kansas and I moved to Oregon. Both of us had families to go spend time with after our time abroad.

However, we still talked on the phone and kept in touch.

Later, I moved to Guam. He is still in Kansas. And yet, we still keep in touch.

The other day, I sent him a picture of me in the bath to try to cheer him up on Valentine’s Day, and promised that he was always welcome to visit my bed whether it was here in Guam, or in Hawaii when we move there.

And I meant it.

See, my thinking is this: If you had sex with someone and it didn’t suck, why wouldn’t you do it again? And if someone moves away but you still like them, then why wouldn’t you still talk?

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This has gotten me into trouble here and there. Sometimes a guy will stay “in a relationship” with me, but start dating a monogamous girl. Then I will turn up to visit and we will have sex (because he does not tell me about the monogamous girl,) and then she ends up getting hurt.

Now first, that is on the guy for not telling me that he started a new (and monogamous) relationship.

But second, why does it have to be this way? What is actually so bad about borrowing someone when you are in town?

I mean, if I had known about the girl, I would have asked her permission (obviously) but it just seems to me that people you have had sex with are part of ongoing relationships until someone says stop.

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Example: There was a guy that I dated on and off for fifteen years. We were never soul mates or anything, but he was pretty and I liked to have sex with him. I also liked to just sit and talk with him and stare into his eyes, because he always looked so loving and devoted.

However, a few years ago he started seeing a girl who convinced him that I was “taking advantage of him” by not wanting to marry and be committed, but still wanting to hang out and have sex sometimes.

As a result, he made a huge show of saying “We are breaking up and I never want to see you again.”

This hurt my feelings. I don’t like breakups. Wandering away from someone but still keeping the connection open is fine. I like to explore and try new things, so I am always moving forward. But just because I am wandering, doesn’t mean I sever ties with everywhere I have ever been.

He broke up with me.

So I did the rational thing: I decided that he was dead to me, and I moved on with my life.

Divorce

Several times since that day, he has written me e-mails and Facebook messages and whatnot trying to reconnect with me. He keeps saying that he misses me and that we were good together.

But for me, the relationship is over.

It ended when he hurt me and I stopped seeing him as an ongoing relationship and started seeing him as an ex. It cannot be restarted again, because in my mind, a relationship is over once it ends. It is a final thing. I have to set a boundary (which I have few of) and tell myself “this is really over.” After that, I cannot change what has passed because boundaries stay in place or else nothing makes sense.

Besides, there was no reason to say that he never wanted to talk to me or see me again. He could have just said: “I want to go for this monogamous girl, so we need to keep this friends-only for a little bit to see how things go.” I would have been fine with that because we were living in different states at the time (although he was only in Washington state and I was in Oregon, so it was a short drive.)

Anyway, the point is: There could have been the lesser boundary placed of “no sex right now but still friends,” or even “Let’s take a break for a few months or a year.” But that was not what happened. Instead he placed the boundary of: “I never want to see you again.” And I respect boundaries. Forever.

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My point is this: How you view relationships is probably different from me.

Monogamous people tend to do this really uncomfortable thing where they feel that they own a person. They do not want to share that person with anyone, and they expect that person to terminate all other relationships as a condition of “being in a relationship.”

This is idiotic.

Think of it this way: I have always been a guy, but I live in a girl’s body. I decided to just accept this, and so I am (as the Native Americans would say) “of two spirits.” It’s fine, but it means that I really need my guy friends to go drinking and blow off steam with. I need time to get my male energy out, particularly if I happen to be dating men at the moment.

Two of my oldest friends are male. One is a few years younger, and one is a few years older. I have never had sex with either of them because they are my designated male friends. But in order to keep them as friends when dating, I have always had to call them my younger brother and my older brother. This is because both men and woman that I have dated have found our relationship to be “too close.”

 

As an introvert, I happen to feel that I value relationships more, since I have to stretch so far to make them. But more than that, being close to another human in a non-sexual sibling kind of way should not be considered unnatural.

Yet monogamy dominates society and so we are all expected to whip ourselves into a frenzy of jealousy for every little thing.

I adopted a kid as well. He was homeless and his mom was in jail. I grew up homeless, so I had a desire to help him based on personal experience. However, everyone I dated saw him as an “unrelated male” and I have been accused of sleeping with him since he was thirteen (who fucks a thirteen year old anyway?!?)

Jealousy is seen as some sort of value in “normal” world, and so the fact that I would run my fingers through his hair when he had a nightmare was seen as “wrong.” But he had been literally tortured as a child by a meth-crazy mother, and he had awful nightmares about days of being duct taped and locked in a closet without food, water, or anywhere to relieve himself. What kind of care-taker doesn’t show sympathy and compassion for a torture victim? And after I had similar experiences when I was on the streets!

I think you can see that jealously is often beyond the rational. It can be so unbelievably uncalled for at times that I have been utterly incredulous with people. Their heartless expectation that all relationships outside a romantic one should be cold and without touch is unreasonable. I think any sane person should be able to see that.

In the same way, I do not think it is reasonable to expect people to just stop communicating with a person that they wandered away from. If I made a connection with someone, sexual or otherwise, and then wandered out of their country and into another, this does not stop them from being part of my life.

To me, relationships are threads in the fabric of my universe, and they should run continuously in an unbroken cloth from the point of entrance in my life until my death. I hate to cut a thread out of the tapestry of my life, and a person must do something pretty bad to get me to do so.

Plus, I think relationships can (and should) evolve over time. Sometimes it is harder than others. For example, I have this ex who I just really like having sex with. I don’t know why. We just had awesome chemistry, and he intuitively understood what my body wanted. It was awesome.

He has decided that we should no longer have sex (no reason given.) I respect that, but it doesn’t mean that I want to lose the relationship. After all, he carries some of my memories, and therefore a part of who I am. So he is still a Facebook friend, on my Christmas card list, and someone I visit when I am in the same country/state. But the relationship has evolved from sexual to friendship.

Another example is literally laying in my bed right now. She is my ex girlfriend, and she is visiting with her husband. Her husband is not the sort to be interested in sex with me or my husband, so even though we used to date her, she is now off-limits.

That doesn’t mean I want to stop talking to her! She is this amazing and talented person who I admire. Now, does she still make me turn into a complete idiot around her because she is so beautiful and refined? Yes. Totally. But pretty girls have always done that to me, whether I was sleeping with them or not.

My point is, both of these people are part of my tapestry, and I value them as people. They are not just pieces of meat to me. And so, I prefer to keep them woven into my life in whatever way is appropriate at the time.

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Anyway, this is how a polyamorous person views relationships. They are ongoing. They may go in and out of being sexual, but they continue.

It is worth noting that some relationships never really get started, and those don’t count.

I have a habit of meeting people and having sex with them pretty soon after, because I want to see their soul and decide if I like them. Sometimes I decide I don’t like them. Those are the ones who don’t get a call back. One guy just stuck me as a shit person. Another was angry and became violent when I asked to change the nature of our relationship because the sex had lost my interest. A girl I used to date started cutting herself and saying she was a sinner for being a lesbian, and I quietly backed away from that because gods are not my thing.  So, I do end relationships with people that I don’t really like.

However, for the people who are good people, I see no reason to ever stop being attached to them.

This brings me to the final thought on the matter. People ask me how many people I am dating, and I am never sure how to answer this. To me, dating means:

Staying in touch with the person, have had sex with them, and would have sex with them again if the opportunity presented itself.

I feel that this is “dating” because it is closeness with the potential for sex. And, by that definition, I would say that I am casually dating W, Z, other Z, M, J, and R. So, seven people. And yet, I am only in one in-person relationship at the moment because I am stuck on Guam.

I guess you could say it is shades of dating.

Currently I am engaged in threes shades of dating, but there are others:

1. Level One: Dating in-person, with all the in-person obligations. (R)

2. Dating, the exchanging of gifts on holidays and birthdays, and sex when in person. (M,J,W)

3. Dating and keeping in touch, with sex when in person. (Z,Z)

Is that too complicated? Maybe for you. But, it is how the world exists for me. I did try to be normal when I was young. I tried to end old romantic relationships with people when I started a new romantic relationship, as the monogamous folks tell you that you must do. But when even that wasn’t enough and people were accusing me of sleeping with my brothers and my kid, that was it for me. Monogamous people are insane.

 

Sexist Bullshit

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I was trying to write a post about something to do with my husband and I as a poly couple, so I looked for a picture to illustrate the idea. I Googled “polyamory,” and was really unhappy with what came up.

Nearly every image that appeared on my search was of a guy with two women!

Even the images that were not people somehow implied that polyamory means two woman and one man.

Google is portraying polyamory (loving several people of any gender) as synonymous with the type of polygamy (the term used for the men who marry several women) in Mormon and other cults.

This makes me angry because it is some sexist bullshit.

 

I disagree with Polygamy as it is practiced in cults like the FLDS, because I used to volunteer at a shelter for homeless teens. Over the years we got several young boys who had been run off the Mormon compound in Colorado City. They nearly all killed themselves because of the horror of being rejected by their cult, and because they were taught that they would be nothing in the after life unless they had several wives.

Why were these boys run off? Well obviously, that would be so fat old men could marry the girls their age.

Gross.

Polygamy is always bad for boys from families without power, and bad for women overall. I base this on reading Under the Banner of Heaven and Escape in part. But I also base it on statistics and personal experiences. I have a lot of data that I have collected over the course of my life, and a lot of it relates to how Polygamy is the main cause of abuse and child abandonment everywhere it is practiced.

So to see my relationship orientation of Polyamory portrayed as a man with multiple women and nothing else in Google makes me sick. I actually felt physically ill scrolling through the pictures.

Not only did the search results conflate Polyamory with Polygamy as if they are the same, but I had another issue as well.

As a woman, I felt underrepresented.

Where are the pictures of women like me with our many boyfriends at our feet? Why was there no woman at the center of a bunch of men? Where were the pictures that accurately depicted my life?

Feeling angry, I did a Google search specifically for polyamory MMF (male-male-female) couples. Only then did I see a few images of a woman with two men.

I was disappointed that there were no women with a harem, but at least Google thinks a woman can date two men. (Although the default is a man with two women.)

And yet there was something even worse:

It was literally all pictures of three people. Just three. So apparently that’s all you get! My husband can date or I can date, but we cannot both date different people. And that cuts to the heart of it:

Polyamory is more than two.

I have boyfriends and girlfriends. My husband has boyfriends and girlfriends. Those people also date other people. So it is a lot more than two people involved.

Another important point:

Polyamory is not about orgies. I am sick to death of my husband and I saying we are poly, and guys turning to him and saying “You must get so much ass.” First, he really doesn’t because he is kind of a disaster of a person a lot of the time.

Second, it is not my job to “share” the people I date with him. I do not look for people to convince to join us. I look for people who want to date me by myself. So there are nearly no orgies and there are not even a lot of threesomes.

We date other people. But, the important point is: We do it separately.

See, it’s not about orgies or threesomes. It’s about how we love the feeling of falling in love. We love getting to know people in that way that you can only do in bed. We love variety, and we love learning new things about the world from new people.

For example: I have a thing for scientists and engineers. I love laying in bed and talking about experimental particle physics or aerospace engineering with the guy next to me. I love hearing about the latest in gene research from the girl in my bed. I love getting to hear their innermost thoughts on how our species is progressing.

And the thing I love the most about my husband is that he understands me, and he respects that I like to go off on tangents and explore things.

In fact, he likes that I come back with cool stories and facts. He enjoys my adventures from the perspective of a friend sharing exploits, and as a husband who likes to know that other men and women find his wife desirable.

From my perspective, I like him dating because he gets to be around girly girls who like makeup and hair. I will never be one of those girls, but I know he loves all of that. Plus I know he likes to be dominant in bed sometimes, and that is just not our dynamic. So, I like that he can have that with other people. And like him, I like knowing that the person I am mated to is desirable to others.

In other words: Polyamory is more than two people. That doesn’t mean three. It means more than two. (Sometimes lots more than two.)

And, in spite of the sexist bullshit, it can be just as rewarding for a woman as it can be for a man. I believe very strongly that this is my orientation, and that I have always felt differently about relationships than monogamous people. I don’t feel at a disadvantage as a poly woman. I don’t think the Google search results reflect my experience at all. And, I hope other women won’t be discouraged by the fact that cultural feelings about polyamory are widely sexist.

Views on us might be sexist, but we are not.

Note: And for the record, both my husband and I are feminists.

Valentine’s Nightmare

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Every year Valentine’s Day looms; that pain-in-the-ass day where you feel obligated to honor all of your intimate relationships. Yuck.

Personally, I am much more interested in buying gifts for people when the mood strikes me (if I see something they would like.) And yet, if you don’t get a gift for your significant others on Valentine’s Day then you are an asshole. Also, it has to be a gift they would like; not something that you want (Example: Do not get your girlfriend lingerie and then ask her to wear for you unless she asked for it.)

If you are monogamous, then you really only have to worry about one person, so that is a relief. In this way, you can stress about Valentine’s Day like a vanilla person, with only the concerns of what to get and where to go. It’s still uncomfortable pressure on what might otherwise be a comfortable relationship. But at least you only have the one person to concern yourself with.

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If you are Poly, then you either put a lot of thought into planning something special for everyone you are dating, …or you are me.

Normally I am pretty good at this stuff. I have been poly for a long time, and I know that I need to make sure that everyone feels valued on important days. But sometimes (like right now) I am a little overwhelmed and it all falls apart.

The story goes like this: I just got back from Australia and I am still recovering from the trip. I won’t bore you with the details, but I am not as young as I used to be and I have medical issues that make traveling hard. So, I needed to catch up on doctor’s appointments and sleep.

I bought my husband a card and some chocolates and I thought “that should be fine.” After all, the rest of my relationships are long-distance right now, so what are the odds they will want to exchange gifts? I guess I knew in the back of my mind that I was lying to myself, but it felt so good to choose the option that didn’t involve getting out of bed, so I did…

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Then a very sweet card arrived from one of my guys in the US, with a gift card inside.

Fuck.

So of course, I panicked like the basket-case that I am at the moment.

I jumped on Amazon.com and send him a gift that is probably over-the-top because I feel guilty. Then I grabbed my address book and picked out a book for the other guy I am in a relationship with as well (just in case he got me something.)

Then, sitting by myself on my floor having just spent $100 on amazon, I wondered if I am also expected to call.

Probably.

On the day, or the weekend before?

I have no idea.

Le Sigh.

And this is just the distress of a person who is casually dating people who she is geographically separated from. When we all lived in the same place, it was much more complicated. Who gets Valentine’s Day night? My primary? Or since they get me all the time, is that not fair? What if my primary says they don’t care about Valentine’s Day and so I make other plans, but then they realize last minute that they do care?

This is different for poly people who don’t have separate relationships. Sometimes a couple dates another person as a unicorn and they can all spend Valentine’s Day together. Sometimes two people are dating two other people and each other, and they can just double-date. There are lots of situations that can work out to be less complicated, depending.

Mine just isn’t currently one of them.

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Anyway, you can tell I hate Valentine’s Day. It is, and always has been, my least favorite holiday. It’s full of pressure to have the perfect dinner, the perfect scene, and the perfect sex. Not to mention the pressure on Poly folks to decide who you see on the day, and who gets a day that isn’t really Valentine’s Day but you can pretend.

You can say that I am just contrary, (since if you know me, you know I also hate Christmas.) But I would argue that I have very good reasons to dislike the holidays that I dislike, and that I make up for it by loving Halloween five or six times more than normal.

Anyway, I hope you all have a good Valentine’s Day. Spend it with people you love and don’t let the societal pressures and expectations bum you out!

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