Two Years and Counting
May 19th, 2011
Wow, I’ve been blogging for two years as of tomorrow. Two on WordPress, and one cross-posting from PervertedImp.com. That also means that I’ve been part of my local community for three years. What a ride it has been. Honest poly relationships, real community, play parties, limits being found, crossed and offered. Learning from classes, from mentors, from friends and from experiences. Journals, blogs, emails, chats, stories, tweets and threads.
I have posted about scenes, relationships, love, polyamory, social networking, wish lists, family, failures, and successes. I have had a couple flash fiction pieces published, and posts reblogged on other sites and did one meme for silly fun. I created an informational section on clothing care, and started a group about it on FetLife.com. I started out completely anonymous, and then sharing it with loved ones, my kinky family, and then friends.
I have an amazing life, a wonderful husband, and awesome boyfriend and a incredible toy. I have tons of people surrounding me, caring about me, teaching me and supporting me. I am part of groups that meet weekly, sometimes more than once a week, and have more opportunities for play parties and learning experiences than I even begin to have time for.
I made a silly post once about the numbers on my blog and the top posts and all that. Today I wanted to see how people were getting to my blog. Some are coming from Twitter, some from Fetlife, some from email subscriptions. But the part that amuses me the most is the search terms that land people on my blog. So I looked at the top terms. Both sites, of course, have Perverted Imp and other permutations in the top of the list. Over at WordPress, we the other top three terms are Shibari (Complete Shibari, or Shibari blog), Resistance Play, and various permutations of Straitjacket. PervertedImp.com is a little more varied, though with (Complete) Shibari still in a lot of the upper slots. The next two amuse me more, though: Consensual Feminization and Masochist Turn Ons. I am definitely becoming more and more a girl in this community, and my masochist turn ons have increased by leaps and bounds. Painslut also features heavily in my most searched terms.
This is a pretty bland post, without much substance. For substance, see the earlier post this week and I promise more fun next week, too. But today, my head is full of vampires and LARPing. For now, Thank You to everyone who contributes to this absolutely amazing life I lead.
The Writing on My Thighs
March 17th, 2011
What’s really there is that I have an awesome boyfriend who loves me, who trusts me, and who wants to continue our journey together, in life and in kink.
What’s really there is several new paths we are taking, one including an awesome woman who has decided to be our toy.
What’s really there is stressful work and health situations that are not who we are, but simply things we are doing and dealing with.
What’s really there is drama in our worlds and families that we need to deal with and solve together, supporting each other.
What’s really there is amazing opportunities for love and companionship and play and fun together, that I never would have thought possible five years ago.
These sentences are currently written on my thighs. I wrote them in a chat yesterday, and we decided I ought to write them on myself for a little while. “Until the message sinks in,” you might say. I need practice focusing on the positive. I need to not let the negative build up and build up, because “it’s just a little thing,” until it becomes a whirlwind of fear, doubt and crazy. I’m a writer, a good thing, but also bad. I write stories in my head, make assumptions, fill in the blanks. I live inside my head a little too much. I need to remember there are other people out there, often right beside me, who have the real answers, the actual truth of the matter, and sometimes, a far better grip on reality than the tangled mess I sometimes get myself into. Speculative fiction is awesome to write and sell and share, but reality is strange enough without me getting creative on it.
So, lesson of the week: Communicate!
How many times have I written about communication? And yet…
Things are far easier to deal with and discount and conquer when they are small. And nothing is too small to mention. A grain of sand creates a pearl, but a fleck of metal can blind you and a single spark can burn down a forest. He is good at noticing when something is wrong or off, but I am not always so good at realizing he is right. So, communication. Don’t dismiss it when he questions, really look and try to shake loose the thought that is keeping me off balance by hiding in the corner. Life is always crazy and busy and stressful, but letting things bottle and build up is only going to make things worse. Explosions are far more damaging than a firecracker. Just don’t hang on too tight, toss it up in the air and see what it looks like in the light.
I am loved. I am wanted. I am needed. I am worthy.
Anniversary
August 26th, 2010
I celebrated my anniversary yesterday. Married six years to my wonderful Hubby. We celebrated with sex, food and Hollywood violence. We first met in person ten years ago, to the month, but not the day. We had started talking the November before that. I have known him for over a third of my life. When we were younger and more romantic, we used to call each other soulmates. We went through so much in those early years, but we always came back to each other, always found each other again. So, we decided to stay together, six years now and many more to go.
Is it odd that marriage started a new trend for me? Previous to getting married, and with Hubby being the only exception, the longest relationship I ever had was four months in Ireland. Now, I have one boyfriend of over six months, another coming up on two years (exact dates are a bit fuzzy) and my husband of six years, who I was dating for a year and a half prior to our wedding. Relationships are not easy, and I am so lucky to have found these three men who work hard with me to keep things together. Even more lucky because my two boyfriends each have primary(and sometimes other secondary) relationships that require their time and attention as well. Not to mention how grateful I am to those other partners for sharing them with me.
I commented the other day that I’d never paid much mind to anniversaries before, other than my wedding anniversary, because I’d never had a relationship last that long before him. It is incredible to me that I now have three with the potential to mark not just months, but years. Poly is hard for some people to understand, but to have this much love in my life, is such a wonderful thing. I am forever grateful to my Hubby for being patient with me while I came to terms with both his and my own polyamorous nature. Our life together is that much richer for all the love that is in it.
Polyamory Today
June 24th, 2010
In college, there were times when I was in love with not-yet-Husband, and dating other men. He first proposed to me while engaged to someone else. I did not say no, not until I met her, anyway. When he proposed the second time, and I said yes, it was on the condition of monogamy. I accepted that he was flirtatious, and loving towards others, but we made an agreement that there would be no other relationships when we got married.
Two and a half years in, and we were both finding ourselves interested in other people on a level more than just flirtation. We talked about swinging, playing outside our marriage. I played with one friend, trying to keep emotions out of it, but when he decided he could not continue, I was hurt. Friends invited us to a swingers party where I was fairly wide-eyed and quiet the whole night. Then we moved.
We looked around online for potential play partners. We played with one couple, and we met another, but neither turned out well. Then we found the local kink community. I agreed that Husband could be true to his poly nature, and I would continue with the label of swinging. I was afraid of getting hurt again, swinging felt safer, it was not about love, or relationships. It was about experiences and having fun.
Then I met Lover, and Him. We started playing, in various forms, and it quickly became apparent that emotions would always be involved, that there was always risk, that the trust required for the way I wanted to play was not something to be given casually.
Husband has formed various relationships, girlfriends and play partners, looking for what he wants to add to his life. Together we explore our rules and agreements. We deal with jealousy and time management. We grow together and we follow our own paths. I love him, I am in love with him, I will love him forever and always.
I had a hard time with labels and defining relationships outside my marriage. Lover started as a play partner. Love grew between us, but in different ways. There are many kinds of love, and my love for him does not feel like the romantic, forever love of a Husband or a Boyfriend. It feels like the love of a cherished and trusted friend, a confidant. I chose the word Lover for him because I do love him, and we do play and make love, but it is a different kind of commitment that I feel for him.
Him, Rigger, Mentor, Dominant, Boyfriend. He and I have gone through many stages of our relationship. Growing closer over the last two years, taking things one step at a time. We began trying to define things around the turn of the year, or rather we tried to move forward without truly defining things, and found that it would not work anymore. After some stumbling, we defined what we had and what we wanted, and what boundaries that created for us, to keep us and our relationships safe. I love him, but more than that, I am In love with him. In the life-sharing, forever kind of way, and I am incredibly grateful that his wife is accepting of my love for him.
Compersion is an important concept in how I do poly. I love my Husband, my Lover and my Boyfriend, and because I love them, I want to see them happy. Their other partners bring love and happiness to their lives, so I am happy for them, and those relationships. I do not always want the details about how their other partners are making them happy, but sometimes it is fun to share the excitement and experiences, and it is definitely fun to share the energy created by those experiences. Jealousy still crops up, and relationships are not always happy, but over all, I know that love is not divided between us, it grows and expands to include everyone in our lives.
Polyamory has been a quite a journey, and I am still exploring the path.
Coming Out
October 28th, 2009
As the daughter and sister of ministers, you can imagine that being kinky and poly doesn’t come up at family dinners very often. When I was just kinky, I’d excuse it, because, really, Who talks to their family about their sex life? My bedroom is none of their business. But poly? Not sharing with my family the people that I love? It keeps things safe, keeps things stable, but is it really truthful? Am I being the true me by hiding from my family? I fear they will stop talking to me, I fear my brother will keep me away from his kids. I fear they won’t love me anymore, which I think is terribly unfair of me, even if I’m right about them not talking to me anymore. Heck, they’d probably pray for me more than they do now.
A lot of my friends know, though not all. I have a feeling a few more of them know now, after unguarded comments at a recent wedding, but people often dismiss things they don’t understand, so the comments may have not registered anyway. No one asked for clarification at least. I hide at work, too, though I have been seen kissing my boyfriend, and once called him that. But people are afraid to question what they don’t understand and not everyone knows what my husband looks like, or that I’m married.
My friends also tend to know I’m kinky, but there, too, only those that ask about such things. I feel more comfortable sharing that part of me, honestly, with them. It’s become more “normal” lately. I can show them pictures of my suspensions, and they don’t generally run away scared or get offended. I think the joy on my face helps, too. But I tend to keep stuff like that out of the public eye, off Facebook, Livejournal and in an anonymous blog here so even my kinky friends cannot find me.
I wonder what it would be like to be truly me. To be open and honest with the world. I’m considering letting more people know about the blog, it wouldn’t remain anonymous in anything but name if I did. The descriptions of events are far too specific for anyone to mistake it if they know me. I must admit, part of me wants a bigger readership, too. That writerly need for attention and validation.