March 31, 2008
Talking to Becky (Again)
I guess it was just last week that Becky sent me an IM thanking me for the Christmas gift. I replied that I was going to throw it away, but that I hate waste, and she thanked me again. Not the response I was going for. I was kind of annoyed that she was talking to me, and I pretty much just wanted to be left alone. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) my rational mind doesn’t like to leave me alone, so I realized that talking to her would be the best therapy for me right now, particularly if she was willing to take me being bitchy at least at first.
She was, and more than that, she accepted responsibility for the breakup and apologized for causing such upset. For the first time, I might add. On the one hand I do not particularly like her, but on the other I have forgiven her, and that leaves me in a very neutral place. I mean, she fucked up royally which inclines me to not liking her, but she and I have a lot on common, which inclines me to the opposite. Long story short, I just don’t care. I will be nice (and she is interesting) when she emails or whatever, but I still have no intention or desire to seek her out. She is still not on my IM list, but she isn’t blocked, either.
She’ll be calling later to talk to Michael while I am away. She wants to explain the reason that she broke up with him since she JUST figured it out. That reason, in case you were curious, boils down to her being spineless. I suppose I should elaborate. She had just started interacting in a new way with her primary, but she didn’t want to talk about it to Michael, so she just went even more passive than normal and let him take complete control, which she ended up not enjoying. Instead of fixing it, she just ran.
I think she may want a second chance, but she may also be afraid to ask for it. Good. I hope that she never gets up the courage to ask. Michael has my permission to date her if that is what he feels he wants or needs to do, but he also knows that he will have to weight it against my not approving, and that I will not bend over backward to facilitate like I did before. If he decides to date her again, I want nothing to do with it. And I am not sure, but I still don’t think she will be welcome in my home.
~Kathleen
March 30, 2008
Terrible!
I’ve broken my daily goal, but I have a good excuse, as I was at my mother in law’s house, and she, amazingly, does not have internet. It is apprently if not the root of all evils, then at least the way that they will get into her house if she isn’t vigilant. There is a story behind that, but I won’t share unless you really want me to. In the mean time… BACK TOMORROW!
~Kathleen
March 28, 2008
So Nervous…
I keep thinking about my ex coming up, and I am having some major anxiety about what will happen. I even had dreams last night about him trying to rape me, and I ended up chasing him out of the house with a knife.
Oooohhh, how I wish he had never tried to open this door!
March 27, 2008
Congratulations!
Yesterday we broke the 100 visitors mark for the first time! With 106 unique views in one day, yesterday was my best day so far! I am really excited!
I’ve talked your ears off about poly for just over a month now, and there is SO MUCH great material so far, I think. If you haven’t checked out the archives yet, pay a visit to learn more about how Becky and Michael started dating, how I handled it, and how they broke up. Check out lots of fun poly subjects! We’ll be back as normal tomorrow, since I want to talk about a recent conversation that I had with Becky.
Blessings!
~Kathleen
March 26, 2008
All about the Sex
For me, poly can be about a sexual friendship, but that is not where the definition ends. Unfortunately, using that particular definition opens doors that I would rather brick up and forget about.
One of my best friends lives halfway across the state. I see him two or three times a year when he comes back to his hometown for a visit, and we have lunch or hang out. He and I also happened to date 7 years ago, and except for a brief stint with the girl that cheated on me with, he hasn’t had a girlfriend since. And he sees poly as a long closed door re-opening. I had to have an incredibly hard talk with him yesterday, since he will be visiting me next week again. I explained that I wasn’t interested in a new relationship with him, and he started to argue the point. He is one of my best friends, and I do love him, but not in a romantic way. So what about sex? he say. Stop protecting me, he says. What am I supposed to do?
I promised him I would keep an open mind, and I will, but I also made him promise not to make a move on me, and let him know not to expect anything. So what’s a girl to do?
Blessings,
~Kathleen
March 25, 2008
Answering a Question
Yesterday Red Wine Gums said:
Please forgive my curiosity but…
Are rape fantasies really that common? Are you differentiating between aggressive sex and rape? Because rape is a terrible thing when it happens. He or she has undergone a massive trauma which they may never recover from.
Can you email me or expand on it here? I’d appreciate it. Thanks
I wanted to start with some numbers, so I went to my old friend Wikipedia, which offered statistics stating that “24% of men and 36% of women have had a rape fantasy, and 10% of women report this to be their favorite type of fantasy”. The numbers that I had heard before actually quoted the numbers as somewhat higher, but it is something that few people would want to admit, and therefore the numbers that we see might never be accurate, but are always likely to be higher than reported (they would never be lower, as no one would lie about having a rape fantasy, I should think).
My own personal experience was of wanting to be forced or taken, but this was a fantasy (and still is), and I would never actually want to be raped. I have also found through experience that two women I know who have actually suffered from sexual assault in the past still fantasize about their partners forcing them or taking them within that safe space. This is not actually rape, but rather a form of power exchange play which is pretty common in BDSM, and can be engaged in lightly (play wrestling and “forcing”) or more heavily (beating or other physical violence, etc) as long as the entire exchange is done consensually. I know that this is hard for some people to understand, but I have actually had very theraputic evenings involving my husband wielding a belt (at my request) which relaxes me much as a massage would in my own personal way.
Rape fantasy is not something that everyone indulges in, and it does not mean that women (or men) who engage in rape fantasy will put themselves in dangerous situation or look for people to rape (on the other end of the spectrum), but rather that they enjoy engaging in this fantasy in safe space or even in the safety of their own minds.
I hope that helps answer your question!
Blessings,
Kathleen
I just wanted to add, by the way, that I have gotten some GREAT responses! Please check out the comments!
March 24, 2008
Some Terms to Know
There are a lot of new words and phrases that have grown up around polyamory, the word “polyamory” included. I’d like to define a few, just so that you can keep from getting too lost when I talk.
Primary – Someone’s “most important” partner. This might be a spouse or a more serious boyfriend/girlfriend, and it is generally understood that this person comes first when it comes to dating others. Michael is my primary, and if he needed me, I would gladly cancel a date with any other partner to help him out.
Secondary – Although you can start ranking ALL of your partners, generally in a relationship where there is a primary, all other partners are considered secondary. Some people don’t rank things at all, and there are no “primaries” etc.
Triad – A group relationship in which three people are involved with and dating each of the others. This can be individually (A dates B, A dates C, and B and C date each other) or in a group (A,B and C all date together).
Vee – This is another kind of three person relationship in which two people are dating the same person, but not each other. Becky, Michael and I were in a vee because I was with Michael and so was Becky, but we were not with each other.
Quad – Four people in a group relationship. This can be two couples or pretty much any other combination you can think of. Get creative. There is also a form of quad known as a double-vee. This is generally involving two couples in which everyone dates everyone else EXCEPT the two men, who are straight. This isn’t necessarily the only way to create a double-vee, but it is pretty common.
Soft Swap – In which two couple may switch partners for things like making out and soft play, but actual penetrative intercourse is between primary couples ONLY.
Poly Fidelity – In which a poly unit promises fidelity within the unit. This is like a traditional closed relationship, except with more people.
Fluid Bonded – In which a group of poly people have an open relationship, but only engage in unprotected sex with other members of their fluid bond. Michael and I are fluid bonded (obviously), but he and Becky were not. That was the cause of the Big Fight.
Safer Sex – The use of condoms, dental dams, gloves, and common sense during sex. This is as compared to Safe Sex, which is only possible if your only partner is YOU.
Hope I’ve been helpful, enlightening, or at least entertaining.
Blessings,
Kathleen
P.S. If you have any questions about additional poly terms, please comment and let me know what you would like defined. I’ll be glad to help!
March 23, 2008
All in the Family
Although my parents are by no means ready to hear that I am poly, I thought a couple of months ago that my brother, who loves, cares about, and looks up to me, might be. We were playing darts in my office (the hallway is the perfect length to throw darts from the office doorway to the bedroom door where the board is mounted) when I brought up poly as an idea, and then told my brother about Michael’s relationship with Becky (who he was still dating at the time). I also told him a little about BDSM without going into too much detail. If you’re jumping in, might as well go big, right?
Well it turns out that my brother found the idea of poly odd but acceptable, and the idea of BDSM disgusting. Of course, he also thinks of himself as disgusting, since he has violent fantasies from time to time. (My brother and I talk pretty frankly about sexual stuff, in part because he hasn’t had sex and I am trying to offer guidance and make him feel good about himself). I think I gave him a little peace on that front that day, and he promised not to tell our parents for fear that they might die of shock.
My brother now has a girlfriend. She is 16 (he is 19), which is funny since Michael and I were about those ages when we met, and she is a lot like me. Flirty, kisses a lot, but still a virgin – sexy and confident, but on the fringe… oh, and she’s definitely a bottom and possibly a masochist who fantasizes about being beat up and even raped (before anyone gets all righteous here, rape fantasies are INCREDIBLY common, and I enjoy them myself, so no judgments, please). They seem to be falling for each other pretty hard, and I find it all very reminiscent to how Micheal and I met and fell in love. What a great story! They are apparently going to have some great kinky sex and, even better, they talked about poly together! They agreed that it would be too confusing, but they are both teenagers right now, and Michael and I took a long time to warm up to the idea. Since my brother expresses no jealousy at the idea that she still has other crushes and kisses her friends, methinks we’re gonna have a pair of poly kinksters in the family.
Blessings,
Kathleen
March 22, 2008
Poly is a Good Thing
I am a little distrurbed with the search terms being used to find my blog. People are typing in things like “my husband is dissatisfied” and “I was left for another woman” and my favorite so far “An affair is a good thing polyamory”. Holy hell! I hope that I have been extremely clear in my posts that poly and affairs are entirely different things. I do feel bad that women are finding this blog after having been cheated on. How sad! I would love to be able to protect these women from the hurt that they are feeling or offer some wise words, but the only thoughts that I can muster are not helpful. I really dislike cheaters.
I do, on the other hand, enjoy poly. Not that I have taken much advantage of my ability, but it is there, and it is lovely to know how much my husband loves and trusts me. Life is good, and I am happy. I hope the rest of you are happy, too.
~Blessings
Kathleen
March 21, 2008
Frank and I
I have written a little bit about my friend in New York and his girlfriend, who are poly. Since I haven’t written MUCH, though, I thought that perhaps I should outline the situation. Shall we start at the beginning?
I’m going to change the names so that no one is accidentally outed, so we’ll call them Frank and Tiffany. Back in November, I think it was, I created a profile on a poly dating site. I was trying to find a poly partner, but wasn’t having much luck and I was quickly losing interest in the hunt. I decided to sign on to a poly chat room while I was there. In that poly chat was one other person. He was not actually poly, but kind of curious, so I ended up answering a bunch of his questions. When he signed off, I decided to leave the chat window open when I went on with my work.
A little while later, this guy Frank signs on. We spend a while chatting about our various situations. At the time, Frank and Tiffany were involved in a quad with another couple. It was a soft-swap quad, which means that they were allowed to trade partners for things like making out and snuggling, but sex was primaries only. At time time, Michael was still dating Becky. We enjoyed conversing so much, that at the end of the conversation, we exchanged screen names for an online messenger.
Frank had a computer job, and so do I, so we chatted (and still do) almost every day. He became one of the rare people that I trusted almost instantly, and in the course of our conversations, things started to get a bit more than friendly. We started talking dirty to each other, and at one point I showed him some photos of myself in an intimate position or two. I talked to him about being an online Dom, and he was interested, but had to ask his girlfriend, as I had to ask Michael. It was interesting explaining to him that things had gone so far, and he was a little irritated with me, but he gave me permission to continue. Meanwhile, Frank had not talked to Tiffany.
At the time, Tiffany was having problems with their girlfriend not paying attention to her, and she was having jealousy issues and other problems that made her doubt poly in general. Frank saw this as a bad time to talk to her about such things, and put off talking to her about me except to mention that I was a friend who was going through similar poly woes. We decided on our own to back off of the sexual talk until he had spoken to Tiffany. Over the course of the next few months, I realized that I had fallen in love with him. I told him so one day, and he reciprocated those feelings, which was wonderful.
A couple of weeks ago, I told him that I felt like he was keeping secrets from Tiffany, and that he had to tell her about me, even if he didn’t ask for or get any kind of permissions. I told him that in her position I would be hurt that he hadn’t told me, and agreeing, he talked to her that same night. She was surprised and a little hurt that he had not talked to her about it before, and even more surprised to her about the photos that he had seen. She asked that he not form a romance with me.
It is my opinion that as his primary, Tiff should and does have priority, and I will happily respect those wishes, especially since that is how I would want someone in my position to ask were she dating Michael. It is still hard sometimes when I have feelings that are more than friendly, but I keep them in check and things are fine. I was a little hurt yesterday, though. Frank had been joking about being text messaged by everyone he knew, so I asked for his number to join the ranks. He hedged, and I told him that it seemed he didn’t want to tell me.
Frank feels that giving out numbers in some way advances our relationship. The line between friend and lover, for me, doesn’t have to be so firm because Michael is ok either way. For Frank, though, the line has to be very firm, and I get that and am ok with it. Still, phone numbers have sort of been a mark of good friends online for me, and him saying that he doesn’t want to give me his feels like he doesn’t want me in his life except online, and even from just a friend’s perspective, that kind of sucks. Anyway, respect is the key here, and I will respect his feelings on the matter and not push it. When it comes down to it, it really isn’t that big of a deal. Does he trust me? I think so… I also think that he loves me, and he has to find a place for that where it is okay for his Love, Tiffany.
Polyamory from the Inside Out 