When Someone You Love is Kinky

Yesterday I finished reading this book - "When Someone You Love is Kinky", by Dossie Easton and Catherine A. Liszt. I'll do a full proper review of it next week, but the thing I'll call out from it today is that every chapter has a letter in it - a letter written by someone the authors know, published semi-anonymously, but written as "The letter I will never send". Some are to spouses, some are to parents, some are to friends or coworkers or bosses... Most of them, though are very powerful. It's a fascinating way to make you think.

Were I to write one? I'd write it to my parents. I'd say "My family", but I'm pretty sure my sister already knows, and everyone else (everyone living, at least) is in a different country.  All the things I wish they knew - but hedged by the fact that I'm terrified of their knowing. Fear of being rejected for who I really am, rather than loved for the partial impression they have now.

I won't copy one into this post, no matter how much I want to. I'll just say, I feel like this book is worth it just for these... Though these are the part of the book most easily replaced by something else - like Fetlife.

Anyway. Real review next week... And for now, have a good weekend.

Nostalgia

I've had a fairly large number of slaves and submissives over the years, going back more than 15 years now. I've had them in all sorts of contexts; in person only, online only, and a mix of both. People I've known for decades and people I'd known barely a few hours before playing with them. Full-on, permanent owned slaves to the gentlest of unnegotiated bedroom bondage.

Kelly is  full-time slave who I actually originally met online - in World of Warcraft. I remember I first really got to know about her by sitting on voice chat with her while we were questing in Nagrand, which is possibly the geekiest way to get to know someone I've ever myself been party to. We grew close and learned a lot about each other. She was categorized as 100% disabled - legally blind due to a disease that had attacked her optic nerves and caused issues with her eyes, she had given up her job and spent most of her time taking care of her roommates. She was about five years older than me, and had been involved in BDSM before - as a Domme and Mistress - in more than one relationship. I'll be honest and say I don't know what made her ask to be mine; even in hindsight it surprises me... But for the 18 months or so she was mine, it was very good for me - for us.

I'm not going to go a lot into what we did; I just don't feel like delving publically into those private memories right now. We talked every day, frequently for hours. I offered her structure, she offered me obedience, and we both gave each other an escape.

The strongest memory I have of her is from her last visit to New York - of Kelly kneeling on my bed with her back against the wall, reading a book and waiting for me to finish what I was working on, smiling at the story while I smiled at her from my desk. It was... Peaceful, at a time in my life filled with much bitterness and sadness.

The thing that surprises people most about her and I... We never had a sexual relationship. That wasn't what either of us were looking for. This was before I self-identified as demisexual, so it was probably just as weird to me at the time; I understand at least that much of it much better in hindsight.

I eventually released her because we were drifting apart - our lives were pulling us in different directions; and when last I had news of her, a mutual acquaintance told me she'd been admitted to hospital with a brain tumour and a very short prognosis. I tried to get in touch with her, but I never received a response; I don't know why. At this point I can only assume it's too late to reconnect.

I don't know what brought her to mind the other day, but I've been thinking about her, and I miss her.

Bonus Links!

http://theladyinblack13.tumblr.com/post/109075065001/explaining-sexuality-the-easy-way

Marriage Redux

Last night when we were headed to bed, Ash was talking about her friend - I think we'll use the name Abigail - and the fact that her marriage was in the process of ending... Or so it appears. Abby is wandering off into territory that she never really expected to be in. Not many people do expect to be there - I know I didn't, but back in 2005, 2006, 2007 I did. People make promises in marriage, "to have and to hold", "in sickness and in health"... But the vows never seem to account for "in lies and in truth", or "in miscommunication and in perfect understanding", or "in personality changes and epiphanies".

That's the real issue here, of course. As much as I hate my ex-wife - she's done enough to me that I feel she deserves it - I don't actually believe she married me maliciously. Rather, I believe she married me stupidly. I think if she had come out as gay, even just in her own head, she never would have married me; and if I'd known her at the time as well as I thought I did, I never would have married her. 

I don't know Abby or Thaddeus (her husband), but I tend to assume the same - if they actually knew the situation they'd find themselves in now, they wouldn't have been married... And so I tend to give people in these situations the benefit of the doubt. There are people who - for all intents and purposes - marry maliciously... But they're very few and far between.

We don't know what's going on in Thad's head. At this point we (well, mostly Abby, but the people who care about her as well) are still trying to figure out if he's gay, if he's bi but thinks he's gay, if he's straight or bi but lying to Abby for whatever reason... We don't know what their future relationship is going to be. We don't know whether they're going to divorce, whether they're going to stay together in a companionate marriage, or whether they're going to clarify the situation and actually remain a couple.

The conversation, though, also touched on Abby's looking around at people to date, and the comment Ash related to me was when she said she felt weird talking to her gay husband about her dating life... To which Ash responded "Well, you're also talking to your pansexual friend in an open marriage to a dominant sadistic demi-sexual. Welcome to the club."

The problem isn't the idea of their having a companionate marriage, or an open marriage, or a child while not being married. None of those are actually an issue at all, except in the view of some of the more bigoted portions of society. The issue is that the marriage was based on a situation which didn't last - their mutual understanding that he was straight... And it's so frustrating, because it's avoidable! People are so terrified of being honest and open with their feelings and desires and lifestyles that they don't know what to do.

It'll get sorted out eventually; but it's painful for everyone involved until it does.

On marriages, etc

I sometimes feel like my motto these over the past several years is something along the lines of, "I never thought I would end up getting married." I've always been one to take promises really seriously, and given the unknown of how marriage will pan out, making that promise to stick it out through everything seemed terrifying.

Right now, I'm watching one of my best friends go through a divorce after her husband decided to come out. For me, this is a very old song and dance, and I'm tired of it. From my own father's infidelity and eventual exit of the closet, to Celia's infidelity and eventual exit of the closet...and now my friend's husband.

I naively want to assert that it's 2015, being gay is not the same as it was in 1986 when my parents separated, and not even the same as it was nearly a decade ago when Mike and Celia split. Can we please get to a point where people aren't completely lying to themselves and their partners and leaving them to make decisions with faulty information?

Legally, marriage is more or less a business contract. You work together and intermingle your lives together for a better rate of survival. It has serious consequences, and we have been doing the whole marriage thing for countless generations by now. You'd think we would understand that relationships are work.

So people spend fortunes to get married to people they've never lived with, people they barely know so well as to not realize they don't know them at all, and then "something bad happens" and they are shocked to find themselves talking to lawyers more than their spouses.

There are days when Mike and I have that kind of love you see in romantic comedies - finishing each other's sentences or reading each other's minds, falling all over each other giggling and laughing and just generally enjoying us. But we have nights where we go to bed grumpy, most often because I'm prone to reading far more into things than is reasonable and get pissed off over some imagined slight.

We are a good match, but we work at it. Normally, anyway. We try to be reasonable with our expectations and try to be open with our communication. We both drive each other crazy, but we thankfully like who each of us are at the base of it all to not avoid being ourselves to keep conflict at a minimum.

So back to my friend.

She has tried hard on this relationship. She has held her husband's hand through his coming to terms with his bisexual leanings. She didn't kick him out when she found out he had cheated on her with a man. And now she is looking at the new year as a single mother while her ex spends a lot of time feeling shitty about the choices he has made.

Marriage is not for those lacking in self reflection. Love means saying you're sorry repeatedly and honestly and actually trying to do better next time. It's not easy all the time and it certainly isn't pretty a good percentage of the time.

My advice to most people is to not get married. Don't get married until you're sure -- and I'll admit, the only thing you can be sure about is when it's over because you're signing paperwork saying as much.

I'm not much of a romantic. I knew before the ring went on how difficult devoting your life to a shared ideal was: I watched my mother pick two lousy husbands. You could say it had an effect on me. But here I am, a wife. Do I know how all of this will pan out? No.

What I know is that, if this marriage dies, it will do so after a long struggle because I take my promises very seriously. I will wear my war paint, I will grit my teeth, and I won't go out without a fight. 

I signed up for a lifetime with a guaranteed travel companion, and sometimes that road will be bumpy. I don't know what's at the end of this journey, but I know the roads won't always be clear and smooth. Sometimes you have to be prepared for disaster, even on the most beautiful of days. Otherwise you take things for granted and get sideswiped later.

Not cool.

A repeat, but an important one...

I feel almost bad bringing in this link today because I know I've talked about it before... But it's come up recently in our lives, and it's one of my hot-button issues... So I'm going to let myself go off on this one again.

http://therumpus.net/2011/08/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-81-a-bit-of-sully-in-your-sweet/

Ms. "Happily Ever After" comes into this question so arrogantly, and frankly, it frustrates me. The entire basis of her question is that she thought her sister and brother-in-law were the paragon of examples right up until she found out their life hadn't been perfect... And it's so absurdly backwards!

Why is it that society's ideal is so focused on a life where nothing goes wrong? On a life that's so unrealistic? I would have thought most people would prefer an ideal they can relate to, one they can aspire to. But they don't - people aspire to the ideals they'll never reach.

This woman's sister and brother-in-law do sound like an amazing example of a loving couple and an excellent ideal to live up to - and I think the fact that they have survived hardship proves it, rather than bringing it into question.

Ms. Happily Ever After says:

I know couples have to work on their relationships, but my position on infidelity is that it’s a deal killer. My fiancé and I have agreed if one of us ever cheated on the other it would be automatically over between us, no conversation required. When I told my sister about this she actually laughed and said we were being “too black and white,” but, Sugar, I don’t want to think that in twenty-five years I’ll be saying that there were times I didn’t think my husband and I would make it. I want healthy love.

It's funny, because I read that and think "to me it's obvious that you don't understand that people have to work on their relationships, because you ruled out the most common way people have to do so". It's somewhat hard to find statistics on exactly how common it is, but it's somewhere between 30% and 60% of all married individuals will cheat during their relationship.

It's hard to find statistics on it, because everyone has their angle; and unfortunately, because of the nature of the question, that angle is usually "infidelity is evil"... And this is where I have to struggle not to go off onto my pet peeve rant... But that's not even relevant to this discussion, because I'm prejudiced in favour of open and polyamorous relationships anyway. My point is... A tested relationship is provably stronger than an untested one. How can you be happy knowing that you've never had a conflict and therefore not knowing what'll happen when you have one?

One thing you hear a lot after a while is "Oh, we had a perfect relationship! We never fought or disagreed." "Why'd you break up?" "Oh, we had a fight." They don't seem to get it - the measure of a relationship isn't what happens when things are going well, it's what happens when things don't go well.

Ash and I don't fight much. We don't see eye to eye on everything, but we honestly just don't disagree enough on much to actually have many fights. That doesn't mean we haven't fought - we have, usually when one of us feels neglected or misunderstood. But mostly, we talk. We have an interest and a strong desire to keep our relationship intact... And we know that means we have to work to make sure the other person is happy. I have no illusions I meet all her needs; she has no illusions she meets all of mine... And that's fine. We know that, we accept that, we love each other, and our relationship is shaped around it. I have disappointed her and made mistakes; she's done the same to me... And our relationship is stronger because of it. Both because we learned more about each other, and because it's driven home the point that we need to work to keep each other in our lives.

As I think all my readers know, this marriage is my second marriage. My first marriage lasted five years - from 2002 to 2007 - and in hindsight was the product of an immense amount of ignorance on both of our parts. I was naive, thinking I could suppress a lot of my needs and our differences; while she was lying - either to me or to herself - for the entire duration. My ex-wife (let's call her Celia) is gay, and had an extended relationship with her now-wife (let's go with Pat) while we were married. I'm not trying to be difficult by not giving you a number; it's just that, well, I don't know exactly how long it was. I know that the first time Celia told Pat she loved her was about two and a half years into our marriage - and things went downhill from there... Though it took me far too long to admit it. It's unclear when she changed from lying to herself to lying to me... But the entire marriage was based on her running from what she wanted - and my misunderstanding what it was I needed to ask for. The fact that she and I didn't fight for most of our marriage wasn't a sign our relationship was strong; it was a sign our relationship had failed from the beginning, and neither of us was brave or smart enough to admit it.

Most people see the surface, and not the truth; most people see the ideals and not the reality. Relationships aren't as simple as that.

Other concerns in regard to kids in light of things

As Mike touched on last week, there is something inherently problematic about being a parent and kinky or in a non-standard relationship. He expressed his concerns about not knowing exactly where to start on explaining his/our life, and if he should even do so in the first place.

To be honest, I have concerns as well, but in a completely different realm.

Let's look at the facts: Mike's son is being raised by four parents:
-a conservative Christian lesbian mother
-her butch lesbian wife
-a kinky sadist poly demisexual father
-and me, an open-minded pansexual mildly kinky chronic masturbator (or something)

So my first question in regards to my stepson would have to be, "What if he grows up to be kind of normal?"

My second question would be something along the lines of, "who is going to guide him when it comes to being an average boy when he hits puberty?"

By all accounts, it seems likely he will turn into the average cis-gendered straight boy in a few years. He already seems to have a fondness for ladies, and he's just, you know, a boy. My worry is that he won't have a good basis for understanding how to appreciate his body, his sexuality, and not grow up in the dark about how this whole thing works and how to be safe.

Mike said his ex-wife gave their son "the talk" a few years ago, but we don't know exactly what that means. Did she give him the technical overview and then tack on the "and God doesn't want you to do this until you're married" bit at the end? When he hits puberty, is she going to teach him that masturbation is wrong and he is a monster if he does it?

He takes after his father in a lot of ways, so maybe sex won't be a thing that even occurs to him to care about. But if he does, it seems I had the closest to a "standard teen-boy libido" of everyone currently parenting the boy. So I guess, of everything, I'm not worried he'll find out about how his father and I are, but that he won't understand that there are healthy and unhealthy ways to show one's inherent sexuality and some people have odd ideas about what that means. I don't want him to grow up ashamed of his desires (assuming they don't end up being destructive to himself or others, which, statistically, is probably unlikely) and I don't want him to be unjustifiably conflicted over having desires in the first place, regardless of how "normal" they are or aren't.

The last thing this world needs is more people who don't know how to treat themselves and others. I still believe that most of us are trying our best on any given day (sometimes, as my mom likes to point out, our best kind of sucks), but there's sometimes only so much we can do with the information we are given in the first place.

Growing Up

One of the more common topics of conversation between Ash and me (along with Pokemon, work, family, and a handful of others) is my son - and specifically, how he's growing up. It's funny; she met him about three years ago, and has watched a number of milestones for him. Growing out of his "crying over everything" phase; the first time he was tall enough to walk into a doorknob; getting big enough to get his own drinks; giving himself showers instead of being given baths... He's growing up and getting bigger and turning into a real person right before our very eyes.

And anyone who knows me and interacts with him can see how much he takes after me. He looks almost freakishly like I did back at that age, though the similarity is starting to decrease; but he has similar interests as me and his mind works very much the same way as mine. The way he plays games and the games he tends to gravitate towards match me; I've helped him with his homework for the last several years and he has the same strengths and weaknesses as I do academically, as well.

The natural fear for me, then, is that he's going to have some of the same problems I did with kink and his sexual identity. There's part of me that really wants to help him with it; after all, I've been through a lot and experienced second- and third-hand quite a bit more... And if he is going to end up with the same issues I did, I want to do my best to ease that transition. But I'm also victim to the same "Ewww, gross" reaction that's endemic to large parts of the population - very few people want to think about their parents having sex.

I know far more about my parents' sex life than I really want to, from the various times I've accidentally walked in on them having sex to the naked pictures they forgot to delete off of a digital camera I borrowed once to the books and movies and porn I've found at various points in my life. Even then they raised me quite conservatively; we never had "the talk". We never discussed this, and I know that informs my own discomfort in talking about it even now - a reaction I'm struggling quite actively against through avenues such as this blog. It's far too easy to assume that he will be the same way... But I really don't want him to be. So how does one handle that? What's my responsibility and ability to help him avoid the same issues? And where is it right for me to?

And this isn't to say, of course, that it's all about sex; because my fears actually lie far more heavily on relationships. For better or worse my son is not going to have a single traditional relationship in his family to lean on.

Note, I don't say "typical", because "the norm" has shifted so much recently. Divorced parents were, last time I heard, actually more common than not; and children (both biological and adopted) of homosexual couples are not particularly uncommon. Even if everyone was 100% certain of their sexuality from day one and was 100% honest about it with all of their partners - things both my and Ash's lives have proved to be utterly false - gays and lesbians aren't immune to the same familial urges as other folks. Families happen, however they grow and evolve... But my son has a lesbian mother and stepmother on the one side, and a demi-sexual poly father and bisexual stepmother on the other. On some level the poor boy doesn't stand a chance.

Far more than just the trouble in struggling through my own issues to talk to him, though, is when is it appropriate to do so? One concept I've shamelessly stolen from multiple sources (Fetlife, Dan Savage, Dear Abby, other blogs and advice columns) is the idea of the "right not to know". When do we start talking about these things, and when we do, how much do we talk about? There's a difference between knowing "Oh, yeah, your parents are kinky" and "Oh, yeah, I was triple-penetrating and whipping your mother last night".

I don't think anyone would hesitate to agree eight is far too young to hear that kind of detail about my sex life - I'd argue that thirty is too young to hear that kind of detail about my parents' sex life, if it weren't too late. More to the point, though... If we do find a girlfriend who becomes a part of our family, at what point do we say to the boy "Yes, she may not actually be married to us, but she's part of our family too"?

I don't know what the answer is; or more realistically, there probably isn't really a single answer to go with. I know I'm struggling with it, though, and I know many other folks are - whether they realize it or not. I guess if I figure it out I'll let you know.

I will say, though... My son may not have a chance of being "normal", but he'll certainly have a good example of how to be tolerant of the little differences that make all our families exciting.

Going the Wrong Direction

I don't remember exactly where I found this, but I saw this article late last week:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30735673

This article upset me a great deal in several ways. The most obvious one is the way they just lump any non-mainstream social behaviour into "mental disorders" and then pile up laws against it. It's just so... Alien to me. I understand that one of my myriad problems are that sometimes I just have  a hard time relating to points of view that are too far alien to mine; and this is just one of those cases.  It amazes me that in this day and age so many countries are willing to impose their own morality in the form of laws outlawing any lifestyle too far different from your own.

Of course, my own country - by adoption if not by birth - is not much better some days. South Dakota's ban on gay marriage was ruled unconstitutional just a few short hours ago, making it the 36th state to allow gay marriage. The 36th. With every single federal court case going in favour of gay marriage, you'd think that the states would see the writing on the wall and accept the inevitable, but instead all too many of them are fighting tooth and nail. It's taken decades to get this far, and the rearguard action from the conservatives on this particular losing battle is as pathetic as it is arrogant. Soon they'll turn back to their other remaining legal forms bigotry and things will settle down for another period of slow progress before another major hump gets crossed.

The line that upset me the most, though, actually wasn't the new law, or the way kink was lumped in with "other mental disorders". The piece that upset me the most was that the Russian Psychiatric Association didn't voice concern because it was asinine and based on something that wasn't reality; he voiced concern because, with the new law, people would avoid seeking psychiatric help.

It's been a stressful couple of weeks for me, with a number of things going on at work, at home, and in my personal life... But this really pushed my buttons. It isn't normally easy for me to get angry, but this really did push me over the edge.

Whatever. I'll see y'all in a few days - hopefully far more calm. And in the meantime, I'll proudly remember that me and my wife and almost every last one of my friends now cannot get a driver's license in Russia.

I'm baaaaack!

Our move is, more or less, over. By the time you read this we'll have been in the new apartment for a week, have given up the keys to the old place, have moved everything over, have spent half a day cleaning, have argued with the local office manager, have fought tooth and nail against pets who feel it's their god-given duty to be pains in the ass, made dozens of trips up and down our new and exciting stairs... Generally the normal stress and effort of a move. But it's done - except for the last bit of unpacking and the new couch delivery in a week or so - and so it's slowly feeling more like home. Time to get back into the swing of things here!

So I found this picture on Tumblr, and it made me happy:

http://forgivemeprettybaby.tumblr.com/post/107342682135/darwincastillo-bdsm-positive-mental-health

But to quote it, it says:

The Journal of Sexual Medicine revealed that those who engage in bondage, discipline, sadism, and masochism (BDSM) may be more psychologically healthy than those who don't. The study authors think being open about your sexual kinks leads to a self-acceptance that can translate into positive mental health. So break out the restraints, if it's your thing!

First, let me just cheer this on! It's amazing. I did a very small amount of digging, and while this article actually looked fascinating:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1743-6109.2008.00795.x/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false

I suspect that this is the one it was referring to:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jsm.12192/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false

getting full access through that site isn't cheap (without a subscription, it's $6 for a 48-hour pass, $15 for unlimited read-only access and $35 to actually buy a copy of the PDF), but I'm still incredibly tempted. For that matter I'm curious if I know anyone who has access to those journals who may be able to get me copies...

My new quest is to find copies of those without spending an enormous amount of money, apparently.

More seriously though... It's one of those things where I've known in the back of my head that there's a lot of research into the area of kink for a long while now, but have never gone looking for it. It's really worth my time and - within limits, of course - resources to do so.

On moving and things

Moving is hard, and the pent up anxiety leading up to this whole strangely-orchestrated ordeal made me crash mentally and emotionally more than I have in a long time. I couldn't bring myself to blog last week because all I wanted to do was whine and cry and say things I didn't mean because my mind was in a bad place.

We made it through, we are now in an apartment better suited to our needs, and we are exhausted -- Mike more so than me, given he has bigger muscles and a better center of gravity, making lifting and carrying vaguely easier for him than for me.

Bonus for me, though: watching Mike heft things like they're nothing is a major turn on. Unfortunately for him, I'm more turned on than normal and he's just tired and not really feeling it. 

Mike's long-suffering son was with us, which has been difficult on many levels. One, it's hard to explain to an eight year old why we have a collection of collars and whatnot, plus we have to carefully open boxes in case he gets an eye full of a neon pink jelly toy that no one should know I have. 

Being an adult is hard. Being a sexually interested adult moving from one abode to another is also hard; I think I lost a few pounds praying that none of my toys "went off" in transit. It's bad enough the one mover spent almost an hour total in our bathroom. I don't need them speculating on what I put in my lady business.

I'm not sure this has much of a point. I haven't been able to relax yet, I don't know where my box of toys are (Mike packed them, and I'm not entirely convinced he didn't hide them in the hopes of driving me crazy by withholding orgasm), but here's hoping I have something better to talk about in a few days.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Today is the day...

...that the lovely Ash and I are moving. Please forgive the mess, and we'll be back to our regularly scheduled shenanigans next week.

Happy New Year!

I hope 2015 is amazing for all of my lovely readers.