One of my coworkers and friends - let's call her Ace - was told last night by her girlfriend - let's call her Gwen - of three years that she wanted to break up because they were "sexually incompatible". Ace was not... Traditionally upset; but it's the first time I'd ever say that she looked shaky. It was strange to me because this was a couple who started dating very close to the time Ash and I did - if I remember right their first sortof-date was two days after ours - and they'd been talking about forever at one point. More than one point.
Granted I know the situation purely from Ace's point of view, but from her side it was almost a total surprise. They agree they're extremely compatible in almost every way. The only place Ace - or, according to her, Gwen - thinks they aren't compatible is in their sex drive; that is, Gwen would love to have sex every day, while Ace has a much lower interest. They'd been having some trouble a few weeks back due to an argument around being open or closed; or, more specifically, Gwen wanted to be open and announced she was going to be - with or without Ace... Leaving Ace defensive and confused and upset. They talked through it and agreed to work on it and ways they could satisfy both of them... But the fact that they aren't compatible sexually is the reason Gwen gave, and because she thought they were working on that, it took Ace totally by surprise.
So... There's a lot of aspects to this situation here, and I don't want to dig into all of them here; some of the details really aren't mine to share... But what it did make me think about was how little Ace trusts Gwen right now. A month ago, that would have been entirely untrue; but their interactions have just sortof led Ace to the point where she doesn't know what to believe. Several weeks ago she felt like she was being given an ultimatum; then she felt like she was being cheated on; then she felt like Gwen was looking for an excuse to get Ace to break up with her. Several weeks later, I'm forced to wonder if that thought back then was the right one - that Gwen was looking to find a way to force Ace to be the bad gal instead of her, and eventually just gave up and pulled the trigger when it turned out Ace was too much in love to actually do so.
Unfortunately, we'll probably never be 100% sure how much of this is truth and how much of it is lies and how much is just something we don't know about. It's worse for Ace, obviously, being the one in the situation; but I'm close enough to her to worry and sympathize and agonize of it as well.
By the time I separated from my ex-wife, any semblance of trust we had once had was totally shattered. She had managed to convince herself of several key things about me that weren't true (mostly, that I was cheating on her); and in return she lied to be me about being gay, cheated on me for more than half our marriage, and left me with years of doubt replacing what had previously just been trust and love. It's fascinating to me, looking back over it, how trust - or the lack thereof - changes your perceptions of past acts, both by you and towards (against?) you.
Unsurprisingly, I have a lot of regrets relating to my marriage; mostly around the possibility of having been naive. I don't know yet whether Ace will regret her relationship with Gwen, or at least aspects of it. Probably the better question is "how much", not "if", because it's human nature to regret things that could have been better - even if we don't know so until after the fact.
In some ways this has very much shaped my attitude towards new kinky (well, more to the point, new Dom/sub) relationships. It's much easier to ignore the risk and ignore the possibility of things going wrong and turning against you; but it's much safer not to trust. Unfortunately, any type of relationship - kinky relationships far more than most - desperately need trust to be functional and healthy.
The most basic building block of that trust is always going to be communication; I've hit on it before, and I'll continue to harp on it probably for the entire life of this blog. A more basic thing, though - and the moral of today's post - is to remember that you aren't the only person in your relationships. Whatever the power dynamic, however many corners there are in your love polygon, no matter what you do in the privacy of your home... Everyone else in the relationship is just as much a human as you are. Everyone else is just as much prone to being scared, or being angry, or feeling cheated, or feeling sad... Or not wanting to be the bad guy. Always remember that - think about what you're about to do from the other side. Once someone loses their trust in you, it's too late to get it back.
2014/09/09
2014/09/05
Quick! Look over there!
This week has gotten away from me, and I was not able to complete my normally scheduled post. Fear not! We'll return to our normal content next week.
2014/09/02
Christopher Ryan on Sex
The below quote is from Christopher Ryan, author of Sex at Dawn (B&N Link, Amazon Link), and is actually transcribed from the Savage Lovecast - forgive me, I don't have the episode number handy but a quick Google search makes me think it was 194 or 210, probably 194. Anyway! This is a book that's on my reading shelf and I've just been very slow to get to; it would have been ideal to read and review with the series of Poly entries I've been working through, but I simply haven't been reading much lately except on my phone - physical books have been suffering in favour of puzzle magazines and 3DS games.
Either way... When I was listening I ended up transcribing this quote because it struck me so much. This is very much how I feel - love is about the two of you growing old together and sharing your life, and not necessarily about getting a good fucking. Sex is great, orgasms are lovely, but they aren't - have not been - never will be - the most important thing to me... Even though that puts me (us!) in the minority.
Anyway. For now, I'll leave this entry here; a lazy entry for a lazy holiday weekend, and depart with the promise that when I do read the book I'll review it fully for you in the blog. Hope you all had a great Labour Day!
Either way... When I was listening I ended up transcribing this quote because it struck me so much. This is very much how I feel - love is about the two of you growing old together and sharing your life, and not necessarily about getting a good fucking. Sex is great, orgasms are lovely, but they aren't - have not been - never will be - the most important thing to me... Even though that puts me (us!) in the minority.
The beauty of... Y'know, people say the book's not about... Ah, they talk about love, y'know. Jealousy is one issue, and then "what about Love", y'know, "you people are discounting love". But the thing about love... I don't know, maybe this will sound arrogant or something, but real love isn't about sex. If you're lucky enough in your life to find "love", you realize how relatively unimportant sex is, and you realize that you would never walk away from love for a blow job.
[...]
Y'know love is about getting old together, it's about raising a child together, it's about sharing your life. It's not about orgasms, and so many people confuse that; they think that, y'know, good sexual chemistry is love. Good sexual chemistry is a reason to, you know, sign onto a lifetime together, and then a few years down the road they find they've made a big mistake. So even though our book is about sex ostensibly, one of the points we're trying to make in the book is that people take sex way too seriously; and y'know; and we can chill about sex, we can have fun with sex, it doesn't always have to be sacred. It's like music; sometimes it is sacred, sometimes you heard god in the Bach toccata; but other times it's just for dancing and having a good time.
Anyway. For now, I'll leave this entry here; a lazy entry for a lazy holiday weekend, and depart with the promise that when I do read the book I'll review it fully for you in the blog. Hope you all had a great Labour Day!
2014/08/29
Friday Rant - Polygamy Et Al
In a news article that couldn't have been better timed if I'd planned it:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jimdalrympleii/polygamy-is-legal-in-utah-for-now
A Utah judge ruled that the law making polygamy illegal in Utah was unconstitutional. This has been around for a while and this is actually the conclusion of an appeal, not the original judgement. See here:
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56894145-78/utah-polygamy-waddoups-ruling.html.csp
http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/14/justice/utah-polygamy-law/
...Well, actually, it's not quite that simple. It isn't "Polygamy"; it's cohabitation. The judge struck it down because, essentially, there are already laws to prosecute bigamy; there are already laws to prosecute abuses inflicted on partners, especially under-age partners, in certain forms of polygamous marriages (the famous "marrying 14- and 15-year-old girls to 50+-year-old religious leaders" thing which has gotten some Mormon sects a lot of bad press); and Utah does not prosecute adultery or adulterous cohabitation... So prosecuting "religious cohabitation" when no other crimes have been committed is unconstitutional. It's an interesting spin from part of the media on what, underneath, is really a decision based around religious discrimination.
According to Wikipedia (and who doesn't trust the Oracle? *cough*) there are now three states that have anti-cohabitation laws - Mississippi, Florida, and Michigan - and there's some level of expectation that if/when they're challenged they're going to be struck down due to various precedents. When it comes down to it, though, these laws are ones that are generally totally ignored except in particular cases; Utah in particular was famous for totally ignoring their cohabitation law in the case of couples and only using it to threaten polyamorous families - such as the "Sister Wives" case in the original link. It's all part of the same prejudice - the idea that a coupled relationship is "normal", even when it's technically in violation of the law. The total lack of acceptance... But worse, the totally *unthinking* lack of acceptance. It's not even an active discrimination on most cases; it's just the blithe assumption that since it's abnormal it can't be accepted.
I mentioned when I linked the video this week I was going to refer back to it; so let me tie it in here. Right near the beginning at 1:17 is a woman (one of their experts - even re-watching it, I didn't catch her name) talking about BDSM "pretty much being about kinky sex". At 32:35, Hudsy Hawn talks about how important it is to "Let yourself go and role-play." The video was specifically referring to BDSM and power exchange, but the same general attitude is endemic to all of kink - whether it be BDSM, poly relationships, asexuality, or something else. If it's not something you personally believe in or understand, all too often it's "fantasy" or "make-believe"... And frankly, this is an attitude that drives me frigging crazy. Do some people get involved in kink, BDSM, Poly, or something else as "play"? As just something to fool around with? Absolutely. I'm even willing to go so far as to say most people involved feel that way. But even in the video it contradicts itself - one of the couples there are a permanent, married, 24/7 Dom/sub relationship complete with negotiated contract. Parts of their relationship - that contract - may not be protected by law, but that doesn't make it "not real".
It's not just BDSM. Too many people look at poly or open relationships and just call it "cheating" or "unworkable" or "selfish" or "a phase". Too many people look at asexual relationships and say "Oh, if they don't want sex they don't want a relationship, they just want a friend"... When what's really going on is that they have every bit as much desire to be loved, wanted, protected, held close as any other person - they just can't relate to what most people assume about relationships.
Funnily enough, this is the root of my single large disagreement with Dan Savage. He constantly refers to BDSM as "Cops and Robbers for adults with their pants off", which - as I said above - is true enough (in a glib sense) for most BDSM relationships but totally discounts a significant minority of the culture. Similarly he frequently discounts asexual folk because to him the sexual relationship is the center of the relationship, and so a missing sexual relationship means the more general relationship is almost invalid from the start. For someone who's so open, so - to use his term - GGG about almost everything, it's such a strange blind spot to me.
It's astounding to me the blind spots that people don't seem to see they have. Even many of my most progressive friends and family, who are rabidly in favour of freedom for same-sex marriage and gay adoption and all sorts of similar things - just get skeeved out by the idea of either a coupled relationship with a demi- or asexual partner... Or a permanent, committed relationship with more than two members... Or a permanent D/s relationship.
It doesn't help that something like a permanent D/s relationship is very hard to enshrine in law, and rightfully so. Asexual relationships are - for the most part - already supported by law; not having sex, or having a modified sex life, isn't normally a cause for the relationship being invalidated or ignored. Poly relationships are essentially totally unsupported in Western civilization; unless the relationship is a monogamous couple it's either ignored or banned. Many of the same problems found here by same-sex couples apply to multiple partnerships, just in a slightly stranger way; if Ash and I did end up in a relationship with a third, if we settled into a family with someone else, and I ended up in the hospital or - god forbid - dead, Ash would be the only one with any rights or protections. If a poly triangle has a child, two of them are the legal parents as well as the biological parents - and the third If the same family decides to adopt a child, it's actually one couple that is adopting the child and the third has no rights at all... And the fact there's a third adult in the house may be looked at seriously askance when being interviewed for the adoption. Poly legal issues really are directly parallel, with only a fraction of the attention.
A D/s relationship, though, is usually a formalization of removing part of someone's rights - and I doubt there's any viable way to enshrine that into law without offering significant risk of abuse... If we're ever able to make it past the revulsion most people have when you bring up "no, I don't just mean for play - like, for real." One thing that Ash has brought up with me is that when you start talking submissives, start talking long-term permanent Master/slave relationships, the only real comparison most people have had is the looming spectre of slavery that still even these days hangs over race relations in the US; forced sexual slavery of women being trafficked around the world; and, these days, the 50 Shades trilogy which enshrines an abusive relationship in the trappings of BDSM and tries to make it sexy. None of them are very positive examples... But they're the only examples too many people have.
This has been a very rough week for me. I know I'm essentially just very deep in my own head, but it's been very difficult to shake off a lot of depression, and a big chunk of it is centered around this discussion. People who are okay with BDSM may not be okay with poly or demisexual; people who are okay with poly may not be okay with BDSM or demisexual; people who are fine with demisexual may be totally freaked out by BDSM or poly; and very few of any of them are okay with my limits surrounding my ex-wife and the trouble it will inevitable cause me if I'm fully open about most of this. Just that look of disgust, or that dreaded "...Oh, I see" when you're talking to them... Or even just that sympathetic look when they're trying to explain why you're wrong and assuming you don't understand them when really you understand them perfectly well and are just exhausted of being patronized. It's very easy to fall into despair and fear at never finding someone who can look at you and meet your needs and fit into your life and never give you that look... Of never finding a place where you feel like you fit in because you're just a little bit too far over the edge for anyone around you to ever be comfortable with you, or for you to be comfortable with yourself.
When it comes down to it I know it's just fear and not rational, but I don't have an answer to this one except to keep the faith.
I'll let you know how it goes.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jimdalrympleii/polygamy-is-legal-in-utah-for-now
A Utah judge ruled that the law making polygamy illegal in Utah was unconstitutional. This has been around for a while and this is actually the conclusion of an appeal, not the original judgement. See here:
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56894145-78/utah-polygamy-waddoups-ruling.html.csp
http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/14/justice/utah-polygamy-law/
...Well, actually, it's not quite that simple. It isn't "Polygamy"; it's cohabitation. The judge struck it down because, essentially, there are already laws to prosecute bigamy; there are already laws to prosecute abuses inflicted on partners, especially under-age partners, in certain forms of polygamous marriages (the famous "marrying 14- and 15-year-old girls to 50+-year-old religious leaders" thing which has gotten some Mormon sects a lot of bad press); and Utah does not prosecute adultery or adulterous cohabitation... So prosecuting "religious cohabitation" when no other crimes have been committed is unconstitutional. It's an interesting spin from part of the media on what, underneath, is really a decision based around religious discrimination.
According to Wikipedia (and who doesn't trust the Oracle? *cough*) there are now three states that have anti-cohabitation laws - Mississippi, Florida, and Michigan - and there's some level of expectation that if/when they're challenged they're going to be struck down due to various precedents. When it comes down to it, though, these laws are ones that are generally totally ignored except in particular cases; Utah in particular was famous for totally ignoring their cohabitation law in the case of couples and only using it to threaten polyamorous families - such as the "Sister Wives" case in the original link. It's all part of the same prejudice - the idea that a coupled relationship is "normal", even when it's technically in violation of the law. The total lack of acceptance... But worse, the totally *unthinking* lack of acceptance. It's not even an active discrimination on most cases; it's just the blithe assumption that since it's abnormal it can't be accepted.
I mentioned when I linked the video this week I was going to refer back to it; so let me tie it in here. Right near the beginning at 1:17 is a woman (one of their experts - even re-watching it, I didn't catch her name) talking about BDSM "pretty much being about kinky sex". At 32:35, Hudsy Hawn talks about how important it is to "Let yourself go and role-play." The video was specifically referring to BDSM and power exchange, but the same general attitude is endemic to all of kink - whether it be BDSM, poly relationships, asexuality, or something else. If it's not something you personally believe in or understand, all too often it's "fantasy" or "make-believe"... And frankly, this is an attitude that drives me frigging crazy. Do some people get involved in kink, BDSM, Poly, or something else as "play"? As just something to fool around with? Absolutely. I'm even willing to go so far as to say most people involved feel that way. But even in the video it contradicts itself - one of the couples there are a permanent, married, 24/7 Dom/sub relationship complete with negotiated contract. Parts of their relationship - that contract - may not be protected by law, but that doesn't make it "not real".
It's not just BDSM. Too many people look at poly or open relationships and just call it "cheating" or "unworkable" or "selfish" or "a phase". Too many people look at asexual relationships and say "Oh, if they don't want sex they don't want a relationship, they just want a friend"... When what's really going on is that they have every bit as much desire to be loved, wanted, protected, held close as any other person - they just can't relate to what most people assume about relationships.
Funnily enough, this is the root of my single large disagreement with Dan Savage. He constantly refers to BDSM as "Cops and Robbers for adults with their pants off", which - as I said above - is true enough (in a glib sense) for most BDSM relationships but totally discounts a significant minority of the culture. Similarly he frequently discounts asexual folk because to him the sexual relationship is the center of the relationship, and so a missing sexual relationship means the more general relationship is almost invalid from the start. For someone who's so open, so - to use his term - GGG about almost everything, it's such a strange blind spot to me.
It's astounding to me the blind spots that people don't seem to see they have. Even many of my most progressive friends and family, who are rabidly in favour of freedom for same-sex marriage and gay adoption and all sorts of similar things - just get skeeved out by the idea of either a coupled relationship with a demi- or asexual partner... Or a permanent, committed relationship with more than two members... Or a permanent D/s relationship.
It doesn't help that something like a permanent D/s relationship is very hard to enshrine in law, and rightfully so. Asexual relationships are - for the most part - already supported by law; not having sex, or having a modified sex life, isn't normally a cause for the relationship being invalidated or ignored. Poly relationships are essentially totally unsupported in Western civilization; unless the relationship is a monogamous couple it's either ignored or banned. Many of the same problems found here by same-sex couples apply to multiple partnerships, just in a slightly stranger way; if Ash and I did end up in a relationship with a third, if we settled into a family with someone else, and I ended up in the hospital or - god forbid - dead, Ash would be the only one with any rights or protections. If a poly triangle has a child, two of them are the legal parents as well as the biological parents - and the third If the same family decides to adopt a child, it's actually one couple that is adopting the child and the third has no rights at all... And the fact there's a third adult in the house may be looked at seriously askance when being interviewed for the adoption. Poly legal issues really are directly parallel, with only a fraction of the attention.
A D/s relationship, though, is usually a formalization of removing part of someone's rights - and I doubt there's any viable way to enshrine that into law without offering significant risk of abuse... If we're ever able to make it past the revulsion most people have when you bring up "no, I don't just mean for play - like, for real." One thing that Ash has brought up with me is that when you start talking submissives, start talking long-term permanent Master/slave relationships, the only real comparison most people have had is the looming spectre of slavery that still even these days hangs over race relations in the US; forced sexual slavery of women being trafficked around the world; and, these days, the 50 Shades trilogy which enshrines an abusive relationship in the trappings of BDSM and tries to make it sexy. None of them are very positive examples... But they're the only examples too many people have.
This has been a very rough week for me. I know I'm essentially just very deep in my own head, but it's been very difficult to shake off a lot of depression, and a big chunk of it is centered around this discussion. People who are okay with BDSM may not be okay with poly or demisexual; people who are okay with poly may not be okay with BDSM or demisexual; people who are fine with demisexual may be totally freaked out by BDSM or poly; and very few of any of them are okay with my limits surrounding my ex-wife and the trouble it will inevitable cause me if I'm fully open about most of this. Just that look of disgust, or that dreaded "...Oh, I see" when you're talking to them... Or even just that sympathetic look when they're trying to explain why you're wrong and assuming you don't understand them when really you understand them perfectly well and are just exhausted of being patronized. It's very easy to fall into despair and fear at never finding someone who can look at you and meet your needs and fit into your life and never give you that look... Of never finding a place where you feel like you fit in because you're just a little bit too far over the edge for anyone around you to ever be comfortable with you, or for you to be comfortable with yourself.
When it comes down to it I know it's just fear and not rational, but I don't have an answer to this one except to keep the faith.
I'll let you know how it goes.
2014/08/27
Bonus Links - Kink in Real Life TV Spot
Upworthy posted this:
http://www.upworthy.com/some-think-its-just-plain-kinky-but-the-amount-of-trust-this-lifestyle-takes-is-staggering?c=ufb1
Which I definitely think was worth the time to watch. I'll come back to a couple of specific topics in this in future posts.
http://www.upworthy.com/some-think-its-just-plain-kinky-but-the-amount-of-trust-this-lifestyle-takes-is-staggering?c=ufb1
Which I definitely think was worth the time to watch. I'll come back to a couple of specific topics in this in future posts.
2014/08/26
Polyamoury and Asexuality
So my last entry was originally going to be the end of my little Polyamoury series, but Ash asked me a question last week I decided to include... Specifically in what way - if any - does asexuality relate to or affect polyamoury? And the short answer is "frequently, very well". First, lets just say that there's no reason at all an asexual-scale person can't be in a polyamorous relationship.
The biggest place where they interact is in the area of jealousy. It's not always a positive effect or not always a negative one, but the effect is almost always there. That's because jealousy - depending on the person - can come from different sources; some people get far more jealous over emotional involvement from their partners with other people, while some people get far more jealous over physical involvement from their partners. In the latter case, an asexual partner may remove jealousy from the equation; while in the former, it may be even worse than normal because the relationship is *purely* emotional.
The second really big place where they're going to interact is that - with less or no sexual contact - some of the complications simply disappear. If there is no intercourse involved (no sex or non-intercourse sex), then there's no risk of pregnancy from that partner and significantly reduced risk of disease transmission.
This isn't a rule, of course. Let's say that Alice the asexual woman and Bob the non-asexual guy are married, and the relationship is open so that Bob can satisfy his sex drive somewhere else. If he isn't smart about it (and let's face it, how many guys act smart when sex is involved?) he can *introduce* an enormous amount of risk by being exposed to diseases or risking pregnancies that would not exist at all in a typical relationship with an asexual partner. Common sense still applies.
One discussion I had with an asexual woman from California on Fetlife about the subject brought up the idea that to her, finding a couple to bond to was actually ideal. She's asexual but not aromantic, and wants very much to be part of a partnership in the same way as all her friends - but because she can't offer the physical side of it, is afraid she'll never find what she's looking for... Afraid that any partner she has will not have their needs met and be unhealthy as a result. In that respect, a polyamorous or open relationship is the best of all worlds; the chance for an asexual person to have the attachment they may need while their partner(s) still have all their needs fulfilled.
At the end of it, though, there's the fact that for someone like me - who enjoys sexual acts sometimes, even if intercourse just isn't my thing and my sex drive is lower than most folks' - there's not a really strong difference there... Or at least, any difference is a matter of quantity and not type. My "relationships" are almost always at least partially sexual, even if that sexuality doesn't necessarily match the societal norm in most cases. Rather, my poly nature is almost more a product of my asexuality; my view of relationships (which I've gone over before) tends to remove a lot of the barriers to having multiple partners vs. a single monogamous partner.
So how does asexuality work with polyamoury? Quite well, thank you. It changes things... But no more than it changes any monogamous relationship; and in my experience, polyamoury actually makes asexual relationships easier to maintain!
The biggest place where they interact is in the area of jealousy. It's not always a positive effect or not always a negative one, but the effect is almost always there. That's because jealousy - depending on the person - can come from different sources; some people get far more jealous over emotional involvement from their partners with other people, while some people get far more jealous over physical involvement from their partners. In the latter case, an asexual partner may remove jealousy from the equation; while in the former, it may be even worse than normal because the relationship is *purely* emotional.
The second really big place where they're going to interact is that - with less or no sexual contact - some of the complications simply disappear. If there is no intercourse involved (no sex or non-intercourse sex), then there's no risk of pregnancy from that partner and significantly reduced risk of disease transmission.
This isn't a rule, of course. Let's say that Alice the asexual woman and Bob the non-asexual guy are married, and the relationship is open so that Bob can satisfy his sex drive somewhere else. If he isn't smart about it (and let's face it, how many guys act smart when sex is involved?) he can *introduce* an enormous amount of risk by being exposed to diseases or risking pregnancies that would not exist at all in a typical relationship with an asexual partner. Common sense still applies.
One discussion I had with an asexual woman from California on Fetlife about the subject brought up the idea that to her, finding a couple to bond to was actually ideal. She's asexual but not aromantic, and wants very much to be part of a partnership in the same way as all her friends - but because she can't offer the physical side of it, is afraid she'll never find what she's looking for... Afraid that any partner she has will not have their needs met and be unhealthy as a result. In that respect, a polyamorous or open relationship is the best of all worlds; the chance for an asexual person to have the attachment they may need while their partner(s) still have all their needs fulfilled.
At the end of it, though, there's the fact that for someone like me - who enjoys sexual acts sometimes, even if intercourse just isn't my thing and my sex drive is lower than most folks' - there's not a really strong difference there... Or at least, any difference is a matter of quantity and not type. My "relationships" are almost always at least partially sexual, even if that sexuality doesn't necessarily match the societal norm in most cases. Rather, my poly nature is almost more a product of my asexuality; my view of relationships (which I've gone over before) tends to remove a lot of the barriers to having multiple partners vs. a single monogamous partner.
So how does asexuality work with polyamoury? Quite well, thank you. It changes things... But no more than it changes any monogamous relationship; and in my experience, polyamoury actually makes asexual relationships easier to maintain!
2014/08/25
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