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.

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.

Somewhere between "oops" and "ooh noooooo"

So, it's Christmas. Good ol' December 25th. I'm not a fan, but a lot of people are, so let's not dwell on that.

What today's date also means is that I'm basically a hair's breadth away from being 31 years old. I've changed a lot over the past few years (a lot of it for the better, I'd say), and one thing I thought I had gotten over was my ability to completely and utterly embarrass myself to the point of not being able to replay the situation over and over in my head until I collapse. It's useless in terms of damage control and it isn't particularly kind to my mental state, but I had managed to lose that part of myself a while ago.

At least, I thought I had.

Last week, late in the evening, Mike's exwife stopped by to grab something their son had left at our place. Our place, the tiny mess. Our place, where you enter in the living room and can see my command center of a computer in its entirety, the monitors readable at a step or  two from the door.

On the main screen was Facebook, and in the corner was a conversation with my friend Rex. In that conversation was the phrase "whenever Mike starts talking to new people on OkCupid."

Fuck.

So the exwife came into the apartment, took a few steps toward the table/desk we spend most of our time at, and, I fear, read the conversation. The one that points toward a non-standard relationship. The type of relationship she has hinted at being unacceptable and worth hauling his ass into court over in the hopes of taking his parental rights away.

Nope, that panicky embarrassment is still there, front and center.

Fuck.

I tried to figure out if coming out to people about my sexuality and facing rejection was worse than accidentally coming out as poly/open to a potentially hostile woman whose existence in our lives is dictated by the existence of the stepson I adore beyond reason. Maybe it's the fact that I'm now half a lifetime away from the days I admitted I "like girls," but this actually feels more painful. The harassment back then was awful, but this? This potentially carries more weight.

Mike's response to the situation was, initially "fuck her" (not literally) and that, if it came up, we would deal with it. He didn't blame me or say I fucked up (that's all me), and his feeling was, if she says anything, he has no problem pointing out that she shouldn't have been reading my screen, regardless of it being out in plain view.

Meanwhile, I'm just hoping it doesn't come up. I spend enough time feeling alienated in terms of being able to talk to people about how our relationship works that I don't need someone to know who will ultimately have a problem with it -- more than the average person does to begin with, I guess.

What's fun is that I'm totally in favor of people just being out and open about their sexuality and their relationships. But because I'm still not comfortable with the perception of certain flavors of relationships, it keeps me from actually engaging the part of myself that is polyamorous and bisexual. I'll admit to being a total wimp and taking the easy way out and hiding in the appearance of heteronormativity, sticking to admitting ladycrushes to my husband and a few friends and playing loops of sexy-girl-time in my head when the situation warrants it.

Standard stuff, I guess, for most married people. It just makes me feel like a fraud.

Ultimately, the panic has lessened enough that I can function again, but I'm still afraid. Thankfully we will be out of this apartment soon and you can be damn sure I will be hiding my computer screen better in the next place.

Dear Women Who Talk to or Date my Husband,

When I explain to people how my marriage works, the main thing I'm told is how people are often too jealous to even consider such an arrangement in their own relationships. I'm here to tell you that I'm not going to be jealous of you.

Maybe it's strange. What most people would consider jealousy and would hold against the "other woman/man" would be something I would more likely hold against my husband. You can't control how he handles his time between us, so that's on him. 

It's on me how I react to him getting to know someone else or getting involved with them, though. My first reaction is usually excitement for him, and then eventually there's the momentary anguish over the idea that he will find someone that makes him realize that every bad thing I feel about myself is true. That's not his fault, and that's not your fault, so I'll handle it myself and not get either of you involved in my mini self esteem meltdown.

What I want on your end, though, is this:

Be good to my husband.

Appreciate my place in his life, since I'm giving him the freedom to be involved with you.

Don't be afraid of me.

Be communicative, within reason.

Ultimately, I want to work together with you to make my husband as fulfilled as possible. We don't have to be best friends, but considering I'm more likely to be the one helping him get over you if things fall apart (and not the other way around), being cordial and on the same page with me is kind of important.

Maybe that's bitchy of me, but I figure I'm being incredibly permissive and have a right to expect a new person in our lives to be relatively sane and together. If not, I'll be the first one to point out to him how something isn't working or in the best interest of everyone involved. 

I'll be fair, but I won't hesitate to keep my primary relationship as stable as possible. Otherwise, we are good if you are good.

Just saying.

Selfies and Struggles

Okay. So. Mike and I are in the process of moving -- we have three weeks to get our current place packed up and whatnot, and last night we were looking through a plastic tote full of miscellaneous tech-bits. Alright, maybe he was going through it and I was half-paying-attention while binge-watching The Flash. Either way, as I said: miscellaneous tech-bits. Several keyboards, lots of Apple cords, some mice, and a bunch of old external hard drives.

Like...a bunch.

We weren't sure which ones still worked and which ones didn't (to say nothing of what was on any of them), so Mike plugged one into his computer for a bit of a look.

It was mine, one I purchased almost a decade ago when my iBook G3 started to go a little wonky. It was small, but apparently held some interesting things -- mostly pictures...and every episode of Star Trek you could ever want, provided you weren't looking for the original series.

Anyway. Mike started looking through the pictures, like one does. And there were a lot.

Like a good early-20s lady, I took a lot of photographs of myself. Most of them were in varying states of undress, and I can't even tell you who I was sending them to -- because I was, for sure, sending them to people. Most of them were taken in my bedroom at my mother's house before I moved out for good, and most of them have some kind of filter on them.

Move over, Instagram, let Ash show you how sexy selfies are done. I probably have more experience in this department than you. You might think of me as a bit of an artiste.

Except, it occurred to me: I don't take pictures of myself anymore.

I was single back then and actually got off on making myself appear attractive in photographs. In my head, that wasn't what I looked like in person, but damn if I wasn't able to ramp up the good-lookin' on the other end of a webcam (and later, the iPhone). It was so strange that people appeared to want me. My standards for partners (for both relationships and hookups) was much lower, and what I wanted was someone to find me so attractive that they would stop at nothing (relatively speaking) to have sex with me. Now I'm almost 31 and often walk out of the house without even so much as a glance in a mirror.

The selfies have gone by the wayside as well, except for the sporadic boob-shots taken in my office bathroom. I used to take more of these, sending them off to Mike's phone in the hopes of getting him hard at his desk or in a meeting with his coworkers. But that didn't really happen, so I gave it up after a while. Understanding Mike's sexual nature (that is to say, some flavor of asexual) was hard, and it took a long time to come to terms with it. I started to feel like I was assaulting him with naked pictures and explicit text messages, all of which received little feedback.

It was hard to understand that I was essentially doing the thing that guys online have done to me and every other woman online for years -- sending unrequested pictures of their junk to an unreceptive recipient. Like them, I wanted a reaction. I wanted to turn someone on. I wanted encouragement, appreciation...anything. Instead, most of the time Mike  responded politely, other times he said nothing. While he appreciated the thought, it was more common for the pictures to show up at the worst times possible, making him feel neglectful for not being able to respond the way I wanted, to say nothing of the fact that he wasn't in the mood in the first place and wouldn't necessarily be turned on by some bare skin.

Now, several years in, sexuality doesn't stress our relationship to the same level that it did toward the beginning. Maybe knowing I'm not bound to Mike exclusively allowed my sex drive to cool its heels. Maybe stress and life have made me too tired to even want sex in the first place. Maybe it's just a defense mechanism so I don't spend more time disappointed in something that won't change. Whatever the reason, though -- things aren't perfect, but none of this seems as imminently problematic as it did previously. It took time, it takes work, and sometimes issues STILL come up. It's normal, it's expected, and it's all possible to be dealt with.

Just, you know...be prepared to work your ass off for it. Hopefully it'll be worth it.

Asexuality, for those even more removed

So here I am, tacking my two cents onto Mike's previous post. I'll be honest and say I didn't read the page he linked -- I deactivated my Fetlife account a while ago because I couldn't for the life of me feel like I fit in -- but I was thinking about how hard it is to explain to other people about how asexuality works and why I'm okay because married to someone who falls in that spectrum.

Let me lay out the scene for you:

I'll admit that, at times, I complain about it. I'll be at work and one of my raunchier coworkers (I love you guys) will make some sort of reference to some winked and nodded implied sex act, leaving me to comment that I didn't know what that was like anymore. Do I do that all the time? No. But I'm bad at pretending things are any different than they are (I used all that up back when I still lived at home with my mother) plus I am entirely too open about certain things at the best of times. The people I say things like that to are often aghast or offended, or like to think terribly of Mike because of some societal belief that all men are led solely by their gonads, therefore, clearly he must be defective.

One of them actually told me, "maybe if you lost some weight and put some effort into how you look, he'd want to fuck you more." It's weird to say, but she wasn't actually trying to be a bitch. She just not only doesn't understand asexuality but she doesn't understand that I'm not the type to dress a certain way or wear makeup not because I'm lazy -- I actually just don't think there's anything wrong with the way I was put together. I don't believe in God, but my reaction to people doing things to change how they look is often along the lines of, "So you're saying that God made a mistake and you have to fix it?"

Anyway.

If someone had told me ten years ago that I would meet someone who I would want to spend the rest of my life with and we wouldn't be particularly sexually active and I'd be okay with it, I'd consider it another reason to never venture out in the real world because people who think they have psychic powers are creepy and often wrong. But here I am, and here is how things have shaken out.

I understand that it's hard to wrap one's mind around. It's why I don't bring it up much with other people, but I also don't go out of my way to hide it. I'm of the belief that, in a world where people are often so self-motivated and always on the prowl for anything that furthers their agenda, when two people (or three, or four...) can get together and work together for mutual satisfaction and enjoyment, it's the most beautiful thing those people can do together. It can relax tensed muscles, it can help ease headaches and body pain, it can create life and deepen existing bonds between partners. But I can also understand that some people just aren't into it and have other ways of dealing with headaches. Over time, I've learned to find other ways to enjoy Mike's company. As anyone in a relationship knows, it's almost impossible to find someone who feels the same way as you do about everything across the boards. So if you won't break up with someone because maybe they like tomato soup and you prefer New England clam chowder, can't sex be handled similarly if everything else is going well?

What it comes down to for me is that life's too hard to throw away a good thing over a lack of mind-blowing mutual orgasms, even if some of my friends think it's ridiculous. I just do my part to convince them otherwise by speaking well of my relationship and not only bringing Mike up in conversation when he's driving me crazy. And ultimately, they're not the ones putting in the work every day in this marriage so I appreciate their concern, but that's as far as I'll take it.

Bah-humblog

So, I have a confession to make, and I hope none of you hate me too much for it.

Here goes.

Okay.

So.

I hate the holidays.

Phew. Okay. Big weight off my chest. I feel better now.

I mention this because this revelation, plus why I feel the way that I do, are closely linked to the same "it's like no one understands me" undercurrent running through this blog. We have talked about how having non-standard relationships can make holidays problematic, but what about on a more singularly personal level?

I've been inundated with "the perfect gift for the (oddly specific human subtype) in your life" articles on various bits of social media lately. While I understand that stereotypes exist for a reason, and that statistically, people generally fall into standard behaviors and interests that match up with their born genders, being on the outside of that can really hurt when people try to give presents to your gender and not, you know, your actual personality.

"Your pre-tween girl will love washi tape and brightly colored pens!"

Will she? 

I'm being difficult. I know this. Chances are, yes, she will love tiny strips of patterned craft tape and purple pens and beauty supplies and posters of cute boys and even cuter animals. But the assumption can drive home the idea that deviancy is a problem, leaving plenty of non-conformists feeling unwelcome in these situations.

It's a fight I feel like I've been fighting for my entire life. Not all girls day dream about their perfect wedding. Not all girls like Barbie dolls and try on their Mom's high heels. We don't all like purses or want to own "the perfect clutch." So are you more willing to tell me that I'm not actually female or that not falling in line means I'm wrong?

I'm thankful I don't deal with seasonal affective disorder in the winter (I get it in the summer, once again bucking the trend) because being reminded at every turn that I'm apparently not putting my vagina to proper use can really drag a person down.

Please, when you're buying gifts, buy them for the person and not their assumed gender identity stereotype. That's not a sentence I really ever thought I would write, but we live in the future. We don't have to be so old fashioned about this kind of thing anymore.

Buy Sally a kitten doll because she likes cats, not because "all girls love cute things." Buy Bobby a blue shirt if it's his favorite color, not because he's a boy. Take two seconds to pay attention to the people in your life. 

If you did, maybe someone like me would be less inclined to hate the holidays do thoroughly if they didn't feel like they were wasting everyone's money and generosity by not using or appreciating ill-suited gifts year after year.

I guess what I'm saying is you don't need to have a live-in slave to feel weird around family at the holidays. Sometimes you just have to not like dresses and fancy girl things and eventually be really bad at graciously saying "thank you, I love it" to family members who can't afford to buy presents in the first place.

Is it April yet?

Now *I'm* the one in the majority...!

As anyone with a social media account has noticed lately, the word "privilege" has been thrown around a lot -- unfortunately, a lot of people who have some specific form of privilege often are completely unaware of it. That's what happens when you come to expect something as the standard and assume everyone is on the same page.

Privilege is sneaky like that.

On paper I'm a white, married, middle-class female, and I know I've had advantages in life (thanks for Catholic all-girls school, grandpa...*sigh*). In between the lines on that paper, though, I'm a queer-type person who falls somewhere in the space between cis and trans, who happens to be in an open quasi-companionate marriage with my best friend. I've felt varying degrees of "outside an acceptable range" in regards to almost everything for my whole life, which is why it was so strange to realize there are things even I take for granted.

A few months back, I was looking on FetLife (trying to find somewhere to fit in...which didn't quite work) and kept seeing ads on the sidebar featuring a heavy amount of ball torture. That was only one of many graphic pictures littering the site, but it was one that made me cringe the most -- I'm all for people doing things that work for them, but it'd be lying if it didn't squick me out a bit. It's just not my thing, and I'm okay with it being of interest to other people.

But to get away from the ball torture -- what about the other ads? Why did only that one bother me?

Oh. Because I'm more okay with the other images because they cater more to my interests and desires.

Oh.

Well, shit.

I asked Mike a few days later, "Do the ads on FetLife bother you?" and without any hesitation or need for me to explain further, he emphatically responded, "oh, yeah."

It was the first time I really sat down to think about how unfriendly the world is to the asexual crowd, to say nothing of non-straight white folks. Never before had I felt so much a part of the problem.

I had previously recognized that my own sex drive and interests caused some stress for Mike, which I handled mostly by stopping things like dirty texting and sending risque photos to his phone -- the timing was never right so it just seemed to be a waste of time -- but it had never occurred to me that society in general did a far better and more pervasive job of keeping my own partner outside his comfort zone than I did. So while I could apologize and take action to stop "forcibly rubbing my vagina all over him from a distance" (I'm great at saying I'm sorry), society just can't "take it all back" and stop making everything boil down to the state of one's erogenous zones.

The realization that I was one of the people these marketing traps were for certainly knocked me down a peg or two, and I wish I could do more than watch what I talk about or do. I mean, I *did* make sure to thumbs-up petitions on Fetlife to have better options for ad-choices...but it was just before I deleted my account, possibly negating the whole thing.

I don't know.

To everyone in the world more like Mike than me, I'm sorry that life in a lot of societies can sometimes make you feel like you're being slapped in the face by a sentient man-sized penis with breasts. I know what it's like to not be a target audience, and I'll do what I can to get people to stop assuming we all think about sex the same way or with the same frequency. It won't be much, but every little bit helps.

I hope so, anyway.

On Doing Things (You Know...Things)

Everyday there come more new examples of people making bad choices based on desires they are told to ignore. Sometimes it's society, or parents, maybe peers -- even ourselves -- and the end result seems the same: 

We want to do The Thing.

We are told not to do The Thing.

We agonize.

We stamp it down.

We forget, maybe.

The Thing comes up over and over.

We want to do The Thing.

We agonize more.

At the least opportune time, we do The Thing.

Everything goes to hell.

Self loathing comes into play.

We still want to do The Thing.

Everything is still hell.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

I was raised Catholic, so this is normal. But should it be?

About a year or so ago, I started listening to a podcast focusing on serial killers and other assorted deviants, mostly in the form of interviews with authors of books on the topic. I find these things fascinating because I don't understand the motivation people have to do awful things. (I can hate people, but never enough to go on a rampage or to maim anyone.)

I only listened for a little while because the sound quality was atrocious and the interviewer mostly talked about himself, but in the process of listening,I heard the word "sadist" thrown around frequently.

So they would lay out these situations, and I would find myself thinking that, if there wasn't so much stigma about wanting to do things that most people would consider bad or evil when done non-consensually, a lot of people could be saved jail time if they could get their interests out in more healthy ways.

When you deny yourself something, it stays at the forefront of your mind. If people suggest treating yourself in small ways when attempting to diet, it makes sense that the same idea can be applied to other things with more importance. Want a dungeon? There are people who would clamor to fill it. Are you a fan of bloodplay? There are people who would love to share their blood with you.

You get my point.

I just wish people could be better at accepting themselves. I wish it were more acceptable to be oneself and it were easier to fulfill features in healthy ways. There are people into so-called "bad things," and there are people into having those "bad things" done to them. It's possible to get needs met when you take time and effort and sanity and patience and mix them all together instead of shoving down explosive material until it has no choice but to burst and take out nearby people at the same time.

Be careful, be good to people, but be yourself and don't ignore desires just because not everyone understands them. Or else you'll do something drastic and far worse than initially intended, with far more extreme consequences than would've come from just doing The Thing in the first place.

Coming to terms with things

Had I been aware of websites like Fetlife five years ago, I would've labeled myself submissive: I appreciate knowing explicitly what is expected of me, having certain things I am responsible for, and I have a habit of keeping track of my partners to make sure they are as taken care of as possible.

Flash forward a few years to when I met Mike. Here was (is) a man who had had submissives and slaves, knew what we wanted from them, and looked forward to having then again. It made me want to complete him; it gave me the challenge of being his perfect and ideal partner. Like with most of my boyfriends, I wanted to meet his needs and be better than all the rest. I wanted him to love me and treasure me above all else. I wanted to be magical. I wanted to be irreplaceable.

I wanted him to keep me.

For a long time, I felt like a failure because he pushed that side of me away. I would try to engage the part of him that he admitted he wished came out more, but he would shy away. On top of that, my sexual advances were equally useless, which left me feeling like I was treading water but never quite going anywhere.

From me, Mike wasn't looking for a sub. I didn't have what it took, especially because I couldn't drop the need for sexuality in these potential scenarios. It was confusing and stressful, but I focused on what I could provide in his life instead:

Understanding. Support. Encouragement. Love. Friendship. Laughter.

It took dating someone who actually actively wanted a completely submissive partner in their life to realize I wasn't actually naturally submissive. When I could get his dom side to come out, I kept being uncomfortable with the ideas he Mike was suggesting. I could go for bits and pieces, but he couldn't get into things piecemeal like that, and I couldn't just jump in completely like he needed. It was frustrating on both ends because we were both invested in him being happy and fulfilled. 

Then it hit me:

Thanks to my mother, I was raised with the idea that you did whatever you could to convince your partner to stay with you, since clearly no one would stay of their own accord otherwise. I was raised with the idea that oneself doesn't really matter, especially if being yourself means being alone.

So while the part of me that wants to take care of the people around me still exists, it isn't my main character trait anymore. For the first time in my life, I can basically be myself instead of doing what I can to twist myself to be good for someone else. It's still awkward at times, to be honest, and there's still that part of me that feels I'm letting Mike down by not being able to meet his needs entirely... But he isn't looking for me to do that, and I have no real problem letting him find someone else who can pick up where I left off. It takes some pressure off the part of me that still lingers from before, the part inherently feeling like a failure who worries so much about being abandoned.

I am starting to recognize my worth beyond my willingness to do anything for the people I love. It's difficult and stressful and painful at times -- and it's a long road to walk down on top of that. Thankfully I've got a pretty fantastic travel companion, so it's worth the trouble.

A brief interlude...

Ash and I are away visiting family and dodging snow, and taking the end of this week off of writing. Hope everyone's Thanksgiving (as applicable) is going well!

Maybe It's Rhetorical?

There's this movie trope, which I'm sure most people are familiar with -- the main character, in a beaten down moment, will find themselves inundated with the sound of voices repeating something over and over that perfectly describes the moment at hand. For me, when I'm having an off or bad day, the phrase that ricochets back and forth is, "So why are you even with him? Even with him? With him? Him?" (My mind has an echo, don't mind me.)

It's such a strange phrase given the circumstance of Mike and my relationship, and it's almost invariable said to me by men -- men, who, for the most part, are hoping to land a spot in my pants if things go right. Never mind the fact that I'm in a relationship with a structure that allows me to talk to other people in an otherwise questionable manner. The question haunts me though, as does the implication behind it.

How do you explain to someone *why* you're with someone when your sex drives and interests don't match? How do I say, "everything else is almost perfect for the most part" without sounding like I'm lying or over-exaggerating? How do I make someone understand that sex is important, but not necessarily in this particular relationship? It's such a strange concept to most people.

There's a part of me that is bothered simply because I don't think I would be questioned if I was a guy complaining that my partner/spouse/FWB didn't put out enough. We are raised with the idea that men "only want one thing" and women always have headaches. So not only is it strange to them that *I'm* the one complaining, but the situation itself flies in the face of our societal understanding of women's sexuality.

What's worse is the follow-up to this question, which is usually something along the lines of, "what kind of man can't satisfy you?" This presupposes two things: that Mike isn't "man enough" because he doesn't constantly think with his penis, and two, that it can't be that my sex drive *is* actually pretty far out there (I mean, what kind of pervert must I be if I can't be satisfied by a mere man?!). This line of conversation is actually a serious deal-breaker for me, for a number of reasons.

I can understand that being a secondary for a partnered person is difficult for single people. I have no problem with that. But if I'm going to step away from my primary relationship to give time to someone else, I want them to be respectful of my primary relationship (the same way I want Mike's partners to be respectful of me and I aim to be supportive and encouraging of their relationships as well). If they can't appreciate that I'm not being completely closed off from them despite being married, then I won't even give them the opportunity to be asked "why are you even with her?" from any of THEIR friends.

The second issue I have with the conversation is that I don't appreciate not being taken at my word. I understand we live in a world where a lot of people "put their best foot forward," but I'm too lazy and tired to dick people around like that. If someone presents themselves a specific way, I expect that to be authentic. When I say "I've never dated someone who could exhaust my sex drive," I'm not saying it to brag or titillate anyone. It's simply a fact (one I will explain at a later date, since it's not as straight forward a fact as it sounds, though it's still true), but I get a wink and a nod and a pat on the head -- "suuuuure, sweetie...uh-huh, I believe you..." -- and I'm not into age play, so being treated like an immature child makes me angry.

Sex and intimacy are important to me, and yes, being married to someone who doesn't have the same ideas regarding physical contact is often difficult and frustrating on both sides. But that isn't the end-all-be-all -- I'd rather have the companionship, the similar interests, compatible parenting styles, the laughs, the respect...even if, in the end, we never have standard penis-in-vagina intercourse ever again. I have my toys, I have my options...and I have a husband who makes me laugh and doesn't mind that I find other people attractive.

At the base of it, I'm not sure how anyone would question it. Why would I *not* be with him? I can have my cake and eat it too, more or less. I have a good man at home who loves me enough to say I can go get my needs met elsewhere as needed. Maybe I should just assume that people question it because they're jealous of how awesome my situation is. It's not appreciated, but I can't really blame them.

'Haters gonna hate,' I guess?

A brief introduction

I was originally going to write something different for today, but before I got too far into this blog-writing dealie, I wanted to take a moment and introduce myself, since a lot of people only know me as "Ash, illustrious other half of resident kinkster Mike Miner." While this is true, I'm arguably more than that, and I'm hoping to prove myself to be worth reading.

So! A few bullet points, in no particular order:

• While Mike is more on the lifestyle-kink train, my perviness has mostly been grounded in hypothetical sexual things. Despite these being more socially acceptable (in comparison to some kinks and interests), my partners have largely found my interests a little strange and/or unorthodox.
• I wouldn't label myself a sub or submissive, but my general attitude leans toward making sure other people are getting something out of whatever is going on before I do. 
• That selflessness has halted somewhat now that I have found myself with someone who sees me as worthwhile beyond my ability to satisfy them in bed. Mike will often reference my high sex drive while I point to my previous and long-held belief that the best way to show love and affection is through a basic willingness to do whatever is requested of me...which has not always worked to my advantage, so it's nice that Mike doesn't take me up on this terribly often.
• I'm not inherently monogamous nor non-monogamous: mostly just open-minded in how to achieve a stable relationship. I'm also not particularly jealous, which is helpful.
• I'm bisexual but hate the word; I'd say I'm 'pansexual' except, more often than not, no one knows what that means or implies.
• The older I get, the more picky I am about my partners. This, when combined with my increasing preference for being a hermit means I don't really take advantage of some of my marriage's freedoms.

My real goal in all of this is to have a space to say the things I can't in most of the circles I run in: namely the more off-beat and "perverted" things  I can't really explain or talk about to my office mates or family. My knowledge and understanding is a lot different from Mike's, but there is enough of a thematic overlap that we think I will be a worthwhile addition to the blog.

-Ash.

I am posting this on behalf of Ash; however, going forwards, you should look forward to continued entries under her own name.

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In Mike's last post, he discussed a recent Savage Lovecast episode where a caller wanted some input on how to handle the fact that his ex-wife told their daughter that their marriage ended because he cheated, with the truth of the situation being more complicated than it would appear. I wanted to weigh in on this, given I have some first-hand experience on the caller's daughter's end.

It was strange to learn that Mike's first marriage was basically a similar one to my parents', with the main difference being a gender swap. I knew at a very young age that my dad liked men and that this was why my parents weren't together anymore (they divorced when I was three-ish) -- but I don't actually remember the big reveal on the "gay thing" or on the "cheated on mom" thing -- I was just aware of it, enough to ask him about it over the years. What I do remember is that what bothered me wasn't the fact that he cheated (repeatedly) but the fact that he and his now-husband had such a caustic relationship, and he wasn't that great of a father.

Maybe it's a logic thing on my part where I can understand cheating if you can't live within the confines of your relationship. I understood why my dad would want to be with men (that's what gay men do), but what I didn't understand was why he married my mom and had me in the first place, given he didn't seem to really put his back into being a dad at all. He never fought for me, instead fighting around me, which didn't make me want to be there any more often than absolutely possible. Combine that with it never occurring to him to make sure I had space of my own at any of his apartments, and I felt uncomfortable and out of place every other weekend for sixteen years.

The fact is, Mike loves his son and his son knows it. They are very similar and I don't know what would happen if his mother told him damning things, regardless of whether or not they're true. Unlike my father, he tries to connect with his son and does his best to teach him how to be a good person. If his ex-wife decides to do something like spread lies or misinformation, then I'm hoping their son can balance it out with knowing Mike is his biggest fan.

The other side of it is that Mike doesn't actively talk about his ex-wife often unless his son brings it up. He has plenty of reason to villainize her, but he doesn't. She's still his son's mother and involving their son in their own issues just ultimately makes them look bad.

My point is, I guess, that telling personal truths to children can be rough but the way you combat them is to, as Dan Savage put it, "don't be a monster." Be a good parent to your kids and hopefully they'll judge you on that instead of just adding another log to the fire of you-in-effigy they've had burning for a while.

A Guest Post...

So Mike mentioned this article (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/25/our-three-way-relationship-isnt-your-business-even-if-were-doing-business) the other day and brought up the dread he felt in response to it, without going into a lot of detail. The main takeaway was the fact that rolling out the inherent threeness of a potential relationship is problematic for him, especially in light of his exwife's inherent conservatism.

For me, though, the dread comes from a totally different angle.

First, like the lesbian married to a man in another article Mike posted recently, I take issue with being automatically assumed to be straight by the simple fact that I am married to a man. I am not a fan of "rounding up/down to heterosexual," leaving me to come out repeatedly to random people whenever the conversation lends itself to it -- for example, when talking about Hooters, my coworker mentioned being a little offended that the waitress had flirted with her in front of her boyfriend, leaving me to point out that not everyone in relationships is unwilling to flirt, and not all women with male partners have issues with ladies flirting with them.

In a lot of ways, I worry about how people would react if Mike and I did find a good match for both of us. For Mike, yes, it could cause issues with his exwife because she might assume our home would be an inappropriate place to raise their child. Meanwhile I know Mike's mother would more or less disown me, to say nothing of my own family, because there was never any option but for this magical third to be anything but some approximation of female given that is where our broad physical interests overlap. There is no real challenge to Mike's image being presented, whereas mine will come under scrutiny considering his first wife turned out to be a closeted lesbian.

When I came out to my immediate family in high school as a liker-of-ladies, my youngest sister was the only one who didn't care. My mother insisted it was a result of sexual abuse and because my *gay* father was also a *bad* father. My dad pretended not to hear me, and my middle sister was disgusted (and conveniently later chose to forget about it entirely). My school friends chose not to believe me, except for the ones I would occasionally make out with. It wasn't an uncommon reaction, but it more or less forced me back in the closet in their eyes: so I have basically been rounding up/down to straight because that's what happens when your family and friends refuse to take your female relationships at face-value.

So there is a serious part of me that feels queasy at the thought of re-coming out, with the lovely added bonus of explaining how Mike's and my marriage works (which could easily be the subject of many a blogpost).

It wouldn't be fair to our potential third to be kept a secret or be treated like a perpetual roommate, but I would be lying if I didn't admit the whole thing is as terrifying as it seems potentially wonderful. I can't tell if my concern would keep me from pursuing something, but it would certainly affect how I made people aware of the situation when it became serious enough to matter. I get enough grief for not being threatened by the idea of Mike having freedoms and using them (even though I have the same freedoms and generally don't take advantage of them) that I cannot imagine the response to admitting our relationship involves a third person.

Ultimately, it's all speculation until it becomes a reality. I have little faith we will find a good fit (Mike and I have very different needs/wants in our partners), but until then, maybe I should start putting money aside for a bigger bed since they are pretty expensive...but would be totally worth it when the time came.

-Ash.