Book of Mirrors

tacit is a great read anyway... People should follow him, and read his archives.

But here is his most recent gem.

Enjoy.

I'm trying to get in the mindset to do this again. I flit in and out of it, and I had mostly flitted out when I found out I'd be "able" to make this entry. I'm sure a great deal of it is avoidance. I seem to be "in the mood" and have the "right" circumstances to make the entry only when I'm tired, or don't have enough time to do it justice, or something like that.

Anyway, ( here's the inevitable cut-tag... )

So, while I'm at my parents' for Thanksgiving, I had several profound moments. Most will be documented in my other journal, but this one belongs here. The reason I'm in the mood to write it tonight is that, while blckwngdorcl and I were driving home from my client's tonight, we were having a great conversation about some books he's reading (Note: Hey, blckwngdorcl, you might wanna follow that link - it refers to two more books you don't have...), and suddenly I just got this overwhelming feeling of overall rightness in my world. That things really WERE as they should be, and that I'd made good choices in my life, and that things were just coming along nicely in general. With all my doubts about things lately, I treasure those (these) moments.

Anyway, the subject of this post falls into that category.

So, I'm lying in bed, about to go to sleep (when many of these little revelations came to me) when something became very clear to me.

(OK, so here's the point where I don't know where to go with this post... that is, whether to jump straight to the conclusion, or to give some background... the former would be a bit jarring to readers... the latter would make the conclusion anti-climactic. Hmmmmm... Think I'll go for the shock value factor this time. *eg*)

( Shock value version: )

I ganked these questions from feygirl a while back, but never got around to answering them. However, one of my posts yesterday seems to have fostered the most delightful debate on the subject, so I'm sorta in that mindframe now, so I thought I'd post these now.


Do you have a relationship structure?
Not really sure what this particular question is asking. I'm married, with an open relationship, which I actually tend not to call polyamory (except that it's a convenient word that most people are familiar with) because I find it hard sometimes to connect emotionally to someone other than my husband. This is something I'm working on.

If you're married, what are some of the boundaries you have set up concerning other loves?
Well, the first rule is always safe/sane/consensual. Condoms are a must. We haven't really discussed dental dams. We each have to approve the other's lovers. We do this for a couple of reasons. We're both fairly intuitive people, and we're both intelligent. We both realize that in states of infatuation or pure horniness, we might not make the best choices for ourselves. We help each other to make sure that we're not jumping rashly into something, or "thinking with our dicks". This "forces" us to be friends with the people we're with, because you can't make that sort of informed consent without it. Which is a good thing. Both of us tend to be more attracted to people we're close to on a personal level, anyway. If I'm in a BDSM scene, blckwngdorcl insists that I use a safe word. If it's someone who's not already on the "OK" list, the rule is kissing, and over-the-clothing, above-the-waist groping. Of course, this can be modified for situations where we're already naked for whatever reason. cybersex of any kind, with anyone is OK. And our marriage comes first, always.

How do you handle living w/ your spouse, and having other lovers over, or spending the night elsewhere?
It just basically depends on scheduling and such. Unfortunately, our living situation doesn't really lend itself to having people over. This is mostly due to a rule I forgot to mention, which is that blckwngdorcl doesn't like our bed to be used by anyone but us. (Actually, I think he's modified that, but I don't remember what the verdict on it was...) We don't have a spare room, and trying to schedule time alone in a household of 5, one with no car, no job, is damn near impossible. So, generally, all playing is done elsewhere. So far, there hasn't been an issue with this that I'm aware of. In our dream house in our head, we have a fully-stocked "playroom" with a huge fucking bed (pun intended) and various toys and other comforts, as well as a fully stocked dungeon, with a secret entrance and everything.

Do you have things set up so that you can veto people?
I basically answered that already. Obviously, if one of us felt strongly enough to veto someone, there'd be a long discussion about it.

Do you have primary and secondary and maybe even tertiary labels?
Not really. I mean, I'll refer to blckwngdorcl as my primary, but that's mostly because it's a commonly understood term in the community, not because I really think of him that way. I don't have "levels" of lovers.

Do you get emotionally attached to other lovers, or do you only have sex with others and leave the emotions to the primary or the spouse?
In the past, I think I left the emotions with my husband, and thought of the sex merely as an extension of friendship, separate but equal, for instance, to going out for coffee with someone. Of course, that's more a safety net for me, because it's almost impossible to have sex with someone and not have a different level of feeling for them going out than you did coming in. I think I used that as a defense mechanism, to not let anyone get too close to me. I'm trying to remedy that, and find that connection, because it's a horrible thing to be closed off to love of any kind. I want to be open about it. blckwngdorcl and I talked about this once, and he said that he actually prefers me to have an emotional/romantic attachment to other lovers, because he feels that, if I can have sex with someone I don't love, what does that say about when I have sex with him? And he's got a point.

So, blckwngdorcl and I finally took the plunge. Well, we've kinda taken it before, but in actual practice that panned out into one brief (but enjoyable) encounter. After that, we had come up with other issues, and wanted very much to make sure that if we fucked other people, it was for FUN, and not because we were running from any of our own issues. At that point in our relationship, there was some danger in that, and I'd seen other people who seemed to use polyamory for that purpose, and we agreed that we didn't want that to be us.

so, we spent a long time working on ourselves and our own issues, and came to the conclusion that we were ready to take that plunge again, in the right (for us) headspace a few months ago. But it wasn't until recently that it actually panned out into an encounter for either of us. In fact, not too terribly long ago, blckwngdorcl said he felt he was monogamous for now, but had no inclination that I needed to be the same way.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I took the plunge with kapua23. He was visiting with his wife lil_red_witch and her lover sirstee and his wife delenn99. I won't get into all the tangled webs of relationships involved when you mix the four of them with the five of us. :) Anyway, all concerned parties were good with the idea, and so kapua23 and I pretty much got a day to ourselves to explore each other. It started out with a shower here, which was great, but it's hard to keep your balance in a wet shower, and I was kinda fearful of that in the back of my mind the whole time. That didn't prevent either of us from enjoying it, though. :) After that, we went out for breakfast with everyone, and then went to Insurrection to get some goodies. Unfortunately, my favorite branch of it had pretty much gotten rid of their entire leather section. We ended up driving to Midtown to try to find the other branch that they said still had leather stuff. We thought we never really found it,'cause the only shop we found in the general area we were directed to was a store called Heaven, which had some great furniture (big black X with all the appropriate clips... mmmmmm.....) but not so much in the way of leather, and godawful overpriced. Later, when talking to blckwngdorcl about it, he said that WAS Insurrection, and that the orginal guy who started Insurrection made enough money to give his original managers each their own stores, and Heaven was one of those. Who knew?

Anyway, we went back to his hotel room, and had a wonderful time. It had been a long time since I'd been spanked by anyone who was enthusiastic about it, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly. We were both going pretty easy on each other, it being the first time and all. We were feeling each other out (no pun intended) and getting used to each others' reactions and such. It was very cool, though. I don't remember many details, if any, 'cause I hit that point where I kinda lost my head... not completely, but enough to make the memory fuzzy. I mainly remember it was good. :)

So, I got home, somewhat nervous that blckwngdorcl had changed his mind while we were gone, regretted the whole thing, etc.. But he was cool with it. Gods, I have the bestest husband in the whole wide world. He said I came home with 10 fingers and 10 toes, and seemed to have had a good time, and he was happy for me. And I could see that he genuinely was, and that meant, and means, the world to me. lil_red_witch was equally cool about it, and I thanked her for sharing her husband with me. All in all, a very good thing which we have plans to repeat when I go to Florida in October to see The Pet Psychic, and spend the night in the hotel that kapua23 works at. Ought to be fun, since I think we're both going to discard the kid gloves. Scaryexciting. :)

I will say that one thing bothered me about the time we spent together. I've kinda discussed in past posts that my version of polyamory is more polysexuality than anything else. I really don't want a romantic relationship with anyone but my husband. That's not to say that I'm just looking for a stable. I'm friends with kapua23, and I'm friends with the other people I've had sex with, and plan to have sex with. But I don't feel a romantic attachment to any of them, and I don't want to. I feel like I'm cheating on blckwngdorcl if I were to do that. So, there were a couple of times while we were together that kapua23 looked at me with some intense passion and emotion, and it wigged me out a little. I was able to let it flow over in the heat of the moment, but I remembered it afterwards, and I want to work on that so that it's not a problem with him, or any other lovers I may take in the future. Or with my husband, for that matter. I talked with blckwngdorcl about it, and he didn't feel at all that it was cheating for me to become romantically involved with my lovers. In fact, his version of polyamory includes the romance, and that doesn't bother me a bit, 'cause I feel secure in my relationship with him. So, as we talked, I was kinda surprised to realize (and I confirmed this with him) that, in his mind, I was already romantically involved, 'cause from his point of view, that's the way polyamory worked. So, in his mind, there was already a romantic relationship there. And, note above-stated reaction, he was already good with that. So that was kind of a weird realization for me.

I also talked to kapua23 about it. He, of course, didn't wanna wig me out, and he doesn't feel a romantic connection with me any more than I do with him, but we both agree we are good friends who share a passion. He was pretty cool about the whole thing, and said he basically knew that's where I was coming from to begin with. Damn empaths. ;)

So, it would seem that no one has a problem with this brand of fear of intimacy but me. And, of course, that's all that matters. Because it IS fear-based, which pretty much equates "bad" to me. So, that's something I'm going to be exploring and trying to get over in my poly-amorous/sexual pursuits.

All in all, I think this is a good thing for me, and therefore for all my relationships. I thank the gods that I have such an awesome husband, and such a great lover, and that they're willing to go to these places with me. And anyone who's reading this that I've discussed going there with you... well, that's what you're in for, too, but I don't think that's a bad thing. The invitations are still open. ;)