A loss

What do you do when someone you love does something you think is wrong?

What do you do when he doesn't seem to care about what you think, or what you feel?

What do you do when his behavior is so uncharacteristic of him that it's frightening?

What do you do when you can't find any way to bridge the rift between you?

What do you do?

Hard

Tapeti has a fetish that is a hard limit of mine.

It's not a fetish that she wants to inflict upon me, so we're not going to run into troubles there. However, I was very surprised when she expressed her desire for it; even though I understand that there are lots of people with desires that are starkly different from mine, for some reason I still expect everyone I'm sexual with to be perfectly compatible in every way.

I'm not sure why I feel this way - even Master, who's probably the most compatible of my partners ever (most likely because I basically discovered my sexuality through him, so I "imprinted"), has some fetishes that I'm not so keen on, and I have some that he's not into. It's not a big deal, so maybe that's why I'm always surprised; I forget that those differences exist because they don't have any negative impact on my relationship.

Where we are

My homework assignment is to take this diagram of nonmonogamy and figure out 1) where Master, Tapeti and I are on it, and 2) where I'm afraid of us going. So what I don't want. I marked where we are with a happy face and where I don't want to be with a saddie face. Whereas there wasn't really a quote-example for where we are - Open-poly-kinky-casual sex - the quote for where I'm afraid of going is in Unicorn Polyamory: "My husband allows me to have another girlfriend, but I am not allowed to have another man."

My fear goes gender-reversed, too - that I would have a girlfriend who doesn't want me to date any other women, only men. It would be le sad.

ಠ_ಠ

You know what's funny? Funny as in "HahahaNO." When conservative Christians get all up in arms about porn because it degrades women.

I mean, really?

Really?

I mean, it's not like there aren't valid critiques to be made about the porn industry. There are plenty! A lot of porn reifies sexist or racist tropes, and there isn't as much diversity among actors in terms of body type, age, etc. as I'd like. But when I point out things that would actually help, such as improving sex ed (so people learn earlier on that porn sex is not like everyday sex), destigmatizing sex work so that it's easier to expose and prosecute abuse of workers, and supporting feminist-friendly producers, it gets drowned out in cries of, "OMG! Porn causes divorce! It turns men into addicted, sex-crazed maniacs!"

And then I keep digging, trying to suss out critiques of the industry from critiques of porn as a media, and it turns out it really all boils down to, "The Bible says looking at naked people is bad!"

ಠ_ಠ

I mean, I can understand if someone said, "I feel like I'm betraying my partner when I watch other people have sex, so I don't watch porn." I'd also understand if someone said, "I really feel uncomfortable with my partner looking at porn." That's totally legitimate - sex and body image and everything is complex and highly personal.

But appropriating feminist language to hide your attempts at imposing religious doctrine on everyone - especially when, besides for the porn issue, you don't give a flying fuck about feminism and actively attempt to subjugate women with all that, "Women must be subordinate to their husbands, men are meant to protect women, oh and PS if you get raped you have no say over what happens to your body and you probably deserved it anyway YOU SLUT WHY DID YOU WEAR THAT SHIRT IF YOU DIDN'T WANT IT," FUCKING BULLSHIT -

It pisses me off a little bit.

Spring cleaning

I updated my dramatis personae page. Master was right - it was horribly out of date! I hadn't realized how much time has passed.

Recently I done goofed. I tried introducing Master and Pineapple, and while it wasn't a complete disaster it was definitely awkward, which made me feel dumb. I also forgot to tell Tapeti about Pineapple, which was a violation of our rules. :/ I haven't even had the "what do we want out of our relationship" talk with Pineapple yet. I could be cute and blame this on NRE, but the truth is I fucked up. *sigh*

Well, lesson learned, hopefully.

And, on a completely random (and much more cheerful) note, I am very pleased that the men I hang out with are just as "I'm straight but I'm gonna make out with someone of the same gender just for the hell of it" as women are.

(Also, WTF Blogger why are you mangling my HTML?)

HA HA DISREGARD THAT I SUCK COCKS

Literally.

Apparently I don't need to worry about sexual compatibility as long as I stick to people in my DnD groups. No, seriously - all the people from my DnD groups (college and here) whom I've been sexual with I had great chemistry with. Mostly because they've all been at least moderately kinky.

But I should back up a bit first.

Last night I finally got the chance to go out with a guy from my DnD group, whom I shall call Pineapple. We get along really well; he (and everyone else in the party) reminds me very strongly of my college friends, and when we're hanging out it almost feels like I'm back in school - in the best way possible.

Pineapple and I were rather drunk from having spent time at the bar (we walked back to my apartment, so no worries there), and we were watching funny videos on Youtube - actually, we were only half paying attention because we were having too much fun talking - when suddenly we start making out and BAM! my clothes are gone.

Fortunately I had the presence of mind to tell him at some point (can't remember when, exactly) that I wasn't having any PIV or PIA sex that night, and he had the presence of mind to respect that. We still had a hell of a lot of fun biting and scratching the shit out of each other; it was almost like a wrestling match interspersed with kisses (which usually turned into bites). Perhaps it was because I was still frustrated from my experience with The Italian, but I was definitely more aggressive than normal, as in I (unintentionally) drew blood and swore a blue streak at him whenever he held me down.

It was fun.

On the downside, now I look like I got into a fight; all I'm missing is a black eye. I definitely feel like I got in a fight, too - so sore! None of my coworkers asked questions, thank goodness. I'll have to tone it down in the future. Or invest in turtlenecks.

Convergent Evolution

I've been going on a few dates with a guy (whom I shall call The Italian). Recently we fooled around (first time I've done that with someone not from college), and it threw into stark relief that what I'm used to is not necessarily "normal" (or at least common).

He was frustratingly vanilla, for one thing. At this point, my first reaction when I get excited is to bite. Hard. While he didn't freak out or anything, he did make it clear that wasn't his bag. And he's ticklish, which means I can't caress him where/how I normally caress people. So what the hell am I supposed to do? Plain ol' making out for 15 or 30 minutes straight is boring. :/

Also he didn't bite me much, and when he did it wasn't nearly hard enough (despite my encouraging). He handled my tits way too gently, and he didn't pull my hair for long enough or hard enough. This left me feeling frustrated.

In the past, when I've sensed that my partner wasn't going to dominate me, I'd turn the tables and start getting aggressive. (Like many animals, I can sense weakness. >:3) But, for reasons mentioned above, I couldn't really express any domliness I was feeling. So there wasn't really any power dynamic going at all; it was just some wishy-washy blob.

Maybe if I'd been intimate with more people before my discovery of kink, this would be more familiar to me. But Master was the first person I ever had sex with, and by some stroke of luck all my friends in college (or at least all the ones I wound up having sex with) are kinky to some degree. So that's basically all I know, and I know that's shaped my desires. I imagine it's gone something like this:

1) I have a vague, undefined interest in kink.
2) I love/trust the people I'm with, so I try it with them.
3) Any enjoyment I get intrinsically from kink is reinforced/amplified by my positive feelings for my partners.
4) Because I enjoyed it, I do it more.
5) My enjoyment is once again reinforced/amplified by my partners.
6) Repeat steps 4 and 5.

If I were in a different environment when I first started having sex, I imagine my sexuality would have evolved differently. And now I am in a different environment, and I'm finding myself ill-adapted to it. I can't just assume that everyone I make out with is into leaving bruises.

So now I'm starting to wonder if I should, like, screen for kinkiness when meeting potential dates. Because I'm pretty certain that plain vanilla stuff isn't going to do it for me anymore, and while The Italian is an awesome guy and all, if we're not going to click sexually then I don't know what I should do. :/

(Also: His dick was definitely not the size/shape/etc. that I'm used to. I am suddenly apprehensive about having sex with men other than Master because I had forgotten that he's not typical in that department and I'm worried I won't enjoy anything other than his penis profile.)