Do you believe it’s okay to have sex with someone, such as myself actually, who, due to a bunch of different brainweirds, isn’t able to meaningfully provide consent but defaults to “yes” when asked?

Well, to be honest with you, anon, my answer is going to be “No.” Not because of your brainweirds or any other reason but because I am in a; particularly for the moment; closed polycule and am quite happily polysaturated. More partners just aren’t in the cards for me. Two is more than enough.

Now that said… I take issue with people sending me “Gotcha!” asks like this. It serves no real purpose, and to be frank with you, I find it a little offensive. THAT said… if you cannot say no, you cannot meaningfully say yes. The reverse; to a more limited extent; is also true. That is the default of consent that I, personally, am working from outside of particular relationship dynamics I have in play with my partners.

If I WERE to be the sort to proposition you, Anon, I’d be asking you how you feel about certain activities and whether or not you regret them after the fact. I would be asking you more than just “do you consent” because I, like many others involved with kink, want to know the WHYS of limits not just the limits, wherever possible. Because “I don’t like whips” is a lot different than “the pop sound of the cracker and the intense sting make me feel Some Kinda Way and I don’t want to panic about it.” The first is a limit definitely! The second takes a lot of other, similar, toys off the table because it’s not about the limit, it’s about respecting the CONTEXT of the limit.

Look for someone who takes your answer for what it is, including its context, wherever possible. And, in the meantime, maybe examine the why and how your Brainweirds interact with your consent, yeah…?

Cautionary Poly: It Always Felt Like An Affair

polyrolemodels:

“Poor Rob,” my girlfriend Tina says.

“Who’s that?” I ask.

She tells me Rob is her play partner from back home. The one she hooks up with once a year when she and her husband go to a conference in Ohio. She’s mentioned Rob before but not by name. He’s the whole reason that she’s polyamorous.

“Oh,” I say. “What’s going on with him?”

“He and his wife Michelle have the hardest time finding partners. They have the worst luck. They really do.”

I nod, knowing that feeling. Until I lucked out and found Tina, I’d been striking out left and right myself. She and her husband Don were recent transplants to Maine, on OKCupid looking for people to play board games with.

But something about her profile had tipped me off. Flashing the secret poly bat signal in the sky.

And several weeks later, here we are. Chatting in her kitchen, the morning after yet another wonderful overnight date.

I listen carefully as she details Rob and Michelle’s dating hits and misses. And by the end of it, I feel bad for them, too.

“That’s too bad,” I say. “I hope they find someone soon.”

*

The next time I hear from Rob, it’s via my online dating profile:

Hey!

Heard you are friends with some other good friends of mine, Don and Tina!

Take care of them, now that they’re not in the Cleveland area I miss them terribly!

Also, yay for a 97% match! 😀

Wanting to make a good impression on my metamour, I write Rob back right away. We exchange a few messages back and forth, but I keep it strictly friendly, and our conversation dies off.

It isn’t until 3 weeks later that Rob even crosses my mind again when Don lets it drop that Rob had congratulated him and Tina on snagging me, adding that I was terribly cute in my profile pics.

On a lark, I reach out to Rob again, telling him that if he ever visits his friends in Maine that I’d be quite happy to meet him.

Rob asks me for my Skype info, and we start chatting on a regular basis.

He’s forward from the very beginning. He tells me during our very first conversation, after 4 hours of chatting, that it might sound crazy but that he already knows that he loves me. Because I’m someone who rejects the status quo. And that’s incredibly rare.

I’m a bit unsettled by this admission. It’s much too soon. But in other ways, it’s a welcome change. To be pursued. Prior to dating Don and Tina, I had pursued a series of basically monogamous people, with painful results.

Even with Don and Tina, I always feel like the clingy one, the initator. They set a lot of emotional limits on our relationships with one another. And identify polycurious.

I’ve grown sick of being a salesperson for polyamory.

But with Rob, I’m being wooed for the very first time since I opened up my own marriage.

Rather than running screaming in the other direction (as perhaps I should have done), I start to consider Rob a possibility.

This feeling only intensifies when he talks about how much he loves his wife Michelle. And tells me stories of their life together. They’ve been polyamorous for 8 years, together longer than that.

It hasn’t always been easy, but she’s incredibly important to him.

I find his love for her attractive. It’s good to know he values someone so much who is close to him.

When he talks about how positive polyamory has been as an experience for them, it doesn’t quite square with what Tina has told me. But I quiet my suspicion and continue to foster an interest in him.

*

Over time, Rob and I switch to the phone and start to call each other every day. I love his voice.

And as we continue to learn more about each other, we start having phone sex. Really good phone sex. It’s welcome, since my husband Seth always found the act goofy, and it’s been years since I had anybody to do it with.

One night, Rob calls me on the phone after Michelle leaves for the library. We’re just chitchatting. Not even having phone sex per se yet. Suddenly, he sounds stressed.

“I have to go. I’ll talk to you online,” Rob says.

He doesn’t even wait for me to respond. He just hangs up.

I hear nothing for 2 hours (and what a miserable wait), and then Rob pops online to tell me that Michelle had come home early from the library to find him with his pants undone while talking to someone on the phone.

“I offered to delete your contact info and block you,” he tells me. “But luckily, she said that wouldn’t be necessary.”

I sit there staring at the computer screen, gutted.

Stunned by how casually he is willing to cast me out of his life at the slightest resistance from his wife.

And unimpressed by how badly they seem to handle basic poly issues for a couple that’s been at this for 8 years.

My own marriage has only been open a year, and I can’t imagine my husband Seth and I handling things this way.

*

It always felt like an affair.

And in hindsight, that should have told me something. “She doesn’t have to know how serious we are yet. She just wouldn’t understand.”

I thought it was romantic that he would lie to her by omission. That we’d have little secrets that only the two of us would know. I thought they were harmless and bred intimacy. He’d tell me when he’d screwed up and bummed a cigarette, knowing I wouldn’t yell at him, only encourage him to do better. Adding, “Don’t tell her. She’d freak.” It made me proud. I was chill. I could handle the fact that he was imperfect. In reality, it should have made me nervous. Very nervous.

I became addicted to his confidence. To this feeling that he could tell me things he couldn’t bear to reveal to her. Over time, I felt his loyalties shifting, subtly, then explicitly. “Tell no one this, but if I’d met you when I was dating her, I would have dumped her and gotten with you instead. You’re the kind of woman I wish I’d married.”

I knew they’d become poly in the first place because the two of them kept cheating on each other, that all of their extramarital relationships had been full of dishonesty. That her ex-boyfriend of 4 years was married, and that the metamour, her ex-boyfriend’s wife, never knew. That Rob had slept with another woman the week before he and Michelle were married and didn’t let Michelle know for a few years after the fact. That he had broken rules with exes like “don’t fuck in our bed” and “let me know beforehand.”

It was arrogance to think I could be anything but part of the pattern of behavior, that somehow I could break the cycle through love, support, and my own efforts at ethical communication.

*

It got a lot worse before it got better. I tell the full story of what happened with Rob and Michelle in my book Poly Land: My Brutally Honest Adventures in Polyamory (https://www.amazon.com/Poly-Land-Brutally-Adventures-Polyamory-ebook/dp/B0719VNFZF/).

But I did learn a lot of lessons through Rob and Michelle. Here are just a few:

Pay close attention to how a lover speaks about their other partner. And whether or not they’re honest to them. It’s a great indicator of how they’ll treat you, too.

Just because someone has been polyamorous longer than you have, it doesn’t mean that they’re better at managing relationships.

When communicating, do not assume the other person has understood you. Dig. Confirm. If something seems a bit off, don’t bridge the distance in your brain. Challenge it.

Whenever possible, do not rely on a third party’s assurance that someone else will be fine with an agreement. Speak directly to the source. If you neglect this step, it is at your peril. It is hard enough to ensure you’re being understood when communicating directly with someone else. When you’re playing telephone with a third party in the middle? Holy monkeys.

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Cautionary Poly: Teachable Moments in Polyamorous Relationships is a special feature of Poly Role Models. The goal of this feature is to highlight the fact that successful polyamory isn’t always free of mistakes…and those mistakes can definitely be gained from. Now accepting submissions. If you’ve got a story to share please post it here or email me at PolyRoleModels@gmail.com.

This is why I prefer Kitchen Table Poly. My partners don’t have to be texting each other constantly, but I appreciate being able to sit at a table, eat something, and just talk like normal people. Being able to do that, even if it’s a rarity, means the world to me.

Thoughts on Vacation

I’ve been in Minnesota ever since the 15th. I won’t be coming back to Texas until the 1st. In the midst of all the travel, the anxiety over little things like meeting my love’s family and friends, and fitting myself into his world, there is love and tenderness and beauty. A sweet, warming balance to be found in the tangle of multiplicity.

I’ve made it my mission this trip to spoil my sweet elskede as far as my Sir-given budget allows. To improve where I can, and create good memories where I cannot. To make quality time, and to just SPEND time. To replace the worn out, to offer the never-had, and make a gift of my presence. In return, he’s been spoiling me as well. Allowing me in, opening his space and his life to me, inviting me deeper into his world. It’s been an awakening of sorts, and a homecoming as well. Where love is, I am Home.

Today, though, after two days riot and ramble in Minneapolis and a week of workdays and one sweet weekend… my beloved boyfriend is having a rough day at work. He can’t come home early of course, and I can’t really go to him either. So all I can do is prepare the way with dinner and a clean space, and wait to soothe and appreciate him when he comes home, because this is where I am present right now.

Meanwhile, back in Texas, Sir is having a good day. We teased and flirted as we do, my beautiful, ever-loving Sadist, and He asked me to be ready to prepare something for a Cultural Potluck at His work when I return home again. I made some suggestions, He made His pick of them, and so we are decided. But, at this distance and for another week away… I want to do something special for Him as well. And so He responded with love and pride when I told Him I wanted to spoil Him with something new He’s been wanting. Received my offer with joy and pleasure, and still. And still, He told me to go ahead and spoil my boy first instead of waiting for Him to choose.

Sweetness and happiness in my presence, anticipation and joy to come in my absence.

For all its complications and the snarl of its existence, my life has expanded, not contracted. I am so, so terribly blessed to have these men in my life. To be offered such precious delight in my presence after so many months apart, and delight and pleasure in my service…. even at a distance.
For all I sometimes feel as though I am caught between two sides of a dual nature, today I find myself in harmony and balance, and it is beautiful.

Blessed, and Twice-Blessed, and healing from the wounds of my past. Time, care, compassion, dedication, and service make it so.
Where there is Love, there I am Home.

Blessed Solstice, my friends.

house-of-crows:

Hey newbs! Welcome to whatever fucking cluster fuck the fuck this is…..

I don’t know, the last 100+ followers don’t know, and my fandoms are weird and varied. Basic run down:

I’m the Greywalker; a Dreamworker and Pagan; personal pantheon + The Morrigan. Specifically Morrigan, Badb, and potentially another. Also maybe Cailleach.

Polyamorous; my Sir is @almightyalmighty, my boyfriend is @gladiatoroftheorists; both are incredible for different reasons. I submit to my Sir, and I play Butch to Ry, when we’re not engaged in weird switch-y non-D/s shenanigans.

I’m a gender-weird Trans Male; transmasculine drag queen. deal with it. die mad about it. No, that doesn’t make me a bioqueen, yes, I’ve got some issues w/ bio queens. {Go ahead and ask if you want a rant, but keep in mind my personal opinions have no bearing on the actions of others. do you, have fun. over there.}

I’m In Transition, no longer Pre-Everything. I’m in recovery for a hysterectomy after a really terrifying cancer scare. Thankfully, it was all high-level pre-cancerous cells, which means post-hysto, my spread risk is basically zero unless I contract HPV. Pap smears for life, basically, barring a few circumstances.

I’m a non-vegan; iron processing doesn’t work the same, eggs make me nauseous, lactose intolerant, B12 supplements make me sick. Deal.

I’m a Pseudo-Leatherboy. Boot black, leather worker, boot licker. Earned my harness just before Pride last summer; 2017. Leather History Is Gay History. Gay History Is Leather History. If you can’t acknowledge where roots are tangled, you probably shouldn’t be here.

I’m kinky af. I don’t post porn here generally speaking, but I DO write about scenes. I’m NOT and NEVER WILL BE SSC. Risk Aware Consensual Kink, or Personally Responsible Informed Consensual Kink ONLY. That means what I do isn’t particularly safe, it’s not particularly sane, but I and my Partner[s] have done independent research and come to our own conclusions about our acceptable circle of risk. I play with my PTSD, I engage with my demons, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. It’s not for everyone, and def not for people who’ve only read a few online journals. Do your research, BE INFORMED, or get out of the pool. This is risky shit. Retraumatization is A Thing, and so is requiring therapy for life if something gets fucked up. I’m personally ok with that, most people aren’t. That’s where PRICK meets BORK: Balls Out Risky Kink. I get off on that, but I’m also probably not particularly sane when it comes to the dungeon. Deal.

I’ve got a lot of religious, relationship, and and interpersonal baggage. I do my best not to use that as an excuse; and to keep my explanations of behavior just that. Sometimes that doesn’t work. Sometimes shit gets messy, and emotions aren’t fucking logical. I own my shit as my own shit, and I suggest you do the same if we’re gonna share a playground.

Common Tags Include: Greywalker, Dreaming, Adult Relationships Are For Adults, Use Your Words, Gay History Is Leather History, Leather History Is Gay History, Haven Being Haven, *LOUD MIDWESTERN LAUGHTER* and various and sundry others I can’t be arsed to write out. You’ll figure it out eventually.

The ask box is open, so is messenger. Please be a decent human being and don’t ping me after 12a Central… don’t need my phone going off while I’m trying to sleep and recover from missing organs somewhere in my abdomen, friends. Thanks.

I post in #post op adventures, and I’m back in the gym working on my post-op weight. I’m also really really against ED blogs interacting with me, because I’ve Been There Done That and avoiding relapse is hard af when you’re actively trying to lose weight~ Disordered thinking is a bitch and a half, but I’m working on changing my general attitude from bitterness and rage to celebrating all the ways my life is EPIC~

Why concentrate on how my life prior to 2015/2016 was shit, when everything SINCE THEN has been fucking incredible?? I’ve got real friends who support me, two partners who adore me, and a super comfy lifestyle that, while in no way perfect, is MILES from where I started out in 2010/2011.

funereal-disease:

isaacsapphire:

barren-and-trivial-words:

I know a lot of my active hostility towards polyamory is born of bitterness and resentment, but like, even if I put that aside I still don’t get the appeal. Dating sucks, why would you wanna keep doing it after you get a partner?

Eh, some people (read: those who do well on the dating market) enjoy the process and are neophiles, or find it to suck less if there’s less pressure. Also, some people have given up hope of getting everything they want/need in one partner, basically this old joke, but too lazy/moral/poor to not tell them the others exist, plus extra bonus possible threesomes, which was pretty much my thing when I was poly.

I know very few poly people who “date” in the sense of explicitly seeking other partners, probably because OP is correct that it does indeed suck. For me, and for most of my friends, it’s about having the *option* to pursue romantic relationships should the opportunity arise. We’re not getting drinks with Tinder randos every weekend; we’re just not gonna say no to chemistry if it shows itself.

(Until pretty recently, I had had no interest in anyone other than my fiancé for quite a long time. I still identified as poly, because I wasn’t *against* the idea of meeting someone – I was just very Over the whole dating scene. And then I, uh, fell in love with a longtime acquaintance and now he’s my boyfriend, so there’s that.)

Well, I’m about to get personal~ Here’s your warning. So.

I was forced into monogamy by my husband; he shut down four other relationships systematically and without remorse; and I lived five years like that because tbh I was trapped. And then after a lot of other bullshit that killed that relationship even though I couldn’t financially LEAVE, I met my current Partner.

We were functionally monogamous for about a year and a half, just due to my abandonment issues and a lot of other crap. It wasn’t healthy to bring other people into that relationship. But, over time and with another very kind and considerate couple, we at least figured out enough of my stability issues to move forwards.

The opportunity arose to reconnect with one of my “exes” that my ex-husband forced from my life and, since we parted under duress and had BOTH made strides in becoming more complete, mature adults than when we parted… with the consent of my Partner and some mutual discussions, we got back together.

The caring for him didn’t ever really go away. It was sublimated sure, and I tried really hard to just be friends with him and not cross lines. And we didn’t. But the chemistry and attraction was pretty undeniable, and it got to a point where we either said something, or had to stop being friends to keep from crossing those lines. I don’t like “The Dating Scene” either. I hate loud noises and strangers, so clubbing is out if I’m alone, I can’t get drunk on my own because so many reasons so the bar scene is out, and tbph, I’m transgender. So just using Tindr or some other app is BOUND to end poorly. {It’s always chasers, “just wanna experiment-ers” or assholes. And some of the assholes are murderous~}

Dating doesn’t hold appeal for me. But not demanding that one partner be the be-all end-all of my romantic entanglement is very stress relieving, for all of us. My Partner doesn’t feel the need to be overly sappy and poetic; very against His nature; and my boyfriend doesn’t feel the need to provide for my transition and make sure I’m looked after financially. In fact, our roles are functionally reversed. My Partner looks after me and makes sure I’m looked-after, and I get to serve the same function for my boyfriend. It exercises two sides of my nature that I couldn’t engage with any other way, while simultaneously providing fulfilling relationships to two people.

It’s very soothing, really, to know that the Man I sleep with at night knows and encourages me to get my Romantic needs taken care of elsewhere. That He’s content to cuddle and love me, and to roll over and sleep while I go have a nice long video chat with my boyfriend; and even to send me up to see him so we can be Gay Romantics together.

I tend to be poly-saturated at three partners. There is no time left for anything but maintaining those relationships, though. No room for emergencies, time to myself, or really ANYTHING but putting out emotional fires and scrambling around. I’m most comfortable with just two. It feels balanced, harmonious. Some part of that would be at war with another relationship if I tried to add anyone different, BUT. If one of my loves decided that THEY would like to date; particularly my Partner let’s be real; I wouldn’t mind seeing them casually. But the big, overblown, Romantic declarations and what feels like Life-Love and not just another few-year fling, no. That belongs to my Partner and my boyfriend.