Saynine

Reblog – Who Defines Your D/s?

The following is an excerpt from a fantastic new post from my submissive, @Winsome_Gypsy on who has a right to define the nature of your D/s (Dominant and submissive) relationship.

Recently I’ve seen people on multiple forums, including FetLife, Twitter, blogs, issuing proclamations regarding what qualifies a D/s relationship. How the D should manage the s. How the s should communicate with the D. Outright notices issued that if the s does not follow protocol 1, 2, and 3, they are not a true s. Declarations that a slave is better or more valuable than a submissive and that a switch is a joke.

To this, I have two things to say:

1. Get over yourself, and
2. Mind your own business.

My D/s relationship is defined solely by the D and the s directly involved in the relationship.

To read the rest of this great post on who has a right to define the nature of your D/s relationship click here.

Tags: BDSM, Dominant, Poly, Polyamory, submissive

Shiny Pretty Relationships

Driving home from a fun day in the city with my wife yesterday we had a fantastic conversation about polyamory, and our relationship. So often in our journey of poly and kink, these hour-plus trips home from San Francisco after a kink event have provided a great time to reconnect and talk. This time was no different and during this conversation some thoughts jelled for me that have been bouncing around in my head for a while regarding poly relationships.

Now I am aware that for some folks referencing “primary” and “secondary” relationships in polyamory creates a sort of subdivide that makes them uncomfortable, However for the purpose of this discussion I think this distinction is necessary. With my wife and myself, we have been together for over two decades. We have children and our relationship has endured trials that have put our commitment to the test. We are in a triad with someone who not only lives with us, but we love dearly.

For the purpose of this look at poly I am going to use my relationship with my wife as an example of a primary relationship, and secondary relationships are our semi-regular play partners and D/s relationships. But I think it would apply to any relationship that is comparatively newer, or separated by time and distance.

Among practitioners of polyamory and some kink, a term is used to describe the nature of the earliest portion of a relationship. This term is “New Relationship Energy” or NRE. Now more often than not I have heard this term used in a manner of derision, i.e. “Ugh, those two are like teenagers, but once that NRE fades it wont last”. Now I can be a hell of a cynic but even I find how common this sort of analysis occurs disturbing.

NRE is a real thing; it is that “I can’t wait to see you again” feeling of euphoria that is very common at the beginning of a relationship. This is the feeling that some folks seek so strongly that they never learn how to make a relationship of any kind last. I do not think that in itself makes NRE a bad thing. In fact I think it is something that can be celebrated. What is not OK is to allow this to overshadow your other relationships or cloud your judgment. I will confess that some of the biggest mistakes I have made in poly have been associated with letting myself get caught up in NRE.

But what has really been on my mind lately is the difference in the nature of who folks in secondary relationships see, compared to who our primary partners see.

We of course put our best face forward to those we are trying to woo, this is the very nature of humans. We constantly reinvent ourselves to the outside world. We show the parts of us we want to show, those parts that we believe will impress potential new partners. I don’t mean this is lying or deceit. It simply is what we do. What our new or secondary partners most often don’t see is us at our worst.

Our primary partners get to see us when we are sick, grumpy, depressed. They see us warts and all. And they love us. This in itself is beyond amazing, but they do. They also share many of the most difficult parts of our lives. If you have children with your partner then you have seen each other sleep deprived to the point of near insanity. You have had heated discussions about schools and discipline of your children. You have also possibly experienced financially difficulty at some point, and your primary partner was right there by your side. You’ve laughed with them, you’ve cried with them, and if you are me you have thrown up on them in a restaurant. Yet they still love us.

Now this is the part where I take an unexpected turn. And this is the conclusion my wife and reached on our drive home. All of these differences are a good thing. That is right! It neither detracts from the nature of primary relationships or secondary relationships. In fact this may be one of the fabulous things about polyamory. In the words of my wife “In some ways when I am with someone else, it is a vacation. I don’t have to be wife, or mother. I get to be fun and sexy in a completely different way.” Again, I want to reiterate, this is not deceitful, we are just able to shed some of the things that drag us down in the drudgery of life.

Of course as secondary relationships develop these lines become less and less defined. And it as this transition that as NRE fades and deeper bonds form that we can truly experiences the broader nature of a personal relationship. But don’t be in a hurry to discount the benefits of NRE and the benefits of separate relationships.

Tags: Date, New Relationship Energy, NRE, Poly, Polyamory, Primary, Relationship, Secondary, Sex

What About the Children

The countdown has begun. August is when @Ice_Empress is slated to make the move across the country to be with us. She will leave her home, job and family behind to start a life living near @Jewelgen and me. We could not bemore excited. We have all known for a long time that we have a future together, however it is very complicated to not only combine our lives to an extent , but for one person to uproot and start life again so far from home. Not the least of these complications is children.

Our situations with our children are very different yet they are a huge part of all of our lives. @Ice_Empress’ children are reaching adulthood and leaving home. She has been out to them and open with them about her lifestyle and joining us. They have been supportive, but she can’t help but wonder if their support is all about seeing Mom happy and not considering how it will affect them. But that is certainly the nature of good mothers. To always wonder if their children will be OK.

@Jewelgen and I, on the other hand have an entirely different situation. While my oldest daughter is grown and lives on her own, our two younger children are teens and live at home. None of our kids know about our lifestyle whether it be kinky or poly. This has prompted much discussion between the two of us. How much to tell each of them and when.

Each of our Kids are individuals and each will require different handling, They know our friend is moving out from Florida and that we are close to her but that is the extent of it. I would prefer to come out to our daughters and explain about @Ice_empress. My oldest and I have gone through a lot together a long time ago and we have a special bond. She would not want many details but would understand, I believe. Our youngest daughter is 14, she is a free thinker and came out to us about her bi-sexuality over a year ago. I believe she will understand the most and will be accepting of us and our lover. The wildcard is our son, he is 16 and most likely will want a “don’t ask don’t tell” sort of arrangement. It is my thinking that preparing them for her arrival is the best way. I think no matter how careful we are, they are perceptive and will realize something is afoot.

@Jewelgen has a different idea and I have decided to defer this decision to her. She is their mother and rarely has wrong instincts about her children. It is her thought to let our kids get to know @Ice_Empress without the extra baggage of our relationship then once they know and love her as we know they will, introduce the full picture to them. Her thinking is that they may put up a wall to her in the mistaken belief that she is a threat to our relationship.

The simple fact is none of us do anything in a vacuum. Everything we do affects those around us. When we decided to alter the path of our relationship we never thought we would meet someone who would join us on our journey. Yet here we are nearly a year after a meeting with a wonderful woman that happened because of some flirting and the persistence of a certain Dom, deciding how our decisions will affect our children.

Tags: Children, Compersion, Family, Journey, Poly, Polyamory

Compersion, It’s What’s For Dinner

I sit here this morning watching the love of my life get ready for a breakfast date. She is getting ready to go have a meal with a friend, but it is more than that. She will be negotiating the next play date she will have with him. She will laugh at his jokes and touch him lightly on the arm, she will kiss him to greet him and make sure he has the view he has come to love, and when she catches him looking it will make her smile and feel sexy and desirable.

I sit here happy. I am happy that she will get to experience the rush of having someone treat her like a Queen. I am happy she will enjoy his company and conversation. But most of all I am happy that she knows I am happy for her.

When we first started exploring Polyamory I wondered if I would ever be able to bear knowing that someone else was making her feel good. Could I overcome jealousy enough to tolerate her being thrilled by the touch of another person? What I discovered with time was so much more than I expected. Not only could I tolerate it, but I could enjoy it, revel in it, and receive satisfaction from it.

What was this emotion I would feel when I would see her light up from someone else’s attention?

In the 1970’s and through the very early nineties there was a social experiment in San Francisco called the Kerista Commune. My understanding is that many social issues were tested; however the most interesting to me was Polyamory. The folks at Kerista coined a word; Compersion. The act of taking pleasure from knowing someone you love is receiving pleasure from another.

This is not cuckolding. In fact it is quite the opposite. Part of what makes this aspect of Poly so easy for me is knowing that it takes nothing away from me. That is right, I lose nothing. Jewelgen will not treat me with any less regard than before. She will return from her date genuinely happy to see me and with every bit as much desire as before.

We are brought up to believe that Love is an economy of subtraction. That if the person who loves me loves another love will be taken from me. This is not that case in a relationship that uses constant communication. In The Ethical Slut there was an illustration that really drove this home for Jewelgen and I. As a parent you do not love your first child any less when another is born. Your love is not a cup that can be drained when giving to more than one. This really put the idea of compersion in perspective for us.

Applying this to our D/s desires in making playdates was a whole new test of the idea of compersion to me. Jewelgen and I had been co-topping a submissive couple for a while and I had adjusted to the idea of her playing solo . . .  As a Domme. While Jewelgen and I are equals in every way for the partnership that is our marriage, but in Play our roles are me Dominating her. The idea of someone else Dominating her made me very uneasy.  We were playing the “What if” game on the way to San Francisco for a munch one weekend and Jewelgen broached the subject of her being dominated by someone else. I told her right away that this made me very uneasy and for now I would not be OK with it. Jewelgen said she understood and did not mention it again.

Over the next few days I did what I often do and ruminated over the conversation. I became more and more uncomfortable with my answer, and I knew why but I could not get past the idea of her submitting to another male and that bothered me even more. Why was it OK in my mind for her to submit to a female and not a male? This tormented me, I do not like feeling that I have old thoughts of sexual distinction between genders. However at that point I could not get past it and I trusted that Jewelgen was OK with my decision.

I was thinking over the state of our journey one day about a month later and could not escape the nagging feeling that I needed to work through my block against Jewelgen playing with a dominant male. So I broke it down. I worked through it like I usually do difficult things. I created a scenario in my head and played it like a movie, trying to fill in every detail as explicitly as possible and then looking for bad reactions on my part. It may sound odd but it can be a very effective way for me to find the root of negative feelings. I soon came to the conclusion that it was not the idea of her submitting to someone that bothered me, but the feeling of helplessness if something went badly for her. I have long enjoyed the position of protector, over my wife and children, and anyone else that would accept that from me. Jewelgen would be in a vulnerable situation that I could not control. That was it; I would be giving up control for her to look after herself. As soon as I realized this and accepted that she was very capable for looking after her own well being I was able to put my concerns to rest.

I told Jewelgen that I no longer had a problem with her submitting to a male partner and immediately I was filled with a delight that she would be able to experience this with someone else.

Tags: Compersion, Dominant, Poly, Polyamory

Polyamory; What If. . . .

After reading The Ethical slut and then passing it on to Jewelgen to read, we realized that at least in some form this idea, Polyamory, was something we had to consider for our own lives. On an intellectual level it made so much sense, but even more importantly that that we both could sense that it fit with what we believed about sex. That it did not have to be related to an emotional attachment. We also knew that as it related to our Kinky lives that moving into the area of other partners would greatly expand our ability to explore.

However, the question of how, and how much to implement into our lives loomed overhead. I think we both feared that our own ideas of where this could lead would frighten the other. So for a time we knew in our head that our future would include some sort of “Poly”, we did not move forward.

That was when we began a mental exercise or game that we call “What if”. We would each bring up scenarios that occurred to us and ask the other one, “What if _____ happened? How would that make you feel?” This discussion could occur at any time but most often happened in the car when driving together or in bed, late at night or on a weekend morning.

We initially agreed to some rules that were comfortable but with the understanding that everything could be discussed. We began to refer to Kink, and Poly as “Our Journey”. That was exactly how we thought of it, as a journey with no particular destination. We decide that for the time, all we were comfortable with was Co-play. That is introducing other partners to play with both of us at the same time. It was simultaneous to this that we were coming out to each other about our attraction to other genders, so this also became part of the “What if” game.

A typical conversation may go something like this;

Me: So what if we were playing with another man and he was going down on you but then sucked my cock?

Jewelgen: Well, you know I like that idea, but I don’t think I would be comfortable with seeing you suck cock.

“What ifs” could sometime be traded back and forth for hours like that, and through this exchange we came to trust that we had a fair idea of what the other found comfortable.

It was during a particularly full weekend of these discussions that Jewelgen came up with a brilliant way to expand the discussion and further address our internal feelings about knowing the other was with someone else. Even though neither of us was comfortable at these early stages with the other having solo intercourse with someone else, we acknowledged that this was a likely eventual outcome. Jewelgen suggested that we each take a day of perusing Fetlife and pick out a top 5 people of each male  and Female that we thought would be likely someone that the other would want to be with. This was an exploration on two levels. It would see how well we understood what the other found attractive and it would force us to think deeper about the idea of the other being with not only someone, but someone the other was very attracted to.

Of course Jewelgen was far better at this than I was but after 24 hours I had done a fair job of picking out some men and women that Jewelgen said she found attractive. A very interesting side note to this particular game is that even though the people we picked were not anyone we had ever had contact with, nor did we anticipate having contact with, and the lists we made we set aside on our desk somewhere. The number one Female that Jewelgen picked for me, and at the time admitted that she had picked because of how much she was attracted to, would through a completely unrelated series of events, become the one person we have opened our relationship to. That is right, almost a year before I would meet IceEmpress on Twitter and flirting would lead to her having dinner with us 3,000 miles from her home. IceEmpress was the person Jewelgen predicted I would find attractive. Of course she was right.

We have in Baby steps and Stutter steps moved far beyond those early stages of exploring Polyamory, however the “What if” game is still played and serves us well.

Tags: Games, Journey, Poly, Polyamory, Questions