I am such a virgo. I like to categorize things. I like fitting people into neat little packages. It’s my thing. Well, sort of. I don’t want to put them into a box as to who they are as a person, but I like to see how they relate to me pretty clearly. As I am currently in the process of starting to date again (what in the hell am I thinking?!) I am getting to revisit a lot of my views on what I want and what I am looking for.
I think there is basically a spectrum for how to date. It goes from people who would like to only have one relationship in their entire life and will turn down dates with people who are very likely to not be suitable. These people are very conservative especially in who they will have sex with and won’t give it up until marriage. Then there are those of us who are more into the shotgun approach. We shoot off a load and figure it will hit something. People in this camp can be looking for the “one” or looking for any number of partners who fit in some way or another. I’m more towards the end of looking for a particular person. My wants are so complicated and multi-faceted though.
This leads me to all sorts of thoughts about what “casual” means. Many of the people I am thinking about/starting to date are poly. This is true for several reasons, not the least of which is: that is my main hunting pool. The public sex-positive community is not exactly a breeding ground for monogamous types. And I’m skirting that fuzzy edge of monogamy/poly anyway. So I’m getting involved with people in some fashion or another and I’m trying to set up my expectations and theirs in a fair and reasonable manner. However, I will NOT give anyone “the speech”. My ex’s famous line: “I am looking for the one; the one I will settle down with and have kids with and you will never be it.” I am not that big of a bitch. It is a fuzzy and difficult line to walk though.
I’m not sure where the line of “casual” begins and end. Is kissing casual? Is fondling? Is getting spanked? Is tying someone up? Is fucking? Is anal sex? What about blow jobs? What about golden showers? Submission? What about calling someone Daddy? Where is the line? I want all of these things in my life. I don’t know how “casual” I want to be about any of them but I also don’t know how serious I want to be about them.
Long ago I asked the question: can a girl have more than one Daddy? I think that with where I am right now, what matters is that I am mommy and daddy and little girl all to myself. If I choose to call someone else by any of those names it is just an extension of my loving and taking care of myself in those ways. That means that someone can be my Daddy for a night or a week and have that be all that it is. There can be more than one Daddy in my life because ultimately they are just operating as part of what I need and what I am doing for myself.
Where am I? I am to a place where I am hunting for more knowledge about myself. I am hunting for more ways to pleasure myself and figure out what I need. I am an exhibitionist and this hunt for myself involves other people. I don’t know if/when it will include someone who will be my One. I probably am not ready for that jump yet. I think that for me, the need to be “single” is not about staying home or not having sex. I think it is about knowing that I have to be the one taking care of myself and not asking anyone else for those accomodations.
You can define “casual” in two ways: one, some sort of physical interaction is casual if it’s entered into with no expectation of repeating it in the future. Two, a physical interaction is “casual” if there’s no significant change in one’s emotional state towards the other person as a result of te interaction.
Casual can refer to either physical or mental/emotional. It’s a fine line with some of the bdsm stuff, since part of what you enjoy about it comes from the mental side of it, as well as the physical.
A good first step might be sorting out how far you can go without feeling like you’re committing yourself mentally to a situation. Can you role-play, or are you forever a method actor, losing yourself in your role, becoming the little girl, as opposed to just acting like one?
Casual to me is about the level of commitment and time that you’re willing to spend on something. I can imagine how a couple of minutes of making out can be more meaningful and dangerous than an evening of safer sex.
One of the tenets of polyamory is that “sex” is different than “love”. But folding that into “real life” has been a challenge for many, many people, all throughout history, and it’s not any easier for most people nowadays. So if you’re feeling like you’re not getting it, you’re also not alone.
casual
It wouldn’t even occur to me to delineate “casual” based on physical/sexual acts like that. I can be casual with people I fuck and tie up and get tied up by and so on. And very much not casual with people I never have any sex with – I’ve had Relationships(TM) that involved no touching of genitals through the whole relationship, and at least one of them was rather intense.
Re: casual
Agreed… I’m in one currently, myself. Capital letter, not casual, but no squishy bits…
Re: casual
Well, for me it is not a Relationship if there is not sex. It is a very close friendship. I have friends who are far closer to me than most of the people I sleep with, but that doesn’t put them in the partner category for me.
Re: casual
So sex doesn’t play a role in determining whether your friendships are “causal” or not, it’s part of whether they’re “friendship” or “dating”. Dating always includes some kind of sex, okay. But is it the sex that determines for you whether or not that dating is “casual”? Or, does it always directly follow in some form from whether or not the dating is “casual”?
(certainly “close friendships” aren’t “casual” either, sex or no sex)
Re: casual
Some of the reading that I have been doing about being an ACA (adult child of an alcoholic) there is some stuff about sex and intimacy not being the same thing. One does not convey the other and recognizing that is important. I know that for me I have had trouble understanding when one is appropriate and the other is not.
I think I get your point though. Whether or not a friendship is casual has nothing to do with sex so why is that the dividing line for other kinds of relationships. I’m still going to have trouble telling the difference between casual relationships and not-so-casual…
Sounds like a super perspective to me.