Attention! This is my shit! I’m not blaming this on anyone else! That said…
I showed up in the bdsm community almost 9 years ago. In that time I have been mostly monogamous (I still think that “girls don’t count” is not the same thing as monogamy), monogamous for a brief period under duress, polyamorous, and slutty. Even during the monogamous period play with other people was never completely forbidden. It was limited, but it happened anyway. Throughout basically all of this period knowing that my partner wanted to have sex and/or play with other people has been really really awful for me. If I added up all the time I have spent crying and feeling like I am not enough I would probably be able to point at months and months of my life that I can’t get back. Why? Why do I keep doing this?
I have always felt that if you are going to be part of “the scene” then that entails certain behaviors: namely, that you aren’t really actually completely monogamous. I’m not sure I have ever known a couple who really and truly had no contact with other people. Maybe my memory is being fuzzy. I know a lot of “mostly monogamous” or “polyplayful” people, but that is still allowing a lot of fuzzy borders. The fuzzy borders are really hard for me.
At this point I have reached the conclusion that I continue to play with other people and engage in that kind of contact because that is one of the primary ways I get people to like me. I kind of wonder if part of the reason I have “phased out” as a bottom in the view of most of the community is because I’m not an easy bottom to play with so I assume people don’t want to bother with me and I don’t ask. It’s really easy to stay popular and liked if you are a good top though, and I am. I feel like I do a lot of it because I want people to like me. That may actually be why I’m ok telling guys that I don’t want to top them and not girls. I’m more confident that guys will like me anyway without me having to do as much for them but girls seem like I have to earn their liking me.
I’ve always liked fantasizing about doing things with lots of people. It’s a mainstay of my masturbatory life (ha! There’s TMI for you.) but when I actually do it I don’t tend to get as much out of it. When I am single and playing with lots of people I believe that I end up with a mostly neutral reaction after playing–it’s fun, but there isn’t much that impacts me positively or negatively long-term. When I’m in a relationship I feel massive guilt and ambivalence for a while to come. Opening up my relationship with Tom to include sex with other people was really hard for me. At that point I think the increased amount of sex was something that was a beneficial thing because I desperately needed that chemical fix, but I felt guilty. I felt like I was betraying him. I think the fact that we had frankly discussed before that point that the relationship wasn’t likely to be “forever” was the only reason I could do it. I was already starting to pull away from him and from the relationship. I still don’t know if that was really a good thing to do or not, but I really wasn’t ready to just walk away that early. Seeing as the last six months were actually pretty good overall I feel like I didn’t do anything too awful. I don’t know if he agrees or not and he probably won’t tell me. 🙂
But anyway. So I like to think about doing things with other people–that doesn’t lead to guilt or feeling bad. But when I actually follow through I tend to feel varying degrees of bad. I played with two different women at TNGcon. One of them did a little bit of decorative bondage on me–that wasn’t too bad for lingering guilt. It was mellow and emotionally distant so I didn’t internalize much. With the other chica I tied her to a chair and was fully intending on just punching/hitting her but she made it very clear she wanted sexual play. So I ended up fisting her. I’ve had a hard time with that. I’m not angry with her or blaming her or saying anything bad about her. I’ve had a hard time with knowing that I did that. I’ve struggled with whether it counts as sex given that I didn’t really want to have sex with her. I did it because she wanted me to and not really because that was something I was jonesing for doing.
But I came home and bragged about it. I know. On one hand I was glad that I got to feel like someone wanted me and I really like the feeling that someone wants me. I don’t get that same kind of “oooooh he/she likes me!” from a steady partner. But I also have felt pretty uncomfortable with having done it. Longer term I’ve realized it was a bad decision. I have tried so hard for so long to maintain my identity of being a sexual outlaw that I think I do things just to maintain that identity that I don’t actually want to do. It is important to me to be the kind of person who does outrageous things so I don’t pay attention to how I feel when I do them. Cause you know what–I tend to feel like crap. I don’t talk about that part much though. I rarely even do a good job of identifying to myself what I’m feeling. But it’s there.
Then we get to my partners playing with other people. I can’t count the number of nights I have sobbed through when Tom or Noah have been out with other people. Hell, there were a few dates where I was off with Erik for the weekend and Noah was on a date when I would sneak off to the bathroom and cry because Noah was on a date and that made me feel awful. How is that for lame? (This isn’t to say that my relationship with Erik wasn’t good–it was. I’m glad I dated him. I’m even more glad we are friends now. He’s a great guy.) But I massively do that “primary” bonding thing. I have never really been able to split loyalties well. Whoever I’m ‘with’ as my primary is the one I am focused on. I have tried pretty hard to split that and I suck at it. I feel bad. I feel like I am hurting everyone involved even when they are all pretty cheerful about the split. (I don’t think it would have been possible to date two guys at once who are more mellow than Noah and Erik and have them still have a pulse.) Does this mean that I have never loved more than one person at a time? No. I certainly have, but I don’t split focus well without feeling horrible and terrible about it. There is at least one person out there in the cosmos who I love pretty madly but I’ve never really been able to make a relationship work there and I’ve given up trying. It’s ok. The friendship is still good.
I don’t know how to not feel terrible about my partners playing with other people. This has been an issue with Tom, Noah, James, and Puppy. Much less of an issue with James or Puppy–but there were still bad spells with them. This play can be but doesn’t have to be sexual. I mean, Tom usually tied people up with all their clothes on and never even kissed them–I still felt awful. He wasn’t doing anything threatening to our relationship in the slightest and he was certainly not breaking rules. Noah has done everything possible to earn my trust and I still feel like him going off with other people for platonic bondage practice is hugely invalidating to me and our relationship. (This is complicated by my own body limitations and issues at the moment.) I’ve given him permission to do it though. I encouraged it. I even suggested it. Why? Because that is “what I should do.” I’m big on doing what I should do even when I hate it and it makes me feel like shit.
Despite the fact that I am “not a real masochist” I think I like doing the things I “should do” that will make me feel terrible. The fact that I feel so bad about doing the things I think I should do validates my overall shitty opinion of myself. I shouldn’t be so upset. I shouldn’t feel possessive. I shouldn’t feel jealous. But I am. And I do. And I do. So I sit and I cry. And I don’t place many limits on my partners even though I would kind of like to. I feel like if I issue an ultimatum then I deserve to lose. If my partners wanted me enough, if I were enough, then they just wouldn’t want to go play with other people. Then I wouldn’t have to place limits. But I’m not enough and I have to accept that. And part of how I accept that is pretending that it’s all fine and I want to go play with other people too.
But I think I should stop. Other than in the realm of fantasy I don’t really want to play with other people. I feel bad about myself when I do. It’s time to be nicer to me and stop pushing me to do this.
Noah, after listening to me talk about some of this came to the conclusion that he should stop playing with other people. The problem is, now I feel like he is doing it under some sort of duress. I feel like he would really like to still do it. He’s pretty clear that being with me is much more important than any amount of play with other people, but I still don’t believe it. I’m scared. I’m scared to trust him that he is doing what he wants. I’m scared that if I do start to trust this and believe in it then down the road he will change his mind and that will hurt so much. If I hold on to the distrust now then I won’t be hurt as much later if he decides he does want it. Then I will get to be proven right that I should have shitty self-esteem because see–I’m not enough.
I don’t know how to win on this one.
Two things come to mind for me. The first is my own constant battle with being myself– not reactionary to what I dislike, but simply doing what I like. By-and-large, it helps me to focus on definitions- as long as I describe myself in a descriptive way (i.e. that explains what I do), I’m ok. When I start describing myself in a prescriptive way (i.e. that explains what I should be doing, or would like to be doing, or what I think other people think I should like doing…), I have to reign back and reexamine what I like and how I’m describing myself.
The second bit was the last bit of the last paragraph- A while back I was in a relationship that was, in many ways, great. A major problem was that she had been hurt by people in the past, and reacted by never quite trusting and never quite keeping the faith. As a result, if I did well she was surprised, which made me uncomfortable since I considered myself to be doing some minor thing. When I screwed up, she was OK with it because I was a screw up anyhow, and she’d learned a long time ago that men just weren’t ever going to be there for her. The result was that I constantly felt invalidated and that there was no point in trying to please her, since it wasn’t going to happen anyhow.
Needless to say, things didn’t last. This was by no means the only problem with the relationship, but it was in many ways the bit that robbed me of any desire to work for it.
I hope you can work through these things. We’ve known each other for several years now, and you’ve come an enormously long way. I have huge respect for you and your constant journey of self-realization, and it makes me very happy to see you building such a fantastic life and family.
That second paragraph of yours is really making me think.
Hah! Tangible proof that collateral damage isn’t always a bad thing! 😉
It’s not a win, lose situation hun. I think you’re already doing the work. Once again, I admire your ability to really dig in and do the analysis. Take care of you, you are getting better and better at it, and there’s nothing more important. Trust your man, he’s proven himself, and he loves you.
Keep communicating. Yeah dynamic duo, you’re really taking care of business, and that’s not always fun.
luvs to you
I have tried so hard for so long to maintain my identity of being a sexual outlaw that I think I do things just to maintain that identity that I don’t actually want to do. It is important to me to be the kind of person who does outrageous things so I don’t pay attention to how I feel when I do them.
I think this is why I got so weirded out by recently being called “sexually conservative” by a mutual friend who is, without doubt, WAAAAAY less sexually conservative in behavior than me. Because I believe that sexual radical is mostly defined by self-identity and not behavior; that the radical part is mostly in your head in how open you are to various ideas, not whether or not you decide that specific actions are a good idea for you or not. It’s pretty much the same argument as whether a stay-at-home-mom can be a feminist or not.
This rings so true with me. I have trouble even masturbating ’cause sex is -so- tied up with shame and guilt and a tug-of-war of different expectations of how I should behave. Gah.
I would say something in response to the first comment, but I shouldn’t.
Good on you for realizing that desires change. Self knowledge is one of the most admirable things.
It’s easy to say “you shouldn’t feel that way” or “you shouldn’t do things because you believe you ‘should'”, or “you need to think about why you think you ‘should’ do certain things”. Or even to say “jealousy is perfectly natural and normal, and it’s ok to feel jealous”.
It’s a lot harder to actually do those things, in a way which will do you any good. That’s what good therapists are for.
On the other hand, when the issue is that you’re doing something “because I should” rather than “because I want to”, it may be worthwhile to let laziness take over. Then you can feel bad about being lazy, instead of feeling bad for violating your beliefs/standards. If you then go and do something unrelated which you consider productive, you may not even feel bad about being lazy. Speaking of which, you’re busy building a baby right now, which is a *lot* of work. Really – just because you’re not moving around a lot or thinking hard about it doesn’t mean it’s not work.
There *are* some genuinely monogamous — not just sex-monogamous but play-monogamous — couples in the scene; you are at least casually acquainted with one that I could name (hint: they left the Bay Area a couple of years back and are now living up in the gold country). But most capital-M Monogamous people have no reason to be *in* the scene; you don’t know them because they’ve never been to the events you’ve been to.
Here are two things I can tell you: first, there’s nothing at all wrong with choosing monogamy as the most comfortable, functional agreement for your relationship for now — and it doesn’t have to be any more than “for now”; the nice thing about agreements is that when they stop working they can change. Second, even if you make an ironclad monogamy agreement, no sex, no bondage, no kissing, no nothing… you’ll still have these feelings. Noah will talk to another woman, or flirt with another woman, or look at another woman in a certain way, and you’ll feel the bottom drop out of your stomach. The outside play doesn’t “create” the jealousy — you create the jealousy and you’re the only one who can resolve it.
OK, I lied — there’s a third thing. There’s no such thing as “jealousy” — it’s a whole collection of emotions. One person’s jealousy is actually territoriality, another’s is fear of abandonment, another’s is competitiveness (that would be me), and so on — I think Dossie and I are up to seven or eight, and that’s without trying too hard. If you figure out what yours is, and start calling it by its right name, that’s a way of disempowering someone else’s actions and reclaiming your own power — it’s *your* emotion and you get to feel it and you get to figure out how to make it easier to tolerate.
OK, ‘nough ranting. Sorry, I should be writing all this into Slut instead of dumping it on you 😉
Oh, for the record…
Your comments usually come off as insightful and helpful and not like you are trying to tell me what to do. So I generally really appreciate them.
Otherwise–I’m thinking about the stuff you said and trying to synthesize more of my thoughts in response. 🙂
oh! oh!
an old, monogamous poophead here…
for years
(has it been years?)
i’ve noticed a pattern when i read your posts:
scene – feel like shit – scene – feel like shit – scene…
you get the idea.
i did some pretty horrendous things to myself
– over a long time –
that destroyed the basic me i once was.
and i suspect i’ve felt as low
and worthless
and awful
and weak
and filthy
as a person can
and still live.
i eventually figured out
it was impossible for me to feel good about myself
and still do those things.
as hard as it was
i was finally forced to admit to myself
that i lacked the psychological strength
or, perhaps, the ability to reframe what i was doing,
to hold my self-esteem
in the face of my own actions.
so…
i replaced the things that i felt hurt over
with things that i felt good over.
i still slide and end up feeling like shit.
sometimes i fuck up big time.
but things are better than they used to be.
i’m not suggesting you become a nun.
though the whole Habit thing looks pretty cool.
y’know…
like you, i think, i am cursed with a silly brain
that wants to understand Every Little Thing.
sometimes i have to tell it
“to cut it the fuck out.”
like you, i think, i am cursed with an ego
that acts as if it controls more than it does.
my mantra of the last couple of decades:
i do not control the actions of others
– the best i can do is control my own.
“for years
(has it been years?)
i’ve noticed a pattern when i read your posts:
scene – feel like shit – scene – feel like shit – scene…”
This made me really stop and think. Then go back searching through posts. I think there are a couple of things to this. The posts that are the most memorable are often the ones that are the longest/most in-depth and those tend to be the more introspective ones when I am upset or depressed. I found a lot of happy-post-play posts. I also think that I tend to write about play more often when I have an extreme emotional reaction.
Those caveats stated–you have a point. And I’m thinking about it a lot. I don’t believe that it is a constant thing, but I think there is a lot of correlation to how heavy the scene is (I’m also more likely to write after a really intense scene than a mild scene) and how strong my reaction is. I gravitate towards the heavy play in general and that skews a lot of what I write about as well. Hm.
I’m thinking about this. 🙂
once upon a time
my very smart therapist
told me to always remember this joke:
one guy sees another beating himself in the head with a hammer.
“Why the hell are you doing that?”
in mid-whack the other guy smiles and says
“because it feels so good when i stop.”
that’s me.
yep.
I don’t have anything super coherent to say except that I think it’s good to try out different things and see how they fit. You’ve tried the playing with other people thing and that hasn’t fit so well. At least right now. Maybe try not doing it and see if it’s a better fit.
Me… I kind of believe that different things are a better or worse fit during different times in my life.
It seems like you want to try the whole monogamy thing and the only reason you aren’t is fear of peer pressure.
But you know, the actual cool people only judge you on if you are making yourself happy or not.