I am no longer on the verge of bursting into tears.  I’m going to call this progress.  I am thinking really hard about whether or not this casual sex thing is a good idea.  I have been uhm, ridiculously dramatic after doing so.  The first time I didn’t get upset until he showed up and started chit chatting with my kids.  I think I was fine before that.  I got upset with the more recent event because I’m not good enough in the moment at saying, “Hey you know how I used to let guys nearly kill me during sex because I thought it was hot? I no longer things that’s a good idea.”  That’s my fault.  In talking to him afterwards it sounds like he’s not thrilled with me because I kept my mouth shut.  He’d like to sleep together again.  I can’t handle it physically.

I think I feel guilty that I am not interested in now trying to meet all of his needs forever and ever amen.  My stupid little competitive, “I want to be the best fuck ever” tends to mean that people ask to do it again.  I’m sometimes really bad at holding my boundaries during sex.  I go along with whatever feels good in the moment and I ignore that little voice in the back of my head that reminds me I won’t enjoy it later.  I think that I have also forgotten how to watch some of my physical boundaries because it has been a long time since I’ve done pain play with anyone but Noah, not like that.

I feel responsible for not having a perfect, only good, time with my friend.  I feel like I didn’t hold up my end of being a sexually adventurous girl.  I feel like I am obviously an unstable loser who should never do that again.  But if he hadn’t spent so much time choking me until I had problems nursing my daughter I don’t think I would have been upset at all.  No really, I consider a cheese grater to the perineum to be the price of admission.

I’m taking responsibility for too much, again.  I should have communicated better, but I was not telegraphing that I was having fun when he choked me.  And the push that did the damage was later in the sex play.  I hate Monday morning quarterbacking.  How else can I find a way to be mad at myself for my actions?

Maybe I should start stating up front that I’m not interested in being choked.  I know I’m hot when I’m choking and all, but uhhh I don’t care.  Not my kink.  I find I am inordinately fond of breathing these days.  When I used to date Tom he had a standard line, “Breathing is optional.  My option.”  Before he put something over my face that wouldn’t allow me to breathe.  Being choked is not new.

I kind of wonder if I’m just hitting the brick wall where my psyche is fucking done with everyone choking me.  I swear to god everyone wants to choke me.  It gets old.  It makes me angry.  It makes me sad.  It makes me feel like just about everyone would rather fuck my corpse than me.  Ugh.  I’m not betraying the cause of slut-dom if I have learning experiences that are less than perfect.  Heck, sex with Noah isn’t perfectly consistent.

I feel like this is too much work.  I’m going to need to stop actively hunting for a while.  And I’m feeling afraid of following through again.  I’m afraid that even if I express my boundaries firmly, they will be ignored.  Because apparently I am mostly attracted to men who have little respect for my boundaries.  They think I will either stand on top of them with a 2×4 at all times beating them away… or it doesn’t count as a boundary incursion.  If I don’t stand at the front door and tell you to get the fuck away from my house, you haven’t broken a boundary.  If I don’t physically have a chastity belt on, I should tolerate uncovered genital rubbing even though the guy likes to brag about how many women he has knocked up when I am desperately afraid of the fact that my midwife told me another kid may well kill me.  Obviously these are all my issues.

I pick these guys, so maybe they are all my issues.  They are awesome guys, until they don’t like being told no.  Then they just haven’t heard it.  It’s not their fault.  They are still being nice.  They didn’t know it was a boundary.  Or they didn’t know it was that important.  I was told recently, “God.  It’s not like I would have actually fucked you without a condom.  I had more condoms, obviously.”  That you were repeatedly telling me you didn’t want to use because you got these as freebies and most of them were too small therefore uncomfortable, and man couldn’t I just let you get one off without.  Maybe in my ass.  Even though the hemorrhoids are such that I’m not having anal sex with anyone.

I’m feeling kind of upset by the idea that I did something wrong.  I’m the only one accusing me of doing anything wrong.  It still upsets me.  I feel like it is my fault if sex doesn’t work out perfectly.  I feel like obviously *I* failed the experience.  If I had better stated my boundaries (maybe the right answer was to not mention my actual limits to a guy who says, “Anything you tell me not to do is at the top of my to do list.”) if I had just said, “You know… I think I should only have sex with men who respect me.”  But what does respecting me mean?  It seems to alternate between meaning that men are going to be too nice to me, so no sex, or that I only have sex with my husband.  Monogamy has undeniable appeal.  If only I weren’t so bad at it.

I go through many year periods when no one hits my radar.  Usually around the time I start to feel really like I shouldn’t sleep with anyone else anymore… all of a sudden I feel like I will lose my mind if I don’t find someone to sleep with.  It’s this weird compulsion.  I start to feel like I am out of practice and losing my touch for pick up sex so I should have more of it and get past the awkward stage again.  I’m not sure why I have picked this as a skill I must have, but I have.

Heh.  Why do I feel like I have to have sex with people?  Stupid question.  But it’s not stupid to wonder what to do about it.  I’m not sure.  I don’t know.  I don’t know who is safe to have sex with.  I’m not even sure what safe means.

In casual pickups what I want is: rigorously willing to listen to directions and believe me when I say I have a boundary.  I generally have boundaries where I do because I have spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out where I get triggered and avoid that problem.  I know a lot of my triggers.  I try to spare other people the pain of dealing with them.  Really, folks should believe me when I say not to do something.  I’m not wishy washy.  Not really.  Even if you can get that boundary incursion in because I’m feeling guilty about being such a bitch (that’s how I feel about myself for having limits) I will eventually come back with fury.  Because you found me in a weak moment and pushed.  That means you are no longer safe to be around at all.  I can’t have weak moments in front of you.  And that makes me so very angry.

I’m done with being lied to.  I’m also very amused that all of the guys I think of as assholes hotly deny that they are.  This feels relevant.  Seriously?  You don’t think you are a total dick?  Wow.  That says a lot about how you think human beings deserve to be treated.  I’m bailing.

Surely there are men out there who both have casual sex and are not raging assholes.  I just don’t know where.  Or how to attract them.  Maybe I’m too crazy for them.  I worry about that.  I worry about maybe I just only attract assholes because only an asshole would want to sleep with me.  This life business is complicated.  I don’t actually want to be monogamous just because everyone else I sleep with treats me suboptimally.  I want to be monogamous if that is what I want.  Not because otherwise I’m mistreated.  I want to stop being mistreated.  And I want to sleep with other people.  How the fuck do I accomplish that?