Tag Archives: sex

{dirtier} and now about that party on Friday…

It went really well. We ended up in a fun little group of four girls and two boys. Probably the hardest part is that most of the group wanted to bottom. 🙂 One of the girls didn’t get much play because of that very problem and that was sucky. I’ve crystalized some of my thoughts on group sex. I’m going to expound about them after the cut. So here’s a cut. Continue reading

{dirtier} So we are going out…

On the 28th Noah and I will be going to the swingers party at Edges. I think it would be really really awesome if I knew people there. 🙂 I like seeing my friends have sex. It’s a little quirk I have. I’m teetering on the edge of making explicit “I would like to see more of ‘x’ at the party” comments so I’ll stop. 😀

Fucking sucks.

In general I don’t make posts that Noah can’t see. This is one of those times though. I feel like I’m going to puke. I’m so angsty and upset and freaked out. Noah has a date on Friday. When we originally started negotiating this it was stated as a “play date” and I come from the bdsm community where that frequently doesn’t include sex–that is my base assumption. But they are negotiating whether or not to use barriers on oral sex and he plans to fuck her.

I am so freaking out. My stomach is a ball of knots and I want to vomit. I hate this feeling. It doesn’t help that Shanna is having a hard day and I’m having a terrible time being patient with her. I was very open to the idea of playing but it snowballed so fast. We were supposed to have sex last night (yes we schedule these things) but I just couldn’t do it. The idea that he is anticipating and planning sex with someone else made me feel really revolted by the idea of him touching me. I don’t know how I am going to manage to have sex with him on Saturday at a play party when we’ve scheduled that.

This is so hard for me. I feel so completely inadequate and pathetic.

I’m doing at least some processing with him but it feels like a full dose of it wouldn’t be fair. This is the result of a lot of negotiation because it really sucks that he has to compromise on his needs so much.

But god I don’t have patience for Shanna right now and she’s been crying all day. AHHHHHHHHHH

Anxiety

I’ve been having a lot of anxiety lately. I feel anxious about all kinds of things. The comp exam, interactions with people, am I doing ‘enough’ in various ways, and of course my ever present internal push to be Mary Poppins. (People keep saying Martha Stewart and Hell No I think she is a wasteful twat.) I don’t keep my house clean enough. I feel confused by the barrage of information out there about health and diet and trying to be good to the planet. I feel confused by the myriad of different parenting philosophies. I feel like I am not being a good enough partner to Noah. I feel like I am not exercising enough. I feel like I must be doing Something Wrong as a parent. I don’t have any frame of reference for ‘normal’ for children so I have no idea if she is doing alright. (I think she is, but how in the hell would I know?) I alternate feeling kind of lonely and feeling like I am tired of dealing with people and it would be fine if I never saw anyone ever again. I feel frustrated by stupid interactions. I feel like I am being judged and found wanting in just about every way. I realized yesterday that my mother plans to come up here for Shanna’s first birthday party and she plans to fly to Oklahoma in July. How in the hell is she going to pay for that? Wait–is she going to expect me to? I am feeling a lot of pressure to save money and yet it seems like one of the easiest things I can do to help me not stress out all the time is spend money. (I think I’m fairly frugal but of course there are people out there who are more frugal so I feel like I am awful and terrible.) I have this problem of feeling like if I am not in the top 10% of (x) skill/ability/talent/whatever/activity then I am obviously pathetic and a loser.

That paragraph is hard to read. That’s how my brain looks right now though. I’ve never heard of postpartum anxiety but this doesn’t sound like postpartum depression. I’m not sad. I’m just anxious. I’m not happy with the fact that having a baby made it so that I don’t enjoy sex much. What the fuck happened? I enjoy the closeness and the intimate feeling, but it’s just not all that… exciting. I feel really fussy about having to be the one to initiate dates and sex when most of it is happening because it helps Noah stay cheerful. I understand that I have to be the one to initiate because I’m the one who can get Shanna to sleep most of the time, but still. I don’t feel sexy or interesting anymore. I gave a friend most of my ‘interesting’ clothes this weekend. I have weird feelings about that. On one hand I won’t be able to wear any of it for a long time (I’m too fat) but I feel like I just gave up on being interesting. I’m not worth looking at like that anymore. I’m completely de-sexed. I’m really thrilled that she is getting to enjoy the clothes though and I’m happy she is going out and having fun. So I get to feel like I’m a nice person for assisting her in fun and I get to feel like I’m just kind of pathetic and lame because I’m not having that kind of fun anymore. It’s a mixed bag.

So yeah. I feel like my brain is going close to a mile a minute lately and there isn’t much I can to do calm down and just feel content. My life is where I want it to be and that is hard. I’ve always been striving in the past and I don’t know how to stop doing that. I need to find my zen and just be happy in knowing that I accomplished (almost) everything I wanted to accomplish. It’s ok that my house isn’t perfectly clean–it doesn’t make me a bad person. Noah doesn’t care. I actually don’t care that much of the time. I worry about the hypothetical people out there who do care. I feel like they think I am pathetic because “You have all that time at home and your house is still dirty?!” It’s all about projecting stuff.

And I’m still freaking out about my therapist being dead. I wonder if that is part of the reason I have so much fuss bubbling to the top right now because I just found out that I can’t go process any of it with the person I process with. AHHHHHHHHHHHH

sex

This is something that I would normally filter to just people who have requested access to my sex life filter, but I don’t want to. Hell, I’m not even going to cut it if it gets long. That’s all the warning you get.

Sex isn’t working how it used to. Hell, it’s barely working at all. Yesterday we got the opportunity to have sex (yay for Miss Jenny!) and we got started in a way that was very consistent with our history of sex together. Namely: not much in the way of foreplay and lots of roughness. At very first it mostly worked and I had one ok-ish very weak orgasm. Then… it just stopped being interesting at all. It wasn’t about what Noah was or wasn’t doing, I just basically checked out. I think I heard some noise that sounded like Shanna so my brain switched off the “sex” part. Noah talked about transitioning into some other rough-ish sort of uhm activity and I get the impression that he could tell from my face that I wasn’t real gung-ho. I was willing enough, but not because I was enjoying the sex. See, I’ve gotten to the point where I am having sex because it makes Noah happy, not because I’m really enjoying the sex. I really want to enjoy the sex; I miss enjoying sex. Theoretically I want sex, I’m just not enjoying it in the moment. My masturbatory life is uhm on hiatus. I try to masturbate every so often and it usually doesn’t work out very well.

I think that a lot of this is because my perspective has changed so drastically. I’ve always been a stories person and the stories that used to get me hot I now think, “If someone did this to my daughter I would castrate them and end up in jail.” I get violently angry. I’m not really sure what to do about this. Other stories have just never been that interesting. My brain is so firmly locked in ‘mommy-mode’ that sex is absent.

Noah offered to stop and just cuddle. He’s awesome like that. He offered to stop pushing for sex and we won’t try again until I actually feel in the mood and want it. I think that is a bad idea. A lot of our overall dynamic is dependent upon him being a very tolerant, cheerful, happy guy and if he doesn’t have sex for a few months that wouldn’t be so true any more. I *need* that from him. As a result I consider it my price to pay that I need to keep having sex whether I’m “in the mood” or not. (It’s not like I actively don’t want to have sex–if that were true I wouldn’t. I’m just not into it.)

I don’t really know what to do right now. I asked him to tell me a funny, silly sex story and we got through sex ok. I didn’t really orgasm during sex again, but it was more fun. It also doesn’t help that my wiring is very different now. I’ve always been a penetration kind of girl. Now it’s… not doing it for me. I need a tremendous amount of external stimulation (it’s like I became a regular girl) and orgasm is far from assured. I feel sorta betrayed by my body actually. Sex was so easy for me and now it’s not. And I don’t have time for the work it would take to figure this out again.

I feel lost and hurt. It’s no one’s fault and no one is doing anything wrong. But sex has always been such a huge part of my identity and now it’s gone.

{dirtier} It’s a journey

We managed to make love today. Yay for the swing! We were able to spend more time on it than we have been able to the other few times we have tried. The extra time helped a lot. I was actually ‘ready’ this time which is awesome. Something I found really interesting was how important it was to me to not use a condom. I needed the skin contact in a very primal way. Yes, it’s a risk because I’m not ready to get pregnant again. I needed it. I needed to feel like that bond wasn’t actually changed/reduced/made more painful. It was wonderful. The other times I was trying mostly because Noah has been pretty patient and sex is an important piece of our relationship. This time it was for me.

I feel more like me now. I feel more satisfied. I didn’t know how much I needed that.

{dirtier} Well hot damn

From the filter label savvy readers will assume this is about my sex life. They would be right. Which is to say: holy crap I have a sex life again.

So, who was wondering how long it would take us to resume having sex? I was. We sorta tried a week ago and it was a resoundingly unsuccessful attempt. It hurt so bad it made me cry and Shanna woke up screaming just a couple of minutes into it. So I don’t count that.

Which means that it took us four weeks. Things are not completely back to normal in that department, but given that I’ve been thinking about it and Noah has been exceptionally patient I figured it was time to get back on that particular horse. I would say we took it slow, but we didn’t. Heh. We don’t have time for slow, leisurely love making at this point. Shanna’s sleep schedule is still very unpredictable. I did manage to get her to sleep lying on her own. I did it by breaking one of those rules they hand down from on high about parenting: Thou Shalt Not Lie Thy Baby On Her Stomach To Sleep. But but… she won’t go to sleep on her back! So fuck ’em. She’s sleeping great on her tummy right now and they (whoever ‘they’ are) can kiss my ass.

I’m rambling. Sex! It happened! It required periodic renegotiations mid-way, things like “Pull out, I need more lube” “Oh my god stop putting so my pressure on my perineum” and “I can’t bend that way right now”. I call that a roaring success. I came; he came. That was the goal and so despite it not being the most earth shattering of sex it’s a beginning. w00t.

{dirtier} An overshare, because I can.

A while ago I squeed about making Noah come with oral.

I didn’t mention a couple weeks when I did it again. But last night I did it again. This means that I have now made him come from oral more times than anyone else!!! I’m number one! I’m number one! *cough*

This wouldn’t be such a big deal if he didn’t announce that he is one of those “Doesn’t come from oral” guys except in freak occurrences. I think it is fairly safe to say that I have figured out the knack. Awesome. It’s actually getting easier because I have indeed figured out the trick to it. 🙂

Have I mentioned that I’m excited that as most of sex is much harder and more difficult I’m massively grateful that something is working better than normal?

{insecurity} Non-monogamy

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.

{dirty} What is sex?

I’m curious how people define sex. Or rather, what people think about specific sex acts. So I made a poll. (It’s the easiest way to get feedback cause ya’ll are lazy.) Some of the questions are radio, some are checkbox because on the radio ones I think you only get to pick one answer, damnit. I reference you “list” a bit not because I think everyone actually keeps a list of who they have sex with but more because if you were going to write down for posterity who you have had sex with, would this person make the cut? Feel free to elaborate in comments. 🙂

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