DTR?

DTR. Define the relationship.

Am I getting old? I must be. I’ve heard “DTR” only a couple of times, one of which was today when I was sitting with a client (who, ironically enough, is older than me). For a moment, she could not recall the acronym “DTR” and said “DNR”- we had a real good laugh over that. Do not resuscitate! Do not resuscitate! This relationship is dead!

For a generation that seems to love fluidity and hook-ups and casual relationships and FWBs, this concept of DTR is kind of funny to me.

On the one hand, it is impressive to me that we have this shorthand way of talking about relationships: do it with consent, do it with intention. Talk about your relationships and what is happening in them! What do we each want? What’s okay, what’s not? Where is this going?

On the other hand, I take kind of a semantic issue with “define.” Maybe this is me, five and a half years into the territory of poly/open/ethically nonmonogamous relationships. “Define” connotes something concrete, something final, something definite. Does it not? But relationships are these nebulous, ever-changing creatures. Even this LTR I find myself in has shifting waters.

I, like probably many of us, enjoy the definites in relationships: I come home to this place, and this person lives here with me. I can count on this person for the best cuddles on earth. This person makes me hot in this specific way. This new person is my Boyfriend, and I love that. Some of these things don’t change very often or very much. But simply slapping a label on something doesn’t mean it never will go away or change.

I want the culture of our relationships and sex and love to begin to embrace periodic DTR moments. Every six months, every year? Just having it be common experience for daters to check in with each other, even in LTRs marked by weddings and ceremonies, by joint finances, houses, and kids- it would be nice if adults could look at each other with calm and compassion, and say, Hey baby, let’s continue our DTR conversation. Where are we at now? Where do we want to go? And the kicker- to have it be okay (even if it hard and maybe even heart-wrenching) for one or both people to also ask: Is this still working? Do we still want to have another six months or year of this? I feel like this periodic conversation is more common in the poly world, but still not commonplace.

Maybe I’m down with the DTR, I just want more of it. So that the “defining” remains on a spectrum and within a framework of change, within the world that relationships breathe and move and change.

My dream last night

It was stressful!

We were having a threesome. You were making me so hot. For some reason she was there. We were all drunk. And we were all happy and smiling and laughing. For a moment it was just her and I. She slid her cock inside me, and she came. I felt full and sticky. All of a sudden I felt myself come out of my reverie and I realized, Oh shit! We didn’t use a condom! How did that happen? You smiled at me, not realizing what had just happened. Slowly you made your way over to me, and started tracing your fingers along my legs. I realized you wanted to go down on me, but I couldn’t let you see how much cum I had in my pussy; you would be so hurt. I told you to hold on a minute, I need to go to the bathroom.

And then I made myself wake up.

Negotiating boundaries in new relationships has been super interesting for me. I’m so used to my relationship agreements and boundaries with J, that I’m having a hard time reigning myself in to be “more monogamous” with my new partner (if “more monogamous” is even a thing- maybe “less slutty” is more appropriate).

And it’s resulting in some interesting dreams- ones I think about all day.

✌️

Superstitious

I’m sitting/sweating in my 83* kitchen, with a bowl of orange chicken courtesy of Costco, listening to Stevie Wonder’s “Superstitious.”

Something deep has shifted for me this summer. Something deep inside has shifted in a way that will never shift back to a “before.” There is only “now” (and the “future,” which I could never predict anyway).

This week I’ve eaten: Chicken burrito. BBQ kettle chips. A truly insane amount of 85% dark chocolate. Green chile chicken sausages. A disgusting amount of mac ‘n cheese. Malted ice cream. And now the orange chicken. I’m PMSing, to be sure, but also going through the most unique “break up” that I’ve experienced.

Pretty much everyone who cares about me could have (and did) predicted that I’d be here now, three months later, a bit heartbroken and (yes, still) confused as fuck. It was still worth it, and maybe it’s not entirely over. (If she’d text me back, I could get on with that conversation).

Besides feeling heartbreak over someone who didn’t even think of us as “dating,” (despite sleepovers, falling asleep in each other’s arms, kissing, having emotionally and mentally intimate conversations, and being treated like each other’s “daters”- introductions to friends and families and touching lower backs in front of people) this summer has also been a witness to:

-My desire to have my own bedroom. I’m moving up into the attic! J, you can do whatever you want with that front bedroom.

-Conversations with our best friends about them moving into our basement. Communal living has never been more appealing to me.

-My concrete realization that touch and time are too important to me to go without in relationships.

-My sister and her girlfriend becoming engaged, and several other friends getting married or engaged.

-My decision to leave my full time job in lieu of teaching (continuing on with Human Sexuality and adding Women’s Reproductive Health) and dancing and continuing on with school.

-Intense community (dis)engagement in my local sex worker community.

-The closing of Club Sesso in Portland. So so so so much sadness over that.

-Further questioning of what it means to be queer, poly, communicative, assertive, and respectful. Why have I now met so many, and felt the attitude from others, that you can’t really be a woman who loves other women if you also love men? I don’t like it.

-Questioning unhealthy and abusive dynamics in relationships that are close to me.

-Some continued self-acceptance, appreciation, and love for myself and my physical body.

-Questioning of the importance of sex (shocking perhaps- especially if you are a longtime reader of mine). Specifically- witnessing the development of the feeling of romantic love without sex happening in a relationship. I’m still letting that sift through my brain.

-Reading a few books, all of which I would recommend- Janet Mock’s memoir on growing up trans, Redefining Realness; Sarah Katherine Lewis’ memoir on her work in the sex industry, Indecent; and local Sarah Mirk’s Sex From Scratch. I’m also in the middle of both of Brene Brown’s Gifts of Imperfection and Daring Greatly.

-My overhaul of my OKC account. I even bought the stupid A-list membership so I could change my username.

When I opened my computer, I felt excited- I haven’t let myself have this kind of down-time in so long. And enough down-time to where I have the energy and interest in blogging. I want to do it like I used to do it. And maybe I will, but like I said at the beginning, there can never be a “before.” There is only “now,” and for today, right now I am doing this thing that I love.

I hope all of your summers have been rich and full heart-achey and full of learning and longing and love. Hopefully I will see you all soon.

Vote for SexualityReclaimed!

My blog was nominated for the Annual Lifestle Awards!! Show some love and vote for your various favorite blogs, podcasts, clubs, cruises, and more here: http://www.annuallifestyleawards.com/vote-here/

Much thanks for the nomination! Yay for lifestyle community and celebration!

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Beautiful

I’m learning a new language, one of water and music. Slow movements, a push for growth, return to soft and smooth, back to a rapid dance. We touch fingertips and embrace and then push apart, letting space swirl around our bodies before we are at once pulled back together. Like magnets. 

I have never done a relationship like this before. I have settled into this pattern of listening to subtle intimations and of watching body movements and feeling a cosmic energy that at once makes me feel minuscule and magnificent. We don’t talk directly about what we are “doing” and I don’t ask questions. I have never done this before. It feels strange and gorgeous. Love is strange and gorgeous.

Navigating boundaries is strange in this new space. When do we start talking if either of us is “seeing” anyone else? When will she ask more questions about my relationship with J and when will she feel comfortable and interested in meeting him in a substantial way? Will the sexual part of our relationship (beyond kissing) return? 

Once we both identified that we communicate differently, I’ve noticed that she has also tried to meet me in this new space. There have been spontaneous stories and disclosures, and attempts at asking me questions when all of that seems to come less naturally to her.

It’s beautiful and strange and amazing. I am in awe of continuing to explore how relationships can look and feel, including how I typically approach communication and expressions of love. 

working it out

Clearly, I am in one those phases of just wanting to use my blog as a personal journal, and less of an educational platform. That’s okay, right?

I find it fascinating how communication works. I can say these things with this body language, and have such a clear internal sense of what it all means, and yet I have absolutely no control over how you filter that through your past experiences and lens of what that communication means. I love the concept this image depicts of the communication loop:

Looking at this diagram, it is so easy to see where communication fails us every day, in every interaction. We all do the best we can. How we offer information is deeply enhanced by meta communication, and how we listen is enhanced by actively asking for clarification to do our best to understand someone’s true meaning. But it’s so hard.

I just am battling with many things (and I had to go all logical first I guess):

How do I reconcile all of the different messages from the past couple of weeks? How does “I miss you” and spending many hours together fit with “the sexual chemistry is off”?

How do I stay true to myself of feeling deeply and quickly without scaring people off?

How do I honor relationships and let them be whatever they want to be, while still honoring how I really feel? Is it possible for me to nurture a friendship when what I really want is that relationship to have romantic elements? Can I do that without tying up my romantic energy (which I did previously with someone who didn’t want to date me but wanted to be friends)? How can I separate the awe I feel for a person from my desires for how I want to feel intimate with that person?

I am humbled by the fact that I have likely spent hours writing out similar questions over and over on this blog.

You know something that I absolutely love about relationships and really getting vulnerable with people and inviting them into your space and getting the privilege of being in theirs? The reciprocity of ideas, specifically of ideas of what makes life amazing. This person in particular has inspired me to be less afraid to sing- so much so that I sang myself hoarse at my BFF’s bachelorette party when we were at a karaoke bar. She has also inspired me to start truly focusing on positive, self motivating talk. (She shared her idea that if it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something, then it stands to reason that by spending inordinate amounts of time on telling ourselves we can’t do something or aren’t something, that we essentially become experts at talking ourselves out of things. Pretty magical reasoning.) She has, without knowing it, been part of my healing from my rape. These are deep and powerful things. I can only hope I gave her something special in return.

crushed

Lots of feelings right now:

There is a lot of embarrassed, a lot of sadness, a little rejection, quite a bit of loss, confusion, and frustration.

I have many thoughts, like:

How can you say the sex part feels off when we have both done such a poor job talking about sex? If sexual chemistry feels missing, that is one thing to me. But if it’s the way that the sex works, the mechanics of it- I don’t think we ever gave that a fair shot.

and

I told so many people about how excited I was. The thought of talking about how disappointed I now am is too much.

and

I haven’t been held or touched that way in a long time. I feel grateful for last week, and just so, so, so sad that it is gone.

and

The last woman I was interested in and with whom I tried dating also said she wanted to be friends and to have me in her life. That didn’t happen. I feel skeptical that it will in this case. I also don’t know if keeping this relationship at a platonic level feels right to me.

and

I don’t know why I let myself be so fucking vulnerable with people I don’t even know that well. And I don’t know that I would want to be less vulnerable, either. I just wish that it didn’t hurt so much.

and

There are just so many parts of this person that I admire so much. Her honesty, her ability to express her feelings and experiences, her smarts about social justice and domestic violence, her snarkiness, her obvious internal strength. I am trying to let of that just be, without being touched by all of the other above thoughts and feelings.

I think all of that can just be summed up with one word right now:

Ugh.

Love & Complications

“There must be something in the water
And there must be something about your daughter
She said our love ain’t nothing but a monster
Our love ain’t nothing but a monster
With 2 HEADS!

I turn to you, you’re all I see
Our love’s a monster with 2 heads and one heartbeat
I turn to you, you’re all I see
Our love’s a monster with 2 heads and one heartbeat
We just got caught up in the moment
Why don’t you call me in the morning instead
Before we turn into a monster
Before we turn into a monster with 2 heads
I hope to god I’ll love you harder
I hope to god I’ll love you longer
If only I could live forever
If only I could hold you longer”

~Coleman Hell, “2 Heads”

SAMSUNG CSC

This: https://www.morethantwo.com/gamechanger.html

Specifically: “Game changers change things. That’s kind of the definition. They upset existing arrangements. People confronted with a game-changing relationship will not be likely to abide by old rules and agreements; the whole point of a game-changing relationship is that it reshuffles priorities and rearranges lives.”

“I now affirm that I can let go of loved ones.”

Those of you who know me well, either through this blog or in person or both, know that I feel my feelings quickly and deeply, and that I am often overwhelmed by them. That is just part of who I am, and luckily, my ability to manage them and talk about them has improved as I have gotten older and acquired more and better skills.

What happens, though, when you kiss someone that has, until that point, felt unreachable, and it feels both magnetic and explosive, and the electricity courses through your core out to your fingers and toes? What does that mean?

These are truths: I have not truly and deeply wanted to spend the night with anyone else since J and I opened up, until now. Spending the night with someone has always felt very intimate to me, and not an activity I take lightly, and I am now noticing that I want this. I have been very busy lately. And yet time opens up when something like this happens. I prioritize my limited time with J; it is sacred. And yet I have chosen to spend some of that time with someone else.

Doesn’t that all point to feeling very connected to this person?

Is it possible that their reality is so very different than mine? Can one person be experiencing this rush while the other is lounging back, enjoying a medium-level attraction and sense of fun? The whole situation is making me feel crazy.

My very first date with J, I remember these very thoughts: I am done dating. I am in love. This is it.

And in part, I was wrong: I wasn’t done dating (I didn’t know it then). But those intense and deep feelings of connection, intimacy, trust, and love were very real and very immediate.

I generally trust my gut. I know when I like people and when I can trust them and when I love.

I’m not sure what it is that is causing all of the upset, all of the back-and-forth inside. I think it is partly due to the spontaneity of this connection, the total unexpectedness of it. I don’t know how to express myself anymore, or act like myself. I’m a quivering, nervous mess.

A pattern of mine, that opening up certainly has challenged and helped me to reshape, is to identify people with whom I want to be close, whether it is a friend or potential partner, and to grab on so fucking tight. There is still a part of me that is just deeply afraid that if I don’t grab on, I will be left. If I don’t grab on, this thing will disappear. The connection will be lost. Logically, I know that nothing could be further from the truth and I have been working all week to breathe and relax and enjoy whatever the heck this is.

She told me last night that she had an expectation that I’ve “done” this before, that there was some prescribed model she would just sort of slip into, that it was just a very safe thing for her to explore because it was so clear-cut, that she would just learn a whole bunch from casually dating a married chick.

It is just so interesting to me. How can any one experience or relationship be prescribed in that way? We don’t expect friendships to all be the same. They are shaped by the people in them; every connection is unique. I can understand for someone pretty unfamiliar with polyamory, and unfamiliar with J and I’s stamp on poly, it would be confusing to understand. I also don’t know where she got the idea from that I’ve “done” this a whole bunch before, especially when I consider that chemistry isn’t a dime a dozen- that shit is unique, at least in my life. Having sex and staying the night with someone that I have that intense of chemistry with- that is special.

Help me.

J has been amazingly wonderful and supportive, giving me ample space to enjoy this, to see her even during times we would otherwise spend together, to process my feelings in the ways that I have needed to. It has been incredibly weird to explore all of this new relationship energy. While I have had a handful of intense crushes on women the past few years, this is the first it has manifested into something right in front of me. I have had a lot of practice fantasizing and dreaming and thinking of hypotheticals… Now I am getting to practice how I hold all of these things: my commitment to J and the stability and longevity of our partnership, with this whole ball of crazy emotions for someone new. It feels strange. Not undoable, just new and strange.

This whole thing could blow over- especially because I am afraid my feelings and their depth may have weirded her out (but why would I want to see someone who is weirded out by my feelings, anyway?). Or maybe it won’t. Either way, how grateful I am for the experience runs deep.

I love the love.

Integration, Disassociation, Connection

I keep wanting to write, and then feel overwhelmed by my lack of presence. So I’ll just start with where things are now, and the missing pieces from the past several months will filter their way in. Writing and sharing is too therapeutic for me not to do it, so I’m going to try to do it more.

I remember writing a post way-back-when on anal sex, and the hang-ups I have around it. I remember writing about the non-consensual anal sex that my high school boyfriend had with me. That’s called rape, by the way, and I can type it but I can hardly say it out loud (I’ve said it once now). For some reason (I don’t know what the reason is; if I did, I think it might help in processing all of this), this memory and experience bubbled up and had been sitting for the past few weeks, until coming over the edge yesterday.

The part that is getting me the most is the realization that I have been doing the same stuff that most survivors of this kind of trauma do: making excuses for the person, blaming myself, etc. He must have not realized he shoved his cock in the wrong hole. I didn’t tell him to stop. He loved me so he couldn’t have done this. I have been having flashbacks to the day after that incident: I was so terrified that my parents would find out I had been having sex and I spent all of my time trying to prepare to defend my actions. I left myself absolutely no room to feel how I really felt: betrayed, violated, unheard, and hurt.

For some reason, all of my life since that day has just been swimming through me since yesterday, when I had this meltdown. All of the times I haven’t been able to say what I really wanted, how I really wanted it, when I really wanted it, why I really wanted it. Every time with a friend or a partner or a lover or a customer in the club I haven’t been able to speak and hold a boundary of mine. How much I sway to expectation and pressure and history. How often I have put other people before myself.

It’s too overwhelming, frankly.

Somehow, though, after crying on the couch yesterday in the early evening, I managed to get myself showered and dressed and to the club for my shift. I don’t know how I did it, but somehow, I took all of that shit and created this bubble around myself, and I looked at all of the people in the club and just thought: You can’t hurt me. I don’t care what you fucking think. I’m going to have fun, I am going to do my job, and I am going to make the money I came here to make. And it worked. I’m still not sure how, but it did.

I woke up today, though, feeling low, and my mood has only really gone down today. I feel this weight on me, and I don’t know what to do or where to go or who to talk to. Nobody can fix that experience, no one or anything can make it better.

One of my friends, who happens to be a sex worker, maintains that she hates white straight cis men because they haven’t experienced oppression. I get what she means- it’s hard to feel understood by someone who hasn’t directly experienced being oppressed. I don’t hate men. I hate the system that has been created, and while many men (and other people) perpetuate it in many ways, I don’t think individuals are to blame. Especially, and at least, people who are at least aware of the privileges they embody and do their best to mitigate how they operate in the world. I also don’t think someone needs to have an experience themselves in order to to offer genuine support and empathy.

But I also just keep feeling this sense of utter violation, simply because I have this receptive sexual and reproductive system. I can’t penetrate anyone in the way that someone with a penis can penetrate me. I’m suddenly shocked by the deep sense of trust I grant, pretty freely, to male bodied sexual partners to penetrate my body. And how insanely lucky I am that I have had just the one experience that left me feeling totally violated. (And what a fucked up thing that I feel “lucky.” It should be the standard to not be violated.) Just that one experience is now rendering me depressed and numb. And overwhelmed.

The idea of creating feminist relationships also keeps creeping up as I spin in circles about this. How do two or more people create a relationship that truly takes into account the needs and desires of each person, while making sure that boundaries and agreements are equitable and fair? I want to surround myself with people who want to make space for everyone in the room, not just in their hearts but with their body language and the way they talk and the way they offer themselves.

I also want and hope that I continue to use all of this to my advantage when I go to work in the club. This mixture of anger and despair, I hope, can help me to be extra clear about my boundaries: It’s about the money. It’s a job. No, I won’t go on a date with you. No, you can’t have my number. You can’t talk to me about how you hate Black people or gay people or any other oppressed group. Fuck you, with a smile.

My birthday is this week. And I am praying that come Friday, I can get dressed up and have a snazzy fun time at our favorite place, and that come Saturday, I can dance the night away while people pay to see my pussy and tits. And furthermore, I hope that when my people come to see me dance, from my full time work and my school and my friends, they see me as the whole person that I am. Lastly, I hope I can see that myself soon, hurt and healing and all.

Happiness and Sex

Hi there lovely readers!

Back again, in my new crazy, off-the-wall way. This time, with a Q&A with some friends who recently finished writing a book on sex and happiness!

Authors are Ariel and Rodrigo: Rodrigo is a Brazilian Happiness Coach and Ariel is a Relationship Coach. They are co-founders of The Portland Happiness Center here in Portland! Read more about their work here:

http://portlandhappinesscenter.org

http://www.brazilianhappinesscoach.com

http://www.sproutportland.com

Now for the Q&A:

What was the catalyst for this book? What made you decide to write on the topic?

We have always been interested in people and our relationships with people, as a subject matter. We both travel a lot and have lived in different countries, experienced different cultures. I had recently gotten divorced and Rodrigo had recently married and so the subject of finding happiness through our relationships was a big topic between us when we would talk. My divorce had a lot to do with the sexual part of my relationship. The idea for the book came out of these discussions. Not just our connections with others, but sex itself as a factor in our happiness levels. At one point I said I wanted to ask people on the street “are you happy? Are you having great sex?” And take a poll to see how many people were having satisfying sex and were all those people really happy? But instead of talking to people on the street we decided to have some longer interviews. 🙂

What was your main research question when interviewing people? What were you hoping to learn about?

We thought that we were going to prove that if you are having great sex with someone you’d be happier. We set out to prove that. But our hypothesis kind of flew out the window with our first interview!

We asked a handful of questions:

-what was your most influential or most important relationship?

-how important is sex for you in a relationship?

-are you able to separate your own happiness from what is happening in your relationship?

-how long can the sexual life carry the rest of the relationship?

-how does orgasm play a role in your happiness level?

And a few others… We just ended up having conversations with people. We talked about things like cultural differences, expressing what you want from your partners, happiness base levels people see themselves at… We also talked about open relationships, asexuality…

How many people did you interview? What were some of the demographics represented? (Age, gender, sexual orientation, relationship style, race/ethnicity, country of origin, etc)

We interviewed about 18 people, some of which we didn’t include for certain reasons. Ages ranged from 21 to 70… men and women, straight, gay /lesbian, bisexual,  We had people in monogamous and open relationships, people who were single too… We had Black, Brazilian, Japanese, French… We had several white Portlanders as well. A range, but we wished we could have kept going and interviewed all kinds of people. The book is just a starting point. We would like to take the same questions to say, rural China. Or to places where people are really ingrained in a culture different than our standard culture here. with lack of time and resources, we got a slice of the people around us and were pretty much dependent on who responded to our requests for participants.

What were some commonalities and differences that you heard among your interviewees and their experiences?

For this you’ll have to read the book! Everyone seemed to have a different take on the questions. Which was incredible! In general we found that people are trying to find happiness, through themselves, through others whether their relationships with others are romantic or not. That we all need a support system via human connection. How physical and how monogamous or not those connections are seem to be very individual.

Are there any stories or experiences that stood out to you or impacted you? What were they and why did they stand out?

Oh boy. Well everyone’s story was unique and after each interview Rodrigo and I admitted we gained so much hearing that person’s story. For me, because of my own outlook on life, I found that discussing the idea of monogamy vs open relationships was most interesting. I have come to the conclusion in my own life that a single person can never fully satisfy the needs of another. So does that mean we engage in an open relationship? Or do we simply have continuous casual relationships? What about companionship? I don’t have an answer but this theme was of particular interest. I also loved the story one man told of finally being able to let go of the anger he had for someone who could never apologize to him for breaking his heart. That he was carrying around this anger for years, and it wasn’t serving him. He finally learned that this person would never be able to say what he wanted to hear. It was very moving, and I’ve found most of our dysfunction in relationships stems from us having expectations of others that are not fulfillable on their ends, and attachments to others that create codependency. We can be interdependent- in fact we need to be – but codependency is a precarious place to stand. If that person leaves we fall.

How have the interviews shaped your own self perception of your experiences? What have you learned about yourself from listening to others?

Rodrigo and I learned so much about ourselves through this project. It brought up so many thoughts and questions in our own lives as well as for future projects. I almost feel like there was a piece of my own experience in each person we interviewed. Even if demographically we were extremes, there was a commonality in the search for happiness, love, physical desire… Some interviewees I found I could really relate well to and others I felt quite the opposite … The ones with whom I had opposite experiences and outlooks, they influenced me more because it made me question “why DON’T I think that’s important? Why DON’T I see life like that? Why do I feel I could never live my life that way?” Those questions really made me think and evaluate my own relationships.

What questions do you still have? Did any new questions come up as a result of writing this book that you would want to investigate?

We have so many more questions! We are ready to start the next book to help answer them. 🙂

In the end not only did we fail to prove our hypothesis, we also failed to come to some big conclusion. In the end, everyone sees things differently and everyone’s wants and needs are unique. We can agree that we need people around us to be happy, to lead fulfilling lives. Without human connection we do not thrive. And it is also true that the more  people and connections we have, the healthier, and happier we are as individuals.