Clarifying Values & What’s Important

I have been stressed out since my meeting with my professor. Luckily, I had social engagements planned beforehand for the weekend which all allowed me to get out and do things with people who care about me. I still found myself drifting off and zoning out, thinking about all of this crap. I told J on Friday: I don’t really feel like going out, I don’t really feel like doing this, but I think I probably should. And I’m glad I did. My counselor affirmed that as well (I saw her for a second appointment on Saturday to talk about everything): Make sure to schedule time to not think about all of this. It will be really important in allowing what’s important to you to rise to the surface.

So, in happy news: Friday night I had a fabulous date with a fabulous woman (yummy wine + The L Word + lady sex = AMAZING). Saturday night J and I went out for a little bit to the Velvet Rope (it was super dead there but I got to see my fave male stripper). Sunday night we had a really fun hang-out and movie night time with some of our besties (and watched “A Good Old Fashioned Orgy,” which was surprisingly good and I actually really enjoyed!!)

My counselor recommended that I try to clarify what is important to me to guide my decision making. She asked me, What floats to the surface with all of this? Here are some of the points I have sussed out so far:

1. I want to end dancing on my own terms, not on someone else’s. I don’t think I will have closure and the resolution I want otherwise. Dancing has been about self-empowerment on a number of levels, and so to end because someone else told me I cannot do it (for whatever reason) would be highly unsatisfying. Being bullied into quitting dancing is not okay for me.

2. Dancing has become more and more political to me, and my ability to dance has taken on more macro level importance: sex worker rights, un-shame-ing (i.e., empowerment of) and allowing space for female sexuality, etc. My personal act of dancing in the way that I do it has political implications of disturbing stereotypical ideas of what it means to be a stripper, what female sexuality looks like and can be, what it means to be a woman, what it means to be an activist. I can’t ignore the broader implications of engaging in sex work (and what it would mean to have a professor tell me I cannot do it because it is “unethical”).

3. I have worked really hard to be out as myself with most people in most contexts. I don’t intend to give it up. Being out is one of my core values.

I am sure there will be other main points if importance that come up for me in the coming weeks, but this was a good start that I had over the weekend. I can start to see some potential paths take more shape, and I am confident that as long as I figure out what is important to me and stick by that, that I will make the decision that is right for me.

Thank you to everyone for your support and love. I have been overwhelmed this weekend by everyone around me (in-person, via email, on Facebook, on here) that has shown me support. Thank you.

Happy Marriage

I wore a white sweater and a white hat. He wore his blue shirt, although you wouldn’t know it since he was wearing his big down jacket over it (we stood outside in 32 degree weather in front of a half-frozen water fountain while the judge performed the ceremony).

After 8 minutes and 7 signatures (we had four amazing witnesses- some of our best friends), it was done. Sealed it with a kiss.

We’re legal.

Yay to lower car insurance and taxes! 🙂

PS: I love you, J.

PPS: THANK YOU to our amazing friends who were with us in person and in spirit, who continue to support us as individuals and as a couple in our life together.

Family Time, Thanksgiving Time, Birthday Time

This week was a full one. It doesn’t get much better/rich/full than:

-Making a birthday porn for J (yes, yes, totally hot). With one of my semi-regular playmates, who I totally dig. Unfortunately, my camera skills leave a lot to be desired (last year, I had the help of an actual person behind the camera. You should check out my post on that experience here)… that just means we will have to do another filming session 😉

-J receiving some exciting news!! If you are close to us, you will find out soon I am sure 🙂

-Traveling down for Thanksgiving to visit both of our families. Oh lord. The food issues I was expecting to deal with with my family did not surface too much, thankfully. The time with my family was pretty pleasant for me, which was a nice experience. I didn’t get too irritated with anyone in my family. I appreciate that. We went down and spent about a day with J’s family, and that was interesting. There hadn’t been much communication between J and his parents about whether we were coming down at all, and so his parents didn’t even really know if we were coming. And then, they had made plans to go cut Christmas trees the next day, and it just did not sound great to me to sit in a car with his parents and sister with whom our conflict does not feel resolved. I started not feeling well, which I think was from the stress, and I didn’t go, although J did. I am sure his sister and parents thought poorly/oddly of my decision to stay, but it felt pretty good for me. I have never opted to not go on a family outing with J’s family, and so I would bet is seemed unusual to everyone else. I had a relaxing day to myself, and spent some time with J’s grandma, and then was able to be pretty present with the family when everyone got home later that evening. I finally received a minor bid (albeit full of meaning for me) from J’s mom when she asked what picture from our wedding I wanted on the wall. That made my night.

-J celebrating his quarter century birthday (he’s o-l-d!) Haha!! It was a great end to a really full week. Happy Birthday lover boy!! I love you!

Satisfying Connections & Emotions

I had a really fabulous weekend reconnecting with lovely people!

Not too long ago in counseling, I was telling my therapist that it sort of seemed to be the nature of having an open relationship that I experience loss often: Well we used to date them, and then we didn’t, and then we were friends, and now we haven’t seen them recently, and I miss seeing them. Oh, and I was dating her and it was an amazing experience, and now that relationship is just gone. And they live further away and we just don’t see them very often. Etc. etc. It makes for a dynamic social network, with people changing from new friends to play partners to close friends to romantic partners to close friends to more distant friends and back to close friends. It can be a lot for me to keep up with emotionally.

But this weekend we got to spend time with a lot of the people that I hold extremely close to my heart. Out dinner with some amazing friends that we haven’t spent much time with this fall; catching up, laughing, and eating felt so good. Some social and sexy time with our other sweet friends who we see a couple times a month; comfortable, relaxing, and satisfying social time and group sex always feels connecting for me. And our other besties over for dinner another night: real conversation about our real “stuff” made me feel totally in tune with them once again. Having some real social interactions with the people who I/we have gone through so much with in the past couple of years was deeply needed I think. And so I am so grateful that this weekend opened up and gave me all of that.

Now to switch gears for a minute:

J and I were at our swingers club on Friday (when I/we had social and sexy time), and it was the first time that J played with another person without me. And I was totally fine. I kept scanning myself for negative reactions and emotions, and I simply didn’t have them. There were pieces in place that allowed me to feel so comfortable, and hopeful that he had a good time. Our sweet friends were there, and I am so comfortable with them, that I just folded myself into them. If they hadn’t been there, I think I may have experienced some social anxiety. Also, J’s slight ambivalence about the situation helped me feel completely non-threatened by the person and proposed play. So, it would have been a different story I think if I didn’t have friends to be with and if J had fallen in love with this person at first sight. But as it was, it was totally relaxing to experience the compersive and easy nature of the situation.

This weekend was full of things to make my heart full and grateful: amazing friends, real connection, and pleasant, loving emotions. Happiness. Love. Sexy times. Yummy food.

(Not a bad way to kick off a week that will be full of family- I’m sure I’ll be writing on various things sparked by the holiday coming up. It’s really awesome to have so many positive connections and emotions salient before I embark on family time.)

Hot Springs

J and I had plans this weekend to meet up with some open friends at some hot springs near Portland. While, for whatever reason, we didn’t end up running into them, he and I had a pretty fantastic time together.

I had class all day and was super exhausted. But J packed us dinner and offered to drive there and back. We had a nice time talking with each other in the car- I like to talk his ear off about all of my cool psychology and counseling stuffs 🙂 We were able to see amazingly beautiful fall color on our drive. Even seeing the color from the car was refreshing. Our short hike to the hot springs was quiet and lovely.

Once we found a tub to use, we both stripped and got in the tub naked (despite new rules that the outside tubs are not clothing-optional; we heeded the advice of some regulars who asserted that going nude was the way to go). We had a lovely time together: massaging each other, stroking each other… J even fingered me and made me come, and I got him hard several times while we whispered dirty things to each other.

[Despite the multitude of smokers there, who eventually drove us out with their second-hand smoke, we did enjoy ourselves.]

Another fabulous part? After our satisfying walk back to the car, we got into the backseat, tore off our clothes, and did it in the car like a couple of teenagers. J and I haven’t had sex in a car in… years. It was really awesome. We got the windows foggy, I rode him, he rubbed my clit. It was hot.

A rejuvenating end to a long week. Thank you my love.

 

Swingers Club, Heteronormativity, & Couple Privilege… and DVP

J and I had a fabulous time at our swingers’ club last night (hooray for Hump Day!)

But, almost every time we’re there I become at least mildly irritated by displays of heternormativity. And now I can include becoming annoyed by the system of couple privilege at play. 

Last night, one of our closest friends met us there (it was his “singles” night and his wife, another super close and awesome friend of ours, was at home with their baby). It was really fun to hang out together, but I was completely flabbergasted when the staff came into the Couples Lounge to tell us that the three of us could not be in there together. Typically, only hetero couples and single women are allowed in the Couples Lounge, and it didn’t cross my mind that having another guy with J and I would be a problem. It was a dual heteronormativity/couple privilege situation, and it really did leave my mind blown. The staff member who told us to leave said that having another guy with us was only allowed on their themed “Bi Night”- wtf? It’s always “bi night” there if you are a woman, but apparently men only get one night a month, and on that special night (whoopdedoo) if you are a man and don’t have a woman half, you are allowed into the Couples Lounge. Big deal. And- this idea assumes that men who want to go into the Couples Lounge are bi to begin with (and I still can’t figure out why the Couples Lounge is the place where you would extend monthly privileges to bi men, instead of it always being a welcoming space). Last night, it was a situation of three people who simply wanted to be around each other in one of the club spaces. And what about people in poly configurations, like triads? Can they not then enjoy the Couples Lounge? Perhaps they could get in without notice if they were a man-woman-woman triad, but a man-man-woman triad would, based on our experience last night, would run into some difficulties. That’s an issue.

Now that I have gotten my little rantiness out of the way, I have to say that I checked another super fun and exploratory thing off my sexy list- DVP! (double vaginal penetration).

I. loved. it.

Big surprise, haha! Given my love of multiple cocks, I had a feeling that I would dig it, and I did. And, it was surprisingly easy, logistically. I was riding our friend, and J came behind me in doggy style position. I think my pussy has perhaps gotten used to fairly wide insertions, with all of the play J and I do with his cock sheaths. It felt amazingly good!!! After J came, it was so hot to have J’s come sliding around another cock inside me. Mmm, delicious.

Our Party!

I’m very thankful for this blog as a way to make sure I keep track of relationship-y things… definitely including our Party!

It was really just a fabulous time. We got down to southern Oregon on Wednesday very late, and we both were so excited to see our friends and family. Thursday we took an easy day and were able to spend time with my family, extended family, and some of J’s extended family. Dinner, frozen yogurt.. we also met with our photographer, who was great and also kind of a nut. Friday I spent the afternoon with our woman Friends of Honor (my sister and her GF, my cousin, my two best friends from high school, my mom) getting our nails done. I thought I was going to cry when I saw my friends from high school- I hadn’t seen either of them in over two years! They’re just the same, but older, doing more adult things in their day-to-day. I love them so much.

That night we had our rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, and it was so fabulous. I am so glad that J and I made the decision to tell our officiant (the minister I grew up with) about our relationship last summer, because his extra remarks about our independence and strength and bravery were really special and moving to me. He is such an energetic and peaceful person, and it felt amazing to have him speak as our officiant. I was pretty nervous all Friday evening interacting with J’s parents and sister and brother-in-law; I had a stomachache the whole time and felt a little on edge, but I interacted with them minimally and did my best staying focused on everyone else there. It was pretty loving to experience that his parents and sister behaved politely and mostly warmly towards us.

That night we went to clothing optional hot springs with our fabulous sexy friends, J’s men Friends of Honor and couple of their partners, J’s brother, and J’s sister and brother-in-law. I definitely got naked, which was an interesting choice. I had a lot of fun, but I don’t know if J’s sister and brother-in-law did. (I can’t control if they did or not! But I know it was an interesting layer on top of everything else- ie them finding out about our relationship.)

J and I stayed together at the fancy hotel in downtown both Friday and Saturday night, and it was really nice to have a space completely to ourselves to relax in. I woke up early Saturday morning for hair time- the woman who cut my hair from infancy traveled up to Oregon from California to do my hair and all of the other girls’! It was really fun. It was a great way to spend more time with all the girls, and to catch up with my hair lady!

Photos started midday, and I just love that. I am such a ham, and I had so much fun with our whole group dorking around town. We walked down through town, into the park, playing around trees and on jungle gyms and in fountains. We arrived at the park about 45 minutes prior to the ceremony, drank water, said hello to guests arriving (a couple of old college friends, former supervisors from college, and other people we hadn’t seen in forever! AND several of our lovely sexy friends!)… and it also gave me time to get nervous. I was having performance anxiety!! The thought of being in front of so many people, having them witness something so personal, private, and vulnerable made me nervous. Right before J and I walked in together we held hands and he helped me shake the nervousness out. (Thanks lover boy!)

And the ceremony was beautiful. I am so proud of the words we chose.

Afterwards: more photos, and so much socializing. It was so great!!

The food was fabulous. Mexican buffet, delicious cupcakes. The band was totally rockin’. We danced so much! I felt like I was going to throw up at one point. Yes, it was that good. Ha!

I cried when it was time to say bye to my (long-distance) friends. Even though I don’t feel connected to my vanilla friends in the same way as I do to my sexy friends, we share a history and friendship that is important to me. And I miss them.

We spent the night after the reception with J’s guy friends, chatting in our hotel room. It was really fun. Despite our sexy friends’ and my woman friends’ best efforts of making our honeymoon suite sexy (flowers, relaxing music on an iPad, lube, chocolate, wine) we were both exhausted and were more satisfied with socializing with people we don’t get to see often enough.

We woke up the next day saying:

Let’s do that again!

That was pretty perfect.

I loved everything!

BEST PARTY EVER!!!

That’s the best, yeah?

And then the best honeymoon came! A trip to Glacier National Park for ten days, with the tail end in Canada (my first trip to Canada, wahoo!). We hiked our butts off, camped, stayed in historic lodges, and ate lots of pie and ice cream. Another fabulous experience for what I feel is a fabulous relationship.

February was a Busy Month!

Yikes! I can’t believe I haven’t posted in a month and a half! That is way too long… and it’s not because we haven’t been pursuing open opportunities, communicating, negotiating, and having fun… that is precisely why I haven’t posted in so long (that, and school has literally been steam-rolling me. speaking of which, I am procrastinating from writing a take-home final, but I just can’t concentrate on that anymore right now!)… but now for an update!!

So… Valentine’s Day=awesome. J got some “X-Rated Valentine’s Candy Hearts,” the Tenga Air-Flip sleeve, and a subscription to Cosmo. Yes, Cosmo. He likes to read the insane pieces of advice and “insight” into the male brain. For example: you can tell how much a guy is into you by how he holds your hand. If you and your sweetie hold hands and you hold onto each other with your free hand, that means he is really into you- the possessiveness is a key (positive) indicator that he is into you. Whoa.


Dun-dun-dun-dun!! We got engaged! February 18, baby! (officially) We had a very long pre-engagement, as we got my ring right before Thanksgiving. Because we wanted to exchange rings (and yes, believe us, our families do not get it), we had to wait until J’s got made. His ring finally arrived on Valentine’s Day, and we had a lovely weekend going out to dinner and proposing to each other with letters we wrote to each other. Cute, right?!?


We have had a few ups and downs over the past month and a half, mostly related to unknown expectations and communication issues. For the most part, we have retained our sense of cool and gotten through them much more smoothly than bumps in the past. I think the more experiences we have where something might trigger one of us, our refractory periods of needing time to process and think and get over an insecurity or jealousy shortens. For example, my last “bump” so to speak only set me back a few hours. If this situation had happened a few months ago, I think it would have lasted a day or so. Progress!! I have also identified some of our most common communication errors: insufficient information about a partner or interest in a partner, and selective hearing (not really listening to something the other one is saying, but hearing what we want to hear). Identifying these common slips is helpful when communicating, so we can both do it better.


I have continued my vagina quest.. In fact, I met a lovely lady a couple of weeks ago through CL, and she’s pretty awesome. It hasn’t gone very far very fast, but that is fine. We are having a good time so far, so that counts!

J and I have continued to explore our fantasies together… including very dirty dirty talk, spanking, and hair pulling. All in all, I have been burning the candle at both ends…and really need more sleep (who am I kidding?? I would WAY rather get an hour or two less of sleep if I am having kinky, hot sex!)


Another thing that has happened recently that I feel compelled to share is that a very near and dear person to me came out to me in a couple of different ways. She recently started dating women, and is creating an open relationship with a new primary partner. How much she shared with me is completely breathtaking, and I just feel so honored that she included me. I had told her about our relationship last summer, and I remember feeling so nervous to. I hadn’t told a lot of people at that point yet, but I had a feeling she would be open, receptive, and respectful of it. J and I are continually amazed at how if we are honest with people, people usually respond with honesty. I think it is wonderful that I was able to share so much of myself with her, and she in return trusted me enough to share her experiences with me.

We recently hosted some vanilla friends. In fact, it was a friend I had in elementary school that I hadn’t seen since. She and her husband live not too far away from us, and decided they wanted to check out our neck of the woods. I thought it would be great if they stayed with us (despite my uber-stress over school- not a great decision), and it ended up being pretty fun to see them. However, it made both of us realize how open we are with our lives, and how open we love to be with our sexy friends. I remembered that not every couple will disclose their sex life, kinks, fantasies, values, etc with us… J and I were even a little embarrassed when our friends found us in the sex section at the bookstore (not really-we know that is nothing to be embarrassed about-but it was a shock to remember that not everyone talks about sex, haha).


Looking forward… I can’t believe that J and I have been open almost a year. April 1 is our anniversary of opening up, and I am planning on posting a reflection of the past year. I am also taking an independent class next quarter on human sexuality, and the instructor gave me some great stuff to read! I’m sure those books will make their way into the blog. She is also having me present to her undergrad class on a couple of topics of my choice… I will definitely present on alternatives to monogamy 🙂 I also bought “The Sex Diaries Project” and “Sexual Intelligence” and am hoping to read them over our spring break- look for reviews of those, too!!


Happy March!

The Power of F.E. & Merry Christmas!

Well, it’s happened. I officially broke my computer, and it wasn’t from watching “gangbang” porn.

J and I were camming with our sexy Alaska friends, and he decided to have them watch me FE. Mind you, we have tried this once before and my FE screwed up J’s mousepad on his computer. Using rubbing alcohol on the mousepad seemed to fix it that time. BUT THIS TIME, we are pretty sure my FE flew across the keyboard and landed in the tiny crack separating the keyboard from the hinge of the laptop, frying some RAM or something. Who knows. My computer made some high-pitched squeeling noises for a while- it sounded like a pig dying 😦 At least it was really hot, and our sexy friends said it was a beautiful money shot!

Anyways, we will be off the day after Christmas to go to the Mac store… and hopefully we can dodge the question of “So what exactly happened to your computer?”


Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays to all of our sexy friends! And go enjoy some sexy times! (But try not to break any expensive electronics while doing so 🙂

Sexy Friends: Meeting People Online and In Person, and Building Community

J and I are natural homebodies. We don’t drink and we never were into the club or bar scene. You can imagine how the past few months have been so different for us given that meeting with new people often involves a dinner out, meeting for “drinks,” (J editing: Shirley Temples!) or going to a sex club. Frankly, we love our new-found social life. We love that we all of a sudden have so many down-to-earth, funny, sexy, open, honest, thoughtful, intelligent and all-around good people to hang out with. Sometimes we feel like there aren’t enough nights in the week to see everyone we want to!

We have corresponded online with probably around 100 couples and met 20 couples in-person initially (at our local club), met with about 15 for drinks/dinner, and have played, to varying degrees, with five couples and two singles. My point is: we love good conversation and intelligent, scintillating encounters just as much as we love awesome play encounters. Creating a community of open people that we can talk to infrequently or on a regular basis has been incredibly important and meaningful for us, especially since we have very few vanilla friends and family that can relate to our experiences, give advice, ask good questions, and reciprocate with similar stories and sentiments. Making good friends with the people that we meet through online and on-site venues has been just as important to us as finding great sex partners. Just because we don’t have play chemistry with everyone we meet and talk to doesn’t mean that we discount those encounters; they are in fact so of the most important as they have given us more to consider and talk about!

We look for sexy friends through Craigslist and websites that cater to “swingers” (Lifestyle Lounge and Swing Lifestyle are the two we use). We also like to meet people through our favorite “swingers” club. We often look for people who are intelligent and educated, funny, who laugh and smile a lot and aren’t afraid to be expressive and open with their emotions, and who are fit and take care of their bodies. We like sharing ourselves and getting to know people who have similar values: openness, straightforward honesty, respect for their bodies and others’ bodies, an eagerness to learn from others and to experience new things. We also look for similar social and political leanings, mainly because we honestly cannot imagine clicking with folks who don’t believe in the equality of marriage or with people who are homophobic or transphobic. This isn’t about the political party that someone identifies with but just about how they treat people, including us, and how they feel others deserve to be treated.

Because we often meet sexy friends through “sexy friend” venues (online and in person), a transition of some kind often needs to be made: will we stay platonic friends who can openly talk about our sexual experiences? Is there good chemistry? Is play an option? What are everyone’s rules, boundaries, and comfort levels? What are the reasons behind these rules? Are they rules that we can agree to follow? Is it our ideal encounter or something that we think will be fun? Saying “no thank you” to potential playmates can be tough, but I think we have both become better at being direct with people to avoid any weird ambiguity. Perhaps even more difficult is learning to ask for what I (and we) want, both in and out of play. Being assertive with what works sexually and platonically is what makes play and get-togethers fun, and is definitely something that we both have gotten better at.

I love that we are building our own little Pacific NW network of sexy friends, and through this blog, we have actually made connections throughout the country! Also a big thank you to our international readers! We get such a kick out of everyone who reads this blog, and we are so excited to continue to build community through open communication and willingness to bring sexual desires, likes, dislikes, fantasies, and kinks further out into the open!