I Want No Ordinary Lover. I Want A Fucking Storm.

My recent dating debacles have led me here.

I'm tired of relationships starting out because we had 500 long conversations calmly laying out what we each want and don't want and since things lined up, we made a rational decision to start dating.

I'm tired of the easy, sit on the couch and watch movies, be in the same room on our different devices, comfortable relationships.

Don't get me wrong, I like those things, and they're still actually mandatory qualities for me to be happy and fulfilled in a long-term relationship.

But I'm tired of that being the ONLY thing in my relationships.

I'm tired feeling like I'm chasing my partners. I'm tired of feeling like sex has to be scheduled or it won't ever happen. I'm tired of feeling like it's an effort to have fun, do something exciting, leave the house, have an adventure, get drunk on each other, and feel alive.

I miss passion.

The problem I'm finding is that other people who know how to do passion can't do any of the other things. So it's an either/or situation. If they know how to passion, and can't have the long, calm talks, or the hang out on the couch in comfy clothes, or making time for sex when life gets in the way, then the passion is nothing but a roller coaster with a giant, free-falling drop at the end.

Which fucking hurts.

I want a partner who is so into me that he feels like he can't help himself but to touch me whenever he gets within range. I want someone who is so turned on by me that he feels like he might lose control. I want someone who is drawn to me like a moth to a flame, who can stoke that flame in me with a look, a touch, a growl in my ear.

And that passion is carried into the rest of our relationship, where we are both excited to go out to discover our city, or to adventure together somewhere new, or to share in a cinematic experience on the couch with hot chocolate, or to talk about our wants and dreams and desires and boundaries. Where those mundane activities are also passionate, and also merely window dressing for more settings in which to feel the passion for each other.  I want the heat of passion, tempered with reason and comfort, in a way that the reason and comfort don't dilute the passion, but the passion colors up the reason and comfort.

I want passion without the instability that usually comes with passion when it's not tempered with reason and comfort.

I've spent the last 4 years feeling like I have to sit patiently by waiting for someone to finally decide he might want to be with me, and when I got tired of waiting, I felt like I was chasing after someone, and if I have to chase, then that means he's running away.

So I turned to someone who inspired passion, and it took me to soaring heights and a steep, sharp, drop before I even knew what was happening. For a brief moment, life was bright and saturated again, and then it went to harsh black and white, much more stark than the lukewarm pastels and watercolors of the previous relationship.

I want that passion, I miss that passion. That's what was missing before. But that fucking drop at the end is wicked. I could do without that part.

Do Friends With Benefits Really Work In Real Life?

www.quora.com/Do-friends-with-benefits-really-work-in-real-life/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper

Q. Do friends with benefits really work in real life?

A. Mine tend to work out pretty well. It takes two people who are on the same page and reasonably emotionally mature - basically everything that Franklin Veaux said in his post.

Every time I’ve ever gotten into a casual relationship when one of us had an agenda for turning the relationship into something else, or when one of us merely *hoped* the relationship would turn into something else, the relationship was a spectacular failure with drama and shouting and slamming of doors.

But my current mechanic is also a coworker and a former FWB.  We have worked together for years, and back when we first met, the chemistry between us was really high, so we started sleeping together.  Neither of us wanted anything else from the other, so our FWB relationship went on for several years.

Eventually we both just had too many other things in our lives to devote any time to each other and we faded away.  We remain friendly coworkers, and since he works on my model of car as a hobby (he has 3 of them himself), he continues to offer his mechanic services to me.  In fact, I’m due over at his house next week to fix the front axle.

A dancer friend of mine and I both went through a tough breakup at about the same time.  So we turned to each other for a quick rebound fling.  Neither of us wanted anything more from the other, and we both knew we were not ready for any kind of emotionally romantic relationship, but we both missed feeling desired.  So that’s what we got from each other.  It was fun and what we both needed in the moment.  We are still friends and we still dance together.  We may or may not hookup again in the future, and we’re both OK with either possibility.

I am involved with a performer who is married with children.  He has an open marriage and likes having casual sex partners when he goes on tour but has no interest (or time) in a more interconnected sort of relationship.  I work in entertainment and always had a “groupie” fetish but never acted on it because I see it as high risk activity.

One day, I got hired to work his show.  I had always been a fan of his for his personal and political opinions, not just his performance, so I was delighted to get the chance to meet him in person and discover that he’s as genuine as he seems and that he liked me too.

With our similar values, I felt that I could trust him to give me that “casual sex with a famous person” experience without the whole drug use / lying / cheating / out of control crap that so often goes along with it, and he felt that he could trust me to enjoy a no-strings-attached hookup with him without demanding more than he was interested in.  So we started sleeping together whenever his tour takes him into my town or my work takes me into his town.  This has been going on for about 4 or 5 years now.  We have a date scheduled for next month.

I have 2 coworkers (people who work in the same venues that I work in, but who do not work for the same employers) who are FWBs.  We get along on worksite, but we don’t really see each other outside of work.  Occasionally we will sneak off during a break to make out somewhere on site.  Both of these have been going on for probably 8 or more years.

I could keep going.  I’ve had an awful lot of FWBs.  I like those relationships.  Because of my freelance work and all my hobbies, I go through frequent busy periods where I just don’t have time to maintain relationships that resemble “normal” romantic relationships.  I also like the fun and excitement of flirting and I enjoy the sexual tension that comes with casual sex partners between friends and coworkers.  I’ve learned a lot about myself through these relationships and I have some good memories.

Most of my friendships either remained intact or faded naturally as some friendships do.  Some of them exploded in a haze of sparks and drama.  Those were always with people who had other expectations, some of which were subconscious but sometimes they knew they wanted something different from me than what was on the table but “settled” for the casual thing.

So, yeah, FWBs can “work”, depending on how you define “work”.  Some of mine are ongoing, so if longevity is your marker for success, those would qualify.  Others served a specific purpose and we went back to being friends afterwards, so if accomplishing a goal is a marker for success, then those would qualify.  Others were fun while they lasted but we eventually outgrew them and faded away.  If bringing joy and happiness for a while and then quietly turning into fond memories to look back on in later years is a marker for success, then those would qualify.

How Old Were You & Your Partner When You Had Your First BDSM Experience?

www.quora.com/How-old-were-you-when-you-had-your-first-BDSM-experience-and-how-old-was-your-partner/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper

Q. How old were you when you had your first BDSM experience and how old was your partner?

A. I’m not entirely sure, how do you define BDSM?  What “counts” as kink?  For a good portion of my early sexually active years, I had no idea what kink really was and I had never heard the term “BDSM”.  It wasn’t until I started dating Franklin 14 years ago that I started deliberately exploring the term and what it meant to me.  In fact, that’s one of the reasons *why* we started dating in the first place - he was quite experienced and knowledgeable in the subject and I wanted to explore it more safely than I had been up until that point.  I asked him to guide me and explore with me, and that blossomed into the relationship we have today.

I have always been kinky.  My earliest sexual fantasies date from at least age 6 (I fantasized about a particular boy in my first grade class who moved that summer and did not return for second grade, so I had to be at least that young).  Only, at age 6, the mechanics of sex was not yet known to me, but I did fantasize about some pretty serious kink, without knowing what *that* was either.

I have always been interested in bondage, rape play, forced exhibitionism, and objectification.  As I learned more about what “sex” was, the various sexual activities I became aware of gradually made their way into my kink fantasies.  So I’m not sure when, exactly, I started experimenting with bondage and “wrestling”, because I probably incorporated light versions of it in all my sexual relationships, adding more and more recognizably kinky elements as I got older and learned about their existence.

I do have one clear memory, though.  I was, oh, maybe 16?  I had developed a friendship with a guy that included phone sex but no actual sex.  I got off on tormenting him without giving in to him.  I think he was my age, maybe a year younger.  He introduced me to his cousin, who I think was in his early 20s.

One night, I let them “convince” me to sneak out of the house and meet up with them at the guy’s house.  I spent half the night teasing them, to get them aroused enough to be open to my idea.  I told them that I liked it rough and I would only have sex with them if they “forced” me to, and that I promised not to report them for it afterwards.

So I had both of them wrestle me and try to take me down together.  Neither of them actually succeeded.  Sometime around sunrise, they finally decided that they just couldn’t beat me and were too tired to keep trying, so I went home.  I don’t think I ever saw either of them again, and I’m not sure if I talked to them again either.

This is why evidence-based sex ed that allows for discussions of pleasure, kink, and orientation and focuses on consent, is so important.  If I had access to information about consent culture and kink, I could have explored my desires in much less risky situations, without compromising myself or putting young men into such delicate situations that may have contributed to rape culture and in teaching them the wrong lessons about sex and consent.

If I could go back in time and tell my younger self about BDSM, my younger self could have had more responsible discussions with these young men about consent and fetishes and how to negotiate sexual activity without compromising integrity.

In addition to my more violent fetishes, I also have a fetish for “unusual places”, blasphemy, and the taboo.  So much of my early sexual activity took place in places not meant for sex, like my first date with my high school sweetheart where we snuck into his dojo where he worked and made out right there on the mat in the main room, in full view of the big windows, had anyone been walking around at 3 in the morning to see.  Or all the parking lots and clothing store dressing rooms.  Or the freight elevator in Ghiradelli Square, or the back of moving pickup trucks (several times).  Or literally the middle of a NYE party.  Or behind the alter during choir practice. Or…

I am also a masochist and I like being marked.  It turns out that I have a weird sense of body dysmorphia where I don't feel "complete" unless I have a bruise or visible injury of some kind.  So I really like having hickies and wrestling bruises.  I remember being in high school, probably around age 16 again, and having both sides of my neck just *black* from my ears to my shoulders from bite marks and my mother finding them underneath my hair and getting so mad that she threatened to call the cops on my boyfriend (who I think was 18 at the time).

Although, to be honest, I'm not sure if that's one memory or two getting blended together, because I seem to remember getting in trouble for something similar with another boy who I was "talking to" but who wasn't officially my "boyfriend", who was closer to my own age.  That would have been right before the other occasion, so still probably 16.

Come to think of it, I did an awful lot of exploration between when I was 15 and lost my virginity and when I had my two most significant high school relationships - my first fiance & then my high school sweetheart) - the first of whom I met when I was almost 17 and the other I started dating 3 weeks before my 18th birthday.

So, it depends on how we’re defining our terms here.  Depending on the specific definition, my age was probably pretty young, and my partner’s age depended on which partner it was - some of them were as young as I was, but some of them weren’t.

What Are The Pros And Cons Of An Open Relationship?

www.quora.com/What-are-the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-being-in-open-realationship/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper

Q. What are the pros and cons of an open relationship?

A. Pro:  I have people around me who love me and support me.  My parents have always loved and encouraged me to be my best self.  Oh, wait, we’re talking about polyamory, right.  My partners love me and encourage me to be my best self.

Con:  Other people have their own lives and things that go on in their lives so they’re not always around to be my support structure.  My sister is a single mom with 2 kids working on her masters degree in nursing.  She doesn’t have a lot of time for me right now, although she wants to support me in any way she can.  Oh, wait, we’re talking about polyamory, right.  My partners live long distance from me and can’t always be here for me even though they want to.

Pro:  I can explore different aspects of myself through relating to other people.  I have 3 or 4 really good friends who are dancers and can go out dancing with me, a couple of friends who were film students like me and enjoy going to the movies, some friends who like talking about philosophy, some who just like to go out and be silly, some who talk better on the internet and some who like being in person, etc. and I get to explore all these different facets of myself through the activities we share together.

Oh, wait, we’re talking about polyamory, right.  I have partners & metamours who like watching movies with me, who like talking philosophy, who like being silly, who have a wide variety of interests with whom I can explore and adventure with.

Con:  Sometimes there can be so many interesting things to explore and learn about that there just isn’t enough time to try everything, or try it in depth.  And sometimes there can be something you really want to explore with another person and yet still no one in your network is interested in that thing.  I only met my dancer friends in the last several months, so for most of my life I had no one to share my love of dance with.

Oh, wait, we’re talking about polyamory, right.  I don’t have any partners who dance, so I can’t share that with them, and the few metamours I do have that like to dance live too far away for me to go dancing with them.

Pro:  Developing deeply intimate connections with people based on love, trust, compatibility, and respect.  Oh, wait, we’re talking about polyamory, and that’s also possible in monogamous relationships, right.

Con:  Getting hurt when people you love leave or discard you.  Oh, wait, we’re talking about polyamory and that’s also possible in monogamous relationships, right.

Pro:  All teh secks.  Developing relationships with people who share your sexual interests and having sexual experiences with them.  Oh, wait, we’re talking about polyamory and that’s also possible in monogamous relationships, right.

Con:  None of teh secks.  Sometimes there is relationship processing that needs to happen and we’re too busy doing Relationship Maintenance or Relationship Triage to explore our sexuality together.  Oh, wait, we’re talking about polyamory and that’s also possible in monogamous relationships, right.

"Wait a minute!" you might be saying.  "None of this is any different from monogamy or from non-romantic social groups! I wanted to hear about polyamory specifically!"

Well, very little about polyamory is specific to polyamory.  It’s really all the same problems and joys and conflict resolution strategies.  Even issues like jealousy come up in monogamous and platonic relationships.  My cousin used to be extremely possessive and jealous over my sister (they were the same age and best friends growing up).  She threw a huge fit once when my grandfather held a “welcome home BBQ” in my sister’s honor after my sister moved away for a while, and my sister wasn’t the one to invite my cousin.  My grandfather invited her directly, as it was at his house and my sister actually had nothing to do with it.  But somehow my sister was the bad guy for not inviting my cousin?

Raising kids - my sister was a teenage single mother.  On the school forms, she had like 5 other people who were verified to pick the kids up from school - our parents, me, the babysitter, her best friend - which is something that poly parents seem to be worried about.  This script is already in place in our society.  She also had to deal with when to introduce the kids to the new boyfriend, how to deal with kids who got attached after a breakup, etc.  We already have that script in place too.

Even “monogamous” people have scripts for how to have things like group sex or multiple sex partners, so even that isn’t really much different.  And metamour relations are basically the same thing as in-law relations.  The pros and cons of polyamory relationships are the same pros and cons as *relationships* period.  Each relationship is different and unique so the pros and cons will also be specific to that relationship.  Something that’s a “pro” with one partner might not be applicable with another partner, whether you have those partners simultaneously or sequentially.

One thing is different, however, about poly relationships from monogamous ones and even some other versions of non-monogamy:  In order to have successful poly relationships (successful not necessarily meaning “until death do we part”, but rather meaning “a relationship that makes everyone in it more happy than not), you will have to develop some advanced relationship skills.  Monogamy does not require these skills, although monogamous relationships all benefit greatly from having them.

Poly relationships simply can’t exist without advanced communication skills, self-esteem skills, self-care skills, compassion skills, and time management skills.  Mono relationships get better when you have them, but because the cultural systems in place support monogamy, a monogamous relationship can basically limp along indefinitely even when the participants don’t have these advanced skills.

I’d say that developing advanced relationship skills is a pro.  I know other people who hate doing any kind of emotional labor or relationship work or even personal growth work, so they might say that developing these skills is a con.

How Long Does It Take To Move On From A Bad Breakup?

www.quora.com/How-long-does-it-take-to-move-on-from-a-friendship-relationship-that-ended-badly-and-abruptly/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper

Q. How long does it take to move on from a friendship/relationship that ended badly and abruptly?

A. As long as it takes.

This may sound flippant, but it’s true. There is no magic formula that will let you predict how any given person will “move on” from any given breakup. There are far too many variables.

It’s kinda like how Ian Malcolm describes chaos theory in the movie Jurassic park:

Watch on YouTube

The person, the breakup, all their life experiences up until that point, the specific things going on in their life at that same moment like work or family relations, hell, their hormonal balance at that time, who else they have in their life to support them through the breakup, their diet, everything in their life current and past adds up to how any given person will handle any specific breakup.

It will take as long as it takes.

There's A Hole In The Communication Bucket

I'm listening to the song Hole In The Bucket. The way I've always heard the song performed, it seems to imply that the guy is basically lazy and expects his wife to troubleshoot everything for him.

It's like, guys who can't find their keys or socks or something, and take one glance around the room and then shout to their wife in the other room "where is it?" and the wife, who is up to her elbows in soap suds with screaming kids running around her ankles and food burning on the stove has to also mentally remember the details of every room in the house and all her husband's activities since he came home the night before to find whatever it is he lost because he can't be arsed to actually look for the thing.

The song is always sung with irritation at the guy who can't manage very simple domestic tasks and expects his wife to tell him each step along the way.

But today, I had a different perception.

If the genders were reversed, and I was playing "Henry", this song now sounds to me like being mansplained at.

Henry isn't doing a thing. Liza tells him to do a thing. Henry gives a reason for why he's not doing a thing, so Liza tells him to fix it. Every step Liza suggests, Henry asks Liza how he's supposed to accomplish that step, until we come right back to the beginning where he can't do the first step because of the original problem he mentioned at the beginning.

This reminds me of the argument I got into with my parents' friend about why I don't have health insurance. "Just save money!" How am I supposed to do that if my bills are higher than my income? "Get a better job!" How do I do that if the economy is in a recession and there aren't enough jobs? "Go to school for a better education!" How do I afford school if I don't have any money? "Save better!" With what income?

And 'round and 'round it goes.

It felt, to me, this time listening to this song, that Henry already knew there was a problem, but Liza thought she knew better, and Henry had to walk her through it, step by step, to reach the conclusion he had already reached. And, as a woman, I find this "well how would you suggest I solve this problem then?" questioning method to be very familiar, as a lot of men really don't like it when I simply make statements.

"OK, that sounds reasonable. Oh, wait a minute, but then how would I do this part if this thing is happening?" Constantly catering to the person offering "advice" and doing emotional labor to manage their own feelings so that they don't get "hurt" that their advice isn't warranted. Spending all this time walking them through the decision tree until they finally get to the conclusion I have already reached and doing so gently so they don't get their feelings hurt when I was the one who was dismissed, as though I couldn't have figured all this out on my own.

Up until the very last verse of the song, where we come to the first verse again, with the genders as-is, this song is still very much a "women are the Household Managers and have to do all the Domestic Labor even when the men 'help out'" situation.

But when we come full circle, then I suddenly switch to the other side and hear the lines as not Domestic Labor Management but as Unhelpful Fixer Offering Not Applicable Suggestions.

So that was an interesting perspective shift.