For about thirty minutes last week my kissing life flashed before my eyes.

I’ve been making out with some people lately. Maybe other things too with some of them, but let’s focus for a moment on the making out. At this point in my life, if you called me a kissing slut I probably wouldn’t correct you. This is one of the ways, of course, in which my life kicks major ass.

One other way is that my health has been much better than usual for the past six weeks or so, allowing me to be out of bed and into people’s faces more. Until last week, when some acute infection brutally slapped my throat with a pus cactus. Which is why I was sitting on an examination table with a short, bright-eyed man chafing my hands, about to peer at my tonsils.

“Are your hands always so cold?” He asked me.

“Yes.” Sometimes it’s rather convenient. You can do ice play without running to the kitchen.

“Did you walk here? Is that why they’re cold?”

“No. They’re just cold.” He took out a tongue depressor and looked into my throat.

“Mono,” he said. “Have you ever had mono?”

“When I was 18.”

“This looks like mono. Do you have a boyfriend?”

“No.” The literal truth.

“Good, because if you have mono you can’t be intimate. We’ll do a quick test right now.” Having had mono, I knew that kissing fell under this intimacy umbrella. Not only that, but I knew that even though I’d felt remarkably well (for me) a week ago, I might have been contagious already for over a month.

Shit.

As a friendly, frizzy-haired nurse came in and tried to poke my finger for a blood sample, also expressing dismay at my cold hands because it was harder to squeeze enough blood out, I thought about what mono would mean for me right now. I would have to contact all my recent makeout partners and tell them I might have gotten them sick. I would possibly have to watch some of them grow sick and miserable for a long while, knowing I and my slutty, slutty lips were responsible. Meanwhile, I myself would be sick and miserable and cease to enjoy my recent run of good health. Also, my spleen would be enormous.

Then it dawned on me, this must be what it’s like to have an STI.

The nurse returned fifteen minutes later telling me we hadn’t gotten enough blood, so she stabbed another finger as I wondered how long having mono would mean going without making out with any sexy people.

I was playing pokemon on my DS but really composing a form email to warn people of my infectious face when she announced that the test was negative. My doctor returned and told me he thought it would be, and prescribed me antibiotics for my bacterial throat infection.

It’s clearing up.

But I almost had a not-quite-STI, and it was scary. Also, I couldn’t kiss the people I wanted to kiss on Saturday because, well, throat infection. But everyone’s spleens remain comfortably normal-sized for the time being.

But if it had been mono– and certainly if I had an honest-to-goodness STI– I know I would have sucked it up and told people and refrained from spreading the contagion further, however uncomfortable or inconvenient it was. There was never any question. Period. My fun is not worth anyone’s illness.

Which reminds me: April is actual-STI awareness month! Let’s all get tested and stuff.

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For years I maintained that polyamory was synonymous with drama. With slogging through relationship issues twice as much as doing actual relationship stuff. With inexhaustible neediness. Otherwise, I liked it in theory. I agreed with the overall idea that a person could be in love with more than one person at once. But in practice– every time I’d seen it– its implementation was irredeemably messy and awful, and I made assumptions based on that. Which, as you have likely concluded yourself, was dickish and logically unsound.

I mean, I could have stopped for a moment to consider the fact that most human relationships stoop to varying degrees of messy and awful at some point.

I wasn’t actively shunning and judging poly people, mind, but my main reasons for not choosing it for myself were the potential for drama and my smug estimation that it just didn’t work. There were other factors that made me cling to monogamy and then open-not-poly for a while. I had partners who didn’t identify as poly. I had trouble believing anyone wanted to date me, let alone multiple people, so the whole thing just seemed fantastical. Then there was my rich and storied history of trading my freedom for love. The prospect of a relationship that wasn’t limiting in fundamental ways confused me.

Really, this is just more support for my growing suspicion that when person A waxes critical of the concept of person B’s perfectly harmless, minding-their-own business lifestyle, it really just means person A has some related shit to work out on their end.

Then I met more poly people, some of whom executed their multiple relationships in ways that made more sense to me than what I’d previously witnessed. I even met people who did it more or less the way my open relationship functioned, but called it poly, and that made the word less scary. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, polyamory kind of started seeming like an increasingly attractive idea for me. Well, let’s be frank: I probably never wasn’t attracted to the idea. I harbor no doubt that person A is actually often just a mite envious of person B.

I realize I’m single and in zero relationships now, so it may not be the optimal time to declare myself poly (fun fact: most people call the multiple partners thing that single people do “dating”). And it’s certainly hard for me to conclude that it’s my orientation without actively trying it. But I have come to the decision that I prefer not to be entirely monogamous in the long-run, and that I am entirely open to polyamory, inclusive of casual as well as more serious multiple relationships.

In short, I think I might be poly. I’m going to try to check that out.

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I’m loath to write about spirituality here. Partially because it is so deeply personal that I anticipate the majority of people judging me no matter what I say about it, and being judged is so not my kink¹. Also because I’m very newly discovering mine, and with my long and bumpy history of attempting stone skepticism, anything beyond Secular Humanism still breaks my head a little. Or shames me, I don’t know. But mostly I don’t want to get too esoteric because this blog is technically supposed to be about boning, and I want to honor that.

But I still wanted to write about the Sacred Sexuality workshop I attended over the weekend. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it has almost nothing to do with spirituality unless you want it to.

In truth, sexuality has always been sacred to me. No matter how much of a good, skeptical-of-everything atheist I was trying to be, sex always carried with it the potential for transcendence. Reginald Sleeth once asked me if he could be my god², and I replied that I already had one. Beauty was my god: a day in the park could feed me like communion, art could deliver a homily, and the spark of skin on skin, at its best, was transfiguration. The beauty I found in people was scintillating, variable, overpowering. What I got from touch sometimes seemed to verge on mysticism.

No matter what you believe, it’s hard to deny that human connection is possibly the most powerful and transformative force in human experience. Love between people can help us feel pure joy, can inspire us to greatness, can lead us gladly into profound sacrifice. Fear between people can unravel lives.

So really, Sacred Sexuality is all about accepting and intensifying whatever magic we personally find in the positive aspects of human connection. It’s being fully present with the person you’re with, and truly seeing them, feeling them, tasting them. It is to sex what savoring is to food. It is using attention as a sex toy.

It’s really not that weird, actually.

When I’m touching you, kissing you, fucking you, I am grateful for you. I can be grateful to God or the Universe or the process of evolution that put you on this planet: all of these, none of these. I can just be grateful that you’ve chosen to share yourself with me for this little time. Gratitude is never careless– it takes nothing for granted. It doesn’t even have to be slow and sensual; even if I’m urgent, devouring, I’m completely present. I am with you. I am being with you. That’s how you allow touch to be a sacrament.

You know, from the couple of hours’ experience I had over the weekend hearing about it, at least.

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1. It is probably weird that I have no such fear of judgment writing about the madcap ways I like to have orgasms, but there are clearly different kinds of exposure and vulnerability.
2. No red flag there, right?

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In short, life is roughly as awesome as this.

Things about my life right now:

1. I have no longer not had sex in 2012. It was the kind of sex that you think back on whilst furiously masturbating later on, too.
2. I’ve been busy doing the whole “working on myself” thing lately, as mentioned here. This doesn’t really make for sexy prose, but it’s kind of changing everything. Or at least how I see everything. Profound personal journey stuff. Let’s move on…
3. It took a lot of angst and at least seven of the five stages of grief, but I honestly believe I’ve made my peace with the recent breakup. I absolutely would have preferred that the details had gone down differently, but they didn’t, and that’s okay.
4. I’ve made a shocking amount of peace with some other things too. Actually quite a lot of things. Forgiveness really is for the forgiver, not the forgiven. Go figure!
5. Life is blithe and fancy and filled with interesting, exciting doings. For instance, did you know that I’m going to learn about sacred sexuality tomorrow? Am I even entirely sure what that means?

I hope your list of the moment kicks at least this much ass.

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I mean, I still wish I was eating pie right now², but it’s not bothering me that I’m not. And I can still celebrate cake’s more sophisticated and delicious brother in all his geeky glory. Without, um, eating him.

But seriously, eat a slice for me, will you?

Oh, and about that other holiday that’s happening today? These are my thoughts on that.

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1. Holy shit. I just realized I’m doing Lent. Kind of.
2. Seriously, whenever you happen to read this, I almost certainly wish I were eating pie at this precise moment. Because pie.

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The sentiment that you have to love yourself first before loving another person never rang true for me. There are dark places in me, places where I use my own face as a dartboard and trample my own spiritual tulips because bitch stole my sweater. Oh, and also because when we get right down to it, I’ve never cared for her much.

But with other people, I can be very loving. I try to plant and nurture their tulips, lend them sweaters. Once I get warmed up, I love unstintingly and honestly and sweetly. I’m really rather good at it. Until it blows up in my face. A lot. Every single goddamn time. Maybe that’s the point of the adage. Maybe you can’t successfully love someone else until you love yourself.

But then I see all these people in seemingly successful relationships and I wonder if I’m really so much more messed up than they are. Don’t we all secretly loathe ourselves¹? How many people on the planet actually love themselves? Are those sixteen people the only ones capable of real, healthy love? I don’t buy it.

However, I do generally like the idea of loving myself. So there’s that.

I’m afraid of it too, though. As far back as I can remember I’ve worked tirelessly to avoid arrogance and self aggrandizement. Maybe it was because early on, a lot of flashy things like getting good grades and the arts came naturally to me; maybe at some point someone told me to keep my head down and stop showing off and I took it ridiculously seriously. I don’t even know. I just know that I became convinced that overconfidence is more repugnant than crippling self-abasement. I no longer actually think this is true, though. And if it is, I’m pretty sure I no longer care.

I’m usually good at projecting confidence even when I don’t feel it. I’ve also mostly avoided outright self-destructive behaviors; I’ve always been terrible at giving up and pretty good at finding silver linings. And I have to admit that I do often suspect I’m rather awesome. I think my nature is probably fundamentally confident, but I’m afraid to really commit to it, and instead I’ve taken on a lot of fucked up beliefs about myself.

This isn’t even about my romantic life, although I have been told multiple times that my self-esteem issues are by far the least attractive thing about me. Really, I’m just sick to death of being so hard on myself. It’s irritating to spend so much time with someone who doesn’t appreciate me. And yes, it is worrying that I have consistently sought out relationships with people who one way or another end up treating me how I feel I deserve to be treated², and I would prefer that that change. Honestly, though, me treating myself like I’m worthless is more troubling, by far.

So I’ve started working on all that self esteem shit, more aggressively and purposefully than I’ve ever done before. If I overcorrect and start seeming at all egotistical as I work through things, I hope you’ll understand. I’m trying out this new thing of not being a dick to myself, you see.

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1. I understand that I may be projecting a rather lot, but really, don’t we?
2. Although, it needs to be said, this is trending better and better.

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There’s apparently some kind of old school tradition that women can propose marriage to men on Leap Day without everyone involved melting in a Raiders of the Lost Ark type scenario. One has to wonder if anyone back in days of yore ever took advantage of this single, once-every-four-years loophole in a culture of crushing sexism, and if they did, what the neighbors said. I have my suspicions that people don’t stop being dicks just because the calendar tells them to, which would explain why I’ve never gotten a pony for my birthday.

Now that women are technically allowed to ask questions nearly every day of the year, and we queers are ruining marriage for everyone anyway, isn’t it time we let Leap Day mean something else?

I vote that Leap Day is the day people of all genders can magically tell their crushes they want to bone them without things being weird afterward. That would be cool.

Although if you develop a crush next week, waiting nearly four years to talk about it sounds like torture. It also sounds like a longer time period than most crushes last. Maybe eventually we’ll have to make this a “Wednesday” thing rather than a “Leap Day” thing.

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I joined OKCupid recently, as one is supposed to after getting dumped. They actually have a recruiter come to your house, pound on your door, tell you to stop watching Dawson’s Creek, and ask you what you want your username to be.

True story.

It feels too early to jump into another serious relationship. It feels like a good time to develop a crush or six, though, or to start the vetting process that will eventually, possibly lead to making out and orgasms and stuff. I’m ignoring the fact that those things are how serious relationships usually start; I’ll cross those legs when I come to them.

I like OKC so far, I do. Mostly. I like taking the wacky tests. I like answering match questions. It feels like placing an order for the perfect lover, even though you know it could turn out more like a botched pizza delivery and you may end up trying to choke down a pie topped with legos and felt. I love the fact that it tells you your match percentage with people. I’m in the 90%s with many of my friends who happen to be on the site, and I find myself idly wondering about all the others. And various exes. And my dog, but not in a weird way.

All this before I have any actual experience proving that a high match percentage means anything, really. The very savvy Viola Sharqtipus once told me, however, that she really does get along better with exceptionally high OKC matches. So because of that and the clinical comfort of numbers, I’m paying attention to my percentages with people.

But on the other hand, the whole dating site thing is proving kind of annoying. I could spend stupid amounts of time just answering messages, which are mostly inane. I want to understand how I’m supposed to respond to a message that says “You seem interesting,” which is more or less what half of them say¹. I’m assuming here that people are not actually intending to have a conversation about how interesting I am, but rather saying “You’re interesting; I, not so much. Say something interesting to me now so we can talk about that!” This comes off as lazy and impolite, contacting me first only to put the burden of starting any actual conversation on me.

I realize it’s not always easy to start a conversation, and maybe it’s not worth the effort if you’re opting to use the shotgun approach to contacting broads on the internet, but do you know what kind of people I want to talk to online and date and be interesting with? People who are a) interesting themselves and actually interested in me, and b) can have conversations.

I had no idea I’d feel so strongly about this, but it seems I do. In fairness, I’m more misanthropic than usual lately. It took me very little time to earn OKC’s “replies very selectively” warning label, and it doesn’t look like it’s going away any time soon.

But I have found a few gripping new people to talk to, and perhaps someday meet. I even met one already, and we got along so well we’ll likely get really wacky and out there and do it again. Of course, because one of my rules for myself on the site is not to initiate contact with anyone over 25 miles away because right now I’m a little burned out on the “driving hours every week to see my paramour” relationship model, all these people live over an hour away so far. But they messaged me first and actually said stuff and asked questions and shit, and you can’t put a number on that².

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1. Along with an astonishingly not-infrequent “I didn’t understand half of ur profile lol.”
2. Although technically I think they all happen to be high percentage matches. Score one for Viola.

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So I should really be looking for rebound sex right now. Shallow, animal rebound sex with no strings attached and even fewer inhibitions.

But right now I just can’t even imagine how to start to do that.

Sure, I love sex. Sure, I have no interest in only ever fucking my One True Love (and trust me, that ship has sailed), or even only having sex with people with whom I’m planning a future of furniture shopping and timeshare family holidays. And yeah, I have a sex blog where I write about boning. I’m fairly frank about what a freak I am.

That doesn’t mean sex comes easily for me. Because I increasingly have to trust you first, and that has never come easily for me. I can love you and not trust you. I can try to trust you, my newborn trust just trying to get its legs underneath it, and something that may seem trivial– a memory from my past or a reason to doubt your honesty– can crash down on it and snap its neck. I have a graveyard full of these dead beasts.

When Laramy and I started dating, it took me a couple months to be ready to have sex. Our personalities clicked almost instantly, and his patience and willingness to go at my pace helped me relax and let myself fall for him. Eventually, I felt so safe with Laramy that it somehow extended to other sexual relationships. I could trust new people more quickly and readily since I felt like I had the foundation of a solid relationship underneath it all. I believed someone had my back no matter what.

Now I don’t really know where I am. I don’t know what my present pattern is when it comes to trust and sex. The idea of truly casual sex makes me feel even more lonely. Still, I find it hard to imagine trusting someone new in the abstract. The pain is too fresh yet, and the thought of having something solid and comfortable with someone again feels unrealistic, even though I don’t subscribe to any One True Love philosophies. Will it still seem so hard once I’m actually in the middle of discovery and sexual tension and playful banter with someone awesome? Well, probably not. It will probably be as natural as breathing.

Although I’m not a champion breather, come to think of it.

I got massively, catastrophically hurt. It has happened before, and it may happen again. But I also now know for the first time that a relationship can be, for the most part, good. It can be a positive force in my life. And I want that again. Someday, if I can get there.

But why can’t I just get laid first and not worry about any of that? Why does it all have to be so fucking wrought? I don’t feel like I’m on the rebound; I just feel deflated.

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You may have already figured out that I am single now. You’re smart like that; smarter than I am subtle. But it’s high time I explicitly stated it here, it being an important part of the narrative and all.

Laramy and I aren’t together anymore.

No, it wasn’t my idea, and yeah, of course I was crushed. I’m still kind of crushed. If you’ve been reading this blog you may have noticed how smitten I was with him; that doesn’t fade overnight. But I’m not asking anyone to feel sorry for me or take sides. Fundamentally, we had a good thing together, I’m grateful for what time we had, and I respect his choice even if it’s hard for me to understand.

So that’s the official update and declaration of QP’s singlehood with special bonus resolution to stop moping about it.

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