quizzical pussy

I think it’s pretty well documented that I have no idea when people are attracted to me. They actually have to not only tell me, but also have sex with me for it to (ahem) penetrate, and even then it’s dubious for me. This means that I just go around assuming no one is attracted to me until there’s overwhelming evidence to the contrary. This isn’t because I think I’m ugly, or can’t conceive of anyone finding me attractive; it just kind of doesn’t occur to me one way or the other because I’m pathologically dense about these things.

But I can usually tell at a glance when tendrils of attraction are budding between two people who both aren’t me. That’s easy. They glow neon lilac and my pinkie nails start to vibrate.

At particular times of the month, I find myself inexplicably attracted to male friends of mine who have large families. I can think of a few who are fathers of three or four, whom their adored wives look after at home, with the smallest (it comes out as ‘latest’ in my head) on their hip whilst they pack the others off to school. This is not something I want, at all, and I don’t fantasise about being in that position, nor do I have any of the more typical ‘breeding fetish’ ideals… it seems to be that my hormones just SUDDENLY direct me to be turned on by demonstrably virile men for like two days a month. I can accurately calculate my cycle by keeping a track on when these people pop up in fantasies. It’s most disconcerting.

Hormones are terrifying, dude, and I’m not just saying that because mine make me suicidal sometimes.

I knew for years that we weren’t sexually compatible, but I stayed anyway. I adored her brain. I still do adore her brain. But I’m so not into her body or sex with her, and it’s been an ongoing struggle for me–especially since she frequently professed how hot she thinks I am.

We broke up on new years day, and I feel…awesome. I feel awesome and then terrible about that, because how can I feel awesome when I broke her heart? She’s my best friend, I shouldn’t feel awesome if she feels terrible.

We were nominally poly, and the guy I’ve been seeing hasn’t made a move at all beyond kissing. I kind of suspect I’m never getting laid again. Ugh.

Oh, you’ll get laid again. My pinkie nails are going crazy just thinking about it.

I am turned on by Amy Wong, on Futurama. I want to put my mouth to that cute little bare midriff of hers, and see where things go.

Even more of a turn-on, though, is the character Nani, from Lilo & Stitch. Her strong thighs and broad hips, small breasts, wide-set eyes and non-traditional nose all get to me in ways that I shouldn’t let a cartoon affect me. I have more than once fapped hard to her image on the inside of my head.

I’m sorry your love can never be.

I went from a years-long dry spell to getting flogged and kissed and beaten and fucked and tied up and such on a regular basis, and oh my god, it’s amazing. I was all repressed and sad and lonely for so long, and now people want to have sex with me and do other stuff too! I’m so much happier and more comfortable in my skin now that it’s ridiculous. It’s making me consider going to my 10-year reunion just so I can feel smug about how great my sex life is.

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If the subject of gay marriage always elicits a “Why is the government even involved in marriage anyway? Let’s just stop doing that, okay?” from you, and you don’t stridently bring that up whenever your straight friends are walking around getting married and being married, I think you’re derailing from the basic issue of giving people their civil rights. If you were never all that fussed about the government sanctioning unions before gay marriage became such an imminent possibility, I question your motives in fussing about it now.

If, more generally, you don’t think it’s important to fight for the civil rights of people being deprived of theirs simply because it isn’t your personal pet cause, I think you’re dearly in need of perspective. Figure this shit out and catch up. We’re trying to make the world suck less. It will not stop sucking, and some people will still be left out in the cold, and that is not okay. But we’ll be another step closer to optimal sucklack.

And sucklack is a fundamental American value that our founding fathers were pretty jazzed over.

(image source)

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I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but marriage equality is kind of a big deal in the United States this week. Today the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case challenging Proposal 8, a law that delegalized same-sex marriage in California. Tomorrow the court hears another case challenging the hilariously-named Defense of Marriage Act. If these laws are successfully overturned, the government will have slightly but significantly caught up with the reality that anyone worth their trace minerals already understands: Civil rights are non-negotiable, no matter whom one thinks one’s sky daddy is mad at.

So here’s a ConTuesday all about the manifold ways different people are doing– or want to do– marriage. Can we stop pretending it does– or is even supposed to– mean just one thing?

I don’t want to come out as a lesbian to my closed-minded conservative family until I’m married to my amazeballs girlfriend. Because then they won’t be able to dismiss my romantic/sexual orientation as “just a phase”. Because then they will have to deal with the fact that the government considers my relationship as real and important as my parents’ 25 year marriage. Because it’ll piss them off SO MUCH harder. ;)

At a certain point people are just choosing to be pissed off, and it’s our prerogative to troll the shit out of them by being fabulously, blissfully happy.

About two years ago, I met a man and, at the time, there was some serious flirtation and obvious sexual chemistry. It was a one time deal (meeting him. nothing happened.) or so I thought.

Fast forward about a year and this man ends up being my kids soccer coach. I see him all the time at functions, some of which include alcohol (fund-raisers with no kids present). Conversations have gotten more and more sexual. Flirting has gotten more blatant. Offers have been made. Through the magic of social media and it being socially expected that you ”add” everyone you know, I’ve come to realize our kinks mesh perfectly and he is likely a ”swinger”. I too am in an open marriage, which he is not aware of, although I know he suspects it.

Now the conundrum…what to do? Whenever I meet someone I’m very attracted to my fantasies tend to revolve around pleasing them in very specific ways. It would be easy enough to make the offer and give him head he’d never forget. We’d both love it and I don’t think it would be an issue for either of our spouses. I know it wouldn’t be for mine. However, what if we were found out? To say the proverbial shit would hit the fan would be an understatement. This is a big part of the reason I have resisted telling him that my husband and I have an open marriage, despite the fact that he’s asked.

I know I shouldn’t let it happen. I know it could blow up and be a very bad situation. But, every time we’re together and he catches me alone or we put ourselves in a situation where we have a bit of privacy, I can’t help but think how easy, and how incredibly hot, it would be.

Within minutes we could be alone, making out, then his cock in my mouth, hearing him moan, his hands wrapped in my hair while he forces his cock farther into my throat, holding me there while he shoots jet after jet of cum down my throat. Ten, fifteen minutes tops, and it would be done. We’d straighten ourselves up. I’d leave him to collect himself while I slipped back into the crowd then, a few minutes later, he’d do the same. Mostly no one would notice and, if anyone did, they’d never be able to prove we were together. It would be so easy to get away with but, what if we were found out?

It’s that damn “what if”, and the backlash, even though our spouses wouldn’t obejct, that keeps it from happening.

The situation here is that the four major people involved in this situation would be cool in degrees ranging from “why not?” to pleased as delicious sherbet punch. But they have to worry about what completely other, uninvolved people think. Please stop cockblocking us all, scandalmongers. I’m fucking serious.

I want to keep my spouse as my beloved life-long partner who i share my life and family with. I just want to fuck somebody else. Sadly, this has occurred to me 10 years into marriage, so negotiating it is next to impossible.

Sometimes marriage means you get to fuck other people, and . This is true of more straight marriages than gay marriages because guess what? There are only a tiny fraction of the gay marriages there should be in the first place!

But to shift soap boxes slightly, if we could get non-monogamy to the point of mainstream acceptance I think we’d really have a chance at that sex utopia I keep dreaming about.

Okay, well probably not.

When I got married to my partner years ago, I never never imagined I could fall in love so hard again that I’d want to marry someone else. And here I am–having the best sex ever, looking deep into eyes that are not my husband’s. I am seriously pissed that our culture does not condone multiple marriages. Then again, the whole legal concept of “marriage” is fairly ridiculous. Maybe I will get divorced from my husband now just to prove a political point, and then maybe I will just ask my second (new) partner, a woman, if she wants to be my life-partner too. Then we can all three of us live in happy bliss…this is my dream, quizzicalpussy! This is my dream!

My dream too, quizkids. In my lurid sex utopia you’d be free to share legal rights, benefits, and social status with any family you built in its entirety. You wouldn’t have to pick a legitimate love and a secret (or secondary) one. Your life could reflect your heart, and mine could reflect mine, and Charlton Heston’s could reflect his. Shocking and tawdry, I know.

I love my husband so very much. He really has been a wonderful force in my life and I would have never been able to start my own business without his support. But I’m feeling like I love my boyfriend more and more, more than my husband.

I know a lot of it is that Boyfriend is better at reading my moods and not overly pressuring me for anything. The husband is completely oblivious 95% of the time.

Thing is, if I say anything, then everybody feels bad. Husband’s last wife left him for her boyfriend she had while married to him. Boyfriend’s been married twice and both women left him for women they were seeing behind his back. He would also feel horrible with even the slightest idea that he was “stealing” me.

So I say nothing. I remind myself often that I’m lucky to have two men who really do love me. And I count the days between visits to the boyfriend.

Sometimes parents have favorite kids. Sometimes things like that are just temporary. Things happen. Love is a weird thing to try to quantify.

I got married for the financial security and health insurance, and I will get unmarried if the real thing ever comes along. I’ve never explicitly told my spouse the degree to which I’m using him.

This has been happening for millennia, basically, except we really have made exceptional strides in healthcare in the last couple centuries. It’s amazing, really.

I think that getting married may have been a mistake. Ostensibly, there’s nothing wrong. My husband is kind, funny, a good person, and one of my best friends. We even have an open relationship so I can have other relationships – I have a boyfriend that I’m intensely in love with.

The problem is that loving my boyfriend this much has made it very obvious to me that I don’t love my husband in the same way and sometimes I don’t think he loves me that way either.

My husband and I haven’t had sex in weeks and weeks. And even when we have have sex in the last 6-8 months, it’s been spotty and not very good. He’s gained weight and is depressed about it so he has been having trouble gaining and holding an erection (but never wants to talk about it or see a doctor and has forbidden me from saying anything to anyone about it). So, anytime we have sex, it’s this rush to take advantage of the erection before it’s gone which leads to sex being a routine of me getting him hard with my mouth or hands and then him sticking it in. I couldn’t tell you the last time he went down on me or tried to please me in any way. So, why bother? Funnily enough though, he still has sex with his girlfriend.

On the opposite end of this spectrum, my boyfriend can’t get enough of me, tells me I’m beautiful all the time and finds me so sexy that even being near me gives him an erection. Sex with him is multiple orgasms, epic oral sessions and him teasing me until I’m begging to be fucked. Spending time with him is him actively showing me how much he loves me and making me feel cherished.

I’m trying to keep in mind that I’m caught in the middle of a lot of NRE, but I’m finding myself so ambivalent about my husband and marriage and this is not the first time I’ve struggled with feelings like this, which is why I’m starting to think that marriage was a mistake. Sometimes I think we’re still together simply because we never had a good enough reason to break up. At the same time, I don’t know that I necessarily want a divorce and the upheaval that would cause, plus I don’t believe in just walking away from that kind of commitment. I’m finding myself fantasizing that he’ll leave me for his girlfriend though.

I don’t know what to do, but I haven’t been able to fully tell anyone how I’m feeling so it feels good to get this out.

On one hand, if you don’t actively want to be in a relationship, and this feeling persists over time, that’s something you should take seriously. You see, if we’re lucky, we have a handful of decades to have the most vivid and magical experience we can have here. If your partners disrupt that journey for you, you are making a daily choice to waste 24 hours while joy lies dormant. This is how I see things.

On the other hand, NRE is crazy and can make us crazy, and it might be a good idea to wait until it subsides before making drastic decisions. Comparing a mature relationship with the frenzy of new love isn’t really fair, is it?

On the every hand, I’m not really qualified to give relationship advice, and I’ve never been married. Not even for like a second.

My relationship with a very nice, pretty, gentle, utterly straightlaced and almost asexual man ended recently.

As the relationship was coming to an end, I stopped fantasizing about getting married, and started fantasizing about finding a dominant, kinky man that would fuck me until I was sore, then do it again the next day.

FOUND HIM! More confessions will be forthcoming, definitely.

First thing: ::internet high five::

Marriage isn’t for everyone. It should just be up to the people involved– and only them– to decide whether or not they are among the people it’s for. Go go gadget equality!

Confess here.

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ConTuesday is happening. Look out.

Jesus fuck. I bought my first vibrator and all I can think now is WHY THE HELL DID I WAIT SO LONG? Seriously.

I cried, man. I literally cried when I came. It was bloody awesome. I’ve never done that before.

Life is so damn awesome right now.

I want everyone to have so many moments like this. Whether it’s down to staring up at the cosmic dance of the stars or skimming flesh against flesh or diving into fractals or pressing a little motorized beast against your nethers, I want it for you. I crave it for you. Life needs to show us its awesome, and we need to let it.

Hi QP,
Giant fan here (in spirit not size). I have a lame confession that also plays the odds. I’ll phrase it like a letter:

Dear girl in my Modern Physics class,

You are supremely attractive. I hardly listen to the lectures some days because you’re in my head gettin’ weird. I would do, truthfully, anything you wanted me to do, so if you’re in a class where a weirdly silent guy showed up sporting a bad mohawk, green sunglasses, a shirt that reads “#1 Dad,” and the tail end of a two day hangover, you should check me out. Give me a thumbs-up and we can get a coffee.

P.S. You straightened your hair. Fantasies have been updated. Some guys notice the little things.

P.P.S. Other girls (and guys) in that class: You guys are great too, don’t worry.

It’s not often that I think “Man, I wish more people read my blog” because I’m actually not as megalomaniacal as the liberal media would have you believe, but now is one of those times. Please, blogging gods, let’s get some supremely attractive, be-mohawked people laid, can we?

The sexual tension is back. A dirty note here, a lingering hug there, a veiled reference at any possible time. I want it, he wants it, and we both know we shouldn’t do it. I’m turned on all the time and I’m fairly certain it’s only a matter of time. If it happens I will enjoy it thoroughly for what it is. He and I both know it can’t be more. I still hope it happens.

Where does sexual tension go away to before it comes back? It is a mystery.

This article claims that the moving tentacle that plugs into your hard drive “doesn’t actually serve any useful purpose.”

But we know better, don’t we, QP?

Are you by any chance referring to this thing? Thinkgeek, that is straight up a sex toy and we all goddamn know it. Will you let me have an affiliate link now?

I’m 23 and work at a newspaper. I have this weird crush on a kid at a middle school… he’s kinda cute and always in the paper for writing and orchestra and dressing up in historical costumes. Basically all the nerdy hobbies I love. He looks older than he is, glasses and long hair, and I’ve met him once.

I officially have no judgments about whom anyone has crushes on, but whatever you do, mate, don’t “he’s very mature for his age” yourself into child molestation. Promise me you will never do that.

I’m coming to terms with the fact that my ex was coercive and abusive. Sure, he didn’t know he was doing it, he got anxious and he came from a dysfunctional family–all excuses I keep giving myself–but he made me constantly afraid to say no, and I had panic attacks at the thought of seeing him.

My girlfriend, on the other hand, is great. I’m slowly getting comfortable with her touching me–yesterday she tickled me for hours, and she ended up straddling me, and it was great. I didn’t feel afraid, just attracted and with only the mildest remnants of discomfort. I felt like I made real progress.

Today she came over and held me while I cried for ages. I guess I didn’t make as much progress as I thought. I’m so tired of feeling this way. I just want to hold her, and not feel uncomfortable and sick about it. My first relationship fucked me up big time! I know it won’t fuck up this one, but it’s so depressing to think of all that time designated “recovery” stretching out ahead of me, all of this effort to detox the shit he put me through. I really do love her though.

You are doing everything right, and your ex deserves to be nothing more than a distant, foul-scented memory. Love her hard, and accept every ounce of respect and devotion that she gives you because you deserve it.

My spouse and I have plenty of (ok) sex. It’s the kissing and cuddling that is missing. Sometimes I want to cheat – with my best friend – and have some amazing cuddles, fully clothed. Why is this so hard????

Okay, monogamous people. I’m not mad. I’m not. But why is cuddling cheating? Don’t we have to draw the line somewhere with all this dyadic hysteria? I’m sorry, but someone had to say it.

Tell me many things!

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Sometimes when I’m stressed out I just want someone to charge into my largely solitary existence, messy up all my things that I’ve arranged carefully so that no one notices that I’m struggling, and god dammit take care of me. And I hate admitting that.

Holy crap it’s like a confession except everyone knows it’s me!

Oh thank god! I was so concerned about you because you posted about wanting to kill yourself and then you didn’t post for a week and I was running around in a circle whining like a distressed puppy. But you’re okay. Thank god.

I feel like a jackass for worrying you, and you have also made my frigid heart melt.

I’ve been healthily (for once) in love with a man who is stable and afraid to hurt me but willing to when he knows I need it and whose immediate reaction to seeing me have a Little breakdown and sucking my thumb is knowing he needs to take care of me and find a way to make me genuinely smile again, all while dating a man who thinks and will directly say that he needs to learn to be an asshole in order to be a Dom and he can’t do that and who puts off important conversations (like me trying to break up with him) for months and whose first reaction to me being upset enough to suck my thumb is, “That’s gross,” and who, oh gods, can’t spell but expects me to respect and follow his badly phrased and inappropriate orders when language means so much to me and he doesn’t care to even try. Lets all pretend that wasn’t a run-on sentence.

I AM DETERMINED TO BREAK UP WITH HIM; grant me the courage to not feel obligated to stay. I don’t want to hurt him, butt-fuck it, I’m going to have to in order to go on with my life and not have him waste any more of his time with me.

You are obligated to break up with someone when you genuinely don’t want to be in a relationship with them. When things have gone that far, no amount of conversation or counseling or ignoring the issue is going to reverse the fact that you genuinely don’t want to be in the relationship. And nothing good is going to come from staying in it. People get hurt; it’s what we sign up for when we fall for one another. A lover who never hurts you is one with whom you have a very brief or a very shallow connection. But the temporary pain of a breakup is so much better than the stagnation and misery of a relationship that is supposed to be over– and that goes for both people, ultimately.

Courage, poppet. You’ve got this.

We made out under the stars on this, our first date after having just met. We came up for air, and my future wife asked me, “What’s the strangest place at which you’ve ever masturbated?” I was 19, so I thought that “a dressing room at J.C. Penny” was pretty impressive. She was impressed. Years later (still before we married), she would go into the dressing room of Dillard’s, where she worked at the time, and get her jollies.

Since then, I can’t think of anything that really displaces it. In the car while driving? (Yawn.) In the men’s room at work? (Oh, puh-lease.) In a deer blind while hunting? (MAYbe.)

QP, what was your strangest place and/or circumstance that you’ve ever masturbated in?

And I would love to read commenters’ honest answers to this question. Even the mundane is of interest. For science.

I like to think that wearing kegel balls on a roller coaster totally counts. It feels like it counts.

Can i just say that my boyfriend is amazing. We are getting in to bondage play and we both don’t really know what we are doing but OH MY GOD I love being tied up so freaking much.

And I love him for taking care of me for three hours when I got overwhelmed and freaked out and started crying. He made me hot chocolate and wrapped me in blankets and held me until I felt better.

I love your boyfriend. In a strictly platonic, because-he-is-awesome-to-you-and-you-deserve-it way. Most likely.

I wrote you a novel of a confession weeks ago about my motorcycle friend. After several months of being teased by people who have seen us together, I felt I had to say something to him in light of a potentially awkward arrangement that would have been to the benefit of us both.

The integrity of my man picker is in worse shape than I was lead to believe: my mother and her friend thought it was just in need of recalibration for long-term mate traits. Given how far it’s lead me astray this last round I think it’s genuinely broken and, I dare say, irreparably damaged.

My feelings are deeply hurt but our relationship is more important to me, especially since he’s trusted me with his secret. At the same time, I know there are exceptions (I’ve met one and heard about three now). The adjectives he uses to describe them makes it clear that I do not merit one, even if he doesn’t say it plainly. I think that actually hurts more.

I feel selfish.

I feel like all the work I’ve done to be a better person and to be more attractive to the opposite sex has only made me a better friend of the “she’s like my sister” variety. After several years of this, I’ve come to believe that any variation of you’re sweet/a good person is the kiss of death despite those things supposedly being virtues.

I think I ought to give up on men because I’m tired of it blowing up in my face.

I’m sorry it turned out that way. I’m not going to bore you with platitudes, but if you need proof that you’re attractive to the opposite sex I doubt you have an profile on a dating website that mentions how much you love motorcycles. Let me know when you’re bored of the throngs of bikers messaging you. Just a hunch.

Last night, I beat my girlfriend with a riding crop for the first time, and all I can say is, HOLY FUCK!! Every time I hit her it was like a bolt of lightning right to my pussy, and WOW did it ever feel good! I’ve heard people say before that they can come just from beating someone, but now I actually understand how. The psychological and emotional rush you get is exquisite. Can’t wait to try it again :)

I hear there’s this thing called top space where yep, it’s pretty much HOLY FUCK or drugs or something.

We finally managed anal and although I don’t think it’s ever going to make me come it is super hot what it does to him. It is fun but not blow my mind, for me, but the way it blows his is totally worth the work to get there!

::Internet high five:: You are a champ to be so dedicated to your partner’s turn-ons, and deserve extra helpings of whatever sex blows your mind.

Confess your hot things. We don’t believe in sin here.

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I used to play a game called Questions with an old boyfriend. I could ask him any question about anything in the world, and he’d have to answer it. Then he’d ask me one. We’d do this for hours, indefatigably. It was like Truth or Dare except no one ever–even on accident–chose dare. Perhaps it was immature to play a game instead of having organic conversations, but I don’t know. It was kind of cool to have permission to ask anything I wanted to know; to in fact have someone waiting and eager for each query. Sometimes I get too comfortable accepting that everyone is a mystery, which makes me less likely to be vulnerable myself. And I seldom ask completely random, off-the-top-of-my-head questions out of the blue like that.

Maybe sometimes context is the enemy of edification.

More than a year ago now, I found myself in a fit of frustrated horniness over a lack of response from a potential paramour. Being a long-time conTuesday reader, I had a flash of inspiration! So I wrote in a confession detailing my various dirty thoughts on the subject. Took me ages.

Looking back, I credit this as at least one of the reasons I felt comfortable introducing dirty talk to a more recent budding relationship. This has been a very successful introduction. And I may never have been able to get over my embarrassment and just jump in if it hadn’t been for the surprising success of my efforts to talk dirty to an internet-full of strangers.

So, this isn’t really a confession. I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate conTuesday. And that whatever else the world will say about it, it certainly helped at least this person’s sex life to be better and more verbal. So thanks. *hugs* and/or *gropes* to you, QP, whatever suits your current feelings ;)

I will take all the hugs and gropes! This makes me incredibly happy for so many reasons, the least of which is not how deeply I love dirty talk myself.

This winter break I am passing through a town which I had previously visited this last summer. Who is also passing though at the same time? The woman with whom I had a several night stand with while I was there in the summer. I fucking love coincidence. She recognized me even though I had grown a beard in the mean time and she thinks I am sexier with the beard. Unfortunately we only had one night this time, but we made the most of it. We kept in touch this time round, so does this mean we are now “fuck whenever we can” buddies or something like that? I don’t even know, I’m just really happy with coincidence right now since it also turns out that she lives within weekend travel distance of me.

PS: I feel kind of bad about how much of a mess we made out of the hotel room, but mostly awesome that I can brag about it.

There’s no way I can know for sure if you’re “fuck whenever [you] can” buddies or not, but literally all signs point to yes.

And always tip housekeeping. It keeps the guilt at bay and not enough people do.

First off, let me preface this by saying I am a longtime reader and lover of this blog and of ConTuesday.

I have to admit, though, sometimes I wonder about the word “confession”…

When we confess our stories about sex, does that imply that sex/sexuality are supposed to be secret, private–and that we are doing something naughty or wacky or abnormal or illicit by revealing them?

In our normative society, there is so much sex-negativity, so much terror of the body’s pleasures…such lustphobia. So I wonder about your use of the term confession to air folks stories. I wonder if there aren’t hints of sex-negativity laden within the term that perhaps (though I’m sure this is unintentional on your part) sticks to the word confess/ion.

Thanks for reading! I’m so glad you like the blog.

You make an excellent point. If there were no sex-negativity in society we wouldn’t need to surreptitiously disclose our sexual foibles; we’d just as soon shout them from rooftops or post them on facebook. And I would put my legal name on this blog, and there would be sex booths on every corner where, if you felt like it, you could insert quarters and have a comfy, automatically sterilized surface on which to fuck that person you happened to be walking down the street with, or that stranger with the comely backside. And all that would be awesome. The fact that we feel we can’t be open about sex does, tautologically enough, indicate that we feel we have something to hide. And that chafes the idealistic libertine.

But about the actual word “confession”, I hate it when people try to prove a point using dictionary definitions, but I do want to highlight something that I think is rather neat:

We all know how the average guy likes contemplating or viewing girl-on-girl action (especially oral), or at least wouldn’t be turned off by it. But I wonder for you or for other women reading your blog here how man-on-man action is considered (again generally oral)? I’ve had girlfriends who appreciated (and particiapted) in my bi-sexual flings, and I’ve had girlfriends to whom I would not dare confess my desire to have an occasional penis play buddy. I don’t stray but I am sometimes beside myself with cravings…

I have a strict policy that the sex I’m not having isn’t about me, and therefore isn’t for me. So if someone I’m with is bisexual, awesome. If not, awesome. Bisexuals are objectified enough, and no one needs my help making sure they stay that way. That being said, the visual of two people I find pretty having sex with each other is something I will always appreciate. I’m usually more immediately and visually attracted to women, so two men have a lower chance of making me drool than two women or a hetero pairing, simply because the odds I’ll be attracted to both of them are lower. But goodness, it happens! And is hot.

But I guess what I really want to say is that your sexuality is fine whether chicks fetishize it or not, you know?

I have been seeing someone for the last few months that was supposed to be just a friends with benefits situation but has turned into something more. Not a relationship, but there are definitely feelings involved on both sides. He’s awesome, funny, amazingly hot, the best lover I have ever (EVER) had and has a perfect dick.

The problem? I have herpes and while I am usually very good about disclosing, I totally chickened out on telling him when we first got together. Then, I felt like it was too late so I justified it to myself that I am confident in my ability to keep him from getting it (I have a perfect 15 year non-transmitting record on this). I know, I KNOW I was fooling myself thinking that it wasn’t that bad, but I stuck my head in the sand and was able to ignore it for the first few months.

But, as my feelings for him deepened, my guilt about this grew more and more insistent until I finally I knew I had to tell him. This is the HARDEST thing I’ve ever done in my life. To admit that I’m not the person either of us thought I was, that I was a coward and selfish, all the while I was sure that he would never want to see me again and who could blame him? He was quiet through most of the conversation, but told me that he forgave me, that he believed me when I said that I had never lied about anything else (I hadn’t) and that I was sorrier than he would ever know. He said he needed to think about it and to give him a little space.

Cue a week of immense guilt, self recrimination, anxiety, depression, a lot of crying and cutting myself again after not doing that for years. Ugh. I finally texted him after a week, unable to take the silence any longer and we made plans to hang out and talk.

He came over and it was like nothing had happened. He kissed me when he walked in, and just started talking about his week and was casually physically affectionate. He made a move to have sex and I stopped him to ask if he was sure. He said that he had thought a lot about it and while he has some trust issues, he also missed me too much to not have me in his life, so he made a decision to keep me in it.

JOY! RELIEF! To be able to be with him and not have this secret eating away at me is unimaginable happiness.

Then we proceeded to have our hottest sex to date, which I didn’t even think was possible. DAMN I love his dick.

I’m so glad things worked out for you. You deserve awesome sex with someone who values you, and I’m glad you’re having it!

Everyone, please remember to disclose your STI status to new partners before sexing them up in any way. It’s vital to their overall health, your emotional health, and the health of your relationship and reputation, casual or not.

My boyfriend takes *forever* to cum. And by forever I mean routinely over an hour. We’re both really new to sex in general and I don’t know how to deal with this (needless to say, not the problem I was expecting!). I just get so tired and he ends up taking care of himself while I lay there. Any advice? The internet doesn’t consider this a problem, apparently…

I have never really encountered this problem. There’s an actual medical condition called delayed ejaculation, but I don’t know if that applies here. Anyone?

I have trouble with taking advice from people who are in relationship styles that I do not want to emulate. For example, my parents are in a loveless marriage and have been for at least a decade, my best friend never talks to his girlfriend about sex, even though they both have extremely high sex drives and unmet sexual needs and fantasies (they’ve both told me this individually), and my other friends don’t even know what they want out of their lives yet.

Still, every one of them keeps trying to give me advice about my singleness. People, I know what I want out of a relationship and it isn’t what any of you have. I want open communication, hot sex, and loving companionship. I will not follow your advice if it got you to places that fall short of that.

I think it’s amazingly gracious of you to characterize loveless and communicationless dynamics as “relationship styles”. I’m not sure I’d much want to hear what they had to say about my love life unless it was because I wanted to know what to avoid.

But I suppose people who are self-aware enough can learn from their own mistakes and pass on that wisdom to others (one of the main reasons I can think of for people consistently coming to me for relationship advice since like 1996), and whether they have the courage to make changes in their own lives is a separate matter.

But seriously, who wouldn’t rather be single than stuck in a loveless marriage? That, along with forgetting how to play with toys and have stupid adventures, is how people die inside.

Tell me a secret.

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I recently found this article on the problem with polynormativity, and it brought to the surface a lot of challenges with polyamory that have come up for me recently.

A friend told me several months back that I’m one of the most fundamentally poly people she’s ever met. I’m actually still not sure why that would be the case, but polyamory does feel right to me. It’s comfortable in ways that no relationship structure has ever been for me. I love having multiple paramours, and I enjoy their other relationships. I am deeply uncomfortable with possessive love; I want to love generously and freely, and I want the same option for the people I care about. I’m not sure anything else could work for me quite so well, so perhaps I am fundamentally poly. However, I struggle with polynormativity, and specifically how I do not fit well into its mold.

What is polynormativity? The article (which kind of sort of coins the term) explains it in depth, and analyzes why it is harmful. Though lengthy, it’s kind of brilliant, so I’d read it if I were you. But to summarize, polynormativity is the conception and media portrayal of polyamory as looking and functioning a very specific way. The way people are coming to expect poly to work is as follows:

1. Polyamory starts with a couple. An established couple decides to “try poly”, and form other relationships radiating out from that core.
2. Polyamory is hierarchical. The established couple is usually defined as primary, and all other relationships are secondary in title and importance.
3. Polyamory requires a lot of rules concerning what the participants are allowed to do, with whom, and under what circumstances. There are usually special rules put in place to maintain the sanctity of the primary relationship over any secondary relationships.
4. Polyamory is heterosexual(-ish). Also cute, young, and white. Also new and exciting and sexy!

But for reals, read the article.

This portrait struck me hard. It explained a lot about why I sometimes feel like I’m doing poly wrong. I’ve completely internalized this shit, and it’s quite possible that it only feels uncomfortable because I’m not doing it that way. Polynormativity surrounds me. Almost every poly person I know has a primary partner with whom they were monogamous for a time before deciding to open things up. Both my loves are married, and they followed this pattern with their spouses. On my end, I often feel like I’m still single in a sense. I couldn’t adore my girlfriend and my boyfriend more if I had access to alien technology from the planet Cloying 6, and I know they love me, but it’s hard not to feel that I’m trespassing on their “real” relationships sometimes. This isn’t their fault– it isn’t a reaction to how they or their other partners are treating me. Rather, it’s a byproduct of the way society is set up, and the fact that we’ve all agreed that marriage means one thing and dating another.

I’m actually very fortunate in that my partners don’t pay a lot of attention– and even eschew– formal hierarchy in poly. No one has ever said “you’re just the secondary, so you’ll have to make your peace with such-and-such or step off.” I can’t even describe how much that means to me. At the same time, I know that my relationships are not first priority to my partners; it would be silly to expect that, since I’m not the person either Daphne or Oren live with, sleep with every night, share finances and possessions with, or legally committed to until death. But again, I just wonder if I’m doing it wrong. Is a poly person supposed to have that one prioritized person if they want to ever be a priority themselves? Is the alternative to always feel like something of a guest in one’s own relationships, however awesome they are?

I mean, if that’s way polyamory works best, then isn’t a proper poly relationship just a dyad decked out with human accessories?

I have a lot to say about rules and poly. I think that will have to be its own post, actually. Suffice to say that the only criterion I fit for the dubious honor of being polynormative is that I’m white, young, and really quite adorable in the right light. And while I’m not heterosexual by a long stretch, I’m a relatively palatable flavor of queer: a bisexual woman.

I want to reiterate that I’m not saying I have a problem with my current relationships. I fucking well don’t. I feel lucky every day. And I know very well that they are valid. But I still often feel like I’m screwing up poly or dating or maybe even my life because I’m not adhering to polynormativity.

The word is like five minutes old, damn it, but it’s a real fucking thing.

(image source)

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A few people in my life have recently called me out on being a pessimist. This was strange to me at first because in general I’ve a natural knack for spinning things in positive ways and finding the good in things. However, I’ve realized that’s not true across the board. In fact, it’s likely that the average quizkid may not be aware that I’m optimistic at all because my optimism absolutely doesn’t extend to my love life.

Something that people in successful, committed relationships seem to forget all too easily is that most romantic relationships don’t work out. They mostly end– and many are even maintained– in some degree of agony. If you’ve had little-to-no experience with long-term joy with another person, it becomes harder and harder to expect to find it. You get cynical. Something inside you keeps flinching, waiting for the next blow.

And I’ve had blows. I’m not going to say my experiences have been exceptional in their blowsiness because I’ve never lived anyone’s life but my own, but blows fell early and often, and they’ve affected me. I’ve been hit, raped, and sexually abused and coerced in other ways. I’ve been manipulated, lied to, neglected, and told I was worthless. I’ve been used and discarded when I was no longer convenient. These things came from the people I was theoretically supposed to be able to trust the most.

What I’m saying is that I’m emotionally damaged. I don’t want to be, but that’s the truth I have to acknowledge while doggedly trying to get past it. And I do want to get past it. I want at least one of those successful, committed, long-term relationships I keep seeing all over the place. I get that they’re a lot of work, and that they’re never perfect, but I want it anyway. I want to have at least one partner whom I trust and love and plan things with over the long haul. Who shares adventures, spoils, and space with me across decades. Whom I tell to make a diamond out of my ashes after I die, not because I even care but because I want to make it clear I expect them to survive me; life without them would be so disappointing and bland after life with them. Wanting these things is embarrassing, but it’s very simply true. I can pretend to be badass and roguish tomorrow.

So I half hope, half wait for the next blow. I play a game where I anticipate why exactly the people who love me now will leave me. I stay ready, always, for them to tell me it’s not working or wound me. It’s not central to my consciousness, not the beast I’m trying to feed, but the pessimism is always there. And while a part of me drinks it in like elixir, another part of me scoffs when anyone tells me of their feelings for me. Wait, it says. Just wait.

Daphne Miel and I were listening to Regina Spektor in a moment of profound sweetness. The song Samson came on, and we both sighed and we each knew it was because the other loved it. “But oh, this song is so sad,” she said.

“Why sad?” I asked.

“Because they lose each other.”

“I don’t think they do,” said I, Sunday school graduate and pessimist. “Not in this song. I think it’s about how they both chose loving each other over living out all that drama in the Bible. They said fuck it, we’re staying together, and she didn’t betray him: they cut his hair together, sapped his strength on purpose, and he wasn’t a hero. They never made it into the history books because they just lived a normal, happy life and loved each other.” Daphne’s wildflower face lifted, and I could tell the song would never be the same for her again.

Maybe I just need a moment like that, where someone explains to me why it would possibly be possible for me to have a story that continues kindly and graciously toward something stable as a crystallized carbon. Maybe I need a thousand moments like that. Maybe eventually it will sink in.

(image source)

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What’s the key element that makes someone a partner-partner or even a life partner and not just a sex-and-conversation-and-video-games-or-whatever partner? Is it a decision or an emotion or both or something altogether else? The more I think about it, the more I actually don’t know, although on the surface it seems like a relatively simple distinction. The more I think about human relationships, in fact, the more I feel like an alien.

It’s weird¹ how you guys only have one heart.

I am in love with my best friend of three years. My bestie is brilliant, witty, dependable, loyal, and attractive. Great long-term relationship material…which I’m looking for. He isn’t, much to my chagrin. Which only makes me love him more. Anyway. We’ve been strictly platonic for most of those three years. And yet…

Bestie and I have recently decided that we should start exploring a more sexual side of our friendship (initially his idea). We’re both relatively submissive, sexually, but he offered to try his hand at being the more sexually dominant one. We decided to “take it slow,” and have only tried PIV style sex once since we embarked on this journey, two months ago. Instead, I send him emails about what I did over the weekend with the vibrators he bought me as an early Christmas present. And he gives me “homework assignments,” telling me what I can use to get myself off, in how much time, and to report back to him about my experiences. I give him copious amounts of head, which I thoroughly enjoy giving. And he bends me over kitchen counters and spanks my bare ass with spatulas until I’m scream so loudly he has to cover my mouth so we don’t scare my landlord. And sometimes we masturbate and watch lesbian porn together.

All in all, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful new era of our friendship. Even if it’s a slow-moving one.

Sometimes relationships appear to be adaptogens that just kind of work how you need them to. It’s either magic or science or neither. ::I.H.F.::

So I’ve been dating one of my best friends since the beginning of 2012. It started after a year of hilariously awkward unacknowledged sexual tension (and, incidentally, a year after I got out of a really awful, manipulative, unfulfilling relationship that taught me to associate sex with the not-nice kind of physical pain).

My current boyfriend is only the second person I’ve had sex with. We’re also poly (which is GREAT seriously I have no idea why more people don’t do this) and both into certain BDSM acts. The sex is fantastic.

But since my not-very-nice relationship? I’ve had some trouble reaching orgasm on my own. With a partner, it’s even more difficult. And my boyfriend is utterly wonderful about this, and is all for burying his face in my pussy for half an hour, fingering me (he’s amazingly good at this), and fucking me from behind while slapping me on the ass with a leather glove when it comes down to it.

I utterly adore this boy, but I sometimes feel really, really lousy that I can’t come more easily. Like it doesn’t matter how much I tell him I like our sexytimes (and, oh, I do — is it weird that I can have a really good time during sex without orgasming?) if my body won’t up and show him. And it also feels like somehow I’m not really in touch with my own body, and what kind of sex-positive kinky feminist can I be if I can’t even orgasm when I want to? I know this is ridiculous, but it still just really bothers me.

Everyone I personally know who’s told me they can’t achieve orgasm also enjoys sex because it feels good (there are people out there who do not feel this way, but I don’t know them), and I know many people who can orgasm but don’t particularly care for sex. The ability to have orgasms may be more like having your ears pierced than most people believe.

You know what, even if I’m the higher libido partner, even if I know that mostly if I won’t pursue sex I won’t get it, some days I’m allowed to just say ‘fuck it’ and not make an effort for sex if I’m not feeling it. I get to say, “You know what, I know you’re in the mood, but I’d kind of like to read right now.” Even if that means no sex. Reading time is important, too.

Sounds completely valid to me. Just because you want sex more often than your partner doesn’t mean you have to want it enough to drop everything the minute they decide they want it. You’re kind of a real person too. I guess the only real issue here is if you’re actually resenting your partner and trying to punish them by giving them a taste of what you feel when you’re rejected. That would be denying you both sex out of spite, and I’m pretty sure that is not a good policy, but you’re probably not doing that. You probably just legit want to read, so carry on.

I was friends with my current partner for six years before we became FWB and, later, primary partners. He’s since told me that he’d wanted to be with me for essentially the entire time we’d known one another.

Sometimes, I masturbate to fantasies of him masturbating, years ago, thinking of me while believing he’d never have me or thinking about how he might have felt the first time we’d fucked. I feel like a huge asshole and bad feminist for getting off on, retroactively, being the unattainable dream girl, but it just gets me so hot.

Okay, let’s get something clear: no one here is a bad feminist, that I can make out. It’s okay to get excited by someone desiring you when they had little hope of fruition. That means their desire was pretty strong, which can be sexy. Or creepy. Depending.

I semi-recently got a genital piercing (I’m male), which I’ve already confessed – and then somewhat more recently, after feedback from my girlfriend, got two more.

I absolutely love them. She does, too.

Our sex was already great. They have made it spectacular. I cannot describe the feeling invoked by the fact that I can hold my girlfriend in constant orgasm for thirty minutes. Not a series of orgasms, either – one long, continuous, she’s-muffling-her-face-in-a-pillow-to-drown-out-her-yells orgasm.

I used to count her orgasms. (She enjoyed the orgasms, but wasn’t quite as keen as me on beating previous records.) I don’t even bother anymore – I can already push her past the point where she cannot stand another second. And I haven’t even tried a vibrating barbell yet – I even own one, bought before the piercings had healed enough for sex.

We’re in an open relationship, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how well this works for other women. In nerdy terms, I feel like I’ve found the cheat codes for sex.

Oh, and they feel fantastic for me as well. She’s equally thrilled by what they let her do for me.

::I.H.F.:: like truly. But since you’re in an open relationship, I just want to give you a heads up that I’ve heard of condoms breaking more than average with pierced penises, so watch out for that.

This weekend I was at a party where a lot of people wanted to have sex with me. And have sex I did, with some of them.

Today I am subjecting myself to the worst kind of slut shaming. See, in my head, none of these people wanted to sleep with me because I am attractive or interesting or kind or whatever motivates people, but because I *will* sleep with people.

Clearly none of them are attracted to *me* so much as anyone who will put out. And how unfair is that to everyone involved? Now I’m impugning their judgment as well as mine. Knowing that this kind of thinking is utterly ridiculous and being able to stop doing it are two entirely different bags of worms.

The worst part is many of the close friends I might have shared this with were kind of involved in the sex or at least the wanting. So, uhm, anonymous internet venting for the win?

Is it possible that these sex partners actually wanted to have sex with you, not just to have sex? I can’t know without literally being in their heads, but it seems probable, actually. I am slowly learning that people who consciously callously use others are not as common as we most of us fear.

Earlier this week I had sex with this guy I’ve been dating for the first time. Beforehand, I’d been worried that we might not be compatible, but it turns out those worries were for nothing. It was almost 24 hours of movies, fucking, snuggling, and the most delicious fingering I’ve ever received.

Except that, now that my sex-worries have had their asses collectively kicked, feelings-worries have been jumping up and down yelling “Ooh! Pick me! Pick me!” I really don’t think I’m ready to be having warm-gooey feelings for somebody again, but… sexy awesomeness! I like him way more than I want to. So today, I keep alternating between joyful giggling and gut-wrenching panic. Why is it that my brain or my genitals can be happy, but never both at the same time?

Because limerence, probably. It’s perfectly normal. You’re perfectly sane and experiencing something that lots of people have to deal with, and it wears off eventually and can most definitely age well and become a full-fledged healthy relationship. You just have to ride it (and him) out.

Confess. Earn snark and inept advice and internet high fives.

1. But cute. [↩]

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In my brief time as a person practicing polyamory, I’ve witnessed the bliss many poly people seem to feel when they have two or more of their loves close by, getting along and perhaps even game for some geometric cuddles. Group sex would be another thing altogether. I wouldn’t call this phenomenon erotic so much as, I don’t know… domestic, or loving in a broad and comfortable sense. It isn’t about any receiving and giving cycle of touches and orgasms. It’s just about belonging. For a lot of us, this all-togetherness feels fundamentally right.

Even if most poly people haven’t read Heinlein, he’s seeped into their dreams. Or maybe he tapped into a dream or a memory too fundamental to claim credit for. Many a poly person fantasizes about living in harmony on a farm or in a great, gracious house with lovers and lovers of lovers and tiny persons of possibly uncertain paternity and certainly a cat or dog or chicken or five. Even if we’ll never do it and our living arrangements will always look positively nuclear at best, we lots of us feel drawn to communal lives. And having your partners laughing, being together in the same space is, perhaps, a small taste of the dream.

Or maybe it’s less complicated. Maybe it’s just nice to have different parts of your life weave gracefully together once in a while.

It surprises me that it works that way for me. Historically, I have preferred to compartmentalize things. I’d get very uncomfortable if worlds collided: even if a friend or family member visited me at work, or a lover showed up unexpectedly while I was hanging out with friends. It’s only recently I’ve realized that this was dysfunctional as fuck. It’s a habit I picked up when I had an abusive partner, and every unknown variable was a chance for him to erupt in anger and probably violence. I couldn’t predict what would upset people, but if I could isolate interactions and control the overlap as much as possible, I could make sure everyone learned as little about the real, well-rounded me as possible. And if I focused on just being what they wanted me to be, I would stay safer. Sometimes.

Isolating lovers from other people who were important to me was perhaps the most vital element of this protective impulse. If an abusive partner feels you’re too close to other people, there are grave repercussions. If an abusive partner believes you have a means of even temporarily escaping the surreal world-of-two they’re trying to create, they will feel threatened. If an abusive partner learns how much you lie to them about what you really think and feel and like and do– if they learn that the version of you they know is a bulwark behind which you cower– shit goes down. This is how you learn not to let people compare notes about you.

But the cost of that safety is pretty steep. It keeps even one’s closest relationships fairly dishonest. Or at least misleading. If you’re only allowed to know me on such limited terms, you’ll get a very lopsided picture of me. Of course that’s exactly what I want if you’re dangerous, but if you’re amazing and dear to me and acting in good faith, I’ve learned that it pays off to let you in.

At this point, Viola Sharqtipus and Oren Regardie have met, as have Daphne Miel and Oren. And Viola has met Daphne and Oren’s spouses. And Oren and Daphne have met each other’s spouses. And all of these people have integrated to varying degrees into my larger social circles, and everyone seems to get along so far. I find so much joy in this. It’s not scary or dangerous or weird. It is right. The fact that Daphne and Viola haven’t met yet is actually strange to me. For the first time in memory I am more comfortable with fewer boundaries between the people I care about.

The weekend Daphne and Oren met, I got to hold both their hands at the same time for a little while. I swooned inwardly. Then, driving home I swear I saw a fucking double rainbow.

What does it mean? It’s only refracted light. It’s only a trick of perspective.

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