quizzical pussy

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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Sometimes you just need to shake things up. This two-days-late ConTuesday has nothing to do with tiredness or stress or the fact that I decided not to bring my laptop avisiting. Nothing. This is about shaking things up.

My girlfriend and I named our purple dildo ‘Taylor’ because we thought it would be rude to press gender norms on her/him.

To me, sex toy courtesy used to mean boiling water, bleach solutions, and condoms. I see now how drastically I was limiting myself.

So last summer I started hanging around this chick and we became friends. The unfortunate part is she is attached. But over the summer we bonded and we start flirting, teasing each other, you know, some chemistry.

So I get a text from her one night for me to come to the pub where some friends are. I agree and meet up with them. At the end of the night, we end up at my place and start making out and have dirty hot sex for HOURS. I wasn’t at my best, I admit, but it was amazing nonetheless.

Now it was on! After that, the sexual chemistry went through the roof. We couldn’t be in the same room together without wanting to rip each other’s clothes off and let our animal instincts take over.

We even started sneaking away from our friends to have sex in my truck, she sucked my dick at school, and we even had sex in the back lawn of our friend’s house.

One day she asked me to tie her up. I couldn’t believe it. This girl was blowing my mind (among other things haha). So I did and spanked her gorgeous ass with my belt and then fucked her until she came.

She is so hot, I can’t get my mind off of her. I have sex dreams about her all the time and wake up with massive hard-ons. I’ve never experienced such sexual intensity. Plus she’s a totally awesome person to boot!

There’s so many other dirty things I want to do to her. There’s a cage and ring inside my boxing gym. I want to take her there, tie her to the cage and fuck her so hard. Then I want to straddle her on the ropes of the ring and make her scream. She would love it!

Waaaaaait a minute…

I would like to think of myself as a reasonably careful person, fairly well-versed in both contraception and STI prevention, and yet I still don’t have oral sex with a condom. Even new partners. I know I shouldn’t, but I just…don’t. I love love love giving blowjobs without latex in the way. I’m a bad person, I know. I’m smart, I should know better. And I still don’t.

…I also love going bareback, to the point where it’s almost a fetish, but I only did that when I was very meticulous with my other birthcontrol and with a fluid-bonded partner. Still. I miss it. Look at me, trying to justify my one poor decision with a more carefully thought out poor decision.

I don’t see why taking on more risk than you feel is strictly wise makes you a bad person. It’s important to be honest with yourself and your partners about what safer sex practices you choose to use, and I actually see shame as the enemy of that. A lot of people have unprotected oral sex. Condoms taste weird and flavored condoms taste weirder. It certainly makes more sense to me in my sex life to limit the cocks I suck to those of vetted, highly trusted partners.

I would like to explore prostate stimulation. I might even want to explore being pegged. But I’m too embarrassed to let my wife know that I might consider such things. I am supposed to be strong and masculine and not deviant at all. If I tell her this, she can (and probably will) say no, and then she gets to hold that over me. Worse (I don’t think that she would do this), she could tell others that I asked for it. She might not, but she might. Or she might just threaten to do so.

How did I get to the point where the woman that I’m supposed to be closest to is the one that I least want to reveal my tender hopes and desires to? I love her, but this feels like the kind of trap for which there is no key. I am more upset about the nature of the situation than the loss of anal play.

The fact that you predict she might betray a confidence troubles me to no end, whether it’s indicative of trust issues on your side or because such behavior is realistic for her. In no just world should a desire for anal play be something you can hold over someone, but considering the world we happen to live in I can understand why you wouldn’t want her to share that information (aside from general privacy and stuff). Really, can you really call someone a partner if you can’t trust them not to hurt or blackmail you like that? I mean, fuck!

I want monogamy. I can live with open relationships, but what really turns me on, is monogamy. Being with my current boyfriend is what has made me realize this. He does fill every void I need another person for. I know that I don’t need, nor do I want, anyone else. Sexually or otherwise.

He is a non-monogamist who wants monogamy in the long run but not now. I don’t tell him that I crave monogamy because I know that if I voice it he will not be happy.

If he wants monogamy some day and you want to stay with him long-term, shouldn’t he know that you’re at least on the same page with that even if you don’t start giving him ultimatums to cleave to you and forsake all others, like, tomorrow?

Anyway, your job in a relationship is not to make people happy or prevent them from being unhappy at all costs. And your job in a relationship is especially not to misrepresent yourself and what you want.

Every toppy woman I’ve slept with has had an identical reaction to finding out I can come on command (and, more to the point, hold off–with great effort–on command). They ALL get this devilish gleam and leap into testing it out. They ALL want to see me beg and whimper, and come again and again once they decide to let me.

I adore it, and the fact that my last coherent thought is usually “oh, you damn toppy asshole” really only makes it better. I love the way they love it. Even when I’m REALLY FUCKING BEGGING, C’MON, LET ME FUCKING COME ALREADY, HOLY FUCKING FUCK. PLEASE.

Switches/versatiles too, probably.

I’m really bad at saying when a partner is doing something I don’t like in bed. Even when something is painful. Ugh. I need classes (and scripts!) for how to communicate better.

Oh, I used to suck at this. So hard. And in my case it came from a place of honestly not understanding that I deserved to have a voice in a sexual dynamic. I’m not trying to project that onto you, but I hope it makes you at least eliminate that as a factor because it’s vitally important to have at least a slight sense of entitlement when it comes to your own body. As for speaking up, my friend, that is likely going to take some practice. Maybe start off communicating with non-sexual friends about backrubs or other neutral-ish touches?

Sex Confessional

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Pushing, testing, annihilating your own boundaries can be awesome. Not so much when someone else– anyone–decides you need this done for you. Whether it results in irritation, full-on trauma, or something else, I’m not sure it ever ends well.

I have always had lots of rape fantasies, especially date rape scenarios where I’m too drunk to make a decision. I also really like getting fucked while I’m asleep. A couple years ago I did get date raped while I was asleep and I woke up halfway through (side note: I still don’t know whether to consider it date rape since the guy was as drunk as I was… although he did have to be sober enough to move, while I didn’t). It was traumatic for a bit but I still have the same fantasies and they’re better than ever! They never involve that incident and I don’t think they’re even connected…

The boundaries between fantasy and reality can be really difficult to resolve for rape survivors. Giving up control voluntarily is totally different from someone taking it away, or from being in a position where you had none.

The more I reflect on being semi-kinda date raped, the more confused I get. Yes, I was too drunk to consent; but he was too drunk to realize that and stop. And I did get too wasted to go home at his house knowing that he might wanna fuck me. Isn’t there any space between blaming the victim and accepting responsibility? Does putting all the impetus on men make women seem passive and pathetic (at least in my situation, where there was no threat of violence)? Is there a way to think about this without secretly wanting to feel like a victim, or conversely feeling like I’m too tough to be a victim? And how does being penetrated change it? If I had secretly sucked his dick while he was passed out would he have felt as violated as I did? And does any of this matter since it was a long time ago and I’m not traumatized? Most of all, is it wrong that we’re still friends (I yelled at him about it at the time)??

Although the details and the experience of being raped can vary widely, I think most survivors grapple with these questions. I can’t answer them. I really can’t. I can tell you that I tried to be friends with the guy who raped me afterward. I don’t think it was wrong, but in my case it was kind of more a way to punish myself for what I “let happen”. It wasn’t because I actually wanted him for a friend. But that’s me, not necessarily anyone else.

We’re going to deal with slightly less devastating boundary issues for the next couple. Because damn.

I’ve been following a blog for months, thinking that the person writing it was just another friendly sex blogger. Today I suddenly realized that she’s actually someone I’ve known since high school, and I’ve been reading about her sex life all this time without realizing it! I feel awkward…

I’d like to officially not apologize to anyone I’ve ever met in real life who has stumbled across this blog. You’re the ones reading it, you perverts.

So, I recently found out two things about a friend: she probably has a crush on me, and she has supremely deft fingers.

Item #1 is seriously putting a pit of dread into my stomach. I don’t know how to deal with it and I feel like I shouldn’t have to.

Item #2? Well, let’s just say I’ve rediscovered an old favorite from literotica. Super-butch masseuse blackmails seduces/rapes femme girls through blackmail and the power of her hands. It’s so poorly written. I cast myself as the poor hopeless girl and my friend as the rapist.

So while I’m coming to the thought of her hands on me, I’m also ignoring her texts: “night sweetheart,” “come to the park and read poetry with me.” Cognitive dissonance.

Okay, really we most of us have some cognitive dissonance percolating in the shadowlands between our fantasies and reality.

A few years ago, I decided I liked not wearing a bra during the steamy summertime. I have small, rocking’ tits, so it’s totally comfy to do so. I began to like being proud of my AA boobies, hanging out, free.

I was walking into a Big Boy, one afternoon, and this middle-aged guy held the door open for me. As I walked past him, saying ”thanks,” he said, in a very loud voice ”Damn, those are THE biggest nipples I have ever seen.” He said it to nobody in particular, just the air, and just the bunch of people within hearing distance. He said it with a very obvious tinge of disgust.

Mortified, I ran to the restaurant bathroom before even getting seated. I stared into the mirror for about ten minutes. I didn’t want to go back out there. I didn’t want him or anyone else to see me.

Yes, those nipples were huge. But did it need an announcement?

And…until that moment, I had thought that the silhouette of my breasts looked beautiful. I suppose if I had been in Manhattan or some other spicy, Cosmopolitan place, nobody would have shamed me like that. But I live in Northwest Ohio. But the real questions were and are: Why was I so surprised? Why was I suddenly so afraid? And how could some overweight sloppy man in overalls make me feel, suddenly, so dirty?

As long as we have bodies and people have eyes, loved ones and strangers alike are going to have opinions about our bodies. It would be nice to get to the place where one didn’t give a shit what anyone thought: compliments are nice, but they feed nothing; comments that shame or sexualize us are as the quacking of ducks or the susurration of a distant freeway.

It would also be awfully nice if people kept the latter category of comments to themselves.

Something squicks me out about actually having sex with someone who does unusual things with gender. A woman with a dick won’t do it for me. Nor will a man who wants to wear frilly underwear. I like macho men and femme women, and anything in between kills my ladyboner.

This makes me feel incredibly mean because I have a trans friend, love her like a sister, and she complains about not being able to find partners. And I’m thinking, guiltily, “maybe most people are like me, and just can’t get over the the gender thing.”

We each get to have our own boundaries of whom we’re attracted to. It’s actually good to know what these are. It’s not so good to be hurtful toward or dismissive of people who don’t match our orientation (and as a suggestion, I probably wouldn’t use the word “squick” when talking to them), but we owe no one our attraction. For what it’s worth, I don’t think most people are necessary oriented as you are. There are a lot of people who are attracted to trans women, and I suspect there would be a lot more if we could collectively manage, as a society, to stop being horrible to them as a general policy.

A while ago, I shared a bed with a friend, who touched me in ways I didn’t really want him to when I was half asleep.
It took me a while to say no and stop him, partially because I was too tired/dozy to work out was going on, partly because I felt awkward because we were good friends, did he feel I’d lead him on, did I for some reason owe him this? But also because my body was responding to the touches, even though my mind did not want it to happen. When I snapped out of it and realised I had made it clear that we weren’t that sort of friends, and then he did it again even though I said no, I stormed out and we didn’t make up for a long time. I felt used and like our friendship had been chucked away because he thought I’d be easy.

I don’t know, anymore, what I feel worst about – the fact he took advantage of me in such a weird situation, or the fact I was so angry with him for it considering I semi enjoyed it.

As much as we owe no one our attraction, a thousand times more do we owe no one our bodies. He was violating your boundaries. Your reaction gets to be as complicated as it is, but it doesn’t change what he did or how fucked up it was.

Which is VERY.

Confess things here.

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He hadn’t texted.

The date (it wasn’t really a date, she reminded me) had ended that morning, which is often a sign that even a not-really-date has gone well. But it had been fourteen hours and she hadn’t heard from him, and every hour that passed made it feel like it had been more and more of a real date.

Henrietta Tansy was hunched in a doorway like an earthquake was coming, reciting her fears. “What if he got what he wanted and is done with me? What if I said something or did something to turn him off? What if I’m terrible at sex?” She knew it was silly, but it was honest. We worry, don’t we? Especially in the early days, before the proof piles up, when you’re beginning to realize you really like someone. When you’re vulnerable without knowing that they are. It’s scary as fuck.

I told her he was probably busy, or trying not to freak her out since she’d been explicit about wanting space. I told her it was normal to be scared, but she’d laugh at herself in another day or two. He liked her. She’d known it before the sex, hadn’t she?

“Yes, but what if now that we’ve had sex he’s lost interest?” There it was. Is it usually a thing that women and girls fear, or do guys get it too? Little boys aren’t told that women are only after one thing, that we’ll abandon the men who give it to us. That would be absurd.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” I said softly, leaning in close. “I’ve had sex with a guy or two. Or like twelve. And that has never happened to me. I’m starting to think it’s a myth. Sex is fundamentally bonding: oxytocin, dopamine. It makes people like each other more, in my experience.”

“What if you’re just really good at sex?” she asked.

“Even if I am now, which is debatable, I definitely wasn’t always.” She looked reassured. Now, when someone asks you that kind of question, your ego goads you to consider it a little. In 1930s Britain, they whispered that Wallis Simpson had mastered an extraordinary feat of vaginal muscle control, called the “Chinese grip”, in several of Hong Kong’s best brothels. This was their casually racist explanation for how she got a king to renounce his throne. But mechanical explanations almost always fall short when we’re talking about humans beings. Although I would like to think that my pussy is magical, it isn’t. People stick around because they’re doing exactly what I’m doing: trying to make a connection. Breaking the connection for no good reason is more often the unnatural thing. “I’m sure it does happen from time to time, with the douchiest of douchebags, but normal people? They don’t write you off afterward. Who wants to have sex with anyone only once? First-time sex has never been the best sex I’ve had with someone.”

“This first time sex was really good…” she blushed.

“Yeah, but they say it’s better the second time. They say you get to do the weird stuff. And it’s true.”

I told her she was lovable. We hugged. He texted the next morning. Of course he did.

(image source)

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I’m stupid horny. I long for touch and desire and orgasms. My mind burrows again and again into a thousand dark places where lust, where friction breeds. I’m distracted, maybe even a little fixated. I want sex and sex and sex. Now, please.

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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It’s kind of a lonely feeling.

I’m excited about exploring BDSM and figuring out where I fit in that world and what I want from it, but I’m mostly doing it alone. I don’t have a partner who wants to tie me up, or hit me with things made out of leather, or have long discussions about what trips our respective kinks. I have a few friends I can compare notes with, and they are truly worth their weight in Lelo toys, but it’s not quite the same as someone I trust pushing my boundaries and giving me orgasms.

My intention here is not to gripe about the fact that Laramy isn’t interested in this stuff. I have absolutely no wish to force feed kink to my boyfriend or cram it into our relationship dynamic or sex life. I’m not even sure if it would be a good idea for me to introduce any significant kink involving power exchange into my primary relationship just yet, even if he was into the idea. No, actually, because of the wonders of open relationships, I’m griping that I don’t have any other kinky partners to experiment with at the moment. Glad we cleared this up. Good talk.

Because honestly, I’m feeling a little lost. Overwhelmed might be more accurate. I read about it, discuss it in the abstract, ponder it and fantasize about it, but for me, BDSM is still a tiny bit of experience and a long and jumbled string of thought experiments. It’s fantasies that I’m not even sure I’d enjoy in real life. It’s trepidation and fascination. It’s a slick and nimble creature that my mind can track but never catch.

More specifically, I’m unclear about when bottoming becomes submitting.

…Which wouldn’t matter so much if I weren’t so conflicted about submission. My fundamentalist Christian family aggressively taught me from birth that as a female I should submit to men like Jesus and my dad and my future husband, and I have never been a fan of any of that. My first romantic relationship was abusive, and I completely lost my sense of self trying to survive it. This is what submission has meant to me in the past. I fear it, and see it as personally nullifying and harmful¹. The idea that it would be all too easy for me to let go and dissolve back into that abused mindset haunts me.

I worry if subspace, which, as I understand it, is a type of dissociative state, will feel like a trauma-based flashback.

I’m confused about how the fact that my ex boyfriend used to hit me relates to the fact that I now want to be hit, and I know this is something I’ll eventually have to deal with. Is it messed up? Is it a craving for catharsis? It’s something I can’t even look at directly yet, but it lurks in my periphery, waiting. Right now when I’m bottoming I’m just after the endorphin rush. Just give me the sting and the swoon.

I have so much I still need to figure out. Is it any wonder I’d like a hand to hold through all this?

But that seems like kind of a long shot right now. I don’t know this for sure, but I don’t think I’m very good at attracting people. I know people who can find relationships and play partners like you can find D’anjou pears, in or out of season. I am convinced that those people are either sexier than I am (likely) or have luck dragons (less likely), but either way, I’m not of their tribe and cannot work their wonders. So I’m not in love with the odds that someone appropriate² will saunter up to me and observe, “I couldn’t help but notice that you have no idea what you’re doing. However, I find you oddly alluring. I would like to tie you up, possibly hit you with leather things, and lay bare your deepest fantasies. Would you be good with that?”³

Does anyone have a luck dragon I can borrow?

1. In my own case only. I want to make it very clear that I do not see submissives in general in this light. I just have my own personal issues to work out on the subject. [↩]
2. Someone who is responsible, mature, compassionate, experienced in BDSM, enjoys talking philosophy, and with whom I have chemistry. [↩]
3. And really, if this were to happen, who’s to say I wouldn’t try to crawl into my shit and hide? [↩]

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You already know that friendship is magic, right? Well it is. And here’s a ConTuesday devoted to the aforementioned magic, in several of its manifestations. Also, there might be ponies.

Someone should create a poly etiquette book. What is the appropriate thing to say to your fuckbuddy’s roommate’s friend with benefits/girlfriend-without any-commitment when you’re left alone with her while your partners sort out the pizza situation? How forward is it appropriate to be when your friend has just introduced you to her partner, assuming she’s been trying to set up both of you for days? Do you have to say something if your partner has a really obnoxious other partner?

Emily Post never covers this shit.

I completely agree. Someone should write an etiquette book. I am in no way qualified to write one, but I may attempt to do so anyway because I’m always getting myself in over my head and by now it’s a comfortable feeling. It’ll probably just say that when in doubt treat everyone like a friend, and load as much pig onto your pizza as possible.

I’m no Emily Post.

I was talking to my sexy friend whom I really trust, tonight. She was telling me about her hot fantasies that she wish that she could engage in with her boyfriend, my friend. I found the fantasies to be, um, engaging. I asked her, out of loyalty for my friend: ”Why don’t you tell your boyfriend about your secret desire to do this?”

She answered immediately, without a pause, ”Does the phrase ’mutual confidence’ mean anything to you? If I don’t get reciprical trust, I’m not telling him.”

I was touched by the direct implication; I trusted her, so she trusted me.

I was hurt for my friend, her boyfriend. This looks like the beginning to the end. Or, more to the point, that their problems had come to a middle.

I was sort of excited the same way that we all are when we’re told a secret.

Tell her your deepest secrets, boys, else she might share hers with an outside friend, who has no right. No right, I tell you!!

This makes perfect sense to me. If a partner doesn’t share their fantasies with me I don’t feel I have permission to share mine with them. Without reciprocity it would feel like I was just asking for favors rather than getting closer to them. Even under the best relationship circumstances, it’s sometimes easier to be honest about my dirty daydreams with someone who will never feel obligated to fulfill them, like a friend with whom I’m very unlikely to ever get it on. But that last part may only apply to me, keeping in mind that I’m way too neurotic.

But anyway, I have to say that a friend has every right to whatever secrets you feel comfortable sharing. Trust is no small thing.

My wife and I hung out with sexy, fun, flirty friends tonight; got tremendously worked up while cuddling and touching; and spent some time wanking and talking about the sexy times we wish were had. I assume this is why the pilgrims came here!

This is exactly why the pilgrims came here. Of course, they would probably want to burn you or hang you or put letters on all your shirts, but in a more abstract way, it is exactly why they came here.

I hope there was also pie. And cake. And pie baked into cake.

This year at my favourite music festival I hooked up with a guy. It started with dancing, as it always does. It ended in his tent, hot and sweaty and twisted in the sheets. The next afternoon he introduced me to his friends who were sitting outside the tent while we were fucking. At some point he mentioned an ex in a strange way so I asked how recent she was. He got all sheepish and shy and told me that the girl I’d met earlier was his ex of 10 days! Thankfully, I’d been friendly to her earlier and she’d been nice to me, but talk about awkward when I saw her again the next morning.

This looks like a job for Poly Emily Post!

I’m normally cool as a cucumber and unaffected by lewd and crude joking, but my husband’s best friend’s 18 year old brother comes on to me and I can’t handle it. He sort of has a Mrs Robinson thing for me and even just him flirting with me makes me horny enough to rip my clothes off. Sooner or later, my husband’s going to pick up on the fact we have incredible sex after this kid has been at our house.

If there’s one thing I learned from the third confession (and, incidentally, my own cabal of amazingly sexy friends. Hi, sexy friends!), it’s that getting turned on by your friends is a grand idea, and it can enhance your sex life. Friends’ brothers might count too, I don’t really know. But, your mileage may vary greatly, I suppose.

I’ll close with ponies.

I want this outfit almost as much as I want your deepest, darkest secrets.

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The most sensible, straight-forward safeword is probably “red”, within a “we’re doing that traffic light thing” context. I like the gooey, waffley security of having “yellow” there in case I need it.

Safewords that miss the point include “no”, “stop”, “ow”, and “motherfucker”. You might think saying “safeword” would fall into this category, but on further reflection I think it would actually make a pretty good safeword. It’s just not very imaginative.

The most evil safeword is almost certainly “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis”.

I think perhaps the meanest, yet most insidiously effective (at stopping play; not so much at fostering a healthy dynamic), safeword would be “I’m bored”.

The best of all possible safewords is “narwhal”. That’s been scientifically proven by science.

On a semi-related note, I want every single motherfucking one of these. Immediately.

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The other key, of course, is Pong.

If someone with a not too terribly impressive amount of judgment were to come to me and ask, face so straight and tone so earnest: “Quizzical Pussy, what’s the key to a good relationship?” my first priority would be to not snort while I was doing all the laughing. Really, the “I Make Wonderful Romantic Decisions, And In Case You Were Wondering, Yes, That’s Sarcasm” sash I was awarded in 2004 didn’t win itself.

And then I’d be tempted to say “blind luck” because that’s certainly how I’ve landed in the one I’m in. But then I’d give my real answer.

Inside jokes.

Yes, love and trust and patience. Absolutely. And fabulous sex usually doesn’t hurt either. But it’s harder to quantify those first three things, and sometimes even tricky to detect when they’re fading away. And the sex? It’s possible to have fabulous sex with someone you actively dislike.

But if you’re always laughing together at things that would elicit shrugs and eyebrow twitches from all the rest of humanity, you have this secret language. You’re each choosing to be in closed, joyous company, which in my experience is the last thing you want when you’re fundamentally unhappy with each other. In essence, inside jokes are an old magic that transports you to the island nation of Us, a place of moderate climate and ruthless border control. You are never dragged to Us, although you can often convince the other person you’re already there just by smiling and nodding politely. But there will still be an ocean between you.

And this isn’t just romantic relationships. Not at all. I never feel like I’m fully friends with someone until we have at least one inside joke together. We’re just on the shore, friendly together but sharing no homeland.

Maybe this is just me. I could be biased by the amazing sex Laramy and I had yesterday between spates of laughing at things that are sheer nonsense to everyone else. I could be placing too much value on laughter for this to apply to anyone but me. But that would be my answer anyway.

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You always hear that rape isn’t about sex, it’s about power. And that probably holds true if you look deep enough, but why in the world would a rapist do that? On more casual reflection, I think that dictum has the potential to allow people to easily deny that what they did was rape. A lot of times, in their minds, it was completely about sex. They weren’t paying particular attention to consent, but they think they probably got it, more or less. And besides, they weren’t trying to take anyone’s power away. They weren’t being violent. They were just trying to get laid, man.

I believe that it’s easy for people to think “Rapists are monsters. I am a person. Therefore, I must not be a rapist. IT’S LIKE MATH.”

Piers Vitiard liked to bike and play lacrosse. He knew about Classical mythology and was good at Soul Calibur. He thought everyone should see Donnie Darko and the entire Godfather series. He was a pretty nice guy. He also raped me.

Reginald Sleeth dreamed of being a filmmaker. He always wove intricate stories in his head, but rarely wrote them down. His voice got louder when he was self-conscious, and he spoke in a fake Scottish accent when he wanted attention. He worried about getting fat. He thought that orange striped cats were the best kind. When he gave you a compliment you tasted it for weeks afterward. He was emotionally, physically, and sexually abusive.

They weren’t monsters, they were just people who did some fucked up things. And people don’t let themselves feel like abusers or rapists. They might have moments when they realize that they’ve done some fucked up stuff, and even feel guilty, but the homeostasis of the mind demands that our thoughts move on from there. We need to justify, rewrite history a little. We need to slant events in such a way that allows us to be the heroes of our own stories.

And along a similar vein, I’m no righteous, innocent victim. The choices I made were monstrously wrong, if I really examine them. I played into Reginald’s abuse, responding to his manipulations as if he’d scripted them and I’d memorized my part. I let our dysfunction teach me what it meant to be in a romantic relationship. Every chance I had to stand up to him, I folded; right up until I found the strength to leave at the very end. I excused Piers after he violated me, and made a point of trying to make it seem to both of us like what had happened wasn’t a big deal. That was unfair to me, to him, and to the next woman he got alone in a room. He learned nothing from what he did to me.

I got it all so wrong. I denied myself the protection and respect that were mine by right. I told them it was okay to disrespect me, harm me, use me. I allowed myself to become inhuman. Maybe I didn’t feel human in the first place. I do now, though. I know better now.

You can be a real person, even a normally decent person, and fuck up big time. You can be weak. You can collude against yourself in the sickest ways imaginable. You can be a rapist. You can be an abuser. Maybe you didn’t mean for things to happen that way, but motive isn’t everything. Sometimes what actually happened is important too. And you’re allowed to forgive yourself, but that really sort of requires admitting it to yourself first.

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