May 28, 2012

On poly and labels and other things

My dear and also newly divorced friend I. has found a new... well, not boyfriend, because he don't believe in labeling relationships, but that's what I would call it. Hook-up is what they use, but they are very lovey-dovey and always together and fantasize about their future children, so I'm thinking it's a romantic relationship whatever he wants to call it.

Either way, he's poly and a relationship anarcist, with two steady long term other girls, a boy he flirts with and a gang of gay men he hangs out with and presumably fucks when the mood so takes them. Understandably, she's pondering where she fits in to this matrix, and is trying to orientate herself and find her own values and opinions after being married and also submissive in a 24/7 D/s relationship for ten years. They're happy, but it's a bit complicated.

So we've been discussing relationships and needs and labels and values a lot lately, or at least whenever we've had a chance to see each other for a minute. And it's been really interesting for me to figure out my own opinions, regarding my own life (they, of course, do what suits them, I don't meddle in that).

When I was together with my ex-boyfriend, submitting to him, and realised that me and Mistress was in love, that was a potential disaster. We kept our feelings hidden, for ourselves and each other, for a long time because of that. It all came out because of a LARP, actually, were we played characters married to each other in a poly family, it was a SF setting, featuring a society where every marriage was with four people (there was also a 18-hour day, everyone living in biosphere thousands of years in the future on a different planet, and well, it was that kind of story). When we made the decision to try to form a poly-tryad, I think that experience influenced a lot. That, and the longing for a pack, a flock, a family.

That experiment lasted for two years, of which at least one and a half was very very bad. My ex, then my Master, also had the right/privilege to sleep with others, which he did one time towards the end, and I resented it deeply (no matter that I regularly slept with another woman...). Ours was not a healthy dynamic, and my personal experiences with poly is not happy ones.

Even so, when me and Mistress moved in together, and eventually got married, we didn't declare monogamy as the rule. Partly I think because that would be unnecessary limiting. And also, I don't know, it just doesn't feel right. It's not a traditional marriage, since we're both women it couldn't be even if we wanted it to, so we can decide for ourselves. Since we're out of the norm anyway, being O/p and lesbians, everything becomes a choice, and we haven't actively chosen monogamy as a guiding principle.

But what separates us from my friend I. and her new... whatever, is that the decisions regarding sex is entirely onesided. I'm not sure Mistress will be my only sex partner for the rest of my life. In fact, I hope she wont be. But what happens in that regard is up to her, completely. I don't get a say in the matter, and the point is that I don't want to. Thats my desire, that's my lifestyle, that's my choice. I hope she wont be my only sex partner, because I hope she'll someday execute that right and let someone else use me. I don't really have much of a preference about whom, I just want her to use me that way. The same way I want her to whip me or fuck me or hurt me or choke me or anything else she does.

If she want to have sex with someone else that's her right to. If she does it without me, simply because someone else turns her on, I think I'll probably feel a bit insecure and threatened and worry a bit and perhaps be jealous, but I'll also revel in the fact that she's using her rights as my Owner to live a happy and fullfilled life, and I want to believe it would work out alright in the end. If she does it with me present, to make a point or to teach me something or to involve me in a play with multiple partners, I would most probably love it, without worry.

All in all, we end up somewhere between poly and traditional, monogamish as it were. For now, it's only us, and I would be very surprised if we ever move away from the two of us being primary partners, but I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere along the way someone else got involved in one way or another. But the important driving principle is that whatever happens, it's her decision. It's kind of on another axle than the whole poly/monogamy-discussion.

It will be interesting to see where they land, my friend I. and her new one. I think she's fine with the sharing and the poly bit, but I don't think that she'll accept the "no labels" part of the philosophy - it's kind of hard when you've been and owned submissive for ten years, I think. What would we do without our labels?

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