Can a leopard change her spots?

Well, now that my outbreak has cleared up, Holden and I have had a chance to try out some of the goodies we ordered from Condomania.com

First of all, let me remind you that I have very limited experience with condoms and stuff, so some of what I’ve learned you may already know.

We tried the female condom the other day and it was, well, rough going. But it was the first time using one, so I’m going to give it another chance. First of all, insertion is NOT as easy as they make it look in the picture. They tell you to squeeze the inner ring so it becomes insertable like a tampon. What they don’t tell you is that with the lube that comes in the package and the extra lube you put on because you really like lube is going to make that little ring almost impossible to grip. You pinch it and think you’ve got it secure between your fingers and you slowly position your hand between your legs and POP it slips out of your grasp and is a ring again. So you go through the whole process again, gripping the ring, getting it between your legs, hoping against hope that the tube part hasn’t gotten twisted along the way because you can’t pay attention to that part while you’re concentrating on keeping the ring pinched. I wonder if somebody will come up with an applicator for this type of condom that holds the ring in a tube for insertion until you take the tube out and let the ring pop open once it’s up by the cervix. Speaking of that step, my fingers aren’t very long and they barely reach my cervix as it is. So sticking my fingers inside the condom to make sure the inner ring was positioned properly over the cervix was not very reassuring. All the handling I did with my fingers left more lube on my hands than on the condom, so when Holden put his penis in, it was slippery enough to be comfortable, but the condom stuck to his penis and started moving with him, rather than staying anchored inside me while he moved inside the condom. Also, I kept feeling like the outer ring was going to be pushed inside me as well, so I had to keep stopping him and touching the ring to make sure it was still in the right place. Perhaps more lube would have helped the sensation too because it really felt like having sex with a sandwich baggy. Cleanup and disposal were like any condom, easy enough and fairly mess-free. Though they tell you to twist the tube of the condom before pulling it out to trap the semen inside. Well, you can twist, but then as soon as you pull, the pulling motion untwists the condom, so it’s a little harder to keep it fully closed than they’d like you to believe. All this sounds a bit harsh, I know. I really think the female condom is a brilliant invention and long overdue. I’ll give it another try and let you know how round two goes.

A bit more fun was the strawberry scented condom, one of a variety pack we got free with our order. I took the opportunity to learn how to put a condom on. I’d seen it done, but never done it myself. Also, I’ve never given a blow job with a condom, so that was a new sensation for me. The loose rubber at the tip (the “reservoir” I guess it’s called) tickled the back of my throat when I went a little deeper, so that took some getting used to. Also, I kept getting the sensation that if I sucked too hard it’d pop off and get stuck in my throat, but I held on good and tight with my hand, so I quickly got over that. Normally when I give Holden blow jobs I do use my teeth (very carefully, not in an unpleasantly painful way) but I was unsure whether that would be wise with a condom. After a couple little tests of exposing my teeth to the rubber and feeling how my teeth were actually too dull to do any damage to the condom in the gentle way I was using them, I felt better (and so did Holden! *wink*) One really nice thing about using a condom for oral sex was that I didn’t have to pause to swallow when he orgasmed. I have no problem swallowing, but I do have to interrupt my rhythm to let my mouth and throat coordinate the swallow. Not really a big deal, but it was nice not to have to do that this time, and I think Holden would agree. When it came time to take the condom off, I was actually more nervous than I had been about putting it on. The idea of rubber pulling against the skin did not sound pleasant, so I asked for a little extra guidance and Holden showed me how to do it so it wasn’t painful.

Last night we tried the Elexa Natural Feel condom from Trojan. It is latex, but textured in such a way that it really does feel more natural. It also has practically no smell. This will probably be a new favorite of mine. Holden said it was good for him too.

We have yet to try the Trojan Supra polyurethane and the dental dams we got from Smittenkittenonline.com But I’ll be sure and report back when we do.

Happy safer sexing!

-Grace

I’ve been doing a lot of reading and discussing and thinking about polyamory. I’m growing to accept it as an alternative to traditional monogamy. I’m feeling more educated and accepting every day. I’m really pleased with how this has allowed me to open up to Holden and listen to him, and I’m rather proud of myself for the growth I’ve made in the past few months. But a question that didn’t really occur to me until last week is how will I know when I’m ready to try a polyamorous relationship? I can do all the reading and discussing and learning I want, but unless I figure out how I’ll know what feels right, I won’t be able to move forward from just being a well educated open minded person to being someone who actually participates in a poly relationship. Perhaps the only way to know is to experience it.

Here comes a geeky Star Trek analogy: Imagine you’re on the Enterprise in an episode of The Next Generation. You’ve heard about the holodeck and the idea of entering a totally flexible universe limited only by your own desires and imagination has scared you ever since someone first described it to you. You came up with all kinds of potential dangers, like the distortion of your own understanding of reality, or the possibility of a malfunction beyond your control, or the chance that you might become incapacitated while on an adventure and be unable to end the program on your own. But you read about it, you talk to other people who’ve experienced it, and while you understand it’s not for everyone, you decide that maybe it could be something you’d enjoy. So you mosey on down to the entrance to the holodeck and stop at the door and you realize that all your reading and preparation have not prepared you for this moment: actually facing the door to the holodeck and the little panel next to the door with the available selections of choices you could experience. The door looks pretty normal, but the list of choices makes you think twice: “Klingon Death Match” levels Advanced through GLORY; “Vulcan Love Slave;” and “Bowling with Q.” Terrifying selections to say the least. You scroll down further to see if there’s something a little more newbie friendly and find a selection called “Tree.” You query the description of the program and it reads, “Creates a single tree compatible for use within various terrestrial programs. Tree species available: ash, beech, birch, dogwood, fir, etc.” You think to yourself, “how scary could a single tree be?” So you choose “maple” and the program loads. Now all that’s left is to step through the door.

I think that’s where I am right now, standing at the door, wondering if there’s one more thing I should go back and read before stepping through.

-Grace

I was riding in a car today with some friends and the song by Garbage, “Sex is Not the Enemy” came on. I’d heard the song before and liked its message, but it had been a while since I’d heard it, so in the context of everything I’ve been thinking and reading about lately, it was like hearing it for the first time all over again. It got me to thinking about how the larger issues that affect our lives tend to have many different layers. For example, the idea of non-monogamy has political implications, social implications, and personal implications, among others. The political and social aspects of it are more general, and can be dealt with somewhat semantically. The personal layer, though, is a lot harder to figure out. I’m finding the more I read about various forms of non-monogamy and their impact on social structure and political issues (such as feminism), the more I’m willing to accept non-monogamy as a viable option in a general way. I wasn’t able or willing to do that before. I’m beginning to understand the benefits it can have for families, communities, and society in general. But when it comes to applying those principles to my own life, and considering adopting new philosophies, I’m facing a greater challenge. It’s easy for me to accept other people’s way of life as “whatever works for you, go for it,” but when it comes to changing myself and the construct I live in, I suddenly become the world’s most skeptical devil’s advocate. A streak of pessimism comes out in me that seems unusual for how I normally behave. I’ve come to accept pessimism as a defense mechanism that forces me to think of the worst case scenario - ultimately, a healthy exercise to mentally prepare me for a challenge - but I tend to let my skepticism turn into panic, and that’s not so healthy. Sometimes it takes a real effort not to run around screaming, “The sky is falling!”

But in talking with my friends about this today, I began to understand how important it is to break things up in to bite size pieces. The question I posed at the beginning of this blog, “Can I change from being a monogamous person to being polyamorous?” has really turned out to be a pandora’s box of questions. I think I knew it would be that way when I started thinking about it, but I don’t think I realized how tiny my bite size pieces would have to be in order for me to really deal with them thoroughly.

Just to give you a more concrete example about how this applies: Holden asked me today (after a discussion about compersion, a.k.a. frubble), “Just as a hypothetical, how would you feel about me holding hands with someone?” I had to answer that I wouldn’t be able to answer that question without first understanding how he felt about her and how she felt about him. I told him I would probably need to feel like there was some sort of discussion about the hand holding before hand holding would be ok because there are many layers to a physical act like hand holding. People can just hold hands and it doesn’t mean anything more than they’re friends, or they’re standing next to each other in church when the Our Father is recited, or they’re swaying together and singing Kumbaya. It’s the emotions underneath the hand holding that are more important, and that’s what we’d have to discuss.

So all of my major philisophical and personal questions are being cut down into smaller and smaller pieces so I can handle each one and eventually tackle the overarching question. I recently watched my favorite episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast in which he makes up a song about a knife. It’s been coming up all weekend, and now I know why. The song goes like this: “I’m a knife… knifing around… cutcutcutcutcutcutcutcutcutcutcutcutcutcut”

-Grace

My package from Condomania.com arrived today! YAAAAAAAY!!!

Here’s a picture, and… ummm….. bye! -Grace

Last night I tried to put my idea about Holden’s fantasies into action and got some unexpected results. We were both feeling really good yesterday. I was feeling much better healthwise. He was having a relaxing day off. We had some really fun, somewhat sexually charged conversations with friends earlier in the day, so that got us talking to each other about sexual topics. When we got snuggled into bed, I explained to Holden that I wanted to get a better handle on hearing his fantasies and not getting so freaked out by them. I encouraged him to share with me, and that we could just start slow and small, maybe just give me the premise of a fantasy or describe something about the situation. It took him a few minutes to get started, but little by little he built a scenario for me with the images that came to his mind.

I was really excited about what he told me and how it involved me and other people. I think I was worried I wouldn’t like the scenarios he thought up, like they’d be too weird or uncomfortable for me, but really they were just fun.

The unexpected part came from my body’s involuntary reaction to his closeness. While he was telling me all this, he was holding me close in bed, caressing my arm and shoulder with his hand, and nuzzling my ear and neck with his nose and mouth. Normally I LOVE this kind of cuddling. It absolutely turns me on. But for some reason I felt trapped, bothered, annoyed, and it took all my strength not to shimmy my shoulders free and scoot away from him across the bed. I kept my cool, took a few deep breaths, and tried to concentrate on what Holden was saying. But his fingers kept stroking my shoulder and it kept annoying me more and more and the fact that it was annoying me made me wonder if on a subconscious level I was upset by hearing about his fantasies.

I carefully asked him to stop caressing me and explained that I was feeling uncomfortable, but I wasn’t sure why, and not to take it personally. We talked about it and I finally figured it out. I needed some time and space to mentally process how I felt about the fantasies and that required some concentration and focus. His lovely caresses were distracting me when I really wanted to be thinking about things and that’s why I was feeling annoyed.

But, now that I’ve figured that out I can deal with it AND the cool part is, I found out I am NOT upset by Holden’s fantasies! Isn’t that great news?! I know, I know, who cares. Really, though, it’s these little victories that keep me going. Here’s to celebrating progress, no matter how tiny.

-Grace

The first chapter in My Secret Garden starts with Nancy’s own story about her long time lover who had an active fantasy life of his own but who rejected Nancy as soon as she began to express hers. He felt insecure and ran away rather than deal with his insecurity. I realized that I had been doing the same thing to Holden for years! Well, I didn’t abruptly get out of bed, put my pants on, and leave. But I clammed up, showed no enthusiasm, even told him his fantasies were weird and made me uncomfortable. What a horrible person I was! Well, ok, that’s a little harsh, and thank God Holden didn’t think I was a horrible person. I don’t know what he sees in me sometimes, but apparently he saw my ability to grow, because he stuck with me, toned things down for my comfort, and we’ve been S-L-O-W-L-Y exploring our fantasy lives together and starting to build a fantasy life together.

I really think that I can never hope to be ready for polyamory unless I can really learn to embrace Holden’s fantasies, no matter how insecure they threaten to make me feel. Because how can I expect to deal with seeing him with other real women when I can’t even handle him fantasizing about imaginary ones?

I took the first active step in opening up to fantasy last week. He’s often told me how much he’d love to hear my fantasies but I’ve always insisted to him that I don’t fantasize, or if I do it’s always about him. Well, that was a lie (duh!) but I was too scared to let myself say anything more than that.

But I knew that was bullshit and I knew that I would someday have to force myself out of that little ivory tower where I was above all that “crazy sex stuff.” So I worked myself up to it slowly and finally last week while we were fooling around, I asked him if he wanted to hear about a fantasy I’d had. Of course he was thrilled and through a lot of apologies for it being kind of dumb and explaining that it was really tame and not to get his hopes up, I whispered the story in his ear while he touched me. It was scary putting myself out there and feeling vulnerable, but something about saying the words and feeling how much he loved me despite my tame little fantasy and my stuttering delivery was exhilarating.

I have yet to invite him to tell me one of his fantasies, but I’m getting there. We’re talking about other things that are leading up to that. I kind of feel like I need to be in a confident state of mind to be able to ask him and handle what he tells me, so I’m working on getting through my emotions with the herpes thing first. They’re not kidding when they say on those websites that people with herpes feel depressed and alone and angry when they first get diagnosed. I’ve been going through all of that.

So stay tuned. I hope to have news of future fantasy swapping. (That could be taken so many different ways.)

-Grace

My Nancy Friday Friday obligation was put on hold for herpes drama. Dear readers, punish me if you must.

But I have been reading and I do have some thoughts, so here goes:

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve always had a hard time accepting my fantasies as a healthy part of my sexual relationship with others, that they’ve always been just for me in the past. Nancy Friday addresses this in her introduction to My Secret Garden. She asserts that despite the sexual revolution and women’s lib women are still feeling just as repressed, only now she identifies the repressing force as “Matriarchal Feminists.” I can relate to the feeling of being repressed, but I’ve always had a hard time identifying exactly why. My mother didn’t tell me things like, “don’t touch yourself, it’s dirty” or “nice girls don’t do that kind of thing,” so where does this repression come from? I wish Nancy had given some more concrete examples to illustrate what she means by “the Matriarchals.” I get the general concept of it, but it’s not helping me much in determining where that influence has been felt in my own life.

It was her idea of competition between women causing repression that got me thinking. She writes: “… although it was a fundamental tenet of patriarchy that men held the key to eros, some of us knew in our bones that women, not men, were and remain the permission givers when it comes to sex. It is through other women’s voices that we hear our own. Without fear of their disapproval, all our sexual fuel can run into every facet of our lives–political, personal, and economic.” Maybe that’s why I chose to use the nearly empty junior high locker room to change for gym class. I was too scared of what the room full of girls would think of my body. What did I care what they thought of me? I wasn’t trying to get THEM to date me. I could have learned so much from them by just being confident enough in myself to let myself be with them. Instead, because of my fear, I separated myself from them and remained ignorant of their bodies and how equally imperfect they were.

I will continue to look for examples of the Matriarchal Feminists and other repressive influences in my own life. If you can think of any examples feel free to leave me a comment here or email me at monopolyblog@gmail.com

-Grace

Holden and I have been doing a lot of talking and reading about this whole herpes thing. We both realized how little we knew about herpes and about STD protection. See, when we first got together we used condoms a few times. But we decided that since we both had clean histories and I was on the pill we could stop using them. Holden had been tested for STDs after his last partner and I had only ever had sex with one other guy who had also been a virgin when we were together, so we calculated our risk as being very low with each other.

Even when we did use condoms though, I was relying entirely on Holden’s knowledge to make sure we were using them properly, and that wasn’t smart on my part. I realize now that it’s just as important for a woman to know how to properly put on and take off a condom. Even in the couple of times we did use condoms together, one slipped off unexpectedly.

So Holden and I have decided to take this opportunity to learn as much as we can about how to properly use condoms, dental dams, female condoms, and other safer sex techniques.

Right now, Holden doesn’t know whether he’s infected with herpes. Since we don’t know, we’re going to take precautions to make sure I don’t pass it along to him. From what we’ve learned from my doctor and from reading things online, there isn’t really a reliable way to test for herpes unless you’re actually having an outbreak. Since Holden hasn’t shown any signs of an outbreak, we’re going to wait a little bit to have him tested. Meanwhile, I’m looking at another 8 days of treatment with Valtrex, by which time my outbreak is supposed to be finished and Holden and I will have some serious catching up to do.

To that end, we went on a little shopping spree on a great website called Condomania.com. We ordered female condoms, male condoms, and flavored condoms. We’re going to order dental dams from another website, smittenkittenonline.com. They have more variety for dental dams.

And here is a little shameless plug for Condomania.com: Their website was fun, accessible, and super informative! They describe the fun qualities of each item in equal proportion to its protective uses, they compare one product to another, and the site is put together in a very friendly format for people new to safer sex. Smittenkittenonline.com is similar, though they have more of a focus on sex toys and games.

There is still a lot of frustration and pain and side effects from the Valtrex, but having something to look forward to when this outbreak is over makes the time go faster.

-Grace

Well things just got VASTLY more complicated for me. Just when I thought I was getting somewhere and starting to figure out how to navigate these waters, the cruel author that is Fate decided it was time for a plot twist.

I was sick this week. I thought I had the flu. Fever, chills, headache, body ache, and canker sores. This alone was bad enough, but when I started to feel like I was getting a yeast infection as well, I just thought it was the icing on the cake. I bought some Monistat and began the first dose Saturday night. By Sunday morning the burning was worse and I could feel specific sore spots rather than the usual all-over burn so I decided to take a look. Imagine my surprise and curiosity when I noticed ulcerated sores on my labia. Go ahead, imagine. I’ll wait.

I went straight to the internet and as you may have already guessed (sorry, didn’t have time to whip up a prize for the first correct guesser) all signs pointed to herpes. The half a glass of wine I’d had that night kind of made me talk slower than I wanted to, which was probably good because I was absolutely petrified to tell Holden. We spent the evening going from denial to guilt to bargaining to denial and eventually to sleep. The biggest puzzle that kept popping up was: How the FRAK could I of all people have gotten herpes?

I have been married for three years, joined at the hip for six years to my adoring husband who has also been monogamous and faithful and can’t keep a secret from me for the life of him, so where did this come from?! Once we read a bit more about transmission and how long the virus stays dormant in the body and how people who are asymptomatic can pass it on without ever knowing they have it, we tried to stop speculating. It’s probably been in my body for years and Holden’s probably already been exposed to it through his contact with me. The bottom line is, just as monogamy is not a protection against marital problems, it is not always a guaranteed protection against STDs either. Herpes is one of the ways your past partners can come back to bite you in the ass, and not in the fun way.

So I went to the doctor today and got diagnosed. He prescribed Valtrex. For genital herpes, the dosage is one gram twice a day for ten days. The pills are HUGE and the color blue like that poster paint we used to use as kids, the one that smelled a little like eggs. I’m going to start calling them Blue Meanies because they also remind me of the goofy little evil bastards in the movie Yellow Submarine, and my life feels that surreal right now anyway.

This changes a lot. I have no idea what just yet, but I’ll get back to you on that.

In the meantime, I am feeling diseased. Depressed. And the Valtrex is making me nauseas.

-Grace

I grew up in a household that seemed really good and healthy. And really my childhood was about as excellent as a childhood can be. I believed in the beauty and correctness of traditional marriage because it provided a stable, loving environment for me and my sister. (For what it’s worth, by traditional marriage I don’t mean excluding gay/lesbian couples from marriage. Even at a young age, I seriously questioned the prevailing attitude toward marriage among gays and lesbians, even though I didn’t quite know what that meant until high school and didn’t take a strong stand in favor of gay rights until college.) In my youthful search for love and acceptance and entry into the adult world, I always saw traditional marriage as part of my future.Once I was old enough to understand the complexities of family relationships, however, I began to figure out that my parents’ marriage, which appeared so wholesome and fulfilling on the outside, was really very empty. I learned to recognize the difference in my mother’s voice when she was talking to my father alone and when she was talking to friends or family. I noticed that my parents didn’t share any hobbies or interests, that they spent their time at home doing separate things. I watched them work to keep up appearances when in public: my father making an effort to hold my mother’s hand, my mother merely tolerating it. There were deep underlying problems that ate away at them for years and that to this day, two years after their divorce, I’m still only beginning to understand.

I think part of why they were never able to work things out was that they believed on some level that having a traditional marriage was supposed to be the answer to their problems. That they could brush off personal issues like depression, isolation, and money problems because their marriage was intact and that was all that mattered. Efforts on both their parts to deal with individual problems always ended in deeper frustration and pain because one or the other of them just wouldn’t take responsibility, falling back on the attitude of “well, we’re still married, so it can’t be all that bad.”

And despite knowing that my parents’ marriage was not perfect and that I shouldn’t expect marriage to solve my problems, I did expect it to. I wanted to believe the fairy tale of happily ever after. Some subconscious part of me thought that by marrying Holden, I would be able to capture his interest forever and that he would never show interest in another woman ever again. Or if he did that he would keep it to himself. I secretly hoped for the quiet restraint my grandparents displayed, both sets of them married for over 50 years. Surely the self control and moderation that had kept them together for so long and still loving each other after all those years would create the same kind of lasting bond between me and Holden.

It seemed so effortless for my grandparents. And despite the ugliness on the underside of my parents’ marriage, it seemed like that was still supposed to be my goal: commitment to one spouse for life, anything else not an option. So when getting married didn’t solve my problems with insecurity and jealousy, or Holden’s problems of feeling straitjacketed by society, I started to panic. What if this means we’re not each other’s perfect match? What if we made a mistake? If we truly were the one person right for each other then why are we still having so many problems? I knew that marriage was supposed to be work, but I thought that meant working out chore schedules and planning our financial future, deciding where to send the kids to school, and worrying where the money would come from for Johnny’s braces. I didn’t expect the constant upkeep our emotional relationship would require: working out commitment issues, understanding each other’s personal goals, negotiating over whether or not to baptize the children as Roman Catholics, and repairing Holden’s bruised ego over losing an internship.

Luckily for me, Holden has always seemed to understand this and has been willing to stick by me, nudging me along to finally realize that traditional marriage alone is not the answer; marriage that ensures lots of communication and mutual understanding is. I was reading this article and the author says, “There is a frankly destructive ignorance that abounds about romantic relationships: a goody-goody Martha Stewartland where everything has to be perfect. Perhaps it would be better to forget any ideas you might have soaked up from Cinderella or Mother Goose about wedded bliss –real marriages function like real machinery –over time they vibrate, rattle, make strange noises, shake pieces loose, get patched, reconditioned, even rebuilt. Show me a couple (or a triad, or a quad, etc.) that boasts of ‘perfect wedded bliss’ and I’ll show you somebody who’s trying to hide something.” That finally made it crystal clear to me. I shouldn’t be striving for a marriage that looks perfect and lives up to unrealistic expectations. I should be working every day toward fostering honest open communication that includes my own willingness to listen.

This is like, one of those “duh” moments, but bear with me:

The goal, if there is a goal in marriage, is LOVE. Pretty radical, huh? The author of the article I was reading puts it nicely: “What’s your reward for all this listening and moose-avoidance? Well, I may be wrong, but I don’t think I am: your reward is love. Real love, not wedded bliss. The kind of love that comes from years of learning to listen. The kind of love that only emerges in the wake of resolved arguments, stormy silences at the meal table, and nights in separate beds. The kind of love that can only come after a steady succession of strange noises and pieces shaken loose –and yes, perhaps even the occasional head-on moose collision. “

So… yeah! I think I’ve known all this stuff all along, but it’s nice to find someone who says it so well and with generous references to moose. How is this all related to my explorations of polyamory? Well, in order to make any additional relationships work, I’d first better make sure I can make the one I’ve got the best it can be. To that end, Holden and I are having lots of really great discussions about our expectations, our desires, our turn ons, our turn offs, and hopefully we’ll be revisiting some of the stuff I was too scared to talk about in the past, and that could mean some fun adventures are headed our way! Maybe I’m just too sugar-fueled after drinking that Cherry Coke, but I feel really good right now and I think we’re moving forward toward a greater clarity that will allow for new and interesting dimensions of our relationship to develop. Plus, I really dig moose.

Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!

-Grace