The morning after… and lunch.

This morning after I finished writing about the awful night I’d had being all passive and depressed, I started doing laundry and cleaning up around the house. I was still thinking about what I could have done differently, how I could turn my passive behavior into aggressive behavior, step by step. I really wasn’t thinking about anything very sexual and I didn’t feel particularly randy or anything, but as I stood folding sheets in the bedroom, I could feel my crotch getting all wet and slippery. Mentally, I didn’t feel turned on at all, in fact, I was exhausted. But when I stuck my hand down my jeans, sure enough things were ready for action! What’s gotten into you, Grace? I thought as I shoved the half folded sheet aside and laid down on the bed. There’s something very nice and peaceful about mid-morning masturbation, with the bedroom window open, a nice spring breeze drifting in, and birds singing in the trees. I surprised myself at how revved up I seemed to be down there, despite not really having any reason to be. When I zipped up my jeans and glanced over at the clock, it was just after noon. Lunch time.

Holden works about 20 minutes away in the next town over. He sometimes comes home over his lunch break to have something hot to eat or to take care of some things around the house. Today he was going to have one thing to take care of around the house. I messaged him at work and asked if he’d eaten yet and whether he’d like to come home. I offered to make him a sandwich (irresistible bait!) and he told me he was running a little behind but would be home around 1:00. That gave me just enough time to fix both our sandwiches and stash them in the microwave (no room in the fridge and if I left them on the table they’d be pillaged by marauding cats), finish putting the sheets away, and select a condom to have ready on the bed.

When he pulled up in front of our house, he didn’t suspect a thing. I could tell he thought I looked cute today in my snug fit jeans and off the shoulders tee shirt. I said, “Oh good you’re here,” before pouncing to kiss him ravenously, removing his sunglasses and undoing his shirt buttons before he got two steps from the door. I led him into the bedroom by his shirt tail and finished undressing him and myself in seconds. His look of appreciative surprise made me smile as I pushed him onto his back on the bed and hovered over him, kissing little lines all over his chest and stomach that gave him shivers, and letting my breasts brush teasingly against his erection. I reached up next to his head and grabbed the condom. “Put this on.”

I watched him roll the condom on and without a word, but locking eye contact, I slid onto him. I was still plenty wet from before and I rode him to make myself cum four or five times before suggesting that we switch so he could really pound me like I knew he wanted to. As he entered me from behind the shock of the new sensation this angle gave me brought me to orgasm within a few moments and Holden wasn’t far behind with a shuddering, head splitting orgasm that threatened to rip him apart. Yeah, it was that good.

We curled up together in a panting heap. I wondered if Holden was making any connections between this and the way I’d acted last night. I glanced over at him. He hadn’t yet regained the power of speech, so I decided not to bring it up.

I got dressed and started setting lunch out on the kitchen table while Holden cleaned up and got dressed too. We ate our lunch sitting very close to each other on the bench that faces the table (rather than have two chairs, we have a single bench that faces the window.) Neither of us spoke, but it was the good kind of silence; calm, satisfied, simply enjoying being close to each other. As we both slowly regained our grasp on reality and neared the end of our sandwiches, I told him I’d written a blog post about how I was feeling last night. He asked if there was more to it than the fact that the mood was ruined, and I told him briefly about my frustration over being so passive and added, “But now I get to write a follow-up post to that. A happy one.”

I kissed him goodbye and he drove back to work. It’s times like this when I think back to that movie, Dead Poets Society. Remember that movie? With Robert Sean Leonard looking so hot in his high school uniform and so sexy playing Puck? My best friend and I saw that movie in high school and immediately adopted the motto “Carpe diem!” And we really lived by it. It helped me find the courage to do a lot of really great things I would have otherwise shied away from. I think over the years I’ve forgotten to keep that motto in mind and I’ve let that attitude slip away from me. Today, I remembered to seize the day, and I think I may remember to do that more often from now on.

-Grace

I had a bad night and it’s all my fault.

Don’t you just hate it when something frustrating happens and when you sit down to think about it you realize it was all your own fault to begin with? ARGH it makes me so mad!

Last night after a moderately good day, Holden and I stayed up to chat with some friends online. The conversation shifted somewhere I wasn’t terribly interested in (probably computer geek stuff – I love my geeks, but I don’t yet speak their language) so I left to take a shower. It was only 10:30 so I took extra care to make myself soft and smooth and nice smelling. There’s something sensual about that for me, spending time and energy on making myself especially appealing for Holden definitely gets me in the mood to share with him all my little extra efforts. Even just coming out of the shower with newly shaved legs gets me excited to find an excuse to sit close to him with my legs where he can feel and appreciate them. So last night, not only did I shave my legs, but I also used this rose scented lotion that Holden loves to smell on my shoulders, and I left my hair a little damp and tousled because he always tells me how cute that looks. I put on a cute tiny pair of pajama shorts and my over sized men’s style pajama shirt, you know the kind, it buttons down the front and is made of a nice cool cotton blend that hangs just to the hips on a woman if she’s wearing a men’s size. Naturally I only fastened the buttons necessary to keep the shirt from blowing completely open as I walked. Holden loves seeing me either in one of his button down shirts or in a shirt of my own that’s a little too big for me but still manages to show off a shoulder or flash the curve of a breast in the neckline.

All soft and cute and feeling confident in myself, I returned to the living room where Holden was still chatting. I leaned over the back of the recliner to nuzzle his ear and slide my hands from his shoulders down his chest. The conversation in the chat room filled with our old friends from college was pretty lively and Holden didn’t look up from the screen when he said to me, “Hey, you’ve gotta hear about this,” and started recounting some shocking story that everybody was buzzing about in the chat room. Meanwhile, not giving up that I could still capture his attention, I walked in front of him and went across the room to close the windows. There’s a shelf in front of one pair of windows, so I had to lean way over to reach the winch that swings them shut. I leaned a little further than I had to, lingered there pretending to have trouble with the latch, and then shifted position and leaned some more for the second window. Holden went on filling me in on the chat. They were all talking in the excited tones of political discourse, but the story was not only politically shocking but also deeply sad. As I sat down cross legged on the couch I could tell that Holden hadn’t even noticed me and I felt my sexy mood fade away to be replaced by bitter frustration. Why do my moods always have to come up right when Holden is most lonesome for his friends? I can’t tear him away from this conversation now, it’s making him too happy. He misses them terribly and it helps make it easier when he gets to laugh and share the jokes even from a few hundred miles away.

I went to my own computer and joined in the chat room. If I couldn’t communicate to Holden face to face, maybe I could reach him by computer. I had lost the mood entirely by now but I still felt like I wanted to get his attention somehow. I typed a snarky but joking line or two in the chat room along the lines of, “Great, guys. I come out of the shower all soft and cute and you have to go and ruin the mood with some sob story. ” We joke each other around like that all the time, but this time I was actually a bit passive aggressive and Holden noticed that was displeased. “It’s not like it was planned that way,” he said to me over his shoulder, and went on chatting. “I’m just frustrated, is all,” I said weakly. I stayed in the chat room for a little bit, but it wasn’t holding my attention and I was getting concerned that Holden would stay up too late and make himself tired for work the next day. It was nearing midnight.

I shut my computer down and went back over to the recliner where I ran my fingers through Holden’s hair a little and asked, “Are you coming to bed soon?” “Yeah, probably,” he replied, and I went to the bedroom.

I hoped he would wrap up his conversation within a half hour or so and come to bed. I thought I could recapture the sexy mood I’d lost by reading, so I plopped down on the bed with a good book and waited up for Holden. I got through twenty… thirty… fourty… fifty pages of the book and when I looked up at the clock it was 2:15 am. I put down my book and shuffled back out to the living room where Holden was still talking with friends back home. He filled me in on who he was talking to and why the conversation had been going so long. Boyfriend trouble. I curled back up on the couch. I was too pissed to feel sleepy, so I picked up my laptop and hit the power button. As it was going through its boot up process, Holden actually finished his conversation, closed the lid on his laptop and came over to sit next to me on the floor. “Oh,” he lamented, “you were just signing on?” “No.” I closed the laptop quickly and decisively, not quite slamming it, because I know better than to slam a laptop, but finally physically showing that I was upset. Holden looked bewildered and concerned. “What’s wrong?” Oh NOW he wants to know what’s wrong? Now that it’s 2:30am and he’s facing a four hour night of sleep he wants to talk to me? What, so I can keep him up until 4 and he can go to work with burning eyes and an aching head? No way, I’m not going to be responsible for that.

“Forget it. It’s not that important. You need to get some sleep. Let’s go to bed.” He really felt guilty now (though I could see in his face that he was trying to work out why I was so upset), and even though I knew it was wrong, that it was bad communication, it felt good to see him squirm, to see the concern in his eyes. I finally had his attention. But I was on the verge of tears by now and I did not want to talk about it because I would have broken down entirely and by God I did not want to be responsible for him staying up any later and ruining his whole work day. He accepted that I wasn’t ready to talk, so he said, “Well, if we go to bed now, can we talk about it tomorrow?” I shrugged it off a bit and pulled myself together. “It’s really not that big a deal, it’s just in my own head, so you shouldn’t worry about it too much. It doesn’t even have to do with you, it’s to do with me, so… whatever.”

We silently crawled into bed and I fumed at myself. What is wrong with me?! I wanted sex tonight. I knew I wanted sex tonight. I even had specific KINDS of sex in mind that I wanted. Why couldn’t I just TELL him? Why couldn’t I come on stronger? What was stopping me from boldly walking up to him, looking him straight in the eyes, closing the laptop and putting it aside while I climbed into his lap in its place? Why can’t I TAKE what I want, why do I feel like I have to lure him into giving it to me? I’m so fucking passive! Even when I’m aggressive, I’m PASSIVE aggressive. Why am I always waiting for him to come to me? Why can’t I go to him and tell him what I want? Holden would never turn me down. He loves it when I initiate sex. He wants to feel wanted too. And I do want him. GOD do I want him. So why can’t I show it? What am I so afraid of? And if I am afraid, why can’t I just suck it up and do it anyway? That’s what I do with everything else. If something scares me, I can always take a deep breath and just… jump. Why don’t I know how to do this? What’s wrong with me?

Eventually I drifted off to sleep, still mad at myself. I woke up this morning with a headache, my eyes burning with spent tears, my body aching from a restless night. And I still don’t know what to do to make it better.

-Grace

Boner goggles?

I’ve identified in Holden something that acts as a sort of equivalent to beer goggles. Maybe I’ll call them boner goggles. (A frightening image.) In the same way that drinking lots of beer can make even the ugliest woman at the bar look hot, I’ve found that Holden’s attraction to a woman can make him see everything exactly as he wants it, not as things really are.

This happened with the woman he cheated on me with the one time it happened. His attraction to her led him to live in denial of how much he was leading her on, how much he actually wanted a sexual relationship with her, and how badly I was being hurt in the process. Not only was this woman actively trying to seduce Holden, she was saying terrible, cruel things to me every time we met and Holden was absolutely blind to it. I spoke to him directly about how his flirtations with her went further than I felt comfortable with, how I was afraid he was inviting trouble by acting like more than friends with her, and I asked him to back off and also to speak with her about backing off in her flirtation as well. I thought I was being pretty assertive and direct, but when Holden gets in that state, nothing short of a cold wet trout to the face will snap him out of it to see reality. Sadly, I had no trout at hand. He did talk to her and he did promise to back off, but she didn’t, and the temptation was just too much for him.

That is a most extreme case, but a more mild case has come up recently. Knowing what to look for now, I was able to head it off fairly early before any real damage was done, but it was HARD to get Holden to put on the brakes and step back to really look at the situation. In this case, Holden was developing feelings for one of our friends and when he talked with her about this, she was generally positive about it and didn’t flat out tell him to stop it or back off. However, they both knew and agreed that things should just stay as a friendship because none of the parties involved is quite ready to take the next step just yet. Holden saw her positivity as a green light to go ahead and ramp up his flirtation with her. He started pushing really hard for scheduling our next trip to visit. It just seemed like he was being really pushy and overbearing. When I got him to realize how he was coming across, he was pretty embarrassed. He was shocked at himself for how he had been so blinded by his own desires. We had a really good discussion about what I had observed in him and how he had responded when I had tried to point these things out. He told me he couldn’t promise it wouldn’t happen again. After all, it is easy to get swept up in the excitement over something new. But now that he’s really aware of it, and now that I know what to look for, we’re both going to try and do a better job of recognizing it.

I really admire Holden for being willing to face himself when he finds out he’s been acting badly. I hope I can follow his example when I get called out for being boneheaded.

-Grace

Ethical Slut Post #7: The Monogamy Myths: Myth #6

Myth #6: “Swept away by love”

The authors of The Ethical Slut explain this as the feeling that “if you’re really in love with someone, you never have to argue… or do any other kind of work.” I couldn’t believe people really thought that way at first.  It just seemed so silly.  But then I thought about friends of mine who have gone through a frequent pattern of breaking up and getting back together and breaking up and getting back together.   When I’d ask one partner why she broke up with him, it was always over something that Holden and I surely would have fought over, or at the very least discussed, but that would not have been grounds for breaking up.  But for these couples it was easier, or rather more comfortable to break up, spend some time apart, and then come back together.  Except nothing ever got resolved.  If whoever had been in the wrong (or had been perceived to be) came back and begged forgiveness, they’d get back together and in the joy of being a couple again would forget to actually resolve what caused the breakup in the first place.   They’d say “this time things are going to be different,” every time.  I have friends who have been going through this cycle for almost 10 years.  It’s clear that they do love each other.  But they’re not willing to accept that love actually does mean “for better or worse,” to some degree.

Another side of this “swept away” idea is that each partner is supposed to “be enough” for the other; that they won’t ever need anything or want anything but the love of their own partner to feel turned on and satisfied. To this end, everything that isn’t strictly traditional sex between two partners must be a sign that one parter is not feeling satisfied and wants to commit adultery (even if it’s in his or her mind.)  This is something I’ve fallen prey to many times and through my work exploring fantasies, I’m learning how to reassure myself that this isn’t true.  The first time Holden asked me to act out or dress up for a fantasy of his, I felt hurt, like he was wishing I was someone else.  I felt like he wanted to use me so I refused.  We see on TV all the time how the idea that one’s partner would be thinking about someone else while having sex is just about the worst insult.  It’s always worthy of a withering glare, a quick gathering of one’s belongings, and angrily storming out.  Granted, most of the time the revelation of the partner’s fantasy is a surprise (most commonly via a spontaneous screaming of another person’s name during climax) and that’s no way to broach the subject.

The idea of using vibrators and other pleasure devices, including porn, is often looked down on as if a partner has to use a device to make up for something the other partner is lacking.  It’s not really realistic to expect anybody to remain absolutely riveted by the limited variation offered by traditional couple sex forever and ever.  Eventually everyone wants to spice things up one way or another.

The point is that love does not mean a wholesale abandonment of human nature. Two people getting married are still two people and much of what we’re taught by society is trying to make us forget that.

-Grace

Ethical Slut Post #6: The Monogamy Myths: Myth #5

Myth #5: Outside involvements reduce intimacy in the primary relationship and impede problem solving.

I need to quote extensively from the book on this one because the authors describe exactly what happened to me. They say:

“Most marriage counselors are taught that when a member of an otherwise happily married couple has an ‘affair,’ this must be a symptom of unresolved conflict or unfulfilled needs that should be dealt with in the primary relationship.”

That is exactly what I went through when Holden cheated on me. We weren’t married yet, but we’d been living together for over a year and were as committed to each other as though we were married. There was nothing wrong with our relationship. We were as happy as could be. Looking back on it, Holden agrees with me. We didn’t fight, we shared all our feelings openly, and the sex was hot. Oh boy the sex was hot. We couldn’t get enough of each other. That’s why it puzzled me so badly when Holden confessed that his flirtation with an old girlfriend had gone too far and they’d had sex while I was at a night class. Immediately in my mind, questions of why flooded over me. I asked Holden a million times why. And why now? I could have understood if he and I were having problems. But we weren’t. In fact, for the first time our lives seemed to be bearing the fruits of our labors. He told me all the time how exciting a lover I was and how much he looked forward to seeing me each day. So what was the problem this was all a symptom of? I couldn’t find anything so I turned my search for flaws inward. The authors of The Ethical Slut go on to say:

“It is cruel and insensitive to interpret an affair as a symptom of sickness in the relationship, as it leaves the ‘cheated-on’ partner – who may already be feeling insecure – to wonder what is wrong with [her].”

Bingo! How accurate a description this is of how I began dealing with the aftermath of Holden’s confession. All my insecurities flashed up at me and I began to catalog my imperfections all over again, but this time with a new template: Rebbecca. Holden had dated Rebbecca before he and I started dating. After they’d broken up they patched things up to be friends again. I had gotten to know her by now too and so it was easy to compare myself to her. I began asking myself, what does she have that I don’t and how did she use it to attract Holden? What did Holden see in her that he didn’t see in me?

No matter how many different ways I asked myself and Holden these questions I still couldn’t figure out the answer. All our discussions ended up at the same point. Holden would tell me he didn’t love her, that he didn’t even really like her all that much, and that he didn’t know why he’d done it. This reflects the third part of what the authors say about this myth: that “the ‘cheating’ partner gets told that [he] is only ‘acting out’ to get back at [his] primary partner, and [he] really doesn’t want, need or even like [his] lover.” Holden is a product of the same psychological climate as I am and he was fulfilling his part in the myth, just as I was.

The problem this all caused for us, though, is that it didn’t actually get us anywhere. The question of why was never satisfactorily answered. I was able to insert a dozen of my own speculations about the answer, but they all focused on the insecurities I already had and in some cases even confused me over what I was even insecure about in the first place.

What would have been different if Holden had known what polyamory was and had been able to more honestly examine his feelings and identify himself as polyamorous by nature? I know it’s not really fair to speculate on the actual events of the past, but I have to go back and read the experience again through this new filter of understanding I have. For example, I knew Holden was attracted to her well before the actual cheating occurred. I often asked Holden about it for two reasons: one, to make him aware that I knew he was attracted to her, and two, to let him know what types of behavior between them made me uncomfortable. Whenever I brought it up, his answer was the same: “I was attracted to her once, but now we’re just friends and I don’t like her like that anymore.” I accepted his answer, but I never really believed it. I could see the exchange of feelings between their eyes. I saw how he reacted to her flirtations. I knew there was more there than Holden was willing to admit, but I also liked letting myself take comfort in his socially acceptable explanations.

I wonder how Holden’s answers would be different now if I asked him to go back over the story with me, each of us with our new understanding of ourselves. I wonder if he would be able to answer honestly what he found attractive about her, knowing that he doesn’t have to protect me from that pain anymore. It’s been six years since the initial questions were raised and for the first time in six years I may be starting to see how those questions of why that have stayed stuck in the back of my mind could possibly be answered.

It’s unfortunate that the authors’ explanation didn’t really fit entirely with the original myth statement, but I sure got a lot out of it, so I’ll briefly discuss the original myth because I do think it’s important.

One of my biggest concerns when Holden started talking to me in a practical way about polyamory was that he would spend all his time and energy on other relationships and have nothing left, or not enough left for me. I still don’t have any experience with this, but everyone I’ve talked to who does says that love grows the more it’s shared. They assure me that once Holden truly feels free to be the person in love that he needs to be, that he’ll love me all the more for it and that the excitement that charges his new relationships will transfer to ours too. People in poly relationships have told me that primary partners end up having more sex, not less. There’s just that much more sexual energy going around to fuel everybody’s fires. This is one of those concerns that still bothers me just a little because I have yet to experience it for myself. But it’s not going to hold me back from trying polyamory.

As for the idea that outside involvements impede problem-solving, it’s obvious to me that that’s hogwash. If a couple goes about entering a poly relationship with all the care and responsibility they should take with each other, it should only open things up for more communication, more honesty, and more opportunities for bringing up problems. That should aid problem-solving, not impede it.

Right?

-Grace

Stay tuned for the next post, Myth #6: “Swept away by love”

Ethical Slut Post #5: The Monogamy Myths: Myth #4

Myth #4: Jealousy is inevitable and impossible to overcome.

I think the fallacy in this one is not in the statement itself, but rather in how we deal with it. Let’s break the myth down into its two parts.

I actually do think that jealousy in some form is inevitable in any relationship. First of all, jealousy is a huge umbrella word that can encompass everything from envy to insecurity to possessiveness. Somewhere along the spectrum of everything that counts as jealousy, it’s almost guaranteed to show up in a relationship one way or another.

Whether anything is impossible to overcome is hard to know. The people I’ve talked to who’ve dealt extensively with jealousy issues have told me that jealousy can definitely be mastered. It takes a lot of difficult personal searching and may take years, but it can be overcome to the point that you’re comfortable embarking on a poly adventure. However, in even the most experienced, self-aware people, it’s always possible for something to unexpectedly trigger those old jealous feelings. Usually when they reappear, they’re not as strong as the first time around, but they do stop you in your tracks. Usually if you’ve gone through the hard work to mitigate jealousy in the first place, you’ll have some tried and trusted methods for dealing with it when it does show up again.

I think in a way that developing these coping methods and using them effectively are a way of overcoming jealousy. What I’ve heard from others is that it is actually impossible to eliminate jealousy completely. But it is possible to manage it, contain it, understand it, and deal with its effects on your life.

There will be a whole chapter dedicated to jealousy later on in The Ethical Slut. I haven’t gotten to it yet, but when I do, you’ll get a full report.

-Grace

Come back next time when I’ll discuss Myth #5: Outside involvements reduce intimacy in the primary relationship and impede problem-solving

You gotta break a few eggs to make a polyamorist

Adapted from some of my comments in the mono_poly community on LiveJournal:

A couple of people seem to have a problem with the idea of anybody tearing down the idea of monogamy for the purpose of embracing polyamory. What I’m getting from you is that if someone chooses polyamory over monogamy, they should do so based on the merits of polyamory, not the flaws of monogamy. I don’t disagree with that idea at all, and in fact I think it’s noble.

Unfortunately, it’s a bit unrealistic for someone like myself. I come from a VERY monogamous background. In fact, I love monogamy. I think it’s a beautiful structure with a graceful balance that reflects the duality of the universe. But I also think that there are aspects of our society that use monogamy to trap people, to control them, and to shame them into fitting an arbitrary mold. Someone said earlier that it is wrong for a book like The Ethical Slut to tell newbies that they are victims. But I feel like a victim, and moreso than I, my husband feels like a victim. He has had these feelings that he is supposed to love many people, not just one, his whole life. He has been scolded, cast out, shunned, and outright punished for putting forth the very notion that there might be more options than traditional monogamy. Now, before you jump all over me, please understand that I’m not trying to generalize. I know that not all monogamous people think and act this way. But you’re kidding yourself if you don’t acknowledge that all forms of media, nearly all churches, and just about every organized facet of society look down upon anything that challenges the traditional structure of monogamy.

I am ashamed to say that I was a perpetrator of this intolerant scorn for most of my life. When my husband first brought the idea of polyamory to me, I was furious. Who was he to challenge the great institution of monogamous love? Fortunately my husband was patient and understanding and helped me through the difficult process of cracking the frame that had been built around my mind, and seeing what other possibilities might be available.

I am still in the midst of that breaking down process. In order to really understand polyamory from an objective standpoint, I first have to break down the understanding I’ve always had of the world that was constructed according to a monogamous plan. It’s not as easy as just saying, “monogamy on the one hand, polyamory on the other hand… hmm… I think I’ll choose poly.” There’s a whole process I have to go through of tearing down the old ways my mind was taught to function and building up a new view with the pieces.

I don’t hate monogamy or monogamists. I never will. Reading The Ethical Slut is not going to turn me into a radical mono-hater. But what it is helping me do in its radicalness is take apart the concept of monogamy and examine it piece by piece, challenging every assumed belief and making sure that what I choose to believe is exactly what I’ve CHOSEN, not what somebody else has constructed for me.

In that sense, the book is proving to be very valuable to me. What I hope will happen is that I will come out of this tearing down and rebuilding process with a more balanced and well-rounded understanding of monogamy and polyamory, much like many of you seem to have.

A few people and I simply disagree on the point that certain aspects of society as we know it sometimes considers sexual desire itself to be destructive.

Now, The Ethical Slut does overly generalize, and that is a flaw of the book as I’ve read it so far. But just this week I was listening to the radio and flipped to one of the weekly messages from a Christian pastor aimed at young people. This message was on the subject of “lust.” The definition this pastor gives of lust is “any sexual thought about any person of the opposite sex [this is obviously in an only-hetero-is-acceptable context] .” He does not clarify about your status with that person. He simply warns teens, especially the boys, that seeing any person in a sexual way is wrong and you must train your mind away from those kinds of thoughts. Now, I know that in typical Christian doctrine, sex is considered a healthy gift from God so long as it’s practiced within marriage, but to tell teens straight up that looking at someone with an appreciation for their sexual appeal is patently wrong is an example of what the authors of The Ethical Slut were talking about with this myth.

And what about the idea that “nice girls” aren’t supposed to want sex? Many of us were socialized by our mothers and other women role models that in order to be respectable you are not supposed to desire sex, that it is something you have to put up with because your husband is going to want it, but that sex is generally gross and uncomfortable. Women with any appetite for sex are immediately looked at with suspicion in some circles, as if they’re some sort of threat to the rest of womankind.

If you never felt ashamed for desiring sex I envy you, because for the majority of my life I have felt that if I desired sex I was never supposed to show it. For the longest time, my husband couldn’t understand why I would never initiate sexual contact but would enjoy sex wholeheartedly once he got us started. It was a sad and miserable existence, feeling like I was not allowed to have sexual fantasies for fear of being ridiculed for them, feeling like no matter how much I wanted to be seductive, it wasn’t welcome, and feeling like I was sinning against God for fantasizing about sex.

So I guess a lot of the myths in The Ethical Slut hit home for me. They embody a lot of the personal frustrations I’m trying to get past in my own mind so I can feel more secure in stepping out of the path that was laid out for me by the rest of the world.

-Grace

Ethical Slut Post #4: The Monogamy Myths: Myth #3

Myth #3: Loving someone makes it okay to control his/her behavior.

This just screams jealousy and insecurity. People seek to control a partner’s behavior often because they think that if the behavior is eliminated, the feelings that drive the behavior will go away too. By punishing your partner for showing interest in another person, you’re not going to change the fact that your partner finds that person attractive. As the authors wrote in relation to one of the first two myths: “a ring around the finger does not cause a nerve block to the genitals.”

I learned in catechism (yes, there were some good things I learned there) that God gave humans free will because forced worship has no meaning. It’s worthless because it’s not sincere. It’s the same with relationships. Forced fidelity is meaningless and leads to resentment and deceit. The only way a commitment will last is if both partners truly feel committed. If one partner doesn’t feel the same way, there is no way to force those feelings into existence.

This is not to say that partners need not show restraint in how they behave. Boundaries are very important. They need to be discussed and agreed upon by all partners. Sometimes this is tricky and requires some compromise. If an established boundary is no longer working for you, you need to bring that up and discuss it before actually doing anything to push that boundary. You helped make them, you can work together to change them. But simply mandating or forbidding things for the sake of feeling secure is not going to actually create security or safeguard the relationship.

-Grace

Stay tuned for next time when I’ll discuss Myth #4: Jealousy is inevitable and impossible to overcome.

Ethical Slut Post #3: The Monogamy Myths: Myth #2

Myth #2: Sexual desire is a destructive force.

The authors of The Ethical Slut give the most common example of this idea appearing in literature, Adam and Eve’s fall from grace in the Garden of Eden. The portrayal of sexual desire as a destructive force – most notably women’s sexual desire – is a common thread through main stream literature and media, from Guinevere and Lancelot to Madame Bovary to Sex and the City. We’re also told that the worst threat to a marriage is an affair. The worst thing a partner can do is cheat on you. Even people who show sexual desire within a committed relationship are sometimes chastised for it.

If sexual desire is ever actually destructive it is because it is acted upon in a deceitful or unsanctioned way. In these cases it is actually the deception that is destructive, not the desire itself. Desire gets the rap for a host of bad behavior: jealousy, possessiveness, deceit, obsession. If we could only accept desire as a positive feeling and learn how to manage it properly, we’d solve one half of the problem. The other half requires that we examine these other things we’re using desire as a scapegoat for and figure out why we’re so caught up on them.

-Grace

Stay tuned for my reflections on Myth #3: Loving someone makes it okay to control his/her behavior

Ethical Slut Post #2: The Monogamy Myths: Myth #1

Chapter 3 of The Ethical Slut lists out a collection of myths about monogamy and explains what’s wrong with them. Many of the myths were the basis for my arguments when I was trying to defend monogamy to Holden during our first discussions about it. I’m going to go through them and reflect on each one.

Myth #1: Long-term monogamous relationship are the only real relationships.

This implies that all other relationships are false, that they cannot be fulfilling on their own and only exist to serve as stepping stones to the goal of long-term monogamy. Isn’t that what our parents teach us about dating when we’re teenagers? “Date around, sample what’s out there, then pick one you want to settle down with and marry them.” Even adults who’ve been around the block a few times can be heard exclaiming, “All those others before you didn’t mean a thing to me.” When some of those previous relationships lasted a number of years, the statement sounds especially ludicrous.

Since people who believe this myth see long-term monogamy as the final goal, many of them choose to believe that the hard part is over and they can just sit back and enjoy the ride from now on. This is terribly naive and leaves many people woefully unprepared to deal with real problems that challenge every relationship.

I think a better way to approach the “goal” of a relationship, if it is in fact something you desire, is to think of a relationship as a means to achieving your own personal goals. Ask yourself what you want the relationship to add to your life. Don’t start with any pre-set framework, but list out the abstract things you think a relationship could provide. Do you desire companionship, sexual satisfaction, financial stability, children, freedom, commitment, a partner in crime, a good masseuse? First determine why you want the relationship in the first place, and then establish the parameters that will best allow you to experience all those benefits. Maybe long-term monogamy will fit that best, but maybe not.

-Grace

Stay tuned for my reflections on Myth #2: Sexual desire is a destructive force