Reclaiming Fantasies

I have experienced something sad and frustrating in the past few months.  Let me try and describe what happened and then you’ll see my problem.

A couple of years ago, Holden encouraged me to start sharing my fantasies with him.  It took a lot of hard work for me, mentally, to learn how to bring this very private part of my psyche to the forefront and put my secret desires to words for him, or even myself.  I hadn’t even really brought myself to write about them in my journal, so saying them out loud was a huge challenge, and still is sometimes.

As part of that successful and fruitful work, I also started exploring aspects of my sexuality more deeply.  This included reading erotica, viewing porn movies and clips, and developing visualizations with Holden about what images I was thinking of that turned me on.  I found I enjoyed a lot of those things associated with women, lesbian sex, and bisexuality with threesomes and foursomes.  I embraced those aspects of my fantasy life and found that I most enjoyed the ones that had to do with women and Holden was supportive and eager to have that aspect of my sexuality enhance our experiences together.

Fast forward to the beginning of last year when Holden started a relationship with someone I was already attracted to.  The three of us entertained various ideas of there being something more physical between her and me, or including her in my lovemaking with Holden somehow.  As things progressed, she even wove detailed erotic fantasies with me, blowing open my erotic imagination and giving me a face to put on the fantasies I’d enjoyed so well. She took hold of my already budding fantasy life and made it blossom into something even more satisfying and exciting, gave me new erotica to read (specifically involving women making love), and pointed me toward movies that involved erotic scenes between women. We even began discussions about what it would take to make my fantasies about making love with a woman a reality, and were talking about specific things we’d like to do with each other.

But then things went sour. She withdrew her offer of physical exploration with me and closed the door on ever having a sexual relationship.  She and Holden would keep their fully sexual relationship going, however.  Amongst all the hurt and confusion I’ve dealt with since her decision, I’ve discovered this new problem: I can’t untether the most satisfying area of my sexual fantasies from this person I was terribly hurt by.  The fantasies and erotica I enjoyed the most even before this person entered my life were to do with women.  And now every time I read something about two women making love, I see her.

I’ve desperately tried to erase any sexual feeling about her from my mind because I don’t want to torture myself while Holden gets to have the sexual relationship I wanted with her.  But now I’m finding that the most satisfying erotica brings images and thoughts of her right to the forefront of my mind again.  It’s driving me crazy and it’s making me sad and angry that the hard-won full fantasy life that I was discovering for myself was hijacked by this person who I’m not allowed to feel things for anymore.

I’m trying to expand the scope of my fantasies to focus on other aspects of erotica that have excited me that don’t necessarily involve woman-on-woman aspects. My hope is that with time, those residual feelings for her will fade and I’ll be able to enjoy the fantasies for their own sake again, and not associate them with her.

Have any of you dealt with this before?  Do you have any strategies I can use to reclaim the rich fantasy life I built for myself and then foolishly lost by attaching it to someone else?

I’d love to hear from you. Leave me a comment below or email me at monopolyblog@gmail.com.

-Grace

Bi Bi Love, Bi Bi Happiness

(Anyone else here a fan of the Everly Brothers?)

All this talk about polyamory and stuff has brought about the question, could I be bisexual? Maybe that’s weird for a 25 year old to be asking herself that for the first time, but it’s not, and here’s why. For a long time, I’ve noticed that I’m turned on by some women. I’ve caught myself staring at certain friends of mine, women in the library, fellow students in college. I’ve even met a couple of women who cause that feeling like you get when you have a crush on someone: that desperate feeling to get their attention, feeling like you want to figure out a way to get to spend more time with them, watching their face when they don’t think you’re looking. More recently I’ve started having sexual dreams about women. Of course the question occurred to me a long time ago whether I might be bisexual, but since I was always in a monogamous relationship with a man, I never allowed myself to think about it further. It didn’t matter whether I liked girls. I was married and monogamous, so what would be the point of discovering that I’m bisexual? Now, though, with the prospect that polyamory could some day be an option and that Holden would like me to be involved in his relationships with other women, the question is more relevant than ever.

I’m starting to let myself dwell on those sexual thoughts of mine that include women. I’m trying to figure out whether I am actually attracted to women enough to start “dating” them or if what I’m feeling is just an extension of my newfound appreciation for my own womanhood. If the barriers to bisexuality I’ve put up in my mind are taken down, will I ever actually fall in love with a woman?

So far, all I’ve ever been able to do is think and fantasize. I’ve never been in a situation in which it felt ok to openly gaze at a woman and not feel like I have to sneak peeks. I have lots of friends who are lesbians or bisexual, for whom it might not be uncomfortable to be looked at and admired that way by another woman, but because of my own limitations I put on myself (and out of respect for my friends) I’ve never let myself explore those feelings with them.

I guess that’s another question I need to answer before I can decide whether a poly relationship would work for me. Holden is definitely heterosexual, and while he does feel deep camaraderie akin to brotherhood with men, he’s not sexually attracted to them (and he, unlike myself, has actually gone through some process of questioning that.)

I’m not sure how this part of my exploration is going to progress, but I’ll admit I am excited about it. The prospect of going through this period of discovery as a more confident and mature adult rather than as a gawky ridiculous adolescent kind of sounds like fun.

-Grace