Can a leopard change her spots?

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

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

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

Ugh, Holden just asked me to read this story on Literotica.com It’s about this guy and his wife who go on vacation with their female friend whose husband is supposed to be on his way there. The plan is to get two beach front rooms and spend the weekend as two couples each having lots of sex with their spouses and enjoying each other’s company the rest of the time. Well, the friend’s husband gets called away on business at the last minute and can’t make it to their vacation. The female friend loses her hotel room and has to stay with the married couple. (I know, it’s an online erotic story, so not meant to be taken too seriously, but just bear with me.) After being so sexually frustrated on the trip there, the three of them end up having lots and lots of sex together.

(Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not ripping on the author of the story for writing it, I’m just reading it from the perspective of someone trying to figure out how I feel about all this stuff, so my reactions here are not meant to pan the story itself. I’m just venting in an effort to better understand my feelings.)

I have lots of problems with this story. Maybe that’s because I tried to put myself in the wife’s position and think about how I would feel and I’m just not ready for that. Anyway… The author (in the voice of the male narrator) describes more physical details about the friend than his wife. As if we’re just supposed to assume oh it’s just his wife, been there done that, but hey! cute blond girl is new! He goes on a little too much about how he sooooo loves his wife even though he lusts after the friend. (Methinks he doth protest too much.) And I’m not even going to go into the danger of fluid bonding without having everyone tested first. Maybe I just don’t know how not to be jealous, but the wife in the story seemed a little too eager to send her husband off to go have sex with her best friend. It seemed like she was always the last to be satisfied in the story, even left completely unsatisfied in some cases to be left to wait until it was convenient for her husband to screw her.

Not to mention the poor husband being cheated on by his wife while he’s missing their vacation and slaving away at his job so she COULD go on vacation. Responsible non-monogamy this ain’t.

Now, Holden didn’t give this to me in the spirit of “this is what I want to happen with us,” but he did say it was enticing for him. While some of the sex scenes were written well enough, I just couldn’t get past the relationship problems enough to feel turned on at all. I have a knot in my stomach now just thinking about how wrong that situation would be in real life and how badly people could get hurt with something like that.

I know, I know, it’s just a story and I shouldn’t take it so seriously, but I can’t take anything with a grain of salt anymore. I have to analyze everything and even if I figure out that something is NOT what I want, that’s very important.

-Grace

Welcome to my first installment of Nancy Friday Friday! Since the Nancy Friday book I’m currently reading is packed away in my suitcase (I’m going on a trip today!) I’ll start my weekly study of Nancy Friday with a brief introduction.

First, a little about how I found Nancy’s books. As a young girl I learned to appreciate erotic literature first in the form of my mother’s romance novels. I have always had an active fantasy life in my mind, but I have NEVER talked about my fantasies. Even with Holden, it is very hard for me to say them out loud. He encourages me, and tries to help me feel safe in sharing, but it’s never been easy.

A little while ago (before the whole polyamory discussion) I decided that this hang up over my fantasies was one barrier blocking me from enjoying my sexuality to its fullest. I figured that reading other women’s erotic fantasies might help me open up about sharing my own, so I went to the bookstore in our small town and sought out its teeny tiny love & sex shelf hoping to find a tasteful book of erotica. Amid the pathetic Dr. Phil and Dr. Laura selection, three petite paperbacks caught my eye. I picked out the first one, My Secret Garden. Thumbing through the pages briefly, I saw it was a collection of short fantasies each labeled with the woman’s first name who’d contributed them. At a slim $7.95 it was soon paid for and stowed away in my backpack.

When I got home that night I cracked it open to the introduction. I read the 1995 introduction to the 1973 book three times, each time getting giddier and giddier. Here was a woman who, like me, felt that feminism was all about personal choices and appreciating both sexes in addition to honoring your own. She preached a positive message of acceptance of ourselves and others, she offered a model for the deeply indoctrinated cultural norms I’ve always felt so constrained by but didn’t know how to explain. I felt liberated and empowered, and I hadn’t even read the first woman’s fantasy yet!

Since then I’ve been reading her first book slowly, taking it one story at a time. She often inserts brief paragraphs about patterns she’s noticed in the stories that women submit to her and she speculates on what they might mean to a larger audience of women. She asserts that women’s fantasies are important for their own personal understanding, but also as a conduit to verbalize to their partners what they need sexually.

If you’ve read Nancy Friday I’d love to hear your comments. I’m still just scratching the surface of all the literature on sexuality that’s out there, so if you’d like to recommend something better, if you don’t like Nancy Friday, or if you just want to giggle with me over some special fantasy, drop me a line.

More to come on Nancy Friday Fridays.

-Grace