Tag: non-monogamy

Is Vanilla Really an Option?

On April 6, 2008

In a Relationship: Kat & glen, Identity: Submissive, Polyamory

Kat and I were talking the other night, as I mentioned in my last post, and, well… some interesting, crucial, and rather disappointing information was brought to my attention. I haven’t really talked about mine and Kat’s background and friendship, so I figure it’s about time. Kat and I have known each other online for about two years, maybe almost three by now, I’m not entirely sure, though I could probably find out, but the length isn’t exactly what matters.

When we first met, she thought she was submissive. I watched her go through a few relationships until she found glen. At first they were M/f, and it was the first relationship I saw her in that I knew just felt right, all the others, well, they were good, for the most part, but they didn’t seem to click the same easy way as she and glen did. They were wonderful together, they knew it and I knew it. A few months into their relationship, they decided to experiment, as Kat as a submissive wasn’t going as well as they’d hoped. She dominated him, and they ended up loving it, and switching roles. Now, they have been F/m for quite some time, and they are both happier. Kat, especially, is so much less volatile and irritable than when we first met. It’s like they center each other, and they are so good together.

What does this have to do with Kat and me? Well, not a lot directly, though Kat, a friend of hers, Master, and I are going to all go to England in about a month (May 10th). Master and I are going to meet Kat for the first time, and we all are going to England to meet glen for the first time. It is going to be amazing.

Kat and I have been attracted to each other for quite a while, and glen has always been comfortable with us together (they have been exploring poly as well in general, but that is another topic), and Master and I are poly and he knows how much I care for her as well. We have talked extensively about how there’s pretty much no way that we won’t at least kiss, and probably do more than that, when we meet and in England. I’m all about it.

We have never done anything past snuggling and kissing, however, not online that is, as that’s the only medium we have. Neither of us really do much online, but we have toyed with the idea of scening with one another (that is, basically, having cyber sex only in a better term). We have talked, as well, about D/s and our relationship. It hasn’t been that much of a thing until the other night.

One time when I was on molly I was online and told her I loved her and wanted her to dominate me the next day. Later, when she was online and on vicodin for an infection she had, she professed love and we did a small amount of fooling around, a little more than our usual. It seems that we need drugs in order for us to get anywhere sexually, heh. I think this is because we both have the worry that we will ruin our friendship if we go anything beyond what we already are, but we are growing distant from each other at the same time, both of us wanting more, but not able to bring ourselves to do so.

As for the D/s part, often when it comes up she will say something like “do you really think of me that way?” or “would you really want me to dominate you?” My answer is always “yes!” or some variation thereof. I’ve thought of her more and more that way since they switched. Honestly, I wasn’t very attracted to her when she was a sub like me, I’m not much of a switch, and I’m not much of a fan of simply vanilla, so I prefer my partners dominant and kinky.

She said something the other night, though, we were talking about us again, our relationship in general, and we were talking about me a lot as well. This was the night before Master and I started to work things out. I was talking with her about my issues with him and what was going on. I was thinking a lot about what would help me get the domination I crave, and I mentioned that maybe if I was more submissive acting generally I would get domination more, from both her and him. She replied in a usual way: “but would you really want to submit to me?”

I asked her why she thought I wouldn’t, and she went on: “because we’d maybe not be able to act that way toward eachother because we know eachother too well… I mean you, in a lot of ways, are way more “dominant” than me…I come to you for advice and to pull me out of my own brain… in a lot of ways I feel you are like the parent and I’m the child. I feel like I can’t dominate you because you take care of me and are more mature than me” (these are a few different lines kind of strung together). I was shocked.

I mean, on one hand it makes sense, and I think this is my problem in a lot of ways in general: I have this tight control freak way about me. Friends who I come out to as submissive usually say something like “I thought you would be a Domme.” I think this was the problem with me and Master for quite some time, as well. I simply don’t act like a submissive. I really don’t. I am strong willed, feisty, sarcastic, and I don’t back down or give in easily. I really don’t have a submissive personality, but I crave domination. This can make things quite difficult.

I’m rather disappointed, really. I can’t help but wonder if she saw me as submissive, if I started acting submissive toward her, if that would help or change her mind. She also said “I think I’d have to be vanilla with you really.” I’m still thinking and obsessing over this. We haven’t really been able to talk about it since then, either, we haven’t been online at the same time. I don’t know if I would want to be vanilla with her. I really do see her as a Domme now, and I know how amazing she is, and I want her to dominate me. I’ve wanted this for quite a while, really, but I’m just so horrible at asking.

I just wonder if she could ever see me as submissive, since she doesn’t now. The thing to do right now, I think, is to talk to her about it. I don’t know how I feel about us being vanilla, but if we can’t be D/s, then I don’t know. There’s a disconnect here, and we need to fix it, and maybe that is what has been driving us apart lately as well. She’s known that I want her to dominate me, though I don’t know how much she has believed it. I’ve known she’s had a reluctance to it. Perhaps it’s just not meant to happen this way. I’m sure I’ll talk more about this later.

Multiple Partners Survey

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On March 22, 2008

In Polyamory

Just filled out a Multiple Partners Survey for a research study on polyamory, here’s the info on it:

I’m doing a research project on the impact of poly culture on people who engage in multiple partner relationships. The survey is open to people who call themselves polyamorous as well as those who approach multiple partner relating in independent ways.

Here’s the link to the survey. Please take it and pass it on. Thanks.
Link: click here to take it

Thanks
Dr. Leanna Wolfe

I’m passing it on, it’s both well thought out and poly-friendly (as one would assume), and it didn’t take very long to complete at all. I figure some of you may be interested in taking it. I got it from a post in the Utah Polyamory Society group.

Poly and My Gender Crisis

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On January 18, 2008

In Gender Galaxy, Polyamory

I haven’t really talked much about polyamory here. This is something I would like to talk more about, and something which Master and I need to talk about as well. He has mentioned that he would not want another slave. I think his idea of poly includes us having a third, rather than just one of us or the other having another partner, but I’m not sure. I think I would want a secondary that’s just my own, and to be a secondary to that secondary. I also like the idea of us having someone who we are both with as well, but they would also have to be a secondary, he and I would come first. I would want our secondaries to have someone else, a primary, and maybe we could be involved with them as well somehow, or not, it would depend on the person.

I’m having a slight gender crisis right now, but that’s for a different post, I think, I don’t know, maybe not? I’ve been reading Stone Butch Blues, which is amazing and something that I think everyone should read, but I identify almost too strongly with Jess. I identify with butches, and I wonder if that’s part of what makes me a femme, or if it’s because I have some butch in me. I used to be butch. I loved it. I think I would still love it, but I love my femme-ininity just as well. When I was butch I still wore skirts, and maybe that’s what I need, to cross the lines instead of just being on one side or the other, but it’s hard to be somewhat butch and mostly femme it’s easier to be somewhat femme and mostly butch, and I don’t think that’s where I am at.

I feel like, in some odd ways, that I’m passing. I’m passing for straight and passing for woman, when in reality I am neither of those things. I love women and men, and women just a little more generally, but I’m currently with a man, which means I can pass as straight in the regular world, and maybe that’s good, maybe I need to be passing in Utah. I mean, it’s fucking Utah.

People look at me and think woman, they don’t have to figure me out, and maybe I like it when they do, but how do I encorporate a little bit of butch into my femme without cutting my hair or not wearing skirts or not wearing makeup, all of which I love to do/have. Odd, really. There’s no way to be feminine and in between unless you’re male, and maybe this is why I identify so strongly with drag queens and male femininity, because it’s a femininity which can be between man and woman while being feminine, but the between man and woman while being feminine for females is nearly impossible.

I long to be butch, yet I love to be femme, so where do I fit, if anywhere? This is partially where genderqueer comes in, but I want to be both and yet can’t be, and that’s basically genderqueer, but not only… I just don’t quite fit right. This is my gender crisis. I love the gender I’ve fit into, but how do I express it without wearing a gender tag that says “I’m a gothic looking bio-female genderqueer femme drag queen, ask me how!”? Otherwise I’m just written off as “woman.” And while I’m not against woman nor do I fault others for identifying as woman it doesn’t do it for me.

I love being femme, yet I long to be butch, but I know if I was butch I would long to be femme… wouldn’t I? Did I long to be femme while I was butch, or did I just long for a woman or a man who would accept me for who I was? Why did I start growing out my hair, so I could find a lover easier? I’m not sure. I’m not sure what I want, or what I am, or what I should do. But, then, I love having this long hair, and I want to grow it out, down past my shoulders, so it touches the middle of my back. Long black hair, nice and gothy and gorgeous and amusing all at once. I cling to my campy gender, my camp femme-ininty. I love it, and yet…

I think what I really need is a woman. I need female contact and companionship, not necesarially just for sex, but someone I can love and who will love me back. I’m not sure if I could have a woman bond like that as a secondary, though. I’m not sure she could be my primary either, though, since I’m with Onyx. And I love him, and I want him, and I love being with him and being his and everything that goes along with us being us, but he’s not a woman and he doesn’t understand some of the things that pull me so hard that sometimes i fear I will burst, or break, like women and queerness.

I think my longing to be butch is just a longing for a butch, or just for a woman, because I long for and love femme-ininity as well, so I think I’m just projecting my desire to be with a woman as my desire to be a different kind of woman, or the kind of woman I would want to be with, if that makes sense at all. I just ache and covet.

note: this, being a rant, is not asking for advice, but empathy is accepted happily.

Anais Nin Quotes

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On January 13, 2008

In Introspection

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

“If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture has no use for it.”

“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.”

“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish it’s source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.”

“When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.”

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

“I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman. ”

“I do not want to be the leader. I refuse to be the leader. I want to live richly and darkly in my femaleness. I want a man lying over me, always over me. His will, his pleasure, his desire, his life, his work, his sexuality the touchstone, the command, my pivot. I don’t mind working, holding my ground intellectually, artistically; but as a woman, oh, god, as a woman i want to be dominated. I don’t mind being told to stand on my own feet, not to cling all that I am capable of doing but I am going to be pursued, fucked, and possessed by the will of a male at his time, his bidding.”

I love the last two, but have issue with it at the same time, probably because of its implied heterosexuality, but also because they hinge on womanhood and femaleness. I am trying to find a new quote to use, and none of them quite work, because they’re all about men and women and I want one more ambiguous. I suppose I could change some wording, but… I don’t know. I mean, granted, I’m with a man right now, and I love him very much, but we are also poly and I also love women and need a woman in my life, and I don’t consider it the natural place of women to be submissive to men, so here lies the problem. I will stick to what I had before, but I’m still wanting a new quote, dammit.

Heterosexual Guilt

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On December 31, 2007

In Identity: Queer Intellisexual, Sexuality

I suffer from heterosexual guilt. I am currently with a man (as most/all of you know), and I feel guilty for the privilege that affords me. I desire women more, have always desired women more, but I happen to have fallen in love with a man. Deeply, passionately in love. He’s heteroflexible, basically, but not interested in the queer community, though he loves my activist side he is not an activist himself.

I feel like I’m cheating on my lesbian desires and I’m cheating and gaining privilege from being with him. I almost forget what it’s like to be with a woman. We’re poly, so I have that chance afforded to me, and happily I would take it were I to meet someone who that situation would be acceptable for, and I have little doubt that Kat and I will do things, as that situation is acceptable to her, but I want more.

In an odd way, I feel like I should be marginalized, because I’m queer and I feel I should be, because I generally prefer women.

Back to writing my paper on femme as a trans identity. It rocks, and I am going to post it once I’m done.

Bisexuality

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On October 1, 2007

In Identity: Queer Intellisexual

The question of bisexuality comes back to the question of sexuality in general, and if queer sexualities are made or innate or a third option. In the study of male arousal the conclusion was that, by genital arousal alone, there is no such thing as bisexuality. This also brings up the question of what constitutes a sexual orientation. Are bisexuals people who are only physically aroused by one body type but who are mentally aroused or desirous or emotionally bonded to other body types, or who are indiscriminatory as to the type of body their lover has. If we can learn to be attracted to different body types for whatever reason, doesn’t that mean that everyone could be bisexual? Is it just mental blocks which keep people from being bisexual?

The issues around the term and existence of bisexuality as outlined in (Con)tested Identities are ones which I have muddled around in my brain for quite some time. I am currently with a male partner, though, over the last ten years or so (ever since I had a conscious thought about sexual orientation) I have identified as anywhere from lesbian to bisexual. At the same time, I wouldn’t ascribe to him strictly a masculine gender. A further question: how does gender play into sexual orientation? Is it all about bodies? What about a bisexual who only likes the masculine gender, regardless of body? Would ze be bisexual but monogendered? Do we really need to dig that far into it anyway?

How does bisexual sexual orientation change dependent on the relationship the person is in at the time? I happen to have a female (sort of) lover as well, does that mean that I am a “real” bisexual while others may not be because they practice monogamy? I noticed how this isn’t exactly addressed, though the ideas of promiscuity and fidelity are. Does it make a difference that my partner is also bisexual? Does it matter?

I too have felt distanced from the queer community when I mention I have a male partner, though I don’t openly admit to my polyamory. I use the term partner freely but have caught myself saying “boyfriend” at work instead and realize my aims at using the term, the ability I have to use heteronormative terms to quell the question that my using partner arises. Is this wrong of me? I am invoking heterosexual privilege because I can. I am acting like the bisexual threat to queerness perhaps.

From (Con)tested Identities: “dissatisfaction with existing labels results in the development and exploration of the utility of alternative labels, for example… “pansexual,” “polyamorous” and “polysexual.” A number of other participants also discuss variously using alternate terms like “hetero-flexible,” “gender freak” and “gender non-specific.” This made me think of a couple things, to be explored. The last town I lived in, alternate terms such as pansexual or multisexual were well known in the queer community, however, when I moved here I’ve been asked what I mean when I say pansexual or multisexual or (my personal favorite and invention) intellisexual (which I generally explain before I even have the chance to be asked—attracted to minds not bodies), I was also told “I’ve only heard one other person use that term.” This may just be because that was Southern Oregon (Ashland) and this is Utah, and I think that plays a large part in it, but even in the queer community it is unknown, and this makes me wonder.

Where and how do these ideas travel? Are they simply word of mouth, are they by academic literature such as we are reading? Are they through taking queer oriented classes and questioning? How does the queer community thrive? How are do discursive identities spread?

Also the quote: “And, the irony is that in a second I would bring my girlfriend to, you know, straight events and it’s like, you know, this is, this is my girlfriend, deal with it. Like I’m so ready to do that. But so not ready to like bring a man to a gay function and say this is my boyfriend, deal with it. (PI6)” From what I’ve revealed I would assume it’s obvious where this hits home for me. For the first time in my life, really, I am in a solid relationship with a male which is the longest of my life, and I am also feeling uncomfortable in queer situations. For the first year after I moved here I was rather avoidant of getting into queer situations (bad term), and still rather am. I was the president of the student union at my previous university and the founder of the GSA at my high school, and yet now I’m worried to attend queer events?

Is this simply something in me now? I think part of it is. I feel ashamed that I’m with a male, yet claim intellisexuality or multisexuality or queerness in general. My lesbian butch dyke sister calls herself queer, can I claim the same identity, or is that blasphemous? I really do feel that I am in the middle, unsure of what I can and cannot claim, though knowing that I don’t want to claim heterosexuality, though I jokingly will say that I’m “half heterosexual.”