GirlAboutOaktown has had her say on the ongoing SiF meltdown. I was affected by it, but in a different way.
The first 20 minutes of episode #278 was really heavy. It was the most gripping, brutal 20 minutes of podcasting I've ever heard. It actually hurt to listen to, especially as someone who's gone through the torrent of emotions that starting an open relationship can bring. Seriously, if there's ever an open relationship/polyamory archive, this section of the podcast should have a permanent spot.
In that first 20 minutes, one hears a tremendous amount of pain in Kidder's voice. It sounds as if Jade was really trying to push his buttons. How else could she keep going on with it, aware of how much it was hurting him?
At about 20:20, though, the podcast took a dark, narcissistic turn. Up until this point, it was the hardest to listen to podcast I've ever heard, and I've listened to numerous German language podcasts. Once the mood turned, though, it was all about Kidder's rage and my sympathy dissolved. I started to wonder if he was just chumming up the waters for the sake of it. So he hasn't fucked anyone else because Jade didn't allow it. So he backed off his relationship with another member of the SiF podcast. That doesn't mean that Jade didn't let him have sex and emotional connection with someone else. She's been through a lot of the angst he was going through, but it didn't end up on Facebook.
As I said above, I went through a storm of emotions when my partner finally consummated her nearly 5 year long flirtation (and a little more) with a friend of hers. The night she called me to ask if it was okay to go ahead, I was 400 miles away. Immediately, I felt helpless, as if my world was drifting away and I was powerful to stop the changes. I pictured many ridiculous scenes, like the two of them sitting up in bed together, enjoying a post-coital cigarette after a mind-blowing fuck, talking about how it was the best thing either of them had ever done.
Then a funny thing happened. She started chatting online with me. It had been many hours since I last heard from her, but here she was. I asked her questions, and started to feel better that the same woman I loved was chatting with me now, and things were really the same.
When I woke up the next morning, I still had plenty of anxiety, so I put my mind to work to find someone to hook up with. It wasn't punitive. It was just that I wanted to remind myself that open relationships have benefits as well as difficulties. Sure, she was probably back to fucking him that morning (and she was), but that I could go have fun and it was okay.
The next time she hooked up with him, I was still anxious, but less so. The next time after that, even less so. One of the things I had realized early on that made it get better, was being able to spot the jealousy and weirdness creep in, and trying to remind myself that, while they were valid feelings, they were my own to deal with.
Kidder is free to own those feelings, but he has to learn to own them completely and honestly. She did some things that hurt him and his hurt was reasonable, but his reaction wasn't.
In his shoes, I would have been hurt by the New Orleans trip issue. He suggested that they go to New Orleans together for a little romantic getaway, since he had to travel there for work. She declined, citing money issues and needing to find a sitter. When she realized that the other guy would be nearby, she started making travel plans. That was pretty clueless on her part.
Jade also sexted the other guy about illicit office sex right after rejecting Kidder's advances in his office. This one is a bit different. While I can see how he'd feel hurt, if he looked at it honestly, he'd realize that much of what is sexy is built on fantasy. One may be really put off by the act of having anal sex, but in dirty talk, finds nothing hotter than going on about a spit-lubed double anal fuckfest. If our fantasies mirrored what we really do, they'd lose their power. Anyone who thinks I'm full of shit about this one, I defy you to be honest about whether you'd be willing to show your partner every bit of porn you've ever masturbated to.
I thought so.
To wrap this up for now, I'd like to suggest that maybe Kidder and Jade were not ready for this now, if ever. They went to a swingers' resort and did a full swap, started calling it an open relationship, and collapsed into poly drama in a record amount of time. It's like deciding to visit the zoo and then taking up bullfighting all in the same afternoon. Kidder is no sexual Hemingway. Maybe a bush league Bukowski, but only for the intoxicated rage.
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"Kidder is no sexual Hemingway. Maybe a bush league Bukowski, but only for the intoxicated rage."
ReplyDeleteAnd this is why I love your writing, BAOT!
I'm bummed that the SiF crew has apparently decided we're not interesting when we're talking about something as important as oh, how you conceptually and practically approach openness. but we are interesting when we're talking about kidder specifically.
ReplyDeleteanyway i liked this, because you and i have such different experiences with openness despite being in the same relationship. your encounters are different from mine and they challenge us differently, but underneath we've both had to deal with sitting through unpleasant feelings and jealousy to realize that hey, we can do this, and it's not a big deal.
Thanks for the props on the post, crew.
ReplyDeleteI'm really interested in people's experiences in open relationships in so far as how they dealt with jealousy and boundaries, which made this whole SiF series initially fascinating, but later a train wreck. I've seen the same in some blogs about open relationships.
Hmm, I'm curious hwo your perspective will change once you listen to the show with Jade that was released today.
ReplyDeleteYou are fairly perceptive, except for one thing.
This wasn't the first time at Desire for them, this wasn't the first time they jumped into non-monogamy. They have been technically non-monogamous for longer than I have known them, so over 14 years, while they haven't been religiously practicing for about the first half of those years they did not just jump into an open relationship. And they had been fantasizing about a full swap for a good 8-12 months.
Lorax - You know, I have told The Boy repeatedly that Jade and Kidder had been to Desire before and had spent a lot of time in other non-monogamous situations, and it never seems to stick. It's funny, because he introduced me to the podcast (he was interested because here's a mainstream sex podcast discussing male bisexuality! Without being assholes about it!) but I kind of took over and started listening to it a lot more from there. So he's missing some elements. I think after I read this I corrected him on that, too.
ReplyDeleteI think honestly it's that we find 'swinger lingo' confusing. We're from the Bay Area. Everyone who "swings" there is our parents' age. The kids are doing polyamory or non-monogamy or open-relationships, but we were both pretty clueless as to what a "full swap" was or whatever. And it's just strange from our perspective because I, as a fan of PiV sex, saw no point to opening up our relationship at all if I wouldn't be getting some of that. Different strokes and all, but I can't imagine engaging in non-monogamy for so long and a decade later being like, "Oh, maybe now we should have PiV sex with other people?" Not a critique, it's just so far out of my frame of reference (and The Boys') that I think he heard "this was the first time they had PiV sex with other people" and just assumed there wasn't a history of non-monogamy there. Which means he's a silly, PiV-focused dude and I'll have to punish him for it later.
And I wouldn't say my perspective has changed with listening to the latest episode, but I am relieved, honestly. While I still wish SiF wasn't All Kidder All The Time I think the last episode is a fantastic tool for people approaching non-monogamy and I am truly thrilled that Kidder and Jade were able to own their shit and grow as a result of this experience. I'll be making a new blog post about it all shortly.