Crossing the Shithead Rubicon

I write here not to praise the poly community, but to bury it.

So this mess recently appeared on Reddit's /r/polyamory: Am I delusional to think that anti poly backlash is especially ironic and bigoted?

I grew up in a poly family, and am happily ensconced in a my own poly LTR, stable and happy for years.

I get the normal "oh you must be taking advantage of your poor girlfriends"* thing, but am I wrong to find this especially offensive and ignorant when it comes from a LGBT person? I Mean, Really? It seems like of anyone, I would expect them to understand or at least not be so vocally opposed - but honestly, I get the harshest feedback from these folks...Is it just me?

*(I joined a happy bi fem couple that was looking for a man to play with / be a father, so that couldn't be farther from the truth - if anything, I am the third wheel!)

So it starts out fucked up and quickly devolves, leaving the original post as a high-water mark of poly tolerance an awareness.  And for those who followed the link, yes, the OP really calls himself "I_love_latinas".

One person in the thread is reminded of reading Maus and there being a Holocaust survivor character who was racist.  Someone else suggested that it was a bad idea to compare anything to the Holocaust that was not in fact a genocide.  That person was repeatedly down-voted, because suggesting that polys aren't exactly like the Jews in the Holocaust is as bad as, I don't know, maybe the Holocaust.

The polys then veer off to complain that it's not like Jews and Nazis, but rather like "the black community", and no I'm not making that up, and how they're all hella homophobic, including, I guess, the gay ones.  The polys go on to say that it's even worse when black people are homophobic, as they all are, given that white people have gotten so good at tolerating their blackness.  Hear that, people of color?  You're disappointing white polys.  Get on that.

One guy makes up a conversation he supposedly had wherein he told a gay man that he was thinking of trying out polyamory and the man responded with, I shit you not, this is him quoting the guy, "I don't think I approve of your lifestyle".  Yep, that definitely happened.  That sounds exactly like what a human would say to a person suggesting he might be interested in polyamory.  Wait, no!  It doesn't even sound like something that an alien impersonating a human using only lines of Java code as a guide to human dialog would say.  I mean seriously, who the fuck talks like that?  No one.  Ever.  That's who.

What really gets awful, is that the most fucked up, racist, homophobic posts got up-voted while those very few people dissenting were down-voted dozens of times in single comments.  So the message is loud and clear.  See what happens you social justice types?  If you don't let the polys into the parade, you're probably taking your orders from the homos, the Jews, or teh blacks.  The whole thread rapidly started to feel like it had cribbed the script of an episode of "Fox & Friends", but with 50% more bigotry.

And this is not just an example of Reddit being the gaping asshole of the Internet.  It's the steady state of online poly meeting spaces.  It's a fucking constant.  It's a feature, not a bug, and it's only gotten worse.

Poly is largely white, middle class, and thoroughly clueless about privilege and race.  Want to see how they really feel about the gay community, drop into a poly sphere and bring up marriage equality.  Better yet, do that at in the same post as you suggest that co-opting the language of queerness  while suggesting that a relationship model can't be a sexual identity is maybe not cool.  The indignant sputters will be heard all the way from Minneapolis.  But I was born poly!  It is so a "coming out".  People are killed for being poly all over!

If you really want a fiesta of whining, try suggesting that there's something to the fact that non-monogamy has been super common in the gay community long before poly was a thing, yet the number of gay people identifying as poly is shockingly small.

So many are quick to point out that they can't be homophobic.  After all, the wife is totally bi and hooks up with a bi woman some times.  Also, they know a lesbian who has been to their Saturday munch.  Hell, several of them even have a gay friend or something.  Just kidding.  They don't have friends.  Potential friends tend to scatter when a pack of gamers wearing Three Wolf Moon shirt and kvetching about the gays walks into the room.

No, we're not poly.  The reason we're not now, or ever going to identify as poly comes down to the community and their fucked up baggage.  We date other people, but to call ourselves poly is to stand in solidarity with some really shitty human beings behaving badly.

No, not all poly people are like that, but a quick look at that thread is a clear demonstration that the the bad is a huge majority.  It's also not going to get better any time soon.  Look around and see what serious discussion is going on in the poly community.  Nothing.  Zip.  Nada.  Pepomint used to write some really insightful pieces on it, but now we're just left with people posting about snuggling with their paramours and talking about the great things about poly.  They get mad that the queer community keeps them at arms' length but don't care to understand why beyond throwing out homophobic statements with little prompting.  That is, fundamentally, a function of privilege and a function of poly.

If it gets better, we'll let you know.

It's not getting better.

NRE Isn't Why We Fall In Love, But It Might Be Why We Break Up

For years, my biggest issue with polyamory, or more specifically, poly advice, was that the incredibly destructive, relationship-ending chemical rodeo known as “New Relationship Energy” (also known as “infatuation” if you’re level-headed, “limerence” if you’re a psychologist, or “love” if you’re an idiot) was downplayed consistently.  Many poly problems seemed to stem from bad choices or inconsiderate behavior made by one partner in NRE, while the other partner has to deal with the insecurity and jealousy of seeing their SO acting like a crazy person and showing little interest in them.  Feeling like you’re losing your partner to another is the primal fear that prevents many people from exploring poly and haunts many who do.  When you have a partner in full-on NRE, many of those fears seem to be coming true - because, maybe, they are!

For years, most people have viewed NRE, or whatever you want to call it, as crazy chemical drug that induces people to begin relationships for the sake of makin’ babies.  However, an article on The Quartz brings up the idea that maybe the point of NRE isn’t so much to get into new relationships, but rather to get out of an existing one.

It sounds crazy, but it also makes sense.  You don’t need NRE to start a relationship - it helps, but many solid relationships exist without NRE having ever been in play.  And certainly many relationships end without NRE for another factoring in.  But when one person leaves someone for another?  NRE is always in the mix.

The age old question in sexuality and relationship research was whether humans are fundamentally monogamous or not.  There are extremists on both sides arguing their case furiously, but reality seems to be more complicated.  A lot of evidence is starting to point towards the fact that when the status of the sexes are relatively equal, serial monogamy will be the norm.  This article argues that may be the way nature intended it to be.

I’m wary of the naturalistic fallacy no matter who it’s coming from - Conservatives on one side, Christopher Ryan of “Sex at Dawn” on the other.  From a common sense perspective though, ending an otherwise happy, stable relationship does seem strange, until you consider the idea that NRE might exist to encourage us to do just that.  

If there’s some truth to this hypothesis, it might help explain why poly relationships do seem, on the whole, more unstable than monogamous ones.  I know this will get the poly readers I don’t have huffy, but as much as we all love to hate him (and we do kinda hate him on this blog), Dan Savage famously remarked that he’s been to plenty of poly commitment ceremonies, but not a whole lot of poly three-year anniversary parties.  He has a point, and the point isn’t that polyamory is bad or invalid, but it is an inherently destabilizing relationship model.  Shira B. Katz, formerly of Pedestrian Polyamory (which ended when her marriage ended due to...NRE) and currently of Life On The Swingset and an enthusiastic and proud poly person has advocated that line many times as a positive, as does Franklin Veaux.  Two people who are famous poly experts who don’t put a lot of value in established relationships.  It’s not hard to find monogamous or “ish” people who have been together for 10 years.  It is quite difficult to find poly people who have maintained more than one relationship for 10 years.  (And when you do, it’s often a closed triad or V, which for some reason seems to be a more stable structure than others.)

These musings only matter if relationship stability is your primary goal when navigating an open relationship.  It isn’t for everyone, and that’s fine.  Many polyamorous folk look down on those of us who value that stability as engaging in “couple supremacy” and I say, hey, we are all free to choose what’s most important to us in life.  My current relationship is the most important thing to me outside of my basic personhood.  I know I could survive and thrive without my husband, but I just don’t want to, not if it could be helped.  We know, being in an open relationship, that NRE is possible.  Hell, I found myself in crazy, one-sided NRE with a friend that I simply had a crush on.  Despite my deep commitment to my husband, and the fact that I did not find this guy a good match in any other sense, I found myself indulging in fantasies of running away with my crush object.  It’s crazy, it defies reason, or even what I really want in my life, but that’s NRE for you.  It’s not logical.  And like all NRE, it passed, I’m really, honestly glad that he never made a pass at me, and I kept my feelings hidden from him.   It would have been incredibly destructive to the thing I hold most dear, and for what?  Indulging in a temporary chemical high with someone that I’m fundamentally incompatible with in a way that could have very likely harmed the relationship I care the most about?

I’m not saying that being poly is inherently bad, but I am saying it’s inherently destabilizing.   If maintaining an existing relationship is a primary goal of yours, opening yourself up to the possibility with NRE is risky, no matter what poly advice gurus will tell you.  It’s up to you to negotiate responsibly the line between risk and reward.  Tread carefully.

Boy Looks Back At 30 Days of Getting His Rocks Off

So, Boy here.  As anyone reading this blog knows, Girl and I spent January embarked on a 30 day sex challenge.  It's now over a week completed and we've had lots of time to talk about it and examine the outcome.  Yes, we had lots of sex (vini, vidi, futi?). but the outcome was more than the some of its parts.  Sexual synergy if you will.

The biggest unintended consequence is that it puts sexual patterns into stark relief.  In one month we had as much sex as many couples manage in half a year.  You aren't as likely to notice specific behaviors when they're exercised once a week, but when it becomes a once a day thing, you are hard-pressed to miss them.

One of the major revelations (to me, anyway) was also revealed by the nature of doing this as a challenge.  Girl is far more likely to initiate.  We've discussed this before, and I thought I was doing better, but the fact is, that I have frequently fallen back into a lazy pattern of putting off sex until it's time for bed, at which point she would initiate a quickie that is not so likely to leave her satisfied.  It's done for the sake of maintaining the sexual connection and little else.  While doing that from time to time isn't a problem, try doing it five times in a week and see how your partner reacts.

A second major realization is that, for all of our talking at great length about our fears and our desires, we still had a lot to sort out.  It's also important to note that any big revelations about desires should be unpacked and explored thoughtfully.  No kink cram sessions.  What I'm saying is that you can't dump on your partner the revelation that you frequently orgasm to mental images of people throwing pies and then bring a lemon meringue into bed the next night, and definitely, if your partner responds positively, don't take that to mean that you can order up a month's worth of pies and then get naked.  Proceed slowly with such things, and when in a 30 day sex challenge, talk the moves out in advance.  In fact, talk these things out first, before your sex challenge, so that you can integrate kinks and quirks in a mutually enjoyable way, rather than with a dump truck full of pies.  Disclaimer: I do not currently have a pie-throwing fetish, not that there's anything wrong with being into that.

At the end of it, we had to break down what we'd done and where to go from here.  It was fun  and sometimes a bit grueling.  We were sick for much of the month and I worked over night for a major portion of it, so there were extra-ordinary challenges.  I think it helped our sex life in several ways.  We are definitely doing it more and we know more about each other and ourselves as a result.

One question I've asked myself since started this is whether it would work to fix dead or near-dead bedrooms.  There have been various challenges to married couples to have sex every day for a week or a month, or in one case, a year.  I can see one week being worth a try, but I'm not sure I could recommend a full month or more to couples where sex is already a source of tension.  The challenge got us talking even more than usual about it.  It once or twice got us shouting about it.

One final note concerns the legions of NoFappers, a group that holds that porn and masturbation are the enemies of a happy healthy male mind.  No, I didn't crib that from Reddit's sub-forum /r/VictorianNotionsAboutSex.  It's an actual thing that way too many modern young men have embraced.  They describe the mood-lifting, peace of mind, and physical benefits of keeping it in their pants.  Many go so far as to swear off all orgasm, partnered or not.  About six months ago I decided to get serious about my health and started altering habits and working out regularly.  I've also maintained my regular habit of getting off like a monkey watching the Banana Channel (check with your cable provider).  The effect has been better moods, more peace of mind, and overall better health. Oh, and I'm capable of getting off even more.

The 30-day sex challenge was at times a roller coaster.  I'm glad we did it.  I'm not sure that I want to do that one again, although I'm up for future challenges.   Now I've got to go clean pie filling off the mattress.

We Did It!

Since December 31st, we have had sex every day but one.  So technically we had a 32-day sex challenge?  Or something.  On several days we had sex more than once.  Our record was 3 times, which is still far off from our early dating record of 6 (or was it 7?) but perfectly awesome for us.

Frankly, I don't know why we didn't do this sooner.  Our plans were to continue the sex challenge for the next two weeks, but The Boy just got finished with a particularly low-sleep set of work days and was pretty exhausted.  He was up for it, but I told him I'd prefer a serious ravishing tomorrow versus a perfunctory quickie tonight, but I wasn't adverse to the quickie tonight, either.  (A few days off my period and horny as hell, like usual.)  It's kind of weird, our first night without sex in a month.  I got so accustomed to it, even if I wasn't in the mood, that it feels really strange to be "free" of that "obligation".  I kind of miss it.  Do you guys think he'd be angry if I woke him up for it?

In all seriousness, this is something every couple should do. In addition to giving me a much greater understanding of my own emotional and sexual responsiveness with regards to my hormonal cycle, it also just opened up avenues of communication I hadn't realized we needed.  We're currently ongoingly writing erotica for each other (which I may attempt to monetize via KindlePorn because why  not?), he's way more clear on what I want and don't want sexually and I've been made privy to a bunch of important kinks I didn't know about but we've since been having a lot of fun indulging.

I'm not gonna say the 30 day sex challenge was easy - it wasn't.  It ended up being a sort of self-directed relationship therapy. There was one fight, but it wasn't a particularly bad one, and it ended up with us understanding each other way better.  There were a few tears, on my part but at the end I felt better understood and a lot of fears I'd had about being judged were rendered moot.

And yeah, while some of the sex was perfunctory, even the boring sex was fun, and the amount of hot sex was really, really, really fun.  And we're learning to sext, just like the young kids do!

Going forward, we've decided to keep the momentum by having a "sex week" in which we have sex every day during that week (which will coincide with my ovulation time - two birds, one stone, am I right?)  But I really do hope that we can keep this momentum and fun going for a while, because I'm not ready to let it go yet.

Want To Avoid A Dead Bedroom? Marry A Slut!

I know the title of this post will be controversial, but I believe this 100%.  I’m not using the term “slut” in a pejorative manner.  I’m a slut.  Slut is a meaningless word.  As some wise person said at some point, “A slut is someone who’s having more sex than you.”  By “slut” I mean, a woman who enjoys sex for the pleasure it provides her.  How that is expressed in her day-to-day life can vary.  When I lived in the Bay Area, I was hooking up on a semi-regular basis.  Not so much here in Germany, and I haven’t figured out if that’s because German men aren't attracted to my  full figure, or if German men are just awful at initiating any sort of sexual-romantic encounter (German women apparently have a lot of frustration around the lack of initiative German men show.  It’s an ongoing joke in German culture.)

But whether I’m hooking up or not, the fact is, I enjoy sex for pleasure’s sake.  I am absolutely capable of having sex with my husband that is deeply emotional, romantic, and expressive, and that’s amazing.  But I also like to get off.  I find other men attractive.  I have a wide array of sex toys that I like to use while watching porn.  And I’m not alone.  Many women of my generation and younger have shrugged off the sexual morals of the previous generation’s religion and culture and just enjoy sex for sex’s sake.

And what I’m saying to straight men is you should marry someone like me.

Well, OK, that sounds really egotistical, I’m not saying you should marry a weirdo ADHDer with a penchant for Bollywood musicals and a fascination with the history of the Holy Roman Empire.  I’m saying that if you want to prevent the dreaded “dead bedroom” a straight guy (or technically, a guy who is romantically-sexually attracted to women) should marry a girl who likes to get off.  A girl who knows her body and how it works,  is comfortable with her fantasies, and as a result maybe she’s had a few partners - or a few dozen - before you.

The common wisdom in the manosphere - that weird segment of the internet where inexperienced nerds collide with bitter misogynists - is that women who have extensive sexual histories, or even just like sex “too much” are to be avoided.  Athol Kay, of Married Man Sex Life, a really popular blog/money making site warns men to marry virgins or near virgins.  Most men who advocate “taking the red pill” - i.e. men who believe that society is “feminized” are aghast at the idea of getting into a relationship with a woman who has had more than a few sexual partners, even if their ideological cousins, the pick-up artists (PUAs) advocate fucking as many women as possible.

This is all just the old boring fundamentalism packaged in a shiny new box, except it often largely lacks even the religious component to argue that female chastity should be a given.  Instead these guys argue that “studies show” that women who actually enjoy sex and seek it out with multiple partners are destined to be unfaithful to you.  Much of this modern belief system is based on laughable assumptions from evolutionary biology, a junk pop-science genre in which sexist dudes project their own cultural norms onto cavemen to prove “things have always been like this.”

Except that history shows “things” have not always been like this.  There are many cultures who went through hundreds if not thousands of years believing that women, on the whole, had greater sexual libido than men.  You just have to read medieval Japanese, Indian, or French literature to see that this was a common cultural belief.  What most of these men take for granted is the idea that women don’t naturally desire sex, and that’s always been true, because of evolutionary biology, cavemen, etc.  But their sexual mores are actually far more modern than they realize, thanks to the Victorian culture which is pretty recent in the scope of human history. (And let it be said that even those prudish Victorians had quite the erotic imagination that included a whole lot of female promiscuity and crazy fetishes,  if you've read the erotica from that time.)

My ultimate point is this: most women do actually desire sex, but quite a few of us are fucked up about it thank to a culture that tells us constantly that being a woman that desires sex is an awful terrible slut.   Luckily, many of us are able to break free from that programming and enjoy sexual lives in which we are self-actualized, erotic human beings who know how to get ourselves off as well as our partners.  And this doesn't mean we’ll be unfaithful. Most women - hell, most PEOPLE - eventually want to find a long-lasting relationship with someone who can provide both emotional intimacy and sexual excitement.  Having a sexual history does indicate someone is incapable or unwilling to practice monogamy, any more than it does for a guy who has a few notches in his bedpost.

Marrying a woman who doesn't show interest in sex,  rarely or never masturbates, doesn't know how to experience sexual pleasure, and who has no interest in sexual adventure - for whatever reason - is going to likely result in a dead bedroom.  No amount of self-help guides or relationship books about being more dominant is going to change the fact that she’s fundamentally uninterested in sex.  She never was, and likely never will be.

Meanwhile, sure, maybe the statistics show that women who have an active sexual past are more likely to cheat.  I think the literature is dubious for a ton of reasons, but even pretending it’s valid, is being cheated on worse than 20 or 40 years with a woman who doesn't enjoy sex?  Well, that’s up for men to decide, I guess.  Lots of relationships find ways to cope with cheating, but the misery of someone stuck in a marriage where their partner refuses all sexual intimacy - that’s a pain that seems more damaging and awful, to me, than working through a break in trust.

As for me, I’m a “slut” in an open marriage, but despite having the freedom to seek out sexual partners outside my marriage, I haven’t in three years and I’m honestly not that interested in doing so.  My husband meets my sexual needs and then some.  I know what gets me off and I tell him.  I know what gets him off and I do it.  I value sexual pleasure and connection as an integral part of my marriage, and if my husband wanted to return to strict monogamy I’d be fine with that, too.  I like having the option to pursue other partners, but I was a slut who wanted monogamy before I was a slut who had an open relationship.  I’m interested in doing what works for us, as a couple, and right now that’s being open, but that’s not a result of my slutty nature.

I just don’t understand people who claim they need a happy and healthy sex life in a marriage, and then marry people who don’t feel the same way.  I think men who want to have a happy sex life need to get over the cultural programming about “sluts” and realize that what they want is a woman who embraces her sexuality fully.

Day 26: 30 Day Sex Challenge and PMS

So, I've been raving about the results of our month-long sex challenge.  Talking about how awesome it is, how we've ended up sharing so much, and reconnecting not just sexually, but also emotionally.  And how much fun it’s been!  And it really has.  But for me, there has been a downside.

The thing is, I’m a woman, with a menstrual cycle.  And the combination of just having a sex challenge but also trying to conceive means I’m a lot more aware of it than I was before.  I also suffer from moderate PMS.  It’s hard to explain this to guys, because guys are terrified of PMSing women and just see it as a horrible bitchy state that assaults them randomly each month.  And any guy reacting to PMS comes across as a jerk.  So hetero guys, I feel you.  It’s got to be weird.

The reality is, PMS symptoms are both real and also differ significantly from woman to woman.  That’s why it’s offensive to assume that just because a chick is angry that she’s PMSing (among other reasons).  But it is real.  And for me, unfortunately, it’s basically a 10 day window within a month where:

a) My boobs hurt like YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE.  I have B cups, they’re not huge, but it’s like walking around with goddamn painful bruises on your chest except the bruises have their own

weight and gravity and god dammit.  Sleeping is uncomfortable because shifting in bed means significant pain.  Does your lady inexplicably start wearing a bra to bed one week out of the month?  If so, she suffers from horrible PMS boob pain.

b) My interest in sex goes down to nearly zero. I’m not necessarily against having sex, but I am not masturbating or thinking about sex unless otherwise prompted (by say, a ridiculous 31-day sex challenge).  Normally during this time, we’re not having sex unless The Boy is initiating.  And while I rarely turn him down, if I do, there’s a 95% chance it’s during PMS time.

c) I become something of an insecure hot mess.  I’m actually not an angry PMSer - The Boy would disagree - but it’s not anger.  It’s like, in the same way my boobs are super sensitive during this time? So is my soul. Oh, yeah, it sounds stupid, but things that wouldn't bother me in the slightest normally create ridiculous spirals of negative self-talk during PMS.

For example: We had a great time during the first two weeks of the sex challenge, which happened to coincide with the end of my period through ovulation.  The Boy and I were having tons of fun. But things started to change a bit as the PMS happened.  The Boy didn't seem to be showing the same amount of sexual interest in me that he had previously.  He said his libido was flagging a bit due to exhaustion from a crazy work schedule, travel, and illness, but rational explanations don’t satisfy the irrational PMS mentality of insecurity and sadness that I was experiencing.  

I don’t want to let him entirely off the hook, because I did end up initiating sex and doing things that catered to his sexual preferences during a time where I had little sexual interest to begin with. That was less than ideal.  In PMS brain, I felt like I was doing all this work I didn't even want to do, but I wasn't  getting the ego gratification of him initiating and thus me feeling desired.  Rational brain should have realized that he was exhausted and not feeling great, but PMS brain won out and I got a little resentful, even if I didn't express it in the moment.  What happened is we basically both bumped up against a period where, had we not been doing the sex challenge, we wouldn't have been having sex - and that would have been OK!   Unfortunately, I also failed to communicate clearly to him that I was feeling this way, which in retrospect, was a mistake.

I don’t want to paint too negative a picture.  We still had sex every day, and on the whole I enjoyed it quite a lot!  But I do think, at least for me, that trying to have sex every day during that time is not ideal for me.The Orthodox Jewish practice of not permitting sex from the period to 7 days after the period ends seems even more ridiculous to me now - I would effectively only be sexually available for a 1/4 of the month! To wit, I got my period yesterday and we’ve had sex 3 times since then despite The Boy working long hours AND catching the shitty cold I had but way worse!  As unpleasant, physically, as periods are, when mine comes it’s like my body does this sigh of relief and all of a sudden I’m ME again, and I’m happy and horny even if I feel bloated and hate the bleeding.

It’s day 26 of our 31 day sex challenge, and also our nine year anniversary (which is the date that we first had sex, aka our second date).  I wouldn't trade the sex challenge for the world.  I feel like it’s completely reinvigorated our sex life and brought us to a way more honest and awesome level of communication.  But I also feel like I have to be honest about the challenges, and keeping up the sex during the PMS phase was not super easy for me and maybe made me a bit more emotional and weird that I normally would have been during that time frame.

Bitter Secondary Angst in 140 Characters

A new Twitter account, @polyhorror, has been making the rounds lately and becoming pretty popular.  The Boy discovered it first, and was really excited, as was I, because we really enjoy snark about polyamory.  (Reading this blog, who'd a thunk it?)  

This isn't actually because we're huge assholes.  I mean, we're kind of assholes, granted, but we're actually not that mean, just critical, and we believe that there's a difference.  Internet polyamorous culture, however, is not self-critical.  It espouses that polyamory is better than other relationship structures implicitly, while claiming that they don't preach that. (Don't believe me?  Check out any thread in any poly forum where a person is having an issue that revolves entirely around not being well suited for poly.  Then count how many responses suggest that maybe the OP just isn't cut out for poly.  Oh, are those crickets I hear?)  They proselytize about the awesome parts of poly, and rarely caution about the negative aspects of loving more than one person at a time.  And they have zero sense of humor about themselves.  (Again, you aren't a believer?  Check out the reaction we got to our tongue-in-cheek article about "6 Polys You Don't Want To Date".  Nearly everyone responded to a clearly satirical article as if it was giving serious advice.)

So given the high-horse attitude of poly culture, in that context, we were excited about a Twitter account that was set up to poke some fun at poly sacred cows.  Problem is, it doesn't. It just reinforces tropes that mainstream poly culture has been trying to instill as what poly REALLY is. It lists examples - supposedly either direct quotes or "paraphrases" from poly practitioners that are so awful that they are examples of Polyamory Horror Stories.  And to be fair, some of the examples clearly are.  To wit:

"I'm looking for a heterosexual woman. I don't want a bisexual girlfriend, because my wife isn't bi."

"Science says monogamy is unnatural. That means monogamous people are brainwashed."

""How can I find out if one of my partners is open to polyamory? I can't ask her directly."

But the vast majority of tweets are "horrific" because they involve couples who have specific ideas or boundaries around what kind of poly relationships they wish to engage in.  The horror!  Just a sample of MANY tweets on this topic:

"Being allowed to have others makes our main relationship better."

"We are allowed to have secondaries as long as we don't tell them we love them."

"We're trying polyamory. If it doesn't work for us, we'll break up with our secondaries and go back to monogamy."

About two-thirds of the posts on @polyhorror are examples of couples actually behaving badly, or couples behaving in a way that doesn't put a secondary first, which apparently is an example of couples behaving badly, too.  And that's my problem with @polyhorror.  They're not just a funny twitter account which recounts the crazy and bad that happens in all aspects of poly relationships.  It exists to shame couples who have rules and boundaries that might upset a secondary.  

@polyhorror operates under a rubric where an agreement between couples that you can have some extra on the side, but discourages romantic attachments with others is a horror show.  It doesn't matter if everyone involved is totally fine with that agreement - it's not OK!   To be fair, calling that kind of situation "poly" may not be accurate but that's an issue of semantics, not a relationship horror story.

And what is wrong with saying that having others on the side makes the main relationship better?  God forbid a relationship with a secondary make the primary relationship more enjoyable!  We're here to all be equal, dammit!  I wasn't aware that the people who are on the side have no agency within the relationship and are being forced into slave-like labor to support the couples' relationship.  

And of course, if you open your relationship and it doesn't work for you, TOO BAD.  You aren't allowed to break up with secondaries for any reason. That is couple privilege.  You must date your secondaries forever, even if you realize that poly isn't for you.

Of course, like all people who genuinely believe in bullshit concepts like "couple privilege" and "secondary oppression" and whatnot, secondaries and tertiaries and fuckbuddies and etc have no agency.  Devious, evil couples force them into relationships where their needs won't be met, and they have no way to stand up for themselves or leave the relationship if it's not working for them.  Instead they devote all their energy into the relationship until their evil metamour and cowardly partner unceremoniously dump them, which is a prime example of couple privilege!  

This whole narrative is a bunch of bullshit.  It would be one thing if @polyhorror also criticized things from the crazy secondary point of view - you know the type of secondary who gets upset when her boyfriend's wife has cancer and thus doesn't have time to take her to dinner 3 nights a week - but so far, that hasn't happened.  

I think they inadvertently address their one-true-wayism with this tweet:

People who give poly advice are just a bunch of elitists trying to make everyone the same as they are.

Well, when the shoe fits...

30 Day Sex Challenge: Woah Woah We're Halfway There!

Well, I haven't gotten The Boy to write an update yet.  Something about him being on night schedule and then I force him to go on a vacation while he's still on a night schedule and blah blah blah.

What's amazing actually is that we were a) stupid enough to start this challenge when he was on a night schedule (which means, on days he works, we see each other maybe an hour or two a day, while he's getting ready for work) and b) managed to go on a trip with friends and still had sex every day!

Historically we're not great about about having sex on trips, at least short ones.  We take a fair amount of overnight/weekend breaks to great cities, because that's part of our hedonistic Euro lifestyle now.  But we're usually pounding the pavement, sightseeing, exploring new bars, eating rich foods, being distracted by all the exciting fun stuff, and then end up in a somewhat crappy hotel or hostel room at the end of the day, exhausted.  Not conducive to sex.

On this trip - for the Boy's birthday - we went with another couple that was also celebrating a birthday, and we shared an apartment with them.  I think if we weren't doing the sex challenge, we absolutely would not have had sex on this kind of trip.  As it was, despite The Boy being exhausted from lack of sleep, we managed to do it 3 times on the trip!

Ironically, our "off day" occurred on our travel day back.  We got back home and we were both just exhausted, I was hungover, The Boy was drunk but sobering up.  Neither one of us was interested.

The next night, I was better rested and he was really interested, but I wasn't feeling it at all.  Despite supposedly ovulating - oh, is this where I drop that we're trying to conceive?  Yeah, lol - I had no desire.  And The Boy's been having some health issues and I was so tempted to try to weasel out of it.  I think I even suggested it, briefly, but after some nice cuddling in bed together, I figured "Why stop now?" and we had a satisfying quickie.

The next day, my libido was back, just as before.  Sadly since he's back at work, our last three days, while fun, have been quickies.  But they're fun and keep the mood going.

I don't know if either of us is quite as sexually charged as we felt during the first 12 or so days, but I'm really looking forward to tomorrow night when we have time to just really enjoy it.

Another factor may be that I was actually ovulating way earlier than I realized.  For me, I have a much higher libido right as I finish my period until a bit after I ovulate, and then my sex drive takes a big tumble for the rest of my cycle.  All my life I've had exceedingly regular periods I could count on like clockwork, but the last few months, things have been a little off.  I started experiencing breast tenderness right when I was "supposed" to be ovulating, which is supposedly a sign of ovulation, but it hasn't gone away, which is leading me to think I am actually pre-menstrual now, a full week earlier than expected, and was probably ovulation in the days up to the trip and during the trip, which would explain both my high libido then and my lesser one now.

What's silly is it took me writing this post to realize that hey, I actually have been experiencing all my normal PMS symptoms for a few days.  Well, with knowledge comes power.  But that also means that I apparently decided to start a 30 day sex challenge during my shortest menstrual cycle ever.  While my husband was working nights.  While we were traveling.

Well, they don't call it a challenge for nothing!

30 Day Sex Challenge!

So becoming casual Redditors has obviously got the boy and I thinking a lot more about sexual culture and sex in general, probably because we tend to lurk in forums related to sex, like /r/polyamory, /r/DeadBedrooms, /r/nofap, even /r/adultery.  They're all fascinating.  DeadBedrooms in particular - a subreddit for support and advice when one person wants a lot more sex than their partner.

I actually ended up finding Dead Bedrooms (DB) a few months ago, when we were going through a bit of a slowdown in our sex life.  When we got together, nearly 9 years ago, our relationship was focused on sex from the beginning.  The boy was actively trying to sleep with 50 girls in a year (we met in January - he didn't get too far into that experiment) and I was just out of a 6 year long monogamous relationship.  From our second date, when we fucked for the first time, it was clear we had incredible sexual chemistry.  The fact that he has an over 8-inch dick didn't hurt, either.  We eventually fell in love with each other for reasons beyond sex, but our salacious beginnings meant that for us, even a relatively moderate drop in libido from either one of us can cause panic.

Of course, in a long term relationship, sex is not going to be as frequently desired as it was when you first got together.  We both occasionally found ourselves going through periods where we were desiring sex significantly less and with the exception of when we were living apart so the boy could finish his degree, he's also had a very punishing work schedule for the entire time we've been together, with him alternating between 12 hour day and night shifts every few weeks.  Not ideal.  We've also grown older together, which can obviously dampen libido to some degree.  At times the boy's chronic pain condition has made things difficult, and I have minor health issues that can make sex off-putting as well.

That said, things never got that dire, at least, not compared to anyone who posts in DB.  We consider going a week without sex to indicate a major problem, and we've rarely gone longer than that for any reason other than physical separation - like when I was in California for a month last year.  But when I found DB, we weren't having sex more than twice a week, sometimes less, and I wasn't feeling desired or like the boy was putting a lot of effort in.  I even wrote a post I intended to publish there, but deleted it instead.  The next day things turned around and our sex life has improved majorly in the months since then.

We started averaging 3-5 times a week, which is about as much as we tend to crave under normal circumstances.  We were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves, but I think there's always room for improvement, and there's always time for SCIENCE!  So I suggested that we do something we'd talked about before - have sex every day for a month.  He was game, so here we are.

It's Day 6, and if you wanna know how things are going, one good indicator is that my vagina is sore as hell.  In a good way, of course!  It's been amazing and we're not even a week in yet.  We find ourselves often having sex more than once a day which used to be a rare event. We've revealed fantasies and kinks to each other that we'd never talked about.  We're talking honestly together about our sex life in a natural, unforced way.  We're doings things we've never done for each other before, like writing naughty stories.  Basically, we're having a ton of fun . There's an extra spring in both of our steps.  Our libidos are way, way up.  Last night, having drinks with friends, the boy couldn't keep his hands off me.  He's acting like he used to act in the first few months we got together, and it's great.  It's like we're in our 20s again!

I should explain our "rules" for the experiment.  We're trying to have sex at least once a day for 30 out of 31 days, so this gives us one "day off" although obviously we're going to try to avoid using it.  "Sex" is being defined as us being intimate together with the intention for at least one person to orgasm, although it still counts even if orgasm doesn't happen.  That takes a lot of the pressure off.  I think 30 days of having PIV sex with the requirement that we both orgasm would involve way too much pressure and end up being fairly unsexy.   We haven't talked about it, but I think it's implicit that if anything really serious comes up - an emergency, or serious illness, and the experiment can be called off without guilt or bad feelings.

But that's it, really.  But it's amazing how quickly it gets you in a different frame of mind.  I've sometimes complained about how I often give the boy "freebie" orgasms via blowjobs without expecting anything from him but I never get that myself - well, that's changed!  I'm getting a lot more erotic attention with less expectation of reciprocating which I think is freeing for him as well.  I also just find myself saying "yes" instead of putting it off til later like I often do.

For example, this morning I'd been up for a few hours and was browsing the Internet happily with my coffee.  The boy had just woken up, and as is typical, had a giant erection.  (His morning wood is incredibly impressive).  He came up to me and started fondling me and made me aware of his state.  I hadn't showered, hadn't even brushed my teeth, wasn't feeling particularly horny - so normally I would have brushed him off.  But...we're doing a sex challenge, so I know we have to do it at some point in the day, so why NOT now?  I brushed my teeth, and we proceeded to have fantastic sex, with a clitoral orgasm and two g-spot orgasms from me (including the supposedly mythical simultaneous orgasm for us!)

If we're having this much fun 6 days in, what awaits us for the rest of the month?  Well, I'll keep you updated.  Suffice it to say, I've got my groove back, and we might actually be motivated to take advantage of the fact that we're a happily married kinky couple in an open relationship.

Don't worry though, despite improved mood, we're still going to snark the hell out of people on the Internet.  That's another one of our kinks.

What In The Fuck Is NoFap?

If you spend a decent amount of time in Internet culture, particularly Internet sex culture, you may have heard of NoFap. What started as a weird subforum within Reddit (yes, clearly, The Boy and I have recently started finally reading Reddit, with equal parts enthusiasm and horror) has become a semi (see what I did there) major movement, warranting a bit of attention in the sex-positive blogopshere and even a mention on the Savage Lovecast.

It's also creepy, puritanical, and dangerous.

I, as a lady, wanted to write about it, because I feel I can be a bit more fair to the underlying reasons behind NoFap than my husband, who understandably has proclaimed you can pry masturbation from his cold, dead hands.  Literally.

I am somewhat sympathetic, as a lady who enjoys having sex primarily with men, to some of the issues and frustrations that have given rise to NoFap culture.  But first, I guess I should explain what it is.

NoFap.com describes itself as a movement for self-improvement, but it's really a movement about men not masturbating.  Potentially for a "short" period of time - like a week - but most advocates of NoFap see never masturbating ever again as the ideal goal.

Let that sink in.  This is a modern Internet movement in the year 2014 that advocates men abstaining from masturbation.  Those of us in Western countries enjoy the most sexually liberated society in all of recorded history, yet there are people who believe that masturbating is not a good idea.  And they haven't used a TARDIS to travel with Dr. Kellogg from 1890.

To be fair, I actually do worry that we have now an entire generation of young men whose entire experience of sex is based on the infinite availability and variety of Internet porn, and that the outcome of this is unique in human history, and has the potential to be very damaging.  I am not anti-porn, but I recognize porn as an inherently attractive reward system, vis a vis masturbation and orgasm, as something that can give young men in particular (although young women are certainly not immune) a false sense of reality and expectation when it comes to partnered sex.

In clearer terms, wanking to a hidden Playboy or even a lingerie catalog in stolen moments is not the same as having a series of devices that you can access at almost all times that show literally any kind of sex act that can be imagined.  A host of studies have shown that most men who use porn heavily will increasingly resort to more and more "extreme" porn to get off for the sake of variety.  Older guys raised pre-unlimited streaming porn seem somewhat better able to withstand the onslaught and regulate themselves, but what about the teenagers and young men whose entire introduction to sex has been through this entirely unregulated access to porn?  How does that affect their sexual development and their ability to connect with flesh and blood partners?

According to the NoFap advocates, very, very poorly.  And I believe them.  The anecdotal landscape of sex and relationship forums are littered with tales of men who prefer masturbating to pornography to having sex with their partners.  And the fact that some men themselves believe they are suffering due to this phenomenon seems to be reason alone to take it seriously.

But I still have a difficult time doing so.  For starters, NoFap advocates seem to see abstinence from masturbation as more than just a way to improve their sex lives in a relationship.  It's viewed as a panacea to fix all their problems, from decreased energy to issues with masculinity.  They claim that not masturbating gives them super powers - and they're only half joking.  NoFap is full of tales of men who report greater self-confidence, athleticism, and happier relationships when abstaining from masturbation.  Of course, they don't realize that actively trying to improve oneself will often result in...self-improvement.  No, it had to be the masturbation holding them back all these years, not just regular ol' laziness.

There's also the fact that NoFap tends to attract "Red Pillers" - men from the most infamous of Reddit subforums who are basically anti-feminists, pick up artists, and all-around misogynists.  The level of misogyny present in NoFap also isn't surprising given that the formal founders of the movement are practicing conservative Catholics.  In short, NoFap is advocating some very old, outdated ideas about sexuality wrapped up in a hip new Internet package.

And it's becoming quite successful.  NoFap is gaining members by the thousands each month, due in part to the fact that NoFappers tend to proselytize for their cult on virtually every relationship and sex subreddit, as well as outside the Reddit community.  Their message of a better, more confident, more "alpha" life is very appealing to young men who feel unfulfilled and have some lingering shame about their sexuality.

That's why it's dangerous, and deserves a critical response.  And besides, we pick on the Polys way too much here.  Polyamorists can be annoying and give advice that's destructive to relationships, but to my mind any potential harm caused by Poly is a drop in the bucket compared to how NoFap is fucking with the emotional and physical health of men.