I'm back and I'm Serious! Marriage, Healing, and Spiritual Kink

Hi Everyone!

It's been a long time.  About two years, in fact.

A LOT has happened.  Juggling all my relationships, parenting, and school took a toll on my marriage and in the fall of 2013, it all came to a screeching halt.  We closed our marriage, went to counseling, and I/we have done a lot of important work since then on ourselves and each other.  We've been completely monogamous since that time, and are just now beginning to think and talk about what opening our relationship might look like.  We're not there yet, as we still have some things to sort out with each other about what we'd need, and what guidelines we'll put in place.  To be completely honest, I did not do a good job with boundaries when we did poly last time, and I wasn't entirely honest about the feelings that developed for another partner, and these small lies and violations ended up being disastrous.  So we are very cautious this time around, and want to make sure we are solid on our relationship and communication skills should we choose to practice an open marriage again.

 In the last two years I've further explored Sacred Sex through tantra, deepened my spirituality and goddess practice, and moved toward the completion of my Women's Studies degree.  I am doing a great deal of personal and professional work on healing my (and our culture's) wounds around sexuality.  I am learning about different trauma healing modalities and running a local women's group to celebrate feminine divine power and the cycles of the moon.  I am on the cusp of my graduation, and uncertain of what is next for me, professionally.  For a while, my husband and I have been uncertain of what is next for us too.  We haven't given up on ourselves or each other though, and I am proud of all of our growth.

Today was actually pretty exciting for me, because after a deeply emotional yesterday of EMDR and tears and healing and feeling lost, today I got some pretty big insights on a possible next step for my marriage--one that I hope will further deepen our spiritual and sexual connection and just make us better people.

I've been re-visiting the concepts of kink, spiritual BDSM and m/s relationships lately.  I can see that the majority of my husband's fantasies seem to be around service, being dominated, and being below me.  I have turned away from BDSM in the last two years, largely because it was such a big part of my life leading up to the near collapse of self/marriage in 2013, and also due to my feminist concerns.  I want equality and gender fluidity, and I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with the idea of being an unquestioned Mistress.  

In addition, I have often found the role of Dominant to be exhausting, with lots of energy and prep going into a scene and most of the pleasure and release going to my sub rather than me.  Perhaps because I am still relatively new at domming, the majority of my focus goes to technique and execution, making it hard for me to focus on my own pleasure. 

However, something very spiritual occurs when we assume Mistress and slave roles during a sex scene.  He becomes subservient and worshipful (with some playful resistance—largely, I suspect, to make me spank him harder--) and something about assuming these roles just feels right.  He has expressed the sentiment that serving and being beneath me feels “right” to him, and that it is “the way it should be.”  He also expresses desire for my guidance and discipline and I see him relax and melt into my hands, my touch, and my demands.  He stands taller, moans louder, and comes alive as my slave.  I admit, being treated as a goddess, given divine command and responsibility also feels natural to me.  I am training as a priestess, am stepping into roles of spiritual leadership personally and professionally, and to be treated sexually as such stirs something deep within me. I know that I have served as temple priestess, wandering mystic, shaman, and sacred whore in other lifetimes and these rituals and traditions run deep in my blood.  I have long known that sex, power, and ritual can combine to create powerful healing, transformation and growth, and long to strive towards the union of sex and spirit, body and soul.

In addition, our relationship has gone through quite a few trials in the last few years.  We are both seeking to deepen our connection, but for some time, it has felt we wanted different things.  As I studied feminist theory, tantric union and sacred sex, and began in depth-work on my past emotional and sexual trauma, I moved away from kink.  I longed more for spiritual and emotional connection, rather than sex I felt I had to direct, or that seemed to involve any kind of violence.  I was raw and healing.  We attended a tantra workshop together, and the energy was sweet and healing, but we both left wanting more—more intensity, more wildness, more connection.

And all the while, he was still desiring domination and intense sexual experiences, and we were not having them together—at least not often.  Our relationship was entering a stage of a lot of processing—processing my past trauma and wounds that arose during our relationship.  We were engrossed in work, parenting, and big life questions (should we move?  Change jobs?  Have a baby?  What next for us and our relationship?)  I kept digging deeper, seeking more connection, and he at times had a tendency to pull away, becoming triggered or emotionally exhausted.  Yet when we would connect sexually, and when I would occasionally climb on top of him and order him to fuck me and refuse to allow him to cum, we felt that deep energy we’d both been longing for within our relationship.

Over the last 5 years we’ve been together—we toyed with a lot.  Occasionally I lock him up in chastity and torture him, or make him serve me for a day.  We’ve gone to munches together, and I’ve trained formally as a domme. We’ve both certainly done our share of research and exploration together and separately, but it’s never felt the time to go deeper.  We never identified as lifetime m/s partners.  In fact, when we started dating, we both identified as switches, and we still like to switch roles sometimes, as well as explore gender fluidity together.

But today, it all coalesced.  Practically in an instant, what felt confused and ill-matched suddenly aligned.  For months, I’d been frustrated that he wasn’t interested in exploring my spiritual practices with me of yoga, meditation, and mantra, or overt goddess worship.  He’d felt frustrated that I suddenly stopped being kinky, when he fantasized about little else.  And then, in the midst of reading Raven Kaldera's book, “Sacred Power, Holy Surrender,” it all made sense.  We weren’t ill matched!  And we weren’t seeking different things.  In fact, we were seeking something quite similar, just in different places and in different ways.  What if we could use BDSM as the intersection of our spirituality and our desires?  What if, by worshipping me as a goddess, he could also come into contact with the goddesses I serve?  A deep commitment to each other through service, discipline, mindfulness and honor in the bedroom and beyond—every day and in every moment—is certainly a shared spiritual practice.  Furthermore, making sex a sacred ritual that we share is a profound way to combine his deep desire for sexual service with my desire to lead us both to a deeper spiritual connection between us, the earth, and the divine.

I realize that it is a big transition to move from a marriage where we occasionally practice BDSM to a relationship where spiritual kink is a way of life.  I know we will have to go slowly.  But I am excited to practice the union between spirit and sex in my marriage and my daily life—not just when I happen to don sexy lingerie or wear the mantle of a priestess.  I am always a goddess, and he is meant to serve that divinity.

I can’t wait to talk to him about my ideas when he gets home from work!  I keep visioning the union between Shiva and Shakti in the form of the warrior goddess and transformatrix Kali.  They each represent divinity in the form of the masculine and the feminine, yet each forces the other to become better and to grow.  Shiva lays himself down beneath the feet of Kali to stop her murderous rage, Kali’s passion draws Shiva down from his meditation on the mountaintop in search of sacred union.  We serve each other, balance each other, and represent the divine energies of the Universe.  And, I do so adore seeing him on his knees, begging for my cock.  I shall certainly give that to him, but little else.  I’m just delighted at these ideas.  I hope he is too!

I will keep you updated on his response!  Though, if he says no, I will be sad and most likely need a few days of processing before I can write about it! <3 I've missed you all!

********

I'm currently reading:

"Sacred Power, Holy Surrender: Living a Spiritual Power Dynamic" by Raven Kaldera

"Sacred Kink: The Eightfold Paths of BDSM and Beyond" by Lee Harrington

"Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga" by Sally Kempton 

(this book is great for the Hindu Goddesses that are a manifestation of Shakti (which includes Kali, Lakshmi, Saraswati and Parvati))

Confessions of a Curious Cunt--Feminism and Fucking

I am wearing red today. I wore white panties and bled all over them. Blood ran down my leg and pooled on the floor, leaving a heel-shaped void where my foot had been. I'm having my period, hallelujah! The cat knows it and stays away from me. My husband knows it, begging as I've been for chocolate and sex. I get so horny just before my period starts, and I love fucking during menses. I'm just so free and open then. My cunt is hot and alive, and I am feeling good.

It seems that no matter how good my body feels, my mind still contends with the seeming disparities of my life. I love my body, weathered by child-bearing though it may be, but I am constantly being met with criticism from those who do not value motherhood, and falsely assume that because I have a child I am somehow less desirable and less sexual. I can't tell you how many people obsess over stretch marks and abhor their bodies until they return to their perfect pre-pregnancy selves. It strikes me as absolutely absurd for anyone to expect to go through the utterly transformative process of creating life, giving birth, and growing from girl to mother without being changed in body and spirit. I will not be criticized for it.

 

Yes, at times I wish my body were as taught and smooth as it once were, and yet, my body is now infinitely wiser and fuller. My hips can carry a child, my breasts can nourish, my cunt can birth and I am beautiful! I move with grace and confidence, knowing every inch of my body in its softness and tender imperfection. I know how to fuck, whereas before I was merely playing at it.

I am not afraid of blood, nor the processes of my body. I embrace the depth of my emotions and observe them as intricately interwoven with the ebb and flow of my cycles. Nine months of pregnancy really force you to learn just how powerfully the mind and body are intertwined. Daily, I practiced Kegels and perineal massage in anticipation of the little one's arrival, and I no longer believe that my cunt is a passive object to be fucked. My cunt can move and gyrate, open and close, and you can damn well be sure that you're not getting in there unless you respect that.

 

Carrying a child, giving birth, and being a mother have taken me down paths new and terrifying, beautiful and strange. Daily I struggle to feed and nourish the life of another, as well as my own. And for god's sakes, this does not make me less of a feminist. Am I to be judged for conceiving and birthing a child outside of my own narrow "plans"? Am I to be criticized for having unprotected sex and being unprepared for the consequences? Perhaps. But none of these things make me less deserving of respect or of a place among women of all walks of life.

Feminism isn't just for the young, the single, or the childless. It isn't just about the freedom to have abortions, to choose careers, and sex. It's about the freedom to choose, regardless of your choice. I am a pro-choice, sexually liberated, polyamorous mother. Why does this seem like a contradiction in terms? Being a mother may have forever changed my body and psyche, but it does not make me any less of a feminist. If anything, it has made more of one!

 

Growing up in a family of women, being told not to touch my cunt (although I knew my sister did it every night), and to this day being shamed for my open sexuality and positive body practices, I am unwilling to accept that being a woman is something to be ashamed of. My sisters roll their eyes when I call them and announce "I started my period!" or bemoan the evils of the pill. Shouldn't we be talking about these things? Sex and bodies are not things to be whispered about behind closed doors and relegated to journals and agonized over in our own heads.

We've got to start talking about sex and relationships and STDs and dare to find powerful ways of loving that transcend stigma and stereotype. And no, stereotypes don't just extend to the marginalized of society, they're everywhere, against men and women alike. Why are we so afraid of diseases like herpes? Why do we make those with sexually transmitted diseases feel as though they are dirty pariahs of society simply because these people have the misfortune of having a little sore "down there." We are so ashamed of sexuality that we'd rather ostracize than embrace those who bear the taint of our fears. And if we are "kind" enough to tolerate those with sexually transmitted diseases, we probably won't fuck them. We might get their disease too, and, god forbid, have to experience what it is like to live with a disease and the discrimination of those whom we would love.

It isn't enough to love your cunt, to celebrate your body and your sexuality, if the world is unwilling to receive you. I once proudly brandished feminist literature such as Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues," and idolized sex goddesses such as Betty Dodson and feminist pioneer Betty Friedan. But even these works, though wise and useful, are no longer relevant in the way they were when they were written.

Or perhaps, more honestly, these feminist perspectives no longer fit me. Perhaps they fit the young girl discovering outrage at patriarchy for the first time, or the woman learning to touch herself without shame. Perhaps the Vagina monologues ring true to survivors of sexual abuse and violence; indeed Ms. Ensler's monologues have garnered great attention and have set in motion V-day activism and fund raising to prevent violence against women. However, it seems to me that feminism should not be so obsessed with its goals that it loses sight of a broader, more truthful perspective.

 

It really isn't just about cunts or vaginas, as Ms. Ensler, and many other mainstream feminists, would have us think. It isn't solely about the violence perpetrated at the hands and penises of our male counterparts. It is about so much more. Sex and violence, liberation and freedom are only half of the story. We are not just our cunts (though god I love them), and men are more than their cocks (yes, you are).

What about our relationships and our families, our children and our parents? Our selves and our sexuality are intricate and infinitely complex amalgamations of our families, our experiences, our lovers, our feelings, our bodies, and so much more. We cannot be defined solely by our genitalia. Even that definition, mind you, isn't so clear; there are woman and men with genitalia of both sexes, with none, with part, or all sorts of variations upon the theme. Gender too, cannot be defined by the sexual organs, as their are men who emotionally identify as women, and women who identify as men, and there are bisexuals, and trans-gendered, and again, oh so many more wonderful varieties.
 

 

I am sick and tired of the limited viewpoint that divides us into male or female, penis or cunt. Does it really matter whether we have breasts, are married, have children and are disease-free or whether we are flat-chested, single, herpes positive, and a career woman or man? I mean, to be sure, there are certain things we look for in our partners, and perhaps certain ways we'd like our lives to be. But that sure as hell doesn't mean life is going to turn out that way. Good luck to you, but I do hope you won't despair or think yourself a failure if you are met with the unexpected. I sure as hell hope, that even if you find yourself in the midst of things new and strange, and perhaps quite frightening, that you never give up on yourself. I won't love you any less if you choose to have children or not, if you quit your job or get fired, or if you lose everything you ever loved. In fact, it sounds to me like you could use a friend.

I find it funny, how, throughout history, those who took a stand for what they believed in and dared to live unconventional lives, were abused and persecuted. I always felt that such folks living on the fringes of society needed love and friendship more than any others. And yet they are the ones who bear the brunt of the hatred and fear of those who live within the boundaries of the acceptable.

 

Now, more than ever, I feel the solitary strength, and at times, pain, of living a life that shocks, and often angers others. Of those that know I am polyamorous, only one embraced me and asked what it was like. The others got mad, got scared, or abusive. To this day, my family can only relate to me if they ignore broad and blaringly obvious parts of my life, such as my sexuality, and my multiple partners. Even my daughter was difficult for them to swallow, as I became pregnant before I was married (I was having sex before marriage, gasp!). Even more confusing to them is that I value marriage as little more than a societal convention, a helpful device when it comes to children and tax breaks. I'd love my sweetie just as much as I do now, regardless of our marital status. Marriage does not equate with love, and relationships are only as strong as you make them. No marriage can do that for you.

As a mother, I am deeply convicted of the need for a new feminism, a mindset and a way of living that embraces women and girls of all situations, persuasions, and perspectives. This new feminism should not and must not stop there. Feminism will forever be incomplete as long as we ignore our male counterparts. Many feminists would argue that no special attention should be paid to the masculine among us: "Hasn't history itself done just that?" "Look in the history books and all you'll see is men, men, men!" In fact, such advocates have even gone so far as to change history to herstory. C'mon, really? I'm about as woman focused and cunt lovin' as you'll get and even I think that is ridiculous. If we're going to go as far as to change the name of history, let's get rid of the term entirely and come up with something non-gender specific, like ourstory, okay?

 

Yes, there was a time when cunts were getting abused and ignored and silenced and no one was saying anything about it. It was right for women to get pissed and parade their cunts and bare breasts around and screaming in the faces of their oppressors. And, of course, such oppression still does, and always will, exist in a world as full of assholes as it is of activists, do-gooders, and everyday folk. I just think that this raging cunt-tauting feminism doesn't quite fit anymore. At the very least, it certainly doesn't fit me.

There is a progression of emotion in a young woman awakening to the fact that she's lived most of her life under the oppressive thumb of patriarchy. First, she feels anger. Sheer unbridled anger, probably directed at all the men that have ever hurt her and even ones who haven't. She's pissed. Once the anger subsides, she begins to seek knowledge. Why is society male-centric? What happened to matriarchal structures? Where are the female leaders? She seeks answers to her questions, and often finds some pretty disturbing answers. The further she digs within herself, she realizes that her power, and the power of the women around her, has not been lost or destroyed, but buried beneath layers of social practices and psychic repression.
 

Deep inside, she finds wild and strange incantations, age-old echoes of women past and women yet to come. She looks at her mother, her school teacher, and the female clerk at the grocery store and scans their faces for a hint of recognition, for the body and face of the Goddess. She sees her everywhere and nowhere, trapped in a realm of darkness, alive and barely breathing.

She reads feminist literature and swaddles her pain in their angry words, wrapping her wounds in aggressive stances and male-hating rhetoric.

Years pass, and she loses sight of the Goddess. She discovers her cunt and the joys it can bring. Yes, she has felt the pain of unwelcome penetration, and yes, she has silenced her voice over the years, but still she takes pleasure in her body. Despite the anger she still carries, she falls in love. She enjoys the delights of the male body intertwined with her own. She wonders what another woman would feel like.

She grows up and has a child, and ponders all these questions yet again, and finds that anger is not the answer. She is left wondering what good would the Goddess be without her consort Dumuzi?* What good is fertility and carnal pleasure without a partner with whom to enjoy it? She slowly, achingly, begins to realize that the anger she feels is echoed in the breasts of her lovers. They too feel the pain of the outcast Goddess.

 

When making love and seeing the vulnerability of a man as he grows aroused and finally reaches orgasm, she sees that he too is in need of redemption. In time, she begins to understand that even the man who raped her suffers under a wound so terrible that he does not know how to touch a woman with love, only hate. His pain does not excuse him, but surely, a man who rapes a woman must be carrying around a great many wounds, and are these wounds not our concern, just as much as are the wounds of the violated woman?

Anger fades to grief as she realizes that the problems facing feminists of all ages, and especially now, are the problems facing men and women and children everywhere. We can no longer speak truth in anger, and division no longer empowers. This woman craves healing for herself and her lovers, knowing that true empowerment can only come in its entirety, neither male nor female, but utterly and profoundly human. I envision just such a moment of healing as a woman reaching orgasm as her lover climaxes within her, both vulnerable and both utterly alive and in communion with one another. Sexuality, though it has been used as a weapon, can, and should be used as an incredible tool for self knowledge and healing. Out of my orgasms and ever growing sexuality rise much of my questions about feminism and my passion to pursue them.

*Dumuzi is the consort of the Sumerian goddess, Inanna.

On Becoming Shallow

Today I am 70 pounds lighter than I was a year and a half ago.  Congratulations, right? I should be celebrating.  I'm happy to be healthier, of course, but I can't seem to shed the nagging feeling that I've lost something important along with all the fat. 

When I was a bigger girl (to the tune of 250 lbs), I didn't get my self worth from the appearance of my body.  I was so clearly outside the norms of feminine beauty standards that all I could do--besides staving off regular bouts of "I'm different" induced malaise with pints of Ben and Jerry's Americone Dream--not give a fuck.  Yeah, I knew I was fat, and yeah I didn't wear bikinis ( I still don't), but it wasn't something we talked about.  It wasn't something that mattered.  In a way, my exceedingly generous curves made me feel voluptuous and luscious. 

When I went on dates, I knew that the men who agreed to spend time with me either liked my body as it was, or were interested in my mind and intellect, rather than my temporary packaging.  I could run go places without being notices (sure, I craved attention at times, but preferred my anonymity), and surprise people with my wit rather than my waistline. 

Days when I hated my belly, or the rolls of fat that adorned my frame, I just didn't look in the mirror, wore red, and applied chocolate.  Now, I feel pressure to look good all the time--wherever I go.  Men stare when I'm sweaty and smelly from the gym, or wearing my ugliest clothes so as not to be noticed.  But they still notice.  I MISS BEING INVISIBLE.

And oh the mind of a beautiful fat woman!  I knew I wasn't going to make it in this world based on my looks, so I nourished my mind.  As a highly sexual creature clothed in adipose, I found other ways of making meaning and transferred my eroticism into the world of the intellect.  Rather than losing myself in endless lusts and hookups, I fell in love with poets, ideas, and rousing conversations.  I masturbated with my mind and prided myself on my intellectual fitness, since I could say nothing of my physical fitness.  And knowing that the body in time would fade and grow weak, regardless of it's beauty or lack thereof, I was proud of what a hottie I was on the inside.  Learning to find deep and lasting value within myself that had nothing to do with my dress size was incredible empowering.  I was deep and thick and wide and fucking delicious.

But when an honest lover regaled me with an adoring list of what he loved about my body one evening: "I love your hair, your eyes, your lips, your mind....your arms, fingers, legs, toes...(everything but my midsection)" I tried to accept the compliment.  He loved me, and found me beautiful.  BUT the elephant in the room my was tummy, my overweight, stretch marked, post pregnancy wasteland.  I gazed back into his love filled eyes as my lip quivered and my eyes welled with tears.  All I had heard was..."I love you but I hate your belly."

Struggling through tears, I said "That's what people say to fat girls!  You've got a great personality...Tell me the truth!"  And he did (though I must admit I put him in a terrible position). 

He said, "I'm attracted to you but not to your tummy."  There.  It was said.  I cried.  I cried all night, in fact.  I cried for caring what I looked like, I cried for not looking like all the girls with flat tummies, and I cried to feeling unloved for something as stupid as my belly.  For the first time, I said something aloud that I had never even allowed myself to even think: I was curvy, voluptuous, and sensual, but never fat."  But the truth needed to be said.  "I'm fat."  He looked back at me, grieved at my sadness, and said "What do you want to do about it?  I'm here to support you whatever you want to do, but you don't have to do anything.  I love you as you are and I think you're beautiful."  I could hardly hear him through the pain. 

And that's where it started.  After a year and a half of a no sugar, limited carbohydrates, endless exercise, and no small amount of obsession, I now weigh 170 pounds and have a BMI of 27.  I'm a mere two points away from a healthy BMI for the first time in 13 years.  But I feel so fucking empty.  According to the Tanita scale at the gym, I still have another 30 pounds to lose before I'm at a healthy body weight.  I don't know if I'll ever get there.  My body is practically refusing to let go of anymore weight, dropping a pound to give me two back a few days later.  But you know, all this talk of weight and diet and BMI is exhausting, isn't it?  That's why it's so hard to stay on a diet and exercise regime unless you enjoy it for it's own sake.  It's dehumanizing.  It reduces you to endless obsessions over calorie counts, dress sizes, muscle mass and essentially makes you (or at least it has made me) extremely focused on external things like my appearance. 

When is it enough?  When, if ever, will I be satisfied?  How do I even know what healthy looks like beyond the measurements?  Because despite the fact that my numbers are healthier, frankly, I feel like a hollow, shallow bitch.  I've come to believe that my worth really and truly only lies in what I look like.  And you know what?  Even though I'm 70 lbs lighter, I still have a tummy.  I still have stretch marks and cellulite, and I'm starting to get wrinkles on my forehead from all these years of getting that quizzical look on my face when I'm thinking hard about something (which is pretty much always).  I'm getting wrinkles around my mouth from smiling my gigantic smile and more wrinkles around my eyebrows from raising them snobbishly at some absurdity or another.  So, truth be told, even if I keep losing weight, I'll still be, gasp, human.

You see, when I was 250 pounds, I was fat and unhealthy by just about every physical standard.  But I threw out the scale, stopped looking in the mirror, and ate and dressed how I pleased.  And that left so much time for delicious contemplation, for connection, and for being present.  Do you know how much it fritters one's mind to obsess over calories and food and exercise constantly?  It reduces you to a simpering and shallow nitwit--well, perhaps some of you have fared better than I.  I certainly hope so. 

Now the mirror and the scale have become wicked fixations, and I truly (most days) believe that my value as a person, and more specifically, a woman, is reduced to my weight, my clothes size, and the frequency of my workouts.  I've come to believe that success is rigid self control rather than a blissful acceptances of life's inevitable fluctuations.  And now, on the eve of deciding to try to create another child, I find myself poised between the deep desire to let go and allow my body to blossom with new life, and the paralyzing fear of gaining weight.  In my world these last few years, gaining a pound is a terrifying recognition of failure, so how will I handle gaining 15?  or 20?  or 30?  How do I open myself to the loss of control once again that is pregnancy and motherhood, and truly, what it means to authentically be a woman?

I just want you all to know--the women especially, that no one is immune to this creeping cultural phenomenon of reducing ourselves to something external--whether it be our weight, our grades, our success, our marriage, our ability to give or cause orgasms--but all of this isn't who we really are.  Even I, women's right's activist, feminist, and champion of healthy body image, fall short every damn day.  I struggle to see myself as beautiful, and I've struggled with it my whole life.  Whether it was the time I asked my gynecologist what was wrong with my vagina because I'd never seen another one in my life, or all the times I felt something was wrong with me for my generous hips and breasts (still here after all the weight loss), or felt bad for having a tummy.  It got even harder to feel beautiful after giving birth, when my belly was something closer to Santa Clause's bowl full of jelly than it was to the flat bellies we see advertised everywhere.  And even now as I am beginning to do burlesque, I experience anxiety about exposing my belly--still NOT flat and covered in silvery stretch marks. 

Many days I feel that I am not good enough--I'm no longer plus-sized, but am a bigger than "normal" (whatever that is).  I'm "almost" a size 6/8 but not quite, almost acceptable, almost loveable, but not quite.  My thighs still touch at the top, and the second I take my shirt off you can tell I've had a baby.  Is that something to be ashamed of?  Society would say it is.  But I say that's fucked up.  And it's time we began asking THESE questions rather than "What's wrong with me?"  Why, as women, aren't we shown images (and NOT DOVE images, thank you) of real female bodies of all sizes?  Why aren't we shown galleries of vaginas along with all the horrifying pictures of STD ridden cocks and cunts?  I mean, who wants to spend time looking at the variety of wart covered labia?  Why aren't we exposed to breastfeeding women so we know how it's done?  Why don't we proudly share pictures of our post-natal bodies the way we do our firm, swollen pregnant ones?  Is it because it doesn't turn people on?  Fuck that!  We need to learn to see the beauty in out bodies in all their crazy cool manifestations and stop feeling ashamed when our bodies do what they're supposed to do.  We're supposed to get hips and curves, supposed to gain a some weight when pregnant, and it takes time for our bodies to put our organs back into place after we've given birth. 

Who is perpetuating all these lies?  Culture, obviously, but just shouting that angrily doesn't get us anywhere.  We need to start talking about our bodies, loving them, and sharing them ESPECIALLY when they aren't perfect.  And you know what?  If my body was perfect, I'd look like every other flat and homogenous Victoria's Secret model out there, which is completely boring.  It's my wrinkles, my stretch marks, my curves, dimples, freckles, fat, and birth marks that make me ME and different from every other person on this planet.  So--take a look at what you think are your flaws and begin to see them as trademarks--unique aspects of an original work of art.  I'm not saying this is easy--I struggle with it every day.  But let's talk about it and commit to finding the beauty in our imperfections.

A Penis Under the Negligee

There is a feminine strength that feels like a womb with a penis in it.

(Descent to the Goddess, page 42)


 

Women are constantly being penetrated--hung upon the peg of the unavoidable physical realities of life, death, blood, sex, pain, and grief. Dildoes, phalluses, crosses, trees, earth and the Erishkigal's peg in the underworld,* all remind us of the primal relationship between emptiness and fullness, life and death, male and female, yin and yang. How am I to view these images and the woman's role in the sexual act--her penetration and her sentence to hang upon her own desire, helpless and dying?

It is her dark truth, as the bearer of life and death, to have her cunt filled with cock, just as her womb is empty and yearning. In fact, it is this fertile emptiness which calls to out to be filled, the fullness of her cunt eventually leading to the fullness of her belly.

 

Her body exemplifies the cycles of longing and satisfaction, her lust and intimacy waxing with the fullness of the moon and turning inward as it darkens in the deep sky. She sheds blood and layers of self, ever renewing herself, body ever ready for the growth of new life. At times, she is full of man and moon and child, at others she is barren and empty, but ever changing, dynamically moving from emptiness to fullness, desire to satiety.

 

She is eternally bound to (nailed and penetrated by) the physical rhythms and mysteries of life. This is her shame, her curse, and her power. Her power can (and has been, ever since the Goddess has been relegated to the underworld) be used against her--her cunt raped and violated, her incredible capacity for pleasure and joy thrown carelessly aside--and yet she survives to bring forth new life from the hot semen of hatred and violence. Even the man that cruelly entered her uninvited was born of a mother, and the child of this pain shall too know the blessing of a womb and a breast. Life surges on, despite the atrocities. There is a darkness to the joy. There is death in the bringing of life.

Their sacred sexuality buried between their legs, women feel an innate and natural (biological, even) longing to be filled. This longing is often projected outward onto a lover, or manifests itself in the need for approval and fulfillment from others, particularly men. Who better to fill the emptiness than a man with a cock? Fill me up, desire me, put your cock inside me, put your cum in my pussy!

If it were so simple, we'd all be happy with little more than a quick fuck. While this can satiate immediate sexual need, there are deeper desires for love and intimacy that are deeply enmeshed in the sexual act, infused as it is with the spiritual and emotional longing of the inner self. Sex alone cannot satisfy the depth of a woman's longing, nor should it. Her desire points her deeper, within herself, where she must play out themes wild and deep, with herself alone.

As Ms. Brinton Perera (of The Way of the Goddess) writes

Erishkigal's stake fills the all receptive emptiness of the feminine with the feminine yang strength. It fills the eternally empty womb mouth and gives a woman her own wholeness, so that the woman is not merely dependent upon man or child, but can be unto herself as a full and separate individual. She can stand by her own No and Yes, her own solid stake. Erishkigal's pole impregnates a woman with this new and holy attitude to life (page 40).

Ah, yes, the phallus of the Goddess. Such reflections make me think of the clitoris, the female source of deepest pleasure, erect and full, reminding us that female pleasure does not inherently depend on penetration, but upon her own arousal. Indeed, we have a penis all our own and do not need a man's for fulfillment. While this may at first seem offensive, let me assure you it is not. What is offensive is forcing another to be responsible for our own pleasure and self knowledge. It is far more pleasurable to want penetrative intercourse in order to give and receive pleasure from a place of fullness and self confidence than it is to fuck from a place of need and ignorance.

 

So it is that we woman can fill ourselves, using fingers and hands to slide inside our cunts and caress the swollen head of the clitoris. We can follow our desire to its ultimate end: crucifixion upon the cross of our own dark selves, and be reborn deeper and fuller, having impregnated ourselves with the deep inner wisdom of the Goddess. And whoever we choose to fuck will be deeper and wiser because of it. We are no longer at the mercy of those who would penetrate us, impregnating us against our will, but have become pregnant with our own new life, and birth children entirely of our own making. Free unto ourselves, we need assurance and approval from no one. A filled cunt is a happy cunt and we are no longer empty.

The feminine phallus is the source of a woman's power and assertiveness, representative of a woman's ability to satisfy herself, the embodiment of the yin-yang duality. Rather than submit to the sadistic paternal animus, we must claim our own equally sadistic, assertive cunt powers.

We must say to ourselves:

MY CUNT IS SATISFIED.

I am in charge of my own sexual pleasure.

I am filled with new life that I have chosen and placed inside myself.

I am pregnant with power and wisdom--don't expect me to be a size two!

I am called by the Goddess.

I am DANGEROUS.

I am the Goddess.

I believe in magic.

I've got balls--watch out!

And...never fear, my penis is not afraid of yours!

There is a penis under the negligee, as the feminine is filled with sexual power from within. The feminine phallus exemplifies the woman who has taken the masculine into herself and embraced her assertive, kick-ass Goddess nature.


Inanna

-----------------------------------------------

*When the Sumerian goddess, Inanna, descends to the underworld to confront her shadow sister, Erishkigal, she is hung on a meat hook and left there to die. This penetration and pegging of her body symbolizes the darker aspects of female sexuality, but here, she is not penetrated by the male phallus, but a darker, feminine one. And it is this penetration and ultimate death that causes the barren Erishkigal (the underworld aspect of Inanna herself) to conceive and give birth.

Here, the woman initiates and completes the sexual cycle of desire, vulnerability, penetration, death (perhaps orgasm), conception and birth/rebirth. Here, the point is that women have the ability to fill themselves independent of the male phallus. Women can meet their own spiritual needs and grow with new life all their own.

Until a woman has made this otherworldly journey, sexual acts of penetration will continue to enthrall and violate her. She will feel a deep and inexplicable need for penetration and an incompleteness upon being filled. She is deeply unsatisfied because she has yet to address her deeper feminine calling to be both her own desire and fulfillment.

I am not saying that such a woman who has learned to please herself will no longer desire intercourse with men. Her sexuality will certainly be changed, for who can enter the underworld and return without gravity and shadow? She will simply no longer be bound to the male phallus as her only salvation, the echo of deeper and darker pleasure. She will be freed to pursue her own pleasure and that of her lover without fear of failure or disappointment. She cannot be dismayed, for she has already known, and will continue to know, great pleasure at her own hands.

Happiness! Excitement! Short Skirts!

Hi everyone!

My life has gotten so full and exciting that it has been a challenge to stay on top of the blogging!  But never you worry I am percolating on some exciting topics for you in the days to come--femdom marriage ceremonies, burlesque sexiness, kinky photo shoots and more.

I am really stepping into my dominance, thanks to my husband and my wonderful submissives, along with a few long distance admirers.  When I began this journey I very much wanted to believe that I could be beautiful, powerful, and in control--no matter my size, fears, and insecurities.  But when I began this journey, I was still very shy, tentative, and self conscious.  And today, right now at this very moment I am happy, confident, proud, excited, and very much in love with the life I am living and the people in it. And today, I am wearing a short skirt out of the house because I look hot and I feel like it!  How fun to tease all those horny and helpless boys at the grocery store! Haha!

Opening up my marriage has been one of the hardest things I've done in a long time and it requires a lot of work and self honesty, but having the freedom to explore my kinks, passions, and sexuality is truly a gift.  And I love my husband all the more for his willingness (and work) to love me as the woman I am--a woman with an insanely high libido, a kinky, dirty mind, a love of connection, and a lot of curiosity about human sexuality.  Without my beautiful and loving husband, I don't know where I'd be.  With his support, I'm in graduate school and working towards my sex educator certification (by the way, when anyone asks what I do, or what I'm studying, I reply perkily with a great big grin--I'm studying sex, isn't that awesome?), practicing and training as a dominatrix, and dancing with a local burlesque group.  For nine months of the year, I'm studying furiously, writing papers and teaching classes, and it has been a huge blessing to spend the summer getting my hands dirty as it were (if you don't know what I mean, read the previous post), and gaining the experience I need to re-enter my studies with new questions to explore.

And the biggest surprise of the summer--loving my body, just as it is!  I've never had the perfect body, and certainly becoming a mother brought with it changes, some expected and some unexpected.  The great thing about being a female dominant is that when you have a good and true slave, they adore and worship you no matter what.  It's incredibly empowering.  So even though my thighs are not perfect, my belly has stretch marks and I have a tummy that will probably never go away, it is ALL a part of who I am and my submissives worship me in my entirety.  As a dominant, it isn't about the submissives wants and needs.  If I want to dress sexy and show off my body, so be it.  And if not, that's fine too.  I can grab one of my sluts by the hair or the collar and shove his face into my cunt if I so please and there's not a damn thing he can do about it.  And you know what else I've learned?  Confidence and comfort in your own skin is sexy as fuck.  A gorgeous and perfect woman with no confidence, no personality and no fire inside of her is not hot.  A size 10 woman with stretch marks and thigh dimples who loves who she is, knows what she wants and makes it happen--now that gets a cock hard!  So, dear readers, get out there and do what you love inside of the bedroom and out, because that is what will make you feel strong and sexy--no matter your external packaging.

And on that note, here's something hot I wrote about nakedness, vulnerability and stretch marks just a few months after I gave birth.  I think I've come a long way.  Enjoy!

I'm driving myself towards loves and lusts and lives of passionate intensity and yet stopping short as I raise my hand to knock on the door. Heart pounding in my chest, I stand frozen, looking through opaque windows, unable to predict what waits within.

I am not afraid of what I might find within, but how my lover will find me. Rejection is always painful, but to be seen and potentially refused by my living dream threatens every bit of my tenderly woven being. Not wanting to leave, and afraid to enter, I am caught in my own liminal purgatory. Standing there, sweating, wanting to meet the object of my long tended desires, desperate for connection and overexcited at the thought of imagined pleasures, wetness spreads between my thighs and seeps into my jeans. I smell of fear and desire, and I blush hot, knowing that my desire and quivering frame will betray me at first glance.

I walk away, rushing down the sidewalk, cool wind rushing around and through me. I near the safety of my waiting car, and stop again, feet frozen to the pavement. Gathering every last bit of courage, I peel my shoes up from the rubber ground, sticking in the heat, and force my feet back to you. Waging an internal war, both sides losing, each step is a profound effort.

Ascending the stairs a second time, I stand upon the doormat and take a deep breath. Unwilling to wonder for the rest of my life, living but a shadow of desire, I press the little yellow button, hearing bells chime within. Hand holds hot hand, thighs tightly pressed together, nipples insinuate and breasts heave. I'm dying for you to answer the door, and desperately hoping you won't. As I turn to leave, you open the door wide.

You take one look at me, ragged and disheveled with desire, clothes damp and limp, and grab my slick hand, pulling me in. I stumble across the threshold and stare open mouthed as the door swings shut, sealing us inside. Unable to escape, eyes turn to gaze shyly on you, knowing you're unashamedly running your eyes over my dripping form. You ogle me, knowing that I want you to look, want you to see me.

Without a word, still rooted to the floor, I pull my shirt up over my head, dropping it onto the floor, revealing heavy swollen breasts cupped tightly in a black bra. Barely containing me as it is, I reach around and unhook the bra that digs into my tender flesh, leaving red marks on shoulders and back. My bra joins my shirt on the floor, and huge breasts fall free. I want you to see the way they lay on my stomach, nipples dark and eager, belying my shyness.

I let you gaze upon me, showing you my beautiful, imperfect body. I run my hands along my belly, tracing the paths of dark stretch marks, a map left of former fullness. My belly still slightly swollen and newly empty, not entirely realizing that a child has been born. Unbuttoning the top button of my jeans and fumbling with the zipper, I wiggle out of my jeans, sliding them down to my ankles. Bending over, I let you drink in the way my breasts fall forward and the curves of my ass beg for you to grab them. But you don't.

Stepping out of my jeans and leaving them in a crumpled pile upon the floor, I stand up and look back at you, eyes meeting for the first time. Heart beating frantically as I stand there, letting you see all of my vulnerability, my new body, neither mother nor girl. Breasts milky and full, both sexual and practical, I am a complicated mess of a woman.

Curves in new places, marks tattooed on flesh, muscles firm and strong from carrying a baby nine months inside and four months outside. You don't need to do anything. Just watch me.

Hands caress exposed flesh, turning that you can see me from every angle, letting you take in every dimple and fold of supple flesh. Standing before you, my nakedness is barely concealed by a pair of wet, thin panties. I gently stroke the insides of my thighs, reaching between my legs to rub the swollen wet mound within.

Sliding hands down hips and inside fabric, I touch my hot cunt while you watch. Breasts bounce and legs sway as I rub myself harder, excited beneath your curious gaze. In an instant my damp modesty lies abandoned upon the floor. I stand naked and quivering, a human goddess, Inanna* stripped and bound, waiting to be reborn.

I am no longer the woman I was. I am changed, and I am shedding my former skin for wiser, fuller flesh. I want you to witness my transformation, recording the ineffable events upon your heart. There I will grow and thrive, impervious to threats of unbelievers. This is the closest we will come to the divine.

In my vulnerability, stripped of pride and beauty, flesh unbound and skin transparent, I find ecstasy. Fingers finding exposed, erect clitoris, unashamedly taking my pleasure before you. Risks taken and pleasure sought, I press onward, no longer content with a life of mediocrity. Pulsing with life, I come to orgasm right there, knees weakening and mouth uttering screams wild and dark.

Still rubbing my clitoris, not daring to let go, I cum again and again, not caring if you like what you see, forgetting that I am made of mere flesh and blood. Dreams mingle with reality, each moment made of orgasm. We could share a cup of coffee or sit and read the newspaper, and still I'd be unfolding in ecstasy. With each spasm of my tight cunt, I approach my deepest self, and imbued with pleasure, continue upon my crooked path to the Goddess.

It's time for me to pull out my mirror again and take a look at the new cunt resting between my legs. I'm ready to open my knees and let you see what lies within. I'll show you my scars if you're willing to look. I'll get off on your perusal, letting your glance drive me towards divine ecstasy.

So read my words and learn my heart, for I live and breathe in these pages. Here I lie spread open and exposed, an ever changing woman, seeking pleasure in all its forms. I am not a goddess, but merely a woman striving ever towards union with the gyrating world.

*Inanna was the ancient Sumerian goddess of sexual love, fertility, and war. Legend has it that Inanna undertakes a journey to the underworld of spiritual and sexual initiation. In order to descend to the depths of her dark femininity, Inanna must remove each article of her clothing, one by one, until she is completely naked and vulnerable. Only then can she enter the underworld. She removes her crown, stripping herself of her divinity, her earrings and strands of beads around her neck. She unfastens her gold breastplate, engraved with the words "Come man, come," forsaking her sexual charms, abandoning her woven girdle, and finally her royal breechcloth.

Naked and mortal she descends to the realm of her infernal sister, Erishkigal, and there she is crucified by the wrath of the dark feminine. Her flesh is hung on a meat hook, and her corpse rots until her consort Dumuzi and his sister, the self-sacrificing feminine, each undertaking their own journeys to hell, to resurrect the crucified Goddess. Thus the journey to the inner, dark self of the underworld becomes a task of both the masculine and feminine. It is only when both male and female confront their sexual and personal darkness, that they are united with each other and the earth.

While we cannot control the journeys of our lovers, we can endeavor to bare our bodies and souls, knowing that until we do so there is no hope of true ecstasy.

Session Four: It's Time to Take My Cock!

 

Strap-on fucking is one of my absolute favorite activities.  As a girl who wishes she had a cock, being able to put any cock I like—pick your color and size!—is a huge thrill and turn on.  I love the way I look with the leather harness tightened around my thighs and the colorful silicone dildo jutting out, begging to be worshipped.  I can be a shy girl at times, and even as a new dominatrix, at times I struggle with fully owning my dominance, doling our punishment, and getting into the role.  Not so when I am wearing a cock.  When I slip on the harness and cinch it tightly against my waist, and my thighs, placing the base of the dildo just perfectly so that it will rub against my clit when I’m fucking you, and I can’t help but smile.  Wearing my cock makes me sublimely happy.  Oooh, just thinking about it is making me wet right now!

Me

 

Anyway, when I began my mistress training, strap on play was at the top of my list of likes, obviously.  It is something I have some experience in, as in the last year or so, if there was going to be penetrative sex in my life, it was only going to happen if I was doing the fucking.  Since getting married last fall, my husband and I played with the idea that despite the appearances of a traditional marriage ceremony, he was the wife and I was the husband.  He would post pictures of brides with cocks hidden under their wedding gowns, brides holding riding crops, and brides leading their husbands to the altar collared and chained.  Needless to say I was quite taken with the idea.  We had a cake topper with the wife carrying the husband—an inversion of traditional gender roles—and I packed a white corset, garter stockings, and my strap on for our honeymoon.  The plan was that I would take his ass virginity on our wedding night.  So as you can see, my ownership of a cock and my husband in the bedroom are nothing new.

My wedding cake...I lift, can you tell?

 

Last week my teacher and fuckdoll was on his back, legs spread and bound to a table while I expanded his ass with an inflatable butt plug and then used all the anal toys on him that I wanted—stainless steel dildos, anal beads and vibrating toys.  I also had tens units on his cock and balls that I would adjust as I fucked his ass with the toys, making his cock swell and drip sex juices on his belly that ran down his spread thighs and onto the table.  But he was a very naughty sub.  He kept trying to “remind” me to fuck him in the ass with my cock.  Big mistake.  No one gets my cock because they want it.  They get it because I do.  Mistress and I were very disappointed in our disobedient fuck toy and turned up his electricity as punishment, laughing as he screamed.  He didn’t get my cock that week.

I decided before I arrived for my session that I would fuck my slave with my cock if, and only if, he never uttered a word about it.  He would only be impaled on my dick if he managed to behave himself the entire session.  And I had a feeling he would, as Mistress and I were both there to ensure his proper comportment.  I expect my slaves to be eager, willing, helpful, obedient and slutty and do whatever is asked of them without complaint.  Any other behaviors and they will be punished by my rod or denied pleasure.

 

I wore tight fitting leggings and a loose tank top finished off with a red leather cincher to this week’s training session.  I wanted to be comfortable and be able to move freely as the plan was to practice kink basics such as rope and implements (floggers, whips, canes, paddles, crops, nipple clamps, hornet harnesses, etc) and then IF my slutty submissive had managed to behave, we would end the session with some strap on play.  I learned how to tie a full body harness and practiced an array of cock and ball bondage styles.  Good heavens, doesn’t the cock look so gorgeous with rope bows along its length, balls split, spread, and pushed upward? (Licks lips).  After binding my slave’s cock in several different styles, we hung weights off of the final knot at the base of the penis, to see his cock grow and hear him moan.  I just love to hear my boys moan and cry out like little sluts.  I love to remain in control and craft the absolute perfect way for my sluts to lose control, crying, screaming, and begging like little girls and then spread their legs and fuck them. Mmm.

After an hour or so on the cross being teased with Wartenburg wheels, paintbrushes, hornets and clamps on his nipples, ice and tickling, Mistress and I led our now very compliant slave over to the Bend-over, and well, bent him over, spread his legs, and cuffed him to the furniture.  I loved how wide he had to spread his legs to be securely cuffed. MMM. 

Mistress slipped on her latex gloves and dipped her pretty fingers in lube, then slid them down our fuck toy’s anal slit.  I was getting wet just watching this.  As she began her work on his ass, I walked around, inspecting his spread body, administering smacks to his exposed ass with my hand and various toys from the racks on the wall.  Since our slave had been sooo good, I mentioned to Mistress that I was going to go put dinner in the oven, and that if our toy was still behaving, he MIGHT get my cock in his ass.  She smiled and agreed that was a good idea if little slut could prove himself.  I rummaged in the toy closet for the strap on and stepped into the loops of the harness, sliding them up my thighs.  I sighed audibly as I tightened the leather around my waist and thighs, and adjusted the purple dong so it was in just the right place, thrusting and curving upward from my hips.  I gathered up my tank top and tied it up out of the way so slut’s mess wouldn’t ruin my shirt.  Mistress and I locked eyes and smiled.  I then headed to the kitchen, cock still on, to put dinner in the oven.  It was my night to make dinner, and I have to say, there is nothing better than making dinner wearing a cock and listening to the sounds of spanking and moans coming from the playroom down the hall.  I love my life. 

I placed the almond-topped green beans in the oven and set a timer so I would know when to come back and put in the salmon.  I returned to the playroom to find Mistress working our slut’s ass so that by now he was moaning, groaning and writhing under her attention.

I positioned myself before the slave’s face, thrust my hips forward and began rubbing my cock in his face, talking to him with a teasing voice. 

“Oh hi there. Do you like my cock?  Do you see how hard it is from watching Mistress play with your ass?”

Slave muttered a few incomprehensible words, punctuated by groans.

“What was that?  Try again slut.”  I slapped him with my dick.

“Yes, Mistress.  Your cock is so hard.”

“Then suck it like the slut you are!”

I shoved it in his mouth hard so that his “Yes Mistress” was nothing more than muffled sounds as he choked and gagged on my cock. 

I grabbed a handful of his hair and began moving him up and down along the purple shaft of my cock.

“Do you not know how to suck cock? My goodness.”

He whimpered.

“Get more of it in your mouth and use your tongue for fuck’s sake.  Use your teeth again and you will never feel this cock in your ass!  Spend some time on the head.  Stop being such a disappointment.”

I looked at the timer.  Eight minutes left. 

“Slut, you will suck on this cock for the next eight minutes to my satisfaction  or you may never get the satisfaction of having your ass filled with a real cock.  And we both know how desperately you want that.  So get it together.”

At these words, he applied himself to my dick with renewed vigor, only to be thrust off it and shoved aside at the insistence of the ringing timer.  With a groan he let his face fall against the leather of the chair and submitted himself again to Mistresses’ ministrations on his asshole as she prepared him for my cock.

After placing the salmon in the oven, I returned to find mistress already holding slaves’ head, abandoning her post at his nether regions so I could take over.  I slid myself onto the leather ledge designed for this very act, slipped on some gloves, and anointed his ass, my hands, and my cock with lube.  Wet , excited, and proud that my slave had finally earned my cock, I began to slide the swollen purple head in between his ass cheeks.  I began with gentle strokes, letting him know I was there.

“Do you feel how hard I am??  Are you ready for your Goddess’ cock?”

‘Yes Goddess,’ he moaned in response.

 

I began to ease into him, a little at first, then more and more until the whole length of me was inside him.  Ahhhh!  I began to slide in and out of him, grabbing his hips to better thrust against his body, talking dirty to him all the while.  Strap on play, a fuck toy, and two mistresses.  It doesn’t get much better than this.

After watching me fuck her fuck toy husband for a while, Mistress moved to the side of the bend-over and reached around to tease and stroke her man’s hard, swollen dripping cock.  Absolutely overcome with the pleasure of my cock in his ass and Mistress’s hand on his hard-on, within minutes he was already begging to cum. 

“No!  You may not cum yet.” Mistress replied.  She was enjoying the feel of his hard cock in her hand and the sight of me fucking her husband.

But it was too late.  The pleasure and the eroticism of taking my cock for the first time overwhelmed him and he came all over the floor, exploding in pleasure, laughter, and relief.

Until next time, my perverted friends,

Goddess Inanna

Poly Mommy

This one isn't written by me, but it is written by another mother raising herself and her child in a polyamorous marriage.  I rarely, if ever, see other writings by women such as myself...sure, there are other poly ladies out there, but poly moms keep things on the DL.  Listen to her story.

And just as a teaser...Tomorrow look for a post about my last training session.  P.S.  It ended with someone taking my cock. ;)

For the original article click here.

I’ve had an inkling for years that I’m not monogamous. Despite having had a few long-term monogamous relationships, I always felt a sense of disappointment that I wasn’t “allowed” to get close to anyone but my significant other. I got married a few years ago, and somehow I thought marriage would put out this flame inside of me and allow me to follow the life script I’d accepted since childhood — marriage to one man, house, babies.

Last year when I read Jenny Block’s book on open marriage, I had my first conversation with my husband about the idea. It didn’t go well. We were on a road trip, riding at night while my son (just a few months old then) slept soundly in the back. We fought — my husband thought I wasn’t attracted to him anymore, and he didn’t see how my idea of having sexual relationships with other people could possibly make things better for us. Over time, we had similar discussions, but they were more rational, less emotional. Finally we came to the extremely difficult decision to give it a try.
The decision was triggered in part by a burgeoning friendship with Cal. I’d known Cal for quite awhile, and despite worlds of flirtation and sexual tension between us over the years, we didn’t admit our mutual attraction until recently. A huge caveat: Cal is uncomfortable around children, and my nearly  2-year-old son is a very big part of my life.

My husband gave us the “go ahead” to pursue our relationship, but it’s at a great cost to the balance in my life. I can only spend time with Cal in public or at his house (a rule my husband suggested, because he’s not really ready to integrate Cal into our family life). I work throughout the week and my husband works weekends, meaning it was difficult already to find time for date nights with him. So now that Cal is in the picture my husband occasionally feels neglected.

There are many things we’ve done right so far: getting tested for STIs, communicating and learning to trust, and attempting to get to the heart of any negative emotions anyone is having.
I’m not worried for a second about my son growing up with a polyamorous mom. I don’t fear it’s going to confuse him or estrange him from his peers. All he has to know is that I love both Daddy and Cal for unique reasons. I’m not going to share with my child details of my sex life any more than I would have if I’d remained monogamous. I don’t know a thing about my monogamous parents’ sex life, except that they love each other deeply. That’s all my son needs to know about me and my relationships.

But regarding my son, what I’m really worried about is time. Because my new relationship is still in that starry-eyed phase, it’s been a challenge going more than a couple of days without seeing Cal. And because my husband has his moments of doubt, I’m spending extra time talking to him about our concerns and fears. My son spends most of the week in daycare, and I take care of him alone on the weekends while my husband works — so that doesn’t leave much in the way of total family time. My son is at such an pivotal phase too, starting to really talk and run around and question things, that I don’t want to miss out on his growth due to all the amazing/stressful/intense stuff going on in my personal life.

Even with our newly created Google Calendar to keep everyone on the same page, hiccups happen. We run out of babysitter money. We realize we didn’t schedule a husband/wife date this week. My husband has to work later than expected, or Cal goes on a weekend trip. Sometimes romantic dates with my husband turn into heavy-handed conversations about polyamory, which is productive, but often far from enjoyable. I want to be able to enjoy my time with him because I love him — otherwise I wouldn’t be trying polyamory. I’d either get a divorce or do what many disgruntled married folks do out of cowardice: cheat.

It’s clear that this is going to be a drawn-out learning process for everyone. I’ll get overwhelmed, feelings will get hurt, everyone’s needs will go unmet from time to time. At the center of it all is my son, who absolutely depends on the adults in his life for care and support. That’s the one part that can’t slip, and I’m working hard to make the most of my time with him. Just last night I sat down with him and asked questions about his day.

“Did you sing any songs?” He nodded and did the hand movements to “Itsy Bitsy Spider.” I lit up — he understood me. We were conversing. He knew this was a big deal, too: he had an awestruck sparkle in his eye as he hung onto my every word.

Just like any parent, I’m trying, I’m amending, I’m adapting. I’ve wondered if I would’ve been happier had I realized I wasn’t monogamous years ago, but I can’t even visualize what that path would have looked like. Here I am instead, working on my ultimate happiness in a communicative, committed relationship with my husband, an exciting new relationship with my boyfriend, and a beautiful, changing relationship with my child.