Crossing Lines (Part 3)

The question as to whether this action taken by Resident Manservant is compatible with my feelings is very intriguing to me and I've been working on understanding my answer to this question all week.

It is true that he and I had had a conversation discussing our rules of engagement only moments before he chose to break them. And one might think that this would cause a certain and undeniable amount of distrust within me. To jump to the end of the story first, I will say that I have no problem with Resident Manservant and what he has done. This was my initial and immediate response and I was very surprised by it.

That being said, I've been trying to understand why I feel that way. We have had threesomes before with a number of different people. My friend being one of them. She is the only person who we have invited into our bed more than once though. She is a very close friend and the three of us get along very well. Many similar interests, and at the very least a similar outlook and philosophy about life.

When R.M and I first started 'swinging' we laid out some fairly exclusive rules. 'Only Together' being the first and most important rule. We were never supposed to pursue any extra-curricular sexual activity without our partner by our side. This was something we wanted to experience together. We didn't want to swap partners with people. We wanted to participate in beautiful sex acts together--with another female or male joining us, or perhaps in a larger, orgy-oriented environment.

The last number of times we have had threesomes have been with my friend and I have always felt a bit like an accessory. While I am quite interested in playing with Miss Single in a sexual way, I have never felt like her interest in reciprocating is genuine. She plays along, but I've always felt that it was a bit of a ploy to get at the magnificent cock of my husband. Whether she is genuine in her play or not, my interest has really waned in terms of having sexual relations with her as I really feel like the third wheel in the exchange. I'm just along for the ride. More a spectator than a participant.

Resident Manservant and I talked about this before bed that night and I reiterated that I was not interested in pursuing a threesome. It just wasn't all that satisfying for me. I knew she wanted action--and she was hoping to get it from Mr. Moved Away, but that clearly wasn't going to happen. Therefore, I was not at all surprised to hear when I first opened my eyes in the morning from R.M. that he had fucked Miss Single after I fell asleep. And I didn't mind. Obviously, he had crossed a line. A line that we had very recently discussed and reiterated. But it was cool.

I guess a big part of this is that this wasn't some random chick. She is a close friend whom we both care very deeply for. And in some ways I'd rather that she fuck my husband instead of some random guy she might pick up at the bar or return to other past boyfriends or fuck buddies--people who don't really care about her or treat her particularly well. We have explored this relationship together and I've decided that I'm not getting what I need out of it and it's not quite the right thing for me. Now, I'm not sure how I'd feel if this continued on a regular basis. But that is more because I am worried about my friend and her ability to remain emotionally aware and neutral while having sex with my fantastic and totally lovable husband. I don't worry about my husband's ability to do the same, but I would hate for her to fall tragically in love with a man who will never love her in the way she is desperately hoping to be loved. In the way she deserves to be loved.

What this means now is that my feelings regarding our extra-curricular sexual activities have evolved. I think I'd like to find myself a fuck buddy. Someone I can be close with, someone I actually have something in common with aside from sex, someone who I might even be interested in dating if I didn't already have a primary relationship with a wonderful man. Someone I could date, fuck, hang out with, and explore with, all without commitment.

I haven't said that very eloquently, I know. But what I'd really like to explore is whether it's possible to find people to have meaningful relationships with whom I might also occasionally have sex with. Polyamory is the term that comes to mind. I don't know if it's possible. But I'd like to try.

Crossing Lines (Part 2)

There are few lines in our relationship. While we explore certain boundaries of a sexuality together, one on one sexual contact with other women is out of the question. I do not have carte blanche, as some of my male confidantes thing, to be promiscuous. We are exploring life together.

So how then did I end up screwing my wifes best friend as she slept upstairs on our marriage bed? Good question.

The recipient of my extramarital carnality is a good friend of ours, the maid of honor at our wedding, and someone who over the past 2 years we have taken in to our bed together a handful of times. We both deeply care for her, and her for us. On so many surface levels a midnight tryst seems to run contrary to everything we profess to desire. It certainly wreaks havoc with the basic concept of trust.

But the reason I advocated with my wife to expand our sexual boundaries was based on a philosophical distinction I felt existed between relationships and physical love. The reason I can move outside the boundaries others adhere too is because, for me, the real essence of a strong relationship is entirely removed from sexual desires and behaviors. Our species, however we came into this present state, possesses a bizarre and complex psychology when it comes to our reproductive process. The intensity of those passions are frightening to some, and it seems to me that we cling to the stability of monogamy out of fear, to shed our responsibility for confronting that challenge. Much like our current societies ornamental attachment to the pretense of organized religion, people stay monogamous to maintain a status quo - because their friends are, because their parents did, because they have been lead to fear the alternative.

It is based on that understanding that I had no personal moral compunctions about fucking my wifes best friend. I, personally, have no issue with sharing that intimate physicality with someone who isn't my wife. I don't have any problems with my wife doing the same. Our relationship is based on a connection much deeper than the basic mechanics of genital interconnectedness. And we both have room in our hearts for other people as it is in our nature to reserve that one part that has created a unique spiritual connection with each other.

But perhaps I am being overly simplistic to support my romanticized self-image as a closet bohemian. What is an inescapable truth is that as early as just that evening it had been reiterated that this was simple something we do not do. It was not within our mutual comfort zone.

What pushed me to cross the line was a sincere feeling of empathy for the other woman. We already shared a deep connection - all three of us do. And she was feeling alone, isolated, envious of our stability, and deeply, deeply horny. I felt that with all we had said and done as a threesome it was the sort of thing that should be done. It would me hilariously tacky to say I felt obligated - I was highly aroused, intoxicated by multiple chemicals, and feeling deeply devious - but I did it because I needed to do it to be genuine to myself.

What remained to be seen was if following that path was compatible with my wifes feelings...

To be continued...

Chemistry

A lazy Saturday trip to the mall - we bought some new towels and a giant clock for the home theatre - was followed by an afternoon watching porn. We cracked a bottle of wine - a white Viognier Grenache blend - and downed it to the first half hour of Chemistry Volume 1. This is a unique film that seems to try to exploit the worlds current fascination with reality television but instead serves as a pseudo-documentary that allows you to create some real empathy with the actors, which makes it a billion times hotter than most adult films.

After the wine (about 30 minutes for the bottle) we started with various sexual activities - the Goddess gave some fantastic head, much above her usual efforts, inspired by the film - and proceeded to get interactive with the next hour of the film. We were spent much earlier than the people in the film and there was still an hour left when we retired for a smoke and to assemble dinner.

We had some interesting conversations before/during/after the sex - mostly around inhibitions and a desire to be free of them. I was astonished to find myself watching an incredibly hot threesome where one of the girls was pegging the man, and we talked about the conflicting emotions we have around anal pleasure - she hates me thinking about her ass, I get extremely uncomfortable with enjoying her putting things in mine.

It wasn't a conversation that lent itself to a conclusion, but it did bring renewed awareness on my part to the deep parts of the psyche attached to sex and the way we are trained to be uncomfortable with how our bodies can bring ourselves and others pleasure. While the vast majority of the population would be uncomfortable on the surface with this idea, we'd all be a lot happier if we all fucked each other a little more often I think.

But it is a complex issue, and I suppose I'm being dismissive about its deep implications. It was really fun and refreshing to watch an adult film where the participants discuss how they have actually enjoyed each other, and (if very briefly) touch on their own emotional processes that let them explore sex in ways that fill me envy just as much as I'm sure they fill George W. Bush with rage.

Perhaps someday we'll reach a place where we can be comfortable renewing a lifestyle of exploring sexual pleasure with others in our community, but as the buzz from the wine rolls off my brain I remember all the fear, isolation, and paranoia previous explorations have left me with.

Courage in the Face of Others

The Domestic Goddess and I really have communication down to an art. We can talk about anything. Now this doesn't preempt the typical, farcical, marital spats that stem out of a lack of communication that to others would be totally obvious. I said we know how to talk, not that we can change the innate nature and qualities of a heterosexual relationship.

In the past we've had lots and lots of conversations about our sexual fantasies, our desires, our fetishes, our curiosities. The chats have been deeply erotic and have lead to frantic and intense love making. However, its typically been very vanilla love making. Hey, no harm in that.

There are two unique subcategories of failed fetishism that deserve explicit discussion though. First is bondage and BDSM. We really wanted to try this and we did, and while we discovered that she does really get off on feeling confined (gaffing tape was best) actual sessions of domination or submission intended to heighten the pleasure just left us cold. Literally. We even tried turning up the heat. You just get cold and bored and while the spanking of flogging is hot for 5 minutes you just get sore and achey and the mind goes on a little siesta.

And then there is the swinging. That is a fucking novel right there that is. I'll jump straight to the tl;dr; and summarize that while we have had some hot as hell threesomes, and feel that the more very well could be the merrier, all adherents in group sex we have met have put us off our eros. Boo. Fucking boo. My wife is all for having another girl in bed and I can't fucking find one that doesn't make me feel like I'm just being promiscuous.

Now thats an important last sentence, because this really could be entirely in my head. This could all be a me or an us thing. But I think there is a big difference between being promiscuous and being sexually adventurous.

I've been reading a lot of sexblogs lately, and I'm really fucking annoyed that we don't have the bravery to be sexual extroverts. I don't know what I/we need to do: work through personal issues? Compromise mental models of integrity? Keep it in my head while I masturbate to videos of orgies comprised of 19 year old drug addicts desperate for a dollar simultaneously selling out my dignity and exploiting young women ALL THE WHILE having a hell of an orgasm into a towel?

I wish a solution was more apparent, but exploring sexual themes touched deep into the psyche, and all the insecurity I have left in life seems to live right next to that place.

But its bloody annoying, I'll have you know.

And....FIGHT!

Lately we've been fighting a lot. We've also not been blogging much, as you've seen, and I think it all comes out of the same place. We have lofty, fluffy, nebulous goals for our lives that we never seem to be able to find traction in climbing towards. Weight loss, financial balance, time for happy-love-smooshy moments, it all seems to get wrapped up in a little package that gets entirely ignored when things get stressful.

We recently took an extended 2 week vacation, and while the vacation was 99.9% stress free (I don't think we had even the remotest conflict on it, you know) it really exacerbated the issues back home. When removed from our stressful existence, we are the happiest people on the planet. However, we seem to lack totally the capacity or mechanisms to deal with the real world successfully. It was really dismaying to compare our first week back from vacation with our week on vacation. Ugh.

I'm not sure what this is really about, as I suspect I have feelings somewhat unique to my generation. As the affluence of western society grows (built, I suspect, on the shore of an ocean of economic collapse) each successive generation grows further and further from a work ethic based on survival. We have a growing sense of entitlement to happiness unfounded on any sort of actual effort or the concept of reaping what we sow. I see it more and more in the people who are 17,18, or 19 now, but I reflect on it being substantially the cause of my own personal torment.

Its really fucking obnoxious. We watched a good movie tonight, but I'll make a separate post for that.

Identity

One thing I'm terrified to contemplate is my identity. One thing I can describe is that I am a perpetually negative person - I constantly cling to the flaws in things. Tell me you like X, I will tell you what is wrong with X. This is not to say that X is bad and that you shouldn't like it, but I obsess with inadequacies.

One thing I've found that this means is that I, personally, am nothing. I don't adhere to any real beliefs, or should I say ideologies. I have a lot of beliefs, but ideologies bother me. Once you apply a label to a set of beliefs it masks so many different nuances both explicit and implied. So to avoid any misconceptions I run away from doing anything substantial, to avoid criticisms I make no positive affirmations, and I think that I'm finding that in doing this I am not finding true happiness.


This is a glaring issue in most facets of my life, but the worst right now is in religion. By extension this means the community I construct around me as religion should be a means of finding communion with your fellow man. However, since I'm not into inherited religion or group delusions I find my spiritual leanings conflicted. Ostensibly I adhere to neopaganism in the vicinity of Wicca, but both those labels are loaded with connotations and stereotypes that are inapplicable.

And again I lament the lack of success in finding others with a similar degree of critical attention. Of course I'm also lamenting here that I *have* this degree of critical attention, but I think one reason why I suffer is an inability to develop a community around me through which to exercise my cynicism away. My critical leanings are not trivial, and constantly they are dealt with trivially by people around me. I wish I could find a group of friends who would help be embrace this, digest it, and pass it through.

Potential

If you have a low tolerance for arrogance I suggest you turn away now. It's not that I'm so drenched in hubris that this will be intentional, acknowledged in the first remark, and still pursued. What it is though is musings on destiny.

We'll start with in how I don't believe we have one. We're not preordained to accomplish any substantial feat when we first set forth from the womb into the world. As we grow and generate our own little adorable cognitive psyche we do not become cogs in a predetermined machine nor to we slip into roles set out in the cosmic dance.

This is of course simply a belief system I choose to hold. If the opposite were true - and I was predestined to believe the above (that being a lie) I would of course be powerless to change it and well thats the kind of discussion best saved for M.C. Escher paintings.

What I do believe is that our souls are happiest doing ... something. A big problem with the world is that people don't figure out what that something is and get waylaid with all sorts of impressions and invitations and insinuations that what will make our souls happy is coincidentally something that when obtained will advance the agenda of someone else. Thus the battle for dollars and mindshare is ever continuing.

And its not that materialism is bad. Maybe some souls are happiest selling and some buying and some being envious and others happy as a fucking pig in shit breaking into your house and stealing all of your crap to buy black market prescription drugs. The problem as I see it is I do not see people actually engaging in a personal dialog and trying to understand what really makes them happy. In my theory the answer can be anything, but those who are cleaving to one thing or another without exploring the issue have not found their answer because in my experience finding that answer is a difficult path fraught with peril and I find it hard to believe anyone could accidentally stumble down it.

I don't know exactly what makes my soul happy. I'm very fond of sex, as well as all forms of multimedia engagement. I suspect to be happy I must continually dabble within both spheres. However I have a nihilistic approach to both spheres, and especially the people who purport to adhere to either.

I previously mentioned in sensationalistic passing that we have attended orgies in the past. We've stopped having anything whatsoever to do with the local swinging scene as in our opinion - or, let me say my opinion as I can only speak for me - the people involved were pretty off kilter.

I do have fantasies and visions of a subculture where I can exist in a sublime lack of self doubt and fear, and a big part of that would be the ability and comfort with expressing my sexuality in whatever way I see fit. But given the levels of social pitfall society builds around sexual expression, I can't accept a cavalier migration to that sort of existence as anything other than a self-destructive denial that eventually ruins everything it touches. So when we encountered a group that was dominated by men and women who would have sex with anyone, clearly (and openly) accelerated by all manner of drug, and these people were more than a little lazy about barrier protection in sexual behaviors, I was both fascinated and filled with a defensive urge to run as fast as humanly possible in the other direction.

The fascination stems from a carnal voyeuristic impulse, and that no matter how you slice it watching 6 or 7 women have group sex is all sorts of hot. The defense mechanism comes from the simple mathematics that while I am very open to advanced sexual frontiers this willingness is build on a foundation of openess, honesty, and trust. Nothing any of these people seems to give a damn about. My overall conclusion is that it would be nothing short of suicidal to engage sexually with these people.

And let me tell you how much I didn't want that to be the case.

It is, really, the same with multimedia; less pretentiously video games and movies. I'm a big fan of science fiction and fantasy, but the internet subcultures that build up around such genre entertainment is fucking frightening. It seems to be a quest to artificially create a social niche in which one can define oneself according to pre-shared community standards rather than a sincere expression of enjoyment or a celebration of an artistic work. I've attended one video game convention and found it very hard to relate to the people there - I feel I love video games more than anyone I met there, but I was unwilling to slot myself into a convenient fandom and thus was not speaking the same language.

The parallel to religion is perhaps very apt, and I as always am filling the role of the true heretic. Each subculture builds up certain things and I feel compelled to dwell on the deficiencies each thing brings to the table. It is not a pessimism, it is a hard and fast desire to be un-beholden to anything other that the reality of the experience and to pick and choose from various candidates. Indeed, perhaps it could be said I evaluate things not on what they do right or how good they are, but on how much they do wrong or how bad they are. Again this isn't cynicism, it is more a unflinching appreciation for honesty. Everything is terrible - some of it just tries harder.

And it is that trying that makes the critical difference. Picture two individuals attempting the same task. One will undoubtedly accomplish it better than the other and in doing so be "better". However we should not evaluate our lives based on the complex and multivalued standards of others, no, instead we should find out what is going to make our soul happy and strive to do that as well as we can. As long as we are open to some surprising understandings of the self this seems to be a foolproof proposition as its only real directive is "try" followed by "keep trying". I see myself surrounded by people that defy the fundamental honesty that is necessary to even begin that struggle, and it makes me sad.

But I'll try to be more open about that tomorrow.