You may be different but when I look at the majority of my friends, a discussion about personal boundaries never comes up. We fall into routines with the people around us and base our future decisions on past behaviour. It might not be that the friends you usually only grab monthly weekend drinks with aren’t into spontaneous fun on a weekday; maybe you’ve just never asked them. Shit, maybe they’re wondering the same thing about you!

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently and asking myself how many of my relationships are defined by true boundaries compared to expectations and assumptions? Maybe I’m not giving my friends or lovers a chance by putting them into a certain category in my mind. Maybe they’re not giving me the same chance. Maybe I’m restricting myself without even realizing it.

What are the fences I'm putting up, and are they as obvious as this?

We can fall into patterns with people we care about. Roles get defined without us realizing that it’s happening. I don’t find out if some friends (or lovers) want to chat on the phone or hang out for impromptu dinner because I just assume that they don’t since we never have. I edit the sides of myself that different friends see, based on my own assumption that they wouldn’t be interested in the rest of me. At times when people I never talk about my non-monogamy with tell me that they read my blog, I feel like slapping myself in the face for making a blatant assumption of how they view me.

Society does nothing to help us address our personal boundaries and more importantly how to share them. While we’re encouraged in some media to stand up for ourselves, embrace our differences and do what makes us happy, we are left to our own devices when it comes to actually relaying how we do these things to others. You’re just supposed to be there for your friends and should automatically know what that means.

I’m learning that I haven’t been very good at managing my assumptions about others. I always like to joke that non-monogamy is similar to having different friends for different purposes; a gym buddy, a movie buddy, the get blottoed buddies and so on, but I don’t think that I’ve been fair to those around me – or to myself – by pigeonholing everyone I care about.

On Conflict

I had another big revelation this week involving how I deal with conflict, specifically issues that I need to share with other people. In that, for the most part, I don’t. So much of my time is spent being outwardly focused, being there for others that need me or responding to their feelings about things I have done. I don’t tell people about things that have hurt my feelings because I don’t want to give them bad feelings. This is a result of a few things including; a) me always being the strong one growing up – being there for family and friends whose problems seemed so much more important than mine ; and b) many years of trying to talk to Steph about different things I was feeling, only to end those conversations reassuring him that he didn’t need to feel guilty or frustrated but without my issue actually being resolved.

I’m afraid to confront people. I’m afraid that by sharing my boundaries, needs or feelings, that I will either be spending time telling the other people it’s ok OR that I will be told that I am wrong for feeling those things in the first place.

So I keep quiet, and adjust my own personal boundaries. The key step that I’m missing though is that moment when I share with other people either a) if there’s a conflict or b) that I just need some time to deal with stuff on my own. I don’t feel like anyone’s going to notice when my behaviour changes. I make an assumption that relationships will simply adapt to my new thoughts, because I have no idea how to communicate to those that matter what I’m really feeling; what’s going on with my head, what I need. I’m programmed to help people, not help myself.

I don’t WANT to be needy. It’s in my blood to be there for others and I want to be able to always give myself to their needs at a moment’s notice. However, this idealistic view that I used to follow in the past doesn’t match up to my current needs. As I grow older, I learn more about the things I require from myself and my friends to live a happy, safe and loving life and I make assumptions that people will just know what those things are, without me actually communicating them. Sharing a few things here and there on the internet is certainly not an accurate representation of who I truly am and what I truly need, even if I am an “over-sharer”.

Strangely enough, the people who I feel the most comfortable just verbally vomiting all over are the dominants in my life. I am not hesitant to ask them if I’m sharing too much, or crossing the lines because I’m afraid of the consequences. I should show other people similar respect and allow them to tell me their own boundaries instead of assuming that they understand my own.

With all of the above soaking into my brain, I’m accepting that I may not be as good a friend as I aspire to be. When it comes to boundaries, I haven’t been sharing mine with others and made my own decisions on others, without asking them. With expectations and assumptions, I have simply expected that people are not interested in what I have to say, so I let the relationships I have remain as they are. I also assume that people can’t handle my conflict or will react negatively to it, for no fault of their own but because I’m afraid of being wrong for having my own feelings or for feeling guilty for not being 100% there for their needs because I have my own. Then I go and focus on my own needs anyway, and end up making others feel shitty.

If I don’t tell them that they’ve done something that sucks; I suck too.

We are all wired differently and I realize that I have to learn to communicate my boundaries, expectations and assumptions with everyone I care about. I have to give people the chance to react to me in their own way and I have to treat myself with more respect than I obviously have been. Point taken, self.

Being open to having a threesome with him is a great plan. It may be exactly the right thing for the two of you to get a huge sexual spark, however I worry about it being with the woman he cheated with. Here’s a few points to consider:

David mentioned to me at some point before or after my Playground Non-Monogamy 101 workshop that he would be interested in doing a piece on non-monogamy where I would be featured. I’ve said yes to similar pieces in the past and had a great feeling about both him and the girl who called me a few days after my initial interview to “fact check”.

That article can be found here. To be honest, the only issue that I have with it is that it seems to focus on the fact that – a few months into non-monogamy I struggled extra with the little details – like the visual cue of my husband’s date’s wine glass being left behind in my kitchen. When we were relatively fresh other people fuckers, silly shit like that was hard to handle. So I share those stories with other people because those are the things that threw me for a loop back in the day. A few commenters on the article have latched onto the wine glass story, suggesting that if I’m not comfortable with that then I must not really be happy with non-monogamy at all.

And this is a mild challenge I always see that, for the most part, I ignore. There are a lot of assumptions out there about open relationships. First of all, people will often react strongly when they hear someone is in one. “Isn’t that hard? What about jealousy? What if you fall in love?”. On the flip side however, if I suggest mySELF that non-monogamy is hard and that sometimes those questions can have really tough answers, then I obviously must not be happy with it. It’s not a practice that we should continue if there’s any hint that it’s sometimes challenging to have your partner fuck someone else and not you.

*blink* #sarcasm

I find this attitude so ridiculous which is why I will constantly strive to be honest when discussing open relationships. I would make a terrible happy poster child because I don’t just talk about the good on this site (and at my workshops), I also talk about the bad, and the ugly. Maybe I need to talk more about the good, which is a fair point. It’s always so much easier to talk about something challenging that we learned from instead of something easy that we just breezed right through. However in the interest of clarity, I will list a few points here that maybe I haven’t said in some time.

• Just as all of our time together has evolved – as we’ve gotten older / had new experiences / grown closer – so has the non-monogamous side to our marriage. There are many things that are much easier to deal with now – 5 years in, but were very definitely challenging at first – like the wine glass example from The Grid article.
• Non-monogamy ISN’T always easy. Whether you’re in it as a swinger or poly, it requires a lot of you and a lot of your partner and can be very challenging. Denying that it’s tough sometimes would be doing a disservice to anyone that was thinking of trying it.
• Fucking other people isn’t the only benefit to being open, which is something I try to stress all the time. It’s certainly a huge one, but there are countless other personal benefits on top of sexy fun.
• Acknowledging the desire to be selfish and do things for yourself is healthy. It’s how you choose to handle those feelings that dictate whether or not you are an asshole. I recently went out and splurged some money on new (needed) clothes and a hair-do because I wanted it for me. It’s not that I didn’t want something good for Steph as well – he’s free to shop all he likes! – but this didn’t concern him as I am my own person, with my own needs.
• While I certainly don’t think that we were headed down a path to divorce (at the time of opening up), I feel 100% certain that opening up our marriage was the best thing for our future as it has brought us more self-awareness, more confidence and more understanding of each other.
• Steph and I are more in love with one another, each and every day. As we grow and experience life together, our bond is constantly growing.
• I was never a “forever” person and now – as I see what a strong “team” we are – I am much more that way inclined.
• I admit it and I KNOW it’s hypocritical, but it is much easier for me to be with other people than it is for me when Steph is. Does me admitting that it’s sometimes difficult mean that I can’t be ok with it happening? Of course not. Compromise / happiness and unconditional love are things that matter very much to me and I will work through my issues because they are just that – my issues. Sometimes you’ll read about them here too. That’s kinda’ the point of this blog. You know, the diary-esque site you’re reading right now that has my feelings in it.
• Despite other people’s objections that Steph and I are stomping all over the “traditional definition” of marriage, blah blah blah … we feel, deep down, that we are very, very married. We still make all of our household decisions together. We travel together. We support each other when we’re sick. We buy groceries at one of the local stores whose name he always forgets. We share many bills. We get into married sex ruts. We burp and fart around each other. We take our cats to the vet. We hang out with our friends, separately and as a couple. Many of them are hetero normative, living “normal”, traditional, happy lives, and some are queer and challenging social norms because it makes them happy to do so. And sometimes we hang out with our friends that we sleep with.
• Being open has certainly brought us a little heartache over the years; me more so than him because I tend to get more involved with people emotionally, but he is right there beside me as it happens.
• Being open has also brought us more love. We have a bond between us that no one can break. We have people in our life that we likely would not have met without this lifestyle that we love like family and I can’t imagine not having around.

When I first had the idea for Playground around the end of last summer, I had a lot more time on my hands. I had quit my job a few months prior to finish working on my non-monogamy guide book – which I promise to finish sooooon – and had seemingly all the time in the world to plan a small sexuality conference. I had plenty of event experience from my time as a wedding planner and working for a digital media events company, now I just needed to branch out from behind my laptop screen and meet the people that would fill my stage.

I was noticing more and more sexuality / sex / relationship based events on Twitter, happening all over the States and found myself baffled at why we here in Toronto didn’t really have any events that could be considered all-inclusive. I envied the population size of America and how it seemed so easy to fill an event space with sex-positive folk from multiple backgrounds. But why should a smaller population mean that we couldn’t have open talks about sexuality for all?

It didn’t and so Playground was born.

As I was beginning to plan and form an advisory team, I was excited to watch the plans for the very successful Momentum 2011 in Washington, D.C. take shape. I was beginning to see and read about the types of discussions that people were interested in having around sex, sexuality and relationships and wanted to continue that dialogue here. Toronto is a wonderfully sex-positive, culturally diverse city where there is an event to be found for every interest. If you’ve got a fetish or want to find the community for you, you can find it here.

So why the need for this event? And why me?

I’m not under any false impressions; I’m but an up and comer on the sex-positive scene, but in between my full time job in digital media, life coaching and workshop teaching I am throwing myself into this plan. As someone who dabbles a little bit here and there in many sex-positive communities, I wanted to create a space for others like me. Others who want to engage in dialogue and learn something new (or something old!) from some of the best names in the industry.

After meeting many of these amazing educators at Momentum this past April, I am thrilled to be bringing the conversation to Toronto this November. I hope that you are as excited as I am to have the walls of the Gladstone Hotel busting at the seams with so much sex-positive goodness!

Early bird tickets are on sale now. Rates go up September 5th!

Kisses, hugs and licks.
Samantha
~Playground Executive Producer

On favorites:

Unless you show absolutely no interests outside of Creed, Two and a Half Men, Star Wars, pizza and beer, I will not judge you for your taste in music, movies, food and TV. I have some strange tastes in all of these things and know that your life’s path may have led you to an interest in death metal, country, indie or even Gaga. Our time together doesn’t have to involve seeing the same bands in concert or bonding over True Blood or Dexter, though I certainly agree it would be fun if it did. I don’t expect us to like all of the same foods. You will probably like something that I find disgusting and horrific and you might not be able to see past my love of Branston pickle but as long as you don’t try to kiss me with onion or olive breath though, I think we will make it through.

I will not judge you for your (lack of) knowledge of wine. Nor for your favorite travel destinations or choices of art on your walls. If life has taken you on a path where you cannot afford to live on your own, I won’t mind. Though it will certainly make it difficult should we choose to take our clothes off.

If you like to partake in recreational drugs that I am not involved in, I will not be scared away. My body has my own thoughts on these things, but as long as you are respectful, not creepy and still nice to me, it is not my place to judge your chosen form of relaxation. I only ask that you understand and respect my personal choices or limits.

I will not judge you for driving a car or being a cyclist. I will however, take issue with you placing all blame for road problems on one or the other. As someone who partakes in both forms of transportation I see the problems on either side of the coin. I won’t not date you because of your chosen profession(s) – or lack of one – and in fact will be curious to learn about your passions.

Seems pretty easy, right?

Shouldn’t life be easy, really? Alas there are some things that are, and will remain, sticking points for me and I hope that you have your own because otherwise you are undervaluing yourself.

I will judge you for your treatment of others. How you react in the face of poverty, racism, hatred or violence. I will quickly find out and base my involvement with you on your thoughts on equality, politics and religion. The way you treat your friends will stick with me. The way you treat your family will also be of great importance but I will understand when family drama may have driven a wedge that cannot be removed. I will watch your behaviour when dealing with wait staff because it is important to me to not date a snob or an asshole. I will admire you for your honesty, especially when it comes to your fears, insecurities, desires and kinks. I will appreciate and encourage your sexuality and like you more for sharing with me. In fact, I will probably like you a LOT more because sexuality in general tends to get me hot.

Anything else?

And while I will do my best to not judge you based on your appearance, I will base my decision on whether or not to go out with you on how you choose to present yourself. If I cannot be attracted to your looks, even after getting to know you, it isn’t fair to either of us to pretend and I totally get that you might not be down with dating a girl with a big tummy and behind. I won’t think you are any less of a person for not being physically attractive to me and I would appreciate you not reacting in such a manner that suggests I’m a bitch for doing so. I am happy to have a thing for dirty blonde preppy boys, tattooed hipsters or nerds in skinny ties and girls with curves and tattoos in all the right places, but remain open to being attracted to others that don’t fit into those categories. I just make no guarantee.

While I won’t judge you for having your own tastes in … everything … it is entirely possible that I would like you more if we DID share some things in common. Knowing you have experience in kink, non-monogamy, or an interest in tattoos and rockabilly culture would probably work quite well in our favors. It would be helpful for you to understand me when I say things like hetero-normative, BDSM and crusty bread, but remember those things aren’t necessarily related. If I have to educate you on any of those topics we likely will not work out or have any chemistry and that’s just a fact. No reason to get upset about it.

I will demand that you respect my marriage and time limits and put no demands on me that are unreasonable and disrespectful.

And finally, if you understand that I am the main character in my movie and that you are auditioning for a role as a supporting case member. Not everyone is going to make the cut but that doesn’t mean there isn’t another movie out there for you.

For many, the fight against oppression, prejudice, sexism, suffering and homophobia gives the individual an extra sense of “home” plus instant allies in the war against ignorance. These alliances are valuable and certainly something to hold dear.

Communities pop up for many reasons and in the sexuality sphere one exists for pretty much everything. If you can think it, a group has formed around it somewhere. For those with specific interests like kink for example, it makes sense that a movement is created around events, similar fetishes and social interaction. People of like minds come together to share life experiences in a safe, hopefully non judgmental environment. It’s human nature to want this.We welcome like minded people into our inner circles because they share our interests or theories about sexuality and the world with us. Of course I’m going to get along well with the polyamorous, tattooed, rockabilly girl because we like many of the same things. And of course some of the hardcore non-monogamists may find themselves dismissing monogamy as a viable lifestyle style.

So what of those that may not like everything that we do? Can they still join our inner circles even if they are newbs or get a completely different kick out of say, balloons than we do? The idea of sexual positivity and welcoming people in with open arms is often easier said than done. Unfortunately what many encounter might end up closer to “Oh, you’re into that? Well that’s not what I’m into, so obviously that’s pretty weird.”

For a community made up of inclusive … communities, we certainly can be pretty exclusive sometimes.

Some might respond by suggesting that this isn’t a problem. That separation by interest is perfectly natural and necessary for society to sustain itself. There is a reason that ‘cliques’ form in high school; it helps to establish expectations and unsaid understandings amongst both their participants and rejects.

I never worked well with cliques in high school. I often found myself jumping around, having a few friends in various groups, never settling on one set. The same can be used to describe my sexuality. I dabble in kink. I’m non-monogamous. I’m bi-sexu.., queer. I’m into gender bending yet sometimes pretty hetero-normative. Choosing one community to become a part of is not something that feels natural to me and I don’t really dig on “settling down” with just one. Am I greedy to want variety? Perhaps, but I would rather remain sex-positive and include in my life a wide mix of people with different backgrounds; from vanilla hetero-normatives to lifestyle kinksters to activists and so on.

There is no denying that I still gravitate to those that perhaps I have the most in common with but my personal neighborhood simply asks for mutual respect, understanding and peace for people with differing viewpoints and backgrounds to become a part of it.

Communities have their place, but we also need to come together and realize that we can all exist under one sex positive umbrella and still remain individuals. By embracing our differences we can learn what makes each other tick. We can expose ourselves to new ways of thinking, new and different approaches to love, sex and relationships that may have never crossed our path had we stayed in our little bubbles.

For those of you that are interested in experiencing a multi-faceted view of sexuality and relationships, I hope you will join me and many other wonderful sex-positive people at Playground, happening this November 4th through 6th at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto.

P.S. Kind of related … I highly recommend the show called “Community” with Joel McHale and Chevy Chase. No, it has nothing to do with anything I just wrote above, but yes, it is fucking funny.

See the resemblance?

As we were chatting about life and dating it came up that he had met someone new from okC. On its own this information wasn’t really that big a deal. Our relationship has a conspiring feel to it as we normally discuss his dates with other women, to a degree, mainly from a “I didn’t fuck her, you’re still going to be the first in a while.” angle. (I freely admit that it would always give me a little squee knowing that, as silly as it sounds.) So when I found out that he had met someone and she had beat me to the punch, so to speak, it was pretty upsetting news.

Actually, let me clarify. The fact that Crush dates other people isn’t what upset me – it was more the fact that our relationship set-up, based around sharing of information had suddenly changed without my knowledge. It wasn’t “Hey so there’s this girl I’ve messaged and we’re going to try and set up a date.” It was more; “Yeah so we met already and so on.” I simply felt a little shell shocked.

I made sure to explain to him that I totally support him dating and he gets that. In fact he was great at talking me through the upset and getting to the heart of the matter, which I appreciated. He’s really good at communicating in general especially since he deals so well with my occasional craziness. It really seems like we have known each other a lot longer than just October.

Anyway. So he sends me a link to the new gals profile (let’s call her Ava) and damn is she stunning. I mean, come on … how hilarious that Steph and I had just been talking about our ideal “type” not 2 days prior and suddenly I see this face pop up on my screen. Color me surprised when, no more than 45 minutes later, I see a message in my inbox from the gorgeous gal herself.

Not only is she being super sweet, complimentary and flirty but Ava shared a piece of info with me that caused me to laugh hysterically. She had recently found my blog online and it was one of the last pushes for her and her husband to jump into non-monogamy.

So in a way … it’s kinda’ my fault that she and Crush even met in the first place.

Bahahahaha.

And the story just gets weirder from there. As it turns out Ava’s husband has had a couple of dates with Ruby the gal that Steph’s been seeing for over a year.

And then RUBY notices another connection … she and Crush slept together last spring before he hit a rough patch.

What’s the moral of this story? Well … if you’re looking for a random present to buy yours truly, might I suggest a Kevin Bacon mask? I seem to be doing a pretty grand job at six degreesing people.

Next task … flow chart???

(Or I guess you’d probably rather hear about my dates with both Crush and Ava this past week, huh? No no, not together, separately. Though I will not deny that the together thought is an option my mind enjoys entertaining!)

And then there are the people we are when we are alone. I say people because many times we keep secrets even from ourselves. We have breakfast. We watch television. We read books. We work out. We take ourselves for walks in the park. To the bakery for an afternoon treat. Into the bath for a relaxing soak after a hard day at work. And at certain moments we catch a glance in the mirror and see our true self. I’m not saying that who we are the rest of the time isn’t real or true, but underneath it all exists our core, our base, our private self. The part of us that feels emotions more intensely than we allow our own minds to admit most of the time.

What is your truth?

When I was in high school I went through a rough patch for say, most of it. I was, and always have been a larger girl. I moved away from my dad at 13 and was convinced that I wasn’t good enough for him. I didn’t fit into my new school, my body or my expectations of myself. In Grade 11 or so I succumbed to a multitude of eating disorders. I was tired of looking in the mirror and seeing a big girl and wanted so desperately to do anything to fix it. I convinced myself in those moments of watching television, having a bath and going for a walk that everything was alright and that what I was doing was perfectly healthy. More than just healthy it was the right thing to do if I wanted to lose weight.

So at dinner I would sit down with a plate of iceberg lettuce. I would slowly pour peppercorn ranch dressing onto it. I would pause, take a deep breath, and eat. Sometimes I would allow the reality of my hunger to take over and I would have a second plate. The whole time I’d be doing homework, listening to music or watching something on tv. Something normal so that I could silence my core that sat there questioning my actions.

Then a while later I would make myself throw up that lettuce. I felt so good and so clean every time I felt that release. I looked in the mirror, defying my truth, telling myself it was a good decision and then head downstairs to exercise for two hours.

This was almost a daily occurrence.

At times I would find myself listening to sad music and I would purposefully sit there and cry, sometimes with the same song on repeat over and over. (A habit I occasionally still do when I am feeling really down about something.) There is a certain level of teenage angst that goes along with anything I would do at that age, I fully admit, but this was more than that. I would hold onto my head, tears streaming down my face, as I screamed releasing no sound. My bed was against the wall and I would find myself banging my head against the wall as I told myself I was right about not being good enough.

This was my truth, but even I didn’t accept that she was real in those other normal moment when I was alone.

Eventually I grew stronger and my eating disorders stopped. I lost 100lbs and have probably put most of it back on. I forgot about the truth that I felt back then, almost half a lifetime ago until tonight when I watched Black Swan. The movie isn’t about eating disorders, but it is in my eyes about personal truths and identity.

I have never, in almost 15 years, had anything remind me so strongly of that person that used to be, and maybe still is, my core. Natalie Portman’s entire performance, as she portrayed the weak and fragile Nina made me feel unbelievably exposed throughout the entire film. The weakness I felt as an anorexic. As a bulimic. As someone so desperate for love and touch and acceptance and perfection. It took an already intense and overpowering movie and surrounded me with all of my truths, pointing their fingers at me.

The film deals with her struggle to embrace both the Black and White Swan and that duality is felt throughout. It’s an amazing piece of work but it has left me with a sense of sad as all of my truths, old and current are now swimming at the surface. I feel completely exposed and vulnerable to myself and it’s a strange place to be in. I am remembering and not denying the girl that lies within. I have grown and changed since those days but I do not believe that our core ever goes away. Instead it exists within us like the center of an onion. As time goes on our experiences and strength pile on top of it, but it is still within us. All our memories are.

If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend you see this film. It has knocked me into a mindset that I was not expecting. Maybe I should get some sleep … tomorrow I just want to be thinking about the very sexy scenes that reminded me of a whole other part of my brain that’s a lot more fun.

I’d listen to this a lot when I was younger and still do now when I’m down: