Recently I had the pleasure of attending Porn Reborn – New Movements and Markets in Pornography with my dear friend Tara McKee, sex educator and workshop facilitator for Good For Her, put on by SDSSU. The SDSSU is the undergraduate course union for everyone who has ever taken a Sexual Diversity Studies course at the University of Toronto.

Porn is absolutely not something I’m an expert on. Sure, I have a website link bookmarked on my iPhone, but I actually only own 1 movie and I got that for free at the Everything To Do With Sex Show a few years ago. (And ick, it’s so terrible!)

The fact that I only own one movie is absolutely 100% embarrassing. I should have a big ol’ box of porn like in the 40 Year Old Virgin, but trying to find the right style to watch with Steph has been a bit of a challenge over the years.

I admit it. I am a participant in the ‘Click! Gratify’ movement. I watch porn when I need to. If I’m in a hurry to finish, or having trouble shutting off my brain to focus on my lady bits, I’ll find something quickly and click. Steph and I have never really watched together – (though we’re going to work on that by buying some stuff and not living such separate sex lives) – we’ve always had issues with the types of porn that the other likes and gave up trying to find something we could both enjoy.

But no more! Well, ok I will likely still be a click, gratify kinda’ girl, but I will also add to it by purchasing and watching good videos that add to my sexual relationship with myself, my husband and hopefully my lovers.

Anyway …

The conference opened with Brenda Crossman, Director of the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, and professor of family law, gender and law, and law on film. Here’s some highlights from her talk:

• The adult entertainment industry is suffering the same fate as the newspaper industry as more and more people are getting their content, for free, online. Hustler’s suffering just like the New York Times. (Note: *Free might be the right term for the consumer, but many times we click on a Tube8, PornHub, XHamster or other video, we’re watching content that was originally meant to be purchased.)
• Though the stats are unreliable, from 2005 – 2007 the porn industry shrank by $600m in sales
• Porn companies are starting to catch on, allowing the consumer to watch a certain amount of a video for free before reaching the “sweet spot” of time spent that encourages people to take out their credit cards and watch the rest.

Next up was Sherrie Quinn, 4th-year Philosophy and Sexual Diversity Studies student. Growing up as a kid watching Sex TV in 1999 (I was 19 then, how cute is she?), Sherrie didn’t experience the same gradual transition as the rest of us as porn culture became more mainstream. While her presentation was very much like listening to someone read their thesis out loud, she also had some good points and spoke about how hardcore has proliferated into western society.

• In the US, ten to eleven thousand porn films are made EACH year
• We as a society don’t think twice about seeing pornographic style images in modern culture. American Apparel will sell you porn in the form of $40 striped socks.
• “Porn Sheik” has become a taken for granted advertising gimmick.
• Hardcore porn was not available in Britain until 1998. (Ah, my mother country and its old fashioned ways.)

Next up was Bruce La Bruce; a Toronto based filmmaker, writer, photographer, and artist. He bean his career in the mid-eighties making a series of short experimental super 8 films and co-editing a punk fanzine called J.D.s, which begat the queercore movement.

LaBruce was interesting to listen to as he spoke of his life as The Reluctant Pornographer saying that lately when asked why he makes porn, he’d call it kind of a bad habit. He had a lot of great things to say, and again … here’s a summary:

• Punk has the same root as the word faggot.
• Porn was originally made in the 60′s by filmmakers moonlighting after hours. They’d spend their weeks working on regular Hollywood films and their nights on their love for porn.
• Amateur video used to be very personal but porn on video lead to a capitalization of the industry, allowing it to be taken over by the mainstream.

Am I an artist or a pornographer?

As LaBruce creates, he combines unexpected genres like avant garde and experiemental trying to transgress the boundaries limiting the audience. He made the decision early on to not let family disapproval influence his choices and has gone on to have his work featured in numerous international film festivals.

Some of my favorite snippets of his talk were:

• Porn starts are some of our best martyrs, sacrificing themselves on the sexual drives of the masses.
• Contrary to popular belief, porn stars are people too and it takes a really strong moral compass to navigate the world of porn. There are a lot of damaged people working in the industry and having a strong sense of personal ethics to deal with what can be a very fucked up industry is crucial.
• Exploitation is rampant in the industry, but there are people out there changing that. Sasha Grey filmed a scene where 15 guys came in her mouth and she didn’t seem exploited at all. She is not the norm though.

Finally the keynote speaker, Tristan Taormino came on stage.

Tristan took us on a trip back through the history of porn on video, avoiding the topic of internet pornography, deciding instead to focus on video throughout the decades. What have the big, and not so big, names been making and how has it changed?

The 1980′s was the birth time of feminist porn, with the 90′s heading more into unexplored territories like S/M and sex education. Tristan herself made it onto the education scene along with Annie Sprinkle, Betty Dodson, Deborah Sundahl, Nina Hartley and others.

The 2000′s brought about a decade of diversity; lesbian, dyke & queer porn with gender fluidity, WW3 westerns, kinky and Buck Angel, the 1st independently funded FTM crossover star to sign a deal for mainstream distribution.

As the decade went on, community based subgenres started to appear with alt, punk, indie and art porn.

When Tristan decided to make her first video, the thought sort of hit her like “Hmm, how about making a video?!” So she wrote a proposal that she managed to get in front of a bunch of porn big-wigs. One day the phone rings … and it’s Buttman.

Buttman, is on the phone.

He said he liked her proposal and asked her if she was going to Vegas. She said “Yes!”, hung up, and thought … “What’s Vegas?”

Once she realized it’s where the AVN’s were being held, she hopped on a plane to meet him and ended up signing the deal to make her first movie. Taormino decided to be in the last scene of the film, having sex with the entire cast. Having never taken so much as a polaroid of herself having sex, here she was about to have a 13 person gangbang.

In 2005, Taormino returned to porn, feeling that the gonzo movement had become corrupted. Rather than being an honest experience for the viewer, gonzo was focusing more on circus like acts, like how many holes can be impaled at once?

Gonzo became the antiporn feminists worst nightmare.

When Taormino filmed “Chemistry”, she challenged the porn formula, letting the actors speak for themselves, setting it up more like a reality show that took place over 36 hours. The process of selecting a cast involved heavy consideration of each actors “yes” and “no” lists – the people they would and would not appear with on camera. She wanted to show that porn actors are more than just sexual objects, that they are people and it’s important to treat them as such. Each actor was interviewed to find out who they are, with questions being asked like “What do you like about your job?” and so on.

This challenges the porn formula as men in porn often don’t speak, or even have their face shown. They are often simply … just a dick.

It’s a formula that Taormino follows in her other films such as “Rough Sex” where actresses describe their own personal submission fantasies, and are able to act them out with cast members they want to work with, in a scene that makes them feel safe.

Not the first thing you think of when you hear the expression ‘Feminist Porn’, but here’s how Taormino describes that idea.

Feminist porn is:

• fair and ethical processes
• safe working conditions
• collaboration with performers
• respect for STD testing and condom use
• positive representations of genders and orientations
• pleasure for everyone
• showing that actors are three dimensional human beings
• not telling people where to fuck, allowing them to choose. If given a choice, most actors will choose a bed because … it’s comfortable.
• against messages from society that porn is dirty or a mans world

It’s not the granola hippie arm hair movement that so many of my guy friends seem to think it is. It’s not just about lesbian or queer pornography, instead it focuses on good movies for all. Porn doesn’t have to be something that men watch when their wives are away, there is 100% something for everyone in the industry.

Come and celebrate Feminist Porn at the Good For Her Feminist Porn Awards, taking place tomorrow, April 9th at the Berkeley Church in Toronto.

Interested in a new way to watch porn? Check out Hot Movies For Her where you can watch movies by the minute. Satisfy the Click! Gratify! urge, or relax and watch some story.

Check out some of the above mentioned peeps, as well as other great people involved in feminist porn on my Twitter List! Did I miss someone? I’m sure I did! @reply me and let me know!

As a special treat, I’ve decided to share with you a condensed version of a chapter out of my book, Not Your Mothers’ Playground, that I’m hoping on finishing in the next few months. I’ve been meaning to write a post about coming out poly for a while now, and when I realized I’d already written it, I thought it seemed the best time to share with you.

I hope you enjoy this sample condensed chapter of the book. If you want to get on the mailing list to stay up to date on when the book is released so that you can read the entire thing, please message me at notyourmothersplayground@gmail.com.

Coming out as a couple.

Coming out and revealing your new lifestyle to family and friends possibly seems like a very overwhelming concept. Especially if your life up until now has been pretty standard societal fare; getting together, maybe getting married, possibly buying a house, or at least being quite serious. Why should you tell your family and friends when it’s bedroom business? There’s no rule to say that you should, it comes down to every individual couple’s level of comfort. You might feel better keeping the details of last week’s foursome to yourself, but telling people about your overall choice might be rewarding for you.

Coming out as a single poly.

Being single and poly can often bring the harshest judgments. A girl I know is dating a married man, but not his wife and she is constantly hearing snarky comments from those around her. They tell her she can do better, that she shouldn’t let him take advantage of her, that he’ll never really be with her because he has a wife already. Funnily enough, she’s ridiculously happy with him. Even knowing how happy she is though hearing this sort of thing can certainly wear on you, and there’s nothing that makes it easier except knowing that your skin will get tougher. Eventually you’ll tune those people out, or you’ll be able to find others that accept your choices because they are a part of you.

Embracing your new selves

If you’re like many people in modern society, you’ve grown up with the image of man and wife getting married, living happily ever after. Even though times they are a-changing, we still have some programming deep within ourselves that needs to be undone.

Accepting my new open self was an interesting journey. Everything that Steph and I were feeling we were beginning to read in books and online articles. Still, I questioned my new path. If it felt so right, how come I hadn’t thought of it before? Here’s some questions and answers that might help you come out … to yourself:

Is this just a phase? Maybe. Maybe not. Would it really be so bad if this were your new identity?

Does this make me a freak? Of course not. There are so many other crazy things in the world that you could be doing to make yourself a freak, don’t worry about wanting to enjoy a happy sex life and relationships as part of that! Call me crazy but the idea of enjoying myself and wanting to share my life with other people that want me makes me feel perfectly normal, never freakish.

Do I have to always be open? Do you have to always have long hair? No, of course not. Your dating life is just like any other aspect of your self. If you can ask yourself what you would like for dinner, you can ask yourself how many you’d like at the table. You might end up in a relationship where you don’t want to date anyone outside of it at some point. As long as you’re happy and living in the present, that’s what matters.

Will God still love me? Now I’m an atheist, but for those of you who worry about this one and are feeling guilty about wanting more than one partner, here’s my personal belief. God should still love you, regardless of who’s in your bed, because, well you’re awesome. You are awesome, aren’t you?

Am I awesome? I thought we just covered this!

Mom, Pops & Aunt Judy

Telling the family. Doesn’t this sound like the most fun you could have on a Friday night? If by that I mean it’s about the same as a root canal, then yes. Fun times await. It’s possible that you have a family you will never be able to tell. The new generation of polyamorous and open folk often stem from families still rooted deeply in the nuclear family ideal. Your decision to tell them really rests on how much of your life you choose to share. Personally, I realized early on into my open life that this was more than who I am in the bedroom and that being open makes up such a large part of me. Therefore I had to share.

When I told my mum, I had been open for about eight months. It was important to me that I knew enough about what I was doing to tell her with confidence. I didn’t want her to worry, as I suspected that a lot of parents would. When it finally came to light, she knew that I had something to tell her and had decided she wanted to guess my secret:

“Ok, you’re in an open marriage and you’re bisexual and Steph’s a little bit as well.”

Except for Steph being bi, she hit that nail square on the head. Since that chat, she will occasionally ask me how my ‘lifestyle’ is going. It’s unfortunate that we live across the ocean from each other as I’m positive that if we were geographically closer she would feel more comfortable with the situation. Every now and then I’ll get a little warning about how people can switch partners, and hearts can get broken and I have to remind her that the swinging 60’s and 70’s are a far cry from the ‘lifestyle’ that I am in. This is not my mother’s playground after all.

There are some things that I have trouble talking to her about. For instance, during one extended phone conversation my mum asked me about being bisexual. My reflex was to instantly become as straight as possible, deny all interest in girls, and girly bits and say what I thought she wanted to hear.

If I’d thought a little harder about it I would have remembered something she said to me in the kitchen when I was about 15 years old.

“Darling I don’t care which way you swing as long as you’re honest.”

Good ol’ Mum.

Telling my mother in law did not feel as easy. Steph and I took a lot longer to tell her, completely unsure of how she would react. I was worried that she would resent me. She loves her sons dearly so to discover that her daughter-in-law is out there loving up on other people might have caused some awkward times. However it seems we did not give her enough credit because when we did tell her – by handing her over a copy of my interview on polyamory in the National Post, one of Canada’s nationwide newspapers – she was amused and started to regale us with naughty stories from her youth.

Steph just about fell off his chair.

That same article was presented to us one Christmas by Steph’s uncle at a family party. We were asking why he had called us the ‘modern couple’ in the email invitation that went round. He said he had been reading the paper and up popped our picture.

“That’s my nephew!” he exclaimed.

Then we all had a drink.

A lot of our family, extended, step, original, are on Facebook. We list ourselves as being married, because well, we are! But I don’t shy away from sharing blog posts or interviews on my page, knowing that everyone can see it. By us being normal about it, not shoving it down people’s throats but not trying to hide it either, so far things have been fine. People ask if they want to know, but most of the time they keep their questions to themselves. Typical family style, I’d say!

You might not have the same luck that we have had. Religion, tradition, and an unwillingness to adapt with the times may make it next to impossible to share your new selves with your family which totally sucks. Being unfairly judged or outcast is not fair and I hope that this isn’t your experience. If however you do find yourself up against some impossibly steep walls, here are some facts to remember, that I am pretty confident are true, or at the very least applicable to some of you.

Your family loves you. They might also love Jesus to the degree where nothing is done without his invisible permission, or they’ve just grown too accustomed to the pickles up their asses to have any interest in removing them.

They want you to reassure them that it’s ok. This is exactly the vibe I get from my mum when we speak. Even if she wasn’t a big hippie back in the day and not as relaxed about it as she is now, she would still want to know that her daughter is ok. That’s generally how parents roll. Even those with the hardest asses.

Despite appearances and what you might be so used to feeling, these people don’t own you. Be grateful to your family for raising you, feeding you and putting a roof over your head but don’t forget at the end of the day to live your life for yourself.

Friends and Party People

If we’ve done it right, our friends are more like our family. Outside of our co-workers, these are the people we strive to spend the most time with. We have friends for all occasions, drinking, dancing, staying in, being dramatic, being calm and bestest friends forever, or BFFs as the kids say.

Most people have friends they have known for years. Over the years things change, and you might find those that you are really loyal to, you don’t have that much in common with. Understandably, you might not want to come out to them, but they also might be really willing to listen, considering your history.

Telling our friends was a slow process. A few people knew already since being open for me started when I worked at Starbucks … with friends. It became somewhat of an exciting journey for them. If I had a dollar for every time someone’s told me they like living vicariously through me, I’d be one rich gal.

What we have learned from our friends is that some of them want to know what’s going on, and others don’t. We’ve learned to respect everyone’s boundaries, realizing that some people might not be comfortable with our choices but they still want us in their lives, and that’s important. Some of our best friends don’t practice polyamory and we enjoy our differences. It makes for interesting conversation!

The thing that works for us the best is just being normal about it. You may choose to be more secretive or selective with your bedroom business, but we have found that if we treat our dating lives as a normal thing and not something taboo, the people we know are that much more comfortable. We don’t push it down their throats but we don’t pretend it doesn’t exist. It’s as normal to us as their lives are to them.

Everyone else

You’re with some friends, they know about your relationship status, but these strangers don’t. If you’re like me, you’ll have some over excited friends who like to tell your stories for you and will introduce you by your relationship first, name second. There are sometimes when I do wish that I could tell my own story and not have a friend blabbermouth it, but luckily for me, I like talking about my open marriage – you may have guessed this already though!

What do you do when someone else decides to share your secrets? This can be pretty annoying, speaking from experience. Just because I’m comfortable talking about something with people I know doesn’t mean that they have the right to share with others. What can you do, really once the secret is out? Best to take a quiet moment to talk to your friend and ask them to check with you next time.

Next we move onto all the other people in your life, coworkers, the postman, or woman, etc.. Coworkers are a big one; we can spend more time with people we work with than we do our own partners and friends. Depending on your place of work, most people would probably advise you to keep your personal life out of the workplace, and I’d have to agree. Unless it’s something that you find really necessary, as in “Hello friendly receptionist. My other girlfriend might be dropping by later. Don’t worry, I’m not having an affair. Susie fucks her too.”

When Steph and I worked together at a since defunct local video game studio we were friends with a lot of the other employees and I felt quite comfortable. At first we weren’t going to tell them, but then it just started to become normal to us and so we shared. Slowly at first, with those we were closest to. We were really surprised with the reactions we got. No one was noticeably put off by it. Some were intrigued, others just wanted to know where we were going for lunch.

As I’ve said before though, I was lucky. I also indirectly told the bosses at my next job when they interviewed me. I said I was writing a book, they wanted to know the topic. 1 + 1 being two, I think they figured it out. I realize as well that it’s much easier for me to tell people about my open relationship. I write about it, people ask me what I write about. Bingo bango, secret revealed.

It probably won’t be as easy for you. People are programmed to judge. There will be questions, snarky comments, things that make you question yourself and, if applicable your partner.

At the end of the day, it is your bed to sleep in.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTQJ2QiK4QU]

Play the above while reading. Just for fun.

Whether it’s wanting to grow up and be an astronaut, dreaming of how to spend your lottery winnings, or imagining yourself in bondage ropes, suspended from the ceiling watching helplessly as your girlfriend fucks your best friend … we all fantasize about something. Or a lot of things.

Having fantasies is a normal part of life. They can be a place to visit where we cannot go in reality. Sometimes fantasies can be thoughts that if we given the chance in reality to pursue, we never would, and other times they are based on ideas we have done in the past, or cannot wait to do in the future.

Over the years of knowing myself, almost 30 to be precise, I have realized things about the way I fantasize. I am a daydreaming, sentimental, romantic, horny, lame ass sap. These things, when combined with the option of having multiple partners can be pretty messy in normal life and require a little extra effort to contain, but in the fantasy world, I am so ridiculously grounded in reality that sometimes I bore even myself.

I remember my first active daydream / fantasy. It consisted of me going to a male friends’ house, sort of in the middle of nowhere. The guy wasn’t anyone in particular. (ie: I think this was when I was starting to dream about having a boyfriend which I never thought possible when I was a young, fat, dorky teen.) To convince myself that it was plausible that I would end up staying over at his place, there had to be a massive snowstorm. Think “Baby it’s cold outside.”, for inspiration, just less old man pervy. As I grew older I used to pretend I was completely drunk and couldn’t go anywhere, but for the sake of sounding less alcoholic, let’s stick with a snowstorm.

My friend, the gracious imaginary man that he was, offered me his bed. So, wearing just my undies and one of his big button shirts – don’t women always look so sexy like that? – I tried to sleep there while he slept on his couch. At some point in the early hours of the morning, I would awake to find him sneaking into the bedroom to grab an extra pillow and blanket because he was cold and uncomfortable in the living room. His linen closet was in the bedroom you see, because things like that make sense in fantasies.

I would wake up and tell him to just come and sleep in his bed with me. We were just friends and I wouldn’t stand for him sleeping on the cold couch. He’d fight it, I’d say that if he didn’t join me I’d sleep on the floor beside him and then he’d feel like a real asshole.

And so he’d climb into bed with me, and we’d say a sweet good night. And throughout the night I’d maybe touch his feet and accidentally snuggle with him.

Then that’s it! We’d get in bed, and the fantasy would end. I would never dream about the foreplay, the touch, the sex, the orgasms. Instead I would dream about the set-up, the story, the personalities involved. Then I’d end my daydream and go to sleep.

Before I met Steph I had a very close friend who I had a massive crush on. The first night that he stayed at my house, after a night of drinking, my fantasy pretty much came true. Except the difference being that he was flirting with me all night, and then convinced ME to sleep in my bed with him. Years of thinking about it, and what happened?

Nothing.

I didn’t know what to do with the actual reality in front of me. I had spent so much time perfecting the fantasy that the real life I had waited for didn’t stand a chance. We continued to share a bed and almost date after a few months, but never as we should have and then he left my life.

You’d think I would have learned my lesson but every fantasy, every daydream from then on was the same. If something didn’t make sense logically when I’d lie there and close my eyes, it wouldn’t happen in my dreamworld. When I fantasize about lovers, current and past. I think of the situations that I sometimes wish existed. I imagine a world, albeit momentarily, with a totally different set up and just when I’m about to fall into that fantasy my brain says “Hey, what about Steph? What about your job? What about the family? How could you fantasize about being in this house or their house when other people live there?”

And when I can’t come up with an answer, I’m back at square one. I have an incredibly vivid imagination and yet I cannot even find a mental closet to store my husband in for a little while!

When I talk to Steph about his fantasies, they’re mainly all about sex. A lot of guys, and girls that I know are the same. They picture the act from start to finish and I picture the set up leading up to the act. While my friends in high school were mentally fucking Brad Pitt, I was randomly running into him at a bar and making sure the story made sense before anyone mentally undressed anyone.

It’s not that sex and things I want to try aren’t on the brain all the time. I’m one of the most perverted people I know but I put things on to-do lists instead of in fantasies because if my vagina is going to think about it, you can be damn sure I’m going to try my hardest to make it happen. I use memories or visual aids – fancy term for porn – to aid in sexual fantasies if I’m masturbating or just thinking dirty, but inventing things to do when naked just isn’t my strong suit. Maybe because I really just enjoy being with someone so much that I’m often not fussed and will gladly do feels right or what they tell me when we’re fucking.

However, leading up to that? If you don’t make sense in my little logic daydream or memory bank, you ain’t getting close to that stage.

Sorry Brad. I’ve tried a million times and you and I will never work.

(Wentworth Miller, you can ignore everything I just wrote and just come home with me. We shared a moment in that dream I had once a few years ago where you kissed me and I probably should’ve mentioned that anything that happens in “sleeping dreamworld” vetoes all of the above.)

Addendum: Though I wouldn’t categorize them as fantasies, but maybe they are kind of the same thing, my dumb logic brain does allow me to have wishes. I have wishes about those I love that I know cannot come true. But see wishes inevitably make me a little sad so I don’t like to count them.

I have a personal rule that I try to follow as much as possible. I don’t like to blog when I’m angry or emotional. I know I’ve done it in the past, but I highly prefer not because then I hit you folks with emotional diarrhea and I embarrass myself on the off chance that I come back and read over what I’ve posted.

But … today sucked. And I can’t hide the fact that it sucked, and I’m having trouble saying any words out loud. I’ve barely said anything all day but I firmly believe that I still have a quota of sentences that I have to release so typing is how they’re coming out today.

It’s Friday the 13th and the day started off pretty dumb, but then just got progressively worse. I’m feeling really lost and dumb as a post at work lately, making fuck ups left and right and not grasping concepts with work I’ve never done, but still … I should be able to grasp. I know it’s a means to an end, but I’m letting it effect me substantially and it’s hella’ depressing. That alone was enough to ruin my day until I started thinking about something that’s come up recently.

Steph and I both went on lovely first dates the other night with girls from okCupid. (More on my lovely date later.) When I got home, we didn’t really talk about it. For some reason I’ve always been defensive immediately and haven’t wanted to hear anything about his dates – something I’ve been trying to figure out for a long time. He also doesn’t tell me much, thinking that I’m going to have a problem – more on this in my next post. Anyway, so after I get over that, we talk and I hear more about her. She lives up the road – which immediately I find to be a combo deal. That’s half really great, easy, convenient; I’m envious yeah, but whatevs. And then the other half is that it’s too close. Too easy to visit, too easy to spend way too much with her – if things were to get that far, of course. I’m lucky because Steph realized that half before I did and expressed similar anxiety which made me feel much better.

Eventually we ended up having a relationship conversation. One that was definitely very overdue and started very innocently. While telling me about the date, with adorable, cute enthusiasm – which I absolutely cannot knock because I’m so proud of him for becoming so comfortable with meeting people when he used to dread it – he said that it was cool that we could learn about the neighborhood from someone who lives in it.

This is where my feelings changed. We’ve lived in the neighborhood for five years. There’s quite a few places we have visited and quite a lot more that we haven’t. It’s easy to fall into a rut when you’re living anywhere. You stick to the same places based on your schedule, your preferences, whatever. But something I know very well is how much Steph has always been pretty negative about new things. Trust me, the man has gotten SO much better, but he is always the first one to “put the brakes” on something new whereas I’m often up for anything.

So why did it irk me when he said what he said? Well I suddenly realized one of the reasons I’ve often been uncomfortable with him dating other people. Keep in mind that this is a few years worth of buildup and I’ve only just articulated it. So many times I’ve suggested doing something fun, something that he and I can share as an experience together. Whether it’s try a new restaurant up the road, or a night out, we’re supposed to be partners and best friends – makes sense to do fun things together. Citing cost and practicality he’ll often reject the idea, not realizing that by doing so I feel he’s rejecting me. Of course he’s allowed to not want to do the same things as I am, he’s his own person sure. If it’s something like going to the grocery store – something we have to do – of course he’ll go, but anything “fun” that we haven’t done before (or sometimes things we have done) he’ll say no to, and not always because he’s opposed to it, just because he’s basically being lazy. So when he tells me excitedly that we can learn about the neighborhood from this new chick, I suddenly realized how I’ve felt rejected for years.

I get cost and practicality. Dates get enthusiasm and agreeance.

She gets it!

The “shiny and new” syndrome doesn’t just affect going out in relationships. It can affect how we relate, how your sex life at home is vs. your sex with other people. It’s easy to do new things with new people. There’s less expectations and less history to base judgments off of. It’s also easier to try something new that you’ve wanted to for a while because someone else is there to motivate you. What’s happened to us is that over the years I’ve stopped trying as much. I’ve adapted my idea of fun to fit my situation. I’ve gotten very good at convincing myself that certain things are in my past and that’s why we don’t do them when the truth might be that Steph just says no so much that I’ve given up.

The problem I face now is suddenly my heart is filling with resentment. That’s totally my emotion and I own it, but that doesn’t currently make it any easier to deal with. I feel like I’ve been cheated out of fun for years. Or that I’m somehow not worth having fun with and it’s left me feeling very insecure about it on top of a lot of other insecurities I’m feeling lately. I’m angry and sad all at once. I totally hate the idea of Steph meeting someone new but NOT because I’m opposed to him dating, but because I’ve suddenly realized all of these feelings related to something I’ve been missing out on. In addition, I think it has trickled over into our sex life. I feel like I haven’t been fucked by anything besides something I was controlling for weeks. Granted I was busy at work, got the flu, and then had a period accompanied by gross migraines, but I think the practicality has seeped into there as well.

One of the reasons why I seem to be “on” all the time when in the company of the Drapers is that I’m not around them as much as I am Steph. The opportunities to let loose and enjoy naked times over there are few and far between so even if I’m not initially feeling it, I allow myself to be constantly open to fucking so as to not let an opportunity pass. But why doesn’t that happen at home? It’s so easy at home to make excuses for not having sex, or not trying the new restaurant.

We can always do it tomorrow.

But the problem with that mentality is that there’s always another tomorrow and things get pushed and pushed and pushed. It happens to both monogamous and non-monogamous couples. The catch with non-monogamous couples is that we get to try the new things with other people, which can be a great thing – but sometimes not so much.

Like right now, I just want to feel like my husband wants to do fun things with ME. Not necessarily in place of someone else, but just as well. Go out and have fun on your dates, but then have fun with me too! It’s not such a big demand. Trust me, I can be a laugh riot, but I’ve lost my confidence with him in the bedroom and in the neighborhood. Practicality has gotten in the way so much that I don’t want to suggest anything anymore – though I still do because I’ll never really lose my enthusiasm. Honestly though, often I’d rather find someone else to go out with because it’s more likely they’ll say yes to my crazy or not so crazy schemes.

But if I do that, then we continue to both lose. I need to keep trying. I need to find things we can share together and not give up so soon. And he’s admitted that lately stress has caused him to take me for granted. He hasn’t let me in and I’ve felt it. The other day I came home with some life changing news – that I’ll share with you when I can – and he asked nothing of it. I felt embarrassed to bring it up because it seemed obvious that he wasn’t interested.

And that’s dumb of both of us. We recognize that we need to get better at this. Doesn’t that sound like a strange thing to say?

“We need to get better at having fun together.”

Whatever. There it is.

Wheeeeeeeeee!

*Addendum: We DO have a lot of fun doing a lot of stuff. Don’t get me wrong. There’s just a lot of new and different stuff that I’d like to try as well.