Earlier this week, I posted a blog entry called “mono guilt,” in which I felt like I was in a lose/lose situation regarding staying monogamous with Skyspook versus opening up our relationship. Since we mutually decided to close our relationship roughly a year ago and both report satisfaction with being sexually exclusive to one another, my anxieties regarding this baffled everyone, Skyspook, our friends – even me.
What was I so worried about? I wondered.
Through the course of discussing my issues with others, it dawned on me:
It was related to an incident that occurred with an ex, one of my former poly primaries, something I had never fully dealt with on a deep emotional level.
We’d discussed that having oral, anal, or vaginal sex with new partners for the first time when one or both partners were under the influence of alcohol was unacceptable, simply because of legal ramifications. Not to mention, the testing/safety protocols were unlikely to be adhered to, etc, when judgement was chemically impaired.
Well, this ex had been drinking and was quite horny, and a girl at a party (that neither of us knew terribly well and had a number of sexual connections with individuals we also didn’t know terribly well) offered to give him a co blow-job with me. I reminded him that was against our agreement. He called me a liar, blew up at me in front of all our friends, calling me a prude and a bitch, and threw a scene.
Lots of people gave me grief and started peer pressuring me into the sex act, on which I held my ground.
I realize I’m terrified of something like that happening again, being at a sexy party and pressured to do something or to okay Skyspook doing something I’m not mentally/emotionally/physically ready for.
*
I thought about it some more and realized that right now I have control over my sexuality. I love Skyspook, and the sex is wonderful, the epitome of enthusiastically consensual. I feel empowered, valued, adored. The trouble is, the more people I’m vulnerable to (and I really have to be truly vulnerable in order to love/feel loved), the more potential for abuse – and the more potential I have to have my sexual consent finessed away, coerced… It’s not hard to do when I love you, to pressure me. I can be so eager to please that I’ll do things that kill me on the inside and figure I just need to suck it up and push through.
With Ex-Husband, I found myself unicorn hunting and acting as bait for other women because he desperately wanted a triad – and that I damn well better sleep with other women to fulfill his harem fantasy, whether I was really attracted to them or not, let alone thought it was a good idea for pragmatic reasons. I had some pretty disappointing and soulless sex in the name of pleasing him.
Which is not to say he forced me to. He certainly did nothing of the sort. I forced me to. My love for him forced me to.
My love for others is dangerous.
*
My fears about being peer pressured to open our relationship under duress, on the spot, in front of witnesses, in a chemically altered environment have been assuaged. Skyspook was clear, loving, wonderful, reassuring my neuroses in a way that humbles me.
Poly or mono, I want to own my sexuality. It’s nice to know I’m not alone in this.