My eyes are over here

Hello—you—yes, you, the person speaking to my boyfriend. You know, that guy standing right next to me—the guy you are asking about whether or not you can come into my personal space. Yes, my space—not his—mine. So why exactly are you not speaking directly to me?

We are at a kink event so we must be power exchange, right? Well, no—but I am totally okay with the assumption that we are because, really, who cares? What I am not okay with are the assumptions that 1. Because I am female I must be submissive and 2. Being submissive, I am unable to speak for myself.

I does not matter if I identify as submissive or dominant, or somewhere in between--I have never given up being a thinking human being who is quite capable of answering a question about my own damn body.

The default should not be to ignore the female and ask the male you assume speaks for her—doing so treats her as someone with no identity of her own who only exists through her relationship to someone else.

If you want to hug me, ask me—if you want to play with me, ask me. If I am in a relationship that requires you to speak with someone else, I will tell you—please do not think that just because I am female and in a relationship that I have given up the right to be treated as an adult.

Mental vacation

There are times when my mind shuts down a bit—when I go inside myself as a direct result of the influence of other people. Sometimes this is a matter of self-protection, and sometimes it is a wonderful, meditative escape. It all depends on whose influence is being exerted.

There are really two types of other-people-induced mental vacation. The first is more of a shut-down than a vacation. I am a social person, but sometimes I just reach a point of mental over-stimulation and I need to go away and be where others are not, or at least where the bulk of others are not. This usually happens at a party when I have spent hours listening to people talk and adjusting to the music (dungeon parties are way too fond of Norwegian death metal). Eventually my brain can no longer deal with the noise and I either have to go off by myself or, preferably, have a person whose energy can absorb mine take me to a quiet corner and help me refocus. This doesn’t cure the over-stimulation—if we rejoin the party it still exists—but it makes it bearable for a time.

The other type of mental vacation is entirely about being completely engaged with the energy created by the person, or people, I am with--and about being content, and satisfied, and happy to just exist. In this case it is not about over-stimulation, but about balance, and energy that is stimulated just enough to calm me. I just reach a point when I no longer want to talk (though I am happy to listen to them talk). I don’t want to watch television, or listen to music, or do anything but sit and enjoy the peace that comes with this feeling. It is a sort of trance—a wee touch of subspace. It is the only time when my mind lets go of the insanity caused by the chaos that I surround myself with and lets go of its defenses.

That space is when I am at my most vulnerable. When I am in that space there is nothing but trust and the desire to be whatever I am meant to be in that moment.

I want

I want pain, but more than that I want connection--I want to feel the person topping me, to know them, to desire them, and to know that they desire me.

I want energy. I want my partner to be interested in the journey--not just the particular scene, but the combination of scenes that build on each other and create a comfortable, electrically charged space.

I want to look in her eyes and see the excitement she feels about what she is going to do to me. I want to know what it means when she presses against me, and when she is silent, and when her breathing becomes ragged and her fingers dig into me.

I want him to understand what it means when he is hitting me and I reach for any part of his body to grip. I want him to ride the orgasm with me and share in the laughter that always follows. And I want him to know this will happen, and how to make it happen, and to revel in it.

I want experience, and shared history, and the freedom to dive into my masochism--to let go. 

Sometimes

Every relationship I have had in the past 15 years has been poly in one form or another, and I don’t generally hide that fact, so I have had to answer my fair share of questions. When non-poly people find out I am in a poly relationship the most frequently asked question is always “don’t you want a man of your own?” The answer is yes, sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t want to work my schedule around another woman. Sometimes I just want to see my man when I want to see him. Sometimes I just want emotional and logistical simplicity.

But—there is always a but—the thing is that I don’t really want monogamy. I prefer poly. If I were in a monogamous relationship I would, at some point, want to turn it poly. I would feel completely stifled in a monogamous relationship—maybe not right away, but it would happen. I just do not see long-term monogamy as a viable relationship option.

I still have to deal with “sometimes.”