polyamandhellaglam:

“That’s just getting permission to cheat.” The explanation here is easy, its not cheating if you have permission and comparing a person in happy healthy relationship to a cheating scumbag is cruel. 

“That’s so greedy.” Greed implies that someone is hoarding something, however you’ll notice, in polyamory people are allowed to date others. All comments of the greedy variety, even as jokes, come off as mean spirited and insulting.

“You’re such a slut.” Even as a joke or a compliment, using slut shaming language about the way that someone experiences their own romantic and sexual attraction is mean. Even if you’re using it to be friendly, nobody else ever is, and the majority of people will not enjoy being called a slut. 

“Why isn’t one good enough?” Polyamorous people do not feel devalued by having their partners take on more partners. We do not feel as through we are being treated as not good enough. That’s not what its about. And if you’re not dating us, why should we explain our romantic experience to you?

“Don’t get used to it, you can’t marry both.” Mean. This is mean. You’re not being brutally honest or preparing them for the future. You’re being mean. 

“I’d never date a guy with two girlfriends.” Any variety of the “well Iwouldneverdo that” isn’t kind. First, if you’re monogamous, they know already. Second, they don’t want your opinion on their relationship.

“Do they know about each other?” If someone says they have two partners, this cannot be your first response. You are assuming right off the bat that they are cheating, a terrible thing to do. Assume their partners know. If they were cheating, they probably wouldn’t tell you.

“I’ve cheated before too, I get it.” Your experience in monogamous relationships is more similar to polyamory than cheating is. Don’t compare cheating to polyamory, ever.

“Well as long as they know about each other that’s okay.” First, they’re not looking for your approval or for you to tell them it’s okay. Second, this is another example of treating polyamory like its similar to cheating. Assuming that cheating is the baseline and polyamory is just “okay cheating” is both incorrect and mean. 

Polyamorous relationships are valid as fuck

polyamandhellaglam:

When people try to devalue polyamory they’ll bring up stories of people who had bad abusive polyamorous relationships. They take stories of cults, people who forced their partners to accept live in mistresses, and people without sexual boundaries and show them as proof that polyamory is dangerous, sexually deviant, and unsafe to be around kids. However each of these examples isn’t evil because its polyamorous. They’re bad for other reasons. They include abuse, lack of communication and consent, double standards, brain washing, bad relationship rules, and lack of basic human decency. These things exist within bad monogamous relationships too. 

Bad relationships will be bad whether they’re monogamous or polyamorous. Abusive isn’t intrinsic to either group. People being abused in polyamorous relationships shouldn’t be encouraged to become monogamous, they should be encouraged to escape. 

Share if you’re polyamorous or support polyamory

This Is Us

I get so tired of hiding who I love. Every day, I want to just scream it from the rooftops and love who I love, outloud. I want to post pics of my BF and me like it’s common knowledge and no big deal. Our polycule’s 6 year anniversary is coming up, and I want to show off cutesy pics of the 4 of us and tell our story.

I want to not give a shit about what people think, the judgement we would inevitably get, or the friends I’d probably lose (but were they real friends anyway if they don’t love me for who I am?).

While not out to most friends and family, we don’t hide it in the general public. I always hope that someone runs into us somewhere and the cat is out of the bag. I want to say, “yep, THISISUS, we’re all happier than a fat kid with cake, and we’re no different than yesterday when you didn’t know we were romantically involved.” It seems so unnatural and weird to love someone so much but just “be friends” in so many settings and to so many people.

polyintheburbs:

Ad on the New York subway. Normalize polyamory

Word.

This weekend was complicated and difficult and fun. I learned a lot about myself, picked up a couple new tricks, and cried a lot, not all for fun reasons.

I discovered that yep, poly is hard, and apparently I have some hangups about sex that I wasn’t fully aware of. I feel better about things than I did, but I’m not over it by any means. I have jealousy to work on, and, according to one thing Reaction Junkie lobbed at me, I’m codependent. He didn’t mean it in a cute way, either. He’s probably right. I do tend to get attached and needy. I thought he was somewhat similar, and he may be, but not to the same extent. Or something. I don’t know. I’m going to talk to him about it, but since I’m vomiting feelings here anyway, I thought I’d write that down before I forgot.

I have a rule that I want to put in place, but Reaction Junkie most likely isn’t okay with it. We set up a modified version, but I’m not sure it’s enough. We’ve talked a lot about it, and the accute upset feelings are gone, but I’ve still got lots of feelings bubbling under the surface. They’re coming out as I write this, as in I’m starting to cry after finally goring for more than an hour or so without doing so and I am concerned about getting passive aggressive in what I’m writing, so I’m going to stop.

I had some fun scenes with Reaction Junkie, had some one on one time with Anderson Cooper, and got to actually meet nankingdecade and had an awesome scene with him, but it’s going on take a while to fully process all the emotional stuff so I don’t know when, or even, to be honest, if I’ll be able to write up much.

Navel-gazing intensifies.

My roommate, Sunny, is dating/repeatedly hanging out with Boy Genius, The Unknown Quantity, and The Violinist.

First, I want to say that I’m happy for her that she has people. She has a lot of not great stuff in her life, so I’m glad that there are people she can spend time with and rely on.

But. I’m envious. Because she’s getting all of this play with different people, yes. But more than that, these are three people I used to have some sort of relationship with, either dating or play. And with each person, it ended because I wasn’t interested enough/didn’t give them enough priority, and not even necessarily out of an actual lack of interest, or at least not a long-lasting lack of interest.

Honestly, it was starting to date Reaction Junkie, combined with my spiral into depression, that ended each of those relationships. Plus some individual/specific things with each person. And I regret it.

With Boy Genius, Reaction Junkie didn’t like him for various reasons. He never told me to stop spending time with or playing with Boy Genius, but his opinion influenced my opinion and my actions, and I started doing less and less with Boy Genius. Reaction Junkie has since changed his opinion, and I did make an attempt to start playing with Boy Genius again a few months ago, but didn’t keep up with it. To be honest, that’s partially because, while I enjoy the play we did, he’s not quite as mean as I prefer. But it’s also because I spiraled into depression further.

With The Unknown Quantity, we played at events a bunch and I went to his place once. Then I guess I stopped going out as much because of depression and spending all my time with Reaction Junkie, and we didn’t play for a while. We attempted to get together again at one point, but by then neither of us was prioritizing the other. I was okay with that since it was equal. But more recently, I’ve made several attempts to play with him at events. I texted him beforehand expressing an interest in playing, but I never even got a response or an acknowledgement that I’d said anything. That really sucks. Being rejected, and being ignored. A month or so ago, I was at dinner with him and a few other people, including Sunny. At the end of the night, she asked The Unknown Quantity if he wanted to get together. He said yes, and that he was busy, but that he had time for her the next week. After they made their plans, I went up to him and asked if he wanted to get together. He said he was busy and didn’t have any time for the next month and a half. Well, fuck you, too. That really hurt, to see him make time for someone, and then the next moment to have him brush me off.

With The Violinist, I was the shittiest. We were dating for a few months, at least. We actually started dating not long after I started seeing Reaction Junkie. Which was not long before I started getting super depressed. Those things in combination meant that I didn’t treat The Violinist very well. I wasn’t doing poly well. Part of that was depression, yes, but part of it was me just not giving The Violinist the time and attention I should have. I kept canceling on him and didn’t make plans with I’m enough or spend enough time with him when we did get together. We actually got quite close. He knew all about my jealousy problems, and he talked them through with me. We spent a lot of good times together, but I wasn’t in a place where I could truly appreciate him. It took me far, far too long to realize that I shouldn’t have been dating someone else while in the throws of NRE and depression. We had a few conversations about our relationship, including one where we talked about spending less time together, but I really regret not figuring things out more quickly, and not having the guts to be as open and upfront as I should have been. I wish that I had told him I wanted to end things for the time being because I knew I wasn’t giving him the time and attention he deserved, and that I hoped that, once I was doing better, we could try again. I really, truly regret not having told him that.

I wish I could fix things with these people for a couple reasons. The primary one is, I admit, quite self-centered. I want more people to play with at happy hour and at events, both because I like playing with different people and because I know that when I play with other people and have fun, I have a much much easier time dealing with it when Reaction Junkie does things with other people. I’ve been hanging out with a couple of really awesome people lately (Not A Tumblr Dom and a great guy from okc/happy hour who has yet to be nicknamed), but they don’t come to happy hour, at least not regularly, and they don’t really come to events. Between Boy Genius and The Violinist, they come to happy hour pretty much every week, and The Unknown Quantity goes to a lot of events.

Besides just wanting more people to play with in general, I also miss playing with these people specifically. Even besides play, I don’t really interact with these people much any more, probably mostly because I feel awkward around them. I know that I have very compatible play interests with The Violinist and The Unknown Quantity. They both do mean rope (and are good at it) and they’re sadistic. I always really enjoyed the play I did with them; it’s exactly the kind of play I’m looking for. Even with Boy Genius, be is quite good at rope, and I had fun when I played with him, even if it didn’t exactly scratch my itch for pain.

Outside of play, these are all great people. I like talking with them and I really did enjoy spending time with them, and I miss it. Especially with The Violinist. We spent more time together than I did with anyone else except Reaction Junkie, and we had a lot of good times.

I get really envious of Sunny and the time she gets to spend with these people and the play she does with them. It makes me feel shitty about myself because I want to get more play and want to be wanted AND it reminds me of the fact that I wasn’t a good friend/play partner/partner to them. I want to ask them to play, but I think I’ll get rejected, and, honestly, I can’t blame them, especially The Violinist. I think I will try talking to them, especially Boy Genius and The Violinist, more at happy hour, though. Maybe I can start repairing the friendships/relationships I had with them.

Yesterday Reaction Junkie helped me go to my first therapy session with my new therapist. He came in at first, helping me get over my sudden desire to simply curl up and cry. We talked with the therapist for a while, and then I told Reaction Junkie that he should go enjoy happy hour. He got up and gave me a kiss. I told him, “Tell people I said ‘Hi.’” and he headed out.

I started talking to my therapist and he mostly listened quietly, but actively. I felt uncomfortable, a little awkward at first, but eventually settled in and opened up. I talked about work first, then talked about how being depressed has caused issues with social anxiety and made dealing with any poly issues more difficult.

During the conversation about poly, I mentioned what happened at the con Reaction Junkie and I went to about a month ago, and that’s when the tears came. I talked about how upset I’d been, and we got into my thoughts and feelings about poly, jealousy, how you’re “supposed” to do poly, and how I shame myself when I feel like I’m not doing poly “right.” (Obviously there isn’t one way to do poly, but my jerkbrain likes to convince me there is.) I could tell that dealing with poly and jealousy feelings is going to be a theme in my sessions with this therapist.

I brought up the fact that I’ve been having more issues with social anxiety in the past month or so, not being able to talk to new people, not wanting to go to social events, and the like. I said that I feel like I can’t think of things to say to people, and, while in the past couple months prior to this upswing in my depression, I would just shrug off an unsuccessful interaction, and move on, now I feel as though it’s the end of the world.

I talked about how how I compare myself to more outgoing partners and feel bad about the fact that I’m not. Partially because I feel like I should be/have a habit of negatively comparing myself to others, but also because I wish I was more extroverted and comfortable with new people. It would make life easier, and would make finding new partners easier.

That led to a discussion of the fact that when I don’t find new partners as easily or often as a partner, especially if that partner is my only partner and/or someone who is a primary or primary-esque, it makes me feel bad. Besides the fact that new people are fun (At least they used to be for me. Not so much lately, with the depression and all.), I feel vulnerable, like there’s a differential investment in the relationship, like they have more options, so they aren’t as concerned with me. That happened with MLAM. I <i>know</i> with Reaction Junkie that isn’t the case. For fuck’s sake, we’re talking about living together and our future and we spend a lot of time together and I can just tell from how he talks and treats me and acts with me that he is just as invested in our relationship as I am. But that doesn’t stop my depression brain from making me worry about him finding someone who is more interesting, more fun, a better rope bottom, toppier, less needy, etc. and deciding that I’m not worth that time and effort anymore.

We moved on to a more general discussion of me not being kind to myself, having negative self-talk, and beating myself up for things. I told him that within the last month or so, I’ve been having an issue where, when someone says something like “X is the best at <activity>” or “Z is so much fun to play with” what I hear is “You’re not good at <activity> and no one wants to do <activity> with you/you’re nowhere near as fun to play with. I said I knew that was silly, and my therapist replied, "Well, that’s depressed thinking.” Self-esteem (or lack thereof) and insecurity are also going to be big themes, I think.

As we discussed things, I connected the work stress, the poly difficulties, and a resurgence in my social anxiety. They’re all related in a harmful negative feedback loop, each causing the others to get worse. The work stress means that I use up all my emotional and mental energy at work. That makes dealing with any issues at home, especially with jealousy or other poly things, much harder. That upsets me and brings me down. Then I start being meaner to myself and being more insecure. That makes being at kink events more challenging, since I’ll do more negative comparisons to other people, hear negative things about me when people are actually just saying positive things about others, and struggle more with partners playing with other people. Then that makes me feel shitty about myself and worry that I can’t “do poly.” Social anxiety gets worse, as well, especially as I get more into a depressed mindset. And that, of course, feeds back into the poly insecurities about not finding new partners and differential investment. I get distracted and less productive at work, need to stay more and stay up later to get things done, and feel more rushed when deadlines approach. And then the whole damn thing begins again.

I compare how I am now with how I was the past few months before this, and I miss feeling excited about things, meeting new partners and friends, doing more play with more different people, finding it comparatively easy to counter negative self-talk, and being more resilient with social or other failures. I miss that old LFB and worry that she’s gone. I feel like my depression will continue indefinitely, that my friends and partners will be less interested in spending time with me because they’ll get annoyed by how I bring things down and get tired of dealing with my sadness. And then, of course, I feel even more upset about the loss of pre-depressive episode LFB and the life I was living.

Talking about everything and making connections and saying things out loud that I hesitate to verbalize was hard and sad and uncomfortable and made me cry. But it also made me feel better. That past LFB isn’t gone. The problems I’m having with countering negative-self talk and insecurities, with finding managing jealousy very difficult, and with social anxiety aren’t problems I’ve always had, at least not to this life-disrupting extreme. They started to get worse with added work stress, lack of sleep, and maybe even with some particularly bad PMS that all added together to start this awful negative feedback loop. And since those problems haven’t always be there in the same way, since I can start to see what might be causing them to get worse, that means I can figure out a way to deal with them. All is not lost. I won’t be like this from here on out. I can, and will, get through this and come out just as, if not more, capable of disrupting negative self-talk, brushing off things that are now pushing insecurity buttons, managing with jealousy, being more outgoing and extroverted, and dealing everything else that depression is fucking with.

I went into the session feeling despondent, and I came out feeling hopeful.

Before happy hour last night, Reaction Junkie and I attempted to go to this awesome new vegan place in the city. I led us on a wild goose chase to the location that was 1) Farther away from where happy hour is and 2) Not even open yet. Sigh. I was pretty embarrassed/mad at myself and decided to go to the location near happy hour (and by near it is literally a 1 minute walk from where happy hour is and you can see it from happy hour and oh gods I’m so bad at life sometimes) by myself and let Reaction Junkie start his night. As soon as my food came I cheered right the fuck up. A chicken burger with ranch, buffalo chicken wings, and spicy chocolate cake? Yes please! So fucking awesome.

When I got to happy hour, I was still feeling a little socially uncomfortable, so i drank my first drink pretty quickly, and wandered over to talk to people. MLAM had texted me about a girl, Pearl, who was new to happy hour and she and I had talked a little via text. When I found her, Reaction Junkie had already figured out who she was, and we all started talking. She’s great! She was fun to talk to, engaged, and interesting. MLAM is kind of ridiculous, helping me make a friend even when he’s not there. In fact, part of my conversation with her resulted in me talking to even more people and making more new friends, so he helped me make more than one friend.

After a little while, we all headed upstairs to watch Reaction Junkie tie up Kitten. While we watched, I started chatting with Pearl and other people, and by the end of the evening, we’d all (including Reaction Junkie and Kitten) bonded over the idea of sneaky drinking in public and wandering around the city some weekend soon. Reaction Junkie doesn’t drink (Useful! It’s one of the reasons I keep him around.), so he will be tasked with herding us cats, but he likes cats, so that’s all good.

Towards the end of the evening, The Violinist dragged me away to do a mini scene. He’d gotten me in rope for a little while on Saturday before I had to abort the scene, and was eager to get me in it again, because, as he said, “You really like being in rope, I could tell at the start.” He tied my arms behind my back and then made fun of me for being so turned on and grinding against him while straddling him. He teased me, both physically and mentally, hurt me, scratched me, grabbed me, bit me hard enough and long enough to leave marks, and kissed me a lot.

During our aborted scene on Saturday, The Violinist told me that he wanted to spend more time with me. The way he said it made me think he’d been thinking about it for at least a little while, and I was super happy to hear him say it. I definitely squeed inside. I told him I’d like to spend more time with him, as well. I think my dynamic with him is becoming more of a dating/relationship/partner thing than just (not just in a bad way, play partners are awesome!) a play partner thing.

So, while we were playing at happy hour, I was thinking about that, and about the fact that he’s leaving soon for a two week long road trip. As we made out and The Violinist hurt me, I said that I would miss him while he was gone. He kind of laughed at me, gave me a look, kissed me, and then said, “I suppose I’ll kind of miss you, too.” I grinned and looked at him, skeptical about the qualifications. I told him he should text me and that I’d send nudes whenever he wanted. He considered this and said I better do it every day. He gave me an assignment! I love assignments! Being given small, fairly simple tasks to do, especially to do daily, is something I really like. Assignments serve as a nice reminder of my role that I can get even when I’m not physically with a partner, and I feel warm and subby when I am given one, and then again, while I’m completing it.

The Violinist and I made out, talked, and cuddled until it was time to go to the fast food place next door. I said a final goodbye to him and headed over. There was more fun conversation to be had there, and then Reaction Junkie, Kitten, and I grabbed the train back to Reaction Junkie’s place. We’d had plans for a while to do another cuddle sleepover with all three of us, so this time I was prepared and ready. When we got on the train, there weren’t any spots where three open seats were near each other, but a guy got up and gave us his seat, so we all got to sit together. Reaction Junkie was oh so pleased for bringing home to sexy women. He’s pretty adorable.

We had some more great, if possibly too loud, conversation on the train on the way home. We got back and got ready for bed, and then started discussing sleeping arrangements. I had said I wanted to be in the middle, and I stuck with that. Normally I’m actually somewhat uncomfortable cuddling with people I’m not having sex with, for whatever reason (physical affection-deprived childhood??? weird issues with touching people??? idk), but this time I decided just to try it and see how I’d feel. Kitten was the littlest spoon, then me, then Reaction Junkie. I put my arm around Kitten and Reaction Junkie put his arm around both of us. I felt surprisingly at ease and comfortable with the physical contact. We flipped around a couple times, and got hella warm because there were three of us in bed, but I really enjoyed it. Kitten told me the next morning that I’m comfortable, which made me happy. She’s awful comfortable, too.

This situation with Kitten and Reaction Junkie is basically perfect training wheels to deal with jealousy and figuring out my feelings and how to be comfortable being around a partner and a metamour. She’s not exactly a metamour since she isn’t looking for a relationship and isn’t poly, which makes it easier to sort out my reactions. We’re going to have another cuddle threesome on Friday. This time, instead of feeling somewhat negatively about it, like the first time, or mostly neutral, like on Tuesday, I’m really looking forward to it.

Note: I wrote most of this entry a day or two after this happened.

A few Tuesdays ago, I was talking to some people when I kind of overheard Reaction Junkie talking to Kitten (An adorable, awesome, and attractive girl I’ve talked to a few times and who has been hanging out with Reaction Junkie. I later got dinner with her and she’s just wonderful.) and I thought I heard him say something about coming back to his place. I was also going back with him, so I wasn’t sure what was happening, but mostly put it out of my head.

When we got to the fast food place afterwards, I found a moment when Reaction Junkie and I were basically alone. I asked him if Kitten was coming back with us. He said yes, he’d invited her, and then, without prompting, he apologized for not having asked me first, and said that it just sort of happened. He then checked with me to make sure it was okay. I was happy that he apologized for not asking first, especially since I hadn’t needed to even say anything.

I thought about my feelings and told him it was okay, and semi-jokingly added that I had to be in the middle. I admit to feeling a bit upset, but I like Kitten, too, and the feelings were low level, plus I’d already started logicing them away. Even outside of the fact that other partners/friends don’t mean someone cares about you less, likes you less, or is less interested in you, there’s also the fact that she’s moving away soon, not interested in a romantic relationship at the moment, and isn’t poly. I feel a little bit weird/petty using those facts to help me deal with my upset feels, but they certainly are good points.

I put those negative reactions in the back of my mind and had a lovely rest of the evening with everyone and, on the train, with Reaction Junkie and Kitten. It was a little bit stressful, trying to manage my actions. I didn’t want to seem possessive, and insist on sitting next to him, but I also didn’t want to seem like I was mad at him and sit farther away. I know I was probably overthinking it, but I wanted to make sure Reaction Junkie didn’t feel bad.

When we got to Reaction Junkie’s place, we all talked and got ready for bed. Kitten was brushing her teeth, and Reaction Junkie was laying in bed. I went over to give him a kiss, and he again apologized, again without prompting, for not having checked with me before. He clearly felt bad bad about it. I forgave him. Then, when we were discussing who would sleep where, I said that I wanted to be next to him. I’d changed my mind about wanting to be next to kitten, in large part because I wasn’t sure how she would feel about it, but also because I don’t always feel comfortable cuddling with people I don’t really know. Reaction Junkie brought up the fact that I had said I wanted to be in the middle, and I asked him what he wanted. He hesitated, then said that of course he wanted to be in the middle. I said that we should do that. He checked in again, saying that what he wanted was less important than me being comfortable. I reassured him and wee climbed into bed and went to sleep, Kitten as the littlest spoon, then Reaction Junkie, then me.

I slept okay, but woke up in the middle of the night. As I tried to go back to sleep, Kitten shifted. Reaction Junkie cuddled closer to her and away from me. I had this flash of obviously sad jealousy. I tried countering it with some very obvious and straightforward logic, “He’s asleep. He’s not doing it on purpose. You can’t blame people for things they do when they’re unconscious like that.” and it mostly worked, but I went back to sleep still feeling a little down. A couple hours later, however, I woke up cold. The sheet had come off in the night. Before I could re-cover myself, Reaction Junkie reached down and pulled it back over me. It was a simple thing, but it immediately erased any lingering illogical sadness I’d had. Then, closer to when we were to wake up, he reached back and put his arm around me, cuddling both Kitten and me.

When we finally got up for real, we got ready for the day and went our separate ways. Before I even got to where I was going, Reaction Junkie had texted me to thank me for the previous night and to apologize again. He’s a very sweet boy, and I know he felt bad about not checking with me. I’m also glad that we did that, because Kitten and I hung out the week after that, which was fun, and we’re set to have another sleep over tomorrow night, and Friday night. I’m glad I got that chance to deal with some low-level, very obviously unfounded jealousy and see how I would react to it.

Study finds consensual non-monogamy is more common than people realize

Good news, but I’d love to see stories about other groups besides a MFF triad.

Happy Affection Day to all my followers. Also Happy Discount Chocolate Eve.

5 Radical Ways People Do Non-Monogamy That You Need to Know About - Everyday Feminism

A great comic explaining the diversity and media bias towards non monogamy.

Fun poly social media moments

One of my little pleasures is tagging my polycule with funny things. It gives me a sinister smile wjrn I am tagging and trying to figure out who might loke it and whom may not. So its this fun game of tag or no tag that makes me think of all the loves in my life. Specially when I get to tag my metamours and it means so much that I know them and the joy they bring my people.

bearsroyals:

Let’s be clear

I’ve been in the poly scene for about 5 years now and I want to make something absolutely clear to any old timers and up and comers.

There is NO WAY* to do poly wrong.

Some poly centric communities would have people believe there is only one way to do poly.

These communities are toxic cess pools who exist exclusively for sexual gratification.

That is not what poly is.

If you are uncertain about what poly is, allow me to direct you to the following:

Can you form a romantic bond with more than one individual? Then you are poly

That’s it. That’s the whole thing. Anything beyond that is personal preference and open communication.

* Unless of course you’re not communicating or lying. Then it’s not poly. It’s called cheating. And you’re an asshole.

A solid point. Wanted to share and add. There is not wrong way to do poly, only unhealthy or toxic behaviors. These exist in all form of relationships. Rock on my poly folk.