Why Submissive Skills Are Underrated

We're fans of kink. From the history of kink, to the psychology of BDSM, to skills around dominance. How about being submissive? Even though it's Dick & Dildo December, that doesn't mean you gents can hone your submissive skills! Ladies, you, too! Curious about being a submissive? Clarisse Thorn offers her perspective as a "BDSM Feminist" on why submissive skills are truly underrated. Wondering if you have what it takes to be a submissive? Read on.

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I write a lot about my experiences with BDSM — that’s a 6-for-4 acronym that covers Bondage, Discipline, Dominance, Submission, Sadism and Masochism. I have a fair amount of experience engaging in BDSM; I also have a fair amount of experience in the BDSM subculture. The subculture consists of meetup groups, educational workshops, dungeons where people practice BDSM, a set of well-reputed books and resources, Internet social networking sites, etc. The subculture also has its own norms and pitfalls.

Many BDSMers use the word “bottom” to refer to a masochist and/or submissive, and “top” to refer to a dominant and/or sadist. I am a switch, which means I feel comfortable in either the top or the bottom role. I haven’t observed every BDSM group in the world, but in my experience, one BDSM subculture pitfall is that we don’t explicitly teach very many “bottom skills”. In fact, a lot of the time, “bottom skills” aren’t even recognized as skills.

But bottom skills are totally the skillsiest skillz you can imagine. Let me start by describing my ex-boyfriend who was most in touch with his bottom side. When I met him, I was much less experienced than him at BDSM, and I was basically unaware of my top side. I think there are probably a lot more women than we think who would be up for being BDSM tops, but since cultural norms tell us that women aren’t dominant, lots of those women simply don’t recognize those feelings. My ex-boyfriend agrees, and as a result he’s specifically trained himself to surreptitiously draw out a woman’s dominant desires.

With me, he started by giving me the gift of his fear. We saw each other around the community a few times, and I guess he took note. Then one day, we were both at a BDSM meetup, and from nearby — while he was speaking to someone else — he remarked that I terrified him. He knew that I’d overhear.

I looked at him. He avoided my gaze. Eventually he worked his way around the crowd so he was actually speaking to me, and that was when he actually met my eyes and said directly to me, straightforward, in a charming and casual tone: “I’m terrified.”

Of course, this is vulnerability on a silver platter: it’s confident vulnerability. You scare me. Yet I’m still talking to you, even though I’m sure you could hurt me real bad. He was being so obvious, yet there were still so many tacit dimensions to what he was doing, and I had never quite seen anyone like him before. I was intrigued, and felt myself gain a predatory focus.

He was like that throughout our relationship. Throughout the flirting, throughout the BDSM encounters. He communicated very directly when there was a need for direct talking. But he also showed me so much of what to do. When I put my nails in certain places, he’d arch his body directly into them and groan. When I did something that was difficult for him, he’d get quieter and less responsive in an extremely obvious way while he dealt with it. He’s the only man I’ve ever seen who knew how to tip his head back for a kiss (he was also tall, so most women would have to be in very particular positions for this to work, ahem). A lot of this was instinctive, of course; many bottoms would recognize themselves in these tendencies … but he’d learned his own instinctive responses and fine-tuned them.

I want to make it clear here that I don’t want anyone to “perform” a type of sexuality that they don’t like; trust me, I know just how much a person can feel responsible for “acting out” their sexuality. I’ve been there. But that’s different from a person taking their own desires and reactions, and honing them for maximum communication power. That kind of thing takes experience and self-knowledge. Which is one of the things I value most about BDSM — the inner exploration it can enable. I just wish we taught about it better.

I definitely think the BDSM subculture is great at teaching certain topics: for example, how to perform certain activities safely. In major USA cities, there are often workshops on how to safely hit people with whips. Communication also gets a decent amount of airtime; for example, everyone in the community knows what a safeword is (indeed, a lot of people outside the community know about safewords, too). Sometimes, tops are even “judged” on their “dominant skill set”. But bottoms are usually seen as just being “along for the ride” — or are merely judged for “how far they’re willing to go”, which is even worse, because it discourages some bottoms from setting boundaries.

As a side note, here’s a pro tip on looking for tops. If you’re talking to a top who can’t stop bragging about how awesome and experienced they are, I advise you to walk away. Or perhaps I should merely say that I, personally, would walk away from that. My favorite, most respectful dominant partners have all had a hefty sense of humility and been very willing to learn — even if they were very experienced.

So why sub skillz got no respect? I think it’s partly because a lot of them are subtle and hard to see. In general, any “receptive” social role is going to get less credit in an interaction, because lots of people think that the “initiating” social role “does all the work” — but the truth is that the “initiating” social role simply does more visible work. You see this happening with mainstream gender roles, too; for example, some men complain about how women expect them to do “all the work”, like asking women out on dates. But the truth is that for any role played by one gender in the usual heterosexual mating dance, there is an opposing or matching role that takes its own kind of work. For every man who has trouble asking women out, there is a woman who has trouble appearing approachable … or who wants to ask men out but thinks that she will freak men out by doing so (and indeed, she might well be correct). Things are tough all over, baby.

Communication — any kind of communication — is not just explaining one’s desires out loud. There’s also a ton of non-verbal feedback and non-verbal reading that goes on. Everyone communicates, but because a lot of bottoms communicate primarily by responding, bottom communication is often invisible. There’s also a whole nother level of bottom communication sometimes achieved by people who are really good, which involves tacitly running the encounter from the bottom side. Like what my ex-boyfriend did in my anecdote above.

Other bottom skills have to do with bottoms monitoring their body and taking care of themselves. Some of this is physical. One thing I would absolutely love to see is a BDSM workshop on body chemistry: I’ve written about it and I try to keep an eye on how it works in my life, but I’ve literally never seen a class on the topic. My experience is that all kinds of things — from sleep to intoxicants to the quality and amount of food I’ve eaten — can drastically alter my experience of BDSM (and, for that matter, sex). But I’m not a nutritionist or a doctor, and although some things are obvious — like: it’s easier to take pain when I’ve had enough sleep — some things are not obvious at all.

And then there’s breath control. I am definitely a novice at this, but I’ve got the feeling that understanding how my breathing intersects with my pain tolerance could lead to a whole new level of BDSM. The one thing I’m sure of right now is that it’s easy to reflexively stop up my breathing when I’m in a lot of pain, or to breathe irregularly. But if I can force myself to breathe more regularly, then it gets easier. So the only advice I can offer bottoms here is for them, too, to watch their breathing and look for patterns.

Of course, taking care of oneself isn’t just physical; it’s mental and emotional too — setting boundaries and understanding oneself. It’s important for a bottom to know what they won’t do, will do … or what they want to do, but suspect will be complex and hard to deal with. In fairness, it is also important for tops to know these things about themselves, but the risks bottoms take tend to be more intense and direct than the ones tops take. Also in fairness, the BDSM community has developed some tactics for talking about this: for example, I often write about BDSM checklists, which list a huge array of BDSM activities and encourage people to rate their desire for and experience with those activities.

A lot of taking care of oneself involves a self-aware learning process. Calling a safeword is absolutely a skill, and it’s a skill that gets easier with practice; but sometimes I’m still not sure whether I actually want to safeword, and I’ve been doing BDSM fairly regularly for years. (For this reason, a lot of BDSMers use the “stoplight system”, whereby “red” means “stop definitely for real!” and “yellow” means “I’m not sure about this, but I don’t think I want to stop, so let’s slow down or switch activities”.) A lot of bottoms enter an altered state of consciousness we refer to as “subspace“; understanding how to navigate subspace is its own highly personal thing that deserves multiple stand-alone articles. Plus, I’ve learned a lot about which types of pain I like and dislike, but my tastes (like everyone’s) can and do evolve over time.

In short, processing intense sensations — and understanding where a person’s brain is at, and what they want even when they’re processing those sensations — is its own constellation of BDSM skills. Again, most relevant for bottoms, but also relevant for tops.

Originally posted at Clarisse Thorn's blog.



Clarisse Thorn is a feminist S&M writer who has lectured from Berlin to San Francisco, and written from The Guardian to Jezebel. She wrote a book about men, dating, and sex called Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser; she's also got a best-of collection called The S&M Feminist. She's always writing something new, so check out her list of books.

Find her on Twitter @clarissethorn and Facebook.

You have read this article bd/sm / BDSM / better sex / Clarisse Thorn / Dominance / dominant / sex educators / sexual adventures / Sexuality / submission / submissive with the title Clarisse Thorn. You can bookmark this page URL https://lamentoeternal.blogspot.com/2012/12/why-submissive-skills-are-underrated.html. Thanks!

The Psychology of BDSM

What's BDSM all about? Where does it come from? Maybe you are confused as to why people engage in such activities or don't get why people do it. Sure, Fifty Shades of Grey put a face to the acronym. But BDSM been existed way before Christian Grey was flogging Anastasia Steele. Even though the book "normalizes" what used to be an unconventional sexual practice, many are still confused as to why people do it, or if they are even normal — whatever that means.

Clarisse Thorn, a pro-BDSM, sex positive writer is here to dive into the historical and psychological aspect of BDSM. It is about time we educated ourselves on BDSM and see why it's really just a fabulous sexual outlet for couples, vanilla or kinky.

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BDSM is a 6-for-4 deal of an acronym: Bondage, Discipline, Dominance, Submission, Sadism and Masochism. It's sometimes referred to as S&M, B&D, leather, or fetish. As an S&M writer and educator, I get lots of questions about the psychology of S&M. People ask whether it's a disorder, how psychologists would describe it, etc. I'm an advocate, not a psychologist, but I've read up on the history and done my best to keep tabs on current research.

First things first: S&M is not a pathology, and all people who practice S&M are not "damaged" in some way. There aren't many S&M studies, but in 2008, this conclusion was supported by a large and well-designed survey that reached 20,000 people. The survey was done by public health researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia, and it found that S&Mers "were no more likely [than non-S&Mers] to have been coerced into sexual activity and were not significantly more likely to be unhappy or anxious." Another recent study found that consensual S&M usually increases intimacy for a couple.

I'd like to note briefly that people have told me about using consensual, intimate, trusting S&M activities in order to work through previous non-consensual, abusive experiences that they'd had. There's nothing wrong with that. Indeed, the psychologist Peggy Kleinplatz once published a scholarly article called "Learning From Extraordinary Lovers: Lessons From The Edge," which discusses how therapists can help their clients by studying alternative sexualities. Kleinplatz included a case study of a couple whose S&M experiences helped them process and deal with past abuse.

Still, as the 2008 Australia survey shows us, most people don't practice S&M because they've been abused or because they're unhappy. People who practice S&M have the same record of unhappiness and abusive history as non-S&M people. Yet S&M was first described as a disorder in 1886, when a doctor named Richard Krafft-Ebing published the manual Psychopathia Sexualis. This landmark tome hauled many sexual practices into the light, then attempted to categorize them. Of course, the doctor's ideas hewed close to contemporary mainstream ideas of what was acceptable, and so he thought that basically everything was a disorder -- including, for example, homosexuality.

It's interesting to imagine what our mental health paradigm might be if Psychopathia Sexualis had never existed. It had a huge influence on psychiatry. Later, the psychiatric establishment began publishing a text called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM. The DSM doesn't specialize in sexuality, but it includes quite a lot of it. The first edition of the DSM came out in 1952; it's currently undergoing its fifth revision, and the proposed new language can be found at the DSM-5 website.

Like Psychopathia Sexualis, the original DSM called homosexuality a disorder. This changed in 1973, partly in response to gay activists. But subsequent versions of the DSM are still criticized for many reasons. Our cultural diagnoses of mental illness are shaped by lots of people with very different motives, and truth is hard to find. A 2010 New Yorker article by Louis Menand outlined many critiques of the DSM, such as the allegation that today's psychiatry "is creating ever more expansive criteria for mental illness that end up labelling as sick people who are just different." Naturally, the medical establishment has an incentive to do this, since it makes money selling treatments for illness, and more illness means more treatment.

S&M is currently in the DSM (heh, you see what I did there?). My understanding, however, is that S&M occupies a strange space within the much-edited manual. S&M is no longer listed as all-disorder-all-the-time, though it once was. But if a person has an urge towards S&M, and that person feels unhappy about it, then it is classified as a disorder. In other words, an S&Mer is labeled "healthy" if she's happy about S&M, and "unhealthy" if she's unhappy about it.

Actually, this is basically the spot that homosexuality occupied for a while. And the reason homosexuality was taken out is the same reason S&M should be taken out: because a person who wants a completely consensual type of sexuality, and who is unhappy about it, is probably better off working to change the unhappiness rather than the sexuality. Like homosexuality, S&M is stigmatized and misunderstood. A person who is stigmatized and misunderstood is likely to be unhappy, but that doesn't mean there's something wrong with her.

Within the S&M community, we have ways of working around this problem. Some people are campaigning to change the DSM directly. Others are more indirect. Years ago, the activist Race Bannon made a handwritten list of doctors and lawyers who were S&M-friendly, and began passing it around to his friends. Names were quickly added to Bannon's list, and when the Internet became popular, the list migrated online. Now, the Kink Aware Professionals list is enormous and includes profession categories from accounting to web design -- not just doctors. When I was going through my own complicated and difficult S&M coming-out process, I was lucky enough to find the list. My S&M-friendly therapist talked me through my anxiety and socially-created disgust, rather than diagnosing me with a spurious "disorder."

There's a great organization called the Community-Academic Consortium of Research on Alternative Sexualities; one of their projects is an annual conference to sensitize psychologists and therapists to the needs of alternative sexuality communities. In my home city of Chicago, there's a project based at DePaul University that seeks to change the representation of S&M in human sexuality textbooks. The Kink Representation Outreach Project involves talking to different S&Mers about their actual experience (what an idea!) and getting their recommendations about how these texts might better represent S&M. And finally, if you want some idea of the sparse and scattershot research that's been done on S&M, the blog Kink Research Overviews is a good place to start.

Within the S&M community, there's some talk of S&M as its own "sexual orientation." I have mixed feelings about this, and I've written about those mixed feelings. I think it can sometimes be helpful, but I'd rather move to a paradigm where we encourage people to see any consensual sexual act as awesome, rather than talking like "orientation" is what legitimizes sexuality. Nothing legitimizes sex except consent.

Originally posted at Clarisse Thorn's blog found here.



 Clarisse Thorn is a feminist S&M writer who has lectured from Berlin to San Francisco, and written from The Guardian to Jezebel. She wrote a book about men, dating, and sex called Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser; she's also got a best-of collection called The S&M Feminist. She's always writing something new, so check out her list of books.

You have read this article academic / bd/sm / BDSM / Clarisse Thorn / D/s / Dominance / Female Domination / feminism / for couples / sexual adventures / Sexuality with the title Clarisse Thorn. You can bookmark this page URL https://lamentoeternal.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-psychology-of-bdsm.html. Thanks!

Why I'm Not (Yet) Out Of The Closet About S&M

At GetLusty, we're all about communication and telling your spouse your true feelings. This holiday season, some of you might choose to come out to your families in one way or another, too. Think: introducing them a new spouse or pet?

We make choices everyday on what our friends, family and co-workers know about us. In this article, Clarisse Thorn, the S&M feminist, addresses the pros and cons of coming out in the 'real' world. She may not reveal her secret identity yet, but she does discuss what conditions she requires to come out. Though National Coming Out Day has come and past, talking to family or friends (maybe even co-workers) about your innermost sexual secrets can be complicated or near impossible. For more on what Clarisse is thinking about, read on!

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Today was National Coming Out Day. I cried when I saw Milk and I think outness can be an important political act, but I’m not coming out - not yet.

In 2008, I decided to take all my theories about S&M — and all my confused feelings — and use them for sex-related activism. I started Sex+++, my sex-positive film series in Chicago, which was an unexpectedly huge success. I volunteered at the Leather Archives, the world’s only S&M museum. I also began writing this blog. Soon, I was getting speaking engagements. Then I started publishing articles in big outlets. Always under the name, Clarisse Thorn.

I had several reasons for writing under a pseudonym:

#1 Employment

I thought I might want to explore a career path at a conservative company. In fact, I spent the first two years of my Clarisse-Thorn-time working for bosses who would not have been okay with the fact that I’m a decently well-known S&M writer.

The social climate now is somewhat liberal — it’s mostly okay to be gay, for example, or at least it’s more okay than it has been for hundreds of years. But S&M is something else. Less than ten years ago, a prominent U.N. employee named Jack McGeorge was publicly attacked in the media because he was an S&Mer. And while you might think times have changed, a sex blogger who called herself The Beautiful Kind (real name Kendra Holliday) lost her job in 2010 when her boss found out.

BDSM -and sexuality in general- is still very stigmatized. People who write openly and personally about sex are taking huge risks with their employability.

#2 Friends

I’m lucky because my parents are both very analytical, liberal thinkers; they’re deeply interested in gender politics, and they think my work is awesome. However, there are other people in my social network who would not be cool with Clarisse Thorn. For example, one of my closest friends comes from a hardcore religious family. I like her family. I’ve been to their house for Christmas. They’ve told me that I’m “a good influence” on their daughter, although they understand that I’m pretty liberal. But if they knew I was kinky, God only knows how they’d react.

Another example: a former boss of mine is very, very conservative. In fact, he’s a Tea Party member. This boss has always been incredibly kind and generous to me; I visit him occasionally even though I don’t work for him anymore, and he’s told me that he thinks of me like a daughter. Would he “disown” me if he knew about Clarisse Thorn? I don’t know.

Some people who work in sexuality say: “Well, I wouldn’t want to work for someone who can’t accept me as I am,” or “I wouldn’t want to be close to someone who wouldn’t be okay with my sexuality.” Maybe that’s true for them. But people are complicated, the world is a nuanced place, and I’ve drawn a lot of comfort and joy from these relationships, even if I disagree with those folks in some ways.

#3  Kids and marriage

I hope to have kids at some point. In U.S. culture, the most efficient way to go about that is usually to get married. I don’t want a potential husband to be in a position where people will assume he’s perverted just because he’s marrying me; if he wants to be out, then that’s fine, but I don’t want outness to be a precondition. I don’t want to risk his employment along with my own. If I’m going to meet a fiancé’s family, I’d rather they had the opportunity to get to know me as a person before they Google me and discover this. I mean, I’ve dated men whose families would have had trouble adjusting to the relationship because I was white. Imagine if they knew that I was a pervert.

And my poor potential kids! I mentioned Kendra Holliday earlier; her son has definitely caught some flak at school. I’m pretty sure the famous S&M writer Janet Hardy stayed in the closet, writing under the name Catherine Liszt, until her children were grown — I seem to recall seeing something she wrote where she described kids as “hostages to social stigma,” although I can’t find it now. (Update: Janet did stay in the closet until her kids were grown, but she doesn’t recall saying anything about hostages.)

#4 Personal Privacy

There are other reasons for being closeted. I am, in fact, nervous about having everyone in the world know details about my sex life (even though my writing is fairly vague, emotional, and political compared to most sex writing). Personal safety worries me, too.

There is something shadowy and romantic about having a “secret identity” — and as a dedicated child of the Internet since 1996, when anonymity was the norm, I always liked playing identity games. But this is more inconvenient and stressful than romantic. I mean, earlier this year I spoke at the biggest news media conference in the world. Imagine attending a four-day social media convention while preventing yourself from being photographed or identified. It was intense.

I like being able to shed the CT persona if I have to, although this writing has become so integral to me that it’s kind of difficult relating to people who don’t understand this aspect of me. On the other hand, the last three times I went to Wicker Park, I ran into people who know me only as Clarisse Thorn. And there have been many opportunities cross-pollinated among my various lives. People who know mostly my “real” self have given many leads to Clarisse, and vice versa.

I made a list a few years ago, of factors that I’d want to have in place before I came out of the closet:

#1 Either massive wealth (ha!) or a career trajectory that makes me certain I won’t ever need a job where CT’s existence is a drawback.

#2 Married to someone who doesn’t mind, with kids who are all grown up.

#3 Social changes such that there’s massively decreased social stigma around sexuality, especially S&M.

#4 Some factor that tips the balance towards making it worth coming out of the closet: i.e., some opportunity that I can’t take unless I come out, which I would be a fool to turn down.

#5 The development of Clarisse Thorn as a “legitimate” public intellectual.

I have put so very much energy into maintaining my privacy. But it has always chafed, too. I’m writing this now, because I’m really close to coming out. S&M has become way more culturally okay in the last five years. Clarisse Thorn has written for major media outlets and lectured at important cultural institutions, and an opportunity has come my way that I would be a fool to turn down.

I find myself on the brink of a decision that has been in the back of my mind for years. I’m hesitant. My cautious freelancer side tells me that I want some serious money in my hand before I make any big decisions. My list is incomplete. I’m not married. I don’t have kids yet. In this economy it’s impossible to be certain of anything, career-wise.

I’m thinking of making coming out into a game. It appeals to my geeky soul. Offering some kind of prize to a person who identifies me, as long as they document their Internet Detective procedures; this would be a great lesson of why long-term pseudonymity is impossible in the Information Age. I’d love to see how different people go about it!

I’m not there yet, though. I’m close. I’m so close. It will most likely happen soon, but I’m not quite there. I’m uncertain and scared and once I make this decision, I can never take it back. I’m waiting to see if a couple of things pan out.

Cross-posted with permission from Clarisse Thorn's blog.

Clarisse Thorn is a feminist S&M writer who has lectured from Berlin to San Francisco, and written from The Guardian to Jezebel. She wrote a book about men, dating, and sex called Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser; she's also got a best-of collection called The S&M Feminist. She's always writing something new, so check out her list of books.

Find her on Twitter @clarissethorn and Facebook.

You have read this article bd/sm / BDSM / Clarisse Thorn / Communication / confidence / Education / family / self esteem / self love / stronger relationship with the title Clarisse Thorn. You can bookmark this page URL https://lamentoeternal.blogspot.com/2012/11/why-i-not-yet-out-of-closet-about-s.html. Thanks!

What It's Like to Cheat?

Infidelity can be highly destructive for relationships. However, as much as we might not want to hear it, the people doing the cheating also experience pain. At GetLusty for Couples, we don't want to excuse any malice in a relationship, but we feel it is important to hear both sides. Luckily, Clarisse Thorn, the BDSM Feminist, is here to talk about how PostSecret postcards can help explain some of the behavior that might not be as selfish as we often think.

Disclaimer: Don't cheat. If you want to have an affair, please think about the consequences first. One option? Start to broach the subject with your partner. Just tell them you're attracted to someone else. Either way, don't participate in infidelity will nilly. There are alternatives for your interest in having sex with others. Could swinging be an option? Polyamory? You might not be there. What's most important in that situation is a strong line of communication!

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I’ve always had Strong Emotions and Serious Opinions about cheating, mostly due to background info that I won’t write about today. I’ve always maintained that it’s almost as bad to be the “cheating facilitator” — i.e. the person who a cheater hooks up with — as to be the cheater themselves.

I have also always maintained that it’s entirely possible to cheat even if you’re polyamorous: cheating means breaking the relationship agreement, it’s not about the exact mechanics of the sexual act. So, for example, say that you agree with your partner that you can both have sex with other people, but not kiss them. In that case, if you kiss someone else, it’s still cheating!

With age, however, I have become less fierce about the topic. (I guess people get less fierce about everything, with age.) I am now more willing to listen to reasons that cheating might happen, and what it means to different people. I still don’t advocate cheating, and I don’t think it’s right, but I can understand it better now.

Lately, I’ve been featuring postcards from PostSecret. It’s an online community art project to which people send postcards featuring a secret they’ve never told anyone. I’ve been reading PostSecret for many years, and I’m uncertain when I began saving postcards, so I can’t date the following cheater-derived images:

“I rationalized that having an affair was justified because my wife didn’t seem to trust me, whether I was faithful or not. I figured I had little to lose. I was wrong. I gave up being the guy who would never hurt her like that. Forever.”

This postcard resonates most with me, presumably because the writer seems to take the emotional harm he’s caused as seriously as I do.

“I’m sleeping with both of you so I can be both halves of who I really am: Innocent / Freak.”

Sometimes, a PostSecret card comes up that makes me wonder whether the writer is talking about cheating … or consensual non-monogamy. For example, maybe this person is being honest with all involved partners. I certainly hope so!

I have always figured that if there’s a sexual desire that can’t be met by a current relationship, then the first step should be to try and negotiate an alternative sexual outlet. For example, if this person desires some BDSM (as the image seems to imply), but has a partner who doesn’t want to do BDSM, then it’s totally legit to say “Honey, can I take on a BDSM partner outside our relationship?” — even if they’re monogamous most of the time.

I know that a lot of people don’t think that way, though. So, one of the first “cheating sympathies” I ever had was this: if a person asks their partner for something they feel is important, but the conversation is shut down or ignored … or even if there’s good intentions on all sides and many attempts have been made, but there’s no apparent compromise. In this context, I can understand why cheating happens.

“Because of my husband’s sexual dysfunction, I have been celibate for over a decade. I am not proud of my fidelity. I feel ashamed that I stay.”

This, right here. This seems like the perfect time for a careful conversation about sexual needs and an honest, straightforward request for an open relationship. However, I understand why that would be incredibly hard, and I feel bad for everyone involved. No one should have to feel trapped in a sexually unfulfilling relationship, but some people are terribly hurt by the idea that their partner would sleep with someone else, and it can be so hard to talk about

“I am a better wife when I cheat.”

I can … somewhat … see how a person would be a better partner, if they cheated in a situation where they felt like they couldn’t talk things through, and used that as an emotional “valve” to release stress and cope.

Well … maybe I can see it? It makes me uneasy. I’m always happier if I feel like everyone is truly being honest; and it seems like dishonest cheating should be the last resort (if that).

“I’ve been pumping iron for a year. My wife has said nothing, but other women do ….”

Here’s another postcard where it doesn’t say that the writer is cheating. It seems clear to me that the potential for cheating is a subtext, though.

It’s another situation that I can kinda understand? … but it makes me uneasy. This postcard feels like a symptom, not a solution. Writing a postcard about these feelings indicates big problems in the relationship that it would be good to actually talk about, you know? But on the other hand, I know it’s not always possible to talk things through; not always possible to deal with everything properly. I just hope that this guy has tried, in a genuinely careful way, with genuinely good intentions.

“I quit smoking because I wanted to fuck a coworker. After a hot 6-month affair, my wife knows nothing, but is proud of me for quitting smoking.”

Yeah, so the other postcards? I had some sympathy for all of them, even if it wasn’t much sympathy. But this one? I have to say I really don’t get it. I can’t relate. It doesn’t seem to have any ethics or anxiety in it at all.

It almost feels gleeful. Gross!

Cross-posted with permission from Clarisse Thorn's blog.

Clarisse Thorn is a Chicago-based feminist S&M writer who has lectured from Berlin to San Francisco, and written from The Guardian to Jezebel. She wrote a book about men, dating, and sex called Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser; she's also got a best-of collection called The S&M Feminist. She's always writing something new, so check out her list of books. Also follow her on Twitter @clarissethorn.

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Top 6 Questions About Polyamory Answered

Just like monogamy, there are questions about polyamory. It's another kind of relationship that you might want to explore someday. So why not learn about it? You might even participate, but maybe you'll learn a thing or two from polyamorous couples, you never know!

We've discussed polyswinging and asked is your relationship ready polyamory? But we still have questions, as you probably do too. Clarisse Thorn, a feminist S&M author, is here with questions and challenges that arose out of her preference for the polyamory lifestyle.

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Polyamory is a form of consensual non-monogamy in which people have multiple lovers, and are honest with each other about doing so. I have a lot more theoretical exposure to polyamory than personal experience, but I’ve been gaining more personal experience over the last year. It’s often interesting, sometimes painful.

Some recent experiences are making me think I am not nearly as smart or as on top of my emotions as I like to believe I am. I remind myself that I have to be willing to acknowledge when I don’t know what I’m thinking, but that’s harder than it looks … I don’t always take enough time to understand my feelings before speaking or acting.

Still. Through the stupid mistakes and the understandable ones, though my own failures to be sensitive and the little heartbreaks I’ve sustained, I’ve been learning.

One thing I think I’ve figured out is what I want: I want a number of different relationships that are ongoing, and one or two relationships that are primary, or especially committed. Ideally, in fact, I’d love to eventually have a permanent relationship with a primary polyamorous partner in which we have kids with each other, live together most of the time, etc, but are still polyamorous. That would be a while in the future, though — for now, it’s important to me to not feel as though my partners expect me to settle down or stay in one place or anything like that. It seems like any relationship I develop, even during this relatively early time in my life, could become a child-rearing relationship eventually — like, years from now — but if it does, I doubt I’d want to make it monogamous.

I recognize that we don’t always get our ideal world. In fact, we usually don’t. Although polyamory is a high priority for me, it may be something I eventually compromise on, given that the majority of people in this world identify as monogamous. (On the other hand, it’s worth noting that research shows 40% of young couples don’t agree with each other about whether they’re monogamous or not. How are these people communicating?) Keeping all that in mind, my preference for polyamory presents some challenges, and questions that I worry about. Such as:

#1 What are my responsibilities towards my partners’ other partners?

A lot of poly people will tell you that if you get into a relationship with, say, a married polyamorous man, then you must also expect to interact with his spouse. In other words, don’t assume that your relationship means you only interact with one half of a couple. I’m totally fine with this, but on occasion I’ve felt like I was getting sucked into the couple’s problems, or like I was expected to have no individual relationship with my partner — that I always had to go through his primary partner.

Yes, it is certainly my responsibility to communicate with my partners’ other partners and to be friendly with them. But I need to set boundaries on that too — just dating a poly guy does not make me their relationship therapist, and it doesn’t make me best friends with his other girlfriends (or boyfriends, for that matter). I am responsible for what I do, but I’m not responsible for what he does. I am responsible for how I treat his spouse, but I can’t be responsible for how he treats his spouse.

But what if I’m already friends with someone, and one of my partners gets involved with that person? Do I have special responsibilities in that case? I’m still figuring that one out. (Insights from commenters are welcome.)

Source

#2 When is it actually the best time to start talking about polyamory and setting out relationship definitions?

My approach so far has been to put poly on the table during initial conversations, and then talk about it more when the topic of the relationship comes up. But I’ve been thinking lately that I probably should go into more detail sooner, because people have such different stereotypes of open relationships that I can’t be sure they’re on board with what I’m talking about unless we’ve discussed polyamory in-depth.

I feel like I talk to a lot of people who think they want a supposedly “polyamorous” relationship because they see it as a no-strings-attached free-for-all, and that’s definitely not what I want. Or I talk to people who back away from polyamory for the same
reason. I see polyamory as being about more commitment to relationship negotiation, not less. I see it as being about setting individual boundaries, if necessary — it’s not about having no boundaries. I see it as being about creating a secure situation for all parties involved — not making anyone insecure, or ignoring anyone’s needs. And being polyamorous doesn’t make my relationships unimportant to me. Being in love doesn’t seem at odds with polyamory for me.

This is a hard thing to communicate in a small dose, though, especially if I’m dealing with someone who has minimal exposure to the concept. On the other hand, having a Serious Conversation about polyamory on the first date is a bit much. (Ideas about the middle ground are welcome.)

#3 Is it a good idea for me to get involved with guys who ultimately want monogamy?

As I noted earlier, I might compromise to monogamy eventually, but poly is a priority for me. (Who knows, maybe I’ll decide it’s my ideal relationship formation again someday. This seems unlikely to me right now, but anything’s possible.)

But what if I get really into a guy who ultimately plans to be monogamous? Is this a bad call on my part? On the one hand, if I go on a few dates with a 28-year-old guy who doesn’t want to get married until his mid-30s but definitely wants a monogamous marriage when he does … I mean, why not have a relationship? On the other hand, I may be setting myself up for heartbreak in such situations, if he basically sees our relationship as “not real” from the start. This brings me to my next point ….

#4 Some people see polyamory as a sign of commitment-phobia.

I’ve made this mistake myself — in fact, the “polyamory as commitment-phobia” stereotype is so strong that I’ve occasionally reversed it and wondered if my desire for it was a sign of commitment-phobia. But the fact is, my appreciation for polyamory only increased as I became more certain about what I’m seeking in a partner, and as I gained more understanding of how to negotiate that. It’s come along with relationship confidence and understanding.

I feel pretty okay with believing in commitment in the context of polyamory. But my potential partners might not be. I already tend towards emotional caginess and am sometimes accused of being way too emotionally controlled — I’m worried that I’ll be read as a “player” (or a “slut”) by people who write me off as a result. I’m also worried that some may be attracted to me because they see me as an emotionless player, whether they admit it or not — indeed, even if they don’t admit it to themselves — and will be annoyed if I turn out not to be that way. Stereotypes and assumptions are tricky to root out whether we’re aware of them or not.

Some days, I get nervous that the guys who are going to be willing to talk about and process relationships in the depth that I’m looking for, with a degree of acknowledged emotional commitment, are all monogamous. Then I remind myself of how many awesome polyamorous men I know, and also that I’m falling for stereotypes yet again, just by having these fears.

#5 Other questions:

How open am I to casual relationships that don’t seem to be going in an emotional direction, given that I don’t have to give up on more serious relationships to have them?

How does being poly change breakup dynamics?

In the absence of monogamy, are there different signifiers that a relationship is serious — or is getting serious? How can I get better at both giving and reading those signifiers?

What are the other poly stereotypes I’ve internalized, and how do I act against them? What are the other poly stereotypes I should look out for from others?

#6 Sigh.

Rereading all my questions and rethinking all my thoughts makes me feel somewhat exhausted. Relationships are hard, and hacking the expected models makes them hopefully more fulfilling but also so much more complicated. My life seems so weird sometimes; a week doesn’t go by that I don’t wonder why I’m not getting a nice typical job and settling down with a white picket fence and the monogamous husband and having 2.5 kids. That is not actually what I want, but sometimes the image seems seductively easy.

Originally posted at Clarisse Thorn's blog.

Clarisse Thorn is a Chicago-based writer and we're very excited to cross-post her wonderful posts!

Clarisse Thorn is a feminist S&M writer who has lectured from Berlin to San Francisco, and written from The Guardian to Jezebel. She wrote a book about men, dating, and sex called Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser; she's also got a best-of collection called The S&M Feminist. She's always writing something new, so check out her list of books. Also follow her on Twitter @clarissethorn.

You have read this article Clarisse Thorn / Communication / emotional / polyamory / sexual adventures / Sexuality / stronger relationship with the title Clarisse Thorn. You can bookmark this page URL https://lamentoeternal.blogspot.com/2012/10/top-6-questions-about-polyamory-answered.html. Thanks!