FLOGGING WITH FRIENDS: TESTING THE KINK WATERS

**FULL DISCLOSURE: The following post contains some graphic and intimate sexual details. For those readers who know me/us in real life and don’t care to know us that well, skip it. Otherwise, proceed at your own psychological risk.**

When we started this new lifestyle, I don’t think either of us knew where exactly it would lead us. We had a general idea: meet people, make friends, have some great sex, learn some new things about ourselves. One fun thing we’ve both discovered is an interest in kink.

You heard me. Kink. K-I-N-K.

I have had some experience with soft kink, like most people. A little light spanking here and there, hands bound, blindfolded. I thought I was pretty adventurous and experienced. But it was nothing that I or anyone I had been with, ever thought to explore further or take to the next level.

Enter Rose and Corey.

Rose, you may remember, was the first woman my husband went on a date with. He knew she was into BDSM and even had a dungeon in her living room. Naturally, his interest was piqued. As I learned more about her secondhand, so was my own. Kink aside, she sounded like a cool lady. We had a lot in common. Her husband had also contacted me, and we got along pretty well, too. Well, we got along just fine over texts, at least. We decided to go on a double-date with them. It was nothing special; just drinks and karaoke at a local bar. I was totally down for it.

I can’t resist drunken crooning of overplayed songs.

I was nervous and excited at the same time. Would they like me? How was I going to feel meeting the woman my husband had a sexual interest in? Were we going to awkwardly mumble our way through this date like the last double-date we went on? I had no idea what to expect, but I had my husband as a sort of safety blanket, so I knew it was going to be okay regardless of the conclusion.

We arrived at the bar a few minutes earlier than they did, and stood around in the parking lot, anxiously waiting. I know I was nervous, because I was babbling on about Charles Manson. I have absolutely no idea what got me going on the topic of serial killers, but there I was, just rambling on. My husband was a good enough sport to play along. I think he knew how tightly wound I was, and probably kept me talking to keep me from going full-introvert and just withdrawing completely into myself.

Finally, headlights flashed across us. I caught a glimpse of a big red flower nestled into short dark hair as the car swung into the parking spot next to us. They had arrived. Out of the car stepped a short, curvy woman that looked like a cross between a Suicide Girl and a biker. She was adorable as she said, “Hi,” and gave me a hug. Corey shook hands with the husband and me, and the four of us walked into the bar together. I won’t bore you with details of the night. We had quite a few drinks, we sang a few songs, and we had a great time. I was instantly at ease with Rose and Corey and felt like I had known them for years. They reminded me of old friends I had left behind when we moved halfway across the country, and I was hoping to see them again.

A couple of weeks later, we did meet up with Rose and Corey again. We gathered together at the same bar and had a couple of drinks. This time, however, instead of hanging around all night and singing karaoke, we went back to their place. We had discussed it beforehand, talking about the various things we were interested in and wanted to check out. I was excited to see Rose’s dungeon. Corey was into fire cupping, and I was hoping to try it. So we paid our tabs and headed to their home. Hubby drove with Rose and I rode with Corey.

The ride was a little awkward for me. I’m not great with small talk, and I didn’t know if I should talk about the things we were about to do. I wanted to play it cool so I didn’t come off as a total newbie. You tie people up? Yawn. An assortment of paddles and whips? Whatever. Oh, a St. Andrew’s cross? Psshht…. I had tested one of those out at a strip club in New Orleans. No big deal.

A more intense version of the one I experienced…

When we arrived at their home, way out at the end of a dark country road, we sat around talking and laughing while Corey played bartender. The conversation flip-flopped between Disney princesses and flogs, rock bands and nipple clamps, work woes and Domination. I won’t lie, some of the details of that night are little hazy. Between the alcohol and the general nervousness and excitement, a lot of it went by in a blur. At some point, Rose slipped out of her “vanilla” clothes and into nothing but a maxi dress. They showed off their vast array of whips, paddles, and flogs. I was itching to try them out, but I didn’t want to push it. Corey had broken out his “violet wand,” which is essentially a device that has various attachments to achieve different electrical sensations.

It totally looks this cool in real life, too.

 Before I knew it, Rose was down to nothing but her undies, lying on what looked like a massage table while Corey demonstrated his toy on her. Speaking calmly and fluidly, he showed us what each attachment did, how the intensity level could be adjusted, talking as if he was just giving a report on that day’s weather. Meanwhile, Rose jumped and twitched and writhed and moaned as he ran the tips down her stomach, across her thighs, touching her nipples and underarms and sides and feet. He gave her a metal bar to hold in her hand and invited us to run our hands over her body. Not quite touching her, we could feel the electricity, like when you rub your feet over carpet and touch a metal doorknob. Again, she jumped and twitched wherever the spark made contact with her body. It was amazing! They asked us if we wanted to try it.

I stripped down to my panties and climbed up on the table. Rose took over for Corey, which I didn’t mind. Something about female solidarity and all of that, I suppose. I heard the hum of the electricity as she fired up the wand. I tensed, completely unaware of what I was in for. I know I hate it whenever I get a static electricity shock, and I imagined this would be ten times worse, at minimum. Rose asked me if I was ready, and I said yes with a nervous grin on my face. She laid the wand to my stomach and…..nothing. Nada. Zip. I didn’t feel a damn thing.

Wah wah waahhhhh…..

Rose cranked the intensity up and….still not much. Up another notch, and I felt a little something. She kept turning it up until finally I felt it. It was like a single fingernail drawing itself down my thigh...my stomach…across my nipples…not an entirely unpleasant feeling. In fact, at some points it even tickled, and I found myself giggling and squirming on the table. It was fun! At some point, I’d like to revisit it with a little bit higher intensity, just to see if those tickles might turn into something else.

Rose sat me up on the table to let myself get oriented before moving around too much. The men went into the bedroom to look at more of our hosts’ collection of toys (it seemed never-ending!) while Rose and I chatted. She said, “I’m going to make out with you now,” slipped a hand around the back of my neck and kissed me. My hands slid around her as I kissed her back, eagerly. She was pretty good at this kissing thing! We went at it for a few minutes before she moved her mouth to my ear and said, “I’m going to keep you.” I was totally okay with that.

After composing myself and slipping into a dress that Rose lent me (getting dressed and undressed is so hard sometimes), hubby decided he would like to try being whipped a little. He had asked me if I would be willing to try to and top him (be Dominant) prior to this night, but through this experience I’ve discovered I really like being a submissive. Like, really…really…REALLY…like it. A whole lot. Way more than I thought I would. So I told him that I didn’t know if I could. I felt a little silly just thinking about it. He was okay with that, so this was his chance to maybe see how the other half lives. Rose was happy to oblige.

Step right up…

 He leaned against the St. Andrews Cross, shirtless, as Rose started flogging him. She started out gently at first, checking in with him to see how each hit felt. She gradually turned up the heat on each stroke, the thud-crack sound getting louder and louder. He really seemed to be enjoying himself, and I was having fun watching it all go down. At one point, he made the mistake of asking Rose if that was the best she could do. Whoops. She responded in kind, giving him one last cracking snap across his back. He didn’t question her again.

Next up on the naughty-time fun list: fire cupping! This was what I had been waiting for. I am a sucker for massages. I could spend hours with someone rubbing my whole body down and gladly die of starvation in the process. I knew what fire cupping was, but had never experienced it firsthand. For those that don’t know (and are too rapt by my story to take time out to Google it), essentially it is taking what look like small goldfish bowls, lighting the inside on fire with some kind of fuel – usually alcohol – and placing it on the body. The heat creates a suction that pulls the skin into the glass, stimulating blood flow to the area and generally causing a warm, tugging sensation. Admittedly, it looked painful, and the after-effects are not exactly aesthetically pleasing.

See? Not a very pretty sight, is it?

Nevertheless, I went for it. Back up on the table, I lay face down while Corey brought out his kit. He had done this a few times, it looked like. I trusted he knew what he was doing, and he did not disappoint. It’s hard to describe the feeling. It’s incredibly relaxing and a little bit painful. There was a little bit of pinching at times, but for the most part, it just felt incredibly soothing. Every time I moved even the slightest bit, I could hear the glasses clinking against each other and it gave me a little bit of a start each time. But I was relaxed…so very relaxed…and then Corey decided to slide a couple around. Now, some people may like this sensation. I, personally, did not. It hurt me quite a bit. But I bit my tongue and bore through it. The ensuing endorphin rush was like a high, and I rode out the rest of the experience on that.

After the fire cupping, we sat around talking about different kinds of toys and devices we could try in the future. They broke out a couple of different nipple clamps and I discovered that I have incredibly tough nipples. There is nothing I love more right in the middle of sex than to have my partner pinch and squeeze my nipples as hard as they can. I’ve even been brought to orgasm by that alone. So I was definitely excited to try clamps. They sound like they might hurt, but oh no. Not in the least. There was one kind that looked like a rectangular vise. Corey tightened that one on me pretty hard, and it didn’t do much. The pincer clamps, however…

Thanks for the assist, Mr. Takei…

Anyway, the night was winding down. I had to work in the morning and we were facing almost an hour driving back home. We gathered ourselves, got dressed, and proceeded to the door. Rose stopped me and kissed me again while the men stood around awkwardly waiting for it to end. I then went over and kissed Corey goodnight as hubby did the same with Rose. All I can say is if Rose and Corey were competing for “Best Kiss,” he would have won it hands down. Wow.

We walked away from that night with more curiosity and an even bigger desire to explore the kink world a little more. The hubby and Rose have discussed doing a “scene” together (a BDSM term for what the people involved want to experience and how it will happen). I’m currently thinking of a scene I’d like to do with Corey. They are our guides, our kink gurus, and we are both eager and anxious to explore with them. More than that, they are just cool fucking people that we want to hang out with, naked or not.

Preferably naked, though. 

Maybe naked gaming. Because how freakin’ awesome would that be?!?

The moment it became ok

I’m at a conference out of town at the moment, in a hotel with no wireless in the rooms unless you want to pay 15 bucks a day (apparently the $200 a night can’t cover the cost), and my lab group are either A) in their rooms having called it quits at 8:00pm or B) made plans without consulting me. Oh, and for some reason the lobby, where the WiFi is free, has the air conditioning blowing in the middle of December, and I’m right under a vent. So, why not write a blog post about ethical non-monogamy? Why not, indeed.

Of course, all the pictures will have to be SFW. So here's a kitty. 

My initial post may have made it seem like, after the “Three Bottle Night,” I was completely on board and ready to jump into this thing. That may have been a slight exaggeration for the sake of dramatic flow. The reality is that, when I got up and went to work the next day, a lot of the same concerns had started to come back. I wanted to make things work with the wife’s plans to open up our marriage, but could I really do this? Could I really deal with her being with another man? I wanted to think that I could, and it had all seemed so doable the night before. But that didn’t change the fact that the nervous feelings were here, and I would need to sort them out before I proceeded. And, of course, I did what people who are nervous in these situations do, I found some falsehoods to which to cling.

Maybe she only really wanted to date women? I could deal with that. It’s kind of stupid that I would feel that way, but I’ve come to understand this is a pretty standard reaction among men. Women still fall in love with other women, but for some reason it doesn’t feel as threatening as other men. I guess it’s just a primal male thing. Stay off of my woman. Ugh ugh. *caveman sounds*

Or, maybe we would just date as a couple? You know, swinging. Group stuff. That sort of thing. That would be ok. It could even be pretty fun. I mean, who doesn’t fantasize about that? And then I can keep an eye on her and end it if it starts to feel like she’s more into the other people than me.

Cling to that life raft, buddy.

I tried to discuss some of these concerns with my wife that night, and that was when she made the second awesome choice in this process: she didn’t let me hang on to my delusions. Did she want to date other men? Sure. She mostly was curious about seeing women, but she wasn’t going to rule out seeing men either. Well, but, what about dating? Just group stuff, right? No, not that either. We could start out that way if it made me more comfortable, but the time would come when one or both of us might want to date solo (little did I know it would be me, but that’s a topic for a previous post,) and ultimately she didn’t want to put any barriers on the future. That was a big thing, and something that I would recommend to other couples thinking about exploring this: don’t put up unnecessary barriers before you even begin. By all means communicate and determine what you can both handle, but be open to that changing in the future as well. One of the first instincts most couples who are getting into this have is to generate a bunch of rules, and one of the first things that happens when you tell people who have been doing this for a while about your rules is that they will smile knowingly, if not laugh out loud. Because really, the people that make it work almost exclusively cut it down to as few rules as possible. The wife and I aren’t QUITE there yet, but I think we’d both like to get to a point where we had only 4 rules:

1. Be safe
2. Our family comes first (not a rule for some Poly couples, but one we both believe in strongly.)
3. Communicate
4. If they don’t read, don’t fuck ‘em (again, not a rule for everybody, but seriously who wants to sleep with some dumb-dumb?)

So I was a little put off by her no-longer coddling me, but it was really the shot of cold water to the face that I needed at the time. I think the worst thing I could have done was to go in with some illusions about what would be going on down the line. She was willing to work with me (I have to emphasize this,) but she didn’t want me to have something false in my mind that, when revealed later, would make me feel betrayed or tricked. And, ultimately, she tried to get me to stop for a moment and look at the positives, since I was focusing too much on the negative possible outcomes. And, ultimately, that helped to lead me out of the funk.

But that didn’t make it immediately easier. I went to bed that night still pretty worried about the future, and did a bit more pacing and fretting the next day. Until, of course, the moment that I was referring to with the title of this post occurred. I had sat down and started looking through Craigslist Casual Encounters before shutting it off in disgust and horror when a thought occurred to me. I don’t know what reminded me of this, but I started to remember an old fantasy of mine. It was very specific: I wanted to go running with a woman or work out at the gym and then, sweaty and exhausted, fall into a pile with her and have sex. Gross, post-workout sex. Quit judging me. I don’t know why this turns me on, but it totally does. My best guess is that it’s related to a “Hard Bodies” issue of Playboy my dad had when I was in my teens.

This would be a picture of the cover, but I'm in a hotel lobby, remember? So here's a bunny.

Anyway, this was a fantasy I had more or less written off as “never going to happen.” But, all of a sudden, it hit me that this was no longer the case. Admittedly, I would have to find someone else that was also into this (extremely specific) fantasy, but it was BACK ON THE TABLE. It was possible! And all the other weird shit my subconscious didn’t really want to admit it was into was ALSO back on the table. Group sex? It was possible! BDSM? Possible! Sado-Masochism?Why not? POSSIBLE! Or, in the non-sex realm, I could find another hardcore gamer (my wife tries, but she’ll be first to admit that some of the rules of stuff I’m into make her head spin.) Or someone else who I can’t even think of yet who would enrich my life in ways I couldn’t currently imagine!

And that’s the point, people. The sex is cool and all, but if that was all that was involved in this it wouldn’t be worth the time or effort, because open marriage isn’t easy. My wife and I almost never fight, but there have been a number of “tense conversations” that have occurred as a direct result of our opening up. If you’re doing this for the right reasons, however, it’s worth the trouble. You’re not trying to replace something that’s missing in your relationship, but the new people in your life can complement what you already have. And I’ll be honest with you: this was an entirely selfish moment for me. Yes, my wife was going to get the same benefits from this, but for the first time I let myself think about how this could be awesome for ME.

And that’s another point of all this: rediscovering independence in your relationship. I’m a person that will absolutely lose myself in the person I’m with, but suddenly I found myself feeling like I did for the period between my first marriage and when I met my current wife. I’ll probably discuss this more in a future post, but it felt inexplicably good to be back on the hunt for prospective partners on my own, mostly because it put me back in the mindset of thinking, from time to time, about myself first (within reason of course, love you honey.)

And just like that, it started to be ok. Maybe I just needed a carrot dangling in front of me, but I started to really think “Huh, this could actually work.” There was still work to do, of course. That visceral gut reaction to men who aren’t me touching my wife was still not under control, so I had a lot of mental exercises and visualization to do before I could get a handle on that. But I was on the path at last. And if you are a person who is considering this type of relationship with your significant other, I encourage you to look for the positives as well. You might be surprised how open to ethical nonmonogamy you can be. And to celebrate here’s a picture of some raunchy BDSM hentai.

Just kidding, it's a puppy.

5 WEIRD SIDE-EFFECTS OF OPENING YOUR MARRIAGE

My previous two posts were a little negative in places, and I don’t want to give out the impression that this has all been difficult and I’m wallowing in misery all the time. Plus, we’ve noticed that the blog is starting to get some attention from people, and that’s exciting to us, so we want to try and drive more traffic here. Solution to both problems: time for a blatant Buzzfeed style click-bait post. Thus…

5 WEIRD SIDE-EFFECTS OF OPENING YOUR MARRIAGE

1)   Drive for self-improvement

Look, let’s be real for a second here, married guys. I know the joke is that, once the wedding rings go on, the couple starts to let themselves slip more and more. That extra couple of (dozen) pounds creep onto your gut. You’re content to come home and give the wife the perfunctory peck on the cheek and chat about the day’s events. You stop growing and pushing yourself as a person. You get comfortable, and that is a bad, bad thing.

So now imagine if some of that comfort gets shaken up. Not that having an open marriage means that now you’re constantly fighting to keep your relationship together, mind you. But, now you have to convince OTHER people to like you who don’t have a legally binding piece of paper entitling them to half your stuff if it doesn’t work out.

Basically, you’ve got to start working on yourself again, and the thing is, you’ll actually WANT to do it. Suddenly you look down at that beer gut and realize it’s time to get back in the gym. And you’ll be doing it because you want to, with a pretty big carrot dangled in front of your nose that works a heck of a lot better than some abstract goal like “losing weight” or “getting in better shape.” Plus, you need to keep yourself interesting as well. Too frequently in my marriage it started to feel like we were in a rut of routine. "How was your day" could be answered with "Eh, same as usual" and you're so comfortable with each other that you can shrug and move past that conversation killer. I have news for you: that won't fly with a new date. You’ve got to relearn how to be dynamic in a conversation and relate to other people that you don't know that well. All that old “game” you used to have back in the day? You need to go find that again, dust off the old rap, and get back to being able to relate to people you meet if you ever want to do more than just chat idly online. And, just so that doesn't seem like a burden, realize that this is a skill that helps in your daily life as well. Unless you work in a dark basement with no human contact, interpersonal communication is probably useful in your job.

For example, at one point in the middle of all of this I started to improve my wardrobe. There’s no uniform at my workplace. People can wear whatever they feel like as long as A) it qualifies as clothing and B) it passes lab safety regulations. As such, most of my career I’ve gone to work in jeans, t-shirts, and possibly an over-shirt. If I wanted to look professional, throw on a polo. Lots of people, especially the grad students, come to work looking like they just rolled out of bed or came straight from the gym, and its no big deal. For most of my coworkers, this is considered one of the real perks of the job, and I enjoyed it as well for a time. However, it started to feel…not right as I got older. I remember that about the same time I started watching Mad Men and seeing how men used to dress for work, and part of me kind of missed when we used to care about dressing like professionals.

Pictured: the goal. Minus the philandering and alcoholism, of course.

And somewhere, in the middle of working on myself to get ready for being an open marriage participant, I decided to start dressing up at work and in daily life. Not full suits, mostly because I don’t have many of them and suit coats don’t really work under a labcoat, but shirt, slacks, and tie pretty much every day. I learned how to do a better tie-knot (the classic half-windsor.) I started wearing a shot of cologne every day. It wasn’t necessary or even all that practical (imagine going to work with people who’ve never seen you in anything besides casual clothes for two years,) but it felt good to work on myself in that way. And, it made me feel more confident when dealing with potential dating partners as well. Would I have ever tried this without that self-improving drive? I'm really not sure. The timing seems awfully coincidental for it not to be related.

Now, I’m not saying you all need to go dressing up for work every day anymore than I’m saying the other people in my lab need to do it. But the point is, I feel better about MYSELF because I’m doing it. Which, of course, can lead to…

2)   General boost in self-confidence.

God I hope none of the Google searches for these pictures is going in a file somewhere.

I’m probably the last person in the world to talk about self-esteem, because I’m one of these people who, despite any evidence to the contrary, is convinced that he’s fooled the world into thinking he’s smart, attractive, and capable and, one of these days, they’re all going to figure it out and the game will be over. So I can’t speak for any personal increase in feelings of self-confidence. But, as my wife put it when I was feeling not great about my first date, one of the things she had liked about this experience was seeing me walk a little taller with some extra pep in my step. It just feels good to be desired, and it’s easy to lose that feeling from a long-term partner over time. Its not their fault, of course. The confidence effect of being desired by someone must work like drugs: the more you have it, the less effect it has on you. But when you can start to see your positive characteristics through a new person's eyes, that feeling can come back just as strong if not stronger.

And it can have a positive effect on your relationships, as well. When you’re feeling better about yourself it starts to be reflected back at you from other people. I’m not a person that gets “checked out” in my daily life, but I started to see one or two women’s eyes lingering that extra second longer than necessary when I was out and about. When I went into a bank or a store, the people responded differently. I started to see a lot of the things I loved about my wife with fresher eyes. I even saw another coworker start dressing up a week or so after I did, so apparently somebody else must have thought it was a good idea.

Of course, I emphasize the term “general” boost of confidence, because reentering the dating pool can be fairly fraught with peril for your self esteem as well. Nothing will pop your little bubble quite like getting flat-out shut down in an online conversation with someone to whom you’re really attracted. But when you hear people telling you that they “liked” your profile on a dating website just because your picture was “cute,” or you start to receive messages from users who are very obviously hitting on you (more my wife’s experience with things than mine, but still) how can you not start to feel a little bit better about yourself?

3)   TV starts to feel stupid

Ok, so this is a weird digression but it is something I noticed recently (and this is about weird side-effects after all.) First of all, our DVR has started to get further and further backed up and those old "appointment TV" programs are becoming less and less important, for reasons that will come up later. But, the actual content of the shows starts to look different once nonmonogamy is a part of your mindset.

The wife and I used to watch Scandal in the first couple of seasons (before it quit being about Kerri Washington’s role as a political fixer and started to be about super-secret CIA agents and political intrigue.) The show does have a strong central thesis it has stuck to throughout: the President’s illicit relationship with Ms. Washington’s character while married to an ice queen First Lady. It’s a constant source of drama, which is of course turned up to 11 in every episode because Shonda Rhymes has never heard of subtlety. Eventually we tapped out and moved on to more believable dramas like The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones.

More believable than Shondaland. You heard me.

Since we opened up, however, I saw a commercial for that show and realized that A) I could probably just pick it up again at any point and it wouldn’t feel like I’d missed anything and B) the main plot of this show seems really stupid now. The President has parts of himself that are made better by both of the women in his life. They make him a better political figure. They make him happy. The three of them are a hell of a team when they work together, frankly, and the women don’t even really have a reason to dislike each other besides the whole “he’s married to this woman but sleeping with that woman” thing. So imagine if one day they just went into a poly relationship. Problem solved, series over. Well, besides the whole CIA trying to take over the country thing. 

And when I had this thought, I suddenly realized how often this would blow up the plot of other shows I’ve watched. Love triangle on your sitcom? Convert it into a triad and problem solved. Barry Allen has a girlfriend but knows that he’s also attracted to a woman he’s supposed to be married to in the future? He’s the Flash! He can be on a date with both of them at once if wanted to, and as long as everybody knows about it, who cares? Abraham wants to be with Sasha but is already sleeping with Rosita? It’s the zombie apocalypse! Polyamory should be seriously considered, if for reproductive purposes only!

Seriously, look into it. I could find an example in almost every show on TV. Enough digressing, though. Back to serious relationship stuff.

4)   It gives you a chance to broaden your horizons

You’re only two people, with two people’s life experiences. You have two people’s hobbies. You have two people’s memories, places you’ve travelled, and experiences. You can spend every day of your lives learning something new about each other, but it’s still the same 4 eyes looking at the world every day in your relationship. No matter how interesting and open a couple you are, the paradigm will still only be so big. So imagine throwing in another person or 6 to the mix, and imagine how much richer your life could become. Every couple has that thing she likes to do that he doesn’t, and vice-versa. Now imagine you could add in a partner who did like to do those things with you. While you and a new lover are at home watching football together, your wife and her new partner could go shopping together. Or, you know, vice versa (phew, dodged that sexism just in time.) Or, better yet, imagine you meet someone who introduces you to something new that you and your partner had never considered trying, and you both find out you love it! How awesome would that be?

Without Polyamory, Jim would never have discovered his passion for extreme ironing.

5)   More and better sex with your partner.

Ok, that might be a bit much, but you get the idea.

I mean, really, sex is part of why we do this, right? Finding new people to be with is an undeniable perk of open marriage. But I’ll bet you didn’t consider that it could end up having a positive effect on your bedroom life at home as well. I first heard of this idea on Cooper S. Beckett’s My Life on the Swingset audio books. When he and his wife were in the early stages of swinging, before they’d actually had sex with anybody yet, they suddenly couldn’t keep their hands off of each other. The reproductive proclivities of rabbits were used as a comparison, if I remember correctly. I wondered if that would be a general sort of phenomenon that the wife and I would experience as well, and damned if it didn’t end up kicking in about a week or so before my first date. I mentioned in my first post that we’d hit kind of a dry spell after the birth of our youngest which had started to get better once we talked about opening up. Well, once it was about to become a reality, that dry spell turned into an ocean in a hurry. Bed time for the kids changed from "well let's see what we're going to watch tonight" to "Ok, how long do we need to wait until we're sure they're asleep." We’re talking marathon sessions, nine days in a row, to the point that we both just collapsed at the end and couldn’t move.

I didn’t know if it was a result of being excited for this new adventure, feeling attractive because of the reasons discussed above, the phase of the moon, or some combination, but I wasn’t going to question it. As the wife put it “It’s like we were a new couple again.” And, in a way, I suppose we were. It’s tough not to see your partner differently after you’ve had the hard conversations and made the decision to open things up. If nothing else, I don’t know that any conversation between the two of you could ever be harder than one saying “I’d like to be able to sleep with other people.” Your relationship has changed pretty radically at the point the other partner agrees, so why wouldn’t you expect a certain degree of New Relationship Energy (NRE in the nonmonogamy terminology) to result from this redefinition of who you are as a couple? Add to that the fact that, suddenly, you have new people that are interested in and attracted to you, and is it any wonder you suddenly find this new surge of sexual energy? Seems logical to me, at least. I would welcome any of our readers who have gone through this process to comment, as I’m honestly curious to see how common this really is or if it’s just two instances of anecdotal evidence.

And to throw another curve your way, consider this last point. Every partner you’re with teaches you something new in bed, potentially. So imagine if you could go out, learn that new stuff, and then bring it home to your partner to share it with them. Sounds pretty good, right? We haven’t really had a chance to experience this yet per say, but part of the sudden revitalization of our sex life was an openness to experimenting with kink, and it just so happened that Rose, the woman I was seeing on that first date, has been in BDSM for several years at this point and is very knowledgeable. I think you can see where this is going. Now, I wouldn’t recommend trying this particular application with just any new relationship, particularly one that hasn't gone past the first date. I would imagine that most folks would just as soon not know the details of what you get up to with a metamour (partner of your partner with whom you aren’t romantically involved. Jargon is fun!) Rose is pretty unique (and awesome) in how sex positive she is for everyone in her life, and it helps that she and her husband have been in an open relationship for some time as well and have already been through a lot of the road bumps and hurdles along the way, so they've got jealousy under control more or less. But really, I bring it up because my wife and I are still new at this and it's already had a positive effect. Imagine what could be possible in the future for us, and for you as well. If you and all your partners are all open and good communicators, the possibilities are, frankly, endless.  

...endless...

Oh right, dating's weird and I'm bad at it

So, dating. Specifically first dates. That’s a thing that happens. Should be the simplest thing in the world, really. Go out with a person who has expressed an interest in you and in whom you’ve also felt an interest. Eat something (probably.) Talk to each other (more than likely.) Get an idea of who this person you’re with is, and whether you want to get back together some time in the future for more of the same. Simple, clean, easy. Shouldn’t be anything to worry about, right?

Well, you’d think so.

(Fair warning up front, this is one of those “just spill the guts onto the page and hope it's not too embarrassing later” type posts.)

This one was kind of starting off running uphill anyway, for reasons She explained here. Magoo had blundered again, only this time his light-hearted myopic antics had managed to hurt his wife in the process. Not a lot, mind you, and not enough that we couldn’t talk to each other about it and patch things up later. But still, for someone who had a handful of reservations to begin with and now realized he had managed to cross a line without even having gone on a date yet...not a great start. And then of course there’s the fact that I’m a complete knob when I’m nervous. In the Thomas Harris world, Hannibal Lecter is described as wearing “an immaculately tailored person suit.” I’m not a serial killer (as far as you’re concerned,) but sometimes I feel that way when I’m in a social engagement. The only difference is that Hannibal’s suit is to cover up the homicidal maniac/inhuman monster/possibly the devil that is hiding underneath his skin, and mine is to cover up how painfully introverted I am. I am the embodiment of the metaphorical “duck-on-water,” gliding along through the conversation free and easy with no hint of the frantic kicking that’s going on beneath the surface just to keep the whole thing afloat. Often, when I get done with one of these soirees, I come home so exhausted that I can barely muster the effort to put complete sentences together. So I knew ahead of time that this was going to take some effort on my part.

"Rose," as we're calling her here, makes this part much easier. Part of what had been interesting with her was simply how easily we clicked with each other once we started chatting online. Normally when I meet someone through online dating, I try to say something about their interests in the opening message. With Rose I tried something different, starting out flirty and going from there. To my shock, this had actually been successful rather than receiving the non-response that most messages earn. It helped that she was genuinely interesting and interested in me, which always makes things move smoother. After only a couple of days, I was shocked to see that our number of messages back and forth had climbed into triple digits. It seemed stupid not to ask to meet up somewhere in person at that point, but I did ask my wife first rather than cut her out of the loop. Once things got the green light, I contacted Rose and the date was set: dinner at a restaurant close to her town (she lives about an hour away.)

So we had some conversational chemistry, but for an anxious fellow like me you can imagine what a first date is like. You’re trying to be engaged with every word they say. You’re trying to not let your attention drift to the colorful chalkboard of local microbrews printed on the wall or the TV with the football game in the corner. You haven’t mastered the rhythm of conversation with this new person, so you step on each other’s sentences and interject in the middle of a story because you thought they were done speaking. And, of course, you’re trying to put your best foot forward the whole time so maybe this person will want to see you again (and maybe see more OF you at some point in the future.) It’s sort of like a three-hour long job interview, really, where you don't know the job requirements beforehand and no one validates your parking at the end.

Ok, I’m getting negative. If it was that bad, no one would date. I went into this looking for interesting people, and everything beyond that point was a bonus. And “Rose” is definitely interesting. It also sounds like I had a bad time. I didn’t. The conversation flowed pretty freely between us despite how I'm making it sound. We talked about our jobs, our families, what it's like for her to manage her own BDSM dungeon out of her living room.

You know, first date stuff.

She and I chatted for about 3 hours without my even really noticing the passing of time. That kind of ended up being the other problem, as I was supposed to be checking in with my wife via text during the date. That's something we learned from a meeting of a local poly group. It really does help your partner to know that, while you're out having fun without them, at least you're still thinking about them. I was picking up the phone to do so as I was in the car waiting for the date to begin, but looked up as Rose was pulling into the spot next to me and forgot. The next time I took the phone out, the damn battery had died and I had to borrow a charger to hurriedly send a message apologizing for being such an absent-minded dick. Which, of course, added another sour note to the evening.

And then, of course, there was the end of the date. Christ. If you’ve seen an awkward teen romantic comedy you can probably figure out where this is going to end up. “Hey, I had a good time tonight.” “So did I! Thanks for coming out with me!” She reaches for a hug aaaand….like an asshole I go for the awkward kiss.

Yeah, kinda like that.

Now, I don’t think it was awkward because she wasn’t into it. Or, fuck, at least I hope not. I think I just caught her flat footed. This maybe shouldn't have come as a surprise since, as my wife put it to me later, “That’s sort of your move, isn’t it?” Very helpful, but not entirely wrong.

Anyway, mortified, I jumped in the car to drive home after a vague "We should do something again soon," giving the wife a call to make sure she  knew I wasn’t A) Dead in a ditch or B) Heading to Rose’s dungeon. I can hear that I screwed up in her "Yeah, I was starting to get a little worried" response, and I feel like a jerk. I have to pee all of a sudden, and have to stop in a gas station to do so. I take the wrong exit to head home. I do everything else that I can wrong, because I’m an idiot and everything is bad and ohgodohgodwhydidIeverdothis?

Just kill me now.

*deep breath* Ok, got that out. I feel better now.

Really, I swear the date wasn’t that bad. It’s just a matter of my not having been on one in several years and not being terribly good at them even before the hiatus. Rose and I had a good time. The problem is that, as a generally anxious person anyways, the one thing that goes wrong will always color the rest of the experience for me. I went on a fun vacation to San Francisco several years ago when my wife and I were first dating, and I don’t like San Francisco to this day because of a fight my Dad and I had one night while we were there. One argument, and a whole vacation through wine country and one of the coolest cities in the world turns sour. Likewise, if a date ends on an awkward note, the whole experience subsequently feels weird to me and I spend the rest of the car ride home convincing myself I'll never hear from Rose again and maybe, just maybe, this whole open marriage thing was a really terrible idea in the first place. 

I know, I know. Chill out Spaz.

I was more or less laying this out to Her on the porch an hour or so later after I got home, feeling generally like crap, when my text alert went off. Rose had sent me a message to say that she had a nice time. Going by the policy “If you’re afraid to say something to someone in a relationship, you need to say it now,” I went ahead and apologized for the awkward kiss. Rose said I was fine, and not to worry about it. I wasn’t sure if she was just being nice, but the next day I got another message spontaneously from her to start up another chat, and I finally let myself believe it was really ok. I was being too hard on myself, as usual, and we really were going to try and meet up sometime in the future to do something again. Maybe even a double date with our spouses.

I’ve struggled with what to write about this since then. Is there a lesson here? Sure, don’t be such a spastic jerk, but does that help anybody besides me? I guess a lifetime of sitcoms have taught me that I can't be the only one who locks up on a first date, so I decided to just go ahead and put it out there, despite the embarrassment. So, give yourself a break, new-and-old poly people. If someone meets you for a date its probably because they want to be there with you, and you’re not going to blow it in one weird moment. Also, I need to remember to charge my damn phone and, at the very least, text my wife at the start of any future dates. So maybe, overall, the thing to keep in mind is that there’s something to be said for knowing your own failings and making plans ahead of time to compensate for them. Maybe that’d be a good thing for me to keep in mind for the whole process, come to think of it.