Vodka, inhibitions, dominance and purple feathers

So, yesterday, the partner and I had some super awesome non-bedroom alone time in the form of actually having a dinner date.  It was so good, and made me so happy. :)  But even though we weren't in the bedroom, I still learned a lot of stuff about how my re-awakened sex-crazed brain seems to work.

So (to back up a bit), during our "dry spell"--which, for the record, is a terrible word for where we were for the X number of years between first getting together and now. It wasn't technically "dry". We had sex, semi-regularly, barring stress or other things. Granted, it sometimes felt perfunctory and I remember feeling mentally and emotionally exhausted (rather than energized)... So, while it wasn't really a "dry spell", it was very very far from the kind of engaged, enthusiastic, wake-the-neighbors sex we're having now at all hours of the day (remind me to tell you my new record for number of orgasms in a single day. Oh nevermind, why wait. It's 7. And I think I've reached that record 3 times now?).

Anyway, during our "dry spell", we both knew that if I was drinking, my interest in sex rose considerably. So, inevitably, we'd both make at least some effort to be drunk or tipsy semi-regularly because of how much it just made (and still makes) me want to be touched and cuddled, and well... fucked.  (Not to mention the fact that I sometimes get an insatiable oral fixation when I'm tipsy. I hope you interpret that in exactly the way I know you are in an adult-oriented blog.)

Basically, we knew that certain levels of tipsy lowered my inhibitions considerably (duh), but also multiplied all kinds of other feelings and interests regarding sex that I'd normally be pretty un-interested in while sober (sorry, sweetie. I hope I can make it up to you now).

So, yesterday the partner and I were on a date, and we'd had a drink. And the combination of not really having much alcohol in months (aside from a few key nights with friends) and the fact that I've basically cut breads and starches out of my diet entirely, my one vodka martini hit me pretty hard, and for a little while, I was exactly in that perfect amount of tipsy that used to turn me from "oh, I'd rather read a book" to "um... could I please take off your pants?". It was the first time we'd really had any real amount of alcohol since... well... since our "nearly-dry" spell ended.

And holy crap, I felt like the entire world was made out of sex. Our waitress was so fucking hot and kissable. (At one point as she was walking away, I whispered for the benefit of just my partner, "Do you want to come home with us?" which I think made him more than a little excited.) And so was the other waitress that was serving the table next to us.  And so were the people on tv. And every word out of everyone's mouth was a fucking inuendo in my head. It was spectacular.

But not only that, I started to also discover how alcohol might change the sorts of kink I'm interested in.  So far, I've been very interested in subbing/bottoming. I love being tied up, restrained, bound, and exposed. I love relinquishing control, relaxing my guard, dissolving all of my anxieties, and opening myself up... It's glorious. It's magical. It's alchemical. It makes me feel like a whole human being instead of the impostor I usually feel like I am.

But after this one drink yesterday, I started thinking more and more about how fun it might be to really embrace dominance. And I don't mean the kinds of fantasies I've had since college... it's no surprise to anyone I've slept with that I often fantasize about being with women, and when I do, I'm almost always the one taking the lead in what we're doing. But in those fantasies, there's no kink. It's just us, with her under me while I learn how to make her moan...

No, yesterday I was thinking (to my delight and surprise) about dressing up in black corsets and purple feathers, with black heels and maybe fishnet gloves, and pushing my partner onto the bed, tying him down... and... well... I'll let you imagine what you'd like. (And to help, here's a picture of some of the things we picked up today before our date... they--along with the other toys that came in the mail--were in the trunk of the car during dinner:)

This was kind of new for me. Over the past 3-4 years, I've gone back and forth with being more or less comfortable "taking the lead" in sex with my partner in pretty general and vanilla ways (such as being on top, initiating sex, etc), but my brain on vodka last night after my recent sexual revival/revolution/re-awakening was decidedly dominant. And she was hot. And what was so incredibly exciting and mind blowing was that she was a part of me.  I think I'll name her Mistress Jane. Or Dominatrix Jane. Not quite sure yet.  And to be fair, Dominatrix Jane was very interested in fucking women too (like our waitress), which was a kind of amplification of my usual fantasies about women. But the thing that was new and interesting and exciting was that for the first time, I wanted to take on that role with men (like my partner). I just need to take a moment and marvel at that for a second... Brains are weird, and changing, and plastic, and dynamic, and so is sexuality. And it's so delicious. 

So, of course, once we were in the car and out of earshot of anyone else, I told him all about this. :) What I learned about myself is that it seems like alcohol still lowers my inhibitions, raises my libido, and multiplies my interest in sex. But now that I have this new, much higher "base level" interest, it seems to be also transforming what KIND of sex I want to have, and with whom.

After we got home (and before sexy times) my partner and I went for our evening walk, and for some reason in my slightly tipsy state, I decided I wanted to run/jog as much as I could and really push myself (we've both been on a health and fitness kick lately), so I ran... and I reached the end of the block where in the few times I've run in the past, I'd stop, but this time I kept going. And going... and going.  I remember thinking to myself,

"Holy shit, I'm still running. How am I able to do this?" 

And then later, at the end of the street, turning the corner where SURELY I'm going to need to be done running, I still didn't stop.

"Okay, well, this running stuff is a thing that's still happening, so I'm just going to keep going! Fuck yeah!" 

I ran much farther and longer than I've ever run since probably high school, and I didn't stop when I started to feel tired. I kept going until I felt like my lungs were going to burst. I kept surprising myself again and again with the fact that I wasn't tired enough to stop yet.  It felt amazing!

When we both returned to walking, I commented on how it seems like alcohol makes me want to run, and how I didn't fully understand why. (Last time we drank and then went for a walk, I jogged/ran for a while then too, but not NEARLY this far or this hard). I thought maybe it was because alcohol loosened my muscles or dulled aches and pains, or possibly that it was a coincidence and really it's just that I'm carrying around so much less body weight since losing 15lbs that it's just easier to pick up my feet and move. But I think what he said is really more along the lines of what's going on:

He talked about how alcohol lowers my inhibitions (true) and maybe makes me more interested in risk-taking and pushing boundaries (so true!).  The right amount of alcohol pushes me to ignore my anxieties and fears (which probably really does help me loosen my muscles and even avoid injury). But really, it's all about fear and about letting that go, relinquishing one kind of control and grabbing hold of another, lowering your guard, and dissolving anxieties into noting. It's magical, and alchemical, and glorious.

And clearly, as I'm thinking about this all this morning, this applies to more than just running and sex.

And, to be super clear, I don't mean this blog post to be about advocating alcohol as a performance/esteem booster or anything. What I mean by exploring all of this is that alcohol seems to be an incredibly useful reminder that my "limits" (in whatever part of my life I find them) are probably much higher, farther away, and look very different than I think when I'm sober. It's reminding me that I probably have all kinds of different versions of myself buried inside me who I haven't met. "Dominatrix Jane" made her first appearance in my brain at dinner tonight, and apparently I've got some kind of long-distance runner inside me too somewhere. Both happy and delightful surprises.

Brains are weird. :)

Ergonomic bondage? :)

I am quite sore this morning. My arms ache from being tied over my head, and my legs ache from pulling against ropes. All my core muscles are tingly and sore.  For the most part, this is a fantastic kind of sore and ache.

But, unfortunately, my lower back and hips also hurt in that way that suggests I probably fucked things up again (and maybe I should spend part of the morning in the hot tub). Maybe not as bad as I've fucked things up in the past doing things like, oh, unloading the dishwasher, but it's it's still there. (Apparently kink is still less dangerous than housework. That's good to know. Solution: more kink? Less dishes? I'm okay with that.)

So, this has taught us a few things. Although it's incredibly hot to be tied down in the way we tried last night, it's really not good for my hips and back to immobilize them in that way. I need to be able to bend at the hips, and the combination of (semi-involuntary) side-to-side hip movement and straining against the ropes at my ankles probably put pressure and tension in areas of my back and hips where it shouldn't have been.  I have some ideas on how we can make things better and still make oh-so-pretty rope marks on my ankles, but we will have to experiment (carefully) a bit more to be sure.

But now we know. And we have some important data that may help us be safe and injury free when our order from Twisted Monk arrives.

Maybe there are people out there in the kink communities who have advice on "ergonomic bondage" or something. Haha.

Quick note to-do list:

No context to-do list:

• Figure out how to be okay talking more during sex (dirty or otherwise)
• Write some sexy email types of things to my partner

Because of reasons that are good.

On feeling welcomed, invited, and feeling feels for friends on a loveseat

Last night, I spent a few hours squished into a small loveseat with a very snuggly couple--one a long-term friend (and ex-boyfriend, full disclosure) the other his long-term partner who I'd only met a few times. It felt very magical. I had zero complaints about the fact that the movie we were watching was slow as fuck, and I could spend long swaths of time just quietly feeling feels and never really miss anything important.  Everyone else in the room, all squished together into the other big couch, filled up the slow slow pace of the movie through endless and hilarious Mystery Science Theater comments. (Although, the award for the comment that almost broke me goes to my friend next to me: "I'm getting a psychic message from the space anus!"). I was so happy to see my friend again, and so happy that he and his partner were so warm and full of hugs and "invitation", for lack of a better word.

But this isn't really just a blog post about sitting in a couch and feeling feels.  This particular group of friends actually used to be a source of a lot of anxiety for me. The hosts in particular are people I like and admire and always wanted to be friends with because they are fantastic people, but who also always always made me feel a little small and a little judged.  Especially the wife. She's the kind of person who makes her opinions and judgments of other people pretty public knowledge, and expects you and everyone around you to have thick enough skin to handle it and see it as a non-threatening thing.

I never had thick enough skin.

I remember times hanging out with this group of friends, and hearing her go on about the stupidity or terrible choices someone else (from work, or an absent friend) had made. Sometimes it was about relationships. Sometimes it was about work or jobs, etc.  There was never ever any true malice in the way she talked though.  It was more of a "what can you do?" or "stupid's gonna dumb." I remember hearing and watching her, and seeing how everyone else in the room laughed, and empathized, and I felt like an outsider, pretending to smile and chuckle while inside my innerJane was kind of curled up in a ball in tears because I just knew that when I'm not in the room, her judgments and jokes must also be about me.

This was also a time when I felt very much like my "membership" in this group was sort of contingent and temporary since the only way I'd gotten to know any of them was through people I'd dated. I felt like I had no legitimate claim to be in this group because of it. That as soon as I stopped dating one of them (and I've sort of serially dated 3 "members" of this group. My current partner included.) I'd no longer be welcome. I'd no longer be invited.

But I understand now that this isn't true. "Anxiety/insecurity lies," as another close friend reminded me recently. It really was mostly just a case where the Anxiety/Insecurity Monster found a little source of fuel and inflated itself in my head.  For years.  For no good reason.

I know this for sure now because of how different I felt around them all last night. I was there alone (my partner was sick and couldn't come) which a year ago would have resulted in me making some excuse and not going at all.   But instead, I was happy to go alone and dive into this group of friends. It really drove home the fact that I've changed and healed and grown from who and what I was when I was filled mostly with anxiety and depression and insecurity (not saying all of those things are gone, but I feel like they are no longer my foundation).  Even though my partner was sick and couldn't join us, I felt completely welcome, open, happy to see everyone, and confident that my invitation wasn't "by accident" or "out of obligation" or "because you're engaged to..." I felt like I was Part of the Group. I really was invited for me. I really was welcome.

And it wasn't anything that they did differently that changed things either. Host Wife still made some of her usual "haha-is-she-judging-them-I-can't-tell" comments about the fact that the two people who were late (the friends I spent the movie squished with on the couch) don't use traditional labels or even boundaries to define their relationship, but when I heard her comments, they sounded and felt different in my head. Instead of feeling so anxious and judged myself, or defensive of them, I surprised myself by actually not being bothered by it. Like, I had to kind of mentally take a step back and be surprised at myself. And kind of proud. All of a sudden, it didn't sound threatening. And it didn't make me feel threatened. I even managed to say some things in a tone that showed not only did I not judge them for being that way, I was really looking forward to seeing them, and I knew that they were on their way.

And when they arrived, I didn't hold back the hugs, or worry (much) about what it looked like for me to accept their invitation to join them on the too-small love-seat. Years of conditioning of course made me conscious of the possibility that Host Wife looked at us in a judging way (my fiance was absent, afterall), but I feel like that was a kind of residual reaction and nothing more.  I relaxed and gave myself full permission to just quietly feel the feels for these two fantastic friends who make me feel welcome and loved even though we rarely ever see each other.

So yeah... shit's different now in my head.  *does a little dance*  I won't pretend that my battles with the Anxiety/Insecurity monster are over though. This was just one of those days where I went to a place where the monster usually lives, and to my surprise discovered that he'd shriveled up into a tiny cute ball of "non-issue" and I could just greet him and gently pat him on the head and tell him it's okay to be small and irrelevant.

:)

This blog is an experiment...

Like a lot of things going on in my life lately, this blog is an experiment, and hopefully a successful one.

It's an experiment in being "open" (but not specifically about being "out"). I'm hoping to use this place to open up about things that are important, scary, sexy, and playful to me, but that I can't share in any of my other social media areas.

For the most part, I expect I'll be writing a lot about kink. Writing publicly (aliased of course) about kink is thrilling to me, even if no one ever reads this. And not in an "exhibitionist" sort of way (I don't think that's one of my kinks, although I'm open to evolving), but in a "I'm telling the world something of my new truth!" sort of way.

These last few weeks, for example, have been spectacular in terms of how much I've discovered about myself, my relationship with my partner, kink and polyamory.

I feel like it all started when somehow I managed to convince myself it was okay to open up to my partner about the fact that I develop very strong infatuations with and crushes on pretty much anyone I come to care about. These feelings vary in intensity, and I've experienced them all my life. My pattern for making friends for a very long time has been to fall in love with them a little bit (okay sometimes a LOT of little bit), develop a lot of emotional intimacy (and frequently physical intimacy) before finally settling into some version of friendship that feels very permanent and lasting.

Up until recently, I thought I had to hide these feelings from him. I felt like they were a kind of cheating. I worked very hard to keep my feelings at bay, under wraps, only indulging in fantasy in the deepest, darkest corners of my brain.

But then I gradually began to open up more to him about these experiences.  At first it was vague about crushes in general, and admiring beautiful people from afar.  And I encouraged him to tell me about crushes on people he must surely have. And then gradually, I admitted to having "crush-like symptoms" (I couldn't yet think of it as something harmless) on some mutual friends, and to my utter joy and disbelief, he was happy to hear about this. Supportive of it even. Encouraged me to feel these feelings.

At more than a few points (these conversations took days) he even shared things about my crushes in order to essentially encourage me to explore those feelings... He shared things that I never would have expected him to share, all in this playful way of encouraging me not to feel ashamed/anxious about feeling this way.  That took me a while to sort of process.

But once I got over the surprise/shock/bafflement that his reaction was so positive, I realized this: the bottom line was that he trusts me to have these feelings, and to explore them as much as I'd like to.  He's not threatened by the thought of me falling in love or in lust with additional people.

It's an amazing feeling... and it was a major turning point for me, and for us, and sort of made all kinds of things start to tumble out of me over the next few days/weeks.

Hopefully some of that will make it into this blog. And some of the new stuff will also make it into this blog in the future. :)

Read at your own risk, of course.