When My Husband Met My Master - #awkwardness #jealousy #polyamory

By Lisabet Sarai

I’ve always been susceptible to the myth of the one true soul mate. How seductive it is to think that your perfect partner exists somewhere out in the world, the one person with whom you can connect on every level— physical, mental and spiritual. All you need to do is find him (or her). I understand the sweet ache for that unique individual who complements, completes and fulfills you.

I’ve found my soul mate. Several times.

In reality, I believe I’m constitutionally non-monogamous. I have no difficulty whatsoever being deeply in love with more than one person simultaneously. During one period in my life, I had ongoing serious relationships with three men. By serious, I mean that the connection went well beyond recreational sex. I was sincere when I told each of them that I loved him. Somehow I’d managed the trick of concentrating on the lover who was present, dismissing the others from my mind.

What happens, though, when two of your soul mates collide?

I’ve written many times on this blog about my Master, the man who initiated me into BDSM and profoundly changed my view of myself and the world. I loved—indeed still love—him dearly. His insights, his rough tenderness, his generosity, the way we influenced one another in the astral or non-corporal realm, all combined to make me feel he was the One.

However, our relationship was never easy. We broke up at least partly due to misunderstandings about what each of us wanted. At the same time, the bonds between us remained strong.

Meanwhile, I met and married my husband, a man with whom everything was easy. Our life together began with a three week cross-country road trip, from the East Coast to the West. Travel can put serious strains on a relationship, especially when you don’t know someone well. In our case, it was a dream voyage, a fantastic adventure. We were so comfortable with one another, it seemed we’d been together forever instead of a few days.

Obviously he was my soul mate.

Time and life choices put significant distance between me and my Master. We didn’t see each other for years at a time, though we communicated by mail, email and the occasional phone call. When my path took me to his area, though, I always tried to arrange a meeting. A brief few hours—lunch, a walk in the park, maybe a bit of hanky panky—simultaneously frustrating and thrilling—then I’d return to my husband, grateful for his steady love and easy-going personality, as well as his tolerance of my attachment to my old lover.

On one such visit, though, I had the idea of introducing them. In fact, we arranged to have dinner together—my Master (“G”), my husband and me. To provide a bit of social lubrication, G brought a female friend, Mary. I thought the two men would trust each other more if they’d met. After all, they both loved me, and I felt the same about them. Furthermore, they had other things in common, besides me: high intelligence, interest in things technical, liberal political views.

I was so, so wrong.

That dinner may have been the most awkward night of my life. No one threw a tantrum, but the men were barely civil to one another. Mary’s somewhat sarcastic nature, and the fact that she knew a lot about my relationship with G, didn’t help things. Despite my desire to reassure them, to let each of them know how much I loved him, each man saw a rival in the other. Afterward, my husband claimed that G had explicitly threatened to steal me away from him. (I certainly didn’t hear him say anything like this.) Meanwhile, in our later conversations, G mocked my husband, telling me that he was too vanilla to ever satisfy me.

Every time I remember that meeting, I cringe. I may have done more harm than good, giving each of them a concrete target for their jealousy and insecurity. I’d thought we’d all be more comfortable, getting things out in the open. I even fantasized about making love to both of them at the same time.

Not bloody likely, as it turned out. After that fateful dinner, it became even more difficult for me to justify the occasional meetings with G, because I knew how much my husband disapproved of him.

Sigh.

Being a writer, though, I did manage to fulfill that fantasy, if only in a story. Truce of Trust was inspired by my relationships with these two soul mates. In that tale, the two men agree to live together with the woman they both love. However that doesn’t solve the problem of jealousy:

Greg stirred in his chair. “It’s late, and I’ve got to work tomorrow. Finish your wine, Leah, and come to bed.”

Daniel looked up abruptly. “Wait a minute. Tonight’s my night.”

“No, it’s not. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays she’s with me. In case you’ve forgotten, this is Friday.”

“That’s not fair. She was away last night at her seminar. So she and I should be together tonight as compensation.”

“Sorry, old man.” Daniel was three years older than Greg, who liked to rub that in. “You know that’s not how the system works.”

“Well, perhaps we need to consider changing the system. Somehow it always seems to work out that Leah is away from the house on my nights.”

“Please...” Leah rose from her chair, trying to intervene, but it was as though she wasn’t there.

“I’m sorry, but that’s not my problem. Anyway, you shouldn’t be such a bad sport. After all, you had her to yourself for years.”

Daniel snorted in exaggerated disgust. “To myself? Hardly! I couldn’t make love to her without wondering if she was fantasizing about you. I couldn’t look at her without seeing the marks that you had left.”

“Marks she asked for, don’t forget.”

“That’s what you claim, at least.” Daniel was sexually adventurous, but he had no interest in BDSM. Leah knew that he was truly perplexed by the power dynamics between her and Greg.

“Believe me, I can make her beg to be beaten,” Greg said smugly. “Isn’t that true, little one?”

Leah blushed fiercely, as embarrassed as she was angry. Of course, Daniel knew this about her, but still she didn’t want to admit it out loud.

Both of them stared at her in mute accusation.

“Answer me, Leah.” Greg put a hint of steel in his voice. Shivers of anticipation raced through her in response. Her deepest instinct was to obey him, but she resisted, silent and rebellious.

“Why do you put up with him?” Daniel donned his wounded boy expression, pouting under his moustache. “All he does is hurt you. He has no respect for you. I can give you all the love and tenderness that you need.”

“You have no idea what she really needs,” said Greg softly. His aim was true, as always. 

Daniel slumped in momentary defeat, then roused himself. “If that’s so, then why did she marry me?” he asked, playing his own trump card.

Leah had heard it all before, and suddenly, she couldn’t take anymore. She turned her back on them and headed for her room, ignoring their voices calling after her.

In the story, of course, the men realize they have to trust one another and truly share Leah, or they’ll both lose her.

In real life, things haven’t been that simple. But I haven’t given up hope. I’ve naturally optimistic as well as polyamorous.

Ritual or Habit

by Jean Roberta

Sigh. It’s hard to be the caboose on the train, the person who posts last in a fortnight, or two-week period. What to say that hasn’t been said before?

So far, no one has discussed short vs. long in terms of sexual relationships. Whether you prefer to spend a few hours with a beautiful stranger or date for a few months or bond for many years and many children is more than a personal choice.

There are various terms for a sexual encounter between strangers who never met before, and don’t intend to meet again. For centuries now, this type of relationship has been considered low-class, immoral, and especially repulsive to “nice girls” or respectable women.

What this actually means is that female-identified people get blamed more than those on the butch end of the gender spectrum for engaging in hookups or one-night-stands. If the girl/woman/transwoman gets paid for her service, in some jurisdictions, she and her customer can both be charged with a crime. Before Christian values came to dominate Western culture, things were different.

Let’s consider the reasons for this.

Stranger-sex is often compared, at least implicitly, with marital sex, which is/was presumed to be blessed by God. Yet marriages are not necessarily based on personal attraction, and until very recently they were male-dominated by law. Abuse in marriage (including forced sex and pregnancy) is generally harder to escape than a hit-and-run assault by a stranger.

Luckily, marriages can be legally dissolved in the modern world, and this is a good thing for the victims. Conservative Christians generally disapprove of civil marriage, divorce and abortion (or even contraception) on grounds that marriage was originally intended to be a sacrament, a lifelong commitment which included a promise to God, and was a context in which to raise “legitimate” children who could inherit property from their fathers.

There is a theory that the sex trade as we know it developed from a most un-Christian ritual in which a priestess or devotee of the goddess of love, pleasure and beauty would wait in the temple to offer sexual service to any passing stranger. The stranger who was blessed in this way would be expected to make an offering, usually in cash, to the temple and indirectly to the goddess herself.

The principle involved is not hard to guess. Sex between strangers, especially if one of them is a professional pleasure-giver, trained and motivated for that purpose, can be a celebration of sexual energy as a good thing in itself, unmixed with the baggage of a personal relationship. It can be a generous sharing of sensual joy, a way to give thanks for the privilege of living in a sensitive human body.

The degradation of this kind of exchange into a secret, illegal and widely scorned activity didn’t happen by accident, nor as an inevitable result of historical progress. Stranger-sex was deliberately discredited in the past, as it is now, by those who don’t want sexual pleasure to be separated from heterosexual marriage and childbearing.

More recent and more credible evidence than the temple-sex theory suggests that the pagan (pre-Christian) people of Europe held spring festivals, including sex parties, for centuries before the Christian establishment managed to drive such practices underground. A child with an unidentifiable father, conceived in an orgy on May Eve, was called a “merrybegot.” This term sounds more respectful than “bastard,” a patriarchal term which is still used as an all-purpose insult almost independent of its original meaning.

Aside from, or in addition to, a general sex-party was another sex ritual now called the Great Marriage, in which a tribal king or chief would mate with a woman representing the Goddess or the land or the natural world to ensure the general welfare of the tribe for the coming year. This ritual still holds great appeal for psychologists, anthropologists, and fantasy writers because of its symbolic value.

A lot of what passes for “morality” in Christian-based cultures has morphed into concepts of “mental health.” Even among people who don’t use Christian terms, stranger-sex is still widely considered unhealthy as well as dangerous, especially when contrasted with the security of long-term relationships. (Ha.)

Now that stranger-sex no longer carries a whiff of hellfire, it gets criticized because it doesn’t last. This seems to me to be an implied comparison of apples and oranges, or edibles that aren’t even in the same family.

The claim that hooking up with a stranger is not an adequate substitute for personal love seems self-evident to me. Even in ancient times, did anyone really have to choose between those two extremes? As far as I know, the Great Marriage was never meant to replace more ordinary sexual relationships, nor was the ecstasy of Beltane or May Eve meant to replace sex in a context of shared personal history. I suspect that those who still celebrate May Eve in the old way don’t deprive themselves of sex or companionship for the rest of the year.

Even for those who hope to find a soul-mate and live “happily ever after,” long-term monogamy might not be bearable. And even though the internet has made it possible for one seeker to find hordes of potential mates from outside the seeker’s immediate vicinity, dating burnout is likely to set in at some point. Who wants to go through the ritual of speed-dating or exchanging text-messages with hordes of strangers in the hope of meeting a dream lover? I wouldn’t. (And a good thing too. My spouse would divorce me.)

I’m not sure that anyone has found the perfect combination of sex, love, and companionship, but I know that most of what I was taught in my youth about sexual “love” is a pile of manure. Stranger-sex is far from “casual” in many cultures, and long-term commitment was not even expected to be an expression of personal love before the Renaissance.

I don’t care who gets it on in which ways with whom else or for how long, and I would love to believe that Western culture (especially in cities) has become sophisticated enough to accommodate a variety of sexual relationships. What concerns me is the ongoing contempt for those (especially the female-identified) who engage in stranger-sex. Hookups happen a lot, as apparently they did in ancient Babylon and Greece, but now they don’t usually include the mutual respect of people who recognize a spark of the divine in each other.

If there is still a sense of reverence between people who interact sexually, but who don’t (yet) have a personal relationship, I suspect this happens only in a context of BDSM, or in cultures that have somehow been isolated from Christian prudery. Pity.
--------------------------------------------------

Monogamy Blues

By Lisabet Sarai

We both know what’s going to happen. It’s understood, the inevitable consequence of the delicious tension crackling between us. Desire hangs around us like a perfumed fog. Reveling in the knowledge that you want me, I broadcast back the silent message that I feel the same.

Perhaps we kiss. I melt into your body, drunk on cheerful lust and the sense of rightness. We fit—but of course we do, this sort of natural magnetism doesn’t lie, but points us in the direction of blissful satisfaction. We’re not in any hurry. Languid yet buzzing with need, we explore one another.

Sometimes you’re a stranger. Sometimes you’re someone from my waking life, a startling revelation from my unconscious. Either way, I cherish these dreams for the sweet arousal they kindle, the traces of secret excitement that remain after the lascivious details have faded.

These nighttime visions always end the same way, though. Before we consummate our mutual desire, I remember. I’m married. I can’t go through with this, much as I want to. It would cause too much hurt to the man I love. This precious attraction is difficult to relinquish, but I have a responsibility to remain faithful.

The thrill dissipates. Reality bites, even if I’m still asleep. My dream reshapes itself. Sometimes I cry, or you do. Most of the time, the chimera of our perfect fucking simply vanishes, replaced by new images and emotions.

I’ve never told my husband about these dreams. What’s the point? In real life, I’m almost never tempted by anyone else—especially not now, post sixty years old. My wild times are behind me. My commitment is crystal clear.

I don’t regret anything. Still, those dreams evoke a bittersweet longing, a nostalgia for the woman I used to be.

I don’t think I’m fundamentally monogamous. I am perfectly capable of loving—in the erotic sense—multiple people concurrently. In fact when I met my husband more than three decades ago, I tried to get rid of him because I already had three serious lovers, and felt my life was sufficiently complicated without adding another, long distance relationship to the mix.

He was stubborn, and charming, however, not to mention a really good fit for me along almost every dimension. I didn’t really even choose him, not explicitly. It was just obvious that we should build a life together.

He’d had lots of lovers, too, before we met. Our marriage contract specifically states that we are both free have other sexual partners as long as we are honest with one another, and continue to give our relationship top priority. That was the principle. We never really put that clause into practice, not as individuals, though we explored swinging and polyamory together. As far as I know, since we married, neither of us has had sex without the other one being present.

It wouldn’t bother me if he had a girlfriend, I don’t think. However, the older we’ve become, the more I’ve understood that he’s a lot higher on the monogamy scale than I am. If I were to take another lover (which sounds ludicrous to me now—just goes to show how much I’ve changed), I’d wound him deeply. I don’t believe that the abstract notion of fidelity means much to him, but he’s lonely when I am not around. Plus I suspect that he’d worry about losing me to someone younger (since he’s a decade older than I am).

In my dreams, though, I’m still the lusty, experimental, open woman I was in my mid-twenties. And sometimes I wish that my sense of commitment wouldn’t intrude on my fantasies so reliably.

The only place I allow myself to be unfaithful is in my stories. There, anything goes.