Figuring out what's not working, or an emo whine

What's not working about our sex life? Just the fact that I can put it that way says a lot about where we've come to. I've been listening to unspeakable axe's masocasts recently and am amazed by what it sounds like to hear intelligent articulate not-fucked-up people talk about kinky sex. While I talk a good line about being sex positive, I don't think I'm very good at it.

Until I can talk to my beloved about Mistress Matisse's blog and about the Masocasts (to name two), I'm not really as comfortable with this as I'd like to believe.

I think there are two problems: 1) I do have a sexual addiction. By this I mean that I'm not totally on control of when I seek out sexual material and I think about it way more than I would like to. I don't think the latter would be a problem I it weren't for the former. But on the "you are what you think about" premise, if I'm not going to be a sexuality advocate then I need to be thinking about this less. (Forever In Her Service talks about this more positively than I have been in "My Inner Addict".)

2) I'm not going to be a sexuality advocate (better get around to defining that soon) because my beloved simply isn't very interested in sex. I mean she likes it well enough, but if that particular dish wasn't on the menu more than once in a blue moon, I don't think she'd miss it.

And I don't think this is because sex is physically unsatisfying. After having lived together for about 30 years, she's having more orgasms than she used to because we've set up sexual intercourse so that it's all about her pleasure. But in that perverse way that people joke about a reluctant wife dominating her husband - "you want me to do things to you only at my whim? Well, I choose not to dominate you; serve me by being vanilla" - she enjoys the sex we have but doesn't do much for me. Even something as simple as asking her to pinch my nipples is something that happens very rarely. And if it's very rarity were a part of some other dynamic - "this is a reward for you" - I could deal with that.

Instead, it's all only about her pleasure whenever we have sex - not even an acknowledgment by her that "you're no getting off because I don't feel like it" which itself would be very hot.

In truth, I have to cut the woman a lot of slack because I've said it's all about her. I think we need to re-talk over the dynamic so that it's about us both being fulfilled. That's why the comment from the Masocast episode that I referred to in a previous post from struck me so deeply - learning what we want is, for some of us, an iterative process. So while saying "I truly deeply believe that I am happiest serving you" may be true at the time I said it, it may equally and honestly not be true after six months of trying it out. It's a lot to expect someone to accompany that journey when she doesn't really care about the subject matter.

I suppose this sounds a lot lime whining about my beloved, and it's true that I'd love to wave a magic wand and have her know exactly what kind of relationship I'd like to have, particularly as I don't know that myself. But failing that, I would like to have her put some energy into the journey with me, beyond the (admirable) "what would you like me to do next?". I know (because I've asked) that if I say "could you read this or that of to get a sense of what's going on inside my head?" the answer is a very honest "I don't care that much about this stuff and I have too much else to do." I can't make her care about this, so I have to accept the honesty of that answer.

But it surprises me that she hasn't even read this blog. I told her about it last fall, when I wanted to share it with a relative. That worked out well (I think). And I wasn't going to do that without sharing it with my beloved first. Which I did, and we had a wonderful discussion that gave me insight into her, and in which she was, as ever, very understanding of me. But it didn't lead to her reading this, which surprised and disappointed me. Which means, I suppose, that I ought to ask her to read it. But I fear she'll ask me "why?" and say, with justification, "can't you just tell me what you want to say to me" and "I'm not that interested in the subject."

The true answer is that I can't tell her what I want to say, not because I can't speak it, but because often I don't know what it is until I write it here.

Which leads me to the conclusion that maybe I need to let all this go, not because it's wrong, but because it just may be not one of those things that I'm going to get in this life. And that's potentially ok , even though it's not my preference. I don't know if that's true, however, and I don't know if I can do it. I do know that what's most important in this life is to be in relationship with people, and if my kink gets in the way of that in marriage, then it's something I should let go of if I can. I don't know if I can.

I didn't mean for this post to get all emo but I'm hoping that writing will get me out of this emotionally stuck place and clear the decks for the many other things I need to be thinking about.

Another thing about that conversation on Masocast...

I forgot to mention one of the other comments made by one of the women on the Masocast roundtable. I think the subject was whether she would top her boyfriend. Her response was that she had been through so many changes around dominance and submission in her mind and through her time as a dominatrix that she didn't feel it would be fair to drag someone whom she was emotionally involved with through those changes.

This felt very familiar. And the idea that one doesn't have to feel bad about that, that this is all part of an exploration, was very powerful to me. Because I have, of course, dragged my beloved through just these kind of changes - from "Women are superior" to "I want to serve" to "Punish me", from "this is who I am" to "this is what I love to do" to "this is something I don't seem to be able not to be interested in", from "I need to be totally out and in public about this" to "This is just something we do between us" to "I can do these activities with someone but not have an emotional connection with them" - and I'm not sure I even remember what-all else.

She has been patient and supportive, even though some very large percentage of this leaves her cold. The idea that this journey is not an indicator of my screwed-up-ness, but a set of realizations that can't happen without the journey is a very revealing one.

Don't know why I forgot to mention that in the other post.

Coming soon (I hope) - What happened in March and where we are now.

Not Feeling Guilty

I find it so hard not to feel guilty about my interest in... interest in... what exactly am I interested in, anyway. TTWD? Sex? Power dynamics?

Anyway, I've found that for me, a really good tonic regarding that is
Masocast put together by Unspeakable Axe, particularly his recent "Dominant's Roundtable". OK, I loved the fact that a bunch of women who are into ... into ... whatever it is we call this thing ... would sit around and talk about it. And I was particularly touched by some of their observations on the men who see them professionally - compassion basically - a realization of how hard this is for some people (moi, say for instance) to come to terms with, but how persistent people can be about it. And while there were the requisite jokes about thinking with "the little head," there was also a fair amount of insight and sympathy.

But most powerful for me was the sense of comfort with the whole subject, not only on the part of the women talking, but on Unspeakable Axe's questions, and (in some of his other podcasts) on on the part of some of the "audience."

This has been helpful. To wit: I was telling a story the other night and my beloved snapped, "Why do you tell that this way?" She later apologized and we had a good talk about how we disagree with each other. Some how it came around to her saying that she concerned (rightly, I might add) that some of my interest in submission comes from not feeling that good about myself. It was directly as a result of listening to those podcasts that I could say (in jest, but seriously), "Beat me with a stick, but don't beat me with words." We laughed and I'm not sure anything came of it, but being able just to name how I feel is still huge.

The world is helping many things change in my life right now ("It's the economy, stupid..."), but I'm hoping reorienting my relation to ... whatever this is ... is part of that change: Not regarding it just as an addiction that must be gotten over, but as an interest that can have a balanced place in my life (or around which I can build a balanced life).

I rather admire the way Tom Allen presents this. Along with liking his writing....

...And don't forget about...

Tom Allen on why orgasm control is fun: Rat in a Cage

And on my fantasy about how orgasm control might happen in our relationship: Coming Together

but not unless we start talking a whole lot more.

And why am I updating this blog after basically 9 months of inactivity?

I don't know. But I do know that my obsession with sex comes and goes, and here it comes again. I also know that it comes back in different ways every time, and that every time it comes back, the more I talk about it with my beloved, the more progress I make on this. And that this blog is my way of not ignoring it, feeling guilty about it, or pretending that my interest does not exist.

So I don't know if I'll be posting a whole lot; I'll be interested to find out.

I Want...

"M", over on "Submitting to Her", wrote a post on his wife "P"'s ordering dinner for them. It clearly was an intense moment for him, and he reflected on it.

He said, in so many words:

I want her to get so used to...
I want her to realize...
I want her to never consider...
I want her to demand...

This is what I find so difficult about this kind of relationship. Is it about what I want? Or about what she wants? Or about what I want her to want?

And there's nothing wrong with it being about what I want, except that this is so at odds with the outer form of the relationship - her being in charge, my doing what she wants.

It's why I've found this kind of relationship so confusing in my own life. Perhaps for "M" and "P", she does want all these things, and his expressing his wants is just a way for them to communicate about them, and achieve some kind of "shared language" around what they both want. (From some of her earlier posts, it certainly seems like this could be true.)

But for some of us, where it's pretty clear that what my beloved wants is for this all to "go away", I don't know how to resolve the dynamic.

...

And, "Yes", I will explain the hiatus. When I have a minute...

Wanting, Being, Getting, Needing

It's finally occurred to me that these four things are related in some peculiar ways. When my beloved said she'd explore this with me, several things happened.

The first was Being: she was saying it was OK for me to be as I am. This is big. HUGE. I've been this way - wanted these things - since I was about 11 years old - yes, I remember the night. And it's never been OK to want them. Never been OK to be the way I am.

Even when I explored these things with other lovers (before we were married) or even when we explored them together, in our halting and flawed attempts early on, it still wasn't OK for me to be this way. It felt more like it was OK for me to be not-OK, to be deviant or "sick" or whatever model we were using.

This is the first time that I've been in a place, and we've been in a place to have a conversation about this, and the overwhelming feeling I get is one of relief: I can be who I am, we can talk about "this stuff" (thought that's harder than I thought). And it's not because we're "working on my problem." It's because this is how I feel and she's willing to hear that.

What I realized this week, is that wanting and being are totally independent from getting. What I mean, is that I may not even need to get what I want, if it's OK to want it, if it's OK to be as I am. I'm not sure I entirely believe this yet, and I'm not entirely sure it's true, but it's occurred to me as a possibility. (I wonder if akin to what Strong And Submissive has realized, and has kept him in his relationship. No matter, just wondering.)

I also wonder if this kind of asymmetrical relationship is really what I want, or whether I just want the idea of it. I may not ever know if my beloved doesn't decide that it's what she wants, and maybe that's OK. I certainly don't think I'm very good at this - I leave too much undone, or too many offers un-made. I'm too lazy for it. Aside from the titillation value (which is considerable), I think that's what I like about Her Knight's experience with his Princess: She is unbendingly rigorous in her expectation of perfection from him, and without nagging, she never lets him forget it.

I don't know if I could succeed in that kind of relationship, or if I would enjoy it. But I know I can't succeed in what we have now, where I just need to be good enough to do all the things I know I ought to want to do, or that I just plain ought to do to keep the wheels turning in our house. What's hard, is if I don't my beloved just picks up the slack, to the point where she gets frustrated about it.

I'm so tempted to say "It would be so much easier if she would just tell me what she wants," but I think I know that: for all of this to go away and for me to be "normal." Early early on, I wrote about that possibility, in the middle of "(Two to Tango." Certainly at that point (and at the point at which those experiences happened), I wasn't ready to let go of "this stuff." I don't think I am now, either.

On the other hand, maybe it's not important in this life that I get what I want. I think it is important that I'm OK wanting what I want. But once I get OK with that, the answer well may be that I don't get that in this life. There are more than a few things I'm not going to get in this life, and I seem to be OK with those. Why can't this be one?

And Then She Makes Me Wonder

Exactly a week since these events, but the set enough of the stage to be worth posting anyway.

Holiday season and tedious house-guests meant we didn't have much time for each other, physically, emotionally, or in terms of just plain old minutes. So I was a little surprised when we were at a friends house and she put a pillow down on the floor by her feet and motioned me to sit there. It was a natural thing to do in the context, and I might have sat there anyway, but it was a pleasant surprise that she suggested it.

Later that evening at the buffet, it didn't occur to her that I'd be glad to serve her, and I couldn't suggest it or just do it without making a big show of things, so I didn't.

Even later that evening in bed, we had quite the sexual good time, only hers ended in an orgasm and mine didn't, which was fine with me, as it wouldn't have enhanced her pleasure at that moment, it seems.

The next day or two after getting really worked up (it had already been a week) are usually a little difficult and I have to stay focused in order not to get crabby. I'm not sure I entirely succeeded, but I don't think I failed too spectacularly either.