Continued from …

You can take the risk of arousing one if your scary emotions almost as an experiment, to see how it feels, learn about yourself, and explore how you can take care of yourself and reassure one another when jealous feelings are being felt in the present.

Page 195

This extract resonated with me as highlighting something that I have been terrible at of late: reassuring my husband. The poor guy has had me come out as non-binary possibly polyamorous, and all along I have been unable to give him any reassurance. All because I cannot lie to him any more.

He doesn’t even know if I still want to be with him. I read something from the “Ethical Slut” to him about the person who initiated AI this opening of the relationship being honest and going through this difficult stuff because they don’t want rid of their partner.

I hope he can see that I don’t want to lose him.

The difficulties come in whether I can be authentic, real, and honest with him, or whether the realities of our relationship will make that impossible … and therefore make our relationship impossible.

A similar question is with my husband: can he be his authentic self with me?

And for both of us is the question of how the hell do we reassure one another of our love in the face of our history and our illnesses?

There are several answers in that quote:

• Work to reassure the other.
• Try things out for size – see how something sounds when said out loud.

When somebody is forbidden to be receptive, they are not allowed foreplay or to all fit any sensory input at all. So then if they are not automatically turned on when their partner is, they may wind up thinking that they are impotent, when all they need is a little nibbling on the ears.

Page 251

I’m afraid that I am guilty of consigning my husband to the role of “active” partner, because my primary sexual organ isn’t my previous, but my butthole. In so doing, I’ve blocked him from exploring his passive side.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy the active role, but I don’t fantasise about it and I don’t get turned on by it. However, there is something more than a little selfish in that attitude, especially considering my gifts: I can get and retain erections quite easily – that is true even now that I am castrated (testosterone gives a little help, but even in the months without it I worked to retain my erections – and they were as hard as ever).

I do like to pleasure my husband. As a subby type, giving pleasure is my pleasure … so why don’t I top for him occasionally?

Good question.

There is no adequate answer.

By consigning him to the one fixed role, I have rather reunited sex for him.

Your relationship with yourself is what you bring to a relationship with another person: it is what you share, personally, emotionally, sand sexually. A good orgasm changes your neurochemistry and nourishes your self-esteem: the sexier you are too yourself, the sexier you will be too your lovers.

There’s an exercise on page 257 “a hot date with yourself”, which really got me thinking. I used to really take time to masturbate, using different toys, lube, oils, I might try a few self-binds, or use the eStim. I could play with and by myself for a hour or two.

At some point I stopped.

I don’t really know why.

I think it might have been because I was living with somebody and they were always there. I never had any time to myself.

This person (my husband) always had a higher sex drive than I did when we were younger, and as a result I also had a fear that if I wasted an orgasm on myself that there might not be one available if he grew amorous.

Even while I was at the flat I never played with myself. I had my eStim and I had my puppy stuff, but I never played. It didn’t help that I had zero libido and that masturbating was largely just to keep the thing going.

I think that I need to find time for me.

It’s hard to focus on pleasure when you’re worrying about whether the baby is asleep, or the door is locked, the shades are drawn, it whatever bothers you. Figure out what the conditions are, what you need to feel safe and worry free

Page 259

This is the first time that I’ve received any validation for my need to satisfy certain requirements before sex. My husband has made me feel unreasonable for having a checklist of things that need to be ok.

For me this list includes:

• Not being hungry – but also not feeling stuffed.
• Not being thirsty (or to dry).
• Not feeling tired.
• Having a clean mouth.
• It not being too late in the day (if I have work in the morning).
• Having all worries reasonably put to bed.
• I also like the inside of my bum too be clean (irrespective of whether penetration might happen).

I think my husband also has a list of conditions; I know some of them:

• Not too early in the day (awake up sex is a no-no).
• He needs to have a cigarette first.
• He also needs a clean mouth.

He used to like to smoke straight after sex. I complained and he changed his behaviour.

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Conclusion

Three separate posts about this book, plus using extracts and quotes from it in other posts clearly shout that this book is significant.

Not just for polyamorous and open relationships, but its emphasis on communication, boundaries, consent, respect, and authenticity make it an amazing (and enlightening) read for monogamists.

I cannot recommend this book enough!