Rape Culture

In a dull grey flurry of words, smeared spoken newsprint text, I hear two words before I zoom back into focus:

"...rape culture." 

"what?"

I'm a bit spacey today. I think it's the meds. No, I think it's the company. Sometimes I don't know what to think. 
 
I've been staring at the bright oil cloth for a while, willfully distracted. 
He had just got done saying that he couldn't imagine ever finding himself attracted to ("to physically love") a larger ("fat") woman and, thoroughly disgusted, I was too exhausted to pick yet another fight on the subject. The topic comes up perennially with him, perhaps as a very thinly veiled threat. At least, that's how it seems to me as he says these things and then looks at me out of the corner of his eye. Preemptive, tentative, accusatory periphery. I hate that. How could I not hate that? 

"You should write about rape culture on your blog." 

"What about it?" 

"That we live in it." 

"What do you know about rape culture?" 

"I read an article about it."

He's Lassie, trying to tell me something, bark bark rape culture bark, but I don't want to hear it right now. I'm stuck on the other thing. 

I've known from the start that Igor is of the extremely vain sort, but really... Do all men feel that way, somewhere in them? 
If I'm thin, am I more lovable? 
(If I am physically desirable am I more lovable?)
((or... maybe, because I'm superficially valued, am I less lovable...?))

This is the pervasive mental dominance in our culture that has the potential to reach every girl and woman, an act of violence he commits without blinking while congratulating himself for somberly noting buzzword phrases such as "rape culture" -- as if, at this point, I could be impressed by him or what he has to say to me about women's issues. 

These are things, I think, that are failing to compute. 

Who's your Daddy?

Uh, sorry, our credit runner's out of order. 

Damn it all to hell. I love my little, independent, locally-roasted coffee shop, but these are issues to be expected: constant technical disfunction and general inconsistency. I can relate on a personal level, but I don't carry any cash on me as a general rule because it winds up slipping away like sand between a drooling child's open fingers. And so, frustration.

I got this one, Babe.  

Igor to the rescue! I smile and twirl one of my pigtails -- he likes when I put on a show. I lean over and give him an exaggerated peck on the cheek, look up at him with baby-doll eyes and squeak in a "little" voice:

Thanks, Daddy...

His eyes roll and then land in a stare that clearly communicates that he's over the theatrics. He puts his wallet away and as he turns, he throws his next words over his left shoulder like spilt salt:

Don't call me "Daddy". 

Hurt and a little stunned, it takes me a moment before I realize that I'm standing at the counter alone. I absentmindedly pull the elastic out of one pigtail as I wander to the table where he's sitting in his usual Dominant stance. He's cooler than the iced coffee.

Why don't you call Bacon your "Daddy?" He's old enough to be. 

I hate to jump to conclusions, but it seems that someone's feeling a little insecure.

He's only 32. That would make him a very virile 7 year old. 

Whatever, Sweets. It's just not my bag.  

Fair enough, I guess. The other pigtail comes out.

__________________ 

I'm at the beginning of my cycle, and Fangs has been taking really sweet care of me. Belly rubs, back rubs, neck rubs, every kind of rub, basically. He took me to all my favorite places in the city and then he took me to dinner and a movie. He selflessly guided me to orgasm to relieve my cramps and he fed me chocolate. When I was moody, he held me and told me I was beautiful until I felt better.

As much as he treats me like a princess, Fangs really does look like a Nordic prince. His long, fine hair rests in soft curls on his broad, strong shoulders. He looks at me with his disarmingly golden eyes, smiles, and offers me a giant hand clad in every opportunity with silver metal to help me into the vehicle.

You take such good care of me... 

Well, you're my baby, you know that?

The following debate takes place in my head in following .5 seconds: I'm going to say it. I'm not going to say it. *Breathe* Don't say it -- Remember last time? Oh, for fuck's sake, just get over yourself and say it. If it doesn't go over well, just have a little grace and laugh it off...

Does that make you my Daddy? 

I'm afraid to make eye contact, but when I look up at him from the car, I see a wide grin and four fangs.

I guess it does...

He chuckles to himself as he goes around to the driver's side, and I bubble inside.

Non-Verbal Communication for Alt-Sex

The presentation I led at Open SF Conference 2012, of Open, Poly, or Ethically Non-Monogamous in the Bay Area, had a mouthful of a name:

Honing Non-Judgmental Communication through Touch and Movement

It's the kind of name where one would have to chew on each and every word to really hear it as a whole. The kind of name where, when I said it, people would stare back blankly and nod: "Uh huh." I wasn't sure what turn out was going to be like.  I wasn't sure if I could reach the sexy and political people at this sexy and political conference with my content: movement exercises introducing the basics of contact improvisational dance in a non-sexual touch-therapy context. The alt-sex community tends to be defined by sex, and so naturally it crossed my mind that asking for non-sexual and highly tactile participation might result in mutiny. 

My mother asked me what some of the other workshops being presented were:

"Debunking the Myths of Anal Fisting, Negotiating Successful Threesomes, Pansexual Poly-Sluts in Leather, Writing Group Sex, and Fat Sluts, Hungry Virgins."

All of these real (and very cool!) workshops came to mind immediately.
While my mom is awesome, some things just don't need to be shared between us. What I actually said was:

"Uh, I think... there's a writing workshop... some guided meditation or something... a thing where we take pictures of each other and talk about how we are perceived... and like, I don't know, some other communication-y stuff." 

Yeah, I'm not so great with that thing they call "tact."

But what did a dance workshop have to do among all this?

This workshop is less a dance class and more an exercise in bravery and openness. Improvisation is essential practice in releasing oneself to say "yes" and to play. Intimacy, while it includes sex, is not confined or defined by sex. It is defined by communication, and communication is not restricted to spoken language. As you can see in the video, these two people are communicating perfectly in their own language, though one is a pre-verbal infant. Through loving touch they speak to each in a language of movement, one that can't be translated into post-Babel meaning. It is pure communication, a language that only exists in the moment it is shared and it is without technique, symbols, or the possibility of real documentation. 

Any relationship relies on communication skills, but the unconventional relationship structures enjoyed by the alt-sex, poly, and BDSM community require a particularly enormous amount of emotional bravery. While our specific lifestyle labels may often be defined by the sex we enjoy, the intimacy of our relationships and our identities are not. As much as sexual pro/recreation is natural and necessary, so too is the healing power of loving non-sexual touch, which is why we humans need and crave it. The goal is to gain awareness of how we interact physically with our loved ones, our community, and the world around us, to hone our connection to our non-sexual and non-violent physicality, and to learn to communicate with each other in new ways. 

In terms of communication skills, we sometimes get caught up in the didactic. I'd like to share with you a visceral way of learning in the realm of loving communication. The majority of this workshop will be movement exercises in groups, but at the end we will discuss what we experienced. The aim of the ending discussion is to begin to mentally "pack it up" so that we may hopefully take something of it away with us and into our lives.

Igor was skeptical that I would pull off my presentation. I hadn't told him anything of it, any of the above, didn't mention my plans. I may have led him to believe I would just "wing it." He looked increasingly nervous before the class, probably in part for me but also because he is *not* a mover. Still, he had committed to participate and there he was, dutifully and bravely in front, on my right hand side. But there was a moment during the exercises as I went around the room checking on the groups where I caught a glimpse of him having a moment. His partner was a much older woman with very long silver hair and they had been strangers up until just a moment ago. Yet, here they were in beautiful physical harmony. The look of pure ecstatic joy on both of their faces was so moving, I had to look away to stay focused.

After the workshop ended, Igor and others staggered out of the room with illuminated expressions and I knew I had, as Sparky would put it, "done a good."

Lost and Found

The exhilaration of screaming my head off at 120 mph with only two wheels and a vibrating death machine underneath me sweeps it all clean. I am assured with a definite clarity that I am alive, if only because at any second I might no longer be. I scream until hoarse, not out of fear -- well, yes, fear -- but also because I'm so fucking happy to exist in these moments that it can't be contained. Igor chuckles evilly at my puny screams as we careen down the highway on his hot red CBR and, feeling generous, pops a wheelie.

_____________ 

"PREPARE TO DIE."

My proclamations are more ironic than anything as Igor and I lose to each other in chess. He grins at me from across the pathetic looking checkered battlefield and considers his equally futile counter-move, eventually choosing the rook.

"Thank you for coming with me today."

I finger one of my conquered pawns, a brave lost warrior, as I scan my options silently.

"You really mean a lot to me, you know."

I opt for the horse thing, which I move around his horse in a little waltz. Clearly, chess is my game. I sigh and bring up my eyes to meet his searching gaze.

"I'm glad I finally got to meet your mother."

We had paid her a visit, armed with a dozen pink roses for Mother's Day. He was uncharacteristically quiet, but I didn't wonder why. The weather was beautiful, clear, hot, I could smell the grass. After a long pause, Igor took from the bouquet a single rose, which he presented to me. I wiped at my tears and smiled. He is so brave, even in the face of grief.

"She would be so proud of the man you've become."

We held each other for a long time before we hopped on the bike and left the graveyard.

_______________

An impromptu hike led us to pad through the redwoods in search of cool water in which to bathe our overheating bodies. Neither of us were appropriately attired, he in his usual steampunk regalia and I in gothic biker leather, but the trees didn't seem to mind. They were too ancient to care and besides, their sentience knows nothing of fashion. It seemed like a good place to talk things through.

"I mean, he couldn't possibly be more compatible for you than me, so it's not that I'm threatened." 

Part of me accepts his compatibility assessment as truth without question, but the majority of me disbelieves the perceived lack of threat in his mind. I kicked a pine cone with a steel-toed boot.

We've known each other for so long, since before we were individuals, it's almost impossible for me to conceive of our relationship in it's entirety. We were kids when we first kissed, and now we have evolved into what Igor calls, "black-belt relationship territory." Sometimes we still act like kids, but I think the key is to be patient with each other, and to know when to say, "I'm sorry."

"I love you."

"Love you back." 

 _________________

"Whatever happens tonight, don't fuck me with this."

I said this with a stern look on my face as I held up my wooden cocktail muddler. Old Fashioned's are my specialty and for this drink, a muddler is key. It did have a nice rounded dildo-esque shape to the handle, so I assumed it would have crossed his mind. Judging from the smirk that grew across his face as he stared at the tool, I began to realize that I shouldn't have said anything at all. I reasoned in vain.

"I don't want... splinters."

Hours later I found myself bound in industrial saran wrap and lain prone over a large ottoman. My mouth was gagged and I was blindfolded. I was bound so thoroughly in the plastic I could only futilely writhe like a pathetic fuck-larvae as I was being beaten by several hands and fucked by one of our guests. My blindfold was removed as Igor kissed my face. He had something to show me.

"See? No splinters."

He replaced my blindfold and proceeded to fuck my cunt with my cocktail muddler, which he had protected with a condom.  I giggled as much as I could in said state, and was awash with love for the insolence that can also drive me crazy.

More Igor!
The latest and greatest from Seduce and Confuse can be found on the main page. 
Don't forget to follow us (we just love that)!

Other Girlfriend

I would have never chosen to get in bed with this person whose hands and feet I'm trying awkwardly not to touch as they wrap around my lover, but here we are for the second time. The middle man appears to be experimenting with sleeping on his back for egalitarian reasons and I clamp my eyes shut in futile effort to quiet my brain. Once he drifts off and shifts, whose body will he pull close? This isn't the loneliest I've ever felt in a bed with two other people, but it's pretty damn close.

It's been about a year since Igor and I got together, and I feel it's generally the right time to assess how things are going. At the moment, I'm annoyed and frustrated. I feel pressured to play along, to put in the "work" to make this poly situation function, but I'm realizing that I just don't like what's happening. He can date whomever he wants, but I don't want to be in a relationship with her -- not the kind that involves the intimacy of brushing our teeth together, anyway. She's actually a lovely girl with whom I get along just fine, but I resent feeling consolidated into a single outing or a single bed. I resent that every decision we make together has to be run by her, but then again I am rarely consulted about my feelings. There are a lot of double standards happening, which are hard not to notice when we are both considered equal partners, and it drives me crazy.

It's hard to resist the thought that even while I was doting on him from abroad, he was replacing me. Since getting back, we haven't been as intimate as we once were and he's started doing things with her that used to be our activities. I hardly get to see him, and when I do, she requires periods of extra attention to "make up" for it. I feel like I'm living in her debt, this forced family member, and unfortunately because she affects every decision I make with Igor, she also affects the decision of whether I fight for him, fight to traverse the distance that has come between us in the time I was abroad, or let him slip away, breaking my own heart in the process. 

Conversation with him quickly fluctuated from one extreme to another. We talked about the possibility of cohabitation, which is something that we both admitted to wanting, but when he talked to Other Girlfriend about it, she expressed a familiar and irritating, if understandable, sentiment: "Hey, wait a minute! She maybe gets that? I want that too!" I let him know that if it's always going to be like this, an endless tug of war between two "primary" girlfriends, if we aren't going to move forward, get to spend time together or be sexually intimate, then it won't work for me in the long run. Companionship is a great thing, and we always have the best time together, but frankly I want more.

"But you have to appreciate that there's another person who is really important in my life whose feelings I have to consider!"

I appreciate it. I appreciate it so much that if the greatest I can hope for out of our relationship is a sexless triad living situation, I want to let him consider her feelings without having to consider mine. I love him so much, but it wouldn't be the worst thing to acknowledge that our poly styles are incompatible. The worst thing would be living in frustration because we won't admit that they are incompatible.

My mind wanders to Slater and his chillingly perverted smirk. Him and I talk on the phone frequently and one day we chatted about future plans: maybe we'd meet up in this country or that country, maybe he'd come to California, what kind of work could we find him and how would we live. I'm not sure what's real or what's a fairy tale but all the same, it's intoxicating to think about and I do miss him quite a lot. Maybe hearing it in my voice surprised him, but by the time I got off the phone with Slater, Igor was sulking.

"You left part of your heart in Istanbul..."

Maybe. A part. 

"...and I feel like you are punishing me because I don't believe in getting married and having kids."

Nope. Not punishing. But at this point I firmly acknowledge clear relationship goals including cohabitation, abundant recreation, and yes eventually down the line, procreation. Some people might think that having all that in an open relationship is too much to ask for, which is fine, but I don't want to date those people. I'm confident enough to lay it all out on the table, not to be difficult or punishing, but because I'd simply like my lovers and I to be on the same page. If he isn't interested in the kind of future that I'm after, he shouldn't be surprised when I choose to invest in a relationship with the potential I'm looking for, because all the polytard justification talk in the world couldn't make this corner of the bed less lonely.

But as I lie there, I try to tell myself to have faith. Give it more of a chance and don't make any rash decisions, rash decisions being my specialty. Play nice and stay positive. As the Shins sung, "you wanna fight for this love, but honey, you cannot wrestle a dove."

In a gesture of good will, I designed Other Girlfriend a cocktail. Mirroring the nature of our relationship, the drink is somewhat complicated and made with rare ingredients. It's a bit bitter and yet a bit sweet, musky, refined, and chock full of bourbon.

The OG
Rocks glass, fill with ice
2 oz. bourbon whiskey, stir to melt ice
Several dashes bitters - I use aromatic and orange bitters
1/2 oz. Firelit coffee liquer
1/4 oz. maple syrup, stir well
2 cherries, soaked in brandy

Flame an orange peel over your cocktail, rub around rim and drop into glass.
Add 1/2 oz. - 3 oz. of club soda, to taste.
Make a silent toast to your lover's lovers and suck it down, Cupcake.

Meet the charming fellows: Igor HERE and Slater HERE. 
Want more tough moments in polyamory? HERE YOU GO!
For something completely different, check out the post Bisexual Women and Cattle Fetish. 
And of course, the latest and greatest can be found on the main page. 

Doesn't Take Much, Does It?

Developing further intimate attachments wasn't part of the plan. But in the six weeks by which I extended my Istanbul trip, I lost people in my life back home who were frustrated by my extended absence and irresponsible decision making and I gained a community in Istanbul. Like that Burning Man saying: the playa giveth, the playa taketh away...

Like I said, attachment wasn't what I was in for, and here he was talking about love. Every other sentence used that loaded word and I heard them being popped off like BB's from a newly acquired air gun. Finally, I felt I had to confront it, though I felt silly for doing so.

"When a man loves a woman like this--"

"Are you trying to tell me you love me?"

"No...

I guessed I was paranoid and indeed, very silly. 

"...well, fuck it, yes. Yes, I'm crazy about you. I love you. Which is dumb because I know it's fast, and all it can do is serve to hurt you, but I love you. And I want to tell you all the time."

Not so silly after all. This was the last thing I was expecting to result from our beginnings, which for all purposes should have remained a one night stand. Now it seemed that some investments had been made. I'm not sure that either of us had bargained for that, especially just after my rocky road with Sweetie and my imminent return to the States. That we both knew I was leaving soon put an interesting immediacy on everything we experienced together, but I found him to be surprisingly emotionally forthcoming for an American-raised man:

"I feel like I have to show you every thing at once... I mean I want to. But I'm scared, darlin'. And I'm hurtin'."

At first it was innocuous enough. Who seduced who we still quibble about. As he would describe things, I gave him a look that spoke loudly and clearly. He set his sights on me and I tested his persistence with off-handedness. We played a sweet game of cat and mouse and eventually we ended up at my place to chow down on some midnight mantı (Turkish ravioli in a spicy butter and yogurt sauce).

Next thing I knew, my arms were pinned to the bed. Though I hadn't begun the night "on the prowl", I was happy to play with him. He was handsome and charming enough -- he instinctively knew how to make me laugh. And though he had many physically admirable qualities, being tall, blonde, fit, and Danish, as he pressed into me I found myself distracted in admiration of his teeth. They had character. He was full of character -- he grew up in a traveling circus and continued the charade all the way through the Ivy League. His life had always been fascinating in summary, if lonely in practice, and as an adult he seemed to seek out his fascinations in... adult realms.

"Nothing says 'I love you' like semen on your chest."

I was relatively impressed by the perversion leaning towards violence with which he was forthcoming on our first time, and yet I was a bit put off: he was cocky and yet a little cautious in bed. "Can you take this?" he whispered. I rolled my eyes... if he only knew. Granted he didn't, in fact we barely new each other, it was perfectly reasonable that he was checking in and making sure I was OK. But I was hungry for abandon. I purred:

"It's OK, you don't have to hold me down."

He tentatively released my wrists. I smiled at him, he smiled at me, and then I slapped him hard across the face. He was stunned.

"If I have to piss you off to get you to fuck me like a man, l'll do it."

I caught a glimmer in his eyes as a hungry smile spread across his face.

"Well alright then darlin'. I guess I don't need any more permission than that, do I?"

His voice sounds just like Christian Slater circa True Romance. Our rhythm quickened and ferocity increased. Sedated with the pleasure of being taken voraciously by a Hollywood B-list daydream, I didn't hit him again.

____________

A couple weeks later, our story had evolved into that of star-crossed Istanbulus: a charming Cihangir guy fate had paired with a somewhat feral Tarlabaşhi girl. The irony of the situation didn't escape Slater: 

"Sometimes I think to myself: I want to show you off. But then I think: you're going to scare people. So then I consider: who can take it, and who do I hate?"

Some of his expat friends weren't so bad, I admit, but furthermore, Slater was not immune to my criticisms. He lived in Turkey for a year and didn't know the word for "apple" in Turkish, but I liked him anyway. Like I said, I didn't mean to get attached, but these things tend to happen, don't they?

However the stress from the time compression of our relationship began to express itself in tense ways. When the flame of my sex drive was more engulfing than his, he would make an offhanded "slut" joke or comment that, depending on my mood, would hurt my feelings. Once he asked me why I was wearing clothes and so in obedient response, I started to take them off -- to which he said:

"Doesn't take much does it?"

I guess it's easiest to hurt those who care. But why did I care so much? 
Igor has a theory which he calls my "super power", an effect against which mortal man is helpless. According to his observation, a person will fall madly in love with me and the "spell" will last two months. For that period of time, they will become enraptured and hopelessly enamored. After, they will wake up as if from a fever dream and back away with a self-protecting ferocity, as if to suggest I were akin to the deadly but alluring sirens sung about by bards such as Homer.

"By my estimation, Slater has about two more weeks. Then he's gone."

But of course this effect isn't one-sided. I guess Igor is sick of witnessing me get hurt. It seems like a bleak prediction, but Igor tends to be more accurately observant than I give him credit for. I'm willing to keep it in mind as I see how the long distance aspect of my relationship with Slater pans out, also keeping in mind that perhaps he is thinking wishfully. Whenever I mention Slater to Igor, his commentary is usually:

 "I want to punch that guy in the throat."

Despite the cattiness my male lovers exhibit towards each other, I'm fairly confident that if they met, they would get along splendidly. But regardless of that, the thing that gives me greatest hope for my distance-cleaved relationship with Slater is what he said to me when I couldn't find the words to return his professions of adoration:

"You don't have to tell me you love me for me to know that it's true. They're just words, after all."

 That is the kind of confidence that makes me in turn confident.

Who the hell is Igor? Meet him HERE (and get intimate HERE).
For more nihilistic relationship adventures in Turkey, read this post: Gypsy Love Curse. 
The latest from Seduce and Confuse can be found HERE, I promise. 

Distance: Emotional Problems of Nomadism

"You are falling in love, sweetie-heart, this is the issue."
Maybe Moody Poland is right.
"I can see on your face. But why you want to make so much problem for yourself with this?"

I take a gulp of my beer and reflect. A few more gulps and the beer is gone.
"Görüşürüz." / "See you later."

One long sigh carries me on my walk to Sweetie's. I feel powerless against his invitation. When we make love, he brings me closer to god. When we fuck, he reaches so far inside of me that he actually fucks the organ of my heart. I writhe, moan, and scream, high on his drug, the most powerful visceral pleasure I have known.

But our conversations are frustrating. He says things like, "Of course I can't be your friend." Once I asked him why not, to which he quizzically responded, "Because I'm in love with you," with an implied "obviously" at the end. Statements like these are testaments to our future: either he'll hug me so close I can't breathe or push me so far I can't see him anymore. There is no careful in-between -- no part of our relationship is conducted without fervency.

_______________________________

I shouldn't be surprised that Sweetie has been pushing me away. He's been standing me up, leaving me waiting, doling out a chilly minimum of human acknowledgement. Predictable as this was, of course it hurts to see him suddenly act this way. It's as if someone has flipped a switch in his heart, but I don't wonder why.

The reality that I will leave has finally sunk in. When he convinced me to extend my stay, he had hoped I would get a residency visa. Maybe I was lazy, or maybe I just didn't want to, but regardless, I didn't even apply. A tourist visa only allows 90 out of 180 days in Turkey. My time is nearly up and now that my departure date is two weeks away, he's realized that keeping me close is futile: I'm leaving him, as he puts it. True, I'm not staying to meet his parents, decorate a house, or have his babies, not this time around. He probably thinks that I won't come back, or maybe that it won't matter by the time I do. And so the fire that once burned white-hot is now cold and sooty.

Traveling as much as I do, and for the extended periods of time that I prefer, I occasionally see this kind of emotional response. When I'm about to leave a place, the people who have held me the closest are sometimes the ones who quickly erect barriers and become the most distanced. They're trying to protect their emotional well-being, or they don't know how to express their hurt frustration that I'm abandoning them, or maybe they don't consciously realize their motivations, which I understand. However, it hurts me too. It's one aspect of lengthy international travel that I don't enjoy, being a puck on an emotional shuffleboard. But I'm not made out of hard plastic, I'm an organism. I'm beginning to trail a little blood.

Igor, Conquerer of my Heart

My birthday is coming up next month, as is my glorious return Stateside.

"I had an idea for your party, but I'm not sure you'll be into it."
"Lay it on me."
"Well, you know, it would just be a good party. Good music, some delish food, good company, obviously... but while all this is going on, I was thinking you would actually be bound in another room for the pleasure of the guests to use. Gang-rape style."

The following are 5 points on why I love my boyfriend.

Labeling Humans

Some time ago, I found myself snuggling in bed with a very peculiar man. In addition to the three first names he rotates through rather capriciously, this man calls himself many things, including a polyamourist, a kinkster, a vegetarian, and a burner. The man likes to know what and who he is, and he likes to talk about it. Of course, his peculiarity made him all the more attractive.

During a blissful moment of post-coital calm, that glorious haze of endorphins was unfortunately disturbed by his compulsion for naming things: it was time for "the talk". Perhaps sexist stereotyping gave me the illusion that I would be spared embarrassing prematurity when discussing the perimeters of a relationship as long as I, the lady, held my horses, but in this case the inquiry was the whim of the gentleman. Understanding his emotional vulnerability, and wanting to be delicate, I still couldn't help but be annoyed when I was asked:
"So... do you think of yourself as my girlfriend?"

We had been on a few dates, and I liked him. I imagined that we would keep on having dates, and that I would keep on liking him. But try as I might to tell him how I felt with sincere, honest words, my efforts weren't as satisfying as what he was looking for: the word "boyfriend". That was the one word to assure him that my interest in him was real, despite the fact that I was telling him straight in the face the realities of my interest. Without the word, it just didn't do the trick...

I embrace all kinds of culture/counterculture, but labels don't turn me on. Polyamorous, bisexual, hetero-flexible, genderqueer, submissive, vegan, lacto-ovo-vegetarian, democrat, libertarian, girlfriend, boyfriend, secondary lover... these types of words make me instinctually uncomfortable because I find that en lieu of using these words to accurately portray what might organically exist in a person's life, a person might intentionally create their lifestyle to be within the parameters of the label's constructs. And as a person full of essential contradictions (I was born this way), I believe that because of this, conscription to labels is disingenuous. Furthermore, for people without an intimate awareness of the label or what it might specifically indicate, the lingo can be alienating rather then helpfully descriptive:
"Poly-what?"
"Polyamorous"
"What the fuck is that?"
"A polyamourist is a slut who likes to talk about it a lot."

So, if I agreed, was I then his girlfriend? What exactly does that mean to a polyamorous person, what are the expectations involved? What does the word "polyamorous" mean to the conventional and unsuspecting family of that person? How do they feel when he and his two girlfriends go out to lunch together? And what does it mean that each of those relationships are called the same thing, but are nothing alike?

I've spent the last six months discovering these questions and seeking drafts of the answers, and reasonably enough it's been a roller coaster. A happy one for the most part, each discovering and exercising our freedom as well as celebrating our attachment. I would still rather call him my gentleman caller, or my secret agent lover man, or something of equal panache and accuracy, but I'm not so caught up in my opinions to rob him of the wide grin that spreads across his face when I call him my boyfriend. I love that smile. 

And he can call me his girlfriend, but we both know that I'm not "taken".

For more of the boyfriend, check out Igor: Conqueror of my Heart and Distance: Emotional Problems of Nomadism.
The latest from Seduce and Confuse can be found HERE, for your reading pleasure.