This blog is about polyamory, queerness, and sex positivity -- I will chronicle my musings, opinions, advice, adventures, and misadventures in open relationships and exploring my gender and sexuality. Come along for the ride!
Your Host:
I am an early 20's polyamorous queer and genderqueer sometimes-ladyish person looking to create a society of understanding and acceptance of polyamory and sex positivity. Since most people are either unaware, unsupportive, or have misconceptions of polyamory, this blog is critical. And awesome. And will definitely make you smile. That's what really matters in the world, right? Right.
The most important thing about this blog is that it's here not just for me, but for you. With such a small (but growing!) polyamorous community online, it's important that we advocate for each other and speak up. This is my way of doing so. Please feel free to ask me questions or request topics for me to speak on.
[And peruse the links below for a better understanding of what Polycule is all about.]
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Almost everyone first realized they were becoming a grown woman when some dude did something nasty to them. “I was walking home from ballet and a guy in a car yelled, ‘Lick me!’” “I was babysitting my younger cousins when a guy drove by and yelled, ‘Nice ass.’” There were pretty much zero examples like “I first knew I was a woman when my mother and father took me out to dinner to celebrate my success on the debate team.” It was mostly men yelling shit from cars. Are they a patrol sent out to let girls know they’ve crossed into puberty? If so, it’s working.
Tina Fey, Bossypants (via datassguardian)
Passing on body hatred | Dear mum...
I’m not crying there are just feels in my eye.
My friend Miri (HBIC over at freethoughtblogs), had a really lovely conversation on okcupid, in which she is told to “deal with” being “taken primally” because “most women” like it.
TOO BAD UR A FEMINIST DEAR.
And feel free to refer to all your friends as “feminist buttplug” from now on.
She literally just said no and this guy interprets it as her having the problem. Buddy, I think you’re the one with the problem here.
Motion to get #feministbuttplug trending on every social media platform all those in favor say AYE.
My friend Miri (HBIC over at freethoughtblogs), had a really lovely conversation on okcupid, in which she is told to “deal with” being “taken primally” because “most women” like it.
TOO BAD UR A FEMINIST DEAR.
And feel free to refer to all your friends as “feminist buttplug” from now on.
Oh good, a rape joke at E3 Microsoft. On stage. While insulting a female for losing while playing a video game. How nice.
Attention assholes: don’t sexually harass a girl when she can easily find you on Facebook and send your mom proof of your perpetuation of rape culture.
Moral of the day? Don’t mess with me.
I think I’m in love with this girl. I really hope she made good on that threat.
Today we would have celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary.
I thought June 8th would be so much harder for me…but here it is, and somehow I feel even more at wonderfully unexpected peace with the decisions that she made and the separate lives we now live.
What no one tells us enough is that people are absolutely going to break you. It’s unavoidable. People you love will leave you. People you trust will bring you to your knees with a breed of heartache you never imagined. And then…just when you’re about to accept the sadness you can’t shake, things will all start to make sense. You will open your eyes after crying for weeks on end and see something or someone in the mirror that you never thought possible.
When Natalie started talking about not wanting to be married, she would repeatedly say, “I want to WANT to be here”. At the time it sounded like a sad excuse for giving up on us, but it makes so much sense to me now.
You can have all the love in the world for a person, or even for the life you share with them…and you can still not really “want” to be there no matter how hard you try.
I thought I would cry my way through June 8th for the rest of my days. But somehow, when I was least expecting it, I found myself thriving inside the wake of our past life. Somehow today is just another day.
When we were getting married I knew she was doing it for me, and not at all for her. She never believed in the process of, or the longevity of marriage. She loved me, and she thought that would be enough. Love just isn’t always enough.
I woke up this morning wrapped in the arms of someone who wants to be nowhere else but next to me. I realize now that falling for someone who falls back just as hard for me is something I have never experienced before.
I loved being a wife. I loved being her wife in particular. There was nothing I was as proud of as my marriage. But it was effortless for me. I never had to try to “want” to be there. I was always exactly where I wanted to be.
Realizing that my happiness was essentially trapping the person I loved most was one of the hardest things to comprehend.
There was a day when she said to me, “you drive over the Sauvie Island bridge every day and can’t wait to be home…I drive over it every day and wonder how I’m going to keep on pretending to be here”. There were tears in her eyes and I could feel my heart break in a way I can’t explain.
Now, I drive over that bridge everyday and I still can’t wait to be home. It may not be coming home to her, but it is more of a home now than I ever imagined.
I know that Natalie is where she wants to be. I know she is WHO she wants to be. I know she’s truly, genuinely happy, and so am I, and for that I am more grateful than I can ever articulate. I’m thankful that she had the courage to leave. If it weren’t for her leaving I would never have found myself.
I will be a wife again. It wasn’t in her nature, but it’s ingrained in mine. It’s who I am. I want a life with the woman I love that includes vows, and a day full of happy tears, and things that I never had with Natalie…a first dance, a wedding song, a ‘will you marry me’.
For some time I felt like I didn’t deserve to have any of that again…as if people would roll their eyes at the notion of me taking vows once more. But I want a to build a home around a family, and love someone for the rest of my days, and I’m not ashamed to still want these things in due time.
I will have love.
I will live happily ever after.
Happy June 8th. Today is just another beautiful day.
Proof that break-ups will break you and then rebuild you into even more of the you that you could be.
lol sorry I couldn’t hear you over the chocolate croissant and cold pizza I’m having for breakfast.
Legal recognition for those who don't identify as either 'M' or 'F'
People who do not identify as male or female have achieved formal legal recognition in Australia for the first time, after the NSW Court of Appeal overturned a ruling that everyone must be listed as a man or a woman with the Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages.The three-judge appeal panel unanimously declared that “as a matter of construction … the word sex does not bear a binary meaning of ‘male’ or ‘female’.”
THIS IS HUGE. I am really happy about this.
The world is my orgasm…that’s how the saying goes, right?
Being polyamorous has opened me up to an entirely new perspective on relationships and relating.
Nobody fits into these neat little boxes anymore. There’s no checklist of requirements to fulfill in order to be labeled “partner” or “friend” or “lover.” I live in the gray area in between all of these neatly-defined roles that society wants for the people in our lives.
Sure, this complicates things. Some of the people I have had consistent sexual intimacy with are my “just friends,” some of the people I love the most I’ve never had romantic or intimate physicality with. It makes it harder to describe the relationships in your life, but I also find it much more freeing. The gray area can be the most empowering place to be.
And of course, this isn’t true of just poly people, but for me, polyamory is the avenue by which I discovered these possibilities, and my life is so much richer and more complex and amazing because of the freedom I’ve grabbed onto - the freedom to define people in my life in the way that is best suited for us, rather than the tired, irrelevant, unhelpful labels that society offers.
It is illegal for women to go topless in most cities, yet you can buy a magazine of a woman without her top on at any 7-11 store. So, you can sell breasts, but you cannot wear breasts, in America.
Violet Rose (via lauva)
(Source: screamingfemale)
Breaking news on emergency contraception
“Generic versions of emergency contraception can be sold without a prescription or age restrictions while the federal government appeals a judge’s ruling allowing the sales, an appeals court said Wednesday.”
via the Washington Post
STOCK UP BEFORE THEY CHANGE THEIR MINDS
Just purchased my first binder! Sorry tits, you’re not welcome here.
It depends on why you want to have that conversation with them. If it’s because you’re looking to be self-righteous, then just stop right there because no one will gain anything from that.
If it’s because you care about them and their partners and think you’re seeing things from a perspective they don’t have, there are gentle and respectful ways to have that conversation. The best way to try and understand a person’s choices and actions (which you need to do before you offer your opinions and advice) is to simply ask. “Hey I notice you and Talulah have this agreement to do X, how is that going?” rather than “you swore you and Talulah would do X and you aren’t doing that.”
It’s not your place, even for a close friend, to pass judgment and offer unsolicited advice. If by way of asking questions to try and understand them better you discover that they’re looking for input, or that their judgment is clouded and they want an outside perspective, you can take that chance. But again, gently and respectfully. Chances are you don’t know the whole story, and there’s certainly a chance that your friend just doesn’t realize they’re doing things disrespectfully and an outsider perspective might be helpful for them. But in a way that won’t cause them to jump to being defensive, otherwise the conversation will just immediately shut down and your friend will be hurt.
If this is about genuinely wanting to help your friend treat people better, just ask them questions about their relationships and how they want to be treated and how their partners are feeling and what they believe is fair and just. Opening up a dialogue is the best way to share opinions together and learn from each other.
I think those are all totally valid reasons. I really dislike going to parties where I only know one person, especially when they are the host, because you don’t want to feel the need to monopolize their time and you also don’t want them to feel obligated to pay attention to you all night.
Tell him all these things, let him know that it has nothing to do with disliking his partner or not being comfortable with her - you have plenty of reasons not to be crazy about going to this party. Maybe ask him what the situation would be like: who, if anyone, will know the kind of relationship you have. If no one knows and he wants to keep it a secret, that’s something worth discussing. You can also ask him if he would be okay with you bringing a friend, so that at least you have someone to stand by your side while you mingle with a ton of new people.
This isn’t a situation unique to polyamory at all, this sort of weird social paradigm happens anytime a friend invites you to a thing where you don’t know anyone else. I am a social butterfly so a lot of times I don’t mind being in circumstances like that, but I always prefer to have at least one other person to latch onto, which is why bringing a friend would ease a lot of the awkwardness.
The important piece here is to take care of yourself. Don’t go if it will give you anxiety, but make sure the two of them both know why you aren’t going so that it doesn’t cause unnecessary drama about disliking his partner.
Just make sure you look out for you. You’re the most important person to keep an eye on.
