Thursday:

• Got settled in and ran into old friends.
• Demo bottomed for Murphy Blue in his Sexable Shibari class. Can you say rope dildo?
• Attended a BDSM for Bigger Bodies class that was moving and inspiring.
• I meet up with a play date for some fire. She graciously offers to end our scene by giving Mr. Vanilla a tutorial on fire and he proceeds to light me up. We bought some fire torches of our own the next day.
• Mr. Vanilla and I fed each other fruit, wine, and chocolates at the Temptation in the Garden of Eden party. Then we fuck on a comfy Liberator zepellin lounger.

Friday

• Take in a rope class with Sir C called 5 Fast Functional Ties.
• I went to Mollena‘s Taboo Play, and Working Through Extremes class. She is just as awesome of a presenter as I’ve always heard.
• After lunch I jump in the pool and a water edge play class is going on. I wander up and get drowned. It is a hot rush.
• We attend Graydancer’s Slow Rope, Hot Knots class. He is a great teacher and manages to execute the demo really well despite his pants falling off and cutting himself half way through it.
• At dinner, I host a blogger meetup which is attended by a handful of people including: Graydancer, Amethyst, Jade, and Passional.
• We meet up with a sexy friend from home that is also a camper. Mr. Vanilla gets to experience his first threesome. We do a summer campers/counselor themed roleplay.
• We end the night by bartending at the Chain Reaction party a black light dance party. By the end, my feet are covered in liquor and mixers and I’m exhausted.

Saturday

• After breakfast, I have a hot rope scene with Murphy Blue. He uses a crotch rope to great effect.
• We attend a punching and deep impact class. This is my favorite kind of impact play and this class breaks it down very clearly and provides some new techniques.
• We attend the Kink County Fair and end up buying a violet wand from Scott.
• I get the chance to serve as a demo bottom for Midori’s Hand and Foot Bondage class. She puts a pretty painful to walk on foot tie on me and has me wander around the room.
• I meet up for a hot punching play date. The dungeon is too hot so we stand in the grass.
• After dinner, I meet up for a knife play date. It starts off slow and sensual until it is interrupted by my kidnapping.
• My kidnapping is intense so I cry for awhile after it. The aftercare takes up the rest of the night. Mr. Vanilla is so remarkably amazing at taking care of me.

Sunday

• We are some of the few people that make it to Sunday morning classes. It was worth it for Sir C’s Nurturing Your Inner Evil Genius class.
• We are much too eager to try out our new violet wand so we head to the dungeon and play a bit. Then, Mr. Vanilla gives me some *amazing* oral sex.
• In the afternoon I attend a class on Dirty Talk  by SherynB that is similar to one I’ve taught in the past. I got a lot of great new ideas.
• After dinner we meet up with friends for smores and chat around the camp fire.
• I wander down to the Machine vs. Machine fucking machine event.
• Mr. Vanilla and I head to the dungeon and do a scene together. We get to break in our new violet wand a bit better.

Monday

• We pack up and get ready to head home.
• We start talking about maybe trying to come back in August for Ropecamp.
• We finish camp by attending Lee’s closing circle. I cry a lot.
• As I’m leaving closing circle, I stub my toe badly, ripping the toenail and we need help from the medic.
• On the way home from camp, doing 80 on I-95 just South of Richmond, Virginia, Mr. Vanilla asks me to marry him and I agree.

To say the least, I took a lot out of this weekend. I already knew I was attending the event with a partner who I wanted to marry but I got to arrive home from the event with the man I knew I would marry.

1. Passive-Aggression Will Get You Nowhere
Not saying what you mean, or saying it coyly, or saying the opposite doesn’t work in group communication settings. Guess what? It doesn’t work one-on-one either. I have this streak in me and I now try to nip that tendency in the bud ASAP. The best part of saying what I mean? Not having to get mad at someone that is technically following instructions I give them that are the exact opposite of what I want.

2. Watch Out For Your Needs
This might be more a function of the specific quad I was in but I think anytime your energy is getting stretched across multiple partners, it is easy to give too much. It isn’t selfish to figure out who you are and what you need and ask for it. If you are monogamous, getting all your relationship needs met falls onto the shoulders of one relationship. Be realistic but still aim high.

3. Pettiness Can Be An Important Indicator
The number one question that poly people are asked is how they handle jealousy. The number one reason people give for avoiding poly is thinking that they can’t deal with the jealousy. When I was poly I experienced jealousy and I don’t think it was always a bad thing. It retrospect, it was a red flag for other feelings of insecurity. Next time you are ready to dismiss a feeling you’re having as petty or irrational, give it another few moments of life. That doesn’t mean communicating with your partner in a petty or irrational way. It means stopping for a moment and digging into how it feels. Pain in your solar plexus? Stress? Even tears? Your body will lead the way in helping to diagnose this anxiety. Letting yourself really live through it will stop if from eating away at you. You might even find out how to talk about it and let it go.

Anyone that follows my Twitter knows how I feel about cheating in relationships. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for any of the parties involved. I’m particularly annoyed with sex bloggers that merrily write about cheating with the expectation that as long as they are fucking, the audience will continue to pat them on the ass and tell them how hot they are.  My personal standards for honesty in relationships are pretty intense. Fuck, I’m even on record about this.

For me, infidelity is taking an action or having a feeling that I think my partner would want to know but that I’m not telling him for some reason. I used to say that I ‘don’t do anything I wouldn’t want him sitting next to me while I’m doing,’ but I think that is pretty reductive and too prone to literal interpretation. Instead, any sort of keeping secrets feels like infidelity to me.

[Aside: I just quoted part of an article from Violet Blue where she quotes me. . . on my own blog. This post should implode now in a self-congratulatory wank-fest. But I'll persist.]

So, as Mr. Vanilla [since I'm already on a roll with asides, he really needs another name] and I listened to this story my first interest was sort of academic. I thought about my opinions about cheating and at one point nearly blurted out, “God, I fucking hate people that brag about this shit.”

Then I remembered who I was sitting next to. Mr. Vanilla cheated on his ex-wife. He feels like crap about it, he doesn’t justify it with excuses or think that it deserves accolades. Still, he was a cheater. And, some (who operate in the “once a. . . always a. . .” school) would say that he still is.

I contained my outburst and we were quietly listening and driving for a few minutes before I reached for the dial, blocked out Ira Glass and his ilk, and said, “well, that is sort of awkward.”

While infidelity is still an issue in polyamorous relationships, it tends to be less of one because there is less of an incentive or necessity to cheat in most of those arrangements. I’ve been poly for awhile now I’m newly (and quite happily) monogamous. Since I am coming from this other framework, for me the logical solution to having a longing for another partner is to discuss it and potentially change the organization of the relationship. For many people that are monogamous by default, it is to cheat.

Mr. Vanilla and I returned to the topic of the NPR report a few hours later when I reminded him that my monogamy was my choice and that I didn’t make it to restrict him. He re-affirmed his own decision to be monogamous with me. I told him that I hoped he would discuss it with me if he started to have any doubts and that I trusted him.

Fast forward a few days and he is visibly distraught before me after a harrowing conversation with his ex-wife that included a rehashing of his own infidelity. This reminder from a person he wronged of the pain that he caused her was causing him significant guilt and pain. What’s more it was laid bare to me because it interlaced with his fear of making the same mistakes again. Because I love him, every bit of me wanted to take on his pain as if it were my own, grant him absolution, tell him that he didn’t deserve to feel guilty. But I didn’t because it wasn’t true and it isn’t my forgiveness to grant.

What I could give him was the gift of my trust. And in this moment of seeing a person I love deeply at a low of self-doubt, I recognized that it was a very small consolation. But, despite his past mistakes I could look at him before me with compassion and love and know that I trusted him to act in ways that would not harm me. It was a trust that he earned through his actions and displayed character and that he knows all too well that he could lose.  But ultimately, I believe in him and his goodness and I believe in my own ability to bestow my trust and love where I see fit.

I entered camp strongly suspecting that it would be my last foray into non-monogamy for awhile. Incidentally, I didn’t have a lot of sex. I spent most of my play time getting punched and beaten by lovely people. I also made some personal connections that I hope will persist.

No one has asked me to be monogamous but after being pretty roughed up in my last relationships, I’m starting to think that polyamory and all that goes with it aren’t what I want right now. This means something big. My darling Jay and I are no longer “together”. I invoke the scare quotes because we are together still in many ways. We share a home, although he now moved into the other bedroom. We share a life, although we no longer make long-term plans for the future together. And we share many laughs and that part needs no caveat. I’m lucky to still have a best friend and supporter even if our romantic partnership is dissolved.

I know many of you poly folk think that sex and passion ending isn’t a reason to end a relationship. And I think that if Jay and I had a mortgage or children tying us together we’d make the best of it and have other lovers while keeping maintaining the basics of our life together as a priority. However, we don’t have those things. We just have an amazing friendship that isn’t going anywhere soon. And I suffer from some pretty old-fashioned ideas about having a home and a life with someone that I do have a romantic relationship with. And monogamy. I’m getting more conservative, I suppose, in my old age.

So at camp I tentatively said goodbye to some things that are important to me but I’m pretty committed to my involvement with this community. I don’t know if complete sexual monogamy is something that I’ll stick to (although it is working just fine at the present, thank you) but I do know I’m strictly devoted to the idea of one relationship at a time.

Dear reader, I can hear the collective groans as you assume that I’m about to get intensely boring. Honestly, I think this blog has been pretty boring for months. I’m hoping to get back to writing more often in the hopes of keeping myself engaged with my own sexual journey and sharing the excitement of my burgeoning romance with Mr. Vanilla. I want to tease out the significance of what I’m doing in that it is a choice I’m making for myself and with my eyes wide open and I hope to show that fucking in single file doesn’t have to mean boring.

I’m also anxious about it. Jay will go on dates while I am gone. Everyone will likely fret about this. I’m going to miss him and feel a bit untethered on my own. I’m going to worry about him and if he is lonely or hungry or bored. Nonetheless, I think this will be a positive experience and I won’t be far away from the arms of people that I love and who love me.

Tom: so tell me about the new relationship!

Ellie: I have a spare boyfriend and a girlfriend now.

Tom: what is a spare boyfriend

Ellie: just like a regular one but additional

April – Where I attended Sex 2.0 and had a fire lit under me. I started a Twitter account, got involved with FetLife, and relaunched my podcast. I finally realized that I was part of a community and felt like I belonged.

May – I started reviewing products on my podcast and blog for VibeReview.

June – I spent a lot of time thinking about sex work in both text and audio forms. I also got sort of pissy and ridiculous about blogging and met Artemis Hunter for the first time.

July – I had my first freelance work published in The Naughty American and dug up some old camwhore shots. I also experienced a bit of heartbreak, but it turned out a great piece of writing if I do say so myself. I also got tied up by Artemis and finally hooked up with Carmine who had previously only been known as “cross-dressing law student“. Finally, I began publishing the Musings on Masculinity series.

August – The biggest news and one of the happiest days of my last several years was telling my dad about my “secret identity”. I’m still basking in the joy of that moment as I remember it. Also in July, Jay and I got to know Hania much better.

September – I was named #5 on the list of the Top 100 Sex Bloggers of 2008 among started a bajillion other projects. We also went to Dark Odyssey Summer Camp which was a watershed event for me despite the fact that I haven’t talked about it too much. I also presented at the Fetish Fair Flea Market and got to meet Catalina and Marky for the first time.

October – The posts slowed down and the earth stopped moving because something remarkable happened. We met Ariel and Michael and fell in love and my feet still haven’t touched the ground. At first I could only express the feelings in music. But. . .

November -  . . . soon I found more detailed words and images to express my thoughts. I captured the unique sadomasochistic relationship that Michael and I have developed as well as the experienced of being fucked by Ariel for the first time. And the sexy gave way to the mundanely profound as we found ourselves forming a type of family, broken hollondaise and all.

December – Ariel starts lending a hand with reviews and I think that the format suits this site. Jay and I also visited New York and saw tons of the friends that we met through the year. I also spent a sedate Birthday and Hanukkah at home with my new chosen family.

“This feels amazing, darling.”

Her only response is an angelic smile and I suddenly feel grateful. Profoundly so.

I can’t say that her movements were like thrusts. We rocked together. Happy, content, clinging.

Jay’s hand is stroking my hair and forehead and Michael is behind Ariel caressing her curves and then. . . something more. As her reactions increase in intensity, I’m overcome with curiousity. I look up at Michael, trying to catch his glance but I find myself rocked by an intense thrust and lose track of my objective.

“What is he doing to you, sweet girl?”

Her lips are clamped shut and she is concentrating. When my voice breaks her reverrie she can only look at me with a look of concern and mild alarm. I wait patiently for a response but she just nods.

“Oh sweetie, please tell me what he is doing?”

My objective has just changed. I know I can ask one of the men for this piece of information but my new desire it to hear something filthy come from Ariel’s pretty lips.

Between gasps as the dildo slides into me, I keep enough composure to tease her mercilessly. Taunting her to speak.

“Is he playing with your pussy? Is he fucking you?”

By now the boys have figured out what I was up to and Michael helpfully suggests that she is speechless. I had noticed.

But, as the enormity of this moment sets in on me and as I felt my impending climax, I am suddenly happy for the silence. I cling to her harder, holding onto something about the particular, precious sliver of time and know that, despite her lack of words, she is speaking to me with grace, precision, and deep affection.

Despite the plethora of experiences that I *did* have, I am going to start with one that I didn’t. A gangbang.

It was Sunday afternoon, laying around in the pool, that I got the idea that I wanted to have a gangbang. Just by merit of timing, the idea was already ill-fated but Jay tried to organize it for me. Needless to say, most people had pretty full dance cards and getting that many cocks to convene in one place at camp was, well, not going to happen.

But, in the spirit of better luck next time, let me tell you a bit about what I have in mind.

I want to be violated by multiple people in a way that is really quite beyond my control. I first got a taste for this during our playful threesomes with Ian. He and Jay often pin me down and tickle me and molest me. It is fun and sexy and I struggle, giggle, and moan. But what if I screamed and cried and begged them to stop? It could go either way. The reality is that I have two tall, strong men pinning me down and doing what they want to me.

I got to thinking that I really love this, the feel of my muscles straining against their power. Knowing that I can’t get away, can’t stop it from occurring. The ability to let go because there is nowhere else to go. Sure, I’m a rope slut and I like bondage of all sorts but actually being restrained by another person, unable to fight them off, is a totally different thing.

Suddenly the attention is divided. I can’t just think about the hand mauling my pussy or the teeth biting my nipples but instead have to focus on the fingers wrapped around my arm, squeezing tight enough to bruise. Or perhaps the knees pressed against my thigh, forcing my legs apart so that my unwilling wetness is revealed. And they can’t just focus on what they are doing to me, their animalism has to come out and it becomes just as much about the struggle as the sex.

The idea of multiple people making this happen for me, taking turns pinning me down and keeping my subdued while their companions touch me in every way they can imagine is an overwhelming urge. They can be faceless and nameless. I could be blindfolded or not. The details, the humans involved don’t matter. I am interested in arms and hands, mouths and cocks just as they should not be interested in me in this moment, just my sex, just what my warm and wet holes can offer them.

Fantasies like this are scary to some people. The lack of consent is alarming. There are feminists that would have some choice (or perhaps condescending) words for me. But it is mine and I own it. And I look forward, perhaps too eagerly, to the day that I can make it a reality.

I turn while continuing to fasten my bra. He is sitting up in bed now, sleepy-headed. I’m looking around for a clean shirt to wear.

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” he explains, “I was invited to a gang bang and I wish you could come.”

I laugh.

“Plus if you had a cock, we could jerk each other off.”

I walk out of the room thinking about just how normal that conversation really was in our lives. In retrospect, I realize that I own plenty of cocks and am more than equipped to participate in a gang bang.

Jay is an incredibly special person and his answers here were not news to me. But reading them has made me feel closer to him. His memories and recollections are, like many of the men I have featured, heart-breaking, thought-provoking, and raw.

When was the first time you remember being aware of masculinity? How old were you? What was the cultural climate or influence?

My earliest childhood memories (ages 2-3) are of my father physically abusing my mother. The ensuing conversations that transpired between my mother and I told me in no uncertain terms all of the negative traits that made a man.

Growing up with a single mother and 2 sisters I never really trusted any men enough to let them have a positive effect on my view of masculinity. As a child I was more submissive and feminine than most of my peers and certainly less masculine than my tom-boy sister.

Do you think of yourself as masculine? Why or why not?

Now I feel a lot more masculine than I did as a child, but I’m still a very passive person in general.

I know that many people have read about my sexual experiences online and have commented to the effect of “You’re such a man, you know what you want and you go after it.” Of course they don’t know me and the fact that I am a kind, shy, passive, gentle person (or at least they look over those facts as I do try to write about them).

How does your masculinity relate to your sexuality (be it your orientation, preferences, or expressions)?

I’m the quiet, shy, rebellious type (wait, is there a type like that?). I look for any way I can to play with people’s traditional concepts whether it is family values, religion, or sexuality/gender. My orientation is bisexual, although right now I’m swinging back toward heteroflexible.

In kink play, BDSM, and parties I prefer to dress up as a woman and take a dominant role (which is a lot of fun since I have a very full beard). At a recent party I was dressed as Jackie O and spent most of my “play time” whipping the bejesus out of a tiny little woman in front of a rather large audience… if that gives you any idea ;)

Anyone that has been following my Twitter lately knows that I’ve got a pretty serious crush on Thursday’s Child. Sure, all of us flirt on there, but this one is real. I am so lucky to have met Thursday and D and to count them as close friends. I’ve watched them go through struggles and growth over the last few months and I’ve been honored to be a friend to them. Jay and I hope to meet them very soon – plane tickets will be ordered one of these days and we will have them to ourselves.

Lately, Thursday and I have been leaving each other fun little voicemails to titillate and amuse. I’ve mostly been playful, sexy, and tried to have fun. This morning, though, I woke up and had a message from her. It had come in the middle of the night and I had a feeling it would be special. I was right. I knew I couldn’t do the sexiness of this message justice by just describing it. No, my dear audiophiles, you deserve to hear it. Grab the headphones!

Thursday’s Voicemail to Me

You back? Shaking like I was? When I first met Thursday I was instantly attracted to her, we are so similar in so many ways and she felt like the sister I never had. Except, I suppose most people don’t want to do to their sisters what I want to do to her. I have the same curiosities about her skin and her body. We have already warned the boys that they may have to sit calmly in the corner as we focus on each other. They might whine but it will be worth it.

My first responder is an anonymous reader whose ideas I can really appreciate. It seems like being a “typical woman” is an acceptable choice for ladies but being typical in any way makes a man an oppressor. I think that his interview really reveals how there are thoughts beyond those typical responses. I want to thank him so much for this careful and touching set of responses.

When was the first time you remember being aware of masculinity? How old were you? What was the cultural climate or influence?

When I was very young I played “doctor” with my two female cousins, one of whom was my age and one of whom was as couple years older. We were probably 4 and 6. It wasn’t actually “doctor”. It was more like “stripper”. We’d take turns standing on a table in their basement and dancing around while taking our clothes off. It was erotic in the most innocent way imaginable. We knew we could get in trouble for it, and that their mother was right on the other side of the basement door, in the kitchen. I wasn’t there when they got busted, but I know they did get busted at some point. Presumably there were other boys they played that game with. The older cousin was the instigator, ringleader, and master of ceremonies. Also usually the first person to dance.

That was my first experience of “female” as an attractive “other”. I guess I knew earlier on that girls and boys were different, but only in some vague cootie-related way that never gave me much sense of “masculinity” as opposed to anything else. There was something about being a boy, about that thing between my legs, about how those two girls got interested when it got hard. Somehow I knew that was part of my SELF–my Identity. Also, I knew my dad had one, and it was important to me that I did too.

Cultural climate or influence: suburban Utah. I grew up in a suburb about 20 minutes north of Salt Lake City, and the cousins were another 15 or 20 minutes north. Something like 90% Mormon where I grew up. I wasn’t one, but they were (and still are). I discovered in my teen years that Mormon girls are just BUSTING to rebel, and given the slightest provocation they become complete wildcats. I imagine that my older cousin was playing some of that game (we were aware of the transgression this was), coupled with natural young-childhood curiosity.

Do you think of yourself as masculine? Why or why not?

I do, in a sense. I don’t really ever think about myself as masculine; I just am it. I’m about the straightest straight boy on the planet, and every woman I’ve ever been with has said so. I’m very much a Typical Boy. Minx has been mentioning lately about writing your own manual. I don’t need a manual, I need a pamphlet. I like boobs and blowjobs and having dinner cooked for me. I like protecting and pampering my women, taking them out and showing them off, buying them things. I like going out with the guys and drinking beer.

I guess the only place I’m not completely typical is that I’m not possessive or territorial about the people I love. I CAN be, certainly, but I’ve dealt with those aspects of myself thoroughly enough that they no longer dominate me.

Masculinity as I experience it is fraught with anxieties, but is loath to admit that it is. Femininity may be the same way, I suppose; I wouldn’t know. Here’s an example: I played golf yesterday with two female friends, and I opted to tee off from the Ladies’ tees with them, rather than all of us stopping at the Mens’ while I hit, then all of us going down to the Ladies’ for them to hit. I confess, on the hole where the groundskeeper was watching us tee off, I had a moment of concern about what he would think. I had even more concern about how I’d rationalize hitting from the “right” tee box without my friends knowing I was worried about not looking like a sissy to a stranger on a tractor. I know the male golfing buddies I usually play with would never let me hear the end of it if they knew I played from the Ladies’, but I concluded pretty quickly that that would say a lot more about their hang-ups than mine. The punchline is, I had one of the best rounds of my life, and I’m now hesitant to brag about that because I know I got about 700 free yards based on hitting from the “wrong” tees.

So, while I’m quite confident and comfortable with my masculinity and sexual orientation, there’s always the “guy thing” of appearing macho and never letting anyone question your masculinity. Which I hate, when I’m sucked into it, but find myself having concern for anyway.

How does your masculinity relate to your sexuality (be it your orientation, preferences, or expressions)?

As I said above, if there’s a thing a Guy would like in bed or most anywhere else, odds are very good I’ll like it. Naked girls. Blowjobs. Tit fucking. Doggy style. Facials. Mainstream porn is pretty much made for me.

And that just seems the natural and automatic thing to me, and I have to consciously try to have anything else not seem weird. We’re good friends with a couple–actually, the first people my wife and I tried non-monogamy with–the husband of whom is a true masochist; he can’t orgasm without also receiving pain. Initially I found that unfathomable and unpalatable. After being around them sexually for a while, I now only find it unfathomable. I still can’t imagine wanting that, but I now get that that IS in fact what he wants. He’d be a lifestyle submissive, actually, and be quite happy with that. She doesn’t want a pet, though, she wants a partner. They had some stuff to sort out before they got married, obviously…

Part of what it is to be a Guy is to be constantly… not quite “on the prowl”, but always having my antenna up. I notice women like crazy. I probably fall in love with some random woman on the street five or six times a week. And I seem to have a “type”–which you would identify right off if you saw a picture of my lady loves. Cute, dark-haired, geek girls. There was a girl working the counter at a bowling alley one night that I nearly invited home with us on the spot, and you could have laid her down next to my other two and had a matched set. (Which was, in fact, exactly my plan.) A woman I’m attracted to has to be my intellectual equal, but have a vulnerability or softness for me to protect. And she needs to be tough enough to take care of me when I need it too.

I don’t know… I’m not a Big Macho guy, despite how this likely sounds. I’m fairly enlightened regarding my emotions and needs (I’m poly! Hello!). But there’s still an aspect of my masculinity that somehow never quite emerged from the cave. There’s definitely something primitive inside me that wants to howl at the moon and dominate others with force and sleep with every woman I see. I keep that fairly well contained, and generally manage to express it only in socially acceptable ways (with the exception of: I’m poly! Hello!). But it’s there.

This is an interesting inquiry. I saw some things about myself, engaging in these questions.

I have a lot of things to say about what happened last weekend. I had a play date with Artemis Hunter and a wicked sadist that involved upwards of 4 cases of sex toys and kink props. I was a demo bottom for Artemis during her class on predicament bondage. We ended the weekend by attending an amazing play party where Jay cross-dressed and was molested by half a dozen pretty girls while I got to try my first full suspension. This post is just the first think I felt like writing about. The picture is what I wore under my clothes at the demo and what I was stripped down to.

We arrived early and were waiting patiently for things to begin when Artemis walked up to me with a red collar in her hand.

“I was wondering if you wanted to wear this play collar for today?”

I didn’t think much about it and agreed readily. She fastened it on me and went back to preparing her things.

The collar felt a bit tight but it wasn’t choking me. I don’t normally wear things on my neck so I was just aware of it all the time.

It seemed that other people were aware too. I was sitting with Jay and as we met people or talked to friends they all did something peculiar. They looked at him for approval before speaking to me. One woman that I had talked to online and was looking forward to meeting shook my hand and started to hug me before stepping back and asking his permission.

We must have looked confused and stunned and then I put it together. The collar.

I’ve never been in any sort of master and slave relationship and I don’t particularly intend to. The collar was just for show, a costume. And if it bound me to anyone (for the next few hours at least) it was Artemis. I quickly explained all of this. She hugged me.

I respect the decision that people make to live in 24/7 dynamics but it isn’t one I can fathom. Additionally, anyone that knows me, knows that I bristle at protocol. I respect it and keep quiet at appropriate moments but it isn’t something that I choose to practice.

So, other kinky folks, share your experiences of this with me. Do you wear a collar? Maybe just for play? Have you run into unexpected assumptions of protocol from friends and acquiantances in the scene?

So we met for drinks and talked about school and teaching and the law. We also talked about lubes and blogging and the joys of rope and electro-sex. I’m attracted to Carmine but the conversation wasn’t sexy, it wasn’t flirtatious, it just was.

He asked me back to his place so I texted Jay to make sure it was alright. It was. I knew that something might happen but I wasn’t expecting it. Carmine is sweet and self-effacing. He has a slight Boston accent that makes my pussy twinge when he says words like “car”. I couldn’t, for the life of me see him making the first move.

He did. Standing in his living room he grabs me and kisses me. He leads me to the bedroom and begins taking off my clothes. We tumbled around on the bed for awhile kissing and groping. At one point he paused, excusing himself to go to the bathroom. I posed myself so that I would look effortlessly sexy when he came back in the room. On my stomach, legs bent and crossed at the ankles with feet in the air. He came back in the room and slid on top of me, caressing my back with his body and kissing the top of my head. I felt his cock pressing against my ass and I wiggled a bit as I looked over my shoulder at him.

“You have a baseball bat next to your bed.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you afraid of intruders?”

“No, it helps me think.”

I look at him quizzically.

“It is a guy thing,” he explains, “it is phallic.”

I smirk and decide to give him the benefit of the doubt. He is grinding against me and kissing my shoulders. He asks me what I want and I shoot the question back at him. So, he tells me he wants to fuck me and spanks my ass. Too softly.

I tell him I want to fuck him too but he’s going to have to hit harder. He does.

So we fuck.

Yeah, I know, I always skip that part. Here, let me give you some highlights. He slides into me and his cock is thick and hard and I squeeze him. His eyes widen a bit and so do mine. He pins my hands beside my head. He squeezes my wrists hard and it hurts and I really love it. I scream, a lot. Obscenities, sacrilegious prayers, and incomprehensible things. Throughout it all, Carmine retains a placid and contemplative look on his face. I smile and he smiles back but he is already smiling. I wonder if there is some joke that I am missing. And as his cock slams me, sometimes too hard and too deep. So aggressively that I have to remind him that my cervix is there, he still smiles. I wonder if this has something to do with the baseball bat.

So, we finish and I bite my lip and steal a quick glance at him. I giggle a bit. I’m not being myself so much as an approximation of myself. It is okay, he might know this or it might be too complex for the moment or he might not even care. I ask him to explain the baseball bat again. He picks it up and shows me. He is laying on his back next to a puddle of ejaculate with a baseball bat in his hands and my naked body slung partially over his. He looks a bit like he owns the world. He holds the bat like he is expecting a pitch and moves it back and forth a bit. I duck and giggle. He explains that he’s never even played baseball on a team and he isn’t that big of a fan. It just works. He tousles my hair and asks if I want a cigarette.

I tell him that I’ve never had a cigarette after sex before. Maybe it is too much of a cliche. He gives me an incredulous look. Law students are apt to smoking and Carmine knows that when I’m having a drink, I’m prone to a cigarette or two. I tell him that I’ve probably fucked smokers before but the cigarette never came up. He tells me it can’t be beat.

We slide back into our clothes and walk out on the porch and talk about evolutionary biology and have a smoke. He isn’t lying, it is a really good cigarette. The night is hot and exceedingly Southern he tells me that he hopes that now that we’ve gotten the preliminaries out of the way, we can get more adventurous next time.

Oh, thats right I left out some details. I met Carmine because he likes cross dressing and taking it in the ass from girls with strap-ons. He is also perfectly capable of spanking me and pinning me to the bed while he fucks me hard. Interesting how people and their sexualities aren’t just one thing. My life and relationships would be much too boring if that were true.

The South is my adopted home but I don’t always get along with Southerners. Most of my friends here are other Northern transplants, but I know my fair share of people born and bred in the dirty dirty. Ian is one of those people. He has a mild twang in his voice, he is exceedingly polite, and he is a tall drink of water. He is also bisexual, has a very nice cock, and is one kinky bastard.

Jay and I have been fooling around with Ian lately and he has me thinking about how purely joyful and fun sex can be. See, Ian is hilarious, he likes to laugh and he likes to make his partners laugh and the fact that he may be fucking someone is immaterial to him deciding whether or not to tell a joke. In fact, he pointed out that my pussy gets extra tight when I laugh, this all might be very intentional!

The sex we have been having with Ian isn’t sensual, poetic sex. It also isn’t rough, aggressive sex. In short, it isn’t sex blogger sex. But I love laughing in bed, it is the most natural thing in the world for me. (Listeners of Bedroom Radio know that I giggle after most orgasms.) Something that falls by the wayside in erotica is just how hilarious sex is. Just by itself, inherently, it is prone to serious laughs. You have naked people, genitals, bodily fluids, and tricky maneuvering. When God is in the mood for some slapstick comedy, he peers down on everyone fucking. And smiles.

In many ways, Ian is the perfect third for Jay and I. He matches our silly and playful attitudes. I don’t have to affect some fort of sex kitten persona with him. I get to sarcastic, bold, and forthright. I ask for what I want unabashedly with no coy or seductive pretenses.

Last night when Jay filled his hand with lube and spilled most of it on the bed, we all laughed. When Ian pointed out that it looks like snot, we laugh some more. When I slip and nearly hit the floor stepping over the spot where Jay spilled the lube, we all completely lost it. And it is okay. Nothing is missing. The genitals all remain and the adventurous spirit keeps hold. I’ve never believed in the idea that a “moment” can be lost but even if that is true, a moment given over to laughter with friends hardly feels like a sacrifice.

The sweating and grunting? The screaming and whimpering? The pleasure that takes us over? They are important too, and they have their own moments. But they aren’t what make this sexy and fun – I don’t know if they are even the goal.

[Curious about that picture at the top? Well this is what happens when I hand Jay a marker and tell him that he can write on me. We later discovered that I left a stamped impression of fireworks on the bed sheets. What can I say, it was the 4th of July.]

The people that are being honest* with their partners and doing things correctly always stand at risk. Especially when they play with people that are single but inherently monogamous. This accounts for my conversation with Jude. I’ve told him my fear that what I have with him or might have with him has a built-in expiration date until he can find a girlfriend that he commits to. Now, there are a variety of reasons that I could never be that woman in his life (the fact that I am already in a committed relationship might not even top the list) but it leads to some uncomfortable twinges when we talk about our lives. He feels absolutely no jealousy towards Jay but does feel a bit towards the other men I speak to. And when he tells me about other women, my sense of urgency to get to him and get to be with him is increased.

Now, most of you might be thinking, “Jesus, Ellie, you have Jay and you have these other people, you are so lucky, stop complaining!” I can’t say that I even have an answer to that sentiment other than the gut feeling that I both know how lucky I am and still want to honor the challenges that our little household faces on a daily basis.

So, Tom’s thoughts on the trepidation he and C. experience about their third partner leaving them for someone monogamous is a real fear in my life right now. One that could thwart something lovely for me before it even really starts. And also a fear that has me feeling like a bad and selfish person who would begrudge a friend finding happiness. See the rub there?

Ultimately, though, this is all about honesty. I don’t think that a sex blogger has an obligation to be honest to anyone other than their romantic partners. So when I see someone that is being honest with everyone *but* their romantic partners, it rubs me the wrong way. Here is the comment I left for Tom:

Confessional writing about these sorts of “sins” isn’t productive if everyone pats you on the back and says you are a princess. In fact, it only becomes enabling. So many of us are writing sex blogs to seek the approval of other people (of course it is fashionable to say “I write this only for myself” as if that explains why one would host and promote it on the internet.) I don’t think there is anything wrong with getting that validation but one can’t admit wrong-doing without being spanked for it a bit. If you go through your life that way, you will be convinced that your actions are somehow okay.

I got blasted/warned/attacked on this blog when Jay and I started seeing each other. Even though I was being COMPLETELY honest with C (my C, not Tom’s). I didn’t feel it was fair but I also knew that my experimenting was reminding people of a lot of bad memories and feelings. While this blog isn’t exactly a public space (it is mine), I have no reason to shut out the (often helpful) perspectives of others. Even if they don’t speak to me, they likely speak to someone.

*Full disclosure: Many of my clients are married or in relationships. I have deeply complex and conflicted feelings about my place in their lives. However, one thing I will say is that this fact is why many of them would never be lovers and will always be clients. No matter how much they turn me on.

I never wrote about this before because I thought so much time had passed that it was too late to bother making the entry. But, as Jefferson mentioned in an email this morning, it is never too late. And he wrote about our fun just a few weeks ago.

I’m not going to rehash what he already described very well. In fact I’ll give you a tidbit to entice you:

Given what they had told me, I intended to focus on Brian at first. I wanted to differentiate myself from the run-of-the-mill men who were fine with letting Brian blow them if that was the price for fucking Elle. I was not one of those bisexuals, not at all. I wanted them to feel I was in this for both of them.

“Fuck,” I groaned, taking my face from Elle’s. “God, look at him. He’s devouring me.”

Elle rested a hand on my chest. “He’s so fucking hot,” she repeated, her voice raspy. Brian looked up to her eyes, gurgling his response into my cock. His drool collected on my body.

I closed my eyes and let my head fall back. My body was theirs.

Elle ran her hands down my torso, bringing her lips to my nipples. I twitched as the ran her tongue along my skin, her movements as soft as her boyfriend’s were urgent. I curled and bucked as she found her way to my belly.

I sat up, taking Brian’s head in my hand. “Brian, man, you’re so great. But now I need to get my dick in your girlfriend.”

Go read the rest and then come back here, okay? So, yeah, I got to experience a true New York monument. Later that afternoon, we had an awesome meal at Katz’s and I got to show Jay (Brian) Central Park.

The next morning I woke up with a souvenir that perhaps Jefferson didn’t know he was leaving. He left out the part of the story where he tortured my nipples and bit my thighs until I was screaming. I got to enjoy the sight of little purple bruises on my thighs for several weeks afterward. You can’t put a memento like that on the mantle but if sure as fuck beats a snow globe.

(And speaking of travel, if any of you live in Thailand, Malaysia, or Singapore, the Ellie and Jay bisexual fucking road show extravaganza is going to acquire some international flair this December and January!)

This is why I was amused, nay, concerned when I was chatting with a dude that went out of his way to tell me on 3 separate occasions that he isn’t a pedophile. It would go like this:

Ellie: Some totally normal, mundane crap that I say to people. Not regarding pedophiles.
Guy: not a pedo here, trust me.
Ellie: Um, okay good.
Guy: i was just feeling u out. there are a lot of police knowadays looking for pedophiles and the life, and trust me, i’m not one, however, i guess i’m more or less looking for a relationship with a person my age
Ellie: Right. More crap that I say.
Blah
Blah
Blah
Guy: for pedophiles and the like…………………………………………
Ellie: WTF?

Then I blocked him. I think a preoccupation with pedophiles is enough to deter me.