(apologies to Peter Gabriel, it’ll make sense as you read on)
I’ve taken up my meditation practice again after going to a 3 day retreat recently. It’s helping. Feeling a lot more steady about my world and able to also engage in a small AA like group for Sexual Anorexics.
So the concept that Poly talks about when she feels the “connection”, well for someone like me who is a sexual anorexic with anhedonic tendencies, this connection is just the first step to an all-out invasion of the self. Learning a lot from this small group and learning about the problems other people have when connecting socially, emotionally and physically. So it seems strange to be writing this blog, but part of the point is that I am actually quite removed from Poly’s life. Absolutely fascinated by it, but removed.
Anyway the meditation is helping, and I’m reminded of something my original meditation teacher told me when I first started years ago. There are two ways to enlightenment, for some there is the quiet approach of meditation and retreat which allows for a slow and gradual growth in consciousness over time. Bit by bit the layers of the ego are unraveled allowing you to connect to a universal consciousness.
And then there is the alternative method of working on yourself which is called “having a relationship”.
Typically we refer to this as the “sledgehammer method.”
The real question then is, does having multiple parallel relationships make this sledgehammer method harder or easier?
Poly’s sexual activity seems to be increasing. There are now a number of guys / couples who she has either met when playing or through dating apps and they all need to be time managed. It would probably be confusing to call them all out individually and seriously who has time to keep a detailed biographical mind map of all the characters, their changed names likes and dislikes. It’s hard enough trying to understand the plot in Game of Thrones, so we just don’t need the headache. Instead, the focus will be on some key individuals and what issues arise with them.
First, the potential suitors have to be vetted. Using the general public as a chaperone, Poly will take a guy out to a “screening”. She’s not fond of calling them dates, because that just sounds lame and to be honest it is not a ‘date’, as she says “we are both just screening to see if we want to fuck each other”.
Talking in a quick catch up over coffee one afternoon, Poly tells me she has a “screening” tonight with someone she refers to as “the cocky guy”. They haven’t met and already he’s texting that she should not wear panties to the dinner, to which Poly says “…Ahh, that’s not me!”
This kind of attitude fits into a general theme that Poly is asked about “ALL THE TIME” which is where they want to know what her kink is. “Why do people mistake being highly sexually active with being kinky” Poly exclaims. “I get asked this ALL THE TIME, what’s your kink, and I’m like, I just want normal sex, …just lots of it”
It’s a good point, why does having lots of sex seem to equate to having weird sex? Poly doesn’t mind other people having their thing, but it’s not something that does it for her. Ironically, you could argue that I have more of a kink than Poly because I have no sex at all whilst writing this blog, which in a way seems kinda weird.
Anyway, in between the nights set aside when she has her daughter, here is a brief running sheet for the next week, there is Cocky Guy tonight, and Italian guy tomorrow night who sounds like he comes with the opened buttoned collared shirt, chest hair and gold neckless. Am I being racist here? Actually he’s just well-dressed and confident.
On the weekend there is a really cool couple she’s met previously. She’s an ex-model and he’s really considerate and easy going, so Poly is looking forward to that, mostly I think because it is already organised for her, it’s straight forward and they are unlikely to change plans given their previous association. It ticks the boxes of being well planned, easy to accommodate and ostensibly “normal”. Well as much as a threesome is normal.
Then early next week there is a really nice guy from Wales for a second date who Poly met through a more traditional (non-kinky) dating app. He has had to change his travel plans which has thrown Poly’s schedule out of whack, so that’s a bit annoying. She has only one opening on Tuesday, so it’s that or nothing for a few weeks. There is some trepidation with Welsh-guy because he is mucking her about, but then knows how to wheel her back in just as she is getting fed up. And of course the sex is ‘insane’ so that just increases her thirst for him. But she sees her old patterns coming in with this one and is more aware now and cautious. But more about that another time.
Then an old flame from the UK is returning. You may recall Tim, he was the guy flying between here and the UK every few months. He wanted exclusivity but it got difficult and didn’t work out. He is now very keen to mention he has a new girlfriend who will be traveling over here to a neighboring city for a few weeks with a friend before they go off to India to practice yoga. Poly is wondering why this guy has turned into a hippy. She is still looking forward to catching up, but also says that “emotionally, I’ve moved beyond it.”
Poly tells me that once she has “emotionally moved on” from someone, then the very idea of having sex with them seems, well, kinda funny. She laughs in the coffee shop whilst talking about it, and there is no faking this, Poly genuinely thinks it is funny. I ask why “funny” and she equivocates about what this means.
She knows it to be a common theme at the end of a relationships, like with Ed (father of her child) who she was with for a few years. At the height of their relationship she was totally into him, saying “for about a year we had the best sex and I couldn’t get enough, but now I’m like ….urrrrrrggggghh. It’s bizarre because at one point in time all I wanted was to have sex with him.”
When prompted by the thought of having sex with any ex, Poly laughs at first. I mention to her how we often feel that the “self” we have is unchanging, but in reality it is always changing.
In meditation we learn that the self or ego is just the waking thought at the top of a vast understanding of consciousness. The idea in Transcendental Meditation is to witness all these layers of ego and waking thought. We allow them to be there whilst at the same time coming to understand that the self is something in constant flux like the waves on an ocean, where the connected consciousness is way down below the surface.
I mention some of this to her, saying how the self has the illusion of being constant but is always changing. Poly says “I look at who I was at the start of my relationship with Ed and who I was at the end, and it’s two completely different people. There are aspects that seem like constant traits, like being raw and fucking honest has always been there, but most of the rest is completely different.”
This blog is uncovering something that was not expected. In so many ways we are finding that polyamory, sexual play and open relationships in general are really about uncovering aspects of the self and doing that inner work. Even the variously seeming shallow men and women, the players and the kinky, they are all being thrown into the deep end of introspection, willing or not. What results could be descent into denial, jealousy, anxiety, depression, increasing addiction or for those willing to do the work, self-realisation and growth.
What they do with it is ultimately up to them. No, hang on. What we do with it is up to us. Or better still because I’m looking into a twelve step program for sexual anorexics, what I do with it is up to me.
This internal work is something that I admire about Poly, even though that sledgehammer seems a bit scary.