Poly is a friend of mine, and I am a vicarious observer of her sex life, relationships and inner world.
Obviously her name and other details have been changed to protect the innocent, …and the not so innocent, and the choice of alias is partly the reason why it is becoming so interesting. A few of her friends suggested that she needed to do a blog. I just decided to act on it.
For a few years we have been talking about her relationships and sex life over the occasional coffee, and she has agreed to let me write this up. Poly has full editorial access to change anything that doesn’t work for her, and is very supportive of the effort. I’m even starting to think it could be a new form of psychotherapy, but this idea is still in it’s infancy.
In a few weeks’ time Poly will be going to a party, this has been several months in the planning, but also several years of desire and expectation. That’s because it’s a swinger’s party. It’s invite only, and there will be lots of sex.
Poly has been looking forward to this for a while, and she is at a stage in her life where the sexual exploration is getting pretty interesting, as are the connected relationships, as are the men she is hooking up with, as are the women, and the partners of these people, some of who don’t necessarily know what’s happening.
Anyway, shits about to get real.
Some Background
I’ve only known Poly for a few years, initially as work colleagues, and more recently as confidant. When she first came into our team she was pregnant and, to be honest I found her to be forthright, open and not at all shy in coming forward. I can see how a lot of guys would be intimidated, and she says that happens a lot, only to protest “but fuck that, I’m not going to dumb it down for someone else”. For me it was refreshing and honest, and our conversations soon became something that is not typical workplace banter.
Poly is complex and layered. She is a mother now and she has a professional career as a project manager. She has a wide variety of interests and other aspect to her life, it’s just that the relationship stuff, and the sex, is just so damn rich at the moment.
After returning from maternity leave, Poly and I were talking at work and the discussion came around to her ex. Ed (also named changed) is the father of her child, but it was never going to work out. Despite having hoped for the socially acceptable concept of a “happy family”, they separated fairly quickly and in one of the first conversations with me, Poly explained how she had never really believed in monogamy anyway. She said the ‘one person only’ thing that was ‘for your whole life’ seemed to be extremely unrealistic. However, she had never found a partner who was willing to ‘share’.
“I just don’t get jealousy” she says, “why do guys seem to have such a problem with the idea of an open relationship?”, or something to that effect. It was a few years ago.
Someone else in the conversation piped up and asked what she meant. “Well,” she continues, “why do we have to have just one person that we are attached too? Isn’t it possible that you can be in love with more than one person? What I feel for one person has nothing to do with how I feel about someone else. I can honestly say I have felt that, and can trust that is true for whoever my partner is. Being attracted to other people is only natural, and there are a lot of people out there we could be attracted to!”
At this point I spoke up. “Oh, you’re poly.”
“I’m what?” she says, pulling an expression of curiosity when you find something weird and unexpected.
I continued, “You’re saying things that make me understand that you might be polyamorous.”
Don’t get me wrong, at this point I was starting to feel the pressure of that line of professional detachment we adhere to in our day jobs. Well, most of us adhere to it most of the time, but there are exceptions which typically happen at the staff Christmas party where there is too much free booze, work politics and pent up sexual frustration. So I started to feel like that ‘line of professional detachment’ was fast approaching, and I was worried that HR would be busting in at any moment and going all “inappropriate this” and “inappropriate that” on my ass. You see, I didn’t know her that well and I am about 17 years older, and oh, …did I mention that I’m male?
“No.” She said, “I know what polygamy is but I don’t know what ‘polyamorous’ means. What’s polyamorous?”
I proceeded to explain, as best I could, by way of what I’ve learnt from TV docos and the occasionally piece in newspapers and journals.
“Polyamory” I explained “is where a person can have multiple ‘parallel’ relationships that are committed, based on trust and mutual understanding. It’s like monogamy, only where monogamy is ‘serial’, that is one at a time, with Polyamory there is a belief that no one person can meet all your needs, so why should you try. It’s still based on trust, it still has strong attachment, it’s just with more than one other person.”
At this point Poly lit up. “THAT’S IT!” she says, gesticulating widely with her arms in an impression she does of someone from ‘the hood’.
“THAT’S IT!”
“Why can’t the guys I have relationships with GET THAT?”
Because of my engineering mindset, I was using words like ‘parallel’ and ‘serial’ to normalise something for her, and notwithstanding she still resonated with the message. The conversation got more interesting after that, as I explained what I knew about Polyamory, but then we realised that we were at work, that others were listening and that it might be best to talk more in another setting.
We’ve come to know each other well since then, and she has since moved on to another roll in a different part of the organisation, so technically we are still colleagues, but I guess that line of professional detachment is well and truly in the rear view mirror.
Over the intervening few years, we’d meet occasionally to have lunch or a coffee, and we’d usually end up talking about her relationships. This is what the blog you are reading will be about. And Poly has said that our chats are good for her because it helps to make sense of the complex world she is in.
It may sound like a strange relationship we have, but I’ve been able to help people make sense of their experience for as long as I can remember. It’s just something that I do. I’ve also liked the idea of polyamoury since I first heard about it. It challenges co-dependence at it’s core, and that is only ever a good thing. At a personal level, it’s also good for me because I am anhedonic, which means I struggle to feel pleasure in life and suffer chronic depression. My very limited sexual relationships have always felt disconnected, and have been mired in catholic guilt where people don’t, or are not meant to enjoy sex. To hear a real live woman talking about her sensual and sexual explosion has been a challenge to my identity.
Poly is taking control in her sex life, and to some extent, taking back control. It’s positive and it’s inspiring because it’s a real embodied experience of a woman that is being the person she wants to be. It’s not the fake trumped up media trying to sell me something and it’s not feminists just talking about being assertive in sex, it’s not about the theory of it, for me it’s about bearing witness to a very real and exuberant expression of sexuality, connected relationships and internal maturity that is both normal and extraordinary at the same time.
Anyway, back to the current boyfriends and that sex party.
Poly has been to a few swingers clubs and meet-ups over the last year or two, she loves how there is a lot of emphasis on consent, and she also loves the men’s cocks and the women’s curves. She is loving the sex with both men, women and couples. The build-up of desire, the coupling with people who she may hardly know but where the connection is real. She discovered she loves being watched while having sex and gets to live out all the sexual fantasies she could only ever masturbate to while watching youporn.
But there are also complications.
Right now there’s one really super-hot guy, John, who is recently out of a long series of relationships with many serial girlfriends who are also very hot. However, like a cliché, his ex’s are more ‘creative types’ and typically very high maintenance, and Poly feels like “he could have anyone, why has he chosen me? I mean I’m a boring project manager and single mother… not exactly Instagram worthy”. John is inquisitive about Poly’s ideas on open relationships and keen to try out the swinging thing and happy to explore and deepen the relationship, but there are problems there as well. Deep recurring themes around intimacy. Anyway, John and Poly are a registered couple booked into this somewhat expensive swinger’s party happening soon.
Then there’s another guy (let’s call him James) who when they met was in a certain state of an open relationship. However mid-way through their dalliance his partner Susan decided they should ‘close it up’ and just focus on themselves for a while. The problem is there was a lot of chemistry between Poly and James where very real and meaningful emotions were forming. However James is no longer in a position to continue seeing Poly and now Poly feels like she is part of a deceit in someone else’s relationship. This is exactly the reason why she wanted to be in a open relationship to begin with, so that there was always honesty and trust.
Poly is baffled at how she ended up in the exact situation she was trying to avoid!
So with James’ partner Susan not on board, Poly had to have this difficult conversation with James where “…it felt like we were breaking up”. “I am in a position where I could be with both John and James and where I can be completely honest about it. But James is not able to, and there lies the problem”.
So not only are Poly and John going to the Swingers party but so are James and Susan.
It could all go horribly wrong.