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 I had an interesting conversation this weekend concerning jealousy. Someone I’ve met recently was discussing a past relationship, and trying to explain some of the jealousy dynamic. He admitted to being very jealous, but struggled to clarify something about his reactions to his lover’s flirting.

 "The less safe you felt in the relationship, the more the little things that you knew intellectually shouldn’t bother you got under your skin," I said, and I was exactly right. 

I thought it odd he seemed shocked I understood that, as it seems quite self-evident to me. Nonetheless, he seemed moved by the insight, as if he had been blamed for his jealousy more often than having it understood.

I understood because that’s where I was this weekend. That simple pattern, the safer I feel in the relationship the less jealous I am, is crystal clear in my relationships. I can be full of mudita when I am feeling safe, but if not, I can be wracked with jealousy and possessiveness. 

 In my case this weekend, it had to do with viewing this weekend as the anniversary of something, and therefore having expectations of it. This is largely unfair to the person involved, as the weekend isn’t particularly about me in her eyes. I get time with her this weekend because her boyfriends and girlfriends are unavailable/busy. Last year, this sudden extended chance to have time with her was an opening of new possibilities. This year, there was less time (both due to my scheduling and due others being less busy) and so whenever  someone was free there would be a phone call and "X is joining us".  I realized before the weekend started that I was somewhat possessive of this time, and as she made clear it was just that other people were busy, I tried to remind myself I shouldn’t view it as a likely repeat of out time last year.

 Expectations will sneak up and bite you, though.  Had I realized earlier I had emotionally invested in this, I might have done a better job of squelching those weasels ‘ere they showed up.  Instead, as I had brought it up, I think she felt obligated to stick around me when her boy was free, and thus I ended up tag-along, which was probably worse than just letting them go off to do their own thing and finding something to occupy my time. 

 Of course, the reason this got under my skin also has to do with the fact that feeling like I only get her when the people she has commitments to aren’t busy has been an issue with us for a while. She’s never really promised me anything else, of course, and prioritizing her actual boyfriends and girlfriends is completely normal and right of her. I think that over time, though, I’ve come to realize I would want more and am not going to get it. It doesn’t come up often, but just often enough that I’ve learned all plans with her are tentative until a little before she’s going to show at the door. As I always feel a bit on edge, I get possessive of the time I do get.

 This sort of pattern is probably the most common one I’ve seen behind jealousy, and is certainly the most common one I’ve personally experienced. I’ve never quite understood the idea Poly people sometimes seem to have of jealousy being something that is "transcended" by the person being jealous. While I agree jealousy is usually a symptom of some other fear or unmet need, addressing those fears or having that need met is the solution, not some sort of mystical state of un-jealousy. 

My conversation companion seemed to be at peace with his jealousy issues. While he had some thwarted expectations for the weekend, he seemed to have reconnected with an old lover and was in a good headspace all in all. Feeling safe and desired, he begrudged no one for their own desires, which while perhaps not the ultimate in enlightened joy in everyone else’s joy, is still a pretty nice way to view the world.

 

She of the couch conversation had me over last night and we did do some talking. I do think I am prone to see someone who is very up front about desires and limits in a favorable light given my history of terrible communicators.

 That’s not to say I don’t carry my general paranoia about whether people are being honest about things, or reading too much into things too quickly with me still; I do. This trip, issues in other people’s relationships have probably accentuated that general worry of mine. But even when I am somewhat unsure, someone trying very hard to be clear about what she wants and what I can expect is particularly good at convincing me I should at least be open to the possibilities.

 Deliciously hot begging isn’t entirely ineffective, either. (Not that it always gets you what you want, either.)

  Even if I might not act on it, it is nice to visit a town where I feel physically desirable. Sex may not be the be-all and end-all of what I find important in relationships, but it is nice to actually have it again. It would be nicer to have a girlfriend, but a lover or two I visit every few months isn’t terrible.

 

 "For the longest time I had only heard of you, and thought you were kind of sketch."

"Heard of me from [The Elfling]?"

 "And [the Artist]."

"And you’ve decided I’m not sketch?"

"No, I kind of developed a crush on you since I met you instead."

 "That’s sweet, but I’m a terrible person to develop a kind of crush on. I live in another city, I’m non-monogamous,…"

"I know, but I was wondering if we could discuss sex and possibly dating."

"Can we do it another time when we are sober and awake?"

 "OK."

is that they do wacky things to your body.  For instance, when faced with a sniffly, feverish cold, one might find that the unexpected hand job from a lovely companion who has been not particularly up for sexual activity of late results in you getting a splitting headache.

Still, I do so like clear demonstration of desire, even when it can’t be acted upon.

(this will be rambly as it is 2 in the morning and I just can’t seem to wrangle my thoughts) 

People might have guessed it would be a consent post that brought me back.

I am, in the words of one of my lovers, a "consent fetishist". By this she means that my interest/obsession with consent goes to such lengths that she will point out people wearing t-shirts that say "consensual sex is hot", find me consent quotes, and I get to check off "consent" as part of my Fetish Bingo card if someone we’re in bed with goes out of their way to be clear about gaining consent.

 It’s a big deal to me.

 So, unsurprisingly, I was pointed to Calico’s post "Grey is a Kinder Color" - inspired by Debauchette’s post about how hot the time she was raped in Italy still makes her- about the ambivalence Calico feels concerning certain types of sex/fantasies that make her hot.

I couldn’t parse that. In the world I knew, pleasure and violation were mutually exclusive. To go from hot sex to abuse, you needed to shift the carpet, declaim your experience with a revisionist history. Abuse wasn’t sexy. If you thought you’d liked it, you were deluded.

Maybe, just maybe, a belief system that holds me (us?) to be stupid and blind is not an accurate one.

 The post by Debauchette is an excellent read, and she describes what she labels a "faux-rape". It seems people are very conflicted about being able to find rape hot. Of course, this is only one kind of rape. This wasn’t rape being used as a terror weapon or anything.

 I could discuss the consent issues in play in Debauchette’s tale (she specifically mentions "there was a moment when I knew I could’ve made myself clear, in any language, but I chose not to. I wanted to see what would happen.") and the very interesting comment section it has generated, but mostly I want to discuss people thinking you aren’t allowed to find something that is wrong hot.

 Why on earth not? We’re fucked up, complex creatures, we humans. We find all kinds of things hot. Finding something hot does not make it a good. It is perfectly possible to find the thought of being ravished/forced hot and find the reality of it ethically horrible. Many, many people’s bodies respond erotically to rape - this often ends up as a mind fuck for people because how could they have had such an intense orgasm from something wrong? (People, we have orgasms in our sleep sometimes - the body does what the body does, it doesn’t change the ethics of a thing.) Marcelle Manhattan touches wondefully on how ambiguity makes us uncomfortable in her response to Debauchette here. (However, she does bring up the "Second Wave Feminists say all sex is rape" myth which just drives me nuts. No, that’s not what Dworkin was saying.)

  The sex can be clearly hot and still be abuse. Orgasms aren’t a magic wand that makes things better. Dear lord, people have been having hot sex throughout recorded history, were all those people and sex acts in contexts of perfect spiritual equality? Of course not. We humans are capable of eroticizing just about anything, so what? Erotic != good by definition. (Erotic is a slippery enough slope as it is; would that rape have been hot to her had it been anyone else at any other time? Or even if it was him at another time?)

 Now, defining and judging abuse is a tricky thing and one shouldn’t ignore the subjective interpretations of people in this matter, but you can’t believe in inalienable human rights and not think it is possible to find some objective way of judging these things.

It’s three in the morning, there are too many good comments on just those three or four posts, and I don’t have enough brain to deal with them now. Hell, I don’t even have an ending for this post.
 

 

 

This past weekend I had an interesting insight into how I process pain.  I was having knives run over me by two lovely women. They were playing an interesting game of "find the buttons on Victor’s body" (most of mine seem fairly obvious and close to bones - there a couple that are dramatically more effective than others, though) when one then raked my torso with her nails. Raked might not be the best word, it may have been a bit more of a digging into the flesh and pulling.

It hurt.  A lot. It hurt in a way that made me scream ow, and flinch in the ropes. It made me unhappy.

I like sensation. A lot. It makes me happy, and makes me exclaim noises that seem to amuse those who enjoy making me make noises. This applies on both sides of my switchiness, as I also like making others exclaim those noises as well.

I am not a masochist.

I know masochists, I have played with masochists, and let me tell you, I am no masochist. (Nor am I an algophiliac.)

She apologized, and going back to knives I started to feel overstimulated. At least I thought that at the time, and asked for no more than 10 minutes; but in retrospect it was not so much overstimulation as the way I was processing the knives changed. My tormentors agreed to 10 minutes, intending to take full measure of that time, and then about 30 seconds later, I got bit, hard, in the leg. This was also Unpleasant Hurt.

I reacted badly. 

I kneed the biter in the head.

I was tied, so got no solid contact. But that was it and I wanted out. I normally like being bitten. Or rather, I like having been bitten, especially big meaty bites like that. (I tend to like the after effects of having been bitten more than the being bitten itself - this is similar to how I like being pierced.) But while usually bites are a good thing, and indeed I have a run of pretty bite marks down my back from that evening - this was simply intolerable.

I can only chalk it up to something about the way I process pain. It seems pain is like a menu of flavours, and some go together in my head and some don’t. Knife on top of piercings? - A fine match of strong red with a full-flavoured main course. Biting on top of knifing? - Chocolate milk poured in my soup.  

As I said, I am neither an algophiliac nor a masochist. I don’t process pain as pleasure and hurting me doesn’t want to make me fuck you. (It doesn’t mean I won’t want to fuck you afterwards, but it isn’t a button that makes me "hot".) That wasn’t new for me.

What was new was learning I combine different pains differently. Interestingly, I have heard (and have played with bottoms for whom this is true) that switching a sensation helps some people process better, shifting from one type of pain to another prevents them from being overstimulated.  This was specifically mentione for sting and thud.  Since it has been a long time since I was hit, I really don’t know how that would work on me. Perhaps sting/thud go together well in my case. But knife/bite didn’t. Really didn’t. It is something I am going to have to remember to keep in mind next time I am topping someone.

Of course, I shouldn’t assume everyone is wired the way I am, as I know some who a bite after that would be bliss. Indeed, assuming people are wired the way you are is almost invariably a recipe for disaster. And maybe another day in another way that combo would work. But it certainly seems that this weekend I am not someone who likes different styles of pain layered on top of other pain.