Consent Revisited

Photo by Philipp Wüthrich on Unsplash

Uncle and I are considering starting a project documenting our experiences and advice.  So I have started ploughing through the substantial body of work I had written for Erotic Adventures and Corrupting Mrs Jones. I came across an article I wrote in 2013. Almost ten years ago! I am so old. In it I I wax lyrical about the art of saying “NO”. At the time I felt that the “No means no” fundamental of the swinging world was very firmly in place. I considered that most women who had an issue with enforcing their NO were not being clear with their intent. 

Fast forward to now. I still think a lot of women have issues with saying no. There are a multitude of reasons for this and I could wax lyrical about social conditioning and the like but a quick Google search and you can find much better researched and written articles about this. What this story is about is men who don’t listen. Two sides of the same coin in many ways. 

In my early slut career (I coined this term for last weeks TMI Tuesday don’t you love it). I don’t think I said no very often. We were playing predominantly in the couple space. I interacted with the people I was interested in and if there was a NO it was from the more discerning Mr Jones. Interestingly a woman saying NO on behalf of her husband does not have a lot of repercussions. It did not seem to create a lot of arguments. It is accepted. There were some occasions when it did cause problems. Mostly when the man of the rejected couple decided he HAD to have me and went about trying to pressure his wife into pleasing Mr Jones to achieve this end. But that was their issue. I went about my business secure in my bubble of “no means no”.

These days I interact with single men. In some circles I could be viewed as an individual seeking fun because I do go on solo dates. I have never sought out a couple. For the most part my interest in women is limited and so couples don’t seek me. Married men do. I am happy to play with them one on one if their wife / girlfriend is on board. Over the weekend we invited a couple to come sailing with us. We met at a party. I was intrigued by his mind. Perhaps a little flattered by his statement that he doesn’t interact with women much because he doesn’t find many women worth his while. 

On closer inspection his mind turned out to be very much like other men’s mind. Focussed on his own personal gratification. His discernment wasn’t as refined as he led me to believe. In short he was a man looking for as many holes to poke his dick in as possible. He likes rough play. The kind that explores the boundary between pain and pleasure. He likes boobs. What he likes to do with them is squeeze them quite firmly and pinch nipples. I am not averse to this practice. Sometimes it elicits quite a strong response but for the most part I am a “go easy there” kind of girl. My body is an instrument that needs to be played skilfully to get the most out of it. Bashing on me like a drum will have some effect but it is limited. Plus it will piss me off after a while and get you on the “no thanks” list. 

So I spent the weekend dancing this line. Controlling the amount of rough handling I could tolerate while he pressured me to take as much as his partner seemed to enjoy. In addition he has erection problems. Not uncommon amongst older me. Sad for them. Hard to deal with but you know what. When I want to fuck I want to fuck. If I have tolerated and accommodated your rough handling and tried to be the person to please you I am not entirely pleased when you can’t perform. On top of that I am unhappy if you make me feel like I am being unfair to express my displeasure. That my friend, is gaslighting. 

So with that awkwardness sitting in the background as I helped him straighten his bed in the cabin he shared with his partner, he proposes that I visit him and his partner solo while Mr Jones is away delivering a yacht….

My response…

“Well we don’t do that. See couples when the other one is not present.” 

He seemed OK with that. I exited as speedily as possible and related the events to Mr Jones. He was understanding and agreed with my position as the safest option. That, I thought, was that. But no. The next morning I received a text.

“Come hop in bed with us” the invitation was for me. Not Mr Jones. The cabin is big enough for three but definitely not suitable for four. 

Less than twelve hours ago I told him that we don’t do that. And now he is ignoring my no? 

I didn’t bother to respond. He queried me later. It annoyed me to have to point out that I didn’t feel comfortable leaving my husband alone to go play. Rude much? 

I was irritated about the whole situation. When I met these people I was excited. Happy to have found a couple that we both seemed to get along with. Happy to maybe have another couple friend in the lifestyle. They are hard to come by. But on reflection it just isn’t working for me. He is domineering, opinionated and the most irritating thing, he just doesn’t listen to other people’s ideas or opinions. I really like her but he is not able to let her have a relationship without him being around wanking. Not my thing. 

As we unpacked at home I reflected about a lot of things. One of them being that men often simply don’t listen when a woman as a solo person says no. They don’t hear what she means which is 

“I am not interested, this isn’t working for me, I don’t want to.”

What they hear is;

“I need you to convince me that what you are proposing is attractive.” And worse, “Tell me the reasons why my feelings about my body are not correct.”

These men pressure a woman to explain her refusal and then rebut her reasons. They badger her and make her feel bad for saying no. And then they wonder why dating apps are flooded with men  without a counterbalance of a similar number of women. It isn’t as simple as women learning to say no more clearly. Men need to learn to hear it. 

Unwind Part 1

The Morning Before

The shower was warm. Soft liquid comfort washing away sleep and waking up skin for the day ahead. Shampoo poured down over my body as I rinsed my hair clean. The morning was full of anticipation and maybe a little excitement. Somehow it seemed hard to be excited about anything right now. There had been too much of everything in these last few weeks. I felt as if I was a spring that had been coiled almost to breaking point. 

But this morning was different. A promise of release was in the air. As I stepped out of the shower the top of the tea chest looked at me from the corner of the room. Usually it was covered in stuff but today it was bare. The perfect place to recline and capture this moment and mood. 

Looking back at the images I was happy. I felt awake, sexual, sexy. With a smile I sent one to Captain Kirk. It wasn’t our normal thing. Or it hadn’t been until this point. But he was a man. What man doesn’t like a nude on his phone in the morning? It wasn’t until later I noticed the droplet of water under my breast. Somehow this seemed more sexy than anything else. I wonder if he noticed it as well? 

A Day of Wondering

The traffic gods were good to me that day. As I drove I received responses to my image from Caption Kirk. Sometimes I used Siri to send messages while I was driving but somehow the profanities I liked to type were hard to say out loud to myself and harder to hear repeated back from the sanitised voice of Siri. 

On arrival at work I had a moment of clarity. I was tense. Not in the immediate way of something looming in front of me but in the way of being wound up from weeks of events and busyness. Receiving dirty texts was a welcome distraction from the grind of every day life. 

I would love to lick you all over, nibble your neck. Suck on your nipples. Taste your pussy. Tease your asshole. 

And we had only agreed to meet for a drink. To see each other in person before deciding if we wanted to go further. It seemed like we were doing a dance. Going through the motions of a ritual that was prescribed by someone else. All the while our eyes were focussed on what we both wanted. 

The Dance

When you see someone for the first time it is always weird. Very few times have I met a man and thought, “You look better in person,” or at least, “you look like your photos.” More often I meet someone and feel some kind of magnetism. That subtle attraction that makes me want to dally in a dark corner and explore their mouth. That makes me slide my hand up their thigh to feel if they are as excited as me. 

This time I wasn’t sure. He wasn’t as tall as I had hoped. Despite his texts I didn’t get the feeling of attraction. We both were holding back. Waiting to see what the other offered. In some way unsure. I was used to men who were vocal and touchy. He was neither. But he was respectful. There was a glimmer. I sensed that he was holding back, careful not to be pushy. 

We drank our drink. All the while chatting about our experiences. Our rules. What was allowed and what wasn’t. How our respective partners felt about this meeting. Not for the first time I found myself reflecting on the transactional nature of this lifestyle. From an abstract point I could see our conversation sounding like; “I have A and B but I don’t do C…. I see you are offering P and Q do you want to get naked together?” By the end of our drink it seemed there was nothing left but to complete the transaction. 

Thirty Dirty Questions – Question 18

At the start of the year I began working my way through Thirty Dirty Questions from the pages of Brigit Delaney. Along the way I have been joined by Rebel from Rebel’s Notes and Mike from Marriage Sex and More.

Do you have trust issues surrounding sex or your sexual relationships?

Photo by Alex Shute on Unsplash

Mr Jones and I are swingers. We have been swingers for an extended period of time. Ever since the beginning open communication has been a cornerstone of the way that we live this lifestyle. I don’t consider myself to be an expert on all things non-monogamous but I do consider us to be fairly successful in our lifestyle. If anyone starting out in this lifestyle were to ask me for my number one tip it would be to always be honest and listen when your partner is being vulnerable.

When your spouse is having sex with another person there has to be trust. It is irrelevant if they are only engaging in foreplay, they are only having sex in the same room as you or they are off having date nights without you being present. If there isn’t going to be strain and conflict in your relationship there has to be trust. Without trust jealousy is inevitable. And if there is a sure fire way to invite the green eyed monster in to cause havoc in your relationship then not communicating and creating trust is it.

Communicating about this kind of thing is not easy. It feels weird. It is hard to overcome years of social conditioning and popular culture that doesn’t support unconventional relationships. It is hard to overcome pre-concieved ideas that you or your partner may have. The first time you have to talk about something that is happening that you are uncomfortable about can be terrifying. And awkward and just plain weird. It gets easier as you become more comfortable with yourself and where you are at. Trust can only be built on honesty. 

I would say that we definitely have done the hard yards and built trust based on this commitment to honesty. Between us there is a lot of trust that can be evidenced in Mr Jones’ confidence that I will be safe when I venture out to meet new people alone. His readiness to agree to adventures that I propose and his confidence that I will hold back when he feels that I need to or if he needs me to. 

With my extra martial relationships things can be somewhat transactional. When seeking a partner there are always conversations about what each party is interested in and looking for. There is always a discussion about boundaries and rules that may be in place with primary partners. If you are new to this kind of lifestyle and you are seeing other people without these conversations things are likely to get really messy really quickly. There are many men, and probably women as well, who hang around the swing scene without the knowledge or consent of their partner. The reasons that they do this kind of thing vary from person to person. I do not judge them for choosing this path. 

However I am not going to jump into bed with a man who admits he is cheating on his partner. If he is going to lie to the person he has committed to for his entire life then he absolutely will lie to me without a second thought. He will be unreliable and lie about it. He will ask to do things that are not safe and then lie about it. He may (and I have had this happen) ask me to pretend to be some kind of work contact should she ever answer the phone when I call. Essentially lying for him. I can never trust him entirely. And so I will not enter into an arrangement with a man who is cheating. Of course if he lies and doesn’t tell me about his wife / fiancé / girlfriend then that is on him. As soon as I catch him in the lie out the door he goes. There is no substitute for honesty.