What A Community Can’t Do

Last month, I made the painful decision to leave the Unitarian church that has been my spiritual home for seven years. It was over a philosophical difference that really snuck up on me, a lightning-strike realization that we (the church and I) weren’t on the same page. I try to see it the way it’s best to see dating deal-breakers, that saying no to what doesn’t work makes room for what does, but leaving was a huge loss. I’m struggling with a mix of shame, disappointment, and sadness that is very familiar to be because I seem to hit a wall of it at least every few years.

In her wonderful new book Rising Strong: The Reckoning, The Rumble, and The Revolution Brené Brown says that in order to get out from under disappointment, you have to be brave and really examine the expectations for the situation. So I’ve really given a lot of thought to the conscious and unconscious expectations that keep leading me to be damagingly disappointed by groups, scenes, and communities.

1. A community can’t be a correction for a hurtful family. Just the way I’ve sometimes gone to doms for approval, I go to communities hoping that they can love me into realness, approve me into existence. There’s an underlying hope of “Now that   I’ve found/become/befriended ___________, I will finally be okay, will finally be welcomed into the world and find unconditional love. It’s sad to realize that I didn’t have that with my original family as a child, but I can’t expect healing and wholeness to come from anywhere but within.

2. A community can’t replace my own family, flawed though they may be. I live too far away from my family of origin and I don’t have a family to share a household with right now, and that leaves a hole that nothing can fill.

3. A community can’t fix rape culture, because rape culture is in all of us. It is always easier for groups to be angry at the person pointing out the problem than to face the problem itself. I’ll always have to speak up against it, but I’d love to learn to feel safe doing so.

4. A community can’t erase heartbreak. I’ve realized that, though there were other factors, I left the BDSM scene because I couldn’t process the rejections I’d experienced there. I tried to patch each loss with another person, (and the whole thing was an attempt to patch divorce grief) but the grief kept walking me down the same path. After three years, I’m to the point where I can see the loss for what it is, and I desperately want to stop sponging that pain onto other people. It’s hard not to try and numb the loss of Sweetie and the life we created together.

5. A community can’t stay the same forever, and it can’t change as I change. Just the way that, in dating, I have to walk away from a bad match instead of trying to torture the person into changing for you, I have to let go of situations that aren’t a good fit. It doesn’t mean that I have to fear or fight forever, just that I need to constantly let things come and go.

6. A community can’t replace love. I am sick of being single, but I still have some inner work (and a whole lot of book-editing!) to do before I’m ready to start a life with another person, but I have to look loneliness in the eye, to honor it. I have to realize how much I want my own family and stop trying to shoehorn other things into that space.

7. A community can’t come to my rescue. If I ignore my instincts and walk into something that doesn’t work, no principal, no dom, no friend can be expected to “save” me. I am a grown woman, and I want to train myself to hear and respect my inner voice so that I can stop reliving abandonment or having childlike expectations of “loyalty.” We’re all adults being ourselves, and it’s up to me to find out what actually works, and do it.

8. A community can’t define me, erase me, or absorb me. It can’t give me an identity, and any identity it DOES give will feel constraining. The only thing I know I am is me, and I have to find out a way to be solid within myself, so I can stop expecting others to create me.

This has been a harsh, lonely time. The double loss of J. and the church has made for a very sad couple of months. It’s hard to have faith in anything right now, so I’m just trying little things as they come along, letting joy and connection in whatever little windows they can find. I’m also still trying to find help with the walls and wounds I keep running into. I don’t like being back in this Groundhog’s Day of sadness, this most vexing part of the labyrinth, but I’m doing my best to learn as much as I can while I’m here. 

Birthday Wishlist for the Coming Year

I did pretty well with last year’s wishes, but this year I’m asking for a lot more. Greedy!

1. I wish to love and be loved in return. A lot and a lot. I want music and romance and hearts and flowers and giddy ridiculousness.

2. I wish for my own pretty apartment and lots of company. I wish for someone good (besides myself) with whom to christen my single-girl bed.

3. I wish for lots and lots and LOTS of PIV sex, until I take it for granted, until it’s not an exotic treat that I have to feel supergrateful for. I’m sure I’ll still be supergrateful, though.

4. I wish for so many more wonderful things to happen to my ass, both inside and out. The Summer of My Ass didn’t go as far as I wanted it to and there’s so much more I want in there.

5. I wish to experience subspace in lots of good, healing, and transcendent ways, to form deep bonds of trust with myself and others.

6. I wish for more festival days full of spiritual awakenings, group shenanigans, fantastic makeout sessions, and yes, more hair-pulling contests, why not?

7. I don’t want to be left out of any more parties because of bitterness, fear, or heartbreak. I want to get closer to more people and be included in more things.

8. I want to see what other miracles my body is capable of.

9. I would absolutely LOVE to find a good rope top who is also handy with a flogger and strap and wants to make out with me a real lot. (Making out is really in all the wishes, I think.)

10. I wish to be collared, not all the time, but some of the time, and for him to tell me that I am his good, sweet girl.

11. I wish for LOTS of rough sex, but here’s the thing—the rough sex guys are the ones I really fall for, so I’m gonna need for them to fall in love back. And then express it by fucking me hard until I cry. (Ps. Universe, please feel free to send another tear-fetish because that is just the coolest thing ever.)

12. I wish for smoothing-over and healing of the hurts of the last year, the last 39, really.

13. I wish to keep shedding the fears that sometimes keep me from being the open, adventurous person and partner that I really want to be.

14. I wish for lots of real dates. That means:

a. He asks and plans.

b. We go somewhere.

c. We do something.

d. He almost always pays.

I’m a princess, y’all, and it’s time to honor it.

15. I want to explore more multiperson scenes/sex. I was born for a penis in each hand, and they are certainly welcome in all the other places, probably at once.

16. I want to keep making more room for intimacy, vulnerability, and fallibility.

17. I wish for the Dream Guy, of course, who is also the Beach Guy.

18. I wish for more beautifully hurty public scenes and as much being naked in public as possible.

19. I want to keep building the sense of community and connection that I’ve been working towards (and sometimes failing spectacularly at) this year. I want to hear people’s stories, be part of their lives, and celebrate our awesome human-ness together.

20. Plus some secret wishes—I promise to tell you if they come true.

Why It’s Awesome That I Cried at the Munch

It’s not my favorite kind of adventure to write about of course--I would much rather be describing underpants. But I do think it feels like a good step.

Saturday was one of those days where everything kind of caught up with me—the breakups, the divorce, another summer almost gone without having found my Beach Guy. I got sick of the guys who hit on me on the nude beach always not being the dream guy, sick of this summer in general and at the same time wanting to go back to the beginning of summer and somehow do things right. Stepping out of the forward flow of time is never a good plan, but I guess it’s understandable.

When I got home from the beach already feeling a little blue, I found the two letters informing us that, per our request, the city had dissolved my life partner status with Sweetie. In this time when everyone’s working so hard and making so much progress for marriage rights, I’m officially leaving Lesbian Island on a husband hunt. Nobody ever failed worse at gay marriage than I did.

My mood dropped all the way, but I couldn’t stay home and wallow. I got on the bus and wallowed there instead. I sent texts to Angel Face and the Lady of the House asking for support and strength, and they were both very kind. I walked the blocks from the bus to the bar feeling the prettiness of the cool night but being lost in my own failures and despair.

This was the same munch where I met Fireguy last year, and I knew that several nice friends were going. When I walked in it was lively and crowded and I was greeted with hugs, but I was sad and scared and I didn’t know what to do or where to sit. I felt lost. Luckily a girl I know from poly circles was there and she guided me to a seat and asked what was wrong.

I told her about all the heartbreaks and frustrations and she said “You sit there. I’m going to get you a drink.”

While I waited for her to come back I chitchatted and resisted the urge to run—I’d told myself I should stay for at least one drink no matter what my mood was.

She brought back a Long Island iced tea that was so strong I was afraid to drink it—I’ve really been keeping alcohol to a minimum lately. But I kept drinking it.

I started telling my friend about all of the things I was sad about, all the things I missed. Another friend’s husband came over to give me a hug, and as he held me I just broke down. I just let myself cry and nobody thought it was weird at all. In fact, they gathered around me. Friends and acquaintances, even some girls who I thought didn’t like me. Napkins were brought for nose-blowing. One girl told me “Well, your boobs are amazing, so I know it’s his loss.” and I laughed and things started to be okay.

Things went back to pleasant chatting. I finished the drink and the nice friend who’d bought it gave me a ride back to the bus stop.

I was still sad. I sniffled my way through church the next day (Totally okay since this month’s theme is vulnerability) but by coffee hour I was chatting with friends and signing up for a new spiritual development group. I came home inspired and found some nice friend requests in my Fet inbox. And! An invite to a party at Cute Master and Pretty Slave’s house! Just exactly the right thing. Woohoo for maybe some smutty adventures.

The fact that I could break down in the middle of a get-together and people took it with such matter-of-fact caring, that’s an amazing thing to me. I worry so much about being isolated by grief, about not being out adventuring enough, but it seems like I really am doing something right. It makes me deeply happy that I was so accepted and looked-after, and it will make the next sexy adventures around those folks all the more meaningful.

Ohno, I Fainted in the Dungeon

It’s possible that I have been pushing myself too hard. Student teaching is taking up almost every second of my life and it is rewarding but stressful.

I really needed to think about other things, so I was really looking forward to last Saturday, which for the most part turned out to be one of my favorite kink-themed days yet. Our regular dungeon was hosting a poly-and-kink day of workshops, and I went without Sweetie so I’d be more likely to talk to people—it worked! I got to sit and talk with people I usually only get to watch and be watched by. It gave me a wonderful sense of community, and I even made the acquaintance of another fire dom—I would have gotten to be set on fire, too, if it hadn’t been for some bad judgment on Sweetie’s and my part.

The DM had just built the above piece of furniture. It was meant for tickle play, but I spent a fair amount of the day daydreaming about ways to be tied to it.

As has become usual, I was the first one to strip down when the play party was even close to starting. Suspension frames were still being assembled when Sweetie started roping me up, as I danced a little bit to some (oddly appropriate) Chumbawamba: I get knocked down and (spoiler alert) I do, in fact, get up again.

I was feeling extra lovey-dovey with Sweetie and she put my harness on—I hadn’t seen her much during the week and I was full of endorphins from all of the poly chattering I’d done throughout the day. We stopped to kiss more often than we usually do, and I encouraged her to be a little more handsy—as long as she was careful with my Hello Kitty tape. I think it’s the sexiest she and I have ever been out in public.

Then it was time to climb onto the contraption. She strapped my arms onto the Y-shaped cross thing first, and then wound ropes around my waist and thighs to tie me to the back. She kept having to push my glasses up to keep them from falling off. She pulled the thigh ropes rhythmically, the way I like, and I moaned and sighed and nuzzled her. I felt so turned on.

She put the blindfold on me and tied my feet together, making sort of a spreader bar with ropes. She started to spank me right after that, but I told her my foot felt funny. I told her it was time to get down, but I was realizing it too late—I was starting to really freak out because I realized how much time it would take to get me free. I felt trapped, terrified—it’s a feeling that occasionally has to come out, but I would prefer it in less woozy doses.

“Get the blindfold off. All the way off.” I was getting really upset and I felt myself slip out of consciousness as a wave of nausea came over me—I really didn’t want to be the girl who throws up on the dungeon floor, and I didn’t. I became dimly aware that people were helping Sweetie unwind the ropes—it was the guy who spanked me with a star-cane a few months ago and his punk rock girlfriend—gentle voices and people working purposefully at the knots, telling me it was okay,

“You can get out now,” said Sweetie, but I was still tied to the frame.

“Nonono I can’t, I can’t get out yet.”

Finally I was able to climb/fall out of the contraption and into/onto the punk rock girl. I wanted to lay right down on the floor but I was still heaving like I was going to throw up, so Sweetie rushed me to the loo. I am not a heavy drinker, so this is the first time I’ve ever found myself sobbing into a bar toilet. I couldn’t throw up, but I couldn’t stand up without feeling sick. So I just stayed there and cried. More nice, soothing voices, kind people bringing a wet towel for my burning forehead, the Punk Rock Girl making sure we knew there was a spot clear to lay down.

There was something oddly normal about laying on a bench in the dungeon, crying my eyes out. I was covered in a scarf and shivering until I could find the strength to put my clothes on. A kind soul brought over a clean tablecloth to wrap me up in. I was too freaked out for Sweetie to even touch me, but the tears? They seemed okay. I felt like myself. So much myself that I cried because I worried that I wouldn’t be well enough to make lesson plans for my guided reading groups on Monday.

I feel fine as I’m writing this, even if I still feel stupid for kneeling in a constricted position for as long as I did. I might have to be a little vanilla for a few weeks ‘til the scare wears off, but I’m okay. Part of the goal of my adventures is to build a community, to make myself safer by making connections, and my stupid faint let me know that I am reaching that goal. Sweetie and I are not alone. There are nice people in special outfits who will help us when we need it. That is a big comfort.

I am completely exhausted about student teaching and about the other changes I have been going through. I think that Saturday’s shutdown was my body’s way of asking me to please find it some rest. I’ll really try to—it’s the least I can do.