37 Is A Fine Age at Which to Blossom (Against TNG Ageism)

“TNG is about having a comfortable place for younger folk in the lifestyle. There are a bunch of regional groups, but nothing for people from different places to get together to talk to each other and trade advice.

Please be aged 35 or younger. I won't stop you if you are not, but I will be peeved if anyone uses this as a place to troll for younger folk.”--From the TNG Global group on Fet Life

This week, I’ve been having somewhat of an age panic. Earlier this week, I was feeling like putting some mingling on the calendar, and the only thing I could make it to this weekend was the local TNG (the next generation) munch. Just like the global group above and most cities’ TNG groups, our local group has an age ceiling of 35. If you’re over 35, you have to get a younger friend to “chaperone” you to their munches.

I got interested in TNG events because I’d like a dom who doesn’t have, like, two decades of experience on me, but one the other hand, this “chaperone” business seems humiliating, and not in a good way. I also resent the implication that 35 is the age at which one automatically starts “trolling” for younger people to play with—predators and victims come in all ages and experience levels, and putting an arbitrary age limit on interaction just creates more possibility for alienation and miscommunication.

The age-35 cutoff for TNG groups stigmatizes age (even, I think, adulthood)  in a way that mirrors mainstream consumer culture. For a community of people who are so creative in their physical expression, I hate when kinky folks sure seem to exemplify and even exaggerate the limits which mainstream society places on us.

Its true that some cities’ communities may skew a bit old, so I can see the appeal of being able to get together with pals one’s own age. After all, I go bonkers over guys who are 37, they’re the dreamiest and hard to find in an available state. As I learned with Firguy, playing with someone who has so much more experience can create a scary power imbalance.

However, I would not want to restrict myself to only 37-year-old partners—I’d miss out on so much! A large part of what I’m learning here are the best practices for a sexed-up adulthood, so it’s very helpful for me to spend time with couples of all ages and categories.

Society so often sends us the message that sexuality is only to be explored by the young. I’m told in a million ways a day by pop culture that my age makes me less worthy of affection and love. (Think Barney’s constant ageist cracks of How I Met Your Mother.) Even though I’m a good sport with a lot to offer, I often worry that I took too long to blossom and now I’m just an undervalued resource. Everyone has stuff that might limit their dating capacity: size, disability, even just having really specific tastes. It seems really creepy to add arbitrary age limits on top of that!

Dear TNG, it isn’t my fault that this particular phase of my sexual awakening came at 37 instead of 20. I was doing worthy things with those years, making art, travelling, writing poetry, making friends. I’m so proud of everything those years meant to me, even if it meant that my kinky side didn’t emerge until later.

My perspective isn’t any les valuable because I’m 37, nor is my ass any less hot. I’m trying to keep reminding myself that age-fears are just that, fears, and I shouldn’t let them hold me back from my adventures. I don’t feel right about needing a chaperone to attend a public event, so for now, I won’t do it. I’ve learned by now not to dabble in things that offend my childlike sense of justice. If something’s not fair, it’s just not fair.

But Who Am I Trying to Kid: The Song That's Really on Repeat Over Here

In summer, I like really dumb pop songs. And this one's what my soul looks like.

Song of the Week: Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime

Having completed our household's Charlie Kaufman film festival, I'm surprised to find that Adaptation was the most optimistic one.

Various Happy Things: You Are What You Love

They don’t really fit the traditional mold of happy poly moments, but some things converged last week to make me feel like I am back on track:

1. Since I’ve known for a while that some (not all) of the troubles between us could be solved with, like, a half-hour conversation and I was having a hankering to watch Mystery Science Theater 3000 and be excellently fucked, I asked the Mayor of Kittentown for some snuggles. He was happy to be asked but says his new relationship doesn’t allow for extracurricular snuggles. It’s hard to let him go for real, but I’m glad to know that there’s at least one guy that I still trust enough to ask for what I want. And! I get a gold star for asking. I hope that MKT and I can keep a friendship going, even if being on his couch isn’t appropriate anymore. And! I’m really happy that his relationship is getting closer, even if it means no snuggles for me.
2. This one won’t seem happy at first, but bear with me: I’m still really sad that my therapist is on maternity leave, and the interim lady didn’t work out—I felt frustrated, confused, and panicky to the point where the interim lady asked her supervisor to intercede. The supervisor lady gave me two very nice gifts: First, she helped me understand that my bond with my regular therapist is really deep and it’s okay to not want to do therapy with anyone else. Supervisor lady asked me to imagine that my real therapist was sitting next to me and to find that sensation in my body—it was in my heart, and that made me cry my eyes out some more.

I think that experience was really important because what I’m really learning here is how to not be freaked out by attachment. Often when I try to fight attachment, it comes out as anger, resentment, fear, a real feeling of being trapped. Once I realized it was okay to have a bond, the pressure was released and I could happily take the summer off from therapy.

The other cool thing that that the supervisor lady told me was to get a pretty notebook and write letters to my therapist while she’s gone. While it makes me feel like a genuine crazy person, it really works—in fact, I decided to use it to write to other people I can’t currently talk to—it’s a relief to be able to parse out all of the emotions instead of being overwhelmed by them. Most of the letters, I won’t share or send, but it makes me feel better and like it is safer to be connected to people. It helps me to experience some of the attachments I have been fighting in a way that doesn’t force me to confront or disrupt anything—it’s another way to help myself learn love.

3. Over the weekend, I went to a couple of talks that were really helpful and inspiring. The first one was a talk on seeing kink through the lens of feminism. I looked forward to it so much that it kind of made my week. I don’t think that there’s anything inherently anti-feminist about kink, but I have wished for a while to have more friends who see BDSM from a feminist perspective. On the way there, I got caught in a romantic-comedy-level downpour—I was soaked down to my underwear and laughing my head off—I felt like I was on a very good date with myself. (Thank goodness Sweetie and I had a date for afterwards so she could bring me a change of clothes.)

While I sat there shivering, I was so happy to hear people’s questions and stories, and it was wonderful to feel safe to tell my story without fear of being seen as a bad girl. (At least, not a bad girl in a bad way!) I realized that the key to making more safety for myself in the local BDSM community is to spend more time forming friendships, so I won’t end up in the power-imbalance that automatically comes with being an outsider. So I offered to be folks’ munch-going pal, and I am so proud that the workshop’s facilitator took me up on it—she’s accomplished so many of the things that I dream about and she’s a fellow badass feminist bottom, so I think she’ll be a good influence. Wonder what her cute nickname will be!

The other talk that I liked so much was a talk on beginning polyamory. I love the way that my body relaxes itself when I am in poly company—my shoulders get warm and my heart floods with well-being—I really should do this more often.

My favorite thing that I heard in that talk was from a gentleman friend of mine, one of the most romantic souls I know. He said that one of the ways he knew that he was poly is that he just doesn’t get over people—they just stay in his heart. He knew he had room for more that one person in his heart because people just stay in there. I love that idea. It’s certainly a more positive way to look at my own never-getting–over-people, even if I do get frustrated from time to time with who takes up my heart real estate.

4. And speaking of heart real estate, in my letters-I-probably-won’t-send notebook, I sat down and wrote a letter to Fireguy. It made me realize something that will probably seem obvious to everyone else, (it sure wasn’t a surprise to Sweetie)—I loved Fireguy. I even loved Varga Girl in an aspiring-to-be-a-metamour kind of way. Though there isn’t much I can do with that love, acknowledging it is a relief and a release.

There was a moment during our public fire scene where he looked down at my face with such a look of approval that I felt like a perfect little angel. I had never felt that from a male authority figure before, and it struck me so deep. That’s why it’s so hard to stay away from him, even though we weren’t a good match. I forgive myself for the compromises I made, for all the hurt we all went through, I forgive myself for the fact that that feeling was so powerful that I couldn’t resist it. I hope to feel it again some day, in a healthier way.

We’re having a Charlie Kaufman movie marathon over here lately, and this scene from Adaptation has really been sticking with me. “I can love whoever I want.”

Songs of the Week: The Eighties on Love

Send me an angel! And so on!

Cuddle Party Part Five: Puppy Pile and My Excellent “No!”

Some days, I am so ready to be finished being a project. I’m frustrated with all things involving protocols, yesses and nos, contracts, everything that’s between me and just running into someone’s arms with abandon. I am impatient for whatever/whomever comes next, for just muddling through intimacy on a case-by-case basis. The tools I’m learning are useful, but everything feels like it is at such a remove lately. Cuddle Parties, BDSM, even the relentless communication-perfectionism of poly culture, they all seem like ways to guard one’s heart, to keep anyone from getting in there and fucking shit up, to keep anything genuinely serendipitous and messy and personal and awesome from happening.

What I’m really impatient with, of course, is the way that I keep MYSELF guarded, but as antsy as I am I’m still too scared to open up the way I want to. I guess it’ll happen when it happens.

That being said, if I’m getting to be ready for something real, the cuddle party helped to get me there. Though it didn’t feel sexy to be there, it did feel wonderful. The best part was when I stretched out on a pillow and pay back by myself, near the crowd but apart from them—a warm, happy, floating sensation of self-sufficiency, of self-love. It’s the same feeling I get sometimes when I’ve been swimming for a while and I let myself just float on my back in the ocean and look up at the blue sky and clouds. From above, a tall, grey haired man asked me to cuddle with him, and I blissfully said “No, I’m being by myself right now.”

From behind me, I heard Sheandhim, who hadn’t moved from her four-person cuddle pile for hours, clarify helpfully and protectively: “That was a no.”

From my floaty spot, I could see that some pretty dancing had started. The Lady of the Hose, the Hosts, and Massage Therapist Man were dancing above the cuddle, moving their hands in front of them in pretty shapes not unlike the shapes I used to make with glow sticks in my raver days. It looked fun, and after a while, I joined in. I danced or sat meditatively (the Lady of the House always seemed to be nearby, but also very happily contained—it was comforting) for most of the rest of the party, until it was time for the “puppy pile.”

I surprised myself by agreeing to be at the bottom of the puppy pile. It came close to the “smushed” idea, I guess. Those of us on the bottom of the pile lay down in a row and the top layer folks lay down over us, perpendicularly. Host One was one of the people right on top of me, that was fine. One of the not-careful-with-space guys was down toward my feet. I was a little scared, but I like trust games, so this felt okay.

I was pinned down for a few minutes and it felt fine, giggly. Then someone decided to TICKLE MY FEET! Without having asked! “No! No to tickling!” I yelled. I was conscious of the fact that I had disturbed the mellow loveyness, but for once I didn’t worry that I had been a bad girl. It wasn’t a timid or apologetic or halfhearted no, it was big, powerful, and blustery. It was a beautiful “no” and it makes me think I’m ready to graduate from something. Here, at least, is a gold star.

Is there any worse way to non-consensually touch someone who is pinned down than tickling?! What kind of a creepwad would do that? It seems like it would particularly loaded for anyone, but I know it is for me. I guess I’ll have to get around to writing the not-hot post entitled “The Land of the Questionable Babysitters” sometime soon.

Having said my no, I calmed back down again, until I felt, close to my ankle, a little twitch. A change of shape. I recognized this as the feeling of the perfectly innocent erection of somebody I didn’t know. I was done. I had to get up right then. I calmly but urgently asked to be let out and the puppy pile disbanded.

At the end of the party, I said a few goodbyes and called Sweetie to see if she was on the way. She was. I changed into my blue polka-dot summer dress—most of my dresses are so soft that they could double as pajamas. I packed up my PJs and slippers in my suitcase and went to wait for Sweetie outside. It was dark out, but I wasn’t scared. I noticed that the people who lived in the development across the street had really big TVs. It was so dark that I couldn’t even see the color of my car as it pulled up. I’m always so happy to see Sweetie after adventures. We stopped at the Wawa for snacks and then drove home listening to our pop-culture podcasts. We were on the way home, and I felt proud and satisfied.

Cuddle Party Part Four: Space, Reiki, and Wrestling

I think I did a really good job during free cuddling, even as I was reticent to join the general smush. After a too-hurty try at a massage by a very friendly guy, I was sitting in my own little pleasant bubble of space when the husband of the couple I already knew (I’ll call them SheandHim and HimandHer because they are quite inseparable) offered me a foot rub and that sounded joust right. He compared himself to the previous massage-giver: “He’s all force and I’m all energy.”

I stretched my feet out in front of me and he took off my fuzzy slippers (which I’d bought just for the occasion) and started to rub my feet gently. Curious what he meant to be doing with the energy (I keep fighting the urge to be ironic and put energy in quotation marks) I asked “Are you taking something out or putting something in?”

And he said “Which does it feel like?”

“Both?”

What it felt like was good, like a regular foot rub except that it gave my toes a floating sensation, kind of like during yoga when you are supposed to breathe through the soles of your feet—an improbable sensation, grounding and pleasant. He was explaining to me about the energy, buy I couldn’t really keep track of what I was supposed to be learning, there was too much going on around me.

Toward the end of the foot rub, The Lady of the House came over and asked if she could lie near me, and I said of course. I forget if she asked me or if I asked her if I could pet her hair, but it was a yes. I petted her head and face until it started to feel too personal, then did a good job of stopping. She thanked me and maybe we hugged some—I know that at some point we hugged and at some point HimandHer asked if he could put his head in my lap and I said no.

Whenever I said no to something, I remembered to feel proud of doing a good job with my no, but I also rooted for the person to find exactly what he or she wanted. Also, writing about all these nos  and cautious touches makes me really ready for a whole bunch of rough-and-tumble yesses—better get some public (and private) kink soon!

One of my goals for this party had been to get closer to men, but that didn’t turn out to be what happened. I think maybe the right guy just wasn’t there, as is so often the case—I’m making friends with the fact that I’m really picky about guys, even as I hope to someday become less so. (Also I have this dream about being 40% more casual than I actually am, but that’s a whole different blog post.)

I spent a lot of time watching, maybe too much—I wish that I had asked what the watching protocol is. In BDSM, the closer you are, the less you should watch, for fear of getting in somebody’s space too much, but here, everyone was close. I worry that I may have made people feel awkward by watching, but they were all just having such a pleasant time.

Host One had told us during the welcome circle that she is a Reiki practitioner, and I was curious about that, so I asked her if she could “put some Reiki on me” (I don’t know the terminology) when she got to a good stopping point, and she said sure.

I found a spot to lie down (I chose face up) and handed her my glasses to put in a safe place. (Ah, the handing over of glasses, dear submissive trope, how I miss you!) She moved her hands up and down my body, without touching. (I joked to Sweetie yesterday that some of this energy work stuff feels like a kids’ game of “I’m not touching you!”) but the settled one hand on my head and one on my heart, very similar to the way Fireguy had held me down during fireplay. Here I’m quite sure that it wasn’t meant as a dominant gesture (or maybe Fireguy meant it as a Reiki gesture), but I liked that it reminded me of that feeling, but with mystic-hot hands instead of flame-hot ones, and also with pajamas on. Her hands were indeed radiating into me, and I thought jeez, how does she give out so much of her…life force? and still have enough for herself. It was so nice of her, so generous, and I felt a little guilty because I didn’t know how to reciprocate. (That’s a little echo of the times I’ve been pleasantly dominated and then left with a worry of not having behaved well enough, not having shown enough gratitude. Gratitude is such a tricky thing, probably another whole-other-blog-post.)

A commotion started at the other end of the room, and I had to keep lifting my pleasantly-held-down head to see what was going on. What I saw was a tangled loop of muscle and giggle.

“What?! There’s wrestling going on and I’m not in it?”

I thanked my Reiki friend and sat up to watch and see if I could join the wrestling. Host Two, The Lady of the House, and Massage Therapist Guy were all gleefully in mid-grapple, and when they simmered down, I asked Host Two if she would wrestle with me. She said yes and asked if she could run energy at the same time, and I said “I don’t know what that means, but sure!”

It was pretty much the most fun ever. I think people really liked watching it, too. Pushing against her arms, locking against her shoulders, hearing a couple of people hollering “Go (me)!” until I pressed hard enough to pin her down, then getting up and wrestling her down again, laughing hysterically the whole time. We ended the wrestle out of breath and giggling, I was stunned with joy, it was fantastic. Rough cuddling indeed. There really needs to be more wrestling in my life, hope Sweetie’s ready for it!

Next: The Puppy Pile