Fires of Venus 2011

Fires of Venus 2011

Fires of Venus is a unique in the pagan community. It is a festival devoted to one deity, and, since Venus is all about Love and Sex, those things are included in large measures as well. This festival consists of a ritual that spans three nights built around the idea of fire circles. You know, those pagan festival events where a bunch of dancers cavort around a huge bonfire to drumming? The work of the ritual shifts somewhat from night to night and year to year, but always involves loving better, removing the barriers to love, and becoming closer to Venus and to love. It is always intense -- the most intense, most personal spiritual work I’ve ever done. It takes place in a campground in Maryland that I go to for several other events, including FSG. It’s cabin camping with hot showers, flush toilets, a dining hall, lots of indoor event space, and lots of woods.

I’m a priest of Aphrodite. I haven’t quite pinpointed what Venus is to me. Is She Aphrodite under a different name? Is She a sister or cousin of Aphrodite? Essentially, are there one or two individuals involved? I’ve decided it doesn’t matter. As long as the work and insights I gain pertain to my own Path of Love, then it doesn’t matter. I devote myself to Venus for the duration of the festival and then continue afterward with Aphrodite as my patroness.

This year’s Fires was amazing on multiple levels, as usual. Spiritual, physical, emotional, mental, sexual, friendships, lovers, community. Last year, I was an assistant Keeper, part of the ritual staff. This year I was an attendee, and therefore had no extra duties or  meetings to attend, other than those I wanted to go to as part of the ritual process. This meant that I could fully engage in the work of the festival, and also that I had more time to rest.

Last year, my wife, G, and I arrived just as the Thursday ritual was starting. I had duties in the Temple of Surrender, but G was overwhelmed by the transition from mundane to ritual and had to retreat to her cabin for awhile. This year I arrived on Wednesday night, so I had all day Thursday to settle into the festival.

G couldn’t attend this year, because of her daycare business. I spent the weekend with a long-distance lover, D. It was the longest we had ever spent together, and we really got close.

Master of Ceremonies and high priest of the rituals in the past was ill and could not attend until Saturday night, and then only a little. The rest of the ritual staff made adjustments and took turns performing the role. Everything worked wonderfully.

When you sign up for the festival, you choose a tribe to join. The tribes are associated with the various aspects of the ritual. I was in the Surrender tribe again this year. In this context, Surrender has a distinct BDSM flavor. I decided that Surrender was the best choice for me, because I surrender to Venus and Love at this festival and in my life, and I also have a knack for helping others surrender as well.

Some highlights of the festival for me:

• Being at the camp is like coming home for me. I’ve been coming once a year for ten years, and recently started coming an additional two times a year.
• Sleeping late in the morning. Breakfast at the dining hall is scheduled late (945a to 1045a), since most of the hard work takes place from 9pm to 3am. Few classes are scheduled in the morning too. The coordinatrix is good to us poor late-night wretches.
• The food in the dining hall was pretty good. Buying our dinners meant we had more time for resting and hanging out.
• The Chrysalis, a pallet wrap mummification with caterpillar-to-butterfly guided meditation done in the Surrender Tribe on Thursday. I helped wrap several people up, since I have experience doing it. I also got my hands bound over my heart. Through the meditation, I set forth my intentions for the festival and the work with Love and Venus ahead.
• Crying at some point in every ritual through the weekend, even the ten-minute closing ritual. This indicates both how deep the work was.
• Take a Risk -- Thursday’s ritual. The randomly distributed Risk I got was not a big challenge for me. “Go to the Gratitude Zone in front of the drummers and have an orgasm, either real or Meg Ryan-style.” I went to the zone and shouted “Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!” after suitable warm-up moaning. So, since it wasn’t a difficult task for me, later a bigger risk presented itself. Suffice it to say that I’m usually not an exhibitionist. I jumped in with both feet.
• The Fire Circles. A few years ago, fire circles were only somewhat interesting to me, mostly for watching naked tits people bouncing around the flames. I wasn’t comfortable dancing or drumming. Since then, I stopped judging myself, and started dancing like no one was watching. I love dancing around the fire now. I often do it till I’m exhausted. This has bled into mundane life and dancing in clubs.
• Naps. The schedule contains an hour of Quiet Time before a late dinner. D was busy with Keeper duties during this time, so I often went to sleep to be well-rested for the evening’s activities.
• Taking a Breath - Friday’s ritual. This ritual was an excellent breathing meditation that energized the chakras. Working our way up from the root to the crown, with drumming and rattles, incense, and Aurora’s wonderful voice. I was energized, and Venus came to me.
• Kissing the Keeper of the temple of Affection. Mmmmm.
• Having the time to reconnect with a bunch of my long-distance friends that I don’t see enough.
• Making several new friends. I got a ride to the airport from one couple from Nebraska that I later discovered knows my other friends from KC. I got to know someone I had met at FSG, but had no time to talk to at that event.

Breathplay

A couple of years ago my wife, G, and I went to Shibaricon. We were just beginning the exploration of our kinky side. I knew a little about my own kinks, but not much about those of my lovely spouse. After one of the classes, she asked one of the presenters to show me something that she'd seen him demonstrate earlier in the day when I wasn't around. So we went out into the hall, and he put an arm around G's neck and puts his hand on her mouth, using his pinkie to close and open her nose for breathing. I could see her strong reaction. Then he had me try it on her, and she completely melted in my arms. That was our first exploration into breathplay together.

Until that time, I had actively avoided it, and probably would have listed it on my hard limits list. I was afraid of breathplay. I'd heard too many news accounts of people who died from auto-erotic asphyxiation.

Sometime later, when she suggested we go to a local talk on breath play by Lee Harrington, I got the message -- she wanted to investigate this form of edge play. The 45 minute discussion of safety at the beginning of the talk helped a lot. After this, I would occasionally put my hand on her throat during sex and apply very mild pressure. This had the desired effect, so my interest was piqued.

Then we went to a class at Northern Lights Kink, a local hotel BDSM event. The presenters, Jim and Jerith, had a comprehensive class on breathplay with some awesome demonstrations. Again, the safety tips peppered through out the class were very good at reducing my fear. Afterward, while we were in the hotel room before dinner, we tried just putting my hand over her mouth and nose. She immediately relaxed against me, and when I released her, we kissed passionately. She was very turned on by it, and her reaction was very arousing to me. That’s when it finally clicked in my head.

This week, we went to bed with the intent of just cuddling and falling asleep. Instead, I tried something out on her -- I covered her mouth and closed her nose with my fingers early on as foreplay. It took a few tries to get a good seal, but I got it right, and G reacted well. We played with her breath for about 10 minutes, and then had one of those “These speakers go to 11” sexual encounters. Not bad for ‘just cuddling’.

Relationship Post Mortem

I had an insight yesterday that makes me feel much better.

I had a big breakup early this summer from a long distance partner who was very important in my life. We saw each other every 4-6 weeks, we had plans for the future, we were working partners spiritually, we were solid.

Many factors seemed to contribute to the breakup, mostly involving a completely lack of time for me on her part, due to expanding her business, spending more time with her child and parents, and a new local relationship in her life. I just couldn't get enough talking time with her between visits to maintain a strong heart connection. Then I traveled 1000 miles to spend a Beltane festival with her. She told me when I got there that she wanted to spend the time with her new partner instead. I'm flexible and I dealt with it, though it hurt like a mo-fo. I asked a friend if she wanted to spend the festival with me. But after the weekend was over, I broke up with my partner, much to her surprise.

I have said from the beginning that the reason I broke up with her is that she just couldn't find an extra 20 minutes a day to talk to me. I've also said that it isn't just having a new partner that caused all the problems, but that the whole cluster of time sucks did it.

Her friends have complained that she has no time for them either. That she has broken plans that had been made a year ahead of time. And most of them have said that the new partner was the cause. I have told them that he was not the only factor.

She has said that any friend that would abandon her because of a lack of time must not be a very good friend to begin with. This has made me think about how bad a partner have I been to break up with her, just because she has no time to talk on the phone with me. I beat myself up for being shallow and selfish.

My revelation is that for her friends, the lack of time is from a variety of choices in her life that have sucked away all her time -- work, child, parents, and new partner. But for me, our relationship could have weathered the lack of time. What our relationship couldn't survive is how being with her new partner changed her and therefore changed our relationship.

When we were together, she was a strong, independent, open-hearted woman who lived in the present and was engaged with the world. When we were together, we were totally with each other. After four months with her new partner, she became a withdrawn, co-dependent, closed off woman who lived in the fear of her past. When we were together, she was no longer Here and Now, but somewhere else. She changed. Our relationship changed. It became something I no longer wanted to participate in. For my own happiness, I broke it off.

Without the changes in behavior, we would still be together now.

What this tells me is that I made a good decision to break up, and that it wasn't because of the selfish reason of not getting enough attention. I can stop blaming myself.

This doesn't mean I blame her either, or him. It's just something that happened. People change when they have new relationships. It's no one's fault.

It's similar to the dissolution of my first marriage. My first wife and I went through five years of Hell of an extremely difficult pregnancy, a medically complicated baby with handicaps and many surgeries, and my wife's cancer. When we came out the other end, we both were different people and our relationship had fundamentally changed, and not in a good way. We divorced.

I don't blame her or myself for that. I certainly don't blame my son. It just happened and it's no one's fault.

Northern Lights and Kinky Nights

My wife, Wisteria, and I went to a new local kink con this weekend, Northern Lights Kink. It was a hotel event, and we took over the entire hotel and bar/grill. This was a first time event, but obviously these people have run some kind of hotel events before, because everything went nearly flawlessly from a participant standpoint. I know these kinds of events often have circumstances that occur behind the scenes, but in this case, if anything happened, it never reached awareness of the event goers.

They had 230 registrations, though I’m sure a few of those didn’t make it. The event was set up in the usual manner for these things. Classes during the day, play space at night. We had the whole hotel, the only outsiders being the hotel staff. All but 3 rooms of the hotel were rented.

Friday had a BBQ and Meet-and-Greet that we couldn’t attend, and then play time. Saturday had 4 class sessions, Sunday had two. The 5000 sq. ft. of playspaces (one small quiet space and one large noisy one) were spacious enough for the number of attendees, making for a minimum of wait time for equipment. The range of equipment was excellent, going from the prosaic St. Andrew’s Crosses and spanking benches to the magnificent 15’ x 15’ steel pipe jungle gym and 20’ x 20’ wrestling mat.

Some outstanding presenters were there including Lochai and Lqqkout in the rope bondage area, and Jim and Jerith from Chicago presented on edge play topics. Other presenters included Jack Rinella and Jazz Thomas, as well as local experts. The classes were excellent and entertaining. Lochai was wonderful, making his sub moan and gasp practically on command, while he explained how to communicate your intentions with rope. The next class with Lochai and Lqqkout was also very good, where one tied while the other talked about the issues with having dual rope tops. A session called Sublime Predicaments taught by Captain Bea and Ben was very informative, detailing the elements needed to go from good to transcendental: discomfort, fear, imagination, and arousal. Their use of power tools to generate fear in an safe, well-controlled environment was superb. The breath play class by Jim and Jerith was extremely well-researched, giving details of the respiratory system, and the demonstrations on Jerith of choking, strangulation, and carotid blood play, including passing out three times, were riveting. Their other class on adding fear to scenes was just as well-researched, with an amazing demo.

In the playspace, we mostly watched. I saw some things I’d never seen before, like a waterboarding and a few severe takedown scenes. Some really talented riggers did suspensions, and watching Lochai be sensual and loving in a floor work rope scene was not what I expected. I did some hair and biting play, but otherwise was very happy to observe. One thing no one seemed to know how to do to my satisfaction was violet wand play.

The dealer area featured four excellent vendors, selling violet wands, floggers, corsets, fucking machines, single tails, and riding crops. I’m lusting for a solid-state violet wand that was very reasonably priced, and a full-sized flogger. My current flogger is small. Wisteria got fitted for a corset, and saw two she liked. The hotel was very decent, and the hotel staff was accommodating. The pool, class rooms, and playspaces were clothing-optional. The con suite was well-stocked with food, and stayed open until an hour after the playspace closed. The food plan was good, though standard. Wisteria found plenty of things to eat.

My one complaint was the coffee at breakfast, which often included an unsatisfactory amount of grounds. Thankfully, the con suite had better coffee and better additives, including the hazelnut syrup. We had a wonderfully fun weekend. All in all, we definitely plan on going again next year.

Lessons of Love #1

So, I've started working on a series of things I've learned about love, from experience, from people I respect, and from the Gods, This is the first.

Be Present

The past is the past. It's gone. Yes, it affects us, but if we let the past paralyze us, we can't move forward. If you have issues from your past that get in your way, find a way to work through the challenges, whether in therapy, ritual, or the intervention of deities. Then forget about the past.

Worrying about the future is worrying about stuff you make up in your imagination. The future doesn't exist yet. Worrying about possibilities has a tendency to bring those possibilities to reality. Certainly you can worry about your current state, but don't worry about what-ifs. You can prepare for bad things without worrying. Put money away in savings in case you lose your job, get disability insurance in case something terrible happens, but don't focus so much of your energy on that thing that you stop having fun.

Stay in the present. Be aware. Be connected. Focus on the people you are with. If you get caught up in the past or the future, a little focused breathing, being mindful of your breath, your body, your surroundings, will bring you back to the present. When you are with your lover, focus your whole being on them. The interplay of the Now is what's important for a happy life.

If you can leave the past behind and stop worrying about the future, living and loving come much easier.

A great book, a mere 96 pages, is True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Zen Buddhist monk.

Reconnecting

About three years ago, I broke up with a woman I was dating, mostly because my life was extremely full, since I had a wife and a long-distance primary a 1000 miles away. I didn't feel it would be fair to not be able to give her as much of my love as I could. It was not an easy breakup, but we ended on friendly terms.

Fast forward to last fall. We started chatting over IM and reconnected. Over the next several months, we found we still had strong feelings for each other. This spring we decided that we wanted to start dating again. We okayed that with our spouses. The weekend I was going to okay it with my other partner, we ended up breaking up.

Our first date since reconnecting was just drinks and appetizers at a local Old Chicago. The second date was dinner and a movie (Hanna) with making out in the theater and the car. She was worried that we wouldn't have the old magic we had the first time around. She went through lung cancer while we were apart, and she was concerned that I'd be repulsed by her scars. We went on our third date this week. I rented a hotel through Priceline ($35). We had dinner and  five hours of hotel time. Her worries were unfounded in fact. We still have the old magic.

An Agent of Satan

When I dated a devout Christian after my divorce, I immediately disclosed that I was Wiccan. Her married brother was in seminary because he couldn't keep his hands off of bar groupies when he played in a bar band.  He called me an agent of Satan out to tempt her away from God.

It turned out that her ex-husband, also a devout Christian, believed that it was a women's duty to sexually service her husband at any time, he didn't believe in foreplay, and he had a large penis. She didn't like sex when we met. When I introduced her to the glories of sex, she dove in whole hog.

The brother later recanted to me personally at a family function. He said that no one had treated his sister better than I had, and she seemed happier than he'd seen her in years. I felt that I had done my duty as an Agent of Satan, corrupting her to the pleasures of the flesh.

I hope her next husband appreciates that.

The Path of Love

Over the weekend ending on May 1st was the Free Spirit Beltane festival on the East Coast. It was also a powerful exercise on the Path of Love.

This festival is pretty unique in both the pagan and BDSM worlds. It is a sacred sexuality Beltane festival with a 25 foot phallic maypole to dance around, a rather BDSM-oriented class schedule, a fully-equipped play space, and fire dancing with excellent drummers. I’ve gone for several years. Here is an accounting of one aspect of my time at this festival, the parts involving Love. I'll have a more general post about the festival later.

After I arrived, my long-distance partner, C, took me aside for a talk. I listened to her heartfelt and honest, but difficult and painful, revelation about what she wanted. I accepted it without drama, but not without emotion. My heart remained open, when it could have easily slammed shut. Walking the path of love is painful sometimes, for you have to feel the pain in order to feel the pleasure and ecstasy. Keeping your heart open keeps the pain from crushing you.

The next day I grieved for what had been lost in the last half a year. I also felt the love I still had for this woman. Surprising myself, I healed remarkably quickly, without vilifying anyone. I realized that a piece of the relationship was gone, but the love remained intact. I could survive if we still loved each other. Aphrodite’s children work through love and loss differently than others. I even hugged her other partner later that day.

She and I performed a Wiccan Beltane ritual for about 25 people. We worked with Aphrodite and Hephaestus. Hephaestus’ pain and mine were an interesting combination. I think it made the invocation stronger. It was very reassuring and gratifying at the same time that the ability of C and I to officiate together was still there.

Knowing that I was going to be alone for the weekend, I did an uncharacteristic thing. I walked up to a woman I’ve known for 20 years, but had lost touch with until last summer. I asked if she wanted to spend the festival with me. She was enthusiastic. Whether my bravery was from having an open heart or from being Aphrodite’s child, I don’t know. I just know that it allowed me to do something I had never done before, and saved my weekend from disaster. This act was also done out of love and not spite, revenge, or any other negative emotion. Love and a desire to not sit in my cabin crying.

The rest of the weekend was taken up with classes, the handfasting of a friend, rampant voyeurism, a little playful pain, chilly delights, a sensual feast, and multiple reassurances from my Goddess. (A previous post has those details.) But through it all, I walked the path of love and I kept my heart open. I know Aphrodite was proud.

Free Spirit Beltane

This festival is pretty unique in the BDSM and pagan worlds. It is a sacred sexuality Beltane festival with a 25 foot phallic maypole to dance around, a class schedule that combines BDSM and a strong spiritual slant, a fully-equipped play space, some powerful rituals, and dancing around a bonfire with excellent drummers. All this on a large former scout camp with cabins, electricity, a dining hall, and showers. I’ve gone for several years.

Thursday

I drove up from the airport, thinking about many things. I followed mostly-remembered directions from the Interstate. I pumped my fist in the air when I remembered a minor shortcut. I only made one wrong turn. As I hit the dirt road leading to the camp, a feeling of coming home settled over me, bringing tears of joy. I love Ramblewood. It is my home away from home.

Friday

Friday morning began Lochai’s Rope DM class. He’s quite the presenter -- dynamic, informed, and entertaining. In the afternoon, I performed the Bluestar Beltane ritual with C for about 25 people. We worked with Aphrodite and Hephaestus. My invocation of him was strong, and he talked to every person at length. His focus was on pain -- physical, emotional, and spiritual. How pain ties into love. How pain is better than numb. Aphrodite darted in and out of his conversations, like a capricious little sprite. The circle was really good from my perspective. I just can’t remember my vow.

The rest of the afternoon included reconnecting with all my compadres that I haven’t seen for months and a class on cord magic by Lee Harrington. I really love Lee as a friend and a presenter. His material is always interesting and he is an amusing presenter. He makes me laugh every time. The class was more of a set of principles than specific spells. At first I didn’t like the focus, but on further reflection, it’s a really good approach. Then I got a short nap and dinner.

The Exploratorium is a wonderful introduction to various kinds of kinky play. The play space is filled with stations manned by experts where you can get a taste of lots of different things in 90 minutes. I’m no longer a total beginner, so I did not participate, but I did watch and learn. I took notes at the wax play station. Mmmm, wax. I shivered at remembering the awesome feeling of warm wax pouring over my back. I chatted with the presenter at the rope bondage station, discussing preferences, classes we’ve taken, and just sharing our love of rope. I got an electrified kiss from C. I then went off to watch the preparation for the fire dance later.

I went to the dance, but very few people were there. Too many other activities, I guess. I stayed long enough to watch some fine poi-spinning and color a mandala with crayons, entertaining my inner child. I went back to the play space, and watched a vicious scene with Lochai and his bottom. Wow, only once before had I seen anything quite so sadistic. At the end, she had combat bootprint-shaped bruises and a blissful smile on her face. I spent most of the rest of the night around the fire, dancing some, people watching, and chatting. At 530a, I went to bed.

Saturday

I got two hours of sleep, and then got up at 8a because it was my turn to make breakfast with K. In about an hour, I made eleven omelets. I loved being the chef. It felt really good. I’ve been cooking more at home, really getting into it. Breakfast and cleanup lingered until 1030, and then I got a much needed nap. Noon brought Lee and Aidan’s handfasting. What a wonderful ceremony! Lee writes the best ritual. Aidan is just cute as the dickens! They were in matching dress kilts. The reception was great with catered gourmet sandwiches of a dozen different types. I had a curry chicken salad sandwich on walnut-raisin-cinnamon bread, plus the middle of a roast beef and cheddar. The beef was the best rare sliced sandwich Angus beef I’ve ever tasted.

After that I took another nap, but in doing so, I forgot to attend the Ramchild Show. I missed the must-see kinky torture scene of the festival! But I got over it, because I really really really needed the sleep. Two hours the last night and maybe one the night before had taken their toll. I got in time to take a shower and dress nice for the sensual feast. OMG! This was a delicious, sumptuous feast of exotic finger food. The only rule was you couldn’t feed yourself. Two words: Bacon-wrapped Dates! The salty/savory flavor of the bacon, combined with the slightly sweet baked dates made this pretty much the best thing I’ve ever eaten. The atmosphere was super fun, and D wore a nice white dress.

Next was the Fires of Venus ritual that starts the work that is culminated in September at the Fires of Venus festival, a three-night long ritual of love and overcoming the barriers to love. This ritual was built around taking risks and going on adventures. It was fun and I saw lots of smiles. After the main part of the ritual was over, they opened up four activities in the four temples of the ritual space: a kissing booth, a truth or dare booth, a spanking booth, and a lap dance chair.

I had planned on taking a stint at both the kissing and spanking booths. As it turned out, I only manned the spanking booth. C, who was supposed to run the spanking booth, had bruised her hand in two scenes with her sub. She spanked one person and was done. I took over and spanked about five people. I think they enjoyed it. I went to the kissing booth to get a kiss. The person manning it was pretty pathetic. All I got was a quick peck on the lips. I was disappointed. I danced the fire for a good long time, and went to bed at about 230a.

Sunday

I left the next day, driving back to the airport. I was 30 minutes behind when I hit the rental car facility. As I sat in the shuttle, I checked my email and received a notice that my flight was 30 minutes late. So my luck held out.

One of the really nice things about this festival was that I got to spend a lot of time with good friends. I violated my 5-2-1 festival rule (5 hours of sleep, 2 meals and 1 shower a day) in the sleep realm, but for good reasons. I got to cook which I’m finding I really enjoying.

Compersion

Compersion is the joy that comes from seeing your partner happy because of their other lovers.

Several people have told me I am one of the most poly people they know. I never get jealous, I work hard to keep my wife happy, I work hard to accommodate OSOs, etc. Well, I've been struggling a little, because my long distance partner has a new partner. Recently, I got very jealous, because I felt the amount of phone time had been reduced to about a third of pre-partner levels and the level of focus during calls was down as well. She was distracted when talking to me. It occurred to me that I've never had to deal with a partner's NRE (new relationship energy) before. I've never had to deal with a loss of time like this. It took me awhile, and a spiritual 2x4, but I got the jealousy under control. The amount of focus and attention during our reduced phone time got fixed, and things got better.

I got back from a long weekend visit, where we got a chance to reconnect. It took longer than we cared for, but she was busy for part of the time, and it was understandable.

Then, I got home, reconnected with my wife, and then discovered how fragile that equilibrium was. Some small non-digging comment from her set me off on a wild, shouting rant that spread my insecurity far and wide around the bedroom. I'm sure I scared her. I calmed down and we talked about it. She pointed a few things out that I hadn't realized before, especially about her own insecurities about me.

So, today I moved a long way in the direction of recognizing how her new partner fulfills her needs and makes her happy. I'm finding my compersion again. This makes me happy, and relieves a lot of stress.

Now, dealing with scheduling when we're all (me, my wife, my other partner, and her partner) in the same place, which happens at least a few times a year? That may take more time. :-)

Imagine my surprise!

I was raised in the 1970s to be a sensitive guy of the 90s. Everyone's equal. Women control their bodies. Ask permission before touching someone. It's okay to show your emotions. You know -- a real Alan Alda-type.

Imagine my surprise when, after more than six years of marriage and knowing my wife for at least six more before that, I find myself as her Owner and she as my pet. We'd had a pretty normal marriage, share in decisions, share expenses (though we've never merged finances, since mine are so crappy), share in raising the children, share share share. Sometimes we argue, sometimes we'd go periods without sex, but all pretty normal stuff.

Then my wife woke up one day, turned to me, and said, "I need you to Own me. Like a person owns a beloved pet. I really don't like the idea of 'slave'."

It took me a day to pick up my jaw from the floor. My chin was rather sore from bumping into things. Then we talked about it.

It turns out that she's always had a need to totally submit and be owned, that she's been in a couple relationships where she submitted, but they'd never worked out well, because they were bastards who took advantage of her. She had never brought up the subject with me, because she viewed me as not interested in such things. Until recently, except for the fact that I was polyamorous, my sex life had been rather vanilla. But at the time, I had been investigating BDSM for about six months.

My wife felt the time was ripe to reveal her deep seated need to me. She couldn't have been more right. In the months since then, I've been exploring my dominant side with her. I've been finding what things she needs. It turns out, she has a high pain threshold, and really enjoys certain kinds of pain, like biting, flogging, and spanking. Sometimes I need lots of reassurance that I'm not hurting her more than she wants. Being new to everything, it took me awhile to really use the flogger hard enough, to spank like I mean it, etc. We have never been happier or more satisfied.

And the sex? Oh, my Gods! We went from occasional sex to sex every night for two weeks straight. I'm not talking about going to bed, making love, and falling asleep cuddling. I'm talking about an hour of making out and heavy petting on the couch, followed by going up to bed, flogging or spanking for 45 minutes, and then hard sweaty fucking for at least another hour. We were collapsing unconscious after 2 a.m., and needing to wake up at 7 a.m. We could't keep our hands off each other. If I wasn't touching her when in the same room, I was unhappy.

We still want to do that every night, but realities of children and jobs keep it down to about four to five nights a week. Sleeping in on the weekend often means waking up at 6 a.m., having sex, going back to sleep, and going at it again at 9.

She just spent a week out of town visiting her best friend that she's known since grade school. We missed each other so thoroughly. Part of the problem was that her friend lives in a valley between two mountains and gets shitty cell service. We talked once a day and texted each other the rest of the time. The kids were all gone too, so the house was empty, except for the housemate, who worked nights and I barely saw. I couldn't get to sleep. I'd wake up on the couch, having fallen asleep writing on the computer till 3:30 a.m.

When she came home last night just before midnight, we sat down to watch Leverage on T.V. before going to bed. We got about 15 minutes into the show before we were all over each other, pulling off clothes, and doing it on the couch. I said, "Time for the bed." We went upstairs and kept going for another two hours.

Welcome home, my love.

Japanese Kamasutra

My wife was looking at a website with Japanese Bento boxes and their accessories. On it, she found dishes and sake bottles that have frogs in numerous sex positions glazed into the porcelain. Each one had the Japanese name of the position (such as 'Yagura' and 'Takarabune'), but the photos on the website only showed a few positions and their names.

I got curious. I wanted to know the rest of the Japanese names for sex positions.

What I found was amazing. The names are often very poetic and sometimes difficult to reconcile with the actual position. For instance, 'Byakko Nishiki' or 'Dazzling Brocade' has the woman on her back with her legs raised up, bent at the knee, and spread apart. She holds the back of her thighs or knees to maintain the position, while the man plays with her pussy. Where is the brocade in this? Is it the woman's labia? Does the name come from her resembling a quilt rack?

Other positions have names that make perfect sense. Perhaps not the first thing to come to the Western mind, but you can at least see where the name came from. For example, 'Oshiguruma' or 'Pushcart' is the Western position called 'The Wheelbarrow'. The woman bends over from standing, putting her hands on the floor, and the man picks up her thighs and enters her. It looks like an erotic wheelbarrow race at the church picnic for the Temple of Aphrodite. Or an Oriental pushcart.

Some of your favorite positions have great new names. Good ol' Doggy-Style is 'Hiyodori-goe' or 'Riding down the Cliff'. 'Ajiro Honte' or 'Fish Trap' is the reliable Missionary position. All you Cowgirls are using the 'Shigure Chausu' or 'Drizzling Tea-grinding Mill', though many of you also use 'Authentic Tea-grinding Mill' (AKA 'Hon Chausu'), when you lean forward to tease your partner with your breasts. Try using these names with your partner, next time you're in bed together -- "Let's Ride down the Cliff tonight, honey."

I found some of these positions to new and full of possibilities. 'Inbound Boat' ('Irifune Honte') has the man kneel between the woman's spread legs, while she lays on her back. He pulls her hips up into his lap, enters her, and proceeds to go to town. Figuring out the leverage to be effective would be interesting, since the man can rise up on his knees, and watching the woman's body wiggling below would be fun. 'Assault on the Chessboard' ('Goban-zeme') is a standing position, where the woman bends over with her hands on the floor or a small ottoman, while the man penetrates her from behind.

Some seem physically impossible. One called 'The Anvil' ('Kinuta') involves the woman on her back with her hips and legs raised up. The man squats down, facing away from her head, sets his butt on her thighs, somehow inserts himself inside her, and they fuck. The angles seem all wrong, and it looks like entering the woman is impossible. If by some miracle the man got inside her, I'd think he'd have a serious chance of breaking his penis. 'Tachi Matsuba' or 'Perpendicular Pine Needles' could only work with a very, very, short woman and a very tall man. It has the standing man grab the ankles of the woman, lift her legs off the floor, dangle her upside-down, step one leg over her crotch, and then enter her. Another great opportunity to sprain the man's equipment. It kind of looks like a living 3-D St. Andrew's Cross, so the name is very appropriate.

Perhaps learning the Japanese names for these sex positions is too much work for Westerners, but these examples might inspire you to make up your own pet names for the sex positions you use most. I think I'm going to start calling Reverse Cowgirl 'Looking in the Rear-view Mirror'.

By the way, the two positions I mentioned in the first paragraph? 'Yagura' or 'Castle Tower' is standard Cowgirl, and 'Takarabune' ('Fortune ship') is Reverse Cowgirl.

My Other Partner is my Ex-girlfriend's Boyfriend's Wife

(This was originally published in Sensual 'n Secret blog on March 21, 2009.)

My blog on vacation sex was my first post here, and I just jumped in with both feet only throwing you tidbits about myself. This week you get more of an introduction to me.

I write erotica and speculative fiction, defined as the collection of science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres. I really like writing flash fiction, defined as stories under a thousand words. I've had several erotic stories published at Oysters and Chocolate, an erotica webzine, and Ruthie's Club, an erotica subscription website (n.b. now sadly closed). I've been writing fiction for five years.

You may have noticed a phrase I used in last week's blog -- "my other significant other". My significant other is my wife, whom I live with in the Midwest.
My other significant other is my other partner that lives on the East Coast. No, I'm not cheating on my wife. We are polyamorous (poly for short), also known as ethical non-monogamy -- similar to an open marriage. This means that my wife and I have agreed that, within certain rules, we can both pursue romantic/sexual relationships outside of the marriage. Over the years, I've had several girlfriends.

My long distance partner is also poly and lives with her partner and their daughter. I've known her for over a decade, but only recently did we strike up a relationship. Coincidentally, her partner is dating a woman I used to date a couple years ago. So, the title of this article is true for me, except for the 'wife' part. (They aren't married, but 'partner' would have been too repetitious.)

Polyamory isn't for everyone. If you are the jealous type, if the thought of your spouse/lover/partner/whatever having sex and being in love with another person makes you want to buy guns or rat poison, if you hide in the attic in the fetal position every time your spouse leaves the house, perhaps you're not cut out for it. It's all about trust and communication. The three most important rules in a polyamorous relationship are: communicate, communicate, and communicate.

That's enough about me for now. Next time, back to the sex.

Reading List
Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships, Tristan Taormino, Cleis Press, 2008.
The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures, Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy, Celestial Arts, 2009.
Polyamorous Misanthrope (http://www.polyamorousmisanthrope.com/), a web site with great articles on polyamory.

Vacation Sex

(This was originally published in the Sensual 'n Secret blog on March 1st 2009.)

For my birthday a few years, I flew to Atlanta with my other significant other. She lives on the East Coast, and I live in the Midwest.

You might ask, "Why Atlanta?" Being a hub, tickets were cheaper for the two of us to fly to Atlanta than for one of us to fly to the other's city. Really, that was most of the reason. We didn't care much about sightseeing in Atlanta -- we only had three nights together. If the city had too many attractions, we would feel pressure to see them, rather than spending the time in bed. If it had just a little tourist stuff, we wouldn't to have tell our friends, "Oh, we barely made it out of bed," even if it was true. It most certainly was going to be true. So, it was Atlanta, because it interesting enough, but not too interesting.

We flew in Saturday evening, took the train from the airport, and scoped out the hotel. It was a nice, historic hotel, so it had a magnificent lobby, high-quality shampoo and hand soaps, decent coffee in the kitchen, a living room, and a big bedroom with a king-sized bed. This last was most important, because the clothes came off within fifteen minutes of going through the door. We had the sex of no schedules, no kids, in a strange city, in a strange hotel room. In other words, Vacation Sex.

I don't know what anyone elses version of vacation sex is, but I'll tell you about mine. The key features for me are frequent sex and exotic sex.  I want a lot of sex, and I want it different than sex at home.

That first night we had sex for an hour and a half before we called room service for some much-needed dinner. We ate and talked, and then had more sex before going to sleep. Since we had no schedule and we knew we could sleep in -- a rare occurrence at best, waking up in the middle of the night for more sex was expected. Then we woke up in the morning, had Sunday morning sex, a shower with those lovely soaps and shampoos, and then a nice late breakfast in the hotel restaurant. More sex before we left for the mall. We giggled about the maid staff commenting about what they'd find.

"Ay dios mio! Look! Eight condoms!"

"Eight? They only checked in at ten last night? Mary, mother of God! I wish Mario could do that."

I usually don't shop much on vacation, but we had discovered a Lush store in town. A previous girlfriend had gotten me hooked on Lush organic bath products. It was also an excuse to leave the hotel for a few hours. We cuddled and kissed on the train, staring long and deep into each others' eyes. The Lush store is sensuous, filled with delicious aromas. We each bought something for ourselves and for our partners back home.

Our excursion let us rest up and we came back to the hotel ready for more sex, but not just any sex. Rope was involved. Then we dressed for dinner, undressed for a quickie, and redressed. The restaurant we'd picked was far from the train, so we had the hotel call us a cab in which we made out. There’s nothing like a sumptuous French meal with good wine to get you in the mood for more sex. Are you catching the theme here? Again in the morning when we left for the day, we laughed about the maids.

"Seven today! And eight yesterday!"

"How can they even walk? I wish."

"They left rope tied to the bed! ¡Travieso!"

On our last full day and night, we had an actual tourist thing to do: the Georgia Aquarium. This would end up being our favorite thing to tell our friends and family about. It distracted them from asking about how much sex we’d had and those two dozen condoms.

Oh, and I recommend the aquarium in its own right, unrelated to how much you need an alibi for vacation sex.

Bedroom Boy Scout

(This was originally published in the Sensual 'n Secret blog on April 5th 2009.)

It's amazing what knowledge from the past can become useful in the bedroom.

I was making my first foray into rope bondage with my partner in a hotel. We had a couple of beginner books on the subject, several lengths of good bondage rope, and a few days on our hands. My partner has been into bondage for some time, but I'm a relative newcomer to it, thus the books.

We read the books together, looking over the instructions, as well as the photos of beautiful bondage models all tied up with no place to go. We talked over which things turned us on, which ties looked like fun, and generally had a sexy time over it. Then we took a break and went shopping.

When we got back, we got down to work. I had picked a couple of simple knots, one for the wrists and one for the ankles. I followed carefully in the book, my partner laid compliantly, enjoying the feel of the rope on her wrists. I was slow, since I wasn't confident of the knots involved and had to keep looking back at the book for the next instruction. When I got to the part about what to do with the other end of the rope, I paused somewhat at a loss. The book never mentioned how to tie the rope to the bed.

"Usually, you use one of those knots that you can adjust the tension on," my partner said helpfully.

Suddenly, I was taken back in my head to thirty years ago. I was a Boy Scout as a teen. I went camping, hiking, canoeing, got several merit badges, and had a pretty good time. In the course of camping several times a year for several years, I learned something about tying knots. I knew at least three knots that could be used in the situation of wanting to tie the end to the bed and pull up the slack. I picked the appropriate one, tied it, tightened up the rope, and was happily greeted with a low moan from my lover.

"Mmmmm, that feels good."

Just that little phrase and she made me feel like a rope expert. In just a couple of minutes, I had her other hand tied down. She playfully pulled against the ropes and purred. Her feet took longer, because the knots were somewhat different than the hand restraints, but in ten minutes, she was stretched spread-eagle on across the bed. I loved how she writhed within her bonds and moaned, obviously enjoying being tied up. I was hard as a rock watching her.

I could have started caressing her or tickling her with a feather, but I chose to indulge one of my other kinks: biting. I bit her feet and thighs, I gnawed at her belly and hips, I sucked her nipples, then bit them. I bit her arms. All this time, she groaned, squealed, and struggled in the sexiest way. She was extremely aroused, and I was crazed with lust. I couldn't hold back anymore, so I pounced on her, taking her hard and fast, while biting her shoulders and neck. She couldn't stop moaning and soon was coming with every thrust. In the midst of fucking her, I decided I wanted more interaction with her, so I got up with a whimper from her and untied just her legs. I crawled between her legs again, and picked up where I left off, only now she wrapped her legs around me. This was some of the hottest rutting ever. It was fantastic.

When we were both satisfied, I untied her. She touched her ligature marks lightly. "I think you should get a picture of these. I want something for a LiveJournal icon." I felt like a king as I photographed the evidence of my rope-tying. We were both so turned on by the whole thing, we made love again as soon as the pictures were done. Then I tied a rope corset around her chest, a much less sexual form of bondage. The day was a huge success.

So my first attempt at rope bondage was saved from being uncomfortable by skills I had learned thirty years earlier in the Boy Scouts. I wonder what other hidden skills that I've learned in completely innocent circumstances as a youth that are useful in the bedroom. I'll let you know what I discover.

Introduction

I was a mild-mannered, sensitive guy of the 90s, when it was the wild and wicked 70s. I made it pretty much intact up through the new millennium. Then my mind got blown, and now I've entered the most delicious stage of my life -- living to the fullest.

This blog is an exploration of my life, my loves, my excursions into sex, BDSM, paganism, polyamory, and many other topics. This will be a no-holds barred, adult conversation about adult topics.

I'm going to start with a few articles I published over the last couple years in other blogs that were not my own.

I hope you enjoy it.