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Prospecting for Pleasures along the
Canadian Border
That Old Monogamy Commitment Fandangle
By Sensuous Sadie
SensuousSadie@aol.com
www.sensuoussadie.com
This series is the story of my relationship with Vladimir, who lives
just over the Canadian border, not far north of my home in Burlington,
Vermont. In addition to being my Dominant, Vladimir is a writer and editor
himself and had full editorial control of this essay.
June 2006
This Series
My Promise to Vladimir
That Old Monogamy Commitment Fandangle
Caging my Submissive Spirit
The Perils of Transparency
A Very Short Love Affair
They say you should never sleep with your
friends
An Ode to Master Xavier (and tell him
not to get a swelled head over it either)
When Do Broken
Hearts Heal? Not Soon Enough, If You Ask Me
Photos of
Vladimir
My sister and I were both brought up by a radical mother, so it was pretty
easy to share my kinky lifestyle with her. She gets the sanitized version
of course, because it's one thing to hear about a little spanking or some
silk scarves, and a whole other enchilada to actually see the bruises on
the side of my breast. It's just well, just too hard to explain; at heart
she's still vanilla, even if she's read my book (or at least most of it
she claims), knows how to say "BDSM" without tripping over the acronym,
and thinks of it as just another lifestyle choice, like being gay or
wearing Birkenstocks. They used to call someone like this a "thoroughly
Modern Millie." the truth is, I think she's just parroting the information
I've been feeding her over the years. I know this because her questions
are a "tell." If you listen carefully, the questions that people ask give
away their real agenda, which is not necessarily bad, only sometimes
hidden under a layer of political correctness which they might not even
know is there. My sister's PCness came out the other day after I'd told
her that I when I'd hooked up with Vladimir, he had demanded total
commitment and total monogamy. She turned to me and said "but isn't that
what you want deep down too?"
This woman, this sister who has known me for 43 years, who knows perfectly
well that I have always lived an alternative lifestyle, who has read my
book (or at least most of it she claims), who knows how to say "BDSM"
without tripping over the acronym, still had not actually assimilated one
iota of that reality. In some weird way, I think she must still be waiting
for me to come back to vanillaworld, where white picket fences sway in the
breeze and happy monogamous couples smile at each other while they pick up
their morning paper. In her world I'm secretly yearning for monogamy and
commitment but just couldn't really admit it somehow. But now that
Vladimir has arrived and offered it to me on a silver platter, well
everything's okay now; I can admit that it's what I wanted all along and
that everything else was just, well you know, an appetizer.
Turns out though, that this little fantasy of my sister is actually her
fantasy and not mine. In fact, my little alternative world started when I
was living with Mark, my first partner back in college. I was in my early
20's and after a few years of living together, our sex life was getting a
wee bit stale. Even then I had some submissive tendencies and sadly, so
did he. Hm. One day I had lunch with said radical mom and she told me that
she and my father had engaged in an open marriage. Now they had been
divorced for some time by then, since I'd been about 12. Talk about well
kept secrets! She explained that they had loved each other very much, but
that they both wished to occasionally explore other avenues. They did so
with discretion and respect for each other and for the family unit. I
certainly never knew and I expect they did a good job of the discretion
part because of this. She made sure that I knew that their divorce was not
because of this issues, and in fact it was a fairly amiable one.
I suppose that this gave me permission to try this approach out with Mark
which we did. Having a solid foundation of love and respect for each other
from over three years at that point meant that we could return to our
lovemaking with each other with renewed appreciation, not to mention sexy
stories with which to turn each other. We agreed that we were engaging not
in polyamory (loving multiple partners) but simply in an open
relationship, loving each other and occasionally fucking other people.
My relationships since then have often retained this element for one
reason or another. I am ultimately a very practical person, and have found
that quite often, particularly in the scene, your partner simply cannot
fulfill all your needs. For example, when I was with Moby, he was my
submissive, so I was left with nowhere to express my own submissive
nature. Later when I was with Griffin who was a switch, we had to figure
out how to provide for his needs to be dominated since I was not
comfortable dominating him. How do you resolve these kind of fundamental
needs? I believe that the loving and supportive decision is to allow your
partner to have another person to address these needs, just as you might
encourage them to go hiking with someone else if hiking weren't your
thing. Obviously love, sex, and intimacy are not the same thing as hiking,
but it is sometimes unrealistic to expect one person to provide for all of
your emotional, sexual and intimacy needs as it is to expect one person to
provide for all of your hobby, work and casual interest (like hiking,
music, etc) needs.
Let me also say here that I believe that the most functional open
relationships are predicated on needs that are genuinely of a type that
cannot be provided for by the other person in the relationship such as the
type I've described above. I do not think that an open relationship is a
tool for resolving intimacy issues or other types of emotional problems.
In other words, sleeping with other people is not going to solve any
problems in the relationship. What it can offer is a venue for needs to be
expressed that one partner cannot offer the other. Sure it would be nice
if I could fill all my partner's needs, but that is often unrealistic and
impossible, particularly in the complex world of BDSM. As I see it, the
next best option is to lovingly provide for an alternative.
Now my sisters approach begs the question a bit. Did I all along secretly
wish for commitment and monogamy although I was willing to compromise for
a healthier relationship? Well, I suppose anyone could say that I was in
denial, but I don't think so. Did my heart soar when Vladimir said he
wanted commitment and monogamy? No, not really. The fact is, I am by
nature a committed and monogamous (focusing on one thing at a time) kind
of person. This is easily reflected in my writing, my career, even the
structured way I live, eat and work every day. Commitment is not only not
a problem for me, I'd even venture to say I sometimes commit too early and
too often. I've sometimes found it odd that I've been single most of my
life when the stability and commitment of a relationship clearly are more
in alignment with my nature than the vagarities of dating. I'm hardly a
wild child. And so I said to Vladimir, "I'm down with that commitment
stuff." I think the idea of being alternatively minded is not that I
insist on doing the alternative approach, but rather that I can avail
myself of those options if I choose to. It's like feminism: you get to
choose whether you want to be a work-at-home mom or a career women,
instead of having only the choice of being a mother. I have those choices
which my sister does not, and which Vladimir does not.
Vladimir believes that to live with more than one intimate partner is to
shortchange both them and oneself, and is not to take up the entire
challenge which your partner represents. He feels that in accepting that
our relationships will not provide us with everything we need, it teaches
us something about ourselves, and that it is in letting go of these
desires that we become more loving, more open, and so better human beings.
Ultimately he feels that better you not be in a relationship with someone
who can't fulfill your needs than open up your relationship in the ways I
have done. Of course I can't help but disagree; by this argument I would
not have had my last relationships with Griffin and Moby, and while in
some ways my heart would have been saved some grievous pain, I would also
never have experienced two of the great loves of my life. What a great
loss that would be.
Fortunately since Vladimir is completely dominant, we are at least so far
as I can see, a very good match. While he does not agree with my practical
approach to alternate approaches in relationships, at least in this
situation it is a moot point. At least for now, my sister can be happy
that I'm finally in the kind of relationship that suits her old fashioned
perspective and I am happy that I'm finally in the kind of relationship
that suits my new fashioned one.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sensuous Sadie is the author of It's Not About the Whip: Love, Sex, and
Spirituality in the BDSM Scene. Read an excerpt at
http://www.trafford.com/robots/03-0551.html. She is the founder and
leader (1999 - 2001) of Rose & Thorn, Vermont's first BDSM group.
Comments, compliments and complaints, as well as requests for reprinting
can be addressed to her at
SensuousSadie@aol.com or visit her website at
www.sensuoussadie.com. Sadie
believes the universe is abundant, and that sharing information freely is
part of this abundance, so she allows reprints of her writing in most
venues.
Copyright 2006 Sadie Sez Publications
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