When it comes to relationships, I don't color in the lines. Polyamory lends itself to that, with the notion of letting relationships simply be what they are, whatever that looks like. Asexuality(ishness) makes that trend even more prominent in my life. I have friends, and acquaintances. And I have people that I'm entangled with in some... other... way. My husband, who I respect and adore wholeheartedly. It's a non-sexual, non-romantic marriage, but "good friends" doesn't begin capture the depth of his role in my life. Or my adventure co-pilot, with whom I enthusiastically play and spill my guts to. We explore new territory together, and sometimes hold hands.
Or the woman I've been quasi-dating for a few months now. She's pretty awesome. We've talked about the ambiguity of our relationship, and all of the directions in which it's not going. And we've talked about our mutual comfort with that ambiguity. The other day, she casually mentioned how it had recently come up that she wasn't sure what it would look like if our relationship- whatever it is- ended. "She doesn't have sex, and in fact she doesn't even really kiss. So if it ended... what would that look like? Would I even know?"
And.. holy shit, I have no answer for that. I don't know what it would look like either. So much as possible, my relationships tend to evolve rather than end entirely. Fluffy answers like, "Well, it would feel different" are wholly unsatisfactory to me. But that's all that I have. My relationships don't come with the clear parameters and flags. There aren't clear roadmarkers telling us what it is or isn't. They just... are.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Risk Tolerance
It has recently become clear to me that my risk analysis for sex and sexuality-related endeavors is considerably different than that of most people. I've known for awhile that I was well outside the middle of the bell curve on a few different fronts. The full extent of my apparent discrepancies in what I consider acceptable personal risk had never quite clicked though.
I am exceptionally jumpy about STIs. I'm not entirely sure why this is, though I have a few theories. I have multiple people who are close to me who have been affected directly and indirectly by STIs- in some cases as a minor temporary inconvenience, and in some cases it's been tangibly life-altering and permanent. I don't consider STIs to be something that effect other people, over there. They aren't statistics and data. I consider them to be a very real phenomenon that affect people that I know and care about. I know folks that have had to take a round of antibiotics, and that was that. And I know somebody who has died as a result of HIV. I consider yet-to-emerge diseases to be a wildcard variable which I cannot possibly plan around. But I still wonder about them because I know somebody that was affected by a now-prevalent STI before it was well known or understood. Combine all these personal-to-me anecdotes and a brain that easily goes into hamster wheel mode, and you have a recipe for anxiety surrounding sexual health.
So... I'm prudent when it comes to genitals and fluids. Especially when I'm a middle node in a web of people, and my decisions with one person could affect another person. I decline opportunities to have sex with people I like in ways that I'd like to because of my exceptionally low risk tolerance in that regard. It's entirely my own decision, and I am more than willing to accept the consequence of further restricting my already limited pool of potential partners.
And then there's the non-sexual decisions I make.
As I type this, I have bruises on my neck. They were put there several days ago possibly by biting, or more likely by choking, by somebody that I had met but a few hours prior, after we'd been drinking. Yup. Let's count the BDSM no-no's packed into that. I violate one major safety guideline or another almost every time that I play privately. I generally trust strangers on a multitude of fronts. I've utilized the concept of a safe call exactly once, and it was for a modeling gig very early into my career as a naked chick. I self-suspend when nobody else is home. I pretty much piss all over what is often held up as common sense when it comes to safety.
When bottoming, I seem to have an exceptionally high risk tolerance. This is particularly true with partners who I trust to respond intelligently in dynamic and unpredictable situations. I'm much more prudent as a top, but my delight in breath play and willingness to tie a struggling partner seem to put me in a category of much higher risk tolerance than that of many. In all scenarios, I weigh possible consequences, and do mitigate risk in a variety of ways which are not necessarily obvious. Still, I make decisions which are considered inexcusably dangerous by some.
Does it all come down to payoff? Perhaps. I can pretty comfortably go months without partnered sex. Skip out on the kink for long, and I start getting seriously crabby. Or does it come down to personal experience? Sure, I've read horror stories on the internet of breath play gone terribly wrong, or models being drugged and raped. I'm hard-pressed to come up with a single first-person anecdote from somebody that I personally know who has had shit go south with the more noteworthy risks that I choose to take. Or is it that, for whatever reason, I feel a greater sense of control over non-sexual variables and interactions? I do feel more grounded in my ability to weigh and analyze those risks, and that may well inform my willingness to scoot right up to the edge of what I consider reasonable.
I'm aggressively in favor of letting people make their own decisions. I can't imagine asking others to jump right on board with the conclusions of my own risk assessments any more than I can imagine following the lead of others without my own analysis.
I am exceptionally jumpy about STIs. I'm not entirely sure why this is, though I have a few theories. I have multiple people who are close to me who have been affected directly and indirectly by STIs- in some cases as a minor temporary inconvenience, and in some cases it's been tangibly life-altering and permanent. I don't consider STIs to be something that effect other people, over there. They aren't statistics and data. I consider them to be a very real phenomenon that affect people that I know and care about. I know folks that have had to take a round of antibiotics, and that was that. And I know somebody who has died as a result of HIV. I consider yet-to-emerge diseases to be a wildcard variable which I cannot possibly plan around. But I still wonder about them because I know somebody that was affected by a now-prevalent STI before it was well known or understood. Combine all these personal-to-me anecdotes and a brain that easily goes into hamster wheel mode, and you have a recipe for anxiety surrounding sexual health.
So... I'm prudent when it comes to genitals and fluids. Especially when I'm a middle node in a web of people, and my decisions with one person could affect another person. I decline opportunities to have sex with people I like in ways that I'd like to because of my exceptionally low risk tolerance in that regard. It's entirely my own decision, and I am more than willing to accept the consequence of further restricting my already limited pool of potential partners.
And then there's the non-sexual decisions I make.
As I type this, I have bruises on my neck. They were put there several days ago possibly by biting, or more likely by choking, by somebody that I had met but a few hours prior, after we'd been drinking. Yup. Let's count the BDSM no-no's packed into that. I violate one major safety guideline or another almost every time that I play privately. I generally trust strangers on a multitude of fronts. I've utilized the concept of a safe call exactly once, and it was for a modeling gig very early into my career as a naked chick. I self-suspend when nobody else is home. I pretty much piss all over what is often held up as common sense when it comes to safety.
When bottoming, I seem to have an exceptionally high risk tolerance. This is particularly true with partners who I trust to respond intelligently in dynamic and unpredictable situations. I'm much more prudent as a top, but my delight in breath play and willingness to tie a struggling partner seem to put me in a category of much higher risk tolerance than that of many. In all scenarios, I weigh possible consequences, and do mitigate risk in a variety of ways which are not necessarily obvious. Still, I make decisions which are considered inexcusably dangerous by some.
Does it all come down to payoff? Perhaps. I can pretty comfortably go months without partnered sex. Skip out on the kink for long, and I start getting seriously crabby. Or does it come down to personal experience? Sure, I've read horror stories on the internet of breath play gone terribly wrong, or models being drugged and raped. I'm hard-pressed to come up with a single first-person anecdote from somebody that I personally know who has had shit go south with the more noteworthy risks that I choose to take. Or is it that, for whatever reason, I feel a greater sense of control over non-sexual variables and interactions? I do feel more grounded in my ability to weigh and analyze those risks, and that may well inform my willingness to scoot right up to the edge of what I consider reasonable.
I'm aggressively in favor of letting people make their own decisions. I can't imagine asking others to jump right on board with the conclusions of my own risk assessments any more than I can imagine following the lead of others without my own analysis.
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