SMBC Comics Forum

May be TMI for some.

This Sunday was pretty good. My husband and I booked a BDSM place for the first time and tried some things. It was fun.

Maybe I will go there with girlfriend 1 at some point, as this place has some kinky non-BDSM things that she has mentioned an interest in. I have to ask her first if she would feel okay around what are essentially torture instruments.

In bad news, girlfriend 1 may be just "girlfriend" again soon, as I received an SMS from girlfriend 2 regarding meeting with her *and her husband* for sex. Even though she knows exactly that I am totally not up for threesomes. We have talked about this several times. I will talk about it with her once more, but if I have to fear that her husband will jump out of hiding some day when we are in bed together, I will not meet with her again.

Sounds like something out of Dan Savage


I assume you hate Dan Savage though

hey well i'm into all sorts of freaky stuff too so there, huff huff

I'm not into any freaky stuff. I feel left out.

Astrogirl wrote:May be TMI for some.

This Sunday was pretty good. My husband and I booked a BDSM place for the first time and tried some things. It was fun.

Maybe I will go there with girlfriend 1 at some point, as this place has some kinky non-BDSM things that she has mentioned an interest in. I have to ask her first if she would feel okay around what are essentially torture instruments.

In bad news, girlfriend 1 may be just "girlfriend" again soon, as I received an SMS from girlfriend 2 regarding meeting with her *and her husband* for sex. Even though she knows exactly that I am totally not up for threesomes. We have talked about this several times. I will talk about it with her once more, but if I have to fear that her husband will jump out of hiding some day when we are in bed together, I will not meet with her again.

Is this where I say something about what they say about europeans are true?
I think that I just found out how super-conservative I am (but then again, I have always been pretty darn conservative)

Sandwiches wrote:Sounds like something out of Dan Savage

I assume you hate Dan Savage though

Yes, I hate Dan Savage. He is a transphobic asshole.

Apocalyptus wrote:How long have you been seeing girlfriend 2? It doesn't seem to be a good sign that she appears to be so intent on pushing you into something you're not comfortable with.

Not very long. A little over two months.
It would have been okay if at the next date she had brought it up again, I would have just said no.
Instead she texts like "Hey, I have time tomorrow night, do you want to come over? Can we have a threesome?
I suspect/hope a little bit that her husband got his hands on her cellphone. (He knows that we are dating, I have met him before.)

carbonstealer wrote:Is this where I say something about what they say about europeans are true?

I am reasonably certain the percentage of bi poly kinky Australians is pretty much exactly as high as the percentage of bi poly kinky Europeans. (I.e. pretty low.)

Astrogirl wrote:

carbonstealer wrote:Is this where I say something about what they say about europeans are true?

I am reasonably certain the percentage of bi poly kinky Australians is pretty much exactly as high as the percentage of bi poly kinky Europeans. (I.e. pretty low.)

I wouldn't be so sure about the low percentage part. A lot of people are still very quiet about that kind of stuff. I've been friends and acquaintances with a large number of people who meet at least one of those criteria and some others that you could probably put on that list. Outside their little group, they were generally not quick to advertise their preferences. I'm personally not a fan of poly,* but if it works great. From the successful and failed poly relationships I've seen, clearly communicating and respecting boundaries with is hugely important and someone who can not respect clear boundaries is going to cause problems eventually, or at least try to.

*For practical reasons, no moral judgement whatsoever should be implied here. I seriously don't care what consenting adults do when I'm not one of them

I only have a problem with poly relationships if not everyone is aware that it is one. As long as everybody is fine with the situation, no judgement but if its being kept from someone then its generally a horrendous betrayal of trust.

I wouldn't even call it a relationship if not all the parties are aware of it.

Hey! Lurk more quietly, you'll spoil it for the rest of us.

Oldrac the Chitinous wrote:I wouldn't even call it a relationship if not all the parties are aware of it.

Just someone isn't aware that there are some others, even if all the rest are.
I'm just really curious about this whole business, especially how marriage comes into it...

There is nothing complicated about how marriage comes into it (except for multiple primary polies, I will explain below). Poly people marry for pretty much the same reasons as mono people - minus "keeping it monogamous" (which is not really a reason to marry for monos, either, as they typically live in a mono relationship for many months or years before they marry, so marriage is certainly not a requirement for this).

Many poly people have one primary relationship / one primary partner, with whom they live together and whom they often marry, and one or more secondary or tertiary partners / lovers, with whom they meet regularly or (tertiary) not so regularly (not all polies feel that there is a distrinction between secondary and tertiary partners; those who do would usually say secondaries live nearby and tertiaries live far away ... but that distinction might get completely screwed up for people who travel for business regularly and have poly lovers at different places along their regular routes, or people who have intensive long-distance relationships with frequent regular visits).

(Many bi poly people have a primary partner of the opposite gender and secondary/tertiary partners of the same gender. This might be an effect from heteronormative society or it might be mostly pure math - if 90% of men but only 15% of women are potentially interested in me, it's easier to find a male primary partner. It's also pretty easy to find other hetero-married bi poly women who are interested in finding a female secondary partner. It could of course also be due to both.)

Some poly people live in groups of three or more in one household. They usually call themselves a poly family. For people with multiple primary partners like this marriage can be a hard topic. Poly marriage is much more out of reach than gay marriage.

Not all poly people have primaries. Some live in a no-primary multiple-secondary model, long-term dating several people who are aware of each other.

There are a lot of variations within these types. Some relationship networks agree that before a new partner is added the existing partners or at least the primary partner has to meet the potential new partner and has to agree. I think they call this poly-fidelity.
Also within one relationship network the relationships can be very different. E.g. with girlfriend 1 I often just watch TV when we meet, and we talk, or we go out. I met her stepson some months after starting to date her and her husband only recently and she met my husband recently for the first time. With girlfriend 2 I may or may not watch a movie first, but then we go to the bedroom. I met her husband and children on our first date.

For more information, read basically anything by Heinlein past 1960.