Polyamory in Practice

Every relationship with every individual and creature that we meet is based on mutual respect and desire (or lack thereof when the relationship is negative). Some humans prefer to have a particular partner that they spend almost all of their time with, and I believe that this is perfectly beautiful and acceptable. Although that way of life has been shoved down our throats to the point of making many of us vomit, once you get it out, we still eat again (though maybe not that particular dish!) Monogamous relationships are excellent ways to learn about true service to the other, and in a caring and harmonious monogamous relationship, the effort of both people trying to raise the vibrations and consciousness of the other allows both people to walk beautifully enlightened paths.
That being said, I am through with monogamy. Although I am barely a quarter of a century old, I have known since I was a child that we are all born with these big, open, bleeding hearts and heads cracked half open and that these frying fringes are just oh, so desperate for connection and energy and light and love. Even as a child, I do not remember being without a “boyfriend” and it wasn’t until I discovered the ridiculous concept of “homosexuality” (ridiculous because it is useless to define love or relationships in terms and gender) that I realized I had always pretty much had a “girlfriend”, too.
I don’t remember not messing around with my female friends or not humping pillows and my favorite stuffed animal while making up elaborate stories with my friend or stuffie. These stories rarely had anything to do with sex, until my friends and I learned about these concepts. I even had to undergo several years of therapy because of my, uh, “rocking” habit… I was rocking myself to masturbation before I ever understood what orgasm was (it didn’t end in orgasm then, it just “ended”) and I would do it everywhere I had to sit down. My guidance counselor at school made me make little “check marks” on a note card for every time I “rocked” at school and at the end of each day the card was full.
My parents said I used to “rock” in my diapers in front of the TV. They had thought that I might be autistic. When tested I tested as “gifted” instead. More arbitrary terms! In elementary school it was a big problem. People thought I was abused. I wasn’t. I just had all this energy and didn’t know what to do with it (definitely a lot of social anxiety!) and it made my parents so uncomfortable and they were so sexually repressed and in the dark that they did not know how to tell me to just “do it in your room!” I even told a teacher who asked me about it once that, “I had bug bites down there that my mom told me it was impolite to scratch”. Once my mother gathered the courage to tell me the truth, saying, “You know, Stephie, little girls everywhere do this… you aren’t alone.” I asked her, “Even little girls in China?” to which she smiled and replied in the affirmative. After that, I only “rocked” at home and in my room.
After learning about sex in the public school system and through older, wiser friends, I realized that I had been experiencing some very intense sexual energies for a very, very long time. The old “rocking” habit had never gone away. Instead, I had created a game and challenge out of it. As a child, I had often gotten annoyed with the fact that at the end of each “rocking” session, the good feelings would just stop. So, as a child, I usually just tried to hurry and rush those good feelings back into me so I could be in the motion again and feeling all that good stuff.
After finally reaching a true orgasm during puberty instead of just a “stop”, I learned to even orgasm while barely moving my body at all. To this day I can sit in almost any position and bring myself to orgasm from mental image/clarity and controlled movements of my sexual organs. The only way someone who was watching would be able to tell is the flush in my face when I do reach orgasm. This in itself has of course created its own set of issues. I was not able to orgasm during sexual intercourse with a man until one day my partner ate mushrooms and because he was in a different, non-controlling place, I was able to figure out my own rhythms with a partner, as opposed to my rhythms while alone. This set me on a course of sexual discovery over the next 5 or 6 years in various monogamous and multiple partner relationships and sexual situations which allowed me to get to the root of human jealousy and begin my own path of returning myself to the service of the divine goddess in us all.
The last few long-term relationships that I attempted all began with this background information about my experiences and concept of love and sex as being very open and changing concepts for the parties involved. The man I almost married and lived with for the last three years and I joined various online swinger communities. I had never really understood the concept of swinging until I explained my philosophy of relationships to him and he told me about swinging. We tried it and loved it. But the whole time I was with him, and in all of our joyously outrageous sex parties and intimate snuggle sessions with close friends, something was very much amiss in my soul and something was leaving me feeling very drained. I tried to explain to him that I felt that I was more “polyamorous” than a “swinger” but he didn’t really understand the difference. In fact, he didn’t really understand me at all. While we were together, I sensed early on that he was not a mystic, and though I loved him and shared everything I could with him, my deeper, truer self was being raped and pillaged because I could not accept those qualities within myself.
Then we met a young couple who ran a crystal store which they lived above. The two of them and I could not stop talking. I had never in my life met people who seemed to be on the same illusive quest for love and truth and light and positive feelings… I was meeting people of “my tribe” for the first time. We talked about Be Here Now and Leary and RAW… I fell deeply in love with them both, as they did with me. However, it was apparent to us all that I was currently living in denial of what I was. They could not understand how I was with this guy that I was about to marry and rear children with. I saw my true self and my current self through their eyes and my soul began to rage with laughter at the absurdity of my predicament. Here I was, this girl that fellow college students had called a communist, beatnik, hippie every semester, this girl whose mere presence can make you want to start mass orgies, this girl who everyone she meets tells her they feel a “connection to her”… this girl who somehow convinced herself that all that transcendence mumbo-jumbo was a load of crap and that to survive she had to live in the “real world” and just love one person because “it’s the right thing to do.” What a load of silly contradictions! I explained it to my man, and although it was one of the most painful things either of us ever went through, we ended it and are still friends. He finally understands what I meant about wanting to have loving relationships with as many people who need it and who I need it from instead of just fucking around and getting off. More importantly, I now understand the difference for myself.
So, here I am, about to turn 25 and living and teaching the ways of love to everyone who will give me a smile or the time to talk. I have very few answers, but I have a lot of practice and a lot of patience and a lot of love to give. And yes, there is an incredible amount of pain that can come along with deciding to walk the path alone… with friends and family, yes, but still, alone. For me, this is the only path to walk. It would be wrong of me to drag another through this crazy dance, so instead, I just dance beside and with people and they do the same with me. In fact, when it comes to the maze of love, we can only lead each other to its center, we cannot lead each other out- that is a personal quest.
When I was in college and for a few years after, it was very easy for sex and relationships and love to get very, very messy and hurtful. However, I have learned many techniques to keeping love flowing and drama free. I have lately come out of my shell and begun to share these experiences with the people I am closest with. I still cry when I am alone occasionally, and when I am around some of the people I love very deeply, it is sometimes hard for me to accept that now is not the time for us to jump into bed together. I know we will eventually, or enjoy the memories of when we cut holes in time and did it anyway, so I enjoy those feelings of anticipation and brief moments of past ecstasy and it helps me get through those lonely moments. In fact, even if I never have the opportunity to “jump into bed” with that person, I have recently learned through a few very special encounters with men who have no idea of their amazing talents, that every look can be a definitive arrow of love that forever changes the lives of both gazers. The end result of the act of sex might as well have already happened once two soul lovers meet, so why rush or anticipate or expect when right now, even when apart, we are still one?
I resonate with what many people, especially the women, on the Reality Sandwich website and other internet discussion forums and what women in my daily life say about seeing so many sad and lost faces, and feeling the need to bring them the message of love. This is a most sacred mission. We are the goddess and we will bring the light to the world one beautiful encounter and moment at a time. I overcame the idea of being labeled a slut a long time ago, as I had been labeled that in school long before I had ever performed the act of intercourse. I feel it is my duty to spend time with women and girls who are trying to fight their way past stereotypes and false definitions to find their true divine selves. There are a handful of females in particular that I have actually seen positive change happen in because of our long chats and what sometimes is a painful event at first, that is later understood as a necessary part of our un-conditioning. I have also been fortunate in that in the very moment that I awoke to my goddess self, many souls from my past and the people that I had recently met all seemed in need of the new services, conversations and feelings I could provide.
I do not keep secrets about what I do. I do not lie to anyone about anything they ask me. I love openly and honestly those whom I love. I do not hold the act of sex itself as singularly sacred, rather, I hold every human exchange be it touch, seeing, smelling, listening, discussing or any of the other ways that we try to press ourselves together, as being part of our divine connection. In fact, for the year 2009, I have given up the act of sex entirely* in order to gain perspective on how it affects us and to show my lovers and myself the joys of human intimacy beyond a penis being inserted into a vagina. In these few months without sex, I have seen incredible transformations in my life and the lives around me. Because the question of “are we going to do it” is taken out of the equation, my friends feel much more comfortable around me and my ridiculously intense sexual energies. I have had making out and massage sessions lately in which both of us feel we are traveling the universe together. Whereas I used to walk into a room and immediately feel it fill with my sexual presence and desires, I now keep these desires and energies in a close ball around me… and now my social interactions are more fully in the present and instead of dealing with my energies chaotically combining with everything around me, I focus and hone them to specific points where that energy is needed. Sure, it is an “easy way out” to give up sex for the year as it gives a primary rule from the outset, which I am definitely not a fan of, but I figure, hey, what’s a year of discovering the world of love beyond the act of sex, especially knowing how beautiful the act will be when the year is over! What a great tool.
Dealing with the sexual energies while I am alone is a whole different set of issues. It is nearly impossible for me to stop the flow of this energy, so I do not try to stop it anymore. Instead, I have been trying to find useful outlets for this energy, such as yoga, meditation, writing, reading, and in communion with myself in general. Since I was very young I have very detailed memories of sexual interactions with entities that I do not understand and can barely conceptualize. I joke about being “raped by spirits” occasionally with my close friends, because that is about all I can chalk it up to. Sometimes when I feel the energies, they are my energies and I try to harness them and not give in to the need to orgasm. However, when I am literally leveled by those other powers that floor me and sometimes end in orgasm and sometimes don’t, I usually come away with incredibly enlightened thoughts and images and experiences. It is as though I am occasionally blasted off into some other realm where the inhabitants are colors and shapes in only a loosely human form and there is a tower and a stone circle. I do a lot of my mental work in this place, as I was taken there through tantric experiences with those entities while younger, and I now feel very much at home there. I have met people in this physical world we all reside in that I have had tantric involvement with in that other reality and we have both been completely astounded to discover this. I know I will meet more of you! It is a place somewhere between our dreams and being awake that these things have taken place. So, I just keep trying to see each rush of energy for what it is, and act accordingly.
I have a long way to go. I still don’t quite get the whole sex/love/masturbation thing, but I suppose none of us ever will. I have gained knowledge through experience, reading, and the adult retail industry (I have worked in the corporate world of adult retail since college) that has initiated me into teaching sacred sexual arts to those around me who wish to learn. I have always been a sexual teacher, and it is because I am and always will be a most eager student. There is no better way to get to know a person than to be intimate with him or her. I love this. I love getting to know people and sharing myself with them and the deeper the hole into reality we can dig, the more satisfying the ascent to the cosmically divine.
I am only recently beginning to study all of the sacred sexual paths that others before me have taken and defined, because I only recently discovered I was not alone in this quest. I knew there were esoteric religions that had whole texts on the subject and I knew there were “sex therapists” of all varieties on the fringes of society and I have looked into these over the years and am eager to learn more about all these methods because they have so many practices and ideas to offer. I may eventually label myself a “sex therapist” and put myself out there in the public sphere as such. Currently, however, I have no lack of friends in need of love and affection and every day I find myself running into more people who I am meant to meet so that we can both raise our vibrations spiritually and sexually, as there is little difference. I suppose I am a sexual healer for my own network. As that network broadens, so to do the tasks I must accomplish increase and the lists of lessons we must learn lengthen, leading me to the recognition that with or without labels, with or without “proper” training, here I am on the path of sexual healing for all humans in all of our crazy being-ness.
However, I have found that the best way to live with intentional sexuality or polyamory or whatever they are calling it these days, or in a monogamous relationship for that matter, is to be honest with yourself and honest with the people you love. Love without expectation of those people loving you in return. Love because you know you can do nothing else. Do not refuse love to one person because you love another, there is always enough love to go around. Do not be hurt by the actions of others when it comes to love and sex, they are just as confused in their stew-pot of chemical reactions we call bodies as you are. Be open to the phases and twists and turns of love, do not expect it to always manifest in the same or even in similar ways. Keep the ego out of it and recognize that you are both simply messengers of the divine love between us all and that you are blessed in your ability to rejoice in that oneness right now. See each other truly and do not turn away even when the barriers build and it is hard to communicate. See time as the gift it is and not as an obstacle to love. Love yourself. Love everyone. Love right now. For some reason, I am pretty sure that our survival depends on it.
*So I broke my resolution, but in breaking it, I experienced my third eye opening during intercourse and a blog will be up soon to explain this mysterious magic I tapped into- too bad I couldn't last more than 3 months, but the goal was certainly accomplished!