What a tangled web we weave...

I don't think I have ever had to look into lies in such detail. What they are, what they mean. What is a lie, what counts as lying, where do you even draw the line?

Well, this is not relevant as a simple exercise of ontology but as a very practical problem I had with B. See, B has an issue with lies. Actually, saying it's just an issue is putting it mildly. Because the problem isn't lies per se, but abandonment. In her world, people just... leave. They disappear one jolly day, they're out the door saying they'll go pick up the paper, then four months go by without a sign of life and on the day of Christmas, they show up with some old-day hysterical ex, tons of denied guilt and no concept of self-worth. I guess the issue is not the part where you find out somebody you love is a nitwit, the part where you figure you could have spared yourself the trouble. The problem is it usually took a lot of trouble and anger and angst and pain to withstand all of this nitwits and she could have just spared herself the whole lot. B can't call it quits when she ought to and it's only when the mister Charmings of the world really fuck up that's she's forced to dump'em.

Back in the beginning (what, two months ago?) every now and then I felt like she'ld be looking at me through the corner of her eye and thinking, “Are you gonna leave too? Show me your hands, no tickets for Guadalajara anywhere?”

Leaving is not properly my style, I always prefer breaking up. I'm hinduist about this, shut down the life support, kill the fucker, life yields to death, which yields to new life. There is not point, I argue, in pumping blood into a decaying corpse: if the relationship is not working all that well and we're running out of ideas, pull the plug for christ's sake, put us out of our misery. We'll call it a day and go home to rest. Only this way, may we meet again at some Copacabana beach resort ten years from now and pick up where we left off over pina coladas.

But B, she got dumped in masterfully imbecile ways and all of them included a great deal of information retention. Meaning they were not lying, they just weren't mentioning that the cab was waiting outside. Now this is a tricky one in it's own right: information retention... also known simply as secrets. You know what they say, not saying is not lying. Well, B. doesn't go for that, if you oughta know then somebody oughta tell ya and whoever doesn't is hiding information that is relevant to you, that's freaking vital and without which you can't chose chocolate from vanilla.

She somehow managed to find well over an army of lying mothers. I can't even say they were all straight-out mitomanous schizo's, they just didn't know themselves all that well and what was true one day wasn't true anymore the next. That's how she got abandoned a few times over and that's how she grew up to be the paranoid freak of nature she is now-a-days, [grin] so I don't wonder how come, I'm just deciding if I can abide.

I'm not a lier. But I can lie. Fuck, I'm really good at lying. And I can't help but noticing that I say this with a certain pride, and perhaps I do, but not because I feel like I'm on top of my game. I simply think there is no point in expecting the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth out of somebody. And I don't.

Now I should probably mention that the Quad includes L (hey, it's no secret). He's a radical honest, a person who, according to the wikipedia, believes all stress in peoples' lives comes from lying. He thus embodies a philosophy according to which the best way of answering the question “Do I look fat in this?” is “Yup”. The idea is both simple and charming: no lies, no white lies and no retention of information, no secrets. Ever for any reason. Needless to say, L and B got it on like a house on fire. Never could he possibly even conceive mischief without immediately telling B everything, and she's found the Discount Store of Reassurance in this.

Well, I wasn't very good at playing ball and we had a fight, B and me. Yes, we did survive, but the fight was about lies and secrets. I didn't lie, I withheld information. Information I decided was none of B's or anybody else's business, you know, that thing people call personal stuff. She did not agree, though then again, in her mind, there is nothing on this earth that is none of that cat's business.

Well, I, for once, have another good use  for lies. Of course I could go all Freudian about this and mention that the unconscious can never be entirely confessed, nor should such thing be attempted, for you would risk facing the tabooic horrors. The fact that you'ld gladly fuck your own mother, for once, and so on.

But no, although I very seldom lie, I have a better reason for secrets, which is partly freudian, partly just what I think: I think lies and secrets feed intimacy. They are the very essence of it.

Intimacy is that thing that happens when nobody else is part of something that only you or you and somebody else is a part of. Intimate problems are the problems you don't tell anybody out of shame. Well, let's imagine we put shame out of the way. Let's pretend it doesn't exist. By doing so, we could theoretically be open to everybody about everything, we could simply open up completely about everything we are and everything there is inside us. Let's imagine we do so as well, we walk naked through the streets and tell everybody the truth about everything. No secrets, no lies.

Intimacy has thus been virtually annihilated, it cannot exist where there are no secrets. Sharing something intimate with somebody, somehow means that such a thing will be unique for both of you, regardless of whether it's sexual or anything at all for that matter. But uniqueness is not enough, the very way you look at the girl sitting next to you at the bus cannot in anyway be repeated identically, yet it's not intimate just because it will never happen again in the same way. Prehaps if you 'make it' unique, giving it that weight of uniqueness inside your mind. But again, every memory you have is in fact, unique, and still this does not make it intimate. Intimate must somehow appertain to the unspeakable self. The veiled one. And intimacy cannot be shared but with a person with an intimate self. Intimacy could, apparently, not be established with a radical honest, for he has no veiled self, no hidden impenetrable intimate. He or she has no limits, so indeed it's a mystery whether such a person even has an inside and an outside. In theory, radical honests couldn't even tell the difference between themselves and the rest of the people, for the flux of information, of memories and knowledge, which is basically what we're made of, is not contained in any way.

I love establishing intimacy and am quick at it wherever allowed. But it is unmistakably intimacy, for it exist behind a veil that can, perhaps, promptly or eagerly be confessed. But it will be confessed, I won't just talk about it, I will utter it in a certain silence, the one used for secrets revealed. With whom I want to, and as for the rest, these secrets I will protect with silence. And where needed, with cunning lies.

My name is Léu, and you didn't hear it from me.

Happy polymers!

Don't fight the inner poly

First fights are always memorable, and they're also very revealing. They're as telling as your first kiss or your first fuck. People is completely diverse at fighting and curtains won't always match the tapestry. Some people who's calm will come at you yelling with fists in the air, while some who're really loud will merely give you a sullen look and a deadly silence. Some people will fight to the last man while some will be willing to negotiate from the very beginning (my heart goes out to the latter, of course). Partners should always ask themselves first and foremost what the point is, what they're meaning to defend and what they're willing to forgo:

• I just can't believe you would do that!
• I'm sorry, I didn't know it bothered you so much, I'll never do it again.
• Oh... ok, and well, if you cold stop doing this other thingie...
• No way, are you nutts? Fuck you for asking me such a thing!

So what happens when poly people fight? Well, poly people will fight just like normal people, i guess, they will go to war or just have a few jabs at each other, or take hostages and what not, the issue isn't so much the one-on-one. This meaning that if you relate with your partner but don't relate to his or her partners, you'll have yourself a pretty lame show (and this is good, don't get me wrong).

When they're a network, however, a triad or a quad... Oh that's a whole different game. When you're in active relationship with any of the other partners, when you either relate with them amiably, or you're even involved with them in some way, that'll multiply the complexity of the affair exponentialy.

So, this is of course not about network relationship's fights in general, it's merely about what it's like to fight with B. Now, just like two weeks ago I couldn't have been able to conceive myself in the middle of a poly relationship (and a network one at that), just one week ago, I could have never imagined myself actually fighting with B. Well, it was dumb to assume it was impossible, I just didn't exactly know how it could play out. Like with many other things about her, it's been a bit surprising.

Let me say that this event is brought to you Live by the Association of Love Flavoured Ice Tea. Where there's love, there's Ice Tea. This show is sponsored by Talk to your partner and Make-up sex Condoms: When it's time to stop fighting, it's time to start the revolution. Back to the ongoing fight between Léu and B.

The actual reason of our fight, my dear readers, is none of your damn business. Or spelled differently, I'll write about that later. Suffice it to say that the fight is happening in the worst scenario imaginable, with B on vacations with L. That's right, she's on a romantic trip and I had the touch to put in a quarrel just in the middle of everything—hate me for eternity, people, for I have no heart whatsoever. Furthermore, they're in fucking Paris. I know that if I had a single fan left, that was the door closing shut after him.

The second interesting aspect to this fight is of course the consequences of all this: Poor to no communication, impossibility of presence unless I took an airplane right now (it's not lack of romanticism, I've thought about it), trying to fix it over the Internet, shitty Skype, and of course, my two beloved partners being able to think of a quadrillion better things to do in Paris than fighting with me!

And here's where the poly really kicks in. A poly fight when you're in a triad or more, is kinda like fighting with your girlfriend when you live at a students house. Before you know it, best-friends-forever will be knocking at your door, and they mean business. They say they wanna help and they do, but it's not only your best interests they keep at heart but your parnter's and theirs as well, a torn house affects them as much as it will affect you and your partner. You will have to include them, for they are technically already neck-deep.

You negotiate. It's a mini United Nations model, I give you back the territories taken during the war of 73' but i gotta show my voters something, so what have you got? I talk to L, he talks to B, B talks to M, M comes to me, “what's it gonna be?” I consult with L who's walking with B along the Champs-Élisées. And B, she's keeping me in the cold, dark waiting room, I can't have a meeting with her, a chat, link, phone call or otherwise, we haven't spoken even to actually quarrel verbally, like mankind has ever since the day insults were invented.

Just for the record, I don't like to fight. I think it's pointless, stressing and not even that much fun (thought this depends on who you fight with). I would like to leave it all behind as soon as possible, but B's taking her time and I must give it to her, time and space kinda being what this fight is all about, and I must preach with my example.

Weather I'm getting floored or not, I really can't tell: Poly fights more than any other should end up in civil discussions, mutual agreements and joyful polymers. Whether I'll actually get to talk to B before the second coming of the Christ—and whether that will solve anything at all—is still to be seen.

I'm Léu and I miss her like hell,

Feisty Polymeres to you too!

Hey, new guy...

So you wake up and it's all happening.

At the beginning you fail to realize at all, you have the impression you're just getting together with this cute and crazy chick of waist-long hair and no sense of fashion. And who wouldn't? She spills high-brow hip jargon like a broken coffee vendor machine: polyamory, compersion, NRE, non-monogamy, radical honesty, ethical sluttery, threesomes and quads, butterflies and unicorns.

You're all pumped up, need I say more? Your eyes open wide like you're watching a trailer of paradise. Coming this summer: Heaven. "This girl puts the awe in awesome", you think, "she's on fire like an Iraqi oil field during the Gulf War!"

And perhaps it couldn't come at a better time. You've been poly for a while, or so you say. Some five years using the funny word and at least another five trying to do something that was equivalent. “Ready? I was born ready!” But let's be down to earth here: in a decade of dreams, have you learned anything from trying, other than how to fail and survive failure?

Are you really ready, hot shot?

You're gonna get a run for your money, that much I can tell you right now. Your girlfriend, if you can call her that, she follows this blog that's called “Everything begins to make sense”. At the beginning that's you ten times over, “Hell yeah, this is what I'm talking about!” But by the time you hit the first weeks in, this phrase really starts ringing a bell inside your head. Everything begins to make sense. No. No, it's quite the opposite. As a matter of fact, it's the perfect opposite: Everything is stopping to make sense, nothing is making sense anymore.

Reality is decomposing before your eyes.

You feel like a conscript sent to 'Nam. Few months of confined boot camp and then one day they thrown into the Asian jungle just so you can discover the text book was a hundred years old way before you picked it up. Nothing looks like in the exercises, nothing feels like in training. It is all horrifyingly new.

You're not prepared for this, you never were. If you do well, you had it in you, 'cus whatever this is, 'You ain't never seen shit like this before'.

You couldn't blame yourself either, it's just called being mono. You were monogamic 'til yesterday, face it. You were keeping up monogamic relationships because you 'had to', thinking “one day I'm gonna take me a poly girl and poly will be my new name”. But so far you've only been saying that on Facebook. You know you can be attracted to other women while being very in love with one woman and you think that's as poly as it gets. But that's just mono. Loving any amount of women, different among them, and having mixed and diverse feelings for them, all exceeding friendship, while at the same time being happily in love and in a stable relationship with one woman you 'had to get together with' reluctantly, is still just what every other monogamic person on the planet can do and often does. Many monogamists will deny this, but they do so to reassure themselves about the impossibility of such identical feelings popping up in their partners' hearts, which would threaten the relationship and themselves. The truth of the matter is, however, that everybody can love many. Not everybody can share.

But you know this, don't you, cowboy? You've read the manual, you know how it works. “No panic,” you tell yourself, “it's all cool”.

Then you look into her eyes and you realize that if done right, this could be the biggest thing you've ever put together, the brightest star in your night sky. And if you don't, you won't have anybody to blame but yourself. There will be no evil ex coming back from the grave to snatch you away, no better looking, bigger-cocked stud to make her think twice about you, and no passive-aggressive fits of jealousy to gut the relationship either. Hell this is not even about her, about losing or keeping 'amazing her'. That's why the people that fail at poly don't just call it a day and go home. They go fucking postal, and they go postal because that sad little trembling figure in the center of the stage... is you. If you fail, it will be one of your biggest failures ever. Ever! And if that doesn't make your stomach turn, then just take another look at her, her deep eyes and soft skin, her wide smile and cat-like demeanor, and you'll be dashing for the toilet in panic.

You fuck this one up, and it'll haunt you. But hey, at least you couldn't say I didn't warn you.

I'm Léu, and I'm the new guy,
happy polymers.

Operational Distance

Just sharing a little something I learned for myself...


Me and B work perfectly with each other when we talk and can touch us... so many things are unspoken, yet understood and I can show my love in many ways... but when we are separated by long distance, we fail to communicate equally well.

You might encounter this yourself if you hold relationships with people over long distance... being in person is always greatly different then being in person... I have people I enjoy greatly online, exchanging jokes, wisdom and advise, yet are nearly unbearable in person... so it goes both ways.

Ready for POLYDAYS!

Lately I've been trying to blog, but i found myself stuck.

I have zillions of drafts dated before Pleistocene that should be corrected and published, or at least i should translate the older posts. I'd really like you guys to know how I spent Carnival with Thomas, or how're my studies going, or tell you about my new “crushes”, but for a reason or the other, i always end up delaying.

So I ended up accumulating a huge backlog of posts, and I don't know if or when I'll be able to publish everything. It's the story of my life: I've never been able to deliver my drawings in time at the high school, except for when I stayed up untill late the night before.

I' m not even able to respect the bottom lines i set up for myself, and I'm always late at dates. It's a reality, unfortunately...

Not only blog posts, but even important decisions will be delayed untill september.

Now I just want to enjoy my holidays with Moreno, just like i enjoyed my brief trip to Bavaria last week. I'll blog about it too, sooner or later...

I want to spend time with the people I love, without planning things too much.

After september exam session, I'll be able to take a breath and relax a bit, but I'll also have to decide what to do with my poly-life: what to keep and what to “throw away” of these last months, how to behave with some people I like, and how to protect ourselves from our detractors (and we're starting to have a lot of them... so it means we're doing an excellent job!).

I'm actually dating 6 persons in total, be them lovers, friends with benefits, or life-long partners. And it's a very big number for me. I'm not sure i can dedicate the right amount of time/energy to everyone, and I don't want this people to be unhappy. But I also don't want my lovelife to take time and energies from other aspects of my life.

Love should add energies to our lives, not take them away!

There's also another person i'm starting to like, but for now everything is just so vague!

I don't know if I'm liked back and if I'm strong enough to accept a refusal, and even if i was, I don't know if I'll be able to give enough to this person, be it as friend, lover, partner or wathever. I don't even know what their expectation could be on “us”.

But we're getting to know each other for now, and it feels good.

I'm sure the future will tell us the answers we need.

Considering how am I “special” at socializing, it's already a miracle that I'm able to actually *talk* to someone I like, so everything else is coming will be more than welcome!

I want to reassure our readers: if you don't hear from us, it means that our life satisfies us and it's full of interesting things that distract us from blogging, so we're happy!

In these months we've been through wonderful moments and others more problematic ones, and now we can finally take a relieving sigh.

We've had to cope with some unpleasant people, people that, unsatisfied of their own lives, were trying to make us feel unfit, just as much as they are.

But obviously their attempts failed miserably, and we know now that what makes us strong, besides the fact that we're so united, os our will to never compromise about whart we are.

We always try to be ourselves, no matter if we'll be judged for that.

I've found myself feeling compassion instead of hate for that people that judge us and that clearly fear people's judgement.

They keep lying, they keep trying to look like what their listener mostly likes, but in the end nobody really knows them, nodoby trust them, no one can love them or get close to them.

To shield themeselves from society, they lose themselves. They're not individuals anymore. They can look good, even polite and nice to others or well-educated, but in the end they're just empty shells.

I keep having the feeling that certain people put themselves in a cage, and i can't do anything to help them open their eyes. All i can do is hear their silent scream coming from deep within.

So I've decided to stop thinking of them too much, and I want to take care of people that love me as I am instead.

That's all for now, enjoy your Polydays, I surely will!! :*

b

T talks Sex

Sex, making love, fucking, doing it...

We all have slightly different understandings of the word, different emotions connected to it and different understandings of what it means... Sure technically, we all know it means that the sex(es) touch, but emotional different feelings are attached.

Take the time and ask your (potential) partner(s) "What does sex mean to you?"

We are lucky in our poly-something, that we are all very different sexually, yet not so much unlike each other. Some of us like men, some of us are into kinky things, some of us are into other kinky things. Because we have such different ways of "doing it", I for one don't feel jealous, because I know my way of expressing my love is special and one of a kind.

I can't speak for the others, but I'll elaborate my own view of sexuality.

Sex is something intimate and personal, something I could not do with someone I do not like as a person. I've turned down the "drunk, sloppy and slutty" sex more than once, because I cling to my strange view of morals and emotions... I wouldn't enjoy it.

Sex is in the head (no, not like that, pervert). Your brain is by far the most sensitive sexual organ. If you’re going only by physical pleasure, hell, I would be far more effective if you just Do It Yourself. I personally enjoy playing with the mind as much as the body... mentally training someone, for example (always use the same gesture or word when you allow them to orgasm or do something nice, soon that word will also trigger the response) or playing with your fantasy (tell your partner in very fine detail everything you will do to them, talk about how you will enjoy it... and then let them beg for it).

I also reflect all the pleasure of my partner onto myself... as I am not very sensitive, it is rare for me to ever orgasm before or more than my partner, but even if I don't reach the physical highpoint, I am far more satisfied than I would have been achieving dozens of orgasms on my own. When I look down at a partner who is nearly passed out, smiling and panting, I am proud and joyful, both for her and myself.

To achieve that kind of joy in sex, communication is key. We all make mistakes (if a man says he doesn't - run, run and don't look back, girls!), but we can learn from them. I tend to talk about it, after the scene is over, go into detail about what you enjoyed, asking what kind of grip feels best, what she would like more off...

Talking about sex is hard. Even if you just did it, had that moment... for a girl to say "I want you to pull my hair and fuck me like a ****", it takes a lot of trust and intimacy to admit your kinks, but also keep the respect for each other. The fear of losing your partner’s respect when you admit your kinks most likely keeps many girls in doubt if they should admit their desires... the same obviously applies to many men.

Maybe you think that your partner has no hidden desires... Maybe it is true, but I for one know many people who have those desires, especially the kind of "wait till marriage" Christian girls (here I go using clichés), who are very kinky, even shockingly so, but also plagued by guilt... which arouses them even more in their kink. Everyone acts shocked about sex in public, even though they all did worse in their own private time, right?

Sadly, as being poly, you have to face the fact that everyone thinks you did it for the (awesome) sex or some kink thing. It is rare that we have -more-than-two-somes- and no, we don't have any more sex than the average monogamous couple. We most likely have a harder time, since there is no cheating and you need to take the time to explain your relationship to the other person, to inform your other partners and talk about it in detail... and honestly, nearly everyone that even hears pol--- *jumps out the window*.

The typical responses are "I'd be too jealous" from women and those who take the time to actually listen to me explaining that everyone is jealous, but jealousy is based on insecurities and you actually deal with it. Then they continue with "It's just not for me.". It is their choice and I respect that.

Didn't even get the chance to go into detail about the D/s or M/s side of our relationship yet, but that’s something to look forward to, right?

Dedicated to my beloved pet.

Exposure...

In terms of exposure and being able to "show off", relationships and sex go hand in hand, don't they? Sex just has a added layer of intimacy:


~With friends: "I sure love my girlfriend"
~with close friends: "And the sex is amazing!"


Maybe it happens for the same reasons... being able to share your joy with others, makes it even better... maybe it enhances your status, maybe it helps your self esteem, maybe your just comparing dick size? Regardless, it is joyful...


However, if you plan to be poly (or have really naughty sex) you have to be careful... very few people will act shocked or question you more, some even not react at all and then gossip about you. I personally think that nearly each person has done more "kinky" things in the bedroom than they pretend to be shocked about in public.


Just keep in mind that not everyone will be able to just share your happiness, many people have the need to judge critically... it is natural and, in my opinion, okay. You can dismiss something as unfit for yourself, for your own person. However, only in rare cases should one judge for others.


I and my partner(s) have choosen to expose ourself and face that critic, infact I do get many weird looks and questions (So you don't take it in the butt? No, I don't!). You have to know for yourself - and discuss with your partners, if your willing to expose yourself like this.