Relationships | Ask Garnet

Best Couple

There is this woman who comes into Early to Bed. She isn’t really a regular like the ones who come into the shop so often that they always need to ask what’s new. In fact, it took me awhile to recognize her as coming in a few times, but she is one of my favorite customers.

At first I misjudged her. I try not to be judgmental, but I do that kind of self-defense judgment of people where I’m always on the lookout for people who may be offensive or judgmental themselves. So if you look like you belong in a frat I will probably assume you’re a beer drinking douchebag until you prove me otherwise. I never said I was perfect.

So at first I misjudged her. The first several times she came in her hair was blonde, now it is brunette. She used to look like a sorority girl and with that slight southern accent of hers and her classic good looks I thought she would be a giggly girl with not much knowledge of the sexual world. It is people like her that remind me that I should not judge others.

It took me a few times to recognize her. All I realized about her the first few times is that she looked familiar. It probably took til the 3rd or 4th time of her coming in for me to remember that she is incredibly awesome. She is so open about her’s and other’s sexuality. She does not judge. She is extremely curious about experiences outside of her own, but not in an othering way. She just genuinely is interested in people. And she’s nice. She’s so nice.

This past weekend she came into the store with a man. Apparently this man had some history at the shop as well, but I do not ever remember seeing him previously. But you knew he had to be an incredible guy once you found out that he was married to her. This intelligent sweet woman. And he did not let me down.

They both wandered around the store sometimes talking to each other, sometimes talking to me and my coworker. Always having such engaging conversations about things they enjoyed, but never getting too personal as some customers seem to do. It was always light and fun. He enjoys ass play. They love watching queer porn. They want to see more real couples in porn. They read erotica together. He is extremely interested in any sort of theatrical works and therefore must watch The Curse of MacBeth.

Both of them so comfortable in their sexuality. Both of them in what appeared to be an egalitarian loving relationship.

As they left the store both my coworker and I found that we had smiles on our face. We decided that they should win the best couple award if there was one.

How Do You Define Your Sexuality? Contest!

Sexuality is an extremely complex thing that we try so hard to define in one or two word answers. But it’s just not that easy. There is who you are attracted to, what you are attracted to, what turns you on, what you fantasize about, what you wish didn’t turn you on, who you become romantically interested in, how high or low your libido is, how you achieve intimacy, how many partners you prefer to have, how your body responds or does not respond, etc etc etc. And unfortunately, most of us are not taught to explore what our sexuality is beyond straight/gay/bisexual or kinky/vanilla. And some people don’t even get that much exploration.

So I’m curious, how do you identify? What makes up your sexuality? Do you just choose to use simple words or do you feel that your sexuality is more complex and maybe even fluid? Have you not given it a whole lot of thought? Why not?

Leave me a comment letting me know exactly how you currently identify and maybe even the path in which you’ve traveled to reach your sexual identity. To make the deal a little sweeter I’ll throw in a copy of Fluid: Women Redefining Sexuality. One of you will be chosen at random to win this sexy DVD which I reviewed a couple months ago. The DVD is provided by Good Vibrations, but unfortunately does not have the DVD case, just a paper sleeve. But really, you just want the porn anyway. Who needs a case?

You know what? Lets make this deal even sweeter. The second runner up will receive a free hour of video on demand porn from HotMoviesForHer. Yeah, I just decided that right now. That’s how I roll.

For more ways to enter check out Mistress Kay’s blog. She’s the one who motivated me to throw together this contest anyway. In her contest post she also explores what her sexual identity is and what it means to her. So what are you waiting for? Enter!

Or stick around and read about how I define my sexuality and then enter. Either way.

Like I said earlier, sexuality is complex and mine is no different. In fact my sexuality has often frustrated me. You see I’m more physically attracted to women, but more emotionally attracted to men. This has often made relationships difficult for me since I often fell in love with men, but was more attracted to women. At one point I was completely madly in love with a man but when we’d have sex I’d sometimes lick his perineum like it was a clit and finger his asshole like it was a vagina. He never seemed to mind, but I don’t think he really knew what was going through my head anyway.

Don’t get me wrong though. I love having sex with both men and women. And in fact, often enjoyed having sex with men more. I blame this on the fact that I just had so many more male partners than female ones. When you have a bigger pot you’re picking from you’ll probably get more fantastic lovers … as well as awful ones.

For a very long time I was only attracted to people with pretty standard gender presentations. I didn’t really understand being attracted to people who defied gender norms until a)I became a gender and women’s studies major and b)I met my wife. Both opened my mind a whole bunch and led me to change my orientation label from bisexual to queer. I love the word queer because it is all encompassing. Now I tend to be attracted to a lot of different gender representations. I even often find that when people play with gender it’s fucking hot. I’m really only not attracted to douchebags and sorority girls. And yes, I actually think of those as gender identities even if they don’t. It makes sense to me.

On the spectrum of monogamy and non-monogamy I’m not really sure where I’m at. I’ve always tended towards monogamy in my serious relationships, but my relationships have often been very short lived. Now I find myself in a marriage with a woman I have been with for almost 4 years. That’s a long time. So we plan to explore. I figure that infidelity ruins a lot of relationships and I don’t want it to ruin mine. It just seems so unlikely to expect someone to be able to remain completely faithful for such a long time. I prefer to avoid that all together by opening things up and creating that trust.

My turn ons are things that I am not supposed to be turned on by. That’s what really gets me going. I like inappropriateness. If I’m supposed to be somewhere else, if I should be doing something else, if the location is all wrong, if it’s really really bad porn, or a stranger I don’t even find attractive whose body is pressed up against mine in a crowded train. All of these things make my genitals tingle probably because I keep yelling at them in my head to stop.

I’m also really turned on by seeing other people turned on. It doesn’t tend to matter who it is. I just love to see the look of ecstasy on people’s faces. Mix this with inappropriateness and we have a whole new game of awful things to be turned on by. You have no idea.

I’m turned on by sex toys, Old Spice deodorant, necking, big round booties, suggestive visuals, laughing, feeling powerful, the way different fabrics feel on my naked body, intelligence, longing, playfulness, flirting with cute strangers, being seduced, dorkyness, trashy boys, and androgyny.

I don’t tend to consider myself to be kinky, but am open to kinkiness in general and have participated in many acts that are far from vanilla. I have no interest in group sex as I prefer to focus my attention on one person at a time.

I have chronic pain that interferes with my sex life a great deal. At the top of that list is having arthritis in my hands and wrists. This can make sex very difficult especially on days with lots of pain. Luckily for me, I have a very understanding partner who doesn’t need a whole lot of warming up and doesn’t mind finishing herself off.

So that’s just the tip of the iceberg with me. How about you? You don’t have to go into the detail that I did if you don’t want to.

Oh and the rules:

contest ends at 11:59PM CST on 6/6/10
winners will be picked at random
leave a comment here telling me how you define your sexuality
leave a comment on Mistress Kay’s blog telling her why you want the DVD
Tweet up to twice per week (on different days) mentioning the contest with a link to either mine or Mistress Kay’s blog as well as an @ on one of us (I’m GarnetJoyce and she’s mistress_kay). If you tweet more than this you will have points deducted for being annoying.

Get crackin!

EDIT: Apparently comments have been getting caught by my spam filter. If this happens, just send me an email with your comment and I’ll post it myself. I will look into fixing this, but it may be difficult since I get a TON of spam and I don’t want to turn anything off.

My Identity is Erased

I hate that this even needs to be said, but apparently it does. I am not a lesbian. I have never been a lesbian and I will never be a lesbian.

For most of my life I identified as bisexual, but for the past few years I have identified as queer because bisexual didn’t feel like it fit anymore. I identify as queer because it is a big old umbrella term that allows me to be me. Bisexuality implies there are only two sexes and I do not agree with that. There are more than two biological sexes. If you don’t know this then I highly recommend you read through this website. Educate yourself. Also, sex and gender are two separate things and I believe that there is a whole spectrum of different gender representations and identities and I’m attracted to a whole lot of them. I do not believe in limiting myself. And I believe that sexuality is a complex and fluid thing.

I also stopped identifying as bisexual because I felt like it was a pejorative word. I was judged a whole lot when I would tell people that I was bi. Lesbians didn’t trust me, heterosexual men always asked stupid questions, and society as a whole thought I was going through a phase.

But even if I did identify as bisexual it wouldn’t really matter because the truth is that when I’m in a serious relationship my sexuality is always erased. When I was with a man I was assumed to be heterosexual and being married to a woman means that I’m assumed to be a lesbian. It is so frustrating to have your identity erased.

Am I qualified to teach about how to please men? Um yeah! Hello! I have sucked more cock than probably 90% of you reading this.

If you Google it, I Will Answer #6

I love seeing how people get to my site. And sometimes they inadvertently find my site by asking a question I never answer here. That makes me sad :( So in the interest of getting people’s questions answered I will respond to questions I see people Googling to get here.

Q: I had sex. Get married?

A: Only if you really want to get married should you get married. Having sex isn’t a good enough reason though. Do you love the person? Do they love you? Do they treat you with respect? Are you compatible? Do you communicate well and on a regular basis? Can you see yourself spending the rest of your life together? Do you enjoy spending your downtime together? How quickly does this person get on your nerves? Do you work well together as a team? Are your emotional and physical needs being met?

These are just a few of the questions you should be asking yourself. But you should keep in mind that a whole hell of a lot of people have premarital sex. I’ve read statistics varying from 90 to 95% of all Americans have premarital sex. I don’t know what the rate is though for who gets married to the person they lose their virginity to. But considering the supposed averages of partners each person has, I’m going to assume that most people don’t marry their high school sweetheart.

A sidenote to the link on average partners: Really ladies? Only 4 men in your lifetime? Either y’all are lying or I’m the biggest slut in the world.

Married, but Want to Date

Q: I am 28 and married. How can I get my husband to get to the point where he wants me to date other men?

A: It’s a bit difficult to answer this especially given your wording. It makes it sound like you want to convince your husband or even trick him into something. This may not be what you intended, but the truth of the matter is that how you use language when communicating with your partner is so extremely important. So instead of getting your husband to the point where he wants you to date other men, you should be communicating and exploring your options with your husband about opening up your relationship.

Is this something you’ve both talked about before? If so, then it will be no surprise and the conversations should flow more easily. You’ll want to talk about any jealousy issues that may arise, what is aloud and isn’t aloud outside of the relationship, if he is also allowed to date other people, any forms of protection, what kind of checking in is necessary before and after a date/sexual encounter, etc. If you don’t already have a strong foundation of communication in your relationship this is going to be difficult. Without it you won’t be able to successfully carry on an open relationship.

If you’ve never talked about it there is the possibility of strong feelings of hurt and rejection. You may want to start by just asking him what he thinks about open relationships. This way you can gauge if it is something he would be at all interested in.

You should also spend some time thinking about why you want to date other men. Do you feel like you have a lot of love to give? Are your sexual needs not being met? Do you crave variety? Do you like to have sexually bonded friendships? Are your emotional needs not being met? Are you bored? Do you think monogamy is unrealistic? Is there a guy you have in mind? There could really be all kinds of reasons; some of them good and some of them not so good.

So really my answer is: communication, introspection, time, and luck. And don’t be surprised if your husband never goes for it. Monogamy is pretty deeply ingrained in our culture. Many people don’t think there really is any other way.

For more info check out Opening Up

When is the Right Time to Get Married?

Q: How did you know when you wanted to tie the knot and “settle down”? Maybe I just have commitment issues, but it’s been almost two years since I started dating my girlfriend, and at times I feel no closer to being comfortable with the thought of marriage than I have in the last few years. Not saying things aren’t good, just that I want to be sure I don’t fuck it up.

A: Marriage isn’t for everyone so don’t assume that just because a certain amount of time has passed you need to feel the marriage bug. Or if you do think you want to get married, but it scares you a lot then don’t jump into it just because you think you should. Jumping into marriage is never a good idea. But if it concerns you, sit down and talk to your girlfriend and discuss it. Maybe she doesn’t even want to get married.

For me, it was actually something I decided before I even met my wife. This may sound odd, but it felt totally normal for me. A lot of it had to do with what happened before we met and how my attitude about relationships changed. Story time!

Most of my romantic life has been a series of awful relationships one after another. They were all intensely felt and extremely short. Part of the problem was that I suffered from major paranoia. My brain always went off on its own tangents about what my significant other was doing in the time we were away which pretty much led me to be that crazy girlfriend who is always calling and crying. But it didn’t help that most of the people I dated seriously were jerks or completely immature. At 23 I was starting to think that I’d never have a real longterm relationship.

Then I started dating a coworker. In the beginning we tried to take it slow because we worked together and didn’t want to start any sort of office drama. But it really didn’t work. We had a whirlwind romance and fell in love really quickly. We spent all of our time together and life was fantastic. He was the first person I had ever been with that I wanted something more with. I seriously started having fantasies about moving in together.

But then he became busy … all the time. These were real issues he was dealing with; he wasn’t just blowing me off. He was a genuinely nice guy. He found out he had a daughter from a one night stand 5 years ago, he had decided to go back to school, and he was trying to fix the life that he had fucked up in his 20s. It was all too much and he became less and less available. The paranoia started and would NOT stop no matter how much he tried to console me.

Eventually I had to break it off with him. We were still madly in love, but I couldn’t live so unhappily. The end of that relationship was the biggest heartbreak I ever went through. I was used to breaking up with people for being assholes, not because it just wasn’t working. I tried sex with other people and I hated it. I’d drink and then call him. This led me to basically becoming a hermit for the next 8 months where all I did was eat, watch tv, work, and go to school. I stopped socializing, I stopped drinking, and I stopped dating. Eight months is the longest period of time that I have EVER gone without sex or dating. I was seriously distraught.

But the truth of the matter is, I never actually saw a real future with this guy. I loved him and I wanted to move in with him, but the next step in my head was breaking up. I thought our relationship would probably last maybe a year or two. I loved him so much and yet I knew that we wouldn’t work in the longterm.

Moving in with someone and then breaking up with them after a year or two was actually the next step for a relationship in my head. I thought that was how it was supposed to be. Just another relationship casualty on the path of life.

So during that 8 months of deep depression I reassessed what I wanted. I also started going to a therapist to help me get over the devastation I was feeling. I decided that I couldn’t go through that again. I did not want to relive this breakup, so what was the point of moving in with someone and then breaking up? That started to sound like a horrible plan. So I decided that the next relationship I got in would be for keeps. Keep in mind though that I don’t commit to just anyone who happens along. I date awhile first before I decide anything.

The first person I had sex with after that 8 months was a total disaster. The paranoia attacked way earlier than it normally does and I had to break it off. But soon I would meet my wife and that relationship started off pretty much the only way I can imagine a relationship of mine starting and actually being successful. She was more screwed up than me. She’d just gotten out of a 4 year relationship and was completely destructive. We became friends and we had sex, but I was so not interested in a relationship with her.

This went on for 2.5 months before we admitted to each other that we had feelings for each other. After 3 months we had a talk about commitment and what we both needed from the relationship and the other person. It was then a bit of a whirlwind relationship where we quickly fell in love as we both healed as people. And the most important thing of all was that I didn’t suffer from paranoia. She texted me all the time. I never asked her to. She just did it. I always knew where she was, who she was with, and what she was doing. It turned out that that was exactly what I needed to quiet the thoughts. It was never an issue of trust for me, but an issue of not knowing what was going on. I’m a control freak with an overly active imagination.

The weirdest thing about our relationship though was that we planned our wedding before we ever decided to get married. It wasn’t scary or anything. We knew that all we were really doing was comparing our likes and dislikes in a way that most people don’t do. It was a lot of fun! We actually started planning our wedding before we even moved in together.

After we had moved in together and discussed the wedding more like it might actually happen we both started thinking that big scary thought: “spending the rest of my life with this person.” Yikes! We realized that we both weren’t ready just yet. While we knew we wanted to spend the rest of our lives with each other pretty early on in the relationship, it was still a scary idea to actually commit to forever.

And then one day, I wasn’t scared anymore. It just seemed right. So we went ring shopping and I put her in charge of proposing.

My story is probably very different than a lot of people’s stories. I’m sure that if you have a story, it will be different than mine. Just remember that marriage isn’t for everyone and that there is no need to rush into it if you don’t want it or aren’t ready. Talk it over. It always freaks me out that in a lot of heterosexual relationships the man just pops the question. Deciding to get married should be a discussion, not a surprise.

Best Couple

How Do You Define Your Sexuality? Contest!

My Identity is Erased

If you Google it, I Will Answer #6

Married, but Want to Date

When is the Right Time to Get Married?

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