Interlude: Polyamory

Interludes are short segments between regular episodes with no editing but WITH leather creaking. It's a chance to hear a little more about what's going on in my life. Polyamory is the topic this time, as I share my past, present, and future experiences with this approach to relationships.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Full Cow, a podcast about leather kink and BDSM. My name is Edge, my pronouns are he, him, and I'm your host. And this is another interlude the episode between episodes offered raw and unedited, but with leather creaking and a little bit out of order this time as well. Normally, the first Friday of the month, you would be hearing a full episode. However, as we are approaching the end of the season, I thought I would swap that around so that the very last episode of the season would be the season finale. So instead we're going to talk about polyamory, which is something I've been thinking about a lot as I have been navigating the thrilling, if sometimes challenging, waters of polyamory.

Speaker 1: 0:51

Historically, my relationships have been open, mostly because most of my relationships have been long distance. But all of my relationships have been sexually open, which just means, you know, we'd play with others, but there were never real stable relationships outside the main one. There were no emotional attachments. So even though I have a history of open relationships, I would not say that I have a history of polyamory. This shifted for me at the very end of my last relationship. You know, my ex was very clear that he would need to have a slave at some point, and he actually inspired me slightly to think about having a boy of my own. Now that led, of course, to the boy who changed my life as who pops up quite a bit in my narrative lately and although, ironically, I sort of met him at the very end of that relationship but then really developed our connection after my last relationship was over. But what I discovered with the boy who changed my life? I was in love. I love that man, I love that boy, I love that boy, and it was the first time I had realized that I could have what I call a polyamorous lover, or he was an appropriate love. I didn't want him to leave his husband, I didn't want to break up his relationship, I didn't want him to be online, but I knew the feelings I had were consistent with the feelings I would have with a romantic partner, except they were expressed in this kind of pure. I wanted the best for him, I wanted him to be happy, I wanted to support him, and that's when I finally discovered that it was possible for me to love in a way that seemed appropriate in a polyamorous context, a love in a way that didn't seem the way.

Speaker 1: 2:56

I would exclusively reserve my love for a primary partner Since then. Wow, well, you know my life's a little complex because on the one hand, I feel like I'm single because I don't have a nesting partner or a primary partner. On the other hand, clearly I am not, because I have a boy and now I have a slave and in part I've been trying to navigate my singleness in a sort of context of polyamory. I already have relationships, but I am open to one more, but one more specifically, a kind of primary or nesting a boyfriend someday may be a husband kind of relationship. And you know it's a little weird. It was weird to be dating and both feeling single and yet technically not being single, and it shifted the pool I was looking for, because obviously I needed people who are polyamorous. In that I discovered that a lot of gay men still don't really know what polyamory is or understand what it means or really have explored that, which is great, certainly not required, I guess I just thought like gay men were inherently polyamorous. That's not true. Gay men are inherently nothing. First of all, and while I think many gay men might be, let's say, sexually expansive I'm not going to use the word promiscuous, but let's say many gay men are sexually expansive. I don't know that. A lot of us have done the work to figure out polyamory and for me now, my operating definition of polyamory is that I can have multiple, stable, living, committed relationships in my life and I can be in love with all of these people in my life and it being in love with one of them does not take away from anything else or from anyone else. That's the kind of operating definition of polyamory I'm using. So I discovered in dating that I needed someone who had done some of the work and understood polyamory and knew that they were polyamorous, that they desired that as much as I did, and that's been one of many challenges dating. In fact, I have gotten so many challenges in dating that I've sort of given up. Right now I have a boy, I have a slave and I have some local boys and I have some not local boys. Right, I'm in my orbit and I am not currently convinced that I'm going to find a man who can meet all the things I need to fill that sort of boyfriend slot. And so I cobbled together out of my various polyamorous relationships pieces that kind of meet the boyfriend slot, and it's not it is not a great feeling to think, well, I'm just going to have to give up on the boyfriend slot and I don't think I will stay in that place permanently. But that's where I am today.

Speaker 1: 6:25

I have been reading about polyamory in order to do the legwork. This was especially essential as I started moving towards a relationship with my slave, as this is his first polyamorous relationship. So I had already read most of the ethical slot, which, if you don't know, is sort of the original polyamory Bible, and I, you know, I read most of it and I'm like, okay, a lot of it just felt very obvious to me and it was quite radical at the time it was written, but I just didn't feel like it provided me a lot of tools. And then I heard people talking about polysecure. So, as the slave and I were moving into a relationship, I said we're both going to read polysecure. I read polysecure. The slave has not yet Just just putting that out into the podcast of here. The slave is not, but I read it and I really liked it.

Speaker 1: 7:30

You know, the whole first part of it is about attachment theory and then it really uses that to frame polyamory and polyamorous relationships, one of the things I took from polysecure. So before I read, when I was back in a sort of ethical slut model and historically in my relationships there was my primary partner and then there were a series of secondary relationships, and historically I've also done things like save certain things from my primary partner, like I can only cuddle with my primary partner, I can only have sleepovers with my primary partner or only fuck my primary partner, whatever and secondary is just how to kind them Okay. Well, that's the way it is. You have to accept that I have, in part because of polysecure, really moved away from that. If someone's going to be my primary right now, they have to understand that what makes them my primary is the relationship and security that we form and the attachment we form, and not a list of XYZ that I only do with them. I no longer feel like I have to reserve parts of me or my sexuality for one relationship and that somehow sharing them and others devalues them. So that'll be yet another challenge as we date in polyamory. That was something I got from Polysecure. Polysecure also moves away from the language of primary and secondary relationships, in part because that hierarchical system can devalue the secondary and disempower the secondary from decision making and I'm I'm okay with that and I'm on board with that.

Speaker 1: 9:11

It was specifically reading Polysecure that made me question whether or not I was actually single, like In the in when I was operating under the ethical side of cycle. I'm single because I don't have a primary, I just have some secondary relationships. And then I read Polysecure, which sort of equalized our relationships, and I thought, well, wait a second, am I single? I don't know. I have a boy, I have a slave. Those are two important relationships. In what sense am I single? Okay, well, I'm not single, but but I'm open to another relationship, but a specific kind. It just it became very complex for me. So, as much as Polysecure provided me new language, new goals, new understandings and new tools for polyamory also made things a lot more complex in my life. I have just recently ordered the Polysecure workbook as a way of seeing what else it can offer me, and if the slave ever finishes reading the actual book, he may be ordered to do the workbook as well. So, slave, if you listen to my podcast, that could be coming. I'm excited to see what the workbook offers and how it might differ from the book and what it can tell me about my attachment styles. I have some ideas about my rather damaged attachment styles, but hey, let's see. Let's actually look into that, see what that looks like and hopefully will prepare me.

Speaker 1: 10:43

In the meantime, I have been Resisting singledess, you know, for a long time. I felt like this is the longest it's almost two years. It's the longest I have been single. By that I mean is the longest I've not had a primary partner, primary relationship in two years, not even two years. Almost two years, two years that's not a long time. It feels like a long time to me.

Speaker 1: 11:10

I have tried to remind myself that being single is not a problem. I does not a problem. I do not have problems in my life today and that if I make being single a problem, if it's all I talk about when people ask me how are you doing dating so hard, so challenging? I'm tired of going to sleep with my cat. If I make that my narrative, if I feed that energy, then I am simply reinforcing it as the truth of my existence. So I made a decision that being single wasn't a problem.

Speaker 1: 11:42

I made a decision that to not feed energy into that narrative and instead I was going to center joy and gratitude. I'm grateful to have a slave and a boy and milk boy and rubber boy and you know other people moving through my universe in many beautiful ways grateful for that. I'm grateful for abundance and I leaned into being single by by doing a lot of travel. So I just went to claw in Los Angeles. I am going to see my friends in Atlanta in a couple weeks. I'm going to spend some time with my slave. I'm going to mid Atlantic leather. I am going to A leather event at the end of January. I am going to San Francisco in March. I might be going to claw in April. Lean, lean into being single, have adventures and that's great, you know.

Speaker 1: 12:35

But I still frequently encounter bouts of what I call the singles and they often come on the weekend and there are those moments where the heaviness and the weight of being single, I just feel it and it has a lot to do with being a little lonely and not having anyone in my bed. So, even if I'm not technically single in this polyamorous sense, I certainly feel very single at times when there are challenges in my life that I'm moving through, when I am buying groceries by myself, when I am going to bed with my cat. I can feel very single and you know I've been trying to really resist the singles and recently I just sort of hit a giant singles wall and just thought I am done. I am just done with even trying, because the truth is I feel so sorry for anyone I've met in the past. Oh, let's say six months, probably longer, let's say the six months Everyone I meet I view through the boyfriend filter. So, like one of the first things I'm trying to suss out about you is are you single? And if you're single, you instantly get more of my attention and it doesn't matter where in the world you live. Oh oh, you live in Germany, but you're single. Oh, maybe you'll be my boyfriend. Oh oh, you live in Australia and you're 14 hours ahead of me, but you're single. Oh, maybe you'll be my boyfriend. That really obscures the kinds of organic connections I can make with people, particularly ones who are not single, suddenly like lower in my estimation, because you're not available to me through the boyfriend filter, and that is something I am actively working against.

Speaker 1: 14:29

I am actively working against the boyfriend filter and trying to be just done, do any done, and in part that is this sort of moment of acceptance, where this is where I'm at and I'm going to be okay with it. I'm going to go back to joy and gratitude. I'm going to invest my existing relationships because I am done Do any done Peace, calm. But it's also kind of a little bit of a hissy fit right Like I'm done, I am done, do any done. I am done with men Do any done. And I am trying to navigate that bitterness. You know I feel a little bit like coffee, like a little bitter, but I'm still kind of tasty, but you know it's a little bitter.

Speaker 1: 15:14

These are all part of the challenge of polyamory for me, because it also makes me wonder about what available connections I have. Not just that I have a boyfriend slot in my mind, or maybe even in my heart. Do I have a boyfriend slot in my life? If that man came along, would I have time for him? Would I have energy for him? I mean, how do I preserve that time and energy and not take on eight new boys, you know, six boys and a puppy? I don't know how do I preserve availability? And that's something I think about and that is also something that helps when I'm done, do any done.

Speaker 1: 16:00

So I just wanted to kind of share some of the challenges I'm having with polyamory. The big one is am I single? Probably no. Technically yes, kinda Sort of single Right. That's the thing I've been working through. I also wanted to share some of the tools I've been using, both the ethical sled and poly secure birth, both the book and soon the workbook, and those are the things I would like for you to take away.

Speaker 1: 16:29

You know, I don't know if there's a lot of discussion of polyamory. I think there's a lot of discussion of non-monogamy, but polyamory strikes me as something very different. It strikes me as a way of creating these stable, love-based, ongoing relationships that can be really complex, and so hopefully I'm opening up that conversation by sharing some of my own experiences with that and some of my own challenges with that and some of the resources I'm using. So I hope all of that has been vaguely useful for you.

Speaker 1: 17:03

As we conclude the last interlude of season two and you know, even though I'm going to go on hiatus and the podcast won't actually be returning until March 2024, we're going to take a little break to for me to rest but also to build up some episodes. There's a good chance you might get an interlude every now and then when I'm feeling it, because these are fairly easy to produce and because they offer me for myself, a way to reflect on what's going on in my life, and I like that. So I appreciate all of you listening. I hope that you are thinking about polyamory, if only to think God. That's not for me, and I hope you are having a really beautiful end to this year, and I will. I'll be back with a season finale in a couple weeks and happy holidays to all those who celebrate all the various holidays that take place as we conclude the year.