And now: a long overdue update
Other than the writing I’ve just posted (which I actually wrote last night, and put first on Fetlife), I’ve not updated this blog for several months.
The latter part of 2013 was… hard. Very hard. My fainting fit at my first weekend with the Ranger turned out to be seizures. I have Non-Epileptic Attack Disorder, it turns out: probably kicked off by stress from the divorce, and the fall-out from all of the abuse (both by my family, and by the Warrior). Then I spent much of the autumn very mentally ill indeed, and frequently suicidal. The combination of the two have led to a massive flare-up of my ME/CFS, and I’m mostly needing to use my wheelchair when out and about.
I got through it. I got through it, and spring is here. I’m still living with the Magician, and we have Exciting Life Plans. And I’m still in a relationship with the Ranger — indeed, we count the beginning of our relationship from March 17th, so it’s our anniversary in a few days. Both my relationships are a constant source of joy and strength.
The Warrior and I are now divorced. We’re on oddly quite good terms, especially having had a nice chat at a social event a few weeks ago. We still have some paperwork to sort out. I’m managing to hold in my head that odd twisty thing where I like him and wish him very well, but still have a lot of work to do to heal from his emotional, financial and sexual abuse of me. Brains are funny, people are complex. So the world goes. 😉
My body has changed a little more. Illness has aged me in the past year, and the inevitable lack of exercise from the ME flare-up has led to my putting on some more weight. I’ve been suffering from sporadic problems with emotional over-eating. I’m mostly not too happy about this, but accepting it, especially recalling that it’s likely to be temporary. I finally noticed in the autumn that with the extra weight and just the shape-changing of aging, I am no longer a small-breasted person! I was fitted for bras a few weeks ago, and it turns out that I’m roughly a 34DD. I now have three excellent bras (a plain white sports bra, a gorgeous black plunge bra, a super-sexy black-and-red lacy thing), and also a binder, and so enjoy the wonders of, essentially, optional breasts. As a polygendered person? Really not hating that.
I’m having physiotherapy to sort out some of my joint problems and trouble with walking. I’m getting a little more toned from the physio exercises, and I am noticing yet again that despite everything I actually put on muscle very quickly. I’m managing to lift weights more often, and am starting to get some biceps. Also not hating that.
Sex and kink are hard to do much of when very ill, but I’ve had some glorious times over the last few months for all that, especially with the Ranger. The Magician’s becoming more confident in identifying as “grey-ace”, or simply as asexual, and we have started to find more ways of finding the spaces where our kinks converge and creating beautiful things there. Here is where poly comes into its own, of course, because I am, it turns out, when free from abusive relationships, really an intensely sexual as well as kinky person. The Magician creating art on me and then spanking me and photographing me is both a memory that will stay with me for a while, and an event that we both hope and intend will happen more often! We’ve discussed him painting my breasts. We’ve talked about the use of clothes pegs on my nipples. I’m wondering how it would feel to have him flog my breasts and then draw on them. I have as a motivation for us both to catch up on laundry, to have him choose my outfit before we go out to social occasions, so that all evening I can feel secretly, decoratively, his.
Meanwhile, the last time the Ranger and I were alone in his house, I ended up tied by my wrists to a bedpost and spanked, hard. Then making myself come at his command, while he made patterns with rope across my chest. Then showering together, stroking each other’s wet skin with increasing fervour. Then being pressed against the cold wall of the shower while he kissed me, hard. Then sinking to my knees below the stream of water, taking him in my mouth. Then back in the bedroom, being soundly fucked on my hands and knees. And swearing comedically after he made me come yet again, him wielding a vibrator on my clit, his eyes holding mine.
I also note that it’s been rather too long since I last dominated the Ranger. And I have some fun ideas for what might happen when next I do. 😉
The difference the past year has made to my confidence and ease with my sexuality and kink-self is extraordinary. I suspect I still have some way to go! But it’s wonderful, to be able to feel that none of the things that have happened to me – not the rapes, nor the abuse, nor the crushing daily impact of the patriarchy – have succeeded in permanently robbing me of my sexual power, nor of my sovereignty and confidence in my body. It took a long time, but I am starting to get my power back.
Life and healing have some hard challenges ahead for me, I know. But after such a distance already travelled, and with two such wonderful partners to help me on my journey? I think I’m going to get there. 🙂
Dream recovery…
For the second time since getting involved with the Ranger, last night I dreamed that the Warrior was putting pressure on me to have sex with him again.
His argument was simple: you are doing this, this and this with the Ranger. Therefore you should be doing things with me, too. I was miserable, but a large part of me was all, “oh, well, since you put it like that…”.
The Magician was strangely absent from the dream, which fortunately did not get a lot further before I was woken by the alarm.
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The first time I had a dream like this, it spun me, and left me feeling dreadful. This morning, while I am a little haunted by it, mostly I’m just relieved. I’ve woken up in a world where I don’t ever, *ever* have to let the Warrior touch me, ever again. And if he tries to touch me (in any capacity) without my consent, or tries to pressure me into touching him, then the wrath of a fair number of close friends, which is so far being held in check largely at my request, is likely to descend on him in a pretty bloody impressive way.
I may choose to hug him or shake his hand when I next see him. I don’t have to. I may choose to let him see me naked again (given that we both attend an annual weekend-long gathering at which there is a sauna). Again I don’t have to. It’ll be my choice, entirely. And if I do let him see me naked, it will be with the slightly petty but entirely justified satisfaction of knowing that he will be seeing something he is never, *ever* going to touch, ever again. That my bare skin is for others now, not him. And that I am no longer tied by marriage, by guilt, by being worn down, into feeling responsible in any way for his sexual needs, or his desire for me. I owe him nothing (beyond the decency and respect that I hope to manage towards all), and he has no one to blame for this but himself.
No one, ever, is going to guilt-trip, cajole, whine or otherwise pressure me into sex again. And every time my subconscious disturbs me with my fear of the Warrior getting to do that, I will have the joy of waking into a world where this is not the case.
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And, besides. I highly doubt he even fancies me any more, and as far as I’m aware, he and his girlfriend are intending to be entirely exclusive. Which is fine, and their choice, and clearly what she wanted from him all along. And they’re bloody well welcome to each other. 🙂
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My body, my sexuality – they are for me. But also, they are wonderful, powerful things that I get to share with people of my choosing. People who value me. People who understand consent. People who love me. People who make me tremble with desire. And in the Magician and the Ranger, I know I have chosen exceedingly well. 🙂
And now, the difficult stuff [TW for sexual assault, sexual abuse]
This being the blog in which I talk both about my kink/sex life and about being an abuse survivor?
There is something I’ve not talked about on here, but with my relationship with the Warrior over, it’s time.
The Warrior was not actually very nice to me.
For much of our relationship, he frequently guilt-tripped or otherwise pressured me into sex, and otherwise trampled on my boundaries. Even in the last 2-3 years of our marriage, I had to repeatedly ask and insist and argue until he would finally stop his habit of groping me and then not letting go when I said “no”, saying that he “liked fondling me” (so therefore my preferences about it were irrelevant? :-S ). And then there were other things – him getting in a mood with me when sex hurt me and I had to ask him to stop. And the time when he accidentally penetrated my anus rather than my vagina in the heat of the moment, and was furious with me when I was distressed about it and insisted that he wash before we resumed.
It was no wonder that even though he is a switch, in the latter years, as I started to recognise that I am allowed physical boundaries, I had no interest in submitting to him. I simply did not trust him at all. Dominating him still appealed, but I confess with some shame that my main motivation in wanting to tie his wrists was not lust, but to keep his hands from touching me in ways I did not want or like. It was, by the end, about the only way I could bear to be sexually or kinkily active with him. His submission started to pall, to feel false and even rather nauseating. He fawned on me, but he did not respect me – in the bedroom or out of it. He had me on a pedestal, but did not admire or truly love the fullness of the person that I am. And whenever I fell off that pedestal, he was harsh, patronising, even a little emotionally abusive. He supported me financially and (at least until the Magician came on the scene) was also my primary carer in my disability. Unfortunately he also believed this gave him an automatic moral high ground in our relationship, he resented my neediness and did not deal with that resentment. He treated me as though I were not an adult, not his equal. He was dismayed by my coming out as genderqueer, dismissive of my childhood experiences. The Magician put his finger on it absolutely when he said that even at his best, the Warrior mostly regarded me as a cross between a pet and a social secretary – and I never even noticed the damage that was doing.
Getting together with the Magician changed me, and in ways the Warrior did not like. The Magician’s love, and respect, and care for me made me value myself more. He gave me the courage to explore myself, and to learn to like what I saw. The dissonance between the way they each treated me was often confusing and even painful. Though it still did not really clue me in to how dysfunctional my marriage to the Warrior actually was.
I never consciously noticed it at the time, but while I loved the Warrior for the whole time we lived together, his treatment of me and my subconscious awareness of his own unhappiness in the relationship were a constant, dull, horrible pain and sorrow.
Realising that I was abused as a child was awful and overwhelming, but it also gave me an excuse to just back the hell away from my sexuality and kink-self, and so escape that part of my relationship with the Warrior entirely. The Magician is grey-A, only sporadically kinky and/or sexual himself. And even if that were not the case, he respects me utterly. His attitude was: whatever I needed, was no problem for him at all. But the Warrior hated it. Throughout that whole two years of processing the child abuse, he almost entirely failed to have my back. He saw it as just another example of my being too weird to deal with, and thoroughly resented the lack of sex.
And now? I’m free of him. And, you know, in many ways that freedom hurts! In a few months I will start living on my own for the first time in my life – and I have anxiety, depression, monophobia, agoraphobia and ME/CFS. It’s going to be a massive challenge, and I am afraid. Meanwhile, my living temporarily with the Magician has screwed up his disability benefits (basically because the DWP is run by sociopaths). I’ve gone from a comfortable middle class lifestyle to a poor one, and inevitably that was something of a shock.
So, there is fear. There is grief. There is hurt. And more fear because, you know, anxiety disorder.
But oh goodness, also a joy so fierce it’s sometimes unbearable. The relief of pressure from no longer desperately trying to please and love someone who did not respect me is more powerful than I can describe. And between that and the tremendous support I’ve had from the Magician and various close friends, my mental health is actually remarkably okay right now considering. I feel that with a tremendous weight lifted from me, I am gradually drifting upwards.
And then there has been the last three weeks! To have, suddenly, two partners who both truly respect and love and value the person I am is almost brain-breakingly wonderful. I’ve been actively poly for over 4 1/2 years, but I don’t think I ever truly understood what that meant until now.
And the idea of sex and kink is pleasing and appealing again – and actually, more wonderful than it has been at any time, because I am so much more healed from my childhood from all of the processing I’ve done over the last 2-3 years, as well as being without the Warrior. I don’t feel triggered or trapped or panicky at the idea of doing things, watching things, thinking about things. I’ve been cheerfully watching clips on Dreams of Spanking, and looking forward to when I can afford to get some paid content! I’m looking forward to having both the Magician and New Person take photos of me – neither are photographers at the semi-professional level of the Warrior, but they’re also both pretty good, and could do with the practise. 😉 Above all, I feel I can respect and love myself, as a person with a sexual appetite, as an obedient and hedonistic sub, as a caring and sadistic dom. As a powerful person, whichever form my kink is taking – and I am, at the least, much less scared of that than I have been in the past. As a beautiful genderqueer person, who is now free to explore the possibilities of life with a great deal more freedom and integrity than ever before.
None of which is to say that I’m healed entirely, from the child abuse, from being raped as a teenager, from what I am (with sorrow) coming to regard as a sexually and occasionally emotionally abusive relationship of thirteen years. I am not. But I am closer to it than I have ever been.
It was the Warrior’s decision to leave me for his other partner when she made him choose between us, and while it was mine to end the actual relationship, it was clear that he was only holding back from doing this himself due to lack of courage. The decision to divorce was taken jointly.
It is hard, right now, to feel very grateful to him or his other partner for anything! But I am really, really glad that he chose her over me. However devastating and terrifying many aspects of all this are, it is, I think, going to prove one of the best things that has ever happened to me. 🙂
Also, a note on rage
I was reading more of Healing Sex yesterday, in particular what to do about triggers during sexual activity.
Both during sexual activity and at other times, the most common trigger for me to get at the moment is rage.
This isn’t surprising. I have a *huge* amount of rage and anger stored up from when I was a child. Most of it I turned into anxiety or depression, or bottled it within my body where it contributed to my disabilities and generally high state of physical tension. We all find ways of coping with abuse, and with being taught by abusers that certain emotions aren’t acceptable, and that was mine. I’m not at all an angry person in the way that I interact with people as an adult. But the rage is still there, stored up – and hurting me. And making it harder for me to express legitimate anger when I experience it now.
I think there will come a point where sexual and/or kink activity can be part of healing from that. At the moment, it very much isn’t – and I’m especially scared of hitting some of that anger while topping, for obvious reasons. I have a clearer idea of the kind of Dom I want to be now – one whose power shows in calm, in focus, in quiet control. Very much a benevolent sadism! The Magician’s domminess is very much of that ilk, and it’s what I find sexiest, as well as most accessible from my own character. I think it will dovetail rather beautifully with the Warrior’s cheerful, hedonistic submissiveness, too! It’s also, I note, the most clear and thorough contrast with the total, vicious lack of control that I experienced from my abusers. That is, unsurprisingly, very important to me.
So! One of the things I am working on at the moment is finding ways of expressing and channeling my anger in ways that are satisfying but also non-harmful to myself and others. And, where at all possible, actively helpful!
I’ve had some lovely suggestions from various friends of mine, including sword-fighting with the Magician (he has some LARP swords, and is a fine swordsman himself 🙂 ), learning to bake bread, vicious cleaning in the bathroom, helping the Warrior with throwing bottles into a recycling skip, primal screaming, and getting one of those elasticated stress balls. Practising my jabs and crosses and kicks for the forthcoming acting challenge may also help. I’ve also had hitting (sturdy) trees with sticks suggested to me. I’m less convinced about the last of those, and will at least need to ask permission from the tree before I do it, and thank it afterwards! Maybe one or two might be okay with that though. 🙂
I’ll see how things go. It is very nice to have some ideas to be going on with (though I’m certainly up for more suggestions!) I think that expressing my stored up rage – both as it arises from triggering, and, where I can, as I deliberately seek out new layers of it – is one of the most important healing activities that I can be doing. Wish me luck?
A physical challenge ahead…
I have a new, fun challenge ahead of me.
In a month-and-a-bit, I will be spending the weekend away with the Warrior and some mutual friends, reading through and acting out scripts of a certain tv series of which I am very fond.
I shall be playing an exceedingly active, athletic character, who has a great of fighting to do. She’s also US American and I’m, well, not.
Acting is something that’s hugely important to me, and these play-readings are a uniquely accessible way for me to get to do it, without the long rehearsal and performance process of stage acting (as an amateur or otherwise) that has generally proven destructive for my health. Over the last 2-3 years, however, my acting has been weaker than it used to be. Less emotionally engaged, less nuanced – just… well, less. And it would be very good for me to be able to redeem myself at this weekend.
So, I have the acting to work on. And I have the accent to work on, at least to get it to a point where it’s not actively painful for the one American person who’s going to be there!
And, perhaps above all, I need to work physically, to get myself to a stage both where I can deliver the kind of performance I want to, and not find myself utterly wrecked after the weekend.
There’s a limit to what I’ll be able to do – I’m disabled, dyspraxic and funny-jointed. But with gentle, firm, sensible dedication, I think I can get myself at least a bit more flexible, focused and fit before mid-November.
So! I think that means daily yoga, a little bit of weight-training at least a couple of times a week, walking when I feel up to it, and getting plenty of rest. Plus persuading the Warrior and the Magician to give me massages! I shall also practise the jabs, crosses and little bit of kicking that I learned during an abortive attempt to learn kickboxing a few years ago.
If any of you have other suggestions, I should be very glad to hear them!
I am also wondering whether I can bring in the Magician to help me with this. Even more so having watched this glorious clip from a video by Dreams of Spanking. Real, consensual, loving discipline and D/S from two singularly gorgeous performers. I am entirely endeared, and looking forward very much to the full video! And in the meantime, yes. If the Magician and I are both up for it, some motivational discipline from him could be just what I need.
And oh my am I happy that this is an option after all I’ve been going through. Hooray for healing. 🙂
On stringed instruments, spanking and joyful masochism.
Learning to love being spanked, as a switch, has been a hard thing for me. I was smacked as a child, usually on the bottom, and it caused me real, especially sexual trauma. One of the many reasons why I am passionately opposed to all forms of CP against actual children – it’s not that being smacked turned me into a spanko, it’s that being smacked (along with the rest of the abuse) has been a real obstacle to developing my sexuality in the way that I want to. And that’s just not fair!
I had been fascinated with consensual, adult CP for some time as a Dom, and had caned and paddled the Warrior on many occasions before the Magician and I got together. Meeting and getting together with the Magician gave me a means of finally exploring my submissive side, and it’s been wonderful, not to mention amazingly good for me. The first time we tried some very light spanking on my bottom, however, I became massively triggered, distressed and panicky. Naturally we stopped immediately, and he gave me all of the support, care and love I could want. I was determined to persist, however, and find a way to enjoy this side of myself, free of the flashbacks and intrusive thoughts that my childhood makes me prone to.
It took determination, patience and intelligence from both of us, but these days most of those obstacles have gone, and for the most part, spanking from the Magician is something I utterly love. Well, not necessarily always at the time, but afterwards at least. 😉
It has only just occurred to me, however, that there was something from my youth that I have been consistently tapping into when enjoying spanking, as well as other forms of pain play (scratching and hair-pulling, especially) that the Magician and I indulge in.
I’ve been a stringed instrument player since I was a small child. During my teens, I was a jazz double bass player of some skill. At gigs, in that delightful mindspace that one enters when the music flows through you and all is adrenaline and energy and glory, I would play and play and ride past what was often quite intense pain that the playing invoked. On at least one occasion, literally until my fingers (specifically the index finger on my right hand) bled. I wore the blisters and the soreness as a badge of honour afterwards, and somehow the pain was just another, beautiful element of the general delight that a good gig gave me.
To my regret, I’m no longer a double bass player – it’s a frightfully impractical instrument when you have ME and back problems! But I am learning the ukulele at the moment, and as I type this my fingers of my left hand are stinging and aching and… it’s rather fantastic.
It reminds me too of sore feet when I’m well enough to go on long walks. Of the scratches on my hands when scrambling on rocks. The kinds of pain that come as a welcome intensifier of joyful, life-affirming activities. The kind of masochism that is absolutely about being strong and creative and delighting in the world around me. I usually regard myself as a sadist, a dominant and a submissive in terms of my sexuality. But I really do have a masochistic streak as well. And it lies so close to a lot of the healthiest parts of my brain, that this may help me spread that healthiness around all sorts of bits of me. 🙂
I admit I am also wondering whether, at some point, the Magician might be up for a scene that involves me practising my uke under his orders. I could see that being a quite ridiculous amount of fun. I shall have to ask him. 🙂
Referring to my partners :-)
“My Dom” and “my Sub” seems inadequate. Not least because that is so very, very far from being all of who they each are to me. They are my life-partners, and my Sub is also my spouse.
I have been indulging in an awful lot of myths and fairy tales lately. My head is full of the imagery. And so, at least for now, I shall name my Dom “the Magician”, and my Sub “the Warrior”. My Sub is a very gentle man indeed, but there is something of the Warrior about him nevertheless, especially the Warrior on an heroic quest. And it nicely subverts that frustrating (and inaccurate) idea of the male Sub as weak or pathetic. My Sub is anything but that. 🙂
So! Magician and Warrior it is. At least for now. 🙂
motleywanderer 