TMI Tuesday – Consider Sex

1. Do you consider your sex to be “conventional”? Why or why not?
   What is conventional? Also, what do you mean by “my sex”? Is it the sex I am, or the sex I engage in? If it’s the former, I am cis and female; which, I guess, is pretty conventional. I am, however, also the submissive partner in a D/s relationship and I fuck men and women, so I’m possibly not that “conventional” after all. If it’s the latter, well, Master C and I do what we do. We are the D/s dynamic I referred to above, we are also a poly couple. I am allowed to have casual sexual encounters so long as I accept the consequences of my actions. That is our “convention”. Everybody has their own thing, their own conventions. If our relationship is viewed from a vanilla, cis-hetero-normative, monogamous lens, then it is anything but “conventional”, but it is what works for us.
    
2. Gender Identity – How do you describe yourself? (Mark one answer)
   • Male
   • Female
   • Trans Male/Trans Man
   • Trans Female/Trans Woman
   • Genderqueer/Gender Nonconforming
   • Different Identity

   I’m sure that it surprises no one at all that I describe myself as being a female (and a woman).
    

3. Sexual Orientation – Are you exclusively?
   • Heterosexual
   • Gay
   • Lesbian
   • Bisexual
   • None of the above, specify if you wish

   Is it possible to be exclusively bisexual? Again, anyone who reads this blog knows that I enjoy sex with men and women and that in addition to Master C, I have a regular partner who is a man, “The Other Guy” and a regular partner who is a woman, “The Girl”. Master C and I both belong to a poly “sharing circle” within which I have sex with other men and women (for what it’s worth, Master C, only has sex with women). By “dictionary definition” I am bisexual; but, as I have said many times, I prefer simply to refer to myself as sexual (along with submissive and slut).
    

4. Is understanding the causes and effects, and the formation of gender stereotypes important?
   I think it is. Only by understanding them can you really challenge them and their underlying causes. 

Bonus: Your thoughts on this – “I’m in a committed relationship, and it feels like asking for consent every time we have sex is overkill – is that wrong?”
This feels like one of those “minefield” questions, and I guess everyone will have their own particular take on it. Within the context of my relationship with Master C, we operate under what might be described as a “negotiated implied consent” arrangement. What that means in practice is that we have pretty much agreed that anything goes and is permitted but, that at any point, either of us can withdraw consent to any particular activity. In practice, by way of example, Master C does not need to ask if He can fuck me in the arse, but if I really don’t want to be fucked in the arse, I can make it “off limits”.  On a particular occasion, I might not want my throat to be fucked, but I’m quite happy to suck His cock, so consent for the former is withdrawn, but consent for the latter remains in place and is very happily applied. We have our own particular ways for me to indicate that something is a “no” and, due to the fact I may not always be able to communicate this vocally, this includes non-verbal signals as well.

It’s also worth noting that within the D/s dynamic, I may often ask Master C if I can do something, e.g. “Would Sir like me to suck His cock?” or I might ask Him to do something to me, e.g. “Would my Master like to fuck me in the arse?” or “Would Sir care to eat my cunt?” These are active confirmations of my consent for Master C to do those things to me, but they are also an opportunity for Him to refuse.

All couples will have their own approaches to this, so there is no one size fits all answer that will work for everyone. What is important is that it is understood that consent can be withdrawn by either party, for any act, at any time and for any reason and that if it is, it must always be respected .

Definition

The poser set by Quote Quest this week is all about definitions.

“I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.”

– Zadie Smith

It is interesting, to me at least, as there are so many words I would use to define myself:

• Advocate
• Bisexual
• Brat
• Carer
• Cock-sucker
• Counsellor
• Filthy
• Insatiable
• Masochist
• Nympho
• Partner
• Promiscuous
• Sexual
• Slut
• Submissive
• Voracious

The above is not exhaustive, by any means, but it takes account my professional, personal and private lives, and I identify as and with all of the above.

It is fair to say that to “defining me”, I am, to a greater or lesser degree, fully responsible for the above being attributable; I chose my career, and I chose to fully explore my sexuality as well as my sexual tastes and desires.

If you’ve read any of this blog, you will know that I am open about the fact that I am attracted to and have sex with men and women; you will know that I enjoy sex with multiple partners; you will know that I have, almost from the beginning of my sexual journey, enjoyed casual sex with random partners; and you will, of course, know that I am submissive and that I submit to Master C.

None of these things have been forced upon me; they are all down to me making conscious choices. That’s not to say others haven’t had input. My parents, my lecturers at university, my colleagues and superiors at work have helped me in the development of my career. The men and women I’ve fucked over the past 30+ years have assisted me in exploring my sexual self. My submission to Master C has, of course, given me a framework and freedom that has allowed me to continue to explore and grow.

While I may not have been the first person to assign the more derogatory terms above to myself, I chose to accept and embrace them, weaving them into my own narrative and making them part of my sexual identity.

I am extremely fortunate to be in a place in my life where, at work, I have a career that, while often hugely stressful and demanding, I take great satisfaction from and, at home (and not at home), I have the freedom to enjoy exploring me, and to indulge my passions and desires.

So where does D/s fit into all this?

Well, largely it is because Master C allows me the freedom, within parameters that we’ve worked out, to explore. Master C provides support, He nurtures and helps me grow, He guides and sometimes He corrects. What Master C does not do, however, is limit me. Again, this is because my submission is my choice; Master C did not force it upon me. I chose to offer it and He chose to accept it. While, in one sense, the application of the dynamic is His “responsibility” as the Dominant, the detail of the dynamic is something that we have developed between us. Ultimately we are the authors of the dictionaries of our lives, but we are the co-authors of the dictionary of our D/s dynamic and our life together.

My sexual personality

I actually learned two new words when I read this week’s prompt: ambivert being someone who has a balance of extrovert and introvert features in their personality, and omnivert being someone who displays classic traits of both introverts and extroverts, in specific situations. When it comes to sex, I think I may be something of a mix of both of these.

I am a fairly outgoing person in all aspects of my life, and when it comes to most things sex related, I’m no different. That “most” in there is key however. I am completely open about my sexuality, I am a bisexual woman who is attracted to and enjoys sex with men and women. I am open about the kinds of sex I enjoy; specifically the rough, hard kind that leaves me aching all over and feeling thoroughly used. I make no bones about my inability to be monogamous, and the fact that I still, on occasion, will pick up random men or women for casual, and often anonymous sexual encounters. I don’t hide the fact that I have deep masochistic tendencies that Master C helps me explore and fulfil. It should come as no surprise that I love sucking cock, I enjoy having my arse fucked every bit as much as my cunt, I will never have enough of having my cunt licked, or enjoying the taste of another woman’s cunt. I get off on being humiliated, and I have a strong predilection for cum, be it in me or all over me.

I think it’s fair to say that if someone was creating an illustrated dictionary of sex, when you got the the entry on “submissive slut”, there’d be a good chance you’d find a picture of me.

Except, of course, you almost certainly wouldn’t.

Which is where one of the more contradictory aspects of being “me” comes in.

I am absolutely comfortable in my skin. I accept my lumpy and wobbly bits and the fact that as I approach my 50s, they are lumpier and wobblier and decidedly less pert than the were in my 20s. My body has had enough compliments from enough partners down the years for me to not have hang-ups about it (although, I suspect, the basis for a large part of those compliments was what I was prepared to do with and allow to be done to my body, but I digress).

I don’t know how many people have seen me naked, in person, but it’s a lot; be they my sexual partners, people who have seen me in swinger’s clubs or dungeons, or people who have chanced upon me when I’ve been indulging in sex outdoors. There is also the fact that I am no stranger to nudist beaches.

It’s not that I deliberately go out of the way to show off my body, or be naked in public (although there are occasions when I do this under instruction from Master C), it’s simply that I am comfortable being naked, and if people see me in that state, it’s fine.

One thing you won’t see very often, however, is photos of me naked. As a general rule, I don’t post those, and the few that I have posted are always carefully edited to make sure I’m not identifiable. Why is this? I’m not entirely sure. In one sense, there is no difference between someone seeing me naked, or engaging in sex, than there is someone seeing a photo of me naked or engaging in sex, and yet, there very much is.

I can kind of control what happens when people see me in the flesh. In the context of clubs/dungeons/etc., photography/filming is not permitted (except where all the parties have agreed in advance), and as a rule, what happens in the club/dungeon, stays there. OK, if I’m frolicking in some secluded outdoor spot, and someone snaps a photo of me, there’s not much I can do, but fucking al fresco always has some element of risk; that’s part of why I do it.

Posting photos, however, means kind of giving up control. Once that photo is out there, I no longer have any real say in how the viewer of that photo chooses to use it, or how they themselves choose to share it. That bothers me and so that is why although I participate in any number of blogging memes where I openly discuss sex, I don’t participate in memes like Monochromatic, Sinful Sunday, Love Your Selfie or any other photo based meme. Despite being comfortable letting people see me naked and/or having sex in person, somehow letting people (with a few notable exceptions) see photos or videos of me naked and/or having sex, is something that makes me uneasy, and so it is something I will very rarely do. I am willing to share my body, and frequently do, but not images of my body.

So yes, I am definitely quite extroverted in most aspects of my life in general and my sex live/sexuality in particular, but there are times and instances where I am definitely much more reticent (I don’t think I could really call myself introverted in any way that people would believe). As I said, I’m definitely something of a contradicyion.

The most accurate term to describe me, although not especially scientific, is a contrary bisim.

Foundations

In their 1999 track, “Affirmation”, the band Savage Garden wrote:

I believe you can’t control or choose your sexuality
I believe that trust is more important than monogamy

In a way, those words are central to my view of myself, and my relationship with Master C.

I make no bones about the fact that I consider myself to be bisexual. I am sexually attracted by both men and women. I’ve mentioned before that the first time another person brought me to orgasm, it was, quite literally, at the hands of another girl; “The Girl” to be precise. I won’t repeat the details as you can read them if you follow the link to that earlier post, but the point was, at no time did what I was doing with “The Girl” seem in any way wrong. Yes, as I alluded to in that earlier post, the nature of all-girls schooling being what it was, while no one wanted to be known as a virgin, no one particularly wanted to be openly branded as a slut (although we “sluts” were quite happy to compare slutiness notes and tips within our own friend circles). The only thing “worse” than being a slut was, almost inevitably, to be a “lez”.

Of course, by the time I left school at 18, I was no longer a virgin and had had a number of sexual partners, both male and female and, name-calling aside, it all felt good and right. Sex with male and female partners was different, and different partners did different things, but it was all sex and it was all about pleasure and it was all good (apart from the times where it wasn’t, but, sadly, bad sex happens sometimes; we all have had our disappointments somewhere). Never, at any point did I ever feel the need to pigeonhole myself into a category that potentially limited how I could enjoy myself and who I could enjoy myself with.

I was fortunate. I had a good relationship my mother where I could discuss sex and sexuality openly. And, while I didn’t give her a running tally of how many  partners I’d had, I was able to talk to her about the fact that I was attracted to, and had had sex with boys and girls. My mum’s advice was essentially, if fucking someone makes you happy, go ahead and fuck them (she didn’t use those exact words, but they convey her meaning). That, essentially, since the earliest days of sexual awakening has been central to my self-image and approach to my sex life.

So, that’s the first line of the quote dealt with, now on to the second…

At no time in our relationship have Master C or I been exclusive. When we first met, we were essentially fuck-buddies/friends-with-benefits and both of us had other arrangements in addition to what we shared with each other. When we became a couple, we agreed at the outset that, given our history, and the nature of our personalities (mine, I suspect, more so than Master C’s) that even attempting to be exclusive would be pointless. We both knew that even if we could do it, it almost certainly wouldn’t satisfy either of us , and, in the worst case scenario, could possibly drive an irreparable wedge between us.  The solution was, quite simply, total honesty. Even before we became what would now be recognised as D/s, there was still the requirement that we were both free to fuck anyone else, so long as we were always honest about it.

This isn’t to say that there weren’t jealousies and insecurities, because we are both human, but it allowed us to find something that worked and what would, ultimately, lay the foundation of our D/s dynamic. In a way, Master C telling me how much pleasure another woman had given Him would become a kind of punishment or a form of humiliation for me. Me admitting to my indiscretions and having to be disciplined in order to atone for them, would, of course bring corporal punishment into the mix. In a very real sense, our particular D/s dynamic evolved out of a recognition that, so long as we were emotionally “faithful” to each other by being open and honest, the “need” for monogamy disappeared.

This does not mean that other emotional attachments aren’t allowed. There is obviously a very strong emotional (as well as sexual) bond between “The Girl” and me that extends back more than a decade before I’d even met Master C. There is also a lesser, but still strong emotional attachment between “The Other Guy” and me as well. For His part, Master C  is very closely attached to one of the other women in our poly circle. The point is, that we know about this, and we are honest about these things, both with ourselves and with each other. While some of them may be friends, or perhaps a little more, the various sexual others in our lives are simply people we have sex with, either on our own, or together. None of those others, however, share a bond with us that is anything like the bond that Master C and I share. We are partners in every sense. If I’m allowed to be vomit-inducingly cringe-worthy for a second, we complete each other. Yes, we love, we fuck and sometimes we fight but, most importantly, we share, we confide, we support, we occasionally drive each other nuts, we argue and then we make up (and there’s almost always fucking involved). All of those are foundations of not just our D/s dynamic, but our relationship and our lives together, and they are all built on the bedrock of openess, honesty and trust.

Almost limitless

When it comes to sex, I’ve always had a fairly “anything goes” attitude. I’ve always been willing to try new things, I like to experiment, I like to have my boundaries pushed.

There is a difference, I think, between boundaries and limits. My boundaries have definitely expanded since I started on my sexual journey. My natural curiosity led me to try (and enjoy as it turned out) things like anal, sex with other women, group-sex, bondage, swinging, etc. I’ve had casual sex with both men and women, I get off on risky situations such as sex in fairly public place where there is a risk (to varying degrees) of getting caught. In my student days, I once even caught a night bus back from a club with a guy’s cum (albeit dried by the time the bus finally showed up) all over my face.

There is a thrill of trying new things, of experiencing new sensations in different circumstances. Far from being limits, my boundaries are simply things I haven’t tried. Some I have actively wanted to do, some I was less keen on trying, and some, up until I found myself doing them, I hadn’t even considered.

There are, however, a few things that I won’t do.

Anything involving scat/urine/blood is out.  While I have no problem (massive understatement) with anal, rimming is something I won’t do. Similarly, if a cock has been in my arse, even though a condom has been worn, it isn’t going anywhere else until it has had a bloody good wash.

One final thing: needles.  I have a pathological fear of them. I even have to get knocked out when I go to the dentist. So, they are an absolute no-no.

I don’t really have many limits, and those that I have are definitely hard, and, have remained constant from the very start.

Apart from those, as I said at the start, anything goes.

 

On display

It’s a nerve wracking experience, even for those of us who have a reasonably positive body image, letting someone see you naked for the first time. It doesn’t matter how many partners you’ve had, or how good you feel about yourself, the first time you expose yourself to another person, your latent insecurities come bubbling to the surface.

Will they really like what they see? Will they be repulsed by the various marks, scars and blemishes that a lifetime of simply living have inflicted on our skin?  Those bits of us that we personally despise for their imperfections: our knees, our legs, our bums, our tummies, our boobs, our necks, our bingo-wings all get magnified out of proportion when first exposed to a new partner’s gaze.

But the first time, the very first time, the time when another person’s eyes gaze on our naked bodies for the very first time is something, I suspect, we will never forget.

For me, the experience is more vividly remembered than my first blow-job and losing my virginity combined.

The boy in question had recently turned 16; I was still 15. I was a gawky teenager, my body still somewhere between that of a girl and a woman; a mixture of sharp angles and soft curves. I had spots, I had freckles, my boobs looked like they were at least one size too big for the rest of me, as if my body hadn’t yet caught up. I also had (and still do for that matter) ginger pubes.

There was a naïve nervousness combined with anticipation. Sure, he’d seen me in my underwear before, so he knew in general terms what my body looked like. He’d seen and played with my boobs before, so I knew that he liked them. Getting naked with him, however, was totally different.

Having him slowly remove my outer layers was intensely arousing. I was almost oblivious to the fact that I was doing the same to him. Having my bra removed and standing there in just my knickers sent shivers through me.

He took the next step, discarding his boxer shorts, to stand naked before me. I marvelled at his body. I loved how his cock, hard and proud, stuck out from his body. I’d seen his cock before, of course; I’d sucked his cock before. Now however, with his full body on display before me for the first time, his cock looked bigger, harder and more enticing than ever.

He sat on the edge of my bed, and I knelt on the floor between his legs. I took his cock in my mouth and sucked him hungrily. As I sucked him, my fingers explored every inch of him that the could reach. When he came, I swear it was the biggest load of cum I’d ever had to swallow.

I lay down on my bed and felt his eyes on me. I knew what was coming next. All that remained between me and him was a very small and very wet pair of knickers.

I closed my eyes as I let him remove them. I could feel his eyes on me, devouring my nakedness. In that instant I learned the difference between being unclothed and being naked. I’d been unclothed before, but for the first time, there in my bedroom, there with him, I was naked.

Naked… What a wonderful word. I was exposed. I felt vulnerable. There was nowhere I could hide. I was naked.

He explored my body with his fingers. He explored my body with his lips and tongue. He went down on me, and the orgasms he gave me seemed more powerful, more intense, than any he had ever given me before, and all because I was naked.

Afterwards, we lay in each other’s arms; holding each other, exploring each other with our fingers, feeling the warm of each other’s bodies.

I’ve displayed my body to many partners since then, and the first time I do so, still gives me goosebumps. That very first time however was special; nothing will ever feel like that again.

Vicarious Sex

I can’t actually remember the circumstances that led to me discovering my brother’s stash of well thumbed porno mags, but I remember my reaction when I found them. By the standard of what you can find with absolutely no effort online today, they were extremely tame. The few hard-core examples mostly had any actual penetration obscured with coloured ovals. The rest were simply your run of the mill skin mags like Mayfair, Escort, Penthouse and the like. The images in them were almost exactly the same as you would find in issues of the same publications today; only this being the mid 1990s, the girls in them had considerably more pubic hair than their contemporary counterparts. There was never any doubt as to whether the girl in question was a natural blonde or not.

I sat transfixed, slowly turning the pages, marvelling at how sexy and how confident these women were. The comments next to the pictures seemed to emphasise how much they were in control of their sexual desires and appetites. It would be another decade before I would have sex with a woman; I didn’t consider myself to be bisexual then, hell, I wasn’t even sexual back then, but those sexy photos turned me on.

If the images were arousing, I wasn’t at all prepared for the letters. There were descriptions of people fucking, descriptions of guys getting their cocks sucked and eating girls’ cunts out, descriptions of girls getting eaten out and sucking guys cocks, descriptions of orgasms, descriptions of threesomes, orgies, outdoor sex, anal sex, sex, sex and more fucking, hot, wonderfully glorious sex. The words turned me on more than anything I had ever experienced before.

Needless to say, a couple of the magazines were secreted away before I returned the box to its hiding place. Once I’d exhausted a particular batch of “contraband” I’d return them and borrow another couple, slowly working my way through his entire collection which, I discovered, much to my delight, was frequently being added to.

As I’ve mentioned before, when I first discovered my brother’s illicit treasure trove, I had yet to discover the joys of wanking. Reading all those marvellously filthy words turned me on immensely, yet frustrated me almost in equal measure. Wanking, and in particular, girls wanking seemed to be the one thing those letters omitted. I wasn’t even aware that girls could wank, let alone have any inkling as to the mechanics of how it could be done.

When, at last, I’d made that particular discovery, the magazines took on a whole new resonance; they became the fuel for my fantasies. I would lie in bed, fingering myself into a frenzy, imagining I was one of those wantonly liberated women who fucked, and licked and sucked any cock that took my fancy. In the safety of my bedroom, with the door firmly locked, I practiced the erotic poses of the girls in the pictures in front of the mirror. As I grew bolder, I would wank myself, watching my reflection, learning how my body responded to arousal, slightly amused and slightly horrified by my facial expressions as I came.

Those magazines taught me that there was no shame to be derived from being a woman that enjoyed sex and being confident in her sexual identity. In the three years it took me between sucking my first cock and finally losing my virginity, I fucked vicariously through those beautifully vivid and deliciously filthy descriptions of sex.

To this day, I still don’t know if my brother was aware he wasn’t the only one in our house getting off to those magazines.

A question of sexuality

Here is how the ever helpful Urban Dictionary defines bisexual:

bisexual /bʌɪˈsɛksjʊəl,-ʃʊəl/

A person capable of having physical, romantic, and sexual attraction attractions towards both sexes.

Now, aside from the small matter of the “both sexes” part of that definition, which is perhaps a debate for another day, since I admit to the fact that I am not only attracted to both men and women, but that I have also had sex with both men and women then I am, quite clearly, bisexual; right?

Well, yes and no…

What?

Well, OK, fair enough, in a strict dictionary sense of the word, I am a bisexual woman. The thing is, while I freely use the term as a convenient shorthand to describe my sexuality, that’s not really how I define myself.

It is generally accepted that an individual human’s sexual preference lies somewhere on a spectrum between 100% heterosexual and 100% homosexual.  Me, personally, I would put myself somewhere around 75% on the heterosexual side.

I’m going to be perfectly honest here and say I love cock; I have done since I sucked my first one at 14 and discarded my virginity at 15.  I love the way it feels in my cunt, I love the way it feels in my arse, I love to suck them and there’s nothing I love more than being taken thoroughly by a man; rough, hard, slow, tender, it depends on the mood and it’s all good.

But, at the same time, I am, and pretty much always have been, attracted to my own sex.  I love our soft curves and sexy bulges, I love boobs as much as any man does, I love burying my face between another woman’s thighs, tasting her juices as I feast on her cunt. For the record, the first person, apart from myself that is, to make me come, was another girl and, despite being blissfully happy in my relationship with Master C, I still have a regular “girlfriend” that I have sex with.

I should point out that, not only does Master C approve of this, He actively encourages it, and insists that I give Him a blow-by-blow (or should that be lick-by-lick) account of my extra-curricular activities with “The Girl”.

So yes, I enjoy fucking and being fucked by women; so, by that dictionary definition above, I am bisexual.

Truth be told, however, if you put a gun to my head and forced me to choose one over the other, and told me I could never have the other one again; in that scenario there would be no hesitation. As much as I enjoy cunt, I could not live without cock.  For me, cock is the cake, cunt is the icing; together they compliment each other, individually, icing alone is never going to be as satisfying as cake.

So where does that leave us in trying to “define” my sexuality?  Am I bisexual, or am I a straight woman who will sometimes forgo the meat and enjoy the vegetarian option instead?

I don’t like labels. Labels are used by narrow-minded people to try and stuff us into boxes that fit their way of thinking. And that’s fine, except it’s their definition and while it defines me to them, it doesn’t define me to myself.

Personally, the only way of describing myself that I am truly comfortable with is as a sexual human being.  I love sex, the gender of the person I’m having sex with doesn’t actually matter so long as I am having sex with the person my mood decides I want to be having sex with.

Another description is slut, but that pretty much goes without saying.