Tag Archives: friends with benefits

Sex Club Etiquette

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What do you do when you go to a sex club or swingers club for the first time? What behaviors are expected? How do you interact with someone that invited you, or with others that you meet there? We don’t grow up learning scripts for sex clubs (generally speaking!) so it’s up to our adult selves to learn how to navigate these new social/sexual situations. Hopefully this piece sheds some light on some generally accepted modes of behaving.

Many sex clubs have sets of rules that will help guide members’ behaviors. Club Sesso in Portland offers the following list:

  • No Cell Phone Use (including texting or swapping phone nunbers)
  • Ask Before You Touch- Ask Once and Only Once
  • No Means No
  • Do Not Stalk People
  • Treat Everyone with Dignity and Respect
  • Do Not Open Closed Doors or Curtains
  • Do Not Interrupt Others
  • Do Not Be Creepy
  • Do Not Masturbate Outside Play Areas
  • Clean Up Your Own Mess
  • Use Common Sense!

The list seems pretty intuitive, right? It’s surprising how many people I’ve seen break the rules, intentionally and unintentionally. On the whole, though, I’ve witnessed respectful behavior and good communication at Sesso.

But what about the more subtle and complex interactions for which rules aren’t made explicit or posted?

Or what about when you meet your long-time sexy friends at the sex club and you or they end up hooking up with new people before you have a chance to check in?

What happens when you meet a new friends with benefits at the club and they end up hooking up with someone else?

We once brought a woman as a guest, who I had met on a dating site and had a date with. I didn’t expect us to have sex and I knew she was interested in socializing and checking out the space. And yet, when she ended up going into a room with a couple she met there, leaving us to wait for her for an hour until she was done so we could drive her home, I ended up feeling a little resentful. Not because I felt like I had a right to have sex with her, but because the communication between the two of us was sorely lacking.

Communication is key. Proactive communication is the best. Have conversations with your partners, new friends, potential new hook-ups, etc before anything happens: flush out who, what, where, how, when, why. Make agreements before entering a social/sexual space so that you have a foundation from which to explore. This does get tricky when you are going with a new date or meeting them there, as perhaps those more explicit conversations wouldn’t naturally take place yet, so it’s even more important to buck up and talk about your expectations, desires, and comfort levels. Part of navigating a social/sexual space like a swingers club is social intelligence, too: what would it tell you if someone you brought left your side to go hook-up with someone else without an explanation? That kind of exclusive behavior can signal a lack of interest unless there has been some explicit verbal communication to provide more robust information.

Options:

“Hey, you’re really cute! I’d love to play tonight if we get the opportunity, so let me know if you’re up for it!”

“Hi friends! We’d love to play tonight, but we’re also open to playing with the new people we met here tonight. So if we don’t play tonight is that okay with you?”

“I know we’ve only had one date, and there is definitely no pressure for us to do anything, but I would love to hang out more and have some time to talk with you more while we’re here together.”

How do you navigate sex/swingers clubs? How does it feel different operating as a couple versus a single person? Have you encountered especially tricky situations, or can you imagine what some might be? How did you resolve them, or how would you want to?

 

Surprise Me in the Shower

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I was waiting for you, but I didn’t plan my time well. I’m naked, sweaty from my day of working out and being in the sun, standing in the shower, hanging the shower curtain back up. I know you are coming, and as I have my back to the door, I think I hear something. I think to myself: it would be so crazy if he was standing behind me, naked, ready to pounce.

My head slightly turns, as if my nervous system perceives you before the rest of me does. I yell in surprise, laughing at myself. And you are how I imagined: naked, ready to pounce.

We make out in the shower, you kissing my neck and ears, me stroking your cock and feeling your body- your ass and stomach and back. After just a few minutes I want you even more than before. I turn around and bend over and you slide your cock inside me and start pounding away. It feels so fucking good, and I’m yelling more and more. Eventually (ten minutes later maybe?), we need a change of furniture, and move to the bedroom.

I get on top of you, riding your cock, faster and faster.  You grab my stomach and my tits hard- just how I like it. I come once and then twice and then a third time. Each time I feel more and more immobilized, my body in orgasmic shock. I roll off of you and you pound me in doggy style again, grabbing my shoulders and hair, eventually shooting your load deep into my pussy. 

We’re both sweaty. We take another shower, this time lightly kissing and massaging, breathing deeply, our bodies calmed.

I love surprises.

Hard and Soft

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*My blogging this week took a hit from life stuff (good things!) and this post should have gone up yesterday. Better late than never!

You came to watch me dance. We have both been waiting for this kind of encounter for a long time- two or three years? You walked in the room and my stomach did a flip. I felt energized and nervous- please don’t fall in your heels. We brush hands and legs and feet. I want to kiss you so badly, but I can’t. You stay for hours and I watch you from the stage, watching me, drinking, laughing. 

We leave and I can’t take it anymore. We get around the corner, away from the view of any staff or other dancers or other customers. You pull me close and we kiss, soft at first and then harder. I feel energized and nervous. It’s almost 3am, but all of a sudden I don’t care about my sleep deprivation. Come home with me.

You follow me home, my stomach doing flips. Nervous, I pull into my driveway. You follow me, and we go straight into the bedroom. The anticipation seems to be dragging my whole body onto the bed, pulling you with me. 

We lay there, making out, pulling off clothes, sucking each other. I come once and twice and three times. I want your cock inside of me, but only after I’ve gone down on you while you’ve held my head. You’re on top of me, push my legs up to my head so far I’m not sure I can take it anymore. Later, I climb on top of you riding your cock hard and fast, yelling for your come. When you do, I feel waves through my body- it’s delicious. 

We fall asleep, spooning. Skin on skin. This is the soft part.

We sleep for a couple of hours, until I wake up to your hard cock pressed into my ass. I feel wet and excited all over again, and I want your cock buried inside of me. You fuck me that way until you come again. And again- delicious, satisfying.

We fall asleep, softly.

 

Mercurial Women

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Lately, I have become much more attuned to the fact that the women in my life are a mercurial bunch, making up silvery, green, blue tidal waves, crashing, swirling, soothing, refreshing.

Friends, lovers, sexual friends, girlfriends, best friends, play partners, want-to-be-lovers, want-to-be-girlfriends, want-to-be-friends.

As many of my long-time readers are aware, I have pined for a girlfriend-type relationship for quite some time. And since breaking up with my first girlfriend this past fall, I have in various ways, pushed romantic connections with women to the sidelines of my mind. In the past few weeks I have witnessed relationships in my life popping up in various ways, old and new, showing me the  beautiful ways in which I am connected to women in my life.

I’ve been more appreciative recently of the ways in which all of these relationships are fitting together, like puzzle pieces. It’s been another way for me to gain experience and perspective into how my open relationship allows me to get different things from different people and relationships. I’ve had the experience of getting a lot of my “being with women” desires met in one relationship, and now I am having the experience of cultivating a rich network of woman friends and lovers and partners who all bring something unique and meaningful to my life. (Mind you, that network has been present in my life for a while, but it has been growing recently in both breadth and depth, and, like I mentioned at the beginning, I am more attuned to it recently.)

Thinking about the post on patience I just wrote, I am feeling more patient right now- feeling peaceful with the relationships present in my life, grateful for their presence, and mindful that everything I need I already have.

waves

On Wanting What I Can’t Have

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I think I have that classic condition of wanting what I can’t have.

It took full force in high school, when I pined for four years for a particular jock d-bag. I have not been able to fully undo this unfortunate psychological tug-of-war. (It’s better, but not non-existent)

Scorn me, ignore me, look at me out of the corner of your eye, play hard to get, too busy for me, we want different things: I’m there. Want me? Give me lots of attention? I’m looking elsewhere. What the hell? (I’m simplifying and making it more black-and-white than it is, obviously.)

This has been impacting me recently in that casual sex opportunities are abundant, or at least fairly easy to plan and execute and enjoy in my life, both with men and women. Casual sex is, like Schmitt describes in “New Girl” (new guilty pleasure), a delight of tastings or samplings, or something like that. I get something from casual sex (whether it’s in the context of a fuck buddy or FWB relationship) that I don’t get in a heady, deep, romantic encounter: low-key, relaxed, fun and compartmentalized sexual satisfaction. We meet, we chat, we fuck, we part. Until the next time.

But when I taste what that deeper connection feels like, I crave more (most of the time). And besides my relationship with J (which is deep, meaningful, beautiful, romantic, hot, experimental, and fun), I do not currently have another “sparks flying” kind of relationship in my life. When I sense it with someone (whether it’s a friend or someone I have just met), I get excited, I crave it, and I stop desiring the casual sex so much.

[I don’t like the language of describing casual sex as “cheap” or necessarily as non-intimate, because it just doesn’t accurately describe my experiences with casual sex. I’ve had plenty of NSA sex that has been intimate, and the word “cheap” implies that casual sex isn’t good enough or equal to sex within strings-attached sex.]

And yet, I think there is always a lesson to reflect on in this: Right now, fuck buddy and FWB relationships work for me. For the past 6-7 months I have: had a wedding and a honeymoon, broken up with a girlfriend, started school and kept myself extremely busy with it, decided to leave school, applied like mad for jobs, and got a job. Life has been a little nuts. If I am honest with myself, I haven’t had the time or capacity to tend to another intimate romantic relationship in that time (or put another way: I didn’t prioritize it in the past 6 months). And yet, it’s what I feel like I want. But do I? Now that I have my 9-5 job, I have been getting up early to work out, and then I get home, tired, with only a couple of hours to catch up with J before we both fall into bed. Do I have the time and energy necessary to devote to another deep relationship?

I think my lesson is this: Perhaps casual sex is just what works for now, and perhaps life will hand me another kind of opportunity when I am ready for it. Instead of constantly looking to what the other side of the fence looks like (NSA vs SA sex), I want to try to be content with whatever configuration of relationships in my life looks like, and accept them for what they are. (Ha, I realize I have written so many posts about this. It’s my life’s work.)

heartalone

Random Things

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I’m not sure what this post is about, but I realized I haven’t posted anything in a few days so I felt compelled to write something.

Here’s a cute self care thing I did a couple days ago: I wrote affirmations on individuals pieces of paper and put them in my heart coffee mug. They say things like:

I now affirm that I love others without expecting anything in return.

I now affirm the gratitudee for everything in my life.

I now affirm that I can assert my boundaries and still be loved.

I now affirm that my body is always changing and always beautiful and always perfect.

I have been picking one in the morning and one in the evening. It’s been a way for me to meditate and keep positive thoughts in my head throughout the day.

Also, I have had a number of job interviews this week and another lined up for next week. That is exciting!!

I have been waiting for my sex drive to pick back up. Since I met with my professor a month ago and J had his vasectomy, between my stress and his pain, our sex life took a bit of a plummet. I can feel my sexual energy gearing back up, but it hits me at random times. I can’t count on it yet.

If you want any random reading, here are some fun and interesting articles:

Friends with Benefits

What is Compersion?

The Year in Sex- Continuing in 2014

Cheers!

Being Lovers & Not Having Sex

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This article was recently posted in my FB Open group, and it sparked a number of thoughts for me:

1. Having a bunch of people that I can be physically (but not necessarily sexually) close with sounds really lovely. Luckily, I feel like I have that. I feel like I have a number of people I can hold hands with, sit close next to, hug, and massage. I love that.

 2. I don’t need to “combine stuff” in order to be sexual with someone (I know my regular readers/friends who read my blog already know this about me). But this article again brought up this question for me: What is it about sex for some people that necessitates so much integration with another person before you can have sex? I have theories about individual experiences with sex that could produce this conclusion (insecurities, trauma, personal philosophy, etc.), but this train of thought just doesn’t really resonate with me.
-There’s also the distinction between combining practical life “stuff” (finances, living space, etc.) and intra/interpersonal “stuff” (cognitive, emotional, spiritual, etc.). My perspective still holds, regardless of which “stuff” we’re talking about- that is, I don’t need to be able to “combine stuff” to have a meaningful, enjoyable, satisfying sexual relationship with someone. (Although I understand that for various reasons, some people need to combine various “stuffs” to make their sexual relationships meaningful, enjoyable, and satisfying.)

 3. To me, this article was written by someone who values very deep one-on-one interactions with others. Not all of us have the same value structure in our lives around relationships- some of us (and I suppose I am talking about myself here) value a mix of relationships- deep, close, more superficial, casual, etc- in our lives. Each type of relationship adds something important to my life.

 4. Also for me: love is present in all of these types of relationships. The intensity varies, the meaning of the relationship varies, the ties I feel to each relationship varies. But love is always there.

 What are your thoughts?