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Lady Alaria -> RE: Monogamy, D/s and you (11/23/2006 3:44:46 PM)
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First off, Thank you daddysgirl, for you work in keeping this conversation flowing, and your interesting questions/insights.
And now to your questions:
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ORIGINAL: adaddysgirl
i think there can be both honesty and fidelity.....and trust and loyalty....so i don't really feel one has to choose one over the other. But see, i don't want to demand fidelity....i don't think that will ever work. Rather, i would like to find a partner who views fidelity along the same lines as i do.
I've been in one monogamous relationship only. My first real relationship. It was because it was the default. That's what people do in a relationship, right? It was what I knew, it was normal, it was expected. I was cheated on. I didn't find out until after the relationship died a rather miserable death. I found myself wondering, why didn't he just tell me?
We since talked, became friends, unnerved his girlfriend, and kept a certain distance. He married her, and divorced(after one child). Go figure.
I found out about poly. I declared then, once and for all that honesty was more important then fidelity. I've had several relationship in which I have been, effectively, monogamous. Some they were as well, some not. But the _option_ was always there, and would not be judged if it had occurred. And I've never been 'cheated' on and had the silence and lies tear us apart since.
The problem is, from my pov, that monogamy is the default. It's expected, and many people still feel it's necessary to at least try, because to do otherwise is bad. Many people use monogamy and sexual desire as a manner of controlling someone. In bdsm, we have far better tools for that. If one feels forced to be faithful(as most people, especially most men it seems, do), and feels a need for other intimate human interaction, one is likely to lie and cheat. And you never know if the guy you're with is into monogamy because that is what _you_ want(or is generally expected), or if they really need that too.
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There does seem to be this question of what intimacy is. As i said to LA, i always felt it involved both the physical and emotional (well i guess that's how i used it anyway). i have 2 female cousins. We've shared a lifetime of closeness and emotional trust...but i guess i just never thought of using the term intimate in that context. The same with my daughter (now that she is older, married and pregnant). We have shared intimacies in the sense of some very personal stories or 'secrets'....but i still would not have considered those intimate relationships. Hmmm...that is an ineresting question though.
I don't understand where you are getting your definitions of intimacy from. I'm a fairly literary person, and like to use words for what they mean. Intimacy means a close personal connection or a sharing of secrets. Period. The relationship between mother and daughter often is by definition a very intimate one. Not romantic or sexual, but very intimate(at least me and my mom are).
As far as the definitions so far of emotional and physical intimacy goes, I am physically intimate with most of my friends. We hug, we cuddle, we roughhouse and tickle. We share a physical closeness that is very comfortable. I could never have anything like a physical intimacy(as I think it's been defined here) without an emotional one.
I have an emotional intimacy with all kinds of people. For instance, I have an acquaintance who comes to me for emotional support. It's always just in passing(we work, vaguely, together). But she's noted that I am very emotionally available for those who need a bit of heartfelt sympathy. She shares of herself, and I share of myself, on a deeply emotional level. Then we go our separate ways. But we shared an intimacy.
I'm emotionally intimate with my friends. We trust each other, to varying degrees, with our emotions and personal truths. With our beauty and our flaws. Some, we trust enough to get very emotionally close, and share love. Isn't that intimacy?
I am certainly emotionally intimate with anyone I play bdsm with. It would be impossible not to be, with the way I play. Though I can see how one might play in other ways. And yeah, I play with a fair number of different people, mostly in a nonsexual way.
As to those who don't understand bdsm with sex, or even without any sexual context, I can only say that different people play different ways. Sadomasochism may be defined as technically sexual, but I don't tend to see it that way. It can be sexual, or it can just be...play. Like kids do. Play is vital to emotional health.
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i really don't know if it has to do with upbringing...or one's nature (that nature/nurture thing again?)....or what. i was raised in a monogamous household. Even in vanilla, i was always monogamous. That didn't change when i got into D/s. It actually still means about the same thing to me now that it did then.
i tend to view sex as a very intimate (again that word....lol) dynamic. When i did have sex, i had always had it with someone i would consider was going to be a LT partner. Obviously, it did not always work out that way, but that is what i thought at the time. Again, is that just me...or the way i was raised...or what? i really don't know....but it just is what it is, i guess.
DG
You're normal. Monogamy is beaten into our brains from birth on(in most cases). Poly people are still sexual outlaws. But I have never understood the concept of monogamy, or where it springs from. I tend to think of it in the same terms I think of sexual guilt/shame. An unhealthy, unnatural control mechanism created by a social structure trying to make itself work. More judao-christian patriarchal irrationality.
Just my opinion, mind. I've tried to figure it out, decided it didn't make sense, so chalked it up to social idiocy. YMMV.
Interestingly enough, by biblical standards(before Paul), it was ok for a man to be unfaithful, so long as it was not with another man's wife(property).
---edited to add----
Wow, I'm long-winded. I should write a book or something...
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