Poetess

Female Submissive, 46

Male Dominant, 43, La Prairie

Male Submissive, 34, beirut

I know it has been said often that poly is not for everyone?and in truth there have been times that I thought perhaps it was not for me. Just not many! ~grins~ And when there were, I always found myself drifting back to it. Because it is ?BIG? and it requires that you be ?BIG?. It pushes you?always, it pushes you. It demands? That you know yourself or your own mischief will trip you up. It demands? That you be honest with yourself or your hidden agendas will blow up all over everyone. It demands? A self discipline to not act on your ?private logic? and a willingness to expose it both to the light and to the others involved. It demands? A focus on the higher good. It demands? Communication, communication, communication And a gentleness all around. Now is any of that different than the demands of any relationship? No The difference is that poly can go wrong that much more easily because there are more personalities, more quirks, different interpretations, different wants and needs, more emotions, more belief systems, more ?past experiences?, more fears and insecurities, etc., etc., etc. Any and all skills that you lack are multiplied by the number of people you are dealing with. YEAH?OY VEY! Why would anyone take on so many complications?!!! I can only answer why I would, and my answer surely doesn?t speak for anyone choosing poly but me. As I said before, it is because it is ?BIG?. The love is big, the joy is big, the passion is big, and the sex is big. Multiply the nurturing, the playfulness, the intensity, the camaraderie, and the bonds. Who it pushes everyone to be is a bigger version of themselves. You have to show up with everything that you are and then grow more from there. And to me that is an incredible experience, an awesome undertaking. It is living at the edge of yourself. At its best there is a feeling of each person being an extension of yourself and you of them. Rather like a sort of leaky boundaries where you flow in and out of one another. Stepping outside of our skin encapsulated egos to become something bigger than ourselves alone. There is a magic and a power in that. Poly looks different to everyone, and I have my own visions and boundaries within it. My particular brand isn?t random, it is very focused. It calls for a respect of and caring for everyone involved. I?ve not seen a lot of poly that worked. And almost always when it didn?t what was lacking was the caring and commitment to each person in the mix. In that lack there was room for jealousy, competition, posturing?and oh, it only gets worse from there. There may not always be a direct connection between everyone, but there damned sure had best be a mutual respect. The poly that I have seen or experienced that did work, worked because there were connections that transcended the mere physical or mental and created a spiritual interweaving. It is that spiritual ground that softens the challenges, soothes the misunderstandings or mischief, creates a more gentle communication and opens the very environment to the magic that poly can be. A magic that is very ?BIG?.

I?ve wrestled with this at times. Perhaps I have a ?restrained? personality. I prefer most things to have a subtle contradiction. That resonates ?power? for me. ~ I?ve always liked sculpture that reverses our expectation. There is a work by Michael Heizer called "North, East, South, West?. It is four large, dark, enclosing forms, negative volumes cast in steel and sunk in the ground. It is powerful in its magnitude and in its feeling of surprise when you come upon it. Its depth creates a feeling of vertigo that is both intimidating and expansive. ~grins~ contradiction ~ It is my personal taste, my own eccentric response and NOT a judgment of those who prefer otherwise, but nothing shuts me down faster than premature blatant sexuality. What I react to is the surprise of something nasty slowly emerging out of the most elegant of circumstances. I am not sure if you can pull ?raw? out of a sense of quiet dignity, but that is my ?on? switch. Like many I have heard on this site say that they abhor ?cock shots?, I do too. Not because I take offense at the picture itself (hell, go to art school and body parts are a dime a dozen, my own included)? but because it steals away the unwrapping. And not just of the anatomy, but the whole package. I love down and dirty sex, something that pushes the boundaries, something that would scare the pedestrians. But I want some mystery to it? I want the slow burn of wondering about it, waiting for it. Lol, maybe it?s a girly thing, I want romance with my raunch. If someone approaches me and in that first conversation not only gives away all their secrets, but attempts to force feed me a fast food menu of their whole sexual essence? I walk away feeling gorged and with no desire for more. They have spent my interest before we have even met. I think I have probably turned my head on very nice people because of this. I am sorry for that but it is my own idiosyncrasy. I cannot and will not force or fake attraction once it has gone flat. The thing is that sometimes it happens before any exchange takes place, it is in their first email?. right along with their complaint that they are frustrated with this site because they never get any response. I?m sometimes tempted to write back and offer lessons on what seduction is all about? but that seems both presumptuous on my part and time consuming considering the vast number of emails like that. ~ There is a scene in the movie ?Scorchers? The bartender is talking to the town drunk who is listening to classical music on the jukebox: Bear: "I want the truth now! You really like that kind of music?! what the hell is it you like about it? its got no beat, no melody" Holler: "it leads you around corners" ~ I want sex that leads me around corners? Where all my nastiness waits.

Male Submissive, 18, atlanta, Georgia

Female Switch, 46

Female Switch, 31, port lavaca, Texas

Male Dominant, 49, Aberdeen, Washington

Male Dominant, 25, Port Jeff Stat., New York

Male Dominant, 50, SE England

Male Submissive, 35, brewer, Maine

Female Submissive, 29

Female Submissive, 30, alberta

Switch Couple, 59, Brentwood, Tennessee

Male Dominant, 58, san diego, California

Male Submissive, 21, Adelaide