My love and I have a partnership relationship. We try to do things equally. We divide bills, swap nights in the driveway, and we make major decisions together. If there is disagreement, one person will try to convince the other until there is agreement. If one feels stronger about an issue where the other person doesn't care, the one who wants it most gets their way. We try to be fair...So household conversations go like this:
What do you want to do tonight?
How about a movie, I've been wanting to see ____________.
A movie sounds good, but I don't want to see that one. How about _________.
I don't really care as long as we get to see some movie, so let's see yours.
OR
Let's go out and have Indian for dinner tonight.
You got to pick last time, so it's my turn. How about Thai?
Fine. Let's go!
There are few issues we can't agree on. I get my way as often as he gets his, and if there is a tilt in power one time, it tends to balance out to the other person at some point. Our finances are separate, so he would never say "You can't buy that!" Nor, would I ever tell him what he can buy or can't. I might express an opinion, but that's all it is. He is a free agent as am I.
In poly, we check in and run things by one another. Sometimes we might even ask permission of one another to do something with some one else. We say...how do you feel about that? And we take the other person's feelings into account in making a poly (or any other) decision.
If we engage in relationship power exchanges (not talking about sex here), it is because one person is down and out or sick, so the other partner will take the lead until the person gets on their feet. Or maybe we dip into soft BDSM "play". But I mean soft and I mean play. If he issues an order...it usually results in me rolling my eyes and saying yeah right with as much disrespect as I can muster. Or I issue an order, he might say "Really? I don't think so. That's not how it works around here." Then I get spanked. Then I spank back. I believe in tit for tat on the spanking thing. Don't dish it out if you are not prepared to take it. Though sometimes, if I am tired or not in the mood to spank back I do just take it. Occasionally, he just takes it. We have mock fights over who is the Dominant. We have mock fights over who is taller, on the notion that the taller one is smarter or somehow better. It's a coveted position to be tallest in this house.
However...his spanking has gotten out of hand lately. It happens way too often and seems to have become standard interaction for him rather than occasional play. I declared 2009 a spank free year...but that hasn't worked. Now, because his spanking has increased, it is at a level I find highly irritating, and it almost always puts me in a bad mood when it happens, as it now so often does.
The spanking also bothers me in that maybe I am being a wimp to tolerate this behavior as much as I do...because I don't believe any other woman in his life would put up with this sort of thing, especially long term.
Last night, I was cooking dinner, and he came in to ask me something. I was in a nightshirt that had shrunk a bit, and I tend not to wear underwear...so there was some ass showing here and there as I bent or moved around the kitchen. Unintentionally flashing bare ass in my own home is NOT an invitation for a spank. However, he was in a playful mood. He tried to engage me in a mock argument in which we often engage.
But my head was focused on a long list of things to do. I needed to get organized for school. I had laid out $200 for books that said "required" but are apparently "optional". I have a quiz this week. I needed to get some laundry done. Where was the damn salt?
I just wasn't in the mood for his little game. He verbally trapped me in a statement that is generally true but not completely true, and in his head...this warranted a spank for the "lie".
But it was the wrong time. I got furious and started hitting till I had him backed up across the room saying "What are you doing?" with a hurt bewildered look on his face. I did not say the following to him...but it was in my head. "Look motherfucker....I am cooking, and I don't have time for this bullshit! " Instead, I could see that his feelings were hurt, so I toned everything down, and proceeded like nothing had happened.
The temperature cooled, and we dropped it. I know he is not psychic. And although I tend to think he should have developed some sort of radar for when I am in an okay mood for play or not after 14 years of relationship, I know that he hasn't. He can't always read me. And I can't always read him. In my world, if you can't tell if someone is receptive to a spank, you'd best play it safe and not spank. In his world, I am fair game.
Our relationship has always had a coyote aspect to it. We play tricks on each other and tease quite a bit. We call ourselves worthy opponents, and we are.
This spanking thing isn't really a huge problem per se, but it is turning into an irritation. If it continues to cause upset for me, I guess I will have to sit down with him and and talk. We can negotiate boundaries. I can tell him how I feel. I will listen to what he has to say. And we will move on.
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4 comments:
OK. I am probably too fried to even begin to address all of this, but let me see if I can at least make some sense.
There are all sorts of power dynamics in relationships. The fact that people say their relationship doesn't have a power dynamic just means that they haven't defined the power dynamics as specifically as SOME of the rest of us. It still exists. Humans are like that.
And just as relationships change, the power balance inside of those relationships will shift with time and circumstances. So -- something has shifted in your relationship. What was a pretty evenly balanced "switching" sort of play back and forth has tipped toward him feeling more "toppy."
That isn't something that has a value associated with it (ie., good or bad), it just is what it is.
The tricky part is that it sounds like the change has developed without the two of you actually having the opportunity to talk about what it means and how it feels and how you are going to navigate that. You know that you are really going to need to do that.
Spanking is an entirely valid form of sexual/erotic expression, but the prerequisite of consent is essential -- just as it is for every other sort of sexual interaction between partners. Note that consent doesn't necessarily have to be continually negotiated and re-negotiated, but when something significant shifts, it might be time to re-evaluate. I suspect that is where you and he are.
Good luck and all the best.
Hugs, swan
OK, first of all I have to share that there was huge reaction in the Heron household last night. Swan and I returned home from a very draining board meeting at 9:30last night after a long day, exhausted, only to see a post on Tagerine's Blog about........(blink)...(blink).....SPANKING!!!!!
All right, but call us all naiive and just plain dense, but we three were all imagining that somehow spanking, playful, erotic, or otherwise, was simply something that was foreign to you. We are quite amazed and really sort of happy to know YOU SPANK sometimes. (Sorry, but it really was our first reaction:)I wish we could reciprocate and say that we sometimes belly dance a little (I wish:)
I have given no real thought to this. I know for me that I cannot imagine flashes of bare ass about the house not being an invitation for that ass to be smacked, but then I guess knowing my sensual orientation that is not surprising.
So what with the two of you engaging in such an intentionally egalitarian partnership, based on continual negotiation about so many aspects of life, and, in that part of your physical relationship includes play that is really only "play" if it is based upon mutual consent, how is it that this aspect of your life together has not been negotiated to a point where you are both being heard and your needs met and feelings respectd and fulfilled?
As for the incident, you described, so you two didn't communicate as openly and directly as might occur in a communication theory classroom fishbowl exercise. God knows we always communicate text book perfectly NOT!!!!!!! Well, maybe half the time............NOT!!!!!
There are lots of ways to negotiate and work out spanking in relationships. So what is his increased need for or, at least incidence of spanking about? Why are you feeling so irritated about it? Is this just because you don't like the sensation, the emotions it evokes, or the way it is occurring? What is he getting out of all this?
I'm sitting here typing all this, wishing I could be helpful somehow as your friendly neighborhood over the Top spanking devotee, and saying to myself, "Look you dumb shit, they all ready know all this and could think of these questions themselves, and likely already have." You need to know that I sometimes have read your discussions of how you communicate about your polyamory and have thought to myself, "I wish I was able to be as open honest and direct as you are with each other."
Anyway, thank you for sharing this aspect of yourselves. We sincerely feel more connected somehow knowing that you two spank. You can tell from knowing us and reading our Blog that spanking is simply not something that always goes smoothly in terms of both of us feeling fulfilled or even a little bit glad about it (almost by definition). I hope that you find a way for this to return to being a source of connection, fun and intimacy between you. If any outside input our listening could help please connect with us here or more directly.
OR, if you two have both simply been really bad in all this and really need to be seriously disciplined to wipe the slate clean, let us know and we'd be only too happy to help you get your lives RIGHT BACK ON TRACK:)
All the best, thank you for expressing this here, and I hope the discomfort about this evolves soon.
All the best,
Tom
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.
LOL...well, glad to surprise!
But I think there is a semantics issue here. What he and I call a spank, you guys would call a slap on the ass. It usually happens when we are clothed and one says something impertinent or wrong. And it usually doesn't really hurt, although once in awhile it does, but usually the other feels bad about that, because the intent was to play, not to hurt.
There is more to this story of course, but I think I will put that in the next post.
We certainly did need to have a long talk and clear the air. We did, and things are better one one front, and worse on another.
Hopefully, I can get to posting this weekend...between memorizing anatomy of the peripheral and central vestibular system. Sigh.
Damn, vestibular stimulation.....isn't that related to...........swinging:)
Don't you ever stop thinking about polyamory?
Tom
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