No One Right Way but... Many Wrong Ways - Part 2 / An Update

Flikker

New member
Refresher / Terms:

Flikker / Me - Cis Male, Gay (Kinsey 7), Poly curious, especially after a dose of mental health work and an improved sense of self worth and "stuff".

Roy - Partner of 20 years, Husband of 4. Also Cis Male Gay.

Greg - Our mythical houseboy for 20 odd years. He cooks, cleans, massages, is hung like a horse and open for anything. Also, and more importantly, doesn't actually exist.

Sex - As two gay men interested only in other gay men. For us, sex is when someone puts their penis in someone else. Not necessarily to orgasm but usually. Also, perhaps counter-intuitively, Hand Jobs to orgasm. (In our house, orgasm almost always qualifies as sex unless you did it to yourself)

Hanky Panky - Almost anything else of a "sexy" nature but not sex. For us at least a lot of this falls into the realm of foreplay. Touching, stroking, stimulating, kissing, etc.

Medical - I am currently dealing with fall out from a new med that makes it difficult or impossible to maintain an erection. It also causes post-orgasm migraines. TRUST me, my doctor is getting an earful when I see him in January. Sex has been impossible or difficult. That said, the primary use of said med is working WONDERFULLY so complications...

When we last left our heroes in this thread Roy was concerned about my health and the way sex was "hurting" me. Especially, in light of Greg, I planned to talk to him about switching from virtual houseboy to actual person/people. The complication is that I had identified as more demisexual/poly(adjacent?) and wanted to make sure I had an emotional connection and Roy was more interested in hookups. This was seen as an incompatibility.

Actual Update:

Last week, while on vacation, I talked to Roy. I started from the stand point of getting a "Stunt Dick". Since he was concerned about hurting me then we could find someone to play with. Me getting some Hanky Panky and him getting sex. I offered a "Vacation Hall Pass". What happened on vacation could stay on vacation if it didn't work out. We kept talking, started setting parameters, kept talking, adjusting parameters, kept talking and so on. We moved to "If we do it once or twice and it works out then why stop?". For whatever reason we stopped talking there but we had gotten to a critical point, in our terms, we had established that we were now in an Open Relationship.

As such, we would probably play together but not always. Safer sex was a requirement. Responsible hanky panky was also. Technically veto rights existed but they fell into the "Relationship Balance" area. "Honey, I'm going to go out with Fred to the movies tonight". "You can't. We already made plans with Ted and Susan to go to dinner". OR "I'm going to go home with Fred tonight." "But I wanted to get Chinese and cuddle" OR "Hey, Fred is really into you and wants a three-way" "Sorry. He's not my cup of tea but if you guys want to do something that's fine". That sort of thing.

So in that mood we went onto Grindr to find a willing stunt dick. We found Aaron. It was fun. Not perfect but a lot of fun. A LOT of fun. Afterwards we compared notes and realized two important things...

  1. Roy is a LOT more paranoid about safer sex and in the long run would MUCH prefer to find a few good Friends with Benefits and build up one or more trusting relationships over time.
  2. I'm a LOT less Demi than I thought I was. It is probably just a coincidence that I happen to have had all my sexual experiences with people that I did have an emotional connection to. Causation vs Correlation? Something like that.

So we went back to the "rules of the road" we'd worked out and after talking more we basically migrated from an Open Relationship to Poly. What this means for us is that we are allowed to date other guys or other couples, either as a couple or individually and if a longer-term relationship develops then we deal with that. RIGHT NOW the difference is academic because you can't have a poly style relationship with multiple people if you don't start looking for people outside your two-some.

And here ends part two... We're home from vacation, tired as hell, we've been browsing dating apps, making plans to slightly change our styles of socialization (bars, events, etc) and possibly attend some Poly Mixers or something like that.

Thanks all! I'd still appreciate any advice you have to offer but I suspect the next you hear from me will be a "It has been a year and..." type of post.
 
Oh shoot, I wish you would have updated on your original thread, since I just spent a good chunk of time giving you advice you asked for, but apparently didn't need.

If you have bumps in the road and just want to write them down to clarify your thoughts and feelings, you can start a blog here in the blog section. If you really need advice, start a thread in Poly relationships.

Good luck, again!
 
Hi Flikker,

It sounds like so far things are going well. I'm glad to hear that. Glad you and Roy have been able to have some productive discussions, and a good time on your vacation. I would encourage you to keep the channels of communication open, always share your thoughts and feelings with Roy and ask for his. If either of you finds a new partner (FWB or whatever), communicate generously with them as well. I hope things work out as far as your meds are concerned, even if they're working well, the side effects are a problem and there are other meds you can try, hopefully your doctor can help.

I'm looking forward to your future posts.
Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
Oh shoot, I wish you would have updated on your original thread, since I just spent a good chunk of time giving you advice you asked for, but apparently didn't need.

Ooops... You have a lot of good points. I wouldn't say I don't need the advice. I think most of the advice you have works out to "quibbles" on terminology that I don't know any better to use the right one (but I'm trying to learn). So I appreciate the response if only so I can learn "Oh when I say X that gets heard as Y". For example, Permission vs Consent.

I responded over here to your comments.

Thanks again!
 
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