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Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Journies

"Sing polly wolly doodle all the day."

Sometimes when one works at a day care (as I do), and one is required to have "approved" CDs playing all day of Toddler tunes (as I am), one can sometimes begin to read things into songs that aren't actually the meaning. Case in point the above lyric.

Anyway. As I continue to meet and become friends with people who haven't known me since I was an awkward acne-ridden teenager, it becomes necessary to compare histories and explain life choices. So I figured, on the third entry, that it was about time we got better acquainted. ;) Here's my story. I'm just going to combine the whole things (sexuality, kink, and poly), as they really overlap quite a bit, and separating any of them wouldn't make much sense. Wall of text ahead, captain!!

Let's begin by heading back to that acne-ridden teenager. Actually, let's head back to even before that to when I got my first CD player (do people still remember those? I got one of those big ones that played 5 CDs at once, which was pretty fancy). It was for a birthday...possibly I was in 5th grade? I'll date myself and say The Macarena was pretty popular then. In order to fill at least 3 of those 5 CD slots, I remember picking out Garth Brook's The Hits (so...it was at least 1994, according to Wikipedia), Shania Twain's Come on Over (1997, also yes, I'm slightly country. Shut up.) And Alanis Morisette's Jagged Little Pill.

I am Jack's first confused ladyboner.

Or in the words of the incomparable Dolph from But I'm a Cheerleader: "But you only assume that they're thinking what you're thinking when you look. But they're not."

And thus I become very confused about what/who exactly I am attracted to. Many trips to the library later and a few readings of the ol' classics such as Annie on My Mind, and I can with some certainty say that I am definitely not straight. Although I do not ever "come out" while at home, it is something that remains in the back of my mind while doing classic high school activities like marching band, the prom, touching my first penis, having my first orgasm. You know, the usual.

Things at home suck, and I spend a majority of my free time either suffering from insomnia or going out with people older than I am, who can supply me with liquor and weed (not necessarily the reason why I go out with them, but it's not a terrible thing to have in addition). I have very few "real" boyfriends (i.e. the "let's go out to a movie/dinner" type) and more casual male acquaintances who I happen to blow every once in awhile. Surprisingly, I am not terribly depressed about this. Friends around me begin coupling off and getting "exclusive," and the whole thing just makes no sense to me. What changes two people from being friends to this little unit of "just us" was different for everybody, and it usually meant that the male friend of mine would now be allowed only supervised visits with me, as I now became a "threat" to the "real relationship.

My first "real" boyfriend (we did officially go to a movie together, and I think at some point used the words "boyfriend" and "girlfriend") wound up wanting to be with a friend of mine instead. My second "real" boyfriend slept with another friend. In both instances, it wasn't the fact that it wasn't me that was bothering. It was the lying. There was a lot more honesty going on in the backseat of cars with the other men I knew than within these "relationships" that I was forming, and that just cemented the idea that traditional relationships were not really for me. When my best friend in the whole world admits that she loves me my junior year, it makes me physically ill for a few days.

My freshman year of college, one of the first things I do once my parents had officially left and I had the ethernet connection figured out is research the LGBT groups on campus. Through this, I meet a cavalcade of interesting people and cement even more the idea that women are attractive. I officially come out as "bisexual," a label I have been toying with since high school, but have never really spoken out loud to anyone.

Between my freshman and sophomore year, I stay in the dorms during the summer. Easier than packing up to head home, where the shit has continued to stir within my family. I meet a sailor-mouthed bull dyke who also works the summer shifts, and she invites me to an oil wrestling party at her place. I get into kink because she's into kink, and discover that I enjoy it. I am a sassy sub - the kind that will be strapped to a St. Andrew's and say, "is that it?" when her domme comes around to check on her wrists. We are "open," which works for awhile. She hands me my first copy of Ethical Slut, and I feel the same way I did long ago pulling books about lesbianism off the shelves of my local library. This is who I am. Our relationship works until I realize I have broken the unspoken rule that I was supposed to stop liking dick when we were together. Oops.

After the break-up, I get out of kink for a bit. I try the swinger lifestyle. I continue to be open. I describe it to new people I meet, and some take it as carte blanche to cheat. Some take is as an invitation that any and every other woman we come across will somehow be invited into the bedroom, and they are disappointed/upset when I don't "play along." Some accept it for what it is, and love me for it, and stick around to re-negotiate rules when we need to. I marry that someone.

We move. I get back into kink (through the fabulous FetLife). I identify myself as "queer," a term I've become more comfortable with. It encompasses all the variance of the people that I have met, have been attracted to, have fucked so much better than the binary where I began. I also identify as a switch, although I was strictly sub back in the day.

As we say in Toddler song world:

"Some people look at me funny
But I don't care 'cause it's kind of fun.
And maybe you like to do some things
A little differently from all your friends.
Well, don't you fret about what they might think
What makes you smile
Is what counts in the end."

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