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D&D

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D&D last won the day on December 8 2012

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About D&D

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    Swingers Board Addict
  • Birthday 10/04/1967

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    Antartica

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  1. I have a problem with blogs like, "More than Two", because they idealise what poly should be. It's just being ignorant to think that every relationship is equal or can ever be equal. People put way too much emphasis on a word and not enough on real life situations. It's as though the poly people write like poly relationships are one way or another and completely set aside the fact that no generalization is good. Just like every marriage is different so to is every poly relationship. Just as what works in my marriage may not work in yours, the same is true for Poly relationships. Over generalization does one no favors here. Take my experience as an illustration: I have been married for 21 years next week to my college sweet heart. I also have a girlfriend I've had the pleasure of learning to love deeply over the past 2 years. It would be silly to compare the love I have for my wife with the love I have for my girlfriend. Not because I love my girlfriend less but because I simply don't have the vested life experience with her that I have withy wife. In that sense my wife is my primary and my girlfriend is my secondary. It has nothing to do with protecting the primary but just is rooted In the fact that I've loved one and built a life with her and not the other yet! This isn't putting the secondary down, it isn't making her any less important. Any more than having a second child makes the first less important. It's just a statement of fact re the depth of the first vs the second relationship. If the way you understand primary and secondary poly relationships is in the sense of one relationship is secondary to other because the primary has to be protected then I would say the secondary relationship is bound to fail. Not because there isnt any love or commitment, but because the secondary in that sense, is not being allowed to progress. But I don't think most poly people understand primary and secondary in that way. Putting that sense up as why primary and secondary are bound to fail is putting up a straw man argument. And it certainly completely ignores the facts on the ground in the vast majority of poly relationships. Those facts being that except for rare cases one relationship is always newer and less developed than the other. There isn't a "true kind of poly" any more than there is "true kind of monogamy" or "true kind of swinging".
  2. I wish that people would put all their real preferences, prejudices, desires, in their profile. That way it would make it much easier to determine who I can deal with! Nothing worse than meeting a couple who has crazy expectations but is afraid of putting that in their profile because they are afraid of scaring somebody off before they meet. If you have a preference that is somewhat of a hard boundary by all means put it in your profile!!!! I don't want to find that out while we are out to dinner or drinks Secondly "HWP" is not the same as saying "fatty"... I can make a preference clear without being offensive about it. Furthermore it's much better to be polite and clear than downright rude.... Not exactly sure what the non HWP want here... do you want me to just lie to you or put something in my profile that is clear on what I want? Lastly I'm not Adonis by any stretch of the imagination.... Lol.
  3. Is there a difference between playing with a hall pass and having an open marriage? I think age and a certain kind of mindset determine the likelihood of an open marriage being successful. But I've also noticed that having an open marriage or open relationship is more prevalent in the younger generation. I don't know if they are any more successful at pulling it off, but they are more understanding of these "alternative" lifestyle choices. This brings me to a second question: what would count as a successful open marriage or any marriage for that matter? If a couple stays together for 20 years, raises a family, but grows apart was it successful? I tend to say yes. It seems the determination of success is taken to be never split up, but I think that bar is too high. I ask this because whether an open marriage works is kind of determined by what is meant by "working."
  4. I probably went to deep of course, but the point is that it isnt like flipping a coin where the possible number of outcomes doesnt change with each successive flip. Also the swinger population is a relatively small population vs the general. Active swingers who have many partners will change there odds significantly. We can also add that just as in poker the status of the other players affects your odds. If you have sex with someone who has only had a few partners the odds are different than if you have sex with someone who has had many. Their movement through the population affects your odds. Who I have sex with affects my wife's odds of catching an STD even if I am her only partner. if I am at a high risk then so is she, as long as she continues to have sex with me I agree that even in extremely high odds situations the more you play the more likely it is that you will get lucky. This was one of the fun points in the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy... that no matter how high the odds were stacked against an event occuring given an infinite number of oppurtunities eventually it will happen. silly improbability drive...
  5. Thank you for the update! I would love to be at the point where when my partner comes over to the house that we can sit on the couch and watch a movie or even touch hands. Eventually Im sure we will get there. right now we have to be carefull of even how we look at at each other lol. I shouldnt complain though as we dont have the work situation that you have and we are very lucky in that my wife and her spouse have no issues with what we have.
  6. This is not correct.... Odds calculation is cummulative in many cases! odds calculation for flipping a coin are diffferent for odds calculation within a finite group where the total population decreases with each throw or draw. Each time you flip a coin the odds are 50/50 because the total possible outcomes do not change with succsessive throws. This is also the same with playing the one armed bandit in Vegas. But it is not how you figure the odds when you play cards. That is why card counting works. Chances of drawing a ace of spades out of a 52 card deck are 1 in 52. But with each card I draw out of the deck odds get better. 1 in 51 then one in 50 etc etc. Poker/Texas hold-um is similar; as the odds of drawing the right card change each time a player or the dealer draws a card. Good players calculate their odds based on what is in their hand, what is showing on the table and the remaining size of the deck. 21 is played the same way--Its why Vegas now plays 21 from multiple decks. It makes the reduction in odds harder to calculate because the beginning population is bigger, but the odds still decrease as successive cards are drawn and removed from the deck. This is what make 21/poker/texas hold-em fun but five card stud not so much. Although even with five card stud as your hand is dealt the the odds of winning a given hand change because the population being drawn from is decreasing. Population statistics are the same. The more partners you have the higher your odds are of contractin an STD simply because the population you are drawing from is dimishinishing with each successive partner. For someone who has never had sex the odds are 1/1000. Each time they choose a new partner the odds change because the available population has decreased. For simplicity consider a small town where there are a thousand potential partners- each time you have sex with a different partner you are increasing the odds. 1/1000, 1/999, 1/998, etc. Granted in general the population is very large and the odds do not diminish greatly with any particular partner but it is not like flipping a coin where the odds remain the same with each succcessive throw. If you have 10 partners your chances are greater than if you have only one and if you have a hundred your chances are greater than if you have 10. The odds given by the CDC are not the equivelant of odds for flipping coins or throwing dice. They are more similar to odds given for particular hands dealt in a card game where the total cards available is finite and each card drawn changes the odds. Simply put the odds of you geting an std are not 1/1000 each time you choose to have a new partner. Those odds change as the population you are drawing from changes. The more partners you have the greater chance you have of getting an STD because you have decreased the population (albeit the odds change is small with each successive partner) This why smaller populations often have higher rates of STD infection than large populations. STDs amoung the young, single, or gay communities are higher because they have more partners within a relatively small population versus the general population. Simply put you do not have a 1/1000 chance each time you have sex with a new partner!
  7. I find it easier to talk about swinging than to talk about my poly relationship. Most people I talk to are more understanding of swinging than they are of my other relationship. The problem is that it's just more difficult to keep the poly relationship in the closet. At some point it just a becomes necessary to get it out in the open, at least with those close to you. I think Maui is right that I shouldn't lie but I also shouldn't just volunteer the information either. The blog posted by Sundog's partner is very interesting. I'm curious to know what her children think as they get older. I wonder how the work experience is continuing?
  8. "I'm out-ish to my parents (they know, but I have never actually spoken to them about specific people), very out to my sister, couldn't even imagine not being out with my friends, and verging on out with a few of my coworkers. I'm pretty satisfied with that. I don't think I could be happy having to hide relationships that I feel are important from the people I am closest to (in my case, hubby and friends). But that's me." My parents, my wife's parents, and my partner' parents are out of the question.... If they knew there would be huge issues! Eventually will everyone know, probably. But my concern is more how to tell my kids before they find out in a big family blow up. I am out with one of my long time friends, just had to have someone to talk to that wasn't in the middle of everything. I think this is the heart of the problem, that it's just to hard to maintain the secret and maintain the relationship.
  9. I think you have it right here... the problem is that the poly relationships are simply much harder to be discreet about than swinging is. Its hard to behave as though its friends only when in vanilla situations with family around. Its the little things that give it away, the way you look at each other or the way, and accidental hand grab, etc. Having the question posed to us in a private situation is one thing... what we don't want is a the question coming at us in a family event.
  10. Thank you for the replies! I want to ask some follow up but work is taking my day away...
  11. This exchange is interesting to me, for reasons I state below. I didn't want to derail that thread. Quote Originally Posted by WesternSwing "Although initially we were secretive, as we moved more into polyamorous relationships it was more difficult to keep things secret without excluding our other partners and making them feel terrible or unimportant. These days I don't broadcast my relationships, but I don't keep them secret, either. All my family know that I live with my partner and her husband and that I have another partner, also. Both my partners come to my office and visit and I go to lunch with both, sometimes at the same time. Coworkers either don't suspect anything, don't want to ask or don't care. All my partners and their families are welcome at my family's functions, also. It feels good to be "out" and just lived life as I want to. From Drinnt: THAT must be an amazing feeling! My wife and I are 6 months into what has become and exclusive polyamorous relationship. They have a family and kids and discretion is important to them. We have no kids and frankly would LOVE my family and friends to know so we could have our lovers around and involved in our extended "non secret" lives. Our family and friends KNOW about our lover couple but they think they are vanilla friends...maybe they suspect something but it's never discussed. I just think it would be an amazing feeling to be OUT with it. " Over the last year I have become become close with a very fun and enjoyable woman. Started as a swinging but progressed past a sexual attraction very quickly. She and her longtime boyfriend and my wife have also become close friends, although not romantic. Together we are great friends and do a lot of vanilla stuff together. It's not a poly relationship between all four of us, my wife and he have no feelings beyond friendship for each other. Nothing is hidden between us adults, but we haven't shared anything with our kids. They have no kids, we have two. Frankly, it is difficult at times to keep up the facade that nothing is going between her and I. Teenagers are more perceptive than we think. My son, who is 18, knows we swing, but he doesn't know or at least hasn't let on that he knows about our poly relationship. Our 12 year old daughter knows nothing about swinging or anything beyond the fact that we have some close friends. However it is going to be difficult to keep from her long term. Sometimes my wife says we should come out and tell the kids whats going so we don't have to tip-toe around anything. Her take on this is colored her gay brother who is "out" to the siblings but not to his parents. It causes a lot of grief and stress explaining why he is 48 and never married. (his mother probably knows but they all prefer to ignore it.) She thinks he should just tell her. What experiences have you with coming out? What pitfalls to avoid? Should we just stay closeted and enjoy it for what it is?
  12. I do need to work on my humor.... That's why I prefaced my post. I think you need to re-read my post: I never said the term monogamy came from Margaret Mead rather I said the term "serial monogamy" came from the sociologist Margaret Mead... Maybe you need to work on your reading like I need to work on my humor. :-)
  13. The intention was not to get into a game of semantics. You can define or use the term monogamy however you like. The point was that when talking to a non-swinger the term has a certain meaning. The OP's use of the term emotional monogamy is playing off the common/colloquial meaning of monogamy, i.e. I'm not sexually monogamous but I am emotionally monogamous. Secondly my use of the term "monogamy envy " wasn't insinuating that anybody was jealous of those who are monogamous. It was meant to highlight that using terms like emotional or romantic monogamy are attempts to convey the moral status that monogamy has to swinging. Swinger "monogamy envy" isn't rooted in the actual monogamy vs non-monogamy rather it's that one has a moral status in society the other doesn't. That is why the OP, Dan Savage, and others continue to use the term in the way they do. They are relying on the common vernacular and not a literal reading of Merriam-Webster to try to explain/justify their actions. Again my point wasn't a semantical one about how to define monogamy! I did not correct or redefine monogamy for either the OP or Sunbuckus.
  14. I understood that to be your intent. I just don't think its helpful to explain it that way to non-swingers. It's better not to allow the implied negative judgement that monogamy is better. When what is really better is being honest and true with our spouses.
  15. I can't tell if this post is sarcastic or not... This is an empty definition. If this is what you mean by monogamy then the only times you aren't having a monogamous relationship is when you are having sex with multiple partners simultaneously or you aren't in a relationship at all. The vast majority of polygamists are monogamous under this definition. Secondly the term serial monogamy comes from the sociologist Margaret Mead and doesn't mean what you think it means. She invented the term to refer to having multiple long term relationships over the course of ones life. It does not refer to a series of one night stands or one on one encounters.
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