Hello Coco : A diary

Tag: Queer

  • Polyamory & The Polycule: My Complications

    I went on a date this morning with a man that asked me, “So, how long have you been in the lifestyle?”


    I felt a little embarrassment for sharing that I was quite new to it, I think for fear of being perceived as inexperienced and thus maybe too much work – too complicated.


    That probably stems a little from a guy earlier this year who vetoed our friends with benefits set-up due to the fact I haven’t had much sex with men for 7 years considering I was in a relationship with a woman for a long while. It got too ‘complicated’. In fact, the observations of most men when I tell them this is generally hesitation.


    I can understand that in a certain lens of him knowing exactly he wanted. He wanted a girl that could deep-throat his dick (mind you, it is large) and I wasn’t up for the job, at least not at that time. I was just re-learning how to give a blow job again – hello.


    I understand Polyamory is a whole other beast than learning how to move past your gag reflex and learning sex with men again, but the common theme for me these past 5 months has been ‘inexperience’, so admitting to another one gave me the cringe as I told him the truth.


    We had spent hours talking; casually looping in details of our current partners, sexual needs, and other tidbits of ‘lifestyle’ information that would help determine our compatibility.


    It occurred to me as we were talking that finding another partner to join this ‘Polycule’ I stumbled into wouldn’t be easy business. Not only do I need to find them attractive, communicative, and emotionally aware but they needed to be vetted by basically everyone in my current polycule based on STI results, status, and at a frequency that is relative to any additional sexual partners that come into play.


    This guy told me he has his wife, one woman that travels into town once a month, and could seek an additional partner outside of me if we moved forward. His wife is also seeking partners. That is 3+ people I would be adding in, just to hook up with this one guy regularly.


    On top of that he shared his wife has herpes flare ups (tested positive). Which means that I would of course need to relay that to the entire team – yes, that’s what I’m calling them now- and get their stamp of approval first.

    This is nothing like what I was doing in the beginning of the year meeting guys on Tinder and just hooking up with them. It was a very dangerous and I’m lucky I came out of it clean, but I did very minimal work compared to this. I also had very limited emotional connection, communication, and genuine intimacy with those men.


    I would never go back there, but I’m really just starting to process through exactly what I got myself into.


    When the date ended I walked away feeling more overwhelmed and confused. He checked the boxes of attractiveness, communicative, and emotionally aware however the multiple partners, FWB attitude, and his wife’s results made me think, “oh my god, is this too complicated?”


    I’m sitting here reflecting on this inexperience complex thinking sad about how I might be too complicated for others while also considering the same for him being too much. I realize in this moment that it really isn’t about me – other people’s version of ‘complicated’. It’s their emotional and physical bandwidth. How much are we willing to give? Is it worth it? What is the fucking ROI here?


    Perhaps the deep-throat guy was like, “if this is too much for her, maybe my other needs won’t be met.” If someone was to not want to move forward with me because my inexperience of polyamory it could be that they don’t have the mental space to walk through it, perhaps they just got out of a similar situation and it was draining. Perhaps they have an insecurity of committing for someone to realize the lifestyle isn’t for them?


    I’m sitting here thinking about my date in a similar, but opposite way, “This is a big commit for me when I’m already going through so much and I just got into this other relationship a month ago. It might be too soon to consider complicating things further.”


    My date texted me just a moment ago saying he had such a nice time and how he was hoping to kiss me, but couldn’t read it. Why do I feel guilty? As If I’m letting down the world by sharing my feelings.


    I’ve been asked on many dates in the last few months and have exercised all sorts of no’s like, “I’m seeing someone”, “I’m not dating right now”, “I’m moving in a year” – I’ve had clear and easy outs that would make anyone say – “yeah that makes sense”.


    Not to say my reason, that I can’t handle something like this right now, doesn’t make sense, but that it’s a new one for me and giving that reason when I’ve heard it a few times this last few months makes me nervous to make the other person feel the way I did. Complicated.

  • The Biological & Gender Shock of Re-Introducing Sex with Men after 7 Years.

    If you’ve been reading my stuff, you know already that I have been sleeping with a lot of guys lately. For quick context, I just recently got out of a six year relationship with a woman where for most of the time there was a severe lack of sexual intimacy.

    Getting out of that relationship, I wanted to experience men again and being 30-years old now with a new perspective, 10 years of therapy, and liberated by all the wonderful changes I’ve already experienced – I’ve been going a little wild. There have been many guys, good & bad & neutral, and plenty of journal entries highlighting all my favorite moments for my future self to look back and be proud of.

    With all my new…experiences, I’ve compiled some observations.

    Sleeping with men after 7 years of being strictly with women has been an entire gender shock for me. I’ve had to look at sex from a difference, more serious, lens in terms of biology and risk mitigation. Then of course there’s personality differential between the sexes and navigating communication and emotional connection differently.

    I’m going to preface this entire post by saying that these notes are based solely on my own personal experiences over the course of the last 2 months with various sexual and non-sexual partners.

    The solo mustaches and fish pics are SO real. Just wow. More just an observation here.

    No condoms.

    First off, just the topic of protection is foreign to me considering I’ve been with a woman for 6 years and we were not concerned for STDs or pregnancy, but I was absolutely gob-smacked at how a lot of men do not carry condoms with them or even have them at home. It’s as if they are in the same boat – coming out of a gay revelation into exploring heterosexuality.

    I’m starting to put it together that condoms are stigmatized more than when I was 23 and last had sex with a guy.

    The words “Feeling Protector” has come up too many times to feel comfortable.

      I’m curious if it’s because abortions have become more normalized (even though the legalities haven’t) that men don’t have the same fears they did back then at accidentally conceiving. It also makes me think that they think abortions are a quick, easy thing for women’s bodies to go through – or if they care at all about the bodily trauma.

      I recently tried ‘the [infamous] pill’ and that was awful for a full month just getting used to elevated levels of Estrogen and Progesterone in my body on top of the spotting for a week and knocking my period completely off it’s cycle.

      When that failed I decided to get an IUD, which fucking hurt and now I’m spotting all over again and it’s been over a week of cramping.

      Having sex with men has opened up my eyes that it’s really up to us women to figure it the fuck out.

      Talking about feelings is like pulling teeth. I bet you all can imagine that in a woman-loving-woman relationship we talk about our feelings a lot. We’re in-sync with how our bodies and hormones work. The girlies that get it, get it.

      Thinking that I could be open with men just the same was a big mistake. I will say my situation is different than if pursuing a relationship in that I’m primarily seeking physical intimacy, however it’s been quite tricky to just understand someone’s emotional intelligence at the surface. I like to warm up a little bit and understand the nature of the person I’m about to sleep with.

      I’ve had men get highly defensive and shut down entirely to questions like, “When was your last relationship?” and “Oh you’re on the road a lot, does that get lonely?”. One man snapped at me for asking him to tell me about why he bailed on me one night we were supposed to meet up (mind you, I came at with no intentions of being combative).

      They don’t ask questions.

      I know it’s a normal thing based on my Tik Tok algorithm of women talking about it, but what the fuck is that? I will ask them question after question – mostly trying to stay relevant to the goals of our hang out but notice they never ask any questions back, as if they don’t care about my experience even though it’s a mutual arrangement.

      Is it nerves? Is it ADD/ADHD? Is it truly that you don’t care?

      They really do love to just ‘teach’ us, don’t they?

      Yes, sir I know why my bathroom door won’t close.

      Yes, sir I know the purpose behind why pets should get a dental cleaning regularly.

      Yes, sir I’m so aware of how to submit a maintenance request for my broken dishwasher.

      The first guy I had sex with off the bat spent a solid 30-mintues telling me about geopolitics and why religion is the way it is.

      The last guy spent a good amount of time giving me pointers on every answer I would give him about nutrition and protein intake.

      There’s more but I stopped listening.

      I have never received so much pointless, unsolicited information in such a short amount of time.

      Lastly (for now), the oral sex.

      I have been with a lot of woman partners to have experienced getting eaten out in quite a few different ways and styles. There’s angle, sucking, blowing, edging, soft kisses, hard kisses, side-to-side, finger & tongue play, etc;

      So far out of the 4 guys I’ve slept with only 2 really knew what was up and made me come with their mouth, but a common theme amongst them all has been the noise.

      I think in porn women learn that men like their oral sloppy, right? They have probably assumed the same for us? That might be in some women’s interest – won’t yuck someone’s yum – but a trend I’ve seen is that they do not get embarrassed about the sloppy sounds of lips on lips in fact, I truly believe it’s a goal at this point.

      Personally, not interested in the dramatics – I know my pussy is wet.

      What I have appreciated though is that each guy I’ve been with so far has been open to direction – something that wouldn’t have flown back in my early days of getting with guys in college.

      They listen and are appreciative to the direction and I fucking love that.

      In summation, I’ve had more positive experiences than bad and overall I’m happy that I it turned out that I’d be exploring men all over again in my 30s. Where I am mentally; the work I’ve put into myself and knowing exactly what I want and need and most importantly how to communicate it has made this experience liberating on a few different levels.

      The shock of understanding and connecting with men is still on-going. Every new guy I meet and/or have sex with is a fun new experience and I learn something new about my own body and preferences. I so appreciate them for that regardless of my points above – though the condom thing I won’t get over, still bat-shit crazy to me.

      More to come.