relationshipping

The RDT

The RDT

is a thing.
As well as a known acronym?

This one was introduced by way of a complete stranger to me but someone BF knew.  We’re sitting, having drinks at a regular bar after hanging out for a few weeks.  BF and dude are talking; I’m quasi-listening but mostly zombied to the TV screen (a glowing monitor entrances and renders me a deaf-mute) when I hear, “So…is she your girlfriend?”

Erm…awkward, long silence as he and I look at each other, eyes wide open question marks.

“Oh…right, y’all haven’t had the RDT yet.  Hehe.”

Whatever that is, okay, guess not.

But on the way home, I remember the acronym comment and curious minds want to know.

Me: What does RTF or RTD or whatever dude said stand for?
BF: You mean RDT?”
Me: Um, sure.
BF: Relationship Defining Talk.
Me: Wow, people really call it that?  I meant it’s a for real acronym?
BF: Yep, you’re probably the only person who doesn’t know what that stands for.
Me: Hmm….seriously?  I’m skeptical.  I feel that it’s not that I’m clueless in the dating realm but that my guy hangs out with some endearing but seriously geeky types.  Also, he really likes acronyms.  And lists.  I’m pretty sure he makes shit up on the daily just to mess with me.  Our text history is 80% ‘What does that meeeeean?’ from me and chronologized bullet points from him.  Ok, so are we supposed to have that?
BF: I guess so.  I mean I knew it’d be a talk we’d have soon but I didn’t intend it to be today.
Me: You can call me your girlfriend (insert smirky grin).

The truth is we both know we’re BF/GF.  Since the first night he spent in my bed, we haven’t spent a night apart.  But I do understand and agree with naming it, putting it out in the open where there’s a witness to the thought in our heads.

Clarification helps.
And It’s not real unless you share it.

The RDT is easy because what I’m pondering more is…I think I love him.
Yikes.

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trans talk

Sex changes

Sex changeswith every relationship.
Of course it does.

And when my partner is a transsexual, the sexing definitely shifts.

I expected gay, bi or straight sexual identity exploration to happen because that’s a common part of transition.  I expected the kind of sex we had to change as she figured out said sexual identity.  What I didn’t expect was the change in sexual roles.

As a man, my BF enjoyed dominating me.
As a woman, my GF wants to be dominated.

Hmm…

I sense an incompatibility of the irreconcilable sort sprouting.  I try being more dominant.  This isn’t my natural inclination but I recall one relationship where a very experimental other wanted me (in one of many phases of said relationship) to dom-i-nate; no two ways about it.  Gosh, that was so many years ago but maybe I can embody that mindset and try it out.

Except it’s so not me.
Shit.

The dissonance in roles of dominance and submission teeter-totters our relationship, in the same way that GF figuring out whether she is straight/bi/gay does, as well as my determining how attracted I am to a physically transitioning GF.

And I have to be real.

Me: So I think we need to open relationship like you suggested because, clearly, you aren’t getting your needs met from me.
GF: Okay, obviously I’m okay with that.  But you haven’t really tried having sex with me the way I want.
Me: It’s not for lack of trying.  Really, it’s not.  Stop rolling your eyes, goddammit.  It’s just that…obviously this is far from intuitive for me.  It’s like there’s a block.
GF: Rumi, do you think all the sex I had with you was solely the way I wanted?  I had sex with you the way you wanted it.
Me: Sigh.  And oh.  It wasn’t a chore, was it?
GF: Of course not, I love you.  It was never that but it wasn’t always 100% what I wanted is all- it was a compromise.  That’s all I’m saying.

I feel like I’ve failed my GF.
I wish- I really, really wish- that I could be a different person for her, someone who could fulfill all her new and changing needs.

It’s not for lack of love.

Thing is, I can’t lie in the face of sex, sex roles or sexual attraction.
I have before and what resulted was a stupid mess.  

But that’s another story for another time.

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random love

NC-17 search terms

NC-17 search termshappen with a blog title like this one, apparently.

“But can you sell horsetail butt plugs to middle-aged straight men with a straight face?” asks my potential new boss as she nods towards a pretty massive plug with a serious tail.  And it just so happens that as I made my way down to the interview chamber I saw a middle-aged guy in the shop, seriously contemplating the sex swing hanging in the corner.

Can I sell this?  My mind draws a cool grey, absolute blank slate.  Then so many questions squish-crowd my brain: what do I know about butt plugs?  What the fuck do I know about horsetail plugs?  How do I go about selling this?  Oh crap, do I need to try this out?  And what do I know about wanting to be a pony?  Shit, I need to find a fetish group?  What if I end up liking pony play?  I look at my interviewer, I picture the middle-aged guy and the image in my head amidst the questions is a verdant forest with all manner of whipped and leather-clad big and little people and animules as a verdant me is attempting to get schooled in this particular fetish scene.

Wait, how did I get here?

Right, my attempt to find a tolerable part-time gig at a very progressive, women-run (read: lesbian friendly) boutique sex shop.  I pictured talking about silicone, electric, metal, glass vibrators and dildos, condoms, harnesses, lube, basically everything except anal toys.  I feel inadequate and ill-prepared.

Shit, I still haven’t answered the question.
How many minutes have passed?

Also, I am high.  Ridiculously giddy high.
I can’t keep a straight face as I attempt to answer.  I hear myself say something about being a lesbian, dildos are cool, harnesses too, honestly hor–…and I lose it.  I can’t help it.  Horsetail plugs are funny.  No?  Thing is, the fucking rabbit vibrator that’s been around forever makes me giggle.

Because I’m that mature.
I so don’t need to work here.  Bosslady agrees (imagine).

I was twenty when I failed this interview.
Why the recall?
Those NC-17 search terms I mentioned?
This is what I thought was searched:
‘fucking a japanese lesbianin [sic] the butt’

Turns out this was the not-cut-off-by-a-smartphone version:
‘fucking a japanese lesbianin [sic] the butthole until it hurts’

Wow.
What a difference 3.5 words make, no?

Let’s talk painslut later.

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random love

Good grief

The other dayis another familiar.

You need to try to master the ability to feel sad without actually being sad.

~Mingyur Rinpoche,
(quoted by Laurie Anderson, November 21st 2013 issue of Rolling Stone)

I believe in the good grief.

There was a five-year period in my life where I grieved.  A lot.
There were deaths and a most significant break up.  One terminal illness was such an intimate part of my life, I might as well have been in bed with it.

A dear friend recently shared a death experience.  The feelings, confusion and questions brought on by the grieving process- how and when to deal or not deal- makes me think, look back and consider who I was then and who I am now as a result.

Grieving is inconvenient.

I realize that the sly workings of grief overwhelm at the most unexpected moments.  I think I am okay, I feel myself smiling because I feel a genuine, warm happiness from within when suddenly, my heart is hollowed out and I gasp, in shock that I am felled so immediately and completely.  It doesn’t matter that the tears don’t fall because I’m wrecked from the inside, can’t catch my goddamn breath and there goes my plan for the next few hours because I must simply feel out this pain.  I am immobilized.

Except this time when I look around, you aren’t there.
This time it’s the death of us that I grieve.
There’s no you to talk to, cry with, come home to.
It hits harder, sadder because before, with you, sharing the grief was so…unlonely.

Time can help.

But it’s not the ultimate panacea.  My heart still breaks 2, 5, 8, 10, 13 years after the fact.
It’s not as raw but it still hurts and…truth?  Sometimes, every so often, it is as raw.

Sometimes it takes a friend from long ago to identify changes within myself.  It seems that I am more open and caring.  But then again if I didn’t evolve after confronting childhood demons, heartbreak, grief, and probing and challenging relationships, what a waste of life experience on me, no?

I can sit in death’s aftermath, maintain a clear line of reason and be optimistic about the future, even, but I can’t not be sad when I’m feeling the sadness.

Feel sad and not actually be sad?
I’m working on it.

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about Japan

Love hotels & eyepatches

The other day

are old news and a new trend.
Like, love and kink, Tokyo-style.

Oh, love hotels.
It’s exactly as it sounds: a place for the sex. You can choose 1-3 hours or the night.
You might have heard Japan is renowned for its sky-high service standards and rent-a-doing-it-rooms are no exception. Jacuzzi tubs, toiletries, porn, robes, irons, condoms, karaoke (duh, it’s Japan), drinks and snacks are all de rigeur. Then there are the themes…cages, aquariums, Hello Kitty in a bondage swing, fucking carou- actually, this is so much better.

Right?

Japan is so damn good at a theme. In that realm, the bars are also awesome. Alice in Wonderland seems particularly popular and of course, the anime. Or say tonight, I want glowing eyeball cocktails while getting the crap scared out of me in a haunted spaceship while avoiding ninja stars being thrown by Technicolor horsemen. Minus the spaceship, this can happen.

But I digress.

A note on anonymity and love hotels: most enable an affair remarkably well. Zero contact with another human is absolutely possible- use the underground parking garage, touchscreen your room of choice, insert cash or a card and voilà. It’s that easy. Then there’s the other end of the spectrum: after checking-in at the front desk, if there’s a wait for a room, just chill out with other people waiting to do it by playing pool, getting a chair massage or throwing some darts around.

The love hotel experience is such customizable fun in this city.

And then there are the young kids…asking to get their eyeballs licked, followed by conjunctivitis. Young girls are especially keen on wearing eyepatches with pride- that’s right, bitches- I got herpes of the eye because I got so many people to tongue my eyeball. Y’jealous?

My homeland is so fucking weird, y’all.

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relationshipping

Should I delete him?

Should I delete him

Asks my friend.
Me: Do you really want to get over him?

pause

Her: Yes.
Me: Then yes, delete.

I take one course of action to get over someone and thus far it has been 100% effective.
But I need to qualify that I have not been married with children.

The Rumi, aka Don’t Look Back, method:
1) Delete from contacts
2) Delete all text history
3) Delete or hide them from FB (and all other social media you share)
4) DO NOT respond to non-essential, emotional bullshit solicitations (i.e. requisite conversations about unjoining finances are an unfortunate necessity but responding to explanatory emails about his/her feelings blah, blah, absolutely not).

Too harsh?  What, like love-hurt isn’t?

Because this is what I know when it’s over but I’m not over them:
It fucking hurts.
The sorrow, the anger, the goddamn grief.

For instance, after a long-term relationship ended, my ex of not even a week was already dating someone, a specific someone they started talking to prior to our breakup.  That felt awesome: decade long relationship, one-week turnaround.  And a few weeks later, when their new someone came to our still-shared house to spend a lovely weekend with ex (because that new burgeoning love period is brimming over with so much damn infatuation), as my dumb luck would have it, I got to hear new someone be given a fat fucking orgasm by ex…goddammit y’all.

I thought I was doing so well.  I processed through writing as decade-long memories flooded me, Dylan on repeat in the background, and spent priceless time with invaluable friends who listened to me, quietly sat with me or simply joined me for a whiskey, give or take an occasional cry.

I thought I was getting a handle on the can’t-hardly-breathe stage and moving towards taking it week by week.

A few more weeks pass, my ex has left the state to live with said someone and I am told that they plan on getting married within a month.

Wow.

There’s an annoying last step that completes my method:
5) Time.

Sweet, slow, tortuous, curious thing, time passing.

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relationshipping

The line moves

The other daywith every relationship.

I’ve got boundaries on my mind.

Namely, the ones we set for ourselves.
The ones that change.
The delicate space between tolerance at maximum capacity (crossdressing, say) and the dealbreaker (transsexual, perhaps) fascinates me as it’s often a very narrow reach.

That narrow reach is where growth happens.
I become a different person.

For instance, prior to my trans ex-GF, I shot down open relationships; actually fairly early on in our relationship I said, “No way.”  But hearing her out and witnessing the subtle and dramatic physical and personality changes during her transition forced me to reconsider my position and we tried it out.  Although it turns out open relationships aren’t my thing, I don’t regret going there because that experience forced an ideological transformation.

Just like witnessing her transition so intimately effected another phrenic shift in the realm of my acceptance and tolerance levels, which were stretched in so many new directions.  The shift isn’t so literal as to mean that I’m open to coupling with a transsexual in the future without hesitation; rather, that my genuine attempts to maintain a relationship with a transitioning GF opened my mind to questioning my established boundaries up to that point.  

Every relationship has set me up for the next one.

My previously unresolved psychological scars from childhood led me to a string of unhealthy flings, experiences and relationships.  If not for my emotionally unsatisfactory relationships with men I would not have dated and committed to a long-term relationship with a woman.  If not for broadening my sexual identity I could not have given a transsexual relationship an earnest effort.  If not for a new understanding of my closely examined personal needs in a relationship, I wouldn’t…

I can’t fully answer that one yet.

The next relationship is always so different yet a natural evolution from the previous one.
Once the successive door opens there is no going back.

Thank you for the growth.

P.S.  Um, thank you WordPress for the Freshly Pressed feature(!!!).
P.P.S. Thank you all for stopping by, reading, commenting, basically giving my words some of your precious time…it means a lot.

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relationshipping

Where is the line?

My eyeballs need cocaine

The line that is not to be crossed.

It’s interesting, this notion of a hard limit. Every time I think, “I would/could never _______,” I am proven so, so wrong. I think the universe must have many a field day as I eat such rigidly constructed mantras on a regular basis.

I said I would never live in the South.
I spent eleven years in Memphis, TN.

I said I wasn’t into women.
I was in a lesbian relationship for ten years.

I said I would never, could never cheat on someone.
I cheated.

I told my ex-girlfriend I was not heterosexual, bisexual because of my history but totally gay from here on out.
I haven’t chosen to date a girl since we broke up.

I said I would never join finances again.
Of course I did.

I told her, “No way,” to open relationships; that’s a deal-breaker.
Totally tried it in hopes of making the relationship work.

I will never live in Japan.
Yeah, like that didn’t happen.

I didn’t think I would date a transsexual.
Best thing I’ve done yet.

At this rate I should be living in Los Angeles, practicing yoga on the daily and equipped with a station wagon full of kids in the next five years.
And a dog.

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random love

This is not crossdressing…

Truth or tact

or is it?

Some men wear bras.
In the everyday.
Why?
They say for physical and psychological comfort.
I think the psychological comfort in the vein of security and safety trumps the physical.
In short, they wear them because they want to.

Here’s my source.

On the one hand I think, so men wear bras…and?
Who cares, right?
Except anything that defies the majority thinking regarding traditional gender roles is fascinating to me, especially since my most recent relationship witnessed crossing gender boundaries and then some.

Someone said in the JapanToday article, “…this shouldn’t be a problem since men and women are supposed to be equal.”
I couldn’t agree more and yet I’m still curious as to the why.
Perhaps it’s because I’m completely cisgender (I so identify in my physical female self) that I’m very interested in the male processing.

But as I think about it, is it any different than the underwear women who aren’t so cisgender choose?  I’m not so fascinated when I know a woman prefers boy shorts/boxers/briefs and avoids underwire, padded, push-up, lacy, satiny ‘torture devices’. Yet men in bras fill me with curiosity and more than a few questions.

And it’s not a gay thing.

There’s still that annoyingly inaccurate and immediate ‘must be gay’ shout-out whenever anything remotely deviates from traditional gender roles.
Gotta love that insistent mentality that is so dismissive, ignorant and dated.
Get with it, people; meaning- think smarter.

So is it any more or less different?
Not really.

Then why do I get the feeling that when it’s found out that a guy wears bras, it’s a deal breaker?
IS it a deal breaker?

When my BF turned into GF, that was a deal breaker because I’m not so much a lesbian.
But if he just had a thing for bras would it have been?
I don’t think so.
Well…if he bought his own.

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random love

Witnessing the sex

This is not love

happens.

Aside from the hindsight hilarity, it is really fucking uncomfortable to witness people I know having sex.

For instance, we take a detour and get a room in DC.  There are five of us and two beds; I get first pick of sleeping position since I’ll be driving at daybreak, which will be happening in a number of hours.  Really big guy chooses the other bed, the side that hugs the wall and as far away from me as possible.  I don’t remember anything else as I must have crashed.

Because the next thing I know I’m getting jostled as someone elbows me in the kidneys.  And I hear make out sounds next to me.  Awesome.

Why am I awake?  Just sleep.  Just fucking go to sleep, Rumi.

They move to the floor.  Good.  Just stay there.
And they do.
For eight minutes (maybe it was longer, maybe shorter).
I try to block out loud and drunken, right-before-sex kissing sounds.  I also try to block out the rapid humping sex sounds that soon follow while feeling a little sorry for her because it sounds so…lame.

Aw crap, guys.  Why are you crawling back onto the bed?  Really?
I’m really hoping they stay put.  I mentally command them to just go to sleep, while hoping even more so that I pass the fuck out.
But neither happens, of course.
Instead, there’s more stupid lame sex rightnexttome and there’s no way I’m sleeping because at this point I’m getting mad.  There’s the whole floor, for starters. Why not go back there? And a bathroom.  Why not try it out? And I have to drive for so many hours the next day because not enough people in this room can drive a goddamn stick.  AND I do not get off on witnessing the sex like this.

This is my introduction to my new roommate, by the way.
And because she’ll be moving in after this trip, I hesitate to say anything. But because she is who I’ll be living with for at least six months is exactly why I should jump up and tell them to get another fucking room.

Setting precedents is not always a strength of mine.

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