notes on love and fucking

slut year zero

2007-06-11T16:46:00.000-07:00

2005 was my slut year zero. everything before this was BS, or before sluthood.

1. BS - before sluthood
IN THE BS period i'd always felt kind of slutty, but i had certain obstacles to overcome.

back then, i was no good at picking up, really. it ended up being quite problematic. i remember telling mama cass, my girlfriend when i was 21, that i wanted to sleep around. she said:

'well, you should. it'd probably be good for you. but i can't be with you while you do, sorry.'

so, we'd break up. and then i'd discover i was too shy to get anywhere with anyone. the whole thing would seem like too much bother and i'd miss mama cass. we'd start hanging out again and having fun and it always led back to being lovers.

then the cycle would repeat. reader: we both ended up feeling pretty shit after a few iterations of this. see, as soon as i was back with mama cass the urge to be a slut would rear its head again.

i tried a bunch of things for the rest of the BS period. i tried to be monogamous and happy, with varying success. i tried having open relationships but it always seemed to end up with my girlfriend drifting off and seeing other people, becoming more distant. this didn't work for me very well either. i still wanted closeness.

2. cake
SOME FOLKS WOULD criticise this; fuck, i criticised it too. i thought i was just immature. folks would say 'you just wanna have your cake and eat it too'.

me, i say now: 'yeah. i do. don't you?'

see, relationships are human creations. we make them up; we have some freedom about how exactly we create them. we don't have total freedom because there's the force of history and habit to contend with. but neither are we totally constrained to repeat the past.

anyway, when me and meryl streep broke up i decided that the time had come. i knew that as soon as i was single being a slut would seem like too much bother, but i also knew that as soon as i was in a relationship again it'd seem compelling, so it was time to try it out and see what happened.

3. slut year zero
reader: it was fun. also a little nerve-wracking, and it meant i didn't spend much time by myself between being with meryl streep and helen of troy, which caused a few problems later. time to oneself is often good, i find, especially after a difficult breakup.

but i got to discover that there were other people out there who found me attractive, and that with a little effort i could find new lovers when i wanted. i the past i'd always been afraid that to end a relationship meant i'd never have sex again; basically that i was damn lucky to be getting any and i shouldn't fuck it up. slut year zero blew this fear out of the water.

4. the ethical slut
this was also the year i read the ethical slut, a great great book. i recommend it to anyone, slutty or otherwise. i'l review it in a separate post, i reckon. there's a lot to say about that book.

5. how to pick up chicks
i also read a bunch of material in the time-honored tradition of texts on how to, uh, pick up chicks. reader: i needed some help! plus i'd decided that my academic training had taught me that when i don't know enough about something the first thing to do is find out who's applied themselves to figuring it out and see what they hafta say. even if you disagree (and trust me, i disagreed with plenty when it came to this material) it gives you a good starting point for thinking creatively about something.

this kind of material is full of techniques. it's written by geeks, oftentimes, who approach seducing the opposite sex like they approach writing software. lots of algorithms and suchlike. it's a fascinating world. creepy too, some of the time, but still fascinating.

anyway, an interesting thing happened. i found that around that time i just started being more successful with women, without applying anything i'd read, very much. partly i was more comfortable with myself and what i wanted, partly i was single and going out a lot more, partly i learnt how to flirt again. whatever, it worked out. then i fell in love with helen of troy.

all in all: a good year to have had. well, it was probably more like 6 months, really. i got a lot of confidence and became a lot more open and more playful, less apologetic for being who and how i am.

a booty-text from pre-raphaelite girl

2007-06-11T14:22:00.000-07:00

i got a nice booty-text from pre-raphaelite girl on sunday.

it said 'i really need your cock inside me. is it busy? will you have me?'

1. who is pre-raphaelite girl?
PRE-RAPHAELITE GIRL lives in adelaide. for years we were too shy to flirt with each other. then i started flirting with her but she didn't flirt back. i might even have told her during this period that i had a crush on her. i can't remember.

then.. then i had a fling with her housemate at the time, who we'll call one less car. one less car was an environmental officer. pre-raphaelite girl sent me a text saying she was jealous, but just in a friendly way.

the plot, as my friend rashomon said at the time, thickened.

anyways, it didn't work out with one less car. i was tired of trying to have monogamous relationships. i'd just broken up with meryl streep and just wanted to play. one less car didn't want to share: fair enough. and i really liked her and she was going to be going overseas about 2 or 3 months after we met. so i figured i'd give it a go for the duration.

reader: it didn't work. i was quite unready for that kind of relationship, plus it was long-distance. the last time i went to visit her i started getting panic attacks. i decided if i was geting panic attacks i wasn't ready for a relationship, and bailed.

i'm glad i did, too. i felt awful about it at the time though. i felt like i messed one less car around, that it would have been better to say 'sorry, i can't do monogamy at the moment'. and i guess that experience made me determined not to let the same thing happen again.

2. slut year zero
THIS WAS IN slut year zero, my first year of being an active slut. i'll talk about this year in another post.

anyways, me and pre-raphaelite girl kept flirting gently by text. one time she sent me something, i can't remember what it was but i wrote back:
'aw pre-raphaelite girl, it's a good thing i know you're just toying with my emotions or i might be in real trouble..'

she replied:
'am i trouble?! you know i've always had a soft spot for you..'

me:
'nah, to be trouble you'd hafta have the courage to kiss me and i don't think you do'

reader: this was a fun text to send. it let her knew i wanted her to kiss me, AND it framed it as a challenge. i let this sentence bubble away in her mind until she saw me next.

her:
'hm. we'll see.'

anyway, my sneaky sentence had the desired effect. we started seeing each other. it was nice, but long-distance. i told her i was a slut. she was cool with that. we arranged to go away for a week together around christmas.

then.. then i started dating helen of troy. i decided to tell helen of troy everything i could think of that might put her off me, everything i might be tempted to hide later on for fear of being rejected. basically everything about me that would put off someone like meryl streep. i was still smarting from that one..

as part of my, uh, full-disclosure i told helen of troy i had a lover in adelaide who i was meant to be going away with for a week, in a week. she was fine with that. i didn't realise at the time, but she was cool with it cos she'd decided not to fall in love with me, or anyone in fact. pity. i totally fell for her. waaaaah!

3. the replacements
ANYWAY, I RANG pre-raphaelite girl to tell her i'd started seeing someone but still wanted to go away with ther. she said she was seeing someone too and didn't want to anymore: it'd be too complicated for her.

i felt, i hafta say, replaced. this is a pet hate of mine, and one of the reasons i don't like monogamy so much. a lot of replacement goes on when only one person can play the role of lover at a time. but i accepted it and anyway i was all excited to be seeing helen of troy who i thought was totally awesome and that helped somewhat. still, replacement. ick.

and now it's now. now i'm seeing anna-lee, the healer, who definitely knows i'm a slut. so i texted pre-raphaelite girl back:
'yum! well, i am seeing someone but it's pretty open. i'd definitely discuss it with her first though. what are you proposing? would you come visit me? would you really come this time?'

see, pre-raphaelite girl has talked before about visiting but never has. two or three times she's come close but then she's started fucking someone in adelaide and decided not to. and me, i'm not like that. my feelings for pre-raphaelite girl don't stop just cos i have another lover. sure, they change with time, but that's more to do with where i'm at and where pre-raphaelite girl is at and how we connect and so on.

4. so what did she say? what did she say?
she said:
'man, you always have someone on the go! i think it's easier for men to find nice women than it is for women to find nice men. there are men but they are kind of 2nd best. should i wait? ot just move to melbourne & claim you? ha!! xx'

5. and what did you say, i am a cat?
nothing yet. i got that text last night. i'm still ruminating. see, as far as i'm concerned i love her and she's always welcome in my bed. this is pending approval from anna lee, the healer. i love anna lee, the healer too and we're all newly together and all. it's still early days and if we're going to see other people we need a lot of trust; things between us need to be strong. and they're good at the moment, great in fact. but i'd want anna lee, the healer to be honestly ok with it, and to know she can talk to me about any insecurities that come up. she does know this, i think, but it hasn't been entirely put to the test yet.

other thoughts:
i'm uncomfortable with the words 'claim you'. i know pre-raphaelite girl is just being playful, but it hasta be clarified. i don't want her to visit if she's gonna compete in any way with anna lee, the healer. competition is out. it can only lead to bad feelings. it's challenging enough to have your lover sleep with someone else. but to know that their other lover wants your lover for themselves, that'd be awful. i never want to put anyone in that position.

saturday part 3: the marquis of queensberry

2007-06-11T06:28:00.000-07:00

then i went to helen of troy's going away drinks.

1. the marquis of queensberry
while i was there i saw the marquis of queensberry. him and my girlfriend have feelings for each other. i'd talked to her about it, several times, but not to him. so it was good to see him.

we talked about it. it was good to do.

he said 'i've been wanting to catch up with you for a while. it's a bit odd cos you and anna lee the healer have been hanging out, and me and her have been hanging out, but you and i haven't hung out.'

it's true, that had been a bit odd.

i told him i'd felt threatened when it first seemed like they might be getting close, but that then i thought about it for awhile and decided it would be nice for them.

i told him i trusted them and felt ok if they wanted to explore things further.. that my main issue was with the fear of being muscled out or replaced, and that i trusted him not to do that.

he's read the ethical slut, which helps a lot. i lent it to anna lee, the healer, when we started talking about polyamory; she lent it to him. he loved it.

2. helen of troy and licence plate
wow, deja vu. i just remembered typing something like this and the front door opening and then shutting and that's what just happened.

anyway. i hung out a while longer at the pub where helen of troy was having her going away drinks. we have a lot of mutual friends and it was good to see them. it was weird, though. some of her friends were friendly to me and others seemed a bit odd and distant and i don't know what was up with that.

and licence plate, who i'd made an effort to be friendly to at helen of troy's house and had seemed friendly back, didn't really talk to me again. maybe he didn't recognise me: it was dark when we met. we were sitting out the front of helen of troy's house at the time. we were sitting in a spot we'd never sat while we were together. we've had exactly 3 conversations there: first, when i went round to say that it wasn't working and i was leaving her. second, a month later, when i was asking if she'd gotten licence plate out of her system yet, and she said no. now this one.

licence plate was less threatening as a human being than as the idea of him i'd carried around all these months. they seem into each other and happy, from where i sat. which is nice.

but after a while it all got a bit too much. i was tired and i wanted to go and cuddle up with anna lee the healer and so i did and i told her about my day. it'd been a big day for emotional risk and honesty. i felt lighter for having done most of the things i did but i was still ready to sleep.

saturday part 2: helen of troy

2007-06-11T06:17:00.000-07:00

fuck.

so i went and saw helen of troy after work. reader: i'm not over her. i didn't talk to her for about 6 months after we broke up. then i found out she was leaving the country soon. tomorrow, in fact.

i found this out about a month ago and decided that if i wanted to be friends again i'd better get a move on cos the time to do it was running out.

sigh. it was hard. but good too. i mostly wanted to clear things up a bit. i told her i'd felt replaced when she started seeing someone so soon after we broke up; that i'd wanted to keep a friendship going with her but i'd felt compleetely disconnected from any sense of care from her after that happened.

ah, me. maybe i can't talk about this just yet. it went ok though.

i met her new boyfriend, licence plate. he's the guy she started getting together with when she was with me. friends told me it wouldn't last; it has. i didn't realise she was still seeing him. that was learning curve part 1.

she's moving overseas today. i asked what was gonna happen with her relationship.

'we'll see,' she said. 'i'm going for a long time. but he wants to come over too.'

that was learning curve part 2. sigh.

i didn't sleep well that night, didn't sleep well at all. it's 3 days later now and i'm a lot better. but i went to her going away drinks later that night.. that's its own post.

roman à clef

2007-06-11T04:35:00.000-07:00

call me i am a cat.

i feel like writing about love and fucking. sometimes it helps to write about love and fucking. i'm going all roman à clef on your asses though.

a roman à clef is when you write about real people but you give them funny names. why do this?

partly this is to be nice to the other folks involved. partly it's so i can censor less. and partly it's so i can make up funny names for everyone.

i believe i am the only cat who has ever tried to write a roman à clef. but i haven't written it yet so i'll go and do it and then i can brag.

saturday part 1: venus de milo

2007-06-11T04:13:00.000-07:00

i had, gentle reader, a big day on saturday.

1. venus de milo
I WORKED ALL day.

while i was at work i visited an old friend i've had a crush on for about, sheesh, 5 years? a while. let's call her venus de milo, but not cos she has no arms. she has arms and in fact plays the violin. mm, violin.

anyway, there's always seemed to be a good reason not to discuss my feelings with her.

first it was cos she lived with me and my girlfriend at the time. let's call my girlfriend back then meryl streep. meryl streep was an actress.

then it was cos meryl and venus were good friends, even though we didn't all live together anymore. and at the time i thought she was hot but also annoying: kind of self-centred and immature. so back then it was more a physical thing. i would have liked to fuck her but wasn't really interested in anything else.

then me and meryl streep broke up, lo amidst much acrimony and unpleasantess. maybe one day i'll write about this. it's a good example of how not to do polyamory. well, it's a good example for me, anyway.

even though me and meryl streep didn't talk for a year and had bad blood and all, i was determined not to do anything that i knew she'd find hurtful. i knew sleeping with venus de milo would hurt her so i didn't do it. i hated meryl streep at the time but i knew it would pass: i wanted to be friends eventually so i didn't want to create any new wounds for either of us.

what happened next? a year went by. me and meryl made friends again: good.

2. helen of troy
THE YEAR BEFORE last, i started dating helen of troy. helen of troy was a phd student. she was my third phd student girlfriend and i have vowed she'll be my last. this was, in theory, a polyamorous relationship.

i told helen of troy i had a crush on venus de milo. she was sweet about it and gave me the space to work out what i wanted to do. by the way, i was in love with helen of troy, bigtime.

you know those people who say 'if you're really into someone you wouldn't have crushes on other people'? they can all go and fuck themselves until they learn how to speak for themselves. anyone who wants to tell me how i feel or how i should feel or what how i feel really means: join the fucking queue. you can all go and fuck yourselves until you learn to speak for yourselves. if you never notice anyone else when you're in love, fine. it's simpler, i know. good for you. but don't fucking tell me how i should feel. if you want to know how i feel, how this heart works, then you're in the right place. now shut the fuck up and you might learn something.

goodness, what an outburst! back to the story!

i went and visited venus, back then, back in the reign of helen of troy. she was kind of sad. i asked her why.

'aw, i seem to keep gettting together with men who are in love with someone else and i'm depressed about it,' she said.

and me, i said, to myself mind, 'let it go'. and i did, for quite a while. see, i was so in love with helen of troy. one of the reasons i was able to love her is because i could tell her the truth about how i felt and she accepted me. i grew and healed so much with her. and it didn't last, but that's another story.

anyway, me and helen of troy broke up. venus was single then but i didn't want to jump into something new just then. i was, to be frank, devastated by the break-up.

then venus started dating someone else. i was happy for her at first, cos she seemed all excited and happy but it soon started to seem like he wasn't so great. she calls him arsehole-features now. let's just say he was a lot of work for her without a lot of payoff.

then i went overseas. maybe that happened before she started seeing him? can't remember. i still fancied her and she was going out with a dickhead, but let's just say i was keenly aware at the time how much it can hurt when someone muscles in on your relationship. so even though i was tempted to say 'venus, your boyfriend is a fuckwit. come hang out with me instead: i'm much nicer,' i didn't.

3. an accidental date
FAST-FORWARD TO a couple weeks ago. i was sitting in a lecture at uni and venus walked in. we ended up wandering around town and she kept putting her arm in mine. which was nice but intensified the whole thing. after that i was meeting my girlfriend; i told her about it all being as how i am an honest motherfucker. she told me i should talk to venus about my feelings.

4. let's cut a long story short, shall we?
ANYWAY. I'D OBVIOUSLY run out of reasons not to tell her i fancy her. and as i said i was round there on saturday. she was telling me she's started seeing a counsellor to work out why she keeps dating fuckwits.

she said 'i told him, it's weird.. i have these great male friends i get on with really well cos i have no sexual tension with them. and i feel like if i got together with any of them i'd probably sabotage it.'

reader: this was the last straw. i just rolled my eyes.

she said 'what?'

we were sitting out in the backyard on her daughter's tiny chairs. i pulled at some grass.

'what?!' she said, again. i pulled a bit more grass.

'whaat?!" she said.

and me, i said 'i've fancied you for ages! but it never seems to be the right time to talk about it cos you keep saying things like that, and you keep going out with fuckwits.'

'wow,' she said. 'that's very brave of you!'

reader: i agreed with her.

'i'm really glad you told me that,' she said. 'but what i said before is still true. i do need to work out why i keep having such stupid relationships'.

'i know,' i said. 'it's one of the reasons i never mentioned it before. you've just never seemed ready to go out with someone who actually cares about you.'

'yeah,' she said. 'well, i'm trying. and maybe in a while i'll be ready to have a relationship with someone nice like you.'

which was nice. then i went back to work.