So… As a follow-up to the discussion that happened during our New Year’s Brunch, I’m (hopefully) having a few people over to talk about 24/7 O/p (or D/s or M/s) dynamics and how they intersect with, and complicate, polyamoury[1]… and vice versa.
 
I’ve thrown a few “discussion topics” into the invitation, in the hopes of getting people thinking – read: articulating to themselves – along these lines, but I really have no idea where the discussion will actually go. There are so many configurations that both poly relationships[2] and D/s relationships[3] can take, that I can’t pre-guess what the hot topics are going to be.
 
I’m expecting there to be at least a little bit of discomfort on my own part because, well, I have Insecurities coming out my ears about this stuff, even when there aren’t current- and past- dynamic-members taking part in the same discussion. But, hey, if I know it’s coming, I can be better prepared. 😉 I’m hoping that there will be lots of different perspectives, lots of ways of looking at how poly and O/p intersect and play off of one another.
I’m hoping there will be lots of stories about *how* people negotiated sharing time, sharing space, and, well, sharing people. A whole lot of “what worked for me/us in X situation” stuff. I’m hoping to come away from this discussion with a better sense of how we – people who do both of These Things in all our various ways – make this stuff work for ourselves and each other; a better sense of what to try if/when what I’ve tried previously isn’t working; a better understanding of how to Do This with grace and generosity and joy.
 
 
TTFN,
Ms Syren.
 
 
[1] There’s this business of “solo poly” that I keep hearing about, and I can’t tell if this is a het-community thing or a U.S.-community thing, or what, but… In my little Canadian (leather-)dyke swimming pool, “solo poly” is kind of the default position, regardless of what configurations various poly individuals create together. Although that’s another post entirely, one that’s proving kind of hard to write.
 
[2] That was one of my biggest problems with Power Circuits – it focused on two kinds of poly – one where the dominant had a “Stable” of submissives, and one where the dominant was a “secondary” (see various iterations of 24/7[3]) for someone in a vanilla marriage. Touching on so few other options, and doing so SO briefly, was a problem for me.
 
[3] Not all 24/7 relationships are literally “24/7”. Many of them are more along the lines of 12/7 or 24/3, for example (because of work schedule, or distance, or having multiple partners), while others are 24/7 one week out of the year and, otherwise, involve the dominant having full say over items X, Y, and Z in their distant submissive’s life (all of your work-shirts will be some variation on the theme of blue; you will wear my collar at all time; bow to my photograph when you get up in the morning; you must obtain permission via text message if you want to use the bathroom; …you get the idea), but the submissive isn’t (can’t be) at their beck and call they way they could be if they lived in the same city.