Hey Bonita,
I have had a “fling” with a guy I met online for the better part of two years now, starting out as friends and developing into salacious flirtations. We finally met right before the pandemic, when he took me on vacation with him, and all the sexual tension kind of busted with some really bad timing of crises in his life. Understandably, we did not fool around.
We had planned to do some very dirty things this year, on his side of the country, locally and wherever else we could make an excuse to visit. Needless to say, we have postponed the plans until things are far safer and a vaccine is more widely administered. He is down to do anything I want to do, and that opens up a lot of possibilities to sex-plore.
However, I am a reformed slut these days. My perspective has changed, and I am wanting to settle down and have meaningful, romantic relationships again. My friend and I will not be entering that sort of relationship. I have, however, begun taking my time in getting to know another person and see the potential in them. My friend is aware and is supportive of me dating the new prospect—even if that means my monogamy cuts out our plans.
I struggle with wanting to experience things with this friend versus having more connected sex with a lover. Of course, I can have both eventually, but I think holding out for the former is a blockade in being open to the latter. Part of me is thinking I should cancel the tentative plans with the friend. The slut in me wants to experience things before settling down. I know time will tell and things will unfold, but ultimately I fear losing the friendship to lack of copulation. I guess I’m just a confused mess. Help.
Reformed Slut
Hey there Reformed,
You’re making a few assumptions here, such as assuming that your New Lover will only want monogamy with you. Sex Friend sounds very awesome and kind-hearted, and it’s a great sign when a casual sex partner (or potential one) is cool with you pursuing a relationship with someone else and wants to remain friends. Sex Friend sounds like someone who would be down for a conversation about ethical nonmonogamy and potential applications of that within your relationship. I’m just saying that conversations about relationship models are healthy and usually worth the time, even if you and your significant other decide to keep things the way they are.
But it sounds like you really want to be monogamous with New Lover, and that’s very awesome and super valid, and you’re not even going to lose your Sex Friend over it. They’re just going to become your Regular Friend, and that’s great! Congratulations on having such respectful people in your life. I think your solution is clear, and that is just to have the sort of sex that you want with who you want. Meaning: Bang New Lover the way that you want to bang Sex Friend.
It’s best practice to talk to our sex partners about what we enjoy and to revisit that conversation here and there, anyway. I think you’re assuming that New Lover won’t want to have the kind of sex that you and Sex Friend were into, or that people in relationships only have sex once a week in missionary with the lights off. That is simply not true, and you shouldn’t look at monogamy as an automatic dampening of your sexual desire and thirst for adventure in bed. I would hope that you feel as comfortable talking to New Lover about all things dirty as you did with Sex Friend, otherwise I can’t imagine why you’d choose that person for monogamy. You don’t have to give up the joy of sex in order to call yourself spoken for. You should feel free to have the same intimate conversations with your monogamous dating partners as you do you with your sex partners, and they should be just as willing to listen to you nonjudgmentally and to try new (and safe, sane and consensual) things in the sack.
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