With every new person you invite into your bed, you have to make decisions. Some take no thought at all: condom? Yes. Others are less serious: lights on or off? Dim. Being in a poly relationship can complicate this arena of a new relationship. Because the person that you are with, your primary partner, has a say-so in the decision making process.
Due to my history, my partner asked that I refrain from physical intimacy with the new boyfriend until things were on solid ground. In guy speak, I think this meant until he was okay with the idea since in the past, he hadn’t always been given a choice in the matter.
So with the progression of my relationship, boundaries were in place. I did try to discuss this with him but the new boy didn’t seem to care. He just shrugged his shoulders and said that it was okay. He told me that other things were important. When I seemed baffled by his nonchalant way of dealing with the lack of sex, he response shocked me even more, “Perhaps that’s because you haven’t been with a guy who actually respected women.”
It was so clear and concise. He viewed men that tried to use desire to influence a woman as pathetic. To him, a man shouldn’t try to get a woman turned on so that she would compromise. He didn’t deny that, at some point, it would be part of our relationship. He accepted that my partner wasn’t comfortable with it and that I was respecting those wishes. He accepted it without complaint.
Don’t think that when my partner gave me the green light, we jumped right in the sack. The boyfriend wanted it to mean more. We had spent weeks just laying next to each other and talking. We’d kiss and cuddle while we listened to music. I’d lie in his lap or he’d prop his feet up on me during a movie.
When the night came that we did cross the line, we were already physically comfortable around each other. I traced his collarbone lightly and he held my face. There were some awkward moments as we figured out exactly how Part A fit with Part B. After it was over, we joked.
I realized that our relationship had already been intimate. We may not have known the location of every mole or tickle spot but we knew each other. I already knew the man. We already had a relationship. It had already been approved of. We’d just added the icing on the cake: consummation.
Since then, we’ve been able to reveal things we like and things we don’t. There have been compromises but it has only been to please the other and I’ve been grateful that the two men in my life made me wait. I appreciated the importance more because of that delay. Discovering the talents and secrets that only sex reveals did start a new chapter in our relationship; I was just glad it wasn’t in Chapter One.
