Sex-Specters, Orgasm Demons, and Jizz Sheets: An Evolution of my perceptions of other people’s sex lives and *my* space

 

I was in a love-full and sex-less marriage. I don’t remember the last time I had sex with my husband before he died, but I’d estimated it’d been at least three years, if not longer.

When I started dating again…well, the first guy was poly and his partner wasn’t comfortable with him having sex with me because I have genital herpes. So, we didn’t have any sort of genital contact in that direction. My mouth made plenty of contact with his genitals, though.

Then the second guy was deathly afraid of my fearsome hoo-hah. He was also attempting poly. He ended up having sex with his other partner but continued to refuse me, though he said he loved me. He just couldn’t bring himself to cross that line.

Again, he had no issue with my touching his genitals with my mouth.

By then, I’d re-discovered the local kink community and started throwing house parties now and then, inviting friends over for weekends of food and fun.

The one thing I asked was “don’t have sex in my house.” See, ’cause if I wasn’t having sex in my house then I didn’t want anybody else to have sex in my house. It was my space and if I didn’t get to use it that way, I didn’t want anybody else to use it that way.

Not all my friends got that memo, and it’s not like I had the rules posted on the wall. One of my friends and their partner went to go take a nap in the guest room, and ended up having sex while I was in the house entertaining other guests. I could hear them. Eventually, I got over it, though I was admittedly annoyed they left the sheets on the bed at the end of the weekend for me to change.

A year later, I had another friend come stay with a partner for an extended period of time. That friend knew how I felt about being abstinent in a sexually charged world and asked if it would be okay for them to have sex with each other while staying with me. I still wasn’t having sex, but …whatever. It was a guest room and it had already happened with other people, so why not?

I told them as long as they washed their own sheets that was fine.

It wasn’t fun, knowing other people were doing things in my house that I couldn’t do because the string of partners I’d encountered up to then didn’t want to do it with me. Of the mouthfuls of men who didn’t fuck me over the course those two years, there were a couple I would have wanted to have all-the-way sex with if they’d lasted long enough for me to trust them.

All of them opted out.

I’m glad of it now. I’m especially grateful for the one who opted out because he KNEW I had feelings for him that he didn’t return. His opt-out wasn’t about the herpes, it was about being a good friend and not tarnishing that friendship by leading me on any further.

Eventually I met someone who became (and still is) the partner who didn’t opt out. I recall the first time he invited me to stay at his place, which he shares with one of his partners. I jumped into my poly chatroom and asked a bunch of questions. What is the proper etiquette for this? They don’t have a guest room. I’ll be shagging on her bed. Should I offer to wash the sheets? Bring my own? How do I ensure that I am not encroaching on her space?

And someone in the chatroom reminded me, “it’s his space, too.”

Turns out, if my metamour takes any issue with others sleeping in her bed, it’s a surprise to me. Our partner takes it upon himself to wash and change the sheets before and after I leave. I help him re-make the bed on the few occasions I stay there.

I realized I truly admired her for this. The more I’d think about it, the more my original feelings about other people having sex in my house feel odd to me now. Like, who cares? I stay in hotel beds all the time that have probably had thousands upon thousands of people fucking on them before I got there.

That never bothered me. It’s just a physical space, and …yes, technically within my house that I own it is my space, but it’s still just space. There aren’t little sex-specters hanging around haunting me…”ooOOoooOooOOOooooo! I am the ghost of your sexless past, phi!”

And yet, not even two months ago I wrote a post here asking if it was normal to feel weird about wanting to masturbate in my coworker’s apartment while she was out of town and letting me stay there during my water-leak fiasco.

Spoiler alert: I did. She’s none the wiser and I’m sure she’s not being haunted by my orgasm-demons; though I’ll admit didn’t do it on her bed. I sat on the floor in the bathroom.

All of this was inspired by a friend’s recent situation. While the friend is out of town, their partner is entertaining a guest in their shared apartment. It’s all well-and-good, except just prior to the trip, this guest and my friend had a falling out, and now they are not feeling so good about having their space “invaded” by someone they’re not on good terms with.

And I see the point. But I also see the point of the people in the chatroom a long time ago who reminded me that “it’s his space, too” and regardless of metamour-relations, their partner is still entitled to use their space the way they want to within the boundaries and agreements of their particular poly relationship, which (up to this point) includes inviting other partners over when one is out of town.

It was interesting, though, as I was listening to my friend’s story, how different my reaction is today as to how it would have been two years ago when the thought of someone else having sex in my house made me feel uneasy, much less in my bed with my partner.

In this particular instance, I think I would feel similarly – that someone who’d disrespected me should not be taking advantage of my space for their orgasms; but then again – I live alone. I think if my partner lived with me, I might have to swallow my discomfort because it’d be his space, too.

But, that particular example notwithstanding, I no longer feel that other people (in good standing with me) fucking in my house would bother me, as long as they wash their jizz-sheets and re-make the bed before they leave.

Go figure.