Condoms, Trust and Saying No

Always Aroused Girl has made a couple posts about her experience with a trusted lover who promised her that he was using condoms with all other lovers. In time she discovered that this man had betrayed her, and was actually going condom free with several other lovers who each also believed that she was the only one with whom he was condom-free.

It got me to thinking about an incident I’ve tried to block out of my mind.

Earlier this year, I woo’ed by, then dumped by, a man I met online. He lived halfway across the country, so we spent several months getting to know one another through emails, phone calls and text messages. We discussed our expectations in anticipation of our first meeting. We talked about the best- and worst-case scenarios. (I thought) we opened our hearts to each other.

Before our first date, I warned him that I don’t sleep with men on the first date. In fact, I don’t have sex with a man until I’m sure it’s likely to become a relationship. He told me that he’d had a relationship with every woman he’s slept with. Even if no sex was involved, I told him, I hoped to spend the night sleeping wrapped in his arms. And we both agreed that in some respects it didn’t feel like a first date because we’d gotten to know each other so well. Even though we’d never met face-to-face, I felt as if a level of trust had developed between us.

That first night we went out to dinner. There was wine involved, but the quantities were relatively modest. I wasn’t drunk, and I don’t think he was, either. After dinner, we went back to his hotel room. That, in itself, wasn’t a surprise. I’d met him before dinner at his hotel. I’d even been up to his room before dinner, and he was a perfect gentleman. I wanted to go back to his hotel room.

Clothes were removed. Body parts were touched and kissed and fondled and bitten. Soon, he made it clear that he wanted to have sex, and I agreed. Get a condom, I insisted. He initially balked, but finally got one from his toiletry kit. We started to have sex. We stopped to engage in more fun that didn’t involve penetration. We started to have sex again. We stopped again. He removed the condom and we continued in our passionate ways, minus pentration. We were both having fun, and there didn’t seem to be any pressure to rush things.

I rolled onto my side, with my back to him. Suddenly he forced himself into me. “No Daddy,” I whimpered. “Please, no, stop.”

He didn’t. It lasted only a brief moment in time–maybe less than a minute–before he came inside me. “It’s OK, baby,” he said. “I’ve been tested. I’m safe. I haven’t been with anyone since I was tested 6 months ago.”

I didn’t argue. We curled up together an fell asleep.

I saw him one more before he left town. There was no sex involved. But in the back of my mind, I had a nagging feeling. Without any discussion, he’d fucked me without a condom. I hadn’t given permission. I’d asked him to stop. He didn’t. But for some reason, I found myself willing to overlook it. After all, I cared about this man. I’d fallen for him, head over heels, before we even met. And the rest of our time together–you know, except for the part where he was fucking me against my will without a condom–was magical. For whatever reason, I felt willing to forgive him for that heat-of-the-moment transgression.

He left town and we started to make plans for our next visit. Then, without warning, he disappeared as quickly as he’s appeared.

In my anger over what could have been, I also started to get angry over the sex. I was upset and bothered on a lot of levels, but I was also upset with myself, because to some extent I was willing to forgive him. Some of the things that went through my mind when dealing with the ramifications:

• I said no, and he ignored me. But in the BDSM world, when does “no” really mean “no”? We hadn’t set a safeword, so should he have listened to me when I said “no”?
• If I’d really meant it, couldn’t I have pulled away from him, gotten up and walked out the door?
• He never asked if I’d been tested, nor did he ask if I was on birth control. The irony is that he has two children under the age of 5 with two women. The younger of the kids–the one who wasn’t even a year old at the time–was an accidental pregnancy with his ex-girlfriend. Shouldn’t a man who’s recently made that mistake ensure that he takes all precautions to prevent another unplanned pregnancy?
• I have no insurance, and the cost of a full battery of STD tests costs real money. I walked into my local free clinic a month or two later, and immediately turned around and left. It was dirty. The clientele looked seedy. The wait would be hours, and they took no appointments. Eventually I broke down and got the tests from my OB-GYN. It was an expensive lesson, but fortunately the results were clean.
• This man was previously a law-enforcement officer. And not just any old small-town police officer. He worked for a federal law enforcement agency. (And, yes, it’s the one you’re probably thinking of.) He’s now an executive at a big company, where he reports to the CEO. (The kind of position where you worry about your image, and don’t do things outside of work that could tarnish your image at the office.) Aren’t these the kinds of people we should be able to trust?
• He has daughters who are close to my age. How would he feel if a man treated one of his daughters this way?
• If you agree to sex under certain conditions (with a condom) and then the conditions change (the condom is removed) and you say “no” is it date rape?
• Why was I willing to forgive him for ignoring my wishes when I thought things were going well between us, but I became so angry about the incident when things fell apart?

I’ve asked myself all of these questions, and more, over the last six months. And I don’t have the answers. Most of the time I’m able to put it out of my mind, but Always Aroused Girl’s recent post brought the memories back to me. It’s still upsetting because of what happened, and because of the way that I reacted–or didn’t react–to the situation.

Cast of Characters

It strikes me that readers may have a hard time figuring out who’s who in the blog. After all, I know all of the people I mention, yet I have a hard time remembering how I’ve labeled each person. So here’s a cheat sheet… 

Bad Email!

Always Aroused Girl’s recent post on The Grammar, It Saddens Me inspired me to write a similar post of my own. I get introductory emails from men who read my profile on Alt or CM, and some of the emails just make me cringe because the grammar–or other details–are so bad. Since AAG has covered the grammar, I’ll focus on some other details that annoy me!

Maybe? Perhaps? Fingers Crossed!

After swearing, time and time again, that I wouldn’t get involved in another long-distance relationship, I’ve “met” a man who seems too good to be true, but even the skeptic in me is almost persuaded that he is the real deal. We’ve been talking and writing and texting for about six weeks–since just days after the Dark Horse and I finally called it quits–and I’ll meet him face-to-face later this month.

There are a lot of dangers connected with meeting someone online. One is that you’ll fall in love with their online persona, and then be disappointed when confronted with reality. Maybe he chews with his mouth open. Or won’t look you in the eyes. Or has body odor. Or looks five years old than his photos. Maybe he’s rude to waitresses. Or drives like a maniac. Or doesn’t tip well. Maybe he’s too forward when you meet in person. Or he’s not forward enough. Maybe he comes across as creepy. Or a little overeager. Maybe he has the same mannerisms as your last boyfriend. Or as your father. Or maybe you just don’t have physical chemistry, despite the mental connection.

I’m trying to keep an open mind. I don’t want to get too excited; I’m trying to go into our meeting with low expectations. But we’ve already spent so many hours on the phone, and traded hundreds of email, so it’s hard to manage my expectations. I’d love to say that I’m hoping for the best but expecting the worst. It is accurate, in some respects, but I know I’ll be terribly disappointed and will feel let down if we’re not a match.

Meeting Mr. P (A Year Later)

(Note: I’d partially written this post, then never finished it because things didn’t progress with Mr. P. Since this is a sex blog with very little sex, and since I met him exactly one year ago today, I thought it would be fun to finish and post this entry. FWIW, today is also the anniversary of when I first starting talking to the Dark Horse. He and I burned up the email wires that day, then I went out and fucked another man! Go figure… A couple days after the events described in this post, I had sex again with Mr. P. That’s the last time I’ve had sex. <sigh>)

Once I got past college, I was more-or-less done with the idea of sex-without-strings. I know it works for some people, but it didn’t appeal to me for a few reasons.

If I’m going to have sex with someone, I want to know them well enough to know what turns them on, and vice versa. So that eliminates your random bar hook-ups. Plus, I’d prefer to be having sex with someone I find genuinely interesting. If we can’t sit down and have a conversation about something unrelated to sex, it’s unlikely I’ll find you interesting enough to sleep with. Lastly–and this is the most difficult one–I’d rather sleep with someone repeatedly rather than having a one-time hook-up. After all, the sex is likely to get better, not worse. But if you find each other reasonably attractive and you can have an intelligent conversation with one another and you’re having sex on some kind of repeat basis, you potentially find yourself headed down a slippery slope. Assuming you’re both single (and I’m not interested in guys who are cheating on their girlfriends or wives), one of you is likely to eventually want more of a relationship than just sex.

And, let’s face it, it’s usually the woman who gets her heart broken, isn’t it?

So that’s why I was intrigued when I read Mr. P’s online personal.

Things I Don’t Understand

A few weeks ago, I jumped in my car to run a quick errand. I’d been working from home that day, so I didn’t have on any makeup, and wasn’t wearing anything very dressy. For all I remember, I might have been very casual–perhaps a pair of yoga pants and a fitted tee–because the errand (to the Department of Motor Vehicles) didn’t require me to look good.

I turned from a minor thoroughfare onto a more major one, and drove about a block up to a traffic light, which was red. As I waited for the light to change, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. To my right was a man–maybe in his late 20s or early 30s–in a cheap sports car, gesturing for me to roll down my window. I recently had a flat tire, and my first thought was, “Is something else wrong with my car?” I rolled down my window and the guy said to me, “I hope you don’t think I’m rude for saying this, but I think you’re–”

Success!

I successfully resisted all temptation and didn’t give him a blowjob! He did his best to try to persuade me, and there was a lot of cajoling and smooth talking and kissing and caressing, but I kept my lips (and hands and everything else) off of his cock.

Sometimes it’s the small steps that feel like major victories.

I Will Not Give Him a Blowjob!

I’m seeing J2, my ex-boyfriend who’s relatively dominant, this weekend. And I keep telling myself, “I will not give him a blowjob. I will not give him a blowjob. I will not give him a blowjob.” I hope the message has sunk into my brain, and I’m able to resist.

Dressing for Him

One thing I absolutely love about dominant men is that they take a strong interest in what their submissive is wearing. My last vanilla boyfriend would look at me on nights when the temperature dipped into the single digits and ask, “Why are you wearing a skirt?” He must have asked me this question at least a couple dozen times. I should have smacked him and said, “I’m wearing it for you, Moron.” At least he would have learned not to ask that question of his next girlfriend!

That Sinking Feeling…

I try not to get my hopes up before a blind first date, but sometimes it’s tough to rein in those feelings. If I’ve talked to the guy on the phone, or exchanged a series of long, thoughtful emails, and if I’ve seen an attractive photo, I’ll let my mind start to wander. Could he be the one? Might we live happily ever after? What if I like him but he doesn’t feel the same way about me? Is it possible that the chemistry will be as amazing in person as it is over the phone?

Out With The Old

In case it wasn’t obvious from my last couple of posts, things with the Dark Horse finally came to an end over the last couple of months.

Power is the Ultimate Aphrodisiac

I like a powerful man. I’m not talking about a physically strong guy (though that’s also a turnon). I’m talking about your successful, Type-A corporate executive. <<swoon>>

I Guess It’s Been a Long Time

I had an appointment with my OB/GYN the other day. He’s a decent guy, just a few years older than me, and I feel very comfortable when I talk to him.

Before I got undressed, he asked me if I’d had sex since in the year since my last visit, and I admitted that yes, I had, but only about twice with two partners. (I say “admitted” not because I’m ashamed that I had sex, but I wish I could have answered, “On a daily basis with a man who drives me crazy.”)

Next up was the examination, and there I was, dressed in a flimsy gown with a paper draping my lower half, feet spread in the stirrups, my doctor at my feet, his nurse bustling around in the background as the three of us carried on a conversation that had nothing to do with me and my female reproductive organs.

I knew it was coming, but when he touched me, I flinched (and we both laughed). He did the first part of his exam, spun around in his chair to put down the speculum, then back to me, touched me again, and I flinched again. I’m as comfortable as I could be at the gynecologist (without having ever participated in any medical scenes), so I was surprised that I flinched once, let alone twice.

He finished the second part of the exam and pushed his chair back. I asked, “Are we done?” and he replied, “Nope, I have one more thing to do so you’ll have to flinch one more time.”

We both laughed, and I reminded him that I’d already told him about my slow sex life…I’m just not used to anyone but myself touching me!

Just Wondering…

I was chatting with a man on IM, and he said to me, “I haven’t had anal sex with a woman before.”

His profile says he’s straight. But that comment, “…with a woman,” makes me pause.

Does anyone else think that most straight guys wouldn’t phrase the sentence that way?

That Shook My Memories

Over the last year, I’ve become much more interested and in touch with my submissive side. It’s something I only became cognizant of in the last six or seven years (though I did little to pursue it), and before that time, I would have described myself as dominant. (And I still think I have a dominant personality in a lot of other areas of my life.)

As I’ve recently spent more time thinking about submission, I’ve realized that my submissive side has always existed, and I had submissive interactions for years before I “knew” I was submissive. Some of my earliest sexual fantasies were submissive in nature, and when I flirted with boys in high school and college, I was usually attracted to the dominant ones.

The Ritual

I’ve always enjoyed the ritual of getting ready for a date…particularly a first date, or when we’re still in that getting-to-know-you phase. Even if we exchange just a kiss–or there’s no touching at all–the ritual helps me prepare for a date and puts me in a happy state of mind.

Love of the Cock, Part 2

I’ve previously written about how much I love to give blow jobs. I also might be one of those rare women who enjoy looking at cock shots. (Bad Wifey has some great ones on her blog.) So it got me to thinking, although I love to look at and play with healthy-sized cocks, I’m not necessarily a size queen.

Sometimes It Just Takes a Little Time to Put Things in Perspective

I had dinner with an ex-boyfriend earlier this week. That, in itself, isn’t unusual. I’m good friends with my most immediate ex-boyfriend, and see him frequently (once a week or more). We dated for less than a year, so as my relationships go, it was a relatively short one.

He was vanilla…very vanilla. But even though I knew things were wrong in the relationship, I was grief-stricken when it ended. Now I can’t image dating him. We’ll sit on the couch watching television, and if I think back to how we used to cuddle watching TV, I laugh to myself. I can’t picture myself kissing him, can’t picture his cock, can hardly remember having sex.

Answers to a Few Comments

I’ve gotten a few comments from men asking where I live and whether they can read my Alt profile.

As I hope you understand, I try to keep a certain degree of anonymity on here since I’m blogging about very personal things. I wouldn’t want any of the guys I meet to later recognize themselves as they read my blog. (And for that reason, I do take literary license to change identifying details.) So I’m not comfortable mentioning where I live, or telling you my profile name. If you’re interested, leave me a comment with your profile name, I’ll check it out and contact you if I’m interested. Or you can email me at submissiveinthecity at gmail dot com if you don’t want others who read comments to know too many details about you.

Thanks!

Love of the Cock

(Yes, I realize I’ve been MIA. I’ll try to post more this month, I promise!)

Lately I’ve been thinking about all things oral. If given a choice, I’d much prefer to give a blow job than receive oral sex. Truthfully, I find 69 to be somewhat distracting, and I’ll admit (somewhat reluctantly) that I’ve never cum from a guy going down on me. But I have cum (many times!) while worshipping a man’s cock. There’s just something about it that’s an enormous turn-on.

Mid-Week Update

After getting this blog off to a fast start, things have slowed down a bit, as I’d expected. In my personal life, the past few days have been quiet, too, but should be getting more lively over the next week.

I have a first date tomorrow, with a guy who I’ve been chatting with online for a while. We’re getting together for drinks in the early evening…if things go well, it could turn into dinner, but otherwise we can call it a night after one or two cocktails. (I can make conversation with anyone for an hour or two! My friends would laugh and agree with that statement…”anyone,” they’d tell you, includes an infant, a brick wall and your most annoying in-law.) While I’m always optimistic about first dates, I try not to get my hopes up too high! I don’t want to jinx it, so I won’t say anything more.

Mr. P and I last played about two weeks ago, and I was hoping that maybe I’d get to see him this weekend, but I know he has a lot going on this month. Nothing scheduled, however, which is probably good because after writing last night’s post about J2, I shot him an email and got a reply this morning letting me know that he’d be in town early next week. I haven’t told him that I’m delving more deeping into D/s. (I started to tell him one night. He’s always asking me about the men I’m dating, and what I’m looking for. I began to list adjectives like dominant, strong, alpha male…and he said, “Sounds like the opposite of me,” which, ironically, is not the case. I’d use all of those words to describe him. But we were in the middle of having sex–yes, we’ll have conversations like this during sex, mainly when he wants to slow down the pace–and although arguably I should have steered the conversation away from generalities about my dating life and toward the fact that I need D/s in my life, at the time it didn’t seem like a discussion I wanted to have.)

But as I was saying, I’m planning to tell J2 about the fact that I’m embracing my submissive and kinkier side–I’m exploring things that are both more submissive and kinkier than what we had in our relationship–but think I should probably tell him when there aren’t bruises on my ass. At some levels, he’s a voyeur and has always enjoyed hearing details about the other men I’ve dated (both before we were together and after we split up), so I have no doubt he’ll enjoy this, too. And he probably would enjoy seeing the bruises, too, but I’d rather tell him first (or not, if it doesn’t feel right).

Guy #2 (Don’t Fall in Love With Emails)

Although I often spend a couple weeks talking to a man via email, phone and IM before agreeing to meet in person, I’ve never been able to understand how people can build entire relationships with someone they’ve never met face-to-face, or communicate for months before meeting in real life.

The fact of the matter is, the odds are against you when you meet in person. I walk into every first date as an optimist. I truly hope that the man I’m meeting could be Mr. Right, or I wouldn’t be wasting time on the date. But the fact of the matter is, even though we both thought there was potential prior to the first date, once we spend a couple hours together on a first date, opinions often change.

Guy #2 is a perfect example of why you shouldn’t fall in love with someone until you meet them face-to-face. He gave great email. Such great email that I was willing to overlook some important details.

Guy #1 (A Lesson in Trust)

I met Guy #1 online over the winter. His emails were sharp, funny and insightful, but he came off as a little obnoxious in our phone conversations. From his pictures, I wasn’t certain if we were physically a match, but I was looking forward to meeting him in person when we arranged a Sunday lunch date.

He was one of those dominant guys who wanted to start off our first meeting with some small instructions for me to follow—but only if I was comfortable. He was the first guy I’d met face to face, so this was a big step for me, but I was willing to play along. And although he didn’t ask a lot of me in those instructions (they had to do with entering the restaurant, sitting down and waiting for him), it was a little nerve wracking. But I followed them, we met, and the date went better than I expected it to. We were among the last people to leave at the end of the lunch service. I found him charming and witty. I enjoyed our conversation, and hearing more about how he’d become involved in D/s.

G#1 and I went out on two or three more dates, and talked on the phone a lot when we weren’t out on dates. But I found myself reluctant to schedule dates. First, he was one of these men who had lied about a few things in his profile, but wrote it off as acceptable lies. You have to love it when people think the lies they’ve told aren’t *really* lies. He’d shaved about five years off of his age (and he was quite immature, I’ll give him that). He listed himself as divorced, when he was really only separated from his wife. And he described his profession in nebulous terms that would lead you to believe he was probably a doctor, when he was nothing of the sort. (He was a consultant.)

But worse than the lies was that he was one of these guys who had an obnoxious side to his personality and just didn’t give a damn about a lot of things. I never saw that side of his personality directed toward me, but I saw hints of it, and he told me plenty of stories where it was clear it existed. He made a comment about being asked to leave a nicer restaurant in our city because he was being loud. Now, my demeanor is fairly sedate and conservative. I would be appalled if I were asked to leave a restaurant, and I’d be appalled if my husband or boyfriend were asked to leave a restaurant. I do have a few friends who are obnoxious, and a little piece of me admires them because they just don’t give a damn. And I laugh when they get going (particularly when it’s in an acceptable setting). But if they start acting obnoxious in an inappropriate location, I can get up and leave, because they’re just a friend—they’re not my date or my boyfriend or my husband. And I wouldn’t want them to be.

I kept thinking about that…this guy has an obnoxious, flippant, I don’t give a damn demeanor. Could I tolerate that? So much of D/s is about trust, and giving trust and control to the dominant partner. And I finally realized that I wasn’t sure I could ever trust someone with that attitude. Granted, he said he had a lot of experience, and he’d been into D/s since college (he was in his 40s). Maybe he was completely safe, sane and had never given partners a reason to make them think he couldn’t be trusted. But I just didn’t feel comfortable with him. So after a handful of dates—none of which got more intimate than a kiss—I told him I didn’t think it was going to work out, and wished him well. Sometimes you learn a lot about what you’re looking for by going down the wrong paths.

Why Is It…?

Why is it that some dominant guys think they can act like complete boors online when they’d never behave that way in the real world? And do dominant men really think that begging and arguing will get submissive women to change their mind after the sub has rejected them?