Transcription
Let's talk about open relationships.
So, I decided to go celibate a few weeks ago. I have always been really excited about sexual exploration. I genuinely feel like sex is sometimes the easiest thing you can do with people. And there are so many other fulfilling aspects of connection that you can find even in friendship.
Oh, hey. Wow. I didn't expect to see you here. Um, since we're in my room, I thought maybe I would share with you my recent musings on open relationships, being a and now celibate, and overall just how I'm relating to sensuality and pleasure. If you want to join me, uh, thank you so much for being here.
On a real note, I wanted to share some fun facts about myself to set the stage a little bit. When I was 12 years old, my nudes got sent around to the entire school, including to my brother, who was obviously upset and disgusted, and it still makes me cringe to this day. My middle school bullies regularly tried to fight me and were suspended for hate speech on my Facebook wall. One of my nicknames was Asian and the other one hotoi. So, I was I was the school slip. Boys would make up stories about me that everyone would just believe. So any boy who wanted to prove that he was a man would just make up a story about me and then everyone would be like, "Oh yeah, that checks out." And I was the person that no one wanted to be friends with because my reputation preceded me and they would get defamed by association. Every single school had a school sweat and it is a really interesting role and archetype to play at such a young age and one that I've been unpacking for a very long time.
My first experiences with my body were so pure and loving and I just felt such an excitement to welcome pleasure into my physical form. My first experiences relating to my body were just so wonderful and really felt like they were just between me and God and the rapture, the curiosity, the purity and the pleasure. All of that felt so wrapped into one. And then I left the safety of my bedroom wearing scantily clad outfits and all of that shifted so quickly. Unlearning having obligational sex, unlearning even just dressing for the male gaze, finding validation from how much male attention I was getting. That took me so many years. And living in a patriarchal society, I am still breathing that air in. It's still something that I'm working through. But I can say that when I get dressed in the morning, I'm just excited to wear things that make me feel good in my body for me. And we're going to get into the other stuff, but that's just sort of the context.
When you don't grow up with a sense of self-worth rooted in your character, the value that you bring to your family or are just unsure of your place in the world, it is so much easier to believe other people's projections of you and internalize them. It is so easy to go to unfulfilling sources for that sense of validation and love, not realizing that you can get love, respect, and togetherness from a place that has nothing to do with your body or appearance. And it took me so long to realize this. That was the only place I felt good at something. Being good in bed, being attractive, it felt like something that I was good at and made me wanted in a space which I didn't feel for a lot of my life. So having low self-worth is no joke. And for me, I unpacked a lot of this in therapy. Anxiety often peaks when you are doing shadow work or any form of healing. And my sponsor, BetterHelp, can connect you to a therapist that can provide support. 69% of members who sign up for anxiety reported improved anxiety symptoms after 6 weeks of therapy on BetterHel. And getting started is super easy. You just fill out a questionnaire and you'll be matched with a therapist within a couple of days. You can easily switch therapists at no cost anytime if it's not the right fit. They carefully make sure therapists on the platform are well-qualified and their customer support team is there to help you if you have any questions. Let BetterHelp help you to rule your anxiety so that it doesn't rule you. You can click the link in my description box down below or go to betterhelp.com/hitoi for 10% off your first month.
Let's talk about open relationships. I have had several relationships that were open or non-monogamous. And the reason that this relationship style really worked for me was because while I saw my parents have a really terrible and messy relationship and the statistics of most marriages ending in divorce led me to feel that objectively this monogamy partner style isn't working. It causes so much trauma for children and adults stay together when they literally loathe each other and it prevents them from living life. So, let's just be a little bit more honest. This isn't a model that is going to work for everyone. And my first boyfriend in high school happened to cheat on me a lot with I was going to use quotations, but he cheated on me by constantly texting other people. And I would just find so many explicit photos and messages on his phone from our mutual friends and things like that. And I just remember feeling that I really didn't care that he was engaging with other people in this sexual way. I just wanted to know about it. I just didn't want him to lie about it. And I opened up that conversation with him like I just like this is fine, but you can just communicate with me about this. And obviously that relationship didn't end well. And communication did not happen when we were literally in high school. But it just made me feel like I actually think that this is an interesting approach. Like I don't take it that personally if my partner is physically connecting with someone, if they're getting a desire fulfilled by someone. As long as my partner and I have a foundation of strong emotional stability and support and you know just spiritual intimacy. For me that is actually really hard to find. It's very easy to be physically intimate with people, but to be spiritually naked, to be spiritually intimate, that is really rare and precious and also something that just takes time to build. So, I never really felt threatened by my partner connecting with other people.
This was something that I experimented with in my next relationship. And I feel like this can be a triggering topic for some people because I hear a lot of women being in relationships with men where they're the ones who want to be open. They want to be intimate with other women but don't want their female partners to be intimate with men. And that's where it can get really weird and turn into a dynamic that's just really toxic and unhealthy. There are toxic versions of monogamy and non-monogamy. And people always want to give non-monogamy a bad rep because it feels like people just wanting to be loose and not commit and not be devotional. But it actually takes extra work, extra communication, extra time spent um validating your partner and having equal amounts of intimacy with them or more ideally more than they are with other people. And to me that shows a lot of devotion and a lot of commitment. And obviously it's not for everyone, but you can make your own sort of guidelines within your relationship and what feels good. For most of mine, I suppose they were hierarchical where we, my partner and I were always each other's main partners, but when we were traveling, it was okay if we connected with someone. We just didn't get that deeply intimate to the point where we were in a whole relationship with someone else. That is more polygamy. We were just open and it was fun when we were long distance to sort of entertain other people and have really sweet, loving connections where everyone was on board with what was happening. Communication happened before. Sometimes it would happen a few days after and I was okay with that. And that is just me and it's not something I'm making up because I was trying to act like the cool girl. Like no, I actually loved hearing about my partner's experiences with other people because it made me happy that they were inspired in ways that like maybe they couldn't find in our relationship or fulfilled or picked up something that now they brought into our relationship. Whether that was like a philosophy or a practice or a song or even something in bed, like all of that felt really beneficial and positive to me. That was a three-year relationship. And I got out of a about four-year relationship. It became this thing where I started to realize that I was using open relationships as a crutch for my avoidance. Someone asking more of me, someone wanting to plan a future with me. I started to realize that I wanted all those things, but it really terrified me. Even just the idea of getting married alone terrifies me because of how many bad relationships I've seen in my life, bad marriages specifically. And I'm finding the middle ground where I still don't fully believe in creating a contract with the law that I'm going to be with someone. I would rather have a sole contract with someone where I devote to them. And I'm really excited to explore devoting and monogamy in this way where I move through that intense avoidance and just communicate like when I feel overwhelmed.
The very important questions to continue asking yourself throughout an open relationship is is this serving our relationship? Is this evolving us for the better? Is it bringing us closer or further apart? It is a lot of communication. And it is a lot of revisiting the structure, the dynamic, you know, fleshing out kinks. And because it's not just this set way of being like monogamy, you don't know what your objective is every single day. There are different scenarios that you may not have discussed that come up. And it does take a lot of emotional maturity. I think that you should not enter an open relationship if you don't feel comfortable admitting that you're jealous to your partner, if you are just doing it to please them, if it doesn't feel like something that excites you that you'll also benefit from, if it doesn't feel like it's furthering the plot of your shared intimacy together, then you should just be single. And that's kind of what I came to realize as well is that, you know, in the desire to explore my queerness, that's actually a journey that I have to take on my own and that I shouldn't be in a relationship with a sis man when I'm trying to explore my queerness. You don't want to let go of someone who's so comfortable and a partner that you've loved, but you also feel like it's too soon to know if you want to marry that person and you need time to be single out in the world. Like, you know, you want to secure this beautiful relationship that you've been forging, but also clear any doubts that you have in your head. And I feel like this does work for some people when they open up, but still stay together as primary partners, and then they get the clarity that they needed. But it might just be better to fully lean in to that curiosity and break up and come together if it's meant to be. And honestly, being slightly avoidant in an open relationship is also just not healthy. And I really realized that after I got out of my last one. And I just felt so and still do feel so committed to honoring the energy of love and not creating any more hurt if possible from this tendency to want to be so independent and this fear of being needed and needing people as any sort of primary attachment that terrifies me.
I think monogamy can work if you have a community around you that you are equally inspired by that maybe you can have moments of romance with or sensuality or be inspired by creatively. And I don't mean any sort of sexual ties with this community around you. I simply mean that you romance life together that you inspire each other to be more free in the world to be more expressive to be more confident that allows you to source love and counsel and inspiration outside of your relationship alone. So that when you and your other partner, the unit that you are, are having trouble or you feel bored with one another, you have a whole network of outreach around you. You have fertile soil around you to plant other kinds of seeds and it's not as much pressure resting on this one person to fulfill you. And that feels really exciting for me to realize. You can have so many deep forms of love with people that does not include physical or even you know spiritual intimacy with other people but it can just add to and inform your sense of fulfillment which will then make your monogamous relationship a lot better. I have to test this theory but I do feel like that's why a lot of marriages end because family units are so isolated and they don't have other sources of excitement and one person cannot fulfill every single need. Objectively, that is just not true. You need people who show you different worlds. And you can do that together. And instead of getting bored of one another and getting bored of the relationship, get bored together and go explore the world together and like, you know, have these other alchemical sources of rapture through other people and their niche fascinations about the world. To me, that's my favorite part about dating is just getting to learn about people's worlds and their unique model of moving through this life because that is honestly just so interesting. Like tangent over about that, but I have just been more and more curious about healthy forms of monogamy.
So, I decided to go celibate a few weeks ago and it's already been so fulfilling. This is my second time really really committing to celibacy and it feels so nice to be engaging with people with the the knowing that we are not going to have sex. It completely changes the dynamic. What is more interesting to me than an orgasm or more fulfilling to me than sharing my body? The spiritual intimacy that happens when you are dating or getting to know someone. Like the way that you reveal parts of yourself you normally don't get to, how alive you feel in your bones. Whenever you're dating someone new or maybe starting to have feelings for someone, it's terrifying. And it also kind of feels like you're in a coming of age film where you just feel so alive and you just remember the simple bliss of life. Just actually juicing and extracting the best parts of love making and taking out the physical part, which as exciting as it is, doesn't really interest me that much right now. And a lot of times when I would not be engaging with sex, I wouldn't really talk about sex that much. I wouldn't make videos about sex, which, you know, I have a lot of sex education on my channel. I felt like that was an end to my sexual existence during those phases. But really, it is a continuum. And this is such a huge and important part of my sex life right now is taking time not engaging with anyone, not acting out of any wounds. Learning what I want in a future relationship is a time for me where I'm also self-pleasuring a lot and really learning how to take care of my body and love my body and give myself experiences that feel really fulfilling. And all of this will make me a better lover in the future.
But the last topic that I kind of wanted to touch on was having bad sex and knowing what consent feels like in your body cuz this is something I've really been reflecting on in my time minding my business. I have always been really excited about sexual exploration. I had my first threesome when I was 13 years old. It was really fun and hot and beautiful. And then years later, I had another one with this really sweet photography couple in Brooklyn. And you know, spread throughout my life, I've had group sex with people that was really fun and excited me and felt like this juicy buildup of a thing that I wanted to lean into. Now, it's not that fun for me. Like, it's more mentally fun. The narrative of it is really fun to have this like week-long buildup with friends or with a couple that you really like and then it ending up in this playful intimacy. But in practice, there's always someone who's low-key like just watching or on the sidelines or not getting actively as stimulated. I personally feel like you can't always go as deep because if you're the person coming into someone else's relationship, they've already had weeks, months, or years of buildup of getting to know each other's bodies. And so, they're already there. Meanwhile, you are communicating things for the first time. And it might not feel as stimulating as if you had a few times to really let them know what you like. And you can build that over time in that group scenario. But basically, I'm just not really interested in group play at all anymore. Especially threesomes. I just feel like there it's it's an odd number, you know? And so more recently, I've been in scenarios where like that energy is there and there's this like flirtation. And I just thought to myself, if this was 5 years ago, I would have been down. We probably already would have made love. But at this point in my life, it feels so uninteresting to me. And I feel so empowered just fully knowing what that no feels like in my body where like maybe I'm cuddling with um two friends or maybe we're like going on walks and maybe we're giving each other massages like in the afternoon very casually and then when there's an invitation to do more, I just feel this clear sense of discomfort, this clear sense that I wouldn't feel fulfilled after this insecurity about how it would feel to like unmask and unrobe myself around these friends sexually. And it just, as simple as that may be, it just feels so good to fully understand what a yes and no feels like in my body. Because for most of my life, I was pretty much just saying yes and so curious about these experiences just because they would be interesting to my mind. Not even because I thought they would be sexually fulfilling, but because I thought it's a good story and I'm curious how I'll respond in this scenario. But now that I've done that exploring, I know that I really don't like group play that much. And it feels so good to know exactly what your physical boundaries are with yourself, with casual dating, with other people in relationships. And I really recommend to have like a mental note of exactly where you're at and how much you want to share yourself with people so that in the moment when it comes up, you know exactly how to advocate for your body.
So for me right now, I'm saying I'm in a season of celibacy. I'm not really interested in having any sexual projections at me or any sexual ties that I'm not consenting to. I am not open or available to having sex at all. That's where I'm at. And even with men who are eyeing me in the gym or trying to corner me and just talk to me and hit on me, I am so clear like, "Hey, actually, I'm not interested in any flirtations or romantic energy or especially a sexual gaze projected at me right now. That's where I'm at. If you want to be my friend, I could be open to that if it feels natural, but I'm not interested in anything else and I need to be really clear about that. I'm so happy that I am able to communicate these words without any fear at this point in my life. But I genuinely feel like sex is sometimes the easiest thing you can do with people. And there are so many other fulfilling aspects of connection that you can find even in friendship.
Once again, coming as a self-proclaimed this feels really fun and exciting to learn. It makes sex so much better. In fact, when you have experienced other forms of intimacy together and wait to indulge in the physical act because there's a lot less shying away, you're familiar with each other's walls, maybe even insecurities, and it is a completely different context. But touching on bad sex for a second, because I always talk about sex tips and how to have good sex. Bad sex happens all the time. It's probably a really normal thing, especially when you're first getting to know someone, getting to know someone's body and preferences. I have had many relationships where the first time that we hooked up was just really meh. And to me, that's bad sex. When it's like meh and it's not undeniable and I'm not like finding God, you know, at the climax, that to me is kind of like mediocre sex. And it would be so easy for me to just say, "Gh, I had bad sexual chemistry with this person." But I've realized over time that it just takes some practice. And as long as you're both curious enough and you have the anatomical body parts that you desire, then you can have really good sex with someone who you've had bad sex with in the past. And this can take some communication and knowing thyself. Maybe addressing the fact that that sex wasn't very fulfilling. So, how do you bring that up? Like instead of sitting in this shameful, weird, grotesque feeling about having mediocre sex, take a breath. It's going to be okay. Both of you are probably feeling the exact same way. Do not lie about how you felt during that sex. Do not say that was good or fulfilling to you and create that precedent. Maybe you take their hand. Maybe it's not directly after love making, but this is honestly a form of aftercare is discussing the sexual experience together. How was that for you? When they ask you that, answer honestly. You know, I could have been a little bit more connected to my body or I think that I could have had a little bit more foreplay to get into it and then it would have been so fun. It might sound kind of harsh. You could also say like, I'm really excited to keep getting to know your body and where your pleasure lives. Next time, I would love to slow down and create a sensorium. So, I really like positive reinforcement and inviting prompts. So, next time, let's try this. I love when this happens. I respond really well to this kind of touch. My body really appreciates when it's entered slowly. I like being on top when we start out like just vocalizing these things that you know about yourself that are honestly objective facts about your pleasure and just sharing them without shame or apology. It's really good information for them to know. And best believe they want to know how to pleasure you and you also want to know how to pleasure them better. So, if you didn't have a fulfilling experience, it's really great to know that maybe that was a mutual thing and um be the example of how you can invite those conversations and how you can be a model of someone who's curious about pleasuring their partner. So, instead of just putting all the weight on them and being upset, maybe they're not asking you the questions you want and stuff like that, be the model. Was that fulfilling for you? Is there anything I could do better? What kind of touch do you like? Did you like that pressure? Are there any kinks that you're into? And it is such a wonderful form of aftercare. Just because you've had bad sex with someone does not mean that that is the way it's going to be after a few times. Maybe, yeah, maybe you know that you have bad sexual compatibility. And maybe sometimes you know the first time as well. For me, I always know when I have bad sexual compatibility with someone based on their level of freakiness and how vanilla they are and how in touch they are with their body. That's something that I can't teach them. That's something that they'll have to be in their own process with. Otherwise, if it's just technical issues, if it's just that the sex was rushed, if it's just that we didn't have some like hot banter throughout it, then that is all workable. But yeah, certain things like someone being afraid to choke me cuz they think they're going to hurt me. That is like, okay, we're not super sexually compatible. But yeah, I feel like bad sex happens and it's okay and it feels weird and it kind of sucks, but so much beautiful intimacy can be born from that and that can just be the beginning. So, I also just want to share for anyone who's going through a breakup, if you are romanticizing the heck out of someone that you used to make love with, just think about all the times it was bad and how much time it took to build that level of intimacy and unmasking and freakiness. Like, it didn't just come. And if it did, trust that you'll find other people that are going to match your freak.
Good lovemaking, good intimacy takes time. And a lot of it has to do with non-physical actions. It's verbal. It's emotional. And it is in the healing of wounds. It is in the right potential of, like, what this relationship is that you're building with someone. All of that is a context for good lovemaking.
And I'm excited to explore that right now in my life without the physical aspect. So, I guess I just wanted to make this video as sort of a checkpoint of where I'm at on the continuum of knowing my body, understanding my sexual drive, and where I'm moving from in the world.
And also to say that love is an energy to be respected and people's hearts are so delicate. We have the opportunity to be positive forces in the world, all through healing ourselves and repairing ourselves and taking time to integrate lessons and not move from chaotic places. And I just really encourage that. I'm really inspired by that right now. Locking into your own accountability and healing and moving from a complete place of clarity. It is almost your duty for other people to grow into yourself, to feel confident in your voice, to know who you are.
But those are my thoughts right now. Um, if you have any recent ponderings, things that you're learning about celibacy, non-monogamy, I would love to know. I would love to read through the comments and just see where you're at. Where's your checkpoint? Thank you so much for having this moment of presence with me. And I hope to see you in a video soon. Bye. For real. Thank you for being here and listening to these rambly thoughts in my head. I appreciate you. I'm really into the peace signs right now. Okay, bye.