Polyamory and Corsets OR My Saturday

 On Saturday we went to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire AND Dorian's Parlor! As always, both events were awesome!

Much to everyone's surprise, we actually got out of the house 15 minutes after our intended departure time, this is amazing because I am always late, and was running on very little sleep. We picked up my mom at the Globe and journeyed forth to Lancaster to enjoy the Queen's medieval festivities. Mom and I love the Loony & Ploppy Show so we saw that first, even though we couldn't really see from where we sat. We also saw three of the Rakish Rogues, Sultry Sirens of Sin, Rogue & Siren shows, all of which were hilarious! Giant turkey legs and hot cider were consumed. I got a lot of compliments on my costume (I wasn't green on Saturday), and Mom spotted a little girl in a witch outfit staring at me. It was a nice moment of reversal, when I was little I loved Ren Faire and wanted  to one day have a costume other people noticed. On Saturday, I was the witch a little girl wanted to be when she grew up. I almost won a place on the jury for the Trial and Dunk but we think the screaming match was "planted" because they ended up dunking the girl who won against me. We made fun of the final joust constantly as it gets more and more ridiculous over the years.

Photo by Hugh Casey

We made the long drive back to the Globe to drop off Mom, and got changed for Dorian's Parlor. October Dorian's is my other "anniversary" with Wes, because that is where we met for the first time in person. We actually met online on a popular dating site, it's amazingly accurate in telling you which weirdos, geeks, and perverts you are compatible with.
The picture on the side bar is the girl Wes met last Dorian's, I think it's safe to say what he saw is what he got. I wore the wings and the shoes again this year, but have since gotten a few new costume pieces, I'll add a picture from this year when Hugh Casey uploads them. It was an interesting "turn over" I suppose, Zac & Angela (previously known as Boyfriend Z & Girlfriend A) were there and we had a better time for it! The person cut out of the picture is my ex, who I was heavily involved with last year when I met Wes, but really it was falling apart more than I could have known at the time. He was there on Saturday with his girlfriend, and to some extent being poly changes the way you play with your exes. People talk about polyamory being a somewhat "incestuous" community, so even when you have an especially agonizing breakup it is highly likely you will still have lots of common social ties with your ex. I consider being a poly female as a more difficult challenge in civility than being monogamous, female socialization in general makes girls hate other girls, so much so that we can barely compliment someone's attire without wondering if there is an insult just below the surface. That's not who I am, so even though the ex's girlfriend was actually detrimental to the breakup (hell, it's safe to say we almost certainly loathe each other), I liked her dress and said so to her face. Awkward pleasantries aside, it was a wonderful event!

Our future sponsors for Busts and Trunks Burlesque were vending, so naturally I was extremely excited to see them! The fashion show was in latex, so I was not particularly interested in the clothes themselves, but liked the patterns for use in other fabrics, and was glad to see one of my favorite models there. Favorite is an understatement, she and her twin sister are two of the most beautiful people I have ever seen anywhere. I am talking about movies, TV, magazines, anywhere. So if you want to see me fall all over myself trying to talk to someone, get them to show up at an event. I met them while modeling corsets for Mayfaire Moon at Dorian's last I suppose this is a good time to get to the title theme of the post.

I think I have had a love of corsets from a young age. I grew up exposed to fabulous costumes in the media- Labyrinth, Legend, The NeverEnding Story series, Shirley Temple movies, Interview with a Vampire; but by the time I saw Ever After and Sleepy Hollow I had been attending PA Ren Faire for a few years. PA Ren Faire was my gateway event for many of the things I love now. Costuming, conventions, Shakespeare, D&D, roleplaying in general, but most of all corsets. Today, while responding to my inbox on OKCupid, I had a message from someone asking about the connection. He Said "I was talking to a person the other day who told me there was a lot of overlap between the steampunk and poly crowds in Philly, and that she "didn't know why, but it probably has something to do with corsets". That made me laugh, but do you have a more reasonable explanation?" It made me laugh too, but I had not thought about it before, the "easy" answer sort of comes down to the fact that most geeky events (Ren Faires, Comic Cons, Steampunk) have higher draws for alternative sexual preferences because they appeal to people who are already participating in alternative lifestyles. Wes had it right when I posed the question to Gina, "I think we have Gil to thank for that." "How do you mean" I ask. "Because Dorian's Parlor is like the Island of Misfit Toys."


Athletes, cheerleaders, prom/beauty queens, and whatever else "normal people" do puts them in a position to live mainstream lifestyles- monogamous trophy spouse, 2.5 kids, bachelor parties at strip clubs, football parties on Sunday (yeah, we do that too at the Playhouse), book clubs, Sunday school, soccer moms. Golf vests, khakis, blazers, high heels to go shopping. These "mainstream types" are still very nice, they care about being well rounded, their kids are well rounded, sometimes they're philanthropic humanitarians, they work in soup kitchens and join Boy/Girl Scouts (I was a member for 16 years!), but they live their lives in the center of the "American Dream" sometimes not having a clue what alternative lifestyles or the people living them look like. The alternative? Ren Faires; comic books; Sci-Fi; atheism, paganism, wicca; karaoke at gay bars with Fairies and Drag Queens; D&D; Steampunk; Burlesque, Doms/Subs, dominatrices, polyamorists, pansexuals, GBLT. We wear leather trench coats, corsets, combat boots, top hats, and have rainbow hair, tattoos, and piercings. These alternative groups, when we live in mainstream ones, are not pointed out to us with the instructions "go play" when we are children, so I have no idea how everyone found each other before the great and terrible INTERNET! I guess the options were at Ren Faires, conventions, comic book stores, the school basement, chess club, maybe we even put up flyers?

This was the answer I gave him (the OKC person), trying to be less vague than the broad assessment of social grouping rather than the personality type that would be drawn to corsets. "Hmm, poly and corsets? I can confidently say that the majority of poly women I know love corsets, but I don't know what the connection is actually. I might speculate two unrelated theories about it though. One being that many of the poly women I know are very comfortable with their bodies and their sexuality, for them corsets are not about contorting/forcing their bodies into an unnatural shape, but rather enhancing assets they are proud of. In the right corset, or a well made properly laced corset, women feel fabulously sexy- their posture is improved, there is a sort of kinetic motion that causes a higher rate of hip swaying while walking, proper bust support, and an audience of people giving you very positive feedback. The second possibility, that I am not as familiar with and therefore am guessing, is the submissive side of women in poly. I know very few women who are subs, it is more that I "know of" them and know people who are close to them as the dom in those relationships. This "sub" mentality may draw them to a corset because their partner is attracted to it; it may be a mutual turn on while lacing, or removing, that the dom is in total control of the garment; and also the idea of submitting to the garment itself."

Dorian's Parlor October 2011
Photo by Hugh Casey

People, usually women, ask all the time "Is that actually comfortable, I mean really, honestly?" when they see me wearing a corset. "Yes" I tell them, I would not want to waitress or care for children in a corset, but they are not keeping me from plenty of other damn fun things I like to do, if anything a corset helps.

Family Time Our Big Playhouse

For the past few weeks Wes, Gina, and I have proposed "Family Time", a night for the three of us to hang out, everyone sleeps at home that night. When I first started spending most of my time at the house, most nights were similar to our current "Family Night", Gina and I have gotten along with each other very well from the start so there was not a lot of "Jessie's coming over = Gina should not be here" happening, also Wes and Gina were not really dating anyone else at the time to cause big discussions about who would be spending time with who. If it was okay for me to sleep over, then sleeping over was what I'd be doing. Wes and Gina eventually started seeing people, people that Wes wanted to stay over (which interestingly enough led to Gina sleeping at my house sometimes) or Gina would want to go to her date's place. This system was relatively uncomplicated and easy to maintain with minimal communication among the three of us.

Somewhere around July there was a Big Bang of sorts! Wes was getting closer to Girlfriend G, who you will now know as Ginny; and Gina was starting to date Boyfriend S, who is Shaun. I suppose the communication became more necessary because I was not dating anyone at the time and wanted to know "who's sleeping in my bed?"

Eventually it got to a point when Gina had not seen Wes and I for a few days and we all realized we missed each other! Imagine, three people who see each other almost every day actually missing each other! I know we are soo weird! It's like we actually like each other or something! It's true, this phenomenon is , to some extent, actually what led Gina to decide she wanted me to move into what I refer to as the Bard's Playhouse, as opposed to my mom's house which is the Globe. One day Gina had to stop at home during her lunch, she was  very happy to find me sitting contently (probably with the dog) on the couch with my computer. She liked that moment, that feeling so much she decided to talk to Wes about deciding to "add a wonderful person to an already fabulous household" making their "little suburban house... a little bit bigger." Yes, those are direct quotes from Gina. In fact you can find the exact statement here on Gina's blog The Martinelli Variety Hour- My Big House . Many of our poly friends have really enjoyed that post, in addition to Wes' & Gina's family reading it and have been using it to better understand that we are all really happy together and that no one is being taken advantage of.

So on July 25 Gina and Wes took me to the Pop Shop and we indulged in a ridiculous meal (I got an ice cream soda with sprite, strawberry ice cream, and a forgotten flavor of syrup). As I recall, I had only recently had an anxiety attack brought on by jealousy (a personal problem in very irrational moments) and thought Wes & Gina were giving me a little TLC by treating me to dinner. They admitted their ulterior motives and asked me to move in, a few days later I said "Yes!" And there was much rejoicing! Huzzah! But I was talking about Family Night...

So yes, we all liked having each other around! But with relationships growing we were not seeing each other as often, thus leading to Family Night. On October 3, we had our first family night, we ate steak and watched Muppets Take Manhattan! We all have the entertainment requirements of children, you wish you were so lucky! Family Night part II was October 12, we watched Repo! The Genetic Opera which Wes and Gina had never seen before and they enjoyed it. Friday, October 21 was our third Family Night. We made masks for Halloween while watching Nightmare Before Christmas and The Addams Family, I can't tell you what the masks were for until after Boyfriend Z's (Zac) & Girlfriend A's (Angela) Halloween party because it's a surprise! Being silly natured, I skipped around the house singing "Kidnap the Santy Claws" and copying a lot of lines from the movies every time I got up from the table.

Family time is not about a mandatory night to spend quality time together, Wes and Gina actually have an agreement between them to take each other for granted, what it is about is taking time to appreciate the people we love. We are all really entertained by each other and laugh our asses off when we're together. And we all agree that we are always having a much better time with all three of us present than if one was not in attendance, even on Wes & Gina's honeymoon! I don't have a conventional sense of family, my nuclear family relationships are stressful depending on the relative, but the family in Our Big Playhouse is the family we chose for ourselves. This family likes sitting down for dinner together, watching movies, and making sure none of us sleeps alone, and sometimes we do our own things but Family Night is when we remember  that we are three of a kind, birds of a feather, now and (maybe) forever! La la la lalala...

And I think to myself "What a wonderful world"...

So today was the one year anniversary of my first date with Wes.
Wes is my partner in the couple that asked me to move in them, Gina is his wife and my very good friend!
By the way, when I post at 3am on Friday morning and say "today", what I really mean is "Thursday" because I haven't gone to bed yet.

Those are the top three things you needed to know to enjoy this post. I guess, I'm not going to assume or assign what people need to enjoy anything really.

Today was awesome! I am constantly reminded of what a charmed life I live. I met Wes in Center City to celebrate our Anniversary, we went to Little Pete's where we had our first date. We had a nice dinner, we each got specials which meant that our meals came with soup, salad, and dessert, and our check was only around $30 including a root beer float, a chocolate milk, a cup of coffee, and a cup of tea. Now's a good time to mention the extreme dichotomy of my taste. I am both extremely easy to please and have high standards for details. I love a greasy cheesesteak from a truck but I also love a really good steak. I own a lot of cheap jewelry that kids would wear but fall all over myself for Tiffany & Co's diamonds. The point is, a $30 meal for two makes me really happy, whereas going to Ruth Chris' and paying $40 for a steak with no sides included will induce an anxiety attack (yes, that sort of happened. A tale for another day). If you're wondering what two people who have seen each other almost every day for the past year have to talk about, we were bouncing around ideas for burlesque shows.

Then we moved on to the Good Dog Bar, still sticking to the 'first date' guideline. The Good Dog Bar will always have a special place in my heart because on our first date, Wes kissed me there for the first time. Kissing in the middle of the date, rather than the end when you're saying good-bye, was an experiment Wes was trying out from a web comic. The results of that experiment were positive, first he managed to flatter me into silence, no easy feat as I never shut up! He proceeds to get up, approach me, and deliver a fantastic first kiss.
I cannot fully express how important good kissing is to me, and after managing a relationship involving insufficient kissing, I have sworn to never be anything but "good and kissed" ever again. Bonus points for you if you get the reference.

Anyway, after this wonderful kiss, Wes sits back down, grinning at me in the wonderful way that he still does, and I consider it quite safe to say he enjoyed himself. And marvel of marvels, I was still speechless! And trying to hide the fact that I was blushing in my red hooded sweatshirt that I wear constantly from October through May. Today had the added benefit of teaching me that not only does Wes love me, but to some extent loves that sweatshirt too, because after not seeing it the whole summer he said he "missed it" because he saw it so often when he started dating me. I'll have to tell you some other time about that sweatshirt, the story doesn't belong in this entry, and I'm only saying "I'll tell you about it later" so I'll remember to tell you, not because I get some sort of entertainment from making you wait. Moving on.

Tonight, as we do most Thursday nights, we went to karaoke and a wonderful time was had by all. Gina is a very talented singer who is made all the more entertaining by the group of friends who choose to be her back-up singers/dancers while she sings Total Eclipse of the Heart. The married couple that Wes and I are seeing have also started joining us at karaoke, as well as another engaged couple that Wes and Gina are seeing (I carry a chart around with me to illustrate for newcomers). I suppose that until I have permission to use people's names, they will be listed as Boyfriend/Girlfriend  + Letter. For example, if I were being private I would be Girlfriend J. The groupings consist of the married couple Girlfriend A & Boyfriend Z, and engaged couple Girlfriend G & Boyfriend S. Let's see if I'm smart enough to put a chart into my blog, probably not.

A former coworker was present at the bar tonight, she knows that I am with Wes, that he and Gina are married, and that we are polyamorous. This information does not keep her brain intact when she sees me kiss Boyfriend Z, but patience is crucial in this scenario, she is from a small town, not from the USA, and is old fashioned about this kind of thing. I am relieved to say that my friend's discomfort about the situation is the only setback for the whole evening.

Boyfriend S introduced us to a friend of his who is new to the Poly scene. Wes and Gina have been embassadoring for Poly so much since they met me, I have not done much myself. So I was glad to sit and have a really satisfying conversation with him about how the group, and being polyamorous, functions. He said it was kind of amazing to see it all working right in front of him, for it to be alive in the real world rather than being explained in a book. That's the magic of it all, the colors of this fantasy are brighter and the flavor of it is sweeter in reality. We're all there, having a great time, getting to be exactly who and what we are, without anyone pulling the wings off the fairies or crying out "Witch! Witch! Burn her!" That's why it's a charmed life, this is the second bar we've brought the group to, and nobody says a word about what we're doing. No one whispers and stares or makes us feel unwelcome. Overall, this community we've been building for ourselves. it's a nice big gingerbread house to live in. Hopefully, we'll see more of Boyfriend S's friend; hopefully everyone will keep bringing their friends, because that is how we'll make it a wonderful world for people living alternative lifestyles, by being seen.

Once upon a time...

Once upon a time... I will tell you everything that happened once upon a time, but it's a long story and not even today's story at that. So for a long time I wanted to start a blog, mostly about relationships because just over a year ago my relationships stopped being mainstream. This is roughly the one year anniversary of my deciding to be polyamorous. A lot has happened in the past year, starting with the boyfriend I'd been with for four years deciding to break up with me instead of buying an engagement ring, which led to dating my best friend, and then to a casual relationship. Everything seems to almost go in reverse order from there, casual relationship ends, I convert an engaged couple from their open relationship to a polyamorous one, my best friend breaks up with me, and that couple I just told you about, asks me to move in with them!


That is what this will be about, the impossible story that is actually my life. I kept thinking, "I want to write down all the awesome things that have been happening in my life since I became polyamorous" because the majority of people I was close to would never believe that this lifestyle would work, and as delusional as it sounds, I believe being polyamorous does work. You may be wondering "How do you figure? With all those people walking out on you in the past year?" Two reasons: In the real world those painful walk-outs still could have happened if I were monogamous, but for every walk-out that has come to pass something wonderful has happened shortly after and in fairy tales somebody's mother has to die in the beginning of the story for it all to be "happily ever after" in the end. 


I started writing this blog post a few months ago, July 28 to be exact it is now October 19, my writing process is scattered like that. It is however a perfect example, I don’t know where this post was really going. Maybe it was  just how surreal and seemingly magical this transition has been, how very much like a fairy tale. Of course I don’t know where this story goes, this story being my relationships and life in general, but that’s the fun part. Lots of times when I’m writing, I write the ending long before the middle has been written. I also read the end of books to find out what happens. But this is my life, I don’t know where its story is going, I can write it down as I go along, and I can work on character development. I can add new characters and never mention some of them ever again. I can choose my own adventures. 


The lesson I want everyone else to learn here is, you can choose your own adventures too.


There is more than one way to Grandma’s house, that gingerbread tile you just ate does not have to be your last meal if you just ask nicely before eating a woman’s dream house, and sometimes that guy swinging his sword around who talks about honor and seems so dashing- is really a coward.

Do you really want your life to be a cookie-cutter story? I know I don’t!


So no cheating on this one, writing the ending first or peeking.

Welcome to the life, to the story, of a modern Bard.