I have a confession to make. I hate what we call what we do a "lifestyle". There's this impression that by calling our kinky lives a lifestyle it is assumed that it is better than vanilla/more traditional relationships. I could not agree with that assessment. And frankly, I hate the whole vanilla vs kinky shit. Honestly, how we approach people is not all that different than in a vanilla situation, we just state our wants and needs upfront.
Because we tend to put our cards on the table up front and center, there's a tendency for kinky people to think that we are better communicators. Of course, the first thing that was drilled into my head when I started down this route was that everything was negotiated before we do anything.
Let me tell you something. Kinky people are no different than other people. They can be as douchy, selfish bastards, that can lie to you or hide shit from you. And no amount of talking will stop this. When I finally proclaimed myself a switch, I can't tell you how many guys hit on me to peg them, and or dominate them, often calling me a mistress against my will. I had to put up a guidelines post on my profile on fetlife just so that I didn't have to deal with bullshit.
On the swinging side, I didn't have to deal with pretension too much, but it had its own pitfall. Dating a couple meant we had to make sure if there was compatibility with all four of us. Its hard enough to reach compatibility with just one person. Then you had to be extremely firm that we had these rules set up as a couple. Now we were aware that meeting like minded people to sleep with might be hard, but what we weren't prepared for how social swinging is. At one point we had a party every weekend, with a one week break in between. I was beginning to resent the fact that I had to be ready for sex at a moments notice.
I suppose I really shouldn't complain. If it wasn't for a certain individual whom I rocked his world, we would never have met some awesome people. I mean superfucking nice couples, that we could actually talk to as well as fuck. And I got to dominate someone else besides M. Woot.
Okay the point of all this is, dating in the lifestyle is not any more different than dating vanilla style. I would argue that if you had strong limits in your vanilla dating style to begin with, then you will have a good foundation to base on when you try kinky stuff. M and I are slowly learning what works for us and what doesn't.
