Casual encounters

I wonder if my sex life would have been (be) radically different if I felt safe trying to get little snippets of what I want from casual partners, men I don’t know.

The safety aspect I mean here is not just about potential violence or sexual assault (though those are top-of-mind, of course), but about being able to have casual encounters play out in a way that works for me. Expecting that of a stranger is a big call, especially when it’s unconventional. Expecting him not to question it or angle for more in the moment is also a big call.

I’ve said many times that I’m not interested in casual encounters, either for sex or for BDSM. And a big part of that is because it leaves me cold and empty and sad in the aftermath. But another part of it is that I can’t trust casual partners to let me run things the way I want, so it feels like I’d be inviting a whole bunch of ‘I can’t be fucked with this’ into my life if I went down that road.

The kissing date, though, worked for me.

Maybe it was partly because it was completely outside of the normal paradigm (it wasn’t sex, it wasn’t BDSM, it was ‘other’).

I got to choose exactly what I wanted the encounter to look like, and he let me have my way without any attempt to influence how it would go either before or during. That’s incredibly rare.

It was, by all measures, an incredibly risky thing to do, for both of us. I went to a stranger’s house at night, never having met him. He left his house unlocked so I could get in, and waited, vulnerable, in his bed.

So on pretty much every level, I got lucky with him.

If I could feel safe to have those kinds of casual experiences where I got to strictly set the rules of ‘how it would go’, I’m pretty sure I would do it.

“Hello, I think you’re really pretty. How does this weird not-sex not-BDSM casual encounter sound to you?”

I think most quality men with a lick of sense would run a mile from an offer like that from some woman they don’t know (regardless of the claims of the masses), and rightly so. The one other time I tried this ‘here’s what I want’ approach where I wanted to get a(n attractive, appealing) man in a room for a simple flogging, it was a bust.

Even if I remove the spectre of physical safety concerns on both sides, MOST men will want to negotiate for what *they* want (again, rightly so) and will not just say ‘sure, that weird completely one-sided scenario sounds good’, so I’ll end up with some (perfectly reasonable) compromise that doesn’t at all look like anything I’m interested in.

And when I think about it like that and consider the other side, I’m actually asking for a big chunk of trust and submission from someone who I don’t even know. Hmmm.

I don’t know how I went from ‘I’d do casual if I felt safe’ to ‘huh, I guess that’s pretty unreasonable’, but I’m leaving it. Welcome to the inside of my head.

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13 comments

  1. Agonizing isn’t it? I’m very lucky to have Xena. However, I do sometimes wonder whether my youth would have been less miserable had I found a “Scene” in which I could be open about my submissive orientation.

    I certainly took the risk with most of my partners, and most of them were happy to tie me up (see recent blog entry). However, it takes a certain thickness of skin to be so open.

    1. I think you and I are talking about different things. You seem to be talking about a fear of expressing your desires. Which is really common, and totally understandable, but not at all what I mean here.

      I’m talking about how difficult it is to get what I want: I’m not concerned about expressing it and I have no trouble explaining it clearly. But the likelihood that I can get it safely from a stranger without a bunch of tedious complications is really low.

      Ferns

  2. I did a lot of casual when I was earlier on the learning curve. I learned what I liked and didn’t like, who I liked and who I didn’t, I practiced certain things, tested out ways of interacting and communicating to see which were conducive to what I wanted and what weren’t, what red flags to look for. Sometimes I got VERY lucky (I have some great spank bank material from those times), but mostly it was a mix or it was a bust. I consider it all valuable experience. But, I don’t have the stomach for that any more. Now that I know what GOOD is, it’s really difficult and sad to settle for anything less.

    One of my biggest takeaways was that, for what I want, I am asking for a LOT of trust from my partner. And if the partner doesn’t know me well, it is not only unlikely I’ll get it, but probably also unfair to ask for it. Just as you say. Doesn’t mean I don’t entertain the fantasies of casual play in my idle hours, but I have enough bad associations that it’s not quite enough to get me out of my pajamas for another experiment.

    If I was going to do a single, pre-determined scene again it would probably be at a dungeon event with someone who had enough experience to know what they were getting into, and were in a public space where they already had a degree of safety and comfort. But then, most of the things I like aren’t really dungeon material, so this idea isn’t incredibly attractive either, for the moment.

    1. I agree with ALL OF THIS *nodding madly*.

      And this, I think is key: “Now that I know what GOOD is, it’s really difficult and sad to settle for anything less.”

      I got lucky with my very first experience: It blew my mind. Or unlucky because it set the bar for even casual encounters very high.

      “But then, most of the things I like aren’t really dungeon material, so this idea isn’t incredibly attractive either…”

      Yep yep yep… and playing in public is just not very appealing to me. If I was going to play in public, I’d probably be doing it with a long term partner because I wanted a particular experience that we couldn’t get at home.

      Ferns

  3. For me casual is difficult, it is not necessarily the idea that puts me off but more the way in which it makes me feel afterwards. It just didn’t fit right didn’t like the way it make me feel after. For me the best fit seems to be in a relationship. If other people can do the casual thing then cool, but I know deep down it is not for me.

      1. Yep, With you on that. It would be simpler but then we wouldn’t necessarily be the people we are today.

        Matt

  4. I wonder if my sex life would have been (be) radically different if I felt safe trying to get little snippets of what I want from casual partners

    I have thought about this myself. Having had so few partners, let alone relationships, I have often wondered how things would have been different, had I chosen to pursue more random encounters. I guess that being so insistent upon some sort of emotional attachment beforehand kept me from exploring more casual partners.

    “Hello, I think you’re really pretty. How does this weird not-sex not-BDSM casual encounter sound to you?”

    I think most quality men with a lick of sense would run a mile from an offer like that from some woman they don’t know (regardless of the claims of the masses), and rightly so.

    This made me laugh in that in an earlier time, I would have skedaddled, with all haste, leaving behind nothing but a cloud of dust where I used to be. (just like in one of those Road Runner cartoons) These days however, I wouldn’t run so far, or fast, and would probably be looking over my shoulder the whole time, and wondering if I’d made a mistake.

    1. The image of the road runner cartoon is amusing me *smile*.

      From what I know of you, though, I can’t imagine you’d be all that keen on casual now either. Or perhaps you mean ‘casual with a friend’, not ‘stranger-casual’.

      I’m much more likely to do ‘friend-casual’ but boy the stars and planets would have to align perfectly for me to feel like doing that.

      Ferns

  5. What about with someone you had interacted with by email, Skype, etc., but had never met?

    TRS

    1. Well that describes how it went with holy-fuck-beautiful-eyes, and that’s how I’ve met all of my submissive partners.

      But the method of communication doesn’t change the underlying challenge. For something casual, I’m (by definition) not seeing long term potential in the person, so my willingness to invest a lot of time in ‘bringing him along’ in order to get what I want is low.

      Ferns

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