I'm headed to L.A.!!!!!!

Hey guys, I'm so excited!!! I'm headed to L.A. at the end of this month.  So, two weeks ago I went on Black & Poly's online magazine to check to see if my new article had been posted and I saw a post "Celebrate Black & Poly". Immediately I clicked on the link to view the article and read about the 5 year anniversary party. I'll let you read the article here.

Once you read it, and you're pretty familiar with some of the guests, you'll know how many poly heavy hitters will be there. Now, I consider them heavy hitters only because they're big names in my opinion but you may disagree.  I'm also excited because I've never been to California before. It's going to be exciting!!!! I've decided to stay in an Airbnb, and not the host hotel however. It was a choice to save money and also to have a different experience while I'm in the city.  Of course, I'll be taking hella pics and posting them here.

I'll be fangirling it out of course because Dossie Easton, author of The Ethical Slut  and Jackie Stone, the producer of the Youtube show Compersion will be there.  Can you said Yesssssss!!!????  Thursday I purchased my plane ticket and a week before that I bought my ticket for the celebration so I just have to pack.   Check back for more details!!!

More of my thoughts

Hey everyone so today I wanted to talk about dating and also let you know about a few things  that  I'm doing and involved in.  Okay, so most people don't know that i'm also apart of another "alternative" lifestyle other than polyamory. I touched briefly on me being into BDSM  but I never elaborated on it.  Long story short I've been involved in this "lifestyle" off and on for about 6 years. I've always identified as a submissive and 95% of my poly relationships have been D/s (Dominant/submissive) based. Polyamory within a D/s aspect is very different, mostly it's hierarchical.    Normally, I'm very against a hierarchy or relationships that are closed but when I've entered into this type of relationship those things are established already. If you want to learn more about BDSM and polyamory take a look at this article that I wrote detailing it on Black & Poly's online magazine. BDSM and Polyamory

I live in the Midwest, specifically Ohio, and the dating prospects are slim. Most people don't know what polyamory even is let alone, ethical non-monogamy.  It's been very hard for me to date and connect with people locally. I know it's because most black people in my area don't identify as polyamorous and even if they did they wouldn't ever tell anyone that they are.   It's pretty sad because there are others who are seeking connections with life minded folks in their area. So since I've had this problem with finding people in my local area, most of my relationships have been long distance.  Having long distance relationships can be kind of hard if you're not used to them. Also, if your love language is physical touch it may be difficult too. If you have a local love and an LDR then it may be easier for you as it was for me last year when I was involved with someone locally. I have a long distance relationship with a wonderful man.

Polyamory is always confused with swinging or cheating with a fancy name. It is NONE of that. In fact there are a few things that separates cheating from swinging and swinging from polyamory. The first is ethics. Polyamory  is always grounded in ethics in my opinion, most importantly ethical non monogamy. What's ethical non-mongamy  you may say? Well, ethical non monogamy can be defined as consciously agreeing with consent from all parties involved that you will explore love and sex with other people.  In a nutshell, it means everyone knows about one another and everyone has agreed to explore sex and love with other people.

My needs as far as dating and connecting with people have changed. I prefer to let things happen in a more organic matter, meaning I normally don't look for people to date. I just interact with people who I may be interested in if there is a connection then I go with that. In the past I sought out those into BDSM, primarily those who identified as Dominants to be in relationships with.  A few months ago I decided to put that aspect of my life on hold and just seek "vanilla" partners for now on.  I'll definitely be talking about that more later on.

Introductions

I really don't like to do introductions but I think it's necessary for you to know who I am and the "why" behind this blog.  My name is Jai (like the boy's name) I wear many different  hats in my life. I'm a mom of two grown sons and one cat, Merle.  I have a variety of hobbies and interests but enough about me. I want to explain why I chose to start this blog. One word: REPRESENTATION.  As most people know I identify as bisexual and I've been out since 2001.  I also am in another alternative lifestyle group.  Five years ago I started to learn about BDSM and primarily D/s (Dominant/submissive) relationships and how that lifestyle fit into my overall life. That's definitely a different discussion for another day though.


You may ask why is representation so important?  Representation and showing diversity in alternative lifestyles is so necessary and needed.  Before I learned about polyamory and BDSM I only thought that white people did those things. That was a naïve thing to think but I know I'm not the only person to think or feel this.  Once I learned more about these two lifestyles I realized there was a large POC population who embraced them.   My journey into polyamory wasn't a straight line, like any journey their were twists and turns along the way.  I decided to open up my relationship in 2008 with my partner at the time.  Open relationships, in my opinion, are very different from poly amorous ones.  Open relationships lack communication and transparency and are most often based on sex.  To be honest, I've had more sex as a monogamous person than I've ever had as a poly person.   I now realize that the way I went about opening up my existing relationship was all WRONG!!!  I did not communicate with my partner and I set up boundaries thinking that it was for the good of our relationship when in reality it was to keep me from being uncomfortable in my own insecurities.  I have since apologized to my ex about my behavior and explained to him that I went about it the wrong way.

Polyamory is all about communication and transparency as well as being emotionally in tuned with yourself.  What I've learned is that if you haven't chosen this lovestyle for yourself and decided you wanted to do it for other reasons things won't go well.    There will constantly be strife and drama in your life.

I'm a person who is big on learning and growing.   I'm the type of person who reads tons of books, magazine articles, listens to  podcasts or watches any type of movie on a subject that I'm curious about.   As with polyamory I'm an advocate for this.  I've unlocked so much about myself by reading books on the subject.  I've started to compile a list of articles, podcasts and other forms of media that directly represent black and brown polyamorous people.   The world needs to see this representation. Let's break free of the stereotypical chains that society has placed on us and just LIVE.