Frisky Fridays - What it Means to be Polyamorous - The Reluctant Dom

Another serious topic for a weekly post that I hoped would be lighthearted fun and naughtiness, but one that is striking me very strongly today.  I personally would find sharing sexual partners or being shared sexually distasteful.  I'm strictly a one girl, one guy, sort of chick.  Straight and Monogamous.  Although, I do believe there is a slightly kinky side to me, which is why I enjoy reading and writing BDSM and DD romances.  Though the two share a similarity in submission and control, they have very different dynamics IMHO.

For BDSM, whether or not the couple are Master/slave or Dominant/submissive is really just a matter of degree.  Although I realize that not all D/s M/s relationships are M/f (Male/female), for my purposes I am going to presume this is the case.  Some Doms believe that if their submissive really wants to prove her desire to please them she should feel pride in the fact that they value her enough to share her.  Perhaps she even believes that her Dom is paying her the highest of compliments by giving her out for others to enjoy.  Her job, so to speak, is to prove her total obedience and commitment to his wants and desires.  He believes the woman he's dominating or mastering should view it as a privilege to serve him in this way.

I am not a person to put down another's choice in lifestyle, but I feel non-monogamous relationships are potentially destructive.  Menages are very popular in erotic romances these days.  Perhaps women who enjoy them nurture fantasies of having more than one man make love to them at the same time.  I know many men have fantasies about having more than one woman in bed with them.  I simply have difficulty accepting such relationships as stable and healthy.  And after reading an article by a concerned Dom and husband who now regrets participating in such a relationship because of the damage it has done, and is still doing, to his submissive wife, I feel even more strongly against it.  Romance books can make sharing sexual partners look and sound exciting and alluring, but when real people are involved, psyches can get badly damaged.

DD (Domestic discipline) relationships, on the other hand, appear to always be monogamous.  Perhaps it too has different flavors, but from what I've observed these relationships are comprised of a wife and a husband (sometimes girlfriend and boyfriend planning to marry) in a committed relationship where the wife has agreed that her husband, as the Head of the Household, is deserving of her respect, obedience and submission.  As HOH it is the husband's duty to ensure his wife takes care of herself, their home and their family, but mostly herself.  He does this by establishing some rules that are usually mutually agreed upon.

These rules may be open to negotiation, but not interpretation.  They are more than guidelines, and definitely more than suggestions.  They are rules that if broken can subject the wife to punishment at her husband's discretion.  Usually this entails her spending time over his knee getting a bare-assed spanking.  These are married couples who have agreed the husband has not only the right, he has a duty to chastise his wife through corporal punishment.

Because DD relationships are monogamous, the issue of sexual sharing is found primarily in BDSM.  I don't believe many open marriages exist in DD, but I suppose it is possible.  So, this brings me back to my topic.  Polyamarous relationships and The Reluctant Dom.

I recently read The Reluctant Dom by Tymber Dalton.  It is a well-written, tear-jerking novel that is the story of a dying Dom who is determined to ensure his submissive wife still gets everything she needs when he passes.  I did cry while reading it and even though I understood why he was willing to share his wife with his best friend, it still bothered me.

No coercion was involved--she wanted it.  Actually, she reveled in it.  She had fantasies about these two men making love to her at the same time.  Just these two, no others.  So, she was totally on board with it, her husband was on board with it and finally the Dom in training gets on board with it, but I just couldn't.  That is not to say that I'm sorry I read the book.  I'm not.  It truly showed a Dom could be so protective and loving of his submissive that he is willing to do anything to make her happy.  The sexual sharing that took place was safe, sane and consensual, but it still bothered me.  There aren't many scenes in the book where threesomes take place, and I didn't mind her serving her men separately, nor did I mind them bundling together like a passel of puppies.  It was solely the menage sex that had a part of me drawing back.

I don't think I'm alone in my feelings, but I know my opinion is not shared by the majority of erotic romance writers and readers.    Menages, be they m/f/m or f/m/f or f/f/m or m/m/f or any other combination, just don't do it for me.  I wanted to share this post with others because of the article I just read and because I didn't realize sexual sharing was going to take place in the story, even though Amazon clearly lists it as having menage.

I don't often write reviews under my name, but I wrote a review on Goodreads for The Reluctant Dom.  I liked the book, and would recommend it to readers who enjoy BDSM love stories meant to tug at your heart.  But if you feel the same way about menages that I do, I suggest you go into it forewarned.  It may not strike you as it did me, but even if it does, I think you'll find it is a very good book and one worth reading more than once.