My Driving Force

Passion, Intimacy & Connection

Non-Monogamous folk are often quick to combat the popular assumption that it is “all about sex”.

Surely that is why you need other partners? Who wouldn’t be consumed by adding more sexual variety into their erotic world?

Of course there are so many non-sexual aspects to my non-monogamous experience... yet.... sexuality underpins so much of my own non-monogamy.

Non-monogamy for me was birthed out of a curiosity for sexual exploration through compersion and connection. In fact, when my husband and I began to open up our relationship, it was purely driven by sexual desire. All of the inevitable lessons and moments of growth happened almost subconsciously along the way. 

Even in secular culture there can be subtle judgements towards sexual exploration that exist outside of a primary or marital bond. I even find that in sacred sexuality spaces there can be deep undercurrents of purity culture that go unnoticed, hiding behind lengthy eye stares, crystals and ‘energetic’ discourse. This is all too evident when you look at the belief that when a person sleeps with another, they take on ‘the energy of every other person that person has had sex with’.

To me, this feels like a rebrand of religious purity culture.

Sexual exploration, with safe people who respect you can be incredibly powerful. For me, when the connection and desire is there, it is a way to get to know oneself and others. To hold one another in moments of vulnerability and pleasure is to have an insight into another being. It is stepping into someone else’s internal sexual world to create something new, together. 

It can be liberating and empowering. It can be healing. 

I turn my back on how the number of sexual partners can affect a person’s social currency. I turn my back on ideas that a person’s worth goes down each time they have sex with a new partner. Perhaps this concept exists as a justification for trapped freedom. Perhaps it is a way to control others or oneself through shame. 

Or perhaps it is just an alternate way of viewing the world through a lens that differs to mine? 

I know that there is fear around sex. I know that people can be afraid to feel pleasure or to acknowledge desires that live deep within. I understand that people choose to close down parts of themselves due to fear of societal judgement. 

I believe that being a sexual person helps me to be sensitive and in tune with myself and others. It feeds into my confidence and sense of play. It has me giggling and blushing and laughing. For me, it is clear and positive.

I’m turned on to the aliveness of my world and I wish the same for others. 

I bring this aliveness back into my day to day life. Into my parenting. Into my friendships. 

I see no issue in my sexuality being a driving force in my non-monogamy. I see no issue in consenting lovers delighting in pleasure, passion and play. 

We should work to not shame sexuality and it’s impulses... even in the world of non-monogamy. 

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Photos taken of me by my Husband