Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Bi Men Unfiltered, a podcast for today's curious and bisexual man hosted by older, wiser bisexual men who were also once curious. From identity and relationships to dating, sex, community, and everything in between, nothing's off the table. Honest, authentic, and we're not afraid to get a little NSFW or more than a little. No shame, no stereotypes, just real conversations. On in today's episode, we're talking about Grayson's by Journey.
Speaker: Woo! How do you feel about that? Ready? Ready to spill some tea? i am. i I was brewing tea all day long just so that I could spill it.
Speaker: Excellent. But first, I think we've got to do a word of the week. Word of the week. We still don't have a little jingle for that, but we'll work on that.
Speaker: Yeah. This week's word of the week is compersion. And maybe you've never heard this word. ah might be new to you, especially if you're not a polyamorous person.
Speaker: Uh, cause it mostly refers to polyamorous people and it is compersion is a feeling of happiness caused by another person's happiness, especially by seeing one's romantic or sexual partner interacting positively with another one of their partners.
Speaker: So I'm going to use it in the sentence provided by dictionary.com. Seeing them giggle like teenagers as they came in from a date filled me with compersion. Now, see, I'd heard the word before, and for some reason, I had always, the context that I had seen it in was in the context of um online sharing of pictures of partners and stuff, and oh the the thrill of seeing others react to that. At least that's what I think I remember.
Speaker: so Oh, isn't that something different? Isn't that like hot wife adjacent? Like seeing pictures of your partner be enjoyed by another. That's like either hot wife adjacent or like cuckolding adjacent without the humiliation or degradation factor.
Speaker: You know, i had I had the tab still open in my phone for ages. Let me see if it's still there. Or is it one of the ones that i accidentally closed?
Speaker: Yeah, it's one of the ones that i accidentally closed. I kept it open so that I could remember the word and it had been open forever. And occasionally I accidentally close the tab on my phone.
Speaker: There you go. Let me ask you, Grayson, have you felt compersion? Do you feel compersion? ah at the, at another, at your partner feeling good about something else or another high experience?
Speaker: I have um when, and, and I imagine we'll have a topic on the show coming down the road where I can go into greater detail on this. But after the first time we finally found,
Speaker: a couple that was on the same page with what we were looking for. And she finally got to, for the first time, explore with another woman. That was amazing to see and just how much she enjoyed it and how much I reaped the benefits of that enjoyment the next day.
Speaker: ah yeah absolutely. Yeah, absolutely have. Yeah, and in my solo poly journey with a couple of my partners, i of course, encourage them to share what they're doing and who they're seeing. And I will share with them if they, depending on how much they want to hear, of course. Right.
Speaker: Not going to spill everything if they don't want to hear stop stop TMI no too much information exactly ah but I do want to hear it because it does ah fill me with joy to hear about their experiences with with others and it is the reverse of jealousy like you would think And i have felt jealousy in the past with ah a partner and it was, it was very uncomfortable, but I look at it in a different way now, especially because I have other partners and my partners have other partners. So I have flipped it around completely and look at it differently.
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, i at some point or another, we've all felt jealousy and, um, even I would say it's even possible, and again, this is for further down the road where we can dive down this rabbit hole, but I would say that even in a any kind of relationship that is open e and m however you want to phrase it, I think it's possible even then to feel jealousy situationally, primarily if something is happening outside of the boundaries and agreements that you've set.
Speaker: That's true. Yeah, absolutely. It's like, hey, that that that wasn't that wasn't part of the deal. hm And I don't like that. Yeah. Communication, of course, key to any kind of ethical non-monogamy or consensual non-monogamy setup, which is different from, i guess, the the topic of our podcast, but it's kind of adjacent as well because there are a lot of, especially if you are a married man exploring your bisexuality, ENM, CNM may be something that you need to explore. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: All right. Absolutely. we' We're recording this after we had already released the first two episodes of the podcast. And I i have just been so thrilled to hear the feedback from our first two shows. Yes. Yes. on Reddit and Discord. We got a lot of comments from people. Thank you so much for sending those in. If you want to comment on the show, we'd love to hear about it. We really i want to hear you know if anything we said resonated with you.
Speaker: If you' you have a story you want to share with us, we'd love to hear that as well. So please ah check out the show notes for this episode or check out our website or socials.
Speaker: and be sure to share it with us. Or if there's a thread on Reddit about an episode, please share your comments with us. it It really is great. Oh, yeah. i I was sitting there as episode one dropped, and I just i kept a browser open, especially with Reddit open, and was what kept seeing notifications. Oh, there's there's another there's another comment? Wait, there's another comment?
Speaker: And then also on Discord, just seeing the conversation flowing, was okay, i I had a feeling yeah we would strike a chord with people, but out of the gate like this, yeah that was very,
Speaker: that was very that was very very um um my words are failing me now. that That was very gratifying. We were feeling compersion. No, wait. Yes.
Speaker: At others enjoying this recording that we have put out into the world. Yeah. yeah A couple of comments I wanted to a highlight from from Reddit.
Speaker: Here's one. I passed along to some of the people who know and support me, but may almost certainly do have questions that they might be uncertain about asking me or that I'm too embarrassed or whatever to talk about.
Speaker: It's a great comment because even while recording this, you have... It is what we're doing, but you have no idea how much I so have sweated during the recordings of these episodes because we are talking about the things that we're too embarrassed to or whatever to talk about with other people too. Right. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. But i mean, that was one of one of your selling points to me was you know filling that that kind of slot where you it's not just you boring lecture. you know This is what bisexuality is. And going through a virtual textbook.
Speaker: That's right. Yes, of course, all the comments were not positive. Let's read this one, which was also on Reddit, who said, I'd love to see some representation from guys who were or who are or were married to other men, monogamously or not.
Speaker: A poly guy with a husband and a girlfriend would be a nice change from the poly guy with a wife and boyfriend, too. I get that bi men are mostly married to women and there's nothing wrong with that. But that also makes it that other types of guys are seemingly non-existent.
Speaker: Of course, I also cut out, I believe that poster was negative negative at first, but that part of their comment I wanted to pull out because i think ah I think that's right. And what I think we want to do in the future, and we haven't really talked about this yet, but bring on other people who have a different experience from us and talk about their journey as well. And I would i would absolutely love to hear from guys who were married to men or were first gay and then switched to ah being bi and having relations with women. I'd love to talk about that stuff and hear about their experience as well. So we will definitely do that.
Speaker: Yes, i absolutely. I mean, my my response to that post was, hey, that is absolutely something that we want to do in the future. We want to bring that point of view and that perspective in.
Speaker: We're just now launching the podcast, and it just so happens that that's not purpose. situation Right. So it we're not saying it doesn't exist and not saying that we don't want to hear those stories. It's just not stories that we have loaded up on day one.
Speaker: Yeah. But as this poster mentions, it is an absolutely important aspect of the bisexual experience. And we will definitely be talking about that. Yes, absolutely.
Speaker: We absolutely will. Let's see. Do we want to take a take a look at any of the some of the others that we picked out here? hi see any that you like.
Speaker: I kind of like one that was kind of short and sweet that said about 30 minutes into your first episode. And I already feel like this is the bisexual podcast I've been looking for. Excited to listen and follow this one.
Speaker: Yes, I was smiling. and I had such a wide smile on our launch day. We're just reading all the comments, especially ones like this one. Just great. Thank you so much. like Thank you so much because that's why we're doing it in the format that we're doing it with the content that we're doing it because it's the podcast that we were looking for too. That's right.
Speaker: So hopefully by continuing to follow that guiding star, we can continue making a show that everybody enjoys. Absolutely.
Speaker: Shall we dig into the main topic of this episode now? Let's. Which is Grayson, your bisexual journey.
Speaker: My journey. Well, i back when dinosaurs roamed to the earth and I was a child. Yeah. oh ah No, i I want to say that with 2020 hindsight, because hindsight is always 2020. Yeah.
Speaker: yeah Before I even had a conscious inkling ah that I could but potentially be by or have any attraction to something.
Speaker: other guys looking back and say, okay, well, that that's kind of a subtle clue. That's kind of a subtle clue. But the the first thing that really kicked in was mid-teens and a friend of mine who had moved out of town was back visiting family and was spending the night at the house. Hmm.
Speaker: And it was summer, so we you went out swimming, came inside, my folks went went on to bed. So you know we're watching what Siskel and Ebert used to call horny teenager movies on cable.
Speaker: Yes. What a great genre. I feel like that genre has up and disappeared because now there's just porn on the internet. You can see all that stuff whenever you want. You don't need the flash of of Stewardess School or any any such movie like that, right? You you you don't need Stewardess School. You don't need Porky's. Porky's.
Speaker: Police Academy. Which, side note, at my request, because we were going to a movie while my mom had a Tupperware party, my dad took me to see Porky's in the theater. Whoa! I would have been 12 or 13. Whoa!
Speaker: whoa
Speaker: Now, did yeah did ah did your dad like hide your eyes during the naked bits? No, because when when I was like nine or ten and we first got our first VCR, he rented Animal House and had no problem with me watching. Well, okay.
Speaker: They took me to see Caddyshack in the theater with them because they couldn't find a babysitter. So... so So when when it came to movie content, my parents were pretty cool.
Speaker: Okay. Okay. I grew up with pretty cool parents that way. um But ah do you remember the movie that night that was on? No. Okay. It was just one of those cable teen sex farce movies.
Speaker: Yeah. It just, it whatever happened to be on. yeah And so we we head to my room to go to bed and i don't even remember how or why for about five, 10 minutes we you played a little grab ass and then went to sleep.
Speaker: Yeah. And, and mostly jokingly. What do you mean grab ass? what do you mean by that? Like, like, I don't even remember how or why, but like, you know, I grabbed his dick.
Speaker: He grabbed mine, but that's it. Just like, just like grab hold. Okay. And that was it. Then the next day, um my parents go out to run some errands and honestly don't remember whose idea it was.
Speaker: We decided to try fooling around a little bit. And I call the story, depending on your your point of view, it's either comically tragic or tragically comical.
Speaker: Because neither of us knew what we were doing. He was clearly not as into it as he thought he would be when we started.
Speaker: And you things like um I went down on him for a little bit. Then he's like very like... Well, does it feel good?
Speaker: And so I'm like, well, you know, I'm doing it to you. And that reaction tells me that it doesn't to you. right i stopped m and we, we tried, you know, a few other things. You know, we, we tried,
Speaker: completely oblivious to any knowledge of how any of this works. We tried anal, which didn't work. um Because we were woefully unprepared in terms of knowledge or any supplies or skills or anything.
Speaker: Right. And at when when that wasn't working, then we just you know defaulted to jerking ourselves off. Right.
Speaker: And the the final you know punchline of the whole thing is, i finish, and he completely loses his mind because he didn't really know you could come from jerking off.
Speaker: Oh, really? Oh, okay. He said that he always stopped because he thought he had to piss. Ah, yeah. Yeah. That was very similar to my first experiences with that. I didn't know what was happening and it felt a certain way. And...
Speaker: And he he completely lost his mind. He couldn't comprehend. He couldn't cope. And it was just something that he was completely unprepared for mentally, obviously.
Speaker: And then after that, we cleaned up. We finished doing whatever else we were going to do for the day as if nothing had happened. and So wait, did he finish? You finished?
Speaker: He did not. ah He did not. Because when I did and it broke his brain, it it broke the mood for him, I guess. Yeah. That would be scary if you've never like experienced that. and Whoa, what is what is this?
Speaker: I'm like, it's one of the best parts. Yeah. Yeah. It's not like in any of those ski school movies, not like they show any of that stuff. They just, you know, right know the show the grab ass and the the act, but not the the finish.
Speaker: And so. And if that's where you're getting your education should yeah about sex, which maybe that says something about sex education in general. Right. Right. But we never mentioned it again. Hmm.
Speaker: never happened again for a while after i yeah I, I don't count really count that as my first experience because of just how everything it was.
Speaker: Uh, but I couldn't get it out of my head for a while after, know, it would occasionally think, well, you know, it could be cool if it happened again. i i hope it does, but no, it no, I don't because I'm not gay.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. You know that was just that one-off thing. And do like I say, comically tragic or tragically comical.
Speaker: Yeah. And around then too is when, you know, i I mentioned in my intro in the first episode, nudist. That was when I first having started having, for want of a better term, a fascination with nudity. Yeah.
Speaker: in part because because it was naughty. And so if I could be around the house, I would. And so you then I would have you know maybe some privacy in the bathroom or whatever, and you would start a little light exploration with some solo butt stuff.
Speaker: ah Unlike you, I that i started seeing what that was all about pretty early. Okay. um you know Pretty much you know small...
Speaker: In retrospect, really bad idea, but yeah small, small household objects like, you know, a marker, but not all the way. Just enough. Just like, hey, hey, there's part of a marker in there. You know, right you don't want to accidentally grab it by the cap and have it like.
Speaker: the Oh, I but the the cap was the hand end. Oh, OK, OK. But then what happens if the cap comes off and then you got the marker stuck in there?
Speaker: Well, i said the cap and, you know, there's, I wasn't holding it by the cap, but. ah Oh, okay. Okay. So, you know, that, that kind of stuff, you but total fascination with any and all nudity.
Speaker: And. why What was it about nudity though? Like, I'm curious, like. it Other than the naughtiness, was it just like because... it was comfortable. It was comfortable. Okay. It was comfortable. It was naughty. And ah my dad had subscription ah subscription to Playboy.
Speaker: And so it's like, oh, hey, look, naked. I like naked. And you know granted, I was only seeing one side of the naked picture in Playboy. But naked, I like that.
Speaker: But that that was pretty much it, really. Because you know that was the extent of the the adult material in the house was his Playboys and you know late night horny teenager movies on cable.
Speaker: ah But get into college. And um after my freshman year, I was sitting out a semester. And in my job hunt, while I was sitting out that semester, I went back to a video store that my family used to have a membership to, but hadn't been to in ages.
Speaker: And they had these two shelf units that had porn. Yes. And I didn't apply for a job there, but I did get a new membership there.
Speaker: All right. And... That store, the entire store, was two-for-one rentals every Tuesday night. So I would go on Tuesdays and rent two.
Speaker: And my best friend at the time, I'd known him since high school. um He was my roommate freshman year in the dorm. He was not sitting out a semester, but he was taking a light caseload because he was also working. He was in the management training program at another video store the one that everybody knows about even still if you wanted to rent a blockbuster movie that's where you would go to rent it yes so i told him about hey you know had you know we had looked through playboy in the dorm and everything playboy penthouse all that stuff in the dorm but that was pretty much it
Speaker: i was like, hey, while I was out job hunting, I found porn. Come on over after work and we'll watch. Okay. And so that became kind of ah an ongoing thing. yeah He would get off at midnight, would come over, um and we'd watch porn. He'd go home. I'd go to bed, take care of myself, go to sleep.
Speaker: And then one night, we're sitting there, we were watching ah a scene that we really liked. we At the time, we thought it was the hottest scene that we had ever seen in our lives. I found the video again you know more recently, and I was like, boy, this is stereotypical 80s porn. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. ah But it was a lesbian scene and we would watch it, rewind the scene, watch it, rewind the scene.
Speaker: And out of the blue, he says, boy and I remember the exact phrasing. Hmm. boy, I really need to beat off when I get home, which was kind of a surprise to me because beyond you know normal jokey type of stuff that high school and early college guys do, especially in the late 80s, early 90s, you know you'd joke about masturbation.
Speaker: Oh, yeah. You don't admit to masturbation. Right. Yeah. Yeah. you You make fun of other guys for doing it, but oh no, you don't do it.
Speaker: um And so it just, it kind of took me by surprise. And then I took myself by surprise by saying, why wait? Because you don't have anything i haven't seen before. And it's a good point.
Speaker: I mean, it's a very good point. I have the same equipment and we shared a cramped dorm room for a year. We shared the community, well, not community, but we shared the bathroom and showers across the hall for a year.
Speaker: So why? why about you know What's the big deal? If you're going to say that you need to, I'm going to agree that I need to. Why not? And so we were both very nervously, you know, just starting to get out of clothes. And I think both of us expected the other one to look at the other and say, what are you doing?
Speaker: i was kidding. Right, right, right, right. But it like a game of chicken. Yeah. But but eventually neither one of you chickened out.
Speaker: Neither one of us chickened out and you got completely stripped down, started playing with ourselves. And you not going to lie, and he agreed that he was on this same page later.
Speaker: you know We were both spending as much time watching one another as we were watching the scene again. Right, right, right. And yep I was kind of expecting, know, I did not know the term post-nut clarity at the time, but I was expecting that once we both finished that it was going to be weird And it wasn't. so And what's kind of funny is I've i've told someone online this story years ago. I'd gone decades telling this story online in you sexually charged online spaces without anyone saying this until just you know maybe a few years ago saying, oh yeah, he he totally...
Speaker: knew that he was going to say that and try to do that when he walked in the door that night. i was like, nah, I could see that. And I, that was the first time that that had even ah occurred to me.
Speaker: And I was like, Oh, yeah, maybe so. Maybe so. It never occurred to me before. Like a passive invite, really. Yeah. Because you could have reacted any way, right? Like, you could have volleyed it back to him and said, yeah, I can't wait until you leave and then I can pull my dick out and take care of myself or something like that.
Speaker: ah oh yeah But you didn't, right? Like, you took the bait, so to speak. Yeah. and And, you know we... we knew one another well enough that he probably figured that I would in 2020 hindsight.
Speaker: Yeah. So, you know, I, I, I do not regret that he, that he set me up. I do not regret that I took the bait because it was, it led to, you know, as, as time went on, you know, but that became a normal routine. You know he, he wasn't coming over every night after work, but,
Speaker: but a couple times a week. And of course, you know since I'm renting um two at a time, um not that we advocate illegal activity like piracy on this show, but even though I was having to use VCRs, I'm I might have made archival copies for review to watch at a later time.
Speaker: Yes. ah um ah But ah basically, that wasn't necessarily trying to start a collection, although it did. um It was more a case of, I'm not going to be able to watch this.
Speaker: Both of these in what little private time that I have, because I was back living at home with my mom and my future stepdad at the time.
Speaker: You know I'm not going to have enough private time to watch both of these videos in the two days that I have them checked out.
Speaker: Right. So it it's it was a pragmatic choice. And, you know, led to building a library. couple nights a week, he'd come over, you know, we'd watch either one of the favorites that we had found or whatever new I had rented. And we basically would kind of coordinate, oh, hey, you know, you're going to come over. Okay, let me go rent a couple of new ones.
Speaker: And ah after the first few weeks, you know it it became a a normal part of our routine. We'd put in the porn, get out of clothes, jerk off, and finish, and done.
Speaker: After a few weeks, one of us, don't remember who, doesn't matter, whoever it was, was a mad genius, and one of it Came up with the idea of, hey, you know, I bet it would feel a little more intense if we had not even a subconscious idea of what kind of stroke was going to be coming next. And if we did each other.
Speaker: Ah. And we were right. Whoever it was that made that suggestion was absolutely correct. And so that became a normal part of the routine.
Speaker: Okay, so hands on each other. Yeah. Got it. And then you up that that went on for about another month or so. And then one night, I don't remember why. I think think others were home. I think the folks were home.
Speaker: And so we were relegated to my room. And you hooked up a VCR. I had the volume turned down. really low so that nobody walking down the hall could hear what was being, what was being played. And you were squeezed onto my twin bed, know, watching porn, jerking each other off.
Speaker: And there was what looked like a really great blow job going on. On screen. And, you know, i I was just speaking in the abstract.
Speaker: I wasn't at least consciously trying to set anything up. I was just remarking about what I saw on screen and said, wow, that looks really good. I sure would like some of that.
Speaker: And he says to me, well, if you want it bad enough, I'll do you if you do me. All right. And so I didn't say anything. I just leaned over and put him in my mouth.
Speaker: And it's still one of my earliest big turn on memories that he just kind of leaned his head back can and moaned out, I guess you want it bad enough.
Speaker: All right. And so all of that just kind of became the routine. Okay. when When the fall semester, the next fall semester was about to start, um we where we got an apartment and back in our college town that was about an hour from home.
Speaker: And um timing of everything was such that we didn't start looking until it was really close to the start of the semester. In fact, classes had started and we were still looking and commuting back and forth.
Speaker: And, um, And so we happened to have a friend whose girlfriend was working in an apartment complex. She's like, I have an efficiency open.
Speaker: And so was a one bedroom efficiency. His room was fold out couch that he had, he had brought in, in the living room. And he let me have the bedroom. Yeah.
Speaker: which was incredibly gracious of him considering of the two of us. He was the one with the girlfriend who was going to be coming over. ah But put a pin in the girlfriend. She's going to play into my story later. Okay.
Speaker: um But you know we we had our you know lines in the sand about um you know what was and wasn't good, you know like ah no coming in our mouths.
Speaker: Because that was too gay. Right. Getting there wasn't, but finishing was. Okay. um and all these boundaries All these boundaries that we set ourselves. Oh, I know. And they were amazing. and yeah and avoid i mean To avoid the stigma of being thought of as gay, you kind of do these yeah gymnastics things.
Speaker: Well, and keep in mind, too, we're look we're talking late 80s, maybe 89, early 90s into 90, maybe the very beginning of 91.
Speaker: you We're also in the Bible Belt. yeah We were young. We were stupid. And I don't think— Either of us had even heard the word bisexual at that point.
Speaker: let alone considered remotely that it might apply to us. Because we were straight, goddammit, despite the fact that we were blowing each other almost nightly.
Speaker: That was just part of our our normal routine at that point. Usually, there was a the pretense of the porn to get us going.
Speaker: Sometimes we just wanted to get off together, so we would strip, hop into bed, and start playing. um Okay. And a couple of times I tried not so much tried, but suggested pushing the boundaries because, know, since I had played around with a little solo butt stuff, I, I wasn't opposed to the idea.
Speaker: i didn't know if I would enjoy it with another guy or not, but I wasn't opposed. So like, you know, one, one of those nights that we skipped the porn, we're there, we're fooling around. And I suggested,
Speaker: ah we We might have another word of the week because it was years before I knew that there was an actual playful term for this, but I suggested hot dogging. Listeners, for those of you who don't know what that means, that means taking the penis, putting it in between the butt cheeks and you know simulating sex without penetration.
Speaker: I suggested that and that was shut down straight away. Not even getting near that. Right. Okay. Right. Not even getting near that. And so i was like, okay, we, we know where our boundaries are and they're they're not budging.
Speaker: Meanwhile, I'm still having fun with what we are doing. Yeah. He has a falling out with our entire circle of friends. like He gives me one week's notice that he's moving out.
Speaker: I find out later that um he has basically dropped all contact with his girlfriend. he's basic We didn't have the word ghosted for this then, but he's ghosted his girlfriend.
Speaker: okay um He has started seeing one of the girls who worked for him at at the video store, ah which, fun aside, without before I knew that he had any mutual interest in her, he had mentioned um to me that one of his employees kind of had a thing for him.
Speaker: As we were fooling around one night and we started talking about the potential of what I now with modern parlance would refer to as an MMF threesome.
Speaker: Never got beyond us talking about it. And I don't know if he ever told her about it or not. Okay. Okay. Don't know. But um yeah, just total falling out there.
Speaker: ah Here's where I take that pin out that we put in a little bit ago, because this is context for some of the next steps on the journey. We all decided we would rather stay friends with the girlfriend.
Speaker: and Since I knew her best of our circle of friends and associated girlfriends and significant others, I was the one elected to contact her, and she and I started hanging out. and Long story short, we ended up together for three years. and Oddly enough, I learned very quickly that she really liked...
Speaker: the visuals of two men together. Because one night we're laying there, we're you we're lightly fooling around, but you know mostly taking care of ourselves.
Speaker: I asked her what she was thinking about, and she said, no, two guys. And my mind immediately went to, oh she's thinking about herself with two guys. Yeah.
Speaker: Right. And so I asked, am I one of them? And she laughed and said, i don't think you would want to be. And clarified that she was just picturing two guys together. Okay.
Speaker: Now, I was faced with a choice at this point. I could have said, i don't mind that. But given that brain wasn't really working right at that moment, how do I explain how I know i don't mind that without saying, right well, you know, your current boyfriend and your ex-boyfriend, when you weren't out with him, were sucking each other's dicks.
Speaker: yeah That would be quite a revelatory moment there for for her. Yeah. And so that never, ever, ever, ever came up Oh, so you never revealed that.
Speaker: and No, I did not. did not. Oh, my gosh. Okay. Okay. I never did. Never did. um You ever think about what would have happened if you had? Oh, sometimes I absolutely do.
Speaker: And they she had a lot of baggage with stuff going on too. So it could have gone either way, which is the ah the same kind of choice that I would find myself faced with in the future.
Speaker: We're getting there. ah Um, but what was interesting though, is once she told me about that, um, and also made it known that that the, the other funny story is one night we're both just, sitting she moved in and we're sitting there on the couch. We're watching TV one night this shortly after we got together and she's like, so where's the porn?
Speaker: i was like, what? What do you mean? She's like, where's the porn? Now, I asked my ex about it, and he swore up and down that you guys didn't have any porn.
Speaker: But you're horny 20-somethings in college on your own with no oversight. There's porn. Where is it? I want to see some. Wow. Okay.
Speaker: This is a pretty progressive girlfriend for early 90s. Oh, yeah. Oh, tell me about it. Early mid-90s. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I got out part of the small library and played some. Like, me here, I have one videotape, like, trying to hide the rest it.
Speaker: And so, you know, we we watched, and she liked it well enough, and I told her about the video store, so we would occasionally go. Well, in the couple of years that had gone on, that section of the store had grown. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: It had gone from two shelf units to they had like created an entire small section with genres, divided up by genres and everything. And we went to rent some, and she saw that they had a gay and bi section and lit up like a kid in a candy store. Oh.
Speaker: ah Every time we went, she made a beeline for that section and picked out a video for herself. All right. And so ah ah that's that was my introduction to gay and bi porn.
Speaker: And the term by. okay I think that's where I first heard it. But I still never considered that that applied to me because I wasn't i didn't have nor was I seeking opportunities to yeah do anything with a guy again.
Speaker: Right. that Now let me ask you a question. yeah you So she picked selected... a gay or bi porn, did you offer to watch it with her?
Speaker: or was this something that she consumed just by herself? I did because, so that this is how my ADHD semi OCD, probably undiagnosed on the spectrum brain works on this, because at this point it's nearly an hour's drive to get to this video store.
Speaker: The things we used to do for porn back then. Yes. ah An hour. it's nearly. Because it's nearly an hour's drive one way. now you know, we, do there were ways to make the most of the trip too. you Sure, sure, sure. We'd come down, have dinner with the folks, you know, get, get a good free meal with the folks, rent, rent our porn and head back up.
Speaker: Um, so to make the most of it, cause I had to make this trip twice because you got to return them on Thursday. Right. So we would rent four.
Speaker: Whoa, okay, so you're up in the ante now. You are going for... for... Copy, copy. Yeah. Copy overnight so that we can watch at our leisure. Yeah. And then return.
Speaker: So there were two... Generally, our pattern was... Two just you mainstream straight porns. I would pick out a lesbian porn and she would pick out it buyer gay porn.
Speaker: She would watch the lesbian porn with me, but it did absolutely nothing for her. Hmm. So even though ah you I didn't mind it nearly as much as she minded the lesbian porn, yes, I watched with her.
Speaker: But it was it was more a case of, you you are generous enough to sit through mine. i will sit through yours.
Speaker: Because oddly, watching it with her didn't do much for me. h I don't know if it was... So you didn't have to like hide hide your erection or anything like that? No. This blowjob scene really isn't doing anything for me.
Speaker: and No, it was weird. if if i would watch that I could watch the same video on my own if she wasn't home and enjoyed it a lot more. I think it was you a level of anxiety and say, like nope, nope, nope.
Speaker: Doesn't apply to me. Doesn't apply to me. Okay. So... and So this is probably almost like watching heated rivalry. Like some guys who are watching heated rivalry with their girlfriends or wives at this point.
Speaker: Like, uh, doesn't apply to me, but if I watch watch that episode again, pretty good. yeah you have Purely, pure purely scientific purposes. Yeah. Research. Research. Uh, I, I, I, I like his socks in this scene.
Speaker: Um, But we split up, and when we split up, it was around the time that you – I have to ask you another question. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. Go for it. So you copied these – the lesbian and gay porn that you were renting. Not only the straight porn.
Speaker: so Right. you're about to say you broke up, but now you're going to have a library of gay porn. Yes. Okay. Because she did not have, she initially did not have her own beast. I think I eventually ended up, we, we still had communication after the split up, uh, because I was not in a healthy place, uh, but, um, but,
Speaker: But I think I eventually gave her her tape once she did get her own VCR. But at the time, you i i was the one with the VCR, so I had the whole little library there.
Speaker: Okay. ah But we split up. When we split up, it was about the time that individuals started getting internet access when everyone was getting not AOL CDs, AOL floppy disks in the mail.
Speaker: And that was my first forays into ah online porn, online chat, um and um was...
Speaker: You ended up you know in a fairly long-term chat with a local guy, about you know probably four or five years older than me, and agreed finally one night to meet up with him at a a local adult bookstore with a theater. Yeah.
Speaker: And I, you as I was walking up, you we like I'm wearing this while I'm wearing this. He was there before me, even as I was walking up, I considered chickening out and turning around.
Speaker: Yeah. And this was before the point where you would have shared a photo of each other or like could really say this is what I look like.
Speaker: yeah no no yeah It wasn't no pic, no chat or no Facebook, no chat. like Nobody had face pics. It was like, what am I going to send you a Polaroid? No, this is this is completely a case of I'm wearing this while I'm wearing this. This is how we're going to recognize one another.
Speaker: Okay. And so you know we went into the theater, where and it was an actual theater theater, an actual porn theater at the store.
Speaker: So you mean like real seating or not just yeah real some couches? Yeah, real seating. um you know eight Benches. in In my memory, it was bigger than I'm sure it was, but you know a decent-sized screen, theater-style seating.
Speaker: and oh We sat down, you we were watching the movie, and We the house lights and in retrospect, it makes sense why they weren't. They weren't all the way down.
Speaker: yeah but this is the first time I've ever gone to a place like this. Right. So I'm like, where are the lights still kind of up? because you can't see the other guy's dicks if it's dark, Grayson.
Speaker: ah Right, right. um But it hadn't occurred to me. And so where we sat happened to be underneath one of the lights, and it felt as bright as a spotlight to me.
Speaker: so Perfect. yeah So, and I know it wasn't. And again, 2020 hindsight, nobody cared because they were all there for the same reason. Right. Right.
Speaker: But you know he unzipped and took it out and played with himself. I didn't. but And to this day, I'm like, what was I thinking with this next part? He had access to an empty house nearby.
Speaker: And we went there. We jerked off, jerked each other off, went down on one another. The whole time following him there, I'm like, what are you doing?
Speaker: This guy could be an axe murderer. And I, and afterwards, you know, everything was fine. We, we never met up again. We continued chatting online, but just never had the opportunity to meet up again.
Speaker: uh, you know, from then on, I, I pretty much stayed online for years. Uh, I found an online chat for masturbation, um, shout out to Jack and chat, uh,
Speaker: Um, and in that chat room, I got increasingly tired of having to explain how I could say i was straight when i like dicks.
Speaker: I like looking at them. I like touching them. I like tasting them. How am I straight? Well, now were there people asking you that or was it a sort of self inflicted?
Speaker: I'm here and I like all of this stuff. ah Both? Okay. Both. Because, you know, just especially, you know, mid-late the nature of chat rooms like that, people would ask, you know are you gay? Are you straight? You know I'm straight.
Speaker: And then you'd get into all of this chat about and sharing pics and jerking off with somebody online and talking about the stuff that you like to do and and maybe some some role play in there. And it's like, okay, you seem to super be into you talking about playing with dudes, but you're straight.
Speaker: And that's yeah weve we've mentioned it, I think, in both episodes so far, that fundamental misunderstanding of what the term bisexual meant. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Mm-hmm. that i thought that it meant that there absolutely positively has to be an equal chance of having both sexual and romantic attraction to women and men which I didn't have that romantic aspect for men.
Speaker: Yeah. they They sure are great to look at. They are fun to play with, but I had no desire to date one.
Speaker: And that makes it easy to say that you you're not bisexual or is that you're, what you're doing is not gay because it's completely divorced from a romantic feeling.
Speaker: Right. And so what I was doing is what I think a lot of of confused men out there do is i was identifying with my primary attraction, with my predominant attraction. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Yeah. and and just it it got to be it did get to be kind of a beating though of you say you're straight but how can you be you don't you certainly don't act like it and so i started thinking maybe i am by and i re-educated myself I took it upon myself to reeducate. It's like, okay, what does it mean?
Speaker: Does it mean what I think it does? Or do I not understand? And it turns out I didn't understand. And so ultimately it's like, fuck it. Yes, I am. Bye.
Speaker: Now, fast forward a few years, you know, we're mean we're keeping everything online pretty much. Got married. Everything is is going along. And my wife came out to me.
Speaker: that she was by. um Okay. Spoiler alert. Well, not spoiler alert, but teaser. um Looking at the notes with what our mini topic is, I'll come back to the situation yeah and setting of, of that when we get to the mini topic, because it ties in. Okay. ah But I, shortly after that, we were,
Speaker: Kind of going through a rough patch. And so i was like, okay, and this is before I had, I'm pretty sure this is a little before I accepted by as applicable to me.
Speaker: But i was like, okay, transparency, total honesty cards on the table and told her about my experience with my roommate.
Speaker: And her reaction at the time was mixed. Yeah. Openly to me, ah she was fine with it.
Speaker: But I know that privately she freaked out to a friend of hers about it. Ah, okay. um And this is after she has come out as bi to you?
Speaker: Yes. Or before? After. After. okay But also your're that's what you have framed this as this is something in your far past experience.
Speaker: Right. And the only reason that the conversation stopped there was her action her mixed reaction. Okay. Yep. I could see that.
Speaker: um It's like, okay, privately, she's like, okay, yeah, cool. you know I don't want to know the details, but it happened. It's cool. To a friend of hers, she's privately like, holy shit, what the fuck?
Speaker: Mm-hmm. um And so was like, okay, that's where this conversation ends, at least for now. Right. Bandage that's half off. not ra You're not ripping the bandaid off all the way. It's starting. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Right. But the the result of her coming out to me was that we then started discussing, since I had explored in my past, how do we find a way for you to explore that side of yourself?
Speaker: Hmm. So that's when we first started looking at swinging, E&M, whatever you want to call it. And ah you know just focusing on what she was looking for in that. And i I was fine at that point because, you know what, this is my person.
Speaker: So let's... Let's let her have the experience that she never got to have that she wanted to have. I've had that experience. I'm good with everything pretty much being online.
Speaker: I'm good with, you know, looking at looking at porn online and getting off. I'm good with reading people talking, reading other guys talking about what they're doing in a chat room.
Speaker: I'm good. I'm fine. Yeah. While I would like to have experiences again. i don't have to. you know It's the same kind of thing. we i don't remember if this was a conversation that you were part of.
Speaker: No, this was a different Reddit thread. Somebody early just happened earlier today on Reddit was asking, you know like well, yesterday or today, how How is it, you know I'm bi and I'm in a relationship with my girlfriend and how do people who are bi handle being monogamous? And like, well, the same way that people who are straight or gay or lesbian do.
Speaker: If you've chosen to be monogamous, that doesn't mean that you don't say, holy shit, that person's hot and have... attraction and desire. It just means you make the decision not to act on it.
Speaker: Right. Exactly. and just because in a straight relationship and you're a man, you may have an internal thought, Oh, hot chick. I would definitely like to fuck her, but you don't act on that because you have taken them the vows you have pledged monogamy and that is where it kind ends. It goes into your spank bank perhaps, but, uh, but that's the end of it.
Speaker: Yeah. And self control. yeah It's like just, just because you are by and find women and men, both attractive doesn't mean that, Oh, I gotta act on it now. Right.
Speaker: Exactly. You know, so um i i was fine with all of that. But over the years, I would get really, really close to finishing the job of coming out. And then I would chicken out.
Speaker: I would say like, okay, you know, I i really should do this, you know, even if it even if it doesn't mean anything will come of it other than me saying, this is part of me.
Speaker: Mm-hmm. Uh, but every time I would get right up to that line, something would happen or I would convince myself that because something happened, oh no, no, this isn't the time. This isn't the time.
Speaker: ah and we've got a whole episode coming up about that kind of thing. Yes, we do. ah But then finally, about a year and a half ago, little more than that, um we were going through and giving our profile on the swinging site that we're on a much needed update.
Speaker: It had been the same for years. We updated pictures, but the profile itself had stayed the same. And something just clicked in my head that this is the time.
Speaker: And was like, well, you know, while we're doing all of this and coming up with the new profile, you know, I, I told you about me and my roommate, but I would like to explore that again.
Speaker: And I then braced myself and, Because part of my chickening out over the years was based on her earlier reaction, it could go one of two ways.
Speaker: It could go well, or it could completely explode my life. Right. And i i braced myself. I expected blowback to some degree.
Speaker: And the reaction that I got was a shrug and fine by me. Mm-hmm. And so I just kind of you sat there for a second and I was like, is this calling a bluff or is this genuine?
Speaker: Right. and And so as we continued talking about it, you know we... updated the profile to completely update. She's like, well, yeah, we can put wording in there, know, keep, keep you listed, keep you listed straight and put in there that you're interested in possibly exploring. I was like, at this point, screw it. Just change me to buy on there.
Speaker: Okay. Yeah. And when it really and truly clicked for me that she was good with it was that um I bought bought myself a couple of bi-flag themed bracelets. One's kind of a woven surfer's bracelet. The other one is a little more subtle and, for want of a better term, dressier.
Speaker: And I had worn that other dressier one to one of our gaming group sessions. And then we were out at a burlesque show with a pan friend of ours and I was wearing the woven one.
Speaker: And you know my wife you know pointed to it. It's like did you see? And she's like, I saw the other one at the game, but it wasn't my place to say anything. Welcome to the club. and And so my wife goes off to to get a drink and friend of ours is like, so we know that your we know how your tastes in women do and don't overlap. Do you guys have the same taste in men? was like, you know, we haven't really talked about it. And the next that weekend, that Sunday night, we went out to dinner and our dinner conversation was comparing hot guys and you know famous crushes.
Speaker: And at that point i was like, okay, no, she's, she is cool with this. and And what do you think, or have you asked her like what changed between the time that she had the mixed reaction and this time, what changed for her?
Speaker: i haven't asked because I have observed over the years. Um, when, when she initially came out to me, she was still more private about it openly.
Speaker: And as the years have gone on she has been much more open about it herself. um you know Just casually mentioning it on social media posts and um you getting Pride-related and Bi-Flag content.
Speaker: clothing and accessories and things kind of like I dove into doing right after I came out and I'd had, you know, some pride shirts before coming out, but it was always seen by others more as allyship.
Speaker: Yeah. Um, but you know, we, you To the point that, again, still living in the buckle of the Bible belt ah every June um until the flagpole fell down, we had a pride flag flying out in front of the house. you know she She was just much more open about it and more expressive in herself and her her belonging to the LGBTQ plus community and her support and allyship of it outside of belonging to it.
Speaker: So that is, I think is what it was. It's just, it was more a journey there. That's why I started thinking over the years and probably could have mentioned this before, but hey, you know maybe it's time for me to finish the job. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: um I wonder if it is in a little biphobia on her end as well, like seeing something in you that she had been afraid of about herself and having those mixed emotions, right? like Maybe.
Speaker: And then not knowing what that means for her or you and your relationship. and like Yeah, it's a big thing. Maybe, maybe. And i've I've often said in various appropriate online spaces over the years that it's one thing to say, hey, you know what?
Speaker: Some guys like sex with other guys. Cool, fine, whatever. But it's completely it can be completely a different thing to say, my husband likes fooling around with other men.
Speaker: Yeah. you know One is an abstract that you can say, hey, cool, you you do you. And the other is, oh, this this is close to home.
Speaker: Yeah. So i I can get that initial reaction that I got. I can understand it. But again, you that was... probably close to 15 years ago. So there was plenty of growth on, well, on both of our parts really in between there.
Speaker: ah But we, and when we did that, you know, we sat down and we had our conversations that, you know, anything that we do with others is going to be same room okay, fine. That's good with me.
Speaker: What does that mean? Paint us a picture of what that agreement makes sense. When you say same room, that means you are both there Yes. Okay. And probably worth noting that um especially her comfort level for interacting with other people is ah that for us to interact with other people, if it's possible, and we're we're talking even vanilla situations, um in social settings like that, it is...
Speaker: easier for her to have us be there as... a unit, a team, if you will, yeah and interact with another team, another couple than one person.
Speaker: So with like we in looking for a way for her to explore, we very quickly eliminated looking for single women.
Speaker: okay because Because she finds it easier for the two of us to interact in that fashion, again, vanilla or non-vanilla, ah with another couple.
Speaker: So anything happening would be in the same room, but at the same time... She also it was honest enough to say, i am not ready to see you with another man.
Speaker: I was like, okay, that that's totally fair. I mean, we're still focused primarily on you anyway. um Just a couple of months after that changed to our profile, ah we found a couple that were good with him. He was straight, so I knew that there was no nothing for me going into this.
Speaker: But they they were fine with her interaction being limited to being with the other woman. Okay. And we hit it off with them in a no-pressure public setting, met up with them again at their place couple of weeks later. She had her first experience really enjoyed it okay and this is you're in the same you're all in the same room together but only the women are playing yes that is that correct okay yes and after we get home you know it started thinking it's like okay great yeah we've we've we've gotten we've gotten your your your your seal taken off. The wrapping is off finally, and you enjoyed it, and we know that you enjoyed it, and you want to do it again, and you know we're we're good with It didn't cause any problems, and there was no jealousy, and we're we're all good with it.
Speaker: So how does that work for you being okay with me exploring some more, but you're not ready to see it, but everything has to be in the same room?
Speaker: yeah And so that's about the time that I found the local jack-off group. And I said, okay, how is this for a low-impact entry point for you to be good with because obviously you're not going to go because it's all men but are you okay with me going on my own knowing that here's what the limits are at this place not not just self-imposed by me these are the limits of the organization and the event
Speaker: Yeah. and And generally those at jack off clubs are no lips below the hips and no poles and holes. Right. You know, consent based as well.
Speaker: Now we've we've got a whole episode coming up on jack off clubs too, which I can't wait for because like both of us have been involved with that. And I think it's a great way as you, as you know, you're evidenced by you it's a great way for you to realize some of those desires, as you're saying in a low impact way, consent based, here are the rules. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. And so she, she was good with that. So for about six months, you know I would go to events here and there, ah for them.
Speaker: And then funny conversation came up at the holidays because we were getting reached out to on the swinger site by a few couples and where the the men were labeled as straight in their profiles.
Speaker: And within the first few messages of reaching out to us, you know that they seemed pleasant enough to start off. Within the first few messages, the guys started hitting on me trying to get in my pants.
Speaker: Because your profile says that you are bi. Yes. So they know. Yes. That it's safe to do this because you are not listed as straight.
Speaker: Right. So i my wife was at work. I'm working at home. I'm texting her. We're kind of joking back and forth about it. And she's, well, you seem to be very popular. ha i was like I was like, well, yeah since we're having trouble finding the elusive bye-bye couple for us,
Speaker: maybe And I'm half joking. I'm like, maybe I should just try to find a semi-regular friend with benefits until we do. And she just thumbs up reaction emoji.
Speaker: And so so i was like, okay, are you... Are you playing along with the banter or are you truly okay with that? And that, end first of all, I want to applaud you on double checking that the emoji reaction is not carte blanche for you, right? Like yeah ah for, for checking in in with her. That's great.
Speaker: Yep. So i was like, okay. And so we messaged back and forth. She's like, no, no, that that's totally fine. You know, because I'm still not ready to see it, but you, you've seen me do it and we're, we're good.
Speaker: And so, um, i in the At this point, it's eight, nine months since, again, another slight adjustment to the profile, saying that I have her okay for solo one-on-one meets with men.
Speaker: And I've had a couple scheduled. um The first one canceled the day of, but before he canceled, because giving him the benefit of the doubt, you know a a family emergency medical emergency came up. At least that was his story.
Speaker: ah But before he canceled, you know i had taken i was off work that day anyway. and She goes to leave work and just said, i think I used this phrase in one of the other episodes. She's like, okay, well, text me when you leave. Text me when you're on your way home.
Speaker: Let me know where you're at just in case something goes horribly wrong. Be safe and have fun. And you know the the couple that I've had since then that have gone through, same thing.
Speaker: As we record this, ah I you know was offered an opportunity to meet up with somebody I've been chatting with for a while and passed the vibe check last night.
Speaker: But the invite came yesterday and she texted. It's like, okay, you know, I'm i'm going to do this after work. and i was And currently we're down to one vehicle.
Speaker: And i was like, oh, OK, well, if you get home in time, i was invited to you know go go meet up with this guy tonight or Thursday. and she's like, well, Thursday would probably be better.
Speaker: So, you know, as it stands, you know, I have one scheduled for tomorrow. She's on board and sometime after she gets home, I'll be Going off to have a little fun. And that's where we're at right now.
Speaker: There you go. you know lots Lots of internal internal strife over the years. Because you for all I know, you're going back, you know answering your your question about the college girlfriend, she could have had just as positive a reaction.
Speaker: if you know She probably would have. She probably would have. If if stupid 21, 22-year-old brain could have come up with yeah some way to explain how I knew that I liked it without going into the details, but stupid me couldn't.
Speaker: Right. I think it's far i mean it's part of not knowing the potential of those interactions, right? Because your earlier interactions, you you know did we when any of us didn't know what we were doing,
Speaker: We didn't know how deep our desires would go and what those conversations would be like and feeling judged not only by the person we're telling, but then as if other people would find out about that and then judge as well.
Speaker: Right? There's all that kind of thing mixed up and entangled with this. yeah Yeah, exactly. And i I did. And thinking back, it's possible that the college girlfriend at one point ended up with an inkling of an idea because one more funny story and then I will stop rambling about this because I've rambled on about it.
Speaker: So I had subscriptions to Playboy and Penthouse. Mm hmm. She really dug reading penthouse forum in the new issue every month. And so one day new issue comes and I'm sitting there on the couch, you got home from work, opened it up and I'm reading and I'm reading this one letter and it's like this, this sounds seem familiar. Yeah.
Speaker: And I continue reading, and you know it's about you know two guys watching porn together, and then you know one of them mentions that he needs to jerk And I'm like, boy, this...
Speaker: Okay, this is this is eerily familiar. Yeah. And then as I continue reading, I'm like, this is way too close to be an accident.
Speaker: And then I got to to the end, and they always signed them with the initials of the person who submitted them and the city that they were in.
Speaker: It was his initials and the city that he was then living in. no That was my reaction. ah That was my reaction. i i i I dropped the magazine and I screamed, holy shit.
Speaker: And she comes running into the room and she's like, what? And I was like, he has a letter in form. And she's like, how do you know it's him? and I was like, well, and unfortunately what I'm about to say was true except for the final sentence of it.
Speaker: Okay. When we when we were in the dorm, to annoy a friend of ours, and just to pass the time, we would make up bullshit letters to forum with the intention of sending them in to see if they would get published.
Speaker: Wow. that That part was true. ah That part was completely separate from the other part of this. Completely separate from saying this was one of them, which was not true.
Speaker: Right. ah the The ones that we, that we made up in the dorm and left laying around to annoy our friend who would come into our room to go down to the cafeteria, all centered around my roommate and our friend's sister. ah All right.
Speaker: Just because she had a crush on my roommate. Okay. and And it annoyed the hell out of our friend. So we played that up. to Anyway, i was like, but you yeah, this was one of them. And look, it's from his initials it in his city.
Speaker: Well, after the the breakup and we we briefly had keys to one another's apartments because of the cats we shared. But after I was moving out of that apartment and we were no longer in contact, um that issue is missing from my collection.
Speaker: Oh, i I don't know for a fact that she took it, but I know it to be true. Yeah. That's amazing.
Speaker: Oh, oh i I completely lost my mind. And when she's like, how do you know it was from him? My mind just started racing. And I was like, yeah.
Speaker: I mean, these are his initials in the city he's from. So clearly that's why. not i know all of this because the other person in this letter is But yeah, so... but yeah so you she She might have had an inkling. I know that for a very, very brief time, they they got back together. I don't know if he ever told her not.
Speaker: Okay. Oh, no, that was the whole soap opera. That's the part that gets soap opera, and we're not going to go into that. Not my story to tell. Gotcha. But um yeah, the the part where where I was with his ex for three years wasn't the soap opera because it was after they split up and it just kind of fell into place. Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, we that but yeah that that's where I'm at now. you know she's She's awesome about it all. um If I am in invited to meet with anyone or i am interested and I'm the one that suggests it, I also, hey, you know do you mind, do we have anything going on on such and such a date?
Speaker: Um, if, if not, I have an opportunity to meet up with this guy and, you know, either if it's for a vibe check or if the vibe check has passed and ready to do a little more, it's like, you know, I have, have a chance to meet up with this guy for a vibe check or that guy that the vibe check passed, you know we have a chance to, to meet up for a little bit and you know if there's nothing going on, okay.
Speaker: Yeah. There you go. That's great. Yeah. i It's not something that I would have probably would have predicted even just a few years ago would be the situation, but it is.
Speaker: See, it can work out. It can. Live in the dream. And the beautiful thing about it all is that it It's great to be out and either one of us can point out somebody hot to the other, whether it's a woman or a man. Yeah. ah it's like you know i We were talking beforehand. I spent the weekend at a nerdy convention and...
Speaker: a certain actor from a show was there. And I, at at one point I was telling her how at one point, you know, the person, the, the prop that somebody brought to get signed, he was cradling in his arm to get a good angle to sign it. And Holy shit, the flex. See, this is what so many couples are missing out on without, uh,
Speaker: ah yeah she desires She's like, I hate you. You got to see that. ah like ah She's like, I'm not jealous at all. was like, it's okay if you are. i didn't I didn't pick the assignment, but I'm not complaining about it. There you go.
Speaker: Awesome. Thank you for sharing that. That was a great, a great story. I think a lot of people can identify with that. ah You know, when you started explaining the penthouse forum thing, I immediately thought, oh, well, yeah a lot of men have a similar story about playing with ah a an acquaintance or friend. And until you got to the initials were the same and the city is just like, Oh, okay. In this case, oh no it really was that person.
Speaker: Oh no. It, it got to the point that there, there were like specific phrases and descriptions that, um, down to the point of you our, our term for when we would watch porn and everything was a film festival.
Speaker: And and he's he's like, you know at some point in there, he used the term film festival saying something like, you know, we haven't talked for a while, but I miss the film festivals. I was like, wait, just wait.
Speaker: but It was one of the, it started off being one of those. Oh yeah. A lot of, a lot of guys have a story similar to this. Right. Right. The more it went on, it's like, ah,
Speaker: this is like really close to what happened with us. Yeah. And, and then details started getting too detailed. Right.
Speaker: That had to have been a crazy experience. I can't even imagine. Yeah. Reading. home Yeah. Reading that. um Should we get into our mini topic? We should, because I've rambled on for longer than I thought I would. Yeah.
Speaker: ah No problem at all. I think it's a great a great journey, a great story. i I love that. And I think a lot of men will identify with it. Absolutely.
Speaker: Yes. um But for our mini topic, I wanted to get into threesomes or moresomes experiences and ah what have we experienced ourselves and ah the the sort of fantasy of having a group encounter versus the reality of it, which may not exactly match the fantasy because a lot of us, you know, have watched porn that ah idealizes threesomes that or moresomes, or we've watched Seinfeld episodes that have glorified the menage a trois.
Speaker: And is it all that it's cracked up to be? so Or we've watched Star Trek episodes that glamorize the menage a Troy. And that too.
Speaker: Ah, yes. As teenagers, Counselor Troy. Anyway, ah so MFMs, MMMs, MMFs, usually you put the a person in the center of the action. So if it's like the two men are going to...
Speaker: ah put most of of their attention on the female and and not play with each other. It's an MFM. But if right the two men can play with each other, it's an MMF because right of who's playing with who. the The letters that are together are the ones that the the letters that touch are the people who are going to touch.
Speaker: That's right. Exactly. Exactly. And i don't think I shared it on talking about my story. Maybe I did. i don't remember. But my I lost my virginity in a threesome.
Speaker: so No, you did not, I don't believe. i am I may not have shared it, but it is true. MMF threesome where there were it was in in college, my freshman year of college, ah me, my roommate, and his girlfriend.
Speaker: And ah again, as we've sort of talked about in this episode, being young and dumb and not knowing what to do, not being experienced, nobody in the room is experienced.
Speaker: ah It was all right, but it was not a great first experience. It was you know losing my virginity, but it was complicated.
Speaker: Very complicated. was about say complicated than it needed to be. Way more complicated than it needed to be. And it only got more complicated after the fact because ah it was, yeah, my my roommate and his girlfriend. And ah after we had finished ah and in the ensuing days, she wanted to continue the fun.
Speaker: Whereas I had had post-nut clarity on the whole situation and thought this was not something that should continue.
Speaker: but So there was a lot of drama there that was un unwanted. So that may have colored my opinion of threesomes or more sums for years after that. Uh, but in, in the time since that has passed and actually after my divorce separation and divorce, um, I have revisited the M M F and it went way better,
Speaker: with a couple that I met on field, which is an app that, uh, is for threesomes or, uh, lifestyle or same sex kind of encounters. Um, people who are open to kinky stuff, maybe too.
Speaker: Um, But this wasn't kinky so much as it was just a threesome. And I had met the couple for a vibe check, and that went really well. And they were both attractive, and we ended up playing, and that went great.
Speaker: And then I've also done the MMM threesome as well. And an MMM threesome as well. Yeah.
Speaker: Four amps, yes. ah So I've had some experience with that too. And all of that has been great. And part of it is, you know, in the back um of my mind, I'm always thinking like, at some point, this is going to become a twosome or like, what is there something I can do to remain in the moment or the...
Speaker: what's happening in front of me? Like, is there any way I can support or touch or offer something in addition to kind of thing? Cause oftentimes threesomes or foursomes end up, you know, you end up in twosomes as well. So, right. Yeah.
Speaker: There is a lot of that. So, When I lost my virginity, the fan there was a fantasy of, oh my God, threesome. I'm doing this to lose my virginity. It's going to awesome. And then it was not, the reality was not so awesome. But in the ensuing years and my experience level and... ah has has smoothed it over some of that stuff. So I'm, I think I'm much better at ah not only just the expectations, but also the communication beforehand. Like what is everybody into? Can I, what can I touch? What can I not touch? What do you you want? What do you not want? That kind of so setting everything up like that was not something that I did when I lost my virginity.
Speaker: ah So very different. But how about yourself, Grayson? i have I have not... had one actually work out.
Speaker: o um Now there there are the two occasions last year that we were able to meet up with that couple that my wife and the other wife played. And you while they were playing, the other husband and I would you know be near our respective partners and, you know, like,
Speaker: you holding a hand or whatever occasionally, but you know mostly just you know enjoying the view, as it were. There have been a few aborted attempts.
Speaker: are I wouldn't even say that they got as far as aborted attempts. I mentioned um the idea, the proposal that my roommate and I had with ah the girl that he ended up dating.
Speaker: for a while um but and that would have certainly been an mmf uh that's how we were talking about it amongst the two of ourselves but we were also having those conversations while we were in the throes of being incredibly horny Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. um Then the college girlfriend and I discussed the potential of a threesome. The issue was we never came to a meeting of the minds on it.
Speaker: She wanted an MFM. I wanted an FMF. And neither of us. Neither of us wanted a stranger involved, but every everyone that we knew well enough and were attracted enough to to invite in, we didn't want to potentially screw up the existing friendship if it got weird after.
Speaker: So we never came to a meeting of the minds, but I know exactly who she wanted. and as the the other guy. And no, not her ex.
Speaker: um No, I know exactly. She told me who she wanted. Oh, ah ah But, you know, he he was seeing someone at the time was very committed to her.
Speaker: So even if we had felt like risking it, ah it would not have gone over. Okay. So, um but we just never came to the agreement on, we didn't get to the point of needing to have the conversation with the third party about what is and isn't okay because we never got to the point of agreeing who the third party would be.
Speaker: Yeah. So it it just that that discussion just kind of fell by the wayside every so often it came back up. Yeah, that would be really fun. But and we'd always hit the same roadblocks.
Speaker: So so hasn't occurred yet. I say yet because I i don't mind being optimistic. Yeah.
Speaker: it's still out there. It could happen. Yeah, it it could happen. and And any, any combination thereof could happen. Yes. Yes. All right. Before we close out, uh, want to point out a resource, uh, and, and my, my choice for resource this week is multi Amory. So multi Amory.com is where you can find more information on, uh,
Speaker: Emily Jace and Dedeker's book, they they do ah a website, a book, a podcast, they have a Discord server. It's really great, not only for ah polyamorous relationships, but for relationships in general. And Multiamory as a book has just a really, I think, nice structure for relationships in general and for checking in with your partner even if you are in a committed monogamous relationship. And the podcast is also great, just talking through a lot of different issues that affect or impact relationships of any kind, whether that's polyamory or ah monogamy. So check out multiamory.com, check out their book, their podcast, I think is great as well. And you'll get a lot of good tips on,
Speaker: on everything relationship-wise. Now I think we should tease our next episode. You tease. What's our next episode about, Grayson? I am a tease. And we love it. We all love it.
Speaker: Our next episode is about telling your partner you all of the different ah ins and outs, you the the thoughts, concerns, ah the aspects of it to consider when you're deciding whether you do feel comfortable enough to tell your partner not.
Speaker: going to be exciting. It is. Yeah. And I i also hope that that episode and well this episode and the next episode, I think, are going to help a lot of people who have had this internal struggle with themselves on telling their partner. Yep. I think so. Because most most all of us have it.
Speaker: And you know as as we saw, heard in my story, even if we have a partner who is also bi, can still be you know a source of tremendous anxiety.
Speaker: But until then, you can reach out to us via social media. Grayson, you got those handy? Yeah. I do. So if you're enjoying Biomen Unfiltered, follow us on social media, join the conversation.
Speaker: You can find us at Biomen Unfiltered on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Twitter, X, whatever they're deciding to call it this week. And BiomenUnfiltered.com on Blue Sky.
Speaker: And we would also love to hear from you directly. If you have a story, experience, question, or something you want us to talk about, well, send us an email at podcast at bymanunfiltered.com.
Speaker: If you're okay with sharing your story on the show, just include okay for error in your message. Yeah. And hey, if anybody out there listening would like to be a guest on the show and actually walk us through your story live, we'd be up for that as well. So same email address, reach out and ah yeah, we'll talk.
Speaker: Yep, because here here I go sounding like a sales pitch now, because your stories help make this conversation bigger, realer, and a whole lot more unfiltered.
Speaker: All right, we will see everybody next week. Yep, definitely. Thank you all for listening.
