Naked At Home
Group sex feels like a natural way to bond and connect
One of the things that I most love about this house is all of the big windows. They let in so much light as well as give the feeling that the garden is almost a part of the house. The only downside of this is that it isn’t very private, and so I’m never entirely comfortable walking around naked, although I do that pretty often none-the-less.
Standing around the kitchen with other naked people is even worse — or better, depending on how much I’m worried at the moment that the yard guys will show up or the pest control service will suddenly appear in the back yard and look in one of those big windows. We do that fairly often also, because, despite the danger of surprising someone outside, being naked with other people just feels good and natural.
There are a lot of things about my current way of life that make me really happy — things that I wouldn’t have even dreamed about wanting 6 years ago when my husband James and I were just another long-term monogamously married couple, doing the regular stuff. We were holding down jobs, raising a child, and going through the usual ups and downs of married life, but overall we were pretty happy, and very much in love. We’re still in love, but now that includes a variety of other people as well, and even though that’s not widely considered to be very socially acceptable, it just feels so right and natural to me, and to us. It’s almost hard to remember what that old way of life was truly like.
When we decided to open up our relationship, it blew the doors off of all of that, and mostly in a good way. We definitely went through some transition stress as we deprogrammed ourselves from monogamy mindset, particularly when I found myself deeply in love with another man and all of this wasn’t just about sexual exploration anymore. It took some time but we eventually worked our way through it and got to a place where we are both very satisfied with things.
I’m still involved with the other man, as well as a couple of other people, and we have fully embraced polyamorous life. Who was I before that? Someone who wasn’t completely herself, but who didn’t even consciously realize it. Society has a lot to say about what intimate relationships are supposed to be and how they are supposed to go. For the most part that means one person at a time as a way to move up the relationship ladder towards cohabitation, marriage, and children.
I guess I have the best of both worlds because I have those things, but also a world of connection, love, friendship, and sex that has none of those things as a goal. The confluence is the place where I feel most real, most alive, most like my true self. I understand that it isn’t necessarily the same for everyone, but I also know that I said the same thing just a year or so before my outlook began to shift. I actually went so far as to write an opinion piece for a friend’s blog about how I choose monogamy and couldn’t imagine choosing anything else — because like so many people who have grown up in this culture, I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
When we’ve been spending time with our like-minded intimates, the set-point changes and I can start to forget that what we are doing is scandalous in many people’s eyes. It’s fun and it makes me happy. It makes James happy too. When something goes unexpectedly well for us, we laugh and chalk it up to all of our “clean living.” We are being ourselves and getting to act on that part of us that expresses affection through sexual connection with other people who feel the same. When we take off our clothes, we take off the masks that we wear out in the world as well, and that just feels like a weight being lifted.
A few weeks ago we had our lover Tamara and another new friend Skye over to help us celebrate James’ birthday. These dates typically take place during the day, because our young adult son who is on the autism spectrum lives with us and he’s home in the evenings. James had made some delicious canapes with crab and avocado and we stood around the kitchen for a while enjoying those and visiting before heading back to the bedroom.
We have a first-floor master just off the kitchen and that makes everything a bit more easy and convenient. As we made our way into the bedroom and clothes started to come off, there was no awkwardness or hesitation. There was also no script or particular expectations, except to enjoy each other’s company. We know we are going to have a good time and in more than just the sexual sense.
Although I’m pansexual, I’m probably a bit more oriented towards men. I very much enjoy the softness of kissing a woman and genuinely like women as sexual partners, but if I had to choose just one, I’d pick men. There just isn’t any substitute for an actual penis and there’s also a Yin meets Yang symbiosis going on for me when I have sex with a man. When I have sex with a woman, particularly on a casual basis as with Skye, it feels slightly different, and not just because of the plumbing differences. It’s a bit more like the sexual social bonding that goes on between female bonobos.
Female bonobos have sex with each other a lot! In fact, when approached by both a male and a female, they most often choose the female. Primatologist Amy Parish says, “They choose what feels good, and what feels especially good is having sex with other females, probably because of the front-facing, relatively exposed, innervated clitoris.” (1)
Bonobos are just as genetically related to humans as chimps are, and bonobo muscles have changed the least [from our common ancestor], which means they are the closest we can get to having a ‘living’ ancestor,” according to the research head of the George Washington University Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology.
It’s believed that bonobos have sex to diffuse potential tension — when they come upon a cache of food, for example, or troop of bonobos they don’t know, having sex is a way to bond and take the stress level down. Females build and maintain their social network within their troop through this kind of affiliative sex as well, which also has the added benefit of creating a network that keeps male aggression in check.
Sure, having group sex with two other women plus me lets my husband feel like king for a day, but it also has this same kind of affiliative component, although it’s something we’ve both experienced when we play with a man and a woman as well. We have real feelings for Tamara, as she does for us, but it’s about more than that. Even casual encounters that are based in mutual respect and a desire for shared pleasure have the same effect.
It’s hard to explain, particularly if someone is very geared towards monogamy, how fundamentally natural and human it feels to build community in this way. And when we take a break to refill our drinks and have a bit more to eat, standing around naked together in the kitchen feels just as right and natural. One time when we had a date with Tamara and our other lover Lane and we were having one of these kinds of intermissions in the kitchen, our pal Jenny Facetimed to say hello.
She knows how we live our lives and is completely non-judgemental about that, but was still a bit surprised that we answered the call in our current state of undress. The counter was covering us from the waist down, but it still wasn’t what most people would expect on a Thursday afternoon — or at all. To the consensus-reality world, this seems a bit shocking, or at least unusual, and although Jenny wasn’t appalled, it still wasn’t what she was expecting.
But for us, at that moment especially, this was our consensus reality. Why should we be the ones who have to hide or change what we are doing? Why should we not embrace the life that helps us feel more connected and less stressed? As Skye pointed out when I warned her that there was a slight possibility that someone might appear in the back yard and see us all hanging out naked in the kitchen, “They should be so lucky.” Not just to see a bunch of naked women, but to get a glimpse at a life where nakedness is not embarrassing and where group sexuality is embraced as healthy and natural.
It’s only been 6 years, but there are still many times where I very nearly have forgotten what it was like before. And even more frequently than that, I forget that although this way of life feels completely intuitive to us, for most of the rest of the world, it seems strange and aberrant. I’m not interested in pushing anyone towards a way of life that doesn’t resonate for them but at the same time, I want to celebrate having this in our lives because it enhances them so much.
This is me, this is us, naked at home in a way that we don’t typically get to be out in the world. It brings us pleasure, aliveness, love, and connection and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Skye is absolutely right. If someone sees something that isn’t a part of their understanding of how the world works through one of our big, picture windows, that’s their issue and not ours.
(1) Martin, Wednesday. Untrue. Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.
© Copyright, Elle Beau 2020 Elle Beau writes about sex, life, relationships, society, anthropology, spirituality, and love.
