Would My Grandmother Think I’m a Slut?
The moral compass of family and sexuality can be tricky
I have a tight-knit family. Growing up close to both my mother and father’s sides of the family provided me with the chance to grow up with cousins that were more like siblings and aunts/uncles that operated like second parents. My siblings and I spent lots of time with both sets of our grandparents. However, I always had a strong bond with my father’s mother. Let’s call her Anne. Anne and I had one of those types of relationships that transcends time and space.
I like to tell people my grandmother was one of my soul mates. While she died about fifteen years ago, I still hold her in the highest esteem and talk about her like she’s still here. To say she had a monumental impact on my formative years would be an understatement. She was a spitfire of a woman who never bit her tongue but also would give a total stranger the last $5.00 left in her pocketbook (her word, not mine).
Grandma Anne never really got to know me as a true adult. She was dealt a shitty hand and died well before her 65th birthday via an untreatable cancer diagnosis. It was hard. There was a lot of pain that happened during that time and it always left me curious as to what she would think of me now?
Would Grandma Anne approve of her granddaughter being a swinger?
What about acting as a hotwife and fucking random men my husband sets up for me?
Would she approve of my bisexuality or be disgusted at the thought of her beloved granddaughter being sexually attracted to other women?
I have never and will never live my life in the rearview mirror. I am a firm believer in the fact that we are all the makers of our own lives. I’m a hard charger and when I set my mind to something I go for it with as much effort as a bunch of caged elephants.
When I turned 29, my life changed in a way I never thought it would. My husband of five years, and boyfriend of longer than that and I decided that we didn’t want to live our life by how society told us we should. We wanted to explore our sexuality in a way that was safe, fun and put our marriage above everything else.
When we decided to start swinging, I have to admit I had a moral dilemma. I was raised in a strict Irish Catholic family. We didn’t talk about sex. We didn’t masturbate (I secretly did of course) or even ask questions about sex. I always knew my parents were there if I needed them, but sex just wasn’t talked about. The best source of sexual information I had was my older female cousin and the internet.
So, when a good girl who’d only been with one man in her whole life decided to jump into the world of nonmonogamy it was a big undertaking. I remember the first time I fucked another man besides my husband — my hands were sweaty and I thought the family priest would come through the hotel room door and haul me off to be judged by some otherworldly court for committing adultery. Even though my husband was laying in the bed two feet over, having just fucked another woman. It’s not really adultery when your spouse is doing it, too.
My point is, the influence my family had on my ideas of sexuality and love impacted my early decisions as an adult. While I always knew/know I am loved the things I’ve done over the past 10 years are far beyond the idea of what a marriage should look like according to how I was raised. In the back of my mind, I always wondered what they would think if they knew exactly what I’ve done in the past 10 years? Would they still love me? Would they stop talking to me?
Would Grandma Anne want to know of the lurid details of the raunchy exploits her beloved Keeva has been up to? Obviously, most parental figures want nothing to do with anything dealing with their children having sex. Admittedly, even the idea of my own children’s future sexual adventures makes me wince a bit. While I hope they both let their freak flags fly, I don’t want to know the details if I’m being honest.
Sometimes I wrestle with the emotions or what-ifs of the inner voice that wonders if my grandmother would approve of the path I’ve taken. While I know she’d want me to live my best life, and I regret nothing about becoming a swinger, hotwife, and having had relationships outside of my own marriage, I truly wish I could sit down with Grandma Anne over a cup of coffee and talk to her like a girlfriend.
How many of us have these types of thoughts? While some of us don’t have the type of relationships with our relatives that creates an open-door policy on sexuality and love, some of you are lucky to have that! I don’t think my parents or other relatives need to know what Mr. Black and I do in our bedroom, but sometimes I wish I could talk to them more openly about what we do and why we do it. Even if just in a PG sort of way. For God’s sake, my parents don’t even know I’m bisexual!
At the end of it all, I think Grandma Anne would likely think that whatever I’m doing seems to be making me happy. I think at the heart of it, most of our families just want what’s best for us, right? If my marriage is stronger, happier, and more open than most because of our lifestyle choices, wouldn’t they be happy for us if they really knew?
I don’t know that I’ll ever come out to them with everything. But, I think the fact that I sometimes look inward and wonder what they’d think shows the depth of my love for them and the high value I place on them in my life. I can only hope to foster a more open dialogue for my own son and daughter so that they can feel comfortable coming to us with their sexual questions, attitudes, and inquiries.
What about you? How was sexuality discussed in your own family? Do you ever struggle with how much to tell your family or is that not a problem?
Let me know in the comments.
© Keeva Black, 2021. All rights reserved.
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