A Few Cardinal Errors In The ENM World

Waaaaay back in dare I say it, 1986, young PV2 Sam arrived at his first duty station after finishing initial training in the Army. Ft. Hood Texas was and still is I’m sure, a hot dry dusty and very loud place. In my era there were 2 armored divisions there, 2nd Armored Division, and the 1st Cavalry Division. An armored division has ballpark 15–17,000 soldiers and a shitload of tanks and other vehicles. Ft. Hood was a BIG place.

Reagans cold war military was humming along. Much of what’s still in service today was just entering or had been around for a year or two at this point. Apache and Blackhawk helicopter’s roared over formations of M1 Abrams main battle tanks and M3 Bradly infantry and cavalry fighting vehicles. Rambo II came out while I was at Ft. Hood. It was a heady time to be a young soldier.

If you’re reading us for the first time……Kate and I are a married couple in our 50’s whose relationship is Ethically Non-Monogamous (ENM). We’re swingers, our marriage is open; we have sex with other people. We’re in a committed relationship, and somewhere on the polyamorous and cuckold spectrums; Kate has a boyfriend (or two) and is a Hotwife. It’s neither of our first marriages. We met in a 12 step meeting; we’re each more than a decade sober now. If you’re curious about how this all works, we talk about our relationship in varying degrees of depth in other posts. We have an email address listed in our “about” page if you would like to contact us.

My first squad leader was a Staff Sergeant, and E6 in the Army. His nickname was “Bugs” as in Bugs Bunny. He was a hard partying man who remembered the dog days of the post-Vietnam era Army. Bugs was a good guy, but kind of a horrible leader. He didn’t set much of an example in most ways, looked a rumpled mess in uniform, and was ethically ambiguous at best. His saving grace was he was excellent at his job.

One summer an ROTC cadet came to our unit for a couple weeks. CTLT (Cadet Troop Leadership Training) was the name of the program, and I suspect it’s still a thing today. These cadets are treated as junior officers; if you were enlisted like I was, you saluted them.

Well, she was just a couple years older than me, and we hit it off instantly. Despite knowing it was a horrible and possible career killing idea for each of us, we started fucking the first weekend she was there. Bugs, my boss, let us use his apartment, and borrow his Camaro (of course it was a Camaro, it was 1986 after all) to make this all possible.

We had a lot of fun. The cold war was at its peak. Just a few months prior to our summer fling, Reagan had bombed Libya in retaliation for the La Bell disco bombing. There was an air of swagger in the military. We were young and single, we knew the world might blow up tomorrow, and we didn’t give much of a fuck. Side note, the Reagan clips from the Def Leppard song “Gods of War” were from his speech talking about the Libya raid.

It’s funny I hadn’t thought of this in years, I’m wondering if Kate knows this story.

Anyway, fun tho Sam’s Illicit Sex in 1986 was, this post is more about what I learned from Bugs.

Bugs taught me some lessons that have lasted until today. Mainly, he taught me how not to do things. He taught me that showing up drunk or hungover (a lesson that I probably could have taken more to heart actually) wasn’t cool, that looking the part matters, and that just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Sure, I took good advantage of most of this. He also taught me that competence at your primary task is a good thing, but it can’t be the only thing you bring to the table.

Which, at long last brings us to the topic of this post, what not to do.

Again, I’m going to be pulling from Reddit, which from a microcosm of humanity point of view, is a pretty damn scary place. It’s also amazing and wonderful at the same time. Well, more a shitshow. It’s a neat resource, and people will post the damndest things. I’m not going to get into what people said, more how I responded to some stuff.

You’re never owed play or sex. This is a biggie. People assume because they’re on a date with another swinger couple that sex is just going to happen. Add in alcohol (more to follow on that) and the potential for butthurt goes thru the roof. This becomes orders of magnitude more complex the further along the cuckold spectrum you get. That’s a separate post all its own.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve heard this couple or person is DTF (Down To Fuck) or they have a zillion certs on whatever site, what happens in a given evening is kind of on it’s own. Maybe it’s her time of the month. Maybe they’ve had a big fight, maybe there’s a medical / physical issue, maybe one of them didn’t like the cut of your partners jeans. It doesn’t matter, there’s a million ways for four swingers to come together and not end up naked.

If you hear a direct or subtle no, for fucks sake, don’t be a dick about it. First of all, it’s just bad humaning. Second, it spoils the chance for anything down the road with the couple. Finally, it’s a small community; word gets around. It’s golden rule stuff; you wouldn’t like to get shit on by another couple, so don’t do it just because you’re not going to get laid by them.

Don’t wait for it to happen, don’t want it to happen, but if it does happen, be prepared for it to happen. I think I heard that way back in the Bugs era, tho it may be from a movie at some later point, I’m not sure. Point being keep your expectations to a minimum while being prepared. Hygiene on point, looking good, guys have a blue pill either on ya or in ya.

Booze isn’t your friend. While there’s certainly no requirement for booze to be involved with an incident of bad humaning, it’s sure as shit a consistent player. Yeah, we’re sober, and I get this may land some kind of preachy way, but it’s the law of the jungle. A drink or two can certainly add to the occasion, there’s no doubt. There’s also no doubt the likelihood of a shitshow increases in direct proportion with the amount of booze consumed.

The only incident of physical fighting we’ve heard of have been after midnight in a club, and everyone involved was drunk. I think I’m not making this up? Cathy, what say you?? Chris and Sonya’s friends, the Korrall, this sound right????

We were at a house party one night and we hit it off with another couple. They were our age, maybe a year or two ahead of us. I really liked her, and she seemed to like me; we connected strongly and babbled like a pair of brooks. There were decided oh yeah, we’ll be fucking in an hour vibes. It was great fun.

In the interceding hour, the vibe shifted as she kept pounding drinks and smoked some mother nature. What was looking reaaaaaly good to me, stopped looking interesting at all. She was sloppy drunk, and while some folks may view that as an opportunity, I don’t.

Consent is a thing that you’ve got to always be aware of in the lifestyle. To the extent she could walk, she was walking into trees as I recall. There was no way she could consent to anything. I was sober and a decent human, as the night wears on at a club or party, there’s no guarantee that anyone will be either. There’s an element of self-preservation there for women especially.

The Philosopher Jagger. I’ve always thought The Stones were more about Keith than Mick. That said, it’s hard to argue with Mick as he points out, you can’t always get what you want.

This dovetails in a way with not being owed sex. Your every whim and desire does not equal someone owing you that desire. This is a universal truth, well….if only. Human’s behaving poorly and taking what they desire by force is all too common. Asshats saying things like “your body, my choice” are bad enough, never mind when that level of douchebaggery shifts from words to actions.

There are things that you’re just going to have to accept aren’t going to happen. There’s no shortage of things that are 100% better left in fantasy land. Sometimes the thing may be very doable, but the logistics are impossible. At times you and your partner won’t be in perfect lock step; unless it’s about a hard boundary, it tends to be better to be the one who bends a little bit.

Typically, you’ll find you get what you need…… in the long run…..

Spring has sprung at Casa Da Sam & Kate. Everything has greened up, and it’s looking very lush. Seems a bit earlier than normal this year. Clifford loves it, but it’s a mixed bag for her; much more difficult to see “friends” (deer) with the foliage up.

Kate and I have a reasonably unique and first time for us experience on the schedule this weekend. Should it come to pass, I’d just bet we’ll have something to say about it next week…..

Thank you for reading!! Be kind to yourself and others!!

Sam & Kate