Express your desires

A story of intersecting identities, finding the right relationship, and asking for what you need

All stories in Sexual Empowerment in Midlife are anonymized and published with the explicit approval of their subjects, who are wholly separate from my coaching clients. For more on how this publication was created, check out my intro post.

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Instinctively sex-positive

Kelly was enthusiastic about spreading science-based knowledge about sex from the time they were in high school, when they volunteered to give out free contraceptives. In college, they walked through the dorms demonstrating how to put on a condom using a banana. They always felt like a very sexual person, enjoying eroticism and loving to experiment in the bedroom.

Kelly’s parents both struggled with addiction, and as a child Kelly learned to anticipate their moods and manage their emotions. It was a survival mechanism that worked well at the time, but set Kelly up for unbalanced relationships.

After college Kelly became a sex worker, which felt natural and liberating despite the social stigma. Many of their clients were interested in BDSM, and Kelly was proud to help them explore their kink. Kelly’s childhood made them very tuned into other people, and they were skilled at pleasing their clients. Unfortunately, personal safety is always a concern in the sex industry, and Kelly was a victim of assault.

EMDR helped significantly with the healing, and they found a new career. Then they met their future spouse, Morgan. Morgan struggled with alcoholism, and Kelly threw themself into supporting them. The couple quickly fell into a pattern in which Morgan lost control, and Kelly managed Morgan’s emotions and held their trauma for them. It was dysfunctional from the start.

Navigating an unhealthy relationship

Kelly was nonmonogamous when they met Morgan, and at first Morgan agreed to continue that lifestyle. The couple also engaged in BDSM together, with Kelly as a service top (meaning that Kelly controlled the play, but focused on providing rather than receiving pleasure). But after they married, Morgan insisted on having Kelly to themself, and no longer wanted to participate in BDSM. Although Kelly identified strongly with both the BDSM and nonmonogamous lifestyles, they consented to give them up because they wanted to be with Morgan.

A few years into their marriage, Kelly’s personal therapist pointed out that they never talked about Morgan. Kelly responded that Morgan is an alcoholic, and currently passed out in the next room. “You know,” said the therapist, “that explains a lot of the personal challenges you and I talk about.”

Kelly was floored. They had spent their life believing that the challenges they faced in life, and especially in their relationship, were due to their own responses and anxieties, things that they had to deal with themself through therapy and other methods. The idea that Morgan could be responsible opened up new avenues for change.

The therapist suggested that Kelly talk to Morgan about their alcohol problem. Impressively, Morgan responded positively, agreeing that they couldn’t handle this on their own. Although the couple were renovating a cabin together in Maine, Morgan moved back to the city to enter rehab.

Kelly was comfortable alone in Maine, knowing that Morgan was getting help. But then Morgan blindsided them, announcing after a month that they were comfortable living alone and no longer intended to enter rehab. In fact, Morgan said, it was Kelly who was the source of their problems, not the alcohol.

This began nine months of uncertainty, in which Kelly would try to repair things with Morgan, and Morgan would make promises that they didn’t keep. Finally Kelly realized what it was doing to them, and agreed to divorce.

Getting what you need

They had been married for 16 years, and Kelly was unsure what to do next with their life. They hitched a trailer to their car and had a nomadic life for a year, exploring the country. They lived by a lake high in the Rockies, and even dipped into Mexico. And then they discovered how much they loved Denver.

Denver is an open-minded city with a strong outdoors culture that attracted Kelly. They felt comfortable with their intersecting identities there, being nonbinary and trans and Jewish and polyamorous.

They met someone new and fell in love, and returned to a nonmonogamous lifestyle with ease. Kelly’s relationship structure is anarchy, meaning that they define each of their relationships, whether romantic or not, on its own terms, with no predetermined or overarching rules. Kelly is very committed to their lover, without sharing finances or other traditional symbols found in monogamous partnerships. Kelly’s years with Morgan made them expert at asking people what they need and what they like, but now Kelly also asks for what they need.

Kelly has also found a new relationship with consent. Growing up in the 80s and 90s, the burden was on the person who didn’t want something. Kids were taught that no means no, but nothing about proactively asking whether someone wants something or managing other methods of refusal. Kelly attributes their assault in part to this culture, and has found new security in interactions that take genuine consent for granted.

“People can meet my desires or not, but I know what I want, and I tell people.”