I never expected to find such an oasis of deep bonding and personal growth in “sin city”, but after 5 days at the Vegas Exchange Conference for swingers, I clearly underestimated the healing power of Vegas, baby, Vegas!
My mind is still swimming with sensual images from the nightly sexual play parties in penthouse suites with pool tables, basket ball courts, state of the art dungeons, fire dancers, stripper poles in showers…and 49 spankings…More on that later 😉
Although I’m tempted to write academic reviews about the transformational keynote speeches by Larry Flynt and Nina Hartley, I’m going to save the education and sexual activism for a later blog post. This blog is about to get personal.
I have to admit, I wasn’t sure what to name this blog:
Polyamorous sex spies infiltrate a conference with 1,500 Swingers in Vegas.
Or
What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas…unless you are traveling with 4 totally transparent poly lovers who want to blog about their personal growth process.
Or
Michael’s outrageous Birthday fantasy of getting 49 blow jobs!
I thought that last one would get your interest.
Our story starts with a 5 hour road trip that included myself, my husband, Michael, his new girlfriend, Rachel and our shared boyfriend, James. We caravanned with one of Michael’s dear friends, an Ethical Stud graduate and his sexy “Asian MILF” girlfriend. (She is a highly intelligent woman with a background in psychology, but we enjoyed teasing her because she was hanging out with a bunch of soft porn stars.) While there, we had plans to meet a handful of other polyamorous lovers such as Jennifer Gold and her boyfriend Jesse Norton. We were also planning to co-present with fellow sex geek, lover and sex educator Reid Mihalko. The original decision to go to a swingers conference was because we were honored to be invited to speak as celebrity guests and thought it would be a fun way to celebrate Michael’s birthday.
Between coffee breaks and bathroom stops we discussed our hopes, fears and boundaries. It took nearly the entire drive to set our intentions for the weekend. We had enough experience “traveling in pod” to know that there is no such thing as over communication. We learned from many years of doing overnight trips with groups wherein there are multiple sexual and emotional connections, that full blown emotional breakdowns by one or more parties can be minimized (if not altogether avoided) by setting expectations, agreements and sometimes even exit strategies for the trip.
Setting expectations for this trip was interesting because Michael and I had not been involved in the swinging or lifestyles scene for several years whereas both James and Rachel are virgins. Michael and Rachel were the most excited to meet and play with new like minded people, whereas James and I were more interested in bonding with the lovers we already had. We all agreed to take radical responsibility for our own feelings, needs, reactions… and give each other full permission to shamelessly peruse our wildest sexual fantasies (hell, we are in vegas!) and as long as we were practicing safe sex and communicating, we didn’t have to worry about hurting or judging each other.
We arrived in perfect timing to set up for the our first of 5 events that we’d be leading that weekend:
- The Sacred Snuggle Party,
- The Poly/Swinger Tantra Puja,
- A Jealousy workshop,
- A Comedy Laugh in with Reid Mihalko,
- and Celebrity guest judges for the bikini contest.
You can imagine our disappointment, however when after staying up so late and playing so hard on Michael’s wild birthday, we arrived at the pool and were told by the organizers that we had overslept the bikini contest–which we never knew we were supposed to be the judges. (True Problems of abundance!)
Otherwise, our workshops were wonderful. Apparently all our material was new for some swingers who had never even heard of tantra or polyamory. Our message was well respected and well received by hundreds. (Let me know later if you’re interested in reading a blog about the jealousy class: how non-monogomous people can easily harness their jealousy for greater sexual liberation.)
By now I imagine you are most curious about Michael’s BIG birthday wish. 49 blowjobs is an outrageous request, even for an Ethical Stud like Michael! How does he do it? Well, to quote the bible:
“Keep asking and it will be given to you; keep seeking and you will find; keep knocking and the door will be opened to you.”
And though most of our teachings don’t typically come from the bible, this happens to be a point on which we can agree.
One of the core values in ethical non-monogamy is abundance and a willingness to ask big–without attachment to whom or how it is given. So after many workshops of teaching people how to make outrageous requests, Michael and Reid Mihalko do a main stage performance at the Palms Casino wherein they acted out a number of their wildest fantasies. Enjoy this video of Michael telling one such story:
Michael and Reid’s comedy performance culminated in a mini- deep throating workshop wherein Reid Mihalko taught a handful of sexy vixens how to suck dildos while Michael played the guitar. Afterwards Reid announced that it was Michael’s birthday and he was going to help Michael fulfill a birthday wish at the penthouse play party, and take volunteers to give Michael a blow job for every year he’s been alive.
That turned out to be one of the wildest parties I’d ever been to, and I had a blast tying my husband’s girlfriend, Rachel up with ropes and giving her 49 spankings on his behalf, while Michael was busy–very busy. He admittedly got more blow jobs than if he never had the guts to ask, but fortunately he has the rest of this year to see if he can the rest of his blowjobs before he turns 50. 🙂
The following afternoon, we sat down for a deep “poly style” process over lunch. This 4 way conversation turned out to be the most satisfying moments of my entire trip (even more than my ear splitting orgasms in the hot tub!) because in that moment, realized then that the biggest distinctions between myself and most of the swingers in that community is my passion for processing. One of the big differences between Polyamory and Swinging is that polyamory focuses on the emotional connection whereas many Swingers prefer to have sex with no strings attached.
Several times during our workshops swingers would emphasize that they had little to no tolerance for “drama.” On this point, I whole heartedly agreed, I do not want to create or indulge in any unnecessary suffering, which is why I want to educate everyone on the vital distinction between “process” and “drama.” Drama usually occurs when people are in reaction do not take responsibility for their own actions feelings and needs. “Process” is a mutual agreement to communicate and practice nonjudgmental listening about the deep matters of our hearts, which admittedly can be difficult, but necessary for the maintenance of healthy long term relationships. When people confuse processing with drama, they resist and miss out on the potential intimacy that is cultivated when we can communicate with an open heart.
So there is my full report. After a 5 day mission to vegas to do high level Reconnaissance, attempting to explore deep swinger territory, I did not come back with any vital enemy espionage, but I gathered more open source relationship information that I hope helps bring more awareness to our growing community.
P.S. Another key to maintaining successful relationships is: BALANCE. In proportion to processing, it’s important to PLAY and Practice together. We spent many relaxing hours in bed, by the pool and enjoying meals with each other and our other poly lovers Jennifer Gold, Jesse and even a little rendevouz with our traveling love coach: Scott Catamas.
If you are interested in 4 day polyamory festival with play parties and workshops with Reid Mihalko, Kamala Devi, Michael and other lovers check out www.PolyPalooza.com
If you enjoyed this article, you will also like:
Top 10 reasons to come out of the polyamory closet
If you want to read more about polyamory you can purchase the polyamory Road Map as a digital download: http://www.kamaladevi.com/products
