Being "in a relationship" (sex & love)

River

Active member
I'm of a generation in which many in my age demographic (let's call it the half century mark) can relate to the old familiar stories (perhaps less familiar now) when it was somewhat statistically normal to connect and associate kisses, cuddles and sexual sharing with the L-word -- love.

This is a broad generalization, of course. It depended somewhat if you were in the Big City (I never was) or in a small city, town ... or in the country. Or so it seems. And it depended to some extent whether you were gay (or bi) or straight.

Gay men (and bi men) after all, are supposed to be ALL about sex, and little about love.

But maybe sexual and relational orientation is almost beside the point? The point is? What is the point? The point is that a kiss used to be a kind of marker. It signaled some kind or degree of "romantic" interest. A peck of a kiss was a weaker signal, perhaps. A sloppy wet groping kiss generally signaled even more "romantic" interest, and people used to take a good long while -- perhaps many dates -- to get to the mythical "first kiss".

Nowadays, it looks like we have neither maps nor legends for any of this. People will engage in every kind of physical intimacy with strangers they never expect or hope to see again, and it's all just good fun recreation.

I have no judgement about these recreational activities. I just want to know how to figure out when a kiss is just a kiss. Or when it signals something ... "more significant" ... if we dare rank the significances of kisses.

Our world is in many ways more free than the world of a generation or three before us. It's also more challenging to decipher, to understand. At what point are people "in a relationship"? Is it only when they nod in agreement and say "Yup, we're in a relationship?" This seems to be the popular answer to this question.

Surely, "commitment" isn't what it used to be -- if it means anything at all any more. And, yes, I fully understand that "commitment" can be many things, from monogamy (which so often -- and generally -- has been treated as the sine qua non of commitment) to a promise not to run screaming in the night just as soon as challenges arise (which inevitably must if there is to be anything enduring).

When is a kiss just a kiss? And when is it ... well, significant?
 
The point is that a kiss used to be a kind of marker. It signaled some kind or degree of "romantic" interest.

I guess it did back in the days of Jane Austen, but when I was a teenager a kiss signaled nothing more than "you're foxy."*





*Proud '70s teenager here.
 
... just a kiss ...

Really, I've got to go all the way back to Jane Austin? Damn, I am getting old!;)

When I was much younger, I kept having these "flings" (as one may call them) in which *I* alone (apparently) thought the kissing and sexing ... well, meant something. Something about ... well, closeness, intimacy, caring, connection (with men and women both) ... but many of these folks were just having a bit of recreational fun. And my heart was in it. (My heart is ALWAYS in it.)

I don't seem to be from this planet. It takes so long to find out where I am -- where we are.

Sigh.

I've looked up "demisexual" and that's not me. I find all kind of people sexy in their appearance. But when it comes to actually getting naked and sharing wet kisses and all the rest -- well, my heart is always in it. And if it is not, well, I wonder ... why are we doing this? What is this all about? And if my partner in it has no real feeling for me, I have no real feeling for him or her (at least nothing sustainable beyond a quick and soon-to-be-punctured fantasy). And without feeling? Well, everything falls limp. Nothing very exciting happens -- to say the least.
 
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Well I am a little past the half century mark and yeah, a kiss didn't always mean "I want to marry you". Of course when I was young, dumb and full of cum (a teenager) I pretty much wanted to screw every girl who kissed me. And if I did get that far, I would probably want to keep doing it. And if we did it regularly enough we would end up calling it a relationship.

I really enjoy kissing, but now I know it doesn't always lead to something. That doesn't make it any less fun and I see nothing wrong with that. I think that one would have to look at the whole picture, not just base things on a kiss.

And...I just phased out for a little bit thinking about the first time Elle and I kissed. It was exactly as you described. We were friends but definitely interested in more. There was lots of sexual tension. One night she just looked into my eyes and said "Kiss me." There was a lot of feeling in that kiss, for both of us. It was definitely a turning point.

In contrast, Cat and I were always flirty with each other. Our relationship started out as mostly sexual recreation. We started kissing because it was fun. The sex was fun. Our feelings for each other grew...and the rest is history.

Not sure what my point was, other than maybe it just depends on the two people.
 
I don't seem to be from this planet. .....when it comes to actually getting naked and sharing wet kisses and all the rest -- well, my heart is always in it. And if it is not, well, I wonder ... why are we doing this? What is this all about?

River, I don't think you're unusual at all in this respect. Most women and many men I know have these exact feelings. I don't understand why you feel this is so rare. It's not! You just need to be "out and proud" about being a love person so that other love people can find you. Honestly, I don't see this as a numbers issue so much as an own-it issue. And even if it were a numbers issue, it still doesn't matter because you can have any kind of relationships you want if you're sending out a clear signal. Most of us muddy our signal with doubt, fear, worry - but if you can focus on getting clarity around "heart connection" as you say, then only "heart connection" can come to you. Think about what you are really broadcasting. The people in your experience will let you know what that is. Just because lots of people can kiss without it meaning something doesn't mean that they don't want love. Most everyone does want love. We just scramble our signals with a lot of other things like insecurity, anxiety, worry and doubt.
 
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Food for thought & feeling

Thanks F.A. for the nourishing food for feeling and thought. I'll look into my broadcasting signals.:) And I'll keep an eye and ear out for the clearer, more direct and uncomplicated love vibes. :)
 
River, I don't think you're unusual at all in this respect. Most women and many men I know have these exact feelings. I don't understand why you feel this is so rare. It's not!


I'm getting what you say and mean here, I think, F.A. But please have another look at post #2 in this thread, and ponder a moment on the contrast between that post and the one just quoted.

Please understand, I've given plenty of hot wet kisses and sex to people who never meant anything much by the same "given" to me. (Taken from me?) They seemed meaningful and sincere at the time -- but then these folks often quickly disappeared without much in the way of communication (much less explanation). It was all just a bunch of frivolous play, as far as they were concerned. Or so it appears from the rear view mirror.

In other words, sex and kisses are not apparently very much of a signal of ... well, anything to a very large number of people. It's all just some frivolous fun to lots of folks. It doesn't have anything to do with bonding or closeness or feelings..., for lots of folks.
 
So ...I don't have an easy answer for this, and I am in the millennial age group.

Also others around my age and younger all have different ideas too.

I can think of how both Rocky and Trip took a long time to initiate anything with me sexual. Kissing happened around the third or fourth date with both...and the sexual stuff didn't happen until we decided we were a couple.

With other people, I have been FWB sexually, and kissed the first day we we met, and it merged later into a relationship shape that we talked about.

Another person, my ex husband, we didn't kiss or have sex until marriage, but we eloped to follow hat guideline, and we were both virgins.

With a man about three years a go I went in a date with, he was so angry I kissed him in the third date THEN decided I didn't want to be BF/gf as he thought it was as sacred as marriage...

I have kissed women in relationship then morphed to friends, then back to kissing and that hasn't been a problem or delineation.....

I just had a one night stand with a man a few weeks ago, he knew he might not see me again...and yet he struggled with the idea of kissing me and fucking me and it not being anything more than that.

All these experiences have taught me I have no idea. For me, kissing is good fun, like flirting, I don't place any importance on it, other than not to lead people on wihth it. So I let people know my intentions shortly before or after. I have realised with knowledge comes responsibility...if I know that it's harder for men to get women to kiss them in some cases even find someone....I will refrain from flirting or kissing, if they are vulnerable I won't go there...

If they fully understand what I want and they are fine with that, I'll do recreational anything ...but this is hard to find.

So...I just take each individual at th pace that's best for them. I find the female female ones most confusing simply because I wonder if they are like me, and get shy or wishy washy..or regret it next day. So I am very aware the pressure women can put themselves in sexual situations..and be very careful with people (men and women's) hearts and bodies....hope this ramble post helps.

Confused as you are,
Starlight1
 
In other words, sex and kisses are not apparently very much of a signal of ... well, anything to a very large number of people. It's all just some frivolous fun to lots of folks. It doesn't have anything to do with bonding or closeness or feelings..., for lots of folks.

That may be true, but my point is that what matters is the meaning of sex and kisses for you, not for the world at large. The more proudly you wear that badge (or broadcast that signal) the more visible you are to others who are proudly wearing the same badge. You've obviously come a long way from your days of youthful wandering with hidden badges because you're visible now to a lovely young person for whom sex and kisses clearly do mean something. The people we encounter have little to do with what's out there and everything to do with what we allow into our lives. You're broadcasting a very different and much clearer signal now than you were in your youth (or even six weeks ago.) Your new love relationship confims that. You spell out exactly why in your other thread:
....And that 25% desire is about 95% desire to share something WITH, rather than get something FROM -- also a new state of love for me.

In other words, I don't think (or feel) of him as the source of my love experience, even though I do experience him as its obvious local inspiration.

I'm experiencing this as a much more mature way of being "in love" than any previous one I've experienced. In fact, in some interesting way, I feel as if he's my unwitting teacher of such a mature kind of love. I am a willing student of such an unfolding love.



Your wiser, more experienced self now knows that you are the source for the relationships you're having. You already know everything I am talking about, River. :)
 
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Re (from River):
"I just want to know how to figure out when a kiss is just a kiss."

You must remember this:
A kiss is just a kiss ...
A sigh is just a sigh ...
The fundamental things apply,
As time goes by.

:)

If you wanna know
If he loves you so,
It's in his kiss.
Yes, that's where it is ...

Romantic types will always be extra vulnerable, don't you think? (I do.)
 
I'm of a generation in which many in my age demographic (let's call it the half century mark) can relate to the old familiar stories (perhaps less familiar now) when it was somewhat statistically normal to connect and associate kisses, cuddles and sexual sharing with the L-word -- love.

This is a broad generalization, of course. It depended somewhat if you were in the Big City (I never was) or in a small city, town ... or in the country. Or so it seems. And it depended to some extent whether you were gay (or bi) or straight.

Gay men (and bi men) after all, are supposed to be ALL about sex, and little about love.

But maybe sexual and relational orientation is almost beside the point? The point is? What is the point? The point is that a kiss used to be a kind of marker. It signaled some kind or degree of "romantic" interest. A peck of a kiss was a weaker signal, perhaps. A sloppy wet groping kiss generally signaled even more "romantic" interest, and people used to take a good long while -- perhaps many dates -- to get to the mythical "first kiss".

Nowadays, it looks like we have neither maps nor legends for any of this. People will engage in every kind of physical intimacy with strangers they never expect or hope to see again, and it's all just good fun recreation.

I have no judgement about these recreational activities. I just want to know how to figure out when a kiss is just a kiss. Or when it signals something ... "more significant" ... if we dare rank the significances of kisses.

Our world is in many ways more free than the world of a generation or three before us. It's also more challenging to decipher, to understand. At what point are people "in a relationship"? Is it only when they nod in agreement and say "Yup, we're in a relationship?" This seems to be the popular answer to this question.

Surely, "commitment" isn't what it used to be -- if it means anything at all any more. And, yes, I fully understand that "commitment" can be many things, from monogamy (which so often -- and generally -- has been treated as the sine qua non of commitment) to a promise not to run screaming in the night just as soon as challenges arise (which inevitably must if there is to be anything enduring).

When is a kiss just a kiss? And when is it ... well, significant?
I used to ask myself such questions when I was younger. It seemed to me everyone was into non-commitance. But perhaps we were just young?

I was in a relationship from the first time I kissed and slept with my ex.

My husband took a while longer, mostly because the breakup from my ex was rather messy. But pretty much all his friends and all my friends agreed that it was indecent for us to not state the nature of our relationship (perhaps because we were friends first, so people thought it was a bit confusing that we were not truely dating, until we did).

I was in "a relationship" from the first time I kissed my boyfriend. He told me "you are not the kind of girl to go to bed with and forget", so maybe I gave out some kind of vibe. Or perhaps he just fell for me.

Both my husband and my boyfriend has a history of sleeping with, and I suppose kissing, one after the other and even having relationships that were purely or mostly sexual. I have been sexually attracted without love, too, but it has never been a big part of my life. I have always fallen in love with people quite easily and gotten great fun out of that. Also, since the age of 20 I have never been single, and only been with people I cared for, so it is even had to imagine what it would be to kiss or sleep with people without attaching a romantic meaning to it.
 
Kissing by itself is not something I do with only romantic/sexual partners. (I don't kiss friends but I do kiss friends with benefits. Huh, that is apparently a marker or a dividing line for me between the two. Just realized that.) I don't reserve kissing only for romantic, more emotionally committed partners. In fact, I need to kiss someone to finally determine the 'feel' of our connection (whether that is romantic, sexual, emotional, or some other mix of feelings). In my experience, people tend to kiss how they have sex so kissing tells me a lot. Kissing is also a major avenue of how I get turned on and how I turn on other partners.

I have always thought that I would feel very discounted and not as valued if I had sex with someone but did not kiss them. But, yet, I am currently playing with a couple where the woman and I have not kissed. I don't know why yet and that's rather puzzling to me. On the other hand, I don't feel discounted or unvalued either. Still, in other circumstances, if there was some rule that another person had that they could not kiss someone besides their partner(s), that would bug the heck out of me and I would probably decline to interact sexually with them.

So, my relationship with kissing is complicated!
 
I'm totally up for non-sexual cuddles (especially clothed, but maybe even naked -- with the right person) in an intimate platonic friendship. And I'll rarely, but occasionally, give and receive a peck on the lips with a close platonic friend. But if there are to be open-mouthed ("French") kisses I'm overwhelmingly probably wanting to be at least exploring the possibility of a "romantic" relationship. This was different during some of my younger years, when any kind of sexual thing with an attractive person was almost impossible to resist, including hot sloppy kisses.

Honestly, I almost wish I COULD have sexual relations (including sloppy "French" kisses -- which are sexual acts in my heart and mind) on a more casual basis -- but I would be dishonest with myself if thought that were the case. After all, I like the sharing of erotic energy as much as anyone does. One advantage of being open to casual sexual relating (such as FWB) would be that I could more easily or readily form such a relationship (I would guess) than a full blown "romance". But I just don't even get really turned on with someone unless we are emotionally bonding or bonded. Not any more I don't.

I don't know whether my type (in this respect) is roughly statistically half or some much smaller portion of poly folk. It's obvious, anyway, that a very large proportion of poly folk are also open to various forms of casual sex (including FWB). I don't even know if statistical proportions are in any way useful to know or relevant.

One thing I do know about myself is that even though I'm in a very happy, long term relationship (of 20 years) ... a very satisfying and healthy relationship ... I often feel lonely. And it's a specific kind of loneliness -- the kind which could not be satisfied by having yet more platonic friends -- and I have LOTS, almost too many, of those. I can barely keep up with these!

Monogamy and I are not a good fit. I do better if I have at least two loves in my life. But I never seem to keep anyone else around, apart from my long term partner.
 
i've had 4 relationships yet have kissed around a hundred people. kissing isn't something that is exclusively for relationships.
 
i've had 4 relationships yet have kissed around a hundred people. kissing isn't something that is exclusively for relationships.

What percentage of those hundred people did you kiss in a way you'd call passionate?

Funny... with so many differences between how each of us do things (and use words) ... let me also ask What percentage of those hundred people did you kiss in an open-mouthed ("French") way? If the question is too personal, that's fine. Feel free to ignore it.
 
I'm a fortysomething gay man.

For me, kissing is an essential part of sexual intimacy whether that's in a relationship, an FWB situation or a casual hookup.

In my experience (there's a fair amount of it - I used to be what is now termed "socially generous"), guys that won't kiss during sex haven't come completely to terms with being attracted to guys.

For me, sleeping with someone is a much bigger deal in terms of intimacy than having sex with them. It's the reason I disapprove of the euphemism "sleeping with" to mean "having sex with" - for me they're totally different points on the intimacy scale.
 
For me, sleeping with someone is a much bigger deal in terms of intimacy than having sex with them. It's the reason I disapprove of the euphemism "sleeping with" to mean "having sex with" - for me they're totally different points on the intimacy scale.

Thanks C.S.Matt.

What I'm getting from this conversation, mainly, is that we're all very unique and different in how we conceive of and practice intimacy and relationship. It's not a new idea for me, by any means. I will say, however, that a full acknowledgement of such diversity as seems to be the reality of our collective situation is a little ... confusing (for me).

I could literally sleep (and cuddle) with a platonic friend, and have had several platonic cuddle buddies. Literally sleeping in the same bed is, while intimate for me, not a big deal. I could do that with ANYONE I like and enjoy the company of -- if I feel comfortable and safe with him or her.

Open-mouthed kisses are, for me, a powerful thing, and they tend (for me) to signal something similar to what sleeping together signals for you.

Yet other people take the words "I love you" to be the principal signal of relationship significance. And I could honestly utter those words to lots and lots of people whom I love (though platonically). That, and saying "I love you" for me can mean anything from "Wow, I really enjoy spending time with you and often think of you when we're not together ... and sometimes miss you when we've been apart" to "You totally rock my world and I'd like us to be together like this as often as humanly possible"....

In the social milieu in which I live, sexual acts may or may not have any significance at all -- apart from momentary physical pleasure. Casual recreational sex is very often not associated with anything even resembling affection or intimacy. It's this which blows my mind. I can't comprehend sex without genuine affection. And, for me, "genuine affection" would mean wanting to see one another again ... and talking intimately... and signaling the affection and bond in various ways (though each set of people will differ in how they signal it).

Cuddling, for me, is the common denominator of the most satisfying loving relationships (for me) -- whether the relationship is platonic or romantic.
 
What percentage of those hundred people did you kiss in a way you'd call passionate?

Funny... with so many differences between how each of us do things (and use words) ... let me also ask What percentage of those hundred people did you kiss in an open-mouthed ("French") way? If the question is too personal, that's fine. Feel free to ignore it.

There was tongue involved
 
I'm totally up for non-sexual cuddles (especially clothed, but maybe even naked -- with the right person) in an intimate platonic friendship. And I'll rarely, but occasionally, give and receive a peck on the lips with a close platonic friend. But if there are to be open-mouthed ("French") kisses I'm overwhelmingly probably wanting to be at least exploring the possibility of a "romantic" relationship. This was different during some of my younger years, when any kind of sexual thing with an attractive person was almost impossible to resist, including hot sloppy kisses.

Honestly, I almost wish I COULD have sexual relations (including sloppy "French" kisses -- which are sexual acts in my heart and mind) on a more casual basis -- but I would be dishonest with myself if thought that were the case. After all, I like the sharing of erotic energy as much as anyone does. One advantage of being open to casual sexual relating (such as FWB) would be that I could more easily or readily form such a relationship (I would guess) than a full blown "romance". But I just don't even get really turned on with someone unless we are emotionally bonding or bonded. Not any more I don't.

I don't know whether my type (in this respect) is roughly statistically half or some much smaller portion of poly folk. It's obvious, anyway, that a very large proportion of poly folk are also open to various forms of casual sex (including FWB). I don't even know if statistical proportions are in any way useful to know or relevant.

One thing I do know about myself is that even though I'm in a very happy, long term relationship (of 20 years) ... a very satisfying and healthy relationship ... I often feel lonely. And it's a specific kind of loneliness -- the kind which could not be satisfied by having yet more platonic friends -- and I have LOTS, almost too many, of those. I can barely keep up with these!

Monogamy and I are not a good fit. I do better if I have at least two loves in my life. But I never seem to keep anyone else around, apart from my long term partner.

I don't think it is all that uncommon for people to need to have feelings for a person in order to sleep with them. I am that way, though sometimes maybe I include people who I think I can develop feelings for.

Personally, I don't include FWB in the casual category. For me, "casual" means little or no contact outside of having sex. A FWB is someone I do have an actual relationship with, it's just not at the same level as a mate.
 
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