Author: Ashtyn Drapela

Poly, kinky, and chatty

Effective Communication in Polyamorous Relationships

Ashtyn Drapela

Effective communication is key in any relationship, but it is especially important when juggling multiple paramours (partners) and metamours (partners of your partner). Keeping open lines of communication can help one to set boundaries, navigate jealousy and insecurity, as well as relationship changes. Here are a few do’s and don’ts to consider when it comes to effective communication:

DO:

  • Establish clear and consistent boundaries and expectations with each partner. This includes topics such as safe sex, relationship agreements, and what is generally acceptable behavior.
  • Practice active listening by paying attention to what your partner is saying, asking clarifying questions, and trying to put yourself in their shoes.
  • Be open and honest about your thoughts, emotions, and needs. It’s vital to be upfront about what you want and need in relationships so that you may find solutions that work for everyone.

DON’T:

  • Assume your partner knows what you want or need. As stated above, explicitly communicate your wants and needs to your partners.
  • Keep secrets for your partners. Relationships that last are built on trust and honesty. Hiding things from your partner or your metamour can have damaging long-term effects.
  • Manipulate or control your partners. Your partners have their own wants and needs. Using communication to manipulate or control the situation won’t build a strong relationship.

By following these do’s and don’ts, you can create a strong foundation of communication in your polyamorous relationships. This will help them thrive! Remember, communication is a continuous process that you must hone. It’s important to keep lines of communication open, heart-felt, and respectful in order to have fruitful conversations with your partners.

Navigating Polyamory in a Monogamy-Dominated World

Ashtyn Drapela

Polyamorous individuals may face challenges and stigmas that monogamous individuals might provide. In this post, I will offer tips for finding support and building healthy relationships despite all that.

Navigating polyamorous relationships can be challenging in a society that often values monogamy and stigmatizes non-monogamous relationships. Some challenges might include losing friends, family, or even your position at work. In “This Heart Hold’s Many” by Koe Creation, they talk about how a member of their tribe was demoted due to being seen on television supporting their family.

Here are a few things to consider when it comes to navigating polyamory in a monogamy-dominated world:

  • Be prepared for judgment and stigma: It’s unfortunately common for people in polyamorous relationships to face judgment and stigma from friends, family, and society at large. It’s important to remember that these attitudes are often based on misinformation or prejudice, and to stand firm in your own values and beliefs.
  • Find supportive communities: It can be helpful to connect with other polyamorous individuals or communities, both online and in person. These communities can provide support, advice, and a sense of belonging.
  • Educate others: If you feel comfortable, consider sharing your experiences and knowledge about polyamory with others who may be curious or have misconceptions. This can help reduce stigma and promote understanding.
  • Take care of yourself: Navigating polyamory in a monogamy-dominated world can be emotionally and mentally taxing. It’s important to take care of yourself and seek support if you need it. This might include talking to a therapist, seeking support from trusted friends or family, or finding online resources.

Remember, polyamory is a valid and fulfilling way of life for many people. It’s important to stay true to yourself and your values, and to surround yourself with supportive people who respect and accept your choices.

Anticipatory vs Reactive Service

Ashtyn Drapela

For those in service to their Dom, Domme, Master, or Mistress the are several approaches on how to serve. They go by different names like preventative, curative, and restorative. However, for our purposes we will use anticipatory and reactive service. So, what are they?

Anticipatory service is is when the s-type partner actively anticipates and meets the needs of the D-type partner before those needs are expressed. This type of service requires the s-type to be attentive, observant, and to carefully act with haste. The s-type is expected to be proactive in their service and take initiative to fulfill their partner’s needs, wants, and desires. For instance, without being asked, checking your D-type’s bathroom for a full toilet paper roll and fresh hand towels.

On the other hand, reactive service is when the s-type responds to the D-type partner’s commands or actions. This might manifest as specific instructions or set of rituals and customs which the D-type previously established. For example, if your D-type’s drink is dry you wait for them to tell or ask for a new one. Ostensibly, this approach is less demanding. However, for those of us whose natural inclination is anticipatory service, it can feel like serving with one hand tied behind your back.

My own experiences are a blend of both approaches. Overall, I fall into the anticipatory category, but I am merely human. Anticipating every need all the time can be taxing especially with other stimuli. Both approaches have their own unique benefits and disadvantages. Reactive service allows the s-type to focus on following instructions and responding to demands to the letter. Whereas anticipatory service enables the s-type to be in tune with their D-type insomuch as feeling like a mind-reader!

It’s important to note that communication, as always, is key to ensure that both parties feel comfortable and confident with the approach they are providing and receiving. Talk to your doctor if you- just kidding. But seriously, have an open discussion with your partner on what they prefer and when. Sometimes they may want both approaches depending on the situation. For example, in new environments such as your D-type’s home where their spouse lives is not the best place for anticipatory service. One would seem rude rifling through cabinets to look for a glass.

There are no clear winners in anticipatory versus reactive approaches to service. Both are used to explore different aspects of the dynamic between s- and D-types. The most important thing is that you customize them for your relationship and clearly communicate these wants and needs. Because ultimately, the choice of service depends entirely upon the preferences and comfort levels of all participants.

Discarded Things and Rediscovery

Ashtyn Drapela

I was not always painfully shy. Once I was a vivacious child who was the boss of all her friends. (I’ve always known exactly what I wanted and how I wanted it done.) That gregarious child asked questions and cared deeply for others. They didn’t know solitude or hunger or pain. They didn’t crave violence or humiliation or fear. They didn’t know what it was like to not be loved.

That light and breezy child was beaten down and hung up somewhere to dry and forgotten. Somewhere in the last 5 years, I decided I needed to let that child down- to free them. This idea, rediscovering my inner child, was married to the notion that I wanted others to feel seen. There’s this rule that I made and I’ve damn well stuck by it. If someone affects me somehow, I have to reach out and let them know. Too often we let connections like that be one sided. Too often I felt myself reaching out for help and connection only to be spurned.

So, what’s your story? It can be anything you feel like telling, but the story you choose will speak volumes as well. I promise that I genuinely want to know. I will see the words unspoken. We don’t have to be friends but I hope to know you. I hope to hear you. You who are aching for connection as well. Whose inner child was lost or taken.

The 24 Signs You Are in a Consensually Toxic Relationship

Ashtyn Drapela

This list really starts with number 2 because the most important part of this checklist is that you consented at one point or another. If you feel like this list describes you and you did not meet the criteria for number 1, please reach out for help.

  1. You consented to a consensually toxic or abusive relationship.
  2. Your partner humiliates you by calling you names like “cunt, bitch, whore,” etc.
  3. Control is a key factor in how they engage with you such as monitoring your behavior.
  4. They blame you for their own abusive behavior, “If you didn’t make me so angry I wouldn’t have…”
  5. Your partner frequently gaslights you by denying facts and toxic or abusive behavior.
  6. You are insulted in creative and backhanded ways, like, “Your big ears are lovely.”
  7. Whether you are polyamorous, monogamous, or something in between, your partner acts out their jealousy and possessiveness.
  8. Sometimes they lash out at you for no fault of your own. Like hitting you in the back of the head when they’re frustrated by a project.
  9. Speaking of hitting you in the head, did you know you can get a nose bleed from being boxed around?
  10. You can also get a nose bleed if they ram your face into the carpeted floor. You may also get carpet burn on your forehead.
  11. In public, your partner embarrasses you like giving up intimate details of your sex life.
  12. Your partner might take unflattering photos of you. The pictures could be posted to social media.
  13. Oftentimes your partner hints that they’ve started an OnlyFans account without your permission.
  14. They criticize your hard work or the fact that you’ve fallen behind on your chores despite depression.
  15. Your partner maintains strict control over your social media accounts, even requiring you to ask permission to change your passwords.
  16. They read your personal, private messages and emails and reference them in conversations.
  17. With or without your knowledge, they track your location and movement. This could be through an app like Life360 or a hidden car tracker.
  18. They demand all your time and attention to the detriment of your other relationships.
  19. Your partner might claim their personal problems are somehow your fault. For example, they blame you for being late to a meeting when you had nothing to do with it.
  20. Manipulation is their bread and butter. “You don’t want to disappoint me, do you?”
  21. They relish the bruises on your face and promise to try harder next time they’re punching you.
  22. You are habitually threated with physical violence in order to modify your behavior.
  23. Your partner controls your food intake with no explanation. “You’re not eating lunch today.”
  24. Despite a known history of childhood abuse, they may yell loudly to frighten and trigger you.

This was a fun list to make. Remember kids, you can’t effectively abuse your partners if you don’t know them well enough. This list might have just been a “24 Ways to Fuck with me Specifically” for all I know.

WLW Spanking Erotica

Ashtyn Drapela

“Daniela Norton, if you do not get in this car right now I will phone your parents home early.” Rachel fumed. It was Halloween night and despite being 21 years old, Rachel would rather have been at home studying for her next test. Her friends were notorious partiers but she was a golden child. Straight A’s in her college courses and no-nonsense as a zipper. You could trust her to get any job done. But Daniela tried her seemingly inexhaustible patience. 

The last few months, Rachel was hired to babysit the Norton’s twin daughters, Daniela and Grace. Well, one of them anyway. Young Daniela wasn’t a bad egg. Honest. She was just always off on adventures. Her impulsive nature and flair for dangerous activities led her parents to hiring Rachel. They just couldn’t trust the 17 year old on her own. Sure, it was semi-embarrassing, but the girls had known each other since they were babies and Rachel was a toddler. 

Her twin sister, Grace, was everything the name implied. She was willowy, graceful, and soft-spoken. Where Daniela was brash, Grace was gentle. Her favorite activity was tea parties with her friends in decathlon. Grace who was currently sitting serenely in the backseat though there was hardly enough room to breathe in. 

“Daniela, I swear, it’s as though you try and get into trouble. I’m at the end of my rope here.” Rachel said through clenched teeth as the teenager got back in the truck. Rachel’s Daddy had fixed it up for her to go off to college. However, luckily for the Norton’s, she had opted to go to a local community college. It still came in handy, though, Rachel thought. She’d hate to be riding their bikes in this weather. 

It was a blustery evening with pin pricks of rain in the wind against Daniela’s cheeks. She pumped her arm to roll the old fashioned window up. Rachel had turned her back for one second and Daniela found a kitten to tend to two houses away. She was always finding strays somehow. She seemed to speak their language. 

Truly speaking, Rachel was more upset at the B- she had received on the quiz Friday. The last straw had been turning around to find Daniela gone in a trick-or-treating crowd. Rachel had deposited Grace in the truck and went circling the streets for Daniela. 

“Grace, please go to your room and begin your homework.” Rachel said sweetly as they pulled back into the Norton’s driveway. Grace nodded her assent and began towards the house. 

“I’m sorry, Rach. Honest! I am. But this kitten was so-” Daniela started. 

“Daniela, I don’t care. I told you to stay close to me tonight and you deliberately disobeyed me.” Rachel pursed her lips and pointed to the front door. “Go inside and get in time-out.” 

“Awww, come on, Rach. I’m too old for-” 

“You’re too old is right, you know better than to wander off.” Rachel said primly. 

Daniela sighed and exited the truck before going to her spot in the corner of the living room. 

As Grace was grabbing a glass of water before heading up to the room, she giggled at the sight of Daniela in the corner. When no one was around her sister sure was a bitch, Daniela thought, her cheeks flaming red. 

“Fuck off.” She said, turning to the doorway. 

Rachel stood in the other doorway with her mouth agape. “What did you say to me?” 

“No, I was talkin’ to Gra-” 

“That is it, Daniela Mae Norton.” Rachel’s hands rummaged through her school bag on the couch until she emerged victorious. A wooden hairbrush. She dashed forward to grab Daniela by the forearm and pulled her towards the couch. Sitting herself down, Rachel quickly tugged Daniela over her lap, tucking her legs under her own. 

“What are you doing?” Daniela gasped in surprise. 

“I’m giving you a spanking that you well deserve.” Rachel said angrily. Her own mother had dispensed many spankings over her childhood. She was well-versed in the ritual of a sore bottom herself. She tugged down Daniela’s yoga pants and the yellow panties with small pink flowers, too. 

Daniela really struggled then. Her hand shot back to prevent it, but Rachel easily pinned it to the small of her back. The first few smacks of Rachel’s hand on Daniela’s unclad, pert bottom resounded loudly on the wood floors. 

“Ouch!” They both thought, though they would not say it. Rachel’s hand was on fire and Daniela’s bottom was stinging like crazy. It pinked up nicely in the lamplight. Daniela’s stomach clenched as she suddenly felt something cold on her rosy cheeks. 

Rachel circled the hairbrush slowly. She raised her arm and brought it down on the left cheek, and then the right, and then the left. Over and over. Like a metronome. Left. Right. With Daniela kicking her legs and letting high pitched squeals erupt. She kept going until Daniela’s bottom was an ugly purple with blood bursts under the skin. 

Daniela was sobbing mutely and laying limply, no longer kicking and screaming. It seemed she was… rutting against Rachel’s knee. Rachel was breathing heavily as she stared at her handiwork. It was a beautiful mess of bruises already. She felt her labia engorged and sensitive as she tensed her leg muscles around Daniela’s legs. 

Rachel noticed a deep, musky smell. Something clean and sexy. She spread Daniela’s ripe cheeks and saw how wet she was for Rachel. 

“You liked that, huh?” Rachel said smugly. She dipped one knuckle into the hot, wet pussy lips Daniela was sporting in front of her. Daniela didn’t respond to the question, instead, she let out a low moan. She ground her clit into Rachel’s knee and let little breaths of awe escape her. Now she knew what all the fuss was about. This felt amazing. 

Rachel came to her senses and ripped her knuckle away. “We shouldn’t be doing this. I’m your babysitter.” 

“I’m not a baby.” Daniela whined, forcing her legs open more. “I turn 18 in less than a month.” 

Rachel brought down a hand onto the lips of Daniela’s pussy in a sharp smack. Daniela yelped and shot up off Rachel’s lap. 

“You sure act like a baby sometimes.” Rachel muttered.

Daniela had no good retort, so she stuck out her tongue. A movement on the stairwell caught her eye, she turned to look, rubbing her backside. She caught Grace’s costume, a pink tutu bobbing back up to the second floor. They had been seen. 

“Grace saw you spank me. She’s probably going to tell on you.” Daniela said fearfully. 

“Your parents gave me permission ages ago. From what your dad says, you’re lucky it was me. He mentioned a switch.” Rachel replied. Daniela gulped, she hated switches with a fiery passion. Her dad was normally a belt man, but even her parents grew weary of her behavior. Spanking was for the spanker more than the spankee, anyway. Why couldn’t she just be like Grace? They looked so similar or Daniela would swear she had been swapped at birth.

Rachel stood up and stretched her neck and wiped the sweat from her brow. “Well, get along upstairs and work on your homework. Lights out at 9.” 

Daniela pulled her yoga pants back up and frowned. “We’re not even going to talk about this?” 

“Nope.” Rachel popped back. “Move it, missy, I haven’t put this hairbrush up yet.” 

Daniela hopped to it, passing Grace’s room to her own. She saw her sister working quietly at her desk. “I know you were watching, nosy.” Daniela hissed. 

Grace turned and gave her an angelic smile, “Prove it.” 

“Girls! Are y’all working on homework?” Came Rachel from downstairs. 

“Yes, ma’am!” They both called back before sticking their tongues out at each other. 

BDSM Thought Experiments: Irrevocable Consent and Memory Loss

Ashtyn Drapela

My Master and I play the question game all the time. Which basically means, we take turns asking random things. This time, my question was, “If I had amnesia, would you consider my irrevocable consent revoked?” It’s an interesting notion because how irrevocable is it, then, if his answer is yes?

Amnesia can be caused by a variety of factors including injury, illness, or substance abuse. If you consider how frequently someone like me takes blows to the head, it’s something important to question.

Consent is an active part of most healthy and respectful BDSM or vanilla sexual relationship. It involves actively seeking and participatory receiving of agreement from partners before engaging in activities. However, navigating consent can become complex in the context of memory loss, like amnesia.

That being said, my Master and I practice something called irrevocable consent. You can read more about that here on Hannah the Scribe’s blog post “What Makes Irrevocable Consent Okay” or “Why I Chose Irrevocable Consent as a Label, What It Means to Me, and Why I Write About It.” To summarize, “no safe words, no limits.” I do not have the power to end my relationship, play, dynamic, etc. This is how I wanted it when I consented. This is how I currently want things, though now I consider it a moot point. I consented to slavery. Wanting things doesn’t matter.

If I had my memory of the last few years erased, would I want my consent revoked? Or rather, would the person I be like to? I’d like to think that I wouldn’t. I honor my commitments and I hope this other version of myself would as well. Sure, I wouldn’t know the ins and outs of what giving that consent once looked like. However, I would know that I gave it based on these blog posts and personal anecdotes from friends and family.

There would be a lot of growing pains, too. I’ve learned a lot of valuable lessons in the last few years. Things hard won. A peace I never knew existed before Master. Losing that would be an immeasurable back-step. Going back to that chaos, would he even still want me?

Okay, well, I asked him and he said he would still want me. 😛

Kink and Polyamory Relationship New Years Resolutions

Ashtyn Drapela

Today, I looked through a pile of old documents and treasures. Letters, pictures, ticket stubs, brewery coins, and even rocks. We reflect on the old as we get started towards the new. In the past, I have set yearly goals for myself, but never in the context of polyamory and kink.

2023

My polyamorous goals of 2023 are as follows:

  • Write vows and have a wedding ceremony for my Master and myself.
  • Go on weekly dates with my husband.
  • Find a cute girl to gush over and fall head-over-heels in love with.

My kink goals of 2023 involve:

  • Drowning lessons
  • Complete a class list for Master
  • Book classes for us to teach at
  • Be involved in a gang bang
  • More suspension!