Tag Archives: safer sex

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Non-Monogamy Challenge Day 21

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21. Thoughts on fluid bonding?

My definition goes beyond sexual fluid exchange and into blood and other bodily fluids.

I am super picky about fluid bonding.  I have been fluid bonded with two partners in my life and for both I required testing before we did that, even though we had been sexing for awhile, and I plan on continuing that testing requirement.

I will not do it before the six month mark – that is the absolute minimum.  I need to have that time to figure out if I have absolute trust with my partner, their safer sex pratices, and their communication standard.  Giving it six months also gives more time for some of the NRE to wear off, so we are both relatively sane (it’s all relative) when making the decision to forgo barriers.

I need to also have faith in my method of birth control.  For the first time, we only ever occasionally exchanged fluids, so I wasn’t super concerned, even though being on the pill made me nervous about this.  With the other, I already had my Mirena IUD and I have great faith in that, so that wasn’t really a concern.

If there’s any breaches in sexual practices – whether that be an STD/STI worry, a trust issue, a consent issue, or a problematic (for a variety of reasons) outside partner – then it is time to go back to using barriers until the issue is resolved, then talk again about whether we want to go back to being fluid bonded.

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Non-Monogamy Challenge Day 20

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20. What, if any, agreements do you and your partners have about sex?

For safer sex practices I will always have a conversation before anything beyond kissing goes on.  I try to make a point to talk about what people’s expectations about the knowledge they want about my sex with other partners early on in any relationship – usually after we’ve had sex at least a few times and are starting to get a rhythm going in our lives.

My general philosophy is that I will use the highest protection level of the people involved (myself and whoever I want to be sexing).  

I will ask any potential sexual partner about their latest STD test results – when they were, any new partners since then (and their results, if needed), and if there was anything of concern.  I require partners (and will ask for their potential new partner, if it comes up) to test for chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, HSV (both 1 and 2), and HIV.  HSV1 is agreed upon to be a non-issue within my group.

For me, personally, I use condoms (internal/female or external/male) with any penis-having partner for any non-oral penetration, if we have not agreed and tested for fluid bonding.  I do not require condoms to give oral sex or dental dams to receive it.  I will always use condoms on penetrative toys and external toys that may come in contact with bodily fluids, mine or someone else’s.  The former is an always – it makes clean up so much easier, the latter is toy dependent.  Since I have nails now, I will use gloves with any manual penetration unless I am told that scratching is not a problem and I have quick and easy access to running water, soap, and a nail brush (partially a safer sex thing, partially a “I can’t stand things under my nails” thing).  This last one – I prefer to use gloves, but this is not a dealbreaker.  If my partner has longer nails, I would prefer if they also used gloves for manual penetration.

As for individual deals with partners about what they do and don’t want to know: one partner does not care about knowing about sexual partners unless he has met them or something goes wrong, the other two would like to know, but have different times as to when they would prefer to know.  If one of my partners has questions about any given encounter, I am up for answering them, but I try not to go into lurid details, because that’s not my style, in general.  As for safer sex practices, mine are the most restrictive, so those are the ones used.