To celebrate love on Valentine’s Day, we’re hosting a book giveaway! You can win a physical copies of The Ruiner by Nem Rowan and My Lord by L. B. Shimaira – 2 free books! This giveaway is open internationally. Both of these books are kinky, romantic and explore different kinds of love between unique characters, so what better reads to pick up on such an occasion? You can enter the giveaway by following the Twitter or Instagram links above!
The authors have also written short articles about kink and polyamory to go along with the giveaway, so be sure to check those out! The first article is by Nem Rowan, which you can read here. The second by L. B. Shimaira, which you can read below!
On writing polyam & sex
One of the things that “stand out” about my published book MY LORD is the fact that it features polyamory. For the people wondering, yes, I am polyamorous myself. When it comes to polyam, or even just non-monogamy, my husband and I have been that way from almost the very start of our relationship—though, at the time, we lacked proper terms to describe the nature of our dynamic. I won’t go into the details of it all, but suffice to say there’s plenty of experience that I can draw on for my writing.
Be aware that from this point on, I’ll be discussing my book and there will be slight spoilers in regards to the relationship dynamics and one of the later sex scenes.
When I started writing MY LORD, I initially did not intend for it to feature polyam, but my characters tend to have a life of their own and well… Things happened. I had also intended for things to get heated a lot sooner, but the main character Meya was dealing with her trauma and was simply not having it (rightfully so!). By the time things finally did escalate, her relationship with Nina was so established, there was no way they were going to end that. And thus, the polyam came in.
Nina was well aware of Meya’s conflicting emotions that had been going on for quite some time—they actually spoke a lot about it, so to Nina, it didn’t come as a surprise at all (I’d argue Meya was more surprised than Nina was, haha). Lord Deminas was also aware of Meya and Nina being together, and he saw no reason why that couldn’t continue. If Meya wanted to love the both of them, that was her decision, and there was no jealousy from Nina or Deminas.
I really dislike jealousy, so I enjoyed leaving that out—though Meya did experience a pang of jealousy when she was quite ill, but I hope readers can relate to the fact that, when sick, our demeanours tend to change along with our emotional needs. (I myself can become quite emotionally fragile and unstable when sick…)
One of the moments in the book that I personally love, and excuse my vagueness as I try to avoid spoilers, is when a big decision needed to be made regarding Meya. Lord Deminas made sure to also check Nina’s opinion on the matter instead of ignoring her. Meya isn’t just his, she’s also Nina’s, and he values Nina as an equal on that front.
When it comes to sex, I know a lot of people both expect and want to see threesomes simply because Meya ends up having two partners. Initially, I didn’t include any such scenes because I felt happily evil for withholding that kind of content… But then I saw such a perfect opening… and included a foursome instead.
Now, I should say that just because a story has polyam it doesn’t mean there have to be any threesomes—or any sex at all—as you don’t need sex to have a valid relationship, polyam or otherwise. But MY LORD is a sexual story and the foursome was a natural progression of the plot. It also helped show Meya’s journey in regards to working through her trauma and becoming more comfortable with her sexual self.
Writing the foursome was a lot of fun, as once again the characters took the reins and refused to do what I had initially planned and did something else instead—which ended up being so much better. The scene went from two one-on-one to having one of the characters being the focus. I am quite pleased that the entire scene has no “penis in vagina”, if only because I wanted to show there are more ways to have fun than just that.
Another thing I am really happy with is how that entire scene emphasised consent and that there was no pressure to engage. The women were told multiple times that they were free to leave if they wanted to. Nina also made sure to check on Meya several times to see if she was still comfortable with it all. There were some hard-limits stated and abided, and there was also a limit that in the end got adjusted as Meya was enjoying herself to the point that she was okay with changing it—she was still the one in control and made sure to state her new limits, and they were respected.
When it comes to sex, consent and communication are very important. This is even more the case when multiple partners are involved. It’s easy to feel obligated to do things because you don’t want to ruin the fun of others and end up doing things you’re not comfortable with. Please, do yourself and your partner(s) a favour and always communicate your desires and limits and don’t feel pressured to do things you don’t want to do.
Sadly, I’ve been in a situation where one of the people involved in a foursome felt pressured and only went along with it to please their partner. Thankfully, I noticed they weren’t comfortable and terminated the scene. Their partner, however, didn’t seem to care much for what happened or that they were unhappy. And while that relationship didn’t last long (surprise!), we did remain friends for several years before we lost contact.
So yeah… Please always check on your partner(s) and make sure there’s enthusiastic consent all around, and not just at the beginning but throughout. If you feel uncomfortable, say so. If you’re no longer enjoying yourself for whatever reason, speak up. Consent can be revoked at any time, by yourself or your partner(s), and when this happens it needs to be respected. Provide some aftercare too when that happens and talk about it. Things like this can make a relationship stronger when handled well, or have it start to fray and fall apart when handled poorly.
Gurt Dog Press 