Tiana (plus Akil!) and Orion at my Intimacy Warriors photoshoot! Image by Valerie Zimmer Photography. 2018
79. not gonna be the abusive guy: horizontal with a poly kinky couple (2 of 4)
Welcome back to part 2 of 4 episodes with my dear friends, primary poly partners, kinky lovers, and entrepreneurs, leaders in the poly / kink People of Color community, Tiana & Orion. In episode 78. surprise surprise he liked black chicks, we dove into Tiana’s sexual development.
Orion: She wanted to be a father and mother to me and she had ideas of what a father was.
Lila: Strict.
Orion: Very strict. Corporal punishment, for sure.
Lila: What kind?
Orion: Anything from hands to a shoe, to a belt, to— I, I, I have scars. […] She worked with the tools that she had. And it’s really a sad thing that those were the best tools that she thought she had.
Orion: It’s funny to be in a situation where someone pulls a gun on you, and the next day you’re in private school with the richest people in the world. It was very surreal.
Orion in the Hot Seat game. Intimacy Warriors photoshoot. Image by Valerie Zimmer Photography. 2018
Lila: Compartmentalization— like any shadow, it has a gift, and like any gift, it has a shadow. And it depends on how you wield it, and how wielding it affects… you.
Orion: I think of myself as having like 3 sides: the side that most people experience, who’s very kind and gentle, and a good listener, and patient, and loving, and then there’s the side that: whatever the task is at hand, whatever the mission is, it just gets taken care of. At all cost. And that would be the Me that was when my ex was out of work, and we had this newborn, and I just had to survive — because she was the breadwinner and all of a sudden, I had to like, make it, make it, make it all happen. I’d wake up at 3:30 in the morning and like work ‘til like 8 or 9 at night and then, like, she was in a big depression, so I had to do the laundry and the cooking and the groceries and basically anything that wasn’t nursing our daughter. And, you know, just get up the next day and do it again. And then, for some reason, as a survival mechanism, I trained for a marathon. Just to kind of like— as a way to blow off steam. But I was very cold and, I literally was like, all that mattered was the family. And just trying to be as successful as possible. And I pushed away friends and, even family, ‘cause if they weren’t like, about helping me move forward or somehow helping me finance my situation, then, what use did they have?
Lila: So the first side is Mr. Gentle, and the second side is Mr. Brutal, and what’s the third side?
Orion: I don’t know if that’s brutal.
Lila: No? Let’s say, Mr. Mission?
Orion: ‘Cause there’ a, there’s a mission, so I call it Soldier.
Lila: Okay. The Soldier. So what do you call the other one?
Orion: Orion.
Lila: You call him Orion. So there’s Orion, and there’s The Soldier.
Orion: Yeah.
Lila: And then?
Orion: The Beast. […] Somehow to this day I can still give awesome massages, but my hand’s totally broken.
Tiana the Glittersaurus, at The Confetti Project Open Studios June 2018. Image by Jelena Aleksich
Tiana: As a small business owner, I want to hire from this community, but I can’t legally put out a posting saying I want to hire Trans people or Queer people, ‘cause that’s discrimination against non-Trans and non-Queer people. But how can I reach this demographic specifically? And so I wanted to create a hub where, all the jobs could be posted and people can find different positions based on what they were looking for. And the companies would be vetted, so also you would know, when you go for an interview, that they’re not gonna discriminate, that they’ll have unisex or non-gendered bathrooms and, you know, respect pronouns and all the things that you need to have a comfortable, safe, work environment, as an LGBTQ person. So, that’s still my dream! [CONTACT TIANA IF YOU CAN HELP HER ACHIEVE THIS DREAM!]
In horizontal, I take some of my favorite things: sleepovers, spooning, sharing, storytelling, sex, and stargazing, and metaphorically roll them all up into podcast form. Every episode is recorded reclining. It’s Slow Radio. It’s intimacies of all kinds. It’s consensual eavesdropping. It’s us lying down right next to one another, wearing robes, sharing secrets, in your ears.
horizontal with Tiana & Orion (beneath the most GLORIOUS kimono) in the Bronx, New York. April 2019
Welcome back to part 2 of 4 episodes with my dear friends, primary poly partners, kinky lovers, and entrepreneurs, leaders in the poly / kink People of Color community, Tiana & Orion.
Tiana, Intimacy Warrior. Image by Valerie Zimmer Photography. 2018
In episode 78. surprise surprise he liked black chicks, we dove into Tiana’s sexual development. We talked about natural musk, her parent’s divorce, commuting between the two households, what Tiana & Orion’s parents have in common, face-sitting on teddy bears, her first inklings of exhibitionism, being a good girl, then fucking til you die!, how Tiana met her husband in middle school by dropping books on him, the story of their marriage, a very good tip for good anal play, the taint, camming on Chaturbate, looking for threesomes on Feeld, Tiana’s first polycule and first triad, and how her ex demolished their relationship by wiping out their accounts on payroll day. And that was just the first quarter of our conversation. I suggest you listen to it first!
In this episode, we discuss Orion’s family legacy: the violence of his father, his mother’s pattern of dating abusive men, coding love based on what we experienced as children, and how even abuse can be coded as love if it was all you could get from your caregivers, witnessing more than one way to father, poverty & private school, Orion’s interplay with the archetype of the strong black woman, us-against-the-world, compartmentalization, bullying, Orion, The Soldier, and The Beast, going to the Renaissance Faire as a black couple, microaggressions at a white boat party, how Orion is the first black male primary partner that Tiana has had, and Orion’s biggest difficulty being in relationship with Tiana. (I don’t think you’ll guess what it is!) And this is just part two!
You definitely want to hear part three & four of this conversation.
Tiana and Orion allow us to witness the inner workings of their relationship, talking through the biggest strain that they have have experienced so far, live, involving broken agreements, a communication breakdown, and sex with secondary partner. It’s fresh, and alive. New information is revealed in the conversation: there is hurt, and introspection, and questioning, and loving challenge, and we get to hear — in real time — how they work through the Deep Feels.
They are beyond generous to allow us this true window into their poly life. It is an edge. I am deeply honored that they would navigate that edge and allow us to listen in. This has my aim for the podcast all along— to allow you to eavesdrop on a private conversation, so that we can learn some of the forms that intimate dialogue can take. I feel certain there’s something there for you, poly or not.
In order to listen to part three and four, become a patron of the horizontal arts!
At the base tier of $10/month, you get access to The Full Horizontal, including all the part twos going back to the beginning (or in this case, threes and fours) plus access to the secret patrons Facebook group, and a monthly video of intimacy tips and a love poem.
In keeping with my commitment to myself to rewire my nervous system for joy by celebrating triumphs of any size, I have something to share:
Celebrating last year’s horizontal-aversary, the very first one, with Leandra, Alexa, & Tiana. The Confetti Project by Jelena Aleksich. June 2018
On May 21st, 2019, I will celebrate 2 years of horizontal. A Horizontal-Aversary!
I have never loved a project for so long before.
I have never felt so powerfully committed to a mission before.
And I have never before had the soul-satisfaction of knowing that my work resonates.
I am going to mark this occasion in two ways:
First, with another Confetti Project Open Studios photo shoot, and then, on May 21st, with a Horizontal-Aversary party at which the invitees are all previous horizontal guests, current patrons, and my Villa housemates.
I plan to attempt the recording of an episode unprecented in the horizontal-verse!
I’d be honored if you’d celebrate this milestone with me in any one of these ways:
1) becoming a patron
2) sending me a personal message about how a particular horizontal concept or episode has made a difference for you, or
3) by sharing this art I’ve made you with the people you love most.
Thank you for listening.
Come lie down with us again in the The Bronx, New York.
79. not gonna be the abusive guy: horizontal with a poly kinky couple (2 of 4)
Welcome back to part 2 of 4 episodes with my dear friends, primary poly partners, kinky lovers, and entrepreneurs, leaders in the poly / kink People of Color community, Tiana & Orion. In episode 78. surprise surprise he liked black chicks, we dove into Tiana’s sexual development.
