I’m writing to ask you for help. I usually save my “give these folks money” posts for Christmas time, but I figure since I skipped it last Christmas, I can make up for it now.

Two stories from some really great people in the sex positive community have seriously hit a nerve for me. Both are about families ripped apart, and both need our help with legal fees.

I’m still not feeling well (was up most of the night with a migraine), so I’m going to keep this short. Other people have told their stories better than I could, anyway. So I’ll link to where you can donate, and you can find more detailed descriptions of their stories there.

Please, please, please read and help if you can, even if all you can do is share the information linked here.

Val and Crista Anne Orenda

You may or may not know @pinkness and @Protospect. I wrote about the awesomeness that is Crista Anne recently, when she pioneered the hashtag (movement on the rise?) #OrgasmQuest.

Val is Crista’s amazing partner and the biological father of most of her children.

Since the beginning of their relationship, Crista and Val have been put through hell by the third parent to their children. Val’s ex-wife, April Ni’mary, is an abuser, and has used everything in her power to hurt and control them, including the children she shares with Val. They finally found the courage to take their stand on a family camping trip ten hours from home, and April packed up the two children she shares with Val and left, taking all of Val’s and Crista’s resources for getting home with her, and leaving a toddler and a newborn with no way home.

When Crista and Val finally made it home, and after a few nights’ sleep, they discovered that April had poured poison on all of their beds, including the newborn’s, and then replaced the sheets.

You can read Crista’s telling of their story here. If you need more convincing, you can read about what’s currently going on with Val’s 6-year-old here.

April has once again absconded with Val’s children, and has filed for sole legal custody with supervised visitation.

Crista and Val need $5000 for a retainer for a family court attorney to keep their family together. At the time of this writing, they’ve managed to raise $3,597. If you’re inclined to donate, you can find some of Val’s story and a place to donate here.

Donating to this cause is a double-edged sword. It will help keep the Orenda family together, but it will also give other families that are in this situation (custody hearings between an abuser and his/her victim[s]) a little more ammo for their arsenal.

Jade Melisande/@piecesofjade, W, and Ad

If you haven’t met Jade, either online or in person, you’re missing out. She’s one of the sweetest women I’ve had the pleasure of talking to. She has two partners, W and Ad, who she adores equally. They all just recently bought a house together and were in the process of rehabbing it, when W suddenly took ill and was admitted to ICU. He’s had strokes and heart attacks, and is currently unable to communicate his wishes to his family.

Jade spent every day at W’s side, doting over him as you’d expect a loving partner to do, until W’s family coldly and without warning cut Jade, Ad, and all of their friends out of W’s life. Then they moved W and are refusing to give Jade updates on his health or tell her where he is. And now they’re trying to evict Jade from their home.

From what I can gather from what I’ve read thus far, this is due mostly to their unusual relationship dynamic.

According to everyone who knows W (and I believe this to be true), this is not what he would want.

Jade and Ad need help with legal fees, as you might expect. It very well may be that Jade is fighting for the simple right to be able to say goodbye to her love. I can’t even begin to imagine what the three of them are going through.

This could happen to any one of us in polyamorous relationships who have families who don’t understand. Not only will donating to their legal fund help them get back in W’s life, giving him the love and support he so desperately needs, but it will help set a precedent in case something like this happens to someone else in our community.

You can read their story and donate to their legal fund here.

Last year, I wrote about why I don’t talk about my kids. I mostly only focused on the issues that are directly related to me having kids as a teenager.

There is so much more.

Isn’t there always?

The following contains discussion of domestic abuse and how abuse victims are treated by the court system. Read more…

I’m sick.

We both are, really, but him being sick doesn’t really affect the blog. Me being sick does.

I think (hope) it’s related to some lifestyle changes we’re making. We’re back to exercising 5-6 days a week, and trying to eat right. We’ve switched snacks from garbage food to fruits and vegetables. And we’ve stopped drinking.

I think a lot of our issues are detox related. Which means that in a few weeks we’ll probably be better than normal.

Yesterday (and parts of last week) was filled with depression and anxiety, which I expected. Dietary changes and alcohol withdrawal will fuck with anyone’s psyche, but even more so with someone with diagnosed mental illness.

Add to that the fact that M hasn’t had a full day off in a month, and I’m just about losing my mind. Funny, right? He’s the one working but I’m losing my mind.

We were able to date like high schoolers this weekend, and that helped some, but then this morning I woke up feeling like I drank a fifth of vodka to my head.

All of that to say I am trying to get my shit together and get this blog on track like I promised. It will happen. Just as soon as I can stop feeling like death is knocking on my door.

In the meantime, I’m not making any promises about the number of posts I’ll be able to crank out. Today I’m gonna hang out on the couch with my PS3 and some mint tea. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Thanks for sticking by me. It means the world to me.

<3

Photo courtesy of Molly’s Daily Kiss

Welcome to Elust #68 –

The only place where the smartest and hottest sex bloggers are featured under one roof every month. Whether you’re looking for sex journalism, erotic writing, relationship advice or kinky discussions it’ll be here at Elust. Want to be included in Elust #69? Start with the rules, come back April 1st to submit something and subscribe to the RSS feed for updates!

For our UK readers, we would like to make a special request that you take a moment and fill out this petition to repeal the new censorship laws.

~ This Month’s Top Three Posts ~

A Misunderstanding With My Clitoris
BDSM Doesn’t Magically Fix Your Life
Discussing Consent, Culture, and What We Do

~ Featured Post (Molly’s Picks) ~

Other people run. I fuck.
Frame by Frame

~ Readers Choice from Sexbytes ~

*You really should consider adding your popular posts here too*
Bad Men and Why Perfectly Intelligent, Independent, Sane Women Fantasize About Them 

All blogs that have a submission in this edition must re-post this digest from tip-to-toe on their blogs within 7 days. Re-posting the photo is optional and the use of the “read more…” tag is allowable after this point. Thank you, and enjoy! Read more…

RACK is one of a number of acronyms that are used as guidelines, of sorts, for BDSM play. Here’s how it breaks down:

R-A – Risk-Aware – Risk-aware, simply put, means that you’ve identified the risks involved in your kink and decided fulfilling the kink is worth the risk.

C – Consensual – This means that any and all interactions will not begin until everyone involved has consented to them, and will end the very second someone withdraws their consent. This also means that nothing will happen unless everyone has consented to it. Nothing means nothing. No touching, no hitting, no kissing…nothing unless and until you’ve been given permission.

K – Kink – A sharp twist or curve in something that is otherwise straight. Just kidding! A kink is an ‘out of the ordinary’ act that you find sexually arousing. BDSM is a kink. Foot fetishism is a kink. Spanking is a kink. In this case, ‘kink’ is used as a heading meant to cover all unconventional sexual practices.

Many people prefer RACK over SSC because they feel RACK is less about policing the sex lives and relationships of consenting adults.

Got a suggestion for our Kinktionary? Leave it in comments or email it to rayne@insatiabledesire.com with “Kinktionary” in the subject!

For the rest of this series, and links to others who have participated, click here.

How would you say real life BDSM/kink varies from fantasy BDSM/kink?

These days I shy away from this question because I don’t like to step all over anyone else’s lifestyle. I mean, there are some things that are never going to be attainable for M and me that other people incorporate into their daily lives without breaking a sweat. That’s just the way life works. So instead of trying to define kinky reality and kinky fantasy for everyone (which would force me to talk out my ass more than usual), I’m just going to discuss what the differences have been for me. Read more…