How My Black Gay Open Relationship Worked
The 4 questions that changed my dating life (and why most Black gay guys are making it harder than it needs to be)
I laid there big spooning this beautiful Black man.
We’d just finished the first of three nuts we’d bust that morning. He was slight and chocolate-skinned. My right arm was slid under his neck, our fingers intertwined. My left arm down his side with my hand cupping his monstrous penis.
Our first fuck was great. He walked in, quickly disrobed and accepted my dick deep down his throat. He sucked, I ate, we fucked, then we laid there. Our bodies were warm together as the air conditioning blasted us on the bed.
My mind drifted to happy places, relieved from the sex I just expressed. I squeezed his hand a little tighter as I re-centered my mind back on my boyfriend. “I can’t wait to get back to him,” I thought as my dick grew.
I fucked this man twice again before he and I bust in that hotel room.
He grabbed his clothes and before the door latched behind him, I was texting my man, “Good morning handsome.”
Do Open Relationships Work?
inspired me with his Substack called “Can Open Relationships Work”. His short answer was “yes, and…” I’m a testament that open relationships can and do work all the time for Black gay men.Most of the commentary I hear from us about open relationships are either it’s a free-for-all with no boundaries, no rules, and endless possibilities. Or it’s a solution to a dry sex life after you’ve been together for too long.
Both of those scenarios are true for some, but my open relationship actually taught me about agreements and infidelity (not how you think), and about integrity and communication, and about actual connection on what really matters to my partner and I.
Monoga-cide
Monogamy, for me, always felt like the would-be remedy to tough conversations people don’t want to have. I’ve entered into relationships understanding that it’s just you and me in our love story and no one else exists.
That feels amazing to read, but the truth is other people do exist. Other men will make our dicks hard or asses pucker. We will have other interests, whether we talk about or pursue them or not.
Monogamy, in my experience, tries to keep our relationship in a vacuum. We don’t talk about desires or interests or attractions giving the illusion that they don’t exist. My open relationships have forced my boyfriends and me to communicate openly about what to do when those desires arise.
What is off limits?
Where are my hard boundaries?
What actually offends us or undermines our relationship?
What do we truly hold sacred in our relationship?
Non-monogamy encourages conversation about the secret places in a relationship. What are we thinking that culture or our upbringing may have discouraged us from saying. My goal is always to cultivate that kind of safety in my relationships. Culture calls that open and I’ve accepted that.
The Unexpected Benefits of Being a Top Who's Built like a Bottom
Much of gay culture is bravado: the constant proving of one’s masculinity, or manliness, or not-bottom-ish-ness. But when we overcome performance, get secure in our being, and allow those around us to be themselves, they’ll show up for us in unexpected ways, as long as you’re secure enough to receive them.
Open Relationship But Never Fucked Anybody
I met my last boyfriend at a now-closed sex club in Atlanta called The Den. It was a glorious place. A sea of naked Black men: every shape, size and shade of melanin.
The back corner of the club was a dark room so black that you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. My safe space was the sofa just outside the door to the dark room. I could catch the silhouettes walking in. When a Black body peaked my interest, I’d follow.
This man was tall with a stank butch-queen walk. Slender with a bird chest of peach fuzz, a non-existent waist, and the fullest beard I could imagine. It’s a sex club so, of course, he’s completely naked. I walked in hoping to find that silhouette.
There he was standing right in the door waiting for me. Took me by the hand, found an unoccupied corner in the dark room and. We. Fucked. Down.
It was so good, I had to find this man again. What started as a four-part romp in the sex club became a 2-year love affair that changed my life. Joe and I were open from the start because we knew how we connected, we knew where we met, and the freaks inside us weren’t going to die just because we committed to each other.
Ground Rules
He and I established our ground rules: (1) no entanglements in the house, (2) no kissing on the mouth, and (3) no emotional connections. From the outset of our relationship, we talked candidly about what we’d done and what we wanted to try. Who we’d been with and who we would want to experience.