First, I’d like to say that I’m absolutely loving all the nominations coming in for my annual sex bloggers list. Keep up the good work, everyone!

Today, I wanted to talk about someone very important in my life from the start of this blog – D. I call him Daddy in older blog posts because at one time he was my Daddy and my boyfriend. In fact, he was my first dom.

I little history for those of you just getting here: D and I met because we worked together. At the time, I had a boyfriend. I was writing this blog at another location and as part of a network owned by the company where we worked, so he got to know me as “Rori” before he got to know the real me. Not that the real me is much different, but this blog (and the blog I was writing back then) show just one side of me.

We built a nice little friendship, and over the course of a few months, my relationship with my boyfriend broke down. It was at this point that I started getting very interested in BDSM. My current boyfriend was not, and D very much was. I’m convinced that my boyfriend and I would have broken up in time no matter what, but my friendship with D definitely expedited things.

I started giving control, little by little, to D. He gladly too it, though by the time I was officially not with my boyfriend anymore, he was casually dating another girl. That eventually broke down too, and in July (I think) of 2008, we became a couple.

It didn’t end well. The D/s was fun for awhile, but we were forced into a long-distance relationship, and one of his ex girlfriends came back into his life. He cheated on my. Just on the phone, but in my book and his, that is still cheating. We broke up. I wanted to forgive him and get back together. He couldn’t forgive himself. We had lots of arguments, and he told me to move on. By that spring…I did.

The ex left him again, which is no surprise because she’s about the flakiest girl I know. He ended up getting back together with the girl he was dating right before me, though I personally think that was a symptom of loneliness more than anything. I got together with V for a short time. D and I still fought a lot, so we started avoiding one another. It stank to not have your best friend around, but one or the other of us was always upset, so it was best to just keep our distance a little and be peripheral friends.

In October of 2009, shit hit the fan. We ended up at the same conference for work, and the person who came with me to the conference was The Student. I was dating V at the time, so nothing was happening between the student and me, but D knew there was a history and was livid that I brought him. He spent the entire conference extremely upset and would barely talk to me, even though we hadn’t seen one another face-to-face in nearly a year.

Afterward, he texted me and said that he was sorry, but he couldn’t do this. He was still in love with me and couldn’t have me in his life as just a friend. And I told him that I felt similarly. I was no longer in love with him, but I couldn’t have him in my life if he was just going to yell at me all the time. So, we stopped talking. Completely. No IMs, emails, phone calls, nothing. I cut him out of my life, and he accepted that.

In March this year, he called me. We talked. He wanted to be back in my life. He told me that he’d really been trying to improve himself and work on his anger problems. He told me that he still loved me, but wanted to work on a friendship and maybe something more, proving to me that he could be the type of person I wanted in my life. So…well…I decided to give him a chance.

Now it is nearly July, and he’s made good on his promise to be a better person. I didn’t really believe it was possible. I’m not saying that we haven’t argued at all or that he’s a perfect person, but we’re rebuilding the trust and friendship, and it certainly is much stronger than it was in the past. I feel that this is a brand new start for us.

And now…well…he’s moving here. Not just closer to me, not just in my town. He’s moving into my house. I have a spare room since my roommate moved out and could use the money. He wants to be in this area because of some job opportunities he’d like to pursue. It might be the biggest mistake of our lives. It might be wonderful.

We’re just going to be roommates and friends. No dating. At least not now. D is hung up on this girl he met who lives near here and says that he’s moved on from loving me. She makes me wildly jealous, but at the same time, I’m not interested in dating him right now. I like being single. I like knowing that I have options.

I won’t lie though – the thought of some cuddles with D is really exciting to me. I miss his cuddles and his kisses. Maybe it can’t be anything more right now, but who knows what it could become.

It’s certainly a big change in my life, and one that most of my friends don’t understand, given how D used to treat me and how much we used to fight in the past. The D I’m getting to know now is such a different person. He’s really growing up, and that’s cool to see.

I’m very much into giving second chances. This is his. We’ll see how it goes.

NOMINATIONS ARE OPEN! WEEEEEEE!

Ok, I’m a little too excited! But this is the third annual Top Sex Bloggers list, so I’m allowed to be excited!

As a reminder: I’m still looking for judges. I have about 10 people signed up so far, but we definitely could use YOUR help in making this list a success. To learn more, check out this post.

To nominate bloggers for this list, just leave a comment on this post. You can also email me at rori@betweenmysheets.com or DM @SweetRori if you want to keep you nominations private. The rules are pretty simple:

1. No nominating yourself. Feel free to post about nominations on your blog to encourage readers to nominate you.

2. Each nomination should include the blog url. I don’t know everyone, and some bloggers have the same names.

3. No porn aggregation sites. Legit blogs only!

4. Blog content can be anything sex related -pictures/videos, erotica, sex ed/advice, opinion, poetry, personal journal. As long as the content is related to sexuality at least half of the time, it’s eligible. Nothing illegal, obviously. Straight, gay, bi, poly, D/s, vanilla, feminist, trans…everyone is welcome here!

5. The blog can’t be protected. It’s ok if a few of the posts are protected, but the entire blog can’t be behind a password that you have to request to read.

6.  The blog should be at least a year old, but anyone who’s been blogging since at least Jan. 1, 2010 will be considered. Special exceptions will be made for someone who has recently moved to a new blog, but was previously blogging somewhere else.

7. You can nominate as many bloggers as you like, but please try to limit to your very favorites.

8. The blog must be active, which means that the blogger posts at least once every week or so. When we judge in August, any blog with no posts during July or fewer than five posts since June 1 will be eliminated.

9. You can nominate bloggers who were on the list last year.

NEW FOR THIS YEAR: After listening to your comments, I’ve decided to go ahead and retire any blogger named in the top ten three years in a row. This will allow fresh faces to get on the list, keeping alive the spirit of the list’s original purpose – to help bloggers/readers connect and get to know one another. Every year, I’ll also list retires, so they’ll still be a part of the list as long as their blogs are active!

Nominations close on July 31. I recommend nominating your favorites right now so you don’t forget. You an also come back and leave an additional comment with more nominations if you think of someone else who deserves to be on the list.

If your comment doesn’t show up right away, please be patient. I have to moderate comments if you’ve never commented here before, and some comments need to be weeded out of the spam folder. Feel free to email me if you don’t see your comment posted within a week.

For the sake of saying organized, keep the comments on this post just for nominations.

Want an email when the 2010 list is published? Sign up here! No spam, I promise, just a quick note now and again so you don’t forget to check back when the list is published!

What are you waiting for – leave a comment with your nominations!!!

I think we all have him/her in our past – the one that got away.

Mine…well, mine was this guy in college. Tall, smart, handsome, funny, loving – those are all very accurate ways to describe him. He was my bff for a hot minute, and early on in our friendship, we decided not to hook up, which was something we both notoriously did. Instead, we decided to give friendship a chance. Messing around right away, while I’m sure would have been fun, would have also made getting to know one another better way too awkward.

We both kinda needed a friend at that moment. Not just another random hookup, but someone who actually cared, someone to really listen to us. We found that in each other.

We grew pretty close and were very protective of one another. In fact, a few of my college friendships were ruined because of him. I know that one girl in particular was extremely jealous of me because all she got from him was a hook up, but he actually wanted to spend time with me.

Maybe it’s because I liked him whether his clothes were on or off. Well, on, because I never saw him with them off, expect perhaps in coming out of the shower with just a towel around his waist. In any case, he was a huge flirt and a bit of a man-whore, so girls treated him as nothing more. Him and I? We actually liked one another for non-sexy reasons, and I treated him like a human being, not the guy I was planning to fuck later that night. so he treated me as a human being too.

I don’t regret making the choice to be just friends with him. We only really knew one another well for about a year, and then poof – I graduated and went one direction, he graduated and went another. We lost touch somewhat, just talking randomly on occasion.

I do consider him the one that got away though, for the sheer fact that he really is everything I could want in a significant other. I mean, bedroom-wise, who knows…it might not be a good fit. But in every other area of life, we made an amazing team. Whenever I think of him, I always thing, “What if…”

I bring this up tonight because he IM’ed me at random to catch up. It has been well over two years since we’ve spoken, though we stalk one another on facebook occasionally, so it isn’t like we have no idea what is going on in the other’s life. Tonight, though, he told me that he is moving to DC, a city that I frequent at least a few times a year. For the past three years he’s been living several states away, and I haven’t seen him, but we already have plans to meet up next time I’m in town.

I’m not fooling myself. He will always be the one who got away, never the one I’ve caught. Even though it sounds like he’s going to be back in my life in a bigger way again (yay!), he is still going to live way too far away to ever consider dating. That’s ok.

But for the record, his life has turned out to be amazing. The friend I grew to love in college has finally come into his own, realizing that he deserves a high-quality girl not someone who will leave him as he’s zipping up his pants. He’s got multiple doors open to him in terms of work and school alike, and has his head on straight in all aspects of life. He’s grown up to be someone wonderful.

And I think, so have I.

Wow, another year has gone by already? It is soon time to start the nominations again for the Between My Sheets annual Top Sex Bloggers list!

The purpose of this list is the share your favorite sex blogs of the year with other readers. After the nominations are collected, each blog will be judged on characteristics like post quality, interaction with readers, and site design. That’s where you all come in! I need judges to help me go through the nominations and create the list.

Here’s how it works: Between now and July 15, contact me at rori@betweenmysheets.com with “Sexy Judge 2010″as your subject line. In August, I’ll send you a list of 15 blogs to judge, along with a pretty simple matrix to help you score them as best as possible on a scale from 1 to 10. No two judges receive the same set of blogs, to try to keep everything as fair as possible!

You’ll have a few weeks to check out the nominated sites and email me your scores. I’ll compiled the scores, as well as score every blog myself, acting as a tie breaker when needed. Then the list comes out, and you’ll be credited as one of the creators, with links back to your site if you have one. (:

I cannot stress this enough: ANYONE CAN JUDGE. You don’t have to be a blogger – I love when readers get involved. You don’t have to be eligible for the list – new bloggers are welcome to judge. You don’t have to be a regular reader of my website. You don’t have to be a friend of a friend or go through some kind of application process. If you are a couple, you can judge together. If you are a dom, this is a great task for your sub to complete. You just have to be as least 18 year old and willing to read some awesome blog posts.

Also, no one is told who judges which blogs, so your scores remain a secret to everyone but me.

I do ask that if you’re interested in being a judge, you send me your site url (even if we’re friends, because I’m forgetful sometimes) and the site urls to anyone you consider to be a close friend or anyone who is a current partner or ex – i.e., anyone you probably couldn’t judge fairly.

Again, my email is rori@betweenmysheets.com, and don’t forget to put “Sexy Judge 2010″ in the subject line so I don’t miss your email (if you don’t hear back within three days, email me again or DM @SweetRori on Twitter).

The more people who judge, the more awesome this list will be. Thanks in advance for signing up, and if you have any questions, feel free to post a comment!

I’ve been getting a lot of emails from people interested in knowing when nominations open for the Top Sexy Bloggers list, and when I’ll be accepting volunteers for judging. Soon! I promise.

I’ve created a mailing list for those of you who want an email reminder:

I promise, no spam, no selling/giving away your email address, no nonsense. Signing up will remind you when you can nominate your favorite bloggers and sign up to judge, and you’ll also get emails when the list is published this fall and when anything super cool is going on in the sex blog/pos community.