Category: 1994 – 1995

The reason I am using the click-baity 50 Shades up there in the title, is because that IS the reason I m going offline.
When I started writing, in 2006, I did so to reboot my love life.
My Dutch novella Mang0*, and the Dutch erotic stories*, helped me process my past and set myself up for everything that was tantalizing, intriguing and downright terrifying when it came to sex.
And the offline diary I kept during my first affair*, did nothing short to saving my life.

But in my fourth book, things had started to shift*.

It was the first autobiographical book I wrote online.
The erotic stories too, were written online; But because they were fictional, they did not impact the people around me, nor did they impact my life in the way my later work would.
With the fourth book, that changed.
From now on I was a blogger, and my diary – although still largely fictionalized to protect the innocent – was public.

In 2015 I got an affair with a married man, whom I called Mr.Big. The reason I could deal with that, was because I started keeping a diary and wrote my first autobiographical erotic stories*.
I had gone next level, in how I was using writing as a way to develop myself, and to lead a love life that I would never be able to sustain if it had not be for writing.

But now things have shifted again.

It’s 2020 and we’re in the middle of a Covid crisis and technically sex (even when someone is single) is forbidden for as long as we have a 1,5 meter social distancing rule.
If you do not live together, you should not have been seeing or touching each other since early March. On July 1st, our sex workers are allowed to go back to work, but people who do not belong to the same household are summoned by law to stay 1,5 meters apart.
In a way that is good news for me.
It is amusing that although I may have been depicted as “an evil woman” during the 5 years I was with Mr.Big, I could not be fined nor was what I did against advice from the World Health Organization nor were there any Dutch laws against it.
Provoking social morale: Yes.
Was it illegal: No.
So all the non-same householders people having sex; Welcome to the club of sinners who can just feel in their bones that rules are so outrageous and unjust, you have no choice but to ignore them.
Because that’s what they’ve been doing:
No one I know of has refrained from having sex with someone they did not live with, because of Covid.
Yet this makes my position even more difficult: Because now someone needs to be blamed for this.
And if people in LAT relationships, and new couples are apparently not the right ones to blame for it, I know who is:
Independent women, and in particular those who have sex.
The C. crisis has evaporated the last bit of reasonable conversation we could have about sex, because it’s maxed out all reason there ever was.
It’s all used up to justify “normal” dating routines, holidays, and social gatherings;
I see no room left to have a conversation about sexual autonomy in the upcoming 18 months.
Economy comes first.
Family lives and couples second.
And sexually independent women are not even on the list of people allowed to speak. I would not be surprised if they would find a way to blame us for Covid, which I hope do not become prophetic words.

The second reason things with regard to my writing have shifted, is that social media has gotten more strict with regard to sexual content.
I probably could not even write anymore, what I wrote in 2015, without receiving a warning.
And the times I could write those even more explicit and daring Dutch erotic stories, as I did around 2010: That time is definitely over.
Social media is no longer the place to share explicit content, making online writing/ blogging itself, no longer the right medium to do so.
Every time I considered going back to writing erotica, I soon realized that it was no longer possible, or at least advisable,  to write erotica online.
You could risk losing your social media accounts.

Before I go to the last (real) reason I m going offline – as sort of a matter of fact thingy; I know deep in my heart, that the only thing I find worth rereading and publishing into books, are my diaries and sex stories.
That although I have over 500 (long!) blog posts to edit and publish, if I m really honest?
It’s probably a hundred which I need to get out with all my heart.
Only the ones considering my love life.
All the others:
The struggle with my career, articles on movies, music, politics even;
If I am ever going to publish it, they will be under my real name or in a bundle with all my unpublished work.

The name LS Harteveld was started in 2006, to write about my love life, and that’s all that should ever make it to paper here, from the work I have not yet published;
And from now on, it’s also all that will ever be written. But offline.

So this brings me to the final and most exciting reason I m going offline, and after 10 years of being a blogger, I will no longer be writing online.
And that’s because I m every bit as committed to my love life, as I was in 2006, when I ended my long term relationship to find out what in God’s name it was I wanted and enjoyed.
I had the feeling there was something fundamentally wrong with me being in a steady, living together relationship, but still assumed that since everybody else seemed to be okay with it I would probably one day end up healed and choosing the exact type of relationship I was leaving behind.  

Little did I know that I would find out that I need a non-monogamous independent man, who keeps things extremely exciting because he runs away all the time and is emotionally entirely unavailable, so that I can spend time with my books and diary.
I didn’t know that.
I didn’t know that out of all the people in the world, I was probably going to end up being the unhappiest of them all, in what they refer to as a safe and healthy relationship.
That it would not so much be the death of me; “Just” the death of my entire sexuality.
I will never see any reason to have sex with someone who has chosen for you, is reliable, and wants to spend his life with you.
And to this day, I have not come across anybody else who has this strong feeling of mandatory non-monogamy for a partner, in order to even “get it up”.

But having said that, I need a new style of writing, in order to keep developing myself. And I think for Mr.Big too, things had become too predictable in terms of me being the secret mistress who writes. It could have been one of the reasons he broke up with me.
A non-monogamous partner may do the heavy lifting when it comes to keeping things exciting. I would love to say: “And faces the most scrutiny.” except that this is of course not true at all.
My ex-lover Mr.Big never faced the same scrutiny as I did. Even if it did came out he would never face questions how it makes him feel to betray his wife.
He’d get a pat on the back and a “shit happens” if she found out and divorced him.
That I embraced my role as the antagonist, the natural enemies of the married peoples, was a strategic choice.
It is not because I think it is fair by any standard, that we put this on my plate.
I do not seduce men. I do not lure them into my lair, with promises of secrecy and unbridled sexual escapades.
I keep my distance and have actively and deliberately been pursued by one man, with whom I had an affair for 5 years; an affair he took full responsibility for.
He never portrayed himself as innocent until I came along.
He relieved me from that.
I was very lucky to have met him, and I hope to start having affairs again, but I resist the idea that a mistress (as I see it) is a seductress.
She likes giving up control to him.
She likes him calling her.
She likes the pain, even of loneliness.
It is the very nature of who she is.

But having said that, I think even she, meaning I, ultimately comes at a point where it is her time to spice things up with her lover, and to stop calling herself mistress to everybody else.
Mistress was my antagonistic title.
It was my: “You want me bad? I ll give you bad, you judgmental *insert swearing*”
I m done with representing myself as a mistress, even though I know that men who are already taken make the best fit to my wish list because I can be certain that they understand the rules of not leaning onto me, and smothering me with social demands and boredom that are damaging to my sexuality.
Still: A single man may be able to do the same.
That’s what I mean by developing myself.
The mistress title is first of all no longer valid, because we stopped having sex a year ago, and are no longer together.
Secondly, in theory a single man could be my partner, as long as he knows how to keep things fresh.
But thirdly, and this is the part I was referring to in particular when I said a mistress should keep things exciting as well:
I need to uplevel. Not just because it might have prevented him from breaking up, but also just for me.
When I get a new partner I want to let things develop offline, this time. Without the escape to write an online erotic story, that makes him never forget and come back for more.
I want to make a lasting impression without!
And learn how to write and process, without blogging it.
That’s one part of upleveling: I no longer want to need the blog, as I have done since 2010, in order to support my sex life.
Secondly, I want to spice things up.
Like I should have done earlier.
This means that I will no longer be giving in to my monogamous tendencies, and favor multiple relationships instead. I will never be the one-night stand type, nor someone who can have sex without being head over heels and completely inconveniently, in love.
But I since I am usually in love with multiple men, this means that in theory I can also have multiple lovers. There is room to develop.

But this leap needs to be without the writing.

In 2006 I started writing offline, and it sustained me through the first years after breaking up a relationship of 14 years.
In 2010 I took it online and that helped me dating a series of guys. I became very independent and a good writer.
In 2015, my need to write about my affair was stronger than my desire to keep it secret and not say a word to anybody. I needed to start documenting our affair, in order to be able to do it.
And it worked, and I m happy I did.

But right now, in 2020, the time has come to take writing offline again.
Because the C. crisis has made my preferences more prone to scrutiny.
Because Facebook doesn’t allow for erotica anymore anyway.
Because I no longer want to need blogging, the way I have done the past 10 years.
Because I can see that things had gotten stale. That to keep blogging about my love life, is to repeat what I ve already done.
And lastly, because I want to develop my love life, to maybe a single man who can have me in his life and keep it fresh – and lovingly support me in seeing other men – or maybe my love life will be similar to what it was.
Just not blogged about.
Which to me, is already a huge difference.

How we stay in touch

This is by no means a goodbye.
I will stay present on my Facebook and Twitter, and behind the scenes I ll both be publishing my books, as well as writing new ones.
I hope to get a love life that is so fascinating and compelling, the words will simply flow out of me!
I ve already set the stage, in fact I did that last summer already.
I started a project called “1994”, but the story is stuck. To move “1994” forward, the story of a 22 year old Lauren, whose lover Bear broke up with her and who is now struggling to find herself again – simply needs to be taken offline.
I can’t concentrate on being her, and living as her (it’s mostly a performance project, the writing is just a side effect) if at the same time I keep being here in 2020.

So what you can expect from me in the upcoming years are:
– new books: 2010-2020
A selection of juicy books, based on unpublished stories from my blogs.
Titles are Reboot, Big Mistress, Blote Kont (Dutch) and I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW. I m also considering publishing a book called All The Things – with all the (English) blog posts in chronological order, and not leaving anything out, but I have not decided on that one.
I will keep in touch with what’s happening behind the scenes, so it’s always a good idea to subscribe to this blog. And who knows, maybe I will feel the need to leave 1995 and write entirely new stories here as well!
I have been known to break my own word.
– new book: 1994
I started writing 1994 last year, you can find it here.
But it’s very frail, it needs more action. By going offline, 22 year old Lauren can finally start living again.
– presence on social media
Twitter and Facebook

Thank you very much for reading.
I feel kind of excited, because the relationship between my love life and writing – and how I use one to influence the other, has always been the major theme of my life, since 2006.
For me to quit online writing after 10 years, is a biggie, it really is.

And although I m going to put a lot of love into creating the books, of the work I ve made so far, it’s my curiosity to how the rest of the story goes, that makes this so exciting.
What will happen if I turn back the clock, to before 2010, and the even to 1995?
What will happen in my life?

It’s that story, and that work, that I look forward to sharing with you one day.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

My diaries en erotica are available at my BOOK SHOP

*About my books

In this blog, I ve inserted several links to my books. 
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/LaurenandLulu

Lulu has gone through a reorganization: Dutch Lulu no longer exists, and the English website has some issue displaying the covers. The spine of the book is displayed with the book (after you ve clicked the description).
I have no idea how this plays out if you order it: I assume it will be fine, but I have not ordered books yet.
Now that I m no longer writing, I m going to publish more, and I will be become more hands-on with regard to my publishing and knowing all the ins and outs.

New books will be added to Lulu, as sites are being curated.

coming soon: new books

1. Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2020
2. I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW
3. Big Mistress – confessions, columns and sex advice from the other woman
4. Blote Kont- (Dutch)
5. ALL THE THINGS – unpublished work 2010 – 2020

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready is to follow this blog. The subscription button to this blog is on this page, probably on the right.
.
Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Sunday May 3, 1995
2.15 P.M.
.
It’s probably a good thing, I waited until today to write. Just a few hours ago, I was still convinced I was going through a change of personality.
Feeling all feminine and flowery, and Laura Ashley-like to a degree that was entirely not me, but that I for some reason suddenly aspired to become.

And it wasn’t just because my former long-term lover Bear called me, although that certainly didn’t help.
I felt very relaxed talking to him, in my newly found toned- down, softened state.
As if I could finally compete with whomever it was I needed to compete with this time.
Because I had the feeling his monogamy is coming to an end, or has already been broken.

Technically, I don’t know the details now anymore than I have done in the 5 years we were “together”.
Aside from the few odd months when I didn’t see him, and suspected it was because he was monogamous.
It’s not that I don’t endorse that, it’s just that for me, it’s not very interesting.
I’d much rather have him not choosing me, when he’s single or if there are multiple women involved.
Sometimes I surprise myself, how competitive I am. Even when I m obviously losing because he broke up with me last December.
Aside from the very occasional phone call, or the even more infrequent time we see each other for a cup of coffee, there is barely any contact with me and Mr.Bear.

And yet, the moment I feel he’s coming from a place of strength, I can feel that old sexual tension flaring up between us.
The game of poker, where I – you know, I wanted to say “pretend”? Where I pretend to support him? But that’s not true at all. I actually do support him.
It’s just that supporting a monogamous relationship is not very exciting.
And I love it when I get the feeling he’s all tangled up in exciting things, because then at least there’s something to fight over. 

I remember his periods of monogamy, in however few words they were marked or mentioned, as a time-out.
Recovery time.
Someone taking himself out of the game.

But something about the way he called me last time, convinced me he was back into it.
And that the pieces had been moving on the board.
My instincts told me, he had introduced another piece on it, another woman.
Someone who wasn’t me, obviously.
I think I should have been furious, insecure or insulted. Having him break up with me in December, because he was going into a real and serious relationship where he felt a lot of responsibility, leaving me man-less, lover-less, sex-less;
Only to then choose someone else to break his monogamy with.  

Again, assuming I read between the lines correctly. He didn’t say anything.

But regardless of what he had or had not already done on the side, my dominant emotion was:
“Damn! You’re back on the board, aren’t you?”
Meaning:
A chance to be with man, not without.
With lover, not without.
With sex.
A chance to not “celebrate” my Year Without Sex, in July.

Yes…. it was a good day to feel all feminine and soft, when I picked up the phone.
That was something he could not prepare for. An energy I don’t usually have.
And although I ve now realized this entire Little Miss Cute charade, needs to go Pronto!, it was a nice thing to have, for a few days.

Because I tracked it this morning. When did it start? Was it when he called?
And I discovered it wasn’t.
A few hours before his call, I had been walking around the flea market, on Queens Day.
And I was browsing for movies on VHS.
And whether by chance or because I was feeling all Pretty in Pink already, I ended up buying movies particularly aimed at women.
I liked adding them to my collection, and yesterday I watched Dirty Dancing – more about that later.
But this afternoon, I knew:
No.
Gotta go.
Great thing, as a social experiment, to dabble with feeling feminine once in a while. And what a coincidence Bear called; That conversation was definitely won by me.
But – Don’t make a career out of it.
Don’t get used to it.
Don’t make any plans that involve:
“And then there was Lauren, who looked so sweet and kind, and she was such a good friend, loyal employee, warm and loving girlfriend.”
Fuck all that.

And I think the reason was, because that movie Dirty Dancing, describes exactly what happens to you, if you are a good girl.
One of the earlier scenes shows the girl carrying watermelons into a bar where everybody is dancing the twist, which was considered an erotic form of dancing in the 60s.
She’s not supposed to be there, nor to stay there after she’s made her delivery. But she does and when Patrick Swayze asks their mutual friend what “she” is doing here, she defends herself:
“I carried watermelons.”

That’s my future if I continue playing all innocent and sweet:
Feeling out of place, in a room full of people having fun.
And I m the one who doesn’t belong there.

I don’t care the girl gets the main prize; the man who dances so sexy, and who has a healthy dose of self-esteem, and takes good care of himself and will now take good care of her.

I can do without sex, without Bear, and without any man for the rest of my life, if it involves carrying watermelons, wearing pink, or dirty dancing.

coming soon: new books

1. Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2020
2. I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW
3. Big Mistress – confessions, columns and sex advice from the other woman
4. Blote Kont- (Dutch)
5. ALL THE THINGS – unpublished work 2010 – 2020

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready is to follow this blog. The subscription button to this blog is on this page, probably on the right.
.
Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Sunday morning April 26, 1995
9.45 A.M.
.
I know I shouldn’t be writing about my dream.
At the publisher’s, it’s one of the first things I have to send back to the author, in the unlikely event one of our novelists gets it into their head to use a dream as a way to tell the story.
I will defend myself, saying that it’s not a way to tell the story.
This is my actual dream.
This is my actual diary.
And therefor this is final.

I dreamed I was in a huge building, which was supposed to be buzzing with cultural activities, but now it was closed to the public.
I was on their top floor, which had like a triangular shaped roof or contained a lot of geometrical lines.
It was like an enormous tent; pitch black on one side, like the roof of a normal music venue, and bright glass on the other, like a museum.
But there was no one there, except me and two colleagues.
Both guys.
I don’t remember the exact dynamic, but we were all in different departments, neither one of us were directly working together.
But I forgot what my own profession was, and I also forgot what the profession was of the first guy.
There was a huge statue or object in the middle of the room, and I remember it as an enormous wooden boat; like one carved out of wood by indigenous tribes, but extremely large.
I had asked the first guy something, and he walked me in the direction of the statue, and told me the second guy would know.
The second guy was a DJ. He had been setting up his tables there, or had been rehearsing or practicing there.
It wasn’t for a show.
There would not be any shows for an indefinite period of time.
Yet he seemed happy, as if he had been doing something he liked and had achieved some sort of accomplishment. He was rolling up cables.
I think neither one of us were there doing our normal work (maybe the DJ was).
We all seemed to be trying to find something to do, despite the venue being closed.
In the dream I had a short conversation with the DJ, and then I had a final one with the first guy.
And then something strange happened.
I knew I was standing too close, and that I wasn’t supposed to. I excused myself and stepped back. He said something like “It doesn’t matter” or something. There had not been any sexual tension between us, it (coming closer) had just happened naturally because of the conversation we were having, or because of the topic. Or because I was illustrating something with my body or so.
I wasn’t deliberately coming close for personal reasons.
It’s just that I lived in a time when there was a disease and standing close to each other was enough to catch it.

I woke up and stayed in bed longer than usual, thinking about what it meant.
I have an aids phobia. Or I used to before I realized it was simply not an option to be safe all the time.
You know: Get one boyfriend, both stay monogamous
Especially him staying faithful to me would become a problem, because I would find that too boring.
Either way, to be really safe you’d either have to have all sex with protection, including oral; Or alternatively you’d both get tested and you can leave the condoms out.
But then you re stuck with this boring monogamous sex life that is never going to work.
I knew I had the choice between getting over my fears, or settling for a love life that I didn’t want.
And I don’t do settling.
So I got over it.

But when I talk about sex with others, I can still feel so clearly that I think about sex in an entirely different way than they do.
And it’s because of this phobia that once tried to force me into a life that wasn’t mine. It’s because of that, and because I conquered it, that I have a – I think you should call it “seriousness” – a certain seriousness and heaviness, that will always be tied to sex.
If you have to overcome your fear of death, in order to give a blowjob to your lover, you’re in it for real.
You’re not “fooling around” here.
You’re making partner choices that revolve around:
“Is this person worth taking the (small, calculated) risk of getting hiv, in the case a condom breaks or I give him a blowjob and that’s enough to do the trick?”
I never had a guy come in my mouth, but again: It could happen. Even by accident.

Overcoming death does not make your sex life easier, but it does make it more powerful. It provides meaning to something others might claim “just happened”.
With me, that is impossible.
Realizing sex could get you killed, prevents it from being something you’re going to regret later.
Having sex equals “I love you so much, or I want you so much, I’d die for it.”

I think what took me an hour of morning thoughts in bed, is realizing that in the time of the deserted venue and me and my two colleagues trying to have something to do, while not standing too close because of the danger;
I’d live in a time when everybody thought that.
I wouldn’t be the only one, who consciously took the risk of death;
Every man whom I had sex with, would have done the same.

And in its own, no doubt terrible fucked up way, that was an exciting thought.

Saturday evening April 25, 2020
9.45 P.M.
.
I’ve been here before.
I ve been here before numerous times.
The point when I realize staying in 2020 in the midst of this pandemic, is – firstly – not really an option.
It s going to drive me mad. But secondly, that it’s also not where I am supposed to be!
It is a sign that I need to go all-in on the project I started summer 2019, where I travel back in time to 1994.
By now it’s 1995.
.
I ve had numerous times, and I mean definitely even before the crisis gave me a REALLY good reason, multiple times when I knew:
I gotta leave.
I need to time travel to 1995 and only “visit” 2020, for example for work, or to post this blog post.
But that daily life needs to be designed around me being a 22 year old, working from home, and struggling with yoga, her love life, becoming a writer.
A life where I am tempted to start teaching yoga, at a local yoga studio with a super hot yoga teacher who looks like Jon Bon Jovi.
Try saying no to that.
By the way in real life, I have picked up teaching yoga; but it’s an online friends group.
.
I received a phone call tonight, someone I didn’t know asking to join. And it was exactly what I needed to firmly decide that I will not return to teaching public classes.
I have been toying with the thought of offering my online classes outside of the friends group, because obviously now would be a great time to attract a bigger audience. And theoretically, teaching online “should” allow for a broader range of students, than the former studio clients and friends I was teaching before C.
Even though the online classes started out as a substitute for that tiny inner-circle, it seems so very logical to make them more public.
Except of course, it’s not.
I was a yoga teacher for over 15 years and there is a reason I quit.
.
Whether online or in real life: I am not a yoga teacher teaching public classes. I retired from that officially in December, and the call tonight was a slap in the face to wake up from secretly dreaming of taking it bigger.
Having someone I didn’t know on the phone looking for a yoga class, caused a panic attack, which could only be soothed by frantically checking all my social media on my phone, when none of them had any notifications.
My “stimming” ( I still think panic attacks after social interaction occur because I m autistic) conflicted with my resolution to really finally go all-in on the 1995 project.
.
There was no reason at all to check my phone or scroll my feeds.
No reason, except from getting a panic attack from being called as a normal yoga teacher on a Saturday night and realizing that I do not want to be a professional yoga teacher ever again.
That if my small inner-circle groups generate enough money for me to live off, that’s great;
But I m not going to make myself available on the market as a yoga teacher.
I think it’s an extremely vulnerable, awful profession, for someone with my sensitivities.
I have no idea how I lasted 15+ years.
.
All I know is, if I had a chance to start all over, I would do it differently.
For example, if I was magically brought back to 1995, I would not become a yoga teacher.
.
Tomorrow I will travel to 1995, and tell them the news.
And that this time, I’m staying.

15 Years of Silence  | “1995” 
is the introduction to
1994 part 3: This Time I’m Staying 

Take that one to heart | “1994”
is the fifth chapter of
1994 part 2: A New Life 
.
My diaries en erotica are available at my BOOK SHOP