What started as an internet ad looking for lovers soon swelled into a year-long erotic odyssey for Robin Rinaldi, who had sex with 10 men, two women and had one threesome.
And her husband of 17 years didn't mind.
Bored with their routine once-a-week sex life, Rinaldi, a 44-year-old freelance writer from California, decided to spread the love and negotiated an "open marriage" with her partner, Scott. The pair lived apart during the week and on the weekends she would return home. In her new memoir, The Wild Oats Project, Rinaldi recounts her racy exploits after the life-changing decision to pursue sex with other people.
Rinaldi, now 50, always considered herself a "good girl" and "pretty conservative". She said she had slept with three men before getting involved with her partner at 26. "Sexually, I was experiencing what happens to a lot of women in their late 30s and early 40s ... I was approaching my sexual peak and was relaxing into myself," she told the New York Post. She said her sexual desires surged in 2008 after Scott told her he did not want children and underwent a vasectomy. "As the door to motherhood closed, I found myself rushing towards this whole other outlet of heightened female experience - taking lovers," she said.
"I refuse to go to my grave with no children and only four lovers ... If I can't have one, I must have the other."
At the start, Rinaldi and her husband drew up the rules: they would not to sleep with mutual friends, get into serious relationships or have unprotected sex. But after the 12-month experiment came to a close, Rinaldi was contacted by one of the men she slept with. They started having sex again and fell in love. Rinaldi left her husband and remarried. She has lived with 'Alden' for five years and is in a monogamous relationship. Her ex-husband has also moved on and found a new partner. "I'm grateful I experienced my marriage to Scott ... but now, for this part of my life, I believe being with someone who is the most temperamentally like me is where I can learn more," she told the New York Post.
"As for not having children, I'm at peace with that, too. "First I channelled the creativity I would have used to become a mom into my sexuality, and then I channelled it into writing my memoir. As my story shows, there are many different ways in life to find passion and fulfillment."
Wha? She's not doing something inherently nasty and self-destructive like taking up smoking cigarettes or binge drinking to the point of passing out.
"All I wanna do, is have some fun."
yrs,
rubato
Re: "Good girl seeks experience."
Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2015 7:33 am
by Guinevere
MajGenl.Meade wrote:Scum
Heaven forbid we acknowledge that woman are sexual creatures.
Good for her for figuring out she wanted something more out of her life and then making it happen. Seems like it was all done in a very open and up front way. Don't know why that makes her "scum."
Re: "Good girl seeks experience."
Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2015 1:21 pm
by TPFKA@W
Meade is perhaps disgruntled that he was not chosen to help her learn.
Re: "Good girl seeks experience."
Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2015 4:30 pm
by Sue U
Rinaldi left her husband and remarried.
Gee, who could have seen that coming?
Rinaldi and her ex obviously had far different and fundamentally irreconcilable goals and values with respect to their marriage. This whole "experiment" was nothing more than a separation in prelude to divorce. I can't imagine why she even bothered to "return home" on the weekends, apart from perhaps guaranteeing some measure of economic security. As for writing a "memoir" about it, to me it seems rather exhibitionist/attention-seeking and frankly more suited for porn.
Re: "Good girl seeks experience."
Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 1:38 pm
by MajGenl.Meade
So... er... "scum"
Re: "Good girl seeks experience."
Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 1:38 pm
by Guinevere
1. Why do you assume *she* was seeking economic security?
2. Sometimes change takes an incremental approach, so what? They negotiated their deal, made their rules, and then came to their conclusions about what they wanted next. Is marriage a prison for life? Is no one allowed to divorce?
3. As little as I know about the world, I know enough not to judge how other people handle their relationships.
Re: "Good girl seeks experience."
Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 1:40 pm
by Guinevere
MajGenl.Meade wrote:So... er... "scum"
So... er.. judgmental misogynist.
Re: "Good girl seeks experience."
Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 1:43 pm
by Guinevere
I'll also add a piece I think both of you are missing -- I totally agree with her when she talks about the major shift in her life when she understood children were out of the picture. You cannot know what that is like unless you experience it for yourself. For many of us, it is seismic.
Re: "Good girl seeks experience."
Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 1:49 pm
by MajGenl.Meade
Guinevere wrote:
MajGenl.Meade wrote:So... er... "scum"
So... er.. judgmental misogynist.
I'd say the same if it were a man... so not misogynist. As to judgement, yep... I can judge between a brain and an arsehole as well as the next person.
Re: "Good girl seeks experience."
Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 1:59 pm
by Guinevere
Apparently you cannot. Try thinking with your brain, instead of your arsehole next time.
Re: "Good girl seeks experience."
Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 2:56 pm
by oldr_n_wsr
I try not to judge anyone. They made their "pact" and dealt with it. He said he cried all week while she was away but accepted her back each weekend. Don't think I could but then again, I don't think I would have agreed to the whole thing either.
But I will not be reading her book.
Re: "Good girl seeks experience."
Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 4:45 pm
by Long Run
Guinevere wrote:
3. As little as I know about the world, I know enough not to judge how other people handle their relationships.
About says it all. On the other hand, if you make your story public, expect public reaction.
Re: "Good girl seeks experience."
Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 4:52 pm
by Joe Guy
Robin: Honey, I just realized that since you decided you don't want children that I'm super-horney and would like to have sex with a lot of men and women for a year. If you want, I'll still have sex with you for a while but I'll probably dump you eventually.
Scott: But what about our marital vows? I thought we were committed to each other for life. I love you.
Robin: I can't help it. I'm horny. If I can't have kids I'm going to have sex with a lot of different people! I'm entitled!!
Scott: Well... I don't want to lose you.
Robin: It's only for a year, Scott!! Besides, I'll be home on weekends.
Scott: I guess I don't have much choice.
Robin: Here's a contract that I drew up. Sign on the dotted line. Hasta La vista, baby!!
Re: "Good girl seeks experience."
Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 8:34 pm
by Gob
"Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you."
Re: "Good girl seeks experience."
Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 9:28 pm
by MajGenl.Meade
Guinevere wrote:Apparently you cannot. Try thinking with your brain, instead of your arsehole next time.
Fancy that! I'd have thought that was a judgment if I didn't know you opposed such a thing!
Re: "Good girl seeks experience."
Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2015 12:29 am
by dgs49
Depending on one's perspective, the marriage vow is either the most profound commitment one can make, or the second most profound (I vote for having a child as No. 1). And to jettison that lifetime vow because you - basically - feel like it...not surprised this crowd finds it A-OK.
Re: "Good girl seeks experience."
Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2015 1:15 am
by MajGenl.Meade
dgs49 wrote:Depending on one's perspective, the marriage vow is either the most profound commitment one can make, or the second most profound (I vote for having a child as No. 1). And to jettison that lifetime vow because you - basically - feel like it...not surprised this crowd finds it A-OK.
Douche. Ya have to be married to have the child...
