Tag: Polyamory

Things left unsaid

I’ve always found it interesting how incredibly different two people can experience, describe, and remember the same situation.  Our experiences are very much rooted in our own perception, formed of our own beliefs, emotions, and all our other experiences that led up to that point.  Our judgments of others are much the same way, they reflect as much on us as they do on the person we are making them of.

I was thinking about then when I was contemplating one of the relationships I had over the last decade.  It swam it’s way up into my mind initially because I was thinking about one of my current partners, and how while we have been together for less than a year and the dynamic is a long distance one, how intense it is.  And while I try not to compare partners, my brain related it back to Kayla* and how it was odd that while that dynamic lasted a bit over a year, it was one that really had a quite negligible impact on my life at all in comparison.  I can’t say for sure, but I feel like it was a much larger part of her life then it ever was mine.  Which got me thinking about how different our perceptions of a situation or experience can be.

If you asked Kayla, she would likely say our dynamic ended because she couldn’t handle polyamory. I’ve certainly heard her say many times since we broke up, that she found out through dating me that being in a polyamorous relationship was not something she could do. I don’t mean to invalidate her experiences with my own thoughts, but to be quite frank, I disagree.  I don’t know that she could be happy in a polya dynamic, I’m fairly confident she wouldn’t be able to handle the kind of relationship anarchist way of relating that I have fully embraced now, but I don’t think that polyamory is why we broke up, even if she does.

Before Kayla and I started dating, we had known each other for years.  We ran in some intersecting social circles, and there was some low key flirting online from time to time, but I wouldn’t say I knew her well or that she had a real presence in my life.  Then she sent me a message asking about the possibility of experimenting with some kinks together.  My fiance and I had split a year or so before, which had opened up a lot more space on my dance card because that had been a very co-dependent relationship.  My lovefriend, who has been the central dynamic in my life since we got involved, is a person who often varies between attached and integrated, and extreme bouts of independence.  It was an independent time, so his presence in my life was still a constant, we cohabitated, shared finances, and were part of each others daily lives, but he needed more space and I was looking for other ways to spend my time so as not to bother him. So I was in a place where I wanted company, and I wasn’t quite emotionally healthy and had some holes in myself that I should have been filling with personal growth but was eager to shove a person into instead. Kayla had few experiences with relationships as a whole, and had told me that she’d never really been in love or in a committed relationship. I was also on a path of recovery from alcohol addiction at this time.  The year before I had gone from drinking a 6-24 beers daily for three or four years, to being sober six months. I then attempted to learn to drink in moderation, but had backslid some when things ended with my fiance and the drama that ensued after.  I was starting to get a hold on it again and making a lot of progress in moderating my drinking when that message from Kayla popped into my inbox.

I read her proposition, and I was craving some of the kinky interactions she was interested in, so I fired back a response and we agreed to meet up at a regular gathering of her friends and see if there was any chemistry between us.  The gathering we met at was one where alcohol consumption was not just regular, but a glorified thing, and drinking in excess was encouraged.  I felt a prickling discomfort that this was not a healthy place for me, but I pushed it aside, and soon became a regular at those weekly get togethers.  Kayla and I also quickly ended up in a relationship, the kink dynamic ended up not being as much of a central focus, and soon we were in some semblance of love. She warned me from the start that she was not sure how well she would handle polyamory, but during the heady rush of NRE she claimed to be coping very well with it.  She claimed that as long as she felt important and valued, she thought she could manage it with ease, and I agreed that the hard parts like jealousy were usually fueled by insecurity, and feeling appreciated and having all your needs met were a good remedy for that.

As the months went by, I realized that in getting into that relationship, I was compromising a lot of the personal growth I had been doing and sliding back into unhealthy habits.  I stopped exercising daily in favor of spending time with Kayla, she had offered to come with me on my walks but they weren’t the same when they were no longer a time I could start to become comfortable with moments alone with myself.  I drank a lot more on our weekend parties, and even when we stopped going to those as frequently, we just began drinking at my house instead.  She was an alcoholic too, and it was easy to rationalize that I was doing okay when my drinking in excess was normalized by hers.  We talked about wanting to improve, on working on our problems together, but I knew deep down that I really needed to work on my issues alone because a lot of them stemmed from a previous propensity for co-dependency.  Then there were the times where she would get so drunk she would black out, or close to it, and I saw her get into some vicious arguments with friends where words were screamed and things were thrown.  She was never violent to others, so I told myself it was okay, but the punching walls and yelling scared me the few times it happened, because it reminded me of the precursors to abuse I’d experienced before.  Then we got into a few fights when drunk, and she was no longer a reasonably good communicator, but someone who resorted to nasty insults and threats of break ups. I don’t know exactly at which moment I began to withdraw, but I know it began much earlier then I realized.

Kayla began to tell me she was struggling with jealousy and was questioning how well she could cope with being polyamorous. We talked about insecurity, we talked about asking for her needs to be met.  She began asking for more time with me, for doing specific things that mattered a lot to her.  I said I would make time for them and often I didn’t.  I then recognized myself doing that and began to say I could not commit to that, I could not promise to do those things, I would try, but that was the most I could give.  And looking back, I didn’t try very hard.  I was starting to sense that the relationship was very bad for me, and I was putting distance there and pushing her away in fits and bursts.  I would draw back in for a moment, compelled by love for her at times, but more often by her need for me, wanting to please, or wanting to fill that hole inside myself.  Then it would cycle back to my realizing what I was doing, that I needed to learn a self that wasn’t co-dependent, that it likely wasn’t healthy to be involved with an alcoholic while trying to fix my own addiction issues, and that I could not be comfortable with someone who tended towards irrational anger and was verbally abusive and violent towards objects in moments of extreme drunkeness. I wanted intimacy less and less, and soon I wanted to spend less and less time together as well. By the time she texted me one day and said that the relationship wasn’t working and maybe we should end it, I was relieved.  It was something I’d known for months and couldn’t figure out how to say.  That was the first time though, that someone else had initiated a break up and I hadn’t fought for the relationship. In the past, even when I knew a dynamic was unhealthy and had thought about ending it many times myself, someone else initiating a break up would trigger insecurities and a sense of failure in me, and I would fight tooth and nail to try and justify continuing it and working to mend things.  This time was different, and I was ready to let go because my desire for other growth was calling me to strongly and I knew I couldn’t focus on that with her in my life.

The first time I heard her say afterwards that she couldn’t be polyamorous, and she had realized that when being with me, that it was not something she could handle, I thought I knew what she meant.  She had seen me giving time and energy to others, especially my lovefriend, who had transitioned from an independent phase to a more attached one a few months in to my dynamic with Kayla.  She watched our closeness there and how I often wanted to be around him and had an extreme level of comfort with communication and touch with him, something I was having less and less with her every day.  She felt her needs go unmet, as I gave time and attention to other people while she was practically begging for it from me, and I brushed her off with so many laters that never became nows.  She did struggle with some issues that would have made polyamory difficult under many circumstances, and she definitely would have been happier in a monogomous dynamic regardless, but I made things a thousand times more difficult.  Especially when hearing from me that you deal with jealousy by recognizing how much you matter to someone regardless of their other relationships, and by asking for reassurance and for the things you need from your partner. Well she saw how little she mattered to me over time because I pushed her away more and more, and she asked for everything she wanted and needed and I brushed her off.  The worst thing I did though, was I never said any of this to her. The closest I came to it was telling her that the way she treated me when drunk and angry was completely unacceptable and I was not okay with emotional abuse, threats, or insults.  But I never let her know how much I withdrew and how early on it began, partly because of her actions, and partly because of my own needs which were incongruous with a relationship with her in the first place.

So the relationship ended, and I rarely think about it.  It was relevant to me mostly in relation to the little bit of growing I tried to do during it, and how it spurred a lot more afterwards because of the time I felt I lost.  I know it is cold, but I know I may have mattered a lot more in her life then she ever did in mine.  She may have been frightening when in an alcohol induced rage, but I was the one who disconnected and tried to use a person to fill a hole in myself that should have been handled before I ever engaged in another relationship at that time. There was so much dysfunction, and still, that is a blip in the radar for me.  I don’t know how much it mattered to her.  I don’t know if she could have handled being polyamorous with someone who gave her the time and energy she needed instead of pushing her away.  I suspect maybe she could have, if her first experience had been radically different and healthier, although maybe not given how unhealthy of a place she also seemed to be in at the time.  I do know that now I’m a very different person and the way I approach relationships has shifted entirely.  I also learned to moderate my drinking in the year after we broke up, finally gaining some understanding of how to engage without frequent excess, and then followed that with a year of complete sobriety so I could focus even more on the person growth I so desperately needed. I think the way I remember things and the way she does must be so radically different that it is almost as though we had two different relationships altogether.  That can happen with any two people because there always is some divergence in how people experience things due to who they are and their past leading up to that experience. In this case though, it was compounded tenfold by all the things I left unsaid.

 

 

*I do often change the names/gender/identifying characteristics of folks I write about. I don’t do this for all the people I mention, but at times it feels appropriate for privacy or distance from the situation.

Vulnerability opens doors to community

Tomorrow I am hosting a potluck for my local polya group. I usually host a Thanksgiving celebration for my polycule every year, and a Christmahanukwanzikayulemastide celebration, but that’s been about it for a while.  We’ve had a few small game nights at the house here and there.  I have been saying for years that I would have some sort of BBQ, or plan a themed party like I used to, but it wasn’t something I managed to manifest from casual conversation into reality.

I remember vaguely searching for local polya groups a little over a year ago, I think what prompted it was curiosity, and one of my loves saying that we didn’t really have polya and RA folks in this area. This was the only local group I found, and while I joined a bit over a year ago as I mentioned, I didn’t really become active in it until this spring.  I don’t actually remember exactly what prompted me to start being more active in it, I believe it was noticing that a potluck was coming up, but it could be that I started engaging more first and that was why I noticed the event.  Either way, I RSVPed to it, and possibly because of that and their desire to make new folks feel welcome, or possibly because of my sheer queer magnetism, the two admins initiated conversation by reaching out to welcome me and start a friendship.

The beginning of the friendship that has developed with those individuals was interesting, I actually found that I took up a role of advise-giver and listener-to-rants for a while there.  That’s a frequent role I find myself in, so it was a comfortable one, but it was a little surprising to be that for two people I barely knew.  They were both at a bit of a rocky point with mental health, each other, other life situations, and I tried to help the best I could.  Despite that being a role I frequently find myself in, two things were different about it this time around.  The first was the amount of openness and trust and rawness they showed me, despite us just getting acquainted.  The usual skating around the issues and revealing a little bit at a time until trust was established and that picture perfect masked could be dropped, we just skipped right over that step. I value that raw authenticity beyond measure, it is something I crave in a world where people are guarded little drones pushing their identical Target shopping carts with their identical forced smiles.  These two people showed me the ugly parts of themselves and their relationship, and I was barely more than a stranger.  It wasn’t an over-share, it was a baring of the soul, and it was a courageous act. The second thing that was different was that in all my years as resident advice-giver in my groups of friends, I have almost never seen anyone really focus on examining the advice I gave so completely and then applying it.  It was unique to see someone actually evaluate the pretty advice scarf I painstakingly knitted them, realize it’s merit, and put it on and use it daily.  The fact that they put value on the time and energy I put into trying to offer assistance was an affirmation I had rarely been given, and was a true gift.  The fact that I was able to offer assistance to people who wanted that much to actually grow and improve, rather than mouth the words and continue on in the same old patterns, was so refreshing.  And seeing them both grow as people in tremendous ways over the eight months I’ve now known them, is an absolute inspiration. What I didn’t realize until much later was that being allowed to take the role of advise-giver for people who were so immediately vulnerable and also quite completely dedicated to personal-growth and positive change, also effected me in the most wonderful positive way.

I felt comfortable and at home in the raw gritty realness of those individuals, and in the inspiring growth they showed.  It mirrored my own fractured and flawed existence and constant search for vulnerability and need for self improvement.  I felt welcomed by the intensity of the sudden closeness I found with them, and the invitation to be myself.  I also was allowed to enter into my venture into the group within a role I felt very comfortable with, which eased the transition from mostly recluse, to reemerging social butterfly.  It was one of those times in life where circumstances line up in just the right way to allow for a new path to unfurl with radiant clarity right when you need it.  I was craving community, I was craving what it felt like to have a group beyond my polycule where I felt belonging and a sense of home, and I was craving a realness in my interactions with people that broke past the surface of the casual and polite and restrained that permeated my social engagements with your average human. That began to extend to others in the group as I went to the potluck and also began engaging in conversation through the group online.  The atmosphere in the online group forum was unique as well.  Most local groups I’ve seen have a lot of unicorn hunting and meme sharing, and not much else.  Here there were group conversations in which people also showed startling levels of vulnerability, where we talked about our traumatic pasts, and deeply flawed selves to a group of almost-strangers on the internet, and there was always an outpouring of support and love in response.  It also was one of the only communities I’ve been a part of that both centered and elevated and protected marginalized groups, while also welcoming those who weren’t really up to date on or concerned about social justice issues and gently guiding them to understand. I eventually joined the moderator team and found an even bigger new circle of friends I could be my absolutely obnoxious flamboyant self with, who even seemed to appreciate it and welcome it from time to time. People who came from all walks of life, but again shared a welcoming openness and realness that felt just like coming home.

And that led to now, where I’m getting ready to get up and clean house for a potluck tomorrow.  I’ve spent years saying I would host a gathering like I used to in the good old days when I had the energy to be a sparkling force of nature that hosted exuberant parties that brought people together. I also haven’t had any more then a shadow of the desire in me until now, the want to do so flitted around in my chest cavity but there was no passion for it to feed on and break out with.  The amazing group of people I’ve connected with changed that, I feel renewed having found a place where I feel at home, and a place that inspires my own growth as well.  When the opportunity came up to offer to host one of the events instead of just being in attendance, I was compelled to do so.  For me, that was a huge step after years of somewhat isolating myself due to a lack of passion and energy and motivation. The community I found that was so invigorating and raw has changed me, giving me back a certain spark that I have not felt in a good long time. So I hope, as I work on preparing food and finding places to hide my clutter, that this gathering has a few more new folks as well, who may also realize that they have found their community, and settle in and call it home.

The importance of freedom

Relationship anarchy is a style of relating to others that highlights freedom and autonomy. It focuses on the desires of the individuals and finding the areas in which they overlap to create the fuzzy little space of the relationship you can curl up in.  It also focuses on the freedom of each person to define their own boundaries and express their own preferences, and to live a life in which they pursue dynamics that fit their flow, without unwanted restriction from other dynamics.

Freedom is one of the merits of relationship anarchy, one of the things that makes it so appealing to many people.  To really understand why people choose relationship anarchy as a life path or relationship style, we have to first understand the value of freedom.

I was a philosophy major the first time I went to college.  I did not graduate with a degree in it, because when I was close to doing so I got distracted by a need to craft things with my own hands and ducked off stage a few credits shy of my degree. I had enough for a degree in general ed, so I took that instead, but I had amassed the knowledge from a plethora of philosophy courses, despite having no big official paper to show for it.  And boy am I rusty when it comes to philosophy in an academic sense, but I did learn ways of thinking that I still apply every day. After all, philosophy is the study of learning, the study of knowledge, and the study of existence.  We all apply principles of that in the daily meanderings of our minds.  For me, my love for philosophy and understanding is why I sometimes end up sitting and trying to really deconstruct why freedom is so important to me.

It is easy to justify things based on what would be lost in their absence.  Without freedom, you have restriction, rules, a box to fit in.  Society is pretty big on boxes you know, which makes sense since the human brain is wired for categorization of things, and society is a group of people with shared dominant cultural expectations.  So society naturally expands on the human tendency to categorize, and creates strong expectations or boxes for what different relationships are and the expectations within them. There are restrictive ideas in the culture I exist in, on what a friendship is, what a romantic relationship is, the exclusive nature of a romantic relationships, and the inferiority of friendships in comparison with that one special romantic relationship.  These boxes are in opposition with the freedom of relationship anarchy.  They are defined by an absence, having one monogamous relationship is a thing because you are choosing or agreeing to an absence of any other romantic or sexual connections.  Having a romantic relationship being prioritized above friendships is a thing because friendships are seen as being absent of the amount of commitment, life integration, depth of emotion, and depth of connection that romantic relationships have. Without freedom to explore each connection based on exactly what you desire with that individual at that time, you are forced to build a dynamic based on absence, knowing that you have limited allowances for what it can and can’t be while being socially acceptable. So we can justify freedom because we do not want to lose the potential that any new relationship has. We want the potential for friendships and romantic relationships to not be limited in their depth because they are seen as different societal boxes, to not be exclusive in nature and limit the potential of other connections.

I would rather justify things based not on absence though, but based on abundance.  I am not just an advocate of freedom and relationship anarchy because I do not want my life and relating to other people to be restrained.  It is in part about bucking against those boxes and throwing off the restraints, but it is also about what happens next when instead of an absence of potential you have an abundance of it. When I started forming relationships that were not structured around certain titles or expectations, where everything in the dynamic was based on the desires of the individuals and where the overlap was, and where the freedom of each person to pursue connections and have their autonomy respected was given focus and priority, something magical happened.  Embracing that freedom sparked a change in myself.  Suddenly there was an abundance of potential in my world, there was an explosion of fluidity and growth.  When I engaged in a relationship it was with the understanding that it could achieve any depth of connection, any range of life integration, it was alright if it changed and shifted over time, and expressions of love and affection and sexual interest were based on mutual consent and desire and not on a certain title or level of societal acceptability.  I had the freedom to move around and grow and expand, like a glorious tentacle beast uncurling on the floor of an endless ocean, or a fabulous demon spreading sparkling leathery wings after shedding it’s chains.

Here’s what actually happened, and what is still happening every day as I experience the self growth this freedom has given me.  I have learned to express affection and love freely to my friends. I can tell my friends that I love them and shower them with adoration and compliments of how spectacular they are. It no longer feels awkward or too much or prohibited.  I have found that when I simply lack the time and energy for new connections but miss the amazing fluff-balls-in-the-chest feels of meeting and getting to know someone and feeling that spark as love and passion develops, I still can experience that because I watch my friends and loves and partners do so and their happiness is contagious because it does not in any way detract from what I have with them.  I have less fear of break-ups because for the most part they are no longer a thing in my world. Dynamics may change, the type of interaction and level of connection may change, but unless the other individual wants to sever ties completely, it is more a matter of a -shift- and not an -ending-. Having that fear eliminated or minimized has made me less controlling, and as such, I’ve learned that being controlling actually was making me feel pretty shitty and I hadn’t noticed how much it ate away at me.

And one of the changes I value the most is this: When I was a kid, I went to a glorious socialist jew camp, and it was the norm for kids to sit in lines of one person leaning back in another’s lap, and that person leaning on the one behind them, and so on in a big train. Big cuddle piles of friend on a bed were a natural part of every day life.  I had an abundance of platonic touch and affection, and some that evolved into more romantic or sexual touch and affection, but it didn’t have to.  Touch was just absolutely normal and comfortable.  And then fast forward through years of trauma, sexual assault, toxic relationships, and becoming a controlling, insecure, and sometimes emotionally abusive person. I came out the other side extremely touch averse, with only a few partners as exceptions. I worked hard to not be a controlling fuckwad of the highest proportions, and did a pretty decent job of making myself into a person I could respect and that those in my life seem to think is pretty rad. But I was still very averse to touch, and that made me incredibly sad when I compared it to my childhood and early teen years.  Well, in the past year, as I’ve dived head first into the rabbit hole of relationship anarchy, after dancing around the edges and dipping my toe in for so long, I’ve slowly started to heal.  I am not the bouncing cuddly ball of rainbows I once was, but I have times where I have platonic cuddle-time with my friends and loves and feel warm-fuzzy-connectricity instead of skin-crawlies.  Giving myself the freedom to explore the abundance of human connection has helped me start connecting more in the moment and feeling safe with touch.  That is what freedom creates, that is why it is important, it gives you a field that is ripe for personal growth and healing.  It presents your fears for you to confront and overcome, and it allows for abundance and exploration in the ways you connect with other human beings.

So freedom is and always will be of extraordinary importance to me.  I want a life filled with abundance, I want a life with an absence of restrictions, and I want more then anything for all those I love to have the same and to never be someone who takes that freedom away.

From the mouths of Queerios – the difference between offensive speech and humor as coping

“the day I poured heavy cream up my vagina, I definitely stained some body’s shirt”

I’m not sure the conversation that spawned that statement, but it happened last night as we were gathered around cake and laughing at absurd things. That wasn’t the first strange nonsensical things that’s come from conversation with the oddball quirky group that makes my polycule and network of close friends, and it won’t be the last. Some of the others things said though, in fits of humor and good will, may at times border on offensive and problematic in another context. I wish I could have remembered an exact quote of something of that nature that would have better applied to the subject of today’s post, but heavy cream and vaginas and shirt staining stuck with me, so at least I could open on a slightly absurd but humorous note. But what I would like to speak to is the quality of speech in marginalized groups as opposed to in general society, and how it does at times cross into the realm of things that may be problematic or offensive.

I remember as a kid when the passion of the christ came out and the next day there where swastikas spray painted on my synogogue. I remember older members of the congregations who had lived through the holocaust, sobbing in fear. These days, under our new Commander in Hate, we suffer much worse then spray paint on sanctified walls. And when among my polycule where I feel safe, I occasionally make jew jokes about myself.

A few months ago at the supermarket I was wearing one of my many shirts sporting a pride rainbow, and an elderly gentleman felt it was an invitation to tell me how us gays were going to hell. That wasn’t the first time I’d heard something of the sort, and it wasn’t even close to the worst thing I’ve heard. In fact, it was quite friendly compared to some of my experiences. Imagine when someone telling you that you’ll be damned for all eternity is considered quite friendly… And my queer platonic life partner and I are constantly making gay jokes about eachother. A typical response to certain outfits and behavior when we ask the others opinion is simply “Gaaaaayyyyy!!” If someone said that to me on the street, I might be tempted to imagine melting their face off in a vat of melted chocolate (no, no, that would ruin perfectly good chocolate), but from my fellow queerio it is a good natured complement.

So is it simply a matter of intent? My QP means it as complementary when teasing me about things that society uses to marginalize and oppress, but your typical cishet standard humanoid would usually mean it as an insult. I don’t think it’s just intent though. After all, I’ve heard too many jew jokes that were amusing when coming from my mother, a sassy New York jew, that raised my hackles when they came from well intentioned Douchebag McGee in the bar. But he was just trying to be funny he whines, having no idea I remember those painted swastikas and women wailing. No, it’s not about intent, it’s a deeper issue of marginalization versus shared pain and healing.

When I hear a joke or dig that targets marginalized community coming from your standard human who does not face marginalization, or possibly does in some context, but not that context, what I’m hearing is someone who does not understand the shared pain and suffering. They know that their token gay friend may be cool with them making gay jokes, they have “permission”, but they don’t understand the actual experience of being gay. They don’t intend to harm, they intend to be funny, but they don’t have the cultural context of being queer to recognize if their joke is adding to the pain and suffering of that marginalized person in the moment. They also don’t realize that while they may think they are showing their gay friend “Hey we can joke about this cause we both know I’m actually cool with you bro”, they are also showing the rest of society “Hey its okay to ridicule people for this and I’m getting a free pass, so your problematic behavior is okay too”.

When I hear a joke of that sort coming from one of my fellow queerios, I’m hearing a different message. What’s being said underneath that humor is “we’re all suffering shared pain here and barely surviving, and if we can turn that pain into laughter and throw our ability to still laugh and endure in the face of those who harm us, we can survive another day”. I’m not saying that marginalized folks cannot be problematic when joking about themselves. And certainly it’s problematic when it’s about a seperate marginalized group you aren’t a part of. But even when just targeting yourself, I’m sure it’s possible to be problematic, because while you might find it cathartic, you still may be harming your compatriates in that oppressed group without realizing it. And I would hope they would speak out and call out those who do so, because when this is done among marginalized communities I don’t think the intent is ever to cause more pain. We do it though because humor is a coping mechanism, and because we are empowering ourselves. We are taking what they throw at us as knives and daggers and turning it into laughter.

I don’t know if it’s okay, or it’s right. But what I do know is the quirkiest shit comes out of our mouths, and sometimes that shit does skate into the territory of taking digs at the marginalized groups we are part of. And when any of my queerios shouts “Gaaaaayyyyy!!” at my outfit, I laugh and swell up with pride. Because yes, we are really heckin gay, and we are laughing and not apologizing for it, and those who threw that shout at us to harm us before, can’t do shit about it.

Relationship Anarchy is an act of Self Love

Relationship anarchy is an act of self love, and here’s why:

Relationship anarchy is fucking terrifying.  It isn’t just, as some often suppose, an egalitarian form of polyamory in which there is no hierarchy or sneakarchy to place some partners in positions of power or priority over others.  Relationship anarchy has deep anarchist roots and involves bucking the societal system of rules and structures and questioning their worth and merit.  It involves forming relationships rooted not just in consent, but in desire.  I want to go into that more deeply in another piece, but suffice to say, relationship anarchy involves navigating away from rule based dynamics and rules masquerading as agreements.

Imagine yourself creating relationships as an autonomous being, with another autonomous being, where you both decide what the relationship will entail and build it from the ground up.  The relationship, and I don’t mean just a romantic dynamic, but any friendship, partnership, way of relating to someone with emotions or vulnerability or touching of your squiggly bits, is tailored to fit exactly what you both decide.  You start with respect for another individual who you see merit and worth in, and therefor want in your life. You desire a connection and way of relating and sharing experiences with that person.  You engage with them, and begin to discover the ways in which they want to relate to you.  You discuss, open up, form a connection, and find the common ground in the fuzzy happy places you want to curl up in, in each others lives.  There are no rules in these dynamics based in desire and respect for autonomy.  Rules are manufactured by society, but a society that clings so sharply to fear and control. A society in which our very ability to eat and have shelter is based on coercive relationships such as working for a wage or buying goods born of others’ exploitation.  Relationship anarchy can be something of a haven away from that.  It can be descriptively at any given time, monogomous or polyamorous, because people can have those particular romance shaped feelings for one or for multiple people at a particular time in their life. But it throws away the societal structure that imposes that you should feel those romance wiggles for only one or only certain people, or that you need certain titles or to follow a relationship escalator when you do. So relationship anarchy is a ideology that centers the autonomy, desire, and choices of the individual, and the respect for another’s autonomy and as well.

Now what does that have to do with self love?  Well, when you embrace relationship anarchy and buck the coercive structures of society, you are saying that a person is autonomous, they have worth, they deserve respect, they should not be controlled by a societal system or a relationship title or rules. And in that, you are also saying that you have the same things, you are also an autonomous being with worth and deserving of respect.  I’m not saying that relationship anarchists do not suffer from shame and issues of self esteem and self confidence.  But to choose a way of loving and connecting that on a base level embraces and elevates personal worth and respect for autonomy and individuality, you are doing something that exhibits radical self love.  You are placing your own freedom and vulnerability and ability to connect, above the judgement and coercion of society as a whole.  You are treating others as individuals with whom you can form unique self made fluid dynamics, and as such you also are honoring the individuality and worth in yourself as part of those dynamics and shared relationships.  You are allowing yourself to make a relationship with another glorious human based on what you desire with them, and in doing that you are acknowledging your desire as having worth.  That is a radical act of self love, and you deserve to have it recognized as such.

And back to the fucking terrifying aspect, because yes, relationship anarchy is deeply scary.  When you decide to form relationships (platonic, romantic, sexual, power exchange, and all the squiggly in betweens) that involve creating a mesh of your mutual desires, and experiencing your ways of relating with another person that you both actively and enthusiastically choose at that time; and when you have relationships that recognize your autonomy and respect the individual, there’s a problem.  In the context of society, there is a big problem.  That lovely ball-of-joy-giving person that you are feeling all the fuzzy vulnerable things for, can walk away at any point in time!  Their squiggly happy feels for you can change! And you are in a relationshipping style in which you aren’t coercing them to stay, you aren’t exerting control, you may not have titles or ties to bind them to you, and you could lose everything at any point in time!  Yes, society sees this as a big problem which is why the typical societal relationships, even polyamorous ones, often do involve a carefully orchestrated web of titles and rules or agreements to give you structure and a false feeling of safety.  The secret that they don’t want you to know though, is that the safety walls you created are all smoke.  If someone doesn’t want to stay with you, a marriage license and two and a half children and the house you own together, likely won’t stop them from leaving.  Relationship anarchy is much more vulnerable and raw in acknowledging that people may choose to come and go from your life, that dynamics are fluid, and that we have no right to own or control people, so we cannot make them stay.  Hoo boy, that is scary!  I would like to address the depth of that uber scary sinkhole, and how glorious it can actually be, in depth at another time, but right now I’m going to relate that back to self love.  When you decide to engage in relating in a way that is so intensely vulnerable and admits that your spectacular connections may not in fact be safe or solid or last for the rest of your life and beyond, and that safety nets and guarantees are not real, and nothing is ever certain, you are forced to acknowledge something truly valuable.  That you as a person exist separate from your relationships, that you are an independent being, and that you will endure and survive as an independent being regardless of the ways your relationships with the people you love and adore continue to endure, or change shape, or end.  And facing that again is an act of self love.  It is an acknowledgement that you take up space in this world and you exist and are worthy of life, separate from all the people who’s lives you are a part of.

So my lovely long time relationship anarchists, and my beautiful budding new loving anarchist folk, to those who are curious and dipping a toe into learning about it all, and everyone in between: Remember your worth, remember your power, remember your freedom, remember your independence, remember your autonomy, and remember to love yourself always.  When you live this way, you already are practicing a radical form of self love, so recognize that within yourself and embrace it.  You are glorious.

Is Jealousy a Magical Emotion?

“I couldn’t be polyamorous, I get jealous too easily”

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard that statement or ones like it. Tell me a little about your emotions. I imagine you feel a variety of emotions through life, such as happiness, excitement, anger, sadness, confusion, irritation, joy, exhilaration, and so on. Now I imagine the emotions that most folks deem as positive require little analysis, you don’t feel a need to -do- anything with them, you just feel them. But the others, well those are often addressed by all but the most emotionally obtuse people at some point or another. So when you feel confusion, irritation, anger, etc, what do you do? If you’re anything like me, I imagine you try and sort out what you’re feeling, why, and what to do about it. Folks process emotions differently, both depending on the person doing the processing, and the situation in which the emotion occurred. If angry for example, you may reason with yourself until you calm down, vent your anger and let it out, recognize it as unneeded or irrational and let it go, channel it into a healthy outlet of some sort, figure out the source and solve it, and so on. The end result is you see you are doing the emotion, you work through the emotion, and hopefully you continue on with your life. Does it work perfectly every time? No, I doubt it. But are you going to stop leaving the house because people like Douchebag McGee in his Mercedes cut you off yesterday and made you angry and you had to vent to your friendo until you calmed down? Also probably no.

Then there’s jealousy. The way mono folks talk about not being able to be polya because they le gasp would get jealous, just baffles me. Do they suppose us polya folx never get jealous? Wouldn’t that be nice! What is so magical about jealousy that makes it an emotion you would drastically limit your life to avoid, instead of just dealing with it, the way you would any other negative emotion that comes up? (And don’t get me started on “negative” emotions, the strange idea of some emotions being bad and others good is a rant for another time.) Sure, jealousy can be pretty unpleasant as far as emotions go, I’ve felt it to the point of being overwhelmed with a shaky paralyzing heat that seemed to be consuming me alive. Not a fun moment truly, but then I’ve also felt overwhelming grief, fiery hot anger, humiliating confusion and uncertainty, and a whole host of other also at-the-time unpleasant emotions. And when I dealt with them, I often learned a little thing, or came out of it a stronger or better person. The same goes for jealousy, some of the best parts of me are forged from the walks I took through jealousy and managing it when it reared it’s head.

I suppose if one has no desire to be with other people, it would be like someone living in a near-Utopian community choosing not to venture into the outside world and risk being cut off by Douchebag McGee and his Mercedes. Why subject yourself to that when you got all you need already and have no motivation to? I can grok that, but you know, that’s not what I often see. The mono folk I know who are saying “Oh nope, could not do that polya thing, I would be the jealous” are not talking about not wanting to be polya themselves because of lack of interest. They are wanting their partner not to be polya, that’s what they would be doing the jealous of. Look, I could write some nice things about no one true way, and all ways are great, and everyone can live their own life and that’s just fine and dandy, and that would make everyone happy (or almost everyone, someone always finds something to birch about). But I don’t believe that, I don’t actually think engaging with another human being in supreme closeness with the desire to restrict their behavior and potential to connect with other glorious humans just because you get this magical jealousy emotion that you won’t tackle the way you would any other negative emotion, is healthy. I’m not saying monogamy can’t be healthy in other contexts, two little humans who have no desire to engage in romance squiggles or sexy time with other humans and so they just choose each other for that, is lovely. But two people elevating jealousy to some magical pedestal as the untouchable emotion and negotiating a dynamic with their partner in which they decide they will both restrict their behavior -because- of jealousy being a thing you don’t work through and that you avoid at all costs, that ain’t healthy. Jealousy isn’t magic, it isn’t untouchable, and it isn’t healthy to try and avoid at the cost of not living a life of beautiful connections you might otherwise be curious about.

Oh and spoiler alert, if you’re that concerned about getting jealous to the point that you choose monogamy for that reason, you’re shit out of luck. Monogamy isn’t a cure to jealousy, Douchebag McGee is driving his Mercedes into your living room when you least expect it and at some point, you’re gunna feel that jealousy anyway, and you may not have the skills you would have otherwise learned to handle it with.