Nonoppressive Poly

I recently read this piece titled “9 Strategies For Non-Oppressive Polyamory” on the Black Girl Dangerous blog. It is from a few years ago, and completely thought-provoking. I shared it with my innermost open family and had some lively discussion about it. I write this piece from my position as a middle class, white, cis, queer, femme woman.

First of all, I agree wholeheartedly with the author when they write:

“Polyamory doesn’t get a free pass at being radical without an analysis of power in our interactions.  It doesn’t stop with being open and communicative with multiple friends, partners, lovers, etc. We’ve got to situate those relationships in broader systems of domination, and recognize ways that dating and engaging people (multiple or not) can do harm within those systems.  Our intimate politics are often the mostly deeply seated; it’s hard work to do.”

It is deeply important to me that my partners and I, my poly family, and my larger poly community continue to find value in self-growth, self-awareness, and becoming healthier in communication and relating to one another. Dating as poly does not automatically mean that someone is “healthy” or “open-minded” or more self-aware than someone else, and it is not some destination that one reaches in personal growth and evolution. We must continue to deconstruct and reconstruct our relationships so that they are as healthy and compassionate as possible.

Go take a look at the piece and then come back.

To start, here are the two points that I take some issue with:

“4. Remember that polyamory doesn’t make you radical all on its own, regardless of which directions your desire is oriented.   We all have these preferences based on race, class, ability, gender, etc that need deep work and questioning.  Dating 5 White cisgender people at once isn’t necessarily a radical act.”

I basically disagree. I think daring to show love, commitment, and care to more than one romantic or sexual partner IS a radical act in a capitalist and patriarchal society, especially for women, as we have historically been tied to monogamy (whereas men have had much more freedom to experience nonmonogamy). I also do not think that one must date people who hold marginalized identities in order to “prove” to anyone else that they are radical lovers. Please, do your work on uncovering your biases and prejudices and intentionally educate yourself and use your privilege to support people from marginalized communities. Again, though, daring to be honest and authentic and sharing that authentic self with the world IS, in my opinion, a radical act that I wish I saw more of in the world.

“7. Keep in mind that ‘poly’ is not a category of oppression in and of itself.  This is not a monogamist-supremacist world.  There are material privileges that support your access to the possibility of non-monogamy–ie the fact that you are able to make this choice.”

This one is pretty dicey to me. I have had experiences coming out to people as open/poly that support me in thinking that I was being intentionally hurt because I was not monogamous. Our culture and society, too, privileges those in monogamous relationships and marriages. I do think that the system of monogamy is intertwined with the systems of patriarchy and sexism (and all of the other systems of oppression in various ways), and that perhaps it cannot stand on its own like patriarchy can. I think that for people who are rejected from their families of origin or denied child visitation rights because they are in nonmonogamous relationships, it is too black-and-white to say that “This is not a monogamist-supremacist world.”  In addition, while there are material privileges that may make nonmonogamous pursuits easier (more money and time off for dating), there is also the argument that having nonmonogamous relationships supports families in lower income positions.

To close, I do want to highlight a couple of points that resonated with me:

“1. Don’t treat your partners like they’re less or more than one another based on super hierarchical divisions.  Numbering and ranking don’t make for resistive queer relationships; openness and compassion do.  Your secondary partners are not secondary people–they’re just not the folks you might devote the most time or energy to in a particular way.”

Yes, yes, yes. A partner may be more primary because I share a home, finances, and long-term goals with them, as well as a longer history and the intimacy that comes from having navigated many ups and downs with them. That does not mean that another partner does not have value or priority in my life, and it is important to find the specific ways of communicating that to people in my life. I like this recent Kimchi Cuddles comic addressing the issue of “primary” relationships.

“9. Finally, remember that polyamory is not a new or edgy concept invented in the Western world.  It’s a millenia-old idea to have and value multiple relations.  Let’s avoid perpetuating that cultural erasure.”

Again, yes. Nonmonogamous relationships and cultures are much older than 1960s swinging in the U.S. Just as we can find evidence of patriarchal and monogamous relationship structures and cultures dating back as old as humans, so can we find evidence of matriarchal and nonmonogamous relationship structures and cultures just as old.

What is Empowerment?

One of my biggest life lessons from the past year or two has been learning how to hold multiple, coexisting truths that seem to contradict one another.

Recently, I was listening to and reading conversations by other dancers about empowerment in the strip industry. A few argued that the industry itself is disempowering and controlling, and so how could strippers themselves feel empowered by their work?

I would agree that the industry and system itself does not provide strippers a foundation from which to feel empowered. It’s set up to benefit employees, most of whom are male. It does cater, largely, to male eyes. It was created within patriarchal and sexist cultures, times, and places.

AND. I personally have felt empowered as an individual working within that oppressive system. I have felt in control over my body and actions, been able to feel a true ownership over my body and time, and for the first time, felt like I could truly support myself financially. My brief stint working at a gym two years ago gave me none of that. That job was disempowering.

That being said, I know that not every sex worker or stripper feels empowered by their job, and I know that I haven’t felt “empowered” by stripping every time I go dance. If customers aren’t there or aren’t tipping, when I have to tip staff out, when customers are rude or disrespectful- that chips away at my feeling of agency and personal power. And yet: I, personally, have a choice as to whether or not I engage in this oppressive system. And, I know that not every worker has this same choice. My education, other employment, whiteness, and class make my choice a true choice.

Excellent points were also made regarding the fact that sex workers have an incredible amount of pressure from media, friends, and family to say that they feel empowered by their work, in order to justify their participation in such a taboo job and industry, even if it’s not true that they feel that way. Workers of other jobs are rarely forced to justify their work as empowering.

I have also been mulling over the issue of race in sex work conversations that I read and am part of. I am disconcerted by the fact that so far in my support group (which doubled its attendance this month! wahoo!) we are all white, activist-y types, engaging in sex work that has quite a bit of autonomy attached to it. I am disconcerted by the fact that there are very few women of color voices in the stripper forum I am part of. I am aware I am missing a perspective that has been historically much more marginalized, oppressed, and disempowered than where I have come from. I am a stripper, but I am white. This piece is worth reading.

Kyriarchy

I feel a little late to the feminist table: why hadn’t I come across the word “kyriarchy” before? I don’t know, but now I have. This post does a good job of explaining the difference between kyriarchy and patriarchy. It may seem simply like semantics, but I think the difference in definitions is important to understand.

Kyriarchy is about examining all systems of oppression and privilege, and not just the system of patriarchy and the power that men hold over women. I love this piece from post I linked to:

“Kyriarchy is more descriptive of the approach I try to take to feminism. The word considers all parts of the oppressive structure we live in evenly – no one oppression is worse or better or more important than another. We are all subject to kyriarchy, and we all benefit from kyriarchy; we all share the burden and the blame in different measures and proportions.”

And, she goes on to quote a scholar, who mentions:

“When people talk about patriarchy and then it divulges into a complex conversation about the shifting circles of privilege, power, and domination — they’re talking about kyriarchy.  When you talk about power assertion of a White woman over a Brown man, that’s kyriarchy.  When you talk about a Black man dominating a Brown womyn, that’s kyriarchy.  It’s about the human tendency for everyone trying to take the role of lord/master within a pyramid.  At it best heights, studying kyriarchy displays that it’s more than just rich, white Christian men at the tip top and, personally, they’re not the ones I find most dangerous. There’s a helluva lot more people a few levels down the pyramid who are more interested in keeping their place in the structure than to turning the pyramid upside down.”

Does that make sense? We all embody varying degrees of privileged and marginalized identities, and how we experience privilege and oppression changes depending on context. I’ve understood this phenomenon to be true, but I just never knew there was a word to describe it.

I love this concept because it helps, for me, to explain why I can experience oppression and privilege in the system of a strip club, and why I can experience both oppression and privilege walking into an academic setting or my work setting. It helps explain why a strip club customer embodies both oppression privilege. It helps me breathe a sigh of relief because our world is not so neat and tidy as being able to say “sex workers are oppressed people” or “white people are privileged people.” (Yes, I do think that most of the time in most contexts white people hold far more power than people of color- and I’ve never personally experienced a time in my life where I have felt noticeably less powerful than a person of color. But, I do think there are situations and contexts in which the power dynamic shifts).

For example, this post ventures down this path and I appreciate the writer’s analysis of kyriarchy. My beef with her post, though, is her extension into what kyriarchy means for sex workers. She immediately starts talking about workers in trafficking or abusive relationships with pimps, and discounts the experiences of workers who choose their line of work. So, I would agree with her that it is kyriarchical of her to analyze sex workers’ experiences as she does (“But, and maybe this is kyriarchal of me, when people claim that sex workers derive power from their work, it gives me pause.”)

I appreciate this article on The Guardian, and this particular passage:

“Perhaps most importantly, kyriarchy exposes a sin within the women’s movement itself: that of feminist-perpetuated oppression. (I can already hear feminists hissing at me as I type. But don’t worry – I’ll hiss at myself in the mirror later for perpetuating the stereotype of internecine cat-fighting.) When feminist commentators and charities working to “liberate” sex workers relate their tales for them, rather than letting them speak first-hand, that’s kyriarchy. It’s also kyriarchy when minority male feminists are forced to veto voting rights in equality action groups because they are male.

Kyriarchy has the potential to settle the age-old argument about “privileged” feminism once and for all. Perhaps that’s why it’s so frightening to those that balk at the term, and will dismiss this as yet another example of woman-eating-woman. It may feel counterintuitive, but recognising your own privilege doesn’t make the struggle for gender equality any less credible: it makes it more so, by allowing feminists to see that advantages – such as being born to a semi-prosperous family or being well-educated – don’t necessarily protect against, say, rape.”

Reading all of this makes me feel so much better since I have been stewing for the past month or so about the anti-Belle Knox coverage (you can’t be an empowered feminist and a porn star: the Belle Knox brand of feminism is so totally not feminism). It all seems like a bunch of bullshit (and probably because I identify with Belle Knox and think she is rad)- you certainly can be a feminist, recognize the power and privilege you engender as a young and hot woman, profit off that power, and also recognize the oppression that brought you, as a woman, to porn in the first place- and, say that you wouldn’t want to continue in porn forever. I really don’t understand why complicated motivations and identities are so scary to people. This kind of experience doesn’t hurt the feminist movement: it enriches and enlivens it,  allows us to delve into the complexities of our lives, and speak up for minority experiences.

What do you think?

What Does it Mean to Be Monogamous?

I was reading my friend’s recent blog post (Question: Can being monogamish help you be monogamous?) and it inspired this post. Thanks Lo! 🙂

I think it is worth taking some power away from language at times, and in the case of “monogamy” and “monogamous,” it’s time to share the power. Why does the word hold so much weight and meaning and emotion? That’s obviously a long conversation that gets into religion, patriarchy, purity, virginity, etc. But why does it still have to hold that kind of weight?

We were talking with some friends recently about whether choosing to have a nonmonogamous or polyamorous relationship is actually devolving from monogamy- whether somehow we might be giving up an evolved aspiration to be monogamous. My response to that train of thought is generally: humans are rarely “monogamous,” and over the course of time that humans have been around, I don’t think our species has ever been largely monogamous. And yet the word remains and gets thrown around with so much importance.

In order to take away some of its power, I think it would be helpful to talk about monogamy in different ways. Here are some different definitions that I have read, heard of, thought of. Some of these overlap/mean the same thing:

-Monogamous: one sexual partner for life

-Socially monogamous: a couple presents as sexually/romantically/emotionally monogamous to their larger community but in practice has other partners, rules, boundaries, etc.

-Emotionally monogamous: a couple retains certain boundaries around their emotional and romantic connection, but leaves the door open for other sexual partners/encounters

-Sexually monogamous: a couple retains sexual exclusivity, although they may have leeway for developing deep emotional relationships with other people

-Serial monogamy: one sexual/romantic partner at a time

-Monogamish: a couple behaves monogamously most of the time, with exceptions given for certain behaviors/events (a once-a-year threesome, traveling out of town one night stand, etc.)

The interesting thing to me about the term “monogamish” (coined by Dan Savage) is that it offers the privileges of monogamy to couples and helps couples retain couple privilege while also allowing them to explore the expansiveness of nonmonogamy, albeit with many limitations. I don’t know how I feel about that privilege piece, from a macro perspective. It gives me a similar feeling as those who are bisexual and choose not to come out because, since they are partnered to someone of the opposite gender, don’t have to. To essentially practice nonmonogamy and yet retain the privileges of a monogamously presenting couple is troubling- when will we all realize how many of us don’t fit into the mainstream ideal of a lifelong Disney relationship? And when will nonmonogamy become more mainstream? Perhaps “monogamish” relationships are part of how nonmonogamy will enter the mainstream, though- maybe it’s just what the nonmonogamous community needs to become more respected and recognized. What do you think?

In terms of the question that my friend received on her blog- what do you think? Can practicing “a little” nonmonogamy help you stay monogamous? Is that even possible? Can you really consider yourself monogamous if you aren’t really practicing monogamy? I think this is where the term “social monogamy” is helpful, although I don’t really know 🙂

Interrupting Oppression

“Oh yeah, I like SF a lot, but yeah, you know, there’s a lot of gay people there.”

What? Did he just say that? In here? In Portland? I didn’t know what to say in response.

Later:

“Oh and I have this friend- BUT I’M NOT GAY OR ANYTHING-and blah blah blah…”

Is having a friend of the same sex a sign that you might be gay? Wtf? Again, I didn’t know what to say. So I said nothing.

Working in a strip club has been a problematic place for me to interrupt oppression. I don’t think I am particularly good at interrupting people’s oppressive language anyway (although I like to think I can and do- I often don’t), but the weird power dynamics within strip clubs makes it even more difficult for me. If I interrupt a customer, it’s quite possible I will offend them and they will no longer give me money.

On the other hand, having this experience showed me a different way of thinking about this power dynamic.

At first, I had been really annoyed with this particular customer because he said he was going to buy a private dance from me, and then chose the younger dancer instead. I was irritated.

[And then I read this article while I waiting at the DJ booth, and it helped me a lot. Thank you J for emailing it to me!]

But, when that first line came out of his mouth a little while later, my reaction was: Thank god you didn’t want a lap dance from me. I don’t want to give a dance to a homophobe.

And then, reality struck: Because he did end up asking for a dance. And I gave him one.

It’s complicated, this life-work-oppression-privilege-power thing. I like to think I have all of the answers in my head. But my own behaviors obviously don’t always match up.

I found this fabulous handout developed at Portland State on interrupting oppressive language. Here are some suggestions it includes for speaking up:

“A. Ask clarifying questions.

B. Speak from personal experience.

C. Use statistics or facts.

D. Use humor when applicable.

E. Make/include positive or validating comments when interrupting.

F. Use “I statements” and don’t accuse or attack.

G. Give an invitation to dialogue.

H. Be non-judgmental.”

I’ll work on it.

Social (In)justice: Who Says?

During the course of talking to my advisor yesterday (who, thankfully, is totally on my side), I was informed that not only are the other faculty members outraged at the ethical violations inherent in being a stripper while also training to become a therapist, they are outraged at how being a stripper contributes to further injustice in the world.

Apparently, stripping supports The Patriarchy, contributes to the objectification and violence against women, and supports trafficking of girls.

Holy $h!t.

Like I discussed earlier about patriarchy and stripping, I think this world is full of “both/and,” and far less of “either/or.” I will not disagree that by participating in stripping I am supporting the “male gaze.” I also think there is more to my story of stripping.

What matters, to me, is the personal intention, awareness, and small-scale action that takes place within oppressive structures.

What about my classmates who work at Target, an anti-LGBTQ company? Or classmates who are all about the bling (one, in fact, owns more than 500 pairs of shoes) and thus pay more attention to their material acquisitions than the fact that their consumerism and materialism contributes to the oppression of the poor? What about classmates who smoke and contribute to second-hand and third-hand smoke? Or, heaven forbid, what about my classmates who go to strip clubs as patrons?

This is about sex and it’s about sex work.

Like another student said to me yesterday: It’s pretty terrible how many times faculty in our program force others to sacrifice personal justice in the name of “social justice.”

Who gets to decide how an individual contributes to social justice or injustice? Especially over something so gray as the work that one does to support oneself?

The professor I met with said: It’s not about the exotic dancing.

But it is. There’s no way around that one.

Fat Stigma & Acceptance

Another really fascinating part of school last week was a presentation on fat studies, fat stigma, and fat acceptance.

Here are my notes from class (a lot of it is verbatim from the presentation slides; contact me if you want the reference):

-Fat studies: interdisciplinary; primary focus on identification/elimination of bias based on body weight, shape and size; deconstructs and critiques research related to weight and obesity; challenges cultural and political meanings ascribed to the fat body; challenges medical models that pathologize fat and prescribe weight-loss as a means of attaining health; weight/size bias combined with oppression based on other areas of difference such as gender, race, social class, and sexual identity

-Fat bias in the dominant culture:

• Research related to systemic fat/size discrimination is less common, but no less valid, than findings that continue to report ongoing oppression in race and gender
• Discrimination evident in hiring, wages, promotion, employment termination, delays in obtaining necessary healthcare, ability to obtain health care coverage, acceptance to college, parental financial support for college
• Similar pattern of discrimination (but more research needed) in public accommodations, jury selection, housing, adoption, representation of overweight participants in research
• Stereotypes of people perceived as overweight: lazy, less conscientious, less competent, sloppy, disagreeable, emotionally unstable, slower, poor attendance records, stupid, and worthless
  • These stereotypes are based simply on appearance or perception and are unrelated to actual health

-Dominant culture belief that being fat is a moral choice related to a lack of discipline: if fat people simply ate less and exercised more, they would lose weight and thus not have to experience the stigma and shame of being fat

-Losing/regaining weight can be more physically damaging to people than remaining at higher weights

-Counselors must challenge their own biases and assumptions about fat clients and presumptions of weight loss to promote genuine emotional and physical health, regardless of size

-Health at Every Size: a fast-growing approach that work to separate the issue of size and health

-Fatosphere: fat blogosphere

-My main question at the end of the presentation was: how do fat studies address the issues of food desserts, cheap unhealthy food, and the intersection of those with class and SES? What about the politics of safe public spaces, gentrification, etc?

This is a fabulous article I ran across the next day after my class; I love it:

Let’s Talk About Thin Privilege

Fatness brings up a lot of emotions for me. My mom gave my sister and I a lot of training around the “right” body shape and size, even while also trying to help us love our bodies “no matter what.” From my public health education, I have been acculturated to medicalize bodies: obesity=bad for health. I have my own body image stuff, which has been at times both exacerbated and soothed by comparing myself to movie stars, models in magazines, my friends, stripping, and being in an open relationship (and being more exposed to naked bodies). 

J and I have had a number of conversations, and sometimes with other people, that attempt to delineate the difference between discrimination against certain body types/shapes/sizes and preference/attraction/chemistry. There is clearly a difference to me and it feels quite different. However, I have seen the two conflated very unattractively in open spaces. For instance, I know that our swingers’ clubs attract a wide variety of people, and I am glad that the spaces are relatively inclusive. But when I meet people who disparage fat people and their presence at our clubs and then cloak that sentiment in “well I don’t want to go somewhere where I’m just not attracted to the people,” my social (in)justice radar goes nuts. Just say it: you don’t like fat people. Or, when J and I were socializing with a couple at a club, J asked the guy if he and his partner have a “type.” He responded simply with “thin people.” Why? I’m guessing because, for him, “thin people” connotes other positive qualities: good, healthy, smart, hardworking, etc. 

Want to test your own implicit attitudes toward fat people and thin people? Take the Implicit Association Test! You can take the test on myriad other categories of people, too. My own results: moderate preference for thin people. (I wonder when they’ll add a category for alternative relationship structures?)

AAMFT Conference: Day 1

I had the opportunity to attend the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (AAMFT) annual conference- it was pretty convenient given it is in Portland this year 🙂

I was most excited about today, because my events included:
A workshop on Sexuality in Family Therapy
A discussion on LGBTQ youth
And a workshop on Plural Families

Tomorrow includes a workshop on treating children with trauma and how to treat couples where abuse has occurred.

So many things to say!

1. Sexuality in Family Therapy: The facilitators of the workshop conducted research on therapist attitudes toward client perceived sexual problems (presenting as a sex addict) based on whether the client was monogamous or in an open marriage and a man or a woman. Participants in the study in which they read one vignette; the four possible vignettes only differed in the gender of the client and the relationship style. Women in open marriages were rated most negatively and pathologized the most, meaning that therapists were most likely to refer a woman in an open marriage for treatment and to label her sexual behaviors as problematic. Next worst were men in open marriages. Next were men in monogamous marriages. Women in monogamous marriages were rated least negatively (least likely to have their behaviors labeled as problematic). My takeaway: our society still very much pathologizes and demonizes female sexuality. Promiscuous women=bad news. Promiscuous men? Bad, but expected. Monogamous women? Virtuous.

The presenters also discussed the issue of including children and teenagers as part of family therapy, even when issues of sexuality needs to be discussed- of course, in age-appropriate, developmentally-appropriate ways. Also, therapists must be aware of their own reservations or issues around sexuality so that they can best serve their clients by using explicit language, calm demeanor, and engage in frank conversation about sexuality and sex. (I think I will be okay regarding that!)

2. LGBTQ & Youth: We talked a lot about queer therapists self-disclosing their queer identity to queer clients. Is it appropriate? When? What are the effects of self-disclosure? Also: why aren’t queer issues a bigger part of the AAMFT conference? Why aren’t queer issues given a workshop space or a keynote address??

3. Plural Families: I was so jazzed for this one, because I thought for sure it would be addressing polyamorous families. Wrong! The presenters intentionally stayed away from polyamory, and instead focused on polygamous and plural marriages. It was still super interesting, and when I asked the presenters why they chose to focus on polygamy and didn’t include polyamory, their reasoning was that they didn’t want to just lump all of these alternative relationship structures together and ultimately do a disservice to both. That made sense to me. There was also some good discussion that I participated in about ensuring that therapists do not collude with polynormativity and remembering that poly relationships come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. I also talked to one of the presenters after the workshop, and she works with people in poly relationships, people in the BDSM community, and trans* folks. So awesome!!! She told me there are only a handful of loud and proud marriage and family therapists serving those communities. I’m excited to join the ranks! They handed out some fabulous resources. The following one is my favorite; I can’t believe I hadn’t run across it before!! Cory Davis made a monogamy privilege questionnaire, akin to Peggy McIntosh’s Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack targeted toward discovering white privilege. It’s fabulous: Monogamous Privilege Checklist.

In fact, I am just going to copy and paste it here as well:

For the purposes of this list, I will refer to one’s position on the diagram of monogamy vs. various types of non-monogamy (polyamory, open marriage, swinging, religious polygyny, etc.) as simply “relationship orientation”.

Note that for the purposes of this list, “relationship orientation” does NOT refer to one’s sexual orientation re: the Kinsey scale (heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, etc.). Monogamous individuals who are LGBTQ and/or in interracial and/or intergenerational romantic relationships may well be exempt from some (though not all) of these privileges, especially those marked with an asterisk at the end.
Monogamous Privilege Checklist:
1) I can legally marry whomever I wish, with all the legal, medical, and financial benefits of marriage universally recognized for me and my family no matter where I live.*
2) I am not accused of being abused, warped, immoral, unethical, or psychologically confused because of my relationship orientation.
3) No one ever questions the validity of my love because of my relationship orientation.
4) It is not assumed based on my relationship orientation that I or any of my former or current partners has been misled, coerced, manipulated, or used in any way.
5) No one argues that my relationship orientation is impractical, unstable, incompatible with commitment, or otherwise effectively impossible to realize. No one argues that my relationship orientation works better in theory than in practice.
6) It is not assumed that my life must be overly-complicated because of my relationship orientation.
7) No one tries to convert me to their relationship orientation.
8 It is not assumed that I will switch relationship orientations as soon as I find the “right” person.
9) It is not generally understood that I am unfit to raise children because of my relationship orientation.
10) I can feel certain that my government will not suddenly remove my children to a foster home based on my relationship orientation.
11) As a responsible and loving parent, I won’t lose my children in a custody battle because of my relationship orientation.
12) As a responsible and loving adult, I can adopt children without lying about my relationship orientation.
13) I can be certain that my children won’t be harassed because of my relationship orientation.
14) My children are given texts and information at school that validates my family structure – two parents with kids, two sets of grandparents, etc.
15) It is not assumed based on my relationship orientation that my children are/were raised in an unstable environment.
16) No one assumes or speculates based on my relationship orientation that my children experience or ever will experience emotional, psychological, social, or behavioral problems.
17) I do not have to explain my relationship orientation to strangers whenever it comes up.
18) People don’t ask why I made my choice of relationship orientation.
19) People don’t ask why I made my choice to be public about my relationship orientation.
20) I don’t have to defend my relationship orientation.
21) I am not identified, categorized or grouped by my relationship orientation.
22) I am never asked to speak for everyone who shares my relationship orientation.
23) My individual behavior is not thought to reflect on all persons who identify with my relationship orientation.
24) If a romantic relationship of mine ends, no one blames my relationship orientation.
25) I can be sure that all of my roommates, classmates, and coworkers will be comfortable with my relationship orientation.
26) When I talk about my monogamy (such as in a joke or talking about my relationships), I am never accused of pushing my relationship orientation onto others.
27) I do not have to fear revealing my relationship orientation to friends or family. It’s assumed.
28) I do not have to fear that if my family, friends, or professional community find out about my relationship orientation there will be economic, emotional, physical, or psychological consequences for me or for others.
29) I can run for political office without expecting that my relationship orientation will disqualify me.
30) I can depart from most meetings, classes, and conversations without feeling fearful, excluded, isolated, attacked, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, stereotyped or feared because of my relationship orientation.
31) I can date whomever I wish, regardless of whether or not they previously identified with my relationship orientation, without fear that my new partner will be shunned by their friends and family due to their choice to embark upon a relationship with someone of my relationship orientation.
32) I am guaranteed to find people of my relationship orientation represented in my workplace.
33) I can be sure that my classes/courses/training will require curricular materials that testify to the existence of people with my relationship orientation.
34) I can easily find a religious community that will not exclude me based on my relationship orientation.
35) I am guaranteed to find sex education literature for people with my relationship orientation.
36) I can count on finding a therapist or doctor who will recognize my relationship orientation as valid, should I seek their services.
37) I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help my relationship orientation will not work against me.
38) Public hand-holding with my love is seen as acceptable and endearing. I can walk in public with my partner and not have people stare or do a double-take.*
39) I can choose not to think politically about my relationship orientation.
40) I can remain oblivious to the language and culture of other relationship orientations (i.e. polyamory, swinging, etc.) without paying any penalty for such obliviousness.
41) Even if I am oblivious about other relationship orientations, my culture affords me the privilege of judging those orientations and being an authoritative source of relationship advice because I am monogamous. This is especially true if I am a therapist, researcher, media darling, or other authority figure.
42) In everyday conversation, the language my friends and I use generally assumes my relationship orientation. For example, “family” meaning monogamous relationships with children.
43) Nobody calls me monogamous with malice.
44) I am not asked to think about why I am monogamous.
45) Society encourages me to marry and celebrates my commitment.*
46) My relationship orientation is commonly represented in music, television, movies, books, magazines, greeting cards, and postcards.
47) Major, mainstream social networking websites such as Facebook allow me to set my relationship status according to my relationship orientation.
48) I can go to relationship and dating events (i.e. singles events, relationship skills workshops) secure in the knowledge that my relationship orientation will be the standard and will be catered to.
49) I never need to change pronouns when describing the events of my life in order to protect my job, my family, or my friendships.*
50) If I’m a teenager, I can enjoy dating, first loves, and all the social approval of learning to love appropriately within my relationship orientation.*
51) If I’m called to work with children or to serve God (in most denominations), I don’t have to lie about my relationship orientation in order to keep my job.
52) I can count on my community of friends, acquaintances, strangers, and various institutions to celebrate my love and my family, mourn my losses, and support my relationships.*
53) It is not assumed merely because of my relationship orientation that I am experienced in sex (or that I even have it at all!).
54) It is not assumed that I am inclined toward my relationship orientation purely for sexual reasons.
55) It is not assumed based on my relationship orientation that I am more likely than average to have STIs.
56) It is not assumed based on my relationship orientation that I am unaware of the risks posed by my sexual behavior.
57) I am not assumed based on my relationship orientation to be sexually indiscriminate.
58) I do not have to deal with the language and culture of my relationship orientation being co-opted, redefined, and demonized by an unfriendly majority which controls the media.
59) No one ever calls my relationship orientation “creepy” or “disturbing”.
60) I can befriend people without them and/or their romantic partners assuming that I am trying to convert them to my relationship orientation.
61) No one takes issue with their children being around me based on my relationship orientation.
62) I can be fairly certain that anyone who is in a committed, romantic relationship with me will also be invited to most parties, weddings, and other social events to which I am invited.*
63) No one makes assumptions about my political views or religious beliefs based on my relationship orientation.
64) No one refers to my relationship orientation by the wrong term or label, either intentionally or inadvertently.
65) I do not have to coin or invent terms to describe my relationship orientation and familial connections to others, because the language describing my relationship orientation already exists and is known throughout the culture.
66) No one ever ridicules or makes jokes about the terminology that people with my relationship orientation commonly use to describe their relationship structures and familial connections.

Breaking Through, Being Out in Politics, & Microaggressions

J and I went to one film from the Portland Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, “Breaking Through,” and it was really fabulous. It was about politicians and public figures who are out. There were a number of gay men and lesbians in the film, as well as one transgender and one bisexual. The point of the film, the filmmaker said, was to inspire hope in LGBTQ people of all ages (but mainly youth) that things can be better. It was inspirational and really well done. I found myself tearing up a number of times at the stories and experiences described. 

It was an important thing for me to attend because I had just gone through the whole day falling apart (which J can attest to). What am I doing? Do I really want to be a therapist? Is this a workable plan? Can I fully be myself and do this as a job? If it’s not this, what do I want to do?

Attending the screening was like the universe’s way of saying: Breathe. Be Yourself. Do What You Want. That’s basically how the filmmaker introduced the film: to anyone living on the margins of society, live authentically to live a joyous life. I almost started crying (again) right then.

So I really can’t say enough good things about the film, except there’s always something 😛

While I thought every person in the film was well-intentioned with their comments and articulations of their experiences, there was one sentence, that once I heard it, I had difficult truly experiencing the rest of the film.

Kate Brown, Oregon’s Secretary of State and bisexual, was recalling the story of how one constituent asked her about being bisexual and what that meant (something along those lines). In response she said something like, Well I’ll tell you that I am monogamous and that’s more than the rest of the guys [politicians] around here could tell you! It was meant to be funny, and many people in the audience laughed.

A microaggression is a brief and subtle way of indicating hostility toward a group and asserting power and privilege over that group. Microaggressions come in many forms:
Women are just emotional.
You know your life will be hard if you are gay, right?
I can’t believe you speak English so well! [to an ethnic minority]
Or, like what my first therapist told me (several times) in response to hearing about our open relationship: You know he (J) could leave you if he met someone else, right?

Kate Brown, although well-intentioned, committed a microaggression (or maybe she did intend it). I think the most common stereotype of bisexual people is that they “all are nonmonogamous” and I could see her wanting to ward off any further stigma. In fact, when J and I introduced ourselves and J asked her a question about the experience of being out as bi but in a straight marriage, she again reiterated “but I am monogamous.” In person, it felt like information (albeit not relevant to the conversation we were trying to have); in the film, it was an aggression toward people who practice nonmonogamy.

Although I do think her statement was made in the context of highlighting cheating/unethical nonmonogamy, she still asserted monogamy as the moral and social preference over not being monogamous. It was difficult for me, from this point in the film on, to remember the filmmaker’s introduction: that this film, while made for the LGBTQ community, was meant to inspire anyone living on society’s margins to live authentically and out.

J and I are going to write to Kate Brown (of course we are!) and just tell her how her comment impacted us.

Social Justice & Polyamory Update

I used the power of Reddit to address the recent post I wrote on social justice and polyamory (and dancing). Luckily for all of us, there are smart people out there on the interwebs…

Some excellent points made were:

-Polyamory is a Western framing of ethical nonmonogamy. I remember reading Sex at Dawn and being amazed at the descriptions of cultures where people aren’t sexual property of others, where children are raised communally, and where patriarchy doesn’t dictate women’s bodies. Ethical nonmonogamy has and does exist among many different human cultures, although it may go by different names, have different motivations, and have different forms and practices. Polyamory, though, is a relatively new and certainly Western concept, and thus will fail to capture people in the US and around the world who practice something similar and do not call it the same thing.

[An aside: I also think the term “polyamory,” its definition, and its history still try to subvert mainstream meaning by tying “love” to “sex.” “Well yes, we can have multiple sexual relationships but these relationships are also about love.” Inherently, this discourse shows the attempts in Western history of separating body from heart, of separating dirty sex from pure love, and tries to placate the Puritans still alive that we polyamorists do indeed have love in mind in having multiple relationships.]

-Perhaps the reason that the polyamorous culture looks so homogenous in terms of class and race is because the people that can afford to be out are those with the most privilege (white, middle to upper class)- thus, people engaging in multiple, intimate relationships who are also minorities in other ways (race, class, etc) may be far less able to come out to their families, employers/employees/coworkers, neighbors, and broader communities. I think this is an excellent point (and in fact reminds me of some reading I did recently in which it was mentioned that for many LGBTQ individuals with multiple minority identities, it is sometimes a better approach to not come out as LGBTQ, in order to protect the relationships and communities they already have. I think the same could certainly apply to people with open/ethically nonmonogamous/polyamorous relationships. In fact, conversations in the Facebook group I am part of has shown the diversity in opinions on this topic, and depicts how coming out is a very individual decision dependent on many factors, including diverse community identification and cultural ties.)

-I haven’t yet had the opportunity to read this article (The privilege of perversities: race, class and education among polyamorists and kinksters), but it looks pretty delicious. Thank you to the redditor who posted it. I am excited to read it!