polypolitics

November 2004

Dear -------,

……..

I want to tell you about why, in my world, the push to= forge relationships and trust not based in sexual exclusivity and possession is deeply connected to the notions of liberation and freedom from coercion that also define my experience of trans politics and anti-capitalism, queer resistance and feminism. Hmmm= …where to start….

Okay, I guess I should start with the basic theory of = the kind of open relationships that I’m trying to have with people. The vision I have is to have relationships that are not based on sexual exclusivity, so, to get away from the one of the most repeated dramas in our culture—catching your wife/boyfriend/girlfriend in bed with someone else, and that meaning that “its over” and everything was a lie etc. etc. the rev= erse side of that coin is that if the person is being sexually exclusive with yo= u, it means something, like that there is some kind of trust. As a jealous person, I’m interested in building trust with people that does not hinge on sexual exclusivity, because part of my jealousy, and maybe part of the jealously implied in the cultural drama I spelled out above, is that desire always exceeds any container, and we all know that from experiencing our own desire. No matter how much we= love and want and adore and are hot for our partners, we all experience desire outside that dyad, and the myth of romance (one person out there for each of us, find them, love them, buy things with them and you’ll be happy forever), which we’re all drilled with from birth til death, makes this knowledge terribly threatening. So the point, for me, becomes recognizing that desire exceeds that package, recognizing that commitment a= nd love and interest in someone else’s well being does not necessarily include a deadening of all sexual desire for other people, and trying to unlearn the belief that it does and create relationships based on deeper and more real notions of trust. S= o that love or like or whatever becomes defined not by sexual exclusivity, but by = actual respect, concern, commitment to act with kind intentions, accountability for our actions, and a desire for mutual growth.

Given that picture, I think= its easy to start seeing where it fits within the quee= r, trans, feminist, anti-capitalist, anti-oppression politics that most of my personal and political practice focus on.&= nbsp; I guess, to start, I’m always heartened to think about the anti-romantic propaganda of the 70’s feminist movement. Did you ever see any of this? One = that comes to mind is a poster that was a photo of a man and a woman walking han= d in hand through a park on a beautiful fall day with pies shoved on both their faces and text saying something about killing the romance myth below them.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> As you know, I have several very p= ulpy flexible strong romantic bones in my body, but I’m delighted by this sentiment (especially in light of recent claims to het= eronormative family structure and traditional symbols and ceremonies of heterosexual ‘love’ by the gay marriage proponents). It was a relief to me to fin= d out in my teens that there were feminists waging a critique of romance—se= eing how the myth of hetero monogamous romance lined up to fuck women over, to create a cultural incentive to enter the property arrangements of marriage,= to place them in a subordinated position in the romantic dyad, to define their worth solely in terms of success at finding and keeping a romance, to brain= wash them to spend all their time measuring themselves against this norm and wor= king to change their bodies, behaviors, and activities to meet the requirements = of being attractive to men and suitable for romance. I see this as both personally dama= ging to people, in how it creates unrealistic expectations about ourselves and e= ach other and causes us to constantly experience insecurity, and also political= ly damaging because it’s a giant distraction from our resistance and it divides us (especially based on the fucked up self-ful= lfilling stereotypes about women competing with each other). It’s important, I think, to = have a critique of this that looks at how damaging it is to us in our personal liv= es, and how it is designed to fuel social arrangements, codified in law, that were invented to subordinate women and make = them the property of men.

I also think about this in = terms of capitalism in the sense that capitalism is always pushing us toward perfect= ion, creating ideas of the right way to be a man or woman or mother or date or whatever that people cannot fulfill so that we’ll constantly strive a= nd buy things to fill this giant gap of insecurity that is created. You can never be too rich or too t= hin (greed) or rich enough or thin enough (insecurity). Capitalism is invested, fundamentally, in notions of scarcity, encouraging people to feel they never have enough so that they will act out of greed and hording and focus on accumulation. The romance myt= h is focused on scarcity: there is only one person out there for you!!! you need to find someone to marry before you get too o= ld!!!! The sexual exclusivity rule is focused on scarcity in a really central way: each person only has a certain amount of attention or attraction or love or interest and if any of it goes to someone besides their partner their partn= er must lose out. We don’t generally apply this rule to other relationships—we don’t assume that having two kids means loving the first one less or not at all, or havi= ng more than one friend means being a bad or fake or less interested friend, b= ut we apply it to sex and romance.

I think this gets to another central point for me. I guess= one of the things I see myself doing in thinking about this stuff is examining = how lots of people I know are really awesome and then show their worst side, th= eir worst behavior, to the person they date.&n= bsp; To that person, they will be overly needy or dependent, or dominatin= g, or possessive, or jealous, or mean, or disrespectful or thoughtless. I have seen that tendency in mysel= f as well. It makes sense to me, s= ince so much insecurity surrounds the romance myth and the world of shame in whi= ch sexuality is couched in our culture, we can become our monstrous selves in those relationships. I also s= ee people prioritizing those relationships over all else, ditching their frien= ds, putting all their emotional eggs in one basket and creating unhealthy dynam= ics with their dates that way. So= I think one of the goals that comes out of this is to try to treat the people= I date more like I treat my friends in the sense of trying to be respectful, thoughtful, have boundaries and reasonable expectations, etc, and to try to treat my friends more like my dates in the sense that I give them special attention, honor my commitments to them, be consistent, invest deeply in our futures together. I think in = the queer communities I’m in, that value is a really big deal, often comi= ng out of the fact that lots of people don’t have family support, and th= at we are all interested in resisting the heteronormative= family structure in which people are expected to form a dyad, marry, have k= ids, and get all their needs met within that family structure. I think a lot of us see that as unhealthy, and as a new technology of post-industrial late capitalism that = is connected to alienating people from community and training them to think in terms of individuality or the smaller unit of the nuclear family rather than the extended family. So questioning how the status and accompanying behavior norms are different for how we treat our friends and our dates, and trying to bring those into bala= nce, starts to support our work of creating chosen families and of resisting the annihilation of community that capitalism seeks.

A coupl= e more things. One thing worth putting in here is why I think that polyamory i= s such a hot topic in trans communities I’m in now. I think that its part of= the magic of trans experience. People loosen ties to the gender b= inary, our ideas about being proper men and women loosen, our previously strict id= eas about our own genders fall away and often, at the same time, we become more= experimental with gender and sexual orientation. So people who’ve always seen themselves in a very particular r= ole, like, say, butch lesbian, and are now questioning that gender association a= nd starting to disconnect biology from gender and think about gender expression more fluidly, might find themselves interested in experimenting with having= sex with people of different genders as well.&= nbsp; I’ve seen a lot of people who transitioned from lesbian identi= ty to trans man or trans masculine identities want = to experiment with fag identity, screw other trans people or non-trans men, etc. I think a part of this is beginning to feel new resistant threads of queer sex in new ways—seei= ng your body in new ways and feeling like you can do more things with it and decide what they mean to you. This is certainly not true for all trans people, but = I have seen it for lots. Also, I thi= nk that for people living on the outskirts of traditional gender, being percei= ved as different genders at different times and coming to find out how subjecti= ve gender assignment is and how fleeting membership in any gender role can be, it can generate new feelings of experimentation, increased independence, and pleasure. Suddenly this thing= that is a given in our culture—that all people are male or female their wh= ole lives from their toes to their heads—falls away when some people perc= eive you as a woman and others as a man and when gender starts to come apart in pieces: hair, chest, clothing, walk, voice, gesture, etc. For some people, too, sex is a maj= or place where gender roles get confirmed, and having sex with people and havi= ng them perceive you and treat you according to gender roles you are expressin= g, can be a really wonderful feeling, and for people who are experimenting with gender it may mean wanting to experiment with having different kinds of sex with different kinds of people.

In the communities I’= m in, this has resulted in lots of interesting discussions. For couples where one person is beginning to identify as trans, it can me recognizing that the two members = of the couple can have sexual orientation identifications that don’t dep= end on the gender of the other partner, like a couple where the non-trans woman identifies as a lesbian and a femme and her trans boyfriend identifies as a fag. For some people, too, th= is has encouraged them to open their relationships so everyone can get the experimentation they want and they can keep being together in the ways that work for them that they really love. For other people I know, who don’t have a primary partner, polyamory means getting to be pe= rvy and dirty with all the people who appeal to them without having to be judge= d or considered a ‘player’ or a liar. For people raised as women, I thin= k this can be incredibly important. = We are raised to think that sexual pleasure is not for us, that to seek out pleasu= re is to be a slut, that we are less sexual than men, that sex is a service you give to attain commitment and family structure from men. Moving past that, owning sexual pl= easure and being allowed to seek it out, is a radical act for everyone in our sham= eful culture, but particularly for people raised as women and told to be sexy (f= or others to consume) but not pleasure-seeking. Radical pro-sex feminists carved o= ut these ideas in the 1980’s, and I see that echoed in the desire of the communities I’m in to embrace sexual freedom and experimentation.

This is= sue of experimentation and different kinds of affirmation that come from sex also = go to our politics about identity.&nbs= p; Shitty liberal culture tells us to be blind to differences amongst people, and stupid romance myths tell us love is blind. But for folks who have radical pol= itics, and recognize that identity is a major vector of privilege and oppression, = we know that love and sex and culture are not blind to difference, and that it plays a major role in sex and romance and family structure. We also understand that experienci= ng and acknowledging the identities we live in and are perceived in is important, and finding community with other people lik= e us can be empowering and healing. For that reason, a lot of us may want to experiment in those ways too—lik= e we may be in a relationship we are super into, but then want to have an experi= ence outside that relationship with someone who shares a characteristic with us = our partner doesn’t in terms of race, language, age, class background, ability or something else. Our radical politics tell us we don’t have to pretend that those things don’t matter, and that we can honor the different connections we get = to have with people based on shared or different identity. If we love our partners and friend= s, it makes sense that we want them to have experiences that are affirming or important for them in those ways, and not let rules of sexual exclusivity m= ake us into barriers for each other’s personal development.

A lot of the things I’= ;m writing here, to me, go to the basic notion of what we think loving other people is about. Is it about possessing them, finding security in them, having all our needs met by them= , being able to treat them in any way and having them stick around? I hope not. What I hope that love is—pla= tonic, romantic, familial, communal, etc., is the sincere wish that another person have what they need to be whole and develop themselves to their best capaci= ty for joy or something. I think= that is what this is about.

Despite all of what is abov= e, I also have serious concerns about the push for polyamor= y amongst my friends. Sometimes= I see it emerging as a new sexual norm, and a basis for judgment and coercion. In some circles I’m in, it h= as become the only ‘radical’ way to be sexual, and those who partn= er monogamously, or just don’t get it on a lot, are judged. I also see, perhaps more frequentl= y, the poly norm causing people to harshly judge themselves when feelings of jealo= usy come up. Having any feelings = at all, and especially admitting them, is so discouraged in our culture. We are encouraged to be alienated = from ourselves and others, cure ourselves of bad feelings through medication and ‘retail therapy,’ and made to expect that perfection and total happiness are the norm while anything other than that is some kind of perso= nal failure or chemical imbalance. This results in a lot of repressed feelings.&nb= sp; I think many people in the communities I’m in, especially peop= le who have lived through sexual violence and people raised as women in our rape culture, have a hard enough time identifying for ourselves what is okay wit= h us when it comes to sex, what we want, what is a violation, what our real feel= ings are, and feeling entitled to express them.= We certainly don’t need more messages that tell us that our feelings related to sex and safety are wrong.

I’ve been disturbed t= o see dynamics emerge where people create the new poly norm, and hate themselves = if they cannot live up to it—if they are not perfect at being non-jealou= s, non-threatened and totally delighted by their partners’ exploits immediately. I have felt this= way myself. Frustrated at how my intellect can embrace this approach to sex and= yet my emotional reaction is enormous and undeniably negative. At some times, this has become for= me a new unachievable perfection I use to torture myself, embarrassed even to ad= mit to friends how awful I feel when overcome by jealousy, and becoming increasingly distant from partners as I try to hide these shameful and overwhelming feelings.

This doesn’t seem lik= e the radical and revolutionary practice I hoped for. In fact, it feels all too familiar= , like the other traumas of growing up under capitalism—alienation from myse= lf and others, constant insecurity and distrust and fear, self-hatred and doubt and inadequacy. I do not have= a resolution for this dilemma. = I only have hopes, for myself and others, and lots of questions. How do I recognize the inadequacy = of the romance myth, while acknowledging its deep roots in my emotional life? How do I balance my intellectual understandings with my deep-seated emotional habits/expectations? It seems like the best answer to a= ll of this is to move forward as we do in the rest of our activism, carefully and slowly, based on our clearest principles, with trust and a willingness to m= ake mistakes.

One thing I have figured ou= t for myself in the past few years is that this is really a pretty slow process f= or me. Whenever I’ve tried= to dive into polyamory with various partners fast, I’ve felt terrible and often ended up losing my ability to be with th= em because of how awful I’ve felt about my own jealousy. I hate the feeling of having a dou= ble standard and being a monster. So now I’m trying to figure out how to have relationships that are not b= ased on sexual exclusivity, but also where I can be comfortable admitting what is going on for me and not pushing myself to be somewhere I’m not—going slow enough to figure out what works and what doesn’t= . It’s not easy and it’s= still pretty mysterious to me. ----= and I were both dating other people when we started da= ting, and since those relationships ended, we haven’t dated other people. It is important to both of us that= our relationship be open in the sense that kissing someone else not be a deal-breaker, and also that we agree to talk about the things that happen a= nd be really thoughtful about the other person’s feelings. My big focus = in this is trying to be honest and clear and kind to myself and to them and an= yone else I make out with. I’= ;m not sure what all that will look like as time goes by.

Sometimes while I ride the = subway I try to look at each person and imagine what they look like to someone who is totally in love with them. Ev= eryone has had someone look at them that way, whether they knew it or not. It’s a wonderful thing, to l= ook at someone to whom I would never be attracted, and think about what it feels l= ike to someone who is devouring every part of their image, who has invisible st= rings tied to every part of their body connected to this person. I think some different version of = this is what Buddhists call cultivating compassion. It feels good to think about peopl= e that way, and to use that part of my mind that I think is traditionally reserved= for a tiny portion of people I’ll meet in my life to appreciate the gener= al public. I wish I did it more often. I think it’s the opposite of what our culture teaches us to do---picking people apart to find their flaws. I also believe t= hat cultivating these feelings for random people, and even for people I don’t like, <= span class=3DGramE>makes me a more forgiving and appreciative person towa= rd myself and people I love. Als= o, its just a really excellent pastime.