More Than A Couple of Things To Say About Coupling

Once the calendar turns to February, many people see all the heart-shaped candy in stores and either get super-romantical, or depressed. But there are other ways to approach this holiday; this article by Maria Padhila originally published Feb. 16, 2013. — Amanda

By Maria Padhila

Valentine’s Day makes people insane. I’m sitting here watching it first-hand. I’m trying to work on a laptop computer in the anteroom of the dance studio, where there are long lunch tables for parents with electronic devices, kids having snacks, and both doing homework, while behind long banks of glass windows are the studios.

Poly Paradise at Burning Man. Photo by Eric.

The place is designed so you can watch your child at all times if you like, and that’s pretty legit. There are two other things I really like about this studio: they’re open to children with all kinds of learning and developmental disabilities (they have a lot of specialists and therapists on staff), and they’re rigorous about not enforcing body size or shape standards. Come as you are is the rule, and we’ll all work with it.

As a result, most of the kids seem to fall into an average body size range. Isn’t it strange how these things can fall into place when you stop worrying about it? But there’s something to be said that most of them get healthful, regular meals, largely organic, I’m betting; good medical care; and lots of exercise. Lucky girls.

Anyway, there’s a lot of noise and running and playing, but that doesn’t bother me, and usually I can work through it with no problem, but on this Valentine’s Day it’s a freaking zoo. Screaming, flouncing, sulking, even pushing furniture around, all ages, 2 to 14.

After an hour of this, I’m wondering what the hell is up, and then I remember what day it is. The majority are probably on a sugar high, and anyone who’s not is on a love jones. Insane. Blame the holiday!

I ignore major holidays like Christmas and even Halloween some years. I know that ignoring Valentine’s Day amounts to criminal negligence for a writer about relationships, but it’s just so boring. However, few other writers were similarly inclined to let the occasion go by unnoted.

The first thing I read this morning was something I’m not even going to bother to link to, about how painful it is to break up in the age of social media. The writer had collected all kinds of quotes from young ladies who claimed they were just starting to get over it… when… his name popped up in their Facebook feed, either solo or going out with someone else. A few of them even said they had gone off social media so they could avoid even seeing any mention of the former flame.

Now there are a couple things mono-folk do that puzzle me. Can anyone out there explain if it really is common practice among the monogamous to demand that anyone you break up with vanish from the face of the Earth?

Yeah, I didn’t think so. But why are some people so incensed that those they have left behind apparently continue to live an independent life?

There seems to be a whole rulebook I missed. First, when you break up, the other person must cease to exist. Second, they are not “allowed” to date anyone else. Third, someone you used to go out with — even someone you were sort of interested in — is not allowed to go out with anyone you know. Fourth, a friend never goes out with someone another friend used to go out with or be in any way interested in.

I know it’s a big world, but if monos carry on that way too often, y’all are just going to run out of people to get with. Six degrees and all, you know? As much as I hate to do the mono-bash, these kinds of rules just seem insecure and disrespectful of everyone’s autonomy. End of bash.

In the Valentine’s Day madness, of course, some piped up to say, hey, not being coupled up is not so bad. Several of these spoke up on the potential benefits of poly. The Live Science article boils down to: if you communicate in a relationship, you’ll probably have a good one. Shocking.

CNN wove poly into the basic rundown of how different types of people might spend Valentine’s Day, putting it squarely, so to speak, in the mainstream of the commercial holiday. Polyamory Media Association, representing! The headline put it all out there, too: “From DINKS to polyamory, the guide to how people spend Valentine’s Day.”

“Each of my partners is like those in any monogamous relationships,” said Shara Smith, a representative of the Polyamory Media Association, which provides members of the press with information and spokespeople on how polyamory works. “There’s really no difference between how I feel about my current partners or how we relate to each other. The only difference is I didn’t have to break up with one to start the other.”

Smith, her three male partners and their additional “metamors” are going out for dinner at a nice steakhouse in Tampa, Florida. All told, there will be six of them around the table.

“I don’t personally observe Valentine’s Day, but my partners’ other partners do,” she said. “The holiday’s not important, but making my loved ones feel that I care about them is important.”

Meanwhile, in the alternative press, a piece made the argument that poly marriage will never happen because it’s silly and too complicated and none of us polys are interested in it anyway. The author is a professional dominatrix and introvert who needs time alone.

It’s clear that marriage of any kind, at least at this point in her life, is not for her. I myself would sometimes like to be a professional dominatrix and have some time alone, but I’ve made this here other bed, and now I have to lie in it.

Once again, the twin spectres of aging/sickness and children rise: these are the big reasons to formalize a relationship. The second level of benefits to formalization is about the societal recognition and social mobility. If you have a kid and hold down a ‘straight’ job, you’ll probably be more interested in ways to formalize your relationships.

Can you feel me trying hard not to get huffy about this young’un who appears to assume that she’ll always be that fetching little thing with a whip who’s too cool to ever get knocked up or have to work a square gig? The assumptions of privilege by hipsters are just as insulting as those made by Your Freaky Soccer Mom Correspondent here. One set assumes that everybody has an endless supply of youth, energy, public transportation, coffee and cheap apartments on streets free of bigots; the other, that everybody has time to worry about school meetings, strep throat and getting canned.

There is, however, a very interesting take in the comments: why not form a limited liability partnership (LLP)? This really appeals to me in some ways, but I doubt the instrument as written is flexible enough to work with parental rights.

Another nontraditional VDay take from the alternative press was on asexuality. It intriguingly notes the similarity between asexuality and polyamory: “those who identify as asexual face the same core issue as the polyamorous, distancing their innate orientation from the behavioral choice of celibacy.”

Dan Savage’s remarks on orientation and poly (i.e., that it’s not an orientation) are the takeoff point, but his quotes on masturbation in the article show he’s just as clueless and/or biased about asexuality as he is about poly. That’s OK with me — he’s done a lot of good; not everyone has to be expert about everything.

It would be nice if he’d open up to an expanded definition of orientation. Much of the LGBTQ argument for civil rights — and always the male gay argument for civil rights — is centered on the ‘born that way’ element. And as I’ve said before, I feel arguments about orientation vs. behavior, much less civil rights, are just too early when it comes to poly. I’m still hurting from the LGBTQ struggles; they’re still going on; people are still dying. Do we have to fight now for out polys to keep their kids, too, right this minute? Can we wait until we’ve got the other stuff wrestled to the ground? Guess not.

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17 thoughts on “More Than A Couple of Things To Say About Coupling”

  1. I have a daughter who self-identifies as “asexual.” She does this because, as she made clear, she rarely thinks of sex and masturbation didn’t “do anything” for her (her words). She definitely doesn’t want sex with anyone else but recently she said she does get “horny” (again, her word). Is she asexual? If she thinks she is, she is. That’s where I am at with it. If that changes then it changes but if it doesn’t then she gets to decide about that. Is it a choice? I have no idea but I am not going to make that call; she gets to make it. She even says it may change but for now that’s how she feels. I think she likes the label for now so I am not going to do anything to mess with that or her.

    She also has had a long-time feeling that being a girl wasn’t right for her. She would like to go back to the almost genderless time of pre-puberty; she doesn’t want to be a male or female but pre-pubertal. So her Dad and I offer our acceptance, support and love. We don’t care what she wants to be; we love her (him/it) no matter what. The human s/he is inside is the same no matter what s/he looks like outside.

    Gender and sexuality IS fluid and as parents of a minor child and young adults, we just let our kids decide who and what they are. She even says “Maybe I am a two-spirit like the Natives say.” She is sacred to us any way she is as are all our kids.

  2. Eric, thank you so much for doing the research and thinking about people who self-identify as asexual. It’s an interesting issue and I’ve been gradually learning about it.
    My sexual self–what a concept!–is fluid as well, and I don’t like the thought of having an identity card of any kind. But if I drive in the city without a license, I’m fuqued, and not in a good way. It seems the only way we can devise to get human rights is to first define ourselves and be “out” as a particular kind of human. Like I said, the orientation argument (vs choice) is the only way gay men have managed to get the civil rights they have. I don’t think pointing to others who have been shut out of those rights, or social acceptance and protections, such as they are, devalues the struggle they made. Getting to be a very married gay guy might not be everyone’s goal, but I’m still happy for thems that fought for it and got it.

  3. Maria, I was tempted to spill my guts about breaking up and social media, but I am so nearly over it, finally, that I don’t want to open that can of tuna.

    Yay for your stand for self-sexuality and masturbation, Eric. I’ve been pondering what makes masturbation the most queer or the most shameful way to do sex. I wonder if it is because we are shamed away from it before we know what sex is, before we even know that there are options to have sex with other people.

    Then we get socialized that we are only as loveable and valuable as our Romantic Relationship.

  4. Eric – At one time or another I would/do fit into any one of your very well defined categories. That said, never in my life has it even occurred to me to put any kind of label on the nature of my sexuality or the structure of my intimate relationships, and I would be more than a little irritated if someone tried to categorize me. (Would that be my 9th house Sun conjunct Uranus?). I am sexual, and social, because I am human. Period.

    I believe, as you do, that we are gender fluid, and that over the course of a lifetime, the nature of the sexual/relationship experiences we may have, or wish to have, shifts, as does our taste in music, or food, or sports teams, or socks. And why not?

    To use a different metaphor, our entire bodies are sexual receptors and transmitters. Sometimes they’re tuned to one frequency, sometimes to another, and sometimes they’re receiving or emitting nothing but static, or nothing at all.

    I can enjoy sex whether it’s with myself, my partner or an occasional friend or two – with or without my partner. And sometimes I don’t feel the least bit sexual, and that’s fine too. Taking a break isn’t abnormal. If gender is fluid; so is the libido, and it ebbs and flows. And some people have no libido at all. If they’re content and comfortable with being that way, they shouldn’t be judged, either. It’s their own damn business.

    I don’t give a rat’s ass who someone likes to share sex with or whatever they want to call themselves. All these people waving their sexual ID badges! Mistake. People would be better of learning to just be. The minute you put a label on yourself, you’ve boxed yourself in and created space for personal confusion and discomfort.

    I would love to see society mature enough for the conversation move away from obsessions over specific sexual ‘orientations’ and toward acknowledging the importance, the need and the sheer pleasure of sexual expression, period. I suppose that’s what you mean by ‘behavior.’ The expression of one’s sexuality with or without whomever is on your wavelength. Sex and intimacy are fundamental to emotional and physical well being, and an embrace – even (or especially?) when we’re embracing ‘only’ ourselves – of our humanity.

  5. Here are my revised comments on “asexuality.” I think that the concept is questionable biologically (even eunuchs can be quite horny and have a diversity of sexual feelings) but I accept that’s what some people self-report, and psychology is about a combination of self-reporting and observed behavior.

    Yet the definition of ‘sexual’ is still not understood, and one concept depends on the other. Many things that people say are not sexual actually are; so it’s largely a matter of semantics — that is, of what is and is not included in ‘sexual’. We would need a definition and like anything with sex, that is difficult to arrive at — and it only counts for the present moment. I might be gay today and want women tomorrow.

    Anyway here are my revised comments, included in a blog post for Dodson and Ross.

    Asexual and Non-practicing (apparently there is such a thing as asexual, with 1% of the population reporting this). Having no sexual feelings or not wanting to act on them is as queer as anything else in a world where sex is considered normal. From what I have read in my inbox, they feel left out when the conversation turns to sex and relating. They would do well to find one another and talk about who they are and what they do. There are many reasons for this choice, and we need to consider it as valid as any other.

    That is the whole point. We all have a right to choose who we are and what we want. The core idea is consent: the freedom to say yes or no.

  6. Let’s put it this way. Seeing sex in sectarian or political terms is not a lot better than perceiving it as a moral issue. These things are related – a political approach is an attempt to wrest power back from moralism. But that does not equate to being liberated.

  7. << he’s done a lot of good; not everyone has to be expert about everything. >>

    Maria, this is only true if one shuts up about what one doesn’t know about. If not, it’s possible to spread a lot of disinformation and prejudice and pretty much negate what good one has done.

    Dan started his column as a joke; as a parody (in the Onion) of hetero columnists who give advice to gay people. Given that he is gayer than gay, Mr Married with a kid, I would ask what he really knows about anything he writes except maybe male homosexuality.

    Speaking of corrections, apparently there is such a thing as asexuality, which affects an estimated 1% of the population. I just stumbled upon a documentary on Netflix called (A)Sexual. This seems to be a documented phenomenon. However, the thing is going on and on making many good points except: the subjects keep defining asexuality as no desire for another person. The topic of masturbation has not come up in the vaguest way so far.

    OK second update. The documentary mentions masturbation for about five minutes, then goes back to making no distinction between ‘asexuals’ who are not sexual with themselves and those who are. And we get none other than Dan Savage who gets one three-second line in the film: “If you’re beating off you’re probably not asexual.”

  8. Sarah,

    I understand what you are saying. I didn’t say I wasn’t hurt by the breakups, even the ones I initiated. I was deeply hurt and had to go through various stages of grief but none of those states included the feeling that they should not be able to move on with someone else. Perhaps I am not possessive or whatever (capricious I think you said) or perhaps I wasn’t as attached as I thought I was. Whatever reason, I focused on getting past my own hurt and didn’t really think of the ex and their resumption of life.

    I knew people resume their lives because I had an example of that when my mom divorced; she grieved but went on and was not unhappy or upset when my dad started dating someone else. In her example I saw that getting herself over the relationship was more important than focusing on what the now ex-partner was doing.

    My therapists helped in that as well; each of them said that focusing on the ex only prolongs the eventuality of the severence of the relationship. To keep being involved emotionally with what the ex does only makes me suffer more and makes it take longer to separate and extricate my emotional self from the bonds. These therapists were spot on in that assertion for me. Everyone else’s experience may be different.

  9. I think the dividing line falls not between mono and poly but between whether people take a competitive perspective on relationships or not. It turns out that in theory polyamory is an attempt to make noncompetitive relationships and in practice many organize their relationships like a the playoffs in a softball league.

    This is why I am not poly by the new definition. I am poly by the old definition. The old definition is that you’re an independent person and so is everyone else. Then you do what you want to do in an ethical and transparent way. Part of that ethical way IMO involves honoring independence, sexual choices, and understanding that each of us falls on a continuum with each of our lovers, as they do with us – there are (for nearly everyone) those who ‘came before’ and those who will ‘come after’.

    As for the queer frontier. I would advise that we stop taking our advice about anything from Dan Savage. I could dismantle him applying 5% of my intellectual power for 20 minutes, but I will say this. He is a social conservative, he is a bit dim, he does not admit how angry he is, and he is obsessed with being the trendy trendsetter. After the polyamory columns I would rather sit through the Vagina Monologues every day for a month than read his superficial BS. And yes, in his mind and apparently many of his readers, we shall roll up the drawbridge on queer.

    That is the traditional historical position of politically outspoken Male Homosexuals – the original position before doggie style. Lesbians were not allowed on the gay bus much less the back of the bus until decades into the movement. Bisexual people are still not actually allowed on the bus. LGBTQ is mostly there to be polite. Mostly, not entirely. And it needs an M tacked on – LGBTQM. There are a few people who can do gender queer and really do it honestly. It takes so much self-knowledge, patience for the growth process of others and compersionm (usually offered as tolerance) that it’s usually much easier to Revert.

    All week I’ve been considering a new article called The Queer Frontier. Now that monogamous lesbians and male homosexuals are on the way to full acceptance in society, they have all their credits, they’re just waiting for the committee to sign off on their dissertation (that would be the Supreme Court, coming soon folks, we don’t know what they are gonna say), it’s time to open the discussion that sexuality exists on a three dimensional continuum (not the Kinsey scale), and that every person has a different sexual orientation with every other person.

    That’s not enough for a protest. I cannot march with the “I am hot for Darleen” faction in the Queer Pride parade. But the Queer Pride parade is always in factions. I learned this one year when I was marching with the Masturbation Faction (me and my friend Jenna) and some other faction told me to get away because they didn’t want to be associated with something (though they didn’t say it this way) so queer.

    Anyway – I have some ideas for the Next Frontier of Queer. It will include:

    Self-sexuals, which includes everyone part of the time, and many people much of the time. Many people otherwise engaged sexually have their best sex with themselves. This includes people who choose to be sexual exclusively with themselves; if we were to hear from them we would find out there are a lot more than we thought. My sense is that this is where the real ‘revolution’ – the one that counts – the one about claiming pleasure and releasing guilt and shame – will start or may have already started. More than the revolution, I understand conscious self-sexuality to be an easily accessible, pleasurable, socially interesting path to sexual healing.

    I will say that people are reluctant to speak up and claim this. I may hold the World Internet Record for mentions of masturbation in my articles (as of today, I get 6,060 Google returns on the topic), and I know there are a LOT more people who have something to say – who I have yet to hear from (happily anticipating your arrival). People who choose themselves as a sex partner, whether ‘one on one’ or in the context of other sexual relationships, have the right to not feel shame about this, and we need to educate one another how to do this.

    I took a little surf of my 6,060 Google hits and found this quote, apropos of self-sexuality:

    ‘I would propose that masturbation is about a lot more than masturbation — and that’s the reason it’s still considered so taboo by many people, and in many places. First, I would say that masturbation holds the key to all sexuality. It’s a kind of proto-sexuality, the core of the matter of what it means to be sexual. I mean this in an existential sense. Masturbation is the most elemental form of sexuality, requiring only awareness and a body. Whatever we experience when we go there is what we bring into our sexual encounters with others — whether we recognize it or not. Many factors contribute to obscuring this simple fact.’

    Single people. Not poly. Not mono. Not cheating. Not ‘asexual’. Single – those whose primary partner is ‘perself’ to use a Marge Piercy word for ‘him or herself’. Single people are discriminated against structurally by everything from the tax code to the dentist office application to you name it. They are often considered a threat to the sanctity of coupled people. I could go on and on. Check out a blog called Onely.org for more info.

    Bisexuals and gender fluid, people whose identity is not fixed and committed like registering with a political party. It’s people in harmony with their diversity of potentials, desires, choices and options for how they can feel and express themselves. When we look carefully at this and at ourselves we will find out that many, many more people fit this description than the previously existing political parties ‘allow’. Gender IS fluid. The sex organs secrete liquid, in case we need a metaphor.

    Polyamory and nontraditional forms of relationships, which includes most people some of the time and nearly all people at some point. This is starting to happen though I am sure that at the moment polyamory is at a loss for idea-based leadership and coordination, in the midst of its biggest PR boon ever. The press has never been better and we’re not really taking the opportunity. If anyone knows of an interesting polyamory conference, please tell me where to find it.

    Non-practicing (there is no such thing as asexual), who from what I have read in my inbox feel left out when the conversation turns to sex and relating. Non-practicing people would do well to find one another and talk about who they are and what they do. There are many reasons for this choice, and sometimes it’s not a choice – and those need to be understood with some clarity; this will take some intellectual and social focus. A good first step would be non-practicing people writing about why they do what they do, so they can share that information and the rest of us can find out.

  10. “Breaking up (whether one initiates or is the recipient of it) is not a reflection of one’s worthiness. It is about incompatibility, that’s all.”

    Rationally, that makes complete sense, carecare. However, we are subject to the irrational forces of our emotions, and no matter how many times we might justify to ourselves that we have no need to hurt, I would say that most of us do – and in a manner that doesn’t bend to reason, and is often childish and capricious. I think unless we can acknowledge and make peace with that side of us, we never reach a state of worthiness.

    There is also a fundamental difference in your attitude to an ex depending on who did the breaking up. If you initiate it, it is often far, far easier to ‘get over them’ – because you already have.

  11. That’s weird to me. I am a “mono” person by nature for the most part and I never got upset if someone I broke up with (or they broke up with me) went out with someone else. When it was over it was over. I only had one break up with me and I knew why; he was Jewish and made it clear he could not get serious with me because I was not. I was bummed but I got over him and it didn’t bother me to see him with someone else. Of all the rest of my breakups, I left them and didn’t care what they did after that. In fact when I was told my ex husband had remarried I was sorry for the woman; he was an abusive asshole and I felt bad that he had found someone else to abuse.

    I guess when I leave them, I really leave them and whatever they do (or whoever they do) after me doesn’t phase me at all. Instead I feel a sense of relief that they have someone else; that means they won’t bother me. I don’t understand that whole control issue thing either or the “I don’t want you but I don’t want anyone else to have you” mindset; WTF is that about? Makes no sense to me at all. When I am done with someone why would I feel bad if they get someone else? Good on them if they do.
    I really think such possessive and controlling behavior is rroted in an immature insecurity that these folks might need to scrutinize.

    Breaking up (whether one initiates or is the recipient of it) is not a reflection of one’s worthiness. It is about incompatibility, that’s all.

  12. Maria: Thank you. You appear to have captured a lot about Valentines Day in a few well chosen words. One thing in particular. All people (regardless of sexual/gender orientation or lifestyle choice) are, in their personal lives, getting further and further ahead of the increasingly ossified institutions and social structures in which many are obliged, often for economic reasons, to operate. That is creating a schism that Nathaniel Hawthorne could write an excellent novel about. Since he is not around to explore and expose, i would propose that there is nobody better than you to pick up the pen and inspire us to shed and shift so that we all can live better lives. May the force of Pluto and Uranus be with you, may the walls come tumbling down.

  13. Justified in calling me out on that. First, I know I’m grumpier and more impatient than usual–nagging physical ills, plus the absolute butthurt of a work situation described last week continues. Not excuse, just to say I know that’s leaking around in all I do right now. Second, I made the big mistakes of generalizing and claiming either mono or poly is “better” at something. As you point out, not true in every case–but I still feel like there are general tendencies, and certainly things we can learn from each other.

    I probably am guilty of growling “walk it off!” a little too often about relationship heartbreak. It would have been better to say: rather than be outraged that someone else doesn’t change their behavior, the people in that article might have been better off spending some time with themselves. Are you mourning the relationship, or some other death, including the death of a hope? Can you tease out the strands of relief and sense of freedom? So, in the end, it really doesn’t matter whether they’re on Facebook with their arm around someone else or not, because you’re always with you; might as well get all you can out of that interesting relationship!

    The specific article I referenced had a lot of that tone of: “why can’t s/he see how it hurts ME that s/he is still out there living life!” to it. I think what bothered me was the sense that there was a set of “natural” breakup rules out there, and that if people didn’t conform to these, they are insensitive jerks. That sense of feeling entitled to remote-control other people. It also quoted almost all 20somethings talking about shorter-term relationships.

    Yeah, these can be intense, and many people think what they have will last forever, but as you’re dating around, I think you’re just setting yourself up for hurt with those kinds of expectations. There are a lot of nice, decent people out there who just might not have the same sensitivity level one of us does (and isn’t it a good thing that we’re not still dating them, because we’d constantly be second-guessing and bruising feelings!).

    The thought of someone sneaking around coming to a party earlier or later than I would, for instance, to avoid “hurting” me by having me see them with someone else–well, that’s the kind of thing that would make me really mad and hurt. Once when I broke up, the guy said “You’re taking this very well,” and I started laughing and asked “how did you think I’d take it?” It just brought home how little he really knew me, so, again, good thing in the end. (I think he was surprised also that I could talk about his interest in another woman, but you know, she’d caught my eye, too, and I couldn’t blame him.)

    So that’s a pretty individual experience I ought not to generalize from.
    And this crowd are the last people anyone could call bubble-brained. Sorry if my respect for readers isn’t coming through in my writing–will just keep honing.

    (Naturally, when there’s any abuse, none of this applies. I’ll never stop being mad that the abused person often has to hide after a breakup, when they’ve done nothing wrong.)

  14. I too don’t quite understand your idea that only “mono-folk” want to see their former partners vanish after a break-up. I’ve seen that attitude among plenty of poly acquaintances as well. People are human beings and struggle with loss in a vast array of ways regardless of their orientation.

  15. Interesting article. I work in elementery schools, and VD was beyond the pale of sugar highs. Friday was wild too as they were all cranky after coming down. I’m of the mono persuasion and just had to comment on your comments about not wanting to see your ex on social networks– like you just can’t possibly understand that because, well, they’re mono people. Surely you’ve had a broken heart and need time to let it pass? Or perhaps have broken up because it’s the healthiest thing but are still drawn to the guy/girl and their drama and would rather avoid that pull because it’s the best thing? The rest of it, “not wanting your ex to lead an independent life,” for instance. My experience is that when I divorced after 15 years, even tho I expected my ex to go on and have a life, it was painful to hear when he remarried; he came to my house to tell me. Still was a connection of sorts. Anyway, don’t be so hard on everyone, OK? We’re not all bubble brains out here.

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