I had a realization that you kind of touched on in the video. Non-hierarchy requires both participants to be non-hierarchical and I think the big problem is that most people aren't. So the people claiming to be non-hierarchical might be correct in that description but they're being put into a continuous environment that elicits hierarchical behavior. My understanding is that in a poly relationship everyone's needs matter. What the hierarchical person ends up doing is acting as a 'need-generator', sucking up the resource of attention. And so even though everyone's needs matter there are more needs clustering around this one person to take care of. Without even realizing it, in trying to address those needs, the non-hierarchical person is being sucked into behavior that prioritizes individuals over others because the need to attend to them seems more pressing. Ideally, a non-hierarchical person involved with another non-hierarchical person would recognize this kind of problem and would take into consideration if the other people are being attended to. They'd need to be invested in the other people even if they're not directly involved. I think it'd also require a greater ability to be self-sufficient and strategically manage needs so they're not a perpetual 'need-generator'.
I think your description is accurate but your conclusion is lacking. If someone genuinely has needs that manifest as subconsciously wanting hierarchy, they and their de facto primary should be listening to those feelings. If they are needs that genuinely can be met fully by other people then sure they should spread it out, but a massive problem in poly is people shutting down and bottling their feelings bc those feelings and needs are perceived as restricting their primary. I think we need to stop giving poly advice that even hints that your feelings shouldn't be heard or acted upon after proper reflection. Edit: it is also kindnest to your metamours to be real about your feelings. So many primaries who resent secondaries for being with their partner can take those feelings out on them in cruel and even abusive ways, especially when they're not honest with themselves. Which I mention bc I was in that relationship and I'm still recovering from the emotional abuse inflicted.
@@razz6327 There's nothing I particularly disagree with what you've added. I'm definitely *not* advocating bottling up feelings for the sake of your partner(s). Though I can see how that could be a takeaway from what I said so I appreciate the input!
5 лет назад+47
I disagree with your premise. As a non-hierarchical person I can enter a relationship with someone who is hierarchical, if I consciously accept the impact their hierarchy can have on my relationship with them. But I will maintain my boundary that I will not let that hierarchy impact my autonomy and my other relationships. If their hierarchy includes rules that would transitively impact my other relationships, I'm out. If a hierarchical person considers me their secondary that may actually mean that they need less attention from me. If they consider me their primary, I would let them know that I did not ask for that status, that I do not intend to make use of any privilege they grant me over their other relationships, that putting that label on me does not entitle them to more of my resources that I am willing to invest on my own and that I won't consider that label when making choices. I would also suggest to drop that label, as it makes me somewhat uncomfortable, because for many people it comes with these expectations.
If you look at it like friendships there are hierarchies too. You have a pal for years you're gonna prioritise over the person you talk to every month or so in class. It's not nasty it's just you know them better you feel more for them
I'd describe myself as in the vein of relationship anarchy, but to me that's not about hierarchies - it's more about not expecting a Relationship or a Friendship etc to follow certain rules because "only lovers do that" or "romance is not for friends" etc. For instance, my best friend and I have a very romantic, emotionally intimate, committed friendship: we're very affectionate, we talk to each other almost every day, we do a lot of things together, etc. We're not sleeping with each other (gay man, nb femme) and we're not conventionally dating. But in terms of a heirarchy - yeah, he's the most important person to me right now. He's my emotional "primary". If I'm dating someone, we're going to have to negotiate priorities. He's not seeing anyone at the moment though he does have casual sex, and that's cool for me - but he also considers me very important. He's had relationships during our friendships and I understand that I'm one of multiple priorities then, but I'm still a priority. The "Anarchy" part comes from not expecting my connections to fit moulds, but yeah there's probably going to be some level of hierarchy there, it's just not limited to romantic or sexual partners.
I'm in a relationship anarchy group, and I've heard relationship anarchists say that it does have hierarchy, but not prescriptive hierarchy. That means you can absolutely prioritize one person over another, but you can't try to control your partners' other relationships, or let any of your relationships be controlled by what one of your partners wants. Relationship anarchy is not just polyamory, it also appeals to asexuals and aromantics who want to find other people who don't automatically put their romantic partners above their friends (like me).
That makes sense. By that definition I can claim more of a non-hierarchy in my relationships. None of us have the right to make demands concerning others' relationships. We can express concern if we see things that worry us, just like any friend. I learned that when one of my guys got into a situation that looked really sketchy to me. It even put me in a jealous upset space that I had to manage. But I kept my communication to expressing my concern and why and letting it go. He dated her for a few months and then decided I was right and it was not a good situation.
I genuinely don't understand how you can possibly feel safe in a relationship given this type of dynamic where partner can do anything they want with other partners and you have absolutely 0 say about any of that no matter what affect it will realistically have on your life and your relationship with them. I dont understand that at all.
They want wifey at home to do emotional and physical labour but they want the fun side as well. Until I stop seeing that in people’s’ poly relationships being discussed im just going to be bored w the concept
This. Whenever I'm approached by men like that, I think back to what a co-worker once said about a man she was seeing that was married, "He wants to be married during the week and single on the weekend". It perfectly sums up the dynamic that many men who are poly want in their relationships.
girl interrupted and I feel sad for their partners too because they feel pressured to be “cool” and accept that shit. I’m guessing those same dudes wouldn’t be ok w wifey getting some dick on the side as part of their “poly” relationship
While relationship anarchy and non-hierarchical polyamory can certainly co-exist, I disagree with the way they're being conflated. Relationship anarchy, at least as I've experienced and practiced it, rejects the notion of a hierarchy among types of relationships (e.g. a romantic relationship is not inherently more important than a friendship, etc.), not among actual individual relationships.
There is a completely different dynamic to living with someone and not living with someone. As a human being you have the right and need to feel happy, healthy, and safe where you live and sleep meaning that any problems that resides within your home that is shared between you and the partner you live with is going to take priority. It’s extremely uncomfortable to live in a space where there is an issue, because it puts you in fight, flight, or freeze mode. Even if it’s the same issue with a partner that you don’t live with, the dynamic is different because you can essentially physically and financially escape that other partner, while the partner living with you has a direct effect on you just by the virtue of living together, sharing a bed, space, rent/mortgage, utilities, bills, food, etc.
I'm a queer Latinx Pilipinx non binary person who practices non hierarchical polyamory. I have two partners who are also non hierarchical polyamorous. The hard part of our relationships was finding people who are genuinely non hierarchical not just doing it to seem "more evolved" or for "ideological purposes".
i once was with a guy who had a girlfriend and said they were polyamorous. they had been together for a few years and i asked him if there was some kind of hierarchy and he said "noooo! no way! we are all free" blablabla. after a few weeks with him i realized he loved her and just kinda liked me and his girlfriend was definitely a priority. all the time. we were together for 4 months because after that time i just couldn't take it anymore. he would be upset because she didn't give him enough attention, he talked about her and their problems and their life together all the time, they would travel together (but he never travelled with me), they had this official relationship (i was introduced as a "friend" and she was his girlfriend). of course i grew jealous and i was a monogamous person trying to fit in this polyamory thing because i felt lonely (now i know it is not for me and i avoid it as much as i can even though i like learning about it). why the hell did he say there was no hierarchy when it was so f-ing obvious she was the most important thing in his life?? he could have just told me... as you said, it is very frustrating!
My ex denied wanting an open relationship. He denied sleeping with someone else. But he definitely prioritized and mentioned love faster towards her even under the guise of friendship than he did with me. His treatment of me I rejected him telling me he was poly. He probably is, but he was trying to say a desire to be poly erased the lies, ignoring me while take hours on the phone because she needed. He made her a wife-like hierarchical, despite living with me and denying what he wanted because I expressed not being sure I'd be up for the dynamic. So no matter what he was feeling and learning, I see it as cheating because he put her ahead emotionally and did have sex and lie and only after admitting it did he go "because poly... you're intolerant for being upset."
He said it was non hierarchical for 2 reasons, most likely. The first, to go with the peer pressure in polyamory. There's peer pressure to attempt to avoid hierarchy. Next, for it to seem more appealing to you. Last, many poly people are idealistic (I was) and slightly naive that humans do often choose a favorite when difficult situations arise. I'm still into non-monogamy, but.....
I don't think not being hierarchical means you don't give priority based on closeness and feelings. Everyone does this and it is necessary in order to respect existing relationships and keep them alive. I think it means that the other person doesn't feel like they are able to call the shots or make demands on you that impact your other relationship due to their hierarchy alone.
You can't really expect a new relationship to have the same everything as a three year relationship. Being polyamorous doesn't mean you get to jump into the deep end immediately. Relationships usually take time to build. I think a lot of the unhappiness with this dynamic comes from comparing the new relationship to the longer standing one.
Speaking as an anarchist, I’m not sure ‘hierarchy’ is really the right word-having a primary partner, or being closer to some people than others, is not the same thing as political hierarchy in which people wield power over other people. Relationship anarchy seems to me to confuse a difference in closeness with a difference in power.
Yeah, I agree. I aim for non-hierarchy, but I'm closer with some partners than others because that's how those relationships have developed. Sometimes that's due to factors like geography, or just really clicking with someone and that brings you closer.
I think RA’s allow for differing levels of closeness. I think the hierarchy aspect is referring to the power within close relationships to influence decisions about a partner’s other relationships and how that person generally budgets their time.
I hear what you're saying. But can't closeness, or rather denying a partner closeness, be used as a method of reward and punishment for other partners? I.e. 'The more you please me, I will reward you with physical affection. The more I'm displeased, the more I withhold affection from you.' Soon after, the person doing the withholding will have a spectrum upon which their partners fall (that is always in flux of course) grading them from least to most likable.
Weird perspective for me to hear. I always take your dating stories with a grain of salt, since I'm asexual. In general, the dating scene is extremely different for me. A lot of people in the ace community where I live practice some form of relationship anarchy. It might be because for an asexual person you basically have the choice between losing 99% of your dating pool by only dating other aces OR you can be poly and your non-ace partner(s) can get sexual with somebody else. It doesn't mean all aces are poly of course, but it's something we might be more willing to consider. Relationship anarchy in this context makes a lot of sense when you consider how having sexual intimacy with a person is often considered the line in the sand when it comes to bumping a relationship up the pyramid so to speak.
Relationship Anarchy is where the A for aromantic and the P for polyamorous in the LGBTQIAP+ community overlap. Many bi, asexual and aromantic people, myself included, end up into realizing they are also polyamorous or just getting into polyamorous relationships together in the very least because of asexual, aromantic and even polyamorous loneliness (curiously, the majority of people do not know that the polyamorous dating pool is also very small). An aromantic person could share a sexual relationship with an allo person, which also shares a romantic relationship with an asexual person.
I really don't wanna drag you because so much of what you said was food for thought, and I agree with most of it. I guess what I'd like to add is that, although for sure some people wanna sound cooler//smarter than thou with this vocabulary, perhaps some folks who identify with the idea of relationship anarchy know that power and hierarchy are inevitable, always present and always morphing, faceless and nameless - they just want to cultivate their love life as horizontally as possible... a kind of harm reduction? Jo Freeman wrote something really interesting about this "The tyranny of structurelessness", in which she unpacks why pretending like hierarchy and power dynamics don't exist in political organizing is actually more harmful than being transparent and upfront about the structure (which echos what you argue). But we don't have to conclude that self-managed, non-hierarchical organizing is not worth practicing! It's an ideal, and we do what we can to try to reach it, knowing very well we probably won't get to it in our lifetime. Anarchy and relationship anarchy are related in that sense. Also, what attracts me the strongest to relationship anarchy is the idea that love is spread evenly across different types of love. My cats are very dear to my heart, so is my partners, so is my best friend etc etc etc etc etc
I am a relationship anarchist (and not polyamorous) and i know everyone is different but i personally see non-hierarchy as mostly being about autonomy, and not so much about if more focus is put on one partner over the other. And I am saying this as a person who isn't the top of anyone's hierarchy... who feels my relationships are healthy and fufilling. There is definitely value too revaluating what type of relationships (romatic,sexual, etc.) you value most and why and if that is actually best for you however.
another relationship anarchist here, and i would like to add on to that for open communication regarding this people kinda need to try and figure out what they want from a relationship and navigate that together instead of just slapping some label on it and calling it a day. its something that needs to be communicated every once in a while WITH EVERYONE INVOLVED and handled with dynamic change in mind. kind of like an union of egoists.
Alex ella This comment and the video really opened up a new way for me to express my relationship. Im in a monagamous relationship with a partner who has a chronic health issue and they need a lot of practicle and emotional support. And its frustrating to see some people in my circle worry that im not getting my rights respected cause i do the bulk of the physical and emotional labour. BUT what i do have is a partner who massively promotes my autonomy and my interlectual persuits. So that power dynamic is not a one way carer-caree relationship or an explotative 'traditional wifey' situation. Its equal but not the same for each of us.
👏 THAT'S 👏 NOT 👏 WHAT 👏 IT 👏 MEANS... "Non-hierarchal" refers to groups and their decision-making, not individual people and their personal priorities. "Believing in Anarchism" simply isn't enough to do an anarchism (successfully). Reaching consensus is a necessary social skill for any Anarchy, small scale or big. If you (as a group) don't know how to do that and do not acknowledge already existing race/class/gender/... power imbalanced then people will get hurt, especially those who are already marginalized. A massive problem with "nesting partners" is that not everybody is willing to give up their couple privilege. If only two people in a group of three are actively trying and one person doesn't even know if they're ready to treat everyone as their equal -- that's a really bad starting point. I'd say that group has to find ways for the metamours to bond with each other in order to replace competition with collaboration. Be friends, and don't let the person at the "romantic centre" stay at the centre of the whole group dynamic.
You are honestly helping me really understand polyamory from a perspective that I can relate to, which I think helps me accept a polyamourous part of myself that I'm still uncovering. I don't really get the non-hierarchal, "evolved", better-than-thou attitude and I've run into it a lot. Too much. In general, every single person I know falls somewhere different on a scale of how much time I would care to spend with them. It's not something to have numbers on, it's just something one feels about people in their lives, and I don't think anyone should even feel bad about it because prioritizing certain people in your life that you think are good for you is like... a good thing?
what does hierarchy mean? is this similar to the question of "if both were drowning, who would you save?" or is it more a question of "who do you prefer spending time with?" because if its the latter, i'll say this: i have a nesting partner and a long distance partner currently deployed in south korea. i spend a lot more time with my nesting partner because i live with him. i get very minimal time with my other boyfriend, since theres a 15 hour time difference and hes often working. is this hierarchy, or is this just a symptom of our current arrangement? because i can say with confidence that neither of my relationships take priority over the other, but thats just me. you can call me a relationship anarchist, but i will instead say that i acknowledge the fluidity of humanity and its relationships. that one day my LDR could become my NP, and my NP could one day become my husband, or i could go into a third relationship and THAT partner could become my NP. or perhaps one day ill have no NP at all. because self-labels only have as much meaning as you choose to give them. maybe i went off-track a little, but i think i made my point
In Anarchist philosophy, "hierarchy" is usually defined as a system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority. It doesn't really depend on what you would do if you were forced to make a decision. What matters is how you as a group make those decisions. If you as the "centre person" have more leverage than one of your partners, that's hierarchal. If you as a group are facilitating group decisions based on consent and consensus, that's Anarchist.
thank you for answering my question, bc i clearly had the idea of hierarchy mixed up in my head, but i think my point still stands if thats the case. (:
Yeah, fixed hierarchy vs fluid, that can change organically over time. I guess fixed hierarchy can run into similar problems as fixed non-hierarchy, because of rigidness. Seems very similar to monogamy even. This whole relationship thing seems to be about finding a balance between fixed vs fluid. Dealing with change.
My understanding is that consensus operates as a decision making model in groups of people. If there is a situation in which two people date the same person but have no interactions with the other, how exactly are they operating on a consensus model? This confuses me about relationship Anarchy. What ways do relationships have Hierarchy that relate to systems of power? The only thing I can really think of is coercion which could really just be termed abuse?
A lot of people have aspirations of relationship anarchy which is admirable but aspirations often fall short of reality. People with these aspirations need to be very careful that they don't gaslight their partners.
If someone isn’t present with you on a date or is cutting things off because of their partner, they are practicing hierarchy. They’re giving one person power over other relationships.
Eh, I just want to point out that the other person they are treating as more important might not want to be part of that kind of assholery. If they directly told the hinge they do not like the "other" person and demand hierarchy then yeah they are forcing the others into a bad place. But if they haven't then the responsibility falls 100% on the hinge. Some people try to replicate the whole wife + mistress dynamics in poly without the other parties being in on it. The lack of informed consent to being used in that sort of dynamic is pretty gross.
..as in don't excuse people from behaving badly just because they claim it is the fault of the other partner. That's a too mono kind of behavior, to go "oh it is totally the mistress' fault and the hinge was forced into the situation". Just, no. It was the hinge's CHOICE to act the way they did.
@@juliafraa6419 of course Partnr A has say in the relationship they form with Partnr B/C/D. They just don't have say in the relationships you form. If someone is being abusive or harmful - yes i speak up to the people I love about it out of concern. Beyond that, I don't tell any of my loved ones who they can or cannot care about, this hold true for family, friends, romantic partners. Their bodies, hearts and lives are theirs.
@@geekxlove81 I guess you just have to consider that if you are prioritizing someone that you know your partner is deeply uncomfortable with or choosing to prioritize the prior relationship less due to the new relationship you will have to face the real consequences of the damage you are likely causing to this previous relationship which could include losing that partner. And there's nothing wrong with them making that choice to leave given the choices you're making WILL affect their life in serious ways, they have every right to feel comfortable. You have to decide if you feel that's worth it.
This is such an important conversation. I've had a negative experience with someone who was a "non-hierarchical polyamorist". We weren't seeing one another for very long, but when I met him, he had a partner he lived with. We all hung out together every now and then, and it was nice until I began noticing things that made me think his partner was not totally okay with the situation, he was not being affectionate towards me in front of her, only when she left the room, etc. I began feeling pretty uncomfortable and brought up the fact that it was not totally hierarchal and that I was secondary, which I had no problem with. Almost immediately he got defensive about it, and was completely in denial. Soon after things went downhill when he accused me that I was just being jealous and that it was me who hadn't dealt with my own insecurities and that basically my feelings and perspective about the situation weren't valid, it felt like he was shocked that his politics and intimate relationships didn't "align". I can see now that it became abusive and he began gas lighting me, meanwhile his partner was only agreeing to everything he was saying but it didn't seem like she had her own voice to state her own opinion and feeling about the situation. She had a pretty passive temperament, which made me realize that he may have been controlling her in something she might have felt uncomfortable about. In the end what I was most off put by was the dishonesty and denial of the real situation. It started feeling like a cult and honestly fucked with my psyche and emotions for awhile, but luckily I got out of there in time before I became more disillusioned by it. Ironically I am friends with his (still) partner but haven't talked to him since.
I agree with this 100%. My experience with non-hierarchical polyamory with people who nest is that they still have an underlying / unspoken hierarchy. Which is fine, but annoying when they try to say it isn't there.
Your videos really have a kind of running theme of 'people who say X but actually think/do Y' As someone new to being polyamorous I've found your content on the subject very insightful
I feel like a hierarchical situation just kinda happens, I was dating a guy who had a partner of seven years who he lived with. I don't expect to waltz into his life and be treated as equal to someone who he's been with for seven years. It's fine, I knew that was his life going in and I chose to date him anyway. If I'm second or third or nintyseventh in the pecking order it's ok with me as long as I know and can act accordingly.
I always love hearing your thoughts, but that anecdote of the potential partner's primary partner texting 70 times every time y'all hung out was a big red flag. I'm glad you know you worth to not put up with that mess. Btw, I love the hair color. 😍😍😍
I'm not polyamorous in general (well at least I don't practice it), but I don't think anarchism in relations is about having the "rule" of not having anyone more important in your life in comparison to others. I think is about not being forced to do so. And yeah maybe you don't really differentiate between friends or partners, you just love people in different ways, but it doesn't mean you may love some people more than others or have different types of relationships. For example, I couldn't say if I love my brother more than my boyfriend, I love them both a lot, but still the relationship is different, what I do with each one is different, the time I spend with each one is a different amount as well. Or if you have non-romantic friends, you may love them all, but it would be silly to say you can't have a best friend or something like that. About that guy I think is very disrespectful to be focused on another person when supposedly that time was for being with you, that's just common sense. But I guess he was not ready or maybe her partner was not ready to act the way they tried to act. At the end of the day, the thing is many people are not honest with themselves and their partners and I think that's the main problem. I you are not prepared or your partner is not prepared, and so on, it's fine but we have to be honest if we want things to be productive. For example, I don't do it because I'm not ready to do so, honestly I feel fine being like this and me and my partner are happy. I wouldn't want to lie to myself and try to do something that is hurting me or force a situation than in the end, will be hurting my partner. You have different choices so people have to reflect and in the end do what is going to work for them.
There has to be some kind of committment from the people involved or it means nothing. I never thought of relationships being on the hierarchical continuum but there are just connections that may be stronger than others. I know that the 'committment' word may be taboo in polyamory but it is a highly important element in any relationship.
A few things: 1. I'll be speaking at UCLA on April 15th! Come and see me, let's take pictures and talk about stuffs! 2. Do you guys want to see a preview of the video essay I'm working on? Should I post it? My Patreon Members have already seen it! 3. Free internet cookie to the person who can guess which song I'm dancing to in the intro and outro. lol.
Kat Blaque Yes I’d like to see the preview. Have you seen this Ted talk about how people who are not straight have higher IQ’s age the genes involved? I have no idea how true it is with the science but I thought it was fascinating. ruclips.net/video/4Khn_z9FPmU/видео.html
For me relationship anarchy does have hierarchy, just hierarchical structures for emotional labour and time management may develop just like political anarchy recognises educational hierarchy and that some just hierarchical structure can exist. I personally don't like hierarchy to be stagnant or veto power to be given to any partner over another. Unless like emergency situations occur like one of your partners is dating someone who isn't treating them well seriously abusive or something, even then no veto power should be given just be supportive and give you honest feedback about an unhealthy metamour. I like long term relationships so I plan on having nesting partner(s) that will probably have certain privileges like fluid exchange (depending) and etc but things like veto power given to a partner over another partner is to me unethical and defeats the pursuit of a just hierarchy made through anarchy. Just wanted to added that I see alot of the words over action stuff too and that's why I word my definition of relationship anarchy a lot differently to most.
Personally I find the two-camera setup a little distracting, but it's not so much of an issue that I'd ever ask you to stop doing it if that's how you feel most comfortable speaking. Imo you getting your thoughts across comfortably and in a way you're happy with is what we really come to true tea for! I personally prefer the one-camera setup but to me, it really doesn't make a significant enough difference. I'd rather hear your thoughts and opinions in whatever way is going to be most authentic for you, and if standing to talk makes you more comfortable and able to speak more freely and confidently, that matters much more!
So on your last polyamory video I talked about how my approach to polyamory had some twists bc of me being a trauma-ridden demiromantic, but I realized I'd also left out an important piece of info. My boyfriend isn't a man, he just uses "he" and "boy" for shorthand for his complicated gender. I've never dated men in a polyamorous context so I have no way to comment on that specific branch of things lol. I've never been interested in calling myself a relationship anarchist, precisely bc I think that saying you're "not controlled by relationships" can open up doors to you... Not treating any relationship as important to you. I personally think relationships help shape a lot of my life. Not that they Change Who I Am, but that I can generally mark how safe I've felt and how much I've grown by the relationships I've had throughout my life. I think if I put myself up on a pedestal above relationships, I'd be unable to connect the dots in that way. I agree that it's not bad to have preferences for specific people, but I guess... As far as my polyamory goes I would want that preference to include two or three people. I'd wanna raise the kids with them, be married to all of them. Past that, if they wanted other relationships, fine, but idk. I think the structuring of Primary as being a single being is my problem here. I have no interest in a non-serious relationship, bc of the reasons i discussed in my other post, but I am polyamorous. I just think that if I have to choose between monogamy and having Only One Person be the best with several other relationships of lesser commitment around me, I'd be better off choosing monogamy. When I was a kid, I was the kind that had 4 or 5 best friends at once, bc once I started making a friend I wanted to be their Best Friend immediately. This led to some problems, but it also led to some lasting relationships that worked out fine. I just don't connect halfway the majority of the time, is what I'm saying. I don't mean to judge people who do polyamory a different way, or want a different sort of relationship. This is just personally what I want outta mine.
You'd kinda be their primary though. The hierarchy isn't necessarily through one persons lens. Because they are married and living with you they would either only be dating you (primary) or dating someone else. Dating someone else but has to help you and the kids first (or other partner)? Primary. But also if you were all dating just each other or just you them solo and each person was treated with equal weight then that would be non-hierarchical. It's just when you expand it and look at the other person's perspective right. In your eyes it's equal but the incoming partner has to jockey for time
I agree, I find it difficult to imagine how NH can work with a nesting couple, unless it's a closed unit where everyone is nesting with each-other (which actually sounds wonderful.) It seems to me that if relationships escalate, then hierarchies are bound to happen. This isn't a bad thing as long as everyone communicates honestly I'm currently a solo polyamorist in 1 long-term, non-escalating relationship. We enjoy each-other's company, fulfil our complimentary kinks, and his girlfriend knows. I couldn't ask for more lol
Hey Kat, awesome video as always, I'm personally a fan of the two camera set-up but this works too. I think what you're saying is essentially the true tea - that people, especially dudes, claim they are non-hierarchical but at the end of the day they have a primary or preferred person that they ultimately refer back to as a base and who becomes their default, has power over your relationship with that person and its continuance and how it looks like in the everyday, and so on. I also think that relationships are infinitely complex and can't be categorized as either hierarchical or non-hierarchical in a way that doesn't just flatly erase the experience of a lot of people. I'm from a small town and I've done very little "poly dating" in the sense that you are (this may change, as I'm moving to a much bigger city in the fall for school), so I think we've lived very different things, but what you are describing, I think, is much more "the norm" than what I know. I've commented on one of your FB status' before and mentioned that I am dating a married couple. I would consider them both to be my primaries. We have been together and co-habiting for going on three years. They have been married for twenty years. My boyfriend (my girlfriend's husband...) has another partner of nine years who lives in another city. I don't know how really to explain these relationships other than that there is a kind of a hierarchy there, but none of these relationships are negotiable. My closest friend is also poly. She has two boyfriends, who are also obviously good friends of mine. They all co-habit. They share all finances and they have a daughter together. They do not know who the "biological" father is, by choice. Legally, both men are the father. The mother and one father are white, the other father is not. This was a legal first in Canada, they took it to court and were successful in having both men listed as father on the birth certificate. They are now in the process of taking on the Canada Revenue Agency, we'll see what happens. Anyway, I think I'm more or less in agreement with you but just wanted to add that to the discussion because I think it contributes to complicate things a little bit.
Hierarchy isn't inherently bad, IMO. It certain can be unjust or oppressive, but it's not hierarchy that's really the problem. And when you try to get away from it, it still organically happens -- the difference becomes that people don't acknowledge, even to the point of actively denying it (Soviet Russia is an extreme example of this). Power dynamics are part of life; I think the goal should be to make them healthy, not to try to eradicate (all) power differentials. On another note: YES my experience with polyamory has been dominated by people who weren't really OK with polyamory but were unable or unwilling to articulate that. Of course, I'd say that's true with people (especially men) and being vulnerable with feelings in general. Also YES, there is so much self-delusion and ego -er- expansion in the new-agey left.
Yeah I just find it sorta maddebung because there's no sense in denying it and spending most of your time with one partner doesn't make you a bad person
@@KatBlaque I could really go off on a tangent because I like to beat this drum, but the left (like basically the entire rest of our culture, but in its own unique way) is super influenced by protestant and Puritan frameworks -- in this case moralism, shame, and fixation with outward appearances. Everybody wants to think they can just check the right boxes and be "good" or "evolved" or whatever, but growth is a process that has to involve more emotional honesty than that.
I definitely agree that hierarchy can be moral and ethical. I have a sexual friendship with someone who 100% acknowledges he has a primary (they live together and are engaged), but he is great at communication, very honest, and proceeds in all his relationships in a compassionate manner.
Monarchy isn't inherently bad, IMO. It certain can be unjust or oppressive, but it's not feudalism that's really the problem. #NotAllRulers /s People defaulting back to what they know isn't "organic" or inevitable, it's a learned bias. Beginning to overcome competitive behavior is hard at first -- but as a Radical Leftist I've basically begun to breath consensus democracy at some point. Hierarchal power is a part of life _in our current society_ but once you've acknowledged their existence it is possible to counteract. Facilitating consensus is a social skill. It has to be learned but it _can_ be learned. (And it's still less effort than always having to mitigate the damaging effects of hierarchal relationships.) "Also YES, there is so much self-delusion and ego expansion in the new-agey left." New Age spirituality has the same function as any other religion: 'People go to church for the same reasons they go to a tavern: to stupefy themselves, to forget their misery, to imagine themselves, for a few minutes anyway, free and happy.' (Mikhail Bakunin) I do prefer de-centralized New Age spirituality over organized religions with a non-trivial amount of political power, though... and religion over alcoholism. When (and it is a matter of "when" not "if") you have to numb yourself bc your boss is treating you like sh-t and the people are too distracted by their own misery to care about you, I think you should do it in the most ethical way possible. Personally, I prefer climbing, surfing, martial arts, board games, writing RUclips comments and fighting Nazis -- but I know from experience that meditation and yoga are also perfectly fine. Sure, a solution is always better than a coping mechanism but "I think the goal should be to make [power dynamics] healthy" doesn't sound much more proactive either tbh. New Age spiritualism includes at least _some_ effort to destroy established power monopolies.
I dont like hierarchy because it makes no sense in relationship for me... just like friends and people are different and you live and do different thing with each friend or family, so it should be with romantic relationships, there is no primary or better relattion people or activity. But i do agree that it is better to admit an hierarchy ratter then pretending there is none just because we want to believe in it, because if we dont do so we perpeatuate it and hide what power dinamics on our society and relationships are imposed or chosen to us
Relationship anarchy is appealing to me since the cultural heiarchy of relationships has always made me feel incredibly worthless. I preferred platonic friendships when I was young and still do, to the point where I'm wondering if I'm aro or ace, and it's pretty clear that makes me not worth spending time with for almost everyone. It's pleasant to think there are people out there who don't immediately rank romantic and sexual relationships above platonic ones.
I really respect your opinions and perspectives here, though I don’t know if I totally agree. I will say, as a polyamorous person who has dated both men and women, that I find women a better fit for non-hierarchical relationships. I’ve had better luck with balance when dating other women or, in my current relationship, a woman and a non-binary person.
Your channel is very interesting. I am a cis woman married with 2 children. We live a pretty conservative life but I like learning about people living alternative liberal lives. Wow I have learned so much.
I don't do hierarchial poly not because I don't respect long-standing relationships, but that an established hierachy basically is putting limits on the growth of the newer relationship. It attempts to keep relationships from evolving, growing, transitioning naturally. I will not be with someone who calls me a "Secondary".... Bottom line: If they have a "veto clause", they are NOT non-hierachial.
If a partner isn't into it, that's not even just not non-heirarchical, it's not even polyamory & I don't care what you call it. And yes, relationship anarchy and non-h polyam IS different within wlw, mlm, nonbinary, trans, sapphic etc. circles. Your videos on polyam baffle me sometimes to be honest. But then again, straight men aren't my thing and I'm way younger soooo.... yeah. From my perspective at least, straight cis polyam ppl have soooo much bullshit to unpack it's hard for it to ever be truly non-heirarchical. Not impossible, just uncommon. Even in my circles, people can unintentionally create heirarchy even when you don't want to. And being polyamorous doesn't mean you have healthy relationships or good communication. You have to WORK for that.
And as an afterthought/extension: you have to WORK for relationship anarchy/ non h polyam, too. It's both a label and a goal. You can't just say it and slap it on your relationship without putting in the work.
I get super skeptical when I hear a group say they are "non-hierarchical" because that's just not how humans operate most of the time. I'm SURE there are people who CAN do it out there but they are such an outlier. Having a hierarchy doesn't mean you respect certain people more or less, and I feel like some polyams falsely equate those two things. "Oh we all get the same amount of respect so there is no hierarchy". Hierarchy is just another tool for clear communication and expectations if used effectively. Thank you for your True Tea
Hi Kat ! I liked this video, honestly I think you've raised some big points to why poly sounds amazing on paper, but varies immensely on person to person experience. I know a lot of people, myself definitely included, who have played with the concepts and then people have gotten hurt. I think that this isn't a new concept, but it's been only very recently a "mainstream" relationship dynamic where more often than not in places like LA (or where I'm from NYC) you have these people who are conventionally attractive, but emotionally unavailable, who feel like this will solve what they lack in their primary relationship. Not that this is always the case, I have close friends in a polycule that make it work fine, but speaking as someone who did this to someone else, it's something that I really wish I could go back and analyze with the same clarity and understanding of communication that I do now. Communication is so important, and at the time I was hell bent on making sure I did it right, that I wouldn't necessarily hear out my partner because i had framed it as "I need poly, we cannot be together unless you can know and understand that." And he wasn't ok with it. The tricky part of this mess however, was that we had an on /off history (red flag, don't do this to yourself). During one of our off times, I had started seeing an fwb that I developed one sided feelings for. This person was 7 years older than me, was only interested in the sex, and I had agreed to not let my feelings get into it (not how that works). So when the partner who I was trying to get back with found out I had been seeing someone casually, it was assumed I would cut off the fwb, and then it was communicated that I should cut off the fwb, and then we fought about it. Obviously I didn't want to cut them off, because I had feelings for them to some degree, they were really using those feelings as a means to keep me coming back at some points (not all points, I take responsibility), and my primary could see that it was a very sexual relationship from marks on my skin. That hurt him immensely. He felt like he wasn't satisfying me, he felt used for his emotional labor and for letting me stay over when I would, only to see where I'd been the night before on my body, and to me it was fine because I had told him "well when the summer comes around we can get back together officially and close this off" but he hadn't wanted it open in the first place. But when it first started with the fwb, we weren't on together. This fwb, being halfway involved in it, gave me the "dump him" advice (he was right to some degree, my primary ended up being very controlling in other ways) and by that point I didn't know what to believe. Should I commit to my partner and sacrifice a freedom that I hadn't experienced before, for someone that I've been around the tracks with a few times, or should I risk losing that safety forever just for the chance of another fun night. I'm sad to say this story doesn't have a happy ending, my partner had a meltdown screaming at me for hours, we broke up during a fight (again), and then he threatened to kill himself on Facebook and tried to jump into the Hudson (or so he says) and was rushed to an in patient clinic for 10 days. He then used that attempt to control everything around me, not just me. A year later, after working through that and getting back together (somehow ???), when I tried to get out again after a horrible personal traumatic experience involving near death emergency surgery, immense gender dysphoria, and being coerced into unprotected sex multiple times, I knew this person wasn't looking out for my best interests. He used his suicide attempt (on the year anniversary of it) to come out about my abusiveness, to cover up what he did to me in the time since. He reported me for harassment when I was desperately reaching out for him to stop, almost getting me suspended in school, when I was afraid he was going to escalate, I took it further by opening an assault record through our school that he had done what he had done over that winter, which made sure he would escalate to getting what was effectively a restraining order against me for a year and a half, after I had been convinced not to go that route by my schools SA guidance and hearing mediator. The hearing ended how you would imagine it would, our relationship was "tumultuous and problematic" so I "must be lying to get him expelled". That's the end of it. I had to go to court proceedings after that, to be told not to step foot near him for the next 8 months, the pressure of possibly being arrested on spot for haphazardly running into someone who knew where I lived on campus made me so paranoid I couldn't complete my last semester (there were other reasons too, but this was a big one), and he did. Now he lives in LA as far as I know lmfao. Getting back to what this means about poly, obviously this isn't a universal experience in the slightest. My point is, that you can communicate as much as you want, you can be as mature and well spoken about it as humanly possible, but if you can't be honest with yourself, how can you manage to be honest to the people around you? Your communication can be rooted in a wanting for honesty, but lacks the core /truth/ of it if you are holding back, and that can be very uncomfortable for the people around you while you figure it out. I wanna also add on finally, that these people, including myself, were all very problematic in this situation. It happened about 3 years ago, so I can speak from a safe place where the restraining order was dismissed and vacated, I don't speak to either of these people anymore and I think we are all better to some degree, and I am a whole year single for the first time since I was 16 (now 22, wild how young I am tbh I was 19 at the time). I was the youngest one, the other two being 23 and 27 (which is super problematic as well), and it ended in everyone having a trauma. I do know people in a polycule who say they love it and make it work, and that's amazing to me and I respect it because I know you can love more than one person in that way, but making it actually work is the part so few people actually get to, while the majority usually ends up in some kind of weird traumatic interpersonal shit show because of one thing or another. Oof sorry for trauma dumping, but since I can talk about this now without it totally ruining the rest of my day, I figured I'd share my experience. This is by no means my 100% opinion on poly, only a small glimpse into the experience I had attempting it as a privileged 19 year old in art school, and crashing & burning spectacularly, even after reading all those self help guides.
Thank you for this. Theres almost a weird pressure to be non heirarchichal because its like polya in its 'truest form' or whatever, but i am not capable of it. Im engaged, and part of a core vee, and its extremely important to me that new people im dating make space for that, because its a good sign of their respect for my life and autonomy, and i also have worked really hard to be as happy as i am, and i know what i need out of core partnerships to maintain that, and thats not going to be found in everyone. Im also not going to provide that for everyone, and thats completely valid.
I honestly think them acting as if they're more "evolved" is quite ironic, since polyamory is technically older than monogamy in terms of humanity's existence in general.
@@djadelaney I didn't say it did? I wasn't trying to say that polyamory is regressive at all. I was just pointing out that it doesn't make them "better" or "new" for practicing said thing. Besides, everyone's perception on what is and isn't "progressive" or "evolved" depends on a variety of factors.
I always assumed polyamory and monogamy had been around the same amount of time since they're sexual/romantic preferences? I tried looking into their starts and couldn't find anything. I assume the history of both would have to do with the legal histories of various places as well as historical power dynamics (ie polygyny being legal but not polyandry in some ancient patriarchal societies)?
@@birdyinabox Absolutely culture and laws play a huge part in it. Very frequently in America think of non-monogamous relationships, it's usually a rather patriarchal viewpoint where it's a man with multiple women. They rarely take into account a woman with multiple men, or non-heteronormative aspects that can occur with non-monogamous relationships. Of course in other cultures, this may not be such a foreign idea to grasp. As for them existing around the same time, you raise a good point, and honestly, I don't doubt it. There will always be people who prefer one over many, and people who prefer many over one. I highly doubt there were zero monogamous people before the "one man one woman" policy was implemented. Many people just seem to think non-monogamous relationships is this "new age woke white hippie movement", when it's been around for quite some time and in many places around the world.
I'm not polyamorous and only have a basic understanding of anarchy but I feel like relationship anarchy might be a misuse of terms. My understanding is that anarchy is, no unjustified hierarchies in relation to power. So for one if you want a hierarchy, of any sort, then boom it's justified. But you also have to give that choice to other people. So you have to be on the same page with every one involved about what the hierarchy is. To me this sounds kinda like normal polyamory. Also I find it weird that anarchy is the word they use as liking people more, at least for me, doesn't have anything to do with power. Anarchy, in my understanding, has an issue with people having power for no reason and that being used to control people who did not concent. And this putting the person(s) with the power in an advantaged position and disadvantaging the people under them. I don't see how prioritising people differently gives anyone a advantage or disadvantage, as hopefully a relationship is never a net disadvantage. If that is the case you should leave if possible. Please correct me on anything, I just had a thought that I didn't see already in the comments and thought I'd share what I thought during this video.
To me one "disadvantage" in hierarchical relationships (that try/ claim to be non-hierarchical and maybe also in general) is quite obvious: The person on the one side gets less attention, caring, (quality) time and/or support by their partner than their other partner. If that one partner needs more than that and doesn't find it in another relationship (be it platonic, romantic, whatever) it likely makes them feel not enough validated. And even if that person has support and bonds with others "enough": Seeing another person being cared for more than you by a person you are close to can still make you jealous. That is also okay, it's a normal human emotion, it's a matter of how you deal with all that. This is where I do see the value in the concept of relationship anarchy, and be it just in theory. In real life it might (often) not work to reach such equality or you can't always deal with that jealousy (well). At this point it might be important to acknowledge that the theory doesn't work (like you wanted) and be honest. Because that's necessary to make it better or give people the chance to try something else.
@@Alina_Schmidt yeah I guess disadvantage is a quite vague term, that I did not define. What you said about that was a good point. I guess my whole post boils down to the way I have heard anarchy being talked about before, in a political way, is quiet different from it being used in this context. So like the relationship disadvantage is quiet different from a material or political one. I find the idea that it is an extension of the political belief of anarchy to be maybe a bit of a stretch. Is it nit picky? yeah, but that's the internet.
"So for one if you want a hierarchy, of any sort, then boom it's justified." No. That's not how it works. You'd have to justify it from an Anarchist perspective, not with some arbitary excuse. The narrow definition of the word "hierarchy" is more or less synonymous with "power imbalance" ("power" being "the ability to harm another person") -- this simply can't be justified with Anarchist ethics. However, there's an extended definition of the word "hierarchy" that may include asymmetrical relationships in general. An unjustified hierarchy (or "actual" hierarchy) is when you have to do what I (as your boss) say or else you will be punished. A "justified hierarchy" (aka "non-hierarchy") is when you asking me (as a friend) for guidance and I share my knowledge/experience with you. I'm still the one who's "telling you what to do" but if you don't listen to me I'm not CAUSING you any additional harm, it's just a stupid decision you made for yourself. Personally, I do not agree with that extended definition. When I'm offering my guidance I'm simply offering service/aid -- I do not have any knowledge you couldn't get on your own and I'm not making any decisions for you. The situation could *become* hierarchal if you had less access to information than I have or something -- but if you're just relying on me bc you don't want to look up all the information yourself that's not giving me any amount of power. "To me this sounds kinda like normal polyamory. " Since polyamory is defined as "ethical non-monogamy" Relationship Anarchy is technically the same IF we agree that only Anarchism is ethical. However, not everyone in the poly community has the same radical standards when it comes to ethics. For most people any relationship that is more ethical than monogamy is sufficient... (Disclaimer: They'll SAY "as ethical as monogamy" but let's be real, any deviation from the societal norm will automatically be held to a much higher standard. If we had the same amount of domestic ab--e as monogamists have we'd literally be persecuted.) "I don't see how prioritising people differently gives anyone a advantage or disadvantage, as hopefully a relationship is never a net disadvantage. If that is the case you should leave if possible." You're looking at relationships as transactions (of social capital) which does NOT inherently guarantee any ethical or moral value. I'm disabled. I'm deeply afraid of being or becoming a burden to my loved ones and they tell me that my relationships give them more than they costs them -- but they DO cost them (sometimes) and what happens if some day I'll not be able to give them as much as I recieve? Do you think they should leave me? If relationships were transactional they definitively should bc their affection for me may already put them at a "net disadvantage". From an Anarchist perspective, I'm the one who's in a disadvantaged position. I'm disabled. With a rating about 90%. If everyone left me I'd f-cking die, and if I left them instead I'd f-cking die, too. In the past I've been stuck in ab--ive relationships bc I couldn't do sh-t when that person decided to r-p- me, to take my money or to lock me in the apartment. If I had left I'd be f-cking dead. I mean, yeah, being broken and traumatized instead of being dead was probably(?) a "net advantage" for me -- or at least that's what everyone told me at that time -- but that doesn't mean it was not ab--e. "Prioritizing people differently" is hierarchal -- and probably the result of said transactional thinking. That's not what we Anarchists do. We collaborate and make group decisions based on a consensus. No one gets left behind and if anyone needs help everyone is willing to give their support. I'm in a non-hierarchal group relationship and my partners are my everything - to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until death do us part. I will love and honor them all the days of my life. Sometimes we as a group have to prioritize between multiple issues or ideas -- but never between individual partners as people. A harm to one is a harm to all, a harm to my partners is a harm to myself.
From an aromantic perspective, relationship anarchy normally means one type of relationship shouldn’t be automatically prioritized just because it’s that type of relationship. You can have great relationships with friends and family, but once you get a romantic partner you’re expected to drop everyone for each other, which isn’t really healthy and often alienates people. It doesn’t mean no one is prioritized, just that the nature of a relationship doesn’t equal its importance
Honestly, I consider myself mono and I'm painfully introverted so I like to spend extended periods of time by myself, but I'm utterly terrified of being perpetually alone. I know as far as romance goes, I don't think I could handle more than one relationship of that nature. I'm not completely averse to being with a woman who is poly, but when I hear about this sort of stuff, it makes me worry that I'd get shoved aside or made a non-priority whether that's intentional or not, that it might take a rather extensive period before they notice me again. I like my alone time, but too much just causes my mental health to start decaying. My need to be alone was a problem for some of my more extroverted exes and I have been working on balancing things, but I do have limits all the same.
I get you though about people using "relationship Anarchy" or even just "Polyamory" to avoid self-reflection on their own attitudes and behaviours in relationships. It's a thing I see a lot (and have experienced) - partners just get treated as collectables and if you find your relationship is being neglected well "no one person can meet all your needs so just find another partner!!!". My abusive ex girlfriend used that to excuse her using me as a punching bag and leaving me to deal with the bullshit. My ex best friend, who's self-described as poly, claimed that a "relationship anarchist" stole his girlfriend - but really he turned out to be a creepy predator type who wouldn't respect boundaries. They aren't all that way, of course, but there's a surprising lack of self-awareness and self-accountability in a community that is supposedly based on more conscious choices in relationships.
I was in a relationship where they wanted it to be polyamorus withe someone that didn't like me. Yeah that relationship didn't last long. Abusive to boot.
So, as a non-hierarchical poly (specifically afab) person, I have to say that the reason I don't like hierarchical poly is BECAUSE I'm usually expected to clear all my other potential partners with my meta. And honestly, I've had FAR too many experiences with insecure men (whom agreed from the start to be in a poly relationship with me) who veto almost all my potential partners because he perceives them as a threat to his position as the top tier. So, my approach to polyamorous dating is "I am poly and all my relationships are on the same level of meaning in my life because each person is unique. And I get to choose my partners and if you don't like this, you don't have to date me." Of course, I'm also open to talking about problems that might arise between partners, I'm just not going to ask my partners' permission to date anyone. And I want to specify that I mean I don't have hierarchies in the way that sex partners mean less than dating partners. And just because one partner has been with me for years necessarily means that they mean more to me than someone I've only been dating a few months. Yes, you can consider closeness a type of hierarchy, but I don't like to set my relationships up like that. In my experience with polyamory, the tiered approach seems to bring only more drama if one partner is percieved to be either further up or lower down on the chain than they were said to be. I'd much rather encourage cooperation and have everyone see each other as equals than breed jealousy and competition by putting everyone on essentially a pecking order. And nesting partners do get a bit sticky, honestly if I ever started living with any of my partners, I feel like I'd much rather live with as many of them as possible (just cause I'm cuddly and want the convenience of all my babies in the same area lol).
You can say all that, but at the end of day a hierarchy will exist( probably a few different ones at the same time) Now, a person having veto power over your relationships is a separate issue imo. It all boils down to how/how much you're resresponsible to/ for your partners.
@@Ray-pp5qb hierarchy isn't necessary in relationships. Period. If you think someone can't have romantic/sexual/platonic relationships without hierarchies then you're either brainwashed or ignorant. And hierarchies consolidate power at the top, which makes it a lot easier for a meta or person at the top level of the hierarchy using that power to leverage unfair outcomes in their favor aka demanding that they approve of every additional partner in the polycule.
I wanna hear more about tackling jealously in non-monogamous relationships from the "non-nested" persons perspective. How do you deal with jealously (if any) from the primary partner? Are there boundaries put in place?
My observation is most nesting partners keep their space as just that, their space. I'm not jealous of any of the people I'm dating who live worth partners because I enter that relationship understanding and respecting their relationship.
i loved the way you talked about it without being agressive and from a personal point of view and with honesty, i don't agreed but it was really nice to hear really! made me think of some things either. But one thing that migth compliment: anarchical relationships don't mean that you treat everyone the same, it just means that the way this will be decided is naturally according to each relationship. For example, if you have a very very close (platonic and aromantic) friend for years, and maybe you are even roomades, and then you start dating someone: in a tradicional, monagamous realtionship this would probably mean you will eventually distanciate with this friend, because the romantic partner is more important by default and rule. But naturally in a anarchical relationship you prpbably would have more proximity and more responsabilitys with that friend then with the person you've just met (but not necessarlly) there is hierarchy there but it is not given, it's constructed. And the same could aply to a nesting partner. But yeah, a lot of people are just hipocrate jerks that use anarchical relationship to an excuse of being abusive. but that is not related to the anarchical relationship model itself.
For me, I don't identify as non-hierarchical, and I see that as more of a goal to try to strive for if the person can and wants to. I recognize that the nature of my life and existence means that I often cannot help but prioritize certain people over others. Whether that is because I've known them longer, they are more physically available to me, or my attachment to them presents in a way that makes me more aware of when I miss them. But I do try to make sure that in my relationships no partner feels less loved than a different partner. What I AM is a relationship anarchist, in the sense that I do not prioritize certain relationship types over others. For example, one of the most important relationships in my life right now is with my best friend. They are someone I deeply love, share a house with, and cannot see myself continuing on in this world without. In many ways they are more important to me than most of my partners are, and I reject the idea that that is somehow backwards just because we are "only" friends. That is what relationship anarchy means to me. It's not about not having hierarchies. It's about not letting social norms dictate the way you engage in relationships, including relationship hierarchies.
Black, polyamorous, not well to do Solo Polyamorist here. 👋🏾 I agree there are a lot of folks who *say* they are non-hierarchical but aren’t. My first polyamorous relationship was with a guy like this. Assured me he was non-hierarchical and then had lots of rules he’d agreed to with his gf to make her more comfortable with the transition to Polyamory. That is of course a textbook example of having hierarchy. It was really important to see himself as egalitarian though so he did lots of mental gymnastics to justify why what he was doing wasn’t *really* making rules in one relationship that circumscribed his others. I know better and do better in my choosing now. These days I tend to talk with people about wanting relationships with lots of autonomy. I describe my desire to have relationships where a person outside of our 1:1 connection doesn’t get to determine the shape, pacing, or direction of our relationship either through explicit rules or because of what happens when our mutual partner is constantly trying to soothe their insecurities. I’m really clear with folks that I am unwilling to engage people who sacrifice that autonomy whether they do it cause they just think they should given the other kind of commitment (the folks who think marriage means by default you should have hierarchy) or because they are trying to be a good partner to someone and don’t know how to hold space for their feelings without changing *our* connection. People like that are few and far between. Most polyamorous people don’t want it. They want to at least be sure that they get a little more say than any new person who comes along so they can be ‘certain’ (although of course there are no guarantees in life) that they won’t get displaced by how their partners change when they fall in love with new people. Even folks who do want it don’t always have the communication and conflict resolution skills to show support to a partner struggling with your new/other relationship(s) without taking the easiest/fastest route of just changing the new/different instead of having lots of conversations about how to show up loving. I have some but I also co-mod a group specifically for folks who are egalitarian. And we ask people specifically what they do to actively deconstruct hierarchy between their relationships. “We just don’t believe any of us is any better than any of the rest of us.” Is a common enough response. It’s also totally missing the point about paying attention to how power flows between the relationships and being able to point at specific things one can do to make sure the power is flowing in ways that match your stated relationship values. Like, I am upfront that my partner gets no say in who I date. I may not give them lots of details about someone I’m into and talking to early on (although they know to assume that I’m dating and meeting people). This scares the crap outta some people. What they’d like is for me to give them turn by turn updates on what’s happening in my dating life as if that will manage their insecurity. I won’t do that cause I don’t want all of their reactions and insecurities to event subtly influence how I choose to be with people I like. What I can do, is offer them lots of assurance about all the things I value about them and our connection to each other. What I can do is talk openly about what kinds of commitments I’ve made to them. What I can do is listen to them talk about their general fears/insecurities and offer emotional support. I see folks limit their autonomy all the time because they choose to agree to notify another person about their course and then are getting into all kinds of issues when, like humans do, they instead make quick impulsive decisions about the direction they want their relationship to go in with the person they’re actually in it with. Anyway, I do think egalitarian relationships are possible. I think a lot of people say they’re in them because hierarchy has a (I think deservedly) bad rep in the polyamorous community. I agree folks should just be honest with themselves. Folks like myself who are egalitarian also gotta think about if we keep ‘giving it a shot’ with folks who throw hierarchy red flags. Scrutinize potentials closely and ask scenario based questions about how folks handle common polyamory problems. Most of the folks saying the right words will wind up telling on themselves as they don’t know what an actually autonomous/non-hierarchical response would look like. If you tell them a few options they’re often horrified because they can imagine how one could do those things and still be ‘caring.’ And that’s how you know autonomy isn’t really the well thought out relationship value that they actually engage from.
I really like the two camera set-up too! Changing angles is refreshing when watching a video, even so when you're talking about serious matters. I also like the angled background with your books and your art, so two cameras show the whole deal, not a chopped version :p
Idk if that really applies to me. I mostly like the idea of non-hierarchical polyamory for myself, because I don't want to make my new partner feel like they are any less important. I want them to have say and just as much time with me as they need. Same with my long term partner I have. I just want them to be happy. I also hate feeling like a second class citizen to others because I'm poly with them. I want that closeness. I don't want them to feel second class either. I just want the relationships to progress naturally and with as much thought and effort as I possibly can give them :)
Hey Kat I'm with you 100%!!! I don't believe in non-hierarchical anything. Granted I just found out about Non-Hierarchical Polyamory when I clicked on this video, hierarchies ARE natural and not a bad thing. If you're getting operated on do you want the kid fresh from Med school or do you want the surgeon who's done this procedure hundreds of times? Which ever you choose for what ever reason you're helping to create a hierarchy by which their superiors will rank, judge and pay them. I like what you said about people with long term girlfriends who claim to be non-hierarchical. Those types of guys are living in a fantasy world and are attempting to negate or discount the time they've spent with their long term girlfriend. As a single gay bear I see lots of Growlr profiles of couples looking for a third. Bottom line: you never know what you're going to get. Sometimes both of them are into me sometimes just one of them. Other times I'm into one of them or I'm into them both, but there's ALWAYS a pecking order. If sexual one-offs are like that I can only imagine what it's like in actual relationships. Great video !!!👍🏾😎😜
I TOTALLY agree with this. So many people in the poly community only see love as a feeling. And I do think that, through that lens, you can have a non-hierarchical structure where you FEEL the same about all your partners. But love is also a verb. It is a thing that you do. By spending time together. By supporting each other. Through intimacy and affection. And maintaining any kind of equity through action...I agree, while it might be a nice idea, is REALLY hard to do on a practical level. Even with the best of intentions, some partners' schedules line up better than others, some partners require more or less of that love-as-an-action, some partners' interests line up better than others. Trying to maintain equality of love-as-an-action, rather than love-as-a-feeling, is hard, if not impossible. And, if you make that promise to your partners, inevitably, there's likely to be those who never feel like they're getting their fair share.
Your anecdote about the "relationship anarchist" who broke off with you to focus on his nesting partner strikes me as a man who's a piece of crap at relationship anarchy, and gave you a false impression of himself (ie, effectively lying to you) as a result, and that sucks. I'm not a political anarchist--I'm a big government leftist--but I am a relationship anarchist, and you're absolutely right that he just straight up acted like he was in a relationship hierarchy. I'd like to argue that doesn't mean relationship anarchy is any less of a good idea. To me, the core of relationship anarchy is that I make my relationships with me and the person across from me, and nobody else gets a say. My other partners are owed safety-based information, including who I'm sleeping with and my safe-sex practices, but that's primarily so they can decide if THEY want to change or end their relationship with me. If one partner in a V is experiencing jealousy or other stresses to the relationship, that should put the stress on THAT relationship, not ANY of the others, and it is the test of the person at the center of the V's character and commitment to relationship anarchy and ethical non-monogamy itself to maintain that even and especially when the person at the end of the V fails to, and not end one relationship to try to fix the other. If they do, they are giving up on relationship anarchy. That is not inevitable, that is not normal. I've done relationship anarchy for 5 years, and I've been the center of that V in a tension situation plenty of times, and while big stresses to a relationship can radiate out and big conversations can happen between all three people, that is out of the goodness of the non-related partner's heart to participate, and that should be made clear. If my more established partner is stressing about a newer partner, that is a problem between me and my established partner--NOT the newer one. I don't care if the established relationship is years old, I don't care if they're married and have kids--the relationship tension should be on the right relationship, because that's the true relationship in tension, it doesn't matter what the established partner's problem is with the new partner--it's the FIRST relationship's problem, and pretending otherwise is ludicrous and factually wrong. The polyam community I come from is mostly out of Philadelphia, and this was a pretty normal philosophy there, not always perfectly followed, but followed as the norm quite successfully and culturally reinforced by our broader young poly community. I'm sorry that happened to you, and I'm sorry it gave you a negative impression of relationship anarchy. Relationship anarchy (and anarchism in general, if you ask me) should mean that without an external structure, the emphasis becomes strongly on everyone's personal ethics. (The reason I don't support political anarchy is that I think not everyone can or should operate without a structure, but relationship anarchy is as yet an opt-in relationship style, not generally a culturally-supported norm like monogamy--by the by, I don't think relationship anarchy actually does require your partners to also ascribe to relationship anarchy, to that point, since you have your own decisions about what relationship to keep the stress on or not when you're the V, as they do when they're the V.) If someone chooses relationship anarchy, and fails at it (not just struggles, but fails like that man), it can and should be taken, in my opinion, as a pretty strong indictment of their character, if you ask me. I more broadly believe that any partner EVER having veto power is a terrible, awful, no-good, very bad idea. If someone can't live up to that high standard of ethics, I think you're absolutely right that they shouldn't identify themselves to people as relationship anarchists, and should just tell people they're in a hierarchal relationship. I don't date people in hierarchal relationships, because, frankly, I don't trust that relationship style and its practitioners to hold themselves to as high a standard of ethics, but that's a personal preference that's worked for me, not a general rule that everyone must follow. tl;dr: Sorry that happened, men mostly fucking suck, I don't think relationship anarchy was the problem, I think HE was.
I REALLLLY appreciate you saying this. Im just coming into learning about relationship anarchy (& potentially being open to an open relationship/polyamory) and it is so good to hear about the way it functions or doesn’t in practice. Thank you so much.
Thank you for saying it's ok to be in a hierarchical poly relationship! I consider my partner who I live with to be my primary. I have in the past talked to some relationship anarchists who I felt like considered themselves to be better because they weren't hierarchical.. and yet now they have primary partners. Very interesting for sure.
I'm very unaware of poly relationships and their dynamics outside of some friends that are poly, and one thing that I've been struggling to understand is how hierarchical relationships can be non toxic or abusive. From its definition it feels like some people in the relationship are lower or inferior, and I know quite a few people who were left by the curb because they weren't a person's primary. Again this is probably due to me being an almost complete outsider to polyamory, but I would like your perspective on how hierarchical relationships can be healthy.
I agree with your point of people should be up front and also aware of how they act on a practical level. That said, relationship anarchy and non-hierarchial polyamory are not interchangeable terms the way I use them. As you said, a relationship anarchist doesn't value their friendships over their romantic partners or vice versa. A polyamorous person does, but in a non-hierarchical set-up, just doesn't value one romantic partner over the other. But will differentiate between romantic partners and friends.
I liked what you had to say about pragmatism and being multiply marginalized (and there's a possibility it's not in this video but in another recent video?!). I've gotten a lot from your videos lately and they've been helpful to me as a jumping off point and also having certain conversations with men. One thought that's come out of watching your True Tea videos lately, for me, is that all of this-- the thought you have to put into these poly situations, the processing, the evaluation of partners to see whether they might be ... racist, transphobic, have partners who are transphobic, fetishizing, whatever... It's all labor. I feel like I recognize it instinctively because some of it is labor I've been doing for a long time as a trans nonbinary person with a disability. I don't have to do the same labor to make sure a partner isn't racist, though I certainly try to make sure they're not, if they turn out to be there's not the same vulnerability or possibility of harm for me as for a person of color. In dating there's certainly no shortage of people who might be interested, but there IS a necessity to sort through them to see if they are, you know, really fucked up and going to be harmful, or a waste of time, or lying or misrepresenting something. There's SO much work in all of this. And I see myself doing this work over and over again. (Big surprise, I also date men...) I do have a good time sometimes and I do enjoy people that I meet-- but I'm recognizing lately that I'm also performing this labor which is essentially invisible. Men expect me to be present as a supposed equal and to treat them as if none of this is happening. If they want to lean on me in order to discuss and process their desires (in terms of which genders/bodies they are into) or their fetishes (including trans-related fetishes in some cases) or whatever, they are not aware of how a conversation like that might affect me unequally, what wounds might be involved, or the fact that my trans body has been used for many years as an arena for people to discover or even engage in conflict around their own sexual desires. Very much helped by your videos, I've started working on naming and describing this experience TO men who engage with me without recognizing these issues (which is currently all of them). I don't expect any one man to change the world, or even completely change himself. I only want acknowledgement of the power imbalance and labor imbalance, an acknowledgement of what it means for them to lean on a gender nonconforming person as a confidante for their own unprocessed sexual issues, and perhaps a place to start for change.
I agree with you, I don't believe its possible for someone to like everyone the same way. Could you consider a few people to be equals in your eyes? Sure, but even so, no one person is the same or has the same needs so we treat everyone a little differently based on their individual qualities. It also depends on what you're using as your standard of comparison. I might prefer being adventurous with one person, but enjoy having long conversations with another. Doesn't mean I like either one more or less than the other but I'm going to lean into preferences if given the choice.
i totally understand where your coming from, the thing to emphasize across the board when involved in polyamory is communication, always, and it seems to me that it's to disregard that directive when who you declare yourself as is not true to reality, obvs there may be exceptions and sometimes it's a process that an oursider is not privy to, but even commmunicating that would go a long way, just saying you haven't gotten the hang of it yet instead of projecting an image you won't live up to; so, as you said, the problem isn't in hierarchy it's in posturing for whatever reason instead of being honest and/or self-aware
I’m a hinge in a V with my husband and my girlfriend. I understand what you mean by this non-hierarchy being BS. When we opened up our marriage to polyamory with my hubby living together and being married with kids make the setting hierarchical to begin with. At first I referred to my husband as my primary partner but since I met my girlfriend, that I have been dating for a year now, I stopped calling him primary. I still get the fact that there is hierarchy eg. us being parents that ties us together whatever happens. Nevertheless I’m so in love with my girlfriend that in my heart through my feelings I see her at least as important as my husband. It may sound a bit naive but I just can’t rank them like that. I love them both because of their own unique qualities. Just like I love my children and couldn’t ever choose a favorite. I’m living 60% of the time with my hubby and kids and 40% of the time with my girlfriend, who also has her child from a previous relationship every other week. I would love us all to live under the same roof but my partners both need their own space and some alone time as well and I understand that completely. To me this is the perfect setup but you never know if someone else comes along to either of my partners. I’m poly saturated cuz I want to be able to spend time with both of my loved ones and still have time to for my children and time to hang out with my friends. It is a struggle though with the schedule. Thank you for being an inspiration. 👍🏼 ( the grammar can be a bit off because English is not my first language)
This is so validating to hear! Honestly, it seems dishonest not to acknowledge that nesting partners have a lot of inherent privileges that other partners don't. Hierarchy usually exists naturally. Like, it would take a significant amount of time and investment for another relationship to reach the same level of priority and commitment that I have with my husband. That's pretty natural! I honestly think I am more of a pragmatist as well. I really just value a cooperative style of polyamory in which everyone's needs and feelings are valued. When needs conflict with each other, ideally everyone can work together to find a compromise or creative solution that works for all parties, like allowing someone time to process before taking a step that would be particularly difficult for them. I think some people conflate control with simple consideration. We exist in relationship with each other, not in a vacuum. We impact each other. Some hierarchy is natural, but too much hierarchy can be controlling. Autonomy is healthy, but too much can turn into entitlement. We are all allowed our boundaries, but when our boundaries impact partners and metamors, we also owe ALL of them consideration for their own boundaries and needs too (sometimes that involves growing alongside them).
These videos have been very revealing to me as someone who's been interested in the poly scene but has yet to engage with it. For a long time I thought the biggest roadblock for me would be jealousy, insecurity etc and I thought that was something I could handle, but realizing that some men would only be okay with dating me when they were secure with another cis partner completely turned me off from the whole thing. It seem like, unfortunately, a lot of people who subscribe to liberal ideas like everything goes as long as we agree to it etc create a space where their deeply held discriminations come to light without being questioned, and that's something I could never be comfortable with.
Love the setup! Looks great and can tell you feel great in it. :) I also love your comments regarding your beliefs. There is so much value to saying what you really feel and it is actually helpful for your viewers!!
Loved that you’re opening up this convo, just wish you could eliminate some of the fluff before making a point (first set point was made at 10 minutes in after prefacing it twice) I want to hear your ideas, even if they’re “bitchy”
I consider myself to be non hierarchical polyam, but what I mean by that isn't that I put the same value in every relationship I have but that I wouldn't give a partner any more "rights" (like veto any other partner) above others.
While this RA is still coming to terms with the descriptive hierarchy of my actions, as I my nesting partner and I are drowning in renewed NRE as we attempt to have a child together. While I admit to this descriptive hierarchy, I will not use that language. Where as my hierarchical friends use the term "primary" or "secondary" to describe the relationships, to me they sound like value statement about the partners. Additional I do not value romantic relationships above platonic, and prefer to negotiate specific boundaries based on the needs of the relationships.
I totally agree with this. Even if you call yourself non-heriarchal you end up showing through your actions where your priorities lie, and that is completely fine!! I reckon we should just get rid of the term, or at least be prepared to recognise the truth of our actions and how they affect others.
I am glad you point out (both here and elsewhere) how even imagining an expression of sexuality tends to be from a position of privilege. Having spent years in West Africa where women are severely oppressed, many of them undergo FGM as a child, never even have the option to masterbate, have sex for pleasure, or experience what many of us take for granted. When a person is struggling to survive "identity" is experienced very differently.
I'm glad you mentioned privilege in the poly community because this sounds like such a rarefied problem to have. What relationship anarchy sounds like is a person who doesn't want to have any commitments. It's a very bachelor/ bachelorette way of living life, which may not always work at all stages of life.
I've noticed a split in the polyam community where you have older people who came into polyamory after they had a well established monogamous relationship, and then you have younger people who are polyam first and THEN get in serious, long standing relationships and have a totally different idea of what stages of a relationship are. For example: most older people are very much like, date, get married, buy a house, have kids, have grand-babies so on and so forth for the progression of a relationship (not all but a majority). But over here you have young people (like me) who have a very different view of the "goal" of a relationship because that isn't really an option if you're an RA because marriage and raising children would create an inherent priority legally if nothing else. I know the fact than I'm LGBT also has an impact on this for me because I never thought I'd be able to get married so that already threw a wrench in that narrative. I say this because I see a lot of older people use polyamory as a way to "rejuvenate" their lives or marriages, as if they want to be a bachelor/ette again and I think that because that is so common it has a serious negative impact on people's view of RA.
@@Xx1Lexxi1xX ^^^THIS, I definitely notice this two groups in the poly community, the older generation and younger generation are doing poly for completely different reasons with different goals
First time viewer, so apologies if you've addressed this previously: Could you argue that relationship anarchists more fit in the category of consensual non-monogamists? My understanding of 'polyamory' is defined by the ability to be in multiple, committed relationships - implying that your concern for other people's feelings (partners) is the main priority. I'm confused about the mechanics of combining the two. ***Thanks for taking the time to post the vid! I am always learning. ;)
i think a lot of people also have this idea of what they'd be like in specific relationships and circumstances that in practice they realize aren't as simple as they thought. i always considered myself a relationship anarchist (only in the way that romantic and platonic relationships are equal, i think boundaries and communication are very important so i wouldn't necessarily identify with the other definition) and i do believe that, but in practice i definitely do prioritize my romantic partner over certain friendships because it's just easier. you connect differently to different people and so it can be varying levels of difficulty to reach out and put the effort into those relationships. not necessarily out of beliefs, just because of the practicality of the actual situation. thinking one thing is a lot different from actually being in the situation to put it to use and realizing it doesn't feel completely right because it's tricky to accurately predict what emotions you're going to have. i think there could definitely be that struggle of, "if i believe this, why doesn't it feel right?" and trying to make it work when it doesn't.
It sounds like you've been dealing with a lot of "sneaky-archy", which is a term I hear a lot in the solo polyam communities I run in. The idea of "sneaky-archy" is when someone claims to not practice hierarchy but then do everything that hierarchy entails. I think what's happening is that hierarchy is being called out more and more as being problematic in the poly world (particular toxic, co-dependent type of hierarchy), and so to get around this people claim to not be it without actually changing any aspect of their relationships. Its definitely a problem. I will say if given the choice between someone who acknowledges hierarchy in their relationships and someone who doesn't but clearly has that in play, I would rather have the honest partner, 100%. I would suggest maybe giving solo polyamory more of a look. In solo poly, you are actively working to maintain your autonomy and try to avoid putting restrictions on your partner's other relationships. I will say I think most solo poly people like myself can acknowledge that certain prioritization can naturally come from nesting or being being married to one partner - that's pretty much unavoidable. And if you have children, they will obviously always come first. There is some crossover with RA though some people use that as an excuse to just think you can have relationships without ever doing check ins or that you shouldn't have boundaries at all, which I personally don't think is healthy. Solo Poly for me means keeping myself at the center of all of relationships and trying to balance everyone in a way that is compassionate and considerate. I may one day end up living with someone which would cause some hierarchy to be in play but that's not currently in the cards for me. I do not blame you for your feelings or opinions on the matter. Hopefully you don't feel like I "dragged" you. I just wanted to add in my own voice. Great video!
I think right now I am pretty much solo poly and I really prefer that. I might not always be that way but it's where I want to be right now. Thank you for the perspective!
The idea of co-habitating with a partner as a relationship anarchist seems like a unique predicament. Is the act of living together not a form of hierarchy?
It seems inherently unfair. But non hierarchal I've seen in practice would be functional polygamist from the make perspective. He has to make all his wives valued and cared for and treated equally. But even then, life happens and people still get the short end of the stick
If you live with one best friend and you don't live with the other is that best friend you live with automatically more? If you have 2 kids and one moves out and the other stays at home is it that the kid who lives with you is more? You have 2 siblings and you go room with one and the other lives on their own is the sibling you live with st a higher hierarchy
@@GirlfriendQuest I mean, maybe, yeah. I myself have two older brothers. One is 15 years older than me and moved out of the house when I was about 5. The other is only 4 years older than me, I shared a room with him until I was about 14, and he still lives at home with me. I'm closer to the second brother. That doesn't mean that my 1st brother is any less my brother, or is unimportant to me. But humans just naturally grow (emotionally) closer to the people they're (physically and/or chronologically) closer to.
@@raq619 but what is closer in the digital age? Physical closeness isn't really as big of a deal. Beyond the fact that like i have 4 little siblings i lived more with my step siblings then my blood brother that I had in my life way more but I didn't love them more. Dynamics are complicated and picking favs can be reductive.
i think non hierarchical poly and relationship anarchy are both possible and realistic. The problem comes in when people _claim_ to be NHP/RA without actually doing the WORK to sustain that. RA/NHP are not just labels and ideas. They're goals that people have to work towards. And RA applies outside if romance as well. it challenges that romance and sex are automatically more important, valuable or fulfilling than platonic relationships and encourages people to have relationships that don't necessarily fit a prescribed mold or box. And for me the hierarchy part is about respecting consent, communication and negotiation so that every ones needs are met fairly and respectfully. You can absolutely care for someone more than other people but that shouldn't give them power to influence your other relationships since that robs their metamours of consent.
For my last comment, just want to say not directed at you Kat, you’re awesome. My phone is being a jerk during this current weather and wasn’t letting me edit my last comment. I meant in general the asshats who want to force their opinions about how relationships should be. Thanks for your educating vid. Love your thoughts ❤️
I had a realization that you kind of touched on in the video.
Non-hierarchy requires both participants to be non-hierarchical and I think the big problem is that most people aren't. So the people claiming to be non-hierarchical might be correct in that description but they're being put into a continuous environment that elicits hierarchical behavior.
My understanding is that in a poly relationship everyone's needs matter. What the hierarchical person ends up doing is acting as a 'need-generator', sucking up the resource of attention. And so even though everyone's needs matter there are more needs clustering around this one person to take care of. Without even realizing it, in trying to address those needs, the non-hierarchical person is being sucked into behavior that prioritizes individuals over others because the need to attend to them seems more pressing.
Ideally, a non-hierarchical person involved with another non-hierarchical person would recognize this kind of problem and would take into consideration if the other people are being attended to. They'd need to be invested in the other people even if they're not directly involved. I think it'd also require a greater ability to be self-sufficient and strategically manage needs so they're not a perpetual 'need-generator'.
I think your description is accurate but your conclusion is lacking. If someone genuinely has needs that manifest as subconsciously wanting hierarchy, they and their de facto primary should be listening to those feelings. If they are needs that genuinely can be met fully by other people then sure they should spread it out, but a massive problem in poly is people shutting down and bottling their feelings bc those feelings and needs are perceived as restricting their primary. I think we need to stop giving poly advice that even hints that your feelings shouldn't be heard or acted upon after proper reflection.
Edit: it is also kindnest to your metamours to be real about your feelings. So many primaries who resent secondaries for being with their partner can take those feelings out on them in cruel and even abusive ways, especially when they're not honest with themselves. Which I mention bc I was in that relationship and I'm still recovering from the emotional abuse inflicted.
@@razz6327 There's nothing I particularly disagree with what you've added. I'm definitely *not* advocating bottling up feelings for the sake of your partner(s).
Though I can see how that could be a takeaway from what I said so I appreciate the input!
I disagree with your premise. As a non-hierarchical person I can enter a relationship with someone who is hierarchical, if I consciously accept the impact their hierarchy can have on my relationship with them.
But I will maintain my boundary that I will not let that hierarchy impact my autonomy and my other relationships. If their hierarchy includes rules that would transitively impact my other relationships, I'm out.
If a hierarchical person considers me their secondary that may actually mean that they need less attention from me.
If they consider me their primary, I would let them know that I did not ask for that status, that I do not intend to make use of any privilege they grant me over their other relationships, that putting that label on me does not entitle them to more of my resources that I am willing to invest on my own and that I won't consider that label when making choices. I would also suggest to drop that label, as it makes me somewhat uncomfortable, because for many people it comes with these expectations.
J̵̄a̱c͟r̶ā͞d̵ that’s very true. Non-hierarchy only truly works in poly relationships when that reality is true for both partners
@@razz6327 I needed to hear this. I bottled up my insecurities for this exact reason and it led to self harm.
If you look at it like friendships there are hierarchies too. You have a pal for years you're gonna prioritise over the person you talk to every month or so in class. It's not nasty it's just you know them better you feel more for them
I feel like platonic love and romantic love aren't that different in general
Kinda off topic, but the term "nesting partner" is super cute.
I'd describe myself as in the vein of relationship anarchy, but to me that's not about hierarchies - it's more about not expecting a Relationship or a Friendship etc to follow certain rules because "only lovers do that" or "romance is not for friends" etc.
For instance, my best friend and I have a very romantic, emotionally intimate, committed friendship: we're very affectionate, we talk to each other almost every day, we do a lot of things together, etc. We're not sleeping with each other (gay man, nb femme) and we're not conventionally dating. But in terms of a heirarchy - yeah, he's the most important person to me right now. He's my emotional "primary". If I'm dating someone, we're going to have to negotiate priorities. He's not seeing anyone at the moment though he does have casual sex, and that's cool for me - but he also considers me very important. He's had relationships during our friendships and I understand that I'm one of multiple priorities then, but I'm still a priority.
The "Anarchy" part comes from not expecting my connections to fit moulds, but yeah there's probably going to be some level of hierarchy there, it's just not limited to romantic or sexual partners.
Also Jesus it's impossible to spell "hierarchy'
I'm in a relationship anarchy group, and I've heard relationship anarchists say that it does have hierarchy, but not prescriptive hierarchy. That means you can absolutely prioritize one person over another, but you can't try to control your partners' other relationships, or let any of your relationships be controlled by what one of your partners wants.
Relationship anarchy is not just polyamory, it also appeals to asexuals and aromantics who want to find other people who don't automatically put their romantic partners above their friends (like me).
Sylvia Odhner where is this group? I would love to join!
sylvia this hits the nail on the head.
That makes sense. By that definition I can claim more of a non-hierarchy in my relationships. None of us have the right to make demands concerning others' relationships. We can express concern if we see things that worry us, just like any friend. I learned that when one of my guys got into a situation that looked really sketchy to me. It even put me in a jealous upset space that I had to manage. But I kept my communication to expressing my concern and why and letting it go. He dated her for a few months and then decided I was right and it was not a good situation.
This makes so much sense! I have a aro ace friend and last paragraph hit pretty close to my heart
I genuinely don't understand how you can possibly feel safe in a relationship given this type of dynamic where partner can do anything they want with other partners and you have absolutely 0 say about any of that no matter what affect it will realistically have on your life and your relationship with them. I dont understand that at all.
They want wifey at home to do emotional and physical labour but they want the fun side as well. Until I stop seeing that in people’s’ poly relationships being discussed im just going to be bored w the concept
This. Whenever I'm approached by men like that, I think back to what a co-worker once said about a man she was seeing that was married, "He wants to be married during the week and single on the weekend". It perfectly sums up the dynamic that many men who are poly want in their relationships.
girl interrupted and I feel sad for their partners too because they feel pressured to be “cool” and accept that shit. I’m guessing those same dudes wouldn’t be ok w wifey getting some dick on the side as part of their “poly” relationship
very valid point.
While relationship anarchy and non-hierarchical polyamory can certainly co-exist, I disagree with the way they're being conflated. Relationship anarchy, at least as I've experienced and practiced it, rejects the notion of a hierarchy among types of relationships (e.g. a romantic relationship is not inherently more important than a friendship, etc.), not among actual individual relationships.
There is a completely different dynamic to living with someone and not living with someone. As a human being you have the right and need to feel happy, healthy, and safe where you live and sleep meaning that any problems that resides within your home that is shared between you and the partner you live with is going to take priority. It’s extremely uncomfortable to live in a space where there is an issue, because it puts you in fight, flight, or freeze mode. Even if it’s the same issue with a partner that you don’t live with, the dynamic is different because you can essentially physically and financially escape that other partner, while the partner living with you has a direct effect on you just by the virtue of living together, sharing a bed, space, rent/mortgage, utilities, bills, food, etc.
Good point. Also, when you agree to live with someone, you agree to be cognizant and accommodating of their needs.
This seems to be a irrefutable point.
I'm a queer Latinx Pilipinx non binary person who practices non hierarchical polyamory. I have two partners who are also non hierarchical polyamorous. The hard part of our relationships was finding people who are genuinely non hierarchical not just doing it to seem "more evolved" or for "ideological purposes".
i once was with a guy who had a girlfriend and said they were polyamorous. they had been together for a few years and i asked him if there was some kind of hierarchy and he said "noooo! no way! we are all free" blablabla.
after a few weeks with him i realized he loved her and just kinda liked me and his girlfriend was definitely a priority. all the time. we were together for 4 months because after that time i just couldn't take it anymore. he would be upset because she didn't give him enough attention, he talked about her and their problems and their life together all the time, they would travel together (but he never travelled with me), they had this official relationship (i was introduced as a "friend" and she was his girlfriend).
of course i grew jealous and i was a monogamous person trying to fit in this polyamory thing because i felt lonely (now i know it is not for me and i avoid it as much as i can even though i like learning about it). why the hell did he say there was no hierarchy when it was so f-ing obvious she was the most important thing in his life?? he could have just told me... as you said, it is very frustrating!
Omg.... This just sucks and I honestly think this kind of things are said just to keep the other person around.
My ex denied wanting an open relationship. He denied sleeping with someone else. But he definitely prioritized and mentioned love faster towards her even under the guise of friendship than he did with me. His treatment of me I rejected him telling me he was poly. He probably is, but he was trying to say a desire to be poly erased the lies, ignoring me while take hours on the phone because she needed. He made her a wife-like hierarchical, despite living with me and denying what he wanted because I expressed not being sure I'd be up for the dynamic. So no matter what he was feeling and learning, I see it as cheating because he put her ahead emotionally and did have sex and lie and only after admitting it did he go "because poly... you're intolerant for being upset."
He said it was non hierarchical for 2 reasons, most likely. The first, to go with the peer pressure in polyamory. There's peer pressure to attempt to avoid hierarchy.
Next, for it to seem more appealing to you.
Last, many poly people are idealistic (I was) and slightly naive that humans do often choose a favorite when difficult situations arise.
I'm still into non-monogamy, but.....
I don't think not being hierarchical means you don't give priority based on closeness and feelings. Everyone does this and it is necessary in order to respect existing relationships and keep them alive. I think it means that the other person doesn't feel like they are able to call the shots or make demands on you that impact your other relationship due to their hierarchy alone.
You can't really expect a new relationship to have the same everything as a three year relationship. Being polyamorous doesn't mean you get to jump into the deep end immediately. Relationships usually take time to build. I think a lot of the unhappiness with this dynamic comes from comparing the new relationship to the longer standing one.
Speaking as an anarchist, I’m not sure ‘hierarchy’ is really the right word-having a primary partner, or being closer to some people than others, is not the same thing as political hierarchy in which people wield power over other people. Relationship anarchy seems to me to confuse a difference in closeness with a difference in power.
Yeah, I agree. I aim for non-hierarchy, but I'm closer with some partners than others because that's how those relationships have developed. Sometimes that's due to factors like geography, or just really clicking with someone and that brings you closer.
I think RA’s allow for differing levels of closeness. I think the hierarchy aspect is referring to the power within close relationships to influence decisions about a partner’s other relationships and how that person generally budgets their time.
As a political anarchist, this has always bothered me too.
Hmm. Interesting point.
I hear what you're saying. But can't closeness, or rather denying a partner closeness, be used as a method of reward and punishment for other partners? I.e. 'The more you please me, I will reward you with physical affection. The more I'm displeased, the more I withhold affection from you.' Soon after, the person doing the withholding will have a spectrum upon which their partners fall (that is always in flux of course) grading them from least to most likable.
This is completely off topic but I just want to say that your confidence about yourself is terrific. :)
Aw thank you !!
Weird perspective for me to hear. I always take your dating stories with a grain of salt, since I'm asexual. In general, the dating scene is extremely different for me. A lot of people in the ace community where I live practice some form of relationship anarchy. It might be because for an asexual person you basically have the choice between losing 99% of your dating pool by only dating other aces OR you can be poly and your non-ace partner(s) can get sexual with somebody else. It doesn't mean all aces are poly of course, but it's something we might be more willing to consider. Relationship anarchy in this context makes a lot of sense when you consider how having sexual intimacy with a person is often considered the line in the sand when it comes to bumping a relationship up the pyramid so to speak.
Relationship Anarchy is where the A for aromantic and the P for polyamorous in the LGBTQIAP+ community overlap.
Many bi, asexual and aromantic people, myself included, end up into realizing they are also polyamorous or just getting into polyamorous relationships together in the very least because of asexual, aromantic and even polyamorous loneliness (curiously, the majority of people do not know that the polyamorous dating pool is also very small).
An aromantic person could share a sexual relationship with an allo person, which also shares a romantic relationship with an asexual person.
I really don't wanna drag you because so much of what you said was food for thought, and I agree with most of it. I guess what I'd like to add is that, although for sure some people wanna sound cooler//smarter than thou with this vocabulary, perhaps some folks who identify with the idea of relationship anarchy know that power and hierarchy are inevitable, always present and always morphing, faceless and nameless - they just want to cultivate their love life as horizontally as possible... a kind of harm reduction? Jo Freeman wrote something really interesting about this "The tyranny of structurelessness", in which she unpacks why pretending like hierarchy and power dynamics don't exist in political organizing is actually more harmful than being transparent and upfront about the structure (which echos what you argue). But we don't have to conclude that self-managed, non-hierarchical organizing is not worth practicing! It's an ideal, and we do what we can to try to reach it, knowing very well we probably won't get to it in our lifetime. Anarchy and relationship anarchy are related in that sense.
Also, what attracts me the strongest to relationship anarchy is the idea that love is spread evenly across different types of love. My cats are very dear to my heart, so is my partners, so is my best friend etc etc etc etc etc
If there was a fire and you had chose between you're cat and a partner, WHO YOU CLOSING???
Love is whatever, but there is pecking order. Period.
I am a relationship anarchist (and not polyamorous) and i know everyone is different but i personally see non-hierarchy as mostly being about autonomy, and not so much about if more focus is put on one partner over the other. And I am saying this as a person who isn't the top of anyone's hierarchy... who feels my relationships are healthy and fufilling.
There is definitely value too revaluating what type of relationships (romatic,sexual, etc.) you value most and why and if that is actually best for you however.
another relationship anarchist here, and i would like to add on to that for open communication regarding this people kinda need to try and figure out what they want from a relationship and navigate that together instead of just slapping some label on it and calling it a day. its something that needs to be communicated every once in a while WITH EVERYONE INVOLVED and handled with dynamic change in mind. kind of like an union of egoists.
Alex ella This comment and the video really opened up a new way for me to express my relationship. Im in a monagamous relationship with a partner who has a chronic health issue and they need a lot of practicle and emotional support. And its frustrating to see some people in my circle worry that im not getting my rights respected cause i do the bulk of the physical and emotional labour. BUT what i do have is a partner who massively promotes my autonomy and my interlectual persuits. So that power dynamic is not a one way carer-caree relationship or an explotative 'traditional wifey' situation. Its equal but not the same for each of us.
👏 THAT'S 👏 NOT 👏 WHAT 👏 IT 👏 MEANS...
"Non-hierarchal" refers to groups and their decision-making, not individual people and their personal priorities.
"Believing in Anarchism" simply isn't enough to do an anarchism (successfully).
Reaching consensus is a necessary social skill for any Anarchy, small scale or big. If you (as a group) don't know how to do that and do not acknowledge already existing race/class/gender/... power imbalanced then people will get hurt, especially those who are already marginalized.
A massive problem with "nesting partners" is that not everybody is willing to give up their couple privilege. If only two people in a group of three are actively trying and one person doesn't even know if they're ready to treat everyone as their equal -- that's a really bad starting point. I'd say that group has to find ways for the metamours to bond with each other in order to replace competition with collaboration. Be friends, and don't let the person at the "romantic centre" stay at the centre of the whole group dynamic.
Clap louder, you nailed it.
You are honestly helping me really understand polyamory from a perspective that I can relate to, which I think helps me accept a polyamourous part of myself that I'm still uncovering. I don't really get the non-hierarchal, "evolved", better-than-thou attitude and I've run into it a lot. Too much. In general, every single person I know falls somewhere different on a scale of how much time I would care to spend with them. It's not something to have numbers on, it's just something one feels about people in their lives, and I don't think anyone should even feel bad about it because prioritizing certain people in your life that you think are good for you is like... a good thing?
what does hierarchy mean? is this similar to the question of "if both were drowning, who would you save?" or is it more a question of "who do you prefer spending time with?"
because if its the latter, i'll say this: i have a nesting partner and a long distance partner currently deployed in south korea.
i spend a lot more time with my nesting partner because i live with him. i get very minimal time with my other boyfriend, since theres a 15 hour time difference and hes often working.
is this hierarchy, or is this just a symptom of our current arrangement?
because i can say with confidence that neither of my relationships take priority over the other, but thats just me.
you can call me a relationship anarchist, but i will instead say that i acknowledge the fluidity of humanity and its relationships. that one day my LDR could become my NP, and my NP could one day become my husband, or i could go into a third relationship and THAT partner could become my NP. or perhaps one day ill have no NP at all. because self-labels only have as much meaning as you choose to give them.
maybe i went off-track a little, but i think i made my point
In Anarchist philosophy, "hierarchy" is usually defined as a system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority.
It doesn't really depend on what you would do if you were forced to make a decision. What matters is how you as a group make those decisions. If you as the "centre person" have more leverage than one of your partners, that's hierarchal. If you as a group are facilitating group decisions based on consent and consensus, that's Anarchist.
thank you for answering my question, bc i clearly had the idea of hierarchy mixed up in my head, but i think my point still stands if thats the case. (:
Yeah, fixed hierarchy vs fluid, that can change organically over time. I guess fixed hierarchy can run into similar problems as fixed non-hierarchy, because of rigidness. Seems very similar to monogamy even. This whole relationship thing seems to be about finding a balance between fixed vs fluid. Dealing with change.
My understanding is that consensus operates as a decision making model in groups of people. If there is a situation in which two people date the same person but have no interactions with the other, how exactly are they operating on a consensus model? This confuses me about relationship Anarchy. What ways do relationships have Hierarchy that relate to systems of power? The only thing I can really think of is coercion which could really just be termed abuse?
A lot of people have aspirations of relationship anarchy which is admirable but aspirations often fall short of reality. People with these aspirations need to be very careful that they don't gaslight their partners.
If someone isn’t present with you on a date or is cutting things off because of their partner, they are practicing hierarchy. They’re giving one person power over other relationships.
Eh, I just want to point out that the other person they are treating as more important might not want to be part of that kind of assholery. If they directly told the hinge they do not like the "other" person and demand hierarchy then yeah they are forcing the others into a bad place. But if they haven't then the responsibility falls 100% on the hinge. Some people try to replicate the whole wife + mistress dynamics in poly without the other parties being in on it. The lack of informed consent to being used in that sort of dynamic is pretty gross.
..as in don't excuse people from behaving badly just because they claim it is the fault of the other partner. That's a too mono kind of behavior, to go "oh it is totally the mistress' fault and the hinge was forced into the situation". Just, no. It was the hinge's CHOICE to act the way they did.
Why shouldn't partner have some say in other relationships? That person will inherently be part of their life too...
@@juliafraa6419 of course Partnr A has say in the relationship they form with Partnr B/C/D. They just don't have say in the relationships you form. If someone is being abusive or harmful - yes i speak up to the people I love about it out of concern. Beyond that, I don't tell any of my loved ones who they can or cannot care about, this hold true for family, friends, romantic partners. Their bodies, hearts and lives are theirs.
@@geekxlove81 I guess you just have to consider that if you are prioritizing someone that you know your partner is deeply uncomfortable with or choosing to prioritize the prior relationship less due to the new relationship you will have to face the real consequences of the damage you are likely causing to this previous relationship which could include losing that partner. And there's nothing wrong with them making that choice to leave given the choices you're making WILL affect their life in serious ways, they have every right to feel comfortable. You have to decide if you feel that's worth it.
This is such an important conversation. I've had a negative experience with someone who was a "non-hierarchical polyamorist". We weren't seeing one another for very long, but when I met him, he had a partner he lived with. We all hung out together every now and then, and it was nice until I began noticing things that made me think his partner was not totally okay with the situation, he was not being affectionate towards me in front of her, only when she left the room, etc. I began feeling pretty uncomfortable and brought up the fact that it was not totally hierarchal and that I was secondary, which I had no problem with. Almost immediately he got defensive about it, and was completely in denial. Soon after things went downhill when he accused me that I was just being jealous and that it was me who hadn't dealt with my own insecurities and that basically my feelings and perspective about the situation weren't valid, it felt like he was shocked that his politics and intimate relationships didn't "align". I can see now that it became abusive and he began gas lighting me, meanwhile his partner was only agreeing to everything he was saying but it didn't seem like she had her own voice to state her own opinion and feeling about the situation. She had a pretty passive temperament, which made me realize that he may have been controlling her in something she might have felt uncomfortable about. In the end what I was most off put by was the dishonesty and denial of the real situation. It started feeling like a cult and honestly fucked with my psyche and emotions for awhile, but luckily I got out of there in time before I became more disillusioned by it. Ironically I am friends with his (still) partner but haven't talked to him since.
I agree with this 100%. My experience with non-hierarchical polyamory with people who nest is that they still have an underlying / unspoken hierarchy. Which is fine, but annoying when they try to say it isn't there.
I think the two camera set up is great!! Always do what works best for you!!
Thank you!! That's one vote for two camera set up lol
make it two lol
Make it three - I love the two cameras
The 2 camera setup is better, more visually interesting and feels more natural
Agreed
Your videos really have a kind of running theme of 'people who say X but actually think/do Y'
As someone new to being polyamorous I've found your content on the subject very insightful
The main lesson: relationships, especially polyamorous ones, require you to be REAL 👏 WITH 👏 YOURSELF 👏
Too real! That's why I think a lot of people don't do it well. It's rough to be honest with yourself let alone the people around you
I feel like a hierarchical situation just kinda happens, I was dating a guy who had a partner of seven years who he lived with. I don't expect to waltz into his life and be treated as equal to someone who he's been with for seven years. It's fine, I knew that was his life going in and I chose to date him anyway.
If I'm second or third or nintyseventh in the pecking order it's ok with me as long as I know and can act accordingly.
Exactly! I dated a married poly woman the exact same way. To me, hierarchy felt more secure anyway.
I always love hearing your thoughts, but that anecdote of the potential partner's primary partner texting 70 times every time y'all hung out was a big red flag. I'm glad you know you worth to not put up with that mess.
Btw, I love the hair color. 😍😍😍
These people you're talking about are not really non-hierarchical. They're using the word, but not doing the do.
I'm not polyamorous in general (well at least I don't practice it), but I don't think anarchism in relations is about having the "rule" of not having anyone more important in your life in comparison to others. I think is about not being forced to do so. And yeah maybe you don't really differentiate between friends or partners, you just love people in different ways, but it doesn't mean you may love some people more than others or have different types of relationships. For example, I couldn't say if I love my brother more than my boyfriend, I love them both a lot, but still the relationship is different, what I do with each one is different, the time I spend with each one is a different amount as well. Or if you have non-romantic friends, you may love them all, but it would be silly to say you can't have a best friend or something like that.
About that guy I think is very disrespectful to be focused on another person when supposedly that time was for being with you, that's just common sense. But I guess he was not ready or maybe her partner was not ready to act the way they tried to act. At the end of the day, the thing is many people are not honest with themselves and their partners and I think that's the main problem. I you are not prepared or your partner is not prepared, and so on, it's fine but we have to be honest if we want things to be productive. For example, I don't do it because I'm not ready to do so, honestly I feel fine being like this and me and my partner are happy. I wouldn't want to lie to myself and try to do something that is hurting me or force a situation than in the end, will be hurting my partner. You have different choices so people have to reflect and in the end do what is going to work for them.
There has to be some kind of committment from the people involved or it means nothing. I never thought of relationships being on the hierarchical continuum but there are just connections that may be stronger than others. I know that the 'committment' word may be taboo in polyamory but it is a highly important element in any relationship.
A few things:
1. I'll be speaking at UCLA on April 15th! Come and see me, let's take pictures and talk about stuffs!
2. Do you guys want to see a preview of the video essay I'm working on? Should I post it? My Patreon Members have already seen it!
3. Free internet cookie to the person who can guess which song I'm dancing to in the intro and outro. lol.
Blackpink - Kill This Love. Nice choice 👍🏽 (Side note: I see you on so many Kpop vids and you have an amazing taste).
@Mary Yessss!!!! 🍪🍪
Yo I really wanna see the video essay preview 😭 I'm all over that topicccc
Kat Blaque Yes I’d like to see the preview.
Have you seen this Ted talk about how people who are not straight have higher IQ’s age the genes involved? I have no idea how true it is with the science but I thought it was fascinating.
ruclips.net/video/4Khn_z9FPmU/видео.html
I love you and I agree with you 100%. People just need to be honest and upfront.
We live in a narrative we tell ourselves and people -often- like to -embellish- sugarcoat
For me relationship anarchy does have hierarchy, just hierarchical structures for emotional labour and time management may develop just like political anarchy recognises educational hierarchy and that some just hierarchical structure can exist.
I personally don't like hierarchy to be stagnant or veto power to be given to any partner over another. Unless like emergency situations occur like one of your partners is dating someone who isn't treating them well seriously abusive or something, even then no veto power should be given just be supportive and give you honest feedback about an unhealthy metamour.
I like long term relationships so I plan on having nesting partner(s) that will probably have certain privileges like fluid exchange (depending) and etc but things like veto power given to a partner over another partner is to me unethical and defeats the pursuit of a just hierarchy made through anarchy.
Just wanted to added that I see alot of the words over action stuff too and that's why I word my definition of relationship anarchy a lot differently to most.
Personally I find the two-camera setup a little distracting, but it's not so much of an issue that I'd ever ask you to stop doing it if that's how you feel most comfortable speaking. Imo you getting your thoughts across comfortably and in a way you're happy with is what we really come to true tea for! I personally prefer the one-camera setup but to me, it really doesn't make a significant enough difference. I'd rather hear your thoughts and opinions in whatever way is going to be most authentic for you, and if standing to talk makes you more comfortable and able to speak more freely and confidently, that matters much more!
Omg that FKA Twigs vinyl.. taste
We been knew
good eyes
So on your last polyamory video I talked about how my approach to polyamory had some twists bc of me being a trauma-ridden demiromantic, but I realized I'd also left out an important piece of info. My boyfriend isn't a man, he just uses "he" and "boy" for shorthand for his complicated gender.
I've never dated men in a polyamorous context so I have no way to comment on that specific branch of things lol.
I've never been interested in calling myself a relationship anarchist, precisely bc I think that saying you're "not controlled by relationships" can open up doors to you... Not treating any relationship as important to you.
I personally think relationships help shape a lot of my life. Not that they Change Who I Am, but that I can generally mark how safe I've felt and how much I've grown by the relationships I've had throughout my life. I think if I put myself up on a pedestal above relationships, I'd be unable to connect the dots in that way.
I agree that it's not bad to have preferences for specific people, but I guess... As far as my polyamory goes I would want that preference to include two or three people. I'd wanna raise the kids with them, be married to all of them. Past that, if they wanted other relationships, fine, but idk.
I think the structuring of Primary as being a single being is my problem here.
I have no interest in a non-serious relationship, bc of the reasons i discussed in my other post, but I am polyamorous. I just think that if I have to choose between monogamy and having Only One Person be the best with several other relationships of lesser commitment around me, I'd be better off choosing monogamy.
When I was a kid, I was the kind that had 4 or 5 best friends at once, bc once I started making a friend I wanted to be their Best Friend immediately. This led to some problems, but it also led to some lasting relationships that worked out fine. I just don't connect halfway the majority of the time, is what I'm saying.
I don't mean to judge people who do polyamory a different way, or want a different sort of relationship. This is just personally what I want outta mine.
You'd kinda be their primary though. The hierarchy isn't necessarily through one persons lens. Because they are married and living with you they would either only be dating you (primary) or dating someone else. Dating someone else but has to help you and the kids first (or other partner)? Primary.
But also if you were all dating just each other or just you them solo and each person was treated with equal weight then that would be non-hierarchical. It's just when you expand it and look at the other person's perspective right. In your eyes it's equal but the incoming partner has to jockey for time
I agree, I find it difficult to imagine how NH can work with a nesting couple, unless it's a closed unit where everyone is nesting with each-other (which actually sounds wonderful.) It seems to me that if relationships escalate, then hierarchies are bound to happen. This isn't a bad thing as long as everyone communicates honestly
I'm currently a solo polyamorist in 1 long-term, non-escalating relationship. We enjoy each-other's company, fulfil our complimentary kinks, and his girlfriend knows. I couldn't ask for more lol
Hey Kat, awesome video as always, I'm personally a fan of the two camera set-up but this works too. I think what you're saying is essentially the true tea - that people, especially dudes, claim they are non-hierarchical but at the end of the day they have a primary or preferred person that they ultimately refer back to as a base and who becomes their default, has power over your relationship with that person and its continuance and how it looks like in the everyday, and so on. I also think that relationships are infinitely complex and can't be categorized as either hierarchical or non-hierarchical in a way that doesn't just flatly erase the experience of a lot of people. I'm from a small town and I've done very little "poly dating" in the sense that you are (this may change, as I'm moving to a much bigger city in the fall for school), so I think we've lived very different things, but what you are describing, I think, is much more "the norm" than what I know.
I've commented on one of your FB status' before and mentioned that I am dating a married couple. I would consider them both to be my primaries. We have been together and co-habiting for going on three years. They have been married for twenty years. My boyfriend (my girlfriend's husband...) has another partner of nine years who lives in another city. I don't know how really to explain these relationships other than that there is a kind of a hierarchy there, but none of these relationships are negotiable.
My closest friend is also poly. She has two boyfriends, who are also obviously good friends of mine. They all co-habit. They share all finances and they have a daughter together. They do not know who the "biological" father is, by choice. Legally, both men are the father. The mother and one father are white, the other father is not. This was a legal first in Canada, they took it to court and were successful in having both men listed as father on the birth certificate. They are now in the process of taking on the Canada Revenue Agency, we'll see what happens.
Anyway, I think I'm more or less in agreement with you but just wanted to add that to the discussion because I think it contributes to complicate things a little bit.
Hierarchy isn't inherently bad, IMO. It certain can be unjust or oppressive, but it's not hierarchy that's really the problem. And when you try to get away from it, it still organically happens -- the difference becomes that people don't acknowledge, even to the point of actively denying it (Soviet Russia is an extreme example of this). Power dynamics are part of life; I think the goal should be to make them healthy, not to try to eradicate (all) power differentials.
On another note: YES my experience with polyamory has been dominated by people who weren't really OK with polyamory but were unable or unwilling to articulate that. Of course, I'd say that's true with people (especially men) and being vulnerable with feelings in general.
Also YES, there is so much self-delusion and ego -er- expansion in the new-agey left.
Yeah I just find it sorta maddebung because there's no sense in denying it and spending most of your time with one partner doesn't make you a bad person
@@KatBlaque I could really go off on a tangent because I like to beat this drum, but the left (like basically the entire rest of our culture, but in its own unique way) is super influenced by protestant and Puritan frameworks -- in this case moralism, shame, and fixation with outward appearances. Everybody wants to think they can just check the right boxes and be "good" or "evolved" or whatever, but growth is a process that has to involve more emotional honesty than that.
I definitely agree that hierarchy can be moral and ethical. I have a sexual friendship with someone who 100% acknowledges he has a primary (they live together and are engaged), but he is great at communication, very honest, and proceeds in all his relationships in a compassionate manner.
Monarchy isn't inherently bad, IMO. It certain can be unjust or oppressive, but it's not feudalism that's really the problem. #NotAllRulers
/s
People defaulting back to what they know isn't "organic" or inevitable, it's a learned bias. Beginning to overcome competitive behavior is hard at first -- but as a Radical Leftist I've basically begun to breath consensus democracy at some point. Hierarchal power is a part of life _in our current society_ but once you've acknowledged their existence it is possible to counteract. Facilitating consensus is a social skill. It has to be learned but it _can_ be learned.
(And it's still less effort than always having to mitigate the damaging effects of hierarchal relationships.)
"Also YES, there is so much self-delusion and ego expansion in the new-agey left."
New Age spirituality has the same function as any other religion: 'People go to church for the same reasons they go to a tavern: to stupefy themselves, to forget their misery, to imagine themselves, for a few minutes anyway, free and happy.' (Mikhail Bakunin)
I do prefer de-centralized New Age spirituality over organized religions with a non-trivial amount of political power, though... and religion over alcoholism. When (and it is a matter of "when" not "if") you have to numb yourself bc your boss is treating you like sh-t and the people are too distracted by their own misery to care about you, I think you should do it in the most ethical way possible. Personally, I prefer climbing, surfing, martial arts, board games, writing RUclips comments and fighting Nazis -- but I know from experience that meditation and yoga are also perfectly fine.
Sure, a solution is always better than a coping mechanism but "I think the goal should be to make [power dynamics] healthy" doesn't sound much more proactive either tbh. New Age spiritualism includes at least _some_ effort to destroy established power monopolies.
I dont like hierarchy because it makes no sense in relationship for me... just like friends and people are different and you live and do different thing with each friend or family, so it should be with romantic relationships, there is no primary or better relattion people or activity. But i do agree that it is better to admit an hierarchy ratter then pretending there is none just because we want to believe in it, because if we dont do so we perpeatuate it and hide what power dinamics on our society and relationships are imposed or chosen to us
I love the two camera set up personally! You look so much more comfortable and at ease. Feels like a casual TEDTalk.
Relationship anarchy is appealing to me since the cultural heiarchy of relationships has always made me feel incredibly worthless. I preferred platonic friendships when I was young and still do, to the point where I'm wondering if I'm aro or ace, and it's pretty clear that makes me not worth spending time with for almost everyone. It's pleasant to think there are people out there who don't immediately rank romantic and sexual relationships above platonic ones.
I really respect your opinions and perspectives here, though I don’t know if I totally agree. I will say, as a polyamorous person who has dated both men and women, that I find women a better fit for non-hierarchical relationships. I’ve had better luck with balance when dating other women or, in my current relationship, a woman and a non-binary person.
Your channel is very interesting. I am a cis woman married with 2 children. We live a pretty conservative life but I like learning about people living alternative liberal lives. Wow I have learned so much.
I don't do hierarchial poly not because I don't respect long-standing relationships, but that an established hierachy basically is putting limits on the growth of the newer relationship. It attempts to keep relationships from evolving, growing, transitioning naturally. I will not be with someone who calls me a "Secondary"....
Bottom line: If they have a "veto clause", they are NOT non-hierachial.
If a partner isn't into it, that's not even just not non-heirarchical, it's not even polyamory & I don't care what you call it. And yes, relationship anarchy and non-h polyam IS different within wlw, mlm, nonbinary, trans, sapphic etc. circles. Your videos on polyam baffle me sometimes to be honest. But then again, straight men aren't my thing and I'm way younger soooo.... yeah. From my perspective at least, straight cis polyam ppl have soooo much bullshit to unpack it's hard for it to ever be truly non-heirarchical. Not impossible, just uncommon. Even in my circles, people can unintentionally create heirarchy even when you don't want to. And being polyamorous doesn't mean you have healthy relationships or good communication. You have to WORK for that.
And as an afterthought/extension: you have to WORK for relationship anarchy/ non h polyam, too. It's both a label and a goal. You can't just say it and slap it on your relationship without putting in the work.
I wish I could leave men alone lol 😂
You're an intelligent, articulate, quick witted, and outgoing woman. I really hope you find what you're looking for in a partner.
I get super skeptical when I hear a group say they are "non-hierarchical" because that's just not how humans operate most of the time. I'm SURE there are people who CAN do it out there but they are such an outlier. Having a hierarchy doesn't mean you respect certain people more or less, and I feel like some polyams falsely equate those two things. "Oh we all get the same amount of respect so there is no hierarchy". Hierarchy is just another tool for clear communication and expectations if used effectively. Thank you for your True Tea
Hi Kat ! I liked this video, honestly I think you've raised some big points to why poly sounds amazing on paper, but varies immensely on person to person experience. I know a lot of people, myself definitely included, who have played with the concepts and then people have gotten hurt. I think that this isn't a new concept, but it's been only very recently a "mainstream" relationship dynamic where more often than not in places like LA (or where I'm from NYC) you have these people who are conventionally attractive, but emotionally unavailable, who feel like this will solve what they lack in their primary relationship. Not that this is always the case, I have close friends in a polycule that make it work fine, but speaking as someone who did this to someone else, it's something that I really wish I could go back and analyze with the same clarity and understanding of communication that I do now. Communication is so important, and at the time I was hell bent on making sure I did it right, that I wouldn't necessarily hear out my partner because i had framed it as "I need poly, we cannot be together unless you can know and understand that." And he wasn't ok with it. The tricky part of this mess however, was that we had an on /off history (red flag, don't do this to yourself). During one of our off times, I had started seeing an fwb that I developed one sided feelings for. This person was 7 years older than me, was only interested in the sex, and I had agreed to not let my feelings get into it (not how that works). So when the partner who I was trying to get back with found out I had been seeing someone casually, it was assumed I would cut off the fwb, and then it was communicated that I should cut off the fwb, and then we fought about it. Obviously I didn't want to cut them off, because I had feelings for them to some degree, they were really using those feelings as a means to keep me coming back at some points (not all points, I take responsibility), and my primary could see that it was a very sexual relationship from marks on my skin. That hurt him immensely. He felt like he wasn't satisfying me, he felt used for his emotional labor and for letting me stay over when I would, only to see where I'd been the night before on my body, and to me it was fine because I had told him "well when the summer comes around we can get back together officially and close this off" but he hadn't wanted it open in the first place. But when it first started with the fwb, we weren't on together. This fwb, being halfway involved in it, gave me the "dump him" advice (he was right to some degree, my primary ended up being very controlling in other ways) and by that point I didn't know what to believe. Should I commit to my partner and sacrifice a freedom that I hadn't experienced before, for someone that I've been around the tracks with a few times, or should I risk losing that safety forever just for the chance of another fun night.
I'm sad to say this story doesn't have a happy ending, my partner had a meltdown screaming at me for hours, we broke up during a fight (again), and then he threatened to kill himself on Facebook and tried to jump into the Hudson (or so he says) and was rushed to an in patient clinic for 10 days. He then used that attempt to control everything around me, not just me.
A year later, after working through that and getting back together (somehow ???), when I tried to get out again after a horrible personal traumatic experience involving near death emergency surgery, immense gender dysphoria, and being coerced into unprotected sex multiple times, I knew this person wasn't looking out for my best interests. He used his suicide attempt (on the year anniversary of it) to come out about my abusiveness, to cover up what he did to me in the time since. He reported me for harassment when I was desperately reaching out for him to stop, almost getting me suspended in school, when I was afraid he was going to escalate, I took it further by opening an assault record through our school that he had done what he had done over that winter, which made sure he would escalate to getting what was effectively a restraining order against me for a year and a half, after I had been convinced not to go that route by my schools SA guidance and hearing mediator. The hearing ended how you would imagine it would, our relationship was "tumultuous and problematic" so I "must be lying to get him expelled".
That's the end of it. I had to go to court proceedings after that, to be told not to step foot near him for the next 8 months, the pressure of possibly being arrested on spot for haphazardly running into someone who knew where I lived on campus made me so paranoid I couldn't complete my last semester (there were other reasons too, but this was a big one), and he did.
Now he lives in LA as far as I know lmfao. Getting back to what this means about poly, obviously this isn't a universal experience in the slightest. My point is, that you can communicate as much as you want, you can be as mature and well spoken about it as humanly possible, but if you can't be honest with yourself, how can you manage to be honest to the people around you? Your communication can be rooted in a wanting for honesty, but lacks the core /truth/ of it if you are holding back, and that can be very uncomfortable for the people around you while you figure it out.
I wanna also add on finally, that these people, including myself, were all very problematic in this situation. It happened about 3 years ago, so I can speak from a safe place where the restraining order was dismissed and vacated, I don't speak to either of these people anymore and I think we are all better to some degree, and I am a whole year single for the first time since I was 16 (now 22, wild how young I am tbh I was 19 at the time). I was the youngest one, the other two being 23 and 27 (which is super problematic as well), and it ended in everyone having a trauma. I do know people in a polycule who say they love it and make it work, and that's amazing to me and I respect it because I know you can love more than one person in that way, but making it actually work is the part so few people actually get to, while the majority usually ends up in some kind of weird traumatic interpersonal shit show because of one thing or another.
Oof sorry for trauma dumping, but since I can talk about this now without it totally ruining the rest of my day, I figured I'd share my experience. This is by no means my 100% opinion on poly, only a small glimpse into the experience I had attempting it as a privileged 19 year old in art school, and crashing & burning spectacularly, even after reading all those self help guides.
Thank you for this. Theres almost a weird pressure to be non heirarchichal because its like polya in its 'truest form' or whatever, but i am not capable of it. Im engaged, and part of a core vee, and its extremely important to me that new people im dating make space for that, because its a good sign of their respect for my life and autonomy, and i also have worked really hard to be as happy as i am, and i know what i need out of core partnerships to maintain that, and thats not going to be found in everyone. Im also not going to provide that for everyone, and thats completely valid.
I honestly think them acting as if they're more "evolved" is quite ironic, since polyamory is technically older than monogamy in terms of humanity's existence in general.
Just because soemthing happened in the past doesn't make it less evolved
@@djadelaney I didn't say it did? I wasn't trying to say that polyamory is regressive at all. I was just pointing out that it doesn't make them "better" or "new" for practicing said thing. Besides, everyone's perception on what is and isn't "progressive" or "evolved" depends on a variety of factors.
I always assumed polyamory and monogamy had been around the same amount of time since they're sexual/romantic preferences? I tried looking into their starts and couldn't find anything. I assume the history of both would have to do with the legal histories of various places as well as historical power dynamics (ie polygyny being legal but not polyandry in some ancient patriarchal societies)?
@@birdyinabox Absolutely culture and laws play a huge part in it. Very frequently in America think of non-monogamous relationships, it's usually a rather patriarchal viewpoint where it's a man with multiple women. They rarely take into account a woman with multiple men, or non-heteronormative aspects that can occur with non-monogamous relationships. Of course in other cultures, this may not be such a foreign idea to grasp.
As for them existing around the same time, you raise a good point, and honestly, I don't doubt it. There will always be people who prefer one over many, and people who prefer many over one. I highly doubt there were zero monogamous people before the "one man one woman" policy was implemented. Many people just seem to think non-monogamous relationships is this "new age woke white hippie movement", when it's been around for quite some time and in many places around the world.
ayanna your comment really got me thinking about the history of polyamory. thanks, it's really interesting!
I'm not polyamorous and only have a basic understanding of anarchy but I feel like relationship anarchy might be a misuse of terms.
My understanding is that anarchy is, no unjustified hierarchies in relation to power. So for one if you want a hierarchy, of any sort, then boom it's justified. But you also have to give that choice to other people. So you have to be on the same page with every one involved about what the hierarchy is. To me this sounds kinda like normal polyamory.
Also I find it weird that anarchy is the word they use as liking people more, at least for me, doesn't have anything to do with power.
Anarchy, in my understanding, has an issue with people having power for no reason and that being used to control people who did not concent. And this putting the person(s) with the power in an advantaged position and disadvantaging the people under them. I don't see how prioritising people differently gives anyone a advantage or disadvantage, as hopefully a relationship is never a net disadvantage. If that is the case you should leave if possible.
Please correct me on anything, I just had a thought that I didn't see already in the comments and thought I'd share what I thought during this video.
To me one "disadvantage" in hierarchical relationships (that try/ claim to be non-hierarchical and maybe also in general) is quite obvious: The person on the one side gets less attention, caring, (quality) time and/or support by their partner than their other partner. If that one partner needs more than that and doesn't find it in another relationship (be it platonic, romantic, whatever) it likely makes them feel not enough validated. And even if that person has support and bonds with others "enough": Seeing another person being cared for more than you by a person you are close to can still make you jealous. That is also okay, it's a normal human emotion, it's a matter of how you deal with all that. This is where I do see the value in the concept of relationship anarchy, and be it just in theory. In real life it might (often) not work to reach such equality or you can't always deal with that jealousy (well). At this point it might be important to acknowledge that the theory doesn't work (like you wanted) and be honest. Because that's necessary to make it better or give people the chance to try something else.
@@potatopancake4358 this is wrong, for example Bakunin said he defers to the authority of the bootmaker on the matter of boots.
@@Alina_Schmidt yeah I guess disadvantage is a quite vague term, that I did not define. What you said about that was a good point. I guess my whole post boils down to the way I have heard anarchy being talked about before, in a political way, is quiet different from it being used in this context. So like the relationship disadvantage is quiet different from a material or political one. I find the idea that it is an extension of the political belief of anarchy to be maybe a bit of a stretch. Is it nit picky? yeah, but that's the internet.
"So for one if you want a hierarchy, of any sort, then boom it's justified."
No. That's not how it works.
You'd have to justify it from an Anarchist perspective, not with some arbitary excuse.
The narrow definition of the word "hierarchy" is more or less synonymous with "power imbalance" ("power" being "the ability to harm another person") -- this simply can't be justified with Anarchist ethics.
However, there's an extended definition of the word "hierarchy" that may include asymmetrical relationships in general.
An unjustified hierarchy (or "actual" hierarchy) is when you have to do what I (as your boss) say or else you will be punished.
A "justified hierarchy" (aka "non-hierarchy") is when you asking me (as a friend) for guidance and I share my knowledge/experience with you. I'm still the one who's "telling you what to do" but if you don't listen to me I'm not CAUSING you any additional harm, it's just a stupid decision you made for yourself.
Personally, I do not agree with that extended definition. When I'm offering my guidance I'm simply offering service/aid -- I do not have any knowledge you couldn't get on your own and I'm not making any decisions for you. The situation could *become* hierarchal if you had less access to information than I have or something -- but if you're just relying on me bc you don't want to look up all the information yourself that's not giving me any amount of power.
"To me this sounds kinda like normal polyamory. "
Since polyamory is defined as "ethical non-monogamy" Relationship Anarchy is technically the same IF we agree that only Anarchism is ethical.
However, not everyone in the poly community has the same radical standards when it comes to ethics. For most people any relationship that is more ethical than monogamy is sufficient... (Disclaimer: They'll SAY "as ethical as monogamy" but let's be real, any deviation from the societal norm will automatically be held to a much higher standard. If we had the same amount of domestic ab--e as monogamists have we'd literally be persecuted.)
"I don't see how prioritising people differently gives anyone a advantage or disadvantage, as hopefully a relationship is never a net disadvantage. If that is the case you should leave if possible."
You're looking at relationships as transactions (of social capital) which does NOT inherently guarantee any ethical or moral value.
I'm disabled. I'm deeply afraid of being or becoming a burden to my loved ones and they tell me that my relationships give them more than they costs them -- but they DO cost them (sometimes) and what happens if some day I'll not be able to give them as much as I recieve? Do you think they should leave me? If relationships were transactional they definitively should bc their affection for me may already put them at a "net disadvantage".
From an Anarchist perspective, I'm the one who's in a disadvantaged position. I'm disabled. With a rating about 90%. If everyone left me I'd f-cking die, and if I left them instead I'd f-cking die, too. In the past I've been stuck in ab--ive relationships bc I couldn't do sh-t when that person decided to r-p- me, to take my money or to lock me in the apartment. If I had left I'd be f-cking dead. I mean, yeah, being broken and traumatized instead of being dead was probably(?) a "net advantage" for me -- or at least that's what everyone told me at that time -- but that doesn't mean it was not ab--e.
"Prioritizing people differently" is hierarchal -- and probably the result of said transactional thinking. That's not what we Anarchists do. We collaborate and make group decisions based on a consensus. No one gets left behind and if anyone needs help everyone is willing to give their support. I'm in a non-hierarchal group relationship and my partners are my everything - to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until death do us part. I will love and honor them all the days of my life.
Sometimes we as a group have to prioritize between multiple issues or ideas -- but never between individual partners as people.
A harm to one is a harm to all, a harm to my partners is a harm to myself.
Totally a misuse of the term “anarchist” imo as a polyamorous anarchist
From an aromantic perspective, relationship anarchy normally means one type of relationship shouldn’t be automatically prioritized just because it’s that type of relationship. You can have great relationships with friends and family, but once you get a romantic partner you’re expected to drop everyone for each other, which isn’t really healthy and often alienates people. It doesn’t mean no one is prioritized, just that the nature of a relationship doesn’t equal its importance
Honestly, I consider myself mono and I'm painfully introverted so I like to spend extended periods of time by myself, but I'm utterly terrified of being perpetually alone. I know as far as romance goes, I don't think I could handle more than one relationship of that nature. I'm not completely averse to being with a woman who is poly, but when I hear about this sort of stuff, it makes me worry that I'd get shoved aside or made a non-priority whether that's intentional or not, that it might take a rather extensive period before they notice me again. I like my alone time, but too much just causes my mental health to start decaying. My need to be alone was a problem for some of my more extroverted exes and I have been working on balancing things, but I do have limits all the same.
I get you though about people using "relationship Anarchy" or even just "Polyamory" to avoid self-reflection on their own attitudes and behaviours in relationships. It's a thing I see a lot (and have experienced) - partners just get treated as collectables and if you find your relationship is being neglected well "no one person can meet all your needs so just find another partner!!!". My abusive ex girlfriend used that to excuse her using me as a punching bag and leaving me to deal with the bullshit. My ex best friend, who's self-described as poly, claimed that a "relationship anarchist" stole his girlfriend - but really he turned out to be a creepy predator type who wouldn't respect boundaries.
They aren't all that way, of course, but there's a surprising lack of self-awareness and self-accountability in a community that is supposedly based on more conscious choices in relationships.
I was in a relationship where they wanted it to be polyamorus withe someone that didn't like me.
Yeah that relationship didn't last long. Abusive to boot.
So, as a non-hierarchical poly (specifically afab) person, I have to say that the reason I don't like hierarchical poly is BECAUSE I'm usually expected to clear all my other potential partners with my meta. And honestly, I've had FAR too many experiences with insecure men (whom agreed from the start to be in a poly relationship with me) who veto almost all my potential partners because he perceives them as a threat to his position as the top tier. So, my approach to polyamorous dating is "I am poly and all my relationships are on the same level of meaning in my life because each person is unique. And I get to choose my partners and if you don't like this, you don't have to date me." Of course, I'm also open to talking about problems that might arise between partners, I'm just not going to ask my partners' permission to date anyone. And I want to specify that I mean I don't have hierarchies in the way that sex partners mean less than dating partners. And just because one partner has been with me for years necessarily means that they mean more to me than someone I've only been dating a few months. Yes, you can consider closeness a type of hierarchy, but I don't like to set my relationships up like that. In my experience with polyamory, the tiered approach seems to bring only more drama if one partner is percieved to be either further up or lower down on the chain than they were said to be. I'd much rather encourage cooperation and have everyone see each other as equals than breed jealousy and competition by putting everyone on essentially a pecking order. And nesting partners do get a bit sticky, honestly if I ever started living with any of my partners, I feel like I'd much rather live with as many of them as possible (just cause I'm cuddly and want the convenience of all my babies in the same area lol).
You can say all that, but at the end of day a hierarchy will exist( probably a few different ones at the same time)
Now, a person having veto power over your relationships is a separate issue imo.
It all boils down to how/how much you're resresponsible to/ for your partners.
@@Ray-pp5qb hierarchy isn't necessary in relationships. Period. If you think someone can't have romantic/sexual/platonic relationships without hierarchies then you're either brainwashed or ignorant. And hierarchies consolidate power at the top, which makes it a lot easier for a meta or person at the top level of the hierarchy using that power to leverage unfair outcomes in their favor aka demanding that they approve of every additional partner in the polycule.
Noooo!!! I love it when you stand and move around! I believe it adds a loooot more meaning, a lot more nuance to what you’re saying.
I wanna hear more about tackling jealously in non-monogamous relationships from the "non-nested" persons perspective. How do you deal with jealously (if any) from the primary partner? Are there boundaries put in place?
My observation is most nesting partners keep their space as just that, their space. I'm not jealous of any of the people I'm dating who live worth partners because I enter that relationship understanding and respecting their relationship.
i loved the way you talked about it without being agressive and from a personal point of view and with honesty, i don't agreed but it was really nice to hear really! made me think of some things either. But one thing that migth compliment: anarchical relationships don't mean that you treat everyone the same, it just means that the way this will be decided is naturally according to each relationship. For example, if you have a very very close (platonic and aromantic) friend for years, and maybe you are even roomades, and then you start dating someone: in a tradicional, monagamous realtionship this would probably mean you will eventually distanciate with this friend, because the romantic partner is more important by default and rule. But naturally in a anarchical relationship you prpbably would have more proximity and more responsabilitys with that friend then with the person you've just met (but not necessarlly) there is hierarchy there but it is not given, it's constructed. And the same could aply to a nesting partner. But yeah, a lot of people are just hipocrate jerks that use anarchical relationship to an excuse of being abusive. but that is not related to the anarchical relationship model itself.
For me, I don't identify as non-hierarchical, and I see that as more of a goal to try to strive for if the person can and wants to. I recognize that the nature of my life and existence means that I often cannot help but prioritize certain people over others. Whether that is because I've known them longer, they are more physically available to me, or my attachment to them presents in a way that makes me more aware of when I miss them. But I do try to make sure that in my relationships no partner feels less loved than a different partner.
What I AM is a relationship anarchist, in the sense that I do not prioritize certain relationship types over others. For example, one of the most important relationships in my life right now is with my best friend. They are someone I deeply love, share a house with, and cannot see myself continuing on in this world without. In many ways they are more important to me than most of my partners are, and I reject the idea that that is somehow backwards just because we are "only" friends. That is what relationship anarchy means to me. It's not about not having hierarchies. It's about not letting social norms dictate the way you engage in relationships, including relationship hierarchies.
You are glowing lately, love these type of vids :)
Aw thank you! I've changed my makeup routine a bit. lol.
Black, polyamorous, not well to do Solo Polyamorist here. 👋🏾 I agree there are a lot of folks who *say* they are non-hierarchical but aren’t. My first polyamorous relationship was with a guy like this. Assured me he was non-hierarchical and then had lots of rules he’d agreed to with his gf to make her more comfortable with the transition to Polyamory. That is of course a textbook example of having hierarchy. It was really important to see himself as egalitarian though so he did lots of mental gymnastics to justify why what he was doing wasn’t *really* making rules in one relationship that circumscribed his others. I know better and do better in my choosing now.
These days I tend to talk with people about wanting relationships with lots of autonomy. I describe my desire to have relationships where a person outside of our 1:1 connection doesn’t get to determine the shape, pacing, or direction of our relationship either through explicit rules or because of what happens when our mutual partner is constantly trying to soothe their insecurities. I’m really clear with folks that I am unwilling to engage people who sacrifice that autonomy whether they do it cause they just think they should given the other kind of commitment (the folks who think marriage means by default you should have hierarchy) or because they are trying to be a good partner to someone and don’t know how to hold space for their feelings without changing *our* connection. People like that are few and far between.
Most polyamorous people don’t want it. They want to at least be sure that they get a little more say than any new person who comes along so they can be ‘certain’ (although of course there are no guarantees in life) that they won’t get displaced by how their partners change when they fall in love with new people. Even folks who do want it don’t always have the communication and conflict resolution skills to show support to a partner struggling with your new/other relationship(s) without taking the easiest/fastest route of just changing the new/different instead of having lots of conversations about how to show up loving.
I have some but I also co-mod a group specifically for folks who are egalitarian. And we ask people specifically what they do to actively deconstruct hierarchy between their relationships. “We just don’t believe any of us is any better than any of the rest of us.” Is a common enough response. It’s also totally missing the point about paying attention to how power flows between the relationships and being able to point at specific things one can do to make sure the power is flowing in ways that match your stated relationship values.
Like, I am upfront that my partner gets no say in who I date. I may not give them lots of details about someone I’m into and talking to early on (although they know to assume that I’m dating and meeting people). This scares the crap outta some people. What they’d like is for me to give them turn by turn updates on what’s happening in my dating life as if that will manage their insecurity. I won’t do that cause I don’t want all of their reactions and insecurities to event subtly influence how I choose to be with people I like.
What I can do, is offer them lots of assurance about all the things I value about them and our connection to each other. What I can do is talk openly about what kinds of commitments I’ve made to them. What I can do is listen to them talk about their general fears/insecurities and offer emotional support.
I see folks limit their autonomy all the time because they choose to agree to notify another person about their course and then are getting into all kinds of issues when, like humans do, they instead make quick impulsive decisions about the direction they want their relationship to go in with the person they’re actually in it with.
Anyway, I do think egalitarian relationships are possible. I think a lot of people say they’re in them because hierarchy has a (I think deservedly) bad rep in the polyamorous community. I agree folks should just be honest with themselves. Folks like myself who are egalitarian also gotta think about if we keep ‘giving it a shot’ with folks who throw hierarchy red flags. Scrutinize potentials closely and ask scenario based questions about how folks handle common polyamory problems. Most of the folks saying the right words will wind up telling on themselves as they don’t know what an actually autonomous/non-hierarchical response would look like. If you tell them a few options they’re often horrified because they can imagine how one could do those things and still be ‘caring.’ And that’s how you know autonomy isn’t really the well thought out relationship value that they actually engage from.
OMG I like the two camera setup too
Also that being said standing up makes me feel better about standing up too.
I can't tell if you're flushed or your blush is just on point but in any case you look so glowy!
I'm wearing the pinkish tone in the Juvias place blush pallette vol 2! I've been loving it.
Thank you!
I really like the two camera set-up too! Changing angles is refreshing when watching a video, even so when you're talking about serious matters. I also like the angled background with your books and your art, so two cameras show the whole deal, not a chopped version :p
Idk if that really applies to me. I mostly like the idea of non-hierarchical polyamory for myself, because I don't want to make my new partner feel like they are any less important. I want them to have say and just as much time with me as they need. Same with my long term partner I have. I just want them to be happy. I also hate feeling like a second class citizen to others because I'm poly with them. I want that closeness. I don't want them to feel second class either. I just want the relationships to progress naturally and with as much thought and effort as I possibly can give them :)
I definitely like the standing and talking gives more of a presence
Hey Kat I'm with you 100%!!! I don't believe in non-hierarchical anything. Granted I just found out about Non-Hierarchical Polyamory when I clicked on this video, hierarchies ARE natural and not a bad thing. If you're getting operated on do you want the kid fresh from Med school or do you want the surgeon who's done this procedure hundreds of times? Which ever you choose for what ever reason you're helping to create a hierarchy by which their superiors will rank, judge and pay them.
I like what you said about people with long term girlfriends who claim to be non-hierarchical. Those types of guys are living in a fantasy world and are attempting to negate or discount the time they've spent with their long term girlfriend. As a single gay bear I see lots of Growlr profiles of couples looking for a third. Bottom line: you never know what you're going to get. Sometimes both of them are into me sometimes just one of them. Other times I'm into one of them or I'm into them both, but there's ALWAYS a pecking order. If sexual one-offs are like that I can only imagine what it's like in actual relationships.
Great video !!!👍🏾😎😜
I TOTALLY agree with this. So many people in the poly community only see love as a feeling. And I do think that, through that lens, you can have a non-hierarchical structure where you FEEL the same about all your partners. But love is also a verb. It is a thing that you do. By spending time together. By supporting each other. Through intimacy and affection. And maintaining any kind of equity through action...I agree, while it might be a nice idea, is REALLY hard to do on a practical level. Even with the best of intentions, some partners' schedules line up better than others, some partners require more or less of that love-as-an-action, some partners' interests line up better than others. Trying to maintain equality of love-as-an-action, rather than love-as-a-feeling, is hard, if not impossible. And, if you make that promise to your partners, inevitably, there's likely to be those who never feel like they're getting their fair share.
I love your standing and talking! feels very assertive and also gives a bit of a stand up mood .)
Your anecdote about the "relationship anarchist" who broke off with you to focus on his nesting partner strikes me as a man who's a piece of crap at relationship anarchy, and gave you a false impression of himself (ie, effectively lying to you) as a result, and that sucks. I'm not a political anarchist--I'm a big government leftist--but I am a relationship anarchist, and you're absolutely right that he just straight up acted like he was in a relationship hierarchy. I'd like to argue that doesn't mean relationship anarchy is any less of a good idea.
To me, the core of relationship anarchy is that I make my relationships with me and the person across from me, and nobody else gets a say. My other partners are owed safety-based information, including who I'm sleeping with and my safe-sex practices, but that's primarily so they can decide if THEY want to change or end their relationship with me. If one partner in a V is experiencing jealousy or other stresses to the relationship, that should put the stress on THAT relationship, not ANY of the others, and it is the test of the person at the center of the V's character and commitment to relationship anarchy and ethical non-monogamy itself to maintain that even and especially when the person at the end of the V fails to, and not end one relationship to try to fix the other. If they do, they are giving up on relationship anarchy. That is not inevitable, that is not normal.
I've done relationship anarchy for 5 years, and I've been the center of that V in a tension situation plenty of times, and while big stresses to a relationship can radiate out and big conversations can happen between all three people, that is out of the goodness of the non-related partner's heart to participate, and that should be made clear. If my more established partner is stressing about a newer partner, that is a problem between me and my established partner--NOT the newer one. I don't care if the established relationship is years old, I don't care if they're married and have kids--the relationship tension should be on the right relationship, because that's the true relationship in tension, it doesn't matter what the established partner's problem is with the new partner--it's the FIRST relationship's problem, and pretending otherwise is ludicrous and factually wrong. The polyam community I come from is mostly out of Philadelphia, and this was a pretty normal philosophy there, not always perfectly followed, but followed as the norm quite successfully and culturally reinforced by our broader young poly community. I'm sorry that happened to you, and I'm sorry it gave you a negative impression of relationship anarchy.
Relationship anarchy (and anarchism in general, if you ask me) should mean that without an external structure, the emphasis becomes strongly on everyone's personal ethics. (The reason I don't support political anarchy is that I think not everyone can or should operate without a structure, but relationship anarchy is as yet an opt-in relationship style, not generally a culturally-supported norm like monogamy--by the by, I don't think relationship anarchy actually does require your partners to also ascribe to relationship anarchy, to that point, since you have your own decisions about what relationship to keep the stress on or not when you're the V, as they do when they're the V.) If someone chooses relationship anarchy, and fails at it (not just struggles, but fails like that man), it can and should be taken, in my opinion, as a pretty strong indictment of their character, if you ask me. I more broadly believe that any partner EVER having veto power is a terrible, awful, no-good, very bad idea.
If someone can't live up to that high standard of ethics, I think you're absolutely right that they shouldn't identify themselves to people as relationship anarchists, and should just tell people they're in a hierarchal relationship. I don't date people in hierarchal relationships, because, frankly, I don't trust that relationship style and its practitioners to hold themselves to as high a standard of ethics, but that's a personal preference that's worked for me, not a general rule that everyone must follow.
tl;dr: Sorry that happened, men mostly fucking suck, I don't think relationship anarchy was the problem, I think HE was.
I just started watching your channel over quarantine, and I honestly find your true teas so relaxing
I REALLLLY appreciate you saying this. Im just coming into learning about relationship anarchy (& potentially being open to an open relationship/polyamory) and it is so good to hear about the way it functions or doesn’t in practice. Thank you so much.
Thank you for saying it's ok to be in a hierarchical poly relationship! I consider my partner who I live with to be my primary. I have in the past talked to some relationship anarchists who I felt like considered themselves to be better because they weren't hierarchical.. and yet now they have primary partners. Very interesting for sure.
I'm very unaware of poly relationships and their dynamics outside of some friends that are poly, and one thing that I've been struggling to understand is how hierarchical relationships can be non toxic or abusive. From its definition it feels like some people in the relationship are lower or inferior, and I know quite a few people who were left by the curb because they weren't a person's primary.
Again this is probably due to me being an almost complete outsider to polyamory, but I would like your perspective on how hierarchical relationships can be healthy.
Oh abuse definitely still happens unfortunately. Fortunately the community is small and people talk
I agree with your point of people should be up front and also aware of how they act on a practical level. That said, relationship anarchy and non-hierarchial polyamory are not interchangeable terms the way I use them. As you said, a relationship anarchist doesn't value their friendships over their romantic partners or vice versa. A polyamorous person does, but in a non-hierarchical set-up, just doesn't value one romantic partner over the other. But will differentiate between romantic partners and friends.
I liked what you had to say about pragmatism and being multiply marginalized (and there's a possibility it's not in this video but in another recent video?!). I've gotten a lot from your videos lately and they've been helpful to me as a jumping off point and also having certain conversations with men.
One thought that's come out of watching your True Tea videos lately, for me, is that all of this-- the thought you have to put into these poly situations, the processing, the evaluation of partners to see whether they might be ... racist, transphobic, have partners who are transphobic, fetishizing, whatever... It's all labor. I feel like I recognize it instinctively because some of it is labor I've been doing for a long time as a trans nonbinary person with a disability. I don't have to do the same labor to make sure a partner isn't racist, though I certainly try to make sure they're not, if they turn out to be there's not the same vulnerability or possibility of harm for me as for a person of color.
In dating there's certainly no shortage of people who might be interested, but there IS a necessity to sort through them to see if they are, you know, really fucked up and going to be harmful, or a waste of time, or lying or misrepresenting something. There's SO much work in all of this. And I see myself doing this work over and over again. (Big surprise, I also date men...)
I do have a good time sometimes and I do enjoy people that I meet-- but I'm recognizing lately that I'm also performing this labor which is essentially invisible. Men expect me to be present as a supposed equal and to treat them as if none of this is happening. If they want to lean on me in order to discuss and process their desires (in terms of which genders/bodies they are into) or their fetishes (including trans-related fetishes in some cases) or whatever, they are not aware of how a conversation like that might affect me unequally, what wounds might be involved, or the fact that my trans body has been used for many years as an arena for people to discover or even engage in conflict around their own sexual desires.
Very much helped by your videos, I've started working on naming and describing this experience TO men who engage with me without recognizing these issues (which is currently all of them). I don't expect any one man to change the world, or even completely change himself. I only want acknowledgement of the power imbalance and labor imbalance, an acknowledgement of what it means for them to lean on a gender nonconforming person as a confidante for their own unprocessed sexual issues, and perhaps a place to start for change.
Personally I really like the set up with the two cameras and standing up. But I will watch regardless of how you're filming!
I agree with you, I don't believe its possible for someone to like everyone the same way. Could you consider a few people to be equals in your eyes? Sure, but even so, no one person is the same or has the same needs so we treat everyone a little differently based on their individual qualities. It also depends on what you're using as your standard of comparison. I might prefer being adventurous with one person, but enjoy having long conversations with another. Doesn't mean I like either one more or less than the other but I'm going to lean into preferences if given the choice.
i totally understand where your coming from, the thing to emphasize across the board when involved in polyamory is communication, always, and it seems to me that it's to disregard that directive when who you declare yourself as is not true to reality, obvs there may be exceptions and sometimes it's a process that an oursider is not privy to, but even commmunicating that would go a long way, just saying you haven't gotten the hang of it yet instead of projecting an image you won't live up to; so, as you said, the problem isn't in hierarchy it's in posturing for whatever reason instead of being honest and/or self-aware
I’m a hinge in a V with my husband and my girlfriend. I understand what you mean by this non-hierarchy being BS. When we opened up our marriage to polyamory with my hubby living together and being married with kids make the setting hierarchical to begin with. At first I referred to my husband as my primary partner but since I met my girlfriend, that I have been dating for a year now, I stopped calling him primary. I still get the fact that there is hierarchy eg. us being parents that ties us together whatever happens. Nevertheless I’m so in love with my girlfriend that in my heart through my feelings I see her at least as important as my husband. It may sound a bit naive but I just can’t rank them like that. I love them both because of their own unique qualities. Just like I love my children and couldn’t ever choose a favorite.
I’m living 60% of the time with my hubby and kids and 40% of the time with my girlfriend, who also has her child from a previous relationship every other week. I would love us all to live under the same roof but my partners both need their own space and some alone time as well and I understand that completely. To me this is the perfect setup but you never know if someone else comes along to either of my partners. I’m poly saturated cuz I want to be able to spend time with both of my loved ones and still have time to for my children and time to hang out with my friends. It is a struggle though with the schedule. Thank you for being an inspiration. 👍🏼
( the grammar can be a bit off because English is not my first language)
This is so validating to hear! Honestly, it seems dishonest not to acknowledge that nesting partners have a lot of inherent privileges that other partners don't. Hierarchy usually exists naturally. Like, it would take a significant amount of time and investment for another relationship to reach the same level of priority and commitment that I have with my husband. That's pretty natural! I honestly think I am more of a pragmatist as well. I really just value a cooperative style of polyamory in which everyone's needs and feelings are valued. When needs conflict with each other, ideally everyone can work together to find a compromise or creative solution that works for all parties, like allowing someone time to process before taking a step that would be particularly difficult for them. I think some people conflate control with simple consideration.
We exist in relationship with each other, not in a vacuum. We impact each other. Some hierarchy is natural, but too much hierarchy can be controlling. Autonomy is healthy, but too much can turn into entitlement. We are all allowed our boundaries, but when our boundaries impact partners and metamors, we also owe ALL of them consideration for their own boundaries and needs too (sometimes that involves growing alongside them).
These videos have been very revealing to me as someone who's been interested in the poly scene but has yet to engage with it. For a long time I thought the biggest roadblock for me would be jealousy, insecurity etc and I thought that was something I could handle, but realizing that some men would only be okay with dating me when they were secure with another cis partner completely turned me off from the whole thing. It seem like, unfortunately, a lot of people who subscribe to liberal ideas like everything goes as long as we agree to it etc create a space where their deeply held discriminations come to light without being questioned, and that's something I could never be comfortable with.
Love the setup! Looks great and can tell you feel great in it. :)
I also love your comments regarding your beliefs. There is so much value to saying what you really feel and it is actually helpful for your viewers!!
Loved that you’re opening up this convo, just wish you could eliminate some of the fluff before making a point (first set point was made at 10 minutes in after prefacing it twice) I want to hear your ideas, even if they’re “bitchy”
I consider myself to be non hierarchical polyam, but what I mean by that isn't that I put the same value in every relationship I have but that I wouldn't give a partner any more "rights" (like veto any other partner) above others.
This
While this RA is still coming to terms with the descriptive hierarchy of my actions, as I my nesting partner and I are drowning in renewed NRE as we attempt to have a child together.
While I admit to this descriptive hierarchy, I will not use that language. Where as my hierarchical friends use the term "primary" or "secondary" to describe the relationships, to me they sound like value statement about the partners.
Additional I do not value romantic relationships above platonic, and prefer to negotiate specific boundaries based on the needs of the relationships.
I totally agree with this. Even if you call yourself non-heriarchal you end up showing through your actions where your priorities lie, and that is completely fine!! I reckon we should just get rid of the term, or at least be prepared to recognise the truth of our actions and how they affect others.
Can't wait to hear this video essay!
Fan of the two camera setup!!
I am glad you point out (both here and elsewhere) how even imagining an expression of sexuality tends to be from a position of privilege. Having spent years in West Africa where women are severely oppressed, many of them undergo FGM as a child, never even have the option to masterbate, have sex for pleasure, or experience what many of us take for granted. When a person is struggling to survive "identity" is experienced very differently.
I'm glad you mentioned privilege in the poly community because this sounds like such a rarefied problem to have. What relationship anarchy sounds like is a person who doesn't want to have any commitments. It's a very bachelor/ bachelorette way of living life, which may not always work at all stages of life.
I've noticed a split in the polyam community where you have older people who came into polyamory after they had a well established monogamous relationship, and then you have younger people who are polyam first and THEN get in serious, long standing relationships and have a totally different idea of what stages of a relationship are. For example: most older people are very much like, date, get married, buy a house, have kids, have grand-babies so on and so forth for the progression of a relationship (not all but a majority). But over here you have young people (like me) who have a very different view of the "goal" of a relationship because that isn't really an option if you're an RA because marriage and raising children would create an inherent priority legally if nothing else. I know the fact than I'm LGBT also has an impact on this for me because I never thought I'd be able to get married so that already threw a wrench in that narrative. I say this because I see a lot of older people use polyamory as a way to "rejuvenate" their lives or marriages, as if they want to be a bachelor/ette again and I think that because that is so common it has a serious negative impact on people's view of RA.
@@Xx1Lexxi1xX ^^^THIS, I definitely notice this two groups in the poly community, the older generation and younger generation are doing poly for completely different reasons with different goals
First time viewer, so apologies if you've addressed this previously:
Could you argue that relationship anarchists more fit in the category of consensual non-monogamists? My understanding of 'polyamory' is defined by the ability to be in multiple, committed relationships - implying that your concern for other people's feelings (partners) is the main priority. I'm confused about the mechanics of combining the two. ***Thanks for taking the time to post the vid! I am always learning. ;)
i think a lot of people also have this idea of what they'd be like in specific relationships and circumstances that in practice they realize aren't as simple as they thought. i always considered myself a relationship anarchist (only in the way that romantic and platonic relationships are equal, i think boundaries and communication are very important so i wouldn't necessarily identify with the other definition) and i do believe that, but in practice i definitely do prioritize my romantic partner over certain friendships because it's just easier. you connect differently to different people and so it can be varying levels of difficulty to reach out and put the effort into those relationships. not necessarily out of beliefs, just because of the practicality of the actual situation. thinking one thing is a lot different from actually being in the situation to put it to use and realizing it doesn't feel completely right because it's tricky to accurately predict what emotions you're going to have. i think there could definitely be that struggle of, "if i believe this, why doesn't it feel right?" and trying to make it work when it doesn't.
It sounds like you've been dealing with a lot of "sneaky-archy", which is a term I hear a lot in the solo polyam communities I run in. The idea of "sneaky-archy" is when someone claims to not practice hierarchy but then do everything that hierarchy entails. I think what's happening is that hierarchy is being called out more and more as being problematic in the poly world (particular toxic, co-dependent type of hierarchy), and so to get around this people claim to not be it without actually changing any aspect of their relationships. Its definitely a problem.
I will say if given the choice between someone who acknowledges hierarchy in their relationships and someone who doesn't but clearly has that in play, I would rather have the honest partner, 100%.
I would suggest maybe giving solo polyamory more of a look. In solo poly, you are actively working to maintain your autonomy and try to avoid putting restrictions on your partner's other relationships. I will say I think most solo poly people like myself can acknowledge that certain prioritization can naturally come from nesting or being being married to one partner - that's pretty much unavoidable. And if you have children, they will obviously always come first. There is some crossover with RA though some people use that as an excuse to just think you can have relationships without ever doing check ins or that you shouldn't have boundaries at all, which I personally don't think is healthy.
Solo Poly for me means keeping myself at the center of all of relationships and trying to balance everyone in a way that is compassionate and considerate. I may one day end up living with someone which would cause some hierarchy to be in play but that's not currently in the cards for me.
I do not blame you for your feelings or opinions on the matter. Hopefully you don't feel like I "dragged" you. I just wanted to add in my own voice. Great video!
I think right now I am pretty much solo poly and I really prefer that. I might not always be that way but it's where I want to be right now. Thank you for the perspective!
@@KatBlaque Thanks for reading! I have been enjoying your videos on this and other related subjects a lot!
Aw thank you!!
I really liked the two camera set up
The idea of co-habitating with a partner as a relationship anarchist seems like a unique predicament. Is the act of living together not a form of hierarchy?
My feelings
Though I know it's possible, I haven't seen it yet
It seems inherently unfair. But non hierarchal I've seen in practice would be functional polygamist from the make perspective. He has to make all his wives valued and cared for and treated equally. But even then, life happens and people still get the short end of the stick
If you live with one best friend and you don't live with the other is that best friend you live with automatically more?
If you have 2 kids and one moves out and the other stays at home is it that the kid who lives with you is more?
You have 2 siblings and you go room with one and the other lives on their own is the sibling you live with st a higher hierarchy
@@GirlfriendQuest I mean, maybe, yeah. I myself have two older brothers. One is 15 years older than me and moved out of the house when I was about 5. The other is only 4 years older than me, I shared a room with him until I was about 14, and he still lives at home with me. I'm closer to the second brother. That doesn't mean that my 1st brother is any less my brother, or is unimportant to me. But humans just naturally grow (emotionally) closer to the people they're (physically and/or chronologically) closer to.
@@raq619 but what is closer in the digital age? Physical closeness isn't really as big of a deal. Beyond the fact that like i have 4 little siblings i lived more with my step siblings then my blood brother that I had in my life way more but I didn't love them more. Dynamics are complicated and picking favs can be reductive.
i think non hierarchical poly and relationship anarchy are both possible and realistic. The problem comes in when people _claim_ to be NHP/RA without actually doing the WORK to sustain that. RA/NHP are not just labels and ideas. They're goals that people have to work towards.
And RA applies outside if romance as well. it challenges that romance and sex are automatically more important, valuable or fulfilling than platonic relationships and encourages people to have relationships that don't necessarily fit a prescribed mold or box. And for me the hierarchy part is about respecting consent, communication and negotiation so that every ones needs are met fairly and respectfully. You can absolutely care for someone more than other people but that shouldn't give them power to influence your other relationships since that robs their metamours of consent.
Yes! Wish I could give this two likes. I love the old school storm behind you too. My crush as a teenager.
For my last comment, just want to say not directed at you Kat, you’re awesome. My phone is being a jerk during this current weather and wasn’t letting me edit my last comment. I meant in general the asshats who want to force their opinions about how relationships should be. Thanks for your educating vid. Love your thoughts ❤️