Love Is Not a Lie, It’s Science!
Is love a lie? Great question! We like to joke about it, because nihilism is one (1) free and legal coping mechanism that’s available to us all at any given time of the day and night, but what do we really think? Today we’re attempting to find an answer, once and for all, for the record and for the good of the people. On which side of this proverbial and eternal fence will we land? Keep reading to find out!
We do wild things when we’re falling in love, and if you’re queer, I’m willing to bet that your greatest hits are especially outrageous. Maybe your first date turned into a week-long slumber party, or maybe you moved across the country for some babe you met on Goodreads. If your romantic shenanigans make your cheeks flush with embarrassment, you’re not alone. We all get a little giddy when we’re falling in love, and for that, we have science to blame.
Love is pure. Love is real. But mostly, love is a bunch of neurotransmitters. Here are some scientific explanations for the weird things that happen to your body when you’re smitten.
1. You can’t stop thinking about your crush.
Your crush is topping the hell out of your hedonistic brain. Thinking about your person triggers the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that activates your brain’s pleasure center. Every thought about your person gives you another dopamine hit, which is basically a braingasm. When you get to talk to your sweetheart or see them IRL, your brain is flooded with even more dopamine. More time with your crush = more reward (i.e. bigger, better braingasms). Your brain wants to keep the good feelings going, so your mind keeps wandering back to the source.
2. You’re so excited and you just can’t hide it.
You might describe this feeling as “butterflies in your stomach,” your heart “skipping a beat” or “SHEER PANIC.” You can thank adrenaline and norepinephrine, the hormones that are responsible for getting you AMPED. Your body releases these hormones during times of stress, like when you narrowly avoid an oncoming car or when you brush arms with that hot cashier when she’s handing you your change, giving you sweaty palms, a racing heart and digestive upset.
3. You feel, as Beyoncé once said, “drunk in love.”
When you’re falling head over heels, your oxytocin levels surge. Our bodies produce the hormone oxytocin during sex, childbirth, breastfeeding, cuddling and other forms of physical and social bonding. Research shows that oxytocin and alcohol have similar effects on the brain. Both mellow us out and lower our inhibitions, but fortunately, only one of them gives you a hangover.
4. You get giant heart eyes.
Oxytocin can make your pupils dilate, and some studies suggest that pupil dilation also occurs when sighted people are looking at someone or something that sparks their sexual interest. This effect is called “mydriasis,” and it explains why you might get giant anime eyes when you’re staring at the object of your affection.
5. You feel like you’re addicted to your person.
Well, that’s because you are. Remember your friend dopamine? When you’re not in the presence of your sweetheart during the early stages of love, your brain isn’t getting those dopamine hits, so your body releases Corticoliberin, a stress response that makes you feel anxious and depressed. You won’t be satisfied until you get more time with your person.
6. You feel physically better.
If you experience chronic pain, you might get some relief when you’re in love. Participants in a study for the Scandinavian Journal of Pain reported that the presence of a loved one decreased acute pain, and according to a Stanford study, the parts of the brain that “light up” when you spend time with someone you love are the same parts that “light up” when you take pain relieving medication. Even just thinking about your person has some effect. In the wise words of Ke$ha, “Your love is my drug.”
If you’re feeling a sense of physical well-being in your happy, loving relationship, you might actually be healthier overall. Some studies suggest that being in a fulfilling, long-term, relationship can lower your blood pressure, decrease your risk of heart disease and strengthen your immune system.
Have you experienced any of these effects? Drop your thoughts in the comments.
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#PolyamoryProblems: How Do I Stop Getting Vetoed by My Dates’ Partners?
Dear Daemonum X,
I have had two separate situations where I started dating someone and felt like it was going great and then was broken up with because my date’s other partner was freaking out or having a crisis of some sort about our connection. I understand that feelings are hard and dealing with jealousy is scary, but this sucks big time for me. I know that my dates weren’t happy to end our relationships, either. The second time it happened I had already fallen in love and was really crushed. I felt so used and discarded.
I make it a point to only date people who are legit polyam (not just test driving) in hopes that they already have this messy stuff sorted out. I understand that there are many different ways to practice polyamory but my opinion is that this isn’t polyamory. Do you have any advice for how I can try to avoid the people who would cut me out because someone else is uncomfortable? Is there anything I can do differently? Signs? Anything helps.
Sincerely,
Discarded
Dear Discarded,
In polyamory speak, what you’re describing is called a veto. You’ve been vetoed, several times in fact. That truly sucks! For everyone following along at home a veto is where each person in a relationship has the power to end the other person’s relationships. Essentially, “I vote against you dating this person. Break up with them now because I said so and I’m the most important, thanks!!” I personally haven’t been in your position, but I will let you in on an extremely embarrassing secret. In my first polyamorous relationship I definitely attempted to veto (and failed) my partner’s partner — Yikes!! Context notwithstanding, thank goddess we all live and learn.
Now, I am going to do my best to help you scrape your broken little heart out of the veto bin and prepare you with my infinite wisdom to avoid this situation again. While I agree with what you said wholeheartedly — the power of veto doesn’t feel polyamorous — it is not uncommon for polyamorous people to have this eject button in their relationships. In my experience this is usually a characteristic of primary-partner based polyamory that relies on a hierarchy to structure all relationships. (Before everyone gets upset with me, I want to be clear that not all people who have hierarchical relationships allow vetoing.) The primary partnership is centered and uplifted and a veto helps them self-preserve by eliminating potential threats. You, Discarded, were somehow a threat!
Another note on veto power is that it’s used to eliminate a source of insecurity that is usually correlated with conflict in the relationship. For most of us working to unlearn the trappings of monogamy, watching your partner fall in love with someone else can be terrifying. Ramp it up a few notches to Horror Show if you have abandonment issues. Various types of trauma can cause us to react to perceived threats in destructive ways (like control) instead of developing healthy coping mechanisms. Polyamory is a gift in that it lays bare all of the shit that needs work and pokes at you pretty consistently until you explore it. It’s difficult and there will be growing pains but if you’re committed to this lifestyle it’s absolutely necessary work. The veto stops this growth and says “I don’t want to feel bad anymore so let’s eliminate the reason I feel bad.” Well, when that reason is a living, breathing human being with actual feelings who did nothing wrong and didn’t sign up to have a relationship with the vetoer, that’s really not cool. I like to call this collateral damage.
So, let’s break this down further. There are so many very different ideologies around being non-monogamous. Someone could be into don’t ask don’t tell while you want a fucking commune of free love. I think it’s crucial in dating in any capacity to figure out what your personal ideology is so that you can make sure that you’re matched up better in the future. It sounds like you really don’t get down with veto power, so that’s a good starting point. Think more about your ethics and desires and craft the ideal situation for you. Do you want to date people invested in unlearning monogamy? Are you committed to doing the hard work to feel secure in your relationships? Do you want a fucking commune of free love? Journal it out!
I’m going to share some of my own relationship ideologies to give you an example. Some of this may be obvious if you’ve been following my advice columns thus far. Unlike when I was younger, the idea of telling my partner they’re not allowed to date someone would never cross my mind because my relationship ideology centers personal choice and freedom. My relationship ideology is interdependent, not codependent. I don’t feel that anyone is a threat to me because I don’t believe that anyone can “steal” my partners away. I know that my partners are free to leave me whenever they want and that’s not scary, it’s actually comforting. If they do leave me, it won’t be for someone else because they are also committed to a life of abundance where we get to love many people at once. When I have hard feelings or jealousy come up, I know that trying to control my partners will not make me feel better. I am responsible for my own feelings. I do not date people that I do not trust.
I’ve found that it’s a weirdly polarizing stance among queers as to whether or not you should get right down to direct questions of compatibility on the first date (I’m pro) but think of it like any other questions you ask to get to know someone. When you’re looking for something specific it’s best to just go for it! In your case, it would have been better to know from the jump if your date’s partner was lurking in the shadows weilding an invisible relationship labrys and ready to cut you out at any moment. Right?! One of the questions I get most often from clients I work with on polyamory coaching is “What am I allowed to ask someone about their other relationships?” The answer is whatever will help you make more informed decisions about whether or not you want to date them. For me this is everything from gauging if our political views align, if we are sexually compatible, and what kind of polyamory they practice. Also, if you ask a very basic question like “Tell me about your partners” and someone responds with “It’s not your business” then that alone should tell you everything you need to know! In other words, don’t be afraid to ask questions!
The questions you ask new dates to hopefully shield you from similar and avoidable brands of heartbreak in the future should get at your foundational values aligning, finding out their dating landscape, and overall compatibility. For starters: Do any of your partners have veto power over who you date? Do you break up with people when one of your partners feels uncomfortable? How do you deal with jealousy and hard feelings in your relationships?
My last piece of advice to you, dear Discarded, is to make sure that when you’re getting into relationships with people who are already in relationships that you’re not just going with the flow. A lot of people feel less confident in taking up space or asking for what they need when someone they’re dating already has other established relationships. I think this is why people are very hesitant to ask the probing questions because maybe they feel like the other person has the upper hand. Remind yourself to check in with you, don’t shrink yourself. Rather than folding yourself into what someone is already doing because it seems fine, focus on what makes you most happy. Is this the relationship you’d design if you had no restrictions? Are you just going with the pre-established flow? Sometimes the hardest questions we ask are the ones we ask ourselves.
You Need Help: How Can I Help My Partner With COVID Anxiety?
Q:
My partner and I have been together for three years and decided to move in together early in the pandemic. My question is: how can I support a partner with chronic health conditions in a seemingly unending global health crisis? I don’t want to dismiss her (very real! very scary!) concerns about COVID, her pre-existing conditions and the tapped-out healthcare system, but I don’t know what to do when these concerns spiral into anxiety and hypochondria — rehashing daily activities to pinpoint the likelihood of COVID exposure, deep dives into Doctor Internet at the appearance of vague symptoms, checking her vitals multiple times a day when worried, doubting the accuracy of her vitals readings, getting COVID tests, doubting the results of negative COVID tests, stress-induced insomnia, tears. For reference, we both work from home and are about as careful as it’s possible to be, so our contamination risk is limited to outdoor passers-by on walks, contactless grocery pickup and perhaps a weekly, masked outdoor visit to family. She has always been attentive to her health, but nothing at all like this.
I understand that it is incredibly frightening to have pre-existing conditions that can mimic COVID symptoms and that it’s incredibly frustrating to be a woman with chronic illness who routinely has doctors dismiss her symptoms. So I don’t know what to do when a health-related anxiety spiral starts. I can’t promise it will all be ok, and I don’t want to dismiss or downplay her concerns. I also don’t want to make her feel like she can’t rely on me to listen, especially when we’re already more isolated than usual from our support networks. On a few occasions, she has gotten upset that I’m not as upset as she is, implying that I must not care as much or must be repressing my true fears in order to function well. I think it might help her to speak with a therapist, but I worry that suggesting this will make her feel like I’m one more person downplaying her health concerns.
A:
Sometimes we can out-logic our anxiety. The chances that you’ll fall into a sewer or a plane will crash through your ceiling are slim (and yes, both of those scenarios come from my personal Worst Case Scenario reel). But when your anxiety stems from a valid concern about a real and terrifying threat, it’s hard to draw the line between reasonable, manageable fear and full-blown panic. That panic is real for many of us right now, and for those of us who are immunocompromised and/ or chronically ill, the terror is even more tangible.
I’m not a doctor or a therapist, but I wanted to answer this question because I relate to part of your girlfriend’s experience. I contracted COVID-19 in March of last year. Fortunately, I wasn’t hospitalized, but I was very, very sick and very, very scared for about two months. Since recovering, I’ve dealt with some lasting effects from the virus. When I received negative antibody results over the summer, I fixated on the possibility of contracting COVID again, fearing the disease would wreak more havoc on my already fragile system. I worried that every little itch in my throat was COVID-19 Round 2, and I leaned hard on my partner for support. She was willing to soothe me in the same way that you’re willing to support your girlfriend, but at a certain point, I recognized that I was demanding too much from my partner and that my COVID anxiety was demanding too much from me. With the help of my therapist, my girlfriend, my friends and some lifestyle adjustments, I have mostly transitioned from “full-blown panic” to “manageable fear.” I’m maintaining conservative precautions, but I’m no longer waking up in the middle of the night to check my breathing and heart rate.
Your girlfriend’s concerns are absolutely valid, but it sounds like her COVID anxiety is getting in the way of her life and yours. It’s possible to acknowledge that reality without invalidating her experience. You just have to approach the subject with care, and it sounds like you’re already coming at this from a place of love and empathy. Don’t question whether or not her concerns are real, because they are real. Instead, ask her if those worries are helping her. Then encourage her to incorporate some health anxiety-reducing tools into her routine. Below are some practices you can share with her that helped me navigate my COVID anxiety.
1. Make a list of all the physical symptoms that are “normal” for you.
Does your chronic illness make you cough? What does that cough sound like? Do you frequently experience digestive symptoms? How frequently do those symptoms occur and how do they manifest? When you start feeling unwell, check your list before you panic. You might just be experiencing what’s typical for you.
2. Set boundaries with yourself.
When you’re chronically ill, checking your temperature, heart rate and oxygen levels might be a critical part of your everyday care routine, especially in the context of a pandemic. If checking your vitals is starting to interfere with daily tasks, it’s time to rein it in. Commit to checking your vitals once or twice a day at specific times. Set an alarm and stick to those times unless you’re experiencing a symptom that doesn’t fall on your “normal symptoms” list.
3. Keep a log of your anxious thoughts.
Every time you start worrying that you may have contracted COVID-19, jot it down with the time and date. You might start noticing a pattern. Maybe you typically start worrying when you’re trying to fall asleep, or maybe your anxiety rears its head the second you’re home alone. Once you’re aware of the times when you’re most likely to panic, you can prepare for them in advance.
4. Engage in distracting activities.
Start embracing activities that engage your mind more than Netflix. Play an instrument. Write letters to your friends and family. Play a game with your pals on Zoom. Reorganize your closet. Cook something elaborate. When you’re engaged in a task that requires focus, your mind is less likely to wander to the pit of doom. Speaking of doom…
5. Quit doom scrolling.
Scary headlines and alarmist Facebook friends can really stoke the flames of COVID anxiety. Take a break from news and social media for a while. If you don’t want to fully cut yourself off from virtual connection, start focusing on news outlets that leave you feeling a little more hopeful and unfollow people who share COVID-realted content.
6. If you choose to engage with COVID-19 news, focus on the good stuff.
My girlfriend checks the vaccination data for our zip code every day. Watching the rising numbers of vaccinated residents gives her hope that the pandemic won’t last forever. Can you follow the numbers in your own area? Do you have friends or family members who have already been vaccinated? In the midst of so much fear, we now have real evidence that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
7. Stop asking yourself, “Is this true?” Instead ask, “Is this helpful?”
If you’re experiencing COVID-related anxiety, you probably know all the terrifying facts about the virus. Is it true that COVID-19 tests are not 100% accurate? Yes. Is it true that you can contract COVID-19 during a simple trip to the grocery store? Sure. Having accurate information is important, but fixating on the “what if’s” won’t help you if you do contract the virus. Here’s a trick I learned in therapy that’s been helping me for years: any time you imagine a “worst case scenario,” make yourself reimagine the scene with a big “X” over it and say something like “NOPE” or “THAT’S NOT REAL” or “WE DON’T DO THAT ANYMORE” out loud. This helps you get in the practice of interrupting a spiral. The more spirals you interrupt, the less time you spend stuck in the muck.
8. Remember that basically everyone needs a therapist right now.
Living through a pandemic is trauma. Dealing with chronic health issues is trauma. Navigating an impossible medical system is trauma. Seeking help from a therapist doesn’t mean you’re weak, and it doesn’t make your health worries any less valid. A therapist isn’t the CDC — they’re not going to tell you what you should or should not worry about. They will give you tools to help you navigate those worries, and we could all use some of those right now.
9. Maintain a wide, mutual support network.
Just because you’re physically isolated, that doesn’t mean you have to be socially isolated, too. It’s easy to only lean on the person or people in your pod, but remember that there a whole lot of people who are accessible by phone, text or FaceTime who are missing social contact and would love to talk to you. Plus, getting our needs met by multiple loved ones means that you’re not overtaxing one person. You might even find that supporting someone else helps you get out of your own head, too.
Good luck to you both! Take care of yourselves and each other.
You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.
Direct Communication Rules, Ghosting Sucks, Let’s All Say What We Mean
We’re revisiting this classic Autostraddle piece on queer dating as we get back to dating basics in partnership with HER’s Queer Dating 101, a series of live edutainment events that brings in concrete how-tos, insights, experts and some of your favorite Autostraddle personalities to help you find love (or whatever you’re looking for) in the time of corona. Check out Autostraddle’s Dating Download writers, Shelli, Dani and Drew, talking Flirting 101 TONIGHT, Thursday 1/14 at 6 PST/9 EST!
“I love that you always say what you mean,” a date recently told me, and I’m being sincere when I say that is one of the best compliments I’ve ever received. It speaks to one of my most strongly held beliefs, and something I strive to do in all aspects of my life, including but not limited to dating: communicate directly.
It sounds simple, but it’s surprisingly rare. It even used to be a challenge for me! But thanks to my old therapist, goddess bless her, and some truly upsetting and in retrospect entirely avoidable fights with people I love or have loved a lot, I’ve finally got the hang of it. And let me tell you, saying what you mean and meaning what you say? Truly life changing!
In honor of impending autumn and back to school season, I come to you today with a new homework assignment. In January I implored y’all to assume everyone thinks you’re hot, and that seems to be going well for us. Now it’s September and it’s time to get back to work. Your new homework assignment is to communicate directly. Sound scary? It’s not! I know you can do it. Let’s get started together.
First of all, why does direct communication rule?
Direct communication is the best because when you clearly voice the truth about what you’re thinking and how you’re feeling, you maximize the likelihood of being understood. I am of the belief that all any of us really want on this hell planet is to be understood, and I am also of the belief that being honest about what’s going on inside your brain can accelerate that process. You also create an opportunity for someone else to communicate directly back to you, maximizing the possibility that you will understand them!
You know all those memes about dykes hanging out together and having a crush on each other and not saying anything? I hate them! It does not have to be like that; this is not a reality that Our People have to accept. In an alternate universe – the one I enjoy living in – one or both of those humans could communicate directly about their crushes! Will this guarantee true love and dating and great sex? Absolutely not. One person may be feeling the crush and the other is like, no thank you! But you could either wait for the rest of your life for your crush to make a move and die wondering how they felt, or you could tell them how you feel and then allow them to respond. If they’re not into you, you’ll be able to move on and will soon have a new crush. If they are into you, you can go on a date and possibly make out. There is no bad outcome here!
Direct communication: the stuff dreams are made of!
Do I really have to communicate directly about EVERYTHING?
In short… yes! Well okay, in slightly longer: almost always yes.
Like most things in this life, direct communication is a habit. The more you do it, the easier it will be. And if you practice on the small stuff, it will make approaching larger and potentially more intimidating topics way less scary.
So if you’re thinking to yourself right now: Well, okay, I guess I could try to communicate directly with my crush… but I sure won’t be telling my mom that her casual dismissive comments about gender really hurt me, and I definitely will not be speaking up when my friend asks me what’s wrong and I feel sad! I would like to gently ask: Why not?
The most common fears I hear when people tell me why they couldn’t imagine ever communicating directly are (1) that it would upset the person receiving the information or (2) it would make the person delivering the information feel way too vulnerable. And I always say two things in response: first of all, you’re not a mind reader and you have no idea how the person receiving the information will respond; they’re a grown human being (or they’re a child – still a human being!) and they deserve the right to have their feelings about true things that are happening without you trying to micromanage how they might respond. Second of all, yes being vulnerable is scary but do you know what is even scarier? Dying one day without ever giving yourself the option to be understood! If the only thing I do on this earth before we all go up in flames is convince my fellow queers that vulnerability is great and not scary, I will consider my life a success. (Well, I’d also really like to convince y’all to stop making your Venmo interactions public. But that’s a conversation for another day.)
Won’t this be perceived as rude?
Not if you’re not rude! I think sometimes direct communication is conflated with bluntness, lack of tact, aggressive approaches, or, well, rudeness. It’s true that you can be rude when you communicate directly, but that’s not because the communication style is inherently rude.
There are a few steps you can take to make sure your direct communication is as polite and kind as possible.
First of all, make sure you approach the person in the right medium. It’s 2019 and we have a lot of options as far as how we communicate – DM, text, call, FaceTime, in person… different scenarios call for different mediums of communication. Next, pick the right time and place. If you know your brother is having a really hard time at work, 5pm on a weekday is probably not the right time for a sensitive phone call; if your partner hates having serious conversations when she’s drunk, don’t wait until boozy brunch on a Sunday! Sometimes privacy is called for when communicating; sometimes it can actually be useful to be out and about in public. The last couple’s therapist I saw used to talk a lot about setting oneself up for success before having a difficult conversation, and I think about that often. What steps can you take to set both you and the person (or people) receiving your direct communication up for a successful outcome?
Once you’ve decided when, where, and how to approach the conversation, think about what you’ll be saying. Stick to “I” statements so that you don’t accidentally start telling the other person how you perceive they think or feel. Remember, direct communication is supposed to make things more clear, and we can only achieve clarity when we take responsibility for our own thoughts and actions and then listen openly to others.
Finally, keep an open mind but do try to think what a “successful outcome” would be for you. Why are you bringing these wants or needs to the table? Do you want your date to know you no longer want to date them? Do you want your mom to stop misgendering your best friend? Are you unsure what you’d like to happen next, but you know you’re not comfortable with things as they’ve been going? Are you aware that you’re very scattered and emotionally unavailable and you want to set clear expectations and boundaries? Those are all very reasonable “outcomes” to desire, and while you certainly cannot control how anyone receives your communication (and in fact, there will be people who view direct communication, no matter how kind and generous and objectively polite, as rude and offensive, and unfortunately there’s nothing you can do about that and frankly I think you’re dodging a bullet if you lose out on having a relationship with someone like that, sorry!!), it’s good to have a general idea of what your most ideal end goal would be.
I know it’s scary to be honest and vulnerable, but I promise communicating this way is not rude. You know what is rude? Being passive aggressive, being unkind, completely shutting down, and ghosting!
So you’re saying I can’t ghost?
Correct.
Listen, let’s be honest. Am I writing this article as an elaborate means to tell you all about my own personal feelings on the act of ghosting? Maybe! Does it come from a place of being ghosted? Also maybe!!! Am I absolutely 100% correct when I say you should not ghost someone? YES!!!
When I brought this up on Twitter there seemed to be some confusion, so let me say this before we dive in: leaving an abuser is not ghosting. Getting away from someone who makes you feel unsafe is not ghosting. I do not believe anyone owes an abuser anything. On a much lighter note, I also do not think that ending communication with someone you’ve never even met in person and have only been casually DMing or texting with is ghosting. The act of ghosting, in my opinion, is defined by connecting with someone, delivering the impression you would like to connect with them again in some way, and then disappearing. Bonus points if the other person is actively trying to get in touch with you or engage in direct communication, and you ignore them!
Y’all, this sucks! It makes the person being ghosted feel lousy, and duped, and dumb, and confused, and genuinely crazy! And for what? Because you weren’t brave enough to just be honest and direct? We can all do better!!!
Let me tell you another story. I was dating someone who I liked a lot. Things seemed to be going really well, and I thought we were on the same page. But it turned out she was actually still in love with her ex, still mostly monogamous, and she couldn’t be as present as either of us needed her to be to keep the connection going. It took her a minute to tell me – she was nervous about hurting my feelings and a little reluctant to break off our otherwise great connection – but she finally got brave and told me over the phone before we had an upcoming date. And you know what? It did not feel good! It hurt and I felt really sad and disappointed and let down and jealous and just all around bad. But you know what would have been ten thousand times worse? If she just slowly faded into the distance, never letting me know what was going on. If she’d lied. If she’d shut down and been a jerk until I finally lost my patience and ended things. I think of this phone call often because it was actually a generous act of kindness for both of us – she did it on the phone before we were hanging out together so I could decide if I still wanted to see her the next day (I did not, I wanted some space), she was clear and concise and honest without giving me gory details, she was available for a few questions but had good boundaries about what was and was not appropriate for me to follow up about, and she was clear that her ideal would be friendship for us but she understood I may or may not want that and said the decision was ultimately up to me. The feeling I had when I hung up the phone with that girl (who is still my friend to this day!) wasn’t like, joy – you’re not going to magically make all difficult communication easy by being direct. But it felt so different from being ghosted. It felt honest and considerate. I was grateful.
Not wanting to continue a connection with someone is fine. Changing your mind is fine. Telling someone you’re excited to take them out on a date and then full on disappearing for six weeks after they text you a cute compliment in response? Less fine. The reason I decided to write about direct communication is because someone asked if I would write about ghosting, and I didn’t know how to do that without writing about its counterpoint. Because yes I think ghosting is for cowards and honestly one of the most unkind things you can do a date, but it’s deeper than that. I don’t want a bunch of people in our community wandering around this earth thinking it’s easier to dip out the back than to say their feelings, especially if those feelings feel hard to say. Remember how we do not try to manage others’ emotions? Remember how everyone is an adult and can handle their shit, as long as you give them the honest shit to work with? Remember how the world is burning so the least we can all do is get vulnerable and honest together?
Stop ghosting your dates.
You’re just a Capricorn and I hate this but okay… sigh… do you have some tips about how I can start this practice?
Wow, so glad you asked. I am a Capricorn and I do have some tips!
- Get clear with yourself about what you want. Direct communication is all about getting what you feel in your brain and your heart out of your bod and into the universe openly and honestly. But you can’t do that if you, yourself, have no idea what’s going on in your brain and your heart. I think the first step to healthy direct communication is to think for yourself and really consider what you need and what you’re asking for. It helps me to write it down but you don’t have to.
- Start small. Oftentimes in therapy I used to say, “Ugh and then I was like, XYZ!” And my sweet therapist would say, “Did you really say XYZ?” And I’d look at her like that was the most ridiculous thing in the world and say, “NO!” And then she’d look at me like that was the most ridiculous thing in the world and say, “…why NOT?” Checkmate, Jane. I was always saying the things I wished I’d said to my therapist, and not actually in the real world. Even small things, like, “I’d really rather have salmon for dinner tonight than burgers please,” and, “It actually hurts my feelings when you don’t invite me to the bar on Thursdays even though you know I have class and can’t go, could you please just ask me so I feel included?” In the grand scheme of things, those are not big asks. If you start trying to communicate directly with small things that won’t have a great impact if they’re received badly, the big stuff will feel way less intimidating.
- Be clear and concise. As anyone who has read my work knows, I am not great with brevity. But when communicating something that feels scary to say out loud, I work very hard to be brief and to the point. You’re going to all the trouble to communicate directly and honestly – may as well make it easy to understand so you don’t have to say it twice! If for example you’re trying to break things off with someone, it’s perfectly reasonable to say, “I like you and I thought I felt a romantic spark with you, but I’d actually rather we were just friends.” It’s also reasonable to say, “I’m not really feeling this connection; I don’t want to go out again.” Another reasonable thing to say: “My partner and I need to close our relationship for a little and focus on our bond right now; I’ll let you know if that changes and I’m sorry for presenting unclear information when we spoke.” Lots of things that feel scary to say out loud but are in reality much kinder than just disappearing.
- Make sure your actions mirror your words. This part is key, and should go smoothly if you’re certain you know what you actually want. If you initiate boundaries with someone verbally but then do not follow through with keeping those boundaries, that’s confusing and not really in line with my values around direct communication. Acting on our words is the best integrity most of us have.
- If you must, rely on your phone. We live in an age where you can literally record yourself masturbating and text it to a date who lives miles and miles away from you and she’ll receive it within seconds. The future is now. If you can’t handle the idea of communicating directly to someone’s human fleshy face in person, use email or texts. It’s fine. Trust me, an honest text ending a relationship is way better than ghosting, any day.
What do you think, folks? Do you agree entirely and want to communicate directly with me about it? Did I leave something out that you’re worrying about? Are you shy and you hate this article and will not be changing your communication style, thank you very much (to which I say – shy people can communicate directly, too!)? Are you a licensed therapist who is mad that I didn’t consult you for the clinical definition of “direct communication” when writing an article about why I love it? Are you gonna keep ghosting and want me to know about it out of pettiness? I invite you to take to the comments to tell me how you really feel… directly. ;)
Want to learn more? Register for the Flirting 101 event with HER host Nicole Lim and Autostraddle’s Drew, Dani and Shelli TONIGHT, Thursday 1/14 and check out the other upcoming Queer Dating 101 events!
You Need Help: Your Partner Won’t Give You Space
Q:
My girlfriend and I have engaged in your typical “U-Haul” relationship. AKA, we’ve been dating for less than a year and live together. We have become super close with each other’s families and friends and have gone on several long trips together. Throughout our relationship, we have learned that we are very different people with different love languages and different needs. In most situations, this has helped both of us step outside of ourselves and grow to meet the needs of the other person in a way that doesn’t leave us compromising who we are or our happiness. This stops being true when the topic of independence comes up. My partner feels like there isn’t a need to make memories without each other or really have alone time. I, on the other hand, would like to be able to hang out with friends without her on occasion or be able to spend time alone. This fight has happened many times, and her resolution is to ‘suck it up and deal with it.’ This doesn’t feel like a compromise on either end, so I’m not sure how to move forward. I don’t want to lose my independence, but I don’t want my partner to be miserable. Is there a way to make this work?
A:
In some ways, you have a healthy mindset. You can easily identify your needs, your girlfriends’ needs and where they diverge. You support your partner in getting her needs met, and you’re aware of times when compromise might be necessary. You also know when you’re neglecting your needs in order to meet your girlfriend’s expectations. Hang onto that self-awareness — it’s your best tool for navigating through this conflict.
Asking for more space is a simple, reasonable request. Having alone time is essential for your mental health, and maintaining your own hobbies and friendships is critical for a healthy relationship. Getting alone time when you live with a partner during a global pandemic requires a little extra coordination, but it’s possible, and we should all be putting in the effort. When your partner denies your need for space, that’s a big red flag. She’s isolating you from the things that make you a capable, confident, well-rounded person, and when you adhere to her rules, you’re enabling codependency.
I’m not a therapist, but as a queer self-help nerd, I’ve read a whole lot about the dreaded “c” word. Initially, the term “codependency” was used to describe relationships between people struggling with substance abuse and their loved ones, but now it applies to a broader context. According to Melody Beattie, author of Codependent No More, a codependent partner is someone who has let someone else’s behavior affect them and is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior. The need to control a person or their environment is born from a desire to keep that person and your relationship safe, and “control” can manifest in all kinds of ways. Sometimes codependent people make unreasonable demands of their loved ones in order to feel more secure — that’s what your girlfriend is doing when she pressures you to spend all of your time together. Codependent people might neglect their own needs and put others first, even when it hurts them — that’s what you’re doing when you stop living on your own because “I don’t want my partner to be miserable.” While the intentions of codependent behavior are rooted in caretaking, codependency is ultimately a self-defeating cycle. You need to interrupt it before this behavior escalates and you become further isolated from yourself and from the people you love.
You said that you’ve already spoken to your girlfriend multiple times about needing space. Give it one more go. You don’t need to drop the “codependent” word bomb on your partner, but you do need to clearly tell her that this situation is not ok. Be specific about your needs (“I need to see my friends one a week,” “I need at least one hour of alone time at home every day,” “When you’re feeling lonely, I need to you to reach out to a friend or family member before you reach out to me” etc.). Explain that having space is a basic human need for both of you and that it will allow you both to bring your best selves to the relationship. Based on what you said about her past behavior, your girlfriend probably won’t respond well to this right away, so it’s important to acknowledge that this might be hard for her at first. Then give her time (but not too much time!) to start making progress. If your girlfriend doesn’t take any steps to release her controlling behavior, then it’s time to break up. Ending a relationship that’s stuck in a cycle of codependency is extremely challenging, since both partners have typically become isolated from their support networks, but the longer you wait, the harder it will be to extricate yourself from codependency’s claws.
If you find that codependency has shown up in your past romantic or in your relationships with family and friends, consider doing some work on yourself to ensure that this doesn’t happen again. If you don’t already have a therapist, get one. Read Codependent No More or check out one of the many support groups for people experiencing codependency (right now, most of them are online). Continually challenge yourself to put your needs first. Take yourself out on a date. Explore a new hobby. You deserve to live for your own happiness and you deserve relationships that foster mutual respect. Good luck!
You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.
#PolyamoryProblems: How to Deal With a Closeted Partner
Dear DaemonumX,
My girlfriend is polyamorous, bisexual, and married to a man. She is closeted both about being bi and about being polyam. For example, she says she’s close with her father and they tell each other everything but he doesn’t know she’s bi or that her and her husband aren’t monogamous (let alone that I exist). I told her when we started dating that I could anticipate struggling with missing out on a large chunk of her life because she is closeted, but at the time it was a non-issue. I’m lucky that I am safely out about my orientation and my relationship structure. I would never ask her to do anything that would make her life worse, but I feel like I might miss out on a closeness with her if she doesn’t come out. How do I deal with feelings of being hidden?
-Casper
Dear Casper,
This sounds super painful and I’m so sorry your relationship is making you feel invisible. For those of us that have already come out of the many metaphorical closets, going back in is just not an option. This is a double whammy because you not only have to watch your girlfriend’s traditional hetero relationship be validated by her loved ones, they also don’t know about you at all. There’s a ton to unpack here so let’s get to it!
As much as it may feel personal, it’s important to understand that this isn’t about you. Your girlfriend’s decision to be closeted is hers and not based on how much she cares about you. This almost makes the situation more complicated, right? “If she cared about me, she’d be out!” It’s unfortunately not so easy. Everyone has their own pace for these things, and some people live their whole lives in the closet only for their loved ones to discover the truth in photos or journals left behind. The point being—she may never, ever come out. In order to continue dating her, you have to make peace with that fact now and forgo placing hope onto an outcome. Can you do that?
You didn’t mention the reason that she’s not out and I probably shouldn’t guess, but there’s a lot I can glean just from the few sentences you’ve written. You do mention specifically that it was safe for you to come out and also that coming out would make her life worse, which leaves me wondering what is the threat to her safety? What is at stake? Her current situation that seems to be a hetero marriage with close parental support sounds like a safe landing. Of course coming out as both queer and polyamorous are a threat to that privileged set up. I just am dying to know what there is to lose by coming out? Bigoted family, shitty friends? It’s literally a queer rite of passage—people do this all the time with much less of a cushion. She’s allowing people she is supposedly close with to make assumptions about her life that keep her in a comfortable social status, but also keep you locked in the dark like a dirty secret (unless of course that’s your thing). My spicy take is that it sounds like she’s lacking some integrity?
Every relationship has people coming together from different backgrounds and bringing unique life experiences, privileges, and power dynamics. I think to be in any kind of relationship ethically, the least we need to do is talk openly about these things and at most compensate for them with action. A simple example is class difference. If you have money and your partner is poor, you should share your money. This could be anything from paying the rent to just paying for dinner when you can. With polyamorous relationships, we then have added responsibility to be in conversation about how the dynamics of our other relationships may be impacting each person. Your situation is a great example. Your girlfriend is in a public-facing monogamous straight marriage. Do you talk about how this makes you feel aside from being hidden? Honestly her responsibility in holding this social privilege from her other relationship essentially means that she should be mindful about how to make you feel special and prioritized. Ideally, she’s also acting on making you feel special and prioritized. How can that ever happen if she’s hiding you?
Anyway, let’s get back to you. This is about you! These aren’t decisions that you can ever make for her and asking her or anyone else to come out is absolutely not something you should do. So, what can you do? I always say that the only person you should control is yourself. You can reexamine your relationship, figure out what you need, set boundaries, break up. You have lots of options!
Let’s talk about dealing with the feelings around invisibility and potentially missing out on intimacy that comes along with being folded into her life. When you love someone you want to meet all the people that they love. It’s healthy to want to learn more about someone and be endeared to them through their relationships to others. When that’s not an option, or is being withheld, it can feel stifling or lead to resentment. What do you need to feel secure and safe if you stay in this relationship? Let’s call on our best friend Boundaries. Boundaries are here to support us getting what we need. If you make a list of all the things you deserve in relationships like “I deserve to not feel invisible,” or, “I deserve intimacy,” then your boundaries should support those.
Boundaries for this situation can vary depending on how you feel. You can dial back your relationship to be more casual so that you don’t have any expectations of meeting her family. This may help you feel less invisible, readjust the way you think about intimacy with your girlfriend, and free up more time for you to focus on other dates. You can go a different route and ask to spend more time around people in her life that do know she’s queer and polyamorous (assuming there are at least a few more than the husband) to compensate for not getting to meet everyone who doesn’t know. Do you see how these are different ways of essentially supporting what you know you deserve?
There’s a bigger picture to think about here too, Casper. You could decide after successfully setting boundaries and asking for what you need and getting what you need that it just isn’t enough. You may decide that in order to truly prioritize yourself while not trying to control anyone else that you have to let this relationship go. Beyond the hurt of feeling hidden, so much life experience comes from being out as queer and being out as polyamorous that when one person in a relationship is still closeted it can feel like a serious imbalance. This could thrust you into a role of guide that you don’t necessarily enjoy or consent to. Through this experience, you could learn that a new dating boundary for you is that your partners must be out. That’s a fair boundary and will, at the least, ensure that you don’t get into a situation like this one again.
The options for dealing with your hurt feelings are many, and the path is yours alone. Think about what you deserve in this relationship, and all relationships, then create your list. How can your boundaries support you getting more of what you deserve? How can your boundaries protect you from further hurt? Please remember to prioritize yourself and your needs, detach from outcomes, and that you deserve to thrive.
You Need Help: My Partner’s Pandemic Practices Suck and I Want to Break Up
Q:
I have come to realize that I don’t think I want to spend the rest of my life with my live-in partner of two years. Our disagreements on social distancing have caused a rift and have also caused me to lose some respect for my partner (they are much more lax about things). But thinking of breaking up seems almost impossible emotionally and financially, especially during a pandemic. I have been relying on my partner (probably too much) for emotional support during this time and feel I have lost my independence. I have social anxiety and not seeing friends has made it harder for me to reach out. I feel very alone outside of my partner and am scared of what might happen if we break up. To compound things, my partner recently bought a condo and I would feel guilty leaving them with a mortgage they can’t afford on their own. I’m not sure what they would do. I am also concerned about my ability to pay for my own rent if I moved out, and living with strangers seems very undesirable during a pandemic. It’s all so overwhelming. I just don’t know what to do.
A:
You’re not alone. Disagreements about COVID-19 practices are causing rifts between many couples right now, and rightfully so. The stakes are high, and when a partner or roommate doesn’t take adequate precautions, they’re putting your health and your life at risk, plus the health and lives of everyone around them. That’s not a good look. Transmitting a deadly virus doesn’t exactly say “I love you,” so it makes sense that this particular conflict is bringing up big questions about your relationship.
That said, I’m not clear on what you mean when you say your partner is “much more lax” about social distancing, and I don’t know what your own practices are. I’m not a doctor or a scientist, but according to the CDC, here’s what we should be doing during a surge: wearing masks in public spaces, remaining at least six feet away from others whenever possible, only having close, unmasked contact with people in our own households, avoiding non-essential errands, washing our hands often, and monitoring our health for COVID-19 symptoms. Immunocompromised people might take further precautions whenever possible. These practices aren’t foolproof, but they greatly reduce the spread of COVID-19, protecting our households and our communities.
Of course, essential workers still have to go to work, and if your partner falls into that category, some potential exposure might be unavoidable. However, if your partner is entering shared spaces without a mask, inviting friends into your home, spending time in other people’s homes, or regularly going on non-essential errands, that’s cause for concern. Rather than hash out “good” practices vs. “bad” practices, let’s focus on the fact that partners should decide on their pandemic practices together. It sounds like that hasn’t happened in your relationship, and if your partner has refused to read the research and hear your concerns, that’s a problem.
It also sounds like there might be some other issues in your relationship that are unrelated to the pandemic, or perhaps your partner’s response to the pandemic revealed who they really are. If enmeshment and shared rent are the main things keeping you and your partner together right now, that’s not a healthy, but here’s the good news: You have enough self-awareness to know that this relationship isn’t working for you. Considering that you’ve thought through the financial and logistical details of ending this relationship, it sounds like you know it’s time to get out. Getting clear on what you need is the first step, and you’ve done that! Congrats!
Breaking up with a live-in partner is hard, especially under these circumstances, but it’s possible — and it’s probably mentally and physically safer for you (and kinder to your partner) to end things sooner rather than later. Before you end the relationship, start seeking support from your friends. Social anxiety is the worst, but once you force yourself to break the pattern of isolation, reaching out can start to feel a little easier. Plus, asking your friends for support shows that you’d be willing to return the favor. We could all use a little extra kindness right now.
Once you feel confident asking others for help, it’s time to consider your housing options and start making a plan to move out. Changing your living situation can be overwhelming, so once you have your plan in place, make a list of all the logistical things that need to happen. This list should also include tasks that support your mental health during this shift, like getting a therapist if you don’t already have one or scheduling a weekly phone call with a specific friend. When you break a big task into smaller chunks, it starts to feel much more manageable.
Now let’s talk options. The fact that you’re sharing your partner’s condo rather than an apartment makes this uncoupling more financially taxing for your partner, but if your partner is refusing to respect your overall well-being by actively putting your life at risk, then you are not responsible for their financial well-being. That said, there are certainly ways to undo a co-housing situation that would be easier on your partner. Do you have a friend or relative who is taking adequate pandemic precautions? If a trusted loved one will let you temporarily stay with them rent-free, you can continue to contribute to your partner’s mortgage while they work towards finding a roommate or renting out their condo (if that’s possible given the condo association’s bylaws). This is a courtesy, not a necessity. If you choose this route, be clear about how much you’re willing to contribute and how long you’re willing to offer your financial support.
If you don’t have a safe place where you can stay for free, it’s time to look into other arrangements. Moving during a pandemic is not ideal, but it’s definitely possible. Even if you don’t have the funds to rent your own place, there are people just like you who are taking adequate COVID-19 precautions and need an equally responsible roommate. When you search online for apartments, use search terms “COVID-19″ or “social distancing” to find the folks who are taking the pandemic seriously.
After you’ve considered all of the possibilities, you have to do the actual breaking up part. It sounds like you’re already being really thoughtful about how a breakup could affect your partner, so I don’t need to remind you to be kind. I will, however, remind you to be clear about your reasons for ending the relationship, your plans for your living situation, and your boundaries around post-breakup contact. Once the emotional dust has settled (and if your partner is willing to work with you on this), start making a plan to untangle your living situation.
It’s easy to let go of the ways you usually care for yourself when you’re neck deep in post-breakup logistics, so try to keep up with at least a couple of practices that are easy to maintain. Those practices might look like daily journaling or walking outside or refilling your prescriptions or maintaining your elaborate skincare routine. If you’re feeling stuck, Autostraddle has published a ton of articles about how to get through a breakup and enjoy your single life on the other side. If you find yourself falling into a pit of guilt and shame, give yourself a pat on the back for making the choice to put yourself first. You deserve to be safe and healthy during this pandemic, you deserve to be surrounded by people who have your best interests in mind, and you deserve to date someone who shares your values and enhances your life. You can do it! Good luck!
You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.
Into the A+ Advice Box #23: What If Your Partner Didn’t Tell You They Were Potentially Exposed to Covid?
Welcome to the 23rd edition of Into the A+ Advice Box, in which we answer all the queer and lesbian advice questions from A+ members who submitted their queries into our A+ ask box because they wanted their questions answered in a space that is not accessible by Google, their mom, their ex, etc. (No guarantees regarding your ex, however.) Previously, we have included such questions in our epic Some Answers to Some Questions You Have Been Asking Us, and in most cases that is still the plan. But some questions were a lot longer or more in-depth and deserved their own place in the sun. We’re doing this column TWICE a month, now.
We solicited answers from the whole team, so let’s dive in!
Q1:
Hii! Y’all are the best. My fiance and I want to have a nice little (meaning just the 2 of us) elopement in the next few months and I want to know if you have advice on finding/planning a nice COVID-safe elopement photographer/officiant. We are in Indiana and want to make it ideally a nature-filled elopement because that is also easier for distancing. All the queer photographers and officiants I follow are in Colorado or California which isn’t the most useful for this moment. Thank you for any and all advice <3
Sam (They/Them/Theirs) and Sarah (she/her/hers)
A:
Kayla: Congratulations! My short answer for you is to search Instagram! But it’s obviously a little more complicated than just typing “queer wedding photographer in indiana” in the IG search bar. There are soooo many LGBTQ wedding photographers who use Instagram as the main way to reach people. There are also a lot of Instagram accounts (like @dancingwithher and @dancingwiththem) that repost queer wedding photos and tag the original photographers and other vendors, and while it will take work clicking through those tags to see if there are any in your area, it’s one way to find people! Also, a lot of queer wedding photographers follow each other on Instagram, so if there’s someone you like who isn’t in your state, it could be worth sliding into their DMs to ask if they have someone they can refer in your area. And if you really want to take your Instagram hunt to the next level, I recommend using a social media service like Hootsuite or SocialRank, because an annoying thing about Instagram is that you can’t search for multiple hashtags at once. But these other services (which usually offer free 30 day trials!) DO allow you to search multiple tags at once so that you can search for posts that are tagged #indiana AND #queerweddingphotography or something like that!
Nicole: Kayla’s so right. I think Instagram’s the place to go for this. After some googling, I found that you can go to equallywed.com to search for LGBTQ wedding vendors near you. It turns up one photographer for Indianapolis but I wasn’t sure exactly where you’re located so maybe you’ll have some different results. They have a blog with photos of other LGBTQ weddings, including recent situations which may give you some ideas for intimate, elopement-style affairs. (I’m pretty sure they also have an Instagram account.) Congrats and happy planning!
Q2:
I recently found out that my partner withheld information from me out of concern for my mental health. “What information?” you ask. That their roommate HAD BEEN EXPOSED TO COVID. When my partner found out, they were already over at my apartment for a planned stay of a few days, and just prior to coming over, they had tested negative. They said that they were afraid I would spiral out if I knew, but they realize now that they made a mistake and they’re very sorry. This was a few weeks ago, and no one has COVID, but that doesn’t change the fact that they really should have told me.
There are two things about this situation that I’m having trouble getting my head around. First, I have told them that what I need to make informed decisions during the pandemic is information. I have roommates too, one of whom was at their boyfriend’s apartment (he lives alone). If I had known, I could have told my roommate to stay there for a couple of weeks instead of putting them at risk too. I could have quarantined for 14 days to avoid putting my broader community at risk while running errands.
The other thing I’m struggling with is that they made a decision FOR me about my mental health. They continue to think that my anxiety is primarily contamination-related, but actually (and I’ve told them this), my worst and most prevalent invasive thought is that I am a danger to other people. And the fact that they COULD have given me COVID, and I COULD have given it to other people is giving that part of my brain a lot of fodder. And I HAVE a therapist and a psychiatrist, and managing my mental illness is not my partner’s responsibility!
They understand how deeply they have hurt me. They have apologized profusely and promised they won’t withhold information from me again. I WANT to forgive them and move on from this (after all, no one actually got COVID). There is so much that I love about our relationship, and we’ve shared so much joy together over the last 18 months, even during the pandemic. I don’t want to lose them… but I don’t know if I can trust them anymore.
I guess what I’m looking for advice on is how to rebuild that trust that’s lost. Is that possible? Do you think it’s worth trying?
A:
Kayla: You’re right. Your partner should have told you. And not just because you’ve been clear with them that you need all relevant information in order to make informed decisions about your behavior in this pandemic but because it’s what ANYONE should have done in your partner’s situation. Our governments have failed us by withholding information and, in some cases, spreading misinformation about COVID-19. It therefore has become our responsibility as individuals to take care of ourselves and our communities. Because the government isn’t doing shit!!!!!! We have to take care of each other, and by withholding information, your partner put not only you but—like you said—your roommate at risk, too. COVID-19 risks compound really quickly!
I’m happy to hear that your partner is apologizing, but I do hope they have expressed that they understand where you’re coming from. It’s easy to say sorry. But a real apology requires understanding and also a commitment to growth. It’s natural for you to feel betrayed right now—this was absolutely a betrayal of your trust! And I’m going to be honest: It will be difficult to rebuild. Not impossible! But difficult. As for if it’s worth it, that’s something only you can really decide for yourself. Is your partner willing to put in the work to rebuild trust? Do they really truly understand WHY what they did was wrong? Will they be more respectful of boundaries when it comes to your mental health?
Q3:
Probably a weird question but how do you deal with constantly wavering in terms of what you want to do with your life? I currently have a very stable job having completed a bunch of qualifications that are guaranteed to keep me employable pretty much anywhere in the world, but I keep looking into applying for grad school in various totally different subjects – I’ve looked at Psychology and History and Data Science and Linguistics and retraining as an ultrasound tech and hundreds of other things – and every time I come across a new thing I’m like “aha! This is the thing that will take me out of feeling so very stuck”. The main thing I’m getting from this is that I desperately want to do something new. I’m in my late 20s, so I feel a weird pressure to do something about this sooner rather than later, but I also have no idea how anyone figures out what the right thing for them to be doing is. How do you know what you want to be when you grow up, when you’re already pretty far along in your career path?
A:
Carolyn: Wow have I ever been there! It’s interesting – and agonizing – to look around at your interests and skills and curiosities and realize they could lead you in a hundred different directions. How do you even decide? And if you choose one, how do you know it’s the “right” one and that the actual right one isn’t the one you turned down? This is known as the paradox of choice, often discussed in consumer contexts but whatever, where, to be reductive, when you have too many options it’s harder to feel satisfied with whatever choice you make. When I’m in that place, I find it’s productive to stop thinking about how all the different options could look, and start thinking about how all the different options could feel. What feeling do you actually want to have at a core level?* All your interests will be united because they come from you, but some might more closely align with how you want your life to feel. Try to unpack and break down what’s appealing to you about a few different options – is it that you get to learn something new and feel like you’re exploring? Do you want to be able to practice greater flexibility? Instead of moving away from “stuck,” what do you want to move towards?
*I have to credit The Desire Map for this type of thinking, but I neither endorse nor recommend The Desire Map beyond this one single point.
Malic: I love what Carolyn said about focusing on how different options make you feel! I’ve been in this place before, too. For me, it’s been most helpful to imagine what my actual day-to-day life would look like if I made particular career choices instead of focusing on the more grandiose version of “what it means” to work in a specific area.
I’m also wondering if there are ways you could explore these interests before making the enormous commitment to pursue one of them in grad school. Are there jobs you can take in those areas right now without a graduate degree? Are there volunteer opportunities or internships you could pursue? Can you take on a single project in one of these areas? That will give you more data to help you make those Big Life Choices.
It’s also important to remember that you can incorporate all of your interests into your life, even if you only pursue one of them as a career. There’s so much more to you and your life than your job or your degree! If you want to pursue a degree in Linguistics and spend your spare time nerding out while listening to history podcasts, that’s rad. All of your interests are valid and worthy of pursuit, even when you’re not getting paid to do so.
Kayla: I’m a huge proponent of later in life career pivots/changes/discoveries. It can be scary to jump into something new, but it’s also very rewarding to try different things and pursue multiple interests. Since you’re struggling to figure out what it is you really want, I think it could be helpful to remind yourself that your decisions don’t have to be permanent. Yes, some career choices are more of a long-term commitment than others, but it still doesn’t mean that you have to do that thing forever. I think Malic is absolutely correct in suggesting that you maybe explore ways to dip your toes in other pursuits before making major commitments. It’s okay to have multiple interests and also changing interests! It happens. It doesn’t have to mean you’re unfocused or uncommitted! I think if you remind yourself of these things, it might help you figure out what you want.
Q4:
Hi uhh odd question but I’m not sure who to go to. At what point in a relationship is it appropriate to tell your partner that you want them to know what your tears and blood taste like? If you want context, we’ve been qpps for a month now (with a similar emotional intensity to romance) and we do kink together. We live too far away to meet in person so this isn’t about that. We say “you’re important” with the significance of “I love you” very often?? I know relationship milestones don’t happen at Scheduled Correct Times and especially not when you’re polyamorous or otherwise unconventional. But what would y’all do in my situation?
A:
Carolyn: The best way to have any big-step conversation is in a relaxed context and, if it’s at all sex- or kink-related, outside of a context in which sex and/or kink could happen. After that, I think it’s pretty organic to ask, via whatever medium you want, how your partner feels about fluid exchange, and from there to name specifically blood and tears as the fluids. If they’re not into it, they can say so in a less-loaded environment; if they are, you don’t have to meet in person to mail someone a vial of your fluids (though check your mailing service’s rules around that just in case) (and do all the types of tests you’d do for other fluid exchange, including a covid test, also just in case).
Malic: I agree with Carolyn — have a relaxed conversation outside of sex or kink context. In terms of when it’s appropriate to have that conversation, the answer is: whenever you want! If you trust this person and feel safe enough with them to talk about your desires, go for it.
If your partner is into the idea, dip your toe into fluid exchange first. Spend time fantasizing about it together before you get to the “(safely) mailing your bodily fluids” place. Send photos. Show them your bodily fluids on video chat (just make sure you use an encrypted service like the video chat feature on Signal for privacy). Have fun!
Q5:
I voted for Biden and I don’t begrudge anyone their joy, but I have seen so many people who identify as progressive and feminist just…act like the Tara Reade allegation never happened? If it’s true, I can’t imagine how awful it must be for Reade to see worldwide jubilation over her rapist becoming the most powerful person in the world. I definitely don’t want to be one of those people who’s like “how dare you express a positive emotion when bad things also exist,” but it is so hard to see people constantly saying things like, “He’s a good man,” “Decency was on the ballot,” and “Character matters” about an alleged rapist. I see people who are rape survivors, people who cried when Kavanaugh was confirmed, talking about how Biden seems like a decent human being, and I feel like I’m going crazy.
I’m not talking about it on social media, because everyone else on my feed is so happy and I don’t want them to feel like I’m shaming them for daring to feel good for one fucking day out of this awful year, but it feels so lonely to care about this when everyone else is celebrating. I know the “textbook” solutions, I am doing local volunteer work and donated to Ossoff and Warnock and am happy about Sarah McBride and Mauree Turner and so on. But I still feel heartbroken that so many people who I like and respect and felt like I shared values with don’t seem to care about a rape allegation — not just today, but ever since the news broke. When Biden becomes president, that will be two-thirds of presidents in my lifetime who have sexual assault allegations, half of all presidents in my lifetime who have rape allegations. I don’t know how not to feel grief and anguish about this. I guess I don’t have much of a question except: Am I the only one who feels this way? Am I out of my mind?
A:
Malic: You are absolutely not alone. I have a lot of fears around the public response to Biden’s presidency — I fear that the liberals who were moved to take action under the Trump administrations will feel like their work is “done” and abandon all organizing efforts, and I absolutely fear that Biden’s alleged sexual assault has been swept under the rug. Alongside that, I still feel joy around the end of Trump’s presidency and around Biden’s promises to walk back some of Trump’s more hideous policies when he takes office, but the fear and the anger are always there. It’s fucked up that we live in a world where sexual assault is ignored. It’s fucked up that we live in a two-party system in which an alleged rapist was our only option. I felt fucked up about phone banking to get an alleged rapist in office because that alleged rapist (in a race between two rapists) was the only candidate who could potentially protect my immigrant friends. I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but I hope that once left-leaning folks get over the initial relief of Biden’s presidency, he will be taken to task. If you want to build community with people who have been and continue to critique Biden for his policies as well as his allegations of, seek out folks with radical politics. We’re here and we’re still mad.
Q6:
My nesting partner and I had a mutual best friend for about four years who we also shared sexuality with (together and separately) for about six months. That stopped when they started dating a new partner who wanted to be monogamous, which we all respected. Our friend moved in with their new partner very quickly, and this partner started displaying some very emotionally abusive behavior.
For example, she would not allow myself or my nesting partner into her home (where our best friend had chosen to live), and when my friend tried to break up with her and move out, she called 200+ times in one night, and then waited at my friend’s workplace the next morning until they arrived.
This kind of behavior went on for a year and a half, and I did my best to support my friend to leave when they were ready (my friend has a history of unhealthy relationships). Emotionally and logistically this became too much for me, and a year ago I expressed my gratitude for our friendship and told them I needed to end things and stop contact with them so I could focus on relationships that were life-giving and sustainable, including the one with my 3 month old baby.
Now my kiddo is almost a year and a half, covid is still happening, and I genuinely miss my friend. I want to share fun pictures and memes with them, and check in on how they are holding up. Part of me thinks this would be helpful for both of us, and part of me imagines it will just inject more unwanted drama back into my life. Does the “do not contact an ex” rule apply to friends, too?
A:
Malic: I completely understand the impulse to contact an old friend, especially when it was their relationship with a partner that stirred up conflict. In the midst of a pandemic, a lot of us are deep in our feelings right now, so it makes sense that you’d be moved to reach out. Before you do, be honest with yourself — are you in a place where you feel stable enough to be in contact with that friend? If the answer is no, then leave it alone. If the answer is yes, here’s a little hope: you set a reasonable, no-contact boundary, and it sounds like your friend has respected this boundary for over a year. That’s a good sign. And you can keep setting those boundaries. Maybe your old friend would be open to a text-only relationship for a while. Just make sure you prepare yourself to be disappointed.
Kayla: I don’t think there is a hard set Do Not Contact rule here, so I’m going to do the kind of annoying advice thing and say that only you can really know if reaching out feels right. It’s possible that your friend is in a place where they don’t want to resume a friendship, so you have to prepare yourself for that possibility and honor that boundary if it does come up. If you feel like reaching out will provide a net positive experience ie not take from you more than it gives, then go for it. But be prepared to either step things back again if that’s what they want or if resuming a friendship ends up feeling bad for you, too.
Q7:
Hello dear and wise Autostraddle community:
Long story short, I’m a girl and I have never been sexually intimate with anyone. Now I am forming a very nice, open, deep and sincere bond with another girl. I am afraid that we will start going to each other’s house, and have moments of more privacy, since for now we were seeing each other in open spaces. How can I prepare to lose my fear of it becoming intimate? It also makes me a bit ashamed to tell her that I was never with anyone. And the lack of experience does not help to get rid of my fear.
I tried to watch videos, tutorials, talk with friends about their first experiences. Anything else I can do? Thank you!
A:
Carolyn: Congratulations on your new bond! I might get some pushback for this, but writing as a former NSFW editor and current sex writer, you know what, sometimes sex is just scary. No matter how affirming a partner, deep a bond, or enthusiastic you feel about getting down with someone else, sex still involves being semi- to fully naked with at least one whole other person who is also probably semi- to fully naked, and sharing intimate and vulnerable parts of yourself, and if you’ve never done it (or them) before it is totally okay to feel all the feelings you’re feeling about that.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way: If it’s possible, I encourage you to see your lack of experience as an advantage, rather than a disadvantage. The thing about sex is that it’s different with every single person, and a lot of folks limit the experience by bringing their preconceived ideas about what another partner likes into an experience with a present partner, no matter how hard we try not to. When you have no experience, you’re free to be completely present with your partner as they are, to ask questions, and to explore together, with no ideas about what you’re “supposed to” be doing or what “should” feel good. That means that – in addition to checking out this shameless plug for the lesbian sex 101 series, which is called that for SEO and not because it’s just for lesbians – one of the best ways to feel comfortable in a sexual situation with someone else is to practice getting comfortable and being present in a sexual situation with yourself. Masturbate. A lot. Focus on the feelings you like in your body, and then practice (in your head, if you like) how you’d describe them in very specific terms to someone else. Practice returning your attention to your breath if your mind wanders. Practice, in non-sexual situations, being as present as possible with your partner, even socially distanced, so that when you do move to more intimate settings you know how to be attuned to them and to yourself.
I also don’t think you necessarily need to tell your partner that you’ve never done this before – you can, of course, but if putting that knowledge out there will make you feel less comfortable rather than more so, it’s not required for consent by any means.
Kayla: I agree with Carolyn! Sometimes sex is just scary. And I think it’s important to keep in mind that that’s true for people at all experience levels! Every time I’ve had sex with someone new, it kind of felt like a First Time experience, because every body and person is different! I say this not to scare you further but to rather normalize the fear you feel. It’s something a lot of us feel regardless of sexual histories!
I also agree with Carolyn that if you don’t want to, you don’t have to tell her that this will be your first time. It all comes down to what makes you the most comfortable. Would you feel better about her knowing? Then tell her! Or would you rather just keep that to yourself? That’s fine, too! If a conversation comes up about past experiences organically comes up, of course don’t lie, but it’s not information you really owe to anyone, and it likely won’t affect the sex as much as you’re maybe thinking it will.
In general, I think the most important thing for you right now is to figure out what you want and you like, which yes, means masturbating/fantasizing to work through some of your desires. Make sure communication with your partner is healthy and good, even about things other than sex. So much of connection and chemistry can be informed by communication.
Q8:
So I can’t decide if this is a terrible thing to be asking or not, but hopefully even just the process of asking might help me to process it! I’m a cis white woman in the uk, married to a cis white woman and we have 2 small kids. Our relationship, I’d say, is ok but we’ve struggled since having kids – we have some stuff to work out in the near future that requires some couples therapy as we’ve dealt with some trauma, resentment and mental health issues in the last few years. We’re both on board to making improvements in those areas and recognise that having small kids is hard on any marriage and this has contributed massively.
However I’ve been having a bit of a wobble about what I want from a relationship and I can’t decide if this needs to be something from my (monogamous) romantic, sexual relationship or if this is something I can seek from platonic friendships so would appreciate your thoughts!
In the last few years, like many people with white privilege I’ve started the (long, ongoing) process of unravelling my privilege and unconscious racism, working on trying to move towards being anti racist instead.
My wife is a generally good person, who wouldn’t class herself as racist but obviously that’s problematic in itself. She’s definitely less clued up on this stuff and isn’t really up for doing the work right now. Some of this is due to the aforementioned small children and mental health issues, but I’m not sure if she ever will be. This relates to other areas too – my views are more liberal than hers in general and I’m starting to find this hard. I want to have conversations about how to dismantle my own prejudices and feel like my partner is working towards this with me, especially in terms of the values we raise our kids with. She has had a lot of things to deal with but equally I’m not sure that’s an excuse forever as this stuff is so important.
I suppose what I’m asking is – is this something that is reasonable to be a dealbreaker?! I know I need to speak to her about it at some point but I also know right now it could just provoke defensiveness. Or should I focus on other areas of our relationship first and accept I might be doing this work alone/with our kids and I need to find friends to have these conversations with and hold me to account?
A:
Malic: I’m not married and I’m not a parent, so I can’t tell you if this is an appropriate “dealbreaker.” What I can say is that wanting your partner to share your values is valid in any context, and it’s especially valid when you’re instilling your separate values in your children. First, I want to give your partner the benefit of the doubt. You say that she isn’t up for “doing the work” to dismantle her own racism right now, but it’s possible that “doing the work” looks different for her than it does for you. It’s also possible that she’s uncomfortable talking about this subject with you because she knows you’re further along in your lifelong journey of unraveling your racism. Maybe she’s embarrassed about what she doesn’t know or she’s afraid of being corrected. I think a lot of white people worry about this, and in the context of a romantic relationship, being corrected can feel especially hard.
You can (and should) continue having these conversations with your friends, but if you haven’t already, I think it’s important to explicitly tell your partner that talking about racism is important to you. At the very least, she should be willing to discuss how you’ll talk about race with your kids. Add this topic to the list of things you plan to discuss in therapy, too. If it turns out that your values don’t align, you can reevaluate your relationship and figure out next steps in a mediated setting.
#PolyamoryProblems: The Way My Partner Engages With Her Other Partner Makes Me Uncomfortable, What Should I Do?
Q:
Dear Daemonum X,
I’m having trouble figuring out if or how I should address discomfort with the way my partner is engaging with her other partner. For example, my partner is great and in our relationship she has good boundaries and communicates pretty well. However, I notice that with her other partner she seems to have really poor boundaries, isn’t honest about her hurt feelings, has poor communication that leads to more hurt feelings, and the cycle continues. I know she is capable of these things because I see her enact them in our relationship. She also talks a big game about boundaries and communication being important so I know she really cares about this. The dissonance is confusing and disconcerting. I’m completely willing to accept that it’s none of my business, but am I allowed to have a boundary around the treatment of my metamours?
— Disconcerted
A:
Dear Disconcerted,
A really common theme that pops up in many different ways from people seeking polyamory advice is “Am I allowed to…?” So often in relationships we doubt ourselves, second guess our instincts, or think we aren’t allowed to ask for what we really need. There are a million different reasons why it’s hard to advocate for yourself. Asking for what you need can be really scary. It might be that we’re ashamed of having needs at all, afraid of being too much, and there’s always that pesky fear of rejection. It’s easier to avoid it or make up excuses for why we don’t actually need The Thing we need. We want permission to be allowed to ask for The Thing we need. Disconcerted, consider this your permission.
We’re taught to think that other people’s relationships aren’t our business. If other people’s relationships aren’t our business, then that means our partner’s other relationships aren’t our business either, right? I, for one, think it’s really dangerous to have relationships in isolation away from community or other people who can provide important perspective and help us be accountable. I think that it benefits everyone to make sure we’re all treating each other well and working towards being better people. I’m not saying it’s appropriate to comment on a stranger or acquaintance’s relationship, but when it’s a friend or partner that you are close with it’s definitely appropriate. No one is perfect and everyone fucks up — once we accept that we can all work together on getting it less wrong.
In polyamorous relationships we get the unique experience of witnessing how our partners interact in other types of intimate and romantic relationships. Seeing my partners in deep relations with others, witnessing them being loved and cared for, and watching them grow is truly one of my favorite things. When it’s good, it’s really good. The flip side, the realistic side, is that it’s not always sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes we witness the person we love exhibit unhealthy behaviors and patterns in their other relationships. We might even be in a relationship with someone who is being abused by someone else. Something important to understand here is that we cannot control other people or the relationships they have, how they treat others, or how they are treated by others. It’s never our job to fix or save anyone else. However, we do have the ability to support our partners in many ways, as well as the gift of setting our own boundaries.
Boundaries are our manifestations of how we deserve to be treated and what we will accept from others. Their job is to protect us and to ensure that we can have healthy relationships while practicing self-preservation. In addition, we have personal boundaries we set with ourselves because the relationship with ourselves is perhaps the most important one. Not speaking up for yourself is crossing your own boundaries. Keeping your feelings inside when it would benefit you to share them is crossing your own boundaries. That being said, when it comes to your boundaries — you are absolutely allowed and encouraged to set whatever boundaries feel self-preserving and affirm your values while not trying to control other people.
As you said, the dissonance in your partner’s behavior with you compared to her behavior with your metamour is concerning. Different people bring out different parts of us. In my experience, some people just make it easier for us to be our best selves. This is not an excuse for treating anyone badly, but it is important to remember that we’re all at different stages of healing from whatever trauma we may have and unlearning survival tactics that no longer serve us. Let’s just say that you’re secure, confident, accountable to your own boundaries, and communicate well. You may have created a safer place for your partner to heal in relationship with you. It’s very possible that the pairing of trauma responses, attachment styles, or codependency (etc!) between your partner and metamour are setting them up to get stuck in a cycle of reopening old wounds. For example, if they have opposing attachment styles like avoidant and insecure it means they have to work a lot harder to meet in the middle. Or, if they both have trauma responses that activate each other, normal conflict will often feel like a constant state of emergency. When we learn these things about ourselves, a lot of our behavior patterns start to make sense and then we understand why it may be harder to step out of an unhealthy cycle. Working together to be mindful of our own trauma or destructive patterns in relationships can set up a healthy dynamic to heal from shame and grow with those we love.
Part of having close relationships is the gift of being accountable to others. When we’re on the wrong path and our actions don’t align with our values, our partners and friends should call us in and remind us to do better. Watching your partner act out unhealthy behavior in her other relationship is something you should absolutely discuss with her very kindly and without judgment. By letting her know exactly what you’re witnessing, it’s bringing awareness to her behaviors. She may not even realize what’s happening, or she might just need a little support or encouragement in setting boundaries with others. If she is aware, she might feel stuck in a loop and feel powerless to stop. Loving someone means helping them to account for their behavior. From what you said, it sounds like your partner cares about fostering healthy relationships and working on herself, and she demonstrates that in relationship with you. This is a really positive sign that she will be receptive to your feedback.
Now, let’s talk about what’s best for you to do in this situation. It’s pretty clear that your first step is to talk to your partner about how uncomfortable it makes you feel to see her crossing boundaries and not communicating about her feelings in her other relationship. Explain how you are observing a disconnect in her actions vs her words. Make sure she knows that you are bringing this to her attention because you know it goes against what she’s told you about her ethics. Remember to speak from a place of love. Do you want to be a support person for this? How much support can you offer without becoming enmeshed in your partner’s other relationship? If you feel you can offer support (reminder that it’s totally fine if you can’t!), talk about what that looks like and what would feel good for both of you. This could be as simple as quick, loving reminders in the moment, “Hey, I see you doing that thing again that you don’t want to do.” Or, it could look much more involved like listening and processing with her. It is very important to remember that you’re her partner and not her therapist! You can listen and cheer her on, but pay close attention to when you start to feel uncomfortable or drained because that’s a sign that it’s time to set stronger boundaries. Ideally your partner has friends and/or a therapist who are also supporting her.
If and when you need to, it’s totally ok to let your partner know that you need to create a boundary around her other relationship. Listening to someone complain constantly about interpersonal conflict when they refuse to just sit down and talk about it is really fucking draining. Avoiding conflict helps no one. You can say something like, “I don’t want to hear you complain about X because it’s clear that you’re not talking to them about your feelings and that makes me uncomfortable.” I always feel that I can’t fully trust someone who complains about others instead of just talking to them because it shows me that they can’t handle conflict. Setting this boundary supports you and your values while not trying to control your partner. Creating limits on what you will and will not listen to or support is very fair.
Dear Disconcerted, please know that you have permission always and forever to set whatever boundaries you need with anyone at any time and for any reason. Boundaries are wonderful tools that allow you to cultivate stronger relationships, and we all need that! Remember that helping your loved ones by pointing out their harmful behavior and offering support when you are able is an act of kindness. I wish you the best of luck!
5 Good Reasons to Just Fart in Front of Your Partner Already
Welcome to Butt Week, friends! An entire week dedicated to butts and butt-adjacent stuff: how-tos, thoughtful essays, original art, pop culture critiques, music and more! You are absolutely not ready for this and yet it is happening to you, right now. Today Malic makes the researched and cited case for farting right in front of your partner! Just do it!
Everybody farts. You fart. Your therapist farts. And that cute barista who only charges you for black coffee when you order an oat milk latte? Oh yeah, she farts, too. She was probably farting this morning while making said latte, relying on the loud slurping sound of the milk steamer to cover the sound. If that doesn’t impress you, then you don’t deserve her.
It’s Butt Week here at Autostraddle, and while my queer colleagues take on the sexier side of all things ass, I’m here to write in defense of farts. You’re welcome. Lesbian relationship expert Dr. Frankie of Are You The One? fame insists that we should never fart in front of partners lest we ruin “the mystique,” and to that I say, what mystique?! Does anyone really believe that the people we love don’t fart? We are all farting all the time. Some of us are just good at hiding it. Consider this your invitation to stop hiding, loosen your cheeks, and let your sphincter siren sing for the one(s) you love.
First, a quick Farting 101: We fart because we’ve swallowed air throughout the day and because the large intestine produces gas when it’s breaking down our food. All of that gas has to escape somehow, so it exits through your mouth in the form of a burp or it bolts from your butt in a trumpeting toot. Sure, we can take steps to reduce our farting if we quit chewing gum, cut down on the La Croix, chew our food more thoroughly, and eschew Brussels sprouts, but we’re going to keep on breaking wind. If you have a digestive illness like Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Celiac disease, Crohn’s disease, or colitis, you probably fart more than the average person, but even those with healthy digestive systems fart between 5 and 23 times per day. It’s a normal and necessary bodily function, but most of us (particularly those of us who aren’t dudes) are taught that farting is deeply embarrassing, especially when it happens in the presence of the people we date.
A Mic poll that surveyed 125 people in their twenties and thirties found that just over half of its respondents had farted in front of their partner within six months of dating, but over a quarter of those surveyed waited longer than six months to a year (a YEAR!) before openly breaking wind. Those folks were either holding in their farts or hiding them, and the internet contains a rich archive of various fart-stifling techniques. Some people spread their cheeks to prevent their farts from making sound. Others employ the dubious “cough-while-you-fart” method or save their farts for a visit to the bathroom. For the first few months of dating my girlfriend, I employed a technique that the internet dubs the “muffled tailpipe”, which involves wadding up toilet paper and holding it over your booty hole to muffle the sound of your flatulence.
Folks, we’re still in the midst of a pandemic. Many of us have quarantined with our partners, sometimes in tiny apartments, and that makes hiding our farts a little more complicated. So stop hiding! Cut one loose in front of the boo! Here are five reasons why you should start farting in front of your partner ASAP:
1. Holding in your farts hurts.
Squeezing your cheeks together and keeping your farts inside isn’t going to kill you, but it definitely won’t feel good. When you hold in your farts, you might experience pain, bloating, indigestion, or heartburn. “Mystique” isn’t worth gastrointestinal discomfort! Plus, those farts you’re holding in will have to escape at some point, and you might not be able to control when that happens.
2. Holding in your farts increases the likelihood that you’ll pass gas at an unexpected (and inopportune) time.
The longer you keep those farts inside, the less control you have over when and where they escape. Some moments are undeniably better for farting than others (i.e. farting while you and your partner are watching PEN15 vs. farting during sex). Of course, you might seize every ideal farting opportunity and still accidentally let one rip while you’re banging. It happens. Laugh and take it in stride.
3. You’re giving your partner permission to fart, too.
If you’ve never noticed your partner’s farts, they’re definitely engaging in some kind of theatrics to hide them, and they’d probably breathe a sigh of relief if they knew they could let loose. Go ahead and open the farting door — you’ll both feel more comfortable, physically and mentally.
4. Farting in front of partners builds intimacy.
The Mic survey found that most people fart in front of their partners right around the six month mark, which is when partners in long-term relationships typically say “I love you.” Farting and dropping the L-word both signal that you’re comfortable around each other. You’re willing to be vulnerable and honest, and isn’t that what love and connection is all about? If you’ve been putting parts of your bodies inside each other’s bodies, you should be able to acknowledge that those bodies also fart.
5. It’s funny (to some of us)!
You probably thought this article would be all farts and games, but I can’t write about flatulence without writing about patriarchy. A study published in the journal Social Problems found straight men were most likely to think that farts are funny. More than half of straight women and “non-heterosexual” men were uncomfortable farting in front of others because they feared that farting made them less attractive, and “non-heterosexual” women were the least likely to laugh at a fart.
The short version: Most of us who aren’t straight, cis dudes are expected to have better control over our bodily functions. That messaging comes from our families, our relationships, and the media (remember how Carrie Bradshaw responded when she farted in front of Mr. Big?). We’ve learned to stigmatize farting, and that socialization is hard to undo. I’m asking you to try to undo it because — wait for it — farting is a feminist issue! Releasing your butt valve in front of a partner is a radical act of rebellion! When you laugh at your own farts and at your partner’s farts, you are laughing in the face of misogyny! Partners who fart together dismantle the patriarchy together! Does that make you want to let one rip? I certainly hope so.
#PolyamoryProblems: Opening Your Relationship 101
Feature graphic image by The Gender Spectrum Collection.
Q:
Dear DaemonumX,
My long term partner and I have had the conversation about our desire to open our relationship up (about 4 months ago). However, we’re struggling with moving past that initial conversation. We’ve talked about it briefly but it feels like we’re both stuck in moving to the next step. How do we make sure we’re communicating well and on the same page? How do we go about actually pursuing polyamory and making it a reality?
— Ready Already
A:
Dear Ready Already,
First I want to congratulate you on taking the scary step #1, which is that you had the initial conversation about opening your relationship! I wish I could say that the hardest part is behind you, but the truth is that in pursuing non-monogamy you’ll likely have conversations much more difficult than that one. Not to scare you away, but the consciousness shifting of unlearning monogamy calls for some enhanced communication and lots of processing. There are countless things I wish I had known before I started out, and lucky for you I’m here to tell you the things that will hopefully make your transition into polyamorous relationships much smoother. So if I may say so, Ready, it doesn’t sound to me like you are.
Most people experience consensual non-monogamy for the first time while opening up a monogamous relationship. It’s understandable that people like to feel secure and build a strong relationship foundation before welcoming others into the mix in one way or another. I find that because of this, people new to polyamory assume that it always revolves around one couple—two people in a relationship date other people outside that relationship — or that you need to have a partner to be polyamorous. It’s always “We are polyamorous,” and rarely “I am polyamorous.” Polyamorous means you’re open to loving more than one person, or that you don’t cap yourself at one romantic partner. In the same way you can be gay and single, you can also be polyamorous and single. You don’t need one or ten partners to make that valid.
One of my absolute favorite things I learned after deciding to be polyamorous is that it’s a choose your own adventure game. For better or worse, we see examples of monogamy everywhere our whole lives, it’s our default and at the very least we can just look around and copy what others are doing. Because polyamory is not mainstream, there aren’t really any pre-packaged scripts that society has given us to follow. Here’s the fun part: This means that your wildest dream of how to approach relationships is only limited by your imagination. This is how it should be. I urge you to take advantage of this and Dream Big! Close your eyes and imagine your life is overflowing with love. What kind of love makes you feel free? How would you like to feel supported? What do you need to feel safe? (It’s also ok not to know yet!)
Before you dive in and live your dreams, there’s some grounding work to do first. Polyamory is a practice that requires some level of knowledge so you don’t go around being messy. Sometimes I think about how much better off we’d all be if we learned how to have healthy relationships as kids. Most of us don’t know the first thing about being a good partner and we learn by trial and error. Changing your course now from monogamy to polyamory means that it’s time to learn, and learning means doing your homework! Luckily there are tons of resources out there like books, zines, and podcasts that can help get you up to speed (unfortunately way more information than I could ever fit here). At the very least, you should try to figure out which brand of polyamory you want, how you’d like to structure your relationships, what your boundaries are, and even some communication skills. You and your partner can make it fun by sharing podcasts and books with each other, discussing, journaling, and envisioning your future together. Super gay!
Having multiple relationships at once ethically requires intention, accountability, and practice. We’re forced to talk about things we’ve never shared before, in ways we haven’t before, and confront feelings and behaviors that no longer serve us. This is so wonderful, but to be honest, it could also really kick your ass. I always advise people who are new to polyamory to over-communicate at first—your feelings, your fears, what you’re doing, who you’re into. Putting all the information out in the open helps to shield against the anxiety of secrecy or cheating (yes you can cheat in polyamory)! Boundaries around receiving information and communication are great, and you’re allowed to set whatever boundaries you need to protect yourself, but if you don’t want to hear about your partner’s other dates you should take some time to interrogate why. Lots of people set communication boundaries to shield themselves from hard feelings of jealousy or insecurity. Society tells us these are bad feelings and we should get rid of them. In polyamory we learn these are actually quite normal and build really important skills and strategies to manage them! I have never met anyone in a “don’t ask, don’t tell” open relationship that has lasted very long, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try if that’s what your heart desires!
So, circling back to your question. Being on the same page with your partner requires all of the above, doing the work separately, and together. Do your research, dream big, set boundaries, over-communicate, and process. In my unhumble opinion, you can start dating others whenever you want, but it only becomes ethical once you put this work in. Keep in mind that what you think you know and how you feel on day one may very well completely change on day two. Keep an open mind and be flexible to the possibility of change as you explore and settle in. Being on the same page also doesn’t mean that you need to be equal. Get comfortable with the fact that one of you might be dating while the other is not. You don’t have to match what the other is doing, which might seem fair but in reality is a fast way to resentment and burnout.
You mentioned being stuck. You and your partner are on the same page, ready and excited to date, so what are you waiting for? This is actually really common! I think there are two things at play here, shame and fear. Monogamy culture is so incredibly pervasive and a lot of people who enthusiastically want to practice polyamory are very hesitant because of the shame. Many people might not understand or support your choice. People in my life have dismissed polyamory as just free love orgies with seventeen partners and an excuse to be a slut (not that you need one). While this may indeed be a wonderful benefit of non-monogamy, there’s a lot to unpack here. You’re going to need to remind yourself often that you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re not cheating, and your relationship choices are just as valid as monogamy.
Fear holds us back from doing many things we want and realizing our full potential. There’s a very real fear that leaving the comforts of monogamy will mean your partner might find someone new and decide to leave you. I’ve heard this a hundred times before and it’s a real roadblock, often for both partners. I’m here to remind you that the beauty of polyamory is that no one has to choose! You can both fall in love with new people and still continue your relationship at the same time. As long as you’re happy no one has to leave anyone! This is part of the unlearning work we do when shifting away from monogamy — the scarcity mindset imbued by our capitalist culture makes us think there’s never more where that came from. When this feeling comes to you, retreat back to the place where you envision your life overflowing with love. Remember, dream big!
Once you’re ready, the initial shift into dating new people is a lot like dating people when you’re single — you can use the dating apps or meet people through friends, etc. However, now there’s a lot more information that needs to be shared with new dates! You should definitely put in your dating profile that you are polyamorous. Then, you have to get comfortable not only telling people you have another partner BUT ALSO laying out the structure of your relationships, and any relationship agreements and expectations you have with other partners. For example, if you’ve decided on a hierarchical polyamory structure with your current partner, you should communicate to new dates that you have a primary partner, if you live together, and how much time you can dedicate to dates, etc. If you and your partner have decided on any other agreements that limit your relationships with other people, now is the time to communicate those as well. Think about it this way — all this information gives your new date the informed consent they need to decide if they want to continue dating you.
Healthy romantic relationships are expansive playgrounds for healing and growth. When we are then challenged with multiple relationships at once, the magic is multiplied. We have many opportunities to learn, unlearn, and relearn all the ways to care for and relate to each other in loving ways that we were never taught. This is such an exciting time and I wish you and your partner so much love, compassion, and lots of fun! Ok ready, let’s recap all we’ve learned. Dreaming big? Check. Research? You got this. Sorting through fear and shame? Sorting! Download the apps? Done. I think now you’re actually quite ready!
You Need Help: My Partner and I Have Different Sex Drives
Q:
My partner and I have been together for nearly 3 years, living together for two (we are both 40). Even at the beginning of our relationship it was clear that our sex drives were out of sync with each other’s. My preference would be for sex around once a week, whereas my partner would be happy with once a month. Since lockdown happened we have only been intimate twice and I feel like what was already a problem for me has become a huge issue in our relationship.
My partner semi-identifies as a stone butch and when we do have sex she often does not want to receive. Over time I feel like our sex life, even when more regular, is so limited and that I get little say in what we do, because if I try to make suggestions of what we might do it gets shut down (although I should say it is always enjoyable).
I love her so much, and in the past our sex life has been fantastic, but now I feel like I have to convince her to have sex at all and then I feel like I’ve coerced her. But I think if I didn’t suggest it we might never have sex at all. Now it’s become a huge sticking point and she says that I’m pressuring her too much, and I know I am and it makes me hate myself.
I know that some of my feelings come from the fact that year into our relationship I caught my partner messaging an old flame. It wasn’t sexual but there was something there and she did end it but my trust was broken as she had lied to me about the nature of this friendship for a long time, and now all I can think is that it’s just me she doesn’t want to have sex with. Also, the only other time I’ve been in a relationship where one person didn’t want to have sex was when I was in a relationship with a man, and was still coming to terms with my sexuality.
I feel so hurt, rejected and frustrated that it makes me question our whole relationship, and we are supposed to be buying a house together this year, but how can I take that step if this continues to be such a problem for us? Any advice would be gratefully received 💜
A:
It is absolutely normal for sex drives to change in any relationship. But it sounds like you might be hoping for a magical solution here. More specifically, it sounds like you’re hoping that your partner is going to wake up one day and suddenly have a higher sex drive. Or that you’ll wake up one day and suddenly have a lower sex drive. Technically, those things could happen, but they’re not solutions, because they’re not something that you can really count on. Your letter opens with a really key part of your problem. As you put it, it was clear that your sex drives were out of sync at the very start of your relationship. And yet, you made the choice three years ago to continue on with the relationship despite this detail.
Look, people make choices like that all the time. Especially in the beginning of a relationship with someone, it’s easy to overlook some of the downsides and incompatibilities because you’re so swept up in the excitement and ecstasy of seeing someone new. But here you were presented with this massive piece of information about you and your partner and your dynamic in the bedroom, and you actively chose to ignore it. You knew what your preferences were, and you knew what your partner’s were. Maybe you convinced yourself that it wouldn’t be a big deal or that things would change. But they haven’t changed, so now you’re stuck with the same decision you were presented with three years ago: Do you accept this difference between you and your partner and actively go against your own preferences or do you end the relationship?
I’m sure that sounds harsh! I’m sure you are hoping for a solution that doesn’t involve breaking up, and I’m not saying that it’s the only solution, but based on the situation you’ve described, it does sound like the healthiest one. Because you can’t change your partner’s sex drive. And you can’t just sit around hoping things will change when this dynamic has been in place since the beginning. It sounds like your partner has been clear with their own feelings here: They feel pressured. And that makes you feel bad. This sounds like it could turn into a really toxic cycle—if it hasn’t already.
(Sidenote: I’m assuming that if you were considering talking to your partner about opening up the relationship that you would have brought that up in your letter, so my advice here doesn’t really get into what polyamory might look like in your situation. It’s extremely likely that your current partner cannot completely sexually satisfy you, even though as you say the sex is very good. Because it’s clear that you want more of it and also to try more things and that they do not. If you want to read more about non-monogamy, polyamory, and open relationships here’s a place to start.)
I’m sure you care about this person, and sex isn’t everything in a relationship. But I think sometimes people think that incompatible sex drives aren’t that big of a deal, when in reality, this can create messed-up dynamics that seep into other parts of the relationship. It can make the person with the lower sex drive feel pressured and insecure and it can make the person with the higher sex drive feel coercive and also insecure. And as you write in your letter, those things are already happening within your relationship. All that insecurity in a relationship can quickly spiral into worse feelings and bad patterns.
It is natural to feel rejected — I totally get it. But your partner has been so clear about their own sex drive and sexual wants, so it’s not like there’s any deception going on here. It is okay for you to make suggestions about sex, but it’s also your partner’s right to say no if it’s not something that they want. Sex requires consent which requires conversation which requires different sets of desires and needs coming together in a compromise. In your situation, compromise is really difficult for a lot of reasons. Once a week vs. once a month are VERY DIFFERENT PREFERENCES. It’s time to consider that this incompatibility could be a major obstacle to both of you being really, truly happy.
I know this is really hard to sit with, but can you keep going on like this? You need to really process the fact that your sex drive might never change completely and that your partner’s sex drive might never change completely. Is that something you can accept and live with? Maybe three years ago you thought you could when you made the choice to date them despite having this information, but maybe you’re realizing now that it’s not sustainable.
I do want to address what you mention at the end of your letter, too, because I do think it’s a contributing factor. Does your partner know that you’re feeling insecure about this incident? If not, that’s definitely a conversation that should happen. In fact, it could change a lot of the cycle I see happening here. Again, I don’t think it’s necessarily going to change anyone’s overall sex drive, BUT if your partner knows that you’re specifically feeling insecure because of her breaking your trust, then maybe she can provide some reassurance in other ways. Rebuilding trust can rebuild intimacy. Or maybe there was even an uptick in your sex drive because you needed to feel wanted in the wake of the betrayal, and maybe rebuilding trust will make it so that you’re not viewing sex as a form of validation.
Open communication about sex, trust, desires, needs — all of these things can help nurture intimacy. Still, it might not fix everything, especially since the disparity between your sex drives apparently existed even before the betrayal. Which is why major life decisions like buying a house together shouldn’t happen right now. Before making a choice like that, I think you should sit down with your partner and express where some of your insecurity is coming from, especially if this incident with her ex is playing a large role in it. Provide space for your partner to express how they’re feeling about all of this.
Then you have to reconsider the same decision you were presented with three years ago: Are you willing to date someone with a lower sex drive even if that means sacrificing your own wants and needs? You can’t change your partner. You can’t even really change your own sex drive, because settling for less sex isn’t the same as wanting less sex. All you can change is the situation you’re in, and it will be hard. But all relationships teach us more and more about what we desire and need, and ending a relationship shouldn’t be viewed as a failure, especially when it comes as a result of honoring people’s needs.
Is That a Secure Attachment or Are You Just Happy to See Me: All About Our Attachment Styles
At this point you probably know your love language, your astrological sign, maybe even your enneagram or your MBTI; so many ways to know about yourself and yet still not know why she hasn’t texted back yet! If you’re in therapy or therapy-adjacent, you might also be middlingly familiar with your attachment style; not really a personality type per se, it’s based more in attachment theory as it relates to how you developed as a child, and theorizes that behaviors you learned as a kid about how to try to have secure relationships with others in your family informs how you go about relationships with others as an adult. Woof! I know. Imagine how fun it was for the team when I cheerfully pressured them all to take this quiz about their attachment style and share their results with you all!
Anatomy of a Mango: Pit
This is the third essay in Anatomy Of A Mango, a series where Dani peels back the sweet, tart layers that have led to her “fruitful”, healthy sexuality.
My first time having sex sober was one of the most frightening, intense moments of my life.
For so long, I had come to sex with the aid of alcohol and drugs. They acted as a lubricant, a bridge toward believing in my own desirability and sexiness. Alcohol, my drug of choice, especially gave me a feeling of tallness and invincibility that extended into all facets of my life. When I drank wine or some fancy cocktail I thought myself more refined, I felt the bones in my face sharpen and my poise stiffen into an elegance. I wasn’t just Dani anymore, I became confident and sexier, people were charmed by me and I was more open to their flirtations.
I already recounted it in the first essay, but my first time having sex I was very drunk. That night I had roughly twelve shots, a few beers, and a couple of glasses of wine. The woman that I had sex with had been drinking too, and while we both were under the influence it is still one of the highlights of my sexual life. In that case, I knew I wanted to have sex with this woman, but I didn’t have the bravery or confidence to make a move without alcohol.
My college was celebrating what we called Springfest, so most of my day was spent sitting around drinking with my friends, running from house to house with open containers and laughter spilling over our shoulders. What I remember of that night was not only the sex but the pulsing of the blood through my body, I swear I could feel it rushing through my brain, the cacophonous evidence of my living. The alcohol seemed to light up my body and make every touch more pronounced.
Of course, this feeling of sharpness never lasted very long, because I craved more of it always. I drank until I ran soft and languid; until I could barely stand anymore.
When I had sex under the influence there was a dizziness that I could never shake, but sometimes that dizziness felt giddy and airy. My eyes were all I could feel. It felt as though I were watching a POV version of my life. There was nothing like kissing someone else and getting the faint taste of liquor or wine on their tongue. Or to languish in the building of sexual tension as you both share a drink. Even though I’ve been sober for over two years, it’s still exciting to think of walking into a bar with the intention of meeting someone and going home with them, or inviting someone over for drinks and knowing what you’re in for later.
The problem with drunk sex is that nothing gets easier when you’re drunk.
When I was in college, I had heard through a rumor mill that there were a couple of women that thought they were bisexual and they wanted me to be the first woman they were with. One of them was bold enough to make a move. We were partying together and drinking heavily when the group of women we were with decided they wanted to go to a bar. M was sitting on my lap, and we rose to walk down the hill hand in hand. When we were just inches to our destination, we turned to each other drunk and desire-ridden and decided to head in the opposite direction toward my dorm room.
My head was spinning from the work of the tongue and the alcohol — I didn’t want to stop pleasing her, but I had to stop from time to time to scream into the skin of her thigh.
Once we got back there, things unfolded quickly. We fell onto my little twin-sized bed and began taking our clothes off. I remember thinking M was a great kisser and pretty good with her mouth for someone who had never been with a woman before. She climbed on top of me and we began to eat each other out. My head was spinning from the work of the tongue and the alcohol — I didn’t want to stop pleasing her, but I had to stop from time to time to scream into the skin of her thigh. Things were going fine until M abruptly stopped and started to head naked to the bathroom. I stopped her and we spilled out into the hall with robes barely on, laughing at ourselves. In the bathroom, I sat on the windows ledge and waited for her when I heard an “uh oh” and the sound of a splatter.
M and I were both far too drunk. I ran back to my room to get her things but the booze had finally got to my head, I swerved, knocking into my dresser and the microwave barely balanced on top of it. My body buoyed onto the bed, my back landed on the mattress, and my legs hung off. I passed out that way and woke up in the morning with my door open, everything in my room slightly skewed to the left, and clothing strewn across the floor.
That night was one I will never forget and for all the wrong reasons. It was one of the ones where I vowed to stop drinking, but the next time a drink was presented to me, I took it. I always started drinking to gain that sharpness and confidence, but very quickly jumped passed the goal line. That was until I built up my tolerance and was able to achieve the illusion of control. Drunk sex was my first, and all I could think to engage in, the idea of taking my clothes off in front of a stranger or even someone I vaguely knew seemed impossible without the veil of liquor, its guard and its bolstering.
When I got sober, I was warned that I should stay celibate and single for a while. I was able to hold on to this sentiment for about two months before I got jealous of a roommate who was actively hooking up with someone and decided I should be getting some too. I jumped on Tinder and met the woman I talked about in the last essay, J. J was about my height and incredibly muscular. I led them to my bedroom and we sat on the edge of my bed. We briefly talked about her tour and her band, I offered her a glass of water because the room I was staying in was incredibly hot, and mostly, as a motion to stall taking my clothes off. Without the coursing of alcohol through my body, I found myself playing with my nails and grasping at conversation instead of my usual, self-assured, “did you come here to fuck” attitude.
I was piercingly aware of every hair on my body, especially those hairs in forbidden places. I suddenly became insecure at the fact that I did not shave. My outfit, which I once felt sexy in, now clung to my body in nagging ways. J touched my thigh, it was already after midnight, she gently said: “It’s late and I don’t really have much time before I have to leave again.” We began kissing at that urging, an urgent kiss that fit both of our mouths, her lips were soft and searching. J gripped my thighs with a ferocity my body had never been dealt and I moaned into her mouth. I remember the distinct feeling of wanting things to move slower, but being caught up in the fervor of having a first, and so moving forward.
Sex with J was hot with its own helping of awkwardness. I remember laying on my back and succumbing to that old feeling of fear of not being able to orgasm. I repeated to myself that it was impossible and I wouldn’t be able to do it. I masturbated, let J touch me, but couldn’t get out of my head enough to thoroughly enjoy what we were doing, how we were connecting. I got her off, and our night ended with a sweet kiss on the front porch of the place I was staying and a promise to connect if she was in town again.
To describe my relationship with alcohol, to say it gave me courage isn’t enough. Alcohol was me, my whole personality was built around being the one that was always drinking wine, the one at the party who fell out of her shoes. From the time I woke up to the time I fell asleep, all I could think about was the fluid levels in the bottles of wine I had at home. My obsession and anxiety welled each time I poured myself a glass, the fear of running out ruled me. I felt entirely inept in everything until I had a drink to calm my nerves, and then another to shake off the jitters, and then another to smooth out the kinks. I had some idea that I had a problem, but being sober was agonizing to me. At the core of my drinking was a desire to be someone else.
I had some idea that I had a problem, but being sober was agonizing to me. At the core of my drinking was a desire to be someone else.
I was always under the influence when I had sex with my first love. Whether it was alcohol, pills, or weed, I always had something in my system in order to feel good in my body. Yes, I loved her, but I didn’t trust her entirely. How could this blue-eyed, fit, blonde want anything to do with me? I had to be drunk to believe it. Once I was on such a different cocktail of alcohol and drugs I began hallucinating in the middle of sex. Often, the combination of intoxicants I was on made it harder for me to orgasm and left me in sexual situations feeling guilty and bereft. These instances, while they caused me shame, didn’t deter me from drinking. I needed to, it was a part of me, I had no other choice but to listen to what my body needed.
The second person I had sober sex with was R. I talked about R in the first essay. We had met on tinder after a brief exchange of championing each other’s fat bodies. The first time we were together, the room was completely dark, which I think aided in my ability to relax in my body. There was also the fact that R was fat, and being with someone with a similar body type made me feel even more at ease. I remember being chiefly excited about R because they are a Taurus, and I had heard Tauruses were especially good in bed.
The stars were not wrong. Having sex with R was much more freeing than the first time with J. I relaxed into my body and let myself be pleasured and explored with a vigor that shocked and delighted me. R devoured me and I held on to the sheets with white knuckles. Their tongue moved in ways that felt foreign and exciting to me, so much so that I had to bite my lip to keep from screaming “what are you doing to me?!” I thrashed around on the bed as R brought me closer and closer to orgasm, finally relenting to their touch and their tongue. When R was done, they came up and laid on me, their arm thrown under my breasts. We stayed there like that for a while, until it was time for me to go home. I still wasn’t keen on spending the night with casual hookups and I wanted to spend some time by myself to think about what had happened.
When I got home, I took a shower to wash the stickiness from my body. In the shower, as the mountains of suds rolled over my shoulders and thighs, I was able to reflect on the beauty of the moment I had just experienced. Not only had I succeeded in having sex with another person sober, but I had enjoyed it. The initial discomfort I felt had disappeared into a few moments of unfettered bliss. The sex seemed to imbue me with new confidence and comfort that I hadn’t felt before. I didn’t feel shame in my body — instead it felt like this was something I could do, more than once, again and again.
There were others after R, but the one that sticks out to me the most is A. I had met A before at one of my performances when they were dating a friend. We followed each other on Instagram shortly after and had cordial if not innocent exchanges afterward. One day I fell prey to the dozens of thirst traps they had posted and decided to make a move when they were back in town. When they did come back, I invited them over to my place.
A was incredibly nervous, more nervous than I was. They talked about horses for what seemed like an hour until I finally broke the air between us and asked if they were interested in hooking up. They said yes, and we started making out on my couch. Their lips were soft and curious; I ran my fingers through their hair and over their back. They asked me if I could take off my dress and I complied. They took off their carabineer and jeans. It didn’t take long for things to progress passed the strength of my little fold-out couch so we decided to take things to the bed.
In my bedroom, we took time to slowly run or fingers over each other’s bodies. They were soft caresses and silent affirmations. I ran my tongue over their tattoos and felt the light hairs all over their body tickle my tongue. We continued this way for a few minutes — I remember feeling struck by how open and vulnerable I felt, allowing myself to be touched that way by someone who wasn’t a long term partner. I topped them, riding them until I was ready to explore more of their body: I marveled at their ass and thighs, left some marks of my own. I wanted to sink my teeth into the smoothness of their skin.
A climbed on top of me and pinned my wrists to the bed. We kissed more, there was so much pleasure in those kisses, so much of me was alive and able to feel them. Nothing was dulled or flattened by the onslaught of drink after drink. I was able to feel every touch, every stroke of their tongue.
Nothing was dulled or flattened by the onslaught of drink after drink. I was able to feel every touch, every stroke of their tongue.
Sober sex has become the only way I have sex now. It not only allows for deeper intimacy between me and my partners, but it allows me to revel in the experience of giving and receiving pleasure. When I used to have drunk sex, I often would find my mind hovering above both of our bodies as I watched myself please another person. I was just a vessel of other people’s desire, I was hardly my own person with fantasies and needs. I often found myself ignoring what I wanted and instead, being what another needed me to be. I felt so detached from myself and what I wanted that I gave in to whatever was asked of me. Drunk sex was my way of being just a body without any emotional reckoning.
Even one-night-stands have a spirit to them, but I wasn’t willing to confront that until I stopped drinking. When I did, I was finally able to place my mind right within my body, to touch and be touched without fear. Having sober sex was a way for me to unravel the contempt I felt around my body and my sexuality. Having grown up in an environment where exploring myself was seen as a sin, when I did start to have sex, I still carried some of that bias with me. It was ingrained in the way I viewed my own nakedness and that of others. I thought I had to get drunk to overcome it. It took getting sober to get to the center of these issues and start to pull back the hard shell of it.
When I’ve approached mangoes in the past, I’ve always viewed the pit as a problem. A tough, white, barrier between the flesh and the juice. I always wanted more of the fruit and felt that the pit was taking up much-needed space. Now, I am able to see that the pit is meant to hold the fruit together and to protect its most precious asset, the seed. I used alcohol as a means to protect myself, from my body shame, my sex shame, my fear. The pit of mango has its use, just as alcohol had its use. Once they both have been used as proper protectors, it is time for them to be discarded. Before that can be done, the flesh needs to be stripped away, torn away by the teeth or a knife. We must reveal the strength beneath, reveal its purpose, its tawny white husk, and meditate on why it is there.
You Need Help: When Is it Love?
Q:
I’m in a relationship and this question is keeping me up at night. What is love? Am I in it? Am I falling into it? Should I stop? Do I tell her?
Why does no one tell you these things in school!?
Much love
– confused.
p.s: I tried googling. The internet has been no help.
A:
It’s a summer day between 4th and 5th grade and I’m swimming at my friend Zach’s house. We’re floating around the pool talking about our crushes — as if the word crush can sum up the feelings bursting inside me.
I ask Zach if he’s in love with his crush and he says he isn’t sure. He asks me the same question.
“I think it’s 80% love and 20% like,” I say thoughtfully as if love is a simple equation.
“I think I’m more 50% love and 50% like,” he responds following my lead.
Neither of us see our crushes the entire summer.
Eight and a half years later I’m a freshman in college and I’m in my first real relationship. I’ve never had sex before and neither has she and she’s older and she’s ready and I’m younger and I’m not. In fact, I hadn’t even considered the possibility of us having sex until she asks why it hasn’t happened yet.
I ask a friend if I’ll ever feel ready or if I should just do it. She tells me that she waited until she and her boyfriend had said, “I love you.” She’s happy about that decision. It felt good to lose her virginity to someone she loved.
The next day, lying in my dorm room bed, after something I would now very much call sex but at the time did not, I tell my girlfriend I love her. We’ve been together for less than six weeks. She says nothing, but smiles and kisses my forehead.
A week later we have sex. Two months later she tells me she loves me for the first time.
Six years later I’m three years into another relationship. We live together. We share a life together. We’ve shared lives together. It’s been years since I first said I love you and she said it back (immediately!) even if later she teased me for how quickly I said it. At this point we say “I love you” as thoughtlessly as we say hello and goodbye. But sometimes we say it with more meaning really thinking about how lucky we are to be in love — even if it won’t last much longer.
All three of these stories describe love. When I used the word as a child, a teen, and a young adult it felt true and that’s all that matters. Where did we learn this hesitation to use the word love? For me, I got it from sitcoms — the cliché plot line where someone is anxious to say “I love you” for the first time. The words gained a meaning never assigned in other contexts. To say “I love you” was not an expression of feeling as much as it was a marker of what you wanted from a relationship. How odd to say “I love you” to a friend and then start dating them and suddenly feel the need to stop.
I’m not saying this word doesn’t hold meaning — I’m saying the opposite. This word holds so many meanings. Are you in love? I don’t know! Are you?
Only you get to decide what the word means to you and whether that meaning is right for your current feelings. But if it does feel right don’t silence that out of fear you’re not using it right. Someday you might look at this person and think all those months ago, all those years ago that feeling I thought was love was just a crush, but now I’m really in love with her. Or someday you might meet someone new and think the same. That doesn’t negate the feelings you have now.
We want to be able to quantify these things, because we want reassurance that we’re making the right choices. We want to be able to say that we’re at 80% love and 20% like. We want to be able to say we’re in love so that means we should have sex with someone. We want to be able to say we’ve been with this person for three years so now we really know what love feels like. But life and romance and choices and, yes, love just aren’t that simple.
Part of falling in love is trusting yourself — trusting yourself to open up, to be vulnerable, to take a chance on another person. That is itself an act of love. Just one more meaning to add to the list.
Trans Love in Pandemic Times
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, many people were left with odd circumstances surrounding their love lives. While some had relationships jumpstart through a quarantine with a new partner, others felt the weight of the crisis exacerbate the issues they already had with an existing partner.
Many publications have reported on the landscape of romantic pursuits in the time of the coronavirus. None have captured the beauty of trans love in particular. Trans people had already been experiencing issues finding partners who affirmed our whole selves. Many trans people find ourselves placating cisgender partners, attempting to perform according to the limited script laid out by popular media. Many of us experience violence at the hands of intimate partners.
And some of us find love in other trans people. Our hearts find a new kind of warmth. Love without a blueprint leaves room for unknown possibilities. I spoke to seven trans people about how the pandemic has changed their relationships and how trans love has changed their lives.
Malaya and Lotus
From left: Lotus and Malaya.
Malaya: Our relationship began as a long-distance online friendship as we were still learning about each other and getting to know each other. When NYC first began responding to the pandemic, and millions of New Yorkers were preparing for lockdown/shelter-in-place, one of my darkest fears was if I were to get sick with COVID, and not having anyone to help me or be with me in the hospital. As a person living with HIV I felt extremely vulnerable and I was afraid of dying alone. There were days and weeks that I felt sadness, loneliness, and hopelessness at levels I have never felt before. My depression and anxiety continued to get worse. Over time, having someone to text with & check in with more and more over time was very comforting. Lotus was so emotionally supportive and virtually present for me when many of my friends and family weren’t able to provide support to me. I’ve never felt so loved and cared for by anyone else before. Lotus is the man I have always dreamed of finding and more. I have been reflecting on the heartbreak, sadness, and disappointment from when I was looking for love in all the wrong places; mostly with cis men who were not capable of loving me in the ways that I wanted and needed. I’ve never been in love with another trans person before. My favorite moments so far have been: waking up to his kisses and cuddles in the morning, laying in his bed together watching the trees outside his window dance in the wind, and listening to the birds singing.
Lotus: These pandemics have invited more tenderness into our relationship. Before I asked Malaya to be my girlfriend, I prayed and asked myself and my ancestors if I was ready and able to treat her like the Queen that she is. With so many things that are uncertain in our lives, I am letting go of giving and receiving Maybe’s. I am at peace arriving into our relationship with the certainty that Yes, I can treat Malaya like the Queen she is. I shower her with roses with every opportunity that I can. I cherish her and, especially now, every moment we share together. To love and be loved by Malaya feels like the first time I floated on my back in a body of water. As I took a deep breath and surrendered to the immense power and calm of the ocean, I was lifted and held. When I close my eyes and connect with our love, I feel the ocean wash over me and harmonize with the fire inside of me. I see the sunsets that we have shared together. I see into the future, Malaya in my motherland, Việt Nam. During these times of crises, to love and be loved by Malaya feels like nothing is impossible. The future is infinite, and everything will be alright.
Mickaela, Desi, and Cris
The first photo depicts Desi and Mickaela. The second depicts Cris and Mickaela.
Desi: Mickaela and I were facing changes in our relationship with us moving in together for the first time a month prior to COVID-19. The effects of the global pandemic changed the ease of access to variety in our lives that wasn’t always related to our relationship. Coexisting during quarantine offered me an opportunity to gain a greater understanding of Mickaela as an individual, which gave me better insight on nurturing their spiritual growth, our relationship’s development, and the intimate space we share respectively. We carve out time for us by practicing yoga/meditations before bed, taking an occasional trip to Lake Alatoona to swim and picnic, hiking the local trails in our area, playing Naruto Shippuden/Soul Calibur V, watching anime, and creating recipes for infusions. The Black trans love Mickaela and I share and practice continually proves to me a world can exist beyond our current. I’ve always felt our connection weaved a pattern creating a cosmic link between us and our local trans and queer community and how we’re consciously keeping each other in our hearts and supporting one another as we venture this world. Loving Mickaela everyday is a conscious commitment that’s parallel to my beliefs and who I strive to be as a Black trans person devoted to protecting and upholding the livelihood of all Black people.
Cris: Mickaela and I were already long distance, so that COVID hasn’t changed that aspect of our relationship. What has changed is how often we’re able to see each other. We’ve experienced more virtually together, from yoga sessions, to mindfulness circles for BIPOC folks, to virtual poetry readings, we’ve done a lot. While it hasn’t been great to have to go longer without seeing them, COVID has been a push for us to go deeper into our conversations so that we can continue growing even when we’re apart for longer than we had ever planned. COVID has also made the time we are able to spend together in person, like when we traveled to North Carolina to visit beaches in June, that much more special, important, and cherished. I can say my love and appreciation for Mickaela has grown more than I could’ve imagined during this time. I visualize us truly living out Black joy and liberation when I think of our love. To be Black, queer, and trans and loving another Black queer trans person is wealth. When I think of my love for Mickaela, I feel at home and at peace. When I’m with them and even when I’m talking to them, my body relaxes so much that I sometimes forget that we’re living through a pandemic. Trans love allows me to envision a world where every trans person is able to live a life of pleasure and access to whatever they desire. If we can find love with each other, in a world aimed at making our lives more difficult because we don’t prescribe to social gender norms, we can do anything.
Mickaela: Desi and I moved into a house together in February, and barely a month later decided to quarantine together. We had been dating for a year and had no idea we’d be getting to know each other in a crash course Professor Rona intimacy training. Desi suggested protecting our quality time by scheduling a “golden hour” each week, just for us to check-in with each other about our relationship. Structure and certainty with partners forces us to slow down, smell the roses, and water them as needed. And since Cris and I are long-distance, we spent all Spring scheduling virtual hangouts, watching “Insecure” at the same time, and talking every day. However, video conferences are not a virtual substitute for human touch. I cherish the memory of us lying on a different beach each day, melanin soaking in sun, eyes and ears on the ocean waves. We were often the only Black people on the beach, often the only people wearing masks. Still, we found some summer fun even though the shadow of uprisings loomed over our cities back home. Black rest is necessary for Black unrest.
I feel safest knowing that I am loved and protected by two Black trans partners. My partners and I are unearthing the exciting possibilities of love that doesn’t rely on monogamy for security, support, and satisfaction. My partners and I share visions of the world we want, where Black joy and trans liberation replace police & prisons. I feel supported dating two Black trans partners because they are willing to be transformed in the service of the work by organizing in Black-led political homes like SnapCo & BYP100. I envision a future sitting around a large dinner table with our families and boo thangs laughing about living through 2020 and glad we fought for the right to grow old together. I feel warmth in my chest remembering that window of time right before COVID-19. Cris, Desi, and I were watching the original “Candyman” in my room, and I realized how blessed I am to be loved by my boifriend and my boyfriend.
Nico and Asa
Nico: Our relationship started out long distance so we’re quite literally the closest we’ve ever been and maybe we’ll ever be! Yet I get the sense that we’re not just learning about what closeness is or can be (the daily social reproduction things of maintaining a home together) but the totality of separation. Two people, in love: our own subjectivities; discourse of love; dependencies; unconscious hopes, dreams, wishes, fantasies; separating into work; into analysis or therapy; and of course separating into sleep. I love love. I love being in love. I love to be the subject of love! Hell I even love being the object of love! I love bodies in love! I love surgery, I love organs, I love stitching together and making meaning in and out of love.
Asa: It’s hard to write and speak about love even when you write and speak about it all the time. Nico and I have moved through multiple waves of writing and speaking. We are both speakers and listeners, which is foundational to our love and our relationship, we used to talk on the phone for three or four hours, each in separate places. We are learning how to be separate and together. We have been navigating infrastructural rupture and collapse, contamination and loss, uprising, work and work stoppage, surgery and recovery, mania and depression, the end of a therapy and the beginning of an analysis, material difference; deep fears, projections, insecurities, disappointments, wishes. I am learning and growing so much, it can feel enormous. I am re-learning trust. How support is sometimes uncomfortable and challenging. Learning again how to listen and speak. I have felt held and throttled, and am grateful that we’ve been able to hold and throttle each other. I am excited to visit the place where Nico is from and to meet her grandmother, I have fantasies about what that will feel like in my body, to be there together.
You Need Help: Is It Normal To Be Happy In a Relationship and Still Think About an Ex?
Q:
Through a moderately complicated series of events I ended up leaving a troubled relationship and almost immediately starting a new one at the end of the pre-Corona times.
During the break up process, my ex admitted to having been gaslighting and generally manipulating me since the beginning of the relationship. I was pretty shocked by that admittance. I knew that the relationship hadn’t been light-hearted or easy for a while, but that such incredibly toxic things had been happening since the beginning was really unsettling. According to her she was unaware of her actions and only upon later reflection did it become apparent to her that that was what she was doing. I believe that she may have not acknowledged how much she was manipulating, but that she had absolutely no idea is not something I really believe.
Me and my new partner are doing well despite having basically u-hauled by sheltering in place with each other for almost two months (something I would have never normally done). I feel fulfilled in this relationship and have the space to grow and be myself that was never afforded in the previous one. I truly value my partner and can see remaining with them for a long time, but there is one thing that’s really bothering me. I keep thinking about my ex, and I can’t figure out why! It clearly isn’t a relationship that I want to return to, and honestly I’m not sure if I really ever want to resume contact with her despite the fact that the queer community here is miniature.
I’ve given it my best go at meditating and trying to let anger and hurt go, which feels like it has been working, but these thoughts keep plaguing me. My therapist has been less than helpful, so it’s time to turn to the elder-queers.
Is it normal to be happy in a relationship and still thinking about an ex? Is this one of those “time will fix it situations”? Why is it months later and nothing has changed with me thinking about her? I’m very upfront with my new partner about all of this and they are so very supportive of my pain and healing, but is it unfair to my new partner that I’m still thinking about this other person months later? I feel very confused by this situation and am hoping that y’all can shed some light on the situation.
Love,
Clueless in the eastern hemisphere
A:
When I got out of a relationship that entailed a pattern of gaslighting, betrayal, lies, etc., I casually fired off a tweet to the effect of “will I ever stop obsessing over what this person did to me?” Some kind strangers told me that yes, with time, the intrusive thoughts would go away. But I had close friends who were real with me. They said that I probably would never completely stop thinking about it. And now I want to impart that same intense but honest knowledge upon you: It’s extremely likely that you’re never going to stop thinking about your ex.
That might sound bleak at first! But I actually found this realization extremely freeing, and I hope you will, too. Because once you accept it, it makes it easier to be kind to yourself when you do start thinking about them. It’s really easy to get stuck in a vicious cycle of 1. Trying not to think about your ex 2. Thinking about your ex 3. Being hard on yourself for thinking about your ex. Once you accept that you probably won’t ever stop thinking of them entirely, you can more easily take #3 out of the equation. Suddenly, thinking about your ex doesn’t become a failure of yours or something that is wrong with you.
That said, it’s still extremely valid (and helpful) to seek out solutions for minimizing these thoughts. It sounds like you’ve tried a lot of these already. You mention meditation and therapy. And even if those aren’t working completely, I think they’re still good things to practice. The end goal isn’t necessarily eliminating these thoughts entirely (because again, I don’t think that’s possible in situations like the one you’ve described with your ex) but rather minimizing the thoughts and also making sure that they don’t lead to self-destructive or harmful behaviors.
Being manipulated and gaslit by a partner long-term is an immensely destabilizing experience. In my experience, intimate partner betrayal creates a haunting. It’s something that stays with you. Your brain isn’t necessarily hung up on your ex; you’re haunted by thoughts about what they did to you. Which is incredibly valid! Especially because this JUST happened to you!
Early on in the healing process following a toxic relationship, it’s easy to get stuck thinking about the “warning signs” of the betrayal(s)—and then get hard on yourself for not seeing them—and also all the potential other times they did something to you that they haven’t admitted to. Those are thoughts that you should actively tell yourself are not helpful for growth, but it’s natural to have them in the beginning. You’re still very much in the trenches of processing all this pain, and that can be challenging to do from inside a new relationship, but you’re taking all the right steps by being in therapy and also communicating with your current partner.
On that note, I think it’s great that your new partner is being so supportive, and I do not think you’re being unfair to them at all. But do make sure to regularly check in about their capacity to listen to you talk about your ex. And also make sure they’re not the only person you talk to about these thoughts. Talk to friends and other people in your support network. I’ve found that not talking about the thoughts at all tends to make it worse. And I’ve also found that the people who really care about me are never annoyed by me talking about my ex, even when I was going through a period where it seemed to be ALL I could talk about. I’ve found journaling to be helpful, too.
I do think that over time the thoughts might become less frequent, especially since you have some coping mechanisms in place already like the meditation and the therapy. But it’s not a linear process. Certain times of year, certain places, and other things like that might cause a spike in thoughts about your ex. Try not to think of these as relapses or a lack of progress. Try not to think of it as taking away from your happiness in your new relationship either.
I’d also like to gently suggest not resuming contact with your ex or, at least, not feeling pressured to. I think the stereotype about queers always staying friends with exes can be really harmful. You seem to be having a lot of hesitation about the possibility of ever resuming contact, so I think it’s not something that should happen any time soon, especially if minimizing these thoughts is so important to you. It’ll of course be harder to stop thinking about them if there’s still contact. I started thinking about my ex noticeably less once I decided for good that I did not want to remain in contact with them.
I don’t think this is a “time will fix it” situation, but it IS a “time will make it incrementally easier” one (which doesn’t have as nice of a ring to it, but alas). The more distance you have from the relationship and the more time you invest in healthy coping mechanisms, the less destabilizing these thoughts will feel. And it’s likely that any one coping mechanism isn’t going to be the magical solution, so try a bunch, mix it up, pay attention to what helps (again, journaling can help with keeping track of that stuff). I wrote about actively changing associations with people/places/things in the wake of my breakup, and I think that could be a helpful thing to think about. I’ve found this book helpful, too. But it’s extremely likely that nothing will expel the thoughts for good, so above all else, don’t be hard on yourself.
Our Deepest, Darkest Relationship Fears, NBD
Our current ~unprecedented times~ has given us all a lot of time to really reflect, for better or for worse. Regardless of our relationship status, we’ve been able to really get to know the exact contours of our insecurities and debilitating deep-seated fears, some of which we will now reveal to you! Woof. You’re welcome. Read something relatable? Feel free to share – don’t leave us hanging out here!
You Need Help: Quarantine Smothered My Sex Drive
Q:
I’m in a new relationship (less than one year), and we’ve been living together for a couple of months. We’re going through quarantine together, and she’s been amazing. However, I’ve noticed something — quarantine has impacted us in different ways.
I’m super anxious because I’ve just graduated and can’t find a job due to COVID-19, and this has been playing a major role in my libido. However, it seems like my partner has been feeling more and more sexual (maybe it’s her own way of coping with everything that’s been going on?). We talk about these things and how my anxiety has been affecting me, but she tries to initiate sexual contact every day, sometimes more than one time a day. In different times, I think I would be okay with this, but now I feel like I’m completely disconnected from sex!
I don’t know what else I can do other than talk to her, but I can’t help feeling guilty that I’m not able to satisfy her the way she would want me to. We’re obviously locked inside our house right now, so I feel even more anxious about this dynamic of her being so sexual while I feel completely turned off by anything and everything. What do I do? What else can I say to her in a way that it doesn’t damage our relationship?
A:
You’re not alone — your partner’s desire and your lost libido are both typical responses to a crumbling world. Articles explaining our pandemic-stricken sex drives are dominating the Internet, and most cite Terror Management Theory (TMT) as the source of our sexual woes. According to TMT, our attitudes and behaviors subconsciously change when we’re managing our fear of death. You and your partner are staring a pandemic in the face — of course your sexual desires are shifting in response. In short: what’s happening for you is normal. What’s happening for your partner is normal. Your experiences may be at odds, but if you’re willing to strategize, you can meet each other’s needs without neglecting your own.
You told your partner that your anxiety is tanking your libido, but have you explicitly told her you’re not comfortable having sex right now? If you’ve been clear about that and she’s still initiating sexual contact, then she’s either knowingly crossing your boundaries or she’s just confused about what “initiating” looks like for you. If this is a boundary-crossing situation, that needs to be addressed ASAP. Any partner who ignores your clearly-stated physical boundaries is not giving you the respect you deserve. If you think that you and your partner just don’t share the same definition of “initiating” sex, define it. Maybe you’ve been reading every lip-biting kiss as an invitation to get naked when your partner just wants to make out.
“No sex right now” is an easy boundary to communicate, but maybe you’re open to occasional sex and want your partner to initiate less frequently. If that’s the case, tell her exactly what “less” looks like. Is that every other day? Once a week? Twice a month? Putting a numerical cap on sexual initiation might feel clinical and weird, but words like “more” and “less” can leave partners fumbling in the dark and second-guessing themselves. You also have the option to put yourself in charge of sexual initiation, but since you’re already feeling stressed and guilty, the added pressure might further smother your libido.
I realize I’ve been writing about “sex” as if it’s one specific act when the definition of sex (especially queer sex) is expansive and ever-evolving. When you’re establishing sexual boundaries with your partner, define what “sex” is for you and what forms of physical intimacy are still comfortable for you right now. Should your partner avoid kissing you, touching your leg, or making sexual comments about your body? Give her all of the information she’ll need in order to confidently respect your boundaries.
Setting up temporary boundaries around sex won’t damage your relationship as long as you’re both communicating your needs. You’re clearly concerned about your partner’s sexual needs, but have you explicitly asked her what those needs are? If you strategize together, you might learn that you can satisfy some or all of your partner’s desires without engaging in sex. Maybe that looks like getting your partner off without being touched yourself. Maybe you spend more time cuddling. Maybe you mask up and going for a long walk so your partner can have more time and space to masturbate.
You’re worried about how your low sex drive is affecting your partner, but I hope you’re also checking in with yourself about how it’s affecting you. Do you feeling comfortable sitting in a low libido place while you wait for the post-pandemic upswing, or does losing your connection to sex feel like losing your connection to yourself? If you’re interested in getting your groove back (not for your partner — for you), then throw some effort in that direction.
Most of the time, I tell folks who are experiencing low sex drive to check with their doctor about the side effects of any medication they’re taking, get their hormone levels tested, watch porn, or read erotica to get inspired and masturbate their way back into the mood. If you’re certain that anxiety is the only vampire sucking the life out of your libido, then you’re going to need more than a little porn to dig yourself out of your sexual slump.
COVID-19 isn’t going away anytime soon. You can’t change your anxiety-inducing circumstances, but you can change how you respond to the chaos. Take inventory of your self-care practices. Have you let any of them slide since moving in with your partner? Are you staying hydrated, eating well, moving your body, and getting sunlight? Do you journal or meditate? Commit to your regular practices and throw a new practice or two into the mix. Keep track of you how feel. If you don’t already have a therapist, look into online options. Focus on the things you can control. Clean and organize your living space. Give yourself a haircut. If you take the focus away from sex, your sex drive might make a comeback.
You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.
How to Keep Your Relationship Healthy During a Global Crisis
Making sure your relationship is not only hot and fun but also healthy is a difficult emotional task on any given normal day, let alone during a pandemic. However, during a global crisis like the one that we’re all living through currently, it’s even harder to be thoughtful and conscious about how you’re treating the person you’re in a relationship with, and how they’re treating you. This is true of any kind of relationship, including friendships. Still, just because tensions and emotions are running at an all time high, that doesn’t mean it’s not important to do our best to try to be intentional about the way we’re affecting one another.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what we owe to each other, especially during a crisis like this. Mostly, I’ve been thinking about kindness and communication. Despite the fact that I have so many kind people in my life who I love and who I know love me back, I’ve still gotten into fights with loved ones during this high-stress period.
Getting into fights with, snapping at, or being in a bad place with the people we love does not mean that the love is not there. It means that we need to take a step back, take a deep breath, and figure out how to not take stress out on each other. One of my favorite therapy Instagrams recently shared a post saying, “Triggers and conflict are a normal part of healthy relationships. What matters is how they are handled, not that they don’t exist.” That couldn’t be more true than it is right now, during a global crisis when we are basically all on edge.
Sometimes my roommates talk so loudly on the phone while I’m writing that it frustrates me and makes me want to yell. Sometimes my girlfriend does something that annoys or hurts me. When I have these negative, gnawing feelings, I know I could say something to them that might perpetuate my hurt or annoyance. But I also know that I can sit with my feelings, or put headphones in and listen to music, or take a walk, and then both my frustration and theirs disappears, and there’s no need for perpetuating a cycle of stress. So that’s what I do. It’s what we could and should all attempt to do.
To dive into how to keep relationships as healthy as possible during high-stress times, I spoke with queer couples from around the the country about how they’re working on communication and boundaries right now, whether they’re physically together or not.
How couples are working on their relationships right now
I spoke with over a dozen people for this story, and the most consistent thing I heard from couples is how important setting non-negotiable boundaries is right now. For couples who are living together during this high-tension period of time, that means that alone time is a necessity. Getting outside for a walk, speaking with friends, finding a corner of your home to read in, or doing things that you enjoy and that aren’t attached to your partner are highly essential ways to protect and prioritize your own mental health and independence. If your partner asks for space, even if it might hurt you, it’s important to give it to them so they feel they have a place to recuperate from everything going on right now.
If you’re finding it difficult to communicate and set boundaries with your partner in a healthy way right now, you’re not alone. For Shea, a queer woman living in Brooklyn, who decided to stay with her partner at her apartment while everything unfolds in the outside world, learning how she and her girlfriend react to and cope with stress and anxiety has been a journey the last few weeks. “We’ve become a lot more clear about when we need time apart and aren’t taking it so personally,” Shea explains. “We’ve had a few times where we’ve picked up on the other being frustrated. I think we both have tried to ask questions to understand where the other is coming from and what their needs are. We’ve realized not every disagreement needs to be hashed out right then if it’s going to cause more issues in the long run. After snapping a few times we’ve found a balance where we take some time to gain perspective and then get back together and talk.”
Natalie, who lives with her wife Eva in the Bay Area, says that while they are always intentional about how they speak to one another, including during this global crisis, they don’t consider unloading emotions on each other to be a bad thing. “We do unload feelings on each other very regularly in what I call emotional preventative maintenance. It is important in any relationship to not let resentment fester. Right now, it’s beyond paramount. I encourage Eva to tell me if I do anything to annoy her, in a respectful and non-judgemental fashion, and I do the same for her. With regular practice, it’s easier to avoid defensiveness,” Natalie says. While this sounds like a great practice, it’s important to be able to figure out the difference between too much processing and unloading feelings on your partner and doing what Natalie calls emotional preventative maintenance, and just being open with your partner.
That’s not to say that they don’t ever fall prey to being defensive or snappy with one another. “The relationship standard I have been setting for a long time, especially with Eva, is that we will piss each other off. We will fight. We will get angry. So why don’t we build effective strategies to deal with fighting rather than simply seek avoidance? We have de-escalation tactics and phrases. We both take the time to recognize our own failings rather than harp on the failings of each other. Our history of being abused has given us a strong awareness of our states. We afford each other a lot of patience and try to prevent falling into reactionary emotional responses and mindsets.”
One of the best things you can do if you do get into a tiff with a partner, because let’s face it, we’re all human and that’s probably inevitable at some point, is to do what Amy, a queer person living in Sacramento, does: remind your partner that you’re on their team. “We have a phrase we use in our marriage when things feel tense, which is ‘I’m on your team,’” Amy says of her and her wife.
“We try to remind one another that it’s us against whatever we are facing, rather than us against one another. We often try to remind each other when we feel stressed that we are stressed about other things and before expressing frustration, say, ‘I’m frustrated, but not with you.’” This turns out to be a great way to communicate to someone that if you accidentally take out your anger or anxiety on them, the negative feelings are not towards them, even if you’ve unnecessarily directed them at them.
How to practice setting healthy boundaries and better communication, according to a therapist
“What is important is, if you are doing self care you are able to care for others, and if there is one lesson we can learn from this virus is how intricately we are all interconnected and need each other for good or bad,” says Sary Rottenberg, LMHC, a psychotherapist in New York City. If everyone right now can simply consider that we all, on some level, feel anxiety about the uncertainty of everything going on right now, and that we all, on some level, know that we or our loved ones could get sick and die, despite our best efforts, then we can understand that our pain and anxiety is not special. But it is what connects us all. And it is, at the end of the day, what makes it so important to create boundaries for ourselves and ask the people in our lives to create boundaries to take care of each other.
It’s also important to vigilantly practice self care. “During this time self care is more important than usual. If you usually have a self care routine I’m telling people, double the time, double the love, triple the love you give yourself at this time,” says Rottenberg, adding, “We need it, it helps us recalibrate, takes our minds off the buzzing of confusing and scary information that is coming at us constantly.” What might be most helpful right now, Rottenberg explains, is reparenting ourselves – otherwise explained as acknowledging that we all have a young self inside of us who is scared, confused, and in need of love, despite our external advanced age. When we act out, or take out our pain or anxiety on those we love, it’s likely because we’re not taking care of ourselves properly, or working on reparenting ourselves and being there for ourselves.
What does this self care look like exactly? Rottenberg says the main things are making sure to stick to or create exercise routines that make you feel happy and strong, in your living space or if you can get outside in fresh air while keeping serious distance (six feet or more, babes!) from anyone else, as well as some other key ways to practice self care. Another way to care for yourself in order to minimize your own anxiety as well as communication issues with others is to create routines and structures. For example, if you’ve been at the computer staring at a screen all day, consider logging off at 6 PM and doing absolutely nothing for the rest of the day. Whatever it is that you need, ask yourself, “What do I need right now?” and then listen to it.
Feeling like it’s the “end of days” might cause you to drink too much, eat foods that make your body feel bad, or partake in other coping mechanisms that actually end up hurting you, as well as the people in your life who you’re trying to communicate with. “Remember the young one we talked about earlier? Your young one needs care right now, talk to them, tell them it’s normal to feel this way and comfort them in positive ways. What is your comfort?” Last but not least, Rottenberg urges us to all take a deep breath. Taking a breath and pausing can help us figure out what boundaries we need to set for ourselves, and what we’re actually feeling and trying to communicate to others.
Traci, a bisexual woman from Houston who spoke with me about the boundaries she’s been working to set with her partner, says that the best way to be intentional about how you communicate with your partner is to be transparent about what your headspace is like at any given moment. Saying things like, “I hear you, but I can’t actually think that through right now. Can we talk about it when I have more capacity?” can help someone understand that while you don’t want to just brush an issue under the rug, you don’t feel capable of having that conversation right now without reacting in a way that might hurt one or both of you. “We both try to stick to that. Or say, ‘I want to listen to you, but right now I need to push through this deadline for work,’ which is a super common phrase coming from me especially. Sometimes it’s as simple as just continuing to acknowledge that neither of us is actively trying to be an asshole. So we start sentences with ‘I know you aren’t trying to be an asshole’ when we’re upset about something. It works most of the time,” Traci says.
Why practicing healthy communication is especially important right now
These boundaries and intentionality around the way you talk with the people in your life can help you have a more positive and effective communication style right now, and prevent wear and tear of your relationships that don’t need to be soured by crisis right now. “If you’re getting frustrated with someone you love, you might be bickering because you have been spending too much time together, or maybe you are having difficulties with your own feelings and they find their way toward a person you love,” says Rottenberg. “You might be finding fault in the one you love so that you are not feeling as dependent and vulnerable with them during this time when the idea of being sick, and depending on others might bring up mixed feelings. Apologize dear queers, these things happen!”
Ultimately, Rottenberg and all of the couples who I spoke with affirmed that the best way to handle keeping your relationships healthy and happy during a difficult time is to take a breath, look within yourself, and own your feelings. Let the people you love know what’s going on with you. Admit your humanity and move on, because we have more important things to focus on. What we actually all need from each other right now is love and kindness – and that work starts with each of us.