These Two Factors Make You More Likely To Be Into Non-Monogamy

Open to new experiences? Not very conscientious? Queer? You might be more into consensual non-monogamy.

More people than ever are in non-monogamous relationships, and new research sheds light on what factors make people — and specifically queer people — more likely to be into them. A study published last week in the Journal of Bisexuality found that more than any other personality factors or attachment styles, being more open (appreciative of a variety of experience) and less conscientiousness (not very self-disciplined) makes queer people more likely to feel positively about and engage in consensually nonmonogamous relationships.

For straight people, there’s a link between attachment orientation and consensual nonmonogamy: people who aren’t super comfortable with intimacy with a partner (the attachment avoidant) are more open to it; whereas people who are insecure about a partner’s availability, need reassurance, and are afraid of abandonment (the attachment anxious) are less open to it.

But for queer people, it’s more complicated than that. Consensual nonmonogamous relationships are common among queers, and social norms like that can influence attitudes or behaviors. According to previous research noted by the authors, 35% of bisexual women and 21% of lesbian women reported having tried out consensual non-monogamy, compared to 16% of straight women. And once you start to get away from a heteronormative relationship model, you might be more likely to get away from a mononormative relationship model, too. Attachment avoidance or anxiety isn’t the whole picture; for queer people, culture and personality are what matter.

The study focused on how personality traits — specifically openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism — are linked to positive attitudes and inclination toward consensually non-monogamous relationships among sexual minorities. The authors recruited 108 LGB participants online — 67% identified as women, 62% identified as bi- or pansexual, and 38% identified as gay or lesbian — to answer questions on their attitudes toward romantic relationships.

The authors found that being more open made people more attracted to consensual nonmonogamy, and write:

“[O]penness to new experiences and conscientiousness were robust predictors of attraction to multiple-partner relationships among LGB individuals. People who tend to have active imaginations, a preference for variety, and a proclivity to engage in new experiences (i.e., high in openness) hold positive attitudes toward CNM and greater willingness to engage in these relationships.”

While being more conscientious tended to make people less attracted to consensual nonmonogamy:

“[I]ndividuals who tend to be very organized, neat, careful, and success driven (i.e., high in conscientiousness) perceive CNM negatively and have less desire to engage in CNM. Additionally, given that highly conscientiousness individuals tend to deliberate, these individuals may have carefully considered what these relationships embodied (i.e., thought carefully about how each of the CNM-related item would play out) before providing their attitudes. Although we did not originally hypothesize this result, this finding is largely consistent with previous research showing low conscientiousness to be robustly (and cross-culturally) associated with interest in relationship nonexclusivity … Potentially, those high in conscientiousness may view CNM relationships as having ill-defined relational scripts. Highly conscientious individuals are less geared toward sensation seeking … and perhaps less willing to violate social norms involving monogamy.”

Mostly makes sense, right? They also found that, maybe counterintuitively, being extraverted made someone more likely to feel negatively about consensual nonmonogamy, and didn’t impact willingness to try it out. Originally, the authors theorized that extraverts would enjoy meeting new potential partners and doing related social activities (I’m imagining all those poly family brunches); as a possible explanation, they note that extraverts usually care more about a situation feeling pleasant than about enjoying social interactions, “which could be an underlying reason why extraversion was not related to positive attitudes toward CNM.” They also note that previous research results on extraversion and sexual behavior are all over the place, and that subculture differences and norms could influence the results and need more exploration.

Notably, they also found that, for queer people, how someone acts in regular contexts reveals more about what they’ll think about different types of relationships, or whether they’ll be drawn to them, than that person’s style within relationships: “Arguably, one’s attachment orientation is more related to relationship processes and quality, whereas one’s personality facets are better suited to understand attitudinal dispositions regarding diverse relationships.”

This is the first empirical study to look at personality traits and feelings towards consensual nonmonogamy among a group already more into consensual nonmonogamy. Which is pretty neat! This study didn’t cover how attitudes about or willingness to engage in multi-partner relationships translate to actually having multi-partner relationships, or what makes those relationships successful, which is hopefully a direction for future research.

Y’All Need Help #10: Your Crushes Are Killing

Today’s installment of Y’All Need Help is brutal and quick, like a roundhouse kick to a sweet little piñata. I DO THIS BECAUSE I LOVE YOU.

Q:

So. Is there any way to make this less painful, or to get over a girl faster while still pretending everything’s fine in front of her, other than just lying on the floor while my heart bleeds out and waiting, watching it bleed?

A:
I’m truly honestly sorry to say that you’ll have to bleed this out for a while. It’s been six months and where has this pining gotten you? NOWHERE, FRIEND. The energy you’re putting into this situation is the same energy you could be putting into literally anything else, and the energy you’re receiving from this situation is tepid and ultimately destructive. Straight women who’ll never date their queer friends that have crushes on them still manage to receive the positive energy of a queer relationship without having to reciprocate any of it. Think about that. You’re giving her your dating/loving energy and she’s giving you pal energy, and she loves it — not because she’s a selfish asshole, but because that energy is GLORIOUS and AMAZING and she’s probably never received anything like it before.

Find small ways to pull some of your energy back from this friendship. If you grab a water for her when you get up to get your own, stop doing that. If you text her about the insane soufflé you just made on a Saturday afternoon, stop doing that. All the small things, kill ’em.

Imagine that you told her your feelings and she gently but firmly rejected you, and then move through your life as if this scenario you imagined actually happened. Every time you have a fluttery thought about her, pinch your inner thigh and read five pages of Infinite Jest, out of order. Make a list of at least 25 things you want to do or experience for yourself or for the greater good of the universe and pick five of them to do before December. After you do those five, choose five more. Clean your house and get some flowers for your tables. This is not the person for you. She is not for you. She is your friend.

You call the shots in this hectic blur of time and space! CALL THOSE SHOTS. Send your energy to the right places. Take care of yourself.

Q:
I’ve recently discovered that I have a total crush on my BFF of 4 years. We hang out at every opportunity. We’re each other’s closest friend, share all the same interests, jokes, and secrets. As you do. The problem is, she’s also queer and beautiful, and I’ve started to wise up to it. Neither of us are seeing (or have seen) anyone. We’re both juniors in high school and homecoming is fast approaching. Part of me is hoping she’ll ask me, or that I’ll get up the nerve to tell her how I feel. But at the same time, I know part of the reason I love her is because of our friendship. She’s my only queer friend, and without her I don’t know what I’d do. Her parents also want me to stay with her the whole weekend when they leave town…in two weeks! Its not that I have ‘intentions’ but I feel disingenuous. What should I do? Tell her? Or crush in silence?

A:
The most distinct difference between you and the person above you in this post is that your crush is queer, which lends some hope to your situation. It lends some hope to me, dear friend. Also you’re in high school and if there’s ever a time to hurl caution right into the wind, it’s now. Did you watch Riverdale? I wish I hadn’t, but here we are. You are Betty and she is Archie, and that’s why I’m telling you to ask her to homecoming. Did Betty and Archie end up dating? No they did not, spoiler. However, did Betty grow as a human after confessing her feelings and taking ownership of her own ambitions? She sure did!

Having said that, you know the situation better than I do, so if you just read that and thought, “wow, trash advice there,” then feel free to disregard everything I said and go your own way. GODSPEED, GENTLE SOUL.

Q:
I have straight girl problems! So the straight girl in question is my (now former) colleague, who I am close friends with. She lost a parent last year right after moving abroad and these changes have put a strain on her relationship with her longterm boyfriend who lives in another country. While on a break with the boyfriend and dealing with the grief issues, she fell in love with one of my male colleagues (who is very romantically immature; he hasn’t ever had a girlfriend) and now they have some sort of 2nd grade pulling-pigtails relationship. They both have feelings for each other but he doesn’t want to go further so they are basically a couple without the touching and emotional commitments (which hurts her). In the meantime she got back with the longterm boyfriend, who knows all the stuff with the other guy and doesn’t like it.

On top of it all, I fell in love with her 3 months ago and the childish toxic relationship with the office guy became unbearable for me. It really hurts to see my friend that I basically love fuck herself over with this shit and I may be a bit jealous, too. I am starting my new job away from her soon, so I hope not seeing her on a daily basis will allow me to get over her. But my question is, do I tell her how I feel? I have no expectations that she’ll return my feelings, I just sometimes feel that I can’t hold it all inside me anymore. I’ve asked some people for advice, who all think I should not say anything and get over her, and my brain agrees with them. But not my heart.

A:
Whoaaaa! Reader, my friend. Do not, under any circumstances, known or unknown, hell or high water, tell this straight girl how you feel! Circle back to question #1 up there.

As for her, your friend has had a profoundly fucked up and difficult year, and is likely making some strange decisions out of grief and confusion, which is totally normal, if super hard to watch. You can give her advice and guidance, but it’s ultimately her call, and it sounds like she’s finding something she needs in this childish relationship with the immature dude. Maybe she likes that it’s easy and mindless and going nowhere? Sometimes we put ourselves on autopilot as a not-necessarily-great form of self-preservation. The best thing you can do for her — and most importantly for yourself — is just be a friend. Support her and be there to help her, but set some boundaries for yourself. If it’s hard to watch her go through this portion of her life, know that you can back away when you need to.

Y’All Need Help is a biweekly advice column in which I pluck out a couple of questions from the You Need Help inbox and answer them right here, round-up style, quick and dirty! (Except sometimes it’s not quick, but that’s my prerogative, OK?) You can chime in with your own advice in the comments and submit your own quick and dirty questions any time.

How To Move in With a Partner and Still Like Each Other After

Moving is the worst. Tensions run high, things break, and you find yourself questioning all of your values based on how many T-shirts you somehow own. Establishing a new home with someone in an attempt to merge your physical and material lives as a manifestation of your commitment to one another, aka Uhauling, takes the intensity of moving to a whole other level. Sure, it’s nice to have an extra person to help you carry boxes, but who will carry all of these feelings?

My partner Wynn and I moved in together in August, along with our friend Antonia. We experienced some ups and downs, but ultimately we emerged intact. Moving in can be a test of compatibility in many ways, which is pretty stressful when you’ve already put your deposit in. Here are a few tips for making the process manageable so you can get to the fun part — getting to live together with your partner and/or queer gal pal — and still want to talk to each other.

Be honest about your deal-breakers

When the three of us first sat down to talk about what we were looking for in a place, we agreed on quite a lot: price range, preferred locations, and avoiding a big apartment complex. But once we got into the details, our combined wish lists meant we were kind of looking for a unicorn. We wanted no carpet, some green space, two bathrooms, and preferably a third bedroom or office. Every time one of us found a place on Zillow or Trulia that seemed like a good compromise, someone would veto it.

Finally I called my friend who is a realtor and begged him to rescue us. He found us a place that meets all our criteria and also has some warts we never expected — the house is quirky to say the least, most of the blinds don’t work, and it’s across the street from an elementary school so traffic is a pain in the ass in the mornings and afternoons. No place will be perfect, but if you’re honest from the start about what you truly can’t budge on you can save yourselves a lot of time. It might be tempting to compromise and let your partner’s priorities win out over yours, but remember that you both have to be happy in a place for at least 12 to 18 months, and that the process will be easier if you start out with a realistic and clear set of things you both agree not to budge on.

Talk about your stuff with compassion

I’ve been a little nuts about putting stuff on the walls ever since I was a kid. As a teenager my walls were literally covered with band posters, movie ticket stubs, album art, greeting cards and other flat things that I could hold up with sticky tack. Although I’m older now and have started using frames and nails (or at least command strips), I still use my walls as a carefully curated gallery of my life. At first, the idea of another person putting their stuff on my walls too was very stressful.

So much crap, so little space

Merging aesthetic preferences and personal belongings was one of the hardest parts of moving in together, especially since it meant leaving some things behind and compromising on others. I recommend starting the conversations about this as soon as possible. You don’t want to find yourself telling your partner that you really hate that particular Star Wars poster once they’ve already gotten it framed. Of course, some things you won’t realize until you’re in the space, and that’s when you get to embark on the task of making seemingly meaningless but somehow very emotional decisions together.

Finding ways to combine our favorites was a way to make everyone feel included and respected.

This part of the process is also a pretty special way to learn new things about each other. I found out that Wynn got their plastic police tape trash can as a present when they were a teenager really interested in forensic science. I explained that I may never get around to listening to all the records in my collection but I will lug them around for the rest of my life because they were the only thing I got from my dad when he died. As you encounter things in each other’s boxes, don’t be afraid to ask questions. Just do so gently or you might accidentally hurt your partner’s feelings when you talk about how excited you are to get rid of that dumb police tape trash can (sorry babe).

Figure out the finances

Money is fraught enough as an individual, but figuring out how to deal with finances with another person who has a different budget, priorities, and idea of how much curtains should cost is a whole ‘nother kettle of fish. There will be some big decisions to make — can you afford to get movers? How are you going to handle deposits for rent and utilities? Are you going to split things evenly or based on income level? Wynn, Antonia and I used Splitwise, an app that allows you to track shared spending between two people or a group, so that we didn’t have to keep up with who owed who $10 for moving day pizza. Instead, once we were all done with the move we just hit “settle up.”

When dealing with the money stuff, it’s important not to make assumptions. Before you spend $80 at the Container Store and log it in the shared spending, make sure your partner really wants a wall-mounting tie rack, a travel steamer, and three sizes of laundry delicate bags or they will come find you when you’re under three feet of cardboard and ask what the heck they owe you $40 for.

I also recommend starting to talk about money before you book the moving truck — Wynn and I started looking at each other’s YNABs about two months before the move — so that you don’t find out during crunch time that your partner/roommate can only afford the slowest internet speed or absolutely insists on name brand toilet paper when your budget calls for single ply. In fact, it was by talking honestly about money from the very beginning of deciding to live together that led us to decide to have a third roommate, which turned out to be an amazing decision for several reasons and one I certainly wouldn’t discourage you from considering.

Realize that everything is going to change.

I underestimated how different things would be once we lived together. I thought of it more in terms of logistics without realizing how much that would change how I felt. On the upside, removing the stress factor of figuring out who had to be where when and whose house Wynn’s favorite shirt was at has freed up a ton of mental space. On the downside, learning how to set boundaries on my space and time when we’re in the same building so often has been really challenging. For me, living together has already made me feel more settled and safe in our relationship in a way that has inspired me to return to activities that make me feel like myself, like playing guitar, writing and connecting with friends. Rather than fusing into a single entity and disappearing, we’ve both been more conscious about making choices that feel healthy both individually and as a partnership.

Still, I wish I had somehow prepared for the radical shift in the way I think about time, space, my individual self and my relationship. It has been a lot to absorb all at once and I have a feeling that process is just beginning. Now that we’re out from under all the boxes and have a few things hung on the walls, we’re ready for the fun, and the real work, to begin.

You Need Help: Even Sex Gods Get Anxious Sometimes

Q:

I’ve recently bumped into an issue with my new girlfriend. I’m 28 and she’s 27, and old enough to not rush into things, but that’s what we’ve done. We’ve been having sex like rabbits and it has been mind-blowing on my end. It took me two weeks to convince her to let me finish her off. Normally she stops me before she orgasms. She has some abuse in her past, and it has been hard for her to let go. Recently, we were having sex and I pulled out some old tricks. She went wild, and I felt like king of the world. She didn’t know where she was and needed help walking to the bathroom because all of her muscles were so limp. I felt great, she felt great. she passed out and went to sleep. She NEVER does this. Usually in bed I have to just stop responding so she will stop talking so much. She’s been raving about me to her friends and la la la.

Anyway: I think I’m starting to have performance anxiety. I weirdly feel a lot of pressure now to be the best and I actually can’t even enjoy receiving as much. Sex has become an anxiety-provoking experience. I know this sounds stupid, but I am struggling. Sex isn’t everything in our relationship. We absolutely enjoy spending time together watching Netflix, spooning, cooking together, etc. I need help.

A:

Have you ever seen the movie Grease?

There’s a scene in Grease with Stockard Channing as Rizzo (subconscious bae of my confused 11-year-old heart) and Kenicky in the drive through. They’re making out, he goes to take out a condom, and it breaks. He’s suddenly completely forlorn, and it’s totally at odds with his bad boy exterior. He bought that condom when he was in the seventh grade; it was a piece of his childhood, and to have it break in front of Rizzo was a moment of vulnerability for which neither of them were prepared. After he shows his softer side, they are even more into each other because they’re able to admit that they actually, you know, have feelings, as uncool as those are.

That scene was the first thing that came to my mind when I read this letter. Because you’re not talking about orgasms; what you’re really talking about is vulnerability. (You’re the Kenicky.)

It’s amazing that you and your girlfriend feel a strong connection and have such amazing sex. It’s hard for a lot of people to open up, but it can be especially difficult for people who have experienced abuse in their past, so you’ve got that going for you too. Moving so quickly with someone new is a bit of a red flag; we all have moments in new relationships where things are going extremely well and the planets seem to align and everyone is coming all the time, and that’s great. But tempering that New Relationship Energy with an awareness of just how fast you’re bonding is a good idea.

New Relationship Energy is a term more common to the polyamorous community, but the phenomenon itself doesn’t only apply to non-monogamous partnership. Anyone can experience NRE, which More Than Two defines as “a strong, almost giddy feeling of excitement and infatuation common in the beginning of any new romantic relationship.” Great sex with a new person you’re ridiculously attracted to is a huge part of NRE, and it’s powerful and can be blinding. Continuing to check in with yourself, and your girlfriend (with clothes on and outside of the bedroom) is definitely a good idea.

Focusing on building your non-sexual communication with your partner is a good idea all around. If she’s chatty after sex and you just want to go to sleep, there’s nothing wrong with a gentle, “Hey, babe, it’s getting late and I’m so sated I can barely keep my eyes open, can we talk more in the morning?” rather than ignoring her ’til she shuts up.

As for her raving to her friends — it sounds like that makes you uncomfortable, which is also something you should talk to her about. Sit with how you feel about this, and ask yourself where your boundaries are when it comes to your girlfriend talking about your sex life with her. She’s of course free to talk to her friends about her life and relationship — having connections outside of romantic relationships is extremely important, and making sure you both don’t get completely isolated in your own sex cave is a good way to diffuse some of this NRE — but if she’s sharing all the gory details in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable or self-conscious, you also have a right to say something about that.

You also don’t have to be the sole provider of every orgasm she experiences. Since you’ve already proved yourself the Lady-Boner Whisperer, it’s not a comment on your performance and ability if she needs to take the reins from time to time. If you feel like you’re losing your mojo because you’re feeling anxious, she should know her body well enough to get herself there without you. If she doesn’t, that’s something you can talk about together. Ask her, specifically, to describe what it is you do to her that drives her wild. Hearing positive feedback will probably go a long way to help you recover from psyching yourself out. Bonus? Dirty talk about what a sex god you are will probably turn you on A LOT. Ask her to masturbate in front of you, or masturbate together. You’ll be able to watch her get off, which is sexy as hell, while feeling less pressure to do it yourself.

Finally, as great as they are, orgasms aren’t everything. Lots of fun, intimate sex happens with no one having an orgasm at all, so examine if part of your anxiety comes from a place of thinking of orgasms as required or that the point of all sex is to end with an orgasm. Do you link orgasms to self worth? Do you feel responsible for her pleasure? Are you worried that if you can’t make her come, it says something about the relationship? Or that she won’t like you anymore? If so, ask yourself why you feel that way — and express these thoughts to her, too! A mandatory orgasm with a stressed out partner who is hiding things doesn’t sound particularly sexy. But a relationship where all parties feel safe enough to say, “Hey, I’m a little in my head about my performance, and I could use some validation and support around that”? That sets the stage for deeper connection and more profound pleasure.

In short, feelings are sexy, but more importantly they’re necessary for building intimacy. Share your feelings with your partner, stud.

Queer Crip Love Fest: Love Is Showing Up

Over seven months of Queer Crip Love Fest, we’ve talked books, kids, pets, partners, breakups and more with some of the disabled internet’s most captivating queer folks. The goal of this series was to illustrate just how many forms love can take, no longer forcing us to wait for able-bodied saviors who’ve Just Learned So Much. We deserve space to speak out about our own passions on our own terms. I’m incredibly proud to have created that here, with all of our guests and all of you. And today, for the final installment, I could not be happier to introduce you to Nicole and Lindy, who have just the kind of story I want to end on.

Nicole had this to say about Lindy:

I love my girlfriend. She has perfect blonde hair and her laugh is the best thing in the world and she makes me feel like I’m full of glitter. We travel to see each other every month or so and count down every single day until we’re back together. We met on Tinder and she came to volunteer at the summer camp I worked at for a couple of weeks. She flew on a plane alone for the first time to come visit me.

I think it’s important to highlight that we’re both disabled in different ways; I have invisible disabilities, whereas she is legally blind and so we have two totally different kinds of access needs that we’re working toward mindfulness about. I think that disability has always been a part of our love; it’s a constant exchange, nothing is off the table, we’re always here holding each other and offering space for accessibility and everything else within our relationship. We acknowledge that love is growth and finding space to give each other what we need to make the world a more accessible place for both of us. It has changed my experience in love because I’ve never had someone love me the way that she does, and the way I love her.

Lindy (left) and Nicole (right)

Who wants to see them at next A-Camp? Me too! But for now, enjoy our big gay sendoff with a bit of everything: lifeguarding, Lesbian Processing™, text etiquette and yes, True Life.

Why don’t we start with more about your origin story? I know that it’s adorable, but tell me from the beginning.

Nicole: So, Tinder. [Laughs]

Lindy: I messaged first. She didn’t respond for a while.

N: That’s because I was busy, first of all. [Both laugh] I was! It was the very beginning of the summer; we had just done the turnover from staff training to an actual session at the camp where I was working. I had just downloaded Tinder, and she said ‘Hey cutie’ with a smiley face, I remember that. And we got to chit chatting, and then moved over to Snapchat. I’d send pictures from being up too late in the office, just looking exhausted, wearing a fanny pack, clearly had not showered in days. Very camp manager. [Both laugh] Remember you were out at the bar, and you sent me something?

L: Yes, I was drunk.

N: Sent some great snaps. [Both laugh] Got real intimate, real quick.

So had you met in person at this point?

Both: No.

N: I was still in session, and you can’t really leave while that’s happening. Management doesn’t get breaks. So we hadn’t had the opportunity to meet in person, and then I kind of disappeared for a little bit.

L: For like, two weeks.

N: It was not two weeks! It was like, four days.

L: She’s lying, because I’m never that dramatic. I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true. [Laughs] So eventually I texted and said “If you don’t want to talk to me, I can take a hint” or something.

N: I was managing six program areas and about 150 kids, plus 50 staff. So it was legitimately a busy time!

L: And then you took your lifeguard class. Because you sent me a snap on your way there, and I was like “Oh, I’m a lifeguard instructor!”

N: And I was like “Well, that’s a really helpful thing to know, because we’re looking for one!” [Both laugh] So we still hadn’t met, but we did need another lifeguard. So I asked “Do you want to come to camp for a week?” and she was like…

L: “… yeah.”

Aww! So Lindy, you hadn’t even met her yet — how did you feel when she just asked you to come there for a week?

L: Well, I already had the week free; think I had something planned, but it fell through. So we met the day before camp started and went on our first date.

N: Yes. We went to Kerbey Lane — do you know what that is?

I don’t know what that is.

L: [Whispers] Oh, she’s missing out.

N: Yes, you’re missing out. It’s like IHOP but better in all the ways. You can get a swirl in your pancake, and they have vegetarian, vegan and gluten free options every day. And you can also get a carafe of mimosas for $12. I figured you should know that.

L: So we went on our first date there, and then I met all of her camp friends. I’m pretty good at going into random groups, and I thought I did pretty well. But they all had camp names and I was like “This is weird.” Then we went to the lake, and then we went to Dick’s Sporting Goods —

N: And then we went to Whole Foods and got some food in a box.

So you’re essentially just checking off gay thing after gay thing over the course of this one day.

L: You grabbed my hand at whole Foods.

N: I did. We held hands at Whole Foods. We do a lot of really gay shit. Get excited, this interview is about to get really gay.

“When one of us would walk into the dining hall or something, we’d text each other stuff like ‘Oh, your hair is so beautiful today!'”

So when you met in person, was the vibe definitely there? Because sometimes it can be tough with internet people, not necessarily knowing if you can make the transition.

Both: Yeah.

N: It was pretty immediate. And what was nice was that we’d had Tinder conversations, we’d had Snapchat conversations and we’d had a couple of phone conversations. So the vibe was there early on.

So you had to jump into this thing head first, because you were working together right off the bat. Do you think it was good to have total immersion with each other immediately?

L: I think it helped build a friendship instead of just a physical attraction. And also, seeing how each other interacted with other people, and how we are under stress.

N: In that environment, you’re gonna figure out pretty quickly who you do and don’t want to be around. So it worked really well on that level.

L: We’re not really allowed to be on our phones, so when one of us would walk into the dining hall or something we’d text each other like “Oh, your hair is so beautiful today!” Because we couldn’t really go up to each other and be cute either. But working together ended up being really good, because it taught us a lot about each other that we might not have learned until later.

And what about afterwards? Because then you have another big transition, so was it “Oh, I want to be with you,” or “Maybe this isn’t the right time,” or what?

N: We had made it official pretty quickly. We didn’t U-Haul it, but we did call it something pretty quickly. If we could have U-Hauled it we might have. [All laugh] But she did help me pack and go to the airport.

L: We bawled. I almost got my car towed because I got out and went inside with her. They don’t like that. [Laughs] But there wasn’t really a sit-down conversation. Because she wouldn’t have phone service in the middle of the woods in Vermont, which is where she was going, I wrote little letters to give to her, so each day she could open one. It would be like “When You’re Feeling Sad,” or whatever. And then she could open it.

Had either of you been in a long-distance relationship before?

N: I had.

L: Nope.

So what sort of agreements did you hammer out going into it?

N: That we are only with each other, and we’re going to make sure we keep up communication, agree to visits, switch off the visits. It was very clear from the beginning what our relationship was going to look like, and that if it needed to change, we could talk about it. It took practice. There were some moments of friction, some call out type things: “You’re not listening, you’re not paying as much attention as you could,” stuff like that. But what never changed is that we were happy to talk to each other.

L: I think part of it was we were scared because it was real. The stakes are so much higher. Plus you always wonder if it’s going to feel the same when you go so long without seeing each other. But we’ve been able to trust each other from the start.

“She asked curious questions in a respectful way, which people don’t do… She makes me feel like I have an open space to say when I need something.”

So you’re the first couple I’ve ever interviewed together, and also the first where both people have disabilities. I’ve actually never been in that situation, so I’m really interested to hear how it plays out in your relationship. The first thing I’m wondering about is disclosure, since that can be a huge issue when you’re meeting people online. Did you disclose your disabilities up front?

N: She told me that she was blind when I mentioned that I was applying for a job at a school for blind students. So we just kind of carried on, and I asked something like “So what does that mean for you? What does that do for your daily life? What do your access needs look like?” Not “Oh wow, so what’s it like?” in that morbid way.

L: She asked curious questions in a respectful way, which people don’t do.

Right! It would be amazing if more people did that for their partners — not “Tell me everything I feel entitled to,” but “Tell me what this is gonna mean for us,” which is a completely different question. Can you tell me more about that made you feel?

L: It was really reassuring. She seemed interested and not like she’s never been around someone with a disability before. She knew what to ask to make me feel open to want to share with her, and not have to justify myself or why I need printouts of PowerPoints, or to not use green marker on white boards or things like that. It was just really good. Sometimes I’ll feel attacked or like I need to defend myself when describing my disability to people; with her, that never happened.

On the other hand, when we would Snapchat, I could never read what she said because the font was so small, and I waited a while to bring that up. It was a couple of months until I was like “Hey, can I ask for a favor…?” And now we only use the bold, big fonts. When she forgets, she’ll just immediately resend the same thing with the font big. But she won’t take it to the extreme and overcompensate like people sometimes do. She makes me feel like I have an open space to say when I need something.

And what about for you, Nicole? Did you talk about your needs before or after that?

N: It’s never been a big, one-time disclosure, because I do have multiple things going on. There are some things going on with my body that are invisible disabilities, and then I have learning disabilities and mental health stuff. So it wasn’t that it came out slowly or that I wasn’t telling the truth, but there was a right time for things and a not right time. So it would come up like “Hey, this is a thing I usually have a handle on, but right now I don’t and I need support.” Dealing with both the physical and emotional exhaustion that comes from all this.

We made a lot of lists. She would sit on FaceTime with me —

L: And I would type the list for her. She would tell me about the things that she needed to get done within the week, so I’d send her daily reminders.

N: That was so helpful; it made things a lot more manageable. There was a window of time where I was feeling really depressed, and she helped me clarify what I needed to do, and whether I was taking my medication. That came up one time.

L: I didn’t mean it in a bad way, but one time I accidentally said —

N: We were arguing, and I was really upset. Instead of taking it as “Oh, Nicole’s upset and it’s okay to be upset” or whatever, it became “Are you taking your medication?”

L: For the record, I did feel awful about it!

N: But that is an important question! Are you feeling this way because you’re not taking care of yourself? That’s completely legitimate. It’s just a weird line to navigate, and a hard thing to ask, and a hard thing to be asked. Because you’re having these feelings, and you need the other person to know that they’re very real. So we navigated and worked on that.

It seems like you’ve negotiated the logistical access stuff really well, and that your needs and abilities complement each other. What about emotionally — how does it feel to be in a relationship with someone who understands access on a visceral level? Not “Oh, I should understand this concept because I’m a good person,” but “I understand this because I’ve been through it”?

L: It helps that Nicole had studied disability in school, so she knew how to ask properly. I’m pretty open; give me somebody who shows interest in disability stuff, and I will tell you what I need. So her giving me that made me feel like I could ask for those things without causing a problem. The knowledge to understand where I was coming from was really helpful.

Is there anything that’s challenged you about being in a relationship with another person who has access needs?

N: Not in relation to disability for me, really, beyond that moment of “Are you taking your meds?”

L: There have been more conversations around our ways of supporting each other. When I need support, it’s a mixture of “Please agree that this sucks” and a hug or a hand to hold. And then “Here are the things we can do to make you feel better.”

N: You also love a good platitude. [Laughs]

L: As you can tell from her tone [laughs], Nicole does not like platitudes at all. She likes “This fucking sucks, and I want you to understand that.”

N: I want her to listen and be there with me, rather than tell me about how it’s all going to be okay. Just for her to say “Yeah, that sucks, and I’m right here with you” — that’s all I want.

L: And I’m a fixer. So that was a huge issue that we had to figure out.

But that’s great — that sounds like a pretty standard relationship issue, and a really healthy thing, rather than this huge blowup around feeling like a burden, or whatever people might assume your problems would be.

N: That’s definitely true. We’ve gone through breaking up and getting back together, and it’s not because of any disability-related stuff at all; it’s been for the same reasons and followed the same path as it would even if that wasn’t a factor. It’s because things weren’t healthy, and then we worked on healing, and it was hard on both of us, and now we’re here. You just learn a lot about each other and come to that place of understanding.

We definitely had to negotiate how often to communicate and in what way, though, when we were first getting back together. Really be mindful of the line between what was and wasn’t healthy, and choose the medium carefully.

L: I sound like I’m in a mood whenever I text, because I put periods on things.

Why would you do that?!

L: People just assume I’m angry because I put periods on things! Which then does put me in a bad mood! [Laughs]

Rookie mistake. You can’t put periods on your texts.

L: That’s the real takeaway from this interview: don’t end your texts with a period.

“Love is in the things you choose to do and the way you choose to be and the people you choose to be with. I think it means that’s the person you give the last of your favorite candy in the bag to, the one you bring to a place you love and share it with them, the one you have total honesty and truth with even when you’re not quite so pretty in it. It’s being your gross self with someone.”

Okay, last big question: what does love mean to you? I want you to each answer this individually.

N: Do you want us to each leave the room so we can’t hear the other one answer?

If you want! I think that’d be cute.

N: You go first. [Leaves the room]

L: Bye! [Laughs] Okay, I’m ready. I think love means accepting each other with all flaws and positive attributes. Even when you’re in a bad mood, still loving them and letting them know that you’re still there and not going anywhere. Eliminating that fear of leaving is really big for me; knowing that they’re not going to leave when you have a bad day.

[Nicole comes back in]

We’re talking about you, go away! [All laugh, Nicole leaves]

That sense of security is big for me too, because it’s so rare to get from anybody. Knowing that you can show your whole self is such an important thing.

L: It’s like that in my family too; we can be mean to each other, but we know that we’re there for each other and aren’t going anywhere. I don’t mean purposefully, but getting into arguments and knowing it’ll still be okay. And I love having that security with Nicole. Because I’m not always great — no one is — and it means a lot to be able to let her know when I’m not having a good day, and have her say “Okay, thanks for telling me” and still love me is really important.

Great answer!

[From off camera] N: Can I come back now?

Yes!

[They switch places]

N: I think that love is in the things you choose to do and the way you choose to be and the people you choose to be with. I think it means that’s the person you give the last of your favorite candy in the bag to, the one you bring to a place you love and share it with them, the one you have total honesty and truth with even when you’re not quite so pretty in it. It’s being your gross self with someone. Lindy knows everything; she’s been around, y’know?

Love is taking the time, and just sitting there on Skype even when you’re not really doing anything. Love is sharing food, and asking for Sno-Cones and going to get them and then realizing you didn’t want them after all, but nobody gets mad because you spent time together. Love is showing up.

Wait. Can I tell you a secret?

Absolutely.

N: She was on True Life: I’m An Albino. And I bought the episode — didn’t just watch it on YouTube, I bought it. It was when she was in high school and going through her scene kid phase and it’s just so good. [Laughs] Love is being able to buy her awkward teenage moments on iTunes and watch them over and over.

Oh, this is amazing. I really wish I could put this in the interview, but I don’t want to out her MTV phase without her consent.

N: [To off camera] Babe? I have a question! [Laughs] You know how I bought the episode of True Life? Can that be part of this?

L: [Laughs] Yes, that’s fine. Thanks for asking.

N: See? Love is calling her over to ask if that’s okay.

This is the last installment in Queer Crip Love Fest. View the complete series.

You Need Help: Grad School Killed Your Sex Life

Welcome to You Need Help! Where you’ve got a problem and yo, we solve it. Or we at least try.

Q:

I’m a 24-year-old lesbian in one of the most stressful situations: graduate school with my girlfriend. We met at the beginning of our master’s programs and are about to finish our first year and the stress of school, work, life, family and life has taken a toll on our relationship and on us as individuals. This isn’t surprising. Our romantic relationship has held up relatively well — I think we communicate pretty well with each other and are very loving and supportive, even though we have our fair share of arguments. That’s good and it makes me feel very hopeful for the summer (whoo!) and the coming year (boo).

What is stressing me out is that our sex life has died. I know this is for a variety of reasons — my mental health issues, my partner’s mental health issue, her sexual assault history coming up recently, arguments, stress, etc. — but we’re reaching a point where it’s been gone for so long (basically nothing for two months, on the decline for the last five or so) that I’m wondering if or how we can ever get to a good place in our sex life together. It seems like we are unable to be intimate with each other and I have no idea how to start rebuilding our intimacy from scratch. It’s really damaging our relationship and it makes me feel like my girlfriend isn’t physically or sexually attracted to me even though she insists she is. I really do not know what to do.

xoxo,
Sexually Clueless

A:

It’s interesting that you’ve named yourself “Clueless,” because you sound anything but. You sound incredibly self-aware, and I want to commend you for being able to hold so many things at once – where you’re coming from, where your girlfriend is coming from, how past traumas are weighing on this situation, and how your current environment is contributing to you and your girlfriend not being able to connect.

Stress is probably one of the biggest obstacles to desire and pleasure out there. In Come As You Are, sex researcher and educator Emily Nagoski says: “Stress is about survival. And while sex serves a lot of purposes, personal survival is not one of them […] So for most people, stress slams on the brakes, bottoming out sexual interest […] To reduce the impact of stress on your sexual pleasure and interest, to have more joyful, pleasurable sex, manage your stress.” Nagoski acknowledges that this is easier said than done — but lucky for you, one of the main causes of the stress that is getting in the way of you getting down is about to be out of the picture for a few months once school is over.

Mental health issues, too, can take many forms, and most of those forms similarly impede sex, desire and pleasure. (And, if your partner’s history of sexual assault is getting in the way of her life, and she has the means to see a therapist, that can be the best way for her to address it.)

Our cultural tendency to devalue pleasure is an added impediment, and is one that is so pervasive it often feels unconscious. Capitalist society dominates everything we learn about sex, sexuality, romance and relationships, from before we even consciously engage with them. You and your girlfriend are both working hard in demanding programs. Of course you want to devote yourself to your goals, and everything in society tells you that you have to work work work (work work) to be productive, worthwhile members of society. Under capitalism, pleasure, if it is thought of at all, is like dessert after dinner. But pleasure of all types is part of dinner itself — central to our existence as human beings, and as social creatures that frequently get into all sorts of messy, squishy, wonderful relationships with each other.

Be gentle with yourself and your girlfriend as you try to prioritize pleasure and revive your sex life. You’re both bringing a lot to the bedroom, and since it’s intimacy you’re after, rather than — or in addition to — instant sexual gratification, rebuilding that sense familiarity with each other should be what you focus on, at first.

Since both of you are coming off of a busy, anxiety-inducing semester, think about what you want to do with all your newfound free time. Think beach dates, picnics in the park; dates where you get to reconnect with each other on multiple levels. Actually make plans to woo each other again. Commit to it. Sext, especially on days when you have to spend a lot of time away from each other. Let her know that even when she’s not around, you’re still crazy about her. Allowing yourself to be giddy over your girlfriend again is incredibly intimate in and of itself. There will be vulnerability. You might feel shy. You might also feel exhilarated when you let her see just how much you want her.

Get intentional about creating these kinds of experiences. This intentionality can feel counter-intuitive to common thinking about sex as something that’s spontaneous, but try to let go of that judgment, and do some reframing. Instead of thinking about how your sex life is dead, for example, think about how it could be reborn. Spend nights out dancing up on her until you’re both sweaty and eager to get home with each other. Support your local strip club and make it rain on beautiful, hardworking ladies in lingerie; then take your girlfriend home and perform a strip tease just for her. Or do the things you know she likes best — break out your favorite toys, and have a night that’s all about her, or all about you, or both. Take turns spoiling each other.

Before anything else, though, share your fears with your partner, exactly the way you’ve written them here. It might be vulnerable — “I’m wondering if or how we can ever get to a good place in our sex life together” is packed full of doubt and trepidation, and it can be so lonely to feel like you’re the only one in the relationship feeling that way. It’ll take guts to open up that conversation, because after a long sex drought, you may feel like strangers to each other. But remember that it’s normal for sex to ebb and flow in long term relationships, and as long as you’re both willing to reach out to each other when the ebbs start to make you unhappy, rekindling your sex life shouldn’t be too far out of reach. It does sound like you may have to make the first step. But there is so much love and tenderness in your letter, and it is so clear that you care deeply for each other, that I don’t doubt that she’ll meet you there.

Queer Crip Love Fest: More Seen Than I’ve Ever Felt

I write you from the hallowed halls of Terminal 3 at O’Hare International Airport, awaiting my return from the annual woodsy queer bonanza known as A-Camp. We had a glorious time workshopping, Variety Night-ing, and fleeing sudden thunderstorms, and now I’m prepping for the notorious Camp Comedown. This volatile period often involves physical illness/rebellion by a body you’ve neglected for a week accompanied by feelings of heightened disgust with the patriarchy, and it can be a rough ride. So to help ease us back down to earth, this week’s Queer Crip Love Fest features a bona fide A-Camp love story.

Katie (left) and Al (right)

Al is “a fat, disabled, terminally ill, cis, Jewish lesbian” who works for a women’s geek interest site and had this to say about her partner, Katie:

“My partner and I met at A-Camp in 2015. We were instantly obsessed with each other, but she pursued me much more. We Skyped constantly, then we started dating, and now we live together! There is this moment, it’s just a second, between when we’re acting serious and when she’s acting like a wild monkey. She tries to make me laugh, to force me to enjoy my life. She is radiant light and I want to be blinded by it.”

May this sweet recounting of camp romance guide you through a truly disorienting time. Hang in there, friends.

Tell me about your work!

I am co-editor of the games section of WomenWriteAboutComics.com. I started the section almost three years ago and recently hired my co-editor (who is INCREDIBLE) because my day job had become so demanding. Now I’m mostly handling the logistical aspects of the section (soon to be its own website), while spending my days as a Director of Communications for a really great nonprofit, OneTable.

How’d you get into gaming? As a relative outsider, I’m always curious how women in gamer and geek culture navigate that space.

I’ve been gaming my entire life. My parents were very young and very poor. My dad was still a teenager when I was born and he had a Super Nintendo from one of his friends. As soon as I could hold the controller I became addicted to gaming.

For a long time I wasn’t really cognizant of how treacherous the waters can be for gamers who are not cis hetero white dudes. I played mostly one-player games and wasn’t interested in joining the world of online multiplayer. It was when I started dating other gamers that the full scope of the gaming world came into focus. I suddenly became afraid of trying out certain games and of telling strangers that I played.

That’s part of why forming a games section at WWAC was so important to me. We have our own stories to tell and our own needs that are often neglected in mainstream gaming journalism. I’ve written for some of the bigger sites and they want a specific style and particular stories. I’ve chosen to not engage in toxic stuff and to help carve out space instead.

Nailed it.

I want more of you and your partner’s origin story! It’s so cute and gay!

So! My partner, Katie, and I met at our first A-Camp where we were cabinmates. I had very recently been diagnosed with Antisynthetase Syndrome, which can be a devastating disease. It had been made clear to me that I might not make it to 40 years old. I was still processing when I got to camp and was looking forward to sort of a temporary reprieve from what had been a grueling diagnostic process.

The first night at camp we talked about what we wanted to leave behind for the duration of the trip. I told everyone about my illness, and about my fears surrounding it. I remember clearly announcing that I was not interested at all in finding someone to date. And, in an abridged version of this story, Katie and I both eventually left other relationships after months of daily Skype calls to be together. For the first while I was flying back and forth from Chicago to D.C. to spend a weekend here and there with her. It was never super stressful. We just fit. And our Skype dates went well into each night.

When she moved across the country to live together, it just worked immediately. We’re very similar in ways that matter, even though almost none of our interests overlap. (We’re also both slobs, which is important. Having just one slob in a relationship can be a struggle.)

At our second A-Camp, I spent a lot of the trip in bed. The travel was very hard on me, I’d gotten much sicker, and I ended up with a migraine. Katie reported back to me on all the activities I wanted to know about and was great at checking in without making me feel like I was bringing down the mood. Then, in our cabin’s Feelings Circle (totes normal), I shared that I was alarmed by how fast my lungs were breaking down and when it was her turn she told everyone that she was in it (our relationship) for good for all the eventual sponge baths and until I drew my last breath.

Like… she’s the love of my life. She makes me feel more seen than I’ve ever felt.

Did you go to camp expecting to meet someone? Did you feel like there was pressure to do that once you got there?

There was no pressure to find a relationship, but, for me at least, there was more opportunity for queer romance than I’d ever been faced with before. I had fully planned to just have fun and maybe make friends.

“I am learning to deal with my illness. It is swift in its changes to my body and my ability to do the things I once did. I am having to learn to be gentler with myself, to let go of things I do not want to do.”

I’m curious about the interaction between your relationship and your disability, especially its progressive aspects. Popular media like Me Before You romanticizes death as a form of liberation from disability, leans heavily on the idea of a nondisabled savior as part of that process, and goes on to make hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide. How do those kinds of narratives make you feel — do you relate to them, do you feel they represent you, or is it the opposite? How have you and Katie talked about those issues?

This is such a complicated and interesting question, and absolutely one of my favorite topics. My version of my disease is affecting me in a couple of ways: my lungs are failing, my muscles are breaking down, and I am constantly fatigued. Since it is a progressive, chronic illness, I am becoming “more” disabled with time.

My mother has been disabled for most of my life. She’s battled with a lot of complications of diabetes since childhood and became blind when I was very young. I grew up thinking disability looked like a very particular thing. I hadn’t yet met all of the incredible people I know now who live with disabilities and are happy and healthy. We didn’t have access to a lot of the resources that I now know exist (and that are at risk under the current government).

So no, I don’t see myself in any media narratives. Characters are given terminal illnesses either to kill them off or miraculously save them at the last minute. It’s never clear that sometimes terminal illnesses take a long time to kill you, that there’s so much life and joy and pain and fear and fun and frustration between diagnosis and death. Katie and I talk about this a lot — specifically about how much becoming increasingly dependent on her is going to suck, but also how much I love being alive.

How have you and Katie negotiated the reinvigorated healthcare battle? My girlfriend and I have had to have some Real Talks about where we’ll be able to live and all that, and it can get kind of scary, as I’m sure you know.

Well, it’s made me terrified of losing my job. Which, due to the progressive nature of my disease, eventually I will. I don’t know what we’ll do then. It’s a dark spot, a black hole. And while being together makes the terror less lonely, it doesn’t stop being terrifying.

I am learning to deal with my illness. It is swift in its changes to my body and my ability to do the things I once did. I am having to learn to be gentler with myself, to let go of things I do not want to do, to give up some of my favorite things (anything not on the autoimmune protocol diet, for example) in the hopes that it slows the steady march of my disease.

Also, I am happy. I’m in love. I love my jobs. I know one day we’ll need to move out of our dream apartment because I won’t be able to walk up the eight steps to the door. I know one day I’ll have to give up most of the work I am energized by because I won’t be able to stay awake long enough to be “productive.” And I know that I might be facing that day much sooner than I hope I will. Yet my life is so full of reasons to celebrate and to despair. You know, it’s life. I wake up each day in pain and discomfort, knowing it is likely the best I will ever feel. It makes me feel loved when I know that’s enough. That even though I can’t promise her a long life together, our time is enough.

“We live parallel lives that we choose to tangle together with love.”

Do you face a lot of misconceptions as a disabled and terminally ill person in a relationship with someone who is not? What is one thing you wish people understood about your dynamic?

Ha! I think people who don’t know us at all sometimes imagine she’s in a caretaker role. That’s simply not the case. We’re both busy people with very different and time-consuming interests. We live parallel lives that we choose to tangle together with love. Honestly, if anyone’s naturally the caretaker it’s me, not her. This year she declared to our group of close friends that she planned to be there until my lungs finally failed felt like the only moment in the entire world.

So what does love mean to you?

Oof. Well, I think it’s meant many things to me over the years. I have a lot of emotions and 90% are love. In my early twenties I fell in and out of love often, always desperate to remain friends and stay connected with each of my exes.

Then I was in a series of more serious, more long-term relationships and love seemed to mean that I continued to choose the other person and invest in our relationship. Now, not only with Katie, but in all of my relationships and friendships, I believe it’s something else. It’s a comfort and a choice, but also a surplus. I feel so whole on my own, now that I’m growing more into my skin, that love is a happy bonus.

Queer Crip Love Fest: We Make it Radical

On Sunday night, my girlfriend and I were at the airport (my favorite!) when a security guard asked us to clarify ourselves.

“Are you two related?”
“No, girlfriends.”
“Okay, so you guys are friends.”
“No, girlfriends. Like —”

Before I could confirm that she meant “dating each other,” he was already down the jetway, explaining to his colleague that “she’s traveling with her friend.”

Tale as old as time, really — especially for queer women. And if you add disability into the mix, you wind up with a dynamic that a surprisingly large number of people flat out fail to understand. That’s why I was excited to talk to Jax Jacki Brown, a queer crip activist, performer, writer, feminist, public speaker on LGBTQIA and disability rights, person I have long admired from across the internet, and proud co-owner of one of the sweetest and gayest relationship stories I’ve heard.

Photo by Breeana Dunbar

She had this to say about her girlfriend, Anne:

“We’ve been together for two and a half years, so of course we U-Hauled pretty quick and we have a cat. She’s a non-crip, but she’s an awesome ally. She’s read all the disability studies texts I own (which is a lot!). We talk about disability and queer rights, and she deeply engages. She gets it as much as someone who isn’t a crip can. Allyship is really core to our relationship. We spent 10 of our first 11 days together, and in true lightning-fast lesbian fashion, we’ve been together ever since.”

Enjoy our conversation on disability pride, how a wheelchair can be like a lover, and proof that poetry really does get you the babes.

Tell me more about your girlfriend!

Her name’s Anne and we officially met online, on a queer dating website. But she had seen me perform poetry at a local queer venue a few months previous to me cruising her there. She says she thought I was super cute and funny with my queer crip poetry, but apparently during the break when she was trying to summon up the courage to come say hello, I had a bunch of people around me (it was my local queer venue so I knew people) and she thought “there’s no way she would be single.” So when she saw me online and I inboxed her she was like “oh, it’s the babe from poetry.” So yeah — poetry can get you the babes!

We talked for like a week online, then she got really drunk one night and sent me her number and we had a cute phone chat, then we went on a date and really haven’t looked back since! To be honest, in true queer form, we basically spent all of our time together from the start, but we did wait almost a year before I moved in with her and her cat. And that was almost three years ago now!

She is a proud fat, femme feminist. She is generous, kind, witty as hell (she loves a good pun), sexy and just easy to love. My queer relationships prior to this one have always been high drama, so it took some getting used to being in a relationship that just worked.

Now we live in the suburbs in Melbourne, Australia, with our cat, Boo, in an old rundown house that we are trying to fix up. It sounds super normcore and boring, but it’s not; we make it radical! It’s just super lovely. It’s my safe space, my home, and she is my space to land when I’ve been out in the world doing scary, boundary-pushing queer crip activist work.

Was she familiar with disability politics before meeting you, or did you introduce her to it? How’d you go about that if it was new to her?

This is a great question! So if I’m being honest, it took me awhile to talk to her about the social model of disability, which she didn’t know about before we started dating, and the reason it took me a while — whereas normally it’s one of the first things I talk about when I’m getting to know people as friends or lovers — is precisely because I really liked her. So it meant a lot to me that she understood how important my disability politics are and what my politics are, and I guess because I was already invested, there was a lot riding on “the conversation.” It took me a good couple of months to tell her about the social model and disability rights, even though she used to ask me about it. I mean, she knew that I was speaking at things and vaguely what it was about, but that was it.

“It’s knowing that she has my back — that not only does she get it, she will fight for it, she will fight with me. She loves me just as I am.”

Part of my reluctance and fear around “the conversation” had to do with my parents’ ableism. I feared having someone I really liked dismiss me in the same way they have. I mean, logically I knew she wouldn’t, because she has a deep understanding of power, identity and social justice. But that’s the effect of ableism — the fear was still there.

When we did finally talk about it, she said something like “I’ve never heard of the social model, but of course the world and society influences how you experience your body and interactions and places.”

Was there a moment where you knew that she really “got it” and that you were safe and understood, or did it evolve over time?

It’s a combination of all the moments where something ableist happens where she is there giving me that look that says “I’m here, I’m seeing it too, you’re not alone.” It’s in those moments after something ableist happens and we come home and I debrief with her, and she is able to articulate clearly and with rage why what happened was fucked.

One example, which I’ve written about before, is when we were at a dinner party and people started talking about how of course you would abort disabled fetuses. People were agreeing as though it was the only logical option, and then my friend finally turned to me and asked what I thought. So I tried to articulate why what was being said was deeply ableist and hurtful, and Anne clearly and calmly added to my points so I wasn’t the only voice in that room holding the weight of speaking up. Then we came home, she lay in bed and held me while we talked about what happened and asked what she could have done better, how she could have been there for me more in the moment, even though it was already beautiful not to feel lonely and isolated in those moments of speaking back to ableism.

The other example that springs to mind was last year when we went home to see my parents. They said a bunch of ableist things, and when I just couldn’t be in the room with them anymore — I just couldn’t continue to clearly and calmly explain why my disability is not a tragedy — she stayed and tried to talk to them and help them through the grief they are still resolutely stuck in. Then she came and held me and reassured me that the way that I think about my body, my identity, and my politics is valid.

It’s knowing that she has my back — that not only does she get it, she will fight for it, she will fight with me. She loves me just as I am.

“There’s this assumption that even if you’re calling each other ‘love’ and ‘honey’ and holding hands and behaving as a couple that of course you can’t really be lovers or partners — you must be friends or family, because a person with a disability can’t have a sexuality, let alone a queer sexuality.”

I love that allyship in all directions is core to your relationship. Can you tell me more about what that looks like?

To be honest, I think that she does a lot more ally work in the relationship than I do, but maybe that’s because ableism is more overtly present and unless publicly talked about than other forms of oppression. I think I am a good ally to her femme identity, but I could perhaps do better with allyship around fatphobia. I feel like our queer feminist politics are pretty aligned, and we back each other up and go on cute feminist dates to feminist events.

Do you deal with a lot of misconceptions as a mixed-ability couple?

People somehow assume that she’s amazing just for being with me, that she contributes far more than I that I do to the relationship, that she must earn more than I do, that I should be forever grateful, that one day she will wake up and realize that she is with a person with a disability (like somehow she hasn’t noticed) and leave me for someone “better” — and of course that person is an able-bodied person. Oh, and we get the comment all the time “you two look like sisters!” to which we’ve started saying “yeah, sexy sisters!”

You know, there’s this assumption that even if you’re calling each other “love” and “honey” and holding hands and behaving as a couple that of course you can’t really be lovers or partners — you must be friends or family, because a person with a disability can’t have a sexuality, let alone a queer sexuality.

I mean, you know all the stuff. I’m sure you and your girlfriend get it too.

Yup. Can confirm.

“She says ‘I like how you have a sound, that’s different from how everyone else sounds. I like that I can hear you coming home, wheeling up the ramp, moving about the house, and know it is you.'”

I’m really interested in your relationship to your wheelchair, and how that factors into your relationship with Anne. Can you tell me more about that?

I love my chair; it’s a part of me, it’s a part of my identity, it’s a part of my personal space. It’s how I move through the world, it’s how I am perceived, it’s almost an extension of me. It’s not just an object; it’s almost like a lover. I wrote a poem about it around five years ago called “Do you have sex in your wheelchair?”

To be honest, I’m tired of my current chair — she is getting old and I really need a new one, but the process in Australia is so arduous and long that I always put it off until they literally start falling apart.

Anne is always very respectful of my chair; she’s careful when taking the wheels off, putting it into cars, or carrying it upstairs to be kind and gentle, because she knows how much it means to me, and also that I only have one, so it’s precious. She says “I like how you have a sound, that’s different from how everyone else sounds. I like that I can hear you coming home, wheeling up the ramp, moving about the house, and know it is you. It is familiar and beautiful. I like how you move in your chair, and how your body has a rhythm and sway to it that is just yours.”

What has the process of cultivating disability pride been like for you?
I’m sure you’re familiar with Laura Hershey’s poem “You Get Proud by Practicing,” where she says:

Remember, you weren’t the one
Who made you ashamed,
But you are the one
Who can make you proud.
Just practice,
Practice until you get proud, and once you are proud,
Keep practicing so you won’t forget.

You get proud
By practicing.

I think it is so true — practicing your pride in a society that tells you that you should be ashamed is an act of resistance and resilience. As the late and great Stella Young said, “This is possibly the most important thing anyone will ever tell you. The journey towards disability pride is long, and hard, and you have to practice every single day.” So I make sure I practice and surround myself with people who value and love me. I’m also profoundly lucky to do work in disability rights, and get paid for most of it these days.

Being queer and disabled has allowed me to live life outside the box of social expectations. It’s enabled me to deeply question society, bodies, power, identity, and to work out what I really think is important to value, what I’m really passionate about, what I believe in. It’s enabled me to become unapologetic and proud.

I try and proudly practice calling my body home, to truly inhabit my body, to feel what it feels like to live inside these muscles that bend and curl, and to feel proud of it, and no longer ashamed. This is queer crip pride.

Photo by Eddie Raft

So with all that in mind, what does love mean to you?

To me it means being seen, being truly seen — and loved — for all that I am. I think because of the effects of ableism I had been really damaged about what love could look like. The love I had experienced in the past had always been conditional and never a constant, but could always disappear without warning and be withdrawn at any time. The love I get from family has been tinged with their grief about my disability, and so it was never inclusive of it in a truly accepting and positive way. Love should push you to the edges of yourself and give you courage to go to those edges, to do the things that expand you and make you grow — but it should also give you a soft space to land, a sense of comfort and belonging and acceptance. It should call you home.

Poly Pocket: If You Don’t Take Care Of Yourself, It Just Doesn’t Work

When there aren’t any models for how you want to move through the world, it’s harder to move through the world. There’s no one right way to do ethical non-monogamy, just as there’s no one right way to do ethical monogamy, and no way is better or worse than any other, just better or worse for those involved. Poly Pocket looks at all the ways queer people do polyamory: what it looks like, how we think about it, how it functions (or doesn’t), how it feels, because when you don’t have models you have to create your own.

Ginger is a 40-year-old white femme cis woman queer polyamorous partnered and living in Oakland. She is in a long-term relationship (20 years!) and works in social justice.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed.

Carolyn: Wow 20 years!

Ginger: Yeah, it still boggles my mind it’s been that long.

Carolyn: Did you discover polyamory independently, or together?

Ginger: I think together, but we both brought our own understandings to the table. we had always from the very early days when we didn’t even admit we we were dating that we wouldn’t “own” the other.

Carolyn: What were your early discussions/negotiations around it like?

Ginger: Mostly about not ever wanting to be married and that our bodies were our own — that was somewhat centered around also agreeing we never wanted kids — but mostly we were independent people who happen to really like each other and wanted to spend ridiculous amounts of time together.

When I met my partner, Atlee, I wasn’t out to myself yet. He always had a hunch though.

I grew up in a super conservative evangelical culture. I had no role models for what gay culture was and if I had some insight it was always in context of sin and/or wrongness. Looking back I can definitely see how my queerness was deeply internalized. For example, I never dated anyone in high school. No one interested me, but that was because none of the boys were interesting to me. I couldn’t even fathom an alternative. Then college! it opened up new ways of thinking and seeing other relationships that I never had access to. I had to leave South Dakota to find myself.

In South Dakota it was very heteronormative. It was always monogamous. In Ohio, around 1996 or 1997 for the last half of my undergrad, I saw and became friends with openly queer people and was in a really active art/music community. That was the first time I had seen and heard of the term polyamory.

“Polyamory appealed to me because it felt much more honest and ethical. It was more realistic in that I know intrinsically that we can love more than one person.”

Carolyn: What about polyamory appealed to you? And when did you begin to explore it in your own life?

Ginger: Polyamory appealed to me because it felt much more honest and ethical. It was more realistic in that I know intrinsically that we can love more than one person. I think this is where being a twin comes into play in some deep level — I think about how I had to from a very early age learn how to have more than one relationship with someone. And how I had to break away at times to be independent (non monogamous on broadly defined in this case) and find my own sense of self. Being a twin was also how I knew intrinsically that I had the capacity to deeply love more than one person.

I began to test out monogamous boundaries in Ohio but nothing serious until I moved to Seattle. In Seattle, it moved from theory to practice. I knew I wanted to be in a long-term relationship with Atlee since I love him so deeply but also had real desires to explore my queerness in more open and honest ways. Being poly allows that to happen in a whole self way that I had been desperately seeking.

Carolyn: What’s your relationship structure now?

Ginger: I think it’s much more aligned with the “relationship anarchy” concept of not having a hierarchy to relationships. I have lovers and so does he. Having said that, our 20-year relationship is intimidating for others new to the scene. That’s been an interesting piece of the puzzle that can’t be ignored and I don’t want it be denied (lessons learned on that!).

There is a real magic and power to NRE (new relationship energy) which can bring in dynamics in our established relationship if I’m not careful AND I am very aware that there is a power imbalance for the new person to navigate as well.

An example in the past that I have learned from is that I would essentially spend weekends with the other person. That burned me out because I wasn’t spending enough time on my own shit and also left Atlee with the more un-fun work week me. It wasn’t as integrated as I try to practice now.

“I have a relationship to myself first. If that relationship isn’t solid and healthy I’m not good with anyone.”

Carolyn: What other things have you discovered like that?

Ginger: I think the number one thing that I’ve taken away from all the good and not-so-good relationships is that I have a relationship to myself first. If that relationship isn’t solid and healthy I’m not good with anyone. Atlee can absorb more of that since we’ve simply had more experiences together, but others not so much.

Really being honest about what I can give and how much I realistically can spend in a way that is present and curious with another person is another lesson. I like to get deep with people. that takes effort and commitment.

Carolyn: So logistically, how do you balance your relationship with yourself and NRE and your relationship with Atlee?

Ginger: These days it’s all about intention. I’m slower to introduce another partner to Atlee than in the past. I’m quicker to recognize the multiple ways in which that beautiful heart-pounding NRE passion can influence decisions.

Carolyn: How does your relationship/s shift when you get involved with someone new?

Ginger: There’s a practical shift around time spent with someone. I am less quick to spend a weekend with someone because of a hard learned lesson and really honest with the person that this is my situation. I do my best to integrate them into my whole life — even the boring work stuff or that they have to like my cat. In that sense, it’s more poly-oriented towards wanting to know and love/like a person than simply having a physically intimate relationship. Those are nice but I’ve come to the fact that a one dimensional relationship (for me) isn’t healthy.

Carolyn: It’s neat to learn that kind of thing about yourself.

Ginger: It is. I feel much like a phoenix in that regard. Out of the ashes I arose.

Carolyn: Uh oh was there a specific instance or lesson you had to learn to get there?

Ginger: Mostly that if I’m not taking care of myself in any relationship, it just won’t work. to my point about burn out. For a while, I was essentially on a sprint pace of over two years with someone consistently seven days a week. Atlee and over that two-year period with two different people. I wasn’t deep down happy with anyone, not even myself.

I own a lot of that but some partners had more pressure about my time so I was essentially trying to please everyone. Not the best boundaries,

Carolyn: How did you come back from that?

Ginger: I went on a sabbatical from everyone, minus Atlee. I did have one other now on the long-term relationship but it’s not very frequent so essentially I went underground and monogamous to myself on an arbitrary six-month timeline. I went on a date almost to the full six months. I also felt ready in the sense that I felt mostly healed from the last relationship I had been in. I was also getting nervous that I was getting rusty and too staying-at-home in a cabin fever kind of way.

“The most exciting thing is opportunity to love another deeply and in a holistic way. Integrated. I can bring all of me and I want them to bring their full self — the fun stuff and the challenging stuff. To grow with another person and have them influence me and expand beyond their own comfort edges, too.”

Carolyn: Looking at how you do things now: what’s most exciting to you about the way you do poly?

Ginger: The most exciting thing is opportunity to love another deeply and in a holistic way. Integrated. I can bring all of me and I want them to bring their full self — the fun stuff and the challenging stuff. To grow with another person and have them influence me and expand beyond their own comfort edges, too. Maybe it’s the Gemini part of me that seeks curiosity and exploration.

Carolyn: What about it is a challenge?

Ginger: Taking on too much. I want all of the fun and all the opportunities but that’s simply not practical in a way that is sustainable.

Carolyn: Where does poly intersect with other elements of your identity? How does it function within your understanding of yourself?

Ginger: I think about poly as place of openness and abundance and choices, too. That bleeds into how I do my work in regards to influencing people to not approach things in a binary mono way.

Identity-wise I think it affords me the perspective of exploring all of me with different people. I’m insatiably curious about other people’s stories and what they know and how they know things.

Poly can feel like the most deviant of all the parts of my identities. Mono culture is deep in ways that I don’t think we often fully understand. I think being queer is more understood but that being poly makes a lot of people uncomfortable. There’s a lot of negative assumptions. and our culture is structured to be so mono partnered. Even the race towards gay marriage affirms that norm. There’s a scarcity element, in the sense of that the dominant narrative and I’d argue how our society and culture is structured is that you are seeking a soul mate, one person can fulfill all your needs. That’s super limiting and, I’d argue, boring. And it means you are in a one-to-one relationship with someone without realizing how you’re in multiple relationships to others all the time, at work, with friends, family, etc. For me, standing in my poly identity allows me to see all my relationships as valuable.

Carolyn: What do you want your future to look like? What vision are you working towards or hoping for?

Ginger: My most ideal vision is to have my own apartment, Atlee has his, and I can go to and fro and as I please. I entertain the idea of bringing in other person into our current living situation but I’m not totally sure how that would would work out. At times it seems like it would be much easier and more efficient. The most consistent vision is to have deep and healthy emotion connections that bring physical benefits with probably max three people in my life, Atlee being one.

Poly Pocket: Balancing Comfort and Desire

When there aren’t any models for how you want to move through the world, it’s harder to move through the world. There’s no one right way to do ethical non-monogamy, just as there’s no one right way to do ethical monogamy, and no way is better or worse than any other, just better or worse for those involved. Poly Pocket looks at all the ways queer people do polyamory: what it looks like, how we think about it, how it functions (or doesn’t), how it feels, because when you don’t have models you have to create your own. Or be one.

Jasmine is a 23-year-old bisexual polyamorous nonbinary femme xicanx living in Los Angeles. They are currently in two very loving and growing relationships, and work as a video game designer and producer. You can find her on twitter as @jazzy_femme.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed.

Carolyn: When did you start to explore polyamory?

Jasmine: Ever since I started dating when I was a teenager, I leaned towards polyamory but never knew it could be a reality for me. I’ve always been the type of person who gets crushes pretty easily, and as a Sagittarius I never want to feel “stuck” with anything or anyone. I was monogamous with my high-school relationships, but once I was going to move away to another state for college, my then boyfriend and I started talking about opening our relationship and me dating other folx. We broke up before I moved so it never actually happened.

When I started seeing my partner, we had agreed from the beginning that we had no interest in being monogamous and that we were also free to date other people as long as we always communicated. We developed our boundaries and rules along the way and actually continue to do so because people change and grow and so do their needs and wants.

“We developed our boundaries and rules along the way and actually continue to do so because people change and grow and so do their needs and wants.”

Before meeting my girlfriend, I was more interested in casually dating. I would go on dates and meet other people and it usually didn’t work out, either because they were really weirded out by the open relationship or because we just didn’t vibe. Since being with my girlfriend, my needs have changed and I’m not really interested in casually dating. I really want to invest my time into my new and growing relationship, my established and still growing partnership, and my career, along with my own personal well-being and self-care.

Carolyn: That sounds like a really thoughtful relationship approach! You mention developing rules and boundaries with your partner; how did that come about, and what were the results?

Jasmine: It’s always been a “cross that bridge when we get to it” sort of thing. There’s a general rule of if we’re unsure, let’s talk about it to make sure. So it ends up being a really in-depth conversation with a lot of processing together about why we need this boundary or rule and if it works for the way we each individually want to live our lives. We definitely started with baby steps, trying to think about absolute boundaries we want with the idea that they could change later down the line.

Some things that have come up include hooking up and “heat of the moment” sort of things. If I’m going to hook up with someone or my partner is, how do we go about telling each other and communicating that happened/is happening? Do I ask permission beforehand? Is that always a realistic option? From that, we decided that if we were to hook up, just let each other know when we have a moment because we know letting each other know beforehand really isn’t always realistic. Same goes with dating. Letting each other know as early as possible that we’re dating someone new is always preferred as a general rule.

We’ve also talked about boundaries in how we want to fit other partners/loves into our future and what that could look like. Like I said before, my partner and I are very much in it for the long haul. They also have another partner currently living in another state and they’re also in it for long haul as things are right now, so we’ve definitely talked about the idea of living together, who would stay where, and how we would be sharing time/resources with each other.

Carolyn: In those discussions, what do you try to prioritize? And what communication strategies are in play?

Jasmine: We generally prioritize that everyone is comfortable over everyone getting what they want. It’s always a give and take, especially when there are more than two people involved.

When communicating, we definitely have a conversation together as those who would be effected by whatever decision. When we first started talking about a future living situation, it started out as multiple conversations happening at different times with different information, which led to a lot of miscommunication. We all learned from that and not ever wanting anyone to be hurt or left out of important decisions or feelings, we always try to keep everyone in the loop as a group.

“We generally prioritize that everyone is comfortable over everyone getting what they want. It’s always a give and take, especially when there are more than two people involved.”

Carolyn: Above, you mentioned boundaries and discussions with your partner; what kinds of boundaries and discussions have you had with your girlfriend?

Jasmine: While it’s a pretty new relationship, we’ve actually had a lot of discussions, especially because my girlfriend never thought she would be in a poly relationship. With my partner, we’ve been on the same page about a lot of things (hanging out with each other’s partners/people we’re dating, showing affection in front of each other, etc.), but I’ve had to have more in depth conversations with my girlfriend because she’s so new to it all.

Carolyn: What excites you about your current way of doing relationships?

Jasmine: I get so many kisses from so many cuties! When it does work out and there are no conversations to have for the time being, I get support and love and time with two really incredible human beings. I’m working through a lot of intergenerational trauma and healing from things like depression, anxiety, and an eating disorder, so it’s always comforting to know that I have a team of support and love that I can rely on. I also get to love them and shower them with kisses, affection, and support, and it’s really fulfilling for me as someone who has a ton of love to give to others.

Carolyn: What about it is a struggle?

Jasmine: Making sure that everyone is comfortable. I’m a little ball of anxiety, so sometimes I have to be reassured that everyone actually wants to be doing this and that everyone is getting their needs met. If I don’t, then I start second guessing myself and my ability to have multiple relationships.

Carolyn: What do you do to make sure your own needs are met?

Jasmine: To be honest, I’ve struggled with that in the past and I’m getting a lot better at it. I definitely take some alone time where I’m not with anyone and I focus on my own hobbies and self care-ish things. My partner and my girlfriend are also really good about reminding me to do self care like taking baths or going for walks alone. They remind me that I can’t be giving to others when I’m not giving to myself. They’re both always my biggest cheerleaders when I tell them I went to yoga in the morning or when I go take my beach walks.

Carolyn: How have your partners (however serious or casual) gotten along?

Jasmine: It’s been interesting! The last person I dated before my girlfriend was a cishet man and he was always a little awkward hanging around my super queer friends or my partner. My girlfriend and my partner have thankfully been getting along and they’re learning more about each other and developing their own friendship outside of me, which is always my ideal. I’ve also been lucky in that I get along with my partner’s partner and she’s one of my best friends.

“I used to be really jealous, but then I learned that it came from my own insecurities.”

I only have the one metamour but our relationship has evolved a lot. It was a rocky start because my partner had some history with her prior to my entry, but it all ended up working out when we started hanging out in group settings, especially finding out we had a lot of things in common. My metamour and I will text, send each other cute animal vidoes, and skype from time to time. I think I said this before, but she’s currently living in a different state so we don’t get to hang out. If she were in the same state, there would be no doubt we would also hang out and see each other pretty regularly as close friends.

Carolyn: Do you experience jealousy? If so, how do you handle it? If no, how do you prevent it?

Jasmine: I used to be really jealous, but then I learned that it came from my own insecurities of someone leaving me for someone else because the other person was “better.” With therapy, I’ve gotten WAY less jealous but there are times that jealously does come up. I’ve been able to do a lot of introspection about where that comes from and why and address it that was rather than expressing it in a way that is unnecessarily harmful.

I try to be honest and have conversation about what the jealously is directed towards once I figure that out. Like, if I feel jealous about my partner’s relationship, I’ll try to be as honest as I can with my partner and let them know I’m feeling jealous/insecure so they can give me a little more reassurance.

I say “try” because sometimes it’s really hard to admit when you’re jealous and insecure of someone else so it’s sometimes harder than other times to be open and honest about what you’re feeling.

Carolyn: That’s accurate. How do your relationships shift when you date/meet/sleep with someone new?

Jasmine: When I start seeing someone new, I’ll usually become a little more focused on the new person because you know, they’re exciting and new. It does mellow out and balance is restored once a little more time passes. My partner is thankfully always very understanding and patient and roots for me in my new romantic endeavors.

Carolyn: How out are you about being poly to friends and family?

Jasmine: I’m out to almost everyone except my family. I’m not ashamed of being poly so I try to be as open as I can, but my family is always a different story. They’re still working through the whole me being bisexual thing, so it might be a while ’till I drop something else for them to process through.

“I get different things, emotionality and physically, from different folx, and being poly has allowed me to explore that.”

Carolyn: Where does poly intersect with other elements of your identity? How does it function within your understanding of yourself?

Jasmine: It tends to intersect with my queerness and how I deal/date different gendered folx. Perfect example, I have dated so many cishet men that I have honestly become so emotionally detached so I could never see myself long-term dating another cishet man in my life. I’ve realized I get different things, emotionality and physically, from different folx, and being poly has allowed me to explore that.

Carolyn: What do you want for your future? Is there anything you’re working towards or hoping for?

Jasmine: My ideal future would be a true chosen family. Like most queer kids, I had/continue to have a less than ideal relationship with my family. Wanting to carry and have kids of my own one day, I want them to grow up being surrounded by different loving people and different relationships that are all rooted in love and support. With all of the co-parents and uncles and aunts!

Queer Crip Love Fest: Love Sounds Like Purrs

Last time on Queer Crip Love Fest, we revealed my personal biases and came down firmly on the side of Team Dog. But because I know my audience, I concede that cats, too, must have their day. Leah* is a 43-year-old software engineer and cat mom, and she reached out to me with one of the most powerful stories we’ve featured yet.

I was raised in a very abusive household. I survived incest by both my father and mother, and at 17, I escaped by going to college 600 miles away. I got fibromyalgia the spring of my freshman year. I struggled to keep up with classes because the alternative was moving back in with my parents, which I ended up doing after sophomore year anyway. A few months later I met the man I ended up marrying. He was abusive but he supported me when I was unable to work or go to school. After almost 20 years with him, I managed to escape and I’ve lived on my own since. It’s a constant struggle to support myself but I’m happier than I’ve ever been. I feel like for the first time in my life, I can finally be my true self. I consider myself a baby queer because I’ve only recently come to grips with my asexuality.

I couldn’t have made it through the years of therapy and coming to terms with the incest without my cat, Mr. Pants. I adopted him when I first moved in with my ex. He wasn’t the world’s smartest cat but he was incredibly sensitive. He could be sound asleep in another room but if I started crying he’d come get in my lap and purr until I felt better. The year he died, I adopted Sweetie Pie, another big, beautiful tomcat. He’s not quite as empathic as Mr. Pants, but he earns his name every day.

This was most expansive QCLF interview to date, and we covered so much more than I was able to include here: navigating the workforce while disabled, the relief of a correct diagnosis, internet friends, service animals, and more. Because this is Autostraddle, I’ve condensed our conversation to focus on queerness, disability, and cat stories.

I love that you consider yourself a “baby queer.” What’s it been like to come out as asexual later in life?

I’m not sure what it’s like to come out at the “usual” time of adolescence or early adulthood; not that there’s a typical journey, but mine’s certainly unusual. One thing that’s difficult to understand about sexual assault and abuse, like what I’ve been through, is that humans are wired to respond to certain touch no matter how we may feel emotionally. All too often perpetrators use that against us. It’s a painful and difficult thing for victims to cope with, this feeling that our own bodies have betrayed us.

For a long time I didn’t even know asexuality existed. Then I thought that I couldn’t be asexual because for me it’s not all asexual, all the time. I still masturbate now and then. I can imagine having sex but if given the opportunity I couldn’t work up the enthusiasm. I’d rather have a deep, thoughtful conversation or tell dirty jokes until sunrise.

I haven’t come out to many people. Most people assume I’m straight, especially if I mention past hetero relationships. I have a lot of straight privilege, and I know it. On the other hand, asexuality comes with its own set of stereotypes. People assume that we’re missing a precious piece of our humanity. I’ve heard people say that if they lost the ability or desire for sex they’d want to kill themselves. There’s a lot of crossover with disability there, too. Like somehow our lives are less than or not worth living, when we know there’s so much more to life.

I get that a lot with disability, too. My disabilities – fibromyalgia, depression, and anxiety – are invisible. When I tell people I get a lot of “but you look so healthy!” or “but you seem so normal!” First off, what the hell is normal and why do I need to be it? Second, how am I supposed to look? Do I have to be in a wheelchair? Do I need a cane? What will it take to convince you I’m not making shit up?

Oh yes, been there. So many times!

My therapists have always come at my sexuality like it’s something I needed to work on and heal from. To some extent that was true — I had a huge amount of guilt and shame I was carrying around that actually belonged to the people who hurt me. I remember one therapist saying “It’s enough that you want to want to have sex.” I’m sure that’s very useful and reassuring for most victims, but it messed me up. Even now, I want to want to have sex. Every movie, TV show, or romance novel is telling me I want to want to have sex. Of course I want to be like everyone else. Of course I want to please my (hypothetical) partner. And yes, even an asexual person can enjoy sex now and then.

“People assume that we’re missing a precious piece of our humanity… There’s a lot of crossover with disability there, too. Like somehow our lives are less than or not worth living, when we know there’s so much more to life.”

My sexuality isn’t something I need to overcome. It’s not something that’s broken or missing or was stolen from me. As far as asexuality goes, the psychology community is still stuck in their old attitudes about queerness being a mental illness.

Even in disability communities, people can throw “asexual” around like a slur — as if it’s only a negative stereotype, and not something we could actually be.

I have a lot of the gold-star asexual traits that keep most people from questioning my sexuality: I’m cis, socially adept, I’m attractive, I’m sex-positive, I’ve had hetero sex, and I look under forty. On the other hand, I’m a disabled victim of sexual abuse — but people don’t know that unless I tell them. For years, therapists and psychiatrists told me that that when I got better I’d feel sexual again. When that didn’t happen I felt like I must have done something wrong. It wasn’t until I felt like I’d healed from most of the abuse and I still didn’t want sex that those feelings were valid.

“I could be ace as fuck one day and attracted to someone the next; it doesn’t change who I am.”

It’s kind of like when I first got sick and everyone told me I was making it up or just lazy and I started to believe it. There’s so much societal pressure to be straight and to want sex, of course we feel like rejects or losers when we don’t fit that mold. I think non-cishet people are better at thinking outside the box because from the get go we’re forced to question society’s idea of what love means. I could be ace as fuck one day and attracted to someone the next; it doesn’t change who I am.

I want to talk a little bit about dating. As a disabled person the thought of dating, especially dating cishet men, is exhausting. Disabled people are twice as likely to be victims of interpersonal violence and I never want to go through that again. I believe my ex targeted me because of my disability. Intimate partner violence is all about power and control, and it’s easier to control someone who’s disabled.

For most of our relationship my ex didn’t want me to work. Over the years I learned to cope with my disabilities, healed from my trauma, and was better able to function. A few years ago my ex decided that I should work and he should stay home. I don’t entirely know why but he seemed to think that it was something I owed him, since he’d done it for me. In a healthy relationship people don’t keep score. We don’t look after our partner because we expect to be compensated down the road.

In a way that was the last straw. I decided that if I was going to work that hard, it would be for me.

I don’t think I’m in much danger of becoming a victim again. For one thing, I know what to look for. More importantly, for the first time in my life I have self-esteem and I don’t take shit from anyone. But it’s still exhausting to be on guard and be ready to fight back if someone crosses my boundaries.

“I decided that if I was going to work that hard, it would be for me.”

Does disability affect how you experience love also?

Being disabled, especially becoming disabled as a young adult, has taught me things that most people don’t learn until later, if at all. When I first got sick I used to make plans for all the wonderful things I’d do once I got better. It took some time, but I realized that life is too short to wait to do wonderful things. Maybe I can’t go skilling or backpacking the way I used to but I still love the outdoors. Instead of backpacking I’ll go for road trips, long drives through the mountains or the prairie or the desert and see the beauty of this country. I love to garden and bake and I even make berry jam. My garden is pretty accessible, too. I grow tomatoes and other crops in a self-watering planter.

Fig tree with cat cameo

At least with friendships, I find that being disabled forces you to find out who really cares and who doesn’t. I can’t predict when I’m going to feel good and when I need to stay home and rest. That makes planning ahead, even for the weekend, tricky. The friendships that lasted are with people who listened when I said, “Even though I keep canceling at the last minute, please don’t stop inviting me.” Even though it’s hard for abled people to understand what my life is like, the ones who try are the ones I keep around. They don’t say stuff like, “Well you made jam all day last weekend. I can’t see why you can’t come to my party.” They figure out that disability isn’t black and white; it’s a continuum.

“Even though it’s hard for abled people to understand what my life is like, the ones who try are the ones I keep around.”

What kind of support did you have in recovering from trauma?

I’ve been in therapy for about 20 years, so I have a lot to say about that. When I first started to recover my memories, I was very suicidal. I didn’t want to die but the pain was so bad I felt I couldn’t go on. Plus I had become disabled only two years before, had to drop out of school, was stuck living with my abusive parents—it was a mess.

I spent eight weeks, first inpatient and then outpatient, in a unit for victims of sexual trauma. The program was amazing. I’m sure I wouldn’t be alive today if I hadn’t had some kind of help. There’s something so powerful and healing about sitting around with other victims, swapping stories, making the darkest of jokes about it, and laughing your asses off.

I’m glad you had a positive experience; I know a lot of disabled people (including me) have complicated relationships with hospitals and that kind of thing.

Overall, yes. Day by day, it was difficult. That hospital was excellent but there were issues. A friend of mine got her hands on a plastic knife and scraped the hell out of her shin. The nurse decided she wasn’t going to treat it because it was self-inflicted and it got infected. The very first morning I was there, the nurse came in while I was sleeping and took blood. Can you imagine doing that to a victim of violence? I woke up with a needle in my arm and freaked the fuck out.

What? Ugh. Although truthfully, I can’t say I’m surprised.

That’s one thing I’ve learned as a disabled person. Even when I was on Medicaid I could find good health care providers, but I had to go look for them. I don’t think most people get that—how it’s a full time job just to get and keep public services when you’re disabled.

That gets overlooked so often.

The best therapists I’ve had are the ones who push me. Any good therapist will be supportive but the best ones really pay attention to what you’re saying — and not saying — and challenge your assumptions. They get you to think about how you think. It’s the reason I’ve been able to heal from so much trauma, to learn to really love myself and have healthy relationships with other people.

I wish I could bring a pet to therapy. For years I brought a stuffed tiger with me instead. I’d take that tiger with me when I had to get well woman exams, too. To hell with what people thought of a grown person carrying around a stuffed animal. Mr. Pants was jealous of that tiger.

Meet Sweetie Pie

I love that animal companionship has been so powerful for you. Tell me about Sweetie Pie!

He has his own origin story. Back in 2008, I moved from Colorado to Iowa. The day after my ex and I moved in, Mr. Pants got sick. He was only 13, but he died of cancer two weeks later. I was devastated. He helped me get through the worst of the healing from my childhood trauma. He was super special.

I started volunteering at my local animal shelter in Iowa. (They’re awesome and deserve a shout out: the Animal Rescue League of Iowa in Des Moines.) One day I was visiting with the cats and spotted this big, beautiful guy. I opened the cage and started to pet him. He immediately turned upside down and licked my nose. It was like he’d decided I was going to be his mom now.

He’d had a rough time of it, too. I don’t think he’d ever been inside a house before — he was fascinated by the toilet! He was really scared of dogs and thunder. So I was gentle with him and he was gentle with me and the rest is history.

Oh gosh, that’s wonderful. What is it about animals that feels so comforting and healing?

I learned from an early age that it was dangerous to trust people. Because of severe allergies, I couldn’t have a pet until I was a teenager. I was lucky enough to be able to take riding lessons and I loved being around the horses. I’d spend hours in the barn, brushing the horses and talking to them. Touch is such a powerful and underrated thing, especially for victims of abuse and people with disabilities. Animals are one way for us to find the love and affection we so desperately need in a safe way.

“There’s something so satisfying about having a limp, drooling cat asleep in your lap. It’s such a powerful sign of absolute trust and love.”

Cats have been elemental to me learning about healthy boundaries. They tell you where the line is and enforce it. It’s a beautiful thing. I think animals teach us humility. If we want to communicate, we have to learn their language. Like with Sweetie: I approached him slowly, let him sniff me, and said hello in a cat-friendly way. That’s why it took him all of 30 seconds to decide he wanted me to rub his belly!

I’m glad that people seem to be getting better at accepting the deep bond between people and pets. Some people have more superficial relationships to their pets and that’s fine, but for me it’s always been a deep, mutual friendship. Yes, sometimes Sweetie just wants me to feed him, but he loves me for more than food. There’s something so satisfying about having a limp, drooling cat asleep in your lap. It’s such a powerful sign of absolute trust and love. Maybe I’m like a cat because I don’t trust easily and I can appreciate what a gift that trust is.

“You can’t tell me animals don’t get sarcasm.”

For years my ex felt safe to me because at least he never hurt me sexually. The abuse made me feel unlovable, but my cats have proven to me every day that’s not true. And cats aren’t like dogs; they’re a little more conditional with their love. Even if they love you, they don’t pass out in your lap unless they trust you. To me, love feels like a warm, limp, happy body in my lap and sounds like purrs.

My cat likes to tell me he loves me by acting like I’m the worst cat mom in the world. I think it’s a cat thing. Like when we were driving a thousand miles in the U-Haul and he hated every minute of it. I knew he was okay because of the way he’d glare at me. You can’t tell me animals don’t get sarcasm.

Classic cat.

Yup! Now that I’m older, I get the Crazy Cat Lady label sometimes. But because of my experiences, it’s easier for me to think outside of “normal.” I’ve lived such a difficult, challenging life. I see people my age giving in to societal or family pressure and doing what’s expected of them, whether that means going to college, picking a career, getting married, or having children. My experiences pushing myself to my limit in college showed me that there’s so much more to life than work. I learned early that if you don’t feel good, nothing else matters much.

*Leah is her chosen pseudonym.

Queer Crip Love Fest: The Two Great Loves of My Life

By all accounts, I am one of those people who just needs to get a dog already. I will — will — lavish affection on every dog I encounter, whether or not I’ve met their owner before. I let a stranger’s Pit Bull/Corgi mix sit in my lap and lick my face for a good ten minutes on International Women’s Day. I’m still wondering about whether the stray I saw in my neighborhood months ago found a forever home. Current logistics and finances make pet ownership a no-go, and I refuse to adopt any dog until I know I can give it a life full of cuddling, constant attention, and great snacks. But I’m still a firm believer that there are few loves purer than that between a Dog Person and their canine pal.

So when Kaety, a 20-year-old nonbinary actor, artist, and activist, reached out to me about “the two great loves of [their] life”:

“First is my almost-four-year-old dog, Denim. I’ve had him since he was a puppy, and he had become my therapy dog. Not only does he regularly get me out of panic attacks, he helped me survive during some of my darkest hours. His rambunctious personality keeps me on my toes often, but he wouldn’t be himself without a bit of trouble.

Then there’s my fiancé, Matt. His patience and acceptance of even the most difficult parts of my life had always been absolutely natural. I lived with him through the worst parts of my illness so far, and he has always kept me grounded.”

… I knew we had to talk.

What does love mean to you?

That’s a really interesting question for me right now because I’ve had some tough family stuff go on. I’ve always had a complicated family; I don’t have many blood relatives I am close to whatsoever. So family love has come from friends as much as relatives. I’ve found that love is someone who is going to be there and understand you, even if they can’t follow everything that’s going on. Even if they don’t get every intricate part of what you’re going through, they’re still there, and they’re still gonna respect you.

A quiet, understated, but always there love makes me feel best. For me, love is positive attention with respect of my boundaries and moods. I love very deeply, and invest a lot in those I love, and sometimes that can hurt, but that’s how my heart is.

Especially since I have a chronic illness, sometimes I can’t be as affectionate with people as I want to be. Often, my skin will just be hypersensitive, and if I even just touch a hard corner of something, it hurts like a burn, almost. That’s hard for a lot of people who care about me. Sometimes I have to place really strict boundaries and be like “I can’t even hug people today, because it hurts.” That has been a problem for some people who have known me for a long time. They’re like “But this isn’t how you used to be.” And I’m like “Well, I have to preserve myself, to some extent.” It does get in the way.

So if you’re having a day where hugging is not an option, what are some other ways that you show affection?

I like being able to touch someone briefly, even if it’s just their arm or their hand. Or just sitting next to someone and actually being there with them — that means so much more to me than any of the physical stuff does, in the long run. If you’re gonna be there and spend time with me, help me distract myself from all the maintenance I have to do on my body, that’s what means the most. Sometimes it does mean just sitting on the couch talking. I can’t always go out to lunches and stuff. I can’t always drive. And so people understanding and still taking the time to be with me during that means a lot.

“Love, for me, is positive attention with respect of my boundaries and moods.”

It sounds like your fiancé does a good job with that.

He was raised by a parent who’s disabled, so his outlook on that is very unique. She home schooled him for a brief amount of time too. He is able-bodied, pretty strong, pretty able to work long hours, which is very helpful for me since I’m not able to stand on a concrete floor for nine hours a day anymore. He, fortunately, also enjoys that, so he’s been able to help us progress. We started out literally living in his parents’ home; that’s where we moved in together. And we gradually got to an apartment, and now we’re in a house, and that’s huge.

Having a safe, stable place to live where I don’t have to go up a flight of stairs or deal with noises from other people that keep me from sleeping has improved my life significantly.

It’s interesting that you bring up the division of labor, because I think a lot of people have questions and/or are skeptical when it comes to a disabled and an able-bodied person together. “What could you possibly be contributing to this relationship?” And not even just from outside — there’s the whole internal “Don’t burden this person who’s already doing all this for you!” thing. This idea that even being with you is a favor.

We haven’t had an issue with that — again, I think that’s largely because he grew up with a disabled person in his household. But he also does understand that having a disability takes work. It is sometimes a full-time job. And he understands that on days when I have energy, I get a lot done! I have pushed through and done things I definitely wasn’t able to do years ago.

How did you meet?

We actually met at community college, in our Community Chorus class.

Oh, yay! That’s so cute!

He was a music major; I was just there because I enjoy music and was like “I should probably try and make friends sometimes.” I got to know him because he was a very popular music student, so the conductor would call him out and have him do example stuff for us. So I knew his voice before I ever knew him. Which, I mean, it’s just so sappy.

Apparently he had tried to talk to me at some event, but it was somewhere that had been hard to drive to and I was a new driver, so I blew him off because I was distracted. But we ended up at an end-of-year party for the chorus and talked then. Our first date was the most recent Godzilla movie, and it was only a few months after that that we moved in together. We got along immediately.

“I was already identifying as nonbinary when we started dating. And on our second date, I came out to him… And he took it fine, which none of my previous partners had. He was just like, ‘Okay.’ And that was huge for me.”

Were you already identifying as disabled when you met him?

No. I was aware that something wasn’t right in my body, but I thought it was due to depression. I’ve always had depressive issues in some form or another. So I definitely wasn’t identifying as disabled, but I was having a large number of the issues I deal with now. It’s obviously super complicated. It was really once I started feeling real physical effects and was unable to do certain things — I ended up dropping out of college, even though I started early, because I was too sick to go to class. It was around then when I was like “This is definitely not normal anymore,” y’know? “This is not a reasonable, expected amount of pain in a lifetime.”

I know that line is so blurry; I also know that my physical and mental health issues interact a lot. Most of the time, I don’t really know where the lines are between those. Which is complicated! It’s hard when an anxiety attack will bring on a fibro flare up. Personally, I think a disability is when it starts keeping you from doing something you want to do. But that’s only based on experiences I’ve had, and it’s obviously super individual.

Especially since I was diagnosed pretty young — a lot of fibromyalgia isn’t caught until you’re closer to your forties — I couldn’t relate to the experiences of other people, who were like “Oh, this was brought on by menopause” or something. I’m like, “I’m 18 and I have this.” There are people who, when I say I have a chronic illness and try to talk about it will be like “Well, you’re just an adult now.” I mean, yes, but also, this is real. It does keep me at home a lot. I do have a weakened immune system. I’m not making this up. So it was so important that he believed me and understood.

I was already identifying as nonbinary when we started dating, though. And on our second date, I came out to him — which was a little scary, because I wasn’t as publicly presenting as I am now. I still looked pretty cis and I was vastly underweight. And he took it fine, which none of my previous partners had. He was just like, “Okay.” And that was huge for me.

“There are people who, when I say I have a chronic illness and try to talk about it, will be like ‘Well, you’re just an adult now.’ I mean, yes, but also, this is real. I’m not making this up.”

That’s so validating. So with the progression of your disability, both physically and in your understanding of it, did he take that well also?

Yes. Right after I moved in with him was when I started hitting my sickest, because I was experiencing a lot of stress and not receiving any real treatment. And I ended up dropping out of school and almost not leaving the house for three or four months. Nothing beyond going to the grocery store, if that. And that was really tough. I had just turned 18, so I was really young. And he took that so well.

He saw every day how sick I was, and how much, every day, I would want to get stuff done. He ended up getting a degree and working full-time, just working on improving skills outside of the college environment. Neither of us is a very traditional learner. But I think his parents being who they are really benefited him, and ultimately ended up working in my favor with him understanding a lot of things right off the bat.

He wants to be a bigger activist in the community. He appears very cishet, and he is cis — but he’s always been attracted to nonbinary people and just not known the term for it. Most of the people he gets along best with are trans or gay. So he’s looking to do a lot more activism. And he’s started wearing nail polish at work. Y’know, he works at Home Depot — he has a lot of conservative coworkers who think it’s okay to say shitty stuff. So he does that just to remind them.

What kind of activism do you do?

Well, I grew up right outside of D.C. — so, that is to say, with too much politics. It’s part of the reason I left. But for years I’ve done activism as just a part of my life. I started helping at polling centers as a child. I’ve been to, I think, all the inaugurations I’ve been alive for except for this most recent one. I’ve been to counter-protests for Westboro Baptist Church, and I was on the steps of the Supreme Court the day before the marriage equality vote. Activism has been a part of my life since I was born, and I can’t just ignore that as an adult.

Recently I’ve been involved with the Degenderettes, which is a queer femme activism group. A lot of activism, art, and community outreach and safety. It’s founded by trans femme people. They definitely deal with a lot of disability conversations as well. I’m the leader of the group up here, and they’ve been great.

Okay, I’ve been saving this: tell me about your dog!

He’s actually here with me right now, being a big sleepy baby. His name’s Denim. I rescued him at around four months, and they told me he was some sort of retriever, but they were very wrong. He’s actually a Catahoula Leopard Dog. It’s the Louisiana state dog, actually. And they’re known for being extremely loyal.

He got attached to me very quickly, so as a puppy anytime he was away from me he’d just destroy stuff. And he wouldn’t sleep at night. But now he’s about four years old and has been one of the best companions for me. He’s not as energetic as he used to be, but he’s such a troublemaker and the most loyal dog I’ve ever met. He’s next to me at all times he can be. He knows when I have panic attacks or when other people have panic attacks, and usually he’ll either try and crawl in your lap or start acting out and causing trouble. I know that as a cue now: if I’m showing anxiety that I might not even notice and he’s acting out, I need to evaluate how I’m feeling. He’s never been trained for it or anything; he just does it.

Right now he’s certified as a psychiatric comfort dog. I’m going to work on getting him certified as a higher-level care dog, so I can bring him to events and stuff. Because he’s amazing with people. I can take him on planes, but it’s not as easy as if I had the other certificate. Plus I want to take him to Pride and stuff like that.

“My dog knows when I have panic attacks or when other people have panic attacks, and usually he’ll either try and crawl in your lap or start acting out and causing trouble. I know that as a cue now. He’s never been trained for it or anything; he just does it.”

How has Denim helped you navigate your disability better?

He definitely knows when I’m having anxiety and over-obsessive tendencies. He can tell when I’m starting to mentally lock up, and has gotten very good at telling me that I’m doing that. He’s basically a nurse dog: he lays next to me when I’m sick and is very calm. He doesn’t get into as much trouble then. He gets me out and about, gets me to talk to people. I’ve met people who don’t like dogs who like him.

In general, it’s just the companionship. When I got him, I was alone a lot and lived in an area where I couldn’t walk to restaurants or anything. So he has been a live-in companion. And he’s got such a big personality.

You mentioned earlier not being able to show physical affection all the time, and sometimes dogs can want to jump on you just because. Has that ever become an issue?

Once in a while. He does have long nails, and since I bruise easily, I’ll just get a lot of bruises that are lines up and down. Now that we’re in a house, we spent some extra money and fenced in the yard, so that’s been good in terms of running around. We open the door and he just sprints. He’s learned to be a dog without other dogs.

He’s been such a companion, and a real lap dog since the day I met him. I sat on the ground, he came over and sat in my lap, and I was like “I guess this is my dog now.” Also, I got him right after I was diagnosed as bipolar. And so he was there all through that.

Did you face similar issues of being believed and taken seriously — which it sounds like was an issue with your fibro — with your bipolar diagnosis?

To an extreme extent, yes. I was pretty lucky to get diagnosed early at 16. But I faced some pushback from my therapist at the time. And I would have friends’ parents tell me they didn’t believe in me taking meds. I would tell them “I probably would be dead without these,” and they’re still like “You’re too young for that.”

I get that we don’t want to start “too early,” but sometimes it is necessary. And that needs to be understood. It was bizarre — and because I was still considered a child, people would feel comfortable saying things like that to my face. But even at that age, I wasn’t having it. And because my mom started taking medication for depression when I was young, she understood that they have life-saving properties. That was lucky.

I was very fortunate to hear about fibromyalgia and get my diagnosis as early as I did. Both of my parents believed me, which was convenient, and I already knew what to do. So I was really well prepared, and I’ve helped a lot of other friends with chronic pain start to address and understand that, as a young person, you shouldn’t have constant pain. That’s not addressed enough! And it’s definitely a thing. So I do that in the community a bunch and I want to do more.

It’s such a complicated thing because there isn’t really one answer — as with many chronic illnesses. There’s never just one answer.

Poly Pocket: Polyamory and Recovery

When there aren’t any models for how you want to move through the world, it’s harder to move through the world. There’s no one right way to do ethical non-monogamy, just as there’s no one right way to do ethical monogamy, and no way is better or worse than any other, just better or worse for those involved. Poly Pocket looks at all the ways queer people do polyamory: what it looks like, how we think about it, how it functions (or doesn’t), how it feels, because when you don’t have models you have to create your own.

Aden Carver is a 28-year-old white genderfluid bisexual polyamorous person living in Telluride, CO. She is solo and dating, in recovery from an eating disorder/anxiety/depression, volunteering as a ski instructor for an inclusive adaptive program, making money as a server and making joy as a songwriter and performer.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed.

Carolyn: When did you start to explore polyamory?

Aden: Looking back at my childhood and adolescence, my polyamorous tendencies are very evident. But the extremely conservative religious environment I was raised in suppressed this and my queerness deeply. I experienced many intense female friendships that were very relationship-like, which I think is a common queer experience, and I was certainly crushing on multiple people at the same time. In college I dated a man I had been in love with for years. We were very close, we wrote music and performed together. When we finally entered a relationship, I sabotaged it and cheated with a queer person. At the time, I thought it was because I must be a lesbian, but in reality it was that the only choice of a future with him was marriage and children. I didn’t have the language to understand how I could both deeply love him, and also not want that future. I first came across the language of polyamory at some anarchist gatherings and festivals when I was 21. After a few discussions and failed attempts in different relationships, at 26 I found myself single and decided to pursue polyamory on my own. At the same time I was finally accepting my bisexuality after being out as a lesbian for several years. From that point forward, monogamy was a deal breaker for me. I told everyone I hooked up with or dated up front what I was looking for. If they weren’t down with it, we didn’t date. I’ve been firmly practicing this now for two years, and my current partner is the first one who stuck.

Carolyn: So what’s your relationship like right now?

Aden: Currently, I have one consistent partner, a bisexual cis man who I have been seeing for about a year. It’s the first polyamorous relationship either of us have been in, so we are definitely learning and making it up as we go along. He is very out and proud of his sexuality, as am I, and I think the fact that we are both queer makes us much more compatible. We are also very out and open about our polyamorous status in our community, which is important to me. I’ve had many casual encounters outside of that, but none have blossomed into more intimate relationships. I’m definitely trying to date and find additional partners, but it’s proven difficult to find like-minded folks in this tiny mountain town. I consider myself to be more solo polyamorous, I don’t wish to live with a partner or be involved financially. My autonomy and freedom are important to me, and my mental health has improved greatly since I’ve focused on maintaining those areas.

“Polyamory really helps me to focus on myself, what I really need and want. And also forces me to communicate that, since there are no givens.”

Carolyn: On the topic of mental health, above you mentioned recovering from an eating disorder/anxiety/depression – can you tell me more about how that relates to how you do poly?

Aden: When I’ve been in monogamous relationships in the past, it’s been very easy for me to be swallowed whole by them. To lose myself completely in trying to make that person happy and ignore whatever is going on in my own body and mind. Also relying on one person to meet my emotional and physical needs was very ineffective, causing me to feel I was too much and too demanding.

Polyamory really helps me to focus on myself, what I really need and want. And also forces me to communicate that, since there are no givens. It also has helped me seek emotional support across a wide variety of relationships, some romantic and some not, and to put more value in my friendships. The focus of communication and boundaries really helps with my anxiety as well, and I like that I get to decide with each partner what our communication and boundaries look like.

Carolyn: When did you start to discover that focus? Was there a specific moment that made you think oh, this is the way I need to run my life?

Aden: It was a slow realization. There was a time when I first was exploring polyamory that I was really struggling, I was talking to a person long distance and it wasn’t a healthy or secure relationship. All of my monogamous friends said, “Obviously you can’t do this, it’s making you miserable.” But I was determined, I knew I wanted to be polyamorous. After moving to CO and beginning my relationship with this partner, I began to really see how this practice is better for me. I wasn’t as obsessed with making him like me, I allowed things to move more organically. It required less mental energy, and I was able to focus more energy on myself. I wasn’t trying to be functional for him, I was doing it for myself. I also wasn’t as attached to the outcome, I had no idea that a year later we would be saying “I love you” and discussing all of our crushes together. That all happened and grew of its own accord, without me being hyper focused on it. And because I was able to focus more on myself, I feel the most recovered I have been since I began treatment in 2013.

And – something I think about a lot is cheating. I fit the bisexual stereotype of “cheater.” I cheated in most of my monogamous relationships. At the time, I was shamed by my partners and ashamed of myself. I didn’t understand that I was communicating with myself. My actions were telling me that the relationships I was in were not right for me, and when the walls were closing in, I didn’t have the language to understand why, so I acted instead to sabotage them. Polyamory has freed me from that.

“[Polyamory] makes me even more grateful for each brief, passionate experience with people without wishing it was more than it could be.”

Carolyn: What do you find most exciting about your current approach to relationships?

Aden: I love the freedom and spontaneity! I love that I am free to connect with anyone I meet. It makes me even more grateful for each brief, passionate experience with people without wishing it was more than it could be. And I love being able to discuss my crushes and experiences with my partner. That was a level of openness I wasn’t sure I could achieve. The first time he hooked up with someone else and told me about it, I was afraid of how I would feel. I didn’t want it to undo my desire to be polyamorous. When he told me, I had what I can only describe as a huge rush of adrenaline. A ton of energy, but it was neither positive nor negative. It was like “Ok, this happened and I’m still here, he’s still here, the sky hasn’t fallen like everyone said it would.” It was amazing and empowering. It was so affirming of what I already believed, but had yet to experience: that you do not have to have possession of someone else’s body and sexuality in order to have profound intimacy and trust.

Carolyn: What do you find is a struggle?

Aden: Right now outside of my partner I only have some potential connections brewing. I imagine once I have other partners at a similar level of intimacy as I do to him there will be new struggles. At the moment, my main struggles have been just trying to have healthy communication and interaction in our relationship, not even poly stuff, just the stuff between the two of us as humans. I had a really hard time opening up to him and trusting him at first, he has been very patient. I had this false belief: “Well no one wanted to stay with me when I was monogamous, so why would anyone stick around for this?” He was hesitant at first, it was a totally new concept for him. But he has continually surprised me and my trust in our partnership has grown and deepened. So I just want to continue to nurture that as I date and meet new people.

I also struggle living in a place that has very little queer community. I really long for friendships and dating relationships with other queer women and persons. That has been very difficult to find. My tinder is very sad, but I keep it on, just in case!

Carolyn: How do things shift when you do date or meet new people?

Aden: Well so far, all of my crushes outside of this partnership have gone nowhere. So right now, if I have a date or a crush I talk to my partner about it and he’s supportive. He isn’t actively seeking other partners like I am; his connections with others have been pretty spontaneous and casual. He usually tells me about them after the fact. We don’t really keep a regular schedule of seeing each other, so these outside connections have, so far, had little impact. We will see what the future holds. There is one person who we have both connected with separately, who has expressed a desire to interact with us together. I’m not sure what impact that will have, but I am excited to explore it!

“I’ve learned to balance my directness with patience, by allowing things to grow organically but also disclose my intentions and needs when the time is right.”

Carolyn: What have you learned about communicating with your partner (and potential partners in any sense)?

Aden: I have to continually remind myself that not everyone’s communication style matches my own. I am a very direct and immediate processor. My anxious brain runs away on the crazy thought train if I am not able to discuss things right away. My partner takes a little more time to process things. We are both very stubborn and care maybe too much about fairness and “rightness” in a conflict, rather than the other person’s feelings. Our Aquarius and Leo egos butt heads sometimes. So I’ve learned that we are often unable to resolve an argument right away, the next day is better. Thanks to my eating disorder, I’ve had more than my fair share of therapy, so I understand the use of “I” vs. “You” statements more than others sometimes. I try to stick to that script when explaining how I feel. With crushes and potential partners, I’ve learned to balance my directness with patience, by allowing things to grow organically but also disclose my intentions and needs when the time is right.

Carolyn: What do you want your future to look like? What vision are you working towards or hoping for?

Aden: In the future I want to be as free and self-sufficient as possible. I want to travel extensively and live in a variety of places. I don’t want children or a partnership that tries to keep me in one place. I am seeking partners that can have that kind of transience and flexibility. Despite the lack of queerness, the place I live is growing on me (astounding natural beauty is hard to pass up) and is an ideal home base for extensive traveling because of the seasonal nature of the tourism. So for the next few years I can see myself traveling and home basing from here, developing myself further as a performer and artist, dedicating more of myself to activism, deepening my relationship with my partner and hopefully adding a couple new ones to the mix. Polyamory has given me so much confidence and really grounded me in myself. I feel more capable than ever and excited for my future.

39 Truly Innovative Ways You Described Your Relationship Status On The Autostraddle Reader Survey

Last year’s Autostraddle Reader Survey gave us a fascinating look at all of your thoughts, feelings, dreams, beliefs, and online shopping patterns. One of the questions we asked was about your current relationship status. Here’s how those numbers shook out:

But — SURPRISE! — many of you had more feelings about your relationship status than could be accurately conveyed by simply checking a box.

So, here are some of your very best and most illuminating answers to “what is your relationship status,” ripped mercilessly out of context and listed here for our communal enjoyment.

1. just kissed this polyamorous human last night so we’ll see

2. kissing my room mate and not sure if we’re dating. help

3. we call each other “blorp” and “lovah-friend”

4. I have a massive crush on my very best friend so there’s that unfortunate situation.

5. I’ve sort of moved into my girlfriend’s apartment and we have a cat together so we’re basically married

6. tragic

7. Desperately single PLS DATE MEEEEEEEEE

8. LTR with self

9. In “it’s complicated” with grad school

10. Oh dear God I have no clue right now, it’s a mess!

11. Like tim gunn Im single with no plans of ever not being

12. aannd sleeping with my straight best friend

13. Spinster 4 lyfe.

14. In a Significant Relationship with a person that is definitely not dating, nope, that would be scary.

15. 5ever alone

16. Poly triad with one cis gray-ace queer gal and one gendervague demisexual heteroflexible AMAB person

17. I live with an ex girlfriend, but we live on separate floors of the house. it’s complicated.

18. Dumped a week ago :'(

19. LOVE IS A LIE

20. Cat lady forever, probably

21. Desperately pining for the cute queer Hot Topic employee who complimented my yellow doc martens the other day

22. Celibate spinster. It’s not functionally congruent to “single”, trust me.

23. In a long term monogamous relationship with my PhD dissertation

24. Can’t be arsed to talk to people

25. we got in a really bad fight today, so i’m not sure. ughhhh

26. Complicated fucker

27. Single as of last night

28. Fuckbuddy

29. Single as a mothafudgin’ pringle

30. In like kind of a thing

31. CRUSHING HARD ON A GIRL

32. Pining and depressed, emotionally taken

33. Pining over a straight girl

34. Pining over my ex

35. Holding out for a hero

36. Dating in theory, shy introvert in practice.

37. Can’t wait to be married to her, but we have no idea how to plan a wedding
please send help

38. In the words of Facebook, it’s complicated

39. My current human is doing her PhD, which she often jokes is her “wife.” This makes me the mistress!

TAG YOURSELF obviously I’m 19, but also 35, because the lyrics to that song were the entirety of my JDate profile in 2004. It’s still true.

Poly Pocket: The Communication Cushion

When there aren’t any models for how you want to move through the world, it’s harder to move through the world. There’s no one right way to do ethical non-monogamy, just as there’s no one right way to do ethical monogamy, and no way is better or worse than any other, just better or worse for those involved. Poly Pocket looks at all the ways queer people do polyamory: what it looks like, how we think about it, how it functions (or doesn’t), how it feels, because when you don’t have models you have to create your own.

Mona is a 28-year-old Arab-American, queer, demisexual, ethically non-monogamous, cis woman living in the urban Midwest. She is in a primary partnership and is a social science PhD student. “Mona” is a pseudonym.

This interview has been lightly edited.

Carolyn: When did you start to explore polyamory?

Mona: I moved to the East Coast from the Midwest four years ago. Shortly after my move, I began trying things, namely kink and polyamory, that I had wanted to try for some time but didn’t feel were possible before. I started meeting people off of OKCupid, who then introduced me to their friends and a broader community of folks who practice ethical non-monogamy. Everything snowballed from there.

Carolyn: What does your relationships relationship look like right now?

Mona: My current relationship and my approach to building new relationships are shaped by agreements I’ve made with my primary partner over the course of our three-year relationship. While we started our relationship with no rules, no expectations, and no hierarchy, we agreed a year ago to transition into a primary partnership, something more hierarchical, before we moved in together. We both date other people, but at the end of the day, we come home to one another.

“Building my relationships from scratch is the most exciting part of all of this. There are no predetermined expectations, only principles: respect and transparency.”

Carolyn: Why did you decide to make that transition?

Mona: I decided to ask for that transition based on some really intense feelings — fear, jealousy, anger. I want kids, I want something very long-term, and, if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t want that with a group of people. I want that with one other person. On top of that, I didn’t want to be my metamours’ equal. I wanted to be #1. So I was having all of these intense and negative feelings based on long-term relationship goals and our relationship agreements at that moment. So I went to my partner and said, “Hey, these are the things I want and am feeling. Can we be primaries now?” And he was like, “Yeah, cool. I feel like that’s what we’re doing in practice anyway.”

Carolyn: What about that has been a struggle? What about it has been most exciting?

Mona: It’s been difficult since day one to determine when my feelings are my problem or someone else’s. Like is this coming from a place of insecurity or past trauma totally unrelated to this relationship? Or did my partner actually wrong me in some way? The answer to those questions determines how I approach communicating my feelings and needs to my partner. It gets easier with practice, but it’s still not easy.

Building my relationships from scratch is the most exciting part of all of this. There are no predetermined expectations, only principles: respect and transparency. All expectations must be articulated and agreed upon. I love that. I feel truly free in my relationships.

Carolyn: How does your primary relationship shift when you date or sleep with someone new?

Mona: So far, it hasn’t shifted. It just stays the same. But it wasn’t always that way. Like I said, I used to have all sorts of strong, bad feelings. But over time, we have figured out how to communicate with one another about new partners. We both have different wants and needs on that front. I want to know who that person is, when they were last tested, what their intentions are, what my partner’s intentions are, and if and when those intentions change. My partner is fine knowing much less. The ways of communicating that we’ve developed over time have cushioned our primary relationship, so far, from the impact of new connections.

Carolyn: On your form you wrote you’d just moved to your city, and were planning to date to make friends there. How’s that going?

Mona: Hah! It’s going. I’ve been on two dates. They were both nice. I’ve maintained a connection with one of the people. Actually, she taught me how to knit last week and I knit my partner a scarf! So building meaningful relationships here is happening, but slowly.

“I want to maintain healthy romantic and sexual relationships through everything life has to throw at me. I think that so long as I have my people by my side, I can get through.”

Carolyn: Do you usually incorporate building relationships through poly and dating into the way you make friends, or is that new to this city?

Mona: It’s what I did by accident when I moved to the East Coast. In fact, most of my friends there I met through online dating sites, though not directly. It was this huge network of people who met that way. I met some of my closest friends through friends who were really good at online dating, so I figured I’d try it here.

Carolyn: Where does poly intersect with other elements of your identity? How does it function within your understanding of yourself?

Mona: I think if you asked me that a year ago or two years ago, I would have said it’s central to my understanding of myself in the same ways that my class background, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality are. But now I’m not so sure. Those other elements of my identity and social position have a much greater bearing on my everyday life. That’s in part the product of my disengagement with a predominately white, wealthy, hetero poly scene. It’s also because I haven’t had the time or desire to date; I just want to spend my time with people I already know and love.

Carolyn: What do you want your future to look like? What vision are you working towards or hoping for?

Mona: Very broadly, I want to be happy and healthy. I intend to do everything in my power to see that through. More specific to this interview, I want to maintain healthy romantic and sexual relationships through everything life has to throw at me. I think that so long as I have my people by my side, I can get through this PhD program, a job search, having and raising children, any illness I’m affected by, etc. I will continue to build and maintain the close relationships I need by practicing relationships that are guided by principles of respect and transparency, where every expectation is articulated and agreed upon by all parties.

Queer Crip Love Fest: Radically Vulnerable Feminist Pep Talk

All photos courtesy of Alaina Leary 

Happy Aggressively Affectionate Week, everyone! Did you do Valentine’s Day? Galentine’s Day? Gal Palentine’s Day? My girlfriend and I celebrated early with a fancy dinner on Sunday night followed by a few solid hours of video games. I’ll take Dragon Age over crowded restaurants every time. But I’m also a big ol’ squishy romantic at heart — and so I’m excited to introduce this week’s Queer Crip Love Fest guest.

Alaina is a 24-year-old grad student living in Boston and working in book publishing for kids and young adults. She’s not a fan of Donald Trump, Bury Your Gays, Autism Speaks, or the lack of diverse representation in books. But she loves her girlfriend Macey, whom she described like so:

“I love that she’s selfless and the way she cares about people. I can see it in her eyes when she’s thinking up a great present for someone, I can hear it in her voice when she calls someone to make them feel better. We can be stuck together in the most awful situation, like we’ll be in an airport waiting hours for a delayed flight, but it doesn’t matter because we’re together, we make it fun. She’s the kind of person you want to be stuck in an airport with. She’s the kind of person who, when she comes into the room, it’s a better room than it was before.”

They’re high school sweethearts. They met in Agricultural Mechanics class. On the first day. Keep reading, y’all — this one is a goodie.

Okay, first I want to talk a little about you because I’ve admired your work for so long. Can you tell me about your grad program?

I’m studying for my Master of Arts in Publishing and Writing. I started in September 2015, right after undergrad, and I will graduate in May of this year. Most of my focus has been in online and book publishing. I’ve taken a lot of classes in electronic publishing, editing and writing, business and innovation, book publicity, stuff like that. Right now I’m in a class where we’re writing stories for the Boston Globe Magazine. We’re going to pitch those stories to them and be accepting assignments from them on the local community — so I’m hoping to sneak some marginalized stories in there if I can.

Yes, that’s great! You’ve also worked with Disability in Kidlit in the past, right? I know they’re going on a break, but they’re such an awesome resource that I’d love to hear more about that.

Yes! I have written for them before. I’m not one of the founders — though I wish I were, because what a great idea — but I’ve written some reviews for them and am friends with the people who started it. Disability in Kidlit is an important site because it, to my knowledge, is the only one that focuses on disability representation in children’s, middle grade, and young adult lit. Possibly even in any lit!

I’ve been working with the nonprofit We Need Diverse Books for a while now, and a lot of what I’ve done with them is dependent on Disability in Kidlit, Latinxs in Kidlit, and Gay YA. All these sites are feeding into these groups of marginalized people whose stories aren’t being represented. Book reviewers aren’t necessarily vetting these books for whether or not they’re good representation, and that’s what sites like Disability in Kidlit do.

What have you been doing for We Need Diverse Books?

I’ve mostly done social media for them since last year. I went to BookCon back in June 2016 and livetweeted their young adult panel, which had some great authors like Leigh Bardugo, Gene Luen Yang, Sherman Alexie, Anna-Marie McLemore. It was focused on loss and grief — it wasn’t actually focused on diversity — but they were very careful in vetting diverse authors of diverse books. It had a really good spin on that whole topic.

I’ve also hosted and moderated a lot of We Need Diverse Books’ Twitter chats — picking people and themes for those, asking questions, getting the audience involved. Every once and a while there will be a really disability- or queer-specific question, and they’re like “We have someone who can answer that!”

One for the book nerds. Alaina (left) and Macey at their five-year anniversary photo shoot, January 2014

That’s as good a segue as any to talk about your girlfriend, Macey. You’ve been together for a long time!

Yeah! We just made it to eight years.

That’s fantastic, congratulations. You met in high school?

Yeah, first day.

Oh my god. Okay, can you tell me your origin story?

So our story actually starts with the first class we were in. We went to a vocational high school where, instead of being a technical school where you’d learn hairdressing or graphic design or something, you learn about animal science. So we actually met in an Agricultural Mechanics class — which, like, I still don’t know how to do anything besides turn my car on. But we met on the first day of school, and she asked to eat lunch with me and some girls, and I just kind of liked her immediately, if you can believe that.

“ I was not completely out as being queer — I was semi, half-in-half-out — and she wasn’t out at all. So we started out as friends… I said ‘Why don’t we give it a go?’ And she said ‘I’d love to.'”

I was drawn to her for some reason. She was reading; that might have been it. She had glasses; that could have been it, too.

Speaking from experience, both of those things help!

Right. At the time, I was not completely out as being queer — I was semi, half-in-half-out — and she wasn’t out at all. So we started out as friends, and we were friends for about a year when I realized that our friendship was developing into a pretty serious crush. And then I was like “Oh no, straight girl, friend, me — a typical scenario.”

Eventually, it just kind of came out among our friend group that I liked her, and she said “Y’know what, I’ve been feeling the same kind of thing.” And I said “Why don’t we give it a go?” And she said “I’d love to.”

That’s so nice!

We were kind of shy and nerdy in high school, so I think I asked her out over AIM.

Classic.

Yup! And her response was via handwritten note, so I still have that.

Senior prom, June 2011

Aw, that’s so sweet! What a nice memento.

That’s pretty much our story — and right after we started dating, it then became “How do you date your best friend? What do we do if we break up? Is she bi? Is she gay? Is she just gay for me?” So many questions for both of us. And the whole coming out process to all our friends and to her family and most of mine, we navigated together. Which is just wild to me, looking back on it.

How has that been? Have you generally had good experiences through all that?

Yeah! I mean, there’ve been some rough patches, like every coming out situation. We have had a lot of really good experiences, though. Our friend group in high school was very accepting. And my family was very accepting. We’ve hit a couple of rough patches with people not believing in bisexuality, because a lot of people are like “Oh, you can be gay or you can be straight, but you can’t be bisexual,” which is what we both actually are. But we’ve chosen to not really push that issue with most people, because we’re dating each other — so I guess if they don’t believe us, that’s fine. It doesn’t really affect our situation.

“Right after we started dating, it then became ‘How do you date your best friend? What do we do if we break up? Is she bi? Is she gay? Is she just gay for me?’ So many questions for both of us.”

We pretty much went through the whole experience together. I knew I was queer a lot earlier than she did, so I came out a lot more easily and a lot younger to my family. So I was being a support system for her, which was new to me: learning how to be patient with someone as they identify with themselves and as they chose to tell people, and dealing with the fallout of what it’s like to tell someone. Even someone who ends up being accepting, it can be a shock.

Absolutely. I came out really young also, so I’ve had what I would imagine is a similar experience. Being out in high school is a very specific type of being gay or queer. And even if you ultimately don’t lose any friends or whatever, it can still be kind of a rocky road. It’s nice that you had someone there to go through it with you, but I can see how it’d be kind of strange to experience both sides of that negotiation at the same time.

It was. And I think, for me, what was so weird about it was that I had always been culturally taught that you just know you’re gay the minute you come out of the womb, basically. And I did! I don’t remember not being gay. But my girlfriend had a different experience — she really just didn’t identify as gay or straight, and all of a sudden she was like, “Yeah, I guess I like everyone.” For me that was weird at first, because I had never experienced that before. And I was like “If you don’t know, are you really even gay?” Because I had always heard that you were born that way and you just know that you are.

High school graduation, June 2011

Have you since shifted your views on that, as a result of being together?

I’ve definitely shifted my views. And I had an aunt come out as trans and transition in the last couple of years — so I’ve kind of learned that either people don’t know everything, or they don’t want to deal with it, or they sort of know somewhere inside but they’re not ready to accept it yet. And I think, no matter what part of the LGBTQ spectrum — or even disability, y’know — you’re on, that’s completely valid. I got older and realized that there were parts of myself I hadn’t been honest about. I started to realize more why that was so common for people in the LGBTQ community.

“I just had this feeling inside me that disability wasn’t an identity or something to be proud of or tell people about. It was hush-hush: you don’t want your employers to find out, you don’t want your friends to find out.”

Was disability one of those things you weren’t being a hundred percent honest with yourself about?

Absolutely, yeah. The way I would put it is that my internalized ableism ran deeper than my internalized queerphobia. And I’m not sure why that is, to be honest, because I was actually raised by two disabled parents. But I just had this feeling inside me that disability wasn’t an identity or something to be proud of or tell people about. It was hush-hush: you don’t want your employers to find out, you don’t want your friends to find out. You try to be as well as you can, suck it up as much as you can, and not ask for accommodations until the last possible minute. It took a lot of unlearning and a lot of social justice for me to get to a point where I’m like “Y’know what, no. I’m just gonna say it.”

I think that’s true for a lot of people in our age bracket who’ve come to disability activism as young adults. It’s in spite of ourselves, regardless of how progressive our families were. I was born two years before the ADA passed, so I wasn’t aware of it, because I was two — but you can bet my parents were. They had done their homework. But they didn’t know how to keep internalized ableism from becoming a thing in my life. They were nothing but supportive of me, but it still gets in there. How has unlearning that habit played itself out in your relationship?

I want to back up and bring my good friend Katie into this, actually, because she deserves some credit. Not to always blame your moment of truth on some disabled person — because that’s such a typical story — but it wasn’t really until I was in college and met Katie, who uses a wheelchair, that the process started. I didn’t even know what ableism was, if you can believe it. I kind of came to that unlearning as if I were an ally — which I think is very common for people in the queer community too. At first you’re like “I just really like gay people! I really support them!” And then all of a sudden you’re making out with them. That’s kind of how I came to disability too. I was like “Oh, I’m really just here to support,” and then I’d find myself getting fired up about these topics, and them feeling very personal. Katie would say something about accessibility or the questions people asked her, and I’d be like “Yeah! That does suck! … Why does that feel like it’s happened to me before?”

“I kind of came to that unlearning as if I were an ally — which I think is very common for people in the queer community too. At first you’re like ‘I just really like gay people! I really support them!’ And then all of a sudden you’re making out with them. That’s kind of how I came to disability too.”

Right! So were you not identifying as disabled at that age?

I wasn’t, no! I didn’t really start until undergrad, honestly.

So you met Katie and saw some similarities in your experiences, and then that was it? Or was it sort of on its way to happening anyway?

I would say college and the internet in tandem opened me up to the wider disability community. My parents, like I sad, were/are disabled, but other than that I really didn’t know anyone else. In college I sort of just fell into this really disabled friend group, which was awesome. We had more disabled people in our group than abled people. We just kind of flocked together. In tandem with my social justice activism and learning on the internet, I was meeting all these people in real life who were like “Y’know, I have autism,” or “I have cerebral palsy,” or “I have dyslexia,” and these were things they were cool with talking about. They were fine with asking for accommodations. And I think it just opened my eyes to the fact that it didn’t have to be this hidden part of me — this very special ed, going to the doctor’s office kind of thing.

Sophomore year of college, October 2012

So you and Macey were already together when you started to discover disability politics?

Yes.

And is she disabled also?

No.

So were you her first exposure to those sorts of ideas? When you started to get on board, so did she? Or did she already have experience with it in the past?

She definitely did not have experience. I would say she learned about it at the same time that I did, through Katie as well. And then she started to see me opening up to it, and as our friend group grew and became more vocal about their own disability experiences, so did I, and that was a big moment of change for both of us.

“I think it just opened my eyes to the fact that it didn’t have to be this hidden part of me — this very special ed, going to the doctor’s office kind of thing.”

One of the biggest things we’ve had to talk about as I’ve gotten more into disability politics is, I’ll be honest: like everyone else, disabled or not, I’m lazy sometimes. What we needed to establish in order for that to work was “Do you actually need an accommodation or assistance right now, or are you just being lazy?” Because you never want your partner to be the person who does everything for you or feels burdened by you, or feels like they have to help you with all these things you can’t help with around the house. And she’s just been really respectful in terms of when I can’t do things, and being accommodating.

I have intersecting disabilities, so in addition to physical difficulties I also have attention deficit difficulties. So sometimes it’s just a matter of me explaining “I put the laundry in, but I forgot to put it in the dryer!” “I made a ham sandwich and forgot about it!”

College graduation, May 2015

It’s really important that you bring up the word “respect,” because I think that’s the thing a lot of disabled people want in our lives in general — but especially from our intimate relationships. Can you think of a particular time that really showed she understood your access needs?

I feel like it happens on such a daily basis. We’ll be going to the grocery store, and she’ll ask me if I need my cane or not because it’s already in the passenger seat with her. We live in an apartment and we have dumpsters where we throw our trash out, so if I can’t lift it and throw it in, she’ll lift it and throw it in for me. She’s really good about all the sensory issues that I have — so sometimes I’ll need captions, or I’ll need something repeated, or I will completely forget what someone looks like, or be somewhere that’s just sensory crazy and need to get out. She’s awesome about that stuff. She’ll be like “We’ll get you out of there, we’ll get you somewhere chill, I’ll rub your back.”

Sometimes that’s all you need: just someone to be cool with accommodating whatever’s going on. And I think one of the reasons she’s so good about that is because she knows what it’s like to deal with her own struggles, because she is also a marginalized person. She’s queer, obviously, but she’s also Latinx and she’s plus size.

We talk a lot about our intersecting marginalizations and how our experiences are similar and different. Because we have those purposeful, feminist discussions with each other, we both really get that sometimes we just need different things, and one person just needs to be able to say “No, right now, I need this.”

“You never want your partner to be the person who does everything for you or feels burdened by you, or feels like they have to help you with all these things you can’t help with around the house. And she’s just been really respectful in terms of when I can’t do things, and being accommodating.”

So what does love mean to you?

I think about this question a lot, because I have been in a relationship for so long, and so many of my friends and family members have noticed that it’s noteworthy that I’m still dating my high school sweetheart. Love, to me, really means unconditional love. I think love starts from a place of excitement and passion, and mutual interest in each other that you really get excited about together. And then it grows into something so unconditional. Anyone who’s been in a long relationship can tell you that there are very difficult times and very stressful times, and there are times that you’ll be tired and they’ll be cranky, or you’re both tired and cranky — and it’s the unconditional love and respect for the person, and remembering to always be better, that gets you through those times.

“Sometimes that’s all you need: just someone to be cool with accommodating whatever’s going on. And I think one of the reasons she’s so good about that is because she knows what it’s like to deal with her own struggles, because she is also a marginalized person.”

I think someone that you really love makes you want to be better, but you also want to be better for them. It’s so easy to fall into the old traps of like, whining and complaining, or nagging, or snapping at someone when you’ve had a bad day. And I think if you really, unconditionally love someone, you take a minute and you step back and say “Stop it, self. You’re just being an asshole. This person’s done nothing but love you, and you should treat them with respect.”

Apologies go a long way, and I’ve always been taught to own up to what you do, apologize, and have that discussion — and then actually take some action and be better. A lot of what love means to me is that commitment to grow, and recognizing that someone will change. Because if you meet someone at 15 and you start dating and now you’re 24, that’s a lot of years and a lot of change. You’re changing as a person as you grow older. And I think what sustains love is you recognize the person is going to change, and that you’re going to change, and that you’re committed to making that work.

Seems to have worked, apparently!

I’ve just kind of rolled with it. Macey and I have changed so much. And like you said, I got into disability politics while we were together. I came out to the world as disabled, I started walking with a cane, I started writing public articles about disability and autism and all of these things, and being so public about that. That’s definitely a huge shift of identity for both of us, because she’s a part of my life in this relationship. Those kinds of changes are things people go through together and you just have to be ready to roll with it.

“We talk a lot about our intersecting marginalizations and how our experiences are similar and different. Because we have those purposeful, feminist discussions with each other, we both really get that sometimes we just need different things.”

You also identify as nonbinary, right?

Yes.

Did you come out as nonbinary while in your current relationship?

I did. It’s funny that you ask that, because I have a very long and bizarre relationship with gender identity that’s still in the works. I originally came out as trans to Macey while we were still in high school, and at the time, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do with that. Maybe socially transition and medically transition, maybe change my pronouns. I experimented with the pixie cut and kind of gender-neutral, masculine look. That was pretty early in our relationship, now that we’ve been together for eight years. Because we started dating when we were sophomores, and it was senior year that I told her I wasn’t sure how I was feeling about my gender identity.

I thought she wouldn’t want to be with me, even though she was bisexual. That should be a fail safe. But I still imagined that it would be too difficult. I guess that was one of the moments early in our relationship when I was like “She’s in this for the long haul, and she’s okay with change and the unknown.” That’s really the reassurance I think I needed to move forward with our relationship — and to feel completely, radically vulnerable with another person. Ever since then I’ve been able to be so much more honest with her, because that was when I told someone something I’d been thinking about since I was little but never shared with anyone.

Cape Cod, April 2016

I love that, “radically vulnerable.” I think vulnerability is tough for disabled people, because you’re sort of assumed to be perpetually vulnerable but also constantly fighting against that. So it’s great that your relationship is a place you feel like you can go to let down the guard.

Right. It’s one of those things that I’m going to be constantly working on, because I think we all are born radically vulnerable as kids, and we’re all so very open to the idea of just being whoever we are when we’re young. And for many of us, our first experiences with doing that are being shut down — whether it’s by our parents or educators, classmates, other family members. Being shut down for being who you are and living your life.

In my case, I was disabled as a child as well, so living your life in a disabled way, being shut down and being told that the way that you speak or walk is not correct and not good. I think that it turns people away from radical vulnerability, and we have to kind of relearn how to do that when we’re in these relationships. Because it really is the only way to get to know someone and feel safe with them: to know that they know you at your core, and that at your most vulnerable, they’ll still be there. I think if you haven’t reached that point yet, there’s still that part of you that says “Well, when they see this, they won’t wanna.”

“I think what sustains love is you recognize the person is going to change, and that you’re going to change, and that you’re committed to making that work.”

I think that’s a really common fear, but for disabled folks it’s especially acute. Because there’s this narrative that you’ll always be too much, or that there’s gonna come this breaking point just by nature of who you are. Especially if your partner’s not also disabled. But if they are also disabled, everyone simultaneously assumes that’s who you should be with, and also doesn’t understand how you could be in that relationship at all! So it’s sort of a lose-lose.

I also have an able-bodied girlfriend, and it’s interesting the expectations that people have for a mixed-ability relationship. That person being not just your de facto caregiver, but ultimately your savior. And your job is to make them a better person. What would you say to somebody who was implying your relationship should be like that?

This definitely has happened before. People see Macey holding doors open for me while I’m walking with a cane, or holding my coffee for me, or throwing the trash out, and they make these assumptions. What I would say is that I don’t think disability is the only thing in life that makes our experiences different — and no matter whether you’re a mixed-ability couple or you have disabled partners or able partners, there are different things all parties bring to the table. Even in a couple where both people are abled, there are going to be situations where either person acts as more of a caregiver or nurturer. It’s just natural to being human.

Being disabled doesn’t make me the person who needs to be taken care of all the time. In fact, there are plenty of times when my girlfriend really needs a pick-me-up — and I’m the one who snaps her out of it with a good ol’ feminist pep talk. Everybody needs that sometimes.

Alaina and Macey’s first photo together at Alaina’s fifteenth birthday party, and that same photo recreated for their five-year anniversary

Poly Pocket: Queer, Poly, Living On A Boat

When there aren’t any models for how you want to move through the world, it’s harder to move through the world. There’s no one right way to do ethical non-monogamy, just as there’s no one right way to do ethical monogamy, and no way is better or worse than any other, just better or worse for those involved. Poly Pocket looks at all the ways queer people do polyamory: what it looks like, how we think about it, how it functions (or doesn’t), how it feels, because when you don’t have models you have to create your own. To apply to share your story in Poly Pocket, fill out this form.

Tristan Feldman is a 26-year-old white genderqueer queer non-monogamous person living wherever they happen to be at the moment. They are single and work as a tall ship sailor and educator.

This interview has been lightly edited.

Carolyn: When did you start to explore polyamory?

Tristan: My first relationship was in college and I ended up being the secondary partner of a friend. It was actually an awful relationship and not at all healthy or a good example of polyamory. He was emotionally abusive to both me and his primary partner. He and his primary partner were also not in a stable relationship so adding a secondary just made their relationship worse. There were a lot of rules imposed on our relationship and I didn’t have much of a say in what the rules were. I also had no experience so I didn’t know what to ask for/what to look for/how to express what I needed and wanted in a relationship.

Carolyn: With that first experience, how did you come to recognize non-monogamy was for you?

Tristan: While in that relationship I did a lot of research and reading on non-monogamy and I realized that the model that I was in was not the only option. The ideas that love shouldn’t be restricted or seen as a limited resource and that monogamy shouldn’t be an assumed part of a relationship and that communication and honesty are huge parts of a successful relationship really resonated with me.

I also, for the rest of college after that first relationship ended, used non-monogamy almost as a defense mechanism to stop myself from entering into another relationship without really realizing what I was doing. If there was the potential that I was starting to develop any kind of relationship with someone I would throw out early on that I was poly and wasn’t looking for anything monogamous, but not in an open or communicative way but in a way that shut down whatever was happening. So I was processing and learning some great messages from non-monogamy and while I thought I was being open and communicative I was probably not.

Carolyn: What is your relationship situation like now?

Tristan: I’m single and have been for years. But I have a number of very important and intimate friendships as well as the bonds I form with my shipmates both on and off the boats we are on.

One of my friends gave me the word “solo poly.” I sometimes use it to describe myself. I know that a lot of people define it differently but for me it has meant that I don’t have any partners and that my priorities have been my relationships with my friends and myself.

Carolyn: Okay tell me about living on boats! What is that like? How do you build and maintain relationships on and off them?

Tristan: It’s basically a super intense and close intentional community and how it works/appears is really different boat to boat and crew to crew. All the boats I work on provide housing, either on the boat or in a crew house, so you are living and working and socializing with the same people all the time. Sometimes I’m doing day programs and have evenings/weekends free, but other times I’m doing long ocean passages where not only are we all physically limited to the same space, but we also have students with us 24/7 which changes the dynamic.

Out of necessity, you become very close with the people you are with, especially in really odd ways that don’t tend to happen on shore. Someone might not know much about your past or your family or your friends but they know exactly how to tell if you are actually awake or responding to a wakeup when still asleep, what you sound like when you puke, and how frequently you use the bathroom. Plus being away and moving around a lot means that everyone onboard is in some kind of long distance relationship, be it partnership, friendship, family, etc, which I think tends to bring people closer and create closer relationships onboard because you are cut off from your typical support systems.

When I’m in port I can usually send letters and often times find wifi. On the boat we have a satellite email service, but that’s primarily used for business with our home office. So usually I’ll write a bunch of letters but not be able to send them out for a while.

As far as relationships off the boat I write my friends a lot of letters and try and go visit them when I have off time. Fortunately most of my close friends live on the East Coast so I am usually able to do a “friend tour” and crash on a bunch of people’s couches when I’m off.

Carolyn: How do you get your needs met?

Tristan: I think about that one a lot. One of the things I miss most on the boat is a strong queer community. Some people I’ve sailed with have been queer, but many haven’t. So when I’m off I try to spend as much time as possible with my friends and some of those relationships are intimate. But then again when I’m on land I miss the boat and the people I sail with and the different kinds of relationships we form there.

Plus different dating/hookup apps work all around the world and while my success varies sometime the “sailor in port after being at sea for a while” thing works out.

Carolyn: What about all this is a struggle? What about it is most exciting?

Tristan: I think the biggest struggle, both for me and for my relationships and relationship goals is not having a home base. I’m trying to work on that this winter. Ideally I want to have a place that I come back to and people there that I can build longer term relationships with.

The most exciting is being able to see the world and meet new people. Boats have also been incredibly healing for me and have really helped me create better relationships in all parts of my life. They make me work harder to maintain my friendships, be better at communication, and generally just better at existing around all different kinds of people.

The other struggle is while I’m not closeted, I’m not specifically out at work, especially about being genderqueer and to some extent about being poly. Its more like I’m bad at broaching the subject and if it doesn’t come up I often times won’t bring it up. In some ways it feels a bit disingenuous to myself but in others its a way I manage being so close with everyone else.

Carolyn: What do you want your future to look like? What vision are you working towards or hoping for?

Tristan: I want a home base, a place to come home to. And ideally at least one partner who I build my life around and who considers me when building their life. And a good balance between that home and still sailing and adventuring.

I’ve actually ended up talking with some of my shipmates about non-monogamy and I think that a lot of the basic ideas resonate with them even if they are in monogamous relationships (the ideas of communication and that each relationship is distinct and that partners need to talk to each other and decide what they want out of a relationship). I usually end up bringing up a quote from Dean Spade from For Lovers and For Fighters. (“One of my goals in thinking about redefining the way we view relationships is to try to treat the people I date more like I treat my friends, try to be respectful and thoughtful and have boundaries and reasonable expectations, and try to treat my friends more like my dates, to give them special attention, honor my commitments to them, be consistent, and invest deeply in our futures together.”) which is kinda how I try and create healthy positive relationships and it is usually very well-received. No matter what kind of relationship(s) I end up in, I think that the basic principles of non-monogamy that I have internalized/accepted for myself will be helpful in creating healthy and positive relationships.

Queer Crip Love Fest: Nobody Can Go Through This World Alone

Feature image photos by Sofia Lee

Okay, everyone: I know what’s happening tomorrow, you know what’s happening tomorrow, and if you’re a regular reader of Queer Crip Love Fest, chances are you’re pretty torn up about it. I, for one, have been dealing with a low rumble of nausea all week (or since about November 5, really) and want to spend these closing hours of the Obama era reminding myself how and why to keep fighting. So, in the spirit of gathering our strength and resisting the living hell out of these next four years, I bring you our sweetest installment to date — along with some notes for the revolution.

Yael is a 22-year-old agender trans woman living in Seattle who described her relationship with her girlfriend Jarreau like this:

“After a night in late July when I got my first choker, we ended up hooking up and from there on, our subsequent encounters made us realize how gay we are for the other person. We’re both really goofy and silly and we’ll crack jokes with each other all the time, and whenever there’s serious stuff we need to talk about, we affirm each other and figure out how to grow in caring for each other. Whenever I feel really emotionally drained or something bad happens, I can go see her and just rest in her warm presence.”

Don’t you want to meet them? Just for that choker story alone? I did too. So read on and remember, my fellow resisters: love won’t save us on its own, but it certainly helps along the way. We love you and we are here.

So you recently moved to Seattle, and you met your girlfriend soon after, right?

Yep! I first visited last summer back when I was dating an ex of mine. It was only a visit, but as soon as I got up here I felt like I had fresh air and wasn’t extremely anxious all the time. So I figured out how to make it work and finally moved to Seattle back in March. I found this amazing group of friends and two of the people I’ve had romantic and sexual entanglements with, all in the same night and at the same place. I met Jarreau there but we were only acquaintances after that.

Yael (left) and Jarreau (right). Photo by Sofia Lee

Tell me more about it! Did you approach her or vice versa or both or…?

Having moved to a new city, I was like “I don’t know anybody here, I need more friends because I feel so isolated right now.” So being the little social butterfly I am, I was chatting up a storm with just about everybody, and I was like, “She’s cute and I like talking to her but I don’t think she’s interested in me, so I’ll file that away and we’ll be friends,” which is a super easy mental process for me.

Once we became friends, I had walked to Capitol Hill with my cane, and I saw her sitting on the stairs of some building eating a burrito, and I was so excited to see her. Because while I had built up the skeleton for my current set of friend groups in Seattle, I wanted to nurture and blow on every little flame of friendship I saw. We ended up having a really exciting conversation and made plans to meet up later that day for coffee as a “friend date” —

Ah yes, the friend date. Ambiguous yet promising.

Yeah! And she told me a while after that, one of the things she really loved about that encounter was how excited I was to see her. In hindsight, it was the classic meet cute and it was amazing. When we met up later that day it was a few hours of sweet and interesting conversation. Another time after that, we went to visit a different friend but ended up just talking to each other and eating some bowl of chocolate in the shop where our friend worked. I don’t know what it was exactly, but all the little seeds of a crush she had for me blossomed into a full-on one.

“One of the things she really loved about that encounter was how excited I was to see her. In hindsight, it was the classic meet cute and it was amazing.”

That is so sweet, I love it.

But I was completely oblivious! So after that, we bumped into each other a few times at this rooftop summer LGBT party and this amazing bar that’s really faggy and dykey. During that same time, a complicated thing started with an older cis woman friend of mine. We both had feelings for each other and stuff happened, but she wasn’t ready for a relationship, which made things complicated to navigate emotionally, and that was hard.

So I ended up thinking, “Theoretically, I’m poly, I need to have a week where I’m super slutty and get a lot of attention.” So that was when I bought my first choker. Both because it’s a trans woman thing, and I’d read some article that jokingly said that after women get a choker, they have a lot of sex. So I went to Claire’s, got this cute lacy choker that had a metal heart attached to it — and who do I run into, but my soon-to-be girlfriend. I swear, that choker was a fucking miracle.

Later that night we were at a bar and I told her about how I want to have many slutty and gay escapades, and then she asked if I wanted to sleep with her, making sure to clarify only if I wanted to and it was only a suggestion. It took a second for me to refile her in my mental categories, because I hadn’t realized she was interested. After that, I was super enthusiastic. So we hooked up in one of the bathrooms there.

“Being the silly and cheeky person I am, decided to be cute and poke fun like ‘That’s cute that you called me your girlfriend.’ And she was like ‘I didn’t, but that’s actually a really great idea and I’d love to be that with you if you want.'”

YEAH YOU DID. So was it officially on after that?

We decided to hook up again several times and in my mind, it seemed like a friends with benefits situation. But then we both caught emotions for each other, and ended up going on several dates. One night was super romantic — dimmed lights, all that — and at one point, I thought she had called me her girlfriend even though we weren’t official at the time. Being the silly and cheeky person I am, I decided to be cute and poke fun like “That’s cute that you called me your girlfriend.” And she was like “I didn’t, but that’s actually a really great idea and I’d love to be that with you if you want.”

Photo by Sofia Lee

So cute! Oh my.

From that point on we threw ourselves into the swing of things while we slowly figured each other out and what our dynamics were going to be. In some ways it was really easy, both of us being trans women, and nonbinary trans women at that. In others we were different, with me being physically disabled and younger than she is, and her being Black. So we both went through this process of “Is she going to be respectful and mindful of power dynamics?” and ultimately, yeah, that’s how it turned out.

We both realized this is a constant process and there’s an important ethical responsibility in handling power differences for the both of us. We always grew and affirmed each other. Even when we weren’t talking about power differences, we were both thinking about what the proper ethical actions are to go through our dynamics. I care about her so much and love her so much, and she loves me.

I’m wondering how poly plays out for you, especially intersecting with disability and race and gender and all of your identities.

I tend to avoid poly communities as much as I can, except if they’re LGBT. Hetero-aligned polyamory is such an utter nightmare. Straight poly communities, to me, have always stunk of domination by popular dudes trying to get laid as much as possible. I got into polyamory originally because I was really attracted to the radical love part of it, how in the right circumstances, it works very well to build social infrastructures and support networks.

“So much of the Poly 101 info out there is catered to neurotypical able-bodied folks. So disabled poly folks have always had to find each other and through the lessons we’ve learned, build our own 101s, our own communal reservoirs of advice and wisdom and possible paths.”

I’m physically disabled and I need to be able to access caretakers now and then, and spreading it out versus focusing it on one person is a survival strategy I have for avoiding a caretaker turning on me and becoming really ableist. Also, with my bipolar disorder, I deal with such intense emotional energies all the time and such a strong desire for attention, and poly is a coping mechanism for that. I don’t have to worry if one person is not giving me affection at the time, because a bunch of other people are!

That’s great!

I’m also moving and encountering and growing through this world with the trauma I’ve had to deal with. To be perfectly honest, I would not have survived if it wasn’t for my friends and support networks, social infrastructures and communal fabrics. They’ve always helped me to cling and hold tightly to life. Nobody can go through this world alone, nobody. We’re embedded within webs of relations and it’s such an important value to me: interconnectivity and interdependence, mutual self-care.

Navigating polyamory with mental illness and neurodivergences is such a task, because for a while, you have to learn the hard way how to do it yourself. So much of the Poly 101 info out there is catered to neurotypical able-bodied folks. So disabled poly folks have always had to find each other and through the lessons we’ve learned, build our own 101s, our own communal reservoirs of advice and wisdom and possible paths.

Yes! As is the case with a ton of sexual communities, including the queer community at large, I think.

With race, I’m always thinking about how my whiteness impacts my relationships, and even if a lot of white LGBT folks don’t like to talk about it, we all have the subconscious and sometimes conscious urge of the whole white picket fence, 1950s path of relationships, and it’s a constant and ongoing process for us to critique and move against that. In dating, sooner or later, you’re going to have a partner who’s BIPOC and there’s an ethical responsibility to constantly manage our whiteness.

“We need to constantly figure this stuff out and hold other white people accountable because if we don’t, sooner or later, a person of color is going to be forced to do emotional labor they don’t want to do, and there’s an ethical responsibility to prevent that. It’s a process of regularly giving space to the people of color in your life for them to do their own thing.”

A common mechanism in a lot of interracial relationships is that white folks take up way too much emotional energy and way too much space. Like, we need to constantly figure this stuff out and hold other white people accountable because if we don’t, sooner or later, a person of color is going to be forced to do emotional labor they don’t want to do, and there’s an ethical responsibility to prevent that. It’s a process of regularly giving space to the people of color in your life for them to do their own thing. It’s a constant process, you can always fuck up, but you need to hold yourself accountable and grow.

We do have a knack for the fuck up, yes.

My girlfriend has this saying: “I don’t try to be perfect, but I always strive to always do better.” Which is an A+ ethos, to be honest.

That’s fantastic. Solid words to live by.

In terms of gender, that’s a whole thing on its own. So many cis LGBT folks have such a narrow, homonationalist view of their futures. They see potential years and decades and lifetimes with other cis people they find cute, but so many times, when they look at trans women, they don’t see futures in us.

What a spot on way to say it.

They see us as short flings, as experiences to try. And it’s really frustrating because like, I’m not at all a separatist — I think that goes to bad places — and I have many cis folks in my life who I care bunches about. But so many times, cis people in general don’t get it.  Like, I want to be around you but I need you to do the work that comes with critically examining and undermining your role in cisness in a way that isn’t the whole performative ally thing. And so many cis people aren’t willing to do that. Gender fucks up everybody, trans and gender nonconforming and cis people.

“They see potential years and decades and lifetimes with other cis people they find cute, but so many times, when they look at trans women, they don’t see futures in us.”

A lot of the time, trans women signify the dramatic contradictions within gender just bubbling under the surface. We corrode the toxic cisness of their milieus and networks and worlds, and they’re not willing to give up the material positions of cisness and the comforts and resources that come with that. I’m super sapphic, but there really is so much cisness in a lot of WLW communities. Women-aligned gay spaces don’t do the work of making an atmosphere that welcomes and centers trans women. They pay lip service a lot, but they’re more likely to produce infrastructures and networks and fabrics that only provide for cis sapphic folks. At the end of the day, cis sapphic folks and sapphic spaces need to centrally dwell on the questions of “How do we undermine cisness in this space and provide the resource networks to trans women that cis sapphic folks already have?”

We should all go ahead and tattoo that question on our foreheads. Were you your girlfriend’s first exposure to disability politics?

I don’t think so? I think she’s encountered it. I think I’m the first physically disabled person she’s dated, though. When I asked why she was never ableist towards me and respectful of my physical limits — her answer, oh my god. It made me so happy.

Tell me! What did she say?

She basically saw that sooner or later, everybody is going to encounter and enter into positions of disability. For most people, that usually happens when they’re older. But knowing that, she realized it was something she had to honor even though she’s 90% able-bodied at this point. She realized that navigating ableism and her position as an able-bodied position in relation to physically disabled folks was going to be a constant thing.

That’s an incredible response, and very perceptive.

I can visibly see she’s willing to do the work and accept the ethical responsibilities of encountering others who are marginalized in ways you’re not. Like, if I’m having a fibro episode, she’ll walk me through it, ask what she can do, and most importantly, respect my consent. She doesn’t act like physically disabled bodies can be used as toys.

“Are they going to explode and make a big deal out of a small basic need and get resentful for addressing needs that, if they were coming from an able-bodied person, they wouldn’t blink twice?”

It’s worth mentioning how patronizing able-bodied people can be. They treat us like beautiful props and displays to have around, but they don’t respect our consent and autonomy. They just treat us as furniture, at best, to move around — and at worst (which is a lot of the time), they treat us as broken tools and utilities. They try and extract labor even though that’s not going to happen. Our bodies simply can’t do that, and they get really frustrated with that. Which, to be honest, is a common tendency in our ableist and capitalist society — how so many people treat others like tools, thinking “what can I use this person for?” It’s not just a toxic attitude but a violent and abusive logic common to so many institutions and networks.

Do you feel that weight in your relationship ever, of the expectations people have about disabled folks and our able-bodied partners?

Oh, that I’m expected to do all the emotional labor just so they can be the “good” able-bodied person? That has happened occasionally. Not with my girlfriend or my sweet friend or most people I’ve had romantic and sexual encounters with lately, but it has happened before, and it’s really frustrating. Because one of the things that has always made it hard for me to ask for help sometimes, is I’m worried about what the other person’s reaction is going to be.

Right, same.

Are they going to explode and make a big deal out of a small basic need and get resentful for addressing needs that, if they were coming from an able-bodied person, they wouldn’t blink twice? So through a lot of trial and error, I’ve learned to suss it out. At the end of the day, if an able-bodied person is not willing to do the work that comes with the ethical encounter, I’m not really interested in dealing with them regularly.

It’s why I left my family, because apart from a small handful of people, they could never understand and affirm me. They always treated me either like a beautiful prop or a broken tool, and I figured I deserve way better than that.

“It’s not ‘we’re all the same, we should all love each other’ but more like, everyone won’t be like us, there will be differences, there will be divides, but what matters is how we go about affirming those differences. Not idealizing and projecting on others, but seeing how we can grow together.”

You are absolutely right, and I’m so glad you got it. So what does love mean to you?

Wait, sorry, my girlfriend is just starting to wake up and she’s being super sweet, oh my god.

Aww hiiii! That timing could not have been better.

Okay, love: that’s a big question. Being the philosophy nerd that I am, I would say this comes down to ethics. Every day we encounter other people, each who may or may not share some commonality with us. In every encounter, there’s an important and strong ethical responsibility to affirm the other, and that responsibility is a constant process. We can’t belittle or fetishize the other person; we have to respect and encourage their autonomy, not just on a personal level, but also in the encounters between milieus and networks.

We have to build up an ethical, communal fabric. Not a “community,” per se. Communities are imagined groupings, they depend on borders and limits, they require enemies and scapegoats; they’re filled with egocrats who care more about their own universes rather than encouraging growth and change and healing and affirmation. Communities get so fucked over by a particular sort of desire and envy of, “Why does this other person have this thing? I want that thing,” and it leads to so much lateral violence. Building an ethical, communal fabric is about making a break from that: about styles of care where we affirm and respect and love each other and no matter what the circumstance, we all dream for a better world, we constantly work on healing whatever traumas we carry, and push toward common goals.

It’s not hippy-dippy “we’re all the same, we should all love each other” but more like, everyone won’t be like us, there will be differences, there will be divides, but what matters is how we go about affirming those differences. Not idealizing and projecting on others, but seeing how we can grow together.

All so true, and really well put! I think that’s all crucial to keep in mind as we move into the Trump era, too.

Serious Love, whether romantic or sexual or platonic or whatever, requires us to actively respect and take on the task of ethical responsibility towards the other, to build an ethical communal fabric that will always defend each other and grow with each other and never ever forget that healing is the number one task that can never be dropped or disregarded.

As soon as you forget about healing and often the momentous tasks and exchanges and reparations that come with that, everything gets fucked up. You’re never obliged to be around other people, but you are obliged to take seriously the task that we don’t hurt the people we are around. And whether between power differences or laterally, we can never stop taking that seriously.

I’m not crying, *you’re* crying. GIF by Sofia Lee

Poly Pocket: It’s Not The Structure, It’s The People

When there aren’t any models for how you want to move through the world, it’s harder to move through the world. There’s no one right way to do ethical non-monogamy, just as there’s no one right way to do ethical monogamy, and no way is better or worse than any other, just better or worse for those involved. Poly Pocket looks at all the ways queer people do polyamory: what it looks like, how we think about it, how it functions (or doesn’t), how it feels, because when you don’t have models you have to create your own.

Mina is a 32-year-old multiracial cis queer kinky lady living and dating in a big blue city in the deep red American South. She is a sexual assault survivor with a handful of mental health diagnoses, an invisible disability, a weakness for terrible puns, and a goddamn master’s degree, thank you very much. She is in a committed relationship with a cis dude and also dating casually, and works in public sector administration. “Mina” is a pseudonym.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Carolyn: When did you start to explore polyamory?

Mina: Well, I had a pretty terrible introduction to the idea. In November of 2010 I had just moved across the country to go to grad school and move in with my long-distance boyfriend, and the day I found out I got accepted to the program he was like, “Oh, btw, I think we should also fuck other people.” It was a complete surprise, and I spent a lot of time in the next couple of weeks being hurt and crying.

We revisited the conversation occasionally, and eventually I got to a place where I would be OK with noticing myself being attracted to other people — both men and, increasingly — women, which was also a surprise to me at the time. And from a feminist/critical perspective, it made sense to me that since I had a non-traditional initiation into sexual activity (i.e., sexual assault at 14 and again at 15) I might need to do some other non-traditional things as a consenting adult to reclaim my agency.

So first I had to interrogate my own assumptions about monogamy. And then I had to decide what I was going to be OK with in theory versus in practice. I don’t know if that specific task ever really ends: I have decided that ethical non-monogamy is possible, and now I am working on what it is going to look like for me specifically. Because like for everything else, there isn’t one right way to do this. And that’s taken me a long time to realize and embrace, and it still isn’t anywhere near ideally implemented! So now I’m asking myself, what do I want, and that’s a hard question to answer even within a committed monogamous relationship. Let alone when you add in additional partners and lovers.

“I have decided that ethical non-monogamy is possible, and now I am working on what it is going to look like for me specifically.”

I broke up with the guy who I moved here for, in large part because he couldn’t demonstrate the kind of commitment I needed to see in order to feel comfortable with opening the relationship. That isn’t what I tell most people, of course, but it was the process of thinking about ethical non-monogamy that led me to decide to DTMFA. That was two years ago, and I’ve never been happier.

Also, the idea that “loving more than one person is possible” finally started to make sense to me when I realized that I describe more than one person as “my best friend.” For me, “best friend” is more like a level than an exclusive, one-person-only category — I love each of these people deeply, and differently, and I wouldn’t try to prioritize which one of them I love “more” because that isn’t the point of how we care for each other. Happiness is not a competition. And so the idea that I could also, in theory, be in love with more than one person at once… that idea started to make more sense.

Carolyn: So what is your relationship situation right now? And how does the way you’re asking yourself what you want fit into it?

Mina: I’m in a committed, serious relationship with a white cis dude. We met last August (2015) and we live together now — I knew it was getting serious when he proposed that we introduce our cats to each other. He’s on my insurance through work, and we had to do some courthouse legal stuff to make that happen, and I wrote basically a pre-nup that we both signed. (I don’t want to let my love life ruin my finances again.) So, he’s my “primary.” We started dating when I wasn’t really interested in monogamy, and he has basically always done polyamory, so I had the experience of being able to define up front what I want from him.

I have a pattern in my relationships in which I take it upon myself to be their #1 support. Which is great, in some ways, but can also easily slide into me being their only emotional support, and that gets codependent AF, fast, and isn’t good for me. “Doing the open relationship thing” means that by default, I am acknowledging that I cannot and will not be all things for this person, which is pretty liberating.

And, well, I wouldn’t have had the space to figure out I also like dating ladies if I had continued to prefer a monogamous setup. This has been a relatively recent thing (maybe the last 18 months?) and since then it’s been a series of “Ways We Should Have Known Earlier.” Without having the chance to date outside this very loving and nourishing relationship I have at home (although damn it’s got its issues), I wouldn’t have given that whole aspect of my life another thought.

Carolyn: Where here does poly intersect with other elements of your identity? How does it function within your understanding of yourself?

Mina: I exist in the between spaces of a lot of social identities. Dad is white and mom is Chicana and her Ancestry DNA profile says she’s 25% Native — to white folks I read as white, and to brown folks I read as “something that isn’t white.” This is the first time I’ve ever lived and worked somewhere that people look like me.

I try to acknowledge that I get the benefit of white privilege even while feeling frustrated that I feel like an outsider to a lot of the Latin@ community. So, navigating the racial identity thing while dating can be a little tricky. I have a super-sensitive radar for gendered racialized bullshit, and I’ve dated white folks (men and women), and other folks, who are insufficiently critical in their race-gender lens — is that just called “woke” now? — and dumped them fast even though the sex was good. If I can’t trust you in the voting booth, why tf would I trust you in bed? But at the same time, I’ve definitely been the one to fuck up and #whitefeminist all over someone, too.

I “read” as a pretty average white girl, but I’ve got all this hidden complexity to how I think about myself and how I move in the world. Now that polyamory is part of that, I feel like I’m additionally subversive: a big fuck you to the white capitalist hetero-cis-patriarchy, all around.

Part of why I’ve been reluctant to identify as “poly” is actually related to the race/gender stuff. I don’t know if this is specific to my metro area, but the online “poly” groups I’ve seen are a LOT of white dudes and their wives or girlfriends. All of which is fine: you do you, y’all. But don’t simultaneously bleat on about how poly folks are persecuted and ignore the facts about who benefits from like every single policy in American law. If you can’t see that these struggles are all bound up together, I do not have the time for you.

I’ve actually gotten a lot more picky about who I date since starting to do non-monogamy. One of my best friends since college — we have a similar cultural background, and who is also realizing she’s bi, and we’ve fooled around a bit, I love her so hard — told me years ago, “girl, you need to stop dating white boys with momma issues.” And I think a similar injunction would apply: “girl, you need to stop dating whitefeminists who don’t get intersectional.”

And to the “what do you want” issue, poly has been a real life-saver for my relationship with my primary, as well: we both have real struggles with mental health, and he’s just coming out of a long depressive episode during which sex was just not an option, and it relieved a lot of the pressure on us both to know that I could get my physical needs met elsewhere with a partner at home who would cheer me on.

I’ve dated people with depression before — hell, I’ve been that partner before — and lord, this was such a better way to handle that whole side-effect.

Carolyn: I bet!

Mina: If there’s one thing I’ve learned since starting to interrogate my own assumptions about monogamy, it’s that whether it “works” is not about the STRUCTURE; it’s about the PEOPLE, and what they each bring to the table. I’m really grateful to have some terrific people around me at the moment.

“Whether it ‘works’ is not about the STRUCTURE; it’s about the PEOPLE, and what they each bring to the table.”

Carolyn: You mentioned ADHD earlier: What other ways do mental health things fit into poly for you? Does it affect your relationships, make you more inclined to approach or function within/around them in certain ways?

Mina: I think it makes me less interested in tolerating bullshit from people. I know I have issues with certain things that are important to successful, mutually nourishing relationships. I work hard at addressing those weaknesses despite the fact that my disability means they don’t come naturally to me (and I do refer to my ADHD as a disability, the comments section can fight about this later if they want). I can list them: Emotion regulation. Conversation that takes turns. I get bored fast, and this includes with boring people or boring conversation. So I have a pretty clear-cut strategy for first dates.

I also, because I am a data nerd, built myself a spreadsheet with a rubric, to keep track of my first date outcomes… because I know I will not remember them if I do not write them down. I have two or three places I like equally for first dates, and I almost always pick the location since I almost always do the asking. I will give the person until I’ve finished one cocktail and one fancy fizzy soda water (I order them at the same time), and if I haven’t been convinced that this person is someone I want to keep talking to for another drink’s worth of time, I say goodnight and I’m done. I do not have time for bad second dates. Which is why I have a lot of first dates — and fuck on a lot of them — but not a lot of second dates. The people I keep around, the ones who I love and I date and I fuck, are folks who find my mind charming and amusing.

I like arranging first dates quickly, far better than endless messaging, for this reason: if you can’t handle me in person, why TF would we date?

Carolyn: Yes! and how much of a sense of who a person is can anyone really get from a few back and forth messages with no context?

Mina: Exactly.

“Sometimes love means that you hurt, but the hurt doesn’t make it any less worthwhile.”

Carolyn: When you and your primary date other people, what does that look like?

Mina: Logistically we both can see each other’s google calendars. We have at least two date nights a week that we reserve for each other — always Saturday, work allowing, and then at least one other evening. We will almost certainly have sex on both date nights. (Unless the world ends, like it did on election Tuesday, in which case we end up watching Community and eating takeout.) Other than that: (1) Verbally communicate when you set a date with someone else, and also put it on the calendar, (2) Text when you leave the bar to go fuck, and (3) Text a status update when you’re on your way home, which also includes something sweet and usually sexy.

Other logistics involve clean sheets — this was more of an issue when we were in separate apartments — and always always always use protection. The norm for “who fucks in this apartment” has been “don’t fuck anybody else in our bed unless I’m out of town, in which case, do the laundry before I get home.”

Carolyn: Laundry is definitely a secret to poly and cohabitation.

Mina: YES. We have a washing machine in the apartment and it’s worth every penny.

For me, I’m grateful to have a primary partner who is more experienced with non-monogamy than I am because it means we aren’t both learning at the same time. It also means he can reflect what I may not see myself. A few months ago I went to a lesbian wedding out of town, as the guest of a friend (the one who told me to stop dating white boys with momma issues), and I shared with him beforehand that I was worried that if she and I fucked again, that it would lead to me Catching Feels, and that I didn’t want to get hurt because of how far away she lives, neither of us are out to our families, etc. He said very gently, sweetie, I think you already do have feelings for her, and that’s OK too.

And I spent some time with that statement, and you know what? He was right. And sometimes love means that you hurt, but the hurt doesn’t make it any less worthwhile.

I think I am less kind about his dates — he seems to date the flakiest damn women — but I do think it comes from a place of wanting the best for him. “Why are you trying to see her again? She’s cancelled on you twice.” He tends to go for quantity over quality, though, haha, so that is perhaps just a difference of priorities for what we each want from dating. I don’t have to remember the names of his dates until he decides they’ll be around for more than two. That’s a useful ADHD-related dating thing: it’s permission I gave myself, and then set the expectation by communicating it to him. Far less emotional labor for me — if i don’t have to learn their names, and he’s happy, then literally I do not care. Or at least, I try hard not to.

Carolyn: Do you experience jealousy? If so, how do you handle it? If no, how do you prevent it?

Mina: Part of how i handle the threat of jealousy is by learning only what I want to know (as in, the names thing), and part is by requesting frequent verbal reassurance about how I am superior to his other dates. I actually believe that he means things like, “you have the best ass in the entire state.” That’s a willing suspension of disbelief in some ways, but also because I’ve chosen to trust that he means it when he says I come first.

“I think jealousy — at least as I’ve seen it among my poly friends — often stems from an unwillingness to interrogate one’s own assumptions about oneself and one’s partner(s). I do NOT think that everything can be resolved by communication, but sometimes it sure does help clear the air.”

I’ve only asked him once to cancel a date because of Issues We Were Having, and that was two days after we moved into a new apartment and the house was still in chaos.

Right now, his depressive episode is finally resolving, and I have six months of backlog of really rough sex that I want to catch up on, and so when he told me a couple weeks ago that he had four first dates scheduled for the week, I got really mad! because it felt like he was choosing sex with randos who would likely fall through rather than fuck me, RIGHT HERE and ready and frustrated. I was jealous of his time and attention, more than the sex itself. We talked about it, and I realized he was seeking something specific that I could not offer (the heady experience of a new partner), in order to build up his sexual confidence again in no small part so as to feel like he could give me what I wanted. I said that I desperately needed emotional intimacy, for a lot of reasons, and so we agreed on more cuddling and more non-sexual physical touch, and set a specific day for a very sensual, loving sex session, but all that only happened because I was willing to interrogate my own reaction.

I think jealousy — at least as I’ve seen it among my poly friends — often stems from an unwillingness to interrogate one’s own assumptions about oneself and one’s partner(s). I do NOT think that everything can be resolved by communication, but sometimes it sure does help clear the air.

Carolyn: What do you want your future to look like? What vision are you working towards or hoping for?

Mina: I want to dedicate myself to work that matters, to issues that matter, and I have the professional skills to do that. I think I want “my future” to look like something that is … my own. And not anybody else’s template.

I realized as I was writing the bio paragraph that I’ve got a lot of boxes marked on my Intersectionality Bingo card. And that means good things and also realistic things. Like, I am not living a conventional life. I still need to interrogate whether my professed desire to be a mother comes from a place of conventional upbringing, or from a more authentic place that I can do in my own way.

I want to have a life partner. I think I’ve found one.

I want to have meaningful relationships, sexual and otherwise, with people who are conducive to my flourishing.

If I decide that going through pregnancy and parenting is something I want to do for my own, legitimate reasons, then I need to decide what that means for my home and professional life.

Right now, “the future” means I keep my head down politically enough to stay off the radar of people who are in a position to dole out consequences in my field, while making enough mischief to be considered part of the resistance. And I need the people in my life — and in my bed — to be part of supporting me when I need emotional nourishment or physical release.

It’s a pretty self-centered vision, TBH. I swear to you it fits into a larger picture of community and democracy. But some days I can only address what’s within my immediate reach, and I think I need to give myself permission for that to be Enough.

Poly Pocket: Dreaming of a World With Less Fear, More Vulnerability As A Black Trans Queer Person

When there aren’t any models for how you want to move through the world, it’s harder to move through the world. There’s no one right way to do ethical non-monogamy, just as there’s no one right way to do ethical monogamy, and no way is better or worse than any other, just better or worse for those involved. Poly Pocket looks at all the ways queer people do polyamory: what it looks like, how we think about it, how it functions (or doesn’t), how it feels, because when you don’t have models you have to create your own.

Lazarus Letcher is a 24-year-old Black kid with a white mom, is non-binary trans/genderqueer, and is queerly flying solo through poly life in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They are currently balancing dating, finishing up grad school with a focus on Black liberation movements and decolonial queer studies, playing viola and singing with cutie queer folk band Eileen & the In-Betweens, and working as a sex educator/dildo slinger at Self Serve Sexuality Resource Center.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed.

Carolyn: So when did you start to explore polyamory?

Lazarus: About three years ago. I was single for the first time in a long time, and was looking forward to making new types of relationships and connections. I had realized during my last monogamous relationship that when I was dating someone I felt this obligation to devote all of my love and emotional support to that one person. My friendships always suffered when I was in a relationship, even long distance ones. I realize now that the model of love and relationship I had absorbed was one rooted in capitalism. I thought that there was only so much love available to give, a scarcity of emotions, and that because of that they all had to be devoted to one special person in my life. Any love I spent outside of my homonormative couplet felt like cheating to me. It was also around this time that I just began to question the shit out of everything, and myself. I realized that I had not really allowed myself to imagine a future that wasn’t centered on having a career, a partner, and kids. I also realized I didn’t have to be a woman. For me, my polyamory journey is deeply connected with stepping into my gender and myself.

I started dating a true gem of a human after I’d decided I wanted my next relationship to be poly. They had been poly since they were 16, and it was really nice to have my first non-monogamous relationship be with someone who had experience and just some dope ass communication skills. I realized I had never explicitly asked for what I wanted in a relationship until I was poly. It was the first time I felt like I could be fully myself in a relationship. Expressing attraction or adoration for others wasn’t grounds for terminating our relationship. I could love and be loved in return with no shame or guilt.

“I had never explicitly asked for what I wanted in a relationship until I was poly. It was the first time I felt like I could be fully myself in a relationship … I could love and be loved in return with no shame or guilt.”

Carolyn: What is your relationship situation like now?

Lazarus: I just pretty recently started officially dating someone. The relationship is really my ideal poly situation. I’ve known them for awhile because the queer universe is a tiny fishpond no matter where you live. We struck up a really natural friendship that blossomed into play partners that turned into feelings which now leaves us as two giddy teens dating. We’re both in the kink community and play with others and have other relationships that beautifully blur the line of friend/lover. They live with an intentional community, and I’m really excited to explore the kinship potential that first attracted me to polyamory.

Carolyn: What kind of kink dynamics are at play? Do they influence your poly dynamics at all?

Lazarus: I’ve been pretty switchy my whole life, and my appetite in giving and receiving pleasure has really transformed since I started testosterone. This winter solstice will be my one year anniversary of second puberty, and over the course of this year I feel like I’ve suddenly been present for the first time in my body since I was a kid. I view kink as a way to explore and love this new body that’s entirely my creation. I tend to be on the submissive side of things more, which feels radical to me as a queer person of color. Being Black in the kink world is kind of like being Black everywhere else, I’m just waiting for someone to say something fucked up. I’ve heard stories from friends about being propositioned to be involved in “historically accurate” slave situations with white men, and that’s a really fucking hard limit for me.

I do identify as a submissive and my white partner is a service top. While it may not seem this way, I find that choosing to submit, choosing to let my body receive, being ultimately in control of my pleasure, is radical. I think our kink dynamic does impact our relationship in a really great way. The communication that’s necessary to play is a great model for everyday interactions. Consent, checking in, asking what someone’s desires are, these are all marvey things that can benefit any type of relationship.

“I find that choosing to submit, choosing to let my body receive, being ultimately in control of my pleasure, is radical.”

Carolyn: Have any specific communication strategies been particularly successful (or not) for you? Why/why not?

Lazarus: I’ve tried a few. I’m embarrassed to admit for how long I bought into so many romance myths (I’m gonna go ahead and blame young adult novels). I think the most dangerous myth I believed in was that if someone loved me they should be able to read my mind. That is just a fucking nutter butters presumption. It’s taken a lot of work to be able to articulate what my needs are, and that’s a really huge first step in communication. I’ve also learned that once I’ve processed something that’s bothering me, it’s better to share it than let it simmer for months and fester into something much worse. Fear of hurting someone is legitimate, but I’ve found that delaying the news helps no one.

Consistent check-ins have been the most helpful. In my first poly relationship we’d try to catch each other up on what our goals for the relationship were, what we appreciated about each other, and what we’d want to work on as a unit every few months. The goal was to preempt a backlog of resentment essentially, and just get everything out there. I’m a super anxious person, especially when it comes to communication, and going into a serious talk with an idea about the structure is extremely helpful for me.

Carolyn: How do you negotiate conflict? How do you negotiate change?

Lazarus: In most of my poly relationships thus far I’ve been a play partner or “special friend” to married folks. In these situations I’d say I have not handled conflict well, and I think it has to do with my resistance to hierarchal relationships that just seem inevitable if you’re dating someone married.

The conflicts I struggle with the most center around being Black in this polysphere. I was playing with/seeing a white person when Terence Crutcher got murdered and their inability to even grasp, or begin to grasp, the terror I felt completely shut me down. In that situation I just ghosted rather than deal with white tears. It feels strange talking about love and relationships in a time like this — with the powerful Indigenous-led resistance at Standing Rock, the deadliest year for trans folks on record, and the election of Trump, and I am honestly struggling to feel compassion for white folks right now, a conflict that I anticipate in a lot of my relationships.

About six months ago I ended my first long term poly relationship, and that change was hard. In addition to our relationship ending, the quad we were in changed drastically. It was a situation where I had realized my needs and not articulated them until I ended up hurting a lot of people, which I regret immensely. I’m still close with everyone in the quad, and some folks are still dating, but the reconfiguration of this web of relationships, with absolutely no fucking model for what that looks like, has been hard.

“I envision a future where I can reopen my heart, and fight for a world where I’m not scared to leave my apartment with all of my identities intact. My dream world and future is one with less fear and more vulnerability.”

Carolyn: With no models, where do you turn for advice or support?

Lazarus: I am extremely lucky to work at a business that is not only totally accepting of every facet of my identity including polyamory, but is also a hub for the local poly community. Albuquerque has a fairly sizeable poly and kink community. I have folks in my life who have been poly for decades and hearing how they’ve navigated life and the law has been fascinating. I still haven’t told my family, what better way than a very public article? Almost everyone in my friend circle practices some type of non-monogamy. Having no model can be scary, but also extraordinarily liberating. Making, creating, and nurturing relationships, in a way that aren’t just regurgitating the heteropatriarchal settler colonial white supremacist holy of holy couple, is amazing.

Carolyn: Where does poly intersect with other elements of your identity? How does it function within your understanding of yourself?

Lazarus: I think my poly identity fits in neatly with my identity as a radical anti-racist decolonial sex-positive Black trans queer. I’m at a point in my life where I’m trying to undo a lot of damage. I’m trying to interrogate the aspects of my life and identity that are the results of oppression, or that perpetuate oppression. For me polyamory is an aspect of this. I view polyamory as a structure that’s helpful in me decolonizing my love life and the way I view relationships. Having complete ownership of everything within the borders of my skin, and doing what I desire with it and with whom, is an incredible “fuck you” to the systems of oppression I seek to dismantle (and a fun one!). Allowing myself to love fully and completely has helped me foster compassion and empathy in ways I never anticipated, and I think these are two key parts of being an effective organizer or activist. The ability to love openly and fiercely, especially in times like this.

It also has enabled to see myself as a part of a larger web of things, not just in transit from one family unit to another. An alternative kinship without discrimination.

Carolyn: What do you want your future to look like? What vision are you working towards or hoping for?

Lazarus: Uff da, what do I want my future to look like? Open and loving. Growing up in the rural Midwest, Black, queer, trans and scared, I felt isolated. I’ve worked hard to open up my heart, but right now it seems really hard to articulate what my future might look like. I’m fighting for my life on stolen land. A banner reading “Whites Only” was hung on a business down the street from me. I envision a future where I can reopen my heart, and fight for a world where I’m not scared to leave my apartment with all of my identities intact. My dream world and future is one with less fear and more vulnerability. I think the support networks I’ve found during my time as a poly person exist in a lot of queer spaces, the notion of chosen family is new to no one on the margin. I don’t know if I want kids of my own, but I would love to take part in helping raise kids in a poly scenario. My vision is for all of us to find love, inside or outside of the models presented to us.