Thread for Relationship Anarchy & Love without Category

May 31, 2013

I think something like cohabitation or child-rearing is more than just a "marker", though, it's a commitment that does require a certain amount of time and energy. I think it's legitimate for someone to say that they emotionally value their romantic and nonromantic relationships equally, but do need to be more available to their child and co-parent should the needs of the two conflict. The goal is to make the needs of everyone conflict as little as possible, and I think you can spend more time on certain relationships without necessarily neglecting others. I don't *want* someone to spend as much time and energy on me as they spend on their live-in partner and the co-parent of their child. That's why I don't have a live-in partner or children! XD

Agreed. If you live with someone, it's almost by default that you spend most time with them, even more so if you have kids. I don't think spending equal amount of time with every partner/friend is necessary in order for someone to qualify as RA. In fact, my own version of RA is sort of opposite to this: No matter whether I live with a partner or only meet them once a week/month/year/decade, it doesn't affect how much I love them or how significant our relationship is. The only difference is the amount of practical life sharing. Also, there are people like byanyotherusername, who don't see spending a lot of time together as important (actually neither do I), so it's possible to have everyone's needs met while spending very different amounts of time with each of them.

Likewise, I think it's also okay to prioritize certain relationships when making important life decisions, like only bringing a primary partner when moving for a new job. The logistics would be too complicated if you have to take every relationship into consideration, especially if you have a bunch of them. But I'm mostly speaking from my personal perspective. I think I'm more likely to have relationships with people who only require low levels of involvement, and there's a good chance they're LDRs to begin with (in fact, long-distance non-primary relationships seem to be my default assumption these days...I'm not sure how I'd feel if all my relationships were local and then one of us had to move). People who absolutely require full-on involvement are probably incompatible with me anyway. :P So I think as long as everyone is okay with a certain arrangement, it doesn't matter if some relationships get more priority. If you prefer a high level of involvement and are happy to deal with the logistics to incorporate everyone into your life, that's fine too. :)

May 31, 2013

starrynight: By "friends," I mean people you love who love you, people with whom you're emotionally close, people who have emotional weight in your life. You're right, the words "friend" and "friendship" are very liberally used in English vernacular. I try not to use them myself unless I'm talking about someone that meets the aforementioned criteria. Otherwise, I'm dealing with acquaintances, peers, maybe "casual friends," etc.

I think it's interesting that while you do draw a distinction between "romantic" and "nonromantic" feelings (and therefore, relationships), you acknowledge relationships that fall into a blended third area between the two and are thus called romantic friendships, which belong with your other romantic relationships rather than with your nonromantic friendships. If that's the case and you treat romantic friends in the same way as your romantic partners, that's definitely some flavor of RA.

I do believe that a person can have a specific romantic orientation and be an RA, because attractions don't have to dictate behaviors. What immediately stands out to me about your example is that you built it on a few assumptions: that this heteromantic male would consider cuddling and cohabitation "romantic," as if those two things are innately romantic universally; that this heteromantic male would view "romantic" relationships as the only ones eligible for primary partnerships; and that this heteromantic male, because of his romantic orientation, could never experience a connection with another male that evokes a desire to do "romantic" things in a nonromantic way.

I know that the average romantic-sexual person believes all that stuff, and their relationship style depends on such assumptions. But I don't think all romantic people, whether asexual or sexual, think or feel strictly along those lines. I think a romantic person who technically feels a certain kind of attraction to one gender but not the other can still make behavioral choices based on RA philosophy and not their attractions, first of all. I think that someone who's truly an RA, even if they have a specific romantic orientation, could see relationships and their own feelings in ways that buck those traditional separations between "romantic" and "nonromantic" relationships, enough that they can decide they want their primary cohabiting partner to be someone they DON'T have romantic feelings for, even while they do have romantic feelings for other people. (That, to me, is definitively RA!) I think it's possible for a romantic person to view cuddling not as a romantic activity but as an intimate one. I also think it's possible for a person to meet somebody who becomes an exception to their orientations and their usual relationship pattern: a heterosexual man who ends up in a romantic friendship with another man, but never really feels inclined to develop an RF with any other guy.

We already know that attraction does not equal behavior based on the fact that asexuals, who don't experience sexual attraction, can and do sometimes choose to have sex anyway. And some of them enjoy it, despite this lack of attraction.

So when it comes to RA and physical/sensual touching, I view the situation in sort of the same way. I'll use myself as an example: historically speaking, I've experienced sensual attraction way more frequently and more strongly to men than to women, regardless of the fact that I've had more enduring, reciprocal relationships inclusive of real love with women. I want two cohabiting partners in my life, one male and one female. (I don't acknowledge "romance" as something different or separate from friendship in my own life, keep this in mind.) I know that sensual touch will be a huge part of my relationship with my male partner. I don't know how much of it I want in my relationship with my female partner, but I am totally open and willing to explore what feels good to both me and her. And I don't need to feel sensually attracted to her to be very physical with her. If she wants or needs a certain amount of physical touch from me, I don't have any problem giving it to her. And even if I don't feel sensually attracted to her or feel only low levels of sensual attraction to her, I know myself well enough to know that touch is my love language, it's the best and most important way for me to feel love and connection and security in any relationship, so whether I'm attracted to her that way or not, it's probably important that I engage with her physically, in order to ensure that I feel truly loved, cared for, valued, etc in that relationship.

Obviously, people should only do what they feel comfortable with, as much as they can--so if someone's got a specific romantic orientation and they really hate being physical with someone of the gender they aren't romantically attracted to, they shouldn't force themselves to be physical--but to some degree, if you love and care about someone in any way, you should take into consideration what they need to feel loved, because if you don't give them what they need, it doesn't matter what you feel. They won't feel it from you, like I said. I know this from experience because I really do need touch in my important relationships in order to feel loved and I believe that if I had gotten that in my friendships growing up, I would've felt a lot more loved, a lot more secure, a lot more important to my friends. My ex-best friend could've told me a 1000 times that she loved me and cared about me and that I was more important in the long-run than any of her boyfriends, but I never felt it as something true, in part because she would be physical with those boyfriends and not very physical with me. And emotionally, I interpret amount of touch as amount of love, even if the person I'm watching doesn't. I could know, intellectually, that my friend doesn't see touch that way. Doesn't matter. I do. And I'm going to feel accordingly.

So as an RA, I seek to create relationships in which there's total freedom and comfort for me and my companions to ask for what we want and need to feel loved, secure, important, etc--and no matter what the finer details are of my attractions to any of them, no matter whether they're "primary" or "nonprimary," I really do want to try to meet the wants and needs of my passionate friends. I'm not willing to sacrifice or harm my other relationships for the sake of one of them, nor am I willing to do something that's hugely uncomfortable for me (like have sex, for instance), but otherwise, there's not much I would say "no" to, without trying first.

My interpretation is that RA is more about not automatically assuming certain "types" of relationships require certain commitments, or that certain commitments can only occur in certain "types" of relationships. I don't think it's problematic to allot more time and resources to a relationship because it involves a intensive commitment like raising a child - that makes sense to me. What I do find problematic is the notion that, say, a conventional romantic relationship always ought to have a privileged status over all other relationships and imply certain commitments/restrictions solely because it is that "type" of relationship.

Exactly.

Frankly, I don't think you can be in a romantic-sexual monogamous marriage with somebody, live with that person and only with that person, be romantically involved with that person exclusively, do that relationship much differently than you do all your friendships, and be a relationship anarchist. I know you can be married and poly. But the institution of marriage predicates itself upon the assumption that the marital relationship is light years ahead of every other relationship in terms of commitment, emotional importance, etc. That's one of the many reasons I'm marriage-free. Even if I could legally marry both my male partner and my female partner simultaneously, which would preserve the equality of those two relationships, I wouldn't want to create that very obvious sense of superiority of my partnerships over my other relationships. I think something as coded as marriage has a major psychological impact on the people in the marriage, whether they want it to or not, and it certainly sends a message to the public about the level of commitment and importance of the relationship, as ridiculous as that is.

And if your marriage is romantic and/or sexual? Forget it. It's automatically going to take a place of importance over all your nonromantic and/or nonsexual relationships, if it wasn't already at that point prior to the marriage.

Marrying a nonromantic/nonsexual partner, on the other hand, could be an interesting expression of RA.....

May 31, 2013

(And yes, I can relate to what LoC is saying re: gender. If I wasn't hetero-affectionate, I'd totally drop the distinction on the spot I think. It's really not useful at all, beyond the fact that my relationships with women can have a certain affectional base which the ones with males can't. But that doesn't automatically mean that they'll necessarily be sexual, or even "romantic" in the usual mainstream sense)

Yeah, after giving it a couple days of thought, I think I'm ready to officially drop the distinction entirely. I've seen this coming for a few months now, actually, but for some reason I kept clinging to the distinction, hazy as it was. Indeed, when I started considering it in earnest, I encountered a lot of internal resistance. After musing on it for a while, I realized it wasn't really that big of a deal. It's not like giving up a couple labels for my emotions, attractions, and relationships fundamentally changes anything about them; it only affects how I describe them. That's it. And it's not like I was using the terms according to their standard definitions anyway, which already provided a barrier to communication. Plus, I was getting annoyed with myself for equivocating all over the place.

At least for the time being, I'm going to go ahead and borrow KST's use of the word "affectionate." Without the subjective definition of "romantic" hanging over my head, I'm left with three basic types of "friends": acquaintances, non-affectionate (perhaps "normal" or "common") friends, and affectionate friends. As with any set of categories, there are going to be ambiguous cases that don't fit perfectly into the system. Overall, though, it's much cleaner.

I suspect my "types of friends" probably aren't so different from starrynight's, actually (casual, close platonic, and romantic). I'd be willing to bet that they're roughly equivalent in practice. So, I can still understand pretty well how it's intuitive for other people to use that distinction, and I genuinely have nothing against it. It's just that for me, I think it works better if I just forgo it entirely, because I'm apparently wired (or weird) like that. :P

Also, I tend to use a stricter definition of the word "friend" too. Most people I know and like would probably fall into the "acquaintance" category. I really have to feel some kind of significant affection and emotional bond with someone to consider them a friend.

That's enough about me, though. This discussion has reminded me of a blog post I read some time ago, about "polynormativity." Has anyone else read this, and if so, any thoughts?

May 31, 2013

Frankly, I don't think you can be in a romantic-sexual monogamous marriage with somebody, live with that person and only with that person, be romantically involved with that person exclusively, do that relationship much differently than you do all your friendships, and be a relationship anarchist.

I interpret this a bit differently. I put a lot of emphasis on that idea of "customised commitments". As opposed to the prescriptive commitments of traditional relationships.

For example:

If I and a female friend love each other (say as "affectionate friends", if we must label things), and all we mutually want out of that relationship is to share a close emotional and intellectual bond mostly over online communication, with maybe meeting IRL now and again for a weekend away of RL catching up and cuddles, then that's the fully qualified relationship we both want with each other. ie Those are our customised commitments to each other - to maintain that connection. It doesn't matter that she's also married with children and that in practice, her marriage comes with another set of customised commitments which (as a general rule) take precedence in her life. I think it's basically inevitable that certain kinds of bonding and commitment are going to lessen the ability to make others, but I don't see that as a problem as long as there is room for other bonds - and as long as the people involved in those bonds are truly happy with those bonds. Even if technically they are at a "lesser" level of practical priority in the bigger picture.

The reason why I see this as RA is this: In the mainstream world, the above kind of relationship wouldn't be possible - because that intimate emotional bond would be "emotional cheating". And going off for a weekend away in private and cuddling would be seen as practically a full-on affair, even if somehow everyone trusted that no sexy times were going on.

So this is the reason I see myself as RA. The fact that I don't like to follow the prescriptive rules of given relationship types, and prefer to spell out specific commitments to specific people very explicitly. And then just rely on total openness and trust that these commitments are adhered to. I can understand the point that this places limitations on the connections - which can sometimes almost look exactly the same as normal hierarchical relationships (such as the case of being married with children, which eats a lot of time and resources) - but the mindset behind it is still very different. There's no ultimate emotional absoluteness and exclusivity to anything really. And I think the kind of total "purity of freedom of association" you're talking about is very difficult to achieve, unless you essentially make no big long term plans with anyone ever.

Maybe the reason it's easy for me to see it this way is that I actually like the idea of relatively open and egoless/unpossessive relating. ie I don't mind "not being number one". Even prefer it in some ways in fact. :P

eg. Something like the affectionate friendship I described above feels totally awesome to me - there's not a trace of inadequacy at the idea of those commitments being on a practically "lesser" level than to her husband and children. But I guess for other people, the existence of any kind of explicit limitation is harder to accept. But for me it's easy to accept because I actually don't necessarily want much more than just a basic level of being in touch and sharing some emotional intimacy. That's a baseline level of relating that can make things feel emotionally fair and "equal". So I don't really get personally hurt by "not being equal" in other practical ways. :D

June 1, 2013

I think it's interesting that while you do draw a distinction between "romantic" and "nonromantic" feelings (and therefore, relationships), you acknowledge relationships that fall into a blended third area between the two and are thus called romantic friendships, which belong with your other romantic relationships rather than with your nonromantic friendships. If that's the case and you treat romantic friends in the same way as your romantic partners, that's definitely some flavor of RA.

That's true. However, feeling-wise, my romantic friendships are also romantic rather than purely platonic (although probably not like the stereotypical "romance", but more like a deep friendship with a romantic touch; I still call it "romantic" though), which is why they belong with my other romantic relationships. For me, romantic friendship means romantic feelings + friendship dynamic, like the "affectionate friendship" case KST described above.

I do believe that a person can have a specific romantic orientation and be an RA, because attractions don't have to dictate behaviors. What immediately stands out to me about your example is that you built it on a few assumptions: that this heteromantic male would consider cuddling and cohabitation "romantic," as if those two things are innately romantic universally; that this heteromantic male would view "romantic" relationships as the only ones eligible for primary partnerships; and that this heteromantic male, because of his romantic orientation, could never experience a connection with another male that evokes a desire to do "romantic" things in a nonromantic way.

Yeah, I guess I was focusing on "hetero-affectionate" rather than "heteroromantic" in my example, because your blog post did give some examples of hetero- or homo-romantic RA's, who could share physical affection with the gender they're not romantically attracted to. I also noticed there are quite a few people here (both RA's and non-RA's, myself included) with a specific "affectionate orientation", which usually aligns with their romantic orientation, but it's slightly different.

Personally, I don't consider cuddling or other physical affection innately romantic, nor do I consciously "reserve" it in my romantic relationships. I simply don't desire to do these things with a platonic friend, male or female; but if I had to, I'd be more comfortable cuddling with a male platonic friend than a female one. I don't consider cohabitation inherently romantic either, but for me, the best thing about cohabitation is easy access to physical affection, so it'd be most likely with a romantic partner. If physical affection wasn't a factor though, I'd be more open to platonic cohabitation.

I don't know how much of my (and other people's) "affectionate orientation" is hardwired and how much is due to social conditioning. I did grow up in a culture where physical affection between female friends is very normal, but I'm simply not interested. But it's not super repulsive to me either, so I won't rule out the possibility of trying it with a female friend who likes it. :)

This discussion has reminded me of a blog post I read some time ago, about "polynormativity." Has anyone else read this, and if so, any thoughts?

I just scanned through the post, and I think it's very true. I've watched a few clips of the popular TV series "Polyamory: Married and Dating", which features two poly families, a triad and a quad (and surprise surprise, the triad is a married couple sharing a girlfriend). I'm annoyed by both the title and the content: Why does poly have to start from a married couple, or even a couple? Why does poly have to be the group marriage kind of deal? I guess this kind of poly stories are more eye-catching, but they failed to capture the diversity in the poly community. By featuring two stories of the same type, the show has probably sent a distorted message to those who don't know much about poly.

If one TV show isn't convincing enough, I've also read a bunch of academic papers about polyamory. Most of them describe poly as a primary couple dating others independently, and having all kinds of rules to protect the primacy of their couple relationship, which is considered as a demonstration of commitment in poly relationships. I read them last year, when I hadn't thought so much about poly and RA yet. Now that I think back on them, I feel irritated and sick. They made poly look like all its purpose was to enhance the primary relationship, while secondary relationships were just a nice extra to have, and should be restricted so that they wouldn't threaten the primary relationship. Admittedly, most of the studies were conducted through interviews, so perhaps they did reflect the poly norm. But I'm still shocked at the lack of coverage on non-hierarchical poly, solo poly, and other ways to do poly.

EDIT: OK, I just went back to read more of that post, and I saw this: "If it were never about the sex, it also wouldn’t be polyamory—we’d just be a bunch of friends, which is also awesome, but also not usually romantic, though possibly committed." Hmm, looks like some asexual visibility is necessary. :P Though I'm probably more annoyed by the "no sex = just friends" assumption, and the "just friends" wording. :twisted:

June 1, 2013

I have to say, as of this morning and after reading LoC's post above, I'm starting to lean more and more towards dumping the term "romantic" altogether myself...

Other than episodes of limerence, which I don't consider a sane motivation to bond over anyway, there really isn't anything much that distinguishes what I would call "affectionate friendship" and "romance". In the long term it's the underlying friendship that actually matters to me most in both cases (not that they're clear categories to begin with!). And as I've said plenty of times, I'd never allow any irrational jealousy-based boundaries to trample any of my relationships. Even if I might enter something that superficially looks like quite a "normal" primary relationship in the future.

I guess it's mostly a problem of linguistic/cultural baggage. When you say "romance", 99% of the world will interpret it as the mainstream thing. Feelings and motivations that inevitably go in the direction of pair-bonding, sex, marriage, living together, and generally some kind of comprehensive sense of life-sharing (even if you're not strictly monogamous). For me this isn't really accurate at all. What I call "romance" in myself is really more like an "affection drive". I can certainly identify a difference in my head compared to how I feel about strictly platonic male friends, but it's far too vague and low-level to demand a completely different presentation.

Hmmm, I'm not actually sure what to do, label-wise. I'd kinda prefer to just be able to say love is love is love and not have to label anything at all - just work out each relationship on its own terms and be totally dynamic about the commitments and boundaries involved with each of them. I think I'm bound to come across as an odd duck to the mainstream no matter what. :lol:

But I can definitely see that the label "romantic" just confuses things. It's even confusing enough on AVEN, and even in a group like this where we've analysed it and picked it apart to death, let alone out in the mainstream - where the definition of it is far more prescriptive of a very fixed relationship narrative.

June 1, 2013

EDIT: OK, I just went back to read more of that post, and I saw this: "If it were never about the sex, it also wouldn’t be polyamory—we’d just be a bunch of friends, which is also awesome, but also not usually romantic, though possibly committed." Hmm, looks like some asexual visibility is necessary. :P Though I'm probably more annoyed by the "no sex = just friends" assumption, and the "just friends" wording. :twisted:

Yeah, I went back and reread most of it. Unsurprisingly, while I agree with a lot of the other arguments made in that post, that part gets on my nerves as well. The "poly isn't poly without the sex" misconception is really damaging - it's one of the reasons it took me so long to seriously look into poly, despite the fact that there was evidence of my "poly-mindedness" for years. It's interesting how the post criticizes the primary/secondary model, yet still adheres to the friendship/romance hierarchy (and the assumption that sex distinguishes romance from friendship). It seems even polyamory that doesn't abide by the primary/secondary model can still be hierarchical in some way.

All this makes me realize just how radical us ace-spectrum relationship anarchist folks are. :P

I have to say, as of this morning and after reading LoC's post above, I'm starting to lean more and more towards dumping the term "romantic" altogether myself...

[...]

Hmmm, I'm not actually sure what to do, label-wise. I'd kinda prefer to just be able to say love is love is love and not have to label anything at all - just work out each relationship on its own terms and be totally dynamic about the commitments and boundaries involved with each of them. I think I'm bound to come across as an odd duck to the mainstream no matter what. :lol:

Your reasoning in favor of giving it up is pretty similar to mine. Personally, I'm going with the "affectionate" label because it's fairly easy for me to identify feelings and expressions of affection, whereas trying to tell "romantic" affection from "platonic" affection is practically impossible. In terms of organizing the labels in my head, I haven't settled on anything yet, but here's what I'm thinking so far (and only with regards to myself, of course)...

The distinction between "acquaintance" and "friend" is mainly the level of emotional intimacy, and in many ways reflects the fact that there are some people I like and some whom I love. So, while I might like and talk to acquaintances on a regular basis, I don't feel a particularly strong emotional bond with them, nor would I use the word "love" to describe how I feel about them. I would when referring to friends, however.

The distinction between "non-affectionate friendship" and "affectionate friendship" is a little different. I haven't completely ironed it out yet, but what I'm thinking so far is that the difference is, in many ways, the amount of norm-breaking that occurs in the context of the relationship. Even though I might feel very close to and affectionate toward a particular friend of mine, if the relationship behaves the same way "just friendship" is supposed to behave, it's a non-affectionate friendship. On the other hand, if there are levels of intimacy, commitment, expressions of physical affection, etc. that go beyond what is considered "normal" for "just friendship" and perhaps start to impinge on emotional/behavioral territory that is typically reserved for romantic relationships, it's an affectionate friendship. This could include a number of relationship styles - mutually romantic friendships, one-sided romantic friendships, passionate friendships, emotionally intimate "cuddle buddies," queerplatonic partnerships, romantic relationships, LDRs, etc. It's nice and open-ended, and it leaves plenty of room for me and whoever is involved in my relationships to define them however we like - platonic, romantic, both, neither, whatever.

There are some downsides, though. As I mentioned above, there's still room for ambiguities, as there always will be in any labeling system. Also, I'm no longer sure how I can fit into discussions of "romantic relationships" or "romantic attraction." Furthermore, I don't like making up my own terminology because it always ends up sounding a little ridiculous. Then again, I already felt ridiculous talking about "low-level romantic feelings," so maybe this is an improvement. :P

Anyway, that's where my personal version of RA stands at the moment. It'll probably change as I continue to overanalyze everything. :lol:

June 1, 2013

@LawofCircles: Found that post on polynormativity a few weeks ago and LOVE IT!

@KittySpoonTrain: I do understand what you're getting at, and you're right about even that kind of a friendship (I want to say "with the sex you're romantically/sexually attracted to" but let's be real, with anybody) with someone outside a traditional marriage definitely breaks several of the relationship hierarchist/traditionalist's rules. And I do understand that if both people in a relationship are getting everything they want out of it, it doesn't (or shouldn't) actually matter if their relationship appears to be comparatively inferior to another relationship either or both of them have elsewhere.

And oh, my JFC, do I hate the concept of "emotional cheating." It's almost psychotic, in my view. Maybe I'm incapable of seeing it the way a romantic-sexual person sees it because it's probably true that for them, whatever can be considered "romance" level feelings will eventually lead to actual sex, and in my universe, that just isn't so, ever..... But God, it's really a screwed up concept.

Re: being #1

See, I feel like this is something I can and should talk about here with others who might understand or help me sort this out because this is one of those instances where my way of thinking, feeling, and doing relationships clashes with the way of romantic-sexual people (and, I suspect, romantic asexuals who are relationship traditionalists/hierarchists) to the point where big dissonance occurs..... If I'm interacting with other people who are like me, people who are relationship anarchists that relate to me not as a "friend" or as a "romantic partner" but simply as "person I love", people who are totally open to loving me and feeling with me in our relationship in a totally natural and free way, who are ready and willing to do for me what I need to feel loved and secure and important to them (regardless of their other relationships) -- then I don't think I need to be "number one" to them in the sense of coming before everybody else they know, because in my own philosophy of love, there is no "number one." There's just a big group of people who I love passionately and equally, and if those other people are the same way, then I don't need to feel insecure or inferior or subordinated to anyone else they know, because we're all equal. If I can feel a sense of equality in the relationship landscape I'm in, then I don't really feel the need to care about how the people I love are playing with other people when I'm not around.

In other words, I only care about not being #1, when the person I love actually creates a relationship hierarchy in which there is a very clear and definite #1 slot, and that slot is specifically "romantic" and "sexual." Then, I have a problem with being put under their series of romantic-sexual partners. Then, I have a problem with my needs and desires and feelings coming second place; then, I have a problem with feeling like my relationship with that person could be in jeopardy at any time, at the whims of their #1. When having a #1 slot means that most forms of intimacy and affection belong exclusively to that slot, which then means I don't have access to most of the things I need and want to feel good in my relationship with somebody, then I have a really fucking huge problem. When I feel like I love my friend a thousand times more than they're capable of loving me because they draw a line in the sand that separates quantities and qualities of love into "friendship" and "romance," then I got a problem with being on the "friend" side not because I even WANT to be on the "romance" side but because I can't bear that imbalance of feelings.

And I don't know how to cope with that situation, which is why I've sworn off getting emotionally involved with romantic-sexual people, barring unique circumstances.

Speaking of which..... there is somebody I love who's not only a heterosexual but a married, monogamous, relationship traditionalist. And while I'm not 100% sure that what I think I want from my relationship with him is all I really want or whether my brain's convinced itself on a conscious level that it's all I want because it believes anything more would be hopeless and therefore cause me agony, I do feel like I would be happy with what appears to be a typical friendship. I don't feel bothered by the idea of his wife always mattering far more--that actually makes perfect sense to me because hell, they've been together decades, they got kids, etc--and I'm not interested in living with him or becoming intertwined financially/legally/etc. I don't imagine sharing anywhere near as much physical affection with him as I would with my two live-in partners or other passionate friends, though I would like frequent hugs and a general physical ease between us.

But on an emotional level, I already know that the intensity of my love for him, of the happiness I feel because of him, is pretty damn close to what I imagine feeling for any other passionate friend/partner I want. And I still want to be connected to him the rest of my life, still want to spend as much time with him as I can one-on-one, when we're in the same place (currently we live far apart), still want to talk to him on a regular basis (once a week? more?), etc. That's a defining part of my own RA: apparently, I'm emotionally wired to feel love at a 9 or 10 across the board, toward everyone I develop real love for, which is one reason why distinguishing between "romantic" and "nonromantic" is pointless for me. Also why it's very good I love few people.

June 1, 2013

Yeah, this is exactly what sums up why my focus is so much on the "customised commitments" bit.

The mainstream view is something like: romantic and platonic are completely separate categories, and certain types of feelings and interactions are purely reserved for "romantic" relationships. And once you're in a romantic relationship - THAT'S IT! It's a total mutual emotional lock on those types of feelings. So then even a hint of affection going too far with an "outsider" is seen as a threat, an "emotional affair" or whatever. Maybe I'm just projecting some of my own bitterness of past experiences into this, but I don't think so. I really do think that a lot of the barriers that exist here are unnecessary, unnatural, and generally a sign of relationships not being driven by good communication.

So yes, I totally agree that if you're living with someone and are married with children, that relationship has a certain core priority in your life. And it's legitimate to mutually set boundaries and commitments on it which to some extent regulate what sort of access other people can have. But I think this should be a totally openly discussed and dynamic system, not some kind of default assumption that's just "there" forever. This is what I think leads to harm, when people are unnaturally suppressed, and don't acknowledge that relationships evolve over time, and that sometimes it makes sense to re-work the customised details of the commitments over said time. "Outsiders" can never be threats to a good relationship, in and of themselves. Unless people get greedy and try to have their cake and eat it too (cheat), which is exactly what this is about in my view - setting up your relationships in such a way that there are no irrational taboos driving them.

Maybe it helps if you just ignore the feelings involved completely, and look at the actual external physical consequences of certain actions. As an obvious extreme: it's obviously a good idea to keep a close eye on how unprotected sex happens. If everyone just went out there without boundaries and did it with whomever they felt like, that's obviously grossly irresponsible. But then, other boundaries are more subtle. Such as say, being cuddle buddies who don't even make out and swap spit. In a practical sense, there's really no reason that relationship should be a physical "threat" to anyone, because the natural consequences of it are no different to any other friendship. And if you agree to stick to those boundaries and simply trust that everyone's on the same page, it should all be fine and dandy.

This is where I think my thinking falls quite neatly along the lines of the RA manifesto. I prefer the idea of choosing to trust that certain customised commitments are going to be adhered to responsibly in given relationships. The fact that these boundaries can (in certain cases such as a marriage with kids) ultimately end up looking almost the same as a hierarchical model from the outside isn't really the point - it's more that everyone involved has mapped out a certain type of relationship with each other which is internally consistent and satisfying. And nobody has an automatic right to ask for irrationally tight jealousy-driven boundaries which go far beyond what's necessary to keep everyone safe and sound and happy.

Frankly, I don't think you can be in a romantic-sexual monogamous marriage with somebody, live with that person and only with that person, be romantically involved with that person exclusively, do that relationship much differently than you do all your friendships, and be a relationship anarchist.

I interpret this a bit differently. I put a lot of emphasis on that idea of "customised commitments". As opposed to the prescriptive commitments of traditional relationships.

For example:

If I and a female friend love each other (say as "affectionate friends", if we must label things), and all we mutually want out of that relationship is to share a close emotional and intellectual bond mostly over online communication, with maybe meeting IRL now and again for a weekend away of RL catching up and cuddles, then that's the fully qualified relationship we both want with each other. ie Those are our customised commitments to each other - to maintain that connection. It doesn't matter that she's also married with children and that in practice, her marriage comes with another set of customised commitments which (as a general rule) take precedence in her life. I think it's basically inevitable that certain kinds of bonding and commitment are going to lessen the ability to make others, but I don't see that as a problem as long as there is room for other bonds - and as long as the people involved in those bonds are truly happy with those bonds. Even if technically they are at a "lesser" level of practical priority in the bigger picture.

The reason why I see this as RA is this: In the mainstream world, the above kind of relationship wouldn't be possible - because that intimate emotional bond would be "emotional cheating". And going off for a weekend away in private and cuddling would be seen as practically a full-on affair, even if somehow everyone trusted that no sexy times were going on.

So this is the reason I see myself as RA. The fact that I don't like to follow the prescriptive rules of given relationship types, and prefer to spell out specific commitments to specific people very explicitly. And then just rely on total openness and trust that these commitments are adhered to. I can understand the point that this places limitations on the connections - which can sometimes almost look exactly the same as normal hierarchical relationships (such as the case of being married with children, which eats a lot of time and resources) - but the mindset behind it is still very different. There's no ultimate emotional absoluteness and exclusivity to anything really. And I think the kind of total "purity of freedom of association" you're talking about is very difficult to achieve, unless you essentially make no big long term plans with anyone ever.

Maybe the reason it's easy for me to see it this way is that I actually like the idea of relatively open and egoless/unpossessive relating. ie I don't mind "not being number one". Even prefer it in some ways in fact. :P

eg. Something like the affectionate friendship I described above feels totally awesome to me - there's not a trace of inadequacy at the idea of those commitments being on a practically "lesser" level than to her husband and children. But I guess for other people, the existence of any kind of explicit limitation is harder to accept. But for me it's easy to accept because I actually don't necessarily want much more than just a basic level of being in touch and sharing some emotional intimacy. That's a baseline level of relating that can make things feel emotionally fair and "equal". So I don't really get personally hurt by "not being equal" in other practical ways. :D

I definitely agree with the "customized commitments" idea--that everyone should work out for themselves what their needs, boundaries and expectations are in each relationship (whether with a friend, partner, relative, whatever), and there is nothing wrong with the end result appearing to be very similar to the mainstream nuclear family model, so long as that is truly what works best for everyone involved.

If you live with someone, it's almost by default that you spend most time with them, even more so if you have kids. I don't think spending equal amount of time with every partner/friend is necessary in order for someone to qualify as RA. In fact, my own version of RA is sort of opposite to this: No matter whether I live with a partner or only meet them once a week/month/year/decade, it doesn't affect how much I love them or how significant our relationship is. The only difference is the amount of practical life sharing. Also, there are people like byanyotherusername, who don't see spending a lot of time together as important (actually neither do I), so it's possible to have everyone's needs met while spending very different amounts of time with each of them.I think something like cohabitation or child-rearing is more than just a "marker", though, it's a commitment that does require a certain amount of time and energy. I think it's legitimate for someone to say that they emotionally value their romantic and nonromantic relationships equally, but do need to be more available to their child and co-parent should the needs of the two conflict. The goal is to make the needs of everyone conflict as little as possible, and I think you can spend more time on certain relationships without necessarily neglecting others. I don't *want* someone to spend as much time and energy on me as they spend on their live-in partner and the co-parent of their child. That's why I don't have a live-in partner or children! XD

Likewise, I think it's also okay to prioritize certain relationships when making important life decisions, like only bringing a primary partner when moving for a new job. The logistics would be too complicated if you have to take every relationship into consideration, especially if you have a bunch of them.

Also agreed. :)

starrynight: By "friends," I mean people you love who love you, people with whom you're emotionally close, people who have emotional weight in your life. You're right, the words "friend" and "friendship" are very liberally used in English vernacular. I try not to use them myself unless I'm talking about someone that meets the aforementioned criteria. Otherwise, I'm dealing with acquaintances, peers, maybe "casual friends," etc.

I think it's interesting that while you do draw a distinction between "romantic" and "nonromantic" feelings (and therefore, relationships), you acknowledge relationships that fall into a blended third area between the two and are thus called romantic friendships, which belong with your other romantic relationships rather than with your nonromantic friendships. If that's the case and you treat romantic friends in the same way as your romantic partners, that's definitely some flavor of RA.

I do believe that a person can have a specific romantic orientation and be an RA, because attractions don't have to dictate behaviors. What immediately stands out to me about your example is that you built it on a few assumptions: that this heteromantic male would consider cuddling and cohabitation "romantic," as if those two things are innately romantic universally; that this heteromantic male would view "romantic" relationships as the only ones eligible for primary partnerships; and that this heteromantic male, because of his romantic orientation, could never experience a connection with another male that evokes a desire to do "romantic" things in a nonromantic way.

I know that the average romantic-sexual person believes all that stuff, and their relationship style depends on such assumptions. But I don't think all romantic people, whether asexual or sexual, think or feel strictly along those lines. I think a romantic person who technically feels a certain kind of attraction to one gender but not the other can still make behavioral choices based on RA philosophy and not their attractions, first of all. I think that someone who's truly an RA, even if they have a specific romantic orientation, could see relationships and their own feelings in ways that buck those traditional separations between "romantic" and "nonromantic" relationships, enough that they can decide they want their primary cohabiting partner to be someone they DON'T have romantic feelings for, even while they do have romantic feelings for other people. (That, to me, is definitively RA!) I think it's possible for a romantic person to view cuddling not as a romantic activity but as an intimate one. I also think it's possible for a person to meet somebody who becomes an exception to their orientations and their usual relationship pattern: a heterosexual man who ends up in a romantic friendship with another man, but never really feels inclined to develop an RF with any other guy.

We already know that attraction does not equal behavior based on the fact that asexuals, who don't experience sexual attraction, can and do sometimes choose to have sex anyway. And some of them enjoy it, despite this lack of attraction.

So when it comes to RA and physical/sensual touching, I view the situation in sort of the same way. I'll use myself as an example: historically speaking, I've experienced sensual attraction way more frequently and more strongly to men than to women, regardless of the fact that I've had more enduring, reciprocal relationships inclusive of real love with women. I want two cohabiting partners in my life, one male and one female. (I don't acknowledge "romance" as something different or separate from friendship in my own life, keep this in mind.) I know that sensual touch will be a huge part of my relationship with my male partner. I don't know how much of it I want in my relationship with my female partner, but I am totally open and willing to explore what feels good to both me and her. And I don't need to feel sensually attracted to her to be very physical with her. If she wants or needs a certain amount of physical touch from me, I don't have any problem giving it to her. And even if I don't feel sensually attracted to her or feel only low levels of sensual attraction to her, I know myself well enough to know that touch is my love language, it's the best and most important way for me to feel love and connection and security in any relationship, so whether I'm attracted to her that way or not, it's probably important that I engage with her physically, in order to ensure that I feel truly loved, cared for, valued, etc in that relationship.

Obviously, people should only do what they feel comfortable with, as much as they can--so if someone's got a specific romantic orientation and they really hate being physical with someone of the gender they aren't romantically attracted to, they shouldn't force themselves to be physical--but to some degree, if you love and care about someone in any way, you should take into consideration what they need to feel loved, because if you don't give them what they need, it doesn't matter what you feel. They won't feel it from you, like I said. I know this from experience because I really do need touch in my important relationships in order to feel loved and I believe that if I had gotten that in my friendships growing up, I would've felt a lot more loved, a lot more secure, a lot more important to my friends. My ex-best friend could've told me a 1000 times that she loved me and cared about me and that I was more important in the long-run than any of her boyfriends, but I never felt it as something true, in part because she would be physical with those boyfriends and not very physical with me. And emotionally, I interpret amount of touch as amount of love, even if the person I'm watching doesn't. I could know, intellectually, that my friend doesn't see touch that way. Doesn't matter. I do. And I'm going to feel accordingly.

So as an RA, I seek to create relationships in which there's total freedom and comfort for me and my companions to ask for what we want and need to feel loved, secure, important, etc--and no matter what the finer details are of my attractions to any of them, no matter whether they're "primary" or "nonprimary," I really do want to try to meet the wants and needs of my passionate friends. I'm not willing to sacrifice or harm my other relationships for the sake of one of them, nor am I willing to do something that's hugely uncomfortable for me (like have sex, for instance), but otherwise, there's not much I would say "no" to, without trying first.

My interpretation is that RA is more about not automatically assuming certain "types" of relationships require certain commitments, or that certain commitments can only occur in certain "types" of relationships. I don't think it's problematic to allot more time and resources to a relationship because it involves a intensive commitment like raising a child - that makes sense to me. What I do find problematic is the notion that, say, a conventional romantic relationship always ought to have a privileged status over all other relationships and imply certain commitments/restrictions solely because it is that "type" of relationship.

Exactly.

Frankly, I don't think you can be in a romantic-sexual monogamous marriage with somebody, live with that person and only with that person, be romantically involved with that person exclusively, do that relationship much differently than you do all your friendships, and be a relationship anarchist. I know you can be married and poly. But the institution of marriage predicates itself upon the assumption that the marital relationship is light years ahead of every other relationship in terms of commitment, emotional importance, etc. That's one of the many reasons I'm marriage-free. Even if I could legally marry both my male partner and my female partner simultaneously, which would preserve the equality of those two relationships, I wouldn't want to create that very obvious sense of superiority of my partnerships over my other relationships. I think something as coded as marriage has a major psychological impact on the people in the marriage, whether they want it to or not, and it certainly sends a message to the public about the level of commitment and importance of the relationship, as ridiculous as that is.

And if your marriage is romantic and/or sexual? Forget it. It's automatically going to take a place of importance over all your nonromantic and/or nonsexual relationships, if it wasn't already at that point prior to the marriage.

Marrying a nonromantic/nonsexual partner, on the other hand, could be an interesting expression of RA.....

I don't mean to offend, but it almost sounds like you're saying that the more nontraditional relationships are, the more they adhere to the RA model, and if they appear too traditional they simply can't be RA, regardless of the circumstances. Especially this last bit. Marriage disqualifies you from being RA, unless you're not a romantic/sexual couple, in which case it is almost automatically RA? What? 0.o

I know I keep coming back to my cousin and his wife as examples, but they literally got married purely for the legal benefits, after nearly a decade of being a couple and over seven years of cohabitation. They didn't have a wedding, rings, or anything else, and many of us (their closest friends and family) didn't even know they had gotten married until months later. They consider "marriage" nothing more than a piece of paper that grants them certain rights for no good reason. So, I don't think it has some kind of automatic psychological affect.

My cousin and his wife do not identify as RA as far as I know. But I do think they do an excellent job of juggling the needs of the different relationships in their life. So, I don't think I can identify as RA if there is some kind of prejudice against anything that looks too "traditional," despite the fact that the way I structure relationships in my own life is highly nontraditional. In my opinion, people should do whatever works with them, with as much respect to the needs of all the different people in their life as possible, and if the result winds up looking fairly conventional from the outside, who cares?

Yeah, after giving it a couple days of thought, I think I'm ready to officially drop the distinction entirely. I've seen this coming for a few months now, actually, but for some reason I kept clinging to the distinction, hazy as it was. Indeed, when I started considering it in earnest, I encountered a lot of internal resistance. After musing on it for a while, I realized it wasn't really that big of a deal. It's not like giving up a couple labels for my emotions, attractions, and relationships fundamentally changes anything about them; it only affects how I describe them. That's it. And it's not like I was using the terms according to their standard definitions anyway, which already provided a barrier to communication. Plus, I was getting annoyed with myself for equivocating all over the place.

(And yes, I can relate to what LoC is saying re: gender. If I wasn't hetero-affectionate, I'd totally drop the distinction on the spot I think. It's really not useful at all, beyond the fact that my relationships with women can have a certain affectional base which the ones with males can't. But that doesn't automatically mean that they'll necessarily be sexual, or even "romantic" in the usual mainstream sense)

At least for the time being, I'm going to go ahead and borrow KST's use of the word "affectionate." Without the subjective definition of "romantic" hanging over my head, I'm left with three basic types of "friends": acquaintances, non-affectionate (perhaps "normal" or "common") friends, and affectionate friends. As with any set of categories, there are going to be ambiguous cases that don't fit perfectly into the system. Overall, though, it's much cleaner.

I suspect my "types of friends" probably aren't so different from starrynight's, actually (casual, close platonic, and romantic). I'd be willing to bet that they're roughly equivalent in practice. So, I can still understand pretty well how it's intuitive for other people to use that distinction, and I genuinely have nothing against it. It's just that for me, I think it works better if I just forgo it entirely, because I'm apparently wired (or weird) like that. :P

Also, I tend to use a stricter definition of the word "friend" too. Most people I know and like would probably fall into the "acquaintance" category. I really have to feel some kind of significant affection and emotional bond with someone to consider them a friend.

That's enough about me, though. This discussion has reminded me of a blog post I read some time ago, about "polynormativity." Has anyone else read this, and if so, any thoughts?

I did enjoy the blogpost, other than the aforementioned no sex = friendship bit. More on the platonic/romantic distinction...

I have to say, as of this morning and after reading LoC's post above, I'm starting to lean more and more towards dumping the term "romantic" altogether myself...

Other than episodes of limerence, which I don't consider a sane motivation to bond over anyway, there really isn't anything much that distinguishes what I would call "affectionate friendship" and "romance". In the long term it's the underlying friendship that actually matters to me most in both cases (not that they're clear categories to begin with!). And as I've said plenty of times, I'd never allow any irrational jealousy-based boundaries to trample any of my relationships. Even if I might enter something that superficially looks like quite a "normal" primary relationship in the future.

I guess it's mostly a problem of linguistic/cultural baggage. When you say "romance", 99% of the world will interpret it as the mainstream thing. Feelings and motivations that inevitably go in the direction of pair-bonding, sex, marriage, living together, and generally some kind of comprehensive sense of life-sharing (even if you're not strictly monogamous). For me this isn't really accurate at all. What I call "romance" in myself is really more like an "affection drive". I can certainly identify a difference in my head compared to how I feel about strictly platonic male friends, but it's far too vague and low-level to demand a completely different presentation.

Hmmm, I'm not actually sure what to do, label-wise. I'd kinda prefer to just be able to say love is love is love and not have to label anything at all - just work out each relationship on its own terms and be totally dynamic about the commitments and boundaries involved with each of them. I think I'm bound to come across as an odd duck to the mainstream no matter what. :lol:

But I can definitely see that the label "romantic" just confuses things. It's even confusing enough on AVEN, and even in a group like this where we've analysed it and picked it apart to death, let alone out in the mainstream - where the definition of it is far more prescriptive of a very fixed relationship narrative.

Okay, I am totally fine with people doing away with the platonic/romantic distinction if they find it unhelpful personally, but I still am trying to understand this mindset, so bear with me. XD

Mostly I want to address the bolded line in KST's post, because it sums up where I get confused: you recognize that the way you want to be affectionate with women is different than the way you want to be affectionate with men, but this doesn't strike you as romantic, because of the way culture defines romance? It's true that romantic attraction, for most people, seems to motivate them to spend more time/energy on the object(s) of their attraction and/or desire higher levels of physical intimacy. If neither of these are applicable for you, you can do away with the term. But for me it's a behavior =/= attraction type thing...you can feel romantic attraction and still have no desire to act as though the relationship is anything but platonic, and vice versa. So, if the feelings are still different, I would consider that personally worthy of note, but other people can make their own judements. Mostly what doesn't sit well with me about this is, would you say you truly never consider anything you feel towards men "affectionate"? Because this is my own personal linguistic/semantic/nit-picky pet peeve, but I really dislike the idea that "affectionate" is used to mean "not strictly platonic" or "in between romantic and platonic" because a strictly platonic relationship would never be affectionate--affection, emotional or physical, is always seen as the result of a romantic inclination, however slight.

Just a couple of centuries ago same-sex platonic affection was the norm--bed sharing, physical affectionate, terms of endearment and declarations of deep fondness and love, you name it!--whereas couples weren't supposed to show affection, or at least were only supposed to do so discreetly. And either the vast majority of the times this kind of affection between friends was actually romantic, but was assumed not to be because it was nonsexual and those two things were not separate in people's heads, or it was genuine platonic affection between people who were not romantically or sexually attracted to each other in any way.

To bring this to the present day, males in my life who are heteroromantic/sexual, and expected by culture not to be affectionate, do care about each other and express it if a) they are extremely comfortable in their masculinity and don't feel it is diminished by showing another man affection b) are doing it under the guise of a "joke" c) are doing it in a time of deep duress (I've seen some very traditionally minded "macho" type men embrace and lean on one another for extended periods of time at funerals, for example). Even if they cannot show it to each other, they will sometimes admit to me about how X is their best friend or someone they really admire or care about, etc. A couple months ago a male friend of mine was talking about this huge favor another mutual friend of ours was doing for him and said "he's such a sweetheart," then immediately looked somewhat horrified that those words had come out of his lips when talking about another guy our age and went, "you can't tell him I said that!" XD Not to mention the glorification of the "bromance". Am I really to believe that these feelings of fondness are automatically not-strictly-platonic, just because they are feelings of fondness? 0.o

I agree with the love is love is love thing and in the end it doesn't really matter, I just get hung up on the "reasoning" that leads some people there...is any of what I'm saying making sense? >.< I've run out of time, but I'll probably come back later and edit/add more.

June 1, 2013

I guess it's mostly a problem of linguistic/cultural baggage. When you say "romance", 99% of the world will interpret it as the mainstream thing. Feelings and motivations that inevitably go in the direction of pair-bonding, sex, marriage, living together, and generally some kind of comprehensive sense of life-sharing (even if you're not strictly monogamous). For me this isn't really accurate at all. What I call "romance" in myself is really more like an "affection drive". I can certainly identify a difference in my head compared to how I feel about strictly platonic male friends, but it's far too vague and low-level to demand a completely different presentation.

Yeah, I can relate to that. "Romance", "romantic relationship", or even "girlfriend/boyfriend" are strongly associated with riding the relationship escalator. I often feel funny when saying I'm in a "romantic relationship" (even though my primary relationship does have a lot of the mainstream elements, except that we're poly and childfree), because it's not the same kind of "romantic relationship" as most other people's, and it doesn't feel highly romantic after almost three years; it's intimate and affectionate rather than stereotypically romantic. In this sense, I could have replaced "romantic" with "affectionate". But it would be just a change of labels; in my head the difference between romantic and platonic still exists. Even if a long-term relationship doesn't feel particularly romantic anymore, the fact that it started from romantic attraction still makes a difference to me, mainly in terms of desire for physical affection.

In other words, I only care about not being #1, when the person I love actually creates a relationship hierarchy in which there is a very clear and definite #1 slot, and that slot is specifically "romantic" and "sexual." Then, I have a problem with being put under their series of romantic-sexual partners. Then, I have a problem with my needs and desires and feelings coming second place; then, I have a problem with feeling like my relationship with that person could be in jeopardy at any time, at the whims of their #1. When having a #1 slot means that most forms of intimacy and affection belong exclusively to that slot, which then means I don't have access to most of the things I need and want to feel good in my relationship with somebody, then I have a really fucking huge problem. When I feel like I love my friend a thousand times more than they're capable of loving me because they draw a line in the sand that separates quantities and qualities of love into "friendship" and "romance," then I got a problem with being on the "friend" side not because I even WANT to be on the "romance" side but because I can't bear that imbalance of feelings.

I can relate to that as well, although more in a poly context. I don't need to be #1 in terms of practical life sharing, time, resource, etc, but I do need emotional equality, commitment, and respect. I don't want to be involved with poly people who do poly in the hierarchical "primary vs. secondary" model. It doesn't matter whether I have my own primary or not. I simply don't want to be someone's secondary partner, while their primary can demand "you can only meet once a month" (even though that could very well be enough for me, it should be out of our own choice, not a third person's demand), "you must keep your relationship underground", "you can't spend the night together", "you can't go on a weekend trip together", etc. And I definitely don't want to be with someone whose primary partner has veto power.

A lot of posts on the solo poly blog addressed the issue of couple privilege very well, such as this one and this one. Although her posts are about poly, I think the points and guidelines in them apply to RA as well. :)

June 1, 2013

@byanyotherusername: The reason why I would look at somebody marrying a nonromantic/nonsexual partner as almost innately RA is because to even get to that point requires the two people in question to decide that it isn't romantic love that sits on top of their relationship pyramids (if they even have pyramids!) but friendship, their nonromantic/nonsexual relationship. If one or both of them is romantic, as opposed to aromantic, this means that despite the fact that they do experience romantic attraction and love for other people, they've flipped the traditional relationship hierarchy model upside down and chosen to commit to their nonromantic life partnership to the extent that they seal it with the stronghold of romantic-sexual superiority: the institution of marriage. Which speaks to the fact that even if romantic relationship are happening or will happen simultaneously with third parties, they're not interested or willing in sacrificing their nonromantic/nonsexual relationship for the sake of a romantic and/or sexual one with somebody else, or supplanting a romantic/sexual relationship into that slot of Primary Life Partnership. It's their nonromantic/nonsexual partner who they live with, who they share finances with, who they may raise children with, who they spend more time with, etc. Not their romantic/sexual partners. That's a radical contradiction to the traditional relationship system.

Whereas, if a married couple is in a totally traditional marriage, one based on romance and sex, and especially if they're monogamous and they delegate behaviors in a traditional, mainstream way so that all or most affectionate/intimate behaviors are restricted to their marriage and prohibited in their friendships, that's exactly identical to the way every relationship hierarchist lives. I'm not saying that romantic-sexual people, who all pretty much practice relationship hierarchy based on romance and sex, completely disregard their friendships and other nonromantic/nonsexual relationships. But they do rank them far below their romantic-sexual relationships, which is evident based on the ways they distribute their time, make commitments, engage in affection and interdepedence, etc. If their friends don't have a problem with being beneath the marriage or only having a level of intimacy, feeling, and affection in their friendship with one of the spouses appropriate for a common friendship, then clearly the situation works for all parties involved.

They're just not relationship anarchists. They're hierarchists. They view and organize romantic relationships vs. friendships in a hierarchical way, with romantic sexuality on top by default.

Traditional relationship style--the kind that the average romantic-sexual person practices--has a reciprocal relationship with the romantic sex-based relationship hierarchy. They feed into each other. If you combine romance and sex and withhold "romantic" behaviors from all other relationships except your romantic-sexual one, if you're additionally a monogamist, if you're keeping cohabitation and nongenital physical affection and frequent verbal affection and emotional intimacy and things like financial interdependence, travel, physical care-taking, etc all inside your one romantic-sexual relationship, that's an undeniable expression of that hierarchy in which a romantic-sexual relationship is automatically more valuable and significant and entitled on the basis of it being romantic and sexual. You can't tell me that couple relationship doesn't enjoy superiority, both behaviorally and emotionally. Of course, it does. That's why there's a such a wide gap between how much practical and emotional weight the couple relationship carries and what every other relationship in the couple's lives carry.

Which is why I was skeptical of KST's suggestion that somebody like himself could be in one monogamous romantic relationship that functions exactly in that way and also be a Relationship Anarchist. RA is about more than just caring for your friends on a basic level. Relationship hierarchists care about their friends, I figure. They love some of their family members to some degree, I'm sure. But they put that one particular person before everybody else, for romantic and sexual reasons, and they consequently keep their other relationships very limited in terms of how much time, emotion, touch, and commitment can occur in them..... Partly because they need to "preserve" the primacy of their couple relationship. Relationship anarchy, which seeks to create equality amongst intimate relationships in a much bigger way, makes it hard for any relationship to be clearly primary, or more important/involved/committed, than every other relationship. "Primary" can only exist in a hierarchy. And a hierarchy can only exist based on a system of inequality.

June 1, 2013

It's true that romantic attraction, for most people, seems to motivate them to spend more time/energy on the object(s) of their attraction and/or desire higher levels of physical intimacy. If neither of these are applicable for you, you can do away with the term. But for me it's a behavior =/= attraction type thing...you can feel romantic attraction and still have no desire to act as though the relationship is anything but platonic, and vice versa. So, if the feelings are still different, I would consider that personally worthy of note, but other people can make their own judements. Mostly what doesn't sit well with me about this is, would you say you truly never consider anything you feel towards men "affectionate"? Because this is my own personal linguistic/semantic/nit-picky pet peeve, but I really dislike the idea that "affectionate" is used to mean "not strictly platonic" or "in between romantic and platonic" because a strictly platonic relationship would never be affectionate--affection, emotional or physical, is always seen as the result of a romantic inclination, however slight.

I get what you're saying. And yeah, I can see why this would be an issue for someone who's truly aro and sees absolutely no distinction at all.

Probably the best way to describe it is that on some very basic level the only real difference between how I can feel about a super close female friend versus a super close male friend is that desire for physical affection isn't there with super close male friends. Why that is, I have no idea. As I've said before, it wouldn't surprise me if it was entirely a social conditioning thing (ie. "Dudes just aren't meant to be all touchy and feely with each other"), so it's just become incredibly ingrained in me (but not in fact innate underneath it all) to only relate to women that way.

So yeah, a certain type of affectionate friendship can definitely be almost identical emotionally, with the only real difference coming out in how it manifests - that there's a (nonsexual) sensual component for females but not for males.

Urgh. Yeah, when I look at what I wrote there I can totally see why you've got an issue actually. :D Because there's definitely a difference which I have to acknowledge if I'm being totally intellectually and emotionally honest. But on the other hand, it's relatively subtle when compared with the massive difference between traditional romantic relationships and my version of "affectionate friendship". Maybe this is something that just can't be adequately described by current terminology at all. Not outside of this small community of us who can relate on that level and appreciate relationships which exist in that kind of grey area.

June 1, 2013

This discussion has proven to be really thought-provoking. I've genuinely enjoyed reading everyone's posts. :cake:

It's true that romantic attraction, for most people, seems to motivate them to spend more time/energy on the object(s) of their attraction and/or desire higher levels of physical intimacy. If neither of these are applicable for you, you can do away with the term. But for me it's a behavior =/= attraction type thing...you can feel romantic attraction and still have no desire to act as though the relationship is anything but platonic, and vice versa. So, if the feelings are still different, I would consider that personally worthy of note, but other people can make their own judements. Mostly what doesn't sit well with me about this is, would you say you truly never consider anything you feel towards men "affectionate"? Because this is my own personal linguistic/semantic/nit-picky pet peeve, but I really dislike the idea that "affectionate" is used to mean "not strictly platonic" or "in between romantic and platonic" because a strictly platonic relationship would never be affectionate--affection, emotional or physical, is always seen as the result of a romantic inclination, however slight.

I get what you're saying. And yeah, I can see why this would be an issue for someone who's truly aro and sees absolutely no distinction at all.

Probably the best way to describe it is that on some very basic level the only real difference between how I can feel about a super close female friend versus a super close male friend is that desire for physical affection isn't there with super close male friends. Why that is, I have no idea. As I've said before, it wouldn't surprise me if it was entirely a social conditioning thing (ie. "Dudes just aren't meant to be all touchy and feely with each other"), so it's just become incredibly ingrained in me (but not in fact innate underneath it all) to only relate to women that way.

So yeah, a certain type of affectionate friendship can definitely be almost identical emotionally, with the only real difference coming out in how it manifests - that there's a (nonsexual) sensual component for females but not for males.

Urgh. Yeah, when I look at what I wrote there I can totally see why you've got an issue actually. :D Because there's definitely a difference which I have to acknowledge if I'm being totally intellectually and emotionally honest. But on the other hand, it's relatively subtle when compared with the massive difference between traditional romantic relationships and my version of "affectionate friendship". Maybe this is something that just can't be adequately described by current terminology at all. Not outside of this small community of us who can relate on that level and appreciate relationships which exist in that kind of grey area.

Based on what you said in the bolded part - would you say that you are capable of feeling affection in general, (which includes nonphysical aspects) toward people of any gender, but only experience sensual attraction (i.e. the desire for physical affection) with females? If so, perhaps the term "hetero-sensual" might be less problematic than "hetero-affectionate." Not all experiences and expressions of affection are physical, after all.

I can see byanyotherusername's point as well - describing affection as something that is always romantic seems problematic, especially from an aromantic's point of view. In fact, that's actually one of the reasons that I'm moving away from "romantic" in favor of "affectionate." One of the main issues I was having with my use of "romantic" before is that I felt like I was equivocating "romantic feelings" with closeness and affection in general. That didn't seem right, but I couldn't figure out how to fix that issue in a way that didn't feel arbitrary and cumbersome. For me, it's much cleaner to just drop the distinction.

However, I'm speaking from a perspective in which attractions and affections don't seem to show any strong tendencies with regards to gender. I'm quite capable of desiring intimate relationships and physical affection with people regardless of gender - other factors, such as intellectual compatibility and shared relationship values, play a more significant role in my attractions. So I don't run into the same problem.

Talk about getting caught between a rock and a hard place, though. Maybe this does indeed fall outside the realm of current terminology.

Regarding aceofhearts's post about the #1 issue...

In other words, I only care about not being #1, when the person I love actually creates a relationship hierarchy in which there is a very clear and definite #1 slot, and that slot is specifically "romantic" and "sexual." Then, I have a problem with being put under their series of romantic-sexual partners. Then, I have a problem with my needs and desires and feelings coming second place; then, I have a problem with feeling like my relationship with that person could be in jeopardy at any time, at the whims of their #1. When having a #1 slot means that most forms of intimacy and affection belong exclusively to that slot, which then means I don't have access to most of the things I need and want to feel good in my relationship with somebody, then I have a really fucking huge problem. When I feel like I love my friend a thousand times more than they're capable of loving me because they draw a line in the sand that separates quantities and qualities of love into "friendship" and "romance," then I got a problem with being on the "friend" side not because I even WANT to be on the "romance" side but because I can't bear that imbalance of feelings.

I can relate to this frustration somewhat. I've lost several friends because they decided to put all their time and emotional resources into a romantic relationship. Personally, I'm fine with having close non-affectionate friendships with people using a hierarchical relationship model as long as they're still willing to give some consideration and emotional value to our connection (even if they have other connections they value more highly). There are plenty of people with a more traditional view of relationships who value their friendships quite highly nonetheless, and I'm still able to find friendships with such people rewarding, even if it's not an ideal situation.

Admittedly, I have my own emotional quirks that make this easier. My feelings of affection for non-affectionate friends tend to remain relatively low key if I know they're "unavailable" for affectionate friendship. Even if I desire an affectionate friendship with a conventional romantic on an emotional level, on an intellectual level I know it's not going to happen, so I can rein it in somewhat. (I understand that's not really something you can do as comfortably if the intensity of your emotions is much higher, though.)

Even so, I'd much prefer that my affectionate friendships, if I ever have any, are with people whose core relationship values are compatible with my own. For me, that's when the "imbalance of feelings" potentially becomes a major problem. In my non-affectionate friendships with conventional romantics, I can accept that the other person sees the relationship as "just friendship" and act accordingly. I can accept that they might put one of their relationships over the others, including mine, as long as they don't trash their other relationships in the process (which, as I've learned, is a legitimate risk with some people). In an affectionate friendship, though, I'd have a much harder time accepting being put in some box in another person's hierarchy of relationships. I'd want a shared understanding that our relationship is real and valid and not "just" a friendship or a "secondary" relationship that can be devalued or discarded in favor of a "proper" primary romantic relationship.

TL;DR: if I have to (and I do, if I want acquaintances and friends IRL), I can play along with the friendship/romance hierarchy to an extent. However, I'd rather avoid going through the trouble of having a non-normative relationship with someone who's still invested in that system. That's when the dissonance between relationship philosophies becomes problematic for me.

June 1, 2013

@LoC: Just wanted to clarify that I don't find emotional/relationship inferiority grating in every single one of my social connections either, just in relationships with people I actually love. I can certainly be acquaintances or casual friends with people, for whom I feel no real attachment or love, and in that case, I don't care at all about their hierarchical relationship practices or the fact that they value their romantic/sexual partners above me. I'm not opposed to being casually, unemotionally involved with romantic-sexual people, and because it's rare for me to develop loving feelings toward other people in general, I can certainly hang out with someone on a semi-regular basis, even like them as a person, without feeling anything for them or our relationship beyond surface-level appreciation. In which case, they can put whoever they want above me and not care one iota about my needs and desires, and I won't be the least bit bothered.

But when I do love someone, that's a different story.

June 1, 2013

would you say that you are capable of feeling affection in general, (which includes nonphysical aspects) toward people of any gender, but only experience sensual attraction (i.e. the desire for physical affection) with females? If so, perhaps the term "hetero-sensual" might be less problematic than "hetero-affectionate." Not all experiences and expressions of affection are physical, after all.

That's one way to put it, but then again, when I reach deep down and ask myself what's causing that difference in desire for physical affection - if seems like there's a slightly different alignment in the feelings too. And this is why it was always so easy to just conflate this with standard "romantic attraction", even though it's a bit more subtle than that.

Admittedly, I have my own emotional quirks that make this easier. My feelings of affection for non-affectionate friends tend to remain relatively low key if I know they're "unavailable" for affectionate friendship. Even if I desire an affectionate friendship with a conventional romantic on an emotional level, on an intellectual level I know it's not going to happen, so I can rein it in somewhat. (I understand that's not really something you can do as comfortably if the intensity of your emotions is much higher, though.)

Even so, I'd much prefer that my affectionate friendships, if I ever have any, are with people whose core relationship values are compatible with my own. For me, that's when the "imbalance of feelings" potentially becomes a major problem. In my non-affectionate friendships with conventional romantics, I can accept that the other person sees the relationship as "just friendship" and act accordingly. I can accept that they might put one of their relationships over the others, including mine, as long as they don't trash their other relationships in the process (which, as I've learned, is a legitimate risk with some people). In an affectionate friendship, though, I'd have a much harder time accepting being put in some box in another person's hierarchy of relationships. I'd want a shared understanding that our relationship is real and valid and not "just" a friendship or a "secondary" relationship that can be devalued or discarded in favor of a "proper" primary romantic relationship.

I went through a few stages of feeling quite "extreme" about this sort of thing. eg. Feeling like all I really want to do is "date" other people who are on the ace spectrum as well as friendly to emotional non-monogamy, because noone else can possibly "get" me. :lol:

There are a few separate issues here for me I suppose. But I guess the common theme is relatively straightforward: I just don't like having to fully conform to the rigid love categories that mainstream society expects - not for the sake of being a rebel without a cause - but because they just don't really reflect how I experience love all that well. But as the "fake it till you make it" point says in the RA manifesto, it might be possible for me to just play it dumb to some degree. At least when it comes to how I can treat a "primary" relationship relatively mainstreamly - should I get into one. As well as how I find it pretty easy to keep a lid on levels of expression which would be creepy and cross boundaries in "friendships" in regular society, even if I feel desire for physical affection there.

But yeah, I know what you mean about being "boxed away" when you're close to someone but aren't supposed to be so close. That was a very painful thing to go through for me, and it seems like such a waste now, looking back. I'm basically over it as far as the particular person and situation goes, but it's just a reminder of how this stuff works in general. So that's what sometimes makes me sad. Because it always feels like the world is full of "suppressed love". Not because people don't actually like or love each other - but because the way we're conditioned to express it is unnecessarily constrained. But then I have to keep reminding myself that the way plenty of people tick actually means that there's some logic to this. Whether conditioned or not (or a combination of conditioned and innate), doesn't really matter. It is what it is.

Still, it always keeps coming back to the same thing - it's just sooooo hard for someone like me to relate to how certain forms of attraction just have to follow a certain narrative for other people. And be fulfilled a certain way. It really makes me feel like a failed Buddhist sometimes - because it's like I'm clinging to some internal desire which I know is an extremely rare form - but like I'm wishing that everybody would just get it and be that way :P. Which is clearly unreasonable and selfish and a needless cause of suffering. Better to "let go" for sure. But it's haaaaaaaaaard. :P

June 2, 2013

@byanyotherusername: The reason why I would look at somebody marrying a nonromantic/nonsexual partner as almost innately RA is because to even get to that point requires the two people in question to decide that it isn't romantic love that sits on top of their relationship pyramids (if they even have pyramids!) but friendship, their nonromantic/nonsexual relationship. If one or both of them is romantic, as opposed to aromantic, this means that despite the fact that they do experience romantic attraction and love for other people, they've flipped the traditional relationship hierarchy model upside down and chosen to commit to their nonromantic life partnership to the extent that they seal it with the stronghold of romantic-sexual superiority: the institution of marriage. Which speaks to the fact that even if romantic relationship are happening or will happen simultaneously with third parties, they're not interested or willing in sacrificing their nonromantic/nonsexual relationship for the sake of a romantic and/or sexual one with somebody else, or supplanting a romantic/sexual relationship into that slot of Primary Life Partnership. It's their nonromantic/nonsexual partner who they live with, who they share finances with, who they may raise children with, who they spend more time with, etc. Not their romantic/sexual partners. That's a radical contradiction to the traditional relationship system.

Whereas, if a married couple is in a totally traditional marriage, one based on romance and sex, and especially if they're monogamous and they delegate behaviors in a traditional, mainstream way so that all or most affectionate/intimate behaviors are restricted to their marriage and prohibited in their friendships, that's exactly identical to the way every relationship hierarchist lives. I'm not saying that romantic-sexual people, who all pretty much practice relationship hierarchy based on romance and sex, completely disregard their friendships and other nonromantic/nonsexual relationships. But they do rank them far below their romantic-sexual relationships, which is evident based on the ways they distribute their time, make commitments, engage in affection and interdepedence, etc. If their friends don't have a problem with being beneath the marriage or only having a level of intimacy, feeling, and affection in their friendship with one of the spouses appropriate for a common friendship, then clearly the situation works for all parties involved.

They're just not relationship anarchists. They're hierarchists. They view and organize romantic relationships vs. friendships in a hierarchical way, with romantic sexuality on top by default.

Traditional relationship style--the kind that the average romantic-sexual person practices--has a reciprocal relationship with the romantic sex-based relationship hierarchy. They feed into each other. If you combine romance and sex and withhold "romantic" behaviors from all other relationships except your romantic-sexual one, if you're additionally a monogamist, if you're keeping cohabitation and nongenital physical affection and frequent verbal affection and emotional intimacy and things like financial interdependence, travel, physical care-taking, etc all inside your one romantic-sexual relationship, that's an undeniable expression of that hierarchy in which a romantic-sexual relationship is automatically more valuable and significant and entitled on the basis of it being romantic and sexual. You can't tell me that couple relationship doesn't enjoy superiority, both behaviorally and emotionally. Of course, it does. That's why there's a such a wide gap between how much practical and emotional weight the couple relationship carries and what every other relationship in the couple's lives carry.

Which is why I was skeptical of KST's suggestion that somebody like himself could be in one monogamous romantic relationship that functions exactly in that way and also be a Relationship Anarchist. RA is about more than just caring for your friends on a basic level. Relationship hierarchists care about their friends, I figure. They love some of their family members to some degree, I'm sure. But they put that one particular person before everybody else, for romantic and sexual reasons, and they consequently keep their other relationships very limited in terms of how much time, emotion, touch, and commitment can occur in them..... Partly because they need to "preserve" the primacy of their couple relationship. Relationship anarchy, which seeks to create equality amongst intimate relationships in a much bigger way, makes it hard for any relationship to be clearly primary, or more important/involved/committed, than every other relationship. "Primary" can only exist in a hierarchy. And a hierarchy can only exist based on a system of inequality.

So, it's okay to have a relationship pyramid as long as friendship is on top, but not if a romantic/sexual relationship is? That doesn't strike you as a complete double standard? 0.o

I understand that what you are describing is how some monogamous romantic-sexual couples act, maybe it's even the norm, but I know many, many couples in my extended family alone that defy that stereotype--which is probably why I grew up with a skewed and unrealistic view of how important my friendships would be in relation to peoples romantic partnerships. XD My cousin and his wife both have close, cuddly friends and I don't think the emotional cheating BS is even in their vocabulary. The romantic-sexual aspect of their relationship is "exclusive" in that they have both grown not to feel romantic or sexual attraction to anyone but each other, despite starting out in an open relationship. But everything else in their relationship: affection, cohabitation, time, child-rearing (like I said, their kids have many "aunts" and "uncles" who are not in any way biologically related to them) is available to other people to be involved in as much as is practical/desired by all parties.

The distinction between "non-affectionate friendship" and "affectionate friendship" is a little different. I haven't completely ironed it out yet, but what I'm thinking so far is that the difference is, in many ways, the amount of norm-breaking that occurs in the context of the relationship. Even though I might feel very close to and affectionate toward a particular friend of mine, if the relationship behaves the same way "just friendship" is supposed to behave, it's a non-affectionate friendship. On the other hand, if there are levels of intimacy, commitment, expressions of physical affection, etc. that go beyond what is considered "normal" for "just friendship" and perhaps start to impinge on emotional/behavioral territory that is typically reserved for romantic relationships, it's an affectionate friendship. This could include a number of relationship styles - mutually romantic friendships, one-sided romantic friendships, passionate friendships, emotionally intimate "cuddle buddies," queerplatonic partnerships, romantic relationships, LDRs, etc. It's nice and open-ended, and it leaves plenty of room for me and whoever is involved in my relationships to define them however we like - platonic, romantic, both, neither, whatever.

Okay, this highlights, I think, what bothers me most about basing the romantic/platonic line based on behavior, not feelings. Why on earth should norm-breaking dictate whether or not the relationship is "affectionate" as apposed to, I don't know, the presence of affection? One of my best and oldest friends, who I have known over half my life, doesn't really like physical contact and is someone I get together with perhaps once every couple of months. We tell each other "I love you" but that is the only thing I can think of that would be considered norm-breaking in our relationship, to the extent that that is even considered norm-breaking since it is generally acceptable for female friends to express that statement. But I feel as emotionally close to her as I can feel to anyone, period. Yet, under your system that wouldn't considered "affectionate"? It doesn't compute for me...Unless there is some other element of feelings involved, some feeling/attraction you have towards that group of people that makes you want to express your affection differently, and that's why you differentiate.

If you want to discard of the romantic/platonic distinction, and adopting the word "affectionate" makes sense to you because what your close relationships have in common is the presence of affection, that's fine, but then you go and say that affection isn't enough, it has to be affection that is expressed in some nontraditional way. 0.o So, can you clarify why that is? Because otherwise, to me, it often feels like what people are really saying when they try and get rid of the romantic/platonic distinction is that whatever feelings they may have, they want to express them differently than the "norm" and therefore they aren't really platonic/romantic...which feels exactly like what the mainstream says with statements such as "if we didn't want sex we'd just be friends".

June 2, 2013

But yeah, I know what you mean about being "boxed away" when you're close to someone but aren't supposed to be so close. That was a very painful thing to go through for me, and it seems like such a waste now, looking back. I'm basically over it as far as the particular person and situation goes, but it's just a reminder of how this stuff works in general. So that's what sometimes makes me sad. Because it always feels like the world is full of "suppressed love". Not because people don't actually like or love each other - but because the way we're conditioned to express it is unnecessarily constrained. But then I have to keep reminding myself that the way plenty of people tick actually means that there's some logic to this. Whether conditioned or not (or a combination of conditioned and innate), doesn't really matter. It is what it is.

I don't really have anything to add, but I totally get what you mean here. I feel the same way.

The distinction between "non-affectionate friendship" and "affectionate friendship" is a little different. I haven't completely ironed it out yet, but what I'm thinking so far is that the difference is, in many ways, the amount of norm-breaking that occurs in the context of the relationship. Even though I might feel very close to and affectionate toward a particular friend of mine, if the relationship behaves the same way "just friendship" is supposed to behave, it's a non-affectionate friendship. On the other hand, if there are levels of intimacy, commitment, expressions of physical affection, etc. that go beyond what is considered "normal" for "just friendship" and perhaps start to impinge on emotional/behavioral territory that is typically reserved for romantic relationships, it's an affectionate friendship. This could include a number of relationship styles - mutually romantic friendships, one-sided romantic friendships, passionate friendships, emotionally intimate "cuddle buddies," queerplatonic partnerships, romantic relationships, LDRs, etc. It's nice and open-ended, and it leaves plenty of room for me and whoever is involved in my relationships to define them however we like - platonic, romantic, both, neither, whatever.

Okay, this highlights, I think, what bothers me most about basing the romantic/platonic line based on behavior, not feelings. Why on earth should norm-breaking dictate whether or not the relationship is "affectionate" as apposed to, I don't know, the presence of affection? One of my best and oldest friends, who I have known over half my life, doesn't really like physical contact and is someone I get together with perhaps once every couple of months. We tell each other "I love you" but that is the only thing I can think of that would be considered norm-breaking in our relationship, to the extent that that is even considered norm-breaking since it is generally acceptable for female friends to express that statement. But I feel as emotionally close to her as I can feel to anyone, period. Yet, under your system that wouldn't considered "affectionate"? It doesn't compute for me...Unless there is some other element of feelings involved, some feeling/attraction you have towards that group of people that makes you want to express your affection differently, and that's why you differentiate.

If you want to discard of the romantic/platonic distinction, and adopting the word "affectionate" makes sense to you because what your close relationships have in common is the presence of affection, that's fine, but then you go and say that affection isn't enough, it has to be affection that is expressed in some nontraditional way. 0.o So, can you clarify why that is? Because otherwise, to me, it often feels like what people are really saying when they try and get rid of the romantic/platonic distinction is that whatever feelings they may have, they want to express them differently than the "norm" and therefore they aren't really platonic/romantic...which feels exactly like what the mainstream says with statements such as "if we didn't want sex we'd just be friends".

Hm, you bring up some good points. I'm still working on these definitions and trying to figure out what to do, so I appreciate the feedback. I'll do my best to clarify some things...

Just to be clear, the categorical system I mentioned above is not meant to be prescriptive in any way. I don't really expect anyone to apply it to their own relationships, nor would I be likely to use these terms outside of this kind of discussion. It's really more for me to keep track of things inside my own head in a consistent way, which my muddled platonic/romantic distinction failed to do before.

Essentially, trying to base the distinction between platonic and romantic relationships based on feelings wasn't working because my feelings were too ambiguous. I guess I've moved towards a more behavior based distinction, so that the emphasis is on expressions of affection rather than just feelings of affection.

...except that doesn't work because it implies that certain behaviors are inherently "affectionate" and others aren't. That's exactly what I was trying to avoid when I based my definition of a "romantic" relationship on feelings instead of behaviors in the first place - I didn't want to imply that some behaviors are inherently "romantic." Yet here I am doing the exact same thing with "affectionate." You're right, this is a valid problem. But if I define my relationships based on feelings of affection instead of behaviors, now suddenly all of my close friendships become "affectionate" and the distinction loses its original meaning, which was one of the very same problems I was having with my use of the word "romantic."

Now I'm really stuck. I guess I'm in the same boat as KST, because apparently both having and dropping the distinction is harder than it seems like it should be for us. Therefore, I propose that all my relationships are now either potato, non-potato, or squash, because that's apparently just as valid as any other categorical system I can invent. :lol:

June 2, 2013

I don't really have anything to add, but I totally get what you mean here. I feel the same way.

But yeah, I know what you mean about being "boxed away" when you're close to someone but aren't supposed to be so close. That was a very painful thing to go through for me, and it seems like such a waste now, looking back. I'm basically over it as far as the particular person and situation goes, but it's just a reminder of how this stuff works in general. So that's what sometimes makes me sad. Because it always feels like the world is full of "suppressed love". Not because people don't actually like or love each other - but because the way we're conditioned to express it is unnecessarily constrained. But then I have to keep reminding myself that the way plenty of people tick actually means that there's some logic to this. Whether conditioned or not (or a combination of conditioned and innate), doesn't really matter. It is what it is.

Hm, you bring up some good points. I'm still working on these definitions and trying to figure out what to do, so I appreciate the feedback. I'll do my best to clarify some things...

Okay, this highlights, I think, what bothers me most about basing the romantic/platonic line based on behavior, not feelings. Why on earth should norm-breaking dictate whether or not the relationship is "affectionate" as apposed to, I don't know, the presence of affection? One of my best and oldest friends, who I have known over half my life, doesn't really like physical contact and is someone I get together with perhaps once every couple of months. We tell each other "I love you" but that is the only thing I can think of that would be considered norm-breaking in our relationship, to the extent that that is even considered norm-breaking since it is generally acceptable for female friends to express that statement. But I feel as emotionally close to her as I can feel to anyone, period. Yet, under your system that wouldn't considered "affectionate"? It doesn't compute for me...Unless there is some other element of feelings involved, some feeling/attraction you have towards that group of people that makes you want to express your affection differently, and that's why you differentiate.

If you want to discard of the romantic/platonic distinction, and adopting the word "affectionate" makes sense to you because what your close relationships have in common is the presence of affection, that's fine, but then you go and say that affection isn't enough, it has to be affection that is expressed in some nontraditional way. 0.o So, can you clarify why that is? Because otherwise, to me, it often feels like what people are really saying when they try and get rid of the romantic/platonic distinction is that whatever feelings they may have, they want to express them differently than the "norm" and therefore they aren't really platonic/romantic...which feels exactly like what the mainstream says with statements such as "if we didn't want sex we'd just be friends".

Just to be clear, the categorical system I mentioned above is not meant to be prescriptive in any way. I don't really expect anyone to apply it to their own relationships, nor would I be likely to use these terms outside of this kind of discussion. It's really more for me to keep track of things inside my own head in a consistent way, which my muddled platonic/romantic distinction failed to do before.

Essentially, trying to base the distinction between platonic and romantic relationships based on feelings wasn't working because my feelings were too ambiguous. I guess I've moved towards a more behavior based distinction, so that the emphasis is on expressions of affection rather than just feelings of affection.

...except that doesn't work because it implies that certain behaviors are inherently "affectionate" and others aren't. That's exactly what I was trying to avoid when I based my definition of a "romantic" relationship on feelings instead of behaviors in the first place - I didn't want to imply that some behaviors are inherently "romantic." Yet here I am doing the exact same thing with "affectionate." You're right, this is a valid problem. But if I define my relationships based on feelings of affection instead of behaviors, now suddenly all of my close friendships become "affectionate" and the distinction loses its original meaning, which was one of the very same problems I was having with my use of the word "romantic."

Now I'm really stuck. I guess I'm in the same boat as KST, because apparently both having and dropping the distinction is harder than it seems like it should be for us. Therefore, I propose that all my relationships are now either potato, non-potato, or squash, because that's apparently just as valid as any other categorical system I can invent. :lol:

I'm sorry to spoil your system. >.< I guess I'm lucky that things are relatively clear for me...Still, if you want to avoid labeling certain behaviors as one thing or another (romantic/platonic, affectionate, etc.), couldn't you just not label those behaviors...? I have some vague labels for people in my life--family, friends, acquaintances...At most I might add a qualifier to the "friends" such as "close" or "casual" but these always refer to the level of emotional connection I feel to them, not any specific behavior or component of the relationship. To me it has always felt pretty natural...I either dislike someone, feel neutral towards them, like them, like them a lot, or I love them. The love I feel for my friends has always seemed straight-forwardly "platonic" in that it doesn't differ qualitatively from the love I feel from my family, and is often felt towards people it would be inappropriate to have romantic feelings for besides (such as someone much younger or older than myself).

Maybe this is naivete speaking, but I don't think my categories would change even if I did feel romantic or otherwise qualitatively different feelings towards a certain group of people. I would still either like or love people, just in either a romantic or a platonic way, and the other three categories (I assume) wouldn't change. And if I felt some fuzzy in-between space that wasn't straightforwardly romantic or platonic...I don't know, see, to me, platonic in some cases is always straightforward--when it comes to affection towards family, little kids, the elderly...there is generally no confusing it for romantic/sexual. So, it feels like you should have some frame of reference? It's hard for me to imagine not knowing whether something was "platonic" or something else, and even if I didn't have a clear way to categorize "something else"...And I would still, I think, just focus on how close I felt to someone, not what type of close, if that makes sense. Maybe it would be hard to differentiate between loving someone platonically or romantically, but I think I would always be able to tell that I loved them, and that seems like the most important thing?

*shrugs* I'm probably completely over-simplifying the issue. >.<

June 2, 2013

I don't really have anything to add, but I totally get what you mean here. I feel the same way.

But yeah, I know what you mean about being "boxed away" when you're close to someone but aren't supposed to be so close. That was a very painful thing to go through for me, and it seems like such a waste now, looking back. I'm basically over it as far as the particular person and situation goes, but it's just a reminder of how this stuff works in general. So that's what sometimes makes me sad. Because it always feels like the world is full of "suppressed love". Not because people don't actually like or love each other - but because the way we're conditioned to express it is unnecessarily constrained. But then I have to keep reminding myself that the way plenty of people tick actually means that there's some logic to this. Whether conditioned or not (or a combination of conditioned and innate), doesn't really matter. It is what it is.

Hm, you bring up some good points. I'm still working on these definitions and trying to figure out what to do, so I appreciate the feedback. I'll do my best to clarify some things...

Okay, this highlights, I think, what bothers me most about basing the romantic/platonic line based on behavior, not feelings. Why on earth should norm-breaking dictate whether or not the relationship is "affectionate" as apposed to, I don't know, the presence of affection? One of my best and oldest friends, who I have known over half my life, doesn't really like physical contact and is someone I get together with perhaps once every couple of months. We tell each other "I love you" but that is the only thing I can think of that would be considered norm-breaking in our relationship, to the extent that that is even considered norm-breaking since it is generally acceptable for female friends to express that statement. But I feel as emotionally close to her as I can feel to anyone, period. Yet, under your system that wouldn't considered "affectionate"? It doesn't compute for me...Unless there is some other element of feelings involved, some feeling/attraction you have towards that group of people that makes you want to express your affection differently, and that's why you differentiate.

If you want to discard of the romantic/platonic distinction, and adopting the word "affectionate" makes sense to you because what your close relationships have in common is the presence of affection, that's fine, but then you go and say that affection isn't enough, it has to be affection that is expressed in some nontraditional way. 0.o So, can you clarify why that is? Because otherwise, to me, it often feels like what people are really saying when they try and get rid of the romantic/platonic distinction is that whatever feelings they may have, they want to express them differently than the "norm" and therefore they aren't really platonic/romantic...which feels exactly like what the mainstream says with statements such as "if we didn't want sex we'd just be friends".

Just to be clear, the categorical system I mentioned above is not meant to be prescriptive in any way. I don't really expect anyone to apply it to their own relationships, nor would I be likely to use these terms outside of this kind of discussion. It's really more for me to keep track of things inside my own head in a consistent way, which my muddled platonic/romantic distinction failed to do before.

Essentially, trying to base the distinction between platonic and romantic relationships based on feelings wasn't working because my feelings were too ambiguous. I guess I've moved towards a more behavior based distinction, so that the emphasis is on expressions of affection rather than just feelings of affection.

...except that doesn't work because it implies that certain behaviors are inherently "affectionate" and others aren't. That's exactly what I was trying to avoid when I based my definition of a "romantic" relationship on feelings instead of behaviors in the first place - I didn't want to imply that some behaviors are inherently "romantic." Yet here I am doing the exact same thing with "affectionate." You're right, this is a valid problem. But if I define my relationships based on feelings of affection instead of behaviors, now suddenly all of my close friendships become "affectionate" and the distinction loses its original meaning, which was one of the very same problems I was having with my use of the word "romantic."

Now I'm really stuck. I guess I'm in the same boat as KST, because apparently both having and dropping the distinction is harder than it seems like it should be for us. Therefore, I propose that all my relationships are now either potato, non-potato, or squash, because that's apparently just as valid as any other categorical system I can invent. :lol:

I'm sorry to spoil your system. >.< I guess I'm lucky that things are relatively clear for me...Still, if you want to avoid labeling certain behaviors as one thing or another (romantic/platonic, affectionate, etc.), couldn't you just not label those behaviors...? I have some vague labels for people in my life--family, friends, acquaintances...At most I might add a qualifier to the "friends" such as "close" or "casual" but these always refer to the level of emotional connection I feel to them, not any specific behavior or component of the relationship. To me it has always felt pretty natural...I either dislike someone, feel neutral towards them, like them, like them a lot, or I love them. The love I feel for my friends has always seemed straight-forwardly "platonic" in that it doesn't differ qualitatively from the love I feel from my family, and is often felt towards people it would be inappropriate to have romantic feelings for besides (such as someone much younger or older than myself).

Maybe this is naivete speaking, but I don't think my categories would change even if I did feel romantic or otherwise qualitatively different feelings towards a certain group of people. I would still either like or love people, just in either a romantic or a platonic way, and the other three categories (I assume) wouldn't change. And if I felt some fuzzy in-between space that wasn't straightforwardly romantic or platonic...I don't know, see, to me, platonic in some cases is always straightforward--when it comes to affection towards family, little kids, the elderly...there is generally no confusing it for romantic/sexual. So, it feels like you should have some frame of reference? It's hard for me to imagine not knowing whether something was "platonic" or something else, and even if I didn't have a clear way to categorize "something else"...And I would still, I think, just focus on how close I felt to someone, not what type of close, if that makes sense. Maybe it would be hard to differentiate between loving someone platonically or romantically, but I think I would always be able to tell that I loved them, and that seems like the most important thing?

*shrugs* I'm probably completely over-simplifying the issue. >.<

You didn't spoil my system, you just helped me see the flaws in it. That's a good thing. :)

Yeah, at this rate I'm wondering if I should just ditch everything and define all of my relationships on a case-by-case basis. Maybe I'll stick to broad categories based on the degree of emotional closeness, like acquaintances, friends, and close friends. I would consider all of the relationship styles I desire most to be variations on close friendship, anyway.

I could also try to reconstruct the platonic/romantic distinction for myself, using a "frame of reference" like you suggested. It used to feel somewhat intuitive to me, after all - if I can remember why, I might be able to get back to it. It works well enough for other people. I suspect there would still be a pretty substantial grey area for me, though, and I'd run into the linguistic/cultural baggage problem that was mentioned earlier.

No matter what, I'm never going to be able to come up with a perfectly logical, airtight solution, and I never believed I could. I'm far too subjective. I just enjoy thinking about these kinds of things, although I tend to go a little overboard and completely overanalyze the situation (which is probably what happened here). I apologize for babbling so much about this. :lol:

I agree that it's ultimately the love that matters. I haven't forgotten that. ^_^

June 2, 2013

I tend to define my relationships on a case-by-case basis, myself, as my lines between platonic and romantic feelings are extremely blurred to the point where they are barely distinguishable in some cases. My expression of said feelings is also very blurred, with me being rather physically affectionate towards close friends of mine, and being fairly open to saying that I love them without it being weird. My poly/RA philosophy revolves around the fact that love is shared, and not a finite resource, and that valuing one relationship above all others (best friends, primary partners etc) can easily lead to jealousy and hurt feelings for many. I do recognize that everyone has people to whom they feel closer/with whom they have more intimate relationships than others, but to me, it just seems unnecessary to place just one relationship above others arbitrarily. For instance, I place my partner in the same category in my head as my closest friends, including my crush whom I am not currently dating, my oldest friend whom I have known since we were five or six years old, my former dorm-neighbor/college relationship confidante etc.

To me, any sort of categories I can make to value my relationships would be based on closeness/level of comfort around to the person, rather than whether they are platonic, queerplatonic, or romantic. This tends to piss off traditional monogamists, who often expect romantic partners to be placed above all other relationships (possibly other than family, with whom romantic/sexual partners are often grouped), and that my kind of love is either childish or illegitimate somehow. I am honestly surprised at how well my family has reacted to my coming out as polyamorous, considering how highly marriage/family-raising is valued in Jewish-American culture, but they say as long as I, and anyone with whom I am/will be involved are happy, and everything is consensual, I can go about my asexy, polyamorous business. My only hope is that they continue to be so supportive in the future, when I reach normative marriage/procreation age.

(also, it's about time I posted in this thread! I've been racking my brain for things to say since I first saw it)

June 2, 2013

@byanyotherusername: The reason why I would look at somebody marrying a nonromantic/nonsexual partner as almost innately RA is because to even get to that point requires the two people in question to decide that it isn't romantic love that sits on top of their relationship pyramids (if they even have pyramids!) but friendship, their nonromantic/nonsexual relationship. If one or both of them is romantic, as opposed to aromantic, this means that despite the fact that they do experience romantic attraction and love for other people, they've flipped the traditional relationship hierarchy model upside down and chosen to commit to their nonromantic life partnership to the extent that they seal it with the stronghold of romantic-sexual superiority: the institution of marriage. Which speaks to the fact that even if romantic relationship are happening or will happen simultaneously with third parties, they're not interested or willing in sacrificing their nonromantic/nonsexual relationship for the sake of a romantic and/or sexual one with somebody else, or supplanting a romantic/sexual relationship into that slot of Primary Life Partnership. It's their nonromantic/nonsexual partner who they live with, who they share finances with, who they may raise children with, who they spend more time with, etc. Not their romantic/sexual partners. That's a radical contradiction to the traditional relationship system.

Whereas, if a married couple is in a totally traditional marriage, one based on romance and sex, and especially if they're monogamous and they delegate behaviors in a traditional, mainstream way so that all or most affectionate/intimate behaviors are restricted to their marriage and prohibited in their friendships, that's exactly identical to the way every relationship hierarchist lives. I'm not saying that romantic-sexual people, who all pretty much practice relationship hierarchy based on romance and sex, completely disregard their friendships and other nonromantic/nonsexual relationships. But they do rank them far below their romantic-sexual relationships, which is evident based on the ways they distribute their time, make commitments, engage in affection and interdepedence, etc. If their friends don't have a problem with being beneath the marriage or only having a level of intimacy, feeling, and affection in their friendship with one of the spouses appropriate for a common friendship, then clearly the situation works for all parties involved.

They're just not relationship anarchists. They're hierarchists. They view and organize romantic relationships vs. friendships in a hierarchical way, with romantic sexuality on top by default.

Traditional relationship style--the kind that the average romantic-sexual person practices--has a reciprocal relationship with the romantic sex-based relationship hierarchy. They feed into each other. If you combine romance and sex and withhold "romantic" behaviors from all other relationships except your romantic-sexual one, if you're additionally a monogamist, if you're keeping cohabitation and nongenital physical affection and frequent verbal affection and emotional intimacy and things like financial interdependence, travel, physical care-taking, etc all inside your one romantic-sexual relationship, that's an undeniable expression of that hierarchy in which a romantic-sexual relationship is automatically more valuable and significant and entitled on the basis of it being romantic and sexual. You can't tell me that couple relationship doesn't enjoy superiority, both behaviorally and emotionally. Of course, it does. That's why there's a such a wide gap between how much practical and emotional weight the couple relationship carries and what every other relationship in the couple's lives carry.

Which is why I was skeptical of KST's suggestion that somebody like himself could be in one monogamous romantic relationship that functions exactly in that way and also be a Relationship Anarchist. RA is about more than just caring for your friends on a basic level. Relationship hierarchists care about their friends, I figure. They love some of their family members to some degree, I'm sure. But they put that one particular person before everybody else, for romantic and sexual reasons, and they consequently keep their other relationships very limited in terms of how much time, emotion, touch, and commitment can occur in them..... Partly because they need to "preserve" the primacy of their couple relationship. Relationship anarchy, which seeks to create equality amongst intimate relationships in a much bigger way, makes it hard for any relationship to be clearly primary, or more important/involved/committed, than every other relationship. "Primary" can only exist in a hierarchy. And a hierarchy can only exist based on a system of inequality.

So, it's okay to have a relationship pyramid as long as friendship is on top, but not if a romantic/sexual relationship is? That doesn't strike you as a complete double standard? 0.o

I understand that what you are describing is how some monogamous romantic-sexual couples act, maybe it's even the norm, but I know many, many couples in my extended family alone that defy that stereotype--which is probably why I grew up with a skewed and unrealistic view of how important my friendships would be in relation to peoples romantic partnerships. XD My cousin and his wife both have close, cuddly friends and I don't think the emotional cheating BS is even in their vocabulary. The romantic-sexual aspect of their relationship is "exclusive" in that they have both grown not to feel romantic or sexual attraction to anyone but each other, despite starting out in an open relationship. But everything else in their relationship: affection, cohabitation, time, child-rearing (like I said, their kids have many "aunts" and "uncles" who are not in any way biologically related to them) is available to other people to be involved in as much as is practical/desired by all parties.

I agree with both of you to some extent. On one hand, I don't think someone automatically qualifies RA as long as their relationships work for all parties involved. Obviously, many relationship traditionalists have successful relationships and friendships which work for everyone, but they strictly follow the traditional script (e.g. the romantic-sexual relationship is above all the friendships; one's friends shouldn't expect the same treatment as their romantic partner; getting too close to one's friends of the gender they're romantically attracted to would be emotionally cheating). People like this are not RA, because they're creating arbitrary rules, boundaries and hierarchies in their relationships. Heck, there are even couples who ban any opposite-sex friendship, while still being happy with the situation.

On the other hand, I think it's possible for an RA to have a relationship that looks fairly traditional, e.g. in a romantic-sexual marriage, living together and raising children together with their marriage partner. That doesn't mean they can't have other intimate relationships which are as important as their marriage. Sure, they probably can't spend as much time and energy in their other relationships as in their marriage, but that's due to practical limitation, not an artificial rule like "our marriage must come first no matter what". I think this is an important distinction between RA's and non-RA's.

So, to apply this to the case of romantic-sexual monogamy:

My cousin and his wife both have close, cuddly friends and I don't think the emotional cheating BS is even in their vocabulary. The romantic-sexual aspect of their relationship is "exclusive" in that they have both grown not to feel romantic or sexual attraction to anyone but each other, despite starting out in an open relationship.

I can understand that some people are just wired to only feel romantic/sexual attraction to one person at a time. But, if they're RA, I think they should see it like this: "We'll keep being monogamous as long as it feels natural to us, but it's not a rule set in stone. If one or both of us somehow want to pursue another romantic-sexual relationship one day, there shouldn't be any problem to open up our relationship again."

(I'm talking about this in general, not only referring to your cousin and his wife. And you've said they don't identify as RA anyway. :))

I've been pondering the question "Can a monogamous couple be RA?" for a while, and I'm glad to find a logically consistent answer, at least for the moment. :D

June 2, 2013

I can only explain my own dissolving of the categories "romance" vs. "friendship" from my relationship desires and emotions, as compared to the mainstream Romantic Ideology and narrative of what constitutes a "romantic" relationship vs. a friendship and the expected organization and conduct of those relationship categories.

These are the elements in an emotional connection that I desire:

unlimited emotional intimacy/vulnerability
quality time one-on-one; most of the time we spend together, it's just the two of us
frequent conversation, whether in person or on the phone
physical and/or sensual touching, that may include hugging, holding hands, caresses, cuddling, co-sleeping, massages, chaste kissing (but I have to be really, really comfortable with someone for those, usually)
verbal/written expressions of our feelings for each other and our relationship, on a consistent basis
a clearly communicated, mutual intent to invest in the relationship and carry on with it long into the future, no matter what our other relationships are

I don't consider ANY of that, or the combination of those things, innately "romantic" or indicative of a couple relationship. I don't feel like any of that should be limited to one romantic relationship, even if somebody does consider themselves romantic, on the grounds that it's inappropriate to have those things in a relationship other than your romantic one(s).

In a perfect world, where I can have anything I want in my relationships, all of my emotionally important relationships look like that composite described above. Two of them also include cohabitation, and those two people I usually call my "partners," for lack of a better term. But even with them, I want to live with each of them separately from the other, so I'd only ever be cohabiting with each individual part-time anyway. I also want for myself and support for my companions a high level of independence and individuality: I prefer that we spend time with friends and family without each other, alone time is important, we don't have to have the same friends, we can travel without each other, we can go spend weekends or nights with other people, etc. So cohabitation is the only major thing that separates my "partnerships" from my other passionate friendships--and that's not even because I have a specific objection to living with other people too. It's just because I figure trying to include more homes than those two in my life would get pretty complicated!

Emotionally speaking, I imagine feeling the same kind of love at the same intensity for all the people in that pool of folks I love. And I know I'm capable of it because growing up, that was my experience: even when I thought in more traditional terms and categories, the love I felt for some guy I thought I wanted to be my boyfriend wasn't any more intense, emotional, etc. than the love I felt for my first cousins who I wanted romantic friendships with or a friend I wanted a romantic friendship with. At one time, I wanted my ex-best-friend (who's female) to be one of my life partners, meaning live with me part-time forever and treat me just like a life partner would. I wasn't particularly sensually attracted to her, and I imagined my relationship with a male partner to be a lot more physical and openly emotional, yet saw the two hypothetical partnerships as equal in all ways. I love to think of my sister as my soul mate, am totally open to having a more cuddly relationship with her, want and need to be near her the rest of our lives, spend time with her just the two of us on a regular basis regardless of my partners or passionate friends.

On a 1 to 10 emotional intensity scale, 10 being, "I love you so passionately, I feel like I could explode, and the thought of you not loving me back makes me cry my eyes out," I've felt love at a 9 or 10 in all of those different relationships, and as overwhelming as it can be, I want that to be the case across the board, in a situation where I've got a group of people in my life who I consider my family and my friends. I want to experience the greatest possible emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and perhaps even physical intimacy (that I desire) in all of my relationships where I love the other person. Of course, that requires the other people to consent, to be open and willing, but if they are, you best believe I'm taking the opportunity.

Separating "romance" from "friendship," in that situation, is impossible. And pointless. A lot of the traditional markers of romantic relationships don't apply to me in the first place--I'm marriage free, childfree, a celibate asexual, want to only live with anybody part-time, totally not "monogamous" in any way, I don't restrict any of those loving behaviors to a certain gender--and if there's no emotional difference between important relationships and, ideally, very little physical difference too, then any labeling would either feel arbitrary and fake or fall flat.

And like I said, I pretty much don't acknowledge any kind of behavior or level of emotion as universally, innately "romantic." I don't see any purpose in labeling certain relationships, let alone specific behaviors or emotions, as "romantic" in order to distinguish them from friendship, because to me, the only reason to do that is so you can tell which ones matter more (almost always the "romantic" relationships) and what you're allowed to do or not allowed to do in a given relationship.

I agree with both of you to some extent. On one hand, I don't think someone automatically qualifies RA as long as their relationships work for all parties involved. Obviously, many relationship traditionalists have successful relationships and friendships which work for everyone, but they strictly follow the traditional script (e.g. the romantic-sexual relationship is above all the friendships; one's friends shouldn't expect the same treatment as their romantic partner; getting too close to one's friends of the gender they're attracted to would be emotionally cheating). People like this are not RA, because they're creating arbitrary rules, boundaries and hierarchies in their relationships.

On the other hand, I think it's possible for an RA to have a relationship that looks fairly traditional, e.g. in a romantic-sexual marriage, living together and raising children together with their marriage partner. That doesn't mean they can't have other intimate relationships which are as important as their marriage. Sure, they probably can't spend as much time and energy in their other relationships as in their marriage, but that's due to practical limitation, not an artificial rule like "our marriage must come first no matter what". I think this is an important distinction between RA's and non-RA's.

starrynight, you clarified my feelings on traditional couple/relationship behavior perfectly. Thanks.

I think that if two people choose to make a commitment like marriage in a nonromantic/nonsexual relationship, or basically live as life partners with each other in that situation, there's a higher likelihood that they don't have much of a hierarchy in their social lives anyway. If one or both of them are romantic and also have romantic and/or sexual relationships, I have a hard time imagining that they would put their romantic/sexual relationships very far below their nonromantic/nonsexual life partnership. Hell, they could even be in a situation where they're living together AND with one or both spouse's romantic/sexual partners, sort of like group poly but slightly different. Then, there's the possibility that these two people are celibate asexuals and/or aromantic, so they're life partners nonromantically and nonsexually but at the same, they also have these other nonsexual and/or nonromantic relationships that function pretty much the same way as their partnership/marriage, except for the cohabitation or marriage bit. Which speaks to emotional and behavioral equality.

Romantic-sexual people in monogamous marriages almost never do their relationships that way. Unless they're poly and even then, they're only making other romantic-sexual relationships semi-equal to their primary couple relationship and still leaving their friendships, which are definitively nonromantic/nonsexual, out of that realm of possible cohabitation, physical/sensual touch and intimacy, quality time spent alone together, complete emotional intimacy, etc. Maybe your cousin and his wife are exceptions to this rule, byanyotherusername, and their friendships function in an ordinary friendship way only because that's what their friends like. I'm just really skeptical of any romantic-sexual monogamist who's traditional enough to get married, viewing and treating their other relationships as equal and free enough to allow for anything--because it's easy to claim that you feel a certain way or think a certain way, without ever actually having to come through on those claims.

June 2, 2013

I agree with both of you to some extent. On one hand, I don't think someone automatically qualifies RA as long as their relationships work for all parties involved. Obviously, many relationship traditionalists have successful relationships and friendships which work for everyone, but they strictly follow the traditional script (e.g. the romantic-sexual relationship is above all the friendships; one's friends shouldn't expect the same treatment as their romantic partner; getting too close to one's friends of the gender they're attracted to would be emotionally cheating). People like this are not RA, because they're creating arbitrary rules, boundaries and hierarchies in their relationships.

On the other hand, I think it's possible for an RA to have a relationship that looks fairly traditional, e.g. in a romantic-sexual marriage, living together and raising children together with their marriage partner. That doesn't mean they can't have other intimate relationships which are as important as their marriage. Sure, they probably can't spend as much time and energy in their other relationships as in their marriage, but that's due to practical limitation, not an artificial rule like "our marriage must come first no matter what". I think this is an important distinction between RA's and non-RA's.

starrynight, you clarified my feelings on traditional couple/relationship behavior perfectly. Thanks.

I think that if two people choose to make a commitment like marriage in a nonromantic/nonsexual relationship, or basically live as life partners with each other in that situation, there's a higher likelihood that they don't have much of a hierarchy in their social lives anyway. If one or both of them are romantic and also have romantic and/or sexual relationships, I have a hard time imagining that they would put their romantic/sexual relationships very far below their nonromantic/nonsexual life partnership. Hell, they could even be in a situation where they're living together AND with one or both spouse's romantic/sexual partners, sort of like group poly but slightly different. Then, there's the possibility that these two people are celibate asexuals and/or aromantic, so they're life partners nonromantically and nonsexually but at the same, they also have these other nonsexual and/or nonromantic relationships that function pretty much the same way as their partnership/marriage, except for the cohabitation or marriage bit. Which speaks to emotional and behavioral equality.

Romantic-sexual people in monogamous marriages almost never do their relationships that way. Unless they're poly and even then, they're only making other romantic-sexual relationships semi-equal to their primary couple relationship and still leaving their friendships, which are definitively nonromantic/nonsexual, out of that realm of possible cohabitation, physical/sensual touch and intimacy, quality time spent alone together, complete emotional intimacy, etc. Maybe your cousin and his wife are exceptions to this rule, byanyotherusername, and their friendships function in an ordinary friendship way only because that's what their friends like. I'm just really skeptical of any romantic-sexual monogamist who's traditional enough to get married, viewing and treating their other relationships as equal and free enough to allow for anything--because it's easy to claim that you feel a certain way or think a certain way, without ever actually having to come through on those claims.

I agree with you on a lot of points (and have from the beginning, I probably should have made that more clear). And again, I'm not using my cousin and his wife as examples of RA, it was more that I was trying to figure out if there was any characterizing feature of their relationship that clearly contradicted the RA philosophy to understand it better. I wasn't convinced that monogamous marriage was that feature due to the very thoughtful, unconventional way they wound up in that situation, the fact that they don't define "monogamy" the same way some people might (eg, they both have cuddly friends), and mostly because if all of my romantic/sexual friends treated me the way they did I would never have to worry about not be able to get my physical or emotional intimacy needs met and would be fully satisfied in all of my relationships..."We can't be monogamous" has always seemed like as arbitrary a rule as "we can't be poly" to me. I agree with starrynight's conclusion that, as long as it's something that's up for negotiation later down the road should any feelings change, it is a perfectly acceptable set up (as long as that approach is also applied to poly relationships).

And I definitely think that someone who placed a platonic partnership on the top of their "pyramid" could neglect and devalue the needs of their other relationships just as easily someone who put a romantic/sexual one on top. Just because the second is the societal norm, doesn't make the first impervious to the same pitfalls/dynamics. There are definitely "best friends" out there who think they should have influence or even veto power over their friends' choices of romantic partners, as one mainstream example.

I can only explain my own dissolving of the categories "romance" vs. "friendship" from my relationship desires and emotions, as compared to the mainstream Romantic Ideology and narrative of what constitutes a "romantic" relationship vs. a friendship and the expected organization and conduct of those relationship categories.

These are the elements in an emotional connection that I desire:

unlimited emotional intimacy/vulnerability

quality time one-on-one; most of the time we spend together, it's just the two of us

frequent conversation, whether in person or on the phone

physical and/or sensual touching, that may include hugging, holding hands, caresses, cuddling, co-sleeping, massages, chaste kissing (but I have to be really, really comfortable with someone for those, usually)

verbal/written expressions of our feelings for each other and our relationship, on a consistent basis

a clearly communicated, mutual intent to invest in the relationship and carry on with it long into the future, no matter what our other relationships are

I don't consider ANY of that, or the combination of those things, innately "romantic" or indicative of a couple relationship. I don't feel like any of that should be limited to one romantic relationship, even if somebody does consider themselves romantic, on the grounds that it's inappropriate to have those things in a relationship other than your romantic one(s).

In a perfect world, where I can have anything I want in my relationships, all of my emotionally important relationships look like that composite described above. Two of them also include cohabitation, and those two people I usually call my "partners," for lack of a better term. But even with them, I want to live with each of them separately from the other, so I'd only ever be cohabiting with each individual part-time anyway. I also want for myself and support for my companions a high level of independence and individuality: I prefer that we spend time with friends and family without each other, alone time is important, we don't have to have the same friends, we can travel without each other, we can go spend weekends or nights with other people, etc. So cohabitation is the only major thing that separates my "partnerships" from my other passionate friendships--and that's not even because I have a specific objection to living with other people too. It's just because I figure trying to include more homes than those two in my life would get pretty complicated!

Emotionally speaking, I imagine feeling the same kind of love at the same intensity for all the people in that pool of folks I love. And I know I'm capable of it because growing up, that was my experience: even when I thought in more traditional terms and categories, the love I felt for some guy I thought I wanted to be my boyfriend wasn't any more intense, emotional, etc. than the love I felt for my first cousins who I wanted romantic friendships with or a friend I wanted a romantic friendship with. At one time, I wanted my ex-best-friend (who's female) to be one of my life partners, meaning live with me part-time forever and treat me just like a life partner would. I wasn't particularly sensually attracted to her, and I imagined my relationship with a male partner to be a lot more physical and openly emotional, yet saw the two hypothetical partnerships as equal in all ways. I love to think of my sister as my soul mate, am totally open to having a more cuddly relationship with her, want and need to be near her the rest of our lives, spend time with her just the two of us on a regular basis regardless of my partners or passionate friends.

On a 1 to 10 emotional intensity scale, 10 being, "I love you so passionately, I feel like I could explode, and the thought of you not loving me back makes me cry my eyes out," I've felt love at a 9 or 10 in all of those different relationships, and as overwhelming as it can be, I want that to be the case across the board, in a situation where I've got a group of people in my life who I consider my family and my friends. I want to experience the greatest possible emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and perhaps even physical intimacy (that I desire) in all of my relationships where I love the other person. Of course, that requires the other people to consent, to be open and willing, but if they are, you best believe I'm taking the opportunity.

Separating "romance" from "friendship," in that situation, is impossible. And pointless. A lot of the traditional markers of romantic relationships don't apply to me in the first place--I'm marriage free, childfree, a celibate asexual, want to only live with anybody part-time, totally not "monogamous" in any way, I don't restrict any of those loving behaviors to a certain gender--and if there's no emotional difference between important relationships and, ideally, very little physical difference too, then any labeling would either feel arbitrary and fake or fall flat.

And like I said, I pretty much don't acknowledge any kind of behavior or level of emotion as universally, innately "romantic." I don't see any purpose in labeling certain relationships, let alone specific behaviors or emotions, as "romantic" in order to distinguish them from friendship, because to me, the only reason to do that is so you can tell which ones matter more (almost always the "romantic" relationships) and what you're allowed to do or not allowed to do in a given relationship.

I agree with SO much of this, especially the parts in bold. The "desired elements" I left out mostly had to do with time commitments, because I suspect I am some rare-breed of time-commitment-repulsed. XD That doesn't mean I can't commit to seeing/talking to someone on a regular schedule, but I dislike any implication that it is a requirement of emotional closeness to do so.

However, I do think there are reasons to distinguish, if only in one's own mind, the difference between platonic and romantic, other than for the purpose of "ranking" relationships. I think that some people do experience their attractions and feelings towards people differently because of this distinction, and having words to describe that so that they can understand themselves and their motivations better can be a positive thing. In fact, I would think that certain romantic people would be more in danger of creating hierarchical relationships in their life if they didn't acknowledge the difference, because they wouldn't honestly be examining why they felt a certain kind of pull to some people that they didn't feel to others. I know that personally, far more than the discovery of asexuality, the existence of aromanticism completely altered the way I understood myself and the world. Things suddenly made a lot more sense. XD That's not to say that getting rid of the distinction isn't completely valid, just that simply recognizing different types of feelings present in different types of relationships doesn't automatically lead to prioritizing one kind over the other.

June 2, 2013

@aceofhearts61 I don't need or even want equality (equality of emotion or equality of behavior) in all my relationships. Why can't I be RA? My only "rule" for relationships is to do with other people what ever you feel like doing, feel how ever you want to feel about them, and call your relationship what ever you want to call it, so long as both parties are okay with it. Individual people are not equal, everyone is different and my feelings for them will inherently be different. So what if one is more intense, more committed, or more important than another? There only really needs to be equity within the relationship. Although even that doesn't really matter as long as both parties are happy with the nature of the relationship.

From my point of view what you practice is not RA at all. Insisting on every relationship being equal, is an external rule imposed on the relationship. What you have is not a hierarchical structure of relationships, but it's still a structure non the less. Seems more like relationship communism than relationship anarchy. To me anarchy is about having no imposed structure, no rules.

June 3, 2013

I agree with both of you to some extent. On one hand, I don't think someone automatically qualifies RA as long as their relationships work for all parties involved. Obviously, many relationship traditionalists have successful relationships and friendships which work for everyone, but they strictly follow the traditional script (e.g. the romantic-sexual relationship is above all the friendships; one's friends shouldn't expect the same treatment as their romantic partner; getting too close to one's friends of the gender they're romantically attracted to would be emotionally cheating). People like this are not RA, because they're creating arbitrary rules, boundaries and hierarchies in their relationships. Heck, there are even couples who ban any opposite-sex friendship, while still being happy with the situation.

On the other hand, I think it's possible for an RA to have a relationship that looks fairly traditional, e.g. in a romantic-sexual marriage, living together and raising children together with their marriage partner. That doesn't mean they can't have other intimate relationships which are as important as their marriage. Sure, they probably can't spend as much time and energy in their other relationships as in their marriage, but that's due to practical limitation, not an artificial rule like "our marriage must come first no matter what". I think this is an important distinction between RA's and non-RA's.

This is what I was thinking too, although I wasn't sure how to word it. If one's relationships have to look unconventional from the outside for one to be RA, that disqualifies me pretty quickly - all of my current friendships adhere pretty well to the usual social conventions for friendship. Nobody can tell that my relationship philosophy isn't hierarchical romantic-sexual monogamy unless I say something that suggests otherwise. However, even though my relationships look normal, the key is that I'm still approaching them with an RA mindset. I don't have any attachment to the traditional script myself; it's just that all of my relationships currently happen to fall along those lines because that's how everyone I know sets up their own relationships.

So yeah, I think it's ultimately the mindset and the approach that distinguishes RAs from non-RAs.

I want to experience the greatest possible emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and perhaps even physical intimacy (that I desire) in all of my relationships where I love the other person. Of course, that requires the other people to consent, to be open and willing, but if they are, you best believe I'm taking the opportunity.
Separating "romance" from "friendship," in that situation, is impossible. And pointless. A lot of the traditional markers of romantic relationships don't apply to me in the first place--I'm marriage free, childfree, a celibate asexual, want to only live with anybody part-time, totally not "monogamous" in any way, I don't restrict any of those loving behaviors to a certain gender--and if there's no emotional difference between important relationships and, ideally, very little physical difference too, then any labeling would either feel arbitrary and fake or fall flat.

Yeah, this seems to be where I'm at now. I sort of wish I were one of the people for whom the distinction is straightforward, but apparently I'm not, so I'll have to do the best with what I've got.

I'm leaning toward the approach described by JAKQ7111 - focusing on the value and closeness of each individual relationship without worrying too much about labels. I should have known that trying to solve my personal problems with a particular categorization scheme by creating another set of categories was probably not going to work. Ultimately, friendship founded on love is what's important to me, and that can manifest in any number of ways. I think what I'll try to do from now on is focus on what is valuable and unique in each relationship in my life. As the RA manifesto says, "cherish the individual and your connection to them."

I'm still thinking about it, though. I haven't reached a definitive conclusion.

However, I do think there are reasons to distinguish, if only in one's own mind, the difference between platonic and romantic, other than for the purpose of "ranking" relationships. I think that some people do experience their attractions and feelings towards people differently because of this distinction, and having words to describe that so that they can understand themselves and their motivations better can be a positive thing. In fact, I would think that certain romantic people would be more in danger of creating hierarchical relationships in their life if they didn't acknowledge the difference, because they wouldn't honestly be examining why they felt a certain kind of pull to some people that they didn't feel to others.

That's probably true for some people, but I think there are a few odd ducks out there for whom it's virtually the opposite. I was genuinely trying to avoid creating a hierarchy along the platonic/romantic lines, yet I ended up doing so anyway when I started to confuse emotional closeness with romantic feelings. I realized there was a problem when it started to seem like I was defining a close platonic friendship by what I was calling romantic feelings. It felt like I was implying that a high degree of closeness had to be romantic to some degree, which made it sound like solely platonic closeness couldn't go very far by itself. I know quite well that relationships that people describe as purely platonic can be extremely close, though, so that didn't seem right.

Here's what I'm thinking now: I don't feel a need to characterize my attractions with the words "romantic" or "platonic" anymore because every constellation of attractions, emotions, and affections I feel toward a given individual is unique - it's a "certain kind of pull" I don't feel toward anyone else.

If there's anything wrong with that, there's always potato/non-potato/squash. :lol:

From my point of view what you practice is not RA at all. Insisting on every relationship being equal, is an external rule imposed on the relationship. What you have is not a hierarchical structure of relationships, but it's still a structure non the less. Seems more like relationship communism than relationship anarchy. To me anarchy is about having no imposed structure, no rules.

I'm probably nitpicking over the political analogy here, but anarchism can also be communistic - there's anarcho-communism, which is a school within anarchism. They're not mutually exclusive.

June 3, 2013

@Geo - Most romantic-sexual people, who are relationship traditionalists/hierarchists, would say the same thing: they don't need equality, they're perfectly happy to put their romantic-sexual relationships far above their other relationships, and it obviously works for them because that's the most common style of relationships, so usually, everybody's doing it to each other. Friends make friends subordinate to their lovers, lovers make lovers superior to everyone else they know, everybody sees "romantic" behaviors in the same way, everybody considers a life partnership innately romantic and sexual, etc. The thing is, they don't consciously think of the rules they play by; they just operate on them by default because everybody's taught "This is the way relationships are done, this is the way they're organized, this is what certain behaviors mean, etc." They don't have to pause and discuss it with their friends and their lovers and their family members because they're all on the same wavelength, first of all, and second of all, they figure that common way of doing relationships is the only way. Not putting their romantic-sexual partner above the universe immediately strikes them as bizarre, if it's suggested. Allowing sensual touch or verbalized emotion or committed cohabitation, etc in relationships other than their romantic-sexual (and usually monogamous) relationships would strike them as bizarre. I know, because by now, it's old hat for me to receive responses from romantic-sexual people, when I specify my philosophy on love, that boils down to: "What planet did this person fall from?"

So what I'm saying is, relationship hierarchists, most of whom are romantic and sexual, would describe their relationship patterns the way you just did: to them, it feels and seems natural to create the hierarchy that they do, to build up one romantic-sexual relationship (at a time, unless they're poly) into the most emotionally intense/committed/important one, to keep their friendships extremely cool and casual by comparison, etc. And usually, the other people in their life are a-okay with that because they believe in the same system anyway. Which means that there is equity in all of their relationships, so yes, everybody's happy with the system.

But that doesn't make it any less hierarchical. Doesn't make it any less true that the hierarchy reflects a value system and an ethos of love that unquestionably assigns more emotional weight to relationships on the sole basis of their inclusion of romance and sex, and constructs tremendous limitations on nonsexual and/or nonromantic relationships, for the sake of preserving the hierarchy and the romantic-sexual relationship's primacy within it. (And that's not even touching the fact that this system tries to make romance and sex inseparable, which is why "romantic" behaviors are prohibited in nonsexual relationships.)

Relationship anarchy destroys that system. It's more than just breaking down hierarchy, but when you compare it side-by-side with the average romantic/sexual relationship hierarchy, the lack of hierarchy in RA does stand out more than a lot of its other elements. RA's also about destroying hard and fast relationship categories, or at least loosening them up enough that they're on the edge of disappearing. It seeks to strip all relationship behaviors of pre-assigned meaning, so that they aren't confined to one type of relationship vs. another. All of those different elements are related to each other.

Usually, out there in romantic-sexual world, nobody tries to break any of the rules in the system. They follow the relationship blueprints doled out by society without question, without imagining relationships can be done any other way. But once you try bucking the system, it quickly becomes clear that there are rules, very rigid ones. I don't know what your social life looks like, but if it looks exactly the same as the romantic-sexual norm, chances are it didn't just fall into place that way coincidentally. It falls into place that way and feels "natural" because everybody's trained to believe that's how things should be.

Only when a relationship traditionalist/hierarchist tries to form a connection with an RA does it becomes super apparent that the RH comes to the table with a long list of guidelines, while the RA doesn't, comparatively. If you're only engaging with other hierarchists, it's smooth sailing. If I was only engaging with other RAs, I'd have no problem either. But this equity within the relationship you speak of, this "both people being happy" with what they've mutually got, is--in my experience--damn near impossible when you got an RH and an RA together. Their perceptions are different. Quite possibly their desires for the relationship and the consequences they expect from their fulfillment are different.

That's why I, in the past, would love romantic-sexual people (and I do not mean romantically, I mean generally), who were all obviously relationship hierachists, and they were 100% satisfied with our "friendship." I wasn't. They saw it from their perspective as RH's. I saw it from my perspective as an RA. Happiness, for me, was impossible as long as we did our "friendship" their way. And doing it my way would've been impossible for them, because it would ask them to throw out their traditionalist/hierarchical perceptions of relationships.

June 3, 2013

I agree with both of you to some extent. On one hand, I don't think someone automatically qualifies RA as long as their relationships work for all parties involved. Obviously, many relationship traditionalists have successful relationships and friendships which work for everyone, but they strictly follow the traditional script (e.g. the romantic-sexual relationship is above all the friendships; one's friends shouldn't expect the same treatment as their romantic partner; getting too close to one's friends of the gender they're romantically attracted to would be emotionally cheating). People like this are not RA, because they're creating arbitrary rules, boundaries and hierarchies in their relationships. Heck, there are even couples who ban any opposite-sex friendship, while still being happy with the situation.

On the other hand, I think it's possible for an RA to have a relationship that looks fairly traditional, e.g. in a romantic-sexual marriage, living together and raising children together with their marriage partner. That doesn't mean they can't have other intimate relationships which are as important as their marriage. Sure, they probably can't spend as much time and energy in their other relationships as in their marriage, but that's due to practical limitation, not an artificial rule like "our marriage must come first no matter what". I think this is an important distinction between RA's and non-RA's.

This is what I was thinking too, although I wasn't sure how to word it. If one's relationships have to look unconventional from the outside for one to be RA, that disqualifies me pretty quickly - all of my current friendships adhere pretty well to the usual social conventions for friendship. Nobody can tell that my relationship philosophy isn't hierarchical romantic-sexual monogamy unless I say something that suggests otherwise. However, even though my relationships look normal, the key is that I'm still approaching them with an RA mindset. I don't have any attachment to the traditional script myself; it's just that all of my relationships currently happen to fall along those lines because that's how everyone I know sets up their own relationships.

So yeah, I think it's ultimately the mindset and the approach that distinguishes RAs from non-RAs.

Just wanted to echo this and say: in the past, all of my relationships looked the way they did--ordinary by mainstream judgment--because I never challenged the script they always followed. The other person in the relationship dictated the way it went, so of course, it went exactly the way common friendship always does in sexual society. Any deviation that happened, happened because I specifically think and feel the way I do and some part of my desires bled through for a moment here and there.

If I were in the driver's seat, on the other hand, my relationships wouldn't look remotely normative. God willing, I'll meet the right people for me at some point, and have relationships the way I actually desire.

June 3, 2013

Umm ok. I'm not really sure how that addresses my question at all. Sorry.

June 3, 2013

However, I do think there are reasons to distinguish, if only in one's own mind, the difference between platonic and romantic, other than for the purpose of "ranking" relationships. I think that some people do experience their attractions and feelings towards people differently because of this distinction, and having words to describe that so that they can understand themselves and their motivations better can be a positive thing. In fact, I would think that certain romantic people would be more in danger of creating hierarchical relationships in their life if they didn't acknowledge the difference, because they wouldn't honestly be examining why they felt a certain kind of pull to some people that they didn't feel to others.

That's probably true for some people, but I think there are a few odd ducks out there for whom it's virtually the opposite. I was genuinely trying to avoid creating a hierarchy along the platonic/romantic lines, yet I ended up doing so anyway when I started to confuse emotional closeness with romantic feelings. I realized there was a problem when it started to seem like I was defining a close platonic friendship by what I was calling romantic feelings. It felt like I was implying that a high degree of closeness had to be romantic to some degree, which made it sound like solely platonic closeness couldn't go very far by itself. I know quite well that relationships that people describe as purely platonic can be extremely close, though, so that didn't seem right.

Here's what I'm thinking now: I don't feel a need to characterize my attractions with the words "romantic" or "platonic" anymore because every constellation of attractions, emotions, and affections I feel toward a given individual is unique - it's a "certain kind of pull" I don't feel toward anyone else.

If there's anything wrong with that, there's always potato/non-potato/squash. :lol:

Nothing wrong with that at all! (From my prospective.) As I've said, people should distinguish or not distinguish to whatever extent works for them, I just don't agree with broad generalizations like the platonic/romantic distinction is always prescriptive, always hierarchical, etc. It's simply a tool, and can be used for both good and evil (or not used at all). ;)

From my point of view what you practice is not RA at all. Insisting on every relationship being equal, is an external rule imposed on the relationship. What you have is not a hierarchical structure of relationships, but it's still a structure non the less. Seems more like relationship communism than relationship anarchy. To me anarchy is about having no imposed structure, no rules.

I can see your point, but I also see aceofhearts61's point that if you just "go with the flow" then you will often end up in the relationships that are exactly like the mainstream, because that is how other people will shape their relationships with you. You can say you aren't following the rules, but you end up doing so because everyone in your life is following the rules. So, it helps to come up with specific ways you want to break the rules and actively shape your relationships around that--so long as you don't end up just coming up with different, equally arbitrary and non-negotiable rules. As far as I see it any relationship is going to have "rules" or common-sense limits on how you can interact ("no strangling me in my sleep") as well as mutual expectations people have for each other. The idea is to customize those "rules" based on the actual needs and desires of the people involved, and to be willing to renegotiate if those needs or desires change.

Of course, that's just my take. Still not sure if I "get" the RA philosophy. Mostly because, as is apparent from this thread, it's in the early stages and not everyone really agrees on what that philosophy is...

June 3, 2013

I can see your point, but I also see aceofhearts61's point that if you just "go with the flow" then you will often end up in the relationships that are exactly like the mainstream, because that is how other people will shape their relationships with you. You can say you aren't following the rules, but you end up doing so because everyone in your life is following the rules. So, it helps to come up with specific ways you want to break the rules and actively shape your relationships around that--so long as you don't end up just coming up with different, equally arbitrary and non-negotiable rules

I never liked breaking the rules just for the sake of breaking the rules. That's like a child doing the opposite of every thing their parents tell them simply because want to be rebellious. That's very immature if you ask me. IMO there should be legitimate reason and motivations behind what you do.

The idea is to customize those "rules" based on the actual needs and desires of the people involved, and to be willing to renegotiate if those needs or desires change.

And that was my entire point. This is what I think RA should be. Not some arbitrary rule that every relationship needs to be on the same level.

Thread for Relationship Anarchy & Love without Category

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