Polyamory, or Multiple Relations
https://www.allmyrelationspodcast.com/podcast/episode/468a0a6b/decolonizing-sex
big braining about this. Things that made me think:
It's feminist to be in open dialogue and show how you're learning over time and social media can be used for this purpose.
Monogamy is a major part of the structure for white supremacy and forced upon native peoples. I knew this technically but it's not really a major vector I think of typically since I typically think of like "the nuclear family"
The way polyamory is currently discussed is concerned with settler ideas rather than thinking about how we're all in relations with people. Forcing people to identify along sexual identities is part of the objectification of sex. We all have multiple relations, and not just with people but the land and other animals. "Polyamory" is like a transient term if we can get to the bottom of this which is about multiple relations, of all kinds.
Getting away from the idea of ever "owning" someone and how unethical that is just as a baseline. Accepting that no one can ever be everything to you and that the good relations you have all fulfill certain parts.
The straight up admission that the only way Tallbear manages to focus on her career while having a kid is just having a partner that loves doing most of the parenting. The way she's completely unapologetic about it is kind of amazing. Like, my instinct (much like my instinct with having animals in a shared living space) is that you shouldn't agree to this if you aren't willing to pull your weight in caring for a more vulnerable being. Either she had that much faith in her community or she is really just that unapologetically impervious to feeling responsible for being motherly and believes the kid will turn out fine.
The hot take that cheating/adultery is a symptom of how monogamy just doesn't work for most people. Very interesting idea. My thought on this is that as a baseline, I agree, given how rigid monogamy is and how its primary function is to concentrate power into a section of the population (men) and to forbid people from accessing certain benefits (as we can see with the Dawes allotment act history, but this also goes into stuff like who can visit you in the hospital etc. today). That said, I'm very curious about how Matika said that there's no sex without some form of love. I don't understand this because there is stuff like rape, so I wonder if they're just excluding that from the term "sex" in general. Some people generally do mistreat other people (including ways we call "cheating") because they're on a power trip, and I kind of wonder if they're No True Scottsmanning about this, but I'll reserve judgment until I learn more (if I continue to listen to this podcast).
Straight people are boring. Made me laugh. Also made me feel better about being really bad at doing the conformist things.
Honestly, this made me feel a lot better about where I'm at in life and how I've been conceptualizing my relationships. I think I've been allergic to saying stuff like "I love you" because I hate all of the scripts that go with it, and I can really understand how Tallbear talks about hating looking normative. Since I just have a perpetual observer in my head, I get really upset with the idea that someone would look at an important relationship I have and then decide that it's actually secretly romantic or something, or that they're my other half. It just feels like sandpaper. I guess if I can get the eye off my back it wouldn't matter, and I think this kind of reframing about being in multiple good relations that all fulfill varying needs really helps.
Kind of wonder if my preference for romance media, etc., will change if I actually manage to deconstruct all of this. Though I think few fictional works have relationships that are just as important that aren't slotted in some kind of way like "family," "romance," and occasionally "friendship". I make this distinction too in thinking about my own works, though part of that is the side effect of living in and responding to a society that relentlessly categorizes things in this way.