398 - Monogamy and Relationship Anarchy
How can we apply relationship anarchy to monogamy?
Monogamy is usually the last thing we think about when discussing relationship anarchy (RA), so how in the world can we link the two of them together? There are bound to be strong opinions on both sides for this episode, so we’re going to discuss whether or not monogamy and relationship anarchy can be practiced at the same time or if the terms contradict each other.
Relationship anarchy, which we cover more in episodes 150 and 339, values autonomy, anti-hierarchical practices, lack of state control, anti-normativity, and community interdependence. It was first introduced in 2012 by Andie Nordgren through a short instructional manifesto.
“Relationship anarchy is the idea that there is no hierarchy within a relationship dynamic. Friends, family, community, hobbies, goals, etc. are all as important as a romantic relationship, which is counter-culture to a lot of monogamous relationships that often value the romantic partnership as priority.”
The terms don’t have to contradict each other, though. We can take some of the core components of relationship anarchy and apply them to any relationship in order to improve them. A lot of these components have the added bonus of working against the normative systems and beliefs that cause so many people to be hurt, disenfranchised, or disempowered.
Is RA in monogamy possible?
On one hand, relationship anarchy is supposed to describe how you approach relationships, not specifically what they need to look like specifically.
Additionally, if relationship anarchy is meant to free people from the obligation to prioritize relationships a certain way, then by that logic, there should be room for monogamous-looking relationships as well.
Lastly, gatekeeping who can call themselves a relationship anarchist is completely antithetical to the component of inclusivity that RA philosophy usually fights for.
On the other hand, if you are in a monogamous relationship, particularly a heteronormative-looking one or a marriage, you’re receiving a lot of benefits that stem from the oppressive system RA is meant to oppose. Some may argue that you’re strengthening these normative beliefs through your relationship.
Since RA focuses on individual agency and rejects the idea that rules, whether imposed by partners, society, or the state, should govern how someone approaches relationships. In that case, if you have a rule or agreement that your relationship will be sexually exclusive, then you’re directly going against that autonomy.
Core principles of relationship anarchy
We’re going to discuss the core principles of RA and some concepts of traditional monogamy that may be worth questioning:
Autonomy:
Consider compulsory monogamy or monogamy as a default and how that contradicts autonomous ideals.
Assumptions of power over a partner or assumptions of duty to your partner.
Pressure for both partners to act a certain way (from peers, society, etc.).
Clash between closeness and autonomy in romantic relationships.
Anti-hierarchical practices:
Romantic relationships being placed above platonic ones in traditional monogamy.
Gender-based hierarchy.
Family vs. others.
Lack of state/social control:
Examine how enjoying the benefits of a state-sanctioned relationship might be further disempowering other people.
How you present your relationship to the world, i.e. what language do you use?
Anti-normativity:
Examine uneven relationship/household workloads.
Normative gender roles.
How often do people assume correctly about the nature of your romantic/sexual relationship versus otherwise?
Are you perpetuating normative values?
Community interdependence:
How does relationship hierarchy affect your dependence on other relationships?
Begin to evaluate and challenge some of your default ways of thinking about your relationships and notice how breaking out of those may make your world and the world at large a better place.
Transcript
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Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we are talking about how relationship anarchy can apply in monogamous relationships. This is an episode that I'm really excited for us to discuss and I also anticipate that there will be a lot of people out there with very strong feelings one way or another about this episode. I just want to start out by saying, great, good. I hope that this episode inspires some discussion and gets you to think about things.
Whether you are hardcore, identify as a relationship anarchist and say, "No monogamous person could ever count as what I am." You're a monogamous person who's saying, 'I do apply this a lot in my life." Whichever side you're on, hopefully, this episode gives you some things to think about and to explore. Ultimately the point of all of these kinds of philosophies and different ways of examining and approaching our relationships is to make them better, not only for ourselves but also for everyone else.
To make this world a better place for other people and ourselves to do our relationships. If you would like some background on what relationship anarchy is, because I just said that a bunch of times and you're like, "What the heck are you talking about?" We have a couple of episodes that we've done where we've just talked specifically about what relationship anarchy is. One of those is episode 150 way back now, that's called Relationship Anarchy 101, where we go over the history of how this came to be, as well as, looking at the actual document that brought this to most people's attention.
Then episode 339 where we talk more recently about the relationship anarchy smorgasbord, which is a tool for helping to design what goes into each of your relationships.
Dedeker: I'm curious, Jase, what inspired you to pull together this episode? I think this is something that I've been harping on in my own private circles for several years that--
Emily: Harping how.
Dedeker: I don't know, maybe it's just a little bit of a hot take that I haven't fully developed. I do think that one can choose monogamy and identifies a relationship as an anarchist, but again, as I said, I've not fully fleshed out my arguments for that necessarily. I've wanted to do some writing about that and a lot of people who take on the relationship anarchy label usually want to just get in a fight about that right away. I'm not going to go spread that hot take around the internet until I'm ready to actually discuss it and explore it and maybe even defend it. Maybe, I don't know, maybe after I think about it then I'll realize that it's BS. I'm curious about what brought you to this topic.
Jase: This came just now out of a conversation that I was having with someone who essentially was asking that question of can this apply? Does this make sense? We've gotten that question before when we've done workshops and things like that about relationship anarchy. That question will come up of I'm monogamous, does this even apply to me? Can I do anything about this? Honestly, in planning this I've gone back and forth so many times on what I do think about it. I had such an interesting topic with a lot of nuance in it.
Emily: I don't know if you two remember, but way back when we were at Southwest Love Fest in Tucson and we were doing a relationship anarchy 101 talk. My mom was in the audience and she like piped up and was like, "I think I'm a .
Dedeker: She was so excited.
Emily: Do you remember that?
Dedeker: Yes.
Emily: Well, and it's interesting because I definitely would think that my mother would count herself as somebody who's monogamous, I guess, even though there's some questionable things there as well. If she think for all intents and purposes, believes that if she were in a relationship she would probably be monogamous, but she also said those words, I think I'm a relationship anarchist. I do think-- we were talking about this morning that the way that I grew up, it was not a nuclear family. I lived with my grandmother and her. All ready that's like an extended family situation.
The people across the street who I lived with or not lived with, but who lived across the street from me were my best friends. They also in many ways helped take care of me and they ended up being my God family. That extended and created chosen family within my life almost immediately from the get-go. Maybe she's not wrong. Maybe we grew up in this setting of a lot of people are really important and they don't just have to be somebody that you're in love with or somebody that you decide to marry or something along those lines, even though it's more normal, more monogamous, I guess.
Dedeker: Definitely from your mom's perspective I think certainly progressive in choosing her own terms for raising a child, right?
Emily: Absolutely.
Jase: I think that's actually a pretty good segue into, let's just talk a little bit about the-- a quick review of relationship anarchy. What do we mean when we're talking about this? If someone's listening to this episode and they haven't yet gone back and listened to those other ones, or they haven't really heard about this, or maybe they've heard a little but aren't sure they have the right impression of it, let's just briefly talk about some of the core ideas and what it's all about before we get into specifically looking at how this can apply in monogamous relationships.
Emily: Relationship anarchy first the term was coined by Andy Nordgren in 2012, and they wrote, "The short instructional manifesto for relationship anarchy." They introduced that document to the world. It came out like maybe three pages.
Jase: It's not terribly long. It came out of a group. They say that in the manifesto, that this came out of discussions that they had amongst their group of queer people. It's not like Andy made this, but they're the one who brought it to the world by publishing this. It's beautiful piece. You should definitely go Google it and check it out.
Emily: Absolutely. We've all read it many times. Essentially relationship anarchy is this idea that there is no hierarchy within relationship dynamics at all. That basically means that friends or family, community, hobbies, goals, all of those things, they can be as important as romantic relationships just as important and just as meaningful in one's life. That's a counterculture to a lot of monogamous relationships and monogamous viewpoints.
I think nuclear families where they are essentially were told that that has to be the most important thing and everything else comes secondary, or tertiary or beyond. The romantic person or ultimately maybe the romantic person and then the immediate children, those are the only people, or the most important people in one's life. The primary person or people in one's life.
Jase: If that sounds like, I don't know if that's true. I think a fundamental exercise is just to think about how many situations you've been in, where someone's reason to do or not to do something is because of a romantic partner. Like, "Oh, I'm sorry, I can't do that because that's my girlfriend's birthday, "or something like that. Versus how often we might do that with other types of relationships. If someone's like, "Oh, your partner's doing something, or your partner's sick and you're going to take care of them," everyone's like, "Yes, yes, cool, cool, got it." I
If you say, "Oh, my friend is sick and I'm going to go over and take care of him while he is taking the day off."
It's like, "Wait but you have work and other obligations and we had plans, what do you mean?" That's an example of how this shows up in a really sneaky secret way because we don't even question it generally.
Dedeker: There's a fair amount of, Venn diagram overlap with political anarchy that holds a lot of these same values of a lack of hierarchies, self-definition of relationships, self-governance as it were. Values of autonomy, a lack of outside control, usually, especially in political anarchy. It's about a lack of state control. Anti normativity and also things like community interdependence.
Jase: Now to our question, relationship anarchy and monogamy, is this possible, or is this just a contradiction in terms? Let's start off just exploring that a little bit of let's start with-- What would be some examples that come to mind right away before we really dive into each of these different parts of relationship anarchy? What are some examples of, yes, I think you could apply that? Dedeker, you were just talking about this, that it comes up a lot for you in discussions and I've definitely had these discussions with people as well. How does it seem like it works to apply relationship anarchy?
Dedeker: I guess the way that I would think that it would work is, if we already look at the shifting landscape around how monogamy is defined and the purpose of monogamy as well, that in itself is already shifted so much over the years. I do think that right now we're in a time where people are, learning to even define monogamy on their own terms as opposed to the terms that was dictated to them by their culture or their microculture when they were growing up.
Also, defining what it is that they're going to get out of their relationship with the functions of their relationship outside of what other people have told them that it should be. Now, of course, that means there's still a very, very powerful current of a mainstream that pushes a lot of people. Even the people who are on the fringes pushes them into a very particular shape of relationship. Often that can dictate exactly what obligations are inherently there in the relationship.
I guess maybe that's the first part of my argument is that I do think that things are shifting where even the definition of monogamy itself is becoming something that I think people feel a little more comfortable ticking on for themselves and discovering for themselves. It's not just the nonmonogamous folks who are learning to define relationships on their own terms.
Emily: I think the function of fidelity is in and of itself what many people deem to be monogamy. It's just that you are fidelity with a single person like two people are not going to have sex with anyone else. Beyond that, all of the other things that come with many people's idea of monogamy that they're primary and that everything else comes second or whatever. I think that is potentially where relationship anarchy can come into play because yes, maybe you only sleep with one person, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to be more special or something or mean more or come first above all others.
I think that one can reserve sex for maybe one other person but then all of the other things that happen and within relationships can happen with multiple people maybe.
Jase: That's an interesting way to look at that, to take apart the monogamy piece from all the other stuff that we actually attach to monogamy culturally.
Emily: Sure.
Jase: Wow.
Dedeker: I think also as we see more popularity around things like living apart together for the people who are able to do that. I think that is coming more into our discourse about a lot of people and especially women who date men talking about how, hey, actually it'd be great to just have my own space. To be able to be in love with someone, to choose that person to be my monogamous partner, but also we live our separate lives. We live in our separate spaces. I think a lot of people are coming around to that feeling pretty good.
Jase: Now, I'm so interested thinking about what Emily brought up of, imagine a scenario where you do have one person where it's like, this is the only person that I'm going to be sexual with or maybe will even include like kissing or something like that. That's the only person I'm going to do that with. Yet they don't have any of the other trappings of what we think of with monogamous romantic relationships.
It's like, say you do your cuddling with someone else, you raise a kid with a different person than this person, you live with a different person. Whether that's the same person or several other people. There's an interesting question of would other people look at that and say, "Oh yes, she's monogamous," or would they be like, "No, not at all." Then it's that question of well wait, what is monogamy then? We say it's one thing, but actually, maybe we really mean this whole set of stuff that all comes together.
Emily: I'm trying to get really granular on the word, what is monogamy? What defines it? When I think about to me it's like, yes, this is the person that you're going to have sex with only.
Dedeker: Often in very material terms, that's what it tends to come down to.
Emily: Sure. We as a society I think have placed a lot of other things on top of that, of what it actually means and what it means at an emotional level and what it means at a level of, these are the only things that I do with a person. Again, if you're looking at things like the relationship anarchy, smorgasbord, and questioning like, "Do I actually want to do all the prescribed things that monogamous people do or not?" Deciding differently from that, then I think relationship anarchy can come more into play.
Jase: I think just the fact that we have culturally terms like emotional infidelity, or emotional cheating just goes to show that what we say monogamy is, it's actually not. We actually include a lot of other stuff in that, a lot of other assumptions about what you can and can't do.
Dedeker: A lot of people do.
Jase: That's one of-
Dedeker: To include that.
Jase: -the core things that we're going to talk about is that idea of autonomy and control. If the assumption is that I need to limit some of my behavior specifically because of this type of relationship, and so therefore it has to come with all these other things, that's the thing that relationship anarchy is fighting against, or one of the things. I think that's a great example. I would say also, just to throw this out there for the people who are like, "But no, but you're not doing enough," is that idea of if relationship anarchy, part of what it's doing is breaking down this idea that our society can tell you this type of relationship's valid and okay, and this one's not.
To turn that around and say, "Well now this one can't ever be valid," that's not cool either. That's antithetical to the whole concept. That idea of gatekeeping of like, "Oh, well you can't," you're not like actually in a good relationship because I think relationship anarchy is good and if you're doing monogamy in any way, that's by definition not good and therefore it's wrong. That's just turning the whole thing back around on itself. That's not good. That's not the point of this. At least in my opinion.
Dedeker: It's interesting. I think that again, in very practical and real-world terms, I do think there's a lot of people who have glommed onto the relationship anarchy label where the purpose of it is more about, I don't want any obligations, so don't expect anything from me at all. Just don't expect anything from me. Don't expect that I'm going to text you back. Don't ask me to be exclusive whatever. If you don't want those things, that's totally okay to not want them.
I think that also it does tend, and so sometimes I think because of that people get a very bad taste in their mouth about relationship anarchy, quite frankly. It's like the people who end up my clients or people who've been burned by someone who called themselves a relationship anarchist and now they're like, "I'm trying to understand what does it mean? Was it okay?" Things like that. I do think that when we associate that label with that particular practice, it does leave out a big swath of experience where really it's just about people getting to define their relationships the way that they want them to.
It's not just about, I keep everyone at arm's length and no one can pin me down and no one can expect or ask anything of me like a lot of relationship anarchists have sometimes multiple, very deep "committed," I put air quotes around committed because of course there's going to be a different definition of committed for everybody, entangled relationships. I think maybe that's the crux of the argument on the side arguing for the idea that relationship anarchy and monogamy could overlap or intersect.
Is that like, if you're letting people define what kind of relationships they're going to have and letting the people in those relationships make those decisions, allegedly, those people can make the decision, we're going to have sex exclusively with each other, or we're going to have a kid exclusively with each other, or we're going to live exclusively with each other, whatever it is. I think in principle it allows for that.
Jase: Now, let's explore a little bit of, well what's the other argument though? What is the argument against saying that monogamous people could be relationship anarchists or that a relationship anarchist could be monogamous?
Dedeker: We could go to maybe the most extreme that I've seen it, which is, I think that I've seen some flavors of relationship anarchy that make the argument that any kind of couplehood or any kind of romantic "romantic love" or romantically based relationship, that's no good. That we need to fully swing way far away from the idea of even a relationship between two people that we really need to swing very hard into just community and just groups. Even polyamory is no good because that's all based like dyads and romantic and sexual love. I think obviously this is not the worldview that I ascribe to but I've seen that out there in the wild. I do think in that worldview, of course, traditional monogamy doesn't fit.
Emily: As we were talking about this, I was like, there's got to be some gatekeepers out there for relationship anarchy I'm assuming and people who are like, "You're not doing it enough," or I was like, "Okay, what place is the threshold for." I just tipped over into I am relationship anarchy enough to call myself relationship anarchy. That is a good point. I think people who do get married and we've talked about it a lot on this show, they're going to have a huge amount of privilege, insofar as the tax breaks.
I think people being able to write your spouse's name on something and potentially getting insurance together, and just all the little tiny ways in which our society tends to tell us, yes, you should get married and we're going to incentivize it in a variety of ways. I think those incentives may not be something that are very attractive to those who prescribe to more anarchist viewpoints.
Dedeker: Oh yes, totally. I guess that's another thing that I've harped on for many years, ironically, on the other side, is that it's like, we really need to be leveling the playing field. They're not just favoring the single state, sponsored state-favored version of relationship.
Jase: While that is changing some like more and more companies, and more and more states in the US, at least, are offering benefits to whoever. However, it's still very much that there's an expectation of you're monogamous, and you're committed to each other, and that you're probably sexual with each other. They don't ever say that but that's built into the assumption. What was it? I remember I was applying for benefits and they were saying, "Yes, you can add someone to this. They don't have to be your spouse." I said, "Oh, really? I could have my partner be on there?" They're like, "Yes, as long as you're not married to anyone else." As if that was a ridiculous concept they'd ever heard. I'm like, "What?"
Emily: You're like, "Oh, okay."
Jase: It's like that. Those kind of built-in things. If you are living that, and taking advantage of some of those benefits, then it's like, in a certain sense, I could see an argument that you are encouraging, or at least going along with a not pushing back against this thing because it's benefiting you because of the way you're doing your relationship. That's another argument I could see against.
Emily: I was going to say essentially that even if you are a relationship anarchist who is monogamous, and you are living your life in such a way that there is no hierarchy, you're still going to come across people out there who will treat you as though your relationship is the highest and the best and the most important. That's just because that's the society we live in and that's how it goes. I think some people may not love that idea, or find that those two are at odds with one another, just simply because so many out there are going to put privilege upon your relationship, even if you are trying to not do that.
Jase: I think something that comes up a lot in discussions about anarchy and about relationship anarchy is this idea that if you're not actively doing something against these systems that are in place, then you're aren't in the club is how it comes across. I think there's validity to that. I'm not saying that to mock that at all. It does make sense. It's like yes I could say, oh, man, monogamy and marriage is bad but also I'm married in a monogamous and I'm taking advantage of that.
I'm getting paid more at work because I'm married and that's been shown in studies that married men get paid more than single men on average. There's stuff like. I could get all those advantages, and then just say I'm a relationship anarchist, even though I'm not really doing anything to further that idea. That's shitty. However, on the other side, there's that idea of I've seen some blogs out there from relationship anarchy saying, if you're not actively trying to break up monogamous couples, then you're not doing enough. You need to be completely destroying and anti-anything that looks like this.
Emily: Again, that's the only way you get your card man. That's the only way, geez.
Jase: That's like your hazing ritual. If you haven't broken someone up, then you can't get to--
There's two extremes and I hope we can find a place in the middle there.
Dedeker: Again, I guess coming back to some fundamentals that if you're looking at a framework that really prioritizes autonomy and a lack of control or a lack of limiting that autonomy whatsoever, then, of course, I think the most common argument is like, by agreeing to monogamy, you are agreeing to limit somebody else's autonomy. You're directly telling them you cannot go do X, Y and Z. You can't go have sex to somebody else. You can't go live with somebody else.
You can't make out with somebody else. You can't have a child with somebody else, whatever it is. Again, all that stuff that we packaged together with monogamy. I think that's one of the simpler arguments is that if you assume that monogamy is based on restricting somebody else's autonomy, then that contradicts relationship anarchy principles.
Jase: That also brings up another question, Emily brought up of what is monogamy, because I could see, okay, someone makes the argument of, "Well, sure. I'm in this relationship and I like this person a lot. I don't want to have sex with anyone else, and they've told me that they don't want to have sex with anyone else. We're monogamous but it's not a rule. It's not even an agreement. That's just what we're doing." While that might be true, sometimes I think a lot of times, it's like, yes, but there is an expectation there that in order for you to call yourselves monogamous--
Emily: Unspoken rule.
Jase: Right. To call yourself that most people do have a little bit of this thing of, "Okay, what if suddenly, they didn't do that? Would that be a problem for you?" Which maybe right there that's an interesting question because maybe that is you. You're like, "If they did change their mind, I would be okay with that. I wouldn't necessarily change how I would behave." Now, this is great. We're on to something. I do think for a lot of people that monogamy doesn't just mean that I'm not doing sex and romance with other people.
Emily: So they don't want to.
Jase: It's that I don't want to and that there's an expectation that I won't and you won't. That's a deal we have, and that if you don't have that deal, a lot of people might still think, "Oh, you're just you're casually dating still, or you're not really monogamous yet, or something." Not to say that's a hard and fast, like, "No, that's why you can't be," but depending on how you're doing it, I could see that being a pretty compelling argument to say, "That's not really relationship anarchy, even though you're trying to explain it in a way that it could be." Does that make sense?
Dedeker: Are not gatekeeping Jase? Are you on the board of directors now?
Jase: I don't know.
Emily: Someone's got to be.
Jase: No one stepped up and got their laminating machine out to make cards, so I guess will.
Emily: There you go.
Jase: I guess that's what I'm getting at is that-- and this is what we'll discuss as we get into some ways that we can look at the core values of relationship anarchy, and how we can apply these in our lives and how we can question some of these unquestioned assumptions and the way that we live our lives, even if we're doing our life that in some ways seems very non-traditional, we might still have a lot of unquestioned things. I would argue pretty much all of us do. It's the water that we swim in.
There's always going to be some stuff we haven't questioned yet. There's always going to be some value there to really examining that. Just that the point is not to tell someone else, whether they are a relationship anarchist or not, but more a question for yourself of, "Okay. If these parts of relationship anarchy do resonate for me and our values that I do believe in, am I living a life that reflects these values? Am I living a life that's helping to further these values in the world outside of just my own head?"
Dedeker: I like that. It's like this process of inquiry of why am I drawn to this? Also, for instance, if I wanted to go so far as to adopt this label, to define myself, what is the purpose in that? I think there can be many, many different purposes. I think for some people, adopting that label makes it easier for them to then take actions to live out those values in real life. For some people, I think it's just the purpose of hanging out with the cool kids. Frankly.
Emily: Hanging out with the cool kids, wow.
Jase: That is a really good point of why do you want this label or why might you want this. I love that. It's funny. I don't want to get into it now but it does remind me of a conversation I was just having with my therapist, about your motivations for doing something. Is it just to feel cool or is it because it's something you value that that was a question that came up or, are you doing it just because you think you should, whether that's doing monogamy because you just think you should and that's just what you're supposed to do or, are you trying to say you're relationship anarchist just because you think you should because you see the current system is bad, so I probably should be this, or I'm a liberal person I should do this.
Dedeker: Yes, you're so right. I feel like between three and five years ago, I noticed this big shift and polyamorous people suddenly were like, "No relationship anarchists." I think that's died down a little bit now.
Emily: Wait, it's saying no, as in, "No, we're not doing that anymore"?
Dedeker: No, as in, "No, I don't use the word polyamory anymore. It's all relationship anarchy." Then, I think that a lot of relationship anarchists were like, "No, you're not anarchist enough," and chased them away. This is purely my-
Emily: Anecdotal, yeah.
Dedeker: - internet sociologist theory coming to the forefront.
Jase: Oh, wow. Okay. Now, let's get into these five core principles and talk about them, but first, we do want to take a quick break to talk about how you can help support this show. We really value being able to make this show and put this content out there to everyone for free. It's not behind a paywall. Your access to it isn't limited. One of the ways that we do that is by having ads in our show and also by having ways that you can directly support our show and join our communities there. We'd really appreciate it if you take a moment to listen to those. If any seem interesting to you, go check them out. If they don't, that's cool too. We're still here for you. The podcast is still going to be here.
Dedeker: Hello, and welcome back. We're going to be looking at five of the core principles of relationship anarchy. This is not an exhaustive list. Basically, we're going to look at these five, and we're going to discuss what it may actually look like in reality to put these into practice, because I do think that something that can happen, I think, particularly in these spaces, not just the RA space but the polyamory non-monogamy just alternative relationships space, our engines get really filled up by theory and philosophy, but then sometimes, it's like we don't have tires, I feel.
I feel like it's literally a rubber meets the road kind of thing where sometimes we fall apart where our ideals crash into reality and the real and the pragmatic and the material. I always love bringing that and putting some frickin rubber on our tires-
Emily: On the road?
Dedeker: -so we're not just sitting here with a full tank of gas.
Emily: Nice.
Jase: Wow. All right. The first of these is autonomy. We've mentioned this a fair amount already, but let's take a look at this and see some ways that autonomy comes up. Maybe some ways we can question this as well as some ways we can start to look at how this goes into our lives. The first one we'll start with is just what we already talked about a little bit is that idea that monogamy is just by default, it's the only real relationship or that we're monogamous with each other, and even if we haven't said it, there's this social agreement and understanding that if you ever were not monogamous with me, that's going to be a problem. That I'm going to be upset by that and that's not cool, even if we haven't talked about it.
I guess I'm curious to hear from the two of you, what does questioning that look like? Is it the only way to do this to say, "No, we've got to make an agreement that you totally can? I hope you don't, but you totally can"? That seems a little disingenuous to go that far, so I think it's an interesting thing to explore.
Emily: I was talking with a friend yesterday who divulged to me that he and his husband have been in a dom-sub relationship for a number of years and his husband is the dom and was allowed to sleep with whomever he wanted. They still call themselves monogamous, and yet that's part of their agreement. I think that to some people would be very outside of the realms of compulsory monogamy, and yet they still call themselves monogamous.
That is what Dedeker said at the top that this idea of what compulsory monogamy is, it's changing so rapidly and so intensely, I think, for so many people because it really, I think, to some people means a hall pass when you're away on a business trip. That's still monogamy to some people.
Jase: Yes, it's interesting too, because it also goes into this idea of-- I feel like there's a term that's often used for this, but consensual commitment or I'm agreeing to a certain commitment with you because I'm choosing to versus-- because I'm just thinking about autonomy. When you think about dom-sub relationships, inherently, part of the dynamic, part of the appeal is the lack of autonomy. Often, in certain BDSM-type relationships, there's a certain amount of, I'm giving you some control over me, which is a little different from the idea of because you're my partner, I expect that you're not going to do these things versus, we've willingly negotiated this particular-- I'm going to give up some autonomy. It doesn't mean I couldn't take it back. There's that too. That does raise an interesting question of how that autonomy applies.
Emily: Well, your next point on here was the assumption of power over a partner or your assumption of duty to one partner. I like the idea of those things being explored more specifically, and not just having it be a default, because we're monogamous, this is what this means. Obviously, you're going to drop everything if something happens to me, or obviously, I'm going to always trump everyone else in your life if I'm in need in any way. I think those ideas being even spoken about and really dissected by a couple, by two individuals, creates the opportunity for more autonomy.
Jase: I think that's a great point of just taking things out of the realm of undiscussed and assumed into, we've actually pulled these things out of the back of the drawer and looked at them and seen, "What is this?" Maybe it's like, "Cool. We know what this is now. We're still going to keep that," or maybe it's, "Ooh, we looked at this, and actually, this one, maybe we don't need. We've had an assumption about this, but we don't need that." I would say even that is one of the benefits of doing something like going through the relationship anarchy smorgasbord, which I highly recommend everyone does at some point in your relationships, just to explore and even see what some of those assumptions might be that you haven't even thought of.
Dedeker: I think that in a healthy relationship, and I would make the argument, I think this applies to any format of relationship, monogamous or non-monogamous. I think there is a tension between, I guess, what I identify as the locus of where decision-making power lies. I think there's a push-pull between our decisions made by individuals autonomously in the relationship or are they made as a unit for the sake of the relationship? I think in reality you need a little bit of both.
I think that falls in line with relationship anarchy. It's like not only individual autonomy but also the individuals in the relationship are making decisions for themselves for the sake of the relationship. I think that Esther Perel's work talks a lot about this as well about that tension of, you need not only the closeness but also the distance as well. That's what I think. I also think that what you're talking about with a lot of these assumptions, and all of this being so compulsory and by default, I think even in very simple things of being in a monogamous relationship and still advocating for your own alone time, or not always--
Emily: Yes, that's really, really big to someone or to some couples.
Dedeker: Yes. Not having every bit of leftover time automatically, that's time that we spend together. I think if you're in a monogamous relationship, and even if you're doing great at the whole autonomous time thing, there's still the culture that you live in. A few years ago, Jase and I, we were going to do a pet sit at this really cool and very spooky house in Los Angeles. I can tell this spooky house story later.
Emily: It was so cool.
Jase: So spooky, yes.
Dedeker: The way it was going to work out was, actually, I was mostly going to be solo staying there because you had to work and you just wanted to stay at a place with your friend that was closer to work. You were maybe going to stay there sometimes. The people who own this house were just like, "Wait, your partner's in town but he's not going to stay with you? Why?" I'm just like, "Because that's how we do it."
This came up with me recently where a few weeks ago, I did a little solo getaway. It was my birthday present to myself and nobody said anything, but whenever I told people about it, always in the back of my mind, I was like, "Oh, God, I wonder if they're going to worry that I'm having a fight with Jase, that's why he's not coming with me for my birthday getaway," or people think that things are bad at home and that's why I'm having to run away or something on my own and I'm like, "No, I just want freaking be by myself."
Emily: Yes, God forbid.
Dedeker: I think that is another difficult thing is even if you are traditionally monogamous, but still great on the autonomy front, there's still all this expectation that can weigh pretty heavily on you.
Jase: Let's go onto our next major pillar here value, and that is anti-hierarchical practices. I think this is actually quite related to autonomy that we were just talking about. Basically, the central idea here is saying that part of relationship anarchy is we want to dismantle hierarchies. This idea that this thing is more important than another thing, purely because of what it is rather than its actual value or its actual connection. The example we've been giving is that your romantic relationship is by default, always going to be a higher priority than your friendships, than your parents.
Maybe everything except for your own children are considered by default those will always be lower priority, but there's other ways this shows up too. Another way I see it quite often in certain families is this idea that because this person is my family, even if that's a cousin or something like that, they are by definition more valuable, more important, more deserving of my loyalty than someone else who's not related to me.
Dedeker: As someone who has a lot of family members. No.
Jase: Sure.
Emily: Family tends to bring up stuff for people about that.
Emily: I know, but some people are so like blood is thicker than water. I'm like, that may be the case.
Dedeker: I'm going to drink water. I'm not vampire.
Emily: Yes, exactly.
Jase: Look at that through history. Dedeker and I love to watch the Highlander series from the 90s and it's all about like, I'm Duncan McCloud of the Clan McCloud, and so therefore --
Dedeker: That's why you're going with this. I was really wondering why you're bringing Highlander into this.
Jase: That's any excuse to bring up Highlander--
Emily: The Targaryens are freaking incesting all over the place.
Jase: Sure. We see it there too. There's this idea that like, I've never met this person before in my life, and maybe I have another person that I have a history with and a friendship with, but I learned that this person is my kinsman as it is, and these historical stories. Oh, well now you have my loyalty. Now I'm going to sacrifice myself or work really hard to help you, not because of anything you did or any actual value in our relationship, just purely because we're connected there.
I know I'm like getting off topic a little bit, but that's through all our history books. It's in a lot of our stories, all that. It's there too, even if some of us don't feel that with our own immediate families but that comes up. It's just another example of a thing that we often don't question. It's like you see that and you're like, "Oh yes, that makes sense." They're clansmen or whatever it is, is it's like, well, but why do we say that that's more important? Same with our romantic relationships, same with those family relationships.
Dedeker: I want to bring up, so back in, gosh, when was this? Maybe 2016 when I was trying to be a cool kid. I picked up--
Emily: You're very cool.
Dedeker: Oh, thank you, but I was trying even harder to be cool back then. I picked up actually a really great collection of essays. It's a very 2013 title, but it's called Queering Anarchism, Addressing an Undressing Power and Desire. You can either buy it or in the anarchist library, it's all available for free as well. I definitely highly recommend it. It really blew my mind, but it also introduced me to some of the fundamentals about political anarchy, which is-- This lack of hierarchy, but a lack of hierarchy doesn't automatically mean reversing existing hierarchies, which sometimes is the way that our brains tend to go.
If you are like, Oh, I want to be more relationship anarchist in my relationship, so that means my monogamous romantic partner is at the bottom, and everyone else comes first. I'm smashing all of these constructs.
Emily: That's funny.
Jase: That's a great point though.
Dedeker: Yes.
Emily: We don't need to go complete opposite direction.
Dedeker: Because reversing hierarchies are still like hierarchies at the end of the day.
Jase: Right. Gosh--
Emily: The point is to rid oneself of them altogether if possible. That is difficult.
Jase: It reminds me of going to Vegas several years ago and seeing the Magic Mic Show in Vegas.
Dedeker: Oh yes. That's a great example of that story.
Emily: Why? What about it?
Jase: The whole conceit of that show is that it starts off looking like, I don't know, some a typical male strip club where they're still objectifying women, and the woman gets up and is like, "No, this is bull shit. I'm going to take over and flips it all." It's like about women treating men like shit and being sexually coercive to them and doing all this awful stuff. It still ends up feeling gross and weird and sexist. I was just like, "No, you don't get it." This is a really good example of someone who-- of a man writing a show about this thing and thinking, "Oh yes, that'll be cool. Women will like this. That'll be empowering. That's what they're looking for." It was actually shitty. Dancing was great and I still had a fun time.
Dedeker: You still had some good reviews of that show, if I recall correctly.
Jase: There were some really good numbers and some amazing dancers, but the writing of the show, I have a lot of notes about, but it's a good example of that. Oh, we're just going to flip it. It's like, no, that's not what this looks like. It's the same thing of the argument of why anthropologists have said we've never found a matriarchal society because they were looking for an opposite where men are being oppressed. They're looking for that as the definition of what a matriarchy would look like. That isn't necessarily what that has to look like. That's a really good point to bring up.
Emily: Can we move on to lack of state and social control?
Dedeker: You don't have to ask us. You're autonomous. We don't have any-
Emily: Why thank you.
Dedeker: -obligations. If you want to move on, you can. You don't have to, we hold no power --
Emily: I appreciate that very much. That's true. I think in our little company we do pretty well being non-hierarchical, even though the two of you are not hierarchical relationship, the two of you are coupled. I am not, but I still feel very much like the three of us are all autonomous individuals and the two of you treat me as though I am just as important as you two may be to one another with the company.
Dedeker: Oh, no question.
Emily: That's good. If we're talking about state and social control, we discussed this before, but how this state-sanctioned relationship which is marriage, how it is this thing that's held up on the top of a mighty pillar in our society? We all look at it and it's like so many people say, that's what I want to be. That's what I want to aspire to. There's a lot of reasons for that. So much of our media, so many stories that were fed and that are told tell us that is the thing that we need to get to and that's the only thing that matters ultimately. That's the only way that you're going to be happy.
That all is really fascinating and just completely disregarding that, or tossing that aside is scary, but it's also I think really empowering that the potential for that is there, and then instead like we said, you can create the relationship that you want, whatever that looks like, or relationships that all the relationships in your life can be of meaning.
Jase: I love that. I think that another thing to consider with this one with that kind of lack of state and social control is that question I brought up before of if you're still living a life that looks very normal to people and they can assume that, and you get the benefits of that, of not having to explain yourself of people not-- When people assume things about your relationship, do they tend to assume correctly is one of those things that comes up.
I think just questioning that and looking at it is a place to start, even if I might be bisexual and maybe I am polyamorous, but if people look at me and see, "Oh, okay, he's got a female partner and they live together," I don't have to explain myself. I get to reap the benefits of that, of just leaving an easier, more comfortable life. Not having people question me, not having to explain things, all of that. I'm getting the benefits of those. That is a true example. That is something that I do get those benefits of.
It brings up that question of, well, am I doing anything then to-- Is my behavior just reinforcing to everyone else that's normal and that's not something that they should question? Am I doing anything to challenge that a little bit, to challenge those assumptions, and to help make that world better for other people who might not have the advantage of currently being in a relationship that looks more normal? I think that's something that I could always be doing a better job of personally, but that's the type of question to get at here that I think can be really helpful of taking it outside of just yourself. Just in your own head if like, but what am I doing? What could I be doing that could be pushing this forward and helping to change this worldview?
Dedeker: Do you think that if someone is married or is chosen to get married, do you think Jase automatically rescinds their RA card? Jase swoops in because he's the authority now.
Emily: No. grab the card away from them.
Dedeker: I think there's people out there who would make that argument. I don't think that's my point of view, but I think some people would hold that point of view.
Jase: I think it goes back to that question we were asking before of why are you married? Is this--
Emily: Yes, I think that's a really interesting question to ask yourself if you-- Not just, well it's romantic, and that's nice too and maybe that is your answer but I think there has to be fundamental reason behind it.
Jase: Yes. Get clear on it.
Dedeker: I also feel the need suddenly to swoop in and say the whole point of this episode is not to convince everybody to go relationship anarchists to actually-- I think we need all types.
Emily: No, I mean on the contrary. Yes.
Jase: I do think there's something there though of-- Again, if the point of this is really to look at these and say, "Well how might we apply more of this in our lives?" I do think that the core ideas of relationship anarchy are really about positivity and empowering more people and helping more people's relationships to be validated and for people to be able to shape their own destinies more. I think that's all great and I don't think it means that you have to have a bunch of different sexual relationships with different people and that you can't have any that you're really close and dedicated to and that you have to spend equal amounts of time with all of them.
Stuff that we talk about a lot on other episodes too, of that idea of not having hierarchy doesn't mean you spend exactly equal amounts of time and do equal things with every partner. Those are two different concepts. I think more just here of that question of, well, if I want to get married, why do I want to get married? Is it because there's a status symbol attached to it? Is it just because I think I should, is it because I think it's romantic? Is it because there's some concerns about citizenship or healthcare or am I just trying to take advantage of the legal benefits of this, and none of these answers are necessarily wrong.
It's not to say that if it is because I think it's romantic that that's inherently bad, but it's something worth questioning because I think no one does. For most people they would never even question that thought of like, is that a good reason to specifically enter this legal contract?
Dedeker: Well, speaking of questioning and or not questioning things, I want to rope in this next core principle of antinormativity. My interpretation of this is it's not to automatically equate everything that we consider to be normative or "Normal" means that it's bad and so we need to always be anti-it. I think there's a lot of things that we consider to be socially normative that are great. It's, I think--
Emily: Don't kill people thanks.
Dedeker: Yes. Yes. Thank you, Emily. I'm so glad you reinforced that.
Emily: Just putting it out there.
Dedeker: I think it's more of what I consider antinormativity is, are you questioning things that normally go unquestioned? Are you questioning defaults that normally go unquestioned? Are you avoiding reinforcing stigma and consequences for people who are non-normative or who live in a non-normative way? I think that's how I feel. It's not just about everything that's normal in mainstream I'm going to be automatically by default against it. I think it's more about examining things that often go unexamined.
Even in a monogamous relationship, that could be things like looking at the division of labor in your relationship. Are we just running that by default? Is that something that can be changed? Is that something that can be switched? Are there particular gender roles playing out by default that we could actually be looking at and examining and taking actions to make it so that that feels more equitable or matches more with the kind of roles people actually want to play in the relationship? Things like that.
Then I guess avoiding increasing stigma for people who do live a more non-normative life or relationship or things like that. Things of like, how do you talk about things like marriage and monogamy out in the world or non-monogamy, or basically anyone who's not living a normal life. It's like how do you talk about those things when others around you disparage them? Do you say anything? Do you push back against that in any way?
That's where this lands for me and how I think that people could apply that regardless of their type of relationship.
Jase: I think the core here is that it's anti-normativity and not anti-normative stuff. That the thing that it's anti is the whole concept of the normativity of just, well that's an assumption that we can make and we don't really need to question and anyone who's not that the burden's on them to tell us that it's not that. We'll just assume it's the normal thing that's the normativity part. We're going to assume it's that, and if it's not that they've got to go out of their way to make that work for me and to explain it to me and tell me.
I think this can show up in some different ways. One of them that I'm seeing more and more that actually think is nice is people clarifying their pronouns even when everyone would assume the same thing that you use. Is that like me saying I'm Jase he him, and I'm actually seeing this more and more in professional contexts. On work calls with people from other companies where I will notice it's very much a company culture thing where there's some companies that show up and almost everyone's got their pronouns written there and other people don't so that it's not this thing of, I'm only going to put it because I think you're not going to assume.
Now the burden's on me as the not-normative one to explain it to you versus saying, "Well what if we all explained this because we are going against this idea that we should just assume your pronouns are the thing that I think you are based on whatever." Based on your name, based on your facial hair, based on your voice. Something like that. I don't think you're changing the world necessarily, but I do think that's at least an example of something like that.
I think it'd be interesting to look for more options like that, of what are some other ways that you could-- maybe everyone assumes you're married and you are, what are maybe some things you could do to make it not seem like, well you can just assume that and you're always right. I don't know, just throwing that out there as a thing to think about.
Emily: Yes. At work when I'm addressing a large table of people, I always say, y'all now-- How are y'all doing today? What would you all like, and not saying ladies or how are you guys doing? I know that my coworkers have actually asked like, I say ladies or I say how are you guys doing today? I sometimes get bad looks and I'm like, Yes because you can't assume you just simply cannot anymore. I think shifting in that realm of moving away from this idea that oh well you look X way so therefore I'm going to just automatically call you this.
I think the idea of moving away from that is huge and I love that that's happening in more corporate cultures too Jase. That's excellent because I think for a time some people scoffed at, oh you're saying pronouns, okay but now we're moving away from that and that's great that it's just becoming more normative in that way and that's a good thing.
Jase: Sure, sure. I guess, yes, maybe normative is the wrong word to use there because we're anti-normativity here.
Emily: Well, but more normal I guess.
Jase: Changing what's normal.
Emily: Yes. Exactly.
Jase: Our last of the five values that we're going to talk about in this particular episode is community interdependence. I guess first let's just get into a little bit of what does that mean? What do those words mean, community interdependence?
Dedeker: Well, I think we've talked about this on the show many times before. Often we talk about it as a precursor to our Relationship Anarchy 101 talks or workshops that we've given but just this whole thing that since the industrial revolution we've been atomized into these tiny little nuclear family units that are not necessarily very interdependent on community. It's actually expected that all of your social-emotional needs are going to be met by your romantic partner--
Jase: Very small group, yes.
Dedeker: -and your children and even shaving away the extended family members like aunts and uncles and grandparents that might be a part of that. Again, I think even when people are still doing community activities like going to church together or synagogue together to the mosque together, whatever, we have a little bit of community, but we're still going to break up into our little separate little nuclear family groups and go home at the end of that.
I do think that the traditional monogamy model still really encourages that. It's just like make your little unit and it's super easy to do so. Everything in our culture is set up for you to want to do that and to do that, and so I do think that, but if you are in a monogamous relationship I don't think that means that you have to follow that default by any means.
Emily: Yes. Having a dependence on others within your community I think is really a wonderful thing and something that I really relied on growing up in my life. Just in terms of my friends, I had three families that I was super close to that were not blood-related, but that I helped raise me in a variety of ways and that I considered chosen family.
I think things like relationship anarchy and polyamory really allow for that to be more the case that people can come around and help raise the children and give people a night off and that it doesn't just have to be this outrageously challenging work of only two people are rearing the children and nobody ever gets a night off. If it does happen then it's expensive and difficult. Things like that. I think I love the idea that we have the option to be more dependent upon those around us and that we can create more community in that way.
Dedeker: This is reminding me of a blog that I read several years ago when I was first thinking of becoming a digital nomads, was back in like 2014/2015, that I found this blog run by this couple who they had been nomads for several years and also had a kid. Birthed their child and took their baby along with them while they were no matting around. Which in itself was already pretty non-normative, but something that they expressed that they loved was that it meant they got to raise their child because they did a lot of in-- they also lived very, very frugally.
It wasn't just like, we're rich and we're going to go all over the place. They went to volunteer in places and things like that. That their child is raised around a community of aid workers essentially who are also helping to raise the child. Instead of that the whole traveling process, that can be very isolating, but instead of it isolating them, it forced them to be like, we have to find community where we're at. We have to connect to people and our child gets exposed to a lot of different people that's not just us.
I thought that was really, really interesting. I think an interesting example of as far as I could tell a monogamous couple married, but still living out these non-normative values, trying to instill that in their child and also becoming more interdependent on community.
Jase: I think that is a great thing to connect back to what you mentioned earlier Dedeker about there was there are still some people who use this label relationship anarchy as a way to say, "I don't want to have any obligations to anyone. Don't count on me, don't depend on me. We can have fun if we want, but like, I'm not going to go out of my way for you, so don't expect that from me." I've talked before about when I was interviewed by Cat Black and she asked her listeners for questions for a guy who to talk about relationship anarchy, and one of the questions she got was like, ask him why he is an asshole . I was like, "I get it."
Dedeker: People have that impression. Totally, and I think well deserved based on some of the behaviors that I've seen matched up to that label.
Jase: Yes. I think it's unfortunate, but I get it too. I'm like yes and that's what I said when she asked you that. I'm like, look, I understand that's not what this is, but unfortunately, that's what some people have made it, is that kind of thing. To come back to this is that something that comes up in the Relationship Anarchy Manifesto by Andy Nordgren as well as in a lot of these writings is there's so much emphasis on community interdependence and being able to count on each other that are not just in this small set of people and maybe there's different definitions of who are the people that we can count on and who can depend on us as well.
That idea of being able to depend on people and being someone who's there for people you care about is a huge central part of this. To me, the concept that anyone could try to approach relationship anarchy as this excuse to not commit to anyone in any way or be answerable to anyone completely goes against the point of it and something that's very core to it. I just wanted to bring that up to bring that back around to that point that being connected to a community and being there for the people that you care about, especially living in a society where there might not be a lot of other systems or other places that are going to care for those people if they don't fit into these particular normative ways of being is really important that we're able to offer that support to our community and to those people that we care about.
Dedeker: I also think we're going to be seeing, I think as we millennials continue to age-
Emily: And not have children.
Dedeker: And not have children, and not get married and not have houses and all these things not have safety net that I do think that we're going to see more people intentionally are not becoming more relationship anarchist in this way, of, well I don't have this like monogamous magical soulmate and so, I need to rely on other relationships and on other people for us to care for each other, or to go in and actually try to buy some property together or to co-parent some children together.
I'm not going to sit and wait to find the perfect romantic partner to do that. I'm going to find someone who wants to co-parent regardless of whether there's romance or sex there or not. I do think that we're probably going to see just based out of pure functionality and practicality, I think we're going to see more people heading in this direction.
Jase: Yes. Our main takeaway from this episode is just to take some time to evaluate and challenge some of your default ways of thinking. Whether that is just, you've never questioned some of these monogamous things, or you're polyamorous, but still falling into a lot of these normative ways of doing your relationships. You're just not questioning that and thinking, "Oh, well just having multiple is enough to be radical and to be different and to change," or this could show up if you're someone who's a relationship anarchist who's like, "No, there's no way that these monogamous people could ever be relationship anarchist."
Whoever you are, the point of this is to just think about that a little bit and question that and look at what are the values, what is the purpose of this? How is this trying to better the world? Looking at, is there anything I could reevaluate for that? Is there anything different that I could be doing or better ways that I could be supporting myself and other people? We would also love to hear from you, we have our question of the week, which we're going to post on or Instagram story, which is, do you think people can be monogamous and a relationship anarchist at the same time?