I am taking some time to process THIS ARTICLE THAT I LOVE and THIS ARTICLE and to do so I am making some flowcharts (or whatever you call these). I think they’re far from perfect but they’re helping me digest things. If anyone else has read the article and wants to comment on these things, feel free. If anyone wants to take these and do something else with it, feel free too.
(I realize that there are way more variations of polyamory than can be seen in this flowchart. that is far from relevant here though so I only made the one.)
(I’m still having doubts about whether I should add even more ‘with or withouts’ to the relationship anarchy community bubble because relationship anarchy can be with or without people you call partner, etc etc and I would hate to think that relationship anarchism means you can’t call someone your partner).
(I am also worried that I am still not being in-your-face obvious enough about the fact that no this is NOT about ‘not labelling your relationships’ it is about rejecting the superiority of romance and sex and not confining the essense of commitment and community only to the people you share a romantic or sexual connection with and in the process making your connection to people one that capitalism can’t market to you.)
(I am also very much aware that my life is far from relationship anarchy right now and that understanding relationship anarchy and practicing relationship anarchy are two very different things. First and foremost because you can only be a relationship anarchist in connection with others that want to have the same kind of connection. Which goes to show once again that anarchist praxis is empty without a community.)
lmao “relationship anarchy”
I love how it’s being presented as politically/morally superior to the others, as though my polyamory has anything to do with capitalism lmao fuck off outta here
It’s kinda the opposite (I know you don’t care and don’t bother to understand relationship anarchy, I don’t care what you think either. I’m putting this into words for myself and my followers and your post sparked these thoughts so I’m doing it as a reply.)
The article that caused me to make these thingies above was written in response to polyamorists and casual sex enthusiasts who were wrongly using the term ‘relationship anarchist’ to claim that they were somehow more concious, more radical or morally superior to other polyamorists and casual sex enthusiasts.
They were treating ‘relationship anarchy’ as a new hip word for polyamory without hierarchy or commitmentless sex. And as the article explains, they’re both wrong, both in their definition of relationship anarchism and in their claims to moral superiority. Polyamory and casual sex are both fine in and of themself but are no more moral or immoral than monogamy or sex in long term relationships. As they say: It aint what you do, it’s the way that you do it.
What I think this article also wanted to explain is that relationship anarchy is most definitely political and is most definitely anti-capitalist (in fact, one might say it is an entirely political and anti-capitalist approach to how you define, shape and prioritize relationships).
Relationship anarchy is not about polyamory and not about labelless sex and so those who are neither political not anti-capitalist about the way they conduct their relationships should stop calling themselves relationship anarchist.
QueerAnarchism 