Polycule

For being totally the worst parent of a blog. I am just so neglectful lately. I spend 10-11 hours a day at work writing and looking at a computer and my desire to do that at home has been….not great.

I’ve also put myself back in therapy after being a strong ass motherfucker who realized I was not strong at all and depression is totally a thing. So I’ve been doing a lot of ~~thinking~~ and ~~fixing myself~~ which is frankly totally exhausting.

[Side note: one of the strongest motherfuckerist things you can do is recognize that you’re not strong and that therapy is necessary and then make changes to get better.]

BUT the good news is I care about you all and I care about this blog and I care about its therapeutic effect on me and so I’m going to do better.

I am also HOPEFULLY going to revive the video blog next week. It was so much fun and it got totally overlooked when LIFE WENT INSANE so I’m going to try and fix that even though life is still THE WEIRDEST. I am also going to address the months worth of questions in my inbox, so if you sent something in the past few months, I haven’t forgotten about you.

I love you guys. Thank you all for being as amazing and supportive as you are. It’s good to be home.

A thing that’s hard about polyamory is that you can be really excited about how amazing one person makes you feel, and simultaneously be heartbroken over another. But yet you can still be okay.

It’s hard and it’s confusing and it feels itchy on your insides, but it’s liberating and empowering, too. I know now that heartbreak can’t paralyze me, that it can’t numb me. I can still feel beautiful feelings through the hurt. I can ache and I can love at the same time, because opening myself up to more than one person at a time means that I am open to multiple depths of emotions at the same time.

Sometimes I feel so many things, the good and the bad all swirling together, that I think my chest might explode. And it’s the most overwhelming and amazing feeling in the world.

I’m grateful for the aching. It reminds me that it doesn’t consume me, that it doesn’t swallow me whole and take my other loves down with me. It allows me to feel every inch of sadness, but it also allows me to be open to the beautiful things I’m feeling, too.

I was never good at being vulnerable before, but polyamory doesn’t have time for that. Vulnerable is all we have. It’s what everything else builds on.

And I come back and have broken 1,000 followers!? 

You guys are the fucking tits. Seriously.

I never thought my musings about starting this new phase of my life and exploring polyamory would have such a profound effect on me and you. The letters you all send me about how I’ve helped you, or how I’ve given you insight in a tough time, or helped you see something in a new light — I cherish all of this, really. It’s so amazing and humbling and encouraging to be able to be there for you all. To see how we can help each other, how we are all working together to make this crazy thing work for us, it’s beyond words.

I’m speechless. I love every one of you. You’ve made this amazing. You’ve built this blog into something incredible for so many people. I cannot thank you enough.

Reposting this from awhile back — it’s been on my mind again lately.

polycule:

Part of the reason I am so passionate about this “purity movement,” and how destructive it is, is because I used to be a victim of it. I never participated in a purity ball, but when I was 15 I vowed to remain abstinent until marriage, because I thought it was what god wanted me to do, and that it was what I had to do in order to remain whole and worthy as a christian. I honestly didn’t think I had a choice, this is just what women were supposed to do. After several years of guilt and shame surrounding every sexual act I participated in, I realized that, basically, it was all bullshit. Recently on facebook I posted this video about purity balls, with the caption “This makes me sick.” Someone (a religious fanatic) sent me a message in response to the video asking, “What is it about purity that makes you sick?” And below is the response I gave her. I stand by every single word in here, and cannot stress enough how truly destructive I think this movement is to young people, women especially:

I am not against people abstaining from sex, but the purity movement has proven not only counter-productive, but dangerous. Young people without proper knowledge of all the facts are far more likely to end up with STDs or pregnant. Several abstinence-only sex education programs actually lie to students about contraception to scare them out of using it (like that using condoms can cause cancer). And the abstinence movement has not done anything to lower the number of young people that are sexually active. Girls who take purity pledges are, based on extensive research, just as likely to have premarital sex as girls who don’t, except they’re at a higher risk for STDs and unwanted pregnancies, and often made to feel incredible guilt and shame for what they’ve done. 82% of girls that make purity pledges will break them. This is not their fault, its the fault of these flawed and overwhelming and unrealistic pledges they are taking. It’s the fault of, like what I experienced, shame for not choosing to take a purity pledge. A purity ring was my only option, it’s the only thing that kept me from feeling worthless. My value as a woman was tied to my purity, and without it, it was implied that I had no value.

If someone chooses at a reasonable age to abstain, I’d support them. But a movement that asks girls as young as five years old to commit to a specific lifestyle seems irresponsible. I would argue that even at 15, I was too young to have a comprehensive grasp of what it meant. I’d never been in a real relationship, I had no concept of what that journey toward marriage would look like. In my eyes, it was a no-brainer, because I had no context for what I would actually want for the next 10-15 years of my life. Making that kind of decision at such a young age hindered me from being able to be self-reflective and introspective about what I wanted, what my options were, and who I wanted to be.

Purity balls are misogynistic in nature, because they are demanding that a girl’s father be the gatekeeper to her sexuality. I am, of course, a supporter of positive influences and strong relationships between fathers and daughters, but it’s archaic to make a promise like that to your father, and hold it until you are metaphorically passed from father to husband. It’s telling a young woman she has no ownership of her own sexuality, that the decision is essentially not her own to make. Sure, she can (in some cases) choose not to participate in the purity ball, but the implication is that she can’t go back on her word once she makes that choice without serious repercussions and shame from her family, friends, and church.

The double standard in purity balls simply perpetuates the image of the docile submissive woman who’s sexuality is far inferior to her male counterparts. There is no such thing as a purity ball for men, and there seems to be much less emphasis on men’s purity. The implications of this run deep, and become dangerously ingrained into young women that they owe themselves to someone else (their father, and then their husband), that it’s the woman’s job to maintain purity for her future husband, and not for herself, and that she must be abstinent to be a good person. This doesn’t even begin to cover the fact that the purity movement only centers around heterosexual relationships, further perpetuating the fact that Christianity largely doesn’t accept anything but abstinent-til-marriage heterosexual relationships.

My biggest problem with the purity movement is that it implies a woman’s worth lies within her decision to have sex. I don’t think I’m any less of a good and valuable person because of my decisions, and it’s offensive to be told that I’m immoral and that I should feel guilty because the way I’m living is “wrong.” To tie purity to sexual activity really means we are being judged pure or impure on one factor alone. There seems to be no consideration for tying a woman’s worth to her compassion, kindness, generosity, strength, or intelligence. People I’ve heard defending purity balls claim that “purity” is an all-inclusive word that promotes purity of mind, spirit, and body, but in all the research I’ve done, and in my experience living it, the only aspect I’ve seen anyone focus on at all, is purity of the body, and it’s done so in a way that tells us it’s the only thing that matters.

Like I said, if someone is making a decision to abstain, at an age where they are old enough to understand it, and free from pressure from their family or church, I would absolutely stand behind them. But purity balls and abstinence-only sex education simply force dangerous ideals on young women that divorce women from their own bodies and take away their chance to make their own decisions that they’ll  be able to live with, guilt-free.

2012 was the most formative year I’ve had in my young life so far (with the exception of like, when I learned to walk and stuff). It’s interesting to reflect on, but more productive to look ahead. Here’s to another trip around the sun that will be even more exciting and life-changing than the last.

“I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Here are two of the happiest photos of me from this year:

And here was me and C exactly 366 days ago, celebrating a year I had no idea would mean so much. Everything is so different and yet so familiar:

philosophicalinqueery replied to your photo: Phone call from a long-distance notjustfriend…

Your cute life sickens my jaded heart. :P

I’m sorry that i’m not sorry that my adorable life is bad for your jaded heart!

I just got really super lucky for this phase of my life, and am incredibly grateful for the time I get to exist like this, however long it may be. I’m valuing every second of it because one day it might all be different and I’ll want to have the tools to look back on this fondly, with all the love and affection I feel now towards the people in my life that are here changing everything.

So there’s a person in my life. You were first introduced to A about 10 months ago when he unintentionally cock-blocked me flirting with S when he and I first became interested in each other.

Since then, he’s turned in to one of the most valuable, formative, affirming, supportive people I’ve ever had the pleasure of sleeping with knowing. Funny how that stuff works, right?

In just ten short months, he has turned my life upside down. I really can’t even describe it. He’s one of those people you say cheesy things about, like “I feel like I’ve known them my whole life,” “they are just always smiling,” “they light up a room,” “they always know just what to say,” “they make you feel so valuable,” “everyone wants to be on his dick.” Perhaps I’m feeling overly sentimental because he just moved across the country for an unknown amount of time, but I could talk about him for hours, but that’s not what this post is about.

He and I are not…”together.” Whatever that even means. We are the best of friends, I know I can count on him for anything, I’ve cried on his shoulder more than any other person currently active in my life. Sometimes we hold hands, sometimes there’s kissing, sometimes there’s sex. 

But here’s the thing. That isn’t what defines our relationship. What defines our relationship is the way we invest in each other’s well-being. And to the outside world, that is like “oh yeah they are besties/friends with benefits/he’s like a brother to her.” When people define their relationship based on its level of physical intimacy, society values it more. That person becomes a significant other. 

But it’s pretty clear to me (and anyone who knows us) that this person is, well, significant. But from the standard narrative, he’s just a good friend. Society doesn’t create a narrative that allows for a person like that to fit comfortably in my life somewhere. Why is he less significant than the person I spend the most time with or call boyfriend or sleep with more? Here’s the thing. He’s not less significant. He’s not more significant. He’s special to me, just like everyone else. And by saying that, society will inherently devalue that relationship because he’s not more special.

That’s kinda my thing. That’s why “significant other” is so weird to me. Significant compared to what? Why does society insist we place a higher valuable on those romantic relationships? Why do we continue to allow ourselves to subscribe to that insanery? Aren’t all the others significant?