hey, champagne'n got no plans in the morning

ways to be positive minded and ego affirming.

So, if I have two concurrent two year relationships, how much does this count as having one successful 4+ year relationship.

There’s totally an additive property at hand here. Right?

I WISH I HAD A POLYARMORY

pew pew pew slash zap whoosh sting slap smack boom.

bang.

So…

There’s the dot_poly_snark community on LiveJournal snarking a gushy Adbusters essay about how polyamory exists to smash the capitalist patriarchy etc etc… and the LJ posters are all like “lol I just liked fucking people” or “but wait I like capitalism” or “but i’m a libertarian” … and there’s just one post that really sees any merit in the essay, and latches on to some important meta issues, briefly:

Ya know, they are onto something there but are getting it all wrong. 

I think to some small extant polyamory is a response to the long term shrinkage of salaries we have been experiencing. First the single income family became untenable, now the two income family is looking untenable so it’s obvious we need to move to the three income family. Yes, it’s glib of me but I think the increase in more complicated family models that allow for more than two wage earners has been assisted by the raw economic pressure and the advantages of being in a 2+n sized cohabitation relationship in the current economy.

(And sorry guise, I am a total cheeseball, but I’m listening to the spaghetti western tribute album “Rome”, and well, it makes me feel like an outlaw paving my own way and its relevant to my literary work…)

Well… I -am- a socialist.

And I am polyamorous. This is because I just happen to not be able to really feel my best any other way. I’ve come to understand I’m less monogamous than most other poly people I’ve met, ‘cause I both sleep around on a casual basis sometimes and conduct my relationships as best I can independently and don’t date or play “as a couple”, and I’m a sex worker, and I’m interested in additional long-term committed relationships too. (And of course, I need to be honest and utterly accepted by those other relationships, giving the same in return.)

And I… genuinely think the heteronormative monogamous American capitalist mate acquisition system via dating and traditional marriage is kind of shitty. Marriage, at its base, has always been a property transaction, and isn’t necessarily about love. (Which to me is among the most disgusting things about anti-gay marriage rhetoric. Can you honestly say you respect the marriages of all the people you’ve ever met or the value of their love? But denying people of property rights and transactions that are integral to our socioculturaleconomic functioning is actually making them second class citizens. I hate your capital, but damned if you’re going to make even more distinctions to deprive people of it and starve them to death.)

And of course, there’s the complaint and observation that women still prioritize men with big degrees and big abs and big wallets. Additionally, there’s the status seeking hierarchy of being “marriage material” or not, of slut-shaming and the virgin/whore complex, and you have this nasty, competitive environment in real life and movies that still make it seem magical/happily ever after. 

(This above explanation hyperbolizes a bit and I acknowledge there’s grey area and compromise and people who marry because they’re adorable together; and people who are monogamous because it’s too much work to not be.)

For myself, as a woman in this culture, it feels good to both be able to say that “I value the stability a traditional partnership/combination of assets/commitment offers,” and also to say in the same breath (actually, my lungs are too small for that) that “I value shorter, less settled down, but emotionally/creatively/interpersonally fruitful relationships + sex for its own sake”. Additionally, I can say that I feel that all of these experiences are equally valid to me, and good for my happiness, and I will pursue as much fulfillment in this way as I can at all costs, with whomever it takes to have all of my needs met and giving of myself as best I can to deserve all this. 

… my partners echo these sentiments, more or less. It feels best to have the relationships you want with the people you want, and be accepted for it. Not just in a sexual-romantic way, but in an existential sense, and that it’s worth striving for.

I also do dream of living in a leisure commune of people who do non-traditional or actually desired/stimulating work to support each other and living a life of as much fulfillment as possible. 

I’ll shyly state this sounds a little revolutionary, and it’ll take a lot of work to make this possible, and it’ll change over time. 

I’ve always wanted some form of this, and I’m often sexually and romantically and idealistically motivated, so this is its current dreamy incarnation, and I’m going to run with this as far as I can.

Love means the world to me, even if I have to change that world.