105. How being in an open relationship has taught me a lot about understanding privilege
I’ve been in an open relationship since the middle of the 00's. My wife and I have our eighth wedding anniversary coming up, and have been together since November 2004. I love her very much. I also love the life we have, even though we, as others, have things we struggle with.
I recently wrote a blog post (#103) about poly communities. It was tongue-in-cheek and simplified, but it sparked some interesting debate. That debate played into a larger debate, and that inspired me to write this post.
And the picture? It has no relation to the text. It’s just a fun picture taken the other day.
How being non-monogamous highlighted my white male privilege to me
I’m white. I’m a man. I’m straight. And I’ve been lucky enough to be born into a loving middle class home in one of the nicest societies on the planet – Denmark. In the lottery of life, I’ve pretty much struck gold. Sure, there are many people out there who outrank me privilege-wise, but statistically speaking, they are VERY few.
I’ve been brought up as a feminist. Not by design (my parents don’t really consider themselves feminists as such), but simply by actions and words. In my childhood home, the idea that someone would be worse driver/lawyer/boss because that person happened to be a woman was simply ridiculous.
This meant that it took me some years to figure out that I am a bit of a radical feminist. Mostly because I had to learn that some things I just took for granted are not the norm. It also meant I had to unlearn some behaviour, that I hadn’t questioned.
For example, I’ve never used “gay” as a serious slur, since that would be ridiculous, but I have sometimes used it as a joking one. At some point I found that it didn’t really matter how I felt about it, if the person hearing it wasn’t a fan. Then I stopped doing that.
But overall, society was quite ok with me being me, and while I had challenges in my life, few of them came from my identity. Most came from my actions.
Being in an open relationship changed that.
“Ugh! That’s repulsive and sick.”
“If you’d found the right person, you wouldn’t feel like that.”
“You’re just friends.”
“It may feel ok now, but it won’t last.”
“I have a friend who was in a open relationship. It didn’t work, so there!”
“You’re just weak and unmanly.”
“I feel sad for you.”
“Don’t tell me that! I don’t want to know.”
“You’re just lying to yourself about being ok with it.”
“Your wife isn’t ok with it. Even if she says so, she’s lying.”
“You’re risking your career.”
“That’s immoral.”
“What are you trying to prove?”
“You just think you’re better than me. You’re not!”
“The word disgusts me. Maybe if it was called something else.”
I can of course go on for a long time. None of these are one-time incidents. Not one. Some of them have only happened a few times. Most have happened a lot. Some few have been repeated so much that I can’t really believe it. ;)
Add to that media representations and legal situation. And this is in progressive Scandinavia. I don’t want to even think about less “accepting” places.
It’s not structural violence
It’s not that bad. It’s not like I get beaten up for having an open marriage (or even threatened with violence). I haven’t been fired from a job because of this or been refused service at a restaurant.
I’m not saying in any way that the adversity I have faced (and still face) is as rough of that of others. Far from it. It’s still very, very real, though. And that has made it a lot easier for me to do something that many men struggle with – understand others who are less privileged.
Because I can tick so many boxes on the privilege check list, the ones I can’t tick make it very clear how it functions. Being non-monogamous is the one I have where I’ve felt the most resistance.
What this has given me (besides some empathy and a lot of discussions!) is an understanding of where people go wrong in feeling attacked when they’re really not.
It’s seen again and again. A privileged group feels threatened because – Cthulhu forbid – some sort of minority group is suddenly gaining even the most basic acceptance.
White people in America who feel their culture threatened, though it’s absolutely rubbish from an objective point of view. Christians in the same country, who will rage at the attacks on Christianity, even though the whole country is still built around Christianity. Imagine a US president being sworn in on the Koran, and there you have it. ;-)
In Denmark, it’s immigrants who get shot at, and also “the powerful feminazis” (who wield almost zero power and are demonized like crazy). And sometimes in the larp community, it’s the polyamorous who get accused of moral superiority and being socially dominant.
The scale is different and so are the consequences, but the rhetoric and mechanics are very similar.
When it happens to you, it’s easier to feel it
In the Dragonlance stories, the Dark Queen Takhisis was wounded (and banished) by Huma, a knight of Solamnia. As his lance wounds her, she cries out in terrible pain. As a Goddess, nothing has caused her that feeling before, so she is extremely bad at dealing with it. She may be a Goddess, but she has never before felt pain.
Being a white male from a good home and suddenly finding yourself the object of massive prejudice and negativity serves as a great analogy. All my life I’ve been judged. But most of the time I’ve been judged for being ME. That’s the ultimate privilege. Being judged on your actions and not your identity.
Here, I found myself in a different position. I got to belong to an unaccepted part of society, and to get judged by that.
It was quite interesting.
I’d gotten a lot of judgement for being a roleplayer and a larper in my younger years, but that was just people thinking it was weird. It wasn’t condemnation or morality statements.
This was different.
And while it has made me more resistant to criticism (endless conversations where you have to defend your choices will do that), it has also made me very aware of how a lot of other people treat their blind spots.
Many arguments I’ve heard about race, gender, politics, sexuality, etc. I’ve heard made – in a different form – about open relationships. The defensive statements. The feeling of being attacked because a minority option challenges the status quo. The crazy judgementalism combined with false victimization.
Of course, there has also been a lot of support, curiosity, love and understanding. More and more, over the years. But the negative side? It’s real. And to me, perspective and scale are key.
So when I have friends, who cite negative experiences with non-monogamous people, who have been assholes to them, I don’t discount that. It’s just not the same as having experienced asshole behaviour (literally) thousands of times.
And that means that when racism or feminism or ableism is discussed, I know that I have to bite my tongue and punch myself on the inside, whenever I want to say “But I’ve experienced bad stuff as well!”. Not because it isn’t true, but because it’s insignificant in comparison.
So, yes, I think men have places where their rights need to be improved. Yes, I think that sometimes a white person is left out in the cold due to race. Yes, I know there are places where you get teased for being a virgin.
This is stuff to work on.
No doubt about it.
But it’s also the exception, the unusual and the unexpected. While women being catcalled, black people being beaten and transgender individuals being harassed is considered normal.
And to me, having to learn to deal with (in comparison, small and managable) bullshit because of how my relationship is structured, has made me a much stronger ally for people, who are truly disenfranchised.
Nothing teaches you something like feeling it for yourself. Even in a smaller dose.
And as a final note: Do I think that open relationships are better than monogamous ones? No! For many, they would be utter disaster. I think they’re an option to be considered, though.
*Note 1: I’m not naive. I know there are some who will try their best to discredit my words, and who will see it as an attack on them personally. That’s ok. This is about my experience, and you don’t have to care about that. People do that with the truly marginalised every day, so a little of it here will be fitting. And I know some will get angry at me for just writing this note. That’s ok. ;-)
*Note 2: Title changed after input from readers. Thank you, commenters.
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