Nonmonogamy As Resistance
“I’ll tell you this, if a mufucka can’t hold me down on my worst day, they don’t need to see me when I’m at my best…”
– A random (possibly drunk) quote from the author
One of the things I love most about the online community I share with my partner is the amount of effort we all put into taking care of each other. Social media has allowed us outliers the opportunity to create a digital ecosystem where love, consent, mutual understanding and resistance can flourish. With the world at our fingertips literally, we have freed up from the chrysalis of societal induced banishment.
We devote time each day to checking in, even if just to like/love comment on an FB status, or swoop in like lovers do when said loved one is threatened with mental exhaustion from learning folx who are too lazy to Google something pertinent. Standing together, miles apart, declaring our defiance of a system that wants to see us perpetually in debt, in service, impoverished, displaced.
All this as we balance jobs, families, a varience of generational intersections, bills, illness and trauma.
Potential lovers can tire quickly when human rights breach the bedroom. I can dig it, it’s just as exhausting having to live with the reality of being seen as recyclable income by the government. No one is under any obligation to enter and stay in a situation where there’s no mutual growth. The ebb and flow will move despite us.
Ours may not a bond built on physical touch. It is ultimately an end goal for many of us, as we have learned to value love and our partner/accomplish/comrades from a distance. And who wouldn’t want to be in the presence of a loved one?
Currently I still don’t have any formalized connections as defined by society standards. But allowing myself to recognize that there should be no distinction in my feelings for friends and lovers has become quite liberating. This Movement I’ve become a part of has helped me come to terms in a way that is more advantageous for me.
Got me inspired. This network, this global dynamic. I see how what’s been cultivated can be used for building an economy if we invest in one another’s talent. I see how, given time and measure our love and continued support of each other can further the decolonization of mind and body. My vision is to remain connected, jacked in. I will do better, be better at upholding my end.
What I want to know is, if the police take my life, will you rally around my partner(s), in solidarity, and demand answers?
Do you understand that loving me means treading on the soul of your master? Will I accept that loving you means being ready to work on myself?
Can we talk about your discomfort with discussing the microaggessions strewn about your psyche, the passive dismissal from friends?
Will you help me by calling out my internalized misogyny on the spot? Will you call out your family, friends?
I’m dead serious.
Can we work through why you’d feel a certain way if I have a trans nonbinary lover spread across the spectrum and fighting to live? What if my other lover is not black, but about that protest life cause they not scared of pepper spray and prison? If there’s a rally in a town where your other lover lives can we coordinate and make certain that everybody is on a level, that I have someone to reach out to while I’m there?
And what about you? Do you deem intersectional visibility important enough to lock and load when the 4chan pet shop boys and middle class housewives demand that we bring receipts to prove our oppression?
Are we truly worth one another’s time?