More than Two Chapter Four

Why do I have romantic relationships? What do I get out of them?

I have romantic relationships because I am a big schmoopy romantic. But, more seriously, I have romantic relationships because I fall in love easily and romance has always been something that I’ve been drawn do. I am drawn to both romantic gestures (big and small – gifts are a big part of how I express my love) and also the closeness and connection of a sustained romantic relationship. I get a sense of joy and stability and mutual support out of good romantic relationships. However, in the last few years I have really expanded my view of what counts as an enduring relationship, and now I would say that I have loving and enduring relationships that are romantic, sexual and platonic (and relationships that combine multiple types), and I value them distinctly but equally.

For me, sex and romance are often (though not always) linked. Sex is important to me (very important), and when I feel a romantic connection with someone I often want it to also be sexual. The reverse is also true most of the time, although I do have some sexual friendships that do not include romance, and some folks that I would happily hook up with at a party without forming any kind of deep relationship (romantic or otherwise). Those are the exception, though. And I think it’s important to acknowledge this, because although I am normative in this, the fact that romance=sex is the default ends up being harmful to a lot of asexual folks – it shouldn’t be assumed that being interested in romance reflects an interest in sex, and I appreciate that the book differentiates between sex and romance. I also don’t think that it’s beyond the realm of imagination to think that I could have a romantic relationship with an asexual individual, and that it could include closeness and mutual support and connection, without including sex. That’s why poly is awesome!

What do I consider essential, indispensable elements of a relationship?

Transparency, honesty, trust, support, fun, consent, autonomy, agency, compassion, connection. When any of these are missing, the relationship starts to feel really wobbly and unsafe for me.

Are there specific kinds of relationships that I know I am looking for? Kinds that I know I don’t want?

Yes. (This is a hard question to answer because the answer is “yes” and there are some specific answers that I want to acknowledge but not publicly. But there are situations where I would really like a specific kind of relationship with a specific person but… vulnerability! Plus broadcasting that on the interwebs seems like, perhaps, not the most subtle, wise, or respectful choice.)

Mostly I want relationships that fit. I want to feel like I am seen and accepted and I am trusted with my partners’ truths. I am willing to do a lot of work for a relationship, but I need that work to feel mutual and somewhat equal (not the same, but an equitable investment of time and energy into the relationship – and I prefer “equitable” to include an awareness of different levels of available resources. Young children, chronic illness, work schedules, health, family situations – lots of things can impact the availability of resources and I think a good relationship accommodates that. But even when resources are scarce, knowing that my partner is still willing to invest time and energy as available is really important to me).

I know that I do not want relationships where I feel like I am chasing after my partner for information relevant to my ability to make informed choices about my risks (sexual, emotional, etc.). I do not want to feel like I am a burden in my relationships (and this is tricky because sometimes my insecurity makes me feel like a burden, so a lot of the heavy lifting on this one has to come from me). I do not want relationships that feel codependent (where we feel like we couldn’t survive without each other) or relationships that feel coercive. I also don’t want hidden relationships, which is sometimes unfair because it means that being with someone who is fully in the closet would be a big challenge for me. I want partners and metamours who are willing to acknowledge me as a partner or metamour in at least some circumstances.

What do I bring to the table for others?

I bring a LOT of enthusiasm to the table. I think I also bring a lot of compassion, empathy, and respect to my relationships, and a sincere desire to see everyone in my pod (paramours, metamours, maybe-mores, loving friendships, family) safe and fulfilled. I am good at making space for difficult conversations, and at accepting the parts of people that are sometimes difficult to share. I am good at self-care, and I’m pretty self-aware. Also, pie. Chocolate. Tea. Cards. Emails. And often more texts than anybody wants.

What makes me feel cherished, loved and secure?

Physical contact makes me feel loved, especially good hugs. Physical contact that doesn’t assume sex makes me feel safe, because I often struggle with my sexuality and there is so often a lot of shame and fear attached to this. Holding hands, hugging, snuggling, kissing, back rubs, etc. All super important to me. Also, in sexual relationships, make outs and sex make me feel loved, cherished, AND secure. They are really hugely important to me, even though they’re not easy or smooth. (But I’m doing a Year of Sexual Recovery and working on that. High fives, me!)

Hearing that I’m loved also makes me feel really good. My heart pumps words more readily than blood, and when someone tells me (in a text, card, email, facebook message, or in person) how they feel about me, it feels great. When I moved into my current space, my housewarming party included being kicked out of the house so that all the guests could write and hide little notes throughout my space. I still find stray notes every so often, and they make me feel so loved.

Little gifts or personal gifts also make me feel loved, even though I sometimes feel weird and greedy because of this. Knowing that someone put thought into a gift for me makes me feel like I’m present in my people’s lives even when we aren’t physically together. (Scott keeps a collection of nerdy t-shirts hidden in the house and gives me one when I’ve had a bad day or accomplished something big. Jon’s birthday gift to me this year was a series of gifts that each tied to a significant event in our relationship – both of those things fill my love tank pretty amazingly. One of my most beloved people regularly gets me any smut related comic books they see. Another gave me a gift related to my creativity, even though they aren’t really “gifty”, and for my birthday people wrote me amazing cards. This last birthday was pretty amazing, actually. I am very lucky. Aww, man. Now I feel like my heart might explode. Also, one of my best friends once sent me a whole package of various dark chocolates and an encouraging letter and it was just… straight to my heart.)

Openly volunteering information makes me feel secure. Talking about what’s going on, and feeling like if something comes up I will hear about it before it explodes makes me feel secure.

What makes me afraid in relationships? Why?

Not knowing where I stand. Feeling like I’m an overly enthusiastic freakshow who is about to be told to shut up. Uncertainty. Change. Dishonesty. Sudden lack of contact. My depression and anxiety also makes me feel afraid in relationships, because I always worry that I’m just one panic attack or depressive episode away from wearing out the good will of the people I’m in relationship with.

In what ways do I protect myself from being hurt? Do these strategies help or hinder my search for connection?

I am not always good at protecting myself. However, in the past I have tended to get *really* controlling if I feel like things are spinning out of control. I want to lock everything down. This is extremely counterproductive and I’m way better than I used to be about not doing this. Now I tend to disengage rather than trying to control everything. This is also not good for connection, especially ongoing connection.

My preferred method (though not the one I succeed at all the time) is to just communicate when I start to feel afraid and give my partner the ability to respond, rather than keeping it to myself until I blow up. This is hard, though.

More than Two Chapter Three

Chapter Three was exciting and also challenging because the idea of ethical behaviour is really important to me, and tied up in how I perceive myself to be acting in the world, which means that sometimes it’s hard to critically examine because what if I’m acting unethically? Maybe it’s better not to know. (I don’t actually believe this is ever the case, but the temptation is *always* there.)

Chapter Three introduces three Bills of Rights – one for anyone in an intimate relationship, one for anyone in a poly relationship, and one for anyone in a poly network. I really loved these suggested rights, and their focus on consent, agency and honesty. I also appreciated how they were structured in a way that challenges couple privilege without demanding that pre-existing or enduring partnerships be deprioritized (which is sometimes the too-far pendulum swing, I think).

Okay! Onward to the questions and the self-reflection. Same caveat as usual – I’m sharing my inner thoughts and they impact the people I’m in relationship with. If you’re in my pod and you want to talk about any of this, please let me know. None of this is directed at a particular person – I tried to keep my answers personal rather than relational. Because some of these questions relate to a specific decision, I answered them more generally.

Have I disclosed all relevant information to everyone affected by my decision?

This is a hard one, because the question of when to disclose and how much to disclose is difficult. I tend to disclose EVERYTHING IMMEDIATELY ALL THE TIME, but that can be very overwhelming for my partners. And I also don’t always disclose everything – if I am worried that disclosing information will hurt someone’s feelings, I struggle with that. I try to always choose disclosure (honesty, allowing them to consent, giving them agency), but it’s hard. Disclosure plus compassion plus working hard not to outsource my emotional management to my people. I fail, but that’s what I aim for.

Have I sought input from everyone affected? Have I obtained their consent where my decision overlaps their personal boundaries?

I am really good at seeking input from everyone, because I am indecisive as all fuck. I am also good at knowing where my decision overlaps someone else’s personal boundaries, but I am not always so good at obtaining consent, for all the reasons listed above. I think the thing this chapter really highlighted for me is how incredibly vulnerable I feel when I have to seriously consider sharing all of the relevant information with all of the impacted people. It feels like this takes away my own agency and autonomy. This is a lie, of course, because my decision remains my own regardless of the reactions of other people. But when I give them the opportunity to consent (or not) I run the risk that my decision will be one they can’t live with, and that by giving them the opportunity to consent (or not) I will have to make a difficult choice between giving up what I want or need, or giving up the relationship in its current form. That’s terrifying! But it’s necessary. It is absolutely necessary. Fear cannot, cannot, be an excuse for unethical behaviour. (In this, my outside-of-poly life skills intersect with poly. Because I have an anxiety disorder and a huge amount of intense fear on an almost daily basis, I have had to cultivate the ability to act on my principles rather than my fears, while still holding compassionate space for my fear and anxiety. This helps in poly, because acting on my principles rather than my fears is the only thing that allows me to move past my fear of rejection, abandonment, and “fucking it up” in order to be honest with the people who need, and deserve, my honesty.) But it’s hard. I don’t want to pretend it’s easy – it’s not. It’s damn hard. The fear is real, and the fear can be paralyzing. But the fear is a feeling, and our feelings do not dictate our actions. We have a choice.

Does my decision impose obligations or expectations on others without their input or consent?

Again, I try not to let this happen but it does happen and it’s really damn hard to avoid. Sometimes I don’t realize how my decision will impact those around me until after I start seeing the ripples, and then there needs to be honest acknowledgment of the way my behaviour has affected those around me. That’s hard too. It’s way easier to just pretend it’s their fault, or they’re too sensitive, or something like that. Taking responsibility – another place where I have to become vulnerable in order to act according to my values. Bah! This chapter was hard because of how much work all of this is. But it’s also not work that’s specific to poly. This is ethical behaviour in any relationship, and it’s necessary to learn and to practice and to fuck up and to make amends for and to keep practicing.

Am I seeking to have my needs met at the expense of the well-being of others?

Okay, I’m going to talk about a specific situation now. One of my partners is incredibly easy-going. They are supportive of all my relationships, they are the one who picks up the pieces when I fall apart most of the time, they are my anchor. And I worry sometimes that when I am bouncing around on my emotional rollercoaster, the effort of keeping me grounded means that they are not able to do their own bouncing. I worry about this a lot. But they tell me this isn’t the case, and part of consent and agency means trusting that people are being honest about their needs.

Am I imposing consequences that will make others feel unsafe saying no to me?

I worry a lot about this, and work hard to make sure that I’m not unintentionally imposing consequences on others if they need to say no. However, just like everything else, I fuck this up. Sometimes I respond with huge emotional energy to what feels like rejection, and I know that some of my partners have felt like this was stifling for them. Sometimes I can’t stop myself from spiralling into anxiety when things appear to be going sideways, and again this can feel like coercion to my partners. The only way I’ve currently found to manage this is by being up front with my partners about the fact that my emotions are often fairly intense, but it doesn’t mean they dictate my actions. I might turn into a wreck, but that doesn’t mean I actually want you to do something different. It’s not perfect. It’s one reason I am more comfortable with text-based communication for difficult issues, because I can take more space to keep my head on straight (or appear to, anyway). I also try hard to do a fair bit of metacommunication – talking about what we’re going to talk about before we talk about it. The reason for this is because letting someone know what my interests are, and hearing what their interests are, before we go into the conversation means that we can set it up to be safe for us both. But, again. I fuck this up. A lot. I’m trying, though.

Am I offering others the same consideration that I expect from them?

This one I feel like I can honestly say yes to. 90% of the time, in 90% of instances, I do this. High fives, me! And the rest of the time, when I fail at this, well… that happens to. Listen, learn, do better next time.

Phew.

I’m really enjoying this book, but it’s some emotional heavy lifting, for sure!

More than Two Chapter Two

First, I want to acknowledge that these questions were heavy, and challenging. I feel somewhat anxious about sharing them. Not only because of the past relationships that they recalled to mind, but also because of some current poly situations I’m in. So, for any of my poly pod – my paramours, metamours, maybe-mores – if you see yourself here and you find it uncomfortable, I’m open to talking about it. It’s really hard to talk about these issues without also talking about the people who are impacted by them. Obviously I left identifying characteristics and names out, but I recognize that my poly feelings and views and histories are not only my own. They also belong to the people with whom I have shared heartspace, headspace, bedspace.

What are my needs in relationships? Are they attached to specific people? That is, do I need these things generally, or do I need them just from certain people?

“What are my needs in relationships?” is a massive question. I actually run a whole writing workshop on developing a personal user’s manual to help people answer that question in ways that they can share with their partners (the next one will be a private session for a group of assault survivors – I love my work). So, the short version of my needs:

• I need to be seen. I need the people I am in relationships with to be willing to acknowledge my whole self – my anxious self, my depressed self, my awkward self, my self-hating self, my enthusiastic self, my invisibly disabled self, all of it. I do not need every person I’m in relationship to engage with every part of me (one of my best friends just stops answering my calls or texts when I’m going through a depression – they can’t deal with it, and that’s okay), but I do need my people to see me and acknowledge me. And in my deeper relationships, I need them to be willing to at least sit in the dark with me some of the time. I need to feel like I am not making their lives worse by being who I am.
• I am also realizing, after a difficult stretch of time with a couple people in my life, that I need to feel like I am able to see the people I’m in relationships with. This is much harder to admit, because I have this gut-level sense that it is unfair to demand someone else’s visibility. And I don’t feel this way about everyone. I respect anyone’s right to keep their stories to themselves. But those people that I want to share a deeper connection with, I need to feel like I’m seeing them. I’m afraid of the dark, I guess. So I don’t need this with all of my friends, and I don’t know if I need it with all of my lovers, and I know that I don’t need it with all of my metamours, but the sense that I am able to see my people (that I am trusted with their darkness, especially), is way more important to me than I had realized. I’m still working through this, though.
• I need to be touched. Hugs, cuddles, sex, massage, kissing… I don’t need this from everyone, but it is hugely important to my well-being, and I need it from multiple people in multiple ways.
• I need regular contact. “Regular” varies depending on the relationship, but I like a lot of contact. More than most people, I think. And I need a variety of contact. Hand-written letters feed my heart in a really specific way, and so do stories written for me, texting, sexting (which I fucking LOVE and haven’t had much opportunity for because it is not a universally loved form of contact), FaceTime if I’m distant from my people, sitting and chatting, spending time together writing, even watching tv together. Lots of contact, and lots of types of contact. I don’t like phone calls, though.
• I need honesty, and I need my own really intense desire to be honest to be valued, even though it’s means I’m hella awkward and share more than is strictly recommended. I need that in all of my relationships – lacking this, everything else becomes secondary.
• I need my pod to be acknowledged. I don’t need all my poly people to be out, and I know that the fact that I am out about poly is a huge privilege, but I do need to know that if my people meet my other people, they will see each other as being valued in my life. I wouldn’t be okay with a partner ignoring or dismissing another partner (though I don’t expect everyone to be friends).

Phew, this list could go on a long time. Moving on.

What configurations am I open to? Am I looking for a particular configuration because I’m afraid that other might be more scary or more threatening?

I am much more comfortable in a networked poly configuration – one where everyone knows everyone and where we spend time together both as pairs and in our various pods. I really love pod time. This is partly because I just have awesome people and I really love smooshing awesome people together with other awesome people, but there is also an element of fear to it. I like networked poly because I feel less threatened by people I am friends with. So I like networked poly for myself because it makes me feel surrounded by love, but I like my partners to also practice networked poly because it makes me feel more secure. Not all of my partners are comfortable with networked poly, though, so I have had to learn how to sit with the discomfort of “spoke and wheel” poly (where my partner is a hub, and myself and their other partners are spokes that don’t necessarily interact). It’s not comfortable for me, but it’s a totally valid way to do poly and I try to respect it.

Am I flexible in what I’m looking for?

I think so. Especially if I feel like I have a solid foundation to fall back on if everything goes kaboom.

If my relationship changes, is that okay? Can I accommodate change, even unexpected change or change I don’t like?

I fucking hate change. It’s terrifying!

But it’s necessary. And it’s good. And relationships need to be able to change as the people within them and the contexts around them change. You bend or you break, right? This knowledge moved from intellectual to experiential when my relationship with one of my core partners transitioned from cohabiting to living apart. It wasn’t a change either of us ever anticipated, and it was fucking brutal emotionally, but in the end the relationship we have now is stronger and more supportive than what we had before. The change was terrifying and it was not part of “the plan” but it was absolutely necessary and for the best. I think after that experience, I am much more open to relationships changing even if I haven’t anticipated it and don’t like the change. (Though still not comfortable. I like to know where I stand, and I like to know that I’ll have a place there in the future! But that’s not how life works. The best we can ever offer is “I hope that you will be in my life for a very long time,” which is something I can honestly say about a lot of people.)

When I visualize the kind of relationship I want, how much space does it leave for new partners to shape the relationship to their needs?

I try to make space for new partners to voice their needs, be seen as whole people with valid needs, and for their needs to be met. It’s hard, though. Some people need things that are incompatible with my needs, and that always hurts and feels like a rejection. I try to remember that it isn’t a rejection, though, and it isn’t a judgment. It’s just an incompatible need! And the beauty of poly is that (some) incompatible needs do not have to be dealbreakers, because those needs can often be met in other ways and with different people. (Though sometimes incompatible needs are dealbreakers. My need to feel like I can “see” my partners is incompatible with some folks need to keep things private until they’ve processed it all. That doesn’t make a relationship impossible, but it does put a built-in limit on the depth of intimacy that I can feel with that person.)

Am I focusing on an idealized fantasy more than on making organic connections with real people?

I hope not. But I don’t know. Especially in a few instances, I feel like I have attached a lot of weight to the fantasy I want to make a reality, and I worry that I am not leaving space for the relationship to develop organically in whatever direction it wants to. I am trying to be conscious of this, and intentionally leave multiple paths open for the relationship. It’s hard, though, when you want a specific thing so badly and when you think about it so often.

What happens if I connect with someone in a way that differs from how I want my poly relationship to look? What message does that send to someone who doesn’t fit neatly into my dreams?

I think/hope that I am flexible enough to allow relationships to develop however they develop but there are some limits that are non-negotiable. I can’t imagine myself transitioning to monogamy with any partner, no matter how deep our connection might be. I also can’t imagine engaging in non-consensual non-monogamy (where one or more non-involved partners are unaware of the interaction) because of the potential harm that it could cause. I struggle with this last one because I do think there are multiple valid reasons for cheating and that sometimes cheating is the choice of least harm*, but because of my commitment to being honest with everyone in my life and my ideal of networked poly, a cheating relationship would be unbelievably difficult for me to maintain, and would seriously fuck with my sense of self.

Phew! Those were difficult questions to answer.

 

* Because cheating is so vilified in our culture, I want to expand on this. I think that sometimes people have needs that are not being met within relationships, particularly around certain kinds of emotional or sexual intimacy. And sometimes those relationships are not open to a transition to poly, and are fully functional in every way other than the missing element. In those cases, cheating can be a way to maintain a relationship while still meeting needs. I also think that sometimes cheating is the only thing that gives a person the strength to get out of a relationship (this was my situation). So I am uncomfortable with contributing to the universal vilification of cheating and cheaters, even though it is not a relationship choice that I can see myself being comfortable making again.

More than Two Chapter One

My book club is starting up with More than Two, and I’m excited about it. I’m going to answer the questions in each chapter here, and do some reviews of the chapters as well (but I mostly want a place to put the answers to the questions).

Have I ever felt romantic love for more than one person at the same time?

– Yes. Definitely. Currently. And, if I’m honest, I’ve felt romantic love for multiple people concurrently many times in my life, even years before I knew what poly was.

Do I feel there can be only one “true” love or one “real” soulmate?

– I used to. But then I found that one true love a whole bunch of times and every time it was really intense, so I figured there were multiple but you’d only love one at a time, and then I gave up on that to. So, no.

How important is my desire for multiple romantic relationships?

– At this point, super fucking important. Because there are multiple romantic relationships in my life that I am not planning on ever giving up.

What do I want from my romantic life? Am I open to multiple sexual relationships, romantic relationships, or both? If I want more than one lover, what degree of closeness and intimacy do I expect, and what do I offer?

– I really want romance. Dates, time together, snuggles, sharing media, sharing music, sharing moments. And sex. And support in my Year of Sexual Recovery. I really appreciate frequent contact with my romantic partners. I’m often afraid that I’m way too intense, and partners who accept/appreciate that about me are really valuable. (And having multiple partners helps with that – nobody has to deal with ALL of my issues.) And I really want the kind of community that I’m finding in my current poly, where I love my partners but I also love their partners and my metamours and the relationships, whether they are romantic, or sexual, or platonic, or any combination, are loving and beautiful and awesome. I think I offer some value, in terms of being empathetic and emotionally supportive and loving and also I tend to buy my people lots of little gifts. I’m romantic and passionate and committed to acting on my principles, even when poly makes me anxious or when my desires conflict with my principles.

How important is transparency to me? If I have more than one lover, am I happy with them knowing about each other? If they have other lovers, am I happy knowing them?

– Transparency is extremely important to me. I want to know what’s going on in my relationships. And I love networked poly, meaning that all my people know all my people, but it’s not a dealbreaker for me. If I had a metamour who didn’t want to know me, or two paramours who didn’t want to know each other, I would be a little uncomfortable with that but I could respect it as long as there was transparency in communication and everyone in the relationships was being respected and treated as a full person. I like to know my metamours, and I like my metamour relationships to be mutually supportive. I like being on my partners’ team, when it comes to their other relationships.

How do I define commitment? Is it possible for me to commit to more than one person at a time, and if so, what would those commitments look like?

– I define commitment, in poly relationships (or I guess anywhere) as a willingness to invest time and energy into the relationship and to sustain that investment over time. I am committed to multiple people, and those commitments look different in each relationship. I like the flexibility to allow commitments to change – where the stable element is the investment of time and energy without a strict set of rules about what that investment looks like (because some of my partners are parents, or are chronically ill, or are just super fucking busy and because I am chronically ill and super busy!)

If I am already in a relationship, does my desire for others come from dissatisfaction or unhappiness with my current relationship? If I were in a relationship that met my needs, would I still want multiple partners?

– My needs are currently being met, but my heart still cliffdives after people who are not currently in my poly pod. It’s not so much about finding other people to meet my unmet needs (although that is part of it – one of my relationships includes zero power exchange or thuddy-spanky kink, and that’s a need that I absolutely need to have met in some way in my life, and some of my relationships don’t include romantic dates or much texting, and both of those things are also really important to me).

Guardians of the Galaxy

I saw Guardians of the Galaxy*, and I liked it, but not nearly as much as I wanted to like it. Spoilers ahead.

First, the things I liked:

– Chris Pratt. Let’s just take a moment to appreciate the adorable awesome that is Chris Pratt. Seriously. Put me in a Chris Pratt/Aubrey Plaza sandwich and I’d have all kinds of recreation if they were into it. (That’s terrible, Tiffany. Stop trying.)

– Groot. Challenging humanoid-centric representations! Being awesome!

– Rocket. Challenging human-centric representations (ish – unlike Groot he gains his value by being made more human than he previously was. But I still loved him.)

– ‘Splosions! Battles! Music! Rollicking good fun!

I really did enjoy the movie.

But.

Now, the things I didn’t:

– Race relations. I’m still thinking this through and I am looking for writing by Indigenous bloggers, so I recognize that I may be way out to lunch here, but it really rubbed me the wrong way that Ronan, a genocidal Kree, was introduced in what seemed like such a tribalized manner – was it meant to gesture towards a “dangerous savage” trope? Is the homonym relevant at all, paired with the introductory scene? I don’t know. I do know that the whole film had a strong thread of coloured skin = more likely bad, white skin = definitely good. I found it incredibly frustrating that the first part of the film laid out so clearly that white folks are the good guys, whether they’re human or not. I also find it suspect that Gamora is coloured – she is subjected to misogynist insults multiple times in the film, and I think the fact that she is not white is what allows those “jokes” to play. Imagine Drax calling Black Widow a whore – it wouldn’t be played for laughs, I don’t think. It just seemed to tie in, again, as so much media does, to tropes of the sexually available/dangerous/hypersexual woman of colour.

– Gender representations throughout.

• Drax’s dead wife and daughter – I understand that a fridged family is insta-motivation for a character. I get it. But I’m irritated by the heteronormativity, by the fact that it reinforces an idea of aggressive/potent masculinity and vulnerable/disposable femininity. I also think that this ties into the harmful representations of masculinity that Manisha Aggarwal-Schifellite has noted in the film.
• Star Lord’s treatment of women. I’m just so done with the frat boy trope and the disposable women they sleep with. Gavia Baker-Whitelaw nails it when she said, in her recent article, “Peter flees back to his spaceship to discover an old one-night-stand camping out onboard. He’d forgotten she was there: hilarious. So, what are we supposed to take from this? That he’s an idiot who leaves near-strangers onboard his beloved spaceship? That this woman is too much of a non-entity to do the interesting thing and try to steal said spaceship?”
• The treatment of Gamora’s sexuality. First when she’s asked to seduce someone to get them out of jail (wtf, Rocket?!) and when Drax, a person who “doesn’t understand metaphors” calls her a whore. Gavia Baker-Whitelaw, linked above, talks about both issues. I wanted Gamora to be a less earnest Black Widow, but instead she was subject to this gross misogyny throughout. Even though she kicked ass, she was “put in her place” multiple times. It was disappointing.
• Andé Morgan over at BitchFlicks brings up three more reasons gender relations in the film are fucked, and the one that really resonated with me was the “tortured pink girl” in the Collector’s scene. As Morgan notes, “We see that the Collector has enslaved at least two women; both are displayed in pigtails and pink jumpers. One is forced to wash the glass cage of the other. The woman in the cage is on her knees, bound and gagged with electric sci-fi ropes, a clear look of pain and fear in her eyes.
   Quill and crew are less concerned with the fate of the women than with money and exposition. When the uncaged woman, Carina (Ophelia Lovibond), desperately attempts to use the power of an ancient artifact to free herself, she’s immolated instead. We’re left to assume that the other captive woman is also killed in the subsequent cataclysm (though a dog and an arguably misogynistic duck survive).”

– Ableism. Like whoa. I mean… I guess it’s funny that Rocket wants to take all the prosthetics? I guess? No, you know what, it’s not. It’s not funny at all. I laughed, because it’s written to be funny and it’s acted well and it fits into the film, but it is not funny. It’s not okay that there was so much ableism throughout the film. (I’m really noticing ableism right now – I seem to have become sensitized to it in the last weeks.)

– The “whore” issue. As one of the friends I saw the film with pointed out, a character who “can’t understand metaphor” calls a woman he has not seen engage in sex work or had any indication of a sex working past or present, a whore? Misogyny, the metaphor that transcends species’ socialization? Gross. Christina Vasilevski writes about that specific issue on her blog.

I left the theatre feeling kind of happy to have seen another superhero film, and mostly disappointed that it fell so short of what it could have been. It doesn’t take that much to challenge the harmful systems of oppression that ended up being replicated in the film – fridge Drax’s husband instead, skip the misogyny, make Rocket’s requests for the prosthetics tie to a desire for shiny things that isn’t linked to ableism… you can keep the film almost exactly as it is, and get rid of the oppression. (I mean, ideally I’d like more female characters, but I would be happy just to not have active oppression!)

* It doesn’t meet my requirements for the Year of Curated Media but a friend was seeing it for their birthday so I used one of my passes.

Rewatching Year of the Carnivore: Laughing at Rape

Content note on this post for discussion of rape.

I don’t remember the details of what I thought when I watched Year of the Carnivore the first time, a few years ago. I remember that I liked it. I watched it with some of my favourite people, and I love movies about women exploring their sexuality, and I love awkward quirky characters, and I love Sook Yin Lee. I remember really enjoying the film.

So when I wanted to host a “feel-good sexy awesome mini film marathon” I put Shortbus and Year of the Carnivore in the line-up. Because sex! Awesome, sex-positive, empowering sex, right?

No.

Wrong.

I refer to myself as a pleasure-positive feminist rather than a sex-positive feminist, because I think there are problems with the sex-positive movement that I want to avoid. (Note to sex-positive folks – I do not think these problems are endemic to the movement itself, but the focus on pleasure is something that feels right for me.) I like pleasure-positive because I feel that it brings consent explicitly into the picture right from the beginning. Because I do not believe that all sex is good sex (that’s not what sex-positivity is, of course) and I think that negotiations that focus on *pleasure* for all partners are really valuable. Anyway, all that to say – I think about consent. A lot.

I try to behave in ways that are consent-focused.

Consent, consent, consent, consent. It’s one of the most important things in my life!

And yet…

Partway through Year of the Carnivore I thought, and said, something along the lines of “yikes, that’s coercive.” And then I said similar things many more times. I called what was happening on screen coercion, or non-consent. It wasn’t until hours later that I named it what it was – rape. And the word felt violent in my mouth and my experience of the movie was suddenly, irrevocably altered, and I want to unpack, if I can, why that word didn’t come easily as a descriptor, and why that’s a problem, and what I’ve internalized that allows me to view multiple rapes in a film and still laugh at it, and enjoy it, and not see it for what it is until hours later.

First, the things I love(d?).

The character of Sammy Smalls is, as so many reviews point out, adorable. She’s awkward. She’s quirky. She’s disabled and self-conscious about her body, and it’s so rare to see a disabled character in a leading role! She wears multiple layers of jeans to “give [herself] some shape” and the first time she has a bath with Eugene, she doesn’t take her undershirt or bra off. I see myself in Sammy Smalls, and I see the parts of me that I like. The toughness and vulnerability, the awkwardness, the thirst for connection, the curiousity, the inquisitiveness, the sense of restriction and self-doubt and negative self-talk and the awkwardness. Oh, the awkwardness.

And she has lots of sex! And the film doesn’t shame her for it. And I love that. I love it. I want more films that show disabled women having lots of sex and not being shamed for it. Fuck, do I ever want that.

I love other things, too. I love the way that queerness is introduced in such a casual fashion. I love Sammy’s relationship with Miss Nakamura, and I love that there is an elderly woman who still has a sex drive.

But a significant amount of the sex that Sammy has is rape. She is a store detective, and she starts taking men that she catches shoplifting into the woods, handcuffing them, and having sex with them. It’s rape. It’s not some grey-area, fuzzy, “lack of consent” (and wow, am I ever going to be watching my language from now on, because I had not realized how deeply problematic that phrase is when it comes to discussing rape, with the way it moves the focus onto the victim and their lack of consent and away from the rapist and their act of violence). It’s rape.

I realized it when I was thinking about the film and flipped the script.

I imagined a film where a man takes shoplifters into the woods, handcuffs them, and has sex with them. That’s fucking rape. Multiple scenes of rape. She is a serial rapist.

The realization makes me feel sick.

But she’s a girl. She’s small. She’s got a “bum leg.” She’s quirky. She’s adorable. She can’t be a rapist, right?

And her victims are men. Generally large men. And they have sex with her, so they must have wanted it, right? Can’t be rape.

Because men can’t be raped.

Because somewhere in my mind, that disgusting, insidious bit of rape culture had embedded itself so deeply and so securely that I did not recognize rape when I saw it on screen. In my house. With my friends. In a space and with a group of people that bring the consent-focused feminist to the fore. I didn’t see it.

I laughed at it.

Out loud.

I commented in horror at her lack of condom use.

Victims of women rapists face this kind of erasure all the time. I know, because I post articles about it. I know, because I have friends who are survivors. I know, because I am a consent-focused, pleasure-positive feminist activist, and it is my job to know.

But I laughed.

Like Kate points out over on Autostraddle regarding Orange is the New Black, “That material was carefully crafted for you to laugh at it. The show is designed in order for you to find it funny.” It’s true of the coercion and rape in OITNB and it’s true here, and in both cases, it is so important that we simultaneously forgive ourselves for laughing, and think critically about it going forward.

I found a gross bit of rape culture in my mind today, and although I can’t do anything about the fact that I didn’t realize it was there before, I am sure as shit going to be aware of it going forward. We laugh at these representations of rape because they’re scripted to be funny, because we’re conditioned to view women as victims rather than perpetrators, because consent is the exception when it comes to media representations of sexual interaction. All those reasons are real, and valid, and impossible to avoid. And they cannot be excuses for contributing to rape culture by refusing to see it once you know it’s there. They can’t be excuses for perpetuating the harm.

I still love Year of the Carnivore. I consume problematic media all the time, and I’m okay with that. But I will never talk about this film again without talking about the fact that it is the story of a serial rapist. A likeable, relatable, adorable rapist. The film doesn’t represent her as a rapist and I doubt she sees herself as a rapist, and I doubt her victims view what happened as rape either. And that doesn’t change the fact that that’s what it is.

My poly practice

I debated where to put this post, because it is quite personal but it also intersects with my activism and my academic interests. I decided on this blog, and maybe I’ll cross-post it over at Fibro Files. I’m going to skate back and forth between the personal and the academictivist, so bear with me.

I have been thinking a lot about polyamory in the last while, since one of my enduring partnerships has just introduced a new partner, and I am interested in introducing new partners myself. I have also been grappling with what my polyamorous practice looks like as a disabled person, because it is a fact that it looks different than it would if I did not have such restrictions on my energy, clarity, and physical abilities (sex, especially kinky sex, and fibromyalgia is an area I am still trying to map for myself).

A few years ago, I would have said that polyamory was primarily, for me, about sex. The ability to be sexually expressive with a variety of people, to have romantic and sexual friendships while maintaining my enduring relationship (singular at the time), to explore physically with whoever shared a mutual interest with me. Then I fell in a different kind of love with a new partner, and it got complicated. And then fibromyalgia and depression robbed me of my sex drive, and suddenly polyamory became even more complicated because that sexual element was not present but the love still was.

Although I was not asexual at any point, Kristin Scherrer’s work on asexuality and polyamory was helpful for me. She points out that asexual non-monogamies are largely absent from the academic literature, and her essay in Understanding Non-Monogamies is one of the only places I’ve seen a nuanced discussion of asexual non-monogamy (for me it was non-sexual non-monogamy, and I do not mean to appropriate the experience of asexual poly folks by highlighting how helpful it was for me to find information on asexual non-monogamies). Sherrer writes that “the distinction between types of relationships can be challenging to categorize, particularly for asexual individuals whose relationships may be less likely to include sexual behaviours” (156), and I found this to be the case once my relationships all became non-sexual.

I felt a huge amount of anxiety about my sudden “deficiency” as a partner. Because I am not asexual, and because I have internalized many of the cultural messages regarding the normativity of sexual behaviour as a legitimizer of intimate relationships, the lack of access to my sexuality felt like a dysfunction – I am still picking apart how much of this is cultural conditioning that needs to be rooted out of my subconscious (the privileging of sexual relationships over non-sexual relationships, definitely) and how much is an acceptable and authentic expression of my own identity as a sexual person. Despite this anxiety, I found my ability to feel close connections with friends without needing to categorize them (in part because I felt anything “more” than friendship was out of reach) was a lovely side-effect of a difficult transition from temporarily able bodied to invisibly disabled.

I am a person with a lot of fear. I am afraid of change, of loss, of water and of crowds and of my own inadequacy. I am afraid of rejection and spiders and death and horror movies, and some of those fears are a lot harder to manage than others. I am a person in nearly-constant existential angst. This is partly my anxiety disorder, disordering my life. It is partly my personality, separate from the anxiety. I am an over-thinker, and an over-feeler, and I collect biased evidence to support my fears. It is partly a response to past experiences and circumstances, hurts and traumas from long ago. These fears are as much a part of my identity and personality as my nerdiness or other defining characteristics. I spend a lot of time in my anxiety bubble.

Polyamory triggers many of my fears. Inadequacy, loss, change… poly brings all of those fears immediately to my mind.

The thought of my partners finding other partners is hypocritically painful for me. Although I know that I can love multiple people without it impacting the depth of my affection for any of my partners, I worry that they will suddenly realize that they don’t actually love me, because they were somehow fooled by my facade. I worry that I am a grocery store tomato – fine if that’s all you know, but woefully lacking once you’ve tasted one from the farmer’s market.

This belief is, as my counsellor has told me many times, a maladaptive and ultimately disrespectful belief. Although my fears are rooted in a sense of my own insecurity, it is incredibly disrespectful of me to think that I know my partners’ minds better than they do. On the surface, this fear seems to be about my own sense of myself, but scratch the surface and it turns out to be at least partially about thinking I know better than anyone else. (This is where we would normally insert an ugly shame spiral, but honestly we all have these wonky thought processes and shaming ourselves for them is normal, but not necessary. I’m embracing my wonkiness and learning how to work around it rather than hating myself for it.) No matter what my self-centred inner critic likes to tell me in the middle of the night, the fact is that if my partner says that they love me, I should trust that. (Trust. Like it’s so easy! But, well, we’re all just working on it, right?)

It’s difficult. I struggle with it. Fear can be an overwhelming force, and when I am afraid, I want to make the source of that fear go away. I don’t want to befriend the fear, manage the emotions, move through the insecurity and jealousy. I just want it to stop. I want it to go away.

In the last few years, I have made it a personal goal to acknowledge and engage compassionately with my anxieties and fears, but to act on my principles. It’s okay for me to feel what I feel, but my actions should, as much as possible, be informed by my principles and not my fears.

I didn’t come to this easily, and I don’t practice it perfectly.

A few years ago, shortly after I moved out on my own, I asked my anchor partner to be monogamous with me. They refused. It was a turning point for me.

Pepper Mint has pointed out, in his fantastic essay “The Power Mechanisms in Jealousy” (in Understanding Non-Monogamies), “the cultural responsibility for fixing jealousy falls on the partner. We typically expect the partner of a jealous person to adjust their behaviour to assuage the jealousy” (203). This is a cultural script that is very easy to fall back on, and one that is entirely out of line with my principles.

I was feeling a lot of anxiety about a major shift in my life, and dealing with the then-undiagnosed pain of fibromyalgia, and experiencing almost daily panic attacks. There were lots of reasons for me to want to retreat into the “safer” model of monogamy. Monogamy theoretically means that my partner won’t find anyone better than me. They won’t leave me for their exciting new partner. They won’t ever realize how much tastier the farmer’s market tomato is. (This is a false sense of security, as my own marriage demonstrates.) All of the anxiety about the rest of my life was focused onto a fixed point – the threat of loss presented by polyamory. My request that my partner be monogamous with me was an attempt to make them “fix” my anxieties, shifting the responsibility onto them. It wasn’t wrong for me to want monogamy at that time, and it wouldn’t have been wrong for me to need it, but I was asking for it in ways and for reasons that weren’t well-articulated or reasonable.

My partner was afraid of losing me. But they are polyamorous, and monogamy (even temporary monogamy) would be out of line with their principles. They acted on their principles despite their fears, and it was the best possible response. Rather than compromising themself in order to assuage my fear and stabilize the relationship, they told me that they couldn’t be monogamous and that it would be a dealbreaker for them if I demanded it.

I was… upset.

Later, I was inspired.

I think that recognizing and owning our emotions is incredibly important, and that it is never the responsibility of other people to manage my emotions. When my fears demand action, that action has to be internally generated.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t make requests, or set boundaries. I do. Lots. All the time.

But it does mean that the responsibility for identifying my needs is mine, and as much as possible I set boundaries and make requests based on what I need and not what I want my partner not to do. (It’s a fine line. I dance on both sides of it, and my goal of basing my boundaries on my own needs rather than my fears is just a goal. I doubt I’ll ever get it right every time, but I do hope to get it right more and more of the time.)

I don’t like the way my fears are so bossy, so controlling. If I acted on my fears, my partners would never go on dates unless I’m also on a date, and they would never flirt with anyone I felt threatened by, and they would always give me first priority, all of the time, in all of the cases, because how else will I know that I still have value? That’s abusive behaviour. Controlling, manipulative, coercive. That’s not me. And although I recognize that my fears are normal, and my feelings are valid, my behaviours can be better.

I can choose to behave in ways that are trusting, consensual, ethical. I can practice radical self-care by acknowledging my needs and speaking openly about them. I can practice radical compassion by putting my fear to the side and recognizing what my partners and metamours might need in a situation, by recognizing that I am not the only one who feels fear and insecurity. I can practice radical vulnerability by being willing to open up awkward conversations, and acknowledge my fears out loud so that I can be reassured and comforted. I can practice radical openness by talking about my failures and my successes, and accepting the imperfection of my poly practice.

Poly is hard for me. Poly is hard, period. So is monogamy. Relationships are hard.

Having a partner who was willing to model acting on principles while feeling fear has made it a lot easier, though.

They’re the coolest genderqueer person I know.

Elizabethan poetry, final paper

Good LORD how I struggled with this class. “High brow” poetry… not so much my thing. Poetry that’s all about misogyny and sexual violence? Also, not really my thing. Really not.

I didn’t love the format for this take-home final. Too many required texts in too little space, I felt like I was skimming the surface on each of them. But it’s done! And I’m putting it here to document that I survived this semester. I finished it. Depression, anxiety, fibromyalgia, medication side-effects, endless doctor’s appointments, course content that either didn’t excite me or actively bothered me, Old English (let’s just not talk about Old English and my GPA…) but I survived. I SURVIVED!

WOO!

And here is the last essay of the most difficult semester of my undergrad career, somewhat lacklustre, but meeting all the requirements and not a disaster. 

Endless knot/tangled web – my Middle English final paper

The evolution of a paper. I really enjoyed this research, and am considering doing more work in Arthurian stories.

This paper begins four years ago in English 302, in the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, with Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s concept of male homosociality, which exists on a “continuum between homosocial and homosexual” (2435). It takes root in various Women’s Studies classes, with the exciting prospect of uncovering queer readings and recovering feminine histories. The first green leaves of this paper, the first iteration of the thesis, is that the female homosociality of Dame Tryamour and Gwenore in Sir Launfal and Morgan le Fay and Guinevere in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is both a queer presence within the texts and an indication of the anxiety and tension between hegemonic Christianity and the paganism represented by the fairy women. This homosociality exists, said the original thesis, and it is as conflict-driven and violent as the homosociality that Sedgwick articulates for men. It was a reach towards collapsing the gender binary, recognizing women’s power and violence, and recognizing the potential for women’s queerness in restrictive Christian social contexts. It was founded on the idea that Christian conceptions of gender must necessarily be heterosexual and heteronormative, and that reading queerness into the text – a queerness that is dependant on the heteronorm – would be a form of resistance to the contemporary norm, and would contribute to a history of feminist scholarship that uncovers queer histories and exposes the ways in which patriarchy is always already undermining itself.

But this paper, an analysis of these texts, cannot flourish in the homo/hetero binary that the original thesis was planted in, because as James Schultz points out, “the heterosexual norm… clamps down on the present and… colonizes the past” (20). Both Schultz and Karma Lochrie argue convincingly that “[t]he heteronormativity of modern scholarship ends up creating its own modern categories where they did not exist before… flattening the gender dynamics of medieval sexualities” (Lochrie xvi). This paper, then, becomes an effort at decolonizing my own scholarship, at freeing my thesis from the contemporary constructions of sexuality that battened it down into intelligible, articulable binaries.[i] It shifts, and in the shifting comes back to Louise O. Fradenburg, and the productive scholarly practice of recognizing and accepting the “undecidability” of a text. My thesis tracks along both an ‘endless knotte’ of contemporary binaries and a tangled web of complexities and undecidabilities.

[i] Although Schultz and Lochrie have convinced me that an uncritical, unintentional projection of contemporary categories of identity into medieval texts is problematic, I am not convinced that an intentionally anachronistic reading doesn’t have a place in contemporary scholarship. For example, although “bisexuality” is not a category that would hold any meaning for a medieval poet, and reading bisexuality into Sir Gawain and the Green Knight would perform exactly the “colonizing” that Schultz warns again, a bisexual reading of Gawain and Bertilak could have multiple positive outcomes for both queer and medieval scholarship. We read these texts within our own time, and the ability to see ourselves represented – even if the original author may never have conceived of our identities – is invaluable. But that’s a different paper!

And here is the paper I actually wrote:

Concussion, Buffy, Charmed, Earthseed and Adventure Time

We’re most of the way through January, and I’ll be honest… this year is kicking my ass. Fibromyalgia, depression, and now the cold that won’t quit – I’m wiped. My Year of Self-Care is suffering. But! My Year of Curated Media is proceeding apace.

So what am I consuming?

Mostly, Buffy. This is, I think, my sixth time through the series and I’m watching it through a much more intersectionally feminist lens. Buffy meets my criteria because of its well-rounded, nuanced, respectful representations of women, and its inclusion of queer characters. Also, the episodes written by Jane Espenson tend to be my favourites, so it occasionally meets the creator criterion as well.

Here are three topics I’d like to eventually research or blog about so far (we’re halfway through Season Three):

• Kendra, Jenny Calendar and race representations. Kent Ono has an excellent chapter on the topic of race, with a detailed analysis of Kendra’s treatment on the show. Regarding Jenny Calendar, wtf is up with the frequent use of “g*psy” – even in the 90s, that language was not okay (even Entertainment Weekly knew that!).
•  Xander, and the hatred I bear him. I have disliked Xander since the first time I watched the series (I ship Buffy/Angel hard) and every time I watch again, my distaste for him grows. This is the first time that I’ve really noticed all of the myriad microaggressions that he directs towards the women in his life. He is forever expressing his feelings of entitlement to their bodies and time, and he has a serious case of Nice Guy. He expects (and gets!) praise for not date raping Buffy when his love spell goes wrong, and that just sums him up, right there. Gross.
• Rape culture in the Buffyverse. Lady T over at Bitch Flicks comments on quite a few of the instances of rape culture represented in the first two seasons here. (And you should be reading her blog and articles – SO GOOD!) My biggest issue related to rape culture, the one I keep coming back to over and over again as I watch, is that the show makes it so easy to gloss over the fact that sexualized violence is what we’re watching. It’s very normalized within the Buffyverse. I find the fact that Buffy regularly confronts and overcomes rape culture awesome, but I find the fact that we do not see it named or commented on very disconcerting. In Go Fish, particularly, I wanted her friends to say something about the fact that she was, again, the victim of an attempted sexual assault in the car, and that it was completely disgusting that the coach then blamed it on her outfit. But they don’t. It’s just glossed over as part of the normal violence of the environment, and that bugs me. I’m still working my way through my thoughts on why and what I want them to do differently, but it’s a big one. Name it. Name it! Showing it, it seems to me, is not enough. (And I do recognize that showing it is a long step beyond most television shows, so I’m asking for “above and beyond”… but I’m okay with that.)

I’ve also been watching Charmed, because when I posted about rape culture in Buffy on Facebook, someone recommended it as another show that regularly shows rape culture and women resisting/evading/overcoming it. I’m not nearly as enamoured of Charmed as I am of Buffy, but I am enjoying it. It meets my criteria because of the representations of women, and because the creator is a woman.

The topics that keep coming up for me (most of the way through Season One):

• Race, again.
• Sex-positivity! I really appreciate that the sisters are all sexually active, and all fine with that. Sex is a normal part of their lives, with partners who are one-night-stands, long-term boyfriends, etc. It’s refreshing.
• Class. This is a pet peeve of mine, but I really want to see a variety of classes represented in my media. I know that money makes things run more smoothly, but it gets fucking boring seeing only upper middle class folks (straight, cisgender, white upper middle class folks, mostly) in my media. Come on. One thing that I love about Buffy is that the Scoobies do eventually represent a variety of class positions. Listening to Phoebe talk about how broke she is so often, despite the clothes, the “manor,” etc…. it drives me a bit bonkers.

And, finally, to round out my televisioning, I’m watching Adventure Time, finally. It’s SO GOOD! I love it. How does it meet my criteria? That’s tricky, because it’s created by a white guy and the main characters are voiced by white guys, but it does meet my criteria because of the way it challenges, regularly, hegemonic norms. Finn casually referencing that he doesn’t know the gender of a creature, or LSP’s ability to be read as trans*… there are so many moments of subverting expectations. I love it. The Adventure Time Analyzed tumblr talks about some of the ways that the show challenges expectations.

In other media, I’m listening to an unabridged audiobook of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, the first of her Earthseed books. It is amazing. And fucking depressing. But mostly amazing. I love Lauren, the young Black woman at the centre of the story – she kicks so much ass. I’m having trouble making it through the book, though, because it truly is terrifying and depressing. A near-future speculative fiction book, it’s set in California after complete economic collapse. It’s believable, and I hope it’s not prophetic.

I’m also listening to Elizabeth Moon’s The Speed of Dark, which is another near-future speculative fiction, centring on an autistic man and his community. I am loving it so far.

And last, but not least, I watched Concussion. That’s what I actually came here to write about.

Autostraddle says that Concussion is a Watch Now movie and I heartily agree. Feminist Spectator also gave it a thumbs up, and She Wired also approves. I learned my lesson and am reading way more reviews before jumping in to a movie, and it helps when a film meets so many criteria right off the bat – about women, starring women, who are interested in women, written by a woman, directed by a woman… it might have sucked, but it was unlikely to have failed as spectacularly as Anchorman 2.

So, Concussion. Immediately after watching it, I had pages and pages of thoughts about it. I also came down with a nasty cold/flu/abomination and didn’t write any of them down. So we’ll just see how much I remember. Spoilers ahead.

First, the fact that Abby and Kate are a married couple is introduced as secondary to the fact that Abby (a stay-at-home-mom at the beginning of the film) is fallible and human. She yells at her kids, she’s angry, she’s frustrated… as someone who has watched my friends and family parent, and who sees the incredible pressure that parents are under to be (or to be seen to be) calm, caring, compassionate, collected at all times, Abby’s initial outburst was just so refreshing. It is possible to be a good parent and to also yell at your kids. (I say this as someone who is not, and will never be, a parent. But also as someone who loves the parents in my life. So, grain of salt, etc.)

That she is a married lesbian was also refreshing and welcome, and there was no drama around their orientation. No issues of skeptical doctors, homophobic friends… the whole environment of the film was beautifully accepting of (cisgender) queer identities. I love this because so often the response to critiquing homophobia in films is “but that’s reality” and that response makes me want to scream. It’s as though there is an expectation that in order to tell the stories of marginalized communities, you must focus on the ways in which they are marginalized because that’s the only “real” thing about them. And that’s bullshit. Yes, homophobia happens. Yes, a film that addressed or included homophobia would be true to (parts of) reality. NO, that is not the only way to tell stories about queer characters! Concussion does a fantastic job of telling a story about queer characters – a conflict-filled, tense, complex story! – without it being about their struggles as queer characters. It’s just about them as characters. Ahhhh… fresh air.

And when it comes to the queerness represented, here is something else beautiful and refreshing about Concussion – Abby is a lesbian. She’s a “men? god, no” lesbian. She doesn’t want to have sex with men, or even penetrative sex with a strap-on, and that’s awesome. AND there are bisexuals in the film. Bisexual women. Coexisting with lesbian women. No big deal. ‘Cause queer women come in a variety of flavours, and both lesbian and bisexual are a-okay.

Let me tell you how thrilled I was when one of Abby’s older clients talked about her husband, and it wasn’t in order to demonstrate how much she wished she’d married a woman. I was SO THRILLED. It is rare to see multiple queernesses given equal legitimacy in a film. (All of these queernesses are cisgender, to be clear, and most of them are white. The film does not represent all the queer women, only some of them. There are no queer trans women, for example. And there are no queer women of colour who get more than a few moments of screen time.)

Did I say client up there? Yes, yes I did. Because Abby becomes a sex worker.

And it’s okay.

And she’s not shamed for it, or ashamed of it. (!!!!)

And she’s safe! We see her multiple times at the doctor, talking about her work and getting tested. She goes to the STI clinic, and it’s okay! She’s not punished with an STI. She’s not shamed by her doctor. Nobody pressures her to go get tested. She’s a responsible, sexually active adult and sex worker, and that’s just the way it is. Again, no big deal. This is amazing! (Okay, I know, hyperbole all of the place here. But I really did love this movie.)

Her sex work isn’t perfect. Kate doesn’t know about it, and that’s not cool – she should have the opportunity to consent to her involvement. But perfection is not the goal here, respectful representations are, and this film definitely meets that requirement far more than many other films that include sex work. Concussion has been compared to Belle de Jour, for example, and like the blogger at Autostraddle I completely disagree because of the level power between Abby, The Girl and her clients. Nobody is being coerced, manipulated, or lied to (except Kate, as I mentioned).

Kate, though, introduces another aspect of sexuality that is rarely seen in films. Kate can be read as asexual, particularly when she tells Abby that she “doesn’t want anyone.” Asexuality is so invisible, even more than other non-monosexualities, and although the film doesn’t give it more than this one line, it is at least present. It’s impossible to know whether this is a shift for Kate, or a result of external factors, but it’s there. 

Similarly, consensual non-monogamy gets two brief nods – first, when Abby asks Justin if he and his girlfriend are still “swingers,” and again when The Girl asks whether it’s “gross” that Justin slept with her friend, and Abby replies that she is “learning that it depends.” These are small gestures towards the existence of consensual non-monogamy, and they are somewhat countered by Abby’s inability or unwillingness to understand why one of her clients would be seeing her despite having a husband who is “passionate” about her. She doesn’t seem able to recognize that her client might want sex outside of a sexually fulfilling and passionate marriage. This, though, seems to speak more to Abby’s own feelings about her own marriage and her reasons for pursuing sex outside of it, and less to the films own views of monogamy in general.

There are multiple sex workers in the film and they are almost all treated well. The Girl, Abby’s madame, is a student hoping to get into law school and she respects Abby’s boundaries and treats her with respect. The second sex worker that Abby sees (before she becomes a sex worker herself) is also treated well by the film.

The film also treats the clients with compassion, which I loved. Abby starts as a client, and Abby’s own clients are each unique and sympathetic. The shy virgin whose mom is pressuring her to lose weight, the older, sexually dissatisfied married woman, the bored housewife – each of the clients is presented as a complete person rather than a caricature or criminal.

Even Justin and The Girl, who each act as liasons between clients and sex workers, are treated with compassion and humanity. I wonder whether a film that includes heterosexual sex work would be as willing to treat all of the people involved in the transactions so well, but the fact that Justin maintains his likability and isn’t reduced to the stereotype of a pimp gives me hope. (He does, though, become concerned about Abby’s sex work and is the only one in the film who comes close to moralizing at her to stop, despite the hypocrisy of this.)

However, the first sex worker that Abby sees is described (by Abby) as “dirty” and she’s a much more stereotyped representation of a sex worker. She’s on drugs, the room they meet in in dingy, and where Abby seems to approach sex work as a vocation and a form of self-expression, the first sex worker seems to be doing a job. This is a problematic binary to set up, where the only acceptable sex work is sex work that is art, rather than sex work that is work. It also points to my biggest problem with the film, which was the representation of class position.

The film is about upper class women. Abby becomes a high-price, high-class sex worker. Kate makes a lot of money. Abby’s clients pay her a lot of money. Money, money, money. The only character in the film who does not have visible wealth is described as “dirty.” That’s not okay.

In the end, it’s unclear whether Abby goes back to sex work, finds an extramarital affair, or stays celibate in her marriage. She is still with Kate, and the film ends on a melancholy note that is open to interpretation. I loved it.