a green anarchist project on freedom and love
and
relationship anarchy is not post-poly
here are the questions!
How does one(/should one?) separate romantic/sexual/intimate relationships from friendships? If one does make a separation, what about the difference changes how one thinks about and behaves in those relationships?
What is an appropriate role for rules within and surrounding relationships? Are rules governing how one acts with their partner a reasonable way to set boundaries or are they barriers to acting on one’s desires? How does the evaluation change when the rules govern interactions with people outside of the relationship?
The habits, structures and expectations of our relationships are in many ways colored by modern normative culture. How much of our existing relationships and desires about how we relate to each other produced and constrained by those norms? To what extent can and do we reject those values and build relationships from other foundations? What foundations?
Goals external to relationships can constrain what relationships are possible/probable. For example, if you want to raise a child, social systems make that very difficult outside of something approximating a monogamous marriage. Are there more examples like this? Can we do anything about them?
We obviously have many kinds of coercive relationships with hierarchies like employer-employee, parent-child, etc; and there are coercive aspects to peer relationships like between coworkers, and, as this piece argues, monogamous relationships. People tend to think of friends and lovers as freely entered relationships, but are there aspects of these “free” relationships that are coercive?
It’s easy to see building free relationships as constructive direct action, and Mae Bee mentions stealing kissing in front of lovers, destructive direct action combatting possessiveness in relationships. Are there other kinds of destructive direct action in the context of relationships?
also, a! is back in town and might have some stories to tell us about his travels. if we want to hear them…