I’m no stranger to confused looks. In my line of work—at the intersections of philosophy and sexology—they’re a remarkably common occurrence, frequent to the point that I can admit that I sometimes even crave them. Very few topics, however, bring on the bewildered glances as much as when I talk openly about my dating life.
People tend to understand and follow along when I tell them that I’m asexual (that is, that particularly sexual attraction toward other persons doesn’t play any significant role in how I understand myself and move through the world), and sometimes even get on board when I continue on to inform them that I am also aromantic (which is to say that particularly romantic attraction toward other persons doesn’t play much of a role, either). And while many still somewhat unreflectively turn their nose up at it, they also tend to understand what I mean when I say that I practice non-monogamy in not limiting myself or my partners to just one exclusive, intimate relationship dynamic at a time.
But when I emphasize that I am asexual, aromantic, and non-monogamous? All at once? That’s when the confused looks and bewildered glances really transform into incredulous—sometimes incendiary—stares. “So, what you really mean,” I often hear, “is that you just have a lot of really good friends?”
Oh, honey. No.
Clearing out some stereotypes
First, let’s get some things out of the way. For starters, attraction isn’t the same thing as behavior: someone can be asexual and still have sex. They can still want to have sex. Even in the absence of sexual attraction, one might engage in sexual activities as a way of bonding with a partner, as a means of relieving stress, or just simply because it feels good. Think about the act of giving a massage: we might enthusiastically offer or receive a massage—for the very same reasons just mentioned!—without ever looking at someone and feeling or thinking “wow, I really want to massage that person.”
The same goes for aromantic persons: even in the absence of distinctively romantic attraction, someone might engage in romantic activities or connections for any number of reasons: bonding, fun, whatever. Doing so doesn’t mean that they are being insincere, inauthentic, misleading, or in any way disingenuous. While some aromantic persons do carry an aversion to distinctively romantic interactions, a simple lack of romantic attraction toward other persons in no way entails a lack of desire for deep human connection, intimate relationships, or cute little dates.
Queering the Romantic-Platonic Divide
With those stereotypes cleared up, I’ll confess that sex and romance just aren’t really anything of the sort that I’m looking for. That doesn’t mean that I don’t seek and participate in intimate relationships, however. In a culture that likes to divide our relationships up into the twin poles of the romantic and the platonic, we might be tempted to overlook—to forget—that there is a whole lot of space between and beyond.
Borrowing from the field of queer theory, we can employ queer here as a verb: we queer something when we critically interrogate and assess the entranched binaries and dogmas permeating our understanding of that thing. The ones that stand up to scrutiny get to stay, and the others rightfully get the boot. Just as we can queer our notion of sexuality and gender, in this sense, we can also queer the romantic-platonic divide. Perhaps unsurprisingly, all three turn out to be unrestricted to any arbitrary binary.
Many of the most important connections in my life incorporate some elements of the platonic alongside some elements of the romantic—or, perhaps more accurately, elements that I describe as “platonic” or “romantic” only because our culture doesn’t yet have a rich-enough, agreed-upon vocabulary for how those relationships move and feel. Some move fluidly between the two supposed “poles,” whereas others seem to exist outside of and away from the whole “romantic-platonic” schema completely.
In a world with a whole spectrum of relationship possibilities, there is so much that can be gained by giving up and moving past the strict adherence to a limiting polarity of mere black-and-white.
Embracing Anarchy
As a practitioner of non-monogamy, my preferred modality is relationship anarchy. Don’t let the common, conventional misappropriation of the word “anarchy” scare you off: relationship anarchy isn’t about chaos, wanton rule-breaking, and rebellion for rebellion’s sake. Instead—just like actual, serious anarchy in general—relationship anarchy is about a critical rejection of authority-for-authority’s-sake. Instead of following inherited scripts for how relationships must be (and which often exist as tools to uphold and reinforce cisheteropartriarchal systems of oppression), the relationship anarchist works collaboratively with the people in their lives to custom build—through mutually empowered and mutually informed collaboration—the sort of relationship that best serves all involved, as they are actually are.
As a relationship anarchist, I don’t look for a person to be my partner so that I can partake in some kind of preconceived relationship structure. Instead, when I meet a person with whom I’d like to connect—and when that desire is recognized as mutual—we can work together, on equal footing, to build exactly the relationship structure that best suits us. If our wants or needs change, we revisit the conversation and the structure can change alongside them. And really—realistically—this process can be repeated with every single person I connect to, constrained only by time, space, and emotional energy.
To some, this might seem like an unserious way to approach deep, interpersonal connection. But in my experience, it has allowed for the deepest, most personal—and most personalized—connections I’ve had the joy of practicing and participating in. In a way that no other relationship practice has offered, relationship anarchy has allowed me to really, genuinely, and truly see the persons in front of and all around me.
A New Language for the REst of Us
Given that so much of our cultural lore surrounding intimate relationships—the stories we tell, the advice we give and receive, the dreams we are taught from a young age that we should have—invariably and unwaveringly centers jointly sexual, romantic, and monogamous connections as the prescribed norm, many of us who live and experience our lives outside of those frameworks can often feel more than a little left out. When it comes to talk about love and connection, we frequently—if not almost always—just get left out of the conversation entirely.
It’s a bummer. The relationships I seek, practice, and value most are as nurturing, as fulfilling, and as real as any Hallmark or Disney narrative. They center agency, autonomy, and a spirit of mutual creativity. They bring joy, comfort, and growth. Sometimes, they look exactly like more standard and conventional intimate relationships; sometimes, they look like something else entirely. The common thread throughout all of them, though, is that they are deeply, consciously, and intentionally personal, personalized, and chosen.
The languages of relationship anarchy and queerplatonic connections—as well as their hybrid tongue of queerplatonic anarchy—let us speak into existence whole new worlds full of love stories. They give us words and phrases that simply don’t translate into any other dialect. They offer the precision of scientific nomenclature alongside the beauty of poetry and enrich us by more fundamentally enriching our deepest vocabularies—and hence, our conceptions of what’s possible and what’s real.
Fluency takes practice, sure—but it’s never too late to learn.
So let’s chat.
Written by Ley David Elliette Cray, PhD (she/they).
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