Relationship anarchy could be about so much more than the freedom to fuck.
“I need to tell you something” the guy I just took to my tiny hotel room tells me as we lie down on the bed “I am a relationship anarchist”. This is of little importance to me. We just hooked up in a bar (an anarchist bar so this is also no surprise to me). I am on vacation and moving out in 3 days. Why should I care about how he conducts his relationships? But he seems to think this requires further clarification. “That means I have sex with multiple people and I do not label those contacts as relationships. I see people when I want to see them.” Again, this is of little importance to me.
But his words linger. Is that what relation anarchy is? Polyamory combined with non-commitment? I really hope not. That kind of individual freedom, the freedom to not form lasting relationships, the freedom to always follow your own desires, the commitmentless fucking around, sounds more like relationship capitalism to me. Yet this guy wasn’t the first ‘relationship anarchist’ I’ve met who defined relationship anarchism as ‘I do whatever I want’.
I guess why relationship anarchy rarely appeals to me is because its practioners often seems too obsessed with nonmonogamy.
Anarchism, to me, is very much about commitment. About building communities. Communities that reject the ‘rules’ of capitalism, of ownership, of jobs, of productive and unproductive members, of competition. Communities that instead choose care, cooperation, equality, acknowledgement that our differences make our strengths, and each to contribute according to their his ability and to receive according to their need. And in that community, we make the rules that suit us, and end them when they no longer suit our community.
Relationship anarchism then, to me, means community. A community of two or of many. A community that rejects the ‘rules’ of relationships, of enforced heterosexuality, enforced monogamy, of partners being entitled to sex, of marriage, of childcare being a two-person job and of the idea that we need a romantic or sexual relationship to be complete. A community that instead choses care, cooperation, equality, acknowledgement that we are more than our relationship and that we all have different needs.
And in that community, we make the rules that suit us, and end them when they no longer suit our community.
By that definition, an anarchist relationship is first and foremost one of cooperation and setting our own rules. By that definition, it is not self-serving but always mutually beneficial. By that definition, it can be a monogamous relationship if that’s what makes the people involved feel happiest. By that definition, it can be about friendship, about romance, about sex, about a selection of those things, but by definition it will be about care. And intuitively, I’d say an anarchist relationship is a mutual support system against the brutal, oppressive capitalist world around us. The world is an extremely fucked up opressive place that seeks to divide us but we have chosen to support each other, to create a safe space within the rooms that we share when we share them, to help each other through tough days and tough years, to remind each other that we’re in this together.
This
automatically-polyamorous
commitment-free ‘I do whatever I want’ version of relationship anarchism feels nothing like that.
This so perfectly encapsulates both my fears and hopes for relationship anarchy.
