Mono, Poly, and Me

Before I say anything at all I have to start right away with a tangent because this is a case of me totally failing for the majority of my life to notice something really obvious. I've understood and used the word 'monopoly' under its original definition since I was maybe eleven or twelve years old. As in the JP Morgan, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller sense, not as a board game that brings out the worst in people and makes it totally fun to screw everyone you know and love out of enormous amounts of money until they flip the board over and throw soft furnishings at you. I know exactly what it means, but it literally took me until just now, when I wrote that title up there, to realize that the word is from 'mono', for 'one', and 'poly', for 'many'. Of fucking course it is, why did that never occur to me until now?? A monopoly is when one company or sometimes just one specific person has control over all (or nearly all) of a particular commodity. This allows them to do whatever the fuck they want and make the prices of these goods and resources whatever they want since there isn't any competition to compel them to take anyone else into consideration. (Which is how John D Rockefeller could end up personally having 10% of all American circulated money in his name--he was so fucking rich he was himself, one guy, a tenth of the US economy. That's an insane amount of wealth.)

I feel sufficiently silly for having not realized this. Silly enough that I went ahead and made a meme out of it. Enjoy.

Okay. That's out of the way.

I was a late bloomer in a lot of ways--one of the last girls in my year to start growing breasts, didn't get my period until I was a teenager, and psychosexually took much longer to mature. And I'm not completely convinced I matured all the way, either, since there are still days when I'm pretty well convinced that boys are another species and also might potentially have cooties. So it wasn't until I was much older, a time at which most people have this knowledge and have for some time, that I really started to figure out where my sexuality was pointed and what I wanted out of it. I suspected I was something besides completely vanilla-white-bread heterosexual when I was about fourteen and even took three years of art classes in large part because I had a huge crush on the woman who taught it. (And when she found me on Facebook many years later and we got into an amiable chat over the message system about what we'd been up to, I had to really make a huge effort to stop myself from asking if she wanted to go out for drinks. I knew she was young but I didn't realize just how young she was until Facebook--she was only 28 when I graduated, making her only eleven years older than I am and to be honest I don't find that an unbridgable or inappropriate age gap.) But I didn't even privately identify as bisexual until I was a senior in high school and a few more years before I actually began openly identifying as such.

Thanks to the wondrous wide community that makes up the world wide web, I've learned that there's no actual reason to restrict or limit your preferences when your natural inclination doesn't always comply with whatever labels you've decided on applying. So my self-identification has changed quite a lot and I began to factor in my love of genderbending and androgyny and the fact that I have never been at all fussed when I find someone insatiably attractive without being able to confidently guess what kind of plumbing they might have. The word that most closely fits with what I know of myself right now is 'pansexuality', since I don't really have a strong preference one way or another and generally I just like what I like. Some identify as male and some identify as female, some match their genitals and others don't, and a few don't identify as either or switch back and forth. I'm totally cool with this, because in the end I like people, not body parts. (Well, body parts are nice too. Just not the whole picture.)

I'm fairly inexperienced sexually and with relationships. I never dated, mostly because no one was interested and because I tend to inadvertently give off an aura of 'KEEP THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME' when I'm not being bubbly and personable. I've fooled around with people before, I've had crushes, I've been in love, but as embarrassing as this is to admit, Max is my first real boyfriend. Despite this, before we got together I'd been coming to the realization that I am possibly not completely inclined to be monogamous. I like the thought of having more than one partner in a relationship. I like the idea of having more than one partner in bed. I like the idea of 'being with' someone and still sexually exploring other people. Sex can be a very emotional experience, but it doesn't have to be one every time, and that's something it took me years to figure out--and something that a good many people never consider.

So, I have polyamorous tendencies.

But my relationship is entirely monogamous.

Let me break briefly into another tangent. I do not make a secret of anything that defines me. Despite the depression, the anxiety, the poor self-esteem, the doubt, and constant self-loathing, I am for the most part quite comfortable in my own skin. I've spent most of my life being sorry for things that weren't my fault, and feeling ashamed of things that were neither inherently wrong nor under my control. I might be extraordinarily self-conscious of things I say and do, but I refuse to ever again apologize or feel guilty about the beliefs and inclinations that define me as a person. So I never pretend to be anything other than what I am. My sexuality, religious beliefs, and mental illnesses are all an open book--I discuss these things openly with anyone who feels the need to ask me about them. I don't even feel badly about the prescription drug addiction that is arguably the most self-destructive and worst habit I have. But I don't bring them up on my own and I will lie by omission. Not because I feel as though any of these traits are inappropriate, but for the same reason I model under a pseudonym and never tell superiors or co-workers about the work I do. People have been fired from better jobs over much less. I wish sincerely I did not have to hide these things from anyone, but I acknowledge what reality at the moment entails. In order to protect myself, I keep certain things a secret from anyone who has the power to make my life miserable because of it.

Now that I've said that, I'll go on.

I knew Max for a few years before we got together. In that time I was as candid and open with him as I am with other people to whom I feel close--he's completely aware of all of these things, and even though there are some he doesn't like and wishes weren't a part of me (like my drug habit and instabilities), he accepts me as I am. This means he knew that I wasn't completely monogamous when he first broached the subject with me. I, too, knew that he was monogamous and that being with him meant I would have to forgo certain other aspects of my sexuality that he can't fulfill. We were both aware of this, and when I agreed to go out with him I did so explicitly stating that I was doing so not knowing whether or not I could be entirely happy long term in a monogamous relationship with just one person.

He was fine with that. On the whole he was just unbelievably happy that I said yes.

People who know me as having polyamorous leanings have questioned me about this decision, wondering why I agreed to a monogamous partnership I might or might not always be happy to have. And I will admit, it does sound slightly unfair in his favour--he is, after all, not deprived of any aspect of his sexuality and won't ever be in a position where he wants something I'm not physically capable of providing, whereas I will most certainly encounter these problems. It isn't completely fair to me to confine myself to someone else's rules.

But that's life, isn't it? Life is all about compromise and I personally think it's less unfair for me to play by his rules than it would be if I went off with other people when doing so would absolutely destroy him. I'm quite happy with Max and so far don't usually feel like I'm missing out on anything. Every now and then it'll dawn on me that I'm not going to get a go at breasts anymore, or get to fool around with girls or anybody else I find insatiably attractive. But these feelings don't really bother me, at least nowhere near enough to make me reconsider my decision. Of course, part of this could be that, so far, I've had neither the desire nor opportunity to do it. I really honestly don't know how I'd handle it if I did find myself in this position, and he's aware of that as well. Really, if you think about it, it kind of presents an amusing reversal of stereotypes--how often does a guy lament that the girl he's with absolutely refuses to ever consider a threesome? Here it's reversed--I would love it, but he doesn't want to. Laughing about it is one way to help deal with the reality.

Another way I make it easier to deal with is by being extremely and openly flirtatious with anybody I want. This is something I do all the time, whether or not I actually fancy the person, and it isn't influenced by my relationship statuses. Max knew this before we got together, as well. I'm just very flirty with other people and do things--with consent!!--that other people might find extremely inappropriate. I grope, I pet, I kiss people. I make out with people I have only just met. This is just part of my personality. Asking me not to do it would be like asking me not to be sarcastic or make jokes--I wouldn't be able to do it even if I wanted to because it's just a part of who I am. I straight up told him that he didn't get to tell me who I could and couldn't hit on. I assured him that I would be going home with him at the end of the night and would take it no further, but that I didn't want to just stop being me because it involved doing things conventionally disallowed for women in monogamous relationships.

To be honest I didn't really know how well he'd take that, but I was relieved to find he didn't mind in the slightest. Well, kissing girls is pretty sexy to watch so he quite likes that, and if my target happens to be a man he feels neither territorial nor envious. In the end, he knows I'm with him because I want to be with him and that this was just one small facet of me as a whole.

He's cool with the traits he isn't fond of--my drug habit and wandering libido--just as I'm cool with his excessive furriness and monogamous nature.

In the end, it's just life. You accept the bad things because you want the good bits. You can't reasonably claim to love someone unless you're willing to take them, for better or worse, just as they are.

And I do.

And so does he.