On Remaining Chronically In Love
Thursday, February 7, 2008

Valentine's Day is just around the corner.

Some time ago, a commenter requested that I speak about my marriage (not a "legal" one -- rather, the energetic relationship with my spouse, which is more of a marriage than most marriages I know of). Below is a piece that I wrote several years ago, which I am posting here in celebration and acknowledgment of my Beloved. (Change three years to five+ wherever appropriate -- cuz it's all still true for me.)

==============================================
Remaining Chronically In Love

Something I’ve always wanted. Something I’m practicing now.

The being who serves as my primary spiritual teacher and adviser says that the thing we call being “In Love” (as opposed to simply “loving”) is produced directly by the process of revelation — when we fall in love, we hasten to tell each other stories, share pictures, and desire nothing more passionately than to “know” the Beloved at every level possible -- and to be known by them.

He says the reason we seek this experience so consistently, even after we have entered it and may have found it painful, is that it is the template for how God/The Divine loves us — not as the doting Mother or Father, but as the Beloved.

If anyone is squeamish about the "G" word -- please keep in mind that when I refer to "God" or "The Divine", I am NOT talking about the big guy with the white beard, but rather my belief in a divine unifying consciousness (more on the DUC According to Portly).

One of my favorite quotes from my teacher (indicating how DUC/God looks at us): “Oh — look — she’s fucking her life up — isn’t she fantastic!”

Just as we do in the first throes of love.

We want to eat, drink, absorb, and generally crawl into the skin of the object of our “in-loveness”. They are beautiful to us, whether dancing, sitting, or drooling in their sleep.

I am experiencing that with my Beloved — my Mate — and I have been experiencing it for the past three years.

She is sleeping in the other room as I write this, and I am typing away on my blog, waiting for my computer back-up to complete — anxiously awaiting the moment when I get to go sleep next to her.

For me, that is miraculous. I not only want to sleep next to her — I want it desperately (for those of you who may not understand why I think this is a miracle, try googling “Lesbian Bed Death”).

While that (LBD) has to do with the drop-off in sexuality in lesbian relationships, what I’m talking about is much, much more than sex. I am, personally, very glad that our relationship remains profoundly “frisky” (personally, I want to still be having wild, tantric, untamed sex when I’m 120 — and beyond) -- but what I value most in sharing my life with her is that I experience ongoing fascination — continuing interest — perpetual surprise.

I used to believe that love was a happy accident, the most unlikely, and yet, most coveted, of experiences.

I thought that “falling in love” was something that just dropped on your head — a rock tossed by some capricious and unnameable deity (sometimes with the predictable results of contusions and bleeding).

You could never tell when it would arrive — or — when it would depart — the hand that had aimed that ecstatic stone at you could reach down at any moment, and remove it with no more announcement or justification than when they had hurled it in the first place.

I used to believe that.

It made “in love” a precious and scary commodity — something completely outside my power.

I no longer believe it. I am finding, in my first three years of a very long-term experiment about doing “partnership” in a completely different way, that there actually seems to be a logic and a certainty to remaining “chronically in love”.

I’ve read and heard people talking about how to “make love stay” — but I don’t think love is a Labrador Retriever — (Bill Murray in Groundhog Day: “Staaaay. Staaaay.”) In fact, my experience has been that trying to “train” love is a sure way to kill it.

I think the reason I’m still crazy about her has to do with this revelation thing.

My mate and I meet every week to talk about the state of our relationship. We have an agenda. We check in about equal exchange, agreements, intimacy, money, things we’ve noticed about our dynamics, etc. - all the things couples typically fight about (don’t mistake me — it’s not like we never argue or come to points of conflict in our relating).

We go through this agenda every week, and as a result, we keep a pretty clean slate with each other in terms of back-log — but I don’t think that’s the “secret” of remaining “in love” either. It’s simply a tool -- Okay -- a really, really good tool.

The thing that this weekly meeting does provide that seems key to me is the opportunity to check in, consciously and regularly, about whether we are still revealed and revealing to one another.

We also take a good deal of time to ourselves. For me, this means that when we come back together, there is always something that has happened to each of us that the other was not a party to — there’s a story to tell, an experience to describe, or an insight that is new.

Because we have an agreement to be “radically and utterly truthful and honest” with one another (yes, in writing, and yes, this means that if I have a sex-dream in which the person involved is not my Beloved, I roll over in the morning and say “Honey, I think I cheated on you last night.”) — we actually tell each other these stories, experiences, and insights — not assuming that we will just “know” by osmosis, or that we know each other so well that there is nothing new to know.

We have an agreement to be monogamous (yes, in writing, too), but more than that, we have an agreement to contain our sexuality between us. This means that, while we may engage in “public displays of affection”, you won’t see us making out or grabbing each other’s asses. (We do those things, just not in front of you.) I have found that this somehow concentrates and focuses the intensity of our intimacy.

We have an agreement about the order of our priorities (DUC first, Self second, Others third), an agreement about how we share money, about maintaining equal exchange with one another, about whether we will have or adopt children, about whether we will live in the same house, about whether our time is our own (unless we schedule time together) or collective (unless we schedule time apart), and about how we will deal with conflict should it arise between us.

We have an agreement that we will leave the planet (die) together (and this is not a suicide pact — it is an intention to pass from this life at the same time, somewhere around, say, age 140, preferably during a bout of “mutual friskiness”).

All of these agreements are in writing, and have been witnessed officially by a close circle of loved ones.

[Imagined dialogue in my head from the reader: “Oh My God! All those agreements! That’s so romantic! — NOT!”]

I hear this whispered in my head, but I choose to affirm, instead, that you possess a curious and searching nature, and I put in my vote of confidence that, even if this is a new concept to you, you might just be intrigued and enthusiastic — so I choose to insert another possible dialogue into my mind: “Really, Portly? Agreements? In Writing? Tell me more!”

And to this, inquiring reader, I will gladly respond.

Yes. Agreements. In Writing. We actually have four pages of written agreements. Most of them, we made at the start of our relationship as mates, although a few have been added, and several modified. We began this way because of the conclusions each of us had come to in terms of what fostered sustainable relationship and what did not, and based our agreements upon what each of us believed to be our baseline spiritual and experientially-proven truths.

The agreements are the structure -- they are not the love itself -- just a good and fertile soil where the love can thrive -- an ever-expanding pot for it to grow in.

Two things about taking the time to make these agreements out front, and doing a weekly check-in on how well we are keeping them:

1. Having ironed these things out at the beginning, we spend less time processing basic things about our relationship “on the fly” as compared to many couples I have known (in my past relationships I often found out that agreements really were important, albeit completely missing, but I usually discovered this in the midst of a huge fight, when I was least equipped to work out the agreements that would have probably prevented the fight in the first placing).
2. The mere fact that we were both willing (alright --insistent) on making these agreements was, for me, a sign of how much we each valued the connection that we believed they would sustain.

Examples of #1 above -- just in case you don’t get it:

We have sometimes had a conflict about “I’m feeling disconnected from you right now and I don’t like it. What’s going on?” We have never had the conflict about “Do you even want to be with me?! Why won’t you commit!?”

We have sometimes had a conflict about “I notice that you’ve said you’ve been worrying about money lately, and I believe that worry creates the thing being worried about, and since my financial resources are blended with yours, I wonder how that affects me.” We have never had the conflict about “Well, I earn the money, so I get to decide how it’s spent!”

In previous relationships, I’ve had the “Why Won’t You Commit!?” fight (from both sides). I’ve had the “I Earn The Money!!” fight (from both sides). I’ve had the “I Don’t Have To Tell You Everything!” fight, and the “Why Are You So Distant?” fight. I’ve had the “If You Loved Me, You’d Put Me First!”, and “I’ve Been Up All Night Where Were You?! Why Didn’t You Call!?”, and “Why Didn’t You Stand Up For Me!?” fights. I’ve had all these fights, from both sides, in previous relationships.

I didn’t enjoy them.

When seeming conflict does arise between me and my mate, these are not the issues we grapple with. Because we have agreed about these issues. We don’t tussle about whether we should be honest and truthful. We both agree that this is an absolutely necessary agreement for the soil our connection requires --

-- and --

This Is What Grows in That Soil:

I still spend a serious amount of time trying to determine the correct word for her eye-color. Cedar? Teak? Teddy-Bear Button?
I look into them often, to get my bearings, but still haven’t drawn any conclusion.

I walk into the bedroom --I glimpse all ten of her toes, curled up against one another, and I stop in the doorway, entranced.

Kissing her in the hallway makes me literally, physically, dizzy.

If I hear her laugh out loud in the next room, I am absolutely compelled to find out what she thinks is funny. I simply cannot continue until I do.

I love watching her when she doesn’t know I’m watching her, but I always hope that she’ll look up and see me watching her.

I think she is the most interesting and complex person I have ever met.

I think this every single day.


—————————————————————————————
ps. If you are interested in the formula for this potting mix, and want to see a copy of our agreements/intentions in full, let me know.

copyright 2005-2008 [all rights reserved]

Posted byPortlyDyke at 12:45 PM 6 comments  

Labels: Advice, Functional Relationship

Portly Dyke's Guide to Things That Do Not Exist
Saturday, December 22, 2007

Posted byPortlyDyke at 12:00 PM 3 comments  

Labels: Advice, Freedom, Politics, Queers, Shakesville, Speaking Up, Truth, Xtians

How to Fuck Up
Thursday, November 15, 2007

Because you probably will, at some point in your life.

Since it's likely that you're going to fuck up, in some way, at some time, why not do it with grace and aplomb?

Me? -- I think that I "fuck up" daily.

For me, currently, my main areas of "fucking up" are: Acting towards other beings in ways that I wouldn't want them to act toward me, not upholding or adhering to my own principles, not practicing what I preach, not walking my talk, etc. . . . . . . oh, just a thousand different things or so.

Remaining conscious and consistent can be a real bitch, sometimes.

However, I really want to remain conscious and I want to be consistent to my own principles and ethics. For me, that is the definition of personal integrity.

If your personal goals/values/ethics/principles in life are different from mine, I have no problem with that -- honestly. Still, I'm guessing that, even if your goals, principles, and ethical standards differ from mine, it's likely that you might "fuck up" with your own stuff every now and again.

That's what this post is about. "How to Fuck Up" -- and how to clean up when you fuck up.

I have a little tool that I call "The Four A's" (I learned it from an absolutely fantastic teacher) and it has helped me through numerous fuck-ups in my life.

When you "Fuck Up" (whether the fuck-up is minor or major) practice the "Four A's".

1. Acknowledgment
   
2. Apology
3. Amends
4. Action

#1) Acknowledgment -- is really important, IMO, because if you don't realize what you actually did, and how it was "fucked up", there's a high probability that you are going to do it again -- a very high probability.

#2) Apology -- is also really important -- but it has to be genuine (which requires #1 - Acknowledgment). Saying things like "I'm sorry if you felt bad about what I said/wrote" or "I'm sorry if your feelings got hurt", is, IMO, completely different from saying "I'm sorry that I said/wrote that. I see how it was fucked up, and here's how I know that it was fucked up . . . . . ". (Keep in mind that "if" is a word reserved for hypotheticals, and doesn't usually refer to real life. When used in apology, "if" is usually just a dilutive, and if you can't really apologize, then don't apologize at all. Sort of a perverse Thumper ethic.)

#3) Amends -- sometimes the energy required to actually think about how you fucked up and make an honest acknowledgment/apology is enough to return balance to the situation (depends on the type of fuck up, though). In some cases, "making amends" might also mean returning money/energy/time that your fuck-up created for someone else. This can be returned in any of a number of creative ways. Example: If you got all defensive in an argument, and therefore the argument took eight hours instead of 30 minutes (hey, I'm a lesbian -- I can DO me some processing!), consider just giving the person with whom you got all defensive eight hours of your time to do for them something that they might have gotten done if you hadn't been all uppity-up in yourself being a defensive shit (not that I've ever done that . . . .no, that has never happened with me. . . . . OK, maybe just that once . . . OK -- Fuck it! I'm completely busted here . . . .)

#4) Action -- This may be the most important of the 4 A's. If you know that you did something that was fucked up, and you've expressed that you're genuinely sorry that you did this fucked up thing, then really, the only concrete evidence of this will be that you will change what you do in the future. For me, if I don't take this step (action), the other three are just so much manipulation.

If you're thinking, "Well, if #4 is so important, and is really the critical thing, why bother with the other three?" Just trust me on this and try steps 1-3 out in real time. I've found them to be amazing, when combined with step 4. There is nothing . . . . nothing! . . . that melts my heart more than a heartfelt acknowledgment, apology, and offer of amends.

Not only that, but taking steps #1-#3 before moving into step #4 actually tends to make step #4 easier for me. If I know the other person now knows that I know that I fucked up, and that I felt bad about fucking up, and if I know that my fuck-ups have consequences (as in the amends I made), somehow taking a different action becomes so much more . . . . what's the word I'm looking for? . . . . . . Motivational?

If you're wondering what stimulated this post -- no, I did not specifically fuck up today (that I am aware of at the moment) -- (although it's likely that I did fuck up in some way today) -- (ok -- more than likely -- probable) -- (ok, more than probable -- nearly certain).

I'm OK with that. I don't mind fucking up nearly as much when I know the way back to grace.

My dad, who was a high-school band teacher before he retired, used to say: "If you're going to play a note wrong, at least play it wrong with gusto -- that way, someone might notice and give you the opportunity to correct it."

I love my dad.

Posted byPortlyDyke at 11:40 PM 14 comments  

Labels: Advice, Blogging, Functional Relationship, Personal Ethics

Parental Responsibility-Sharing: Phase 2
Thursday, October 25, 2007

Ok, let's assume that you've accomplished your mission for Phase 1: Keep the Baby Alive.

Let's say the Baby is no longer really a "baby", but now, rather, a "toddler" -- it is no longer entirely dependent on mother's milk, and it's entered Phase 2.

During this Phase, I still think that all parents who have not signed their rights/responsibilities away have mutual responsibility for their offspring.

One (or both) of the parents might go off during the day to make $ (USofA western culture version of hunting/gathering).

If both are off hunting/gathering, offspring must be placed in the care of someone who takes on the parental protection/nurturing role while parental units are away.

There may be a very direct physical-resource swap involved for this care (ie. Paid Child Care -- "I'll give you some of the stuff I hunt/gather today ($$) if you protect my offspring while I'm gone" OR "I'll protect your offspring tomorrow while you hunt/gather, if you protect my offspring today") -- or there may be a vaguer, more esoteric swap involved with a close family member ("I'll continue to acknowledge you as part of my tribal system and give you access to your grandchild if you protect said grandchild while I go out to hunt/gather $$").

If only one parent goes off to hunt/gather during the day and devotes their time and energy specifically to that activity, and the other parent remains "in camp" (at home) to do "childcare" (nurturing/protecting), then I consider that they have made a swap for that period of time ONLY.

When the hunting/gathering parent returns to camp/home, I believe that the shared parental responsibility is back in place.

And therein seems to lie the rub. I cannot tell you how many parents that I know (regardless of gender-mix, blended family status, or sexual-orientation) -- who have clearly chosen to have one person go out into the world to "make a living" while the other remains in camp/at home to "mind the kids" -- that seem to have the same fucking argument over and over and over again.

Here are the two sides of this argument:

"S/he doesn't understand how stressful it is to go out and hunt/gather all day. When I come home, I just want to relax. I want a break from having to "do" things."

"S/he doesn't understand how stressful it is to be in camp with the kids all day. When the s/he comes home, I just want to relax. I want a break from having to "do" things."

See how vastly different the two sides of this argument are?

If both parents considered that the protection and nurturing of their offspring was their full-time, 24-hour-a-day/7-day-a-week responsibility, for which they have simply swapped specific responsibilities for a certain period of time, then I think that, at the end of the swap part of the day, they would realize that the kid(s) are still there, as a mutual responsibility, and NO ONE gets out of that (without making a further swap).

Of course, if some people considered that the care/nurturing of their offspring was a 24/7 responsibility, they might choose not to have children at all.

Which might be bad for the human species. Or not.

But once again, I digress.

What I'm about to suggest is, I believe, effective for any period of child-rearing where the child is not survival-dependent upon the specific milk from a specific mother:

1. I suggest that both/all the parents who agree to raise the offspring together (whether they are "bio" parents, "foster" parents, or "adoptive" parents) think of the nurturing and protecting of the children they choose to make or raise as a 24/7 responsibility -- from the moment the child is conceived, taken on for fostering, or adopted -- until the child is an adult.
   
2. I suggest that, if one parent wants to take on a specific, partial set of responsibilities around the protection/nurturing of the offspring, that these "responsibility swaps" be made consciously and, if possible, before the kid hits the planet or arrives in the home. (While acknowledging that these responsibility swaps will need to be monitored and adjusted throughout the entire period that you are parenting.)
   
3. I suggest that wherever one parent takes on a certain set of responsibilities, that they also be granted power over how those responsibilities are carried out (IOW -- if I'm going out to "get the apples", I get to decide how the apples are gathered unless we make a different agreement about that -- if I'm staying in camp to protect the offspring, I get to decide how the offspring are protected, unless we make a different agreement about that).

Now, all this means that you're going to have to think about some things, and talk about some things, and keep an eye on whether your exchange with other co-parents is balanced and satisfying for everyone involved, while you're assuring that the kid is safe, fed, and learning how to be a fulfilled human being.

It's my belief that parental responsibility for your kids' protection, nurturing, and training to successful adulthood has to be prioritized ahead of "making the kid happy".

Personally, I believe that your kid's happiness is, essentially, none of your damn business -- it's been my experience that if kids are safe, well-nourished, and surrounded by adults who are modeling self-fulfillment, they learn to create their happiness for themselves, which is, in my opinion, a much more important talent to develop than learning to have someone else "make" you happy.

Evidence of how protect/nurture trumps preservation of childhood happiness is this: When the toddler is dashing toward the blazing hot wood stove with both hands outstretched, you do not hesitate to sweep the little tyke up in your arms, or shout "NO!" in your most authoritarian voice, and you ignore the shrieks and howls of outrage as the three-year-old will is thwarted. You don't think at that moment: "I'm a bad parent." Quite the opposite.

Back to my point. I think that a lot of the confusion that arises in present day society around child-rearing responsibilities actually stems from the fact that the USA is truly a cultural "melting pot" -- each of us has inherited or learned child-rearing traditions from parents who may have come from vastly different socio-cultural or ethnic backgrounds, and the ingrained ideas that we have about the roles of "mom" vs. "dad" may be entirely unconscious for us. Add to this changing ideas about the roles of women and men in society, what constitutes a "family" in the first place, etc. -- and then give yourself a comforting pat on the back if you sometimes experience complete befuddlement about it all.

The thing is that rearing children from a stance of mutual responsibility requires that you come to agreement with the other parents about a few things:

1. What is our intention in creating "a family"? (Or even a relationship with one another, for that matter.)
   
2. What roles do each of us want to take in the process?
   
3. Are we both committed to sharing the responsibility of raising our children equally?
4. What do we want to model to our children? (Anyone who has actually raised children will confirm what I'm about to say: "Children do not actually listen to what you say -- they watch what you do". Given that, being miserable in your job, even if you say that you "have to do it for the family", is probably not the model for a fulfilled life that you want to demonstrate for your kids. Just sayin'.)
5. How are we going to handle child-rearing when one or both of us is too tired/sick/whatever to manage our responsibilities well, or to do them with enthusiasm?
6. What responsibilities do we agree we must fulfill as parents, regardless of how we're feeling about one another (or the kids) at the moment?
7. If we make a swap during the day (I go to work, you care for the kids), does that include other stuff based on cultural assumptions? Like, do "you" also do the laundry, cook, grocery shop, clean the house for everyone in the family? Do "I" handle all the finances, fix everything that get broken, take out the garbage, mow the lawn for everyone in the family? If so, make these agreement clearly!!!! (This is where that bleed-over of "optional-imperatives" can get messy and confusing -- a lot of those assumed responsibility swaps are "gender-fied" in ways we're not consciously aware of -- and may actually have little or nothing to do with child-rearing -- but they seem to emerge when the mommy vs. daddy roles come into play.)

Here's a real-life scenario from the intentional community I live in (it doesn't, at the moment, involve children, but I think it's a good basis to start from before you have children):

We have a list of agreed-upon needs and optional-imperatives (we all agree that we want to eat organic food, that we want our clothes to be clean, that we want bathing facilities available, internet access for everyone, etc.).

We then talked about the tasks involved in that list, and we split them up equally, starting by having people who actually like doing some activities take those (I actually enjoy paying the bills and keeping the community accounts, another person loves cooking, another likes certain aspects of housework). The shit that nobody really "likes" to do (dish-duty, duh!), we rotate on an equal basis. One person is responsible each week.

Our community is amazingly functional (I've lived in relationships and communities that were not), and I believe that one of the reasons is that we all come to it with the understanding that, if we weren't living together, we'd each be responsible for fulfilling all of these needs for ourselves. We don't have the "replacing the toilet paper" argument -- ever -- because we've already had the talk about it, and agreed that we'll all be responsible for changing the roll if we use that last bit.

You might say that that's kind of ridiculous, but people actually argue about this shit -- I've seen tiny stuff like this mount up and crush marriages, communities, and friendships.

So, if you're going to be a parent -- a job that is both one of the most complex and rewarding experiences that I've ever had -- why not get the "little" agreements handled? -- 'Cuz it's a 99.99...% probability that you're definitely going to stumble into some more complicated conundrums down the road.

I welcome any questions. I'll be posting later about Phase III.

Posted byPortlyDyke at 12:25 PM 0 comments  

Labels: Advice, Functional Relationship

Parental Responsibility Simplified
Sunday, October 21, 2007

[Blogger's note: If you haven't read the previous post, you're probably not going to have any idea what the fuck I'm talking about, so you may want to click that link.]

PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY SIMPLIFIED:

If you are a human being, you are a mammal.

One of the characteristics of mammals is that they (mostly) give birth to smaller, fairly defenseless, DNA-modified versions of themselves that must be cared for, fed, and protected by their parent(s) for a period of time. (Don't go all "Oh, she's heartless and detached about children!" on me at this point -- we have a lot of ground to cover, and I've actually parented three children in my life.)

In the case of human offspring, there is Phase 1 --the Entirely-Defenseless period -- this lasts one - two years (the actual time-period is fluid for each new human). During this Phase, I believe that providing all of the "List #1: Survival" needs for human offspring is the responsibility of the parents of the offspring. (Yes, I said "parent-s").

(I want to acknowledge at this point that I believe that humans are probably "hard-wired" to reproduce. However, I don't think that reproduction necessarily belongs on List #1 from my last post, given the fact that the reproductive systems of humans shut down pretty quickly if List #1 needs are not fully addressed.)

If you are a parent, I believe that, during Phase 1, protecting and nurturing that entirely defenseless child is the secondary duty of both parents (primary duty being: Attending to List #1 for yourselves first: making sure that you eat, maintain survivable body temp, and eliminate - cuz if you're both dead, baby ain't gonna stand a chance).

In my belief system, if you made a human child --specifically -- if you contributed either the egg or sperm that made the child, you have a mammalian responsibility to protect and nurture your offspring.

In some human cultures, you can, by various forms of agreement (tacit or written) sign away both your mammalian rights and responsibilities for any offspring you create -- most human cultures have extensive agreements about fostering, adopting, and rearing children -- but until/unless you actively participate in such agreements, I believe that you still have purely mammalian rights/responsibilities for your offspring.

(Now, before you go all . . . . . "But what about Teh Lionz!? Male lionz don't stick around to protect and nurture their offspring!" -- Wake up. Snap out of it. You're not a lion, OK?)

After the entirely-defenseless period for humans (Phase 1), there is the mostly-defenseless period (Phase 2).

During Phase 2, offspring is now able to:

1. Put things in own mouth,
2. Coordinate eye/hand enough to open cabinet under kitchen sink, locate deadly chemicals and put in own mouth,
3. Ambulate well enough to explore surroundings and locate all available precipices from which is it is possible to fall to one's death.
   

However -- during Phase 2, offspring is generally NOT: Big enough to fight off predators, strong enough to build shelter during snowstorm/hurricane, or tall enough to reach apples on tree.

I believe that, during Phase 2, the parents of the human child are responsible for protection, food- and shelter-sharing, and providing as much training and information as the child is able to assimilate about how to fight off predators, create/obtain shelter, and get apples off a tree even if you are too short to reach them (just in case the parents both croak before the mostly-defenseless offspring enters Phase 3 -- keep reading).

Phase 3 -- The "Big-Enough/Strong-Enough But Not Yet Truly Adult" period (aka pre-adolescence), where children, naturally enough, spend a lot of time experimenting with fighting off predators (engaging the "Bubbas" or "Heathers" at school), creating their own shelters (sign posted on offspring's bedroom door: "_____'s Room. Keep Out"), and getting their own apples off the tree (sometimes this means shoplifting bags of Lay's potato chips at Subway . . . . . please don't ask how I know this --*sigh*).

During this Phase, I believe that the major parental obligation/responsibility is to teach children about how to do all of these things without getting killed/incarcerated.

Then there is Phase 4 -- when the "child" becomes capable of making other children.

Actually, "Phase 4" is not a stage of childhood at all.

That's right -- Sorry Folks! -- When your offspring reach Phase 4, you are no longer actually necessary as protector/nurturer/trainer anymore -- in aboriginal cultures, once a girl begins her menses, or a boy begins to grow a beard, they are initiated into adulthood, and the "training" duties pass to the community, which collectively teaches the new adult how to be an adult within that particular culture. (Just because western culture fucks this up entirely by attempting to keep young adults as "children" until they are 18/21/[fill-in-an-arbitrary-age here] doesn't mean that the little mammal that you gave eggs/semen to help create doesn't realize exactly what power they possess as a newly-minted possible-progenitor of future generations.)

So, how does this relate to my previous post on Equal Relationship?

In my belief-system, even though you are individually responsible for your own survival (List 1) and thrival (List 2) -- once you make a child, you and the other DNA-donor (whether they have donated egg or sperm) have now entered your first truly "joint" venture-- a human being which is your mutual responsibility -- at least until it reaches Phase 4.

Once again, you can swap areas of responsibility (like: "You go out and find some apples while I stay here and keep the kid from being killed or accidentally killing itself" [insert your own "falling down the stairs/getting into the wrong cabinet" story here]) -- but in essence, I believe that, for humans, the overall protection and nurturing of offspring is a joint responsibility of both the DNA donors unless negotiated otherwise by mutual agreement.

I believe that a lot of the diversity that is demonstrated in various human cultures in terms of gender roles is probably a result of enculturated agreements about this "responsibility-swap" as regards child-rearing (in addition to cultural belief-systems about pregnancy and nursing).

I want to be very clear that I am speaking from my own experience in one culture -- specifically, the United States of America version of "western culture" -- and I am completely aware that my conclusions are biased by that culture, and also by regionalization within that culture.

That said, let's start with pregnancy.

When I was growing up, pregnancy seemed to exist in a completely schizophrenic state -- it was both "Blessed Event" and "Dire Disease".

On the one hand, anyone who didn't have children was assumed to be either slightly weird or pitiable (as in the hushed whisper: "They can't have children, you know." "Oh, that's so sad!") "Raising A Family" was touted as the be-all and end-all of human existence, and was constantly misrepresented glorified by "Leave It to Beaver", "Father Knows Best", and "Ozzie and Harriet".

On the other hand, women were supposed to "hide" the fact that they were pregnant for as long as possible with blousy maternity-wear, and once they were really "showing", they were supposed to stay out of sight as much as possible. You could not use the word "pregnant" or "pregnancy" on television. ("I Love Lucy" used the word "expecting", and Lucy's on-screen pregnancy was only the second ever hinted at on TV. All this, in a "family-happy" society -- weird, huh?)

Child-birth was an event that was to be handled strictly by doctors, in a hospital, usually under anesthetic. It was a procedure.

The only pregnant woman that I remember actually seeing "up close and personal" prior to 1967 or so (age 11 for me) was my aunt, even though my daily life was packed with families who had, on average, at least 4 children (I was the youngest of four, so I never saw my mother pregnant). A pregnant woman was, in effect, regarded as being "ill".

Times have changed since then, in the culture I inhabit (Thank God!). However, I was raised by people for whom these assumptions ("You must have children, but you must not actually acknowledge the "icky" process of having children.") were un-questioned "What Is So"s.

To deny that I absorbed part of these taboos and attitudes would be completely ridiculous (even if my reaction to them was to reject most of them out-of-hand).

But I digress.

My point is this: I think that there actually is a sort of "responsibility-swap" in pregnancy that is governed by Nature -- a man and a woman swap DNA equally in the act of conception, but the woman serves as the incubator for the actual body of the child (in most cases).

During pregnancy, depending on how everything goes, the mother-to-be may be partially or wholly unable to do some of the things on List #1 and/or List #2, while the father-to-be is generally not hindered in these activities by virtue of the pregnancy. The mother-to-be incurs impacts on her physical health and well-being that the father-to-be does not share.

If the woman chooses to nurse the child to weaning, physical impacts may continue for months or years (depending on whose theory of nursing you choose to follow). If the child is living primarily on mother's milk for the first part of its life, there is the proximity-to-milk issue that has to be addressed, which may also hinder the mother's ability to take care of all of her List #1 and 2 responsibilities -- there are also nutritional and energetic concerns that arise when you are literally feeding another being through your own body's processing system (I could include some particular anecdotes here, but I won't unless you ask about it in comments).

During this time, from a "pass-your-DNA-along" hard-wired perspective, it's clearly an advantage to the father to make sure that both mother and baby stay alive. He will probably end up picking up some of the slack on mom's "lists" (both #1 and #2, but certainly #1), if he wants his progeny to survive and his partner to be around for further progeny-making/child-rearing and/or the various joys of relating to that particular partner.

That's the swap that Nature imposes on our male/female reproducing system.

However, it's my hypothesis that this swap mostly has to do with List #1 - Survival, and that since List #2 is a randomly-shifting array of optionals that may be profoundly shaped by our social/racial/class/religious, etc. backgrounds and/or our current circumstances, we're probably going to be way better off if we negotiate List #2 separately.

Case in point: When the baby arrives, ever notice how everything but List #1 seems to fly out the window? I have watched, time and again, parents-to-be awaiting their bundle of joy with wide-eyed idealism, thinking that they are going to be the "perfect parents" and maintain an immaculate house. Ha!

In those first months, new parents usually find that their revulsion for dust-bunnies dwindles to naught as they discover that finding time to eat, take a shit, keep warm/cool, and get some fucking sleep! (Oh yeah -- sleep -- how did I forget about sleep on List #1? -- Duly Noted: Probably need to add "Get Some Fucking Sleep" to List #1), while simultaneously making sure that this tiny, completely defenseless human being also eats, urinates/takes a shit, keeps warm/cool, and sleeps -- constitutes a full time job for two -- and then some.

(Did that last paragraph seem like an endless stream of sub-sentences? Welcome to parenthood.)

The first three months of parenthood is a fantastic tool for figuring out just how "optional" your optional-imperatives really are -- you find that you really can go on living if there is a stinky diaper-pail in your previously febreeze-fresh or incense-saturated abode, that you will not perish if the dishes don't get done, and that you have suddenly developed the ability to say "Hey! I have a swell idea . . . . . fuck off, won't you?!" -- when someone criticizes your housekeeping.

Oh, wait a minute. I think I was trying to express "Parental Responsibility SIMPLIFIED", right?

Suddenly, I realize that I may have to take this in "phases".

OK then.

Phase I -- Entirely Defenseless Human:

Parental Mission (equally shared by sperm and egg donor, unless one of them has signed away their rights/responsibilities):

1. KEEP BABY ALIVE (and by inference, keep anyone whose breast-milk is keeping the baby alive, and anyone who is supplying food to breast-milk provider alive, and anyone who is providing temperature maintenance/hygienic elimination services to all involved alive).

That's it for the Phase I -- Now doesn't that seem simple?

Oh, don't freak out. I'm not nearly done yet. Stay tuned for Phase 2.

Posted byPortlyDyke at 11:59 PM 5 comments  

Labels: Advice, Functional Relationship

Equal Relationships -- A Rational Model: Part I
Friday, October 19, 2007

Let's begin with the basics, as I see them:

If you are a single, independent, adult human being, there are a few things that you need to take care of on a daily basis, namely:

• Feeding/Watering yourself
  
• Keeping yourself warm-enough/cool-enough -- which may include (depending on where you live): Obtaining or creating Shelter and/or Clothing
• Eliminating urine and feces in a way that doesn't compromise your food and water supply ("Don't shit where you eat" and all that.)

Let's just call that: "List #1 - Survival Needs".

Once you've attended to "List #1", and depending on how deeply you are involved in traditional western society, you may also participate in a number of optional activities on List #2 -- such as maintaining a certain level of:

• personal hygiene (wash your body, hair, and clothes)
• physical appearance (iron your clothes, get a haircut, purchase clothing that is considered "appropriate" to certain circumstances, etc.)
• culturally-accepted housing (a nicely-appointed and/or clean, free-standing house or apartment, rather than a refrigerator box)
• culturally-accepted places to eliminate (a bathroom rather than behind the dumpster outside a local big-box store)

I'll call this: "List #2 - Optional Cultural Imperatives".

Now, I'm sure that there will be people who read this post and think that my description of that second list as "optionals" reflects a truly radical way of thinking on my part -- but I believe that List #2 represents activities which are, in fact, not "needs", but choices -- because if you don't choose to do them, you, as a human being, will probably not die.

Yes, there may be people who refuse to interact with you if you don't wash/launder, iron your clothes/cut your hair, wear the latest fashion or the "wrong" fashion, and/or live in a cardboard box.

However, there are many people in our society who don't do things in the optional imperative lists, and they are still alive.

Eating, maintaining your body-temperature within survival levels, and eliminating with an eye to sanitation are not optional, if you want to stay alive. (Well, actually, elimination can become less problematic if you're not eating, but then there's that whole inconvenient starvation thing -- which will become a problem, eventually).

How you eat, maintain your body-temperature, etc., is a series of options.

That's my starting point in this rational approach to equal relationship. If you want to argue about my initial assumptions, we're probably going to need a whole 'nother post just to deal with that discussion. Drop a comment, and I'll consider it. If you don't comment about these assumptions, I'll assume that you are with me so far.

So, let's say that I've chosen to participate fully in a specific set of "Optional Imperatives", based on the status quo beliefs of western society -- I'll start from a personal, anecdotal scenario:

Say I have a "regular" full-time job at a social service agency.

In order to "keep" this job, I need to arrive at a certain time, can't leave until a certain time, and am expected to wear a certain type of clothing, which is expected to be neat/clean (and ironed, in my situation).

Throughout the day, my human non-optionals (List #1) are part of my concern -- I need to stay nourished, warm/cool-enough, and eliminate. If I'm single person, able-bodied w/out dependents, when I'm not working, and depending on the particular optional imperatives I select, I may choose to: do my laundry, shop for groceries and housing articles, clean my house, cut the grass, pay the bills, etc.. As a "single unit", most people in traditional western society will hold the basic assumption that I, and I alone, am responsible for performing each and every one of these "expected" tasks.

Let's say I meet someone I like very much, and/or grow to love. We decide to move in together.

From my basic perspective, you essentially now have two "single units", with all their attendant individual needs and optionals, joining forces. In many ways, this is energetically efficient -- "two can eat as cheaply as one" and so on (I've actually found this truism to be true over the long haul).

It's at this point that the negotiation of responsibility-swap for fulfillment of the needs and the optional imperatives generally begins.

Maybe one person loves to cook, and the other person hates to cook (or is less than a stellar chef whose main cooking skills consist of two or three amazing dishes, the ability to open a can with panache, and baked-potato wizardry -- *ahem* -- that would be me). Maybe one person has a huge attachment to "correct" laundry-folding techniques, and the other person is of the toss-and-wash persuasion, with mad ironing skillz and am obsessive love of spray-starch (again -- me).

Or maybe, just maybe (I know this is a stretch -- stay with me) this newly-joined couple consists of a female who grew up in a society where females are trained to be home-makers and care-takers, and a male who grew up in a society where males are trained to be home-fixers and bread-winners.

Never mind that the female who grew up being trained to cook, clean, and launder might despise cooking, cleaning, and laundry, or that the male who grew up being trained to fix, take out the trash, and win the bread has a revulsion for fixing, taking out the trash, and bread-winning.

It has been my experience that, unless subliminal training about gender roles (which most of us have been saturated with from day one of our lives) are brought to consciousness and dealt with directly, they can set in pretty quickly, even in people who consider themselves to be "evolved", "enlightened", or (dare I speak the word?) "feminist".

So it is that many bright, progressive young couples that I know personally, or deal with professionally, end up having the same tired old arguments that I heard my parents having about whose "job" it is to do what.

In my humble fucking opinion, each of these individuals entered the relationship with their own list of "needs" and "optional imperatives". If they weren't together, every one of the needs, and all of the optional imperatives that the individual had opted for would be theirs to do.

They would both be bread-winning in the day and bread-making, lawn-mowing, laundry-doing in the evening/weekend (or hiring someone else to do their "optionals" for them, if they had the means). Even the very wealthy who can hire others to do all of their optional imperative activities still have to eat, keep warm, and take a dump for themselves (and don't plague me the rare exceptions, please).

The concept of gender and genderization is enormous, complex, and constantly evolving. Anything that I would state as "global fact" about this subject would almost certainly be arguable, so I'm going to state the following purely as my opinion, and cite why I think my opinion is informed:

1. The vast majority of people living in western society (at this point) view gender as a two-stroke engine: You are either Male, or you are Female.
   
2. This two-pillared system of gender classification is fully institutionalized in US culture (when you fill out your medical forms, driver's license, census data, etc., etc., etc., you get two choices -- Male or Female -- most clothing stores have "Mens" and "Womens", and "Boys", and "Girls" sections -- and don't even get me started on public bathrooms).
   
3. Genderization role-training begins in our society from the moment we are classified into one of the two "physical" genders by those with whom we interact (whether that gender identification is accurate, or not). This is borne out by studies where subjects where shown a film of, or interacted with an infant, and were told that the infant was either male or female. The study subjects were then asked to describe the infant. Consistently, the descriptors used fell into stereotypical gender-roles -- boys were "big, strong, active", and girls were "soft, little, quiet" -- even if they weren't actually boys or girls.
4. Most (not all) little girls and little boys are given "gender-appropriate toys", nudged (or shoved) to gender-appropriate activities (in this area, I think that boys have it tougher in some ways, as a sissy is going to catch way more flack on the playground than a tomboy, generally -- but I think this, too, is a reflection of male-dominant thought -- cuz, of course a woman would want to be a man, but a man who wants to give up his male privilege is a traitor -- I could go on and on about how I think this influences the severity of the bashings gay men experience -- but I won't).
   

I'm not saying that this has not changed over my lifetime. The strictness of gender-roles has definitely shifted over the years. I'm just saying: It's not gone yet.

I'm also not saying that there are no physiological differences between males and females that might not contribute to them behaving differently.

I'm saying that I believe that, even if there are physiological differences that might contribute to people with higher levels of of a certain hormone tending to act in certain ways, I do not believe that testosterone makes you biologically destined to change the oil, or that estrogen makes you biologically engineered to cook a smashing souffle.

I believe that the definitions of "gender-appropriate" activity around the house is 99.999999999999.....% cultural training.

And that this training may not always show up clearly until you pair up with someone of the opposite gender.

It's been my experience that these days, while people are single, they (usually) realize that they are responsible to fulfill their own needs and optional imperatives. This hasn't always been the case -- a friend of mine who is now in her early 60s once said, when I asked her why she married immediately after High School: "Well, it was just what you did. You couldn't hope to make it on your own".

That's why I'm often shocked to hear my enlightened, evolved, feminist friends having some kind of weird argument with their spouse about who is "supposed" to vacuum under the sofa/screw down the loose bolt on the shaky front stairs railing based on a status-quo rendering of "gender-appropriate" roles.

Even lesbians are not necessarily immune to this. In lesbian couples where there is a self-identified butch/femme dichotomy, I've actually heard things like: "Well, you're the butch/femme -- you do it!"

Then there is the common problem of a couple coming together whose optional-imperative set doesn't match up all that well (often affected by class-background, family-of-origin training, and/or political views). Spouse A thinks that a salon-cut is imperative, while Spouse B thinks that a home-cut is just fine. Spouse A thinks that dust-bunnies on the basement landing are fine, but crud on the wall behind the garbage can is unthinkable, while Spouse B thinks that dust-bunnies will soon grow to dust-elephants regardless of their location, but believes that crud on the wall is just a sign that you are eating well. And on and on and on it goes.

And all this arises from the seemingly simple equation of just two independent units coming together.

Shorter PortlyDyke:

1. I believe that when you come together with another human being to share resources, whether they be food, housing, money, whatever, that you come together as two individuals who, prior to entering your resource-sharing arrangement (whether you call this "marriage" or "living together" or whatever), have the innate human responsibility of managing your eating, temperature-control, and elimination needs.
2. I understand that you may also bring other optional-imperative desires with you.
3. I believe that you remain responsible to fulfill all your survival/optionals for yourself until/unless you make clear agreements to swap some of these responsibilities (ie. "I'll cook and you'll do the laundry. Agreed? Agreed.")
4. I believe that frequently, relationships crash and burn around swapped responsibilities that are not based in conscious agreement, but rather on cultural entrainment and assumptions. I believe that this type of dysfunction affects relationships of all types, from opposite- and same-sex couples to nuclear or complex families and communities.
   

Does all this seem too simple? Want something even more complex? Just add CHILDREN (next post).

Posted byPortlyDyke at 8:30 PM 3 comments  

Labels: Advice, Functional Relationship