communication vs bullying
Apr. 25th, 2010 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kareinaThe author ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tammypierce has been posting recently on the topic of bullying, prompted by a now-famous incident of bullying which ended in the suicide of the victim. Today's post on the subject discussed the fact that many women are inclined to blame other women when their men "cheat" on them, and when this happens words like "slut" tend to be used. This is a topic which is important to me, and I wound up leaving a rather long comment in reply. Since it was a long comment, I decided that it was worth sharing here, as well, since not everyone I care about will see it there.
I, for one, am grateful that there is a good alternative to the whole "cheating" culture. Polyamory, with its emphasis on honesty and communication between all parties involved, as well as communication with anyone with whom one of the people in the relationship would like to be involved, avoids many of the problems such as you describe here.
There are some people out there who claim to be genuinely monogamist--they say that they literally never find anyone else even a little bit attractive once they've found their "one true love". This is very, very rare. Most people are human, and will find more than one person attractive in their life.
In the latter case they have a variety of choices 1) they can choose the polyamory approach and form stable, honest, communication-filled relationships with more than one person. 2) they can deny that aspect of themselves and choose only one person with whom to be involved, "forsaking all others" with whom they would otherwise be compatible 3) they can claim to follow the party line and do monogamy whilst lying about who they are with and "cheating" on their "partner".
To my eye it is an easy decision. I will always choose truthfulness, honor, communication, and love over self-denial or dishonesty.
I, too, have been a victim of the "blame the girl" mentality, where people who should know better chose to bandy around the word "slut".
When I in high school I fell head over heels in love with an intellegent young man, who had the best library. We were together for a while and then he felt the need to end the relationship for reasons I never did understand. I was heartbroken, and still totally smitten with him. A couple of years later my best friend, who had always been a self-described "flirt", who often stated that she wanted to have lots of fun before "settling down", started dating my first love. Meanwhile, I started dating someone else, and the relationship had its ups and downs, as they do, and we eventually decided to go our separate ways.
Sometime later, when my best friend was in the hospital with mono, my first love was visiting my house, and we discovered that the attraction we had felt for one another was still there. We did the right thing and called my best friend to ask her if she was ok with our spending time cuddling and kissing. She told him to do whatever he wanted, and we enjoyed some very sweet affection (not sex; I was still too young to be willing to go that far).
Much to my surprise, when my "best friend" got out of the hospital she wrote me a note expressing her unhappiness with my betrayal and stated that she never wanted to speak with me again. She then spread rumors about me claiming that I was a "slut" (never mind that I'd kissed only three people in my life at that point), and my final year at high school was very difficult and painful as a result.
Even though that incident took place many years before the term "polyamory" had been coined, my instinct was to approach everyone involved with honest communication. Her choice to close off communication and spread hurtful rumors broke my heart just as much as the ending of any other relationship can do. This incident underscored for me the paramount importance of communication in all relationship, romantic or not. People who choose to eschew communication are the ones who also choose paths of bullying, hate, and violence. That is not a path that I find acceptable.
tammypierce has been posting recently on the topic of bullying, prompted by a now-famous incident of bullying which ended in the suicide of the victim. Today's post on the subject discussed the fact that many women are inclined to blame other women when their men "cheat" on them, and when this happens words like "slut" tend to be used. This is a topic which is important to me, and I wound up leaving a rather long comment in reply. Since it was a long comment, I decided that it was worth sharing here, as well, since not everyone I care about will see it there.I, for one, am grateful that there is a good alternative to the whole "cheating" culture. Polyamory, with its emphasis on honesty and communication between all parties involved, as well as communication with anyone with whom one of the people in the relationship would like to be involved, avoids many of the problems such as you describe here.
There are some people out there who claim to be genuinely monogamist--they say that they literally never find anyone else even a little bit attractive once they've found their "one true love". This is very, very rare. Most people are human, and will find more than one person attractive in their life.
In the latter case they have a variety of choices 1) they can choose the polyamory approach and form stable, honest, communication-filled relationships with more than one person. 2) they can deny that aspect of themselves and choose only one person with whom to be involved, "forsaking all others" with whom they would otherwise be compatible 3) they can claim to follow the party line and do monogamy whilst lying about who they are with and "cheating" on their "partner".
To my eye it is an easy decision. I will always choose truthfulness, honor, communication, and love over self-denial or dishonesty.
I, too, have been a victim of the "blame the girl" mentality, where people who should know better chose to bandy around the word "slut".
When I in high school I fell head over heels in love with an intellegent young man, who had the best library. We were together for a while and then he felt the need to end the relationship for reasons I never did understand. I was heartbroken, and still totally smitten with him. A couple of years later my best friend, who had always been a self-described "flirt", who often stated that she wanted to have lots of fun before "settling down", started dating my first love. Meanwhile, I started dating someone else, and the relationship had its ups and downs, as they do, and we eventually decided to go our separate ways.
Sometime later, when my best friend was in the hospital with mono, my first love was visiting my house, and we discovered that the attraction we had felt for one another was still there. We did the right thing and called my best friend to ask her if she was ok with our spending time cuddling and kissing. She told him to do whatever he wanted, and we enjoyed some very sweet affection (not sex; I was still too young to be willing to go that far).
Much to my surprise, when my "best friend" got out of the hospital she wrote me a note expressing her unhappiness with my betrayal and stated that she never wanted to speak with me again. She then spread rumors about me claiming that I was a "slut" (never mind that I'd kissed only three people in my life at that point), and my final year at high school was very difficult and painful as a result.
Even though that incident took place many years before the term "polyamory" had been coined, my instinct was to approach everyone involved with honest communication. Her choice to close off communication and spread hurtful rumors broke my heart just as much as the ending of any other relationship can do. This incident underscored for me the paramount importance of communication in all relationship, romantic or not. People who choose to eschew communication are the ones who also choose paths of bullying, hate, and violence. That is not a path that I find acceptable.
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oh, that took more words to say than I expected it to when I started typing...
Date: 2010-04-26 07:17 am (UTC)The answer to that is, yes, actually, I do. In the other comments
It is *easy* for me to attend an evening party, see a table groaning with lots of yummy food, and eat none of it whatsoever, if it happens to be late enough at night that my body's interest in food has turned off. During the day, when my body craves food, it is still possible for me to eat sensibly at such a buffet if a reasonable portion of the choices are things I wouldn't wish to eat anyway (I'm a very fussy eater with an aversion to anything containing wine or vinegar, which includes a surprisingly large sub-set of food). However, put me in front of a table full of things I like, at a time of day when I'm hungry and I will either eat more than my body needs for fuel just then, or I will feel some emotional distress for denying myself the enjoyment of the yummy food. For me it is both about denying myself something I would like, *and* about denying an intrinsic part of my nature (I gain much pleasure in eating things I enjoy at a time of day when my body is interested in food).
In a way choosing not to eat things I like *is* being untrue to a portion of my nature. In my youth I didn't deny that portion of my nature--if yummy food crossed my path during the day, I ate it, without any regard to the question "does my body need this particular food to fuel my activities and build healthy replacement cells?". I also didn't get much exercise beyond walking from the couch (where I was reading and eating) to the fridge (to get more food) and back again. Had I stayed on that path I would have had much pleasure, but would not have a healthy body. Instead, when I got older, I chose to practice that aspect of self-denial, limiting that pleasure to only a frequency appropriate to keep myself healthy.
Likewise, while it hasn't happened in a few years that I've fallen in love with someone new, I have vivid memories of the one time I attempted to date a monogamist, and what it felt like to be in a situation wherein I did fall in love with someone new and then had to choose between hurting the monogamist or denying myself the opportunity to fully express the love I felt for the new friend. In that case, I asked myself "which would I regret more when I am 80--missing out on this opportunity to share a loving relationship with a wonderful individual, or hurting someone else I care about?" Even so, it was not an easy decision, and I resolved then and there that I never wanted to be put in such a position again.
and the final paragraph, since the word limit was exceeced
Date: 2010-04-26 07:17 am (UTC)So, yes, for me, it would be self-denial to attempt to lead a monogamistic life. I'm sorry you see it as "confrontational", and I assure you that should it ever be my goal to write an essay to convert others to my point of view, I'll look for some other way to say it. However, for an essay for me, recording for myself some of the factors that I perceive as leading to my own choices, I feel the word is the correct one. Yes, I have posted my essay publicly, and others will have reactions to it, and that is ok, because they are all entitled to do so. In the process they learn something about my thought processes and feelings as I experience them this week, and, should they share their reactions, I learn something of their thought processes and reactions this week. Some other week I might think of it in different terms. Some other week the same terms might trigger different reactions in the same people.