“Ask Kai: Advice for the Apocalypse” is a column by Kai Cheng Thom to help you survive and thrive in a challenging world. Have a question? Email askkai@xtramagazine.com.
Dear Kai,
I need some advice about ethical non-monogamy. I’m a trans guy in a queer, non-hierarchical partnership with my girlfriend. We both see other people, and I guess you could say we are practising relationship anarchy, with a long-term commitment to one another. My girlfriend and I don’t like to “rank” our partnerships in order of importance (because every person and every relationship is important), but we do acknowledge that there are different levels of closeness and responsibility in a long-term relationship versus short-term ones. Lately, though, I’m starting to struggle with the lack of sexuality between me and my girlfriend, and even more so because of the context of ethical non-monogamy in which we live.
My girlfriend and I started dating about two years ago, and in the beginning, things were very sexual. We had a great time together. And then, about a year ago, things just petered out. I think this is kind of normal in a long-term relationship, but what makes it extra hard is that I know she’s seeing other people and having a fair amount of sex with them, both with casual hook ups and more romantic partners. Honestly, it feels kind of unfair. Like, if she’s having sex with other people, why can’t she also have it with me? I know I shouldn’t compare myself to her other relationships, but I just wonder what they’re giving her that I can’t, and I hate feeling like I’m second best. I would understand if she was just feeling non-sexual in general, but she’s clearly enjoying sleeping with other people, and it just feels really shitty and kind of inconsiderate to me that she’s acting this way. It seems she’ll access emotional care and intimacy from me when she wants to, but she won’t acknowledge that I have sexual needs too.
Here is the question I’m really struggling with: Is it unethical for her to have very sexual relationships with other people but a mostly non-sexual relationship with me when we’ve explicitly agreed that we aren’t hierarchically polyamorous? And is it unethical for me to feel like we should be having more sex? Am I crossing her boundaries by asking for more sex than she wants to have? I don’t want to be selfish, but I also want to stand up for my needs in this relationship. Can you help?
Jealous and Morose
Dear JAM,
What raw and honest questions you are asking about your partner and yourself! There is great power and beauty in the practice of queer non-monogamy: in choosing to defy the dominant culture’s ideas of what constitutes a “normal” and “healthy” relationship, we get to discover the underlying truth of our own needs and build new and exciting erotic and romantic worlds. Yet, as you are discovering, the unscripted nature of non-monogamy and polyamory also forces us to confront difficult truths about our feelings, our behaviours and the nature of intimate relationships.
The truth is that erotic attraction between partners does wax and wane, even while interest in people outside the partnership continues to flourish. We cannot always give our partners the pleasure they want; sometimes, other people can. The heart of truly ethical non-monogamy is the acknowledgement that we cannot be all things all the time to the people we love and yet we remain loveable anyway.
I will be direct here and say, JAM, that I invite you to practice some gentle caution when it comes to thinking about your girlfriend’s reticence to have sex with you while pursuing sexuality with other partners as something that is “unfair” or “unethical.” Of course, it makes sense that you might feel rejected, jealous and even frustrated and hurt about the current state of affairs. Nobody likes to watch their partner have a good time with other people while there are problems at “home,” so-to-speak—and this is true even of the most flexible polyamorous relationships.
However, without knowing more details about the conversations you’ve had (or haven’t had) with your girlfriend, I think it’s important to bring in the foundational feminist notion that we are not entitled to sex with any person, whether or not we are in a relationship with them. Following this logic, we are also never—ever—obligated to have sex with anyone, no matter how romantically committed we are to them.
There is an essential distinction between expressing disappointment or frustration about the lack of erotic play in a previously sexual relationship and saying that it’s ethically wrong for your partner not to have sex with you. The former is an authentic reflection of your emotional experience; it’s telling the truth about how you feel in the current situation. The latter is actually putting pressure on your girlfriend to have sex with you and implies that your hurt feelings are more important than her sexual boundaries.
This is a fine line, but it is extremely important one, and situations like this one are part of the reason that sexual consent is a lot more complex than it first appears. Given the emphasis on ethics in your letter, JAM, I think it’s worth going a bit deeper into this topic: What is the appropriate way feel and act when a romantic partner declines to have sex with us and it hurts our feelings? It’s often helpful here to shift our thinking about boundaries away from a notion of “permission” and towards a framework of “rights and responsibilities,” an idea that comes from the work of intimacy educator Betty Martin.
So let’s start with rights. JAM, in this situation, you have the right to your own emotions, including frustration, jealousy and disappointment. You also have the right to ask for sex, provided that you are also open to taking no for answer. Your girlfriend, on the other hand, has the right to her boundaries and desires, including her desire to pursue other people in the ways that she sees fit—this is the agreement the two of you made when you entered a relationship based on relationship anarchy. Your rights and your girlfriend’s rights are not mutually exclusive here; you can honour them both at the same time, in the same conversation.
What about responsibilities? Well, JAM, the way I see it, you have the responsibility to take ownership of your needs and desires. If there are things you want that you’re not getting in your relationship, it’s important that you be willing to make requests and have a conversation with your girlfriend about what you’d like to change rather than hoping or expecting that she’ll automatically know how to make you feel better. You also have the responsibility to reflect on your feelings and behaviours, because it’s possible that the reason (or part of the reason) that your girlfriend has been avoiding having sex with you is because she’s no longer comfortable with something that’s happening in the relationship. In other words: if you’d like your girlfriend to change what she’s doing, you might also need to make some changes yourself.
“A cornerstone of ethical non-monogamy is that we don’t pretend that every relationship we have happens in vacuum.”
Your girlfriend, for her part, has the responsibility to take ownership of her needs and desires and to communicate those with you. Is she simply more intrigued by the novelty of having sex with new people right now? Is there, in fact, something about her dynamic with you that she doesn’t like? In a committed relationship of any kind, it is a reasonable expectation that we keep our partners informed of how we’re feeling in the relationship and discuss any major changes. She also has the responsibility to consider your feelings about the way things are going and how you’re impacted by her other relationships. This is a cornerstone of ethical non-monogamy: we don’t pretend that every relationship we have happens in vacuum. Rather, we acknowledge natural fears, insecurities, attachments and inevitable conflicts that arise from sharing intimacy between many human beings.
When we put all these rights and responsibilities together, JAM, what I see is that you and your girlfriend probably need to have a deep and honest conversation with one another—a conversation that lets go of a “right and wrong” framing to really explore what is going on under the surface. It sounds to me like you are feeling jealous and abandoned, and you’re longing for more erotic intimacy. It’s less clear what’s happening for your girlfriend, but it seems pretty likely that she too is pursuing some unmet needs outside of her relationship with you. So what’s getting in the way? What could happen if you got curious about one another’s emotional experience, asked questions about what’s not going well and what could get better?
Sexual attraction between couples does change over time. Many people, perhaps even most people, are hardwired to seek novelty and adventure when it comes to erotic self-expression, and that spirit is hard to keep alive in a long-term relationship. It’s possible to recapture the spark, but it takes work, perseverance and a willingness to get really vulnerable with one another. In a strictly monogamous relationship, the two of you would have to decide whether or not you are willing to do that work—and if not, it might be time to end the relationship.
Polyamory offers a wider range of options; for example, you might decide that it’s okay for you both to get your sexual needs met elsewhere while maintaining emotional intimacy and commitment. You might also try inviting new people into your shared sexual life to see if that revives your erotic connection. However, none of this is likely to be effective without a shared commitment to honesty, patience and compassion for one another, and to the deepening of both of your relationship skills. There aren’t really any quick fixes to the problems that you raise, JAM. The good news is the answer is also often more simple than we think. building strong communication skills is like building a muscle: the more reps you put in, the stronger you become.
Ethical non-monogamy is a beautiful dream, JAM. So is the promise of a new relationship. Yet the initial euphoria of our romantic dreams must always come to an end, replaced by the reality and complexity of what it means to be in a relationship with human beings—which is to say, in relationship with the imperfection in ourselves and those we love. Yet it is in coming face-to-face with the flaws, the grit and the rough patches that we come to know ourselves and develop the skills to make our dreams into reality. Hang in there, JAM. Love is worth the work.
Kai Cheng Thom is no longer a registered or practicing mental health professional. The opinions expressed in this column are not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. All content in this column, including, but not limited to, all text, graphics, videos and images, is for general information purposes only. This column, its author, Xtra (including its parent and affiliated companies, as well as their directors, officers, employees, successors and assigns) and any guest authors are not responsible for the accuracy of the information contained in this column or the outcome of following any information provided directly or indirectly from it.
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