More on Christmas. Here was yesterday’s post, and I’m going to continue my musing. I have hated Christmas and I have been studiedly indifferent to Christmas, but now, I’m feeling warmly about the holiday time. Not Christmas itself, but community. Atnd being alive.
As I said in the last post, it’s been a long road to get where I am now. This year, I’m feeling warm and cozy about, not Christmas, but about the holiday season and how much I love the people who are meaninngful to me. My two besties, my Taiji teacher, my brother, my nibling and their brothers, my cat–of course!!–and people on the periphery.
I love the forums to which I belong. Well, one forum. The RKG Discord. However, I am starting to feel a bit…
Here’s the thing. I get to the end of things and then I am done. With websites, if they don’t evolve, then I get bored. The same thing with the same comments by the same people…what’s the point in that? I used to follow politics back when Obama was president. And I would get tired of people being so limited in their points of view. I am sure they would say the same things about me, by the way. That’s the nature of people. They don’t hugely change on the daily. It would be a wild and woolly time if they did. But it’s frustrating when I constantly butt up against the limits of each person.
That’s what I’m starting to feel about the RKG Discord. I like the people very much. Most of them are really kind and caring. But. (You knew there was going to be a but, right?) The limits to the understanding of life outside their own experiences are very restrictive. Here’s the thing. RKG are three cis het white Western dudes. They’re great guys, yes, but they’re still very much in the mainstream themselves.
To that point, their commenters are much like them. The vast majority are cis het white dudes–which is othering at times. Not on purpsoe, obviously, but just because that’s what they know. There is a channel for the grot, and it’s interesting when certain topics come up. Someone brought up polyamory and asked where all his poly people were at. The three of us who responded were all queer people (of varying alternate gender identities). The white straight dudes (which the guy asking was) were all quick to say NO WAY NUH UH HELL NO! Well, one was not, but that was a more complicated response. He wasn’t pro-poly, per se.
It was an interesting thread. I talked to one of the other queer people about it not in the forum because I could not help noticing how the answers were given and along which lines. It’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with being monogamous*, but it’s interesting how quickly they were to jump to vigorously denying that they could every be poly.
Why is it such a theratening thought? That’s what comes to mind when I hear the vehemence. I get why you might want to choose monogamy. It’s certainly easier in some ways–and it’s society-approved as well! But it’s also limiting and puts so much pressure on people to be everything to another person. That’s something that no one can be–no one.
Once, in the weekend forum of Ask A Manager, someone asked about a single woman being friends with a married man. There was a lot of nonsense and rules by the (mostly white, upper-class) women who responded. You can only reply between noon and six p.m., only one text per four hours, and you must never, ever, EVER meet up with him alone. Yes, I’m being snarky, but I’m not far off from the reality here.
There was one woman who was completely unhinged. She said that her husband was not allowed to have female friends and she even said that nonbinary people weren’t allowed to comment because they were not raised with the same rules. WHAT?? That last bit just hurt my brain. Not because it was flagrantly bigoted (which it was), but because people outside the binary were raised in the same fucking society as men and women. We know the stereotypes, the sexism, and the expectation. I can’t speak tfor others, but this is part of the reason that I stepped outside of the binary–because of how rigid and restrictive the rules were. It just didn’t make sense to me.
This woman went on ta rage about how she was the QUEEN in her marriage and there was no room for any otherr woman. I wanted to ask her husband if he was ok and tell him to run. Yes, she was extreme, but she wasn’t far off from what the other women were saying. There were a few queer people speaking to the fact that this was a very heteronormative way of thinking (not to mention monogamy-centric), but they were drowned out by the choruses of ‘know your place, single woman!’ and ‘stay away from my man!’.
This is fucking 2023. I think the post was this year. Maybe late last year, but recent enough that it’s depressing to see this horseshit still persists. A few people noted that if someone was going to cheat, no rules was going to stop them. I think at least one person pointed out that ENM was a thing. But for the mast part, it was advice (to the single woman) on how to make sure she wasn’t misbehaving, even though she was not the one who took the vows.
Also, most people seemed to assume that the woman met the man after he was married. In my case, I met my (male) bestie well before he was married. I met my (female) bestie after she was married. I don’t treat them differently based on their genders. I do treat them differently, of course, because they are fucking different people, but not based on their respective genders.
How the hell–oh yeah.
Ahem.
Happy holidays, y’all. This will be posted on Christmas Day. If you celebrate, may it be merry. If you don’t, may it be merry, anyway.
*I think there are reasons why it’s stifling and something you should think about in a society that crams it down your throat, but it’s not inherently wrong. I guess.