i could never be #2

the hierarchy of polyamory

Hey Heauxz! How was your weekend? What’d you do? Who’d you kiss? I saw Wicked like the rest of the world, and like the rest of the world I was astounded by the brilliance and especially the performances of Cynthia and Ariana. If you love a big flashy movie, or are a lover of great vocals, or crave a funny but emotional story, then this one is for you. I saw it in 3D on an edible, and my god, there is no greater experience. Now time for the mess!

The below essay is a messy work in progress:

Remember this clip I shared here and on socials from WWHL about polyamory?

For the most part, I’ve received a lot of wonderful messages. But some messages on my posts around polyamory aren’t always great. One that stung from this particular video, was from someone Black who wrote…

Okay, before I dive into this, please take a breath with me. 

*inhale* … *exhale*

I’m going to attempt to unpack my feelings, and it will be messy and imperfect. As I say on the podcast, and with anyone I’m having a potentially sensitive conversation with–opinions and thoughts shared have the right to shift, change, evolve, today, tomorrow, or ten years from now.  

Let’s take another breath.

*inhale*…*exhale*

Ready?

Race inside of romantic relationships is something I’ve contended with a lot, especially the last nine years being in a romantic relationship with someone white. As I unpack this, if I say something that gives you pause, please stay curious with me and keep reading with gentle eyes. There aren’t always a ton of regular public conversations around this because it can be a fire storm. The history of race in America is tragic and we are still suffering the consequences of not being able to talk about it transparently and honestly. And quite frankly, a lot of people don’t want to have the conversation(S) because of what they might have to give up, or admit, or shift in themselves should they be confronted with the gray space of it all. The truth of it all. More importantly, multiple truths get to co-exist. Contradictions get to co-exist. And that can be unsettling for many.

Now, I might change my view on this, but interracial relationships, be it romantic or platonic, live in that gray space of contradictions. I can simultaneously acknowledge the harm of whiteness and colonization (look at who is about to be president) and also have a white husband or white bestie. 

I wrote about this in my book in the chapter YouOnSomeFuckShitVille, but years ago, I heard Amanda Seales say there’s a difference between people who are white and people who happen to be white. “People who are white” being those who subscribe to their whiteness as power and privilege (i.e. anyone who voted for 45) and “people who happen to be white” being individuals who are committed to an equitable world, and are actively engaging in work that dismantles and heals the damage done by their lineage.  I know my husband to be someone who is white, but that’s not necessarily how everyone else will see him. Many people just see a white man, and many other see me being with him as a betrayal(?) As an abandoning of my Blackness. I’ve been called a lot of wildly hurtful things when the reactions are at their most extreme. At their most docile, I’ve been dismissed as a disappointment. *By the way* I’m not sharing this as a means of pity. My intention is to say the quiet shit out loud, so that eventual healing can take place. So that others might add to the conversation and we might learn, grow, and heal together. 

The race piece of this person’s comment is such a core wound for me. As I’ve spoken about before, being in an interracial relationship with a white partner tends to open me up to criticism and critique. Tends to be a way some folx want to invalidate my Blackness. It’s looked down upon with a fog of disappointment at best, disgust at worst. I often don’t know what to do with it because it’s rooted in historical trauma that our country still won’t talk about and is absolutely valid.  But I’ve chosen my partner not because of his race, rather because of his heart. More importantly how our hearts and souls find safety within each other.

I’ll be honest and say there are plenty of times where I have wished Matthew was Black or of color, because I don’t want to be discarded by my own community. There are times where I’ve thought I might need to end the relationship so I can be with someone Black and prove how pro-Black I am. Then I have to sit with it and ask, do *I* in the quietest parts of my spirit care if Matthew is white, and the answer always returns “no.” Because inside of our relationship race is only something we contend with in the world, not in each other. Now listen, I’m not saying “We don’t see race” or any of that. A white partner with a Black partner better fucking see race. Better know how to show up for their Black partner in an anti-Black world. But in our home, we are Matthew and Brandon. Race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. exist of course, but they are not the substance of our relationship. Our humanity is. Our values. Our goals. Our love is the substance. Is what we build from. But allow me to be vulnerable and say, I hate when I feel like Black people are disappointed in me. When they are disgusted with me. My ABVs (Acceptance, Belonging, Validation) are triggered. I turn into the awkward middle schooler who wants to be loved by the cool kids. But truthfully, I never was. I tend to forget to consider them until after I’ve done something, which is followed by “remorse” or “fear” or “longing”.  Not because their position is “right” or because their acceptance is the most “valuable”, but because I don’t want to be the outcast. I don’t want to be a disappointment. And that’s my work. Engaging with the part of me that longs for approval. More specifically approval from a sector of my community that would reject me without knowing me. Because there are plenty of Black people who don’t give a fuck, who love me, and who celebrate my love. But you know the adage, ten people can praise you, but you always focus on the ONE person that trashes you. Even though I know better, I still default to this. Relatable?

What struck me about this person’s comment though was that they brought race into a conversation that wasn’t about race. Almost insinuating that polyamory is a “white thing” or at the very least, “not a Black thing.” Interestingly enough that argument has been used around queerness forever. A sector of Black folx (and other folx of color) who think being gay or trans is white people shit that has infiltrated our communities to “emasculate” and “destabilize” us. The truth is queerness, polyamory, transness, non-binarynesss are all things that existed in indigenous cultures. White colonizers are the ones who criminalized it and made them “not of God”. But many don’t know that, because we won’t talk about history. We won’t acknowledge the full scope of it. In America we go, Columbus, Thanksgiving, Slavery, MLK, “freedom”. Like, girl! So many chapters are missing. Hell, there are books missing! Stories of Black and brown cultures that embraced queerness, honored womanhood, revered transness. Colonization really did a magnificent job of erasure, because here I am a gay, non-binary, polyamorous individual and every one of those pieces of my identity at some point have been classified as “not Black” by someone Black. I don’t have a solution for this, other than to create space to talk about it. Acknowledge that it happens. Create more space for conversation and dialogue, that could lead to understanding, clarity, mutual respect. Honestly I don’t know. It’s all messy.

The second part of the comment about being “number 2” I actually understand, and I take responsibility for how I’ve spoken about my partners that would lead someone unfamiliar with us to think there is hierarchy in our relationship. So go with me on this. Some things will sound harsh upon first read, but keep reading because I promise I’ll break down my frame of thinking. 

Matthew and I are married. Marriage for me is not a sign that we love each other more than those who aren’t married. Nor is it a guarantee that we will be together forever. So why get married? For me it was a declaration of trust. Should anything happen to me, I love and trust Matthew to take care of me and wanted him to legally have that power, especially given the fact that I’m not in relationship with my family. The reality is our society gives protections to married couples, that we wanted to be able to have. *SIDE TANGENT* I have some serious trauma around abandonment. My father wasn’t ever a presence in my life, though he lived near. That was my first tango with abandonment. At 22 I became estranged from my mother because Jesus was more important than accepting her Gay child. Second major tango with abandonment. I think many of us would like to believe that parents should be there for us no matter what, but for a lot of us that’s not the case. Some parents do abandon their kids. Some parents leave their kids. Sometimes it’s by choice, sometimes it’s by necessity, sometimes it’s by life (for example, a parent could pass away.) The impact for the child, whatever the reason, is still likely to be abandonment. Both of my parents are alive and well, and comfortable enough not having a relationship with me. In my brain and heart, if my parents, my blood, could be okay walking away, I’m under no illusion that people who are not blood won’t do the same. I’m not saying it will be their intention, but rather that shit happens. Life be lifeing. People you thought would be around “forever” aren’t always able to hold up that end of the bargain. Knowing that, causes me to show up in a way that I don’t necessarily think is “good” or “bad” but just is. On some level, I’m always prepared to be left. Even when I’ve let my guard down, and let someone in my life, I acknowledge that today is today and ten years from now might be different. Shit happens. Life happens. And we may no longer be in each other’s life. Not because something negative happened, but just cuz. Life. This sounds depressing as I type it, but in my bones it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like…life. Now this doesn’t mean I’m not planning my future with Matthew, or my friends, and other partners, it just means I have a level of detachment to it. In some ways this makes me quite low maintenance–able to go with the flow. I can navigate the change in tides easily because I’m not committed to *my* idea of how it should be. In some ways though, I think that makes me a challenging partner. Or perhaps it makes me feel like a bad partner? (I can hear my therapist say don’t put a judgement on it, but “bad” is what I feel). People naturally want to plan their future, but when I try to do it, I come up blank. I know how I want to feel, but I don’t know what I want all the pieces to look like. I may know things that I don’t want, but the specifics of what I do want are still unknown. Which in truth, I’m comfortable with. I like the flow of not knowing. I like choosing to be with the people that are in my life. I like choosing how I want to show up instead of how I think I’m “supposed” to show up because of a title. *END TANGENT* I’m committed to Matthew because I love Matthew not because I signed a piece of paper. I would be just as committed to him and us without the titles. Titles and labels to me are for the world. Which is what I shared when I talked about Bun and I calling each other boyfriends. We weren’t in need of a title, but we wanted to signal to others that our relationship was more than just a friendship. We could have simply used “partner” but for Bun’s anchor relationship (the partner he lived with) they wanted to reserve that title for them. 

When I’m with Matthew or Bun separately, the titles have no hierarchy. But I realize now, based on that comment, when the “husband” and “boyfriend” titles are in conversation together, naturally a hierarchy is projected onto it. Husband being number 1, boyfriend being number 2. Which is not the case for us. (For some poly relationships, perhaps there is comfort in the hierarchy for both “number 1” and “number 2”. Some partners identify with Solo polyamory which means that someone has multiple intimate relationships with people but has an independent or single lifestyle. They may not live with partners, share finances, or have a desire to reach traditional relationship milestones in which partners’ lives become more intertwined.-Gabriela Pichardo

When people ask about how there can not be a hierarchy, I often use the examples of having multiple besties or kids. I have some besties that I’ve known for 18 years, and others for five. One is not more important than the other, one doesn’t get preferred treatment. If I had three kids, one would not be more important just because they were older. Of course my relationships with Matthew and Bun are inherently different. One person I’ve been with for nine years, the other a year. One person I live with, the other I sleepover with. But nobody has veto power over the other. Nobody has priority over the other. In fact both of them are always considering the others’ needs, as I consider the needs of their partners.  And both of them get to express their needs and we commit to figuring out how to meet them together. In polyamory I think of each relationship as their own garden to tend to. One might be a garden of mangos, and the other might be a garden of sunflowers. They require different resources, but the same intentional touch. They aren’t in competition with one another. They aren’t in opposition to one another. And at the end of the day who doesn’t want sweet juicy mangos and beautiful sunflowers in their home?!

The blueprint of traditional monogamous relationships is something we get indoctrinated with from our first toys. When I was in kindergarten, my pre-school did this mock “marriage.” We were cast as bridesmaids and groomsmen, and my pre-school bestie was the groom. This girl, who I remember very little about other than her name, which I loved, “Rotina”, was the bride. Our teachers got us all dressed up, took us to a chapel, and our parents were in the audience as we walked down the aisle singing “Going to the chapel”. The relationship blueprint of dating, marriage, babies, retirement, death is so clear. I know how to do it. We all do. (Sort of.) This poly thing though, is not as clear. Requires a lot of conversations. Requires a willingness and grace to get things wrong and pivot. Requires an embracing of evolution as new emotions and obstacles emerge. Requires intentionality of holding each other’s hearts. I ain’t gonna bullshit you, it’s not for everyone. It’s a lot of fucking work. There are times when all my relationships are smooth, times when one is out of whack, times when both are. But for me the work is worth it. It aligns with my heart, mind, and spirit. I wish for people to respect it instead of spitting on it. I wish for people who don’t get it to respectfully ask questions instead of making crude assumptions. I wish for people to understand that just because something isn’t for you doesn’t mean it’s not of value. But our world is filled with haters and trolls. I have to remind myself that when someone is uncomfortable with something–especially someone’s liberation (think queerness, transness, feminism, pro-Blackness, etc)– there is unfortunately a desire to squash it. There’s an instinct to loudly declare an opinion that doesn’t consider the heart on the receiving end. An opinion that isn’t rooted in any kind of curiosity, compassion, or context. Just ignorance. There is an audacity to declare their opinion as a fact. They expect their truth to be yours. When I am my best self, I can see those comments for what they are and let them roll off. But there are times when they just hurt, and I have to be human and let them hurt. Let myself feel the blow, let it work through my body, until I am able to remember I’m not alone. For every one person that wants to trash me, there are ten who have my back. 

Though impossible for me to wrap all this up in a perfectly resolved bow, let me at the very least say, Bun and Matthew are my partners*. And perhaps that’s how I will begin referring to them moving forward in these public spaces to mitigate any confusion around their “position”. Of course I will check in with them first. But regardless of the titles we end up using, I want you, my fellow heauxz to know, that’s how I see and love them.

*a person with whom one shares an intimate relationship

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Thank you for reading! I also wanted to share some messy clips from my interview with

Zachary Zane

about sex parties, consent, and my own messy story about the importance of pushing out loads! Baby, this is the sex education we deserved in school! You can listen to the full episode, here!

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To send me questions, comments, or share a messy story please email TellMeSomethingMessy@gmail.com

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Find my book You Gotta Be You at local bookstore, Reparations Club

And in case you haven’t heard it yet today, you are so deeply loved. I love you.