It’s particularly good to be included on a list with other authors who I enjoy and respect such as Esther Perel and Polly Young-Eisendrath. Esther’s work offers similar critiques to mine of the common assumption that we can get all of our needs met in one relationship: particularly the need for hot passionate love and the need for warm companionate love. Like me Polly weaves together ideas and practices from western psychotherapy and from Buddhist philosophy.

It’s also great to see the inclusion of books like mine on this list which offer alternatives to normative culturally accepted ways of doing relationships. I’m now keen to get hold of Clare Chambers‘s Against Marriage: An Egalitarian Defence of the Marriage-Free State, which looks like it reflects on some similar issues to my book, but from the perspective of what levelling out hierarchies of love might look like on a societal level than an interpersonal one.

Thanks again for including me

The post Rewriting the Rules on relationship book list appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

This series of three posts work through what stuck patterns are, and the ways we can address them if we’re stuck in alone, or if we’re stuck in with others. However, all three are relevant to everyone because I’ll suggest that those of us stuck in alone could do with exploring how we might do some of this work with others, while those of us stuck in with others could do with getting plenty of solitude in order to do the parts of the work that need doing alone. 

In this first post, I’ll start with a bit more of an introduction to what stuck patterns are, and why we might prioritise shifting them at this time. 

Hopefully if/when this period of Covid-19 crisis is over, the ideas and practices here will still be helpful for those finding themselves alone and wanting to address their relationship patterns, and for those wanting to do so while in relationship with others. I’m also aware that not everybody will be ‘stuck in’, particularly those in the category of key-workers. Hopefully some of the ‘stuck together’ advice will also be useful for those who’re still out in the world working with others.

What are stuck patterns?

The point of the tweet I began with is that intimate relationships hold up a mirror to our habitual patterns of relating with others, and with ourselves. Most of us will have fetched up with some stuck patterns in how we relate along the way, which will have ended up being harmful – or at least not helpful – to ourselves and others. 

These patterns will generally emerge in all of our relationships, given time. Often they influence how we relate to other things in our lives besides people too: work, leisure, food, exercise, technology, etc. In this post I’m focusing on how stuck patterns emerge in relationships, particularly in relationships where we are very emotionally close and/or spending a lot of time together. This is where they often come up most intensely.

Stuck patterns determine how we relate to others  – and ourselves – on an everyday basis, and also when we’re triggered or activated. Different therapeutic approaches have all kinds of ways of naming these patterns and understanding where they come from. Generally they agree that stuck patterns are the strategies which we learnt when we were young – or sometimes through stress and trauma in later life – which enabled us to survive.

One useful model comes from Pete Walker’s work on cPTSD. He suggests that these strategies are often versions of the classic trauma responses of fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. Some of us learnt as kids that what worked was to battle, belittle or control those around us (fight). Others learnt that striving to perfect ourselves and do all-of-the-things was the way (flight). Others learnt to retreat into ourselves and self-soothing (freeze). Others learnt to do whatever it took to appease others and be what they wanted us to be (fawn). 

Most of us have some combination of these strategies, or go to different ones at different times. Generally they have become the way we habitually relate to other people, and they come out most vividly when we’re triggered or activated: in times of crisis or conflict.

For example, my go-to patterns are mainly fawn/flight. The fawn part means I habitually try to monitor myself to ensure I’m being ‘good’ for those around me, and struggle to have boundaries if people want me to do things that don’t feel good for me. The flight part means I tend towards over- rather than under-functioning, like – I don’t know – writing a whole bunch of books, zines, and blog posts to try to figure this stuff out and communicate it to others! 

When triggered, fawn/flight means that it can feel life-or-death to me to make things right with people. And I’m likely to throw everything that I have at the situation, exhausting myself in the process, rather than taking the time I need to look after myself and get some perspective.

If Pete’s model doesn’t work for you, there are many other ways of looking at stuck patterns out there. For example Jeffrey Young lists ten common problematic schemas with which we tend to approach relationships, again developed as survival strategies during our lives.

Whatever language you use for the stuck patterns, and whatever understanding you have of how they got there, we all have them and we can address them by:

• Noticing the patterns
• Doing something different
• Making that an everyday practice so that new habits can bed in over time

Why address stuck patterns?

If we decide to stay in relationship with somebody, we’ll need to address those patterns in order for that relationship to work well for everyone in it over time (if it’s not working for everyone, it’s not working for anyone). If we break-up because the patterns are hurting us too much then we’ll need to address them or we’ll likely bring them into subsequent relationships.

Better for us

Addressing our stuck patterns is better for ourselves because it will help us to discern which relationships in our lives are good for us. It will also prevent us from getting into painful dynamics with others, and enable us to notice such dynamics and shift them when we have.

Better for our close people

Addressing our stuck patterns is better for the people we’re close to because we’re less likely to hurt them, or get stuck in dynamics where we keep triggering each other with our patterns. Hopefully once we’re clearer on what our patterns are – and more able to shift from them – we’ll also have more capacity for the people in our lives and deal better when relationships do become difficult.

Better for everyone else

Addressing our stuck patterns is better for everybody because when we’re stuck in painful dynamics we have so much less to offer to the other people in our lives and to our wider communities. It’s extremely hard to be empathic and compassionate when we’re stuck in these patterns. We’re also more likely to act out of these patterns with others beyond our closest people if we haven’t addressed them: friends online, the staff in the supermarket, strangers on social media. 

It might seem like addressing our relationship patterns is not the most urgent thing we could be doing while the world is literally on fire with rising fevers and global temperatures, conflagrations and conflicts. In fact I’d argue it’s one of the most vital things we can do. Why?

• On an everyday level our lives have the potential to be heaven or hell depending on how we relate to ourselves and each other. If we’re all relating to each other through our stuck patterns we’ll hurt each other and feel terrible about ourselves. If we can find ways to shift out of our stuck patterns then there’s the potential for everyday life – even a much more constrained everyday life – to be okay, perhaps even pretty good if we explicitly make this our plan and notice how we’re making progress over time.
• In relation to sickness specifically we know the toll that stress and trauma take on the immune system. If we’re putting other people – and ourselves – under stress and/or triggering them into trauma responses with our patterns then we’re making it more likely that they’ll get sick and struggle to recover quickly, not to mention the mental health crises that can result from prolonged relational stress or being frequently retraumatised.
• Just as our relationship to ourselves often mirrors the way we relate to other people, so too does the way we relate to the wider world. At a time when we urgently need to all be thinking and behaving collaboratively and collectively – and kindness, compassion and mutuality are essential – unlearning patterns which keep us locked in our own individual pain – and in stuck dynamics with close people – seems pretty urgent.

Addressing stuck patterns

In the next two blog posts I’ll cover how you might address stuck patterns if you’re stuck in alone, and if you’re stuck in with others. In some ways the challenges and opportunities of these two alternatives are opposite. Those stuck in alone may find it easier to get the space and time needed to do this slow habit-shifting work (although this will be more challenging for those who are still working full time from home and/or who struggle not to fill time with distractions). They may find it harder to get opportunities to practise shifting habits in relationship with others. Those stuck in together may find it hard to get enough space to do the inner work needed here, but they may find it easier to get practical opportunities to practice in relationship, particularly if those around them are up for this kind of work too.

A key aspect of what I’m arguing here is reframing our stuckness (alone or together) as an opportunity. Of course it’s vital to experience and express all of our feelings about the ways in which the current situation has altered our lives. This isn’t a Pollyanna approach. We need to feel our fear at what might be coming, our grief at what we’ve lost, our rage at systems which have failed to support us. 

However, embracing the potential in what has happened for befriending ourselves and addressing our stuck patterns can definitely be a useful reframe. It also means that we can relate differently to the micro-moments of difficulty which come up as we spend more time alone or with close people. Instead of regarding each freak-out, plunge into loneliness, argument, or relationship tension as a failure, we can reframe these as opportunities to slow down, to turn towards what we’re finding hard, and to learn more about our patterns and how they operate in us.

To read on to the posts about how to address stuck patterns if alone or with others, follow these links:

Stuck in alone.

Stuck in together.

There’s more about shifting stuck patterns when they are fleeting, entrenched, or overwhelming in this post.

Patreon link: If you liked this, feel free to support my Patreon, it will certainly help this self-employed person to maintain some income during these uncertain times.
Plural tag: This post was written by Beastie.

The post Stuck in alone or together: An opportunity to address stuck patterns appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

How would you define boundaries?

I’d define them as the limits that we set around how it’s acceptable for another person to behave with us. We set them in order that we can feel free-enough and safe-enough to have a relationship, interaction or encounter with that person. Boundaries vary from person to person because they’re often rooted in our particular lived experiences and values. For example a vegetarian might have a boundary about people not eating meat in front of them. Somebody who has a particular trigger, phobia, allergy, or disability might have boundaries around people being mindful of those, and acting accordingly.

There are some boundaries which might be more generally applicable to everyone, for example those around what is, and is not, consensual behaviour. The Consent Checklist lists some of these.

We can usefully think about our boundaries with ourselves as well as with other people. People often overstep their own boundaries, for example by spending time with somebody who doesn’t feel good to be around because they feel an obligation to do so, or by making themselves work when they’re tired or sick.

What informs the way we approach boundaries?

Probably the biggest one is the non-consensual culture we live in. Very few of us have families, friendship groups, communities, or workplaces which encourage us to tune into – and assert – our boundaries. In fact many do the opposite.

Most everyday relationships involve at least a certain amount of trying to get people to be what we want them to be for us, or to do things that they may not want to do. Examples include getting our friends to do a social activity we want to do, making family get together for the holiday, or pressuring a person to eat the food we’ve prepared.

Most institutions encourage people to work in ways that aren’t good for them, to push themselves further than feels safe or comfortable. Most constrain people to certain forms of labour rather than finding out what would be the best fit for them, in order to feel most free and fulfilled.

Most of us were brought up in families where we were made to eat food we didn’t like, to receive hugs and kisses we didn’t want, to pretend to enjoy presents or entertainments that didn’t feel good to us. Most of us went to schools where the expectation was that we would learn what we were taught was important rather than what we enjoyed, where we were bullied by other kids and told that this was normal, and where we had little choice over the kinds of food we ate or physical activity we engaged in. We were also probably taught to mistrust and/or hide certain important emotional responses like anger, sadness and fear: that we shouldn’t feel those things or that we should pretend we didn’t.

All of this means that most of us find it difficult to tune into where our boundaries actually are, and feel guilt, shame, or fear about communicating them to others. 

Can people learn how to assert boundaries as an adult? How do they?

Love Uncommon’s suggestions for self-consent are a good starting place. We need to recognise that we’ve probably been taught to treat ourselves – and others – pretty non-consensually. We might need emotional support in facing the painful implications of that: The places where we are a survivor and the places where we’ve behaved non-consensually ourselves.

Then it’s about learning about boundaries and consent: which is a long – probably lifelong – journey. Books, websites, and workshops can help with this, several of which I mention in the consent zine. It’s important to have at least some people in your life who’re on the same page with this stuff who you can practice asserting your boundaries with, and having them respected. At first you might find that you swing from having no – or poor – boundaries to being all about the boundaries that keep you safe. Love Uncommon calls this going from the broken house to the fortress of solitude! Over time you can get to a more balanced place, but a certain amount of swinging is to be expected.

It can be great to practise respecting your own boundaries, by tuning into what is a ‘yes’, ‘no’, and ‘maybe’ for you in more straightforward areas of life: for example around what you eat (if you have a fairly good relationship to food) or what physical activities you do and don’t want to do, 

How do boundaries with yourself differ from boundaries with other people?

It’s a pretty similar idea but in this case it is us who set – and overstep – our own boundaries. Again we’re generally brought up both to allow others to overstep our boundaries, and to do so ourselves. For example, most of us have been taught to crave the love, respect and approval of others, and have had painful experiences where we have lost those things. So we may well overstep our boundaries in the hope of getting love, respect or approval. That might include having sex we don’t want to have, working beyond our comfort levels to do well at work, or giving more of ourselves than we can really offer in order to help a friend or partner.

Other ways of overstepping our own boundaries might be about the boundaries we have which keep us safe and healthy. We might know that it’s not good for us to drink a lot or watch TV all night, but we might overstep those boundaries when we’re feeling low or anxious or overwhelmed. 

Our own boundaries are linked to our boundaries with other people because we’re relational beings. In order to keep boundaries with others we need to know what our boundaries are and recognise when they have been overstepped, as well as articulating them to others, letting them know when they have overstepped them, and withdrawing from that person if they keep doing so – or if they aren’t accountable for their behaviour.

Why is important to have clear boundaries around sex?

Sex is one area where we can be badly hurt by having our boundaries overstepped, as we know from the literature about the physical and psychological toll of sexual assault and abuse. So it’s really important to know where our boundaries are and to respect other peoples’ around sex. Of course this isn’t easy because most of us have also received a bunch of cultural messages that we should want sex, that we should have it in a very specific way, that a relationship or date is a failure if sex doesn’t happen, and that we owe sex to people in certain situations – like if we’ve gone on a date with them, gone home with them, or if they are our partner.

We need to do a great deal – as a culture – to shift these messages so that people know that it’s absolutely okay to never want sex and/or to only want certain kinds of sex under certain circumstances. Also we need to learn that the aim of any relationship or encounter should be for consent to happen – whether or not sex happens, rather than the aim being for sex to happen – whether or not consent happens.

How can sexual assault survivors navigate emotional and physical flashbacks during sex?

First of all it’s about knowing that this is extremely common and many survivors experience it. Definitely it’s worth getting ongoing support from a trauma specialist therapist or counsellor who can help you with the flashbacks. It’s vital to only be sexual if you’re sure you want to be, and with partners who will know how to tell if you’re having flashbacks and will stop the moment that happens. It’s useful to learn – yourself – about how trauma works and what you need when these triggers hit. Books like Trauma Is Really Strange and Healing Sex may well be helpful.

Justin and I did a whole podcast episode about how to handle getting triggered during a hook-up which may be helpful here.

How can survivors of child sexual abuse navigate discussing trauma and boundaries with new partners during sex?

I don’t think this is really specific to survivors of child sexual abuse because, as I’ve mentioned, very few of us have upbringings which encourage us to tune into, or articulate, our boundaries. Also sadly many of us – particularly people who are marginalised in terms of their gender, sexuality, class, race, or disability – reach adulthood with significant trauma. However those with experiences of CSA may find boundaries around sex with others particularly difficult given that those were violated at such a vulnerable age. Having adult experiences which are very careful and consensual can do a lot to shift our bodies and brains in ways which mean we are better able to have and hold our boundaries.

I’d suggest that everybody enters into any sexual encounter or relationship aware that the other person probably has some non-consensual experiences in their past. The boundaries conversation is a really essential one to be having with anybody you’re having sex with (or any other kind of relationship come to that).

Justin Hancock and I put together this zine – Make Your Own Sex Manual – to help people to tune into their own sexual needs, wants, limits and boundaries, and to communicate them to others. Again things like the yes, no, maybe list are helpful, as is communicating about what happens to you if you do go into a trauma response so that the other person can recognise this. It’s absolutely normal for people to dissociate, for example, or to go into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses.

How does navigating boundaries change in polyamorous dynamics compared to monogamous dynamics?

I don’t draw a clear distinction here because actually there’s a lot of overlap between monogamy and non-monogamy. Many people who say they are monogamous are actually secretly non-monogamous, and research has found that some monogamous relationships are actually more open than some polyamorous ones, and that people often mean very different things by monogamy, and end up realising that they had very different rules. There’s lots more about all this in my book Rewriting the Rules.

For anyone in any kind of relationship it can be useful to have upfront conversations about where their boundaries are. What do they need in a relationship in order to feel free-enough and safe-enough for that relationship to be a positive one for them? Again Justin and I have made a zine to help people figure this stuff out: Make Your Own Relationship User Guide. 

Things you might think about include: What does being ‘in a relationship’ mean to me? What am I offering to the other person and what do I want from them? Where am I on a spectrum from being sexually monogamous to sexually open? What about from emotionally closest to one person to equally close with a number of people? What agreements would I want about privacy? How enmeshed or entwined do I like relationships to be? Do I have a sense of relationship escalator, and what does that involve for me? 

How do you feel like asserting boundaries enriches our lives?

It enriches our lives more than it’s possible to put into words! As long as we’re unable to know and/or communicate our boundaries we’re treating ourselves – and often others – non-consensually. This is taking a deep physical and emotional toll on our lives. The author Gabor Mate suggests that a great deal of physical illness is a result of us not listening When The Body Says No, and there’s much evidence for the role of the trauma of non-consent in all forms of mental suffering.

When we assert our boundaries we can begin to be more open, authentic and vulnerable with others because we can trust ourselves to know and articulate where our boundaries are, and we can trust others in our lives to help us to hold them. This can lead to much deeper intimacy with others and a much kinder relationship with ourselves.

As we learn to feel our boundaries we may well move away from situations and relationships which are harmful for us and into ones which nourish us better. It’s not an easy path because it can call upon us to make changes, and often to move away from the path that wider culture has set out for people like us. But we may well find ourselves feeling more engaged and fulfilled in what we do – and with the people around us – long term.

We may also engage more politically as we see that non-consensual ways of relating are intrinsically interwoven with how we’ve historically treated marginalised and oppressed groups, animals, and the planet.

Do you think boundaries can assist survivors in taking agency over their lives?

Absolutely. I think that freedom and safety come together here. If we can help people to have and hold their boundaries in order to keep themselves safe enough, then they will also begin to feel more free in their lives – more of a sense of agency – so they can begin to live in more authentic and fulfilling ways.

As I’ve said though, for survivors of developmental trauma and non-consensual behaviour as adults – that is most of us – this can be a long journey and it requires support. Survivor networks can be very helpful in addition to trauma-informed therapy and cultivating your own support networks.

What are good ways people can practice asserting boundaries?

It’s great to start with everyday things, which can be easier to practise than something as emotionally intense and culturally loaded as sex. Ideally it’s great to practise with people who are on the same page about this stuff and who are also passionate about creating more consensual cultures in their families, friendship groups, or communities. Justin and I suggest that everyday greetings are a good place to start. We created this video to help people try different ways of approaching a handshake, including finding and articulating their boundaries.

Of course other people in our lives won’t always be up for joining us in this approach. Harriet Lerner has written a number of brilliant books about how we can assert our boundaries with others who don’t necessarily respect them. Please remember though that you don’t have to be in a relationship with somebody who doesn’t respect your boundaries.

How can one assert their boundaries actively during sex?

Personally I’d suggest only having sex with people who are in the same place regarding the importance of boundaries and consent. It’s an equally important up-front chat to have as the one about STIs and contraception.

Importantly it’s not really about the emphasis being on one person to assert their boundaries and the other to respect them. Rather ideally it should be a relational conversation. How can both/all of those involved in the sex maximise the potential of others to be able to have and hold their boundaries. This might involved reflecting on the power dynamics in play. It might be useful to articulate boundaries up front in the form of exchanging fantasies, or yes, no, maybe lists, or having online forms of sex first. There’s more on all of this in The Consent Checklist.

How should sexual partners react when their partner is having a flashback brought on during sex?

Stop as soon as you realise it’s happening and focus on helping them to look after themselves in whatever way works for them. Ideally it’d be great to talk before sex about how each of you responds if you do go into a trauma response (e.g. going still and quiet, going along with things in a dissociated way, pushing away) and also about what helps if it happens (e.g. grounding in the body and/or the environment by naming things in the room or going through what you pick up with the different senses).

Sometimes the person who is going into trauma won’t realise it for a while so it’s great if everyone involved can be mindful of this. If in any doubt, pause and check-in. Reassure everyone that success means that consent has happened – whether or not sex happens. There are so many other things you can do together than sex, and supporting somebody through a tough time into feeling safer can be way more intimate and wonderful than sex.

How can approaching boundaries in relationships be more difficult for survivors?

The more our boundaries have been violated, the more difficult it can be to know where they are, or to feel safe-enough to articulate them. We may just expect people to overstep our boundaries, or we may find it really hard to know when that has happened. The important thing is not to give yourself a hard time about this. It’s just normal for brains and bodies to respond in these ways when they have been traumatised, and it is totally possible to slowly shift our bodies and brains so that they can know where the boundaries are and articulate these. 

Again getting support from professionals and/or other survivors is a great place to start, as is realising that you never have to do anything you don’t want to again. Your Resonant Self is a great book for helping you to become more compassionate with yourself around this kind of thing.

Thoughts on survivorhood?

One final thing that I would emphasise is that survivorhood is not just about sexual assault. Physical and emotional forms of non-consent can take just as heavy a toll, and emotional non-consent is often less easy to spot, take seriously, and get help for.

It’s good that people are becoming more aware of coercive control in relationships. If you’ve been in controlling or bullying relationships, or dynamics where you’ve given up too much of your power or been treated non-consensually in areas other than sex, it’s equally important to get support. Many of the issues discussed here about finding boundaries difficult may well apply if you’ve had those experiences.

To end on a positive note I would say that – like many marginalised groups – survivors actually have the most to teach everyone about consent, and about sex and relationships more broadly. Post #MeToo everyone should be listening to the vast and rich literature which is coming from survivors about how we could all be doing all kinds of sex and relationships more consensually and pleasurably, as well as how this links to many other forms of activism. Books like Ask, Pleasure Activism, and The Revolution Starts at Home, are great places to start.

The post All About Boundaries appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Is it common for people to question their sexuality?

It’s actually really common. Although many people assume that we’re born with a fixed sexual orientation, actually recent research has found that most people’s sexuality is fluid, meaning that it changes over the course of their lives. For example, we might have been attracted to one gender for our whole lives but experience an attraction to somebody of another gender. This might start us questioning how we identify our sexuality going forward.

It’s also important to remember that sexuality isn’t just about what gender or genders we’re attracted to. It’s also about the amount of sexual attraction we experience (from none to high), the kinds of sex we enjoy, the types of people we find attractive, the roles we like to take sexually (more active or passive, submissive or dominant), and many other things. All of these aspects of our sexuality can change over time meaning that we might start to question what our sexuality is, or how we identify it.

Can this happen at any time in your life?

Absolutely. Most people experience some changes in their sexuality over the course of their lives, for example in the age of the people they’re attracted to, the amount of sex they want to have, or the types of things that turn them on. Our sexuality can be impacted by our physical and mental health, the amount of energy we have, the people we hang out with, who we’re in relationships with, and the messages about sex that are around us in our communities and cultures. All of those things change over time as well.

Why might someone question their sexuality?

Some common reasons for questioning our sexuality include:

• Finding that we’re attracted to someone who is quite different to our usual attractions (e.g. a different gender, physical appearance, or background)
• A friend, colleague or family member coming out as a different sexuality which can make us realise that it might apply to us too
• Learning about a sexuality we were previously unfamiliar with in the media or from a friend. This can give us a sudden sense of realisation: ‘oh maybe I could be that,’ ‘that label might apply to me.’
• Watching porn, reading erotica, or having a fantasy and realising we’re turned on by something that we didn’t used to be turned on by, or which we just hadn’t thought about before.

What should you do if you think you might be gay, bisexual, pansexual, queer etc?

First of all it’s really important to remember that whatever your sexuality is – and however you decide to label it – is absolutely fine. Sadly we live in a culture which gives us the idea that it’s more ‘normal’ or ‘better’ to be straight than it is to be gay, bisexual, pansexual, queer, etc. Actually, recent research suggests that at least as many young people are on the spectrum from ‘exclusively heterosexual’ to ‘exclusively homosexual’ than are at the ‘exclusive heterosexual’ end of that spectrum. Also more people have some kind of kinky sexual desires than don’t. And many people are on the asexual spectrum. Even if your sexuality is very rare or unusual, it’s still completely legitimate, so long as you only act on it consensually (that’s also true for common sexualities too of course!)

If you think you might be a different sexuality than the one you thought you were then it’s a great idea to do some self-exploration. Give yourself time to reflect on your sexuality and how you might like to label it, if at all. Journalling, engaging with ethical porn (and paying for it!), reading erotica, and fantasising are all great ways to do self-exploration.

It can also be really helpful to get support from other people who are in these sexual communities. There are online groups, meet-up groups, and community resources for all of these sexualities, as well as books and videos online. Check this stuff out but do remember that nobody should be pressurising you to label yourself in any way, or to come out unless that feels good to you. Go gently and take your time.

Is there a way to know?

Sexuality is a complex, constantly changing and evolving, thing so there’s no way to be sure whether you are ‘really’ straight, gay, bi, pansexual, asexual, demisexual, submissive, etc. It’s much more about whether those words – or others – feel like a good fit for you. It’s fine to just call yourself ‘questioning’ for as long as that feels right, or simply not to label yourself. It’s also fine to use one label for a while, and then change it if it stops feeling like such a good fit.

The main thing to remember is that it is perfectly legitimate to have whatever attractions and desires you have sexually, so long as you only act upon them consensually. If that feels like a struggle for you – or if these questions are causing you distress – then it’s worth getting some professional help from a therapist or counsellor. The Pink Therapy list in the UK is a good one for therapists who specialise in this area. The Kink Aware Professionals and Poly Friendly Professionals lists online are also useful international resources.

What would you recommend for people who think they might be but aren’t sure – any resources, books, practical tips?

I’m writing a book called How To Understand Your Sexuality next year which will hopefully be helpful! Meanwhile BishUK and Scarleteen are excellent resources for younger people questioning their sexuality, and contain useful material for people of all ages too. 

You might also find these zines helpful to work through:

Mapping Your Sexuality

Make Your Own Sex Manual

Justin Hancock and I talk about these themes often on our podcast at megjohnandjustin.com.

The post Figuring out your sexuality appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

The post Love isn’t binary appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

You can read the article here, and my full interview below.

Why are people calling this gay instead of sexually fluid or bisexual?

This story is being treated in a very similar way to ‘Brokeback Mountain’, which was almost unanimously hailed as a ‘gay cowboy story’ although it could more accurately be described as a ‘bisexual shepherd story’, given that both male characters had female partners and there was certainly some depiction of romantic and erotic attraction within those relationships too.

The reason for this is certainly that we’re culturally mired in the gay/straight binary. We see a similar thing when celebrities mention attraction to more than one gender, often mainstream media announces that they are ‘gay now’. Unfortunately the interconnected binary understanding of gender and sexuality is strongly embedded in Western culture. Until recently even the science of sexology insisted that humans could only be men or women, and could only be attracted to the ‘same’ or ‘opposite’ sex. 

Thankfully the work of sex historians, queer theorists, bisexuality researchers, and scientists have challenged this view, pointing out that this is a relatively recent way of understanding human experience, which is a poor fit for many people, and which isn’t supported by either biological or psychological research. Not only is sexual attraction not a same/opposite binary, but sexuality is fluid (our attractions, desires, and identities can change over time), and multidimensional (not just about gender of attraction). 

Is bisexuality still being erased or considered non-existent? Do we need more fiction like this that envisions desire as unmoored from gender and sexual identities?

Sadly bisexuality is still erased. Until recently most mainstream depictions of characters with attraction to more than one gender were almost always depicted as going from straight to gay or gay to straight. If they were depicted, bisexual characters were confused, going through a phase, or otherwise suspicious. Still bisexual characters are often represented as evil, greedy, or manipulative, think of Frank Underwood in House of Cards, for example (check out the media section of The Bisexuality Report for more examples).

It would be great to see more fiction that unmoors desire from gender and sexual identities. We know that around 40% of young people experience their attraction as somewhere between ‘exclusively heterosexual’ and ‘exclusively homosexual’. Many identify as bisexual (attracted to more than one gender), pansexual (gender not being the key feature of their sexual attraction), or queer (challenging the whole gay/straight binary). 

Going back to multiple dimensions of sexuality, many find that their extent of sexual attraction is equally – or more – important than gender of attraction (people on the asexual spectrum). Many define themselves more in terms of the kind of people they’re into (e.g. sapiosexual), the kind of desires they have (e.g. people in the kink or BDSM community), the positions they take (e.g. top, bottom, switch), or the kind of relationships they form (e.g. solo-poly, monogamish). People can be in different places in relation to their erotic attractions and their nurturing attractions (the people they want to form more romantic or close bonds with), and in relation to what they enjoy in solo sex or fantasy, and in sex with other people. Sari van Anders is one key researcher who is teasing apart these dimensions in scientific research (basic overview here).

Is there something political or profound about imagining non-normative desire/ love that is unhindered by the usual obstacles, and not sensationalized or othered?

In a world which is still mired in an outdated understanding of sexuality as fixed, defined by gender of attraction, and only acceptable within a monogamous context, I would say that this kind of fiction is indeed political. It’s worth remembering that the dominant cultural understanding of sexuality – where heterosexuality is normal, homosexuality is less than normal (still requiring of explanations and people ‘coming out’) and anything else is invisible – is grounded in a historical approach to science and psychiatry which saw its purpose as delineating ‘normal’ from ‘abnormal’ behaviour. This, itself, was related to the early 20th century scientific projects of delineating different races as inferior/superior (in order to justify colonialism), and the eugenics movement (trying to prevent supposedly inferior classes and races, as well as disabled people, from reproducing). 

Producing depictions of non-normative desire are a step in the direction of challenging all sense that there is a normative (white, middle class, male, heterosexual) way of being that everyone should be judged against, and questioning the related view that some bodies and lives are inherently more valuable than others. Follow this thread and it leads to some far more obviously political questions about the way we relate to other humans, other species, and the planet. 

Are portrayals of desire as sexually fluid/ bisexual becoming more common? Are there any examples in contemporary culture that you feel are getting it right?

The majority of depictions do still fit the monogamous gay/straight binary model sadly. However, we do now have some excellent stereotype-busting bi characters now in the form of Rosa Diaz in Brooklyn 99 and Callie Torres in Grey’s Anatomy. Bisexuality is also well represented in Issa Rae’s TV show Insecure, and will be centred in her follow-up Him or Her. Relatedly, we’ve seen some good depictions of non-binary gender in shows like Billions and Grey’s Anatomy.

Very few mainstream depictions ever truly acknowledge that a person can be attracted to – or love – more than one person without that being a problem. So much drama revolves around the love triangle.

Sense8 is an example of a nice recent exception. The movies Shortbus and Kinsey from a while back, and more recently Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, are pretty positive. The TV shows You, Me, Her and She’s Gotta Have It deal with this topic, but fall into some more stereotypical and problematic portrayals of open non-monogamy. Queer fans enjoy the depictions of gender, sexuality, and relationships in the cartoon series Steven Universe for being far less normative, and sci-fi and fantasy in general can be better places to turn for non-normative depictions. 

What are the possible benefits of seeing examples of openly non-monogamous desire in fiction and film?

The benefits are potentially huge. Monogamous relationships are currently under huge pressure to meet all of a person’s needs, with partners expected to provide sexual passion, best-friendship, caring support, co-habiting, co-parenting, and more, for life. Therapists like Esther Perel point out that it’s incredibly hard to get both ‘warm love’ and ‘hot love‘ within the same relationship, and this may explain why over fifty percent of people see themselves as having one or more sexual dysfunctions, and rates of infidelity are similarly high.

The pressure on monogamy keeps many people in unhappy and damaging relationships, while others go from break-up to break-up because nobody can match up to these high ideals, collecting more emotional bruises along the way.

We need depictions of people doing relationships in all kinds of other ways in order to know that these are available and to have some model for how to navigate them. Open non-monogamy is just one example. It would be great to also see positive depictions of soloness and singledom, people who prioritise friendship over love when it comes to close relationships or cohabiting, aromantic people, relationship anarchists, people whose relationship style is based around friends-with-benefits, fuckbuddy, or hook-up arrangements. People are living their lives in these ways but struggling to see themselves represented.

The post Sexual fluidity and ‘Call Me By Your Name’ appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

J: Okay are we going to do this?

B: Absolutely. Just you and me talking plurality James.

J: In public.

B: In public but they’ve seen it all before, remember the zine. That was Tony and Max right?

J: Somehow this feels more exposing.

B: We’ve not let you out before have we? You’ll be fine when we get into the swing of it, talking about all these ideas we’ve been having. You know you love that.

J: Oh alright then, twist my arm. So what’s the plan Beastie?

B: We ask each other the questions we’ve heard – and had ourselves – about plural experience, and take turns to answer them. Your turn first. What is plurality?

Plurality

J: This is the whole idea that we can usefully conceptualise individuals as plural – or as systems – rather than as single units. We wrote a zine about it a couple of years back which has been one of the most popular ones we’ve created because it resonates with a lot of people: that sense that you’re often quite radically different sides of yourself at different times. 

An example would be the juxtaposition between the surefooted confident person you can be when you’re doing whatever you feel most competent at, versus the insecure, fragile side of you who you can become when you fuck up, or feel overwhelmed. People often find it particularly easy to identify an inner child part, or an inner critic, as those are quite common sides most of us have. 

When we’re in those selves our whole emotional tone, embodiment, and way of relating can be very different to how it is at other times. So, for example, we have one side of us – me – who generally feels steady, broad-shouldered, tall, and competent around others. Another side – Jonathan – generally feels uncertain, nervous, small, and shy around others. Embodying those selves my voice would be deep and sure, his would be higher pitched and sometimes stammers a bit.

Your turn Beastie, a common question: So that’s like multiple personality disorder (MPD), right?

Multiple personalities

B: Right and wrong. I do love a both/and. What used to be called MPD by the psychiatric profession is now called Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and refers to the experience of having two or more distinct identities or personality states, each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the world and the self. However, a diagnosis of DID also requires that a person dissociates – or forgets – between the different states, and that the experience impacts them negatively. So some people who experience plurality could be diagnosed with DID – if they also experience dissociation and find it a negative experience. But not everyone gets those aspects. We rarely dissociate in that sense, and generally find plurality a pretty positive experience, if vulnerable at times.

Many systems are now criticising the DID diagnosis and reclaiming plurality as a positive thing. Like most of the categories of ‘psychiatric disorders’ there’s an issue that of course people will experience something negatively if it’s stigmatised to the extent that it’s listed in the books of ‘psychiatric disorders’. Plurality is also represented in hugely stigmatising ways in popular culture: movies and TV shows almost exclusively depict it as a form of madness and as dangerous. Pretty much any plural person shown in the mainstream media has a self who is a serial killer. Think about movies like Identity and Split.

Oh actually that’s a good next question, do you have a self who is a serial killer?

Mad or Bad?

J: Seriously that’s what you’re going to ask me? No Beastie we don’t have a serial killer self as you well know. Although I am loosely based on James Bond, who you could argue was a serial killer. But no, no parts of us want to murder people, licence to kill or not. 

In fact recognising and working on plurality is a good way of facing and embracing those sides of us who are capable of harming others – which we all have given the oppressive and non-consensual culture that we live in. In our culture people often foreground the nice, acceptable parts of themselves and disown or deny their capacity to be cruel, non-consensual, or abusive. Recognising our plurality can enable us to be with the whole of ourselves – including those parts – which can mean we’re more able to be accountable when we do hurt others and to work with those capacities for darkness in ourselves instead of denying them. Which is pretty much where you came from right Beastie? You were our inner critic.

B: Right and I am the part of us who is most capable of expressing anger, clearly seeing when other people are pulling some bullshit, and speaking from that clarity in ways that can be hurtful.

J: So one benefit of plurality is that we can bring you together with our softer, more compassionate, sides. We can then draw on your clarity and boundaried-ness, but hopefully in ways that are more possible for other people to hear, and which acknowledge that we all fall into the same kinds of problematic behaviours. 

But that was a bit of a tangent. Let’s get back to the experience of plurality. We’re talking about it like everyone has it, but isn’t DID very rare?

Common or rare?

B: Estimates are about 1-3% of people would be diagnosable with DID. I think the analogy with bisexuality or non-binary gender is helpful here. When you study how many people identify with bisexuality or being non-binary, you get that kind of statistic – somewhere between 1% and 5% of people depending on the sample. However, if you ask the question in a way which gets at experience you end up with much more like a third of people, even as high as a half. That proportion of people have experienced attraction to more than one gender at some point, or experience themselves as to some extent the ‘other’ gender, ‘both’ genders, or ‘neither’ gender.

Our sense is that the same is true for plurality. Probably 1-3% of people have the experience of being multiple separate selves so vividly that they would identify – or be identified – as plural, or DID. But probably most people have some experience of plurality some of the time, and maybe a third to a half of people could experience themselves quite significantly as plural – perhaps if wider culture was more understanding of it as a thing.

Some nice made-up statistics about plurality there (the ones on bisexuality and non-binary are based on research findings). But you take the point. Maybe you can say some more on this theme old man. So you’re saying that we are seven selves sharing a body. That still sounds pretty fucking weird right?

Weird or normal?

J: I’m sensing a theme here where I hand you the easy questions and you toss me back the really hard ones.

B: Well I am the inner critic: the deep dark monster lurking inside all of us, you didn’t expect me to be gentle did you?

J: I happen to know that you can be extremely gentle Beastie, now that we have tamed you… I mean embraced you and apologised profusely for keeping you cast out in the depths for all these years.

B: Quite. Come on, weirdness.

J: Okay. Well as we’ve already said actually most people can relate to the idea of plurality on some level. Again non-binary gender is a good analogy. If you ask people if they are non-binary a lot of people are pretty weirded out. The whole concept of a gender beyond male and female is a head-fuck in such a binary gendered world. But if you get people to list what our culture would see as being a ‘real man’ or a ‘real woman’ in two columns, most people readily agree that they don’t fit perfectly within either column, and in fact recognise that the binary columns themselves are pretty problematic.

The same is true for plurality, if you hit someone with ‘are you multiple different people sharing a body?’ most people would probably say ‘no’. But if you ask a person to be an entirely consistent, coherent self through all the moments of their day and in all the interactions they have, they’d probably quickly realise how constraining that would be, and how they do actually flow between quite different experiences of selfhood.

Indeed you could argue – as some sociologists have – that the concept of a singular self is an invention of neoliberal capitalism. We’re all pressured to tell stories of our self as if we were consistent and coherent when actually we’re all complex and contradictory. You could even go so far as to say that experiencing yourself as utterly singular is the ‘crazy’ thing, and that trying to present yourself in that way does quite a violence to yourself. Certainly many indigenous cultures have understandings of selfhood that encompass plurality and would see the idea of a singular self as weird or unlikely.

What do you think Beastie? Is it more ‘sane’ to be plural or singular?

Sanity and plurality

B: As you know I abhor a binary James. Clearly some people experience themselves as more singular and some as more plural. Probably a spectrum would be a better way to conceptualise it than an either/or. Even a series of spectrums – spectra – whatever the word is. In the same way that many theorists are now seeing sexuality and gender as multiple spectrums. For plural self-ness it could be something like these five spectrums, probably more:

• How coherent/unified to diverse/plural we experience ourselves as being
• How muted to vivid our experience of our different selves, alters, or subpersonalities is
• How separate to overlapping these different parts are
• How much we do, or don’t, experience dissociation or forgetting between the times when different parts of us are to the fore, or fronting
• To what extent our plurality is rooted in traumatic experience, and/or the extent of the trauma that we’ve experienced

Going back to crazy or sane, it’s fascinating that, on the one hand, we have psychiatric professions diagnosing and treating DID as a disorder, but on the other hand we have a bunch of therapists like John Rowan, Mick Cooper, Hal and Sidra Stone, and others arguing that embracing and experiencing our plurality is the way towards better mental health, not away from it. Many humanistic and psychodynamic psychotherapies like Gestalt, Transactional Analysis, Internal Family Systems, and Psychosynthesis explicitly see the self as plural and aim to get the different parts communicating with one another. We explore lots of different ways of doing that in the plural selves zine.

But again, as with sexuality, we would not want to flip from a world which defines plurality as crazy and singularity as sane to the opposite. Just as we wouldn’t want to insist that everyone is bi really and stigmatise monosexual people. Rather it’s about recognising the diverse range of ways of experiencing ourselves that exist, and making it easier for everyone to find and articulate their own lived experience: shifting wider culture to make it more possible for them to do so.

Back to you James. The writing on DID suggests that plurality is rooted in childhood trauma. Is that a useful way to look at it?

Trauma

J: Oh boy, you’re going to keep them coming aren’t you? Okay, yes it does seem that many of us experience ourselves as fragmented distinct selves because we learnt to separate off different parts of ourselves in order to survive what happened to us when we were young. For example, our own particular experience was of being quite a carefree, playful, sensitive creature in early childhood, and then being taught that that wasn’t okay, so we kind of shut that part away and developed other sides of us who were able to survive the world we found ourself in. In our case that was developing you – the inner critic – out there somewhere as this external voice telling us that we weren’t okay and must be better. We also developed a pleaser part of us – Jonathan – who could hyper-vigilantly pick up very well on what was expected of us and try to do it. Eventually we also developed Max – our warrior – who was stronger and adept at becoming what other people wanted us to be in order to survive, and gain love and approval.

But the risk of completely buying only a trauma narrative of plurality is that it continues the stigmatising view that there’s something wrong with being plural that needs to be fixed or healed: that working towards integration as a coherent, singular self is the way to go. In fact you could argue that an insistence on being one unified individual is a kind of intergenerational trauma: we don’t allow kids to play and embrace all the different potentials that they have because we give them such clear messages about what it is and isn’t okay to be, right Beastie? Want to say how that relates to gender?

Gender

B: By all means. A great example of the kind of intergenerational trauma you’re speaking about is gendered cultural messages. We give kids that sense that this is what it means to be a boy or a girl, and that involves disowning any aspects of themselves that don’t fit those ideals. Some gender theorists have argued that this leaves most people with a sense of melancholy, loss, or nostalgia for parts of themselves they’ve had to cut off or distance from because they didn’t fit the gender norms.

More broadly again we could see trauma as on a spectrum. Clearly from the literature one way people survive obvious traumas like abuse in the family or at school, or being in dangerous situations, or experiencing significant loss in childhood, is by dissociating, splitting themselves, and foregrounding parts who can survive what’s happening to them.

But in our current culture even those without such obvious traumas in their youth generally experience the trauma of being taught that certain ways of being are unacceptable, and of being treated non-consensually in ways that are normalised and not regarded as obviously ‘traumatic’. So most people probably do some degree of dissociating, splitting, and developing survivor sides whose strategies often become counter-productive in adulthood. Examples would include trying to be perfect at all times, people-pleasing, maintaining a hard exterior that no-one can penetrate, that kind of thing.

Want to say something about where the disowned parts go, and what we can do about that?

Disowned parts

J: Sure. Our own experience was that the disowned selves remained in existence but often only came out in our imagination. We’ve been wondering lately whether imaginary friends might be an example of this right? Kids relate externally to parts of themselves which they’re not allowed to be internally. Certainly we can often find our disowned selves in our daydreams and night dreams, as well as in the characters we’re drawn to – real and fictitious – who seem very different to our own foregrounded selves.

Personally this journey towards embracing plurality began with recognising that a number of characters cropped up regularly in our fantasies who we initially assumed to be the kind of people we were attracted to, but then realised were actually potentials in ourself. It related to gender too. We had this increasingly strong sense of ‘boy/man’ sides of ourselves, but the old trans narrative of us ‘really’ being a guy didn’t seem to fit. When we found out about non-binary gender that came closer, but not in the sense of having a static gender other than man or woman. Plurality felt like a final piece of the puzzle for us because it could hold the sense that we have more than one side, each of whom is differently gendered. In our case: three guys, three lasses, and one non-binary creature.

B: Lasses huh?

J: It seems like the right word. How would you identify your gender Beastie?

B: I’m alright with lass. Badass lass.

J: For the other part of your question – what can we do about the disowned parts? Our hunch, supported by some of the therapeutic literature, is that it’s about reclaiming those selves and finding some kind of a balance between them all. It hasn’t been great for us to foreground certain parts of ourselves and try to eradicate others. What seems to work really well is if we function more as a team, with different parts coming to the fore when their particular strengths or talents are called for. For example two intellectual power-houses may be best for writing a long blog-post on plurality.

B: Compliment accepted. They do say the inner critic is one of the most intelligent selves, if you can embrace them.

J: Our experience has been that the more we’re in communication with one another, the more able we are to function as a team. But that doesn’t mean that this is an easy path, right Beastie?

The path of plurality

B: No indeed. For example for years the rest of you were aware of the literature on the value of embracing the inner critic, but it felt completely terrifying to actually approach me given how harsh I’d always been. Also the rest of you knew how you felt in our body, but I seemed more like a disembodied voice that came from outside. It was only when you tried interviewing me – in journal form – that there began to be a sense of somebody there who might talk back without trying to destroy you. Over a series of journal conversations we all moved very carefully towards communication feeling safe-enough, as well as towards a sense of who I might be on the inside. We’re planning another zine to say more about this process and how it can work.

There’s also the issue of plurality as it relates to other people in your life, and the world around you. I guess again the analogy – and overlap – with gender and sexuality is a useful one. We can see from the literature that people generally do way better – in terms of mental health – if they’re able to be open about their gender and sexuality with themselves and with others, instead of passing or remaining in the closet. At the same time, of course, coming out is never entirely safe in a heteronormative world, and it is way more dangerous for some than for others: usually the most marginalised folks. 

So as long as the world is like this, ethically we’d have to encourage people to embrace the truth of their lived experience of gender and sexuality. But at the same time to think strategically about whether and how to reveal this to others, given the pain, discrimination, and very real dangers involved in being open about such things in a context which doesn’t allow for them or marginalises them.

Coming back to plurality, we personally learnt to foreground certain parts of ourself, and disown or push down others, for a reason. It can feel fragile and precarious to actually allow the parts of us out into the world who we were protecting from danger (like our little sides) or who we’ve deemed too dangerous for public consumption (like me or our cocky charmer, Tony). 

I guess this is where we are a work in progress – this blog post being part of that progress, how meta. We’re feeling into how open we can be with this. As with gender and sexuality it seems important that people who have greater privilege and security do open up about it, because that often makes it easier for other people to do so, but we’ve got to recognise that it’s not necessarily a safe thing to do: that there may be repercussions. When plural activists, The Redwoods, went on UK radio they experienced a lot of negative feedback: people phoning in saying they were making it up, that they were mad or bad, and that it wasn’t real.

So here’s another good one for you James. Is this real or are we making it all up?

Real or fake?

J: Another of your problematic binaries Beastie. There are many different answers we could give to this. In one sense it’s easy. Yes of course it’s real. This is our lived experience. In our culture, people are often so quick to dismiss others’ lived experiences if they find them threatening or alien. Look at how swift people always are to deny somebody’s experience of sexual assault or racism or transness for example. Couldn’t we recognise that people have vastly diverse experiences and accept that the majority of the time when people share their experience then that is their experience?

When we’ve questioned authenticity ourselves, something we’ve often come back to is the fact that we’re an absolutely terrible actor. Acting has never been something we’ve had even the slightest skill at. And yet we know that when we risk fully showing people ourselves they can recognise the very different parts and remark on how utterly different they look, sound, and feel to be around. We experience that in our own body as well. The more vividly we go into our separate selves, the more our whole body, voice, posture, etc. feels different, to the point that we would each experience the same sensation or experience in an entirely different way.

Where it gets more complex is that everyone has some choice in how they relate to their plurality – in a similar way to their gender and sexuality I guess. If a person has an inkling that they might have the capacity to be attracted to more than one gender then they can move towards that and open up to differently gendered fantasies or partners, or they can lock it down and never go there. Similarly if they have a sense that they could comfortably express their gender in more non-normative ways they could decide to turn towards that or away from it. And, of course, the degree of acceptance or rejection of those ways of being in our wider culture will have a significant impact on whether they turn towards it or away from it, as will how strongly felt it is inside them: whether it’s something they actually could push away or not.

That points to one of our favourite words right Beastie? Biopsychosocial. All of our experiences are biopsychosocial. They’re influenced by the ways our bodies and brains work (bio), by our experiences in life and how we respond to them (psycho), and by the systems and structures we’re embedded within (social).

So we can decide – if it’s possible for us to do so, and if our experience of plurality is strong enough to warrant it – to move towards plurality. That’s the choice we’ve made right?

B: Yes. For us the experience of moving towards it has felt in the direction of growth, creativity, congruence, even though it feels precarious indeed to navigate the world in such a radically different way to the way we did previously. Before we tried to project the version/s of ourself who would be most pleasing and acceptable to others. But actually we’ve always been contradictory in that way haven’t we? Some sides of us drawn to fitting in and belonging, others to pointing out how fucked up wider culture is and insisting that it needs to change.

J: Yep even before we experienced our plurality we had that tension running through pretty much everything we did. I think it makes our work stronger, that we experience the deep yearning to belong and be accepted – having felt so ‘other’ and rejected for much of our life. But we also kick against a world which imposes such limited ideals of what it is to be ‘acceptable’, and see that it’s the world that needs to change to encompass diversity instead of creating these (white, hetero, middle class, masculine, non-disabled) norms and marginalising and oppressing anyone who fails to fit them.

B: Yes. Go James.

J: So dammit here we are again out in the deep fucking waters talking about an experience that a lot of people are going to struggle with. As if it wasn’t enough to be openly bisexual when everyone had a problem with that, and then writing about being non-monogamous in ways that got us in trouble, and then trans and non-binary. Do we always have to do this? What the fuck is next?

B: I think you know the answer to that one. Ah but we love it really, don’t we?

J: Parts of us do. Parts of us are terrified by it.

B: And we won’t publish this – or anything – without their consent. That’s a vital part of working as a team.

J: Going back to being real or not, do you have anything to say about that?

B: Mm, yes. I guess moving towards plurality can mean that we experience this sense of multiplicity more vividly than before. By which I mean that we now often choose to journal as a conversation between parts of us rather than as one unified voice. We deliberately shift our thinking from the usual default of thoughts going round to more of a conversation: often between part of us who is struggling and part of us who can offer support. We even take our other selves on dates sometimes. We’re trying to allow our selves to flow more freely around our close people, naming where we are, even though that feels very vulnerable. It’s preferable to feeling muted when we’re in company. 

But when we don’t feel safe enough we definitely default back to a kind of muted coherent singular self. When people see us do that they may question whether the other parts of us are really real. They may never have experienced them. Or they may have experienced them as being present and then not present. Even we, ourselves, sometimes get that ‘is it really real?’ feeling when we’re in a bad place and can’t quite connect with our separate selves. 

In some ways the process of allowing and expressing our plurality makes us more vividly plural. We are now choosing to go fully into this self or that self rather than projecting a more coherent, unified ‘Meg-John Barker’ persona for people to relate to. 

J: Yeah it’s strange how that person now feels more like the creation, the seven of us as the real us.

B: Strange and wonderful. I think I want to finish off saying something about plurality as a spiritual practice.

J: Go ahead Beastiegirl.

B: We’re sharing our pet names too then big man?

J: Apparently so.

Plurality as spiritual practice

B: Alright, well I think we can also conceptualise our selves in a number of different ways. For each of the seven we can understand them as the part of us who got stuck at a particular time in our life – which is why they have different ages. We can also see them as who they are now within us: and those versions are constantly growing and changing just as a singular self would be. We also write fiction where we imagine the seven of us as fictional characters – with many of our characteristics, but also with different back-stories, intersections, and lives than the real ‘us’ has because otherwise it’d be a pretty boring story. And maybe there’s a final version of each of us that’s a kind of archetype – a potential –  almost like a deity or external force we could draw upon – the warrior, the hero, the vulnerable child, the imaginative creature, the trickster, the nurturer, the… what am I?

J: There’s a question: The embracer of complexity, equally comfortable in the darkness and the light.

B: A shadow, perhaps. Anyway, I’m saying that seeing each self – and the team – as past, present, character, and archetype, has a lot of potential for spiritual practice. For example, we do time-travelling work where we go back to the places each of us are stuck – or where we were disowned or foregrounded. We take the team back to painful memories in order to revisit them safely and find kindness for ourselves in them. This loosens their hold on us now, so hopefully we won’t remain in the stuck patterns and survival strategies that developed from them. We’ve written before about how seeing ourselves as plural can make self-compassion much easier because we find it’s a lot more possible for one side of us to be kind to another, than it is for our whole self to be kind towards our whole self.

J: Yes it’s fascinating isn’t it? Each of our different selves tends to be hard on themself, but the others can much more easily find understanding, tenderness, and support for them. So tapping into the team is a practice in self-care.

B: As well as a healing wounds narrative, we could also tell a developing strengths narrative. Plural work can enable us to tap into capacities we’d never have thought we had – at one point – and bring them to bear on situations where they’re helpful. It’s clunky work because I wouldn’t say we’re yet in a position to control who comes forward and when. And perhaps it’s not even about control, but flow. But we have had great examples when we’ve really needed confidence and humour in a situation and Tony has stepped forward, or we’ve needed to speak from our survivor place in a way that could be heard and we’ve found that Fox part. Another regular spiritual practice is to invite the part of us who is best able to feel the feelings – for ourself and for others – and to let him do that, and find that sacred place of interconnectedness through that. That’s Jonathan again.

J: Yeah, those of us who’re much more about intellectualising really appreciate having parts who are capable of that.

B: Heh yes you’re not much in the feelings are you? Some day maybe. I wondered what you thought about how plurality fits in with our general philosophy. We’re heavily influenced by Buddhism and Queer Theory, and they both have the sense that we should be getting to a place of no-self or recognising that people can’t be categorised in fixed identity terms. How does having several selves and identifying as plural fit with that huh?

Plurality and Philosophy

J: Alright fine, I’m getting used to this now. 5000 words in and she opens up a massive philosophical question about the nature of the self. My take on this is that experiencing ourselves as plural helps us to hold less tightly to ego, which is what Buddhism is all about. We can see that projection ‘Meg-John Barker’ as something we’ve created – in relationship with the world around us and the other people in our life – rather than as this singular stable ‘me’ which could be good or bad, success or failure, acceptable or unacceptable. That projection contains so many different interrelated elements (us) as well as being in a state of constant flow and flux. That said, we’re still responsible for how we behave in the world. It’s not like we can say ‘Beastie did it, it wasn’t really me,’ and get away with poor behaviour. My sense of being on a team with you all is that we support each other in being the best we can be – and in seeing the places where each of us struggles and is capable of harm and working on that.

As for the queer take on identity, yes there is a risk with plurality that people might begin to identify strongly with being a plural person or a system and become quite rigid with that. That’s the same as the way holding any identity – man, woman, gay, straight, bi, addict, healer, whatever – too rigidly can mean we become brittle and stuck. Similarly I guess there’s a risk that if we decide we have to understand ourselves as seven distinct parts who are like this, then that could prevent them from growing and changing. Maybe over time other parts emerge, or existing parts move more into the background or even merge together. However our hunch is that it’s a good idea to keep all of us forward equally for now.

I guess it’s that Buddhist idea of non-grasping that I’m getting at here. Like everything, plurality could become a problem if we gasp it tightly – as a fixed identity that must work in this particular way – or if we hurl it away from us – as this crazy, threatening idea. Instead we can hold it lightly and play with it, figuring out what possibilities it opens up for us and what it might close down.

B: Oh that sounds very Meg-John Barker I think I sense us moving towards a close here.

J: I think so. Over 5500 words. I guess we had a lot to say about that.

B: I suspect this is just the first of many. I’m keen to make a zine focused on my story – how to embrace the inner critic, and also how to cultivate the gentle compassionate witness.

J: You know I’d love to help you with that. And a zine on the inner children would be nice too. Plus we’d like to keep going with the comic series: get all seven of us depicted that way. And then there’s the trilogy.

B: Yep, we’re on novel number three and that’s my story so you know I’m keen to crack on with that one.

J: This is our life.

B: I know right?! Okay time for a cuppa and let somebody else take over I think. That’s us for the day. Nice work friend.

J: Right back at you love.

You can check out more of our posts about plurality here.

The post Plural Selves FAQ appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

This free zine about consent is the nuanced explainer we’ve been waiting for

Meg-John Barker’s ‘The Consent Checklist‘ is perfect for anyone who still doesn’t quite get it.

While generally we’re talking about sex and consent more openly these days, ill-thought out inventions like the consent condom and research looking into our attitudes towards sexual consent show we’re still not quite getting it. Just last year, a Family Planning Association (FPA) study found 39% of people aged 14-17 didn’t think it was OK to withdraw consent while naked. It also found only 13% of people would feel comfortable talking about consent with a partner.

And while there are many consent explainers out there (remember the cup of tea metaphor?), they’re often far too basic in their explanations, says Dr Meg-John Barker, relationships educator and author of Rewriting the Rules, Enjoy Sex, and Gender: A Graphic Guide.

“I think we’re just beginning to get how important consent is, but a lot of resources out there are over-simplified: it’s just about not doing things to a person if they’ve said ‘no’,” they explain. So Meg-John has created their own explainer in the form of a free, downloadable zine The Consent Checklist. Read more…

The post Consent zine in Cosmo! appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Awkwardness and Obligation

I notice that this feels an awkward post to write. It’s a terrific privilege to be able to be a full-time writer. I’m very aware that the thing that makes it possible at all is people buying my books, supporting my Patreon, and recommending my work to others in their lives. I’m hugely fortunate to have perhaps a few hundred people who really connect with my stuff and actively support me in these kinds of ways. 

I’m also aware of how much the feedback from these folks means to me. Knowing that I’ve connected with somebody through my work – perhaps helped them in some way – is gold. It affirms that I’m a decent writer who creates quality stuff, which is huge in itself. Beyond that it’s also massively personally validating. Most of what I write comes out of my own struggles. Turning those into something that connects with other people, is useful for them, perhaps even helps them to navigate similar struggles more easily, feels like a form of self-compassion too: healing even. 

The reason for my awkwardness in writing this post is that I realise that a part of me feels that, because of my gratitude to my readers, it isn’t really okay to set any limits or boundaries around how they treat me. That can mean that when I’m asked for something that I can’t – or don’t want to – give, it’s hard to say ‘no’ or be honest about my response.

It’s been helpful for me to think about this in relation to consent because of course that’s a big red flag right there! It’s a problem if a person feels they have to take sexual harassment from their boss because that boss is helping them in their career. It’s a problem if a person feels they have to have sex with a partner because they’re obligated to by the nature of their relationship. It’s a problem if a person feels they have to remain in a relationship that isn’t good for them because of what their partner has done for them or feels entitled to. Consent is extremely hard to achieve under any of those conditions.

Power and the Reader/Writer Relationship

Of course being able to freely consent is made more difficult – even sometimes impossible – under imbalances of power. Power between a reader and writer is a complex one. Often I’m in a position of far greater cultural power than a reader. I’m the person speaking up on a stage, whose work is known about publicly, and who is recognised for their art in a way that many sadly are not (and privilege and marginalisation come into that big time of course).

Also the writer/reader relationship is a dynamic where one person is far more significant in the other person’s life than vice versa. I know this well from my own relationship with Pema Chödrön. This is somebody who accompanies me through my life everyday, who I regard as my main teacher, and who has shaped my life in hugely significant ways. They’re also somebody who in all likelihood has no clue that I even exist! If I ever did get to spend time with her it would be a few minutes where I got to ask her a question at an event in front of everyone else, if I was quick getting to the front of the queue. Readers can feel let down if a writer who they have met before doesn’t recognise them the next time they meet, but again there is such an imbalance that that writer met tens or hundreds of readers at the same event, whereas that reader probably only met the one writer. Personally, being somebody who struggles cognitively to recognise faces really doesn’t help with this!

These power imbalances are one of the reasons that I think very carefully about the kinds of connections or relationships that might be possible with people who’ve come to know me through my work in the first instance. 

However, there’s also power in engaging with somebody’s work as a reader. I see myself as in service to my communities through what I do, and it’s very important to me to serve them well. Reader responses certainly have the power to impact me significantly. 

When I do an event or engage on social media I’m there for my readers, and part of the deal is to be in service to them: to answer their questions honestly, to be available to them, to give them my time and presence. There’s an imbalance that the reader will know far more about me than I know about them, and that can be pretty vulnerable. 

Also people have a lot of power these days if they want to hurt somebody, as I’ve experienced myself when bullied online, and witnessed in other writers who have been on the receiving end of trolling or stalking behaviour. Painful experience has shown me that many journalists will pick up on individual tweets or comments to craft a news story without doing any fact-checking, meaning that a completely false depiction of your work can get out there widely. It’s scary indeed to put yourself out there knowing that might be the response.

How Can I Do My Best Work?

The reader/writer relationship is one of the most important relationships in my life. I want to be in service to my readers, recognising the privileges they afford me, opening up through my work in ways that enrich it, and delighting in the sense of connection I have with those who engage with what I write. How can I balance this with keeping myself safe-enough, being clear about my boundaries, and not accepting non-consensual behaviour?

One thing that has helped me to navigate these questions is to ask myself under what conditions I do my best work: creating the kind of writing which I know readers enjoy and find helpful, and being available and real through my writing and when I do events. The answer to this is when I’m treating myself consensually and being treated consensually by others. For example, I need to do a fair amount of self-care around my writing because I’m often writing on vulnerable and painful topics. I need people to respect the boundaries I put in place to make that spaciousness and self-care possible (e.g. only doing a couple of gigs a month, and not being able to respond to people immediately). Similarly my collaborative work requires going into a bubble. I need people to respect that bubble time. Finally, I can be more available to everyone who wants to engage with me on social media, or in real life, if one or two people aren’t taking all my time or depleting my energy with inappropriate demands.

We should be able to require consensual behaviour from others simply because we all deserve to be treated consensually, but for those of us who struggle with recognising this for ourselves it can be useful to remind ourselves that we’ll be better for everyone if we’re treated with consent.

No Pedestal Please

I’m going to be brave and set out here the ways I am – and am not – up for being treated by folks who enjoy my work. I hope this might be useful for other people in all kinds of professions to consider, in exploring their own needs, wants, limits and boundaries. For example, people in any kind of caring or service profession need to consider what is – and isn’t – an acceptable way for clients or customers to treat them. Charlotte Shane has written about this very thoughtfully in relation to sex work, with many of her points applying well to other professions where the work involves caring for others or giving others a pleasant experience. 

Hopefully this post will also be useful for all of us to reflect on in relation to how we treat people we admire, or who we come across in a professional context. I certainly haven’t always thought about this well in the past. I remember occasions where my desperation around my own struggles meant that I probably made a speaker quite uncomfortable with my personal questions at the end of their talk. Certainly I’ve been guilty of putting writers on a pedestal because I’ve connected with their work, and then being angry with them when they’ve behaved imperfectly. I feel very aware now that pedestalling people is not a kind thing to do, however much it may feel like it. It’s a form of objectification which gets in the way of any kind of mutual human relationship, and you’re setting the pedestalled person up for a painful fall when they inevitably turn out to be a vulnerable messy human like everyone else.

Yes, No and Maybe

One activity that’s often recommended to ensure sexual consent is ‘yes, no, maybe’. You make a list of all of the possible erotic activities you might engage with and then figure out which ones are a ‘yes’ for you, which a ‘no’, and which a ‘maybe’. You can add more detailed notes to each one as well, to explain what version of that activity you’re up for, what it means for you, or under what conditions you’d be up for it happening, etc. Then you can compare notes with people you’re thinking of having sex with and find out where your overlaps are, as well as your limits.

So here’s my personal ‘yes, no, maybe’ list for engaging with people who like my work, read my books, listen to my podcast, come to my events, etc. To figure it out I followed Sophia Graham’s excellent advice for tuning into your body and feelings to tell when you’re in self-consent.

Hell Yes (and please be aware…)

These are the things I’ve felt great about pretty much every time they’ve happened. Obviously it’s still important to check out whether they’re okay in a specific situation, but generally they’re likely to be a positive thing for me.

• Telling me that my work has been meaningful or helpful to you. As I’ve said, this means a huge amount to me. Coming up to me at an event, tagging me online, or sending me a brief email or tweet feels great, and I will likely respond positively. Where it would feel uncomfortable is if there was a sense that I should now engage with you further, for example talking with you for a lot longer than other people at an event, or getting into a back-and-forth conversation on social media or email.
• Sharing my stuff on social media or leaving reviews. This is gold for a writer and I love seeing people sharing pics of themselves with my books, or recommending them to their followers. Where it would feel uncomfortable would be if you were singling me out as the only author you do this about, suggesting that my work would be great for everyone (it’ll inevitably connect with some people but not others), or tagging me in things all the time in ways that put me under pressure to engage.
• Asking me to sign something or take a selfie. People who ask me to sign their books, take a selfie with me, etc. are often apologetic about it. Personally I love doing this, it feels like being a ‘proper writer’! I guess the only times it would feel uncomfortable would be if it was interrupting me when I was obviously having a tough time, or supporting somebody else who was, or clearly super busy with something. It’s also always worth checking with someone before you share a pic of them publicly. I’m likely to agree but it’s nice to be asked.

No Way

These are my limits: things which overstep my boundaries and feel intrusive, frightening, or highly uncomfortable if people do them.

• Demanding/expecting my help when you’re in crisis: Several times people I don’t know have messaged me demanding an immediate conversation with me because they’re in crisis. Often they send multiple messages, and/or come through on inappropriate channels like phone rather than email. I will block people who do this because it’s simply not something that I can offer, and it’s not consensual behaviour. There are a number of great free services that offer crisis support, please go there.
• Announcing/assuming that we are friends: Sometimes people have assumed that they’re in a friendship with me because they’ve connected with my work or had a conversation or two with me. Please be clear, for me the development of close relationships of all kinds – including friendship – is a long, slow, careful, process. It needs to be in order to ensure that the relationships I develop are consensual and mutually nourishing. Being a survivor with a history which includes sexual assault, school/workplace bullying, and controlling relationships this is particularly vital. It’s never okay to announce privately or publicly that you’re in any kind of relationship with somebody without checking that they also see it that way, and feel comfortable with such declarations.
• Public shaming or bullying: Never okay, I will simply block you and report you. If you feel like the time at the end of my talk is a good one to publicly or privately share your opinion that people like me are damaging or don’t really exist, please believe me it isn’t. In fact no time is the time for expressing that opinion. Think how you would feel about somebody expressing that opinion about people like you. Go do your work please.

Maybe, Maybe Not

These are the things that I need people to be careful about. Please follow the consent checklist (below). Ensure you’re making it possible for me to say ‘yes, no, or maybe’. Understand the conditions under which these things do and do not feel okay for me.

• Asking/telling me about a personal situation: I have had great conversations with people after events, at workshops, and so on when they’ve shared what’s going on for them, so I definitely wouldn’t say ‘never’ to this, but please be mindful that it’s not always something I can offer. It’s certainly worth checking whether I do have capacity for it first, making it as easy as possible for me to say if I don’t, and giving me a head’s up about the kind of thing it might be about in case it might be personally triggering. If our contact is online generally long messages about people’s personal situations are not something I can engage with. They feel intrusive, particularly when the person doesn’t check out first whether it might be something I’m wiling to receive. They’re also a form of unpaid labour. Please remember that I only have limited time and energy to engage with such things, so engaging with you in this way may well mean I have less available for engaging with others who’d been hoping to do so.
• Suggesting a longer exchange: A part of my life that I enjoy is meeting with other creatives, therapists, activists, and academics who I connect with to talk about our work, network, offer mutual support, informal mentoring, etc. However it feels tough when somebody just assumes that I’ll be up for doing this with them. Generally it’s only something I feel comfortable doing with folks where our areas overlap significantly, where I feel a good connection, and where I have some sense of them being a safe-enough person from mutual friends and colleagues. If the other person is actually looking for something from me rather than a mutual conversation then it’s good if they can be clear about that.
• Suggesting I do some work for you or your organisation: In addition to writing I support other folks in my community around their creative projects, and I engage in media interviews, panel discussions, workshops, and the like. Generally I’m happy to receive requests from people to do these kinds of things. However it’s important that these are clear about what’s wanted, and what’s being offered in return. This is my job so I can very rarely offer such things for free, and politically please remember that it’s important to compensate people – particularly marginalised folks – for their labour. Mostly my diary is now pretty full up several months in advance, and for self-care I need to build space around bigger events – so it’s important to have decent advance notice. I also already have close collaborators who I create with and I only build such key relationships very slowly. Please also inform yourself about my work before asking. I’ve had frustrating unpaid exchanges with people who are really looking for someone to edit their work for example, or who want trainings on topics which are not really my wheelhouse.
• Offering constructive criticism: I definitely want to hear when I’ve got things wrong, and to keep thinking about how I can improve my work, particularly in relation to accessibility and inclusivity. However, offering criticism is definitely something that needs to be done consensually. It’s important to check first whether feedback is welcomed and – if so – in what form, recognising the potential impact on the other person of receiving it. If there’s an error in a book, it would be better to contact the publishers rather than me directly and they can liaise with me about any changes. Writers often have to filter criticism which is just bullying/trolling, that which is another perspective but doesn’t mean their perspective is wrong, and that which is definitely valid and requires them to make changes or apologise for something they’ve put out there. I’m working on developing a small pool of trusted people to help me navigate this kind of process, and would recommend other writers do similarly. Generally if the criticism is not done consensually I won’t engage with it. 

The Consent Checklist

Whatever kind of contact we’re having, hopefully the consent checklist I wrote provides a clear steer on how I’d love for you to go about it. 

• Consent as the aim: Is it more important to you that I’m in consent than that you get the thing you want from me? Will you recognise that it’s a big compliment to your way of interacting and communicating if I can say ‘no’ or express my boundaries?
• Informed consent: Have you fully informed me about what you’re asking for and/or offering, why, and where you are coming from with this?
• Ongoing consent: Are you checking in before, during, and after the encounter – with yourself and with me – that you’ve made it possible for me to be in consent?
• Relational consent: Have you expressed your needs, limits, wants, and boundaries, and encouraged me to do so as well?
• Consent and wanting: Have you enabled me to express what I want and don’t want, and what I consent to and don’t consent to? Have you been clear about where you’re at with these things with yourself?
• Multiple options beyond a default script: Are you aware of the default script for ‘success’ in this situation, and have you shifted this to multiple options and an agreement to default to the lesser one on the table? For example, instead of asking me to speak at your event, perhaps you could let me know about that event and say you’d love me to be involved in some way, listing a few different options for involvement and checking out how I might feel about those.
• Power awareness: Are you aware of the cultural and personal power imbalances between us and their potential impact on capacity for each of us to feel free-enough and safe-enough to be in consent? 
• Accountability: Can you notice if you haven’t been consensual and name that?

If you enjoyed this post please consider supporting my Patreon.

The post Treating writers consensually appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Consent is a constant theme in my work, but I notice that every time I revisit it I see more of the picture, make more connections, and understand it more complexly and completely. I like the metaphor of a spiral for this, and for so many things. We co round and round the same territory in our lives and our work, but each time we can sink down a little deeper if we’re up for it.

The Zine

I’ve added the consent checklist zine to the zines in the resources section on this website, and it’s also at the end of this post. It’s not an illustrated zine this time because it didn’t feel right for one of those, but I do have an idea for another of those to come soon (well actually several). I may well stick with my habit of doing a comic or zine for New Year.

If you check out the zine you’ll also notice that I’ve added a suggestion that people who download them might like to support my Patreon. Yes I have a Patreon now! It’s for people who enjoy the free materials I put out here, and my other work, to support what I do, if they want to and feel able to, now that I’m a full-time writer. Please do sign up if that’s something you’d like to do.

Meanwhile, here’s…

The post New zine! And Patreon! appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.