I was invited to imagine a world without heteronormativity for the podcast. You can also hear amazing interviews with people imagining worlds without injustice, ableism, single-use plastics, private transport, and many more to come. This is the trailer for the whole series:

The Parallel Effect

You can listen to my episode on The Parallel Effect Substack on the following links, as well as reading a summary there, and watching a video about the wonderful creation artist Audax Mrozik Gawler made in response: A kit to help young humans find their nodes of belonging and steward world-making between species, the KINNECT.

Substack link

Apple podcast link

Full transcript link

Below are the notes I wrote in preparation for my interview with Daz Chandler on the show. Read on for a little more written detail if you’re interested…

Just before we take a deep dive into the world you visited, how it looks and how it functions, would you mind elaborating a little on the concept of “benign variation”? How does it relate to the idea of normativity?

Benign variation is a concept from Gayle Rubin’s classic paper, Thinking Sex. It’s the idea that – instead of there being good and bad sexual identities, desires and practices – humans naturally have a whole range of sexualities (including asexualities) which are all equally valid & valuable, so long as they’re only ever acted on ethically and consensually.

Dominant cultural normativities create hierarchies between supposed normal and less normal sexualities, as well as genders, relationship styles, appearances, bodyminds, and all kinds of other things. Actually, the ways our bodies work, combined with the world we’re born into, and what happens over the course of our lives combine to form a vast array of different ways of experiencing and understanding things, including sex.

Benign variation is aligned with approaches like open normativities or pluriverses. In such approaches we recognise that people and communities will all have their stories, understandings and ways of doing things. But these are never imposed on others, and other stories and ways of doing things are held as equally valid and valuable. We might connect this to the ways in which ecological diversity is essential for ecosystems.

Sahana Chattopadhyay writes that pluriversal approaches regard many diverse, interconnected worlds, or ways of being, as coexisting, rather than a single, unified reality. Pluriversal approaches emphasize the value of multiple perspectives and experiences.

Alexis Shotwell defines open normativities as collectively crafted ways of being that shape our experiences and understandings, and are oriented toward widespread flourishing.

In terms of parallel worlds and alternative timelines, we know that many of the worlds we’ve visited so far have been almost identical to this one, until something happens that sets it on a different course. In this parallel world you’ve just arrived back from, were there any historical or cultural events that inspired this shift away from heteronormativity, or has it always been that way?

The world we visited was very much like ours until the point where people recognised – much earlier than we have – the links between personal and social disconnection and ecological crisis. They realised that if we didn’t address disconnection we would lose everything

This disconnection included any sense that some people, experiences, or ways of being were inherently more normal, valid or valuable than others. People realised that there is benign variation at all levels of experience. They woke up to the violence involved in disconnecting into better/worse, normal/abnormal, good/bad, etc.

In order for people to really get this – and to want to do something different – it was necessary to make it both global and personal. People had to see that we’d all lose everything if we carried on this way and they had to realise that normativities hurt them personally. 

This latter point involved understanding that normativities hurt both those who are excluded by them and those who are caught up in them. For example, normativities around sex hurt those who are sexually marginalised, they are a huge part of why so much non-consensual sex happens, and they are why people feel so unfulfilled sexually and have so much shame around sex. Normativities around gender hurt gender divergent people, and they hurt men and women who are trying to fit norms of masculinity and femininity. Normativities around how bodyminds should work exclude disabled and neurodivergent people, and they hurt those who conform to norms about how bodyminds should function, for example in education and in the workplace.

In the world I visited, people recognised that easing our suffering, others’ suffering, and the suffering of the planet were utterly interconnected.

What challenges has this world faced in implementing the benign variation model? Was there any significant resistance or unexpected consequences?

Two major challenges were around:

• Bringing new people up with this model, in families and education systems, and 
• Enabling those who had been brought up with the old model to shift to the new model

It was particularly challenging for everyone to face and forgive the personal and collective harms that had been done to them in the old model, and the harm that they had done or been complicit in themselves. 

Everyone was given a period of at least five years – over the course of a twenty-five year transition process – to really focus on making these shifts internally, with deep support from the people and systems around them, and flexibility to do this work in whatever way fitted best for them. Support included space to engage in solitary practices, mentorship from those who had already been through such periods, peer-support with others who were focusing on this work, and regular meetings in groups and communities engaged in similar practices.

Practically this period was enabled by things like: universal basic income, recognising all work as valid and not requiring unnecessary work, community living, and people downsizing to a much smaller sense of what counts as ‘enough’.

There’s so much to ask but I suppose my first question relates to your initial impression of the place. How did you know that you had travelled somewhere different? What immediate clues did this alternative realm provide?

I was immediately struck by the way that, in this world, people were encouraged to find the kinds of relationships, intimacies, life projects and so on that were nourishing to them and enabled them to flourish. They weren’t expected to fit others’ expectations, or cultural assumptions about how best to live, work and relate.

This meant that people were much more fulfilled, and more supportive of others being equally fulfilled. They weren’t trying to make themselves be a certain way in order to fit in, or to be what would be convenient or comfortable for somebody else. Nor were they putting pressure on others in that kind of way.

People seemed much less masked, more open and curious, and more okay with having periods of not knowing, of trying things out

I want to talk now about social structures and family dynamics…In a world without heteronormativity, how have family structures evolved? Are there new forms of kinship or caregiving arrangements?

All different relationship and family structures are seen as valid in this world. Care and domestic labour are valued as highly as other kinds of work, with everybody being given enough time to be with the close people in their lives. It’s expected that most children will have several adults involved in bringing them up, and all adults will be supported in how to parent well.

Also inner parenting and inner partnering is valued as highly as the outer kinds. Everyone is supported to get solitude for, and support around, their inner work. This means they learn how to be intimate and loving with themselves, honest and kind about their capacities and limitations, and able to ask for – and access – the support they need.

Everyone is seen as both needing of care and capable of offering care. They are supported to discover – and to communicate – what they need, and what they can offer. Again there’s a shared understanding that there’ll inevitably be benign variation in people’s needs and offerings.

How does this model affect parenting? What changes in how children are raised and educated about relationships and identity?

Children are raised that whatever shape their gender, sexuality, or self ends up taking is just fine, and it’s also fine when it shifts and changes over time. If physical or psychological support is needed for young people to feel comfortable and congruent in their bodyminds, that’s supported.

With heteronormativity gone, there’s a huge shift in how adults are with young people’s feelings. Instead of trying to programme boys not to be fearful, and girls not to be angry, for example, young people are encouraged to experience all their feelings. They are helped to learn how to be with themselves through tough feelings, instead of blaming out, shaming in, avoiding their feelings, or withdrawing from anything that risks bringing up pain.

Similarly all bodyminds and their capacities and limitations are valued, rather than some people being seen as better, more attractive, or more intelligent than others. 

What replaces traditional markers of adulthood, like marriage, in a society not built on normative ideals?

There are both celebratory and grieving rituals around key transition points. These recognise that different transitions will be meaningful to different people, and at different points in their lives. 

For example, key transitions might be major relationship formations, deepenings, changes or endings, with equal value placed on friend, family, erotic/romantic, colleague, and other kinds of relationships. Other key transitions might relate to major bodymind or life path decisions, struggles, openings or changes.

In contrast to our world where so many individuals struggle with normative ideas of desire and identity, it must be so liberating for folks – particularly children and teenagers – to be supported to grow into their authentic selves. How are young people guided in discovering and expressing their desires in a non-normative context?

This world is informed by Audre Lorde’s expansive concept of the erotic and a similarly expansive concept of intimacy.

This means that children and young people are encouraged to explore what ‘lights them up’ or ‘makes them feel most alive’ and to orient towards this in all areas of life. They don’t restrict desire to sex, or intimacy to romance. For example, this might include tuning into what gives them: a good feeling in their body, a sense of mental immersion/excitement, an experience of flow or being in the zone creatively, or a feeling of expansiveness, playfulness and curiosity, and/or safety, trust and comfort.

This has a huge impact on the world of work. All contributions that need to happen in this world do happen because there is benign variation in what people love doing, and because people are fully valued for what they contribute, including cleaning, serving, caring, and manual labour. It’s also totally okay to change direction in work through a lifetime, and just to try something for a while.

This also has a huge impact on the world of relationships. People go towards the relationship forms, and the people and other beings, that are a good fit with them and feel mutually nourishing. There is equal value placed on fleeting connections, long term ones, and everything in between. And there is a recognition of impermanence and loss in relationships without seeing this as a problem, or something to blame on others, or ourselves.

How does this world approach sex and relationship education? What does the curriculum emphasise to support the “benign variation” model?

A big shift is that relationship education is given at least as much time and energy as skills and knowledge education. It’s a cornerstone of the curriculum. 

It is recognised that people need teaching and practices about how to relate well with themselves, others and the world. Also, embodied and emotional learning is valued at least as highly as intellectual learning and learning practical skills.

It is also recognised that people have different ways of learning and different callings. Curriculums give a lot of time to play, and to helping people find the ways of learning and the kinds of work/play that are the best fit for them (e.g. learning through visual, audio, sensing, relating, etc.)

With benign variation there is no grading whatsoever! There’s just lots of support for people to find what ways of contributing are the best fit for their capacities and enthusiasms.

How does this world define and enforce the principles of consent and ethics?

This world moves away from capitalist-colonialist ways of relating with ourselves, others and the world. This is a deep shift because it means people are endeavouring never to speak or act from a place of trying to get something from someone, or to make them feel or behave a particular way.

There’s a valuing of all kinds of relationships. For example, there’s no hierarchy of biological over chosen relationships, romantic over friendship, or human over non human.

Non-consensual and unethical behaviours are understood to be rooted in personal and/or collective trauma. People are deeply supported to address this, both in themselves and in the systems they’re embedded in.

What role does language play in this society, particularly in relation to pronouns, labels, or identity terms?

With benign variation it’s possible to be more playful with language, rather than there being a sense that people have to use a limited number of words and agree on their meanings. There’s a culture of respecting the pronouns, names, labels and so on that feel the best fit for the person or community, and also of being open to this changing over time. There’s an open curiosity that asks ‘What does that mean for you (if you want to share)?’ rather than assuming. 

There’s also a valuing of non verbal forms of communication at least as highly as verbal ones: helping people to find the ways of expressing themselves that are the best fit for them.

How do art, media, and literature reflect this model of benign variation? Are there distinct storytelling styles or themes that emerge?

There’s a much more diverse range of creativity that is valued, and no hierarchies around high/low art, or what counts as ‘proper’ art. 

There has been quite a move away from linear storytelling which suggests people should be on paths towards certain kinds of ‘success’ or ‘happiness’ or ‘recovery’. Stories are often more cyclical and reflect the fact that there are inevitably times in our lives of more/less clarity, more ease and more challenge, endings and beginnings

There’s been a big move away from celebrity, towards recognising everyone’s value, and the value of small gestures, having/being enough, and easing suffering in simple ways

In a society free from heteronormativity, how is fashion affected? Do styles become more diverse, or is there a shift in how people use clothing to express themselves?

There are definitely more diverse styles and more diverse orientations to fashion. There’s acceptance and celebration of those who use clothing to express their energy or creativity, and those for whom it’s purely functional, and everything in between.

There is similar diversity in things like food and physical activity and creative pursuits: a recognition that it’s very meaningful and important to some, with support and community around that, but an acceptance that it’s fine for it to not be important as well.

How does the workplace accommodate or reflect this diversity in desires and relationships? Are there policies that support alternative family or relational structures?

Absolutely, for example there is a lot of support for people to take breaks from other forms of work to focus on outer/inner parenting or caring for themselves/others. There are some whose work is focused on these things.

People are always asked about who the close people and other beings in their lives are, rather than assuming any kind of relationship.

In housing, people are supported to find ways of living that are a good fit for them, with likeminded people. Support systems are embedded in these homes for when relational challenges inevitably come up. Such systems are viewed as vital as utilities like power and water.

How has this shift influenced global movements, such as feminism or LGBTQAI rights? Are these movements still distinct, or have they merged into broader frameworks?

With everyone recognising benign variation there are fewer movements around rights for particular marginalised groups. There are more movements towards everyone recognising and feeling their interconnectedness, and for addressing any remaining areas in the world where some are treated less well than others in any way.

Such movements are always led by those with lived experience, and the emphasis is on finding out what support they need around any challenges they still face and implementing that support.

When it comes to addressing any harms that still occur between people, and/or between people and other beings or the natural world, the emphasis is on hearing all of the stories and working together to heal trauma and to transform systems so that harm doesn’t continue.

In your view, what lessons can our current world learn from this other realm?

Everything! I want to live there! My only reservations are…

• We can’t ever really know for sure what would help. We need to embrace uncertainty and invite change, rather than creating new normativities to force on everyone in a further attempt to dominate and control. Even the kind of vision I’ve outlined here could lead to great suffering if it was made solid and static and grasped and imposed.
• Imagining such worlds can set up a gap between where we are and where we want to be. It feels really important to be with reality as it is, in order to be as wise and compassionate as possible with how things actually are. Otherwise there’s a risk that we end up constantly seeking for it to be how it was in some imagined past, or how we wish it could be in some imagined future (or parallel world). Can we recognise the deep pain and suffering that is present here without setting ourselves in opposition to this reality?

What would you say to someone in our reality, who is struggling to reconcile their sense of “normalcy” with this vision of diversity?

Start where you are. Whatever area you want to focus on (e.g. gender, sexuality, relationships, neurodiversity…), begin with deep self-reflection on the norms that you grew up with and those that are around in your culture at the moment. Explore how these have hurt you and disconnected you from yourself, others and the world. Then, instead of opposition, you can get alongside others who’re striving for justice and diversity in this area, and all areas.

The final chapter of the new edition of my book Rewriting the Rules, explores how we might take the first tender and tentative steps towards this kind of work, individually and collectively.

The post The Parallel Effect: A World Beyond Heteronormativity appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

I found it difficult to decide whether to take up the invitation or not, mainly because so much has changed – in the world, and in me/us internally – since those books were published. In the end it felt important to revisit the books – to add something to them which would recognise and honour those changes, while not altering them too much – to recognise and honour the originals, the person who wrote them, and their continued usefulness to many, including myself.

New covers!

Here’s a preview of the two new covers. Regular readers may understand why I am particularly excited about them both (the new colour of The Psychology of Sex, and the new central image on Rewriting the Rules).

I’ll say more here in the coming months about the process and content of the new edition of Rewriting the Rules, which is out in September. It’s a huge one for me, given that it was the first edition of Rewriting the Rules that started the journey of becoming a non-fiction writer, including this website.

The Psychology of Sex

For now, the new edition of The Psychology of Sex is out this month.

Like Rewriting the Rules, the main changes that I made to The Psychology of Sex involved adding a new foreword, and a major new chapter at the end of the book. I also made some minor tweaks throughout to update references and reflect how things have shifted, particularly in relation to ever more polarised debates around sex and sexuality.

Un/Conscious Sex

The new final chapter is called ‘un/conscious sex’. It reflects my main areas of learning since 2018, particularly around trauma, plurality, the processes of bringing unconscious material into consciousness, and the role of sex and the erotic in all of this. This chapter also reflects wider cultural concerns around the prevelance of non-consensual sexual behaviour, and how we might address that at both a personal and collective level.

Particularly, the ‘un/conscious sex’ chapter explores how relational and cultural trauma massively constrain all of our capacities to navigate consent. It suggests ways in which we might use our erotic imaginations to become more conscious of all of our selves, and so approach sex – and everything – more consciously and consensually.

It felt very helpful, and meaningful, for me to bring all of this material together in one place, to convey my current understanding of: how our erotic and relational lives relate to trauma, how challening consent is for all of us under these conditions, and what we might therefore do to expand our capacity for care and connection with ourselves, others, and the world.

These are themes that I return to – beyond sex – in the final chapter of the new edition of Rewriting the Rules. They will likely be at the heart of all my work in future.

Check it out

Check out The Psychology of Sex, for more information about the book. The full contents of the third edition is as follows:

Foreword to the new edition

1 Psychology and sex

2 Sex and sexuality

3 ‘Proper’ sex

4 ‘Normal’ sex

5 Sex debates

6 Un/conscious sex

Further resources

The post New edition of The Psychology of Sex – including un/conscious sex appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

It feels appropriate that I have an addition to our Plural Tarot project, from last year, to share with you at this time. Back then we ended the Plural Tarot zines with the final card in the major arcana – The World – which showed me, Fox, heading out into the world to re-engage after our seven years of crisis and collapse, and our five years of deep retreat. The other plural selves in our system were very much in the background of that card, as that’s how I experienced them at the time. I wondered whether it would just be me, with Ara’s support, going forward, given that we hadn’t been able to connect with the others vividly – in the way we used to – for a whole year.

Turns out that – thankfully – this wasn’t the case. We head into 2026 feeling deeply connected as all seven of us (having had several years of just five, and one year of just two). I’m particularly spending a lot of time with our ‘critic’ (Morgan) and fearful one (Jonathan) helping them to know what essentional members of the team they are. It still seems to be me, Fox, who needs to engage with the outer world, but my ‘council of four’ are close by, informing all that I do, and I feel James and Ara holding us all. Here’s the new card which is the best depiction I can manage of how it feels inside Team MJ at the moment…

I’ve updated our Plural Tarot Companion, and Plural Tarot, zines on this website to include the new World card. All of this bodes well to finally writing the book we’ve been hoping to write in 2026: a book sharing the learnings from our plural path, expanding on the zines we’ve already written and exploring how this kind of work/play relates to mental health, relationships with others, social justice, and spirituality.

However, creating this new card also reminds us of how things can – and do – change and change again. Perhaps we’ll need to make further ‘World’ cards in future to represent new selves configurations. Being open to what unfolds – rather than resisting it – is certainly one of our biggest learnings. And, relatedly, this may not be the year for that book. We have a strong sense that we’ll need to be in a certain place, ourselves, before writing it, even if that won’t ever be any kind of end point. There’s a draw to various fiction projects too, as well as to writing about writing, and we’ll hopefully be making a third Queer Creative Health zine with QueerCircle as well.

In more certain news – for those who want to read our writings! – there will be new editions of two of our old books out in 2026. Routledge asked me to do a second edition of The Psychology of Sex, as they are relaunching their Psychology of Everything series. Managing that project back in Autumn gave me the confidence to revisit Rewriting the Rules (the book this website is named for): also for Routledge. That felt like a much greater challenge as the book is so personally meaningful to us, being the first self-help style book that we (or rather Max) wrote, and a book that sets out one of our most pivotal philosophies (that it’s important to rewrite our rules, the other ones being that ‘life isn’t binary‘ and that we’re all ‘incorrigibly plural‘ – the title of our next book!)

So watch this space for updates on those two new editions. The second edition of The Psychology of Sex includes a whole new long chapter about un/conscious sex and trauma, as well as updates about sex and tech, and queer/intersectional sexualities. The third edition of Rewriting the Rules includes a foreword addressing recent and current crises, new afterwords where I reflect on each chapter from where we’ve got to now, and a new afterword to the whole book about the importance of Rewriting our Rules (plural) at the level of ourselves, our relationships, our culture, and our ecosystems.

The Psychology of Sex is already available for pre-order, and I’ll update here as soon as Rewriting the Rules is available too. A few chapters in edited collections on love studies, neuroqueerness, and madzines should also come out this year…

The post A new ‘world’ and book updates appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

The zine suggests that we often locate any pain and difficulties that we experience in relationships as being something ‘wrong’ with that particular person, or with that particular way of doing relationships (e.g. monogamy or polyamory).

What if it wasn’t the what that was the problem, but the how? What if pain will keep showing up in our relationships (of all kinds and with any people) until/unless we attend to that pain, and address how we are relating?

This zine suggests that we all carry relationship trauma from the existential challenges of relating, from the toxic structures and messages about relationships in our wider culture, and from the development of our particular ways of relating in our family context. This trauma remains in our bodies and impacts how we relate now.

We then explore what diverse relationship styles might have to offer to a more trauma-sensitive way of doing relationships. We consider how learning how to love in a more conscious, consensual, mutual way could be seen as a lifelong journey through all types of relating.

You can download the zine here.

The post New zine! Relationship Struggles appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

In my interview I spoke about how we need to understand relationships – and relationship struggles – through the lens of cultural and developmental trauma. I covered relationship diversity, and why this model is more helpful than binaries when it comes to relationships. I spoke about why I think we need to focus more on how we relate, than who we relate with or what relationship style we subscribe to. I also explored how our relationships with ourselves, others, and the world are interconnected.

The post Relationship Super Conference talk appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

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.