Feminists can center men a little, as a treat

“Decenter men.”

It’s not bad advice. It would have served me well at many, if not most, points in my life.

And yet, you’re welcome in my feminism if your male romantic partner is at the center of your life.

I’m thinking about it because it’s in the discourse.

Cartoons Hate Her

just posted about decentering men.

And because

Heather Havrilesky

has, once again, articulated me to myself:

My husband… represents a dream of mine. I dreamt that one person would understand me and show up for me, and he does so without fail. I dreamt that this person would make me laugh and help me through my shittiest days. My husband is such a big dream of mine that I feel vulnerable and inferior when I let him into the master bedroom of my heart. Sometimes it’s painful to recognize how much I love him and depend on him. It makes me feel weak and small.

Plus,

Tracy Clark-Flory

and

Amanda Montei

just launched a podcast called

Dire Straights

(get it?).

Now, you should know that I’m a bad feminist. I’m a Pick Me Ass Bitch. I reject radical feminism. So I really shouldn’t be embarrassed to admit that Rob rules everything around me (RREAM).

And yet.

A close, committed romantic relationship is, and always has been, my primary ambition. I just went back and forth between denial and acceptance. It was (and is) humiliating. It’s so vulnerable.

Now, “first” still don’t mean “only.” I remain polyamorous (though much more in theory than in practice). Loving others doesn’t denigrate our love.

This love is special for reasons rather mundane.

I’ve worked hard to develop and maintain a community. But Rob is there for more of what happens in my life than anyone else because time is finite, I dislike living with most people, and I don’t trust anyone else with my money.

It’s funny how a gift so transcendent grows from such prosaic constraints.

A divorce and then polyamory helped me face the reality that monogamy guarantees nothing, but switching costs are high. The kind of person I want to be with values what we’ve built too much to give it up for mere novelty. I want to be the kind of person who would never force anyone I love to choose between us and someone shiny and new.

I’d stop writing this newsletter if Rob asked me to.

(My now-ex) Alabama D once suggested I stop talking to one of my BFFs. “He must not know how good he is for me,” I thought at the time. (Nor did he know how little interest this friend had in my vagine, lol.) I kept hoping Alabama D would realize his mistake. But I was fully ready to let him go before I let him isolate me. Not because I (consciously) thought D was an abuser. I thought he loved me. I thought he’d ultimately rather lose me than harm me. (In hindsight, I might have misjudged that one a little.)

To me, that’s what love is. Love is wanting what’s best for someone, even if it’s not best for you.

I fully believe that Rob wants what’s best for me.

I live to write. I’m obsessed with myself. I want to make a difference. I want to be a good sister, daughter, friend, collaborator, etc. But, at the end of my life, what I most want to have accomplished is what I have and am actively building with Rob.

I might disagree with Rob’s reasoning, but I trust his intentions. I sometimes question his thinking. But his heart is always in the right place.

Abusive, coercive controlling men “love” us in a narrow and grasping way. “I’m the best thing for you, so whatever keeps you under my thumb is good for you,” they seem to believe. It’s easy to mistake a person who makes keeping you in line their number-one priority for a person who prioritizes you above all. This is even more true if neither of you know who you are apart from each other.

I trust Rob to do right by me first and foremost because I trust Rob to do right by himself.

Truly loving himself, I believe, gives Rob the ability to weather the storms without abandoning the ship. That love for his future self that gets him to go running even when he doesn’t want to gives me peace that in the moments when I’m more trouble than I’m worth he will be able to take the long view. His having left bad situations gives me trust that he’ll leave me before I harm him long-term. Our ability to love ourselves — past, present, and future — gives me confidence in our ability to love each other selflessly.

Writing on sex and feminism can be a bit black-and-white for my tastes. Who says one must either attempt to conform to feminism in heterosexual relations or reject/ignore it?

I’m almost certain that patriarchy informs my preferences and priorities. For me, that’s hardly sufficient reason to (attempt to) deny or reject those preferences and priorities. I’m not letting patriarchy dictate my love life in any direction. If that’s not feminist, well then fuck off because yes it is.

It’s vulnerable for me to give Rob this much power. But, if I’ve learned anything, it’s that for most of us, relationships are the point of life. Being in connection is meaning. Other people are our purpose. Connection, * Brene Brown voice* requires vulnerability.

Decentering men is not actually about men. At all. It’s about intimacy and connection. It’s about showing up to every relationship as a person made whole by their entire community.

Decentering men is about making it safe for men to engage with the full spectrum of emotion they were born with but they’ve suppressed their entire lives in order to fit inside the tiny box we call masculinity. It says no one should rely on any one other person for what humans evolved to depend on their entire tribe to provide.

Rob is not my everything. My friends and family are non-negotiable, both for their own sake and because relying on any one person for all my emotional needs is unfair and ultimately unsustainable. My work is extremely important to my functioning.

But Rob is my number-one. And I’m his.

I’ve spent too much time centering men who did not center me. I agree with the advice to prioritize one’s self over “romance.” But when I found a man worth centering, who centers me too, I’m glad I didn’t let fear keep me from what I wanted. I hope fear doesn’t keep you from it either.