Whatever Makes You Happy, Babe

Reflections on the paradox of my heterosexuality.

Dear readers,

This week I am sharing four photographs by three different boyfriends, and some accumulated reflections from my experience as a heterosexual woman who engages in romantic relationships with men.

Though I practice curiosity when it comes to how my readers interpret what I share, these thoughts are sensitive reflections of my experience. I speak for no one else. These thoughts are not opinions up for debate, and I am not writing them down to see if you agree or disagree with them.

I am interested if you have had similar experiences or reflections, or if you have found small but mighty ways to navigate the paradox of the heterosexual partnership while simultaneously participating in one.

These thoughts are also not indicative of a specific or aching predicament I am facing in my current relationship, though as you will see, our union is also not exempt from the effects of patriarchy. I wonder if it is possible for any expressed gender identity or sexual orientation to remain exempt from the effects of patriarchy, though I like to imagine that other, non-heterosexual relationship models offer more dynamism and flexibility. In any case, the satisfaction and joy I experience in my relationship is not mutually exclusive from the subjugation created by it; this is part of the paradox itself.

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Thank you for reading. Continued below…

“Romantic love, in pornography as in life, is the mythic celebration of female negation. For a woman, love is defined as her willingness to submit to her own annihilation. The proof of love is that she is willing to be destroyed by the one whom she loves, for his sake. For the woman, love is always self-sacrifice, the sacrifice of identity, will, and bodily integrity, in order to fulfill and redeem the masculinity of her lover.” -Andrea Dworkin, from Our Blood: Prophecies and Discourses on Sexual Politics

When I am alone, I hold myself completely to Her.

At least I try to.

The solitary me is not in or of a gaze. I do not conflate my existence with being recognized or approved of. Being looked at and perceived, or experienced as something meant to entertain, does not precede my self-actualization. I experience me, more or less, as is.

In relationship, it’s different. Holding on to a sense of selfhood is harder. I cling to Her with varying degrees of mania, I sometimes get so caught up in resistance that I stand in the way of my getting anything I want at all. I share myself with a man, I invite him to occupy time and space with me, but the shared histories from which we come are favorable only to one. A sacrifice is made, a split occurs, my wholeness ruptured.

My experience in relationship with a man creates, almost immediately, an “other” to whom I defer — because of internalized patriarchy, because of the heedless, untethered domination of men. Awareness is not enough to circumvent my due diligence to the order of things or to fully thwart my submission. I carry a particularly enhanced feeling of being on thin ice, one I am naturally inspired to rectify by seeking approval — if only so that I can ensure my wellbeing and maintain my now fragmented sense of self.

Grappling day to day with the effects of my own conditioning from it, I no longer simply live against the backdrop of patriarchy — it begins to live inside of me. I don’t think I’ve had a boyfriend who has actively sought to disempower me, but often it feels as though our roles in union together are so deeply internalized that we don’t question them, perhaps because we don’t even know what to ask.

My experience in relationship is often not uplifting or restorative in mind, body, and spirit. I come to find that my only chance for expansion within it is if I actively use the relationship as a tool for personal growth. I may occupy my time with the mental gymnastics required to learn about myself in partnership, but in some ways even this activity of self-improvement is in service to a man.

Though I may benefit from my own self-discoveries, my mission to broaden myself while inside the container of a relationship cannot be separated from the relationship. Regardless of my personal goals, the work I do is still advantageous for my partner: I nurture a better version of myself for the current relationship, or for one in the future.

Exhaustion from these pursuits is a concern, especially considering the emotional labor required to coexist with the paradox of the relationship itself. Knowing what I do, for me to choose a relationship with a man in the context of patriarchy is to choose a practice of self-erasure; to face death while being asked to embody life. It is for me to be everything and nothing, to contend with the expectation to cultivate care and interconnectedness in a system designed against me having the energy to do so.

“Our work should be to reclaim masculinity and not allow it to be held hostage to patriarchal domination. There is a creative, life-sustaining, life-enhancing place for the masculine in a non-dominator culture. And those of us committed to ending patriarchy can touch the hearts of real men where they live, not by demanding that they give up manhood or maleness, but by asking that they allow its meaning to be transformed, that they become disloyal to patriarchal masculinity in order to find a place for the masculine that does not make it synonymous with domination or the will to do violence” -bell hooks, from The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love

Further reading:

1. Girlhood by Melissa Febos

2. The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love by bell hooks

3. The New Yorker on Andrea Dworkin

Love for now,

Anna

Citations:

hooks, bell. The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. Washington Square Press, 2005.

Dworkin, Andrea. Our Blood: Prophecies and Discourses on Sexual Politics. Harper & Row, 1976.