Why I use Agile Scrum throughout DanceGRiST

Why I use Agile Scrum throughout DanceGRiST

Carole Edrich presenting at the RSA, photograph (c) Pete Jenkins. This post outlines why I use Agile Scrum throughout DanceGRiST, an organisation comprised of creative freelancers. I have written it so that everyone gets the same introduction to the ideas and approach I use, along with its value for DanceGRiST, for our creative freelance members, for our clients and other stakeholders. So what…

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People who are anti-kink at pride, I beg of you to read academic journals discussing the queer beauty of intercommunication, trust and growth through BDSM practices. How the passing of knowledge is queered from patriarchal, heirarchal, heternormative ways to an egalitarian and non-gendered manner that inherently gives agency to those in the minority. Kink when done right is QUEER: Saying "Fuck white cishets trying to harm and colonize my body, I LIKE pain and will experience it on my own terms." Or "Fuck white cishets trying to harm and colonize my body, I will use that pain to nurture, educate, and help others take agency where the government and society has tried to take it away from us." Most importantly it says "Fuck anyone who tries to shame and hide us." Queer liberation was also part of the wider feminist sexual liberation movement which brought access to birth control, sex education, and abortion.

Look up Keiran Sellars "I've been Intimate with Him as I Have been with Anybody."

Look up Robyn Henderson-Espinoza's "Decolonial Erotics: Power Bottoms, Topping from Bottom Space, and the Emergence of Queer Sexual Theology."

I'm having none of the puritanical propoganda bs.

TLDR: Kink=queer as it subverts societal power dynamics and norms in favor of an egalitarian one that gives power to all participants through consent and boundaries.

I understand the anger and frustration which leads women to declare that the only way to end our oppression is to rid the world of men. Even if you agree, I fail to see how we could ever achieve that, or be allowed to. But beyond that, I feel that one of the important things about feminism is the belief that the way in which we try to achieve our ends, influences the type of end we will achieve. Hence our insistence on non-heirarchical structures, our attempts to do away with power imbalances. Genocide is a form of male power-mongering I do not wish us to make use of. I want a non-sexist society, but not at the expense of turning women (who know so much about creating) into destructive "men".

If we envisage a future in which men will take part, men will have to change. Some women believe this will only happen if women withdraw their support totally from men. I don't believe all women are every likely to want to do this. Not all feminists want to do so, now. I'm not sure it would achieve the desired effect if we did. I think we will only achieve the sort of change we want very slowly, and not in any one way - it will be more like millions of little drops of all shapes and sizes gradually wearing away at the stone of the patriarchy.

Meanwhile, we need every ounce of woman energy we can muster. If the women's movement can't be a place for all women, whatever their sexuality. then we have little hope of ever achieving very much.

-Love Your Enemy? The Debate between Heterosexual Feminism and Political Lesbianism

actually i would be interested in your thoughts on hierarchies and hierarchical organising. i'm a communist myself but i keep also not settling into one kind of idea about hierarchies since I do agree about non-hierarchical organising not getting work done, have heard this from some organisers i know, but also I still need to do more reading around this and we've also had discussions on this in our group, so i do want to know more if you want to talk about this. ty!

Hiya! I have a lot of thoughts about this. I've had good and bad experiences of both. I am extremely delirious at the moment so this might not make sense, but

I think you've seen my post I just made on non-heirarchical organising and I'm really not a fan of horizontalism as both a practice and an outlook. A lot of these approaches stem from a very 2000s anti-globalisation movement idea of being the change you wanted to see in the world and creating the conditions for revolution by creating microcosms of total democracy. The result is that these organisations tend to have really weird, byzantine structures that only people who are well versed in the lingo can negotiate effectively. There was also a weird fixation on not having meeting chairs in the free education campaign I was on the periphery of, and these meetings tended to be pretty chaotic. Strange things about hand signals as well. There have been big moments in the last few years where organisations using these practices have suddenly swelled in ranks and then not being able to capitalise on this. Going back to the free education movement, there was a huge mass meeting at the start of the semester at my university, I think it was in 2012, hosted by the students' union which had been partially captured by people from the free education movement. Everyone wanted to get on with talking about how to take the campaign against the fee rises forward...but first we had to come up with a structure that wouldn't involve heirarchies. The discussions were long and boring and dominated by people who were into that approach and it ended up killing the whole thing. I think this practice has lost a lot of its explicit ideological appeal since the collapse of the social movements that emerged from the 2000s. A part of that collapse can be linked to these practices.

The issue with more hierarchical organisations is that work tends to end up concentrated among a very small number of people, who then end up dominating the group and/or burning out under the workload. Only a small number of people get the experience of carrying out the tasks of organisation. My experience of the SP was of an extremely heirarchical organisation, where political perspectives and activity were very much set by the viewpoint of the centre of the party and then translated to branches via the full time party workers. There was no way for the membership to replace or remove the leadership of the party (something that became a big issue when the 50 year long general secretary Peter Taaffe starting developing dementia) and the only input they had into policy was amendments to the perspectives document, which was essentially a discussion of what we thought was going to happen the following year. The document was written entirely by the central leadership and amendments were often diluted. This structure was unable to take on new initiatives or ideas from below, and when presented with a problem that it wasn't expecting (the SP had always thought that there was no way for leftists to take over the Labour Party, and then that happened with Corbyn) it wasn't able to easily come up with new approaches that fitted with the time. Increasingly the active part of the party was really the full time apparatus, with the membership as their foot soldiers whose role was essentially to fundraise to keep said apparatus solvent.

That being said, it did provide a good source of political education. The practice of weekly lead offs (short 20 min lectures followed by discussion). I developed as an activist while in the organisation, became a competent public speaker. However, every lead off ended with a response from the speaker where they integrated the questions that were raised into the established party line. When that line fell apart, there were diminishing returns.

I also don't really think organising based on command and control systems is appropriate to neoliberal societies. I remember hearing, I think this was discussed in an account of the Hong Kong uprising, of widespread distrust of "the stage" - people did not trust or want to listen to established political organisations. The issue we have today is our culture is hyperindividualised and people (rightfully) are suspicious of those who want to exert control over them or give them orders. People's political perspectives are totally disoriented and heterogenous. A lot of these opinions are also, frankly, stupid. So any appropriate structure would have to both be able to take into account these and facilitate the construction of consensus among participants, and crucially political education and not political education in the form of wrote learned Marx Engels Lenin, memorising quotes and dogmas rather than engaging with the thought as a living methodology, and an investigation on how the world works. The focus of any political organisation should be building the political capacities of participants in the organisation.

Generally a lot of my ideas for what a good structure would look like come from Walter Citrine's ABCs of Chairmanship. An organisation is based on a membership - people who have agreed with a fundamental set of positions and agreed to contribute to the running of the organisation (i.e. paying dues on a sliding scale based on employment status). Members are organised into local branches; functionary positions in this branch should, if the organisation is small, rotated between active participants so everyone can learn how to undertake these tasks, or directly elected at a regular general meeting if the organisation is larger (i.e. 50+ members say). National policy should be set at a national conference, where branches propose motions to be debate and voted on by elected delegates. A motion is passed at a branch level . It's a very bog standard organisational approach - but I would kill for their to be a radical left organisation that was based on member democracy rather than democratic centralism or horizontal consensus.

I do feel that issues with structure are a feature of political stagnation and disorientation rather than something inherent to one approach or another. A consensus based or top down structure that is made up of people who are engaged in good work, with a good idea of what they are doing, and believe in what they're doing, will always be healthier and more dynamic than an organisation with the perfect structure which is inert.

But yeah, I'm totally delirious with covid, so this is a stream of thought, but hopefully something made sense in there.

Long Rambling Thoughts on Shinji's Four "Love Interests" in Evangelion

So there are a lot of patterns when you compare any pair of the quartet of Misato, Rei, Asuka, and Kaworu) with the other two, yeah?

Shinji's relationship with Rei reflects his desire for parental/maternal love and the allure of the sexual Other as mystical and unknown. Shinji's relationship with Asuka reflects his desire for sexual/erotic love and the allure of the sexual Other as imminent and concrete. Shinji's relationship with Kaworu reflects his desire for divine/unconditional love and the fear of the sexual Other as mystical and forbidden. Shinji's relationship with Misato reflects his desire for sympathetic/companionate love and the fear of the sexual Other as imminent and imposing.

Rei and Kaworu are both Angels; one is his genetic relative and the other is genetically male (but only bodily - their souls, as Lilith and Adam respectively, are androgynous and non-Lilin in origin). They're also both "mysterious", and indirect in their sexual overtures towards Shinji. These two factors distance them from Shinji as objects of eroticism, even as he's drawn to them. However, they both see Shinji as representative of humanity, and "become more human" through him - so he's initially receptive to both, before he learns about their "nature", whereupon the Absolute Terror of the Other returns. While he's (arguably) sexually attracted to both of them, he's not fully conscious of this attraction - and so, Shinji finds Rei and Kaworu comforting, albeit distant. They appear to him, in the end, as spiritual guides into and out of the sanctuary of Instrumentality.

Misato and Asuka are both fully "Lilin" and explicitly feminine. They're also both explicit in their sexual overtures towards Shinji. These factors, as well as the fact that they live with him physically, render them imminently present - and inescapable as erotic objects. This frightens Shinji, as he's all-too-aware of his attraction to both of them - but it's because of their presence that he's drawn closer to them. That is to say when Rei (II) and Kaworu both die voluntarily for Shinji (and, incidentally, humanity as a whole), Misato and Asuka both "die hard" to complete their own "human works" (and, incidentally, save Shinji in the process). However, Shinji rejects Misato when she tries to take advantage of their mutual attraction, and Asuka rejects Shinji when he does the same. Nonethless, in the end, Shinji and Asuka are "together", and Misato is implied to have some hope of returning (and at the very least, leaves the bloody cross pendant as a physical "keepsake" - whereas Rei and Kaworu are no longer with him, at least not physically, their ultimate whereabouts left ambiguous. It's surely no coincidence that both Asuka and Misato kiss Shinji whereas Rei and Kaworu do not.

There are other patterns like these - Rei (symbolically, and probably literally as well) and Asuka (though only slightly) are both "younger", whereas Misato (literally) and Kaworu (slightly, but symbolically significantly) are "older". Asuka and Kaworu both appear to Shinji as his "peers" (speaking with him using familiar language from the very beginning), whereas Rei and Misato are heirarchically distanced from him (Rei from a position of vulnerability, Misato from a position of authority; Shinji addresses them familiarly only during moments of emotional intensity). Kaworu is the only "boy" among the four, and Misato is the only adult, both of which factors strain their respective moments of sexual tension with Shinji. Rei and Asuka are both initially attracted to (and closer with) other (adult) men - Gendo and Kaji, respectively - which attraction eventually begins to transfer to the more "attainable" Shinji.

This post is getting kind of long and doesn't have much in the way of structure, but I just wanted to get some of my thoughts out there. If you have anything you'd like to add, or any disagreements or parts you'd like to dispute, please do! This is like, the most fascinating part of the show to me.

hi deah! how are you? I'm feeling nosy about your thoughts on industry hbo, please?

finished it minutes ago and I'm still in shock.... but I hope you're doing well ❤️

harper has SO many things wrong with her I can never guess what she's about to do she's so compelling I can't not be obsessed. I love academic fraud in non-medical fields she was so real for all of it

didn't realise how much I love stories that explore workplace/corporate/heirarchal abuse but when you add up succession mythic quest mad men the thick of it bojack etc... yeah I think industry is so PERFECTLY cynical about the realities of these experiences it may be my favourite look at this since the first season of the morning show

and so very predictably, harper and eric's dynamic is everything to me 💀💀💀💀 mayhaps I shall speak more on them at a later time when I'm not still reeling from that ending

all these characters are pretty excellent! of course they all fucking suck as people but there's no one that makes me feel bored/unwilling to focus on the screen. except dvd

yasmin is awful but she is so so cute and such a FREAK 🥴🥵 god bless. the shifting relationship between her and harper over the course of the series is soo interesting

I think Rob is very nice

love the genuinely meaningful symbolism of the use of cigarettes vs vapes. everyone's always handing harper a dart

the stylistic subtleties of the direction and editing of this show are really fun! the match cuts, the choice close-ups. brilliant. I keep thinking about that scene in the hunting episode when harper finds eric smoking outside and he's speaking directly into the camera like it's harper's pov and the hand-held makes it feel like ken leung is floating in the night, meanwhile myha'la is shot indirectly from the side. CRAZY blocking decision

I do not believe for a second that Eric watches succession but i loved the kendall mention regardless

My theory of polyamory is that . Well if you want to have a primary partner that's fine. My relationship/polycule is non-heirarchical, but I genuinely don't have a problem with other models. The thing is, having a primary partner allows you to have a person whose priority is *always with you*. In non-heirarchical relationships, the amount of sacrifices you have to make in your relationships increases significantly. This is fine, but can be difficult as well, especially (if not mostly) because of such strong cultural expectations that someones partner should always put them above their other friends/relationships.

Like to give some examples of things that arent reasonable to expect in non-heirarchical poly:

- legal marriage

- living alone together

- being their plus one to all important events

- etc

Now, all of these CAN happen in non-heirarchical, including marriage (it's all about communication, being legally bonded =/= being the most important) but you absolutely cannot assume that you should be the one to get them. You will have to miss some aspects of a monogamous partnership .

Okay, time to jump completely to a different style of poly. Solo poly! Solo poly is like.... it's kind of like having a primary partner except that primary partner is yourself

What I mean is, solo poly people tend to live alone and see their relationships as supplements to their life that they really value, but not as the core. They make sacrifices for their partners because they care about them, but won't generally plan their lives around their partners (I.e. how someone with a secondary partner tends not to plan their lives around them, but rather around their primary), and other such things.

Okay enough preamble heres my theory. Theory: people who have primary partners are living polyamorously within the "monogamous lifestyle". There are differences between their relationship and monogamous ones of course, but for the most part they can model their relationship on the typical monogamous path, relate to their monogamous peers, etc... meanwhile solo poly people are polyamorous people who are living polyamorously within the "single lifestyle". They can consider their life through the lens that a single person might, and may appear in passing as identical to a single person through their day-to-day lifestyle and behaviour.

So basically, if you're in monogamous society, and you want to stick to the norm, you have two lifestyle options. Single or monogamously partnered. And our society has ten thousand billion expectations and cultural rules or what these lifestyles should look like. And if you're a poly person, you can basically choose one of these styles and be a weirdo (bc society is not pro poly generally) but a weirdo who fits into one of the standard relationship schema.

But if you're like, anything else, wow are you completely charting the fucking deep sea

Like I'm non hierarchical poly, and it's like.... it's like... you have to derive a lot of things for yourself! You can base things on experience and understand what is and isnt right in a monogamous relationship from what you've seen and heard, but in polyamory who fucking knows? You have to decide. But also... you GET to decide. Which is nice. It's extremely freeing and extremely alienating. It's actually like completely divorcing yourself from the expectations of society. I highly reccomend, but it can be really hard sometimes just for.... the whole novelty and uncertainty of it all

STREETFLASH X HYSTERIC SNAP LAUNCH EVENT 06.04.2023

On a cool Thursday evening in April, bestfriends and close collaborators Will Wright (ov @zerocoolarchive) and Daisy Davidson (ov @hysteric.fashion) held a joint launch event @ Hackney's Waste Store London, for their new Lifestyle Photography Zines; StreetFlash(@streetflash404) and Hysteric Snaps(@hysteric.snaps) respectively.

I arrived to find the place lit up with the buzz ov familiar faces and new acquaintences sparking. Established personalities and newblood 'on the scene' alike, almost all known to the organisers, all able to feel at home, recognising themselves in the posters adorning the slanted roof and in the zines lining the white benches inside the venue.

Meg, Credit to hystic.fashion ( i cant find my photos :] )

for many, these two zines represent a legacy ov subcultural styles reaching back decades. Odes to a kind ov love sometimes forgetten to me...until now. The nature ov this space feels very non-heirarchical due to spirit ov individual style and automony, which makes it inviting to those from the fringes ov other scenes in london which sometimes reproduce sameness and conformity to be accepted.

Bea, Credit to hysteric.fashion

new styles that emerge from this spirit, i think, can be owed to spaces like this, where perhaps people might seek validation to pursue a dream for themselves. and if theres anything growing up as a nerd often teaches, its a sense ov the outside. there has to be a somewhere that, between generations, groups and levels ov assimilation, strangers, outsiders can create gateways for one another.

Valentine, ibid.

Lola & Athos, Credit to hysteric.fashion

I cant say I know everyone here, but i dont have to. Im just Grateful to be here to observe and learn from other people on their journeys.

after sifting the limited edition hysteric.fashion waste store merch rack, greeting and smalltalking a lot ov friends and even ex-friends, my social battery starts to wither. it gets dark and Im greeted by mutuals i've not met IRL yet and chummy industry mutuals ov the zines, sipping the free beer, bubbly and more than happy to speak nonsense. with the night the even transfigures more into smaller parties diffusing past the into the street. im offered a hit ov a spliff and my brain says goodnight.

Watched this video and I'm just kinda chuckling at it. Can't tell if they're actually joking about their "big age" or not (hope they is).

I know this is controversial, but I think Gen Z and Millenials need to stop scrounging for everything to have a label or an exact definition, and stop begging around asking, "Is it healthy enough? Am I good enough? AM I ENOUGH!?!" The answer is typically Yes, and there is no perfect label or definition of love. You define it for yourself and no one has the right to take that definition away from you, and no, we don't have to get on the same page about it as a whole.

I have complicated relationships with everyone in my life. It doesn't mean I'm just a bundle of unresolved trauma unfit for the world. It just means I'm human and imperfect. My mom and I used to physically fight, and yet she is one of the most important people in the world to me and I love her fiercely. Who are all these random weirdos on the internet to tell me that no, it's not love, it's just strictly abusive and unhealthy and wrong? It's not and it never was. It's human and flawed and messy and hard and guess what? I can still be myself with her and I will be devastated when the inevitable happens and we are parted and I don't care what bell hooks wrote, it is absolutely 100 percent love. Same thing with my ex. I have never fought any of my so-called "close" friends, but the feelings and vulnerability I have with them doesn't even come close.

As for heirarchies, I just think it's kinda wishful thinking to believe that you don't have them. It doesn't mean that you have to love your romantic partner over your platonic friend, but if two people who are important to you have equivalent events in their life and they both need you but you can only go to one immediately, most likely you already know who you're choosing. It's just not realistic, like ENM/poly couples who claim they're non-heirarchical but close things up when sh*t hits the fan. You chose each other. The other people are not a priority. That's heirarchy. It's that simple.

Love is not always peace. Love can be messy, toxic, hard, soft, easy, happy, tragic etc. It evolves, it grows and it dies, it's active and passive, it is too big to contain in any exact definitions or labels or checklists or therapy speech or terms like healthy and unhealthy even. And I think Gen Z and Millenials need to be OK with that.

And on the subject of Media Depictions of Love: The Media is A FANTASY. Of course it influences things, but so does your immediate environment, your family, your school etc. Not saying that Khadija believes this, but there are really people mad and bitter because of fairy tales and romcoms and romance novels. I think that's mostly a personal problem, as in something they have to untangle with a therapist or themselves. There are things that I enjoy in fiction, that I would be horrified by in real life. I don't like The Notebook, but I don't think anyone who likes The Notebook needs to be informed right now of all the problematic things about it so they can properly disavow it online before they get canceled. Big boys and girls should be able to handle themselves. If you're that upset about fiction, then I think there's an issue there that needs to be addressed and it's not just The Media.

The other night with my ex that I'm now dating again:

Him: have decided that [his boyfriend] is boyfriend1 and you are boythingalpha

Me: Why alpha?

Him: so it's non heirarchical because 1 is not better or worse than alpha

Me: Okay, so what does that make you?

Him: I don't know figure it out

Me: Okay, Daddy

Him: No

Me: Wait, if I'm Alpha, then if fanfic has taught me anything, that makes you Omega

Him: Get Out

Me: Okay, bye Sir Omega

Anyone wanting to get married in a hurry given Barrett’s abominable confirmation and in need of a reverend, you can have a friend get ordained at the Universal Life Church (https://www.ulc.org/) which is entirely free and has pretty detailed walk throughs of the marriage laws in most states, some of which do require things like certificates of good standing which you do have to pay for, but the “Documents you’re most likely to need” package with 2 business day shipping is 80 dollars so it’s not too bad and if you’re looking at something like a two week timespan you won’t need the half of that that is overnight shipping sent out the next day. They’ll definitely sell you shit if you want it, you could get, for instance, an honorary doctorate of divinity once you’re ordained by them which carries all the legitimacy of a doctorate of divinity that you can obtain for twenty dollars on credit card, but they’re legally sound and mostly exist for this purpose so it may be an option for you.

i fink it's funny when people define the problem with elia as her being fridged for her brothers' grief when that's one of the lightening things about her character and death to me. she's such a sparse character, i doubt grrm gave much thought about her, and i'll grab at any sign of ppl actually mourning/caring for her. i'd rather her fridged for her family over her & her kids getting set aside for an epic ice/fire pairing that requires their absence.

Honestly I agree. I find Elias "fridging" for her brother to be far less problematic than everything else that happens to her for 3 reasons:

1. Because Lyanna is also fridged for Ned and to provide mystery in the story. So we don't see the disparity of treatment between the way the narrative treats Lyanna and the way it treats Elia in this particular case. Both women are killed to provide development to their brothers. Which still isn't great but welp.

2. I believe I've discussed before how unrealistic it was that most noble people were seemingly not very disturbed by Elia's rape and murder but I want to hammer home again that this level of apathy towards the Crown Princess of a country not only being brutally killed but also raped is not normal.

This is probably a vast oversimplification but in feudal societies the person of the monarch was extremely sacred. Punishments for regicide were almost always gory and very disproportionate compared to ‘normal’ murders. In some cases would be regicides were also charged with patricide as though they had attempted to kill their own fathers, because kings were the ‘father of the country’.

Now its debateable how much of this protection extended to the rest of royal family but at the very least in a heirarchical society where the crown princess is the 2nd most important woman in the realm after the Queen, there should have been an uproar at her rape and murder. Instead theres....nothing. Literally only 1 non-dornish character is ever stated to be disturbed at what happened to Elia (shout out to Mathis Rowan).

I've gone back in history to try to find a "princess figure" who died in a similar way to Elia. The closest I could come was Milonia Caesonia the fourth wife of the Roman Emperor Caligula. After Caligula was assassinated Milonia Caesonia was also murdered, and their daughter Julia Drusilla was killed by "having her brains knocked out against a wall." Ancient Roman attitudes towards regicide and the deaths of the ruling family were vastly different to Feudal Europe and I think it speaks volumes that I had to go so far back in history to find any comparable fate for the consort of a ruler.

Furthermore Elia's death in the story is actually worse than Milonia Caesonia, as Elia was also raped by Gregor Clegane while Milonia seems to have been beheaded by the Praetorian Guard. So once again we see GRRM take historical events and make them worse by adding a further layer of sexual violence to them (see Cerseis penance walk vs Jane Shore's penance walk). Unlike Cersei's case where you could argue that the higher level of sexual violence served a purpose in the story there's no such claim to be made in Elia's case. Literally nothing would have been different if Gregor Clegane simply murdered Elia and Aegon. It's not like Oberyn or Dorne would hate him and the Lannisters any less.

3. So considering the way she is either mocked (Jon Con, Cersei, Barristan), victim blamed (Jon Con, Cersei and Kevan if I'm remembering correctly), or outright dismissed in the rest of the text (see point 2) it's actually refreshing  to see the level of grief and pain her death causes Oberyn. It's very much a case of "oh my god! FINALLY someone who cares about this woman who was horribly raped and murdered!"

Additionally the fact that Elia has an uncharacteristic level of sexual violence visited upon her for pure shock value that doesn't actually serve the narrative in a meaningful way somehow means that using Elias death to give Oberyn purpose in ASOIAF is the least problematic part of her story.

Hi ! I noticed you criticized a lot XR and I was wondering if you could tell me why ? Is this only XR in the UK or the movement in general ? Because some of the critics you said were completely valid and I agree 100% with them but XR France doesn't seem to be criticized that much and I was wondering if it's because the two movements are different or just because I don't see the critics for XR in my own country... Thanks a lot and thank you for your blog, it really educates me everyday :)

I don’t know enough about how XR operates in France to feel comfortable commenting on them but here are (some of) the reasons I criticise XR in the UK, so you can see if they apply:

-First and foremost, the fact that XR actively wants to get its members arrested, and organisers will sometimes run demos/protests in a way to make this more likely without the consent/knowledge of their attendees. I find this deeply unethical. I think the fact that organisations like Green and Black cross will no longer work with XR speaks volumes.

-Related to the above, XR mailing lists etc are often not run in a secure way, which puts people at risk in all sorts of ways.

-And linked to this, the lack of post arrest support etc given to members.

-Most XR groups I’m aware of feel very white middle class, and don’t seem to listen to minority/marginalised voices.

-I think individual XR chapters vary on this, but in general, I think a lot of XR members subscribe to the idea that climate change could be ended without major social/economic change, which I don’t agree with. I know not everyone involved with XR thinks this way, but a lot of its members seem to.

-The pretence at being non-heirarchical when they clearly are.

-The insistence on a particular kind of tactic which feeds into respectability politics in a way I don’t like.

-And attempting to take over other movements whilst insisting on their tactics, arguably neutering said movements.

Generally, I just think there’s a lot of dishonesty and disingenuousness in the way XR operates, and I don’t like a movement that tries to deceive and then use its own members.

Today I took a real big step towards getting a decent job helping people. There's loads of good schemes and projects going on, non-heirarchical, designed and led by the people they're there to help, backed by research, and staffed by good people. Many will be short lived cos the gov or private backers will pull the funding. But it'll be good while they last. Shows you what could be done if we were in charge of our own lives.

People's lack of knowledge about polyamory cracks me up.

Parallel polyamory: Refers to poly relationships where the relationships run in parallel and don't interact.

Kitchen table polyamory: Refers to poly relationships where everyone in the polycule is comfortable "sitting together at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee." Aka, they dont mind being around metas.

Hierarchical polyamory: A relationship dynamic where, for at least two people involved, one relationship takes priority over the rest.

Non-heirarchal polyamory: A way to practice multiple simultaneous relationships without imposing hierarchies. This means that there is no ranking system of primary and secondary.

And many, many more sub categories as well as the fact that anything really goes as long as it is communicated.

I stepped away from polyamory because almost everytime I entered a poly relationship my partners couldn't communicate, or I should say wouldn't communicate things with me. And would gaslight me or make me feel bad for being upset because they wouldn't communicate things with me. I've seen plenty of poly relationships work but if people aren't putting the proper effort in and holding themselves accountable it falls apart.

My partner is poly and I'm not. I'm terrified of losing them; they mean everything to me. They reassure me whenever I bring it up that I'm the primary wife, but that they'd like to date. I wasn't brought up around polyamory and I have self worth issues that make it hard for me to remember that they'll love me no matter what. I desperately want to make them happy and let them be who they are, but I'm still scared. I don't doubt I'd be fine with it eventually, but we live apart and it's hard rn.

Hi love, hope you're doing well enough (on the 2020-adjusted scale, of course).

Sorry about taking so long to answer this; I first saw it right after my museum (my place of work) closed because of Covid and I wasn't in a good place to do anything but knit. I have since been too embarrassed about not answering your ask that I've been avoiding it. Which definitely isn't cool to you at all. So here I am getting over my embarrassment, but I fear my answer might not be all peachy and joy, but hopefully hope-filled.

First of all, couples coming to polyamory from monogamy struggle. It is inherently an unstable moment because you are changing the nature of the covenant at the heart of your relationship. You promised to be each other's only romantic and sexual love, to put each other in a place of primacy. If you are married, there are vows of fidelity that you took that you understood reasonably to have a very specific meaning and that meaning is changing. It's okay to be scared. Just don't let your fear rule your emotions or your actions. (I should take my own advice here 😅)

What isn't changing: your devotion to each other, your love, your working partnership, your inside jokes, your responsibility to each other, the joy you find in each other's company. That all matters in polyamory, too.

Fidelity is there, too, it just looks different at first. I expect my partners to be present in the time we are together. I trust them to tell me if and when they are seeing someone new. I trust I will be able to meet this new person and that this new person and I will approach how we relate to each other from a place of love, because we both love the same person. Our relationship is rooted in love. I trust my partners to make sure that our love is not eclipsed as they start seeing someone new.

Here's the big secret, monogamy and polyamory aren't that different. Just like in monogamy, you trust your partner not to hurt you. You trust your partner to be honest about their actions and intentions. You hope your partner has a life that is full of its own joy and that you amplify that joy. You know that you will soothe each other's tears, bandage wounds, and kiss away worries.

Just like in monogamy, you both keep your own friendships and platonic relationships. If you have a best friend or close sibling, the love you have for them does not diminish the love you have for your partner, and ideally helps highlight it. Adding in additional romantic or sexual partners does not deminish the love your partner has for you. Done rightly, more love multiplies into more love. That is something everyone can enjoy.

Jealousy is just as much a part of polyamory as it is monogamy. In monogamy jealousy can be mistaken for love. Love is not ownership. Love is not jealous. Love is giving. Jealousy is an emotion about the self, a warning about insecurities or needs unmet. You will learn to recognize what your jealously is telling you and be able to use it as a tool to grow.

Of course, the longer you go down the polyamory road, there will be ideas that shake you. Contemporary culture centers itself on coupling. Polyamory does not. The longer a polycule practices polyamory the more likely they are to be non-heirarchical. You may in the future shift from being their primary wife to being their first and longest love. Usually when that happens it is an organic evolution as the relationships in your polycule shift. It should feel natural when it happens, but it may feel natural in the way that growth pains feel natural.

In polyamory there tends to be a confusion of the self and your role in your relationships, selfishness, looking out for your own needs, and mindfully choosing how you apply your self and your love. Be mindful. Learn to know that you are worthy of love because you are your own wonderful human. Avoid selfishness, it never wears well and will in the end harm you.

On a more practical level I find kitchen table polyamory, where everyone in your polycule hangs out together in the most everyday settings, to be incredibly helpful for removing fear. People stop being new and you don't have to fear the unknown when they aren't an unknown. You aren't always going to get along, but that isn't a reason not to try.

Remember, especially when meeting new metas (your partner's partners) that since you were the first, the primary, you may be seen as intimidating just because of that (think meeting your mother-in-law or the first time you met their childhood best friend). Be kind to yourself and them. You are obligied to be gracious and soothe your insecurities. Your partner bringing their date home for you to meet is one of the biggest acts of love and trust they can show.

💕

Edited 8/18/2020 because pronouns are hard.