Dot Cattiness, Dot Poly Snark, and the History of Romance

[danaeris]

I just unsubbed from dot cattiness.

I'm really ashamed to admit it but I am STILL too sensitive to deal with being the object of the kind of stuff that is dished out on there. And if I can't take it, I shouldn't be reading it or dishing it out. And, I CAN take this sort of thing in person, from a friend who I know likes me, with a smile on their face. But from strangers, it hits scars that I guess never healed.

I finally took a deep breath and tracked down the comment I was snarked for on dot_poly_snark. A lot of my friends post there. I feel like they will think less of me for not being able to deal with these communities. :(

Anyway, the original comment thread:
http://www.livejournal.com/community/polyamory/1499313.html?thread=23376049#t23376049

The poly snark thread:
http://www.livejournal.com/community/dot_poly_snark/228498.html

So, what exactly WAS I thinking when I wrote that?

Well, what I actually wrote was:
Pretty! Close, but no cigar. And don't we just love the stress on "two becoming one." I can do without dyad-supremacy codependence-encouraging marketing...

Ah well. The world, at least on the surface, is dyadic. And they make pretty jewellery! :)

First of all, when I wrote the comment, the word I was looking for but could not remember was centric. It was originally intended to say "dyad-centric." And, since I was looking for a specific piece of poly jewellery that a community member had made, the dyad-centric marketing was a clear sign that this was not the jewellery I was looking for -- it wasn't aimed at the poly market. So, from that point of view, I feel the response was justified. The jewellery's marketing WAS dyad-centric.

Secondly, in my time I've done a lot of thinking about relationships of ANY kind. To understand modern conceptions of what constitutes romance, you have to understand how they originated.

This is from my memory of a course I took at MIT entitled Philosophy of Love. If anyone remembers the name of the cult, or any other information about when these historical events took place, please pipe up; if not, and if anyone is really curious, I'll try to dig up my notes when I get home from Arisia and have a moment to breathe. Guy Gavriel Kay's A Song for Arbonne, btw, is basically a fantasy version of these actual historical events; just one of the reasons why I love GGKs writing.

Early in the history of the Christian church's dominance, the powers that be would descend on villages and force conversion. At some point in that very vague time period, there was a group of stubborn goddess worshipping pagans (I'm not making this shit up) who resisted. So, their homes were razed and the people were scattered to the four winds. Worshipping their goddess became outlawed and they all had to "convert."

But, in their hearts, they had not converted (as is often the case in situations like this). Many of them took up the profession of traveling minstrel. They would select a noble lady, and make songs that were purportedly about her glory and beauty. But in fact, these songs were just using the lady as a placeholder for their goddess.

In the meantime, there were a great deal of second, third, etc. sons wandering around the country with nothing to their name, as at the time, the firstborn son would inherit EVERYTHING and often toss their younger siblings out on their asses. Young and impressionable, these men started to latch onto the songs they heard, and decide that they were in love with these noble ladies. But, because they had no land and no valuables and no inheritance, and the ladies in question were often married, they could never have the woman in question.

Nonetheless, they would pursue them zealously, and the women took to giving them absurd tasks, such as, "If you love me, you'll go kill a bear with your bare hands and bring me his skin. Bring me that skin, and I'll reward you as true love sees fit." Shit like that. A lot of these knights errant kept diaries of their exploits. I read one in which he completed the unlikely task she asked of him for a kiss, and then she refused the kiss. When he protested that she had promised, she ordered him to jump in the lake in full armour (essentially a death sentence).

This is where modern romance comes from. And it's utterly disgusting, repugnant, and unhealthy. The idea is to fixate on something you can't or shouldn't or couldn't have, and pine for it, and do extravagant, unhealthy things in the hopes that you will get what you want just once, but could never keep. What kind of model is that?

The scary thing is how thoroughly it has saturated our culture. Think about this when you watch romance movies in the future. A romance movie pretty much always is about acquiring what you don't have. We never see what happens afterwards. In real life, we know that while the chase is fun, the stable relationship that hopefully follows is the best part.

The other piece of this puzzle is the concept of codependence. Codependence involves subsuming ones needs in order to meet the desires and needs of others. This is an extremely unhealthy human tendency that can exist in relationships of all kinds (poly and mono). I know because I've done it to myself, in both monogamous and polyamorous situations. What I found, eventually, is that doing this leads to sacrificing things you want for things the other person doesn't actually want, and vice versa. No one gets what they want or need.

When codependence comes into play, there is a certain loss of self. Two become one, or try their darndest to, and in the process, both become ghosts of who they were or could be.

Seeing N become 1 written anywhere raises my hackles. Doesn't matter if its a poly or mono context. It's a cultural meme that needs to be put to rest.

I've heard people claim that codependence is not always unhealthy. I don't know; I'm no expert. But maybe that's not codependence anymore. Maybe it's interdependence; I can't imagine ego merging being healthy in any situation.
I've also heard people (not myself) claim that a monogamous, lifelong marriage cannot last without some degree of codependence. I'm skeptical, given how destructive I've found codependence to be. But again, I'm no expert.

---

I suppose I have two comments regarding the people who responded to my comment.

First of all, I think it is reprehensible that 00goddess, the moderator of polyamory and pagan communities, says stuff like she does in that thread. As the moderator, it's her job to create a welcoming, safe community. But I've seen her do this before; I remember her bluntly telling some poor girl in the pagan community that she was crazy and needed help for being otherkin. Um, yeah. Even worse, people seem to worship this woman for this behaviour. She's got a real cult of personality going on, and it disgusts me. While I've done my fair share of catting behind closed doors, when I'm in my role as moderator, organizer, etc., I'm on my best behaviour. So should she be.

Second of all, it amazes me how everyone read one comment I wrote and felt a deep desire to comment on how moronic I am, and jumped to a variety of conclusions which were not at all reflective of my history or intentions. Anyone who knows me knows, and more importantly, I know that I'm not a moron, I don't have deep-seated issues regarding monogamy, and I'm not a poly zealot. I'm also very much NOT a one-true-way type of person; in fact, I've had many conversations with people where I was the one reminding them that just because something doesn't work for them doesn't mean it isn't a functional way of doing poly.

Finally, in the event that any of you, my friends, have the urge to be protective of me and revive those threads on either post: please don't. I don't want to deal with those strangers once again making negative comments about me. This is supposed to be a fun weekend, not depressing.

I'm screening comments because, well, as established earlier, I'm a wimp.

Comments

[pyat.livejournal.com]

If it inspired A Song for Arbonne, then it's probably the Cathars, who were wiped out in the Albigensian Crusade. The Cathars did not worship a goddess, but rather Gnostic Christians who believed the God of the Old Testament was Satan. The Cathars were big on non-sexual love, unattainable love, because they thought it was wicked to bring children into a sinful world.

Some people do, indeed, think that the Cathars were the original wandering troubadours and minstrels who spread the ideals of courtly romance, but they certainly weren't singing the praises of a goddess.

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I don't think I was even pagan when I took this class, so I wonder where I got this idea that they were goddess worshippers?

Either way, what I wrote still follows.

And, I'll have to see if I still have the reading in question from the course I took, and see what it ACTUALLY says, and how it compares to the link you posted below.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Aha!

This terribly ugly webpage (http://www.askwhy.co.uk/christianity/0828CatharCinders.html) has more on the Cathar/Courtly Romance connection!

[(Anonymous)]

I agree totally a moderator is just that someone who moderates the list not the one stirring up all the trouble and bad feelings.

It's like a referee in sports they dont play the games they make sure everyone plays fair, they dont start the fights.

I know you in person and you and a very kind, compassionate person, who is mature and well spoken and i am very glad to have met you.

Dont let a few people get you down you are wonderful and if they dont like you they suck and you rock.

[secretsoflife.livejournal.com]

00goddess isn't like a referee, she's like jerry springer :/

[polkamadness.livejournal.com]

Romance (really limerence) is part of human nature and long predates the Middle Ages. See love & Limerence among other books.

- Mark

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

I ran into the term limerance in that course as well. I don't think it is at all the same thing as romance. But, at this stage, we'd be arguing semantics.

[harlequinaide.livejournal.com]

This is a bit like readnig a checklist of my own beliefs on romantic love (although I am, in some ways, a mushy romantic), dyadic relationships, codependence ("codependent relationships can be healthy?" My ass, they can. Nice denial there, sparky.), 00goddess and dot.snark of any kind.

I'm an exceedingly catty person, but I refuse to join in the bitch-fest that is dot.snark communities, because it's only a matter of time before the jackals turn on one another.

00goddess is, in my experience, a terrible moderator and a terrible person. My primary self-identity is poly (even before male), and she is the reason that I don't read the poly lj community.

Courtly, romantic, self-sacrificing love is plague on society. Seriously, what's up with the "unconditional love" shit? If I want someone to love me unconditionally, I'll get a dog. If I want someone to love me because they appreciate me for who I am, then I'm looking for the conditional love of a human being. Unconditional love is creepy and unhealthy, and I'll have none of it. (This is different from being loyal to someone, or to someone's memory, but that's not worth going into, right now.)

I get fed up with mass entertainment on a weekly basis, because it's so dyadic. "You can have him or me, choose." Why? Feh on it all.

So, I guess I'm saying "I'm right there with ya."

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the commentary. You're the first person I've run into who has from their own personal experience reached a point of discomfiture with 00goddess' methods of moderation. I can't speak to her as a person having never read her journal or met her in person, but given her behaviour as a moderator, it wouldn't surprise me if she isn't that great a person.

Hell, I reject NRE in ANY relationship as a form of temporary insanity. Time and again I and others I've known have proven to me that their judgement is not to be trusted when they are in NRE (the technical term for which is limerance, as polkamadness mentioned above). When I can honestly assess how good a match someone is for me, and continue the relationship because we are good for each other and not because there are some crazy ass chemicals in our brain, well, THEN I'm getting the Good Stuff when it comes to love.

Someone above said that romance is in human nature. Romance as it was defined by the Cathars and Troubadours in the 1100s may or may not be, but nonetheless, just because something is in human nature does not mean that it is healthy (not that the commenter meant that necessarily). Saying that something is human nature and thus we should embrace it would, reductio ad absurdum, lead to us acting like nonsentient animals, including a complete collapse of society and human culture. We are human because we have the ability to pick and choose which of our inclinations to struggle against in the pursuit of greater happiness.

Anyway, tangent. Thanks for the comment!

[unseelie23.livejournal.com]

Add me to the list of people who avoids the polyamory lj community... mostly because of the moderator, but a few other regulars helped that decision.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I have one comment.

Unconditional love, to me, means, "I know all of this person's faults and foibles. Some of them drive me batty. But I love them anyway, not for any particular reason, and they love me back in the same way." It can (rarely) apply to romantic relationships and still be healthy. But its primary function is not for relationships; it's for children. I love my children unconditionally. Since one is not yet three and the other not yet born, that has never yet been tested, but I'm sure someday it will be. My job then will be to make sure they know that nothing they do, choose, believe, are, could ever be enough to make me stop loving them. I try to make that clear to my daughter with every single harsh word: I may discipline her behaviour, but I still love her and always will, unconditionally.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Um. . . oops. I should have read to the end of your post before reading the snarky threads. I already commented. Sorry. Do you want me to delete it - knowing it will go to someone's email anyway? I will if you ask me to.

The reason I never read somethingawful is that I can't stand the pressure to not comment.

Now, about co-dependence: there are times in every relationship of long duration where one person's needs/wants/dreams are subsumed in favour of the other, because the couple/group have set that other person's goals as goals of the entire group. For example: the wife, who really wants kids, agrees to put them off until her husband is through school and has a stable career, during which time she is financing the family. Other example: one person may put off going back to school/going part-time/quitting a career that isn't satisfying, in order to fulfill the goals of creating a family and a stable home for that family. (Recognize this one?)

That is not co-dependence; it's communal goal-setting. It can become co-dependence if the person who sacrificed never gets their turn to be sacrificed for, or if the sacrifice is demanded by the other people involved. It can feel like co-dependence if the goal is a long time being met. But as long as both/all partners are willingly sacrificing to benefit the family, and are getting benefits from it in whatever form they've agreed on, that's not co-dependence.

I think this is probably what was meant by "a long-standing marriage needs some co-dependence to continue." I don't think that's true, but to an outside observer of the marriage, it may appear to be true about healthy relationships for long periods of time. Only the people involved can know for sure.

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

I agree with everything you say here, only I would take it a step further:

True codependence is when you trick yourself into believing that you want what you think your partner (or the object of your codependence) wants. You may not even realize you're doing it, but you are. Thing is, when you do this a part of you will always resent the decisions you made in this state of mind. Not good.

Not all people are prone to codependence as I just described it. It's a real mental health problem, and it's very tricksy because it messes with your very perceptions. Real mindfuck. :(

I think that true, healthy commitment and interdependence can arise when both members of the couple (or whatever the relationship is) openly consider their options and consciously CHOOSE to make a sacrifice. The kicker, however, is that a person inclined to codependence can never be sure that they aren't being codependent again.

Having said that, I get back on that horse and try to have relationships. I did the hermit thing, and it made it easier for me to see when I was being codependent with the crowd, with my friends, and eventually, with my lovers. Some of that awareness has slipped away, but so has the loneliness, and frankly, it's better this way.

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

Oh, and, I'm not sure what to say about the comment. I'm sure if they're in a bitchy mood, they'll say nasty things about me dredging something from September up. They can bite me.

Erase it or don't, and the chips will fall as they may. *sigh*

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I did erase it, on Piet's suggestion.

[ex-sonjaaa.livejournal.com]

Hey Dana! Met you at Sue's sushi birthday. You're cool! Added ya. :)