I am a poly, in many senses of the word. I’m interested sexually in people of all sexes and genders and I’m also polyamorous. Currently I’m in a monogamous year long (and going strong) relationship with a cis-gendered man (i.e. he has male sex organs he was born with and he identifies as male). This relationship works because of two things: 1) he understands that my relationship with him does not invalidate my identified sexuality, and 2) we have a relationship based on “explicit monogamy”.
I created this term for myself two years ago when thinking about dating someone monogamously for the first time in six years or so. One of the (many) reasons I was so attracted to the concept of polyamory is because, for once, the rules go created up front and could change with the needs of my partners and myself. Monogamy didn’t offer me that - it was a strict set of rules no one talked about except in jokes or worry. So often in my teen and adult years I’ve talked to and consoled friends whose significant other had gone somewhere (a party or bar) without them and they were scared they had been cheated on. Monogamy, as I saw it (and with cheating statistics backing me up) was about jealousy, lack of trust, and cheating. And the “rules” for cheating weren’t defined. On TV if a girl was kissed by a guy without her consent and she didn’t kiss back, when she confessed it to her significant other it was cheating. Cuddling with someone while dating someone else got me looks and talking to’s. It was, in a word, confining. So I moved into polyamory with all it’s ups and downs because it was liberating. All of a sudden I was in a relationship defined solely by myself and the people I was involved with. I could be honest without being yelled at. And I could be slightly commitement phobic - a.k.a. myself.
And so, when the option to become monogamous with someone I really liked, I thought long and hard about it. Polyamory was something that defined me, that mattered to me, and it wasn’t going to be easy to give up. And so I told him that I wanted explicit monogamy - I wanted the rules laid out in front of me and discussed. I didn’t want to conform to something I hadn’t agreed to after having a 50/50 say say in my relationships. And with my current boyfriend that’s exactly what I have - a relationship where we’re both comfortable and ourselves, with rules we set for ourselves. It’s always honest and incredibly communicative, just like my open relationships.
Why bring this up in relation to the picture above? Because in Questionable Content I see characters who are myself and my friends. Dora is a bisexual who, in the entire span of the series, has never explored relationships with women, and I rarely have the chance to given the place I live. She has serious problems with relationships that cause her to be commitment phobic, and lately she’s been seeing a therapist. She acknowledges that things with her ex-boyfriend ended because of her and her insecurities, is trying to be friends with him, and ultimately I see a lot of myself in her. Tai, on the other hand, is an out and proud lesbian whom we’ve see hook up with a lot of women. She’s into friends with benefits, polyamory, and not defining what she’s doing by society’s rules or definitions. Ultimately I see a lot of myself in her, as well.
Why is this? Because we, as people, are complex, and I’m complex. I’ve had a lot of experiences, and a lot of figuring out what works for me. And the way the creator of Questionable Content has set it up is that Tai has a serious crush, and that she typically doesn’t feel like that, while Dora is trying to change her relationship ways as well, just like me. Just like a lot of people. And no, it probably won’t work out because most relationships don’t work out. But I also think that the creator has handled all his relationships well, from a lot of different walks from life, and the idea of having these two people (regardless of the fact that this is a lesbian relationship, and he’s talked about being worried about doing one because of the extra weight seeing lgbtq characters comes with) get together makes me happy because I’m seeing a LOT of myself in them. And the idea that polyamorous people can’t have a monogamous relationship, or that commitment problem people can’t have a more trusting, open relationship is insulting because it happens all the time, and even if it can’t work, well, these things don’t happen overnight. But I’m here to say that it can work through communication and trust. And really, I’m sick and tired of people acting like a lot of the relationship ideas discussed in QC can’t work or even exist in real life.
I’m not saying that was JesuOtaku’s intent, because I don’t think it was. I think she was just discussing a web comic from a fangirl perspective, but it set something off in me that made me feel like I needed to say something, so I did. And Jeph, if you see this, thank you for creating characters that match my life a lot better than anything else I’ve found.
