What IS a Relationship?
What is a relationship?
This is a vague and convoluted question because it has many answers,
all dependent on who you ask. But who’s right? Think about it. How do you describe a relationship?
What actions or expressions signify a relationship to you? What examples come to mind?
What types of people?
How many people?
Do you picture one man and one woman? Are they kissing or having sex?
Why are these the types of things we think of when we hear the word “relationship”?
When in reality, this is just one of hundreds of ways to express a relationship.
Western media tropes and college hookup culture present heterosexuality as the societal norms of relationships. They push romantic, sensual, platonic, and aesthetic relationships out of the picture entirely. Evidently, harming everyone who does not feel sexual attraction by invalidating their existence. It invalidates and "others" the whole asexual community.
Source: https://www.ijpr.org/2017-09-27/hookup-culture-the-unspoken-rules-of-sex-on-college-campuses
So, how do we fix this? Obviously we can’t just eradicate the decades of heteronormativity and asexual
erasure that controlled society’s perception of the relationship. Right now, the next best thing would be to
learn about the different types of relationships and forms of expression that contradict what we have been
raised to think.
Let’s start with debunking one of the most contradictory concepts out there when it comes to relationships:
The Relationship Escalator.
The Relationship Escalator is a metaphor for norms surrounding romantic relationships.
It is the default set of societal expectations for intimate relationships.
It is a path that moves in one direction, never stopping until you get to the end. The goal at the top of
the escalator is to achieve a permanently monogamous (sexually and romantically exclusive between
two people), cohabitating marriage. Buying a house and having kids is also imagined with this goal,
with partners expecting to remain together until death.
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/familylife1950/home/nuclear-Families
The Escalator is the standard by which most people gauge whether a developing intimate relationship is
significant, “serious,” good, healthy, committed or worth pursuing or continuing.
Source: https://aasexualcakeuniverse.tumblr.com/post/113613861311/and-my-personal-favorite-why-should-you-be
The issue with this monogamous conception of relationships is that it negates and erases all other possible
forms of relationships, invalidating the asexual experience in our culture.
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The first step to preventing the invalidation of people who don’t experience sexual attraction is to learn
about all types of attraction.
Types of attraction:
Aesthetic attraction: an attraction to someone’s appearance, much the way you might appreciate a
painting or a sunset; can be connected to sexual attraction, but is a SEPARATE concept.
Platonic attraction: a strong non-romantic emotional attraction; a “friend crush.”
Queerplatonic attraction: an attraction between romantic and platonic; in which the societal label of
romantic or plantic cannot be used because the distinctions between them are too blurred; it cannot
be fully captured using existing relationship categories because of its ambiguity.
An example of this is the Western cultural norm insisting that romantic partners are more physically
affectionate and more emotionally close than friends are, as well as more likely to partner in major life
activities such as buying a house or raising a child together is not followed. When these lines are blurred,
a relationship is usually called queerplatonic.
Source: teacakeandsherlock.wordpress.com
Romantic attraction: an attraction that leads people to want to form romantic relationships with others;
falling in love, infatuation, and crushes.
Sensual attraction: a physical attraction to another person that leads you to want to engage in non-sexual
touch.
Sexual attraction: an attraction that leads towards specifically sexual feelings or impulses.
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Asides from knowing all the possible attractions and relationships one can have, you also need to
understand the different ways people can express intimacy in order to make sure all expressions of love
or appreciation of a partner are validated.
If you look up the meaning of intimacy on the internet, you find many definitions. The first one is what we
will be focusing on, for it’s inclusivity.
Intimate: marked by a warm friendship developing through long association
Which is shortly followed by… “engaged in, involving, or marked by sex or sexual relations”
The third definition of intimate being “engaging in sexual intercourse” alone expresses how narrow minded
and discriminatory our society is, even if it’s unintentional.
Most media, when showing people in a relationship, shows them using internal physical intimacy to
express their love. However, internal physical intimacy is far from the only way people, in reality, interact
with their partners.
Expressions of intimacy:
Internal physical examples of intimacy:
Sex
Kissing
External physical examples of intimacy:
Cuddling
High fives
Fist bumps
Holding hands
Watching TV together
Hugging
Emotional examples of intimacy:
Supporting one another
Crying around one another
Aesthetic examples of intimacy:
Looking at one another
Drawing, painting, etc… one another
This list barely scratches the surface of ways people express their intimacy for each other. With that in
mind, I hope this helps you realize how expansive and ambiguous the world of relationships really is.
I leave you with some questions to reflect on:
Where and when did you learn what a relationship was? How accurate is that depiction now?
What are ways you can continue to expand your understanding of relationships? How can you help others
do the same?
How often do you reflect on your understanding of relationships to make sure they are inclusive and
correct? How will you start doing this if you don’t already?
Feel free to post your reflections and answers in the comments!
🖤🤍♡💜Thank you so much for reading! Now go show the world what you know! 🖤🤍♡💜
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Sources:
“About TAAAP – The Ace and Aro Advocacy Project.” Accessed February 19, 2021.
Asexual Cake Universe. “Asexual Cake Universe.” Accessed February 19, 2021.
https://aasexualcakeuniverse.tumblr.com/post/113613861311/and-my-personal-favorite-why-should-you-be.
“Definition of INTIMATE.” Accessed February 19, 2021.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intimate.
Gahran, Amy. Stepping off the Relationship Escalator: Uncommon Love and Life, 2017.
“Gay Black Men Kissing Stock Photos, Pictures & Royalty-Free Images - IStock.”
Accessed February 19, 2021. https://www.istockphoto.com/photos/gay-black-men-kissing.
Jefferson Public Radio. “Hookup Culture: The Unspoken Rules Of Sex On College Campuses,”
September 27, 2017.
https://www.ijpr.org/2017-09-27/hookup-culture-the-unspoken-rules-of-sex-on-college-campuses.
MoneyMagpie. “Television: More Ideas on How to Make Money from TV.” Accessed February 19, 2021.
https://www.moneymagpie.com/make-money/make-money-by-watching-tv-part-2.
“Nuclear Families - Familylife:1950.” Accessed February 19, 2021.
https://sites.google.com/site/familylife1950/home/nuclear-Families.
Tea, Cake, and Sherlock. “Tea, Cake, and Sherlock.” Accessed February 19, 2021.
https://teacakeandsherlock.wordpress.com/.
More Information:
Clark, Alyssa N. “Labeling Intimacy: Examining Attitude Differences About Romantic And Sexual
Intimacy In Sexual And Asexual People.” MS, Illinois State University, 2019.
https://doi.org/10.30707/ETD2019.Clark.A.
Dawson, Matt, Liz McDonnell, and Susie Scott. “Negotiating the Boundaries of Intimacy: The Personal
Lives of Asexual People.” The Sociological Review 64, no. 2 (May 2016): 349–65.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-954X.12362.
Diamond, Lisa M. “‘I’m Straight, but I Kissed a Girl’: The Trouble with American Media Representations of
Female-Female Sexuality.” Feminism & Psychology 15, no. 1 (February 2005): 104–10.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353505049712.
LGBTA Wiki. “Queerplatonic Relationship.” Accessed February 19, 2021.
https://lgbta.wikia.org/wiki/Queerplatonic_Relationship.
“On the Queerplatonic #NoRomo | Milo Stewart - YouTube.” Accessed February 19, 2021.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LQuGi9zinA.
Przybylo, Ela. Asexual Erotics: Intimate Readings of Compulsory Sexuality. Abnormativities:
Queer/Gender/Embodiment. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2019.
Rupp, Leila J., Verta Taylor, Shiri Regev-Messalem, Alison C.K. Fogarty, and Paula England.
“Queer Women in the Hookup Scene: Beyond the Closet?” Gender & Society 28, no. 2 (April 2014):
212–35. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243213510782.
What Are Queerplatonic Relationships? (QPRs). Accessed February 19, 2021.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6Xg9sA6XWA.
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