Relationship Anarchy

Do any of y'all tire of the way games handle relationships? There's pratically no ethically non-monogamy built into most games and even if there is there's either no recognition of your relationships or there's jealousy from the other characters you are involved with.

Mods help a little but there's usually no recognition or discussions. There are two games that have frustrated me in recent memory.

One is BG3 when I tried to date both Lae'zel and Shadowheart and Shadowheart angrily told me she wasn't "going to be my sidepiece" when that was far from how I saw her or what I actually wanted.

The other that frustrated me is Coral Island since yes you can date more than one person but the game really pushes marriage for reward, if only for an achievement probably and I find that really disheartening that these games are always built this way, can we please have some thought for those of us that don't do things the ways developers biases expect and recognition of how meaningful these relationships can still be, even if we were dating the entire village?!

Not allowing multiple partners (or even if they do, not multiple spouses if the game insists on only allowing certain content or rewards for getting married) shows such a monogamous and scarcity mindset from the developers that I find shocking and kind of disgusting, though sadly unsurprising. Let me sit down with the characters and let me explain what I'd like, not just assume I'm using you because I don't actually like you... please!

I really wish there was more not only ethical nonmonogamy in games but more realistic actual R.A. where we could discuss what we all what. Some might see this as a silly pipe dream or fulfilling a fantasy, but really I think to me at least it's because representation matters and I want to see myself reflected in these games, not just have to accept monogamy or if the game insists on marriage then only one marriage and then 0 other marraiges, partners or important people to me.

What do y'all think?

Hi fellow relationship anarchists, how are you all doing?

I noticed there are really only link posts in this community, so thought I'd say hi and ask how did you come to R.A and how it's going for you?

An antimoralist critique of The Relationship Anarchy Discussions (RAD) Content Library

Archived Version

Marriage is not just an individual choice. In fact, it violates the principle of individual consent. A person may consent to get married in the first place, but once they are married, they cannot just change their mind, revoke their consent, and have the marriage end when they are no longer willing to be married. They have to get permission from the state to legally get a divorce. It is not based on the will of the participants alone, and they do not get to set all of the terms of their divorce, just like they didn’t get to set the legal terms of their marriage.

Archived Version

Love circles and fear circles are social games

…in which we get together in small groups and share our observations and feelings about our relationships.

These games help us:

• Explore intimacy and communication in new ways.
• Destigmatize intimacy, affection, conflict, and fear.
• Learn about our friends, how they relate to each other, and ourselves.
• Practice recognizing and expressing our own feelings and thoughts.
• Practice talking in groups about things that are mostly discussed in one-on-one settings.
• Pay attention to and celebrate many different ways of relating to each other, including those that may be overlooked or downplayed because they are not typical family, romantic, or “friendly” relationships.
• Feel more deeply connected to each other.
• Build solidarity that will help us support each other more fully.

Archived Version

The world is infinite, and so are we—no amount of living, no number or depth of interactions with others should be “enough” for any of us, just as no amount of interactions with a person you love will ever be “enough.” (To set borders on what another person can do or feel, as a condition for them to be able to receive my love and affection, goes against everything I believe as an anarchist and a human being; I want to trust others to know what they need, and never limit them—and I certainly don’t think my life will be any richer from the limitations I place on others). We have to free each other to be and become ourselves. This isn’t just about other lovers or sex partners or friends, it’s also about other undertakings, needs, even the desire for space and solitude—it’s heartbreaking how much of our selves our lovers often ask us to sacrifice to be with them.

Archived version

Like many contemporary anarchists, many anarchists of the 19th and 20th centuries maintained relationships with multiple romantic partners, or were involved with partners who did. Just as it does today, this often precipitated gossip, heartache, jealousy, and interminable emotional processing. A complete history of anarchist polyamory drama would be nearly as ambitious as a comprehensive history of the anarchist movement itself. Here, we’ve limited ourselves to a few poignant anecdotes from the lives of a handful of classical anarchists.

Archived Version

A spectre is haunting the Western world: the spectre of Adultery.

Archived Link

Personal opinion: I dont really agree with most parts of the text. The comparisons to other forms of oppression does not sit right with me and I also feel like the text really does not engage with the issue of consent at all. Still wanted to post it, maybe you have other perspectives.

The Couple splits us off from ourselves and the living web of relations, restricting care, material and emotional support, affection, and intimacy to this codependent unit. What we are calling ‘The Couple’ is only mutual control, management, and governance.

Archived Version

Also you can print this as a zine or listen to an audio book version, check out Ungrateful Hyenas Editions

KC Clements, 29, is a relationship anarchist. Right on time for Valentine's Day, I picked his brain about what it all means and how the concept differs from other, better known forms of non-monogamy.

Archived Version

YT Link

Early on in my journey to understand my aspec identity, I came across the concept of queerplatonic relationships. As a baby aro, I found the concept of a relationship that is committed and intimate while also being wholly platonic incredibly liberating. Because of social programming, the thought that I could have intimacy and affection in a relationship without romance and sex had never occurred to me. I immediately knew that a QPR is something I wanted, and this started the long process of unlearning many of the social scripts I grew up with. As this process of deprogramming progressed and I opened my mind to what an interpersonal relationship is and what it can be, I eventually settled on relationship anarchy as the primary conceptualization scheme through which I understand the relationships in my life. However, as I began navigating relationships through the lens of relationship anarchy, the concept of a queerplatonic relationship started to become less and less intuitive to me, and I began to realize that the concept doesn’t necessarily map well to my conceptual model of relationships.

Archived Version

Like many minority populations, relationship anarchists are no strangers to in-group fighting, and what does and does not “count” as relationship anarchy is a subject of spirited social-media debate among the thousands of members of RA Facebook groups — Nordgren’s term (and its subsequent adherents) appears to be little more than a decade old. To learn more about what relationship anarchy is like, the Cut spoke to two people who define their partnership (and their other partnerships) by these terms. Kelli is a 34-year-old trans nonbinary person who uses they/them pronouns, and Aviva is a 35-year-old queer, genderqueer lesbian who uses she/her pronouns.

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Invidious Link

This introductory video focuses more on the anarchism in relationship anarchy and on the application of anarchist ideals on relationships

Insightful text on relationship anarchy with a focus on an asexual and/or aromantic perspective

What relationship anarchy hinges on the most, for me, is the equality it seeks to create across the relationship board, so that sexual relationships are not superior to nonsexual relationships and “romantic” relationships are not superior to nonromantic friendships, and that equality means that a nonsexual and/or nonromantic friend has the same amount of access to love, intimacy, physical affection, support, etc.

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archived version