Every time I read about poly/ethically non-monogamous/whatever groupings, I'm struck by how decidedly unsexy it all sounds. It's all calendars and constant testing and rules and consent and never just hot spontaneous sex or really spontaneous anything. It's life as a spreadsheet instead of a human.
In the workplace I have a rule, the more people involved in a meeting the less productive it is and the less actually gets done - particularly the more off the cuff meetings. That means I feel exactly the same way you do about these sort of relationships, just makes everything feel bureaucratised.
I am here from your NPR interview with Brittany Luse on "It's Been a Minute" (https://www.npr.org/2024/07/12/1197956771/its-been-a-minute-hawk-tuah-politics-cowboys-carter). I found it fascinating how Brittany could neither control her disapproval or reflexive politicization of "hawk tuah" or of you. It's a moment that serves as a moment in time, painting the woke left accurately as a humorless, joyless, and (ironically) sexless bundle of fear and hate. People just having a good time and not thinking about politics is itself a sin in the "silence is violence" category. Life is, to them, a zero-sum game where you are either advocating for the correct socio-political position, or you're part of the problem. Yet the vast majority of the world not only doesn't agree with their position, it doesn't agree with their meta-position that all of life must be consumed by grievance and injustice. They have forgotten the sage advice given to them by their forebears: "But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao / You ain't gone make it with anyone anyhow".
Every time I read about poly/ethically non-monogamous/whatever groupings, I'm struck by how decidedly unsexy it all sounds. It's all calendars and constant testing and rules and consent and never just hot spontaneous sex or really spontaneous anything. It's life as a spreadsheet instead of a human.
I think you're describing poly people who are also accountants and lawyers.
In the workplace I have a rule, the more people involved in a meeting the less productive it is and the less actually gets done - particularly the more off the cuff meetings. That means I feel exactly the same way you do about these sort of relationships, just makes everything feel bureaucratised.
Good stuff. That sound "hawk tuah" হক থু is what Bengalis make when they spit. It sounds more like "hawk thoo".
Been reading since the nyt essay, always great and original stuff👍
This is truly extraordinary… really beautiful, meandering and illuminating writing…
Just chiming in to say the title 'The Sundress Also Rises' is 10/10 work. Props.
I love this as an episodic format for your page.
I am here from your NPR interview with Brittany Luse on "It's Been a Minute" (https://www.npr.org/2024/07/12/1197956771/its-been-a-minute-hawk-tuah-politics-cowboys-carter). I found it fascinating how Brittany could neither control her disapproval or reflexive politicization of "hawk tuah" or of you. It's a moment that serves as a moment in time, painting the woke left accurately as a humorless, joyless, and (ironically) sexless bundle of fear and hate. People just having a good time and not thinking about politics is itself a sin in the "silence is violence" category. Life is, to them, a zero-sum game where you are either advocating for the correct socio-political position, or you're part of the problem. Yet the vast majority of the world not only doesn't agree with their position, it doesn't agree with their meta-position that all of life must be consumed by grievance and injustice. They have forgotten the sage advice given to them by their forebears: "But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao / You ain't gone make it with anyone anyhow".
This is great, I'd love to see more of these. Reminds me of the good old days of internet writing!