My Keynote In Other Words
I never fully prepare for a keynote. What even is a keynote even? When I was asked to deliver a thirty-minute keynote on different types of relationships, I was like, “Yeah, no problem.” I had to deliver this on a Saturday. I didn’t start writing notes until Friday. For those of you curious, here’s the complete list of bullet points I made.
Intro
Certified sex educator, podcast host
Experience with same sex and polyamorous relationships
Relationship talks
What is their timeline of a relationship from start to finish?
What does their ideal relationship look like?
One directional path way - meet, flirt, date, sex, exclusivity, family, children, white picket fence, grow old together, then die
Introduce the concept of the relationship escalator by journalist Amy Gahran
An escalator is a one directional machine, how a relationship is supposed to look like in order for it to be “successful”
The problem with the escalator
“If you don’t want to live with your partner, if you don’t want to have kids, if you don’t want to have a home, what’s wrong with you?”
Children of immigrants: when you talk to your relatives, how often do you hear the question “are you seeing anyone yet?”
Questions are directed to the deficit of the person rather than questioning society as a whole
One night stands: RE forces us to think of one night stands as treating people as disposable
How does the RE uphold capitalism and heteropatriarchy?
A man and a woman must have a family for the purpose of work, income, and continuing the bloodline
Passing down property and fortune relied on paternity certainty (Maury)
Share story: how being gay felt like a disappointment because I could not give my parents grandchildren and continue the family’s bloodline and legacy
The RE for queer folks:the fight for marriage equality upholds heteronormativity. It benefits “coupleness.” Why was this the fight?
What about a dating life without the escalator? Explain different relational styles and how they’re all valid
Types of Relationships
Couple
V
Triad
Quad
Kitchen Table
Hierarchy
Parallel
Open relationship
Solo Poly
Other relationships: swinging, sex work, arranged marriage, the Mosuo women of Tibet: “walking marriage: equal pursuit of intimacy for the sake of satisfaction”
The most important relationship of all: Single
Imagine what you can do if you didn’t have to step on the escalator.
How do we break out of it?
Which pieces of the escalator resonate with you when you step off? Rethink your dating life as a galaxy that’s worth exploring
What are my benchmarks of success that are not dependent on this relationship escalator model?
What do I actually want out of a relationship and how do I know that a relationship feels good for me? How do we define our own success? Healthy relationship vs a “successful” relationship?
What if the relationship had no end goal? No external influence? What would that look like?
Re-examine the ways that love looks like in your life
What has pop culture said to you?
Conclusion: all types of relationships are valid. Non Monogamous, monogamous, hetero, queer, what feels good to you is valid
What feels good for you is enough. If being a slut feels good for you, then I love that for you.
I don’t know if you were able to follow my train of thought, but that’s pretty much what goes on in my brain when writing speeches. This is what I charge $300 an hour for. The next words are my attempt to help you make sense of what I was trying to say if my notes sound incoherent beyond understanding.
I was tasked with trying to make “how does our societal norms of traditional monogamy uphold capitalism and heteropatriarchy” palatable to teenagers. What I’m referring to is the standard model of relationships: boy meets girl, flirt, date, sex, decide to be exclusive, get married, start a family, white picket fence, grow old together, and die. Sounds like a dream! But that’s exactly what it is; a dream.
There are a few things wrong with this standard model, also known as the relationship escalator. When you think of an escalator, you think of a machine that gets you from point A to B in one direction. We don’t think much of it because we’re set on autopilot. A good escalator is a functional escalator that moves in one direction. The only time we call attention to it is if we don’t see it moving. Then it becomes stairs. And who wants to climb a bunch of steps? Not this fatass.
The escalator is so restrictive in that our relationships need to follow a certain direction. Otherwise, we get thrown with questions like “Why don’t you want children?” or “How come you don’t want to live in a house in the suburbs?” Or if you’re the child of an immigrant, a relative has probably triggered you with “Do you have a girlfriend yet?” Oh my god, shut up. Why is it that when I’m single at 30 and not want kids, it means there’s something wrong with me? I don’t want to date, and I don’t want children. And I shouldn’t have to be reprimanded for that. Questions like that are designed to highlight the deficiency of the person rather than ask about the problem at hand: why do we have to follow the escalator model?
There’s also the fact that it forces us to be in constant pursuit of marriage and so we treat people as disposable if they don’t fit in all the hubby boxes. If the first date doesn’t automatically give us marriage vibes, then we are so easy to throw them away. And if the first date doesn’t give us marriage vibes, but we decide to sleep with them anyway and they accidentally get pregnant, why is the guy’s firs thought usually “Fuck, I hope it’s not mine?” Paternity certainty is certainly strange. Making sure a kid is or isn’t ours to know where to pass down our fortune makes you so sus, bro. (This is where I role played a scenario in Maury’s DNA testing reveal.)
Another thing that’s wrong with the escalator is how it affects queer people. For one thing, queer folks aren’t able to follow the model due to our inability to have a natural birth. Wait, you mean to tell me that a penis cumming in a bumhole won’t make a baby? Get out of here! According to the escalator, if we can’t have children then we must be doing something wrong. That’s the main argument that homophobes use against gay rights. It’s unnatural for us to be together because we can’t make a fucking baby. Okay, well, talk to the women who are infertile or unable to have children because their uterus refuses to cooperate. And while you’re at it, why don’t you talk to those gays over there fighting for marriage equality and ask them why they want it so badly. No, seriously, why do they want it? Well, it’s because marriage grants couples certain benefits. You can co-sign on a house, write your beneficiary on your insurance, and even reap the benefits of actual tax breaks when you’re married. Why do we reward coupleness? Why is the fight for gay rights restricted to marriage equality and it stops there? The amount of shame I felt when I told my parents that I was gay and I couldn’t give them children made me sick to my stomach. I had to unpack that, and I still am to this day.
So then I want us to imagine a dating life where we’re not tied down to this escalator model. Imagine the possibilities that could open up for you. (I then went on to break down some of the common forms of polyamory using the diagram below. Pretty neat find.)
But out of all these relationships is the one you have with yourself. Whatever relational dynamic you get yourself in to, you are at the heart of all your relationships. You must fall in love with yourself above anyone else. You need to ask yourself what you truly want and what your desires are. Only then are you able to communicate to others what you need out of a healthy relationship, whatever your vision of a healthy and successful relationship is to you. Whether it’s starting a family, being in a threesome, hooking up for a one night stand, or being an absolute slut, you get to choose what you want for yourself. And I think that’s sexy.
(It was at this point where I got the feedback that apparently I made someone a) feel bad about being straight, and b) feel bad for having children. Girl, a) if you feel bad for being straight, then that means I’m on the right track. And b) if you feel bad about what I said for you wanting kids, you missed the point of my entire speech.)
