No Bosses, No Boyfriends

Enough with those big heads of yours!  We never even liked y’all that much in the first place.  I mean, you could be boring, inexplicably moody, sexually uninspiring, had shaky politics, and, well, bad taste in music.  Of course there was the initial attraction, but it fails to explain our lingering feelings.

WHY DO WE FEEL REJECTED?  WHY DO WE EVEN CARE?

We had to end things because you weren’t looking for a relationship (‘cause we were, right?), or things just got “too intense” for you, or we distracted you from your true passions, or because we were too demanding/abrasive/clingy/challenging.  Truth is, and this is hard to admit, you validated us.  Your rockstar/monied/ radical-elite/small-time celebrity status made us feel like we were on the right path, meeting the right people, and climbing the social ranks.  Your privilege, your image, and our close proximity to it was what we really lusted after, and what made all of your other traits tolerable.

Now, before you get all high and mighty, you exploited us, too.  OMG.  You LOVED that we are organizers!  You got so HOT when we talked politics.  And, it was so RAD that there was no commitment!  We have long been accustomed to the old sexual/emotional/domestic exploitation thing but, y’all were attracted specifically to our working-class, hairy, aggressively polyamorous, anarcha personas, OUR POLITICS, something far more intimate than sex, something we didn’t even know you could objectify like that.

I’m not saying that our motives were righteous but, I will tell you that they’re honest.  It’s really hard to break down 20+ years of internalized sexism and, even in the radical community, women have to work twice as hard as men in order to get half the respect.  We may have been riding your coattails a little bit, exploiting the tools that society provides for us to achieve our ends, self-admittedly, to varying degrees of success.

To be honest, we don’t really miss you very much.  We’re just bitter that you walked away first.  It really hurts that those same traits that attracted you to us ultimately chased you away—we’re loud, assertive, politicized, talented, intelligent, and bold—words that don’t easily describe your new girls, god bless ‘em.  It reinforces that sneaking suspicion that we’ve always had: that smart, serious ladies who work to live their politics instead of just talk about them are worthless to society, and therefore unworthy of love, that we’ll only be accepted, even by the most radical men, if we first submit to the wills of both the dominant culture and our lovers.  Thanks, boys.

YOU MAKE US WANT TO QUIT MEN.

YOU MAKE US WANT TO QUIT POLITICS.

YOU MAKE US WANT TO MARRY RICH AND RETIRE EARLY.

I guess what I’m trying to say is…
We want you back, babies.  We get turned on talking politics, too, and we can’t help but love men, especially the radical ones.  We don’t want to believe that everything we shared was empty pillow talk.  We don’t want to believe that all men are inherent oppressors.  We certainly don’t want to believe that the radical community is just as sexist as all our other options.  Help us restore our faith in you, in men, and in anarchist politics!

So, why don’t you come over tonight?  We can drink too much and talk shit about vegans.  We’ll go make out at a bar, ride our bikes against traffic, and vandalize some luxury cars, go back to our place and be terrifically underwhelmed in the bedroom.  Maybe in the morning, pressed up against your naked body and contemplating a greasy breakfast, we’ll feel that validation once again.  Or, we’ll explain to you that stuffs kinda complicated right now, and we have this boyfriend, kinda, from high school who’s coming to visit, and he’s not political or anything but we’re sorta in love, and we need more time to work on our writing and having a partner who’s local would be too much of a distraction and, man, we hope that’s ok with you, and you’re really cool and everything but, you know… and, we hope it’s not weird or anything.  I mean, we’ll see you at the meeting, right?  We knew you’d be cool with that.  You’re so rad.

xoxo

Tags: activism, anarcha, BOOYAH, break-ups, exploitation, feminism, love, manarchy, politics, relationships, sex