Relationship Anarchy/ENM

Queerness is located not just inside me but also interpersonally, in the dynamics I seek and feel seen by. I have stopped sleeping with my friends with as much frequency, but sexual desire is no longer feared or categorically denied in our relationships. I now live with my closest friends from childhood. We met at eleven, we were children together

The affection we gave to each other felt markedly different than the affection we sought from boys, and I didn’t want it to be the same. We never worried that there was not enough to go around; our love and lust felt abundant, whereas male affection felt scarce and unattainable, something you had to win and then continue to work to retain. I never

This phrase refers to the fact that, though crabs climb easily, the containers they’re kept in at stores can be left open: when one crab tries to get out, the others grab onto it and hold it back. The crabs monitor and restrain each other.

When I confessed, my friends were unfazed. I was relieved I didn’t scare them away, but forced to confront my own confusion: were my fantasies just fantasies? Did I want to date my friends after all? I didn’t think I did, but sexual desire without an explicitly romantic desire accompanying it still didn’t make sense to me. I needed to feel secure

The platonic/romantic binary is just as false as all the others. Admitting that has made my friendships richer and more truthful. Giving my friends pleasure felt pure, a more singular kind of giving than I had previously experienced, less fraught. When I sleep with men, I tend to do so the first time I go out with them; sometimes it turns into an

Midway through sophomore year, my relationship with M fell apart, and I entered a prolonged episode of acute anxiety. My anxious thoughts again centered around my sexuality, and the potentially closeted nature of it. I had asked him once, desperately, “But what if I’m secretly attracted to all my friends?” He looked at me, bewildered: “You

That summer let me reveal something to myself, in full, that I had always known but been afraid of – the line between friend and lover is so thin so as to be barely there. I have always been someone who is made anxious and upset by arbitrary boundaries. I like to know why limits are drawn where they are; I need a reason. I see nothing wrong with