By: Guest Writer Jizzabelle
The Observer is pleased to feature a work from a CU student and recent interviewee Jizzabelle. If you have an idea for an article, or a burning desire that people are exposed to your thoughts and opinions drop us a line and we’ll get you featured!
Hiya Hathian! Jizzabelle here!
First off, I’d like to thank Daiyu for the follow-up article. She had the monumental task of summarizing and sanitizing our lengthy, triggering, and sexually explicit interview into something fit to print. Even for our desensitized reader base, that is a big ask… especially while trying to stay true to my story. The published result was a heck of a balancing act which deserves a lot of credit. (Thank you – Ed)
Since my rescue, I’ve been researching stories from other trafficking survivors, which has led to a desire to understand bigger topics like society, relationships, and sexuality. Academia has allowed me access to science on those topics as well as others to trade my views with. Most importantly, eleven formative years in the micro-culture of captivity have left me with an outsider’s perspective on a lot of things that most folks just dismiss as normal. Hence, Daiyu and I had floated the idea of me writing occasional guest columns and opinion pieces on modern society. This, dear reader, is the first of those articles. Enjoy.
A Lover’s Quarrel
Recently, as I went about campus life, I came across two lovers’ quarrels in one 24-hour time span. In each, one partner was expecting exclusivity and monogamy, the other… not so much. Now, before going any further, I’d like to clear up some assumptions that might come about just from reading the subject matter.
First, it was equal opportunity. These were hetero couples, with the boy from one pair and the girl from the other upsetting expectations. So, dear reader, please don’t go pointing fingers and making blanket statements about folks with bits different from your own because you read a headline I wrote.
Second, please don’t take this as piece as me being anti-monogamy. Growing up, there was a sweet old couple living in my run-down West Des Moines neighbourhood for as long as anyone there could remember. Well into ripe old age, they were still visibly, deeply in love. And ‘till death do us part’, when it works, it can be beautiful.
So, the problem is not monogamy itself. It’s the assumption that it should be the default setting for relationships. Between the two couples I witnessed at the micro level, and statistics on infidelity and divorce at the macro level, it’s clear that lots of people just don’t have the wiring upstairs to make it work, and that’s ok.
I Get It, I Really Do
I am now one of those people. In a different timeline where I wasn’t kidnapped and enslaved, maybe I could have been exclusive with someone and ended up like one half of that old couple from my girlhood. But my wiring was shaped by captivity, and that was one of many such alterations I’ve since come to accept.
But for most non-monogamous folks, we just came that way out of the box, or because of how we grew up, or some mix of the two. Again, it’s nature and nurture, and that’s ok.
If you’re one of us, the key is accepting that about yourself, and in turn, being upfront and honest with your partners. And if you’re not, then the key is accepting that there are huge slices of the population like us and to stop expecting that’s how things should always be.
Talk it out. You can try to wish it away and go about life as if every Prince Charming™ you meet should be exclusive and faithful, but that just sets you up for misery when your assumptions run headfirst into the brick wall of reality. Because the fact is, a lot of us are only as exclusive as our options. And nobody wants to be treated like an option, at least, not without knowing about it.
I returned from eleven years away to a world that’s further along in the process of dismissing old ways of doing things, for better and worse. The terms ‘f-boy’ and ‘hoe phase’ have become much more widespread. Old standards and assumptions, from the big stuff like chivalry and monogamy on down to micro things like how long to wait to text, are no longer as ubiquitous. We need to face the fact that others probably have different ideas from us, and instead of assuming we’re doing and expecting what’s ‘normal,’ we need to communicate our ideas to make things work.
Now, some folks, especially women, might look at that last statement and argue that having to talk things out and explain things can ruin the moment, end spontaneity, and kill the SPARK™. To which I say, without communication, the most likely outcome is not having that moment at all…or ending up in a lovers’ quarrel. As for the SPARK™, that presents its own set of problems, which I’ll get into in my next column.
Until then, dear readers, be honest with yourselves, and with each other!
(Not entirely sure the facts support you here JB; experimenting and relationships breaking up is normal, cheating is common, but while marriages do fail, more than they ever have in some countries, in many countries and eventually after usually a few false starts even in the UK or the USA they settle more. Monogamy may not be instant, but open relationships are far less common globally than websites and certain individuals would have people believe! Be Honest, be careful and most of all be safe, but eventually like you said many people don’t want to be an option, they want to be the only goal and open relationships cannot really accommodate that. Still, for those that can make that work, all good! Perhaps a topic for a CU debate sometime 🙂 – Ed)
