Is Hierarchy Bad?
Libby shares her thoughts about debate about whether hierarchy is bad or wrong in polyamory.
SHOW LINKS
Additional reading: Lola Phoenix - the Hierarchy Polyamorous People Don't Talk Enough About
Ready for Polyamory - Is there a Problem with Hierarchy
Joreth Retracts Descriptive vs Prescriptive Hierarchy
Transcript
Okay, y'all buckle up. Today we're going to talk about hierarchy. Yeah. So hierarchy has been coming up a lot, a lot, a lot in the social media discourse. And the resounding conclusion among a lot of very prominent polyamory content creators is that hierarchy is bad, bad, bad, bad, and you shouldn't do it. And if you're doing it, you're unethical and you're treating your partners like garbage. So let's talk about it. Because so many people who are interested in non monogamy, one of the first things that they do is they want to go educate themselves on how to do it correctly.
And of course, that's a wonderful thing. There's so many wonderful resources out there. And of course, when you're doing something for the first time that you have no experience in, it's wonderful to seek out resources. And then here is a lot of people saying that this is wrong, and then there are a lot of other people who are saying that it's not wrong, that it's fine, grown ass people do what they want to do. As long as everybody agrees and consents, then it's okay. So then there's this argument back and forth about it. If you've been listening to my show or paying attention to my instagram for any length of time, you know that I am not interested in right and wrong or creating a new set of rules that everybody has to abide by, or they're bad around here. That's just not a thing that I do.
And the reason, the reason why is because I don't think that shame is a way to healthily influence people to behaviors that are going to help them be the best version of themselves. And that's really what I'm interested in. I am also interested in us all being excellent to each other. I think that's also important. So I guess I'm not so individualistic to say that I want you to be the best version of you and screw anybody that you might be happening to hurt or harm in the process, because I don't feel that way at all. But I also believe that harming other people has a high cost to ourselves. So, really, at the end of the day, you can't hurt someone else without hurting yourself as well. So I don't think you can really be your best self if you're hurting other people.
That's my opinion. And so, really, again, I'm not about shame and blame. I'm about, ah, you don't want to do that, right? So do you want to do hierarchy or not, the choice is going to be up to you. I am not going to tell you what to do, but I'm going to lay out for you what I see and what I think. But first, let's start out with what hierarchy is being defined as on the Internets. So what I see a lot is that when people are saying they practice hierarchical polyamory, or when people are talking about hierarchical polyamory primarily, primarily, what they're talking about are people who have primary partners and secondary partners. That's the main way that I see it. So, like, having a primary partner is often, like your partner that you live with, your partner that you're married to, your partner that you've had for a long time.
Libby Sinback:
It's often, you know, talked about in the context of a longtime monogamous couple opening up, and then they're going to have other partners, and those partners are going to be secondary to the main couple that is opening up. And this is a really common structure that people think about even when they're thinking about polyamory. And this kind of structure was actually kind of the norm for a really long time, and it still is the norm when we're looking at other non monogamous frameworks, like swinging, for example. Swinging is very couple centric and also very heteronormative. And I won't go on all about it, but, but very much about the, the couple. And the couple is the primary, and then the other people that you play with are definitely secondary. I think this is also true of people who are in more of what you would call an open marriage or an open relationship, that the other partners in that dynamic are also secondary. There are people who say that in polyamory, that it's not polyamory if it's actually a primary secondary type thing, because you are ranking people, you're prioritizing one relationship over all others, which is going to prevent those other relationships from developing organically as they're meant to.
So that's one sort of definition, is just the primary secondary thing. Some people define hierarchical polyamory further as a built in power dynamic that is protected and maintained such that the primary relationship has the power to determine what happens in other secondary relationships. And I think it's worth distinguishing between the two, because a primary secondary might. You could just be using that to describe how you prioritize your relationships. You could use it that way. I personally wouldn't because it does have very hierarchical language, but you could just use it in a descriptive way. But a lot of people define it further as a built in power dynamic that shows up. So let's look at that power dynamic part.
Right, because I think how hierarchy shows up and the actual behaviors that happen are probably where the rubber meets the road here. So the most common way that hierarchy shows up is with veto power. And so what is veto power? That just means that the primary relationship, each person in it can veto or basically tell their partner, hey, you can't see that person that you're seeing. You can tell your partner to break up with their partner, and you can even tell someone who they can and cannot start dating. And veto can also go so far as to say we can decide that the relationship is going to be closed now. So you can kind of veto non monogamy altogether if you have veto power within a primary relationship. And obviously that is not great if you are in that secondary role because you don't know when your relationship might just get canceled. And if you're investing your time, your energy, your heart into this other person, and then if you just happen to make their partner uncomfortable, you could just lose your relationship.
And I think vetoes really do make people feel disposable, especially when they're explicit like that. If you want to hear more about my nuanced perspective on vetoes, I did a whole episode about vetoes and where I think they can kind of happen accidentally. Anyway, I would check out that episode because I talk about that pretty extensively. Another place where hierarchy often shows up is just a baseline rule that the secondary relationship has to be less important than the primary relationship in all the ways. And that can show up as like the secondary relationship must be loved less than the primary. The secondary relationship must have less time than the primary relationship. The secondary relationship needs to involve less sex or less variety of sexual connections than the primary. Another common thing that happens with a primary secondary dynamic is this experience of if you have plans and you're a secondary partner, those plans can be just canceled at the whim of the metamorph that you have.
That is the primary partner. So they can kind of pull rank and you can just kind of get jerked around. Like if your partner's primary partner had a bad day and you have plans that night and that primary partner just wants their partner to stay home, then they just will. That's a really, really common one and lots of flavors of that one. I saw a video where this couple had vacation plans but then got canceled short notice just because the primary partner was suddenly uncomfortable and feeling jealous and didn't want their partner to go on this vacation with their secondary partner. But that goes into another place where primary secondary can show up, which is rules put in place that bar secondary partners from certain kinds of activities, such as things like vacations, being able to go to certain restaurants or certain other places that are special to the primary relationship, being. Being invited to weddings or family holidays, meeting the parents, meeting the kids, etcetera. And this is just a way to maintain control and maintain the primacy of that primary relationship.
Another way that primary secondary dynamics can show up is just the primary partners needs always coming first and always, always taking priority over the needs of any secondary partners. There can also be rules put in place over escalations to create the illusion of control over secondary relationships. So, like, you have to ask permission before you can have a sleepover, or before you can initiate certain sexual escalations, or, you know, etcetera. And that permissioning, I think, is another piece of the primary secondary relationship. Also, another thing that can show up with primary secondary relationships is like making things available in secondary relationships, only available depending on what the other primary partner has available. So, like, you can't have a partner until I have a partner, or you can't have a sleepover until I have a partner that I can also do sleepovers with. You can only go on one date night a week because I'm only going on one date night a week. Stuff like that.
Additional things that show up in primary secondary relationships are primary partners are the ones who get to be part of life decisions. Secondary partners don't get to be part of major life decisions. There's a hierarchy of information and communication, meaning the primary partner maybe gets to know everything about what happens with the secondary partner, but that only goes one way. And so, like, for instance, having an open phone policy where the primary partner gets to read all the text messages of their partner. But that wouldn't be something that a secondary partner would be allowed to do. There's also a hierarchy of access to important moments for the primary partner, like important life milestones. Like, maybe they get the primary role at a birthday party, or maybe they're even the only one that's allowed to be invited to, like a group birthday party. Maybe they're the only ones that are allowed to meet to be friends with their partner's friends.
And then another very specific way that primary secondary relationships can show up is if there's like a one penis policy or a one vulva policy. The primary relationship then, is also an instrument of devaluing queer relationships by maintaining the primacy of the heterosexual relationship, and then only allowing same sex relationships, but then they're automatically of a lower status. And an important element of all of these things that I've mentioned that can show up in primary secondary power dynamics is that that power dynamic is one way. So the primary partners have this power over the secondary partners, and they have this ability to determine between the two of them what happens in these other relationships without the input or buy in of these secondary relationships. Some things that I've read that have been said about this type of primary secondary hierarchical relating is that it is rooted in colonialist, white, heteropatriarchal thinking. And so it's inherently harmful and unethical because of that, that it's monogamy, or at least monoamory, meaning only loving one person in disguise. It's making secondaries display disposable, objectified and dehumanized, again, that it's fundamentally unethical that hierarchical polyamorists cannot truly love their secondaries. And one content creator compared being hierarchical to being a narcissist or a racist.
Now, I want to be clear from my point of view that those ways that hierarchy can show up can really, really be harmful to everyone in that relational dynamic. I mean, honestly, to me, it just sounds really stressful, because what I would. The way that I would tie together all of those behaviors is that there's this high desire for a high level of control over what your partner does with other people. And if that is how you are operating your relationship, especially one that is allegedly central to your life. Like I said, that just sounds stressful. It doesn't sound rooted in trust. It doesn't sound rooted in abundance. It sounds rooted in a lot of anxiety and fear.
And I think when anxiety and fear are running the show, it's really hard for there to be a lot of love and connection and groundedness and safety and security. So I just want to kind of say, for me, at the root, while I do also agree that these behaviors are extremely harmful to anybody that shows up in a secondary type dynamic with someone who's operating relationships this way, of course it's harmful to those folks because it is objectifying. It is making those folks disposable. But I also, like I said, I think that within the primary couple dynamic, I don't think those people are happy. I think those people are stressed out because the idea that you can control another human being and their feelings and their thoughts and the connections that can be formed with other humans is an illusion. But let's actually, let's talk about why hierarchy probably actually happens. One way that hierarchy happens is that we live in this capitalistic scarcity mindset. Power over culture, okay? The way that men relate to women, that patriarchal way of relating to women, is a power over dynamic.
Monogamy is a power over dynamic where the monogamous couple is the most important unit of relating in the culture. The relationship escalator is a hierarchical dynamic where you're climbing up the ladder. And if you can climb up the ladder with a person above everybody else who might want to be in a relationship with them, then you've won. It's like relationships are this marketplace, and we all have a value attached to ourselves. And the goal is to find a mate that has the highest value. Value. And it's competitive. And, and, you know, I mean, of course, you know, you dive into, like, the more Jordan Peterson, like, red pill, like, manosphere type way of looking at things where, like, there are high value men and high value women, and everybody's rated with a number and all of this stuff.
And it's very inherently power over, and certain people have value and certain people don't. And so, like, all of that is just that. Hierarchy is embedded in western white colonial culture. It's throughout. I mean, it shows up in, in corporate structures, it shows up in church structures, it shows up in family structures. I really appreciate Kim Tallbear's work on this, too, where she talks about how heterosexual, biologically reproductive, monogamous white marriage and family were solidified as this ideal, which was part of us and canadian nation building. And it was a way of destroying indigenous relationship structures. And indigenous folks were encouraged to create a monogamous marriage, create a nuclear family as a way to access rights to the property that that, of course, was already theirs and that we were stealing from them.
And actually, the breakup of indigenous peoples collectively held lands and making them into privately held lands owned by families with men as heads of household, was actually a way of kind of transferring little, lots of land to these families and then keeping the leftover land for white settlers and also destroying indigenous community power. And it's so funny, actually, to just think about this, because I can't tell you how many conversations I have had over the last seven to ten years with people who are in nuclear family dynamics about how much they long for a village, how much they long for a community, how much they long for a broader, interconnected network of support. People feel lonely, people feel isolated, and a lot of them are actually turning to non monogamy to build those networks and that nuclear family, that monogamous marriage framework, was a tool of western white colonialism. It is still a tool. So all that is to say that hierarchy is baked into the system. Hierarchy is baked into the system the same way racism is baked into the system. The same way sexism is baked into the system the same way ableism is baked into the system. If you are a product of white western heterocentrist culture, you are going to be programmed with hierarchy in your mind unless you deconstruct it.
And I just want to name another hierarchy that's really important. And I'm going to quote Lola Phoenix here. Within a eurocentric, white heterocentrist culture, we're taught also to value romantic relationships above all other relationships. There's a life plan that involves being born, growing up, finding a partner, settling down with that partner, having children, those children, growing old, and then living with your partner until you die, and that being a marker of success. Now, I'm talking about two things here, or rather, Lola Phoenix is talking about two things here. They are talking about the relationship escalator, and they're also talking about amatonormativity, which is ranking sexual relationships over non sexual relationships. Some other hierarchies I've seen have been ranking partners over friends or family or community. You can also rank people that you share finances with or live with over everyone else.
You can rank the people you raise children with over everyone else. You can also rank people based on their position on the escalator. You can also rank people on how much time they get with you. And this isn't about primary secondary anymore. These are just different ways that people can get ranked. And I'm not saying all of that is necessarily bad or good. It's just important to be awake to the fact that, again, hierarchy is baked into how we operate as humans, and there are some yucky roots to that that are worth looking at and being with and understanding so that you can be more conscious about it instead of just sort of saying, well, hierarchy is wrong, so let me follow these rules and do it this way, and then I'll be okay. And to just give you an example of what I'm talking about, I mean, I feel like I've done a lot of deconstructing of hierarchy in myself.
And if you asked me, like, what style of non monogamy works the most for me in terms of how my mind and my heart feel, I would say that I'm pretty egalitarian, I'm pretty non hierarchical, and what feels really the most, most right to me is relationship anarchy, because I really don't believe in ranking friendships over romantic relationships or prioritizing sexual relationships over non sexual relationships. However, I am also legally married with children with the person that I'm married to. I co own a home with that person that I'm married to. And the question is, is it possible for me to be non hierarchical under those circumstances? Or would any attempt at being non hierarchical, hierarchical be me just lying and fooling myself? Because the reality is, I make a lot of life decisions with my spouse. We share finances. We have a high degree of entanglement with each other. And, yes, I also co own this home that I live in right now with another person in addition to my spouse, but that's. I'll get into that in a minute.
But just as an example, a couple of years ago, my whole family moved from Maryland to Georgia, and my spouse and I were the ones who spoke about it first between us, and then we talked about it with our partners. First we talked about it with the one who lived with us, and then after that, we talked about it with the one who I knew couldn't come with us, who was another very important person in my life. And, you know, then we talked about it with our friends and family, etcetera, and we talked. We talked with each of these partners in quick succession, but there was an order, and you could see that as being hierarchical. And definitely, of course, the partner who was living with us at the time and is still living with us got a big say around moving, but the partner who didn't live with us really didn't get any kind of say in any of that, even though he's a really important person in my life. And that move obviously, majorly affected our relationship. It had a pretty big impact. And the thing is, while I don't like the terms primary and secondary, I've actually, as I've been researching for this episode, I've seen the word primary relationship used to describe not like that that relationship has power over the other relationship, but just that that primary relationship is primary to the person who's in it.
So it's like a stand in for a life partner or an escalator type relationship, and then the secondary relationship is just relationships that are not life partnerships or are not on an escalator. And so it's more of a description of prioritizing than it is describing a hierarchy of who has power and who has importance and who doesn't. Now, again, to me, the reason why I wouldn't use primary and secondary is because it has that implication of one is more important and one is less important. And that's actually not true for me. And at the same time, there is a hierarchy for me around my life partnerships, because a lot of my well being is tied up in this type of relationship. And I think that's really common. Oftentimes if you are financially entangled with somebody and you don't make the exact same amount of money, for you to separate would have a pretty big impact on your financial well being. If your housing is tied up with each other and you couldn't afford to live alone, that could have a big impact.
If you have family that you have deep connections with, with each other, like you're close with their family, they're close with your family, you have children, maybe you share health benefits, maybe you are part of each other's access to citizenship. And lastly, like caregiving, if you have health issues or ability differences or just as you're aging, you want someone in your life to be there to care for you. You might prioritize that person who has committed to doing that with you. And there's a lot that goes into building that life partnership type relationship. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of trial and error, and it takes a lot of working things out and negotiating things, hopefully explicitly, over a long period of time. And while I'm actually a really big fan of having, like, multiple life partnerships, because it is a lot of work to create a life partnership, it actually makes a lot of sense to me that if you're at a phase of life where you have a pretty solid life partnership, you may not want a second one, or you might have been in a life partnership and then gotten out of that life partnership and actively not want another life partnership. And this is where it's kind of important to be thinking when you're pursuing non monogamous relationships.
Like, what type of relationship are you looking for? Because if you're looking for, like, a life partnership type thing, you might want to be very conscious of about is that something that is available or desired in the partners that you're seeking out? Because not everybody wants that. And is that a hierarchy, because that slot is already taken and you don't want to build that with someone else? I don't think so. Again, I think that's very different than having all these rules and all this high degree of control that is blocking that from ever possibly happening and not making room for the natural evolution of. Of what a relationship could become, because I wasn't setting out to live with two partners. I wasn't setting out for that, I wasn't blocking it, but I wasn't setting out for it. I did kind of have a hope for it, but it just kind of evolved. And I think if you don't have the room for that to possibly evolve, then you're probably exerting too much control over things. But if you're pretty clear that that's not something that you want to consistently make choices with your other relationships, make that a no for you.
I don't think that that's wrong. And I might even make a clear distinction here that not all life partnerships are necessarily, like, automatically more important. Like, we might choose to prioritize them the same way we might prioritize our job or our family or other things that, again, are tied to our well being. But that doesn't mean that they're going to be the most beloved person to us, or they're going to be the person that we have the most fun with, or the person that we share all of the best parts of ourselves with, or the person that we give our best amount of time to. And in fact, I've actually seen it pretty commonly happen that with that life partnership, you're doing a lot of the work of life with, and then with your non life partners, you are doing all the fun stuff with, to the point where the life partners are often complaining that they don't get enough of the fun parts of their relationship. They just get all the work. And like, I can name that even in my own dynamics, that I have to work pretty hard to make sure that my co parent and I get fun date time together because it's much harder to get that because we need someone, some third person to cover the kids while we spend time just being adults together. And it is actually much easier for my non co parent partnership to get that time with me that is sort of joyful and kid free and fun.
And I would say I actually, even though one of my partners is long distance, I would say I get a significant amount of that type of time together because we're able to carve it out because our co parents can watch the kids while we spend time together. And so I would say the majority of the time that we get is non life partner time. And that has a real beauty to it. And in no way does that mean that that person is, like, less important to me because I'm not doing the dishes with him or we're not raising children together with him. But at the same time, there are no rules that say I can't meet his parents or that I can't spend Christmas with him or that we can't have certain activities that we do together or anything like that. At the same time, again, I just want to express some compassion for people who try, through control to create a sense of safety in their most entangled relationships because of that connection to your overall well being and your overall sense of safety and like said, financial stability, housing, things like that. And at the same time, you know, again, I don't think that that high degree of control actually works or does that for you. So I don't recommend it.
And I also want to say, though, if you are in a relationship with someone who is in a life partnership, a reframe I might introduce to you is that if you care about that person, if you love that person and you care about their overall well being, then you might want to care about that relationship and that relationship functioning well and being healthy and happy for them. That doesn't mean that you're going to, like, prioritize that couple, that whatever that primary couple or that life partner couple or whatever, more than you're going to prioritize your own relationship with your partner. No, but rather the same way that you'd care about their job going well or you'd care about their relationship with their parents going well. You'd want that life partnership to go well, too, because it's tied to someone you love's overall well being. I actually think it isn't great if you're resenting that relationship or want to undermine it or co opt it just because there are things happening in that relationship that maybe you want access to now, again, I think it can be this beautiful, symbiotic thing where, I mean, like my husband, I think, really gets that my other relationships support my well being as a human being. And so he doesn't have any desire to try to control those things, and I don't have any desire to control the relationships that he has. I see them, if they are supporting him, then I see that as supporting me because he supports me and I support him. And so it's very, very symbiotic, important and interconnected.
And I think we just hold that everybody in this ecosystem that we're in really matters. And at the same time, we have a high degree of effect and influence on each other. And so what happens for each of us? Like, if I started dating someone that was taking a lot of my time and a lot of my energy. And that was taking away the time and energy that I had available to show up in my life partnership and meet the commitments that I have to care for our shared children, or to be available for emotional support, or to be available for logistical support, or all of the things that I do. I mean, it's, again, it would be like me not being able to show up for my job or being able to show up for my friends or other, again, other commitments that I have. Of course, that might cause my partner to be concerned and have some issues with it. So, again, there are ways in which other relationships, and they could be friendships, they could be family relationships, they could be workplace situations. I mean, all of these things are part of the ecosystem of all of our well being.
And, you know, the people who are the most entangled with us might have the most to say about those things affecting them as well. And is that hierarchy? Is that control? Absolutely not. But it is impact and influence. And I think it's kind of impossible to ignore that reality. That is just the way it is. And sometimes it might suck. Sometimes it might suck to know that, hey, all of this other stuff is already committed to, and it's already prioritized and important. If something is going to threaten that, then for me, for sure, I'm going to choose something that is going to support that, that is going to make sure that it upholds all of the things that are already happening in my life that are important to me.
And at the same time, I have the experience of being in a intense, heart exploding love relationship with someone that I am not in a life partnership with. I have had the experience of wanting something deeper and more entangled with that person and just not having that available for either of us. And that can be excruciating, to not have the ability to build the relationship that you want and not be able to have what you feel for someone else express through the milestones and escalations that feel like natural to do, but they're just not available, because there are limitations on the amount of time and energy and attention that we can do things in. Like, if we've had children with someone and we've had all the children we want to have, then even if we have a partner where it feels like that would be a natural expression of the love that you feel, that you just also don't want more children. And that would be really complicated. And so you don't, you decide not to do that. And again, that's not about control and about hierarchy necessarily, but it is about capacity and existing commitments and certain types of compatibilities. And some people might call this, this kind of thing, like a sneaky archie.
Like, if you were to say, hey, we are non hierarchical and I'm available for all different kinds of relationships. And then what's really true is there's a lot that you're actually not available for. That could be, you know, really disappointing to someone who thought, hey, the sky's the limit with this person, and it's not the case. They actually already have a high level of commitment, and they're not actually available for a lot. And I've actually seen this happen where, like, they've formed a relationship with someone, someone with a high level of commitment with a life partner, an anchor partner. They form a connection with someone who doesn't have that and who really wants that with them. And they kind of try to half do it. Like, they try to show up in some of the ways that a life partner would show up, but they're only sometimes available.
And. And then what can happen is that person who is wanting that life partnership with them is really struggling because it's, like, really painful to not get the whole thing, but they don't want to complain because they're getting part of it, because they can see that you're trying, but they need more than you can give. I've seen that a few times, and it's really, that kind of thing is really painful. And again, I don't think that's a problem of necessarily hierarchy. It's just a mismatch of what is needed and what's available and maybe a lack of communication and being really honest about what isn't available. And actually, I want to get into a couple of other examples of where this can get sticky. We're thinking like, oh, I don't have hierarchy, so everything's going to be fine. Or, oh, I have hierarchy, and I clearly define it, so everything's going to be fine.
Here's another one for you, which is assuming that someone who doesn't have a primary wants one. That can be a problem. Like, you might be showing up to a relationship with someone, you have a very hierarchical mindset, and this person doesn't already have a primary relationship, and so you assume that they want one with you and they may not. Like, there are some people who don't want any type of life partnership. Some of those folks identify as solo polyamorous. Some of those folks don't identify as anything. They just know that they don't want certain kinds of entanglement. And if you're showing up just kind of assuming that because you haven't unpacked your own hierarchical mindset or you haven't just communicated that clearly, you might start escalating with them and they might even kind of go along with it, but then kind of set their own boundaries as they want to, and then you might find yourself thinking you have something with someone that they don't really want, that they didn't really agree to.
So that's one scenario, and again, that's not necessarily a problem that somebody's behaving unethically. It's just sort of a mismatch and some poor communication. Another one would be if you're in an established life partner dynamic, and then you are in another relationship that is not on track to be a life partner or a primary type relationship, but then the relationship just starts escalating and nobody talks about it, and then suddenly that person is just, things are happening that make that primary partner either feel like they're sharing the primary status or that they're actually being de escalated. But again, nobody's talking about it. And again, you'd think that that would be okay if there was no hierarchical mindset, but even then, the dynamics are changing. And again, if nobody's talking about it and nobody's kind of prepared for what's happening, then it can still be really painful and confusing to everybody. Another one is that someone could be in an existing life partnership dynamic and have some non life partners or secondary partners, and then that life partnership ends. Maybe they get divorced, and that secondary partner just kind of steps in to be the new primary.
And that can happen either because the secondary partner sees the availability and assumes that it's there, or it can happen that the secondary partner was actually happy to be in the non life partner type role, but the person who now has an opening for a life partner just kind of starts moving them into that role. And again, without talking about it and making a lot of assumptions, that's another scenario where I think it could feel not good and cause problems, whether there's an established hierarchy or not. And again, the last one that I would say can be really tricky is just these mismatch of expectations or capacity, which doesn't necessarily get solved by saying you're non hierarchical, because even if you're non hierarchical, you might still have a lot of commitments, whether it's a lot of partners or whether it's one partner and a big job or a lot of family obligations. And let's say you start up a new relationship with somebody, and they just have a lot of availability and a high level of need and a high level of desire to connect with you. And you just actually don't have the space or capacity for the kind of partnership that they're looking for. And they see kind of your cup is, like, overflowing, and then they're just kind of getting little drips into their cup from you. And again, that's not about hierarchy. That's just about availability.
And again, it's a thing that can happen, is like, you can not perceive the difference between what the commitment that you have and the commitment that someone's looking for. And you might not be able to clearly communicate it. And then it does. It just hurts. It can be really hurtful and disappointing. And I'll add one more thing here, which is I saw a video on Instagram where someone was derisively saying that hierarchical polyamorous just want to date other people, to have fun with them and have them be like, fuck toys. And my thought was that sometimes that's actually a really joyful arrangement for everyone involved. Some people really want a partnership that is around play, that does not have all of the trappings of a life partnership, either because if they already have a life partner themselves, or they actively don't want a life partner because they're solo polyamorous, or they're just really independent, or they're monogamous.
But. But they have a lot of other life commitments that take up their time and energy, and they don't want to give that to a life partnership dynamic, because there's a lot of other shit that's involved in being a life partner that has nothing to do with romance or sex or love or any of that. It's like, it's work. So some people really want to be fuck toys. And now, I think seeking, like, fuck toys exclusively, maybe more of a swinger or open relationship type style. But I think you can say you're polyamorous but only looking for casual sex right now. And I think that's fine. I think you get to sort of define what you're interested in.
But again, I think that where it would be hierarchical is in a yucky way, is if there's a partner on the other side, one of your partners, who is dictating that for you, or that you're allowing them to have such a high degree of influence about how your relationships can look in the shape that they can take. And again, it's about that power dynamic. Absolutely. Hierarchy can be harmful if there's no room for things to change, although even then, if things change in a certain kind of way, it's totally allowed for someone who is in a particular dynamic. If things change to not like that dynamic anymore and want to leave the relationship, and that might have too high a cost, that's what I go into in the vetoes sometimes happen podcast episode that I did. But I'll also add that hierarchy can be harmful if you haven't done any of the unpacking of your mononormative, heteronormative, amatonormative, patriarchal, white supremacist, escalator focused way of seeing the world. Especially if you're in a long established, previously mono relationship and you haven't done any deconstructing of the enmeshment you might have in your established relationship. All of that, you'll almost certainly be operating in a hierarchical way just because it's embedded in our dominant culture, and there's a lot to just deconstruct and unlearn to get out of power over relational dynamics.
This is why empowerment is one of the pillars of integrated open relating, which is the framework that I teach in my group programs and that I hold in my work with clients. Because I think that if you are in a power over mindset, you're probably going to run afoul of hierarchy, whether you, like, officially practice it or not. And at the same time, I just want to say that, like, you're allowed to have priorities, you're allowed to not treat everybody equally, and things still might just get sticky if you don't communicate perfectly. And that's part of the journey that we're all on here. I'll close by saying, the most useful tool that I have had when I'm trying to deconstruct hierarchy is to think about partnerships the same way I think about friendships. You're going to have friends that you've had longer than other friends. You're going to feel differently about different friends. You're going to have friends that you confide everything to, and other friends that you're going to have more boundaries with.
You're going to have some friends who you see weekly, or who are way, way embedded in your life, who maybe you spend holidays with, who are, you know, there at your child's birth and all of these things. And you're going to have some that you see infrequently and that you share less with. And friends generally don't feel entitled to control your relationships with other friends, but you may naturally gravitate towards making certain kinds of plans and investments in some friendships and not make those in other friendships. And it may suck or even hurt if you feel that inequality sometimes. If you feel excluded from some things with a friend, when you feel really close to them, you may feel like you're prioritizing them in ways and they aren't prioritizing you in the same way. And that might be a mismatch of priorities and availability, and that just might be painful. And it isn't necessarily about the other person being shitty or not caring or treating you like you're disposable. So to sum up, is hierarchy bad? Yes and no.
If you're using a high degree of control over your partner to try to enforce a hierarchy, then again, you're probably going to be causing a lot of harm, not only to the other people that your partner is in relationships with, but probably also to your partnership itself. And we are all products of a power over dominant culture, the same way that white supremacy and ableism and heteronormativity and misogyny and mononormativity are all baked into western white settler culture. If you are part of that culture in any way, it is probably baked into your brain somewhere, and it is also baked into the structures that we exist in. And it takes a lot to deconstruct all of that. And in some cases its unavoidable. That doesnt mean that we shouldnt do our best, but many of us are going to find ourselves in these life partnership dynamics where one person, or maybe just a couple of people, are very central to our lives. And that may be unavoidable and it may even be desirable for some people. It's important to examine the hierarchies that you're choosing consciously.
It's important to examine the ways that you can dismantle it. And it's important to clearly communicate what you're available for, what your capacity is and what you're hoping for. You get to have boundaries, you get to have priorities, you get to want some things with some people and not other things with other people. And not everything is going to work with everybody. Of course not. At the end of the day, let's please just try to be clear, try to be kind. And that includes not beating up people for making mistakes, for being a product of their culture, pointing fingers and shaming, or any of that. Let's all just hold that we're all doing the best we can, and let's all keep trying to do better, because that's how we can make room for love to flow and for us to all be more connected to each other and maybe collectively dismantle all of the forces that are actually keeping us all apart, which none of us chose.
It was all here before any of us listening to this podcast were probably born. And yes, dismantling hierarchy is great. It's beautiful, it's expansive, it's revolutionary, it's loving. And let's stay curious and let's hold that we're all doing the best we can with that right now.
