Making a Home of Each Other

June 27, 2023 8:00 AM

Queerness makes room within it for these relationships, or rather: queerness spirals outward.

Lucy Bellwood on the Blue, previously

posted by Kitteh (20 comments total)

Heh, click into a random link on the front page, there's Lucy staring back at me. This was nice.
posted by cortex at 8:20 AM on June 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Remember: Care for yourself and the people around you. Believe that the world can be better than it is now. Never give up.

word.
posted by chavenet at 8:29 AM on June 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

this is excellent

weekend breakfasts is one thing I do for my partner, I am trying "The Eggs" recipe! thanks for sharing this
posted by elkevelvet at 8:52 AM on June 27, 2023

This is lovely, thank you for sharing. 🏳️‍🌈
posted by ellieBOA at 8:56 AM on June 27, 2023

I must try The Eggs soon. This was a beautiful piece and it warms my heart to see people twisting marriage to fit their way of living.
posted by crossswords at 8:56 AM on June 27, 2023

queerness spirals outward

It does indeed. Thank you.
posted by kjh at 9:31 AM on June 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Ahhhhhh this piece is everything I love about being queer, even if I can only drool about the food described.
posted by Bottlecap at 9:44 AM on June 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Oh I love this so much.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 9:46 AM on June 27, 2023

This is beautiful. I have a similar relationship with my platonic housemate. We are deeply different people but we complement each other’s strengths. The house is paid off because of me, but it has a soul because of her. I do the cooking. She does the house decoration and renovation. We provide space for rescue cats, and the occasional rescue human. I am not a very Yes person by nature, but we are together doing our best to be a tiny Yes, in a world full of No.
posted by notoriety public at 12:23 PM on June 27, 2023 [9 favorites]

As a trans woman whose wife stayed with her post-transition, I feel this so much. Thank you for sharing it :)
posted by starscream at 12:27 PM on June 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

This made my heart ache in the nicest way. And of course made me hungry. What a lovely piece.
posted by EvaDestruction at 12:28 PM on June 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

A very beautiful read. Thank you for sharing this.
posted by Fizz at 12:56 PM on June 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm glad to have read this today.
posted by brainwane at 1:08 PM on June 27, 2023

Queerness is the antidote to patriarchy. As a man married to a woman (for over 26 years!) it can be hard to break out of old models, but I've tried by taking my wife's last name, being a stay-at-home parent for a stretch, doing all the cooking and food shopping, trying to hold up my end of the emotional labor stuff. Metafilter helped teach me how to do some of this stuff. I worry about what happens if our parents both need care in different places simultaneously. I hate the thought of being apart for long stretches. But true love is more flexible than old templates, I suppose is the lesson. I'm eager to keep learning from queerness and using better models than the sort of boy-meets-girl romantic bullshit I grew up with.
posted by rikschell at 1:19 PM on June 27, 2023 [10 favorites]

Thank goodness Lucy included the recipe! Oh wait, it’s a series of essays from different amazing people with recipes?! I’m in! Bellwood is a gem and I have the 100 demons plushie in a place of honor.
posted by amanda at 5:13 PM on June 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

That was beautiful, that's the first time I've really savored the personal story that came before a recipe on a website. Incidentally, there are lots of other gems, both culinary and literary, in the rest of the series
posted by signsofrain at 6:13 PM on June 27, 2023

I’m a (mostly) straight cis-man who identifies as solo polyamorous, i.e. I live alone but I am not lonely, I feel I am my best self without needing to live with a close partner or someone with whom I share deep emotional ties. I have several partnerships, the longest having lasted a few years now. I feel I spend a lot of time telling people that no, that person is not my girlfriend, and no, we are never moving in together. (I hasten to add, by mutual agreement; we talk about expectations and boundaries a lot.)

So in some ways this story is not for me. I don’t dream of sharing breakfast or a bed with someone every day. I want to be alone!

But in other ways, I found the story deeply heartening.

I’m very into “relationship anarchy”, where people define for themselves the various connections and intimacies they want to share, without reference to labels or what’s expected by society. I love how this story shows two people finding their way to the situation that suited them, labels be damned. You want to call your housemate “wife”? Sure, your business. I have so many references for people falling in love with one opposite gendered person and getting married and living happily ever after (so many!) but so few references for people living the way I want to live. It’s nice and very heartening to find this one.

I’m also aware that the recent history of non-monogamy owes much to queer people; I can do it today because such practices and the thinking behind them were incubated in marginalised communities. This story felt like a touching reminder of this fact.
posted by Probabilitics at 10:13 PM on June 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

This will be unpopular, but hard pass. I’m bisexual and polyamorous, but ”the queer community” has always felt extremely gatekeepy to me, while simultaneously positioning queerness as the welcoming/accepting opposite of patriarchy. No thanks. That community shouldn’t get to claim my life and experiences, much less the lives and experiences of cishet people who don’t follow romantic/sexual norms. You don’t get to claim the things you won’t protect.
posted by vim876 at 6:24 AM on June 28, 2023

This will be unpopular, but hard pass.

your favorite relational dynamic sucks? lol
posted by Gymnopedist at 8:09 AM on June 28, 2023

this is nice and and sweet and timely for me, thanks for sharing :) i dunno if i’m aromantic or just romantic about everyone but the way i am constitutionally has led me to prioritize the sort of love described here a lot
posted by Gymnopedist at 8:14 AM on June 28, 2023 [3 favorites]