Black Poly Pride

It's June and that means it's Pride season for some of us.  Being a part of the LGBTQ community as well as being poly can sometimes mean community but sometimes it just feels like we're a very small group of people in this huge world.   I normally don't do groups on social media for varying reasons. Most of them include the fact that very few people participate, there's always drama or the topics are focused on people just coming into polyamory. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think I'm better than anyone or anything like that but I do feel like I've spent enough time on topics such as jealousy and unicorn hunting/triads etc.    I really want to be in a group of poly black folks who can discuss topics within polyamory that are deeper than the normal stuff.   

And yup I said, poly black folks! Why would I want to create a space for poly black people you may ask? First because of racism. If you've read a few of my posts, I've( and a few other people) have experienced racism in the poly community.  On top of the racism, there are subtle microaggressions that we deal with on a day to day basis.   I've been intentionally wanting to create a safe space for polyamorous black people.    I realized we need a safe space full of our peers to let our hair down and to not have to constantly code switch or fear being fetishized.   Sadly, that hasn't been possible.  It feels and seems impossible to create this space for us.

Why is it so I wonder? Even when we have these spaces we don't participate or we fall back and just lurk.   I feel that any time I'm on social media or in my life period, I'm doing things for a reason. I'm very calculated and intentional with the things I do.  Before a particular group, I was in disbanded, I made a poll and specifically asked people why weren't they participating in the group.  Within a few minutes, I saw that several people saw the poll but didn't even bother to answer it. I was thinking to myself WTF!!! You mean to tell me that you saw the poll and couldn't take a few seconds to respond to make the group better????

That whole situation fueled my anger and it also made me think.   It made me think about the black community as a whole really.    some of us complain that we don't have anything for US blah blah.   But when someone intentionally makes a space for us there is little to no participation. Is this a vicious cycle?   Long story short on the social media group, It was deleted due to the low participation amongst other things.  That situation made me kinda sad.   Then I was on Facebook today and saw a posting from a page I follow, Loving Solo.    The post was talking about a black poly pride event.   I immediately went to the website and saw that it was a whole weekend of workshops dedicated and featuring black polyamorous folks.  It immediately made me happy and I wanted to know if I could possibly make it out to Dallas. Then I found out that the date was next weekend and I myself would be out of town celebrating Pride events in a different city.

I had to know if there would another event like this next year so that I could attend. Now I feel happy and I haven't lost all my faith. I see that I'm not the only person trying to make spaces and community for black polyamorous people. So I will continue to try and make these spaces available to those few who want to be a part of a community, of family and to tell our stories.

Hey for anyone who's interested in Black Poly Pride event, please visit their website here

Highlighting US!!!

After the poly visual representation project I did a few months ago it sparked something in me. It sparked a real desire to highlight black polyamorous people.  A few of the folks who participated have blogs, Youtube channels, social media pages and websites dedicated to their poly journey. I'd love to share that with others and my hope is to have more black poly folks start blogs, websites and events that highlight non-monogamous relationships.

• Loving Solo This blog is written by the lovely Roselyn.  She highlights her poly journey and life from a solo poly perspective.  It's definitely a breath of fresh air to see SoPo black folks living their best lives!
• Black & Poly Magazine   This website has been a gem to me and I highly recommend it to any black poly person. It's full or articles, movie and book reviews that focus on polyamory and non-monogamy.
• Black Sex Geek  Ruby Bouie Johnson is the main presenter of this page.  She states "This page is dedicated to expression, support, and advocacy for people of color within the community, state, and nation. This page is designed for the dissemination of news, politics, and sexuality education."
• Poly Phamily Values  This Facebook page showcases a black poly family and their life. I had the pleasure of including them in the visual representation project as well. 
• Lavitaloca Sawyers  A seriously dope poly individual that is out,loud and proud about her polyamory...the good and the bad. 
• Poly Role Models An Instagram page ran by Kevin Patterson who is the author of two books; Loves Not Color Blind: Race and Representation in Polyamorous and other alternative communities and For Hire: Operator. Also, if you have tumblr visit the polyrolemodels.tumblr.com page.
• Poly Collective  An Instagram page highlighting black poly events in the DMV and surrounding areas. 

Happily poly saturated

I'm sitting at work thinking about my poly life and I've come to the conclusion that I'm currently poly saturated. The definition, if you didn't know what it means is "Polyamorous, but not currently open to new relationships or new partners because of the number of existing partners, or because of time constraints that might make new relationships difficult". All of those reasons are why I'm poly saturated at the moment.   Even though I'm poly saturated  I'm so happy. I feel this contentment and excitement deep within me. I have AWESOME people in my life. The connections that I've made within the last six months have just made my whole life feel satisfying.

 Personally, everyone I'm involved with isn't a partner in the traditional sense but those individuals in my life bring me joy. I can talk to them freely. We share life's ups and down.  They're my personal cheerleaders and they all have been there when I was having a rough time and all of this is vice versa

This is probably the best thing about being poly. The sense of belonging to this tribe of interconnected people who all have this collective goal but we're all living our lives.   I feel this freedom and this happiness within me and that's all that matters, right?  I've been asked by several people how do I manage it? How do you give your partners time?  It's easy I tell them. Every one of my partners requires direct levels of communication and attention. We all lead very busy lives with work, family and other personal and professional projects that we are working on.  But we all manage to call, text or FaceTime.  I'm so happily poly saturated with love.

Breaking up

Breaking up is really hard to do.  I've sadly had to break up with a partner and I've also been broken up with so I can understand both sides of the coin. In a perfect world, or in my mind, relationships wouldn't end and people would work out their problems and differences but we don't live in a perfect world. Sigh 

This past year I had two relationships that ended for varying reasons. Time constraints and needing and wanting other things were a few of the major reasons.  And to be honest when those relationships ended  I was in emotional pain. I mourned the loss of those relationships. I mourned the loss of the things we had shared and the possibilities for the future as well as the loss of that person in my life.  I don't feel like there's enough talk within the poly community surrounding breakups and the loss of relationships.   I don't think most people realize just how hard it can be. I know people think just because you have more than one partner losing one isn't going to affect you but it definitely does! 

  I've had to pretend like I'm okay after a break up when in fact I'm not. I'm seriously hurting. I've had to "put on a brave face" to mask my hurt.   My other partners know and try to help me work through it as best they can but sadly, it's a situation that you have to work through by yourself.   I just want to shoutout my partners (and everyone else's partners) who've been there during and after a breakup. You guys are the real MVP's!!! Thank you so much.   I want to thank my partners M and V for both talking to me and hearing me out during the tough times and just being supportive.  Thanks for being there while I cried on the phone with you. Thanks for being there when I texted you trying to figure things out. I'm grateful, so very grateful for you two.    I wrote an article for Black & Poly magazine last year the first time I experienced a poly break up. If you want to read it here's
the link

Last year when I wrote the article I was operating out of pain and experiencing those raw emotions first hand.  I didn't even know what to do or how to process everything that was going on.  Instead of experiencing and feeling, I tried to ignore my feelings until I received a comment and some great advice.    I was simply told to feel and experience all the emotions and not to hold them in. That comment was extremely profound. So I took the advice and processed those feelings surrounding the breakup. By doing so it helped me understand the relationships and the motivations surrounding the breakups.    Have you experienced a poly breakup? How did you heal from it? Are you still healing and if you are how has the process been?

Racism in the poly community??

I had an interesting situation on Monday. Well, it wasn't a situation it was more like an experience. I decided to attend a poly event that's close to my job. I had never attended an event with this group, and since I started The Black & Poly Cleveland group it's been enough for me.  A few days prior I saw the topic and said hey I'll go, why not? The topic was surrounding sex and intimacy.  I thought well this is gonna be interesting.   I RSVP and when Monday rolled around I showed up after work to the location about 20 minutes before the start time.  It was at a Panera, so I stared at the menu before deciding on a salad.  The location was packed and I had no idea where the meeting room was at.   Luckily, certain locations have meeting spaces and most people are grateful for that level of privacy.    As I grabbed my food,  I saw a member of B&P Cleveland who was there with his husband.  I was happy to see a familiar face as  I followed him into the meeting room and sat my food down before we moved the tables and chairs around. Now, here's where the story gets sad and interesting........

I decided to help them move the chairs and tables around into a circle to make it easier for us all to see each other.  Once we  were done we all sat down and I began eating. I noticed that I was the only POC there,actually, the only black person there.  I sat down I felt the air in the room change. They probably thought I was in the wrong place   I'm the type of person that notices everything. I noticed body language and the whole vibe. I noticed people speaking to other people but not one person even said hello to me.  At first I took it as people coming in and seeing their friends. Then the meeting began and I saw that the chair immediately to the left and right of me were empty despite the fact that everyone else was sitting side by side.

  Once I started the B&P Cleveland group I had a few black poly people tell me just how grateful they were that I started the group.  They told me how they had went to events with with this particular group and how awkward it was for them. How they didn't feel welcome etc. and now I understood sadly.  The conversation went okay but I had to explain how on a cultural level black and brown people don't have serious hangups regarding sex or being sexual. I think we feel like it's a normal thing. We celebrate pleasurable activities all the time like food and music and sex is just another normal pleasurable activity.

The group owner and I were cool and he's attended B&P meetups so when it ended I caught a ride home with him, since we practically live in the same neighborhood (No sense in taking a Lyft,right)  We've spoken candidly about race before and I felt comfortable enough to tell him how I felt and my experience. Of course he apologized because he felt a responsibility as the group owner.   But I told him there was no need because he's not responsible for other people's actions or behaviors.  I then explained that I'd probably won't attend another event with the group. I think that saddened him even more.  I just can't go into spaces that make me feel uncomfortable or not welcome. And as I sit here writing the post I've changed the title of the post a few times to what it's really about.  And that's racism in poly communities.

I guess I've been naive to think that racism doesn't exist in the poly community, or the BDSM community or the LGBTQ community but it does.  I have even more questions now because what should we do as POC when we experience this? I personally don't feel the responsibility to bridge the racial divide with white poly folks who may be racist or who may be uncomfortable with Black/POC individuals in their spaces.  That's the work that they have to do. I will however continue to cultivate spaces and experiences for black and brown poly folks.

Black Representation.....A Project

I started this blog for several reasons but the main reason was for representation. I'm pretty sure when most people think of anything other than monogamy they envision only white people doing it. I've heard it so many times, poly what?? That's some "white peoples shit"  But we as black and brown folks have been practicing so many forms of non-monogamy for centuries. We may not have had a name for it but we were doing it.

While looking for stock photos for the blog I realized there were no black faces represented, and if they were they were of triads or polygamy. While both of those are forms of non-monogamy I don't feel like it always represents what polyamory is and newsflash folks you know everyone isn't in a triad or seeking to be a sister wife.  So I said if  you want to see something done, you have to do it yourself  Jai.

The really great thing about being poly is the community. I have a community of black poly friends(mostly online) who support me whenever I have crazy ideas, and vice versa.  I'm lucky and very grateful to have that because most people don't have it. Most people can barely tell anyone that they aren't monogamous or that they're not straight or that they're into BDSM or have specific kinks etc.   As I sought out faces for this project I knew a few people who couldn't do it because of social or family obligations and it really made me sad that we live in a society where monogamy is pushed as "the norm" and people can't just live their collective lives and be happy.  So I sought help from my community and they came through. Thank you to everyone who helped me! Thanks to my meta, Andrea, for giving me the idea to do some sort of video as well. You rock!!

This project surprisingly showcased mostly solo poly people and it made me proud but there were other relationship configurations as well that just goes to show you there's not one way to do poly or to be poly.   So without further ado here's the video

Emotional Currency

I learned about this concept from my partner M last night. We were talking about processing emotions and how to talk to about them with our partners.  M said he'd learned a concept early on in his poly journey and it was emotional currency.   He said emotional currency is having enough emotional energy stored up to deal with emotional or difficult situations. That hit me square in the face because I generally have emotional currency when I talk and deal with emotions with my partners, but several times I've discussed really difficult situations and I literally had zero dollars in my emotional bank.

On a personal level dealing with hard situations and arguing with a partner depletes all of my emotional currency.  Talking with M last night made me realize how many times I've done this and just how harmful it can be to me and my psyche.   On the flip side, I can say that there are a few things that fill up my emotional bank.   For instance, when a partner shares with me and shows vulnerability it increases my emotional currency bank or when my partners remember my love languages and does something in response to them such as spending quality time with me  All these things fill me up on an emotional level.

I can also say that I fill up my emotional bank by processing old situations that I may not have gotten over. I would be lying if I told you that I don't have past issues that I have yet to address. Of course I do! Processing those emotions surrounding those situations can take away from my emotional currency as well "credit" my emotional account.  I didn't like my accounting classes while I was in college, but the idea of debits and credits when talking about an emotional bank rings true for me. I've been "debiting" from my emotional bank account and very little "credits" have been deposited.  My emotional account has been in the negative for awhile and now I have to do a bit of bookkeeping to figure out where I went wrong and how I can get back into good standing.  So far,writing in my  journal and being good to myself has been what has been helping me.

 Writing in my journal gives me the opportunity to write without the fear of judgement or the fear of having to explain myself or my actions to anyone.  Being good to myself is a concept that's a bit more hard to describe. Being good to myself means being a bit more understanding and not so hard on myself  constantly.  Not blaming myself for everything, and realizing that I'm human and that I make mistakes is a way that I'm being good to myself.  I also have to accept that relationships, just like life, has it's ups and downs and it's not the end of the world if I have a disagreement with my partner(s).   How do you feel about emotional currency as a poly concept? Are you adding to your bank or are you depleting it?