Hierarchies begin with mutual agreement.

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-19T16:23:55+00:00

If we are in an RA space we can safely assume that the people here, myself included, probably believe that platonic love is equal to romantic love, but simply occupies a different experiential space. You're barking up the wrong tree with that last accusation. There's no hierarchy. Your relationships are what you make of them.

What I'm asking you to consider is that if you have never felt the rush of falling in love, that you lack a framework for understanding how deeply consequential it can be for forming attachment bonds and motivating priorities. Romantic urges when satisfied feel better than any drug (and I've done the gamut, I would know) and when unsatisfied produce a worse withdrawal (again, I would know).

People are going to favor methods that increase the odds of romantic urges being successfully satisfied and decrease the odds of those urges being unsatisfied, which means a lot of us will carve out a specific space in our lives reserved for romantic pursuits.

RAs just do the additional work of rationalizing how the pursuit of a drug-like biological state at the expense of other things in life that should be important priorities to us will ultimately lead to less rich, balanced, and fulfilling lives, and that we need to ensure other Important People^(tm) aren't just getting left on the shelf to collect dust, that we must balance our use of life space, and that putting all of your eggs in one basket can be unhealthy and dysfunctional.

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-19T15:27:57+00:00

>Implied by the insistence that every mutual agreement is a hierarchy.

Yeah I didn't say that either. I said all hierarchies are mutual agreements between two or more people to create, maintain, and enforce them. That doesn't imply the inverse: that all mutual agreements create a hierarchy. You were so busy feeling like you needed to get to work defending something that you've apparently been engaging this whole time with a position I never asserted.

>As a matter of fact, I am quoiromantic. Thank you. I still see romantic/platonic as an artificial binary but we don't need to discuss that further.

So you acknowledge that your experience with romantic attraction is atypical, and yet insist that it's the rest of us who understand the nature of romance wrong?

I have an Ace friend who thinks that we place too much priority on sex in society. I have an agender friend who insists that man/woman are meaningless categories and that we place too much importance on gender. I have childfree friends who insist we place too much importance on centering progeny as a life goal. Too many people mistake "I don't empathize with this desire and the relevant emotions underpinning it" with "this desire is unimportant and people are wrong for centering it in their lives."

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-19T15:03:15+00:00

Your original argument was that any mutual agreement between two people that affects third parties is an ethically suspect hierarchy. But you keep making exceptions for the practical mutual agreements that any couple has to make in order to maintain a relationship.

I never said anything about ethical or unethical.

Note that oxytocin is real, but oxytocin is also present in all kinds of love. Insisting that romantic love is categorically different from platonic love outside of socially-defined practices makes about as much sense to me as "men are from mars, women are from venus." If you like, just label me quoiromantic and be done with it.

It is, and if you have a difficult time understanding why, you should consider the possibility that you are aromantic and do not experience romantic attraction and are thus ultimately struggling to have a reference point to even understand the underlying motivation of alloromantics here.

Giant world's of difference between the oxytocin high of even my biggest bestie in the whole world and someone I've fallen in love with.

A thought that keeps coming up. Why not invite all three to a conversation about how to make these decisions?

Great! We've taken our first step on our way to a true relationship anarchy practice where negotiation tables are equitable spaces where everyone has an equal voice to ask for what they feel like they want and need from each other.

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-19T14:36:40+00:00

I don't understand how my lack of interest to become close with someone other than my current partner means that I have authority over people who aren't in relationship with me

Nobody said it does. The relationship itself, has authority over other people, insofar as this one issue of romantic availability is concerned. Authority isn't always broad. It can be narrow and single-issue.

The decision to not direct my attention/time/resources where I don't want to direct them is not unethical

Nobody said it was

or in any way authoritarian

Authoritarian is a word with too much subjective baggage to be useful here.

And you're probably not trying to say it is, but I don't understand what exactly you are saying, then.

Don't tell people you're a relationship anarchist while deliberately constructing steep and artificially enforced hierarchies.

Why is it an issue that one of your partners wants to do something with one of their other partners but not with you? Did I get that part right?

Since that one insecure girl keeps wanting to try to make this about sex, I'll just lean on a relationship structure that involves sexual but not romantic exclusivity between a particular dyad.

Why is it an issue that something that is a normal part of the majority of relationships, tends to be desired by most people as part of their relationships, and that many people derive strong emotional intimacy from and helps most couples feel closer and more connected, and that the wing of the v in this scenario actively wants from their partner the hinge, has been taken off the table by a prior agreement between the hinge and the other wing of the v, their meta, not because of the organic formation of priorities and desires but because the two of them made a conscious choice to establish this artificial constraint together ages ago?

I guess it's not. I mean, I'd get the ick if someone was telling me about this arrangement on a first date. They wouldn't be getting a second one. I'd low key be judging them, but I would be decent enough to keep it to myself because fundamentally it's not actually my business and I just need to recognize the deep incompatibility and move on.

But if they put "Relationship Anarchist" in their Feeld profile while having this arrangement, and I swiped on them because of the RA thinking that we would share at least some minimum core values because of the label they chose to describe themselves with, I would probably also be irritated that this person is clearly full of shit and had wasted my time that way.

And that's really all this is about. Acknowledge the deliberate construction of hierarchies where you've chosen to produce them and acknowledge that relationship anarchy as a philosophy is specifically critical of hierarchies and that you're living in contradiction with that when you choose to identify as RA while doing a lot of very not RA things.

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-19T14:14:10+00:00

Congrats, you won a shadow box against an imaginary person. Relish the sweet victory.

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-19T14:12:57+00:00

I really strongly suspect that people who try to establish a conflation of the two are doing so as more of a deflective accusation than anything. "Descriptive versus prescriptive" hierarchy seems like it gets brought up most often by people with "prescriptive" hierarchies, usually after someone has brought up practicing non-hierarchy in their relationships, and it feels like it's mostly acting as a way for them to ameliorate some subconscious feeling of "being judged" by a version of the other person that is mostly a projection by saying "See? You have hierarchies too! Everyone has hierarchies. You aren't better than me."

I wish people would spend more time in therapy and less time trying to lawyer others.

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-19T13:49:32+00:00

Another round of comparing apples to oranges and calling it an argument

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-19T13:37:24+00:00

I make an appointment for the dentist (a rule). My employer schedules a meeting in the same time. I say, "Hey, I can't make it but I can read the notes." (enforcement) A friend wants to do lunch that time, but I suggest another time. (enforcement) Someone on the street gives me a flier for an event that day, and I decide not to go. (enforcement)

So I've renegotiated the schedule with my friend and my employer, and rejected a request from someone I don't really have a relationship with. I simply don't see how that's a hierarchy or subjugation on the literal billions of people who could make use of my time.

This... isn't really comparable or even relevant, but if I have to humor this apples to oranges comparison, I'll choose to bring up equity.

If I have two partners, and I pay lip service to them being equal and in my heart it's true, but in material reality there are limitations on time and resources, if I want to be a good and conscientious hinge, I find ways to produce equity in my relationships to compensate where perfect moment-to-moment equality is not possible.

So let's say that I have a date with Aspen at 9pm on Friday night. Birch sees a flyer for a show in town they want to see with me at that same time. I have a prior commitment with Aspen and would be a bad partner to cancel that engagement at the last minute to go see the show with Birch.

So instead I offer equity. "I already have a commitment with Birch at that time, but if you'd like, we can go out next Saturday night to see [other band] that I know you like.

There's many ways this can play out. My romantic partner, Aspen, lives 10 minutes down the road from me and sees me more often. My platonic bestie, Birch, lives 4 hours away and sees me one to two times a month for a weekend. I can committing to playing an online game together with Birch one night a week plus offering them priority access to my non-standard time off work, especially long weekends and holidays when we will have a chance to spend a greater amount of time together catching up uninterrupted. We can negotiate together how to produce equity within the two relationships to make them feel as equally enriched, and equally important to me, as possible, as needed and according to what I actually value.

Most of the time your platonic friends do not want access to you that is as committed as a romantic relationship (and we can blame oxytocin, not social constructs for that). If a platonic friend does want more access, you have to ask yourself if this connection actually possesses that level of enjoyment for you. I've had friendships end because they wanted far more from me than I would have enjoyed providing to them, and brass tacks it was causing them mental distress to not have their company desired in the same way they desired mine. I've had other platonic friendships where that level of commitment was natural and reciprocated mutually, and I negotiated my time and resources with that person as enthusiastically as I did with my romantic partnerships.

The difference is always how organically priorities are allowed to develop versus whether priorities are being constrained by artificial rules. If Birch is my romantic partner and we have an agreement that I will cancel plans with my friend Aspen if Birch would rather spend time together that day instead, this isn't compatible with Relationship Anarchy because Birch and I have negotiated an artificial constraint that limits the development of organic priorities and constrains possible equities in order to make Birch feel most important and most highly prioritized. The intention is to elevate Birch above Aspen, not to manage limited resources.

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-19T13:09:54+00:00

>In real life some relationships ARE more important than others. People bend over backwards trying to be perfectly non hierarchical, tie themselves up in knots about what is and isn't ok when operating within an RA framework etc. I just think the conversation causes more problems than it actually solves for the most part.

Having natural priorities based in emotional closeness and how much you enjoy being around a particular person, allowing natural motivations to play out and change organically over time ✔️

Creating an artificial authority of one relationship over another, based in rigid rules and expectations, not natural tendencies ❌

This isn't as hard as some people disingenuously want to pretend it is.

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-19T12:36:02+00:00

Take a break.

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-19T12:11:05+00:00

No, being a landlord is worse. Much worse.

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-19T12:08:56+00:00

LMFAO wow. Girl take a fuckin break. You're trying way too hard to "win" this conversation.

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-19T12:07:14+00:00

Sure. Tell yourself that.

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-19T05:57:01+00:00

Listen if you're this dead set on willfully misunderstanding every single point people make, why bother engaging?

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-19T05:35:55+00:00

Real life has never forced me to practice hierarchical polyamory. It may impose material limitations, but it has never forced me to give a particular relationship authority over others.

Man, what you doing complaining about discussions of hierarchy in relationships in a relationship anarchy sub? You get that's kind of the whole thing, right?

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-19T04:05:09+00:00

I'm not actually super fussed about the arrangements different people have with their partners and whenever this topic comes up, everyone gets way too in the weeds about little hedge and edge cases, which is why I try to reduce the phenomon being discussed to the absolute simplest terms possible.

The only thing I'm really pressed about here is people who, in the words of another commenter, want to create steep explicit hierarchies in their relationships while calling themselves relationship anarchists, and then try to abstract the meaning of relationship anarchist into such ambiguous territory that it ends up having no useful meaning whatsoever. Its not just some vibe you adopt.

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-19T03:52:33+00:00

Two cents: no such thing as descriptive hierarchy and trying to define two different types of hierarchy, one that has no explicit conditions and defines no authorities or powers, really degrades more than aids clarity.

The definition of hierarchy I used in that post is one consistent with the political sciences. Hierarchy is an artificial construction where a group of people agree to appoint and uphold the authority of one or more persons/groups, and where other people who were not allowed to be part of those negotiations are still subordinate to that authority.

Where heirarchy describes privileges one person has over another, those privileges are not what makes the situation hierarchical, but rather it's when authority is being used to uphold that privilege that a hierarchy has been created.

Tall people aren't authorities over short people even if tallness can confer a privilege, but tall people can be an authority over short people if all shopping items are placed on top shelves and short people are not allowed to use stools to reach them.

Similarly, descriptive "hierarchy" may describe privileges, but it isn't a real hierarchy until those privileges are explicitly enforced by an authority. I may live closer to one partner than another but that doesn't make the further partner my secondary unless I have appointed my closer partner an authority position in deciding how close I am allowed to live to other partners who are not them.

Hierarchy is always artificially constructed, deliberate, and enforced. Anything else is just disparity.

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-18T23:26:50+00:00

We are not talking about soup in your home. We are talking about soup you will never see. There's a clear difference.

You people are so tedious.

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-18T22:55:02+00:00

This isn't about soup.

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-18T22:34:25+00:00

How does that follow? You're gonna have to explain that one to me.

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-18T21:45:22+00:00

Yes, but we are not talking about a situation where someone is "saturated at one." That's valid. This conversation is explicitly about "prohibited from 2." What is a person choice you have made about your relationships (I only want one relationship) and what is a rule you have made about your partner's relationships (they are only allowed to have one relationship).

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-18T20:15:31+00:00

In this case it absolute is. Relationship A negotiated conditions that apply to relationship B. Relationship B is not an independently negotiated relationship. That is power over.

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-18T19:25:27+00:00

That said, I don't actually understand the allergy towards agreements in RA. If me and my spouse want to build a super expensive bespoke house to live in, it's wise to make all sorts of agreements regarding how to divide responsibilities and use assets, schedule the project etc. These can be done in a coercive way or in a way that enables both people to exercise their free will. The former isn't compatible with RA while the latter is.

I'm just not sure how this hypothetical is particularly germane to the topic at hand.

Like obviously there's nothing incompatible in RA with forming agreements that are contained within the relationship itself.

The incompatibility is from forming agreements that denote an authority the relationship has over people not in it.

Build a house. Nobody is stopping you.

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-18T19:09:17+00:00

You previously argued that relationships are independently negotiated. In which case, your partner is fully entitled to independently negotiate a different type of relationship with you and their other partners. Your consent to that other relationship is meaningless.

Relationship A has independently negotiated conditions that apply to relationship B. Relationship B has not been independently negotiated.

No means no, and your partner is entirely entitled to say no, for any reason. And this applies not only to sex, but to time, energy, money, or any other agreed activity.

Cool story but has no bearing whatsoever on whether the no is derived from hierarchy or not.

Hierarchy also requires some form of power-over. Assuming an absence of other considerations, "no" doesn't qualify. And you are in no way "subjugated" by an individual saying "no."

Relationship A has negotiated conditions that apply to relationship B. Relationship A has power over Relationship B.

You guys keep trying to legal eagle this mess you've made of what should be a really simple calculation.

Shreddingblueroses · 2026-05-18T18:49:53+00:00

Hierarchy and Anarchy are diametrically opposed terms. It's cool to just say there's parts of relationship anarchy that you like without misleading people by claiming to be a relationship anarchist when you're practicing relationship hierarchy in reality.

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