[storytime] How my life wasn’t always Happy Fun Boundaries Are Perfect Land
2011 1 Mar
This was cross-posted at Feministe.
A reader recently sent me an email in which they said:
i know you have always had clear boundaries with yourself (at least how you have described yourself)
Well.
I guess I’ve had a pretty good sense of my boundaries, historically, but there have been times when I have not set them well. This is hard to write about, because it happened years ago, and the memories aren’t fun, and I don’t like writing negative things about people I know unless I think there’s a good reason for it. But there are few people in my life, now, who are likely to identify the person I’m discussing. And I’ve asserted before that we should be more willing to write about our screwups; I was writing about BDSM at the time, but I think it’s true of all kinds of relationships.
There was a gentleman in my life, lots of years ago, who I was extremely in love with. We had an on-again, off-again relationship that lasted a very long time. We had an extraordinary mental and emotional and creative connection. We understood each other very well. There is zero doubt in my head that he loved me too.
Our sex life was really terrible, though. (It was not a BDSM relationship. I hadn’t yet come into that part of my sexual identity.) And there were some emotional boundaries he simply wouldn’t respect. At first I was too inexperienced to really recognize how bad it was, though I knew some things were messed up — then, as I got older (and dated other people in the interstices of our relationship), the problems became clearer and clearer to me. Want some examples? Here’s a blatant one: he never went down on me, though I regularly went down on him; he never even offered to try and figure out something else I might enjoy equally. Oh, I knew that was messed up from the start, but I didn’t have the vocabulary or the self-esteem to negotiate something different.
I tried — believe me, I tried to discuss our sex life, in a hesitant and confused way — but he found ways to shut me down, every time. Sometimes the shut-downs were blatant and aggressive and involved shouting. Sometimes they were very subtle, like the time he told me sadly, “You know, occasionally I get worried that you don’t really like having sex with me, but I know that’s just insecurity on my part and I need to get over it.” What a masterful way to say: “Part of me knows you’re not getting what you need, but please don’t bring it up, because that would make me feel bad.”
Today, I would reply: “Sorry if it brings up insecurities. I’m here to talk about those if you like. But it’s also true, and we need to address it.” Back then, I accepted what he’d said, and felt roiling confusion and pain, and stayed silent.
I’ve got sexual-emotional baggage from that relationship to this day. And yes, I do resent it. Still. Despite knowing that he loved me, and despite valuing many memories from that relationship — when I look back on my time with him, it feels clouded and toxic. I remember that one night, years after I broke up with him, I had one of the worst nightmares of my life: merely a dream that he and I were back together. I woke up shaking, almost in tears.
During an argument, he once said to me, in a voice both angry and wounded: “I just want to feel that you love me more than you love yourself.” And my reaction was not to walk away. My reaction was not to laugh incredulously. My reaction was not to dump him on the spot. My reaction was to cry, and tell him how hurt I was. Hurt: because how could he think I didn’t love him more than I loved myself? Of course I did. What did I have to do to prove it?
For the record — just in case it needs to be said — that is ridiculous. Anyone who demands that you love them more than you love yourself does not have your best interests at heart. My reaction was just as ridiculous. I should not have been looking for ways to prove that I loved him more than I loved myself. I should have been out the fucking door already.
Towards the end, we went through a period where we were living together, but we weren’t “officially dating” and we weren’t having sex. I’d finally put down a hard boundary: I had told him flatly that I couldn’t have sex with him anymore. This was partly because I had realized that I just had no idea how to make our sexual connection better, but it was also partly because I’d recently come into my BDSM identity, I was hurting badly, I had no idea how to deal with my sexuality. I didn’t even want to think about having sex. With anyone. So I didn’t.
One night we had a terrible fight. It was a complicated, wide-ranging fight, but a main theme was this: he couldn’t deal with us not having sex. He made this very clear. He said, “You think I’m okay with living together and not having sex with you?” I told him I could leave if it was really that bad. That I could give him my share of the rent, and leave. I think part of me was hoping that he’d say, “Fine, leave!” But he insisted that he would be crushed if I left, he insisted that I had to stay. He did nothing to alleviate the sexual pressure on me.
So I had sex with him. Of course. It took me a few weeks, but I did it. I did it because I was in love with him. I did it because I felt guilty, as if having a strong emotional connection with a man is wrong if you don’t “pay” him with sex. (Hey, “everyone knows” chicks have sex in exchange for relationships, right?) I did it because I thought it was “worth it”, I thought it “wasn’t that bad”, even though I hated every minute of it.
When we started having sex again — I remember that it was dark, afterwards, and he said: “I’ve been wanting to do this for months,” and he kissed me. I kissed him back enough to convince him that I liked it, and then I turned my head away, and I cried. I kept my body still and I didn’t make a sound. I cried because I felt so trapped, because I felt so sick with myself, and I didn’t let him see it because somehow — somehow — I’d convinced myself that this, too, was just a cost I had to pay for this relationship. I can’t understand it now, but I guess I actually believed that I not only owed him sex, but that I owed him the illusion that I enjoyed it.
It’s hard for me to put myself back in my head, back then, but I think my BDSM identity was playing a role, too: I think part of me had concluded I could never have a “healthy” sex life. I craved BDSM — which meant I was a fucked-up pervert; sex I really liked with someone I loved was not for me. (Don’t believe their lies, kids! BDSM can be love sex too!)
(I have always related so strongly to this quotation from the submissive writer violetwhite: It’s ironic that the most perverse manipulations of power in my life occurred in a past vanilla [i.e. non-BDSM] relationship, where I tolerated tyranny because the normative structure of our relationship obscured the fact that that is what it was.)
Luckily, luckily, I had another reason to move out later. And I had the privilege of being financially independent. So I moved out. And as I got into social networks that had nothing to do with him, as I had more and more time apart from him, it was like blinders came off. I walked away. I fell in love with someone else, which helped — I can’t deny that it helped, it gave me more strength — but I was already on my way out. By the time I broke up with him, I was so disgusted with him and with myself that I barely felt a twinge — even though there were so many ways we understood each other, cared about each other, and so many things we shared. It was too toxic. I was Done with a capital D, and I didn’t even care.
Understand me: I don’t think I was perfect in this relationship. I, too, did things I shouldn’t have done. This does not change the ways he manipulated me, and the ways I failed to set boundaries.
Here is the strange part, for me, in remembering him: I don’t think he consciously wanted me to hurt myself like that. If he had been deliberately abusive, if he had really wanted to tear me apart, if he’d been physically abusive — I can’t imagine what he could have done to me. It could have been beyond terrible. Maybe then I would never have gotten involved? Maybe then I would have walked away sooner? But maybe not.
Can I teach other people to set boundaries in situations like that? I don’t know. The feminist ideas and gender analysis I was exposed to as a kid didn’t prevent that experience (although, again, maybe those things would have helped if the situation had been more obvious: if he’d been physically abusive, for example, or more overtly controlling). Maybe it was a lesson I had to learn, maybe I needed to be put in that situation, maybe it’s good for me to have that example in my past. Maybe everyone needs personal experiences like that and we can’t figure ourselves out without them. I don’t know.
I don’t know. But I walked away from that, and it was great. I had lots of sex I really liked and I set lots of boundaries and now here I am. Oh, yes, there have been other times I failed to adequately set boundaries — and in fact, I am less likely to set boundaries properly when I’m in situations that remind me of that relationship, even if it’s a very tangential reminder. Too bad. Still, compared to that relationship, other times I’ve failed to set boundaries were drops in a bucket — probably mostly because all the other relationships I’ve had have been dramatically more pressure-free.
I don’t know. I’m not sure I can write about him in a useful way. Is it helpful to know that Clarisse’s life has not always been Happy Fun Boundaries Are Perfect Land? You tell me.
Tags: BDSM, communication, evolution, feedback, screwups, storytime
To answer your question: Yes, it helps. It helps to know that even those who look to have it all figured out, had times when they didn’t. It helps because it lets those of us who don’t have it all figured out know that it’s possible to move forward and figure more out and maybe get to Happy Fun Boundaries Are Perfect Land ourselves.
I’m very sorry that he did that to you, but I am also glad that you learned from it. Hopefully your story can help others learn so they don’t go through a similar thing.
Clarisse, thank you for this blog entry. I felt so much recognition while reading it. As another product of the “you’re-a-girl-so-be-nice” stereotypical, debilitating upbringing, it was easy to fall for ex-lovers’ ego-centric, insecure manipulations. There was a lot of pain experienced in these relationships — and I’m not at all sorry for it. Instead, I’m appreciative because it was the only way I was going to figure out how to be the person I wanted to be. Like the chick struggling to free itself of its shell, it must do it on its own in order to be strong and healthy. We don’t want to be hurt or hurt others, but it’s an element of reality. And pain, as we BDSM’ers know, when experienced properly, can nourish and fortify us.
You knew feminist ideas and gender analysis – did you know “enthusiastic consent”, of the “yes means yes” variety? I suspect that one concept is the magic ingredient to break down abusive entitlement.
Clarisse,
it’s always almost impossible to say something useful about someone else’s experiences after having only got a minuscule glimpse into their emotional life.
I’m not sure it is possible to teach people what *their* boundaries are. If it’s done badly it’s telling people what their boundaries are supposed to be according to some standard they may or may not subscribe to, if it’s done well, it may be helping them to look for experiences that may help them figure these things out more quickly than others, but always for themselves. I don’t know, but remembering what you said about your struggle with feminism and your sexuality, I have a hunch you would not have appreciated being taught about boundaries that you haven’t experienced yourself.
You know that I have been taught and have internalized about boundaries that don’t really exist – at least not in the way I have been taught. And having to many boundaries (even if they’re the assumed boundaries of others) is certainly also painful. From my experience I believe that not even the best teaching in the world is a sufficient replacement for figuring this stuff out in practice.
At best, theory can be a helpful guide to uncharted emotional terrain, but in the end I believe we do have to figure ourselves out, and earn our baggage, on our own.
Nothing, I suppose, substitutes for experience. However, theory and personal narratives like this are valuable pointers. So, thank you for writing and sharing all of this.
Sex and sexuality have never been really easy for me to navigate, and I can relate to elements of both sides of your story. The struggle to set boundaries. The struggle to voice needs. The self-pitying comments your ex made that ended up silencing you. All of that feels familiar to me.
Studying feminism since I was a teen hasn’t helped me enact major shifts in these areas, nor has studying other theories or writers on these issues. Why? Because I don’t think there many of us out there who are actually really healthy around sex and sexuality. Any improvements I have made have come through experience, paying close attention, and trial and error. But that doesn’t mean the studying and discussing with others hasn’t help – only that it’s secondary to actual experience, which sometimes seems to mean having to go through hell in order to figure out what is damaging, and what is liberating.
@JM — I think I recall reading somewhere that the whole idea of the “enthusiastic consent standard” developed relatively recently, in the feminist blogosphere. I agree, it would have been nice to have access to something so concrete when I was younger. When I first read Yes Means Yes, it was like the book I’ve been wanting to read my whole life. The introduction by Margaret Cho, in particular, where she talks about her own negative sexual experiences, was searing and empowering.
Re: theory, I guess it’ll never be perfect. I’d really like to believe there’s a way to teach some of it, though. I mean, it seems like the PSAs we’ve all seen, anti-abuse orgs, etc. have been helpful for reducing physical abuse. Is there something similar for this? (The enthusiastic consent standard?)
“I’d really like to believe there’s a way to teach some of it, though.”
I believe so too Clarisse. I thank you for sharing your story. I know you have a high standard for yourself now and it’s hard to share these kinds of stories, but honestly I think before we learn what makes sense in a relationship– we just don’t know. Some of that is finding out what we want— some of that is experience— but support and understanding and wisdom from others experiences helps too.
Clarisse,
“Is there something similar for this? (The enthusiastic consent standard?)”
Plus, you say you were aware of feminism and you still decided to do it, didn’t you? It seems structurally, not emotionally (or perhaps, it was?), simialar to situations in which couples have asymmetric sexual desire. “Enthusiastic” consent doesn’t really cut it in those situations (remember the recent discussion with Hugh Ristik).
I can’t help but wonder about the availability and effectiveness of such information – isn’t there information out there about “being ready and sure before doing it”? If I remember correctly, you explicitly noted the ineffectiveness of gender role and awareness ads in Africa, while from my personal perspective, there certainly was too much of “never pressure a girl” (you know what I mean) when I grew up. And that makes me wonder if more of such ads wouldn’t suffer from the audience/impact mismatch that we have observed for feminist writing before.
Clarisse,
I think you’re on the right path considering that some of this stuff can be taught. Personal experience will ultimately be the biggest teacher, but it doesn’t mean that certain issues – like helping people explore their boundaries and needs – can’t be addressed.
Nathan
Also, the comments over at Feministe, some of which are so heartbreaking I want to cry, show the power of just writing and sharing these experiences.
nathan,
“the power of just writing and sharing these experiences.”
true. And being confronted in that way with other people’s lives and experiences will probably be helpful, and likely much more so than a theoretical curriculum.
Hey folks. I think the idea of love being transcedant, conquering all and all that, is more of an issue here than boundaries. Teaching people boundaries in this context can be just teaching them the boundaries to cross to act out real love.
I took more-or-less the same lesson from this as Machina, actually.* Both theory and experience make it seem as though people (particularly younger people) have tremendous difficulty with the notion that caring about someone–even caring about someone a lot–does not equal being compatible with that person. And, perhaps more importantly, that it does not preclude that person from being toxic to you.
(*Humorous anecdotes aside, of course. Made me wonder about a few things, but I’m sadly unable to conduct the necessary survey.)
I’m an outlier, obviously (along with other kinds), so I’m largely speculating, but I’m fairly well convinced that the sentiment “I just want to feel that you love me more than you love yourself” isn’t one limited to sex, and that it wouldn’t have been any less toxic even if nobody’s sexual boundaries were being ignored.
Hey Motley: A Dance With Dragons is out on July 12.
Machina, good to see you again. That makes some sense, and you can see it a bit in the way (for example) some female teen magazines will actually define love as acting in certain ways. (For example: “If you feel scared around him, that’s not love.”) I think this is well-meaning but ultimately misguided, because love is too powerful a force to be defined away when it takes forms that are inconvenient for us. In my experience, at those times, people are still driven by the emotion but are just confused about whether it’s love or not.
Maybe the way to go is to tackle the myths head-on more (“love conquers all”, “love is worth anything”). It’s hard because those are deeply embedded myths and there are barely any positive representations of people walking away from (or renegotiating) relationships that really matter to them despite the fact that they love the other person desperately.
Yeah, it’s complicated because you have both concepts of love that are irrational and the irrationality of actual love, so that if you simply say there are these myths about love and try to destroy them then you’ll inevitably get someone who feels something like myths. I guess stories, like this one, can act as something else that people can relate to though.
As someone who has been in an emotionally abusive relationship I found this incredibly helpful to read. Much of what you are saying feels lifted straight from my past.
What you said about how your feminist upbringing did not protect you from this relationship rang very true to me. I think part of why I tolerated the relationship was because to reject it would have meant I’d have to admit to myself that I had allowed myself to become an abused woman. Being an abused woman was not part of my self conception–and so I protected myself from this reality by staying in the relationship and denying that I was being emotionally abused. It a fucked up way it makes perfect sense. And leaving was hard for that reason–I spent about 6 months hating myself for not leaving earlier. I was more angry at myself for being complicit in the circumstances then I was angry at him for fucking with my head.
Anyway, thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing.
I had to comment on this entry. Not because it’s somehow better than your others or anything, but because it seriously spoke to me.
It reminds me in so many ways of my first serious relationship. The imbalance of sexual favors. The emotional manipulation. The love.
He was a giving, compassionate lover until I gave him my virginity. Then it became all about him. Never catering to my needs. Never coming to my house. He was capable, he just chose not to. Any requests for him to give in just a percentage of what I was, was responded to with simple denials.
We had a complicated friendship for years after it was over. I’d try to be in his company in a platonic manner, but it always went back to sex, even if I was trying to stay celibate. I felt like it was me being weak.
So when I went to see him one day, I said to myself “I’m twenty one years old. I’m no longer a child. I am a strong woman. I can say no clearly, and stick with it.”
He ultimately raped me. Like in our relationship, it wasn’t about force, it wasn’t about violence. It was about chipping at me and making me feel guilty and pushing my buttons until I had to. I haven’t spoken to him since.
Looking back at the years he spent in my life, it seems like the shadows of the bad things he did to me cover up the beautiful aspects of having him in my life. Yet I wouldn’t take any of it back. I wouldn’t be the strong woman if it wasn’t for him, if it wasn’t for being pushed until I realized “I’m not being treated this way because I deserve it. This isn’t happening to me because I’m easy or I didn’t say no enough. This is happening because I have let destructive person too close, repeatedly.”
Ultimately, I’m responding to you because, even though my views are generally optimistic, it was still fairly recent and I am still dealing and coping with what’s happened. It brings me comfort to know that, much like with physical abuse or overtly controlling relationships, I was just stuck in a cycle for awhile. It wasn’t deserved. It’s an unfortunate rite of passage. It’s common, not to trivialize it.
Reading through this, I’ve had to sit back and sigh a bit. It’s painful to think about, very painful to even contemplate, but I think I understand something: what I’ve done was absolutely wrong.
You see, I pulled a very similar stunt in the most formative relationship in my life thus far, pressing for sex because ‘the relationship was supposed to mean something’. I don’t deny now that it was manipulative, that sex isn’t, like I had convinced myself, an unacceptable loss in a relationship, something I simply couldn’t leave behind.
I’d seen how manipulative I was pretty much the moment I first contemplated our ended relationship (and it took an outside force to end it, because we still didn’t want to), but I haven’t given the idea of changing it priority until now. Why? Because I never got to hear her side. I never looked at just how painful it must have been for her to sit back and accept my advances, justifying it to herself where I couldn’t.
To summarize: I was as manipulative as your boyfriend, and I can see why we both did what we did. I honestly hope he’s moved on past it, because I know I’m going to do my damned best to move past it now. I have someone I love, and like hell am I going to hurt them, if I can avoid it.
Thank you, Clarisse, for this blog post. You helped add to the list of ‘Things Gilf needs to get past’, and I appreciate having it brought to my attention, however indirectly.
Thanks for writing this post, it’s given me a lot to think about. I can relate to a lot in that experience.
A friend of mine gave me the link earlier to day, and I’ve spent hours reading already, so much awesome! But particularly this post really got me, and I thinking is helping to make some sense of a similar experience I’ve had.
Thanks!
I have read many of your article, and this one struck a chord.
It’s reassuring to know that people i admire have struggled too, with the same things i am struggling with now.
Thanks for the honesty and for writing it down so we can learn from your experiences, and from what you have shared.