Poly Irony

Irony: a woman who helps adopted kids find their bio-families ranting about the "loose morals" of people who fall in love with more than one person, how it's impossible to love >1 because if you love #2 then you never loved #1 to begin with.

She apparently completely missed the part where us adopted kids love two moms and two dads. Which came first or second for me? Was it my adopted parents who came second, so I never really loved my bio-parents? Or was it my bio-mom since I didn't actually meet her until I was 30, so I never loved my adopted mom who raised me & cared for me & is responsible for the person I am now?

But it's DIFFERENT! You're not having sex with your parents!

That's true, but if sex is really the only defining element of your romantic relationships, if that's REALLY the only thing that sets your marriage apart from any other relationship you have, including your friends, then I have to say that I think I got the better deal.

Now, in MY relationships, if you took the sex away for some reason (like, say, a medical condition), my relationships would still be special, would still be set apart from my friends or my siblings, or my parents, or my pets, for instance.  My romantic relationships are intimate on so many different levels, and in so many ways, that removing the sex, while disappointing, would not sufficiently take away enough from my feelings for my partners to actually destroy the relationship, or even make it so much less somehow that they were indistinguishable from my friends, co-workers, and acquaintances.

And I have nothing but pity for those for whom sex is the ONLY thing of note in their primary romantic relationships (people who choose to have fuckbuddies are a different subject all together).  I also have nothing but pity for those for whom they completely become un-special just because their partners happen to do the same thing with them as with another person.  

I mean, if I had a partner who would cease to find me special just because some other woman cooked him dinner, or called him "honey", or was prettier than me, I don't think I would think much of that partner, or of my relationship with him.  My partners love me so much because of who I am, that I am not so easily replaced that anyone who can give a good backrub can come along and destroy my relationship.  But I guess that, if their relationships really are so tenuous, I would probably be hyper-sensitive and jealous if my relationships were that fragile too.

As for the "loose morals" and "being selfish" and "hurting others", really, I can't find any more ways to explain that it's the opposite of "selfish" (of or for one's self to the detriment of others) to feel happiness at your partner's happiness in his other relationships and it's not hurting someone when they gleefully accept the arrangement - you can only hurt someone if you do something they don't like and trusted you not to do, which is not the case in my relationships.  If you still believe it is even after I've said so in plain terms, you're just refusing to listen, and if you refuse to listen, there's nothing more to say to someone who is more interested in closing their mind than in respecting that other people have different wants, needs, desires, and preferences.  

No one is asking you to jump on the poly bandwagon, just stop insisting that what would make you miserable would make everyone else miserable, especially when you are told that some of us are not, in fact, miserable.

Premature Poly Ejaculation

Reading Robert Heinlein poly books is like the literary equivalent of having sex with a misogynistic Fake Feminist premature ejaculator:

Oh, that's nice. That's good, yes, keep doing that. That's great! Almost there ... almost ... what do you mean you're done? Oh, well, that's OK, we can still ... you mean you're just stopping? Right there? But we're so close! If you just ... what do you mean it's all my fault? Yes women should be responsible for their own orgasms, but that doesn't mean you aren't supposed to contribute anything at all! This is supposed to be a shared experience! That doesn't make you a feminist, that makes you a shitty lover.

I don't want to waste my time with a guy who may be decent at starting off, but stops short right when it starts to get good - not when there are plenty of other guys out there who can start out good and still follow through to the end, and who don't mask their condescension of women with intellectual snobbery.  No, it's not feminist if all the women in your books are tall, thin, blonde, have Ph.d's, but still want to stay at home and make your babies. 

And don't even get me started on the whole "no bi or gay male sex" thing, either.

The 99%

Let me take a few minutes to bitch about the state of healthcare in the US.

I am a freelance contractor. Apparently this is the most complicated concept ever to be uttered in English - more complicated than particle physics, polyamory, and evolution combined.

The way it works is that people call me up and say "can you come into work on Friday?" and then I do, and then I complete the job, and then I go home. If I'm lucky, two weeks later I get a paycheck. Then I sit on my ass for 3 months without work, trying to make that paycheck stretch until the next job. I do not have "contracts", I do not have "hire dates" or "fire dates", I am not "let go". I am hired to perform a particular job function and when I complete it, I'm done.

Because the tax code is so convoluted and yet tries to standardize things, I actually have a variety of classifications, legally speaking. I am sometimes an independent contractor, sometimes I'm an employee, sometimes I'm a temp hire, sometimes I'm a seasonal employee, whatever. The classifications mean nothing in reality. In reality, I get called for a job, I do the job, then I go home.

This also means that I have no health insurance and that I have sporadic periods of time where I have extra spending cash, but most of the time I have to count pennies. Three times last year I had to file for unemployment assistance (I had to file multiple times because each time I get called for work, I make too much money for that job to be eligible to remain on unemployment, so I have to wait a couple of weeks and then re-apply).

I live below the poverty line, and the reason I can survive is because I'm very frugal and I have people to support me. I do not have a house or an apartment, I rent a room in a house. So I have a comfortable home, but it's because I technically only pay for one of those rooms. I have a car because my parents sent me half the cost of a used car in cash and I scraped up the other half. It's a piece of shit car, but it gets me to work and I don't make payments because I paid in cash. I have a cell phone, but it's the cheapest phone I can get with the cheapest plan I can find, and even then I can only afford it because I can write off my phone bill on my taxes as a work expense, since all my work calls come through my phone.

In fact, if it weren't for tax write-offs, I couldn't afford most of the things I do have, like internet, my laptop, my daily clothing - all write-offs because I use them for work.

So, now that I've established that I'm poor, let's talk about my experience today with the US healthcare system.

We have, here in Orlando, a group of volunteer doctors who host a clinic 3 nights a week in whatever building is nice enough to donate space. Today, it was in a set of modular office trailers that serve as classrooms for a church/school. These doctors are part of an organization that donates their time and very limited resources to providing basic medical care for people who can't otherwise afford it.

I've been using their services for years now. Roughly once a year I go there for something. Sometimes it's for OB-GYN services, sometimes it's for STD testing (they're really not the best resource for that, the county clinic is better if you have $40), and for the last 3 years it has been for this damn cough.

I explained in my last post about my cough that it could be pertussis because it has all the symptoms, or it could be chronic bronchitis because I have gotten it 3 times in a row, at roughly the same time of year, and it lasts for a few months. 2 Dragon*Cons ago I got my TDaP vaccine, which includes a pertussis booster, and the following January (this past January), I did not get my annual cough. This swung me around from my initial self-diagnosis of chronic bronchitis to possibly a recurring pertussis infection. But then I got the cough again this year, and the vaccine is supposed to be good for roughly 10 years. Even if it fades over time, one year is way below what it's supposed to handle.

So, I went in today to have my cough looked at, because the treatment for both chronic bronchitis and pertussis is a round of antibiotics (but different types for each infection) and you need a prescription for that. But today I was told they would not see me.

I was told that, since I have utilized their services more than 3 times, that what I needed was a primary care physician, and they would not see me for my cough. I was given a list of clinics in the area that used a sliding scale for their prices and told to go there. Except those clinics do not cover STD testing, HIV testing or treatment, or OB-GYN visits. If it weren't for my annual STD or OB-GYN visits, I wouldn't need a primary care physician, I would just need someone to give me antibiotics every new year for this fucking cough.

I asked how I was supposed to pay for a primary care provider when I had no money and was out of work, and they said to bring in proof of my income and the other clinic would work something out. So I asked how I was supposed to prove that I had no income. The nurse blinked at me like I had suddenly started speaking Gaelic. She asked when I last worked was, and I said "I dunno, November maybe?" She told me to bring in my pink slip and I said that I hadn't been fired or let go. She blinked again.

She asked me what I did and I essentially explained what I said at the beginning of this post, at the end of which she looked so confused that I started to wonder if I really had suddenly started speaking Gaelic. I can't imagine what she would look like if I tried to explain how the dancing works (where I not only don't get a contract or pink slip, but I don't get a paycheck either - I get paid in cash).

So, the bottom line is that the less money a person has, the less medical care is available, but the less money a person has, the more likely it is that they will need medical attention because they will not have the benefits of a more wealthy person like proper nutrition and preventative care.

It's not true that you can just not pay hospital bills and the government will excuse them. My credit has been permanently destroyed because my neck snapped on me one day and I called 911 because I panicked, but when the paramedics arrived, I told them I had no way to pay for anything and they strapped me to a board and took me to the hospital anyway. Then, when the doctor showed up, I again told him I had no money and couldn't pay for anything, but he gave me a bunch of drugs, waited until they took effect, THEN had me sign a release for treatment, and THEN ran all sorts of expensive tests, including an MRI. I have refused to pay under the explanation that I was not of sound mind to approve treatment and that the doctor treated me against my express wishes. That debt continues to haunt my credit rating and has been in collections for years now. It's also not true that hospitals will have to see you even if you have no insurance.

I have so far been fortunate in that I haven't needed truly regular medical care, like my diabetic ex-boyfriend or my metamour with the auto-immune disorder Rheumatoid Arthritis. I have also been fortunate in that all of my major illnesses happened during those times that I did have medical insurance, like when I was a kid & both my parents had health benefits through work. One day, I will run out of this good fortune.

I cannot afford private insurance, I cannot marry my partner to be covered under his healthcare because he is already married, I could marry my metamour for her health insurance, except that it doesn't count if we move (and won't count if they figure out that we don't live in the same town), I cannot visit the free clinic, and I can only afford the regular clinics sometimes when work is good and I'm "lucky" enough to get sick while I'm working a lot.

I have paid my taxes since I was 12 years old. Seriously, I have held some kind of tax-paying, W-2 job, literally, since I was 12 years old, because California allows teenagers to work under limited conditions with a work-permit. I don't drink, I don't use recreational drugs, I don't smoke, and I otherwise take care of myself (all criteria used to determine who is "worthy" of life-saving procedures when there are limited resources). But I don't make *enough* money, so I guess my health and my life isn't worth caring for. Our healthcare system in this country is fucked up.

Don't worry, all you rich people who voted to keep healthcare a private industry! I won't be taking any of your hard-earned money out of your pocket for my selfish desire to breathe normally! I'll just continue coughing and spreading my germs to everyone else, including your children who are probably not immunized against pertussis, since that's just a government plot to take more of your money. I hope you people lose your jobs and have to wait in the free clinic lines along with the rest of the nation.