Cultivating Healthy Queer Intimate Relationships

Intimate relationships can be a satisfying, nourishing, and empowering part of our lives; enabling growth and fulfilling some basic needs such as safety, affection and love. Nevertheless, relationships can also bring disempowerment and distress. A quick search on Google will throw up multiple articles on what can count as red or green flags in relationships. These can be helpful guides on understanding what to be wary of (red flags) and what to nurture (green flags). However, as is often the case, these articles are largely written from the point of view of cis- gender, heterosexual (cis-het) couples.

Queer people often operate on queer time i.e. they might not follow the typical markers of adulthood of completing education, gaining financial independence, getting married, owning property or having children. In fact, as Sara Jaffe in their article “Queer Time: The Alternative to ‘Adulting’” has said, “queer lives are notable for their lack of chrononormativity, starting in childhood” as a result of experiences such as coming out or gender affirming transitions. Further, several queer people might even reject the typical milestones prescribed to us. This would then mean that the trajectory of a queer relationship and what counts as milestones would have to be redefined. 

It is recommended that one does not depend solely on a single partner for fulfilment of their needs- a luxury that might not always be available to a queer person who does not have access to safer spaces outside of their partner(s). This can further lead to co-dependency patterns in a relationship which are typically considered unhealthy. 

Additional challenges to fostering a healthy interdependent relationship can be posed by where people in a relationship are; with respect to their journey of understanding and accepting their queer or other identities.

Growing up, our gender and sexuality is dictated to us- to be cis, follow traditional gender roles within monogamous, heterosexual marriages. For instance, the process of self-acceptance can be a tumultuous one and can bring stresses to intimate relationships. A safer relationship can be space to reimagine all of these for us individually as well as in the context of the relationship. In action, this could look like reimagining gender dynamics between partners. It would also involve unlearning harmful misconceptions and stigmatised ideas which are often prevalent within and outside queer spaces such as about gender, gender roles, bisexuality, asexuality, polyamoury.

Respect for a partner’s identities should be visible in terms of deliberate, pro-active behaviours that ensure that a partner’s identity is affirmed and not erased or invalidated.  This could involve navigating situations wherein one or more partners are not open about their queer identity and relationship with their family or at workspaces. It could be situations where parents/friends are invalidating towards identities of one of the partners. These situations might demand an acknowledgement of privilege that one or more of the partners may have considering the heterogeneity among queer identities. While navigating social situations, ensuring that a partner is not outed unless they are comfortable in a space is a priority. At the same time, the queerphobia, erasure and invalidation in these spaces can be an added stressor affecting the partners to varied intensities. Relationship psychologist, Gottmann’s ideas around Dream Detective wherein dreams are defined as “the hopes, aspirations, and wishes that are part of your identity and give purpose and meaning to your life” can be extended to propose that a dialogue with open ended questions can facilitate understanding to create an affirmative space.

There can be power dynamics and differences in privileges of partners in queer relationships. Certain gender and sexual identities can be marginalised and stigmatised even within queer groups– such as asexuality, polyamoury, bisexuality, or trans* persons- as a result of rampant negative misconceptions. Example- Polyamorous or bisexual people would necessarily cheat on their partners; asexual people just have not experienced good sex; these can also be beliefs about when a trans* person will be considered a “real man” or a “real woman”. Further, power dynamics can be present if one of the partners has more social capital within the queer community and the other partner might be more isolated. Being a small community, there might frequently be situations wherein ex-partners are a part of the close circle and one might have to reimagine and explore how to navigate the challenges that might arise as a result of these. 

Having a commitment to gather more knowledge on socio-political realities and developing a political consciousness that does not harm the partner(s) is critical. A large number of queer people do not have the luxury to be open about their queer identity. Add to this the vast galaxy of gender and sexual identities and preferences in dating which results in queer people living in a context of deprivation when it comes to the dating pool. The isolation and invisibility experienced by several queer people can create vulnerability for entering unfulfilling or unsafe relationships.  Breaking out of cycles of abuse or unhappy/unsafe/toxic relationships can be harder when there are very limited opportunities to find companionship. There might be situations that a partner is one of the few people who is aware about a person’s queer identity and hence one of the few sources of support. This can make it more difficult to let go of a relationship that is not working out. Moreover, one might not always be able to depend on family/friends to point out red flags as the relationship might not be known to others. 

So what can you look out for as green and red flags in the context of queer intimate relationships?

Braithwaite in their article “Everything Isn’t a Red Flag—Here’s How to Tell the Difference” has suggested that when it comes to relationships, one might want to expand the number of flags from red, green to also include yellow, orange, pink flags to capture the varied intensity of experiences. These flags can be unique for every relationship and are valid even if they don’t match with the cis-het scripts. With the lack of a script to navigate these, queer people would have to be creative and generate newer scripts that best suit their context.

References:

Braithwaite, P. (2020, August 25). Everything Isn’t a Red Flag—Here’s How to Tell the Difference.

Jaffe, S. (2018). Queer Time: The Alternative to “Adulting”. JSTOR Daily.

Gottman, John M., and Nan Silver. (1999). “Principle 6: Overcome gridlock,” in The seven principles for making marriages work (Chapter Ten, 217-241). New York: Three Rivers Press (Random House, Inc.).