Many of you know that I’m part of a podcast with my friends Rob and Brandon, which we’ve cheekily named “Platonic Polyamory.” (Used to be “Undressing Underground.”) I met Rob… on Twitter? On Gawker? about ten years ago, and he invited me on his podcast for a straight interview, since I was writing for Gawker at the time. I don’t know if I was polyamorous (or at least, openly polyamorous) at at the time, but I talked about deconstructing and being an exvangelical and all those other things that weren’t quite as mainstream at the time.

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Anyway, Rob and I remained friends, and now he’s one of my best friends in the world. A few months or so after COVID, though, he asked me to cohost a podcast. The concept is that we would have a conversation with his friend Brandon, now someone I’d consider one of my close friends as well — and then repeat that conversation for so many episodes until we couldn’t stand it anymore.

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On the scale of cool to normie, Brandon and Rob lean cool, punk, underground… and despite all my many weird, abnormal life choices, I still lean normie. But while I could never claim to be part of any underground stereotypical alternative culture in a real sense, I’m adjacent to it, at least. I’m also mentally ill and weird, and if I get a unique enough request that truly intrigues me, I am inclined to take it, so I did.

After nearly a year of so many variations of rerecording the same script over and over again, we got sick of it started actually interviewing guests like proper podcast hosts. Some of the guests were my friends or people I knew, but many more were unique, underground artists: movie makers, musicians, creators, and writers I’d never heard of. Rob and Brandon would know the names, and I’d have to research diligently and spend two weeks trying to learn everything I possibly could about our guest so that I could ask questions and stay engaged. Some weeks were harder than others.

And so when we got the opportunity to interview Jon Moritsugu, I was equally nervous, as ever. But this seemed higher stakes. I was only able to access a handful of movies to watch, via YouTube: Terminal USA, Mod Fuck Explosion, and Fame Whore… along with "No Future Shock,” the long-form music video from TV on the Radio that he directed. I dabble in underground movies here and there, but these were unlike anything I’ve ever seen. They were good, and they had something to say, but not in that polished, perfect way so many other movies do. It was punk bullshit at the bottom of the barrel, and that gave the movies a style that really hasn’t been emulated to that extent. Something fully real, and fully raw.

But Rob and Brandon had seen way more of his movies. And not just having crammed it in two weeks like me, but over decades of having been real, actual fans. Of having his work mean something to them. I can’t emulate that in my busy, mom-driven, forever-normie life where I am constantly burnt out from work and life and stress. I can’t undo a childhood of restricted media where I was lucky to learn about anything that wouldn’t be in a four-screen movie theater or on a 12-channel television in the South. (or later, the time to go anywhere or do anything that wasn’t mom- or work-related… which is still mostly true.)

But these podcasts? The interview with Moritsugu is probably one of the only ones that made me cry due to the overwhelming intensity and openness of his answers. I’m not sure if this groundbreaking director thinks of himself as a celebrity (I certainly do) but it’s rare that you read a celebrity interview and get such an in-depth, emotional look at why they make the work they make, or what draws them to certain types of content, or how their life experiences shape their art. Rob, Brandon, and I aren’t exploitative or begging for tell-alls either; we don’t delve into people’s personal lives on purpose when we’re interviewing them.

So we were really lucky to get such insight into what this creative human’s life was like, at present and in the past as he was making these lo-fi classics. It left me with a feeling of awe and wonder. In a world of AI and every thought and experience as a meme and empty commercialism that seems inescapable, it’s so rare to find something that feels real. Moritsugu — the interviews with us and his content both — do feel that way.

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We haven’t interviewed anyone since. (Do you have any suggestions? We’re always looking for unique people, politically or artistically adjacent, to talk to!) So, this is still fresh on my mind.

I don’t promo the podcast much, but I am now. Because I hope you’ll listen to it. Even if you have no idea who he is. It’s such a meaningful experience — especially the second part of the interview, in case you’re unfamiliar with his work — and I’m still kinda reeling from it all.

Life isn’t always what we want it to be, and things don’t always turn out the way you want them to. You never expect the worst and sometimes it hits you all at once.

Maybe, instead of just posting about it all the time (which I am wont to do, more than anyone I know) you can go create something about it.

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I don’t mean to brag, but: I told y’all. I used to complain more about The Reformation Project than Matthew Vines himself, due to the organization’s association with enforced monogamy, “Biblical standards” of sex, outspokenness against premarital sex, and in general, its heaving desire to bow to the whims of bigots who hate us and want us to die. And man, calling out someone who is really only marginally famous — a name only known among exvangelicals, progressive Christians, and deconstructioners — it does feel kinda shitty to do.

But when you write an article about how you reject the overarching queer community for the New York Times, well, that’s asking for a response. And I doubt he’ll read this. After all, I’m the furthest thing from the Respectable Christian Bible Gays community as a polyamorous, bisexual woman who definitely considers herself part of the outlier, queer community. I’ve been called names by conservative Christians, but I’ve also seen my relationship structure and the assumed sex life of non-monogamous people discussed (negatively) as policy in so-called progressive denominations like Episcopalians and Presbyterians. I’ve had to justify my Christianity and my relationships to people who actively affirm gay people otherwise.

So I’m THRILLED to see so many of my friends, associates, and colleagues (okay, these are mostly just people I follow, I’m not in their league) in the exvangelical space speak out against this: Brandan Robertson (who, as far as I’m aware, may be the first or main person to label people like Vines as “traditionalist gay Christians”) and Noel Heatherland and Lenny Duncan and Nate Sparks and Morgan Guyton and Flamy Grant. Pretty much every single person I know from the UCC Open and Affirming Committee spoke out too, and the lovely humans from Queer Theology. EVEN JOHN PAVLOLITZ WASN’T A FAN. And he literally calls himself “the middle.”

I very nearly didn’t write this article. First of all, I’m not a gay man. Not all of the above are, either, but I definitely want to shy away from the “what can a gay man call himself” argument: it’s not my place to go there. I’m bisexual, but both my current partners are male. I don’t think you can call an openly polyamorous person “heteronormative,” but, if I go out on a date with one partner at a time (which I usually do, since we’re not a triad) and I hold hands with them, I am definitely straight-passing and have no need to feel like my life is in danger no matter where I am.

Also, what else is there to be said? Most of the people above have given better responses than I am going to give in this article. And Matthew Vines is not reading these criticisms. As someone who was aware of him from when I started the deconstruction process, back in the early 2010s when Rachel Held Evans was still alive, he’s only gotten more conservative, not less. (I used to think his stances were neat, and we were both only just stepping outside of the norm of evangelicalism) He’s getting more like bad Andrew Sullivan. More like J. K. Rowling. More like the evolution of someone who is realizing that the wealth and privilege and acceptance he has is enough, and why would anyone else possibly ever need it?

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But hey, as a breakdown:

• He says he wants traditional Biblical values, just with a same-sex marriage.

• He says being gay isn’t subversive or radical and implies other LGBTQ+ Christians shouldn’t be, either.

• He barely mentions trans people, and his position seems clouded, and this article was posted IN Pride Month, the SAME DAY that the Supreme Court of the United States said trans kids can be treated like trash on a federal, public level, and that protections don’t apply to them.

• He doesn’t want to be queer.

• He wants acceptance. For himself. The rest of us can get fucked.

• He’s worried that the polyamorous, overly queer sluts who fight for radicalization are RUINING our acceptance from “the church.” And the public.

I’m so grossed out by the idea that I have to appease the same people who think the majority of the world is going to hell that it makes me sick. A few weeks ago — aptly — Pastor Elle Dowd wrote an article about why she doesn’t do queer apologetics. I wish this is the article that had been published in the NYT instead of the good ol’ typical NYT Opinion go-to, “but what is the most conservative take we can get about queer people here?” I’ve long agreed with her stance; I am not here to impress conservatives or argue my humanity (or my Christianity) to anyone who isn’t inclined to accept it in the first place. It’s a waste of my time.

But, since you all know I’m a communist with conservative relatives, all of whom I love and would die for, do you think I believe in “giving up” on them? Do you think I’m not reaching out to them? No, I’m privileged in this regard: my family is awesome and (mostly) does not cause me emotional harm. They accept and love me as-is. That puts me in the perfect spot to reach out to my family, to help them consider alternative viewpoints, to help them slowly, kindly, lovingly, come to see us as normal people with normal lives and learn to accept queerness how it comes. Are they going to pride parades? Nope. But they’re believing in legal rights for LGBTQ+ people and they’re buying Christmas presents and wishing happy birthdays to my non-married partner.

IF you are in a safe position to do so — meaning that you have emotional fortitude and therapy, and your family is open-minded enough to have a conversation about it, and you feel good having them in your life — THIS is how you reach out to conservatives. Real relationships that center their well-being, but without being complicit in their beliefs. My Republican family members are people who I would take care of in old age, walk 500 miles for, will mourn in their deaths, and celebrate in their triumphs now. (I hope they feel the same about me!) I love talking to them about non-politics and sneaking in little leftist philosophies here and there. I believe everyone on earth deserves food, shelter, medical care, fulfillment, joy, and connection, and that goes for people I disagree with.

This is how you love people. This is how you build coalitions, compromise, and build relationships. This is how you change minds. You certainly do not participate in these people’s churches, throw other people they hate under the bus in hopes that they’ll accept you for doing the sanitized gay Christian thing, or agree with their theology completely with the one exception you make for YOUR own personal relationship, of course. You do not write op-eds hoping to attract more bigots who are, at the end of the day, STILL going to condemn you to hell and throw you in with the rest of us “queers” in their mind and, of course, in the policies they support and vote for, in church or in politics.

Jesus was radical, and I’ll repeat that until I die. If you, as a gay Christian, are not radical, you are not following Jesus. (Also as a non-gay Christian, btw.) If you’re surprised about Matthew Vines, don’t be. I’ve been sounding the alarm for years, but not as publicly, because again, I’m certainly not the steward of unsubstantiated rumors about what Reformation Project ex-employees experienced, instigating cancel culture, or picking on people with names that most people in the broader world don’t even know.

Respectability politics are over. This goes for politics (peep the millions of political analyses on why democratic socialists are currently beating moderate Democrats thanks to their decades-long failures to prevent or even curb a Trumpian fascist society) and for modern theology. What part of Christianity is supposed to be people-pleasing, respectable, acceptance-seeking bullshit? Jesus said to be in the world, not of the world, and right now, the “world” in charge consists of some very evil people who are actively dismantling the lives of poor people and of course, queer people. ESPECIALLY the alarming current plight of trans people, who, IMO, should be the biggest focus of the LGBTQ+ Christian community right now: not whether or not some uneducated conservative Christian thinks we’ve gone “too far” in queerness. How removed are you from the LGBTQ+ struggle if you think that’s the biggest issue facing the progressive Christian church? Holy shit.

One thing that I’m not sure has been brought up yet in regard to this Vines piece, however (and apologies if I’m wrong) is the inherent sexism in it. We’ve largely stopped talking about the ill effects of purity culture, which is harmful to all genders, but has had a particularly outsized effect on those of us who are women or were socialized as girls growing up.

It’s never sat well with me that many traditionalists who consider themselves affirming Christians have said “You can be gay, but not like that.” “You can have sex, but not like that.” How badly they want to mirror the no-sex-before-marriage, no non-monogamy, vanilla sex vibes of a cisheteronormative life. (Feels self-hating to me, but that’s not a diagnosis I’m qualified to give.) I hate when people like this assume I have “no” sexual ethics either, when my own sexual ethics are constantly on my mind.

Vines has taken on these traditionalist Biblical values — exception for his version of homosexuality, because of his twisted literalist stances and evangelical-esque leaps of logic — without any consideration of the effects it has on women. If you buy that the Biblical model of sexuality is mostly correct and not a reflection of a mostly patriarchal culture that should be uprooted and transformed, then you believe women should be “pure” and you’re buying into the patriarchy inherent in ancient cultures that kept us under the thumb of men for so, so long. You’re taking away our choice to do what we want with our own bodies, to love who we want with our own hearts, to divorce when we feel unsafe. You’re literally equating sin with what happens with our genitals, which has been proven to cause particular harm to women over and over again.

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And, full disclosure: I’m SO much closer to Matthew Vines’ lived life these days than to the radical crazy subversiveness he’s so afraid of. My life currently feels almost traditional, church-focused, family-focused. I’m not with anyone else other than Daniel and Ty. I’m not on a kinky, wild ride with anyone or anything anymore really. I’ve “settled” and for now, I’m happy with that outcome and cannot handle anything else. I feel safe.

But then I remember that I never threw anyone else under the bus to live out my life. I don’t judge other people’s shit, because I know each person is worthy of God’s love and worthy of a place at God’s table, in each church, no matter where they are on life’s journey or who they’re having sex with or what their gender presents as. Then I remember my worldview comes from a radical love lens, a Christ-centered lens, a cough Marxist lens, and a LIBERATION-focused lens.

When your worldview centers on someone beyond yourself — beyond what most benefits you, what your life is, what your needs and wants are — you realize that us outcasts defending each other and fighting for each other is all we have, and that’s what it means to be an ally, even if you’re straight and cisgender and monogamous. Your Christianity is not about you. Like, you get that, right?

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Look, Jesus loves Matthew Vines. He’s not the worst person on this earth and if I’m completely honest, he probably thinks he’s being helpful somehow, because he can’t see outside his own privilege. I’m not tagging him, I’m not fighting with him online, I’m not trying to get into his personal life outside of his own comments made in the most famous newspaper on earth and the other publicly available statements from him or through the Reformation Project. And of course, I don’t want you to go harass him on his personals.

But LGBTQ+ people are in crisis, and separately, Christianity is in crisis. And the United States is absolutely in crisis. We know that conservatives are the reason, but centrists and moderates are the ones holding up and defending the conservative mindset that’s actively trying to crush us. And we just don’t have space for that right now. It’s sink or swim, baby. Stop tossing rocks into our lifeboat, especially if you’re on board the same one that we are. They’re never gonna let you onto the yacht.

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I don’t know what it is in my heart that gives me empathy for people who are freaked out about their loved ones coming out as non-monogamous. Especially the older, more conservative ones — not the downright haters, but the ones who are trying to live their life by what they think is right, who want to love everyone, and who try and fail to understand. Earlier this week, I was scrolling through Reddit as someone’s mom came onto the r/polyfamilies subreddit, broken-hearted that her daughter + SIL just came out as polyamorous, and asking for advice and clarity. Instead of calling her a hateful bigot, many of us, especially me, took the time to type out long-winded, gentle, loving, considerate answers to address her fears and assumptions. She said she’ll always love her daughter and feels a lot better. I told her she could message me anytime she wants.

I should feel indignation and self-righteousness towards people who think I’m an evil sinner. I do feel that kind of rage all the time, about a million other topics. (Like AI! And 99.9% of U.S. policies toward the poor!) But not this one. It’s not that I want to be subjected to verbal abuse from my family or hear that I’m STILL the topic of vicious gossip in my hometown, despite the fact that my life and family have been healthy, happy, and calm for years and years at this point. But maybe it’s because I love my parents, and I love the people in my life who, perhaps, don’t “agree” with polyamory, and I get their perspective on things… because, ostensibly, I used to have that perspective too. I’m sure if 12-year-old Jennifer heard that someone had TWO partners they lived with and “did it” with, I’d assume they were harlots living for the devil or whatever. Someone who was very confused and needed Jesus.

And then, of course, I’ve heard negative stories of polyamory. I’ve lived negative stories of polyamory. (I’ve also had and witnessed many more negative monogamy experiences, simply as it is the most common relationship structure type by far, but hey!) All the people who dislike polyamory from a “liberal” perspective point to horror stories and assumptions about the downfall of a person’s relationship, or that one person is being forced into it, etc… every polyamorous person reading this has heard it all, because our lives and relationships are open to nonstop judgment by default, somehow. Aren’t you people ever worried about the environment? Homeless families? War? Famine? The downfall of the liberal arts? Anything that actually matters and affects your life personally?

I’m so out, and so open, because I can handle it. I don’t know why, but I can. I can handle it when people talk shit about me in public to my relatives and I can handle it when I lose friends over my relationship structure. I’ve moved on and I’m peaceful, stable, and joyful: That’s the biggest gift I can give myself and the biggest “screw you” to all the people who continue to cast doubts upon my family. (And if you’re suspicious that this is all just an online act, feel free to come over to my house sometime and actually hang out with us.)

However, if you’re someone — let’s forget politics — who is struggling because a loved one has recently come out to you as polyamorous, I’ve got some tips to help you out. (And I don’t normally do this, but if that’s you in this situation, and you want the content from this paid post and can’t afford it, please reach out to me.)

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As I’ve said so many times, I’m not really into cancel culture. I don’t hold people’s mistakes against them, especially if they’ve claimed accountability and genuinely changed, and I can tolerate a wide range of opinions. I’m capable of thinking “whoa, that guy’s stance is dumb as hell” and still fighting alongside a comrade. And of course, I think each person is inherently worthy of God’s love and forgiveness regardless of any other factors, and each person on the planet deserves safety and love.

These days, I don’t even do that much “unfriending.” I went through a period in the late 2010s where I was unfriending anyone who was Trump-y or anyone who was openly judgy about polyamory, as I’m posting so much of my real life on these more private channels, and that involves my kids. Later, I started unfriending people I desired to argue with or did argue with frequently — which was more about me, and less about them.

The impulse to argue online is one I’ll never lose, but it’s not something that’s worth my time when it comes to people I actually know in real life. (Or ever, but that ship has sailed.) I’m not trying to “win” against a lifelong 79-year-old homemaker church friend of my dead Nana who thinks abortion is bad; I just don’t need to have them in my life if I never see them anyway. I can wish them well from afar.

However, I did start unfriending one specific group of people in my personal life: people who blatantly, fully, lovingly support AI usage. It’s gross, and it’s even worse when it comes from people who think of themselves as progressive, leftist, or whatever. I get the impulse to do fun things with images and text or to make your dumb white-collar job easier. I, too, have a white-collar job that often kills my ADHD brain and zaps me of any and all creativity. I have many tasks that are annoying.

I’ve been loudly anti-AI for a long time, but I started with a more neutral perspective, if I’m honest. Before I did any actual research, I did a few image generators for D&D characters or making myself, but cuter, or whatever. I used Grammarly for writing. I had ChatGPT write a few cover letters for job applications when I was job hunting — so this would have been about three years ago.

But I’ve since evolved into the angriest, most anti-AI person on the planet, and it’s not going to stop any time soon. (My anger, that is. I think the U.S. version of AI could still be stopped, if some of you hypocrites would stop using it.) The more I research it, the more I can’t believe any of you are actually into it, defending it. You might as well directly defend the U.S. military or any billionaire on earth at this point.

I’m not saying this to be mean to you. I swear. In fact, I sincerely believe if people comprehended the power of AI in transforming and ruining our society — and my life, directly — maybe they’d be a little more mindful. But I’ve been personally subtweeted online three times in the past week on this very subject, so instead of arguing ad infinitum, here are my thoughts.

Let me get ahead of you, because I’ve already heard it all:

Sure. But that statement is so you don’t shame poor people in rural areas shopping at Walmart instead of at a hippie commune in the Bay Area. And even then, it’s not an excuse. And man, some of you DO use that as an excuse to do whatever you want and not even consider how your behavior could possibly harm yourself or others. There’s no ethical consumption under capitalism, but you wouldn’t go purchase and pour thousands of gallons of oil into the ocean. Grow up and live out as many of your ethics as you possibly can. Otherwise, why even bother eschewing an anti-capitalism philosophy?

Stop using this quote as a carte blanche excuse to be selfish.

I don’t want to write too much about my job, because we need me to have this job to survive, but let’s just say I took a pretty big pay cut from my previous salaries to stick with a company that’s anti-AI. Remember that as an online editor and writer, my career is one of the ones most at threat from AI. Not that AI writing, including now-AI-driven Grammarly, is any good for human and linguistic expression. You people sound like annoying robots now.

If your work is forcing a gun to your head to use AI tools and you have to have a job or your tiny little children will starve to death and there are no other options, then okay. But you don’t have to use these tools outside of a professional context, and you CERTAINLY don’t have to defend them. I do not respect anyone who defends AI usage in this way. But I get having to keep a job.

I wish to God I wasn’t using any of these websites, as all of them ARE using AI plus doing other terrible things, but they have been vital in community-building. All my accounts are nearly two decades old at this point, and I do have to use them in my job, which involves reviewing and embedding social media nearly constantly. All pictures of my children, all my memories, and friends and family from all over the world are in these central locations here. This is like a Republican argument against giving people phones: sure, it might be possible to get by without a phone, but it makes their lives nearly impossible.

You might also note I do not use social media nearly as much as I used to, and I used to pay Meta for ads to increase traffic to this Substack specifically, and I’ve stopped. (hell, even Substack isn’t great…) I also install ad blockers, refuse to pay a premium to be a verified user anywhere, and primarily hang out on Reddit and Bluesky these days, which have their problems but are still better than Zuckerberg.

I’ve also switched from Google Chrome to Firefox, from Gmail and Google Drive to Proton, and from Google Search to the No AI version of Duck Duck Go. I’ve stopped doing food delivery services whenever possible. I gave up Amazon for Lent and try to find alternate sellers when at all possible. And — this is the most expensive thing I do — I purchase 80% of my meat from local, ethical sources to cut down on environmental impacts.

Again, ethical tech IS important to me. It SHOULD be important to you.

I’ve heard it all here, from “AI helps my disability and neurodivergence!” (the faux-ableism stance is also an argument for upper-middle-class white people to yell at underpaid UberEats shoppers for not getting the right apples, apparently?) to “AI is helping cure cancer.”

AI is not helping disabled people do art en masse; it is simply stealing from disabled artists who already were doing the work. Do you people actually know any working disabled or neurodivergent artists, lol?

And yeah, I’ve read the studies. I’ve seen some incredible opportunities for AI in the medical field, for instance. If you think I’m uneducated or just forming opinions on vibes, you’re wrong. I saw a study where an AI tool detected cancer cells that doctors and other existent tools were unable to, and that’s amazing.

But guess what? That tool is not available to the general public in any capacity. Thousands and thousands of people will die of cancer this year under U.S. capitalism, some without access to basic medical care, much less the latest tech. AI in medical context, as of now, is just more fucking paywalled bullshit that will only be used for rich people while poorer people continue to have worse health outcomes no matter what.

Here’s a leftist quote more of you should be using instead of just the one justifying your billionaire-worship tools: IF IT IS INACCESSIBLE TO THE POOR, IT IS NEITHER RADICAL NOR REVOLUTIONARY. Thanks, Father Stan Swamy! You would have hated AI!

And maybe China has a “good” AI model tool, which is an argument I’ve seen from cosplay Maoists and other meme leftists. But for the meantime, in the U.S., all you’re doing is lining the pockets of the worst people on planet Earth while simultaneously taking money out of those of the poor and desperate.

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Of course, AI is widely accessible to the poor. Just not these supposedly good tools that exist to actually benefit the public. And AI is having a horrific effect on the world — and even me in particular. Let’s go over the downsides of AI, shall we?

Environmental impacts

I’m starting with this one because it’s the one I have the most direct experience with. Virginia has the most data centers per capita than any other state in the country, and they are almost entirely built in poorer areas, which in this former Confederacy capital, is usually highly gentrified. One such data center is two miles from my house, and more data centers are being built… primarily on land that was intended for public usage. I live in Henrico County. There’s West Henrico, where the rich people live. Then there’s East Henrico, where poorer people, and I, all live. Guess where the data centers are built?

In one argument with a polyamorous, decontructionist figure of the exvangelical movement, who hilariously calls himself a communist, he said he “wished” data centers were in his backyard. Meanwhile, these data centers are poisoning the air around me, quite literally. Respiratory illnesses are on the rise. How can you justify that? Sure, data centers exist for other internet things. But they’ve never been built this quickly, this much, or without any oversight whatsoever.

My county voted AGAINST data centers. But these companies with unlimited money are getting around the laws, and state and county officials (mostly Democrat ones!) are ignoring what the voters want, and they don’t even care. Abigail Spanberger, a Democratic governor who has finally convinced me to stop voting for Democrats altogether by having such horrific policies that benefit corporations and cops while ignoring the people who voted for her, has made it easier for big tech to to profit and build MORE data centers in Virginia.

Don’t even get me started on how much my electricity costs have risen. Are you AI defenders and users going to pay my electric bill now? Because we have three incomes and we’re still barely above water. I’m waiting.

These tech companies make promises to open educational programs, help lower electricity costs, or whatever. These are all examples of fake philanthropy that never happen. And I know that for a fact, because I actually live here and watch it (not) happen. (I have to thank for the work on this topic as the tireless researcher of how all awful these developments have been for my neighborhood. Now THAT’S a person actually doing the work, unlike the AI-defender keyboard warriors arguing with “comrades” online justifying their actions instead of doing any actual activism)

The environmental impacts don’t just end in my backyard, either. This is all documented. You just have to care.

Mental impacts

AI has already been indicted in mental breakdowns and encouraging suicide, as well as murder. Our world is already broken by social media, by our echo chambers and the way we (including me) tend to choose online anonymity over real-life community with all its mess. Meta is particularly guilty with this, but AI makes it even worse. I remember once I saw a tweet that said because billionaires live in a world that’s just constantly a series of their own preferences where every problem can be solved immediately, it must be like being kicked in the head by a horse repeatedly in terms of cognitive impairment.

That’s sort of what AI is like.

If you’re inclined to psychosis, AI has been proven to instigate it. If you’re inclined to isolation, millions of people have fake AI partners instead of real ones, which is ruining how men think of women in particular which is turning out to be dangerous for us.

But even things like people using AI as their therapist, or to help them argue with their partner, really freak me out. You do not need a robot that agrees with you 24/7 as a sounding board or a therapist. You need to be pushed in real conversation with real people. Disagreement drives personal development. Being around human being, working through your own feelings, working through your own issues, and talking to professionals who have expertise. They actually care about you, instead of hallucinating someone else’s word vomit. We need each other more than we need the computer. I promise.

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Comprehension and learning impacts

If you have kids in public school, you might know that since COVID, they’ve had nearly unfettered access to Chromebooks and edtech (this is another post on its own) programs have bribed poorer counties and schools with a million different educational programs which teachers use instead of actually teaching. In private schools, kids are returning to low-tech or even no-tech environments, where books and lockers and handwriting are becoming even more important again.

That’s because all these computer programs and nonstop Chromebook usage is rapidly destroying education. Initially, COVID was blamed — but being in a classroom behind a screen isn’t that much different than being at home behind a screen. It was the methodology of learning that ruined children’s comprehension.

And that’s all WITHOUT AI. Using AI? That makes it a million times worse, and my kids (who actively try to avoid AI and are in gifted programs at public schools) see it ruining the way they think. It is damaging their writing and reading skills in a huge way.

Teachers are sounding the alarm. Rich people who send their kids to private schools don’t give a shit what happens to kids in public schools, clearly. Any supposed benefits of AI learning are heavily outweighed by any potential benefits. Gen Alpha created brainrot, and sadly, they are also the most likely to be subjected to it. Education is in crisis, and has been since Reagan or even beforehand. Nobody funds it, and nobody cares what happens to teachers, classrooms, or students. Surveys keep finding how basic thinking skills are being destroyed.

And for those of you who say “it’s how you use AI, not if you use AI!” please know that children do not have the level of self-control that adults supposedly have to use AI wisely. It’s like being brainwashed and having basic functional skills destroyed before your brain is even done developing. In my opinion, people under 25 using AI is like exposing kids to alcohol, drugs, or pollution. And there’s no way to reverse that in a 21st-century world.

But the loss of literacy and comprehension due to AI usage isn’t just limited to children. In my personal life, my heart hurts as I see people I used to think of as being clever, interesting, unique writers, capable of using their own voice to create good articles. Now, all they do is share AI recipes, AI columns, and AI photos. They’re always looking at their phone, but they can barely hold eye contact or hold a conversation anymore. Their vocabulary has lessened and it’s almost like phone-driven dementia. (I’m not just saying that for shock value — I lived with a relative with Alzheimer’s for a bit, and it felt very similar.)

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Creative and professional impacts

This used to be the biggest outcry against AI, and now, it’s the one that AI users care the least about. I have no idea why nobody cares what happens to people whose industries are being eaten alive, but that’s where capitalism has reigned victorious: when it comes to our incomes, it’s dog-eat-dog. And lots of white-collar tech dogs are happily tearing apart and consuming creative-arts dogs with their bare teeth right now and showing no mercy whatsoever.

The stolen words, the stolen images, all your dumb generated ideas and recipes and pictures and essays and are from other people. And the little AI summaries in Google are sometimes straight-up lies. In Germany, Google was already held accountable for this — but the company is too powerful, and it won’t change them. (They’re already appealing.) Big names like George R. R. Martin can hold OpenAI accountable in court (okay, you can do THAT instead of writing Winds of Winter) but your average local musician and artist can’t afford that. And all of these AI models are CONSTANTLY stealing content.

What, are you gonna say that writing, drawing, creating, music, videos, all aren’t “real” professions that deserve real income, and it’s okay for AI to use all these piles of media to profit? Should people get “real jobs” instead? Go ahead and join the GOP, you fucking posers.

AI is killing jobs. And every time you use it, you’re contributing to that.

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Look, I am angry about AI. That much is obvious. I’ve presented a lot of information here, but at the end of the day, I’m probably screaming into a dark void full of people who will never, ever trade individual convenience for collective well-being as long as they live.

But it’s only because I care so much about how much I’ve already seen these awful impacts in my own life, and how depressing it has been for me to see people I used to like and respect fall prey to the trap of a new, shiny, dangling carrot which will never lead to anything other than profit for billionaires in a capitalist country like the U.S.

I like YOU. Not robot you. I like you with your typos and your failures and your mistakes. I’m a good editor, but I can’t draw for shit. AI could help me, but so could my friends who need money! Sometimes I want to die instead of come up with new headlines at work, but then I remember that otherwise, I’m just leading my brain into a path of being unable to compute or write or create on its own any longer. I want to succeed by my own merit, not someone else’s. I want you to talk to me instead of a chatbot. I want you to become a real person. I don’t want you to lose a sense of your humanity, and all for the tools literally being used to create plans to bomb children under U.S. imperialism, not to mention the creation of child sex abuse material.

Nobody is expected to be perfect. But really, stop and think about if after reading all of the above, it’s still worth it to you.

Because it’s not worth it to me. And if you have to choose between people and AI, I hope you choose people. I always will.

Edited to add:

Since writing this, I have been unfriended in a fiery way, called “privileged” for following my ethics (despite the fact that I had an entire section about “if you have to use this for professional reasons, at least don’t defend the usage or use it otherwise…”) and accused of “not listening to workers” when the vast majority of workers do not want AI pushed onto them at work or any other capacity, and this is documented… and since AI causes people to LOSE jobs, it’s generally thought of as a bad move for any real labor movement. (This person also called me out on my “made up fairy shit religion” as making me a bad leftist, worse than even AI!) But AI is bad, and you should eliminate or minimize its usage, and I don’t care what you think of that take, because it’s the right one. I’m not “smarmy,” I’m sick of being poisoned in my home and having my income threatened. None of this is personal against you specifically, and if you think it is, maybe you should ask yourself some questions about why it upsets you.

I’m not sure where the “privilege” of having my career and industry constantly threatened, having my electric bills go up dramatically, or having my kids’ air poisoned is, but it certainly doesn’t feel like a privilege to me.

But more than that, I have gotten tons and tons of messages thanking me for my take, and have heard awful personal stories of people going through psychosis as a result of AI usage and ending up in a mental hospital, as well as people who are basically being forced to use it in their jobs, and those like me who have lost friends because those people would rather defend machines over human beings. People in the education sector were especially horrified by the effects of AI, and that’s no coincidence, in my opinion.

At a certain point, we just have to care about the impacts of our actions here. And since those sorts of messages greatly outweighed the negative ones, I believe I’m on the right track. I can’t do it alone, so thanks for those of you who are working to fight the usage of generative AI and large-language models under U.S. capitalism.

If you read my last post, you know that people really hate polyamory. And it’s not just a conservative Christian thing; it’s suburban liberals and sex-negative Gen Zers and your leftist best friend who knows a person that it didn’t work out for! (They certainly never mention anything amiss when 50% of monogamous couples divorce and even more break up, of course!)

But in all my experience, what upset people the most was that I was a mom. “How could you raise your kids like that?” and some variation of that forever and ever. Did Daniel ever get the same comments? Almost never, because men are never held to the same standards, even for alternative “lifestyles” that people are subjected to.

And to be fair, going from a conservative Christian family and having zero experience with polyamory, I really did have no idea how it would turn out or what it would all look like in the long term. I just knew I needed to put my family first and be honest about everything all the time, which was already how I was living my life and how I still live my life anyway.

I’m not “done” parenting yet. In fact, teens are famously considered the most challenging part of parenthood for some people! However, I’ve now been parenting while polyamorous for a decade now. Six of those years have been with Ty as my live-in partner and a third parental figure. My kids are both taller than me and sound like grown men now. So, I think I can safely offer SOME perspective on what it’s been like to be a polyamorous parent, and if I cursed my children and “messed them up” in any capacity in relation to polyamory. I think I’ve learned a good amount.

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Here’s how I sum it all up so far:

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I was never a huge Lindy West fan. I don’t mean that I disliked her. I’m fat, I’m annoying, I’m loud, I’m opinionated, and I’m a feminist, so we have a lot in common. I even wrote for Jezebel and Gawker, though not at the same time. There’s nothing about her I’ve ever found particularly offensive, and in fact, I watched the first season of Shrill with pleasure. I simply found myself ultimately drawn to more leftist politics in line with my expression of Christianity. I’m more “sickle and hammer” than “I’m with her.” I like trash people and church people and kids and small-town people, and sometimes I feel out of place around a certain class of folks raised in upper-middle-class liberal families who never got to feel that good, old-time religious trauma. I’m a lifelong southerner and whenever I visit NYC I still struggle with figuring out subway routes sometimes. It’s just one of those things that defines you pretty early on.

When she came out as non-monogamous a few years ago, though, I thought, “hey, cool.” For some reason, I assumed this would mean more acceptance of polyamory from the pearl-clutching white liberal feminists (you know, the ones who don’t actually have any radical friends or know any trans people) in the long run.

Boy, was I wrong.

Instead, I’ve been subjected to nonstop insane discourse — mostly against my will, as I have been largely avoiding social media recently to preserve my mental health and energy for my demanding job and other life events that are happening right now.

In the now-famous Slate article, which of course focuses solely on the negatives and comes complete with a clickbait headline —Lindy West’s marriage was broken. Did polyamory fix it? — I knew exactly how it was going to be perceived the moment I read it. The article barely mentioned the book Lindy West was promoting, “Adult Braces.” Sex you can judge other people for is far more interesting and better for the algorithm.

It didn’t matter that her partner told her they were polyamorous the moment they started dating. It didn’t matter that she had been in a successful non-monogamous relationship as a throuple now for years. It didn’t matter that she has stated time and time again that she is happy and fulfilled in this relationship. In these relationships. And it certainly didn’t matter that she’s a whip-smart feminist with a PhD and decades of experience writing about these kinds of issues with a lot of self-awareness.

She was immediately infantilized by the sex-hating, heteronormative, mononormative hordes of white-knighting netizens armed with TikTok-inspired pop-psychology psychobabble who see themselves in any public figure’s personal relationship. I can’t believe I have to say this, but her relationship is not about you. Your negative experiences with shitty men or ill-advised forays into non-monogamy have nothing to do with her. Take some fucking accountability for your own life. You chose to date shitty people, you chose to stay in shitty relationships, and if you tried non-monogamy and it went badly for you, you chose that too. And I’m not pointing fingers here. We’ve all done that. We’ve all been in love and let someone walk all over us. And a lot of us have probably been genuinely coerced into doing things in a relationship that we didn’t want to do.

But Lindy has been here, successfully married for years. She has been successfully non-monogamous for years. She says she’s happy. Why don’t you believe her? Because she struggled with negative feelings? As someone who hasn’t been single since 2006, I hate to say this but… that happens in every long-term serious relationship. It’s not unusual. That doesn’t mean somebody’s being abused or gaslit, holy shit. That means we are human beings dealing with human conflict.

People like to make non-monogamy the biggest modern sex issue here, and resent it for breaking up relationships. That it does do! Lots of people are not into it, but they say they are or pretend they are or try to be and aren’t. People try it and break up.

But there so many other reasons that otherwise happy couples break up because of incompatibility. Is it a power struggle issue if one partner wants to move thousands of miles away for high-paying job, but the lower-paid member of the couple wants to stay close to their family, and they can’t make it work?

Is it abusive when a couple divorces because the man no longer wants to have children after having previously wanted them, and it’s a non-negotiable life goal for his wife?

Is it gaslighting to be unsure if you want to get married or not, so your marriage-minded partner decides to leave?

In these situations, it’s complicated and messy and emotional. But nobody is really the bad guy. People changed their minds on big topics and lose compatibility in relationships that might work out otherwise. In Lindy West’s relationship with Ahamefule Oluo, they were honest about it right from the get-go! And her feelings of discomfort only started when they actually went through with it.

If West had decided at any point to leave her spouse over this, she would’ve been hailed a hero and nobody would blame her. But because she stayed and worked it out, and worse, ended up in a triad with two women, most hated among the monogamous — social media feminists have decided she clearly has no autonomy in the matter here. Fuck that, dude. I don’t care if it reminds you of a bad situation with your ex. This isn’t your relationship to be in. She is a rich lady with a lot of power and wits about her. She is not being held hostage.

Did she have uncomfortable feelings about polyamory? Yes. Was she insecure? Yes. Did she feel possessive? Yes. She was being honest with herself about it then. Why do you presume to think she’s not being honest about it with herself now? Like genuinely, what the fuck is wrong with you?

I haven’t had many negative experiences with Daniel or Ty relating to non-monogamy. I don’t speak for them, but I don’t really feel too jealous or insecure about relationships or liaisons they have found themselves in.

But at nearly 20 years with Daniel and nearly 10 years with Ty, boy have we had some conflict. Chores, money, parenting. And I have like ten mental illnesses, so these have not always been the calmest discussions. I’ve sent rage texts and called names and melted down. This is something I’ve worked on over all the years with lots of success — but outbursts on my end are only rare, not eliminated entirely, as of yet. What Lindy West described coming to terms with her spouse’s non-monogamy seemed less toxic than some of my own feelings and discussions with my partners about why nobody but me seems to notice when the pets’ water bowls are empty, if I’m being completely honest.

Should they leave me over it? Should I leave them? Or should we learn as human beings how to handle conflict in a healthier way — not just conflict in relationships, but conflict with ourselves and what our own desires are? What can we handle? What can we tolerate? What can we learn to live with? What can we learn to love?

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If you want to see non-monogamy as inherently coercive, go right ahead. But I promise you’re not doing anyone any favors by destroying what the word “abuse” means down to absolutely nothing more than “having uncomfortable feelings sometimes.”

Conflict is not abuse. Relationship failure is not always a bad thing — but neither is relationship success. And I’d label Lindy West’s relationship as being one. Even if you don’t think it is.

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You might think this is a Lenten-type of post. But actually, it’s not. This Lent, I’m giving up Final Fantasy XIV. I gave up weed every year in previous Lenten periods, but always went right back to it just like I intend to get back to FFXIV as soon as the forty days are over.

But as for cannabis? No, I’ve given that up for good.* I started in November, right after Thanksgiving, in fact. I don’t know why that was my starting point, but I do know that I felt like this was becoming an issue in my life, even as a “responsible” marijuana consumer who never did it while working or while my kids were awake or around.

As for the reasons why? Well, those are more complicated.

*If I can return to moderate usage — as in once or twice A MONTH or less after several years of abstinence — I’ll probably go for it. But lots of people believe moderation isn’t possible, so we’ll see!

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Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin’
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it’s your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people’s blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You’ve thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain’t worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I’m young
You might say I’m unlearned
But there’s one thing I know
Though I’m younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death’ll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand o’er your grave
’Til I’m sure that you’re dead

I have no idea why I started watching Little House on the Prairie recently. I remember the show being on in the background, occasionally, as I grew up in the ‘90s without cable, but I don’t remember my parents being particularly invested in the show or watching it with any regularity. I thought it all looked fun, but it was definitely one of the more “boring” shows out there.

My great-grandmother, however, was a huge fan of, shall we say, the Ingalls-Wilder cinematic universe. She lived in Norris City, Illinois — a small, square-mile town with one redlight, no police, one post office without carrier service, one grocery store, two gas stations, multiple churches, and 1,145 people as of 2020. She preferred the books, but I’ve no doubt she loved the series and specials, too. Whenever we were at her house or she was visiting my grandmother, I’d see her watching the show.

It was “clean” TV without cursing or sex or violence, which my anxiety-ridden Pentecostal great-grandmother would have found difficult to tolerate. She did not even like “replacement” curse words like gosh, darn, or heck, and once reminded me to never set anything on top of the Bible after I put a glass of water on top of hers — something I still adhere to this day, despite the complete shifting of my religious beliefs as it pertains to Biblical literalism and fundamentalism.

This show depicts an idealized version of settler (colonizer) life, where men are the head of the household, gender roles are mostly established, everyone is white, everyone is Christian, and conversations around bigotry of any sort are left for another show for another day. The rare mentions or sightings of any other race are mostly Native American, the depiction of which you can imagine for yourself. Nobody consulted any actual indigenous people, that’s for sure.

Each episode has timing that seems like it could last years. There’s some continuity. There is some tie-in for “real” events that took place, like blizzards and U.S. intervention. But the figure of Pa, Charles Ingalls, is almost otherworldly. He’s the epitome of what so many tradcath groypers pretend to be, except instead of listening to Jordan Peterson, he’s out building a new shed after a tornado took his out.

And unlike today’s conservative homesteads with their social media-concocted tradwives, it wasn’t about self-sufficiency. No, in fact, almost each and every episode centers the community and the Ingalls’ place in it. People have conflict, and then they make up, because they have to live together. If one person’s crop fails, the others pitch in to try to help. They all work together, plan events together, celebrate holidays together, and nobody is left behind.

Not only that, but the way the Ingalls treated outcasts — sinners, weirdos, junkies, people in poverty — was downright, well, Christian. Whatever that means anymore. They actively tried to help people, not tear them down or pass them off to make them somebody else’s problem. I haven’t heard a bro podcaster or GOP politician advocate for helping people in need, for standing up for society, for having inherent love for their fellow man… in years. At least in the ‘90s, the evangelicals I knew paid lip service to it. All while letting Rush Limbaugh and a burgeoning Fox News start to rot their brains.

Pa is a strong masculine figure that, at least on a surface level, is hard to find fault with. I’d rather know people like him than modern right-wing men, that’s for sure. Conservatives loved him in ages past. They loved these strong, silent, caring, compassionate men who spoke forcefully for morality and knew how to get work done without an app.

You’ll know though that sadly, Michael Landon was cruel to co-star Karen Grassle on set. The existence of the United States is rife with horror at its onset, much less the Manifest Destiny world of the Ingalls in which settlers stole land directly from indigenous peoples living there, leading to much bloodshed and eventual further oppression of these Native Americans. In many episodes, Pa is shown as being kind and generous to anyone of any race, but none of them ever had any starring roles in the show or in the community they’d built. The Ingalls weren’t awful people in real life, at least according to my research, but it’s not like they were anything like their fictional characters.

I don’t have to tell you this stuff, though.

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What I do have to tell you is that I care deeply about men. I have many men in my life, and boys who are nearly men, and they are my world. I was surrounded by good men in my life for the most part. While I indulge in the occasional mockery of the gender that has led to much violence and pain and misery upon the planet… I’ve let go of a lot of jokes about men, white men, awful men, whatever.

Because I don’t know if they have a good framework anymore. Men everywhere are seeking answers to their loneliness, to their lack of purpose, to what they may or may not realize is the same capitalist drudgery enslaving the rest of us. I do think men need help, and it’s taken all my energy to watch my boys and make sure they don’t lose themselves in YouTube videos, in slangy slurs in group chats, in Discord channels that start as gamer-centric and end in extremism and bigotry.

Men are most likely to die to suicide, commit violence, and go to jail. I do not believe that this is an inherent feature of their nature, and I would be terrified of anyone with ideology that claims one’s gender leads to specific negative traits. I think violence begats violence, and the exposure to it — not in stupid video games but in the words, conversations, in corporal punishment, in our own lives and families — is cyclical. Some of us are trying to break cycles of rage and violence; in fact, I’d say I inherited my father’s temper myself, certainly a feature passed down generations before him. It’s why I devoted myself to nonviolence, even with revolutionary politics. I will never feel safe with my anger, and that’s coming from a woman.

I forgive men in my life when they do things I don’t like. I push back against ignorance, when warranted. I talk to them like people. I try to be a good partner, friend, mom, or daughter. I give them my attention when I talk. I try to let people know when I’m thinking of them, even though men hardly respond with the same enthusiasm I might expect from a woman. It’s very rare these days that I feel unsafe around a man, but I know that when I do, I have good men who have my back.

Some people say a family is what makes a man a better person, but that belief often just puts women and children in danger around these types of men. Some people say it’s career advancement, but that’s just devotion to capitalism — ultimately, pointless. Some people say it’s academics and study, but sometimes that makes the man slavishly obsessed with his own intellect.

Individualism has ruined men, but it’s all they’re hearing. All this rise-and-grind, self-improvement bullshit with testosterones supplements to rip you off. Be stronger, be more manly, be better, be more seductive, be powerful. But selfishness and individuality will never make a better world… it will never make a better man. I think Charles Ingalls, for his many flaws as a fictional character and the many more flaws from the man who played him, was at least something to aim for.

It’s not sexy to do menial work for no money, no credit, no fame, no glory. You won’t become a millionaire helping your neighbor. Your career won’t advance on compassion alone. Nothing anyone ever does is a guarantee for companionship or wealth. But, you’ll be a good man the more you get involved at church, in mutual aid groups, in hands-on activism, in a kind word to someone suffering. And that will cure what I think ails men the most: loneliness.

Nobody deserves to feel lonely. Yes, even men. People deserve to feel like there’s a community, a world, a family, friends that have got their backs. And men, I’ve got your back. I don’t think International Men’s Day is a big joke anymore. I want to see less violence from you — and at you. With poverty and failure surrounding us, all we’ve really got is each other, and devoting our lives to each other. Those are the real old-school values we should try to emulate. Maybe with some “Dark Woke” to go along with it this time.

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I cannot write poetry. I’ve tried all kinds. This goes for lyrics too. Even my fiction is more prose-y with a flair of nonfiction… perhaps the more alliterative phrasing has been ruined forever by my online writing and journalism degrees. Or maybe I’m too self-conscious. I’m a good enough reader that I can note high-quality poetry, and I’m a writer with enough self-awareness to know mine isn’t comparable. Of course, writing doesn’t have to be “good.” No art does. It can just be for fun, for emotional transference, for personal growth, for an outlet to express the love we want and need.

But, still, as an otherwise professional writer… I don’t want to send my poetry out into the world. Luckily, I’m not just a writer. I’m a reader. In fact, arguably, as a lead editor, I’m far more of a reader than a writer these days.

And this is why I’m so lucky to have enjoyed reading poetry this summer. Best of all, it’s poetry from two friends: David Gate and Anthony Thomas Lombardi. The former is a figure in the greater deconstruction/exvangelical community (though, I think we likely both feel that we feel that those labels alone don’t fully define the whole journey) and the latter is Rob’s friend, an activist whom we have interviewed for our Platonic Polyamory podcast.

(It should be stated, of course, that neither of them asked me to do this — I just am, because poetry is important.)

At the same time, my podcast hosts Rob, Brandon, and I have been working on a special project with Poecast, in which we record and riff on various stories and poems from Edgar Allan Poe along with many collaborators who are all more creative than me. I hope to be able to reveal more soon!

But poetry, and literature, used to change the world. I’m not sure if it still has that effect, and it’s by design. Recently, my agent told me that selling “liberal” memoir books to publishers, potentially like mine, is nearly impossible under the Trump era in a very depressing phone call to me that might kill my one big “dream” for this life. Media is increasingly conservative, from CBS/Paramount (which just chose a conservative to lead its news team) to all 24-hour news networks and even established institutions like the New York Times and The Atlantic. I don’t believe this accurately represents the population, but it does accurately represent the people who make decisions and run in circles with elitists: Wealthy, capitalist people, even “liberals,” believe that conservatism is more profitable. And maybe it is, for THEM.

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Nobody gets rich being a poet these days. David Gate’s latest work, A Rebellion of Care, is like a balm to your soul during these rough times. I have no idea how he maintains this kind of softness in his life or his writing when I have to use all of my Christian power to not call for death threats to political fascists daily. How do you manage this, ? I know how. He writes poetry. He feels it. He has the talent I don’t have, which is turning feelings into beauty and goodness, without sacrificing honesty. I can only blurt out my thoughts and feelings like a roaring waterfall, overwhelming and blatant, able to drown you. He turns them into a thing of beauty, a babbling creek over stones that can satiate you and bring calm.

Meanwhile, Anthony Thomas Lombardi brings us poetry inspired by grief and addiction, which are two things I’ve not experienced in a meaningful way. In his latest collection, murmurations, he discusses faith and sobriety centered around one particular figure: Amy Winehouse. What if she hadn’t died? What if she’d gotten sober? What if God had saved her? What if God saved all of us? We are abandoned, but we keep praising God and acting as if we are not alone. This deeply enriching work feels a bit like Lamentations in the Bible.

I have children who have been raised in a generation that prioritized STEM, with kids who could navigate touchscreens before they could read or write. When I was a kid, I consumed books with the ferocity of someone without cable, because that’s what I was. The Accelerated Reading program gave awards in school each year, and I dominated it. I wanted to be a writer — not the kind of writer I am now, but a fiction writer who created life. I got half my wish, and am lucky that I can make money writing and editing now.

My greatest parenting fear is that my children, as a result of this new push to make kids code and engineer and solve equations and learn whatever new technology Silicon Valley wants to force us to consume so that they can continue to profit at all costs, is that they will not learn to love the written word as I have. I try to expose them to literature, humanities, and art, but it’s difficult… especially for my ADHD youngest. Generation Alpha, even with parents like us who purposefully limit screentime, promote academics, and encourage creativity, has evolved with a complete lack of attention span for anything without visuals. Even long-form movies can be difficult for them, but I’m trying.

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There’s something to be said about buying books and reading poetry in 2025. Writing fiction and creating something that people may not even want anymore. When you have AI writing fiction and poetry that people also don’t read, what is the point?

Maybe there is no point.

But maybe we exist to create, when we’ve been forced to merely survive for so long. I don’t know what of our writings will survive as the human race continues to live in the increasing imbalance of life and death. I don’t know if what our species has created will exist in the future in any format.

I do know that we owe it to ourselves to take part in something beautiful while we’re alive. Something that can challenge us and make us feel things. And I can think of no better way to do that than by reading a poem. Forgive me my sin of not being able to write one.

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If you look through my meager Substack post history from 2025 you might see that, well, it’s not great. I’ve had a really shitty run of luck this year, just like I did in 2015, and from a teenager’s perspective maybe 2005 wasn’t so great either. I’m starting to wonder if my years ending in “5” are cursed. (I think 1995 was a pretty kickass year in my life, from what I recall, so maybe not.)

I wish I could tell you that things have gotten better. They are not bad in the “send us money” way anymore at least, so cross that off your list and save your meager dollars for those worse off unless you are really, really driven to help. (I will spend that money paying off debt and rebuilding savings!)

Ty, Daniel, and my kids are all still doing great, and are a support system in the case of the adults or out having an eventful, fun summer in the case of my children. There are situations involving beloved family members that are currently breaking my heart, but I am not at liberty to discuss those here. I’ve blown up a few more existing friendships and relationships. Not because I did anything, but because I simply… am not there. I wasn’t there, and I’m not there.

I barely feel that I am able to be present. I think, mostly, I can blame the state of the USA. I don’t know what I can do about that I’m not already doing. If I was a single person, I would be leaving the United States. Alas, my family situation is obviously more legally complicated than most. And my kids are in great schools and deserve some stability… if they’re going to get it, anyway.

But recently, someone accused me of having “made-up mental illnesses.” My reaction was apologetic, but…

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Something I’ve learned extensively over the past decade is that progressive Christians are terrified of the word “communist.” Exvangelical influencers want nothing to do with it. Even the progressive churches don’t even like the word “socialist.” All the little liberal Christian organizations are (…er, mostly) okay when I’m talking about fucking more than one person, but refuse to let me talk about ACTUAL systems and beliefs that would save lives. What is so threatening about providing for people’s basic needs? Why do you want systems of kings and starvation and forced labor?

But guess what? I’m a communist. I believe in communism as a government system. I would consider myself a Marxist primarily. I’ve read some theory and primary literature, but I’m honestly too tired to get into deep analysis and have niche debates with strangers. Maybe when I’m in my 50s or 60s.

I’d rather just talk about my experience, what I believe, and encourage people to research things directly. Like, literally, read Marx. Read Lenin. And tell me what you disagree with. If you bring up historical atrocities, I can a.) agree with you, that doesn’t mean communism is wrong as a theory b.) show you documented facts about actual historical situations referenced without a Western lens and c.) give you a zillion reasons that capitalism is worse, caused horrible things, and led to more deaths than the most bloodthirsty communist could even dream of.

I don’t think it matters, though. The U.S. won the propaganda war, and they won it big time. It’s only just now starting to show cracks. Communism is bad, and identifying as anything other than a milquetoast liberal on a public scale is subject to claims of extremism and cruelty and terrorism. Yeah, I’m a terrorist. I can’t even update my Substack regularly. I don’t even like to kill bugs. I nursed an injured chicken to health and I cry at sentimental moments in movies. I don’t even own a gun.

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Media plays right along. They call anyone a communist or a socialist, even Republicans. There’s not a single communist, or even really a socialist, in U.S. politics. There is no far-left party. There is not even a real “liberal” party. Democrats are center right and Republicans are far right. I beg you all to study politics outside of the U.S.A.

That’s why I was SHOCKED that the communists in the latest Wes Anderson movie, The Phoenician Scheme, were… the nice guys?

I’m a long-time Anderson fan, and I don’t really give a shit what anyone thinks about it. My very favorite is Moonrise Kingdom and I’ve seen it dozens of times. Sure, I can admit that his earlier movies had better characters to root for, better writing, and more heart. But I love his aesthetic. I love his filmography references. I love his quirky characters. I love the colors and the specific geographical focuses. And, dare I say it after all the communist talk above, I love the excess. Don’t let anyone tell you communists don’t appreciate good art or nice things. We just think they should be accessible to everyone.

The character, Sergio, is a guerrilla revolutionary. He leads a movement of people, and holds up a nightclub of wealthy people to ask for their money to redistribute it. And he’s so polite while doing it. So much so that the main character wants to

The entire movie is — er, slight spoiler, read to the italics if you wish to avoid — a riches-to-rags story, which feels great in these times of billionaires overtaking the government. Until writing this blog, I didn’t realize that Wes Anderson called Fantastic Mr Fox “a little bit communist” and even that little comment got some backlash. (See how insane the media is?)

Anderson’s movies often center wealthy people, but they center wealthy people having struggles and issues that money has failed to fix. He does not seem to create overly political movies, as that’s not really an auteur thing to do… but he DOES create movies where the subtlety of politics have in some way affected the characters. Asteroid City takes place near a nuclear testing site in the ‘50s. The Grand Budapest Hotel is about an encroaching Nazi-esque fascist takeover. His first movie, Bottle Rocket, is full of class tension between the rich and the poor. But those aren’t the point of the movies — he’s not going to hit you over the head with them.

That’s why it was so pleasant to see friendly communists in a random movie where rich people are doing bad stuff and bad stuff happens to rich people. But if that wasn’t enough — there’s also a very small Christian communist reference.

I mean, communism does not exist in the United States in a meaningful way. But Christian communism isn’t represented anywhere, ever. Most people think the two are incompatible and go for that Marx quote about opiates without reading the full quote. (I encourage you, as always, to join Red Star Ministry to find more Christian communists around the U.S. and hopefully internationally.)

While Ayoade’s Sergio character only has a few minutes of total screentime, the main character Liesl, played by Mia Threapleton, is also on scene as a nun and daughter of Zsa-zsa Korda, played by Benicio Del Toro. She’s discussing her religious beliefs with Sergio and they both love the quote about religion from Marx, as do I. They realize they have a lot in common in their pursuit of justice for the poor. She asks him if he believes in God and he says, of course not. But some of his comrades can’t shake it. And they cut to a fellow guerilla looking at a shrine to Jesus Christ.

I know, these are scraps at the table for communist acceptance. And I’m biased because I am ride-or-die for Anderson already. But there’s something pretty special that a mainstream movie in theaters with real, actual famous actors featured a discussion about religious leftism and even featured a background Christian communist character.

Maybe Anderson isn’t popular enough anymore for it to make a splash. But as fascism is taking over, with almost no real resistance, I hope we can continue to have conversations and work toward real change. A movie isn’t revolutionary — only your comrades are. But I hope you can see that it’s not just me, forever trying to piece Christianity together with communism together with polyamory. This shit is really happening.

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I woke up this morning at 5 a.m. with a severe, sharp pain in my lower back radiating down my leg. I’ve had lower back pain for about six months now, and even went to Urgent Care for it in February, where an X-ray revealed… nothing. I was given muscle relaxers and steroids. I’ve just been… dealing with it since then. After a stint working at a drug treatment court, I am deathly afraid of opiates and do not want to be addicted to painkillers, and I’ve not had a primary care doctor in about three years since mine quit — he worked alone, so it wasn’t like a network. I thought with physical therapy, weight loss (lol), and yoga and exercise, I could fix it. I know all the tricks, I know ice and hot and rest and stretch and moves. But yesterday, it just got progressively worse.

It was my night sleeping with Daniel, but he’s a school teacher, so I sent a Google alert asking Ty in the other room to take me to the ER. When Ty came into the room about ten minutes later, he was shaking and near tears. I thought he was sleepy or nervous about my pain. But instead, he informed me that he’d just seen a fox in our yard, and it’d gotten into the chicken run, which had been left open with a few chickens nesting on the roof — we had never dealt with predators here in the suburbs. Never, until now. I knew better. Our run was pretty predator-proof, but if the chickens aren’t in the coop and we let them free range during the day, it doesn’t make much of a difference. Needless to say, free ranging is probably over for a while — only while we are outside with them, during the bright daylight. (Even dusk and dawn are not safe anymore; we think this fox waited for dawn when he knew the chicken coop door would be open.)

Four of our six chickens are now dead. One (Sinead, my favorite and the one in my profile picture on Facebook, for those of you who are my IRL friends) is injured, lacerations in her back, and missing feathers. One (Platinum, my “lowest hen on the totem pole” miracle girl) was hidden so thoroughly we didn’t find her for hours and were surprised to run into her.

We are grateful that the two girls from the original brood still have each other, and we have hopes for Sinead’s full recovery, though nothing is ever certain and she is still in shock and not holding her head up all the way. (She is eating, drinking, can move her wings, has pooped, and even laid an egg today — all good signs.)

And yes, we intend to get more chickens when Sinead is recovered and the coop/run is even more secure. This is, unfortunately, a risk you take. I even actually love foxes, though there is now one that is on my shitlist. I don’t hold predators responsible for being predators. I hold myself responsible for not protecting my chickens enough. I just got too comfortable, and if you know me in real life, you know these chickens are not just livestock to me. They are named, beloved pets who I have held and kissed and nourished with treats and nutrients beyond the mandated survival requirements.

I was crying my eyes out in the emergency room and everyone thought it was from the pain but it was from the chickens. Daniel bravely took care of the horrid aftermath while Ty took me to the ER, where I was diagnosed with a pinched nerve, once again given muscle relaxers and steroids while refusing stronger painkillers, banned from yoga and gardening temporarily, and sentenced to a primary care doctor visit as well as physical therapy and a spinal specialist. I have insurance, but who knows what all this will cost? When we were at home by ourselves sans kids — Daniel came home early — we all cried, we all loved these birds, and we all felt guilty.

The kids went off to school as normal, and my oldest even has a field trip today. I told them to enjoy it as much as possible. My youngest’s birthday was this week and his party is this weekend. We have other big plans with our closest friends too and I’m trying to prepare myself not to be a buzzkill.

On top of this, two days ago, Daniel’s car was (likely) totaled after an accident with a teenager. It wasn’t his fault, and everyone involved was okay. But we’re currently down a car, unsure when we’ll have access to another one.

Weeks ago, Twilight started experiencing several concerning symptoms like not eating, lethargy, and lameness. She is better now, so far, but we had no idea if she would be okay. Three vet visits, one urgent vet care visit, and one veterinary internal medicine specialist later, she’s ended up costing us a few grand.

We never got a certain diagnosis and she was tested for everything with the most advanced IDEXX machines recommended. Antibiotics round two seemed to work, she has no signs of cancer, she is fully vaccinated and spayed, she does not go outside, our other cat Salem wasn’t affected. Whatever it was, I really hope this is the end of the medical saga with our beloved kitten.

Months ago, we had to replace several appliances, the kitchen floor, and our HVAC. They weren’t working, things were flooding or smoking or damaging, and we had no A/C. We are not poor, but with our student loans all back (Thanks Trump) and all these costs, my savings are gone. It’s pretty scary to be a homeowner with two kids and without any savings in an economy like this one. I’m still supposed to fix the kitchen counters and install a sink/cooktop we already bought, but I haven’t had the funds or time to arrange that.

Not to mention, that things have been a lot more stressful for me at work. My job is fine — in fact, things could even be looking up in that regard — but I have had a lot more responsibilities lately that feel like they’re drowning me on top of all this other shit. And no raise yet… maybe soon, but nothing is guaranteed and no basic online content media job of the 2020s is ever gonna be a living wage again.

Even before this, I was dealing with some pretty severe mental illness symptoms as you may remember from one of my last posts. I’m back in therapy. I’ve gained weight and am dealing with severe body dysmorphia and social anxiety as a result, I’ve been intermittent fasting to no avail, and my favorite forms of exercise are now temporarily off-limits. Those suicidal ideation thoughts are present; just like a buzz in my head. I have zero desire to act on them. I don’t want to be dead but I struggle deeply with the prospect of being alive.

I won’t even get into world news events. It’s just pain everywhere. It’s just a complete lack of control over any of my surroundings on this planet. It’s just the constant knowledge of suffering everywhere everywhere everywhere. Palestinians and Jews and civilians and trans people and immigrants and hungry children and refugees. Why them? Why God?

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and hey, did I mention my birthday was next week?

So, look. I’m asking for help. I hate asking for help, but I need it. Primarily financial, but if you can’t swing that, it’s okay too. There are way poorer people, there are people out there without food or water who live in constant threat of violence. I get it. No obligations.

The only time I think I’ve ever felt more desperate in my life was in 2015, when Daniel was post-major-surgery and he and my youngest son went to the ER on the very same day (he walked across hot pavement and burned his feet) and I had just moved to Richmond that year and my kids were super young, and I didn’t have Ty yet, and Daniel and I both lost our jobs in the same week, and all my family was back in Tennessee.

Here’s what I’m asking for financially:

• Become a paid subscriber of my Dirtbag Christian Substack.

  • The Dirtbag Christian is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

• Donate to me on Venmo (@)jennifercmartin or CashApp $jennifercmartin or PayPal jennbo@gmail.com

• Visit my OnlyFans. I haven’t updated it in a while, but I will tonight, hopefully. I’m not sure how sexy traumatized and depressed girls are, but I’ll try my best.

• Encourage other people to become paid subscribers to my Substack.

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Here’s how you can help in non-financial ways:

• If you live in Richmond and are physically healthy, we would love to have you come out and help with landscaping and gardening, especially while I’m forbidden from gardening (we have a lot of English ivy on our property, which can hide dens for, you guessed it, foxes — as well as other hazards, like poison ivy and debris)

  • OR help Daniel with making us a more secure chicken run and coop situation!

  • OR help me clean my house and stay on top of laundry and picking things up, especially.

• If you pray, pray for me. Pray for our family. Pray for our kids who are dealing with a pretty bad loss. And maybe you think it’s silly, but pray for Sinead. Like I said, she is my favorite chicken, and yes, this is the same species I willingly choose to eat, but her getting better would mean so much to me.

• Forgive me my social anxiety, the unanswered texts, the canceled meetings, the one-response messages — the constant guilt I feel, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

• Go on walks with me if you live around here. Like, come to my house and walk around with me — no pressure to clean my house, no pressure to go anywhere or do anything, maybe even let me nervously type on my phone the whole time.

  • I’m not forbidden from walking! I want to stay active even without yoga and gardening and gym.

• Say nice things to me. They mean a lot, especially when I’m so self-conscious recently.

• Social media interaction and Substack interaction, shares, comments, likes as much as possible.

• Give me tips about fixing sciatica and severe lower back/hip/psoas pain.

• Don’t say anything to me about any weight loss or gain. I do not want comments on my body other than like, “damn you hot” haha.

• Please, please, please don’t give me any chicken advice unless you’re going to come help or pay for more secure fencing. I am very well-educated about chicken care; but the one night I left the door open… it’s a lifetime of guilt that I will feel. I don’t want to feel worse.

• Share positive stories of similar situations in your life that ended up okay.

• Keep having good politics, keep being good people, and love all the animals and humans in your life. Forgive often, forgive when it’s hard.

Anyway, I’m sorry for the bummer.

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PS. This is probably a very strange place to mention this, but I’d be amiss if I didn’t, because it was one of the only good things that happened this month that didn’t involve my family or food.

On my Platonic Polyamory podcast with Rob and Brandon, we got a very special interview with Greg Saunier of Deerhoof, and part one is up now:

Polyamory has been my main, most consistent, interesting platform topic for years. It’s no longer fringe. I don’t mean that it’s no longer uncommon because it is, even if you think “everyone” is non-monogamous now. They’re not. We’re increasing, but rare. But I mean that most people know what it is and have an opinion of it.

Many polyamorous people are the subjects of memes, sometimes hateful and sometimes good-natured, but most feel a little mocking and, above all else, as if these romantic relationships simply aren’t as serious or important as the fight for, say, gay marriage and trans acceptance.

Even other non-monogamous people complain about how annoying polyamorous people are. I used to do this quite a bit myself and will do it occasionally in private still, but I’ve stopped doing this publicly. At a certain point, it stopped feeling like it was a cultural watershed moment for humor and acceptance and started feeling personal and threatening. Mainstream conservatives aren’t super-aware of polyamorous people, but once a famous person comes out as non-monogamous or a politician they don’t like talks about it, well, it’s so over for us.

However, when I look at the non-monogamy activism space and see the numerous polyamory-centric creators online, for the most part, I feel let down. There are only so many ways to educate people about a seemingly endless lexicon. There are only so many jokes we can make. There are only so many lurid sexual details we can share about our private lives. At a certain point, we need to shift into solidarity with other people, and we are at that certain point. Here’s how I think we can best accomplish that.

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And no, nothing bad happened to trigger it, except the same kind of stuff that’s bad for all of us — the state of the world, politics, the rise of fascism, and more. However, trigger warning: some references to suicidal ideation and self-harm, but no worries: I am therapized, supported, and motivated. I am not in any active danger.

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I’ve had to dissociate my love of music from my love of Jesus Christ. Raised Pentecostal with a musical family — a grandmother who played the church organ for 40 years and had a degree in piano, with almost every relative playing an instrument or singing — the two were once irrevocably linked to me.

Now, I was a white Pentecostal. That meant our music was slightly worse than a Black Pentecostal church, with services that got out just a bit earlier (but still later than nearly every other denomination) but it was still soulful, inspired, and above all, emotional. There are times I still have the desire to either drop to my knees during a song, or at least raise my hands to the sky. Anything with a banjo and a fiddle makes me want to dance, and the clang-clang of pianos and organs makes me believe in God.

Such is the power of all music, not just church music. But despite this, my parents and sister and I rarely listened to Christian music growing up. In church, sure. But on the radio? Well, I’m not going to talk about how horrendous contemporary Christian music is. It’s covered by pretty much any music critic or anyone raised evangelical.

We may have had a small pop-punk-inspired respite in the 2000s (the same era that mewithoutYou and other Tooth & Nail or Cornerstone Festival-esque emo/hardcore bands came around) with Five Iron Frenzy and Relient K, but overall, listening to any Christian radio station or contemporary album is sheer misery. Hillsong youth group-ass worship songs all sound the same to me.

As I’ve evolved into mainline Protestantism, the only home for my progressive theology, I’ve struggled to connect as much to the hymns, but the content, of course, is still better.

mewithoutYou broke up a few years ago, and its lead singer, Aaron Weiss, is now a professor who lives on (I think) some sort of homestead. Their songs changed my life and saved my relationship with God more than any other people except for maybe Daniel and Rachel Held Evans. I don’t know if their songs are for everybody (my favorite albums by them are from the 2004 to 2012 era, but all of their music is good, especially the lyrics) but they’re definitely for me.

When I first heard this band, I didn’t know Christianity could be like this. That it could be dark, sexual, intense, universal, and relate to one’s personal spirituality in more precise ways than individualist salvation and atonement theology ever could. That it could rage at God in one breath and thank him in another. That it could be messy and modern without watering anything down to be more palatable. I never want to be “palatable” as a Christian (or a person) ever again. It’s what I felt listening to Pentecostal music in church as a child, my face down on the altar, feeling the presence of God.

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Recently, I got the opportunity to speak to Liam O'Donnell, who co-hosts the Cinepunx podcast with Joshua Alvarez, and the Cinema Smorgasbord podcast with Doug Tilley, both of whom we have also interviewed. In addition to his many interesting life titles (pastor’s spouse, T-shirt seller, music lover, seminarian, not-a-Christian) he was also once in a band that once toured with mewithoutYou before they released their mildly fame-projecting album, “A to B Life.”

I admit to being starstruck a bit, but I was also fascinated by the stories told and wondering how much of these early 2000s moments contributed to the rise of the deconstruction and exvangelical movements — and if their music can really be considered “Christian.” Can Sufjan’s? I say yes, even if some of the people directly involved in making this music aren’t Christians themselves. In the words of Flannery O’Connor, another favorite artist of mine, it’s more “Christ-haunted” than Christ-centered.

If you want to listen to this amazing part one of our interview, please go for it:

If you’ve never listened to mewithoutYou before, you could start with the song listed above that I have tattooed on my body. Or go for the one where Hayley Williams from Paramore is an uncredited vocalist, “All Circles.” (Supposedly, she once said mwY was one of her favorite bands.) Consider the hippie vibes of “Allah, Allah, Allah” or the cynical, more hardcore “Another Head for Hydra.” Or the alternative Biblical timeline of “The Angel of Death Came to David’s Room,” which I want to be played at my funeral. The poetic, alliterative storytelling and philosophy of “Cardiff Giants.” “The ‘I’ is an unintelligible lie.” The many, many literary references in all their music, some of which I understand (as a book reader and English lover) but likely others which I haven’t even picked up on myself.

But maybe you’d want to listen to the first mewithoutYou song I ever heard, which I discovered on my 7th-grade boyfriend’s Myspace profile when I was in 12th grade: “Paper-Hanger.” The music video was filmed, as I learned from Liam, in a now-defunct park in Philadelphia, where the band was from.

We discussed this in the podcast, but Philadelphia was once a go-to location for this “emergent” type of Christianity. It’s a city I’ve now visited four or five times, one where my podcast cohost and one of my closest friends Rob lives, and one I would live in myself if my life circumstances had gone a little differently. Brotherly Love, angry sports, heavy food, David Lynch’s muse, bad politics, good politics, and unwavering people. It’s a city I think I love, and I can at least see why so many other people do, too. No wonder it’s where people seem to find and lose God all at once.

As an aside, thank you to my subscribers for your patience. January has been a tough and busy month for me (snow, no water, no internet, dryer nearly catching on fire, school cancellations, parent stuff, new kitten, doctor appointments galore, more duties at work) and I’m catching up. You have my love, and I need your support.

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This past Monday, Richmond, Virginia (my lovely city of residence) saw a few inches of snow as a result of Winter Storm Blair throughout the Mid-Atlantic. I believe the final total was around five inches, and it was the first time in years that we’ve had measurable snowfall. The area used to receive snow regularly, but under the effects of climate change over the past several years, that is no longer the case.

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My children were delighted, and so was I. Snow around the holiday season is always a little extra magical, and it was our first snow in our “new” house (we’ll have been living there a year next month) and an opportunity to use the firewood we’ve been saving up for our natural wood-burning fireplace. We took off work, delayed school return, ate snow cream (controversial, I know), and drank hot chocolate. My kids built a snowman and a snow drift and threw snowballs at each other while our tall pine trees surrounded us in a silvery glow, covered in frost.

Meanwhile, in the metro area (we live in the suburbs of a surrounding county outside of the city — three major counties surround the actual city of Richmond, but none are more than a 30-minute drive away from each other and I, personally, am only 10 to 15 minutes from downtown) there was a power outage at the city’s water treatment plant. I didn’t even experience a power outage myself, and I don’t think the issue was widespread, but after a series of complicated events, infrastructure failures, noncompliance mistakes, and bad luck — the city started experiencing low water pressure and then no water by Monday night.

We were fine… at first. My county, Henrico, takes some water from Richmond, but not fully. However, on Tuesday morning, a water main break occurred in my neighborhood. We noticed our water pressure going, and due to the news and my growing up in the country, decided to fill our bathtubs with water. Shortly thereafter, we were out of water too.

As of this morning, we have water, though over a million of us in the greater Richmond region are currently under a boil-water advisory. But we didn’t have any water at all throughout Tuesday and Wednesday. Two days, and I was miserable. We all needed showers. My laundry piled up, I became acutely aware of how many dishes we used to eat and cook, and I had several pets to worry about — my chickens’ waterer, for instance, currently needs a refill every morning during these constant freezing temperatures.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles started, and is still, burning. Dozens of celebrities (seemingly, mostly the good ones) have lost their homes, as well as thousands of other regular people like you and me, and they think it’s only going to get worse. What do I blame for both my minor water crisis and the larger, deadlier wildfire crisis throughout SoCal? Of course, capitalism! A decentralized governance! Infrastructure failure! Lack of funding for material needs and communal programs in favor of militarization and policing! But to be true, most of all is climate change… and a country wholly unprepared for it.

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I saw a post amid our little ongoing drinkable water outage that 97% of Gaza does not have drinkable water and hasn’t for months. I can’t verify that statistic, but obviously in a war-torn area of a country currently undergoing a targeted genocide, it’s quite likely. It’s hard for me to imagine living like that, and I only did it for two days. Even politically aware Americans like me have no idea how precious and pointed our privileges can be.

And the crises boil down: not just an inability to consume clean water from the taps or clean our bodies and homes, but people and animals who cannot get transportation to get clean water from various resources and can quite literally die. Limited cooking options, limited food options. Long-term possible crop failures. No ability to safely dispose of human waste without alternative plumbing infrastructure, which leads to disease. No water in hospitals which means an inability to safely care for people in great need. And… no water for fires.

I’ve never lived in an area that experienced high levels of drought or dryness, as the South is known for its humidity. To be sure, I’ve taken water for granted in a huge way and it took me two days without it to recognize that. Now, as I said, I grew up in the country and have experienced weather disasters like tornados (destroyed my neighborhood in April 2010) and hurricanes (I lived in Tallahassee for four years in high school) where I recall being without water for a bit, but for some reason this felt different. I was younger then, and I was able to drive somewhere, get away, or stay somewhere else. Or maybe those incidents didn’t last very long. I’ve never been on well water, so if the power went out for a while, we’d still have water access.

Water is sacred. We are using water to power endless tech industries for AI, acting like it’s a “renewable resource” when clearly, it’s not. Los Angeles firefighters — many of whom are enslaved prisoners being forced to do it for almost no income — cannot access water pressure levels needed to contain the fires. That region of the country is drought-prone. These fires are too strong. They’re too big. They’re too widespread. And they dump some seawater when they can, which is effective, but apparently often a complex procedure that doesn’t work in every scenario. Meanwhile, the LA budget increased for the police force and decreased for the fire department.

We are days away from entering a stage where our entire government will be run by people who do not believe in climate change at all and definitely do not believe in the causes behind it being the result of human industry and the relentless pursuit of wealth. Greed will dictate American politics until American politics are no longer relevant and perhaps until there is no longer a United States of America. This is an imperialist country, whether we’re sincerely trying to “buy” Greenland, taking advantage of territories we refuse statehood to, or endlessly profiting from warfare overseas.

I fear that my meager two days of no water are only the beginning, as is the burning of Los Angeles and the destruction of western North Carolina a few months ago. Infrastructure is failing all over America, and none of it is equipped for the climate disasters that are sure to increase and affect us more and more with each passing year.

The ruling class has declared that these disasters, much like school shootings, increased maternal death rates, private healthcare, unaffordable and inaccessible medical care, constant bigotry, and continual labor exploitation, are to be considered normal. Trump and his administration can simply say it’s the Democrats’ fault, despite how Democrat policies mirror GOP policies. That reasoning is good enough for many Americans who voted for him, even when these national policies affect their own red states, too.

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We need water for every aspect of human life. Our planet is struggling, and there’s not much we can do about it. I crave escape, a homestead in isolation, and this innate Appalachian desire for self-sufficiency, even though it’s a myth. I run against my instincts by staying put and being part of the community that suffers, in line with ethics.

It will get worse. But I’m no doomer. Now is the time to get involved in communist ideology and liberation theology. Liberal online activism has failed, and many (not all) self-serving political influencers hoping to go viral have little or no impact on bettering the world. Volunteer, donate, and most of all, be radical. Don’t side with Democrats, and obviously don’t side with anyone right of that. Side with the people struggling the most, not a political party. DO SOMETHING. You can continue to vote (I have voted in every election since I was 18 years old) but you can no longer count on “voting” to fundamentally change anything. Our democracy has never really existed, but it will continue to erode under the incoming fascism of right-wing politics globally.

And even if every billionaire was dead and socialist policies were established throughout the land, we would still need to dramatically change our lifestyles to save the planet. Don’t ever forget that.

As I’ve said so many times, deconstructing from conservative Christianity simply isn’t enough. And I’ll even say now that deconstructing from capitalism isn’t enough. “Capitalism sucks!” Yes, you’re right. And yes, there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism. And you should be doing something about it beyond complaining.

But you can start deconstructing from consumerism, too. I’m trying to start this myself. How much do I need? Do I need bras from Temu? Do I need the latest iPhone upgrade? Do I need matching rose gold office supplies? Do I need so much plastic?

If we want to treat our world and its many elements as sacred, individual practices still matter. And I’m trying.

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Note from Jennifer: I am so grateful to share this post on solo polyamory from Anna at ENM Living. Her content is incredibly helpful for anyone hoping to live an authentically, ethically non-monogamous life from multiple perspectives and so many types of non-monogamy. I’m also excited to have a post-swap with her and a brand-new post on the beginning steps for a newly polyamorous Christian on her website soon. As I’ve never been a solo polyamorist, I’m so happy that my readers now have access to this kind of content and expertise. Please follow her website:

https://enmliving.com/

What is Solo Polyamory?

When people think of relationships, they often envision traditional pairings with set milestones—dating, moving in, marriage, and beyond.

These milestones are often expected, creating a clear roadmap for how relationships are meant to unfold.

But what if you could embrace meaningful connections without following this well-worn path?

That’s where solo polyamory comes in.

This relationship style prioritizes personal autonomy while allowing for multiple romantic or sexual connections.

Solo polyamory challenges conventional relationship structures by encouraging independence and flexibility.

It offers the freedom to form connections on your own terms, without the constraints of traditional norms.

Let’s explore what solo polyamory is, how it works, and why it’s an empowering choice for those who value both independence and connection.

Exploring Solo Polyamory as a Relationship Style

Solo polyamory challenges conventional ideas about relationships.

It moves beyond the typical pair bonding that many people assume is the only path to fulfilling relationships.

At its core, it’s about combining the principles of polyamory—engaging in multiple romantic and/or sexual relationships ethically—with a commitment to maintaining individual independence.

This creates a dynamic that allows for freedom and connection, without being bound to traditional couple-centric models.

Some might find the idea contradictory: How can someone have meaningful relationships while prioritizing their autonomy?

It seems that one might have to choose between independence and connection.

But for those who practice solo polyamory, these two values complement each other.

They create a dynamic that feels authentic and fulfilling, where relationships are based on mutual respect and personal freedom.

Instead of being forced to fit relationships into a one-size-fits-all model, solo polyamorists create something more tailored to their needs and values.

Defining Solo Polyamory

To understand solo polyamory, it’s helpful to start with polyamory itself.

Polyamory involves having multiple romantic or sexual relationships simultaneously.

Each relationship occurs with the full knowledge and consent of everyone involved.

Solo polyamory takes this concept a step further.

Practitioners of solo polyamory intentionally avoid traditional couple-based structures.

This means avoiding expectations like living together or merging finances.

Instead, solo polyamorists prioritize self-determination.

They view themselves as independent individuals—whether or not they’re in relationships.

For them, autonomy is key to living a fulfilling and authentic life.

Key Characteristics of Solo Polyamory

Solo polyamory has several defining traits that set it apart from other relationship styles.

Let’s explore these key characteristics.

Personal Independence

Solo polyamorists place a strong emphasis on autonomy.

They make choices that honor their individual needs and goals.

For them, relationships are an addition to their life, not the central focus.

This mindset allows them to thrive as individuals, while still maintaining meaningful connections.

Avoidance of the "Relationship Escalator"

In traditional relationships, there’s often an expected progression.

This typically includes dating, exclusivity, cohabitation, and eventually marriage or commitment.

Solo polyamory rejects this trajectory altogether.

It embraces non-traditional ways of relating.

Rather than following a prescribed path, solo polyamory allows for fluid and individualized connections.

Multiple Meaningful Connections

Solo polyamorists may have multiple relationships, but these connections aren’t necessarily ranked in terms of importance.

Each relationship is treated as unique, valuable, and non-hierarchical.

There’s no inherent value judgment placed on one relationship over another.

This allows for deeper, more authentic connections with multiple partners.

Distinction From Being Single

It’s easy to confuse solo polyamory with simply being single, but there are key differences.

Solo polyamory isn’t about being unattached.

Instead, it’s about actively engaging in multiple relationships while maintaining autonomy.

Solo polyamorists make an intentional choice to structure their relationships outside the confines of traditional norms.

By contrast, being single often implies a lack of romantic or sexual connections.

Or, it can mean waiting for “the one” to come along.

Solo polyamory, on the other hand, celebrates the connections already in one’s life.

It doesn’t come with the expectation of finding a singular partner but instead values multiple connections as they naturally evolve.

Benefits and Challenges of Solo Polyamory

Like any relationship style, solo polyamory has its advantages and challenges.

Benefits

Freedom to Focus on Yourself

Solo polyamorists enjoy the freedom to prioritize personal goals, passions, and self-care.

They can pursue their own interests and well-being without compromising their independence.

Diverse Emotional Support

Having multiple relationships means accessing varied perspectives and support systems.

This can lead to emotional fulfillment and resilience, as each relationship brings different strengths and insights.

Tailored Dynamics

Relationships in solo polyamory are crafted to fit the needs of everyone involved.

They’re free from societal expectations or rigid structures.

Instead, the focus is on creating dynamics that reflect the unique needs of each person.

Challenges

Societal Misconceptions

Many people struggle to understand or accept non-traditional relationships.

This can lead to judgment or misunderstandings.

People in solo polyamory may face questions or negative assumptions about their lifestyle.

Managing Multiple Relationships

Balancing time, communication, and emotional energy can be complex.

Solo polyamory requires careful attention to ensure that each relationship is nurtured and maintained.

Establishing Boundaries

It’s crucial to maintain clarity about expectations and needs within each relationship.

Effective communication and healthy boundaries are essential for the success of any solo polyamorous dynamic.

Conclusion

Solo polyamory is a valid and enriching relationship style for those who value independence while cherishing meaningful connections.

By prioritizing autonomy and rejecting societal norms, solo polyamorists create dynamic relationships that align with their personal values.

For some, solo polyamory might feel unconventional or even challenging.

But for others, it’s a way to live authentically, blending personal freedom with the joys of connection.

Does this sound like the relationship style for you?

Only you can decide.

But whatever path you choose, know that honoring your values and needs is always the best choice.

Don’t forget to check out the ENM Living blog!

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