“Where love’s unwilled, unleashed, unbound / And half the perfect world is found,” sings the US musician Madeleine Peyroux. She’s singing about a connection between two soulmates that survives any obstacle, that unconditional promise to one another: to stay together, no matter what. It’s a romantic type of love that’s often seen as the happy ending after a long search. When someone finally finds love, they are liberated from the constraints of longing – or so it seems. And this is why some people only want romantic love. They seek a harmonic union, the bringing together of two halves that form a whole. A monogamous, heteronormative whole.
This seemingly perfect relationship makes a lot of demands on the individual. The expectations are high. So high, they seem to be unreachable. This love is supposed to fulfil every sexual desire with passionate affection. It’s supposed to be unconditional, create a partnership, make children and anything else that goes with it.
The notion of romantic love is an idea derived from patriarchy, one that confuses co-dependency with love. It covers up a political and social reality with an ideal. The act of concealing heteronormativity and monogamy under the sly veil of romantic love has its roots in a society controlled by men. It goes hand-in-hand with the idea that a woman’s place is at home. Here, they are responsible for the house work and the care work, while the man is free to devote himself to independent pursuits – politics, money and power, etc. I hardly even need to say this, but although these power structures may seem to be outdated, they still very much exist today.
The American writer bell hooks described these structures in her book All About Love (2000). In it, she asks certain key questions, such as: what is love? How may a loveless society feel togetherness? And: how can humans learn to love without using it to cover up patriarchy? “The men in my life,” says hooks, “have always been the folks who are wary of using the word ‘love’ lightly. They are wary because they believe women make too much of love. And they know that what we think love means is not always what they believe it means. Our confusion about what we mean when we use the word ‘love’ is the source of our difficulty in loving. If our society had a commonly held understanding of the meaning of love, the act of loving would not be so mystifying.”
The German author Şeyda Kurt references hooks in her latest book, Radikal Zärtlichkeit (‘Radical Tenderness’, 2021), where she demonstrates how people can love with an open mind and greater honesty. In this text, she sheds a forensic light on the “patriarchal, racist, capitalist structures of love,” especially when it comes to the romantic type. This type of love might be dominant, especially in the West, but, as hooks and Kurt affirm, it is not the only manner of conceiving this concept.
Indeed, the fact is a different idea of love is not only possible – it already exists in the bonds forged between lovers who dare to dream beyond the oppressive confines of patriarchy. And we need more of this courage to discover different ways of loving and togetherness. In open models, relationships can be sustainable and strong – yes, even in romantic ones. Since such relationships require the open communication of one’s desires – as well as the ability to question them – they place the expectation of change on the individual. As such, it is an honest, truthful and caring means of being together. In polyamory, the traditional structures of a relationship are completely redefined. After all, whoever said that a friendship can’t be unconditional, familiar or even romantic?
To end where I began, let me paraphrase those powerful words by Madeleine Peyroux: Where love’s unwilled, unleashed, unbound, and whoever faces their deepest fears, wishes and longings, can create room for love. A love free of the constraints of power structures. A communal, truthful, maybe even romantic love, happening on the same level. A love that is not based on possession, but on trust, care and honesty, one where half the perfect world is found.
Words by Amelie Kahl, as featured in SLEEK 72 – LOVE. Available in print and digital here.