The platonic partnership of care
Hello,
Happy Pride!
I know everything feels bleak and there are so many reasons to be sceptical about Pride at the mo but this is my first Pride properly out and I am, it is safe to say, having the time of my life.
One of my favourite things at the moment is queer book club, and I wanted to write today about a topic from the book we just read - Ace Voices - which is all about asexuality.
The book is really interesting, and one of the most fascinating things about it is the way it deconstructs and expands on our traditional view of what relationships can or ought to be. There was a lot of discussion about the ways queer people have always reimagined partnerships, building things that work for us that don’t follow established models or existing patterns. As you can imagine, quite a lot of this is pretty relevant to the question of dating as a disabled person, and it was great to see so much evidence that relationships can look and feel different while still being full of love and joy.
What was really lovely, too, was the discussion of partnerships that are not based on sexual or romantic feelings. The book has a really insightful - and really heart-warming - section on what it calls ‘queer platonic relationships’, where two queer people who are not ‘together’ in the traditional sense nevertheless form a partnership, sharing anything from a domestic space to children. It’s not romantic, but it’s also definitely not friendship as we typically understand it; it’s perhaps something in between. Something mainstream, straight society hasn’t yet defined; something lovely and queer and joyful.
I do not have and do not want such a relationship (I haven’t given up on romance just yet), but reading about people’s experiences of them, I felt a flash of recognition. Because I have spent my life forming deep domestic partnerships, with my PAs. Of course there are key differences: they are doing a job, we are most definitely not life partners, all of us are dating (or not dating) other people, and many other things beside. But I have always felt that these relationships have a different texture than my other friendships; not necessarily deeper but certainly wider, more open, and involving a sort of radical honesty that is hard to describe.
To share so much of daily life with someone is to let them really know you - to be unable to present your best self or even a coherent self, but to instead be seen in all your messiness. Friendships, especially adult ones in which everyone is busy and time is short, tend to mean showing up for defined moments, no matter how big (a wedding) or small (takeaway dinner on a Tuesday), but the girls and I know each other in the in-betweens, during the walk to Tesco or getting ready for bed. In the most platonic way imaginable, it is stunningly intimate. For however long they work here, and for however long they are on shift, we do build lives together, domestically, socially and emotionally. There is so much love.
For me, this is what care is. Yes, there is an imbalance in the relationship, in the sense that they do a lot more for me than I could ever hope to do for them (that’s the bit they get paid for!). But there is, I hope, no imbalance in the intangible stuff - the stuff not in the job description - in the emotional act of caring or in our quiet commitment to each other. I know that they all know that, within my physical abilities, there is almost nothing I wouldn’t do for them, and that that remains true long after the last shift is worked and the last meal fed. These relationships, each one of them so unique and yet so similar, are among the things I am most profoundly grateful for.
And I am grateful too that the queer community has given me some way of describing this incredible thing, because I have spent a very long time looking for it. It’s always been difficult to articulate to those who have never experienced it, particularly the complete divorcing of intimacy and romance (indeed, many seem to find it hard to believe and get a bit weirded out, but I just think nondisabled people lack imagination). No, I would never use the exact ‘queer platonic relationship’ phrasing, because it does not apply, but I do think you could call whatever this is a ‘platonic partnership’ or something similar, and it is nice to finally be able to articulate it.
And girls, if you’re reading this, sorry for all the times people have thought we were dating! What can I say?
With love,
Lucy
Read more about care in my book
Women's lives are shaped by sexism and expectations. Disabled people's lives are shaped by ableism and a complete lack of expectations. But what happens when you're subjected to both sets of rules?
This powerful, honest, hilarious and furious memoir from journalist and advocate Lucy Webster looks at life at the intersection; the struggles, the joys and the unseen realities of being a disabled woman. From navigating the worlds of education and work, dating and friendship; to managing care; contemplating motherhood; and learning to accept your body against a pervasive narrative that it is somehow broken and in need of fixing, The View From Down Here shines a light on what it really means to move through the world as a disabled woman.