In this session, Professor Meow is back to talk about hierarchical polyamory and bdsm.

As a relationship anarchist, I often make a distinction when talking about hierarchical poly. There are hierarchies of obligations: that’s sharing child care, mortgage payments, etcetera; and there are hierarchies of control. For clarity: a hierarchy of obligations can be characterized as prioritization or of special privileges related to those obligations. For example, facilitating vacation time for another parent of one’s own children might take priority over dating that same weekend. That’s more life management and prioritization rather than the other parent demanding you not date at all.

Hierarchy of control is a more grey area and is the realm of exercising power, punishments, cutoff-all-ties-vetos. My experience with power dynamics informs my personal opinion that control hierarchies work best when we hold them suspect, that it’s ideal to ask a lot of questions before they’re set up, while they are ongoing, and even after the fact.

Why do we set them up? What purposes do they serve? Who benefits if anyone? Is it temporary or long term? When is the exact date we revisit this agreement? Who is inconvenienced or hurt if anyone? What would happen if there were less control or more control? Would anything meaningful change? How will this accomplish the underlying goal?