In this episode of Queers & Co., I’m joined by Lola Phoenix, a queer, non-binary disabled American living in the UK. Lola writes and produces a weekly advice column and podcast called Non-Monogamy Help as well as writing on social justice topics from gender to disability to poverty.

We chat about so much juicy stuff, including how labels and identifiers can help us to feel less alone, whether polyamory is a marginalised identity, the importance of taking the time to educate people without jumping down their throats, non-monogamy and creating a podcast and column on it, learning when to step away from an argument, death positivity and so much more!

If you haven't already, be sure to join our Facebook community to connect with other like-minded queer folks and allies.

Find out more about Gem Kennedy and Queers & Co.

Podcast Artwork by Gemma D’Souza

Resources

Find out more about Lola and their work here: Medium and About.Me

Non-Monogamy Help podcast and column

Follow on Lola on Twitter

Read Thirteen Mistakes People Make When Trying Polyamory

Sex Worker Advocacy and Resistance Movement (SWARM)

Email nonmonogamyhelp@gmail.com to submit a question to Lola on non-monogamy

Full Transcription

Gem: Hi Lola! How are you?

Lola: I'm pretty good. How are you?

Gem: Yeah, I'm good. Thank you. I'm really excited to have you here. Thanks for doing it.

Lola: Yeah, thank you for having me on.

Gem: So, it will be really great to start with—I think I always start with this actually. I make it sound like it's a new invention. It'll be great to start with just finding out a bit more about you and your various intersections.

Lola: Cool!  So yeah, my name is Lola. I am an American immigrant that relocated to the UK. And I'm going to be here for the foreseeable future (unless things change, and it gets a lot easier to immigrate somewhere else).

I identify as queer, autistic, and disabled in lots of other ways. I have a very rare and difficult disorder to deal with. I am also queer. And I grew up in a kind of—I would say it was mostly working class. But there were kind of weird things that made it a little bit middle class. I had middle class grandparents. But my parents were definitely working class/poor. So, there was a lot of mix-up with that.

I think that definitely kind of informs my experience. I'm also a bit on the ace spectrum. And that has had a lot of impact in terms of how I look at things. And yeah, I think that kind of covers most of my intersections.

I am white, so I'm privileged in that way. And I think, unlike the vast majority of my family, I have been to university. So I have also that aspect which has given me a lot of privilege in a lot of ways.

So yeah, that's kind of my background.

Gem: Amazing! Thank you. And there's lots to explore there. And I just wanted to, first of all, for anyone listening who isn't familiar with ace or being asexual, I wonder whether you'd be happy just to maybe explain a bit about what that looks like to you.

Lola: Sure! So for me, I roughly identify as demisexual. Demisexual means—and this is really hard for people to wrap their heads around. It means that I don't tend to be attracted to somebody without some type of emotional bond to them.

And most people would say, “Well, that's how everyone is.” But there's a difference between being willing to have sex with someone and actually being attracted to them. A lot of people will be sexually attracted to people that they don't necessarily know, that they just see, but they aren't necessarily willing to jump in the bed right away with them. But for me, I just don't feel attracted to people right away. It takes a long time for me to be sexually attracted to them.

And just as an addendum, ace people—you know, people have sex without being sexually attracted to people all the time. So, you can still be ace and be interested in sex for other reasons that don't have to do with being sexually attracted to people.

I know it's complicated. And it's a bit of a confusing thing. For me, labels are helpful when they add something to my life. And when they help me understand myself a little bit better, when they helped me clarify my experiences. They're easy ways to explain to people and find other people who have my experiences. But I don't think labels should ever be a prescriptive list that people should have to meet. So they're descriptive, not prescriptive. They should be things that help people.

So there's some times when I will be like, “Oh, am I really demisexual?” because I try to pick apart whether or not I'm sexually or aesthetically or romantically attracted to somebody. And at the end of the day, it's just like this is a label that helps me say, “I noticed that I am different and how I feel attracted to people than the vast majority of people. And this helps me feel less alone.”

Gem: Yeah. Two things actually. So, within labels, I like what you say about them not being prescriptive. It's just a way to identify and also to find other people like you.

And within that, there's a spectrum, right? So it's not like using these labels means that you are absolutely this all the time, and it’s the same for everyone. It's just sort of an identifier that means that there's a scale within that particular idea that you might fall in or fall within. Does that make sense?

Lola: Yeah, definitely.

Gem: Yeah. And the other thing was about finding people, when you come across a label or a way to identify, and it really resonates with you… it's so powerful, isn't it, to realize that you're not alone anymore, and that there are other people that feel like that. Putting words to things can be really validating, I think.

Lola: Yeah, definitely. And especially kind of when you feel like you're so different from how everyone else is experiencing something…

And it's not to say that like their experience is invalid or that mine is more valid or anything like that. I think people at their core, even people who are like me, I'm very introverted, I'm not a big social person, but I don't think people—you know, I think we're social, we’re encouraged to be social. That's how we've survived for ages and ages, forming communities and being with one another. And so, I think in that aspect, it's hard to feel alone, and you don't want to feel alone.

And so, if a label can help you feel like, “Okay, I'm not the only one who feels this way,” then that's really, really important.

Gem: Yeah, I'm just thinking you mentioned some of the other parts of your identity. And I'm wondering what queer looks like to you. So within the queer label—and it can mean all kinds of different things for different people—how would you identify with being queer?

Lola: So, I think that queerness for me is more than just about sexuality or about gender. For me, I want that label in particular because it has a political meaning. And I think that that's really, really important.

My mom's a lesbian. And so, I grew up within the community and saw it from a different perspective. And I didn't actually come out until I was in—and coming out was kind of a rough kind of thing of what I did. But I didn't realize and kind of accept myself as not being straight, or at least not being typical in that regard, until my mid-twenties. And my mom said very biphobic things growing up. And I think that came from a place of frustration for people that she thought that could choose to be oppressed or not and she didn't understand.

But I think that, for me, queerness is about realizing that society has decided to privilege others and punish others and to choose not to assimilate into that. I do a talk occasionally about the history of the Stonewall Uprising and the history of that resistance within the US. And there is a long history of people who want to assimilate, people who want to be “normal,” people who want to be accepted by the mainstream and people who don't. And that's always been a huge tension in the community between people who just want to be “accepted.”

We're usually already accepted in a lot of other ways—because they're white, because they're middle class, because they fit in a lot of other boxes. And being gay is just the little thing that's hanging out that they want to hammer down, so