flexibeast.space - gemlog - 2024-07-04
My cnm relationships are non-fungible
It's often noted that consensual nonmonogamy (cnm) allows one to get different needs/wants - kink, romantic, sexual, etc. - met by different people, rather than expecting them to be met by one person alone. This is certainly true overall, of course. But in its more instrumentalist forms - e.g. “person X is my provider of need/want Y” - it can potentially become problematic. The issue is that such instrumentalist perspectives tend to imply the possibility that a given person is ‘fungible’.
Wiktionary currently defines ‘fungible’ as:
Able to be substituted for something of equal value or utility.
Essentially, something is ‘fungible’ if one can substitute an alternative in its place and get basically the same outcome.
In the context of someone being with person X only because they can meet need/want Y, it's not unreasonable for person X to feel insecure that they could potentially be displaced by person Z meeting that need/want. “If you're getting need Y met by person Z, you don't need me anymore!”
However, in my own case, the people with whom i develop connections are not fungible. Just because i get a need/want of mine met via one person, doesn't mean i don't actively enjoy having that need/want met by another person - each person brings their unique ‘themness’ to the experience, resulting in a singular combination that can't be replaced.
For example: i enjoy impact play. But doing impact play with one person doesn't mean i don't want to do it with anyone else, because the experience of impact play with one person isn't identical to the experience of impact play with another. The two experiences aren't fungible. If i'm no longer able to engage in impact play with one person, i don't think “Whatever, no loss” on the basis that i still have another person i can engage in impact play with. There is a loss involved, of the possibility of further unique experiences with that particular person.
Every person with whom i develop a connection brings something special to the table, something only they provide. Regardless of the extent to which i engage in the same sort of activities with someone as i do with other people, my experiences with them are irreplaceable.
☙