读过 The Other Significant Other 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕
鼓励性五星，实际上大概也能打到4星到4星半，看起来是有点零散的访谈实录，记录了包括作者本人亲身经历在内的好几段以友谊（实际是Queer platonic relationship）为核心的亲密关系，但作者有意识涵盖了整个人生中的多个重要方面，除了日常生活的陪伴，还有养育孩子、老年关怀、疾病陪护，还有死亡以及与死亡紧密相关的悲痛，把这个抽象的概念具体化，并且探讨了以异性恋夫妻和核心家庭为范式的法律体系对这类“非常规”的关系形成了怎样的阻碍，即便在同婚已经合法且得到了较为广泛的认可的北美，compulsory coupledom依然对QPR/PLP以及non-monogamy的人群产生了事实上的伤害，而社会和文化层面的广泛认可更是遥不可及，大多数人对所谓的几千年传统“一夫一妻制”理所当然地奉为圭臬，却对几万年的传统视而不见甚至嗤之以鼻……QPR/PLP看似是非常aspectrum的概念，但实际上（哪怕只看本作中提到的案例）实施这种关系的人群覆盖各个取向，也正是这种超越性取向、浪漫取向光谱，而真正触及关系本身的光谱的讨论，才是可能撼动男权社会所有关系范式的突破口。
Book
The Other Significant Other Douban
author:
Rhaina Cohen
2024
- 2
Why do we assume romantic relationships are more important than friendships? What do we lose when we expect a spouse to meet all our needs? And what can we learn about commitment, love, and family from people who put deep friendship at the center of their lives?
In The Other Significant Others, NPR's Rhaina Cohen invites us into the lives of people who have defied convention by choosing a friend as a life partner—these are friends who are home co-owners, co-parents or each other’s caregivers. Their riveting stories unsettle widespread assumptions about relationships, including the idea that sex is a defining feature of partnership and that people who raise kids together should be in a romantic relationship. Platonic partners from different walks of life—spanning age and religion, gender and sexuality and more—reveal how freeing and challenging it can be to embrace a relationship model that society doesn't recognize. And they show that orienting your world around friends isn't limited to daydreams and episodes of The Golden Girls, but actually possible in real life.
Based on years of original reporting and striking social science research, Cohen argues that we undermine romantic relationships by expecting too much of them, while we diminish friendships by expecting too little of them. She traces how, throughout history, our society hasn’t always fixated on marriage as the greatest source of meaning, or even love. At a time when many Americans are spending large stretches of their lives single, widowed or divorced, or feeling the effects of the "loneliness epidemic," Cohen insists that we recognize the many forms of profound connection that can anchor our lives. A rousing and incisive book, The Other Significant Others challenges us to ask what we want from our relationships—not just what we’re supposed to want—and transforms how we define a fulfilling life.
In The Other Significant Others, NPR's Rhaina Cohen invites us into the lives of people who have defied convention by choosing a friend as a life partner—these are friends who are home co-owners, co-parents or each other’s caregivers. Their riveting stories unsettle widespread assumptions about relationships, including the idea that sex is a defining feature of partnership and that people who raise kids together should be in a romantic relationship. Platonic partners from different walks of life—spanning age and religion, gender and sexuality and more—reveal how freeing and challenging it can be to embrace a relationship model that society doesn't recognize. And they show that orienting your world around friends isn't limited to daydreams and episodes of The Golden Girls, but actually possible in real life.
Based on years of original reporting and striking social science research, Cohen argues that we undermine romantic relationships by expecting too much of them, while we diminish friendships by expecting too little of them. She traces how, throughout history, our society hasn’t always fixated on marriage as the greatest source of meaning, or even love. At a time when many Americans are spending large stretches of their lives single, widowed or divorced, or feeling the effects of the "loneliness epidemic," Cohen insists that we recognize the many forms of profound connection that can anchor our lives. A rousing and incisive book, The Other Significant Others challenges us to ask what we want from our relationships—not just what we’re supposed to want—and transforms how we define a fulfilling life.