Every once in a while, you stumble upon a piece of writing that makes you feel like maybe your desires are a little more legit than you’d felt before. In his essay “Brave New World,” Mike Albo explores the idea of gender monogamy, a sexual utopia in which he can have a long-term partnership with a man who is free to sleep with women on the side. I think it’s important to explore the limitations of our self-definition; even though it’s tempting to define your desires, is it keeping you from getting what you want? Approaching the topic with candor, wit and mathematical equations, Albo has touched on the kind of relationship I’ve been looking for my entire life. So, I mean, of course I love it.
Okay, fast forward to last week, a year or so later. Friend B calls and tells me how he and his boyfriend (let's call him aB) had some kind of ménage a quatre with Boy X and his friend, yX. Friend B exonerated himself from any guilt for this act by saying he didn't know that Boy X was Boy X until after their little four-way roundelay. That weekend Friend B had a party. I found myself on a rooftop with X, B, C, aB and yX. Jealous, freaked out and insane, I tried to employ the attentions of F, xG, and D(V-x) to retaliate. My life that night became a large calculus equation that I would never be able to solve.
But what do you think?
— Caitlin MacRae