What do you think?
Rate this book
Love in a F*cked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together
From celebrated trans activist and author of Mutual Aid Dean Spade comes a practical manifesto for how to live out your radical political values in your intimate relationships
Around the globe, people are faced with a spiraling succession of crises, from the pandemic and climate change-induced disasters to the ongoing horrors of mass incarceration, racist policing, endemic gender violence, and severe wealth inequality. Many of us feel mobilized to organize and collectively combat these issues on both a personal and political level, often dedicating our lives to the forwarding of progressive ideas and the daunting goal of trying to bend the world toward justice.
But too often we think of our political values as outward-facing positions again dominant systems of power. Rarely, if ever, do we pursue the same kind of justice close to home, in our relationships to ourselves and to those closest to us. No matter how ardently we want to see the world change, our lives and connections will continue to stagnate unless we liberate ourselves from the cultural scripts that too often dictate our behavior toward others.
How do we become intentional about our levels of connection? How do we separate our expectations of love from the baggage left to us by our parents? How do we divest from the idea that one romantic partner will be the solution to all our problems? This book offers a roadmap for how to bring our best thinking about freedom and justice into step with our desires for healing and connection.
Lifelong activist and educator Dean Spade dares us to decide that our interpersonal actions are not separate from our politics of liberation and resistance. Love in a F*cked-Up World is a resounding call to action and a practical manifesto for how to combat cultural scripts and take our relationships into our own hands, preparing us for the work of changing the world.
Around the globe, people are faced with a spiraling succession of crises, from the pandemic and climate change-induced disasters to the ongoing horrors of mass incarceration, racist policing, endemic gender violence, and severe wealth inequality. Many of us feel mobilized to organize and collectively combat these issues on both a personal and political level, often dedicating our lives to the forwarding of progressive ideas and the daunting goal of trying to bend the world toward justice.
But too often we think of our political values as outward-facing positions again dominant systems of power. Rarely, if ever, do we pursue the same kind of justice close to home, in our relationships to ourselves and to those closest to us. No matter how ardently we want to see the world change, our lives and connections will continue to stagnate unless we liberate ourselves from the cultural scripts that too often dictate our behavior toward others.
How do we become intentional about our levels of connection? How do we separate our expectations of love from the baggage left to us by our parents? How do we divest from the idea that one romantic partner will be the solution to all our problems? This book offers a roadmap for how to bring our best thinking about freedom and justice into step with our desires for healing and connection.
Lifelong activist and educator Dean Spade dares us to decide that our interpersonal actions are not separate from our politics of liberation and resistance. Love in a F*cked-Up World is a resounding call to action and a practical manifesto for how to combat cultural scripts and take our relationships into our own hands, preparing us for the work of changing the world.
352 pages, Paperback
Published January 14, 2025
688 people are currently reading
5311 people want to read
About the author
Dean Spade
20 books446 followersDean Spade is an Associate Professor at Seattle University School of Law. He teaches Administrative Law, Poverty Law, and Law and Social Movements. Prior to joining the faculty of Seattle University, Dean was a Williams Institute Law Teaching Fellow at UCLA Law School and Harvard Law School, teaching classes related to sexual orientation and gender identity law and law and social movements.
In 2002, Dean founded the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a non-profit law collective that provides free legal services to transgender, intersex and gender non-conforming people who are low-income and/or people of color. SRLP also engages in litigation, policy reform and public education on issues affecting these communities and operates on a collective governance model, prioritizing the governance and leadership of trans, intersex, and gender non-conforming people of color. While working at SRLP, Dean taught classes focusing on sexual orientation, gender identity and law at Columbia and Harvard Law Schools.
From 1998-2006, Dean co-edited the paper and online zine, Make. Dean is currently the co-editor of the online journal, Enough, which focuses on the personal politics of wealth redistribution.
Dean is currently a fellow in the “Engaging Tradition” project at Columbia Law School. His book, Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law was published in 2011.
In 2002, Dean founded the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a non-profit law collective that provides free legal services to transgender, intersex and gender non-conforming people who are low-income and/or people of color. SRLP also engages in litigation, policy reform and public education on issues affecting these communities and operates on a collective governance model, prioritizing the governance and leadership of trans, intersex, and gender non-conforming people of color. While working at SRLP, Dean taught classes focusing on sexual orientation, gender identity and law at Columbia and Harvard Law Schools.
From 1998-2006, Dean co-edited the paper and online zine, Make. Dean is currently the co-editor of the online journal, Enough, which focuses on the personal politics of wealth redistribution.
Dean is currently a fellow in the “Engaging Tradition” project at Columbia Law School. His book, Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law was published in 2011.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 246 reviews
February 8, 2025
I have immense respect for Dean Spade's work. I especially like how he has branched out from academia further than many people do, creating highly accessible and urgent texts like Mutual Aid and now, Love in a F*cked Up World. I understand why the cover design is the way it is- to grab the attention of a wide audience. But, it made me think that it might not be for me. (Also, I just hate yellow for reasons I can't articulate.) Despite having chosen not to seek out romantic or sexual relationships many years ago, I figured why not give this a go even if it didn't apply to my current situation. Don't let the cover fool you into thinking this is another romantic relationship advice book. Spade even anticipates the hesitation some folks, especially radicals, may have. He urges the reader to remain open minded to a self help book being more than an "...individualistic... liberal, bougie... distraction from collective action." This book takes all the good little nuggets from various self help and communication books, sorts out all of the garbage, and then translates it all into something very wise and healing.
Even as someone who doesn't have intentions in the near future to date, I desperately needed this book for all other relationships in my life. Even moreso, I needed this book years (decades?) ago when mired in polyamorous organizing and kink communities. I needed it so much that I had to grieve a bit while reading for my former, ignorant self and anyone around me.
Even on a good day, I'm someone who craves categories, boxes, clear lines, and knowing exactly how to quantify the harm I've caused, could cause, and to predict that which will come to me in any situation. My mental health tends to make this far worse than the average person, essentially leading to isolation. I judge situations, myself, and sometimes others harshly in order to avoid further trauma and out of fear that I will cause it. This book gave me permission to let go of that. It was an exercise in self awareness and understanding of others while telling me that it's ok to find the grey area.
I won't pretend I'm cured of OCD/PTSD in 326 pages of reading, but this book ended up being a really good complement to my exposure therapy exercises, especially socially. Spade manages to write a relationship book that centers radicals, queers, leftists, etc rather than simply including us in the margins as other relationship books do (if they do at all.) As a result, anti-aurhoritarianism ends up being centered, leading to a final product that is a book many of us have been waiting for and needing our entire lives.
I recall that when Sarah Schulman's Conflict is not Abuse came out, many of us were able to ignore some of the flaws because it was a drink of water in the desert. Our communities, much like the larger world, are punishing and full of human beings with diverse needs and backgrounds. Spade urges the reader early on not to filter the book through dominant pop psychology trends in an attempt to ostracize and isolate others. (Lookin at all of the people who call every disagreement "gaslighting narcissism" and whatnot.) Instead, he offers tons of relatable anecdotes (including those from his own life) showing the normal conflicts that occur in many kinds of relationships. These conflicts can be so charged, stressful, and hurtful, that we may jump to what we've learned from larger cultures as solutions- even when it goes against our values. Movements are fractured, healing is impossible, and the whole thing can become a downward spiral taking the connections we desperately need with it. Spade urges us to better understand ourselves and others to better align our relationships with our values.
Like Mutual Aid, LIAFUW is highly readable, accessible, and well organized. I think that perhaps the centering of our communities might take a second for someone outside them to get used to, but not so much so as to be a barrier. I like to hope it will be enlightening, pulling the well intentioned (USAmerican, essentially center right wing) liberal further away from oppression and closer to what they're actually craving.
The best part of this book is the insistence on the importance of differentiation, interdependence, and creating relationships outside of romantic ones. While many exercises and anecdotes do involve romantic conflicts, since we often tend to be our worst selves in those, the sections on friendship and other relationships are refreshing and critical. One of the main reasons I stopped dating was that I realized I had very few nonsexual friendships and had not been single more than maybe 6 months since I was 13. Friendships, in my opinion-especially in adulthood- are harder to create and nurture than romance in a society that prioritizes the latter as the most important thing. Spade does well to show how nourishing friendships is not only important in and of itself, but it also results in all other relationships being healthier.
The only thing I wanted from this book was a little more advice on how to tell when something is actually abuse. There is a small section in the beginning that discusses this difficulty and I do understand why this is outside the scope of this book. I just found myself wondering in some sections, "but what if this behavior is controlling beyond normal conflict?" and "what about people who utilize the freedom in radical communities to prey upon people?" There are many books already written well about this such as Creative Interventions, Beyond Survival, and The Revolution Starts at Home. If you also find yourself wondering about that, I suggest those as complement texts.
I highly recommend this book to anyone really, but especially to leftists and Queers who've become accustomed to relationship books- even those that are supposed to be outside dominant culture- leaving much to be desired, or worse, giving dangerous advice. I see LIAFUW becoming one of those staples on leftist bookshelves that we lend to each other with love and care. I look forward to Spade continuing to expand his writing in ways that allow for larger, stronger, and more diverse movements.
This was also posted to my storygraph and blog.
Even as someone who doesn't have intentions in the near future to date, I desperately needed this book for all other relationships in my life. Even moreso, I needed this book years (decades?) ago when mired in polyamorous organizing and kink communities. I needed it so much that I had to grieve a bit while reading for my former, ignorant self and anyone around me.
Even on a good day, I'm someone who craves categories, boxes, clear lines, and knowing exactly how to quantify the harm I've caused, could cause, and to predict that which will come to me in any situation. My mental health tends to make this far worse than the average person, essentially leading to isolation. I judge situations, myself, and sometimes others harshly in order to avoid further trauma and out of fear that I will cause it. This book gave me permission to let go of that. It was an exercise in self awareness and understanding of others while telling me that it's ok to find the grey area.
I won't pretend I'm cured of OCD/PTSD in 326 pages of reading, but this book ended up being a really good complement to my exposure therapy exercises, especially socially. Spade manages to write a relationship book that centers radicals, queers, leftists, etc rather than simply including us in the margins as other relationship books do (if they do at all.) As a result, anti-aurhoritarianism ends up being centered, leading to a final product that is a book many of us have been waiting for and needing our entire lives.
I recall that when Sarah Schulman's Conflict is not Abuse came out, many of us were able to ignore some of the flaws because it was a drink of water in the desert. Our communities, much like the larger world, are punishing and full of human beings with diverse needs and backgrounds. Spade urges the reader early on not to filter the book through dominant pop psychology trends in an attempt to ostracize and isolate others. (Lookin at all of the people who call every disagreement "gaslighting narcissism" and whatnot.) Instead, he offers tons of relatable anecdotes (including those from his own life) showing the normal conflicts that occur in many kinds of relationships. These conflicts can be so charged, stressful, and hurtful, that we may jump to what we've learned from larger cultures as solutions- even when it goes against our values. Movements are fractured, healing is impossible, and the whole thing can become a downward spiral taking the connections we desperately need with it. Spade urges us to better understand ourselves and others to better align our relationships with our values.
Like Mutual Aid, LIAFUW is highly readable, accessible, and well organized. I think that perhaps the centering of our communities might take a second for someone outside them to get used to, but not so much so as to be a barrier. I like to hope it will be enlightening, pulling the well intentioned (USAmerican, essentially center right wing) liberal further away from oppression and closer to what they're actually craving.
The best part of this book is the insistence on the importance of differentiation, interdependence, and creating relationships outside of romantic ones. While many exercises and anecdotes do involve romantic conflicts, since we often tend to be our worst selves in those, the sections on friendship and other relationships are refreshing and critical. One of the main reasons I stopped dating was that I realized I had very few nonsexual friendships and had not been single more than maybe 6 months since I was 13. Friendships, in my opinion-especially in adulthood- are harder to create and nurture than romance in a society that prioritizes the latter as the most important thing. Spade does well to show how nourishing friendships is not only important in and of itself, but it also results in all other relationships being healthier.
The only thing I wanted from this book was a little more advice on how to tell when something is actually abuse. There is a small section in the beginning that discusses this difficulty and I do understand why this is outside the scope of this book. I just found myself wondering in some sections, "but what if this behavior is controlling beyond normal conflict?" and "what about people who utilize the freedom in radical communities to prey upon people?" There are many books already written well about this such as Creative Interventions, Beyond Survival, and The Revolution Starts at Home. If you also find yourself wondering about that, I suggest those as complement texts.
I highly recommend this book to anyone really, but especially to leftists and Queers who've become accustomed to relationship books- even those that are supposed to be outside dominant culture- leaving much to be desired, or worse, giving dangerous advice. I see LIAFUW becoming one of those staples on leftist bookshelves that we lend to each other with love and care. I look forward to Spade continuing to expand his writing in ways that allow for larger, stronger, and more diverse movements.
This was also posted to my storygraph and blog.
Read
March 6, 2025Made me feel affirmed because so many things in this book were realizations I made throughout my marriage and in the aftermath. Makes me feel grateful for everything I’ve been through with dating, which is hard when I’ve experienced so many beautiful but awful things. At the end of the day, all relationships are a playground, a chance for us to practice new ways of being with each other that resist dominant cultural scripts and also our often traumatic upbringings. I feel like I’m on the right track. Painfully relevant for me right now for a variety of reasons, I will return to a physical copy I think.
June 16, 2025
Right on time!!! This is a helpful book to read if you’re considering new social, political, or romantic commitments. It’s also useful if you have established commitments that you want to change in some way. While it’s branded as a book about the limits of romantic love, but I found it to be just as insightful for thinking through other types of relationships in my life.
The blurbs are accurate, though—readers will learn a lot about what Dean Spade calls the romance myth, and many asexual authors talk about in terms of amatonormativity. (FWIW, this book would’ve been improved if the author had engaged more ace thinkers—more on that in my final thoughts.) This myth, as you might imagine, guides many of the relationships within our society. The myth has contributed to a reality where love is the number one goal in most people’s lives, in part because of the perception that romantic love can meet all our social needs.
Spade notes that the romance myth is also a response to the dire economic and public health crises. People are often seeking out romance because they can’t afford to live without roommates, and want someone who will stick around when there are arguments about the dishes. People are increasingly disabled, and struggling to assemble care networks for their disabled loved ones. So, many people are seeking out romance not just for the fun times, but so they have a committed partner to help with in-home care after their parents get COVID for the 5th time!!! While Spade does have some amount of compassion for these realities, he astutely notes that a single (or even multiple) romantic partners will not be the way to resolve them (“we’re taught to find a partner to fill the chasm created by these impossible conditions.”)
Like Ari Lennox said, we need PEOPLE
Contrary to the romance myth, Spade offers that what *might* actually sustain us is creating deeper friendships and relationships to other people in our community. Chapter 6 has the best language on this, noting that we need to practice emotional and relational promiscuity, and deprioritize exclusivity as the main marker of affection or love (after all, if we’re trying to hoard love or care, this can by definition leave others out.) While I’ll continue to struggle with the latter part of Chapter 6’s advice, the former part reminded me of The Care Manifesto’s discussion of the need for promiscuous care. In that area, I fully agree with Spade!
Earlier in the book (Chapters 2 and 3), Spade discusses how we don’t just need to love more people—we need to love them in more sustainable ways than we commonly do in the crash-and-burn romance cycle. He notes that many times, we seek out unrealistic highs in romance to escape our realities. We often try to numb ourselves from terrible things in the world through unbalanced behavior, including obsessive quests for romance. I appreciated that Spade discussed this unbalanced behavior without falling into punitive addiction tropes, instead noting that they don’t define addiction for others. The ultimate lesson? We need to become more acquainted with strong feelings of grief and despair about the state of the world, and we need to resist numbness to fully achieve more meaningful, sustained, positive relationships (instead of temporary highs.)
Like Johanna Hedva said, we can keep working to care for each other
Earlier this week, I attended a book club for Johanna Hedva’s essay collection, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom. During the discussion, several people noted that Johanna Hedva actually provides a hopeful picture of the many opportunities we have to fail at caring for others, pick ourselves and them up, and try again. Spade is similarly oriented—he does not think that our desire for relational promiscuity will result in perfect interactions. Rather, we can get ever closer to our values *through* our relational behavior:
Read together, I think these books are really helpful. In essays like “Soft Until It Gets Hard”, Hedva is grappling with the inevitability that communal care will fail—like we will fail each other, because we can never fully close all of the gaps in such an exploitative society. However, Hedva’s magic is in asking what if we weren’t hiding from that, but we kept trying to support each other, anyhow? In Love in a Fucked-Up World, Dean Spade offers the relational tools to keep trying through this failure: how we can become more comfortable with feedback, consent, and honesty—all essential tools for getting to stronger relationships. In the Gentleness and Rigor Assessment chapter, he constantly repeats a therapeutic refrain—you are what you practice. This is incredibly hopeful, because it means that if we continue to practice different relational behavior, we actually can support each other!
Finally, some help for my conflict patterns
Sometime in the introduction, Spade says that this is a book for people who
Reader, I was SEATED after that—I have been in this exact position in so many instances. I found lots of conflict resolution advice in this small book, partially because Spade rejects easy binaries of avoidant and anxious personalities, instead showing how people can embody both of these patterns, and need to overcome them both to resolve and de-escalate conflict in their relationships. In general, this book is all about avoiding the “extremes” of romance myths, and unlearning patterns of scarcity, disposability, and perfectionism in the process. Another quote that shows what he means about the need to stop living in one relational extreme or another:
This is so true, but Spade affirms that things don’t have to be this way. We can start practicing feedback step by step (Chapter 2), so we become more skilled at receiving input about how we need to change, without either denying that feedback or scapegoating ourselves in response. Chapter 3 shows that we can identify where our conflict responses come from, and then work on resolving them. Many times, when we experience conflict, we are replaying or rejecting the forms of behavior that we saw with our parents or caregivers.
This immediately clicked something in my brain: in more than a few relational contexts, I begin my connection to others attempting to show “hey look, I can be a helpful good boy and save the overworked lady who reminds me of my mom and meet the impossible demands of both of my parents.” If I instead started relationships in a more sustainable manner, while I might not get the exhilarating rush of initial praise, I also wouldn’t feel overwhelmed with the role I’ve been slotted into a few months down the road. Similarly, if I keep working on receiving feedback from those I love, I won’t be so impacted by feedback from others in the future (even when those people truly are being overly critical or controlling.) Like this is so hopeful!!!!
My absolute favorite piece of advice came in Chapter 4, and it was all about this concept of sore spots. For a while in my life, I’ve become resigned to my pathological demand avoidance—assuming that my discomfort at long lists of requests will never get easier, and I can never receive help with addressing this discomfort. Spade’s framing of sore spots offers a more hopeful option: what if we could actually identify the items that we have intense responses to, and start creating strategies to ease our reactions? We could interrogate and deeply understand these sore spots, so we can communicate them to others and navigate them on our own accord. We could begin experiencing these strong feelings without blaming ourselves for being too sensitive, or blaming others for setting off landmines they weren’t even aware of. Finally, we could reorient our experience of these feelings so we aren’t just trapped inside them, making permanent, regrettable decisions based on feelings that will dissipate.
Final thoughts
Love in a Fucked-Up World is easy to get through, but also packs a heavy punch. Dean Spade is a pleasant audiobook reader, but I think it would also be helpful to do a physical read of this. There are many workbook-type components within this book (pendulum illustrations, assessments, and exercises) that would be helpful to see in print. I am planning to do a physical reread with a friend in the summer, and I think this will be an incredible trust-building/bonding exercise. (June 2025 update: I reread this with a friend and a larger group through a chapter-by-chapter virtual book club!! Couldn’t recommend the close read with like minds enough.)
I am taking a star off, as I do think there are some limitations here. Spade is often too ambitious about friendships, as if they can’t fall into the same hierarchical traps as romantic relationships. Especially in modern queer circles, I see many people equating community with cliques…when are we going to be honest about that?!? I also felt like Spade was overly focused on people in serial short-term relationships, who keep experiencing the crash-and-burn romance cycles over and over again. This isn’t the only sort of relational problem, and I wanted a bit more complexity.
Finally, this book is mostly speaking to the romantic experiences of allosexual people. There are so many areas where I just wanted Spade to make one further leap over to the incredible thinking that many asexual people have been doing for DECADES on how amatonormativity (similar to their concept of the romance myth) fucks us all! One book can’t be everything, so it’s fine that he didn’t get to it here. But, if you’re interested in more about this, here are some recommendations that match the easygoing and easy-to-digest tone of this book: Sherronda J Brown’s work is incredibly relevant here, and I’d recommend their 2022 essay as a straightforward place to start. You can also never go wrong with Angela Chen’s Ace as a primer. Her explanations of how amatonormativity shows up in everything will expand Spade’s argument, and Ace also provides more promising alternatives to typical/hegemonic romantic relationships (such as queer platonic partnership.)
The blurbs are accurate, though—readers will learn a lot about what Dean Spade calls the romance myth, and many asexual authors talk about in terms of amatonormativity. (FWIW, this book would’ve been improved if the author had engaged more ace thinkers—more on that in my final thoughts.) This myth, as you might imagine, guides many of the relationships within our society. The myth has contributed to a reality where love is the number one goal in most people’s lives, in part because of the perception that romantic love can meet all our social needs.
Spade notes that the romance myth is also a response to the dire economic and public health crises. People are often seeking out romance because they can’t afford to live without roommates, and want someone who will stick around when there are arguments about the dishes. People are increasingly disabled, and struggling to assemble care networks for their disabled loved ones. So, many people are seeking out romance not just for the fun times, but so they have a committed partner to help with in-home care after their parents get COVID for the 5th time!!! While Spade does have some amount of compassion for these realities, he astutely notes that a single (or even multiple) romantic partners will not be the way to resolve them (“we’re taught to find a partner to fill the chasm created by these impossible conditions.”)
Like Ari Lennox said, we need PEOPLE
Contrary to the romance myth, Spade offers that what *might* actually sustain us is creating deeper friendships and relationships to other people in our community. Chapter 6 has the best language on this, noting that we need to practice emotional and relational promiscuity, and deprioritize exclusivity as the main marker of affection or love (after all, if we’re trying to hoard love or care, this can by definition leave others out.) While I’ll continue to struggle with the latter part of Chapter 6’s advice, the former part reminded me of The Care Manifesto’s discussion of the need for promiscuous care. In that area, I fully agree with Spade!
Earlier in the book (Chapters 2 and 3), Spade discusses how we don’t just need to love more people—we need to love them in more sustainable ways than we commonly do in the crash-and-burn romance cycle. He notes that many times, we seek out unrealistic highs in romance to escape our realities. We often try to numb ourselves from terrible things in the world through unbalanced behavior, including obsessive quests for romance. I appreciated that Spade discussed this unbalanced behavior without falling into punitive addiction tropes, instead noting that they don’t define addiction for others. The ultimate lesson? We need to become more acquainted with strong feelings of grief and despair about the state of the world, and we need to resist numbness to fully achieve more meaningful, sustained, positive relationships (instead of temporary highs.)
Like Johanna Hedva said, we can keep working to care for each other
Earlier this week, I attended a book club for Johanna Hedva’s essay collection, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom. During the discussion, several people noted that Johanna Hedva actually provides a hopeful picture of the many opportunities we have to fail at caring for others, pick ourselves and them up, and try again. Spade is similarly oriented—he does not think that our desire for relational promiscuity will result in perfect interactions. Rather, we can get ever closer to our values *through* our relational behavior:
“We can cultivate our relationships as laboratories where we study, experiment, and practice learning about ourselves…To build new social relations based on mutuality, care, collectivity, and generosity, and we need to practice new things, all the time, with all the people around us. We need to practice radical emotional and relational promiscuity so that we can survive and resist together.”
Read together, I think these books are really helpful. In essays like “Soft Until It Gets Hard”, Hedva is grappling with the inevitability that communal care will fail—like we will fail each other, because we can never fully close all of the gaps in such an exploitative society. However, Hedva’s magic is in asking what if we weren’t hiding from that, but we kept trying to support each other, anyhow? In Love in a Fucked-Up World, Dean Spade offers the relational tools to keep trying through this failure: how we can become more comfortable with feedback, consent, and honesty—all essential tools for getting to stronger relationships. In the Gentleness and Rigor Assessment chapter, he constantly repeats a therapeutic refrain—you are what you practice. This is incredibly hopeful, because it means that if we continue to practice different relational behavior, we actually can support each other!
Finally, some help for my conflict patterns
Sometime in the introduction, Spade says that this is a book for people who
“often think, ‘I hate people.’ You believe in compassion, connection and collective action in the abstract, but are tired of how annoying people are. You are wary of constant conflict in activist groups, and feel hopeless about joining new efforts, even though you want to be part of collective action for change.”
Reader, I was SEATED after that—I have been in this exact position in so many instances. I found lots of conflict resolution advice in this small book, partially because Spade rejects easy binaries of avoidant and anxious personalities, instead showing how people can embody both of these patterns, and need to overcome them both to resolve and de-escalate conflict in their relationships. In general, this book is all about avoiding the “extremes” of romance myths, and unlearning patterns of scarcity, disposability, and perfectionism in the process. Another quote that shows what he means about the need to stop living in one relational extreme or another:
“In disposability culture. We don’t get to have right-sized experiences of being hurt or finding out that we are causing others pain. Instead we oscillate between denying bad things are happening and creating a scapegoat to punish.”
This is so true, but Spade affirms that things don’t have to be this way. We can start practicing feedback step by step (Chapter 2), so we become more skilled at receiving input about how we need to change, without either denying that feedback or scapegoating ourselves in response. Chapter 3 shows that we can identify where our conflict responses come from, and then work on resolving them. Many times, when we experience conflict, we are replaying or rejecting the forms of behavior that we saw with our parents or caregivers.
This immediately clicked something in my brain: in more than a few relational contexts, I begin my connection to others attempting to show “hey look, I can be a helpful good boy and save the overworked lady who reminds me of my mom and meet the impossible demands of both of my parents.” If I instead started relationships in a more sustainable manner, while I might not get the exhilarating rush of initial praise, I also wouldn’t feel overwhelmed with the role I’ve been slotted into a few months down the road. Similarly, if I keep working on receiving feedback from those I love, I won’t be so impacted by feedback from others in the future (even when those people truly are being overly critical or controlling.) Like this is so hopeful!!!!
My absolute favorite piece of advice came in Chapter 4, and it was all about this concept of sore spots. For a while in my life, I’ve become resigned to my pathological demand avoidance—assuming that my discomfort at long lists of requests will never get easier, and I can never receive help with addressing this discomfort. Spade’s framing of sore spots offers a more hopeful option: what if we could actually identify the items that we have intense responses to, and start creating strategies to ease our reactions? We could interrogate and deeply understand these sore spots, so we can communicate them to others and navigate them on our own accord. We could begin experiencing these strong feelings without blaming ourselves for being too sensitive, or blaming others for setting off landmines they weren’t even aware of. Finally, we could reorient our experience of these feelings so we aren’t just trapped inside them, making permanent, regrettable decisions based on feelings that will dissipate.
Final thoughts
Love in a Fucked-Up World is easy to get through, but also packs a heavy punch. Dean Spade is a pleasant audiobook reader, but I think it would also be helpful to do a physical read of this. There are many workbook-type components within this book (pendulum illustrations, assessments, and exercises) that would be helpful to see in print. I am planning to do a physical reread with a friend in the summer, and I think this will be an incredible trust-building/bonding exercise. (June 2025 update: I reread this with a friend and a larger group through a chapter-by-chapter virtual book club!! Couldn’t recommend the close read with like minds enough.)
I am taking a star off, as I do think there are some limitations here. Spade is often too ambitious about friendships, as if they can’t fall into the same hierarchical traps as romantic relationships. Especially in modern queer circles, I see many people equating community with cliques…when are we going to be honest about that?!? I also felt like Spade was overly focused on people in serial short-term relationships, who keep experiencing the crash-and-burn romance cycles over and over again. This isn’t the only sort of relational problem, and I wanted a bit more complexity.
Finally, this book is mostly speaking to the romantic experiences of allosexual people. There are so many areas where I just wanted Spade to make one further leap over to the incredible thinking that many asexual people have been doing for DECADES on how amatonormativity (similar to their concept of the romance myth) fucks us all! One book can’t be everything, so it’s fine that he didn’t get to it here. But, if you’re interested in more about this, here are some recommendations that match the easygoing and easy-to-digest tone of this book: Sherronda J Brown’s work is incredibly relevant here, and I’d recommend their 2022 essay as a straightforward place to start. You can also never go wrong with Angela Chen’s Ace as a primer. Her explanations of how amatonormativity shows up in everything will expand Spade’s argument, and Ace also provides more promising alternatives to typical/hegemonic romantic relationships (such as queer platonic partnership.)
February 9, 2025
With much respect to Dean Spade who is so smart and well-spoken, I am not persuaded by the polyamory-industrial complex / I do not think he and I are gonna reach an agreement on that. That said! I don’t think this worked as a book about radical politics and organizing— it just felt like an afterthought or recurring aside to me, when it seems like that was intended to be a big part of the book’s thesis? But I do think it’s a surprisingly insightful and non-corny book about healthy dating and partnership. If I take anything away from it it’s the idea that everyone should be more socially promiscuous, as in cultivate a rich variety of supportive platonic relationships instead of relying solely upon your romantic relationship for fulfillment, which is such a no-brainer when you see it written down but still feels novel and oddly sweet to me. Bros (gender neutral) before hoes (also gender neutral). I like it thank you Dean.
March 27, 2025
As a concept, I really like this book. I was hopeful Dean Spade would take a hard look at how dominant systems (patriarchy, capitalism, white supremacy) shape our interpersonal relationships, and in some ways, he does. The parts that resonated most were his critiques of these systems. He makes a convincing case for how capitalism conditions us to treat people like commodities (what can I get from you, can I trade up, how can I use the relationship as a means to an end, etc.). I loved his reminder that we can love people simply for who they are, not what they offer. I also loved that he challenged the idea that relationships must escalate to be meaningful!!!
He advocates pretty heavily for non-monogamy and argues we can’t expect everything from one person. I actually liked the thought exercise of evaluating why I value monogamy. I agree that we shouldn’t expect one person to serve our every need, but the book felt unbalanced. It’s okay to want monogamy (sorry) and the security it brings. That doesn’t automatically mean you’re trying to “own” someone. He also paints jealousy as a purely negative emotion rooted in ownership, which I don’t entirely agree with. Jealousy can be a useful signal that something deeper is off and worth evaluating (like for example, maybe you aren’t meant to be in a non-monogamous relationship)
My main issue is that this is basically a self-help book, and Dean Spade isn’t a relationship therapist. That’s on me for not doing more research, but in my humble opinion, we really don’t need another relationship self-help book, especially one that’s mostly based on anecdotal experience :/ The book's strongest parts are where Spade leans into what he knows best, analyzing how oppressive systems shape our relationships.
He advocates pretty heavily for non-monogamy and argues we can’t expect everything from one person. I actually liked the thought exercise of evaluating why I value monogamy. I agree that we shouldn’t expect one person to serve our every need, but the book felt unbalanced. It’s okay to want monogamy (sorry) and the security it brings. That doesn’t automatically mean you’re trying to “own” someone. He also paints jealousy as a purely negative emotion rooted in ownership, which I don’t entirely agree with. Jealousy can be a useful signal that something deeper is off and worth evaluating (like for example, maybe you aren’t meant to be in a non-monogamous relationship)
My main issue is that this is basically a self-help book, and Dean Spade isn’t a relationship therapist. That’s on me for not doing more research, but in my humble opinion, we really don’t need another relationship self-help book, especially one that’s mostly based on anecdotal experience :/ The book's strongest parts are where Spade leans into what he knows best, analyzing how oppressive systems shape our relationships.
March 17, 2025
I’m a massive fan of Dean Spade’s work, but unfortunately this was too much in my wheelhouse for me to enjoy it. I found myself taking issue with many of the points made throughout the book, particularly those that are not cited nor evidence-based. Spade is most effective when speaking from experience, but unfortunately he delves too deeply into the world of mental health and therapy for this to be an enjoyable read for me as someone who spends a great deal of time researching and applying these concepts in theory and in practice.
November 6, 2024
I devoured this book! Dean Spade's work is powerful, clear and accessible. This book is full of cultural critique, storytelling, prompts for reflection, hard-hitting truths and hopeful steps we can take to improve our relationships. This is such a necessary topic, and Spade nailed it!
Thank you to Algonquin Books for the advanced reader!
Thank you to Algonquin Books for the advanced reader!
November 11, 2024
Thank you to the publisher for putting the free copies up this week, I really needed this book this week.
November 16, 2024
As a wounded activist and healer, there's really no question that even my most effective activism is influenced by how I build relationships and the remnants of my past experience.
So, I decided to dive in to Dean Spade's "Love in a F*cked-Up World" with a little anxiety, a little trepidation, and also a little "Is this really for me?" given I'm older and less interested in the idea of "relationships" these days.
"Love in a F*ucked-Up World" was for me and is for anyone who wants to make the world a better place but would benefit from a reminder that "being the change" also applies on the homefront.
Spade is associate professor of law at Seattle University School of Law, a lifelong activist and educator who also penned "Mutual Aid" and "Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law."
Here, Spade challenges us to be the change we want to see in the world - not just out in the world but also in our closest connections.
I've often wondered if my woundedness hasn't had a strong impact on my own activism, my sometimes (okay, frequent) awkward relational skills inconsistent with my own personal politics of liberation, resistance, and equity. Spade leans into this beautifully and fuels one's decision that, in fact, our interpersonal actions can't be separated from our politics and/or activism. Spade asserts that many activist projects and resistance groups fall apart because of this - people treat each other poorly, intentionally and unintentionally living out cultural myths that we are fed about dating, relationships, and roles.
Spade dares to ask "How do we divest from the idea that one romantic partner will be the solution to all our problems?" How do we bring our best selves and our best thinking about freedom and justice into our desires for healing and connection?"
Spade has some thoughts about it and they are remarkable, challenging, bold, and yet also clear, concise, and actionable. Spade weaves together a tapestry of storytelling, truth-telling, actionable steps, and social insight into a collection that is refreshingly bold, clear, and empowering.
For those willing to really change the world and vulnerably willing to look internally, Spade has crafted the ultimate guide to raising hell and building healthier relationships for who we are, who we want to be, and the world we want to live in.
So, I decided to dive in to Dean Spade's "Love in a F*cked-Up World" with a little anxiety, a little trepidation, and also a little "Is this really for me?" given I'm older and less interested in the idea of "relationships" these days.
"Love in a F*ucked-Up World" was for me and is for anyone who wants to make the world a better place but would benefit from a reminder that "being the change" also applies on the homefront.
Spade is associate professor of law at Seattle University School of Law, a lifelong activist and educator who also penned "Mutual Aid" and "Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law."
Here, Spade challenges us to be the change we want to see in the world - not just out in the world but also in our closest connections.
I've often wondered if my woundedness hasn't had a strong impact on my own activism, my sometimes (okay, frequent) awkward relational skills inconsistent with my own personal politics of liberation, resistance, and equity. Spade leans into this beautifully and fuels one's decision that, in fact, our interpersonal actions can't be separated from our politics and/or activism. Spade asserts that many activist projects and resistance groups fall apart because of this - people treat each other poorly, intentionally and unintentionally living out cultural myths that we are fed about dating, relationships, and roles.
Spade dares to ask "How do we divest from the idea that one romantic partner will be the solution to all our problems?" How do we bring our best selves and our best thinking about freedom and justice into our desires for healing and connection?"
Spade has some thoughts about it and they are remarkable, challenging, bold, and yet also clear, concise, and actionable. Spade weaves together a tapestry of storytelling, truth-telling, actionable steps, and social insight into a collection that is refreshingly bold, clear, and empowering.
For those willing to really change the world and vulnerably willing to look internally, Spade has crafted the ultimate guide to raising hell and building healthier relationships for who we are, who we want to be, and the world we want to live in.
March 24, 2025
creo que todo el mundo puede sacar algo de aquí. me gusta muchísimo el punto de vista desde el que está escrito.
no sé si me parece de cinco estrellas o no, pero sé que voy a pensar en muchas cosas que he leído durante bastante tiempo. es bastante posible que vuelva a ciertos capítulos también
no sé si me parece de cinco estrellas o no, pero sé que voy a pensar en muchas cosas que he leído durante bastante tiempo. es bastante posible que vuelva a ciertos capítulos también
September 13, 2025
i am embarrassed that i too read this book . i got my heart broke 3 days ago . one of the chapter epitaphs was a quote from the person who broke it. that’s what i deserve ! but it’s good to just sometimes return to a macrobiotic diet of good ol radical truths about vibes and love . i do think it is near neoliberal however to ignore just the reality of negative psychic affects / a belief that needs can be clearly identified and communicated because language can do it all . that being said uh.. one time when i was 19 i took a generative somatic workshop that dean was also in, and i was one of only 2 people out of 30 that never cried publically during the weekend and at the end everyone sat in a circle and told me how that felt for them. also at the time his boyfriend was my therapist ! end of report !
March 30, 2025
Meh. This book is disappointing. It feels rushed (there are weird typos and spacing issues) and lacking in depth. It feels like a book of social media posts. It could also be that it’s not written for me, so maybe others will appreciate it more. I feel like the intended audience is likely about 20 years younger than me and not ACE-identifying. I’ll stick with Kaba and brown for my love in community learning.
April 15, 2025
so refreshing to read a queer, radical self-help book!! also loved the emphasis on friendships 🫂
August 10, 2025
I don’t think I am as radical as the target audience of this book but I appreciated a really sincere and earnest attempt to make the self help book accessible to people who aren’t in traditional relationships. I did find kernels of wisdom for my life, with respect to jealousy and sometimes mindless escalation of intimate relationships without a true desire to do so. For that wisdom, I am grateful.
The thing I didn’t like about this book, is how much time I felt it spent on virtue signaling and sociopolitical platitudes that have at best tangential relevance to the subject matter. I do agree with the fact that it is important to carry out the same values in our intimate relationships that we carry out in our careers and efforts to shape the world and to that end, and I liked the quotes at the beginning of the chapters, but that was enough. We didn’t need 1/3 of the text to be virtue signaling.
The thing I didn’t like about this book, is how much time I felt it spent on virtue signaling and sociopolitical platitudes that have at best tangential relevance to the subject matter. I do agree with the fact that it is important to carry out the same values in our intimate relationships that we carry out in our careers and efforts to shape the world and to that end, and I liked the quotes at the beginning of the chapters, but that was enough. We didn’t need 1/3 of the text to be virtue signaling.
Read
February 26, 2025Review forthcoming!
May 7, 2025
Pretty sensible stuff about why (ecological crisis, gutted institutions and supports, etc.) and how we might be more compassionate and intentional in our lives and relationships. If you are considering helping yourself, I would recommend self-helping with this one.
July 4, 2025
thank god this is finally over LOL finished on the very last day of my hold.. im sure this was just trying to be accessible and interactive but it felt so patronizing and oversimplified at times. personally i dont need hypothetical characters to understand a concept thats just me though
June 19, 2025
sooo many ppl need to read this book
Read
November 10, 2025spade is often making claims through a framing that's like "we live in a society," which makes for a rly annoying read, and i didn't always agree w some of the claims. however i have been open to accepting wisdom in my life from everywhere <3 there were some sections that i have found myself thinking about a lot and have even come back to a few times this week, i also liked the little vignettes. overall feeling appreciative towards this book
January 17, 2026
what are we if not our relationships (of all kinds)? so why not study how we can do better. especially when doing better means stronger communities of resistance and organizing.
i liked how concrete this book was with lots of things that can be implemented without trying to magically be a different person. he is great at unpacking the societal scripts about relationships that i don’t think is easily found in this genre.
i liked how concrete this book was with lots of things that can be implemented without trying to magically be a different person. he is great at unpacking the societal scripts about relationships that i don’t think is easily found in this genre.
February 5, 2025
Wish I could give 4.5 stars. I really loved this and feel that so many people I know should read this (including myself in that group). Dean gives a really well-rounded analysis of relationships without using hierarchy based on romance or sex, and more importantly stacks the “romance myth” against common types of conflict in relationships without using hierarchy ourselves and others. This book actually isn’t revealing anything crazy about how we love and relate to others, but the perspective that Dean brings (one of accountability, care, resistance, radical love, etc etc etc) makes all the old self-help bullshit feel new again, and less binary.
I did feel like it was repetitive at many points, but most self-help books are. I liked the question prompts and the accessibility of it all.
I did feel like it was repetitive at many points, but most self-help books are. I liked the question prompts and the accessibility of it all.
July 20, 2025
Chulísimo! Leerlo es cómo hablar de tus problemas con un amigo. Me parece un libro que tener en la estantería para momentos de necesitar claridad.
January 20, 2025
I listened to the audiobook which is narrated by the author and I thought he did a great job. The audiobook also has a PDF available to download so I can see the worksheets and select tables & graphics! (I got the audiobook via libro.fm; go to "library", click "download files" then "PDF extra". I'm not sure how you get it if you are listening to the audiobook via other sources)
There's a lot of great stuff in here. I liked the mix of information from different professionals, personal stories, and made-up couples/scenarios to better illustrate a point. I can't really articulate at the moment why it wasn't a full 5 star read for me, it just wasn't.
There's a lot of great stuff in here. I liked the mix of information from different professionals, personal stories, and made-up couples/scenarios to better illustrate a point. I can't really articulate at the moment why it wasn't a full 5 star read for me, it just wasn't.
April 15, 2025
My man.
March 21, 2025
Ah. This one, everyone in portland is reading, maybe a bit too surface level. A friend said, "reading this, I kept saying to myself, 'yes, I know this already.'" Would have been very valuable for me to read in high school. Admittedly, chapters 4, 5, 6 were useful in how to break out of autopilot patterns. Challenging the romance myth. You can get what you need out of this book by just reading the conclusion. I recommend sticking to just this instead.
May 26, 2025
I was a bit skeptical about whether I would be read to filth by dean fucking spade because I do not hook up or date but of course I ended up being read to filth. The seven steps of deescalating a crush I will remember this for the rest of my life who knew it was self sabotaging and destructive (me).
Read
November 4, 2025A friend mentioned they were reading this and found it impactful, so I picked it up over the weekend. I can’t say I share their sentiment, but I did enjoy the familiar comfort of poly and queer discourse. It has been ten or fifteen years since I last read anything like this, and it reminded me of an earlier version of myself. Now that I’m married—something that would have been inconceivable to me at twenty-five—I recognize the roots of this type of messaging in how I navigate relationships, both romantic and otherwise.
Pros
– Centers queer experience and identifies dominant culture as a source of harm, violence, isolation, and mixed messaging that undermines other ways of being in relationships.
– Provides resources and emphasizes the ongoing work of learning about our patterns in relationships.
– Consistently challenges the cultural superiority of romantic relationships over other forms of connection.
Cons
– Spade critiques marriage and its ties to capitalism and state power but doesn’t offer an alternative model of commitment that provides the same kind of safety or stability.
– The relationships he celebrates—friendship, polyamory, and radical promiscuity—resonate his political leanings and are easy to align with ideologically, but don’t address the practical realities of things like healthcare access, immigration, legal and/or financial security.
– The book gestures toward liberation from dominant structures but stops short of imagining how those alternative relationships might function within (or against) the systems that define our material lives.
Pros
– Centers queer experience and identifies dominant culture as a source of harm, violence, isolation, and mixed messaging that undermines other ways of being in relationships.
– Provides resources and emphasizes the ongoing work of learning about our patterns in relationships.
– Consistently challenges the cultural superiority of romantic relationships over other forms of connection.
Cons
– Spade critiques marriage and its ties to capitalism and state power but doesn’t offer an alternative model of commitment that provides the same kind of safety or stability.
– The relationships he celebrates—friendship, polyamory, and radical promiscuity—resonate his political leanings and are easy to align with ideologically, but don’t address the practical realities of things like healthcare access, immigration, legal and/or financial security.
– The book gestures toward liberation from dominant structures but stops short of imagining how those alternative relationships might function within (or against) the systems that define our material lives.
October 5, 2025
I don't typically love books in the self-help genre because of the ways they usually overgeneralize human behavior, but Love in a F*cked-Up World is pretty self-aware as far as self-help books go. The concepts that it raises are meant more as jumping-off points for self-reflection, and I've found its frameworks quite helpful in thinking about the relationships in my life. The main lessons I'll take away from this book are: (1) we are conditioned to believe that romance with one person will solve all of our emotional needs, but in reality we each rely on a network of relationships, romantic and otherwise, to meet our emotional needs and no one person can reasonably stand in for that, (2) controlling other people's connections is not a valid emotional need, (3) imbalances in relationships can often be traced back to conditioned fear responses (fear of abandonment or fear of engulfment) that we can identify, acknowledge, and work through with communication and awareness, (4) many of the difficulties in relationship dynamics are not a result of personal failings, but rather are the result of cultural conditioning which can be traced back to the scarcity, surveillance, and punishment inherent to racial capitalism.
January 26, 2025
Dean Spade'i Mutual Aid kitabından beri takip ediyorum. Bu kitaba da çıktığı gibi bakayım dedim. Updating izler gibi, Ultimatom South Africa izler gibi okudum kitabı. Bana bakmayın o yüzden.
Nasıl oluyor da evrimsel biyolojiye bir cümle bile yer vermiyor ona şaşırıyorum. Hele ki sarkaç mantığında kitabı kurgularken.
Caleb Luna'nın Romantic Love is Killing Us'ına benzettim. Buradan çıkıp bakım için nasıl da tek kaynağımız romantik ilişkiler acaba burada farklı bakım ilişkilenmeleri mi oluştursak sorusu çok iyi.
Nasıl oluyor da evrimsel biyolojiye bir cümle bile yer vermiyor ona şaşırıyorum. Hele ki sarkaç mantığında kitabı kurgularken.
Caleb Luna'nın Romantic Love is Killing Us'ına benzettim. Buradan çıkıp bakım için nasıl da tek kaynağımız romantik ilişkiler acaba burada farklı bakım ilişkilenmeleri mi oluştursak sorusu çok iyi.
October 25, 2025
I bought this because I enjoyed Spade’s short book on Mutual Aid and there was a fundraiser at the anarchist bookstore. I didn’t really understand that I was buying a self-help book, and the only other tike I (again accidentally) picked up a self help book on romantic relationships, it was bell hooks’ All About Love, truly one of the worst reading experiences I’ve ever had. This was a much better read, but I definitely would not have bought it if I understood what it was.
As in Mutual Aid, I thought Spade was one of the most palatable anarchist writers I’ve found. Smart, thoughtful, mostly measured, consistently insightful. Even when I don’t fully agree with him, I feel like the reading is worth my time. Generally, my feelings were the same about LIAFUW, though I’m a lot more interested in what a book has to teach me about organizing than about relationships.
Spade is basically talking us through the ups and downs of love and sex, but from an anarchist perspective that doesn’t treat monogamy or heterosexuality as norms. Dope. Spade is openly critical of “the romance myth” that tells us that love and dating should look a certain way, follow a certain trajectory toward marriage, that romantic relationships are more important than other relationships in our lives, etc. We have internalized certain cultural scripts and family models and societal norms, taught to believe that these are somehow natural or moral or right, and this internalization is an ongoing source of frustration and harm.
If you’ve got experience with poly relationships or if you listen to Dan Savage, a lot of this will not be at all new or radical to you. Every few pages in LIAFUW features a really brief vignette of a relationship scenario to illustrate the point of the section. These can be really didactic and contrived. They literally are contrived for didactic purposes, but they also feel didactic and contrived in the sense that they sometimes feel childish and inauthentic. I feel like most mature readers would be better off just jumping into the call-in section of Dan Savage’s podcast for much more authentic examples that engage with the complexity and messiness of real life. Still, I like Spade’s approach, and the connections that he makes between some of these ideas and other radical thought.
The one thing that most drives me a little crazy about this and most other anarchist lit is that it is obsessed with oppressive systems (this part is good and necessary) but rather than actually engaging with the levers and mechanisms of how these systems work in our lives, how the systems are constituted by the people, businesses, governments, etc., Spade consistently anthropomorphizes these systems into willful, malevolent actors. Power structures want you dead. Capitalism wants you numb. Consumerism is trying to cut off your fingers. Jesus Christ. To do this occasionally for rhetorical effect is fine, but this is a book literally about the pervasive effects of these systems but also refuses to engage with them in real, practical terms.
Spade’s advice all seems to be grounded in solid principles and a genuine intention to be kind and helpful and forgiving to those around us. Importantly, this is not a research-based psychology or sociology text. Spade is making a lot of claims about how society works, what makes people tick, how we can change—these are theoretical and empirical claims that we really should rely on research to determine their truth and effectiveness. That said, for the most part I think Spade is right. Even if he is not citing research after every claim, he is clearly well read on the subjects he’s discussing.
There is a really heavy, repeated emphasis on the idea that the way we behave in relationships is formed by how we were parented. Freud is never mentioned, but a lot of Spade’s perspective feels heavily informed by psychoanalysis. I am certain that there is some truth to this, but I don’t know if it has quite as much explanatory power as Spade accords it, and I’m surprised at how much of the book is focused on this. I certainly didn’t need example after example after example after example illustrating this straightforward idea. At the same time, I might not be the target audience for this book, and perhaps this was helpful to someone else. I wondered a lot while reading this whether Spade is assuming a younger reader with limited adult relationship experiences. I feel like a more total and accurate explanation of how we react in our current relationships is that it’s informed by our previous experience in interpersonal relationships, not just parenting. If you’re 20, then maybe most of that was your immediate family. If you’re 40, I would say that there are a whole lot more influences than your parents affecting your models, scripts, reactions, etc.
The final chapter, Revolutionary Promiscuity, is by far the most interesting and kind of what I had hoped would be the theme of the entire book. One of the stances that I most respect in Spade’s writing is that no relationship type [monogamy, polyamory, relationship anarchism] is superior to or more natural than any other. This is not how many anarchists translate their beliefs into relationship dynamics, but it’s a great and totally consistent interpretation.
Overall, this probably wasn’t the book for me, but I’m glad that Spade wrote it, and I hope more people read it. I do think there is likely a large population out there for whom this advice is appropriately calibrated, but it wasn’t for me.
As in Mutual Aid, I thought Spade was one of the most palatable anarchist writers I’ve found. Smart, thoughtful, mostly measured, consistently insightful. Even when I don’t fully agree with him, I feel like the reading is worth my time. Generally, my feelings were the same about LIAFUW, though I’m a lot more interested in what a book has to teach me about organizing than about relationships.
Spade is basically talking us through the ups and downs of love and sex, but from an anarchist perspective that doesn’t treat monogamy or heterosexuality as norms. Dope. Spade is openly critical of “the romance myth” that tells us that love and dating should look a certain way, follow a certain trajectory toward marriage, that romantic relationships are more important than other relationships in our lives, etc. We have internalized certain cultural scripts and family models and societal norms, taught to believe that these are somehow natural or moral or right, and this internalization is an ongoing source of frustration and harm.
If you’ve got experience with poly relationships or if you listen to Dan Savage, a lot of this will not be at all new or radical to you. Every few pages in LIAFUW features a really brief vignette of a relationship scenario to illustrate the point of the section. These can be really didactic and contrived. They literally are contrived for didactic purposes, but they also feel didactic and contrived in the sense that they sometimes feel childish and inauthentic. I feel like most mature readers would be better off just jumping into the call-in section of Dan Savage’s podcast for much more authentic examples that engage with the complexity and messiness of real life. Still, I like Spade’s approach, and the connections that he makes between some of these ideas and other radical thought.
The one thing that most drives me a little crazy about this and most other anarchist lit is that it is obsessed with oppressive systems (this part is good and necessary) but rather than actually engaging with the levers and mechanisms of how these systems work in our lives, how the systems are constituted by the people, businesses, governments, etc., Spade consistently anthropomorphizes these systems into willful, malevolent actors. Power structures want you dead. Capitalism wants you numb. Consumerism is trying to cut off your fingers. Jesus Christ. To do this occasionally for rhetorical effect is fine, but this is a book literally about the pervasive effects of these systems but also refuses to engage with them in real, practical terms.
Spade’s advice all seems to be grounded in solid principles and a genuine intention to be kind and helpful and forgiving to those around us. Importantly, this is not a research-based psychology or sociology text. Spade is making a lot of claims about how society works, what makes people tick, how we can change—these are theoretical and empirical claims that we really should rely on research to determine their truth and effectiveness. That said, for the most part I think Spade is right. Even if he is not citing research after every claim, he is clearly well read on the subjects he’s discussing.
There is a really heavy, repeated emphasis on the idea that the way we behave in relationships is formed by how we were parented. Freud is never mentioned, but a lot of Spade’s perspective feels heavily informed by psychoanalysis. I am certain that there is some truth to this, but I don’t know if it has quite as much explanatory power as Spade accords it, and I’m surprised at how much of the book is focused on this. I certainly didn’t need example after example after example after example illustrating this straightforward idea. At the same time, I might not be the target audience for this book, and perhaps this was helpful to someone else. I wondered a lot while reading this whether Spade is assuming a younger reader with limited adult relationship experiences. I feel like a more total and accurate explanation of how we react in our current relationships is that it’s informed by our previous experience in interpersonal relationships, not just parenting. If you’re 20, then maybe most of that was your immediate family. If you’re 40, I would say that there are a whole lot more influences than your parents affecting your models, scripts, reactions, etc.
The final chapter, Revolutionary Promiscuity, is by far the most interesting and kind of what I had hoped would be the theme of the entire book. One of the stances that I most respect in Spade’s writing is that no relationship type [monogamy, polyamory, relationship anarchism] is superior to or more natural than any other. This is not how many anarchists translate their beliefs into relationship dynamics, but it’s a great and totally consistent interpretation.
Overall, this probably wasn’t the book for me, but I’m glad that Spade wrote it, and I hope more people read it. I do think there is likely a large population out there for whom this advice is appropriately calibrated, but it wasn’t for me.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 246 reviews