Boundaries, limits, needs, desires, and wants: seeking interdependence
I hold a core life commitment to live without domination or coercion. This means I strive in all my relationships to build from a foundation of mutual consent… and ideally to orient toward desire (a higher and in my view more enticing threshold than consent).
For adults socialized under systems of oppression that depend on domination hierarchies (white supremacy, patriarchy, colonialism, capitalism, etc.) this is incredibly difficult. It requires both unlearning harmful patterns and relearning healthy ones.
The two domains of practice I find most exciting in this exploration seem at first glance very different: the world of parenting, and the world of ethical non-monogamy (ENM). Both spheres use a similar lexicon: needs, desires, wants, boundaries, limits, rules, agreements. And both require lots of capacity to effectively navigate without inadvertently reverting into familiar patterns of coercion and domination.
I want to write today to unpack these terms, because I think they’re hugely important to our ability to lead the liberated lives we long for. Language structures our perceptions and therefore our reality: conceptual clarity can help us move in the direction of our longings. This post is inspired in part by this recent episode from the folks at Multiamory: I usually love their podcast and have found it incredibly helpful, but this episode left me wanting more clarity and direction about these important concepts.
Limits vs Boundaries
I actually think we’re coming to a general consensus on this, but I still see the terms too frequently confused/conflated. My favorite work here comes from the parenting space, and specifically the neat distillation Jen Lumanlan does in this interview with Xavier Dagba. She explains the distinction:
Limit: A limit is something that’s externally facing; something you’re asking someone else to do or not do.
Boundary: A boundary is something that’s internally facing; something you most often don’t want to do, or how much you are willing to do until you can’t/won’t go any further.
I’ve unpacked the concept of boundaries more fully in this newsletter post and won’t get more into it here. The relevant point for the purposes of today’s post is that a boundary is about defining your domain of self-sovereignty: it provides guidance to others on how to engage with you, and is entirely within your control. It defines your zone of willingness: what you are willing to allow others access to with respect to your body, your emotional energy, etc.
A limit is about restricting someone else’s self-sovereignty. For example, as a parent my boundary might be I am not willing to cross a busy street without holding my child’s hand; that violates my own sense of safety and parental responsibility (defines what I am willing to do). A limit might be to say my child cannot cross the street without holding my hand (defines what they are able to do).
Agreements vs rules
The literature on this takes its clearest form in the ethical non-monogamy discourse. To me a rule is roughly synonymous with a limit: it is an effort to restrict someone else’s behavior. The difference between a “rule” and an “agreement” is consent. If everyone affected consents to the rule, it becomes an agreement. If people don’t consent— or can’t, as in the case of potential future metamours — to an agreement, then it’s a rule.
This is also true of limits: a limit that someone agrees to becomes a consensual agreement. Usually we set limits (and rules) because full consent isn’t attainable (in the case of a child who isn’t yet capable of executive function, e.g.). A limit in adult relationships usually points to a fear: if you do this, I fear this will happen or that I will feel this way. In this sense a limit is better understood as a strategy to meet a need; more on that below.
In general I aspire to relationships without limits and rules; ideally in consenting relationships among adults, they aren’t necessary. They are a fallback measure where we aren’t able to reach consent (or if everyone affected is not able to consent).
Unpacking “needs”
OK, this is where it gets really tricky. I want to distinguish between needs, desires, and wants. Let’s start by taking a moment to unpack and differentiate between four different categories of needs.
- Universal needs for survival that all humans have (food, water, etc.)
- Universal needs for thriving that all humans have (belonging, autonomy, joy, etc.); see e.g. this “needs wheel” from Nonviolent Communication (NVC)
- Individual needs that a given person has that are true of all relationships (e.g. an introvert may require space and alone time in all relationships)
- Individual needs that a given person has in a specific relationship (with my nesting partner I might need romantic and physical intimacy, e.g.).
I credit this latter distinction (between needs I’m seeking in all relationships vs needs I’m seeking in a specific relationship) to this podcast episode from the folks at A Touch of Flavor. For me the literature and distinctions around needs is heavily influenced by Nonviolent Communication, and in particular the writing and work of Miki Kashtan. NVC focuses on universal needs; in the parenting world, this is usually what we’re talking about (a child’s need for autonomy or structure, e.g.) In the world of ENM we are primarily talking about the latter two categories: how individuals seek to meet their universal needs in relationships.
Needs vs desires vs wants
My favorite treatment of this subject comes from this excellent podcast episode by Michele Lisenbury Christensen on “unmet needs.” She suggests that desires always point to an underlying need. She explains:
Our desires point to our needs; they are heartfelt rather than ego-driven.
And distinguishes desires from wants by noting that desires are satisfiable: once the underlying need is met, the desire dissipates. Whereas a want is by definition insatiable: when the want is met, a new want (or the same want again) appears in its place.
People treat these terms as interchangeable, and according to the dictionary, they are. But I think it’s useful and important to draw a distinction, because it helps us determine when we are moving in the direction of something core and fundamental (a desire pointing to a need) or when we are following our ego and maybe the ask is to let go or attune more deeply into the desire or need underneath the perhaps-more-superficial “want.” And to be clear: the same action/behavior/strategy (sexual intercourse, say) can be either a desire or a want. The work is to tune into oneself to determine which it is (learning how to identify your needs and desires is lifelong work, and in my view starts by listening to your body; but that’s beyond the scope of this post).
In the context of ENM, this is vital: humans have an imperative to orient toward and try to meet our needs. This is a healthy form of entitlement: it’s taking responsibility for our lives and our pleasure. And: it’s very easy to confuse this rightful responsibility with an unhealthy form of entitlement, from an unending quest to meet insatiable wants… particularly for people socialized into privilege and accustomed to getting what they want. I’m thinking of that famous line:
For those accustomed to privilege, equity feels like oppression.
Seeking interdependence
I’m writing primarily from the perspective of the individual. But of course, no person is an island: humans are social creatures, and it’s impossible to meet all of our needs in isolation. The goal of relationships — for me at least — is interdependence: the mutual pursuit and support of meeting my needs and your needs, and supporting you in meeting those that I cannot (or choose not to).
Here’s the thing: to lead a healthy life we need the ability both to know our own desires (what I want to do) and our domain of willingness (what I am willing to allow you to do with me). The latter defines our zone of consent; the former our zone of action. (For a deep dive into distinguishing consent and desire, I did my best to unpack those concepts more fully here).
So let’s say we’ve done the hard work to attune to our desire, to distinguish it from a more fleeting want, and now know the underlying need we are trying to meet. Now it is time to make requests of our partner(s), and seek consent. There are many ways (NVC calls these “strategies”) to meet needs. This is the beauty of being in relationship, and the invitation to interdependence. In other words, when it comes to relationships it’s about strategies for how we meet our needs. It’s about sharing our desires (which often take the shape of goals or strategies: to get an MBA, to have a child, to buy a house, etc.).
The goal is to stay within the zone of willingness (Betty Martin calls this the “wheel of consent”)… and within that space, to ideally meet in the zone of mutual desire. Of course, that’s not always possible; it may be that desires or preferences are mutually exclusive, and the work will be to align on a strategy that meets the needs of all parties… even if it doesn’t meet everyone’s desires or preferences. Miki calls this the zone of mutual willingness.
The distinction that feels important to name here, and revolutionary if you really sit with it: needs are universal and never in conflict; strategies are particular and can be in conflict. In this understanding, sexual intercourse is not a need: it’s a strategy to meet an underlying need (e.g. for intimacy, connection, belonging, etc.) I unpacked needs more fully in a different context in this newsletter post, for folks who want to explore NVC.
There’s more to say beyond the scope of this post about how to have an ethical conversation in a world riven by systems of domination and coercion: power dynamics are always present. This is easiest to see in the realm of parenting, where the parent can easily coerce “agreement” out of a child. Or in an intimate partnership where one partner is the sole income-generator, there can be a subtle pressure to accede to that person’s preferences. (In the world of ENM, this is the core of the critique of Franklin Veaux’s behavior: these tools/concepts can be weaponized across a power differential to gaslight people or push them out of consent in ways that make it difficult to understand as it’s happening).
Liberation awaits
As with everything worth doing, this work is incredibly hard… and incredibly liberating. And like all things, the more we practice the easier it becomes.
Most of us live in cultures that focus on strategies and don’t pay attention to needs. This sets us up for conflict and disconnection: with ourselves and each other. We all have work to do to attune more deeply to our needs and to our desires, and to be more intentional about setting boundaries. And like all things, this work is very gendered (and raced, and classed, and…). As we work to escape from the oppressive systems we were socialized into, we may need to try temporary strategies to support each other.
For men the work may be to be more other-oriented, to create space for our partners’ desires and needs, and to focus on meeting them in their zone of preference. For women the work may be to pay more attention to your own desires, to set firmer boundaries, and to only consent from a place of full willingness. And for all of us, this is a space to look to the leadership of people already living outside the binary. As Janet Hardy reminds us:
People who don’t fit into the world as it is are the ones who imagine different worlds that might work out better.
I’m curious to hear what resonates, what doesn’t, and what resources you look to in parsing these important concepts.
In community,
Brian
