When I was married I was so conscious of what you refer to as the "zero-sum capitalist" thinking about power hierarchies, though I'll confess I didn't think about it in terms of capitalism, but about patriarchy. And more generally about systems that rely on power hierarchies. My ex-husband, for all of his progressive politics, didn't instinctually understand power except as a hierarchy. Therefore, if he wasn't on the top the only option was that he was on the bottom. I would be sitting there, trying to talk about what essentially boiled down to sharing power-- in our financial decision making, in child care and house work, in sex, in how we prioritized each other's dreams in our family direction-- and literally all he could understand was "You want to dominate me!" It boggled me for years, this experience of speaking the same language and yet him not understanding the words being said AT ALL.

It took getting out of the relationship to really see fully what was going on. I'm not opposed to relationships with men, but I've gotten to the point where the first questions out of the gate are "Does he have a nuanced relationship to his own power? Can he lead sometimes? Follow sometimes? Share (ever)?" Because the reality is that *I* can do all three of those things and I expect someone I'm going to give my precious time and energy to to also have that level of intention and self-understanding. Otherwise, I'm just signing up for feeling like I'm banging my head against a brick wall and I like my life alone enough to not think getting laid regularly is recompense enough for self-harm.