A guide at the thresholds of death and desire.
I keep company where culture looks away: death, sex, grief, hunger, and the occasional ghost of Victorian prudery. What we refuse to name grows teeth. We have been feeding a very old animal for a very long time, the kind of hangover that refuses to be cured by coffee.
This script did not start yesterday. It is a layered inheritance: Roman paternal power, Christian and European coverture, the Industrial idea of “separate spheres,” and the American habit of mistaking hierarchy for holiness. We inhaled it in classrooms, pews, kitchen counters, and even in the fluorescent hum of hospital corridors. Basically every place with a ceiling fan.
The script hands men a sword. It hands women a veil. It tells queer bodies to hide behind the coat rack, singles to apologize, and everyone to pretend that one form of love is the measure of a life.
I am not interested in performing that script. I am interested in unmaking it, gently, skillfully, in community.
The Rulebook That Hurts Everyone
(Yes, we all love a good rulebook, especially the ones that come with a complimentary guilt complex.)
Masculine Metrics
Toxic masculinity is not “men are evil.” It is the corporate handbook for how to be a robot with a beard: dominate, do not feel, perform certainty. It buys men status and then locks them in the trophy case, lonely, brittle, and afraid to be human.
Feminine Filters
Toxic femininity is not “women are weak.” It is the compliance script: be pleasing, be small, smile while you disappear. The reward is safety that never arrives and praise that tastes like dust.
Together, these two scripts form a narrative that damages all of us. Men, women, and anyone outside the binary are squeezed into roles that starve our bodies, our grief, and our capacity for real connection.
Intersection matters. These rules do not land on empty air. Race, class, disability, neurodivergence, and immigration status all bend the blow.
When the rule “men must provide” lands on a trans-masculine nurse working night shifts, it collides with wage inequity, insurance hurdles, and the exhaustion of explaining pronouns between codes.
Control dressed as virtue.
The Romance Operating System (a.k.a. Amatonormativity)
If love were a software update, most of us are stuck on version 1.0.
The default settings say that monogamy is “real,” that one true love is mandatory, and that being single means you are unfinished. Chosen family is written out of the will and out of the waiting room. Desire that does not fit, such as CNM, ace and aro identities, kink, or solo partnership, gets mislabeled as broken.
In this house, love is a network, not a pyramid. We choose our forms with consent, not shame.
Healing the Imperial Ideals That Still Haunt Us
The empire mentality says that conquest equals success. The echo tells us that to be a man is to conquer and to be a woman is to be conquered. Empire’s motto is simple: take what you want, then brag about it on marble.
De-colonize the narrative
- Rename the story. Trade conquest for collaborative building. Trade submission for mutual consent and co-regulation.
- Remember resistors. The past was never unanimous. There were women who fought, gender-expansive lives that persisted, and philosophers who prized humility over spectacle. Resistance has a lineage.
Rituals of un-making
- Shred the edict. Write one inherited rule such as “I must win or I am nothing” or “My body is for others.” Tear it together. You can even picture a ceremonial shredding of your inner voice that needs to win at all costs. Then name what replaces it.
- Re-author the myth. Retell an empire story from the view of the erased: the wife, the servant, the queer companion. Take five minutes. Do not polish it. Tell the truth.
Everyday replacements
- Use shared decisions instead of decrees. Rely on consent-based consensus for plans such as a vigil, a budget, or a playlist.
- Choose reciprocity instead of rank. Replace status gifts with skill swaps. Teach, tend, write, and repair for one another.
- Do a language audit. Retire words like “win,” “dominate,” and “crush.” Practice words like “learn,” “invite,” “notice,” and “repair.”
An empire that fell centuries ago still whispers its rules. We silence it by gathering, speaking plainly, and rewriting who sits where and why.
Deathwork Belongs in This Conversation
These scripts do not stop at the bedroom door. They follow us to the deathbed. They shape who decides, whose labor is invisible, who grieves “correctly,” and which love is allowed in the front row.
Concrete fixes we practice
- Documents that match reality. Advance directives that name the people you actually text at 2 a.m., not only the lawyer you never call. Visitation lists that center chosen family and partner constellations.
- Ritual that honors the true care team. Obituary and memorial language that seats friends-as-kin with the dignity they earned.
- Fair labor. Care tasks that are distributed by capacity and consent, not by gender expectation.
From Blame to Repair (Taboo Doula Practice)
What we are over → What we do instead
- Point-blank blame → Accountability circles that map how scripts shaped choices, then name one concrete repair.
- Silencing men → Men’s emotional literacy and consent labs that teach real skills without shaming.
- Purity myths → Embodied diversity rooms where non-normative bodies and genders are centered with dignity.
- One-off activism → Mentorship that pairs new facilitators with seasoned doulas who model boundaries and repair.
- Monogamy as moral high ground → A relationship menu and care contracts. Monogamy, CNM, solo life, and ace or aro identities are all valid. Success is measured by consent and wellbeing.
Quick Rituals
- Altar of many chairs. Offer a seat for self, for partner or partners, and for friends or kin. Speak gratitude to each.
- Ring is not rank. Define what your symbols mean and what they do not mean. Write a three-line note and keep it.
- Two-word practice. Before hard conversations, pause and feel. Afterward, name and repair.
Next step
If you are ready to trade the old script for a fresh draft, pull up a chair. Your seat is waiting.
Where to do this work with me
- Grief and Death Circles at Pollinate Hive House in Windsor Heights and at public libraries across the Des Moines metro. These are low-pressure spaces. No one is required to speak.
- Sex Café in 2026. Consent-centered embodiment, kink literacy, aftercare, safety, and self-passion. Excitement is allowed. Exploitation is not.
- One-to-one Doula and Embodiment Support. Clear agreements, steady ritual, and practical care.
Consent is the floor. Dignity is non-negotiable.
Rosemary Raven Hearth 
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