The Prince and The Pauper: Class Jumping and Gay Relationships

I'll admit to it, I'm ghetto. Growing up, food wasn't always something guaranteed. If that doesn't fit your definition of "ghetto" I don't know what does. Money is still an idea so intrinsic to being that we often don't take a step back to evaluate its role. It's not possible to survive without money in the complicated, modern world.

In spite of these valleys, I have at times lived vastly better than the aforementioned marginality. My life has been marked by monetary highs and lows so extreme I would have never expected in my wildest dreams to experience either side of the spectrum. I can only speak on what I've experienced, and I hope to document some valuable aspect to life with which people in similar situations can identify.

Would you second guess breathing? When something is so integral to life, it becomes almost biological, and hence somewhat less visible and communicable... at this point in time money is the last remaining division between people. My experiences glancing into different social classes, or class jumping, as I like to call it, have demonstrated that the largest differences in queer relationships are related to social class. In a way, these differences are more common in queer relationships, perhaps due to the dating pool being "somewhat more limited" than the dating pool for a straight counterparts.

In gay relationships nobody plays the man and the woman, so the role of breadwinner is blurred and often non-existent... although role playing remains a large aspect of gay relationships, the fact remains that it's still so removed from the mainstream, and values are more up for interpretation.


The Prince

With the prince, I was taken into a world of wealth and luxury of which I could have only dreamed.

When the time came for one of us to steal something, I was the one expected to do it. If it was time to hustle drugs it was my job.

He was clean in the sense that all of his stds were not a serious health risk to me, so doing sexual things with him was less risky. I'm sure he went to the doctor a lot growing up, and had nice teeth that had likely been maintained by a dentist twice a year.

Overall, in spite of being bipolar and for the most part, completely out of control, he still held a certain optimism about the future.

Because he'd never lived in the real world, he was able to deal with problems by not dealing with them at all, essentially leaving other people to deal with any sort of opposition.

I began to see that overall, he was satisfied with nothing, because with limitless resources, there was absolutely no pressure for success. All the passion was lost cause the material world existed only for him.


The Pauper

In many people, I find naivete somewhat charming, and in this case it came from never being anywhere truly posh.

When it came to money, this one in fact stole hundreds of dollars from me... not like it matters, but it does say something to the character of the person.

When one has never known the "brighter side of life" it's a lot harder to think positively about what lies ahead. In addition to being bipolar, and for the most part completely out of control, he also held a certain pessimism about the future.

When it comes to physicality and health, he was dirtier, carried no dental nor health insurance, and had more serious stds that made sexual contact with him more risky.

The pauper was not really too good at dealing with problems, such as ever increasing, inescapable debt. I began to see that overall, he was satisfied with nothing, cause he's never known better, and probably didn't think the world had too much to offer.



What I'm trying to assert is that an unbalanced relationship is doomed to failure. While dating the Prince, I was living off several hundred dollars a month, and although the Prince had several hundred in cash to spend each month, any expense was taken care of by the dad, so his buying power was essentially limitless. Obviously, the opposite was true with the Pauper, and if I take into account his debt, I was probably doing better than him in ways. Jealousy finds its way into relationships when there's no equality. If you want it to work, then you have to be in the same place as the other person. If you're lucky enough to come up, then you have to do it together.

This is the last I can ever speak on poverty. If I'm going to escape it, I dare not even speak its name.