Daren is asexual and monogamous.
Jenn is queer and polyamorous.
Their 18-year marriage is proof that love has no limits.
Daren is asexual and monogamous.
So this has always been about trying to find that community.
He immediately started to recognize himself in those descriptors.
My big struggle was being able to decouple my manhood away from my sexuality, Daren said.
So its taking a step to say, Im not going to follow those rules and those standards.
And Im really going to define myself for who I am, which is all what queerness is about.
The Jacksons didnt arrive at these moments of clarity about their relationship to themselves and each other overnight.
Theyve been together ever since.
How would each of you describe your love for each other?
Jenn M. Jackson:Ive been calling Daren my bone marrow for over the last 10 years.
I feel like at this point, I require Daren to function.
My love for Daren is in my bones.
Daren Jackson:Yeah.
I feel the exact same way.
You all are also creative partners on several ventures.
How has that strengthened your marriage?
Daren:It strengthened our marriage because it really helps with our communication and also I think our compartmentalization.
So we really get along very well.
We communicate very well.
We get each other.
I think it also helped because were just together more.
And so our business ventures were another vehicle for us to spend more time together as well.
Daren gets my craft and my art.
If he ever writes a short story and says, Hey, can you proofread this?
I really want to read it.
Im excited to see what new thing he did with the story.
I dont feel burdened by his creativity.
Im excited when he does something new.
And hes the same way with me.
I have a book that just came out, and he waited for years.
Daren Jackson:I think thats been really cool because sometimes people dont support your craft.
We have people in our home, including our children, who are cheerleaders every single day.
So thats one of the cool things about building the businesses.
And were writing partners.
Its actually quite exciting and fun.
Daren Jackson:Ill say, obviously, we have three kids.
So the introduction of children is a lot.
We have moved across the country twice.
We have, obviously, changed careers.
Weve both been to grad school.
Its really crazy, because neither one of us has hit 40 yet.
Daren Jackson:Weve done all of them.
Some of them weve done…
Jenn M. Jackson:Twice.
We were living through the recession in California.
We had a new baby at the time.
We were in careers that were dead ends even though they were well-paying.
And we were miserable.
We kept describing ourselves as in the waiting place, when we were living in California.
And that was really hard on our marriage.
We werent able to do the things we wanted to do.
And thats when I realized, OK, Im not supposed to be working at Disney.
Im not supposed to be working in these jobs.
And I was like, I got to go back to grad school.
And this nigga was like, Sure, go ahead.
I still think that was wild.
To this day, Im like, Whats wrong with you?
Jenn M. Jackson:Thats it.
Daren Jackson:For whatever it is.
She was like, I think I should go to grad school.
And I said, Well, whats the best one for what you wanna do?
Jenn M. Jackson:We had a new baby.
Our youngest was little.
I was still breastfeeding this baby.
And when we tried to sell our house, it was very racist in Orange County.
People didnt want to buy our house.
I know you did.
Thats exactly how it went.
We just moved on.
And during that time, Daren was transitioning into new jobs.
We went through a lot in Chicago.
I became very politicized in Chicago.
Daren became politicized in Chicago.
This is where we started really thinking about movements and our orientation to queerness and our identities.
I really think we grew the most in Chicago, and our relationship grew the most.
This is when I started really being open about being queer and being polyamorous.
This is when Daren started openly identifying as asexual.
And we just kind of started moving differently in the world.
And that stuff was hard because people were looking at us like we were out of our minds.
But that Chicago moment, I feel like it just took a lot of communication.
I was still dealing with a lot of trauma.
My father had just passed away.
I was working through my early healing journey.
I was doing some self-sabotage key in stuff.
Poly journey was poly journeying, and it was ghetto.
So it was a lot.
Daren Jackson:But also you were a grad student.
So your schedule was all over the place.
I had a 40-minute commute.
Both ways, every day.
We were trying to raise kids, have a household, still do our business stuff together.
Bar everything else, I know they got me; I got them.
Theres things I implicitly know that I need to take care of.
Theres things that Jenn implicitly knows that I need or I might be going through.
We were just kind of in sync in that way.
So no matter how bad it gets.
Thats what keeps us grounded.
Jenn M. Jackson:You know what?
And I think it has rubbed off on the kids.
When I met him, I felt like I knew him.
We always clicked from Day 1.
So for our kids, its very natural.
Its just always been that way.
And as a family, were a very tight unit.
It is a well-oiled machine.
Neither one of us had two parents in the household.
We didnt have a lot of healthy examples of Black queer alternative love or anything like that.
And so we were the Family Matters kids, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air kids.
We watched a lot of TV.
And we talk about it all the time because theyre so safe.
They are not intimidated by us.
They are not threatened.
These kids are very much their own people and they belong to themselves.
And I think thats what this has shown them.
Because we dont model traditional gender roles.
When Daren and I met, he was not capable of cooking.
And for me, that had nothing to do with gender.
I was like, Thats just somebody not preparing you for life.
Hed just be like, I made it.
Daren Jackson:I think the other thing too is we teach them about what matters.
And we very much have a radical acceptance of you wear what you want to wear.
I wanted to be able to say when my child leaves the house, that I know hes good.
And weve had these conversations recently where I look at our child and Im like, Hes set.
He can cook for himself.
He knows how to clean up.
He knows how to have a healthy balance with his friends.
Ive seen confrontations and where he is like, Hey, that wasnt cool to me.
And if you dont respond and apologize in the correct way, then this cant go forward.
Its amazing to see the things come out to your kids that you really wanted them to get.
We should do better.
I was listening to one of your podcast episodes from October 2020.
And you both had announcements.
Jenn, you announced that you were gender-fluid and genderqueer.
And Daren, you announced that youre asexual.
How did it feel to reveal that on the podcast and what has been your journey since then?
Jenn M. Jackson:Oh, that was really fun.
So we had been rolling those terms around in different forms for about four or five years before that.
And, like, we finally settled in 2020.
Thats when I shaved my head, and I was moving more masculinely, more androgynously.
And we wanted to share all the research weve done and heres the ways it resonates for us.
Heres how this shows up for us in our lives and our bodies.
Like I had been playing around with queer, but it didnt feel specific enough.
I was, like, doing pansexual for a while.
Daren Jackson:To me, it all came down to socialization.
I feel like a lot of people across the entire spectrum really struggle with asexuality.
They always want to say its something else.
They always wanna say, well maybe its cause youre actually gay.
Or maybe its because you havent found the right person.
Or maybe its a medical issue.
Its always like its something else other than what you say it is.
You were going to be smart.
Youre going to be masculine.
Youre going to get married and youre going to have kids and youre going to do all those things.
And then these are the things that kind of define what it is to be a man.
So my big struggle was being able to decouple my manhood away from my sexuality.
And Im really going to define myself for who I am, which is all what queerness is about.
Jenn M. Jackson:And thats why we started the blog and the podcast from the beginning.
Its OK to build the life that you want for yourself.
Lets talk a little bit about polyamory.
You talk about how there are obviously a lot of misconceptions of what polyamory even is.
Jenn M. Jackson:Oh God, yeah.
People dont actually understand that its actually the opposite.
I was already gay when I met Daren, and Daren turned me straight.
So it was a temporary thing.
I dont know how he did it and it actually pissed me off.
You said that you were so mad.
Jenn M. Jackson:Yeah, Im still mad about it.
I mean, I love my children.
Im glad theyre here.
I just never thought that it would happen organically like that.
I just never expected it.
I dont know what people are talking about.
So I rebut that.
I think its ridiculous.
Ive never in my life ever once been monogamous.
I tell this story all the time.
My love is too big.
Its not capable to exist with one person.
Thats why I have six best friends, and they all feel like theyre my only best friend.
So I think folks like to mix up polyamory with other forms of nonmonogamy.
Of course, there are cheaters who are nonethical.
Of course, there are folks who are ethical, like swingers and other folks who like to play.
They have Tinder for that.
Polyamory is not about just the romantic ties, its about building community and collective power.
And I want people to really think about that.
Jenn, obviously your book is titled Black Women Taught Us.
But she has a very, very quiet, consistent love.
Like you know no matter what happens, she loves you.
And we were not a family that said I love you a lot.
But love was never doubted because of how we showed up for each other.
Its great to say, I love you, love you, love you.
I want someone whos gonna go hard for me in the paint.
Jenn M. Jackson:You sure the hell did.
I was thinking this lesson has really been resonating with me a lot.
Its in the book and its from my grandmother.
My grandmother was always very worried about me my grandma Lucille, my moms mom.
And she used to tell me all the time how lonely I was gonna be.
And when I met Daren, she married us.
She was a pastor, so she married us.
She loved Daren so much.
She was so happy that I found Daren because she knew I wasnt gonna be alone.
That I would never be alone.
My grandmother passed away alone.
She was alone for a lot of her life.
And I think, in some ways, she was saying that too.
And I wasnt getting it for a long time.
What are your hopes for the future of Black love?
I really want us to disabuse ourselves of these models of coupling that are all rooted in relationship escalators.
I want folks to live freer and allow themselves to love on their own terms.
Daren Jackson:This is something we were talking about this week.
We stand up for Black people.
But that internal cop?
Thats the worst one.
