my self-labels, part 2: consent advocate, communalist, social justice activist, polyamorous...
icon: "polyamorous relationship anarchist (a rainbow-colored heart with the 'anarchy' capital letter A cutting through it, over a brick texture that suggests the heart is graffiti)"
What are the parts of your identity that you have labels for? (list and then define)
Part 2: my soul parts. These are parts of my identity that relate to my purpose n the world and the way I interact with it.
My soul identites: consent advocate, communalist, social justice activist, polyamorous / relationship anarchist, creativity catalyst, Southern / ATLien, tree-hugger, vegetarian, nudist.
[consent advocate]
consent advocate
This is a big damn deal to me. Most people are really bad at consent because we live in a rape culture. I try to model good consent at every opportunity and I am very demanding of myself not to ever be careless with consent. Why making it safe & comfortable to say 'no' is as necessary as respecting 'no' I don't separate people into rapists and not-rapists, but rather into a spectrum of good at consent to bad at consent, with rapist as a separate category for people who knowingly make a choice to cross someone else's sexual boundary and people who sexually violate others due to not bothering to check what they want. People who do their best not to be a rapist can still be bad at consent! Everyone has to unlearn rape culture. how to be careful w sexual consent: discuss meaning, risk, safeword, triggers, roles, acts, sobriety, needs
[communalist]
communalist
This is what I call my radical anti-capitalist attitude toward money and other shareable resources. I share my resources; I give a portion of every paycheck to resist inequality and support oppressed people; I speak out against economic inequality; I consider the economic cost within my own relationships and events and do what I can to balance them.
[social justice activist]
social justice activist
I resist oppression and work to bring justice wherever I can. I call myself an activist rather than ally because to me, ally is passive: someone who will not attack you nor overtly support oppressors. I consider being an activist to be about taking action, first in self-educating, then in doing what you can where you are with what you have. More than anything else, social justice is about considering the meaning and impact of all my choices and trying to create the least harm and the most good.
[polyamorous/relationship anarchist]
polyamorous/relationship anarchist
I am polyamorous: for me this means being open to multiple simultaneous romantic relationships. More specifically I identify as a relationship anarchist because I will not make rules or commitments designed to protect the relationship at the cost of the individuals. My relationship anarchy: we each only do what we want / my intentions & desires in all connections
[creativity catalyst]
creativity catalyst
I feel that true creativity is sacred, that every human is capable of it (and many other animals are also), and that we need more of it in the world. I try to encourage this both indirectly through my example, (such as by painting on my car and customizing my companion objects) and directly by sharing my creative materials and methods, affirming when people are creative, and resisting when people are derogatory toward art based on its lack of technical skill or for other elitist bullshit reasons. I have catalyzed art in many people even if it was just once or twice, and I want to do it much more. I have needed art catalysts in my life and I want to be that thing that I need to exist in the world.
[Southern / ATLien]
Southern / ATLien
I love Atlanta deeply. A lot of people from other places have this idea that the South is all anti-queer anti-justice tradition-enforcers, but they are flat wrong, as you can tell if you look at any objective measurement. Atlanta, Georgia's capital, has the second highest percentage of self-identified lgbtqia people in the United States, at about 13%.
The best explanation I have ever heard was from a black queer southern woman who said "southerners are just like everyone else, only more so." Here, the bigots are loud, but so are the activists. I would say the majority of southern people I have known are not fence-sitters. You can pretty easily figure out if we are with you or against you, and I vastly prefer that to completely covert prejudice.
I also consider Atlanta and Georgia to be my responsibility in a "take care of your own house" kind of way. I will not abandon it to go somewhere that might be more friendly to me and people like me; I will stay here and make it better.
And I identify with Georgia specifically because of our trees. No other place I have been has had so many trees, and Atlanta's nickname is the City in a Forest. I treasure and worship trees and love that Georgia has so many.
[tree-hugger]
tree-hugger
I mean this literally and figuratively. Literally, I love trees more than almost anyone I know (I only come in second to a professional tree-lover: a botanist/naturalist who has catalogued hundreds of trees in Atlanta and Georgia). I read about them and practice identifying them for fun, I connect with them on a deep level and almost all my travel desires are about trees I want to meet. Figuratively, I try to create as little waste as possible by reducing the waste I create, reusing as much as possible, and recycling carefully.
[vegetarian]
vegetarian
I am a vegetarian because it takes much more resources to raise animals than to raise plants. It is also very very expensive to eat ethically raised or wild-caught animals and I just don't like meat enough to try and keep meat-processing microbes alive in my body, but neither do I want to contribute to harm caused to animals by buying from unethical sources. HOWEVER this is not about right/wrong, it is about reduction of harm. Why I am vegetarian but do not recommend it for everyone and why I won't ever go vegan.
I have learned the hard way how to supplement and if someone can't afford $50 a month in supplements as well as healthy proteins, they can't afford to be vegetarian. And being vegan can be bad for the planet in a lot of ways and is not a nutritionally sound choice for the vast majority of people, since you need either a lot of spare time and research skills or to hire a nutritionist to know how to supplement all the needed nutrients.
[nudist]
nudist
Simply put, I hate being forced to wear clothes and if I could get away with it I would be naked all the time except when it was cold or for occasional dress-up. I reject the idea that nudity is sexual; for me, it is simply the default human state.