And it's telling me, "Go forward and walk under a brighter sky…"

[draegonhawke]

I am moving to the Phoenix area.

Following my boss's advice that I should go where I want to be and then find work from there, I'll be heading down after my lease here runs up at the end of July. I will be living with a host of lovelies - Jaqui, Aubrey, Rebecca - who are being especially lovely by handling the house-search for me. (This is a

Comments

[draegonhawke]

Hee!I hope that wherever you settle down will have friendly laws by the time you're looking at it. (If you want me to be a bridesmade, however, I am WEARING a tux.)

Yeah. For some reason, people still think of polygamy as part of the nadir of sexual deviance, down with pedophilia and bestiality. (Because people are unable to rationally consent if the number jumps from two to three? I don't know.) And in my case, it's not even that I'd be running off and having OMG ORGIES or something - uh, hi, asexuality. (Which I suppose might prompt some people to ask why I'd ever consider getting married in the first place, and then I'd have to beat them with the "MARRIAGE DOES NOT REDUCE TO SEX, FOOLS" card the gay community has had to carry for so long.) I just... don't lost the capacity to love people romantically after forming one romantic attachment.

It's about - as with any other romantic relationship, hell, as with any other human relationship - communication and mutual respect and understanding. It's not inherently wrong or inherently deviant or inherently anything; it's just been forced into fetishization by a sensationalistic culture.

[squeemu]

Me too! (I am not sure there will be any bridesmaids, but you are totally welcome to come in a tuxedo anyway. Maybe we'll have a ...groomman... in a dress! oh god I don't know anything about weddings)

I just don't get it! What -- I mean -- bah. I don't know. It's kind of sad that people are so intolerant towards loving LOTS of people. OMG WHAT KIND OF PERVERT ARE YOU, THAT YOU ARE CAPABLE OF LOVING MULTIPLE PEOPLE. (I am kind of wondering at the mechanics of marriage with the possibility of more than two people. Would it be sort of open-ended, so you could update it as more people came?) (Also I'm kind of wondering about how you approach marriage and love and romantic love. Because I know you have issues with platonic love vs. romantic love -- or at least you did? -- man this is an awkward question. But I'm curious what your philosophy is now! And how it relates to marriage?)

Exactly.

[draegonhawke]

Ffff. My philosophy right now is to throw up my hands and say God and/or World, do what thou wilt. I don't know. The boundaries between platonic and romantic love sometimes seem to be defined by expression rather than composition; action rather than substance. I still think that using someone to reflect your love of love back onto you is juvenile and should not be mistaken for healthy human interaction, but one can be platonic and physical and one can be romantic and nonphysical and aside from some small tweaks in qualia, unless you are going to chop it up into courting and non-courting loves... yeah.

I'm comfortable with the liminal space I've come to inhabit. (Like my Facebook says: my relationships are complicated.) I read it as platonic, an outside observer might read it as romantic, I don't see what good naming it is going to do me so I feel no need to dissect it.

Love is what it is. when love starts making demands, I think, building pedestals, tunnel-scoping in and blacking other things out, then I start getting cynical about it. Love neither fixes nor ruins anything on its own.

As for how it relates to marriage...

Well, that requires a lot more prodding at marriage than I normally do. I don't know. On one hand, you have al the legal stuff, which has more to do with our society than our emotions and in some ways even our culture. On another, you have the security in knowing that you'll always be there for someone and they'll always be there for you, that you'll be able to stand shoulder to shoulder as you face the future, and that appeals to me. On another, you have a visible signal to the world that this relationship is something sanctified, consecrated, set as paragon. And on our fourth hand, gods and goddesses are we, you have the symbol that there's a certain part of you no longer available to the world or to others, because that part of you now belongs entirely to the person you're with.

Which I suppose is an expression of love as some people experience it. To give something of yourself to one person and in doing so take it out of your control is an expression of deep intimacy. But I don't operate like that; for me it wouldn't be an expression of dedication, it'd be an expression of restriction. I want a community more than a partnership, each part looking out for the wellness of each other and the whole, each person watching over many and relying on many. It's a much more comfortable space for me than to isolate one person out of the press to be the most important for me, set before all others, for ever and ever, amen.