The enemy's gate is down.

EDIT: If you got to this post by the link in my signature, and you just want to skip to the useful bit, scroll to the bottom of this post, and look to the next section of bold text.

It never occurred to me I would get a warning in the Quick-Reply that I am necroing my own thread. XD
Wow, it's been over half a year since I touched this little monster.

Normally I'd feel all weird and self-absorbed to be talking about myself as much as I'm about to do... really attention-hoggish, and such... but eh, it's my thread. Hell, I DO still feel that way; I'm just talking myself out of it a bit.

First off, obviously I'm still alive, which I suppose is a very nice thing for those people who derive enjoyment from putting up with me.
This summer I'm helping out my favourite prof by chaperoning/teaching a set of four daycamps for tykes who are interested, however vaguely, in architecture. I'm somewhere between dreading it and loving the prospect; small people delight me in moderate doses, but I still have no idea whatsoever how many of them I'll actually have to manage solo on any given day of the camps.
Last autumn, the local karate dojo flooded after the roof buckled in a storm, so there haven't been sessions since then; about two weeks ago we resumed when one of the blackbelts provided a warehouse for us to practice and hold session. It has been a great pleasure to get back into the swing of things, and already my energy and health are markedly improved by it. I have missed it terribly, and it pleases me that my fellow plans to join me at it sometime in the next three weeks.
On that note, he and I are still going strong; we are fundamentally compatible to each other, and he is frequently a godsend to my family and me even in practical daily matters. He is precious to me.

Now that recent lifenews have been addressed, I'm going to get to the somewhat-tough part of this post. Well- tough for me, at least. Hell, I don't particularly expect any readers, and that's fine, too. Sometimes it matters more that something is said, not that it is read.

RAF is the first website that had me hooked, when first I acquired Internet access some years ago. It is truly my home forum, the basis from which I judge all other boards, fora, and websites in general. It is simplicity, comfort, peace, family, fairness. It is also more than a little welcoming to individuals of non-binary gender and sexual identities and non-heteronormative sexual and romantic orientations.

There are other sites in which I've posted things to the effect of what I'm about to disclose, but the differentiation between them and RAF is that I consider RAF family, and every other site is a set of strangers, acquaintances, at best colleagues... and friends occur on a case-by-case basis only in those who IM with me off-board. Disclosing personal secrets and such to strangers is emotion-neutral for me, but the same disclosures to people I regard as family... this is significantly less neutral. Considering these are things I've always known about myself, but only recently learned names and labels to describe, I don't know if I regard this as "coming out"... but I do place personal significance on it.
I acknowledge that some of these statements may convince members here that I'm completely off my rocker and/or that I have some significant and terrible mental-emotional disorder. I have no objections to others forming their own opinions, of course, and I ask only that any who reply do so in a spirit of general civility. Assigning labels to somebody who does not want them, perhaps does not conform to them, is individually insulting and devaluing, and it says to that person that you don't believe they have the right to their feelings, beliefs, and identities. It is alienating.

Right-oh, disclaimers having been made, I'll get to the prickly part.
1. I'm a multiple system. This means I share headspace with (in my particular case) two entities who are individual, self-contained, and would exist independently of me if they weren't currently stuck in my headspace. They go by the name/titles Estael and Lorael, or Es and Lor, and yes, that's the actual origin of my username. J.R.R. Tolkien conveniently wrote a set of characters in the Silmarillion named Este and Lorien; I use them as my 'official' name explanation, but my awareness of Es and Lor and their names came long before I read any Tolkien at all. Within our system, I go by the nickname Asher, which I sometimes use as a handle on other fora.
I, Asher, am the 'core', the original biological owner of the body we commonly share and inhabit. Most of the time, I'm the one 'fronting', in the driver's seat, so to speak. That being said, they both have access to eye and ear functions, and anything I see or hear, they know, too. They are both able to front, but they typically get some manner of permission first. I can't "kick them out", and it is NOT my goal to "integrate" them into me. They are not me. I am not them. They come with a set of memories and information and thoughts that don't belong to me. Es is ambiguously feminine; Lor is ambiguously masculine.
My fiance is aware of them, and he has no difficulty whatsoever telling them apart from me when they front. He is completely convinced of their existence, and he treats them as separate, sentient, completely self-directed individuals with their own thoughts, emotions, memories, and motives.

2. Along with my fiance and the headmates, I am polyfidelitous, demisexual, and a relationship anarch.
Polyfidelity = in a long-term/permanent romantic relationship containing more than two members, in which all members are consenting to and aware of the group relationship. We have no intentions of adding any more members to the group, nor the willingness to add more, which is the primary distinction between this and polyamory.

Demisexuality = a form of asexuality in which the individual does not experience primary sexual attraction (google "Rabger's Model"), and/or who does not become sexually attracted to anybody else until they already have strong emotional and/or romantic bonds with that person. In very simple terms, you could throw the most aesthetically gorgeous people in the world at me, and they would pose for me precisely the same attraction as a tree... but regardless of physical appearance or even gender/sex characteristics, if I am deeply emotionally/romantically close to somebody, *ping* a switch sometimes flips, and I become able to find them attractive and interesting for the purposes of physical intimacy.
Frankly... I'm deeeeeply touch-phobic. I've had a just-controlled-enough form of OCD since I was very little, and in early years it manifested as germophobia and obsessive washing. I don't let myself fall into that pattern anymore, but I still have a powerful psychological aversion to being touched by human beings.
I don't let people get within grabbing distance of me unless I trust them very deeply, the way I trust the members of my karate dojo, the members of my IRL family, my small circle of very best friends, and my fiance. It takes a much deeper level of trust for me to feel any kind of attraction to a person. Otherwise, like I said earlier... tree. Pretty, but seriously, not interested.

Relationship Radicalism/Anarchy: This one is better explained by this link than by me: http://journal.richard.levitte.org/entries/relationship-anarchy/
And really, everything except this "Don't make any exception to the rules or 'special cases' for different people to prove that you really care for someone specific." is correct to the definition and spirit of being a relationship anarch. That one bit is actually quite opposite the overall philosophy; it is fundamentally necessary to RA that the relationship be able to have its own rules, completely independent of all other relationships. Special cases are a needful part of it.


How all this pertains and matters to me and my life and relationships: I walk around daily with two other people making running commentary, sometimes taking over use of various appendages, sometimes even taking over speech. We're three people, one body, and all romantically involved both with the other two and with my fiance, who accepts their existence and in fact loves them back in the same capacity. Each relationship between any two of the four of us is completely independent of the other relationships, and it has its own unique dynamics and interpersonal rules and conditions that are accepted within that relationship. All four of us are also faithful to the wider four-member system, and we do not get jealous of other members' relationships. My corporeal, singlet fiance doesn't get jealous when I have private discussions and romantic interactions with either of my headmates; I don't get jealous of them when they front to be with him.

How this pertains to RAF and my interactions with RAFians: At any given moment, one of my headmates could be the one posting. We standardize our textual speech patterns so that we come across more-or-less consistently, in forum posts. The person you're chatting with has this one username, but it could be any one, two, or all three of us contributing to the conversation. You aren't necessarily aware of it when it happens.


Wow, wall of text. Let's wrap this up.
Final statements: I have already heard all of the following, and if you feel like bringing them up, it isn't exactly adding to the conversation. It's definitely not swaying or altering my self-and-system-perceptions.

Rebuttal A: You're a nutter.
-Maybe; sanity is pretty dang relative, and defined by society. On an island alone, you are a society of one. On an island alone, I'm STILL a society of three. :-/

Rebuttal B: You have MPD or DID.
-Just between you and me, I'm not suffering much from this, seriously. I'm not hyper-unstable; I don't go around strangling people for fun. You like to label this as a disorder? Niiiice. Maybe I see your singleness as being a disorder, but do I put a stamp on you?
As for DID, the US is the only nation that currently even treats this as a condition; psychiatric foundations in other countries don't consider it particularly valid, and neither do I. Why? It's very VERY frequently used as an umbrella excuse to deny patients (who actually need it) treatment, or prescribe medicines that sedate instead of stabilizing brain chemistry. It's cheaper for the healthcare business to slap DID on somebody, because if they call it MPD, they have to take more expensive measures to give treatment.
Both of these labels are very isolating and dehumanizing; to tell a multiple "your headmates don't exist, and you should integrate them" is kinda' like walking up to somebody and saying "guess what, your sister and your best friend don't exist and never did; you imagined them. They're just a part of your brain, and to be healthy and sane, you have to assimilate them into yourself."

Rebuttal C: You are obviously the victim of some kind of childhood trauma or abuse, and you invented those guys to comfort yourself.
-Sorry, negatory. The only trauma in my recollection is a near-drowning incident when I was 11-isch, and that was well after these two started making themselves known. They weren't fully talkative and able to front until a fair bit later in life, or else they were voluntarily staying shushed in order not to freak me out by being in my head... but they were always THERE.

Rebuttal D: You're coming up with all this stuff because you're pretentious/like the attention/feel some weird need to cry out for help.
-Again, nope. I know I can sound stuck-up just from my choice of sentence structure and vocabulary, and I do tend toward sarcasm, but that doesn't make me anything less than sincere about this. As for attention, I assure you, I get plenty of that IRL. I'm certainly not crying out for help; I enjoy my life and lifestyle and relationship(s).
This is simply me offering RAF an opportunity to maybe know me a little bit better.

Rebuttal E: Demisexuality is just a status-term for the slut-shaming subculture; it's normative in Christian-centric culture to only be physically intimate after you're romantically close to somebody.
-Really, that's not very normative... it's just a popular moral/ethical ideal. I'm not saying I don't get physically near people I don't emotionally know and trust; I'm saying I don't get even ATTRACTED to people I don't emotionally know and trust. Pretty is pretty, regardless of gender/sex... but pretty does not equal attractive, to me. Nothing sensory equates to attractiveness for a Demi. We don't (and generally cannot) become 'turned on' by anybody who doesn't already have our nonphysical love in some other form.

Rebuttal F: Polyamory is just an excuse to cheat.
-I heartily disagree; if anything, it's the polar opposite of cheating. I maintain simultaneous romantic and physical faithfulness and loyalty to three people all at once, and they all do the same with each other and with me. If I pursue romance outside the group, I'm betraying the trust of three people, not just one. The obligation is collectively greater than it is on a totally monogamous individual.

Rebuttal G: If you love more than one person romantically, you love all of them less.
-No; love isn't quantitative. Time is a limited quantity, yes, but the way I see it, I devote more time individually to each of my partners than I devote to any other aspect of my life, including career. Most workers in the USA spend their majority waking hours at the office, and their time at home with loved ones is broken down into sleep, chores, dining, hygiene... the actual interaction between loved people is so miniscule, and I loathe that paradigm. As far as I'm concerned, I have my priorities in order.


Ohhhhkay... I think- that- covers everything? Eh. I can edit or double-post later if I think of something I've missed.

To anybody who read this whole monster... thank you. I love ya' to bits for it. I'd hug you if that sort of thing didn't bother me, eh?

To anybody who replies with strong opinions either way... I hope you read the whole thing. I hate to see a good windy disclaimer go to waste. ^_^

EDIT: MY AVATAR, for those who followed the link in my siggy:
The fragmented A-heart (usually in red) is the symbol of Relationship Anarchy.
The four colours are from the Asexual Flag: black for asexuals, grey for grey-a's and demisexuals, white for sexual-normatives, violet for the whole community.
The (hard to see, but there in the right upper grey space) blue lemniscate and yellow pi are both symbols of polyamory and polyfidelity.
The green circle and "n" are the Multiple Flag, created by my colleague and fellow multiple Postmodern Macro. "n" indicates any number of entities contained in the circle, the whole mind/body. Normally the 'n' would be at the center of the circle, but I prefer its current location.
If you need explanations of these terms, either google them or scroll up to the main body of this post; I discuss most of them.

It seems like the season for finding out about yourself doesn't it?