oc stuff

Relationships...some more

My Responces to the responces:

I know all three of you ranging from fairly well to extrodinarly well. So I can say with confidence that you all have diffrent idea of what a relationship is, what goes into one, what you can get out of one, and how one works.

I also see from the general responces that there is a great deal of disjunct from what I think is going on in relationships as a whole and your perceptions. So it is time to do some house cleaning.

I'm going to do Dana first because I can (that's what she said). Dana's ideas of intent are foward thinking and provide me for the foundation of what I am going to be writting about latter today but I ultimatly disagree with them strongly. Cheating based on intent, is a far to solopsistic view of relationships. Now lets all keep in mind that we are expected to keep a healthy amount of common sense when I am talking about this sort of stuff. If some drunken albino were to suddenly latch onto you and leave you a hicky from hell, then it isn't cheating. It is being attacked by a drunken albino. While Dana's model is simple enough to be functional it starts to fall apart when I start to talk about things like, "The human minds infinate ability to delude itself" as well as problems with excessive guilt even in the absence of crime". It is extreamly self reliant, which is cool, its one of the reaons why I like Dana, but to come up with an idea of what cheating is it isn't going to work. It doesn't adiquetly cover our societies inability to conceptualize cheating outside of certain boundaries: see pulp fiction and the foot massage. So the net needs to be cast outwards in order to better find where guilt comes from and how it functions within a relationship as a whole.

Marianne takes the opposite extreame and lists black and white rules under which things are just wrong. This is something she does. This view is far to restricitve though, and it is the sort of thing I gleefully crash throuigh. The whole thing sounds like a life or death contract thing. It isn't fluid and as situation as actual relationships are and as a result problems constantly crop up with her line of thinking. I could list a dozen or so but you'll all just have to trust me.

evan is in a similar situation that I tend to wander into. I tend to cuddle with people and then wander away because while I think it is nice I don't derive anything paticularly sexual from it, nor do I turn it into a sexual thing. It is just something that I end up doing with variouse people and I tend to not think anything more of it once I am done. Life has taught me that it is something I need to be wary of because people don't think like me, and I may be leading something on or fostering something that doesn't excist. However, it isn't something I am over bothered with. However, it is something that I would attach kinda wierd arbirtrary rules too. For example I would prefer if she didn't cuddle with other people while I was there without seeing if it is okay first or something like that.

So to make all of this work together I came up with VOCABULARY words! Woo! I also realized that starting with the idea of cheating is the wrong place to start. See I realized that people have only the fuzzest ideas of what relationships are and how they work. So they just muddle through them head first and everyone gets hurt in the end. These things happen.

In order to deceide what actually defines cheating, it is nessiary to do three things. One avoid the draconian law of marianne, Two avoid the rampant subjectablity of dana, and three we need to conceptualize what relationships actually are. So I've taken old words and given them new definitions.

Politics: politics is the new word for relationships. I need to make a clean break from the R word and so we are. Politics covers a far wider set of implications than the R word, including friends with benifits, poligamy relationships, friendships that acidently advance, and the whole range of other incidents that cause for two people to interconnect but relationships fail to cover. This does not include one night stands and the like but the sort of on going thing that your wider range of social contancts pick up/know about. NOTE it is not nessisary for there to actually be anything between two people in order for them to be in politics. I think the prime requisite of politics is that the greater social network takes notice of it. I'm not sure of that though and I think I am going to change it...when I need to.

Hooray for digital media!

The Outer Church: Or the OC for when I am feeling lazy. The outer church is now the greater social network that surrounds you and your partner(s). Sociologists define this phenomina as the tribe instinct and most people have on average of 250 people with whom they interact with in some form or another. Some people have more some less. The OC encompasses friends, family, thouse co-workers you talk to, and other people who are in a position to note the change in your relationship status.

We are going to have to do some bullet biting here. So when half of the anime club thinks Dana and I are dating because of the way we interact we have politics. The anime club is functioning as part of the outer church, when we explain that they are wrong and that we are just friends our politics comes to an end when the OC accepts the facts that we are just friends. As a possible addendum to the politics definition I might want to include the actual relationship as the final, least interesting, part of the idea for me. I'll figgure that out latter though.

If that example isn't clear then I'll add others once the confusion starts rolling in.

Now the outer church is the most important part of what I am going to be doing here today because it is the Outer Church that is most often neglected when the relationship comes up. It is important to distinguisth the diffrence between the outer church and society. They are two utterly diffrent things and it is perfectly possible to have an outer church that functions outside of society.

...you know this is 4 pages double spaced I am getting tired. I'll work on this more latter.

Me+Dana+politcs

Outer church+ Dana+ Me=politics

..>..>

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Ugh I just made a theory joke using my own theory. I am going to fucking hell. So STAY BACK because if you think I am going without dragging a few people with me you are sorely mistaken.

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:14:28 PM): in reference to your blog:
so politics is something that comes to an end once the oc realizes that there is no politics?

in other words, politics exist only so long as they are recognized by the group?

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:15:20 PM): I think that is what I ended up deciding while I was at work today

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:15:33 PM): it is possible for a relationship to excist in a pure form

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:15:49 PM): but as soon as it becomes recognized by the OC then it becomes politics

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:16:02 PM): what do you mean by pure form?

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:16:53 PM): like the time between when you start a relationship with someone and the time when somone else finds out about it

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:17:31 PM): I've never seen it happen and that paticular idea excists only for contrast

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:17:50 PM): ohhh!

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:19:16 PM): yeah I mean its nearly impossible

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:19:33 PM): what about the two people in the relationship before the news gets around. does their knowing create politics?

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:19:46 PM): as soon as someone says "hey you should meet htis guy Adam" then your activities become monitored

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:19:59 PM): hmm.

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:20:09 PM): see these two people would have to be in a bloody vaccume

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:20:34 PM): because the monitoring process effects everything somehow

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:20:57 PM): that's so true. before anyone knew adam and i liked each other, they already knew before.

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:20:57 PM): ...to do better than "somehow" I need to do some extra reading

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:22:14 PM): this kinda reminds me of cause and effect

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:22:35 PM): the effect comes first. like a pin prick.

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:23:04 PM): eh sorta but definatly less a/b causal than that

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:23:27 PM): for the sake of contrast.

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:23:31 PM): ah yeah

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:24:21 PM): so kinda like a network of cause and effect.

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:25:14 PM): yeah more or less

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:25:27 PM): but I like to think of it more as a network of self regulation

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:25:33 PM): fascinating

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:25:34 PM): but I didn't get around to really explaining that

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:26:25 PM): i almost left a comment asking you to explain and then realized that i'd get immediate gratification just IMing

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:26:46 PM): well you are lucky I was paying atension

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:27:03 PM): indeed

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:27:22 PM): so explain a network of self-regulation

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:28:04 PM): alright hold on one second

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:28:45 PM): k.

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:28:46 PM): I was playing a video game and I needed to exit it

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:28:53 PM): haha

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:30:38 PM): alright the idea behind the outer church is that it is your group of people you end up associating with

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:30:46 PM): I said that much

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:30:49 PM): right

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:31:18 PM): now these people influence your life

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:31:26 PM): you associate with them because you like them

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:31:32 PM): respect them

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:31:34 PM): et cetera

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:31:35 PM): generally

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:31:41 PM): teehee

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:32:06 PM): well the people you don't like generally aren't included in the OC because they are easter to say fuck off too

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:32:16 PM): right

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:32:18 PM): anyway, all groups of people have a dynamic

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:32:31 PM): there are rules to follow and obey

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:32:51 PM): they are just certain codes that everyone follows

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:33:00 PM): like not buying the same shirt as someone else

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:33:20 PM): hmm

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:34:15 PM): there are lots of these little rules

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:34:49 PM): so cheating would be anything that goes against the group codes and variations

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:35:06 PM): erm...that is a part of it

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:35:22 PM): lets say I was dating someone

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:35:26 PM): then I slept with somoene else

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:35:38 PM): right

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:36:07 PM): if my OC hated my current girlfriend but loved the girl I cheated on her with then there is a chance that... argh I need to back up

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:36:45 PM): when you form a new politics the whole staus quo changes and there are usually massive shifts within the OC should the politics percist

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:36:52 PM): you've seen this yourself

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:37:07 PM): yea

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:37:11 PM): you have new people in your life that weren't there before, new people who you care about and they care about you

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:38:02 PM): as a result everything you do within your political unit matters

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:38:10 PM): right

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:38:11 PM): to the people aorund you in term of the status quo

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:38:42 PM): if I were to cheat on my said girlfriend with someone else it would cause a tidle wave of shit both within the OC

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:39:02 PM): this would be espcially true if it was with another memeber of the OC

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:39:12 PM): true

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:39:13 PM): ...I think

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:40:25 PM): now if the group hated my girlfriend but loved the girl I sorta fucked on the side...it wouldn't be cheating per say because it would be the groups best interest that I be with this other girl

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:40:42 PM): i disagree

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:40:43 PM): but it would still be cheating

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:41:05 PM): right

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:41:16 PM): the outer church has a regulatory function not a moral one

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:41:57 PM): the inverse of what I just described is where it is at though

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:42:05 PM): where they see something as cheating when it isn't

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:44:29 PM): then they start doing this wierd judgemental thing where they are looking out for the interest of the group when there is no interest needing to be looked out for

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:45:42 PM): so the inverse is the policing of someone's behavior if it is in violation of the code whether or not they are in the OC?

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:46:05 PM): if only by extension that is

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:47:11 PM): the inverse I was talking about was the inverse of the example whereas before I was cheating on my gf with someone else...now I am not cheating but everyone thinks so

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:47:20 PM): the policing is still going to happen no matter what

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:47:42 PM): one of the wierd things about this is that it is really turning my ideas regarding self interest on its head

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:48:05 PM): how do you mean?

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:48:07 PM): other people's relationships form this whole group menality around people

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:48:21 PM): you know self interest, selfishness, all these things

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:48:40 PM): look at me I am a loner, I'm sitting in my tailer playing video games not talking to anyone untill you came along

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:48:49 PM): but this is all group group group

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:49:02 PM): so much of it isn't about the individual

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:49:25 PM): and being anti individual is practicaly being anti american

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:49:50 PM): almost communist

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:50:14 PM): eh more mob mentality actually

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:50:32 PM): hence, almost

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:50:54 PM): I called it the outer church because there is a definate hiarchy involved

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:51:07 PM): sometimes there a definate leaders

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:51:23 PM): they are in of themselves their own microcosmic society

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:51:34 PM): anime club is such a great example

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:51:42 PM): there you go

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:51:57 PM): an even better example would be the group of us ourside of the library

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:52:02 PM): but you don't go there

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:52:18 PM): i do on tuesdays and thursdays

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:52:35 PM): oh is Ian there?

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:52:57 PM): i have no idea. i'm a low man on the totem pole

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:53:14 PM): heh ian is regulatory function incarnate

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:53:21 PM): its one of the reasons why I like him

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:54:12 PM): http://www.myspace.com/self_aware_object

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:54:30 PM): great html

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:55:10 PM): i saw him the last time i was there. i thought he seemed like a prick

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:55:30 PM): he is but that is also why I like him alot

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:55:35 PM): he makes no bones about it

CherryTree654<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:56:00 PM): i saw him as i was saying hi to tyler

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:56:40 PM): I don't know who that is

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:57:00 PM): anyway I realized that I actually need to do reading to figgure out some of the ins and outs of this

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:57:13 PM): I need to dig out my copy of violence and the sacred

C0MTE<..timestamp style="display: inline; font-size: 11px;"> (11:57:25 PM): and I think I will end up reading disciplin and punish

OC you and a little James Brown too

Every time I tried to explain this concept I have fucked it up I'm sure if any of tie made it here but I have tried to do that quite a few times now and it hasn't worked any of them. Today I figgured out how to do it while I was trying to distract myself from unhappy things. Before I go on with anything I would like to say that just because the band has a cool name doesn't mean they are good. Which is a shame, I had so much hope for "Cool Kids of Death". Oh well.

Oh and in other news I am reading a book called Extremely Loud Increadbly Close, a book recommended to me by both Sasha and Blyn. I can see why Blyn likes it, it has her written all over it. Hell I can almost hear her lectures in my head as I am reading the book, which is a disorienting though, especially when I tell her to be quiet. I feel increadbly bad telling Blyn to be quiet even when she is just a disembodied voice inside my head making the book I am reading more enjoyable. Anyway it is amazing you should read it, it feels like a less Angry Transmetropolitian. I don't even know how that works, I think I just made a logical leap that is impossible for everyone else to follow. Oh well looks like you are going to have to read transmetorpolitan to find out. I should re read them, they are some of the best books ever written.

So anyway as I was talking to Dana some months ago I realized that the relationship to everything I think and society needs to be clairfied because she got it increadbly wrong. First and formost take your preconcieved ideas about society and remove them. I shouldn't have to tell you this but do it anyway. To make evan happy I am not making up a new word for this, but I am also not dealing with all of your baggage either. The whole concept of "society is to blame" or "society keeps me down" its all garbage. Society is an empty set. An inert force... jesus winamp enough with the queen... it has no more ability to determine the course of your actions than a book, or video game. For the initiated read society as a text.

We are no more bound by its dictates than we are by an EULA, book of manners, or the manual which tells you how to put something together. It is only when the variouse OC's interavt with society do results become manifest. Large noisy groups will certainly tell you how things are supposed to be, "man woman marriage, black people in the ghetto, aids for gays, scarlet A's for abortions" et cetera what have you. None of this is society though, it is just a group of OC that has the volume control turned all the way up.

Now Baulch has made me acutely aware that I am a white middle class male and even as I sit in my lower income housing listening to my tribal fusion music I am still coming from a white middle class male perspective. As such I don't expect you to take my word for it. So to bring this outer church thing home I am going to give you some examples.

There is something in society that frowns upon the gay. Many outer churches are banded together for the very purpose of frowning upon gay people...because you know the fact that there are men that like to touch each other penisis is more important than say would hunger. You know just sayin. And hold on I am about to go into whirrlewind mode. However, there is nothing in socierty that says it is okay to torture and murder people who are diffrent that you. Yes there was a time where that was okay but thiat is long since gone. So when a group of kids torture and take turns branding a couple oif gay kids they find...they get arrested and put through the leagal system and optimally put in jail. They have crossed a line. Now somewhere society says that it is okay to put pressure on the gay. I don't know where because unlike a book society isn't written out. Yet despite this allowable pressure there excists SanFransisco, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Memorialday Pensacola, Gay Pride Parades, The Kinsy Sicks, Drag Queens, To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything Julie Numar, and more debatably Brookback Mountain. Despite the allowable pressure that society enables us to wield often times it sin't. Some people are leery of the gay, some don't care, and for some going to the "gay" club has become a pass time. It comes into gasion and goes out of it with the passing of the agaes. Some centureis vagianl sex is all the rage, and others...it is that thing you do because you want another son.

When you look at our cultural moment you see that the gay is dispersed all over the country, accepted in some places more than others, and in some places that you wouldn't expect at all. Then there is friece resistence to it too, sometimes within the same geographic area. Is this to say that society is felt more in some places than others? Or rather the pressures excerted by society are felt in some places more than others? Or maybe society just isn't equal everywhere like for thouse backwards folks in the south? Or maybe we should all just fess up and admit that society doesn't excist the way we like to think it does.

Now just to clarify I am talking about society as a morally regulating function.

Anywho. The acceptance of the gay isn't something that varies from one geographic area to the next, but from one OC to the next. You could be with one OC and they won't bat an eye when you start making out with one or more guys. On the other hand there are other groups of people who will kill you for doing so. HOw do we account for scoeity when these same OC's live within walking distance of each other. There is something alluering in reffrencing something larger than ourselves to back up our own opinion.

"The gay ain't right cause it just ain't natural. Its in the bible"

See natual and the bible you don't get much larger than that now do you? The point is though that when you come down to it, really come down to it all opinions of a morlaistic fasion really come down to you, and your fear of judgement from the people around you. Take this back down to cheating. Ask around, "Eating ain't cheating", "diffrent area codes", "two girls making out isn't cheating", "I was drunk"...et cetera. While some people find exception to some of these situation other people will find that they have fallen back on them at one point or another.

Oh shit there is something I forgot to do...what was it. Stalling. It is easy for me to talk about the pressures on the gay. After all I am white, straight, and middle class. I can talk about pressures all day long because I don't REALLY feel any. What I am saying in NO way midigates the pressures put on the gay. Instead I am mearly relocating the pressurues felt onto the people directly around them, and within themselves. Society (here it is) is seen as this all prevasive thing and no matter where you go this is how things will be. Now lets fact it, this just isn't bloody true. If it were true then the moral values of one group of people would be identical to the next, as would thier reasoning behind it. That just isn't true, you can figgure that out (I hope) from talking to your parents for 15 minuts.

To say that we are defined by society is false. It is like saying we are being defined by a book. I also bet we all have diffrent ideas as to what sociery says about any given number of topics. I want society removed from the picture as a defining force because I belive that it is an empty disembodied concept that we like to foist blame or explanitory force onto.

So what are we defined by? We are defined by the OC far more than anything else. It is from them that we get our idea of what society is telling us. Ity is also from them that the grey areas get filled in, like say for example, " I rubbed some guys feet for an hour even though I have a foot fetish, is that cheating"

We have the basic rule don't fuck/heavy pet outside of relationships. But when things get complicated where do we turn? The OC.

What is the point of all of this? It is the fact that the OC has no more, or less authority over anything than you do in your own politics. I am going to start redefining power as soon as I finnish Extreamly Loud and Increadbly Close and pick back up Discipline and Punish.