From: STella@thelema.uucp (STella)
Subject: Party Face, Net Face was Appearances on and off the net
Organization: Idiosyncratic Anarchic Order
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 93 11:22:20 GMT

In article <1993Jan19.121946.14730@infodev.cam.ac.uk> gdb15@cl.cam.ac.uk writes:
>In article <C10tJ8.HD0@demon.co.uk> gtoal@pizzabox.demon.co.uk (Graham Toal) writes:
>>Yes, it will probably be an orgy.  I wonder how many people like me
>>won't be going because we don't like the social pressure of being
>>expected to be intimitate with strangers?  I know they always say

Interesting typo/thinko there, Graham.  But making strangers intimates
IS sometimes tricky, and if both (all) parties aren't moving in
compatible directions at compatible speeds, it can be uncomfortable
enough to make sitting in a corner not interacting seem like a
worthwhile alternative.

>>that people are expected to respect your space and no-one is expected
>>to do anything they don't want to, but the fact is that soc.bi events
>>seem to always take on an overtly sexual nature.  Don't get me wrong,

How is this different from any other part of life except, perhaps,
working?  (Though I do recall hugging a co-worker fairly recently
after we chanted the magick phrase "fuck professionalism".  Sie's not
a lover, but a friend, and we'd shared, recently, a trying event that
left us both intensitied out, and in need of making a connection the
next time we met.)  Sex is, and it shows up all over the place.

>>I don't mind a good cuddle, but I'd rather it was with people I already
>>knew well enough.  I wonder how many people more would come to an event
>>that was explicitly declared to be just a party without any expected
>>sexual offshoots.

And would you miss those of us who, willing to respect the limits of
others, were asked to check our sensuality at the door?  I don't fist
my friends at the pizza parlor, and I don't suck dick at a staff
meeting, but I probably wouldn't bother attending a party that had an
explicit "no canoodling" rule, because I figure I'm perfectly able to
decide for myself what level of intimacy I'm comfortable with, and
defend that limit if some octopoid wants to breach it.  This being so,
I prefer to socialize with people who also, whatever their limits, are
comfortable defending them, rather than expecting ME to restrict my
behavior with others to protect their limits.

>>And one thing that scares me somewhat is just
>>how promiscuous many soc.bi members are, to the extent of continually
>>boasting about how many people they sleep with on the net.  I'm sure

Ah, so you believe that viruses can count?  I don't.  There is one
person with whom I have unprotected sex, my longtime husband.  When
either of us do anything with another, we dress for the occasion.  I
don't quite put on gloves to apply a bandaid, but I don't share fluids
with all my playmates, and if either he or I have a barrier failure,
that sole exception to "universal precautions" will stop till we've
tested clean for a year.

>>we're all sensible people and know about safer sex, but you can't
>>help but have nagging doubts, especially given the scale of the
>>incestuous relationships across the group.  A relationship graph
>>would be a wonder to behold I'm sure.

Are you really as Victorian as this reads?  I haven't thought so....

If you practice universal precautions, it doesn't fucking matter.  If
I dod not expose myself to your fluids, it doesn't matter to my health
whether you have viruses, bacteria, or sperm or not.

Some of the folk I play with are positive.  I don't know which ones in
all cases, but it doesn't matter.  I assume, and expect my partners to
assume, that we're full to the eyeballs with viruses and other
cooties, and, given that assumption, defend my limit about catching
diseases as routinely as I defend my limit about being groped on the
subway.

I, and presumably my partners, am a responsible adult.  I do not wish
to acquire any of the wide variety of STDs that exist.  Nor a dose of
fetus, for that matter.  I will take responsiblity for that, and in so
doing, I make it a matter of no concern whether my partner is positive.

>You know, this posting surprised me somewhat.  Being well on the
>outside of all this, I'd always tended to take the sort of boasting
>you get on this sort of group with a large pinch of salt -- my
>reasoning being along the lines of "If they're really having this wild
>social life/sex life, why are they spending so much time staring at a
>computer terminal?"

Right.  We're not doing anything your momma couldn't watch, and if we
were, we wouldn't have time to post about it.  Uh-huh.  Sure.

But maybe I type faster than you do....

>  I'd assumed that many people who post to *any*
>group, but especially groups like this one, would tend to appear
>slightly more outgoing on the net than they are in person -- perhaps
>they used the net to express a side of their personality that they're
>not totally comfortable with.   My vision of net parties (I've
>never been to one) was that everyone turned up with high expectations
>and ended up talking about operating systems.  (I'm sure this is
>terribly unfair of me!)

Well, not always.  I still get teased, now and then, about the time I
walked up to a group of folks who were rattling on about hardware, and
said "oh, shit, _they're_ not talking about sex EITHER".  But that
was, if I remember right, the BurgerMunch at which CBT was first
performed.  (Lovely screams, simply lovely.  Music to my ears.)

Even at the non-net playparties I attend, I can generally count on
hearing at least one or few conversations about computers, and people
who aren't yet ready to jump in and get flogged will chat about
something of common interest before they feel ready to say "hey,
STella, wanna give me a first flogging?"

It could be motorcycles (there was the month when it seemed like every
BurgerMunch featured at least one crip telling how sie'd dropped hir
bike), or music, or whipmakers, or movies, or even George Loser Bush,
but people do talk about nonsexual things between meeting and having
sex, doing SM, or joining a puppy pile.  Makes intimacy less
intimidating.

And yes, we do use the net to display aspects of our personalities
that aren't as easily expressed face-to-face.  For one example, I have
told, in asb, the story of the night someone popped into my bedroom
with a six-inch knife, and said "shut up and you won't get hurt".  It
suits me just fine that anyone who might think of raping me know that
story, but it's very difficult to bring it, subtly, into conversation
with a drunk who's standing a foot closer than I want him.  (In such
cases, I'll start quoting Tom Wolfe or something, and do the
crazier-than-thou ploy.  Or directly say "fuck off, and get out of my
face".  But by telling that story on the net now and then, I make it
clear that I'm willing to kill to prevent being raped, and for all I
know, someone who's thought of doing just that has decided not to lurk
and wait for me when I leave the BurgerMunch.

I was very proud of myself, last November, when I managed to tell the
women who were playing with me "I've got performance anxiety out the
wazoo, and dunno if I'll come, but I'll enjoy myself anyway."  This is
something it was hard to write about in asb almost a year before, but
even harder to say to folk I respect and admire who were then engaged
in frobbing my wabbly bits.

For me, it's difficult to talk for five minutes in front of a group
of, perhaps, forty people, about a matter close to my heart.  But I
can write about equally charged things, at great length, for
ten-thousand times as many folk, on the net.  (But I do find it
possible to speak.  This is a relatively new, and very cool, thing.  A
thing that might not have happened without the practice in being heard
I've gained from the net.  A limit is to respect, and to push against.
I don't insist that I speechify, but when I have something to say, I
try to get it out.  I try not to go to playparties with an agenda of
stuff to do, but I do try to stay engaged with the group.)

>So am I mistaken?  Do people reading this think they're more outgoing
>on the net than in person, or less so, or about the same?

I'm clearer, easier to understand, on the net, I think (in
conversation, it's kinda hard to look back a paragraph, and see where
all the parentheses and clauses started and ended, but I do talk too
much like I write -- which isn't that good a thing -- note that I did
NOT say "I talk like I rewrite"), and I'm likely to write about
something that's really touchy for me before I manage to say it to
playmates.  But in person, I will see that you're looking lonely at
the edge of a BurgerMunch and say "Hi, I'm STella.  I'm glad you're
here", while I won't notice you lurking unless you post, and may or
may not burn bandwidth just to say "hi".  So I'd say that I, at least,
am the same person in real or net.life, but the medium does influence
(not is) the message.

STella@xanadu.com	1016 E. El Camino Real, #302, Sunnyvale, CA 94087
STella%thelema.uucp@dec.com	Don't blame me, I voted Libertarian!