Life In Oorah Thrassen: Cisaffection [22 Lage 4385]

[sythyry]

Mirrored from Sythyry.

This part bothers me a great deal. I was debating not writing it down at all, and trying to forget it. But I do not want to be dishonest, even to myself … maybe especially to myself.

Which is a problem. Either I have been very dishonest, to myself and everyone else, for my whole life, or I am now being very dishonest, to myself and everyone else. I wish I knew which it was.

Saza: “So, coz, after a long day in which I have shown you all the ways in which I am taking care of your problems — in response to you taking care of all of my problems — and after an excellent if underdescribed dinner prepared by an expert Cani chef in my employ who is actually used to cooking for Zi Ri — and several tots of brandy — let us retire to bed. Indeed, coz, let us curl up together as we have done before, but this time in my capacious and comfortable fireplace, because it is simply good manners for Zi Ri.”

Sythyry: “Indeed, we have done all of these things, and so let us make that particularly pleasant and companionable sort of end for a particularly pleasant and companionable sort of day.” [Sythyry is indeed writing "Sythyry" rather than "Me" here. -bb]

Saza ran zir beak down my neck, and curled up with me in a somewhat distinctive and demonstrative way.

Saza: “It need not be quite the end of the day. And if my seductive intent is not clear enough, please observe where my tailtip is resting upon your languid body.”

Sythyry: “But … you are suggesting body-play! With me!”

Saza: “I am, indeed, as is common-place and polite between Zi Ri who are as close together as I hope that you and I are! As you are no doubt aware, Sythyry, body-play between Zi Ri cousins is no great concern, since it is not reproductive (that being a different and far more painful matter) and hence simply a matter of entertainment and sharing of affection.” Well, the actual response was more of a smile and a quick affirmative.

Sythyry: “An eep! Perhaps two or three!”

Saza: “Do you know what will happen if you refuse my advances?”

Sythyry: “Um … you’ll break our arrangements and ruin my revenge and torment Feralan and Ochirion and …”

Saza: “Worse than that.”

Sythyry: “You’ll tell all our grandparents … um … something … um … if there’s anything they don’t know …”

Saza: “Worse than that!”

Sythyry: “Wizard-war with me?”

Saza: “Worse than that! I’ll kiss you on the cheek and go to sleep!”

Sythyry: “Um, what?”

Saza: “I’m really a pretty old lizard. I’ve had crushes on all sorts of people, and more often than not they turn me down, and I’m not about to make enemies out of good friends and close relatives over it. But I did feel like offering, and I can see that at least part of you is interested. It’s fine if the rest of you isn’t.”

Sythyry: “I’m traff. And transaffectionate. And interested in all the prime species except my own. And crossie. And traff. And I always have been. “

Saza: “Sure you don’t want to take a walk on the mild side, coz?”

Sythyry: “… I’m … not sure … “

Saza: “It’s up to you, coz.”

A Quick Debate on the Nature of Love and Pleasure

Sythyry to Me: “I am sort of curious what it’s like.”

Me to Sythyry: “Probably a lot like when Mynthë and I tried it a century or so ago, with Cloak of Another God.”

Sythyry to Me: “Saza’s really wonderful.”

Sythyry to Me: “Cementing our alliance is probably a good idea.”

Sythyry to Me: “I have been neglecting certain regions of my body too much the last few decades, as my eagerness and indeed near-desperation with Thenel and Arfaen indicated.”

Me to Sythyry: “And my current eagerness too!”

Sythyry to Me: “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it — it’s perfectly normal — two people of the same species enjoying each other in private — happens all the time — normal — unremarkable — ordinary!”

Me to Sythyry: “It’s not how I do things!”

Sythyry to Me: “Why on wood not?”

Me to Sythyry: “Because I am traff!”

Sythyry to Me: “I do not accept tautological reasoning!”

Sythyry to Me: “Especially tautological reasoning that is interfering with enjoyment of an appealing and, above all, friendly lover!”

Sythyry to Me: “One who even, unlike everyone else I’ve been involved with in the last long time, is sane. “

Me to Sythyry: “I am not interested in lovers of the same species as me!”

Sythyry to Me: “Besides, it’s not love, it’s just body-play. Traff, construed strictly in the classical sense, is about whom one loves, as I did Mynthë. This is an only invitation to mutual pleasure.”

Me to Sythyry: “Mutual pleasure with a person with whom I have certain strong ties of relationship already! If it’s not love now, it has an indefinite amount of time to evolve towards it!”

Sythyry to Me: “Or in any number of other directions! In any event, Saza did not offer a same-species marriage or anything of the sort; zie merely offered a spot of amusement. Which, if I recognize certain unmistakeable bodily signs, is amusement that you are eager for as well.”

Me to Sythyry: “My body is not acting under my instructions in this regard!”

Sythyry to Me: “Your body is simply reflecting your actual emotions and passions! You may lie to yourself — I am sure that half this conversation has been a lie, though it would be convenient to know which half — but I do not think you can lie to your body.”

Me to Sythyry: “Well, we’d better give Saza an answer, and that answer must be a resounding and unmistakable NO!“

L’Après-Debate

Sythyry: “… show me, coz? I’ve never done this before with another Zi Ri … “

Saza: (does. expertly.)

Sythyry: (enjoys. participates, after a while.)

I was sure, even while I was enjoying and/or participating, that there was going to be Doom, as soon as I started to think about it.

Next entry: a very nervous theoretical analysis of the situation.

Comments

[terrana.livejournal.com]

Whoops.

I don't think it's nearly as big a deal as you're making it out to be. Why, after all, let species or gender or whatever else get in the way of a good relationship?

[Also, I can't possibly imagine Bard writing this with a straight face.]

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[Bard's face -- and the rest of Bard -- is bisexual or something.]

[dracosphynx.livejournal.com]

*gasp* A fundamental law of the universe has been broken! Sythyry is being !traff!

The DOOM shall be mighty indeed!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[Bard notes that Sythyry really hasn't had a good opportunity. Hasn't tried to make one either, since zie decided zie was traff, so it's not pure chance at work. But zie really hasn't been tested.]

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

*patpats the confuzzled (and still traff!) lizard*

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

"... still traff?" says Sythyry perplexedly. "Are you sure?"

[redbird]

It's not that bad. Really.

At least, if it's anything like how it is for some of us monsters, yes you can be startled to find some attraction to people of the socially approved sort, and still be your self, loving who you love, many of them not of the approved sort.

Easier said than accepted, I admit: it took me ages to really get there. But it can work, and one advantage of being Zi Ri is that you have a lot of time.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

More than mere attraction is at stake for me: can I maintain Castle Wrong if I am not, myself, wrong?

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

This seems more a crisis of identity than preference. With how few Zi Ri there are out there, I don't think the normal labels really apply. I'm sure Sythyry can remain notoriously traff while enjoying the occasional cisaffectionate play.

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

I think Sythyry started zir campaign of transaffection specifically because there were no other Zi Ri within hundreds of miles and a hundred years' age. Very limited opportunities! It so happens that Sythyry ended up dallying with other species, decided zie liked it, incidentally helped a bunch of other people in a similar situation, and now is so infested in the idea that zie's stunned to even consider zir own species.

How do other Zi Ri handle the lack of mates? Fool around for a century, then go back to Officially Right and Proper Morals?

[kobolds.livejournal.com]

I don't see why being traff has to exclude your own species. Are things really than binary over there that you have to either like your own species, or all the other prime species but your own?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Yes! Absolutely! There are two choices: your own species, or all the others!

[Or that's the position Sythyry's been taking, anyways. Time for zir to re-examine that axiom... -bb]

[bloofox.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! And Saza is pretty wonderful.

What's crossie?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

crossie is another word for traff.

[rowyn]

Saza: “Worse than that! I’ll kiss you on the cheek and go to sleep!”

Dire threat indeed! Given this terrifying abuse of zir power over you, I think you can rest assured that you were merely bullied into it, not an actual willing and consenting partner. *nods*

*pets the poor l'il blue cave lizard*

Don't angst over it too much, dear. I'm sure that it's not that big a deal. You're still going to love Orren in the morning. And if you don't, Saza will turn out to be insane after all and there will *still* be doom. There are still constants of your universe you can rely on!

[draconis.livejournal.com]

I relate to this far too well! :D

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Oh ... can you explain it to me?

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

Saza: “I’m really a pretty old lizard. I’ve had crushes on all sorts of people, and more often than not they turn me down, and I’m not about to make enemies out of good friends and close relatives over it. But I did feel like offering, and I can see that at least part of you is interested. It’s fine if the rest of you isn’t.”

This, totally.

I identify with Saza far too much. :-)

(Also, curious as to what zie means by people in this sentence.)

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

... I didn't ask, actually...

[Bard beams! -bb]

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

Maybe I missed something somewhere.

I had always thought the definition of Traff was "Interested in bodyplay and living relations with other Primes". I wasn't aware that it meant "In exclusion of having kits". While other primes have found this disgusting, and I suppose I understand ... no.. no I don't understand... but I'll accept!...

I mean, just because you once in a few centuries sleep with one of your kind doesn't STOP you from being Traff, right?

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

Much like certain portions of gay community who think that bisexuals are all faking it, Sythyry is trapped by the idea that one most be either wholly transffectionate or wholly cisffectionate.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

SSG Sythyrs! You're cis? How is that even possible? What are you going to do what are all the people at Castle Wrong going to do you're not going to turn them all out for not being cis like you are you?

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

There are innate inclinations and then there are social affinities. Discovering that one's innate inclinations are broader than one suspected can indeed be disconcerting. But that doesn't have to mean giving up one's social affinities. You probably aren't the only person on wood capable of enjoying ALL the prime species.

Re: Thoughts

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

And that's assuming that "all of them" is even a requirement! I imagine there are a good many who could do without Khtsoyis, and not just because of Khtsoyis mannerisms. And there are probably a number of mammals who can appreciate any of the other mammalian primes, but don't want much to do with the other three species.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I'd be tempted to guess 'traff but also a libertine', but you already covered that possibility and are worried it's not sufficient.

Be careful, though -- Saza might use your maybe not being traff to blackmail you into sleeping with zir again. >:)

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Okay, so far, we have three terms which you have defined that MIGHT apply...

Transaffectionate: Sexually and Intimately and Relationship-wise, likes only Primes of other species then their own.

Cisaffectionate: Sexually and Intimately and Relationship-wise, likes only their own Prime species.

Libertine: Engages in wanton physical play with a large variety of Primes, without even thought to emotional intimacy and relationships and whatnot.

Are these terms correct, as you have understood them so far?

Also, is it just me, or do they leave many potential options for "The way primes can FEEL and ACT about sex, intimacy, and relationships" outside their domain."? In other words, using THOSE SPECIFIC DEFINITIONS, they do not cover all potential avenues of behaviour, identity, and feelings? Is it perhaps the case that the words MIGHT better have a slightly broader definition, or that some other terms might need to be researched?

Using the same linguistic base as with the cis and trans, what would mean, ah, Prime-affectionate? As in, "Is emotionally and physically attracted to all of the prime species, and is interested in sex, play, intimacy, affection, and relationships with all of them."? And would such a term imply that the *exact type and amount* of interest is PRECISELY equal with all of them? If so, why does it imply such? Couldn't someone prefer Gormorror for their size and strength and their intensity, and be more physically interested in them for when they have a craving for energetic body and social play? And prefer, ohhh, Rassimel for their focus? And so on?

And also, would there be a term that also includes, all eight primes, as well as "Very Prime-like, Sapient, civilized, ethical nonprimes." like perhaps an occasional Norren who has figured out correct and ethical behaviour?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Potential options are, of course, endless. One might have imagine a person who will only play with black-furred Cani, and Khtsoyis whose total length of tentacles is a prime number of inches. I submit that most of these potential options are ridiculous, and, more cogently, not realized. The actual theoretical point is to figure out which options do occur: hence the cissy/traff/libertine trichotomy.

[beetiger.livejournal.com]

I think *I* have a crush on Saza.

[kobolds.livejournal.com]

So do I...

I'm also incredibly happy for Sythyry, for once zie has a relationship that would be Doom free, if not for the fact that zie is so used to The Doom, that zie is imagining it rather than enjoying zirself.

[valdary.livejournal.com]

It's been obvious for a while that Saza was interested in physical affection with you.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I was trying not to notice!

[nekomavin.livejournal.com]

All I have to say is, "It's about time!" Relax, little blue dude.