Theory Thursday #4: On Libertines

[sythyry]

Mirrored from Sythyry.

While I am curled up in an introspective frenzy, I suppose it would be polite to think about libertines. There have always been libertines in Vheshrame (and other Choinxeian) society: upper-class people, for the most part, who devoted considerable time and attention to the enjoyment of other people’s bodies without great thought for anything deeper than, shall we say, a few inches of penetration. A number of my friends and acquaintances have been in that social set: starting, I suppose, with then-Prince Nestrune, and Dustweed’s first lover Tethezai.

It became rather crucial to distinguish myself and my friends from that set.

The reason, I am embarrassed to say, was initially practical. The libertine set was high-class. A mere courtesy title like mine would have allowed me in, I suppose, but I would have been peripheral, unless I did something extraordinary to make myself central. (There was a small crowd of less-than-high-class people hanging around with the libertines, hoping for various advantages. They were often used, and occasionally indulged.)

Many of my friends — those who later became the first wrongfolk — did not even have a courtesy title, and were not so willing to be toys for the titled.

We got in a variety of lesser or intermediate troubles for, in effect, daring to ape our betters. Beatings and public scorn, of course. A friend’s job was lost, and she could not be hired any more in Vheshrame in her trade, at a few words from an indignant count’s son. Any sort of legal or semi-legal harassment that they found convenient.

The libertine set did not much like us infringing on their territory. Not that there was such a limited supply of prospective lovers in Vheshrame, but that the right to enjoy whoever one wished was a privilege the libertines of the 4260’s wished to regard as a sumptuary privilege. So an Orren printer, say, could no more indulge herself with Cani and Herethroy as she wished than she could wear copper ear-crests with sapphires, or own a pond, or drink Daq D’ouenff.

Which explains — or mis-explains — some of the theories we developed.

It was crucial for us to say that we were doing something different than the libertines were. If we were doing something different, it was not covered by the sumptuary customs. So: we had love and its concomitants, or at least we were attempting to weave love, and imitate marriage. The libertines were doing no such thing; their marriages were generally arranged, and made for reasons that had nothing to do with love or attraction, and their libertinage was play and escape.

It was crucial for us to say that we were doing something better, too. Crucial for us, anyhow. Not that we particularly talked about this to the libertines’ faces! But we cared a great deal. They were more powerful, and had the social and legal upper hand. We wished to find a ground of superiority. Moral superiority is easy enough to claim. We had love on our side, we proclaimed; they had only sex.

Well, the theory proved useful. There is still a libertine set in Vheshrame — the Academy and the court seem to almost require it — but they generally leave the transaffectionate alone. It was generally clear which community one belonged to, and when people switched, it was an occasion fraught with drama and bickerization. Our proud claiming of a monopoly on cross-species love got us a number of excellent people. Kantele, say, started in the libertine set, but she and Hithiat joined Castle Wrong when the depth of their relationship became clear.

However: I devoted much effort and passion to surveying the two concepts, and rendering them as separate as possible. This seems to have been… overdone, if not actually a mistake.

Anyhow, it was a useful tool for a particular time and a particular place. But that does not make it suitable for getting a central role in a general theory of love and sexuality.

I don’t want to toss this theory out. I want to wrap it in paper and put it in a cardboard box in the attic for a few centuries, and then I can take it out and giggle at how naive I was.

Comments

[ionotter.livejournal.com]

I want to wrap it in paper and put it in a cardboard box in the attic for a few centuries, and then I can take it out and giggle at how naive I was.

Indeed.

In those few centuries, you'll have figured out what we monsters have only a few short decades to figure out? That love simply needs no labels. And anyone who needs to try and put a label on love can go piss into a strong wind for all we care.

Being mortal tends to nudge one along to such realizations, that the practically immortal try to ignore as long as they can. Often right up until those realizations are on the verge of, or in the act of committing DOOM upon you.

[rowyn]

Tethezai wasn't a very good example of a libertine even then, in several respects. Oh, she had "playing around with other species in vast quantities" down, I'll grant. But a 'true' libertine (by theory) wouldn't've fallen in love with Dustweed, and would've been attracted to other Rassimel at least a *little*.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Well, Dustweed was rather bitter about Tethezai here and there, and much of that got into the theoretical tea too.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

That was an odd sort of love, though, if love it was. She put Dustweed through a fair bit of unnecessary misery - the incident with Claryelle comes to mind - and, when Dustweed finally came to the conclusion that it was causing zir too much pain and dumped her, what did she do? Stomped down the stairs, helped herself to some of Quelldrie House's food, went on about how she could pick up another lover instantly, and... propositioned Sythyry.

Whatever it was that kept Tethezai with Dustweed for that long, there may have been some affection involved, but I'm not sure it was anything I'd call "love".

[rowyn]

Dustweed and Tethezai were fundamentally incompatible in many ways. That doesn't mean they didn't love each other. I don't think it was lust alone that kept them together for so many months despite their differences.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Ah, now I am starting to see why you were so vehement about your categorizations of libertines -- it was something that was very important for you and those you deeply cared for, socially. And yes, the snooty upper social strata folk that think they can do whatever they want to whomever they want, and who believe NO ONE else can do anything even resembling what they do, is very much something wise to distance yourself from! Looking back, how common was people simply not wanting emotionally deep relationships, and wanting to enjoy physical needs and play in *general*, regardless of social status or appropriateness, or even what prime species was involved? Thinking back on folk you know, were there many, across many economic and social statuses, that you think would have been happiest behaving that way?

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

That "losing your job and not being able to get another in your trade at a few words from an indignant count's son"? That happens to people who aren't traff too. :(

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, but, yes, it does.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

...odd, I thought I'd commented here. Anyway.

Careful not to swing too far to the other end of things! Categorization of that sort can be a useful shorthand, saving trouble for all concerned. The chief problem is when the categories are treated too rigidly, causing the mentioned drama whenever someone shifts between them(or just plain doesn't fit in neatly).

There is some practicality in setting yourself (general "you") apart if the greater part of society doesn't want to deal with you anyway - but treating things as mutually exclusive is... troublesome. "Overdone" is right. But I think some transaffectionate inclination is more common than Vheshrame common attitude would want to believe.

Even among the nobility, there might well be some who would be traff (if perhaps not to the exclusion of their own species) if they didn't have so much to lose. But, alas, society is not kind.

(And, OOC, it might be somewhat intriguing to chance on a city with sort of an inverse attitude re: libertines - that is, that any sort of body-play with other prime species was, far from a perquisite of the upper classes, decidedly lower-class and scandalous, whereas whatever the common people get up to with each other is of far less concern. Invert the power struggle, so to speak. Have it be the traff nobility, rather than the traff commoners, who are in the frying pan.)

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[OOC - Sythyry's going to go visiting traff-positive parts of the tree. We've already seen that most of the crew wants to get going to somewhere else, and friendly places are probably good. We may well see somewhere like that! -bb]

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