The Insult

[sythyry]

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Inconnu flounced into my parlor with Arfaen in his wake, and waved the note to me. “Furious! Incensed! Tricked!”

I slithered out of the fireplace, where I had been taking a nap. “Perplexed. Confused. Awake.”

“Someone played a rather mean trick on Inconnu. Or maybe a nice trick, depending on how you count such things,” said Arfaen. “Show Sythyry the note, would you?”

Dear Inconnu my lover,
This may come as a shock, but you and I made love. My friend and I were disguised as Rassimel sluts. I’m really an Orren in real life though. Welcome to the wonderful world of cisaffection!
Here’s hoping to do it again — without a disguise this time!
— Y^r Secret Orren Admirer “Plisciné”

I thought a moment. “So, the Rassimel prostitutes you were so proud of getting a free night from were actually Orren Strayway passengers, magically transformed into Rassimel girls, purely for the purpose of seducing you?”

“Not just seducing me! Of breaking my life-long record of pure transaffection! Up until Confisse I had never so much as kissed another Orren! Now — now I have slept with one! With two!” wailed Inconnu. “I have degenerated into the realm of the merely indiscriminate! I am destroyed!”

“You are not, Inconnu. Don’t be ridiculous,” I snapped. I had been traff for far longer than Inconnu had, or even than he had been alive, until a worriesomely-pleasant night with my distant cousin Saza. I am still mostly traff — I am Arfaen’s tofyof, her legally-registered concubine in the laws of the city-state of Hanija — but I am forced to take a broader view of such matters. Well, a more standard view, saying little more than the truism that “people sometimes fornicate with — or love — each other, in a variety of combinations, some of which are socially acceptable and some are not.” Inconnu is one of the few holdouts on my prior and more radical philosophy.

“I am ruined!” wailed Inconnu. “The essence of my character has been shattered!”

“Only if the essence of your character is being the stereotypical traff brought to life,” I said. “And I know you enjoy playing that role, but there’s more to you than that.”

Inconnu threw his head back. “You are ignoring me, Sythyry! You cannot see the depths of my despair, my degradation, my doom!”

“Lots of us have slept with socially-appropriate people,” said Arfaen quietly. “I certainly did. Where do you think my son Quendry came from?” I’m pretty sure she was loyally defending me; Cani are like that.

Inconnu stamped a web-toed foot. “You do not understand! You were not tricked!”

“I was shoved into an arranged marriage over my objections, if that counts,” said Arfaen.

“It was years ago — you have forgotten! You are so used to your impurity and degradation that you cannot remember!” howled Inconnu.

“It was only a few years ago, and I remember perfectly well, and I am less degraded now that I am with my own kind than I ever was when I was married,” snapped Arfaen. She bared her teeth and growled warningly.

Inconnu growled back at her. “Well! If you care nothing for what has become of me — you who are both my lovers! — I shall seek someone aboard who cares to render assistance to a fellow traff in need!” He turned and stomped out of the parlor, his tail lashing back and forth, and knocking a hat-stand over.

Arfaen shrugged to me. “I was going to ask you to use some sort of magic to see who wrote the letter. Or maybe even see if you can figure out if someone borrowed your body-changing devices to switch from Orren to Rassimel.”

“Actually, I’d been leaving the transforming cloak in a parlor for anyone to use,” I said. “I got tired of people asking to borrow it. The students have been wanting to do all sorts of experiments — one married trio of Orren wanted to try their lovemaking as all seven other prime species. Anyways, I left it over there, where … it … is now. Maybe you could sniff it and see who has been using it?”

Arfaen smelled the cloak up and she smelled it down, she smelled it forwards and she smelled it backwards. “Lots of people have been using it, many of them Orren, like you said. I can’t pick out any one of them in particular, not this far after the fact. Not that I really want to do sleuthing on Inconnu’s behalf, not after he insulted both of us like that.”

“Well, as your loyal and obedient concubine, I will forbear from helping him either,” I said. I was a bit annoyed at him as well.

Comments

[rowyn]

Well, that note certainly makes it sound like Invincible Fire Demon was Plisciné. c.c Or someone is trying to frame IFD! Maybe they really were Rassimel prostitutes and the note was faked to aggravate Inconnu. n.n

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Well... I've kinda noticed that, um, a large part of his identity and character *has* been the "stereotypical traff brought to life". He has invested a large amount of energy and focus into that, and his sense of self has been shattered. Of course it's understandable for him to react with aggression -- maybe you two should try and apologize as soon as you feel a little more calm about it? I presume this is a well-after-the-fact writing, are you calmer now?

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

It could be argued that Inconnu was just raped (not forcible rape, but still rape) by two of your passengers. In that light, his anger at your total lack of concern is rather understandable.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

It could be so argued, but I think such an argument is overstating the case. I think that rape is sex which one does not want at the time. (It might be more specific than that, such as sex that one is coerced into having against one's wishes. (It might even be worse than that: e.g., a prostitute hired by an unpleasant john might feel coerced by economic circumstances to the act, but that is not rape.)) In any case, Inconnu did want the sex at the time and even afterwards -- he boasted about it the whole next day, in fact.

Sex that one regrets after the fact is an entirely different matter. Anyone with a moderate amount of experience or adventurousness risks having such sex, and, however much one regrets it when one is sober or satiated, it is hard to consider it rape. Sex with someone who lies about themself seems to fall under this category to me. Inconnu would not have touched this "Plisciné" if he had known she was really Orren... but I would not have touched Thenel at first had I known he was engaged. While I certainly am full of regret and shame about various aspects of that encounter -- I do not think I behaved particularly well -- I don't think it was rape.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

That sort of trickery is very nearly, if not actually, rape. I can entirely understand Inconnu's anger.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

[I don't know what the law is like in World Tree, but in many parts of the US, the use of deception to trick someone into sex they would not have otherwise agreed to is still legally considered rape]

Thenel is an important distinction--he never presented himself as single, especially not after being told you have an aversion to engaging with the act with married primes. This letter seems to suggest the writer knew Inconnu did not want to sleep with Orren, deliberately acted to fool him, and now is deriving perverse pleasure revealing to him that he has been tricked. There is a difference between being wrong about someone and them deliberately attempting to deceive you.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I understand it, though I think it is distinctly less than rape; I wrote more detail to Stormydragon.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Up until Confisse I had never so much as kissed another Orren!

Not even his mother?



And I'll buck the trend and say he's acting like a doofus. Being pissed off about being tricked, even being disgusted at who you had sex with is one thing, but he's contending that his entire identity is built around who he goes to bed with. He's a doofus.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[I don't know the general World Tree law either, but it seems to place more responsibility on the individual. Or perhaps it doesn't consider sex as big a sin as US law might. But ... really? If I take off my wedding ring and pick up someone who ordinarily doesn't do married men, that's rape? And I could even be committing that act without knowing it, since it depends on the someone's opinion on a topic I didn't know?]

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

not even his mother?

I merely report his words!

I, too, think he is a doofus in this case. His entire identity is not built around being traff; he just likes to pretend it is.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

Well, no, you can't do it without knowing it. Deception is an intentional act.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I accept the important distinction. The two cases are far from identical, though I still consider that they share important similarities.

And if Inconnu were saying, "This is an insult! Someone set this situation up purely to make me look foolish!" I would probably have reacted quite differently.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

[I don't think it's a 'sex is bad' thing. The World Tree in general seems far more tolerant of various forms of fraud than the US]

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

I once saw a softcore movie in which a man dressed as a woman (during a time period where many layers of clothing and hoop skirts and whatnot were common) and seduced another woman who was known to only prefer female lovers. In the course of the seduction, instead of using the ivory sex toy the other woman generally utilized in her play, he used his own parts. Somehow, this was supposed to be sexy; instead, it has appalled me for 20+ years. Clearly, the woman wanted to have sex with the person she perceived her partner to be, but her partner used the opportunity to do something to her that she would never have consented to had she known the truth about him. I think the situations are parallel, and I think that very few people could say that the act carried out in the movie was not, in fact, rape. And it was portrayed as corrective rape, since the woman immediately became enamored of the male sex and was "turned into a proper heterosexual woman" by the act.

It would have been one thing if the person crushed on Inconnu had done it in secret and never told Inconnu or anyone else. But the taunting tone of the note informing Inconnu of the act smacks heavily of "now you've had the right species, you'll never want to go back to your immature and improper ways!" (I suspect that at least one of them was Alzagond (sp?) because it sound like her kind of hateful experimental solution.)

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[That's quite true about fraud as well. Fraud against foreigners is generally acceptable.]

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

The movie does sound appalling, insofar as I understand the parallels and non-parallels of our worlds.

The note was, indeed, quite horrid. If Inconnu hadn't been quite so offensive to us --- or quite so arrogant about the encounter at first --- we would have been a lot more sympathetic.

I don't think Alzagond would sleep with Inconnu, though, not even to prove a point.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

That's pornography, though. Lots of stuff happens in porn that just doesn't fit in with real life - characters behaving unbelievably, people doing stuff that's physically impossible, etc. I don't think you can relate anything that goes on in those stories to the real world, and you're not really supposed to, either. Most pornography is horrid and appalling, if you don't suspend morals and disbelief, and allow yourself to buy into the premise of the story.

Whoever tricked Inconnu was being vile and spiteful about it, no doubt. The note shows they wanted to upset him. Using sex to upset someone isn't the same as rape, though.

[brynndragon.livejournal.com]

It might be more important to note that *Inoonnu* might consider it as rape, and thus act accordingly. What do you think he's liable to do to someone who raped him? Particularly if he recruited, say, Yerenthax and Jyondre to help him out?

[greenreaper.livejournal.com]

I don't see the problem. From my understanding of such transformations, the subject really is the species transformed to for most intents and purposes. Why should this not count for transaffection purposes? After all, he was not attracted to an Orren girl (or two), but Rassimel.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

We will see shortly!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I personally don't much care. Inconnu has not yet abandoned my former and unfortunate philosophical position on the matter.

[rowyn]

I think Stormydragon is correct in at least some cases. There's at least one case on a woman whose husband's identical twin pretended to be him in order to have sex with her, and I'd unequivocally say 'that is rape'.

This is, I dunno. Certainly wrong of the perpetrator, but it's not really on the same scale, perhaps because the perpetrators (a) never actually said they were *not* Orren and (b) were not pretending to be a specific person they weren't. Impersonating Arfaen in order to sleep with Inconnu would've been worse. One might even argue that they expected Inconnu to have noticed the spells with magic sense (although the note suggests they did not).

[rowyn]

Your comment re: pornography is very apt! Things that I would find appalling in other forms of fiction can be fun in pornography. I don't really think it's necessary to judge porn by the same standards as reality, or as something that is intended to be believable.

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

His self-identity most assuredly is, though, and that is rocked to the core.

Perhaps someone could explain to him that it doesn't count if you were tricked or coerced. Would that even work? He seems in a bit of a Wild Rush about it at the moment.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

But the concept of "corrective rape" exists in our world (for ex Google "corrective rape" "lesbians" "South Africa"), and the motivation in this case -- given the tone of the note -- appears to be the same. Whether done by force or trickery or drugs/alcohol, it's still an abominable concept, and happens all the time in our world.

If it was someone who just had a big ol' crush on Inconnu and was admitting it in the note, I would expect the tone to be far more conciliatory and/or apologetic.