Falling Behind

[qos]

My friends are quite prolific -- and there are a few more of you than there used to be. I didn't even have the chance to read and respond to yesterday's posts.

Last night was Women In Transition, which was a good time. I've committed to developing my class "The Lamp and the Mirror: Illuminating and Reflecting On Spiritual Life" before summer. This is *after* I finish my final papers for my two classes, but it's my turn to step up and start teaching. My assignments are to gather information on likely venues and develop my course outline into more detailed lesson plans.

I have "Christian Ethics" class tonight, and won't be home until after 9pm. We have to present a one-paragraph description of our final paper topic. I was going to look at assisted suicide (which I think should be legal) - but I may instead examine plural marriage. Our thoughts about marriage seem to form out of a whole series of assumptions about the "natural" qualities and roles of males and females, religious codes, ideas about power and body ownership. . . I was doing some online research yetserday. One site that advocates polygamy because it is biblically-based reject polyandry (one woman with multiple husbands) because it violates nature and the Bible. (To quote The King and I: "Flower must not go from bee to bee to bee!") Where do our ethics depend on our assumptions about nature?
Feel free to weigh in on the topic if you have thoughts, opinions or questions.

Finally: perhaps this will become a meme?
I love the beauty, creativity and self-expression of LJ icons. I also enjoy the masking effect. I only know what a couple of you look like. A few of you I know from everyday life. Two or three of you have icons with your photos. But the rest of you are mysteries to me -- as I am to you.
So, without looking at my Info Page, I'd like those of you who don't know what I look like: How old am I? What do I look like? What is my personal style of dress? What do you imagine when (if) you picture me?
Those of you who know me can do this too if my verbal image doesn't quite match with my actual appearance.

And meanwhile, I'll do my best to get caught up with all your entries as best I can. But please understand if I fall behind in conversations!

Dad's surgery is tomorrow morning. I'll be at the hospital all day. More on that this evening.

Comments

[queenofhalves]

are you going to write about polyamory? all the societies described in those feminist matriarchy novels i've been reading are polyamorous. the authors clearly think of polyamory and the ethics of goddess worship as going hand in hand.

obviously i think plural marriage is more interesting than assisted suicide. :>

let me see. i know you're just under forty and wear glasses. i've been picturing you as average height, slightly plump, either short hair or long and constantly up in a bun or barette. hair brown, eyes blue. clothes simple and comfy.

in other words, approximately me in 15 years. ;>

prayers for you, your dad, and your family.

[qos.livejournal.com]

Actually, one of the things I'm going to have to do in my paper is clarify the difference between polyamoury (multiple openly-acknowledged sexual partners) and polygamy (multiple *spouses*). I think the model is only going to be valid - for my purposes anyway - if the discussion is specifically about marriage.

But yes, it looks like that's the way I'm going to be going. I emailed an inquiry to my prof on Thursday morning, and Thursday night before class she told me briefly that it was a good topic and I had good questions, and she had some suggestions. I haven't seen them yet. Maybe they'll be in my work email on Monday.

in other words, approximately me in 15 years.

I keep chuckling about this. You're very close -- not surprisingly. And I think it's funny that both you and amqu mentioned the comfy clothing. Have I talked about that? Or does it just come across somehow in my entries?

Green eyes. Long brown hair that I've been wearing down but with a headband. I wear a ponytail when it gets hot. 5'2" How tall are you?

[queenofhalves]

i don't think you've talked about the comfy clothing, but it just seems reasonable to me. when you're working and in grad school and have a child, you don't want to be bothered with clothing that you have to worry about.

i am 5'6".

[qos.livejournal.com]

when you're working and in grad school and have a child, you don't want to be bothered with clothing that you have to worry about.

You are a wise and perceptive woman.
Of course, I've *never* wanted to worry about clothes. Or hair. Or make-up. Except on special occasions.

I am still a bit boggled by the fact that you are so much younger than I am. I feel like we should be the same age -- maybe both of us 31 or so. Your writing and thinking come across as older than you are, and I feel younger than my calendar age.

[queenofhalves]

mental age is a funny thing! i've been thinking about it a lot lately... i'd like to learn to swing more freely between being young -- because i don't think i ever properly let myself be about 21 -- and making the kind of good decisions that i'd like to think people who are in their 30s and 40s are better at making.

as my therapist pointed out, i'm too young to get all the privileges of being older (even if i get some of them by being so responsible and mature), but if i try to be 35 all the time, i miss out on the privileges of youth (which include "getting away with things," as she put it). :>

my summer is definitely going to involve a little experimental risk-taking.

oh, also, my eyes are green too! well, more or less. they're that green-grey-blue color that changes depending on what i'm wearing, but most often they're green.

[queenofhalves]

multiple openly-acknowledged sexual partners

i've heard a lot of different definitions for polyamory, though. i think in practice your definition is most correct -- what most people call "polyamory" is more about sex than love. but there are definitely people in the polyamory community who insist on a definition more like "multiple openly-acknowledged romantic relationships," and i've even read some people who were willing to include intimate friendships under the definition. (i think this only works because so many people in our society still think it's inappropriate for heterosexual married people to have close friendships with people of the opposite sex.) you might be able to talk about "polyfidelity" as a form of plural marriage. there are definitely people in the poly community who are interested in group marriage and chain marriage, too.

in the beginning, though, i think whoever coined the term "polyamory" (lit. "multiple loves") did so in order to contrast the practice with swinging... resulting some decades later in a community that uses a rhetoric of open, honest communication to talk about a practice that's not very much different from swinging.

heehee. subcultural semantic politics. ;>