thread: 2005-03-11 : Love, Friendship, Romance, Sex
On 2005-03-15, Meguey wrote:
Still not feeling fully healed, so I'll be brief:
1)About "honey, I'm IC in love w/X":
The question is really about the seperation of real from fantasy, which is easier in some couples than others. Some partners feel threatend by erotica, others don't. Sometimes the reaction is valid (and indicative of other issues of trust asnd respect and boundaries), sometimes it's not. As far as transgressing societal norms of expression of affection/desire, personally I feel that it's just the last area to accept the 'pretend'. We go home with our partners after we've seen them ruthlessly butcher innocent beings, or concoct horribly abusive situations, or be relentlessly intent on murder; why not after they've successfully approached the object of their affection, or celebrated a commitment to a partner, or been filled with passion and joy and desire.
2)About on-line vs tabletop:
Yes, it's easier to go one-on-one for hours on-line. Partly, because the visual and voice cues are gone. I've also played extensive interpersonal relationship on-line, including 'tiny-sex', which I don't think could currently be played out table-top style. I've been in many romantic relationships table-top (currently 6 in our AM game), and *most* of the time, it's glossed over because watching two people go through the IC process of falling in love, dealing w/issues, or having sex is boring. When the relationship impacts *plot*, it's fine to focus there.
3)Falling in love IC:
I have two sub-points here.
One, it does take time, sometimes not 40 hours of IC play, but definatly time to develope romantic relationship same as any other one-on-one relationship. I wonder if The Mountain Witch model of relationship development might be a jumping-off point to a structure of rules that supports romantic play.
IC to RL bleed happens. There are bunches of people who fell in love because of an original attraction between characters. I know this can create long and lasting RL love relationships. Twice I've been in a game with a person just about my whole social cirlce had been attracted to at some point. I liked them, they were friends, but I'd never felt an 'attraction'. In the context of the game (once when the other PC became protective of and interested in mine, and once when we happened by chance to be playing the male and female versions of sex on wheels and the party decided we must be lovers), I understod the attraction. My PCs were respectivly flattered and begining to be interested back, and knew she totally deserved his desire and attention. In the first, if we had played longer it may have deveolped as per Stellan and Rig (side note: the other player was also part of that game); in the second, it was pretty glossed over, except when some one wondered where we were if we wern't on-screen, and invariably someone would say we were off somewhere together, 'cause didn't sex feed our supernatural powers after all?
~Meguey
