Reality.

The other night, I had dinner with witches and goddesses, masters and slaves, 40-year-old little girls and human dogs. It was really just chance that there wasn't a goddamn dragon present.

Of course I didn't. I had dinner with a bunch of middle-aged software developers who own a lot of cats. Why dignify their delusions?

Because they'll dignify mine. My delusions may be modest in scope--I'm pretty sure I'm an ordinary adult human--but I certainly have notions about my place in sex and the world that might not be perfectly objective. Who I am is a mix of what I am, and what I say I am. I was born female, but I'm a woman on my say-so.

Of course it's silly. Of course it's a game, and someone saying they're a dog is probably not as serious, deep down, as someone saying they're a woman. But it's not "wrong" for someone to identify in ways that don't fit physical reality. The only times I've had a right to bristle were when someone tried to impose upon my self-concept--you can be a goddess but you can't make me your worshipper. And honestly, once I get over my Internet-conditioned "ewww a furry" reaction, a dog-dude is a barrelfull more fun than your average dude-dude.

Why does this flexibility of identity seem to cross over with sex so often? You don't run into dog-dudes who just want to play frisbee nearly as often as you run into dudes who want to be dogs during sex or BDSM play. Maybe it's because sex is the only arena where adults really have a license to play. There's rules for frisbee, even when you're just tossing it around, it's not true play the way children play. Even supposed "RPGs" tend to be more about leveling up and phat lewtz than really roleplaying. Whereas "roleplay" in sex is a free-form and accepted thing.

It makes me a little sad sometimes. Not that play has become sexual, but that play so often seems confined to sex. I can get people in bed with me playing like we're the naughty policeman and the seductive suspect, but I can't get them to go play cops and robbers with me in the park. That would be weird. You have to outgrow these things. Life has rules now, so fun has to have rules now. Even when I find someone game to play Calvinball with me, it feels awkward and hollow. I don't know if that's because we can't play anymore or just because we can't stop feeling that we're not supposed to. But I see dog-dudes and guys who call themselves Lord Ravenblood as precious evidence that it's the latter.

So you know what? Fuck you, I'm a dragon.






raaaarrrr