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Aug. 28th, 2009 03:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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judiff wrote a little in her DeadJournal about ageplay. We all find it incredibly squicky. And she was upset about ageplayers using words like "littles" which we think of as plurality words.I'm really not wanting to know about ageplay either but i'm worried this could turn into one of those warms like between multiples and soul-bonders. Or the one between Trans people and Cross Dresers (which i only see from the outside but which impacts on people i care about). So maybe there needs to be some communication between the two communitys?
So i'm noddling some possible questions
Are there people who do both? Are the differences as clear as they seem to be in my head
Do we mean the same things by words like "littles" and "bigs"?
How can we not offend or insult each other?
How can we clear up any confusion from people within either community or outside it about which we are?
What else do we need to be asking each other?
I'm not really expecting anyone tcome up with any answers - at least not yet but where can we start with this?
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Date: August 28th, 2009 02:42 pm (UTC)Since age-play is something I'm both fairly ignorant of and uncomfortable with I wonder if a caring and supportive group of non-ageplay people could get together with a written description of ageplay (much like the Community Info Zone stuff at BiCons) and talk about it.
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Date: August 28th, 2009 02:52 pm (UTC)Also there's an element of people speaking for other people that means it might not be the most enlightened environment, and is often a way of people getting together to treat a marginalised group as a problem and bitch about it, with noone there to speak for them. Knowing how that works for other marginalised group that can produce uncomfortability in others...those rarely go well.
Personally I'd suggest either finding online resources, or finding someone who is sufficiently comfortable with their ageplay interests that they can talk from personal experience, and listen to other people without becoming too defensive, who is happy to answer questions.
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Date: August 28th, 2009 03:21 pm (UTC)tartful_dodger: I think I get your point about groups discussing something without a representative of that group present, and less useful places that could read. If I thought a group of people who were uncomfortable with part of my sexuality were getting together to discuss it I would have similar concerns.
I also think that creating a space to share discomfort safely and constructively might be useful and possible without certain groups present. I think a group of non-ageplayers could discuss our feelings with an understanding of working on limited information and leave some questions to be asked later. For me, this would be similar to a group of straight people wanting to talk about their discomfort with queer people - it could be done in a context of them wanting to be supportive and non-homophobic.
Alternatively, an age-player who would be not too defensive might be a good person to include, thanks for the suggestion.
I don't identify as multiple. I support consenting adults doing ageplay as I would any consensual activity - whether or not I liked it. I am uncomfortable with it on a personal level and am not sure quite why yet or how to express that.
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Date: August 28th, 2009 03:31 pm (UTC)Kinks something that generally plays with things that are only acceptable in very specific contexts, and I think that's why its so common for some things to induce levels of uncomfortability.
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Date: August 28th, 2009 06:20 pm (UTC)The plurality one is quite bland because of the many different ways plural systems can be!
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Date: August 28th, 2009 03:10 pm (UTC)I'm not sure neccesarily the differences are as big as all that in all cases.
One thing that I should probably explain is that a lot of people don't actually feel all that comfortable with the actual label of Ageplay, as the play element is seen as far more superficial than their experiences actually are.
I don't know enough plurality to know precisely what to say as a comparison; for a start I'd never heard the terms Big and Little used outside of ageplay before this post!
For people who are familiar with D/s I can begin to explain a little though...
There's almost a sliding scale
Completely Artificial: Playing with roles in a very conscious and separate from reality sort of way.
Artifical contexts that inspire genuine emotions or headspaces: People for whom being in a certain scene allows them to access genuine emotions, but only for the duration of a scene, and may help them to access parts of themselves which usually remain hidden or inaccessible
Naturally occuring dynamics with are a responsive to specific people: I feel __ around __ person
Personality elements that exist outside of a D/s context, being recognised and given validity in a specific context: everybody fits somewhere on scales of assertive/passive, mature/playful*, dominant/submissive, but not everybody chooses to apply that in any sort of kink based context.
Ageplayers tend to fit somewhere along those lines in ways near unique to each person, and for a lot of people its an expression of personality or aspect of a personality rather than a simple 'I like to roleplay' element.
I can't comment on what the overlap with plurals is on the grounds that I don't know terribly much about plurals, and the hows and whys.
* I'm avoiding the phrase immature due to its negative cannotations here.
Hopefully this can at least open up the dialogue a little :)
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Date: August 28th, 2009 03:17 pm (UTC)I'm not sure how else we would go about putting it, how other people are using it, and if anybody is anymore entitled to use it than anybody else.
It would be nice to hear how plurals use the terms, as its nothing I've heard of before
I personally use the terms as ways of captioning elements of my personality, and differentiating headspaces.
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Date: August 28th, 2009 06:45 pm (UTC)This page about how diffrent plural stymen can be structured from the layman's guide to multiplicity says some stuff about in-system children
And this is one of several glossary of terms often used by/about plurals. Though the authors don't seem to like the term little much - our in-system Littles do like it and call themselves that bit we do dislike the abbreviation "lil"
I don't think words can belong to any one group - that was much more
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Date: August 28th, 2009 04:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: August 28th, 2009 06:46 pm (UTC)