Contemplations of Closets

[kiya]

Discussion on mailing list (serenejournal posted about this) crossed with a question griffen asked has led me to one of those sudden realisation things.

I get very messed up with trust issues, very easily. There are a number of ways that one can contemplate dealing with this; some of them are better than others.

The way I seem to prefer to deal with this is to preclude the possibility of trust-stress.

I don't make knowing basic information about me a trust issue.

It's too risky to think of these things in terms of who can be trusted with the information, it makes the entire thing a terrific fraughtness. It's giving over too much power over me to these other people, giving them the ability to hurt me very badly in ways that I know I'm vulnerable to.

Knowledge is power, sure -- but I've defined a whole bunch of stuff out of 'knowledge'. It's just stuff that's there. I don't gain any power by turning this into knowledge, I gain a weakness; on the flip side, by letting it be stuff that's there, I gain the power of knowing who reacts like a complete freak to stuff that's just there, not doing anything to them.

Oshiire aikijutsu.

Comments

[kiya]

Being out doesn't mean that everyone needs to know everything, because some interactions with people just aren't that sort of information.

I mean, (to paraphrase what serenejournal wrote on the topic), I don't go out and buy a gallon of milk and say at the counter, "By the way, I'm poly and pagan and . . .!" The person who's selling me the milk and I don't have a relationship where we need to know that sort of thing. We have a relationship where I need to know if they have milk and they need to know if I have three bucks.

I mean, personally, I can't imagine many situations where it would be appropriate or relevant to bring up having a sexual relationship with one's god. I mean, I could see it in an in-depth discussion of practice of Feri or in a deep sharing-of-intimacies context between individual people, or in an occasional brain-blat journal entry for those folks who talk about their sex lives in their LJs. Y'know?

Or if you and/or Rob were in a position in your open relationship that there was someone new you wanted to marry, someone who might move in with you, or whatever -- there's a point at which simple dealing with day-to-day life just plain contains that information, y'know?

I'm y'know'ing a lot. Y'know? :P

[rainfallsautumn.livejournal.com]

LOL, I do know. :) I think my dithering and your posts are now in kinda the same place.

I think what you just replied rather highlights the problem with the two ends of the closeting debate-- "never have closets" and "closets are helpful" both obscure the world of gray that exists between your best friend and the milkman; and between day-to-day living information and something like sex with your Parent. (Which is why I was tearing my hair out reading the willful misunderstanding that the individual debating with you on nonfluffypagans (or was it Pagan? Recons?) was engaging in-- "you want to tell everyone everything!" Urg!) Certainly the closer people get the more they share, but I defy anyone to say that figuring out when a relationship is close enough to bump up the information-level is *easy.*

[kiya]

That would be The Mother Of All Fluffy Thelemites on nonfluffypagans, I believe.

The one who suggested "doing ritual astrally" and "closing the circle" because if anyone noticed that I did anything different from what they do my ritual space would be Irrevocably Polluted By Bad Vibes, right?

(I catted it here and here. Which is probably the only reason both of us left that thread still breathing.)

[rainfallsautumn.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's the one I meant. The pan-Pagan communities tend to run together for me. :)

Crystal . . . vibration . . . RAINBOW!

LOVE that!

[kiya]

I was also pleased with "To be honest, it's actually kinda a pyramid scheme".

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I've notice the same obscuring of boundaries without the closets, actually. A lot of people call just anyone "friend", which could be because they, like me, were told as kids that people's feelings would be hurt if they weren't called your friend. It probably doesn't help that "acquaintance" is unwieldy and sounds stuffy in conversation. Most folks still seem to understand that the store clerk is not the same as your co-worker is not the same as your partner, but they use the same word for a lot of those categories, and I'm the kind of person who thinks usage can affect the thinking process.

[joyful-storm.livejournal.com]

Thank you both for the fascinating conversation.

Myself, for the most part I subscribe to what I call the "purloined letter" theory - I don't necessarily hide many things, I'm just subtle. For example, if one of my coworkers were to find out and be shocked that I'm Kemetic, I'd point out that it's not a huge surprise, I've been it all along, I just haven't shoved it in their face. I *do* wear a Het-heru pendant almost daily, and have a picture of Ma'at over my computer, and wear Egyptian-themed t-shirts occasionally. If they didn't figure it out, ok, but it's not ME that's brought the topic up - and if the topic bothers them, THEY should stop talking and concerning themselves about it, and I will continue to be professional as I have been all along.

I'll admit I don't have little kinky signals going out on a regular basis at work, though. If someone found out outside of work and brought it up, I'd stare them down, tell them they didn't find it out here, it doesn't have any place here, and consequently they should stop talking about it here.

It's a lot easier to do this in Seattle, I admit. When I was in Atlanta I'd just come down with headaches and leave early on Samhain or Imbolc, or call in sick on Beltane. . . nobody saw a pattern there. I still wore the same things and had Egyptian art in my cube, though.

Outside of my work and my friends who know me well, I don't have anything that's obvious enough about me that builds a recognizable pattern amongst casual acquaintances, I guess.