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Drifa -> RE: A Compartimentalized Erotic Identity? (6/26/2008 5:21:13 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: fungasm
The rest of the conversation didn't clear it up for me what it really is, but it brought out some cool vocab words like fantasies and ritual space.
OK, let's start with ritual space or sacred space: an area which is conceptually sanctified or separated from the everyday world. "Space" which is empty, uniform, and abstract, is given shape and life so it may become a ritual "place" such as a burial ground, courtroom, or cathedral. All of these are curiously vacant, even haunting, when the actions of ritual are not occurring in them. Ritual place is a matrix of ritual life. It is a generative center, though it may be geographically on the edges. A founded place is sequestered from the hubbub, even when it consists only of a circle formed by Welfare State musicians in an urban shopping center. A founded place is a forcefield eliciting gestures from ritual actors.
Ritualizing may occur without objects or implements but not without founded (fundus = "bottom," "fundamental") places. Ritual traditions differ in their views about the length of time such a place is pregnant with formative power. For some, the founding ends the moment the action ceases. For others, the place is set aside once-and-for-all by consecration (Ronald L. Grimes, Beginnings in Ritual Studies. New York: University Press of America. 1982. p. 66).
I would consider many scenes to be a ritual space. Just like going into a church, there are a number of cues in a scene that tell you that you have left the everyday 9-to-5 world and are doing something special:
- In a church, it may be the holy water, the lingering scent of candles or incense, the ritual activities, done a certain way, with expected responses.
- In a court of law, it's the robes and elevated bench of the judge, the formalized ritual language, and again, the ritual activities, done a certain way, with expected responses.
- In a scene, formal language such as modes of address, whether the sub is allowed eye contact, special clothing or the lack thereof start to establish the ritual space. Some people have dedicated dunegon areas. Others temporarily transform a room into such an area via lighting, music, candles. And once the scene begins, we again encounter ritual activities and expected responses.
As for compartmentalized erotic identity, without more context I couldn't exactly explain it, but certainly my erotic identity is compartmentalized in many ways. I'm kinky, but that's not a part of me that gets expressed at work. I'm a lesbian, but in certain situations I may have erotic interchange with men. I am submissive sexually but very aggressive and dominant in professional situations.
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