Breathe In, Breathe Out

This is for my strong and loving younger sister Millimina, who can never-ever be forced to anything against her will! Love you always, even when you are trying hard to be a bitch... I am not convinced, not for a second, my darling!

A Cordial Divorce

When I came in-world late last evening I hit on my ex-wife for a day Iendi Laville. We had not spoken for a few days so I wanted to check in.

Iendi and I at the lighthouse

As the party-animal that she is she was of course dancing somewhere at the time, but was still willing to come over for a good talk about anything that came to our minds. And I was especially happy to find someone who was willing to try out the animations on my newly acquired lighthouse with me.

We look good together, huh? What a pity she isn't a man... *deep sigh* Well, it was good the marriage was short and sweet, while the divorce was cordial and swift.

Ohhh! Writing about animations reminded me, when are we going to try out our wedding gift from Chaz Longfall and Kip Ashbourne, Iendi?

The Concept of Family in SecondLife

From a sociological and/or anthropological perspective a family is a group of people who are affiliated by marriage, consanguinity, affinity or co-residence. Families are formed as a source of mutual love and support within the group concerned. Sexual relations among family members are regulated by rules concerning incest such as the incest taboo.

In a virtual world we don´t need to focus on consanguineous relationships as sexual relationships cannot end with an independent issue. All relationships are created by choice through affinity and affections and are either romantic or non-romantic.

The Family Chart. Muted colors mean that the avatar is (mostly) no longer around
Yellow circles signify partnerships/marriages, red circles previous partnerships/marriages and yellow arrows mutually elected non-romatic relationships of a family kind (sister/brother or child/mother or father)

In the beginning there was Ars Northmead, a charming, friendly, clever and multitalented avatar.

Ars was - among many other things - a DJ in SecondLife and founded the Sarco Sound Group with his friend and business partner Sarco Halderman. One of the first DJ´s recruited to the group was Andrey (D R E Y) Messmer. Ars and Andrey developed a close non-romantic-friendship, with much love and trust between them.

Shortly before Ars and I met there may - or may not - have been a brief sexual relationship between Ars and Guyke Lundqvist (I am not altogether sure about this and have never really worried about it). Anyway, by the time I appeared on the scene the relationship between the two had evolved into a relationship between a father and son. When I teamed up with Ars I also became Guyke´s evil-stepfather.

Ars and I became a couple, shortly thereafter Andrey and Guyke became a couple also, this was however before we had established the family. When Andrey´s and Guyke´s relationship ended, Andrey became Ars brother. Both Andrey and Guyke went on to form new romantic relationships that were included into the family.

When Guyke became partnered with Haakon Meads, his elected mother Starry Sweetwater and her husband Sir Trifle became in-laws. Similarly I become the uncle of Skip Turbo´s adopted son Liam when Skip and Andrey were partners.

Ars also formed brotherly ties with Dej Mycron and Jeb Nicholls, while Martial Eisenhart and I and Millimina Salamander and I also elected each other as siblings, well in the last case I more or less forced it on the poor girl. Martial formed a partnership with Elorian Scarbridge for a while through which Elorian and I became brother in-laws. Dej has of course also had partners, but I did not much like the last one so I am not mentioning him (I am invoking my literary license on this).

Postscript
I am happy that I took the time to make the family chart, because looking at it clarify some things that have been a mystery to me earlier.

As I understand it, these kind of chosen family clusters are supposedly more common among the gay population in SecondLife than among the straight population. An explanation to this could of course be that many gays already have experienced the concept of "choosing your family" in their first life due to the shunning and ostracizing that still occurs in all cultures, albeit to a lesser extent nowadays that 15-20 years ago.

I have no sure information on how common it can be among lesbians, either in first life or SecondLife. As we all know lesbians seem to provoke less animosity in the straight culture, possibly because the women are better at staying "under the radar" than gay men. The fact that straight men find women "playing with each other" so fascinating at least while they wait for him - the macho male - to arrive. I am also certain that part of the explanation is due to the unequal status of women in society, "what women do does not matter".

If heterosexuals ever think about homosexuals, there seems to be a strong tendency to focus on the sexual activities rather than on the feelings and attractions. I did not choose to become gay to engage in fellatio or have anal intercourse. I am gay and therefore use the sexual activities and techniques available to me to give and receive pleasure from another man - and hell yes, I damn well love it!.

Doug´s Birthday

Love you Doug, my babe!

Musings at Haakon´s Bridge

I am not in the best of moods right now and don´t really know why. This shift in my state of mind came after the last weekend and has not eased off yet.

Following the New Years Day debacle I have found that I, more or less deliberately, have avoided mentioning Ars on my blog so as not to draw unfriendly attention to him again and that I have also raised barriers around my first life. This new found habit of self-censorship is a fundamental betrayal of myself and the reasons for the existence of this blog. It has to stop immediately!

I miss my Ars terribly and the big family I once had in my SecondLife. When I was talking with a friend the other evening and mentioned my SecondLife family he said "I have never really understood the concept of ´family´ in SecondLife." This comment made me start to think what it was all really about and I am not finished thinking about it yet, but when I am I will tell you all.

Yesterday I read a post on the Swedish blog Blanche´s Arena that "the avatar formerly known as Sven Idyll" has now shutdown yet another blog and started a new one instead.

In the new blog he tells us how he and his female "partner in crime" have been successfully researching the SecondLife blogs written by Swedes to find out the bloggers first life identity through compilation of the information they give about themselves in the blogs or elsewhere and by technical data. I am hoping that the collecting and compiling of this information has given them a sense of satisfaction, fulfillment and power so they can find more worthy causes to focus their talents on.

People who feel powerless and frustrated can get dangerous as we have seen many times before and are now witnessing in a trial in Oslo, Norway. I am doing all I can to avoid the radio and television coverage of that trial, it gets too close, and am instead sticking to the reports in the printed media (not the tabloids).

A Wonderful Experience

Tonight was the night when Bara Jonson and Free Balan were going to perform an all-Swedish set at Club OrmDricka (lovingly called OD by many).

As I wanted to be sure to get a place on the homestead sim I arrived very early, already an hour before their gig started. And I am happy that I did! It was A-W-E-S-O-M-E!

Nasty Habit

(via Pink News)

Turin´s GLBT Film Festival promotional video exposes the last remaining taboo. I think we can all agree on that this shows us a truly nasty habit which unfortunately is far to common.