Not long after the end of the last Consilium meeting, Avis typed up, printed, and distributed an essay of sorts to every Mage who would accept a copy:
Offensive Basket Weaving
By: Avis
So, most of y'all look at that and see it as a joke. Maybe it is, in some ways, but in other ways it's something that I take quite seriously, and not just because there is a duel on the horizon or because I likely won't have the pleasure of accepting it. No, the reason is this: I sense the Lie circulating among us, being spun from the lips of one who's supposed to value and safeguard knowledge, and this is something that is too dangerous to overlook. Sure, maybe it seems like a cheap attack, but let me first ask you this: if someone you invited inside decided to weave a basket in your living room, would you be offended? No, don't claim it's a silly comparison, just think about your answer. Would you or would you not be offended by basket weaving?
For most, I would think not. For those who would be offended, then I would ask why. In fact, that "why?" is really at the heart of what I'm writing here. Basically, this is me asking all of you, and definitely Tyria, why?
Obviously, though, baskets aren't what we're talking about. We're talking about sex. The reason why I chose to ask you about baskets first, though, is because they're objects that few people find offensive. They're accepted as something relatively normal, and their construction is almost never greeted with condemnation. Sex, though, as we've seen, is. Apparently, sex is offensive. Making love is an insult, the location where it's done determining who such a grievous social injustice is directed at. And yes, obviously there are many differences between sex and basket weaving, and most would scoff and demand to know how anyone could possibly dare to compare the two without being laughed out of a room. Well, bear with me. Hopefully the answer will seem evident by the time you've finished reading.
Let me begin, though, by reiterating that question of why sex is offensive. What, precisely, makes it so? What group of knowledge declares that it is anathema to...what? Society? Respect? Honor? Is it because people who have sex are just giving in to the demands, or perhaps the simple hungers, of the body? Is it because engaging in sex shows a lack of control, a lack of regard for what anyone cares about? Because it involves genitalia, things we always hide away, and not only exposes them but intrinsically involves them? Is it because sex is base, unnecessary, and dirty?
Well, it is dirty. I can't deny that. If the Curator's point is that it's unsanitary, and thus disrespectful because we soiled her museum and made it unclean, I would point out that people regularly fill her museum with shit, piss, and garbage on a daily basis. Oh, but that's in an appointed room! In appointed, appropriate places! Totally different, right? Well, guess what, it's not. Those facilities are used thousands of times over the course of weeks, or months, and if not properly cleaned a lot of disease builds up there. Thanks to janitorial experience and having been a friend of someone who's very adept at Life, I can guarantee that most other bodily functions involving the bottom orifices are much worse than sex. So, considering that our oh so offensive act was cleaned up to the same degree of quality that one would expect of a bathroom surface, I do believe that cornering Star in a public venue, when I could not be present, and attempting to extort a favor, then demanding a duel, is an overreaction.
Nevertheless, maybe the fact that it's dirty isn't it. Maybe it's that the Curator feels that the museum is being dishonored because it's not being used for the appreciation of history and art. Well, for the group that resides at the O, honor is about matching intention with action. It is about ensuring that what we do reflects our beliefs, our relationship to the Truth instead of Lies. So, is sex really dishonorable? If you're doing it for the purpose of getting off, of enjoying yourself, of doing something taboo and subversive, then yes. Yes it is. But, that's not all sex can be. That is masturbation, even if it is with a partner. Sex, though, lovemaking, that is a world away. Lovemaking, sex, is a gestic conversation, a symbolic communion with another person, a joining of two beings in defiance of the flesh shells that separate our souls. It's like dance, but more intimate, more internal, less performance for exhibition, more performance for communication. The message might be transcribed simply, "I love you", but there is an entire universe of meaning that exists within. Maybe all someone else would see is gross worship of lie given bodies, but for those engaged in the act it can be so much more, for audible speech is not the sum of communication. The body can articulate concepts, and not just through the inference of non-verbal stuff. I mean, your hands, your arms, every part of you can express a symbol, can express meaning, and that's exactly what making love is. It is confirming, manifesting, and expressing love. It is the joining of two separate patterns, no matter how temporary (or matter bound), into a greater weave, a greater act of expressing the truth that We are not two inseperable I's, two I's made into souls trapped in cages of matter, experience, and thought, but rather that two I's are actually We and that We can transcend the bonds of the Lie by acknowledging that You is also a part of Me, and that I can be a part of You. And what thing could better represent that than a basket, a collection of reeds and plants that have been woven together to create a greater whole, a whole whose pattern also expresses meaning. 'Cause, if you actully look at that exhibit, you'll see that those baskets aren't just objects with squares and lines and shit on them, but that those designs actually communicate a specific meaning. So, again, I ask you, what could better represent the joining of two patterns in an act that also expresses meaning? Baskets really aren't that different, in some ways, and the truth of those baskets wouldn't be so intimately acquainted with meaning if it were not for our communal act of expressing that we love each other. A sentiment, but one with no less meaning than any theorem, and no less dangerous than nuclear formula, at least for us.
It was the fact that Tyria knew that we love each other, that we're intimate with each other, which gave her threat any weight in the first place. That's what she was doing, after all, threatening to reveal that secret to you all. Well, guess what, we used to be Veiled Threats, and we happen to know the power of that, but also the power of Threats Unveiled. So, that's what we did. We unveiled the secret, and even though our Enemies will try and use it against us, even though it will endanger us because of our sympathies, there is no longer a purpose in hiding it.
Because we shouldn't need to.
Why should we have to hide our most profound expression of love? Because it makes other people squeamish? Because we should be ashamed of our bodies? Because sex is actually evil, and emotions aren't valid forms of knowledge? Who taught you that? Who told you that? Is that actually what you believe, or just something you've internalized so deeply you don't realize that it's a part of you, and that its eating you alive from the inside out. How many times has anger, sadness, despair, or guilt bloomed in your chest because you've longed to commune with someone in that most profound of ways, but been unable to do so? How much pain and sadness stems from the inadequacy, the shame, the fear that we hold towards our bodies and our inability to accept the use of them as something that is not base or worthy of scorn? Because in this world, our bodies are inexplicably tied to us. They aren't all that we can be, in many ways they are lies. Rooming with that person who was adept at life definitely showed me that. With what we know, with the knowledge and ability we have, the cage of our forms can be altered, molded, bent in ways that the jailor called "nature" wanted to deprive us of, and with other bits of knowledge and ability, we don't even come to need those cages anyways. Except, the ability to shun the cage doesn't mean that the we are useless inside it. No, the ability to shun the cage reveals that we are not the sum of our cage, but rather we are greater than it. We are the same as that which is On High, and that which is On High is also us. Thus to express ourselves, to express a truth with ourselves, should be no sin. Society should not be a cage that hinders us, it should be one that aids us in climbing ever higher.
So, again, I say to you, why is sex offensive? Because some laws made by a country of sexist, patriarchal, hypocritical religious zealots says that it is wrong? That it should not be done in public? Why? Why should it be illegal? What true harm does it do? Is it a sanitation issue? Well, if it were, then the law would be against unsanitary sex, not against ANY sex.
Except, no, wait, it wasn't sex in public. The Museum was closed that day. It was a private gathering, and the fact that someone found our expression of ourselves, of our truths, and our love offensive amidst that private gathering of our community, seems persecutory. It seems reliant upon knowledge that is built up from the Lie. It seems to be enforcing that Lie. It is punitive, and yet the foundation for the law demanding such punishment is nowhere to be found. The curator claims that hospitality, respect, and crossing are violated, but is this actually true or is it an interpretive fallacy? Does it say in our actual, codified rights that sex is a no no? Of course not. Rather the Curator is choosing to find insult in an act inspired by the bounty of her institution, an act which harms none, an act which was not explicitly banned and in an area where we had been invited.
At the end of the day, though, it basically comes down to this: we made love in her Museum. Her pride was injured, and because her pride was injured she seeks to oppress us. She wants to enslave us with a task, to mentally batter us down unless we acquiesce to her will, to claim a tie to our very souls because she interpreted our glorying in the knowledge found in that museum, and found with, and in, each other, as an affront to her personally, and by extent, her organization. In other words, our act did nothing. Her act, though, is the manifestation of oppression, of exerting power to wound those that expressed that which she did not want expressed. Perhaps that's not so odd, given the rumors which sometimes circulate in relation to her organization.
Either way, I think it is the Curator that must re-examine the effects of her actions. I believe that to bow to her whims would be an act of injustice, an act of embracing that which harms us all, and it is something that I would die fighting against. I would give my life so that the Lie would not be propagated this way, and I would do it gladly, and free of doubt. Sadly, it is not a privilege that has been granted to me alone. Star also has the right to fight against this misuse of power and misinterpretation of false knowledge if he so chooses, and I would not deprive him of that opportunity. Either way, one of us will fight. One of us will Triumph, or all of us will suffer.
Because, again, at the end of the day this isn't about two dumb motherfuckers having sex in public and getting caught with their pants down. This is about someone claiming that emotional expression, physical communication, and symbolic representation and manifestation, and all that it encompasses, is an offense which can be used to extort slavery through the means of power. On the surface, it might just be baskets and sex, but beneath it all is ideology and belief, and like those at Sac U, one ideology is declaring its intent to potentially kill those who hold an opposing ideology. At the end of the day, one ideology is declaring War, and only through communication can such a war be diverted, can such a conflict be balanced. Only through a meeting of these two ideologies on neutral grounds, where no one holds dominance over the other, can peace be achieved. And honestly, I hope that we can come to peace instead of going to war, because, in a city populated by religious fanatics that will also kill and express to enforce their ideology, another war is the last thing the Truth needs.
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