An anonymous commentor replied to my last post, "Now tell us what do you think the outcome would be if Beloved was outed by his family, employer, coworkers and others."
Beloved's immediate family knows. Hell, RedVulpes is more involved with the community than we are! More distant relatives...aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents...are maybe more of a concern, for all that we see them every 2-3 years. Like my family, they pretty much accept that we are a little odd, even if they can only label the failure to attend church regularly.
Employer and coworkers. I can't entirely guess what the employer's view would be, but from the little I know, as long as the commitment to project success remained what it has been (and Beloved's already wearing the golden handcuffs there), it wouldn't matter. We already know a few of the coworkers are "alternative" in various ways...at least one lunch a week is spent discussing some aspect of "poly v. swing" or the way our relationship works (without the D/s labels). I've shown up in flirty clothing and techincolored hair, and the office generally loves the excuse to visit briefly or see the kids.
Others? A few months ago, someone lifestyle paid us the compliment on how well we have managed to balance our lives. We have maintained our vanilla friendships while developing our newer friendships. In general, we don't HIDE anything, but we don't shove it in people's faces, either. If a question is asked, I raise an eyebrow and ask if they REALLY want to know. Sometimes the answer is, 'never mind!' and it's left at that. *wry smile* Even our most vanilla/muggle friend has seen the boobie wall and can dream up want we might possibly be into! No one thinks twice if I say "Beloved" in mixed company, or if they do, they comment on how sweet that is. It's more hilarious when someone ELSE calls him Beloved for lack of knowing his RL name.
So...I guess the answer is pretty much the same. We aren't NORMAL in any sense of the general society. We have an open door policy and more people have keys to our house than I can count. We have been married for 14 years, but we have lived "just us" for about 46 months of that, divided many times. We host drum circles. We live without AC. We don't have a television that receives outside signals (no TV...just movies and games). We're weird. I don't know that being outted, for being poly or being kinky or having a power exchange relationship would really shock anyone beyond recovery.
But I hope I never have to find out!
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