From ellie voyyd's neocities blog.

what does it mean to me to be poly, aromantic, futanari?

it should go without saying that i'm a person who has always struggled to identify my "true self" or whatever. it should also go without saying that a lot of these labels are just short-hand for a more complex experience. as far as i know, it is nice to come up with labels to identify oneself, but most of us don't fit well into any of them and have to just settle for labels that work "well enough" - this is just an inherent thing about language, though, you can't ever fully and accurately convey what you want to.

with that rant out of the way these are some of my reflections. I am rather naive and haven't read much or talked to many people about any of this stuff, so i guess, don't take it like i know fully the stuff i'm talking about. so anyway, i started off by reflecting on non-monogamy:

i don't like the idea of marriage or monogamy, i don't really understand or like any of the typical "romantic" gestures and games, it all feels fake in a way that isn't me. but, part of the aromantic thing is, i was raised very catholic in a conservative place, and what catholicism and conservatism teaches you is that there is only one person who will ever truly be close to you and understand you, and that is the person you marry. you have to fall into deep, romantic love with them, and have a few children and whatnot, and if you can't do this you are a failure. i can't remember any specific singular moment that i was told this, it is a kind of undercurrent running through my life - one of those phantoms that haunts you, and possesses you. because, for most of my twenties and my early teen years, that is what i sought out: a typical, romantic, "marriage" type relationship. i even was so indoctrinated into this that i did crazy shit to get it, living the hopeless romantic life travelling the country pursuing my One True Love, giving up everything and dedicating my life to finding that thing i was told would make me happy.

This probably isn't something only aromantic people go through - in fact i've heard similar stuff from monogamous, alloromantic folks. but, they do still have a sort of attraction to people that fits into some kind of romantic thing. i guess, romance itself is a kind of nebulous term because a lot of people find different things romantic. so, i guess for me what it means is kind of just, wanting to be very independent and a bit distant from partners emotionally, instead of falling into eachother deeply. its like a lot of other "abnormal" ways of identifying, where it is hard to tell what is really you, and what is just a rejection of normalcy or the things you don't identify as.

i also don't really get the "forever" part of romance either. when i was a teenager and mainly identified as a boy attracted to other boys, i remember reading fan fictions about immortal men that wandered the earth for eons, who loved eachother deeply, but who would go sometimes centuries without seeing each other, just because living forever means you have to switch things up from time to time. i guess, it also ties into my beliefs about reincarnation, where, i believe that we meet the same people in different reincarnation cycles, so when you meet someone you love or are attracted to, it isn't the first time and won't be the last, so knowing them and spending a lot of time with them isn't very necessary, let alone spending most of your life with them - because hey, eternity is a long time, and its best to have a full life, so you have plenty of stories to tell, huh?

as for polyamory, i guess, that has always been a struggle because its something that still isn't very widely accepted, and is often widely ridiculed, even by otherwise progressive folks. to be sure, there are definitely folks who practice it very arrogantly and recklessly, but that goes for anything like being gay or queer in some way - you can't let some small experiences generalize an entire way of existing.

i guess with polyamory and me, its been a kind of curse similar to aromanticism, that has plagued all my relationships: every time i got into a relationship, it was a situation in which i had to make a choice between two, three, sometimes more, very different people that i was attracted to in very different ways and for different reasons, and i kind of felt like i had to choose one and that be that - a thing which kind of sucked because not only did it mean i had to reject and push away certain people, but it also meant that the person i ended up getting together with eventually realized that i didn't choose them because they were the one i loved most, the one i thought was a better fit for me, but that i just chose them for pretty arbitrary reasons: it was either more convenient, or they were more assertive, or at a given point in time they filled a hole in me that was a bit more in focus than the ones the other people did... which i can definitely understand making some people feel like they were kind of not... "special"? idunno.

and that just sucks. it just sucks that i was not honest with my partners about being polyamorous, especially since (as far as i know) all the ones i got involved with were monogamous. and it kinda feels like, you know, its another thing where im thirty years old and just now realizing how much i've hidden myself from everyone, how much i've been a fake, and how i thought that those small white lies would eventually pay off, that i could fake it until i made it, etc.

i dont really know what my polyamory means beyond this, though, because ive never been involved with anyone who was poly, so i don't know what i like about it or that it even is for sure the thing i want, but i just know that i definitely am not monogamous at all, and having only one partner, or being with someone that doesnt pursue other people too, not only is dissatisfying but kind of actually painful, claustrophobic and makes me feel... not just unfulfilled, but bad. it isnt just one-sided either, i have kind of wanted my partners to seek out other relationships and been a bit... unhappy that they didn't, because it is just too stressful and high pressure for me to be the "only one" to somebody, it just doesn't feel good.

that part - wanting my partners to have other partners - is a side effect of a thing i noticed where (and this isn't some kind of brag) i don't get very jealous. if someone is attracted to my partner or vice versa, i want them to get involved with each other and see where it goes, i don't want them to feel tied down to me. this, on the surface, probably contradicts some of the way i've acted in the past that has seemed jealous, but for the most part my jealousy isn't possessive, but just envy about seeing other people have their needs and wants met that i'm not getting met. and for the most part, its my own fault that those needs and wants werent getting met because i wasn't putting in the work. if my needs, and at least some of my wants are met, i am far less jealous, if at all.

idunno. i guess, what else do i have to think about? i could write about being trans or whatever, but that isn't very interesting. i played with dolls as a kid, i was always closer friends with girls growing up and thought boys were kinda icky. as a teenager, like i said, i became almost entirely a gay boy, until i found out what genderqueer was and started to (internally) identify with that and be bisexual. but once i got into my first relationship out of high school, which was a very normal, hetero, romantic, monogamous relationship, i kind just shoved down all my queerness and whatnot, and it never really surfaced again until i started meeting trans folks online when i was 26 or 27 and i started thinking about it again - that i probably was trans in some way. but it still took a lot of time to come out as a girl, and my coming out coincided with a lot of bad shit happening in my life that kinda made it weird and shitty.

i dont think i am a woman exactly, because i never experienced growing up as a girl to become a woman, which sucks - so i am kinda permanently stuck as a girl instead of a woman. but at the same time too, i am pretty happy with every part of my body and appearance, and i like having a dick and i don't really have any interest in hormone therapy or surgery, which is why i started referring to myself as a futanari instead of a trans woman. apart from futanari being a lifelong "fetish" - although id call it not a fetish but more like a preference - i also just like the idea of futanari because in doujins and stuff they are always portrayed as very ethereal, magical beings. futanari are always either some kind of "perfect" ideal fantasy succubus, or some sort of "chimera", a mutated female that magically grows a dick - which is a super relatable thing for being trans. so, i like the term a lot. ive had a bit of pushback because it is sometimes considered a "slur" or an overly-sexualized term, but hey, we get to reclaim slurs, and to me futanari has never been a purely sexual thing, it has always been a way for me to express my identity through porn, but also through fiction in general - when i was a teenager i wrote a lot of short stories and things about futanari, daydreaming that it was a kind of self-portrait. also, futanari is just a really awesome word. and besides that, being open about sexuality isnt inherently gross or bad, it depends on context and trust and boundaries, but for people who face oppression based on their sexual orientation, we kind of have to talk about it so that people stop acting like it doesn't fucking exist or is some kind of evil perversion, when we are just trying to live our fucking lives

i guess that is all i really have to write about for now.