[MD] Virulent reality.

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Marsha]
To me a self is not one and not many.

[Arlo]
If there is only "one" at the expense of others being "unreal", then 
it is hardly a fiction. You can't have it both ways. You are clearly 
advocating a "real self" one should "be honest" about. And you 
clearly tie this "real self" to the physiological body it inhabits. 
All well and good, but this way the self ceases to a fiction.

[Marsha]
Self is a process.  Being honest is also a process.

[Arlo]
Honesty about what? You keep pointing to irrelevencies. I keep saying 
that the only "honesty" is what we both agree to be true. I present 
who I am, you either accept that or reject it. If you try to find 
"dishonesty" in this process by referring out to a physiological 
form, or referring out to "other selves" that share my gray matter, 
then you are mistaking illusion for reality.

[Marsha]
I don't think I need to point it out.  At the moment I'm in the 
process of being suspicious.  And I have explained to you why.  What 
would be the odds of such a coincidence?

[Arlo]
At any given moment, we always make the best possible choice from 
among the information we find valuable. I don't right care that you 
think "SA", "Krimel" and "Arlo" share the same biological form. I 
expect when Horse tells you otherwise you'll rescind, unless of 
course "Horse" is another variation of "Arlo". How could you trust 
that he is not? Maybe he is. Maybe everyone here is all "variations 
of Arlo" and you are interacting with one person "pretending" to be 
everyone else. You can walk around in a paranoid state about all 
kinds of things all your life, if you so choose. I mean, what 
"evidence" do I have that "Marsha", "Platt" and "Joe" are not 
"variations of a theme"? What "evidence" do I have that your gender 
matches your physiological body, and let me ask what evidence could I 
have that you could not fake? Indeed, what evidence does anyone else 
here have that "Arlo" and "Marsha" are also not variations. A phone 
number? They can be rerouted very easily. A voice? I can find a woman 
easily to "be" Marsha on the phone. A photo on a website? C'mon, 
that's about as fake-able as pie. A meeting in person? If I can find 
a female voice, I can easily hire a female actress to "be you". If 
people believe "Marsha" and "Arlo" to be physiologically discrete, or 
not, is their own hang-ups based on how these read our presentations here.

[Marsha]
Orange and blue are colors dependent on eyes, seeing and a visual 
object.  How one feels is something else.  One could easily say "I'm 
the color blue, but feeling orange?"  That would be the process of 
being honest.

[Arlo]
No, being honest would be saying, "I am the color orange, regardless 
of the pigment in my physiological form". When you buy me a dress, 
you base the color NOT on "what color Arlo is" but "what color is 
Arlo's body". They are two different things. To conflate them is a mistake.

[Marsha]
I don't know how many average people would actually agree with what 
you described.  I think it is far too abstract.  Either way 
'continuity across time' and 'continuity across context' is 
illusion.  Cultural glasses.

[Arlo]
What is an "average" person? Just curious. And if you did really 
believe that "continuity across time" and "continuity across context" 
is illusion, you would not have began this post saying "To me a self 
is not one and not many", for this says that these are not illusions 
at all, but that there is one self that transcends time and context.

[Marsha]
You may be at the University too long.

[Arlo]
Fair enough. Maybe I do overestimate the intelligence of people by 
thinking they can understand and handle complex thoughts.

[Marsha]
Culture and language are structured for a self that is independent 
with a body and mind, and a gender association.  Okay, add 
soul.    "One body, one mind and one soul", yet thought to be one 
independent agent.

[Arlo]
Well this is my point. These things are not "real", just social 
conventions. There is no "self" that exists across contexts. But we 
structure our activity that way for social reasons. Culture sees 
"body, mind and soul" as fixed, connected and continuous over time 
and place. Seen this way, there is one real "Arlo", who's "honest" 
reality is bound to his physiological form, and who may "pretend" to 
be other people but is really the same old Arlo. I deny this view, 
and indeed I find it horribly problematic when you really examine it.

[Marsha]
I do not know how you got to this place, and where "realness" came 
from.  I'm defending 'wanting honesty in communication'.

[Arlo]
Explain to me, please, how I can be "honest" about something that has 
no reality? Your demanding "honesty" points to something "real" as 
opposed to something "pretend". I may "pretend to be a boy" or 
"pretend to be SA", but the realness is that I am "one girl" 
pretending to be both. You base the honesty of SA or Arlo on 
something you define as "real". You cling to an illusion. You say 
words rather than believe them.

[Marsha quote Meredith Brooks]
I'm a bitch, I'm a lover...

[Arlo]
Exactly. You are a plurality. A multiplicity. Any suggestion of a 
"singular" Marsha behind all these various faces is an illusion. Any 
suggestion that there is a "reality" behind "what you want to be" is 
an illusion.

I'm an Arlo, I'm an SA
I'm a Horse, I'm a Marsha...

Whatever you want it to be, for you that's what it will be. (Arlo 
quotes Johnny Lydon)