Grrl Power #773 – Pentamory
Harem might have polyamory down to a science, but that doesn’t mean all of her advice will be applicable to anyone but herself.
The masculine of ‘mistress’ is actually ‘master.’ I mean, it’s obvious if you think about it, but of course no one uses that term to mean that because of gender biases in English, (and probably most languages, come to think of it). According to a quick internet search, Sydney’s last guess ‘manstress’ seems to be the most widely accepted alternate, but even so, no one really says that either. Instead it’s boy-toy or sugar daddy or something a little more descriptive depending on the role the man is filling.
See now, if I was Harem, I think it would be pretty amazing to “date” someone while doing certain other activities. Skydiving for instance. Riding a roller coaster. Something where you can make a shitload of noise anyway and no one would give it a second thought. The only problem with doing something that makes your stomach do flip flops while other parts of you do flip flops is that it could set the bar for future encounters really high. Like, beyond the capabilities of even a high end shower head with the really nice massage setting.
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My question is How does Harem differentiate her different selves within her own mind? Does she name them or something?
The same way you differentiate your fingers.
She doesn’t even think about it.
It’s a mystery. One the one hand she claims she doesn’t even know which body is the first, which seems to indicate that they blur together to her. On the other hand she also claims to be capable of knowing which one has an intact hymen, and keeping it that way despite having an active sex life with multiple partners at a time.
Those two things would seem to be mutually exclusive, unless perhaps she now uses the different hair styles, tattoos, and body piercings to differentiate, but didn’t have that option at the start because they were all identical.
This.↑ Makes sense.
As has been said, several times: she has no different ‘selves’, there is just Daphne, who happens to have access to five separate bodies (one mind, multiple ‘shells’)
incredible mental plasticity, one mind with an extended range of sensory input. I imagine it took a lot of practice to not “cross the streams”.
Mentioned previously and mentioned even on this page is that she still has “problems” not crossing the streams when a single thought crosses her mind (pain or pleasure), or similar thoughts cross multiple minds simultaneously (when she mentions eating food with multiple bodies at the same time sometimes mixes flavors). So it could be said she needs “more practice” but really I think it’s at a level of a normal person already. Consider the idea that even thinking of pain causes empathy pain (like watching someone get kicked in the nuts will cause people to wince and cross their legs) except each “her” shares the same brain so it only makes sense that since each of her gets the “full” experience of what happens and only moderately reacts to it in each other body in extreme circumstances is a feat onto itself.
When a single high volume thought*
5 Bodies, one mind, what is so hard to understand?
It IS a bit difficult to understand, since there’s one mind, but five brains. Someone else explained it very well though, by describing five computers that are linked to the same central server (I think that’s how they put it – they described it VERY well)
i think its more like how old computers used to operate where you have one central “mainframe” and then several “terminals” that are basically just a screen with a keyboard, the mainframe is the one that does all the operations and complex stuff the terminals are just ways of interacting with the mainframe and dont actually have any computer capacity on their own they are basically just a shell for you to be able to use the mainframe and several can be conected to the same system
It helps that it’s mostly just her “consciousness” that’s singular:
She has 5 brains, five language centers, five visual cortexes, five motor control cortexes, five hypocampus’, etc…
So, the hardware is all doing it’s own thing just fine.
What’s a good analogy? Five separate computers running their own programs, but hooked up to display on one, 5-way split-screened monitor? And usually it’s not too hard to maintain some focus on different windows (particularly with years of practice) though it can still happen that something SUPER interesting happens on one screen that startles or severely distracts you and makes hard to focus on the others for a few moments.
…I think that’s pretty good.
That was quite a spectacular analogy, actually, thanks. Really put her situation into a good perspective.
That… was actually a REALLY good way to explain it!
she also has five buttholes
And this forum has more than that.
(* )_(* )
X-DDD
^_^
Of course, all the discussion of how this is one ‘Daphne’ makes it pretty odd for her to be talking about one of her selves as being ‘chaste’ while the others have all been sexually active. It’s not so much ‘old-fashioned’ as it is medieval.
It’s the body that is chaste, as she said: “chaste, if broadly experienced”
That body has all the ‘theoretical’ knowledge, even the memories of the sensations, butt none of the fun physical experiences to co along with it
Kinda like all those Gangsta Thugs who play “Grand Theft Auto”, and never having been behind the wheel of a real car in real life, let along picked up a firearm
She probably perceives her selves like MMO characters, except no “irl self” to log out to. She likely accessorizes her bodies how she pleases to maintain some degree of internal consistency based on which ones are younger and which ones she uses for what part of her life when they’re not all required for coordinated action.
Or, like in the case of Abby, which one is assigned a particular primary role, with Bodie (the one on this page) usually being the one in uniform
“I’ll have what she’s having.”
Can I just say, as someone who has recently gotten into the Polyamory scene, I’m really excited about this prospect. Is this how other LGBTQI+ people feel when their identity might get represented in their favourite things?
Thank you Dave <3. Even if Sydney doesn't become polyam, at least it seems you're keen on showing the truth behind the identity, and not just silly misconceptions people have about it.
Speaking for myself, yes it is. Also how I feel when I see respectful portrayals of Pagans (modern or ancient) as a modern Pagan. It’s kind of sad that underrepresented or misrepresented communities/religions/ethnicities tend to be that starved for a sense that anyone else sees them for who they are.
That said, I’m also profoundly glad that we don’t still live in a culture where different = burned at the stake after a long torture session designed to make you give names of other people to be tortured and killed, instead of different = we’re going to pretend you don’t exist outside of fantasies (be they Halloweeny or just plain weeny). Maybe in a few more hundred years we’ll all just be able to see each other as fellow sapients, each valuable and unique in our own way?
I’d like to think that human decency follows Moore’s Law, and will accelerate more quickly the further it develops, but it feels sometimes like the law that pertains is more likely Murphy’s.
*peers at you and points*
She’s a wiiiiiiiiiiiitch! She turned me into a newt! (I got better).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmF_yXQkVh0
(Sorry wanted to add some levity)
Speaking of minority’s, Dave, are any of your characters, current or future, on the high end of the autistic spectrum? I see the low end get represented in so very many things, and I’m always happy to see it, but I’m hard pressed to think of any high functioning autistics in anything I’ve read or watched, besides sym from overwatch.
Something like that would just be begging for all sorts of abuse and attacks, the least of which would be calls of pandering
There was a semi-recurring character in Elementary for a while. She was an incredibly talented programmer.
In my observation, characters on the low end of the autism spectrum are rare these days.
The great thing about this comic, is that it just has fun with concepts. Because they are fun.
If it was added for pandering’s sake, it wouldn’t have been as great.
So please don’t push for that kind of thing to be forced. It never works out. Let’s just let Dave have fun making what he wants.
Wasn’t pushing was just asking an honest question.:)
I think I’ve had those nachos before.
Daphne experiences things all at once, like with the food thing at the restaurant way back when.
Therefore…getting every body to orgasm all at once might actually break her mind, at least temporarily.
The human mind has defenses against pain…not so much the case for pleasure.
I’m only pretty sure that I’m not a creep.
Go back to the Cunningulis gag
I am pretty sure she had at minimum an oral circlemunch with three of herself, maybe all five.
No more than four. She’s saving one of herselves for marriage.
Although…. is doing something …. okay one sec I need to think about this.
That’s the one holding the camera.
Ahhhhhhhhhh! :)
I think Daphne may not have thought this whole “One Chaste Me” idea through. If she’s saving one self for marriage, that implies she wants to marry the sort of guy for whom the chaste thing is important. Sooner or later that husband of her’s is going to find out that all of her other selves were not chaste, which is likely to be a problem. Particularly if he is the sort of guy who believes that whole saving yourself for marriage thing applies to both the man and the woman.
I suspect that Daphne would be better off looking for the sort of guy who isn’t expecting premarital chastity.
It depends on if ‘chaste’ is an aspect of the body or of the mind. For example, if there was a virtual reality rig which was so good that it could simulate real life, and you have ‘virtual sex’ with someone…. you’re still technically chaste and a virgin. That’s very similar to Daphne’s situation. Except instead of ‘virtual reality self,’ it’s ‘other physical selves’
It seems to me that she’s not doing it because she places any special significance on virginity, or expects any of her partners to do so either. She seems to be doing it simply because she can while still not denying herself any pleasure in the interim. In other words, she can, and so why not? Her future husband will get to pop her cherry (break her hyman) if it doesn’t manage to get broken in some other way, and that might be a thrill, so again why not? She has the luxury to do this without costing herself anything at all, since as one mind entity it’s not like having a non-sexual body (or at least non-vaginally sexual, who knows where her exact limits are set) is slowing her down in any way.
And she’ll even have the knowledge and experience to minimize any pain that most virgins are sorely (pun intended) lacking.
Daphne seems to be quite fine with having the occassional menage-a-moi.
The word “lover” (or “paramour”) didn’t occur to Sydney?
Sydney is not that experienced
“See now, if I was Harem, I think it would be pretty amazing to “date” someone while doing certain other activities. Skydiving for instance. Riding a roller coaster. Something where you can make a shitload of noise anyway and no one would give it a second thought.”
or Race Car driving, flying a plane, wrestling a tiger!
You want something where it’ll be okay if physical signals get crossed, though. if you only had the multibody and not teleportation, you’d have to rule out non-tandem skydiving, Race Car Driving, and Flying a plane. Wrestling a tiger could end poorly for your sexy partner, too, if you have to take a swing at the wrong time.
The neatest thing about Harem is, she can effectively be immortal. All she has to do is keep one “young” self uninstanced until her other selves are old enough she wants to be young again. She could then instance the young self, permanently un-instance her older selves, and create brand new young selves.
As far as we can tell, her duplicate bodies are the same instance each time (which is why they maintain their unique style) – she can’t abandon one instance and create a new one at will. There is some discussion going on the previous page of comments about the idea of stretching her lifespan this way though.
We don’t know what happens when one of her bodies dies though – maybe it’s permanently dead, but it would also make sense to have that ‘save slot’ open up for a new copy. Pretty hard to test before it actually happens though, which means she is unlikely to find out for sure until she’s much older and all her ‘seed’ body options have already aged.
I think one of herselves dying is almost certain to happen, at some point in the story. Seeing how it will effect her is almost an obligatory part of her character development. It might be several hundred pages before the comic takes that traumatic of a turn, though. It might be easier on us readers, experiencing a main character death, but not (entirely) losing that character.
Will she get a “replacement” self? If so, what if she ends up hating the new self? Would she consider that self expendable? “OMG… They killed ‘Kenny’…” -_-
Dr. Frost would have her hands full. She’d have a Harem-only survivors support group. ;D
You might look up the term ‘gigolo’, Dave. It’s not really the male version of ‘mistress’, but it does come close to the profession many mistresses began (or continued) in.
It seems the profession comes with some interesting pop culture references.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUsWiIN-LfE
Nothing beats the original :D
Gigolo is pretty close. Although it’s more the male version of a high priced hooker/’escort.’
Thank you, was trying remember the female version
Was also thinking of that song linked above (along with the Rob Schneider movie)
Gigolo is closer to a male whore or male slut than a male mistress
Out of the three you mentioned, only the male slut is different.
All of the others get paid.
There was this British mini-series called “The Rook” with a character called “Gestalt” who had this same problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmJeUfQMPRk
Makes me wonder, after seeing that clip, who came first: Harem or Gestalt?
The mini-series was based on a book that came out in 2012.
Marvel’s character Multiple Man is also a superhero with the many-bodies power, except they all have independent minds. I didn’t own many comics with him in them so I’m not sure if he ever had the distraction effect that both Harem and Gestalt display, as all of his ‘dupes’ are telepathically linked even though they are not one mind.
But for some reason even though they are independent they don’t mind at all being re-absorbed into Madrox (the ‘prime’ character’s surname), which adds their experiences and memories to the prime.
Yeah, Multiple Man is Marvel’s version of Harem – but I think the Stepford Cuckoos are a good match for Gestalt.
On this date back in 1960 the USS Enterprise was launched with the designation CVN-65 (no bloody A, B, C, or D).
It was the first US carrier to be a ‘nuclear wessel’.
I’m surprised so many suggests paramour, which regards someone romantically involved and side-piece over the simple “lover”.
I’m torn between being happy for Harem and being envious of her. Her statement in the third-last panel is easy for her to say, as someone who clearly finds it extremely easy to get dates. I would love to be able to be that complacent.
The first, like, ten times I read the last panel, I could swear she said “hot”. But that’s just because that’s what I expected she was going to say (since it would do a lot to explain away her…condition). Eventually I noticed that she actually said “good”.
Now I feel like the customers I occasionally get at work, who think that my sign says “This till is closed”, because they didn’t actually read it, but simply inserted their expectation, and then thought they had read it. When I point out that the sign actually says “Please ring bell for service”, they do the same double take I just did.
Inamorato?
I just looked it up.
There are several words to describe a male ‘mistress’ – and none of them are ‘master.’
One is ‘mister’ – but it’s not often used because it gets confused with the other, more common definition for mister. The other more commonly used word is paramour. The term can also be ‘kept man’ or ‘sugar baby.’
In other countries, the word cicisbeo, concubine, or cavalier tend to be used, but are usually not used in English.
The word ‘manstress’ is only found in Urban Dictionary.
I’ve always thought the terms ‘kept man/woman’ and ‘sugar baby/daddy/momma’ implicitly meant a significant financial aspect tied to the relationship, with or without physical relations. I don’t think that aspect is a prerequisite to the role of ‘manstress’, and therefore probably aren’t the correct terms.
The English StackExchange site has a question about this very term from a few years back. Consensus seems to be that ‘lover’ or ‘paramour’ are the most accurate, even though both are gender neutral. The male-specific term appears to be ‘cicisbeo‘ (Italian), which applies specifically when the woman is married. I think ‘mistress’ also applies only when the man is married as well, but is apparently sometimes used in place of ‘lover’ or ‘girlfriend’ to indicate a less-committed relationship.
Being faithfully monogamous myself, as are all of my family and most of the local cultures I’ve lived in, I’m hardly an expert in the subject though. Just got caught up in the terminology.
How about you just say multiple boyfriends/girlfriends, or the spanish words novio/novia
What are the chances that will come up down the line?
I mean we do know Magic is real. And the number of magfic things you need a “Virgin” for or against can be suprising.
And I doubt there is anyone else on this team of supers with high security clearance.
Aww Harem looks so sad in the bottom leftmost panel…
“I’m a virgin. I’m just not very good at it.”