It mainly features four women: Celeste his monogamous ex-wife , Ruby the one who got away , Elaine the one who was cruelly veto'ed , and Amber the game changer.
Yet as with any memoir, it's written from the first person perspective—Veaux's perspective—and it was noted by some reviewers that the women were far less fleshed out as characters, serving merely as foils. What did they think? How did they feel? Their voices have not been heard——until now. In April , their stories were consolidated on a new site with those of eight other women and nonbinary people who had experience harmful behaviours from Veaux.
My analysis remains here, in support of their voices. These stories of these first three women, and how they recall their relationships with Franklin, differ remarkably from how their stories have been told by Veaux in his memoir. As a formally published piece of literature, The Game Changer provides an official basis of comparison to his writings at the time and, more importantly, the ability to compare his version of events to those of his ex-partners who were featured in the book.
Three of the four partners whose stories were described by Veaux in his memoir, had also previously signed up to LiveJournal, and much of their writing was also posted there at the time. All of their journals have since been expunged, yet traces of their confusion, hurt and unhappiness still persist on the Wayback Machine, an internet archiving service, which snapshotted their state of minds and, taken together, create a very different version of events.
For these first four women I've researched, I have found evidence which indicates discrepancies, revisionist history and sometimes outright lies.
In every single case, it is the women's version of the stories which are supported by entries on LiveJournal, comment threads, correspondence or web pages dated from around that time. In every single case, the changes made to their stories benefit Veaux's "ethical" persona, or are used to better justify ethical stances which together form the cornerstones of his modern polyamorous philosophy.
The power play came into it, and pushing boundaries—and it was getting intense emotionally. And Celeste and I, you know, our relationship progressed. And so then it was decided that that would be allowed to be said. So at that point I felt really assured that this was not going to get out of control, that we were all on the same page. Elaine: And then I started realizing: if Franklin wanted something in the relationship, he would just sort of have that thing, and then, expect Celeste to be OK with it.
And he started doing that to me as well. And we had, because I was on birth control we had unprotected sex. And this is something he did not speak to Celeste about prior. And she was livid, because that was a boundary they had that I was not in any way shape or form, aware of… you know what I mean?
Louisa: Absolutely. Elaine: So he was all smiles. And so you got to do what you wanted to do without letting me know. Whether or not you use protection—obviously. And that was another boundary he kept pushing with me, was to have it involve other people or to have me think about including other people.
And that was not something I was comfortable with. Louisa: Hmm. Elaine: Yeah. So the issue with Celeste. He talked to her and calmed her down, and they had a discussion about it, and it was cleared and everything was fine.
And I was concerned about that. But then going forward the, the time that he was in person with me. Like I said, it was just, the relationship was between us.
I know that might have been in the heat of the moment. But everyone else around him was with him, you know, in various stages of their relationship. But for me, it was a monogamous relationship where I allowed for the fact that he had other relationships. And I respected them. But I mean, when he said that to me, to me that was um, that was one of the biggest violations for me, was telling me that.
Elaine: I think a good corroborator for my side of the story would be my friend Katrina, because she actually spent a lot of time speaking with Celeste and Franklin during the relationship. She wanted to get to know Franklin and Celeste and kind of understand the relationship so that she could help me and serve as counsel for me when things got confusing. But also to speak to, to them to understand their points of view as well.
And actually, we [Katrina and I] found something about the way he responds when you confront him. And so just by not addressing it, and by changing the subject, he could get away with not even responding. Louisa : Yes. Elaine : There is a part in the book that was disturbing. He told us that she threw herself at him, and we were floored.
Is like, fodder for your brilliance? And also I created a lot of material, not even for his game. I made a BDSM card game, and when—this is going to be surprise if he finds this out—but I had, when Celeste was leaving him, I asked her to take it back, because it was so personal to me. And my fear was somehow it being shared with other people. The other example was when we were in a relationship and he had offered me second primary status. The one thing that Celeste agreed to was power of veto over other people.
Well I never took that as something—because I never wanted to dictate his other relationships, but what I did say was I was not comfortable with him adding relationships at that point. And I said yes! Because that was who I was falling for, and that was who I was having a relationship with.
So everything about him was what it was. He could have his poly relationships that were already there, because that was who he was when I met him. Louisa : This is the deal. Do I take it or not? Elaine : Exactly.
And he did the thing to me that he did to Celeste with, you know, the condoms, which was he just went ahead and started speaking with somebody else and then expected me to accept it. Because that was my hard boundary. I accepted the other relationships because I took the time to respect and get to know the people in the relationships with him so that I could respect them. That was why I needed the relationship with Celeste first, so that I would feel that my relationship with him would never interfere with that.
You know what I mean? I needed to respect her first, and that worked for me. But there was one other thing, too, he offered me. He had another relationship. It was with Maryann, and she was more of like a cuddle buddy. And he offered to end his relationship with Maryann if it made me feel more secure. And at the time I was insecure because of a lot of other things going on.
Elaine: Exactly, exactly, and so if it had an impact on me to the positive, it would not upset him to let go of the relationship, as a relationship.
0コメント