Time Warp

[fictional]

Time Warp Wives.

What do you lot think of this? I am at a loss. I never know what to make of these people. On the one hand, I admire their dedication to detail. For another, I am really into vanished worlds as well. (Hello, cosplay! Dressing up is awesome. Recreating lost worlds, equally so.) In addition, it's nice to live in a time, where people can be this weird, and not get, y'know, stoned to death or whatever. I support people's constructed, fictional lives, no matter what fashion, as long as they're not hurting anyone, - and it's great that they've been able to find people of like mind to live with etc.

BUT. They are crazy. tin. hats. Like, I get the desire, but not the 24/7 of it all, you know. Obsession can be taken too far.

Here's the other thing. It's like the male-dom thing in bdsm. Like, I've been known to find it really hot. BUT. in sex! Not in real life, right? Politically I find it to be repugnant and stupid. (Femme-dom too, for that matter, but you know what I mean.) For me, the great thing about recreation of these vanished times, means that we can keep the things we like for play, and lose the things we don't. Also I like running water, the internet, eyeglasses & contact lenses, etc etc.

I just don't know.

Thoughts?

Comments

[thebratqueen.livejournal.com]

Interesting article! I think for me it's not so much the conscious decision to live their lives like that - if you want to wear a bunny suit all day, go nuts - as it is the obvious cherrypicking of history. All of them kept saying how wonderful, caring, and friendly everyone was back then, and each time I kept filling in "...so long as you were white." Likewise all of the bits about how you didn't have these silly ideas about women working, which again only tended to apply if you were white and/or not of the lower classes.

Plus there's the aspect of how they don't want to read today's news because it's so unpleasant. Fine, but did they ever read history? I especially boggle at how the 1940s woman could claim such a thing, given, yanno, WORLD WAR II. I mean unless her antique-filled house also includes blackout curtains and a bomb shelter she's kinda doing it wrong.

Not that I'm saying that they have to, just be honest about what they're doing. They want to live in a happy fluffy world where they don't want to think about sad things and they like styles from the 30s/40s/50s. It's not that those were magical times where we all farted rainbows, yanno?

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Right! It's not like the history is authentic anyway; they're both ignoring the parts they don't like, and making the parts they do like rosier than they actually would have been. And also, the very fact of choosing to do something like this, and being allowed to do so, without being thoroughly condemned by society, is also a privilege of our time. I mean, what would they have thought in the 1940s of a nice, upper middle class lady who chose to live her entire life as if it were the 1890s?

The race thing. Word. WWII, also word. It's like living "history" out of a Harlequin novel.

[thebratqueen.livejournal.com]

That's actually a good question. B/c part of our time is just how much things changed over the decades. I don't know what it was like in the UK, but certainly in the US you had folks living like the 1890s for a while, simply because technology neither evolved nor spread that fast.

And, as you say, it's a benefit of our time that these women can make the choice. Feminism today says that if you want to have this kind of arrangement with your partner, go nuts. But back then you didn't have the choice. Ignoring obvious issues like what if you wanted to work or wanted a divorce to get away from your abusive husband, what about that one woman who said she's purposefully not having children? Did she think that would've been an allowable choice back then given the state of birth control then vs now?

(Also I am amused by the 1950s woman who says she doesn't drink. If she's living the 50s sans alcohol, she's definitely doing it wrong ;) )

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Good point. I forget that the quick rush through of period per decade is also new! I wonder if the 1950s woman also smokes? If you take it to the logical extreme, then also all new knowledge that we've discovered should also be taboo, no?

[jbs-teeth.livejournal.com]

I was going to say something to this affect, myself. Feminism *should* be about choices, not about ascribing the opposite choice of what has historically been available. So, if you're fulfilled and happy ironing and wearing lipstick, have at it.

But, the living in the definitive fantasy that not only was the past better than the present but also having no concept of what the present reality actuality is... well, that's seriously not cool.

"The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Being ignorant of current events like that is dangerous, in my opinion.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

I could never do this on so many levels. For one thing, housekeeping, shall we say, is not my forte.

Living in a fantasy world seems - I dunno, it can seem oddly attractive. Like taking both your feet off the ground and jumping in. I envy, on some level, their willingness to do it, and also their committedness. I am far too flightly and fickle to wholly embrace any one kind of lifestyle. On the other hand, all those things I just mentioned - the detachment from reality - I find myself kinda despising.

Hence my confusion.

"...so long as you were white."

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

And Anglo, native born, of a narrowly acceptable range of Protestant Denominations, straight, and not too intellectual or at all Bohemian. And at all leftist. And not too hard up.Or divorced, single or childless.
Or in any way eccentric.