Often in the candy shop of human diversity that is the internet you come across something that’s so fantastically unique you just can’t help but be fascinated. One such site that has struck me as transfixing in its sheer oddness is Aristasia Friends
www.aristasia.co.uk, a website for an all-female community dedicated to enacting the society of the fictional Empire of Aristasia. In short it’s a lesbian LARP, although some enthusiasts practise the lifestyle full time. The key part of Aristasian philosophy is its rejection of both masculinity and feminism – post-feminist society is referred to as “the pit”. In Aristasia there are no men: the two sexes are ‘blonde’ and ‘brunette’. Brunettes are “about twice as feminine as a human woman in the last quarter of the 20th century” while blondes are more feminine still. Different provinces of the empire correspond to various times in Earth’s history, although none represent the present day, due to “the cultural Eclipse which took place in your 1960s, leaving all values inverted, replacing the love of beauty with the love of ugliness, the love of order with the love of chaos and giving over all normal human loyalties, decencies and truths to vilification or to mockery.” Post-feminist society is incompatible with Aristasian ideals of tradition and femininity.

Aristasia became notorious in Britain in the 1990s due to the documentary A Weekend at Miss Martindale’s, which focussed heavily on the corporal punishment aspects of the subculture. To Aristasians corporal punishment is considered spiritual and cleansing, but this documentary is somewhat resented within the community for over-representing its importance.

Perhaps the most specifically-named community on LJ, Bi Poly Kinky Pagan Gamer Geeks (//community.livejournal.com/ bipolypagangeek) was created by user Ubiquity “so [she] could find more people to date. And it worked.” The community is for anyone over 18 who fits all of those descriptions (five out of six is okay too) and you might be surprised how common that really is – currently the community has almost 1500 members. Now as a straight non-poly deist I’m somewhat completely ineligible, but you yourself are a bi poly kinky pagan gamer geek with a Livejournal, why not go join the movement?