2013-12-14

ophyliamichion:

My name is Ophylia, and I’m a bisexual girl living in San Francisco, California. I write music, have dabbled in amateur modeling, blog about mori-kei, and currently work for a travel hostel in our legendary tenderloin district.

I wanted to share an experience I had last year which taught me many important lessons about polyamory, being a woman in the creative world, and the truths that are often easily hidden on the internet. I am fully aware that this story will ruffle a lot of feathers, but truth is more important to me, and after seeing many people I respect go through similar trauma, I’ve decided its time to speak up.

This is a story about creativity, heartbreak, stepping outside of the box, snow, and dreams coming true. I’ve learned so much through all of this, and I hope you do too. For the people who will fall prey to their own delusions and think it is a lie, I have plenty of legal documentation, emails, chat logs, and photographs to back up what you’re about to read.

I am the ex-girlfriend of Kato, of Steampunk Couture and Steamgirl, the world’s first steampunk erotica website.
Chances are, if you or anyone close to you are a fan of the steampunk genre, you’ve seen photos of Kate Lambert, also known as Kato, floating around your tumblr or Facebook news feed. She is a slender, snow-white-haired woman, known for her cartoonish eyeliner and impossibly beautiful figure, often adorned with lace, corsets, and giant buttons or gears. Many consider her to make all her own outfits herself as part of her clothing line, and she recently launched a steampunk erotica site which features mostly amateur female models in intimate poses with herself, all available to plunder for a monthly fee. The website has proved to be a huge success, and she now has the highest number of followers ever on the BDSM social networking site Fetlife.

I became a fan of Kato in late 2011, when a friend showed me her fan page. I was so impressed and inspired by her clothing, and thought it was amazing that this young girl immigrated to the US from Wales, worked hard, and became a huge hit. I followed her fashion career, as this was back before she dabbled in the world of erotica, and considered her to be one of my favorite self-made female artists. At the time, I was also launching my first album which had a steampunk aesthetic theme, so I was looking for inspiration in that regard too.

Later on, in 2012, I was featured in a calendar run by Ladies of Steampunk magazine, and decided to embrace the steampunk genre as my own in regards to my music project.

In August of that year, a friend of mine who works in the adult entertainment industry saw that Kate had an account on Fetlife. She came out to the world as kinky and bisexual, and on her profile, she was advertising her desire for a girl to come up to her home in Oregon and cook/clean for her in a cute costume. At the time, I was finishing up my bachelors degree in critical psychology and writing my thesis on BDSM, so this news caught my attention. One of my favorite creative role models was into kink too? I was extremely fascinated by this, as I did find her to be a very attractive woman. I wanted to get to know her personally and see how she made it all happen. So, with nothing to lose, I sent her a message inquiring about her personal ad. To my immense surprise, she replied and was eager to talk with me more and see if I could come visit. We Skyped that very day and I got to see the steampunk queen herself, even without makeup, on the screen before me. Following that digital meeting, many email exchanges occurred over the next few days. We hit it off really well; she was very polite and pleasant, and used odd/cute pet names when addressing me, such as “bunny” or “sweet petal”. It was so refreshing and endearing, and she made me feel incredibly special. Her Welsh-ness was so adorable to me, and intuitively I felt comfortable with the prospect of meeting her.

In a later email conversation, she admitted to me that she was married, to a man who many veteran steampunk fans knew and remember as “Dr. Steel”, a mad scientist musician who had a cult following of Toy Soldiers in Los Angeles many years back. His real name is Rion Vernon, and he is also known for being the artist behind Pin Up Toons. Kate told me that she and her husband were actually looking for a mutual sweetheart, someone who could come up to Oregon and live with them as a third member of their marriage. I was shocked; nothing on her Fetlife account alluded to this already established relationship. I knew nothing about her husband, had never heard of Dr. Steel before, and felt pretty uncomfortable approaching this situation, so I told her that with complete honesty. She said she understood, and didn’t want to pressure me in any way, so if I still was interested, she’d be willing to have me come up there to meet her and her husband with no expectations. After researching her husband some more, and weighing the pros and cons, I decided to take a chance and booked my flight. Before I went up there, Kate asked if I had any boys in my life who would be jealous if I had a “lady friend”, and since I was single at the time, I said no.

That September, I flew up to Portland. I was greeted at my gate by Kate and her husband, who she referred to as Max. They were a very happy and attractive couple, and I couldn’t help but smile when I saw them together.

I learned that Rion was the person who took/edited all of her photographs, had decorated the majority of their home to look like scenes from a Victorian steampunk mansion, and whose artwork inspired Kate’s aesthetic look today. Her makeup looked exactly like Rion’s drawings. I learned that they had met online many years ago after Kate sought Rion out as a huge fan of both Dr. Steel and the artist, not realizing they were the same person. She took a huge risk and decided to move in with him in LA, from Wales, and they were married shortly after. Over tea and vegetarian/gluten-free meals, we talked for hours about the theory of the Singularity, conspiracies, technology, and our favorite comedians. They talked about how they had completely gotten past the concept of jealousy, and could never feel angry about those kinds of feelings again, which was why they were ready to have another person in their household. I had never met a couple who were so in sync with each other, and simultaneously out of touch with reality. It fascinated me endlessly! I fell deeply in love with the idea that they presented to me, of some magical, creative, artistic wonderland in which they both lived. Though their home was in a basic and plain suburban neighborhood in a small town outside of Portland, inside was an entirely different world.

Needless to say, I fell for Kate hard. Her husband was very kind and I admired his work, but I just didn’t feel chemistry with him. But we had a lot of fun together. Everyday, a few packages would arrive from her fans, and we would relish in the chocolate and alcohol and costumes that were gifted to her from people she didn’t even know. After a 3 day adventure, I boarded a plane home and went back to San Francisco.

Kate and I had a few more email and skype conversations following that visit, in which she told me that she and Rion were deeply in love with me, that I was perfect for them, and that she wanted me to leave my job, family, friends, and home, and come move to Portland and live with them. She said the best decision of her life was uprooting spontaneously and erasing her previous life, and she wanted me to do the same. She promised to pay for everything, take good care of me as her “babygirl”, and that she’d dress me up and make me a popular model. She also started selling some prints of an intimate photoshoot we did, one of her first Steamgirl sets (which was just for us and extremely tame compared to the other ones available on her website), and said she was setting aside the profits for me, so that I could get a nose job, which I had never asked for. Suddenly, I looked at all of the photos she had taken of me and put on her websites, and realized every single one had been photoshopped, from the fancy shoots, to the everyday moments captured. The bump on my nose was gone, my eyes were enlarged, my arms were thinner and my boobs were bigger. I didn’t look like myself at all, and my friends noticed. I protested at these edits, and she told me she thought I was lovely the way I was, and that the edits were to “beautify the photographs”. I asked that the photoshop be removed, but the shots were already sent to Ladies of Steampunk magazine and an article was published about our budding relationship.

Kate asked me to write music for her upcoming Steamgirl videos, which I considered. I had no idea how to write “erotic” music, as most of what I write is ethereal and soundtrack-oriented, but from a mystical fantasy point of view. I came up with one track, which had a story behind it, but she didn’t like it.

So then, Steamgirl was launched. It was a soft launch as the site wouldn’t be ready until February. But it was a larger hit than we all imagined. Everything exploded. Suddenly, Kate was immensely busy all the time, and her popularity soared. She hosted models in her house constantly, from all around the world. I heard from her less and less, but she was posting more and more about me and our relationship on her Facebook. My friends began to wonder if she was using me as a way to gain fans for Steamgirl, advertising herself in a relationship with a real woman, adding to the lesbian fetishization she was creating. I asked her if this was true, and she admitted to it. But strangely, I agreed to let her continue doing so, because I wanted her to be successful. However, the reality set in that our actual relationship wasn’t as close as the rest of the world thought it was. The fact that she was married was never mentioned, and an implied secret. No one knew about Rion. She said that if people thought she was married, it would make her less desirable and thus her business would suffer… and she’d stop receiving gifts from her male fans. I also learned that none of her nude amateur young female models for her site were being paid for their services, and that terrified me.

After a few weeks, Kate asked me again about my attraction to her husband. I still hardly knew him and didn’t have any feelings for him, which I told her. This seemed to disappoint her greatly, and by then I was so tired of the whirlwind of attention from our advertised union, and just didn’t want to let her down anymore. I knew deep down I wasn’t ready to date a couple, especially one where I was only interested in one person. She insisted that she and Rion were the same person, and if I was to date her, I had to date him too. So I decided we should part ways, because it wasn’t what I wanted. She seemed to understand, and promised we would stay friends.

I still got a birthday card from them in November, and had a few more lively email conversations. I learned that she had just gotten Labioplasty, because she wanted the more revealing shots on her site to be more “pleasing to the eye”. I was appalled at this, but told her that she could do whatever she needed to do to feel beautiful. It broke my heart.

She then asked me to come up to see her for Christmas, and told me that she and her husband missed me, and decided that they wanted me in their life no matter what, even if that meant just dating Kate. I wasn’t entirely sure if I trusted that last part, but agreed to return. She also promised to come to San Francisco to meet my family and friends, and learn about my life. This was a promise she never kept, due to time and money constraints.

So I went back to Portland.
I had the time of my life.

They took me to the snow, for the first time in my life. She spoiled me with little Xmas gifts and we knitted together by her fake fireplace. I had taught her to knit while I was up there the first time, and by the time I returned in December, she had made dozens of scarves. I introduced her to Game of Thrones and we jokingly reinacted the Khaleesi and Dothraki slave girl scenes. It was wonderful. Rion was also very kind and respectful, and allowed us space to be intimate. Every morning, Kate would tip toe from her bedroom upstairs and climb into bed with me and cuddle in the cool living room. I decided that I could manage this relationship, long distance as it was, and left to go back to San Francisco very content with the way things had been compromised. However, also around that time, I had also reconnected with a man I loved deeply, and our relationship was beginning to blossom again. He was 100% ok with my relationship with Kate, but she grew wary of him, scolded me for considering dating an ex, and, because my lover was Chinese, began to sarcastically apologize that her husband Rion wasn’t “Asian enough” for me to be attracted to him. I always felt very bad after she said things like that, because it was never about race, just lack of chemistry. It also contradicted our previous discussions about jealousy. But I let it go because I didn’t want to stir the pot.

I returned again in March, after Kate had cosmetic eyelid surgery, and she decided to give me an amazing gift. She and her husband shot and edited a music video for me for one of my songs, Reincarnation. We shot it all in her house and in the forest 45 minutes away, in two days. It was an incredible gift from them, and they said once we edited it to our liking, they’d launch it on the Kato page and get lots of exposure for me. It was the most generous thing she had ever offered me.

One of Kate’s models had introduced her to Mori-kei, or Mori Girl, a Japanese street fashion that incorporated lace, natural tones, and fairy tale themes. I laughed when she got so excited about it, because I’d been a fan of the style for a while now. She decided to buy the domain morigirlclothing.com, go to thrift stores, buy up all the cheap peasant-style clothes, add a few buttons and lace, and sell it as “mori” for $40-60. I wondered to myself how a white girl could completely commodify the culture and creativity of another country so easily, without a second thought… This was one of the catalysts for me coming to my senses about the entire situation.

A few days after I got home to SF, she began messaging me on Skype and asking how things were going. I let her know the video was done and ready to be launched onto YouTube. I told her I missed her and Rion. She asked if I *really* missed her husband, and said she noticed that I wasn’t very affectionate with him when I was up there last, even though he was filming and editing a video for me. Confused, I let her know that I was under the impression that I was just dating her, and that Rion was ok simply being friends. She got upset and said that their original desire for a mutual sweetheart was still in place, and it frustrated her that I couldn’t just be attracted to him. She expressed anger over me reconnecting with my ex as well, which caused me to question her view of jealousy. The conversation got very hurtful, and I realized that no matter what, there would always be pressure on me to engage in intimacy with a man I was not interested in, if I wanted to continue to see this woman. I also realized that over the past few months, my self-esteem had plummeted, that I was considering plastic surgery, that I felt like I needed to look a certain way in order to be successful as a female artist. It went against everything I believed in my heart. I was running out of money from the plane tickets and taking time off work for her. So, despite the pain, I made a decision right then and there to end this once and for all. I told Kate that this was not working out and I was done letting her down by not giving her the family she was looking for.

She took it very hard. Her husband emailed with me back and forth letting me know she had never been broken up with before (?!) and was crushed. He claimed he was fine just being friends with me, but Kate’s fantasy had consumed her and she could have it no other way. I didn’t hear from her again for a long time, except to tell me she promised she’d post that video on her page finally, and after breaking that promise 3 times, I just released it myself on my tiny fan page and told her I was sick of it all, and included my thoughts/concerns about her Mori Girl project. I had literally no respect left for her.

We haven’t spoken since. She has blocked me on all social media. Every attempt I’ve made to create peace has been ignored.

After all of this happened, her fan army was in an uproar, half of our mutual friends shunned me (while simultaneously all dying their hair white), and the other half rushed in to share stories about how this had happened to them too, not on a romantic level, but on a personal one. I heard about talented models and artists moving in with her only to be cast aside and abandoned financially when Kate wanted to get plastic surgery, and then never hearing from her again. I heard about men showering her with gifts because she led them on thinking they had a chance at a real relationship with her, while she was sitting at home with her husband laughing at their secret and enjoying their profit. As a business woman, she is very clever, but as a friend, a girlfriend, and a person, I am disappointed in who she has become. I wanted so much to prove there was a real honest confident woman in there, behind the glamour, but I revealed to myself a very manipulative example of what some women think it takes to make a living in the creative world, building fame and fortune over lies. To this day she publicly denies her marriage, and the use of any photoshop. Over 300,000 people have been fooled, but something tells me very few of them care. They only like what they see, which is very unfortunate for her. I fear for her greatly, when age takes it’s toll, and she will have to rely on more than just her looks to gain respect or money. She turned 30 this year.

I know that she isn’t the only woman out there who does this, in fact, in smaller ways, I realized how much I had been leading others on. I immediately became more aware of how I treat others, but also of how I treat myself. I do not allow people into my life who share these same narcissistic patterns. And I would never want to be famous for becoming what others want to see, but I’d rather be liked by a few who appreciate my integrity and honesty.

I do believe, however, that if she were a man trying to do these things, more people would be in an uproar. It angers me that this kind of behavior is expected and accepted from women who are considered attractive, or famous. All of us, no matter what gender or what we look like, are responsible for treating others with respect.

This story has a very happy ending. Through the recovery of the breakup, I have gained an immense amount of respect for the women who have also survived her, who are truly creative and very good people, and we have formed deep friendships. It has also brought me and my boyfriend much closer. The amount of patience he has shown for me through all this chaos has been a blessing and I am confident in my choice of being monogamously committed to him. So yes, there is life after Kato.

And now you know what has happened. I know that for most, this journal entry will not make a difference, but perhaps some women will read it and think about what’s really important to them, and if I can inspire even one creative girl to keep their eyes open and be true to herself, then I am happy.

ADDENDUM! A reader of mine brought up this important topic: I am in no way against polyamory as a whole. I firmly believe that with the right people, and honest communication/kindness, a polyamorous relationship would work wonderfully. Sadly, honest communication and the right people were missing from this situation. I have no doubt that Kate and her husband could find a girl who would create a mutually beneficial poly environment with them. Just… not the way they tried to do it with me. Following the situation with Kate, my boyfriend and I remained open and I did date a few other people casually, with no problems at all. But we made the decision to be monogamous because it is what works best for us.

I’m sorry to hear about your emotional abuse at this person’s hands. It sounds like you dodged a bullet there. Thank you for sharing your story.

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