On the topic of Thought Crimes, Plurality, and Purity
[TLDR/summary at bottom]
I am a system of two people, divided into five alters, and uncountably many personalities. I consider myself plural, but am not sure if I would medically qualify as having DID— nor do I really care for a formal diagnosis.
I was raised in Christian and Christianity-influenced circles which placed a strong value on being morally upstanding and, in other words, "pure". The definition for how to be "pure", of course, varied by group, and sometimes was impossible to meet (possibly by design).
For example, one group (radical feminists, though they only identified as feminist) defined purity by gender, or proximity to those gender's conventional roles— femininity and female identity was "pure", while masculinity and male identity was "sinful", and something that could never be washed away. Internalizing this culture caused us a lot of long term psychological damage that we are still working on repairing today.
As a result, I find a lot of "proship" rhetoric, which dismantles this kind of purity culture, reassuring— the idea that metrics of "purity" which are not based on actual, real people's comfort and safety are essentially meaningless.
But one thing that I was never able to be comfortable with was the assurance that "thought crimes are not real/cannot be bad". I understood and appreciated the sentiment, but it never really felt right to me. After a recent altercation between my alters, I was finally able to pin down why— the idea that "thought crimes" are morally acceptable relies on the assumption that thoughts alone are not able to affect any other person. And, in my case, as a system, this assumption is false, because my thoughts can be heard by another, real, independent person.
So, functionally, "thought crimes aren't wrong because they can't affect anyone" is about the same as saying "things you say out loud in your own house can't hurt anyone, because no one can ever visit people at their own homes". It would be true if the assumptions were, but there is a small disconnect because it fails to account for a particular variety of the human experience.
I don't mean to nitpick— this is just my autistic need for precision speaking. And, specifically, I think a lot of people who identify as "antiship" are upset about this lack of precision, too. It seems like a conversation in which one side says "this is okay, because it cannot hurt anyone" and the other replies resentfully, "you have failed to account for the ways in which it could hurt someone".
So, for those who feel similar to myself, and need a way to distance themselves from purity culture without feeling like you are accidentally condoning things that genuinely hurt people, I propose the following ideal instead:
"A person's existence, emotional responses, identities, experiences, inclinations, desires, fears, distastes and dislikes, bodily functions (or lack thereof), neurotype, attractions, repulsions— in general, anything that they cannot remove or control, only mask or express differently— none of these things can ever be a source of moral error, because they cannot inherently, directly, cause harm to another person."
To be precise about my revised opinion on thought crimes— it is possible, if a bit of a special case, to hurt someone with your thoughts. Just as it is possible to hurt an external party by voicing an opinion aloud (typically after they have expressed a boundary about not wanting to hear it), it is possible to hurt an internal party with thoughts alone. In my opinion, thoughts are something that is often very difficult to control (one of my alters often struggles with intrusive thoughts, even)— so it would feel somewhat cruel to me to make an alter repent or feel guilty for their thoughts, but it may be healing or comforting to at least ask them to acknowledge that it may be uncomfortable or hurtful to others.
TLDR: The concept of "thought crimes" can be easily complicated by facets of the human experience, such as plurality or trauma. I personally think the best way to conceptualize the moral charge of it would be somewhat like stepping on a friend's foot— simply walking is not something you should constantly have to monitor and feel ashamed of, but perhaps if an instance arises where someone genuinely is hurt by your thoughts, it would be courteous to consider acknowledging that pain, even if it isn't somewhere that anyone else can see. Furthermore, the more precise definition of "thought crimes aren't real" could be something more like "actions which do not impact others cannot possibly cause harm to others, and it can be healthy to take joy in your existence and self expression whenever and wherever it does not harm others", perhaps along with the corollary "if your self expression (including thoughts) does harm someone, a compromise will need to be reached, with the same neutral moral charge of agreeing on what music to play in a living room." In true privacy —something that is very difficult to achieve with plurality, unfortunately— no form of self expression could possibly hurt anyone besides yourself, and therefore any and all self expression which does not create lasting effects (destruction of others' property, for instance) or break established boundaries or agreements (cheating on a partner, for instance) is simply an exertion of your own right to autonomy and agency, and therefore cannot be morally wrong."