Okay. So. Mike and I are in the process of moving -- we have three weeks to get our current place packed up and whatnot, and last night we were looking through a plastic tote full of miscellaneous tech-bits. Alright, maybe he was going through it and I was half-paying-attention while binge-watching The Flash. Either way, as I said: miscellaneous tech-bits. Several keyboards, lots of Apple cords, some mice, and a bunch of old external hard drives.
Like...a bunch.
We weren't sure which ones still worked and which ones didn't (to say nothing of what was on any of them), so Mike plugged one into his computer for a bit of a look.
It was mine, one I purchased almost a decade ago when my iBook G3 started to go a little wonky. It was small, but apparently held some interesting things -- mostly pictures...and every episode of Star Trek you could ever want, provided you weren't looking for the original series.
Anyway. Mike started looking through the pictures, like one does. And there were a lot.
Like a good early-20s lady, I took a lot of photographs of myself. Most of them were in varying states of undress, and I can't even tell you who I was sending them to -- because I was, for sure, sending them to people. Most of them were taken in my bedroom at my mother's house before I moved out for good, and most of them have some kind of filter on them.
Move over, Instagram, let Ash show you how sexy selfies are done. I probably have more experience in this department than you. You might think of me as a bit of an artiste.
Except, it occurred to me: I don't take pictures of myself anymore.
I was single back then and actually got off on making myself appear attractive in photographs. In my head, that wasn't what I looked like in person, but damn if I wasn't able to ramp up the good-lookin' on the other end of a webcam (and later, the iPhone). It was so strange that people appeared to want me. My standards for partners (for both relationships and hookups) was much lower, and what I wanted was someone to find me so attractive that they would stop at nothing (relatively speaking) to have sex with me. Now I'm almost 31 and often walk out of the house without even so much as a glance in a mirror.
The selfies have gone by the wayside as well, except for the sporadic boob-shots taken in my office bathroom. I used to take more of these, sending them off to Mike's phone in the hopes of getting him hard at his desk or in a meeting with his coworkers. But that didn't really happen, so I gave it up after a while. Understanding Mike's sexual nature (that is to say, some flavor of asexual) was hard, and it took a long time to come to terms with it. I started to feel like I was assaulting him with naked pictures and explicit text messages, all of which received little feedback.
It was hard to understand that I was essentially doing the thing that guys online have done to me and every other woman online for years -- sending unrequested pictures of their junk to an unreceptive recipient. Like them, I wanted a reaction. I wanted to turn someone on. I wanted encouragement, appreciation...anything. Instead, most of the time Mike responded politely, other times he said nothing. While he appreciated the thought, it was more common for the pictures to show up at the worst times possible, making him feel neglectful for not being able to respond the way I wanted, to say nothing of the fact that he wasn't in the mood in the first place and wouldn't necessarily be turned on by some bare skin.
Now, several years in, sexuality doesn't stress our relationship to the same level that it did toward the beginning. Maybe knowing I'm not bound to Mike exclusively allowed my sex drive to cool its heels. Maybe stress and life have made me too tired to even want sex in the first place. Maybe it's just a defense mechanism so I don't spend more time disappointed in something that won't change. Whatever the reason, though -- things aren't perfect, but none of this seems as imminently problematic as it did previously. It took time, it takes work, and sometimes issues STILL come up. It's normal, it's expected, and it's all possible to be dealt with.
Just, you know...be prepared to work your ass off for it. Hopefully it'll be worth it.
Showing posts with label Asexuality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Asexuality. Show all posts
2014/12/18
2014/12/15
Bonus Links!
Asexual humour!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/skarlan/the-21-realest-tumblr-posts-about-identifying-as-asexual
I'm particularly a fan of #21... But most of them amused me a great deal.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/skarlan/the-21-realest-tumblr-posts-about-identifying-as-asexual
I'm particularly a fan of #21... But most of them amused me a great deal.
Asexuality, for those even more removed
So here I am, tacking my two cents onto Mike's previous post. I'll be honest and say I didn't read the page he linked -- I deactivated my Fetlife account a while ago because I couldn't for the life of me feel like I fit in -- but I was thinking about how hard it is to explain to other people about how asexuality works and why I'm okay because married to someone who falls in that spectrum.
Let me lay out the scene for you:
I'll admit that, at times, I complain about it. I'll be at work and one of my raunchier coworkers (I love you guys) will make some sort of reference to some winked and nodded implied sex act, leaving me to comment that I didn't know what that was like anymore. Do I do that all the time? No. But I'm bad at pretending things are any different than they are (I used all that up back when I still lived at home with my mother) plus I am entirely too open about certain things at the best of times. The people I say things like that to are often aghast or offended, or like to think terribly of Mike because of some societal belief that all men are led solely by their gonads, therefore, clearly he must be defective.
One of them actually told me, "maybe if you lost some weight and put some effort into how you look, he'd want to fuck you more." It's weird to say, but she wasn't actually trying to be a bitch. She just not only doesn't understand asexuality but she doesn't understand that I'm not the type to dress a certain way or wear makeup not because I'm lazy -- I actually just don't think there's anything wrong with the way I was put together. I don't believe in God, but my reaction to people doing things to change how they look is often along the lines of, "So you're saying that God made a mistake and you have to fix it?"
Anyway.
If someone had told me ten years ago that I would meet someone who I would want to spend the rest of my life with and we wouldn't be particularly sexually active and I'd be okay with it, I'd consider it another reason to never venture out in the real world because people who think they have psychic powers are creepy and often wrong. But here I am, and here is how things have shaken out.
I understand that it's hard to wrap one's mind around. It's why I don't bring it up much with other people, but I also don't go out of my way to hide it. I'm of the belief that, in a world where people are often so self-motivated and always on the prowl for anything that furthers their agenda, when two people (or three, or four...) can get together and work together for mutual satisfaction and enjoyment, it's the most beautiful thing those people can do together. It can relax tensed muscles, it can help ease headaches and body pain, it can create life and deepen existing bonds between partners. But I can also understand that some people just aren't into it and have other ways of dealing with headaches. Over time, I've learned to find other ways to enjoy Mike's company. As anyone in a relationship knows, it's almost impossible to find someone who feels the same way as you do about everything across the boards. So if you won't break up with someone because maybe they like tomato soup and you prefer New England clam chowder, can't sex be handled similarly if everything else is going well?
What it comes down to for me is that life's too hard to throw away a good thing over a lack of mind-blowing mutual orgasms, even if some of my friends think it's ridiculous. I just do my part to convince them otherwise by speaking well of my relationship and not only bringing Mike up in conversation when he's driving me crazy. And ultimately, they're not the ones putting in the work every day in this marriage so I appreciate their concern, but that's as far as I'll take it.
Let me lay out the scene for you:
I'll admit that, at times, I complain about it. I'll be at work and one of my raunchier coworkers (I love you guys) will make some sort of reference to some winked and nodded implied sex act, leaving me to comment that I didn't know what that was like anymore. Do I do that all the time? No. But I'm bad at pretending things are any different than they are (I used all that up back when I still lived at home with my mother) plus I am entirely too open about certain things at the best of times. The people I say things like that to are often aghast or offended, or like to think terribly of Mike because of some societal belief that all men are led solely by their gonads, therefore, clearly he must be defective.
One of them actually told me, "maybe if you lost some weight and put some effort into how you look, he'd want to fuck you more." It's weird to say, but she wasn't actually trying to be a bitch. She just not only doesn't understand asexuality but she doesn't understand that I'm not the type to dress a certain way or wear makeup not because I'm lazy -- I actually just don't think there's anything wrong with the way I was put together. I don't believe in God, but my reaction to people doing things to change how they look is often along the lines of, "So you're saying that God made a mistake and you have to fix it?"
Anyway.
If someone had told me ten years ago that I would meet someone who I would want to spend the rest of my life with and we wouldn't be particularly sexually active and I'd be okay with it, I'd consider it another reason to never venture out in the real world because people who think they have psychic powers are creepy and often wrong. But here I am, and here is how things have shaken out.
I understand that it's hard to wrap one's mind around. It's why I don't bring it up much with other people, but I also don't go out of my way to hide it. I'm of the belief that, in a world where people are often so self-motivated and always on the prowl for anything that furthers their agenda, when two people (or three, or four...) can get together and work together for mutual satisfaction and enjoyment, it's the most beautiful thing those people can do together. It can relax tensed muscles, it can help ease headaches and body pain, it can create life and deepen existing bonds between partners. But I can also understand that some people just aren't into it and have other ways of dealing with headaches. Over time, I've learned to find other ways to enjoy Mike's company. As anyone in a relationship knows, it's almost impossible to find someone who feels the same way as you do about everything across the boards. So if you won't break up with someone because maybe they like tomato soup and you prefer New England clam chowder, can't sex be handled similarly if everything else is going well?
What it comes down to for me is that life's too hard to throw away a good thing over a lack of mind-blowing mutual orgasms, even if some of my friends think it's ridiculous. I just do my part to convince them otherwise by speaking well of my relationship and not only bringing Mike up in conversation when he's driving me crazy. And ultimately, they're not the ones putting in the work every day in this marriage so I appreciate their concern, but that's as far as I'll take it.
2014/12/13
Random
2014/12/12
Asexuality - Another Outsider's Perspective
Here's a post on FetLife from a guy whose girlfriend identifies as asexual.
https://fetlife.com/groups/7247/group_posts/6316062
I won't bother copying it, because the meat of it is the long string of comments afterwards, not the initial post; but it's definitely worth reading through. I respect him for posting this; he simply didn't understand what she meant or what she was going through, and reached out to figure it out. You can ding this guy for not talking to her and for going to FetLife for answers, which one can argue is a terrible plan... But based on his comments they've definitely talked about it, and that's better than a lot of people do.
The entire asexuality spectrum can be devastatingly confusing, both for the people on it and the people around them. It's a difficult hurdle to cross, because it can be very hard for people to create a romantic relationship when the sexual relationship is so... Estranged.
There have been windows where I feel like I need a sign saying "Special Care Instructions Not Included" anytime I go on a date.
I think, though, that my favourite part of this post is one of the comments a ways down:
This person gets it, and what they say is critically important. It's way too easy for our loved ones - even those who mostly get it - to be bothered or upset by or misunderstand or view towards sex. Some asexuals are squicked out by sex... And for some, it's not that we dislike it; it's that it simply doesn't have the meaning to us that other things might. Either way, we understand how you feel - intellectually if not emotionally. We get that you enjoy this. We still love you and we want you to be happy. We just... Express it in different ways.
https://fetlife.com/groups/7247/group_posts/6316062
I won't bother copying it, because the meat of it is the long string of comments afterwards, not the initial post; but it's definitely worth reading through. I respect him for posting this; he simply didn't understand what she meant or what she was going through, and reached out to figure it out. You can ding this guy for not talking to her and for going to FetLife for answers, which one can argue is a terrible plan... But based on his comments they've definitely talked about it, and that's better than a lot of people do.
The entire asexuality spectrum can be devastatingly confusing, both for the people on it and the people around them. It's a difficult hurdle to cross, because it can be very hard for people to create a romantic relationship when the sexual relationship is so... Estranged.
There have been windows where I feel like I need a sign saying "Special Care Instructions Not Included" anytime I go on a date.
I think, though, that my favourite part of this post is one of the comments a ways down:
I find it to be like an automtic[sic] door opening to a store. Most people walk by it and the doors magically open, and they are drawn inside. I, however, have to make that choice to push the door open. Or someone holds it open for me. Once I'm in there, there will be things I like and don't like, but I'll never have that experience of just strolling along the sidewalk and BAM , wow! that door opened for me and I want in to buy stuff NOW!
There is a lot of variation within the asexual community. I think you re right that too much questioning of her without researching first might seem like you were challenging her. But, here more than other areas, I think there is much variation.
From personal experience, I would recommend that you keep in mind that certain things might work well for her, even though it is in a context you might not expect. For example, she might like sex without orgasms, or giving without receiving...which might seem pointless to some, but is very meaningful emotionally to others. She might also just like sex with you now that she has bonded with you. That's "demisexual", and it will usually seem just like typical sexuality, it just takes longer to develop. Any number of the things you mentioned could be true. Or all of them. Or none of them. Sorry to be so confusing...but the thing to remember is if she is having a good time, it's fine.
This person gets it, and what they say is critically important. It's way too easy for our loved ones - even those who mostly get it - to be bothered or upset by or misunderstand or view towards sex. Some asexuals are squicked out by sex... And for some, it's not that we dislike it; it's that it simply doesn't have the meaning to us that other things might. Either way, we understand how you feel - intellectually if not emotionally. We get that you enjoy this. We still love you and we want you to be happy. We just... Express it in different ways.
2014/12/10
2014/12/08
Now *I'm* the one in the majority...!
As anyone with a social media account has noticed lately, the word "privilege" has been thrown around a lot -- unfortunately, a lot of people who have some specific form of privilege often are completely unaware of it. That's what happens when you come to expect something as the standard and assume everyone is on the same page.
Privilege is sneaky like that.
On paper I'm a white, married, middle-class female, and I know I've had advantages in life (thanks for Catholic all-girls school, grandpa...*sigh*). In between the lines on that paper, though, I'm a queer-type person who falls somewhere in the space between cis and trans, who happens to be in an open quasi-companionate marriage with my best friend. I've felt varying degrees of "outside an acceptable range" in regards to almost everything for my whole life, which is why it was so strange to realize there are things even I take for granted.
A few months back, I was looking on FetLife (trying to find somewhere to fit in...which didn't quite work) and kept seeing ads on the sidebar featuring a heavy amount of ball torture. That was only one of many graphic pictures littering the site, but it was one that made me cringe the most -- I'm all for people doing things that work for them, but it'd be lying if it didn't squick me out a bit. It's just not my thing, and I'm okay with it being of interest to other people.
But to get away from the ball torture -- what about the other ads? Why did only that one bother me?
Oh. Because I'm more okay with the other images because they cater more to my interests and desires.
Oh.
Well, shit.
I asked Mike a few days later, "Do the ads on FetLife bother you?" and without any hesitation or need for me to explain further, he emphatically responded, "oh, yeah."
It was the first time I really sat down to think about how unfriendly the world is to the asexual crowd, to say nothing of non-straight white folks. Never before had I felt so much a part of the problem.
I had previously recognized that my own sex drive and interests caused some stress for Mike, which I handled mostly by stopping things like dirty texting and sending risque photos to his phone -- the timing was never right so it just seemed to be a waste of time -- but it had never occurred to me that society in general did a far better and more pervasive job of keeping my own partner outside his comfort zone than I did. So while I could apologize and take action to stop "forcibly rubbing my vagina all over him from a distance" (I'm great at saying I'm sorry), society just can't "take it all back" and stop making everything boil down to the state of one's erogenous zones.
The realization that I was one of the people these marketing traps were for certainly knocked me down a peg or two, and I wish I could do more than watch what I talk about or do. I mean, I *did* make sure to thumbs-up petitions on Fetlife to have better options for ad-choices...but it was just before I deleted my account, possibly negating the whole thing.
I don't know.
To everyone in the world more like Mike than me, I'm sorry that life in a lot of societies can sometimes make you feel like you're being slapped in the face by a sentient man-sized penis with breasts. I know what it's like to not be a target audience, and I'll do what I can to get people to stop assuming we all think about sex the same way or with the same frequency. It won't be much, but every little bit helps.
I hope so, anyway.
Privilege is sneaky like that.
On paper I'm a white, married, middle-class female, and I know I've had advantages in life (thanks for Catholic all-girls school, grandpa...*sigh*). In between the lines on that paper, though, I'm a queer-type person who falls somewhere in the space between cis and trans, who happens to be in an open quasi-companionate marriage with my best friend. I've felt varying degrees of "outside an acceptable range" in regards to almost everything for my whole life, which is why it was so strange to realize there are things even I take for granted.
A few months back, I was looking on FetLife (trying to find somewhere to fit in...which didn't quite work) and kept seeing ads on the sidebar featuring a heavy amount of ball torture. That was only one of many graphic pictures littering the site, but it was one that made me cringe the most -- I'm all for people doing things that work for them, but it'd be lying if it didn't squick me out a bit. It's just not my thing, and I'm okay with it being of interest to other people.
But to get away from the ball torture -- what about the other ads? Why did only that one bother me?
Oh. Because I'm more okay with the other images because they cater more to my interests and desires.
Oh.
Well, shit.
I asked Mike a few days later, "Do the ads on FetLife bother you?" and without any hesitation or need for me to explain further, he emphatically responded, "oh, yeah."
It was the first time I really sat down to think about how unfriendly the world is to the asexual crowd, to say nothing of non-straight white folks. Never before had I felt so much a part of the problem.
I had previously recognized that my own sex drive and interests caused some stress for Mike, which I handled mostly by stopping things like dirty texting and sending risque photos to his phone -- the timing was never right so it just seemed to be a waste of time -- but it had never occurred to me that society in general did a far better and more pervasive job of keeping my own partner outside his comfort zone than I did. So while I could apologize and take action to stop "forcibly rubbing my vagina all over him from a distance" (I'm great at saying I'm sorry), society just can't "take it all back" and stop making everything boil down to the state of one's erogenous zones.
The realization that I was one of the people these marketing traps were for certainly knocked me down a peg or two, and I wish I could do more than watch what I talk about or do. I mean, I *did* make sure to thumbs-up petitions on Fetlife to have better options for ad-choices...but it was just before I deleted my account, possibly negating the whole thing.
I don't know.
To everyone in the world more like Mike than me, I'm sorry that life in a lot of societies can sometimes make you feel like you're being slapped in the face by a sentient man-sized penis with breasts. I know what it's like to not be a target audience, and I'll do what I can to get people to stop assuming we all think about sex the same way or with the same frequency. It won't be much, but every little bit helps.
I hope so, anyway.
2014/11/25
I've discussed names and labels previous, including here: http://othersidesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/06/a-kinster-by-any-other-name.html. It's one of my pet peeves, one of the things I think about most (outside of food, of course!), and I could rant on this for weeks and weeks if y'all let me. There's a comic I've linked to before as well - "Shades of A" (http://www.discordcomics.com/shades-cover/) and its immediate follow-on "Shades After" (http://www.discordcomics.com/category/comic/shades-after/) - about asexuality and the struggles asexuals and kinksters encounter. And for today, with minimal comment, I'll leave you with this one page where the last panel summarizes so perfectly how I feel about it:
http://www.discordcomics.com/shades-after-033/
Hope this Thanksgiving finds you all well, and my best wishes to you all and your families... Whether biological, chosen, or whatever else.
====
EDIT: This was posted two days early by mistake. I'm being lazy and moving it to its proper time. Sorry!!!
http://www.discordcomics.com/shades-after-033/
Hope this Thanksgiving finds you all well, and my best wishes to you all and your families... Whether biological, chosen, or whatever else.
====
EDIT: This was posted two days early by mistake. I'm being lazy and moving it to its proper time. Sorry!!!
2014/10/24
2014/10/22
Bonus Links - Asexuality Survey!
AVEN is running their 2014 asexuality survey. You don't have to be asexual to do it; but it's useful for them to get the answers. If you have a few minutes, go check it out.
2014/10/21
Another Person's Thoughts on Asexuality
This summary is not available. Please
click here to view the post.
2014/10/17
The Space in the Middle
I used to be incredibly homphobic, which occasionally - when it comes to mind - I'm still ashamed of. My parents are unfortunately rather more homophobic than I (even then, let alone now) and it's very easy to sortof default to their beliefs when you never stop and think about it; and the first time I was ever actually confronted with it and forced to consider it was graduate school, after I'd moved out. Even after that, for my marriage and divorce, I had an odd and kindof silly dichotomy internalized; the idea of a bisexual (primarily female, of course, since I'm not attracted to men) was totally okay with me, but the idea of a homosexual (male or female) bothered me. This stupidity on my part proceeded to not be helped by my now-ex-wife; I spent longer than I probably should have associating my pain caused by (and hatred towards) her with the fact that she was gay, not the fact that she was just a selfish bitch.
Since then I like to think I've come a long way. I spent a lot of time reading on sexuality in its various forms, and as I moved away from my ex and my parents my circle of friends has drifted far more to the less vanilla (e.g. more accepting) side. It's easy to keep up that kindof prejudice in isolation; it's much harder to do so when actually exposed to the people you're demonizing, and you realize that they're just as loving and human and normal (or not!) as everyone else.
The realization I've made more recently - in just the last couple of years - is that my misunderstanding was much more basic; relationship and sexual preference is not a dichotomy, no matter how much people want to make it look that way sometimes; it's a spectrum. Or really, it's multiple spectra, all crammed together in a confusing mass that makes me occasionally amazed it works at all. At the very least, though, there are four separate but related spectra: sexual preference, relationship preference, sexual drive and relationship drive.
Sexual preference is the one that most people are familiar with. I'm a fan of the Kinsey scale myself (I'm somewhere around a 0 or 1), as it pretty well captures my views on it. I know some people object to it based on the bisexual/pansexual differentiation, but I don't think it necessarily excludes it; the argument for bi vs. pan seems to be more based on gender duality vs. gender spectrum, and - for the moment at least - I'd prefer to acknowledge it's not a closed discussion and move away from it.
Relationship preference spectrum is something I never seriously considered until relatively recently, but now that I have I'm a big fan of the concept. You can arguably also say there's a third one here - "friendship preference spectrum" separate from "relationship/romance preference spectrum" - but I don't personally differentiate strongly enough to call them different things. Of course that could be an artifact of my own nature; I don't particularly differentiate between friends and girlfriends, either, for the most part... So I'm sure someone'll read this and call me out on it. Either way, your relationship preference is just as real as your sexual preference. Some folks interact most well with the same sex (homoromantic) and some with the opposite sex (heteroromantic), while some really work fine with both (bi/panromantic).
The other two I mentioned, of course, are drives - sex drive and romantic drive, or the sexual/asexual and romantic/aromantic spectra. For one reason or another (and I've gone into this in a previous post) some people
simply don't have the same drive for it. Obviously, if you're low on the spectrum you're going to fall into the asexual/demisexual/greysexual area; but it's sometimes not that simple. The nature of the interactions between your positions on the various spectra can put you in an unenviable - and confusing - spot.
What I mean here is that those spectra, unfortunately, aren't necessarily tied to each other and that can lead to a number of conflicts. A simple example - someone with a very high sex drive but a very low romantic drive. This is the person your mother warns you about - someone who isn't interested in a relationship, isn't interested in friendship, but has a strong need to fulfill their sexual drive. And the thing is, this is actually a large group of people; it covers people who are just totally uninterested in friendship or romance, but also could cover people with severe anxiety, medical problems or other conditions that make friendships and relationships problematic or undesired by the person in question.
I think, though, that a far worse situation is something where their sex drive is high and romance drive is high, but their relationship spectra are in sharp opposition - homosexual and heteroromantic or heterosexual and homoromantic. Friends are a part of most peoples' lives... But someone who is romantically attracted to men while sexually attracted to women really has the worst part of both worlds. It can be exceptionally difficult to built a sexual relationship around one sex when you have trouble relating romantically to them - and in the two cases I know of who I'd classify in this situation, they ended up dealing with it by essentially trying to become asexual. No matter how high their sex drive was, their sexual interests conflicted so much with the rest of their relationships that they only way they were able to really handle it was by suppressing it.
And me? On the sexual spectrum, I'm essentially all the way over on the "hetero" side. For sex drive? Pretty low - down near the bottom. For romantic drive? Very high - that's what I do. And for romantic spectrum? I'm still trying to figure it out, but somewhere in the middle.
Since then I like to think I've come a long way. I spent a lot of time reading on sexuality in its various forms, and as I moved away from my ex and my parents my circle of friends has drifted far more to the less vanilla (e.g. more accepting) side. It's easy to keep up that kindof prejudice in isolation; it's much harder to do so when actually exposed to the people you're demonizing, and you realize that they're just as loving and human and normal (or not!) as everyone else.
The realization I've made more recently - in just the last couple of years - is that my misunderstanding was much more basic; relationship and sexual preference is not a dichotomy, no matter how much people want to make it look that way sometimes; it's a spectrum. Or really, it's multiple spectra, all crammed together in a confusing mass that makes me occasionally amazed it works at all. At the very least, though, there are four separate but related spectra: sexual preference, relationship preference, sexual drive and relationship drive.
Sexual preference is the one that most people are familiar with. I'm a fan of the Kinsey scale myself (I'm somewhere around a 0 or 1), as it pretty well captures my views on it. I know some people object to it based on the bisexual/pansexual differentiation, but I don't think it necessarily excludes it; the argument for bi vs. pan seems to be more based on gender duality vs. gender spectrum, and - for the moment at least - I'd prefer to acknowledge it's not a closed discussion and move away from it.
Relationship preference spectrum is something I never seriously considered until relatively recently, but now that I have I'm a big fan of the concept. You can arguably also say there's a third one here - "friendship preference spectrum" separate from "relationship/romance preference spectrum" - but I don't personally differentiate strongly enough to call them different things. Of course that could be an artifact of my own nature; I don't particularly differentiate between friends and girlfriends, either, for the most part... So I'm sure someone'll read this and call me out on it. Either way, your relationship preference is just as real as your sexual preference. Some folks interact most well with the same sex (homoromantic) and some with the opposite sex (heteroromantic), while some really work fine with both (bi/panromantic).
The other two I mentioned, of course, are drives - sex drive and romantic drive, or the sexual/asexual and romantic/aromantic spectra. For one reason or another (and I've gone into this in a previous post) some people
simply don't have the same drive for it. Obviously, if you're low on the spectrum you're going to fall into the asexual/demisexual/greysexual area; but it's sometimes not that simple. The nature of the interactions between your positions on the various spectra can put you in an unenviable - and confusing - spot.
What I mean here is that those spectra, unfortunately, aren't necessarily tied to each other and that can lead to a number of conflicts. A simple example - someone with a very high sex drive but a very low romantic drive. This is the person your mother warns you about - someone who isn't interested in a relationship, isn't interested in friendship, but has a strong need to fulfill their sexual drive. And the thing is, this is actually a large group of people; it covers people who are just totally uninterested in friendship or romance, but also could cover people with severe anxiety, medical problems or other conditions that make friendships and relationships problematic or undesired by the person in question.
I think, though, that a far worse situation is something where their sex drive is high and romance drive is high, but their relationship spectra are in sharp opposition - homosexual and heteroromantic or heterosexual and homoromantic. Friends are a part of most peoples' lives... But someone who is romantically attracted to men while sexually attracted to women really has the worst part of both worlds. It can be exceptionally difficult to built a sexual relationship around one sex when you have trouble relating romantically to them - and in the two cases I know of who I'd classify in this situation, they ended up dealing with it by essentially trying to become asexual. No matter how high their sex drive was, their sexual interests conflicted so much with the rest of their relationships that they only way they were able to really handle it was by suppressing it.
And me? On the sexual spectrum, I'm essentially all the way over on the "hetero" side. For sex drive? Pretty low - down near the bottom. For romantic drive? Very high - that's what I do. And for romantic spectrum? I'm still trying to figure it out, but somewhere in the middle.
2014/10/14
Coming Out as Asexual
I asked a few people what they thought I should write about, and got a handful of useful suggestions - I think my favourite was "Parking Lot BDSM 101". Ash suggested the idea of coming out as asexual to your significant others, which - honestly - I dismissed because it sounded too... Stressful to try and write about for today. Totally unrelatedly, I was watching videos put up by a girl from Paris I've recently started following on Tumblr & Blogger who goes by Antastesia (it's not clear to me if it's her real name or a screen name, but for my purposes it doesn't matter). I started going back through her videos on YouTube, and that led me down the rabbit-hole of following "related videos" links...
Coming out as asexual can all too easily end up generating a lot of stress for you, as well. There are so many responses that can be insulting and frustrating... "Is it because you were raped/sexually abused?" or "You didn't like it? Oh, everyone feels that way the first time..." or "Oh, that'll pass" or "Once you've met the right person you'll forget that silly idea." Asexuality still has so little exposure and support that most people just interpret it as a phase or reaction to something else... Not as a state of being or sexual orientation by itself.
The lack of support can really make the entire possibility of coming out as asexual terrifying, and the funny thing is it's almost the opposite of the problems you hit with being LGBT. If you come out as LGBT, people typically believe you're being straightforward and just disagree with your nature (or "choice"), with all the stress and problems and arguments that entails; if you come out as asexual they're far more likely to simply think you're *wrong*. Most people, even the ones who object to it, don't think of being gay as a problem to be fixed, like a medical or psychological condition - they see it as a choice or a mental state. Asexuality is more often seen as a condition - and while they may sympathize, they don't support it.
Depending on the context, though, it can be more than that - and it can be a nasty shock to someone. The worst example here is, of course, a boyfriend or girlfriend; a significant other who thinks they're in a sexual relationship (at some point, at least) may be anywhere between upset, offended, or angry that you're "doing this to them"... And it's not entirely unjustified. If it's sprung on a boyfriend or girlfriend, it's entirely possible you'll be dumped. Even family members can react very badly; after all, declaring yourself as asexual is tantamount to announcing you'll never have children or continue the family.
Asexuals have relationships - after all, asexual is not the same as aromantic. The relationships are just different enough that the average person probably won't be comfortable in them.
So is it worth actually going through the process of coming out to someone? In a lot of cases, no. Who are you thinking about coming out to? Is it someone who's affected by it? Is it someone who you'd normally discuss your sex life with? It simple isn't most peoples' business; and while it will greatly affect your relationships, like anything else in the realm - kinks, medical conditions, or anything else that may change your sex life - it's not necessarily first date material, may not be appropriate for work, and - for the most part - certainly isn't something you announce to random folks on the street. Consider carefully before taking the risk of stepping out and talking about it.
I leave you with the following links to my favourite of the YouTube videos I browsed through. Hopefully some of them will be valuable to you as well as to me!
Fear of Sex:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eLvhS7Q-dg&index=14&list=UUDPxVSjvT-KyQhAetmYTWcg
Asexuality FAQ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrwjMjoJU30&index=26&list=UUDPxVSjvT-KyQhAetmYTWcg
My Sexuality/Asexuality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3VCjgVm7_8&index=61&list=UUDPxVSjvT-KyQhAetmYTWcg
Coming Out as an Asexual
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QNz1J3PJ6k
Interesting "Coming Out as Asexual" stories
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dqSedHtn1A
Coming out as asexual can all too easily end up generating a lot of stress for you, as well. There are so many responses that can be insulting and frustrating... "Is it because you were raped/sexually abused?" or "You didn't like it? Oh, everyone feels that way the first time..." or "Oh, that'll pass" or "Once you've met the right person you'll forget that silly idea." Asexuality still has so little exposure and support that most people just interpret it as a phase or reaction to something else... Not as a state of being or sexual orientation by itself.
The lack of support can really make the entire possibility of coming out as asexual terrifying, and the funny thing is it's almost the opposite of the problems you hit with being LGBT. If you come out as LGBT, people typically believe you're being straightforward and just disagree with your nature (or "choice"), with all the stress and problems and arguments that entails; if you come out as asexual they're far more likely to simply think you're *wrong*. Most people, even the ones who object to it, don't think of being gay as a problem to be fixed, like a medical or psychological condition - they see it as a choice or a mental state. Asexuality is more often seen as a condition - and while they may sympathize, they don't support it.
Depending on the context, though, it can be more than that - and it can be a nasty shock to someone. The worst example here is, of course, a boyfriend or girlfriend; a significant other who thinks they're in a sexual relationship (at some point, at least) may be anywhere between upset, offended, or angry that you're "doing this to them"... And it's not entirely unjustified. If it's sprung on a boyfriend or girlfriend, it's entirely possible you'll be dumped. Even family members can react very badly; after all, declaring yourself as asexual is tantamount to announcing you'll never have children or continue the family.
Asexuals have relationships - after all, asexual is not the same as aromantic. The relationships are just different enough that the average person probably won't be comfortable in them.
So is it worth actually going through the process of coming out to someone? In a lot of cases, no. Who are you thinking about coming out to? Is it someone who's affected by it? Is it someone who you'd normally discuss your sex life with? It simple isn't most peoples' business; and while it will greatly affect your relationships, like anything else in the realm - kinks, medical conditions, or anything else that may change your sex life - it's not necessarily first date material, may not be appropriate for work, and - for the most part - certainly isn't something you announce to random folks on the street. Consider carefully before taking the risk of stepping out and talking about it.
I leave you with the following links to my favourite of the YouTube videos I browsed through. Hopefully some of them will be valuable to you as well as to me!
Fear of Sex:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eLvhS7Q-dg&index=14&list=UUDPxVSjvT-KyQhAetmYTWcg
Asexuality FAQ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrwjMjoJU30&index=26&list=UUDPxVSjvT-KyQhAetmYTWcg
My Sexuality/Asexuality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3VCjgVm7_8&index=61&list=UUDPxVSjvT-KyQhAetmYTWcg
Coming Out as an Asexual
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QNz1J3PJ6k
Interesting "Coming Out as Asexual" stories
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dqSedHtn1A
2014/10/12
Bonus Links!
A bunch of these this past week... But here's a link to a really good article over at Salon - and interview with Julie Sondra Decker, author and asexual.
Also? "You're about as sexually attractive to me as a turtle" is an awesome quote.
http://www.salon.com/2014/09/16/youre_about_as_sexually_attractive_to_me_as_a_turtle_coming_out_as_asexual_in_a_hypersexual_culture/
Also? "You're about as sexually attractive to me as a turtle" is an awesome quote.
http://www.salon.com/2014/09/16/youre_about_as_sexually_attractive_to_me_as_a_turtle_coming_out_as_asexual_in_a_hypersexual_culture/
2014/10/11
Bonus Links!
Not 100% sure I agree with all of these, but still interesting and pretty good. Definitely a point of reference if nothing else.
http://theladyinblack13.
http://theladyinblack13.
2014/10/08
Bonus Links!
Offered without comment.
http://antastesia.tumblr.com/post/99206375590/spacesforaces-raising-awareness-about
http://antastesia.tumblr.com/post/99206375590/spacesforaces-raising-awareness-about
2014/09/19
Personally, I Prefer Strawberry
In response to Tuesday's video, Ash was chatting about flavours of asexuality. Saying you're "asexual" can be a vague statement. There are plenty of other videos on YouTube - I've watched several, but they aren't hard to find - as well as various posts on Fetlife, on the AVEN forums, on blogs, and all sorts of other places talking about peoples specific forms of asexuality. I feel occasionally like a broken record with the "well, it depends..." line, but there really is a range of asexual flavours. Merriam-Webster (who would have thunk I'd use a dictionary in my blog?) defines asexual - for the relevant choice at least - as simply "devoid of sexuality". It can actually be referring directly to the person, or indirectly to them through their relationship preference; both would fit here.
Please note that, for purposes of this article, I'm lumping asexuals, demisexuals, "grey-A"s, and others on the asexuality spectrum together under the blanket term "asexual"; the discussion applies equally to all. After all, I self-identify as demi-sexual - I enjoy blow jobs and sucking nipples occasionally too much to be asexual - but it's simpler to use the one term than repeatedly trying to call them all out. I only ask you to temporarily forgive my laziness.
All the technical aspects aside... From my point of view asexuals really break down into four categories:
This isn't an exact science; for my own sake, I know I happen to fit into two of these - I have an unusually low sex drive, and a significant amount of the sex drive I have is tightly tied or channeled into my sadistic tendencies. Let's just hit on these each quickly, however.
Unsurprisingly the majority of asexuals seem to be those with little or no sex drive. Detractors and disbelievers frequently point out that diminished sex drive can be a medical problem; it's a side effect of some anti-depressants, for example, and can also be a symptom of hormone imbalances. There's nothing that says, however, that anyone who's perfectly healthy must therefore have a sex drive. Noone blinks at two people with sex drives at different levels, one above average and one below average... There's no particular reason why, when it reaches a certain level, it has to magically become a different animal; their sex drive is simply low enough to cause disinterest.
In a lot of ways this is both the hardest flavour to handle and also the biggest cause of many of asexuality's problems. Other flavours have a reason that's easy to latch onto; this flavour, that reason is simply "...Meh." The idea of romantic attraction without sexual attraction is too alien to most of the population; the lack of any graspable reason behind it just overwhelms peoples' little minds.
The second flavour I called out is actually the most rare from my experience and research - those who don't feel any attraction at all, making sexuality sortof superfluous or a purely logical/practical matter. This is the category where aromantic asexuals commonly fall (not to make too many generalizations - aromantics can be asexual as well). Sex simply loses context if you don't have relationships at all in a form where it's relevant - either recreationally or procreationally.
The third flavour are those where their sex drive exists, but is not aimed in the same direction as everyone else's. In my own case - and this has caused me no end of trouble over the years - my sex drive is actually far more closely linked to my sadism than it is to... Well... Sex. This category can include a lot of asexual fetishists and kinksters, which I suppose is true of me as well; if your arousal is too closely linked to that fetish or kink, either there can be real physical issues with staying aroused during vanilla sex, or the sex itself is simply... Not interesting. This can be upsetting for people to try and deal with, both the asexual in question and their prospective partner, and frequently requires some work and negotiation for both (or all, to be fair) of the people involved to get what they want and need. It's all too easy to end up being seen (or seeing yourself) as broken, rather than just... Different. Having someone to support you through that type of attitude is critical.
The last flavour I tend to consider is those who have specific aversions to sex, regardless of their sex drive or anything else. This can be almost anything from all over the board. Some people find genitals or sex icky and disgusting; some people find it embarassing for any number of reasons. Aversion to sex can be the result of trauma, physical or psychological - the result of injury, surgery, sexual assault, or something else. Severe vulvodynia or other medical conditions can make sex simply impossible because of the level of discomfort or pain caused.
The biggest problem with this category is that most asexuals falling into it have the aversion thrust on them by something outside their control, and it's very easy to see them as victims. Other people may very well see them that way, but the asexual may see themselves that way as well. It's critical to have a clear understanding of how it affects them and reacting accordingly. Most importantly understand that whether or not it's self-inflicted or just bad luck and fate, whether it's something they're in treatment for or something where treatment is impossible or simply doesn't apply, whether they're comfortable with it themselves or whether they see themselves as a victim, take them seriously. If the aversion is strong enough for them to overcome all their social conditioning in favour of sex... It's real, even if you think it's only real to them.
Whatever the flavour and whatever the cause, the most important aspect is that the people in question self-identify that way. It's not necessarily the product of anything being wrong; it's not necessarily a problem; it's not necessarily something that needs to be fixed... Sometimes it's just the way they are.
As an interesting footnote to close out, New York refers to asexuality directly in law: the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA) specifically calls out "heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, or asexuality, whether actual or perceived" as protected sexual orientations. It was the first (not the only; Vermont apparently added it later) US legislation I was able to find referring to asexuality, though Wikipedia calls out Brazil as protecting asexuality through law since 1999. I'm not 100% sure I agree with their classification - based on personal experience I don't think asexuality is the same type of descriptor as hetero-, homo-, bi-, or pansexual; you can be asexual but heteroromantic, or asexual and panromantic, or whatever. Either way, it's nice to know it gets some official recognition and - more importantly - protection.
Please note that, for purposes of this article, I'm lumping asexuals, demisexuals, "grey-A"s, and others on the asexuality spectrum together under the blanket term "asexual"; the discussion applies equally to all. After all, I self-identify as demi-sexual - I enjoy blow jobs and sucking nipples occasionally too much to be asexual - but it's simpler to use the one term than repeatedly trying to call them all out. I only ask you to temporarily forgive my laziness.
All the technical aspects aside... From my point of view asexuals really break down into four categories:
- Those who have low or no sex drive.
- Those who feel little or no attraction, thus having no sexual objects regardless of sex drive.
- Those who have a sex drive, but channel it into some other act than intercourse or target of affection other than humans.
- Those who have a sex drive, but avoid sex due to aversion of one sort or another.
This isn't an exact science; for my own sake, I know I happen to fit into two of these - I have an unusually low sex drive, and a significant amount of the sex drive I have is tightly tied or channeled into my sadistic tendencies. Let's just hit on these each quickly, however.
Unsurprisingly the majority of asexuals seem to be those with little or no sex drive. Detractors and disbelievers frequently point out that diminished sex drive can be a medical problem; it's a side effect of some anti-depressants, for example, and can also be a symptom of hormone imbalances. There's nothing that says, however, that anyone who's perfectly healthy must therefore have a sex drive. Noone blinks at two people with sex drives at different levels, one above average and one below average... There's no particular reason why, when it reaches a certain level, it has to magically become a different animal; their sex drive is simply low enough to cause disinterest.
In a lot of ways this is both the hardest flavour to handle and also the biggest cause of many of asexuality's problems. Other flavours have a reason that's easy to latch onto; this flavour, that reason is simply "...Meh." The idea of romantic attraction without sexual attraction is too alien to most of the population; the lack of any graspable reason behind it just overwhelms peoples' little minds.
The second flavour I called out is actually the most rare from my experience and research - those who don't feel any attraction at all, making sexuality sortof superfluous or a purely logical/practical matter. This is the category where aromantic asexuals commonly fall (not to make too many generalizations - aromantics can be asexual as well). Sex simply loses context if you don't have relationships at all in a form where it's relevant - either recreationally or procreationally.
The third flavour are those where their sex drive exists, but is not aimed in the same direction as everyone else's. In my own case - and this has caused me no end of trouble over the years - my sex drive is actually far more closely linked to my sadism than it is to... Well... Sex. This category can include a lot of asexual fetishists and kinksters, which I suppose is true of me as well; if your arousal is too closely linked to that fetish or kink, either there can be real physical issues with staying aroused during vanilla sex, or the sex itself is simply... Not interesting. This can be upsetting for people to try and deal with, both the asexual in question and their prospective partner, and frequently requires some work and negotiation for both (or all, to be fair) of the people involved to get what they want and need. It's all too easy to end up being seen (or seeing yourself) as broken, rather than just... Different. Having someone to support you through that type of attitude is critical.
The last flavour I tend to consider is those who have specific aversions to sex, regardless of their sex drive or anything else. This can be almost anything from all over the board. Some people find genitals or sex icky and disgusting; some people find it embarassing for any number of reasons. Aversion to sex can be the result of trauma, physical or psychological - the result of injury, surgery, sexual assault, or something else. Severe vulvodynia or other medical conditions can make sex simply impossible because of the level of discomfort or pain caused.
The biggest problem with this category is that most asexuals falling into it have the aversion thrust on them by something outside their control, and it's very easy to see them as victims. Other people may very well see them that way, but the asexual may see themselves that way as well. It's critical to have a clear understanding of how it affects them and reacting accordingly. Most importantly understand that whether or not it's self-inflicted or just bad luck and fate, whether it's something they're in treatment for or something where treatment is impossible or simply doesn't apply, whether they're comfortable with it themselves or whether they see themselves as a victim, take them seriously. If the aversion is strong enough for them to overcome all their social conditioning in favour of sex... It's real, even if you think it's only real to them.
Whatever the flavour and whatever the cause, the most important aspect is that the people in question self-identify that way. It's not necessarily the product of anything being wrong; it's not necessarily a problem; it's not necessarily something that needs to be fixed... Sometimes it's just the way they are.
As an interesting footnote to close out, New York refers to asexuality directly in law: the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA) specifically calls out "heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, or asexuality, whether actual or perceived" as protected sexual orientations. It was the first (not the only; Vermont apparently added it later) US legislation I was able to find referring to asexuality, though Wikipedia calls out Brazil as protecting asexuality through law since 1999. I'm not 100% sure I agree with their classification - based on personal experience I don't think asexuality is the same type of descriptor as hetero-, homo-, bi-, or pansexual; you can be asexual but heteroromantic, or asexual and panromantic, or whatever. Either way, it's nice to know it gets some official recognition and - more importantly - protection.
2014/09/18
Bonus Links!
I was speaking with Persephone today... I already should have linked to her most recent entry, which - as usual - I found fascinating and insightful:
http://mileagedoesvary.blogspot.com/2014/09/stereotypes-vs-realities.html
but she also pointed me on to another blog (which she found when it linked to her) that is worth reading:
http://asexualagenda.wordpress.com/2014/07/25/reflections-on-the-use-and-boundaries-of-sex-favourable-asexual-as-a-term/
Two excellent essays on aspects of asexuality I recommend you go read.
Enjoy!
http://mileagedoesvary.blogspot.com/2014/09/stereotypes-vs-realities.html
but she also pointed me on to another blog (which she found when it linked to her) that is worth reading:
http://asexualagenda.wordpress.com/2014/07/25/reflections-on-the-use-and-boundaries-of-sex-favourable-asexual-as-a-term/
Two excellent essays on aspects of asexuality I recommend you go read.
Enjoy!
2014/09/16
Tuesday Links
I have another entry I'd started, but I watched this yesterday and was quite struck by it. So I'll delay my otherwise scheduled, and offer you this video with minimal comment:
http://youtu.be/Xly3CZk_Ch8
http://youtu.be/Xly3CZk_Ch8
2014/08/25
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