asexuality-blog

[asexuality-blog]

on hitting walls and crying and repression

I don’t know what to say about any of it. I don’t want to write about it and I don’t want to talk through it.

Is it because I don’t know the words or because I’m scared of them?

•

this past year I’ve had a sexual awakening with one gender: men. my heterosexuality now feels, if still underdeveloped and immature, thoroughly a part of my identity.

with women, I haven’t crossed that threshold yet. or maybe I’m not going to, because I don’t actually experience sexual attraction to women, not really, not enough to qualify as queer.

but the way I’ve felt, physically, with the women in my life—it’s not all that different from how I reacted to men before the year of our lord two thousand and sixteen. so it’s not totally absurd to think, well, that awakening is just on its way.

it took me so many years to get comfortable with the reality of sex with men. I began the process of getting used to the reality of sex with women later. so imagining I might arrive there later—it’s not absurd.

but it still might be deluded.

•

in the fall of 2014, just over two years ago, I had reached the end of my rope with the insecurity and denial, so I decided to confidently declare that truth I felt haunting me from the pit of my stomach: I was asexual. that night I went to a party and had sex with a man for the first time in nearly three years. I was pleasantly surprised. 

(plenty of people around me were less pleasantly confused.)

that experience—it wasn’t the awakening of 2016. but it felt good, if scary, if uncertain. I didn’t know exactly what I was doing or what I wanted, but I knew what felt good, and I knew that I was, in fact, wanting.

it’s kind of how I felt saturday night. before I broke down crying.

•

I don’t know who I am or where I’m going—who I’m becoming, I guess. That’s a little bit frightening, and a little bit embarrassing. 

Like sex, I guess.

•

Here’s a postscript: I’m so laser-focused on the physicality of sex, I’ve separated it from the emotional. (I didn’t even really notice this until a friend pointed it out.) Why is that? For all the shame I feel about my sexuality, do I feel even more shame about my emotions? A reluctance to validate them? Well— Emotions are subjective and silly and floating, undefined, ready to betray you at any moment as immature and foolish and pitiful. Sex is at least something solid that can be measured and understood and controlled.

[asexuality-blog]

questions

(there certainly is a particular selfishness that springs into being to accompany your sex drive)

does my sexuality make me worse?

I certainly feel like a less good, pure, neutral, selfless person.

I feel like so many of the social fuck-ups and frictions in my life would dissolve if I just, you know, ignored sexual attraction when I felt it.

It always just seems to cause problems. People seem to notice, and disapprove. I hurt people, I guess, because I’m not as good at feeling where attention needs to be paid and then serving that. Instead I just...get sucked in.

I don’t know. I don’t know so many things.

But I can feel my own hunger. I can feel that desperation and desire, and I know that self-centeredness is carried with it.

Where does virtue fit in to all of this?

Maybe that’s what makes us human, and not god. We don’t care evenly, we don’t care equally. And our caring is always tied up in our own self-interest, because it’s tied to what we want, too. What we want back.

Maybe it’s...okay? I mean, it’s not admirable. But it’s where we’re at.

I guess what I’m trying to figure is...what negative things about myself are essential traits in human nature that I need to learn to acknowledge and manage? And which are sins, errant flaws that I should strive to change?

[asexuality-blog]

what a weird year

[asexuality-blog]

Daily Affirmation 840.

You don’t become less ace for enjoying sexual content or sex itself while grey ace. The way your attraction works does not change because you like sex. You are still a part of our community. You are still grey ace. You still belong here.

[asexuality-blog]

[asexuality-blog]

what do I even begin to say at this point

I dunno just checking in I guess

[asexuality-blog]

Daily Affirmation 808.

You’re allowed to have boundaries. You’re allowed to have boundaries. You’re allowed to have boundaries. Repeat it until you believe it. Even if those boundaries are not what society told you they ought to be, even if your boundaries are part and parcel with asexuality, your boundaries are good. Your boundaries are healthy. Your boundaries are okay.

[asexuality-blog]

this phenomenon just makes existence generally so difficult bc you read into every opposite-sex interaction as ~possibly flirtatious~ and aGHhH

Not even taking into account how homophobia might encourage gay people to misunderstand their desires, hide their sexuality, or otherwise “act straight” - heteronormativity works to project this loaded romantic meaning on all interactions between men and women that may be truly neutral in reality.

A boy and girl baby are playing together? They cannot speak or reason and barely have object permanence? They are in love! They might even marry one day <3

A young girl blushes and ducks away when a boy kisses her cheek? She is shy and playing coy! She could never be expressing embarrassment, these two children are practically dating <3 

You let someone of the opposite gender borrow notes, smile and greet them when you see them? You could not possibly be interested in developing a friendship, someone has a crush ;)

My point is that I literally do not trust anyone that says “Oh I really do not think this person is gay, I once saw them flirting with the opposite sex!” as a reliable source because 1) even if that was true it doesn’t mean anything, especially in a society that obscures same-gender attraction and upholds man/woman attraction and 2) lol I doubt it??

I have had men insist I was flirting with them because I was “too nice”, I have had family members claim I was into a guy because “we held eye contact”. Straight people are a plague, heteronormativity is everywhere, you are all incredibly bad at comprehending gay existence

[asexuality-blog]

tbh @me: ugh

[asexuality-blog]

when someone calls u their best friend out loud > romantic love

[asexuality-blog]

Trying to figure out if you’re ace or aro can be so much harder than other sexualities because it’s like, trying to find the absence of something. Imagine you’re at a pond and you want to know if there are any turtles, or fish. Say you find a turtle and you’re like “great! Now I know there are turtles.” Or a fish, now you know for sure there are fish. Or you find both, and now you know for a fact there are both turtles and fish in the pond.

But like, if you don’t find any turtles it might be that there are no turtles or maybe you’re just really shitty at looking for turtles and maybe you THINK you saw a turtle over there or maybe it was just a stick. Maybe there are only a few turtles. Maybe you need to do something special to find the turtles. Maybe a bunch of these rocks are actually turtles but you couldn’t tell them apart. Maybe there are no turtles. You have no idea. Meanwhile some people are saying “Oh there have to be turtles! You’ll find them eventually ;)” or “How many turtles have you found in your pond?” or “Try planting some vegetables at the shore to attract the turtles.” Or “Oh no! What disaster happened to your pond that there are no turtles?” And you’re just standing there wet with an empty net and a tired expression.

But whatever because whether there are turtles or fish or not your pond’s ecology works just fine without them because that’s what eco-communities do they form a system around what they have. You aren’t missing anything if you don’t have turtles you just have a pond system without turtles. If someone tried to change you by pouring a bunch of turtles into your pond it would probably fuck something up.

So you don’t have to be entirely sure. You don’t have to search every inch of the damn pond before you can decide there are probably no turtles. If you want to take the aro or ace label because you think it fits go for it. And if you do find your turtles you can rename the pond. That’s fine.

[asexuality-blog]

psa

asexuality and having a sex drive/libido are not mutually exclusive

[asexuality-blog]

lol

tfw oh, I’m the one here that’s 1. making everything about sex 2. prioritizing sex over friendship 3. not sure if I even want a friendship without sex

[asexuality-blog]

really is a damn shame

that I’m intensely sexually attracted to such a small number of people, cause the odds are, our connection is gonna be way more special for me than it ever could be for them, lol, I love to suffer

[asexuality-blog]

Daily Affirmation 755.

You’re not responsible for other people’s attraction. You don’t owe anyone reciprocated attraction. Someone else’s sexual interest in you does not mean you owe them yours in return.

[asexuality-blog]

Asexuals who used to think they were Demi and demisexual a who used to think they were ace are both valid pass it on

[asexuality-blog]

this post is a placeholder

to process, at some point, all that has happened.

There is a loss that comes with the gaining of new experiences, and I don’t quite know what to call it yet.