Because this needs some clarification (apparently)
This is a question/simple misunderstanding:
“Hey, I’ve never heard the term asexual applied to people before. What do you guys mean by that?”This is people being assholes:
“It bothers me that you use the word asexual.”“I hate that you use the word asexual.”
“I find the fact that you use the word asexual frustrating.”
“Nobody will take you seriously if you use the word asexual.”
“I refuse to understand that you guys use the word asexual in some other way than the definition I learned in biology class.”
Notice the difference?
Aces With Others - “It’s just a phase!”
This isn’t an exclusively-asexual thing. Pretty much everybody who isn’t a heterosexual, cisgendered individual has heard this. Hell, pretty much everybody who isn’t a carbon copy of their surroundings has heard this. Girls with pink hair, guys who wanna try out Satanism, ladies who were born dudes, dudes who like other dudes, girls with nose piercings and guys who don’t eat meat.
No matter what, people who don’t understand your beliefs, interests and personal viewpoint are going to suggest that it’s ‘just a phase’.
Something even scarier is the fact that a lot of outside-the-norm individuals have started saying that about other outside-the-norm individuals. The ‘it’s just a phase’ argument isn’t just coming from the outside anymore, it’s coming from the inside, and that’s definitely gonna create some problems down the road.
A lot of people have mixed feelings about Laci Green, but I think that she’s providing extremely important information and help for people who can’t or won’t seek out this information in their own communities. I wish that I’d had somebody like her when I was a kid.
Anyway, this is her video on asexuality. She interviews David Jay, who most of us already know as AVEN’s trusty webmaster. But what really makes me giggle with joy are some of the comments on this video:
“OMYGOD I THOUGHT I WAS A FREAK. thats why i was never sexually arroused by anyone, thats why i never felt the need or the desires everyone talks about. i thought there was something wrong with me. i thought i was bi because i didnt see the difference between the genders. i guess im an asexual pamsexual cause all i want to do is cuddle :3”
“same here! so happy i’m not alone in not feeling the need to have sex, but do get aroused now and then”
“me too! i never related when people talked about sex being a basic “need” for humans like food and water. it’s so not at that level for me!”
And although yeah, there are still some assholey and trollish comments on the video (It’s YouTube, what do you expect?), comments like these are what makes me want to do this kind of thing in the first place! It’s great that she’s helping people realize they’re not alone and still totally normal.
I hate how facebook only has two options for “interested in”
you are only able to check either “men” or “women”
not both
not neitherWhen last I checked, you could specify both. Unless Facebook has majorly fucked up its code, which I don’t put past them.
You can check off both, one, or you can leave both check boxes blank, or set your privacy setting to “Only Me” so no one can see your “interested in”.
(Source: the-tuba-hero)
Ace Amoeba came across this today, a thread of the Talk About Marriage forums started by a married asexual woman. Here are some of the responses she got.
-I am of the opinion that marriage is fundamentally a sexual relationship, and so if you consider yourself asexual you should not be married, or at the very least you should find someone to marry who also identifies as asexual.
-You are no more compatible than a gay man and a straight woman.
-Why did you get married if you knew you had zero interest in sex?
-Have you had professional help? It sounds like you may be a high functioning autistic, or have aspergers, both could explain your aversion to touch.
-You should leave. Now. And let him find another woman who actually has a sex drive and likes sex. While you go look for an asexual man to match your own nonexistent drive. You’re being disrespected because you have grossly disrespected your husband by staying married to him even though you know you are asexual.
-I imagine he must be very disappointed that you haven’t “grown out” of this asexual behavior.
Asexuals either need to marry other asexuals, or not get married at all.
-Knowing that sex is part of marriage, why did you got married? You can not realistically think that your husband would be satisfied just by holding your hand? Have you ever consider therapy?
Continue to track This Thread!
(via 74. Alliance)
Burrrrrn. And SHAZAM. Hellyeah.
That Awkward Moment When Your Partners Don’t Get Along
Once again it has been awhile since I last posted, but today seemed as good a time as ever to update.
Rather recently, back during the disastrous attempt at dating C, I had met a woman I had quite a lot in common with. We were both interested in the theater, and science-fiction and fantasy, and we both happened to be Asexual. Rather early on we decided to start dating, and at first everything was fine. She seemed to like my primary partner (M), and I was able to spend quite a decent amount of time with her.
Then came the day when, off-handedly, she made a comment that she could never see herself spending time alone with M. Immediately the warning bells went off in my head, but I avoided confronting the situation right there and then, because I am (quite frankly) kind of a coward when it comes to confrontation. Days and weeks went by and the tension began to grow. I would catch them making snide remarks, fighting for time alone with me and being just plain unpleasant to one another. Needless to say, not getting along with my primary is a deal-breaker… I just had to find a good way to explain this to her and break off our romantic relationship.
*As a really random side-note, at this point in the relationship, I noticed a gaping distance between she and I. I hesitate to blame it on the fact that we are both asexual, but it did feel like that caused us both to be extremely hesitant to make any physical contact…. in the entire time we dated (a month or two) we never once held hands or kissed. It just felt awkward and horrible, and in the end was another major reason I wanted to end the relationship.
Needless to say, we went our separate ways.
It’s no fun to have lovers who dislike each other, and pretty much ruins any romance of the poly relationship. My ultimate dream is to one day live in a home with all my lovers, peacefully and happily, of course. To grow old surrounded by people I love, and who love me, and who love one another (either romantically or just as good friends)… and in the end she just didn’t fit into that dream.
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I see I’ve gained quite a few more followers since my last post, and would like to welcome them to my silly little musings. I would also like to invite you to send me questions or your own stories to share with everyone about your own misadventures or even happy-ever-afters with your poly loves.
Until Next Time,
~IH
Worst outing
Okay, so I outed myself to a boy in physics, he is seriously annoying, and it got a millon times worse. At least 5 minute discussion about it, then wondering if I will end up married or pregnant. which ended up in me explaining the torrence between romantic and sexual attraction. Then feeling sorry for me because ’ I’m sexually attracted to myself’ and I’m never gonna get sexually attracted to anyone. Then being asked if that if I had an identical twin would I sleep with them. Then being told out is a phase. Which ended up in me in half tears half laughing. Arghhh big huge mess. All because a boy asked if im sexually attracted to collar bones.
Edit: how so I reply to replies?! Anyway, freestate (?) ask if I meant I was sexually attracted to myself or if it was an assumption. It was an assumption that caused him 30 million death glares and a kick every time I walked past him…
So You Want To Ask Someone What Their Sexuality Is
Right. So. In my last post, I discussed how I first came out: I was put on the spot by a guy friend who, based on prior observation, had decided I was a lesbian and, having witnesses me saying something he thought only a lesbian would say, decided to call me out in front of my two new roommates.
I’d like to think that only insensitive assholes put people on the spot like this, but unfortunately I think this sort of thing happens all the goddamn time. I don’t think it should be stigmatized as something only a homophobic bastard would say. It is damaging to assume that only bad people do bad, ignorant, and hurtful things. EVERYONE does bad, ignorant, hurtful things. It’s just not accurate to relegate that to one “type” of person, in the same way that shrugging off the idea of a long-distance boyfriend with a joke should not be considered evidence of lesbianism.
Look, one of the great things about our generation is that we are developing a language in which to discuss different sexualities in a setting of equality. We are beginning to understand that heterosexuality should not be assumed of anyone, and that everyone deserves a clean slate. We are also, slowly, learning that behaviors we have taken to be masculine or feminine can be used in different ways to subvert expectations. I have met heterosexual men who were far more feminine than me. I have met gay men who seemed straight as a pole. You can’t guess these things by observation. It’s just not fair to anyone.
So if you’ve gotten to know a person, and their behavior sends you mixed signals, and you genuinely want to know their sexual orientation, how do you go about asking them?
No, but seriously.
For all the answers to your questions that I’ve decided you are going to ask, click the link!
(Feel free to delete this text bit) So I wanted to explain why I “passed” so well, in a way people might actually stop and read. By that I mean the way a lot of asexuals may find people interpreting their aestetic attraction as sexual - even the asexual themselves! this is just my story, of course, but I’m hoping some people can relate.
Also, I felt like trying out a comic page format. Please don’t ever show my art teacher this, my art’s not exactly at its best here! But I get the point across, I hope. Yes. That is actually what I looked like two years ago. Scary, huh?
Daily reminder that I don’t have to be nice to or educate anyone who is willfully causing harm to me.
This especially applies to all the ignorant people who post in the ace tags about how much they wish they were asexual. I’ll be as snarky as I damn want, because no amount of my snark or anger will ever damage the credibility of asexuality as an orientation to people who already accept its credibility. I also don’t care about the feelings of strangers on the internet who intentionally misrepresent my identity.
On sex education, for the Carnival of Aces
I wrote this post detailing my experiences of sex education as an asexual person and my wishes for the future development of sex education for the Carnival of Aces.
I never really had a “sex education.”
I had what I’d call a puberty education back in… fourth grade, I think. It was all about how our bodies were starting to change and some of us might ejaculate while sleeping and some of us would start to menstruate, &c., but there was absolutely nothing in it about sex in the sense of copulation. I was attending a public school at the time.
My parents never talked to me about sex. I pieced together some knowledge about it as a child mostly through jokes and innuendo. Being an unnecessarily serious and dutiful child, at some point I decided that there must be a good reason people were keeping me in the dark about it, so although my parents gave me unmonitored access to the copy of the thirty-volume1 1993 Encyclopedia Americana they kept on a shelf in their bedroom, I deliberately skipped anything I suspected to be related to the subject.
So until my adolescence, sex was a bizarre mystery to me, and my inability to comprehend why so many people would prioritize genital contact in their relationships — so much so, in fact, that this phenomenon was responsible not only for bringing me into being but also for the historically exponential growth of the human population — incessantly vexed and disturbed me. I comforted myself with the thought that I would probably experience the impulse to have sex at some indefinite point in the future and it would all make sense then.
Coming Out Stories: Jen
There was no definitive coming out moment for me. For years, I didn’t realise that asexuality ‘existed’. As a child and a teenager, I’d had no interest in relationships, and always just assumed (as others had told me), that something would ‘click’ as I got older. But, when I was 16/17 and still rather indifferent and even grossed out by the whole idea, I stumbled across an article on the internet that mentioned asexuality, was linked to AVEN, and from there, I decided that this was me.
With this, I felt I’d finally put a label to my feelings that meant I was not just sexually ‘weird’, that there were others like me - and I wanted to tell people, but I was also wary that they wouldn’t understand. Luckily, my friends were liberal and empathetic, so it was easy to come out to them by simply explaining how I felt, how I ‘just wasn’t interested’ in sex. They accepted it, did their best to understand and find out more, and didn’t treat me any differently.
But when I took the same approach with my family, it kind of backfired. They saw it as attention seeking, part of a teenage phase of needing to be ‘different’, and told me that I’d want a boyfriend soon enough. It’s still something they can’t quite accept: they think I can only be happy if I’m ‘normal’.
The friends I’ve made at uni have all been understanding and supportive. It’s never really been something that anyone’s made a big deal of. But not all reactions have been positive – one girl dismissed asexuality and suggested I’d just never had a big enough cock, I’ve been asked outright several times if I’ve been raped or abused (tactful!) and a bewildering rumour went round school that I only fancied Chinese people (all because at the time I had liked j-rock *facepalm*).
On the whole, I’m very open about it. I recognise it’s not widely known about, and if I can help others understand asexuality – that we’re not amoebas, we’re not sexually repressed, and yes, we fucking love cake - then I feel I’ve done something worthwhile. I’m happy and confident in who I am, and if others can’t accept that, then that’s their problem.
Asexuality
I am asexual.
But I am married to a man who is not asexual.
And it is not a problem for us.
There can be realionships where another person is an asexual and the another’s not. Sex is not everything in a relationship. My husband has told me that a person doesn’t need to get everything they want. People need to learn to cope with disappointments. And actually, it’s not even disappointing, when you understand the fact that you can’t have it all.
We have a loving relationship. We sleep in the same bed, we kiss and cuddle, we tell each other “I love you” all the time. Our everyday life is really calm and full of love towards each other, the only thing we don’t have in our relationship is sex.
My husband is okay with the fact that he’s got a great relationship and a loving wife, but no sex. He doesn’t go out cheating on me, but I know he pleases himself in the shower sometimes. And that’s okay. That’s completely okay and normal for us. We are like any couple on the outside and what happens between us is something for us to decide.
I used to be really anxious about my asexuality. I tried to force myself into having sex. But my husband saw that I was not as happy as I could be when I was trying to be something I am not and he told me I don’t have to force myself into having sex with him. Nowadays we’re both okay with our relationship.
Only problem we have is that at some point, we want to have a child. And having a biological child means we have to have sex… Well, maybe I can do it once for the sake of having a child with my dear husband.
This is not a text about what others should do, just a text that tells how my life is. I just wanted to talk about my asexuality anonymously here in my blog and now it’s done.
Why Asexuals Need Sex-Ed (or, at least, this ace would’ve benefitted from it)
The sex-ed I got was crap. The “sex talk” I got from my mom was a book. From my dad? A really awkward thing that involved explaining how condoms work and something about how he doesn’t know why women like oral. From school? Generally a lot of ‘scare people into chastity’ stuff, like gruesome projections of the effects STDs have on genitalia. No one really talked about rape or sexual abuse or what to do when it happens to you. Generally, the consensus is “Don’t have sex. But if you do have sex, use a condom. No Means No.”. I didn’t masturbate, because I had no interest. I didn’t look up porn or anything like that on the internet, I didn’t even consider that it existed.
So, basically, I didn’t realize there was anything between kissing and sex. I didn’t realize anyone had sex before marriage. I didn’t realize people had sex unless they wanted a baby. You know that scene in Enchanted where Nancy gets pissed because she found a naked girl in a towel lying on her boyfriend and Giselle gasps and goes “she thinks we kissed?”- that was me.
Cue my first relationship.
A lot of things happened that were massive red flags, that I now would see and say “We need to have a serious talk about boundaries” or possibly just hightail it the other direction. Then, well, “No Means No” is a magic chant that protects you from harm right?
I didn’t really want to kiss this guy, and said as such, and eventually he just forced the matter. I figured it was okay and, I mean, it’s not like anything else could happen- we weren’t married and I certainly didn’t want to have kids with him! So then when he tried pushing further, it blindsided me. I didn’t know how to deal with it- “Wait? What? People like TOUCHING that stuff? Are you JOKING?”. So I went to my friends, and was met with a wall of “Well, duh” and “If you don’t do that, you’re a bad partner” and “You can’t say you don’t want those things!”. While still reeling over the fact that anyone even did this, and the fact that the magical spell of “No means no” wasn’t working because no matter how many times I said ‘no’ he’d still push the matter.
What does this have to do with sex-ed? Mostly, if I’d had a better sex-ed, a sex positive sex ed that acknowledges consent and that sexual abuse & rape actually happen, I probably would have been better prepared. If we were willing to actually teach kids about sexual activity beyond “when a mommy and daddy love each other…”, then I’d have been aware that there WAS sexual activity beyond penis-into-vagina sex. If we were willing to talk about abuse and acknowledge it happens, then I wouldn’t have thought “No Means No” was something everyone followed so I didn’t have to know how to defend myself for when “No means ‘force them into it anyways’”.
A lot of people seem to think that ‘asexual’ must mean ‘hates sex, so wants no one to talk about it ever’. And, well, some asexual people are like that- but some verisexual people are like that as well! Asexual people can be just as damaged by sex negativity and crap sex education resources, and can benefit from good quality sex education (that acknowledges us, that emphasizes that it’s okay to not want sex, that it’s okay to try it and not like it) just as much as anyone else.
