Question everything you know

Browsing through the forums on AVEN, I come across many young people just entering the community, asking the same question: "Am I asexual? Do I belong here?"

To them I want to say: Welcome. There is no stamp of approval and no authority to declare who is “really” asexual. We are just people who have found that none of the generally available sexual-orientation labels have been a good fit. The fact that you are searching and wanting to be true to whatever it is you really feel or don’t feel, means you belong. Here is a place where you can be perfectly honest with yourself. What you (don’t) feel or want, is natural and okay, for the simple reason that you actually (don’t) feel or want it, and you are a human being, so it must be natural for some human beings. There is no "correct" way to be asexual.

A lot of effort has gone into trying to get “asexuality” accepted in the eyes of society as a fourth “sexual orientation”, to kind of legitimize and rationalize that if you tweak and rearrange existing models, asexuality will fit in too. And reorienting mass mentality to include the possibility that you exist (!) can be perfectly useful in practical situations. But my personal take on it is that I opt out of the whole “sexual orientation" model. I abandon the existing preconceived ill-fitting framework and build my own interpretation of the world, based on how I myself actually experience it. There is so much more hue and variety in real life than any model can encompass. The labels “straight”, “gay”, “bi”, are only a lens we use for convenience so we can have a feeling that we are able to manage and contain an infinitely complex reality. People don’t realize that, and implicitly believe that humans should conform to the language labels they happen to have inherited from the way their society arbitrarily parses reality. My own feeling is that the concept of “sexual orientation” is due for a rethinking.

Our entire language around relationship matters is dominated by terminology and styles of speaking that accurately reflect the experience of people (males in particular) who are strongly driven by sexual attraction. In addition, sex has been historically associated with virility and power and strength and dominance and all sorts of desirable qualities that leaders in a tribe will possess. And they are the ones who have set the standards for all of us, who have described their experience for all of us, who we have been programmed to emulate and look up to. However, not everyone's reality and internal makeup is that of a specimen who is driven to rise to the top of the clan and mate with many individuals. Enough people in the world do experience sexual attraction that most of society seems to be able to at least relate to that, and view sexual partnership as the be-all and end-all of personal happiness and fulfillment. But then you see people who are radically unlike that “ideal”, and they are questioning if their experience of themselves and their lack of wanting to mate, is legitimate or is it pathological. Good grief people! Of course it is legitimate. It is just the way you are. Your world has been interpreted for you through the eyes of somebody else. It’s time to acknowledge that, and take back the right to be yourself. Discover for yourself what you actually feel. Invent your own language to accurately reflect your own experience, and know your own needs and desires. Own what you feel. There are so many ways to like people and be connected and intimate and loving with them that have nothing to do with sex. We only think they should, because we have been programmed to believe it.

One thing I do give psychologists credit for, is that they say something is a “disorder” only when it causes you distress. To all the new people who are feeling troubled: if there is anything causing distress, I would encourage anyone to investigate it. For example if there is a social anxiety and you are suffering because of it, I would recommend working with that. It may well be that after you relax around people, you may discover that you could enjoy having sex with them. It may equally well be that after you have worked through your fears around being with people, you discover that you actually enjoy being by yourself, or that you still don’t experience any sexual attraction to anybody. But now you will be able to state it with confidence, and won’t feel like you have to hide. In either case, you win. This community is a good place to explore your feelings. Being true to yourself is always a good guide. I like that quote from dr. Seuss: “Always be who you are, and say what you feel, because people who mind don’t matter, and people who matter don’t mind.” Good luck.

Different ways to say

I feel so grateful and blessed for the people in my life and for all the understanding I receive. I was talking to a friend online who lives in another country, and we had not seen each other in a while. We came to the subject of relationships and he was asking me if I was open to a new relationship. I kind of went, well, it's complicated, and he asked about the details, so I started explaining how I felt and what I had discovered and gave him the link to Aven FAQ.
At one point he was trying to make sense of it and saying, wait, I'm confused, so you don't really want sex, but you like sensuality? I tried to ask him to say what exactly was confusing, but he just turned right around and said: I didn't get it, but emotionally I got it. There are just different ways of saying "I love you".
Even right now as I write this, I feel deeply touched by that kind of understanding and acceptance. That, to me, is an act of love. Just seeing me as I am, without trying to find any reasons for it.
One of the other things he said, when I was explaining how I've never really cared about sex, was - "You have always felt this way?" And I said "Yes". And realized how his question underscores for me that what I have always felt is not the same as what he has felt. That this must be new and odd to him. That he, in fact, must have those desires I find so hard to comprehend. Realizing that I had never imagined him as a sexual being. That I have the automatic assumption that all my friends are like me: even though I intellectually know they are sexual, instinctively I assume that they just form relationships the way people watch television, because it happens to be there and it's an imitation of what society does. But to think of my friends as genuinely desiring sex with one another, and having it be an important component of their relationships. Still wrapping my head around that one.
I imagine it must be the same in reverse: even though someone intellectually knows that you are not sexually driven, they will automatically make unconscious assumptions about what you are like, based on what they themselves are like and have always known. Just because they haven't yet deeply considered what it would be like to really LIVE from a different perspective. Can't blame that.

Relationship 2.0

This is going to be about undesired sexual attention. In AVEN forums, I often see people complaining and freaking out about those sexuals who won’t leave them alone and just don’t get it. And what I hear in their frustration is asexuals wanting respect and wanting to be believed and acknowledged and seen for who they are, because there is (not surprisingly) probably still some insecurity and fear about asserting themselves as different, and the hope is that being believed and respected by other people would bring these asexuals the peace of mind and comfort in their own skin, that they need so much.

Fact is, if by a fluke of fate you find yourself asexual, it means you just set yourself up for MORE exploration of “relationship” rather than less. That’s right, you can’t sustainably use the “asexual” label as a way to avoid having to deal with people because you just can’t handle them. Because your label is going to be continually challenged and disbelieved and suspected. And unless you’re comfortable hiding out in your room forever playing video games and chatting online only with other people who are safe because they are “asexual”, you will have to continually question and carefully observe what is going on in the relationships that you enter into. One of the things that I liked most about AVEN when I first found it, is that you were being invited to not assume this as a monolithic identity, but rather to use the word to describe yourself for as long as it makes sense to.

So as with everything else, in order to assert yourself, it's best to come from a place where you are really, really comfortable with yourself. If you go out into the world saying to people "I've determined that I'm asexual and I never ever want to have sex ever, how gross" while you still have doubts and insecurities inside of yourself, and so you’re really invested in people believing your statement, because you think that will help you believe yourself – well you’re just not going to be convincing. People can always feel that you’re not sure of yourself, sometimes subconsciously, and they will respond to your insecurity with doubt and dismissal, sometimes also subconsciously (even if they verbally reassure you). So how do you become sure of yourself?

It’s paradoxical, but the more flexible you are and the more you allow for your identity to not be fixed, the more stable and unshakable you are. It’s scary because we are used to having firm and solid definitions of everything. And society’s rules are not made to accommodate a lot of “I don't know". Nevertheless. The ultimate tool you always have at your disposal is telling your own complete truth, and sometimes that truth is “I don’t know”, or “I don't relate to that question" or "I'm not sure what that word means" or "I don't remember ever feeling that way" or “I have mixed feelings about that”. Just be as truthful as you can – and speak from your own authority, from what you really, really know to be true for yourself. But the more you try to present yourself to people using external labels of identity, the easier it is for them to dispute that.

It’s like in literature, you have passive and active characterization. I can write a novel and say “John is outgoing, friendly and cooperative”, or I can narrate a story in which John does and says certain things that demonstrate his character. Which are you more likely to believe, the conclusions that I’ve made for you about John, or the conclusions that you’ve drawn yourself based on what you have seen about John?

I haven’t actually said to anyone “I’m asexual”. In some relationships, I’ve mentioned that asexuality is an orientation that I relate to and understand the most. Other times, that hasn’t even been necessary, I’ve just described how I feel about certain aspects of sexuality. And what I get back from friends is a lot of understanding and support and acceptance. I’m making sense to them, even if their experience is different.

Does everyone who is trying to romance you necessarily have to know that you identify as asexual? I don’t think so. There’s someone who is really, really in love with me right now, and since I’m living the crazy experiment of not knowing and not defining my relationships inside the friendship/romance dichotomy, so I’m living from a place where nothing HAS TO happen, I’m allowing myself to simply enjoy his company and enjoy as much physical affection from him as I like without having it have to mean anything. At the same time I’m also being super attentive to myself and clearly knowing what I do and don’t want, and communicating my boundaries. I’m allowing this powerful intense energy to flow towards me from him, while knowing where I stand, and allowing any response that arises in me, to happen. Even allowing for the possibility that if at any point the unlikely impulse comes to have sex with him, I will. Everything is so much easier when I no longer tell myself that I have to resist or fight anything, or on the other hand that I have to follow and fall in and reciprocate. Just doing what comes naturally. I’ve let go of a lot of guilt there. As long as I was telling myself that I should be a certain way, there was plenty of discomfort. Now I allow myself to feel anything that is felt in the moment, and it’s great to have that validation in real time from within my own body that no, I don’t actually want that.

You are strongest when you don’t have to convince anyone. When they tell you how much they want to be with you, can you, instead of wincing and trying to get away, just look them straight in the eye, feel what’s going on for you right then and there, and express it? I would personally find that much more believable than hearing “I’m asexual, leave me alone”. I think it’s a great challenge for asexuals to learn to absorb and deal with and become comfortable with direct sexual energy – and I see it as an inevitable part of maturation, to be willing to face that at some point. This guy who’s in love with me, I simply told him that I was very open to people, and that that didn’t mean I wanted a relationship - but that I knew this could be confusing. And he WAS confused, but he said that I was wonderfully strange. :) Well, I enjoy being strange. And if at any point he wants to ask more, I can explain more. But I don’t feel like I HAVE TO make him understand what I’m all about. And that’s freedom.