Implied gender, and why I’m not “bisexual”

(Some more attempts at trying to explain myself to the heteronormative world...)

"Heterosexual", "homosexual", "bisexual" - what are the implications of using one of those labels about oneself? What are the underlying assumptions of the system wherein these labels exist? Describing yourself with one of those labels essentially says: "There are two (biological) sexes in the world: male and female. Males have penises, women have vaginas and breasts. Every person belongs to either one or the other sex, based on their chromosomes. Every person is sexually attracted to a whole class of other people based on whether their biological sex is male or female. Most people are attracted to people of the opposite sex to their own (heterosexual), some people are attracted to people of the same sex as their own (homosexual), and some people are attracted to people of the same sex as well as people of the opposite sex (bisexual). The nature of this attraction is that some level of interest exists in wanting to do sexual things with the other people."
THAT is the subtext that I'm finding so difficult to relate to. And is the reason why I don't feel "bisexual" really fits me.
Although I am biologically female, the whole idea of dividing people up as attractive and not attractive based on whether they have XX chromosomes like me, or XY chromosomes, makes no sense to me at all. To illustrate, imagine that you live in a world where it is terribly significant what color your eyes are. Let's say your eyes are blue. Let's say that since you were a little child, everyone has subtly and overtly let you know that you are expected to be attracted to people whose eyes are brown. Then you would be hetero-ocular. You start to make a big deal out of that and you enhance and give more meaning to your experience every time you find you like someone whose eyes are brown, and you downplay your experience every time you find you like someone whose eyes are blue. Because if you liked someone whose eyes are blue, you would be homo-ocular. Until one day you realize: "What's all this eye-color crap? I like a lot of people, and I so don't care what their eye color is!" And when you declare that, people tell you: "Oh, so you are bi-ocular then!" But calling yourself bi-ocular is meaningless to you because eye color simply has no relevance to you. Truly bi-ocular people are attracted to people BASED around their eye color in relation to their own eye color, and are able to find blue as well as brown equally attractive, each for their own reasons. Whereas to you, eye color is not something you pay much attention to.
The nature of the attraction is supposed to be an interest in doing sexual things. I've been with this question a lot, what is the attraction that I experience towards people. Trying to understand what is sexual attraction. Growing up and I think through most of my twenties, I implicitly believed that I was sexually attracted to EVERYBODY. I experience this potential for enjoyable touch with, basically, everybody that I spend even a little time with, and with all of my friends. Physical expression of affection is very important to me and my whole life I have experienced frustration about social norms allowing what seems to me to be only a very limited display of affection between people who are "just friends". Yet at the same time, I would never fantasize about actually having sex with someone. When I am really attracted to someone (in my own way), I want to gaze in their eyes, I want to touch them in a most tender and loving way, hold them, kiss them and caress them, I want to talk with them and share truth and authenticity. I want to be comforting and comforted, nurturing and nurtured. When I feel longing for them, I feel it in my chest rather than my genitals. While I feel open to being sexual, it is something I enjoy vicariously rather than for its own sake, and it is not something I have ever felt like I missed, or needed, from anybody. The expression "going all the way" makes no sense to me, because it does not feel like I'm going down any way that has any end-point. I don't understand from inner experience, why relationships in which genitals are touched, deserve a special name and status and are elevated above relationships in which genitals are not touched, as if those other relationships were somehow second-class and less real, or less loving. I do feel like I have a powerful intimacy drive, and yet sex is not my favorite expression of intimacy.
While I don't feel that "bisexual" describes me very well, and I would feel it would be deceptive to use this word about myself, perhaps I could say that I'm "homo-genderal" - attracted to people of the same gender, that is, a gender somewhere close to neutral, neither male nor female. Regardless of whether they are biologically male- or female-sexed. And what that attraction feels like, is that I want to be around them, touch them, be affectionate with them, relate to them, care about them - I dig them, I feel comfortable with them and at ease. I feel like I belong.
Basically, sex = your genes, xx, or xy, and your physical male or female characteristics. Gender = your subjective feeling of maleness or femaleness. For most people, the two seem to be so welded together that there is never a reason to make any distinction. You are born with a penis, and you feel male, and you are attracted to women. End of story, you never question it. However, some people feel strongly about their gender being other than their sex - and this identity seems to be something they know even as small children, before they ever enter puberty and become sexually attracted. For example, a biological female may feel that their gender is strongly male, and may have a sex change operation to become male. Irrespective of this, they could be sexually attracted to either men (androsexual) or women (gynosexual), regardless of their own gender identification. (The point: it's not being attracted to women that defines your subjective gender-maleness, being attracted to women only defines your sexual orientation. Sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity, get to be three different unrelated things in this model - whereas for most people they are one thing (the inadequate hetero- homo- bi- model).) Some transgender people feel alternately male or female, or both at the same time, throughout their lives. While some people (like myself) never quite grasp the idea of belonging to a gender, and feel that trying to be either male, female, or both, is a misrepresentation of how they feel. Okay, imagine this. It's like you're born and you're given one of two choices, to be either a republican or a democrat. While you often vote democrat and are in general aligned in superficial appearance and behavior with many democrats, you still feel no affiliation with the democratic party, and don't feel comfortable being labeled a democrat. That's kind of how I feel about being labeled female. I don't feel either like that, or like the other option.
The traditional labels of hetero, homo, and bi, are based on the assumption that THE defining thing in my attraction to people is the relationship of my biological sex to their biological sex (different, the same, or both different and the same). Whereas their biological sex to me is as irrelevant as the color of their eyes. The defining thing in my attraction to people is a sense of emotional and spiritual resonance, a similar degree of self-awareness and willingness to trust and self-disclose. Physical appearance plays a role to the degree that a person is more attractive to me if they are well-groomed and healthy and looking content and comfortable in their body. Also, a strongly feminized or strongly masculinized physical appearance may put me off, for no other reason than that I feel I am being perceived by them inside of that same binary, and that I would have to play a very traditional female role with them, which does not come naturally to me.
Another way to look at it is to see people as colors. Imagine a color wheel. In a color, you can measure not only its hue, but also its brightness and saturation. It’s as if the traditional model divides people by whether they are blue or pink (bio males or bio females), and considers that to be the most important factor.



They will say that heterosexuals are people who look for contrasting hues, homosexuals look for non-contrasting hues, and bisexuals look for both contrasting and non-contrasting hues. In any event, it's about hues. Whereas I perhaps perceive and parse the color spectrum along a different axis altogether. Maybe what is of primary significance to me as a color is not my hue, but my saturation. I’m attracted to other people who are unsaturated colors.



The fact that this happens to overlap with both contrasting and non-contrasting hues, is beside the point for me. I perceive people who are strongly based in a gendered identity, as more saturated, and less interesting. Maybe I also see more hues than just pink and blue.

On commitment

I've had a lot of programming around believing that a really mature intimate relationship is of course something that is monogamously exclusive and committed. Making this kind of promises, however, goes against what comes naturally to me. And so voices come up in my head accusing me of being irresponsible, immature and inconsiderate. So today I would like to make a case for how this can be seen from another perspective. I am probably not going to be able to see all sides of the situation, and my bias will come through, and I just want to say I’m aware of that and welcome input on whatever I may be blind to.
Let me look at commitment first. What are we actually talking about? The voice that comes up strong is the one saying "you're afraid of commitment". It’s the trump card, calling 'chicken’. The person calling ‘chicken' is assuming that making a commitment to “being with” someone for the foreseeable future is a value shared by all. This person views commitment as something desirable, though difficult to attain and maintain, since it possibly goes against one’s assumed fickle and treacherous nature, and so someone willing to make the ‘sacrifice’ of committing, is seen as valiant, strong and noble. The value of "commitment" upholds consistency as something to be desired, as in: I made a choice to be with this one person, and now I should stick to it, because this is how I continue to know that the decision I made in the first place was a good and right decision. If I were to move on from this one person, it might mean to me that I made a wrong decision in the past, and that would be distressing (usually in proportion to the length of the relationship). Or, if I were to move on, it would mean I am weak and unable to deal with problems that arise in any relationship, it would mean I am a failure. Or, I feel such love for this person, ergo it means we should keep trying to “be together” as a couple. People say things like, “I want this relationship to succeed”, and they mean they want an agreement of me+you=couple to be permanent, stable and safe. In fact now that I put it that way, I’m seeing a deeply Christian morality behind the idea of commitment. There’s a lot of implicit belief in human nature as being essentially sinful and wrong, and to remedy that, we must “do the right thing” (as opposed to the “wrong” thing) and make relationship contracts that will override our “destructive” natural impulses, and abide by those contracts to ensure everlasting correctness and righteousness.
From my perspective, I am not afraid of commitment any more than I am afraid of smoking cigarettes. It just has no appeal to me. It’s not that it’s only fear of getting cancer that’s keeping me from smoking - it's that I have never felt a desire to light a cigarette in the first place. And, trying to be a consistent person is not a value that I share. Even more, the idea of “committing” to someone just makes absolutely no sense to me. I promise to “be with” you? What does that even mean? Oh, I know what it means on a most basic operational level – I will not have sex with any other person. That is foreign to me in so many ways. First, I don’t know what it means to be “with” someone, so all the issues around entering relationships and ending them are bizarre to me. My internal experience is that my close relationships with people may change in intensity over time, but they don't end, nor do I enter them. There are no defining moments of “getting together” or "breaking up”. It’s as if the whole society is taking very seriously some rules that are permanently confusing to me. I’ve found that I can have sex and yet feel no attachment to that particular person, no sense of “being with”. I’ve also found that I can feel deeply intimate and one with someone, and yet there is no sex or desire for sex involved. Sex is irrelevant to me, whereas to others it seems to be pivotal in how they construe that relationship.
My best understanding of what it means to “be with” someone, is this. A person wanting to have an agreement of commitment and exclusivity, really wants to experience mutual trust, total intimacy, closeness and love. Those are wonderful things to experience. And for some reason, the way they are able to completely trust and open to somebody, is if they can have a guarantee that they are their partner’s most important person, valued above anyone else, and will continue to be so in the future. In a sense, they want a reassurance of a kind of unconditional love and acceptance, in order to give the same back. So I guess exclusive relationship contracts really work, when both people need that, and give those unspoken promises to each other simultaneously and call it “getting together”. It’s exhilarating to feel that you are free to exchange this complete trust and openness and love, and it also explains the corresponding drama and grief over loss of such reassurances – it’s as if unconditional love has been lost to them. That is tragic.
As for myself, I first thought that I was entirely incompatible with the idea of commitment. How could I possibly make promises about how I was going to feel about someone later on, when the mere thought of fixating some kind of safety for my future like that, in terms of “what should be”, is terribly deadening, and I can just feel it draining aliveness and spontaneity and delight out of the flow of a relationship in the present moment. Then it occurred to me that there is something I want to commit to – no, something that I don’t even have to try to commit to, because I am already committed to it through and through. I can’t commit to “being with” a person. But I am committed to, and always respond and am attracted to, a person’s willingness to be open, transparent, intimate, real. I am committed to being the same way. I am committed to truth and to addressing any issues, difficulties or incompatibilities as soon as they arise, rather than sweeping them under the carpet or hiding anything unpleasant in the interest of trying to “stay together”. I would much rather have full disclosure regardless of where that leads, than to try to make myself look acceptable so that I can have the safety of being “with” someone. I am committed to doing whatever with another free agent on a purely voluntary basis, from delight in each other, rather than trying to “make” a committed relationship work. Now does this mean that because I have made no contract of commitment, I am going to turn on a dime, and after consistently being close and intimate with someone, simply abandon them one day without warning? I am open to that risk – but I think it’s highly unlikely, and I believe that kind of situation is actually more likely in relationships where the goal is to stay committed to each other regardless of what’s going on for you, rather than in relationships where you are open to acknowledging and discussing any changes and developments as they arise. I can’t imagine ever just “dropping out” of the life of anyone I have been close with, if they are still willing to continue opening and growing with me. Whether this involves sex at some point or not, whether we are currently close or far apart, doesn’t matter much to me. There are people who have touched my life deeply, and I never stop loving them.

Sexual attraction

Since declaring myself asexual about a year and a half ago, I have done more experimentation, had more candid discussions and experienced more diverse situations involving sexuality than in my whole previous life. And I have been able to do that because I now felt secure in the knowledge that the only thing that is required of me, is to follow my own natural impulses, and there was no pressure to act in any way that I might have previously thought I needed to act, out of an obligation to comply with “normal”. So I want to shout that from the rooftops to “experts” who fear that asexual people are closing themselves off prematurely: I and many others share your value of self-exploration. Very much.
I am fortunate to have experienced a trusting, emotionally intimate and mutually supportive relationship with a close friend, who does feel sexual attraction towards me. Now that I know that a) I am not required to respond, and that b) I am free to have any reaction, people who are attracted to me no longer freak me out, and I feel quite comfortable addressing this. I feel open to receiving and feeling whatever is being felt by them or me.
I’ve found that although it never occurred to me to have sexual ideas (I may have wanted to be more physically affectionate) before my friend’s attraction was made explicit to me – I am able to respond to the feeling of sexual attraction. My body senses and resonates with the longing, and feels a quickening of energy when near, which is enjoyable. At some point, I want to write a separate post about the concepts of “proceptive” and “receptive” sexual desire – I seem to lack proceptive, the initiative and drive part, but am capable of receptive arousal. At the same time, I can’t seriously imagine initiating something like this without a strong desire on the part of the other: I just wouldn’t believe myself.
So recently I’ve been feeling the feelings that this brings up. It still doesn’t really involve sexual fantasy in terms of body parts, but it does involve an attraction to something. It occurs to me that the desire I feel, is basically for surrender. It’s a desire to be completely open, free, loving. Desire for absence of any conflict and tension, utter flow and total intimacy, absolute nakedness in the sense of having nothing to hide, being completely real. I imagine these are desires shared across sexual orientations. I may or may not express them through sex – it would not be my first choice, as I lack the primary drive.
The presence of this person inspires a great openness in me. And I think I get now that what is commonly referred to as “sexual attraction” is when you think you need that particular person to cause these wonderful feelings of letting go, openness and unguardedness for you. I find that problematic. It places the responsibility for feeling your feelings, on an external stimulus. Whereas in fact, the way I see it, what’s primary is my longing to be completely open, real and transparent. The reason there is attraction to a particular person is because we somehow only ALLOW ourselves to feel those feelings around them, because we consider that person safe. We close down around other people because we consider them unsafe. I realized this in the middle of a wave of gripping desire to be close to my friend. That what I really wanted, was not this person per se, it was the feelings I am able to have with them. I realized: “I’m really longing to surrender.” And what came to me was – “Just be the openness.” Allow yourself to feel that much intimacy and flow, right now, with yourself. That switch was very soothing and nourishing and pleasurable, and released the obsessive focus on the person instantly.
This is not to say that I intend to just be by myself all the time. Only that there’s a possibility to share this intimacy with each other freely, rather than obsessively, rather than believing the other person has to provide it for us.

Casual relationship

I found a term for a satisfying and fulfilling style of relationship that I engage in. It's called "casual relationship". I like the Wikipedia definition because it does not stress the sexual aspect.

So here's my definition, patched together from various sources and my own interpretation of it:

Casual relationship. A relationship with emotional and physical closeness, that may involve sexuality or may come close to sexual expression, when desired. There is no aspiration to long-term commitment and no expectation of exclusivity. The relationship may be part-time and does not dominate one's life and choices. It may be strong and intimate, but is intended to endure only so long as both parties wish it to. It includes mutual support, affection and enjoyment.

I read about this on the web and see biased language such as "motives for entering a casual relationship", or "because they are unwilling to commit to a full-fledged relationship" and "doesn't have time for a proper boyfriend". So I want to categorically declare that this type of relationship can be a legitimate relationship in its own right and not a transitional stage on the way to something else, or a compromise.

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.

Cuddle world

I recently had the privilege of spending a week with a group of (non-asexual) people where the social norm was that cuddling was allowed. Where emotional and physical intimacy and openness were welcome. Where hugs were freely given and received. Where it was okay to gaze at each other and even spoon with each other and it did not mean "I want sex". It meant "I feel affectionate and want to share it with you, if you want it too." And because that was the understood norm, and well, also because the people involved in this were pretty awesome and having-their-shit-together specimens, there was a lot of freedom and very little neurosis around touching. I felt so at home. Yes, it is possible. I even came to a point where I had my fill of group cuddling and wanted to step away. I'd always suspected that I would be the cuddle-craziest in a situation like that, but turns out I wasn't. I discovered it was possible to feel "I've had enough". And I feel fulfilled and encouraged by the whole experience. That humans can be that loving with each other without the manipulation of sexual and predatory and possessive games. What joy.

Squish!

New word to add to the vocabulary of asexual experience: squish! I get squishes!

---UPDATE---
I added "squish" to the Urban dictionary: go vote it up so it can rise in the rankings!
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Invented in this thread on Aven.

Others have described it beautifully, so I will copy:

I've been trying for a looong, loooong time how to describe the "crushes" I get on people. It was getting frustrating having to say "I got crushes on people, but they weren't really crushes because blah blah, and so blah blah blah......." So I finally decided to just pick a word, and I'm calling them SQUISHES. I just have a desire to talk to the person and be friends with them. I may desire romance for a brief period of time, but then I'll be over it and I'll be glad that desire passed. [...] There's one guy that I have a squish on right now. He's very sexual, so I know a relationship would never work out. And that's fine by me. I don't care if he ends up with a girlfriend, or a boyfriend, because I don't want to be exclusive with him, I don't want to date or have sex with him. I just want to spend some time with him, talking and laughing.

i sort of have that when i am friends with someone but it's sort of a mushy kind of friendship, or when i'm unusually fascinated by someone i've just met, sort of a "i have really got to get to know and be close to this person." but it's just a desire for a deeper friendship, not a relationship.

I used to say I got "friend-crushes", which involve me feeling very impressed by somebody or thinking that we'd get along really well; as a result I really want to be friends with the person. I'm told these feelings are stronger than the feelings most people have for friends. But perhaps now I can call my "friend-crushes" "squishes".

>>>I hate to be the skeptical one here, but what exactly is the difference between this and wanting to be friends with someone?<<<<
There's a big difference. Maybe if you've never felt it, it might be hard to imagine... but it's just like having a crush, only platonically. For me at least (I'm not sure if this goes for everyone), I really look forward to seeing them, I think about them a lot, I have a very high opinion of them, and I really care about their opinion of me. Other friendships develop because you just happen to spend time with the person... but I will go out of my way to spend time with my squishes, and I get super-elated when I get any kind of proof that they like me/want to spend time with me.

The desire to get to know someone can sometimes be a lot more intense for certain people I know, with lots of happy fuzzy feelings associated with it. But it doesn't happen with every person that I'm wanting to get to know better.

I will probably use this. I've had squishes. For me it's the nervous, butterflies in my stomach feelings. Usually I don't want to date them, and sex was never a goal. Using the word squish would avoid all the assumptions people would make if I used the word crush.

You've made me realize that precisely because I do have squishes on them we will never be close friends the way I want us to be. I care about their opinions too much. Which sucks.

Squish is perfect lol I love it, great way to describe it!

To sum up, a squish:
- is an intense feeling of attraction, respect, appreciation and admiration
- is a desire to be close and connected and important to each other
- is not a desire to have sex or be in an exclusive romantic relationship
- gives you a nervous or excited feeling when you're with that person, and you may act kind of silly
- makes you think about them a lot
- gives you disproportionate joy to see that they like or respect you back
- makes you feel delighted that this person exists!

My squishes, in contrast, have often been on people who I did end up becoming close with, and yes, the squish does wear off in the sense that the nervousness and excitement die down, but the intense feelings of affection and appreciation remain. They are all still my squishes. I love being able to use a noun for it.

Breaking it Down

The way I was trained to think from a very young age, was this: you want to find a perfect person (of the opposite gender, of course) who you will have romantic feelings for, have sex with, want to pair-bond with as your partner, and want to have children with and live happily ever after.

It's amazing how ingrained that perspective is, unconsciously, and how I have to intentionally question it and "manually" readjust my attitudes or actually choose something other than my automatic assumptions. Even now when I'm becoming close to someone, there's this momentum of thought that says the only way to safely proceed is for this relationship to follow a particular track towards increasing commitment, and that I should employ certain tactics to make sure that this person becomes attached and bonded to me in a unique way so that we will need each other more than we need anybody else in the world.

Screw that. I don't want to manipulate anyone this way. I understand a lot of people would find following that track mutually enjoyable - good for them. But I can't do it and feel clean about it at the same time.

But what I wanted to write about was "breaking it down" - break down this perfect person that is supposed to fulfill me and make my life complete. Break them down into needs.

It seems that several wants, usually conflated into meaning one and the same thing, can actually exist quite independently of each other, in the same way that yawning and sleepiness can exist independently of each other. If I want one of these things with a particular person, it does not necessarily mean I want any of the other things. What I want is always something to be verified with my own feelings, and not assumed. So this is how I break it down at the moment:

1. Need for meaningful, intimate emotional and spiritual connection.
This is my primary need in relationships and what comes up the most. I'm not particular about who I have that with - I can have it with anyone who shows themselves to be willing, open and capable of intimacy and radical honesty, even if we have differing opinions or interests or are at different points in our life paths. I don't care. Give me truthfulness and transparency any day, and I will be irresistibly drawn to it. That's my ultimate passionate attraction. There is nothing more enjoyable than seeing and knowing each other as we are.

2. Need to pair-bond.
Now this is the confusing part, I always used to think that wanting #1 must mean that I want #2, must necessarily lead to #2. That when I'm feeling #1, I should already be planning for #2. I'm seeing now that the two do not necessarily overlap, and expecting them to overlap is an unexamined simplification. I don't get a lot of desire for pair-bonding and never have. Pair-bonding is what girls did with each other growing up, when they were best friends and shared everything, and it was a world I was never privy to - I never "got" how you were supposed to do that. Pair-bonding is what you are expected to want with your romantic partner, when you start thinking as a "we" rather than an "I" and you plan everything together and buy things together and people see you as a unit and invite you places together and address you in plural and always have you sit together. I've experienced some of that once, in the early stages of my longest relationship to date. But it did not stay, and I can't honestly say I feel any need to find a particular special person to settle down with and see myself as paired with.

3. Need for sex.
The fact that this can exist independently of anything else, has been covered at length in many different places. Further broken down into need for sexual release (masturbation will do) and need for sexual intercourse with particular people. Neither of which I experience.

4. Need for intimate loving touch.
I experience a lot of that, and do desire and crave it as a physical, visceral, most immediate expression of trust, closeness and affection. I'm often frustrated and feel blocked because the kind of physical closeness I would enjoy with my dear ones is normally socially sanctioned only within relationships that are romantic and sexual.

5. Need to have children.
Never experienced it, or only in a somewhat detached intellectual way, as something I think I'm supposed to want. I'm fascinated by some women's accounts of the clear sensation of a biological urge - and only reaffirmed in my knowledge that I have never sensed that.

And so I attempt to exist, feeling a bit alien living from a template that is unlike that of most people, not even knowing yet where I want to go with this. But as I am, so my world becomes - and unsubscribing from common unexamined beliefs brings me in touch with new people more open to experimentation. Which I'm happy about.

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.