asexy beast

Heart Yorslf?

2012-01-28T17:24:00.000-08:00

A few reminders:

1. Isn't it fun to come across a vanity plate that reminds you of something you've been blogging about?

[Image: Car license plate that reads "<3 YORSLF"]

Happens all the time, amirite? Spotted in the...Whole Foods parking lot. (Seriously, click on that link.)

2. If you haven't already done so, check out Sciatrix's compilation of links on the House TV episode debacle. I'm glad she put them all together in one place.

3. Carnival of Aces is still happening! Deadline for posts is coming up in a few days--this month's theme is re/presentation.

So, whatever happened with the Hobbit Acceptance Project?

2012-01-18T20:09:00.000-08:00

The Hobbit Acceptance Project continues apace. I guess these sorts of things never truly end. Since the start of the project in June, I've only shaved my legs and armpits a couple of times. Mostly to wear a bathing suit and to wear a dress at a fancy restaurant, things I was still not comfortable doing while hairy. I decided to take a tip from Beth Terry and obtain an old-school safety razor for the times that I did want to shave. One reason I don't like shaving is because I don't want to support companies that bombard me with "smooth legs = beauty!" advertising. So, shaving with an antique is one solution to that, although it's not as user-friendly as the plastic multi-blade models. While I'd heard horror stories of people cutting themselves with safety razors, I haven't had that problem. If anything, I cut myself less.

Anyway, I'm a lot more comfortable "going out with stubble" on my legs now, as I mentioned in my first post on body hair. I barely notice the stubble now. When I do shave my legs or armpits, they look strange to me. My loyal following of Hairy Pits Club has shown me that like all hobbits, I'm hairier than 99% of the female population (although I think some of this has to do with self-selection...not everyone chooses to post their pits online). No, I don't have a hormone imbalance or anything...this is just how I roll. I've decided that I can't abide my armpits in a total state of nature, and that's okay. If you check out Hairy Pits Club, you'll see people actually having fun with their armpits. Dying them rainbow colors, even. This inspired me. I learned that there were actually a range of armpit hair modification options. You could shave them, trim them, dye them, buzz them, braid them (I'm not that hairy), etc.

On a related note, I liked this post a lot. I don't agree with it, but it made me think more deeply about my own stance. I do agree with the commenters who say it's impossible to eschew femininity entirely, even if one tries. If I spent my life in a gray sweatsuit, people would view my body, hear my voice, and ascribe femininity to me. So I agree with those who are saying: Keep what you genuinely like about femininity (not only what you get socially rewarded for) and toss out what you don't like. I like glittery eyeshadow, the color pink, and wearing jewelery. I don't like dieting, talking about dieting, wearing high heels, "control" garments, etc. I don't like to leave my body hair entirely to its own devices, but I don't like shaving, either. I think I'll just let the two battle it out. It's not as exciting as Middle Earth, but it's something.

Coming out to those "situational friends"...or not.

2012-01-12T19:16:00.000-08:00

You may have a few of them: Situational friends. People whom you primarily see within the context of one activity. I've had many of them from work, classes, groups, volunteer activities, and Occupy. I see these people a lot, in some cases more frequently than I see my close friends. But no matter how much we chat, they still don't know a lot of personal stuff about me. (In fact, I'm a champ at knowing people for a really long time and having them know almost nothing about me as a person. I don't even know how I do it.)

This is on my mind, because at the last Occupy meeting, someone mentioned that "half of the working group is out [as gay]." I cynically thought, "I can't come out because everyone would make fun of me". Even though I've come out to positive responses a bunch of times, and I'm a big proponent of the action in general, it doesn't stop being scary. Although I doubt anyone cares what my orientation is, suddenly it felt like the elephant in the room to me. I am, indeed, the only person in that group who is not either out as gay or in a long-term heterosexual couple.

Situational friends can be the hardest people to come out to. The level of emotional investment is fairly low, and yet you still have to spend a lot of time with them, making things difficult if their reaction is negative. Situational friendships also often take place in groups, and it's much harder (and in my experience, not the best idea) to come out to a crowd. I don't want to come out, at the wrong time, just for its own sake. I won't lie about my sexuality--the one time a situational friend asked me, "Are you straight?" I said, "No, I'm asexual". But that rarely comes up. No one EVER asks me annoying stuff like, "do you have a boyfriend?" or "why are you single?" As aggravating as those questions (and the assumptions behind them) are, I'm left with no real segues.

It makes me bemoan the fact that there's no way to successfully drop hints about being asexual. I think it's that lack of cultural context that makes coming out so hard and so formal-seeming a lot of the time. In my experience, no one says "by the way, I'm gay" to their situational friends. They mention a girlfriend, wife, boyfriend, husband, or someone they find attractive (of course, there's room for misinterpretation here, too...another place where bisexuals easily share our experience). I can't say "that person is cute" without having people think I'm straight or gay. I think that's why I never told my friends about my rare crushes, even though I cultivated them (sometimes) in order to fit in.

If someone knows me for 10 years, they'll see that I never date or have sex, and they might start to realize that I'm "different" somehow. But even in the case of these sticky situational friends, I don't think I'm going to wait quite that long.

Occupy Isolation!

2012-01-08T11:40:00.000-08:00

The Occupy movement gets addressed from a lot of angles, but the one most relevant to this blog is community-building. I sort of wanted to get involved with Occupy, but the groups in bigger nearby cities seemed really overwhelming. The prospect of being smooshed in a huge crowd of strangers made me feel too unsafe. So, idly, I searched for "Occupy [my town]" online, and found that we were actually having a meeting. I was truly surprised, because this is a small, boring, apolitical, relatively conservative suburban town. Since then I've become pretty involved with our small occupation, even though we only meet for a couple of hours each week. And at this point, the most notable result of our occupation has been a burgeoning sense of local community.

I'm not saying that everyone in the group is my new BFF, or that we're all going to get along 100% of the time (that's not what community is, anyway). Nor do I know what this occupation is going to look like a few months from now. But the fact remains: This is the first time, in the 3 years I've lived here, that I've ever experienced community in my town. Through Occupy, I'm able to sit down with a group of people who were strangers to me in October, and work with them to try and change things for the better. I've met neighbors, and around town, I've ran into people that I know. This is a big deal, because it's something that I doubted would ever happen. I've always felt very isolated here, like the world was happening outside my town, and I was missing most of it. Occupy gives me some hope that this is not the case. If we can create community here, of all places, then maybe change is truly possible.

Although there is that asexual issue...up next.

(And last, here is some utterly shameless self-promotion for my zine, because it's been a while. If you're ever thinking, "Well, I'd sure like to hear what Ily has to say on some non-asexual topics", here's your chance. It's both serious and funny, like this blog tries to be.)

Big Big Love

2011-12-31T16:47:00.000-08:00

So it's Big Big Love time! The book is "a sex and relationships guide for people of size (and those who love them)"; Hanne Blank is the author. I really liked it, even though a lot of it didn't apply to me personally. I'm what's awkwardly known as an "inbetweenie" i.e., I am somewhere between thin and fat. A lot of the book, of course, is targeted towards people who are larger than myself. But, most of us have loved ones of varied sizes, and if you want to be an ally to all of them, it's important to know some of the issues your fat peeps may contend with.

Certain sections might seem skim-worthy if you're not actually having sex. Some of it also seems a wee bit basic...I would assume that if you're going to pick up this book, you probably know that fat people don't all smell bad or are desperate (there's a section debunking common fat myths). But, I could be wrong about that. Here are my favorite parts/parts I found the most interesting:

Section on asexuality! It's well-done, it includes quotes from asexuals ourselves, and it's included in a chapter with all the other sexual orientations. YEAH!
What Hanne says are her two main take-aways: "Stop putting your life on hold" (until you're thin...or anything else, really) and "Don't expect love and sex to heal your entire life" (pgs 26 & 27).
A discussion of weight distribution/shape, and how this affects perceptions of someone's sexuality and gender. For instance, a pear-shaped man is quoted as saying that people just assume he's gay because his shape is traditionally considered "womanly". Apparently, apple-shaped women (that's me, I guess) "may feel like they are sexually invisible" (36). You know...I think there's some truth to that. I do have breasts, but I don't have much in the way of hips, butt, or thighs. When I was slightly heavier, I had no defined waist. I am rarely approached by anyone in a sexual manner. From hourglass-shaped asexual women, I hear different stories.
Good stuff about body image and acceptance. Hanne suggests this exercise: "Try finding something to compliment in every fat person you see (72)". (You don't have to say the compliment out loud unless you want to.) I can tell you, this kind of exercise really works, and it can improve your whole mood for the day. We can often be really judgmental of other people's appearances, sometimes without even realizing it ("she's wearing that?"). To change that casual criticism into something positive can be a powerful thing to do for ourselves, even (especially) if the other person doesn't know what the heck we're thinking.
Responses to rude comments about size. This one amused me the most: "Why am I so fat? Because every time I fuck your mom, she bakes me a pie." Of course, it hinges on someone yelling, "Why are you so fat?", but in the event that it happens...you'll be ready. (More comeback ideas...and I want all her clothes.)

Happy 2012, folks! My resolution will be to not end posts with bullet points.

Here to say I'm not here

2011-12-17T17:45:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a brief holiday break, but I do have Big Big Love on hold for me at the library. I'd heard of the book before, but Mary convinced me to read it with her video of appreciation. I'd also been taking a hiatus from sexuality books, but I guess we can only be kept apart for so long. Whether or not you're religious, I know this can be a stressful time of year. So, I want to wish everyone a peaceful December.

Understanding + Resistant Aesthetics

2011-12-08T20:00:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting essay: Dress to Kill, Fight to Win, by Dean Spade. Somehow he manages to tie together both fashion and trans surgery in a fairly short piece. It ends with a question:

"Why would we want to do things that don’t require explanation, that are obvious, impervious to critique because no one even notices we’re doing them?"

Well, to fit in, of course. I've always had such a strong desire to be understood and to avoid misunderstanding. Confusing people on purpose is something that hasn't really occurred to me. Although...I like the idea of it. Don't get me wrong, understanding is an incredible thing. But it isn't always going to happen, and it's heartening to know that there might be some value in the alternative.

Spade also talks about "resistant aesthetics", which I think is a helpful term. I do want to resist, through my appearance, the sexual and gender norms of our culture. But I don't think anyone is going to figure this out just by looking at me. For women and those read as such, dressing "entirely outside of the sexual dimension" is virtually impossible. (Either we're sexy...or the absence of sexy.) I recently read a post called "Femme Visibility". The writer says that "femme presentations are often done to queer the idea of women as objects of men’s desire. It can be done to parody traditional ideas of women’s gender roles and dress." While these femmes are coming from a place of aesthetic resistance, they're often not perceived as queer or transgressive by society at large. I can relate to that dissonance, because I keep trying to dress outside of sexuality and gender. Spade seems to maintain that there's importance to these efforts, as imperfect as they may be. In some ways, my style does require explanation, even though it isn't unusual enough to draw much questioning.

Things Asexual Like: Tea

2011-12-01T14:54:00.000-08:00

Silly post ahoy!

So, is tea an asexual stereotype yet? Damn, I hope so. The more posts I do in this series, the more I see that the stuff we like is interrelated. Like, it just makes sense that an anglophilic, teetotaling dandy would be drinking a lot of tea. I've done a bunch of these posts now, and I feel like an archetypal person is actually starting to emerge; one who was not premeditated by me at all (but seems to resemble...a large proportion of the Transyadas--rock on folks, much respect). This stereotypical asexual, if ze even exists, has no relation to what the haters say we are. And, I dig that.

So, if you drink tea, what kind do you like? I'll basically drink anything. I even like yerba mate although I kinda think it tastes like dirt (aka, "earthy"). Can I PLEASE have a lifetime supply of these:

[Image: Bottle of Guayaki Yerba Mate]

I used to say rooibos was my favorite, but I was disappointed one too many times by rooibos that was too weak, despite steeping it for a super-long time. Tea has got to be strong, that's all I ask. Oh, and chai...always, chai.

Anyway, tea made it onto my self-care list for a reason. There's just something about it that puts me into relaxation mode. As a child/teen, I used to only drink it when I was sick, but then I spent a few months working in a London office where I was constantly being handed tea. I started to enjoy it and kept drinking it when I got home--although not in such large quantities, or with "three sugars" (which was apparently a large number, but what did I know?).

Alone Together

2011-11-23T11:34:00.000-08:00

"Oppression is depressing."--Miriam Greenspan

A while back, I read the book A New Approach to Women and Therapy by Miriam Greenspan, who I think is pretty brilliant. It was published in 1983, so parts feel dated now. But, other elements are still relevant, sometimes scarily so. Recently I rediscovered the book on my shelf, and remembered that at least one section of the book was very relevant to stuff I've blogged about. It dealt with gendered ideas of "aloneness". Of course asexuals don't have a monopoly on "dying alone!"-type worries, but it's an idea that tends to be foisted on us, whether or not it's a personal concern. (Warning: Gender binary ahead.)

Greenspan gives two scenarios. In the first, she's sitting at a bar talking with a female friend. Two men approach them and comment that they are out alone. When Greenspan responds that they aren't alone, but with each other, the men assume that they're lesbians. In the second scenario, a woman is sitting by herself at a sidewalk cafe, reading a book. A man approaches and asks her if she's waiting for someone. Greenspan writes that this women is "perceived in relation to an absent other (214, emphasis hers)."

She claims that "Women in relation to other women are both culturally understood and actually perceived as being alone...Women internalize this social definition; in the company of women and children, we often experience ourselves as alone. Only with a man are we not alone (213-14)". Of course, she mentions the disparity in the images of bachelors vs. spinsters. My own mental associations support her point: When I think of the images that come to mind around the word "bachelor", I envision a man who is active, surrounded by women, male friends, or activities. On the other hand, I agree with Greenspan that "spinster" brings to mind a woman sitting alone in a dusty attic. She writes that "the very word [spinster] evokes black spiders in a corner weaving webs for no one...Solitude is a male virtue, a female affliction (213)".

(For another example of the above, see the unsolicited issue of Women's Health magazine that arrived at my house. In an advice column, a woman asks how she can get her boyfriend to respect her wishes for alone time. The response is something like, "Point to your stack of Glee DVDs and say it's your version of the fantasy football draft." This is problematic on more levels than you probably have patience to read about, but here, female aloneness finds legitimacy through stereotypically male terms, and it's assumed that men can only understand a woman's desire for solitude through a "male" analogy.)

In my own experience, I've seen this "alone together" concept borne out again and again. I find that often when women are talking with supportive groups of people, that's exactly the time when they're most likely to bring up how alone they feel. When someone of any gender says "I'm so alone" in a group, I know they're referring to their desire for a romantic relationship. But I think it's significant that general aloneness is mentioned, rather than the lack of a specific relationship.

Men can also feel alone without women, especially older or more isolated men who have internalized the idea that emotional intimacy is only appropriate or possible within a romantic relationship. But, I would agree with Greenspan that a man alone at a cafe table is still sending a very different social message than a woman. Over the years, I've blogged about the many social messages that I've internalized. This, oddly enough, isn't one of them. I've felt disrespected and marginalized for my lack of "a man", but never lonely for this reason. When someone assumes that I'm waiting for a man, it jolts me out of my own imaginary world where my gender is secondary to my personhood. Since childhood, I related to our gendered-male ideas about solitude: "But a man alone is a great artist, or a brave adventurer, a mind unshackled by convention, a free spirit (213)". This is no more inherently male than the color blue, but it's coded as male anyway.

Greenspan goes on to explore the concept of "ego boundaries" as they relate to gender. Basically, it's hard to have a strong sense of self if one is always waiting for an "absent other" to show up. Weaker ego boundaries can indeed have advantages, but they're devalued in this culture. Even though I don't feel like I'm waiting, I still wonder how much of my anxiety over external approval and disapproval relates to my gendered experiences.

Complete!

2011-11-12T12:18:00.000-08:00

Yes! This sort of relates to my last post.

It's not frequent, but I do experience aesthetic attraction. I can find people "sexy", although my definition of this might be different than that of other people's. I have no desire to even interact with "sexy" people, let alone actually sex them up. I just note their attractiveness and move on. Aesthetic attraction always makes me feel vaguely uncomfortable, but it never happened enough for me to figure out why that was. So recently, when I noticed an especially good-looking person, I tried to capture the moment. Sitting with my nonsexual attraction, I just felt sad. My exact thought was: "I'm incomplete". I know, it's melodramatic, but sometimes my mind goes there.

For sure, it's another incident of internalized asexohating, but I also wanted to talk about the tropes underlying this specific thought pattern.

The thing is, I had landed right into a cultural theme that I believe is damaging to everyone: The idea of sex (and sexualized romance) as completion. That's why we have all these baseball metaphors for sex. It's the end goal of attraction. It ties in with the magic night trope, in which "scoring" at the end makes the night a success. By finding a person sexy and nothing more, I'm messing with the script, and the idea of sex as "consummation" or "sealing the deal". But I don't think there's much about sexuality that's actually so neat and linear. We like stories, and there is no story in my random aesthetic attraction. I try to make one up, about my incompleteness, but it isn't true.

For me, part of dealing with internalized asexohating is not only having pride in being asexual, but in being able to frankly admit the aspects of being asexual that are frustrating. And most importantly, why they're frustrating. The answer never turns out to be "because asexuals are somehow inferior". As for my aesthetic attraction, I feel like it defies logic. Whether it's some innate sense of logic or a cultural sense (or whether these can even be separated), I don't know. But the truth is, a lot about sexual orientation doesn't make sense. And we do have a very limited cultural view of what is "logical" when it comes to orientation and attraction.

Random aesthetic attraction: my silent protest against the baseball model of sexuality. (*wink wink*)

Asexuals are awesome! hides

2011-11-05T13:36:00.000-07:00

How many posts have I read from asexuals seeking advice? Probably not a million, but definitely more than a thousand. A lot of answers to these advice-seekers repeat themselves, understandably. The most common might be, "We can't tell you if you're asexual or not". But I also frequently hear, "That person is not your friend". You know, the friend who keeps saying you're not really asexual and then tries to get you to have sex with them. There are plenty of others where friends are just rude about asexuality, not listening, and not appearing to care about that fact.

Are these people really terrible friends? I don't know...even in a friendship that's good overall, people can make some pretty big mistakes. But I'm guessing that with some of these asexuals, their interactions follow a pattern that I've identified in some of my own interactions. Someone says something hurtful about asexuality. You, the asexual, tell them how it ain't so. The person doesn't apologize or seem to understand why they were wrong. You feel bad. Yes...YOU feel bad. Because maybe it was your own fault for bringing asexuality up in the first place. Maybe you didn't express yourself well, or do a good enough job at educating. Maybe it's understandable that they wouldn't believe you, seeing as you've had sex, or were assaulted, or you write erotic stories.

I don't think this is just a self-esteem issue, but internalized asexohating. We have no official word for this, but I think it's one of the bigger issues that asexuals face. Even if we feel positive about our asexuality, the onus is always on the asexual to prove ourselves. It sort of reminds me of my experience being bullied in school. Although I wasn't directly blamed, the onus was always entirely on me to resolve the bullying. That I was incapable of doing this only made me feel worse, and more like I deserved the abuse I was getting. People tell us our orientation is too confusing or unusual to bother with understanding. It's not hard to start believing that they may be right, and that there is some inherent problem with the "difficulty" of asexuality and therefore, with us. I maintain that even if you can't prove yourself, that's no reason to beat yourself up.

The thing is, most of us have been receiving negative messages about asexuality our entire lives. I still receive them daily from our culture...and this is on top of all the other negative messages I receive for other "undesirable" aspects of my identity. I don't think that neutral statements, like the fact that we exist, can overcome the barrage of negative statements that we face. But, a lot of asexuals feel vaguely embarrassed and awkward about pride. Why should we be proud of something we can't control? As a group, we're terrified as appearing "superior". But if someone truly understood asexuality, could they honestly say that asexuals feel superior to the rest of the population? Without understanding, "you think you're so superior!" becomes a meaningless insult, like "repressed" or "frigid". And with understanding, I don't think anyone could make that claim. (This is basically what happened with the "demisexuals are slut-shamers!" thing. Most of the people saying that seemed to have little understanding of either demisexuality or slut-shaming.)

In writing this post, I read a bunch of information about internalized homophobia. As a means of coping with it, I heard two pieces of advice repeated: Acknowledge that internalized homophobia exists, and be as out as possible. The gay community is well aware that coming out can be fraught with danger, but still encourages its members to be out. They also seem to talk much more about the benefits of coming out, especially the benefits to the individual. On the other hand, in the asexual community, I get the feeling that there's no pressure to be out...it's something that's seen as a completely personal choice. I don't know if this is good or bad, since there seem to be benefits and drawbacks to each way of thinking. But it's interesting.

Questions

2011-11-01T19:22:00.000-07:00

I was thinking...maybe part of how we choose to identify has to do with which people are asking the questions that we most want the answers to.

*see the comments for further explanation!*

What I'm doing for AAW...

2011-10-27T20:22:00.000-07:00

It's Asexual Awareness Week, and sadly, my screening of the (A)sexual film didn't work out. So I decided to observe the week by posting a different asexual-related meme (Asexual Cake, Sexually Oblivious Sherlock, etc) every day on my Facebook wall, along with some explanation of how it relates to asexuality. I believe in the adage, "If they're laughing, they're listening." So, is this raising awareness?

I really don't know.

Is it annoying people?

Probably.

Is it fun?

YES. I'm trying to follow my own advice, which is to do visibility projects that you love. And I do love memes.

With a number of friends, I'm pretty sure they know I'm asexual, but not completely sure. I was hoping that posting every day about asexuality would put more people into the "completely sure" category, although at this point it's hard to tell. But, I've only gotten positive reactions so far, and that's encouraging.

I'm pretty preoccupied (oh God, I hate puns) by the Occupy stuff right now, so this is all you get at the moment...

And this relates to Spanx how?

2011-10-20T20:10:00.000-07:00

An asexy friend clued me in to the fact that in her performance If You Will, Janeane Garofalo talks about being asexual. Of course, you know me, so I had to check it out (you can see it on DVD). And indeed, she refers to herself as asexual, partially as an attempt to dispel rumors that she's a lesbian. Garofalo says that she's been with her boyfriend for 10 years, and while they used to have sex, they no longer do. She also refers to herself as celibate, and claims that it allows her more free time to get things done (groan, I don't like this stereotype!). Actually, she plays into other stereotypes of asexuals, wondering if her lack of sexual interest was influenced by a religious Irish grandmother.

[Image: Janeane Garofalo performing If You Will]

But, some of us really do ask ourselves those kinds of questions. Garofalo doesn't seem at ease with her asexuality; it's as if she's working through it over the duration of the performance, but never reaching a conclusion. In short, she doubts, which a lot of us can identify with...wondering if we're broken, repressed, late bloomers, etc. She tells the audience that asexuality isn't a fear of intimacy, but a lack of interest. Still, she worries about being seen as cold and uncaring. This is one stereotype she tries to dispel, by bringing out a collage of puppy photos that she made. And, she may not have sex, but she does know a lot about mens' heels, their alleged dryness being a subject of much consternation to her.

You know how people say that earlier stand-up, like Lenny Bruce, just isn't funny anymore to a modern audience? Well...that's basically how all stand-up is to me. I'll find a couple of things funny maybe, but have no idea how the audience can be laughing at everything. That said, reviews of If You Will did seem mixed. I have to agree with the reviewer on Netflix who wrote: "This is dramady. Or a dark confessional with strong artistic merit but a bit of a downer. If you are expecting comedy you might be disappointed." So while I didn't laugh much, I did admire the way that Garofalo was open about her doubts. She doesn't simplify or try not to contradict herself, but just keeps talking, as if she and the audience have been friends for a while.

Aging Androgynously

2011-10-13T12:30:00.000-07:00

"When will my reflection show who I am inside?" --Mulan. Yeah.

*Edited to add: Since I submitted this post to the gender-themed Carnival of Aces round, I just wanted to clarify what my "thesis" was supposed to be: That those of us who don't quite fit the gender binary may have a harder time being read as adults in our culture, feeling like adults, or both. I don't think I made that as clear as I could have, what with all my complaining about looking young. Hee hee.*

Recently, I was at a community meeting where I was one of very few people younger than my parents' age. An older man approached me and asked me which school I went to. I said I didn't go to school. He asked, "Why, you didn't like it?" And I said no, I'd graduated. I get this all the time--"Are you in school?" It has been confirmed that I do have some kind of "academic look" about me. But I also get "What grade are you in?", implying that I'm in high school or younger, when I'm actually 27*. If you complain about looking young, you'll probably be told how lucky you are. But I didn't feel very lucky when, after making an important work presentation, I was met with "Isn't she cute?" (I am, as Dave Barry would say, not making this up.)

Approaching 30, I want to be taken seriously. But I worry that I'll go from oddly twee directly into "old". Will I ever get to be seen as just an adult, not a kid or a senior citizen? Do I have to start dressing like the editor of French Vogue? I have to constantly hear that marriage, children, and house-buying are indicators of adulthood, which has made me defensive about being viewed as a child or teen. Now with America's economic problems, the media is always saying how younger people are "putting off adulthood" because we can't afford houses and families. People, adulthood is not something you afford. It's not a Louis Vuitton bag. It's something you earned because you survived this far, and that can't be taken from you, even if you're sitting broke in a roadside ditch. I am an adult, but it's like no one knows it unless they look at my birth certificate. There are myriad ways to be an adult, just like there are myriad gender identities.

A couple of days ago, I was skimming through The Drag King Book. I came across the story of a FTM drag king who started taking testosterone. He said that the hormones were the only way that he could be viewed as an adult man. Otherwise, he would perpetually be a boy. I could kind of relate. Because on the one hand, I resent it when people infantalize me based on looks, gender, sexuality, or lack of traditional life achievements. But on the other hand, I feel like I'm forever a girl, waiting to grow into some mysterious gender that I can intuitively understand. There's this idea that we grow into our genders, that from children, we become men or women. But I feel like, if anything, I'm growing out of the gender that I used to take for granted.

Browsing a clothing store on another recent day, I decided that rather than look "sexy and feminine", as the show What Not to Wear would favor, I wanted to look "weird and androgynous". Okay, maybe not weird. I actually want to look cool and stylish. But androgyny seems to have the same connotations with youth as asexuality. Before puberty, everyone is "asexual" and androgynous to an extent. Most people didn't remain as such after puberty, but a few of us did. To be seen as an adult, do we have to "pick a side"? Maybe, but as I work on this post, I'm beginning not to care anymore. It's aggravating when people's comments play into my own insecurities, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with me. I mean, this is what 27 looks like, whether that surprises people or not.

[Image: Photo of Ily, wearing a large pink bow and talking to a stuffed pineapple sitting on her shoulder.]

*A tangent on "looking like a student" (but still, gender related):

I told my mom that I'd look up the definition of "mansplaining" for her. On this post, I came across a comment by MissPrism that went like this:

"...you know, once or twice I have indeed heard a man say "I look young, so people assume I'm a student," but the VAST majority of the time it's a woman. Something's up with that: surely a similar proportion of men should look young for their age as women do? Thinking a young-looking woman must be a student isn't an excuse for mansplaining, it's part of it. Mansplainers assume a woman is as junior, and therefore clueless (the conflation of these two is of course hugely problematic in itself), as he can possibly construe her to be, while men are given the benefit of the doubt and assumed to be experienced and knowledgeable until proven otherwise."

While I don't think men are always necessarily given the benefit of the doubt (in other comments it's mentioned that men may mansplain to other men they perceive as "less manly"), it never occurred to me that people read as female might be told "you look like a student" more often than people read as male. It could also be possible that more women really do look young, due to social pressures to maintain a more youthful appearance. It's definitely an intriguing question. Maybe I'll ask my pineapple about it.

Romantic Comedies = Sci Fi

2011-10-10T13:59:00.000-07:00

"I regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world operates according to different rules than my regular human world. For me, there is no difference between Ripley from “Alien” and any Katherine Heigl character. They are equally implausible. They’re all participating in a similar level of fakey razzle-dazzle, and I enjoy every second of it."
--Mindy Kaling, here.

I don't think I love them quite as much as she does, but I enjoy them sometimes and feel the same way in terms of them being sci-fi. When I was a kid, I loved reading fantasy novels. I'm not as into them anymore, but I've always had an strong fascination with world-building, which has stayed with me. I'm always intrigued by how more "reality-based" genres, such as romantic comedies, world-build in a fantasy-like way.

Stormy Weather

2011-10-04T17:40:00.000-07:00

In my last post, Jessica commented, "Acknowledging my needs/loves as real does not mean I can always fulfill them." So, this is the brainstorm I promised, which is targeted towards solutions for that dilemma, one that I share. I'm not saying "you should do these things" because I don't even know if they're good ideas. Maybe I should go through and delete the weird/bad ones, but I felt like just leaving the list as it tumbled from my brain.

Honoring my feelings =/= obsession. Sometimes I feel almost obligated to obsess over things, although it's a very uncomfortable feeling. Not to beat myself up for obsessing, or take it to mean my desire is some form of psychosis, but to calmly divert myself to another activity.
There's this idiom, "the whole enchilada". Maybe small or partial enchiladas are okay, too? Like hanging out somewhere I kind of like, more often than I do now. Small goals aren't unimportant.
Talk about it, which is what I'm trying to do here. Or put it into a creative outlet. This is sooo #4 of me, but unfulfilled desires can be excellent fodder for creativity.
No emotional terrorism. Stop blaming myself. "Overcoming" is not a moral obligation.
Are fantasies frivolous? Maybe not. At the least, they can tell us important things about ourselves.
Acknowledge the social issues standing in your way. For instance, it's hard to acquire my longed-for career with the economy being what it is. Careful though, this one may place you in a constant state of impotent rage! (TM)
I want a list to have 10 things. It doesn't have 10 things. Don't freak out!

In other news, the Carnival of Aces is still trucking! Check out the latest installment, on the theme of gender.

Looking for love in places.

2011-09-27T13:49:00.000-07:00

It's hard for me to talk about love without talking about place.

Even so, aside from my short obsession with Colorado as a 10-year-old, I never knew where I wanted to live "when I grew up". As a kid, I moved a lot. As an adult, I don't want to move much more. All I knew was that it was essential to live somewhere I loved. Not just liked, but truly loved. A place that gave me the same feeling as reading a great poem or listening to hip-hop for the first time. The same exhilaration as seeing the peaks of Colorado or jumping off a London bus. The same swell of warmth that I'd feel for a human loved one.

Of course, this is a tall order. Many places are just not lovable, unless you love Wal-Marts, parking lots, highway interchanges, strip malls, and subdivisions. (More on that topic here.)

Perhaps I've just traded one unrealistic standard for yet another. First husband, then career, and now place. I'm really knocking them down--will there be anywhere left for my fantasy life to turn? But...I can't be the only person who has a lot of experience minimizing and questioning my feelings. (Sciatrix writes about some similar issues here.) One common example is something like, "well, this is just a platonic or nonsexual relationship, so why am I so sad/pissed off/thrilled/confused about it?" It may be especially relevant to asexuals, but I think most people have felt this way at some point.

I minimize things that I'm not sure are possible. Like my desire to be married. I have no desire anymore to be legally married. But I do want some kind of life partner(s), be they romantic, platonic, or queerplatonic. For so long, I felt this was silly somehow. Because I didn't need any kind of partner and besides, once I got one, who knows if I would still want one? Anyway, it was hard for me to care about my own desire, as strange as that may sound. More reasons why I've minimized my love of place:

Large disconnect between my current state and my desired state.
Overwhelm with the task at hand.
Poor planning and decision-making ability.
Lack of financial resources.
Social messaging.
Comparing myself to other people.

For the past several years, I've gone back and forth. Sometimes I try to honor the importance of place, and sometimes I treat it like a dangerous delusion. I'm starting to feel like I need to pick one, for the sake of my sanity. It's true: I don't understand some of my desires. They seem strange, inconvenient, and illogical. That's life as a hyper-rational, hyper-emotional person. In order to love myself, do I have to treat my love as real? It would make sense. If I thought it was very important to marry a man who I was deeply in love with, would I treat that as a delusion? Okay, maybe I would, but most people would see it as completely normal. Maybe it's not fair to treat myself any differently.

While I want to try to stop minimizing my desires, I don't want to feel totally bereft if I never have these things. My question becomes, how do I "synthesize" these desires? Like, how do I honor them and work towards achieving them while at the same time, deal with the feelings involved with not having them yet? In some ways, I've already been doing this, but I think there are others things I could incorporate. My brainstorm on this is going to be the next post.

/Psychology nerd.

Dykes to Watch Out For

2011-09-20T12:51:00.000-07:00

"...I've never intended my cartoons to be only for dykes. Yes, they're about dykes. So? Surely if I could sit through a Bruce Willis movie, Joe Blow could read a lesbian comic strip."
--Alison Bechdel

This is slightly random, but has anyone read Dykes to Watch Out For? Yesterday I picked up Dykes and Sundry Other Carbon-Based Life Forms to Watch Out For, which I believe is the last book in the series. Usually that would make a book unbearably confusing, but all the characters are explained in the beginning so it's not too hard to follow. I would've read it all in one sitting, but I had to go somewhere. While I was out, I just kept thinking, "I want to go home and finish the book!" Although the comics are amusing, I think I liked the political aspect the most. It isn't preachy, but it's there. I can't remember ever reading a work of fiction that dealt with the issues around coping as a leftist in America and all the inevitable disappointment and frustration that it brings. Okay, that was a long sentence. There are also other layers, like the characters' attempts to reconcile their radical queer identities with the fact that "Best Lesbian Erotica is now sold at 7-11" and many in their group are marrying and having kids.

[Image: Comic panel depicting, among other things, one drag king asking another for a tampon.]

I also loved the density of the comic panels themselves. You can see what's on the character's shelves, such as St. John's wort and "Tom's of Finland curry-flavored" toothpaste, as well as the headlines of the newspapers they read ("Disease will be eradicated! Static cling banished!"). While the comic is often hailed as being very true to life, is there really any enclave where everyone works at a non-profit, college, or feminist bookstore? (Although, the bookstore is in danger thanks to "Medusa.com".) It seems like no matter how much the characters are doing to live out their values, it's never enough. For instance, Mo wonders why she's going to a class rather than "doing non-violent direct action!". It seems funny on the page, but I've wondered the same type of thing. There's an interesting tension between the insularity of the characters' progressive friend group and the current events they can't ignore.

Taken the survey yet?

2011-09-19T13:17:00.000-07:00

I know this announcement is kinda delayed, but hey, maybe I can reach a few more people?

Asexual Awareness Week (which is October 23-29) is doing a survey to get better demographics of the asexual community. Check it out! They need at least 500 responses to be scientifically representative. I thought it was quite good...when it was over I went, "Darn, that's it?" but then again, I adore taking surveys. Allies, we love you, but this one is only for ace-spectrum people (asexuals, gray-asexuals, demisexuals...)

Also, help AAW raise money by buying merchandise. They want to raise $1000, half for screening copies of the movie (A)sexual and half to do an online advertising campaign.

A Room With A View

2011-09-13T15:29:00.000-07:00

"For all his culture, Cecil was an ascetic at heart, and nothing in his love became him like the leaving of it."
--My favorite quote from A Room With A View, E.M. Forster, pg. 204

This book is from 1908. It may be a classic, but if it was written today and not by E.M. Forster, it would surely be the fluffiest of chick lit. Sometimes I wonder where ideas come from--say, that we have one true soulmate who will understand us completely, or that a woman in a story will usually end up marrying the first man she interacts with, or that spinsters will always hold out some measure of romantic hope deep in their stony bosoms. (Yes, there will be spoilers here, but there were actually spoilers printed on the back of my copy of this book. You know what will happen from the first few pages anyway.) Do these types of ideas come from A Room With a View? Probably not, but it seems like every idea of the modern romantic comedy is also represented therein.

I thought I would love this book because I tend to love comedies of manners. And I liked the writing style; it could be very clever and quotable. But after spending 27 years absorbing romantic storylines, the plot itself was very predictable. It even involved one of the pop culture tropes that bugs me the most--characters for whom we're not just supposed to believe a strong attraction, but that they're going to spend the rest of their lives together because they exchanged one meaningful glance. Like, this is what happens:

--Lucy and George are tourists, previously unknown to one another, staying at the same hotel in Florence. They happen to both be at the scene of a murder that takes place there.
--Lucy faints at the sight, and George helps her.
--Then, George throws Lucy's photographs into the river because there is blood on them.
--They share a companionable silence.
--They are madly in love with each other (although Lucy tries to ignore her feelings for a while).

There seems to be something missing here. When George throws away the pictures, Lucy imbues it with a ton of meaning: He is unconventional, truthful, humble, and a host of other traits. And we don't even know why George is quite so taken with Lucy. From their first short exchange, Lucy is able to feel that she knows George completely. Although they've spoken maybe five times ever (and kissed twice), never ONCE does Lucy mention that she wants to know George better, or vice versa. So, after one singular incident that lasted a matter of minutes, these two people knew each other intimately. As a reader, I got the feeling that they would never discover anything new about each other that they didn't already know. Is that even possible?

We're also supposed to believe that a lasting relationship can spring, fully formed, from a few romantic moments. But even with my limited experience, I don't think life is like that. Of course, lasting relationships can contain romance or begin with romance, but one doesn't necessarily beget the other. Maybe things were different back then...young men and women didn't have as many opportunities to encounter each other, and there was more pressure to choose someone. Perhaps on some level, Lucy was choosing to love George, although this was in no way implied by the book. George is portrayed as her unavoidable fate. As crotchety as it makes me sound, I can't "just enjoy the fantasy". I'm too frustrated by the fact that a lot of people feel bad about themselves when these kinds of events don't become their realities. Even I've felt bad about it at times, although I know that I'd probably be pissed off if someone threw my bloody photos in the river without asking.

I felt like this book was a strange blend of two different attitudes. On the one hand, Forster has the ability to dissect social norms with a scalpel. He shows no mercy in describing the futility of tourists who are trying to recreate home in a foreign land (be sure to pack enough digestive bread!). But at the same time, the concept of a soulmate remains unquestioned. Contrast this to The Age of Innocence, which I felt had a more subtle and complex treatment of romantic ideals vs. convention.

(Also, while he's celibate and not necessarily asexual, when I read the following, I felt that I could sort of relate to Mr. Beebe's character in that moment, on some personal ace level. Since I couldn't really relate to anyone in the book, I'll take what I can get:

Mr. Beebe followed. Lucy still sat at the piano with her hands over the keys. She was glad, but he had expected greater gladness. Her mother bent over her. Freddy, to whom she had been singing, reclined on the floor with his head against her, and an unlit pipe between his lips. Oddly enough, the group was beautiful. Mr. Beebe, who loved the art of the past, was reminded of a favourite theme, the Santa Conversazione, in which people who care for one another are painted chatting together about noble things--a theme neither sensual nor sensational, and therefore ignored by the art of to-day. Why should Lucy want either to marry or to travel when she had such friends at home? (221) )

Still, I might watch one of the film adaptations.

Dancing to Vaguely Depressing Music

2011-09-06T22:00:00.000-07:00

My intermittent self-love series continues...I don't like to feel like I'm saying corny things (uhh, because I'm such a hardcore badass? Not really, my knuckle tattoo is fake after all), but it's kind of inevitable here.

To reference bell hooks yet again, care isn't the same as love, but it can be an important part of love. I feel like self-care might be like daily weight-lifting for your self-love muscles. I wanted to write about self-care in this post, but it's become such a prevalent concept that it probably deserves its own. I was going to write in detail about the theory and definition of self-care...about its relation to activism and how the concept is gendered in out culture, but maybe I should take my own medicine and jump to the part that amuses me most: Lists. Yes, self-care seems to have manifested largely in list form, and some people's lists are indeed large. (Here's an example of a long list of one person's self-care ideas.) Usually when I read about self-care though, I am overwhelmed by activities that don't appeal to me in the slightest. Such as bubble baths. I literally have not taken a bath in 15 years (although yes, I do attempt to shower regularly). Just thinking about having pruney hands...shudder!

We all know that I love making lists, so of course I wanted to make one of self-care activities. Although if I'm at the point where I have to pull out a list to figure out how to take care of myself, shit must be getting real. At those times, I am likely to get overwhelmed by a list of any great length. So I decided to cap my list at ten items, but only the most powerful strategies would make it on there. They had to be easy and accessible. So here's my list so far, with explanations of why I chose the things I did. It's definitely one of those documents that's going to change over time, based on what does and doesn't end up working.

Dance to music, especially vaguely depressing music. (You don't have to be Martha Graham here; any movement really is sufficient, but I find that just listening isn't enough to lift my mood. This is really the best strategy I know.)
Make a list of 10 good things about yourself. (If you're feeling down on yourself, it might take you a really long time to think of 10 things...it's normal, don't get discouraged. I've always found this exercise to be worthwhile.)
Go near water or somewhere in nature. If that's too much work, just step outside. (When I'm in nature, it's the time when I don't worry about being "productive", and when I feel like I'm doing exactly what I should be doing without second-guessing myself. But just being outside the house can be a substitute for "real" nature. Sun helps.)
Cook a balanced meal with plenty of veggies. (For me, the best self-care activities are those that absorb most of my focus, which cooking does, and challenge me a little bit, but not enough to be truly frustrating. I find that when I'm feeling anxious, I sometimes put off eating for too long, or eat mostly carbs.)
Ride my bicycle. (Whenever I get on my bike, I think, "Why don't I do this more often?" Riding at night is especially soothing to me.)
Drink tea. (Is there something relaxing IN tea or is it just the act of drinking it?)
Pet a cat. (Speaks for itself.)
Make a drawing. (For the longest time, my premier drawing theme has been repetitive words in different fonts and configurations, kind of like you'd imagine a strange serial killer doing. But, it's always been a good way to vent.)
Have a conversation with someone. (For me, e-mails don't count here. It's got to be a real-time conversation.)
Leave nice notes for yourself to find later. (I guess this is more of a maintenance thing. Truth be told, I haven't done it much yet, but I'm trying to find ways to motivate myself positively rather than beating myself up. This could be one way to help me accomplish that.)

So, has anyone made a self-care list? What was on it? And did it help you?

Things Asexuals Like: Dandyism

2011-08-31T14:56:00.000-07:00

I'm in the mood for a not-so-serious post, and maybe this one is cheating. After all, dandyism seems like a subset of androgyny, which I've already covered. But, do I care? These have always been my favorite posts, and it's high time for more. It's hard to define what exactly a dandy is, whether it's a way of life or only a dress sense. It has a long history in various cultures and I can't possibly do it justice in one post. Just think of Oscar Wilde, though, and I think we'll be on a similar page. Modern dandyism seems to have something to do with aestheticism, gentility, and elegance. People who want to be known for their good taste, manners, wit, and general panache. While in real life, I'm often in jeans and a t-shirt, in my mind I'm like this:

[Image: Woman in a fedora, bright-blue jacket, tie, vest, and yellow loafers. Image from here.]

Or perhaps this:

[Image: Black-and-white vintage images of dandy-esque women in menswear ensembles. From here.]

Although it in no way relates to my daily presentation, at heart I am a dandrogyne, a term which was coined here on the TransYada forums. Dandies would probably prefer to hang out in Victorian-style conservatories, parks, libraries, tea shops, speakeasies, vintage clothing stores, and quaint or unique urban or rural areas not yet beset by Wal-Marts and Starbucks. They would probably not prefer sports bars, 7-11s, rodeos, subdivisions, or shopping malls. There seems to be something very Victorian-era about dandies; I must admit to loving a lot of their aesthetics but hating a lot of their attitudes (see my crush on certain Merchant-Ivory films for evidence of this). Also, there is something very romantic about it, in a Romantic-poets sense, rather than an attraction sense.

Now, I don't think dandyism is relevant to all asexuals, but I feel like there is a strong dandy current in our community. It would not be out of place. In this post, I wrote about some ways in which my personal style could be considered an asexual presentation. On some style blogs that I read, people fear the word "costumey" as a description for their outfits. But I have long been drawn to costumey styles, perhaps because the emphasis is on the wearer's clothing rather than their sexualized body, and because those styles break or mock the norms of gender presentation. I like looking at dandies, but I wouldn't consider them sexy at all. I'm just impressed by the way they put an outfit together--their use of clothing as an art form. Although to dandies, what isn't an art form?

This one won't end in a wedding.

2011-08-23T21:54:00.000-07:00

(This post is for the "media" installment of Carnival of Aces).

I'm having some serious writer's block right now. Not just on this blog (maybe it's some kind of 4-year curse), but on the godforsaken NaNoWriMo novel that I'm editing (or more accurately, completely rewriting). I wanted to talk about how attempting to write a novel taught me more about the media than reading hundreds of novels, but I feel like my head is full of pudding. Anyway, I thought I would push on anyway, with the warning that I may not be able to fully explore all my thoughts. Oww, my pudding.

Back in November, when I was doing NaNo, I promised that I'd tell you all how it went, and I don't think I ever did. Well, I won, which means that I wrote a 50,000 word first draft of a novel in a month. I always liked some things about chick lit, but thought it was missing something, like a story that I could really relate to from a personal level. So I decided to write a chick lit novel about an asexual. She would not have an awesome job, she would not live in the hippest neighborhood, and she would not have stereotyped friends. But it would be a coming-of-age story focused on a young urban woman where everything basically works out in the end. No one dies or anything.

So here I am, working on Draft 2, trying to do an "alternative" take on a very clichéd genre. And sometimes I feel like by attempting that, I've set myself up for failure. I finally know why writers are always doing "meet cutes" in books and movies: Because it's extremely difficult to get two specific people who don't know each other to connect in the real world. For instance, I want my protagonist, Annie, to meet another person who can help her in her quest. So far, in various iterations, they're met at a bar, a wedding, and after Annie reads about him in the newspaper and looks up his e-mail. All of these scenarios have felt forced to me.

I also learned why movies end with weddings and why romance is inserted into plots that don't need it. I was once told by a wise playwriting professor that in my play, something awful needed to happen to my protagonist before the final redemption. In an analysis of Confessions of a Shopaholic (okay, that sounds funny), there are two awful events in the book. The first one is that Becky, the protagonist, is asked by her love interest to help him pick out a suitcase, but she later discovers that the suitcase is for his girlfriend. In a vacuum, this event might seem awkward or embarrassing. We're supposed to read it as awful because it dashes her romantic hopes (for the moment). When you have a crush on someone (and I'm reaching here, because I last had a crush in 2004), little things can seem significant, which can lead to emotional ups and downs. Without these ups and downs, there is no plot.

I feel like plotting my novel is just about finding news ways to make things harder for Annie, which she will struggle to overcome. Again, it feels forced because real life isn't necessarily laid out like a story. Sometimes you need to create drama where there might otherwise be none, and marriage is one thing that can do this. The TV show Once and Again, which I've been watching recently (thanks Owen!) is a prime example of this. It's a big event that marks time in people's lives. Everyone can agree that your wedding day is important, so readers/viewers can be on the same page (hurr, hurr) plotwise. Even if we're not marriage-oriented people, we've known them. But in the case of Annie, I feel like I'm starting from scratch when I try to show readers what's important to her and why. Once I leave the usual chick lit script, I have to work much harder to make the crucial events in Annie's life seem crucial to a reader.

Like everyone else, I want more asexual characters. That's why I put one (and maybe one more) in my novel. But it's been extremely difficult to place her in a compelling plot, even though there are some interesting and unique things about Annie and her circumstances. Yeah, plot has never been my strong point, but maybe there's a reason why there has never been an asexual chick lit heroine: It's very confusing to do. Sometimes I think about screenwriters wrangling their twisty plots and wondering if I could ever do the same. I don't know if their reluctance to explore lesser-known sexualities means they're truly disinterested in those sexualities, or if they just don't want to spend the time constructing a new world where everyone can agree that asexuals fit. As I wrote in my review of Animythical Tales, a story compilation by an asexual writer, "I'd had no idea how much, as a reader, I'd relied upon, and expected, sex and sexualized romance to move a story along."

So I don't want to rely on it as a writer either, but I can understand why people are tempted to.

Pies of Love: They're Back!

2011-08-17T19:47:00.000-07:00

From the book All About Love, again by bell hooks (thanks Autumn!):

When we see love as the will to nurture one's own or another's spiritual growth, revealed through acts of care, respect, knowing, and assuming responsibility, the foundation of all love in our life is the same. There is no special love exclusively reserved for romantic partners. Genuine love is the foundation of our engagement with ourselves, with family, with friends, with partners, with everyone we choose to love. While we will necessarily behave differently depending on the nature of the relationship, or have varying degrees of commitment, the values that inform our behavior, when rooted in a love ethic, are always the same for any interaction. (pg. 136)

Reading this passage was jarring to me. I had long seen love as a "pie" which had different "pieces": Platonic love, romantic love, sexual love, etc. This was comforting to me because I felt that if I couldn't have the sexual and romantic pieces, there were still others. However, bell hooks seems to view love as one pie with different toppings: Love topped with romance, topped with sex, topped with a parent's nurturing. When I thought about it, hooks' conception started to make more sense to me than my own had done. And, anyone can have the whole pie. So, do you agree with any of these pies, or are you eating a different baked good altogether?

Giants of Indiepop: "Pristine Christine"

2011-08-09T21:15:00.000-07:00

Because it wouldn't be this blog without my valiant attempts to somehow relate random songs I like to asexuality. Will this one, released in 1987 by the Sea Urchins, ever get old? I doubt it. This probably speaks to the conservative nature of today's popular music, at least in the genres I'm familiar with. (For a long time, I felt this impotent regret over the fact that I was never present at the birth of a new musical movement...and if I think about it, it's still pretty sad. I wonder if it'll ever happen, especially to someone who might be in their 30's or 40's by the time it does.)

At any rate, those little surf-rock flourishes get me every time.

"But you don't react like me--oh!"

Could Christine just be a misunderstood asexual?

Self-Love for the Overly Literal

2011-08-01T15:06:00.000-07:00

The self-lovestravaganza continues! <3

We're often told to "love yourself" (usually, after we have changed everything "wrong" about us, but that's beyond the scope of this post). Even when people are saying to "love yourself" with the best of intentions, it's always been unclear to me what is actually meant by this. Slightly more specific is "be your own best friend", but I feel like even this needs to be broken down further.

I've known about the concept "be your own best friend" for years now, and I've intermittently resolved to put it into practice. It sounds so appealing, but I can't say it's made any headway in changing my everyday life. What actual behaviors would fall under "being your own best friend" anyway? I take it to mean that, when you're feeling down, you'd think about what you might do for a friend in the same circumstances. For instance, you would probably not berate the person further. You'd probably listen to their concerns. Maybe you'd try to cheer them up by baking them cookies, taking them dancing, having them pet a llama, etc. If your best friend was bored or lonely, you'd probably try to make them laugh or tell them that you were there for them.

But for me, what's rewarding about many activities is the fact that I'm doing them with another person. When I'm with a friend, I'm often able to forget about my troubles for a while, because I'm focusing on interacting with the other person rather than on my own worries. Of course, "being your own best friend" isn't a substitute for having a best friend who's another person, but I can find myself comparing solitary activities to social ones. While I can enjoy some things done alone, I would usually enjoy them even more with good company.

It can be especially hard to be your own best friend in personal crisis situations, or times when you're stuck in repetitive behaviors. Your other-person friend, because they're not going through the same thing at the same time, may be better able to take decisive action or give objective feedback than you are. There's also the fact that not everyone has had the experience of a loving friend. A lot of people are socially isolated or are in dysfunctional relationships. Some people have few social needs, making it unclear how a "best friend" metaphor would even benefit them.

At least in my own experience, "being your own best friend" isn't just something that happens one day and then maintains itself over a lifetime. Instead, it seems to be a constant battle between my inner friend and my inner critic. Sometimes my friend wins and sometimes she doesn't. But if I criticize myself for being a bad self-friend, then that's a step even further back.

And the truth is, sometimes I don't know how to help a troubled friend, even as I feel empathy for them and deeply want to help. I want to be the kind of person who quickly jumps into action to help someone, be it myself or someone else. But too often, I find myself mired in analysis of the situation. How can my "inner friend" truly help me when she shares all of my limitations?

As usual, I'm ending on a question (meep!). I'd be interested to know what you all think about the "be your own best friend" concept. Has it been useful to you? Is there another way of conceptualizing it that I'm just missing?

Reunirme

2011-07-26T21:04:00.000-07:00

"Pictures from your post-[alma mater] life are ok too! This would be a great way for your former classmates to see what you have been up to: weddings, babies, cool trips, etc."

--E-mail from the college I went to, soliciting photos for the 5-year reunion

Sociologists keep telling us that Americans have fewer social connections than ever before. But we still seem to love reunions: For school, for work, for camp, for family, for our ill-fated sojourn on the space shuttle. Of course, high school and college reunions are the throbbing heart of all of them. For me, my 5-year college reunion is in the fall. And I can't say that I want to go, due in part to my crippling propensity to compare myself to other people. But my early-20's discovery of asexuality makes reunions thornier still. If the last time I saw someone was over five years ago, then they probably don't know I'm asexual. In the past five years, I have not gotten married, had a good job, had a child, or traveled extensively. In my mind, many of the important things that I've done relate to asexuality...which I have vowed not to bring up for the first time in a group of people. (I've tried it in the past, but there always seems to be one ignorant person in the group who is super-loud about their disapproval, making it unusually difficult for anyone else in the group to accept what I'm saying.)

There always seems to be some new thing...

The HAP Travels

2011-07-22T10:38:00.000-07:00

My first post on the Hobbit Acceptance project has been featured here as a guest post on Cynosure. It's part of a series called HAIRevolution, which is still accepting submissions. Check Cynosure out; there are a lot of posts dealing with varying aspects of self-love and acceptance, which is something I've been thinking a lot about lately. (And if you came here from over there, welcome! Unfamiliar with the exciting world of asexuality? Check this out.)

"Camp Victory, How Wonderful You Are"

2011-07-19T15:31:00.000-07:00

You can consider this "Only the Good Die Young" Part II.

I didn't think I'd like Huge. It's about kids at fat camp, after all, and aired on ABC Family, which is not known for its realistic and nuanced depictions of teen life. But a glowing review by Lauren finally persuaded me to watch the show, a year after it originally aired.

People, this show is so good, it will just break your heart that it was killed after only ten episodes. It isn't perfect, but it's better than 99.9% of the teen dramas that have been brought back for multiple seasons. Although discussions of weight tend to quickly devolve into harsh and judgmental territory, this show actually manages to portray fat people without moralizing. Being fat may have brought these kids together, but their fat does not define them. There was a strange episode about an "authentic Native American spirit quest", where I couldn't tell if cultural appropriation was being satirized or just occurring thoughtlessly. It was a puzzling inclusion for a show that seemed to be trying its best to be sensitive about a wide range of topics.

For me, I know a show is good when my favorite character is ever-shifting. I was going, "Oh, Wil is totally my favorite...no, Becca...no, Trent...no, Alastair...". It means the characters are multi-dimensional and have emotional depth. Characters of all genders (and I can actually say that and have it make sense here, because Alastair may be genderqueer in some way) have inner lives that go beyond checking out hot people or trying to get laid.

And yes, there is an asexual, aromantic minor character, a camp counselor named Poppy. She's not a sociopath or a misanthrope! There is, however, one word that does describe her:

She's incredibly dorky, perhaps verging on derpy. But she means well, is very warm and friendly, and obviously cares a lot about her campers. And she plays ukulele!

ABC FAMILY, Y U NO SAVE POPPY?

Meetup this weekend!

2011-07-14T18:32:00.000-07:00

Meetup on Sunday, July 17th! I actually can't go...WHAT?! But you should go. If you're not in the area, why haven't you perfected your teleportation yet?

And because I can, have some suit porn. Don't worry, it's safe for work, especially if you work at a place that sells suits.

Not Having a "Career"... Makes Me Want to Smoke Crack.

2011-07-09T18:02:00.000-07:00

If you thought my stomach hair-related angst was overly personal...you ain't seen nothing yet. A continuation of this post. Which is, frighteningly, from July 2008.

***Trigger: Depression***

[Video: "Musikbyrån Makes Me Wanna Smoke Crack" by Pelle Carlberg]

You know those problems that just won't die? Maybe they're a life strategy or mental framework that just isn't helping you anymore. You've identified the issue long ago. It makes you feel bad, and you want to change. But you don't know how to change. And in a world that enables your pain, you don't know any other way to feel.

Well, I still have the same issue that I did in 2008. I feel like there's a hole in my life where a career should be. I keep telling myself, "I can be happy with or without a career", but after my career as "a student" ended, I was never quite the same person again. Sure, I had some jobs, but they didn't give me that sense of purpose that I craved. After college graduation, my mental health and functioning were completely shot to hell in a matter of weeks. Only years later did I read about the extreme emotional turmoil that can afflict autistic spectrum folks who are unprepared for these transitions (although I'm sure there are neurotypicals who've been through the same thing). I felt like after college, I died. That the "real me"--the optimistic, motivated person I used to be-- was frozen in a vault somewhere, waiting for a time when society could make some better use of people like myself.

It weirds me out that there is an amalgam to my experience--the person who feels empty without a mate--and yet the advice geared at these people barely goes a millimeter into what could be a very deep wound. They're told, "don't give up hope, you'll find someone", which leaves them even more bereft if they never do. In American culture, we're supposed to beat ourselves up for "falling behind". As adults, we're supposed to be the dictatorial parent, spanking our own damn selves for failing to "measure up". It's normal to look at Facebook (oh, the humanity) and see all the people getting married, having kids, buying houses, attaining prestigious careers...and to think that without these things, we are inferior, even if beyond the goalposts are things that some of us never wanted in the first place.

Although I am a radical, and have little good to say about most aspects of our mainstream American culture, it has just as much a hold on me as anyone else. Maybe the pressures even affect me all the more, because damaging cultural tropes were able to jump in and fill the hole that "student" left in my identity. The hole was quickly filled with a lot of self-hatred that it has, and will, take me years to overcome.

Self-love (and no, I don't mean it that way) is relatively easy when everything is going well and according to plan. But it's most needed when it's the hardest to conjure up: When the obstacles seem endless and the rewards few. When "he", whatever he is, is nowhere in sight, and might never be showing up at all. The answer is not to bemoan the fact that people have become doctors and lawyers in the same time that I've been doing "nothing", i.e, a bunch of sometimes-important things that our culture couldn't care less about. The answer must surely be to fill that emptiness with love (hi, ms. hooks)--the self-generated kind, since the space is too large for anyone else to fill for me.

It might be telling that I've written much more about romantic love--something I have never experienced--than self-love, which is something I desperately needed to cultivate, like yesterday, in order to have any chance at a happy life. As a culture, we know what romantic love looks like, and I would venture to say that we don't know what self-love looks like. If I can find that out, it may not be a husband, a career, or a house, but it would be something of great value. Whether people care about it on Facebook, or not.

Now, let's be soothed by the dulcet tones of Scandinavian indiepop.

Hobbit Acceptance Project: Conundrums

2011-07-03T14:03:00.000-07:00

I had no idea what kind of response I would get on the first HAP post, but it was fantastic. I so appreciated your support, encouragement, and commiseration. Much love.

Things I've learned since I have started, strangely enough, to think about body hair:

Because so many people of all genders remove or conceal their hair, no one knows what "normal" is. The internet is full of women asking, "Is it normal to have hair on my feet/chest/stomach/face/back?" And I don't have a clue. Nor do I have any idea what is "normal" for my ethnicity. There seems to be some agreement that Mediterranean and Eastern European peoples are especially hairy (I am a mix of both), but what does that even mean? (Aside from the fact that what's "sexy" on our heads is repulsive on our bodies.) When people know that they're "normal", it's much easier to not worry as much about whatever the issue may be. With the case of body hair, we never get that relief.

It's easier to show leg hair than armpit hair. I think this is probably because we're more used to seeing leg hair--mostly on men, but still. At least in my area, men with hairy legs wear shorts most places. However, men with hairy armpits only show them in the most casual settings--the gym, for instance, or the beach. American culture doesn't tend to have positive associations with men in sleeveless shirts. Uhh, the phrase 'wifebeater' comes to mind.

Which leads to my conundrum. Women can show their armpits whenever, wherever, in even the most formal occasions. But the expectation, of course, is that the armpits are hairless. In the centuries before women started shaving, female clothes were much less revealing. Do I shave to wear some clothes (perhaps more fancy or formal ones) and not others? Do I change the types of things that I wear? Or do I proceed as usual with my wardrobe, unshaven? I haven't yet answered these questions for myself.

At any rate, the HAP continues apace. I continue to wear my rolled-up jeans, shorts, and even wore a skirt one day. I did wear a sleeveless shirt on two occasions, but no one really saw me on those days. No evidence yet than anyone has particularly noticed or cared about any of these things, although I still feel apprehensive that I'm going to get rude comments. Maybe I should try to change my thinking and make it my goal to get rude comments. Then if I get them, I could feel vindicated rather than diminished. I have always shied away from making people uncomfortable, but sometimes it's impossible to make a statement, whether social or artistic, without doing that. Although if no one ever says anything...that would be perfectly fine!

"Who's asexy? You're asexy!"

2011-06-28T21:55:00.000-07:00

Because I'm still recovering from the weekend, I wanted to write something short about Pride. But what? I love haiku, so...

Bright sun, big balloons.
Matching shirts find agreement,
pride and openness.

(If you're in this picture and don't want me to post it, please let me know and I will remove it.)

Placing the blame where it belongs

2011-06-22T12:37:00.000-07:00

Although I kept complaining about how vague it was, I found Communion extremely thought-provoking, providing even more blog fodder than I originally anticipated...

In our chat, I talked with Fellmama about "passively accepting", but not loving, my body. I wanted to talk about the reasons why I hadn't loved my body, because they seem fairly different from the reasons I hear from a lot of women who aren't asexual. I didn't think I was too fat. I didn't care about being seen as sexy, sexually desirable, or feminine. If someone failed to love me, I knew that my resoundingly average body was probably not to blame. If it was, then that person is a sillyhead. I know that people of all shapes and sizes are able to find and keep friends and romantic partners. Before I knew I was asexual, I thought my looks were to blame for my never dating. But I let go of this idea when over the years, I saw people of every possible physical description get dates. Yeah, there are some things about my body I would change, but they didn't exactly keep me up at night.

What bothered me, though, is that our culture is constantly sexualizing and gendering my body. As I mentioned to Fellmama, appreciation of female bodies is almost always in a sexual context. I disagree with the gender binary, and I hate gender roles. And yet people will slap these on me, due to my female body. But the thing is...no matter how I looked, people would try to place me in a gender box. Even with people who look very androgynous, the general response is rarely, "Oh! An androgyne", but "Is that a boy or a girl?" While bell hooks makes no mention whatsoever of nonbinary people, she did lead me to this realization: I don't want to change my body, but how my body is seen. I want people to approach my body without the preconceived notions of gender. But if the world isn't ready, then that isn't the fault of my body.

(Locals, don't forget! Pride parade is this weekend, and you can get more details here.)

Road to Assault

2011-06-17T10:24:00.000-07:00

***Trigger warning for sexual assault/rape***

"Yeah, go back to your cabin and shoot yourself, that way nobody'll get hurt."

--Bob Hope to Dorothy Lamour, "Road to Rio"

Yesterday, I saw the movie "Road to Rio" which was the top-grossing film of 1947. At the end of the movie, Bob Hope gets Dorothy Lamour to marry him by using hypnosis. Considering that Hope (and his buddy, Bing Crosby) had been trying to seduce Lamour for the entire film, I thought that sexual assault was heavily implied here. A hypnotized person can't possibly consent, can they? But we're supposed to go, "Ho ho, how funny!" (It's interesting to note that in "Road to Rio", women and their charms are seen as a constant, severe danger to Hope and Crosby. "Dames" need to be toughly subdued before they get a chance to wreak havoc on the mens' lives. The fact that Hope and Crosby are unable to--and please forgive my crudeness--keep their dicks in their pants is not seen as an issue.)

Anyway, fast forward to recent years. "Road to Rio" would probably not be written. Of course, the 40's were just more sexist times...right? However, today, we're expected to laugh at a man being raped (not to mention having his bodily integrity violated in countless other ways). Stuff like this has led some people to believe that feminism has gone too far, and now women are holding privilege over men. But I don't think these folks are aware of why we are supposed to find male rape funny. I think it's for the same reason that we're supposed to find men in dresses funny--being raped is feminizing, and therefore embarrassing. At the same time, men are so sex-crazed that being raped (at least, by a woman) is not a big deal to them emotionally. There are a few assumptions here:

Rape is a "woman thing".

Rape as a "woman thing" is totally mundane.

"Women things" are demoralizing.

Rape can be enjoyable*.

All men want sex all the time. If you don't, you're not manly.

So yes, I believe that bell hooks was very much correct. Patriarchy does hurt everyone. In a truly post-feminist world, Jonah Hill's friends in Get Him to the Greek wouldn't have laughed off his rape experience. He could have admitted that yeah, there were times when he didn't want sex, and the other men wouldn't have mocked him for that. And we, the audience, wouldn't be expected to laugh, either.

*There is also the misunderstanding that if a situation arouses someone, then they're enjoying it. People can be physically aroused during rape. I seem to remember that in the film "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead", this fact is one reason why a male rape victim commits suicide.

Communion Conversation (Part 2)

2011-06-15T22:00:00.000-07:00

bell hooks (no caps on purpose) wants more feminists to talk about love. Fellmama and I tried to oblige, but we ended up conversing about a lot of different topics, including body image, dating younger men, and Otter Pops. Please check out Part 1 of our discussion on bell hooks' Communion here at The Feminist Book Project. This is the second part! (If anyone knows how to do spoilers on Blogspot...do tell.)

Ily: Well, I get the feeling that men in general don't like me, but that's another story.

Fellmama: Let's talk about that, because it sounds interesting. Why do you feel that men don't like you?

Ily: Women are usually friendly towards me, but men tend to ignore me for the most part. Like in a mixed gender group of people, I'll end up talking to women 95% of the time, because they're the ones who want to talk to me (or so it seems). I know some men like me, but I haven't been able to have a close male friend since elementary school.

Fellmama: Huh. I wonder, and this is just speculation, so feel free to sit on me. Do you think they sense your lack of sexual interest and interpret that as lack of holistic interest?

Ily: No, because the same holds true for gay and asexual men. Granted, there are many more out asexual women than men.

Fellmama: But, and this is linking back to bell hooks: How many men are emotionally able to separate sexual interest from other kinds, regardless of personal sexuality?

Ily: I really don't know, but there could be some truth in that.

Fellmama: Not that women are necessarily able to do this as well, but in our culture women are socialized to show non-romantic interest in people a lot more thoroughly. For example, my boyfriend has a friend, Mark. (I will use his name because this is a positive example and whatnot) And he's really ~interested~ in people. He'll ask them what they do, why they study what they study, what they think of global warming . . . weird stuff, even and he's genuinely waiting for the answer. It doesn't come across as sexual or weird, just friendly.

Ily: In my experience this is extremely rare for men.

Fellmama: EXACTLY! It is SO BIZARRE FOR A DUDE. It's like he's a trained 50s housewife. I find it surprising every. single. time. I interact with Mark, because it's just not what I expect from a man.

Ily: But it's like...I don't want to associate with people who can't or won't listen to me.

Fellmama: Agreed. And this leads back to the problem of finding men for feminist women. Do we just pretend they're listening? Or do we demand more? hooks actually phrases it that way, doesn't she . . .

Ily: Like hooks says, it's hard because we worry that if we demand more, the men will just go off and find a woman who doesn't make those demands. I saw some parallels with the asexual community actually, because women far outnumber men.

Fellmama: Ah yes, here it is: "Women are afraid to hear patriarchal men speak their thoughts and feelings when what they reveal expresses a reality vastly different from how we imagined them to be." (171)

Ily: I liked that a lot. Because a lot of time, we're led to believe that if men would just talk about their feelings, it would solve everything.

Fellmama: And so in the asexual community I'd bet there's even more pressure to conform if you find a male partner."Why do you have to be so picky? He's asexual, isn't that enough?"

Ily: Yeah. I've never heard of an asexual couple breaking up.

Fellmama: That part really resonated with me, as well. Because as a het woman in a relationship with a man, I'm simultaneously afraid of what I'd get if I saw what he was really thinking and anxious that he embrace feminism and progressivism. So it's a constant struggle between the temptation to take the lid off in hopes of growth and the weariness of having to do Feminism 101 again and again and AGAIN.

Ily: Theme of this book: No easy answers. (Isn't that the theme of every book on feminism?)

Fellmama: Guh, seriously. Someday, I'm going to publish a book called "Easy Answers"

Ily: I'd read it. (I want to make sure we have enough time to talk about the body image section, btw)

Fellmama: And the contents will just be simple math and history questions. oh oh yes very much so. anyway, body image omg I <3 bell hooks

Ily: Because I know we're both into the fat acceptance movement.

Fellmama: If for no other reason than she is all "you can't be a feminist mom and tell your daughter she looks fat, WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY"

Ily: It was interesting because she said, "Passively accepting your body isn't enough" and I was like, "Damn, I passively accept my body".

Fellmama: I think what she meant there (and again with the vague), is similar to what she said of women who "give up". Just because you've given up trying to mold yourself into patriarchal forms doesn't mean you love yourself.

Ily: Well, I agreed with her, although (again with the vague) she doesn't say how we're supposed to love our bodies in spite of all the messages to the contrary.

Fellmama: So you have to reach actively for some form of bodily love, even if that love means not shaving your legs. And furthermore I think [hooks] falls a bit into the trap many fat acceptance [FA] advocates and feminists are wallowing in which is: she talks a lot about how many women come to make peace with their bodies in midlife, but she avoids that many women come to that peace through ~sustained sexual relationships~. Speaking personally, the FA train is a lot easier to ride once you've been validated as sexually attractive, even if only once.

Ily: That is my struggle. No one is going to affirm my body, let alone affirm it in a nonsexual manner.

Fellmama: I think I've reached a point in my life where I don't need a dude to validate me. I affirm your body in a nonsexual manner! Well, I could if I were there in person.

Ily: Thanks! :) I'm smiling IRL. It's sort of like the tree falling in the forest. [ie, is my body lovable if no one ever sees it?]

Fellmama: But as I was saying, I think a lot of women in middle age get to that point and think "you know, I AM hot, lots of guys want/ed to do me."And while that is a path to self-acceptance . . . how, as you say, does someone who's asexual get to that point? Or even how does someone sexual get to that point without a lot of pain and suffering?And how do we teach children, who shouldn't BE sexualized, not to hate themselves before they even hit puberty?

Ily: I've been trying to actively love my body for 3 days now, I'll let you know how it goes.

Fellmama: My advice, if you want it? Look at yourself in the mirror, and instead of focusing immediately on your ONE HEINOUS FLAW, focus on something you wouldn't normally, like your ears or your nose. It really, really helps, me anyway. When I look at myself in the mirror, it takes an act of will not to look at my tummy blubber, but if I sort of cross my eyes and just glance back, I see what other people see, which is not the Beluga Queen of the Northern Seas, interestingly.

Ily: I read a blog comment once from a fat woman that was something like, "when I look at a photo of another fat woman, the first thing I see is her smile". For me, there is definitely some kind of gender and sexuality component tied up in my body acceptance, more so than just my appearance. It's definitely complicated.

Fellmama: Yes, I see this all the time working clothing retail. There are all sorts of rituals and hedges around our bodies,and we're supposed to propitiate the Fat Gods by performing the ritual.

Ily: I don't want to be seen as a "woman" before a "person", but I'm trying to blame sexism and not my body. What is the ritual? Like going, "Urrr, I'm so fat"?

Fellmama: Oh geez, so many to choose from: "I need a new bra--I'm having a baby!"

"I need a new bra--I just had/am nursing a baby!"

"I need a new bra--I've lost [Large Number] pounds!"

Ily: Ahhh, I getcha.

Fellmama: You can't just gain some weight, you have to have an Excuse. And if you've lost weight, you can't leave it your own damn personal business.

Ily: Is this the, "OMG I LOST 5 POUNDS!" people?

Fellmama: To give them credit, the clientele at my fat lady store laughs at the 5 pounds people. Given that most of us can lose 5 pounds by sneezing, it's not considered a "significant" weight loss. I would say that the least amount of weight I've heard bragged about is 30 pounds, but dear lord Jesus, it is SO BORING.

Ily: Yeah, that's a fair amount. It's extremely boring. In my sewing class, there are a bunch
of "midlife" women who talk about weight a lot.

Fellmama: Yes, my knitting group is the same way. Let us make a pact, you and me. When we are old, not only will we wear purple with a red hat that doesn't go, we will not talk nonstop about our weights as if that is all that mattered ever.

Ily: Yes :) I think we're already past that, go us! We cannot unsee what we have seen.

Fellmama: I bet bell hooks doesn't approve of it either. If only because I'm pretty sure she'd rather talk about love.

Ily: Ha, yeah, she would.

Fellmama: But I think a lot of feminists have made this argument: There are many more important things to talk about. Not only is diet talk boring, it distracts us from meaningful conversation, and, dare I say it, genuine human connection? I don't know about you, but when the knitting ladies go off about the diet stuff, I sit there in awkward silence.

Ily: Yes, because it immediately sets up a competition. As do I [sit there in awkward silence].

Fellmama: I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings,but I honestly don't give a shit. And furthermore, I feel attacked for refusing to conform. I don't diet, I won't diet, and while I don't care who knows it, I don't talk about it because it is BORING.

Ily: It could also be so triggering for someone with an eating disorder. And they don't know I don't have one!

Fellmama: I KNOW RIGHT "I lost ten thousand pounds on the Dr. Oz Seaweed cleanse, but you there the recovering anorexic, don't listen to me! You're beautiful as you are!"

Ily: Don't 1 in 8 women have an eating disorder? That's a lot.

Fellmama: I don't know the numbers offhand, but that certainly sounds plausible.

Ily: (Although I'm sure people, when looking at me, would think I couldn't possibly have an ED...because there is the ED= thin myth)

Fellmama: I've also heard convincing arguments that every woman in US culture has disordered eating or has engaged in it.

Ily: I could believe that.

Fellmama: To which I say, amen, because while I may not be full-blown disordered, I have DEFINITELY engaged in disordered eating. Especially as an adolescent, surprise surprise.

Ily: It seems "natural" to be a little weird about food (like, for women in our culture). So it's hard to know what is actually disordered.

Fellmama: Truth. But there's, I don't care for steak, and then there's, I don't eat red meat because it is too fattening and if I get fat no one will love me.

Ily: Yeah, intent matters.

Fellmama: And again, I've noticed it's not all right to dislike food without a ~reason~. You can't simply say "I don't eat shrimp". You have to pretend to be kosher or vegan or a recovering fisherman or some shit to get people off your back.

Ily: Tell me about it. WHY DON'T YOU EAT MEAT TELL ME NOW!

Fellmama: I was going to say, surely you, as a vegan, have some insight here.

Ily: it's just bizarre because there are a limited amount of reasons for someone to become vegan, surely educated people will know them [at least where I live--a vegan-heavy area], and yet people still insist on asking.

Fellmama: I think I would go with "I don't eat meat because my entire family was killed in a tragic cowjacking gone wrong" but again, this isn't something I face on a daily basis.

Ily: I have said that I own stock in Gardenburger.

Fellmama: Frankly, as long as someone's reason for veganism or whatever isn't "so I can be self-righteous about YOU," I don't care why.

Ily: I think some people ask because they WANT me to be self-righteous towards them, so that they can feel superior to me. FOOD IS WEIRD. But really, where do feminist men hang out? (I just had to come back to this!) How do we meet them?

Fellmama: I . . . don't, I guess?

Ily: It was funny because hooks was all, "They are out there! Just date younger men!”

Fellmama: I guess she's talking about like . . . my boyfriend.

Ily: Your boyfriend is younger?

Fellmama: No, he's just about my age ,but he'd definitely be younger than bell hooks!

Ily: bell hooks is a cougar, no way around that.

Fellmama: That is my new facebook status SO FAST. But anyway, when I go to knit night or hang out at the yarn store, I'm around a lot of middle-aged women. And I listen to them talk and a lot of their achievements are like "I got my husband to do his OWN laundry! I do my own and the kids', but he does his own!"And I'm like . . . "this is the best you can do, seriously?" TI and I do laundry together, in common.

Ily: Ahh, I see where you're going.

Fellmama: if anything, he's better about it than I am, at least in terms of the "not letting it sit in the basket for days". And like chore equality, we do roughly the same amount of housework and we cook dinner together, or take turns. And my other housemates who are a couple do this, too and so do my housemate and his girlfriend who doesn't live here, at least when it comes to stuff like cooking. So she's definitely got a point in terms of LIVED gender equality. Like, my boss at the yarn store, she stayed home with her children, the youngest of whom is fifteen.

Ily: I do feel like men our age do more around the house.

Fellmama: and when her older kid went off to college, she was like "okay, no more staying at home for me!"so they bought the yarn store and whatnot. but like, she still cooks dinner ~every~ night except for Saturdays, when she's at the store.

Ily: Second Shift, yeah.

Fellmama: And then, if she doesn't like put it in the crockpot, she won't have dinner at home. Yes, very much so. And in a way it's more than second shift, it's a fundamental difference in worldview. In TI's worldview, if I'm working all day and he happens to be home, he should feed me, whereas if I'm at home, I should feed him. I honestly don't think gender enters his mind there at all.

Ily: That's probably an improvement over most men bell hooks' age.

Fellmama: Definitely. My dad only learned to cook out of self-defense when my mom went back to work (although you will note, he actually did it, and did it well, rather than whining or eating out every night). TI cooks very well, and he knows how to clean stuff, and, most importantly to my mind, he doesn't view it as ~someone else's JOB~ to do these things for him.

Ily: Good!

Fellmama: So I see a lot of hope there. And something that makes me even more hopeful is that we never actually had to discuss anyof this. We naturally fell into a pattern that more or less works and actually IS egalitarian, it didn't have to be negotiated or anything.

Ily: I wonder how common that is.

Fellmama: I'm not sure, I should conduct a survey. At any rate, anything else to say about bell hooks?

Ily: Not much, although I think a lot of what she says about "powerful women" is just a response to whatever people have said about her personally over the years.

Fellmama: I agree to a certain extent. I will say, though, I felt like I got a lot more personal pushback as a woman in a traditionally male-dominated discipline (classics) than I do as a woman working retail. So part of it might simply be that as I'm already viewed as powerless on a class/gender basis, and in a job where everyone else is a woman anyway, I'm not seeing the kind of abuse hooks is talking about.

Ily: I guess I feel like there aren't really that many powerful women out there.

Fellmama: That's true as well, although look at the horrific stuff women perceived as powerful are subjected to. Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Angelina Jolie.

Ily: Well, maybe that [my comment that there are few powerful women] isn't so. It's hard to really know what "powerful" means in this context.

Fellmama: That is a very good point. "Powerful" in terms of sexual agency? In terms of politics? Or just "powerful" in terms of "not willing to be pushed around"?

Ily: Sorry, person hassling me...I am sitting in "her chair"[in the public library].

Fellmama: Oh dear, well, you must move at ONCE or the aliens will probably reduce you to cinders.

Ily: Yeah, I tried to ignore her and she moved to the other side of the room.

[At this point, the conversation wandered apace from bell hooks.]

What's the HAPs? The Hobbit Acceptance Project, Phase 1

2011-06-12T12:44:00.000-07:00

If you're like Sherlock Holmes, you probably tried your best to forget my post about body hair. In that post, I mentioned that while I don't like shaving, I was scared to break that social norm. On a good day, I tend to be a bit socially anxious, worrying that everyone is staring and laughing at me. I wrote: "Maybe I can put myself on a gradual plan...becoming more comfortable with stubble, perhaps, before I embark on a full quest to Middle Earth." And I decided to do something like this...an experiment, if you will. I wanted to share its progress with anyone who might be interested.

Step 1: Cycling Immunity

When you ride a bicycle, it's customary to roll up your pant legs, so that the fabric doesn't get stuck in the bike's chain. It had been a while (maybe two or three weeks) since I'd shaved my legs, so I decided to roll up my pant legs...and then leave them like that as I went about my business. As I hopped off my bike, I would feel a growing sense of self-consciousness. When nothing happened, I would forget about my legs. Then, I would look down and feel that pang of awareness again. It would pass. It seemed easier to break the social norm this way, since I had an "excuse" for baring my legs, and it could be passed off as something "unintentional". This step lasted for around 3 days, and I went to casual places like the library, grocery store, and a friend's house. (I'm currently working as a pet sitter, and the animals don't care about my appearance, luckily.)

Step 2: Photography

I knew that the next step was to intentionally bare my legs in shorts. One Sunday morning, it was finally warm enough to wear them. I put the shorts on, but I still didn't feel comfortable going out in public. I knew I still didn't fully accept the hair, but maybe I could at least put it in its proper place. So I took a full-body picture of myself. When I looked down at myself, the first thing I noticed was the hairiness of my legs. But when I looked at the photo, the first thing I noticed was the fact that my shirt collar was oddly misshapen. And when I looked at my legs in the photo, it was the paleness of my skin I noticed first. These observations were fairly neutral, and this gave me the push I needed to go out. I'd been wanting to check out a certain vegan treat at a local farmer's market. Surely this would be an easy place to have hairy legs?

[Image: Me, caught mid-dance move]

Step 3: Among Raw Food Enthusiasts

As I stepped out of my car, I felt the fear come. I even walked through a parking lot, trying to avoid the public gaze. I entered the market and bought my food, then walked with it through the throng of people. And then it happened: People whispering about me.

Woman 1: What does she have?
Woman 2: A cone of vegetables.
Woman 1: That is so cool!

That comment made my heart soar--no exaggeration. While I don't want to care what people think of me, when it comes to breaking social norms, sometimes a bit of social approval can really help. No one, at least in that crowd, cared about my hairiness. Good choice, me!

And so the project continues. To all those working towards the acceptance of Hobbits, and other exotic creatures, I salute you.

[Image: Casting directors agree--Martin Freeman kinda looks like a Hobbit. But d'awww, he's so cute! As are we, my friends...as are we.]

New posts are up!

2011-06-06T17:19:00.000-07:00

Check the round-up post for new writings: Isaac on the Spanish-speaking asexual community, and Eli on her experience being black and asexual.

Also in the works, a new project so awesome that it can't be contained within one blog! Check it out.

That's all for now...

Carnival of Aces 2: Round-Up Post

2011-06-01T16:19:00.000-07:00

Many thanks for all your submissions to the second round of Carnival of Aces. I'm sure you'll find a lot of interesting reading material among these posts. This months's theme was the intersection between asexuality and race, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. And we ended up with posts covering all of these topics.

Important Note! If you're now thinking, "Damn, I wish I'd submitted a post", then you're in luck. It isn't too late. I'll still host guest posts and update this list as I receive more posts. Just comment here, or e-mail me (sanfranciscoemily[at]gmail[dot]com) to alert me to your post or to send me a guest post. This will continue as long as there is interest.

The next round of the carnival will be hosted at Skeptic's Play, and the due date for posts will be July 1st.

[Image: A carnival snack to keep you going.]

The posts:

1. Carmilla DeWinter muses on the state of the German asexual community.

2. KJ talks about her experience as an asexual in white, Southern, Christian culture.

3. Siggy explores some of the issues facing queer Asians.

4. Not everyone "...has an easily-defined racial identity", writes Teafeather.

5. Kaz, who is German, writes about the difficulty in expressing asexual concepts with zer native language.

6. Asian men aren't sexual? Phaseolus discusses Asian stereotypes and how they influenced his self-identity.

7. "I'm dating a girl, and I can't tell my church." Sophia writes about the Mennonite culture.

8. The asexual movement needs more racial diversity. Will a largely white group continue to perpetuate more of the same? I discuss this catch-22.

9. Isaac writes about some of the differences between AVEN and AVENes, the Spanish-speaking asexual community.

10. Eli has faced elitism and misunderstanding from people in the black community. By discovering asexuality, she found a place to fit in.

A Place of Whiteness

2011-05-29T14:15:00.000-07:00

You're looking at the front page of AVEN. Here, an issue of AVENues is displayed, bearing a photo from one of our San Francisco meetups. Everyone in the picture is white. Maybe this is accurate to the demographic of some areas (Ely, Minnesota perhaps), but not in the Bay Area, where stats on Wikipedia claim that white people are 58.1% of the population. Siggy's post made a similar observation. While making her documentary on asexuality, Angela asked me something along the lines of, "where are the asexuals of color?" Granted, our meetups are rarely 100% white. However, they are probably 80-90% white, which doesn't match up with the actual demographic of the Bay Area.

I was/am worried that this round of the blog carnival wouldn't contain many posts by asexuals of color. But if you consider the fact that only a tiny proportion of the ace community will participate in this blog carnival...and then think about the fact that most of the people who are currently active in the asexual community are white...that result becomes highly likely. I wasn't sure how to get around this. It's a conundrum, because while I would like to see the asexual movement become less white (by the addition of POCs, not by kicking out white people), I am coming from a place of whiteness, as are most of the people who are visible in our community. I don't want to tokenize people or try to speak to experiences that I can't understand. If certain asexuals of color don't feel comfortable with aspects of the ace community, or like it isn't speaking to them, I would probably not be the one to discern those aspects.

Maybe we need some kind of "asexual diversity task force", but of course it would be ridiculous if the group was full of white people. I strongly believe in "nothing about us, without us", a slogan from the disability rights movement. So I don't want to talk about people without them, which I feel like I'm already approaching too closely here. But, I think it's important to make this community a place where everyone can feel included and where intersectionality is widely understood. Can the asexual community more accurately reflect the racial and ethnic composition of the actual world?

One possible issue is that our reliance on the internet medium probably leads to the increased invisibility of POCs in our community. Since whiteness is seen as the "default" race (this is a crucial aspect of hegemony), people online are probably assumed to be white until stated otherwise. This is a problem since out asexuals of color are a small enough group as it is. Also, look at the characters and celebrities that are described as asexual. They're all white, aren't they? (Although an exception might be on the horizon-- some people are saying that Patterson Joseph, a black actor, might be playing the next incarnation of the Doctor on Doctor Who.) And last, but importantly, asexuals of color in media appearances are few, if they appear at all.

Guest Post: Some Musings on the State of the German Ace Community

2011-05-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

This post was written by Carmilla DeWinter for round two of the Carnival of Aces. Carmilla is German. 29 years old. Part time pharmacist, part time unpublished novelist, full time geek. Also Asexual.

When I first started researching asexuality more deeply this winter, I was surprised that there weren’t any active German blogs on the matter.

I shouldn’t have been.

Actually, the German AVEN forum is comparatively big given the amount of people who know German versus those who know English: 7,000 plus members, that is, nearly a quarter of the US site. Most of them never bother to introduce themselves and vanish directly into the meet-up section: no surprise there.

However, we seem not yet to have reached the critical mass when there are enough individuals who are tired of the forum’s 101 as well as zealous enough to write about asexuality in a wider context. (As for myself, I’m currently gathering momentum, and I’m not sure I’ll end up writing a blog, exactly.)

The queer discourse, mentions of Asexual Pride or the term ‘zucchini’ haven’t made it over the pond quite yet.

Publicity-wise, I believe we’ve turned into old news while never having really been new news. Despite the low media coverage and the fact that we’re being ignored even where it might be important to someone’s mental health – our biggest complimentary health magazine had a piece about low desire being an issue in relationships and never mentioned asexuality – we get a regular influx of newcomers.

Thus, to most it might look like things are going alright.

The relief expressed in most introductory posts show that they aren’t.

Most of the German asexuals would prefer more visibility, I’m certain. I don’t know if the meager visibility participation is, again, a result of our numbers, or of the particular relationship Germans as a whole have with authorities – we tend to believe them too much, and are very hesitant about clamoring for attention. We are not like the French or the Greek, who go into strike over everything they don’t like.

Sometimes I believe we are waiting for an authority to tell us that we do, in fact, exist, and need to be acknowledged. That we needn’t be ashamed, and that we’re not rare beasts instead of persons. However, without more visibility work, this is not going to happen.

Catch 22.

In the meantime, we’ll go complain to others on the forum and preach to the choir. (Hear me roar?)

Ah, well. At least no one worthy of note is using our orientation as an insult yet.

Guest Post: Children, Marriage and Family Expectations

2011-05-26T12:00:00.000-07:00

This post was written by KJ for round two of the Carnival of Aces. KJ says: "I am a 25, asexual, grad school student who studies art and psychology. My hobbies are reading too much, running, cooking and tilting at windmills."

I come from a white, southern, Christian culture. Obviously, being white has afforded me multiple privileges. Being southern comes with the baggage of a terrible history of race relations and some spectacularly racist family members and family friends. Growing up Christian, I had privilege because I was a member of the dominant religious group. However, at age 16, I stopped believing and left the church, but my knowledge of that culture gives me help in ‘passing’ since religion is not a usually a visible aspect of identity.

Coming from this culture, I received some explicit and covert messages about sexuality. First, there was an assumption of heterosexuality. Second, there was an assumption that, as a woman, I would want to get married. Third, there was the assumption that I would have children. And there was the message that getting married and having children is the most important thing I could do.

The way things worked at my church was an example of all this. The youth group was set up as a place for ‘fellowship.’ It was a place that was explicitly Christian that encouraged us to spend time only with fellow Christians. A large number of the activities were set up to encourage the formation of relationships, from discussions about what God would want us to look for in a spouse, to relay races that involved holding toothpicks in your mouth and passing a lifesaver from person to person (the line was always set up boy-girl-boy-girl.) It was implied that marrying and marrying a fellow Christian was what we should do. It goes without saying that it was implied that we were all heterosexual.

When I announced, in high school, that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to have children, my family ignored my statements. However, since I am now approaching my quarter-century mark, I’ve had explicit things said about my single/childless state. For instance when I was discussing the fact that I didn’t want to get married or have biological children, my brother made the comment that “well, people like you should really have children.” People like me means white girls from the suburbs with college degrees. There is a great deal of paranoia among the racists in the south that people of color are having more children than white people. Hence, as a white girl who displays no interest in reproducing, I am letting ‘the white race’ down.

Many friends of the family have made similar statements. I think they are especially puzzled because I am such a ‘good’ girl. I don’t wear mini-skirts or sleep around. I am smart, well-spoken and obviously able to take care of myself. But, by their standards, I have failed at an essential task: marriage and children (in that order, of course). Staying with family friends this summer, I was asked if I was thinking about getting married (I hadn’t seen these people since I was 16). A family friend, on my first trip home from college, asked if I was dating. When I told her I was too busy, she looked pained. I was a freshman in college, double-majoring. Even if I was sexual, who has time?

While I have a great deal of privilege, my asexuality sets me pretty far outside the bounds of acceptable white, southern, Christian female behavior. Though I’m not Christian, it is assumed I will follow those values. Being asexual and a virgin means I appear to have internalized the cultural value of purity. But I am not choosing to be celibate; I am asexual. I also feel silenced because asexuality is not talked about. I doubt any of my family would have heard the term. I did come out to my Mom this summer; of the family, she is the most liberal and easy-going of the family and has no investment in my producing a brood of children. She took it well and eventually, I might tell my brother. But cultural barriers make it harder to do this; being asexual is not just a personal quirk to my family and my culture, but an act of betrayal of the ‘natural order’ of life. I am a freak, not just because I am an atheist, liberal artist, but because I am asexual and refusing (as they see it) to order my life in a conventional way.

Arts & Crafts Minute with Ily

2011-05-19T14:41:00.000-07:00

As you may know, some folks have adopted a black ring, worn on the middle finger of the right hand, as an asexual symbol. As far as visibility goes, it's pretty ineffectual. But, I think it could be powerful to look down and remember that you're part of an asexual community, especially when so many of us rarely interact with other aces in meatspace. The black ring was one of those things that I would wear if I already had it, but I didn't feel like running out and buying one, since I already have a bunch of rings I rarely wear. So I managed to come up with a solution that was free, took under five minutes to make, and avoids some of the issues with metal rings (like getting the perfect size). I present the t-shirt ring tutorial.

First, find a scrap of black t-shirt material. If you don't have some lying around, you can cut the sleeves off a black tee from your closet or a thrift store. (I suggest the sleeves because then you'll still have a wearable shirt.) Figure out what side of the material you want to be the outward-facing side. T-shirt material rolls up, and if you put the rolls on the outside, your ring will have a nice 3-D effect. Remember to sew on the "wrong" side of your fabric, because you will be turning the ring inside-out later.

Steps shown in the picture:

Cut out a small strip of fabric that is slightly longer than the circumference of your finger. This is as scientific as we're getting here.
Wrap the fabric around your finger and when you get a good fit, pin the two ends together.
Take out the pin and sew over the area, either by hand or with a machine. It doesn't need to be perfect. I sewed mine crookedly with white thread and the finished product still looked fine!
Cut off the ends and turn the ring inside-out. You could iron the ends flat, but as I wore the ring, the ends got pressed down flat anyway.

Here's the finished product:

The only problem with a fabric ring is that it'll get soggy if you wash your hands with it on. But the stretchy material will help accommodate finger size fluctuations (don't tell me I'm the only person who has that), and if it gets lost, who cares? From one t-shirt sleeve you could make at least 20 more.

2 links about shaving

2011-05-16T17:28:00.000-07:00

I know, this is some Tumblr-type action, but here are some links related to my last post about body hair:

Who Decided Women Should Shave Their Legs and Underarms? Some of the history behind womens' hair removal. It's interesting!
A Rant on Shaving and the Power of Advertising covers personal and environmental perspectives, as well as how Gilette got us to buy more razors, and why those damn cartridges are so expensive.

What a heck of a way to start your day...

2011-05-16T16:28:00.001-07:00

Asexual participation in the San Francisco pride parade is a go! It'll be on Sunday, June 26th. Although I'm not the lead on it this year, if you have any questions I can probably answer them.
At our most recent meetup, Sara Beth told us all about Asexual Awareness Week, which will be taking place in October. It's going to be a big deal, and you can follow them on Facebook or Twitter until they get their website up.
Don't forget to submit to the blog carnival if you are so moved. Never fear, I only have about two more weeks to bug you about it.

The Other Hobbit

2011-05-08T17:03:00.000-07:00

And now for something a little different...

On the "References" page of K's blog, there are a few posts about feminism and body hair. It seems like a relevant thing to post about now, since it's the season of shorts, swim suits, and increased hair removal (at least in my hemisphere). If you search for "Body hair and feminism" on the internet, you come up with even more interesting posts. So while I may not be the first feminist to discuss body hair, I think it's a pretty fascinating issue, one that is under-discussed for all the time we spend trying to get rid of the hair in question.

First, let's get one thing straight-- Although seeing it on other people doesn't bother me, I've long had angst towards my own body hair. Even the words themselves give me the creeps. As a child, I was extremely upset about going through puberty. Yes, it's true that I'm not a big fan of major changes that I have no control over. But looking back, I think part of my fear had to do with being a young asexual. We're always told that puberty is our first step towards becoming full-fledged sexual beings. Being told "You're a woman now" can be frightening for the pubescent asexual, since in most people's minds, adulthood is linked with sexual rites of passage. And I was definitely pissed off that suddenly, I had to shave my legs and armpits. It was time-consuming, I often cut myself, and I was always self-conscious that I had missed spots (which in fact, I usually did). However, if I hadn't shaved, I would have been horribly ridiculed.

While my views on body hair have relaxed a lot since then (missed a spot? Who cares?), I have mixed feelings about putting down the razor. My fear isn't looking like a "natural, adult woman", but like a Hobbit. In truth, I only consistently shave when the parts in question will be visible-- and in usually-chilly Northern California where "layering" rules, that's not often. However, this proves the oft-made point that shaving isn't really my choice. I do it so people won't look at me funny, not because it makes me feel "cleaner" or "sexier". It's something I do not for myself, but for the public gaze. Obviously I don't feel pleased with this. Maybe I can put myself on a gradual plan...becoming more comfortable with stubble, perhaps, before I embark on a full quest to Middle Earth.

Here is an article about how harrowing life can be as a hairy female, complete with $10,000 electrolysis, risky medications, and bacterial infections from waxing. The conclusion of the article is basically: "Tough shit. If you don't want to be ridiculed and live a life of shame, torture yourself through hair removal". (Lest you think this is a woman-only issue, even men, who were long able to be hairy in peace, are facing increasing pressure to remove their body hair.) In the article, interviewees express hurt, shame, and fatigue. But working to change the social standards that led them there was never mentioned as a possible solution. To me, it looks like the only one that will actually empower people, rather than making them feel continually worse.

For comments, all I ask is that people don't criticize the appearance of others. I've seen it happen way too much in discussions on similar topics. (For instance: "Body hair is okay, as long as it's not dark! EWWW!" Uh...what? If we're accepting body hair, let's do away with arbitrary, Eurocentric beauty standards at the same time, shall we?) This blog is supposed to be a safe space, and body-related issues can be sensitive. Let's make it easier on each other, yes?

And one more thing...

2011-05-05T20:53:00.000-07:00

If you might know any interested writers or artists, please pass on the information about the blog carnival. Seeing as this is a race/ethnicity/culture/nationality topic, it would of course be ideal to have a diversity of people represented. And if you have ideas for ways to promote the carnival, please feel free to let me know. This isn't my personal project, after all, but anyone and everyone's.

Love, Captain Obvious

Carnival of Aces Round 2: Call for Participation

2011-05-03T15:11:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the second edition of A Carnival of Aces! The theme for this month’s post is The intersection between race, ethnicity, culture, or nationality and the asexual identity. I'm sorry for the length of that sentence, but I wanted to make it broad while avoiding confusion. I chose this topic because it has been under-discussed and out of all the topics I was considering, this is the one I've seen the least amount of writing on. Although you may or may not find this topic relevant to you personally, it is open to everyone. All I ask is that if race/ethnicity/culture/nationality is a place where you have privilege, to please be aware of that while writing.

Posts may be submitted for this second round of the carnival until June 1st, at which point the carnival will travel to a new blog and I will create a round-up post full of all the submissions for this month.

Any post dealing with both asexuality and the theme of the carnival is welcome. Alternate forms of media (images, video, poetry, fiction, etc) are also welcome as long as they deal with the theme. If you’re not sure whether your piece is on-topic, submit it anyway and we’ll figure it out. Submissions should be posted as comments here or emailed to me at sanfranciscoemily [at]gmail[dot]com. You can also send me things on Tumblr if you're more comfortable with that; my name there is the-pineapple. If you don’t have a blog but you want to submit a post, I’m glad to host guest posts here; again, please contact me if you want to do that. You can make a guest post anonymously if you would like.

Some background information about this project:

For those who are unfamiliar with them, a blog carnival is an event in which many people write blog posts around a single theme. These posts are then collected at the end of the carnival and linked together by the carnival’s host.

This particular blog carnival is an effort to encourage a variety of different voices to speak about asexuality from their own perspectives. Anyone can participate, but the responses should deal with asexuality or the asexual spectrum (grey-As, demisexuals) in some way. They should also relate in some way to the theme of each round of the carnival, which will change from month to month and will be chosen by the person hosting the carnival for that month.

Thank you all very much!

For much of the text of this post, the credit goes to Sciatrix.

Carnival Of Aces: It's baaack (almost)!

2011-05-01T20:56:00.000-07:00

So, my blog will be hosting the second installment of Carnival of Aces. But with great power (uh...sort of) comes great responsibility. Of course, I have procrastinated terribly when it comes to picking out a theme for this month's carnival (submissions will be due on June 1st, and a post with all the details is to follow). Before deciding the theme, I wanted to see if any of you fine readers had theme ideas that you wanted to share, especially people without their own blogs (because you would not have the opportunity to host the carnival yourself). Beware: I may pick your theme, and I may pick no one's. If you want to comment on this, please do so in the next day or two, because I will be putting up an introduction post ASAP after that time. Here were some of my own ideas, which you are also welcome to argue for or against:

Childhood experiences. Of course, this will not be based on the idea that our childhood experiences made us asexual. But for instance, kids start to "like" each other some time in elementary school. How did we navigate all this, before we had detailed knowledge of sexuality?
Secrets. A while ago, Hot Pieces of Ace did a "secrets" prompt, and I thought those were very interesting and especially touching videos. Of course, you could be anonymous and I have a few strategies for making that happen.
Dealing with pressure (ie, "peer pressure", which is still an issue in adulthood although people don't tend to use that term anymore). Reading parts of Flux brought home the fact that sexual pressure is a big deal for everyone-- not just asexuals. The books quotes a National Opinion Research Center poll which found that 25% of American women did not want to have sex the first time that they did.
Asexuality and the intersection of race, ethnicity, or culture.

Anyway, I promise that the theme will be announced very soon, so you won't have to remain in painful suspense much longer.

Mr. Masochistic

2011-04-28T13:24:00.000-07:00

Mary's Feminist Book Project inspired me to take a look at Flux by Peggy Orenstein. In that book, there were profiles of educated, successful women who were horrified by the prospect of being 40 and single. However, based on their life choices so far, it seemed to me that they were headed squarely towards the fate they wanted so badly to avoid. Their sheer terror at being 40 and single, coupled with the fact that a number of these women had had chances to marry, made me wonder...Is a glorified "Mr. Right" just another impossible ideal designed to frustrate and distract women, like being a size 2 or having perfect hair? (See The Beauty Myth for more details.) Women expect to marry these difficult-to-find men (nurturing and sensitive, yet ambitious and assertive), however we are terrified of being single. We are put in a position where we cannot win, and where we are pressured to spend vast amounts of time and energy in pursuit of this elusive ideal.

Another form of self-torture illustrated by Flux is "The Perfect Mother". Whatever a woman does for her children, it is never seen as enough--to the people in her life, to society, and to herself. Contrast that to her husband, who is praised as an "involved father" just for helping out with the kids once in a while. Even in couples who share the parenting equally, women still bear the vast majority of the judgments, expectations, and if something goes wrong, the blame. The women interviewed in Flux claimed to have no time or energy for self-awareness until they were in their 40's (!). Like the Beauty Myth or Mr. Right, women are so overburdened by being Perfect Mothers that they can lose their sense of self in the process. For eons, women were solely defined by their relationships to men and children. But in our current culture, where women have more choices but can never make the "right choice" (Stay home with your children, but have a career!) it can feel like we've just replaced one prison with another.

Yes, Flux is kind of depressing. However, the author didn't include interviews with anyone who didn't prove her thesis. I feel lucky to know a number of people who have rejected society's standards for what men and women "should" be. As time goes on, will they become the norm or remain the exception? Right now, giving up the quest for Mr. Right is a radical choice. But people are starting to make it, so maybe that speaks well for a future of more real options. What remains crucial is that people making these "radical" choices actually discuss them, so people will know that the option exists.

"Pre-Gay Patterns"

2011-04-22T15:01:00.000-07:00

How many great stories have started out with, "So I was reading this amazing book about heroin addicts..."

Okay, not many. The book, Righteous Dopefiends, is remarkable, though. Two anthropologists spent twelve years with a group of homeless heroin addicts living under a freeway in San Francisco. It's an easy group to vilify (the government of San Francisco has certainly done it enough), but the book really shows you these people's humanity and the complex web of factors that led them to their lifestyle. It's very eye-opening. In a chapter called "Male Love", there's a short section about the seemingly contradictory sexual identity of some of these "dopefiends". Some of the men are involved in homoromantic or homosexual relationships, but they remain openly homophobic and retain their identity as heterosexuals.

(Before sharing a quote from the book, I have to explain the word "lumpen". This is the authors' re-imagining of a term from Marx, "lumpen proletariat", referring to the most marginalized people in society.)

Historians have argued that gay identity in the United States emerged after World War II. Formerly, men who had sex with one another might maintain a fully masculine social identity (Chauncey 1994). In fact, sex between men was relatively common in the largely all-male communities of the marginal lumpenized working class. (Phillipe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg, 214)

And

In the 2000s, these same "pre-gay" patterns persisted. Lumpen and poor working-class men might, under certain conditions, have sex and fall in love with one another without altering their masculine self-conception. They could even remain aggressively homophobic. Sex between men who do not self-identify as gay or bisexual has been well documented in a range of contemporary lumpen settings [prisons, sex worker strolls, and transient labor camps are given as examples]...Although it is frequently described, this form of masculine sexuality remains undertheorized, and it is not generally analyzed as a class-based phenomenon. (214)

The authors also mention that "class dynamics have been, for the most part, absent from [queer theory literature]." (215)

I tried to talk about asexuality and class here, but it was a pretty awkward analysis, with my attempts to discuss both race and class at the same time. In Righteous Dopefiend, the authors sleep outside with the homeless, having an experience of class that's very different from their own. I would guess that such things are rare. The truth seems to be that for some truly "lumpen" groups, the concept of sexuality as we know it today is largely irrelevant. I think that's definitely an idea worth noting; we often talk about something like sexual orientation being universal in scope. But little, if anything, really is.

"Friendless Summer"

2011-04-14T14:26:00.000-07:00

(One of those admin notices: I'm going to be farming for about a week. Do farms have internet? I don't know, I've never been to a real one before. So comment moderation may be slow or nonexistent...just sayin'.)

Oh Lucksmiths, you were just so witty and lovely, and to top it all off, your singer actually enunciated. Too bad you broke up, but at least you have a large back catalogue to peruse. They tended to be great lyricists, and their music is perfect for, well, summer. Like this song. I found it here, while looking at some of the Matinee Recordings releases. The song is about something that has probably happened to all of us, regardless of orientation-- a friend that falls in love and suddenly becomes too busy to spend time with us anymore. However, as someone that doesn't do the whole "falling in love thing", I've always felt a little left-out that I'd never be on the other side. (Not like I would purposely ditch my friends, but it would be nice to know what the fuss was all about.) Now, it does sound like the narrator is actually in love with the person he's singing about...but it always hurts to lose a good friend, whether they're your secret crush or strictly platonic.

"Friendless Summer"
by the Lucksmiths
transcribed by me

Today of all days you decided
that you'd drop in uninvited
You were ever-so excited,
you were never so in love.
This time it's requited,
if i looked less than delighted
I was trying hard to hide it
but not trying hard enough.
Do do do do do do do do do.
That's fantastic, that's sarcastic
but forgive me the theatrics
I've been catching up on classics
and the springtime's been and gone.
And I didn't see the dangers
in hoping nothing ever changes
'til we said good bye like strangers
for the first time in so long. So long...
There's only me to blame,
but I'm lonely all the same.

Forgot to mention about the Lucksmiths: Australian accents! I mean, if that's a selling point for anyone.

The Age of Innocence (and Anxiety)

2011-04-08T17:56:00.000-07:00

"I just wasn't made for this world, but I wouldn't like to meet someone who was."
--Of Montreal

I'm always so shocked when I enjoy a "classic" novel. I guess I'm always expecting them to be unbearably dull. Admittedly, a lot of them are, especially when you're forced to read them in high school. But when I finished The Age of Innocence (Edith Wharton, 1920), I felt significant sadness. To me, this doesn't just mean the book was "good", but that the world-building was impeccable. When I finished the book and left its world, there was a sense of loss.

[Image: Daniel Day-Lewis played Newland Archer in the film adaptation. I would have done the casting very differently, going much younger with all the main characters. But meh.]

The Age of Innocence is about Newland Archer and his various First World Problems. He's a young man living in New York City's high society in the late 1800s. While he's engaged to a "respectable" girl, he falls in love with a "fallen woman", i.e., one who fled her abusive husband. Their love affair was barely an "affair" at all, consisting of just a few brief conversations and a lot of fantasy. But I was surprised by how intrigued I was with the social milieu. While it was hard to dredge up much sympathy for these people's problems, Wharton's descriptions intrigued me anyway. The people are stuffy and boring, but Wharton gets into their heads in a way I found really remarkable. The characters are the country's most privileged people, but they also seemed very fragile, existing in a permanent state of social anxiety. They exhibited extreme distress and paranoia over "trivial" matters like wearing the wrong dress or being uninvited to a dinner. It was oddly comforting to me. Maybe in 100 years, our own social concerns-- "How long do I wait to e-mail her?"..."Hmm, should I 'like' his 'I'm single' Facebook update?" will seem just as silly.

Had the Age of Innocence characters lived today, they might be diagnosed with a variety of conditions. Check out these traits of Victorian-era socialites, which map over Asperger's:

Rigid thinking
Obsession with a narrow range of topics
Focus on minute details
Adherence to arbitrary routines
Continuous need for structure

(I'm not sure where I'm going with this, aside from pointing out that it helps to demonstrate the futility of viewing autistic people as somehow apart from "us", whoever that is.) Newland and I share some of these traits, but also long for change (kind of like my theory of the Anglophile). Although I can pass as neurotypical, sometimes I feel like the stereotypical autistic, trapped inside my own mind. But isn't that where Newland was also trapped, more than just within his society? While he seems capable of imagining some sort of life outside his little world, he has no idea how to enact such a life, apart from strangely dramatic and sudden measures.

At its heart, the book seems to be about theoretical vs. actual opportunity, something that is timely for me. What dreams do we choose to pursue, and which do we let die? What is reality and what is truly fantasy? I don't know if today's culture, with all our additional freedoms, makes that question any easier. Apparently it's a dilemma that has been bothering Americans for some time now. Same exact theme, with a very different conclusion, set in the 20th century:

[Image: The novel Revolutionary Road]

Only the Good Die Young

2011-04-01T18:41:00.000-07:00

Wow, who knew virginity was such a hot topic...what can I follow it with? Well, here's something that incites passion among us all (maybe): Wrongly canceled TV series!

There are different parts of us that are every age we've ever been. But I have to say that for me, a disproportionately large part has always been about 15. Maybe that's one reason why I liked My So-Called Life so much. While the show (which only lasted one season) became iconic after its original airing in the early 90s, I saw it for the first time this past month. While I couldn't really relate to the crushes and sexual anxiety of the characters, I thought that they seemed more human and realistic than most, giving me a more genuine window into the average teen experience than, say, Gossip Girl. In some way, we are all Angela Chase, whether at the end of a hard day we lie on our beds listening to the Cranberries, hip-hop or death metal. None of us are perfect, but we're all doing our best to make sense of a confusing world.

[Image: Rickie and Angela]

My favorite character was Rickie, who is sort of like the queer, shy, high-school version of Prince. Before "the gay friend" became a cliche, Rickie seemed a lot less stereotypical and his issues were handled with more subtlety than, say, Kurt's (from Glee). That occasional subtlety is what makes My So-Called Life seem artful at times, like a good movie, when it could have easily fallen into Degrassi-style after-school-special territory. I feel strangely wronged that it only lasted one season. There is so little on TV, past or present, that actually tells people something about their lives.

So, what series do you think died too young? (Everyone always mentions Freaks and Geeks--even so, Judd Apatow has managed to do okay for himself-- and I was also miffed that Huge was canceled right after a character came out as asexual, even though I never got around to watching the show.)

Virginity: No Excuses

2011-03-26T12:14:00.000-07:00

This post is for the Virgin!Roar feminist blog carnival.

If I said I was a 26-year-old virgin, what responses might I tend to get? Pathetic, lonely, unattractive, repressed, super-religious, weird, or just hopelessly uncool. Maybe my fate is terrifying, unfathomable, or even worse than death. After high school, no one really asks "are you a virgin?" anymore. But if it stopped mattering, there wouldn't be all these negative stereotypes. Luckily, I have a handy excuse: I'm asexual! No sexual attraction to anyone! So it's totally okay for me to still be a virgin! Right, folks? Right, folks?

In my rush to neatly explain my virginity though, maybe I'm doing a disservice to all the other adult virgins out there. We shouldn't feel pressured to provide reasons in a quest to convince others that our choices are valid. It can be hard to own a status that some people may consider embarrassing, but then again, it will always be embarrassing unless people own up. Whether we were "too busy" or "career focused" or "waiting for the one", we just did not feel like having sex.

I wanted to answer the question "is virginity my choice?" but gave up in frustration. The usual reasons why people have sex--romantic love or sexual attraction--don't apply to me. There is no personally relevant reason for me to have sex, although this might relate to my chosen priorities as much as my asexuality. I want to avoid sexual pressure, I don't want to be the subject of someone's desire, and I don't want to engage in sex as a means to power or an expression of gender roles. You know those feminists that people tend to be scared of, who bandy around stuff like "heterosexual sex is oppressive?" Well, I think that any form of sex can be oppressive, or not, depending on the people and situation. Sex of any kind would feel oppressive to me personally, outside of a very narrow range of hypotheticals that I am unlikely to encounter. This doesn't mean I'm repressed. To me, the most "traditional" sex is also the most unappealing. Nor am I against anyone else having sex. As they say, do you.

If being a virgin was so awful, I could find a sexual partner. But virginity is not so bad, and despite what this post might convey, it's pretty much irrelevant to my personal identity. Having sex for the first time is not a major rite of passage in my life, which would be the factor giving virginity much of its meaning. I would guess that by our late 20's, most people who really wanted sex have found some way to have it. So virgins, as we get older and fewer in number, might get more content with their status rather than more frustrated. That's been my own experience, and it's the complete opposite of what the media portrays. At 2o, I was confused and distressed by my lack of sexual experience, but at 26, I know that for me, this is normal.

Totally Romantic! And yet, not!

2011-03-20T21:49:00.000-07:00

People tend to think I'm on drugs, when I'm not ("Duuude, isn't water weird?"). The following thoughts won't help my case, but here goes:

Reading some thoughts on sensuality, I realized that what sensuality is for the physical, romance is for the mind. When you're smelling a flower, sensuality is the smell of the flower, the pleasure that it gives you, and your mindfulness of that experience. Romance is the emotion that the flower brings about, the other places and times that it might transport you to. While sensuality is a full experience of a present moment, romance, in a way, is an escape. It transports you from the drudgery of the everyday, making a simple moment into something you might always remember. Romance is the act of imbuing a sensual moment with special and personal significance.

I feel like I finally understand why someone would fly to Madrid just to weep in front of a painting. She wasn't crying because the painting was beautiful or well-executed. She cried because the painting had become a repository of emotion for her, and to see it brought all those feelings to the forefront. Whatever the emotions, they were ones she wanted to feel. Romance was whatever made her choose that particular painting as the most significant one.

So while I'm barely romantic in the asexual sense, I'm romantic in my own conception. If romance can be genuine rather than Hallmark-holiday, and freely felt rather than foisted upon us, then I have no qualms with it. I'm more interested in romance itself than in romantic relationships, which is why I was able to enjoy having an unrequited crush-- something many people would find painful. So while I'd consider myself a romantic, it's unlikely that at any given time, there's another person who I specifically want to be romantic with.

In asexual discourse, romance is often described as an analogue for sex. This is what gives a logic to the aromantic/romantic distinction. While asexuals are some of the few people who don't conflate sex and romance, we often talk about romance as if it is to us what sex is to everyone else. However, I don't see romance as a parallel to sex. I'm not the romantic equivalent of an asexual with a libido directed towards nothing, because I would guess that to me, romance is more significant than libido is to that asexual.

Dictionary definitions of "romance" are so circular, so I feel happy that I was finally able to come up with my own definition that makes sense to me. Whether it will resonate with others, I'm not sure, but I wanted to put it out there.

(Why yes, I am an enneagram #4--"the romantic"--, how did you know?)

Have Sex, Become Annoying

2011-03-13T12:39:00.000-07:00

That's not a value judgment, but a small piece of character development from the show Lost. When it originally aired, I got up to season 2. Now I'm re-watching it (although I'm close to giving up), I've reached season 4 (spoilers for seasons 1-3 are to follow), and somehow I'm finding it much harder to suspend my disbelief. This post from Shakesville comes to mind:

Although I love Lost with the fiery passion of ten thousand suns, that not a single one of the female characters on the Island has ever, in all her interactions with people who all started out as total strangers, faced even the faintest threat of sexual assault is an absurd omission. The only reference to sexual assault that I even recall on the show is when one female character refers as the "rape caves" to an area where another female character is abducted (though she is not sexually assaulted). The female characters routinely find themselves isolated with unknown men, many of whom are violent and unethical, but never is there a suggestion that the women would be in any particular physical danger separate from their male allies.

(It's a short post, so I recommend reading the rest.) While Lost is full of plot confusions, the characters' personal hygiene habits are even more baffling to me. Although the women aren't trekking around in makeup-caked faces, where do they get hair products? How do they shave their legs? And of course, why would anyone have consensual sex on a "deserted" island where there is no birth control and the one doctor is constantly in danger of being killed? Sure, people do crazy things in moments of passion, but I doubt many women would welcome the possibility of pregnancy on the island. Also, anyone willing to have sex with Sawyer without a condom is a damn fool, as he himself might say.

So how does Lost deal with these inconsistencies? Why, by killing many of the women who do have sex. It's that old horror-movie adage moved to the South Pacific. Here is a hopefully-accurate catalogue of people who've had sex in seasons 1-3, and their fates so far:

Sayid & Shannon: Shannon is killed in an accident, Sayid is still alive.

Sawyer & Ana Lucia: Ana Lucia is killed, Sawyer is still alive.

Sawyer & Kate: They're both still alive, but after she has sex with Sawyer, Kate becomes noticeably more annoying.

Hurley & Libby: Okay, they didn't have sex, but apparently, the sheer prospect was viewed as too disturbing (desexualization of fat characters?), so Libby was killed before they were about to depart on a romantic picnic.

Sun & Jin: They're both still alive, BUT Sun becomes pregnant. And she's told that all pregnant women who conceive on the island are doomed to death. I'll see how that one pans out.

Bonus: In a flash-forward that takes place in Berlin (early in season 4), Sayid and a woman have sex, they shoot each other, and only Sayid lives. He's like the Typhoid Mary of sex.

Note-- You can kiss on the island without anything bad happening to you. Thank goodness. (Also, pleeeze don't tell me how the show ends...although honestly, I doubt it's going to make much sense anyway.)

Things Asexuals Like: Anglophilia

2011-03-06T16:58:00.000-08:00

Now, I'm just going to go with an instinct here: I think asexuals are into Anglophilia. (Doctor Who, tweed, Alan Rickman, Sherlock Holmes?) I don't think you can be a -phile for your own country, so English readers might have to sit this one out...sorry. (I don't know if Anglophila specifically refers to England, or whether it applies to the UK in general; please forgive me for that.)

America has always been a country of escapists, and certain faraway places tend to capture our imaginations. England, Japan, India, and France seem to be eternal favorites among certain subsets of the population. Why would asexuals like England in particular? Maybe it's because we can somehow relate to more of their character creations, or because it seems to be the biggest hot spot of asexual activity in meatspace, a title it's seemed to hold for quite a few years now. Or maybe we just think that authentic Cadbury chocolates are better than sex. I don't think I'm truly an Anglophile myself, although I do have a soft spot for the place, gained from my study abroad experience and the myriad English/Scottish references of indiepop music. While I'd love to revisit England someday, I know that plenty of English people are as dissatisfied with their country as some Americans are with ours. But that's not really the point of --philia, is it?

Some Habits of the American Anglophile in its Natural Habitat:

Refers to apartments as "flats", lines as "queues" and cell phones as "mobiles". Further, says "cheers" a lot, perhaps using it as an e-mail sign off.
Spells words differently, as in "humour" or "behaviour"
Drives a MiniCooper with a Union Jack on the roof
Knows how various English accents vary regionally, perhaps even adopts one themselves
Drinks black tea incessantly, with "sugars".
Watched every episode of the original "Life on Mars", even though it was so slow-moving that you, the viewer, thought that you were the one in the coma...(okay, maybe that was just me)

[Image: John Simm isn't quite sure what to make of your Anglophilia.]

I wonder...can you tell something about people based on the countries they -phile over? I sense a personality quiz in the works. If I was forced to make such a quiz, I would say that the Anglophile is someone who may be uncomfortable in their own culture, however, they still crave familiarity. If they were into trends, they'd say something like, "Well, this week I'm really into Cambodia", but the Anglophile remains loyal throughout the years. The desire for change and stasis at the same time--This is the dilemma of the Anglophile.

(As far as the personality quiz, recently I got a package in the mail and was enchanted by how cute the box was. Something about its size and shape was just so...kawaii! I wanted to cuddle it. So I had to ask myself...am I secretly Japanese? Well, apparently the official line in Japan is concern over their low birth rate. They might need to take in lots of foreigners! Those of you with a discerning eye for design and a love of soba might want to consider that.)

The Date...That Wasn't

2011-02-28T13:43:00.000-08:00

This was originally intended as a possible Spectral Amoebas contribution...that's why it's so long. Also, I was paranoid that "Sam" would somehow see it...but hey, if he does, at least it will explain my actions a lot better than I ever did at the time.

Everyone else was doing it, so I joined an online dating site. While I was browsing, I saw the profile of a man I would want to be friends with. We sent a few e-mails and decided to meet in person. It remained clear in my mind that I wanted to be friends with this man (let's call him Sam) rather than date him. Our first meeting was decidedly un-datelike, as we were meeting on a weekday afternoon in a place that was not at all romantic. I would see Sam three or four more times. I wondered if he thought we were going on dates, but quickly put it out of my mind. If these were dates, then why weren't we doing typical "date" things like dinner and a movie? If he thought we were dating, he would flirt with me, or try to touch me in some way, and I would do the same. Neither of us did. If we were dating, surely Sam would ask some question relating to romantic relationships. He never did, nor did I ever ask him.

Then one night, I went with Sam to a performance. While we were waiting for the show to start, suddenly Sam started complimenting me and looking into my eyes. It occurred to me that whatever he'd thought in the past, Sam was now considering this a date. But I didn't know how to handle the situation, so I kept my concerns to myself. Sam drove me home and asked if he could walk me to my door. I saw no reason for him to do so, but agreed. As we stood in front of my door, Sam said that he liked me a lot, and then something strange happened to his face. His eyes started shimmering. Actually, his whole face seemed a bit wavy, but maybe that was just my panic expressing itself as it quickly became obvious that Sam wanted to kiss me. How did I extricate myself? I'm not proud to say that I chirped, "I'M ASEXUAL! I DON'T DATE! SORRY!" before running upstairs, leaving Sam extremely confused.

This is an embarrassing story, one that I don't think portrays me in a very positive light. But I bring it up because I think it addresses some larger issues about consent. Consent is usually discussed in a sexual context, so it might seem trivial to mention it here. But sex doesn't occur in a vacuum, nor do our attitudes about consent. So I decided to probe my own psychology and figure out why I didn't assert myself sooner. As a lifelong feminist, you might think I'd be comfortable speaking up about these things, but such is not always the case. I like a good numbered list, so let me outline what I now realize was my reasoning. I hope it'll be somewhat obvious that all of these points can be extrapolated out to sexual encounters as well.

1. I thought that if I'd laid out my expectations earlier, Sam would have been angry or upset, or it would have made things more awkward. (Obviously, I hadn't taken the long view.) We all know about a seemingly good guy who's gone all Mr. Hyde when "rejected" by a woman. (I don't see friendship as "rejection", but I know some people do.) I didn't know Sam well enough to anticipate his response and I feared that uncertainty. Maybe he'd say, "Pffft, don't flatter yourself." That would've been bad...but not as bad as what ended up happening.

2. I didn't know how to say "no" without literally yelling "NO!" and running away. I didn't know how to question Sam without jeopardizing our friendship (which I ended up doing anyway). I didn't realize that if Sam was someone worthy of my time, I would have been able to speak honestly with him. While I'm now 26 years old, in "dating years" I'm around 12 or 13. I've only been on 2 dates (that I knew were dates) in my life. I didn't want to embarrass myself by displaying my lack of experience (which I ended up doing anyway).

3. A friend would later tell me that because I was on a dating site, my dating consent was implied. But of course, if you have to imply consent, then there's a definite chance that you don't have it at all. When Sam switched into date mode that night, I felt affronted. It seemed like he'd decided to take the evening in a certain direction without caring whether I wanted the same thing.

4. I wanted to like Sam "that way", even though I didn't. I wanted to be "normal", which luckily I have mostly gotten over by now. At the time, I didn't know why I'd only ever liked guys who ignored me. It made me feel pathetic. But on further thought, I realized that for me, it made sense. Guys who ignored me would never make me feel uncomfortable or pressure me into sexual situations. And this was more important to me than gaining their attention. Maybe it's a healthy defense, because I know I have so much trouble saying "no". Personally, I don't think I should attempt to date sexual people unless I can say "no" with confidence.

5. And here's where the autism comes in, although it was in the background all along. In familiar social situations, I can do decently, and probably not be differentiated from an eccentric neurotypical (NT). But in unfamiliar situations, my social skills fall apart. In those situations, I look to NTs for cues, and if no cues are forthcoming, then I'm much less likely to take action. Whether diagnosed or not, I'd wager that most people on the spectrum have been told over and over (explicitly or implicitly) that we're doing something "the wrong way". The implication always seemed to be that this was a terrible thing. My experience was no different, and so I tend not to trust my own judgment.

I suppose there are a lot of reasons why someone would be distrustful of their judgment. But for me, it seems like a sad casualty of the way that social norms are strictly enforced, especially in school settings. Lucky for me, my distrust of my judgment has led to so many awkward situations that it's something I'm sincerely working on now. I'm trying to identify "red flags" and avoid them, whether that means yelling "NO!" and sprinting away, or engaging in some calmer behavior. Now, if "the date that wasn't" started to happen again, would I be able to plunge through the awkwardness and make my feelings known? I'd like to think so, but in the moment, I get so nervous that I suppose anything could happen.

Quick Notes on "Glee"

2011-02-22T21:52:00.000-08:00

Anyone out there

a) bisexual and
b) a watcher of Glee?

Did you find tonight's show to be...troublesome? I did. Of course, non-bisexual viewers are welcome to share their thoughts, too. (Spoilers --->) In this episode, Blaine, who was portrayed as gay up until this point, kisses Rachael, a straight girl, while playing drunk spin-the-bottle. Sparks fly, leading Blaine to wonder if he might actually be bi. Kurt, a gay boy who's in love with Blaine, tells him that bisexuality isn't real. Blaine, understandably, gets offended. Later, Blaine kisses Rachael while sober, and decides that he's definitely gay. While Blaine emphatically states that he wants to explore his sexuality, all his questioning seems to take place over the course of a day or two.

(To those unaware, asexuals and bisexuals get similar negative responses. Had Blaine said that he thought he might be asexual, the exact same conversation could have transpired.)

While Blaine defends bisexuality to Kurt, in the end it's confirmed that being bi is just a state of momentary confusion. I can understand why Kurt holds his views, especially given his feelings for Blaine. His prejudice might make sense within the story, but that doesn't mean that bisexuality should begin and end in a 45-minute period. Glee sees itself as a "progressive" show, and it covered Kurt's experience as an out gay student over the arc of many episodes. But bisexuality gets brushed off, even though there are other potentially bi characters, like Brittany and Santana. It pains me when a show gets close to doing something long-overdue, like actually having a bisexual character, and then pulls back.

Blogging for Choice...Belatedly

2011-02-20T14:58:00.000-08:00

I totally missed the boat on Blogging for Choice Day, which took place last month (?). But, it's been a bad news week for the topic, so I was inspired to do it...belatedly. First, South Dakota may make it legal to kill abortion providers. According to this article, the proposed law would "expand the definition of "justifiable homicide" to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus—a move that could make it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions." But what bothered me more was information about just how hard it is to get an abortion in South Dakota right now:

Since 1994, there have been no [abortion] providers in the state. Planned Parenthood flies a doctor in from out-of-state once a week to see patients at a Sioux Falls clinic. Women from the more remote parts of the large, rural state drive up to six hours to reach this lone clinic. And under state law women are then required to receive counseling and wait 24 hours before undergoing the procedure.

Before performing an abortion, a South Dakota doctor must offer the woman the opportunity to view a sonogram. And under a law passed in 2005, doctors are required to read a script meant to discourage women from proceeding with the abortion: "The abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being." Until recently, doctors also had to tell a woman seeking an abortion that she had "an existing relationship with that unborn human being" that was protected under the Constitution and state law and that abortion poses a "known medical risk" and "increased risk of suicide ideation and suicide." In August 2009, a US District Court Judge threw out those portions of the script, finding them "untruthful and misleading." The state has appealed the decision.

So abortion is legal, but so inaccessible that it might be impossible for some. I hadn't realized that could be the case, so I found the report very disturbing.

Speaking of Planned Parenthood, the House of Representatives wants to block their federal aid. It will probably fail in the Senate, so "thanks" for wasting everyone's time. This bill is absurd to me, because Planned Parenthood doesn't just provide abortions (which, as we've noted, are not illegal). They provide birth control, STD/HIV testing, and perhaps most importantly, information. While I may be indifferent about sex, I am NOT indifferent about reproductive rights and sex education. If that education is withheld, people won't suddenly become celibate, which seems to be a common misconception held by Republican politicians. While I'm asexual, I feel like I understand the nature of sexuality better than these presumably sexual politicians do. People will still have sex, they'll always have sex. Without good information, they'll just be less likely to make safe choices.

Singled Out (it's a book review, yo)

2011-02-14T00:01:00.000-08:00

Some people call Valentine's Day "Singles Awareness Day". I prefer to view it as a day to worship almighty Chocolate. However you celebrate (or don't), you should read this awesome post that Lanafactrix showed me. I love the title: Living ~~Single~~, and was glad to see that the writer doesn't like the term "single", either.

And now, a related book review where I'll be forced to use the word many times.

I'll be honest...I picked up Singled Out due to a sense of obligation. I was expecting it to be full of "well, DUH" information, and to therefore be boring. Luckily, I was wrong on both counts. It ended up being a fairly absorbing read, and author Bella De Paulo has a sense of humor. For example: "Still, compared with women, men get a break. They can turn on Monday Night Football in full confidence that the game will not end with a wedding (16)". (I'm sure plenty of women watch football, and maybe that's exactly one of the reasons.)

In terms of new information, I was glad to learn more about the experiences of single men. Apparently, they get paid less than married men for doing the same work. The "breadwinner bonus" still applies, even though so many women work. Common stereotypes were also explored. To me, one of the more interesting ones is the idea that men need to be "civilized" by marriage. This manages to be insulting to men and women alike: To men, because it assumes that if they're single, they're just sitting around eating pizza all day. And to women, because it assumes that rather than partners, we're just looking for DIY projects.

Additionally, I'd always assumed that most single people were "looking", and I was an exception. Not so. According to a 2005 survey, 55% of single people were not looking. Another good point from the book: Why aren't single parents just called "parents"? Married parents aren't referred to as "married parents". If the name is a holdover from days when single parents were unusual, then it's definitely out of date now.

Unless you're Betty Friedan, it's hard to talk about a problem that has no name. One helpful thing about Singled Out is that it introduces the term "singlism". While not as dangerous as sexism or racism, De Paulo still shows how single people can face discrimination in terms of health care, wages, and obtaining housing. After reading this book, I immediately identified some singlism on a TV show I watched that night, which I doubt I would have recognized before. It is indeed insidious. And, finally, I would call the book ace-friendly: "Apparently, there is little room in the mythology of singlehood for women who are getting exactly the amount and kind of sex they desire-- including, for some single women, no sex at all (147)".

Things Asexuals Like: Long-Distance Relationships

2011-02-08T15:52:00.000-08:00

Damn flu season, messing with my blogging. The viruses have whisked away my inhibitions, leading me to admit that I've read both of the "Stuff White People Like" books. I thought the second one, Whiter Shades of Pale, was funnier. At any rate, in that book, Christian Lander writes that white people like long-distance relationships. He calls LDRs "extremely slow breakups" and writes that "an incredible 1oo percent" of LDRs have failed. This, of course, is not the case for asexuals.

The main reason why asexuals like LDRs is a practical one-- if you're asexual and want to date another ace, finding such a person in your general vicinity is very difficult. So, why not expand your search criteria to include "the world"? Last time I was on Acebook, I believe there were only one or two people in my entire state who were interested in women. And we're not talking Rhode Island here. Once the LDR has begun, it's probably easier for two asexuals to maintain it, since there is less concern about cheating and with people getting their sexual needs met.

Apparently, the viruses also cause me to state the obvious.

While I've never been in a romantic LDR, I have many long-distance friends. I value and care about these friends, and don't want our relationship to die just because of distance. But, there are some particular issues to the long-distance friendship. Like with friends, there's no standard for frequency of communication. While I don't want to impose on people by talking to them too frequently, I also don't want people to think I've forgotten them. And, unlike romantic LDRs, where you are probably planning to live in the same place at some point, you may never live in the same place as your platonic LDRs. In these days of increased mobility, most people seem to have long-distance family as well. But for some, of course, that might be exactly how they like it.

Coming Out (When "the World is a Chaos")

2011-01-30T20:47:00.000-08:00

"Because [people with NLD] lack the ability to take an overarching view of tasks, they experience the world around them as a chaos..." --Wikipedia

Since this is my contribution to the Spectral Amoebas blog carnival, is it okay if it's a little...long? Grab some fried dough and pull up a chair, because an epic post was promised. We're coming out...yet again.

I don't know how much is common knowledge about the autistic experience, but it's true that people on the spectrum have to come out, if they want to be known as autistic. You can't tell that someone is autistic by looking at them. Even if someone seems "off", or doesn't pass as NT (neurotypical, not autistic), it's hard to know they're autistic unless you hear it from them, or you're a professional who's qualified to make diagnoses. I've thought a lot about this coming out process, which is sometimes called "disclosure", but I don't see it discussed enough. Maybe the concept is minimized because of this idea: if you can pass as NT, then you should. Or maybe people who can pass are not "autistic enough" to warrant discussion. I reject both of these assumptions.

I want to be out as a person with NLD (I call us "verbies", although I totally made that up myself), because I want to spread understanding about us, and I feel that life is too short to not be open about important things. But I find it much harder to come out with NLD than to come out as asexual. Maybe it's because while everyone has a sexual orientation, most people don't have learning "differences". And while everyone can think of some people they're not attracted to, how do you explain the way in which your brain processes information? While a lot of people in my life might know I have "a learning disability", I don't think many of them know how it really impacts me. Part of this is due to the fact that NLD is much harder for me to explain than asexuality. My best analogy is that having NLD is like constantly being in another culture that you don't completely understand. With age, you may learn to move more easily within this culture, but it will never be intuitive to you. And, there is no physical place where your own culture exists.

Asexuality means that I'm not sexually attracted to anyone. But is NLD a sub-set of Asperger's? Is it "mild Asperger's", whatever that is? (And these designations are only useful if you're familiar with Asperger's beyond the stereotypes.) Is it a learning disability or a developmental disability? Is it a processing disorder, is it just a different way of interpreting the world? Is it all or some of the above? There is no fictional character with NLD, which is both a bad and a good thing. No one has a friend with NLD to compare me to (I am that friend), although in terms of coming out, that's probably also a good thing.

In addition, the autistic spectrum isn't something that tends to naturally come up in a conversation. In the 9 years since my diagnosis, I can count two or three times. One time, a few close friends were talking about a guy who often behaved inappropriately, and one of the friends said that "he probably has Asperger's". My ears pricked up at this: Mention of autistic spectrum disorder! I should come out now, it might be my only chance for years! But no...no, I shouldn't. I want to describe myself on my own terms.

If I simply state that I'm on the autistic spectrum, most people won't know how to interpret that, especially if their idea of autism is limited to a nonverbal person rocking in a corner. Me, I can pass as an eccentric NT. At least...I think I can. But I don't want to feel like I owe that to the world, any more than I want to feel obligated to pass as an overly picky heterosexual. Maybe I'm just making my life more difficult than it needs to be...but if we don't come out, it will never be any easier to be a verbie in this culture.

Coming out with NLD is also much scarier. It's so scary that I prefer to do it here, in my relative comfort zone of the written word. Although I've written about NLD multiple times on this blog before, it freaks me out anew every time I write about it. Is it just harder to give up NT privilege than heterosexual privilege? An asexual person will still be seen as "normal" by some, if they fit into social norms in other ways. But an autistic person? Not so much. Part of me worries that if people "really knew" how much trouble NLD causes me, they wouldn't know how to act towards me. I worry that if people knew how differently I really think, it would alienate them.

But maybe that's just a baseless anxiety, since I feel like sensible people would more likely be intrigued. People that care will continue to treat me as they always have; it's probably delusional to think that no one has noticed my "differences". Is naming them really such a big change? Yet another reason why NLD is hard to explain are the many conditions that commonly accompany and complicate it, such as depression, anxiety, OCD, ADHD, or bipolar disorder (which also carry significant social stigma and can be very difficult to come out with). The nature of intersectionality is to go on and on. I'm strangely anxious about posting this, even though I'm not sure what negative responses, realistically, I could receive.

In the end, I sometimes feel like I have a certain amount of "coming out cards". With asexuality, I used them all up, even though I was far from done. But coming out isn't just that one-time "let's sit down" chat. For some of us, it may be a continuous and long process, where we divulge more detailed information over time. I am told that for many on the spectrum, our thinking can tend towards "black and white". I can see myself in that description, although the rigidity of my thinking tends to depend on the matter at hand. I used to think that if I could just find a perfect way to explain things to people, then they would understand. But I'm learning that no matter how skilled you are in the art of coming out, understanding is what happens in all the days, months, and years after you've come out. Coming out is only the beginning.

Anatomy of Pink Kneesocks

2011-01-22T17:25:00.000-08:00

A post on Asexual Curiosities got me thinking about how I express asexuality through my personal style. In a comment to that post, I wrote:

Actually I like [clothes] that are so over-the-top girly, they make fun of it. Like the whole Japanese “fruits” aesthetic. I don’t wear entire outfits like that, but I like the style. Also, I like clothes that are funny or unusual. I’ve worn some very strange outfits in my time. Maybe that’s some version of an asexual presentation, because I’m focusing on something, but it’s completely unrelated to sexiness.

(Nor was I focusing on current trends, ease, or a certain gender presentation.) Writing this comment brought me back to a few years ago, when I was meeting a guy I kiiinda liked. By that, I mean I was trying to figure out whether or not I was romantically attracted to him. If I was, it only lasted for a few days. But even so, I had the desire to "impress" him at a certain event. I was able to dig back and find a picture of what I wore. It looked like this:

A Clash t-shirt
A blazer, striped with different shades of blue
A short denim skirt
Pink leggings
Pink and white striped kneesocks
Sparkly purple slippers

Now that I think about it, this outfit screamed "I am asexual!", a thing I never told him out loud. Clothes may seem superficial, but they expressed something important when words failed me. I wouldn't call it a "sexy" look by any means. (At least, not to the average 20-something American male.) It wasn't something that would traditionally be read as either straight or lesbian. At the torso level, it said something like, "Why yes, I do like punk rock and hanging out in libraries reading the classics." But below the knee, it became totally eccentric. It was saying, "Thrift shopping? Unicorn riding? Discussion of obscure Swedish popsongs? I'm your girl. Sex? Not so much." But none of this was going through my head; I just wanted to wear something that would make me feel confident.

I can think of similar stylistic choices throughout the years, both pre- and post- asexuality realization. Maybe the most obvious was the outfit of t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers that I wore to clubs during my months of study abroad. The outfit completely ignored the sexual/romantic intentions of the place. I don't remember feeling awkward in my casual clothes, maybe because they also conveyed important facts. In my jeans and sneakers, no one ever hit on me, allowing me to dance in peace. If I put on a skirt and heels, that changed.

Escape From Gender Roles Island!

2011-01-15T18:19:00.000-08:00

(I found this draft from last year, and thought it was worth resurrecting. It was originally intended as a continuation of this post, but will make sense without it.)

Part of my (albeit minimal) romantic attraction towards men is probably innate and unexplainable-- I'm guessing that's how most people perceive attraction. But I wonder. What about the fact that I assumed I was heterosexual until I was almost 21, and that people who don't know me very well assume the same? What about the fact that, as far as I know, I "pass" as heterosexual without trying to? I wonder how much of my attraction to men would exist in a cultural vacuum.

Whatever romantic attraction I have, I don't see it as a shadow of sexual attraction. I see myself as queer, not as a straight person with one form of attraction missing. A conversation with a friend comes to mind-- she told me she was "attracted to masculinity". For her, this manifested in her romantic relationship with a man. But for me, this attraction to masculinity was only realized on an inward level, through my "mental androgyny". I wouldn't find masculine traits in men, but in myself. That one comment made me realize how different my concept of gender might be from most other people's.

On AVEN, I remember a transwoman (male-bodied, mentally female) writing that part of her distaste for sex related to the idea that she didn't want to have sex "in the male role". I can relate to that. Having sex "in the female role" makes the process sound even more unappealing to me than it already does. However, having sex "in the male role" doesn't seem like much of an improvement. I feel the same way about dating and other social rituals. I don't want to be in a romantic relationship in "the female role". However, I don't want to take "the male role", either. I want to escape those roles altogether, as much as such a thing is possible in this world. It's not surprising that I've always been single.

My romantic attractions never facilitated relationships, not even close. Years ago, I lamented the fact that I couldn't seem to be attracted to a guy that one of my friends didn't already have a crush on. But looking back, maybe that was part of the point and/or reason. I felt like as a woman, I was supposed to maintain this constant hustle to "get a man". But these straight men in question seemed to display no effort whatsoever to get their admirers. If they tried desperately to be liked, it wasn't visible. They seemed confident, unstudied, and autonomous. They weren't freaked out by the attention, like I would have been. Would dating them-- and most likely, being placed immediately in the "female role"--been gratifying for me? I'm not so sure. Maybe what I really wished for was the chance to be seen by others in the same way these boys were seen by girls. That alone, unadorned, and despite my flaws, I was something worth getting truly excited about.

The Year I Stop Looking

2011-01-11T17:29:00.000-08:00

“If only we'd stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time.”
--Edith Wharton

I said to myself that I wouldn't be making New Years resolutions. I'd already made some goals over the summer that I'm still working on; surely those are enough? But apparently I love to resolve things, because I ended up making at least five resolutions on January 1st. Most of them were just things to keep in mind, rather than actual activities. One of them was to stop looking, which I'll explain:

For most of my 26 years, I've been on an epic quest to find community and belonging. I've had successes, failures, and many moments of uncertainty. It's a worthy endeavor, but I feel like I've been going about it with the wrong mindset. And my mindset, I realized, was sort of the non-romantic version of those women in chick lit novels who are obsessed with finding their soulmate. It's set me up to feel like if I don't experience belonging, or a sense of community, that my life is a failure. And I don't think that's any better than thinking that your time is a waste unless you have a romantic partner to share it with.

To those chick lit women, you know how someone always says, "If you want to find love, stop looking?" My goal in 2011 is to "stop looking". Inside my "looking" is also a lot of worrying, because I've been known to worry in lieu of actually looking. I'm aware now that my looking and worrying were my attempts to solve a problem, but they did more harm than good. I worried that if I stopped looking, I would somehow become...wait for it...asocial, but I don't think that's realistic for me. If I want to start looking again in 2012, I can, but by then, I don't think I'll want to anymore. I imagine being more productive, freer, and more "present" in my current relationships, if you'll excuse the New-Agey term. I've spent too much time worrying about doing the "right" or "correct" thing in every social interaction, and I want to try to let go of that pressure.

I don't know how much sense this made, but I thought I'd give a go at posting it.

The Zine Sherpa

2011-01-05T17:02:00.000-08:00

How do I justify this act of shameless self-promotion? Well, if you enjoy my writing, it would be cruel to deprive you of further opportunities to read it. Uh...yes? Along those lines, my zine is now available here, on Etsy. It's about my experience dealing with unemployment. It would be a fascinating gift for that unemployed person in your life. While you're there, Mage also has zines for sale, and they're actually about asexuality. (What are zines? Little magazines that people make themselves.)

Married to Work: BBC's Sherlock

2010-12-30T16:47:00.000-08:00

And who is more asocial than the man himself, Sherlock Holmes? Yes, I finally stumbled out of my cave and watched the BBC's Sherlock. (Lia wants me to say that I watched it with her, a Sherlock Holmes purist.) I'm still working my way through the three episodes (come on, they're very action-packed), and enjoying them so far, but we came here to talk about asexuality, didn't we?

I know that a lot of aces find Sherlock's asexuality to be personally or culturally relevant. I can understand and respect that, but I don't feel the same way. I've met a lot of asexuals, and we all seem to share some similar concerns about living in a sexual world, concerns that don't seem to cross Sherlock's mind. To me, he's not relatable on an asexual level, and he's not the kind of character I'd want to be friends with. I don't know if many people would want to be Sherlock, but still, he seems to have what everyone wants. And it's not "the girl" (or "the guy"), which might be somewhat unique. It's to be recognized for doing what you love and what you do best (and wearing a snazzy coat). While BBC's Sherlock describes himself as a "high-functioning sociopath", he seems more like an autistic savant to me. (How else could he memorize the traffic pattern of every London street?) Sherlock thrives in his own story, but if he were dropped into the real world, I wouldn't count on his success.

Conan Doyle probably never intended this reading, but it does speak to me as a workaholic with no work. I find watching Sherlock oddly poignant for this reason. My mind turns to the fact that our society doesn't tend to do well at utilizing people's special, perhaps Sherlock-like abilities. I start thinking of this quote I'd read a while ago: "I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." So when I look at Sherlock, I don't see his asexuality first, but his "marriage to his work". And that's a hard thing to hold onto these days. I can finally admit that I don't want "the guy", at least not in a Hollywood way. But I still want the work, elusive as it may be.

And forgive my towering expectations, but I would like it if actors playing asexuals would make some kind of educational statement about asexuality. Straight actors playing gay characters do it all the time. On the other hand, Benedict Cumberbatch, the star of Sherlock, "suggests that Holmes is asexual, perhaps the result of being burned in the past by women..."and that's it, as far as I can find. I don't expect actors to take up our cause, but just mentioning the "correct" definition of asexuality would be a small thing for him and a big deal to some of us.

(Also, is it terrible that whenever a show has rapid-fire wordplay, I'm always going, "Ugh, why is this so Gilmore Girls?")

Sympathy for the Hermits (Asexuality & "Being Asocial")

2010-12-23T12:00:00.000-08:00

In my last post, I talked about this ad, which referred to "asexual, a-social, a-everything girls". The quote may have been from a Jack Kerouac book, but even so, it's a real stereotype that might gain prominence as asexuality gets better-known. Me, I would say that for an introvert, I'm quite social. Some asexuals really are asocial, and many are not. But to play both the devil's advocate and the asexual's advocate, it can be hard sometimes to maintain a thriving social life as an asexual, depending on your own personality and circumstances. Some stereotypes begin with a grain of truth. And I think this could be one of them, as small as the grain might be.

What do lots of people do for fun? Go to parties or bars. And what's the point? To have fun with friends, yeah, but also to meet potential sexual partners. After I realized I was asexual, I saw no point to drinking, which many view as an "enabler" of sexual activity. And drinking is a big part of social life in many places. Although I enjoy a beer or two, many asexuals are avid teetotalers. What is a major topic of conversation for lots of people? Sex, people that are "hot", crushes, dating, etc. I know some asexuals enjoy these conversations, but for others, it's awkward and hard to contribute. Especially if you're not comfortable telling others that you're asexual. Even if you are, maybe people make fun of you, or you get belittled for being "repressed". Depending on your age and social circle, you may be the only single person among your friends, stuck as a third wheel while people's interests have shifted from group activities to partnered ones. No, I'm not a hermit, but if you wanted to be one, I could understand.

So one reason for the stereotype is that a lot of people's social lives involve sexuality in some sense. That might be a "duh" to you, but it's something I'd never really thought about in these specific terms. I remember being told that it was normal to spend four or five nights a week with your romantic partner-- I was like, "lolwhut?" Even an ace-friendly columnist wondered why we'd seek out other asexuals to socialize with in meatspace. If you're not having sex, why bother leaving the house? (Well, eventually you'll run out of hummus, or ingredients to make hummus.)

In the end, what I find most offensive about the "asocial" stereotype is that it views an asexual mode of relating as inferior or unworthy of mention. It discounts the ingenuity that asexuals sometimes display in order to be social in a sexual world. It discounts the hard work that some of us exert to maintain relationships when our preferred modes of intimacy are little understood. It implies that if we are asocial, it's because we're asexual, not because we live in a culture where it's increasingly difficult to make meaningful personal connections. Or maybe we feel alienated from being constantly bombarded by messages about the importance of sex (and romance). And if we are asocial for a reason that has nothing to do with asexuality, the stereotype implies that such a thing can't be the case. It's insulting from every angle.

So what's the solution? To impress on people how fun we are, the lives of the party? To extol the great relationships we have, and how we're capable of dating and marriage? Since all of these sentences end with question marks, the answer is that I'm not so sure. No doubt, asexuals are no less fun than any other group. Our social lives can thrive as much as anyone's. But I don't want to be in denial about the fact that there can be real barriers to asexuals being social. It's good to show that anything is possible-- of course we can date, marry, have kids, have close friends, and be social butterflies. But we shouldn't ignore the factors that can make all those things hard to accomplish for many who want them.

[The painting above is by Roger Brown, originally seen at the Cantor museum at Stanford.]

Offended? Cool by me.

2010-12-17T21:02:00.001-08:00

If you hang out in the asexosphere, you've probably seen this ad, which is selling an emergency contraceptive called Plan B:

There are also video ads. I watched one, which didn't insult asexuals, but did make women look like complete idiots. (Apparently, another video ad does talk about "asexuals", but I had already lost enough brain cells.) Note that the colors of the ad are gray and purple. This is not a common color combination, but it is two of the colors on the asexual flag:

Coincidence? You be the judge, but in my opinion, it probably isn't one. Companies spend so much time and money on marketing-- I can't imagine that no one took 5 seconds to Google the word "asexual", which is a little-used word outside of biology texts and, well, asexuals. If they didn't know that "asexual" really applied to people, they would have put a dash in the word, like they did with "a-social".

In the past few days, I've read many comments from asexuals about the ads. Some people are offended, and some aren't. Some think it was an innocent mistake, and some people think that it wasn't so innocent. Some wrote letters to the company or left comments on Youtube, others didn't. Reading Sciatrix's post on getting angry and then seeing the overwhelmingly polite responses was very timely.

This is an interesting case because to my knowledge, this is the first corporate asexohater. And I don't like corporations for the most part, and I don't like advertisements. Sure, there are pockets of the corporate and advertising worlds that may not be morally bankrupt, but I doubt they are very large pockets. I don't think an ad campaign can "mean well", unless it's something like "Get an HIV test" or "Stop domestic violence". Every day, a new ad comes out that is sexist. If companies can offend feminists with impunity, why would they care about offending asexuals? If someone thought an ad saying, "Don't be like those tea-drinking tweed-wearers who don't experience sexual attraction" would make money, it would run tomorrow.

In this post, I used this quote:

"Brands can't be all things to all people. Effective marketing is the art of sacrifice..."
(Positioning Puts Branding in its Place, Hiebing)

Asexuals will be "sacrificed", if necessary. Do remember that this is emergency contraception, not Doctor Who memorabilia. We're not their target market, so the sacrifice is especially easy to make. (Yes, I know asexuals do have sex, but I doubt Teva knows or cares.)

In the 60's and 70's, people protested the government. In the current era, people need to protest corporations. Many corporations have bigger budgets than small countries. But they can live and die on the power of their brands. Maybe the ads will backfire, and Plan B will come to be associated with exceptionally air-headed people who don't know how babies are made (which is what the ads portray). Who knows?

So go ahead, be offended. They certainly don't care about offending you.

Spectral Amoebas: Blog Carnival is Go!

2010-12-13T15:20:00.000-08:00

In the comments to this post, a few of us talked about the possibility of doing an asexuality/ autistic spectrum blog carnival. Not to talk about "does autism cause asexuality?" -type stuff, mind you, but to just talk about our experiences when those two identities intersect. Anyway, Kaz, Sciatrix and myself got together and decided to organize the carnival. Here's our blurb:

A blog carnival is an event where various people write posts around a single topic and link them together at the end. The topic of this carnival is the intersection of asexuality and the autism spectrum. The scope of this project is general. Any topic that deals with the intersection of asexuality and autism fits within the aegis of the carnival. If you’re not sure, submit it anyway and we’ll figure it out.

We are asexual bloggers on the autistic spectrum who want to explore the intersection between autistic and asexual identities. The basis of this project is to have a conversation about our unique experiences being autistic and asexual without looking for a “cause”. We want to create a safe, non-judgmental space to talk about the issues that affect us. If you identify as asexual (or demisexual, or gray-a) and as on the autistic spectrum (diagnosed or not, AS, autism, PDD-NOS, NLD), you are invited to write a blog post for this project. If you are not asexual and autistic you are welcome to contribute provided you focus on the issues experienced by this particular intersection. The scope of the project is general, and open to any experiences of being autistic and asexual.

If you want to write a post but don’t have a blog, please contact me at sanfranciscoemily[at]gmail[dot]com or Sciatrix at sciatrix[at]gmail[dot]com about doing a guest post. Please have your post written by 31st January and comment on this post or send an e-mail to me or Sciatrix about your post by then. Note that the hosts reserve the right to reject posts by anyone if they feel they do not follow the guidelines of or are not in the spirit of the carnival. The posts will be compiled on Writing From Factor X for posterity. A post with the compilation will go up there in the beginning of February. Be a part of this exciting project!

–Sciatrix, Kaz, and Ily

Edit: Possible topics for exploration? As we said, you can write about anything, but here are some ideas:

Coming out as asexual and as autistic
Relationships
Gender expression
Childhood/young adult experiences
Treatment by medical professionals/therapists
Perceptions of the autistic asexual by others

Feel free to share other ideas in the comments!

Genius Loci: "Highly Resonant Connections"

2010-12-07T18:13:00.000-08:00

On a different topic (or is it, really?), I remember writing in my journal once: "If love was a pie, romantic love would be one piece". Now I want to add: "If relationships were a pie, relationships with other people would be one piece". Granted, a large piece. But there are others, and I don't think I've written about them nearly enough. If you're still not sure what I'm talking about, here are some examples: Relationships with the self, with ideas, with higher powers (if you believe in them), with the natural world, with animals, and with place. Relationships with place are my special interest. I've always had a sensitivity towards place, which made me feel weird and somewhat alone. But maybe I'm not. Craig Chalquist writes in the (fantastic) compilation Ecotherapy:

When I began to study places in California, I dreamed about them, not just as scenery, but as imaginal figures: personifications actively greeting me, cautioning me, or telling me of things I had missed while visiting. Our surroundings are part of the psychological ground of our experience...Aboriginal peoples have always sensed this, hence the frequent mention of sacred sites and nature spirits in the ancient myths. In recent work a new vocabulary has begun to evolve to express these deep, symbolically rich, and highly resonant connections psychologically. "I think, therefore I am" might be true for computers, but as embodied humans deeply situated, we are because we are somewhere, a somewhere not dead or inert but addressing and informing us continually. (pg 80)

The Romans had a term, "genius loci", which roughly means "the spirit of a place". When I first heard that term, it meant a lot to me. Sort of like discovering the word "asexuality" but on a smaller scale. I had never known how to explain my extreme love and hate for places, which were things that most people seemed to move through without comment. My usual format of non-blog writing is poetry, and what I consider my best poems all come from "the spirit of a place". It's very inspiring to me. There are allusions to genius loci in our culture from time to time, but it seems like a thing that is rarely addressed head-on.

Relationships with places are similar to relationships with people, in that no place is the same for any two people. It speaks to how differently we all interpret the world, since it's not like a place can act differently in the presence of some people. Love for place happens on a very deep level surpassing logic, similar to, I would imagine, romantic love. For example, even though I've never lived in New York, I have a great love for that city. I think the fact that me, my parents, and my grandparents were all born there has something to do with it. And reading the newsletter from my college study abroad program, I learned that there seems to be a pattern of people having strong, life-long loves for the places where they studied abroad. Would we love those places in the same way if we'd gone there on a business trip or vacation?

It can be edifying to have a relationship with something that may still be there long after you're gone. And what we love about places can give us information about our most deeply-held values. But relationships with places can be difficult for many reasons. How many people's favorite place has been altered or destroyed due to greed or indifference? In Ecotherapy, there was an anecdote about a therapy client who was beside herself with grief when a forest that she loved was clear-cut. In fact, there are several similar anecdotes in the book. Nature often gives a place its meaning; I can't imagine many people are passionate about parking lots (although they can have a surreal beauty). I'd like to think that if there was more acknowledgment in our culture of genius loci, it would have positive ecological consequences.

So, what places do you love? And if you know, why?

Kumbaya

2010-12-01T01:00:00.000-08:00

This post, and the posts linked within it (from Dreki and Sciatrix), got me thinking about a community-wide discussion I wish we could have: Associations between the asexual and autistic communities. But it would be hard to have this discussion because there's no real place to have it. It requires that people have a decent knowledge of both asexuality and the autistic spectrum. On AVEN, there are too many people who are ignorant about autism, and on autistic forums, there are too many people who are ignorant about asexuality. As others have mentioned, people's ignorance can derail a conversation while we try to educate them and explain things.

The posts I referenced mentioned that ableism sometimes appears on AVEN. (In this respect, AVEN is no different from the rest of the world.) Unlike some other -isms, I find that ableist statements tend to come from a place of fear and ignorance, rather than malice. On AVEN, the disabilities that tend to be the most discussed are mood disorders and autistic spectrum disorders. "Invisible disabilities" such as these have their own unique stigma. I think it speaks well of AVEN that we can mention these experiences there, even though they may not be unanimously welcomed. In meatspace, it can be very difficult to talk about mood disorders or autism, since "sane privilege" and "neurotypical privilege" can be difficult for those who can pass as "normal" to voluntarily give up.

Anyway...back to "the conversation I want to have". It can't be had if people are thinking of autism as a dread disease, or autistic people as impossible to relate to. It can't be had if neurotypicals are under the assumption that they can't--or don't currently-- associate with autistic people. Ableism relates to the idea that people with disabilities "make us look bad". This might be remedied by a critical exploration of how our society marginalizes people with disabilities. However, if people are still unsure what disabled people "have to do with me", then it's hard to get past square one. And of course, these derails, while important, are still derails.

On AVEN, there have been numerous threads about Asperger's Syndrome (AS), which is what I would call a "labeled point" on the autistic spectrum. In those threads, there seems to be this common inference: "Autism is bad/weird/out-there, and I want asexuality to be well-received. Therefore, there is no relation between asexuality and autism." And maybe that's the case for the neurotypical asexual. But it sets up a strange dichotomy for the autistic asexual, of which there are many. Considering this, the inference seems like a denial of many people's reality.

I forget where I read it, but I once read an anecdote about a white man who joined a fraternity with mostly black members. The white man said something about how meaningful it was for black men to call him "brother". Now, I hope this is not too kumbaya for you, but the asexual community is like that fraternity, or at least, it could be. Except instead of it being one white man and a bunch of black men, it's people of all races, nationalities, ages, genders, and abilities. Within the asexual community, I think we have an opportunity to gain new "brothers", as it were. Neurotypical people could, presumably, feel honored to gain autistic "brothers" through the asexual community. They could see the prevalence of autistics in the asexual movement as a unique opportunity to learn about how other people's minds work. I'd like to think that some already do. But this can never happen unless we value knowledge and human connections above image. Yes, it's idealistic, but that's how we should be at the beginning of a movement. There's plenty of time to be jaded later.

Now give me the vegan marshmallows and my ukulele.

(I'll post about NaNo later, if I can think of anything coherent to say...I just wanted to write this post while the posts I linked to were still fairly recent.)

"Too Many People to Play Uno!"

2010-11-24T23:00:00.000-08:00

Indeed we did! We had 15 people at the meetup, which was our largest non-Pride meetup ever. Go us! Highlights included telephone pictionary, which is probably the funniest game I've ever played. Go figure that a lot of our stories involved cats. My horrible memory for conversations persists, but I remember talking about:

China (it's big)
How to define gray-asexuality or demisexuality
The fact that the Gay and Lesbian Taskforce didn't want to have a workshop on asexuality at their conference. Sad. A petition will be forthcoming?
Weird "positive" responses to asexuality, like "You must have so much free time" or "I wish I was asexual".
Good experiences with non-asexual allies

So...yeah. See you in December!

Next Bay Area Meetup--Sunday!

2010-11-15T21:31:00.000-08:00

A quick note for local folks, visitors, or the merely curious-- we've got a meetup this Sunday (11/21) in Berkeley. It's at 1pm at a cafe called PIQ. It's at 91 Shattuck Square, which is very close to the downtown BART station. Maybe at the meetup, we'll find out how to pronounce the name of the place. [Insert deranged, novel-based laughter]

A few random observations brought to you by the movie "Singles"

2010-11-06T15:34:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how dated some visuals can get. And somewhat embarrassing to watch. Check out the short/sock/footwear situation on Matt Dillon here, for one:

Related to that, what is more '90s (1992, to be exact) than people talking directly to the camera about their dating issues?
I think that when you've been in The Wire, you will always be identified by your character from that show. (Prez! And attempting to watch Boardwalk Empire: Omar!)
Grunge--> Oh yeah, I was supposed to get involved in an electrifying new musical movement...forgot about that. Or, maybe I didn't.
"This is gonna be my night!" Extreme use of the "magic night" trope.
Oh God, I'm planning a scene for my NaNoWriMo novel that uses the "magic night" trope. I finally think I understand why people keep using such cliche meet cutes. It's really hard to get two specific strangers to meet each other in fiction.
People in movies don't really have abortions (at least, legal ones), so their pregnancies end in strange ways, like in car crashes.
I realized that traditional romantic comedies, at least decent ones, all contain strong friendships, families, and/or communities. People have interesting jobs, live in nice places, and know who their neighbors are. The wish-fulfillment isn't just the romance, but the whole world of the story.

Now, back to my regularly scheduled noveling...

November NaNo Hiatus

2010-10-31T21:02:00.000-07:00

Asexual characters in fiction. I've pondered them at length, but now it's time for me to try my hand at creating one (or two). Tomorrow, I'm starting National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo to its friends. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in a month, so I think it might be wise for me to cut down on my other writing. (I'm hoping to post a few short things anyway, but novel-based insanity might make this impossible. Aiee!) So...overt statement about my character's asexuality, or implication? I'm excited to figure it out. I also haven't written any fiction in at least 4 years, and the last work of fiction I wrote took me 2 years to finish and was 55 pages (ie, definitely not 50,000 words). So, this will be an interesting task. It's Halloween tonight, but for me, the really scary stuff is starting tomorrow!

(If you're doing NaNo too, and want to be my "writing buddy" on the site, go ahead and add me! My name over there is "ukulele hero".)

Giving Up, Letting Go

2010-10-29T12:58:00.000-07:00

A post that's way too short for its complicated topic:

"Giving up" on marriage or romantic relationships is often seen as the most pathetic, rock-bottom thing that someone could do in our culture. Depending on the circles in which you socialize, it could be much worse than giving up on your education, career, religion, the pursuit you are most talented at, or pretty much anything else. Isn't that odd? But although it might sound even odder, I think my problem is that I haven't given up enough. Let me explain. I don't think there's anything wrong with giving up on marriage etc., as long as you can feel like this was your choice. But I think it can cause a lot of psychological turmoil when you try to move on, but have nothing to move on to. I learned this very clearly when my term at a certain job ended. I had lofty ideas about "moving on" and going on to better things, but since I actually had no idea what those things were, I ended up extremely frustrated. Actually, the whole concept seems to be a theme in my life. And it's the same thing with marriage etc. When there's no clear alternative to it, it can be hard to give up completely. So you're left in this weird mental netherworld.

As we've seen, I haven't exactly been adept at creating, or even defining, the "alternative relationships" I talk about. But does the alternative need to be a relationship at all? Marriage etc is such a huge pressure that a shadowy, inarticulate goal can't go up against it. I think this is true, but I don't know how to visualize it. At least I know there are others muddling through the same thing with me. I'll muse some more on this, and see if I can come up with anything more useful.

The Web of Mystery: Platonic Attraction

2010-10-22T15:59:00.000-07:00

Sometimes asexuals will say, "We talk too much about what we don't do and what we don't experience. What about what we do experience?" I agree, and you could consider this a response.

But first, check out this diagram, which has been spotted in the asexosphere:

It's supposed to describe attraction, and it makes my head hurt. But something on it really gave me pause, and that is "platonic attraction". I experience no sexual attraction, very little romantic attraction, and I rarely go, "Wow, s/he is cute!" (which I think some people consider "aesthetic attraction".) But I realized that what the web of mystery calls "platonic attraction" is a whole 'nother story. In the web, my platonic attraction would probably be rated somewhere around "high" whereas everything else would be low or nonexistent. I have a high "friendship drive", if such a thing even exists. I know that after sex drives and romance drives, another long drive seems excessive. But this is the thing I do experience, and I venture the same is true for many other aces. There also must be non-asexual people who experience more platonic attraction than either romantic or sexual attraction.

(And let's pause for a minute to acknowledge that "attraction" is so tied up with something sexual that it sounds vaguely creepy to be attracted to friends in any way, even if it's entirely nonsexual. But moving on...)

For me, I was in my mid-20's before I realized that no, I could not be everyone's best buddy if I only put in enough effort and was flawless in all my social interactions. I actually didn't know that some people will always be casual friends or acquaintances, and will never become your best friends, for whatever reason. I can attribute part of this to a lack of social knowledge. But maybe the other part comes from a desire that things would be otherwise. I don't just desire human companionship, but very close friendships. I would be happy to have a "partner"-type relationship that was with a friend, for instance.

Especially in the years before I learned I was asexual, I always wanted a boyfriend. However, I did zero work to make this happen. On the other hand, I was very committed to friendship, and had no problem putting in the hours it took. Surely, that means something. While I wanted a boyfriend, I could live without him. But I knew I'd be miserable without friends.

The issues one may face experiencing high platonic attraction in our society are various. But the main one is that I often feel I can't tell my friends how important they are to me, because they might consider it weird or out of place. Maybe I just suck at expressing my feelings, but I'm pretty sure that can't be all of it. Often I shy away from even writing about friendship here, because I know some of my friends read this blog. I don't want them to think, "Well, she says friendship is important to her, but that's not clear from her actions!" Maybe my feelings and actions aren't always aligned very well. But anyway, this is getting slightly embarrassing, so I'll be moving on again...

Anyway, I'm realizing that platonic attraction is one more reason why I don't like the romantic/aromantic binary. For aromantic and barely-romantic people who still want friends, wouldn't a more accurate name be "platonic asexuals"?

Why I'm Queer-- More Thoughts

2010-10-18T13:54:00.000-07:00

All your fabulous comments on my last post got me thinking: Why is it important to me to identify as queer? As some of you mentioned, of course, we can identify as whatever we want, no matter what other people say about it. But it's something I wanted to explore further.

I know some people identify as queer before identifying as asexual. However, I wasn't one of them. I identified as asexual first, and I don't even remember where I first heard the term "queer", or when I started thinking of myself this way. Maybe it was when I started reading about other peoples' queer experiences, and saw the parallels to my own. The "queer" label is something that hasn't been forced on me. As someone that tends to pass for straight whether I like it or not, I haven't had to reclaim "queer" after it was used on me as an insult. If I really wanted to, I could easily pass for straight for the rest of my life. I have many chances to opt out of being queer. Maybe that's why some people say I shouldn't be able to identify myself in this way. Maybe they think it has to be something forced upon you. Obviously, I disagree.

One reason I disagree is because I see "queer" as being a very political identity, and while we might not be able to escape our sexual orientations, our political identities are our choice. To be queer means that we're not going to be silent in order to make other people more comfortable. It means that we're actively going to work, in some way, to break down the rules and barriers that I mentioned in the last post. For me, the main political aspect of being queer is being anti-assimilation. My political beliefs are such that I don't believe we all need to be integrated into mainstream society. In fact, I think the ideals of "mainstream society" have been damaging to too many people. I believe that acceptance should not hinge on conformity. Rather than trying to be like everyone else, my version of "queer" is the project of finding ways to radically be ourselves. (Of course, I acknowledge that other people may define "queer" in very different ways than I do.)

As a further example of what I mean, I want to talk about the term "neuroqueer". This is a little-used term to refer to people whose brains function outside of "normal" ways, most commonly people on the autistic spectrum. I've heard some politically correct folks refer to such people as "neurodiverse". To me, this term implies a passive acceptance. Sure, it's better than something derogatory. But I much prefer "neuroqueer" because it's active and political. It implies to me that we're going to come together as a group to change something about our situation and about society. It implies that not only can we be okay without magically becoming "normal", but that we're going to make sure you know it.

There are various theories about what causes the learning disability that I have. Maybe I don't have enough white matter in my brain. I can't control that, and I can't control the fact that in many situations, I think differently from how a "normal" person might. What I can control is how I view my experience of being different, and how I might use it for the better. That's why I choose to identify as both neuroqueer and "regular" queer.

Who's Queer?

2010-10-13T22:34:00.000-07:00

Recently, there was an extremely hostile brouhaha on a feminism-related Livejournal community about whether asexuals were "allowed" to identify as queer. I briefly skimmed the arguments for about three minutes, before my eyes wanted to bleed with all the ignorance and, oddly, hatred. One of the more benign comments was "Only queers should be able to decide who is queer". Wow...circular logic, much? Two main arguments seemed to be that only homosexuals can be queer, and that only people who have been violently discriminated against can be queer. While some people were willing to magnanimously grant that maybe homo-, bi-, or panromantic asexuals could identify as queer, others seemed absolutely irate that heteroromantic or aromantic asexuals might identify as such. A lot of people on that thread also seemed to view asexuality as just one more annoying internet meme, which is sad.

I'm just left thinking that such ardent policing of whatever people consider their one true definition of "queer" defeats the purpose of the identification. I thought being queer was about breaking rules and boundaries when it comes to sexuality, not adhering to rigid definitions. And if asexuals didn't break rules and boundaries, people wouldn't react to us in such defensive ways.

I prefer a more...charitable definition of "queer". I think that deciding to identify this way is completely up to the individual. I know that in response to this, someone is going to think, "But Ily! What if a straight, totally "vanilla" person wanted to call themselves queer?" Well, first of all, I hate to break it to you, but straight people are not exactly lining up to identify as queer, which makes some peoples' extreme defense of the word a little absurd. What realistic threat are they defending it against? And second, if a few straight people did identify as queer, it wouldn't be the end of the world. If you insisted on seeing it as "a price to pay" at all, it would be a small one, for greater inclusiveness.

A Little Coming-Out Brainstorm

2010-10-11T20:20:00.000-07:00

So, have I talked about coming out enough yet? I know Coming Out Day might be almost over (or over, depending on your time zone), but I have just one more thought about coming out...at least in the near future. I've already tried to establish that most people don't have a clue how to react when an asexual comes out to them. That's one reason folks can get so rude and hostile. So why don't we tell people how we want them to react, when we come out? Is this crazy enough to work? I mean something like, "I'm asexual. And by the way, the appropriate response is 'Thanks for telling me'". Maybe it's slightly passive-aggressive and even annoying. But it's better than getting into a conflict about asexuality. Depending on the person, they could be quite relieved.

To me, the main reason coming out as asexual is so scary is because you have no idea how anyone will react. Liberal, conservative, radical, straight, queer, confused...you can never know how anyone stands. So I'm all about reducing the element of chance as much as possible. When you come out, you're already educating them about your sexuality. Educating them a little further about how to be come out to won't hurt them...much.

Such a tactic might also lend itself well to the written word. In the AVEN thread about Coming Out Day, a large number of people mentioned coming out on Facebook. You pretty much have a captive audience, and you can say whatever you want. So if you're already doing it, why not mention the response you want?

But related to that...The problem with coming out on Facebook is that you have no idea who actually read and/or understood the message. I already need a spreadsheet to keep track of the people I'm out to. So, to mention it there or not? Sadly, I'm just sitting here, trying to figure that out.

"Hung"

2010-10-04T20:26:00.000-07:00

I keep forgetting this blog is supposed to be about pop culture...my bad. So am I the only person in the world who watched Hung (crappy title for a few reasons) on HBO or what? The second season ended recently. In an art class once, I painted a beautiful watercolor of a kangaroo, and my professor called it a "bizarre choice of subject matter". I guess the same could be said of Hung. It's about a divorced father, teacher, and baseball coach in Detroit, basically a regular guy facing financial problems. His house burns down and he loses custody of his kids. So to get some extra income, he turns to prostitution.

Bizarre show for an asexual to enjoy? Eh, I don't think so. I really liked the first season for the humor and the great acting of the two main characters: Ray, the prostitute, and Tanya, a poet by day, his pimp by night. They're very likable. Most of the characters on the show experience some kind of growth, and not just the major characters. The second season, while it had good moments, became increasingly odd and disjointed. Considering that, I'm actually kind of surprised that it got picked up for a third season.

As you might imagine, Hung contained a fair amount of sex. But it was usually depicted in a humorous way that didn't bother me. What tends to bother me about depictions of sex is a total irrelevance to the plot, and that definitely can't be said of Hung. Also, as someone who doesn't connect love and sex, casual sex (as long as it isn't abusive) is no more distasteful to me than sex in a relationship. Since Ray has veto power over his clients, there isn't really any coercion involved. But like Sex and the City, the main focus of the show isn't actually sex. It's more about the non-sexual tribulations of setting up this business, and its ramifications on the rest of Ray's life.

Two interesting things from the second season: Ray had a client who saw him because sex was always boring to her. And in the end...she was still bored. So, hey. Also, at the end of the second season (s p o i l e r !), when Ray and his ex-wife, Jessica, are realizing they still love each other, Jessica says that rather than just going from man to man, she wants to take some time for herself to figure out her own needs. I thought that was cool, and an extremely rare outcome for film/TV. I also like how Ray's daughter is shown as being into the Fat Acceptance movement, although it's randomly thrown in and not explored. Maybe next season?

If you like any other comedies from HBO, you'll probably like Hung as well...the first season is out on DVD, if anyone wants to check it out.

How To Be Alone: Reviews!

2010-09-27T15:25:00.000-07:00

In the comments to my last post, someone posted a link to the video "How to Be Alone". One thing I liked about the video was that it talked about doing things alone as a skill anyone can build using small steps (the video suggests starting in the bathroom-- we've all peed alone, haven't we?). I agree that the ability to do things alone is an important one, and not just for single people. I'm not always great at it myself, but I'm hoping that with time, I'll improve. So I wanted to open up a discussion of ridin' solo with my personal reviews of some standard "alone" activities, most of which were mentioned in the video. I'm using two ratings: Enjoyability, where a 10 would be enlightenment or "I'M GOING TO DISNEYLAND!" and a 1 would be watching Youtube videos buffer. And awkwardness/anxiety, where a 1 would be gazing at a sleeping kitten, and a 10 would be nearing a panic attack. So, onward!

Reading a book in the park.
Enjoyability: 8
A/A: 2
I have a pretty bad memory for books, which might be one of the reasons I feel compelled to write about them. But parks are another story. Being alone is no big deal here, since I find both reading and being outside can make me feel content. Sometimes low-stress activities are the best. Just be sure to pick an engrossing book and a good park for your first time.

Movies.
Enjoyability: 6
A/A: 4
Going to movies alone was what convinced me I was the only person in America who saw "Hustle and Flow". It's not as scary as it may seem, because it's dark and you can get absorbed in the movie. The downside is that you don't have anyone to discuss the movie with. If you haven't yet done this, try seeing an early showing of an independent film. The theater will be pretty empty, and there will be other people there by themselves (probably because their friends, like yours, didn't want to see yet another plotless wonder).

Restaurant.
Enjoyability: 5
A/A: 5
The final frontier to some isn't that frightening once you've done it a few times. I mostly just find eating alone to be boring, and it's something I would do out of necessity (ie, I'm out alone and hungry) than for fun. First time? Some restaurants are more amenable to people eating alone than others. Try a somewhat casual place that isn't very crowded. If you were in San Francisco, I would suggest Ananda Fuara at dinner, where I would always see quite a few people eating alone.

Concert, aka "Show".
Enjoyability: 7, but depends on how good the show is.
A/A: 6
Awkwardness and boredom during set breaks is the issue here, as well as lack of post-show discussion. But it would be a shame to miss a good show just because no one else is feeling it. Once I went to a show with a friend, and we were standing near a woman who was by herself. During the set breaks, she would take out a small flashlight and read a book about music. I still remember that because whenever I see someone alone and rolling it with, I always think that person's pretty badass. If you're alone and feel awkward, you never know, maybe people are wishing they had your courage.

Going Out Dancing.
Enjoyability: ???
A/A: 9
This one was in the video, but I've never actually done it. And I can't say I want to. Dance events being a common place to get hit on is just one reason I'd be uncomfortable with this. Sure, if you're dancing in a crowd, no one will know you're alone. But I can't get over a few things that to me, just seem totally unfun alone. Going to a bar also falls into this category.

Travel.
Enjoyability: 6-10
A/A: 3-7
I know this is a tricky one for a lot of people. Traveling alone has its advantages, but it can also get tedious and there can be safety issues. It will encompass many different situations that you will have to do alone, about which your comfort level will vary. While I've never traveled totally alone for more than 2 days, I've spent some time on trips by myself. My main concern is what to do after dark. During the day, there are always museums and outdoor stuff, which often I enjoy solo. But at night, there's all the stuff I don't like to do alone: Restaurants, bars, dancing, etc. What might help with this is to do advance research for nightlife I wouldn't mind doing, like special movies or museums that are open late (I love me some museums!). There's also the possibility of meeting up with other people in the place you travel to. I've met AVENites in New York and Portland, and I have college friends in some random places. If you're not asexual, there's always Couchsurfers, who according to the website, can act as tour guides even if you don't want to crash on random couches. Also, maybe a friend of a friend could offer to show you around. However...then you wouldn't really be alone anymore.

So what are your reviews? Any awesome alone activities we should try? Or any difficult ones that you want to work up to?

Ily and the Add-Ons

2010-09-20T22:34:00.000-07:00

It's not a new girl group, although it would be pretty awesome if it were. National Coming Out Day is approaching (October 11th) and so I've been thinking more about the whole concept lately. It's something I like to revisit periodically, since I find my views on coming out-- what I want to say, and what responses I want to get-- change over time. But one thing that still baffles me is what exactly to "do" with people who we've come out to, but who gave negative responses. Do we just pretend it didn't happen and go on? Do we distance ourselves from that person, even though they may not understand why? Do we try to win them over? There are a lot of possible scenarios, and they're all pretty awkward. I guess that at its worst, coming out may be a way to find out "who your true friends are". But is that a good thing in the long term, or is is better to just not know? I really have no answer to that.

(Me and my rhetorical questions...damn, homie.)

Occasionally I realize things in the shower, and today in the shower I realized what it was about negative coming-out responses that really bother me. And it's not the lack of understanding about asexuality. That, actually, I can kind of get. When I was first learning about asexuality, I wasn't sure that it was quite for real, either. Once it seemed weird and foreign to me, too. It also seems true that if someone didn't buy asexuality-- and that was it-- it wouldn't be a problem because they'd keep it to themselves. The bigger problem, to me, is what I'm going to call the "add-ons". And I'm starting to think that the ignorance and the add-ons should be addressed separately. I'm talking about when people don't just disregard our asexual reality, but add on rudeness, a patronizing or invasive attitude, or hostility. I feel like often, this will be the first time that we've gotten such rudeness or intrusiveness from this particular person. It can be extremely surprising and we can wonder how well we really know that person after all. While ignorant people can learn, what can be done with the the things people add on?

Like I've said before, it's common for people to have no clue how to deal with someone coming out, especially someone coming out as asexual. So I think we're completely within our rights to tell them how it should be done. We might gain a better idea how to deal with the negative responders if we comment on the add-on, not the ignorance on asexuality. Here's an example.

Bob: I'm asexual.
Jane: So were you abused as a child?
Bob: That's a pretty invasive question, don't you think?
Jane: Oh, sorry about that.
Bob: I'll e-mail you some information about asexuality, so you can check it out at your leisure. [I guess for this to work, you'd have to be the kind of person who says "at your leisure". Also, credit: Part of this idea comes from a book about coming out for vegetarians, Living Among Meat Eaters. Anyway...]
Jane: Okay, thanks.

Jane realized her gaffe and apologized, so I think it would be reasonable to forgive and move on. On the other hand, this might be what happens when you address the ignorance and ignore the add-on:

Bob: I'm asexual.
Jane: So were you abused as a child?
Bob? No, I wasn't.
Jane: Your hormones are out of whack, then?
Bob: Well--
Jane: Haven't found the right girl yet?
Bob: That's not--

...And on, and on, forever. I'm realizing that coming out can be a pretty heated moment for both people, and those can be the worst kinds of moments to educate someone. Once they know you're asexual, you have plenty of time to explain further. So I no longer think it's necessary to tell them everything about asexuality right then. My new tactic might be to drop the a-bomb, shut down any add-ons, and then e-mail them some further information, so they can interrogate their computer instead of me.

San Jose Actually Worked.

2010-09-19T21:28:00.001-07:00

No offense to San Jose, but I was pleasantly surprised when we got a big turnout--11 people-- for our meetup there today. I thought it was fun, and there was a good mix of Apples to Apples-playing and more serious asexuality discussion. For part of the time, the large group broke into smaller groups fairly organically, which I thought worked well. For past meetups, I tried to get down a list of funny things people talked about, but this is apparently something I'm not good at doing, so I gave up. All I can remember now is that "spam" and "Detroit" are always trump cards...good to know.

If you've been reading this blog for a long time (thank you), you might recall posts where I wondered if we would ever get 10 people at a meetup. Now, for the past few meetups, we've been exceeding that number. I tend to be overly hard on myself, but I shouldn't underestimate that. It's something everyone who's participated is entitled to feel proud of. At the meetup, a few people asked why the Bay Area has so many asexuals (or some variation on that question). I tried to explain that the reason we get this many people at meetups is only because we've been having them for so long. At the first meetups I organized, it was common to only get one or two other people. I think that any area having regular meetups for (oh my gosh...) 4 years would meet or easily exceed this number. I say this just so everyone knows, it can be done.

Tim Gunn is Asexual?!

2010-09-13T22:19:00.000-07:00

News!

Thanks to Karli for pointing out this video, in which Tim Gunn (the dude from "Project Runway" who says "make it work!" a lot) discusses his "suicidal past". It seems like this was one reason why he felt so badly during his teen years:

"For a long time, I didn't know what I was. I knew what I wasn't. I wasn't interested in boys. But I really wasn't interested in girls." He says (in a People magazine article) "I've always been kind of asexual" and "I really am happy alone", claiming that he hasn't had sex since 1982.

Well I'll be! I'm jazzed that Tim Gunn is "kind of" one of us. Obviously I don't know him, but his television persona is just so benevolent (well, except towards Gretchen). Although I'm pretty sick of Project Runway at this point, when I think about it...On "What Not to Wear", Clinton and Stacy (the hosts/fashionistas) were always talking about how "sexy" various clothing items were. Has Tim Gunn ever gushed about the sexiness of a garment? Not that I can recall. Hmm.

We're here for ya, Tim...how about some invisible fashion-industry cake?

Pissing in the Wind

2010-09-12T20:37:00.000-07:00

I didn't die! Was just having internet access issues (comment moderation may be slow for the next few days). And why is August always so boring, while so much goes on in September? I don't get it. Anyway, recently Elizabeth posted about a new study of asexuality which states:

Asexuality may also be defined as an absence of sexual desire, regardless of sexual behavior. Indeed, the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (“AVEN”) (Jay 2005) holds that an independence from sexual desire is the key feature of asexuality, claiming that “an asexual is someone who does not experience sexual attraction".

Also:

Whether the primary component of asexuality is behavioral (a lack of sexual behavior), desire-based (a lack of sexual desire), or identity-based (labeling oneself as “asexual”) is debatable.

Uhh, how about "none of the above"?

And one more:

Bogaert’s (2004) nationally representative study of asexuality examined the prevalence of asexual desire in Great Britain. Drawing on a survey of 18,876 respondents in England, Wales, and Scotland, he found that approximately 1.1% of the sample indicated that they “have never felt sexually attracted to anyone at all” (Bogaert 2004: 281).

You'll see that Bogaert's reference to "sexual attraction" morphs into "desire" with no explanation. As you probably know, AVEN makes no mention of sexual desire in its definition of asexuality. I share Elizabeth's frustration that the researchers would conflate "an independence from sexual desire" and "someone who does not experience sexual attraction". The researchers refer to asexuality as a lack of sexual desire many more times throughout their study. If this was one isolated incident, it might not warrant further comment. However, whether it's academia or the media, people just can't seem to stop calling asexuality a "lack of sexual desire". But why do people keep calling it this, and why does it even matter? It's more than just asexuals splitting hairs. Elizabeth got some good discussion about the study itself, so hopefully I'll be able to speak to something slightly different...

What might bother me most about calling asexuality a "lack of sexual desire" is that the definition used by most asexuals, "a person who experiences (little or) no sexual attraction" is so easy to find once you start looking into asexuality. Type "asexuality" into a search engine and you'll get AVEN first thing, where the standard definition used by asexuals is on the first page. So I'm led to believe that most people looking into asexuality know our definition, but just choose to ignore it. In the study above, our definition was acknowledged, but then subsumed into a different definition. Now, don't get me wrong, I can totally understand why someone, especially a researcher, wouldn't want to just swallow the AVEN definition. But without AVEN, it's unlikely that there would be even the minor interest in asexuality that we're currently seeing. And when people outside the asexual community make up their own definitions of asexuality, they seem to provide further vagueness rather than increased clarity. What's really confusing is that the study mentioned by Elizabeth claims to take a social constructionist approach, which to me, would suggest the opposite of basically ignoring the words a group of people uses to define themselves.

Sometimes, trying to spread the word that asexuality is a lack of sexual attraction feels like, well, pissing in the wind. Why do people keep using-- and independently coming up with-- what asexuals themselves consider a "wrong" definition? I have one theory, and apologies if it's wildly obvious. But there's a lot of ground between embracing asexuals as totally normal and thinking that we're just making it all up for attention ('cause we get such awesome attention, right?). I'm guessing that a lot of people, including some asexuals, fall somewhere in this middle area. When people use "sexual desire" as a definition, I think that they're substituting a vaguer word for a more exact one. They may be open to the idea of asexuality, but they're not yet ready to give it approval as a legit orientation. Because at least to my own ears, "sexual attraction" frames asexuality as an orientation, whereas "sexual desire" is more amorphous. So I don't think people will stop using this "sexual desire" definition until asexuality is a lot more accepted. However, understanding often leads to acceptance, and having lots of different definitions floating around doesn't help with that.

(Yet another reason it's problematic is because sexual disorders are often called "sexual desire disorders", not "sexual attraction disorders". If you don't think asexuality is a disorder, then help out the cause by not calling it a "lack of sexual desire". Again, this issue might get lost on media folks, but shouldn't be lost on researchers.)

In support of sexual desire, it seems logical that asexuals would be said not to feel it. Most people, even those well-versed in sexuality, tend to lump all sexual and romantic feelings together, using terms interchangeably. And it will take a metric fuckton (or perhaps you prefer a metric shitload) of education to change that, much more, I think, than just telling people about asexuality. But asexuals aren't totally innocent when it comes to clarity, either. On AVEN, I often see people separating "attraction" and "desire" and then using "desire" to mean sex drive or libido. People tend to have a "well, duh" attitude about this, but I don't think it's at all clear without further explanation. It might be technically correct, but it's confusing. If "sex drive" is what we mean, why not cut out the middleman and just say that? Another problem is that when we use "sexual desire" to mean sex drive, we can say "asexuals may experience sexual desire" which sounds a lot more contradictory, at least to me, than "asexuals may have a sex drive...it's just not directed at anyone".

So I'm thinking that "sexual desire" should probably be scrapped in situations where a detailed understanding of sexuality is important. While "desire" and "attraction" might be different things, all you need to do is say "Jane feels sexual desire for Bob" to have them be basically the same, at least in popular usage. If someone is using "sexual desire", I want to know why they chose to use that term in particular. I know that my wish for people to define all their terms is a bit repetitive, but it's important. It's exciting to talk about new concepts, but if we're using the same words for different things, real communication becomes extremely difficult.

Wow, this looked a lot shorter when I was writing it. I'll come with something slightly less pedantic next time...or at least, will try my darndest. And oh, meetup on September 19th! Check out the "San Francisco Meetup" thread in AVEN's Meetup Mart for details. You don't have to be an AVEN member to access the information.

The Real L Word

2010-09-01T21:11:00.000-07:00

In which I see it so you don't have to!

A few weeks ago, I had a cold (yeah, I know you're all dying to know what my sinuses are up to), which meant that I watched a lot more TV than usual. This included quite a few different shows that I probably wouldn't have otherwise seen. The most relevant one to this blog was probably The Real L-Word, on Showtime, which I believe is from the same people who brought us The Fictional L-Word. To my considerable shame, I kept watching the show after my cold got better. (Even though one of the characters was so annoying to me that I fast-forwarded through all her scenes...) I kept hoping that the show would display some potential, but the overall product was trashy and exploitative*, often very boring, and rarely insightful. I found these recaps much more amusing than the actual show. So I wouldn't be surprised if a second season never materialized.

If you haven't figured it out by now, the premise of The Real L-Word is that The L-Word is re-created...but this time, with real people. And it's sort of amazing how closely they've gotten the reality show to adhere to the fictional show. But I ask...what's the point of that? Even The Real World gets to go to a different city every season, but it looks like lesbians are stuck in West Hollywood for the time being. (However, whenever I watch shows set in LA, I always have an urge to dress better, which I suppose is not an awful thing.)

(Let me tell you that in Northern California, we don't get our own anatomically correct palm trees. Dude, I'm outta here.)

Was there anything positive about the show? Well, I can identify one thing. I find that in the media, there is usually a stereotype that lesbian and gay people are not accepted by their families, especially those who aren't white or from American cultural backgrounds. So it was good to see that most of the characters' families did accept them, and were welcoming to their romantic partners.

*(Doin' an asterisk to say that the "scandalous" thing about the show was that people have sex in it, and they are "real people". However, it was pretty PG in comparison to the fictional L-Word. I think there was only one visible sex scene in the whole season, so anyone watching the show for the sex would have been very disappointed. But what was sketchy about it was that the women who did have sex were totally drunk. I don't know how consent on reality shows would work, but I just felt bad for them, like once they sobered up they would have really regretted keeping the lights on. Reading the comments of some non-asexual viewers, I found this idea being echoed.)

Kids

2010-08-27T17:26:00.000-07:00

(You can listen to the MGMT song while you read this post, if you're not totally tired of it by now. Dun dun dun dun dun da-dun dun dun...)

I've written before about my views on having children. But since raising kids is something that is so important to many people's lives, I think it's worth at least two posts. Anyway, the point of this post is to challenge familiar phrases yet again. We all know the question, "Do you want to have children?" Obviously, it's a question people really want to ask. So I'd like to keep its general spirit but raise its inclusiveness level with this alternative: "What sort of influence, if any, do you want to have on the next generation?" Sure, it sounds cornier and oddly formal (maybe one of you can help me out with that). But rather than a yes/no answer where biological children are the default, it opens up conversation about all kinds of other possibilities. Who knows! Maybe all sorts of people would find it interesting.

An oft-mentioned book here, The New Single Woman, claims that a connection to the next generation is an important element in the happy lives of older single women, whether or not they're parents. (Although the book is about women, I don't see why this idea wouldn't also apply to men.) As the question currently stands, people who don't want kids "the traditional way" are automatically put on the defensive. I remember being interrogated about my intentions when I responded to the current question with "I might adopt someday". I'd like to think my alternative question could put people on more equal footing in these kinds of conversations. Sure, it's a dream, but it could be worth trying out.

Asexual Community Report Card

2010-08-19T13:03:00.000-07:00

This post is an attempt to tie these recent posts together with an evaluation of asexual community (or lack thereof). First of all, is there an asexual community? Ask different asexuals and you're bound to get different answers. I would say, "yes and no". We have an online community that is growing, even though so many people are still unaware of asexuality. The online community allows asexuals from around the world to easily communicate, which should not be underestimated. Is an online community a "real" community? I think so-- while communities need a "meeting place", it doesn't necessarily have to be a meatspace one.

But while we're using terms broadly, we also have to think about communities providing "diverse places for diverse people". And I don't think a community that exists solely online can accomplish that. It's too easy for people to lose interest in online communities after they've found answers to their personal questions, or when "real life" gets in the way. And the anonymity of the web can make it hard for people to feel really invested in each other. What I think would be ideal is a thriving internet community as well as a thriving offline community that are intertwined.

What would an offline asexual community even look like? It would vary regionally, but here's one idea: At a meetup, one person told me that she wished a group of asexuals would meet every Friday night in a local pub, and she could stop by if she wanted. I think a setup like that would provide a lot more asexual community than our area currently has. And I can see it actually happening someday. At different times when I've met asexuals in person, I've had those really exhilarating conversations that to me, exemplify the feeling of community. On some level, I think we can throw bulleted lists out the window and say we know community when we feel it. I've felt it in the company of asexuals, no doubt. But as brief, isolated incidents. Maybe that's the nature of those sorts of incidents, but I wonder if we couldn't increase them, and make them available to more people. No matter how a community is structured, I think it's something as amorphous as a feeling that might keep people coming back.

While bridging from an online community to an online/meatspace hybrid won't be easy, hanging out with asexuals online has shown me that our group possesses qualities that will serve us well in community-building. If you don't mind a return to the bulleted list, I think that not all of us, but enough of us, have shared purposes as asexuals. The gay and lesbian communities have proved that hanging out with other folks of your orientation can be personally fulfilling, and I don't know why the asexual community would be any different in that regard. So far, it looks like asexuals are doing pretty well at not enforcing conformity. I really hope this doesn't change. And I've found asexuals, both on AVEN and at meetups, to be a relatively welcoming bunch.

So those are some things we've got going for us. (I guess this is a report card from a hippie school.) Now for the obstacles. I think for the most part, they're exactly the same as the obstacles to any other community. But I want to advance a theory that community, on some level, is a numbers game. You need a concentrated population, which is proof that Death and Life of Great American Cities has thoroughly infected my brain (in a good way). Especially when you're talking about a group that could be 1% of the population at the least. Say you want 10 asexuals to meet in that pub every Friday. You can't just find 10 asexuals and call it a night, since in all likelihood, 9 of them won't be interested. I've noticed the same thing when it comes to having "regulars" who come to most meetups. For every regular, there are at least 10 people who will show up once, and never again. Not to mention all the people who might think about going to the meetups, but never go at all. In most places, we just don't have the asexual population density yet. To achieve that, we'd need to get to a point where more people in a given area are aware of their asexuality. And getting there is going to take a lot of patience and visibility work. I know that's fairly obvious, but hopefully it wasn't painfully so.

And this concludes my little series on community. You survived! Did I leave anything important out?

New, Asexier Template

2010-08-16T16:44:00.000-07:00

Argyle isn't exactly tweed, but I would say that they might be spiritual brothers. Also, you may have noticed that there are now doodads at the bottom of my posts that allow you to e-mail them to people, post them on Facebook, etc.

Obstacles to Community

2010-08-12T13:57:00.000-07:00

Ooh, I've been looking forward to writing this post! Not because it's a happy topic, but because there's just a ton of depth to it. I think there are two main obstacles to community (that encompass a lot) and then further ones that are easier to surmount, but still problematic. I won't go over every one of the "further" obstacles (you probably wouldn't want me to, anyway), but I chose two that I have personal experience with. Want elaboration on anything? Comment on, commenters.

Big Obstacle #1: Current cultural ideas/values.

When I talk about culture, I can only really speak for American culture. However, American cultural ideas haven't stayed here but have been exported all over the world. One idea that I've written about a lot is that marriage-type relationships are portrayed as an ultimate source of fulfillment, the goal for everyone, and the solution to all our problems. There's also the idea that rather than citizens, we are "consumers" and that the other solution to our problems is to buy more stuff. Related to consumerism is what I call "the cult of busyness". It's almost seen as "cool" to be too busy to function. Katherine Gibson writes, "We've become time warriors. With '24/7' as our battle cry and armed with e-everything, we thrust and parry on a time-stressed, overworked battlefield". I think that's a pretty accurate description. Americans are chronically overworked and we experience the toxic stress to go with it. So who has time for community? These values create the second major obstacle:

Big Obstacle #2: Knowledge, Ability, and Interest.

Some people will never be interested in community, no matter what. But I think there are a far greater number who might be very interested indeed, they are just unaware of the benefits of community, what it is, what it could be, or all of those. It's like some sport or food or fashion statement that I haven't heard of yet: If it's outside my realm of knowledge, how do I even know to be curious? There's also the idea that building community is too hard, takes too much time, involves skills you don't have, or that it should just be done by someone else. Or maybe there's the notion that community is some relic of a bygone time. I think these assumptions, fears, and points of ignorance are the places where the biggest changes can be made. Talking about community-related issues, like I try to do on this blog, may not seem like much. But I'd like to think it helps to break down this particular obstacle. And when enough people get over this obstacle, I think that some of our harmful cultural ideas will start to crumble as well.

Now, for one of those secondary obstacles: Rampant Relocation. I chose this because it relates to my personal experience-- I've lived in 8 different towns by the age of 25. And I don't think this is unusual. Relocation has advantages along with disadvantages. While it can be hard to build community when people are missing their old homes or dreaming of the next one, sometimes transplants to an area are the most amenable to new forms of community. That new-person advantage was my experience in San Francisco. However, I didn't even make the 3-year mark there. Financial, employment, and personal issues forced me to leave the city. And even though I only moved an hour away, I found it pretty much impossible to maintain the community that I was just starting to find there. Relocation is far from a lone issue-- it touches on the shortage of affordable housing in cities, and the volatility of the job market, among other things.

Bad Urban/Town Planning can be overcome, but it's damn annoying. While it's always been a pet peeve, it's on my mind even more lately, since I'm reading The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which is all about urban planning failures. As an example, take a neighborhood I lived in during my high school years. I lived in a townhouse complex. And this is what bordered it:

More townhouses, behind high walls
A busy road that might have had one crosswalk on a half-mile long stretch
A huge, abandoned industrial park
Other houses, again, behind a wall
Gas stations and car dealerships

Are we having fun yet? There was nothing in the area that might compel people to leave their houses on foot, meaning that local human interactions were extremely minimal. Nothing about our surroundings suggested the possibility of community. And this is not a unique neighborhood. Included in this category is sprawl, bad or non-existent public transportation, and the spread of chain businesses that are not invested in their local areas. Like I said, this can all be overcome, but people will need to work a lot harder to create local communities in badly-planned areas. Oh, and guess what's going to be built in that old industrial park? More townhouses. Let me guess, they're probably going to be behind high walls. Potential community theme song?

Next up: How this all relates to the emergence of an asexual community. No, I didn't forget this was a blog about asexuality...

General Blogging Question

2010-08-11T16:43:00.000-07:00

So, say someone has a blogroll...well, in this case, "homies". Would you rather see every asexual blog that has ever been created, or just blogs that are currently active? Maybe there should be a page where we can round up links to the blogs that aren't currently active, because they still have good material, even if they're not being updated. Hmm...

Real post later today or tomorrow.

More Involved, More Determined

2010-08-05T20:58:00.000-07:00

A little over a year ago, I did a series on historical BFFs (best friends forever!). One pair that I wrote about were Paul Cezanne (painter) and Emile Zola (writer). I had no reason to think I'd ever mention them again...this is a blog about asexuality, after all. But I recently went to an Impressionist painting exhibit where I saw this quote on the wall, and just knew I had to blog about it (Thanks to my mom for risking a stern talking-to in order to take a picture of it for me):

In 1869...Manet invited me to join him every evening in a cafe [Cafe Guerbois] in the Batignolles quarter, where he and his friends would gather and talk after leaving their ateliers. There I met Fantin-Latour, Cezanne, and Degas...the art critic Duranty, Emile Zola, who was then embarking on his literary career, as well as some others. I myself brought along Sisley, Bazille, and Renoir. Nothing was more interesting than our discussions, with their perpetual clash of opinions. They sharpened one's wits, encouraged frank and impartial inquiry, and provided enthusiasm that kept us going for weeks and weeks until our ideas took final shape. One always came away feeling more involved, more determined, and thinking more clearly and distinctly. (Claude Monet)

It sort of reminded me of this, the "Epicurean" living arrangement. But even more so, it reminded me of this-- my own dream of a personal "utopia" involving a community of creative types. Oddly enough, what impressed me even more than the assembled names was the fact that they all met daily in the same cafe. It sounds like a simple thing, maybe, but it seems so elusive to our 2010 world. Even if you exchanged "Batignolles quarter" with "Duluth" and the famous artists for amateurs, something about their meetings and the way they felt about them would have still touched me.

Their gatherings met many of my "pillars of community": A shared purpose, individual fulfillment (at least in Monet's view), commitment, a meeting place and exceedingly regular contact. And from the quote, it all seemed enjoyable. That exhilaration described by Monet is something that I've come to associate with community. I think a lot of people have gotten the idea that you can only feel that kind of excitement through romantic love, but I find that to be an overly narrow view, and an undersell of community.

We all know that attraction tends to happen spontaneously, whichever sorts of attraction you experience. But if you wanted to, say, get married, you'd have some idea of a strategy for that-- dating online or in meatspace, getting friends to set you up with their friends, going to places where your preferred gender congregates. But if you want community, there's not a lot of common wisdom on how to go about that. There are no rules. I don't think I'm capable of writing them, and I'm not even sure there should be any. But in this series that I'm sneaking on you folks, this nuts and bolts discussion of community, I want to at least talk strategy.

And because pop culture only gets you so far, here's my favorite painting from the exhibit:

"The Bridge at Maincy" by Cezanne. I wish I could walk into that painting and stand on the bridge for awhile. I feel similarly about this one, "Snow at Louveciennes" by Sisley:

I love those random little alleyways that you can find in some places. Sadly there aren't a lot of them in the suburbs.

Pillars of Community

2010-08-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

This morning, I was reading something David Jay had written about his concept of Community-Based Intimacy. I've read and commented about CBI before, and written about community more generally so many times myself. But for some reason, it was today that I realized: When I say "community", I have no idea if other people are on the same page, a different page, or another book altogether. (This is a similar theme to the "Sexual Fluidity" post, I guess.)

There is no one definition of community, and I think that's great, actually. But a lot of things get called "communities" that may not really be all that communal, such as towns and neighborhoods (Most places I've lived, it seems like the predominant attitude among my neighbors is to pretend that none of the rest of us really exist). And some people may have never experienced a feeling of community at all, which would make it hard to identify. Community is as much a feeling as a concrete entity. And a community can be a thing that lasts only for a day. Communities don't have to be really strong and tight-knit for us to get something out of them. But if you did want to create a strong, long-lasting and positive community, it might look something like this:

A group that works towards a shared purpose while also providing fulfillment for individuals.

Like I said, this isn't a definition-- nothing in this post will be. It's my own personal idea of what community means, taken from life experience. Bear in mind that you and I could be in the exact same group of people, and while you may consider it a community, I may consider it something else entirely. At the end of the day, whether or not you feel that warm and fuzzy community spirit is really an individual thing. Now I'm going to hopefully not intimidate you much with a list of what I've found to be important aspects of community. Because how can I try to build it when I haven't given thought to what it actually entails?

Shared purpose (mentioned above) is really, really broad. It can be as basic as a group of friends who want to have fun together. What people want to gain from the community will vary, but if everyone has a vastly different purpose, I don't see the group lasting. (In previous time periods, the shared purpose might have been "survival".)
That a community needs to fulfill individuals was also mentioned above. If you give and give to a community but get nothing in return, you won't want to be a part of it.
Investment. Not everyone needs to be equally invested, but a community is not one person's project. "Commitment" is another way to put it.
In communities I've been a part of, what really made them seem communal and not like a random group of people was a welcoming attitude from the people who were already there. That's probably why my college sorority felt like a community rather than a secret society. It was also my experience with my Girl Scout group in high school. Even though I was from a different school than everyone else and no one knew me, they welcomed me. I'd dealt with a lot of mean girls, so that was one thing that made me really value that community.
I have never been part of a community that didn't have its own meeting place. Sometimes, the community can even be created by the place. When I lived in San Francisco, I met friends every week at this bar that served free pizza. The fact that we always met at the same place at the same time started to give me community-oriented feelings about this little group. The "meeting place" concept was taken to the extreme in my sorority, where we all lived together in our own section of the dorm.
I also have a hard time considering something a community if there is no regular contact. I feel like once a week is the minimum that I need to really start feeling like I'm in a community. It doesn't need to be a formal meeting, or a gathering of everyone in the whole community. There should be some flexibility for people who want to be in contact more often, and people who want to be in contact less. But in my opinion, for a community to really prosper, some members need to be at the meeting place (see #5) at least once a week.
A community should have no forced conformity. And people should be there only if they want to be. If your leaving is met with death threats, you're probably in a gang or a cult (which are some of the negative sides of people's desire for community).
Related to #7, larger or more "public" communities should provide different places for diverse people. An example of this is my high school's Organic Gardening Club, which was an important community for me during that time in my life. In high school, my social skills weren't yet good enough to really befriend any of the other people in the club. But just chatting with one or two other people while gardening made me feel a lot less alienated at school. If you want to make lasting friends, I think communities are ideal places to do that. But if you just want to maintain the garden and not talk to anyone, I think your contributions should be valued as well.
And related to #8, larger or more political communities should provide involvement at different levels as well as changing methods of involvement. There should be easy ways to jump in, as well as ways to increase your involvement. There should not be closed upper echelons. Also, people's involvement needs to be able to adapt to the rest of their lives. This is one problem with activist communities where the people involved face a lot of burnout.
I don't think communities necessarily contain "constantly changing relationships", as David puts it. But I do think it's inevitable that any community will contain a variety of relationships. Again, my sorority was the best example of this. Although we were all "sisters", there were a few people in the group, maybe 4 or 5, that were among my closest friends. There were others that I considered friends, although we were less close. And there were still others that I either didn't know very well, or didn't especially get along with.
Size doesn't matter. The Organic Gardening Club I mentioned had only two other active members that I can recall. But it was still an important community to me. Years later, the garden is still there.
More than just being personally fulfilling, being in a community needs to be enjoyable. It's hard to over-emphasize this. If it's not enjoyable, you might as well be at home reading some book that you want to read. Seriously, life is too short for communities that feel like grim tasks.

This might be a long list, but it's still partial. Growing up, I was always in very "formal" communities that were either related to some activity or part of a larger organization. At this time in my life, my challenge is to find other kinds of community that may not be as familiar to me, or look like communities I've known in the past. However, I also have to focus on my own development, and I'm not sure how exactly community fits into that. There are a lot of obstacles to community (so many that at times, it may not seem worth the effort) which I'd like to write about in some future post. I'd also like to write about the qualities of AVEN that bode well for a "real-world" asexual community in the future-- and what we might have to work on to get there. So stay tuned!

Sexual Fluidity

2010-07-24T15:11:00.000-07:00

Let's talk about sexual fluidity! If you're asexual, and maybe if you're not, you've probably heard the phrase "sexuality is fluid". I'll be open about the fact that I don't really understand it in a lot of ways-- that's actually the point of this post. "Fluidity" can imply many different things, but no one ever really goes into what exactly they mean when they use the term. If someone asked me how sexuality is fluid, I'd probably say something like, "Well, I guess it's common to not be 100% asexual, 100% heterosexual, and so on for any other orientation." There are, as we hopefully all know by now, many gray areas.

However, I'm not sure that's what most people using the term mean by it. The idea of someone's sexuality changing a lot over a lifetime isn't something I can personally relate to, at least not yet. My feelings towards sex, romance, and whatever else that comprises a sexuality (or lack thereof) have always been about the same. Only my ability to understand and explain it has changed. And from my brief time on Earth, I can't say that I've noticed human beings to be especially fluid. Most of us seem pretty stubborn and set in our ways. Even people who are constantly seeking the new can be stuck in their own rut, where they have trouble changing enough to stick with one thing.

Another issue I have with the term is that it seems like it's mostly queer people who ever mention it. Maybe queer people are just next-level when it comes to this stuff, but if sexuality in general is fluid, then heterosexuals are just as fluid as everyone else. There's this idea among asexuals that in the future, there's some chance of us becoming sexual. However, no one ever says that one day, sexuals could become asexual. It seems like kind of a double-standard, sometimes.

And last, "sexuality is fluid" is a very absolute statement. If asexuals have taught us anything, we should know that there probably isn't anything that sexuality is for everybody.

So that's my confusion; let me show you it.

If you comment about sexual fluidity (and I hope you do), please include in your comment what the concept means (or doesn't mean) to you. Thanks in advance!

White Blackbirds: Reviewed

2010-07-17T21:54:00.000-07:00

So I got the White Blackbirds zine (about "women who aren't married and don't want to be"), and it was really cool. One thing that surprised me was that most of the women profiled were in romantic relationships, or had even been married in the past. I know that being in a romantic relationship isn't the same as marriage. However, if you're been with someone for a long time and live together, certain aspects can become similar. So most people in the zine aren't talking about the everyday experience of marriage, but its legal/religious/social connotations on a broader scale. Katie, the zine's editor, wrote in her introduction that unmarried women, in her opinion, need role models (one of hers is Morrissey!). And I definitely agree with that.

The interview I could relate to the most was with Hannah, age 21, from the UK. She talked about Boston marriages and when asked what she was passionate about, had this to say:

Creating community and community feeling-- it's become a cliche to say, but it's true: there's a lot of distance in modern life. We've never been so connected via e-mail, phone, the internet and on and on and on, but the biggest malaise of our time seems to be how we feel isolated from everyone. Community isn't automatically there because of family, heritage and roots anymore. It has to be built and worked on and thought about, and people are busy and absorbed in their lives- which have a gap. Generally a community-shaped gap. Whether it's a community of people who happen to share the same sexual orientation, religious beliefs, political beliefs or an interest in baking, gardening, or BDSM, that sense of community is important to our lives.

A lot of other people made interesting comments as well, like one woman, Nine, who observed that "...I don't think men get quizzed quite so much about whether they want kids, and if they don't want them, I don't think they're so likely to get that patronizing smile and 'You'll change your mind, once your biological clock starts ticking...'". There was another interviewee, Ciara, who got "Spinster" tattooed on her knuckles to "remind myself to continue to be critical of traditional romantic myths. i feel that these concepts are especially damaging to women, encouraging us to postpone other significant parts of our lives for love and romance." I thought that was a pretty badass tattoo idea, however, I decided to take my cue from Queen Christina:

Although with these Paint skills, I agree, it's astounding that I could still be single.

Apparently, there was so much interest in the zine that there's going to be another volume. I'm going to be in it! Which is pretty exciting. Doing my interview brought up some thoughts that I'd actually never considered before. For awhile, I've had a vague suspicion that marriage may not be "for me", however, no one had ever asked me to articulate why this was, until now.