Asexuality Linkspam!

Here are some posts that have happened in the ace blogosphere in December:

Mind the Gap from Asexual Curiosities: examining the difference between asexuality and low libido

The presence of absence: asexuality and the creation of resistance and Asexy Pioneer: Asexuality vs. Eroticism in Willa Cather's O Pioneers! from Asexy Stuff. (By the way, that first paper is pretty bad.)

Asexuality Hotline and The Angry Video Game Nerd at Asexual Love/aceamoeba

Things Asexuals Like: Tea from Asexy Beast

Nothing Gray About This: Re-evaluating Attraction from Shades of Gray: the author talks about how zhe came to drop the "grey" part of hir identity

Asexual? Is That French for Cocktease? from Singularly Bizarre: TW for rape culture and sexual coercion, examines asexuality and PUA (pick-up "artistry")

Slut-Shaming, Victim-Blaming, and Being a Prude from Eden Café: TW for acephobia, sexual coercion, sexual assault, molestation, conversion attempts

Late Capitalism and Sexual Culture: The Project Plan from Mark Carrigan: examining how assumptions that sexual attraction is universal affect people. Also, video of a presentation at Spotlight on Asexuality Studies (I have not watched this, I have no idea if it is about actual asexuality)

Asexual Men and Rape at No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz? TW for rape and sexual coercion

On Asexuality from A Life Unexamined: the author's journey to identifying as asexual

a post about virginity from pinstripesuit

If there's anything I've missed (there probably is!) feel free to link in the comments.

A Carnival of Aces: Call for Participation

This month, the Carnival of Aces will be hosted here at Confessions of an Ist. The original master post will tell you more about the history of the carnival as well as its past and future locations. Apologies for the late notice; I originally thought I was scheduled for next month!

This month's theme, in keeping with the idea of looking forward to a new year, is unfulfilled desires. Possible topics include:

• what do you want to see for the asexual community in the coming year or other period of time?
• what do you want to see for yourself, in terms of asexuality and its affect on your life, in the coming [period of time]?
• what do you want from the world in terms of its response to asexuality and asexuals?
• etc

Basically, take it and run with it.

Submissions are due by December 31st. The round-up will be available a few days after that. I will post anonymous submissions here; send them to my Blogger handle at gmail.

Happy writing!

No, We Don't (TW rape culture)

(originally posted on Tumblr.)

D. A. Wolf at the Huffington Post asks, Do We Owe Our Spouses Sex? By “we” she apparently means “women married to men”— a nuanced and less stereotyped discussion of the ways in which differing libidos and levels of sexual attraction affect other groups did not make the cut, more’s the pity. She mentions “rumblings of resentment” from women doing more than their share of housework, childcare, or income-earning, but then mentions that these women just “feel… we’re carrying the greater load” (emphasis mine). She moves on from this point, because apparently redistributing the workload to be more equitable and less gendered is not nearly as easy an answer as pressuring women into having sex they don’t want.

“So let’s talk sex — sex as marital glue, sex as physical necessity, sex as a reminder that we are alive, no matter how complicated our daily struggles may seem.”

Uh-huh.

Physical necessity? Not so much.

Marital glue? Frequently, yes.

Reminder that we are alive? Not going to touch that one.

Moving on, Wolf quotes Dr. Yvonne Fulbright, writing about the recent decision of a French judge that a man owes his wife money for not having sex with her, as saying, “Whether married for two years or twenty, husbands and wives have the right to control their bodies, including abstaining.” Wolf’s response is, “Mulling over her viewpoints, I disagree.” She disagrees that husbands and wives have the right to control their bodies. Really? REALLY. Someone else’s libido and sexual desire trumps my bodily autonomy? Don’t we have a word for that… a phrase… it’s on the tip of my tongue, I think it rhymes with “ape culture.”

She goes on to ask, “What if there is virtually no affection or no sexual contact in marriage— then what?” These two are not the same things. Affection takes a myriad of other forms besides sexual contact— unless we want to argue that the only people who ever show each other affection are those who are having sex with each other? No, thought not.

She continues, “How would you feel enduring one year, three years, five years — without being touched by the person you love?” Again, not the same thing as sexual contact, which I suspect is what she means.

And now we come to the crux of the article! “Might that mean that we owe our spouses sex?” Nope! Not ever!

“In the years since my marriage ended, I’ve become reacquainted with the importance of sex as a fundamental element of loving, and being loved.” Not universally!

“I believe it’s a matter of being caring — and smart — if we want to keep our relationships intact.” Aaaaand ending with a dose of implied “people who don’t have sex with their partners don’t care about them,” topped with a serving of “relationships = sexual/romantic relationships.”

The thing is, I agree that sexual compatibility is important in most sexual/romantic relationships, and a lack of it can cause a lot of unhappiness. It’s important to have open discussions about these things, and to communicate to potential sexual partners your desire or lack thereof. See what I did there? It’s not actually necessary to support rape culture or erase non-sexual intimacy to make that statement. Amazing!

Women are told that we can only express our sexuality in very specific ways— the old sexy-but-not-sexual trap. We’re supposed to desire men, but if we initiate sex, we’re “wild” and “slutty.” We’re supposed to be continually available to men, and receptive to what they want to do, but never have needs of our own. Apparently a history of shaming women who actively initiate or desire sex or even want it too much*, that stretches back to the beginning of written history, doesn’t seem to Wolf like it could have anything to do with the issue she writes about. Apparently the solution to “men feel like they’re not having enough sex with their wives” is not “change the fact that women are condemned for having sexual agency” or “redistribute the workload so women have more energy to engage in sex if they so desire” but “write an article reproving women for not being sexually available and reinforcing the notion that husbands are entitled to their wives’ bodies.” Awesome!

So, to sum up: No, we do not owe our spouses sex. No one ever owes anyone sex. Ever. EVER.

*of course, we’re also shamed if we want it too little.

What Is Wanting?

(Originally posted on my Tumblr.)

In the English language, we use the word “want” in different ways. Is it possible to decide to want something?

If I am riding in a car with my friend, I can say, “Will you pull in here? I want to run in and get some milk.”

If the waitress is asking for my decision between two rather mediocre choices, I can say, “I want the zucchini pie.”

If a coworker asks me to take a break and go out for something to drink, I can say, “No, I want to finish this today.”

These are all common uses of the word “want.”

But then I see something like these:




















































This is an entirely different kind of want. This produces the desire for some sort of action— I want to make and eat that dessert, I want to cuddle those cats. This produces awareness of some sort of lack— I am aware viscerally that I do not have that dessert to eat nor those cats to cuddle in a way that I am not viscerally aware that I do not have milk, zucchini pie, or a completed task at work.

Yet both are accurate uses of the word want. Is it also accurate to label the latter experience as desire? Or is that an inaccurate use of the word, or does its standard use in sexual contexts render it inapplicable here?

Sometimes people say, “How can you be asexual? You want to have sex!” Well, yes. But it’s zucchini pie want, milk want, not cat want. It’s not the same thing at all, to me, and yet we use exactly the same word for it.

Thoughts?

(Photo credits: Graham Cracker S’mores Candy, Cats on Windowsill)

Model Clash: Defining Sexual Orientation (Warning, Ace Erasure)

I need to get better about xposting things in a timely fashion. Originally from my Tumblr.

I've heard people suggest multiple times that anyone who's not queer is straight, therefore aromantic asexuals (and heteroromantic asexuals) are straight. I always thought that, as a woman, being straight would require me to have at least some minimal interest in men that I didn't have in women, but that's neither here nor there.

I've also encountered a different model that postulates that sexual orientation refers to the gender(s) to which you are attracted, not whether or not you feel sexual attraction to that/those gender(s). Most people have seen one iteration or another of this in the past few weeks, but one example can be found here (NB demisexual erasure-- link goes to privilegedenyingasexuals). What I find particularly significant is the repetition of "gender(s) you are attracted to."

While I know other aromantic aces experience things differently, I don't experience attraction in a gendered way. The forms of attraction of which I am most aware in my everyday life are emotional and aesthetic, in that order, with intellectual attraction popping up occasionally. (I made a post riffing on the types of attraction last week.) I’m emotionally, aesthetically and intellectually attracted to people irrespective of their gender, to people of multiple genders. These are the most significant attractions I experience and they are the ones around which I form my relationships (well, not so much aesthetically on that count). So, according to the second model, where sexual orientation is determined by the "gender(s) you are attracted to," I would be… pansexual?

I do not identify as pansexual for many reasons, most of which are extremely obvious and some of which boil down to "because I'm not pansexual." That is not the point of this post. (I would like to take a moment in passing to note that this model of sexual orientation also erases all asexuals: very few or no people are attracted to no one at all. Therefore, if sexual orientation is defined as the gender(s) to which you are attracted, under this model, no one is asexual; all asexuals have been redefined as heterosexual or homosexual or pansexual or what have you. I'm not sure why there is this urgency about telling asexuals they are really something else, but even this problematicity, the erasure of all aces under this model, is not the point of this post.)

The point is this: aromantic asexuals cannot be both straight and pansexual. It is inaccurate to classify them as either, unless they identify that way, but there is clearly a logical flaw with a system that identifies them as both. Aromantic asexuals who do experience attraction in a gendered way, and experience, say, emotional attraction primarily to members of their same gender, cannot be both straight under the first model and homosexual under the second model. These models cannot logically coexist, and this clash points to a larger number of problems with our various models of sexual orientation.

The problem with the first model is simple: aromantic aces not being queer (by virtue of our sexual and romantic orientations, that is) does not make us straight. It's become pretty apparent that binaries are a bad way to represent basically any form of gender or sexual identity-- you're not male or female, you’re not gay or straight, you’re not a man or a woman. Why, then, should queer or straight be the only options? Aromantic aces are neither queer nor straight (again, by virtue of our sexual and romantic orientations); we experience heterosexism but not homophobia. We’re another category.

The problem with the second model is more complicated, and is shared by other models of sexual orientation. Say there are numerous axes along which one can experience attraction: sexual, romantic, emotional, aesthetic, etc. Any model that defines sexual orientation along more than one axis is going to be unable to cope with people whose attractions along those axes don't match up. The more axes you include in the model, the more people are going to be completely outside of the model. Thus, when you attempt to define sexual orientation as attraction along any and all axes, like in the definition I linked, you end up with things like aromantic asexuals being classified as pansexual, or as homosexual. (This is also related to the problem I mentioned with the first model, which is the need to make asexuals fit in the categories that already exist. There's no need to attempt to classify aces as "really" heterosexual or straight or gay or "really" bisexual, unless we ourselves identify that way.)

Last month I found a pamphlet on non-heterosexual identities. It includes this definition: "Sexual orientation involves whom one is attracted to sexually, emotionally, physically, and/or spiritually." This is a good example of the problems I am talking about of defining sexual orientation along multiple (and rather arbitrary, in this case-- what is spiritual attraction, exactly?) axes. For example: a heterosexual man is attracted to women. Does this mean, going by this definition, that he is never emotionally attracted to other men? Is it even possible to form friendships without emotional attraction? It is possible to be in a sexual relationship without being sexually attracted to your partner, so by analogy, perhaps it's possible to be in an emotional relationship without being emotionally attracted to your partner. I question, though, whether this actually happens very frequently. Is it really accurate to say that heterosexual men are only ever emotionally attracted to women, and no other gender? If it's not accurate, then what happens to this definition when people experience attraction to different genders along different axes of attraction? Another example: assuming that physical attraction approximates something like aesthetic attraction, is it accurate to say that heterosexual women only ever are aesthetically attracted to men? What about an asexual man who is aesthetically and emotionally attracted to men? This definition seems to imply that he's gay, but it's extremely problematic to categorize him as so. Even models that only use two axes of attraction, sexual and romantic, have their own problems. There are people whose sexual and romantic attractions are not oriented towards the same gender(s), for example, someone who is attracted romantically to women and sexually to men.

Other problems of using multiple axes of attraction as determinants of sexual orientation include: how do you pick which axes to use? The definition I quoted from the pamphlet seems somewhat arbitrary in that it includes spiritual attraction, the meaning of which is unclear, but excludes romantic attraction. Not everyone forms their primary non-familial relationships along axes of sexual or romantic attraction; not everyone forms their relationships with the same amount of "input" from each axis. Another problem with these models is that they generally tend to erase demisexuals and grey-asexuals, who may feel that their sexual orientation has less to do with who they experience attraction to and more to do with the circumstances under which they experience attraction. A third problem with this type of model is the issue of whether or not people who orient towards or are attracted to the same gender(s) along potentially different axes have similar enough experiences to be considered the same sexual orientation. A man who is not sexually or romantically attracted to anyone but is emotionally attracted to men will almost certainly not have the same experience as a man who is romantically and sexually attracted to men. A person who is aesthetically attracted to women, men, and other genders will not have the same experience as a person who is sexually attracted to women, men, and other genders. A woman who is romantically attracted to men will not have the same experience as a woman who is sexually attracted to men.

Many of the models that exist of sexual orientation, and ways to characterize one or more sexual orientations and gender identities, conflict with each other. They are also problematic in their own right, break down with regard to certain identities or combinations of identities, and erase people who are demisexual or grey-asexual. They don't work consistently-- hence combinations of models that classify aromantic asexuals as both straight and pansexual, or as both straight and homosexual. This is a separate problem from the trend towards disallowing "none of the above" as an option and attempting to squeeze anyone who doesn't fit into the existing boxes, into those boxes anyway, instead of letting them open up their own boxes. Both ideas are problematic.

Ace Stories

One of the difficulties about being ace is invisibility. Our stories aren't out there, not even for each other. I've been wondering for a while what sort of problems asexuals and others under the asexual umbrella face, and, in a rather haphazard way, compiling stories from places like Tumblr and LiveJournal. As I am not a member of AVEN, I hadn't looked there; however, this week I read through some threads at AVEN and was really shocked by what people were reporting had happened to them because of their asexuality/asexual-umbrella identity.

I compiled a rough account of what I read in three parts on my Tumblr. Trigger warning for rape culture, sexual assault/harassment/rape, sexual orientation conversion attempts, and general anti-asexual ideas:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Sexual Orientations: Not In Short Supply

Sometimes I come across remarks that amount to, “Why does everyone have to split themselves into smaller and smaller groups? This labeling thing is ridiculous. I mean, c’mon, asexuality? Demisexuality? I’m expected to believe in those now too?”

This is a very silly attitude, and it seems to be based on a number of problematic assumptions. First is the assumption that anybody’s sexual orientation needs your approval or validation to be a real thing. Second is the idea that you “believe in” certain sexual orientations simply because it’s expected of you. The third assumption underlying this general attitude is that if you haven’t experienced it or it doesn’t fit your worldview, it must not exist. But underlying all of this seems to be a scarcity model of sexual orientations.

What do I mean by that? It often seems that people are distressed by the recognition of a “new” sexual orientation, as if it calls into question the validity of the “old” sexual orientations. It’s as if they’re operating from the model that there’s only a certain amount of sexual orientation validity to go around, and the more we give away to these “niche” sexual orientations, the less there is for the “real” sexual orientations— or, alternately, the greater the number of sexual orientations that are recognized, the more they dilute the validity of the “real” sexual orientations. But this is obviously ridiculous, since no such scarcity exists. There is no inherent value to trying to make people confine themselves to a set number of (often ill-fitting) boxes. We don’t lose anything by acknowledging that people are different. Imagine if this scarcity model were applied to race and ethnicity: “Why can’t you just call yourself white? Why can’t you just call yourself brown? What does it matter where your ancestors were 500 years ago?” (On a side note, according to Wikipedia, the number of people in the world who claim Irish ancestry is roughly equal to our best guess for the number of asexual people in the world. Fun fact!)

If someone tells me they’re dendrosexual, sexually attracted to trees, I’m most likely going to believe them in the absence of a very good reason not to. Sure, it’s statistically unusual and not something I encounter on a regular basis, but my experience isn’t the be-all and the end-all of the world. Why shouldn’t I believe them? If they’re not distressed, and not engaging in non-consensual activity (I’m operating under the belief that trees, unlike animals, have no consciousness and therefore the idea of consent for trees is meaningless), what does it hurt me to believe what someone tells me about hirself? To put it the other way, what grounds do I have for thinking that I’m really justified in telling them no, you can’t possibly be right, I know better than you about you? What possible objection could I make? “But that’s not a real thing!” There’s no evidence for that, and evidence against it right in front of me in the form of someone claiming to be dendrosexual. “That’s not a real thing” is something people used to say, and still say, about every sexual orientation that isn’t heterosexuality. In every case, they were wrong.

We’re not running out of sexual orientations. Acknowledging the validity of one sexual orientation (which isn’t a prerequisite for it to actually be valid, of course) doesn’t call into question the validity of another. Let’s stop acting like it does.

(originally posted at my Tumblr.)

Feed the People, Not the Ducks

After my duck-feeding plans were thwarted, I used the stale bread to make this bread pudding recipe. I think it's a pretty good recipe; next time I would use larger pieces of bread, because there was essentially a layer of scrambled egg stuff on the bottom, try to substitute some brown sugar for the white, and maybe cook it a minute or two longer. This made a good amount for one person, not to eat in one sitting (unless you want to), but it definitely reheats well, and there's not so much of it that you'd be eating it until you get sick.

Making recipes that feed one person well without spoiling is relevant to my interests, so I'll be posting them here from time to time.

(xposted at my Tumblr)

Weasel Words (Trigger Warning, Police Brutality)

(Originally posted at my Tumblr.)

This post, from the NY Daily News: Wall Street protesters cuffed, pepper-sprayed during ‘inequality’ march. This first sentence is, “Scores of protesters were arrested in Manhattan Saturday as a march against social inequality turned violent.”

The relevant bits: “a march… turned violent.” This language implies that the marchers were the ones who turned violent, who initiated the violence. However, reading on, it becomes clear that the violence was almost entirely on the side of the police: the article references “the dramatic mood shift in an otherwise peaceful demonstration,” “80 people carted away in police vehicles and up to five… hit with pepper spray near 12 St. and Fifth Ave., where tensions became especially high,” and “footage of other police altercations.” Multiple witnesses talk about the pepper spraying, police slamming protesters to the ground, and police striking protesters who were already on the ground. In contrast, “one demonstrator was charged with assaulting a police officer.”

By saying “a march… turned violent,” the article takes a supposedly “balanced” look at the facts that, in this case, obscures what really happened and makes it sound like the protesters were the ones who became violent. This is, in my opinion, poor journalism; it’s not terribly surprising, however, since the supposedly liberal media is… not particularly liberal.

Adventures in Vegetarianism

I can't walk by the lobster tank at the grocery store without wincing and having brief visions of going all Elliott-from-E.T. I know that lobsters have roughly the mental capacity of bugs, since they are basically giant aquatic bugs, but it just doesn't feel right to keep them penned up like that, awaiting death (don't get me started on the manner of cooking a lobster...). I'm sure they don't mind the tank, I just... well, I wince.

I also usually don't have any reason to go by the meat section, just because of what I usually buy and how the store is laid out, but yesterday I was grabbing something from a frozen food case, and I happened to look to my right, and it was just like... "Oh. That's a dead chicken. Wrapped in plastic."

(Cross-posted at Musings of an Ist.)

Rewriting History

This morning, browsing a link from a link from a link, I found this article about how some Indiana Tea Party groups want to replace sitting Republican Senator Lugar with a more conservative candidate.

Among the motivations listed are that, and I quote, Lugar "Voted for Obama’s controversial Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, which pumped billions of dollars into ailing banks and financial institutions during the 2008 financial crisis." The article as it stands now does not read that; it has been corrected. I cannot find a screencap and I did not save it when I originally found it. However-- the problem with the article as it read is apparent, yes?

President Obama was elected at the end of 2008; he took office at the beginning of 2009. How, therefore, could he have created a program that took effect in 2008? Am I the only one who vividly members that one of the presidential debates was nearly canceled so that the senators could go back to Washington and work on TARP? TARP was, in fact, signed into law by President Bush on October 9, 2008.

Googling "Bush TARP" turns up 7,530,000 hits, while Googling "Obama TARP" turns up 11,800,000 hits. Such Googling also turns up this article from the Pew Foundation, which indicates that more than half of Americans cannot correctly identify which president signed this widely-reviled bill into law. I've seen people blaming Obama for it before, but never so blatantly, and never in a published news piece.

Things like this are literally rewriting history. I'm glad the article was corrected, but appalled that, with TARP as such a hot-button issue three years later, less than half the country actually knows the president to whom it should be attributed.

Telling People How To Identify

I am reblogging this from my Tumblr since I think it's a point that's getting lost in the acrid, vitriolic arguments happening on Tumblr right now.

It’s not okay to tell people what their identity is. It’s insulting, belittling, condescending, arrogant, and dehumanizing. There’s a difference between policing the borders of your own community, and policing someone else’s identity. One is your right. The other is none of your business.

For example, it’s not okay to tell a homoromantic asexual woman that she’s a lesbian— that’s up to her to decide. It’s not okay to tell a man who’s sexually attracted to men and women that he’s bisexual— off the top of my head, there are at least four common labels that include this definition, and which one he wants to identify with is his business, not yours. It’s not okay to tell a woman of mixed African and European heritage that she’s white, whether she likes it or not. It’s not okay to tell someone questioning his gender identity that, since he’s not trans, he must be cis. It’s not okay to tell a woman with depression that, since she’s “clearly” not abled, she must identify as having a disability. It’s not okay to tell a man that he’s “x” religion since he’s not “y.” And it’s not okay to tell a heteroromantic asexual person that zhe must be straight, no matter what your opinion on whether or not asexuality is inherently queer. Even if you think heteroromantic asexuals are not queer, queer and straight are not the only options. No matter what the other options are, it’s not your business to tell someone which one applies.

These are not perfect analogies. I am not arguing that the problems asexuals face are the same as the problems people of color or members of ethnic or national minorities face, the problems that people who aren’t cis face, the problems that people with disabilities face, or the problems that religious minorities face. I am giving other examples of telling someone what their identity is to illustrate how problematic it is in general. If someone comes by my blog and says, “I’m asexual, and I experience sexual attraction to this person and this person,” I’m within my rights to say, “Actually, you don’t sound like you’re asexual*, because asexuality is not experiencing sexual attraction to people.” I have no right to say, “You’re not asexual. You’re grey-a,” or, “You’re not asexual. You’re gay.”

So if you have a horse in the “are asexuals inherently queer” race, and you want the asexual community to listen to you, don’t try to tell people what they should identify as. (Also, please stop using “attraction” if you specifically mean sexual and/or romantic attraction, and “relationships” if you specifically mean sexual and/or romantic relationships, but that’s a different issue.)

*This is an instance where we need better terminology— I don’t mean to erase people who identify as on the asexual spectrum but are not asexual in the strict sense.

Eating in Public

TW/Nota bene: discussion of food, dieting, and body image

I've never been an enthusiastic fan of salad, or of vegetables in general (that is, I don't get as excited about buying and eating them as I do about fruit), though I have know that they're good for me, and that it's better for the planet if more of my diet is plant-based. So when I discovered a salad recipe I actually like-- spinach, tomatoes, bell peppers, sometimes cucumbers but they make it all soggy, walnuts, and feta cheese-- I was excited.

Then I had the experience of eating salad in public, and it made me think.

Eating anything in public can be more of a self-aware activity than it needs to be if you belong to a category whose eating people judge, like a woman, someone who's considered "overweight," someone who's eating ethnic or minority food, etc. I fall into two of those categories. Normally I'm not terribly self-conscious about eating in public, but this is in a conference setting, where the moderator has explicitly invited to bring our lunches since it's the lunch hour. No one else does on a regular basis, though.

Am I being "bad" for being an overweight woman eating in public, or am I being "good" because I'm eating a so-called "good" food, and thus giving the impression that I'm "penitent" and trying to "reform?" (Ick.) Am I contributing to the idea that all women should diet all the time? Am I giving the impression that I am insecure or unhappy with my body? That is, in fact, not true, and being happy with my body despite being overweight is one of the more revolutionary and subversive things I do on a regular basis. I don't want to undermine that just because I happen to be a hippie vegetarian.

I should be able just to eat my lunch without worrying about the kind of message people are reading into it, but I know that many people consider any display of femininity to be an all-access pass into that person's private life and motivations. Maybe I should make a sign... "This salad not eaten as part of any weight loss effort." Or maybe I should bring in some cheesecake.

Hippie To-Do List

I'm not putting a time limit on this since that will just stress me out without contributing to productivity:

a.) plant spinach
r.) sprout things
d.) figure out how to make my own equivalent of Clif bars/Lara bars
s.) start baking bread again
@.) set up composting
q.) set up another drying rack or a clothesline
o.) look into ways to carry groceries home on my bike when I have too many for my backpack-- bags on my wrist, especially reusable bags which are bigger, tend to destabilize me just a bit
5.) see if it's possible to buy my electricity from a renewable source through electric company
*.) break out the crockpot!
k.) learn to make my own taffy apples
x.) general food preservation skills
n.) insulate the water heater
^.) look into insulating drapes
m.) get a space heater/heat lamp

This is my current hippie to-do list. I don't know what would be on my feminist to-do list or my asexual to-do list if I had one-- if it would even make sense to have one-- except for one item on both, which is "become more self-sufficient." The other day I bought a piece of used furniture which was too heavy to lift, and got it into the house by tipping it end-over-end up the stairs and through the house until I could slide it. Ingenuity, it works.

I have a general sense of what's on my Christian to-do list, but I'm not sure I could or should put it into words.

Why there's (maybe) no such thing as a straight asexual

Someday I will write posts about things besides asexuality, like all the exciting hippie stuff I am doing in my new town.

Today is not that day.

This is a response to this post on Morning Chorus's Tumblr, "why straight asexuals can't join the queer club". (Someday I might also get Tumblr, so someone actually sees these things, but again, today is not this day.) This is not an attack on Morning Chorus; this is in response to the points zhe has made, which I have also seen elsewhere. A lot.

Standard disclaimer: I have no opinion on whether or not asexuality is inherently queer. It's certainly not normative, and we need a way to express that, but that way does not have to be including asexuality under the queer umbrella. I do not identify as queer. This post is not about whether or not asexuality is inherently queer.

My problems with this post are:

a.) it is not acceptable to label heteroromantic asexuals as straight. It is not acceptable to tell people what they should identify as. Heteroromantic asexuals generally fit in as well with the heterosexual world as a fish at a tractor convention. Yes, heteroromantic asexuals experience passing privilege and can date their preferred opposite-sex partner without societal harassment. However, being in a long-term-- or even a short-term-- romantic relationship without engaging in sex is generally not considered okay. Just as the defendant in this case in France. Most major world religions, as far as I am aware, teach that sex is an integral part of marriage, and that someone who does not engage in sex in marriage is wrong. The obvious rebuttal to this is, straight sex is considered an integral part of marriage-- well, yes. People who are with a same-sex partner are also considered to be "doing this wrong." That doesn't, however, make it any easier on the heteroromantics. If straight sex is the standard, then anyone who is not heterosexual or willing to engage in a fairly regular basis in heterosexual sex, which can include most heteroromantic asexuals, is viewed as abnormal.

A heteroromantic woman with an opposite-sex partner will, almost certainly, never have anyone harass or her assault her because of her partner's gender. Nobody denies this. A heteroromantic woman may experience coercive sex, if, for example, she wants to continue living with her spouse and doesn't want to get kicked out of the house. A heteroromantic woman may experience corrective rape to fix what's "wrong" with her. A heteroromantic woman may have her doctor try to "fix" what's wrong with her via hormone therapy, or prescribe inappropriate treatments like birth control or STD treatments on the basis that everyone must be having some sort of sex. A heteroromantic woman may find that the man she loves is unwilling to enter into a romantic relationship with her because of her sexual orientation.

These problems are not unique to heteroromantic women; I am not claiming they are. I am claiming that they happen, and that heteroromantic asexuals do not have heterosexual privilege. It's not just about having "a listing in a medical book." Heteroromantic asexuals who want to identify as straight are of course free to do so. For those who do not want to identify as straight, it is offensive to label them as such. Would it be acceptable to tell a homoromantic asexual woman that she is a lesbian and must identify that way?

b.) Attraction: please, stop. No, really. There are a number of women I love and am attracted to. There are also a number of men I love and am attracted to. This does not mean I am bisexual or biromantic. This means that neither sexual nor romantic attraction, nor both together, comprise all types of attraction. If you mean sexual and/or romantic attraction, then say so.

Why does this matter to me? Well, because the non-sexual and non-romantic types of attraction are, I am reasonably sure, the only types I will ever experience. The non-sexual and non-romantic attractions are those on which I found and will continue to found my deepest and most meaningful relationships. Please stop acting like they don't exist or don't matter.

Ditto for relationships. My queerness or lack thereof is not determined by whether or not I am in a relationship with a member of my gender. I am in multiple relationships with members of my gender, and also some with members of other genders, and I am not queer. They are not romantic relationships, or sexual relationships, but they are the most important relationships in my life. Do not erase that to try to make a point about whether or not asexuals are queer.

c.) This argument that homosexuality means experiencing attraction to the same sex, rather than experiencing sexual attraction to members of your sex... breaks down, because it implies that there is only romantic attraction or sexual attraction. By this logic, either aromantic asexuals are the only "real" asexuals, or aromantic asexuals are bisexual, since we are equally attracted to men and women.

I feel like I keep saying this over and over, but it's important. Don't label people with labels they don't themselves accept. Don't erase non-romantic, non-sexual attraction or relationships. Doing so indicates that you're missing what drives many of the concerns of the asexual community.

For Those Who Live Alone

This morning during church I found a prayer for those who live alone in the Book of Common Prayer:

"Almighty God, whose Son had nowhere to lay his head: Grant that those who live alone may not be lonely in their solitude, but that, following in his steps, they may find fulfillment in loving you and their neighbors; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

I like so many things about this prayer. I like that it distinguishes between loneliness and solitude, and that it acknowledges that people can find fulfillment in platonic love. And I like that it exists at all, and is in the church book for the fourth largest communion (or group of churches-- sort of like a denomination) in the world.

Ace Survey

Taken from Asexual Walks of Life.

1. How do you define your asexuality?

I'm not sexually attracted to people-- I feel no desire to seek out sexual partners, nor any sense of urgency regarding seeking out sex partners or having sex. I've never met anybody I actively desired to have sex with.

I think under certain circumstances, I would want to have sex, though with what urgency or frequency I don't know. From where I'm standing, it makes perfect sense to want to have sex but not be sexually attracted to people. I more actively want various forms of physical intimacy, including some that most people would consider sexual, but they're not sexual to me.

2. Are you out? If so, has that caused you problems? What was coming out like for you?

I am out to my immediate family, some close friends, and the Internet. My family seems uncomfortable with the subject; I was asked why I would tell people something like that, and that lots of people go through a phase where they decide to focus on something else. They're supportive, though, just not... terribly comfortable, if that makes sense. From my friends I got some good reactions as well as some squares on the bingo card, like "I can't conceive of what you're telling me" (not asexuality as a whole, but my specific experience of it), and "you should consider how frequently you masturbate."

3. Do you have any fears, specifically as an asexual person?

Living and dying alone.

Oh, and Muller's ratchet.

4. How did you figure out that you were asexual?

At first I thought I might be demisexual, but then I started really thinking about what sexual attraction is and what it would feel like to be sexually attracted to a person, and I realized I'm either grey-a or asexual. I identify as asexual these days-- I seem to be less repulsed and more open to the possibility of sex under the right circumstances than many other aces I've met, but I don't think that makes me grey-a.

5. Do you have an asexual role-model? Who? Why?

Nope.

6. How do you feel about romance? What about dating outside of the asexual community, i.e. a sexual person?

The thing is that I'm aromantic, or ???romantic, in that I'm not romantically attracted to people, but I still very much have the desire for intimacy that's traditionally associated with romance. The idea of dating (or being in some sort of non-platonic relationship) has appeal to me because I do want many of the things that come with romance, marriage and sex, just not... for the reasons most other people want them. I dated sexual people before I realized I was asexual (though largely within the context of a Christian community where celibacy is widely accepted), and I would be open to doing it again with the right person.

7. How connected do you, personally, feel to the queer community? What have your experiences, if any, been like with them?

I do not identify as queer. I don't have an opinion on the "are asexuals inherently queer" debate other than that the amount of acephobia and homophobia that has come out of it is unfortunate, it's not acceptable to force labels on people (ie calling heteroromantic asexuals straight), and a few members of the queer community have evinced really puzzling levels of hostility outside of the other acephobia-homophobia back and forth. I guess that's to be expected with any community, though. The queer friends to whom I am out have been very supportive.

8. What are your pet peeves that people bring up when you are discussing sexuality/asexuality?

There's no such thing as asexual/most women are asexual/you just haven't met the right person yet/get your hormones checked.

And on the other side of things, how can you be asexual if you masturbate/how can you be asexual if you're not repulsed/how can you be asexual if you're repulsed/how can you be asexual if you want to have sex.

Oh, and the relationship/significant other: using "relationship" when you specifically mean a sexual and/or romantic relationship, and significant other when you specifically mean a sexual and/or romantic significant other.

9. What are some of the best and worst experiences you’ve had with peoples’ opinions of asexuality?

Best? I have one or three friends who have been super-supportive, and to whom I can talk knowing that they don't think there's anything "wrong" with me, even when I feel broken.

Worst? Either the Savage Love columns, or the Feministe dealbreakers thread. (I should say that Chally also had a Feministe post about asexuality, Not Sexual Justice From Where I'm Standing, that was really excellent.)

10. Do you see yourself in a committed relationship eventually? Are you in one now? Do you even want one? Have you given up?

Please see above re: "relationship." I would be cool being married under the right circumstances, or alternately, strengthening my existing friendships and making new ones so I know that there are people who will always be there for me, for whom I will always be there, with the intensity you might treat a romantic relationship. Actually, the best thing would be to have all of the above.

11. Are you sex-positive? What does that mean to you?

I think the best way I've seen it put is "I'm 'the-sex-that-you-want-to-have'-positive." Sex by itself is a neutral thing.

12. What sort of future do you want for asexuals, in terms of visibility, laws, etc?

I want people to know what asexuality is so no one grows up thinking they're broken because they're not sexually attracted to anyone. I want therapists and doctors to know that asexuality is a valid sexual orientation and doesn't need treatment. I want the general public to know what asexuality is and accept it, so we stop getting erased. I want people to know that it's not acceptable to try to "fix" someone who's asexual in any way, especially by trying to coerce them into sex. I want a world where platonic relationships are not devalued in comparison to romantic and/or sexual relationships. I want a world where no one gets kicked out of their house for being asexual, whether by their parents or by their spouse or sexual/romantic partner. I want a world where asexuals can find partners or significant others to whom they matter just as much as a sexual person would.

I'm not sure about laws. I'd have to think about that one more.

13. Is there anything in particular that you want me to educate the group on? Anything that I missed in this questionnaire, keeping in mind that it will be largely an overview with Q&A and discussion after?

Please see above re: relationships.

Alone in the Dark

I am too old to be afraid of the dark. I know that.

Sometimes I justify it by pointing out to myself that I'm not afraid of the dark, I'm afraid of the things that could be in the dark.

I recently moved across the country to start grad school. My landlord in the other half of the duplex is on leave for the semester and possibly the year, so it's just me in the house. There's a basement. The house itself is a little creaky, as old houses are, and makes noises to which I am unaccustomed. During the day, I like it a lot. During the night, it's creepy. It seems like every shadow can potential hold something with teeth or tentacles or both, waiting to kill me in a gruesome manner. I know this is illogical. My mind acknowledges it, and I can picture the shadows as just... the empty shadows of an empty house. But when I stop putting in the effort to picture it like that, the fear comes back.

In some ways this is a really good house for me, but it's too big. During the day I enjoy having the space to metaphorically stretch out, but at night I rattle around like a solo pea in a large pod. I'm not exactly a people person, and there are several reasons why I enjoy living alone... but not always. And I don't always enjoy being alone. It doesn't help that the neighborhood is not always safe, so when I think I hear something, I can't automatically dismiss it.

I could get a roommate, of course. The thought has crossed my mind before, and once I get more settled in, it's a definite possibility if I meet anybody who needs a place and with whom I click. That would solve the problem for a few years, until I got my degree or zhe got hir degree or found a romantic/sexual partner and wanted to live with r/s partner instead. Then I'd have to start over again with finding a new roommate. Presumably this would get more difficult as I get older.

This isn't a terribly significant problem, in the grand scheme of things. But when I'm staring at the ceiling, trying to fall asleep, and the house feels so empty, it's not reassuring to think, "This is probably how it's going to be for the rest of my life." Because I'm aromantic and asexual, and so my means of forming primary relationships with people, of pairbonding or tribonding or what have you, are... reduced, significantly.

Nobody owes me any differently. I wouldn't want to live in a world where they did. But I'm also not obligated to pretend that I like the current state of things, even if I wouldn't want to change who I am.

Welp, that's enough depressing blogging for this hour, at least.

Same Song, nth Verse

TW for rape

There's been more argument and anger (read: wank) lately about asexuality; I'm not going to link to it, but head over to asexuality on LJ, or the asexuality tag on Tumblr, if you want a better idea. Apparently it still goes back to the argument (3-6 months ago?) about whether or not asexuals are queer, which, let me be clear, is not what this post is about. I don't identify as queer, and my concern with that argument comes from the way people are treating each other in it rather than the main idea. Asexuality certainly isn't well-recognized or considered "normal"; asexuals certainly lack heterosexual privilege. There needs to be some word to denote how un-usual, societally speaking, asexuality is, but it's not my place to say whether or not that word should be "queer." And that's all I have to say about that.

My concern, as I said, is with other things that are being thrown around in this argument. I believe that self-identifying queer people (and I make that distinction because I know some people consider the word a slur, while other consider it something that's been reclaimed) have the right to police their own community boundaries with regards to the definition of "queer." What they don't have the right to do is police other people's identities. For example: calling heteroromantic asexuals, and aromantic asexuals, straight. No. You do not get to tell members of a minority sexual orientation whether or not they are straight. Conflating someone's romantic orientation and their sexual orientation is also particularly egregious. I am not queer; I am also not straight, and no one gets to police my identity otherwise.

Also, I wanted to reiterate that being asexual is not exactly a walk in the park. I am not playing the Oppression Olympics; this is not about whether asexuals have it "worse" than people who ID as queer (as if the two didn't overlap). This is simply about what asexuals face. I've heard aces reporting corrective rape and being beaten up at school. I've heard aces reporting getting kicked out of the house by their parents, and other aces having their parents maintain an Orwellian watch over all their activities, upon coming out as the "wrong" sexual orientation. Aces have reported being sent to therapy or put on medication, and having unnecessary medical tests done explicitly against their consent. While asexuality and celibacy are not synonyms, in states that maintain "fault" divorce laws, non-consummation or not having sex can be grounds for such a divorce. Some branches of Christianity teach things at odds with asexuality-- for example, much of the fundamentalist Christian church and their attitudes towards having children. So-- no, erasure and invisibility isn't the only problem we face, not by a long shot. (I am working on sourcing all these things this time around, but many of them were on Tumblr, so it's going to take a while.)

But, speaking of erasure... I may be beating a dead horse at this point, but I wanted to reiterate something about the queer-asexual debate and relationships: please don't say that people who want relationships with someone of the same sex are queer, and people who don't are straight. For one thing, it's binary-centric, and erases bisexuals, trans individuals, genderqueer individuals, etc. It also labels people straight who may not identify as such (see above). And the other thing it erases? All relationships that aren't romantic or sexual. Such relationships are incredibly important to a large swath of the ace community, particularly those of us who are aromantic. Of course, sexual people also place a high value on platonic relationships, and I'm not saying they don't-- but, in my experience, the majority of sexual people value their romantic and/or sexual relationships above their platonic ones (except relationships with their children).

So, yeah: a lot of asexual people are fine with the idea of asexuality itself not being inherently queer. What we're not fine with is the labels and ideas that are being thrown around in that argument.

ETA: If anyone has seen the examples I am talking about and can link me, please do so if you wouldn't mind! Thanks.

Small Victories

So, I just started grad school, I'm alone in a new city, I don't seem to be able to do what I'm supposed to be doing, and it's all rather overwhelming.

But I cut up and froze two full two-gallon bags of local peaches, so I can eat them during winter and spring. It was easier than last year. It was such a small thing, and yet it snapped me out of the bad mood I'd been in.

And as I experienced this small victory, it reminded me to stop subconsciously considering myself incompetent. "Not perfect" and "incompetent" are two entirely different things. It's easy, for me, to let small setbacks convince me that I'm not good at anything, but that's not true and it's harmful.

So thanks, peaches.

Journey to the Center of the Ace

Unlike many aces who have related their stories, I didn't grow up thinking there was something wrong with me and that I didn't fit in. I grew up convinced I was heterosexual (and heteroromantic, except I didn't know that was a thing, then). Sometimes I was concerned that I was a lesbian, because I've never been terribly feminine and women who were could make me feel… inadequate, like I was a different gender, almost. (I say concerned because that would not have gone over well, on so many levels, in my school, or my town, or…) But I did know enough to know that, no, this didn't make me a lesbian. There wasn't any "spark" when I thought about women. And I had crushes on boys! That meant I was totally heterosexual, right?

There should have been some clue bats along the way. I remember wondering why all my peers were interested in having sex, because that hadn't happened to me, and I figured it was just a matter of time. I remember thinking it was probably a way of being cool-- having sex, that is. But, nope, no clue bats.

I encountered the definition of asexuality once or twice in college, and didn't give it more than a glance-- I thought, "Nope, I have a boyfriend, I like him, sex sounds pretty good, I'm straight." Then after a while, I encountered it again (in the context of the "Sherlock" fandom, I think) and went "… wait. What is this 'sexual attraction' thing? What?" And it wasn't a concept that made sense at all, so I went, "Huh. You know, I've certainly never been interested in sex outside the context of my boyfriends. Maybe I'm demisexual, or grey-asexual."

Another clue bat should have been that the only thing I really wanted to do with the boyfriends, where want is a visceral desire with no logical explanation, was cuddle. We didn't really, for a variety of reasons, but I wish someone had just kind of shown up and gone, "OK, that thing you feel about cuddling? Where you just want to do it? And you daydream about it and sometimes feel kind of empty because it's not on the menu? That's how most people feel about sex." And I probably would have gone "Are you high?" (And, darn it, I came up with a really good definition of sexual attraction in the middle of the night and then I forgot it. I think it might have been "a desire to engage in sex with a specific person without a logical explanation.")

Eventually it occurred to me to wonder whether sexual attraction wasn't a bit more needy than what I felt in the context of the boyfriends. Sure, if we were having a conversation about sex, sometimes I'd get physically aroused. But I never felt the need or desire to do anything about it at the time, and it was mostly just… kind of inconvenient. It didn't make me want to have sex with them, and it didn't mean I wanted to have sex with them. So then I went, "Hmm. Well, I must be a heteroromantic asexual, then. Glad I got that sorted out."

Then that niggling little voice went, "So what is this romantic attraction thing, anyway?" Eventually I realized that there's a difference between having a crush on someone because you're insecure and you want their friendship and approval, and having a crush on someone because you're into them romantically. Now that I'm older, the kind of crushes I experienced when I was a high-schooler seem… illogical. And while I kind of know what my friends mean when they describe romantic attraction, it's hard for me to sort out from meeting someone, liking them, wanting to get to know them better, and wanting them to like me. So I now identify as grey-romantic or aromantic. (In retrospect, this also explains why the concept of dating-- and the feelings my peers expressed about romantic love, which seemed to me at the time to be downright codependent-- disturbed me in high school.)

I knew I didn't like women as anything besides friends, so I was convinced I was heterosexual. Because of that, I assumed that everything I felt mapped onto something in heterosexual discourse-- "oh, well, this is how I feel about boys and sex so this must be desire." It's like having an anatomical diagram that you're convinced fits you, and standing and looking at it saying "OK, if this is me, then this thing must be my spleen because I know I have one and this is the thing that looks most like it," only to find out later that you were pointing at your left eyeball. Or something equally unspleenish. And then someone comes along and says, "Actually that's a diagram of a cow, and you're holding it upside down." And then you look at them, and look back at the diagram, and kind of moo at them out of spite.

And this is where I think we need more ace education. If you grow up, as I did, thinking that everyone wants sex with someone so this, this strongest feeling I had about sex, well that must be the wanting… then you're going to be really confused the first time you stop and go "Wait. What?" Whereas if you grow up knowing that people have all sorts of different feelings about sex, then you're going to be much less confused.

A Failure to Communicate

This is why I don't want to be a professor: I'm really bad at explaining things.

Over at Feministe the last couple of days, there's been a comment thread going touching on asexuality. After reading asexuality fail in the comments, I attempted some 101. It's entirely possible and maybe probable that I misread the interest/engagement from other people on the thread, and should have just bowed out sooner, or that what I was trying to tease out was too technical to be relevant to anyone else... but if sexual attraction is what defines all sexual orientations, then the definition of sexual attraction is clearly very relevant to any sexual orientation 101. Anyway, the point is, I'm not very good at 101. I bowed out of the thread when it became apparent other members thought I might be 101ing so I could find people to sleep with...? After that, highlights of the conclusion of the thread indicated that I hadn't really gotten much across, and included such concepts as demisexuality isn't a thing, maybe asexual people are just confused sexuals, asexuals are creepy (that might have just been at me? or asexuals who aren't repulsed? I'm not sure) and, my personal favorite, sexual people get to decide whether asexual people should be offended by being compared to masturbatory aids. The first three are just frustrating, but the last one is irritating, coming as it did on a social justice-oriented blog.

I don't know if what we need is better common language to talk about these things or more input from both sexuals and asexuals on what sexual attraction actually is or just for people named Aydan to stop trying to explain things (!) It seems like it should be really intuitive: asexuals don't experience sexual attraction. Demisexuals only experience sexual attraction to people they have a strong emotional bond with. But I guess if you're used to experiencing sexual attraction mixed up with a bunch of other things that make you want to have sex, then you're not used to differentiating them. And, if you're a repulsed asexual and you're not used to experiencing sexual attraction or anything like sensual attraction or things that often go along with for sexual people, then you're not used to differentiating them, either. So, we have this thing that defines sexual orientation-- if you're heterosexual, then you're attracted to members of the/a opposite sex and/or gender; if you're homosexual, you're attracted to members of the/a same sex and/or gender; etc-- but... we don't really agree on what it means.

I think better common language is key, and here's why: as far as I understand it, demisexuals identify as neither asexual nor sexual (though they can identify as part of the asexual umbrella/spectrum), but something in between. However, sexual people seem to have a really hard time grokking demisexuality, while asexual people don't. Why? I think because asexual people are used to considering concepts like sexual attraction, how that differs from romantic attraction and from having a sex drive, etc. Maybe we need a new and better 101 than the stuff AVEN provides, and need to hash out some definitions besides just asexuality/demisexuality/grey-asexuality?

On a related note, I am excited for the new DW community that ace eccentric is forming as a safe space for aces! I started a DW account to go along with this Blogger account so I'll be able to participate.

Various Ace Things

Has anyone ever successfully explained demisexuality to a group of sexual people? I'm beginning to think it's like the Kobayashi Maru of asexuality 101. It's particularly frustrating to invest time in trying to explain all the reasons a person might "want" sex separate from feeling sexually attracted to their partner, and then to have demisexuality erased on the grounds that "normal people don't want to have sex with everyone," by people who are conflating wanting to have sex with feeling sexual attraction. I'm sorry, demisexual-identified members of the ace spectrum, I too have failed you.

On a completely different note, I've been trawling through the brilliant Ace Secrets (which has gotten a lot more submissions in the short period of time since its launch than I would have expected). I think it was here, in the notes to one of the secrets, that someone mentioned they found all the mentions of cake triggering for ED. I had never thought about that before, and now I feel kind of bad. No more gratuitous mentions of cake for me. (I was thinking of replacing them with mentions of staring contentedly at various pretty people, but decided that could be upsetting, too. However, that reminded me of this Tumblr post re: Sherlock and asexuality, which entertained me to no end.)

ETA: So the joke in the Sherlock fandom is that it's the purple shirt of sex, because I guess people think Sherlock looks particularly attractive in it, or something.

Asexuality 101/201: Aces and Sex

The definition of asexuality is a lack of sexual attraction to either or any sex or gender.

Let me repeat that: the sexual orientation that is asexuality constitutes a lack of sexual attraction to either or any sex or gender.

Asexuality is not a lack of romantic attraction, celibacy, a lack of sensual or aesthetic appreciation or attraction, an inability to experience sexual arousal, or a dislike for sex. Any or all of these things can coincide with asexuality, but they do not have to. Being asexual does not mean you do not experience love or form deep and meaningful relationships.

Alongside asexuality, and usually considered part of the asexual umbrella, are two other sexual orientations, grey-asexuality and demisexuality. Grey-asexuality is usually used to describe people who experience sexual attraction occasionally, but infrequently enough that they are still significantly different from sexual people. Grey-asexuality is also used to describe people who, for whatever reason, identify as "mostly" asexual but don't feel like asexuality is a total fit for them. Demisexuality is used to describe people who only experience sexual attraction to someone with whom they have formed a strong emotional bond, which can be romantic or not. Demisexuals are often accused of being slut-shaming, because the definition is often abbreviated to "I don't like to have sex with people I don't know." I can see how people can interpret this as slut shaming, but it's not. There's no reason a demisexual couldn't have sex with a complete stranger; it's just that, in that scenario, the demisexual would be functionally asexual.

The asexual community, like any other community, is not monolithic. Asexual people run the gamut of ages, races, cultures, religions or lack thereof, sexes, genders, romantic orientations (usually given as homoromanticism, biromanticism, panromanticism, heteroromanticism, and aromanticism), and levels of libido/sex drive (there's dissent in the ace community about what exactly the difference between those two is; more on that in a minute). Some asexuals are abled and some are not; some are cisgendered and some are transgendered; some identify as queer, and some do not (and I am not touching that debate with a ten foot stick, and I would appreciate if you would not do so in the comments); some identify as gendered and some do not.

Asexual people also have a wide variety of views and feelings towards sex and everything to do with it. Some asexuals don't like to be touched; some asexuals like to be touched but don't like any sexual interactions; some like both platonic and sexual interactions. Some asexuals are libidinous, and some are not; for the purposes of this discussion, libidinous means seeking orgasms and sexual gratification, and one's sex drive is a measure of the degree to which one is libidinous. Some asexuals, therefore, have a low sex drive, and some have a high sex drive. Some masturbate, and some don't. Some watch porn, and some don't. Some have sex, and some don't; some asexuals are "repulsed," which basically means they don't like the idea of sex or anything sexual, and some are "indifferent," which doesn't actually mean indifferent but basically means "not repulsed." (I think we need a third category, which I'm going to define as "interested.") Being repulsed or indifferent does not necessarily correlate with having sex or not having sex.

Most allosexual people tend to understand asexuals who don't have or want sex. Asexuals who have, enjoy, or want sex tend to be more confusing. Here's a list of why asexuals might be interested in or have sex despite not experiencing sexual attraction:

1.) For many or most people, orgasms and the sexual stimulation leading up to them feel good.
2.) Many people enjoy physical intimacy with someone they love, whether or not this intimacy is sexual.
3.) Many people enjoy doing fun things with someone they love.
4.) Many people enjoy pleasing their partners, whether emotionally, sexually, sensually, or a combination thereof.
5.) Many people enjoy experiencing emotional intimacy or connection with their partners, and sex is often a way to achieve this.
6.) Many people find sex to be a very sensual experience (in the sense of pleasing to the senses) as separate from a sexual experience. Asexuals can enjoy the way their partners look, feel, taste, smell, and sound in a way that is not necessarily sexual.

None of these reasons for enjoying sex necessarily include any of the others, nor are any of them mutually exclusive. An asexual and an allosexual having sex together (or two asexuals having sex) does not by definition exclude "mutuality," urgency, or both partners being "into it." This might be easier to understand if you consider that an asexual and an allosexual having sex can experience the same level of energy or enthusiasm for different reasons. Both can want with equal intensity to get to the same destination for different reasons. Consider also that when two allosexual partners have sex, they don't necessarily get the same things out of it, though they can both enjoy the experience equally-- for example, some allosexual sex bloggers recount times where, even though they do not orgasm, they enjoy a sexual encounter with a partner, because of the physical pleasure, the emotional intimacy, etc.

The axis along which asexuals and allosexuals differ in the way they experience having sex is, of course, the presence or absence of sexual attraction. This is a hard thing for me to define, since I don't experience it. I think the best way to explain it is by comparing it to other visceral urges or cravings, like hunger or thirst. You can enjoy the taste, presentation and smell of food, enjoy cooking it, enjoy the social aspects of eating it, and overall enjoy eating food, and still never get hungry. You can crave food because it tastes so good or because it's a new recipe that you can't wait to try, without getting hungry.

I don't believe that sexual attraction is the same thing as desire, though this is arguable, and a thoughtful sexual would probably be better at elucidating the difference than I can be. Sexual attraction is a subset of desire, but it's possible to desire your partner along other axes than that of sexual attraction: for example, aesthetic attraction. I'm not sure that allosexual people can necessarily tell the difference between a partner who is really into the sex, and a partner who is sexually attracted to them, assuming that the partner is also invested in their pleasure. I'm certainly willing to believe that many can, of course, but I don't think making the distinction is automatic and easy for everyone.

I understand that many or most allosexual people don't enjoy sex with a partner who's not into them, doesn't want them in some way, and I agree with this-- I also would not want to have sex with a partner who was doing it out of duty, or who wasn't into it in some way. However, being sexually attracted to someone is not the only way of wanting someone, desiring someone, or being enthusiastic about sex. I'm unconvinced that many or most allosexual people do make the distinction, simply because of how hard I usually have to work to explain the distinction between sexual attraction, which asexuals don't experience, and other forms of enthusiasm, desire, or wanting with regards to sex. In my limited experience, allosexual people, who experience all of them, are not used to differentiating between them.

Additionally, asexuals can want to have sex with someone without being sexually attracted to them, which feeds into the variety of types of desire and also affects the urgency present in an asexual-allosexual or asexual-asexual sexual encounter. I would characterize that as a logical decision rather than a craving or a yearning-- if the asexual expects that the sex will be a pleasant experience for all concerned, though "pleasant experience" might be something different for each partner, then it's perfectly reasonable to want to have that encounter. An asexual can think "I believe sex with this person would be good, so I want it when the situation is right" without wanting it right then or feeling sexually attracted to the other person. Some (most? I have no idea) asexuals experience arousal under circumstances similar to foreplay, and the desire to continue feeling good sexually, and/or to have an orgasm, is another axis on which asexuals can experience enthusiasm in, craving for, or urgency with regard to sex.

Now: how representative are the things I have mentioned of the entire community? I really, really don't know. For one thing, some people who don't experience sexual attraction but who enjoy sex may not identify as asexual because there's a very prevalent stereotype out there that asexuals can't or don't like sex-- the first few times I encountered the definition of asexuality, I thought it couldn't possibly fit me since I'm not repulsed. I know of some people who don't experience sexual attraction but who identify as grey-asexual specifically because they desire, or want, some aspects of a sexual relationship, which to me is completely consistent with asexuality. (For example, if I die without ever finding a sexual partner, I'm going to be more upset that I never had a relationship of the type where I personally feel I would like sex-- deep emotional intimacy-- than about the actual lack of sex.) Some asexuals identify as "unusual" asexuals because they like or enjoy sex. This AVEN thread gives an idea of the qualitative difference in what aces enjoy, though keep all the things I just mentioned in mind when reading it. My gut instinct tells me that repulsed asexuals are usually the loudest and most noticeable voice in any ace community, which skews everyone's perceptions of asexuality as a whole. (Also: I do not, overall, recommend the AVEN forums, either for asexuals or as a site for information about asexuality. It can be very informative if you take it in the parameters I just mentioned, but there's also a good deal of anti-sexuality and the conversations tend to be dominated by repulsed asexuals. I've also been told that people have experienced misogyny, cissexism and ableism on the AVEN forums. The wikis are decent, but not everyone agrees with the definitions.)

I hope this has been a helpful explanation, and I want to emphasize that these are all obviously my thoughts; I don't speak for the entire asexual community. However, the opinions and observations I've expressed here have been developed in interaction and dialogue with the asexual community.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot to talk about sexy and hot. I don't know how much my conception of these words is generalizable to other aces, but for me I've never gotten quite what they're supposed to mean. Do they mean you find someone sexually attractive? Or that you think others find someone sexually attractive (for example, telling a good friend zhe looks sexy today even though you're not interested in hir that way)? Do they mean that someone is appearing in a sexualized manner or a manner that connotes that they're interested in sex (which would be extremely problematic)? I know some aces will use these words to denote "pretty" or "appealing, but not in a sexual way" or "someone others probably think is sexy" but I tend to stick with "pretty," since it's usually what I mean anyway.

EDIT TWO: One thing some aces, especially those who identify as indifferent or interested, spend a lot of time doing is figuring out language and clarifying what different things mean. So in my world, not all the words and phrases one can use to talk about sex and the sexual experience are interchangeable. Here are some that, as I understand them, are not:

Being "hot for" a person is not the same thing as being sexually attracted to them, though I suspect sexual people don't distinguish between sexual attraction and the other things this phrase can mean. Being "hot for" someone, to me, means being aroused by someone, especially by engaging in foreplay with them.

Being aroused (or turned on-- I guess the two could be interchangeable, though I see being aroused as a purely physical reaction and turned on as both physical + mental) by a person or situation is not the same thing as being sexually attracted to that person. Asexual people may not experience arousal outside of foreplay as much as sexual people do, which I think is a component of not experiencing sexual attraction.

I would argue that desiring a person is also not the same as experiencing sexual attraction. Desire, however, is a really hard thing for me to define-- and if I'm using wanting a person sexually as a synonym for being sexually attracted to them, where's the cut-off between desiring a person and wanting them?

Sexual intimacy isn't the same thing as experiencing sexual attraction, to me-- possibly because I define sexual intimacy as "the intimacy that comes from having sex with someone." It's entirely possible I'm missing the point.

Boston Marriage Article in Ms.

Someone on Feministe linked to this Ms. magazine article about Boston marriages, and I wanted to reblog it because I think it has a lot of relevance to the ace community-- it talks about and provides a good model for deep, meaningful platonic relationships. I really enjoyed reading it.

This is Not Pro-Life

Two days ago, someone threw a Molotov cocktail at a Planned Parenthood clinic in northern Texas. This particular clinic provides health screenings and contraception, but does not perform abortions.

As I have written about in the past (though I can't find the post at the moment), I am pro-life. To me, being pro-life means things like promoting safe and protected sex so that people can choose whether or not they want to try to conceive, and providing support for children after they are born. Using violence to achieve pro-life ends is a contradiction in terms. It is wrong, and it is not acceptable. This is not the pro-life movement, or the Christianity, that I stand for.

I also note that, in the "American Independent" article, the incident is referred to as "possible arson." Possible? How do you accidentally set something on fire with a Molotov cocktail??

Koinonia

At a church service last week, I learned a new word: koinonia. It's a Greek word; according to Wikipedia (I know, I know, my old professors are shaking their fingers at me), it means "communion by intimate participation... the essential meaning of the koinonia embraces concepts conveyed in the English terms community, communion, joint participation, sharing and intimacy...In the New American Standard Bible, it is translated "fellowship" twelve times, "sharing three times, and "participation" and "contribution" twice each."

Many asexuals find themselves trying to invent new forms of relationships from scratch, since sex is, in American culture, at the center of romantic relationships, and romantic relationships are privileged above all others except possibly, in certain circumstances, the parent-child bond (though only unidirectionally-- it's considered acceptable to value your child above your romantic partner, but if you value your parent above your romantic partner, people will think you're weird). This goes doubly for aromantics and greyromantics, since we have even more trouble with the dominant forms of relationships. (David Jay has some great essays about this concept at Love from the Asexual Underground.)

It occurred to me, as I listened to the sermon, that the church, at its best, can serve as a model for the type of supportive community/the type of nurturing relationships that some aces (of any romantic orientation) want. Community? Joint participating? Sharing and intimacy? All without necessitating romantic attachment or shared genetic material? Yes, yes please!

In Which Gendered Roles and Rape Culture Help Screw Over the Planet

I wanted to draw your attention to this article in Grist about why fewer women than men, in the US, use biking as a form of transportation. Some of the reasons listed include because employed women perform significantly more housework than their employed male counterparts, leaving less time for a commute that takes longer; women are responsible for more childcare and household errands than their male counterparts, and it's hard to run diverse errands and/or haul children and groceries on a bike; because poverty is feminized, and women are more likely to live in areas where it's not safe to commute; or because women don't think they can bike to work and still look professional when they get there (because it's not like there's a double standard, appearance-wise, or anything...)

Hmm, paging the kyriarchy, would you know anything about this? Most of the points are obvious as elaborated in the article, but I wanted to add that women's bodies are considered objects and even public property in a way that men's bodies never or rarely are; as a result, biking to work (or anywhere else) for a woman can be significantly more stressful than for a man. Not only do they have to deal with all the traffic hazards like men do, but they're more likely to be catcalled, harassed, or assaulted. Women are taught from a young age to be careful when we go out in public, because of all the rapists hiding in the bushes-- the corollary being that, if we are raped or assaulted, it's our own fault for being out in public at all. (The Dominant Kyriarchal Narrative, of course, ignores that most rapes and sexual assaults are perpetrated by someone known to the victim.)

To sum up, a safer world with less policing of gender roles, where women weren't considered objects or targets and men and women split domestic responsibilities more equally, would be a better world entirely in its own right. It would also allow more women to choose to bicycle to work or to run errands, if they wanted, and reduce our collective carbon footprint.

An Ace Analogy

Many people think that being asexual means you don't have sex, you don't enjoy sex, you don't have any interest in sex. This is not necessarily true. Celibacy and asexuality are not synonymous; one is a life choice, and one is a sexual orientation. Some asexuals don't want to have sex or think about sex; some don't care; some do want to have sex and do think about sex.

These last two categories tend to confuse people. Think about it like food. Asexuals never get hungry; they don't look at a plate of macaroni and cheese and immediately feel their stomach growl. In fact, some asexuals don't even like to think about food, but some don't mind it. The asexuals that don't mind thinking about food still don't get hungry, but they can still enjoy eating it, sometime. Just because it doesn't fulfill a need doesn't mean it doesn't taste good.

Yes, I Made an Environmentalist Post. Try Not To Faint.

Today I saw Starbucks's brand of bottled water, Ethos. According to the company, for every bottle purchased, five cents will be donated to helping people around the world access clean water.

This is unabashed greenwashing. (For a lovely use of the word unabashed, in an equally lovely pro-feminist and unfortunately discontinued webcomic, click here.) Bottled water contributes to the privatization of water, which is not something we need. Bottled water companies can contribute to environmental degradation and to aquifer depletion, especially in poor rural areas. Bottled water requires a lot of fossil fuel to make the bottles and to transport it to its destination, and most of the bottles end up in the trash, not the recycling.

I have a better idea. Find a glass mason jar, glass wine bottle, or other glass container with a lid. Find some old rags, and rubberband them around the container to protect it from breaking in case of rough treatment. Fill your new water bottles from the tap, and for each commercial water bottle you don't buy, donate five cents to your local stream, bay or river cleanup, or to an organization working to promote responsible water use, or dig wells. There you go-- just like Ethos, except... ethically.

Being Ace, part 1

Trigger warning for rape and sexual assault, as well as acephobia and suicide. General non-trigger warning for gloom.

Inspired by the recent attempts to tease out whether or not sexual privilege exists, I decided to start a place where we could make a community effort to compile some of the less-frequently talked about negative experiences of being ace, grey-ace, or demi. Everyone knows about being told asexuality only applies to bacteria, being told you're broken, or that your sexual orientation is made up, stupid, or inherently misogynist or slut-shaming, but there are more serious issues that don't seem to come up a lot. These are anecdotes, and there are no numbers. We don't know how widespread these things are; we don't even know how many asexuals there are. A lack of much hard data is one of the problems in the asexual community. Please, please, contribute in the comments! (I'm not trying to erase grey-aces and demis; please read "asexuals" as a broad category that includes these orientations. Also, after some thought, I have decided not to link to the specific places I found asexuals talking about corrective rape, because I wasn't sure if the people talking about their experiences would be okay with being singled out like that.)

1.) Asexuals can marry, if their chosen romantic or platonic partner is, in the state or country where they reside, considered the opposite sex, or if they live in a state that permits same-sex marriage. However, in several states, non-consummation of a marriage is considered grounds for annulment, which offers fewer legal protections than does a divorce. (Of course, some or many asexuals have sex.)

2.) Asexuals report experiencing corrective rape, corrective sexual assault, and threats of such, from both straight people and queer people.

3.) Asexuals can be subject to or coerced into unwanted, unneeded, and invasive medical procedures and treatments based on an assumption of their sexual activeness (though asexual and celibate are not synonyms; many people who are not sexually active are not asexual, and many asexuals are sexually active). An example would be a Pap smear, or hormonal birth control-- or hormone therapy.

4.) I've seen at least one report of an ace kid being beat up at school, specifically for being ace. (I didn't link to this one because I can't remember where I saw it. If anyone does, please link me. I think it was in the comment section of an imbroglio, either at ontd_f or sf_drama.)

5.) At least some groups of at least two major world religions that I know of teach that it is a spouse's responsibility to have sex with or please their spouse sexually. Some people argue (quite wrongly, of course) that failure to do so is grounds for justifying the infidelity of their spouse.

6.) A wildly unscientific AVEN survey reports that about 65% of asexuals surveyed have seriously considered committing suicide; about 30% felt that their asexuality was connected to considering suicide.

7.) While some or many aces consider themselves introverted and are happier either being alone or having clear boundaries to mark of when and where they can be alone, asexuals who feel otherwise may be more likely to end up alone or more lonely than they would like, since asexuals, aromantics, and double aces don't participate or can have trouble participating in some of the ways our society considers most significant for forming deep bonds. Being alone can be distressing in many ways, ranging from the practical like having no one to execute your power of attorney, to higher blood pressure and greater risk of depression.

8.) Asexuals and aromantics whose primary intimate relationships don't take the form of marriage or civil union may have trouble with things limited by law to family members. For example, in many places only family members can ride with someone in an ambulance or visit them in certain wards of hospitals. As far as I know, mechanisms to designate a non-family member as legally able to do these things are few and far between.

What am I missing? Let's discuss in the comments.

What Asexuality is Not

This was inspired by the post on sexual privilege made on ONTD Feminism. I haven't responded there because I'm not a member of the comm, and because ONTD Feminism has a history of ace fail and I don't have high hopes that I'd be taken seriously.

Asexuality isn't a choice. It's not an option, or something you can do instead of being gay. Some people who identify as queer talk about being pressured to be asexual. But-- it's not possible to become asexual as an "alternative" to being gay. Someone who pressures a queer individual to become asexual is fundamentally misunderstanding the concept of being asexual and, in all likelihood, means celibacy instead. Celibacy /= asexuality. Asexuality is not experiencing sexual attraction. Celibacy is choosing not to have sex. You can be asexual and celibate, asexual and engaging in sex, sexual and celibate, sexual and engaging in sex... you get the idea. Does this make the situation any better? Well, no, but it's a common misunderstanding.

Asexuality isn't a pass out of being sexualized. This argument gets tricky because of semantics, but I'll try to be clear. One of the commenters writes, "Sometimes I wish I could find a way to erase everything sexual about myself so that I wouldn't have to worry about not being taken seriously." This concept that the commenter wants is not asexuality; it is not being sexualized. If asexuality got you being out of sexualized, I wouldn't have kept Wendy Shalit's books because of their message, problematic in many other ways though it is, that it's okay not to have sex. Sometimes I wish the same thing-- or rather, I wish that all the characteristics about myself that are considered sexual or sexual markers were interpreted differently by my culture so I was taken more seriously. But it's not a wish I can have, even though I am asexual, because that's not what asexuality is.

One question that came up is, how can queer people have the power to oppress asexual people? Certainly, individual people who identify as queer or gay can say oppressive things. (Just Google "Dan Savage asexuality" for more.) But one man doesn't constitute a good example. To be more broad, is it oppression to tell people they are broken, that they need to have their hormones checked, that they're confused, that they don't know what their own identity is? Is it oppression to rape someone because you don't believe their sexual orientation exists, so they must be lying about not wanting sex? I think it is. I think it's just as much oppression when a man does this to a sexual lesbian as when a woman does this to an asexual lesbian, or an asexual homoromantic woman. I'm reluctant to say much about this because I don't want to tell queer people what it's like to be queer; I may or may not be straight, but I can certainly pass well enough to have straight privilege.

On the Tumblr that launched the post, someone wrote, "you are queer if you want to have a relationship with a member of the same sex, regardless of whether or not you want to have sex. you are not queer if you want no relationship or a relationship with a member of the opposite sex." But... maybe I'm missing the point, but I think this statement actually demonstrates the nature of the problem (and erases bisexuality to boot). Of course I want relationships with members of the same sex: most of my best friends are women. I also want relationships with members of the opposite sex: some of my best friends are men. The very idea that when you say "a relationship" it's automatically assumed to be sexual or romantic, demonstrates asexual and aromantic invisibility, and the privileging of sexual and romantic relationships over non-sexual romantic relationships and platonic friendships. I'm not playing like I misunderstand the question to be provoking-- rather, I'm not sure I want meaningful relationships beyond friendships; I want some of those friendships to be with women. Does that make me queer? I certainly don't identify as queer, yet this definition would seem to imply that I do.

I don't know if sexual privilege exists or if asexual people can or should ID as queer; I don't ID as queer, so it's not my argument, and not what this post is about. Just teaspooning for education and visibility, here.

EDIT: I made the mistake of reading more comments when I got home tonight, and I... well, that was a mistake. I don't have the teaspoons to go through any more categorically. I wanted to point out, though, that for people who identify as feminists to be calling someone else's sexual orientation "stupid" is, um... not particularly feminist, to be understated about it.