Christianity and Asexuality

 Content note: this post discusses homophobic and acephobic attitudes

Recently, I've been thinking about the intersection of asexuality and Christianity. I saw a comment on Rachel Held Evans' blog post “If My Son or Daughter Were Gay,” from a mother asking for advice because her daughter had just come out as asexual. She noted that while homosexuality was frequently discussed on the blog (Rachel is a strong proponent of what I might call a progressive Christian attitude towards the LGBT* community, and often hosts discussion), asexuality had never been discussed.

Asexuality is in an odd place, compared to the other minority sexual orientations, when it comes to Christianity. Some religiously conservative Christians tolerate or even applaud asexuality while condemning all other non-heterosexual orientations. In that way, asexuality escapes the vitriol to which the LGBT* community is subjected*. But this leniency is often based out of a misunderstanding of asexuality-- and it's by no means universal. I know of other aces who've been told by Christians (and others) that their asexuality is sinful, or even that they're going to hell for it.

Sexism and Asexuality, Part Three

Now, I'm going to discuss the sexism inherent in telling women they're not really asexual.

It's true that the misogyny in which we all exist shapes our choices, and that no choice is made outside its influence. If I said, "I've decided I want to drop out of graduate school and find a nice breadwinner to support me and stay home full-time raising his two point five children while baking every day and putting on heels and pearls to meet my husband at the door with a martini, and this has nothing to do with misogyny because it's my choice," people would be justified in their skepticism; this hypothetical choice (while not a choice that wins, because no choice a woman makes can win in the patriarchy) is a choice that plays right into some very strong stereotypes about women.

It's also true that even our perception of our own sexuality is shaped by the patriarchy, and it can be hard to determine what is a genuine desire and what has been written onto us. For women who have desires that seem to "cooperate with the patriarchy," this can create a lot of conflict about how to embrace their desires in a healthy way.

With these two things being true, however, anyone who wants to tell a woman that her sexuality is false, or unduly shaped by patriarchal stereotypes (because no person escapes this shaping entirely), is treading very near to enacting a misogynistic narrative of their own. Telling a woman that her sexuality is not what she says it is plays along with a narrative that suggests women are never really mature enough to know themselves, and that they need some kindly stranger to instruct them, whether about what to wear or how to smile or what to eat during pregnancy or what their sexual orientation is. Telling a woman she's wrong about her own sexuality plays into a narrative where what women know about themselves doesn't matter, because who they are and what they want are irrelevant as long as they play along with the script. It's possible to do it well… but it's not likely to happen. An outsider might be able to more clearly see the cultural forces to which a woman is subjected than the woman herself, but their potential for more unbiased perception in one area is balanced by an inability to perceive what's in the woman's own mind.

To argue that a woman's sexuality is the result of patriarchal forces, you must be able to argue that that sexuality falls in line with patriarchal norms, and as I have previously discussed, asexuality is not a "patriarchy-approved" female sexuality. Applying standard criticisms of choice feminism to a woman's sexuality also runs into the further and larger problem that sexuality is not freely chosen. There's debate about the extent to which sexual orientations are inherent, but most people (at least in my cultural context) who aren't conservative Christians agree that one's sexual orientation is largely or entirely not a matter of choice. You cannot logically criticize a woman for her choice on a matter in which she had little or no choice.

I know that I didn't choose to be asexual. I don't know if I was "born this way," but I was "this way" by the time I was a teenager, and when I discovered the concept of asexuality, many years later, a lot of things from my adolescence suddenly made sense. What I have chosen is to accept my asexuality. I've chosen to accept that there is nothing wrong with me and that I am not repressed or broken. I've chosen to accept and affirm that, even though I live in a patriarchal society and my experiences are shaped by misogyny, I have enough agency to know my own desires; I am as able as a straight woman, a bisexual woman, a pansexual woman, or a lesbian to discern my own sexual orientation. I've chosen to accept that I do not need to have lots of (undesired, unenthusiastic) sex, or violate my own boundaries, in order to discover my "real" orientation.

These are the choices I have made, and on these, I both welcome and defy criticism. If you have a problem with these choices that I have made, or with the similar choices of any other asexual woman, I suggest you consider, deeply, what the alternative would look like.

Note: While I did not end up quoting Cliff Pervocracy in this entry, I want to thank her for putting some vague ideas and feelings I'd been having into very clear and concrete words.

Sexism and Asexuality, Part Two

I've heard it said that for a women to be asexual means for her to conveniently conform to the demands of the patriarchy, but that's very untrue.

Asexuality is a free pass out of exactly zero of the thousands of ways the patriarchy polices female sexuality. My not being sexually attracted to men isn't excused because I'm also not sexually attracted to women. The sex toys in my dresser aren't condoned because I'm only using them on myself. The fact that I want intimacy from people-- from men, even-- without wanting to have sex in return doesn't meet with approval. That I enjoy being attractive, without wanting to attract anyone and without being attracted to anyone, puts me squarely in that illogical category known as "being a tease," just like millions of other women who dare to do something for themselves rather than for a male audience.

Women cannot express our desires, be they romantic or sexual or platonic, without being shamed and belittled, and being asexual doesn't change that. We're not supposed to have desires. We're supposed to be sexualized, and sexy, but not sexual; available to men, but with no desires or demands of our own except for those which serve their fantasies. Asexual women don't get a free pass out of that. Some asexual women, certainly, do have no sexual desires, but I suspect there are very few asexual women who have no desires at all. And asexual women are no more sexually available to men than are women of any other sexual orientation. Therefore, we fail at the two primary components of patriarchially-sanctioned female sexuality: available (no more so than any other women) and without any desires of our own (no). The patriarchy isn't exactly falling all over itself to give us cookies.

As an asexual woman, I am too sexual to be "proper," because I enjoy sexual pleasure (and, even more scandalously, on my own terms and for no one's benefit but mine). I am also not sexual enough, however, because I am not sexually available to men. I do not receive any sort of approval for being asexual; I have not unlocked some sort of magic guide to negotiating through the worst of the patriarchy by being asexual. I put up with the same objectification, fight the same fights, and live in the same fear as the equivalent white allosexual woman of my socioeconomic class. And all this, by the way, is while being celibate. If I were currently sexually active, I would have to wade through the same garbage as my allosexual counterpart.

The thing about the patriarchy is that there is no way to win. It is an obstacle course constructed to be unwinnable. Not everyone loses as badly-- for many women, their race, class, sexual orientation, religion, and/or position on the gender binary clear many obstacles away-- but no one wins. To say that any particular group wins simply means you aren't paying attention. There is no way to satisfy the demands of the patriarchy, because the demands of the patriarchy are conflicting and mutually exclusive. It is literally impossible. None of us win-- not allosexual women, and not asexual women.

Sexism and Asexuality (Part One?)

This is a story about my younger self, and about how sexism (and homophobia, but mostly sexism) affected my identifying as asexual.

I grew up thinking I was straight, because straight was default and everyone was straight until proven otherwise. I wondered occasionally if I were gay, because I realized that I liked women and men about the same, but I decided I wasn't gay because I didn't want to have sex with women. I did wonder if I might be bisexual, but I concluded that I liked guys so that made me straight. I didn't hear about asexuality for years.

I didn't date much in high school. I dated more in college, always men. One relationship had a noticeable lack of physical chemistry (even for me), and, while my boyfriend didn't give a lot of reasons for breaking up with me, I was pretty sure it had something to do with him wanting to go farther and faster physically than I did. I don't remember thinking there was anything remarkable about this; I just concluded I was a little weird for not wanting to do that stuff, and that we were incompatible.

I had another boyfriend who told me he wanted me, wanted to have sex with me. I had no idea how to process this. I simply had no framework for understanding a statement like that. I had no idea what it felt like to want somebody. There were people I missed when they weren't around, but I didn't want to have sex with any of them, and my boyfriend was clearly talking about something far more physical. I was taken aback; I had noticed that other people were having much more sex than I was, and that there was something different about them as opposed to about me, but I hadn't thought about what that was very deeply. I was more of a conservative Christian (and more judgmental) then than I am now, so I had put some of it down to different morals, but most of it I had just attributed to different life choices.

But my boyfriend at the time was also religiously conservative, so I knew that couldn't be it. My conclusion was that that tired old chestnut, that men want sex much more than women do, must be true. I was kind of surprised to realize this, but the evidence seemed clear: he wanted me, I had no idea what he was talking about but didn't feel anything like that for him, he was the guy, I was the girl. I couldn't think of any alternative explanation for such a marked difference in our feelings. Not only did I not want him, I couldn't conceive of wanting him or anyone else.

Once I realized that my boyfriend and I had significantly different levels of interest in each other sexually, which was something I thought was gendered, I became concerned about tempting him. After all, if what I thought was a sexist trope about women just not being interested in sex was apparently true, then maybe all that stuff that went with it, about "provocative" women being "bad" women, was true too. I wasn't concerned that my boyfriend was going to pressure me for sex if I was too tempting, but I still didn't like the idea of unintentionally turning him on. I didn't like the idea that something that was platonic to me, like cuddling, could be sexual to him. So I let many of my desires go unfulfilled, and convinced myself that if we could just get to a stage in our relationship where we felt like we "could," morally, have sex, whether that was an engagement or what, then everything would be okay. I focused on sex as the thing that would bring the intimacy I wanted, even though I didn't really want sex.

That relationship ended before engagements or marriage became an issue. I figured out that the tired old chestnut about men wanting sex much more than women want sex was actually a tired old chestnut and not a universal truth-- and what astounds me, looking back, was that I knew a lot of women who were having and enjoying sex. I had them as examples right in front of me. But I had no other way to interpret my experiences than through the lens sexism offered me, because the lives of my friends offered no way to account for my desires, or rather, my lack of sexual desires.

Looking back, I wish someone had sat me down and said, "Aydan, you know how you've never wanted to do anything sexually with any of your boyfriends?" And then, after I had finished sputtering and making excuses, had said, "Have you ever thought about what that means? Aydan, it's not them, it's you."

And I wish someone had sat me down and said, "You don't want what most people want, and that's okay. What you do want, you're probably not going to find in these relationships. Maybe you should stop trying, and figure out a way to get what you really do want." It might have saved me some heartache, and something worse.

Because I'm not saying that I stayed in bad relationships because I didn't know I was asexual and aromantic. But I am saying that if I had realized, had known what those things were, had realized that asexuality and not sexism explained my experiences-- I might have made different decisions.

So, younger self, if you or someone like you is reading this, you should know that it's okay to want what you want, even if it's not what everyone else wants. Your desires are valid whether or not they are sexual. Make decisions based on what you want and not what you think you should want. Figure out what it is you want, and try to figure out a way to get it.

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.

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.

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.

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.