Vegetarianism: Not A Magic Bullet

I've been reading Tasha's writing about being vegan and then transitioning back to omnivory, and it's made me think.

Originally she posited veganism as the "perfect" diet, the "best" diet, the one-size-fits-all good-for-everyone-and-the-planet diet. Then, after she had to stop being vegan because it was making her sick, she seemed to think the same thing about omnivory.

I don't think there is a one-size-fits-all diet. I think that if most people eat less meat and fewer animal products, most of us, and the planet, will be better off. But for any individual person, their diet is not any of my business and I have no right to judge. (And I really try not to; I'm guilty of being judgmental about the people who like to flaunt their carnivory, but really, I have much better things to do with my energy.)

Anyway; some people do well as vegans and some don't. Some people do well as vegetarians and some don't. Some people do well eating meat and some don't. This depends on their bodies, their minds, their cultures, their socio-economic class, their geographic location, and many other factors.

By way of example, I'm going to talk about what happened when I went vegetarian. I hear a lot of accounts of people going vegan and vegetarian that recount how wonderful it was for them and how much it improved their health, but not many accounts like mine, which goes: nothing happened.

I stopped eating meat over a period of a few years, and also tried to reduce my dairy intake/switch to organic dairy from pastured cows. I have the same amount of energy as I did before, I put on a good deal of weight (which I think is unrelated), and I still get sick about as frequently. My skin cleared up a bit, and my periods got lighter, but not right away, and I think that has to do with just getting older.

I'm okay with this, because I didn't go vegetarian for the health benefits, but because I didn't want to eat flesh any more. But dietary changes are not always miraculous, not always a magic bullet. Be gentle and patient with yourself. If a particular way of eating doesn't give the results you wanted, you don't have to stick with it. Just listen to your body, and do right by it.

A Carnival for Aces: Roundup

Hello everyone,

Due to the holidays and my lack of advertising, I only got a few submissions for the Carnival, but those few are greatly appreciated! Here they are:

At An Asexual Space, Looking Into 2012

At Asexual Love, 2012, the BEST YEAR EVER!

And here at Confessions of an Ist, Desires

Thanks again to those who submitted! As another reminder, this month's carnival is being held at quod inane vocamus and the theme is re/presentation.

Desires

This is going to be a bit long, so I've broken it into three sections: what I want for aces from the world, what I want for aces from aces, and what I want for me. They're in that order, since the third section is probably the least interesting to others. TW for acephobia and conversion attempts.

The World:
I want the world to be okay with asexuality. I don't want anyone else to have to go through electroshock in an attempt to "cure" them. I don't want anyone else to be told that they're broken or sick or sinful. I want the world to accept asexuality, and while we're at it, everyone else's sexual orientations and gender expressions, too.

I want visibility. I want asexual characters in Western visual media who aren't white, middle- or upper-class, brilliant, cold, socially awkward, men (or brilliant, sometimes-cold-and-socially-awkward aliens). Of the three well-known ace characters, two are frequently labelled as non-neurotypical and the third is described as a lonely god. I want asexual characters that don't reinforce the stereotype that being asexual makes you "weird," that only "weird" people are asexual. (Which is, of course, not to imply that there's anything wrong with being either non-neurotypical or "weird." However, I feel the current media representation is reinforcing the idea of a causal relationship that, for most aces, doesn't exist.)

I want education. I want people to stop conflating asexuality with celibacy or with lack of a sex drive. I want people to stop conflating "relationship" with "sexual and/or romantic relationship." I want people to stop conflating asexuality with asexual reproduction. I want not to have to explain asexuality to each new therapist I see.

The Ace Community:

I want us to find a way to embrace the wide diversity of aceness. I want us to not perpetuate the stereotype that being ace means not having or enjoying sex while supporting and including those aces who really aren't into sex at all, thank you very much. I want us to find more to talk about than cake. I want us to stop using the term "sexuals" and the ace triangle.

I want us to be able to undertake some of this education, and reach out to people who think they're broken or there's something wrong with them. I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone say "I thought I was a freak, and then I discovered the concept of asexuality." I want us to help other people to that realization if it applies to them.

Myself:

I want stronger relationships. I feel like I am in a no-person's land where I don't know exactly where I am going in terms of intimacy. I want to make friends in the city to which I just moved, and I want to figure out where my existing strong friendships are going. I want to figure out what being in a partnership would look like, and if I want that (I suspect it would look very different with each potential partner). I want to figure out what being in a network of equally strong intimate relationships would be like, and which of those I want more. Basically I want to figure out how to navigate intimate relationships as an aromantic asexual.

Will any of this happen? Who knows. But at least, now, I have a map.

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.)