For Asexuality Awareness week I thought it might be good to share my Ace-coming-Out blog as part of a series of 3 reflections on being out as Ace for the past year.
The first part is where I started, the second will be where I am now, and the third will be about using creativity (as that’s the theme this time) in expressing my Ace-ness.
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So back last year I wrote a blog post about sexuality. Not unusual; it’s kinda my job in some ways. But in it, I talked about Schitt’s Creek (surprise surprise) and how my relationship with my sexuality was changing.
TLDR version of that blog post:
I’ve always identified as bi/pansexual. Since high school, that was my label, and I was fine with it. David Rose’s ‘The wine not the label’ speech was like a beacon in my ‘just pick a side’ life. But a couple of years ago, rewatching Patrick’s ‘you make me feel right speech’ to David, I realised, I didn’t know what right felt like.
I didn’t really progress from there for a while. I didn’t know what right felt like. So maybe I hadn’t met my ‘David’ yet (I haven’t, applications are still open, form a line). Maybe I had my orientation wrong, maybe I was a lesbian? This seemed like the only option as I knew I wasn’t straight. Sorry heterosexuals but one thing I knew was I wasn’t on your team. But that label never fit right either. But aside from occasionally thinking about it, because dating and yes sex, have never been top of my priority list (oh there’s a sign too) so I just went about my business. Also, we’re still in a pandemic and I had a book to write, I didn’t have time to think about this. So we were left with a big old nothing. Which is apt actually.
Then one day someone left a comment on one of my fanfics (yes I write SC fanfic…) and said they thought I’d written Patrick as demisexual. Huh, I thought, I never thought of it that way. But I do know that I tend to write Patrick from ‘my’ point of view often. I re-read the fic and went ‘ya know what I did write him as that’ and from there went ‘you know what then…’
Fast forward a few more months. A lot of reading and research and reflecting and yes.
I am Asexual.
I’m not ready to label in Mirco- labels yet, at least publicly, the nuances of which are complicated at the best of times. But that’s my label. That feels ‘right.’ I still share the bisexual part of my identity with that...it’s complicated, the layers of how this works. And that’s a conversation for another day.
I’m prepared for the questions, the backlash from the ‘have you had your hormones checked’ to ‘are you mentally ill?’ to the classic ‘You just haven’t met the right person yet.’ That last one is correct- I haven’t met the right person who will accept me, asexuality and all. Because asexual people can be in relationships, they can be loved, heck they can be in polyamorous relationships if they like. Our sexuality doesn’t define our ability to form relationships that are right for us, just like everyone else. Of course, it might be harder. We are 1%. We are greatly misunderstood. Society as a whole runs on sex after all, and even our own LGBTQIA+ community is heavily sexualised and sex-oriented. I’m not naive that this has its challenges. But fewer challenges than not knowing. Or pretending I’m something else.
I’m glad actually that I’m figuring this out now in a way. Yes, if I’d known earlier maybe it would have saved me a bunch of questions of feeling ‘wrong’ but you know what, I’m old enough, and already loudly queer enough to accept this and to be loud about it. Because lots of people my age didn’t have what younger people have, they didn’t have online resources and communities to be part of. I find myself learning from younger folks all the time in the community, so I plan to be there, your best queer-ace-aunt for whoever needs it. I would loudly queer before, I’ll be even louder now.
Because actually what’s more ‘queer’ than Asexuality in a way? If queerness is going against the dominant norms, then actually I just feel more queer now than before. And I understand who I am better.
My best metaphor for talking about sex to this point is how I talk about excessive drinking. Neither are things I’ve done a lot of, both are things I didn’t understand the hype about. So when people tell stories about getting ‘so wasted’ I nod along and recite bits of the one time I did and pretend I get the rest. Or I pretend to get excited about a night of doing either while remembering the I felt so sick I never wanted to do it again. Or my very particular feelings about lemon vodka (ok that one is very drinking specific don’t do it, kids). And actually, the drinking thing is a great start to the nuances of asexuality- I still enjoy a drink, but a very particular drink in small quantities at certain times, in certain circumstances. Other people enjoy lemon vodka shots any time any day, personally, some twenty years later the thought of that still makes me feel icky.
There are so many metaphors, so many ways I’ll no doubt put my educator and activist hat on to talk about this. But mainly my overwhelming feeling had been that of nodding along to a conversation I only half-understood for years. Like maybe you missed the assigned reading that week. Maybe you’re just a bit stupid and aren’t keeping up with the class. Or maybe it’s just everyone else is cooler than you and you’re being picked last for the team. All of these feel like my life to this point we’re talking about, and ok yeah doing, the sex thing is involved.
Asexual folks talk a lot about feeling ‘broken’ before realising their identity and that’s true because society makes us feel that way. Society is structured around sex. It’s everywhere, in the way we structure our lives, from advertising to TV and film and books and everything. I didn’t understand for so long why I was different because there wasn’t an option for this form of ‘different’.
So I spent my teen years thinking that my lack of crushes, my lack of dating, my lack of anything was just because I was a weirdo that nobody was interested in, that it was my fault for being ‘different’ and ‘weird’ I spent years trying to force myself to date like a ‘normal’ person. I even let a person who was the local equivalent of notorious scarf thief Jake Gyllenhaal treat me badly because of it. Because at least if you’re ‘trying’ then you’re ‘trying’ to be normal. Firstly normal in any context is overrated in my opinion. Secondly, there’s only normal for you. And third, if you’ve got a ‘Jake’ in your life, bin them right now, you’re better than them.
I’m able to say all this now because I am an old-ass grown person. Do I wish I hadn’t had to go through that? Sure. But I’m good now. Being asexual isn’t something to be pitied, any more than any other sexual orientation. I feel so happy in this label in a way I never did before. I used to feel apologetic for being pan/bi and I feel such shame to say that now- but it wasn’t because I wasn’t proud to be part of the community, it was that label wasn’t my label. That flag wasn’t my flag.
It’s hard when your label is based on the absence of something. Hard too when you make up not only just 1% of the population but also go against the grain of basically all pop culture...everything is driven by sex. And I didn’t know until recently that I was missing a part, a way of thinking about it. I didn’t think everything in those sex conversations was something people went around feeling all the time because I don’t (seriously how do y’all get anything done if you’re thinking about throwing Christ Helmsworth against a wall every five minutes)
The pop culture stuff weirdly helps make sense of it actually. Even if it means understanding sitting on the outside of it.
While I was recently lurking around fandom groups for work and play and noticing the amount of, let’s call them ‘thirsty’ comments around actors/characters...and this is no shade, y’all thirst away (as long as you keep it respectful in public!) but again I thought ‘huh, is this a specific actor/people thing?’ again in part yes, I think of those actors as like...siblings, or buddies. Aesthetically yes, pretty human beings but I have no desire to...do anything with them. But I didn’t share that ‘these are an alphabetical list of things I’d like to do to these people’ thing- unless that alphabetical list was having a nice cup of tea and a chat.
So, I started realising it was ‘normal’ to actually want to do those things. Like if, I don’t know Chris Helmsworth (insert generically good looking human of choice here) turns up at your door and says ‘Hey how you doin’?’ (because he’s Joey from ‘Friends’) you’re supposed to drag him upstairs. I’d make him a nice cup of tea and ask him about his journey. I’d want to be his mate. At best I’d want a romantic stroll.
This is the thing that sounds stupid to allosexuals (that’s you non-asexual folks) I know people SAY they want to rip someone’s clothes off but I didn’t think it was quite so literal. Like that ‘desire’ or whatever you feel...I/we don’t...it took me this long to realise it was missing.
But it comes back to pop culture, you can’t know you’re a thing without seeing the thing. And if nobody talks about the absence of the thing then how the heck do you work it out? So going back to my teenage years, I didn’t understand what I, a baby X Files nerd was supposed to feel about the David Duchovny posters on my wall. I just later assumed I was just more gay for Gillian Anderson (as we all are a little). But even in her case, I didn’t want to rip her 90s shoulder-pad-suit off her body. I just thought she looked nice and was cool. I find her aesthetically pleasing. But that’s all. Or like I admire the way Dan Levy who has very nice hair, wears a really cool Thom Browne number, or his pleasing hair, but my aesthetic admiration for the man and the suit he wears is essentially the same thing (this is of course over simplified, but you get the meaning...I admire the suit, I don’t want to fuck the suit...I didn’t know that when most people admire the human they very specifically want to fuck the human)
So actually my relation to pop culture helps me figure this out a bit. On that note, I want to round off by saying, the way to understand something is as ever representation. And for me, it was reading NR Walker’s book ‘Upside Down’ that somewhat sealed the deal for me. I’ve never felt so ‘seen’ by a book like that one, and it was after reading that I was 100% certain this is my label. Stories matter, representation matters. So not long after reading that, I started making the character in my novel that I’m writing Ace. Because if that novel sees the light of day, I want someone else to find maybe a story to seal the deal and give them the words for who they are.
I’m going to have lots to say on this because as someone now a ‘Queer Elder’ that’s my job, it’s my job to help other people. Because that’s what you do. But because also if one other person can be helped by seeing just this, we make it that much easier for the next person.
I’m Asexual. That’s my label, it’s my flag. It’s who I am.
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For other Ace content you might like:
Reading Schitt's Creek's Patrick as Demisexual and Why it matters