Anyone want to help a girl out and critique the mini personal-essay-type-thing I’m (considering) submitting for my school‘s diversity page? I’m just not sure if all the things I’m trying to say are coming across in the best way. Lots of good ol’ demi discussion and metaphor-mangling beneath the cut~
The thing that annoys me is that you would think that at least asexuals could be left alone. Sex is nobody else’s business, right? It’s private, it’s between you and the people you are (or aren’t) having it with.
But no. Everyone wants to know! Where’s your boyfriend? Do you have a boyfriend? Haven’t you ever had a boyfriend? So then you’re gay? You’re waiting till you’re older? Gosh, you’re getting a bit old now, aren’t you? You one of those ‘career women’ then? What’re you going to do when you’re old and you don’t have anybody to look after you?
And when you reach the end of your tether and you just want to scream, “WHAT DOES IT MATTER TO YOU?” that question isn’t rhetorical. Why ARE people so obsessed with this?! You don’t know. It doesn’t make sense to you!
And then when you get sick of the questions and break down and explain how it actually works for you (feeling like an idiot, because seriously who wants to know this much about your internal wiring?), it’s “Well, you just haven’t met the right person yet” or “That doesn’t sound right, you should see a doctor” or the one that really makes you want to punch them in the teeth, “I’m so sorry! You’re missing out on so much.”
(And part of you wants to say, “Really? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like a sobbing emotional wreckage that I feel kind of lucky to have missed out on.” But you know nobody will take that the right way.)
And then, sometimes, there are the well-meaning struggles to understand. And I can’t say anything because at least they’re really trying, but part of me wants to shout, “WHAT IS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND?” Why is it so impossible to visualize an intimate relationship without sex, when half the world participates in close asexual relationships all the time? Not everybody’s got the best friend they’re dedicated to like a lover or sibling, but enough do. It’s not a difficult concept, the ‘bromance.’ The ‘honorary sister.’ The ‘no (wo)man will ever come between us.’
Sometimes invisibility is frustrating; it sucks sometimes to be surrounded by a whole world that seems intent on rejecting the idea of anybody NOT having sex. You try not to take it personally—you know it’s not about you; mating is kind of a biological imperative for the bulk of the species—but after a while it’s hard to shake the sense that you’re the one who’s being rejected. Then again, frequently invisibility kind of nice, because hey, it’s about 1000x better than street harassment. But it’s really just obnoxious when you get all the downsides of invisibility and you still don’t get the upsides. And it feels so bitchy and ungracious to complain when there are people who ARE getting harassed on the street, and threatened, and attacked, and compared to that, do you really have any right to complain?
Dang, Pretty. I’m tempted to craft you a student account and make you submit this, though I’m sure there’s an honor code violation in there somewhere…
But in all seriousness – thank you, thank you for putting a lot of that irritation into words that are so spot on (especially those bits I bolded, because holy fuck yes).
Hahaha, thank you. And I’m sorry I totally got sidetracked from your actual request about critiquing your article. Your writing is beautiful, and evocative. I remember well the feeling of what you described—that period of confusion, when you’ve cottoned on that you don’t seem to work the way most people do, but you can’t make sense of the pieces you’re holding in a way that seems to fit anything else, either. And even when you feel secure in yourself, it’s still frustrating because you don’t know how to tell others that no, you’re not broken, you’re just fine the way you are.
You reminded me so well, in fact, that it’s what motivated me to write my response. ^_^ So. Big old ‘HELL YEAH’ stamp from me, anyway!
