my ‘ace’ confession : what does being asexual mean?

Stuck on a bus—on roads known best as car parks—I opened my laptop and typed down my screeching thoughts.

“I’m not fucking normal. All people are different. What are my differences?

I feel emotional writing these blatant statements. Feelings of regret, confusion, anger and ignorance flood like the fury of the stalled traffic and make me high off the exhaust fumes.

I was just thinking before, holding back these tears of emotion that yes, I’m fucking asexual. That’s my difference. And it explains all the different feelings I’ve had in my life.”

This was the first moment I confessed to myself that I identify as asexual. I had over the summer break read some stuff about asexuality and noted that it sort of fit my experiences, but I had dismissed it as all too much to consider.

In one evocative sentence in February this year, I wrote: “Too many questions, brain overload and fade, plunge back into a box of Shapes and snack my life away.” And for much of the year, I probably did. I identified as queer for some time but was murky on where exactly I situated myself under that umbrella. I write this as a white cisgendered male, and I speak for no other asexuals but do generalise, as I now give a little asexuality 101.

Asexuality?

It’s a so little-known (a)sexual orientation that I could not even name a single other person who identified as asexual.

One week in October that aims to combat asexual invisibility is Asexual Awareness Week, formed in 2010 in the US and mainly targeting the queer community.  This year there was many events and actions internationally, including Australia: from co-ordinated sharing of online resources to asexuality 101 discussions at University student union queer departments.

I think of asexuality as not experiencing sexual attraction or experiencing sexual attraction at low intensity, with the key being self-identification.

Asexuality is better thought of as a spectrum of sexual attraction, with the other pole being allosexuality (those experiencing sexual attraction), rather than a solid block. There’s a large amount of terms to name different experiences of the asexual-allosexual spectrum. Many fit in the grey zone, often under the umbrella Gray-A. One is demisexuality, for those who don’t experience sexual attraction unless they’re in a close relationship with the person first.

There are a range of attractions people may experience. Sexual attraction does not equal all attraction. Asexuals may experience romantic attraction, and be in romantic relationships with people. This complicates the normative understanding of relationships that put many forms of attraction including romantic, affectional and sexual attraction together—the latter commonly thought as ‘superior’ to platonic attraction.

Asexuals are commonly divided based on romantic attraction that mirror sexual attractions in their terminology including heteroromantic (romantically attracted to the opposite sex or gender), homoromantic, panromantic, biromantic and aromantic (does not experience romantic attraction). However, these same categories apply to allosexuals, except because many allosexuals assume sexual and romantic attraction match they are not typically applied. I identify as aromantic.

Confused yet? Well, maybe I should turn to something attractive to allosexuals.

Sex

There are lots of frustrating points of ignorance that often come up for asexuals on the question of sex. One crucial point is that sexual behaviour does not necessarily match one’s sexual orientation. Many asexuals do have sex, but the sexual attraction component is typically not there for many on the spectrum. Just like heterosexuals may have sex with someone of the same sex or gender and still identify as only being attracted to the opposite sex or gender.

Second there’s the topic of masturbation, and likewise masturbation does not determine someone’s sexual orientation (simple really). Masturbation may satisfy some asexuals’ sex drive, which is again separate from someone’s sexual orientation. Arousal can happen without sexual attraction.

Third is one of my favourites (/sarcasm) as someone who’s studied biology. No, asexual humans do not reproduce asexually—that is cloning themselves. Although I like strawberries, I don’t clone myself like strawberries by producing runners. Biologically asexuals are like allosexuals, with the same variety of biological diversity, and for many that includes the capacity to reproduce.

Celibacy and asexuality are two different concepts. Celibacy describes sexual behaviour (not having sex) while asexuality is an sexual orientation. There are celibate asexuals and asexuals who are not celibate.

Fluidity

Sexuality is not necessarily fixed for life. Fluidity describes those whose sexual attraction changes over time.

I find that now I try to fit in my past experiences before I identified as asexual with asexuality. Some definitions of asexuality explicitly exclude the possibility of fluidity by suggesting it only applies to those who have never experienced sexual attraction.

In the context of compulsory (allo) sexuality, which assumes everyone experiences sexual attraction the same way and consequently must have lots of the same sort of ‘normal’ sex, it can be hard to retrospectively disentangle different forms of attraction and desire.

Strangely, thinking that I just needed to wait for some magical sexual attraction to happen (i.e. my fluid path turning back to ‘normal’) was one of the barriers to me identifying as asexual.

Invisibility?

Why are some forms of identity marginal, and the heterosexual couple tied to the ‘normal’ family so central to mainstream society? Asexuality has a long (and continuing) history of pathologisation by psychiatry as a disorder. What does it say about a society that regularly pathologises people for identifying in ways different from the compulsory heterosexual norm?

The maintenance of ‘normal’ relationships is part of the reproduction of capitalism, patriarchy and heteronormativity. I think this plays out in the policing of myself and others as I see myself feeling compelled to act in a particular role, struggling against obsessions over body image and what constitutes relationships. The attachment of all forms of masculinity in patriarchy to sexual attraction makes me ponder how I can exist.

It’s hard not to internalise the idea that ‘one’ ultimate sexual relationship is best through popular culture, often tied to the legal and financial privileges of state-sanctioned marriage and pushes to widen that institution; and that as I have no interest in either, I’m stuck alone for the future. But there’s a whole other plane of different relationships, from platonic crushes known as squishes, to close queer-platonic relationships known as zucchinis.

From my perspective, raising the visibility of asexuality does not stand alone. Instead, as an anarchist I want liberation that intersects across differences not limited to race, gender, sexuality and ability and ends class domination by rulers. I want there to be grassroots dialogue on colonisation, the land of the Boon wurrung and Wurundjeri and peoples that I write this on, Australia’s state violence, amnesia and genocide.

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I came out to a bunch of asexuals in a park through the Asexuality Visibility Education Network online forums. My only regret is that my own internalised shame in my asexuality meant it took so long to work out. I initially distributed a similar piece to friends to help them understand me after finding it too exhausting to bring up with more than a few friends. I was reluctant to distribute it wider, but came around to one friend’s encouragement for me to go to Lipmag. I did this because of unexpected consequences. Friends suggested they had similar experiences and others redefined their close platonic relationships. I was hopeful that writing can change consciousness, and it did. I write this because of the painful constrictions and loneliness that invisibility can cause and my hope that asexuality shame can be undone.