Asexuality and Aromanticism
Jan. 14th, 2011 01:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peroxidepirateIn my recent wanderings across the internets, I came across something that made me realize I've never given much thought to asexuality. And I realized, if I want my straight friends to be mindful of the direction of their sexuality (and I do), it's only fair that I am mindful of the presence of mine.
So I went wandering some more, reading and researching and learning. I didn't save links, unfortunately -- it was late and I passed through a lot of blogs and posts and essays and organizations. But... it was really interesting, and I'm glad I'm thinking on it.
The surprising part is how much of what I encountered resonates with me on a personal level. I didn't expect that.
It makes a certain amount of sense, though. The asexual movement, such as it is, is interested in separating emotional intimacy, love, affection, romance and sex. I get behind that, entirely. I've built my life on a foundation of not equating all these things; of not looking for or expecting to find all these things with the same person; of not needing all of these things to be happy or complete. So that bit of empathy is an unexpected shiny.
I'm so not asexual, however. As I understand it, that's a sexual orientation (even if defined by a general absence of sexuality) and though it may evolve over time, it's not something you deliberately choose; it's something that just is. In my case, it isn't.
But another term that shows up when you search for "asexuality" is "aromantic." That's fuzzier, since romance is a fuzzy concept -- it's culturally constructed; something that didn't exist at all through most of human history. It's something we generally think should line up with sexuality, but not necessarily something that does. Is aromanticism something that just is, or something you deliberately choose? I don't know. From my reading, it sounds like it's a fundamental identity thing for a lot of people. But some of them also tried to do the "normal" romantic relationship thing for a while, and then chose to stop trying because it didn't work.
And I am -- or for a long time, at least, I was -- in that camp. I had romantic relationships when I was young, but mostly I felt like they were getting in the way of the important things. So eventually I stopped trying. I went through several years in my mid-to-late twenties when I didn't consider romance a possibility for myself. The sexual urges were still there, but they weren't connected to anything that seemed real. The prospect of having a romantic relationship seemed about as real as the prospect of becoming a vampire slayer or developing a magical gift. But for a good stretch of time, I didn't miss it. I wasn't looking, wasn't waiting, didn't want it. If you had asked me my sexual orientation at that point, I would have said bisexual -- because that's how I identified before that point -- but I would have quickly amended my answer with, "But it doesn't matter because I'm not interested in relationships." The lack of interest in romantic relationships was at least as much a part of my identity as my sexual orientation.
Was I repressing something I wanted all along? I don't think so. At a certain point I did some repressing, yes. Maybe for a lot of the past two years, up until I very recently faced up to the fact that yes, I want to be dating. But I arrived at the decision not to date -- not to be open to romance -- because romance had proven to be very much not what I wanted or needed.
Now it is something I want. Does that invalidate the half a decade I spent being aromantic? I don't know. Does identifying as lesbian now invalidate the half a decade before that, which I spent overtly -- and often very vocally -- identifying as bisexual? I don't know that, either. I don't talk about either situation very much, publicly... in part because I don't want to perpetuate the stereotype that either one is "just a phase." It's not. It's a totally valid lifestyle, a totally valid identity. For me, it was transitory. For me. Maybe this -- how I think of myself now -- is transitory, too: I don't know yet. But the problem with "just a phase" isn't that it's changeable; it's that we're encouraged to "get over" phases. I find that offensive and completely unnecessary. So I guess I just answered my initial questions: no, my earlier ways of defining myself are not invalidated by how I define myself now. I've changed. Neither identity is better or worse than another.
Anyway, I'm now (surprise, surprise) feeling an urge to explore this in fic. Therefore, f-list, I need your input! I've been omni-shipping so long, I'm having trouble thinking of characters I could write as asexual or aromantic. Help?
So I went wandering some more, reading and researching and learning. I didn't save links, unfortunately -- it was late and I passed through a lot of blogs and posts and essays and organizations. But... it was really interesting, and I'm glad I'm thinking on it.
The surprising part is how much of what I encountered resonates with me on a personal level. I didn't expect that.
It makes a certain amount of sense, though. The asexual movement, such as it is, is interested in separating emotional intimacy, love, affection, romance and sex. I get behind that, entirely. I've built my life on a foundation of not equating all these things; of not looking for or expecting to find all these things with the same person; of not needing all of these things to be happy or complete. So that bit of empathy is an unexpected shiny.
I'm so not asexual, however. As I understand it, that's a sexual orientation (even if defined by a general absence of sexuality) and though it may evolve over time, it's not something you deliberately choose; it's something that just is. In my case, it isn't.
But another term that shows up when you search for "asexuality" is "aromantic." That's fuzzier, since romance is a fuzzy concept -- it's culturally constructed; something that didn't exist at all through most of human history. It's something we generally think should line up with sexuality, but not necessarily something that does. Is aromanticism something that just is, or something you deliberately choose? I don't know. From my reading, it sounds like it's a fundamental identity thing for a lot of people. But some of them also tried to do the "normal" romantic relationship thing for a while, and then chose to stop trying because it didn't work.
And I am -- or for a long time, at least, I was -- in that camp. I had romantic relationships when I was young, but mostly I felt like they were getting in the way of the important things. So eventually I stopped trying. I went through several years in my mid-to-late twenties when I didn't consider romance a possibility for myself. The sexual urges were still there, but they weren't connected to anything that seemed real. The prospect of having a romantic relationship seemed about as real as the prospect of becoming a vampire slayer or developing a magical gift. But for a good stretch of time, I didn't miss it. I wasn't looking, wasn't waiting, didn't want it. If you had asked me my sexual orientation at that point, I would have said bisexual -- because that's how I identified before that point -- but I would have quickly amended my answer with, "But it doesn't matter because I'm not interested in relationships." The lack of interest in romantic relationships was at least as much a part of my identity as my sexual orientation.
Was I repressing something I wanted all along? I don't think so. At a certain point I did some repressing, yes. Maybe for a lot of the past two years, up until I very recently faced up to the fact that yes, I want to be dating. But I arrived at the decision not to date -- not to be open to romance -- because romance had proven to be very much not what I wanted or needed.
Now it is something I want. Does that invalidate the half a decade I spent being aromantic? I don't know. Does identifying as lesbian now invalidate the half a decade before that, which I spent overtly -- and often very vocally -- identifying as bisexual? I don't know that, either. I don't talk about either situation very much, publicly... in part because I don't want to perpetuate the stereotype that either one is "just a phase." It's not. It's a totally valid lifestyle, a totally valid identity. For me, it was transitory. For me. Maybe this -- how I think of myself now -- is transitory, too: I don't know yet. But the problem with "just a phase" isn't that it's changeable; it's that we're encouraged to "get over" phases. I find that offensive and completely unnecessary. So I guess I just answered my initial questions: no, my earlier ways of defining myself are not invalidated by how I define myself now. I've changed. Neither identity is better or worse than another.
Anyway, I'm now (surprise, surprise) feeling an urge to explore this in fic. Therefore, f-list, I need your input! I've been omni-shipping so long, I'm having trouble thinking of characters I could write as asexual or aromantic. Help?
