Talking to Myself: Congratulations on Being Normal

I don’t have a therapist. I’m all for talking to a non-bias professional if you need it, but I have yet to find a non-bias professional I feel I can trust. I’ve talked to counselors in the past and that hasn’t been a good experience for me. What was a good experience for me was talking and venting about my feelings and hearing them out loud. Once I removed the extra person from the room the experience became even better. So, now I talk to myself and write in a journal if I need to deal with something. One the one hand, this makes me very, very weird, but I think in the larger context I’m perfectly normal.

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Call for Submissions Carnival of Aces April 2016

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Calling for Submissions for The Carnival of Aces for April 2016! What is a blogging carnival? See the master post here! Last month’s topic of “Gender Norms and Asexuality” was hosted by valprehension and you can see the round up of submissions here!

For this month’s prompt I’ve decided on the topic “Be yourself (but stretch)”. What I want to know is how on a day-to-day basis you affirm and express your asexual identity while navigating though established social norms that are, unfortunately, unavoidable. The term “be yourself, but stretch” comes from authentic leadership techniques, where to be an effective supervisor you need to be authentic (be yourself), but also stretch to match the expected norms that come with leading others.

Growing up in the 90s I feel like a major moral of every kid’s show was “Be yourself”. The many episodes would start off with one of…

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The face of evil: the terrible way we show aromantic and asexual identities

The Queerness

Stephanie Farnsworth takes a look at how we write about asexual and aromantic identities.

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Aromantic and asexual identities have been slandered, erased and deliberately ridiculed throughout the centuries. Living with a lack of romantic attraction is often believed to be impossible, while a lack of sexual attraction or desire for sex is often mocked in disablist and ableist terms. No more clearly is this demonstrated than when it comes to depictions of these identities in literature and the media. Any reference to them is sparse within the history of storytelling, but when they are mentioned they are  so often coupled with the idea of being evil or dangerously subversive in some way.

The most notable example in recent literature (and subsequent films) was undoubtedly the character of Lord Voldemort. He was presented as completely villainous purely because he didn’t have the capacity to love. Voldemort is not only disinterested in…

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My Comments on David Jay’s Presentation

So This Video has been floating around tumblr and despite several bored faces and yawns in the audience, I thought it brought up some really good points.

In the video David Jay of AVEN (Asexuality Visibility & Education Network) brought up the point that at their core all relationships are same. And he wasn’t just talking about romantic-sexual relationships. When you have a meaningful connection with someone, even if they’re just a friend, a family member, or even a coworker, you have a relationship with them. But unlike romantic-sexual relationships, these platonic relationships are viewed as sort of inferior while romantic-sexual relationships are “celebrated, prioritized, and talked about”.

At the end the audience was encouraged to think about a world where these relationships were celebrated, prioritized, and talked about. I started thinking about it and I imagined what it would be like if everyone who had asked  me “Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend?” instead had asked “Will you be my friend?” or “Who is your best friend?” or “What is your most treasured relationship?”.

How great would it be if I said my most important relationships are with my immediate family and that was celebrated and talked about the same way as a romantic relationship would have been? How many meaningful friendships are we missing out on because popculture says the only relationship worth pursuing with a perfect stranger is a romantic one? What if Hollywood told a falling-in-bestfriends story the same way it told romantic comedies? That was my take-away from the video.

 

Everyone Uses Singular ‘They,’ Whether They Realize It Or Not

Everyone Uses Singular ‘They,’ Whether They Realize It Or Not

So We Just Don’t Talk About It

The words are there. The Oxford English dictionary added Agender, Bi-gender, Cisgender, Cissexism, FTM, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Gender-fluid, Genderqueer, Misgender, MTF, Mx, Nonbinary,Transman, Transperson, Transphobia, and Transwoman to their online dictionary.

But my friends and I don’t talk about it. I came out to two of my friends who I’ve known, loved (platonically of course) and appreciated for seven years. Seven years is supposed to be a magic number. People say if you’re friends for seven years, you’ll be friends forever.

So, why does my friend say that when people use “they/them” as a singular pronoun it makes him uncomfortable and doesn’t “sound right” to him? Why when he’s trying to write a story with an aromantic character and they come off as heartless do I have to correct him and say we’re not like that? Why do my friends and family have to tell me my gender and sexuality isn’t real. I may not feel romance, but I can feel loyalty that would make Samwise Gamgee come off as flaky. Because of that I’m at an impasse.

I can’t change my friends’ minds by just talking to them. If I try to correct them they get defensive and will try that much harder to prove me wrong. The platitude “those who mind don’t matter and those who matter won’t mind” is adorable and I guiltily confess to pining it to my pinterest board three times, but I can’t just dump all my friends and start over. I feel bound by loyalty, bound by the duty of friendship to understand them as human beings and love them despite their faults. I will be a true friend even when they aren’t.

So, we just don’t talk about it. I don’t wave my pride flags in their faces and demand they love me. Instead I talk about how comfortable my unisex clothes make me feel. I talk about how purple and green are my favorite colors. I talk about what a pain in the ass makeup is and that no matter how many pinterest tutorials I find it never makes any sense. I talk about how I don’t like going to loud dance clubs, but will get up and do a group dance at the Folk Life festival. I talk about how I love writing more than anything. I talk about my favorite characters. I talk about what books I’m reading (with asexual and trans characters, of course, but I leave that part out). I talk about my coworkers who are so confused because I’m so weird. I talk about everything me, but “it”.

I let “it” speak for itself.

kaenith:

This week’s pride dragon is for agender pride!

The pride dragons series is a work in progress: finished dragons can be found here, and the to-do list is here.

This design is also available on TeePublic and Redbubble!

This beautiful dragon is now on my wall. ❤

Call for Submissions Carnival of Aces April 2016

Calling for Submissions for The Carnival of Aces for April 2016! What is a blogging carnival? See the master post here! Last month’s topic of “Gender Norms and Asexuality” was hosted by valprehension and you can see the round up of submissions here!

For this month’s prompt I’ve decided on the topic “Be yourself (but stretch)”. What I want to know is how on a day-to-day basis you affirm and express your asexual identity while navigating though established social norms that are, unfortunately, unavoidable. The term “be yourself, but stretch” comes from authentic leadership techniques, where to be an effective supervisor you need to be authentic (be yourself), but also stretch to match the expected norms that come with leading others.

Growing up in the 90s I feel like a major moral of every kid’s show was “Be yourself”. The many episodes would start off with one of the main characters trying to blend in with the cool kids or try to reinvent themselves after an embarrassing mishap, but in the end they realized that all they needed to be happy was to be themselves. I wish a screenwriter or two had had the foresight to write and episode where “Be Yourself” didn’t work. You know, something for the rest of us who came out to our parents and it backfired, for those who came out to friends who still think we’re “basically straight” or just “gay and won’t admit it”, or maybe something for those of us who haven’t come out and have to fake chuckle at bad sex jokes at work or artfully dodge awkward questions about the significant others we don’t have.

I’m looking for posts, stories, comics, poems, art, videos, or a comfortable digital medium of your choice about how “Be yourself” doesn’t always work; About how you would love to be out and proud, but can’t because people just don’t get it or you can’t risk your livelihood or it’s just not worth the drama. How do you be your wonderful, asexual self and how do you “stretch” to fit in the roles you need to be to make a living or just make it through the day?

If you’re still not sure what to write about, here are some suggestions. These are not meant to be all-encompassing, only to provide possible ideas.

-Have you mastered the art of balancing your ace identity and your family, friend, and work relationships? Make the How-To guide you wish you had a year ago.

-Any advice for making it though that awkward family dinner that’s just around the corner? Parents/Grandparents are probably going to be asking some uncomfortable questions.

-Do any of your friends not accept your asexuality? How does that affect your friendship? What compromises are you willing to make between your identity and loyalty to friends?

-What do you do or who do you go to when you need a confidence boost or to reaffirm your ace identity?

-Show some support for your fellow aces who haven’t come out and don’t plan to because of some very good reasons.

-How do you be yourself when most of society says that isn’t good enough, that we’re “missing out” on what is considered part of human nature? If you wrote an article to your local news paper about being asexual in your community, what would you say?

To submit you can leave a link in the comments below, submit HERE tumblr, or shoot me an email at lettredemarque(at)outlook(dot)com with the link or submission.

I will be accepting submissions until midnight Eastern Standard Time Saturday April 30^th, so you’ll have plenty of time to whip something together.

Happy Blogging!