15 Day Asexuality Challenge: Day 11

What do you believe causes asexuality?

I think it’s part genetics, part environmental. I personally think that I was born asexual or rather that I was always going to present as asexual. I’m the oldest of my siblings so it makes evolutionary sense for me to remain with my family unit as a caregiver/nurturer rather than go off and make my own family unit. The character archetype I identify most with is The Mentor. My instincts tell me to gather knowledge and share it with the group. I’m infatuated with information and information gathering. I think every sexuality is an evolutionary adaptation that benefits us as a social species and serves a different purpose. It’s not against “God’s Plan” to be gay, lesbian, bi, pan, or whatever. If it were against the “natural laws” it wouldn’t exist. You can’t violate a natural law. It’s like trying to violate the law of gravity. We exist because we’re supposed to exist.

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15 Day Asexuality Challenge: Day 9

What is your favorite asexual pride image?

This one is easy. I adore the asexual Captain America Shields. I make my own using a photo editing program and digital coloring pages. Thinking about it right now makes me want to buy an Avengers coloring book and deck out all the Avengers in LGBT+ pride colors. I’m thinking Hawkeye would look very good in pan pride colors. If anyone else finds a superhero coloring book and colors the heroes in pride colors I would love to see it. I’m not very good at shading, but if I find a coloring book I’ll post the pics.

In the meantime here’s the shields I use-

15 Day Asexuality Challenge: Day 8

Your favorite “asexual” book (as in, sex and/or romance are not the main focus) and/or Your favorite “asexual” movie.

My favorite “asexual” book is the same book that gave me my infatuation with reading and sparked my life long obsession with dragons; Patricia Wrede’s Dealing with Dragons.
  Dealing with Dragons a cracked fairytale story where the main character is a princess who runs away from home to avoid an arranged marriage and she asks a dragon to “kidnap” her. If I had to pick a book that has impacted me the most in my life and as an author, this 100% the book I’d pick. It was fun, it was different, and remains one of my all time favorites.

My favorite “asexual” movie is The Martian. 
 I love science fiction and I feel like I’ve been waiting years for a good hard science fiction story to come out. Soft science fiction is very similar to fantasy, which is nice and I enjoy it, but nothing tops the feeling of seeing the pure sense of possibility play out on screen.

The great thing about both these works is romance isn’t a focus and doesn’t even affect the main characters. The adventure is it’s own reward and love is no the “prize” they win at the end. I hope to stumble upon more stories like these in the future.

15 Day Asexuality Challenge: Day 7

Your favorite asexual character/celebrity/person.

I don’t know of any characters/celebrities/persons who are openly or in plain text asexual, or at least I can’t think of any at the moment. I would pick a person in the online community, but I only know them by their usernames and online personas. I have several headcanons that have asexual and/or aromantic characters. I would say those headcanon examples would be my favorite, but I’d be too embarrassed to list them. I hope someday I can do the challenge again and have a better and bigger answer or character/person pool to draw from.

 

15 Day Asexuality Challenge: Day 6

Tell us about a time you met another asexual, whether in real life or online.

The majority of asexuals I have “met” are online. I’ve met only one asexual in real life since it turned out that one of my friends from high school is also an aromantic asexual. We met up for tea and I basically just blurted it out because I just wanted someone to know and they said, “Me too.” We didn’t end up talking about our asexuality, but I wish we had. I would have been nice to discuss asexuality outside of the internet so it would feel more legitimized for me and not “just a tumblr thing” as some would claim. Unfortunately since then I have lost touch with this friend despite several attempts to reconnect. Since then I’ve felt distant from most of my friends from high school.

There were four of us who were really close, shared interests, have similar world views, and are unfortunately in the same drifting-not-knowing-what-to-do phase in our lives. All of us are college educated, for all the good it did us. Another of my friends is moving out of state an I can’t find the energy to pick up the phone and talk to them or confess to our mutual friend that I didn’t keep the number when I switched phones. I’ve come to the conclusion that trying to tether these old friendships instead of letting them run their natural course would do me more harm than good. It’s lonely sometimes, but I realize that’s just how I am. I’m not really the one to make the first move which makes me appear unfriendly, guarded and uncaring. I care deeply, but quietly. I need friends who understand and accept that as well I my “new” identity.

I’ve met one asexual in real life, but I hope to meet many more and make new friends where I can be myself and not just the warped shadow of who I was in high school.

 

 

15 Day Asexuality Challenge: Day 5

Your favorite asexual Tumblr site. Your favorite asexual website.

I don’t have favorites. Early on I favored several ace-advice/help blogs, but now that I’m more comfortable with my identity I’ve found the blogs to be repetitive. I’ve briefly glanced at the AVEN website when I was first learning about asexuality, but I haven’t visited it much since then. I’ve heard unsavory things about forum participants (which will be true of any forum, really), but I haven’t had a negative experience myself. I just don’t prefer the forum format. Forums have their uses, but I prefer tumblr and twitter because the most resent post shows up first so I don’t have to read through old information. Twitter and tumblr also have filters that forward information I might find more relevant to the top of my feed. Forums just feel slow in comparison. I wish I did have a favorite. I would love to spend some time enjoying myself on an ace specific website, but I have no idea what that would look like. Sometimes it’s hard to connect with other aces because the only thing we have in common for discussion is our asexuality while other things like hobbies, interests, life goals, and such will be vastly different. Other times it’s just nice to bask in the presence of other aces because even though we’re usually very different, we’re not alone and that’s what’s important.

 

15 Day Asexuality Challenge: Day 4

Have you faced oppression because of your asexuality, whether institutional or societal? What have other people said about your asexuality?

I am never sure how to answer this question. I’m not technically “out” and don’t feel safe coming out to more than a handful of people. The fact that I don’t feel safe is a sign of oppression, but I’ve never been overtly oppressed because of my orientation because I don’t advertise it. I’m very picky about who I come out to so as of yet it’s only been positive or neutral responses to my asexuality (or confusion and denial). No one has as of yet openly expressed hate or been derogatory about my orientation to my face. Unfortunately it’s that same fear of negative responses that makes me hesitate to be a more active advocate for asexuality and my other A identities. I would rather just be myself and let people figure it out later when asexuality awareness becomes more prevalent.

15 Day Asexuality Challenge: Day 3

Are you out? To whom? Tell the story of the first person you came out to.

I’m out to my younger sister, one of my younger brothers, my parents (technically), one high school friend and one coworker. The first person I came out to was my sister and she was awesome about it. Her reaction was like, “Okay, well, duh.” But she did pressure me into telling my parents before I was ready. That was a bit of a train-wreck, but it was a good lesson on the importance of T.P.L. (time, place, location) when it comes to coming out. Coming out is a very vulnerable position because you generally have no idea how people are going to react. I’ve also found out that I get better results when I just talk about my feelings without using community jargon. Instead of saying, “I’m aromantc/asexual” I say “I’m not comfortable with dating/I don’t think I need a significant other to be happy/I’m more comfortable being single/etc…” I play the “privacy” card like no tomorrow.

When somebody at work asks me if I’m in relationship (because that’s like the 1st question people ask me) I say, “Dude, I don’t even put that info on my Facebook. Privacy settings are a thing.” I feel more comfortable defending myself on a privacy issue than an LGBT+ issue. I firmly believe just because somebody asks you a question doesn’t mean they have a right to an answer. When in doubt, I plead the 5th.

15 Day Asexuality Challenge: Day 2

What does being asexual mean to you? Do you identify as a part of the queer community? What communities do you identify with?

I define an asexual as someone who does not experience sexual attraction or experiences low or rare instances sexual attraction, but not enough to act upon it. Libdo is different. The best metaphor I’ve seen is “You’re hungry, but nothing looks good.” The urge to have sex is different from wanting to have sex with a specific person. It can definitely be alienating at times to have to explain this to people when the majority of society believes that love and sex are part of human nature, thus implying that not having these things (not just abstaining) implies to be less than human.

I consider myself LGBT+ (or whichever is the current acronym). I’m not an active member of any local orginiztions, but will contribute sparingly to online groups. I’m most active with asexuality groups because there are few (read: nonexistent) aromantic and agender groups. Several of the asexuals I talk to on a regular basis are also aromantic and/or fall under the trans/non-binary umbrellas. For now that’s enough to give me a sense of community.

15 Day Asexuality Challenge: Day 1

What is your romantic/sexual orientation? How old were you when you realized you were asexual? What made you realize it? Where did you first learn about asexuality?

This is a bit of a refresher post since I’ve answered most of these questions already. I’m an aromantic asexual. I was 25 when I first learned about asexuality and 26 when I identified my romantic orientation. I found out about asexuality from personal blogs by asexuals. That’s part of the reason I started this blog. One day I just suddenly google searched “Is it normal to have never dated at 25?” and eventually I found a blog by an asexual man. The phrased that triggered my light bulb moment was when he said that before learning about asexuality he thought he was “straight by default” and that was the same thing I thought. I didn’t feel attraction to the “opposite” gender, so I thought I was straight for the most part and just didn’t have time for relationships. I wish I had thought to save the post because I have been unable to find the blog or the post again. It is my hope that my blog will similarly offer answers to those that need it.