Multisexual Identities

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Olive the Other Reindeer...

... had a very shiny nose...

Off topic: Olive the Other Reindeer was my favorite Christmas movie as a child. All because of the pun. It's the first play-on-words that I ever remember understanding, and I could never stop laughing. Unfortunately, none of this has anything to do with the rest of this blog. I just happen to mention olives in this story, which, of course, made me think of Olive.

I was recently having a wonderful discussion on FetLife on that fabulous topic that's been on my mind so much recently: What is sex? mmmm, sex. Well, one of the things that came up was foreplay. I absolutely despise the concept of foreplay. It implies that anything other than penal-vaginal intercourse (PVI) is less-than sex, which I personally find very patriarchal, as many women, including myself, are unable to reach orgasm through PVI and/or don't enjoy it as much as other sex acts.  I am on the very extreme end of that spectrum, and I often find PVI not only not pleasurable but un-pleasant and anti-pleasurable (and my vagina is really short, so I can't top in PVI because the feeling of a penis pounding on my cervix resembles the sensation of a stick of dynamite going off by your ear and rupturing your eardrum, and it's unfortunately more difficult to dominate on bottom).  Besides the sexism inherent in that concept, it's also obviously very hetero- and cis-normative, and devalues any relationship that's not between two opposite-sex cissexual people.  Which is bullshit.

Actually, none of this has anything to do with this post, either.  I guess I just wanted to tell you all about my sex life.  Just kidding, what I actually wanted to do was make you read this, which the whole foreplay-issue made me think off.  The first time I was introduced to this article was through AVEN, because the metaphor presented in it is a very asexuality-positive metaphor.  Which actually does have to do with this post, for a change.  See, wandering around today (more specifically, going to Barnes and Noble to get The Whipping Girl, of which I read four chapters so far, and I'm already contriving ways to propose to Julia Serano, because it's just so brilliant and well-written), I came up with my own metaphor involving pizza for my own (a)sexuality and sexual experiences.  Unrelated to the metaphor in that article, only in that it happens to involve pizza. And olives, God knows why, which is how the reindeer ever came in the picture.  Anyways, here's my story.

Pizza shop - A non-platonic or not-only platonic partner.
Pizza - A non-platonic or not-only platonic encounter. Every pizza/slice of pizza/crumb of pizza/etc. from the same pizza shop is another encounter with the same person.
Olives - Sex. We'll just assume there's only one essential "sex", with no such thing as different types of sex or foreplay. Deal?


I reaaaally like pizza. In fact, almost everyone in all the world reaaaaally likes pizza.  Pizza is delicious, and there are pizza shops on every street, and each one of them is unique and different. Pizza chains don't exist in this world, though I suppose delivery still might... I really didn't think my world that much through...  Well, anyways, pizza is amazing, and most people - like 99% of people really love olives.  Like, a lot. Some people eat olive pizza whenever they get the chance, while others prefer to try non-olive pizza or a few slices of pizza with no olives from a pizza shop before they order it with olives. But everyone loves olives.


Only I never much cared for olives.  I tried them, but they just didn't taste so great.  So I went to another pizza shop, tried the olive pizza there, didn't much like them still. I went to a few, tried a few, tried different kinds of pizza, seasoning, different ingredients to go with my olives, I tried a lot. But I still didn't much care for the olives.  Sometimes, I even found them gross, and had to pick them off my pizza.  One pizza shop was absolutely amazing.  It was a beautiful place with a wonderful atmosphere, so I kept coming back.  I know chefs love to cook pizza with olives, so I kept ordering pizza with olives, although I didn't really enjoy them.  Besides, the olives looked beautiful, they really added something to the aesthetic of the pizza.  After a while, though, I got bored of eating pizza with olives that I didn't enjoy, so I stopped having olive pizza for a while.


Then, I passed by a pizza shop I never passed by before.  It was beautiful and the pizza smelled delicious.  Somehow, I just knew this pizza shop was right for me.  I passed by it again and again and again, but things never seemed to work out.  Sometimes, they were reserved. Sometimes, they were closed.  Sometimes, they had a conference inside.  Sometimes, I didn't have time.  A few times, I would get a slice or a couple slices of pizza, and I really liked it and couldn't wait to come back for more.  At last, I got a seat inside.  I ordered a full pizza - with olives.  The pizza was amazing! I hadn't eaten anything so good in a long time.  For seven months I'd been waiting to eat this pizza, and I'd never been happier! But, what was really amazing, was I loved the olives.  I ate the ones that fell off the pizza and onto the plate and finished each and every one.  The pizza I wanted for so long was so good, even the olives tasted great. In fact, they were (almost) my favorite part.

Loneliness

(There are a lot of parantheticals in this post.)

Often, I feel lonely. I crave a friend for the night, and I crave a lover for the week.

Overall, throughout my life, I haven't been especially successful in the field of love.  My longest relationship was also my first, spanning six months March 2006 - September 2006, and I ended it because I moved. I was fifteen years old. My next one was about two to three months in the fall of 2007. (I've had a hard time calculating how long this one actually lasted. For a long time, I considered it three months long, simply because that's how long it felt. Recently, I tried to count the exact number of weeks we were together, it seems closer to two months or perhaps even a month and a half, half the length I anticipated. I even discussed this with my ex, and he also guessed it was about three to four months and was surprised when he realized it was actually a lot shorter. Strange how these things work.) I ended that one as well, because my feelings had changed. My last relationship was also my shortest, and lasted a month in the spring of 2008. I don't remember who ended this one, but it was a rough, immature relationship that meant very little to me.

As you can see, there's a trend: downward spiral, eventually leading to a long, lonely span of two consecutive single years.

However, in those years, my love life hasn't been entirely dormant. I've loved and been loved, though it was always different people. (I use a very vague definition of love, for I've yet to figure out what love really is).  I've learned a lot, and I've experienced intimacy, butterflies, and heartbreak. I've gone on dates. I've had casual sex with many men. (I've had very good experiences with casual sex. It always came at the right time in my life, and it was always enjoyable, entertaining, and comforting.  Casual sex seldom created a backlash for me, for I've never felt emotionally threatened by it, and I continue to have good relationships with the men I've slept with; it did, though, cause a problems between me and my gal friends. Silly girls. However, perhaps because I am asexual, I never got much out of it sexually or romantically.)

Somewhat recently, as I was getting to know a new friend, she asked me about my past relationships. "I ask because I think a person's exes tell the most about the person," she told me. That really got me thinking. I disagree, and I really don't feel like my exes say very much about me at all. In fact, I feel that my past has been dictated much more by chance than by choice. (Personally, I decided that the single factor I believe tells the most about a person is their childhood.)  In fact, I often feel ashamed talking about my romantic past, because my best relationship happened when I was just a child (fifteen years old!).  I'm so much older now, and still I look back to that first boyfriend when I think about what I want out of my love life.

Love is arbitrary, random, and illogical. I posted a facebook status on January 13 at 1:16PM (yes, I did just scroll way back on my wall to find it) that went like this:

"Some have lovers and still feel alone. To some, it doesn't matter, somehow. Some are perfect yet lonely, we all wonder why. Some go from one to the next and hate their life and others envy them. Some are heartbroken because they know love, and some are crying because they've never known heartbreak. Some are lucky and happy for years to come while some people fall for the wrong guy at the wrong time over and over again.

I loved this status, and felt that it really captured how I see romance. There really is no reason that things work for some and not for others, and that's just something we have to live with.
 
I've always lived by the philosophy of "Someone will come along eventually." It's worked well for me in the past: it's really kept me optimistic and prevented me from experiencing the I'll-be-single-forever phobia, which I personally find really frustrating. However, recently I've rethought this perspective. I've been following an asexual blog called a sexy beast.  Often, this blog discusses ideas such as singlehood and loneliness. One quote that really got me thinking was this:

In our culture, there is always hope that a single person will marry, regardless of the situation. "Don't worry, you'll find someone." But will we? Asking that question can feel like staring into a cultural abyss. If I was "holding out hope" for doing anything else that has the same odds of two asexuals marrying, I'd be called crazy. But when it comes to romance, it seems, no odds are too small. (here)

Naturally, some people have a much smaller dating pool than others. Theoretically speaking, I probably have a larger potential dating pool than most: I am panromantic, and thus not restricted by gender; I am comfortable with both monogamous and polyamorous relationships; I am a sexually active gray-a sexual, open to a relationship with any level of sex and physical intimacy from very little to very much (although, I'd never had a relationship with both sex and emotional intimacy at the same time, and I'm unsure how I would feel in such a relationship or whether I would be comfortable). In fact, it would appear that there are almost no restrictions on who I am willing to date.  Still, I don't think the calculated dating pool alone can determine the chance someone has at getting hitched. After all, if love is as random as I just suggest it is, then anyone could find themselves single long-term.  I don't consider myself someone who has been single long-term, and I think my love life is more active and healthy than many people's.  Still, as a potential relationship comes to an end, I am cautious to look forward and say "someday, another one will come along".  I mean, what if it doesn't? And, although this may seem very depressing, I find this perspective no less cheerful than the one I held before.

I've also been thinking a lot about how media perceptions of relationships impact my loneliness. I have no doubt that our culture really pushes us to get in a relationship. Love is constructed as important, essential, even, often, as the meaning of life.  If this were not the case, I doubt most of us would feel as lonely being single, although we would still experience some romantic frustration. (What if our culture didn't have a concept of romantic relationships?) Interestingly, I often measure my romantic success not from my personal feelings, but from the way I would imagine it would appear from the outside. For example, one reason I've found casual sex satisfying is because it's made me feel less unwanted and undateable, and made me more certain that I am not entirely alone. I analyze these situations entirely from the outside, as if I were someone else looking in. I have no doubt that a big factor concerning how I experience loneliness is society's pressure not to be alone.

Whenever I feel lonely, platonic loneliness and romantic loneliness tend to happen side by side. Platonic loneliness is the more powerful by the two, and it has the most control over how lonely I feel in general.  Except in cases of heartbreak, if I feel platonically content, I do not experience romantic loneliness, and, if I do, it's brief and insignificant. Likewise, whenever I feel platonically isolated, I always get romantically lonely and desperate. Not only is friendship a lot more important to me than romance, but friendship also influences my love life, for, when I have more friends, I meet more people, get to know more people, and am thus more likely to get close to more people. Platonic loneliness kills me so much and makes me very jealous of other people. I wonder whether my friendships are as plentiful, as close, as intense. In fact, ever since I became interested in friendship, this has become a constant stressor for me. I compare myself to others constantly and I am always trying to measure my platonic success. Every little thing someone tells me, every time I spend a night with someone or get invited to a party, every time someone texts me or comments on my status, I throw a little party with myself. Every time I spend a night alone or realize that someone is texting more often that I am, I feel empty and lost. This social insecurity, I believe, is mostly a result of my childhood and my autistic tendencies.

As I've grown, loneliness has become constant. Although, at times, it's very stressful and painful, most of the time, it's just a fact of life that doesn't bother me. After all, loneliness itself really means nothing until we lend it meaning. Besides, once I stop counting and weighing things out and just listen to my heart, I can tell, I'm really not doing so bad.

I am frustrated.

I am frustrated because today is one of those days, in every single way.

I am frustrated with the word "bisexual". I am frustrated because I think it goes against everything our community believes in. I am not frustrated with the fact that some people are bisexual, that some people may prefer binary gender identities or gender presentations to non-binary gender identities and gender presentations, but I'm frustrated with people for whom this isn't true that use that term out of convenience without even giving it a second though.

I am frustrated with the trinary of sexualities: L G B, and I'm frustrated because I try to explain "queer", "pan", "fluid" to people around me, and in the end, many simply conclude that I'm bi, erasing my attraction to non-binary individuals, and erasing the existence of non-binary individuals.

I am frustrated with the word "biphobia" because it means practically the same thing as "monosexism", only biphobia refers to phobia of bisexuality, while monosexism refers to phobia of various non-monosexual orientations.

I am frustrated with pansexual people who say that, to them, gender "doesn't matter". That they don't see a person's gender, but just the person "inside". Because, you know what, gender does matter. And, sure, maybe you don't have a preference for a certain gender, but it's an integral part of your partners identity, so you can't just pretend it's not there, and then act like you're somehow more enlightened than others because of your supposed lack of sexuality. And I'm frustrated because this alone is making me shy away from identifying as panromantic, although I feel like it's the term that best fits me.

I am frustrated with the hostility I am facing as a gray-a sexual. I am frustrated with people insisting that this is something that I need to fix, that I haven't met the right person and need to try to, that it's not normal. I've had a healthier sex life than most of the sexual people I know. I am sick and tired of people assuming that they know me better than I know myself, and that I can't be happy without sex.

I am frustrated because my romantic orientation is apparently not as "real" as a sexual person's. Because I recently told a friend that I am, somewhat, polyamorous and curious about polyamory, and she said "well, you're also a romantic asexual", as if that makes me any less polyamorous.

I am frustrated because I do have a somewhat unusual relationship with my body, and that recently, people have been acting like there's something wrong with that. Like, a friend of mine said that I'm "ignoring my vagina", which I'm not, I know my body much, much better than the vast majority of women, and I know very well how I relate to it. My relationship with my body is very healthy, and I don't see why it has to be the same as everyone else assigned female at birth. I am me, I am not everyone else.

I am tired of the biological determinism in the gay and lesbian communities. I am frustrated with gays and lesbians expressing a disgust in "vagina" or "penis" to prove their sexuality.  I am frustrated because it puts the focus on sex, alienating queer romantic asexuals. But mostly, I am frustrated because I think that's very, very transphobic.

I am frustrated with my body. I am frustrated with the way it feels and the way I relate to it. I am annoyed because I have issues with PVI, because it's uncomfortable at best and painful at worst; and I wish I was at least ambivalent to it, and could occasionally enjoy it as I do with oral, anal, and other types of sex. I am frustrated with the fact that no one else seems to have a sex identity quiet like mine, and I honestly don't think there's even a word to describe how I feel about my physical sex.

I am exhausted from questioning. I've been questioning my sexuality since I knew it was possible for a girl to like girls. I've been questioning my gender identity since I was a child. I've been questioning my (a)sexuality since before I had sex. And I'm still questioning it all. And, you know what, "fluid" is the perfect word to describe me in all respects, but somehow, it isn't enough. As I'm experiencing an ardent phase, I'm beginning to wonder: what if I'm not asexual? As I lean towards men, I'm beginning to wonder: what if I'm straight? And I'm so. fucking. tired of it.

I am frustrated because I feel like people have been disrespecting me lately, because I think I'm being much too patient with a few friends.

I am frustrated and I feel lonely.

Last night, I had a dream that someone drugged us all, and we talked and talked about the deepest things, and then we cried. But, when we woke up, we couldn't remember any of it. We were safe: safe from the danger of intimacy, safe from others knowing who we are, safe from anyone seeing us cry. Yet we felt so much better after the drugs had worn off, so much closer, so much lighter. We talked about everything. When I woke up in the morning, I was back to this silent world.

Can we please talk?

My Sexuality

I just had a really fun conversation with myself about my sexuality.


queer for queer, panromantic, gray-a sexual, fluid

Queer for queer? What does that mean? I am primarily attracted to other queer people.

Alright, then what's queer? Generally speaking, it means not hetero-romantic. There are exceptions. It's also a self-identity.

Is hetero-flexible queer? It depends what you mean by hetero-flexible. If it means "I like guys but sometimes fuck girls" (or vise versa), then no. If it means "I usually like guys, but once in a while I am attracted to a girl, and not afraid to act on it", then yes.

So you're never interested in straight men? I'm not strictly queer for queer. However, certain "queer" aspects help. Involvement and activism in the queer community; queer friends; absolutely no homophobia or transphobia, EVER; not being afraid of showing intimacy with same-sex friends; not being afraid to show feminine characteristics. Actually, I think everyone should act like that, but many straight men don't. Overall, though, if you're a straight man, I'm most likely not into you.

Are you interested in straight trans men? That would be a straight man, as discussed above.

Are you interested in asexuals? Very. In fact, I'm gray-a sexual. However, if you're a hetero-romantic asexual man, I'm probably not into you.

But straight trans men or hetero-romantic asexuals or hetero-flexible people sometimes identify as queer. And sometimes, they don't.

What's panromantic? That means I can be romantically attracted to any gender.

Isn't that just bi? Bi means two. There are more than two genders.

So, which do you like more? Boys or girls? I usually lean slightly towards men. It changes. I'm also really into androgyny as a gender presentations.

Gray a-sexual? What's that? A gray-a sexual is someone who falls between asexuality and sexuality on the (a)sexuality spectrum.

Oh... so you're asexual? If you use that as an umbrella term.

Does that mean you don't have sex? Maybe.

What? I'm still trying to figure this part out. You can talk to me about it, if you'd like.

Alright, in that case, moving on. Fluid: what does that mean? It means these answers will be outdated tomorrow.

Asexy

I'm beginning to, gradually, identify as asexual. Ace. Asexy. Panromantic Gray-A Sexual, to be exact.  I've been spending a lot of time on AVEN - the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network; they have message boards, an FAQ, a Wiki, and Asexual Perspectives, all of which I've found to be very helpful and supportive as I explore this new part of my identity.

Gray-A refers to anyone who falls between sexual and asexual on the spectrum.  The reason I choose to identify as Gray-A instead of asexual is because I don't exactly fit AVEN's definition of asexuality. AVEN defines an asexual as "someone who does not experience sexual attraction".  I do experience sexual attraction, but not sexual desire; I don't enjoy having sex, I don't feel comfortable having sex, and I don't miss it when I'm not sexually active. I can satisfy my sexual urges and desires by myself better than with others, meaning I am also autosexual.  Naturally, I am also fluid and still questioning. However, the way I experience and see sexuality and sex is vastly different than the way most sexual individuals see it, and thus I feel like the asexual identity is very important to me.

I've had a fairly easy time embracing this identity. It's been something I've questioned for a long time, and it feels great to finally understand such a big part of myself. The idea of possibly never having sex again may seem scary (it does even to me when I think about it), but, to an asexual like myself, it feels normal. I've come out to a few of my closest friends, and I'm beginning to feel asexual pride. I've questioned my (a)sexuality for years, though, because AVEN's definition didn't fit me, I never identified this way. I gradually began identifying as asexual starting a few months ago, though never truly embraced it or felt comfortable sharing it with others until once again researching asexuality and all its dimensions about a week ago.

That's not to say it's been all cake. I've recently hit a roadblock in my identity, and all my concerns are rushing onto me at once. (1) I'm terrified of the romantic implications of this identity. A relationship without sex can be difficult. I am willing to try sex and experiment, but sex for me will never be as easy as it should be. Also, it might be that, even when I am close and do love someone, I still won't be comfortable having sex. (2) I still need intimacy. I still want hook-ups.  There are many things besides sex(ual activities) that I enjoy, such as making out. There are also many kinks and fetishes I want to explore in a non-sexual manner. However, it may be difficult to find anyone interested in intimacy and kink without sex. (3) The reactions I've gotten upon coming out have been mixed. Although all my friends said they support me, they also expressed concern. Some said that they were worried for me. Most told me that I just hadn't had good sex, and encouraged me to continue trying. A very close friend of mine even said that, while you're born gay, you become asexual. (4) I am still interested in having sex, mostly because of curiosity, but also because I do want to give sexual relations with someone I care for and love another shot. Also, my identity is fluid, and sometimes, I may be interested in sex.  I feel torn between really wanting to come out and embrace the person that I am, and the possibility that this identity will close doors and discourage others from sexually and romantically pursuing me.

Anyone who reads my blog is a very close friend of mine and a very special person to me. Right now, I could use all the support and advise I could get, and I thank you all for being in my life as I come out of the closet, again.