Saturday, September 12, 2009
Out.
Today I came out to my mom. On the whole, the situation is going moderately well. There is a lot of crap going on in my life. More details tomorrow, after I've slept a bit.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Figuring Myself Out, Part 2: Questioning
Okay, having gotten the "era" terminology out of the way, I'm going to examine the role questioning played in the changes between them and how it's perceived in society at large vs. among other queer people vs. among asexuals. Hopefully. To be honest, I'm not always sure what I'm going to get when I blog. It's new to me. (And I feel really pretentious referring to these "eras." I hope I don't come across as a self-absorbed snoot, it's just easier to explain everything like that.)
Starting with my personal experience, I was definitely not questioning my sexuality until the OMGWTFBBQ stage, and I'm not sure you could exactly call what I did questioning. It was more of a freak-out-and-reaffirm-my-heterosexuality-and-then-stop-thinking-about-it sort of thing. Most of my actual questioning came during the Bisexual and Schrodinger eras, which is the time period in which I seriously considered using the monicker "Questioning." The main thing that catapulted me into the Bisexual stage, I think, was starting to actually question my sexuality truthfully. I can pinpoint the exact date, more or less, that I moved into the Schrodinger stage, but I'm not sure exactly what caused it. I strongly suspect that it may have had something to do with my friend Eddie outing herself as bisexual, though.
For about a year before I began calling myself asexual, I had no word to describe my sexual orientation. I became very conscious of this during the conversation in which Eddie came out, which was prompted by another friend declaring herself straight and then asking us to declare ourselves. I am still thanking Eddie for taking the reigns, because while she was freaking out about telling us she was bi, I was freaking out for another reason: having no label. At which point I buckled down and said, "I need to figure out what to call myself."
Also around this time, I told someone (Eddie) about my internal struggle for the first time. Rereading what I said, it was pretty clear that although I knew the word asexual, I still felt not that I was ace but that I just didn't know my orientation yet. But I had a serious problem with saying I was "questioning." While earlier I refused to say I was questioning my sexuality more or less because of internalized homophobia, I now had different issues. I felt that questioning, as often included in the Alphabet Soup Queer Acronym, refers mostly to what I called "straight people questioning possible gayness." I'm sure it's meant to and should encompass more than that, but I didn't feel comfortable applying that to myself when I was really questioning whether or not I was sexual at all.
Questioning is not a comfortable thing, and it's not something easily understood by those who have never experienced it. Because my early discussions about questioning were with someone who had gone through something similar, I wasn't particularly conscious of it. Discussing it with heterosexual people made me rather keenly aware of how uncomfortable I am showing that I still question parts of my identity. I wonder if this may have to do with the "ideal asexual" idea floating around, as the ideal asexual apparently is very secure in their identity. The fear is, however, at least a partially legitimate feeling, because revealing questioning to the unaware leaves you rather open to queries. Not that queries are a bad thing. But it can be tiring to have to counter the "right person" argument while you're still trying to figure out everything for yourself.
If it makes a person insecure to express questioning among mostly enlightened friends, society is outright terrifying. Outside of queer circles, uncertain identity isn't something that is expressed. Ever. Which is sad, because I think it's more common than people realize. Among asexuals, questioning seems to be universally expected. Observe the number of "Am I asexual" posts at AVEN. In the LGBT community, there is an accepted space for questioning, and like for aces there is an expectation that most queer people were questioning at some point. In sexualnormative, heteronormative, cisnormative society at large, it's assumed that you know exactly what your identity is, and if you don't, you should keep quiet about it. If we ever manage to change that, I think it would vastly improve many people's lives.
Starting with my personal experience, I was definitely not questioning my sexuality until the OMGWTFBBQ stage, and I'm not sure you could exactly call what I did questioning. It was more of a freak-out-and-reaffirm-my-heterosexuality-and-then-stop-thinking-about-it sort of thing. Most of my actual questioning came during the Bisexual and Schrodinger eras, which is the time period in which I seriously considered using the monicker "Questioning." The main thing that catapulted me into the Bisexual stage, I think, was starting to actually question my sexuality truthfully. I can pinpoint the exact date, more or less, that I moved into the Schrodinger stage, but I'm not sure exactly what caused it. I strongly suspect that it may have had something to do with my friend Eddie outing herself as bisexual, though.
For about a year before I began calling myself asexual, I had no word to describe my sexual orientation. I became very conscious of this during the conversation in which Eddie came out, which was prompted by another friend declaring herself straight and then asking us to declare ourselves. I am still thanking Eddie for taking the reigns, because while she was freaking out about telling us she was bi, I was freaking out for another reason: having no label. At which point I buckled down and said, "I need to figure out what to call myself."
Also around this time, I told someone (Eddie) about my internal struggle for the first time. Rereading what I said, it was pretty clear that although I knew the word asexual, I still felt not that I was ace but that I just didn't know my orientation yet. But I had a serious problem with saying I was "questioning." While earlier I refused to say I was questioning my sexuality more or less because of internalized homophobia, I now had different issues. I felt that questioning, as often included in the Alphabet Soup Queer Acronym, refers mostly to what I called "straight people questioning possible gayness." I'm sure it's meant to and should encompass more than that, but I didn't feel comfortable applying that to myself when I was really questioning whether or not I was sexual at all.
Questioning is not a comfortable thing, and it's not something easily understood by those who have never experienced it. Because my early discussions about questioning were with someone who had gone through something similar, I wasn't particularly conscious of it. Discussing it with heterosexual people made me rather keenly aware of how uncomfortable I am showing that I still question parts of my identity. I wonder if this may have to do with the "ideal asexual" idea floating around, as the ideal asexual apparently is very secure in their identity. The fear is, however, at least a partially legitimate feeling, because revealing questioning to the unaware leaves you rather open to queries. Not that queries are a bad thing. But it can be tiring to have to counter the "right person" argument while you're still trying to figure out everything for yourself.
If it makes a person insecure to express questioning among mostly enlightened friends, society is outright terrifying. Outside of queer circles, uncertain identity isn't something that is expressed. Ever. Which is sad, because I think it's more common than people realize. Among asexuals, questioning seems to be universally expected. Observe the number of "Am I asexual" posts at AVEN. In the LGBT community, there is an accepted space for questioning, and like for aces there is an expectation that most queer people were questioning at some point. In sexualnormative, heteronormative, cisnormative society at large, it's assumed that you know exactly what your identity is, and if you don't, you should keep quiet about it. If we ever manage to change that, I think it would vastly improve many people's lives.
Figuring Myself Out, Part 1: Eras of Identity
(My dad just had surgery, and it's not going the best, so I'll probably be a bit hard to find for a while. I may or may not have internet access for a couple of days. I guess I could always work from my phone.)
I'm now officially out to all of my friends (yay!), though the out-to-my-family thing is probably going to have to wait until my dad gets better. I've been talking to some of my friends, who are awesome, and decided that now would probably be a good time to document how I figured myself out, so I don't forget it. This, paired with the recent discussions on Apositive and the blogs about "real asexuals" and identification, led to some thinky thoughts on how I came to call myself ace, and how weirdly the progression of my identity fits into nice little eras.
The Huhwha...? Era- This was my whole life until I was fifteen or so. I'd never really thought about sexuality or knew it existed. The concept of sexual orientations was more or less beyond me. Through literature and movies I'd seen that people could like people of any sex or gender, but I didn't consider myself straight or anything else in particular. Around ages 14 and 15 I began to understand orientations but for some reason never considered my own. I had vague ideas about growing up and getting married, but hadn't really thought about it.
The Heterosexual Era- This lasted for about a month in my second year of high school. The transition occurred suddenly when, during a heated conversation with a bigotted student, I said frustratedly, "You don't have to be gay to support gay people! I support them, and I'm straight!" The next month was spent going, "Huh, I guess I am straight."
The OMGWTFBBQ Era- Not exactly sure how long this lasted, but it consisted of me wondering, "Am I straight? I think so. Actually, I think that gender and/or sex shouldn't matter about loving a person, theoretically. I'd be honest if I liked girls, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay. I got it." This was followed by a lot of Not Thinking About It.
The Bisexual Era - This was another few months of my second year of high school. More realistically, it was less of a bisexual era and more of an "I'm not straight" era. It was a combination of the theory from the Hetero Era and my figuring that if I wasn't straight and wasn't lesbian, then I had to be bi. It was pretty quickly overtaken by......
The Schrodinger Era - Most of the second half of my second year of high school was filled by various levels of what I call "Schrodinger's sexuality." After conducting a statistical analysis on my history of attraction to people (not even kidding about the statistical analysis), I came to the the conclusion that I was some sort of Schrodinger's cat, being unable to know my orientation without having had any experience. At the end of the analysis I added, "in effect asexual." Though I was familiar with AVEN (vaguely), it wasn't meant in the actual Ace-identified Asexual way as much as a descriptor of my current sexual practices.
The Asexual Era and The Ace Era - these two are similar enough to combine. During the Schrodinger and Asexual Era, I became more comfortable with calling myself asexual, but still was fairly unconnected with the asexual community. This changed, for some reason, during a conversation about sexuality and the media, and I made a conscious decision to explore my identity and become more aware of the community, thus leading into the modern Ace Era.
So I took a rather weird, complicated journey to identify as asexual. I've seen other people with even more confusing stories. Ily, on her blog here, mentions that she went from identifying as "totally straight" to "totally asexual." I find it interesting that everyone seems to have a unique story as to how they figured out they were ace. Part 2, up as soon as I finish it, will delve into more detail about the questioning part of asexual identification.
I'm now officially out to all of my friends (yay!), though the out-to-my-family thing is probably going to have to wait until my dad gets better. I've been talking to some of my friends, who are awesome, and decided that now would probably be a good time to document how I figured myself out, so I don't forget it. This, paired with the recent discussions on Apositive and the blogs about "real asexuals" and identification, led to some thinky thoughts on how I came to call myself ace, and how weirdly the progression of my identity fits into nice little eras.
The Huhwha...? Era- This was my whole life until I was fifteen or so. I'd never really thought about sexuality or knew it existed. The concept of sexual orientations was more or less beyond me. Through literature and movies I'd seen that people could like people of any sex or gender, but I didn't consider myself straight or anything else in particular. Around ages 14 and 15 I began to understand orientations but for some reason never considered my own. I had vague ideas about growing up and getting married, but hadn't really thought about it.
The Heterosexual Era- This lasted for about a month in my second year of high school. The transition occurred suddenly when, during a heated conversation with a bigotted student, I said frustratedly, "You don't have to be gay to support gay people! I support them, and I'm straight!" The next month was spent going, "Huh, I guess I am straight."
The OMGWTFBBQ Era- Not exactly sure how long this lasted, but it consisted of me wondering, "Am I straight? I think so. Actually, I think that gender and/or sex shouldn't matter about loving a person, theoretically. I'd be honest if I liked girls, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay. I got it." This was followed by a lot of Not Thinking About It.
The Bisexual Era - This was another few months of my second year of high school. More realistically, it was less of a bisexual era and more of an "I'm not straight" era. It was a combination of the theory from the Hetero Era and my figuring that if I wasn't straight and wasn't lesbian, then I had to be bi. It was pretty quickly overtaken by......
The Schrodinger Era - Most of the second half of my second year of high school was filled by various levels of what I call "Schrodinger's sexuality." After conducting a statistical analysis on my history of attraction to people (not even kidding about the statistical analysis), I came to the the conclusion that I was some sort of Schrodinger's cat, being unable to know my orientation without having had any experience. At the end of the analysis I added, "in effect asexual." Though I was familiar with AVEN (vaguely), it wasn't meant in the actual Ace-identified Asexual way as much as a descriptor of my current sexual practices.
The Asexual Era and The Ace Era - these two are similar enough to combine. During the Schrodinger and Asexual Era, I became more comfortable with calling myself asexual, but still was fairly unconnected with the asexual community. This changed, for some reason, during a conversation about sexuality and the media, and I made a conscious decision to explore my identity and become more aware of the community, thus leading into the modern Ace Era.
So I took a rather weird, complicated journey to identify as asexual. I've seen other people with even more confusing stories. Ily, on her blog here, mentions that she went from identifying as "totally straight" to "totally asexual." I find it interesting that everyone seems to have a unique story as to how they figured out they were ace. Part 2, up as soon as I finish it, will delve into more detail about the questioning part of asexual identification.
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