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.