Hey, look at that, two posts in one day! This blog seems to happen in spurts.
I have this blog on Blogger (although that may change in the near future), but Blogger is not my natural home - Livejournal and Dreamwidth are. Over in those lovely places, someone has just started up a community for discussing asexual issues in fandom, right over here. If you're an LJ or DWer or interested in fandom-related type things like the portrayal of asexuals in the media, I suggest you go check it out!
Even if you don't have a Dreamwidth account, there's a lovely feature where you can log in with Open ID and still participate. Instructions can be found here.
So head on over, I'd love to see this place take off. :)
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Sunday, January 17, 2010
A Tale of Two Communities
I am part of a community of people with a certain uncommon condition*, the statistics of which are often debated. This community exists primarily online, although there have been some offline meetings between individuals. Often members of this community come out to their friends or family, and unfortunately they are frequently told that they must be making up their experience, or that they are just trying to be special, or that they are mentally ill. Occasionally, television shows make specials about people in this community that sensationalize and rarify their experiences for the consumption of other "normal" people.
In other words, I'm a synaesthete.
The short explanation is that synaesthesia is a condition where a person's senses are "crossed," so to speak, so that they see letters and numbers as having colors, or see colors when they hear sounds, or experience shapes when they taste things, or see time in a graphical display (and many other examples). It's something that I found out about when I was 12 or so, through another friend who is synaesthetic. Turns out that my mother, my grandfather, and one of my best friends also are synaesthetes, so it may be more common than people think. It's the kind of thing that, when people hear about it, often gets responses of incredulity.
I bring this up mostly because I'm struck by the parallels between the synaesthetic and asexual communities, as evidenced in the opening paragraph, which easily could have refered to either one. One huge thing that makes the communities and their reception different (aside from one being a neurological condition and the other a sexual orientation) is the fact that synaesthesia is actually more supported by the medical field, psychology, and the general public than asexuality. But why is that?
Both synaesthesia and asexuality are often considered to be medical or psychological conditions by the establishment. And yet, asexuality is listed in the DSM-IV as a sexual dysfunction, while synaesthesia is completely absent from it. Most synaesthetes are extremely glad for this, because most view synaesthesia as neutral or a good thing in their life, not a harming factor. Perhaps I am going out on a limb, but I think many asexuals also view their sexual orientation this way (although I know that not all do).
The sheer fact that asexuality relates to human sexual behavior automatically classes it as something extra-important, because sexuality, for all our culture tries to make it taboo, is ridiculously central to our society. Synaesthesia has a much more pervasive effect on my life than my asexuality does - I can't escape my synaesthesia any more than I can escape words or sounds, whereas my asexuality only comes up in instances where sexuality is explicitly relevant. Due to the weight that society places on sexuality, however, asexuality becomes much more "shocking" and complicated to deal with in an interpersonal context.
When my synaesthetic friend wanted to tell her parents about synaesthesia, she brought it up impersonally and got a response of "they're just making it up." So I went and found a number of studies by reputable scientists and psychologists about synaesthesia and books written by synaesthetes about their lives, which could provide official backup for her experience. I am dismayed that there is really no equivalent to this for asexuals. There is virtually no scientific information about our sexual orientation, the most vocal ace-related psychologists out there tend to be firmly against our interests, and no books have been written by asexual people about asexuality. Usually, a solitary ace trying to explain their sexual orientation to friends or family only has their own feelings and the testimony of other people on the internet as backup. And infuriatingly, most people don't consider that a legitimate amount of "evidence."
I suspect that the disparity is due to a combination of the fact that no one ever wants to touch the science of sexuality and the fact that synaesthesia is seen as a "cool disability" by most people. This is harmful to both synaesthetes and asexuals (and other sexual minorites). The fascination with synaesthesia, savantism, Asperger syndrome, and other conditions that neurotypical people find "exotic" is not helpful to those people. I do not appreciate people making drug comparisons to my everyday experience, constantly asking me to "perform" my condition for their amusement, and people (including scientists) giving it uber-precedence just because they find it really cool.
In this society where heterosexual people are assumed the norm and given privilege based on that fact, being visible and accepted and not denied is a hugely important thing. But it is the privileged groups who get to "choose" what they want to become visible. And while I fear how sexual studies tend to get misrepresented, it doesn't mean we should be ignored just because it's seen as a taboo. Asexuality is rarely accepted either in the medical field or among the general population, so it's up to us to stick ourselves out there until we can't be ignored any longer. It's completely outrageous that we should even have to "prove" our orientation. To wrap this up cheesily, folks, THAT is why education and visibility is so important and seemingly so impossible.
*I use the word "condition" throughout this post because most synaesthetes find terms like "disability," "victim of," and "suffering from" offensive when referring to synaesthesia.
In other words, I'm a synaesthete.
The short explanation is that synaesthesia is a condition where a person's senses are "crossed," so to speak, so that they see letters and numbers as having colors, or see colors when they hear sounds, or experience shapes when they taste things, or see time in a graphical display (and many other examples). It's something that I found out about when I was 12 or so, through another friend who is synaesthetic. Turns out that my mother, my grandfather, and one of my best friends also are synaesthetes, so it may be more common than people think. It's the kind of thing that, when people hear about it, often gets responses of incredulity.
I bring this up mostly because I'm struck by the parallels between the synaesthetic and asexual communities, as evidenced in the opening paragraph, which easily could have refered to either one. One huge thing that makes the communities and their reception different (aside from one being a neurological condition and the other a sexual orientation) is the fact that synaesthesia is actually more supported by the medical field, psychology, and the general public than asexuality. But why is that?
Both synaesthesia and asexuality are often considered to be medical or psychological conditions by the establishment. And yet, asexuality is listed in the DSM-IV as a sexual dysfunction, while synaesthesia is completely absent from it. Most synaesthetes are extremely glad for this, because most view synaesthesia as neutral or a good thing in their life, not a harming factor. Perhaps I am going out on a limb, but I think many asexuals also view their sexual orientation this way (although I know that not all do).
The sheer fact that asexuality relates to human sexual behavior automatically classes it as something extra-important, because sexuality, for all our culture tries to make it taboo, is ridiculously central to our society. Synaesthesia has a much more pervasive effect on my life than my asexuality does - I can't escape my synaesthesia any more than I can escape words or sounds, whereas my asexuality only comes up in instances where sexuality is explicitly relevant. Due to the weight that society places on sexuality, however, asexuality becomes much more "shocking" and complicated to deal with in an interpersonal context.
When my synaesthetic friend wanted to tell her parents about synaesthesia, she brought it up impersonally and got a response of "they're just making it up." So I went and found a number of studies by reputable scientists and psychologists about synaesthesia and books written by synaesthetes about their lives, which could provide official backup for her experience. I am dismayed that there is really no equivalent to this for asexuals. There is virtually no scientific information about our sexual orientation, the most vocal ace-related psychologists out there tend to be firmly against our interests, and no books have been written by asexual people about asexuality. Usually, a solitary ace trying to explain their sexual orientation to friends or family only has their own feelings and the testimony of other people on the internet as backup. And infuriatingly, most people don't consider that a legitimate amount of "evidence."
I suspect that the disparity is due to a combination of the fact that no one ever wants to touch the science of sexuality and the fact that synaesthesia is seen as a "cool disability" by most people. This is harmful to both synaesthetes and asexuals (and other sexual minorites). The fascination with synaesthesia, savantism, Asperger syndrome, and other conditions that neurotypical people find "exotic" is not helpful to those people. I do not appreciate people making drug comparisons to my everyday experience, constantly asking me to "perform" my condition for their amusement, and people (including scientists) giving it uber-precedence just because they find it really cool.
In this society where heterosexual people are assumed the norm and given privilege based on that fact, being visible and accepted and not denied is a hugely important thing. But it is the privileged groups who get to "choose" what they want to become visible. And while I fear how sexual studies tend to get misrepresented, it doesn't mean we should be ignored just because it's seen as a taboo. Asexuality is rarely accepted either in the medical field or among the general population, so it's up to us to stick ourselves out there until we can't be ignored any longer. It's completely outrageous that we should even have to "prove" our orientation. To wrap this up cheesily, folks, THAT is why education and visibility is so important and seemingly so impossible.
*I use the word "condition" throughout this post because most synaesthetes find terms like "disability," "victim of," and "suffering from" offensive when referring to synaesthesia.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
My thoughts on "Sherlock Holmes"
Or, "The Fansquee vs. Asexiness Battle Within."
This weekend I saw the Sherlock Holmes movie for the second (and hopefully not the last) time, and I loved it beyond measure, though not quite as much as I love the original books. One of the things that was highly debated prior to the release of Sherlock Holmes was how faithful it would be to canon, given the amount of fighting, scruffiness, and otherwise non-deerstalker-like qualities that were apparent in the trailer. Chief among these things was the highly promoted sexual tension between Holmes and Irene Adler.
Traditionally, Holmes has been viewed as more or less asexual by fans of the books, making him one of the very few characters most people with no knowledge of the ace community would commonly refer to as asexual. The plausible options for Holmes' sexuality in book canon, in my opinion, are the following:
I tend to lean towards agreeing that Holmes was mostly asexual. However, I am also a Holmes/Watson slash fan and I love Irene Adler. And as much as I loved the movie, I felt like it pretty much removed option A. Arguably it is not impossible that movie!Holmes could still be gray-asexual, but he did not really strike me as such. Personally, movie!Holmes appeared to my eyes canonically bisexual, as did Watson, but like the books, things are left mostly open to individual interpretation.
To be honest, however, I'm just getting very sick of everybody constantly arguing about Holmes' sexual orientation in a way that makes me want to put on a funny face and ask "Y SO SRS?" Frankly, if you were to read just the text for the movie and compare it to the books, there is very little difference with regards to the portrayal of Holmes' sexuality. Actors, of course, can vastly change this, and in this case, the actors seem to have chosen to play the characters in a rather undertone-laden, handsy way. It's still not much different from the books, where Holmes is constantly seizing Watson's hand and whispering with his lips to Watson's ear. A little bit of innuendo (with a lot of flame-fanning by RDJ) has overtaken public discourse and morphed from "touches of the homoerotic" to "OMG HOLMES IS GHEY PANIC IN THE STREETS."
Actually, it's particularly amusing to me that the worry about Irene/Holmes so highlighted in the trailer has basically disappeared now that the movie is out, leaving this to become a mostly asexual vs. gay debate. It's true that asexuals have virtually no representation in the media, and the situation is only slightly better for gay folks. We need to take a breath. Militant slashers need to realize that asexual people do exist and stop claiming that it's humanly impossible. Purists (I'm looking at you, Andrea Plunket) and asexuals need to realize that the movie isn't saying "Holmes is this way, absolutely without a doubt, nana-nana-boo-boo!"
And we can all stand together and recite the MST3K Mantra: "It's just a show, I should really just relax."
This weekend I saw the Sherlock Holmes movie for the second (and hopefully not the last) time, and I loved it beyond measure, though not quite as much as I love the original books. One of the things that was highly debated prior to the release of Sherlock Holmes was how faithful it would be to canon, given the amount of fighting, scruffiness, and otherwise non-deerstalker-like qualities that were apparent in the trailer. Chief among these things was the highly promoted sexual tension between Holmes and Irene Adler.
Traditionally, Holmes has been viewed as more or less asexual by fans of the books, making him one of the very few characters most people with no knowledge of the ace community would commonly refer to as asexual. The plausible options for Holmes' sexuality in book canon, in my opinion, are the following:
a) Holmes was asexual
b) Holmes was a picky heterosexual
c) Holmes was in a more-than-platonic relationship with Watson
d) More than one of the above
I tend to lean towards agreeing that Holmes was mostly asexual. However, I am also a Holmes/Watson slash fan and I love Irene Adler. And as much as I loved the movie, I felt like it pretty much removed option A. Arguably it is not impossible that movie!Holmes could still be gray-asexual, but he did not really strike me as such. Personally, movie!Holmes appeared to my eyes canonically bisexual, as did Watson, but like the books, things are left mostly open to individual interpretation.
To be honest, however, I'm just getting very sick of everybody constantly arguing about Holmes' sexual orientation in a way that makes me want to put on a funny face and ask "Y SO SRS?" Frankly, if you were to read just the text for the movie and compare it to the books, there is very little difference with regards to the portrayal of Holmes' sexuality. Actors, of course, can vastly change this, and in this case, the actors seem to have chosen to play the characters in a rather undertone-laden, handsy way. It's still not much different from the books, where Holmes is constantly seizing Watson's hand and whispering with his lips to Watson's ear. A little bit of innuendo (with a lot of flame-fanning by RDJ) has overtaken public discourse and morphed from "touches of the homoerotic" to "OMG HOLMES IS GHEY PANIC IN THE STREETS."
Actually, it's particularly amusing to me that the worry about Irene/Holmes so highlighted in the trailer has basically disappeared now that the movie is out, leaving this to become a mostly asexual vs. gay debate. It's true that asexuals have virtually no representation in the media, and the situation is only slightly better for gay folks. We need to take a breath. Militant slashers need to realize that asexual people do exist and stop claiming that it's humanly impossible. Purists (I'm looking at you, Andrea Plunket) and asexuals need to realize that the movie isn't saying "Holmes is this way, absolutely without a doubt, nana-nana-boo-boo!"
And we can all stand together and recite the MST3K Mantra: "It's just a show, I should really just relax."
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.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Poor Lonely Mark Cohen
Last night my friends had a dinner party as a sort of end-of-summer-start-of-school celebration, and I managed to do a lot of avoiding of issues that I should have mentioned. (My friend Aicha* is slowly finding about my asexuality through osmosis or something, as she read a mention of this blog on my personal blog, and then watched me check the ace blogs I follow. I probably should send her a link or explain.) The event of the evening, however, was watching the movie Rent. What struck me about this was a comment someone made during the "La Vie Boheme" scene, saying that she felt bad for Mark, who was all by himself.
I found this interesting mainly because every time I have watched Rent with other people, someone invariably mentions "poor Mark" who doesn't end up paired with anyone. It's really bizarre how it gets mentioned literally every time. Back when I was 13 years old, the first time I saw Rent, a friend said it, and I remember wondering, "Why? Why is it so sad that he isn't paired up?" but I said nothing. This time, I had the courage to question it out loud.
One point brought up was that the film seems to be highlighting Mark's solitude in the slow-motion camera pan near the end of the scene, where he's dancing by himself as his friends are embracing their loved ones. I agree that it's pretty obvious, but I interpret it as showing that Mark is completely happy by himself. It's not as if he's completely alone; at the end he turns and hugs Roger, and there's no hints of "Oh, must wait for Roger to finish hugging his girlfriend." There's no implication of Mark feeling alone.
That was the other main point, that it was hinted that Mark felt lonely or sad about being alone, since Maureen dumped him. I don't see this at all in the movie. Near the beginning, Mark is still getting over being dumped, in some respects, but after "The Tango Maureen" and her protest, all seems to be more or less okay with him. There are no hints in the later portions that Mark is jealous of Joanne, or that he feels lonely.
I'm not trying to argue that Mark is asexual, and I don't think that's what the movie is portraying. I do think that the movie is showing, subtly, that you don't need a lover to have a fulfilled life. I love Rent because of how it shows such a wide spectrum of life in an unconditionally uncritical way, and it had a huge influence on me for that. Because there are fairytale relationships in Rent, and there are gritty realistic relationships, but there's also someone in there that says that you can have a happy ending without the swooning romance.
Every time I watch Rent, I learn something new from it. There are so many threads in it to follow, it's hard to pay attention to everyone's story at once. But I'd love for more attention to be paid to Mark's story in the same uncritical way that the film looks at all the other characters. Poor lonely Mark Cohen isn't so poor and lonely as you might think.
*Aicha is not her real name. Also, I'm not trying to rag on my friends, as I actually had a good discussion with some of them about this later. I just wanted to explore an interesting phenomenon that I had noticed. Also, thanks to Lissa for making my pretty new layout!
I found this interesting mainly because every time I have watched Rent with other people, someone invariably mentions "poor Mark" who doesn't end up paired with anyone. It's really bizarre how it gets mentioned literally every time. Back when I was 13 years old, the first time I saw Rent, a friend said it, and I remember wondering, "Why? Why is it so sad that he isn't paired up?" but I said nothing. This time, I had the courage to question it out loud.
One point brought up was that the film seems to be highlighting Mark's solitude in the slow-motion camera pan near the end of the scene, where he's dancing by himself as his friends are embracing their loved ones. I agree that it's pretty obvious, but I interpret it as showing that Mark is completely happy by himself. It's not as if he's completely alone; at the end he turns and hugs Roger, and there's no hints of "Oh, must wait for Roger to finish hugging his girlfriend." There's no implication of Mark feeling alone.
That was the other main point, that it was hinted that Mark felt lonely or sad about being alone, since Maureen dumped him. I don't see this at all in the movie. Near the beginning, Mark is still getting over being dumped, in some respects, but after "The Tango Maureen" and her protest, all seems to be more or less okay with him. There are no hints in the later portions that Mark is jealous of Joanne, or that he feels lonely.
I'm not trying to argue that Mark is asexual, and I don't think that's what the movie is portraying. I do think that the movie is showing, subtly, that you don't need a lover to have a fulfilled life. I love Rent because of how it shows such a wide spectrum of life in an unconditionally uncritical way, and it had a huge influence on me for that. Because there are fairytale relationships in Rent, and there are gritty realistic relationships, but there's also someone in there that says that you can have a happy ending without the swooning romance.
Every time I watch Rent, I learn something new from it. There are so many threads in it to follow, it's hard to pay attention to everyone's story at once. But I'd love for more attention to be paid to Mark's story in the same uncritical way that the film looks at all the other characters. Poor lonely Mark Cohen isn't so poor and lonely as you might think.
*Aicha is not her real name. Also, I'm not trying to rag on my friends, as I actually had a good discussion with some of them about this later. I just wanted to explore an interesting phenomenon that I had noticed. Also, thanks to Lissa for making my pretty new layout!
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