Hey folks, swankivy here with another Letters to an Asexual.
This is number 57.
Uh.
I'm gonna read you a conversation I had some time back with someone on OKCupid.
And, um, I would like to specify that this person was one of those curious sorts that
some of us will recognized as a person that just kinda thinks that their curiosity gives
them the right to ask really uncomfortable, very very personal, intense questions right
from the beginning.
And, you know, these are coming from somebody who's a stranger, and, who has not really
asked permission to go that intensely personal, but um, they um, they seem to think that because
you talk about the subject, anything is fair game.
But I wanna specify that because this person kinda said "Well, my question might offend
you, so I dunno if I can ask it!"
And I invited him to, to go ahead and, and say what he was wondering, that, you know,
that I had opened the gate, that I basically invited him to ask me questions about my genitals,
which he did do.
So, um, again, not an outright rude person, but somebody who really didn't understand
kinda the boundaries for, you know, talking to another person, it's like, you can find
less personal ways of asking these questions, and then of course you'll also see that, uh,
in the conversation, he reveals, kinda, some clear prejudices about what the standard should
be and what deviations from the standard mean about us.
So this conversation, like I said, happened on OKCupid, and if you've never been on OKCupid,
um, especially lately, uh, less so in the past, but especially lately, the way that
the messaging system looks, it kinda looks like a chat window rather than an e-mail window,
and I always used it for more of an e-mail conversation.
I would have longer communications with people, but sometimes people just would send me one
line, and expect me to treat it like a realtime conversation.
And I generally don't do that.
So you'll see evidence of that also in this conversation.
So, the first question that the person sent me, they said that: "So, I've watched quite
a few of your videos.
. . . Rather intriguing.
I do have a few questions as I do find you fascinating.
. . . " So I said, "Okay, sure, if you have questions, you're welcome."
And he begins.
Um, he says, "The first one's probably in the grey area of stuff you would ignore.
. . . If it's okay I'd like to ask it.
How did you realize you were asexual?
Have you ever had sexual relations with a male or female?
I too am a writer by the way.
And as far as your aromance: Have you ever felt romance and/or love?
I'm not talking to you about sex or romance: I've just, I've never been friends with an
asexual before so these questions are purely for educational purposes.
. . . Hopefully you didn't place me on the proverbial sad chair in which you speak of."
And by the way, each of those lines was sent as a separate message, so I kept getting e-mails
over and over again from this.
And after I didn't immediately answer them, I guess after a little while he followed up
with this, and said: "Well, I am sorry I offended you as that was not my intention.
Take care Swankivy."
So I eventually found some time to sit down with these questions, and I responded, and
I said, "I wasn't even online to receive any of the messages you sent at the time you sent
them, and these messages are not real-time conversation, so I think it's really weird
that you preemptively assumed my lack of immediate response meant I must be offended.
I wasn't.
If you do respond to this, please do afford me some time to respond instead of writing
your own meaning into my silence.
Though I do appreciate that you're respectful about other people's boundaries and you don't
wanna violate mine.
I don't mind if people ask questions as long as they also demonstrate a willingness to
look at my educational materials for an introduction, and you seem to have done that.
I don't think anything you asked was too out there.
How I realized I was asexual?
Pretty much like anyone realizes their sexual orientation, except it's usually a little
more complicated for asexual people since 'nothing' can also mean 'not yet' for a while
if you're a late bloomer.
For me it was just nobody seemed attractive and even though I could like a person as a
friend I never felt a romantic or sexual desire for them, so I just called myself nonsexual
and figured if that changed then I would change what I called myself.
It didn't change, so I didn't either.
On aromance: I have a few very close people in my life, but the love I feel for them isn't
romantic.
I find that some people think that means I 'can't love,' but that's not really how I'd
describe it.
It's just not romantic.
These are people I've had very close relationships with for more than fifteen years, and we're
very devoted to each other, but our relationship isn't romantic, and I don't need it to be
for us to feel like it's lifelong.
On sexual experience: I've never been interested in sex, but I've kissed a few people (various
genders) and had a couple relationships where they wanted to experiment with more intimate
stuff.
I didn't like any of it and none of it went as far as something I'd call sex.
I've heard a lot of 'you don't know until you try it' in high school, but I doubted
that I would suddenly love the sex part if I didn't love any of the other parts that
people thought were so good.
Great to hear you're a writer.
I usually have pretty good conversations with other writers on here.
We tend to have a lot in common with each other.
You don't have match questions answered though."
So he comes back with a response and says, "My apologies, I'm somewhat new to OKCupid
but now I realize that I had speculated more than anything (it showed that you were on-line
but I had not received a response back so I made a warranted assumption I suppose).
I'm just pondering right now and am trying to understand (pardon for my ignorance).
So, you've had 'experiences' with various genders but was not aroused?
Have you ever tried stimulating your clitoris on your own?
Are you familiar with the hypothalamus and its functions?
(The reasons I ask is because I'm still trying to determine whether your asexuality is caused
by psychological or physiological means.)
You have regular menstrual cycles I presume?
After viewing some of your videos I've realized that you're quite popular on YouTube.
Also, you have a cute voice."
So, I responded with this: "'It showed you were on-line'--I think the app 'shows you're
online' if you've logged in recently.
I don't know when it counts you as not being online anymore.
Maybe a session has to expire.
All I know is if I sign on for a second I sometimes get bombarded for hours.
Based on your questions, you're coming at the concept of asexuality with the attitude
of 'So what's missing?
What's wrong or malfunctioning?
What didn't she try?
What's she overlooking?
what's "the explanation" for what's making her different from most people?'
If you can kinda ride with me here, I'd appreciate if you'd look at this a different way.
Asexual people don't find people sexually attractive.
It's not because they forgot to try pressing their happy buttons, or because a gland in
their brain didn't work right, or because they must have hormone problems or be stunted,
or because they have a psychological problem.
They just . . . don't really think people are sexy.
Or rather, maybe they think people are sexy but they just don't care.
That's it.
I promise.
It's about as simple and as complicated as anyone else's sexual orientation: a set of
circumstances, physical elements, past experiences, attitudes, and desires combine in different
ways for different people, and for some of us, that adds up to asexual.
It wouldn't be accurate or complete to say 'well people are straight because their hormones
make them wanna reproduce,' and similarly, there is not a single issue that explains
asexuality for everyone.
I think it's natural to wonder the things you have, but I also am trying to spread awareness
to the willing about how we'd like to be viewed.
We're trying to push the understanding that for about 1 in every 100 people, not being
attracted to anyone is just how we are.
Beyond that, people don't get diagnosed straight or gay by a doctor, and they usually don't
feel obligated to methodically test every hypothesis and take medical tests to make
sure something isn't off.
(Obviously you can have a sickness that will affect your perception of sexuality, or your
libido, or your sexual performance, but these generally have other symptoms as well.)
It's just actually not that weird to be asexual.
And while some people in our community do have other conditions or psychological/experiential
aspects that may contribute to how they view sex and willingness to engage in it, that's
actually true for everyone.
But there are certainly scientific investigations that are worth carrying out on people of any
sexual orientation, and asexual people have not been exempt.
There are several dozen studies about asexuality.
A few of them do approach physical aspects and are devoted to measuring people's sexual
responses or comparing their hormone measurements with what's typical.
We generally aren't physically different from typical people on any unusual level--our incidences
of hormone irregularities, intersex variations, and comorbility--comorbidity with mental illnesses
or trauma are comparable to those of the typical population.
Though we sometimes have more issues with depression and anxiety (on the same levels
as the LGB and T populations, depending) if we live in an environment that has pressured
us or made us feel broken or marginalized.
If you're interested in what scientific research has been done on asexual people, this is a
pretty good list."
And I linked him.
"One study called 'Physiological and Subjective Sexual Arousal in Self-Identified Asexual
Women' focused on arousal experiences and shares measurable data, and Anthony Bogaert's
'Asexuality: Dysfunction or variation' concludes there is no reason to view asexuality as a
dysfunction.
Bogaert has also written the only full asexuality-specific textbook.
And Andrew Hinderliter's 'How is asexuality different from hypoactive sexual desire disorder?'
examines how a disorder associated with not wanting sex is distinct from a sexual orientation
of not experiencing sexual attraction.
I hope this didn't sound like a bunch of science babble.
It's just that bringing up the hypothalamus (and asking me whether I knew what it does)
suggests to me that you're interested in the medical/experimental side of what asexuality
is, so I assume I'm speaking your language.
Ignore me if I am not.
Regarding my popularity on YouTube: Yeah, you could say that!
I reached 5,000 subscribers not too long ago, which I thought is pretty respectful--a pretty
respectable milestone for such a niche subject.
I'm glad you like my voice.
I thought about getting into voice acting once upon a time."
So he responds again, and says, "What I found intriguing is that asexual people can enjoy
sex but do not desire it (it took me a second to analyze that sentence).
You probably would be good at it if you tried (but again, you have no desire and I respect
that).
One thing I must say though is you looked so cute in one of your YouTube videos pretending
to be flirtatious/sexual.
Okay, enough about sex (or should I say the lack there of lol).
What do you like to do for fun?"
Ahhh.
So I said this: "Some asexual people can enjoy sex, sure--and some asexual people can't or
won't.
For a lot of us, not being sexually attracted to a partner can be as unappealing as, say,
a straight man not being attracted to another man but still having sex with him.
For a lot of straight men, having sex with another man would be completely out of the
question.
That's how it is for a lot of us too, except we live in a society that expects us to do
it and shames us as selfish if we won't.
But then there are some (a minority) that don't really mind it or might even actively
like it because their feelings about sex don't have to be connected to their feelings about
the person they're having it with.
Not really my business though.
I'm not one of them.
Really not into talking about whether I'd be good at sex, or how cute you think I look
pretending not to be sexual--asexual (don't know which one that is, but maybe 'Shit People
Say to Asexuals,' where we all pretended to not be asexual).
And though I'm happy to talk about what I do for fun, I did write a LOT in my profile
about exactly that, so if you have something to bounce off of that you think we have in
common or could talk about, that'd be a great place to start!"
And then he says, one more time, and says, "I should've been a little more specific:
Aside from dinner and a movie, what do you like to do with other people for fun?
Unless you make writing a group effort (that's always fun)."
And I actually didn't answer that.
Because I just felt like a lot of these questions were kind of like jokingly flirting with me,
just, every message had something like, hint hint, wink wink, nudge nudge in it.
And I don't know, I just didn't feel like the person was engaging with me as a whole
entity, I guess.
I could be wrong, but I don't know, I just didn't feel like um, the person was really
talking to me as a person.
Um, so I don't know, maybe I gave up too soon, but uh, sometimes you get these uh, borderline
messages where you don't feel like the person did anything that was outright hey-don't-do-this
kind of category, but at the same time, you just don't really feel like um, the person
is listening all the way, or they're coming to the conversation with uh, beliefs about
sexuality that they're not leaving at the door when they come into the conversation.
So um, there's my example of that kind of conversation, which it's so hard to have those
conversations sometimes, because you wanna be open, you wanna be an activist, you wanna
be able to bring people in and help them learn, ahh, but then, sometimes they just tax your
resources, and they don't do um, enough of the searching themselves, I guess.
Um, I mean, for somebody that seemed really interested in the scientific aspect of it,
they seemed to have done no research on what's already been dug up in studies, and I don't
know, um, watching a bunch of my YouTube videos and coming back with the takeaway, like, "You
got a cute voice!
What do you do for fun?"
You know, it's like, I just don't feel like this is a conversation I wanna continue, so
let me see, this, ahh, when was this conversation?
Looks like I saved that in August 2016.
So I mean, that's a good while ago, um, and uh, ahhhhhhhhh, uh.
Yeah, um, That was a good while ago, and um, I still get uh, questions like these, I still
get, uh, conversations that I just don't really know what to do with, and um, you know, at
that time, there was, less research out there to find but it was definitely out there.
Um, I had had my book published since, you know, a couple of years before that, and uh,
you know, and when I was doing my research for my book, all I had to do was ask the question
in Google and I found lots of perspectives from people, and scientific research as well
as personal perspectives, and it just seems like a lot of the time, um, you know, when
somebody asks me, "Hey, have you played with your clitoris?
And do you know what a hypothalamus is?"
I'm like, ummm, I mean, you know you're talking to somebody who has done a lot of research,
right?
I mean, how come you're not doing this research if you're actually curious about these things,
versus just wanting me to explain 'em to you?
So, I don't know, um, sometimes you just kinda get weary of having the conversations that
uh, that don't bring enough of their own research to the table, I guess.
Um, and some of them feel like, "Okay, this is a good conversation topic, this is something
we both have an interest in," but I feel more like I'm getting interviewed.
And, you know, I don't really wanna explain the whole thing to you when you're asking
these questions, I, I'd rather just kind of point you to a place where you can read more
about it, and if you wanna talk to ME, talk to ME about something where you're not looking
for information and I'm providing you with information, like, we can have a back and
forth about something, you know, like, my experiences with other people living in the
world as an asexual person, I have a lot of stories, and some of them lead to conversations
where I'll volunteer those things, you don't have to even ask me.
But this was not one of those conversations where I really felt like I was getting anything
out of it, so maybe that's where I start to draw the line these days.
Um, anyway, so I'm obviously pretty tired, ahhhhh, gosh.
I'm yawning on film again.
Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and end this video.
I'll see y'all next time okay?
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