Explaining and Exploring
“Are you a lesbian?” someone recently asked me, seemingly out of nowhere. I felt my body tense up and my brain fill with conflicting thoughts of what exactly to say. At various points in my life, I have been accused of being gay and straight and neither have felt good. How do you explain to someone that just wants a short and sweet answer that you don't neatly fit into anyone's box? What do I want people to know? How “out” do I want to be to a total stranger, especially in today's political climate?
I'm embarrassed to say that I stammered a bit and timidly said “Uh, sort of I guess. It's complicated.” So I thought I would write out what I wish I had said, both in the hopes of working it out more for myself but also, perhaps, to let myself be known just a little bit more genuinely than I had before.
I identify as being on the asexual spectrum and most likely fall into the demi/bi-romantic category (part of the aromantic spectrum), meaning that it takes me a long time and deep trust and friendship to develop romantic feelings for someone, but their gender doesn't usually matter to me. Back in high school, I fell for a girl who liked to stroke my hair a lot and played the guitar but she broke things off and called me a fake lesbian, a comment that hurts to this day. I've also dated and been married to a man who turned out to be an abuser/predator and utterly destroyed my life as I knew it. During some of our mini-breakups, I had several almost relationships with women and all of my fictional crushes have been on women. (Faith and Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Margo from The Magicians were and are some of my most prominent ones.)
All of these relationships were complicated by my lack of enthusiasm for sex and physical intimacy in general. I'll share my life with you in so many beautiful ways but sex and romance is not a regular guarantee with me. I can't even promise that I will ever want it, not because I am damaged or broken or hiding but because it is my orientation and I was simply made this way. Embracing this about myself has been a lonely journey.
Think about it. When you have something you enjoy and want to share it with someone who loves you and accepts you, do you think of a friend or a romantic partner? How many people in our society hold their platonic relationships as high as a romantic one? And on an economic level, when it is time to buy a house or try to get ahead in life, is it not a process built for couples, rather than individuals? Being on the asexual and aromantic spectrums can be an isolating experience, both emotionally and financially.
But there is joy and freedom to this identity too. Who better to embody enthusiastic consent than someone that enthusiastically says “No” almost always? Sex positivity should be about rejecting what doesn't feel good just as much as it is about exploring what does. This can be hard to hold onto in a world that pushes a certain way of living upon us and penalizes those that deviate but leaning into who I am has created new pathways for me that I am only beginning to explore.
I'm a work in progress here. I don't have all the answers and I wonder if my voice even has a place in the queer community, but I strive to learn more about myself and my identity every day. Sometimes, I prefer to keep it quiet but today, I chose to speak. I am on the aromantic and asexual spectrums and who I like and how I express that is fluid and ever changing. I will honor my desires and my truth and treat them as the beautiful and sacred gifts that they are and I hope you will too.
