Why am I Always the Last to Find Out?
I wish I had more time to spend on this than I do.
It all started back in 2014. I had already had some exposure to polyamourous people, due to Sean Sparks in the Burn community. Fine. Then, while still dealing with the trauma on my life that was Kyle, I met Jennar. I fell into some kind of friend-love with him. Which seemed to be unrequited, unless I love him and him alone, and I wasn't ready for that, and besides, I knew it would be a bad idea, because Jennar is/was even more of a trainwreck than Kyle, and I couldn't do that to myself knowingly. But I did love them both, and I knew that I needed so much love, attention, and support, that damn straight I felt like I should have a whole team of boyfriends. Really. In a lot of ways, I still believe this.
In Pinteresting around for information on Polyamoury, instead I stumbled upon probably the worst thing ever to find out after you have just gotten married to a wonderful, caring, guy.
Y'all, I can already tell you that everybody else knew except for me, because I didn't know this was actually a common phenomenon, but it also really upsets me because I am already so weird, and frankly I don't want ONE MORE fucking weird thing to be added to me, like Aspergher's is not bad enough. I kept hoping that there was something I was missing, and if only I just did XYZ or something, then I would be normal. Why would I ever think that.
I ran across things like:
"I probably should have realized I was asexual when I never understood why people said waiting until marriage was hard."
"I probably should have realized I was asexual when I found out that people genuinely wanted to have sex with people they didn't know."
"I should have known I was gray asexual because whenever I would date someone I would dread the point where they would bring up physical intimacy, and comfort myself with thinking, 'None of my relationships work out anyway, we'll probably break up before then,' And when I found out there was such a thing as a 4th Date Rule, I was simply shocked and disturbed. It seemed way too soon."
"I should have known I was asexual when TV characters had trouble being celibate, and I sat there thinking, 'Just don't have sex, it's not that hard!'"
"I should have realized I was asexual when I kept telling myself that I would understand when I was older, and now I am 35 and still don't get it..."
And then there was:
"Never, ever assume that asexuals have it easy. Asexuality is growing up under the assumption that you are a late bloomer, and then under the assumption that you are broken. Asexuality is learning the word and still being afraid to define yourself as asexual because how can you say you don't feel something you don't even understand? Asexuality is coming out to people and having them laugh and tell you 'when you find the one.' Asexuality is trying to enter spaces that promise acceptance and being told 'but you're straight.' Asexuality is trying to enter a relationship worried that if you tell them they won't give you a chance and worried if you don't that you're leading them on. Asexuality is living in a culture that finds sex so vital half the world revolves around it, and never understanding. Asexuality is being told you have it easy so often you doubt your problems are real."
"You can still be asexual, even if: You think someone is good looking, you are dating, you have kissed someone, had sex, fallen in love, told a dirty joke, gotten aroused, curious about sex, or enjoy sexual time by yourself. Or even if you have done none of those things."
Then there were the 'ace' St. Valentine's Day cards:
I want to cuddle the fuck out of you. I love you, let's hold hands. Let's sit for hours and just talk. Hey Valentine, Wanna Hug? I enjoy being with you, even in silence. I love you for your personality. I love you intensely and platonically. I wanna penetrate your heart. I want to stick my fingers between yours and never let go.
If that shit ain't me. But I have already married the guy. I feel like the worst human being alive because I believe in "mirandizing" people in relationships. Much like Jennar called me up and puked up his whole rap sheet, I made a point to be as up front about EVERYTHING I thought Squirrel wound dislike about me. That way, he'd have the absolute whole picture, and could decide for himself whether he just wanted to stay friends or keep pursuing this. There's also a bunch of asexual jokes about wanting cake instead of sex, and here I am in the Lewisville Barnes & Noble, wanting to cry while eating my scone. But not necessarily because I am sad I am me. I mean, I am, because I am so fucking sick of being weird and alienated from the rest of the planet. But also because first it KILLS me that I only now discover this about myself, and I wish I could be honest with my husband about this discovery. What kills me is that I feel like I can't be honest with him. Our relationship is better than that. Then it further kills me that the man waits for this long, gets a vasectomy for me, and THIS is the reward? That I am permanently broken? Is this somehow a cop-out on my part? But I know it's not. I know I've always been weird.
Fraysexual: Sexual attraction quickly fades after meeting someone.
Polyamoury: The philosophy or state of being in love or romantically involved with more than one person at the same time.
These are me. I have a VERY STRONG suspicion that the rest of the world thinks that this (these) are the wrong ways to be. Well, it has never been okay to be me in the past, so I suppose why should we start now?
At the end of the day, I consider Squirrel to be the kind of man to love me, anyway. To problem solve with me to do whatever it is we need to do or can do to make me more comfortable expressing what little, undamaged from all the beat-down of all the other relationship traumas of my past, sexuality I have within me. To not shame me for being me. But I think he'd be just as confused as everyone else, and also he and anyone he tells would assume that I pulled a bait-and-switch on him. Trust me. If I had any idea, I would have told him. I thought asexual people were like...just not into dating and relationships, and had no feeling of that spark. But it turns out they can be all those things, but just not be inherently programmed for sex like everyone else. This makes so much sense to me, it's devastating. I never thought that this was me. And I am afraid to tell anyone, not my friends, not my mom, nobody, because if it wasn't bad enough feeling left out of the sexuality spectrum, being further alienated by announcing this (and then most likely being told that my experiences were not the case) would just be fantastic. Pinterest has memes about Coming Out Ace. And I GET IT. I will leave with this:
"Why are you posting asexual stuff on a sex positive blog?"
Because sex positivity does not mean erasing or shaming the experiences of those who are asexual. Actually, I think we need to have this conversation. I actually am of the mindset that we need more asexuality perspectives within the sex positive movement. Because there's an all-too-common mantra that goes, "Sex is beautiful and natural and everyone wants to have sex so it's nothing to be ashamed of!" And I agree, sex is nothing to be ashamed of. But there's one little detail there: Not everyone wants sex or gets pleasure from it. They're roughly 1% of the planet. With 7 Billion persons. Which is 70 million. That is a lot of experiences to erase. So roughly 70 million people don't want sex. Or they want sex in certain contexts. Or they kind of sometimes want sex, but not often. Or they have sex to satisfy a partner, but don't get much out of it, themselves. Or they have a sex drive...just not towards other people. Or they can't stand the thought of sex. And that's okay, too. Sex positivity is for me, accepting that whether you have sex a lot, or you never have sex, whether you have a million kinks or you can't stand sex outside of the missionary position, whether you are gay, straight, bi, pan, sapio, auto, omni, or asexual, the way you look at sex is *valid and normal*, as long as it's not hurting anyone. And that is why I am positing asexual content on a sex positivity blog, and why I will continue to do so."
So there is all that.
TL:DR:: I found out after I was already married that I am most likely some form of asexual. I had already had the polyamory talk with him, which he was uncomfortable with, but still able to accept. This, I worry that he won't be able to accept. Even though I consider him the kind of man that would, I cannot say that I would be able to if the roles were reversed. Therefore, with one exception (reader), I will probably take this shit to the grave.
Thank you for reading, and I am also sorry because I know that was heavy.
Bethany Celeste
Roman Candle
It all started back in 2014. I had already had some exposure to polyamourous people, due to Sean Sparks in the Burn community. Fine. Then, while still dealing with the trauma on my life that was Kyle, I met Jennar. I fell into some kind of friend-love with him. Which seemed to be unrequited, unless I love him and him alone, and I wasn't ready for that, and besides, I knew it would be a bad idea, because Jennar is/was even more of a trainwreck than Kyle, and I couldn't do that to myself knowingly. But I did love them both, and I knew that I needed so much love, attention, and support, that damn straight I felt like I should have a whole team of boyfriends. Really. In a lot of ways, I still believe this.
In Pinteresting around for information on Polyamoury, instead I stumbled upon probably the worst thing ever to find out after you have just gotten married to a wonderful, caring, guy.
Y'all, I can already tell you that everybody else knew except for me, because I didn't know this was actually a common phenomenon, but it also really upsets me because I am already so weird, and frankly I don't want ONE MORE fucking weird thing to be added to me, like Aspergher's is not bad enough. I kept hoping that there was something I was missing, and if only I just did XYZ or something, then I would be normal. Why would I ever think that.
I ran across things like:
"I probably should have realized I was asexual when I never understood why people said waiting until marriage was hard."
"I probably should have realized I was asexual when I found out that people genuinely wanted to have sex with people they didn't know."
"I should have known I was gray asexual because whenever I would date someone I would dread the point where they would bring up physical intimacy, and comfort myself with thinking, 'None of my relationships work out anyway, we'll probably break up before then,' And when I found out there was such a thing as a 4th Date Rule, I was simply shocked and disturbed. It seemed way too soon."
"I should have known I was asexual when TV characters had trouble being celibate, and I sat there thinking, 'Just don't have sex, it's not that hard!'"
"I should have realized I was asexual when I kept telling myself that I would understand when I was older, and now I am 35 and still don't get it..."
And then there was:
"Never, ever assume that asexuals have it easy. Asexuality is growing up under the assumption that you are a late bloomer, and then under the assumption that you are broken. Asexuality is learning the word and still being afraid to define yourself as asexual because how can you say you don't feel something you don't even understand? Asexuality is coming out to people and having them laugh and tell you 'when you find the one.' Asexuality is trying to enter spaces that promise acceptance and being told 'but you're straight.' Asexuality is trying to enter a relationship worried that if you tell them they won't give you a chance and worried if you don't that you're leading them on. Asexuality is living in a culture that finds sex so vital half the world revolves around it, and never understanding. Asexuality is being told you have it easy so often you doubt your problems are real."
"You can still be asexual, even if: You think someone is good looking, you are dating, you have kissed someone, had sex, fallen in love, told a dirty joke, gotten aroused, curious about sex, or enjoy sexual time by yourself. Or even if you have done none of those things."
Then there were the 'ace' St. Valentine's Day cards:
I want to cuddle the fuck out of you. I love you, let's hold hands. Let's sit for hours and just talk. Hey Valentine, Wanna Hug? I enjoy being with you, even in silence. I love you for your personality. I love you intensely and platonically. I wanna penetrate your heart. I want to stick my fingers between yours and never let go.
If that shit ain't me. But I have already married the guy. I feel like the worst human being alive because I believe in "mirandizing" people in relationships. Much like Jennar called me up and puked up his whole rap sheet, I made a point to be as up front about EVERYTHING I thought Squirrel wound dislike about me. That way, he'd have the absolute whole picture, and could decide for himself whether he just wanted to stay friends or keep pursuing this. There's also a bunch of asexual jokes about wanting cake instead of sex, and here I am in the Lewisville Barnes & Noble, wanting to cry while eating my scone. But not necessarily because I am sad I am me. I mean, I am, because I am so fucking sick of being weird and alienated from the rest of the planet. But also because first it KILLS me that I only now discover this about myself, and I wish I could be honest with my husband about this discovery. What kills me is that I feel like I can't be honest with him. Our relationship is better than that. Then it further kills me that the man waits for this long, gets a vasectomy for me, and THIS is the reward? That I am permanently broken? Is this somehow a cop-out on my part? But I know it's not. I know I've always been weird.
Fraysexual: Sexual attraction quickly fades after meeting someone.
Polyamoury: The philosophy or state of being in love or romantically involved with more than one person at the same time.
These are me. I have a VERY STRONG suspicion that the rest of the world thinks that this (these) are the wrong ways to be. Well, it has never been okay to be me in the past, so I suppose why should we start now?
At the end of the day, I consider Squirrel to be the kind of man to love me, anyway. To problem solve with me to do whatever it is we need to do or can do to make me more comfortable expressing what little, undamaged from all the beat-down of all the other relationship traumas of my past, sexuality I have within me. To not shame me for being me. But I think he'd be just as confused as everyone else, and also he and anyone he tells would assume that I pulled a bait-and-switch on him. Trust me. If I had any idea, I would have told him. I thought asexual people were like...just not into dating and relationships, and had no feeling of that spark. But it turns out they can be all those things, but just not be inherently programmed for sex like everyone else. This makes so much sense to me, it's devastating. I never thought that this was me. And I am afraid to tell anyone, not my friends, not my mom, nobody, because if it wasn't bad enough feeling left out of the sexuality spectrum, being further alienated by announcing this (and then most likely being told that my experiences were not the case) would just be fantastic. Pinterest has memes about Coming Out Ace. And I GET IT. I will leave with this:
"Why are you posting asexual stuff on a sex positive blog?"
Because sex positivity does not mean erasing or shaming the experiences of those who are asexual. Actually, I think we need to have this conversation. I actually am of the mindset that we need more asexuality perspectives within the sex positive movement. Because there's an all-too-common mantra that goes, "Sex is beautiful and natural and everyone wants to have sex so it's nothing to be ashamed of!" And I agree, sex is nothing to be ashamed of. But there's one little detail there: Not everyone wants sex or gets pleasure from it. They're roughly 1% of the planet. With 7 Billion persons. Which is 70 million. That is a lot of experiences to erase. So roughly 70 million people don't want sex. Or they want sex in certain contexts. Or they kind of sometimes want sex, but not often. Or they have sex to satisfy a partner, but don't get much out of it, themselves. Or they have a sex drive...just not towards other people. Or they can't stand the thought of sex. And that's okay, too. Sex positivity is for me, accepting that whether you have sex a lot, or you never have sex, whether you have a million kinks or you can't stand sex outside of the missionary position, whether you are gay, straight, bi, pan, sapio, auto, omni, or asexual, the way you look at sex is *valid and normal*, as long as it's not hurting anyone. And that is why I am positing asexual content on a sex positivity blog, and why I will continue to do so."
So there is all that.
TL:DR:: I found out after I was already married that I am most likely some form of asexual. I had already had the polyamory talk with him, which he was uncomfortable with, but still able to accept. This, I worry that he won't be able to accept. Even though I consider him the kind of man that would, I cannot say that I would be able to if the roles were reversed. Therefore, with one exception (reader), I will probably take this shit to the grave.
Thank you for reading, and I am also sorry because I know that was heavy.
Bethany Celeste
Roman Candle