Ah! Strange how this worked out. When I finished posting my last comment reply on your journal, the word 'asexuality' caught my eye on your tags list. I clicked it and then read this. But I didn't check the date so I was like "Oh, this must have been posted forever ago, wouldn't it be weird if I suddenly commented on it now?" Then I go to my friends page and it's the first thing I see! Funny how that works out
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First, a teenager (or any other person) doesn't have a particular way they should act. Doing what everyone else is doing just because, well, everyone else is doing it can be a slippery slope at best. It's much like adhering to a belief your heart isn't in. You'll always feel uncomfortable and eventually you'll either just slide further down that slope or you'll come to realize that you're not like so many of the other people you see and try to crawl out of it, all mucky for the effort. Believe me babe, I know so many people who wished they hadn't experimented, or at least as much, (though of course there are one or two who wish they'd done so more...but very few because high school guys also don't have the best skills), so I bet you half those people you see doing these things are doing them for less than genuine motives as well
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Oh yeah, and an added note because I can't edit. Sex tends to come from two motivations: love or lust. Decide which you want to do it for. If love, then it's not odd in the least that you're not 'overindulging sexually' as, as far as I'm aware, you're not in love currently. Just decide what is important to you and hopefully everything else should fall into place.
Very interesting post - definitely some food for thought :) It seems (and maybe my perception is skewed) that there is more asexuality in online fandom than one might expect. (At least, there's a lot more discussion about it than you can find pretty much anywhere else...) [ETA: I didn't mean to say this as if reflecting that your reasoning was "oh look at me I'm trying to be cool", just to say that you're hardly alone ~ asexuality is one of the topics online fandom seems to really rally around and support, so if you need that support and you can't get it in RL, there *is* a viable alternative.]
What I find most interesting, though, is that you're going to edit your behemoth of a story to reflect what still appears to be a changing personal value system. Not that there's anything wrong with that - its your story, after all, and you can do with it what you wish - but that you've come to this conclusion, that since you aren't personally interested in sex...your characters will reflect the same? Do you think you can't write it well
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long reply is looongflametwirlerJune 17 2010, 10:04:30 UTC
I think one of the reasons this is more prevalent in fandom is simply because of the fact that fandom is, by definition, an open source. The people inhabiting it are typically tech savvy, eventually get to the point where they're researching different things (even ways of life) for the purposes of world building/characterization and even just for the sakes of the people they meet. Online communities in general tend to be more diverse
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LOL, that's okay - you know I don't mind the tl;dr, especially considering I tend to indulge in it myself :P You did take the long route in answering my question, but I wanted to know why, and that's rarely easily explained.
I wonder if you'd feel differently about editing your story if it was already said and done, and had been for awhile? You made mention of "slow pokes like me tend to change over time" re: attitudes about this sort of thing. That's called growing up, my friend ;) and there's nothing wrong it it.
I, personally, think editing whole swathes of scenes out of an ongoing fic is unfortunate - especially if you feel its something done well, and treated it like an experiment anyway - but that's because I like to have some tangible measure of my writing/stylistic progress. There are experiments I've released into the wild that worked, and some that didn't, but because all of those works are complete, I have no real urge to edit or "fix" them. *shrug* Like I said, its just a personal preference. Ultimately, you should
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Interesting read... I'm a little out of the loop, but I didn't even know you'd finished Shrine Prostitute. I'm definitely going to have to finish reading it if you plan on editing it. I'm sure with the way you're feeling, the perception of the story will be highly altered.
I haven't finished it. Actually, quite the opposite - I'm very behind in the updates.
Aside from the personal though, the story feels slightly disconnected for me since the first half is all relational and the second is so political, so I might try to weave some other things in, but for now I'm just focused on edits. *shrugs* We'll see.
Asexuality as a concept is picking up it seems. The thought never occurred to me when I was in high school, which is too bad since it would have been nice to have a word to describe myself. It would not have been true, but it might have been easier for some of my old friends to understand. I've always had a thing for older men (at least in their thirties) and the very idea of having a teenage boyfriend made me gag. It was very frustrating when they would force me to socialize with a classmate, so I can't imagine what it must have been like for you.
It seems perfectly logical to me, if you have celebrities caught with three hookers, why can't there be people completely uninterested in sex at all.
I think sexuality just as a topic is picking up, so the lesser known facets of it are finally coming to light. Honestly, I don't think I'd have even known it possible for humans to truly be asexual until I ran across something or other on the interwebz. Still haven't heard about it in real life.
But I'm with you - it would've been so much easier in high school. As it was I was tempted to let everyone believe I was lesbian (since quite a few people thought that anyhow) but we had too many at my school and then I started getting hit on by them. Haha, you just can't ever win, can you.
So here's my (snarky) question for you: Do you think you'll always like older men or, when you're in your thirties yourself, will you like men the same age? Or when fifty will you still like men in their thirties to forties?
I have no idea what to say to that because I don't know. I do know I wasn't attracted to any guys in 90s boy band because they were in their twenties. And celebrities who I thought that were mildly interesting a decade ago are way more attractive now that they are approaching forty. (Insert very relevant Nathan Fillion Icon) Maybe I'm forever doomed to eyeball older men.
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i will save it after you edit it-- i skip/skim 'those' parts anyway. =p
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And that's how I tend to read now too...
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First, a teenager (or any other person) doesn't have a particular way they should act. Doing what everyone else is doing just because, well, everyone else is doing it can be a slippery slope at best. It's much like adhering to a belief your heart isn't in. You'll always feel uncomfortable and eventually you'll either just slide further down that slope or you'll come to realize that you're not like so many of the other people you see and try to crawl out of it, all mucky for the effort. Believe me babe, I know so many people who wished they hadn't experimented, or at least as much, (though of course there are one or two who wish they'd done so more...but very few because high school guys also don't have the best skills), so I bet you half those people you see doing these things are doing them for less than genuine motives as well ( ... )
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What I find most interesting, though, is that you're going to edit your behemoth of a story to reflect what still appears to be a changing personal value system. Not that there's anything wrong with that - its your story, after all, and you can do with it what you wish - but that you've come to this conclusion, that since you aren't personally interested in sex...your characters will reflect the same? Do you think you can't write it well ( ... )
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I wonder if you'd feel differently about editing your story if it was already said and done, and had been for awhile? You made mention of "slow pokes like me tend to change over time" re: attitudes about this sort of thing. That's called growing up, my friend ;) and there's nothing wrong it it.
I, personally, think editing whole swathes of scenes out of an ongoing fic is unfortunate - especially if you feel its something done well, and treated it like an experiment anyway - but that's because I like to have some tangible measure of my writing/stylistic progress. There are experiments I've released into the wild that worked, and some that didn't, but because all of those works are complete, I have no real urge to edit or "fix" them. *shrug* Like I said, its just a personal preference. Ultimately, you should ( ... )
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I'm a little out of the loop, but I didn't even know you'd finished Shrine Prostitute. I'm definitely going to have to finish reading it if you plan on editing it. I'm sure with the way you're feeling, the perception of the story will be highly altered.
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Aside from the personal though, the story feels slightly disconnected for me since the first half is all relational and the second is so political, so I might try to weave some other things in, but for now I'm just focused on edits. *shrugs* We'll see.
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Asexuality as a concept is picking up it seems. The thought never occurred to me when I was in high school, which is too bad since it would have been nice to have a word to describe myself. It would not have been true, but it might have been easier for some of my old friends to understand. I've always had a thing for older men (at least in their thirties) and the very idea of having a teenage boyfriend made me gag. It was very frustrating when they would force me to socialize with a classmate, so I can't imagine what it must have been like for you.
It seems perfectly logical to me, if you have celebrities caught with three hookers, why can't there be people completely uninterested in sex at all.
Cheers to the single life!
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But I'm with you - it would've been so much easier in high school. As it was I was tempted to let everyone believe I was lesbian (since quite a few people thought that anyhow) but we had too many at my school and then I started getting hit on by them. Haha, you just can't ever win, can you.
So here's my (snarky) question for you: Do you think you'll always like older men or, when you're in your thirties yourself, will you like men the same age? Or when fifty will you still like men in their thirties to forties?
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I have no idea what to say to that because I don't know. I do know I wasn't attracted to any guys in 90s boy band because they were in their twenties. And celebrities who I thought that were mildly interesting a decade ago are way more attractive now that they are approaching forty. (Insert very relevant Nathan Fillion Icon) Maybe I'm forever doomed to eyeball older men.
I guess I'll find out in a decade.
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