Introduction to Asexuality

I have been meaning, for quite a while now, to post something concerning asexuality. It is something I’ve only been introduced to for a few years, and just recently started to relate to. Now that I use it as a way to describe myself, and have recently begun entering into the world again, I find that most people have no idea what it means. Most confuse it with celibacy, which is simply abstaining from sex. I assure you it is not just that. It is also not my choosing to avoid the sexual aspect of the world we live in, nor am I suffering some mental distress from past indiscretions. Sex does not scare me, I am not worried about no one wanting to have sex with me, nor am I using it to exert power over people. Asexuality is simply a word to describe someone who does not experience sexual attraction.

I have never been a sexual person, except for a brief period when I was 14 and my hormones were raging. Even then it was with one guy, and when I look back I think I was using sex like most every teenage girl does, to gain intimacy because I was simply /desperate/ for it. I am not asexual because I lack experience. I have played sex games with my cousins when I was younger (and being so confused about my sexuality then that I often spoke about having a sex change operation), and with girlfriends (which lead me to ask if maybe I was a lesbian). I fell in love with boys and wanting to hold hands and kiss, and I have fallen in love with women and wanting to spend my life just being with them. I have had phone sex and intercourse, watched porn and real life sex acts. I did my time having cyber sex and experimenting with the kinkier variations of hetero and homosexual sex. I was quite good at all these things, not to brag or toot my own horn, but the truth is the truth. I credit my natural tendency to listen and respond to people, my incessant curiosity which allowed me to speak about sex and learn everything I could, and my desire to except everyone’s kinks and desires without passing judgment. I always had the feeling that it is what it is.

Despite all this experimenting, I still was just not interested. I never masturbated in my youth (my first time was when I was 19) and had never had an orgasm. It was not for lack of people trying, it was just something my body was not responding to. I thought there was something wrong with me. I was too emotionally frigid (and was called that by some people before), or hadn’t found what would really bring me out. I spent several years thinking I was a submissive that needed to be dominated and told what to do, because otherwise I would do nothing sexual. I would fake my way through the motions, respond to my Dom in the way he wanted and wait for something in me to stir. It never came.

Now, I didn’t start this post to outline my sexual past, though I feel some detail is needed to see where I’m coming from. I know it doesn’t sound simple to the sexual people of the world, but to me it is. I do not experience sexual attraction.

There are a lot of people like me, and just like any group there are some major and minor differences betwen us. There is a subgroup most of us line up in which distinguishes whether or not we seek out romantic relationships (not sexual, romantic). I am romantic, if anyone cares. There are some people though, who are perfectly happy without a mate. No it is not the single women like Sex and the City portray who have just given up on the dating scene, they just don’t care anything about pairing (or grouping as you will) up. Those of us who are romantic have the same romantic preferences as the sexuals of the world. Some of us like the same gender, some like the opposite, some don’t care either way. There are asexuals who are transgender, and others who feel they have no gender at all. We are just as diverse and chaotic as the rest of the world, we just don’t experience sexual attraction.

There are some of us who are grossed out by sex, others who find it a perfectly acceptable activity. There are some of us who are sexually assaulted because we don’t understand the sexual world, and there are those of us who fight against sexual abuse and stand up for our more naive counterparts, as well as the million of other sexual abuse sufferers. There are some of us who do not understand when someone remarks about a “hot” celebrity or stranger on the street, and others of us who have learned to navigate and communicate with the sexual world.

And while I don’t mean to draw a separate line, because there is so much about the sexual and asexual cultures that are the same, we are also very, very different. I find myself apart of another group which is the redheaded stepchild of the world. Some asexuals have experienced exclusion from sexuality support groups in their area, considering asexuality not a “real sexual orientation”. We do have an orientation even if it is disbelieved just yet.

So that is what asexuality is, and I hope that helps clarify things for people. I also suggest checking out the AVEN website for more information.

The Inner Fat Hater

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have an inner fat hater. This is not a voice which tells me how unacceptable I am, nor that I shouldn’t eat what I do. It is not a voice that tells me I’m ugly, or worthless, or shameful. No, it’s much worse than that. It’s a voice that tells me everything negative the world thinks about me. It reminds me, constantly, that while I may be okay with who I am and there are others who may be okay with it as well, most of the population still judges me based on my fat. As I’ve gotten more and more into the fat acceptance movement, I find myself trying to share the knowledge I’ve accumulated. I try to offer up the tidbits of science, research, theory, philosophy, etc., that I’ve picked up along the way. It isn’t much, but I offer it with whole heart. Yet I feel defeated before the words are even spoken, because no one is going to take a fat person seriously.

If I tell someone I don’t eat citrus fruit, because I hate the taste, my inner fat hater is quick to tell me that person is thinking “of course you hate fruit, you’re fat!”

If I tell a fellow classmate that there is no scientific data to support the fact that being fat is detrimental to one’s health, the inner fat hater smirks and reminds me my classmate isn’t listening because “of course a fat person would say that.”

When I stand up and try to speak out about fat discrimination, my inner fat hater tells me that no one cares because “fat people are just trying to justify their weak willpower and laziness.”

In my Women’s Studies class we talk about finding friends, partners, lovers, etc., which go against gender roles and the traditional ideals in order to break boundaries and make change. I want to tell everyone about my husband, and how I actively sought someone who did those things and who would accept me and want to make our lives ours without society’s standards dictating them. Yet I don’t, because my inner fat hater tells me “Yeah, but you’re fat” as though it discredits my being, and then adds any number of things such as “you would only be able to get married if you found someone who wasn’t a ‘real’ man” or “you’re lucky to even find a mate”.

Needless to say, I really hate this inner fat hater. I feel as though it takes self-sabotage to a whole other level. It is difficult to project confidence, whether real or pretend, when there is a voice whispering all the hateful things people say about fatties. It is hard to be full of conviction when speaking about facts concerning being fat and healthy when the inner fat hater’s voice is louder than one’s own. It is nearly impossible to make a believer our of others, when one cannot even convince the inner fat hater.

Do you have an inner fat hater? How do you quiet its voice?

A Look Into the Past (The Fat Kid)

Going through some of my childhood things, my grandmother ran across a school project I did in 1992. That would make me around nine years old. Some people may find things like this a treasure or comfort. It still breaks my heart to this very day. There are several things contained within this project, labeled “My Biography”, but I’ll stick with the ones that focus on body image and childhood neglect.

Within the first three pages of this project is a little questionnaire where we had to write about our favorite things and answer questions like “One of the best things about me” and “What is your favorite food”. The last question says “Twenty years from now I hope I” and I filled in “look like a model”. Another statement given was “If I could change one thing about myself, I would change” and I remarked with “my looks”. Another page poses the question “I wish my family would” and my nine-year-old response? Exercise more than we do. The next page reveals a cartoon person which, I assume, we kids were asked to fill in information about ourselves. Our likes, our looks, our goals, whatever came to mind. One of those things is “to lose weight” and another is “I act cool and dumb sometimes”, though the dumb sometimes it poorly erased.

It would seem with all I’ve learned concerning fat acceptance, and how the world feels they need to shame fat folks into being thin, and how everyone is filled with the notion that they should fit into some ideal beauty standard, seeing this type of thing in my past shouldn’t surprise me. Yet it does. I have cut out segments of my past, so the memories of these types of feelings aren’t vivid, but I can imagine. I picture my poor pudgy self feeling so isolated and alone, wishing only that someone would accept her, love her and find her beautiful. That poor little girl who tortures herself every time she eats, every time she meets someone new, every time she is called a name or messes up. A nine-year-old little girl with such low self-esteem and horrible body image that she is screaming out for someone to notice. No one did though. No one read this biography and told her she was beautiful, or smart, or wonderful. No one held her in their arms and promised everything would be okay.

This type of thing breaks my heart, and it angers me. I didn’t realize the “obesity plague” was so strong back then, though obviously it was, if not so well publicized. I can remember all my life my mother putting us all on one diet or another, discussing carb intake (I think she was ahead of time with that) and calories and how we should eat better. Of course, this was the same mother who taught me that “from scratch” meant from a box and fed me fast food at least four times a week. She always had a comment for fat people, and while never directly at me, it affected me. My father was much the same, while he didn’t worry about diets his constant objectification of a woman’s body (look at the tits on that one! I love a big ole butt! Your mother was built like a brick shithouse, that’s why I met her) told me loud and clear what I was worth.

Whenever some person or media outlet or doctor talks about shaming fat people into being thin, it makes me think back to this little girl. It makes me remember the deep sorrow and how those type of scars, while never seen, are even less likely to heal no matter how much time they’re given. I want to show the world this little girl, and every little girl like her, and ask them to sit down face-to-face with her and say they honestly believe that shame is needed. I want them to explain why she deserves to be mistreated, abused and beaten. I want to hear them justify the need to starve both her body and spirit. And then, then I want to puke in their mouths. I want to blacken their eyes and rip out their stone heart, in order to beat them over the head with it.

Yet I still can’t help but ask myself why. Why did these people not hear her shouts for help? Why did they not take notice of this girl, in her nine-year-old way, tell them she was miserable and hated herself. Why they didn’t read her essay about her family, specifically the way she described her mother (“She is 32 years old. She acts like she’s 50 years old. I told her that it’s not that bad.”), and think to themselves “My, there must be some problem here, perhaps we should extend a kind hand”. Of course, that would mean telling the fat, unruly kid that it’s not her fault she is the way she is. That would mean admitting to the fact that fat is not the worst thing in the world and she doesn’t have to completely change who she is to be someone worth something. That would mean telling a mother that starving their child one minute, and then letting them eat a super-sized Big Mac Meal and large Oreo Blizzard is probably not healthy for that child’s growth. That would mean accepting themselves for who they are, so that they could accept a nine-year-old child who reminds them of themselves.

I Want to Get Away

I just joined in the fat acceptance movement a couple of months ago. Well, I’m not sure I would officially declare my membership, since I’m still learning and do more reading then actual activist work, but I am definitely walking down that road. This means, however, that every day I have to wake up and prepare myself for a fight. Whether it’s battling against the self-hatred I’ve been conditioned with, the scorns of strangers I pass on the street, medical professionals if I am sick, or even family and friends who are “only trying to help and want me to be healthy and happy”.

Of course I’m no stranger to fighting the world. I faced years of abuse from my parents, I grew up in poverty, I have severe depression that keeps me from working, I deeply believe in freedom and adhere to the principle that people should mind their own fucking business when it comes to another’s life choices. I was brought up in a world that says everything about me is wrong. I do not fit in socially accepted gender roles, I do not want children, I wilt in a traditional education forum and the idea of being tied to a repetitive job every day kills my soul. These are the things I was told to expect out of life. This is where I come from. Mileage will vary for everyone, but I think there is a lot of common ground to create understanding. Knowing how different I was from what I was told life is makes me wonder how I ever managed to ascribe to the mentality that fat is wrong. That, essentially, one is better off being dead then being fat. Now that I am trying to be a part of the movement though, I wonder if it’s simply due to the fact that it was something I didn’t have to fight with everyone about.

If a doctor lectures me about my weight and health I can simply accept it and move on with what I’m doing. If my grandmother encourages me to have weight loss surgery, I can take to heart that she cares about me and file the comments away. I can handle my own self-hatred because it’s easy. It’s easier, to me, to just accept these stereotypes people have regarding my weight then to build another wall.

I really admire fat activists, hell, I admire any activist. They do things I could never imagine myself doing. They speak so poignantly and with such passion. It’s amazing and for a long time I thought that was the kind of person I would want to be. Always fighting for what’s right. Now I’m at a time in my life where I’m sick of fighting. I no longer want to build walls, or depend on the walls I already created, but instead want to focus on tearing them down. This feeling makes me feel like a traitor to the movement. Not only to other fatties or fat acceptance believers, but to women, folks who come from below the poverty line and those who suffer from mental illness. In actuality I feel like a traitor to everyone because I’m simply not strong enough to stand up and fight for those like me.

Despite my encouragement to friends and associates to be strong and love themselves and keep their chins up, when I lay in bed at night I still cry and pray to God to make me thin and beautiful. Sometimes when I’m home alone I look up WLS and see how much it would cost, how it will change my life. For many years I wouldn’t even consider WLS because of how barbaric it was. The diet one has to go on after the surgery is akin to an eating disorder, not to mention it’s another way doctors get to play God. Yet when I’m alone I daydream about having the surgery and being accepted again, knowing once I was thin I could walk out into the world and not have to constantly be on guard for malicious comments. Of course, in this perfect world I’ve created where I’m thin and beautiful, people don’t make mean comments. Thin women are never attacked or belittled or left feeling the world would be a better place if they dead. So you can see I’m completely rational during this time.

So I am a closeted self-hating fattie. I’m tired of fighting the world. I love the progress the fat acceptance movement is making, the fact there is actual research coming out that says fatties aren’t lazy, walking time bombs as a whole, but I’m not sure I am able to hang in there and be an FA soldier. Intellectually I know something is wrong with my thinking, as mentally beating one’s self up over the fact they aren’t disciplined enough to actually become anorexic is chalked with all sorts of warning bells, but that doesn’t change the fact every night I beg God to make me thin. It’s something I’ve done every night since I was 8 and my mother told me I couldn’t go to dance class anymore because the teacher thought I was too fat.

If I could just be thin it would be one less thing to worry about. It would be one less thing holding me back in life. If I could only be thin then I could let go of all the hurtful comments and the memories of being ostracized. If I could just be thin then people would no longer laugh in my face for being different and wanting to be successful in life, instead they would applaud my effort and give me a hand up. If only I could be thin…