The Invisible Orientation
8/10/14 20:46![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darkemeraldsI've just finished listening to the audiobook version of Julie Sondra Decker's The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality (narrated by Reay Kaplan).
I book-reviewed it on Audible, but I wanted to make a few notes about my more personal reaction to it.
When I first encountered the idea of asexuality, I thought, "That could be me, but I'm not sure it fits," and I spent some time on AVEN forums, trying to figure out if I "qualified" to claim the label. I didn't feel especially at home in those forums, being about three times the age of the average user and having very little in common with most of them. I had some serious problems trying to fit my sexual history into a model that is still being defined and that didn't exist until I was already 50 years old.
So I wandered off, and have intermittently (and in safe spaces) identified as "ace" or "on the spectrum" without being out about it. Out-ness feels either unimportant or dangerous to me for various reasons having to do with my age and my family. In the meantime, I explored a lot of my other atypicalities: lefthandedness, attachment "disorder", introversion (atypical mostly only by American standards), permanent singlehood, an attention deficit; some of which feel akin to my asexuality for reasons I can't quite articulate.
Then, the other evening, I stumbled on a documentary called (A)Sexual on Netflix, and that led me to Julie Decker's new book, where, at last, I found specific acknowledgment that people my age, without a term or concept to describe themselves, might have a sexual history very much like mine and might feel just as I feel about it, and yes, do therefore claim the asexual descriptor.
For instance, I've been in sexual relationships. Sex was not horrible: I enjoyed some of it. I find some people aesthetically attractive, but I never had a way to understand the difference between that and sexual attraction. For most of my adult life, I thought they were synonymous, and I've found plenty of men visually pleasing. I have a libido--admittedly, not a huge one--and OMG I've written sexually explicit stories! That disqualifies me, right?
And then there's the fact that I have had some kind-of traumatic experiences around men and sex, and I've been diagnosed and treated for depression, AND I'm getting pretty old--so maybe "that's all it is": just PTSD, just mental illness, just age. Does all this mean I can't really claim the asexual label? The Invisible Orientation cleared that up: many asexual people have the same experiences. Asexuality is a description for people who aren't sexually attracted to others. It's mine to use if I want to.
I've come away from the book feeling much more sure (and positive) about calling myself asexual: somewhere in the nuanced and complex set of terms for self-concepts outside the "allosexual" (that is, non-asexual) range is one that fits me. Did it fit me every single day of my life? No. It's not a perfect match for my whole history. But I'm now willing to consider that the preponderance of evidence supports my decision to identity as ace.
It's pretty liberating.
I book-reviewed it on Audible, but I wanted to make a few notes about my more personal reaction to it.
When I first encountered the idea of asexuality, I thought, "That could be me, but I'm not sure it fits," and I spent some time on AVEN forums, trying to figure out if I "qualified" to claim the label. I didn't feel especially at home in those forums, being about three times the age of the average user and having very little in common with most of them. I had some serious problems trying to fit my sexual history into a model that is still being defined and that didn't exist until I was already 50 years old.
So I wandered off, and have intermittently (and in safe spaces) identified as "ace" or "on the spectrum" without being out about it. Out-ness feels either unimportant or dangerous to me for various reasons having to do with my age and my family. In the meantime, I explored a lot of my other atypicalities: lefthandedness, attachment "disorder", introversion (atypical mostly only by American standards), permanent singlehood, an attention deficit; some of which feel akin to my asexuality for reasons I can't quite articulate.
Then, the other evening, I stumbled on a documentary called (A)Sexual on Netflix, and that led me to Julie Decker's new book, where, at last, I found specific acknowledgment that people my age, without a term or concept to describe themselves, might have a sexual history very much like mine and might feel just as I feel about it, and yes, do therefore claim the asexual descriptor.
For instance, I've been in sexual relationships. Sex was not horrible: I enjoyed some of it. I find some people aesthetically attractive, but I never had a way to understand the difference between that and sexual attraction. For most of my adult life, I thought they were synonymous, and I've found plenty of men visually pleasing. I have a libido--admittedly, not a huge one--and OMG I've written sexually explicit stories! That disqualifies me, right?
And then there's the fact that I have had some kind-of traumatic experiences around men and sex, and I've been diagnosed and treated for depression, AND I'm getting pretty old--so maybe "that's all it is": just PTSD, just mental illness, just age. Does all this mean I can't really claim the asexual label? The Invisible Orientation cleared that up: many asexual people have the same experiences. Asexuality is a description for people who aren't sexually attracted to others. It's mine to use if I want to.
I've come away from the book feeling much more sure (and positive) about calling myself asexual: somewhere in the nuanced and complex set of terms for self-concepts outside the "allosexual" (that is, non-asexual) range is one that fits me. Did it fit me every single day of my life? No. It's not a perfect match for my whole history. But I'm now willing to consider that the preponderance of evidence supports my decision to identity as ace.
It's pretty liberating.
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