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I identify as queer.
I am a cis woman who at one point, about a decade ago, came out as bisexual. That wasn’t a knee-jerk or snap judgment, it was the culmination of years of observations, realizations, and late-night conversations, primarily with myself but occasionally with a friend. I reexamined every part of my life until I couldn’t ignore the truth anymore--I wasn’t straight and I never had been.
But after all of that, after I thought I had everything figured out, I had more epiphanies come to smack me in the face.
For most of my life I didn’t know the world “asexual” existed. It was never a concept that anyone introduced to me as a child or a teenager. It was just assumed that every one was a sexual being, that sex was clearly natural and everyone clearly wanted to have it. I was taught as a teenager that lust was sinful, that sex was sinful, and that I should never, ever have it (until I got married, of course). And that was easy for me. Don’t have sex? Okay, no problem, not a big deal.
People talk about how hormonal teenagers are, how afflicted they are by the internal chemical drives that are pulling them in so many different, confusing directions. But that wasn’t my experience and, at the time, I didn’t even realize that my experience was an outlier. After all, they told me not to have sex, so I didn’t. I didn’t even date.
I’ve never dated. I’ve grown up, grown out of my teenage indoctrination, and I still don’t date. And as I started to really see the way people interact, the way people flirt and date, fall in love and get married, I started to wonder if I was broken. Because none of it made sense. It was like a language I didn’t understand and that no one was able to teach me. How do you look at a person and decide, right there, on the spot, that this is a person that you want to connect with? What is this spark that everyone talks about and how do you kindle it?
It’s a really lonely feeling to observe everything from the outside, like there’s a glass window in between you and everyone else, and there’s no way to break through it. You’ll always be outside, looking in.
While my understanding of myself was evolving, I was also learning more and more about asexuality. For all that we talk a lot of well-deserved shit about Tumblr and Tumblr discourse, it’s thanks to Tumblr that I learned that I wasn’t broken after all. People, at that time, were talking about asexuality, about their experience with it, about the ace spectrum and how and why they identified with it. I learned a lot.
At first I was in denial. I couldn’t be asexual, I’d had semi-sexy thoughts about this person or that person. I couldn’t be asexual because I’m a normal human who does normal human things, and isn’t sex one of those? Of course I’d want to have sex if the opportunity arose. I mean, it never had before, but of course I would, right?
The idea of sex, of having it, of wanting it, is such a central part of society’s messaging about what it means to be human, that recognizing it’s not something you actually really want is terrifying. We’re indoctrinated for our entire lives into this idea that sex, whether it’s beautiful or sinful, is a universal human drive. Some people even say that the desire to have sex is what makes us human.
Which is bullshit. Saying sex is what makes us human is like Plato saying that man is a hairless biped. Shitting is a more universal human behavior than sex is.
But finally, after a lot more researching and contemplating and realizing, I understood myself. I’m still bisexual, when I do feel any attraction it is to my own and other genders, but I’m also a gray-asexual demiromantic cis woman. Which is all a mouthful and hard for most people to understand, so queer is the way to go.
I’m at peace with myself. Finally. I know who I am. That doesn’t mean I’m not lonely, because I am. But I’m not broken, and I never have been. I’m a bi-asexual demiromantic cis woman.
I am queer.
I am a cis woman who at one point, about a decade ago, came out as bisexual. That wasn’t a knee-jerk or snap judgment, it was the culmination of years of observations, realizations, and late-night conversations, primarily with myself but occasionally with a friend. I reexamined every part of my life until I couldn’t ignore the truth anymore--I wasn’t straight and I never had been.
But after all of that, after I thought I had everything figured out, I had more epiphanies come to smack me in the face.
For most of my life I didn’t know the world “asexual” existed. It was never a concept that anyone introduced to me as a child or a teenager. It was just assumed that every one was a sexual being, that sex was clearly natural and everyone clearly wanted to have it. I was taught as a teenager that lust was sinful, that sex was sinful, and that I should never, ever have it (until I got married, of course). And that was easy for me. Don’t have sex? Okay, no problem, not a big deal.
People talk about how hormonal teenagers are, how afflicted they are by the internal chemical drives that are pulling them in so many different, confusing directions. But that wasn’t my experience and, at the time, I didn’t even realize that my experience was an outlier. After all, they told me not to have sex, so I didn’t. I didn’t even date.
I’ve never dated. I’ve grown up, grown out of my teenage indoctrination, and I still don’t date. And as I started to really see the way people interact, the way people flirt and date, fall in love and get married, I started to wonder if I was broken. Because none of it made sense. It was like a language I didn’t understand and that no one was able to teach me. How do you look at a person and decide, right there, on the spot, that this is a person that you want to connect with? What is this spark that everyone talks about and how do you kindle it?
It’s a really lonely feeling to observe everything from the outside, like there’s a glass window in between you and everyone else, and there’s no way to break through it. You’ll always be outside, looking in.
While my understanding of myself was evolving, I was also learning more and more about asexuality. For all that we talk a lot of well-deserved shit about Tumblr and Tumblr discourse, it’s thanks to Tumblr that I learned that I wasn’t broken after all. People, at that time, were talking about asexuality, about their experience with it, about the ace spectrum and how and why they identified with it. I learned a lot.
At first I was in denial. I couldn’t be asexual, I’d had semi-sexy thoughts about this person or that person. I couldn’t be asexual because I’m a normal human who does normal human things, and isn’t sex one of those? Of course I’d want to have sex if the opportunity arose. I mean, it never had before, but of course I would, right?
The idea of sex, of having it, of wanting it, is such a central part of society’s messaging about what it means to be human, that recognizing it’s not something you actually really want is terrifying. We’re indoctrinated for our entire lives into this idea that sex, whether it’s beautiful or sinful, is a universal human drive. Some people even say that the desire to have sex is what makes us human.
Which is bullshit. Saying sex is what makes us human is like Plato saying that man is a hairless biped. Shitting is a more universal human behavior than sex is.
But finally, after a lot more researching and contemplating and realizing, I understood myself. I’m still bisexual, when I do feel any attraction it is to my own and other genders, but I’m also a gray-asexual demiromantic cis woman. Which is all a mouthful and hard for most people to understand, so queer is the way to go.
I’m at peace with myself. Finally. I know who I am. That doesn’t mean I’m not lonely, because I am. But I’m not broken, and I never have been. I’m a bi-asexual demiromantic cis woman.
I am queer.
no subject
I hear you on the long, multistage journey of self-discovery (and the puritanical upbringing). I’m glad you’ve arrived somewhere that feels right to you.