Month: March 2013

Being Vulnerable

Inspired by Lissa Rankin’s amazing post on the topic of vulnerability vs. neediness, I wanted to reflect on the issue of being vulnerable in relationships because it’s one of those areas where I know I really need practice. It’s such an important skill to have in intimate relationships; if we can’t be vulnerable enough to express our needs and desires, we have little chance of experiencing satisfaction or feeling truly loved and cared about. However, being vulnerable to anyone is also hard as fuck for the very reasons Rankin outlined: there’s always that chance the other person will choose not to meet your need, which will hurt and may even embarrass you. That choice can erode trust in the relationship, breed resentment, etc.

I realize, at this very early stage in my life, that as a child and teen and more recently as a young adult, I almost never deliberately chose to make myself vulnerable in the context of straightforwardly asking the people I loved for what I really needed and wanted. I don’t have a lot of practice with this. No one taught me how to do it, and as someone who’s always been highly perceptive, I also figured out early on that most of my deepest needs and desires in my nonsexual, nonromantic relationships with friends and/or family members would be considered misplaced in such relationships by romantic-sexual people.

Basically, I didn’t ask for what I wanted and needed because I knew I’d get rejected. Not to mention judged. Maybe that makes me a coward, maybe that makes me someone with common sense. Either way, the result was the same: I grew up with an empty love tank. I grew up with an intense yearning for some special relationship I didn’t have–for a while, I assumed it had to be a traditional romantic relationship–and never found it. I grew up loving various friends and family members with unbearable passion and intensity and suffering tremendously for it because I wasn’t getting even a quarter of my major needs met by any of those people and couldn’t even effectively communicate, whether to them or others, what I wanted and how I wanted it and what it meant. When I was 12 or 14 or 16 or even 18, I didn’t have the sophistication–or the courage–to attempt telling an allosexual friend with absolutely no knowledge of asexuality, passionate friendship, alternative nonsexual love, etc what I wanted from them and what it meant (i.e. I want this level of intimacy and this level of touching and this level of involvement but I don’t want to fuck you or conventionally date you). Maybe that was a blessing because I don’t think I could’ve coped with constant rejection.

I can so relate to the fine line separating vulnerability from neediness. I was a very needy kid, and no wonder: I never had any of my needs met. I’ve since grown up and grown out of that, due to simple choice and developing self-love and self-esteem. I was always unusually independent in the first place, and that independence and self-reliance has only ballooned as a result of my self-love and self-esteem. What I’ve discovered, though, is that all my core needs are the same as they always were. The only difference is I no longer feel desperate for someone else to fill them. I have to admit that I sort of don’t know if that lack of desperation is solely because self-love has taken away the desperation or also because I’ve spent so much time without these needs met by anyone outside of myself, that I’ve become anesthetized to the actual feeling of wanting or needing certain attention. Intellectually, I know what I want and need. Emotionally, I spend most of my time not really tapped into those wants and needs, which is primarily a positive thing because it means I don’t walk around in painful hunger.

I take pride in my level of independence and self-reliance. I take pride in NOT being needy. I take pride in my comfort with solitude and emotional detachment from others, in my ability to spend so much damn time by myself and never really get bored or lonely, let alone sad about it. I take pride in my self-love and my ability to take care of myself so well. Rankin’s right: our culture praises and encourages independence, self-sufficiency, strength and discourages neediness, weakness, vulnerability, etc. I love how independent and strong and self-reliant I am. I love how much of a loner I am, by nature. I wouldn’t trade these qualities for anything. I would never choose to be needier.

But at the same time, I have no choice but to acknowledge that no matter how much I love myself, how independent I am, how cool I am with flying solo, how good I am at entertaining myself, how strong I am emotionally….. I want to be loved by other people. I want those people to take care of me. I want those people to touch me the way I want to be touched. I want those people to support me emotionally and physically when I need it. I want someone to be waiting in the wings in case I need them for some reason, even though I don’t actually want to need them to step in. My whole life, I’ve been totally fixated on love and passionate friendship. It’s one of two major interests I have, the other being creative writing. I study love, I write about love, I think about love all the time. My desire to love and be loved is colossal. It’s been building and building all these years. It’s now an impressively specific and detailed desire: I know what I want, how I want it, and why I want it. I know what’s important to me in relationships, and I’m no longer willing to settle for ones that fall short.

If I could go back in time and do my childhood friendships and family relationships differently, I don’t think I would’ve been any more vulnerable or made my needs and desires known, even with the adequate vocab and clear conceptualization of passionate friendship. I think my reading of allosexuals was accurate all along and still is: I think ten times out of ten, had I been courageous enough to ask a friend or family member for what I really wanted and needed, they would’ve shot me down without hesitation because they have no capacity to understand what I mean or even who I am. Passionate friendship is alien to contemporary allosexuals. Intense, passionate, nonsexual love, especially of a nonromantic nature, is beyond them. Furthermore, I can’t express my needs and desires to allosexuals without first giving a lecture on what asexuality is, what my asexuality is, what passionate friendship is, the fact that not all touching/intimacy/emotional passion means sex (and romance), etc. (And then, after explaining all of that, they’d have to actually believe me!) I feel confident now about my ability to eloquently express myself and my needs and desires, but my total lack of faith and trust in allosexuals to come through for me hasn’t changed at all. In fact, it’s worse today than it was several years ago: as a kid, some small part of me must’ve hoped some allosexual somewhere could be the kind of friend I needed, but now, I would sooner believe in unicorns ice skating on the ponds of Hell.

For me, vulnerability in relationships highlights the visceral difference between interacting with other asexuals vs. interacting with allosexuals. My fellow asexuals, I trust. I know they can be trusted. I know they can relate to me the way I want and need. I know they are all capable of passionate friendship, of the kind of nonsexual and/or nonromantic love and connection I desire, even if some of them never actually get into passionate friendships because they elect to have traditional romantic-sexual relationships and common friendships instead. I know I can talk to an asexual about passionate friendship and my own personal needs and desires in relationships, and the odds are good that they’ll understand where I’m coming from easily, whether they share my desires or not.

I can be vulnerable with other asexuals (and aromantics who are on the same page as me, relationship-wise). I can dare to be vulnerable with them because I feel safe with them by default. I know I can talk openly and honestly about my ideal of passionate friendship, and whether they want exactly the same thing or not, they’ll get it. They’ll be supportive and accepting and maybe even excited by what I describe. So many of them will respond by saying, “I want that too!”

What I want, what I need, is an asexual community in my physical life. I need asexual friends, I need asexual partners, I need the people in my relationship anarchist family to be asexual (or aromantics who reject traditional couplehood and prize nonsexual/nonromantic love). I only want to form close relationships with other celibate aces and aros for this precise and significant reason: they’re the only ones I can be safely vulnerable with. They’re the only ones I can trust. They’re the only ones who can love me the way I want and need to be loved.

I want to be vulnerable with people. I do. I want to be someone who’s brave enough to have those moments of putting my needs and desires out there on a regular basis. But they have to be people I can trust. They have to be other asexuals.

Carnival of Aces March 2013: Asexuality and Kink

Are you interested in such?

I’m interested in only a few different things that could be classified as kink, although whether there are other people out there who share these kinks or think of these activities as kinks, I have no idea. I want to explore the following kinks in my life partnership with a male asexual. (I’m unsure whether I want to explore them in my life partnership with a female asexual or not.)

  • Fist fighting/sparring, followed by physically caring for each other and cuddling

What I have in mind here is pretty much what it sounds like. Consensual fist fighting or bare knuckle boxing, with an allowance for minor pain/injury (nothing more serious than bruises). I imagine my partner and I doing this at home, just the two of us. We would, of course, have to clearly set boundaries beforehand as to how we’re allowed to fight, establish a safe word to stop the fight, etc.

Following a fight, I want us to clean each other up if necessary: icing each other’s bruises, cleaning each other’s cuts, etc.

Top it all off with some tender, restful cuddling.

  • Pretending to be male in private/covertly

What I mean by this is, I want to roleplay as a man in the privacy of our home or go out into public with my partner under the agreement that I’m roleplaying a man to him. It would be just between us. I would have a male name that my partner calls me by, dress in masculine clothing (which I tend to do already anyway), etc.

Why?

I have a general fascination with violence, including physical fights. I’m going to start training as a boxer and plan on keeping that up for the rest of my life. (I’d be totally enthusiastic about my male partner boxing too). I don’t know why I’m attracted to this idea of consensual fights between my male partner and I. I may try it out and discover I don’t like it after all; I may try it out and get hooked. Only time will tell.

It may have something to do with the deep trust and respect necessary between my partner and I, for us to engage in such a kink with each other. I could truly hurt him, he could truly hurt me, and we have to trust each other NOT to do that, even in the heat of a fight that we could both get super into. Fighting consensually like this is a form of trusting each other with our bodies, which isn’t really any different than trusting a partner with your body during sex or in my case, during deliberately nonsexual cuddling and sensual encounters.

Cleaning each other up after a fight is also an expression of that body-trust. It’s a nice contrast of caring and kindness, in juxtaposition to the fight. I really like the idea of physically caring for each other in general because I find it to be a very loving expression.

Cuddling to finish out the session is because I adore cuddling no matter what the context and because it’s another way to follow up the physical fight with tenderness and caring.

I think fighting would be fun. I think it would be great practice for me as a boxer and/or for him. I think it would build up trust between us and physical easiness/comfort in our relationship. I think consensual, non-hostile fighting is actually a very potentially intimate activity for two people. It’s a way of making yourself physically vulnerable to someone else, a way of learning about how they move and how they think, etc.

As for pretending to be male….. When I imagine sharing that with my male partner and/or female partner, it feels thrilling to me. I identify as an androgynous boi, I strongly prefer masculine dress and behavior to feminine, and I’m sure that why I’m interested in playing a man with my partner(s) sometimes. I think it would bring us closer, because it’d be something I only do with him and/or her and something we keep private. In a way, it would contribute to the space of our relationship providing me with the most freedom to be myself and just follow my natural impulses and interests. This play, like the fist fights, require complete trust and respect between my partner and I. This isn’t an identity thing for me, I’m not trans, I don’t need the world to see me as male because I don’t identify as male. I guess you could say I’m an autoandrophiliac, except I don’t get sexually aroused by my fantasies of having a male body or wish to sexualize that fantasy.

Do you think that being asexual makes it harder to express or fulfill such desires or not?

I think the only reason why being asexual would make kink-exploration/expression more difficult is because most kink is totally submerged in sex. A lot of different kinks CAN be acted out without sexual activity, but it’s usually not, if it’s happening in a personal/intimate relationship—for the simple fact that most people are allosexual, so most people doing kink are allosexual and doing it within their sexual relationships. If you’re a celibate asexual, like me, looking to get into kink with someone, it can be tough to find somebody who will never expect sex to come into it, unless you’re paying somebody. Then again, it’s already hard to find allosexuals who will have an intimate, loving relationship sans sex whether you’re into kink or not.

It’s probably also difficult, depending on what your kinks are, to be a celibate ace or just an out asexual and approach allosexuals for kink play when most allosexuals don’t understand asexuality and therefore might go, “How can you be interested in kink if you’re an asexual?” or “How can you be interested in kink if you don’t want to have sex?” In that situation, before the asexual can even get into the kink negotiations, they have to explain asexuality and their own asexuality, which can be daunting as hell for any asexual.

Do you think that such things are oversexualised or that there should be a wider acceptance of nonsexual kink or does that not trouble you? Relatedly, do you think there’s a lack of resources for asexuals interested in such or not?

I think nonsexual kinks become more acceptable or doable, that more people should learn just because kink is usually associated with sex and can be sexual, doesn’t mean it has to be sexual.

There’s a lack of resources for kinky asexuals because there’s a lack of resources for asexuals, period. Our community needs more resources in general.

Do you think that an asexual experience of kink is fundamentally different from a sexual one, or not?

Well, sure, it’s fundamentally different. If you’re a kinky asexual, sex doesn’t enter into the enjoyment or motivation of your kinks or even the formation of relationships in which your kinks happen. If you’re a kinky allosexual, even kink play that happens without genital stimulation almost always carries sexual overtones to it and results in erotic fulfillment that must have a distinctly sexual tone to it.

There are kinky asexuals who do consent to sex involving their kinks, but in my experience, those asexuals have no interest in sex apart from their kinks, their pleasure is centered on the kink play and not the genital stimulation, and they obviously don’t desire their kink partners sexually, during the kink play or otherwise.

So basically, the difference between asexuals and allosexuals outside of kink still apply to kink.

Personal Addition:

I’m really interested in kink play between asexuals. I think it would be fascinating to talk to ace/ace partners who include kink in their relationship and find out how that dynamic feels to both of them, in the absence of sexual attraction/desire/energy. I wonder if kinky asexuals would feel more comfortable talking about and participating in kink with other asexuals vs. allosexuals, especially if those kinky aces are sex-repulsed/averse.

Spiritual Nonsexual Love

Since I was a teen, maybe even earlier than that, my idea of the perfect love always contained some element of the spiritual. It took me a while to begin exploring that in a conscious way, and I’m still nowhere near at a conclusion because I’m young and inexperienced with intimate nonsexual love and passionate friendship. For the most part, I’m in the theory stage; I’ve done a bunch of thinking and a bit of research–not that there’s a whole lot of material out there. (So far, only one book has anything to offer on the subject of spiritual experience through nonsexual love: Stuart Sovatsky’s Eros, Consciousness, and Kundalini. I cherish it as a resource and an eye-opener.) I’ve tried to imagine what a spiritual encounter with a loving partner would feel like, but it’s almost impossible to describe because it’s just….. pure feeling.

The older I get, the more clear my desire becomes for this spirituality through love. I believe that nonsexual love specifically can be a vehicle through which spiritual transcendence and soul to soul connection can occur between two people, if they go after that transcendence and connection. Sovatsky and the two women in “We Have Bliss,” an essay from Boston Marriages: Romantic but Asexual Relationships Among Contemporary Lesbians, both essentially describe the transmutation of erotic energy during a nonsexual, sensual encounter between loved ones that results in this spiritual bliss. Both Sovatsky and the women in the essay talk about this transmutation of erotic energy in people who are allosexual and who have to deliberately choose not to act on any sexual desire or arousal that may occur in these sensual, intimate interactions, and I’m sure for many, if not all, asexuals the experience would be different because even those of us with a libido don’t manifest erotic energy as sexual desire for others.

I actually don’t know how much erotic energy an asexual possesses, although I do believe it’s entirely possible for an asexual–even a sex-repulsed/averse asexual–to have some. I personally define “erotic” as having the potential for sexuality, rather than as synonym for “sexual.” Erotic energy, to me, isn’t sexual energy but creative energy and the energy of desire. Sex is just one form of desire, one form of creation, albeit the most primal and innate type in 99% of the human population. Eroticism doesn’t have to lead to sex, although it usually does. I actually find it exciting and awesome that I get to explore eroticism that DOESN’T end in sex, ever, because I have no interest in sex with other people. I’m excited that I get to provide these explorations of nonsexual eroticism to my fellow asexual partners, too.

I’m sure some asexuals, particularly those who are nonlibidoist, would say they have no erotic energy, and that’s fine. Meanwhile, plenty of allosexuals probably think, “How can you have any erotic energy or inclinations if you’re asexual?” Luckily, I can use myself as an example: I’m a celibate asexual with a libido, I have very strong erotic energy that shows itself most obviously when I dance (though I’m sure once I have loving relationships with other celibate aces, that eroticism will come out even more in our sensual interactions), I’m profoundly sensual and tactile at heart. I know I’m capable of orgasm, I’ve been having orgasms fairly regularly for a decade, but I have no interest in sexualizing the sensual intimacy I share with my passionate friends and partners. I want to use all of that free-floating erotic energy–when we’re cuddling, caressing, kissing each other’s bodies, breathing together, listening to each other’s heartbeat, etc–to experience something different: spiritual intimacy and bliss to the highest possible degree, a feeling of love that raises us out of our bodies into our greater consciousness.  A genital orgasm is nothing in comparison.

Being a celibate asexual means I don’t desire someone else’s body for sex, I don’t desire an orgasm given by another person, but I do desire. I even desire the bodies of the people I love, but that desire doesn’t pose sex as the object or the end. I desire intimacy, I desire love, I desire touch. I desire unity with my partners mentally, emotionally, and spiritually–even physically, as much as any two people can unite their bodies without connecting their genitals. I also want to be desired. I think that’s a sentiment rarely discussed in the asexual community so far, but it’s time we get around to it because it’s important.  What does it feel like to be a celibate asexual desired by another celibate asexual? What does it feel like to be a celibate asexual desiring another? What is desire for someone’s body like when it’s devoid of sexuality? I’m also interested in figuring out how nonsexual desire, of a particularly intimate/sensual nature, can be spiritual or how it can bring us closer to spirit, God, the divine, whatever you want to call it.

Americans have really latched onto “tantric sex” in the last couple decades, and as usual, they totally bypassed the point of authentic tantra and made it all about sex. Tantric sex isn’t about sex. Tantra isn’t about sex. It’s about that spiritual transcendence, about becoming one with God, about using the body and sexuality as a doorway to something greater. Tantric sex performed successfully doesn’t just give you a genital orgasm, may not give you one of those at all–but it does produce an orgasm of the soul. Alternatively, you could call it a “full body orgasm,” but that term still probably leaves most people thinking of the tingly pleasure in their genitals they have during ordinary sex. Tantric interaction between lovers is about spiritual sensation. It’s about consciousness.

I have the same thing is mind for my nonsexual sensuality with partners, as Sovatsky so wonderfully describes in his book. I want to experience that bliss, that profound intimacy of souls. What I’ve always wanted in my ideal love is spiritual intimacy, spiritual touch. If there were some way to have a disembodied experience where I am pure soul touching and touched by my loved one’s pure soul, that would be the ultimate for me. I don’t know how close I can get to that in this life, but I’m damn interested in exploring.

To have that kind of experience with fellow celibate asexuals….. to give each other an out-of-body pleasure, to be connected in the core of our beings, to feel love as a visceral sensation in every part of our bodies and with our souls too…. there will never be words to describe how incredible and transforming that would be for me and my partners. That’s the love I want. I want to give it and receive it. I want to experience God through the nonsexual love I share with other celibate aces, through the ultimate passionate friendships. I want that love to be a pathway to my spiritual evolution and my partners’. I want intense nonsexual passion. Passion that permeates us body, mind, heart, and soul without genital involvement. I want the kind of experiences that I can use to create a philosophy, a theory, a discourse of celibate asexual desire and celibate asexual passion, celibate asexual sensuality and intimacy.

I have an opportunity–just because I was born an asexual who wants to be celibate forever–to find out what the real potential for intimacy is in nonsexual love, in nonsexual sensuality. I have the opportunity to explore the spiritual substance of nonsexual, sensual love. I’m so thankful. I’m thankful just to have these ideas, the awareness of these possibilities.

I hope I get the chance to actually explore all of this in intimate, loving relationships with the right celibate asexuals for me. If and when I do, I’ll be sure to write about it.

Some Thoughts on Family

I’ve been spending more time lately thinking about my ideal family, and I’d like to put out some of my thoughts on “family” in general.

As far as I’m concerned, “family” is based not on biology but on love. Most people define their families by who they’re biologically related to, regardless of the quality of relationship they have with those relatives and regardless of how those bio relationships compare to non-bio relationships in their lives. I completely understand and, to a degree, support the natural inclination to bond and seek love from people in our gene pool, but I want to get away from the very limited view of “family” defined by biological relation (and the correlated notion that you owe loyalty or attention or consideration to someone based solely on their biological relatedness to you, no matter what the emotional connection is like). If you have a strong, emotional, loving bond with someone you’re biologically related to, that is beautiful, and you are blessed. But I’d like to suggest that you aren’t family with that person because you’re related; you’re family because you love each other. And you don’t love each other because you’re related but because of who you are as people and the real connection you’ve built with each other, no different than connections you build with people outside your gene pool. Biological relatedness may be the reason you pursue a connection with someone, but the connection itself isn’t dependent on shared DNA.

It’s been frequently discussed in the childfree community that mainstream society’s use of the word “family” to describe a group of people that include children had by a romantic-sexual couple is highly problematic, unfair, etc. Basically, if you and your partner have kids, you’re a “family” but if you don’t have kids, you’re just a couple. When the average person says, “I want a family” or “I have a family,” what they’re really talking about is offspring. Because we don’t consider a unit of connected people a “family” unless they have children, childfree couples don’t get the same amount of respect and consideration as couples with children, whether it’s from friends or relatives or employers, etc. This is bullshit. Children do not define family any more than marriage. I myself obviously am someone’s child, I have a sibling, we grew up in a household with both parents, but I wouldn’t call this unit a “family.” Certainly not now. We’re biologically related, there are individual relationships between pairs of us, but we are not a “family”—a cohesive group of people who love each other.

I’m a childfree relationship anarchist. I’m also a celibate asexual. I want a family. Not just a partner or partners but a family. And I have a very specific idea about that family looks like and what the individual relationships making up the family look like. My family won’t look anything like the ordinary nuclear family based on a romantic-sexual relationship. My family is a group of people who love each other nonsexually and/or nonromantically, who are not legally bound in any way, who most likely aren’t going to have children but if anyone in the family does, those children will belong to a tribe rather than a couple or even a single parent. My family, despite the nonsexual nature of the relationships, is uniquely loving and emotionally intimate and sensually intimate and caring and interdependent.

I can imagine that plenty of romantic-sexual people with totally conventional ideas about relationships, love, etc. would dismiss these relationships or this group of people as “just a bunch of good friends,” but while I do see these relationships as passionate friendships—as opposed to common friendships—I’m not talking about this group of people as “just” my good friends, some of whom I live with. I’m talking about FAMILY. I’m talking about a cohesive, supportive, nurturing, committed, stable, loving group of relationships where the interdependency encompasses living together, financially supporting each other when necessary, caring for each other’s health (physical/mental), being there for each other during major life events, etc. A family that does all the stuff people assume families do for each other (even if many nuclear/traditional families don’t do all of those things or do them poorly). I’m talking about a group of relationships that are exponentially more serious and involved than any common friendship between adults is. I’m talking about a group of relationships that are exponentially more LOVING than every single traditional, biological family unit I have ever personally encountered in my life. These people who I will love and be loved by in all the ways that are important to me are more my family than any biological relative who doesn’t actively love me could be.

In my book, family is based on love, and love is more than just a word you throw around because it sounds nice or because you’re observing social obligation. Love is true, deep caring. Love is intimate and emotional and lasting. Love is tender and warm and supportive. Love is something you do, every single day.

“Families” have taken on countless structures throughout human history. To assume that the contemporary Western idea of a nuclear family based on a heterosexual marriage that produces children is the One, True Family Unit—exclusively validated by nature—is to be utterly out of touch with history and to live under needless limitations that cut you off from a potential wealth of love. If the kind of family you want to pursue is based on a monogamous romantic-sexual relationship and includes children, if that’s truly what you want in your heart of hearts and nothing else would make you happier, then go for it. But if there’s even a chance that you might want a different kind of family….. explore the idea. Don’t be afraid to want something different, to try doing something different.