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gryphonseggThis is a difficult post for me to write because it digs up a lot of old pain. Let me start by saying that this all got started by yet another round of asexual vs. anti-asexual shenanigans at Feministe (yes, I know, my fault for looking!).
Really, my internet trainwreck syndrome is not a good thing. Anyway, about 90% of online asexual subculture is like nails on a chalkboard to me, from the serious issues like how cis men are numerically a minority of the community and yet the people who are supposed to be the public faces of asexuality are ALL cis men to the admittedly petty things like the eye-rolling tweeness of the jargon. [Note to friends: If you EVER catch me describing myself or anyone else as "ace" or "grace" or referring to you or another friend as my "zucchini," please douse me with cold water immediately.] But the other 10% contains some decent points. And at least 30% of my problem is that when online asexual activists aren't offensively trivializing harm done to heterosexual women and to bi/pan/homosexual people by heteropatriarchal values by insisting that those people have "sexual privilege" over asexual people, or making up increasingly fine-grained suborientations within asexuality and calling lesbians "acephobic" for asking if we really need a label like "biromantic bicurious polyamorous gray-asexual," they're bending over backward to gain "allies" by minimizing and trivializing the problems that asexual people actually face in real life, agreeing with the people they were calling "acephobic" a minute ago that asexual people never get bullied in high school or hated by fundies for being asexual.
That last bit there is what I need to talk about right now: No, not the getting bullied in high school part (I've already talked about that before, and it'll probably come up again later). I mean the part about getting hated and told you're going to hell by fundies because you're not living up to the "plan for your life," which necessarily involves heterosexual marriage and sex. A lot of people mistakenly believe that all Christian Fundamentalists and other varieties of fundamentalists and social conservatives are just fine with people who never have sex with anyone ever. I can understand why it would be an easy mistake to make. After all, a lot of the support for socially reactionary policies in the US right now is coming from the Roman Catholic Church, which is just fine with asexuality and actively encourages some people to take vows of lifelong chastity. And some of the conservative Protestant denominations are (at least officially) okay with people abstaining from sex permanently. But not all of them are. The Quiverfull movement is probably the most extreme example of this. For another example, I was raised in an evangelical Protestant subculture that was-- and still is-- in the process of becoming increasingly sexist during my lifetime. It used to be okay to be a spinster, an old maid, a permanent virgin-- unfortunate, but not a sin or a mark of inner twistedness. Not so much anymore.
As I was coming into my teenage years, a highly gendered theology was becoming more and more popular. This theology is based on the idea that gender hierarchy-- men lead, women submit-- is an important part of creation itself, and anyone rejects dominant male/submissive female marriage is defying God and perverting creation. This includes people in same sex partnerships, but it also includes anyone who doesn't want a sexual partner at all and heterosexual couples that don't follow the dominant male/submissive female script (and some of you would probably find your eyes popping out if you read a list of the many, many ways a woman can pervert creation by being insufficiently submissive). Obviously, this puts any young, impressionable person who might be asexual in a bad headspace, but there are extra layers of sinfulness, perversion, and evil for those who have the misfortune to be assigned female. Girls who refuse to seek a husband early in life aren't merely being sinful and perverted and ruining society, but also ruining their own lives. Women are supposed to be designed to follow, to yield, to submit, never to lead or to make decisions; therefore, women are supposed to NEED a husband just to get by, both because they/we are desperately emotionally needy and long to serve, submit to, and center our entire existence around a man and because they/we are incapable of thinking logically, being intelligent or wise, making good decisions, sticking to our principles in the face of pressure, persevering through difficulties, solving problems, recognizing when we're being abused or lied to, or otherwise functioning like adults. And any woman who doesn't want to have an intellectually and spiritually stunting relationship in which a man prevents her from ever developing her potential and doesn't also enjoy being sexually dominated by that man is considered an evil, depraved, hell-bound sinner.
Obviously, I have done all that I could to get out and leave all that behind. It still hurts to this day, which is why it took me a long, long time to compose this post. My mother was angry about the situation years ago, but it doesn't seem to have wrecked her mentally like it wrecked me, probably because she was already an adult by the time the rightward slide started. Or maybe she's just a much tougher person than I am. I am notorious for being an oversensitive crybaby, after all. I don't talk about it with her anymore because it makes her feel bad to hear how deeply wounded I still am by those experiences. So, yeah. Not all asexual teenagers are told they are going to hell for being asexual. But I was.
Really, my internet trainwreck syndrome is not a good thing. Anyway, about 90% of online asexual subculture is like nails on a chalkboard to me, from the serious issues like how cis men are numerically a minority of the community and yet the people who are supposed to be the public faces of asexuality are ALL cis men to the admittedly petty things like the eye-rolling tweeness of the jargon. [Note to friends: If you EVER catch me describing myself or anyone else as "ace" or "grace" or referring to you or another friend as my "zucchini," please douse me with cold water immediately.] But the other 10% contains some decent points. And at least 30% of my problem is that when online asexual activists aren't offensively trivializing harm done to heterosexual women and to bi/pan/homosexual people by heteropatriarchal values by insisting that those people have "sexual privilege" over asexual people, or making up increasingly fine-grained suborientations within asexuality and calling lesbians "acephobic" for asking if we really need a label like "biromantic bicurious polyamorous gray-asexual," they're bending over backward to gain "allies" by minimizing and trivializing the problems that asexual people actually face in real life, agreeing with the people they were calling "acephobic" a minute ago that asexual people never get bullied in high school or hated by fundies for being asexual.
That last bit there is what I need to talk about right now: No, not the getting bullied in high school part (I've already talked about that before, and it'll probably come up again later). I mean the part about getting hated and told you're going to hell by fundies because you're not living up to the "plan for your life," which necessarily involves heterosexual marriage and sex. A lot of people mistakenly believe that all Christian Fundamentalists and other varieties of fundamentalists and social conservatives are just fine with people who never have sex with anyone ever. I can understand why it would be an easy mistake to make. After all, a lot of the support for socially reactionary policies in the US right now is coming from the Roman Catholic Church, which is just fine with asexuality and actively encourages some people to take vows of lifelong chastity. And some of the conservative Protestant denominations are (at least officially) okay with people abstaining from sex permanently. But not all of them are. The Quiverfull movement is probably the most extreme example of this. For another example, I was raised in an evangelical Protestant subculture that was-- and still is-- in the process of becoming increasingly sexist during my lifetime. It used to be okay to be a spinster, an old maid, a permanent virgin-- unfortunate, but not a sin or a mark of inner twistedness. Not so much anymore.
As I was coming into my teenage years, a highly gendered theology was becoming more and more popular. This theology is based on the idea that gender hierarchy-- men lead, women submit-- is an important part of creation itself, and anyone rejects dominant male/submissive female marriage is defying God and perverting creation. This includes people in same sex partnerships, but it also includes anyone who doesn't want a sexual partner at all and heterosexual couples that don't follow the dominant male/submissive female script (and some of you would probably find your eyes popping out if you read a list of the many, many ways a woman can pervert creation by being insufficiently submissive). Obviously, this puts any young, impressionable person who might be asexual in a bad headspace, but there are extra layers of sinfulness, perversion, and evil for those who have the misfortune to be assigned female. Girls who refuse to seek a husband early in life aren't merely being sinful and perverted and ruining society, but also ruining their own lives. Women are supposed to be designed to follow, to yield, to submit, never to lead or to make decisions; therefore, women are supposed to NEED a husband just to get by, both because they/we are desperately emotionally needy and long to serve, submit to, and center our entire existence around a man and because they/we are incapable of thinking logically, being intelligent or wise, making good decisions, sticking to our principles in the face of pressure, persevering through difficulties, solving problems, recognizing when we're being abused or lied to, or otherwise functioning like adults. And any woman who doesn't want to have an intellectually and spiritually stunting relationship in which a man prevents her from ever developing her potential and doesn't also enjoy being sexually dominated by that man is considered an evil, depraved, hell-bound sinner.
Obviously, I have done all that I could to get out and leave all that behind. It still hurts to this day, which is why it took me a long, long time to compose this post. My mother was angry about the situation years ago, but it doesn't seem to have wrecked her mentally like it wrecked me, probably because she was already an adult by the time the rightward slide started. Or maybe she's just a much tougher person than I am. I am notorious for being an oversensitive crybaby, after all. I don't talk about it with her anymore because it makes her feel bad to hear how deeply wounded I still am by those experiences. So, yeah. Not all asexual teenagers are told they are going to hell for being asexual. But I was.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-02 03:02 am (UTC)The church has some really screwed up ideas about sexuality.
*sympathises*
(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-03 02:55 am (UTC)And then your husband can get together with your neighbors' husbands and complain about frigid and boring you are and make gross jokes about how much you hate the sex you have to have! Because if there's one thing I've noticed about men who love to stereotype women and punish women for straying outside the bounds of traditional stereotypes, it's that they also love to mock and disparage women for conforming to the exact same set of stereotypes. The only way to win is to be born in an alternate universe.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-03 02:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-04 03:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-04 04:15 am (UTC)