The Aviary

That Pride meme that's going around (I reserve the right to ignore certain questions that don't apply to my brand of queerness):

Sexuality: Ace as hell, sex-repulsed. (By which I mean that I am not interested in being personally involved in any sort of sexual behavior with anyone else ever, not that other people having sex is repulsive to me. I read a lot of fanfic porn.) Over the past few years, I've started thinking of myself as aromantic as well.

Gender Pronouns: Eurgh. I hate this question - she/her doesn't bother me, but isn't quite accurate. They/them is okay, though I don't quite like that set - they feel too much like they're still engaging in gender, when I would prefer to have pronouns that eschew gendering altogether but don't feel dehumanizing (to me) like it/its. I occasionally play around with neo-pronouns in my head, but haven't settled on anything there either. She/her is fine.

Gender: I would prefer not to.

Relationship Status: Single, quite happy about it, plan to remain so until I die.

Celebrity Crush: I don't...have crushes. There are occasionally actors or whatever that I find particularly aesthetically pleasing, but I'm more likely to be attached to the characters they play, rather than the actors themselves.

Crush: See above, re: crushes.

Best Friend: I don't currently have any close friends, and I don't really see how this is relevant.

When I came out: Sometime in college - the post is probably somewhere in the archives of this blog, to be honest.

First Person I Came Out To: My college friends, in an lj post.

First GF/BF: I dated two boys in high school, one on each coast. (At the time, I thought I was probably bi and a late bloomer - asexuality and aromanticism were not things I knew about.) Both times, the relationship started because we were friends and they asked me out. I liked being their friend, I like certain kinds of physical affection (cuddling, kissing sometimes), and I thought that could be what romance was. It probably isn't. I doubt I was a particularly satisfying girlfriend, but they were both very sweet and neither of them got weird about the fact that didn't have any interest in taking our clothes off together. I wish them both well. That is the entirety of my dating life.

First heartbreak: I assume this refers to romantic heartbreak, in which case: no, that's not something I've experienced.

Crush on a straight person: No crushes at all, so...

Fallen for a friend: What's interesting to me about this meme, and this is a thought I've had before in various queer online spaces, is that this meme is, in some ways, assuming that queerness is a sort of action, a thing that you do, that is reflected primarily in your relationships with others. Whereas I think about my queerness as a way that I am, a constant integral part of how I think and observe the world, independent of other people. It makes certain kinds of conversations about queerness not just alienating but also profoundly alien to me. This is what happens when you are all the 'A's in the acronym, I supposed. "Love is love" is great and all, but it shouldn't be the whole conversation.

Person that made me doubt my sexuality: Attraction is weird and our society doesn't make it easy to grok the difference between different kinds of attraction. There are a lot of people I find extremely aesthetically attractive or sensually attractive and for a long time, I assumed this is what people meant when they talked about sexual attraction. It doesn't help that we don't have good vocabulary for "that person is very pretty and I'd like to cuddle with them" that doesn't have sexual or romantic overtones.

Am I proud of my sexuality: Yes. I'm also extremely happy with my sexuality. I genuinely love being asexual and aromantic - it's the fucking best.

Am I comfortable with my sexuality: Yeah, it's great.

Describe myself: "Geeky fannish library goblin, extremely socially awkward, will inevitably talk to you about vampire movies"

My queer hero: I always hated those "write about your heroes" essays you had to write in middle school because I didn't have any heroes - I still don't.

Favorite part of being queer: I love being able to simply opt out of a lot of stuff that seems tedious and stressful: dating, romance, navigating a long-term romantic relationship. I honestly spent a lot of my childhood/young adulthood worrying about the seeming inevitability of having to find a romantic partner and make a life with them - I never wanted that, but I was told in so many ways that it was something I had to do. I don't, and coming to that realization was so freeing. Being aroace is great.

In which I am not like other people:

So, a week or so ago, I checked out Bonk by Mary Roach because sex + science = pretty fascinating. And I've been enjoying reading it. And then, this week, I got another book by her - Stiff, because corpses + science = also fascinating. I am enjoying that one also.

What I have discovered over the course of reading them is that while I have no problem eating while reading descriptions of the decay and putrefaction of human organs (like chicken soup!), I am not actually capable of eating while reading about semen, even when couched in the driest and most scientific terms.

So that is my asexual!Sara thought of the day. Putrefying corpses - in some ways, less icky than sex.*





*I mean, if you are into sex, awesome. Seriously, good for you. I am not judging! But, y'know...fluids. Icky.

So, today I went to church and then to work and then I came home. And, as my sister is coming back from her studying abroad tonight and everyone else has gone to the airport and won't be back till very late, I am having a quiet evening alone. I would have liked to have gone to pick up Katie but it didn't work out and I am never going to begrudge a nice evening at home alone.

So I downloaded the first episode of that BBC Sherlock thing and have just finished watching it. ( About which: )

Now I am going to watch more Doctor Who.

You guys, on Tuesday, I got Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healey from the library and this evening after work I started reading it. I am about halfway through.

And, okay, I could tell you that it is a darned awesome fantasy novel, with a badass female lead. I could tell you that it is set in New Zealand and has a wonderful feeling of being rooted in a place, which I love in any kind of book. I could tell you about how cool the fantasy elements are and how they make me want to learn about Maori mythology and legend and folklore, because obviously I don't know near enough about any of those topics.

All of that stuff is true. And it is great.

But I am going to tell you about the fact that it is a book with a canonically asexual character, whose asexuality is mentioned within the first 30 pages when he comes out to his best friend (who is the main character), and nobody tells him that he's damaged or going through a phase or just hasn't met the right person yet. And he isn't there to be a lesson or an after school special. He's just another character - this is Kevin, who does theater and kapu haka, who's a science nerd, who loves his friends and wants them to get along, and who happens to be asexual. It's marvelous.

So that is my book recommendation of today.