You cannibalize everything on Earth I value
so I cannibalize everything in myself you value.
You devour trees, swallow rivers
I abolish gender, rescind sexuality.
You consume precious resources
I deny you obedience.
You make the world
unsafe//unwelcome//unkind
so I make myself
unavailable//undesirable//unforgiving.
If you leave me nothing
I will give you nothing.
See? I can be a ravenous beast as well
but I won’t be the one that starves first.
You are more death than desire. Why does that surprise you?
Every time I feel the knife twist I see your smile in the darkness like the thin blade of the crescent moon. You are clearest to me in these moments where self-loathing bridges the gap between us, and though I know you cannot be trusted I listen still to your soothing cruelty. You are honest, at least, and there is comfort in your lack of platitudes or promises. Or maybe I just appreciate your attention.
I’m like that myth about the sculptor who so loved the woman he sculpted from marble that the gods granted her life – only the opposite. I’m not stone becoming human, I’m human becoming stone; and as my flesh grows cold and hard I fear your love too will diminish instead of grow. Perhaps in this version of the tale it was a divine punishment, not a blessing, which set these events in motion. Did I so offend some goddess of love that she would curse me to never experience the kind of desire one expects from their beloved? Is it justice, this lacking which alienates me from the rest of humanity? I would not wish this affliction on anyone, so perhaps this is indeed a retribution I deserve.
No one asked if I wanted to be born a flower; I just was. If they had asked I would have begged to be anything else. Make me a moss! I’d have pleaded. Make me a grass or a tree! Make me a succulent, a shrub, a clump of seaweed! Just please don’t make me a flower. But here I am anyway, consigned by mere biological chance to the constant appraisal of others. I didn’t want these pretty petals! I didn’t want this lovely scent! I only ever wanted to grow alone and undisturbed, giving no thought to how I might appear to others. Yet because of my pleasing aesthetic I am good for nothing more than gracing a vase or a bouquet, or perhaps crushing between the pages of a book so my beauty lasts long after I’ve died and dried. I am only the sum of what value others assign me and the higher the value, the more they desire to tear me from my roots to claim my loveliness for themselves. Oh, to be a patch of plain little lichen!
I don’t perform emotions correctly; many have made this perfectly clear. I guess sometimes I look unhappy even when I’m having fun, so they think I’m lying when I say I’m fine. I don’t cry at appropriate times, like gestures of affection or funerals or whatever, only for unacceptable reasons like grocery shopping or well-intentioned teasing. I guess I don’t look properly enraptured by a pretty face, even when I really do find the person attractive, so I must be lying. Someone as broken as I am can’t possibly be trusted to accurately comprehend their emotions, after all. This inability to behave properly is such a burden on those around me, and I know they wonder why I can’t act normally for once. I’m sorry. The secret is, I’m just a robot with a passable human emotional protocol but I’m not convincing enough to hide my artificiality completely. A machine, especially such an outdated one as myself, can only be so realistic when compared to a living being with a heart and a soul. All I have are the brain bits, and at the end of the day those aren’t worth shit to real people. Who wants to be with someone intelligent but emotionally stunted? (Spoiler alert: no one.) I mean, did you feel bad when your Tamagotchi died? What about when you got rid of your Furby? A little, probably, but deep down you knew it didn’t actually experience emotions; it was just programmed to seem like it did. Artifice. Clever artifice, but still just artifice.
You know, I always hated the story of Pinocchio so it’s kind of ironic that I find myself wishing desperately to be a real girl – or at least that you saw me as a real girl and not a robot failing to make the grade. I feel real, is that not enough? Or could I peel back my skin and find circuit boards underneath?
Which motherfucking star do I have to wish on to not be me anymore?
“Remr, which silk do you prefer for your pact-night dress?” Lady N’batshi strode into her daughter’s room without warning, a pile of expensive silks overflowing in her arms. She lay them gently on the bed and began sorting through them. “It’s traditional to wear red or pink in honor of Our Lady, but you would look so lovely in this dark blue; oh, maybe with this white for a trim, the gold embroidery would set off your eyes so nicely!” Ignoring the open book in Remr’s lap, she draped the bolts of silk over the tiefling girl’s shoulders and tutted to herself. “Hmm, or perhaps the white with the blue for the trim? Which do you prefer?”
“Oh,” Remr stared down at the cloth, frozen. “Um. Yeah, about that.”
“What?” Lady N’batshi cast her daughter a quick glance as she set out a selection of velvet ribbons. “Did you have another color in mind?”
“No. I, uh…” Remr carefully set the silks aside, afraid she might rip them to pieces if she held them in her nervous hands. She tried to remember the words she had rehearsed, the ones which she was sure would win her mother over without fail. They had fled somewhere, though, or perhaps were trapped in the cold pit of her stomach where they could be of no help. Instead she closed her eyes and quickly confessed, “I don’t want to make a pact with Verenestra. I want to make a pact with The Seeker.”
“What are you talking about?” Her mother laughed haltingly, as if uncertain whether this was some practical joke she didn’t quite grasp. “Every woman in our family for the past two hundred years has made their warlock pact with Verenestra. It’s the tradition which has built our family into what it is now; we have served her faithfully and she in turn has granted us countless blessings. How can you possibly think to turn your back on that history?”
“Because I don’t want to be a succubus!” Remr leaped to her feet, yellow eyes pleading. “I don’t care about love and beauty and sex and all that. I want to serve The Seeker! I want to make new scientific discoveries and uncover answers to the mysteries of the world. I want to learn everything I can about everything there is to know!” As she spoke she swept out one arm to encompass her bedroom and its collection of books, diagrams, tools, and jars full of various captured creatures. “It’s not fair to make me pact myself to a patron I don’t want.”
“This is not up for discussion, young lady!” Lady N’batshi waved one stiff finger in her child’s face as she lectured her. “You may be turning sixteen this month and making your pact, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t still a daughter of this house. Being a member of the N’batshi clan comes with certain responsibilities which can’t simply be thrown aside because you want to keep…” She gestured helplessly at the cluttered room. “To keep running around in the woods collecting lizards!”
“You don’t understand!” Remr stomped her foot, her tail lashing back and forth. “You don’t even try to understand. Uncle Tao’rumi is the only one who does!” She dropped her head to hide her tears and muttered, “And they’re snakes, not lizards. They’re not even in the same suborder.”
Her mother ignored this last comment. “Uncle Tao’rumi,” Lady N’batshi replied with a weary sigh, “isn’t the matriarch of this clan. Now, let’s just calm down.” She took a deep breath; when she spoke again, her voice was gentler but no less patronizing. “I know you’re nervous to make your pact; I was too when I was your age. It’s perfectly natural to feel this way. You have a big journey ahead, and it’s okay to be a little scared of where it leads.”
It was no use arguing. Remr knew her mother would never understand what passions drove her youngest daughter, nor how confining were the expectations which came with the N’batshi name. If she wanted to change her fate, this was not the way to go about it. “You’re right, Mother,” she conceded, wiping away the tears shining on her red face. “Maybe I just need some time to think.”
Lady N’batshi smiled and patted Remr on the arm. “That’s my girl.” She rose, gathering up the silks. “Now, think about which colors you want, we need to place the order with the seamstress by the end of the week.” And with that her mother was gone, bustling back out the door to continue ensuring her miniature empire ran smoothly. Such arguments were so common place by now that she barely registered them as disturbances; she was certain her daughter would see the rightness of the path laid out for her in the end.
Mother’s right about one thing, Remr thought to herself as she shut her bedroom door. I do have a big journey ahead of me. She dug out a large traveling pack and began stuffing it with clothes, books, and parchment. If I leave now I won’t even be missed until the morning, and by then I’ll be far from here.
Put me in a sideshow, it’s where I belong. All the people who have heard about freaks like me can come pay fifty cents to stare at me through the bars of my cage. They’ll ooh and ah, gasp and point. When I try to explain myself they’ll snicker behind their hands, Look, it thinks it’s people! You’re wrong, though. I don’t. You’ve finally forced it through my thick skull that I’m not one of you. But at least here you’re all laughing at my face and not my back, right? And maybe someone will throw peanuts to me out of pity.
I was the good doctor’s failed first attempt; the electricity ran through my dead flesh but never jolted the rotten cells back to life and so I remained a disappointing patchwork corpse. He tried to pass me off as human anyway, yet no one believed him. Look, they said, she can’t feel a thing. How can she be human if she can’t feel? They were right, of course. I am only a monster made of discarded meat and I feel nothing. Maybe someone with more talent or luck can break down my disparate parts and use them to build something more worthwhile.
Odd Woman Out, or: Sex-Repulsion and Queer Media
If you spend any time around me, either online or offline, you know I am out and proud. I wear a rainbow bracelet every day; my purse has a button that says “crystal queer” on it; I wear flannel as much as humanly possible; I have a sidecut; and you can bet I’m going to mention my wife at every possible chance. Online, I’m an avid Creampuff, Fannibal, and Amedot shipper, and I run my own asexuality blog. Hell, even my Twitter name is “Queer as Hannibal”. What I’m saying is, you can sense my queerness from a mile away no matter how you encounter me. And that’s on purpose. I don’t want you to have to see me holding my wife’s hand to know I’m queer – I want my very self to radiate so much queerness you can see it from space. It’s an important part of my identity and I spend a lot of time keeping up on trends, issues, and news in the community. I try to spread positivity and inclusiveness, and to learn how to be a better ally to my fellow community members. In short, I am all about queer pride.
I say this so you have some understanding of why I feel conflicted about queer media. See, I’m asexual and definitely vary between sex-indifferent and sex-repulsed. I’m sex-positive in the sense that I think two or more consenting adults can do whatever they want with each other, but I don’t really want to see or hear about it. However, I’m also part of the wlw (women who love women) community, and I feel incredibly invested in positive representation of queer relationships. I’ve been reading the webcomic Band vs Band as long as it’s been running and was dying for the two main characters to get together. Likewise, I watched The Legend of Korra with a hungry eye for anything Korrasami, and always swoon a little when Laura and Carmilla waltz or flirt. As for Steven Universe, well… Amedot is the hill I will die on.
I WILL GO DOWN WITH THIS SHIP
In short, I absolutely put my attention, money, and support into queer relationships in the media and will always defend narratives that help broaden our understanding of relationship diversity. And yet, when my wife warned me there’s a sex scene in the Carmilla movie, I sighed a little in my head. See, being asexual/sex-indifferent and also a part of the wlw community can put me in an uncomfortable position because I tend to lose interest in a fictional relationship when it becomes sexual. It’s not that I think sex is immoral – it’s just not something I can totally connect with, and so it feels like I’m being alienated by something that becomes the focus of the relationship. I love Laura and Carmilla, but there are times in Carmilla season 2 when I get a little uncomfortable with how often they make out. Same with Band vs Band, even though the interactions are chaste and, for heck’s sake, just drawings. Yet while I know that response isn’t logical, fair, or healthy, I still feel this weird twinge of… something. Jealousy? Disappointment? Resentment? It’s hard to pin down, and I usually feel too guilty to examine my emotions.
Therein lies the problem. See, the closer to a sexual relationship two characters get, the less comfortable I am. However, I also know how important representation is, and so at the same time I’m cheering for this couple and what they represent in our changing culture. It leaves me in a weird gray area where I feel like I’m the bad guy for wanting a relationship to remain chaste, but not because I hate queer people being sensual or sexual; I think I just want to see more people like me, and it’s hard each time to lose a connection with a character once they become canonically allosexual. I know a lot of my own issues are wrapped up in this conflicting feeling – my longing to be a “normal” allosexual queer woman versus my simultaneous desire to stand up for people like me – but that doesn’t make the burden easier to bear.
Being sex-repulsed or sex-indifferent in the queer community can be a very fine line to walk. We want, and deserve, more representation and yet we have to be so careful that we don’t come off as sex-shaming or heteronormative. But with so little representation currently, it’s no wonder those misconceptions are rife in our community and so easily cause little sparks to rage into huge fires. Queer people have always been shamed for acting on their sexuality, and that will never change unless we normalize all forms of consensual intimacy. We just need to also remember that for many in our community, sex isn’t what makes them queer – and that’s just as valid. The more we vary what “real” relationships look like, the more everyone in the community will feel comfortable with who they are and what they want.
I, Elyssa, take you, Chriselle, to be my wife, my best friend, and my love. I vow to encourage you and to support you; to hear you and see you. I vow to make you laugh when you need to laugh and hold you when you need to cry. I love your determination, your immeasurable patience, and your unapologetic geekiness. You bring out the best in me and embrace the worst. Together, we make a very weird, very beautiful little family. I am yours in all things. This I vow to you.
—
Fifteen years ago, when I was just fourteen and in 9th grade, I first listened to Kiss Me by Sixpence None the Richer and imagined… someone. A girl, nameless, faceless. We held hands in my daydreams, maybe danced together under twilight skies and string lights. I wasn’t sure who she was or what I wanted from her – I wouldn’t know for another eleven years, but in all that time she never left my thoughts.
Just yesterday, I walked down the aisle with that girl to this song at our wedding. Why I am so blessed to have found her I will never know; all I know is that I have been given the chance to share my life with her and will do everything in my power to make our shared life something beautiful. I never imagined myself dating, let alone getting married to my soul mate and building a weird, loving little family together. I don’t know what the future holds, but I know we’ll face everything together with trust, kindness, and a dash of cynical humor.
Open Relationships, Or: That Time I Told My Girlfriend to “Go Pro”
[ If you’re a family member or friend and don’t want to know anything about our sexual activities, I suggest not reading this post. ]
Have you ever interacted with something – a song, a painting, any piece of media really – and recognized that you can’t fully appreciate it because you’re not familiar enough with the skill and effort necessary for its creation? Meaning, have you ever looked at something and thought, “That’s really cool, but it’s probably way more amazing to someone who actually knows how hard it was to create”?
I experience this frequently with my girlfriend. Chriselle plays the guitar and writes her own music; I gave up the flute after a week in elementary school. She has a blackbelt in kung fu; I’m as graceless as a t-rex. She speaks multiple languages; I remember about 1% of my German and bailed on French after one class. She is an attentive, generous, and extremely talented lover; I’m sex-indifferent most of the time, and sometimes sex-repulsed. My point is, a lot of her skills are somewhat lost on me, as I can only appreciate them from an outsider’s perspective. And that seems like such a shame! If you master a complicated painting technique, you want someone to say, “Wow, that technique is really hard; you did a great job!” instead of, “This painting is cool :)” with no understanding of how hard you worked.
Case in point: about a year ago, after my lady had made me feel really, really good in certain physical ways, I realized her particular skills in the realm of lovemaking are basically wasted on me. Don’t get me wrong, I know she’s good – I just can’t appreciate how good the way someone else with more varied and refined tastes might. I’m just an amateur, and she deserves to do stuff with a connoisseur. So once we were done and cuddling, I looked over at her and exclaimed, “You should go pro!” with probably a little too much enthusiasm. No, I didn’t mean she should become a prostitute. But I did mean she deserved to have other sexual partners. I meant I thought we should open up our relationship.
If you’re in an asexual/allosexual relationship, just about everyone who knows will give you their uninvited opinion on whether those kinds of relationships can work or not. People who know nothing about either of you will tell you all sorts of bullshit: that romantic relationships need sex to work; that asexuals have a duty to let their allosexual partners sleep with others; that allosexual partners are selfish for wanting to have sex with other people; that monogamy will kill your relationship; that polyamory will kill your relationship; etc, etc, etc. And none of it is true, at least not for every single relationship every single moment. People change. Relationships change. Desires, turn-ons, and turn-offs change. In the beginning of our relationship, for example, we both wanted to be monogamous for personal reasons. We started dating with the understanding that sex wasn’t an option – then it became something we explored together – and then something that we had differing and sometimes conflicting feelings about. Change happens. We’re not the same people we were a year ago, and we won’t be the same people in a year that we are today.
My point is, we started out monogamous but then at some point I got to a place in our relationship where the thought of Chriselle sleeping with someone else felt… totally okay and cool. Like I would for any of my friends, I just wanted her to be happy and have experiences I couldn’t personally give her. As long as we remained loving, committed partners on the road to marriage, I didn’t see any issue with her having other folks with whom she could explore her sexuality. I wouldn’t stop her from training for a marathon just because I hate running, would I? No, I’d support her and be happy if she found other people to have that experience with. Sex honestly felt the same way – she’s good at it and wants to have it more often than I do, so why not find some other people who can fulfill that desire? I know she loves me and will always return to me. She knows I love her and encourage her to do this because I care so much, not so little.
Cut to the present. Our lives have been unbelievably hectic and in the rush of fostering kittens, planning a wedding, and dealing with work stress, our open relationship has yet to move past the theoretical phase. Chriselle has been chatting with some people on the OKCupid and Her apps, but except for one or two possible leads she’s really only making platonic connections. I think this delay is for the best, though, because it’s given both of us a chance to really get used to the idea. While a year ago I wasn’t sure how I would actually react when my suggestion became reality, now I know that I’m really very okay with it. Last night we lay in bed and I watched her swipe through matches, asking questions about what attracted, or did not attract, her to certain people. I was partly asking because it’s always hard as an asexual to grasp the concept of “sexual attraction” and how allosexual people experience it. However, I was also asking because it made me truly happy to see Chriselle putting herself out there. Even if none of those people work out as a “swim buddy”, let’s say, she’s still incredibly brave to hang out in the pool. I remember trolling dating sites for months and years for that one real, often fleeting connection, and it suuucks.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I lay in bed last night watching my soulmate and best friend look for possible sexual partners and all I felt was excitement for her. Not jealousy. Not fear. Not anger or guilt. Just the excitement you feel when you care about someone and want them to be happy. It was a weird feeling, to be honest, because society teaches us to be jealous and possessive of our romantic partners – to feel otherwise must mean our relationship is broken or weak or messed up, right? No. If you love someone, you trust them. If you love someone, you want them to be happy. If you love someone, you share their life, not own it. Polyamory isn’t for everyone, but neither is monogamy. If we learned in high school health class that relationships can come in all shapes and sizes (and that those shapes and sizes change over time), maybe we wouldn’t have to do all this unlearning and relearning as adults.
Can asexuals feel love?
Fun fact: no, we can’t!
I’m just a monster with a barbaric heart.
In some states it’s legal to shoot me on sight;
in others you need a permit.
I’ve been waiting for someone to put me out of my misery.
It hasn’t happened yet, but still I hope.
Queer Club: I Wanted To Do The Thing, So I Did The Thing! (Is this how you adult?)
A few months ago, I was lamenting the lack of local queer meetups while my fiance and I were grocery shopping. Living far from major cities like Seattle and Olympia makes it hard to take part in queer culture – being on the wrong side of a toll bridge and in a town full of old people makes it even worse. I don’t feel unwelcome in my hometown of Gig Harbor, but neither do I feel like my queerness is necessarily nurtured here. Besides the occasional Human Rights Campaign bumper sticker or the cool Safeway checker with the queer pin, it’s difficult to identify and connect with my own kind.
This wasn’t the first time I complained about being too far from the queer city hubs, and I’m sure it also wasn’t the first time my fiance suggested I start my own meetup. Here’s what made this time different: When we got home I actually did it. I sat down and made a Facebook group and invited the few local queer friends I had. I posted on Craigslist and Tumblr and Twitter. And when we went grocery shopping the next weekend, I nervously asked the Safeway checker if she wanted to come. After just a week or two, we had a total of 15 members – not bad, considering I was pulling from what is likely a small pool. The group was a nice mixture of people I knew, people who knew someone else in the group, and people who didn’t know anyone. Overall, I was pretty impressed with the results.
And then I realized I was in charge and would have to plan the first meetup, and I panicked.
Okay, not quite. But I was definitely SUPER nervous as I waited for people to arrive at that first meeting. I had a million worries buzzing in my head. What if no one came? What if no one knew what to say and it was really awkward? What if I forgot someone’s name or pronouns or didn’t have anything for a vegan to eat? What if everyone liked everyone else except for me, and they decided to kick me out of my own group? What if we just didn’t really have anything in common and the group fell apart immediately and I never tried to do anything like it ever again and became a recluse and my fiance had to cover all our windows with newspaper? You know, the usual fears of a totally normal person.
As you can probably guess, none of those things happened. The meetup went better than I could possibly have expected and people stayed until after midnight (for reference, I’m usually in bed by 8:00 PM). After our guests had left, I was too exhilarated to sleep and practically bouncing off the walls with relief and happiness. I had made a thing! That people had attended! And had liked enough to make plans for the next one (and to form a D&D group)! I couldn’t believe it. Somehow, I had managed to gather together a group of local queer folks who were all amazingly nerdy and hilarious. I liked them all. They seemed to all like each other. Was this how you made friends? Who knew it could be so easy!
I have no idea what the future holds for Queer Club – honestly, I didn’t plan past “make a Facebook group” so I’m 100% playing this by ear. It seems to be going well so far, though, and there’s already talk of attending SakuraCon together, so I’m feeling hopeful. At the very least, Queer Club is an excuse to get myself (and my fiance, who’s along for the ride) out of my antisocial comfort zone and interacting with, well, anyone. If I can help create a little network of local queer folks for attending prides and playing D&D together, even better.
We’re an open group and love meeting new people. If you live in the south Puget Sound area of Washington state, consider stopping by one of our meetups! You can find us on Facebook under the name “Gig Harbor/Kitsap Queer Club” – and no, you don’t have to live in those areas specifically. Anyone who identifies as being somehow under the queer umbrella is welcome, along with significant others of whatever definition. :)
Do you ever experience a piece of media – a book, a song, a movie – and get hit with the knowledge that this thing would have totally spoken to your younger self? That if you had experienced it at, say, sixteen or seventeen, who knows how it might have changed you?
Flashback to myself in high school, circa 2006. I hadn’t yet discovered asexuality and assumed, for all intents and purposes, that I was straight (despite having zero interest in dating). If you had asked me then why I so adamantly adored Elizabeth Hurley in Bedazzled, Milla Jovovich in Resident Evil, and Clea Duvall in The Faculty*, I would have said it was because they were so cool, so badass, so confident. I might have said it was because I wanted to be like them in some way, or just tag along on their adventures.
Um. Yeah. I was pretty oblivious to things. In my defense, though, my peer group didn’t use labels like sapphic, homoromantic, or really anything besides the L, G, and B. I didn’t know it was possible to like girls without, well, LIKING girls, so I never analyzed the feelings I was having at the time. Even after I learned about asexuality at the age of nineteen and officially adopted the label for myself at age twenty-one, I still spent several years agonizing over what my strange attraction to girls meant. It wasn’t until I was almost twenty-six that I finally opened that door a crack – just enough to let in the girl who would become my fiance.
I say all this with a purpose, I promise. See, a couple months ago I started a local queer meetup. We happen to all be in one way or another attracted to women, so when we held a movie marathon last week, we watched sapphic movies. One of these, But I’m a Cheerleader (BIAC), was a late 1990s comedy featuring Natasha Lyonne as a closeted lesbian sent to a conversion therapy camp by her parents. It’s a very silly movie with an undercurrent of dark realism that makes the friendships and romances all the more poignant. It also, to my embarrassingly giddy surprise, features a Clea Duvall who looks exactly like her Faculty character Stokley. On whom I have had a raging crush since high school. Oh, and should I mention this is a movie where you get to watch Stokley make out with another girl? How the internet didn’t let me know this movie existed sooner, I will never know. And I will always be bitter about that. You let me down, Tumblr!
Anyway, all this is to say that the ending of the movie made me cry. Not Carol, which we watched first, oh no. BIAC made me cry. Why? Partly because the ending is so sugary sweet (a sapphic movie with a happy ending? yes please!), but also partly because I watched the whole movie thinking This came out in 1999? I could have watched this as a kid? As a confused teen who had no idea why she got so mad that Stokley wasn’t a lesbian after all? You mean I could have had an actual queer Stokley to obsess over all these years??
I mean, SERIOUSLY.
I’ve read and watched a lot of queer media since I was a teen, but none of it quite hit me like this movie did. I sincerely think that if I had watched BIAC as a teenager, I would have known ten years earlier that I was sapphic. Ten years! Ten years I could have spent learning to embrace my identity, instead of agonizing over it. Ten years I could have spent making friends with other queer people, instead of feeling unwelcome in those circles. Ten years I could possibly have spent dating and exploring my desires and boundaries. Ten years of angst and loneliness that could have been ten years of friendship and pride parades.
That thought kinda hurts, to be honest. I’m in a good place now – proudly ace and proudly sapphic – but I wasn’t for a long time. I struggled, especially in college. There are songs I can’t listen to because they’re just filled too much with that old longing. When I see queer representation in media these days, especially in shows like Legend of Korra and Steven Universe, I feel simultaneously joyful and jealous. Joyful that representation like this might save someone years of hurt; jealous because I could have used that representation, too. As a kid, I was too deeply in the closet to even think of seeking out queer media. I can’t imagine how much seeing queer relationships in “regular” media might have opened my eyes. I know being a queer kid today isn’t easy, but I’m still so happy to think that even one kid might be saved the emotional bog through which I had to wade.
*and Michelle Rodriguez and Gong Li and Fairuza Balk…
“Triskaidekaphobia”
numbers betray me:
the number of ways in which I have
or have not
the number of ways in which I will
or will not
the number of ways in which I am
or am not
the number of ways in which I can
or cannot ever
add up
to a perfect integer
[ I don’t have any writing for you today, so here’s some geeky info on my characters (and myself, there on the end). Enjoy! ]
| Category | Tanim | Daren | Mage | The Scribe |
| Sexual Orientation | Asexual?? | Asexual | Asexual | Asexual |
| Romantic Orientation | Homoromantic | Aromantic | Aromantic | Queer |
| Astrological Sign | Cancer | Scorpio | Aries | Leo |
| Element | Water | Earth | Fire | Earth |
| Sin | Lust | Sloth | Pride | Sloth |
| Virtue | Charity | Patience | Diligence | Temperance |
| D&D Alignment | Chaotic good | Neutral | Chaotic neutral | Neutral good |
| D&D Class | Fighter | Rogue | Mage | Mage |
| Assassin’s Creed | Templar | Assassin | Assassin | Assassin |
| Hogwarts House | Gryffindor | Slytherin | Slytherin | Ravenclaw |
| Pokémon Team | Fire | Ghost/Dark | Ice/Electric | Eevee evolutions |
| Bender Element | Fire | Water (blood) | Fire (lightning) | Water |
There are a lot of queer meetups in the Puget Sound, but most of them are in big cities like Seattle and Olympia. I want to create a casual queer group that meets in the Kitsap/Gig Harbor area for the folks around here who don’t want to or can’t drive that far**. I envision this meetup as being very casual and maybe focusing on sharing queer media (books, movies, TV shows, music, etc), doing fun activities, and being a general safe space for local queer folk. Also, if we meet at my house, you can rub my cat’s amazing tummy.
This will be a group for anyone on the queer spectrum (no gatekeeping allowed!) and their partners/family/whomever. The socially awkward and/or neurodivergent are especially welcome, as are people of all faiths, nationalities, etc.
You can find us by searching “Gig Harbor/Kitsap Queer Club” on Facebook; the group is closed but if you send a request to join, I’ll add you ASAP. We may grow big enough to warrant a Meetup.com group or something beyond Facebook, but I’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. We’re at 9 members already, though!
**Tacoma folks, you are more than welcome too; I’ll try to make up the bridge toll in snacks or something. :)
When I started my Tumblr blog Still-a-Valid-Ace, I did so on a whim with no thought to where it might go in the future; to be honest, I assumed I’d grow bored and delete it after a week. I just wanted a place to post my own experiences regarding asexuality and gatekeeping, maybe rant a little, and generally shout into the void of the internet. Surprisingly, though, traffic picked up pretty quickly and I suddenly had people submitting questions, problems, and pleas for advice. Without knowing a single thing about me, users seemed to expect trustworthy, valid responses that might make or break their identity or relationships. It was a lot of pressure for someone who, as I said, thought she would just be yelling into the void. I felt honored, though, and took this new responsibility very seriously. Thus, I waded into the online waters of asexual activism–
–and into a river full of rapids, waterfalls, and hidden rocks. YIKES. Asexuals have come under some serious fire recently as the the cool new minority to hate on within the queer community. Not that the other popular targets, like bisexual and transgender folks, don’t still get their share of hate; it’s just that asexuals seem to be the hot topic right now. You can’t even skim the asexual tag on Tumblr without running into rabidly acephobic posts by people who dedicate entire blogs to hating us. I receive hateful messages and reblogs from these accounts on a frequent basis, especially when I say anything about cisgender+heteroromantic aces or the right for aces to use the word “queer”. I’ve been called homophobic for supporting religious asexuals; I’ve been called a cishet oppressor for supporting all asexuals, regardless of their other identities; I am routinely accused of being a “straight” who wants to kill LGBT people. I agree that cishet isn’t a slur in and of itself, but I have seen it used dozens of times to deny and negate my actual identity. And it hurts. I am actively hurt by the very same people who claim to be protecting queer asexuals like me.
Do I daydream about all the ways I’d love to respond to these people? Of course. Do I type up pithy answers and attach sarcastic gifs, only to delete the entire thing? Of course. Do I get so filled with rage and sorrow that all I want to do is vomit curse words onto the screen or send my own hateful, hurtful messages back? Oh yes. Always. I want so badly to fight on my enemies’ level, to make the “discourse” personal so I can verbally eviscerate the trolls. But I don’t. I don’t, even when the alternative is to remain silent, or to reply with a diplomacy that feels like surrender. I don’t, because that won’t win me anything but grief, and my fellow aces nothing but fuel for the trolls. You see, one of the most difficult aspects of any activism is this: you become a spokesperson for your cause and a target for the haters. It doesn’t matter if you post five hundred thoughtful, balanced, in-depth discussions about a topic; if in just one post you act too angry, too forceful, or too callous, that’s the one you’ll get called out for. Any emotion you portray will be blown out of proportion and used against not only yourself, but your community as well. Look how angry asexuals are, they’ll say. They’re so whiny, so entitled, so ignorant! They hate gay people! They’re just special snowflakes! Your every word becomes a landmine just waiting to smear you across the internet. People assume that if you take on the role of activist, you also take on the role of subject matter expert, public information officer, and referee. Despite being passionate about the subject, you’re expected to be completely unbiased and lacking any agenda. When the topic is something that affects you personally, this is impossible. Impossible, but expected. If you can’t be objective, you’re vilified.
Despite all of this, though, I maintain my blog. I delete hate messages, ignore reblogs from anti-ace accounts, and try patiently and kindly to explain my views to those who seem genuinely confused or curious. I do this because I love my followers, my fellow aces, and my whole queer family. I truly do, with a ferocity I never imagined. If I get down in the muck with the trolls, I can’t be a safe person anymore. If I let hate leak onto my blog, it can’t be a safe space anymore. Because I actively choose to remain a source of comfort, support, advice, and protection, I can’t fight fire with fire. My activism has to be professional, no matter how much I’d love to make things personal. At the end of the day, the safety of every one of my followers means infinitely more to me than my own wishes to take an eye for an eye. If I can bring any bit of hope or understanding to even one asexual out there, no matter who or what else they are, then all the hate spam is worth it.
Holy Shit My Girlfriend is Awesome: An Essay
It’s February, which means Valentine’s Day, which means an overwhelming amount of heteronormativity being shoved in our collective queer faces. What better time, then, to write about the woman I am fiercely, ecstatically in love with? This is the classic story of awkward-asexual-girl-who-has-never-dated meets awkward-bisexual-girl-who-has-dated-too-many-bad-eggs. On Craigslist.
Our story doesn’t actually start in May of 2014, when Chriselle and I first started communicating via email. It starts years before – in early childhood for Chriselle, and early high school for myself. Being the budding queers we were, we found ourselves unknowingly following the same path to self-discovery. She habitually wrote letters to a mysterious figure she called her Stranger; I wrote longingly about an undefined girl I called Shakespeare’s Sister, after Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. Years before Chriselle and I ever met, we both imagined this perfect person whom we wished would come into our lives.
Fast forward to 2014. After years of internal sapphic angst, I woke up one morning and thought fuck it, I’m going to post something on the Craigslist w/w forum. So I did. It was super vague and focused more on my search for a writing buddy than a romantic tryst. Chriselle answered and we hit it off immediately. We flirted, bonded, and eventually I asked her out – with about a thousand butterflies whirling in my stomach. From there, the story follows the lesbian U-Haul cliche embarrassingly close. We bought matching rings on our second date, were talking about marriage by the second month, and had rented an apartment together by the ninth. 44 months later, we’re engaged and planning an October wedding. Gross, huh?
I think I would love Chriselle no matter what, because of fate and soulmates and stuff, but she also happens to be someone who deserves to be loved for a thousand different reasons. She is passionate, altruistic, and unfailingly honest. She is intelligent, literary, and refreshingly open-minded. She is sarcastic, unapologetically queer, and one of the biggest geeks I have ever met. She is a dedicated daughter, a loving sister, and an extremely patient aunt. She is a beautiful, curvy, brown-skinned immigrant who is tough as nails and won’t back down from a fight (physical, emotional, or moral) she believes in. She works a job where she watches animals die every single day, and yet she always goes back because she can’t stand to not do something for them. She is more confident than she knows, and more capable. She is, above all, a truly good person.
But there’s more. Those are some of the big, overarching reasons why I love this girl so much, but some of the smaller, more specific reasons are just as important. I love the way she cackles when she kills someone in Assassins Creed. I love how irrationally angry she gets when I mention Paul Revere. I love how she can quote the Harry Potter movies by heart. I love how she calls her beanies “bonnets”. I love how she supports my various weirdnesses. I love that we can have long, in-depth discussions about anything from morality to Lord of the Rings. I love how she gets super loopy whenever she is sick or has taken pain killers. I love that she puts like a million sugars in her tea. I love that sometimes she forgets the English word for something, and only remembers the Tagalog one. I love that she drinks soda instead of hard liquor when she’s had a bad day. I love that she cries if you give her a gift for her dog. I love her freckles and her wavy hair and her callouses. I love her tattoos and her piercings and the little scar on her eyebrow.
I’m not naive, and our relationship isn’t perfect; we have our share of struggles just like everyone else. At the end of the day, though, a lot of those struggles come from us loving each other too much, instead of not enough. And no matter how neurotic or disappointing or frustrating I can be, I know nothing will drive Chriselle from my side. We may be planning to say “for better or worse” in front of our family and friends next fall, but we already made those promises to each other three and a half years ago. We spent so many years searching for our Stranger, for our Shakespeare’s Sister, that we won’t let anything come between us now.
I find myself suddenly very bothered by the phrase “special snowflake”. I never liked it, nor the sentiment behind it, but I have recently been gnashing my metaphorical teeth over it. What bothers me is how illogical it is. In essence, a “special snowflake” is supposed to be someone who has many identities, aspects, and labels. This is bad, apparently. What is illogical about this is that we all have a long list of labels – the only difference is that we aren’t always vocal about as many of them. If I say I’m just a girl from Washington state, well, then I’m not a special snowflake. I’m “normal”. Yet if I make a list of even just a tenth of the labels that apply to me, then suddenly that’s too many and I’m just trying to be special. But it’s just a list. All of those things are true about me whether I say them or not. What difference does it make if I state them or leave them unsaid?
I decided to make a list of whatever personal labels I could think of off the top of my head. Let’s see how special snowflake I can be:
I am female, a daughter, and a sister. I am an Italian by descent, an American by birth, and a Washingtonian by choice. I am queer, asexual, sapphic, and engaged. I am a lazy femme, anti-makeup (for myself), and pro-leg hair. I am a feminist and a vegetarian; I am pro-choice and anti-Trump. I am lactose-intolerant, nearsighted, and a supertaster. I am allergic to salmon, kiwis, and oats. I am chronically ill. I am pagan, Kemetic, and a follower of Bast. I am anxious, obsessive-compulsive, and depressed. I am seismophobic and trypophobic. I am a Research Administrator. I am a writer and a reader. I am a nerd and a geek. I am a Fannibal, an Assassin, and a Ravenclaw.
That’s pretty impressive, but does it make me a special snowflake? I don’t think so. Anyone alive long enough to have formed a conscious understanding of who they are could make a list that long, or longer. We all have hundreds of identities, some we are born with and some we choose willingly. We’re all special snowflakes, whether we like it or not. Calling someone a special snowflake just makes you sound like you oppose having a full understanding of yourself, or using descriptors to define concepts that apply to you – in essence, “I hate that you’re using words to describe things”. Well buddy, I have some bad news for you: that’s literally what language is. Words for stuff. If you can’t get over the fact that people like to describe who they are, then you’re going to have one miserable life. Anyway. All this was to say that there’s nothing wrong with being a special snowflake, because all that means is that you’re different from other people, which is literally true for everyone on earth, even identical twins. The end.
good for you, fang-face
and your happy fucking ending
and your hard-won heartbeat
no, really, I’m happy;
at least as a human you’re not a metaphor
for everything I’ll never be
cause man, how embarrassing it was
to know I feel less in this living body
than you did in your dead one
when do I get my redemption arc?
the ties that bind us
stronger than any metal
these rings symbolize
[ Hey friends! My girlfriend proposed and I (duh) said yes! ]
Sometimes it feels like I am under a spell, as if when I was sixteen I unknowingly pricked my finger and fell into a slumber from which there can be no waking. Like Sleeping Beauty, I feel trapped within an inert body at the center of a kingdom of ice and thorns. I wonder if the cold has crept into my heart or if the thorns have wrapped themselves around my ribs. I wonder what I did to deserve a curse even true love cannot break. I rage and sorrow and strive against my prison, but the vines and ice grow thick around me and I remain as motionless, as unfeeling, as stone.
I wonder if, even years later, long after she had woken and all the kingdom was freed from its terrible spell, Sleeping Beauty still felt the thorns creeping back. I wonder if forever after True Love’s Kiss she saw the thorns twitching at the corners of her vision and heard them scraping against the window glass at night. Maybe she slept as little as possible, so sure was she that the vines would come creeping back if she let her guard down for even a breath. Maybe she went slowly mad, and the prince eventually grew weary of his touch being mistaken for the brush of a needle-sharp thorn. Maybe when it came down to a choice between the crazy princess or the roses in the royal gardens, he chose the option that disappointed him least.
What’s in a name? That which we call Rosa
by any other name would smell as sweet.
And yet we give each of a hundred species a name
and a name to each of a thousand cultivars.
Would you deny Rosa persica its singular title
or call Rosa canina Rosa kordesii?
Would you claim there’s no difference
between the homes of Rosa carolina and Rosa chinensis
or the thorns of Rosa acicularis and Rosa sericea?
The humble rose is no less lovely with one name or another
yet we honor the beauty of difference with the blessing of language.
If we can give each bud a family, genus, subgenus, and species
can we not respect the names with which our fellow humans define themselves?
Are we not worthy of the same deference as the smallest rose?
[ Written for the August 2016 Carnival of Aces. ]
Hi, friends. Let’s talk about hate blogs.
The Forty-two Ideals of Ma’at. The Rule of Three. The Ten Commandments. Karma. There are a lot of tenets in a lot of belief systems, both religious and secular, but they all basically boil down to this: don’t be a dick. Whether you’re lying or slandering or bullying or stealing, you’re being a dick to someone, and that’s not cool. (Hey, I just summed up a bunch of long-winded religious texts for you!) I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what makes a person a positive force in the world, and more specifically how I personally can uphold Ma’at in my everyday life. To that end, I’ve been trying to judge less, to listen and empathize more, and to hold my tongue if what I want to say doesn’t contribute positively to a discussion. It’s hard, sometimes, but I feel lighter and cleaner of soul for it.
My greatest weakness online, the topic that most quickly gets my ire up and my claws out, threatening my promise to think first and speak second, is “ace discourse”. If you’re unfamiliar with the phrase, ace discourse refers to an ongoing discussion within and about the asexual community – and more specifically, whether cisgender+heteroromantic asexuals can be considered LGBT. I’ve seen a very small handful of thoughtful, logical posts on the topic, and a nauseating wave of hateful, close-minded posts purposefully phrased to frame cisgender+heteroromantic asexuals as oppressors and monsters. Reading these makes me angry, sad, indignant, protective… any number of emotions that coalesce in the desire to rip people to shreds. But that’s the internet, right? Trolls gather where they’re fed. Bigots hide behind keyboards. Nothing new under the sun.
What sorrows me more than the frequency of these anti-ace posts are the hate blogs. Every time someone has attacked me for defending cisgender+heteroromantic asexuals, it has been through a hate blog. Every time I see someone spewing virulent anti-ace vomit on Tumblr, it’s through a hate blog. And all I can wonder is… why? Why did this person go to the trouble of creating this “cishet ace” hate blog, and then spend hours every day lurking on the asexual tag just to jump onto anyone with a differing opinion? Doesn’t this person have anything better to do with their time? Don’t they have hobbies? Friends? Family? Don’t they feel ashamed to waste their precious life spreading anger and hatred toward a completely innocent group of people?
It’s a testament to my recent spiritual growth, I think, that I pity these people instead of hating them. I would have hated them once, it’s true, and wished them great ill, but not now. Now I only think it’s sad and pathetic that someone wastes their time on hate. I can’t imagine what my family and friends would think if they found out I ran a blog dedicated to hating a group of people who have done nothing to harm me. I can’t imagine what my goddess would do if I purposefully contributed so much negativity to the world. I can’t imagine these things because they’re so shameful, so embarrassing. So why do others derive so much joy from hurting strangers? I truly don’t understand the thought process. Are they so empty inside, or perhaps hurting so deeply, that they want others to feel as they do?
The world is full of bullies and probably always will be. I can’t make it be otherwise all on my own. What I can do, though, is limit the amount of negativity I personally contribute and increase the amount of positivity I consciously generate. I can choose to not engage with someone who embraces their hate, and instead stand beside those who also fight for peace and equality. I can make the effort every day to uphold Ma’at, to be more than just “not a dick” to my fellow beings. That seems a much better use of my time in this life than lurking under a digital bridge.
I am not the enemy
just because I’m tired of invisibility;
I am not an intruder
just because I’m sick of your slander;
I am not an oppressor
just because you think my pain is lesser;
I am not your scapegoat
and at my trial, whether I sink or float,
you’ll call me witch – but we’ll both know
one day you’ll reap the seeds you sow
[ This was written with asexuality in mind, but it’s for everyone of a sexual/romantic/gender minority who feels unwelcome in the queer community because of gatekeeping. **PLEASE NOTE: This was written days before the Pulse nightclub shooting. I’m posting it a couple days after it would normally have gone up in order to respect our community’s grieving; that being said, please don’t take this as any sort of response to the shooting or anything related to it. The timing is just a coincidence. ]
Asexuality, Spirituality, and Queerness (for May 2016’s Carnival of Aces)
When I was a kid, I had very strong opinions about romance and sex, and those opinions basically boiled down to GROSS. Romance was gross. Sex was gross. I abandoned books when the stereotypical dashing male love interest made his entrance; I loudly denounced the romantic plotline in Titanic. Sure, I had a crush or two at school, and I spent a few years obsessed with the boy bands of the early 2000s, but at the end of the day I still didn’t get all the hype. I crushed from afar and grew bored if the person returned my feelings, and I was more interested in the movies I saw when I went on my only two dates than I was with the boys I went with. Basically, I was in a foreign world without a translator or dictionary, nodding at what other people said while having no idea what their words actually meant. And as most people on the ace spectrum know, navigating that world can often be frustrating and stressful. So much so, sometimes, that you end up shutting it out completely – hence the stereotype of the robotic, romantically and sexually ignorant ace. Or perhaps, to continue with my metaphor, the tourist who stubbornly continues speaking their own language while refusing to learn any words in the local tongue.
Ironically, considering my aesthetic appreciation for women and my current long-term girlfriend, it was two men who helped me understand that other world by teaching me a bit of the local language. When Tanim and Daren came into my life in the summer of 2002, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I thought I had made these characters up, that I had total control over who they were and the journey they would take. I was quickly proven wrong, of course. I was never in control; I wrote the story, sure, but they were the ones telling it. And the first place where they showed who was really in control was their relationship. They started out as friends, and even had girlfriends of their own (which makes me laugh uproariously to this day), but that soon changed. I realized they were in love with each other, and I have watched their relationship unfold and evolve ever since. Likewise, my understanding of who they were, how they felt love and attraction, evolved as well. I didn’t have words for my own asexuality until I was in my twenties, but even before that I recognized in Tanim and Daren something “other”. I just didn’t know what it was, or that it was mirrored in my own identity.
I live and breathe these men. I know them better than any living person, and I can slip behind their eyes as easily as I might slip into the bath. They became the lenses through which I viewed the world around me, and in that way I began to understand the complexities of love and sexuality. While Tanim and Daren both fall on the ace spectrum, as well in some ways on the aromantic spectrum, they encompass much of those complexities. As I came to understand their relationship, and how each of them experienced and reacted to love and sexuality, it made it easier for me to understand others. Maybe I didn’t feel romantic love or sexual attraction, but I could recognize in other people aspects of Tanim and Daren, and that helped me empathize with their experiences. Being a scribe or proxy, or whatever I am, made me not only face things that made me uncomfortable, like sexual intercourse, but showed me the beauty hidden in something I otherwise found uninteresting or repulsive. It’s hard to explain something so deeply ingrained in my perception and worldview… it’s like living three lives at once, instead of just one.
Where my asexuality and spirituality intersect, a third line crosses: my queerness. As someone who identifies as a queer asexual, I use queer as an umbrella term for the greater LGBT community and also as part of my personal identity. I will freely admit right now – I don’t know what Tanim and Daren are. Ghosts, maybe, or spirits, gods or fragments of something far more unknowable. In the end it doesn’t really matter; I am sworn to them either way. My bond with them is not quite romantic, not quite platonic; likewise, it is not quite spiritual and not quite mundane. They interact with myself and my partner in ways that affect us both on a personal level and on a relationship level. I have yet to find a better word to describe this part of my life than queer. It’s a little like being in a polyamorous relationship, only two of the members aren’t corporeal, the connections between us all aren’t necessarily sexual or romantic, and it was less a conscious decision to take part than it was just thrown at us. I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world, but it’s not something I can exactly tell just anyone about. Hence it becomes the queerest part of my already queer identity.
I can’t imagine who I’d be today without Tanim and Daren, but I suspect I would be using my asexuality more as a shield or a shell than as a window to look into others lives, and let them look into mine. I think my journey toward understanding love and sexuality in all their forms would have been severely hampered without them, and I am eternally grateful to have been giving such a unique way to experience the world. I may not speak the language of this foreign world perfectly, but I’m becoming steadily more fluent.
Asexuality and Paganism (for May 2016’s Carnival of Aces)
Standing in the Kemetic section of Crescent Moon Gifts, I waivered. On the shelf before me was a beautiful statue of Bast, lithe form poised to accentuate Her curves and hint at the sensual, playful side of this goddess of felines and motherhood. I held it in my hand, turned it over, all the while feeling an internal pull that yes, this was what She had pushed me here for, this should be my first purchase as I undertook the journey as Her devotee. And yet, I waivered. Not because I was afraid of the commitment, or because I wasn’t sure She was the one I should follow. I waivered because of that sensuality. I wondered if I could kneel before a statue so obviously carved to portray a beautiful female fully aware of, and fully embracing, the attractiveness of her form. I saw the playfulness in it, yes, but also the undercurrent of raw sexuality, and it was at that I balked. Being at best sex-indifferent and more often sex-repulsed, how could I find understanding and kinship in a goddess of physical desire?
In the end, I bought the statue. The call inside me overcame my uncertainty, though I still had strong reservations. And thus my journey as a devotee of Bast began, and my journey to accept and embrace my asexuality evolved to the next level. I had never imagined the two could be connected, let alone inextricably interwoven. The last year has shown me my fears were unfounded; though as with all journeys, there would be bumps in the road.
The first thing I learned when I started working with Bast is that She not only did not judge me for being asexual, but loved me all the more for it. My initial fears that She would push me toward sex or brush me off for not being comfortable with that side of Her were quickly allayed. Bast’s presence always felt motherly to me, and while I acknowledged the sensual side of Her, She never forced me to interact with it. From the beginning She sent me feelings of love and acceptance, and because of this I firmly believe She stands for all sexual, gender, and romantic minorities. She celebrated with me when the United States finally gained marriage equality, and She comforted me when the subject of physical intimacy caused confusion and heartache in my romantic relationship. When I begged to be cured of my asexuality, She helped calm my mind so I could see clearly and remember to love who I am. While Bast is not the only one to thank for getting me through a very dark period, I could not have done it without the spiritual strength She gave me.
Currently, my romantic relationship is doing exceedingly well. My partner and I have found a comfortable balance between physical intimacy and non-physical intimacy, between giving and receiving pleasure and love in all their forms. We have both done an immense amount of emotional work to reach this point, and I don’t downplay either of our efforts. However, I know Bast had a hand (or paw) in this as well, and I honor Her for that. Sometimes when my partner and I are engaging in physical intimacy, I offer that act up to Bast as thanks for Her help. This is a rare offering, and a very sacred one for me to give, and I feel Her appreciation very clearly. I have even had visions of my partner and I as Kemetic priestesses, making love in an ancient temple. I understand those images to be Bast’s way of showing Her thanks and approval. So while there may be no historical basis for the popular rumor that Bast is the goddess of lesbians, She definitely embraces love in all its forms.
Even more importantly, I think, Bast has lead me to help others in similar situations. I currently run a Tumblr blog called Still-A-Valid-Ace, where I offer advice, encouragement, and support to ace-spectrum folks. The image below of one of my posts shows just how widespread the concern about sexuality and faith really is, especially in the pagan community.
Hundreds of people felt connected enough with this post to like or reblog it; some even have contacted me directly, asking how to navigate relationships with deities when you aren’t comfortable or interested in their sexual sides. I told them what I tell you now – have faith. Humans may discredit or discriminate against you because of your sexuality, but deities won’t. They want to form a relationship with you, and that relationship includes helping you love yourself. Whether you follow Bast, Inanna, Aphrodite, or any other deity who lists love and sex under their specialities, they will love you for who you are.
Dua Bast!
[ Post script: To those who find themselves under the attention of, or wanting the attention of, a sexual deity, please remember this – we’re never completely immune to fear. Even after the positive experience I have had with Bast, I still went through all the same reservations and “what ifs” when Inanna came calling, worried She wanted to disrupt my comfortable sex-indifference and make me into a more sexual being like Herself. Of course, She wants nothing of the sort, and I should have know that from the beginning. It’s okay to second-guess yourself, even when you think you should know better. Spirituality in any form is about the journey, not the destination. Your faith will stand by you even when your faith in yourself wavers. ]
Only Fragments 