The antics of the aromantics

the mspec to aspec pipeline is real and it happened to me

“Do you like girls or boys?”

I hope you don’t mind me reblogging your tags but these are my feelings EXACTLY

When I got married, I hadn’t had sex yet.  Waiting until marriage was important to me, so that’s what I did.  My wedding night was the first time I had sex.

It sucked.

I figured, ok, this is new for both of us, it’s probably going to take some practice.

A year later?  It still sucked  We tried a lot of different stuff.  A lot  of different stuff.  It sucked so bad, we even bought a copy of “Sex for Dummies”.

(it didn’t help)

I started working late so I didn’t go to bed at the same time as my husband.  Every time he would travel for work, I’d be grateful that I didn’t have to go through the awkwardness of avoiding his advances when I went to bed.

He didn’t think it was healthy for a newlywed couple to have sex less than once a week.  So we scheduled it.  Repeat, scheduled intimacy.  I thought I was putting on a brave face and doing what I needed to do to maintain a good relationship.

Because I had no idea that asexuality was a thing.

I talked to my husband, told him I didn’t like sex.  He didn’t understand.  I lost track of how many times I said: “It’s not that I don’t want to have sex with you.  I don’t want to have sex with anyone.”

So it was established, Amber doesn’t like sex.

But we still did it.  Because I wanted my husband to be happy.  Sometimes halfway through, I’d start crying.

And he’d always be supportive, and apologize.

After he finished.

So when I found out about asexuality, and told him how I felt, he suggested I go to a doctor.  Because obviously there was something wrong with me.

So I went to a doctor.

(surprise, surprise, I’m perfectly healthy)

Then I told my mom.  When she suggested meds to improve my sex drive, I broke down in tears.  I told her there was nothing wrong with me.  And my mom has been 100% supportive of my orientation ever since.  When people ask if I’m a lesbian, she teaches them about asexuality.  

But anyway back to my journey of self-discovery

So I tell my husband, I’m asexual, I don’t want to have sex.  You are not asexual, you do want to have sex.  One of us is going to be miserable in this relationship, and I’m tired of it being me.  I love you too much to make you miserable for the rest of your life, but I love myself too much to be miserable for the rest of my life.  We might have to face the fact that we’re not right for each other.

So his immediate response is “no, I can change, I’ll do anything, divorce is not an option, etc”

But I can’t exactly ask him to stop wanting to have sex.  Because that’s not how allosexual people work.  And he can’t seduce me into wanting to have sex, because that’s not how asexual people work.

Anyway.  He cries, I cry, we decide on marriage counseling to help our comunication.

Because we’d been married for almost 6 years by this point, and had been together for 3 years before that, and we still can’t really talk about what we want (or don’t want) in regards to sex.

So we go to counselling for 6 weeks.  The first 3 sessions individually, and the last 3 together.  During the together sessions, the therapist would prompt us with a question, and we’d talk to each other, being completely honest about things.

During (what turned out to be) our last session, I’d finally had enough.  I’d had enough of being embarrassed about what anyone else would think.  Enough of the gender roles I was being forced into.  Enough of paying someone to watch me talk to my husband.  Enough of pretending to salvage a relationship that I had been increasingly avoiding over the past 2 years, and I said:

“Josh, I love you.  We have communication problems, but we’ve been together almost ten years and I’m willing to work through those if you think we can make it work.  But I am never having sex with you again.”

(At this point, the therapist who’d been trying to get us to communicate put down her notebook and said, ok I think we’re done.)

Then and only then, did he agree to file for divorce.

—————–

I say all that to say this:

Don’t you dare fucking tell me that asexual representation doesn’t matter.  I would have six years of my life back if I had known.

And if you’re in a relationship, talk to each other oh my God.  About everything.  What dream you had last night.  That song from scout camp that randomly gets stuck in your head.  The reason you don’t like sweet potato.  That embarrassing thing you did in third grade that still makes you mad when you think about it.  If you and your partner can share these tiny, intimate details, talking about sex is no big deal.  And it takes practice, so practice.

————–

On a happy note, now, 3 years after the divorce, I am in a happy, stable relationship with another ace.  And if you happen to ask my mom how I’m doing, she’ll tell you “I’ve never seen my baby girl happier.”

ASEXUALITY IS A REAL THING, LOVING, SWEET ACE RELATIONSHIPS ARE REAL! Just because your partner wants sex doesn’t make you broken. Just because you don’t want sex doesn’t mean you should have to force yourself to do so. 

It’s about heteronormativity and amatonormativity and the unrealistic expectations society sets boys and girls up for from infancy. Barbie and Ken are every pair of toddlers sharing a sandbox while the adults around them call them each other’s little “boyfriend” or “girlfriend” even though neither party understands or is capable of understanding the implied meaning of that. Or wants to.

It’s a literal funhouse mirror of that weird pressure put on kids to perform heterosexuality from an early age. It examines how that leaves us unprepared for the complicated reality of actual relationships even if it turns out that you are heterosexual and do want sex and romance. Boys and girls aren’t really allowed to be just kids on the same team, so they grow up into men and women who generally want very different things from each other and are trained to look for it in everybody because anybody is better than nobody, and try to force it to work.

Barbie and Ken letting each other go in the end was perfect. Barbie the Every Woman realizing that she doesn’t have to be special, she just has to be, and Ken the Every Man realizing he has to seek validation elsewhere and lean on his fellow Kens for emotional support, WHICH THEY GIVE.