Something I've noticed over the years is that I get very similar reactions when I tell people I don't drink or that I'm ace.
A sort of initial surprise, a need for clarification. And then some selection or combination of a) an insistence I'm wrong/lying, b) defensiveness, or c) anger.
And I think there are a lot of underlying reasons for those responses, many of which are probably difficult to untangle But I think some part is that people feel judged, even when i'm just neutrally stating my own preferences.
This can probably happen any time someone admits they're not interested in something you are, even stuff as innocuous as a sports team or media genre. But alcohol and sex in particular... These are topics with very strong but contradictory associations within society. To be cool, you're supposed to have sex/drink-- but only the Right Way, with the Right People. Otherwise it's "cringe" at best, "immoral" at worst. More than that, what counts as the Right Way, and the Right People, will vary from (sub-)culture to (sub-)culture, which means you're trying to adhere to a set of "rules" that is ever changing, ever shifting.
I do not believe that. I believe that both sex and drinking are, in of themselves, morally neutral acts. I believe that you can do immoral things with(in) them (e.g. Sexual assault, driving under the influence). I think there are possible health impacts you should be aware of before engaging with them (e.g. the risk of STIs or liver disease, etc), and that there are precautions people might want to consider to minimize those risks. But that's the true of frankly every activity, to a greater or lesser extent.
People who get uncomfortable about my asexuality and non-drinking rarely ask me my attitudes, and won't be particularly receptive to my attempts to clarify them. I suspect that's because they haven't actually interrogated these attitudes themselves. They are still harbouring internalised guilt, that sense on some level that drinking and sexuality are wrong.
In other words, they're feeling judged, but not because I am judging them. But because my simple act of abstaining from them is making them suddenly acutely aware that engaging with sex or alcohol is a Choice. In doing, it confronts them with a fact that it's a choice they're making. And if on some level they think they should be making a different one... they get defensive, angry, or judgemental in turn.
janainaart
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