Not a Significant Bullet

So, yeah, I might have got something right. Too bad it’s taking the destruction of all that’s good in the world to prove my thesis.

I got my Master's in English and Cultural Studies. It’s come in handy this decade. I’ve published two books and my third should be out in October.

I’m asexual. I was finally able to put a term on to what I’ve felt my entire life when I was 39 (I'm 43 now; still asexual). For most of my “sexual” life, I just didn’t care. I’m indifferent to sex. It doesn’t drive me.

Asexuality is simply defined as “not experiencing sexual attraction.” That’s it. There are sex-positive Asexuals who love the pleasure of it, sex-negative Asexuals disgusted by it, and then sex indifferent Asexuals like me who don’t seek it out but, if with someone we care about—and if they really want it—we find pleasure in giving our partner pleasure.

Please don’t confuse Asexuality with Celibacy. Celibacy is a choice. Asexuality is an orientation—like heterosexuality and bisexuality. In fact, Alfred Kinsey (the first scientist to apply the scientific method to sexual behavior) even included Asexuals on the famous Kinsey scale.

The Kinsey Scale was groundbreaking in that it classified human sexuality into 7 levels—0 being exclusively heterosexual and 6 being exclusively homosexual, with everything else making up the complexity of human sexuality. BUT, what’s even more remarkable is that Kinsey included an X classification meaning “no socio-sexual contacts or reactions.”

Psychologists today have removed the social stigmas surrounding the absence of sexual activity, defining it as an orientation rather than some reaction to trauma or abuse. In fact, psychologist Justin J. Lehmiller attempted to reinterpret Kinsey’s classification, saying:

[T]he Kinsey X classification emphasized a lack of sexual behavior, whereas the modern definition of asexuality emphasizes a lack of sexual attraction. As such, the Kinsey Scale may not be sufficient for accurate classification of asexuality.

Mental health professionals recognize the lack of sexual attraction as not a result of trauma or abuse or a negative experience.

They are classifying it as healthy. As normal (it wasn’t too long ago that the DSM-3 classified homosexuality as a mental illness).

Anyway, my long-winded way of saying Asexuals are NOT broken. Are not the result of trauma. We are NORMAL. Check out all the hard work the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) has been doing to dispel the cultural stigmas surrounding someone’s decision to have sex or not have sex.

Enough of that (when did this diverge into a sexuality post?)

I try to write on topics such as my struggle with mental illness, the abuse I faced in a 10-year marriage, my sexuality. Not the usual topics of “How to Really Make Your Man Happy!” Fucking hell, I thought Cosmo was being used as kindling to burn down the cities. Fuck that shit. Find other ways to make yourself happy.

But I try to include happy things. They’re not there yet, but I have some funny videos and memes to share. Like a rhinestone cowboy. Or the Clap.

We go through this life encountering people every single day. You may think you’re nothing, you may think you don’t affect the world in the grand scheme of things.

But we touch these people’s lives whenever we cross their paths. And whether it’s a very minor change or a major adjustment to their lifestyle, YOU touched a life. You affected them. Just because you were there, and you existed.

It was *you*, not Jesus Christ, not the bus driver, not the bagger at the store. YOU touched somebody's life and changed it forever just by being there, by existing, and coming across this person.

Unless you had an ax and murdered them. Then BAD you! BAD!

This is why kindness is so important today. When there are the completely lost people out there spewing hate, reveling in it, wishing people dead because of skin color or political affiliation, just moving through life kindly changes the balance.

The hateful people are loud (extremely loud; shut the fuck up), they think they are the only people that matter. They don’t. In fact, I would argue that fur parents show more love and matter more than these people who wish to tear humanity down.

I encountered someone the other day who would just not stop trying to get me to vote for Trump. He told me:

If Socialism wins, Capitalism is gone forever, and they have destroyed this country.

I say good. Let Socialism win. It will produce a much better world. Let the system your Boomer generation created burn and be destroyed. Let it die. That generation fucked up the world.

But they refuse to take responsibility for it.

Let’s kill off 60 years of unmitigated greed, individualism, and selfishness.

Reagan has been dead for 16 years. Yet we’re still being traumatized by his complete takeover of politics.

Let’s hope we see a red rose bloom over the next decade. 🌹

Oh, and enjoy The Decline by NOFX. The most perfect punk song: