The Construct of the "Unassailable Asexual"

Dude, there's a word for this concept. Awesome. Well, not awesome in terms of the fact that this mentality exists, but I'd wanted the words to describe this phenomenon before and now someone has made them up. Yay.

Anyways, here's how much I fail the unassailable asexual test:

-Neurotypical: I've been diagnosed with Asperger's. So... yeah, fail.
-No Physical Health Issues: Oh man, where do I start... cleft lip and palate, ectodermal dysplasia, hypothyroidism, and chronic ear, eye and digestive system problems. I also used to have a brain tumor that caused seizures and a serious bleeding condition.
-No Mental Health Issues: Probably not. Even if I don't have PTSD proper, I have some subclinical variant thereof.
-Cisgendered: ...Probably. Mostly. Something. I'm not trans, but I don't particularly feel attached to the female gender role either.
-Indifferent: Nope. Very, VERY repulsed.
-Between Twenty and Forty: I'm 22, so I pass this one.
-Sex-Positive: For the most part. Some things, like infidelity and the way that sex is conceptualized in mainstream culture, bother me. The act itself, between truly consenting individuals, does not. Sex-pushing, however, bothers me immensely.
-Nonlibidoist: Mostly. Small amount of drive and high tendency towards sensory overstimulation.
-Sexual Problems: Not medically, no.
-No Abuse: I've had a lot of emotional abuse from various sources, and I've had a ton of bodily violation in the form of non-consensual invasive medical procedures.

I would also say there might be another prong or factor in this, and that is that the "unassailable asexual" has to be conventionally physically attractive, to ward off all those "You're just saying that because you can't get laid!" comments. I would not pass this part of the test either.

Needless to say I don't pass as "normal" very well. I don't bother to try. Nothing is expected of heterosexuals in order for them to be able to identify as they like without question, so I don't see why I or any other asexuals (or any other queer people for that matter) should hold asexuality or any other orientation to a higher standard. True equality demands that people be able to identify as best fits them no matter who they are, and what that identity happens to be, and true equality is what we should be fighting for without resorting to opportunistic tactics that involve excluding others from the community as "too weird."

What pisses me off the most about odd hormones being cited as a "cause" of asexuality is that abnormal hormones levels can affect sex drive, yes...but not sexual ATTRACTION. Why are people stupid...?

I don't pass.

And yes, this is a problem for me. I would like to be more open for visibility purposes, but frankly, that's just not my way. I'm too tired for the explanations, and I don't think anybody really needs to know about my sexuality or lack thereof. But it's annoying having to deal with the additional outside discouragement from this tenet that says that I am not good enough to be a public asexual. I am too young, I am female, I have mental health trouble, etc.

It especially pisses me off because lately I have been dealing with the forcibly ingrained and completely false idea that even though I am extremely intelligent and self-aware, because I am technically a teenager, all my thoughts and feelings are therefor invalid and/or exaggerated (particularly funny because I struggle with apathy). This idea interferes with my rational thought processes, and I want it gone.

Likewise, the idea that I or anybody else shouldn't be willing to be open about my/their asexuality because I'm/they're ____ and I'm/they're not ____ is incorrect, and should also be banished.

Oh god, ageism. I actually got pissed off enough about that weird and stupid meme that teenagers can't know what their own sexuality is that I wrote a post about it on my blog yesterday. Or that teenagers can't distinguish a lasting orientation from a phase, or even that if someone turns out to be wrong--or their sexuality does shift--that that's somehow a bad thing and invalidates their previous identity.

You know, I really don't know how romantic orientation plays into the whole thing. I've encountered feeling that the "gold star" asexual is romantic (usually anything but homoromantic, in my experience) because that "proves" asexuals are just as easily able to love as the rest of us. I really dislike that one. But I've also seen some thought that good visibility asexuals are aromantic, because it's easier to understand than someone with a mismatched romantic orientation. Which also sucks. I tend to think that romantic orientation is one of those things you just can't win.

And yeah, totally, it's an ambassador effect kind of thing. There's also this pressure that you have to educate, you have to always be polite and rational and courteous while educating, and I think that this sort of thing definitely feeds into being "acceptable" to the majority.

Which is an awesome strategy, but unfortunately only one which works if you have enough aces to tag-team people. Alas, that's not usually my experience, so I generally start dissecting assumptions. Sometimes I'm nice about it. Sometimes I'm not.

Eh. I think it's possible to say that personal decisions (like coming out, like choosing to educate) have a really positive effect for asexuality as a movement and a political slant to them, but I think it comes down to personal choice. I've never gotten the pressuring vibe from you, but I have occasionally felt it more generally within the community.

I'm still terrified by visibility work a lot of the time. I am easing into feeling more comfortable doing more offline visibility work, though, and I'm beginning to talk about asexuality more offline with people I know. (My Women's Studies class has been good for that.)

Mostly, though, my point with the pressure comment is that there's simultaneously some pressure to go out and educate and speak up and also some pressure to be as "gold star" as possible, especially if you do speak up. Which puts those of us who aren't gold enough at a wee bit of a double bind.

Oh, yeah. It's easy for me, for instance, to respond to things like accusations that I am somehow really repressed about my essential lesbianism. In the same way that almost no one is going to fit none of these, I think very few people fit all of them. For one thing, there's so many, and for another thing some of them contradict one another or are temporary in nature.