Post by sciatrix on Oct 14, 2010 18:28:28 GMT -5
So this morning I listened to a presentation my Women's Studies course did on a reading we'd had. We started discussing the pressure on women to get married by a certain age and the cultural construct that the only way to true happiness was to get married or at least try to get down that path with someone. And I was sitting and listening to the discussion and getting really annoyed, because it was fairly heteronormative and all anyone was discussing was the way that they felt pressured to move their relationships fast, that sort of thing.
I sort of lost my temper a bit and said something like "And god forbid you turn out queer! I'm aromantic asexual and that particular life plan is not going to happen for me, ever. I don't experience sexual attraction or romantic attraction to anyone. And if that's the only way life is set up, what happens when you can't fit into it at all?" I was rather less eloquent than that and rather more stammery and frustrated, mind, but that was the gist.
Which is the first time I've ever voluntarily outed myself to multiple people at once. Which was terrifying for me, especially after my last experience with coming out in a classroom setting. (That one, to make a long story short, was set up in such a way that I could lie or come out, and I chose to come out rather than lie. It was something I found very upsetting, especially since I was blindsided.)
And my professor handled that beautifully, and segued it off into a discussion of not fitting into societal expectations. She pointed out that not having the ability to slot into the expected path means that you get the freedom to redefine your relationships with people and that expectations that being single is necessarily bad are fairly unfounded and generally was awesome.
But that wasn't my favorite reaction. One of the women running the presentation immediately responded "I'm asexual, too! And I can never get anyone to believe me!"
I'm very, very pleased right now. On top of that, the asexy t-shirt I had made arrived this afternoon, and I'm wearing it.
I sort of lost my temper a bit and said something like "And god forbid you turn out queer! I'm aromantic asexual and that particular life plan is not going to happen for me, ever. I don't experience sexual attraction or romantic attraction to anyone. And if that's the only way life is set up, what happens when you can't fit into it at all?" I was rather less eloquent than that and rather more stammery and frustrated, mind, but that was the gist.
Which is the first time I've ever voluntarily outed myself to multiple people at once. Which was terrifying for me, especially after my last experience with coming out in a classroom setting. (That one, to make a long story short, was set up in such a way that I could lie or come out, and I chose to come out rather than lie. It was something I found very upsetting, especially since I was blindsided.)
And my professor handled that beautifully, and segued it off into a discussion of not fitting into societal expectations. She pointed out that not having the ability to slot into the expected path means that you get the freedom to redefine your relationships with people and that expectations that being single is necessarily bad are fairly unfounded and generally was awesome.
But that wasn't my favorite reaction. One of the women running the presentation immediately responded "I'm asexual, too! And I can never get anyone to believe me!"
I'm very, very pleased right now. On top of that, the asexy t-shirt I had made arrived this afternoon, and I'm wearing it.
I'm glad you got to have such a great coming-out experience.