Unloved

I was a little surprised to realize that I hadn't written about this on here, yet.  It's one of those insecurities that's really easy for me to get wrapped up in.  I get a whiff of it, and immediately get stuck playing and replaying everything that feeds into it.  The conversations I've had.  Those moments where an understanding suddenly shifts into sharp focus.

When it comes to insecurities about being loved, many people seem to get wrapped around their worthiness, or lack of worthiness.  But that's an area in which I've always been oddly confident.  While I'm certainly imperfect, I don't for a second doubt the ways in which I'm a compassionate, attentive, caring partner.  I absolutely believe that I am worthy of love.

But it can be hard to believe that I am loved, or will be loved, romantically.  Some of that has been from the experience of dating people who struggle with the reality of a relationship that doesn't include a sexual element.  As it was put so succinctly in the movie (A)Sexual, there's a way in which sexless relationships are simply not to be taken as seriously as those which do include sex.  Even when people think they'll be fine with it, the reality often ends up being that... they're not.  And that's never a pleasant reality to come to grips with.

But well before experiencing how that played out, a series of conversations left me rattled.  They all occurred within the same year or so, as I was just starting to wrap my head around the notion that my sexuality was markedly different than that of most folks.  And multiple people- all of whom were people that I'd been sexually involved with, and who I loved- shared their dubiousness that I would ever find partners who were comfortable with a sexless relationship.  Of course, I was a wonderful person, and sweet and kind and all of that... it's just that it was plain unreasonable to believe that anybody could really love me if I wasn't putting out.  And really, it wasn't very realistic to think that anybody would wait around if I always took so damn long to get around to the good stuff, and even when I did it wasn't the right kinds of sex anyhow, and it certainly wasn't frequent enough, and, and....

Let me emphasize again that these were conversations that I had with people I loved, and in many ways, still love today.  They were conversations that came from a place of genuine concern on my behalf.

And they're conversations which now, years later, I've never been entirely able to shake.

It's a rough insecurity to overcome, because it targets that which is necessarily out of my control.  I can't control others' feelings and emotions.  And really, it's an impossible thing to assure against.  Feelings do shift and evolve and change over time.  Romantic love is never guaranteed.  Even when it is there, it can (and does!) dissipate, for any number of reasons.

It's not an insecurity that dominates my life, by any means.  I am fortunate enough to have a slew of fantastic people in my life, and that does quite a bit to help keep these kinds of worries from the forefront of my mind.

But when this particular insecurity comes up, it really comes out a'swinging.  And I still haven't quite figured out how to block that right hook.

That Warm Fuzzy Moment When...

...you're renewing your membership at the local science museum, and discover how stupidly easy it is to add a third adult onto your account.

Sure, it's designed with child caretakers in mind- you have Parent A, Parent B, and... Uncle C?  Grandparent D?  Babysitter E?  There's any number of reasons that a standard nuclear family might want to add another adult to their account!  But it works just fine for my purposes, as well.  My purposes, in this case, being the addition of my husband's girlfriend to our account.

Yeah!!

Assault & Trauma

Trigger Warning: This post talks about assault, trauma. Parts of it might be interpreted as rape apology.

There's an idea that I've been turning around in my head for awhile, that perhaps we as a culture partner the ideas of assault and trauma a bit too closely.  There seems to be a notion that assault is the input, and trauma will always be the output.  You can't have the output without the input.  The bigger the input is, the bigger the output is.  It's a 1:1 ratio of assault:trauma, and you simply cannot have one without the other.  And I think that this view misses quite a bit of the range of human experience.

Some of the implications of that have already gotten some discussion, as the idea that everybody processes their experiences differently has become more widely understood.  I think that this article brushes up against it, as it challenges the notion that to be assaulted is to be eternally broken inside.  In recognizing the fact that everybody heals differently, we necessarily recognize that everybody has different responses to their experiences.

The idea that a violation of one's consent or boundaries can be traumatic, regardless of the "severity" of the violation is another way in which this discussion has moved incrementally away from the 1:1 assault: trauma model.  I think that's it's incredibly useful and important to acknowledge that a non-consensual ass-slap, or "gray rape" can be traumatic events with major, lasting consequences.

I would like to see the conversation continue pushing and poking holes in the 1:1 model.  I'd like to see recognition that very real trauma can result from events which are not assault, or even a consent violation of any kind.  I'd like to see recognition that assault- even clear-cut, undeniable assault- may not always be traumatic.

It means accepting that as humans, our experiences and emotions are messy.  It means accepting that sometimes a person's actions can be terribly damaging to another, but it doesn't necessarily mean that those actions were wrong.  It means understanding that sometimes people do genuinely fucked up things, and everybody walks away alright.  It means that while there is a strong correlation between assault and trauma, the relationship is not always one of causation.

I've had sexual experiences that were blurry around the consent edges (and in one case, by-the-book assault), that I feel great about.  I've debated elaborating on those experiences in this blog for quite some time.  Ultimately, the fear that somebody else would use those as a model of appropriate behavior is what keeps me from elaborating on details.

Conversely, I've had sexual experiences that were solidly within acceptable consent guidelines that left deep scars.  There are no special details, or circumstances, from those.  It was normal sex in established relationships, and unremarkable in every way save my own reaction to it.  For a long time, I dipped my toes into the idea that those experiences had been non-consensual.  Because how could they have been this traumatic, done this much damage, if they'd been consensual?  I may have gone through the motions, but he should have known that I didn't want it, right?  Wasn't it clear how detached, how disengaged I was?

My model of sexuality, trauma, consent and assault simply didn't allow for the possibility that something could be so damaging without it having been wrongdoing.  My hurt didn't seem like it could be valid, or legitimate, without the non-consensual framework.  I think I was groping towards the place where I'm at now when I wrote this entry a few years ago.  In truth, I didn't entirely believe my words at the time.

I do now.

This is not to say that sexual trauma is always independent of assault- not at all.  The two clearly have a close and frequent relationship.  But I believe that it is inaccurate to speak as though they are inherently linked.  The current narrative leaves a massive void where I think many experiences may fall.  And that does a disservice to everybody involved.

Not That Weird, After All

My husband and I haven't had sex in something like two and a half years.  Which, for those who are counting, is about a year longer than we've been married.  Stripping that, along with the romantic partnership, out of our relationship is what let us get to a healthy, stable place with one another.  We were pretty bad at finding mutually satisfying ways to be sexual or romantic.

But we're pretty fucking great at living together, and leaning on each other for the important things.  For all the ways in which we are not, and make a point to not be, primary partners, we are pretty bombass domestic partners.  The way that I characterize it is that if I get hit by a bus, I want my husband to be the one making decisions.  We can trust each other in that way, with that depth, without holding hands or getting each other off.

At first glance, this seems to throw many people.  Marriage gets taken for granted as a package deal.  Even for non-monogamous folks, who already tend to think outside the box when it comes to relationships, our approach is consistently met with surprise.

And then they think about it.  "Huh.  I guess that makes sense."  Sometimes folks without long-term partners even have a lightbulb moment of who fills that role in their own lives.  "Oh, like my friend Peter!  We've lived together on and off for the last ten years."  "Oh, like my friend Erica!  We just took a three week trip together, and she's been my best friend since college.  If I got hit by a bus, I think that she's the one I'd want making those types of decisions."

And then Reader's Digest, of all things, sealed the deal.  While waiting at the doctor's office with my husband ('cause we go to important appointments together!), he pointed out a copy with a cover story about traits of happy marriages.  "Hey, see if we're normal!" he suggested.  So I flipped it open to the article.  Most of the numbers and percentages were not particularly relevant or interesting to me, so I've since forgotten them.  But one jumped out.  According to Reader's Digest (super legit, I know), a solid 20% of the happiest couples are no longer attracted to one another.  Triumph!  "Looklooklooklook!  We're not weird!  See?!"

Well.  Maybe a little weird.

But at least not the only ones who figured out that you can do this without doing that.

Urban Planning

"Dude, were the urban planners drunk when they laid this out?  Why is there a wall there?!"  It was an offhand comment that I made while snuggled up with a friend, but it fits pretty well.  We all have some rough idea of how to navigate cities, and what to expect.  Sure, there are some quirks that are particular to any given city.  And sometimes roads curve around in ways that you don't necessarily expect, or side roads unexpectedly dump you onto the freeway.  But on the whole, there are some basic patterns that most of us have come to count on.  Even the occasional detour is easy enough to navigate around.

The city of my psyche got laid out a little differently.  It can be a little trickier for folks that are new to the city of me to figure out how to navigate it.  If one has been so unfortunate as to not pick up the Lonely Planet guide before entering, they may be surprised to find that what they thought was a freeway on-ramp actually routes you to a park.  Surprise!  No sexy freeway for you!  But check out this cool swing set!

And while my own layout makes sense to me, I'm still struggling with where the walls are for others.  I often feel like entire parts of others' beings are walled off entirely, save for one toll bridge.  The cost? Sex.  Can't pay?  No visit to the romance district for you!

I'm not quite sure what to do with this metaphor from here.  It didn't particularly illuminate anything for me, though I think it may for others.  When food metaphors aren't adequate for explaining the way I work, it's at least another option to fall back on.

Snippets

What I need, as a bottom, is somebody who takes pleasure in hurting me.  Not just somebody who's doing it because it's what I'm into, but somebody who really enjoys the process of methodically working me over and seeing me in pain.

I'm not that into BDSM.

You're in my bed.  That says something.

That was the first time I've cried like that- full-out sobbing for an extended period of time?  That was new.  

Really?

Yeah.  It was the sort of catharsis that I needed.  Thank you.

I finally figured out the trick.

Oh?  What's that?

Not feeling remorse.

Primary and Secondary Attraction

In an attempt to explain the asexual experience, quite a few words and terms have been coined.  I've only given a cursory look over many of them- just enough to see that they didn't deeply resonate with me.  As several of those terms have been thrown around by others, I've become increasingly familiar with them, and have given them some more thought.

Primary and secondary attraction are a couple of those terms.  Primary attraction, as I understand it, is sexual attraction that's rooted in that which is immediately apparent about a person- the way they carry themselves, their smell, the clever things they say, all that kind of stuff.  Secondary attraction- again, as I understand it- is attraction that develops over time, and is rooted in a relationship.

These terms are usually used to help explain demisexuality.  Demisexual folks only develop secondary attraction.

So as these terms have been bouncing around in my mind as of late, I realized that I'm kind of... the opposite.. of demisexual.

Primary attraction isn't actually that rare for me to come by.  Lots of people can seem at least moderately shiny to me upon first meeting.  Where things fall apart for me is when that novel shininess fades away, and I'm left without any secondary attraction to keep that interest going.

The way that this has manifested in my life has been that my sexual interest in people- people who I really, really love!- consistently drops off within a couple of months.  So far as I've found, there's no nice way for that to happen.  There aren't cute greeting cards that say, "Yeah, I mean, you smelled really nice!  But you're just not sexually interesting to me any more.  I still care about you though!  Let's still hold hands!"

So I'm pretty well left with two options.

I can have a series of sexual relationships that we both know are going to last a couple of weeks, or if we're lucky, a couple of months.  Adding sexual partners is a pretty big emotional investment for me, so on the whole, that's not going to be a very fun option.  I can get the occasional kick by making out with folks who, for any number of reasons, aren't on the table as long-term partners, but that's about as far as I'm inclined to go down that road.

Or I can opt to move really slowly into new sexual relationships, until I have a solid feeling that I'm experiencing more than just primary attraction.  That also gives me a chance to decide if I feel good about making that emotional investment in them.  If I'm still feeling it after the shiny-newness has worn off, game on!

I'm not quite sure what it is that keeps things sustainable.  This is where the primary/secondary attraction model seems to break down for me.  When I have a sustainable sexual attraction to somebody, I don't think that the root of that attraction is the non-sexual parts of the relationship.  I care about my sexual partners, and enjoy spending time with them, but it's not like they're The One(s), by any means.

It's an imperfect model in my case, but an interesting one nonetheless.  It's certainly given me a different lens to look through.

Flipping Sexual Switches

Tromping around in the world of erotic asexuality has given me a fascinating window into the world of sexual switches- both mine and others'.  Though erotic and sexual energies are pretty closely linked for most folks, interactions with me often lead to people learning more about where those aren't inherently linked for them.  It's in those places where we often find out shared playground.

Those activities which are inherently sexual for somebody can be widely varied, and are not necessarily what one would expect.  It might be cuddling in a certain way.  It might be playing with a certain spot on one's body.  For me, kissing is one of those unlikely sexual switches.

I can kiss and lick and bite somebody's body in a wide range of non-sexual situations, but for whatever reason, kissing on the lips is extremely sexual for me.  Aside from quick hello-goodbye pecks, my attempts to kiss or make out with folks to whom I wasn't sexually attracted have always been pretty uncomfortable and unintuitive for me.

I had it pointed out to be before I was even aware of it.  A couple of years ago, I had a brief foray with a kink-friendly guy.  We knew it we didn't fit into one another's lives in any sort of a long-term way, but we both had about six weeks in Colorado before we went off on our respective adventures.  With this context, we had a fun couple of weeks hooking up.  As we talked about our sexual experiences, both with each other and in the past, he commented once how he was having to relearn much about how to interact with somebody in order to hit my buttons and sweet spots.  The user guide to how to interact with me was apparently wildly different than that of any other women he'd been involved with.  One thing that he specifically cited was how much less interested I was in kissing than anybody he'd known.

Until that point, it wasn't something I'd ever noticed.  Once it was pointed out though, I realized how true it was.  In the years since, it's become even more obvious how much kissing is a sexual activity for me.  I love a deep kiss with somebody that I'm sexually into.  Still, in the same way that sex happens for me in but a very limited set of contexts, kissing is but an occasional endeavor for me.  

Defining Relationships

When it comes to relationships, I don't color in the lines.  Polyamory lends itself to that, with the notion of letting relationships simply be what they are, whatever that looks like.  Asexuality(ishness) makes that trend even more prominent in my life.  I have friends, and acquaintances.  And I have people that I'm entangled with in some... other... way.  My husband, who I respect and adore wholeheartedly.  It's a non-sexual, non-romantic marriage, but "good friends" doesn't begin capture the depth of his role in my life.  Or my adventure co-pilot, with whom I enthusiastically play and spill my guts to.  We explore new territory together, and sometimes hold hands.

Or the woman I've been quasi-dating for a few months now.  She's pretty awesome.  We've talked about the ambiguity of our relationship, and all of the directions in which it's not going.  And we've talked about our mutual comfort with that ambiguity.  The other day, she casually mentioned how it had recently come up that she wasn't sure what it would look like if our relationship- whatever it is- ended.   "She doesn't have sex, and in fact she doesn't even really kiss.  So if it ended... what would that look like?  Would I even know?"

And.. holy shit, I have no answer for that.  I don't know what it would look like either.  So much as possible, my relationships tend to evolve rather than end entirely.  Fluffy answers like, "Well, it would feel different" are wholly unsatisfactory to me.  But that's all that I have.  My relationships don't come with the clear parameters and flags.  There aren't clear roadmarkers telling us what it is or isn't.  They just... are.