Musings on the Nature of Attraction

[Look, look, I’ve still got an hour and a half left until December! …Yeah, I’m probably setting a bad example.]

Lately I’ve been feeling pretty skeptical about whether any kind of attraction actually exists independent of human creation. This likely stems from one of the classes I’m taking this semester – Sexuality in Western Culture – in which we’ve discussed sexuality and gender as social constructs. This idea immediately resonated with me. Being asexual and wtfromantic, I’d already been feeling dubious regarding sexual and romantic attraction. But once I started thinking about social construction and learned behaviors, I started to wonder about other forms of attraction as well. For example, the only type of attraction I experience with any consistency is aesthetic attraction. One day I thought to myself: Would I even find people aesthetically attractive if I hadn’t grown up surrounded by social cues suggesting that attraction as a “normal” human response? Does anybody know how to appreciate a quality film, beautiful music, good food, an engaging conversation, or even another person, until they’ve been conditioned by their surroundings?

I’m not really trying to make a definitive argument either way, because I myself am still not totally convinced one way or the other. However, I will readily acknowledge that just because attraction – in all of its depth and complicatedness – might be socially constructed, that doesn’t make it any less powerful. The same goes for sexuality, in fact. I wouldn’t dream of denying that people experience all kinds of attraction in many different variations, I myself among them. I believe that these thoughts and feelings are valid, whether they are inherent in human beings or not. But I do see great danger in assuming that any type of attraction is inherent in all people. Let me use my example of aesthetic attraction again. From what I can tell, aesthetic attraction seems to mean something different to every person who experiences it. It prompts different reactions, different responses. There may be similarities in our descriptions of it, enough that we can label our experiences with the same word, but the differences are still there. Deciding that everyone experiences one type of attraction in the same way – or experiences that type of attraction at all – means ignoring the copious variety of legitimate experiences that people actually have, as well as devaluing them.

That said, I think that the potential use in looking at attraction as socially constructed is that it reminds us that attraction is not innately the same for every person. Each person learns differently, right? Nobody is exactly alike, and thus, expecting everyone to fit into the same model regarding attraction (or relationships) is rather unfair and unreasonable.

So it seems to me, then, that the important question is this: Why do people experience or (construct) attraction in the first place? From my brief twenty years of existence and experience, I seem to be slowly concluding that the answer to that question is love. I think that everyone experiences love in some way, whether through family, friendship, or any of the countless kinds of attraction and relationships out there. Of course, love changes in its expression from person to person, from culture to culture. But it strikes me as the underlying force behind all different attractions and relationships. I suspect that people need to love, and to be loved, in some way. As a friend, a teacher, a student, a parent, a sibling, a partner, a pretty face, a great person to have a conversation with. The list could go on and on. We feel attraction because we are searching for love in some form. Love is the root of attraction, is the root of relationships, is the root of the human experience. At least, that seems like a plausible theory to me.

Carnival of Aces, Call for Participation

Hello all, and welcome to the eighth round of the Carnival of Aces! Some of you may be wondering, what exactly is a Carnival of Aces? Well, let me use the words of Sciatrix to elaborate:

"This blog carnival is an effort to encourage a variety of different voices to speak about asexuality from their own perspectives. Anyone can participate, but the responses should deal with asexuality or the asexual spectrum (grey-As, demisexuals) in some way. They should also relate in some way to the theme of each round of the carnival, which will change from month to month and will be chosen by the person hosting the carnival for that month.

The scope of this project is general–any post dealing with both asexuality and the theme of the carnival is welcome. Alternate forms of media are also welcome as long as they deal with the prompt! If you’re not sure whether your piece is okay, submit it anyway and we’ll figure it out.

What is a blog carnival?

A blog carnival is an event in which various people write posts around a single topic. These posts are then collected at the end of the carnival and linked together by the carnival’s host."

[From the Carnival of Aces Masterpost]

This month’s theme is Attraction. There seem to be many different kinds of attraction out there: romantic, sexual, aesthetic, emotional, intellectual, physical/sensual, etc. The asexual communities seem to be very interested in delving into the complex nature of attraction (and what that means to each individual). Therefore, here is your opportunity to write about your ideas, personal experiences, beliefs, or whatever strikes your fancy regarding the phenomenon of attraction.

Some questions to get you going:

- What does [fill-in-the-blank] attraction mean to you?

- What kinds of attraction do you experience – if any?

- How do you experience a specific type of attraction? What does it make you want to do?

- Do you get crushes/squishes? What kinds of attraction are involved? What do you want to do about a crush or a squish?

- How are certain attractions linked for you? Can you experience emotional attraction without romantic attraction, or sensual attraction without aesthetic attraction, or any other variation of the sort?

- Do you believe that attraction is a learned behavior or an inherent capability (or both)?

- Do you have personal stories dealing with issues of attraction/crushes/squishes that you want to share?

- Are there certain attractions that you wish were more commonly known about and acknowledged? What would that entail?

Basically, if you can work attraction into your post in any way, you’re golden.

Deadline: November 30. I should have the round-up posted by December 3 at the latest. You can submit after the deadline, and I will update the round-up to include your submission, but it must have been created before December 1 to count.

To submit to this round of the carnival: either leave a comment here or email me at reallyideallyemily [at] gmail [dot] com including a link to your submission. Most formats are fine, but keep accessibility in mind. For video or audio submissions, please include a transcript; for visual submissions, please include an image description. Also, I’m willing to host guest posts on my blog if you don’t have a blog of your own/would like to remain anonymous. Just email me and we’ll make arrangements.

I do believe that’s everything. Good luck, and I look forward to seeing all your wonderful submissions!

Me and My Mom

[This post is for the Family round of the Carnival of Aces. Check it out.]

I am terrified of coming out to my mother.

Flipping terrified.

It’s completely irrational. My mother is a very open-minded, accepting human being. For example, a couple months ago we had a positive, enthusiastic conversation about the complexity and fluidity of gender. Okay, that doesn’t have anything to do with me or my asexuality, but it shows how open-minded my mother is. Regarding myself, I’ve told her that I have no interest in romantic relationships, and she was totally cool with it; she didn’t say any of the things parents often do, like “you just haven’t met the right person” or “you’re too young to know that.” Also, I’ve shared asexuality-related blog posts on my Facebook (albeit cautiously avoiding connecting them in any way to my personal identity), and my mother had read and commented on them without a hint of negativity.

Given all of the above, honestly, she probably already suspects me. Why, then, am I so absolutely petrified at the thought of saying that simple sentence: “Mom, I’m asexual”?

I think part of my apprehension stems from her being a nurse. I’m afraid that her profession will make her more likely to say, “We should take you to the doctor and get your hormones fixed.” But again, this is hardly a rational worry. I’m not sure my mother would even approve of hormone treatment. My mom is somewhat of a nonconformist. She’s into local, non-synthetic foods; compassion and loving-kindness; meditation and alternative medicine. The likelihood of her saying I should “get my hormones fixed” is probably slim to none. I know this, and yet I can’t shake the fear that, despite all I know about her, this time I might be wrong.

Honestly, I think most of my nervousness originates from her reaction to the first time I tried to come out to her. I was fifteen. I had just started to identify as bisexual – not because I had the slightest interest in sex (I just figured that would happen later), but because I found both men and women aesthetically attractive. I sat her down, and I said to her, “Mom, I think I’m bisexual.” I had expected immediate acceptance. What I got, however, was skepticism. “You know, you might not be. A couple times, when I was younger, I thought I was in love with a friend of mine. It’s a phase girls go through sometimes.”

I was stunned. Admittedly, I probably oughtn’t to have used the word “think.” But I was fifteen. And really, I suspect that fact greatly influenced her response to me. She did come to accept me as bisexual, and has been very supportive, but her initial reaction has continued to plague me. What if I tell her this – tell her about the identity I’m ten times more confident and comfortable with – and she reacts the same way she did when I was fifteen? That possibility scares the crap out of me.

So, you might ask, why do I bother coming out to her in the first place? If I’m causing myself so much mental anguish with the very idea of it, why don’t I just stay in the closet? After all, my sexual orientation is nobody’s business but my own. I don’t have to tell anyone.

Here’s why I bother: My mother is one of my closest friends. I love her. I trust her. I feel comfortable with her. We share with each other, have meaningful conversations, spend time together. I’m always honest with her, and not telling her the truth feels almost like lying.

Also, I’m planning to officially come out on my Facebook during Asexuality Awareness Week. If I know anything for sure, it’s that my mother would rather hear it from me than from Facebook.

Friendship Break-Ups

So I was browsing Facebook the other day, and I happened to glance at the profile page of an ex-friend of mine. Our friendship effectively ended about a year ago, but I’m still mourning its loss. We had been friends for seven years. She was one of the people I was closest to, and one of the few whom I trusted implicitly. It wasn’t like we had fought over something, or lied to each other, or anything else that typically ends a friendship. With time, of course, we had been slowly drifting apart, but I still considered her one of the most important people in my life. Then she started dating another ex-friend of mine. Then they got engaged. Then she stopped talking to me altogether.

It still hurts – a hell of a lot, actually. When I think about how close we used to be, and how much I used to trust her, it’s like a dull ache in my chest that refuses to go away. That’s not to say I’m despondent, or depressed, or refusing to move on with my life, because that would be irrational beyond measure. However, it’s still a source of some pain whenever I’m reminded of it. As I sat pondering this the other day, something occurred to me: Most people put a much greater emphasis on the end of a romantic relationship than on the end of a friendship.

I’m still pretty sad over the loss of this friend, but I haven’t told that to anyone because I’m sure most people would think it overdramatic or absurd. About a month after I initially realized our friendship was finished, I also realized that I no longer felt comfortable talking honestly about how upsetting it had been; I felt like I was simply supposed to be “over it.” If I do talk about it now, it’s because someone else mentioned the subject first, and then I’m careful not to sound too emotional about the whole thing. I have this sneaking suspicion, though, that if we had dated instead (especially considering how long our relationship lasted), my not being entirely over her would be a bit more socially acceptable.

I believe that a friendship break-up can be just as painful, if not more so, that a romantic break-up. And maybe this is just my experience, but it seems to me like most people don’t acknowledge that fact. Perhaps they do feel it internally, but they don’t talk about it, and I wish that weren’t the case. I wish it were more acceptable to talk about the loss of a friendship, and how painful and upsetting it can be. It’s devaluing to friendships not to recognize the strong effects they have on the people involved in them. Any relationship that plays such a huge role in your life, especially for such duration, is bound to leave somewhat of a hole in its absence.

How have you reacted to the loss of a friend? Did you feel like you could talk about it? I’d really love to hear other people’s thoughts.

Fun with Interpretation

[This post is for the 5th Carnival of Aces.]

I’m starting to realize, more and more, that people are infinitely capable of different interpretations of the same thing. Two people could look at the same sentence, the same action, the same facial expression, and get something completely different out of it. It all depends on where you’re coming from. Our experiences, our opinions, and our ideas shape the way we view the world – and the way we view media.

Take anime, for instance. The first full-length anime series I ever saw was Fruits Basket. I watched the show around the time I was twelve years old. It promptly became an obsession. I’ve seen all twenty-six more times than I can count, and I showed them to as many of my friends as I could (and got them obsessed too). After a couple years, though, our obsession waned and we all moved on. I hadn’t watched an episode of Furuba probably since I was fourteen.

This past June, however, I got together with several friends and we decided to watch it again.

[Keep in mind that I am only discussing the anime here, and ignoring any aspects of the manga that aren’t present in said anime.]

Aside from the awesome nostalgia this viewing inspired, I was amazed at how much a different perspective can change the way you look at media. When I was twelve, I was an avid Tohru/Yuki shipper. I thought they were the perfect couple, and I was convinced that the entire anime was subtly backing me up. When I was twelve, I also knew nothing about relationships other than the monogamous, romantic, and heterosexual. “Straight” people were the only ones with which I had any personal experience. Had I watched the anime for the first time at age sixteen instead, I probably would have shipped Yuki/Kyo (I went through a bit of a yaoi phase in high school).

I’ve learned a lot since I was twelve – and since I was sixteen, for that matter. I got involved with LGBT communities and received quite an education from books, movies, and friends. I discovered asexuality, and started to read all kinds of fascinating things about sexuality, orientations, and relationship models. With this new knowledge in hand, I guess it’s not surprising that I looked at Fruits Basket in a completely different light this time around. As I studied the relationship between Tohru, Yuki, and Kyo, it occurred to me how much they all grow together throughout the anime. I realized how much they (sometimes subconsciously) admire each other and depend on each other. It became steadily more obvious to me that the relationship between the three of them was the most influential, the most meaningful, in the show. Then, at some point during the penultimate episode, I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t it be interesting if Tohru, Yuki, and Kyo were in some kind of queerplatonic non-sexual triad?”

It might sound a little farfetched to some people, but really, why not? If they matter that much to each other, and if it would make them happy, then what could be wrong with it? Of course, Yuki and Kyo would have to suck it up and admit that they both secretly respect each other, which probably wouldn’t ever happen. But the way I see it, the stronger-than-average friendship between Tohru, Yuki, and Kyo is much more powerful than any other “pairing” in the show. I might even go so far as to suggest it’s the driving force behind the anime. So, even if the writers and animators didn’t intend to portray such a relationship, what’s wrong with me interpreting it that way?

Furthermore, I also reexamined the relationship between Shigure, Hatori, and Ayame. Their friendship is clearly vital to them. Hatori had his doomed romance with Kana, and it’s possible to construe Aya and Mine’s relationship as romantic as well. But it’s obvious that those three men will always depend on each other, and will always come back to each other for companionship and support. I’d enjoyed their friendship (and antics) ever since I started watching the anime, but it was new and intriguing to consider just how powerful that friendship could be for them – and likely is.

Since I myself am particularly desirous of deep, meaningful friendship, it was really special to look at this anime and find it in the kind of relationships I might be interested in having. It gave an old favorite a fresh and stronger significance for me.

One last note before I end this: I am in no way trying to say that everyone on the asexual continuum should content themselves with trying to see “non-traditional” relationships wherever there is ambiguity in existing media. I believe that media representation is extremely important. We need media to show us people we can relate to, without ambiguity and without interpretation. We should be able to read books, watch movies, and listen to music that accurately represents the variety – and value – of us. Also, people who aren’t a part of the ace continuum need to know that we exist, and a very good way to accomplish that would be through media.

Experimenting with Self-Love

On Sunday I went with a couple friends to a Mary Kay party. I wasn’t particularly interested or excited to go, but I wanted to make sure one of my friends didn’t have to go alone. There ended up being three of us, so I needn’t have worried. We met with a consultant and were taken through the process of washing our faces and applying simple makeup. And we bought stuff, of course.

Despite my low expectations, it turned out to be rather enjoyable. I’d had a rotten morning, which had included getting splashed to the point of dripping while I waited for the bus. I got splashed because it had rained the night before, and when it rains, my bus stop floods and turns the road into a mini-lake. Usually drivers are friendly and will swerve into the turn lane to avoid splashing you; on Sunday, I think they were feeling especially spiteful. Anyway, after spending the morning feeling muddy and furious, it was nice to be able to clean off and make myself feel “pretty.”

At one point during the session, the Mary Kay consultant asked us what kinds of make-up and face-care products we use. For simplicity, let’s call our consultant Mary. My friends all told Mary what kind of make-up they wear (truthfully, they don’t wear a whole lot). I told Mary that I’ve recently stopped wearing make-up. When she asked me why, I said that I want to be able to love myself as I am. I explained that I don’t want to depend on make-up to make me feel attractive; I want to embrace myself and feel comfortable being me.

Mary didn’t say much to me at the time, and we simply moved on with our make-overs. I figured she didn’t really approve of my explanation; after all, her job is to sell beauty products. But I met Mary again today to pick up some face-wash I ordered. She had another consultant with her (let’s call this one Kay). When I arrived, Mary promptly said, “Emily, you have to tell Kay what you told me Sunday about why you don’t wear make-up!” Somewhat bemused, I explained again. Mary smiled the whole time, and once I had finished, she said to Kay, “Isn’t that amazing? She’s only nineteen, and she’s focusing on loving herself! Usually girls tell me they don’t wear make-up because they’re too busy or lazy, but she’s doing it out of self-love!”

It was actually kind of sweet to see how impressed Mary was by my choice, and it definitely made me feel better about what I’m doing. I’ve always had problems with self-esteem – enough, in fact, that they probably warrant their own separate post. When I was in high school, I dyed my hair constantly and wore a ton of make-up because it made me feel prettier. But I started growing out my hair about eighteen months ago (I’ve got a lot of natural color back now), and I stopped wearing make-up this past May. After a lot of thought, I had realized that I wanted to stop trying to change myself. I wanted to learn to feel beautiful without eye-shadow, mascara, or hair-dye.

Anyway. Upon hearing my explanation, Kay remarked that “by the time I was twenty-five, they’d probably get me back.” For a couple seconds, I began to feel tense and uncomfortable. What made her say that? Who was she to judge my decisions? Then I took another look at her. She was in her late forties or early fifties, dressed in a neat beige pants-suit, with her hair done up and her make-up caked on. I wondered what she had experienced in her life, and what kind of choices she had made. And I realized then that Kay could think whatever she wanted, because her thoughts and opinions had no bearing on me or my life. Right then, and right now, I feel good the way I am. That feeling, not the snide comment of a middle-aged Mary Kay saleswoman, is what’s really important.

I left the café where I met them feeling happy and content.

So far, I think this self-love experiment is working for me.