When I was at school, I didn’t date until much later than everyone else, and I remember that this caused a certain amount of tension between me and my schoolmates. By all accounts, there was something wrong with me: I was a dyke, or I was frigid, or I was a slut who had lots of sex but was too uptight to tell anyone about it, or I had issues with men, or I wanted to date guys but they didn’t want to date me.
When I said I simply wasn’t interested, that was assumed to be false — something masking the real problem. If asked whether I wanted to have a relationship or sex eventually, I shrugged, and explained that I had no strong preferences either way, which only confused people more.
Eventually, I did start to have romantic relationships, and in my adulthood that included sexual ones. I resent that that fits the stereotypical narrative of “growing out of it” or “not being ready”, because that suggests that becoming sexual is something people do, naturally and inevitably, all on their own. And if that’s true, then why did my peers go to so much trouble to make sure I knew, from primary school onwards, that there was something completely and utterly wrong with not wanting sexual relationships? We were in primary school when I first remember being overtly told that this was something wrong with me — most of my peers didn’t even know what sex was (I got unusually good sex ed from my parents, at quite a young age, but it’s clear to me in retrospect that this wasn’t true of my peers), only that sex wasn’t optional once you were at the highschool prom/in college/married (highschool proms, college, and marriage obviously not being optional either).
In other words, from a very young age, we are taught The Relationship Hierarchy. Which is something like: blood ties and marriage ties trump other sorts of ties. Sexual relationships trump non sexual relationships. You have only one partner, who shall be your sexual partner and your lawfully-wedded spouse, and no other partners, and they trump all other relationships. Marriages that produce children trump non-procreating relationships, but Thou Shalt Not Be A Single Parent. “Family” and “Friends” are distinctive sets of people, and “Family” trumps “Friends”. “Friends” should mean only people of the same sex, but otherwise, same sex friends trump other-sex friends. You shall be emotionally intimate only with same-sex friends, unless you are a man, and then Thou Shalt Not Have Emotions. (Please note that I think these are social norms, rather than things I agree with — in fact I strongly oppose many of these ideas).
Well fuck that. As my co-blogger Katherine blogged, important relationships can be constituted not only through blood ties or marriage ties, but also in other ways. Katherine used the example of flatmates, who might well constitute family.
The message here is that although I happen to associate certain kinds of emotional closeness with certain kinds of people and the relationships I have with them, and I also happen to associate certain kinds of (not necessarily sexual) physical intimacy with certain people, those are things I have largely been taught to associate, according to the Relationship Hierarchy. Some of those associations or non-associations are healthy and self-protective (it is not healthy to be close to certain people in certain ways), some of them are arbitrary and deeply harmful.
And that has all sorts of reprecussions. It means that from a very young age, before children really understand what sex is, we have taught them that boys and girls cannot be friends without a sexual connection (and men and men, or women and women can never have a sexual or romantic connection). It means that we teach kids that people who are not interested in sex or romance are wrong. It means we teach kids that queer families are wrong or oxymoronic. It means we teach kids that there is a primacy to sexual relationships above friendships that goes partway to legitimising posessive behaviours in abusive partners.
And in the context of a society in which things are sold by displaying a near-naked or hawt-and-sexy woman, or a society in which street harassment is part of many women’s routine experience, this is also how we teach women that they must be sexually available all the time, to men who must always want sex. It starts before we even know what sex is, and it continues, more or less forever. I remember being little, thinking that eventually I would have sex because everyone did. I remember being repulsed by the idea then, which I attributed to being primary-school age, but years later, I’m still repulsed by the idea that one ought, to think that having sex is inevitable, or think that nobody says no to sex. That’s not something I anticipate “growing out of”.
There are interesting things to be said about how this relates to queer feminism, sex-positive feminism, and the socialisation of children, but this post is long enough already. What I will say is this: Kaz and I have talked about queer feminism having, on the whole, very little to say about asexuality. I’ve worried about writing about asexuality because I don’t identify as asexual, and didn’t want to be talking as if I knew about other people’s experiences. But part of being a political ally, and part of creating a feminism that works for me, is examining my own investment in sexuality, and how we build the hierarchies that I, and indeed everyone else, is part of, and that harm the people around me. This isn’t really a post about asexuality — but it is me starting to do the investment work.
–IP
[Cross-posted at Queergeeks]
I can identify with some of your school experiences, and I can remember a distinct wall – that as soon as you entered prep-school, things were a lot different. The girls and the boys started to auto-segregate themselves, and this was only at the age of 8. I remember at the time being a bit puzzled by it all, although by the time I was around 11 or so I had decided that girls weren’t worth the trouble (regarding anything) anyway so didn’t particularly care.
Your point regarding the “teaching of the relationship hierarchy” is well taken – even now I hold family in a different regard to friends, and I don’t see how that line could ever be blurred. I think that is a serious issue – as at some point along the line, regardless of whether you intend to enter into a legally recognised partnership or not, your partner will become family, and I struggle enough with the terms “friend” and “friendship” that the whole idea of the transition of “friend-partner-family” is a whole different level of mind-fuck (to put it crudely). Oh, and don’t get me started on the whole “Thou Shalt Not Have Emotions” and “man-talk”/”bromance” thing. I think the former may have damaged me a bit, and the latter I always (and still do) find puzzling.
When I was a kid, I don’t think my problem was so much that I found sex unappealing, or the thought that you were supposed to end up in a monogamous sex-ladened relationship when you were older (although the latter was true), it was more that I perceived that all of my peers were engaged in “mutual awakening” for want of a better term, and that I was left out of it all. I craved physical comfort, and was really intrigued by the whole “sex” thing at that age, but at the same time I was disgusted by it, and I felt that I was seemingly always several years behind in developing my social skills. So despite the fact that I perhaps wanted to explore, I didn’t get the opportunity, which frustrated me, and ended up with me deciding that the whole thing (relationships, and/or sex) were not worth the time or effort. Since then other barriers have been raised, so, put in physical terms: it seems that the current conditions cause the energy requirement to be too great, thus the transition (from current state to a state where I understand these sort of things in a social context, the step to where I am able to react and act accordingly depending on the scenario and desired outcomes is a further energy level up) is not energetically favourable.
I also struggled for a long time with the whole thing about friends and attractions, I still do. I can’t help who I’m attracted to, the problem is that I have never learned how to hide it: aka (again, to put it crudely) “How not to ogle someone, for dummies”. Its embarrassing for me when I catch myself, and I could well believe its seriously off-putting for the other person… but I think that might be a separate issue to those brought up here. I tend to go off on a tangent…
…I’m not so how much of what I’ve written relates to your blog, so I’ll stop myself here.
CCA
(NB. I’ve given up posting comments on that other blog – Queergeeks – as they have never shown up)
“The girls and the boys started to auto-segregate themselves”
Saying “auto-” sounds like kids do it all on their own, instinctively, or something. But rather they are taught to do this. Girls who play with boys are heavily stigmatised, and same for boys who play with girls. There’s also segregation by activity — boys are “supposed” to play certain games, and girls are “supposed” to play certain other games, that discourages mixed-sex playing because that would mean, gasp, boys and girls playing with each others toys! The horror!
“even now I hold family in a different regard to friends
The point here was not that you should never think of these categories as distinct, but that we might want to think about the way that these categories are constructed/enforced, and not assume that procreative families are the only or most important kind of family/community.
“I can’t help who I’m attracted to, the problem is that I have never learned how to hide it: aka (again, to put it crudely) “How not to ogle someone, for dummies”.”
The problem with ogling isn’t that it’s obvious/not hidden, but that it’s rude. Or to put it another way, interaction with someone you’re attracted to should be respectful, whether you’re hiding your attraction or not. Ogling isn’t respectful, so not it’s not a question of hiding attraction, so much as it’s a question of unlearning the body language that perhaps you’ve been taught, and re-learning body language that is more respectful. There’s a post at Thus Spake Zuska on more or less this topic. I suspect the majority will be remedial/too basic for you, but maybe still worth checking out. I was thinking of writing a similar post myself…may or may not get round to it.
I’ll check out what’s going on with the Queergeeks comments. Thanks for letting me know there was an issue.
–IP
Re: ‘auto’ I agree completely, however I was describing from the perspective that I had at the time.
I think perhaps ogling was the wrong word, although I’m not sure, it could be the correct descriptor, I do not know. I’ve had a look at the linked posts, and they were informative, although I felt the perspective rather one-sided. Although I get the impression that most people think that there is only one side to this. I’m not being clear, blame a long day of travelling.
All my mind is really saying to me right now is “meh”, so I think I’ll continue replying when it has woken back up
.
“although I felt the perspective rather one-sided. Although I get the impression that most people think that there is only one side to this.”
Yes and no. I think there are some behaviours that are always rude/objectifying/not on, in effect even if not in intent, and I’m not really that keen on the idea that there might be more than one point of view on that. I also think it’s an explanation (but not an excuse) that we’ve all been brought up in a society that’s deeply sexist (as well as other-stuff-ist), and that means that we’ve all been taught to think uncool things and behave in uncool ways. Part of consciousness-raising means recognising and unlearning those thinking patterns, and learning new, better ones.
I stress that this is an explanation, not an excuse. So groping someone without consent (I know that’s not what we were talking about, but it’s a good example because it’s particularly clear) is never acceptable or excusable, even though someone might have been taught it was a “cool” or “manly” thing to do when they were growing up.
Part of consciousness-raising also means understanding and empathising with what certain behaviours may signal to someone who has been raised with far less privilege. The difference between flirting with someone at a party (where you both have the option of saying “excuse me, I’m just going to say hi to my friend” if you want out) and flirting with someone at night in a deserted carpark is that the latter is something women have been taught to be wary of because of the threat of sexual violence, which is not unfounded in that many women frequently *do* experience sexual violence even if not in carparks. So the person flirting in the carpark comes off as a real creep even if he’s perfectly well-meaning, and my overwhelming feeling is that a genuinely well-meaning person *ought to know better* if they want to be taken as well-meaning.
So there’s an interesting question about how we make it the case that people really *do* know better. I’m sure it’s very distressing for well-meaning people to be taken for creeps, but it’s also very distressing to be hit on in threatening ways, and my feeling is that the solution to both of those problems is basically the same, and that’s consciousness-raising.
As always, I find your comments helpful and interesting, so feel free to come back when you’re feeling less “meh”.
–IP
Hi. I’ve not got much to add, which I’m slightly ashamed of, but I just wanted to say that this is among the best things I’ve read discussing asexuality that aren’t by asexuals. That isn’t too much of a compliment, the way things are at the moment, so I’ll clarify that it’s also a very good post. I’d love it if more people felt they wanted to have this sort of discussion with our community.
Oh, and I completely know what it’s like to resent yourself being the stereotypical narrative. I feel like people are going to point at me and say “See, he proves everything I’ve been saying!” in various different contexts.
Thanks, SlightlyMetaphysical. As I say, I wasn’t so much aiming for a post about asexuality per se, but rather about my investment in (a)sexuality, with a view to how that might make a better political ally. But I’m glad it was ok — I was worried it might be or come across as appropriating.
“say “See, he proves everything I’ve been saying!” in various different contexts.”
Oh man, sympathies.
–IP
This is an excellent post.
As you say, it’s not really about asexuality, but in some ways I think this is what makes it good – because you’re detailing the ways in which the normativity of sex and sexual desire, the rejection of asexuality or aromanticism as a possibility, the strict hierarchies of relationships and other such things are part of a very damaging framework and have wide-reaching negative effects on many many more people than just asexuals, even if we’re the ones who are often most affected and spend the most time talking about it. And one of the things that really annoys me in nonasexual spaces is this presumption that our problems affect only us, that they’re unconnected to some of the wider societal forces, that they’re fringe issues and don’t have any kind of effect on sexual people. You show very nicely how this isn’t true. 
because that suggests that becoming sexual is something people do, naturally and inevitably, all on their own. And if that’s true, then why did my peers go to so much trouble to make sure I knew, from primary school onwards, that there was something completely and utterly wrong with not wanting sexual relationships?
I actually didn’t have so much direct backlash from my peers about not being interested in sex or romance (with I think very complicated reasons; disabilities and being sort of foreign and asexuality interacted in very weird ways for me as a teenager, e.g. I don’t think my peers actually saw me as their peer but rather as some kind of pet they’d been saddled with and so I wasn’t subject to as much recrimination as someone they actually considered one of them might have.) I did, however, get burned by the “becoming sexual is something people do naturally and inevitably on their own” thing. People wouldn’t even get angry about my lack of interest, they would just calmly assume that it would present itself eventually because no other option existed. Or, later, that it already had and I was repressing it. (My brother still thinks this.) I think I actually prefer the people who go “repressing it”, because the smug totally assured “late bloomer, it’ll turn up”, where they don’t even feel the need to tell me off for not developing it because there’s no possibility of it not turning up eventually anyway, hurts in an entirely different way. I’m glad that I’ve finally reached an age where most people realise that “late bloomer” isn’t quite going to cut it.
Also, I really like how you’ve sorted out the hierarchies of relationships because it makes it clear how rigid they are and how independent of how you value your relationships. I’ve been chewing over this stuff again in terms of rethinking my romantic orientation. I’ve been iding as greyromantic for “somewhere in between romantic and aromantic”, but I’m worried that part of that is me buying into the hierarchy – trying to get more relationship-value points for my relationship with my not!GF via making clear that it is sort of romantic ish and not “just” friendship!! And that’s not something I want to support, because I hate the hierarchy a lot and want people to learn that there does not have to be anything “just” about friendship. It is complicated; sometimes I think the entire concept of a romantic orientation is fundamentally wrong for me.
“And one of the things that really annoys me in nonasexual spaces is this presumption that our problems affect only us, that they’re unconnected to some of the wider societal forces, that they’re fringe issues and don’t have any kind of effect on sexual people.”
Right, and I think it definitely is the responsibility of sexual people to think about how attitudes like “late bloomer” or “repressing it” are harmful.
“some kind of pet they’d been saddled with”
Ouch. I’m sorry.
“trying to get more relationship-value points for my relationship with my not!GF via making clear that it is sort of romantic ish and not “just” friendship!!”
It’s hard because some situations really are double-bind-ish, because other people’s assumptions might be such that they undervalue an important relationship, or you can appeal to some other bit of the Relationship Hierarchy to try to get them not to undervalue the relationship. The undervaluing of certain relationships has all kinds of very real and very harmful consequences (eg, same-gender partners not being allowed to see each other in hospital, etc). And these aren’t independent of the RH, so we don’t want to be reinforcing that. But I don’t think people who appeal to the RH in those circumstances should feel guilty about it — the threats of not doing so are real.
But for sure, we should be trying to provide some kind of alternative, and I think that’s where Katherine’s post comes in, and your point about romantic orientation not necessarily being appropriate. I think we (=queer feminism) need to invest serious energy into thinking about how we constitute kinship, and how we can start to change those attitudes.
–IP
Thanks for this-it nearly perfectly describes what I went through, still wrestle with even at this late age. O the joy of finding one’s experience validated! And @irrationalpoint-I was very much stigmatized as a child because of who I played with and the play I liked. My mother forbade me from playing basketball and building forts with the boys after puberty began because I might hurt something and not be able to have kids-wtf!? Again many thanks
Hi xtinA: sorry for the late reply to your comments, but thanks for stopping by.
–IP