romance / sex inbifference: within ace and aro spaces, aside from the obvious spectra of romantic and sexual attraction, there also tends to be spectra for romance / sex in terms of willingness to do it despite your lack of attraction (but it's not exclusive to aro and ace people), so you can be asexual and sex favorable, for example, which means you don't get attracted to anyone sexually, but you're down to have sex and might even actually pursue it / enjoy it, etc. or you could be aromantic and romance repulsed, which means the thought of romance is gross or incomprehensible to you, and you'd never see yourself in a relationship, etc. a comparison i like to make here, is with food, imagine allo people have hunger occasionally (as romantic / sexual attraction) but aro / ace people don't, if you're not hungry you can still eat food, so romance / sex favorability is just how much you like that food. if you're favorable it's like pizza on a friday night, tasty french fries with your sauce of choice, or a bar of semisweet chocolate. if you're indifferent it's like a good ol' rice or like a salad, nothing too interesting, but nothing you can't eat sparingly and sporadically. and if you're repulsed, well, then it's just like a gross olive... or a conspicuous pickle... or a very disgusting pumpkin... or just mushroom stew... you get the idea (how the hell do people eat those????)! i wonder if doing that metaphor with drinks instead of food would be better, given the double meaning of "thirsty", but i think the idea is easier to digest with food (get it?), so i'll leave the analogy as is, hahaha!
so... i was wondering where exactly i lied in either spectra, and i came to the conclusion that i
think i am indifferent to either, but i can't know for sure, as you can imagine, i don't have much field experience, and it's not like the pandemic is allowing for much of that, anyway. but that got me thinking, if i
am in fact, indifferent and not repulsed, what genders am i cool with having relationships with? do i even have any preferences?
i am obiviously straight, r-right?: so my whole life i thought i was straight, as most people do, since i never really had any romantic or sexual drive for the other gender (or any gender, for that matter) i just kinda had nothing to challenge the heteronormative status quo. you know, straight until proven otherwise? that's how society usually sees thing. and hey, i looked at girls and got aesthetic attraction, they are beautiful! and since i was never taught to look at men in the same light, i just never saw it as "my sexuality" but rather me just "me looking at a guy and thinking he looks kinda cute", which, for a lot of straight people is possible. so even though all i had for either gender was mostly just similar levels of aesthetic attraction, for women i translated that as romantic / sexual attraction, and for men i just thought of as nothing (which is kinda is, but still).
and honestly? heteronormativity is
strong. it's really hard to challenge the world view that's been planted into your head for all your life, you need a lot of counter-evidence to be able to challenge it. i remember watching natalie wynn's video: shame
[1], in which she talks about how her and many other women, cis or trans, took so long to realise they weren't straight. in fact, this video was a big inspiration to get me to start thinking about this. it's honestly something really hard to challenge, or at least it's been for me.
so after a lot of thinking i came to realise that i don't really have a preference for a particular gender, i am not attracted to any of them, but were i to find myself in a relationship, i'd be happy with any gender, women, men, non-binary, and so on!
obiented aroace: thankfully, the ace community has me covered, there's a term called
oriented aroace, which entails exactly people who are aroace, but experience other forms of attraction or preference to gender. i think it originally is aimed at distinguishing tertiary attractions (such as aesthetic, alterous, platonic, etc, from romantic and sexual), but it can also be used to disclose preference, for the case of someone who isn't romance / sex repulsed. i don't personally feel the need to disclose or explore other forms of attraction within my orientation, but all power to those who do, of course! it can be very important for aro and ace people especially! but for me, when i say i'm
bi-oriented, i mean mostly that i have a preference for any gender if i were to "eat without being hungry", going back to my prior analogy.
to bi or to pan: i think i prefer the term bi over pan for me personally because, ironically, while i kinda am gender blind for myself (feeling very agender with that beard and those boardshorts!), i am not gender blind for other people. i see attraction to women as one thing, for men another, and for non-binary people something else entirely. natalie said in her video how her aesthetic attraction to men was comparable to looking at a sturdy greek pillar or building, and i think that is the perfect comparison for me as well. it definitely feels different to me, whereas looking at a woman is like looking at the venus de milo or something, and pan usually carries the gender blind concept with it (at least as far as i know it does), which doesn't really apply to me for the reasons i've stated.
relationship adbice: now, i've answer the question i initially set out to ask, but i don't think my problem is wholly solved here. like, i think i'm sex indifferent and bi-oriented, but what do i do with that? how will i ever get into a relationship with someone i'm by definition not attracted to? society often places on men the role of being active / pursuing the relationship (and i am cis passing as fuck), so how will i ever take on that active role, for someone i'm
not attracted to? should i just wait until someone reaches out? it's happened before, once or twice, but i was too shy to act on it. and most importantly, will i even enjoy it? will i even be comfortable? these are all questions i have no idea how to answer. i feel lost in a maze of loneliness that i never will be able to get out. in one hand, i don't really mind, because i'm not attracted to anyone, and i'm pretty introverted, so i'm comfy where i am, but... on the other hand i
do mind, i mind it
a lot, i want to be able to experience these things! if only once! i don't wanna feel like a failure (not just in societies eyes, but mine also)... and there are so many barriers in the way... i don't know how, when, or how to begin explaining to someone about my sexuality and orientation, it will literally take, like, at least half an hour...? how do i explain to a straight or bi girl that i am not attracted to her and that i might be uncomfortable doing some stuff with her but i wanna do it still? how do i explain to a gay or bi guy that i am not attracted to him but it's
not internalised homophobia. it's just...
a lot, and i don't know what to do about it, how to do it, or when to do it. hopefully i'll be able to figure out how to navigate myself on all this, but, i'm not sure how soon that'll be, it still feels like i am nowhere near close to that...
labils: one last thing i wanna touch on, is how looking out for and having so many labels makes me feel a bit uncomfortable in a sense, like i'm trying to get attention or whatever (but trust me, attention is the
last thing i want). "bi-oriented aro/ace agender, do you really need all that?" and no, honestly i don't. i wish there was a world where i wouldn't need to explain myself to other people, but i
do, and labels are a great way to communicate things. it can also make you feel welcomed in a community, knowing there's people out there like you, that you're not just a freak of nature that no one will ever love (or well, maybe this last part is ironically true). but yeah, these are important to me. and i don't need to disclose everything all at once, i can use the labels when and where they're relevant. e.g. a guy asks me if by chance i'm not straight and i could say i'm bi. or a girl asks me if i'm uncomfortable with anything and i could say i'm ace and so and so. now these are
obviously very hypothetical scenarios that would never happen in real life, but i'm just trying to illustrate a point here. labels are important for communication, and for a sense of belonging, so yes, that's why i need 5 words to explain my orientation and gender, sorry not sorry.