What is more natural than seeing a member of the opposite sex and spontaneously feel incredibly shy, an impulsive desire to approach them, and the anxiety or butterflies about your impression? We were conditioned to see this as innate behavior of a character with a crush in our childhood TV shows, such as Caillou, Max & Ruby, Avatar: the Last Airbender, Mickey Mouse, and etc. The infatuation and admiration aspect, for the most part, unmistakably different than feelings toward a friend. Like night and day!
For me, this romanticized portrayal of “obvious” romance seemed so foreign and unrelatable to me for years. However, in high school peers began to show me pictures of their crush or “hot” celebrities and asked for my opinion so often that I couldn’t help but become painfully aware of emotions I did not and could not harbor. Thus, I could only resort to comparing myself to the “normal” and using process of elimination. SPOILER ALERT: The conclusion was not a “coming out” story, but rather an implosion of my beliefs in “normal” that completely buried my sense of self for a time.
I am a creature of labels. Why? Because that means there’s a population with a common definable attribute large enough to be considered and recognized with a title. For me, labels satisfy one of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, love and belonging. After several processes of elimination, I was introduced to “demisexual” in 2014 “quoiromantic” or “WTFromantic” in 2016. Initially, I was ecstatic to find terms that described my feelings or lack of feelings in an easily understood way. I learned that demisexuality is the lack of primary sexual attraction or “only [feeling] sexually attracted to someone when they have an emotional bond with the person” (WebMD). I learned that quoiromantic, coined in 2012 by Cor, is “feeling that these categories [of romance/romantic attraction/romantic orientation] are personally inaccessible, inapplicable, or non-sensical” (Asexual Wiki).
Demisexual and quoiromantic are associated with the asexual spectrum and aromantic spectrum, respectively. The reality is that the majority, including LGBT members, believe asexuality and aromanticism to be unrealistic and a mental illness and thus, members are dehumanized. I’ve experienced it firsthand. All of the high school Gay-Straight Alliance members and the advisor discounted and mocked “demisexuality” when I asked about it anonymously. A girl said “It sucks [. . .] to have stumbled upon you” and “I didn’t know how extreme it was” when I pointed out that I informed her of my exact aro-ace orientation in my initial greeting just one week before.
Honestly, I feel like asexuals and aromantics are seen as model minorities in the discussion of orientation. The truth about a “model minority,” which is a marginalized minority considered to be more successful than the average population and even other minorities, is that their experience of discrimination is often denied and invalidated.
On one hand, I identify as an Asian American adopted and raised in a Caucasian family, where the privilege gap between myself and my family can be experienced firsthand 24/7. I also fall into the Asian career stereotype of an engineer, but I am a woman. These are the communities that I associate with based on appearance, and are also “model minorities.”
On the other hand lay my hidden identities, such as being a lesbian. But the reason I say my sexuality is a hidden identity is because I rarely have interests, AKA. I don’t have crushes. Today, it’s common to hear someone say, “I need to have an emotional bond to be intimate or before I like someone.” Depending on the context, they’d either identify as having a partner preference (AKA a choice), or they may identify as demisexual, which is not by choice. When I use this phrase, I truly mean that there is a set condition in order for the chemicals dopamine and norepinephrine to be released in my brain, or for that “instinctive” feeling to click.
My friends often tell me, “I wish I was like you” and, “You’re so lucky” as if I’m incapable of making shallow choices and am less likely to feel regret in relationships. Like the model minority, people think I have it easier than others, for some reason. Asexuals are not celibate, abstinent, sex-repulsed and sex-aversed, or traumatized individuals with high standards for intimacy. Aromantics are not incapable of love, commitment, affection, or anti-romance. Again, the aro-ace communities are STILL met with discrimination and erasure, as demonstrated with the acronym kicking “A” to the back of the line and then somehow(?) interpreted as “Ally.”
My very first experience of romantic and sexual attraction (that I could accept and admit) occurred in junior year of university at age 20. Being the self-aware psychoanalytical adult that I was, one cannot fathom how much confusion and self-disgust and torment I felt for several months. Unfamiliar emotions I hadn’t naturally and frequently felt in childhood had crept up on me until it was unbearable and I would have to cry myself to sleep. Thank God for my friends who supported and validated my emotions so that I could eventually accept them and attribute an impulsive phrase that would come to mind for each feeling. The moment I accepted them it was as if I had mastered inner peace, Kung Fu Panda style. I remained honest to my emotions and began my first relationship that almost completely erased my memory of feeling broken.
In my experience, no matter how I try to phrase my sexuality and my attraction, I’m always met with some sort of denial or a proposed “fix”. It’s similar to my frustration with society habitually assuming that any man I meet is a romantic interest rather than platonic including the men themselves who deny my sexuality because I “just haven’t met the right guy yet.”
Through trial and error I’ve come to treat my explanations like talking to someone in another language. When an English-speaking tourist wants to share a story with a Spanish-speaking individual the tourist has to meet the other person in their world or communicate in Spanish if they want that individual to see their world. And it is especially important to hear each persons’ stories as individual and personal instances. In the past I dismissed inquisitive people to google my labels as it was bothersome to re-explain myself and likewise, I would immediately google my friends’ labels so they wouldn’t be annoyed with my ignorance. However, my cis-hetero white male friend made a great statement: “Even with good intentions, you’re doing a disservice to them and to yourself when you immediately try to educate yourself with Google.” Be warned, those who immediately go to the internet may become misinformed and inadvertently assume stereotypical characteristics that aren’t applicable to everyone. That’s why there are spectrums.
We are not clones of each other with the same personality, preferences, skills, neuropsychology, biology, etc. But anything that diverges from your “natural” doesn’t mean it’s dirty, wrong, or broken. Honestly, the internet can be the savior to connect you with your community as well as the saboteur that cripples your sense of self. I have internalized arophobia and acephobia and that is exactly why I continue to speak against the existence of one normal. The next time someone says they’re aromantic or asexual, please give them the opportunity to explain what it means to them, because we aren’t set molds of your own imagining
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