Ran into this article today while I was amusing myself looking up what a brony is. I was intrigued. Telling deep, dark secrets to help fight the war against hate? Heck, I'm game.
I can't imagine what it's like to be a homosexual teenager, or adult. I didn't know at 3 or 4 years old that I was attracted to anyone (much less of the same gender) like some homosexual people do. I didn't know at ten years old what the word sex even meant, although I grew up on a farm and saw constant copulation all around me. I didn't know at 14 what an abortion was, although a few other girls my age seemed to know it pretty well. I didn't know what the heck a pedophile was until I married my first husband. And so on.
I know now that I am a straight pangender asexual. I got that all figured out a few years ago during a big Eddie Izzard fling. I'm strongly attracted to sexually ambiguous people, sometimes men in makeup and female clothing, strong women in fatigues with weapons, androgeny. I'm very strongly attracted to youtubes about Spirk and Merthur because they're amusing or emotionally intriguing, big Xena fan. What I'm not at all attracted to, oddly, is real relationships with real people.
And I know why.
I was born with Asperger's. I didn't acquire it after a vaccination gone wrong. I didn't develop it because my mom did anything wrong. Like Gaga says, I was born this way, and I've never seen it as a personal problem. Along the way, though, I've had to deal with some weird stuff. Like sex.
I don't like being touched or hugged. Touching brings such an overload of sensation that I either seize up into defensive mode or shut down into a headache. Any kind of touching. There are certain kinds of touching I can tolerate and even enjoy, like little kids playing with my hair while I babysit (imagine that), someone squeezing my tired feet (as long as I have socks on), a warm snuggle in big coats on a very cold day outside. But sex? I can barely begin to describe the nightmare. As much as I sometimes crave human contact, I cringe at the million ways all things sexual can go utterly wrong, from the very first eye secks. I have a hard time with looking in people's eyes anyway. But strangely enough, I do like sex. I've been accused of not liking it, but that's not true at all. I have 45 miles of nerves running through my body that make it super difficult to pop into bed with someone (that's why God made alcohol, you say), that's all. Just means I don't share much. I think T'Pol (she's a Vulcan) alluded to this kind of thing, as well.
Likewise, I very rarely drool over anyone. I don't long or pine. I don't wander around aimlessly wondering what is wrong with me because someone doesn't like me. I can't flirt to save my life, usually have no clue when someone is trying to flirt with me. The best I can do is mimic what I see, and I suck so badly at it that everything about sex around me tends to come out rather cartoony. But funny is good. Me and Scott laugh our heads off.
I mostly see sex as an art form. Most of who we are is self created. We 'sell' ourselves all the time. We pass with one group for approval and then play the game and pass with another group for different approval. We ricochet like pinballs through life finding niches we fit into and groups who accept us and people who might even just love us. I feel really bad thinking of people who are so sad inside because they don't find where they fit, and their lives hurt, because I have hurt like that most of my life. It's a hard thing not to feel loved. And you don't have to be on the wrong side of sex for that one, that comes with just about everything that humans make up to take sides over. I grew up with excruciatingly judgmental parents. Everything I did in my life was wrong. Nothing I've ever done has been good enough. And so on. I didn't like it, I don't like myself when I'm like that, so I have spent years changing who I am and how I behave. Funny how a person with Asperger's can learn to do that.
I'm not into whining about what I don't like about other people. Goodness knows I was sick to death of people harping on me over the stupidest stuff. There's one way in life not to be a drag, and that's not to be a drag. Unfortunately, controversy sells. People like to fight. And sex is a biggie. Hey, I'll up your ante. If you say we all have to fit a mold, come with me back to my Mennonite roots. What the heck, lets all wear the same clothes, do the same work, eat the same food, and do the same kind of judging *together*.
I like people. I don't care if they're messed up and wrong. I like them anyway. They're cute and fun to watch, tragic and mystifying, and most of them want to be loved. Sometimes I feel like being born a human myself was a weird mistake, because I have felt since I was a very small child that I don't fit into humanity. I shook my tiny little fist at God and demanded to know why I wasn't born a horse, or a dog. Fortunately, I have kind of adapted and didn't morph into the super villain I had so much potential for becoming, but for awhile there it was pretty touch and go.
I think nearly everyone on this planet is tragically lonely inside at one time or another. I think the depths of being a human agonizing over the absurdity of being is one of the coolest things we have going for us. And I think that relying on any form of governance to define the rights and wrongs of personal preference in the face of the wondrous variety in our cosmos is a cold hard tribute to every kind of hell we humans concoct into our literatures through the millenia. Or, let's get really real about this. I'll take happy gay adults any day over pretender straights doing little kids and paying sex traffickers. How's that?
I like sex. I also like reading everything I can about physics, playing wabble, and raising chickens. Life is too short to sit around being negative on each other. There is too much to do, too much to miss that we don't do because we're wasting our time sitting around being negative on each other. If I've got time to worry about someone else's sex life, then I'm wasting my time not doing something fun or cool.
Just for kicks. Maybe there are other things to think about.
