Some Ideas About Labels

      1st Idea: I am a fan of Labels. More than just words to describe shared experience, to mark me as part of a community, I like having words to describe my personal experience, to provide me with a context for myself, and to help me understand how I relate to the world*. But one thing that fuckyeahasexual really holds to, and it is a sentiment held within and without the Ace community and maybe even the LGBTQ+ community, is the idea that in order to be useful, or even applicable, a label must be self chosen. This doesn't seem to revolutionary to me, but reading this post, it seems clear hat the self-chosen aspect of labels isn't as important universally. I'm just going to say that the self-chosen aspect of labeling seems pretty important to me, with the exception of fictional characters**.

      2nd Idea: As a culture we have reified sexuality labels, for sometimes good reasons, we have taken abstract concepts and turned them into concrete identities (or tried to). The way I see it, sexual orientation labels are most helpful when they are descriptive and predictive - when they remain abstract and open to the confusing nature of life. The way I would phrase this understanding would be like this:
     "I haven't experienced sexual attraction (descriptive), therefore, when planning for the future I will probably be most satisfied by exploring alternatives to the romantic/sexual path that is founded in sexual attraction (predictive)"
   
      A straight woman might phrase it like this:
      "In the past all of the sexual attraction I've felt has been towards men (descriptive), therefore when looking for a romantic/sexual partner I will probably be most satisfied by focusing my attentions on men (predictive)"
   
      These models focus on using past experience as a means of predicting future but also allow for the complexity of sex and gender.
   
      What we have done by reifying sexuality is we have changed the labels from this model to one that is definitive and restrictive. Under the reified model I would describe my sexuality like this:
     "I have never felt sexual attraction, therefore I am asexual (definitive), therefore I cannot feel sexual attraction in the future without having to change the label that I use (restrictive)"
   
      I think that this model is more harmful than helpful. The restrictions present in this model mean that anytime someone feels something outside of the limits of the label that they have chosen the foundations of something that they think is inextricably part of themselves are thrown into question. Questioning the foundations of your self is tiring to say the least, and after it happens once an uncertainty hangs over you like a dark cloud, threatening more upheaval. The abstract model doesn't have this uncertainty because it sees experiences outside the "definition" as additional descriptors that may be useful for future predictions.

      My analysis of reification thus far has been fairly negative, and I stand by that, I think the abstract model is more accurate and nuanced, but here I want to point out the legitimate reasons that probably led to reification. Beyond the fact that people tend to naturally favor simplicity that abstract models don't lend themselves to, the concrete model of sexuality allows a more stable identity to emerge, and around that identity a more stable community can form, a more stable community can leverage more effectively for social and political standing. Reification and essentialization of sexuality have been important tools in the process of gaining political equality, but those gains have come at a cost.

      These thoughts are just based on some gut feelings and a couple of conversations, so I'm sure there are things I simplified or missed, so please let me know if you have any thoughts!

*As an aside, this is part of why I'm so frustrated with being unable to get a firm grip on my romantic orientation. I know there's this way of describing how I want to relate to the world, and to other people, but I can't find a decent definition of romantic attraction (which isn't surprising, it's the romantic version of the invisible elephant) so I have the choice, essentially of an array of different options based on whatever definition I choose (Aromantic, Demiromantic, Biromantic, Heteromantic) but this wasn't supposed to be a post about my frustrations with myself so I'll move on.

**I could caveat that statement farther, but that might be worthy of a post by itself.

Missing the GCN

               I’m sitting in the Atlanta airport as I write the draft of this post*, and I’m already missing the conference. I miss lanyards with pins that say “hi, I’m bi” “my pronouns are ____” “Momma bears” “#i’llgowithyou” and on and on. I miss the subtle weight of the lanyard around my own neck, the pins that proclaimed my own identity, the booklet that held the myriad of incredible speakers and sessions and more, the whole contraption that marked me as a part of something wonderful.

               I miss the driving focus on intersectionality, I miss the insistence that, being a community familiar with pain, we are obligated to work against all pain, not just ours. I miss the speakers that were willing to break taboos to cross divides. I miss the insistence on the value of every single person, regardless of their theological background, their hermeneutical style, or their “side” on any given issue, (well ok, maybe almost regardless). I miss being reminded that justice cannot be parceled out, that it is not justice unless it is justice for all.
               I miss the all gender bathrooms, and the community that made them work. I miss the obvious efforts that the conference administrators made to include as many people as they could. I miss watching the ASL interpreters switch out with each other, and I miss seeing them projected up on the big screen.
               I miss the GCN community. I miss the parent hugs and the approachability of everyone at the conference. I miss the embodiment of the body of Christ. I miss the unity without uniformity, I miss the semi-constant reminders to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us, I miss the thundering applause for speakers on side a and side b. I miss the Sunday morning worship, watching my siblings in Christ take the body and the blood (or not, as their conscience dictates), reading the liturgy, singing the hymns. I even miss the normal morning praise band worship, (if you know me, you know that’s saying something).
               Of course, saying you miss something is just another way of saying you love that thing, and it’s true, I love the GCN. Fortunately for me, this missing doesn’t have to be permanent, with a bit of luck I’ll be able to return to them in a year or two. I sure hope that the things I loved about GCN stick around for next year’s conference, and, so far as it is within my power, I will try to bring them with me into my everyday life. 

*Clearly this post is well overdue, but the sentiment still holds.

The Radical Nature of Side B

As a follow-up to my last post, I'd like to reflect on some of the reasons why I was so surprised to find like minds among Side B proponents. The obvious one was, the places that I'd been finding my people were pretty radical spaces, and Side B is the 'traditional' or 'conservative' side of the GCN community, and I fell into a "you don't find what you aren't looking for" trope. But another reason is Sex-normativity and internalized Acephobia. When it came to Side B gay Christians, I had assumed that they accepted the role of celibacy bitterly, that optimally they would want to pursue romantic-sexual relationships, because that is the optimal state for humans (that line of thinking has worrying implications for what I subconsciously think about myself, but we're not going to worry about that right now). I had assumed that since they were conservatives, they couldn't possibly be radically re-examining the way that society (and the church) do relationships.

I've been kicking myself since that Saturday session, because Of Course the people who feel called to celibacy are going to be thinking about doing community in ways that break the romantic-sexual mold. Of Course these people are going to be frustrated by the lack of alternatives to the SNAF (Standard Nuclear American Family). Of Course these people are going to be rejecting romance supremacy and sex-normativity. In my self-pity I'd read think pieces by other aces about how sex-normativity is present in Gay and Straight spaces, and I'd forgotten or intentionally overlooked the space where romantic-sexual people were facing the same challenges as aromantic and asexual people.

So I'm still Side A, I believe that God made many things good, and that includes many kinds of attraction, and many kinds of relational structures, but as I read more and grow more comfortable with my own identity and explore my own possible call to celibacy, my respect for that calling grows. As my respect for celibacy grows, so too does my debt to the Side B Christians, the community that has cultivated that vocation by being quiet radicals in a truly radical way. The things I heard in that room were examples of this: monasticism is radical in the modern context, having friendships with a couple so close that they consult you when they're moving is radical, swearing an oath of celibacy in front of an evangelical congregation is radical. I was in a room full of radicals who were arguably more radical than me: here were people who felt sexual attraction, who still felt called to disrupt the normative relationship structures. So while I may disagree with some of their theology, I'm also grateful for that disagreement.

 I'm excited for the months ahead, to read the books that the members of the Side B community present in that session (and Tim Otto) recommended me: to see where and how the practical application of Side B can inform the practical application of Asexuality. If my sense of things is correct, I've got a lot to learn. I hope and pray that God continues to stand my worlds on end in ways as wonderful and challenging as this upheaval has been for me.

Side B from an Asexual Perspective

This weekend has been so spectacular. As the GCN has looked at what’s next I’ve heard a whole lot about the “silent letters” and the “forgotten orientations.” Asexuality has been called out specifically more than a few times (thanks!). I’ve also been convicted, especially by Allyson Robinson’s plenary. I’m a “Side A” Christian, and I’ll admit that as often as I remind myself that “Side B” Christians come to their conclusions out of long prayer and study and reflection , I had fallen into the habit of thinking that Side B was something to be tolerated, or respectfully avoided while the course of progress slowly made it irrelevant. I thought Side B wouldn’t have anything to offer me, that it was a relic of an old way of thinking.

But I attended a session on celibacy, mostly because I’m a really huge fan of Lindsey & Sarah, the bloggers who run A Queer Calling, and who were leading the session, I’d read their post disowning the Side A – Side B terminology, and their posts denouncing the celibacy mandate. The session ended up not being led by them (they were there though, and I was still too timid to say hi afterwards), Ron Belgau, the Side B of “The Great Debate” led it instead. At that session, he addressed the group as a group of Side B people, which made me a bit uncomfortable. But when we broke into groups and people immediately started complaining pointing out how bad society is at friendship/any kind of non-sexual/non-romanticrelationship, I was like “Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about!” and when they started talking about their hopes and dreams for future relationships, and models of relationships, I realized that I’d made a huge mistake. The people that I had dismissed were exactly the people I’d been looking for. In the months that I’d been looking for answers and options, looking for a path to follow or at least a destination to trail blaze towards, I, out of a misplaced derision, had over looked some of the people who would have been the most likely to have already blazed that trail ahead of me.

Oops.

To all the Side B Christians: I’m so sorry, thank you for being so radical, thank you for blazing a trail. So now I’ve got a whole lot more reading to do. And I’m so thankful. 

An Introduction

I'm still somewhat new to the ace community, but I want to engage in the conversations that I see the community happening, so I'm here. Since this is an introduction, I'll introduce you to the people and the blogs that have influenced me - especially along the lines of my Asexual identity.

The Squad: Adrianne, Amy, Maddie - These three helped me through my time of questioning, and have been a huge blessing to me in every way.

The Thinking Asexual: The first high-caliber Ace blog that I found, and a blog whose posts I'll likely be discussing here in the future.

A Queer Calling: A great blog, whose ideas about celibacy and vocation are fascinating to me, and whose lived realities are equally fascinating as I think about the relational structures that I want to see in my future. (and who I can't wait to see at the GCN conference next week!)

The Ace Theist, The Trail We Blaze, The Asexual Agenda, and the Fuckyeahasexual tumblr have all also been semi-significant influences on me.