I don’t usually think of all the things I’m not. There is at least one universe full of things that I am not, so listing them all would seriously cut into my leisure time. Beyond that, there doesn’t seem to be much of a point to it. Identity is supposed to be what you are—something inside of you that, if it cannot be seen, can be felt. A presence. In visual composition, we talk about positive and negative space. Positive space is where a shape or image is. Negative space is where it is not.
I am not a desk chair. I am not a ball of twine. I am not Alerce Milenario, the largest living cypress tree. I am not seaweed. I am not barbed wire. I am not a Sandhill crane. I am not a subterranean lake. I am not an out-of-date textbook on computer science.
I am not a believer. I am not sexual.
Growing up is just a cumulative series of realizations that don’t stop until your brain does. I realized I was an atheist when I was fourteen. I realized I was asexual when I was nineteen. And I only started to realize the connections between the two when I was 28.
I am not a math person.
Words are important to me. My M.A. is in Literature and Rhetoric, and I have seven years experience as a writing tutor. I took Latin in high school, which I saw mostly as a loophole to put more skill points into English. When I want to understand something, my first approach is to look at the words themselves.
Antonyms are words that pair up to represent opposite meanings. “Hot” and “Cold” are gradable antonyms—they exist on opposite ends of a spectrum; “Hot” and “Not,” though, are complementary antonyms—something is either one or the other. I see “sexual” and “asexual” as gradable antonyms; there is a range of experience from “I never feel sexual attraction” through “I sometimes feel sexual attraction” to “I constantly feel sexual attraction, and it is beginning to affect my productivity.” In contrast, I see “theism” and “atheism” as complementary antonyms: you either feel a higher power in your life or you don’t.
I am not a picky eater. I am not a particularly good violinist.
Our language is full of antonyms, but only some depend on the helpful prefix “a-,” which means “without” or “not.” Interestingly, it seems to be reserved to label things that are not just opposite, but are against the normal order of things. The atypical.
“Theism” and “sexuality” are standard. We understand what these concepts entail—their qualities and values and expression within our culture. They are so standard that when it comes to identifying their opposites, their antonyms, we resort to our prefix “a-.”
“What is that?” “I dunno. It’s not this.” An etymological shrug.
I am not comfortable around small children. I am not usually aware of how loud my laugh is.
Positive space is what we are trained to see. Seeing the negative space, the places where the shape isn’t, requires a shift in perspective. It’s not always an easy shift.
I am not a risk-taker. I am not good with conflict.
The larger the deviation of your experience from the norm, the greater the surprise and the stronger the reaction from other people. Faith and sex are fairly universal human experiences, and there is such a wide variety of belief systems and sexualities to identify as that most people are surprised when I answer “none of the above.”
Then again, I once left a friend speechless when I told him that I had never had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, so you never know what norms people value the most.
I am not waiting. I am not confused. I am not lying.
Sometimes people simply express acceptance or indifference and move on with their lives. Sometimes. Religion and Sexuality are capital-letter topics, and most people have opinions. These are the four I hear most, in order of progressing belligerence:
“Don’t worry, something will change and you will feel differently in the future! You just need to give it time. You may be atheist and asexual now, but one day you’ll find your road to Damascus and meet some hot Gamaliel or Dorcas, and then won’t things be better? Never say never!”
“There are no atheists in fox holes. There are no asexuals in whatever the sexual equivalent is of fox holes.”
“Well, you should be trying harder. When was the last time you went to church? How many dates have you been on? Have you tried praying? Have you tried putting yourself out more?”
“You’re lying to yourself. How could you look at that sunrise and not believe in God’s grace? How could you look at Chris Evans/Hemsworth/Pratt and not want to sweetly bone them?”
I can, and have, addressed or deflected these questions. But they are difficult to dismiss because they feed directly into my own inner doubts.
I am not certain.
I define a large part of myself by what I don’t feel. I have never felt the presence of a higher power, so I call myself an atheist. I have never felt sexual attraction, so I call myself asexual. But the absence of feeling is hard to hang one’s hat on. Negative space does not have the same solidity as positive space. You have to keep tracing its edge, prodding like a tongue at a sore tooth.
Do I really not feel this, or is this just the way it’s supposed to feel? I will say that if I have been experiencing either God’s love or sexual attraction this whole time, I have no idea why you guys write so many songs about it.
What if tomorrow I wake up and I do feel something? How do I define myself then? Honestly, a girl starts to question her own perceptions, and when you’re living in a subjective reality, what else do you have?
I am not represented.
As if that weren’t enough, I am surrounded by messages that not only should I feel these things, if I don’t feel them, I am empty and broken and missing out on the best parts of life. Faith and sex are each considered prerequisites for experiencing the two of the highest forms of love. To fully experience spiritual love between creator and created, you must have faith. To fully experience romantic love between two people, you must have sex.
Depictions of spiritual love are typically confined to religious media, and except for the occasional vague Facebook post from relatives, these are relatively simple to avoid. However, there is no escaping the deluge of sex, romance, and the conflation between the two.
Being asexual is not the same as being aromantic (our prefix again!). There are certainly people who are both, but I do feel the desire to hold hands with someone, to watch movies and share inside jokes and file taxes jointly and all the other things romantic partners do when they’re not exchanging fluids.
Everything I have ever read, seen, or heard reinforces the idea that if I want to build a life with someone, we need physical attraction to make it work. People don’t consummate their marriages with a firm handshake or a high-five.
So I understand love the way I understand synesthesia. I’ve read about it, and talked to people who have experienced it, and I can observe its effects. But at the end of the day, it’s like the whole world can taste music and I’m just listening with my ears like a chump.
In the sleepless 3:00 a.m. of the soul, I wonder if I am capable of feeling love at all.
I am not sorry for myself.
There will always be a tension between what I think I should feel and what I don’t, but love is more than a feeling. Love is a choice. If I don’t feel love the way I think other people do, then I am free to decide for myself what love means. I am free to make my life what I want it to be.
I am not special. I am not alone.
My experience is simply one variation on the theme of Human Existence. I thought that by defining myself in opposition to the norm, I was separating myself from other people. Identity is a deeply personal experience–so personal that we forget that seven billion other people are going through the same process that we are.
I looked at people who could feel the things I couldn’t and think “at least they’re sure.” Bollocks. People doubt their feelings all the time–feelings are no more solid or reliable than their absence. People are infinitely variable in their details, but we all struggle to make sense of ourselves and our world.
Still.
I am not anyone else.
For me, atheism and asexuality are tied together by more than their shared prefix. I came to both of my initial realizations at critical points in my life where I was searching for an identity. In the years since, I have come to understand and accept the parts of myself that are marked by what is missing.
Negative space and positive space are simply two ways to look at the same image. Once you’re used to looking for it, you can’t help but see the negative space. The image remains the same, but now you have a better understanding of the whole than you did before.
Just because something is missing does not mean there is nothing there.
Wow. Came for the atheism, stayed for the semantics. This was way better than it needed to be for me to finish it.
“Do I really not feel this, or is this just the way it’s supposed to feel? I will say that if I have been experiencing either God’s love or sexual attraction this whole time, I have no idea why you guys write so many songs about it.”
“In the sleepless 3:00 a.m. of the soul, I wonder if I am capable of feeling love at all.”
Get out of my head, dammit. That door was locked.
I came here to post that first quote. Nailed it, absolutely.
Same!
Me too! Got it exactly.
Thank you for writing this. I loved it a lot.
You are a truly excellent writer, and the way you play with language and focus on words gave me a new perspective on both of these concepts.
I’m an atheist, which was more of a big deal 20 years ago when all of my friends spent every Wednesday night in bible study and tried to bring me to Christian Rock shows at weekends. As an adult, I’ve managed to find people who think similarly to me. Which is not to say that they are all atheists, just to say that they at least comprehend that we’re all sort of taking a guess and doing what feels right to us, and nobody has the definitive answers.
I’m not asexual, in the strictest sense of the word. But I have sexual dysfunction that means even when I feel sexual desire, it’s hypothetical. It’s not matched with any actions. And it’s rolled up with a lot of memory and subconscious associations of pain and awkwardness and nothing good at all. I am, however, in a long-term relationship with someone, and although he’s not thrilled about these issues, he would rather be with me and my issues, than not be with me at all. Those people do exist.
While my situation isn’t exactly the same as yours, I was reminded several times of myself while reading this. I have to say, no one has ever told me that if I don’t believe in god, it’s because I haven’t tried hard enough. Faith seems like something you have or you don’t. I would probably cut out of my life anyone who suggested that particular course of action.
I think it’s incredibly important to be open and honest about when our lives don’t fall in the normal sexual narrative established by RomComs and Lady Chatterley’s Lover. That is a narrative that society has foisted on us, and we try to shove ourselves into that mold even when it doesn’t meet our needs or match our desires. I’m all for dismantling that idea, and letting people determine their own narrative about what they want in a partner. Has anyone read On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan? It dealt with some of these issues and it made me cry for ages, but it was really good.
Obviously you’re free to identify in whatever way you feel comfortable with, but it sounds like you fit the definition of gray-asexual. Might be worth looking into.
I have never felt sexual attraction, so I call myself asexual. But the absence of feeling is hard to hang one’s hat on. Negative space does not have the same solidity as positive space. You have to keep tracing its edge, prodding like a tongue at a sore tooth.
Wow, this basically sums up my whole struggle of how to identify, and how unstable the definition of “asexual” felt once I finally landed on it. I’d never thought of it in the sense of negative space, but the lines above capture that feeling of uncertainty.
Do I really not feel this, or is this just the way it’s supposed to feel? I will say that if I have been experiencing either God’s love or sexual attraction this whole time, I have no idea why you guys write so many songs about it.
Oh friend, yes. Very much yes. Is this just way things are supposed to feel and I missed the importance of it? How will I know, either way? I guess I’ll just keep on like this for now, but it does feel different to define myself by the absence of something many people do strongly relate to. Anyway, this was great, thank you for writing it.
SAME. This quote is so perfect, that’s exactly how it feels.
Twenty days ago, I wrote a draft of this same essay title (yours being far superior) and reading this is making me dizzy.
You should still show us your essay/draft. 🙂
I’m still feeling very surreal. I actually checked my onedrive to see if I’d imagined writing it. Now I remember how I couldn’t disentangle the narrative from my divorce, and thinking about that was depressing.
Maybe you did write it, and Anne is a mind-reader? Maybe she stole it from your dreams. Did you check the salt-lines on your window sills?
This was beautiful, and exactly what I needed to read right now. Thank you.
this is lovely and I need to save it for a closer read later, but bits and pieces are clicking very neatly into my mind. I love the reminder of what it’s like to realize negative space is a thing, art/design wise, and then you cannot unsee it.
I’m also VERY excited to explore your Discworld project. This line right here: So, yes, Pratchett’s writing changed. But I don’t want to so quickly attribute that change to mental degradation, to a man losing a grip on his art—rather than, say, the way one’s thinking changes when confronted with illness. definitely rings true with my experience of the later books.
Oh yes, exactly. In some of the later books it felt like I was holding his heart in my hands.
Not so much Discworld but the visceral anger and loss in Nation… yeah. But I do feel that in the last couple you could tell that he was using Dragon. The spoken rhythm isn’t quite the same as the written-and-then-read-back rhythm.
Oh geez, what a beautiful piece! Thank you thank you for writing it and to the Toast for publishing it so I could benefit from reading it.
That was gorgeous writing. Thank you for sharing this.
Crying at my desk right now, because this just means so much to me as an asexual agnostic person. It’s so difficult to define yourself by the absences, especially when the absence is of something that is supposedly universal. To have a definition that so many people don’t even know exists or is a true definition (and not just a timing or medical issue). To be the only person you’ve ever known (personally, in real life) to define themselves in that way.
Speaking of representation, there is an asexual character on the show Sirens (US) that I love and means so much to me. Her asexuality is seen as unusual but not a joke or a dysfunction – it’s just an end of the spectrum of people and identities in the show. They do a great job of explaining a lot of aspects of asexuality and being asexual, while still being really funny & sweet.
I am definitely going to start watching Sirens per your mention—I had no idea there was an ace character on TV these days. Representation, fuck yes.
#1 Sirens is a great show and everyone should watch it, just in general.
#2 The ace character (Voodoo) is not one of the main ones, but she is pretty great. She’s kind of a weirdo but not because she’s ace and not more than other folks. And they have a whole storyline about a het guy who wants/tries to date her that I feel is handled really well. I really can’t explain how much this dumb, minor character in a tiny basic cable television show means to me! #Voodoo4life
Is Sirens still in production? I loved it, but thought it had been cancelled (like so many of the shows I like).
It’s also currently streaming on (USA) Netflix!
Came down here mainly to say that this was beautifully written, but also to riff on the metaphor and say that negative space is very important to a composition. Any artist or designer will confirm your assertion that negative space is not at all empty.
This is a lovely piece with lots of chewy food for thought. Thank you so much for writing it and sharing it with us.
Thank you for sharing this. Sometimes I think the hardest thing about being asexual is that there is so little out there about what it’s like – and how frustrating it is to have people constantly doubt you.
This captures SO MUCH of my mental struggle re: being asexual and atheist over the last few years, and I appreciate every word of it.
“I am not waiting. I am not confused. I am not lying.”
HOO BOY. This pretty well sums up how I’ve felt about not wanting to have kids (although now at 42 people have stopped bugging me about that topic, but at age 15 I could have said those exact words). So. Different topic, totally get those feelings.
OK, so ~15 years to go to stop the bugging. At least there’s light at the end of the tunnel
AMEN sister. Im 29 and people are still going “Oh, you’ll change your mind about kids when that biological clock starts ticking!” and smiling knowingly at me when I say I don’t want kids. I’ve given up arguing about it. I just say ok well I’ll let u know if that happens but I’m not holding my breath – I’ve felt this way as long as I can remember.
This is really great. As an ace/atheist and also probably aro person, thank you for writing it.
Thank you for writing this. I want to say more but I’m feeling a little overwhelmed — in a good way — but mainly, thank you.
“But the absence of feeling is hard to hang one’s hat on. Negative space does not have the same solidity as positive space. You have to keep tracing its edge, prodding like a tongue at a sore tooth.”
Incredibly beautiful essay that seamlessly transitions between the linguistical, theoretical, and personal.
“Just because something is missing does not mean there is nothing there.”
THIS LINE. I want to hand out leaflets emblazoned with it. I want to write it on all my clothes and wrap myself in it. I want to paint it on the ceiling over my bed and look at it every morning and every night. What an amazing piece, and what a breathtaking finish.
oh this is marvelous. Thank you.
This is gorgeous and rich. Thank you.
But have you TRIED being a subterranean lake? Maybe you just haven’t met the right lake bed yet. Maybe you’re just being not-a-lake on purpose. For the attention.
That is to say, I think I’ve just discovered (thanks to you) a handy shortcut from the self-doubting “Maybe they’re right and I’m just not trying hard enough” to the confident “That’s ridiculous, I know what I am and what I’m not.”
This is a beautiful piece and, like so many others here, I thank you for sharing it. I’ve struggled personally with a lot of my own doubts about my own identity. It’s nice to be reminded that we’re all struggling, in one way or another.
This is very relevant to my interests (..non-interests?), but I wasn’t prepared for the actual emotional impact this would have. Things that are no priority in my life shouldn’t have this impact, right? Right?
I’m an atheist – I come from a family of atheists, so no surprise there. I never felt the need to believe in a higher being, and I don’t really know how one would go about that. I love discussion this with a dear friend of mine, who’s religious, highly intelligent and very into philosophy. We always get stuck in the loop of “how does it feel to believe in some power”/”how does it to NOT believe in a higher power”. The simile with synesthesia is extremely fitting.
I’m asexual – at least, I’m pretty certain I am. I get crushes on both men and women, but I don’t want to have their genitals around me. Sexuality was never a point of discussion in my family (like religion), it was more of a “try out anything you like, as long as you’re safe and use protection and please let’s stop talking about this now”, we were neither discouraged nor encouraged to explore our sexuality. I kind-of came out to my Mum over Christmas and her reaction was basically: yeah, ok, cool.
I see absolutely no connection between my atheism and my asexuality – but I also live in a very liberal country that assumes religion is a private issue. While White/Christian is still the basic default here, there is no judgement against atheists (or at least, I never felt it). I went to a catholic kindergarden, and don’t have a shred of piety in me.
Both my a-‘s collided/conflated during my teenage years and early adulthood, which I spent firmly entrenched in the goth and metal community. Those, for the record, are the most tolerant and accepting people on earth. There were no weird questions or the insistence that something was wrong with me, or the pressure to date, to behave “more like a girl”. There was more a collective idea of “we’re all fucked up in some way, let’s party. Or, you know, just hang out around a fire and talk about fantasy authors, if you’d rather prefer that.” In hindsight, my attachment to the scene was probably a reaction to everybody around me suddenly, inexplicably, changing, developing away from me, getting hustled down a path I couldn’t even perceive. They were going through puberty, while I was… stuck where I was. So I found myself on a wildly diverging path, and found huge comfort there, even though I didn’t understand why.
And still today, despite all this explicit and implicit support, and despite the very late realization that, hey! That thing that isn’t a part of you? It has a name! People talk about it! Look, there’s a TV character almost like you! – I still sometimes wonder what the hell is going on with me. Is this normal? Should I be worried about this? Should I get a doctor to check me out, just in case? Should I tell people about this? Does it mean I’ll never find a life partner? If I don’t feel love, do I feel anything at all? How the hell does one recognize “love” anyway? I have no benchmark for “love”. Is this actually a sign of depression? So many questions.
“They were going through puberty, while I was… stuck where I was. ”
This is just how I feel – stuck with a pre-pubescent conception of sex. It’s fascinating and kinda gross and why do they like to do that? My body certainly went through puberty, but my brain missed it somehow.
It feels like everybody else has this new fascinating hobby that’s just not appealing to you, but like sports, nobody ever shuts up about it. And then you realize that it’s not a hobby, it’s an urge as important as breathing for some, and that’s the point when you realize you possible just don’t have lungs and never knew.
Had to reply when you said the bit about not having lungs. I’m firmly gray-ace, gray-aro, but currently going through a breakup with one of the…4 people I’ve felt drawn to in my life? It sucks. But I told my therapist that before this, being ace/aro was like having a super power. Like being able to breathe underwater; not needing lungs because I had gills. Now I don’t have lungs any more; I don’t need lungs any more than I did before. But I remember what it was like having lungs, so it still feels like drowning sometimes. It’s weird being back on the other side, not needing to breathe, like something that happened to someone else.
THIS IS SO GOOD AND SO IMPORTANT TO ME
This is why I love The Toast. I am legitimately happy your need was met, Complete Internet Stranger!
There are some really good bits here but I’ve had to read it in between work and I haven’t been able to really focus, so I need to reread later, but yeah, really good bits that I’m looking forward to reading more deeply when I get home. I think my experience of being atheist is different, as I actively don’t believe, so it’s different from my asexuality, but you do point out that we all experience it differently, so there. 🙂
Thank you. Exactly this.
Ahhhh …. ahhhh… ahh … ah. *sob*
Whoooo! Ok, I’m good now … I think. As both someone who identifies as both things the eerie sense of familiarity with what you were saying and how you expressed it was momentarily overwhelming.
That constant sense of uncertainty and how weird it is to try and define yourself as something you’re not/don’t think you’ve ever experienced can be crushing. You put that into words impeccably.
I think I’ve transitioned to a phase in my asexuality where I feel more like claiming it, not necessarily more certain, but more willing to go beyond the uncertainty and embrace this thing. It’s scary and I don’t really know how to talk about it in person yet. I’ve made some slightly disastrous attempts but so it goes. 🙂
Anyway, thanks for writing this piece. <3
I’m an ace atheist too so I clicked on this article because of course I would and I’m so glad I did. You not only voiced a lot of things I’ve felt but never been able to express or define this fully, but you did it in such an elegant, beautiful, and surprisingly funny way! I feel like this is something I’ll keep coming back to, not only for your analysis of the subject but to study your excellent writing. Thank you very much.
What a gorgeous essay. I am also atheist and asexual, though I have experienced some sexual attraction in the past…or perhaps I should say, I thought I did. I wanted to want, because we are told that we must. I do experience a lot of erotic energy, but it is entirely self-directed. I learned recently that there is some odd word for this, which I chose not to remember, because it didn’t really matter or address the basic conundrum I deal with, which is that I have no physical desire for other people, and that makes me incomprehensible to most. And it makes them incomprehensible to me. But I see from your writing and from this thread that I am not incomprehensible to all. That is a gift, for which I am grateful.
This was a great post, and a very thoughtful approach with the idea of “negative space”.
That being said personally I do not consider my own atheism a “negative space”. That is, I do not think that I am an atheist only because I do not “feel” God. Obviously that’s a part of it. If I “felt” God then probably I wouldn’t be an atheist, or at least I would have a harder time being an atheist.
But, I think my atheism is more than just “not-theist”, more than just a negative space around where other people “feel” God. My atheism is a principled, logical view to which I arrived after extensive reading and thinking about questions relating to religion and God. Again, I probably would not have reached the same conclusion if I didn’t have “faith-deafness”, but I did not merely say “I don’t feel God, therefore she doesn’t exist.”
There are a lot of people around me who are secular, or “non-theists”, in the sense that they do not adhere to any religious rules and never consider faith or God in anything they do. However, they have probably never defined themselves as atheists and if asked directly might even balk from stating outright that they are atheists. This is not a question that they ever gave any real thought to. They don’t “feel” God in their lives, so they just don’t think about questions of faith or religion. I don’t see my own atheism in the same way: I thought about my views on faith and religion, a lot, before I came to the conclusion that there is no God. I see my atheism not as a “negative space” (“I don’t believe”), but as a “full space” (“I believe/think that there is no God”).
All of which is not in any way to dismiss your experience of atheism. I can certainly see how atheism can be a negative space in the way you describe. Just to shed some light on other modes of atheism.
I always thought I could just be. I still hope I can just be. However societal norms continue to intrude on my just being. Some may need self-definition; it just confuses me. Whenever I strive to arrive at a definition it is no longer valid anyway. I am not a philsopher…I just am. Do I care if people understand me…not really. Although I do like to tell my stories.
Although I have never thought of the link between the words “atheist” and “asexual” -mostly because religion doesn’t hold much of a space in my life & community in the first place, I have been thinking about the privative “a” in “asexual” a lot lately.
It makes me feel like that there is something lacking in me, just because I do not feel sexual attraction, and that is why I have a hard time accepting the label.
Your post offers me another very interesting and well-written outlook on things, and for that I would like to thank you.
Little bit late here but this is lovely. I have never in my life felt the grace of god, but I wasnt raised to expect it, and I think the wonder that I feel at science and nature and the vastness of our universe is what other people call god, and I understand that.
I also have a complex relationship with sex and relationships, largely because of mental illness. Reminding myself that in terms of the universe, I am very small and whatever I am doesnt matter at all does help me a lot.
Though I can confidently say that I definitely would sweetly bone Chris Evans
Thank you for this. I too am atheist and asexual. I didn’t start out asexual but just gradually that became my truth. The asexual I ascribe to age. I’m tired of sexual politics that comes with the sex when the sex was never that great to begin with.
Atheism, on the other hand, has been with me my whole life and it was something I thought was a curse on me when I was a child. I just could not believe and because my religion was Catholic, the guilt that came along with being spiritually defective was crushing, until I accepted my lack of belief as being normal for me.
I hate that it took most of my life to accept myself (not always perfectly) but at least I’m getting there.
I am not a theist; I am not an atheist. I am an untheist, because I don’t care if gods exist.
I don’t think atheists necessarily care whether gods exist. That seems closely to the definition of agnostic to me.
I would read this article – debate/consensus-building about faith and non-religion from thoughtful, kind people in a safe space.
Come over to the UK! 49% of us are godless. You’ll fit right in. xxx
Holy shit, I am in the wrong country.
Really, it’s as low as 49%?
Huh.
I was reading it and thinking about the difference between Britain and America, and how here, I at least tend to assume that the people I’m dealing with will be atheists; I would have placed the percentage at more like 60% If you’d asked me to guess. Could be my perception is distorted by the generational gap though – most people I associate with are under 35, and most of those who are older are friends of my parents (a distinctly atheist group; no-one who has met them could believe in God!)
Really, it's as low as 49%?
Huh.
I was reading it and thinking about the difference between Britain and America, and how here, I at least tend to assume that the people I'm dealing with will be atheists; I would have placed the percentage at more like 60% If you'd asked me to guess. Could be my perception is distorted by the generational gap though – most people I associate with are under 35, and most of those who are older are friends of my parents (a distinctly atheist group; no-one who has met them could believe in God!)
SAME. This quote is so perfect, that's exactly how it feels.
AMEN sister. Im 29 and people are still going "Oh, you'll change your mind about kids when that biological clock starts ticking!" and smiling knowingly at me when I say I don't want kids. I've given up arguing about it. I just say ok well I'll let u know if that happens but I'm not holding my breath – I've felt this way as long as I can remember.
I am neither asexual nor atheist, so the ability of this article to put me in the shoes of "a" and "not" is a tribute to stellar writing.
I don’t like the word asexual, really, because although to you it evokes negative space, to me it evokes cells splitting and protozoa reproducing like I’m being scrutinised watched under a microscope and I’m swimming around in a petri dish.
The way that I feel, it’s not just an absence of sexual attraction/romantic feelings, it’s a sense of completeness kind of; I am Alone, capital ‘A’, and I can’t imagine finding somebody to share my life with in that close kind of couple way without feeling kind of suffocated or as if it would take away from my happiness somehow.
Thank you so much for this article, Anne, and thank you to everyone who commented. It’s such a lovely feeling to read others’ words and find your own thoughts (“YES, THIS!”)
I still subscribe to the faith I was born into and raised in, still believe in God and want to belong to my church, but lately I’ve been feeling really distant. I think I’m lacking the personal connection that everyone talks about, that relationship with God. I feel the same kind of “…?” bemused feeling that I get when I think about actually being in a relationship with an actual person in real life. Maybe they are related, the a-‘s.
Beautiful and witty piece. I wish everything on the internet was as thoughtful and literate.