being invisible

I just realized that quite often, I forget who I am.

I can't look around and be reminded. I don't see myself in any of the ads on TV, or in magazines, or before Youtube videos, or in movies, or in songs, or on the marketing for in-store products, or on billboards, or in the conversations people have about their lives and relationships.

I don't see myself because the world is all about sex, and I'm asexual.

The words I use for myself don't exist in the vocabulary of the population at large: heteromantic, asexual, ace, aesthetically attracted. The divisions I draw between romantic feelings and physical actions are seen as superfluous and strange to people for whom intimate love and sex are one and the same. The conundrums I face on a regular basis when it comes to determining how much casual contact is considered casual by others is ridiculous. "Well, can the contact be considered sexual?" I don't fucking know.

I just read a fanfiction tonight about an older character who was already in a sexual relationship when he discovered he was asexual. Which, people might think, is about the time he'd tell his partner he's asexual, isn't it? No. When you don't want sex, and the world sees it as love, saying you don't want sex feels akin to saying you don't feel love. Whether you have a word for your feelings or not (I didn't until I was 27) you ask yourself if it wouldn't be better to suffer this emptiness in silence, because the alternative might be rejection and loneliness. You make yourself act the way you're told you should. You go into situations knowing they'll repulse you and you make yourself smile. You're supposed to want it. You'll make yourself. You will.

This fanfic spoke to me on a personal level, and it made me realize that I can't quite remember the last time a piece of media did. There are no asexual characters in the shows I watch or in the movies I see; no portrayals of teen aces growing up feeling different from their peers, feeling isolated and alone, only to discover they're not alone, and that it's okay to be how they are. There's no popular media for me to point to and say, "That's how I feel. I recognize my feelings very precisely in that." There are no coming-of-age stories for aces. I guess if you don't have sex, your emotional journey through life isn't considered exciting. Or real.

Because everyone likes sex. Everyone. Everyone wants it, everyone needs it, it's a basic human need, it's instinctual, it's natural, it's biology, you'll meet the right person, you'll want it, you'll like it, you'll get better at it, you'll love it, you will.

Just because I know I'm asexual now doesn't mean the world hasn't stopped screaming at me that this isn't how I should be. Having read this fanfic, this beautiful, unpaid labor of love, I'm reminded of what it feels like to be me. It's a relief, because I know, but it also hurts. It's also lonely. It's a feeling of being erased, little by little, day after day, until the needs of the world start to overwhelm what you know to be true of yourself at your core. It's a constant fear that who you are will, in fact, be the reason that someone you love--romantically, platonically, family or a friend--might someday turn and walk away from you forever.

I know who I am. More than I ever have, I know who I am, and even better, I am confident about it. I have words for the things I feel, and I with it, I have the courage to say them.

But dear god, it's nice to be reminded once in a while of who you are not just through emotions that are similar enough to be relateable, but words that understand you. Words that clarify your feelings, words that clarify you.

I'm so happy I just read this fanfic. It makes me feel less invisible.