Being an asexual person in queer furry communities is... surreal, sometimes. I'm not sex-repulsed, otherwise like 90% of the people I follow on this platform would be getting silenced instead. But, for every person I follow, most of the porn and kink is just something I just scroll past to get to everything else they post, and something about that feels... off. There's a heavy dissonance that's always sticking in the back of my mind and I just kinda want to try and articulate that here.
I am a big proponent of queer joy. To express yourself in ways that truly make you happy is one of the most powerful things you can do in a world that oppresses you, as is sharing those expressions with a community that shares in aspects of your identity. I strive to do it as much as I can with aspects of myself. But I just can't with being ace, and the reasons why just kinda stump me.
The big problem, right up front, is that as far as I know, the only way to outwardly express asexuality is to bluntly tell people that you are. Either through words, or with symbols like pride flags/colors. Other sexualities can express themselves by simply existing as themselves (bisexual erasure makes that frustratingly difficult for a lot of people, but not impossible). But how do I go about being outwardly ace? Asexuality is a lack of sexuality, and you can't prove a negative. Nothing outwardly differentiates an asexual person from an allosexual person who just doesn't happen to be expressing their sexuality at the moment. Not that I have a problem just telling people that I'm ace, but it severely limits the means I have to express that part of myself in my creative works.
Okay, but so what? Sure, expressing all that is difficult, but that's not the end of the world. You just gotta take your joy from other places, right? But... how? I have a good few sources of joy in my life. Not a single one is related to my asexuality.
It's gotten to the point where I actively resent being ace. Allosexual people have this source of joy and fulfillment in their lives that I simply don't, and never will. And of course, the correct response to that sentiment is that nothing is stopping ace people from finding joy and companionship in other ways. But here's the catch. So can everyone else. So in my head, I don't see equally valid alternatives, I see limitations. I will never understand the joy of sex, but even the most hypersexual person can find joy in a good cuddle or a good conversation or a beautiful landscape.
To me, asexuality is a void. It doesn't give me anything, it only takes. And I know that's wrong. I know I shouldn't feel that way. Most other people I know on the ace-spectrum don't. And as far as queer issues go, this one is absurdly insignificant. It literally does not matter in the face of proper existential threats.
But it just eats at me, existing in these spaces and seeing expressions of queer sexual joy everywhere and wishing I had what they had. I don't resent them at all. I want everyone to find joy in everything about themselves. I just wish I could find that joy in this part of myself, too.
I don't know if I had a point to all this, but lately I've found that shouting a frustration out onto the internet helps me feel better, so I guess that's all this is.
This was on my mind again. There's something deeply affecting about seeing friends be the happiest I have ever seen them, with a large component of it involving intimacy that I would never be comfortable with, and feeling that gnawing void in my gut after the vicarious good vibes wear off. That sense that I will never be that happy because I lack the fundamental preferences and desires and don't have anything equivalent to replace them with.
It is absurdly untrue and not remotely fair to be thinking that way. Not to mention just really horrible to my friends to be jealous of their joy after the fact. But how do I go about proving myself wrong here? How should I go about seeking out that level of joy and validation? There's no actual answers to those questions. I've just gotta keep doing my best and hope I stumble into it, because trying to force it is the worst thing I can do. But that doesn't make it stop hurting in the meantime.
this is something we've been thinking about for a bit
in terms of sexuality, we fall somewhere between kinky ace and pan, with pan being our preferred way to express it.
but we are also aro.
and well, we'll happily wear the non-binary flag colours, the pan flag colours (...despite the eyestrain), the non-human unity flag, and more.
but we could not tell you what the aro flag even looks like beyond it probably being related to the ace one.
we take no pride in it.
we see the sparkle in friends' eyes when they look at other friends, and we're truly happy for them
at the same time, it hurts knowing that we can't give that look, and are unlikely to receive it.
(touch starvation from the pandemic really hasn't helped this either, which is why we would really like to cuddle the shit out of any friend that wants it)
love and the ways of expressing it are infinite. we know this. there is no scarcity on it, from critters in our life or in general.
it's just... difficult, having some of those avenues we can offer be closed off and not by choice
(we tried, a few times - each time ending up amicably drifting apart)