Month: June 2013

The Physical Touch Escalator

I look at physical touch between two people via a spectrum model: on one end of the spectrum (of positive touch only) is the handshake and on the other end is full-blown penetrative sex. What falls in between progresses from that most casual and non-intimate/nonsensual type of touch to more intimate, more sensual, and ultimately sexual. At every point of this spectrum, romantic attraction is optional, and sexual attraction is optional in the nongenital portion of the spectrum. That simply means you can cuddle someone you don’t want to fuck and fuck someone you don’t want to date or don’t feel the least bit romantically in love with.

The nonsexual/nongenital forms of touch include: unemotional hugs, emotional hugs, holding hands, kissing (that breaks down further into “on the cheek,” “on the mouth, close-lipped,” “on the mouth, with tongue,” “on the body, close mouthed”, “on the body, open-mouthed”), cuddling (clothed or partially unclothed), caressing or petting the body affectionately, intimate paired dancing, and massage.

The erotic and/or sexual forms of touch include: mutual masturbation, sexual groping of the body with particular attention to the breasts or buttocks, dry humping, oral sex, anal sex, sex with toys, and penile-vaginal sex.

The physical touch escalator is based on the premise that each form or level of touch on the spectrum automatically and undoubtedly implies a progression to the next form or level, usually beginning somewhere after “nonromantic/casual hugs.” Therefore, if you enthusiastically engage in one type of nonsexual, affectionate touch with someone, you are expected to eventually engage in whatever physical act comes after it on the spectrum—and keep going until you eventually reach penetrative sex.

If you don’t want to share Touch C with a person, then you better not agree to share Touch B, and if you go through with Touch C, you’re implying that you’re interested in Touch D, etc. The nonsexual forms of physical affection are only means to a sexual end, their main value the potential for sex that they carry by default.

The Physical Touch Escalator in Action

So let’s say Jenny—a heterosexual female—is at a college party. She’s had a few drinks, she’s loosened up, she’s having a good time, and she starts dancing with some guy named Ryan. She thinks Ryan’s attractive, and she enjoys dancing, so dancing with him is fun. They’re feeling each other up a little, and then they end up making out (kissing open-mouthed with tongue).

Jenny’s enjoying herself, but she doesn’t want to go any further on the touch escalator. Jenny doesn’t want any kind of sexual contact with Ryan; she doesn’t know him well enough or she’s only comfortable having sex inside of a romantic relationship or she doesn’t feel like it tonight.

But Ryan, who’s also intoxicated and horny, expects that he’ll be able to take her back to his place and at least get some oral sex out of the deal. After all, she’s making out with him, right? Obviously, she’s attracted to him and in the mood for sex.

Now, maybe Jenny manages to get away from Ryan and leave the party for home with friends or by herself—in which case Ryan feels disappointed and maybe a little bit annoyed, even cheated. Or maybe Ryan convinces Jenny to go home with him, and they end up having some kind of sex that Jenny just goes along with because it’s easier to do it than it is to flat-out reject this attractive guy’s advances after she already made out and danced with him. Maybe Jenny would actually like to go to sleep with Ryan after some cuddling—but there’s no way in hell Ryan’s going to do that without sex happening first. Worst case scenario: Jenny goes home with Ryan, drunk and thinking that they can just go to sleep cuddling or not even really thinking at all, and Ryan ends up raping her without believing as he does it (or afterward) that it’s rape.

The bottom line is, once Jenny gets on the physical touch escalator with Ryan, it’s hard to get off of it before reaching the sexual end. And because she got on the escalator with him, Ryan feels like he has a right to some level of sexual favor from her.

The Physical Touch Escalator and Rape Culture

The Physical Touch Escalator involves attitudes that are essential to rape culture, which is the biggest reason why the PTE is so problematic. It is built on the following two premises:

1. If you consent to one kind of physical interaction with someone, you’re implicitly consenting to all the other kinds that come after it up to penetrative sex, which means that if you stop the escalator before you reach sexual interaction, you’re a “tease” who’s being “unfair” to the other person. You’ve “led them on.”

2. Giving someone else any kind of physical, nongenital affection entitles you to sexual interaction with that person….. which can easily turn into the classic rapist’s defense: “She/he was asking for it.”

It shouldn’t take a high IQ to see that if you combine these two attitudes, you create a situation where it’s dangerously easy for rape to happen.

Contrary to popular knowledge, “rape” is not always a clear-cut crime. There’s the kind of rape that most people think of when they hear the word: the violent, hostile, and usually stranger-on-stranger or acquaintance-on-acquaintance rape, where the victim’s screaming and trying to get away and very obviously does NOT consent; after that, drug-facilitated date rape is probably the next kind that comes to mind. These attacks are easy for the world to define as rape because the victim was a completely unwilling participant in the entire interaction, not just the genital interaction.

But the less hostile, less violent, more subdued type of rape—in other words, the kind that’s easier for rapists, their victims, and even people who know both, to dismiss as something other than rape or assault—can contain elements that lead everyone to excuse the rapist and even blame the victim. Sometimes, those elements are alcohol or drugs. Sometimes, it’s the way a female victim was dressed or where she was at the time of her assault. Sometimes, it’s the fact that the victim was flirting with the rapist prior to the assault.

But sometimes, it’s the fact that the victim did consent to some of the physical touch leading up to the rape—the ultimate “asking for it.” And these scenarios of rape and sexual assault have to be the kind that happen in personal relationships, between two romantic partners or between two friends, rather than between total strangers or acquaintances who aren’t on particularly friendly terms. So you’re with someone that you trust, that you may even love, who you’re being physically affectionate with (in a nonsexual manner) because you want to share affection with them….. You do want that touch, that affection, that intimacy. You just don’t want sex.

And it’s your right not to want sex. It’s your right to say “yes” to cuddling and “no” to penetration or “yes” to kissing and “no” to oral sex, etc.

But in this culture of ours where millions of people still don’t understand that it’s possible for rape to happen in a romantic relationship, how many bystanders do you think would easily and immediately accept that in a situation where two people who are emotionally connected are sharing consensual physical affection, that the one who ended up raped or sexually assaulted seriously, legitimately DID NOT WANT to have sex?

How many people would say, “Well, if that person didn’t want to have sex, then they shouldn’t have said yes to cuddling”? Or “If that person didn’t want to have sex, then they shouldn’t have been kissing their partner at the time”? Or even, “Well, those two are a couple, so it wasn’t rape, it was just one of them doing something they didn’t really want to do to make their partner happy. That happens with every couple, in all kinds of ways”?

And frankly, putting rape culture aside for a second, what can we expect in a culture where physical affection is sexualized so totally and undeniably in the collective social consciousness? The physical touch escalator can only exist as long as the most common mindset among the public is to read all forms of non-casual physical affection and sensual touch as innately sex-motivated, and as long as most people believe in that sex-motivation bullshit, people are going to end up raped and assaulted by their own romantic partners or intimate friends or people they’re casually dating, just for wanting and engaging in some nongenital physical affection.

The Physical Touch Escalator and Asexuality/Celibacy

As a celibate asexual, the Physical Touch Escalator pisses me off for reasons beyond its interaction with rape culture.

The PTE and its premise that all physical affection and sensual touch is sex-motivated are the reasons that so many celibate asexuals find themselves without access to regular, safe physical touch, which a lot of us desire strongly whether in romantic or nonromantic relationships. This lack of physical affection in our lives can be deeply disturbing, emotionally and even psychologically.

The PTE puts a lot of oblivious asexuals, who are sex-repulsed or sex-averse, into dangerous situations where they don’t even see the unasked for sexual advance coming and where they feel either too surprised or guilty, that they have a hard time saying “no” to the escalating sexual activity in the middle of it, even when they’re dying to get out of that situation.

The PTE makes mixed romantic relationships with sexual people super risky and dangerous for asexuals who do not want any kind of sexual contact or minimal sexual contact, and it can even make so-called “friendships” with sexual people dangerous, if the ace is comfortably participating in physical affection that they don’t even consider romantic, while their “friend” is using the physical affection to move-in on the ace sexually.

The PTE can cause sexual people to question an asexual’s identity because of the asexual’s sensuality or love of physical touch; it’s one reason why sexual people can assume that all asexuals are totally non-physical, non-sensual, standoffish, cold, etc. In this same vein, an asexual who would otherwise feel 100% sure about wanting to stay celibate could question their own desires, their own identity, their own comfort level with actual sex all because of their enjoyment and desire for nonsexual sensual touch. You got the whole God damn world telling you that nobody wants to cuddle or kiss or hold hands with someone, unless what they really want is to fuck that person, and after a lifetime of hearing that message unchallenged, it’s not easy to completely discard it even in the face of your own contradictory feelings, desires, and sexual orientation.

I’ve seen this a thousand times: some ace, usually young and new to the community, asking around: “If I like making out, does that mean I’m not ace? If I love to cuddle, does that mean I’m not ace? I love to be physically affectionate, does that mean I want sex and I just don’t know it and I have to go through with it even though I feel like I don’t want it?” It’s insane, the circles you can run around in your head all because of some cultural paradigm that’s complete horseshit.

Closing Statements

The Physical Touch Escalator is in direct violation of healthy consent in relationships of any kind. It is a tool and expression of rape culture. It particularly endangers asexuals and other people either temporarily or permanently celibate who choose to pursue physically affectionate/intimate relationships with romantic or nonromantic partners.

The idea that nongenital physical affection can only be motivated by sexual desire and can therefore only have sexual connotations is disgusting, harmful, and unfair. It has created a society where people can rape their romantic partners or close friends and feel excused in doing so, where it’s easy for people to pressure romantic partners or friends for sex and where their partners dubiously consent to it out of guilt or a sense that they owe sex as repayment for physical affection, where the only way to gain access to nonsexual physical affection is to enter into a sexual or romantic-sexual relationship and therefore anyone not in a sexual or romantic-sexual relationship must live with next to no affectionate touch—which is emotionally and psychologically unhealthy and even cruel.

You are entitled to say “yes” to nonsexual physical affection and say “no” to sexual activity, in any kind of relationship, any time or all the time. It does not make you a tease. It does not make you a bad friend, a bad romantic partner, or a bad person. Your desire to NOT have sex is equally as valid as any other person’s desire to have sex. You never owe anyone sex, for any reason.

Holding someone’s hand or cuddling them or kissing them or giving them any other kind of nongenital physical affection does not unconditionally entitle you to have sex with that person. Ever. Even if you’re dating them, even if you’re in a serious romantic relationship, even if you’re married to them. You have no right to someone else’s body. Period.

No one should have to say “no” to sex more than once. Saying “no” to sex is not an invitation for a debate, an argument, nagging, manipulation, guilting, or any other form of coercion. If someone doesn’t accept “no” immediately and without question, kick that douche bag to the curb and don’t look back.

The poly closet: It’s not just about you

A fantastic post!
As a celibate asexual and a radical relationship anarchist, I’ve set the closet on fire, and I’m never looking back!

Solo Poly

How out are you about your nonmonogamous relationships and partners? That’s a pretty touchy question for many people who are polyamorous, swingers, or have otherwise honestly open relationships.

I talk to a lot of people in these communities, especially through this survey for my forthcoming book on nonstandard relationships (basically, everything that’s off the relationship escalator social norm).

One theme is clear: Most of these people (and I’ve heard from hundreds so far) are not out about their relationship choices and preferences in at least some important contexts. They either don’t mention their choices or partners, or they only mention the ones that meet social norms, or they lie. They choose the closet, in whole or in part, for a lot of reasons.

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Cross Orientation Sexuality Overview

What is cross orientation sexuality?

Somebody who has a cross orientation or mixed orientation sexuality is someone who’s romantic and sexual orientations do not match. Although romantic asexuals technically have two orientations that don’t match, they don’t consider themselves or each other as part of this group because they do not experience sexual attraction at all.

Cross orientation sexual people may include:

Heteromantic homosexuals
Homoromantic heterosexuals
Biromantic heterosexuals
Biromantic homosexuals
Heteromantic bisexuals
Homoromantic bisexuals
Aromantic heterosexuals
Aromantic homosexuals
Aromantic bisexuals
Panromantic heterosexuals
Panromantic homosexuals
Panromantic bisexuals
Heteromantic pansexuals
Homoromantic pansexuals
Biromantic pansexuals
Aromantic pansexuals

How can romantic and sexual attraction be separate? How can they operate independently of each other?

It’s a common misconception in sexual society that romantic and sexual attraction are the same thing, or that at the very least, romantic attraction only happens as part of sexual attraction. This is the belief that motivates people to assume that if you’re in love with someone, you want to have sex with them, and that you only fall in love with people of the gender or genders you want to have sex with.

This erroneous construction of romantic and sexual attraction already starts to fall flat when you acknowledge that sexual attraction happens without romantic attraction all the time. People have sex without feeling romantically attracted to each other all the time. They have sex without any interest or intent to form a romantic relationship with their sex partners. One night stands, the enjoyment of strippers, porn, and sex workers all support the fact that sex does not depend on the presence of romantic attraction or feeling in order to be pleasurable or desirable for many individuals. Add to that sexual friendships or “fuck buddies,” open romantic-sexual relationships in which both people in the couple are free to have (nonromantic) sex with other people, and people having sex with others they’re casually dating but do not end up pursuing a serious romantic relationship with and it’s pretty clear that most of us have no problem with accepting and understanding that nonromantic sex exists.

In which case, you have to recognize that people participating in nonromantic sex are experiencing sexual attraction to their partners but not romantic attraction. If this can happen in people whose romantic and sexual orientations do match, then it should be within our capacity to understand that some people can experience romantic attraction without sexual attraction (like a romantic asexual) and that it is possible for a person to feel romantically attracted to one gender and sexually attracted to a different one.

Sexual Attraction vs. Romantic Attraction

Sexual attraction is pretty straightforward for most people. You know it when you feel it, and it becomes very obvious early on in life. It involves having sexual thoughts about specific people or about the gender to whom you’re sexually attracted, physically and mentally desiring sex with others, experiencing genital arousal in response to certain naked bodies or to the fantasy of sex with somebody, masturbating while thinking of somebody you’re attracted to or yourself having sex, etc.

Romantic attraction is much more difficult to describe and characterize. In the asexual and aromantic communities, it’s become clear that if you isolate romantic attraction from sex and sexual attraction, it’s impossible to create a list of qualities defining romantic attraction for every person who identifies as romantic or that fairly separates “romantic” feelings and love from “nonromantic” feelings and love. There are plenty of sensations and desires that seem common among self-identified romantic people, but there are some romantics who say that they don’t experience romantic attraction that way. There are also aromantic people who say that many sensations used to describe “romantic” love, they experience in a nonromantic way.

Basically, if you’re trying to figure out who you have romantic feelings for, it’s best to decide what “romantic” love or a romantic relationship means to you and what it would look like for you, and then decide if your feelings are pointing you in the direction of that type of relationship.

Common descriptions of romantic attraction include: “warm, fuzzy feelings,” thinking almost obsessively about the other person, an increased and acute sense of happiness because of that person or your relationship, increased positive or optimistic affect about life in general, being very concerned whether the other person returns romantic feelings, possessiveness, having big romantic fantasies involving yourself and the other person.

Keep in mind that not everybody experiences romantic attraction the same way, so the above characteristics are only rough, possible guidelines. Not all of them are required, and there maybe other feelings you consider part of your romantic attractions not on that list.

Confusing One Type of Attraction for the Other (or Both)

Because our culture is largely ignorant of romantic and sexual attractions being two different things, capable of existing independently of each other, and because the assumption is that falling in love with somebody means wanting to have sex with them, it’s easy to make the mistake of assuming that wanting to have sex with someone means you’re in love or that being in love with someone means you want to have sex with them.

If you’re a cross-orientation sexual person, you could fall in love with somebody you don’t want to have sex with but assume by default that you do want sex with them….. because that’s the expectation built into institutionalized romantic love. Or you could feel strong sexual attraction for somebody and make the mistake of thinking that you’re in love with them (which happens to romantic-sexual people whose orientations match, too).

It might take some time, trial and error, and even uncomfortable experiences to figure out that your romantic feelings are not sexual or that your sexual desire isn’t romantic. The fact that you’re more likely to engage with people whose romantic and sexual orientations do match, probably isn’t going to make it any easier for you to figure out what you’re really looking for.

The only solutions are deep introspection, self-awareness, and self-analysis.

Identity Crisis

You think you know what your sexuality is, you go along believing you’re straight (let’s say), and then all of sudden, you meet somebody of the same sex and feel unmistakably romantic feelings. You’re so taken aback by this new development that you don’t think to pause and ask yourself if you also desire the person sexually. After all, society tells you that you can’t possibly be in love with somebody, without wanting to fuck them. So you just assume that if you’re romantically attracted to this person, you must be sexually attracted to them too, and that means you have to rethink your sexual identity. Are you gay? Are you bisexual? Is this just a one-time thing, an anomaly in your life? Are you totally straight except for this one individual?

You’re romantically attracted to someone of a gender you aren’t sexually attracted to. Ultimately, it’s pretty simple, once you get over the “weirdness” of it in the context of a society that teaches romance is sexual.

Accusations of Confusion, Denial, or Repression

If a romantic-sexual person with matching orientations, who’s ignorant of cross-orientation sexuality, comes into contact with somebody who’s having an experience of nonsexual romantic attraction or nonromantic sexual attraction with an obvious skew in genders, the most likely conclusion that average romantic-sexual person is going to come up with is that the cross-orientation individual is confused about their identity or in denial about their true sexuality. There’s this desire in our society to simplify sex and romance and relationships to a point where everybody’s identity is easily and quickly boxed and recognized, their relationships need no explanation to peers, and everything about the way a person does and experiences sex, romance, love, relationships, etc. supports the Romantic Ideology and Romantic-Sex Based Relationship Hierarchy that blankets our entire culture.

So if you’re a heteromantic homosexual or a homoromantic heterosexual, and you know that about yourself and you’re perfectly clear on how you experience attraction and how you want to do relationships, the ignorant person whose sexuality is normative is still probably going to try their best to convince you that you’re just confused or repressing your homosexuality, not fully committing to it, trying to get attention or be weird, whatever. Society wants everybody to be either straight or gay, with nothing in between or outside of those categories. That’s probably got something to do with the fact that bisexuality gets shoved into a dark corner by straight people and gay people alike, all the time.

And the world telling you that you’re too complicated because you don’t have both feet in a single camp, because you don’t want to do relationships the way most people do them—combining sex and romance consistently, may lead you to doubt yourself, even though deep down you can feel that your romantic feelings and your sexual attractions don’t correspond.

A cross orientation sexual person is not confused or in denial or repressing their true sexuality. They are simply more complex than same-orientation individuals. And there’s nothing amiss about that.

Misconstruing Aromantics

Of all the cross orientation sexual people, I imagine aromantics are the ones most likely to be misunderstood and condemned. An aromantic sexual person is someone who does experience sexual attraction but does not experience romantic attraction. While it’s possible for an aromantic person to get involved in a functionally “romantic” relationship, in all likelihood, an aromantic person’s first choice is to live without being a part of a couple. For an aromantic sexual person, this means they want sex but prefer it without a romantic couple relationship attached.

Obviously, in a culture that still frequently criticizes casual sex or sex that happens outside an established romantic relationship, an aromantic sexual person is an easy target for moralistic and emotional judgments.

An aromantic sexual person can be considered a whore, a slut, a womanizer, afraid of commitment, immature, selfish, uncaring, promiscuous, a nymphomanic, a sex addict, cold, unemotional, unloving, psychopathic, sociopathic, immoral, unethical, a home wrecker, etc.

But all of this is based in a fundamental misunderstanding of what aromanticism is. Aromanticism is not a choice to stay single. Aromanticism is not about emotional maturity or emotional range or the ability to feel (general) love and attachment. Aromanticism in sexual people doesn’t mean having a tremendous amount of sex or only having casual sex. Being an aromantic sexual person doesn’t mean that you have a bunch of sex or that you’re more likely to have sex with strangers or pay for sex or cheat sexually. Being an aromantic sexual person doesn’t mean you’re totally unemotional about who you have sex with or about people in general. Being aromantic doesn’t even mean you’ll choose to stay completely out of functionally romantic relationships!

Being aromantic means you don’t experience romantic attraction. That’s all it means. It is not the same thing as being somebody who does experience romantic attraction but chooses not to participate in romantic relationships for a period of their lives.

An aromantic sexual person can be just as emotional any romantic person. An aromantic sexual person can desire a life partner, whether sexual or nonsexual, or a strong community of emotionally significant friendships. An aromantic sexual person can want children and is just as capable of being a loving, caring, successful parent. An aromantic sexual person can end up getting involved in traditional romantic-sexual relationship with somebody who is romantically and sexually attracted to them, despite their own lack of romantic attraction. An aromantic sexual person can love other people deeply, even passionately.

An aromantic sexual person may like having lots of sex with a bunch of different people or they may like forming steady, monogamous sexual relationships one at a time. An aromantic sexual person may have a low sex drive. An aromantic sexual person may have no problem picking up sex partners in bars or online or wherever, or they may only be comfortable with having sex with someone they know well and like as a person.

Wrench in the System

Cross orientation sexual people are probably not going to be easily accepted as legitimate in their identities right away, simply because cross orientation sexuality and doing relationships according to the split in your romantic and sexual attractions, throws a major wrench into the system run by same-orientation romantic-sexual people.

There’s not even one-word identity terms for ya’ll. If you’re a heteromantic homosexual, are you straight because you only fall in love with people of the opposite gender or gay because you only want to have sex with people of the same gender? If you’re a homoromantic heterosexual, are you straight or gay? If you’re aromantic and sexual, no one knows what the hell to do with you except recommend you get enlightened about the magic of romantic love.

You’re not straight enough to be straight. You’re not gay enough to be gay. You’re too sexual because you don’t want romantic relationships. You’re screwing with the way things are supposed to be, by wanting a nonsexual and/or nonromantic life partner. You’re not being fair to the same-orientation people who want both sex and romance from you, when you choose not to mix the two. You’re not conforming to the heteronormative institution of marriage that’s supposed to be romantic and sexual and monogamous, to which we are all supposed to aspire to.

And don’t even get started on cross-orientation sexual people who are polyamorous

Your existence is contrary to the system. Better to argue that there’s something wrong with you, rather than something wrong or sucky with the system.

Your Right to Be You

If you’re a cross orientation sexual person, listen to me very closely: you are 100% entitled to wanting nonsexual romantic relationships and nonromantic sexual relationships. You are not being unfair, unrealistic, or anything else other than honest when you try to form either type of relationship, on the basis of your differing orientations.

Of course, everybody else has a right to what they want too, so you have to deal with the fact that many people who are same-orientation are not going to be willing to relate to you the way you want: they’re not going to want sex without a romantic relationship or a romantic relationship without sex. They may start out having casual sex with you and end up developing romantic feelings unintentionally, which isn’t your fault or theirs. Trying to separate romance and sex as a long-term practice isn’t easy to do, when most people in the world have matching romantic and sexual orientations and are conditioned to believe that a romantic relationship entitles you to sex or isn’t legitimate without sex, or that sex ultimately leads to romantic love.

If you’re going to do relationships the way you want, which you are entitled to do, then you need to be real with yourself and everybody else. You need to communicate what you want and be willing to get rejected.

Obviously, if you’re not polyamorous or willing to be in open romantic relationships or open sexual relationships, your best bet—when looking to separate romance from sex—is to hook up with other cross orientation sexual people or with asexuals. Otherwise, forming nonromantic sexual relationships or nonsexual romantic relationships with romantic-sexual, same-orientation people requires honesty, negotiation, and finesse.

It does happen that cross orientation sexual people get into traditional romantic-sexual relationships with people they are sexually but not romantically attracted to or romantically but not sexually attracted to, simply because it’s easier. If that works for you, fine. But if you prefer to keep your romantic and sexual relationships separate, I think it’s worth trying to do it.

Passionate Love Between Siblings and Cousins

So the other day, somebody got to my blog through searching “platonically in love with brother.” This inspires me to write about my views on intense nonsexual love between siblings and first cousins, which is an idea I’ve been enamored with since I was in high school.

Some Disclaimers:

My views on romantic/passionate friendship between siblings or first cousins, and on the possibility of two siblings or two first cousins having a nonromantic/nonsexual primary life partnership, are predicated on the ideas that any “romantic” feelings present in a romantic friendship or a passionate friendship (which are, in my dictionary, nonsexual) aren’t quite the same as “romantic” feelings present in a traditional romantic-sexual (or romantic asexual) couple relationship. I don’t know how to describe the difference, especially considering I don’t personally draw any distinction between “romantic” and “nonromantic” love in my own experience anymore, but based on the history of romantic friendship and some of the experiences and positions of other asexuals who have specific romantic orientations, I do firmly believe that for many people, there is this difference between “romantic” feelings in the two types of relationships. Not a huge difference but a difference.

When I talk about romantic friendship or passionate friendship between siblings or first cousins, I am not talking about sex or conventional romantic-sexual relationships. I’m not talking about a prelude to a romantic-sexual relationship. I’m not talking about siblings or first cousins who have either one-sided or mutual sexual attraction to each other. When I talk about a nonromantic/nonsexual primary life partnership between siblings or first cousins, again—this does not include sex or sexual attraction.

I don’t believe that a primary life partnership is naturally based on romantic sexuality. In other words, wanting to be someone’s primary life partner does not have to be based on romantic and/or sexual attraction to that person. A person can want to be life partners with someone, without wanting a sexual and/or romantic relationship with them.

Likewise, wanting a romantic friendship with somebody isn’t based on sexual attraction or on the kind of romantic attraction that lends itself to a traditional romantic-sexual couple relationship. There’s a reason why romantic friendship or passionate friendship is its own category; these are different relationships from romantic-sexual couplehood or fuck buddy relationships or abstinent romantic relationships.

What is Romantic or Passionate Friendship?

Essentially, it’s a nonsexual relationship that contains “romantic” elements. The love and connection felt in a romantic or passionate friendship is on par, emotionally speaking, with the love and connection felt in a traditional romantic-sexual couple relationship. It can be just as intense, just as vulnerable, just as deep emotionally. And usually, the friendship also includes openly emotional expressions of love, a good measure of sensual/affectionate touch, quality time spent one-on-one, and a lot of emotional intimacy.

I personally distinguish between romantic friendship and passionate friendship, which I explained in a previous post. Now would be a good time for me to mention that I also see romantic friendship and passionate friendship as different from queerplatonic relationships.

Romantic friendships were historically same-sex, for the most part. They don’t have to be. Neither does passionate friendship. Neither of these relationships have to happen with a person of the gender you’re romantically and/or sexually attracted to: meaning, a straight woman could have a romantic friendship with another woman, a straight man with another man, etc. Sexual attraction/desire doesn’t figure into these friendships and neither does couple-type romantic attraction (although, I’ve heard other aces say that their attraction to a potential romantic friend is definitely on the romance spectrum for them).

Romantic friendships and passionate friendships can be non-exclusive and in practice, it’s probably more common for them to be non-exclusive than exclusive. That means, romantic or passionate friends don’t necessarily restrict each other from having other romantic/passionate friends or having traditional romantic-sexual partners. It is theoretically possible for someone to have both a romantic (sexual or asexual) partner and a romantic friend.

Special Love: Siblings and First Cousins

I believe that once in a blue moon, a pair of siblings or a pair of first cousins can have a connection with each other that naturally lends itself to a romantic friendship, a passionate friendship, or a primary nonromantic/nonsexual life partnership. I believe that love between siblings or between first cousins can be extremely deep and intense, affectionate and even passionate—all without being sexual or romantic.

I think it’s quite rare. But it’s possible. I’ve come across a few examples in my study of romantic friendship in history, and these examples were actually fairly “recent”–19th century. (They also, interestingly, were cross-sex. Not same-sex.)

And mainstream psychology be damned, I do not for one minute believe that these sibling or cousin connections are in the same category as outright incestuous relationships. No, not even the so-called “emotionally incestuous” kind. (Fuck you, Freud. And everybody who espouses that all intense, deep, or highly emotional love is based in sex.)

A romantic friendship or a passionate friendship between siblings or first cousins isn’t about sex, doesn’t include sex, isn’t about unhealthy co-dependency, skewed power dynamics, emotional abuse, psychological abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, etc—which is what the vast majority of incestuous relationships include. (Note: I do believe that there is such as a thing as consensual incest between adult siblings that’s not at all abusive. And first cousins have been having romantic-sexual relationships with each other, consensually, for thousands of years. These are both still different from romantic/passionate friendship between siblings or cousins.)

A romantic friendship or passionate friendship between siblings or between first cousins isn’t really any different than such friendship between two non-related individuals. I think the only significant difference is that your blood connection can add a sense of specialness or emotional intensity to your relationship—which is awesome. You more likely than not have a long, shared history with your sibling or first cousin, which means you know each other extremely well, and even if you don’t, that doesn’t take away from that primal sense of connection or familiarity with each other. That’s not something you can feel, in exactly the same way, with anyone unrelated to you—no matter how much you love each other. It’s simply a unique quality to love between siblings or first cousins.

If two siblings or two first cousins have a romantic friendship or even a passionate friendship, that doesn’t prohibit either person from having romantic and/or sexual relationships with other people or take away the desire for romantic and/or sexual relationships with other people. Hell, even if the siblings or cousins are primary life partners, which means they’ve made a commitment to operate identically to any standard married couple in terms of cohabitation, financial interdependence, emotional interdependence, etc, that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to have romantic and/or sexual relationships with other people. Unless they’re both aromantic and asexual, I have a hard time believing that the siblings or cousins would choose not to have romantic and/or sexual relationships outside of their romantic friendship.

And you don’t have to be polyamorous to have both a romantic friendship and a traditional romantic-sexual couple relationship. Sure, it might seem more intuitive for a poly person to have a romantic friendship or a passionate friendship in addition to a romantic/sexual couple relationship, but it all depends on how you view your romantic feelings, emotional intimacy, friendship, etc. I’ve seen monogamous aces express a strong desire for romantic friendship outside their primary romantic partnership and still feel like their monogamy in the partnership would be intact. I’ve heard of aces (myself included) who would love to have more than one romantic or passionate friendship at a time, regardless of whether they’ve got a life partner or not. A monogamist can separate romantic friendship from romantic couplehood in whatever way they like, and as long as everybody in the situation is cool with it, there’s no reason why that monogamist should think of their self or be thought of as polyamorous. Some people don’t even consider their feelings for a romantic/passionate friend, however intense or emotional or passionate, as “romantic.”

A romantic friendship or passionate friendship does not have to also be a primary life partnership. Likewise, a primary life partnership between siblings or first cousins doesn’t have to be a romantic or passionate friendship. How involved they are with each other, how much their lives intertwine, how much “romantic” energy they have in their relationship is totally up to them and can vary on a case by case basis.

The siblings or cousins might have a primary life partnership in which they live together by choice and put each other first forever but keep their relationship pretty standard for a close, nonromantic/nonsexual relationship (big love but not really any “romantic” overtones to their behavior or interaction). They might have a romantic friendship that is not primary, that doesn’t include cohabitation or financial interdependence, that happens alongside one or both of them having a life partnership with somebody else—and those outside life partnerships may even be prioritized above the romantic friendship. They might have both a passionate friendship and a primary life partnership with each other. They might be in a polyamorous type situation where one sibling or cousin is life partners with both their sibling/cousin and with a romantic/sexual partner.

Whatever the configuration of relationships in the lives of a sibling or cousin pair in a romantic friendship, a passionate friendship, or a life partnership, as long as everybody’s needs and desires are being met in a respectful, supportive, loving context—it’s all good.

On Weirdness, Beauty, and Familial Passion

It should come as no surprise that I personally don’t find sibling or cousin romantic friendship/passionate friendship/life partnership weird. I am a radical relationship anarchist and a celibate asexual, after all. But really, since I was a teen newly identified as asexual, I have found the idea of passionate love between siblings or first cousins so beautiful and so special, it makes my heart ache a little bit. I adore the idea of siblings or first cousins being nonromantic/nonsexual life partners. I’m sure it has something to do with the fact that I’m a celibate asexual, and familial love is presumably both nonsexual and potentially Super Serious and Significant…. But I’ve always had such a strong admiration and longing for blood-kin relationships, particularly sibling and first cousin ones, that are passionate and warm and tender and affectionate and made of real love. Not just the bullshit, assumed “love” that most biological families claim to have but spend no real time expressing or feeling. I mean, love that’s viscerally palpable, love that leaves you thinking of the other person when they’re not around and smiling about a memory you share, love that makes you want to be with them as much as you can, love that feels good to you on a regular basis. Love that comes out all the time and makes itself obvious between you and your sibling or cousin.

Most people, I’m sure, would find the concept of a romantic friendship between two siblings or two cousins really weird, maybe inappropriate, maybe covertly incestuous—simply because most people sexualize all intense emotion and love, all forms of emotional/sensual touch, etc. They would look at a pair of siblings or cousins who have a romantic friendship or a passionate friendship or who want to spend their lives together as partners (regardless of their romance/sex lives with others) and say to them: “You’re too close” or “you’re too emotional about each other” or “you have an unhealthy relationship” [implied: you must want to fuck each other or you’re just pathologically crippled to a point where you can’t form primary romantic-sexual relationships like you’re supposed to].

But here’s the thing: just because this type of love is very, very rare doesn’t mean that it’s wrong or unnatural. And I’ll say the following until I’m blue in the face and die of oxygen deprivation: passionate emotion, intense love, sensual touch, emotional intimacy, and even a desire to spend your life with somebody is not universally, automatically, unavoidably sexual or romantic in nature. Just because it is for you, doesn’t mean that it is for every human being alive on this planet and every human being who’s lived in the past or will live in the future.

If you are born to a sibling or a cousin with whom you share a love and connection so profound that you can have a romantic friendship with each other or that you want to be nonromantic/nonsexual life partners, that is unbelievably beautiful and special and I hope to Christ that you recognize it as something to be pursued, protected, etc.

Sibling and cousin relationships come in every possible variation, and the most common seem to be apathy and animosity. Siblings and cousins hate each other or dislike each other or feel totally uninterested in each other, they’re rivals, they carry around 20 year old grudges against each other, they spend their adult lives still brooding about their sibling being the favorite or their cousin being their grandparents’ favorite. Sometimes, your sibling or cousin is someone you have nothing in common with. Sometimes, they’re a douche bag. Maybe you grow up and you’re on friendly terms with each other, but you just don’t feel drawn to each other emotionally. You’re related, but you aren’t even casual friends.

Most people have sibling and cousin relationships that fall into one of those categories. At best, a person’s good friends with their sibling or cousin, but they’re long distance and absorbed in their own traditional marriages, nuclear family life, etc. Their love is lukewarm. In any case, of course those people aren’t going to understand how someone could be passionate, intimate, emotional, loving with a sibling or a cousin, for totally nonsexual/healthy reasons. They have no personal frame of reference to understand. They can judge and condemn someone else’s unique relationship as wrong or unhealthy or incestuous or whatever because in their world, those are the only other options besides the relationship sucking. Forget the peanut gallery.

If you’re somebody who’s got a sibling or cousin connection that’s romantic friendship material or life partnership material, you are colossally blessed. Who cares if the world doesn’t understand? If your relationship with your sibling or cousin makes you happy and nurtures you spiritually, that’s all that matters. Cherish and honor your sibling or your cousin, the relationship you have with them, and allow it to reach its fullest potential. This is tremendous love we’re talking about here. Love that you can’t go out and find with just anybody. Love that you can’t replace. It’s utterly unique and special, and it should be treated accordingly.

When Rape Triggers An Orgasm

This is very, very important for everyone to know, and it also relates to how asexuals can physically experience arousal and orgasm, no matter what their actual feelings about participating in sex and totally regardless of their inability to feel sexual attraction.

The Dish

Noting that “4-5 percent” of cases result in arousal, Jenny Morber explains the science:

Despite what many rapists would like to believe, arousal does not mean that an assault was enjoyable or that a victim was asking for it. So what does it mean? Quite simply, our bodies respond to sex. And our bodies respond to fear. Our bodies respond. They do so uniquely and often entirely without our permission or intention. Orgasm during rape isn’t an example of an expression of pleasure. It’s an example of a physical response whether the mind’s on board or not, like breathing, sweating, or an adrenaline rush.
Therapists commonly use the analogy of tickling. While tickling can be pleasurable, when it is done against someone’s wishes it can be very unpleasant experience. And during that unpleasant experience, amid calls to stop, the one being tickled will continue laughing. They just can’t…

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Carnival of Aces | May 2013: Asexuality and Physical Appearance

The relationship between one’s asexuality and one’s physical appearance can be interesting in several different ways. I’d like to discuss both some of my own personal experiences and common stereotypes of asexual appearances.

“Asexuals are conventionally unattractive.”

I don’t know if I’ve ever heard somebody say this outright, in exactly this way, but I’ve been given the impression on more than one occasion that allosexuals tend to assume that asexuals must be conventionally unattractive. If they were to pause and examine this assumption, I’m sure they’d quickly realize that there’s no logic to it, let alone truth.

In TV and film, the characters who are sexually inexperienced, virgins, or uninterested in sex are virtually always conventionally unattractive, socially awkward, badly dressed, etc. The implications are that if only these people were better-looking, knew how to dress, and had charm, they would be having sex all the time without issue, and perhaps it works the other way around too: because they’re not interested in sex, they don’t bother caring about their appearance because apparently in sexual society, the acquiring of sex is the only motivation to put effort into your physical appearance. It also seems that sexual society believes, consciously or unconsciously, that nature would never produce human beings that are both good-looking and asexual because again, the purpose of being attractive is getting laid.

Which brings me to another attitude I’ve encountered regarding asexual appearances.

“Your good looks are wasted on you because you’re asexual.”

I’ve actually had at least one friend tell me this straight up. It’s one of those weird comments that feel like a partial compliment but also a reason to be offended. I’ve heard other asexuals talk about receiving the same comments from allosexuals, too. I’ve had a friend’s friends tell her that they don’t “understand” how I can be asexual, mostly because they don’t understand asexuality in general, but also because I’m good-looking and I could “get anyone I wanted.”

The revelation that we (conventionally attractive aces) are asexual and celibate is met with an appraising look and “What a shame” or “What a waste” or simple, overt surprise—the kind of surprised look that clearly communicates, “How can someone with your looks be asexual?”

To all allosexuals who think good looks are “wasted” on asexuals/celibate asexuals, all I can say is, a person’s appearance should never be about other people. Ever. Being physically attractive doesn’t mean that a person owes the world sex or sexual availability. Good looks are never “wasted” because how somebody looks isn’t about you and isn’t about sex.

Another interpretation of the “Your good looks are wasted” attitude would sound like, “You’re physically attractive, so you should want sex all the time/more than people who are unattractive.”

Which is something that I don’t really understand. It doesn’t make sense. Nobody chooses their looks, just like nobody chooses their sexual orientation. There are people who are conventionally unattractive and love sex and want to have it all the time. Knowing this, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that there are asexuals, even sex-repulsed/sex-averse asexuals, who are conventionally physically attractive.

Another sex-centered view of appearance is: “If you’re not looking for a sexual partner, why do you bother [dressing well, working out, eating to maintain your figure, wearing make-up, etc]?”

I don’t know about other asexuals, but I put effort into my appearance for myself. I like looking good for my own pleasure, my own self-confidence. I don’t exercise or eat healthy or wear make-up or take care of my skin or arrange my outfits to achieve style because I give a damn about what the rest of the world thinks about my body or my looks, or because I’m trying to get their attention. I do those things because they make me feel good. That’s all the reason any of us needs.

And asexuals often do experience aesthetic attraction to other people, ourselves. I want to feel aesthetically attracted to my partners, and I want them to feel aesthetically attracted to me. Why? Because feeling attracted and attractive, on a looks level, is a pleasure. No less a pleasure without sex in the picture. I feel like that’s another common misconception that allosexuals have about asexuals: that we’re all blind to looks, that we don’t have preferences about how romantic or even nonromantic partners physically or sartorially appear, that we have no way to tell who’s attractive from who’s unattractive, all because we don’t experience sexual desire.

Wrong.

Fact: Being a celibate asexual and physically attractive can be uncomfortable.

Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not complaining about my looks. I love the way I look. I wouldn’t really change my appearance, even if I could. I’m not going to sit here and say I wish I was less attractive than I am because I don’t wish that at all.

But the truth is, being somebody who doesn’t want to have sex, doesn’t like being the object of anyone’s sexual desire, doesn’t do conventional dating, etc. and also being somebody who’s frequently considered good-looking by romantic-sexual people can be uncomfortable.

I appreciate compliments to my appearance as much as the next person, but I do not appreciate being hit on, having strangers look at me with lust in their eyes, even having somebody ask nicely for a date or my number, etc. A person admiring my appearance in a purely aesthetic, nonsexual way is great. A person looking at me and thinking about sex or approaching me with sexual motivations is the fastest way to send me running in the opposite direction.

It makes me conscientious of how I dress and how I look, when I’m in public. My gender identity is androgynous, I strongly prefer looking masculine, and I feel like one potential bonus of crafting a more masculine-leaning appearance is that it discourages many heterosexual men—who are typically the ones to make aggressive sexual overtures to strangers in public or approach a stranger with the intent to ask them on a date—from finding me sexually attractive. Unfortunately, dressing like a dude, keeping my hair dude-short, and wearing next to no make-up isn’t enough to prevent all straight men from checking me out or developing conventional romantic feelings for me….. But I’d like to think that it works to some degree. Whether it works by making me physically unattractive to straight men or by giving them the false impression that I’m gay, I have no idea.

I do sometimes wear clothing that either shows off my figure, reveals more skin that a man ever would, or is unmistakably feminine. I almost never wear a dress or a skirt. The only dresses in my closet are evening gowns or cocktail dresses, and I rarely have occasion to wear them. I don’t think I own a skirt. I never wear high heels. I almost never wear lipstick. What few times I’ve gotten dressed up in a super feminine way, within the last couple years, I’ve really liked the way I look, but it made me aware of how attractive I can be to straight men. It’s one of the reasons why, now that I’m an adult out of college, I would never do something like go dancing in a night club while dressed feminine—despite the fact that I love dancing—because I know there’s a good chance someone there would find me attractive enough to approach me in the hopes of a sexual and/or romantic interaction.