Wednesday, April 22, 2009

In Which I Perform the Introductions

I think I may have sold my soul just now- I started a blog. This isn't really like me. I feel all trendy all of a sudden, and that's an odd way for me to feel. I'll get into what prompted this desparate move in a second, but first off... It's probably worth introcducting myself.
Since if anyone ever reads this we're unlikely to know each other, I'm going to skip the name thing. What's relevant to this blog is that I'm an asexual college student. I like reading, foreign languages and long walks on the beach... no seriously, I love the ocean. It's just that I take my long beach walks with my Ipod for company.

I should probably also explain the title of this blog. On the one hand, it's a reference to 'The Big Bang Theory' which is about the only thing on television that I watch. It's about these physicists, one of whom is a flaming asexual. He's lots of other things, too, but I think that's the thing I like best about Sheldon Cooper, and I can really relate to him. Specifically, the title of the blog comes from an episode in which Sheldon, totally by accident, finds himself dating somebody. His friends are in their apartment the first time she comes over, dying to watch the spectacle of Sheldon on a date and when he kicks them out they stand in the hall discussing his sexuality.
Penny, their neighbor, turns to Sheldon's roommate Leonard and says,
"I know it's none of my business, but... what's Sheldon's deal? Is it girls? Guys? Sock puppets?"
To which Leonard responds with a shrug, "We've been operating under the assumption that Sheldon has no deal." It's become a running joke with a friend of mine that I'm "deal-less".
The title's also a really lame reference to the controversial book "Heather Has Two Mommies". Yeah, I know, fail. :)

Why I would write a blog... I'd like to say I don't know and forget the whole thing except that this is my first chance to jump up on my soapbox and preach a little.
I'm writing this partially to give my friends a break. Asexuality is very much on my mind a lot of the time. Since I don't live under a rock and since I do this ordinary stuff like have friends, I'm confronted all the time by the idea of sex and I end up in a lot of situations where I don't get the joke, or aren't interested in the boy my friends are talking about... In short, I never run out of situations that remind me I'm different. Usually, my friends get to hear about it. I'm trying to give them a break.
Also, I've gotten really interested in asexuality as something to be studied, sort of, and examined. A lot of people have at least a basic understanding of how it is to be gay, and what kinds of problems gay people face. Or at least they think they do. But almost nobody understands what it's like to be asexual. I want to promote that understanding (note to self- this would make a good future post) and I want to be visible.
Last reason: for the Day of Silence last week, I read a speech by Harvey Milk (the Hope Speech) and one line of that really resonated with me. He talks about remembering "what it's like to come out and have nobody to look up towards." I've felt like that and so have most asexuals. In a community this small, people who feel asexual and have not discovered a word for it, who have coined the word themselves independently of David Jay and AVEN, who think they are alone... that's really isolating and I think we've all felt like that at some point. I read other ase blogs to combat feeling lonely and I think the more the ase community can get out and give our members places to look toward for that sense of belonging, the better.

And if I don't shut up now, I'm going to be late for a project meeting. Talk to you later.

2 comments:

  1. "Sheldon has no deal"...awesome. Glad to see another asexy blog, I hope you write lots of posts!

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  2. Great intro...you're a good writer, and it's nice to see a character like Sheldon immortalized in a popular sitcom that will probably around and remain popular for a long time.

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