This summer, I'm taking a huge step. Like, life changing. Radical. I'm going to stick it to the man, and the woman, and anybody who doesn't like it can bite me.
This summer, I'm going to refuse to hate my body.
In case you weren't aware, (but I suspect you were) this is a huge step for any American woman, because we really are surrounded with the subtle implication that we really aren't good enough.
Well, I say fuck it.
I'm going to ignore the makeup adds that assume I can't be pretty without lipstick. I'm going to ignore the dating columns I posted about a while back that say I can't be happy without a man to tell me I look good. I'm going to ignore fashion magazines, pictures of celebrities, and that girl in my class who thought a size eight was fat. (Fuck you, Sarah. You said that to my face.) I'm even going to ignore the idea that being fat is a bad thing, in terms of beauty. Why can't fat girls be considered pretty? If anyone's telling me to lose weight, it had better be my doctor.
I'm also going to go to the gym regularly, which I've been doing for a while now, because I like feeling strong and dislike being out of breath when I want to run someplace.
I'm going to like my body and that's all there is to it. I know this won't work every day, or even every minute of the days it does work, but so what? I'm going to be happy.
I'm going to dress however I want. I'll wear a short dress without worrying that everyone can see my thighs, and what if my knees are unattractive? I'll wear shirts with no sleeves and stop caring that maybe my arms look fat.
I'm going to learn to like myself, and it's going to be great.
Showing posts with label Positivity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Positivity. Show all posts
Monday, April 11, 2011
Monday, January 31, 2011
Best Out-Coming Ever
It feels good to be blogging again. After a hiatus of, what, a year and a half, I feel like I have things to say again, and more of them. We shall see.
After yesterdays depressing gripe-fest, I'm going to share something happy, something worth celebrating, something that makes me feel good about life and my sexuality.
In this story, that something is my friend Sean.
As I'm sure we're all aware, coming out can be a real pain in the butt. It usually involves explaining asexuality thoroughly and, at least if you're me, lots of blushing and tripping over one's own tongue. That's why, on the way home from school for Thanksgiving break, I ended up coming out to a friend in the clumsiest way possible. The whole car-ful of us were mid conversation and how my sexuality became relevant I really couldn't say, but I ended up blurting out, "I'm... uh, I'm asexual. I can... uh, explain if you want, or I guess you could just google it."
Since Sean didn't ask for an explanation, I was kind of just praying he hadn't heard me and I could try the whole thing again when I was prepared to sound like I had a brain in my head, and the subject didn't come up again.
Fast forward about a month. Sean and I are in the car again, this time just the two of us, and I'm driving him home. Both being flaming liberals, we can talk politics together without getting mad and so that's what we were doing. Again, very casually, my asexuality came up and this time I was prepared. From what he was saying, though, it seemed that he already understood what asexuality is.
I asked him where he'd heard of it and it turned out that Sean, God bless him, had gone home and googled asexuality, just as I had so awkwardly suggested. He had read a few things on the subject and then gone to talk to his mom, who's a psychologist, and who is apparently totally Ase positive and accepting. His explanation was simple: He wanted to understand me.
This is possibly the nicest coming-out I've ever had and here's why. I didn't have to do the work here- Sean took it upon himself to understand me without asking me to put a huge amount of effort into being understood. There was no challenge of my identity and although I said later that if he had anything he wasn't sure about I'd be happy to explain, he's never really asked me to.
It's not that I mind doing the educating, but I appreciate the stance he took, which was that I was under no obligation to drop everything and teach a 101 lesson on asexuality. Not having to be a constant "voice of the community" was really lovely.
And then, having done the research, Sean was just totally accepting and his whole goal in this situation was to understand me as a person and as his friend. His interest came from a totally good, kind place and I hope I made it clear to him just how much I appreciated that.
After yesterdays depressing gripe-fest, I'm going to share something happy, something worth celebrating, something that makes me feel good about life and my sexuality.
In this story, that something is my friend Sean.
As I'm sure we're all aware, coming out can be a real pain in the butt. It usually involves explaining asexuality thoroughly and, at least if you're me, lots of blushing and tripping over one's own tongue. That's why, on the way home from school for Thanksgiving break, I ended up coming out to a friend in the clumsiest way possible. The whole car-ful of us were mid conversation and how my sexuality became relevant I really couldn't say, but I ended up blurting out, "I'm... uh, I'm asexual. I can... uh, explain if you want, or I guess you could just google it."
Since Sean didn't ask for an explanation, I was kind of just praying he hadn't heard me and I could try the whole thing again when I was prepared to sound like I had a brain in my head, and the subject didn't come up again.
Fast forward about a month. Sean and I are in the car again, this time just the two of us, and I'm driving him home. Both being flaming liberals, we can talk politics together without getting mad and so that's what we were doing. Again, very casually, my asexuality came up and this time I was prepared. From what he was saying, though, it seemed that he already understood what asexuality is.
I asked him where he'd heard of it and it turned out that Sean, God bless him, had gone home and googled asexuality, just as I had so awkwardly suggested. He had read a few things on the subject and then gone to talk to his mom, who's a psychologist, and who is apparently totally Ase positive and accepting. His explanation was simple: He wanted to understand me.
This is possibly the nicest coming-out I've ever had and here's why. I didn't have to do the work here- Sean took it upon himself to understand me without asking me to put a huge amount of effort into being understood. There was no challenge of my identity and although I said later that if he had anything he wasn't sure about I'd be happy to explain, he's never really asked me to.
It's not that I mind doing the educating, but I appreciate the stance he took, which was that I was under no obligation to drop everything and teach a 101 lesson on asexuality. Not having to be a constant "voice of the community" was really lovely.
And then, having done the research, Sean was just totally accepting and his whole goal in this situation was to understand me as a person and as his friend. His interest came from a totally good, kind place and I hope I made it clear to him just how much I appreciated that.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Dying Alone
I think this is an asexual's biggest fear. With 'coming out and being laughed at/ignored/disbelieved/put in therapy' as a close second, I think that asexuals spend a lot of time and energy worrying about being alone forever. This worry definitely gets a lot of press on AVEN, I think, and it's not an illogical fear. But I also think that, while 'dying alone' is a valid worry, especially for an asexual, we spend too much time thinking about it. This is why:
To my way of thinking, whether we are alone at any point in our lives is something we can control. Maybe we can't control whether we have a romantic partner and certainly not all of us want that. Maybe we can't control the fact that our friends will get married and be the sexual people they are and might spend less time with us than they used to, and maybe they'll even leave us entirely. But we can control how we spend our time and how we get involved in our communities. We can control our relationships with family members and with neighbors and we can form new relationships in non-traditional ways with people we've never even met.These are some of my suggestions for combating the problem of 'dying alone'.
1) Stay close with your family. I've never wanted kids of my own, really, but I'm totally looking forward to being the fun aunt to my brothers' and sister's kids. I love my own aunts and I enjoy spending time with them and if they ever needed me I'd be right there to help. By being a good aunt, I can have a relationship with younger members of my family who will want to be there to support me and help me out when I get old.
2) Get involved in your church or community service program. Big Brothers, Big Sisters, as I understand, pairs up kids who need mentoring with adults willing to mentor. By getting involved, you can have a non-traditional relationship with a younger person. With a little luck, you could end up having a very good relationship that might continue past their childhood years.
3) Stay close to your friends. Several recent conversations on AVEN have centered around the idea of friends getting into sexual relationships and ignoring their non-sexual relationships. I think to an extent, people are always going to spend more of their energy on their marital relationships. But just because my parents are best friends doesn't mean they don't also have friends other than each other. Maybe as an asexual, without a single sexual partner to focus on, I will just need to cultivate a wider circle of friends in order to increase the chance that somebody will be available to talk or spend time with me. I should probably also learn to plan ahead in order to find time with friends who have busy family lives.
4) Join stuff. Becoming a hardcore member of a group focused on things you're interested in, an asexual can find people with similar interests who are dedicated to spending time together on a regular basis. If you get really involved with a club or group that's close knit, you can bet the group will take care of each other outside of meetings, too.
5) Have an unusual relationship. This is probably the hardest, but it's my favorite option- I'd love to have a partner to spend my life with. Ideally, I think we'd be like live-in best friends. We might have our own rooms, but because we would live together, we could share vacations, or a mortgage or pets... but unlike a traditional marriage, maybe my partner would be another woman (who I wouldn't be attracted to, cause I'm romantically interested in guys) or they'd be a man who I just didn't have a sexual relationship with. If both parties were happy with it, I actually think this sounds like a lot of fun.
To my way of thinking, whether we are alone at any point in our lives is something we can control. Maybe we can't control whether we have a romantic partner and certainly not all of us want that. Maybe we can't control the fact that our friends will get married and be the sexual people they are and might spend less time with us than they used to, and maybe they'll even leave us entirely. But we can control how we spend our time and how we get involved in our communities. We can control our relationships with family members and with neighbors and we can form new relationships in non-traditional ways with people we've never even met.These are some of my suggestions for combating the problem of 'dying alone'.
1) Stay close with your family. I've never wanted kids of my own, really, but I'm totally looking forward to being the fun aunt to my brothers' and sister's kids. I love my own aunts and I enjoy spending time with them and if they ever needed me I'd be right there to help. By being a good aunt, I can have a relationship with younger members of my family who will want to be there to support me and help me out when I get old.
2) Get involved in your church or community service program. Big Brothers, Big Sisters, as I understand, pairs up kids who need mentoring with adults willing to mentor. By getting involved, you can have a non-traditional relationship with a younger person. With a little luck, you could end up having a very good relationship that might continue past their childhood years.
3) Stay close to your friends. Several recent conversations on AVEN have centered around the idea of friends getting into sexual relationships and ignoring their non-sexual relationships. I think to an extent, people are always going to spend more of their energy on their marital relationships. But just because my parents are best friends doesn't mean they don't also have friends other than each other. Maybe as an asexual, without a single sexual partner to focus on, I will just need to cultivate a wider circle of friends in order to increase the chance that somebody will be available to talk or spend time with me. I should probably also learn to plan ahead in order to find time with friends who have busy family lives.
4) Join stuff. Becoming a hardcore member of a group focused on things you're interested in, an asexual can find people with similar interests who are dedicated to spending time together on a regular basis. If you get really involved with a club or group that's close knit, you can bet the group will take care of each other outside of meetings, too.
5) Have an unusual relationship. This is probably the hardest, but it's my favorite option- I'd love to have a partner to spend my life with. Ideally, I think we'd be like live-in best friends. We might have our own rooms, but because we would live together, we could share vacations, or a mortgage or pets... but unlike a traditional marriage, maybe my partner would be another woman (who I wouldn't be attracted to, cause I'm romantically interested in guys) or they'd be a man who I just didn't have a sexual relationship with. If both parties were happy with it, I actually think this sounds like a lot of fun.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Why Being Ase is Ace
I've sat through a few heavy conversations today about death. Specifically, my parents (and other adults I love) talking about how awful it would be to lose your child and then about what it was like to lose a parent. As a kid, (I'm not that young, but I'm just young enough not to think of myself as a grownup) that was really kind of upsetting. After that, I need something happy. So today I'm blogging about the nice things about being asexual.
1) I feel like I have more love to spread around.
Because I'm not caught up in looking for 'the one', meaning a sexual partner, I spend all that love on my friends. I'm not waiting around for a single person who I will then consider the most important relationship of my life. Every sexual person to whom I try to explain this, denies it. They don't see their eventual sexual partner as the person who will be the primary focus of their love and attention. Guess what? I think they're wrong about themselves.
2) I can talk to guys. And they like me.
Once, when I was in Girl Scouts, we went to a scout-sponsored beach weekend for both Boy and Girl Scouts. The girls in my troop, much more boy-crazy than me and much less sensible (if I do say so myself) decided to spend the evening 'picking up boys'. Keep in mind we were in the 8th grade and I guess their hormones were kicking in. The boys we "picked up" happened to be high school sophmores or so and a bit on the dorky side. The other girls in my troop were kind of eyeing them and giggling, despite having invited them to go on a carnival ride with us. I made my way over to them and said hello, as though I had a brain in my head. Turned out they were in their school band, like me, and they spent the evening talking to me and going on the carnival rides with me. I don't think my Girl Scout troop ever forgave me but boy, did that make me laugh.
3) I can be comfortable in my own skin.
I don't spend any of my time trying to please a potential sexual partner. I once had a friend tell me that she thinks my motives are more pure than hers, because she'll sometimes get to know someone purely based on attraction, which I can honestly say I've never done. I don't worry about looking good enough to pick up boys and I don't worry about being the prettiest girl in the room. Actually, in a large group of girls I feel like the token boy (/masculine person, I guess I don't really feel like a boy either) so I certainly don't think about being prettier than anyone. I'm also unafraid to be a dork, as evidenced by several years in the marching band, the debate team, and a reenacting habit... I mean- hobby. Yeah, that's right. It's just a hobby, I swear.
1) I feel like I have more love to spread around.
Because I'm not caught up in looking for 'the one', meaning a sexual partner, I spend all that love on my friends. I'm not waiting around for a single person who I will then consider the most important relationship of my life. Every sexual person to whom I try to explain this, denies it. They don't see their eventual sexual partner as the person who will be the primary focus of their love and attention. Guess what? I think they're wrong about themselves.
2) I can talk to guys. And they like me.
Once, when I was in Girl Scouts, we went to a scout-sponsored beach weekend for both Boy and Girl Scouts. The girls in my troop, much more boy-crazy than me and much less sensible (if I do say so myself) decided to spend the evening 'picking up boys'. Keep in mind we were in the 8th grade and I guess their hormones were kicking in. The boys we "picked up" happened to be high school sophmores or so and a bit on the dorky side. The other girls in my troop were kind of eyeing them and giggling, despite having invited them to go on a carnival ride with us. I made my way over to them and said hello, as though I had a brain in my head. Turned out they were in their school band, like me, and they spent the evening talking to me and going on the carnival rides with me. I don't think my Girl Scout troop ever forgave me but boy, did that make me laugh.
3) I can be comfortable in my own skin.
I don't spend any of my time trying to please a potential sexual partner. I once had a friend tell me that she thinks my motives are more pure than hers, because she'll sometimes get to know someone purely based on attraction, which I can honestly say I've never done. I don't worry about looking good enough to pick up boys and I don't worry about being the prettiest girl in the room. Actually, in a large group of girls I feel like the token boy (/masculine person, I guess I don't really feel like a boy either) so I certainly don't think about being prettier than anyone. I'm also unafraid to be a dork, as evidenced by several years in the marching band, the debate team, and a reenacting habit... I mean- hobby. Yeah, that's right. It's just a hobby, I swear.
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