The Internet is for Porn (sometimes)

After that last post, I'm going to stick in one that's a little less whiny. Angsty. Whatever.
Anyway, as I suggested a couple posts back, I found an asexual sort of viewpoint in that song, "The Internet is for Porn" from Avenue Q. I love that song- it's hysterical. For anyone who hasn't heard it, first of all- Youtube. Second of all, just so you can keep reading, in a nutshell it's about a girl who's "teaching a lesson" (I don't actually know what's going on, but that's how the song begins) about the internet and is going on about how great it is while another character interjects the phrase "for porn". Like this-
"The internet is really really great (for porn)
I have a fast connection so I don't have to wait (for porn!)"
And then the girl gets upset and tells the other character off because of course the internet is not for porn at all! She points out to other characters what sort of chaste things they do while online- shop, pay bills, send e-cards and stuff like that. Then the other character objects, "But what you think they do after?"
And they all admit that, yes, after they look at porn. The girl is totally disgusted. She can't believe that "normal people" would look at porn online. Never occurred to her and it disgusts her once it's pointed out. Totally sounds like something from the "Incredibly Ase Moments" thread on AVEN (which I love and read religiously).

Third-Wheeling It

So, I have relationship problems. (Uh, what else is new with me? Not much.) My own relationship problem in the sense that it deals with the relationship between my best friend and I, but also his relationship which can be defined in the more traditional sense- with a girl.
So, I'm going to attempt to clarify for myself as well as for anyone reading why I am so upset when he gets into a new relationship. Not angry, but sad is probably the word I'm looking for here. I guess the reason would be that when he starts a relationship, guess where the sun starts to shine out of? Yup. So, I can look forward to seeing her every time I see him, I know I'm going to hear about everything they do together as well as plenty of things she does alone and tells him about. He likes to pass on interesting stories and to talk about things that interest him- especially the girlfriends.
The crazy thing is, I always get along with the girlfriends really well. He has yet to date a girl I didn't like and get along with. So what am I so sad about? I guess I feel like I lose my friend for a while when he partners with someone. I don't get him to myself until they break up and when we're in a group together he (and this sounds incredibly childish in my head) pays attention only or at least mostly to her. I feel like I have to turn cartwheels to get his attention to talk about something. I perpetually feel like I'm interrupting "their time" together.
I proabably could file this one under jealousy, too. We're really close and spend a ton of time together and it's like he starts dating and I lose all that time I used to enjoy with my friend.
So, an ongoing "thing" (I'm really sorry, I have no idea what else to call it) is that I'm always a nice number-two person. My problem here is that with the friend in question, we're each other's number-one people, the brother and sister, we always go to each other first with ideas and thoughts and to spend our free time... until he starts dating again. And then, just like that, I'm number two. He doesn't stop calling me, he doesn't leave me out of things we might have done together, he doesn't disappear. But I lose my number one. I feel like I'm being cheated on. (For the record, until I typed that I had never been able to pinpoint the reason behind the way I feel about his relationships. Just so you know the depth of what you're reading.) I still consider him my number-one person (family doesn't count, they're a category of their own) but he doesn't consider me his number-one anymore. It's like being left- over and over and over again and always making up in the end.
I don't know what I hope to gain from this post. I'm using it to figure out my feelings and so I should throw in this- that I connect this feeling to being Asexual. I feel that if I were sexual I would understand how somebody could have a new number-one so quickly. I don't- whenever I've dated, my friends were still my number-ones, which I sincerely hope never hurt one of the boyfriends. (Not like there were many anyway.) I feel like if I were sexual I could have my own number-one who I was dating and then we could be each other's number-two people and then it would be equal.
But I'm not and I feel really left behind and I have no way of explaining it to this person so that he'd understand. I don't even think of him changing because it is impossible and would result in resentment towards me, destroying our friendship. I don't know what to think.
End angsty post. Thanks guys.

Guilty Listing

This is what I've been up to lately:
~Hiking in the desert
~Seeing the Grand Canyon
~Spending 12-hour days in the car
~Changing the occasional tire on the side of a highway in Texas
~Catching up on those podcasts David Jay did a while back
~Daydreaming
~Fiction writing
~Feeling guilty for not updating my blog in forever.
~Finding out what adjective goes with sheep (sheep are 'ovine' like cats are feline.)

What I haven't been doing:
~Forgetting about the blog

I've actually had a boatload of ideas for posts. I'm going to write them down here as teasers/space fillers/to assuage my conscience.
~Asexuality in the song "The Internet is for Porn"
~My inability to write about relationships when I write fiction
~How I used to feel about not being "out" to my parents, and how I feel about it now
~How I really should have written these things down as I thought about them :)
~The podcast.

How I Came Out To My Brother

He found this blog.
Henrik had been joking that if I wanted to come out to my family, I should have them listen to the podcast we're doing* and of course I didn't take him seriously. But I left AVEN up once, apparently, even though I thought I was being as careful as I could be. Guess not.
So my nosy little brother (not little anymore: he's about to turn 18 and graduated from High School yesterday, which I'm very proud of him for) had a good look at the AVEN boards and foun my username. As he explained it, he figured I was the only one dorky enough to have a lolcats avatar (I'm totally not!) and when he saw the link to this blog, he got that it was a Big Bang Theory reference and knew for sure that I was the only one who would do something like that.
His plan, he said, was to read the blog and comment anonymously to 'get the whole story', but he changed his mind and just asked me about it instead. And he's totally cool with me being ase.
Happy ending.


*have I plugged my podcast yet? alifepodcast.wordpress.com

The Picture, As Promised

Here I am. Don't I look nice? If you're not sure why you're looking at this picture, read "Don't Dress So Asexually" part 3. Come to think of it, you'd better start back at part one, so it'll all make sense. Happy reading!

"Don't Dress So Asexually" pt. 3

The thought I left off with at the end of Part Two was that the way I dress sometimes affects my gender identity as it exists that day as much as my gender identity affects the way I dress. A situation can do the same thing.
When I dress up for church, for example, part of the way I make the decision what to wear is based on how my gender identity feels when I wake up that morning. If I feel boyish, I put on pants (still women's pants, mind you) and look around for a button-down shirt. If I'm feeling feminine, I have a couple of cute dresses to choose from. (Somehow, no matter what my gender identity is, I'm stuck with high heels, because I own no other nice shoes.)
Similarly, when I wake up in the morning I choose between a t-shirt, a button-down shirt or a tank top based pretty heavily on whether I feel boyish or girly that day. It doesn't take a drastic change in what I'm wearing to make me feel comfortable on an average day. I can fulfill the need to feel boyish by pulling my hair back tight and wearing a button-down shirt and sneakers. If I feel girly, I can wear a tank top and wear my hair down. Easy stuff.
A little more complicated is when I can't really choose what to wear- some situations, I'm just expected to wear a dress. Let me be clearer about this: I am never in a situation where I'm forced to look more masculine than I want to. I'm often in situations where I'm expected to look more feminine than that day's gender identity would have me feeling comfortable with. I often compensate by acting more manly than is really necessary and I have to be careful to "sit like a lady" in any case, if I'm in a dress. Still, I can usually adapt pretty easily. My flexible gender identity/expression isn't really a cause of any emotional turmoil for me.
More interesting, to me, are the situations where my clothing affects my gender identity. This is usually when I'm in a dress, or when I'm the only girl in jeans and a t-shirt. I start to feel more masculine when I'm with a group of girls who are all dressed more nicely than I- this was a common thing when I was younger and it was in vogue in my age group for girls to hang out at the mall. Frequently, the other girls would dress up, so as to look cute for any boys who might be there, and I would just be in a t-shirt with my hair in a ponytail. Talk about being the token guy!
The other place this happens in when I reenact (Yeah, I'm one of those nerds!) and where, of course, I'm wearing a very lovely, old-fashioned dress. And petticoats. And a corset. There's just something about this that makes me feel very feminine- I like the idea of being a lady in that situation and I never have gender issues while I'm reenacting. It's very easy for me to be just straight-up female. The other thing that probably contributes to my feminine identity in that situation is the fact that the men in those situations treat me as a lady- just like men are supposed to have done in the 19th century. All this works together to make me feel like a lady, just as I'm expected to be. And I really don't mind it. Unlike a real 19th century lady, though, I'm not lacking in rights and opportunities and I think that's what makes the difference. For the most part, I am still thought of as an equal, though I'm treated differently, so I'm not putting up with any of the male-dominated culture stuff that women then did. So I can enjoy being treated nicely, I can enjoy not having to pitch in- although actually I feel guilty about not doing more work, which I know I'm capable of. But last time I tried to help pack up the Unit's gear after an event one of the guys looked at me like I was crazy and said "hand me that". When I did, He said to the guy who'd asked me to pick the stuff up and said, "She's in a dress" as though that explained the whole thing. I actually found it pretty funny. But then, as a good buddy of mine says, "With chivalry comes chauvenism" and I think he's right. But still, in this instance, I can feel female and enjoy it because it doesn't feel like real life. I don't have the experience the downside of being female at that time and it's all playacting- my gender doesn't matter because for the whole weekend I'm living the life of somebody other than me.
I think that may, in fact, be about everything I want to say about my gender. Wow. I'm sure I'll come back to it, possibly in a more explicit fashion, having worked out in my mind what I want to say, and talk about the ase community and gender in general, but I think that covers the specifics.
Having talked so much about my hobby, I think it deserves a picture. Let me figure out how to post one...

"Don't dress so asexually" pt. 2

So this time I promised to explain how being asexual makes me mentally androgynous (a word I can't spell without looking it up).
I think it works like this: Because I'm not interested in 'coupling off' in the traditional sense, I don't need to be particularly female. I don't need to do any of the things that women typically do to find a male partner. I have a really hard time explaining to people without some background in the LGBTA community what that means, because they don't see it in themselves. To them, acting gendered is just a very natural way of being and because they see the obvious differences between themselves and other people who act in a way specific to their gender, they don't see the difference when someone is not gendered. It doesn't help that I look like a very average girl, though I feel like your typical amoeba.
So, when I say that I don't need to do the things women do to find a partner, what do I mean by that? I'm not referring to wearing miniskirts or makeup. Although I think you'll find that sexual women do that much more often than asexual women, there are plenty of sexual women who wear no makeup at all and there are probably plenty of asexy women who wear lots of makeup. I think it's more often the little things- they way a woman walks, the way she looks at a man she's attracted to, the way she behaves around him, and men do the same thing- they walk a certain way, look at women a certain way and behave a different way towards attractive women than they do towards guys.
I often say that I give out 'ase vibes', because I rarely get any attention from men (I mean that kind of attention) and with most guys I find it very easy to be myself, in contrast to sexual women who, more often than asexys, get silly and giggly about men. I think I told a story in an earlier post about an outing with my Girl Scout troop, several years ago, in which these budding teen mothers decided to 'pick up boys'... who then spent the evening talking to me, since I was the only girl who was willing to act like she had a brain in her head.
And while I don't act like a woman, I don't actually act mannish either, leaving me somewhere smack dab in the middle of the gender spectrum. In a group of girls, I feel like the token guy. In a group of guys, I am very definitely the woman. How gendered I feel, and in what way, is affected by the setting I'm in because with my female friends I notice all the little things they do that make them feminine and which I don't also do. With guys, I notice all the little things they do that make them masculine, which of course I also don't do.
You know what? I have a lot more to say about this. Stay tuned for part three, in which the title becomes very relevant indeed and I continue to ramble on about my gender. I'll update sooner this time, I promise.