To f*#k or not to f*#k?
How about a life where that is not the question
One of the side effects of writing about sex is talking about sex. People that I know well and even more frequently people that I don’t know well tell me about their sex lives.
Some of them lean in and whisper, some look straight into my eyes challenging me to challenge them, and some a
At book clubs and coffee shops and writing groups and all of the other social engagements that a middle aged upper middle class white woman would have I hear about sex. And lack of sex. I used to council (and still pretty much believe) that if you are in a long term relationship it is important to stretch yourself to come into synch with your partner’s patterns. At the time my perspective was particular heteronormative. It is easier to get clicks and page views when you pronounce instead of ponder. So I would say (or write) that women should go fuck their husbands.
This “advice” grew from walks with neighbors (ah, another way I end up chatting) who gleefully joked about never “needing” to have sex when their husband travels. They talked about having sex twice a year, on Father’s Day and his birthday. Leaving out all of the nuance, focusing only on consent and not desire I told these women they should try more sex. With their partners. I made it sound transactional. You give a blow job he happily does the dishes. Again, clicks. (It worked, three sites syndicated that particular piece which now has over a million views.)
What, I asked, would happen if he (again heteronormative as well as reductive) decided he only wanted to have conversations once a month? Obviously that wasn’t enough to maintain a relationship. So why should sex be different? I told these women to channel Nike and just do it. I talked about quickies and how three minutes against the bathroom counter could create a connection as effective and more efficient as that monthly conversation. And one begets the other.
Why should sex be different? Let me count the ways. Actually let me count one of the ways. Asexuality. (Siri keeps autocorrecting asexuality into two words. Damn it Siri you know to change iphone to iPhone but not a word that reflects over 3 million people) -1% of the US population Population Clock - Census.gov
3 days agoThe United States population on May 27, 2023 was: 334,810,615- math is simple 3,334,811)- After I talked to one woman who is asexual and aromantic and faced my simplistic advice to “just do it” I began to look for stories of asexuality and aromanticism in books and movies.
From GLAAD:
Asexuality and aromanticism both occupy the A in the LGBTQIAP+ acronym, alongside agender. These terms, however, are only a few of what are known as “a-spec” (asexual spectrum) identities. The identities that fall under the umbrellas of asexual, aromantic, and agender are many and varied, and almost as diverse as the greater LGBTQ+ community itself.
Asexuality-Someone who does not experience sexual attraction towards anyone. It’s important to remember, however, that attraction and action are not always the same.
Aromanticism-
Someone who does not experience romantic attraction to anyone.
So I searched for stories in art and in life. It will surprise close to 0.0% of you to hear that the happy endings, both in bed and in narratives, almost exclusively involve having partners with whom to walk off into the sunset.
In addition to fine cinema and epic novels I brought up the subject of Ace and Aro with friends over walks and coffees. I bet you can use context clues to break the code on those terms. The person or people with whom I was chatting would invariably tell me about someone (almost always a woman) that they knew that was “single until they were 50, only to meet just the right partner to complete her.” So in this case there COULD be a happy ending. Presumably literally and figuratively. This was the refrain. Sex and romance will happen. And then the Ace/Aro individual will see that sex and romance are amazing!
Except when it doesn’t. And it isn’t. And not in a sad way.
Back to books…in Educated Tara Westover writes about her interesting (understatement) and challenging (under understatement) upbringing and manages to escape the situation and live a life that was never laid out for her. She ends up at an elite institution and writes a best selling memoir. Name brand schools are not a ‘happily ever after’ for everyone, but the title of the memoir offers us a clue as to end game of her story. Yet as she went from a world renowned college to graduate school I read on, seeking signs of my kind of happiness, the happiness I have learned to look for since Cinderella. Does she meet someone? Have sex with a man? Move into a castle and find herself by finding her Prince? I wanted this for her. It doesn’t matter if she wants this for herself. It’s what I need to believe that she has made it out of her world of origin and landed, happily ever after, in the world out here with the rest of us.
I continued my search reading books with jaded heroines who find themselves through baking and fall in love with the contractor building out her adorable new business that will somehow be successful in her small town (Hot Pies lead to Hot Guys, on shelves summer 2025) I came across an Aro/Ace character, a quirky sister of the protagonist. Sassy single siblings and sidekicks are a common trope in these books. Usually they are also searching for meaning through love but not with this woman. Her life, we were told in a clunky fashion, was complete with her job in publishing and her cats Simon and Schuster (I hear it is possible to be a middle aged woman without a partner and ALSO without cats but I have no hard evidence to back up that claim.) She respected her sister’s life long quest for marriage with equanimity and pithy support. Then, in the penultimate scene, we read about her dancing cheek to chest with her sister’s best man (gender norms be dammed) and we knew she would “really” be alright.
More than a decade later I am embarrassed about my simplistic post schilling for sex. Although I still want to pitch the possibility that if you lower your standards for quality of sex you mind end up enjoying the three minute quickie at the bathroom counter even if you partner doesn’t end up doing the dishes. It turns out the heteronormativity of telling women to fuck their husbands isn’t just the women and husbands part. Asexuality and Aromaticism call into question both the sex and the husband. Being Aro and/or Ace is not a phase that will finish when you find the right person. It is not an alternative lifestyle. It is not an unhappy ending to be re-written.
I am not asexual. I have no standing to write about the experience of a sexuality, but if I did, if instead of writing an essay called “go fuck your husband” I wrote an essay called “don’t fuck your partner” or “don’t have a partner to fuck” or “don’t have a partner or fuck” people would reassure me about something that requires no reassurance. “You will meet someone soon. My aunt cousin friends roommate character in the book thought she would be single and then WASN’T. Amazing right? Have patience, your happy ending is out there.”
What if this Aro Ace version of me was already happy? What if I were complete even without a degree from Harvard or a best selling memoir from Simon and Schuster or even without Simon or Schuster purring in my lap?
This is difficult for me to reconcile. Society has told me that this is rarely possible. I need to call myself out on my assumptions again and again. Life without sex can still be sexy. Life alone is not always lonely.
I have so many thoughts. Thanks for sharing yours so beautifully.
This is profound and true!