Monsters
and mermaids and cyborgs and such are big for disabled people cause
folks are all “you’d REALLY replace your parts with these horrifying
things? mechanical replacements, monsterous horns and fish tails and
stuff?” and we’re like “DO THEY WORK? DO THOSE PARTS GIVE ME PAIN? NO?
SIGN ME THE FUCK UP AND STOP JUDGING ME, BRENDA, I GOT MERMAID SHIT TO
DO”
so I found this thing, and now I am 100% sure of my orientation, for the first time since I was aware that sexual orientation was a thing (early high school), and it’s a bigger relief than I thought it would be. I didn’t realize just how subtly stressful it is to not be sure of something so fundamental to our society’s concept of identity until I was. I’m asexual, y’all.
I see a lot of people (not so much on tumblr, but on reddit and real life) complain about the Really Specific sexual identity labels, saying shit like “wow now they’re just making it up” and “ahhaha stupid tumblerina sjw’s” etc. What I’d like to say to those people, if I could, is that people aren’t making up new sexual orientations (or genders, or what have you), people are just coming up with more specific terms to describe more specific portions of the human experience.
We’re experiencing somewhat of a renaissance in terms of sexual and gender identity liberation, and therefor we’re thinking a lot more about our experiences, and we are more able than ever before to seek out people with experiences similar to our own. It’s only natural that people would come up with more specific terms as we talk about this kind of stuff more.
People always create new terms when they start having conversations about stuff that people haven’t talked about before. Aristotle, Plato and Cicero dedicated chunks of their work to defining terms that we today consider to be the basic vocabulary of philosophical discussion. Terms are basically a shortcut to meaning. Just as a philosopher finds it useful to have a generally understood definition of ‘virtue’, people who talk about sexual and gender identity find it useful to have specific terms for concepts in their areas, as well.
A hundred years ago, everyone in the LGBT+ community would probably just say they were ‘queer’. Then the community specifically developed terms for trans, lesbian, and gay, because they found it useful to distinguish those meanings, even though they all fell under ‘queer’ (as it was understood at the time- I’m not saying you have to ID as queer if you’re in LGT, just pointing out historical use). People in the community saying “well, my experience is similar to yours, but different in these ways” and others going “me too, i’m different in those same ways” leads to more specific terms, like bisexual and asexual, and a whole bunch of more specific terms under asexuality.
Labels are useful because they tell you that you aren’t the only one, and there’s nothing “wrong” with you. When I read about autochorissexuality, it was a relief, because it meant that other people experienced the same things that I do. I can use that label to find other people like me. My first thought upon seeing the image above was a mix of “oh it’s me” and “THANK GOD it’s not just me”.
Now, I probably won’t go around telling people that I’m autochorrissexual. Because most people will have no fucking clue what that means. Hell, probably not even most people in the ace community know what it means. If people ask, I’ll say I’m asexual. Or, if I don’t want to explain asexuality and don’t think they’ll already know what it means, I’ll say bisexual, since I am interested in people of multiple genders (just not sexually). Or, I might just say “queer” because that covers it, too. So even if I don’t go around using this label in everyday life, I’m glad that it exists, because it means that other people share my experiences, and that I can finally be sure that I have a place, in terms of sexual identity.
if you ever try to befriend me and you expect to be in frequent contact with me i am so sorry. i do that with maybe two people and even then i often go days or weeks without saying anything before talking daily for a while.
the point is if we dont talk that doesnt mean i dont like u and think about u a lot im just terrible at maintaining close relationships
I still get freaked out about turning the sound up to a normal-ish volume (or even on – I used to watch everything with headphones in, but I’ve gotten past that) if whatever I’m listening to might sound violent, or involve sex noises, or be political, or be something you wouldn’t expect someone like me to be listening to, or just generally be anything that might inspire judgement.
I own my own home, now, for about 9 months. Before that I lived – alone – in an apartment for about six years; I sometimes heard my neighbor singing very loudly, occasionally heard their music from the hall, and on one memorable occasion, heard an extremely loud fight in the hall. I never once ever heard the neighbors’ TV. It is therefore reasonable to assume that they could not hear mine.
This did not make me feel any less like it would be just intolerably awful for someone, anyone, to hear what I was watching and have an opinion on it.
It’s a stupid little thing that does not actually affect my everyday life in any limiting way, but it’s still there, this expectation of being belittled and mocked and looked at with disgust. And when I was in the situation where that actually did happen, frequently, I understood that it was obnoxious and not an okay way to be treated. It was a small thing – but a small thing that inspired so much resentment, so much anger.
In summary: even if you know you shouldn’t have to hide, once you learn, it’s hard to unlearn.
I think the most healing thing my therapist has said to me was that I’m allowed to be angry and bitter about slipping through the cracks my whole life. I was so obviously and desperately in need of help from kindergarten to 12th grade, and only once did anyone respond, when I was 12, and then I went to middle school and fell through the cracks again. I got detentions for talking out daily in elementary and middle school. I broke down crying multiple times in class as a 17 year old in HS, which is, you know, not normal. I never did my homework, failed multiple classes every year and did summer school, all while ranking in the 99th percentile in state testing.
And nobody said “this isn’t right. someone pay attention to this girl.”
instead most of my teacher’s and a lot of my friends’ parents labeled me a problem child and couldn’t wait for me to be gone.
and I’ve spent all this time thinking “well, I’m getting the help I need and deserve NOW! It’s time to move on! Don’t focus on how, if someone had paid attention, I may be attending a college with a full ride scholarship right now, maybe have my dream job already, wouldn’t have spent so long suffering and suicidal.”
But my therapist told me, not only was it okay for me to be angry that literally all of the adults in my life but my mom and friend’s mom failed me, but she was also angry FOR me. And that I was allowed to be angry at everyone who let young Molly Anne slip through crack after crack. And that being angry and accepting that I was failed would help me move on.
And it has.
You’re allowed to be pissed off about the bad things that happened to you as a kid. You’re allowed to ask life “hey, what the fuck?” It’s part of healing.
There's a Mirror on the Wall 