I posted this in my blog, but I really like it, and I like getting comments from people, so I will go ahead and post it here! Feeling very hesitant today, at least as far as forums go. My paper journal may as well be a doorstop at this point, which I consider maybe a good thing. It means I don't have any thoughts that I can't share with others, and that is a new and different frame of mind for me. I have one tab open for EC, and one open for AVEN (Asexual Visibility and Education Network) but I'm still struggling with what to say, and where! I do feel like celebrating, a little, this is 7 whole days without a relationship! What does that mean to me? I have been very relationship-focused my entire life, honestly I have been concerned with having a boyfriend/husband from the age of 12?!? Once I hit junior high school my whole confidence fell apart, as far as being just an individual. (Which I now know was normal - thanks to Reviving Ophelia) While I have been uncoupled for various stints in my life, I was never genuinely content at the thought. There had to be someone, even a back-burner someone, whom I could call my significant other, for my peace of mind. I wanted to be a girlfriend or wife. But, other than during periods of very high libido I found relationships to be stressful and often annoying. There have been some people I liked spending most of my time with, to be sure. But these were always people who didn't have any kind of traditional romantic approach, and for that matter with whom I did not have any kind of monogamous arrangement. So of course polyamorous came into it, or nonmonogamous. So often I have tangled with men that I later wished I hadn't, and extricating myself from those situations was like getting out of a ball of barbed wire. Even this recent situation, with my former FWB that I did have great sex with, it still seemed like he would never be ok if we were just platonic. So whenever someone begins to expect sex from me, as if it's their entitlement, I start to want to escape and ultimately I do just that. That's what makes me ponder whether I am asexual or aromantic. But my experience with women has been different, actually, since I fell in love with my best friend in high school. It was hard to distinguish best-friend-love from romantic love I suppose - I only know that it was the most intense feeling of my life and I had really quite insane thoughts when she ultimately rejected me. That needs backstory - we'd had two years of best-friendship and then on a drunken evening with me, her, and her ex, my current boyfriend, there was a fumbling threesome. We "palled around" for a few glorious weeks. But I wanted to be alone with her, not sure whether for sex or if I just wanted the friendship back as it was. I told her this, I still remember sitting out in the middle of a big grassy area at school with her, and she said "I don't think I'm a lesbian." This was 1980, the word wasn't tossed around at all, except perhaps in a negative way. But there it was, another label I had to contemplate whether it belonged on me. I don't know if I wanted to be a lesbian either, since I didn't exactly think of her in an "Alex and Piper" kind of way. So on the AVEN forum I found a thread about being "asexual lesbian or homoromantic." Another label I could try on. Not hard since I'm asexual at present, and aromantic. That is, I don't want sex with anyone and I don't want romance with anyone. I like having friends that I can get cuddly or sexual with if I want to, and don't have to if I don't want to. My favorite term for that is puppy pile. But other than that I feel like I want no one cluttering my life or my emotions while I try to unravel the confusion of decades of hiding and shame. I have settled on bisexual for most of my life, since I thought a label should apply to the contents of my experience. But if I want a label to apply to the contents of my mind, my hopes and desires, I really am not sure what that is. For now, it's recluse or hermit. (There's a forum for that, too! Hermit's slate) I'm a good friend to my friends, a good employee to my employer. I know that I enjoy closeness with people, and labels appear to be the only way to communicate how I want to be close to them or with whom I want to be close at all. Until I know the label for that, I'm just going to consider myself single and be open to others about my past experiences. Hopefully one day I'll know what I want besides this awesome quality time watching Star Trek with my dog.
So, that was a blog entry, but this is a forum post. What labels are you struggling with or have you struggled with in the past? Did you ever feel there was a time you didn't want any labels? Do labels make you feel secure, or restricted? In real life I have now heard from several people who now identify as gay/lesbian but previously identified as bisexual. I totally support bisexuality as a valid identity but I sometimes question (purely with regard to myself) whether I have used that label as a safe way to admit to myself my attraction to women without rocking the boat of being in relationships with men. That's one of my current ponderings. Can anyone else relate to that?
I want to write mor a little later after having time to think... But I wanted to say I connect to a lot in this post. I believed for a lot of my life that I would never get married. And everytime ive been in long term relationships I always question whether I'm simply not meant to have a full fledged partner. I have on occasion, well before coming out, envisaged myself bringing a woman home to meet my family. The exposing feeling (of what that means about me, basically outing myself) intimidated me, but it was slways a nice thought. And I remember feeling conflicted but sort of right in some ways about the open relationship I had with my ex. It was very freeing. I don't know how all of this adds up for me. But anyway, I'd like to think a bit more and come back to post again.
Honestly the best label for me is probably gadfly. I appear to ask very difficult and thought-provoking questions, and I think I need to embrace that about myself! I love threads that go on and on and I'm hoping for that here. I might just keep bumping it myself! :lol:
Oh! I like that term (gadfly)! I've never heard of before! And I like what it entails, it helps to open up and explore concepts in greater depth and in different lenses. I wonder for you, whether a label matters? For some it might feel constricting and inflexible. For me, finding a label matters because it helps me feel I can more easily speak snout myself and represent who I am. It also helps me feel like part of s community. I've grown to very much like the labels bi and queer. Labels I've always had that I like: Tomboy - I've always been one of the boys in terms of activities - sports, gaming, generally being rough and tumble. It's usually been reflected in my manner of dress and in the way j connect to people socially. I think hormone surges (at puberty, then much later pregnancy and breast feeding) have made me feel more interested n expressing my femininity for periods of time. I want to get back in touch with my tomboy side again, not that it's ever been fully unexpressed, it's just been more minimal in the last few years since as mentioned above, pregnancy and breastfeeding). But I do work in the gaming industry, I'm still a jeans and t shirt person, I love my chucks and my combat style boots, etc. But I think I'm going to bring more if that side out again.. Mom- I've always been considered maternal well before being a mom, and I feel like that label suits me well. Olive my little girl, and sometimes she's mord like my best bud (first mate, as I call her) than simply my daughter. Optimist - I tend to see the best in things, and I'm happy to have that label. Labels that have been a source of conflict: Straight/ally- obviously this one has been one that I adopted earlier in my life and I find it reminiscent of shame and insecurity. Wife- I love my husband but I wonder all the time whether I'm cut out to be a wife. Typical girl/woman - I get the typical labels associated with women due to some of the things I do that may considered stereotypically female and I can't tell tou how much that bothers me. I'm emotional and I get hormonal and I even find slot of my choices in life fall into very traditional female roles (I worked from home part time a while, making me like the stay home parent (a wonderful tole that I loved, not knocking it), I ubfortunstely take on most of the household stuff and I've been working on equalising this with my husvand for years, my career path is in a feminine field (writing), though as a tech writer I'm in the tech industry). I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're loking for, but i found it fun to share.
For me labels are about community. No label, with the possible exception of your name, is going to really convey who you are. So I use them to convey who I am and who I choose to associate with. When I am at a work event I'm a banker. When everyone there is a banker maybe I'm "with the private bank.". I have coworkers who are bankers when they go to cocktail parties. Some of them probably are bankers every day. For the most part I'm only a banker if you ask me what I do or I'm at work. I think sexuality labels are similar. What is it you are looking to convey? Who is it you are wishing to associate with? I remember when I first really knew I was gay. And it really wasn't when I realized and accepted that I was attracted to other men; it was the day I first went to Pride and to my first gay bar. I met tons of people and really just felt like i had found "my people". For me that's what the labels are about.
This in an interesting subject. I do have a love-hate relationship with labels, but I understand their necessity in the world we live in. Though being said that, I think one of the biggest issues is that we tend to forget that we use labels out of necessity - because we are limited by language and culture - and that labels are more of a pointer, and we tend to confuse the label with what is actually pointing towards. That is not a thing. Because life is fluid and alive. But when we put a part of it in a box that dies there. So yeah, until labels are used as pointers they are okay. I used to have issues with labels which for some people seem pretty straight forward, like the label that describes your nationality for example, because I've never lived in the country where my mother tongue is the countries official language I was born as part of an ethnic (or national) minority (yay minorities) in a country where people my ethnicity are not really liked, because of stupid historical and obviously political reasons. So where I grew up, if you wanted to "be accepted" by the majority, you somehow had to deny your own ethnicity... When you ask me "what I am" in the context of my nationality, I always have to explain: well, you know I'm from there but I am not that... So I should apparently be used to being confused about who I am on so many levels Though it doesn't help to identify with this, because lately I realized how much part of my personality have I built on this - like if you take the confusion away, a big part of what I know is me will fall away too. But I know I have to do it, to redefine myself, for my own sake... Another category of labels which I have issues with are related to gender and gender roles. I wouldn't say I don't feel like a woman (well, more like a girl), but I somehow have issues with labels like "mother", "wife", "lady" - oh this last one, I hate it so much when someone calls me that. It's not me. When I'm in a group of women and we are being addressed as "ladies" I feel they are not referring to me. I don't want to think about this gender-thing too much because for now I would like to clarify the sexuality-part for myself first And last but not least, sexuality-wise, labels are not my friends lately, I feel so much better without a label, because right now I feel if I use ANY label for my sexuality I'm forcing it. I came out to my best friend last week without a label, I mainly told her that I'm more attracted to women. And it felt good, but I still feel that I need to stick a label on myself, not sure why. Maybe to convince myself, or to feel that I'm part of a group or something.
Yep. There right now. No longer calling myself bi, working on lesbian but getting more comfortable with it by the minute. It's required a total rethink of everything, and one I'm taking very seriously.
You've asked some very good questions! I know that going forward I plan to associate more with queer folk, since I have started discovering a few of them locally. I think it matters more to me how I label myself among them than around coworkers, family or other friends. And part of it is wanting to be part of a larger thing, the wave of Pride activities and sentiment. If I am going to be Proud, I want to know exactly what I am proud of... ---------- Post added 19th Oct 2015 at 05:15 AM ---------- You've hit the nail on the head there. Putting on a label in the way that I seem to want to would be an indication of certainty - something I haven't felt about myself in years. Twenty years ago when I was in a monogamous marriage, that identity was a way for me to suppress other parts of myself, and it felt safe while it felt oppressive. I got rid of that oppression but also lost the safety. I guess I do want to feel safe again by being part of something. But it needs to be the right something... ---------- Post added 19th Oct 2015 at 05:37 AM ---------- Yes, I am taking it very seriously also. I have some very big questions to answer, the biggest being, do I ever want to have a romantic/sexual association with a man again? That's been the reason for calling myself bisexual all these years, of course. I feel that if I do ever have a relationship with a woman, I want it to be something I do as a lesbian. Maybe to distinguish it from my past experiences of threesomes or one-time explorations. I would want it to be a significant feature of my life. I also think I am looking for an explanation of why my history with men has involved one relationship after another going "kablooie." It would be nice to think that maybe I've been going against my grain all my life, rather than feeling like I am just an incompetent wife/girlfriend.
In addition to being a shorthand for describing yourself to others, labels are also important because they give us permission and guidance on how to behave. When one identifies as gay or lesbian or homoromantic bisexual or asexual or however you identify, the label will help clarify your feelings and actions, especially if you newly identify with the label. Here's how I've identified over the years. Clearly this illustrates my gradual acceptance over time straight -> bisexual -> bisexual with stronger attraction to guys -> gay While I still identify as gay, I've been trying to find more precision in my orientation for EC discussions. The following have all resonated with me to varying degrees Kinsey 5, homoflexible, and homoromantic bisexual. The latter particularly resonates with me because I came out because I could not meet my homoromantic needs in the closet. It's great that you are taking the time to review your relationship history. Eventually the lightbulb will go off and you will have greater clarity. For example, accepting that I'm gay explains why I had no desire to have a girlfriend in high school even though I rationalized it with the desire for academic excellence. So it wouldn't surprise me if you discover that you've been going against the grain in some way. It's not uncommon to enter a period of asexuality after you come out and process your feelings. I'm wondering if something similar is at play as you review your history.
