The Secret of Secrets – Dan Savage

Warning. The language of this column is direct and explicit.

My ex-girlfriend and I had a good relationship, but the sex was bad. When we did, at some point it became clear that neither of us was coming, or that she was tired or bored, and then we stopped. I decided to let her drive and stopped taking the initiative. I was starting to feel like my emotional needs weren’t being met either, and that’s when she revealed to me what she considered the secret of secrets: She feared she was asexual. She told me that it caused her a lot of shame and confusion and for that reason she had distanced herself from her. We decided to explore her sexual identity together and try new things that could potentially work for both of us. The first time was a disaster. I felt insecure and uncomfortable, and I wanted to stop before the end, as she had done so many times. When we went to bed she began to try approaches, which I limited to cuddles, only to go to the bathroom to “finish” when she fell asleep. She heard me go back to bed, she asked me what I had done and I told her the truth. She then stood up, angry and sad, and I tried to apologize, but we never got over it.

Months later, I’m still confused. I feel guilty for pushing her away and sneaking off to the bathroom when she fell asleep. At the same time I don’t understand how what I did became such an insurmountable obstacle. I grew up in a religious family and it took me a decade to free sex from the sense of shame, and now it seems to me that some of that work has gone up in smoke. All the time we were together – and especially that fateful evening – I was ashamed of my sexual desire for her, which was clearly much more intense than hers for me. She is an athlete with a perfect body, while I overeat due to stress during the pandemic, making my feeling of being undesirable worse.

I wish I could get over the guilt, but I don’t know how. I’m afraid that being with someone who identifies as asexual has had an indelible effect on me. And it’s too private a problem to be able to talk about it with anyone.

– Healing Eludes Lesbian Pondering Messy End

“I don’t think HELPME should feel responsible for the end of the relationship”, replies Dr. Ela Przybylo, “and even less think that the breakup derives from the fact that she went to the bathroom to ‘finish’ that one evening”.

Dr. Przybylo, that is assistant professor in English, women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Illinois State University, she has identified with various shades of the asexual spectrum over the past fifteen years. The label that currently fits her best, she says, is that of gray asexual (gray asexuality is both a point on the asexual spectrum and a spectrum in itself – our spectra contain spectritudes – but to simplify: gray asexual is who rarely experience sexual desire).

In short, if it’s not your fault, HELPME, and if sneaking into the bathroom to give yourself a little touch when your girlfriend falls asleep isn’t a fault, I would say that there is only one blameless candidate left: your ex girlfriend. Or perhaps – as Dr. Przybylo will now explain to you – factors beyond you and/or your fiancée are to blame.

“Being asexual can be very disconcerting because in our society sex is portrayed as mandatory, indispensable to intimacy and at the heart of romantic relationships,” explains Dr. Przybylo. “And while it can hurt to hear it, it’s possible that HELPME’s partner never wanted to have sex, but she thought she had to do it to maintain the relationship, or because of social pressure, or both.”

It’s also possible that your ex-girlfriend thought she wanted to have sex, HELPME, and that she wanted to have sex with you. When you’re taught from an early age that sex is not only normal but universal, and that all human beings have sex without exception, the conditioning can be enormous. Just as it used to be that homosexuals were frequently in heterosexual relationships before realizing they were gay, asexuals sometimes experienced relationships with allosexual (non-asexual) people before realizing they were asexual. And just as some gay men pretend to be heterosexual in a desperate attempt to make a marriage work (at the risk of confusing and hurting their wives), some asexuals pretend to be interested in sex in order to make a relationship with an allosexual work (at the risk of confuse and hurt allosexual girlfriends).

“If it is true that sexuality has to do with the individual and his journey, it is equally true that it can have – and has – consequences on others,” says Dr. Przybylo. “In this sense, it is likely that the HELPME ex did not intend to confuse her. She was doing her best in a context that in all likelihood generated confusion, helplessness and anxiety in her as well ”.
If people were more aware of the existence and legitimacy of asexuality, HELPME, maybe your ex would have figured out who she was sooner. And if she had known she was sexual before you met, she might have chosen to be your friend over your girlfriend. Or if she wanted a romantic relationship but not a sexual one – or a relationship with a minimal sexual component, which some asexual people desire – you could have worked out together whether that was what you both wanted.

As for that bad evening, HELPME, the impression is that your ex felt guilty about her asexuality, the real reason why the relationship couldn’t work, but instead of acknowledging the real reason – she is asexual, you are allosexual – he took the opportunity to shift the blame on you. If you can back off and salvage a friendship in the wreckage, maybe your ex will realize it, she’ll admit it and apologize for shaming you about fingering.

In the meantime, HELPME, Dr. Przybylo advises you to focus less on what didn’t work – and couldn’t work – and more on what did.

“HELPME should hold onto the joyous elements of the relationship and forgive her ex and herself because sex wasn’t what she wanted or imagined she wanted,” says Dr. Przybylo. And making this breakthrough will be easier, HELPME, if you recognize that “asexuality is a sexual orientation and her ex’s asexuality has nothing to do with HELPME or her being more or less desirable her”.

Finally, HELPME, convincing yourself that you’re not desirable because your asexual ex-girlfriend didn’t want to fuck you… yeah, that’s as crazy as that sounds. I mean, your asexual ex-girlfriend obviously didn’t want to fuck you. She doesn’t want to fuck anyone. You don’t have to pick up and fuck a few allosexuals to feel desirable again – you should trust that you are – but it might be good for you.

***

I am a straight young man. I’ve been reading a bunch of articles online lately about why women shouldn’t shave the armpits. These articles argue that shaving the armpits stems from a deeply patriarchal and anti-feminist conception of female beauty. And I’m a bit conflicted. If a woman attracts me, I find the shaved armpit deeply erotic. So smooth and soft it is irresistible to me. I love the feel. Plus I like the warmth of that point, and the fact that the armpits are close to the shoulders, neck and breasts, like a kind of joint. I also find them incredibly exciting to see. When women grow underarm hair, it removes what to me is one of the most sexually attractive parts of their bodies. After reading these articles I wonder: is it wrong to be so attracted to something they say derives from patriarchal standards of beauty? Almost all of the information I find online – hair removal ads aside – explains why women shouldn’t shave their underarms and that shaving them is a sign of gender oppression. And I honestly wonder: why are some feminists so against it?

– Are Reflexive Male Psychosexual Interests That Stupid?

If you’re smart enough to come up with this signature, ARMPITS, you’ll be smart enough to hold these two not-so-contradictory ideas in your brain without cognitive dissonance giving you a stroke: you have your tastes and at the same time your tastes are inculcated. Sometimes, with a little thoughtful effort, we can learn to appreciate more than just what we’ve been taught (different kinds of people, different kinds of bodies, different kinds of sex), and it’s a favor we do ourselves. , not to others. But not always a person manages to learn to appreciate something other than the tastes that have been inculcated in him. In that case what should he do?

In that case he can and must… not break my balls.

In that case it may repeat that standards of beauty evolve, as do gender norms, and if as they evolve they depart from what they have been taught to consider desirable – for example, shaved armpits – that person can do her absolute best to do not interfere with evolution. I mean, don’t you find hairy armpits sexy? Or the sturdy bodies? Or trans people? Perfect, no problem. You can look for people who appeal to you – and lucky for you, ARMPITS, most women shave their armpits – without shitting on people you don’t find attractive. Don’t write “no to hairy armpits” on dating apps, don’t gossip about how disgusting hairy armpits suck with your male friends, don’t comment with puke emoji when a woman posts a picture showing her armpit hair on Instagram , and politely avoid potential sexual partners who have armpit hair without feeling compelled to say why.

(Translation by Matteo Colombo)