queerbychoice (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
queerbychoice) wrote2002-09-17 10:20 am
queerbychoice) wrote2002-09-17 10:20 am
Because I Feel Like Asking
[Poll #60817]
Essay Question for Bonus Points:
Was there anything particularly interesting or unusual about the order in which you experienced these events?
Example: I first heard of the theoretical existence of queer people when I was seven years old, but since I'd never heard of any specific queer people I just treated it as a kind of urban myth, and I didn't actually give much serious consideration to the notion of "What if there really are actual queer people?" until the day I turned queer myself, the spring of 1992, when I was 15, at which point my thought process proceeded all at once in the span of about five minutes along lines something like this: "What if there really are actual queer people? But if people are really capable of same-sex attraction, why would only some of them be capable of it and not others? How horrible it would be if you could fall in love with someone and they'd be physically incapable of falling in love with you too, even if they really liked you and really wanted to! How horrible if love could be limited by something so superficial as body types! Wait a minute, that's what it would mean if everybody were heterosexual too . . . I don't believe love should work that way. I resolve to love anybody whose mind is worthy of me, no matter what body type they have."
And then I didn't meet an actual queer person other than me until nearly two years later, March 3, 1994, when I was 17. So in the intervening time I had nothing but a cheap local public access queer TV show for queer company, and after August 1993 when I discovered David Bowie I had him for company (though I was rather traumatized at the end of high school when my best friend Christine informed me that David Bowie had changed his mind about his queerness and been calling himself hetero since 1983 . . . but that was later, I'd met other queer people in person by that time). I didn't have access to queer books (lack of privacy) nor to the internet (I didn't get internet access until my second semester of college). So I grew up very isolated in a way that probably no middle-class queer teenager in the Western world ever will be again, now that internet access is so much more widely available.
Essay Question for Bonus Points:
Was there anything particularly interesting or unusual about the order in which you experienced these events?
Example: I first heard of the theoretical existence of queer people when I was seven years old, but since I'd never heard of any specific queer people I just treated it as a kind of urban myth, and I didn't actually give much serious consideration to the notion of "What if there really are actual queer people?" until the day I turned queer myself, the spring of 1992, when I was 15, at which point my thought process proceeded all at once in the span of about five minutes along lines something like this: "What if there really are actual queer people? But if people are really capable of same-sex attraction, why would only some of them be capable of it and not others? How horrible it would be if you could fall in love with someone and they'd be physically incapable of falling in love with you too, even if they really liked you and really wanted to! How horrible if love could be limited by something so superficial as body types! Wait a minute, that's what it would mean if everybody were heterosexual too . . . I don't believe love should work that way. I resolve to love anybody whose mind is worthy of me, no matter what body type they have."
And then I didn't meet an actual queer person other than me until nearly two years later, March 3, 1994, when I was 17. So in the intervening time I had nothing but a cheap local public access queer TV show for queer company, and after August 1993 when I discovered David Bowie I had him for company (though I was rather traumatized at the end of high school when my best friend Christine informed me that David Bowie had changed his mind about his queerness and been calling himself hetero since 1983 . . . but that was later, I'd met other queer people in person by that time). I didn't have access to queer books (lack of privacy) nor to the internet (I didn't get internet access until my second semester of college). So I grew up very isolated in a way that probably no middle-class queer teenager in the Western world ever will be again, now that internet access is so much more widely available.
no subject
While growing up, I obviously didn't start out with any concept of sexuality. I learned what sex was very early on, and immediately came to the conclusion of "Ew. That seems painful and ugly and unpleasant and smelly and messy and scary and unnecessary, and worst of all, people come from it. Therefore, I want nothing at all to do with it, ever." My collective hatred of the human race came even earlier than that, so something that actually resulted in children was the worst possible thing I could think of. And then, there was also the physical attraction element, which I was always quite proud of being immune to. I never felt comfortable around boys OR girls, and became quite the loner. I couldn't understand gender, or why people cared about it. I understood that male + female = baby, and that other combinations didn't work, but I simply didn't comprehend attraction. How could anyone find either sex pleasant? As a result, I never even developed a sense of heterosexuality...never feeling an attraction for anyone myself, I had no concept of anyone else having those feelings, either. Eventually I began growing fond of bishounen, however, mainly anime characters. Rather than attraction it was more of an envy, a feeling of "I want to look like that." Anime bishounen were unique from others, both real and fictional, in that they were highly androgynous. That androgyny was tremendously desirable to me, since it gave me a sort of anchor; that's what I should be, but instead I'm stuck in this stupid boy body that sweats too much and smells funny. So, I virtually always knew of heterosexuality, homosexuality, and everything in between, because they were what I wasn't.
I'm just lucky that asexuality is so much harder to detect among high schoolers than other forms of queerness. My lack of desire to ever have a partner just made me that much more avoided.
no subject
I remained unceasingly devoted to this goal all the way through 4th grade, 5th grade, and 6th grade.
Then I entered 7th grade, and from the first day of school it was just suddenly "Aaaargh, did you SEE that beautiful boy??? I MUST HAVE HIM!!!!!" *hurls self at him in a manner which soon proved deeply embarrassing to self and rather disturbing to the boy as well*
I didn't even really ever pause to regret having abandoned my former anti-boy convictions. It was just an overnight conversion thing and I didn't even have enough brain cells left to worry over the incongruity of it.
Really I should not tell you stories like this. Now it's my fault if I give you nightmares. :p
no subject
And don't worry about nightmares...I don't think there's anything you could say over the internet that's more traumatic than having two teenage brothers.
no subject
Then I started thinking, "well, maybe I don't want to get into some sort of -relationship- with someone, but just fucking might be nice..." At that, I started fooling around with people on a clear "I'm using you for play" basis. Over time was totally converted to the side of sexuality. Hyper-sexuality. All-the-time-thinking-about-it sexuality. Yum.
Then I decided that I was more attracted to certain people who, coincidentally, would want to be in a relationship with someone they had sex with. So I tried that out and ended up liking it well enough. So I've gone from asexual, to purely sexual, to almost (gasp) a romantic. Don't worry, though, I still find most romance kind of silly, so I suppose I'm not totally there yet.
I just had to add my bit.