Last night, I had sexual dreams. Sexual dreams tend to freak me out, not simply because they often blur into dreams containing sexual violence, but because even if they stay within a purely non-violent realm, I wake up feeling like someone other than myself. It’s one thing to wake up not knowing where you are (which happens to me often, especially this time of year, when school has just ended, and I’m a nomad, traveling from relative’s to relative’s, in search of shelter for the summer); waking up not trusting who you are is far more unsettling, from my perspective. I know there are plenty of explanations for the dreams that do not challenge the validity of my asexuality in the slightest, but still the panic inches in… What if I really do want this? What if this comes up when I’m asleep because I force it away when I’m awake? What if I’m kidding myself?
And what if I’m not?
If I’m not (kidding myself about being asexual), and I still have dreams about sex, and even *waking thoughts* about sex, then suddenly, everything grows a great deal more complex. The desire to have it may remain absent, but what about the growing ability to stand the conversations discussing it or the desire to understand it more?… That all seems healthy enough… but certainly at some point, I start to cross a line. I know the point I’m thinking of, for the moment anyway; I know the most recent example of That Point. It took place on one of the last days of the school year, when nearly everyone had abandoned campus, and I was loitering, waiting on the ride that would finally free me, messing around online to avoid packing. I was playing Scrabble online like the good word geek I am, and then… I was playing scrabble and reading erotica. (If you think this an odd combination, you have never seen the “mature” requests on Facebook’s scrabulous application. Who knew scrabble could be something other than good, clean fun?) Erotica. Me. In the middle of a computer lab for no reason I could readily point out.
Plenty of my sexual friends – (I don’t so much have asexual friends, although I’ve recently joined a few of the asexy communities online) – male and female, gay and straight – partake of porn. I know this because they tell me, and because they’ve even dragged me along for the ride once or twice, always kindly anticipating the squickiest moments, in order to suggest I turn my head. Mostly, I find porn a combination of amusement (as in the bad acting of the movies), gross-osity (as in the sexualized nudity, male genitalia, and so forth), slight tittilation (as in female nudity, in its softer moments), and uncomfortable complications (as in the scream of “exploitation” from my feminist inner voice). Erotica, even extremely poorly written erotica like the piece I was reading (in its defense, I have no idea how I would creatively describe some of the acts or anatomy involved, even if I had a speck of experience to work off of) dismisses some of those problems. My own internal censor can make choices about how thoroughly I’m imagining parts of what I’m seeing, to lessen the gross factor, and since I’m seeking it out myself instead of going along with my friends, the male body isn’t present. (No offense to the male body, seriously, but unless you’re bi, I’m guessing you can understand not wanting to see a sex you aren’t attracted to in that type of scenario.) And there’s no strung-out, plastic porn star modeling patriarchal notions of beauty (although I suppose the descriptions could be equally in keeping with the false beauty ideals) while being abused on- and/or off-set. These are steps in the right direction. This is an expansion of my world (I tell myself.) And at the same time, I wonder. Is this safe? Is this me?
Will I still be myself, if I look at the gray areas of what I am? If I am asexual, will I still be asexual if I allow myself the freedom to determine that I’m an asexual who gets the occasional kick out of lesbian erotica? I know there is gray, that there are asexuals who masturbate for instance, that I can still define myself based on that still strong sense that I do not want to have sex, and that labels themselves are fairly useless, despite the desire for definition. I know it doesn’t matter, really, whether that asexual identifier stands in the subtitle at the top of this page. I am I am I, and yet. I want to be able to say “I am this,” for the sense of sameness, the unity or community, the continued knowledge that I’m not alone. How many posts on those asexy boards are things like, “Do any of you fit this profile? Am I the only me?”
For all that PBS insistence on our specialness, the folks I know (myself included) really pray to be the same. I want to know others like me, even as I come to know myself. I want to go to bed tonight and dream of cake and movie-watching, to explore the notion of sex only when I’m conscious and in control (to a larger extent) of that exploration. If I’m going to look at the gray, I want the Sandman to let me do so on my terms. But every so often, be it my unconscious needs, my hormones, the food I’ve eaten, the symbols of my psyche, or some other trigger, sexuality rises in the dream world in spite of me. It’s only when I wake up that I can settle back into myself, – into my skin, my hoodie, my jeans or cords, my kneesocks, into a world where cuddling is preferable to orgasm beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Tags: asexual, asexuality, dreams, erotica, lesbian, sexuality
