Struggling with ace identity after getting an actual dysfunction

[Frac]

Maybe slightly TMI for mentions of sexual dysfunction, but I've tried my best not to make it too graphic.

 

I have hardly ever doubted my orientation, although I've been closeted in the past and still kind of am to most people. Internally, it always just felt right to not be involved with anyone that way, and the most I would want from another person would be some kind of nonsexual life partner kind of thing, and after I successfully made this kind of arrangement work, I haven't really had to think about my own identity or relationships that much... except maybe for the "relationship" I've had with discrimination.

 

Here's the thing, though. For most of my life, I've had a perfectly normal sex drive and physical sexual functioning in every way, and the only thing I don't experience is actually being interested in using said functions with anyone else. But then one day, I took a medication that kind of left them less than perfect, and now it feels like one of the things that gave me enough confidence to know I'm not "broken" has been taken away from me.

 

It especially hurts that people on support forums for my issue sometimes use the word for my goddamn orientation as a synonym for their symptoms, like a lack of libido, ED and so on. I kind of want to say it's nothing like that, but on the other hand, I'm not sure how to tell them that their language is problematic without invalidating their grief, and maybe permanently losing your libido could make you functionally ace, and I have no business of gatekeeping that, either. I haven't really said anything because I don't want to hurt their feelings, after all, it's probably much worse for allosexuals to get it because for them, it actually affects the way they connect with other people! Still, it really sucks to see these kinds of negative comments aimed at my orientation while already dealing with the frustration of not having my body work normally all of a sudden.

 

I could deal with being told that something's wrong with me and that I need to be "fixed" back when I was still healthy and happy because that was all the proof I needed to know they're wrong, but now for the first time in forever, I'm actually feeling kind of insecure about my asexuality. It feels like getting afflicted with genuine sexual dysfunction means that the haters got what they always wanted, and now I need to hide for the rest of my life or I'm making everyone else in the community look bad. Rationally, I know this is silly, and I don't need to be perfect to be valid any more than allos do, but you know how it is with how some people think about marginalized groups. In terms of public attitudes, it probably won't help that my specific condition has already been proposed to sometimes make people artificially ace, something that may serve as a new justification for medical-type discrimination, less than a decade after getting removed from the definition of HSDD no less.

 

I've been thinking of reporting the adverse effect to doctors because it's still not very well understood, but I'm even feeling kind of conflicted about that. I'm not currently open about actually being asexual anyway, but it'd be nice to possibly be able to do so some time in the future because questions about sexual activity are going to come up anyway, and it's tiresome to lie about that. Yet, I fear that getting "sexual dysfunction caused by some meds" on my record is going to make them think I'm either lying to cope with said dysfunction, or that it's just another part of it, and the last thing I want to hear after coming out to anyone is "I'm sorry".

 

tl;dr I ended up getting the very thing that I've been unfairly accused of having based solely on my orientation in the past, and I could really use some kind words right now.

[SilenceRadio]

4 hours ago, Frac said:

 But then one day, I took a medication that kind of left them less than perfect, and now it feels like one of the things that gave me enough confidence to know I'm not "broken" has been taken away from me. [...]

 

I could deal with being told that something's wrong with me and that I need to be "fixed" back when I was still healthy and happy because that was all the proof I needed to know they're wrong, but now for the first time in forever, I'm actually feeling kind of insecure about my asexuality. It feels like getting afflicted with genuine sexual dysfunction means that the haters got what they always wanted, and now I need to hide for the rest of my life or I'm making everyone else in the community look bad. Rationally, I know this is silly, and I don't need to be perfect to be valid any more than allos do, but you know how it is with how some people think about marginalized groups. In terms of public attitudes, it probably won't help that my specific condition has already been proposed to sometimes make people artificially ace, something that may serve as a new justification for medical-type discrimination, less than a decade after getting removed from the definition of HSDD no less.

 

[...] Yet, I fear that getting "sexual dysfunction caused by some meds" on my record is going to make them think I'm either lying to cope with said dysfunction, or that it's just another part of it, and the last thing I want to hear after coming out to anyone is "I'm sorry".

I'm not sure if I can be of any help, but here's some of my thoughts on the topic.

 

To me, if the ace community manages to get asexuality known and accepted, but still allows pathologization of a lack or low sexual desire and certain sexual dysfunctions, then it has failed its goal. You've talked about feeling like your reason for not being "broken" has been lost. This means that if any asexual fails to prove that they're "truly" asexual, then they will be pushed into the "broken" box. Asexuality will never get fully accepted if there's still that "broken" box, if said acceptance is solely conditional (on whether the person had a cause to their asexuality/absence of libido or not). The thing is, you shouldn't have any reason to be accepted the way you are to begin with. You shouldn't have to be "fixed". The burden of proof doesn't fall on you, there's nothing to justify.

 

If the "haters" think you're just sad and trying to "cope" with your dysfunction by calling yourself asexual, it says much more about them and the way they see any lack of sexual desire/libido as necessarily undesirable than about you. If the community thinks you make them "look bad", it says much more about how they'd rather throw their own members under the bus for quick conditional acceptance than about you. If people are "artificially ace" and some think it's a bad thing, all it does is show their contempt for asexuality. It implies that the only asexuals they accept are those who "can't help it", and that anyone who has the chance of being "fixed" would have to be. People will use anything to justify their horrible acts. That doesn't mean that the object of their justification is awful or that it's an active participant in the horrible act.

 

Even then, the HSDD stuff requires that one knows about asexuality, and I'm not sure the bit about asexuality is written in all editions or something. It's easy to be "distressed" about your sexuality when people tell you you're "wrong" for it. There's still the "either you're the asexual who has accepted their sexuality and knows for sure there's nothing that caused it, or you're the broken person in need of fixing". There's still that "broken" box.

 

4 hours ago, Frac said:

It especially hurts that people on support forums for my issue sometimes use the word for my goddamn orientation as a synonym for their symptoms, like a lack of libido, ED and so on. I kind of want to say it's nothing like that, but on the other hand, I'm not sure how to tell them that their language is problematic without invalidating their grief, and maybe permanently losing your libido could make you functionally ace, and I have no business of gatekeeping that, either. I haven't really said anything because I don't want to hurt their feelings, after all, it's probably much worse for allosexuals to get it because for them, it actually affects the way they connect with other people! Still, it really sucks to see these kinds of negative comments aimed at my orientation while already dealing with the frustration of not having my body work normally all of a sudden.

Yeah, I get that it can be hurtful.

 

What I can say, is that I'm sure some asexuals have felt like their way of connecting with other people was gone upon realizing they actually were asexual. Perhaps they wanted to be in romantic relationships for example, and feel like their own asexuality is stealing that from them. Non-aces aren't the only one who would necessarily have negative feelings regarding their "effective" asexuality. It's quite easy here to see oneself as missing something and wanting to be "fixed", to be "like others". So yeah, sometimes people, even asexuals, feel bad about not having a libido/sexual desire. I can understand your frustration, just as I can get theirs, too.

[Frac]

On 12/17/2021 at 6:28 PM, SilenceRadio said:

To me, if the ace community manages to get asexuality known and accepted, but still allows pathologization of a lack or low sexual desire and certain sexual dysfunctions, then it has failed its goal. You've talked about feeling like your reason for not being "broken" has been lost. This means that if any asexual fails to prove that they're "truly" asexual, then they will be pushed into the "broken" box. Asexuality will never get fully accepted if there's still that "broken" box, if said acceptance is solely conditional (on whether the person had a cause to their asexuality/absence of libido or not). The thing is, you shouldn't have any reason to be accepted the way you are to begin with. You shouldn't have to be "fixed". The burden of proof doesn't fall on you, there's nothing to justify.

 

Thanks for the response, some interesting points here that have been pretty good to think about.

 

Firstly, I agree with the criticisms you mentioned about HSDD, because there are still serious problems with its definition, and the way they excluded us definitely wasn't perfect, although it was still a step in the right direction. I also agree that if someone identifies as ace and doesn't want to have sex with anyone, they should have every right to do so regardless of the exact reason for that preference.

 

Having said that, I'm not sure if sexual dysfunctions/low desire shouldn't be pathologized at all, considering that they can sometimes arise as a side effect from legitimate conditions that need to be addressed anyway, and because not only can they be unwanted, but often involve a change from one's own baseline as well. In fact, I think that this change is one of the keys that often make them so stressful, just like this issue has been for me, while if you were just born with something, that'd likely make it feel more normal for you, though it obviously wouldn't prevent distress due to outside influence such as relationship problems. This admittedly makes me a bit inclined towards a kind of conditional acceptance based on whether something is normal for yourself. In this framework, my partner preference would be "normal", but the dysfunction wouldn't... for me anyway, but it would possibly be in the case of someone who was always that way.

 

This isn't entirely without problems, of course. As you point out, asexuals can absolutely end up thinking something's wrong with them for many reasons, which does not only challenge the view that self-identity is always a reliable way of determining whether something is a disorder or not, but also that kind of conditional acceptance, because someone can be born with something, but still view it as a problem. So what now?

 

While reading your comment, I ended up just straight up asking myself whether I thought asexuality in general should be thought of as a disorder or not, only to realize I actually felt surprisingly comfortable thinking it shouldn't for a fairly pragmatic reason: because in many cases, I believe our community simply has more to offer than any of the models that try to treat sexual disinterest like a problem. Examples of such cases being: people who were just born that way, people who weren't originally, but permanently ended up that way at some point, and finally, even if neither of those things were true for some people, if they simply don't feel like it's a problem and don't want to change, and there isn't any evidence of them having any serious problems such as hormonal imbalances. While you criticized the idea of conditional acceptance in general, I found that framing the issue this way made me feel better, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

 

 

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If the "haters" think you're just sad and trying to "cope" with your dysfunction by calling yourself asexual, it says much more about them and the way they see any lack of sexual desire/libido as necessarily undesirable than about you. If the community thinks you make them "look bad", it says much more about how they'd rather throw their own members under the bus for quick conditional acceptance than about you. If people are "artificially ace" and some think it's a bad thing, all it does is show their contempt for asexuality. It implies that the only asexuals they accept are those who "can't help it", and that anyone who has the chance of being "fixed" would have to be. People will use anything to justify their horrible acts. That doesn't mean that the object of their justification is awful or that it's an active participant in the horrible act.

You're right that I should probably just go back to mostly ignoring haters in general, and I likely will once I'm over the shock of this loss. However, if said discrimination ends up coming from medical professionals, that would threaten my ability to trust them in the future, so I'm still a bit unsure about how to bring up both of these things at some point without being misunderstood. I think I might be able to make a report directly to some kind of drug supervisory agency, but I suspect getting a doctor to sign it would ensure it will be taken more seriously. Or maybe I could try contacting one of the researchers that wrote that paper instead, hmm...

[SilenceRadio]

11 hours ago, Frac said:

Having said that, I'm not sure if sexual dysfunctions/low desire shouldn't be pathologized at all, considering that they can sometimes arise as a side effect from legitimate conditions that need to be addressed anyway, and because not only can they be unwanted, but often involve a change from one's own baseline as well. In fact, I think that this change is one of the keys that often make them so stressful, just like this issue has been for me, while if you were just born with something, that'd likely make it feel more normal for you, though it obviously wouldn't prevent distress due to outside influence such as relationship problems. This admittedly makes me a bit inclined towards a kind of conditional acceptance based on whether something is normal for yourself. In this framework, my partner preference would be "normal", but the dysfunction wouldn't... for me anyway, but it would possibly be in the case of someone who was always that way.

 

This isn't entirely without problems, of course. As you point out, asexuals can absolutely end up thinking something's wrong with them for many reasons, which does not only challenge the view that self-identity is always a reliable way of determining whether something is a disorder or not, but also that kind of conditional acceptance, because someone can be born with something, but still view it as a problem. So what now?

I think there are gray areas to it, of course, and I'd say that if it can be a side effect of a bigger problem that needs to be adressed, then said problem is the thing that should be focused on, rather than necessarily the side effect.

 

I understand the idea of "one's own baseline" and somewhat agree with it, but I think it can leads to some issues. Most of the objections regarding asexuality seem to stem from the fact that one only thinks that they're asexual, and that instead they are something else entirely. That, in other words, being asexual is not their baseline sexuality. Repressed, a late-bloomer, dysphoria, hormone issues, just internalized bigotry... "You may be asexual right now, but your asexual self is not the real you." And while I think it's absolutely okay to claim otherwise, that you really are asexual, it can also fall into the trap of having to prove yourself, and having to Find The Real You if you fail. It's something I've struggled in the past, and the conclusion I've come to is that I think being asexual is okay, even if it's not the "real you". If that "changes" for you, that's great! If it doesn't, that's fine too.

 

"So what now?" The beliefs that some asexuals internalize about themselves seem to be the cause to why they think something's wrong with them, as well as certain expectations (marrying, having sex...), that they're supposed to feel/do something that they aren't. That seems to be the root of the issue. If the options of opting out are acknowledged and fully accepted, that might adress it.

 

9 hours ago, Frac said:

While reading your comment, I ended up just straight up asking myself whether I thought asexuality in general should be thought of as a disorder or not, only to realize I actually felt surprisingly comfortable thinking it shouldn't for a fairly pragmatic reason: because in many cases, I believe our community simply has more to offer than any of the models that try to treat sexual disinterest like a problem. Examples of such cases being: people who were just born that way, people who weren't originally, but permanently ended up that way at some point, and finally, even if neither of those things were true for some people, if they simply don't feel like it's a problem and don't want to change, and there isn't any evidence of them having any serious problems such as hormonal imbalances. While you criticized the idea of conditional acceptance in general, I found that framing the issue this way made me feel better, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

The bolded part is a really nice way to put it! I think that's why the whole "you're just calling yourself asexual to cope with your own dysfunction" criticism seems odd, too. It seems like these people would just want others to feel miserable about who they are, to feel "broken", rather than dare see themselves in a better light that might make them feel better. @everywhere and nowhere wrote about something regarding that before:

 

Quote

On the Polish asexual forum I have had people tell me that no, there is no component of will whatsoever in asexuality, but I didn't even try to say that asexuality is a choice - I wrote, indeed, that what separates "sexual dysfunctions" from effective asexuality is a pure act of will, of self-acceptance, of choosing a discourse for framing one's own experience instead of letting oneself be told by others that if you aren't a "textbook asexual", you have no right to the term and you are obligated to want to be allosexual. No. This act of will is a transition between the expert discourse of medicine and sexology towards the discourse of agency and self-determination - and in this act of will the individual becomes the master/mistress over discourse.

 

There have been talks of what it would mean if asexuality was a disability, as well as the relevancy of ableism in ace issues. I also remember an ace who talked about how their hormone levels interacted with their asexuality, and how the cause didn't matter.

 

Here something a bit longer that I recommend reading, which somewhat opened my mind on the subject.

[Frac]

Whoa, thanks for going through all that effort to post all those articles, @SilenceRadio!

 

Yeah... I agree that in the end, everyone should just have the right to just say no to sex or relationships without getting invalidated in general, whether that preference turns out to be temporary or not. I also guess I'm guilty of having played the "unassailable asexual" game this whole time, only to eventually lose, which probably happens to almost everyone since the standards heteronormativity sets on us are unrealistically high, and sometimes contradictory anyway. I think the problem is that they often try to frame them as faux-helpful, but it definitely helps to keep in mind that often, they are still ultimately motivated by this idea that we're inherently inferior, something that obviously has to be outright rejected in order to truly accept yourself.

 

Quote

I think that's why the whole "you're just calling yourself asexual to cope with your own dysfunction" criticism seems odd, too. It seems like these people would just want others to feel miserable about who they are, to feel "broken", rather than dare see themselves in a better light that might make them feel better. @everywhere and nowhere wrote about something regarding that before:

Word. I mean, why would we even want to internalize that kind of stigma over just embracing the wonderful world of nonsexual intimacy instead? Certainly not to merely satisfy some bigot who has a problem with us. As the paper you recommended mentioned, there is no treatment for stuff like lifelong HSDD anyway, so identifying with it isn't really going to "fix" anything. At best, it may free you from some responsibility, but so does the view that it's a natural and acceptable difference, but the latter is much less likely to ruin your self esteem in the process.

 

I suppose since the standards imposed on us are so unfair and asking about other people's sex drive and so on is really rude anyway, if I ever find myself in a situation where I've made the mistake of being out to the kind of person who would do that, I have every right to either just refuse to answer, or lie by omission, since I've technically both had and not had one at different points now, depending on whichever seems like it would shut them up faster! XD