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| Very 90's style of graphic design, image text says "Why open your legs when you can open the Bible? I only bust it open for Jesus." Has a picture of some guy ... laying around trying to be cool? Image source. |
There were a bunch of replies on twitter, laughing about how ridiculous this is, and how apparently "bust it open" means opening one's legs in order to have sex... everyone is giggling about it, but I feel left out because if I had seen this back when I believed in all that "sexual purity" stuff, I wouldn't have really *got* how ridiculous it was.
Back then, in high school and college, I was vaguely aware that "open your legs" was somehow related to sex, but I had no idea how. And I had no awareness that it was something that a lot of people were actually interested in doing. But I did read the bible every day and that was really really important to me. What I'm trying to say is, "Why open your legs when you can open the Bible?" sounds like the sort of thing you would say if you're asexual but don't even know what asexuality is, and therefore have no real understanding of the fact that most people desire sex.
I see people laughing about it on twitter, and I feel left out because I know that back then, I wouldn't have gotten the joke.
And you know what? Christian purity-culture advocates made sure I wouldn't get the joke. I had no idea that the vast majority of people experience attraction differently than I do (specifically, they have sexual attraction and I don't), and of course I wasn't allowed to find out. It was dangerous "temptation" to learn about one's own desires, or to spend time thinking about anything related to sex.
So I thought everyone experiences attraction the same way I do.
My lack of knowledge and lack of desire made me "good" and "pure", according to that ideology. Or, mostly pure. I was sure I was dirty because I have SO MUCH romantic attraction, which means I'm not "guarding my heart", and I was sure my sensual attraction was "lust" which is pretty much the most dirty sinful thing ever, right? Because I couldn't force myself to be "perfect" and never have attraction at all, I was "cheating on my future husband." But no, of course I never even thought about having sex. Of course! Everyone knows women aren't really interested in sex.
(At least, that was what they taught in church.)
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This month's theme for the Carnival of Aces is "Asexuality Before AVEN," so I'm thinking about my life before I knew I was asexual, and about how things would be different now if I didn't have the language and concepts from the asexual community. Basically, I wouldn't HAVE A CLUE about SO MANY things related to attraction and sex. Because I would still be stuck thinking everyone experienced attraction the same way, and trying to force the evidence (my own feelings and what I saw other people doing) to fit into that paradigm.
The Christian teaching I received about sex assumed everyone was straight, and that all men feel a certain way about sex and romance, and all women feel a certain way about sex and romance. They informed me of what desires I had, or would have when I was older, or would have if I kissed a boy and "one thing led to another", or would have if I followed all the rules and didn't have sex until marriage. And I believed them! Can you imagine? I believed that other people were experts on my feelings- on desires I supposedly had, which I had never felt before.
Even in something as simplistic and cheesy as the kid-friendly answer to where babies come from- "when a man and a woman love each other very much ..."- even in that, there's the assumption that intimate love necessarily, automatically leads to sex. Not very ace-friendly. Over here in reality, when I tried to have sex for the first time, I loved my partner so much (and still do! we are married now!) but we literally could not figure out how to do penis-in-vagina sex that first time. We had to give up and try again another day.
And since then it's gotten better, but only because I've been doing a ton of research- reading sex-ed resources, reading erotica, masturbating, using sex toys, completely rethinking all my beliefs about male pleasure and my "wifely duty"... I have done A LOT OF WORK, because I do want to have sex with my husband. (Some asexuals want to have sex and some don't.) Nothing about this has been intuitive or natural. (Or rather, I have romantic and sensual attraction, so that part is intuitive and natural, but anything related to genitals is just ... why are we doing this...?)
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So in church they taught us that men feel like this and women feel like that. Without the asexual community, I never would have realized I don't "feel like that." It never would have occurred to me that not "feeling like that" was an option.
They used big, vague words like "crush" and "attraction" and "sex" and "desire" and "temptation" and "act on it" and "sexual sin" and "lust", and never explicitly defined any of them. Just assumed that everyone experiences attraction in the same way, so everyone who says they are "struggling with lust" means the same thing.
(And they also lumped all "sexual sin" in together, talked about it as if it was the same thing. From completely harmless things like masturbating, to sexual assault. How messed up is that.)
And now that I know I'm asexual, I realize that I definitely did not mean the same thing they meant when I said "lust." But I still don't know what they actually meant.
I remember back then, I used to talk as if everyone else was straight and experienced attraction the same way I did. "You know when you like a boy, and you feel [some specific thing I felt]..." I didn't stop to define terms or check if other people understood what I was talking about. I didn't realize I was making huge assumptions about how other people experience attraction. How could I? How could I have known I should take those things into consideration, when Christian role models in my life all told me "this is how you feel" as if all women feel the same way?
No, it wasn't until I found the concept of asexuality that I learned that people don't all "feel the same way." Everyone is unique, and the asexual community has given me the language to talk about my feelings and desires and discover how they may be the same or different from other people.
It really helps, knowing that I'm different and I don't have to think up some convoluted way to convince myself that actually yes I do feel those things that everybody supposedly feels. I wish I had known that a long time ago. Back when I was "good" and "pure", I didn't have a clue.
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Related:
Miss me with your "we are all sexually broken" hot takes. I'm asexual.
The First Time I Heard Of Asexuality ...
Scripts
A Post About Masturbation
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This post is part of the September 2018 Carnival of Aces. This month's theme is "Asexuality Before AVEN."
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