Labels Are Useful When You're Far Enough From "Normal" That "Normal" Makes No Sense

Label maker. Image source.

For this month's Carnival of Aces, the topic is "Labels and Microlabels." Awesome! Let's talk about labels.

So first of all, in conversations about being asexual/queer/etc, the labels I use for myself are "asexual" and "straight." I feel like I don't need anything more specific than that. When I was first figuring out I was asexual, I read lots of things about all kinds of different labels you can give to yourself, and it was helpful to read about it and see how I do match some of them. Back then, it was more about making sure I could fit a strict definition and therefore be "allowed" to call myself asexual. But after a few years of identifying as asexual, I have figured out that I don't really need all those labels, and I don't believe in "you have to fit the exact definition or else you can't identify as this."

For me, it's not about fitting the exact definition. It's about how, when "normal people" are talking about sex, I can't make any sense of it, it sounds so totally different from my experience- but when I talk to asexuals/ read asexual blogs/ and also blogs from other identities on the ace spectrum, then things make sense. I can understand what we're talking about. In asexual-land, not wanting to have sex is seen as totally normal and understandable. Wanting to have sex is also fine, but it's a bit unusual and therefore it's worth discussing and analyzing. So I feel like I fit right in there. Personally I do want to have sex, but only with my husband, but not for like "moral" reasons or whatever (like "cheating is wrong"), but just because sex is so weird it would be unimaginable to attempt it with anyone else. Is there a label for that? I don't feel like I need a label beyond "asexual", because in the asexual community, what I have just said is very much within the range of what's accepted as "normal."

And I'm attracted to my husband, and I want to have sex with him, and I don't really believe that's "sexual attraction" because as an asexual I totally overanalyze everything (with charts!) and I really do feel there is a difference. But to allosexual people, is there a difference? Why would that not "count" as sexual attraction? See that's why I say I'm no longer concerned with fitting the exact definition of "asexual." Maybe someone would like to make a case that I'm "actually" gray-asexual or demisexual, even though that's none of their business. Personally, I don't need anything more specific than "asexual", because "asexual" gets me access to a group of people who can understand what I'm talking about, and I understand what they're talking about, so I'm satisfied with that.

So, moving on: I'm straight. Or, I could say I'm heteroromantic, or heterosensual (is that a thing? do people make labels out of their sensual attraction?). Yes, those things are true, but I don't really feel that I need those labels, because "straight" covers it. Basically, as long as you're not talking about sex, my experiences are very much within the range of what's "normal" for straight people. I don't need more labels to specify my straightness (other than the fact that I'm not heterosexual, lol) because people can already understand what I'm talking about if they just know "straight."

(Interestingly, there was one time that I wrote a post about being a "straight ace", and another ace blogger linked to it and mentioned that it was about "hetero aces"- I get the sense that a lot of ace bloggers don't tend to use the term "straight" for heteroromantic asexuals. [Which is fine, I'm not complaining, if someone wants to say I'm "hetero" then sure, whatever.] This might be because they have seen a lot of hate on the internet about "asexuals aren't queer, they're just straight people who want to be special" and so the term "straight" is not something they have seen used when talking about asexuality in a positive light. Instead, they have seen it used to argue that asexuality isn't a real thing. I personally have not had the experience of reading a lot of anti-ace hate on the internet, and so for me, "straight" is a good descriptor of my situation.)

Recently I was talking with a group of queer friends about our labels, and one of my friends is nonbinary, genderfluid, pansexual, and polyamorous. Like wow, you have more labels than any of us! But they need more labels because their experience is outside of "normal" in many different ways. Just to get a baseline of "I understand what you're talking about", they need to have people who understand all of those different terms.

Which brings me to this question: Why might some people want to use more labels, and some people want to use fewer? Well, 2 reasons:

1. If your experience is farther from whatever is seen as "normal" than another person's experience, maybe you would find it helpful to have a label, but they don't feel they need one.
2. Maybe because of your cultural background, you have a different view of what's seen as "normal" than someone else does in their cultural background. (Everyone has a cultural background; everyone has assumptions about what's normal.) So you feel you are very far from "normal", but they don't feel that they are, even though you two did the same things.
3. Maybe it's not your experience itself, but the importance you place on the minor differences between your own experiences and the things you see that are held up as examples for "normal."

Ooooh, let me expand on point number 3:

Nobody's life is exactly the same as anyone else's. So when you hear other people talk about their own experiences, obviously those differ from yours, at least to some extent. Nobody else has *exactly* the same experience of being asexual as I do. So it's a matter of opinion, when you say "wow, this is just like me!" You focus on some parts of other people's stories that are the same as parts of your story, and so, in your opinion, what they are saying also applies to you. In the ways that matter, it applies to you, and the other things are just minor details that you can ignore. 

But, my point is, what counts as a "minor detail" is a matter of opinion. Perhaps there is some small aspect of your experience that you never see represented in other people's discussions of "normal". How much does it bother you? If it bothers you a lot, then it's worth giving yourself a label and searching for other people who also fit that label. Alternatively, it's quite possible that you've never even noticed that nobody else has this one specific trait that you have. Like, you hold your fork differently from other people, or something. (Now I got all my readers thinking, wait, do I hold my fork differently than other people???) Like that's the kind of thing you would never even notice, but it's completely possible that your fork habits put you in some kind of small subgroup that only 1% of humans belong to, or something. But, like, does anyone care? Does it matter? Does it make a difference in your life? That's a matter of opinion. If your answer is no, then there's no point making a label and "identifying as" a "low-angle fork-holder" or whatever.

Also, as I said in point number 2, your understanding of "what's seen as normal" very much depends on culture/ what group of people you hang out with. As I mentioned, I'm asexual but I do have sex- and the asexual blogs I read all say that's not an issue at all. Some aces like to have sex. Probably most don't, but some do, that's a fact, no problem there. And so I feel like I don't need to give myself an additional label to specify that I'm "different" from what's seen as "normal." On the other hand, there may be asexual groups where it's assumed that being asexual means you don't ever want to have sex at all. If I was in that environment, then I would need more labels to "explain" what kind of asexual I am.

(Ooooh, and there can be overlap between those 3 reasons.)

Another example: I have a friend who said she was pansexual, but then later came across the term "abrosexual" and was very excited because it fit her so much better. It helped her understand herself, made her realize that nothing was wrong with her sexual orientation, all that good stuff. She said that sometimes there are long periods of time when she doesn't want sex at all- basically being asexual- but then at other times, her sexuality changes. And she was so happy to discover the term "abrosexual" because she thought something was wrong with her because she didn't want sex sometimes, for months. And she had had partners who treated her like something was wrong with her because of that.

And when she told me, I was happy for her, but I had a hard time understanding why it would be a problem that someone wants sex sometimes, and then doesn't want sex sometimes, for months. "Isn't that normal?" I thought. How was that not already covered by the term "pansexual"? Probably 2 things are going on here: First, my understanding of "normal", as an asexual, is that it's totally fine to not want sex, and it's not a sign that something is "wrong" with you or your relationship. And second, I've heard people talk about "oh you get older and you want sex less, married people have sex less, you get in a long-term relationship and then you don't have sex as much as you did at the beginning" like that's a normal thing that happens, so I would have thought that my friend's experience (being asexual for a few months, occasionally) fit within that range, and therefore was something that "normal" people would understand, without needing an additional label for it. But apparently not. Apparently she didn't, and apparently her ex didn't. So that's why it helped her so much when she found a label that described her.

And one last example: I saw a post about romantic attraction, on an asexual blog, and it mentioned the term "limerance" and linked to the site Living With Limerance. This site defines limerance as "a mental state of profound romantic infatuation" and goes into a bunch of details on this page, and wow yes, this describes me perfectly. (Also there's a quiz, and all of it is yes, yes, and yes, I am definitely all of these things.) And here's one interesting part from the site:

Interestingly, when describing these traits to the same people that I queried about “limerence” as a term, the responses seemed to split into two general camps:

“That’s just love. You don’t need a special word for that.”

“Don’t be silly. Nobody really feels like that; it’s childish.”

Because LOLOLOL yes, my reaction was along the lines of "That's just love. You don't need a special word for that." Like, okay, sure, I fit the definition, I am a limerant, apparently, but, I don't really need this word? It's not like I'm having a problem because I have these experiences that I can't make sense of; no, I describe it as "I fall in love hard" and I see that very much represented EVERYWHERE in popular culture. You always see characters on tv who have such a huge obsessive crush and their whole world revolves around this one person. You always hear love songs about that. 

I don't feel like "wow FINALLY I've found people who UNDERSTAND ME" because I never thought it was something that was hard for "normal people" to understand. 

So it seems that this label is not useful for me, but for other people on that site, perhaps they are more aware of/ place more importance on the ways their experiences don't *exactly* match what they see in popular culture, so that's why it's helpful for them to have this word. And reading through a bunch of the articles on the site, I see that actually a lot of it is about what to do when you've fallen in love with someone you can't have. There are commenters on the site who are married and had emotional affairs because of this, and the site gives a lot of practical advice on how to get rid of those feelings if they are causing problems in your life. So perhaps it's not just about "oh finally a word to describe how I feel" but it's about the practical advice that takes it seriously and really understands the emotions and psychology at work here- which is *not* something you see in popular media depictions of people who are obsessed over their crush. (And also is not something that I personally feel I need help with.)

So. I need the label "asexual" because I can't make any sense of it when "normal" people talk about sex. I *could* label myself down to something even more specific than that, but I don't feel like I need to. I don't feel like I need to fit an *exact* definition, and "asexual" already gets me into groups where people talk about sex in ways that make sense to me. In general, that's what I believe labels are for: finding other people you can relate to, because you're far enough from "normal" that you can't find yourself represented in "normal" people's stories. Though what counts as "normal", what counts as "far", and what counts as being "represented" very much depend on your own perspective.

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Related:

I don't really use the "no sexual attraction" definition anymore

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