I am the Gray Lady.
Being rather terrible at introductions, and given the personal nature of this blog, we’ll leave it at that. No need to drag in any more personal identifiers beyond what the situations I intend to post about would already indicate, to those who can recognize them. For those of you who do recognize them and can figure out my identity, feel free to comment if you wish, but please don’t use any names (either my own, or yours) that could possibly threaten my anonymity.
This blog is about asexuality, a sexual identity I have long accepted as my own, but one that I recognize doesn’t fit me exactly. I call myself the Gray Lady because I believe I lie somewhere in the “gray area” between sexual and non-sexual. I choose to identify as a gray-area asexual (shortened here to grasexual) rather than a hyposexual because my experiences of sexual attraction are so infrequent and low-intensity as to render them virtually insignificant. I do not feel comfortable forming a sexual identity because of this; if I were to label myself “sexual” and then try to imagine myself engaging in sexual acts, my mind would shut down, because I simply cannot relate to sexual material as a sexual person would. By contrast, in donning the label “asexual,” I am able to think about and even engage in sexual acts, because I have a way to understand my own disinterest and express it to others, so that they might understand and make allowances for it.
However, since asexuality is a largely unknown and certainly not well-accepted orientation, I find that I have trouble finding anyone who even understands that, much less the nuances of grasexuality. I have no outlet for my own expression, because anyone I would express my thoughts to would misinterpret them. In the real world, I end up denying my own experiences, because people define asexuality much more rigidly than I do, and perceive contradictions between my experience and their definitions. That’s why I’ve created this blog–to explore the thoughts, feelings, and experiences I have that otherwise would remain unexpressed and misunderstood.
Since this blog was originally created, I have started dating a wonderful woman who also happens to be a male-to-female (MTF) transsexual. My nickname for her here is Cupcake, and I again request, because it is now a doubly important precaution, that if any reader recognizes either one of us from my descriptions, please do not do anything to break our anonymity, and more importantly, do not go spreading her status around among people who know her in real life. This could prove to be dangerous for both of us.
Since I am in the position of being the significant other of a trans person (again–my ex was FTM), and have been friends with several other trans people since 2003, I will also be blogging about issues related to trans stuff. I have been an ally to trans people even longer than I have been identifying as asexual, and although I haven’t always been involved with it, doing some form of trans activism is important to me, even if it’s just an occasional blog post.
I expect, therefore, to get some readers coming here who don’t know much about asexuality, but since this blog is (or was originally) aimed at an audience that already has a vested interest in asexuality, it may be confusing for those of you who have come in here from the wider community. I assume my readers are already familiar with certain concepts that are not well-known outside of AVEN. If you wish to read along, feel free to do so, but I suggest you familiarize yourself with the content of the FAQs contained here, at the very least. For further information and more intellectual discourse, please check out Apositive.
Lastly, I will include a brief note to M, who in some of the earlier posts was mentioned frequently, on the off chance that he ever finds this: I doubt you will object to my mentioning you, but in case you do, I apologize. I would have simply asked permission, but that would have in large part defeated the purpose, which was mainly to provide a space for my own thoughts, to help me gain closure without the stress of actually dealing with you. These are all things I would have said to you anyway, if you hadn’t made it so clear you did not want to listen. For my own sake, as well as for the good of the asexual community, I feel it’s a very important story for me to tell despite my (and possibly your) personal discomfort. There is healing in it. Besides, if you read this and still don’t get it, I will have lost nothing, but if you read it and do finally understand where I am coming from, then that’s a much greater accomplishment than I can hope to achieve.
I try to present you in the fairest light I possibly can, but due to the nature of these posts (which I wrote with the goal of articulating what difficulties I had with our interaction, so that I can be mindful of them in the future), it may seem like a lot of complaining, and so distort my presentation of you. Please know that whatever misgivings I express here do not even remotely compare to the immeasurably positive, far-reaching effects you had on my life. You are my inspiration. Thank you.
