Weird Cult Stuff

I heard a lot of derogatory things about gay people when I was growing up, but you know which one stuck with me the most?

It wasn’t that gay people are going to burn in hell, or that they all deserve to get AIDS, or that in the old days gay people used to be ‘hung from the trees,’ or that being gay is against god’s plan, or that gay people make horrible parents, or that gay people might turn you gay if you become friends with them, or that gay people are pedophiles, or that gay people are vain and ridiculous, or addicted to sex, or are vulgar, or any of those or a hundred other things I heard.

What stuck, really deep into my self-image, was that being gay is lazy, weak, and selfish.

And in my experience it has been none of those things.

I remember my dad saying that “being gay is lazy: it’s easy to love someone who is like yourself, you don’t have to work at it,” but I also remember him saying, “love is the opposite of selfishness.” I think I’d rather remember him for the latter. Being gay has not been selfish for me, it has been moving across the country and changing jobs and changing my life for someone I love dearly. It’s meant midnight phone calls, and double shifts of overtime, and working through panic attacks, and having to be brave to hold hands in public, and a hundred other things and it’s meant receiving all those things too, in return. It’s required so much bravery and facing ridicule and saying “okay I’ll deal with the shame.” It was never weak, it was never lazy. And it hasn’t been selfish. Just because it hurts the church or god’s or my parents’ feelings doesn’t make it selfish: they just stake their feelings on the wrong things.

Every time I see those things about asexuality that are like “literally who would hate asexuals?? Why?? They’re doing nothing!” I do understand the sentiment, but I also know a whole group of who would and why.

To many of the people in my family and home community:

Cute, huh? That’s Paul for ya. The rest of the chapter gets much worse.

ANYWAY.

If you’re asexual and want to do any kind of dating, or want to openly identify as lgbtq+, you’re opening yourself up to a lot of pushback and homophobia from communities/families like mine and that sucks. And, before/without coming out, you’re likely to experience a lot of pressure to have sex, get married, have children, etc. and it can be really difficult to go through sexual relationships, interactions, and interventions that you don’t want to be in, in an effort to “fix your attitude toward sex” or just “do your job” and fulfill your “natural use,” etc. It can be painful and humiliating and you can feel a lot of shame having to do things and talk about things with people when you don’t want to.

If you don’t want to have sex, if you don’t experience attraction at all, that’s okay. You’re not defective. It doesn’t matter why. You’re still good. There is a place for you in the world. You don’t have to get better, or change at all, you’re good the way you are now.

If you want to date a girl, that’s okay. Love is good. You are okay. Hold her hand and let yourself be happy.

If you don’t want to have sex with your husband, or partner, that’s okay. If you don’t want to talk about sex or attraction or whatever with church leaders, or counselors, or anyone, really, that’s okay. They should respect that, and if they don’t it’s not your fault and you don’t need to put up with it. You’re allowed to say no. You’re allowed to leave. You owe your body to no one.

💜 🏳️‍🌈

Me: *mentions something about gay*

My dad: in the old days they used to hang them from the trees.

Me: 👀