Dissecting The Concept of Monogamy

Monogamy can be interpreted in two contexts. The common context relates monogamy to romantic love, and the other relates monogamy to marriage. In this post, I am addressing monogamy in the context of romantic love. The concept of monogamy has two common views. The first one is usually called "strict monogamy", the other is usually called "serial monogamy".

Strict monogamy states that a person has one "true love" in his lifetime. This belief is commonly held but rarely practiced. This belief is a direct derivative of the common imagery of the "one true love", and the fairy tales of the prince and the princess meeting and falling in love and living happily ever after. In this belief, there are two scenarios that can happen. The idealistic vision is that a person will experience attraction and love only once in their life, and this would be their one true love. In more pragmatic visions, a person is perceived to experience love several times in their life, but only one of their experiences in love is "true" love.

The pragmatic vision of strict monogamy is usually characterized by the concept of a "soul mate". So basically, the vision is that people live their lives, fall in and out of loves multiple of times, but those relationships that failed, failed because they were not with their soul mate, their one true love. So the people would be entering relationships in the hope of stumbling upon their soul mate, and having an everlasting relationship! In this vision, previous lovers are pictured as being somewhat inferior to the person that one ended up having an everlasting relationship with. That's to say, they were not instances of "true love", your true love is that love you finally got to after successive failures.

Serial monogamy states that a person can have only one "true love" at any point of time. There is strong similarity between the pragmatic vision of strict monogamy and serial monogamy. So, just like in strict monogamy, a person falls in and out of love several times in their life. Serial monogamy is also a commonly held belief, and is much more practiced in real life. The idea here is that a person gets a lover (usually with the title boyfriend or girlfriend), their relationship is maintained for some time, then they break up, and then enter into a new relationship. The difference from the pragmatic vision of strict monogamy that their is no belief that the love of a given person should be superior to all previous lovers. So in this belief system, you can claim that you had more than one experience of "true love". One does not have to denounce previous relationships as inferior to their current relationship in order to claim that their current relationship is sincere.

After this brief introduction to the various beliefs held for monogamous love, let's look at the implications of those beliefs.

Most people (I guess) would identify with serial monogamy. It is after all how most people conduct their relationships, although for some people their inner thoughts and feelings resonate more with the vision of the pragmatic strict monogamy. Pragmatic strict monogamy in my opinion is very insulting to the concept of love.

When I was first introduced to the concept of strict monogamy I was completely abhorred!! And yes, like most people I was introduced to this concept at a very young age. To see why strict monogamy is abhorrent, let's look at a very simple scenario:

Say that you met someone who you find to be absolutely charming, and that you find yourself in love with that person. You would characterize your love for that person as honest and sincere. In other words, it's love in it's most noble form. But then, you foresee that this person may not be in your life forever. That you may have to part with this person at some future point of time. And then you find yourself in a pickle. If you ever met someone else and felt those same noble feelings of honest and sincere love, then you have to denounce your love for the person you are currently with as "not true love"! This is because in that belief system you can only have one true love, so you either have to admit that your current lover is not the real deal, or that it is impossible that any future love that you experience is also sincere because you already consumed your one shot at true love!!

Such scenario is truly disturbing in my opinion. That if you sincerely love a person now, all your future relationships are a "fraud". Or that if you were going to have a future sincere relationship, then your current relationship is a "fraud"!! It is a very disturbing and counter-intuitive idea, and I find it truly immature to hold such belief!

Needless to say, labeling your relationships as insincere or frauds is insulting to the people that you love. So in this setup, you are being forced to insult either your current partner, or all of you future and past partners. You are being forced to value your relationships in a post-facto (after the fact) manner. Such setup obviously does not make the concept of love noble in any way, but rather one has to hold a belief of inferiority of all your relationships that did not turn out exactly the way a person envisions them.

The obvious solution to this dangerous belief is that a person can indeed have sincere feelings of love towards more than one person in his or her lifetime. To me, this instantly made me believe in polyamory. However, the concept of serial monogamy solves the same problem but with an additional condition. So, in serial monogamy it is believed that a person can have sincere feelings of love towards more than one person in his or her lifetime, BUT you can only sincerely love one person at any given point of time!

That's a really big BUT there in serial monogamy. And I believe this additional condition is misinformed. Once we understand why strict monogamy is problematic, we can easily see why serial monogamy is also problematic. I have already addressed this in a previous post, but let's get over it once more. As we have seen with the problem of strict monogamy, we are being forced to denounce certain love experiences as insincere because we perceive it as impossible to experience true love more than once in a lifetime. However, in serial monogamy we are being forced to make that same denouncement of the sincerity of love if our experiences of love happened to overlap in time.

So, for a serial monogamist, if they find that they are developing feelings and emotional connections with someone, they are instantly being forced to decide that one of their love experiences as being insincere. So, you either love this new person in your life sincerely which means that you should terminate your relationship with the person you are currently involved with, or you see the new person as a threat to your current relationship, and must destroy any emotional connection that is developing between you and that new person.

However, this notion is ludicrous in my opinion. The notion that the sincerity of one's love has to be questioned if they find themselves being emotionally connected to more than one person. In my mind, this problem at it's core is not in any way different from the problem that is raised in the context of strict monogamy. And for this reason, I think that anyone who has a problem with the implications of strict monogamy should be equally disturbed by the implications of serial monogamy!!

Again, the limitation of loving one person at a time is nothing more than a misinformed, not properly thought out, externally imposed limitation. There is nothing in our nature (at least for most people) that prevents us from wholeheartedly loving more than one person at any given point of time. And the introduction of this limitation does not make the concept of love more noble. Quite the contrary, it is debasing and insulting to the concept of love, and to the people we love!!

Polyamory, which is the belief that we can love more than one person (even at the same time), is the obvious and natural response to the problems that are being introduced by the concept of monogamy...

There are some challenges to practicing polyamory in system that idolizes serial monogamy. The problem is highlighted with the concept of cheating. In most relationship paradigms that are practiced today, having more than one relationship is indeed insulting to your lover. This is because for a person to love someone other than the one they are currently in a relationship with would involve cheating. And cheating in my opinion does challenge the sincerity of love one has for another. However, this is a problem of design and construction. In other words, when people design their relationships with the principles of serial monogamy embedded in their construction, they create a system where loving more than one person comes at direct contradiction with sincerity.

So our initial problem is persistent in such a design. If, by design, the only way a person can practice polyamory they need to cheat, then it is an obvious flaw in the design. The very purpose of polyamory (in my personal view) is that we do not undermine the integrity and sincerity of our relationships either past, current, or future. For this reason, the open-relationships design is crucial to practicing polyamory while adhering to the principles that compelled a person to hold a belief in polyamory. For a person to be able to truly love a person without compromising their integrity and sincerity with respect to their already established relationships there needs to be an understanding between partners and lovers about the principles of polyamory. So open-relationships is a paradigm design of relationships such that practicing polyamory does not undermine the concept of love, and maintains its integrity...

Blocking Advertisements on The Web

Advertisements are annoying! For this reason, many developers have worked to provide advertisement blocking solutions. I am a Firefox user myself, and I would recommend using this browsers because it is awesome. For Firefox users, an addon titled "Adblock Plus" is a popular choice for many users.

Adblock Plus, just like most ad-blocking solutions, rely on creating "filters" (rules) to block advertisements. Any user can create a set of rules to block advertisements. However, for convenience, something called "subscriptions" emerged. Having a subscription means that you rely on other developers to make the rules for blocking advertisements, instead of making those rules yourself. Of course, any user would benefit from using ad-block subscriptions since most users don't want or need to go through the hassle of creating their own rules.

Learning how to make your own rules can come handy since the web is dynamic and websites frequently change, and new advertisement sources come and go. Subscription lists obviously do get updates, and Adblock Plus automatically updates your lists. Popular subscription lists developers have made a great job of blocking most advertisements, so it would be a very few occasions where you will actually see an advertisement. Blocking an advertisement that is missed is usually as simple as right-clicking the image and clicking "Block Image".

Subscriptions usually have specific coverage and specific purpose. Coverage is usually dependent on language. So, you will have subscriptions targeting English websites, others targeting Dutch, French, or Arabic websites. The purpose is usually dependent on the type of things being blocked. Mostly the target is advertisements both visual and textual. Other subscriptions target what is called "web-bugs" which are used to track users. And finally, some target annoyances like "Share this" and "Follow on Facebook" links.

Personally, there are three subscriptions that I use (all of which are specifically made for English language websites):

• EasyList: Blocks advertisements. It is the most popular one, with "Fanboy Adblock List" as an equally competent alternative.
• EasyPrivacy: Block web-bugs and tracking elements. It is the most popular one, with "Fanboy Tracking List" as an equally competent alternative.
• Fanboy Annoyance Block List: Blocks web annoyances that are not related to advertisements or privacy. Unfortunately, the EasyList group does not provide any alternative for this purpose. This list is not recommended for everyone, since it might block too much for some people's tastes.

When choosing subscriptions three rules of thumb should be followed:

1. Try as much as possible to not have subscriptions that overlap in purpose and coverage. Some people might think that having two subscriptions to blocking advertisements is a good idea, so they might choose to subscribe to both EasyList and Fanboy's List. That is not a good idea.
2. Try as much as possible to stick with one group. So, if you choose EasyList to block ads, go for EasyPrivacy to block web bugs. Similarly, if you choose Fanboy Adblock List, go for Fanboy Tracking List.
3. Keep your ad-block subscriptions number to minimum. Same as the first rule, it is not the case that the more the merrier. So, for example, don't subscribe to a Dutch list if you don't regularly visit Dutch websites, stick to what you really need. That's why they make separate subscription lists, to avoid having too many filters that you don't need, which might hurt the performance of your browser after a certain limit.

Chrome also has Adblock Plus for it. It is not as good as it's Firefox counter part, but works well nonetheless. There is lots of effort being made to improve it and make it quite on par with the Firefox version of this addon. Opera users can also benefit from an ad-blocking addon called "Opera Adblock".

Finally, we come to Internet Explorer 9. I have recently learned that IE9 comes with built-in ad-blocking feature. There have been third-party ad-blocking solutions for older version of IE, but they were incompetent. Most of them did not even have the option to choose a subscription of your choice, but rather came with their own lists, which were not as good as those lists available for Adblock Plus. But now things have changed. However, the ad-block solution provided by Microsoft is not as good as that for Firefox or even Chrome. But at least now there is support to participate in decent subscriptions like EasyList or Fanboy's List.

At this moment, EasyList support for IE9 ad-blocking feature is unofficial, for this reason, I recommend Fanboy's List since they officially support IE9. Simply, go to the link provided, and click "Add TPL". TPL stands for Tracking Protection List, which is the name of the ad-block feature in IE9. A dialog should come up asking you to confirm your decision to add that particular subscription.

Going back to Firefox, for those serious about making webpages look as closely as possible to what they care for, without all the extra things that are distracting, check also Element Hiding Helper which makes it easy to create your own filters when something is not being blocked by a subscription that you want to be blocked. This addon is not for complete novices, it is better used by someone with ability to go through the options and fix things if they accidentally screw things up. The most common problem you might face (occasionally, not that often at all) is to block "too much", which can be easily remedied by removing the last filter created.

As a final note, which has nothing to do ad-blocking, for YouTube users I recommend a Firefox addon called Greasemonkey along with a very popular script that showcases why Greasemonkey is such a great addon, called YousableTubeFix. That script is also available for Chrome and Opera (without the need for Greasemonkey or similar addons). Highly recommended. Make sure you test the different options for this script from the Greasemonkey menu (you have to be on YouTube website to configure the script).

Richard Dawkins on Absolute Morality

In this YouTube video Richard Dawkins -a famous proponent of atheism- is asked the question of how secular morality fits in atheistic worldview. Very interesting video, highly recommended.

Many people claim that religion is an authority on morality, and hence provides absolute morality. However, reality is that religion is not the source of morality. If we are willing to give religion the benefit of the doubt, then the best way to describe the morality that is being provided in religion, is that it is no more than a set of moral codes of the people who designed those religions. It is the morality of some of the people that lived at the time that those religions were established (arguably, good people of their time).

In that perspective, religion should not be taken more seriously than an outdated moral codes that were quite revolutionary at their time, but are nonetheless part of a greater work in progress in the field of morality. If we make an analogy with the scientific field, it is no better than the discovery of atoms for example. It was revolutionary at it's time, but it is outdated for our time.

The False Dichotomy of Friendship and Romantic Companionship

In a previous post I hinted at the problematic distinction between friendship and romantic companionship. I have stumbled upon a very interesting post that expresses my concern in a quite eloquent manner.

The following are excerpts from that post:

I recently witnessed many discussions on how acceptable it is to pursue a friendship with someone you're interested in romantically, and I keep hearing opinions that are absolutely baffling to me. I hear things like: it's wrong, it's dishonest, it's not a "real" friendship, the other person will be rightfully furious at you when they find out, etc. etc.

It seems that, for all these people, friendship and romance are required to develop on absolutely distinct paths, right off the bat; otherwise, they see it as wrong somehow.

I suspect that the difference between us is this: they see friendship as opposed to a romantic relationship, like the two are mutually exclusive, whereas I see friendship as being a part of romantic relationship. Moreover, it is an absolutely vital part – I can’t have romantic relationships without it. All of my romantic relationships began with friendship!

Another point: friendship is not only a vital part of a relationship – it is also the most important one, by far! The most rewarding, the most fun, the most worthy to pursue. Whenever I really like someone, I’ll always be willing to give up the sex in order to be able to be their friend.

When I am trying to become friends with someone, it is because I find them interesting and fun and I want to be their friend. Now, I may also want to sleep with them; but I can’t emphasize the “also” enough. The romance is not mandatory – the friendship is. First, foremost and most importantly – I want to be their friend.

For me, spending time and energy on a friend is its own reward... Otherwise, what kind of friendship is that?! And regarding the emotional turmoil – yes, I agree, it can be not easy sometimes. But it’s totally worth it. (At least for me.)

source: Dishonest Friendship?

Although the concluding remarks in that post are a little bit off-topic, I am going to include them because I find them enlightening and address some issues commonly encountered in practice:

This post has a dual goal:

If you’re my friend, and you realize that I’m in love with you – don’t conclude that my friendship is not genuine. It is.

If you are interested in me romantically, ask yourself: if a fairy told you that she looked into the future and I definitely won't sleep with you, ever – would that knowledge make you not want to be my friend anymore?

If the answer is yes – that you’re interested in my friendship only on condition for the prospect of sex – please, fuck off! I mean it – we’re not right for each other, I don’t need you in my life.
But it is completely okay if you are interested in sex – as long as you are interested in me regardless of ever having it.

Nightmares That Kill 4: Who Are You? I Ask Myself

Infected Mushrooms in "In Front of Me":

Why can't I see what's in front of me?
I see the doors that I can't open
Adding locks from time to time
When it opens something blocks me,
and I'm asking myself why

Did I take the steps I wanted? Was it just a state of mind?
I feel sorry for myself everytime I close my eyes

And I fall into a hole and I can't take no more
And I fall into a hole and I can't take no more
And I fall into a hole and I can't take no more
(Well I can't take no more)
Why can't I see what's in front of me?
Why can't I see what's in front of me?

What's behind the door I wonder
Must be brighter than my past
Will I feel a little different when I take myself across?
Was it really worth the journey? Was it just a foolish task?
I feel sorry for myself when I open up my eyes
And I fall into a hole and I can't take no more (Full lyrics)

I have no nightmares anymore.... I have no dreams either!!
Have I broken?! Or have I finally mended?!

PS: Check Nightmares That Kill 1/2/3

Fear Ruins

Today, I stared fear in the face and it was ugly...
Today, I realized that a happy person is the one that can bravely face fear without hesitation!

Words From Ayn Rand: Love and Happiness

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.

Love is a command to rise to one's highest potential, the best and noblest vision of oneself. Love is a reward, the greatest we can earn, granted to us for the moral qualities we have achieved in our life.

Love, friendship, respect, admiration are the emotional response of one man to the virtues of another, the spiritual payment given in exchange for the personal, selfish pleasure which one man derives from the virtues of another man’s character.

A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it; action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving.

Romantic love, in the full sense of the term, is an emotion possible only to the man (or woman) of unbreached self-esteem: it is his response to his own highest values in the person of another —an integrated response of mind and body, of love and sexual desire. Such a man (or woman) is incapable of experiencing a sexual desire divorced from spiritual values.

Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.

“To say 'I love you' one must know first how to say the 'I.'”

To love is to value. The man who tells you that it is possible to value without values, to love those whom you appraise as worthless, is the man who tells you that it is possible to grow rich by consuming without producing and that paper money is as valuable as gold....

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There are two aspects of man’s existence which are the special province and expression of his sense of life: love and art.

I am referring here to romantic love, in the serious meaning of that term — as distinguished from the superficial infatuations of those whose sense of life is devoid of any consistent values, i.e., of any lasting emotions other than fear. Love is a response to values. It is with a person’s sense of life that one falls in love —with that essential sum, that fundamental stand or way of facing existence, which is the essence of a personality. One falls in love with the embodiment of the values that formed a person’s character, which are reflected in his widest goals or smallest gestures, which create the style of his soul—the individual style of a unique, unrepeatable, irreplaceable consciousness. It is one’s own sense of life that acts as the selector, and responds to what it recognizes as one’s own basic values in the person of another. It is not a matter of professed convictions (though these are not irrelevant); it is a matter of much more profound, conscious and subconscious harmony.

Many errors and tragic disillusionments are possible in this process of emotional recognition, since a sense of life, by itself, is not a reliable cognitive guide. And if there are degrees of evil, then one of the most evil consequences of mysticism —in terms of human suffering— is the belief that love is a matter of “the heart,” not the mind, that love is an emotion independent of reason, that love is blind and impervious to the power of philosophy. Love is the expression of philosophy —of a subconscious philosophical sum— and, perhaps, no other aspect of human existence needs the conscious power of philosophy quite so desperately. When that power is called upon to verify and support an emotional appraisal, when love is a conscious integration of reason and emotion, of mind and values, then —and only then— it is the greatest reward of man’s life.

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Ayn Rand

Compersion: Polyamory Realized

Compersion is defined as taking joy in the joy of others. It is the opposite of envy, which is characterized by feelings of spite towards the joy of others. In the context of relationships it is the healthy alternative to jealousy.

Love is a joyous emotion. If a friend or somebody we care about falls in love, we'd be happy for them. We would share with them their joy, and wish them the best of luck, and sincerely hope it will work out for the best for them. We would take inspiration from their smiles and enthusiasm...

Isn't it odd that when people claim to be in love they would express intention of compersion, and tell their partners that their own happiness is elevated when their partner is happy, yet if their partner fell in love they would deny those feelings of compersion and indulge jealousy instead?!

Isn't it odd that some people can share the joy of love with friends and acquaintances, but not their significant others?!

Cruel Man

"Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man."

Thomas Paine

Nightmares That Kill 3: Far Away From Home

Sometimes people have experiences that help them realize certain wisdom that is not commonly accessible to the common folk. Such wisdom can be extremely insightful, and I have been looking around YouTube for such an inspiring insights. Transgenderism is a unique experience and so I want to share a video I especially liked.

This video is one of a Female-to-Male transguy sharing his experience of how he discovered his transgendered identity. It touched me a lot at a personal level, and here are some of the parts I especially liked:

I knew right from the start that I wasn't a lesbian. And I think we just innately know our communities, so I just knew it wasn't my people. In a sense that was scary; I was like shit, am I somebody who is obsessed with alienation or what?!

So I think I had my big AHA moment when I moved to the little city I am living in now about three years ago. I went to see a show by this transguy hip-hop group, it was for female-to-male trans folk and sang a lot about their trans experience, and I specifically remember being at that show, and like first or second song I was like that is me, that is my experience up there. It was such an incredible moment, it was like that moment of feeling like I found my people for the first time. Can you imagine?! I never had that feeling like I was with my people, and I always felt like I was looking. And I was like that's my experience, but at the same time: "That's me, I am a tranny, what do I do now?! Oh my god, how am I gonna deal with this?! Is this really my experience?! Am I really brave enough to make all those changes?!"

In a sense, we have this innate compass of who we are, but we are always like trying to pull it up to find the words to tell ourselves... And a lot of the ways that we discover things is like in each other... So basically I just never had a mirror to look at, you know?!

Like when I went to this camp this summer I completely freaked out! And the thing in part, I had never been in a place with all trans people! It was really awesome but it was also really scary, because I also knew that I was not taking steps to be who I was.

PS: Check Nightmares That Kill 1/2

Polyamory: The Ethical Problems of Monogamy

I have always had ethical problems with closed relationships and monogamy. I regard love as great and sacred, and for anything to contradict that seems unethical to me. This is because our capacity for love is the source of ethics and morality, and to label love as wrong and immoral is such a contradiction! I was always amazed by the common belief that monogamy somehow is an ideal of love. This belief always seemed problematic, and in reality I believe that monogamy is anti-love and anti-ethical rather than an ideal.

The question that is crucial here is: How can you deny love in the name of love?! How can you state that love is the reason that love is wrong?!

I have found a very interesting post about the ethical dilemma of monogamy that states my view on the topic in a quite eloquent manner. The following is an excerpt from that post:

For most poly people out there, there's really nothing wrong with monogamy. Both mono and poly are valid relationship models, and everyone chooses the one which best fits them. I really wish I could wholeheartedly agree with this... however, I must admit that monogamy clashes with my ethics. And here's why:

It makes a person feel guilty about having a feeling that I consider to be one of the most important feelings of all. Our ability to connect with other people, to admire other people for their greatness, to be attracted to what we value (spiritually and physically), the ability to love – is probably our most vital characteristic in this life. Monogamy takes a somewhat controversial stance towards it – this property is considered wonderful in a person if he is single, but once he already has one romantic relationship, this very same property is labeled as extremely immoral and wrong. Well, newsflash, everyone: the ability to fall in love does not miraculously disappear when one finds a partner! OK, so maybe for some people it does. Maybe. For most of us, it does not; and polyamory finds this wonderful. In monogamy, however, it is usually considered very wrong to even be attracted to someone else – even if you never act upon these feelings. So, basically, if you're in a monogamous relationship, and there's this other person that you realize is absolutely awesome, then you should feel somewhat guilty. You should reject this realization.

And this is what ticks me off. For me, it's all very simple, really: Love is great. Sex is great. If a doctrine states that love and sex between two consenting adults is immoral, then that doctrine is wrong.

source: What's Wrong with Monogamy

Asexual Perspectives: Discovering Asexuality

A very interesting article titled, "How Discovering My Asexuality Set Me Free".

How Discovering My Asexuality Set Me Free

I was 21 when I found out I was asexual, and it changed everything in my life – my perception of myself, my expectations for the future, my understanding of the world. In a way, it more than changed my life; nothing was ever the same after that discovery, and I often say that a new life started for me then – that the person I became once I started identifying as asexual and seeing the world through new eyes was so different from the one I had been until then that it could not be the same person at all. It was a new me – someone with a new view of the world, different hopes, and far more possibilities.

I do not believe that I was born asexual – I do not believe that our sexual orientation (or our romantic orientation, or most of our other preferences for that matter) are already set at birth. I am not a big fan of the “it's all genetic” theories. I strongly believe that our environment, and the various things we experience as we grow up and later as we grow older, are what makes us who we are, and I think I can pinpoint some of the things that made me asexual, or at least some symptoms of that change taking place, back when I was about nine or ten years old. No, it was nothing awful – I was not sexually abused, I was not exposed to sexually explicit material, I was not brought up in fear of sex. But many little things happened and combined themselves in that way and I became asexual. I have never regretted it – I may not have been born asexual, but there are many elements of my personality that make this orientation especially appropriate and, indeed, probably the most suitable for me. Maybe, in fact, these elements did contribute to making me asexual. In truth, I do not care much about how it happened; I just think about it sometimes because I want to understand such things. But I am certainly glad it happened, and even more glad that I eventually found out about it; in fact, the only negative thing about my asexuality is that for so long I was not aware of it, and that if I had not become aware of it I would certainly have been very unhappy without ever understanding why or what I could do to change that.

Before I discovered that asexuality existed, I never suspected that I was different in that way (there were other ways I knew I was different from other people, though). When I thought about sex, it was as something that would happen to me someday – I would meet the right person (at the time I thought it would be a guy), fall in love with him, and we would “make love” and it would be wonderful, like in the romance novels I had read. I never asked myself if I really wanted this; I did not know it was possible not to want it. I never asked myself if having sex would really be so wonderful, when I felt nauseous and deeply uncomfortable whenever I read more factual and realistic (but not necessarily detailed) descriptions of sex, like in biology class when we talked about human reproduction, or the couple of times I looked up sex education websites. I did not think it was possible not to want sex, so it had to mean that this discomfort would pass when I met the right person.

When I discovered that asexuality existed, I did not think it might apply to me – it was too “special” an orientation, too rare, and I was not really aware that I was not interested in sex anyway (since I expected I would only be interested with the right guy). But when I eventually (for other reasons) had to question my orientation, asexuality appeared the only possible answer – and when I decided that it had to be the right one, I felt relieved. I had never felt pressured before, but now I was liberated; I had never thought that I might not want to have sex, but suddenly I was happy to know that indeed I did not have to – and that I probably would not.

Becoming aware of my asexuality allowed me to understand that I should not take anything for granted about myself or the world. I suddenly understood that I had choices where before I had always believed I had none – that maybe I did not truly feel or want things that were supposed to be experienced and desired by everyone – and I began questioning many aspects of my life that I had never thought much about before. This led me to realize that it was possible to love people deeply without being “in love” with them, to want to be close to them without this closeness being necessarily achieved by dating them, and to have fantasies but not actually want them to become true. It allowed me to understand what I truly wanted my life to be like.

Now, three years later, I think that discovering I was asexual is probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I do not think very often about what this orientation describes – my lack of interest in sex – but I am grateful every day for the many other things my awareness of it has brought me – all the choices I discovered I could make, all the new ways I discovered I could relate to other people and love them, all the possible futures that I now see open before me. Because I know I do not conform to the one expectation that is so deeply rooted in society that it is not even really formulated anymore and that most people cannot believe exceptions are possible (“everyone is interested in sex, or if they are not, then it is because something bad happened to them and they certainly want to be fixed”), I find it easy not to conform to social expectations in other ways – like preferring to be alone or not being interested in a romantic relationship. Knowing I am asexual has given me the possibility to discover who I really am and the strength to be who I want to be.

source: The Asexual Visibility and Education Network