This text comes from the podcast Love, commits, and Polyamory Weekly David Jay, released in July 2006. I transcribed adapted and translated. David spends another podcast excerpts, which are indicated in blue.
I received a PM (Private Message for those of you who are not on asexuality.org) on the forum, and here's what he said in response to Confessions of an asexual wanton last week:
I just listened to the second podcast, I found it very interesting and it really touched me in my problems / concerns with having to identify with asexuality. I think I refused to store it in one class and I kept hoping that sexual attraction happen to me one day (unlikely since I'm 23 years old) because I wanted to have relationships such as those enjoyed by my friends sex, just without the sexual component. You know, the person to whom it is more than all others. From what I understand, you do not think that's necessary or even possible to have a romantic relationship asexual. Tell me if I am misinterpreting what you said.
I also wanted you to share an interesting observation I made while watching my friends and me when we went out. If you go to box for example and we have a little too drunk, most of my friends will meet after a while (or want to find) glued to someone on the dance floor and will return with the person. Cons for me I find myself talking with total strangers with whom I have the most bizarre philosophical conversation. Funny, huh?
That's what I told him I would not say that romantic relationships are not serious for asexuals, as a number of us seem to have exactly that. But I really think we are obliged to consider the concept of loyalty in a way that people do not need sex. There is much to admire in the privacy of the couple, but it's far from the only way to get what we wants, the conversations described in the message being a prime example. These conversations for you and your friends for flirting may have the same function: both give you an excuse to meet people, enjoy the moment when we learn to know and be vulnerable and finally spend time s' explore each other.
is one of the things I want to discuss in this podcast: how to create commitment and a structure in a non-sexual relationship. I have already mentioned and I still talk a lot in the future, but one of the most important landmarks of the world is that sexual relations that include gender relations are with a large R. They involve loyalty and many other things that all other relationships do not.
Worldwide asexual, many of us have partners and thousands are still very close intimate relationships, but the distinction between relationships that include sex and the other does not exist. There are ways to replace it, which can find out who your partner, but the fact that we should re-examine this distinction and think about how to categorize their relationship, I think it makes us think (at least me and Other asexuals) in nontraditional ways to what are the important relationships in our lives and how to designate them. And I think this idea coincides nicely with the ideas of the polyamorous community today.
For those who do not know, polyamory is having more of a relationship (often sexual but not always) at the same time. Often referred to as the "non-monogamy responsible." The difference is that if you have a partner and begin another intimate relationship, possibly sexual, in the back of the first and you do not speak, you cheating on your partner. Conversely, if you have a partner and you say, "Our relationship is extremely important to me, I love you really, but I also want to explore my love for others people, "if your partner agrees and you decide to communicate about it in a way that suits you both, if you communicate openly with your second partner, in short, if you call for 80 hours week, this is called polyamory.
Where I see a report, it is that the polyamorous, as a number of asexuals, are obliged to consider the notion of loyalty what kind of relationship is important to them and why so much deeper than the classic "I'll find someone, we will sleep together, then we'll go out together, then we'll marry, Then we will start a family, and this will be my entire life and intimate. "
So, because of these parallels between (the way I and others see) asexual relationships and polyamory, j 'I started listening to the podcast Polyamory Weekly , which I recommend to everyone. Each episode even ended with the phrase "Remember, it's not only sex in life"! After listened to some episodes of the podcast, I sent an email to Minx (the person making Poly Weekly) to submit my podcast and discuss the parallels between the ways of thinking about relationships and asexuals of polyamorous. She found it really interesting and had quite a discussion on the subject with her partner and guests of the podcast. I'll show you excerpts and comment.
[Minx] I received an interesting email from David, this is what he said
My name is David, I am the founder of the site www.asexuality.org . Poly Weekly recently I listen and I'm a fan. Even if only a tiny part of the community sees itself asexual poly (AFAIK), many of us borrow a lot of ways to see the relationships polys. After all, it's a bit difficult to be sexually exclusive when sex is not part of the story.
It lets me pensive, because there is a time GrayDancer and I've heard all about the amoeba Susie Bright, people who consider themselves asexual. I mean, of course there are many more in relationships than sex, and there are plenty of ways to be emotionally intimate with someone without sex, but it seems a priori that it would require a new way of seeing relationships, another way to think about ...
I will cut off from time to time for comment. I have enormous respect for Minx, I think we all have much to learn from her, but I would just like to point out that. Do others have noticed that when we explain that to someone who is asexual is not for the first time, the person needs to say she likes sex? And even if it's someone who talks about sex all the time and is completely comfortable with the subject, it suddenly becomes a little uncomfortable?
[Minx] For GrayDancer and me, sex and BDSM are means of expressing emotional intimacy, but they are not alone. So for me they are intertwined, but I imagine how one can have one without the other for some people. I do not know, it leaves me pensive. What do you think?
[Karen] I think I struggled with the concept because I wonder where is the line that defines a relationship in this case. I think back to an article Loving More that talked about if we could have a relationship without sex, is what it would be a relationship, what it would look like and how do we define a relationship with someone ...
Wouaou! What makes a relationship is a relationship? It is a question really sexual. I think, and I know many other asexuals will agree, there are many parallels.
[Minx] Yes and it reminds me of something. I mentioned that I had a friend whose fiance fiancee spent much time with her best friend, and eventually ran away with her best friend to marry and then cheat. But what is interesting is that at the time the bride and best friend did not sleep together, their relationship was not sexual. There may have been a few hugs a little displaced when they were sitting side by side, but really no sex per se, yet it was an incredible betrayal and emotionally for my friend. And I understand very well. It was their emotional intimacy was overwhelming, even if they never slept together.
That's interesting! Whenever I was in a relationship with someone saying sexual and monogamous and I talked about non-sexual intimacy, the other person responded by acknowledging that relationships are more than just sex, that we can have friendly relations very important, in short, you know the drill. When you have a group of polyamorous together, which I guess have more capacity to reflect on relationships in the abstract, the subject of non-sexual intimacy leads directly that of adultery! [Laughter ] In this case, the asexuals become a band of biting buddies (I love that phrase). What is interesting, as I said earlier, is the idea that it really lacks a way to talk about non-sexual intimacy and fidelity. What happens if you have privacy without loyalty? Adultery, it seems.
[Minx] I think if this relationship had continued, even without sex, it would have been equally damning. I've seen the other hand, women tend to talk about sex: "The bastard, he slept with another!" Yet for many women, this is not the sex the problem. It's easy to focus on gender and make a scandal because of that, but so many women explained: "It is treason on an emotional level, it lies the problem. This is the opening up to someone other than me and I do not know, this is not sex. " So an emotional connection without sex is more overwhelming.
is a very good point, and I would come back later. Tricking someone is not wrong because they sleep with someone else, is wrong because there is a promise not to sleep with anyone else, and that promise is betrayed. In fact, monogamy and fidelity are primarily a story of trust, not necessarily exclusive.
[Karen] You're right Minx, there is indeed a degree of emotional loyalty in a relationship. That may be when that happens we can start saying it is a relationship. When I married, my husband had an affair with a neighbor emotional, and this time it was not sexual at all and I knew it. But I found myself searching the Internet sites on adultery and that sort of thing because it was not fair at all with me. And I really can not blame him because he was not honest with himself either. We talked about it again later because at the time it does not even confessed to himself that he was falling in love with this woman and they had a very strong emotional connection.
Does it remind you something too, a very strong emotionally where people do not realize what is happening? This story is a perfect example of what happens when you have a strong relationship but not the words to speak. She had to go on the internet search terms to describe this relationship, because there no words exist for a very strong emotional terms, sexless. This moment is really powerful. She is aware of this relationship, her husband knows, the other woman knows, but none of them knows how to talk. It's like they were pretending it does not exist. Maybe not at this point, but none of them knows what to do. I've been in this situation, with many of my relationships, and this can be very frustrating.
[Karen] So I read about adultery on the internet, and that's where I fell on emotional connections. That's where I told him spoken: I showed him the site and I told him "That is happening."
[Minx] I still wonder if, when people are not asexual, the sense of betrayal does not come from fear that it becomes sexual. Is this it would be different if, because they consider themselves asexual, we knew it would never become sexual? Is this fear disappear?
[Karen] I think this fear will disappear if two asexual together because they have established this definition, they have learned to see things differently. But if someone is asexual and the other not, it probably will not work.
[Minx] Oh, I wonder if it would work!
[GrayDancer] In a monogamous couple, I do not think it works. But I do not see how it would work anyway ...
They make a very interesting point in the middle of it all, saying that an exclusive relationship between a sexual and asexual is impossible because the first needs to have sex, but it would be possible in a polyamorous relationship. And there, yet these people do not discuss more poly. I would have liked them to, it would have been very interesting.
But back to what Karen said earlier. It said two asexuals can be together because we have a different mentality, that is to say that we have developed the ability to reflect on the faithfulness without involving sex. It thus suggests that people do not have that sexual ability. I'm curious if this is true, and what does this mean if it is not true.
[GrayDancer] I confess that the very concept of asexuality scares me, because part of my identity so important is related to my sexuality ...
I think this fear is extremely important. I will not elaborate now, I speak in another episode of the podcast, but it is something that has influenced the evolution of asexual identity today.
[GrayDancer] Losing these benchmarks then be tantamount to losing me myself. At the same time it reminds me of a discussion we had about the closeness of different acts and they were sexual. The difference between us is that to tie me someone can sometimes be much more intimate than receiving fellatio. That's why when it comes to rules or limits in a relationship, some prohibit sexual relations with other people but allow the strings no sense to me. The idea is that certain acts are evil, but a degree of intimacy is there. Where I'm getting at is that I understand very well how even being asexual one can experience the intimacy, eg * with contact improvisation and dance.
GrayDancer made an interesting point here. As the polys do not have the same definitions to the punch relationships and fidelity as monogamous (for whom it's easier), they have more leeway to write their own rules, so when he and her partner have decided to write the rules defining their relationship, they were a bit less related to sexuality. I'll cut the interview here. They continue to talk about contact improvisation, then spend the next topic is polyamory and family. It is also related to what we are talking, but I want to go back on the subject all that has been discussed.
We started with a reaction to my latest podcast, a person saying she was really difficult to talk about loyalty in a relationship. Then we had this conversation, which unfortunately I was not there, between a group of polyamorous discussing non-sexual intimacy that is very present in their relationship and they are struggling to understand, and because they have ways to integrate non-sexual things in the definition of loyalty. They find words to talk about emotional connection, engagement on an emotional level and not just sexual, saying, for example, "What defines a relationship to me what are the emotions, is something that is not only sex ", although they seem to be really hard to describe something. That's what I'll talk in the next section.
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* audios The contact improvisation is a form of dance.
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