This text is a translation of Confessions of an asexual Slut, Part 3: Doin'It , edited by David Jay in January 2007.
I base my privacy on my communities. That means that what most people do in their relationship with their small (e) friend (s), their husband or wife, I do in my relationship with my entire community. As I am asexual, I could not go out with someone in the strict sense even if I wanted. And for a long time it was really confusing, because if I was dating someone, I had no way of knowing who I was supposed to be in love and were just friends. Without boxes like this where to put their relations with others, many people feel lonely and isolated. For this reason people who can not be with someone in the traditional sense, like asexuals, are looking for less traditional ways of seeing relationships. These will go out with someone without having sex with radically redefine the way we describe and categorize the relationship, through the mixture of elements from traditional romantic relationships and traditional relations of friendship. Intimacy is based on the communities to see a system that supports the relationships that we can not assign of particular importance to (e) small (e) friend (s), or even a small core of partners. The central idea is that we see every relationship the same way as the others, because all relationships have their importance. Here is an overview of how it presents itself to me right now.
I have three primary relationships, a dozen secondary relationships, and still about a hundred people with whom I interact. One of these key relationships is with someone, and the two others are with groups, which means I have about nine people in total, which collectively constitute what is for most people (on) a small (e ) Friend (s). It has its advantages and disadvantages. It is relatively stable and there is plenty of variety, but the schedule can be a nightmare. I shall return later.
I begin my primary relationship the more traditional, with my girlfriend Karuna. Karuna and I've always had a very strong and creative. We're both very public people, and our relationship is built around the support we give each other when one of us must take risks. We sang karaoke, we improvised chorea complicated on the dance floor, and we spent hours sipping tea in reflecting on our lives. When we find ourselves, there's always this energy Creation and support us, which I learned to count. Thanks in part to her that I do more to stress the idea of being on television.
See you once a week or more, usually to do things that involve a lot of laughter and speech in public. We share the love and we intend to continue to be there for each other, at least for now. Karuna also has a boyfriend, and it is clear that her relationship with him and his relationship with me are complementary. I start to become friends with him too.
My primary relationship is with following On Your Left , an activist group who likes to tell gossip, dancing, going on adventures and make sophisticated tub. As my relationship is with three people, not just one, it is more reliable (since it is almost certain that at least one group member will be there), but it's harder to feel the intense emotional connection type that one can have in a relationship with both. This is not a problem; support, comfort and reflection are what I get from my relationship with Karuna. My relationship with On Your Left is where test limits and break the laws, even if it really does not violate the law at the service of social justice. See you once a week to make twenty km cycling and skating in San Francisco. We spend the first half of the hike to discuss political issues in San Francisco and around the world, and the second half chatting about our love lives. We also found the weekend to eat and go dancing, and our roots activists make us a home to conduct political activities. A few hours ago, we all gathered to oppose an advertising campaign several million dollars, with some remarkable results.
So now, I have a place where I'm at the shelter and a place to excite me, the only thing missing is a place to be comfortable. It's fine intensity, but in my experience, the more difficult in a relationship is to be comfortable together without doing anything special. Pizza the Hut, a loosely formed group of my roommates and their closest friends, is my family and my ties here in San Francisco. For a year and a half since I live here, has forged ties fabulous, and I know that whatever happens, I will have a place where I can relax, talk nonsense and let everything else fade away.
It's called Pizza Hut, because when I moved, someone remarked that with three boys in a single apartment, all that would be in our fridge frozen pizzas and beer. It is the kind of vegetables do our donuts and watching Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy . In fact, we did exactly that at least once every six weeks. It has much fun to decorate the lounge (pirates), cooking (images and pork products) and bathroom (famous actors in a bathtub or in awkward sexual positions). It is to eat together, we go on weekends, and there are countless traditions that has accumulated.
These three relationships are central to my life. I'm doing thing with each person or group once a week or more, and three of them they give me a lot of experiences I want in my life, whether dance, fight for the ideas which I believe, or cook meals refined. For the rest, there are my secondary relationships, friends I see less frequently or are far away, completing the rest of my life and my schedule. These are people or groups of people I see once or twice a month. These relationships can be as varied as the services of a professional performing artists, or new promising vying for the status page.
Do the math: if I work full time, devotes one evening a week to each of my three primary relationships and an evening every two to four weeks to my secondary relationships, discussed from time to time with the hundreds of people floating in limbo relations, dedicating ten to twenty hours AVEN week, and leaves me time to meet people, you really have that I link. It's a little overwhelming at times. There are certainly disadvantages compared with other ways, traditionally love to live relationships. Keep abreast of what's happening is harder, and although there is much less involved in each relationship, it is almost guaranteed that at any time there will be stories somewhere in the social network. For better or for worse, we do not feel the kind of intense feeling that people who focus on a partner. I do not fall in love like some of my friends, because falling in love means that for a moment you have a person who is everything to you.
On the other hand, it usually happens much more in a community that anything could happen with one person. An entire community will not leave a note raging before slamming the door. If a relationship goes, there are always other to balance. As I have many relationships that I can count, it is rare that I can not have the support I need, and as things are still moving, I am never bored and I do not feel trapped.
But frankly, practicalities aside, the power is most exciting. Whenever VolunteerMatch * seeks to hire people in my office gave me a pile of resumes of friends and acquaintances, and I do take five or six. At every election, I can argue a hundred to a thousand votes for one candidate or the camp that I choose, as soon as my community is mobilized to go pounding the pavement. Much can be done as a couple, but a community's unique ability to unite for change the world around it makes the possibilities I have with mine virtually endless. So if one of you concentrate all his hopes and dreams on that special person, take time to reflect on what might happen if you multiply your love.
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* audios VolunteerMatch David worked when the article was written.
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