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Didn’t even want to be friends anymore because asexuality was unnatural. (Okay, so maybe Margot didn’t say that exactly, but that’s how it felt.) (Like her identity was contagious and had the ability to make Margot’s above-average libido disappear.)
Alice (a steadfast believer in the power of hugs) loved affection but knew it wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea.
What made sex so integral that people couldn’t separate the emotional love they felt from one physical act? Love shouldn’t hinge solely on exposing your physical body to another person. Love was intangible. Universal. It was whatever someone wanted it to be and should be respected
as such. For Alice, it was staying up late and talking about nothing and everything and anything because you didn’t want to sleep—you’d miss them too much. It was catching yourself smiling at them because wow, how does this person exist?? before they caught you. It was the intimacy of shared secrets. The comfort of unconditional acceptance. It was a confidence in knowing no matter what happened that person would always be there for you.
your skin goes from snowy owl to boiled lobster in a matter of minutes.”
The bottom line was her body had never shown so much as a flicker of sexual interest in anyone. But that didn’t mean she liked being alone. That didn’t mean she wasn’t lonely. That didn’t mean she didn’t want romance and didn’t want to fall in love. It didn’t mean she couldn’t love someone just as fiercely as they loved her.
Alice had been trying to sort out the difference between romantic attraction (which she felt) and sexual attraction (which she didn’t).
She wasn’t sure, because what if he did? What if he asked her out? What if, what if, what if?
Sex, Alice had decided, was like jogging. All the people in the world could say it’s so amazing and great for you, but if you don’t care about jogging, you’d rather spend your time with a Netflix queue and a box of doughnuts.
Yes!!
“Asexuality isn’t something that’s black or white. There is a multitude of shades of gray in between. Being potentially sexually attracted to one particular person isn’t as outlandish as you’ve convinced yourself it is.”
Everyone talks about sex like it’s the greatest thing ever in the history of all the things, and I don’t get it. I kept waiting to want to do it, to not have to be convinced all the time, to even think about it and it just never happens. But like, even knowing that I knew I could get aroused—I’ve experienced it before.
If I tell anyone I’m asexual, they’re going to look at me like there’s something wrong.
the world pointed, laughed, and called you a liar to your face?
I want someone to give me flowers and take me on dates. I want to fall in love and wear a giant princess dress at my wedding. I want to have a happy ending, too, and all that other magical stuff. I want what books and TV and the world has promised me. It’s not fair that I should have to want sex to have it.”
All of this!!
The Food and Drug Administration didn’t know what they were talking about—one box equaled one Alice portion.
Give me all the cheese. All of it. Just throw a pound of it on top.”
cheeeeeeeeese
clowns were the devil’s minions.
And pretty cute for a Black girl.”
What did he just say?!
Cute for a Black girl was an insult disguised as a compliment.
I’ve never been with a Black girl before.” Never been with a Black girl was code for being a fantasy on someone’s checkoff list.
I cannot believe this guy. My melatonin was starting to kick in but his assholery really woke me up.
Through it all, being demeaned and feeling disheartened and dispirited, Alice was expected to be nice. To overlook the microaggressions when they continuously rained down on her and find solidarity wherever she could. She was expected to endure in silence.
:(
“Do you ever feel like everything terrible always happens at once? It can’t just be one hard thing—oh no, the universe or God or fate or whoever points at you, and says, ‘YOU WILL HAVE ALL OF THE PROBLEMS. ALL OF THEM. RIGHT NOW.’ And then just drops an existential crisis on your head for funsies.”
2020
Why couldn’t being asexual just be accepted? Why did she have to spend the rest of her life coming out over and over and over…? And once she did, would people always expect her to talk about it? It would always be a huge deal, she would always be subjected to questions, and she would always have to defend herself. Would it ever stop feeling like A Thing, a barrier, between her and everyone else?
is I don’t care about sex.”
“My sexuality is nope.”
If knowing you’re asexual makes someone see
you differently, then they don’t deserve to be in your life. My feelings for you are exactly the same as they were an hour ago. This doesn’t change anything between us.”
Black people have to be perfect, inhumanely good at everything, and even then we can fail, because that’s the way the system is set up. It is rigged against us.
even Facebook if she was willing to risk blind rage,
Facebook is the worst
