Sexuality and labeling is weird and I want to talk about it.
This is all focused on my own experiences.
Honestly, I have no exact reason to post this, especially since I have homework that was due yesterday that I still haven’t finished, but oh well.
Back when I was really active on queer spaces (I genuinely used to be one of the moderators of a pretty large Amino. I spoke with so many people about so many things. It’s impressive that I even managed to do that), I used to really investigate as many labels as I could. I knew about so many obscure gender, romantic, and sexual identities just for the sake of helping other people find their own.
I guess that I was, in one way or another, searching for my own identity. At that point in my life, I would have described my identity as panromantic, asexual, and demiromantic. I was okay with that definition. I was someone who didn’t experience sexual attraction, and felt little romantic attraction unless it was to someone close, in which case, their gender or identity didn’t matter.
I liked finding labels for myself. Finding something in the gender department was a tad bit harder. I identified with pangender and liked it.
I drifted apart from the community and just stopped engaging in queer spaces like that all together.
I constantly debated whether or not I was more aroflux than demiromantic, so for a while I’d just use them interchangeably.
Around that time, I came out for the first and only time.
Hear me out, I consider these things important, but I’ve always had the idea that I’m just never gonna come out to anyone. I’d be fine with that. I’m me. That’s enough. I don���t own anyone any pretty words to describe my identity. (I did like the flags though).
This time I came out, I tried to do this same explanation, plus some other xenogenders and more obscure identities that I somewhat identified with, while adding the flags as well:
“I’m pangender, which means that I identify with all genders and with none of them at the same time. Between that pangender identity, there are xenogenders, which refers to genders that can’t be described in the usual “masculine”, “feminine”, and “androgynous” ways. I use neopronouns, which refers to pronouns other that “he”, “she”, and “they”. I use xe/xem pronouns and strongly resonate with them. I’m asexual, so I don’t experience sexual attraction. I’m panromantic, demiromantic, and aroflux, which means that I don’t experience romantic attraction, except for when I do, in which case it tends to be for people who I have a strong emotional bond with. This person/people could be of any gender. I don’t care about looks, identity, anything. Just personality~”
Fun fact, to this day, even after so many years of using xe/xem pronouns, not a single person has ever referred to me with them. None of my neopronouns. Not even once.
The reaction, of course, silence from the group chat.
Some questions. Other than that, nothing.
Honestly, people don’t expect you to go on and come out, identifying with microlables. People expect you to identify with the classic sexualities, all of those in the acronym. LGBT. (That’s why I like to extend that bastard as much as I can while still making it “socially acceptable” so people don’t look at me weirdly. LGBTQIA2S+).
Honestly, I don’t know what I expected. I had a similar conversation with a cousin. It’s was like 1am and we were chatting, and he said “oh, well, but we did need the “gay cousin””. I told him it was me, he told me that it was him. We just repeated those things for a while. Eventually, I genuinely asked him if he meant it. I told him I did. He told me he did. We came out to each other. I guessed his sexuality correctly, I explained each of my identities carefully.
Next time we saw each other, we talked about it. I came out, explained each label again. He hadn’t heard about a single one of them. I told him my preferred pronouns, my odd disconnect with my given name, and things like that.
He seemed to have forgotten by the next time. He referred to me with that name, which is fine, but the pronouns. Those hurt. I wasn’t gonna say anything though. It’s been years, I still haven’t.
Not so long ago, he came out to me. I accepted him, used his pronouns, addressed him by his name (which I don’t know how he spells, by the way, cause this is Latinoamérica and you can never asume how someone writes their name, we have like a thousand different ways to write each one). I came out again. I repeated my crisis with my name. My pronouns. Has he used them? I haven’t got a clue. We haven’t been able to speak one on one for a while. I miss him.
I guess that these experiences of coming out, plus an almost forced outing and an actual forced outing, neither of which I’m gonna expand upon, made myself look at my own identity differently. I started considering the identity of unlabeled.
I like labels. I liked labeling myself. It meant having a community of others like me. A space.
I started feeling disconnected from them, in a weird way, at least. Am I technically all of those things? Yes. Do those terms explain me correctly? Not really??
I’ve slowly just gone on to identify myself as me. I love love, I love everyone and everything. I want to have a relationship, marry, hell, maybe even sex. I don’t know. I like the idea of those things. I can’t picture myself as actually being in any of those, but I like to believe that they will come someday, and that I will enjoy them.
I love in a nonconventional way. For me, love is love, no matter whether or not it is sexual, romantic, platonic, or anything else.
My gender? It is yes and no. Everything and nothing. It doesn’t matter, yet it does.
I don’t understand, even after so many years of being in both the aro and ace spectrums, what the hell is “attraction”. I guess I just don’t feel those. Isn’t that the definition of both of those terms? Yes.
It’s truly been years, and until recently did I manage to open my eyes and tell myself “even without attraction, you can have a relationship. You can have sex”.
It was so contradictory to me. If I don’t have attraction, do I just not want those things? In my case, I do want them, I am attracted to the idea. Whenever it comes to people, it’s harder though. I’m terrified of people. I want a relationship. I want to have sex. I want to understand.
What even is attraction???
I identify as unlabeled, but I am in denial.
I am unlabeled, but only in my head.
Hell, not even there.
I’m not gonna come out to anyone as that. If anyone asks, I’ll make a simplified version of what I’ve always said. “Aroace and panromantic. Gender? Good question”.
Do any labels actually identify me? Yes and no. I’m disconnected from them. I want them to fit. They fit. But they don’t.
I’m me. That’s enough.
Is it enough?
I try each day to convince myself that it is.
I also don’t know.
-Mori (They/Xem)
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Bi Mike this, Gay Mike that (I'm a Bi mike truther myself) but I also think there are interesting options that I doubt the show will ever go for, mainly because it's harder to explain in the context of the 80s.
Like Demi Mike, who doesn't experience feelings for someone until he forms a really close bond. Who was always self conscious when Lucas and Dustin were talking about girls because how does he know if he likes them? Or if they were cute? He barely knew them. Demi Mike, who wasn't focused on El as a romantic interest until the others mentioned it, and he thought 'oh am I acting like I like her? Maybe I do? But then, as he got closer with her and bonded, the feelings started to come, but maybe not as strongly as they should. He isn't sure.
That is until his best friend, who he's been closest to out of the group for years, who he almost lost once, is moving away, and he feels something different flutter in his chest. And that feeling only continues to grow as the two drift apart. Maybe he isn't even sure what it is, because he's never felt these feelings so strongly before but suddenly Will is the most beautiful person he's ever seen and he doesn't know what to do about it.
And like I said, I don't expect the show to fully explain all of that. Like, I actually don't expect Mike to realize it's a part of his sexuality until he's much older, and being Demi is more known.
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