Flex-A
In my “The Hetto Files” series on Instagram I have generated such a wealth of useful commentary that I recently came to the recognition that perhaps I am not even heterosexual so much as I am “Flexible Asexual.”
You may or may not be interested to know that I have spent the majority of my adulthood intentionally single and abstinent. Which is both to say that I am neither a serial monogamist, nor am I holding out for anybody for any particular reason. In fact, I never was.
Not that it’s any of your business, but I still speak to the first person I ever slept with. I feel blessed to claim this. Because as evidenced by the fact that we’ve sustained by evolving through the roles we’ve chosen to play in each other’s lives; linking with that person was clearly (to me) one of the most intelligent decisions I’ve ever made. And I made it during teengagehood.
There are a million more relevant people and their accounts to go to if you want to learn about the construction of the gender binary, the sex binary and all the other social conditioning around the idea of heterosexuality specifically. I can and have delivered information on these topics, but not because I’m particularly invested in the relativeness of them.
Rather, I use these words as markers and posts along a road beyond the present day constructions of humxnity. So in laypeople’s terms that means that when I write that/say I am “heterosexual,” I do not mean I would not consider a relationship with a womxn, queer person, trans person or any other kind of not cis male person.
I simply mean that I have been attracted to cismen—regardless of whether or not that is advisable—99.9% of the time in my life. I know that non-cismen people are attractive because I am non-cisman people and I find myself attractive. But I have not been, seemingly or typically, romantically or sexually attracted to non-cisman people yet.
Similarly, when I write that/say I am “Flexible Asexual,” I don’t mean that I’m flexible at my convenience or even asexual at my convenience. Because I do not associate with these terms or titles morally or even on principle. I am just using words that get the closest to describing how I am with myself and how I regard myself in the world.
Rather, when I suggest that I am “Flexible Asexual,” I simply mean that I am keeping my own company, expending minimal if any physical energy on sexuality or sex or even my own intentional sexualness. I’m an asexual unless companionship otherwise proves relevant. Which means companionship must be equal or greater, more mysterious or more curious than my relationship with myself.
Obviously this isn’t an infallible system because that isn’t my goal. There is no infallibility as I believe we are—as humxns—inherently fragile and that it is just a temporary circumstance of our shared reality. Instead, it is a system of regard, timeliness and connectivity. As in, what is relevant?
I do not assume I will end up with a partner. I also do not assume I will not. Further, I have an experience of a certain type of partnership, but I do not expect that is the only type of partnership I may or will end up in.
Because I spend so much time with myself by choice and sometimes by circumstances regardless of choice, I have had a great deal of space to purposefully contemplate who I am and what I want. That doesn’t rule out someone I am deeply in love with being in my life, but it does limit who can actually take on that position based on the fact that I am so particular about mines.
Yet because I do not have a romantic expectation of my life in a society that socializes and conditions people to imagine this is the purpose of womxn or the feminine, I also do not have a romantic expectation of life itself.
My role in Existence and my duty to it is not tied to whether or not I have a romantic/sexual partner. It is not related to whether I do or do not bare kids. In my own head, I do not feel beholden to these things or like they are looming over me in any way. I know them to be an option and if or when they prove relevant, I welcome them in their own timing and in that version of myself.
So my relationship with Existence is direct. This is the case regardless of whether or not I acknowledge it, but I know that it is and am purposefully acknowledging it. Knowing that I am relative to Existence periodT, I can cultivate myself and my doings and my life from this perspective.
I think this throws a lot of men off. Especially because this cosmology of life allows me to be deeply in love with whatever I’m engaged with. While it’s you, it’s you entirely. And when it is something else, it is something else entirely. These moments can be years apart or day to day. I can multitask with the best of them.
Still, I am fully genuine while it’s relevant and perhaps that gives an impression of such intensity that men think it will last forever, hahahahahaa. It doesn’t. Or it hasn’t.
Asexuality isn’t fixed for me, it is volatile. In that when I didn’t expect it it has happened. And in that when I do expect it it has not happened.
Paradox is volatile. Mystery in volatile. Not being fixated is volatile. Deciding based on the circumstances, but maintaining a personal order of your way is also volatile. And love is also capable of surviving here in what’s volatile.
Love is as capable as anything.
Which, I suppose, is why I can be asexual at all. Because I am willing to learn how to love myself completely, despite how I may be tended to outside of myself. And when it appears to me that I have stumbled upon someone who can appreciate or love me in ways I have not considered loving myself as well as in ways I do . . . I am also willing.
In fact, being myself—whether “heterosexual” or “flexible asexual” or not—is quite a sensual experience. I am often beside myself with all that I am. Lovingly tending and working at what I am becoming. This is definitely something I both enjoy and need to share with people.
My friends, my companions, my family and my colleagues make this possible for me. They receive me and so they help allow for my cultivation of me. For that I am so so grateful.
In that awareness I must admit that I am not as cut and dry as “heterosexual.” I am not destined or intended for any one man just as I am not destined or intended for any one person (other than my own being).
Yet under the right conditions and circumstances, I am most willing to part ways with my asexual experience.
Rightness, success and achievement are not destination concepts to me. They are methodology concepts. I am always practicing and working to understand myself in more depth to hold right, successful and achieved space in real time. Not necessarily in perpetuity, though, simply because I am not monotonous, nor linear nor perfect.
I consider myself to be a person of great faith, but not necessarily a “believer.” If anything, I suspend my disbelief again and again. Not in a way that agitates me anymore, like when I feel my ideas or philosophies are “being challenged.” But in a way that I trust what Existence leads me to encounter. So if it contradicts me, I am more willing to consider the how and why of the fact that I think that I’m being contradicted!
Thus, if I want a romantic relationship but Existence does not lead me to encounters that feel like equal reflections or containers for how I show up, inhabit and bring myself; I have faith in my singleness and its purposefulness in my life as I sort out what may not be in alignment with me.
Concordantly, if I am single but Existence leads me to encounters that feel like equal reflections or containers for how I show up, inhabit or bring myself; I have faith in my ability to be a partner and the purposefulness of another person in my life as I sort out what may not be in alignment with me and how I am a partner.
I show up for what’s there. It’s one of the instincts I most appreciate about myself. And I can wait for a romantic and sexual partner to appreciate that about me as well. But I’m not pining or anticipating.
I’m on the road of being my most authentic self. When, where and if I meet them, I meet them.
