anghraine

because I trained myself out of real anger a long time ago. Thanks, patriarchy!

I've been meaning to make an asexuality post, but wasn't quite sure which idea to write about. Oh, I have ideas -- so many ideas! -- but none of the current discussions have particularly inspired any response other than "yeah, me too!" So I thought to myself, "wouldn't it be nice if something interesting popped up in the asexosphere?"

And lo, the Elder Ones of the Internet heard my prayer, and bestowed their bounty upon me. Truly, the Internet will always provide to its faithful.

Yesterday, genuineexpression at tumblr posted this description of sexual privilege.

"Sexual privilege" doesn't (here) refer to a single axis of orientation-related privilege. That would be straight privilege. "Sexual," in this case, is being used as it often is in the ace community, to mean "not asexual" rather than "relating to sexuality." Thus, sexual privilege is the privilege which constantly, invisibly, and pervasively benefits and normalizes sexual people at the expense of asexual people.

I was, I'll admit, startled. Oh, not at the idea of sexual privilege. I'd always taken that as a given. It was that this is actually a matter of debate. Sexual privilege is so far from being taken for granted that it actually had to be pointed out, and people still refused to see it. I just kept thinking, how can you not notice this? It's everywhere!

And then: oh right, they don't have to notice, because that's what privilege is all about.

So, I have thoughts.

It is not, not, not straight privilege. Neither does it deny straight privilege. They're not mutually exclusive, they intersect. Patriarchal society revolves around heterosexual, romantic, male-dominated pair-bonding and enforces a binary conception of gender and sexuality. Thus, along the gender-sexuality metric, society grants certain privileges to people who are male, who are straight, who are romantic, who are monogamous, who fit neatly within the male/female or gay/straight binary, who are cisgendered, so on and so forth.

I'm not arguing that these are necessarily equal privileges. I'm not saying they're independent, or that there are units of oppression that you can add and subtract. You can't say, "okay, he gets fifty points for being male, then there's fifteen for fitting the binaries, but take away thirty for being gay and another ten for aromanticism." Male privilege can make the experience of, say, polyamory very different from what it is for a woman, as well as simply making the experience of being a man or a woman different.

Likewise, the interplay of sexual privilege with other privileges can also be ... complex. As an asexual aromantic, my society has assured me that any relationship I have with anyone will be less meaningful than whatever sexual relationships that person has, and certainly less than their romantic-sexual ones. I shouldn't lead people on to expect something I won't be able to give them (it's very much asexuals' responsibility to manage sexuals' reactions to them ~~which doesn't remind me of anything at all~~), but I deserve the chance to form meaningful relationships as I understand them, but I don't intend to spend my life feeling abandoned and devastated, either.

There aren't really any resources. We have the online community, which is great, but it's not like there are asexual resource centers or clubs. I could confide in my best friend, but he's largely convinced that, if asexuals exist, I'm not one, my mother doesn't think I should worry about it too much (you'll meet the right person someday!) or "diagnose myself," and I can't talk about it to my psychiatrist because she could diagnose me. These are things that asexuals have to take into account, but that sexuals, by virtue of being sexual, do not have to worry about if they don't want to. That is a privilege.

However, it's also important for asexuals to be aware that many of us do benefit from straight privilege. We aren't straight, and obviously we don't get the whole package, but if people take us for straight and correcting them and explaining and dealing with the fail bingo and all of it is just too much for us today, most of us don't have to. We can choose whether we want to have that conversation or not. If we don't, we can just let ourselves be taken for straight and enjoy the privileges that come from that. This choice is available to many asexuals and bisexuals in a way that isn't for gay and lesbians, and I think it's important to remember that.

At the same time, the gender-sexuality binary rewards everyone who fits within it. Straight males obviously benefit the most from it, because of the interplay with male privilege and straight privilege, but everyone who fits in gets a measure of visibility and validation that's denied to everyone who doesn't. The genderqueer, intersexed, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, we're all silently erased from our own cultural narratives, our experiences denied and then dictated to us.

For many asexuals, we exist at a place where these privileges intersect. An asexual can benefit from straight privilege, or be taken for gay and suffer from it. The normalization of the sexual experience erases asexuals; the insistence on binary oppositions compounds it. Elevation of romance as the zenith of human experience grants a veneer of normalcy to romantic asexuals, who don't necessarily have to think about the double-whammy faced by aromantic ones, subhuman twice over. The responsibility of managing sexuals' reactions to asexuals is placed on asexuals, and especially on asexual women. And so on.

Being sexual does not deny other oppressions. It does not prevent you from being underprivileged in some other way. But, like other privileges, sexual privilege gives you the choice to not concern yourself about real, systematic oppressions faced by people who aren't you. Society privileges your interests, grants you arbitrary advantages, and tells you -- and everyone else -- that what you are is normal and fundamental to being human. This is what privilege means.