Dale Nixon Is Asexual

The other afternoon, I was discussing French theorist Roland Barthes’ spectacular The Pleasure Of The Text with a friend. This short book is probably my favorite work of literary theory. It combines semiotics with a grand discussion of texts and their intermittent nature. As with most of Barthes’ work, it is also about numerous other things. In this case, it is romance and sexuality which seems to come up occasionally. Barthes, rumored to be asexual himself, discusses romance and sexuality in the same terms that he discusses texts. Both are a jangled web of connections and intermittent ideas, never showing too much but always indicating there is something more hidden beneath.

Anyhow, one quote from near the beginning of the book has stayed with me since I finished my reading. This quote sums up how I feel about a few different things:

Is not the most erotic portion of a body where the garment gapes? In perversion (which is the realm of textual pleasure) there are no “erogenous zones” (a foolish expression, besides); it is intermittence, as psychoanalysis has so rightly stated, which is erotic: the intermittence of skin flashing between two articles of clothing (trousers and sweater), between two edges (the open-necked shirt, the glove and the sleeve); it is this flash itself which seduces, or rather: the staging of an appearance-as-disappearance. (10)

A few years ago, I dated a young lady for about six months. It was starting to get pretty serious when she started to complain we didn’t not have sex enough. I thought it had been fine, but for her she needed to fuck a lot more. I acquiesced for awhile, but also told her that if she needed to pleasure herself I didn’t care. In fact, I thought watching her masturbate was pretty erotic.

Why would I care if she did that? What kind of limp dick asshole would? I thought, because I loved her, letting her find her pleasure however she could was the right thing to do. But she wanted me inside of her, and I just couldn’t keep up. We ended on good terms and some discussions with her afterwards led me to first look into asexuality.

Penetrative sex is really boring.

Honestly, I’ve felt this way since before I lost my virginity at seventeen. There is nothing appealing about the act at all. Sure, it could be nice, in theory, but everything that goes along with it is beyond repulsive.

The big chase to woo the woman, the right things to say, the right things to wear, all this trivial, material, bullshit just for a few seconds or minutes of pleasure. No thanks. I’d rather talk about books over a cup of coffee or spend an evening with a wonderful lady and a pile of records or a movie.

I know I can get off, but I have a really hard time doing so unless the circumstances are just right. I have to respect the woman, I have to care about her mind and her body. I have to feel like, at least in some other parallel dimension where women aren’t treated like objects from the moment the doctor says “it’s a girl!,” I have not manipulated or used my privilege as a male to take over or control them. Unless they like that.

I can love a woman, I can be psychically attracted to them, but I can’t make love to them in a hetronormative manner. Apparently, according to a former girlfriend and others, this makes me asexual. If that is a label that works for people, fine.

On this blog I will discuss my thoughts and feelings about my own sexuality, gender issues, and my thoughts on being a survivor of sexual assault and how that has made me the person I am today.

My name, duh, isn’t Dale Nixon. I borrowed it from Black Flag.