Dale Nixon Is Asexual

Growing up, there was a young lady a few years older named Donna who lived up the street. I hung out with her sister a lot, who, much like her, was one seriously awesome tomboy who played video games and sports and took no shit from boys. Donna was older, seemed so much more mature, and was nice to me during a time period in my life when not so many people were.

We used to play street hockey in front of our middle school after classes ended. Sometimes, if older boys were playing, Donna would tag along, sometimes playing even, to hang out. My earliest memory of perhaps some kind of burgeoning asexuality was on a winter day when Donna had brought along another friend. This girl was nothing like Donna; very “valley girl,” as they said back then. She flirted with all the older boys and portrayed the role of patriarchy cheerleader sufficiently.

We used to take breaks for an intermission every hour or so. During an intermission, I was taking off my goalie pads and then sat down on a curb to relax. A group of the boys had huddled around the girl who Donna had brought along. It turned out they were taking turns feeling her up, as the other boys cheered. Donna looked disgusted, but smiled when a boy looked over at her. Each boy would feel the girl up and then a cheer would go up from the approving crowd.

It came to my turn. I got a few pats on the back from older boys. I looked at Donna. Certainly, I wouldn’t do that to her, so why would I fell this girl up. Wasn’t she asking for me to do it, while the patriarchy approved with their applause? She was beautiful, a stunning blond with a nice figure.

I couldn’t do it. My excuse was that it didn’t feel right to touch a girl I wasn’t dating or some bullshit like that. Even at an early age, I was probably 11 or 12 when this happened, I felt like that kind of intimacy had to be at the right time and the right place. On the lawn of a middle school sure fucking wasn’t it.

The boys jeered. One said “I always knew you were a fag, realnamethatisn’tdalenixon.” Most just dropped it because I was already a dork who pissed himself in sixth grade and played video games all day and night. I often wonder what happened to Donna and her sister. Did they give in and conform? To this day, I find the kind of bodily touching involved with romance and sex to be something sacred and not to be taken lightly.

It wasn’t the right time, or the right place. It certainly wasn’t the right girl, not just because it wasn’t dreamy tomboy Donna, but because I realized years later how forced a performance her friend had put on. To receive masculine approval, she had to behave in a certain manner that subscribes to feminine submission and minimizing to a series of parts. Even at 11 years old, no thanks.

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.