Dale Nixon Is Asexual

I received my Master’s degree in English last week from a mid-sized university here in New Jersey. The past two years have been both frustrating and thrilling academically. I ran into a lot of backlash for my work and felt like I was being singled out at times for a number of inane reasons. On the other hand, I was published for the first time and stood my ground, for a lower grade, during the thesis writing process.

During graduate school I came to grips with my asexuality. The former girlfriend who suggested to me that I might be asexual and I had broken up about four months before I began taking classes. About a month into my first semester, I met a young lady who would become my partner in crime for the next year and a half. Quickly we realized that the other was just as smart, just as engaged with literature and theory, and just as antisocial. We spent time together before and, soon enough, after class. We began emailing during the week.

By the time I was walking her to her car before spring break, I was crushing on her so hard it made me cry.

But it never went in that direction. I confessed, rather easily, about my potential asexuality and even admitted to her that I had been molested as a teenager. That summer we kind of danced around a romantic relationship, writing a series of very long emails to her other that was clothed in hypotheticals and stories about our past relationships.

I made it pretty clear in my own way how attracted I was to her. She is beautiful, somewhat tomboyish but able to perform femme when socially needed. Her mind and interests made her both an ally and a very unique intellectual match. I was in love with her mind and had a hard time not showing it.

But our ideas about relationships do clash. I often tell people my idea of a romantic evening is two people, a pile of books, some coffee, and a good conversation between page turns. That isn’t exactly what most people desire in a relationship.

Eventually she met a nice boy who she is now engaged to. They are mushy and sexually romantic and honestly very adorable. I know we weren’t right for each other because I cannot do those things. I was able to come to terms with this in the past year since she graduated and I was left to take my final few courses without her.

I accepted it fully and now embrace asexuality. I think it is a fluid label that could change with the right person. But I refuse to try to change someone or influence them to fit my world view. She is very happy, and all I want for other people is to be happy with or without me.

Via SublimeFemme, (pictures NSFW) I am crushing so hard on Danish “tomboy-femme” model Freja Beha Erichsen. She is very aesthetically dreamy.

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.