Happy Autumn, and welcome to my latest blog post. Today’s post is a special edition for #AceWeek 2023! If you enjoy this post, then you’ll love my Historical Fiction novels! Find out more about my projects here, and sign up for my newsletter here to stay in touch.
Please note: Content warnings for religious trauma and deconstruction, queerphobia and aphobia.
Hello friends! If you follow my blog, you know that I am passionate about history – specifically queer history – and I delve into the fabulous and fascinating stories of the queer community’s past here and on my TikTok channel.
Today, however, I am bringing you something a little different for Ace Week. This blog post relays another sort of history – my own history. As Ace Weeks winds down, I am so excited (nervous? terrified?) to finally share my Ace Story with the world!
“Reflection” and reflections…
Let me take you back, friends, to the year 1998. It was the era of sitcoms dominating American televisions, skinny strap tank tops, Nickelodeon and – most crucially – the rise of the solo pop queens who would rule American music charts for the next fifteen years. To be sure – Britney Spears was atop them all, but there was another pop girl always right behind her: Christina Aguilera.
And that summer, Christina Aguilera was a featured vocalist on the soundtrack of Disney’s newest animated release Mulan. Specifically, Aguilera contributed the “pop version” of one of the most important songs in the movie.
The titular heroine begins her cinematic journey of self-actualization with a heartfelt ballad “Reflection” which her voice actor belts out amid scenes of a lush water garden. Eventually, the music progresses to the heroine herself staring into the mirror-like faces of her ancestors’ monuments (my apologies if I’ve described these specific Chinese cultural items incorrectly!)
Mulan is the greatest Disney princess. Fight me.
It is only after finishing her ballad, after wiping away her heavy makeup to stare at her own bare reflection, that Mulan’s journey begins. To her horror, her aging father is called to war. As most millennials will know, Mulan secretly takes his place, disguises herself as a man and joins the Imperial Army “to defeat…the HUUUUNNNNNSSSS!”
Even a superficial reading of that text strongly implies queer subtext – but eight-year-old me didn’t know any of that. After all, I was a “good Christian girl!” I had been raised in a small, tight-knit Southern Baptist church where even a breath of the word “queer” or “gay” would have seen every faux pearl necklace snapped in horror.
But here’s what I did know: I knew Mulan was my hero. My hero. The very first Disney princess I looked at and saw myself, quite literally, reflected in. So when I heard Christina Aguilera’s soulful, impossibly beautiful pop rendition of “Reflection” for the soundtrack (which I eventually got my hands on!), I was utterly transfixed. I listened, hit repeat, and listened to that song over and over and over again:
Why must we all conceal
What we think, how we feel?
Must there be a secret me
I’m forced to hide?
I spent years thereafter obsessed with Mulan: with the fearless heroine who fought for love of her family, for her country, not to chase after some briefly-met and poorly-fleshed out love interest. A woman who felt no limitations in her gender, who leveraged her wit and intelligence to outsmart both her friends and her enemies to protect those she cared for most.
Mulan (1998) Directed by Tony Bancroft, Barry Cook
That heroine was who I wanted to be. As a girl, I never dreamed of weddings, never imagined myself in some poufy gown, never hoped for a boyfriend. I was, as my parents always said, “off in my own little world.” I had my fantasies, I had my books, I had my sisters – what else did I need?
So to watch Mulan slicing off her hair, charging into the distance with nothing but her courage and her horse – I saw a girl who was like me for the first time. I didn’t know what that meant just yet – but I knew that I was strange, unusual, that something about me was just a little bit different.
Odd Girl Out?
And my peers agreed! I was the weird kid, the too-tall kid, the awkward kid who wore cheap clothes and cared way too much about school. I didn’t care about “hot” celebrities (Christina’s voice compelled me, not anything else about her!), I didn’t want bedazzled flare jeans, and worst of all – I couldn’t care less about the boys the other girls seemed to swarm around.
For the entirety of my elementary years, and most of my middle school years, I was the social outcast everyone tried to avoid. Beloved by her teachers for being one less problem for them to deal with, but disregarded or bullied by everyone else. In truth, my peers felt like strangers to me: who cared, really, if Kristen/Carrie/Beth was dating Zach/PJ/Dennis for a grand total of five class periods? As I came closer to my high school days, I found their vapid discussions of sexuality (a topic which, as a good Christian girl, I was to know nothing about) as strange and unpleasant as they all seemed to find me all the time.
Perhaps out of desperate sheer loneliness, I pretended to be “boyfriend/girlfriend” with another relentlessly bullied boy in my middle school one afternoon during what I think was a Science class. It ended thirty minutes later when the bell rang. Our half-hour relationship at paired desks did very little to improve my view of being paired up with anyone (it was his idea, after all).
My poor older sister, bless her, tried to help me fit in. One of her suggestions was that I become an N*SYNC fangirl. I did like their music; “Bye Bye Bye”, after all, is a banger. But my big sister showed me album covers (CDs of course), posters, etc. and assured me that I just needed to pick “one” that I liked the most, that I thought was cute. Naturally, she strongly encouraged me to choose between Justin Timberlake and JC Chasez.
I found it to be such an odd requirement; why couldn’t I just listen to songs and dance badly alone in our basement? But I wanted her to be happy, so I shyly picked JC as my “favorite” N*SYNC member (with apologies, sir, I didn’t care about you then and I still do not). She of course forgot to tell me that I was now the sworn enemy of the Backstreet Boys and their fans – but it was just as well.
This was, of course, the early 2000s; “gay” was still a bad word, let alone “queer” – and the only time I had ever heard the word “asexual” was applied to reproduction methods among some simple organisms in Life Sciences. It never occurred to me that such a strange word – both funny and prim at the same time to my thirteen-year-old brain – could apply to humans, let alone apply to me.
Purity Culture Princess
Of course, in the midst of all this was my upbringing within American southern evangelicalism at the height of its unholy obsession with Purity Culture.
Yes – I owned a purity ring 🙁
One of the most common myths that aces hear (particularly aces who are Christians or were raised in Christian environments[1]) is that Purity Culture must have been a dream for us, even an advantage. For those unaware, Purity Culture was a youth-oriented Christian movement which gathered mainstream popularity in the 1990s. Its central tenets are strict sexual ethics including no sexual activity of any kind (in some cases up to and including kissing or touching of any sort) prior to marriage; naturally, this sort of ethic requires a wholesale exclusion of the queer community as even existing, let alone pursuing romantic and sexual fulfillment.
The immense damage wrought by the Purity Culture movement (now increasingly discredited and the subject of backlash among millennial Christians and ex-vangelicals, to say nothing of a phalanx of therapists and psychologists) has been thoroughly documented.[2] What is perhaps less well-understood is the particular impact that the Purity Culture movement had on asexual Christians – most importantly, in their queer agency and ability to understand their own identity.
That topic is far too vast to cover for this blog post, so I will limit my discussion here to its impact on myself as a young millennial asexual (who had no idea what asexuality was, and certainly didn’t realize she was one). As I sat through painfully awkward True Love Waits programs in my church’s Sunday School classes (always taught by extremely red-faced, embarrassed teachers) and even in my own public high school, I always found myself nonplussed. Don’t have sex: super! Check mark. Problem solved – from where I was sitting, at least.[3]
The vast damage of Purity Culture continues to impact queer people of many identities
During my mid-teen years, in fact, I found the idea of sex far more compelling than any notion of the physical act with someone else. The best way I can describe it is to imagine a shiny, glistening stone in a riverbed. At first, the stone is fascinating and strangely beautiful beneath lapping waves and filtered rays of sunshine. But once the stone is pulled away from its brethren, its allure vanishes almost instantly: the watery sheen dries up, the sparkling light is no more, and all you’re left with is a matte, gray or brownish rock covered in pits and crevices that you couldn’t see before. So it was with how I viewed sexuality: in theory, the idea of shared physical passion sounded interesting, maybe even transcendent. But outside of my imagination, the real-world prospect of the act itself was robbed of its esoteric appeal.
So the evident fact that my teenage peers saw each other as sexual objects, and very much desired those physical intimacies, struck me as unbearably odd. It must mean that I was a “good girl” (eyeroll) and behaving properly as I was supposed to. The idea that I wasn’t all that interested, quite the contrary to my peers, as a defining factor in those results didn’t occur to me.
But Purity Culture isn’t just mandated abstinence in youth; it is a double-edged sword that comes with another requirement of mandated sexuality upon courtship and marriage. Marriage that I was, obviously, supposed to want and desire with all my heart. Like my intrepid hero Mulan, it was in this category that I was unconvinced.
Unconvinced, in fact, was putting it diplomatically. I was slowly, inexorably, realizing that the entire ideal of Evangelical marriage was anathema to me. The concept of “submission” – emotional, financial, mental, physical – to a husband in marriage was enough to turn my teenage stomach. The thought that I might be required to sexually satiate a man for dozens of years (lest he “stray from our marriage bed”) was simultaneously infuriating and disgusting. The very prospect struck me as self-immolation, a ripping apart of the fabric of my being.
But why? And why did none of my peers seem to feel the same way? Why did they so eagerly anticipate their weddings, when all I could summon was dread?
“You’ll Meet Someone!!!”
When I finally arrived in the halls of my high school, all of these eclectic influences of my formative years came with me stuffed inside my very hard head. Years of social isolation, utter lack of friendship and bullying had abetted my natural independent streak and razor wit. I entered my secondary education determined to be at the top of my classes, to succeed at everything I did, and most importantly – keep looking down on everyone else around me!
So who had time for romance? I didn’t, and I couldn’t figure out how any of my classmates did either. I was signed up for every Honors and Advanced Placement class that could fit on my schedule; I was taking subjects I adored (World History for the win!), my teachers valued and trusted me, and I was delving into extracurricular activities (particularly Model UN) that called to every corner of my overflowing heart.
Oh, I assumed that I would just “meet someone” sooner or later. I was supposed to, after all. That’s what all the adults at my church, my parents, the other parents who came to my softball games, always told me. You’ll meet someone! It’ll happen!
Whatever, I supposed. Whenever “someone” showed up, fine. Until then, I was busy.
The notion of personal fulfillment apart from love and sex is anathema to allo- and amato-normative values
Somehow, though, my peers were not too busy. Even my classmates in the “AP track” were perpetually dating one another, hung out at parties, kissed and did much more on the weekends (or so I was told – at the time, I just assumed everyone was lying because who is really wasting their precious time like that?)
But when I looked at the boys and girls around me, all I saw was competition – someone who was better at a sport than me, did better on an exam, who won a debate that I had lost, who delivered a better speech than I did. There were always peers I wanted to be more like; a few times, I assumed that had to mean that I actually liked them. With the benefit of hindsight, I realize that the notion of desiring another person for themselves, as a partner in any sense, was always (and remains) elusive to me.
But – you’ll meet someone!
Nevertheless, someone just never seemed to show up. Off to college I went, and I was busier than ever: a double major in History and Political Science, clubs and activities galore, my first real friends ever and gasp – parties! With people I enjoyed spending time with! All of this was a revolution to my social life; I began to put real value on relationships with my friends, offer them the trust and vulnerability I had consistently refused to practically everyone else for the prior eighteen years of my life. I learned how to share my dry, sarcastic personality with those around me and not fear being judged for it, and I found peers who adored all the same nerdy topics and global issues that I did. In other words, I began finding my people.
But even so – I had not found a “person”. More crucially, I was ready to admit the truth to myself: I didn’t care to find a person. Life was wonderful, better than it had ever been – what would a romantic or sexual affair bring to my life that my friends, clubs and hobbies did not? Looking around me at the seemingly endless breakups, makeups and romantic maneuvering drama, I couldn’t understand what part of any of it could be useful to me.
Every so often, of course, a guy friend here and there wanted to “hang out”. I loved “hanging out”! My guy friends were cool (that’s why they were my guy friends!) Maybe one of them was supposed to be the someone I was supposed to be eagerly anticipating? But for whatever reason, “hanging out” never turned into “dating”. I always assumed that was simply an indicator of non-interest from the other team, but I also suspect that my friends quickly realized that my interest was always platonic, and they weren’t getting much further than that with me – even if I didn’t realize it about myself just yet. They always had to make the moves, because I never cared or bothered to.
The story never changed – not even when I moved to Washington DC for my graduate degree and of course, my career. A massive, metropolitan area full of nerds just like me – there should be someone there, right? Anyone? No? Oh well.
Remind me – who was I supposed to be waiting for again?
This was all around the time my older sister married her husband, and I like to think that her wedding reception was the first time anyone affirmed my asexuality and aromanticism (although I didn’t know what either word meant, and definitely didn’t know they applied to me). My way-too-cool-for-me Nana (see Footnote #3) sat with me and my younger sister at a lovely, purple-draped table while my newly married older sister graced the various tables of her other guests. My younger sister slipped away momentarily, and my Nana made a comment suggesting that she would probably be hitched herself soon enough. She paused, and thought for a moment, before adding:
“I think you’re going to be a career woman.”
I was briefly stunned, but then elated. To be clear, my Nana adored me and my feisty, independent spirit – in no way was this meant to be an insult. She was acknowledging what I, and my family, and the social context around all of us, had for so long struggled to accept about me: love and romance were not my priorities, would never be – and that was fine. Amazing, even. Another facet of who I was.
A career woman? Sweet!
So when one of my college friends, visiting me in my then Alexandria apartment, suggested signing me up for a dating challenge, I found myself more than a bit offended. She laughed, cajoled and assured me it would be fun, surely a great way to meet people – maybe even meet someone?
Thankfully, she was smart enough (and had known me long enough) not to pressure me – and so I remained as carefree as a bird (save for, you know, trying to survive grad school).
(A)sexual Awakening
Fast-forward to my first grownup job, sitting at a desk in DC circa 2015. I can’t recall the exact day; at the time, I thought this moment was eminently unimportant. I was simply a young professional in her mid-20s, bored with reading emails on one very normal morning. Bereft of urgent work needing my attention, I quickly scanned my daily news sites and web articles. One random such entry – perhaps on Slate? – caught my attention when I spotted an unfamiliar yet tantalizing word: asexual.
I read just a few lines around the term. It apparently was a short article describing the emerging “asexual community”. But even a few words in, I found myself nodding along. It was as if I was re-reading one of my childhood fanfiction stories: something that felt like it came from another lifetime, but profoundly familiar and personal. I even remember the mundane thought running through my mind like a whisper: “Huh, yeah, that sounds like me.”
Do mine eyes see – a revelation???
Not a particularly insightful thought, to be sure, marking what in hindsight was a pivotal moment. But that article was the beginning of a journey. Slowly, in digestible bits and pieces, I uncovered more and more clearly who I already was. I read about other aces, the ace community, then the aromantic community, their intersections with the larger queer community (I’m queer? Say what now?) and their recent history. It took months, but I became ever more certain that I had finally put the pieces together.
I wasn’t cold; I wasn’t weird; I wasn’t deficient; I wasn’t heartless; I wasn’t selfish. I was – I am – asexual and aromantic. There was no mystery about me; in fact, there were MILLIONS like me. Each of us beautiful, important, unique and powerful expressions of queerness.
Even so, it took me years to call myself by those terms: asexual and aromantic. “Queer” took even longer. I had to try these phrases on, try them out as if I were learning a new language. In a manner, that’s precisely what I was doing: I was throwing off the remnants from the queerphobic, allonormative and amatonormative dogma of my youth, and learning to speak my natural tongue. I found that it was a language that included and valued me as I was (no need for someone else).
My Road Ahead
As I close out this brief retelling of my journey to self-acceptance, I feel I must return to the astonishing lyrics of “Reflection”. This fabulous song does not simply represent the beginning of my Ace Story, but also my way forward:
I won’t pretend that I’m
Someone else, for all of time
When will my reflection show
Who I am inside?
As it turns out, the someone I was waiting for all along was me! I freely admit – I am still on that journey. Still unlearning so much, still learning so much more from other aces and especially from my fellow members of the queer community. The difference from my youth is that, these days, I know who I am at last.
So when I see my reflection, I see all of me.
Thanks so much for reading! If you want to hear more about my work and future blog posts, you can sign up for my newsletter here and follow me on Twitter (@andreamariana89) or TikTok (@authorandreamariana89) for more queer history!
[1] This may also be true in other faith traditions also, but American Christianity is the one I am most familiar with and will focus on here.
[2] Christabelle Thwaites, “The impact of Christian purity culture is still being felt – including in Britain,” The Conversation, June 28, 2022, https://theconversation.com/the-impact-of-christian-purity-culture-is-still-being-felt-including-in-britain-182907. I also recommend “Breaking Up With Purity Culture” as a brief resource: https://www.onewomanproject.org/religion/breaking-up-with-purity-culture
[3] I will mention here that, while my family held to conservative views of sexual activity, my parents were always political and social left-of-center moderates (“Blue Dog Democrats”), thanks in large part to my Nana, who had grown up in the Great Depression. Although she was a church member throughout the latter half of her life, she brought a healthy dose of skepticism and common sense to any and all social issues which our evangelical community cared to opine on. Oh – and she was FERVENTLY pro-choice.