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How it's going
a year ago
General
So, on Monday I have to do an hour presentation to my class about my experience of my Asexuality and how that relates in a gestalt therapy space. I've been doing a bunch of research and pulling stats from various GSRD sites (in therapy land the growing trend is to use GSRD instead of the Rainbow alphabet) Learning a lot and trying to squish some of that into a powerpoint presentation....I should point out I have never ever in the history of my 43 years on the planet ever built or presented a powerpoint presentation so im not sure why I suddenly feel like this is the right format for me to do my hour long tutorial thing. *shugs* Glutton for punishment perhaps.
Im not nervous, im probably more nervous about not being nervous, but I am feeling a bit battered and bruised from having read so much about asexuality and how it seems so wildly misunderstood or forgotten or denied and even legislated against, even in certain therapy text books surrounding sexuality it seems to suggest that asexuality is a choice rather than an orientation, and that just makes me feel weirdly angry. It makes me cross but that anger manifests itself in a need to educate.
It's kinda how I've felt about the whole being suspended last week thing, seeing various horrible people come out the woodwork to attack who I am with misinformed ideas, a sense of self righteousness that they're the good guys, spewing nonsense about what im into and what i'm thinking when all i'm doing is being myself.
The bubbling of an unfair feeling has churned my gut whilst these two events have been sorta simultaneously going on for me. Being swept up in sweeping generalisations.
Gestalt theory its about understanding your whole self and how you contact the world. I'm quite an anxious person in reality. I'm coming to realise that the anxiousness isn't actually IN me as such but that anxiety is a product of my environment. If I was in an environment that accepted my little side and my asexuality, my anxiousness disappears. So its a product of my surroundings.
How do I build resilience where I can contact a hostile environment without it directly creating that feedback loop of anxiety. I need to make contact with the world, I cant just shut it out, but that would be the easiest solution obviously, but how to build that security in me that i can withstand the onslaught of misinformation and disgust thrown my way. Is it possible? Can therapy actually build armor that's thick enough to withstand that, but also delicate enough that it just doesn't block out everything? That's largely the question I'll be posing to my class on Monday.
Im not nervous, im probably more nervous about not being nervous, but I am feeling a bit battered and bruised from having read so much about asexuality and how it seems so wildly misunderstood or forgotten or denied and even legislated against, even in certain therapy text books surrounding sexuality it seems to suggest that asexuality is a choice rather than an orientation, and that just makes me feel weirdly angry. It makes me cross but that anger manifests itself in a need to educate.
It's kinda how I've felt about the whole being suspended last week thing, seeing various horrible people come out the woodwork to attack who I am with misinformed ideas, a sense of self righteousness that they're the good guys, spewing nonsense about what im into and what i'm thinking when all i'm doing is being myself.
The bubbling of an unfair feeling has churned my gut whilst these two events have been sorta simultaneously going on for me. Being swept up in sweeping generalisations.
Gestalt theory its about understanding your whole self and how you contact the world. I'm quite an anxious person in reality. I'm coming to realise that the anxiousness isn't actually IN me as such but that anxiety is a product of my environment. If I was in an environment that accepted my little side and my asexuality, my anxiousness disappears. So its a product of my surroundings.
How do I build resilience where I can contact a hostile environment without it directly creating that feedback loop of anxiety. I need to make contact with the world, I cant just shut it out, but that would be the easiest solution obviously, but how to build that security in me that i can withstand the onslaught of misinformation and disgust thrown my way. Is it possible? Can therapy actually build armor that's thick enough to withstand that, but also delicate enough that it just doesn't block out everything? That's largely the question I'll be posing to my class on Monday.
I'd suggest the old stand by of "imagine everyone naked", but maybe "imagine everyone in diapers" might be more appropriate? :V
Seriously though, sounds like you've done a lot of hard work for this, so don't sweat it too much, and it'll be over before you know it! :3
Thank you so much for sharing and just being you! I hope the presentation goes well and that everyone listening will know a little bit more afterwards. Please keep being awesome!
Unfortunately, Asexuality is amongst the casualties of the current trend to deny rights, if not outright question the mere existence, of parts of the LGBT+/GSRD spectrum of identities.
When a high-profile individual states that there weren't trans people 15 years ago, that nobody had ever heard of them...
That says a lot. And even science is not 100% impervious to political machinations (look at how many studies are made with a result in mind and data is interpreted to push it, rather than the other way around...).
I'm sorry that you're embroiled in these shenanigans, even if just from the sidelines like this.
But yes, a need to educate rises from everything going on right now. And I'm glad that you'll get to do some, even if it's a small part. Because every part matters. So thank you for your service to the cause. <3
In the meantime, remember those old retro-projectors? With the transparent sheets?
That's an analog equivalent of PowerPoint; if you've ever presented on those, you've got the experience. Just press a button to move slides rather than transparent sheets of plastic.
You've got this, I'm sure of it. <3
As a white British person, my background comes from that erridcation of different cultures and identities and it sits heavy with me about how if we hadn't colonised large sections of the world and blatted christianity over various indigenous cultures and burnt down things we didnt agree with, (like the native american two spirit folk as one of many examples) how much richer and balanced the world might be right now. Rather than treating difference with fear, treating it with openness, curiosity and respect.
Different times, different values. And you'd hope that people have improved/evolved since then. Alas, we only replaced religion to a degree, and the strong anti-intellectualism current we've seen in the last decade or so has certainly helped bring back those... "darker mentalities".
But don't think the British were the only ones "guilty" of that; I assure you that the French,
PortugeesePortuguese, and Spanish, amongst many others, were just as guilty of this.Though I'm sure a British Museum, somewhere, has other peoples' fear and erasure mentalities... (I'm genuinely saying this in jest, as a joke.) ;p
And now look at you, bringing knowledge and wisdom to the masses and at the forefront of it all. You should be proud of yourself! Using the past to learn and make the future better. <3
Some elements can come from beliefs of cultural superiority if not racial but another is power and influence, something that can and does happen in many societies of all creeds and colors.
To me it's the thinking, the mindset any of us can buy into feeling it justfies that which needs to be challenged.
Yeah, it certainly pisses me off to know end that some people see asexuality as a choice or even just not being real, when it is basically just the opposite of bisexuality, being not sexuality attracted to anyone in particular. If you can be sexually attracted to either or both genders, why not neither?
Sex, not so much.
But, as Mark Twain once said, "Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn't." The universe doesn't care about making sense to us... or our survival as a species, really.
tho bi and pan people get a lot of hate from inside the community aswell, which is a shame and gets me also angry
hetero woman are afraid you'd swap them for a gay man given the chance
gay man are afraid you'd swap them for a woman given the chance
when you are with a woman you are called names and accused of just pretending to be gay
when you are with a man you hear "i knew you are actualy gay" and bs like that
i feel with you aces because i go through some shit too being pan
As for the asexual thing, I don't know man, I never understood why people act like it doesn't exist - it's like they've never been outside or something. Doesn't harm them, or anyone really, and it ain't really their business anyway. Never heard of any legislation on the matter, but I studied politics - not law. On the plus side, this is a good opportunity to dispel misconceptions, as I attempted to do when I delivered a presentation on furries just over a year ago. It's all about passion.
Then day of presentation, have three backups: slides on your laptop, slides on a USB stick so you can put them on a computer besides your laptop if you have laptop problems, and slides somewhere you can get to on the internet from a public computer in case the USB stick doesn't work in whatever computer.
I hope your presentation goes/went well!
Explain it to them like they're six-year-olds.
They're not bad, they're just confused and afraid.