There is one thing that I am convinced every asexual trying to come out as such will hear: it is the “right person” argument. If the other person is understanding and simply trying to explore all possibilities without rejecting the asexual person’s interpretation, it will probably take the form of “Maybe you haven’t met the right person yet?”; if the other person is firmly convinced that asexuality does not exist, it will sound more like “Don’t be silly, you just haven’t met the right person yet.”
Beyond the fact that this line should become some kind of private joke or a secret code among asexuals, I find it very interesting for several reasons.
The first thing about the “right person” argument is that it seems so certain to most sexual people (since nearly all of them mention it one way or another). It seems to be something they know to be true, just as they know that they are standing on the ground and that the sky is above their heads. There is a “right person” for everyone, and everyone eventually meets the person that is right for them (because of that “yet”).
The other thing is that is so interesting is the clear assumption that one’s lack of interest in sex is related to their not having met the “right person” yet. I’m not talking about the fact that sexual people clearly believe that lack of interest in sex cannot be a permanent state. I’m talking about the idea that meeting the right person somehow triggers one’s sexuality.
Oh, they probably do not think about it in these terms. But this is, all the same, what the sentence suggests. “You are not asexual, asexuality does not exist, because this is not a permanent state, only a temporary one that will end when you meet the right person – since it has not ended yet, it simply means that you have not met the right person yet.” The way I understand it, according to this interpretation, all people are asexual until they meet the right person, right? Asexuality is just a phase we all go through until we meet the right person who awakes our sexuality. But they do not like us to give a name to and identify with something that is understood to be only a temporary state.
My mother used the “right person” argument with me when I told her about my asexuality. According to her, I simply have not yet been really in love. I disagree – if what I felt for that one person in fall 2005 was not being in love, then I really can’t imagine how intense being in love must be – but she still insists that if I had really been in love, I would have been sexually attracted to that person.
This means equating romantic love (true romantic love, as opposed to mere crushes) and sexual desire. Many people do that. According to them, if you do not want to have sex with the person you think you are in love with, then you are not really in love with him/her. You “just want to be friends” with him/her.
Right. So, the “right person” must be the first person we really fall in love with, right? We fall in love “for real” and that triggers our sexual desire and sexual needs and so on (how could I know what is triggered, since it has not been yet for me?).
But many people have sex with people they are not in love with. Teenagers have sex, and yet they are surely too young to know what being in love really is – since at twenty, according to my mother, I still was not able to make the difference between a crush and being in love. So… are they having sex without really wanting to? Are they having sex although they are still in a mindset similar to mine, although they do not yet feel sexual attraction and sexual desire and sexual whatnot?
But then, why are they doing it, since there is no biological impulse to do so – since it probably seems as uninteresting or as distasteful as it does to me?
Peer pressure, my mother says. And she tells me about her classmates in high school who all wanted to have sex because their friends had done it and were all disappointed afterwards. Sex was not great for them, and they did not really want to have sex, because they had not met the “right person” yet, according to her.
Basically, the “right person” is little more than Prince(ss) Charming (isn’t the tale of Sleeping Beauty supposed to be a metaphor for sexual awakening, anyway?). He/she is the one who awakes your sexuality, and until you have found him/her, you do not really want to have sex or enjoy sex.
But I have questions about that. Pretty silly questions, I guess, and I’m sure my mother would tell me “don’t take things so literally” if I ever decided to ask them (but I do not talk to her about asexuality anymore).
#1 Do we have only one “right person” each?
Because, then, well, our chances of meeting him/her are pretty slim, aren’t they? Especially if we expect to meet him/her at what everybody expects to be the normal age (that is before twenty, I suppose). But if we have several potential “right people”, it sort of goes against the whole fairy tale aspect of the theory – but all right, I’ll grant you that “you haven’t met the right person yet” sounds better than “you haven’t met one of the right people yet”.
#2 How does it work?
According to my mother, the “right person” is the first person we fall in love “for real” with. But how does this work? Is it falling in love for real that makes us become sexual, is “fall in love” a necessary step to clear before reaching the “be sexually attracted” stage? Or is it simply part of falling in love “for real” – which means that we only fall in love “for real” with one of the “right people”?
#3 Is the right person forever, or just for pulling the trigger?
So, the right person is supposed to push the right button and awake our sexuality because he/she is the first person we will truly fall in love with. But is that “true love” as in “true love that will last forever”? Is this person our “one and only”? Probably not. Most people have more than one romantic (and sexual) relationship during their lives. Then, does this person simply have something special that makes us made for each other and that we recognize when we meet, which makes us fall in love for the first time, and sort of “unlocks” us?
#4 And what if…
What if we do not meet the right person, ever? The “yet” part of the “you haven’t met the right person yet” indicates that it seems certain we will meet the right person (and before we are, say, sixty) but that’s all about belief rather than scientific certainty, when you think about it. What if we do not meet the right person? What are we then? Potential sexual people in waiting? If this stage lasts longer than it should, do we get the right to give it a name? Like “asexuality”? Do we get the right to talk about it? Write about it? Have a club? Tell other people in the same situation that maybe they should not be so sad that they have not been “unlocked” yet? After all, how can we miss something, when we do not yet have the possibility to want it? And should we try to fix it by using artificial means to take what fate or God has not brought us?
Maybe we have not met the right person yet. But no-one ever said it had to be before we turn twenty, or thirty, or sixty. Maybe it will happen tomorrow, or the day we die. Maybe it will happen at some point in the infinite future – that is, on practical terms, never.
Now stop pestering us. We are just accepting the way we are. We cannot help it. It is not our fault if we have not met the right person yet.
July 6, 2008 at 9:20 pm
I also find this so odd…because it’s not as if all sexual people have found the “right person”. I think it’s a fantasy that people have, and asexuals are “safe” people to tell about it. They’re hoping that by tempting us with this old mystique– that some wonderful man will come along and solve all our problems– that we’ll realize we’re just like “everyone else” afterall. (It also implies that we’re not whole people in our own right, which is offensive.) But, as someone on AVEN said once, people don’t realize that there is a right person for you, but that they’re asexual, too. For me to become sexual, someone would have to be SO attractive that they’d override my orientation (ie, “I’d go gay for Angelina Jolie! etc). I guess it’s possible, but really unlikely.
July 6, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Also– linking to your blog
July 7, 2008 at 12:30 am
Thanks!
July 16, 2008 at 3:25 am
Gore Vidal had a male life partner with whom he was not sexual. The relationship was predicated on separation of sex and deep fellowship, and accommodated casual sexual encounters by both partners with other men. And this is not the only gay couple to have done this.
People “construct” a “right person” from an attractive candidate, with time, mutual goodwill, and some shared interests. For my mind, an instant feeling that someone is “it” is likely to be infatuation with little knowledge of or understanding of the subject.
I would imagine that some of the celibate religious have exalted views of friendship and of voluntary kinship (belonging to an order is essentially voluntary kinship, even if many members aren’t great friends). I have meant to get around to reading St. Aelred of Rielvaux, a medieval abbot who wrote a treatise praising friendship.
I wouldn’t discount the possibility of becoming sexual, as women surprise themselves all the time, becoming lesbian in midlife or asexual in midlife or “heterosexual” (bi) in midlife.
July 16, 2008 at 10:12 am
Well, I guess everything is possible. If such a change happens, then it will, but I don’t intend to keep waiting for it to happen – especially as I’m definitely not hoping it will happen. My mother would be glad though, I suppose
May 13, 2009 at 2:51 am
This is a very interesting take on “The right person”. I have opened up the possibility that I would never find the right person and become an old cat lady. It doesn’t bother me to be alone. I would much rather live the rest of my life alone and content in my own happiness, than have to be with somebody who takes away from my happiness. If I decide to be with someone, then I want them to be able to bring out the best in me, not the worst. And I would hope that I could bring out the best in them also. Or else I don’t see to point in being with other people. I find comfort in your words. Thanks for expressing them.