I have not been posting much lately, mainly because I have just finished semester and there have been exams, study and quite a bit of some flu-like illness, which sadly came back today with a vengeance after having almost fizzled out.
Because I am a nerd who plans out her holidays with all sorts of things, I am also preparing a workshop for a student conference called Queer Collaborations being held in Sydney next week. (Well, I am trying to prepare – the sickness got in the way.) I thought I’d post the little abstract that I wrote. What do you think I should include? Anything pressing issues you can see arising?
“And he will be my Squishy”: Relationships, Asexuality and thinking beyond the reef.”
What defines a relationship?
Why are some valued more than others?
What happens when sex isn’t a part of your relationships with other people?
This workshop explores the vast sea of asexual relationships, and how they can challenge traditional relationship structures and narratives. Some of the ideas I will look at include de-centralising the role of sex in relationships, how we define romance and love, and how traditional models of doing relationships limit our understanding of the huge diversity of close connections we form in our lives.
The title I owe to one of my friends (thanks!) and is obviously inspired by this clip from the film Finding Nemo.
A life unexamined 
Man, I would LOVE to take a workshop like that.
If you’re going to get into the nitty-gritty of asexual relationships, one thing you could discuss is the psychological and emotional difficulty a sexual partner may have while taking part in one. For example, my girlfriend knows I’m asexual and 100% respects that, but there’s a part of her that still wonders if I’m not just rejecting her because there’s something wrong with her. Society as so fundamentally convinced us that love HAS to encompass some sort of sexual attraction that on some level we can’t let go of that belief, even when we want to believe the contrary. It’s something people may not even think about until they’re actually in that situation and faced with what they may believe is rejection.
Yay, I have a taker! Those are some really good points to consider. Sometimes it comes down to what sort of day you’re having, too. On a good day it might be easy to say ‘oh, social expectations, whatever,’ but on a bad day all that conditioning still holds pretty firm and gives rise to worries and anxieties. I’ll definitely include a bit on emotional complications in the workshop. 🙂