More in this series
Writing a Book About Asexuality Taught Me to Look for a Fate Beyond Numbers
I learned to reevaluate the meaning of ‘normal’ in relationships, and also my habit of reflexively turning to data.
myself
*
A romantic relationship like this is not normal in American society, insofar as it is statistically uncommon. And so it took time for James to feel okay about this partnership that didn’t follow the script. Normal and the perception of normal hold power, even though this was what his girlfriend wanted and even though it gave James the space and freedom to figure out what he wanted too. It was only after dating his current girlfriend that James realized that he didn’t know whether he liked kissing. In previous relationships with allosexual (non-asexual) women, he kissed without thinking, to signal romantic interest and keep the relationship moving forward. Kissing was non-negotiable, simply what you did.
Angela Chen is a senior editor at Wired Magazine and the author of Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex, which was named one of the best books of 2020 by NPR, Electric Literature, and Them. Her reporting and essays have also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Guardian, National Geographic, Paris Review, Lapham's Quarterly, and more.
Enter your email address to receive notifications for author Angela Chen
Success!
Confirmation link sent to your email to add you to notification list for author Angela Chen
More by this author
How I Learned to Tell Signal from Noise and Appreciate Calm
It can be easy to confuse real emotion with the shiny drama enfolding it. Sometimes grand gestures are signs of grand feeling—sometimes they’re not.
On Being Young, Scrappy, and (Sometimes) Satisfied
Remain forever hungry, or enjoy the tried-and-true? Sometimes, I learned, it’s okay to double down on the life you have.
How We Create Personal Myths, and Why They Matter
My parental separation was vastly less traumatic than what is happening to children at the border. But this narrative lives inside me.
More in this series
Stay or Go? or, The Case Against Playing it Safe
My lesson should have been “choose risk”—change didn’t always mean closing a door.
Is It Possible to Truly Know Yourself? (Probably Not—and That’s Okay.)
There is opportunity in forcibly rewriting a story, in trying out identities that might not feel true at first.
How I Learned to Reconcile the Distance Between Experience and Memory
As my mother loses the ability to remember, I find myself playing with my own memory.