#yay getting over internalized homophobia means I get to deal with external homophobia now...

[myopicry]

(love that this blog is essentially me rambling and complaining in a very first world problem way but hey, isn't that what tumblr is for?)

self-flagellating self awareness aside, I do think it's very funny that when I realized I did not want to have sex with men and was not actually very attracted to men at all, I immediately attached myself to asexuality as a label since based on my experiences (which had been exclusively with men) I felt so sexually and romantically dissatisfied and ended up pretty sex-averse because of it, and I just felt so awkward and unnatural with the whole process of dating that I decided I was definitely aromantic and asexual because I probably felt that way towards everyone! yeah that makes total sense!

because there was no way I'd ever want to date a woman, that'd be way too subversive and totally didn't match my personality at all, and since I'm uncomfortable with porn and the way sex is portrayed in most media, I probably wouldn't want to actually sleep with a woman (even if I have fantasized about it and would be happy to participate if the opportunity naturally arose in some way...) and man, wouldn't a future with a woman be so unattainable even if I wanted it, since I won't come out to my parents about anything because that notion terrified me? and hmm, I am obsessed with male attention, which probably has nothing to do with internalized misogyny and my lack of social development as a child. also, I'm definitely not a girl so I can't even be gay like that, and I'm not really interested in sex with trans women** so that's probably not very lesbian of me-

sooooo turns out repression and internalized homophobia goes a long fucking way lmao

living in a male-centered world truly messes with your brain like nothing else.* I was somehow convinced that just because I wasn't attracted to men, it meant I would never feel love ever in my life because what else is there? actually being able to truly put men out of my mind and life recently has made some things a lot easier. I used to not be able to picture a future version of myself and the life I could lead, which I once thought was wholly due to a "gender thing", but now, being able to conceptualize a life full of love and romance exclusively with women suddenly clears a lot of the mental fog up, and I find myself being able to actually want something in the future. I want to find love with a woman, I want a girlfriend, I want a wife. I want to build a life with her.

I still have a lot of growing to do as a person, obviously. turns out building a self-esteem actually takes... effort! crazy, I know. but now I can move forward with an assured mindset where I don't have to pretend like the concept of love is stupid just because I don't understand it (yeah. I did think that for a bit... along with wanting a qpr... which. well. I have a lot of thoughts about internet asexual culture that are far too jumbled at this point to be any kind of meaningful blog post so maybe some other time lol) because I finally have some kind of life full of love to look forward to.

*I'm sure the internet didn't help much with this either. my generation does love simplifying every lived experience down to aesthetics since social media has made us so damn obsessed with personal branding and the like, and the wlw/soft sapphic culture and aesthetic I saw a lot of in these internet spaces really didn't work for me as I'm not really into such feminine rituals or makeup and dress-up aesthetics. kinda bleak that for a generation and culture that promotes diversity, we love boiling things down to easy stereotypes and consumerist tropes instead of embracing real lived experiences... **aside from the obvious, in reflection I think my lack of attraction here also majorly falls on the fact that a lot of trans women adopt a hyper feminine image to pass and as described above I think my type and interests just naturally leans away from makeup products and "dolling yourself up" so it wouldn't really work out based on what patterns I notice in the presentation of trans women