“And did he?”
“Yeah, of course. My brother’s a lot of things but he nearly always does what he says he’s going to.”
“Let me guess, he’s an Air sign? Or has at least some Air signs in his chart?”
“He’s a Gemini.”
“There we go. They’re the do-ers of the stars.”
“Are we really talking about this bollocks again?” She rolls her green eyes at me, but it’s a gentle eye-roll, not a severe one like I’ve been on the receiving end of before.
“Would you rather talk about masturbating as stress relief?” I challenge.
“I mean… no, but also, yes. You don’t think… you don’t think I’m weird for being like this?”
“Maeve, I would like to think you know enough about asexuality to know that libido and attraction are two very different things.”
“But that’s just it, I don’t really have a libido. Whenever I’ve been dating someone, I never wanted to, you know, have sex or even do other stuff with them. Apart from like hand-holding and hugging and kissing. But anything else, even touching myself, no,especiallytouching myself, was so far from something I would want to do with them.”
“And that’s okay,” I point out.
“But it doesn’tfeelokay,” she replies quickly.
“Because that’s what our world does to us. It feeds us false narratives, broken messages, wrong information. It makes usfeel like we need to live or feel or love a certain way in order to be enough or worth something, and it’s just not true.” I turn on my side so I’m facing Maeve. “You were brought up thinking that desiring people and wanting to have certain kinds of physical intimacy with another person wasn’t just normal but it was healthy and right. In the same way that I moved around the world being given all these messages about what it means to be a Black man, but I just didn’t relate to them. And you don’t relate to the messages of compulsory sexuality.”
“I know all this, and I know that although it made me feel broken, that deep down, I’m not broken. I know on a very clear level that there is nothing wrong with me, but I also feel like… no, I justwishit could be different.”
“What do you wish for, Maeve?”
The look she gives me before she speaks again is so sad and lost, I have that urge to rush to her again, but I swallow it down and give her an encouraging nod.
“I wish… I wish I could share physical intimacy with someone, a partner. I don’t know what it would look like, as I’m pretty sure I’ll never want to have intercourse or have them touch my genitals, or vice versa, but I wish… I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’m not aromantic, like you. I still crave a romantic connection with someone.”
I find my lips itching to part, to say something, but I have no idea what. So I keep my mouth firmly closed.
“And who knows,” she keeps talking, “maybe one day that could include me having my silly stress relief wanks in front of somebody. Although.” She stops and winces, very noticeably.
“What?”
“This is going to sound terrible,” she says and covers her face with her hands.
“Again, as long as it’s not criminal, I’m all ears.”
“I don’t know if I would want to watch them do the same,” she says into the palm of her hands.
“You mean, watch your partner masturbate?”
“Yeah.” She parts her fingers just enough to look at me through them. “Does that make me like a total two-faced, pernickety, double-standard-having, selfish cow?”
I chuckle. “No, Maeve, it doesn’t. It makes you somebody who knows what she wants and frankly, there aren’t enough people in this world who do.”
“But how would anybody think that’s okay? Like who in their right mind is going to sign up to a sexless relationship where I don’t even want to see their genitals!?”
“Maeve, do you know how many people in this world happily stick their penises or fingers up people’s asses but wouldn’t dream of having even a toothpick put up their own butthole?”
Her hands drop and she gives me a wry look. “I don’t know, a toothpick would be kind of painful.”
“But you understand what I’m trying to say? It’s not double standards. It’s just what makes us feel good, or not.”
