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The Hook Up: 9-8-2010

Dear Anna, I’m young and have been gay for a quarter of my life and have just gotten out of a wonderfully terrible year-long relationship. I have a faint recollection of the sex being good and exciting, but most of the time I was uncomfortable, possibly scared, definitely awkward and mostly reluctant. I had such a passion for vagina the first couple of months and then I was running far, far, far away.

I wonder if I’m really gay. I hope I am. Experimenting sounds like a good idea, but I really have no interest in men or the big/little P. Masturbating is fun but I don’t really do it and the thought of a life of abstinence sounds great except I love snogging and spooning. I would join a nunnery if I weren’t an atheist, and a life full of cats, though great, sounds lonely. I believe myself to be rather sex negative. Maybe I haven’t met the right person.

Oh dear. Do you have any advice? I still love boobs. Lets hear it!

Anna says: Oh good. If you didn’t still love boobs I’d have to report you to the Every Gay Woman in the World committee, to have your permit revoked. Then you’d really wish you’d joined that nunnery. Fret not, young grasshopper. For even those in their fifth lives (?) go through periods of asexuality, or not wanting to get “jiggy wit it,” as no one has called it since 1997. Abstaining from sex doesn’t make you a bad queer (littering, does, however – as well as criticizing High Art). I’ve recently taken a vow of abstinence myself, not from sex, but from watching The Bachelor Pad, because it made my ovaries stage a walk-out. Sometimes we have to do what’s best for ourselves, even if such prescriptions flout the conventional wisdom of pop songs and made-for-TV movies like “Sex! Why Aren’t You Having It Right Now, Prudeface McChastity?” and “Nunneries and Cats: Your Life Without Sex.”

It seems you do have some asexual tendencies. If you’re curious about reading up on that, check out the Asexual Visibility and Education Network or AVEN, which is so much more than a terrible acronym. However, as I’ve said before, sexuality is fluid. Today you might feel asexual, tomorrow you might want to, as the Swedes have probably never said, “taste a pickled herring of a different flavor.”

Also, lack of sexual desire doesn’t have anything to do with wanting human contact, e.g. snogging, spooning and whatnot. Those are rights guaranteed by several constitutional amendments. Possibly after the one about arming bears. And while we’re on the subject of animals owning firearms, let’s clear up this whole “sex negative” misconception you seem to have. It’ll help if you visualize Smokey the Bear reciting this with a 12-guage.

According to Wikipedia, sex-positivity is “an ideology which promotes and embraces open sexuality with few limits.” Sex-negativity is defined simply as “Elisabeth Hasselbeck.” OK not really: it’s an “overall negative view of sexuality and seek[s] to repress and control the sex drive.” Judging by your email, I feel close enough to you to tell you that you fall into the first camp. Being sex positive is about the right to sexual expression, however you want to interpret that. And if we’re gonna be inclusive about it, which we have to because we are the LGBTQQIABC123 community after all, then that definition must include asexuality, as well as things like polyamory, swinging, and whatever goes on behind closed doors at the Home Town Buffet.

Experiment if you have the urge, but don’t pressure yourself it doesn’t feel right. Also, you’re coming out of a long-term relationship, which is bound to affect your desires and willingness to sample pickled herrings of any variety, if you know what I mean, and I think you do (become vegetarian).

Hi Anna, I’ve been in several short relationships with women (and a few long ones), and while very few of them have ended badly, I can’t ever make the transition to friendship that other lesbians seem to do with ease. I’m not sure why this is, but I’d like to have more friends and fewer ex-lovers that don’t speak to me anymore. What can I do?

Anna says: It’s true that staying friends with our exes is a common lesbian trait (some might say “curse”), but not everyone excels in this arena. I struggled with it for years, until I realized that maybe I shouldn’t break up with people via text message. Just kidding, I’ve never done that. (It was G-chat.)

There are a number of reasons you might have trouble transitioning to friendship with exes. Some theories: One of you isn’t over it. You’re still sleeping together. It’s too hard to back pedal from lover to friend. You refer to her new girlfriend as “Succubus.” You’re Lindsay Lohan. You haven’t allowed enough time and space to pass, etc.

I’ve found that that last one is often one of the biggest reasons that would-be friendships fizzle. We don’t make clean breaks. Sometimes we don’t even make clean bends with exes, but proceed to go about our lives with them as if nothing has changed. So, that’s advice tip #1. Take some time off. Don’t text them or Facebook stalk them or hang out at their favorite juice bar in the hope of seeing them.

Advice tip #2: When you do start to ease your way back into each other’s lives, don’t immediately ask them about their love life. Neither of you really wants to know, and such talks can all too easily lead to jealousy, hurt feelings, and crying at Starbucks. Nobody wants that, least of all me, who just wanted to enjoy my half-caf vanilla latte in peace.

Advice tip #3: Set boundaries. If you’re one of those magical wood nymph creatures that can have sex with their ex and not have it adversely affect anything, more power to you. If you’re not one of those people, then don’t do it. If you find you are perfectly capable of seeing them once a week at your underwater basket weaving class, but any more time and you start getting twitchy and anxious, then don’t push it. Respect your needs, and hers.

And for the love of all that is sacred, don’t break up with her via text message. Unless she’s Lindsay Lohan because you never know what that girl’s got up her sleeve, in addition to the drugs, that is.

Got a question? Send it to [email protected].

Hailing from the rough-and-tumble deserts of southern Arizona, where one doesn’t have to bother with such trivialities as “coats” or “daylight savings time,” Anna Pulley is a professional tweeter/blogger for Mother Jones and a freelance writer living in San Francisco. Find her at annapulley.com and on Twitter @annapulley.

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