To a few close friends I have solemnly presented my ideal of a better world: everyone’s considered asexual, aromantic, agender, unless they come out—heterosexual demiromantic man, pick the label(s) as you may.

There would be, in my humble opinion, at least two advantages. Firstly, when everyone’s got a label or two, those with any number of labels would not be seen as abnormal. As a result, coming out would become such a commonplace practice that it is no longer a thing. Perhaps it would be normalized, with handbooks educating everyone what each label means or providing advices for how to structure your coming-out speech, people around you excitedly waiting for the moment to take place. You might still feel some pressure, mostly out of anticipation, just like feeling a tad nervous at a graduation ceremony, but it’s by all means a celebration, without any internal struggles that may trigger an existential crisis, or external judgements, coming from people unaware of the rudeness underneath their curiosity, that are interrogation in disguise.

Moreover, I contend, it makes much more sense to ask people to prove the presence of something, with the default being an all-encompassing absence of everything, as opposed to asking people to prove the absence of something—and for this purpose I really dislike the word ‘absence’, for it, similar to ‘lack’, hints at an expected presence.

Imagine how absurd the following scenario can be. When someone declares that they have no fruits at home, they would be questioned, ‘Do you have apples?’ ‘Are there perhaps any oranges?’ ‘No durians? You sure you know what a durian is, even if you have never tasted it?’ Under the circumstances, this someone would have to provide a negative answer to all the questions to be finally allowed to conclude, Okay, no (known) fruits there. Now back to my version of an ideal world: isn’t it easier if the default setting is a non-existence of fruits at anyone’s place, and whoever has any can shout out to others, if they feel like doing so, ‘Hey, I’ve got a coconut!’

I’ve been giving free rein to my unrealistic imaginations, because I’m so fucking fed up with the world I live in, one overrun with stereotypes, presumptions, and ignorance. It’s been over a year since I first tried coming out as ace (short for asexual), which always requires explanations of what asexuality means and what sexual attraction (and romantic/aesthetic/sensual attraction) is. Among the numerous questions I’ve received, this one, a perfect example of sexual normativity, stands out for its ridiculousness: ‘What if on another planet there’s some creature that is sexually attractive to you?’

Admittedly, I’m not your gold-star ace, who in Angela Chen’s words should be:

… healthy in all ways, between the ages of twenty and forty (since elderly people are assumed to be asexual anyway), and cis, as well as sex positive and popular … The gold-star ace is beautiful so as to deflect accusations of being a bitter incel. They can’t be religious because that would mean they’re just repressed. They do not masturbate and have no history of sexual problems. Maybe they have tried sex before but, after that, never, ever changed their mind about being ace or felt the slightest bit of sexual curiosity. (Bonus points if they’ve been in committed relationships before.) The gold-star ace would never worry, as an autistic woman Kate did, that she might make asexuality ‘look bad’ if she didn’t appear neurotypical enough. The gold-star ace would not be autistic to begin with. They would always fit in. More than fit in: be beloved.

Ace: What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex, by Angela Chen

Even as of now I still find it a bit funny that I was already in my 30s when I discovered I’m ace, which also testifies to the prevailing sexual normativity in the world I live in. For many years I had been misled by the very questionable Chinese translation of asexuality, and I would have stayed in the dark if not for posts written by a microblogger about demisexuals (people who only feel sexual attraction towards those who they already have a deep emotional bond with). Upon reading the definition, I was like, Wait, isn’t that what it’s supposed to be for everyone? Why is there a specific term for it? Does it mean that most people feel sexual attraction easily? Wait—what on earth is sexual attraction?

It’s somewhat underwhelming that I’ve never experienced an epiphany-like moment when it just clicked that I’m ace. During those months of hard thinking and questioning, I was already struggling a lot in life, tangled thoughts vying for attention from my malfunctioning brain, and the exploration only added to my misery. I was sad, anxious, and confused, so disoriented that I understood nothing, because neither my feelings at the moment nor experiences in the past made any sense. It would be much later that I finally found out why: I don’t experience attraction in the conventional sexual or romantic way, so the social scripts for attraction and relationships just don’t work for me. To whom, how deeply, and for how long I am attracted, and how my attachment develops—it defies the so-called standards. Amid my confusion I had shared my thoughts with people around me, and most of the time it only made me more confused, because they, heterosexuals, almost instinctively try to squeeze my story into the established frameworks. It’s as if I wake up only to discover that I live in a tiny cage, and every bit of my body that sticks out of the bars would be cut off. I’m already bleeding all over, and people are still demanding, Try harder to fit in, you can do it!

What’s the most draining is language itself, the language I have to use to communicate, the language that has been formed in a heteronormative, amatonormative society and has in turn been reinforcing the institution. I desperately look for words that can explain myself, but often they do not exist, just like my sexuality. How do you, for example, refer to someone who you are intensely attracted to but not in a sexual or romantic way, whose presence carries an unparalleled significance in your life? I have to settle with ‘friend’, which obviously doesn’t match, but it’s not like there’s any language I know that has a word for it. And here comes the dismissive remark, ‘But to you he’s definitely more than a friend!’

So I gradually silenced myself.

Sometimes I turn to seek consolation from other queer friends—not so many of them around me, unfortunately. In fact, there have been quite some sleepless nights when I thought to myself, It would have been much easier if I came out as a lesbian, because at least people know what the word means and understand the discrimination homosexual people are fighting. But, hmmm, asexuality? What is that? I have never heard about any discriminative comments about you people, so you are doing just fine!

(Go to hell, J. K. Rowling.)

The question is, actually the easiest option would be not coming out at all, or born a cishet (short for cisgender heterosexual). Nevertheless, despite all the unprecedented frustrations induced by my painful self-exploration, now I wouldn’t even want to be a cishet—which has ended up a swear word in my lexicon, like when talking with queer friends, we would complain, Ewwww, the smell of cishets! I argue that, for the current me at least, being a cishet is like being a man—it’s simply immoral. I no longer know how to make peace with myself if I get to enjoy all kinds of privileges conferred on me only for the sake of the body I was born into.

And that’s an important lesson I learned as queer. Just like one cannot unlearn literacy, I cannot unlearn my asexual perspective either. Past the point of no return. Not only are some of my longstanding cloudy doubts accounted for, but to some extent I’ve got to know a world that is more colourful, multi-layered, and immeasurably vast. Possibilities unimaginable to the outsider. An unwavering existence that is in itself validation. Absolute completeness in nothingness.

I was tempted to write ‘if only you had seen the world through my lens’, but hesitated, because it means that you’d also have to undergo what I have to put up with. I’d rather not sugarcoat the queer experience, which is by no means enjoyable. The process of getting to know what asexuality really means and concluding to myself that I’m ace was already long, but it took me even longer to see clearly how much suffering it brings upon, not to mention to put it into words. There’s a concept that justifies—if it ever needs any justification—the linguistic torment I always run into when I attempt to share my story: hermeneutical injustice. To quote Wikipedia:

Hermeneutical injustice occurs when someone’s experiences are not well understood—by themselves or by others—because these experiences do not fit concepts that can be found in popular language.

Once again, if British philosopher Miranda Fricker had not named the injustice, it would have seemed impossible for me or any interested person to understand (and explain to others) what on earth makes the sharing experience a torture. Yes, it’s injustice, and it’s structural. The language fails me. The language fails us. Language delayed is language denied.

Naming the injustice is only one of the first steps towards building my ideal world, but a meaningful one, proving to me that the language, although defected, is key to pushing for changes. Truth be told, I feel cathartic as I stride out of my self-confining silence and write this post, wishing to make however small a change in my dear reader. And in this way I’m gonna continue to tell my story, and keep on telling it, to regain the power owed to me.