The Black, Gray, White and Purple Of My Life

"I am ace" written under a picture of attraction layer cube
This text includes discussions of sexuality and mentions of sex, genitals, porn and descriptions of discomfort associated with them.

Black

At the dawn of my puberty, feelings I have not yet encountered entered my heart. Girls' bodies were now kind of different to look at. An incredible urge to look at them, perhaps even touch. Never understood what that feeling is exactly.
Years later, it is still an unknowable dark hole.
Well, not entirely accurate. I am conceptually aware what that is, it is a feeling I am supposed to have. The feeling every other kid is supposed to have...
Why then it is still so weird? A complete dark hole.
Women are so pretty, always feels nice to hold hands, to give and receive headpats, to be physically close,  to snuggle, to kiss, to feel each other's bodies, to sleep together...
But between legs? A complete dark hole.
Penis is much more even so, presumably heightened by dysphoria. Everything about them is so weird. Why would anyone touch them, or insert them in their bodies? Or desire the liquids that come out from them. Salty, people say. No, I only feel the stench.
Just a sweaty, smelly, sticky, scary dark hole.

Gray

Why scary? I do not hate sex. I did not have a trauma causing an aversion. But my understanding is just like an academic textbook: Coldly describing as a physical act, as a social relationship, as a literary trope, something provenly exist, yet remains mysterious, as it can't be experienced first hand.
Like a gray recording of an alien sighting by an old camera.
Yet, like aliens, it lives vividly in imagination. And, like aliens, sex is something too otherworldy, it is not part of my dream world. Scarlet of romance, rose of passion, icy blue of future, orange of connection, forest green of joy, even lavender of fetishes but... no sex.
Presumably it could be brown, white, pink and red but in my world... it is just gray.
Why do I have a sex drive? Wood in the cold, wet, rusty stove. It would be more useful anywhere else. As it is, it just feels rotten, uncomfortable. But also wasteful and broken, the stove might be fixed with some work, the wood might be warmed up with some effort. If I tried harder, I feel, I could light the fire. And with the warmth of romance, there seems to be something close to an ember. That makes me feel guilty even more. I am not trying hard enough.
As it is, only smoke comes up, a feeble, gray smoke.
For years, I have put up a massive facade to prove my masculinity but even something beyond that. I joked about bedding people, constantly roasted other boys and got roasted by them with "gay", "masturbated", cared about size of my junk, had a giant stash of porn my friend gave me, long expected to marry one day and have kids. Because that's just you do, as a boy. But also, I still had this connection, a connection that have always haunted me.
An ash-gray thread that's too thin to follow, but too strong to tear. A gray-asexual I am.

White

I wish when I saw a picture of an attractive woman I had Proper feelings of a woman-loving-woman. That rushing feeling of desire I am sensing in most people. It is impossible not to sense this. A secret party you are not invited to, but one so massive that it is impossible not to detect, one I am casually expected to be part of, and something feels off that I am actually not. It is impossible to not feel like something is missing about me.
Some parts are left blank on my character sheet, a white empty space.
I wish I was an adequate partner. My lovers tell me this is not a problem. That might be correct too, since they have met and took a liking in me as a shapeless internet being. They could also have other partners for that stuff. Yet, it is impossible not to feel like I am depriving of feelings they could have with me, and that they have to tolerate something lesser to be able to form a bond with me. Certainly, many thinks what seperates friend from a partner is sex. The trejectory any and all relationships go to. The peak of human connection. The event that consummates the marriage. And look at me, a virgin complaining about sex. Even if I looked pretty, most other people would flat out fulfill my lovers' needs better, someone who is not a weirdo. This is just something I always have to live with, something that always hits on my face, something that always leaves a shadow behind me.
A blinding white light I can never escape from.
Most animals want sex  And for more social ones, it fulfills needs and desires beyond procreation. The omnipresensce of sex cannot be explained with such innocent causes however, it developed as a part of ideology of the capitalist society, namely, the sex as the core truth of an individual. A human is not a true person unless they define themselves and act through a sexuality, so that they can be optimized for a productive heterosexuality. Not as mere partner preferences: but body parts, brain, apperance,  healthcare, adulthood, gender, personality, legal placement, and all of the activities which might possibly seen as sexual. To be openly "asexual" then, is to reject this optimization, and so, define yourself as less then a full person. This is much more than self-identification: To be nude is to be sexual, unless you are a medical subject or a criminal. Insufficiently attractive cis women and effeminate cis men are deemed asexual unless they can conform into being regular heterosexual agents. Trans people are in a more interesting situation, they are being repressed into stop their transition, but also the transition itself is pipelined into a fetishized and medicilized process to acieve heterosexuality. Trans people who fail at both are rendered inhuman, asexual creatures. An asexual trans woman is then, a true eldritch horror of this societyç
The same horror a white guy with a white face and a white coat in the white building feels when he is talking about how hormones may decrease your libido.
Having a marginalized sexual identity is to be excluded from having an essence, and lacking an essence is to be a soul deprived of a body. Endlessly searching for a body, we fight against ourselves, and everyone else to fit in one. We fight, because to canonize ourselves in the society,  we are expected to give up our agency. The language of validating an identity ofen emphasizes past lives, trauma, workings of nature and fate while denying an identity emphazises actions, choices, vanity and re-identification along the lines of former. "You are not [label], it's just [verb], real [label] have [painful condition]" and "[label] is [description of vain action], you are actually [another label] but just [verb]" are ever-present sentences in the Discourse. Even communities who push back against open essentialism does not escape this. Trans communities are positive towards self indentification for example, but the collective trans identity is still heavily centered around medical processes and destined-by-the-stars narrative. So called "micro-labels" can also be see in this light: Many of us feel that our experiences are not relevant unless we can catalouge them in detail and naturalize them into time-transcendent capsules. I myself contexualized my asexuality the same way in this very text!  But the backslash against them is even more indicative of an essentialist thinking: Why would anyone be riled up at words that presents no harm to them and makes the people who use it happy? It always comes down to what is a "real identity", what is a core truth, something that can be traced back to a documented pain, a productive purpose of existence, the established scientific and political language, and most importantly; brain wires. While this behaviour can certainly escalate intro bigorty, I can relate to this desire, the desire to have a stable place in a society.
Essentialism is a sweet white sugar, white as the light shining on Foucault's bald head.

Purple

How much of our agency it's worth to destroy to fit in? As painful as wondering aimlessly can be, trying to squeeze in to something I am not would be much more painful. I am just a sex-averse weirdo and there is that. Sure, it is often quite alieanating, but I have pretended someone I am not for way too long, and it is a mistake I won't do again, especially not so that my life can be appopriated for some reactionary narrative on sexuality.
I have embraced my eternal ethereal existence, flying in a lonely purple heaven, sometimes scary, but sometimes oddly pleasant.
Pleasant, yes. Let people treat me like an alien, I will also welcome them as such. Let the light of expectations tries to blind me, I will turn my past to an umbrella that will protect me. Let I be the wrong kind of sapphic woman, my partners love me, they love me for who I am. Let people call me incel, my lovers yearn for my touch.
My fire might be feeble, but when it can be lit, it has pretty purple flames.
This might seem like narcissism, but I have really felt I have been free of a burden I have been carrying so long. It's the exactly same feeling I have felt discovering my gender. It didn't "obscure my identity" like some believes, on the contrary, I have at peace with my love of women as I haven't been before. I am still very insecure, but I am aware that I don't have to be, I can be confident too and it is thanks to people talking about things and people giving names to experiences like me.
I am a colorless, boring plant, but with enough care I can have cute purple flowers.
It hurts not having one, but I don't need a core truth for myself. I don't need to use my insecurities as a foundation, I don't need to find a medical condition to make this more legitimate.. Something about my birth, something I saw, or just an aversion, it doesn't matter. If I change in the future, the feelings I have now won't lose any worth. This is not a report of a blood test. This is my story, with all of its troubles and wonders. I am just some kind of asexual.
It is my black, gray, white and purple of my life.

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This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons and special thanks to: Acelin, Alexandra Morgan, Laura Watson, MasterofCubes, Makkovar, Otakundead and Spencer Gill.