Teleen's Journal

As everyone who reads this should know, I'm pansexual.  I am attracted to personalities, not physical appearance.  I can appreciate someone whom society tells me is beautiful, but their gender enters into it only as an afterthought.  In addition to this, I don't believe in monogamy.  While I'm very committed to those whom I love, I don't allow jealousy or possessiveness.  Period.  I'm not an object - I'm a human being.  And so are those whom I love and/or have sex with.

There are those who feel that my identity as a human being is immoral, that a person should only love one person of the opposite gender (or only one person, as I am discriminated against by some gay, lesbian and bisexual persons as well for not being monogamous).  People look down on me for being free with my sexuality. 

They tell me that I'm immoral, but they never adequately explain how or why.  Why is it immoral for me to love more than one person?  Hell, so long as everyone practices safe sex (in the interests of public health), why is it immoral for me to fuck every person I feel sexually attracted to?  

Who am I hurting?  So long as I am not an unsafe sex-practicing carrier of disease and make no promises that I can't or won't keep, how does my identity as a human being hurt anyone else?  I'm honest, up-front and completely open with who I am.  

Who am I hurting?  No one.  But there are those who feel that my sex life is their business and that they have a right to control me in the name of a morality to which I don't subscribe.

To me, something is moral if it causes no direct harm to anyone else.  It is moral if everyone is adult and it is consensual.  It is moral if it is honest. 

My identity is moral.  Period. 
(  Under the cut is an incredibly long exploration of possible reasons why our society sees certain identities as immoral, as well as the possible causes of GLBTQP identities. (WARNING: This will likely be offensive to some of you, but I do have a method to my madness. I hope. If I fail, please let me know how, because I tried really hard not to fail with this post.) There is also an examination of the differences between civilized and uncivilized human beings.  )
So when you tell me that I'm less than human because your 'morality' tells you so, I reject your morality.  I reject your primitive version of civilization.  I reject your identity as an asshat, because again, unless you are a born asshat (i.e., a psychopath), you can choose to be a decent, civilized human being instead.  

I didn't choose my sexual identity, but I did choose my identity as a decent, civilized and ultimately (despite my many, many failings) moral human being.  


ETA: I'm rather glad that I thought of something cool to post about for my 600th entry, :).

The first thing I want to do here is thank my beta, frakkin_addict.  Without her, this still would have been written, because it was my Monster!bunny that was eating my brain, but it would not have been something that I would have been proud to have other people read.  She's been with me literally since I started writing it, (which happened while I was still trying to finish "Legacy of the Bad Wolf", another story that wouldn't have been finished without her) and I honestly can't begin to express how much her always-constructive criticism, support and help have meant to me.  

It hardly seems possible, but we've finally reached the end.  Yes, there will be a sequel (I've written around 60,000 words on it already, but it's still in its infancy) and unlike with this book, I will not start posting until I'm absolutely certain that I have an ending that pleases me.

( What follows are the statistics of The Perfect Storm, recorded because it makes my HFA brain happy to do so, as well as some of my thoughts and feelings while writing it.  )

Thank you for everything. 

Beverly

ETA:  Just as an FYI - there is no way to only screen part of a comment, :).  If you put your e-mail address in a comment, the whole comment will remain screened to protect your privacy, :).

ETA 2: Since there was a request, I'm going to put the end notes at the end of the PDF, :).

When I first began to suspect I had HFA, I contacted a high school acquaintance (now facebook friend) who actually studies brains and asked him about it.  His first response (in part)?  

You strike me as a very empathetic person. Your Facebook posts show that you have a keen sense of how others feel. (For example, think of how you feel about all this recent bullying news!). You probably don't have to "figure out" or "calculate" how others feel... you just empathize automatically. You also seem to be a person willing to try new things and can be social when you choose to be. If you were "autistic enough" to have anything to worry about, you would probably have been diagnosed by now. ASD folks tend to be noticeably weird. But then, there are also perfectly normal people who are weird. :)

I wrote back with my (very long list of) suspicions as to why I was feeling that way and he was very supportive and felt that since I was so high-functioning, I should only mess with a good thing if it was making me unhappy.  I felt fairly comforted by it, especially by his impression of me as having empathy for others, but recent events have forced me to realize that he was wrong.

I have empathy for certain people and situations.  If we agree (or mostly agree), I have empathy for you.  However, if you disagree with me, a lot of the times I am actually completely unable to see your POV.  At all. 

( Cut for epic! length, rambling and incoherence. Read at your own risk. )
There are no rules to human interaction, but I really wish there were some, :(.  I also wish that there were a way to predict how people would react in a given situation, but I know it's a forlorn hope.  

In summary, I'm stubborn, set in my ways and will defend my position to the death if you come at me in a way that makes me feel as though it's necessary, even if you honestly aren't attacking me, only my position.

However, if you give me a thoughtful, reasoned, CALM explanation of why and how the Earth goes around the Sun, I'll listen.  It might take me a while to reset that part of my brain to accept it, but I will listen.

Finally, if for whatever reason you feel that what I've said is so made of fail that you can't be respectful, please send me a PM and vent there, because if you do it publicly, it won't end well.  

Thanks for your time and attention.

As I alluded to in my previous post, lately I've been coming to suspect that on top of every other odd thing I have going on with me, I might also be third-gendered.  Not transgendered, as I have no desire whatsoever to be male except from a curiosity stanpoint, but more that I don't fit into a classically female role and never have. 

( Cut for length and an in-depth discussion of my sexual identiy and preferences. )

I thought about screening comments to protect privacy, but I feel that there is a good opportunity for discussion in this post and want to provide a forum to allow that.  If you have something to say to me that you would prefer not be seen by others, please just PM me.  Given the subject matter (and though I hate to do so, since no one who regularly comments on my journal is an asshat) I'm also going to issue a preemptive warning that all discussion must remain respectful or I won't hesitate to either screen comments that I feel are inappropriate (or leave a comment screened if you aren't on my friend's list).   That said, please feel free to comment even if you don't agree with me or think I'm completely full of shit, as so long as you're cool about it, I really want to hear every perspective on this subject.  I'm still figuring this out and could use all the help I can get.

One final thing - please don't delete any comments you make to this post.  If you later decide that you don't want what you say here to be seen, just ask and I'll screen them, but I'd really like any and all thoughts to remain at least for me to see.  Also, I get e-mail notifications, so once a comment is made it's mine forever anyway, :).

 

To all of you out there reading this, I'm not normal.  I'm not neurotypical and I'm on the autism spectrum.  I've always been this way - I just didn't have a name for it until very, very recently.

Before you ask, I'm self-diagnosed.  But if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's fucking Aspergers, m'kay?

Am I bitter?  Little bit.  All my life I've been fucking weird, felt like an outsider and like there was a whole world that I just couldn't understand and I just got to find out that I probably never will.

There's no real treatment for what I have, no magic pill or therapy to make the walls come down and help me to actually understand what most of the population takes for granted.  

I never get to know...  So many fucking things.  I get to feel like I'm on the outside looking in and never really understand...  I'm repeating myself there, but I'm typing this while I'm crying and just...
( Holy fuck this is long. Possibly the longest post I've ever put up here that wasn't a story. So long that I don't even know if LJ will take it. And I'm not reading over this before I post it, so there will be typos liekwhoa. Also, non-graphic trigger warning for those who have ever felt like outsiders or like the world could never understand them. Read at your own risk. But you should be doing that already if you're here, so I guess that read if you want to would be more appropriate. )

I have this odd urge to just write "The End," even though it would be abrupt and odd. 

The End.

...

PS I'm screening comments, 'cause that's just how I'm rolling on this one.