She Certainly Has The Symmetry and Low Body Fat That Western Culture Deems Desirable

On a recent trip to Africa I was surprised to find myself frequently in play. I don't meet Western standards of desirability, so I'm unused to receiving any positive attention on my physical being.  As an asexual person, I'm OK with that. So I found my response to the unexpected attention surprising.  I felt flattered, and often responded in a coquettish manner, a trait never normally associated with my personality.  (On the rare occasions I've tried to flirt, it looks a lot like when Ross Geller on Friends tried to flirt with the pizza delivery girl by telling her that gas is odorless and the smell is added so you will know if there is a gas leak.)

Since coming home, I've reflected on why an asexual person would feel so pleased to receive attention as a sexually desirable being.  I think part of the reason is because it played into what had become a running joke prior to my departure.  Several travel guides and the travel clinic nurse practitioner all urged condoms as items that must be included on a list of things to bring on a trip to Africa.  When I told the nurse that for me they wouldn't be necessary, she responded by telling me that 30% of single people report having an unexpected sexual liaison while on vacation.  While I appreciated her promotion of safe sex practices, she seemed ignorant of sexual orientations that don't require condoms or the belief that a person has the will or choice to say no to sexual advances.

Another reason is that validation is a fairly basic human need. From that perspective it makes sense to be pleased with any positive attention, even from an unexpected and unsolicited source.

But as I watched the recent X-Men:  First Class movie, another reason struck me.  One of the movie's themes is the need to fit in, to be viewed as "normal."  And the struggle it is for those who don't fit in, who aren't viewed by general society as normal.  I feel that.  Sometimes it is nice, easy, safe, comfortable to fit in.  Unconsciously and sometimes consciously we all do things to fit in, to act the part that is socially accepted.  So I think I was relishing the fitting in, the being part of the group, the being viewed as normal.  Not that I'm unhappy with who am I or wish to change it.   But 'normal' is easier.  Acceptance is more comfortable.

In other respects my otherness was never more evident than in Africa.  I was asked hundreds of times about my husband and children.  When I said I had neither, I was immediately viewed with pity.  If I went further to inform that I was single and childless by choice, I was viewed as selfish.  It was evident that my life was found lacking because I was not a wife and mother.  So it seems that with my otherness making me stand out in Africa even more than it does in America, and the negative attention I was receiving as a result, I embraced the opposite phenomenon.  Movie critic Peter Keough called X-Men:  First Class "a metaphor for the outsider in all of us." And while I have more in common with the X-Men characters who learned to embrace their otherness and the unique gifts it gives them, for five weeks in Africa I appreciated how much easier it is to fit in.

We have never been closer to achieving Dr. King's dream, when we can all be judged on the content of our character, not on the color of our skin (or our gender, or our age, or our ethnicity, or our nationality, or appearance, or our religion or our sexuality.)  But we are also still so very,very far away.  So I took pleasure in being judged, and not being found lacking.  A pretty superficial thing to take pleasure in.  But also a very human one.  So in that regard I'm normal.