Yesterday I wrote an email to Benjamin in which I attempted to at once glorify autonomy and love in its many forms, which devolved, I'm afraid, into an incomprehensible mess of bold statements I didn't mean at all.

I'm going to try to work through this again -- honestly, I hope.

Yes, it is probably safe to say I am more than just a little repressed. I don't think I need a legitimate childhood trauma to come to that conclusion; I'd say almost anyone, having lived through childhood at all, is somewhat repressed. I would agree with Shulamith Firestone's assertion that childhood is repression, and in my case it was a chosen bedroom exile from the age of nine in order to escape a verbally/psychologically abusive step bastard, with young adult novels, teen magazines and soap operas my only viable form of education. I read quite a lot, but never anything terribly enlightening; I wanted to fit in, so it was Bop and Goosebumps for me, and then it was Soap Opera Digest. Since moving from my childhood home at eight or nine, I never really had friends outside of school. I grew so accustomed to my self-inflicted solitude that by high school I rarely accepted an offer to do anything outside of school (to do so would involve some interaction with the step bastard in arranging a ride, or admitting my situation to my friends), and I convinced myself I preferred my solitude. By the time my girlfriends had cars of their own I'd pretty much alienated every one of them, and I went about systematically destroying the first meaningful relationship of any sort I'd ever had.

So that's that - that's my sob story - it's still very difficult for me to make friends and expose myself socially -- and I will still often insist I prefer solitude, but while I am definitely more comfortable with myself and committed to my freedom, I don't think I want absolute autonomy at all.

But the point is -- my stunted personal education, the "normal" course of development that was complierely denied my in my seclusion. I rarely got the chance to substantively relate to my peers, so I thought I was the only one who felt the way I did. I got my definition of love from television, set my sights on an imaginary soulmate, and spent more time wishing Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean were married than considering my own life. I had only the most textbook idea of what sex was. The first time I heard someone use the word "fuck" as a verb on my elementary school playground I laughed without knowing what at. A couple years later I remember remarking to a friend on the 4th grade playground that I was watching a movie that showed a woman's breasts (I must have said 'boobs' if I said anything at all) and I felt something between my legs, and what was that? My friend said she'd felt the same thing before, and didn't know. "Doing it" remained funny for I don't know how long. When I got my first trial package of tampons at 13 I couldn't figure out where they went in. Masturbation remained alien, if not disgusting, until 18. Shortly after graduation a male friend asked a group of us girls, "Everyone knows all us guys do it, but do any of you ever, you know--?" And we all nervously forced a laugh or angrily denied the very suggestion, but I know there was no way, among all my friends, I was the only or the first one. Or could we all really have been that repressed?

And so when I look at the long list of guys I have rejected, and often without much grace, it's not ever been because I'm cold and heartless, as I often accuse myself if being; it is because I am so deeply repressed. A lifelong process of repression which I've never been able to explain, so I've always blamed myself.

And so once I forced myself to try to get over it, just be fucking normal, and learn to operate within the context of a real relationship. It was, really, a selfish experiment, and I had no business ever pretending love had anything to do with it. At 19, never having been kissed, never having even held another person's fucking hand, I thought there was something wrong with me. I had to prove something to myself, and I think I would have at that point forced myself to feel what I thought I was supposed to feel for anyone who expressed an interest. He told me he, too, would have had anyone, so it was perfect, you see. Harmless, really. And I wanted so badly to feel anything, I just did. I held his hand when I thought I was supposed to (who'd have thought it would be so sweaty?) and kissed him when I thought I was supposed to (sometimes, even in the midst of my grandest delusions, just wondering when it would be over). I talked myself into so many things those few months, but I never, never felt comfortable, never felt satisfied, never really felt anything at all.

Since then I have blamed and questioned love ad nauseum in this forum. Finally arriving at a place of peace: there are many forms of love; mine is simply more agapic than erotic, and there's nothing wrong with that. I finally assembled an unshakable identity, and determined that should a viable opportunity to love present itself, it would not break me. I could finally love and be myself all at once.

But still -- can I love? Am I lying to myself when I say I don't really enjoy kissing, I don't really feel sexual? Is it possible to really be this asexual, or is something wrong with me? Am I still that repressed? Would anyone in this world be fulfilled just lying in bed next to me? I really am not a prude; I've been over any lingering fear of sex for at least some months now. And I suppose I do talk sexually, I have to admit I often think and dream sexually. Am I in a phase, then? Am I waiting for someone to come along and awaken my deeply buried carnal desires? "All she needs is a good fuck." No, fuck that.

Anyway, this isn't something I worry about consciously, often. No, I'm not wrried that there's something wrong with my because I'm not as lusty as most of my peers.

But I do recognize that there are reasons I am so reserved, so inclined to solitary. It is still difficult for me to open up to another person, to allow myself to care for another person, and I fear that at the first hint of the physical I will either shut down or run away. That my choice is to passively receive or actively flee; I cannot imagine an inclination to do or feel anything else. Well, rest assured, I will never do anything like passively receive again and so, for the forseeable future, I imagine I will remain entirely sexless.

All of which is progress only in the sense that I think I have found the real culprit at least -- which should have been so obvious --

this childhood repression I've never really conquered. And I don't think I had it worse than most. No child is allowed a natural, early initiation into sexuality -- children are taught it is wrong or shameful, and they look for knowledge on the playground and are met with equal ignorance or bravado, and if the best and most accessible source of education they have is pornography that is a problem. Children, and by extension I'm afraid many adults, don't know what sex and love can look and feel like -- don't realize and aren't comfortable with the range of possible expression. Children don't have, in almost any substantive way, any freedom of choice or outlet for self-expression, and that is where it all begins.

So recognizing all this, I must deconstruct, break it down again.