You Know You're Asexual When...: A post about Mormons and asexuality

This line of thinking is rather limited and fails to see the larger issue.

…[long, thoughtful post]

Hm, I never really though about this before. There really is a huge focus on having children, but does that mean that asexuality is condemned for a lack of children? I guess they would expect lots of sex for lots of kids…Here’s a thought: I don’t care for sex. The church wants me to have lots of kids through eternity. Unless there’s in vitro in heaven, that means lots of sex…for eternity. The Celestial Kingdom is supposed to be a place, not only for work to get done on making worlds and whatnot, but also a place of awesomeness and happiness. But, to be in this place of awesomeness and happiness, I would need to have lots and lots and lots of sex in heaven, which is something I’m not too keen of thinking about (I only intend on having one or two kids myself, and then adopting, to get a picture of why this might be an issue). How can someone be in a realm of eternal bliss and splendor…while almost constantly doing something that isn’t something they’d like to do? To be in the highest state of heaven while doing something you’d rather not is in itself an oxymoron. To be doing something you would much rather not do is to say that the celestial kingdom is imperfect. That is to say that, by being asexual, that automatically means that there is imperfection in the highest state of perfection, which doesn’t sound reasonable at all. And yet, for not wanting to have kids, I could always go to one of the lower kingdoms. I would be “damned” to a lower kingdom where I have no kids and no family. Not having to pop out babies all the time would be good, but not having a family around would just be horrible. This implies that, by being asexual, I am literally, eternally, forever alone.

Now, let’s look at aromanticism. What if someone doesn’t want to get married? Does that label them as less in the eyes of God as someone who is romantically attracted to someone? Will they end up marrying someone in heaven and, if so, will that person be a romantic interest found at long last, or will it be more of a really close friendship? A close friendship would be fun, but I could never imagine having sex with my best friend. If you’re not asexual, imagine this: Let’s say you’re a straight man. Now, let’s say you have a best bud: you go fishing all the time, you play football together, you do all that stuff that totally normal, manly best friends do. You stay up late at night and watch Ju-On, you play Yu-Gi-Oh! in highschool, maybe continue it in secret through college, and you end up being roommates and generally just awesome friends. Now, imagine someone came up to you and said “Hey, uh, for you to get to the highest level of heaven, you need to have sex with each other. A lot.” Wouldn’t that be awkward? Welcome to the world of the aromantic asexual.

Let’s not even get started on trans issues. That hurts my head too much to think about.

Unless we say that, upon death, we’ll all be “cured” of our differences, and I’ll suddenly be the totally heterosexual man God would want me to be, in the which case everything is all right.

Now, there is some problem in the logic of everyone being “cured” of their differences in heaven. There is a belief in the church that, when you die, your experiences, knowledge, interests, hobbies…the things that make you you will come with you into the afterlife. After you die, if you liked model trains, chances are, you still will. There is also the belief that people who were disabled will be made “whole” in the afterlife, e.g. the blind will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will walk, autistic people will no longer be autistic and (hopefully) conservative libertarians will no longer have a blood pressure problem. Maybe not that last part, but I can hope, right?

To be made “whole” is to say that, in life you weren’t “whole” to begin with. That is to say that, in the ontology of mainstream Mormonism, anything other than heterosexual and cisgender were disabilities that will simply be cured after you die. That’s fine for the people who desperately want to be “cured,” but what about the people who have come to an understanding and acceptance of who they are? Also, in the standard theology of the church, disabled people were put on this earth because they are extra-special. They are just so darn good that God was like “You’re such a good and cool person, I’m going to give you this really hard life for you and your parents, and you might not ever get married or whatever, but it’s cool, you can have your pick when you get back.” Some people say that disabled people are just so darn good that they were given “disabled or malformed” shapes so Satan couldn’t get to them (because apparently everyone with a disability is a perfect angel). Also, for severely mentally handicapped people, it’s thought that, if their mental age never got to age 8, they’re just like little kids who automatically get to the Celestial Kingdom when they die. So, that leaves a question of where LGBT groups fall. As an asexual, do I simply lack something I should have, giving me a disability and a ticket to the good life in the hereafter? Did my sexual attraction never get past the age of 8, making me sexually handicapped, getting me into the Celestial Kingdom as a little kid would? Does it work that way for aromantic people? What if you’re gay? Is it considered a mental handicap? A physical limitation to not be able to be attracted to the opposite sex? When (or rather, if) these “disabilities” are “cured,” will we even recognize ourselves anymore? Since love, platonic or sexual, is such a large part of the human experience, what do we do if we haven’t had one or the other? Or not in the right way? Would God be like “it’s cool, you’re cured, now here’s a whole other set of experiences to replace the old ones?” How would one reconcile their entire life with the expectation that, to get into heaven, you had to have had a certain set of experiences? How would you feel if your spouse was like “I used to be gay, but we’re in heaven, so it’s all cool now”? That’s all assuming that the church recognizes people being born this way. The other line of thinking would be that these things are all just temptations from Satan, and that by being ourselves we are giving into the “natural man,” and thus sinning and unfit for the Celestial Kingdom. If that’s true, then why are some people straight and some not? Why are people born gay? Asexual? Aromantic? Bisexual? To say that we were born this way is to say that, somehow, somewhere, God was like “you’re cool, so I’m going to give you a really crappy and hard life.” 1 Nephi says that God will always provide a way to do His will, and D&C says that you will never be tempted above that which you are able to bear. If that is true, and if it’s true that God wants everyone to eventually return to Him, then why in the world would someone be born with this struggle or affliction that they have to deal with their whole life, regardless of the decisions they make in life? Why would God place someone in a prime spot for leaving the church? Why would God make transgender people, knowing full well that, unless they acted on “the natural man” (or woman) they would hate themselves when they look in the mirror, envy other people for being born the way they would like to be and serious hate and harm themselves?

This isn’t the age-old question of “why does God allow suffering.” It’s the question of “Why does God make people who are not only hated, but will hate themselves, their whole life, and not expect them to ever find a way to love themselves?” If God made queers because He loved them so much that he gave them a really hard and crappy life (thanks bunches), then why do people in the church hate on them? Shouldn’t they realize that queer people are actually wonderful angels on the inside, given a hard life? Why did he make them queer, anyway? Yeah, you could say “to teach others to accept people like that,” but couldn’t he just make everyone who was going to be queer end up blind, or quadriplegic, or something? Something that isn’t just asking for someone to leave the church out of the persecution from its members and official policies?

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