swankivy:

If there’s one comment I particularly despise when it comes to responses to asexuality, it’s the one that sounds like this:

“What a waste.”

Especially since when I express annoyance and displeasure, I’m condescendingly told it’s a compliment.

The way people react to me as a partnerless woman—or, shall I say, a woman who does not have a MALE SEXUAL PARTNER—suggests that my sex parts are resources and my existence as a person is disappointing and shameful if someone is not using those resources.

It grosses me out thinking people would no longer consider me “a waste” if someone, just someone, were banging me. Somehow my existence would be less disappointing (or not disappointing at all) if some presumably cis male partner were fulfilling the expectations and using my vagina with his penis. That would make things all right. That would assure critics that yes, this vagina is being properly allocated to a cis dude’s use, and there is nothing to worry about now.

Instead, oh noes, my vagina is WASTED, my supposed beauty is going to waste, my body isn’t being enjoyed by anyone (except for ME, the person who’s in it), and that’s just such a shocking, sad shame. If only I would stop wasting vagina by refusing to invite or accept sex! Won’t someone think of the wasted resources?

Never mind that the person attached to the vagina does not want to use it that way. Never mind that her well-being stays intact partly because she’s allowed to make her own decisions about what she does with her body, and never mind that having agency means she does not view her vagina as a commodity. Never mind that “I don’t want to” causes people to say I still should, while “I’m already doing it with someone else” causes those same people to respect my decision since at least SOME guy is using it.

I’m tired of being viewed as a wasted thing whose purpose is to be used, and I’m tired of people thinking of me less like a woman with a right to agency and more like a mouldering vagina on a shelf.