Something about Bedsharing

Over the years, the post on this blog which has gotten the most views by far is “Can we reserve ‘sleep with’ for when we literally mean ‘sleep with’?” (the blog post which is in second place has not had even half as many views, according to WordPress). It’s a blog post which fits the theme of this month’s Carnival of Aces: “Kissing, Hand Holding, Bed Sharing, etc!”, so is there anything else I have to say about bedsharing?

When I was a young child, and my nuclear family only had two bedrooms, and each of those bedrooms had only one bed, obviously at least one bed was going to be shared, so sometimes I slept in the same bed as my mother, and sometimes I slept in the same bed as my father.

This is where most people I talk about this with will go “WTF why didn’t your parents share a bed?” The answer is that my mom strongly dislikes sleeping in the same bed as my father and will only do so if it’s the only way to get any kind of decent sleep (note that when I say ‘sleeping’ I mean it in the strictly literal sense). Since I grew up with this state of affairs, it seems so obvious to me that it does not feel like it needs mentioning, but strangers understandably do not know about my mother’s sleeping preferences.

Nowadays, if the three of us had to split two beds, we would not need to discuss it – my mom and I would share a bed, and my dad would get a bed to himself. Even though we have never said it explicitly, because I am now an adult, it no longer feels alright among the three of us for me to share a bed with my father, even in the very practical situation of there being fewer beds than people. Fortunately, my mother feels that I am less disruptive to her sleep than my father is.

However, when I was a very young girl, my family felt that there was no problem with me sleeping in the same bed as my father. It meant a lot to me, because in those days, my father got up early to go to work, and he only got back home at 7pm or 8pm, and he would be tired, so sleep was the only time I really got to be with him during weekdays.

I also have fond memories of sharing a bed with my mother. I do not remember why sometimes my bedroom arrangements were changed.

This was all before I even knew what sex was, so it never occurred to me that there could be anything wrong with me sharing a bed with my father.

Eventually, we got a third bedroom, so that was the end of bedsharing at home.

I do not think I will ever be innocent that way again. Even though I am asexual, I have to be aware of the perceptions of anyone who would share a bed with me, and to some extent, I have to be aware of the perceptions of third parties.

Ever since I became an adult, I have only shared beds / sleeping spaces for practical reasons.

A photo taken in Julian, San Diego County, California, USA

Usually, I do get at least something of my own sleeping space – for example, even though I slept on the same floor as a dozen other people during my night in Julian during my most recent hike, with a couple of strangers just inches away from me, I was still on my own sleeping pad and in my own sleeping bag. And the one occasion I can recall as an adult when I really did share a bed with someone, I was wishing I could have had a better defined personal space. So I think that my preference is to have always at least a minimal physical boundary marking my space when I sleep.

This is inside Seseok Shelter in Jirisan National Park, South Korea. The white marks on the floor mark where guests may lay down their sleeping bags/pads, and they are numbered. The night I stayed there, it was not full, but it was plenty crowded, and there were dozens of people sharing a (large) room with me.

During my many stays at various hostels, I have been in mixed dorms so many times I don’t think twice about, say, sleeping in the same bunk as a man I’ve never met before. Heck, I don’t mind sharing a mountain shelter with men I don’t know. I do sometimes opt for ‘female dorm’ because a) sometimes mixed dorms are not available and b) sometimes the female dorm is a better deal for some reason (I realize I have cis-privilege, and that this is more complicated for many genderqueer people).

This is Walami Cabin in Yushan National Park, Taiwan. This is the first place I ever truly slept alone, miles from any other human being. The fact that it was a building rather than a tent helped, but it was still quite an experience.

However, I do not like the opposite, which is sleeping alone. I do not mean sleeping alone in a bedroom within a unit occupied by other people – I do that all the time. I do not even mean sleeping alone in my own housing unit, since I lived like that for years – but I had to get used to it, and it was not an easy emotional adjustment at first. What I mean is sleeping when you are the only human within a mile, or within five miles. I’ve done it, and I can even sleep, but I always prefer having some people near me when I sleep. When I do a multiday hike solo, I am always relieved to find another person at my sleeping spot. And when I realize that nobody else is going to come, that I have to get through the night alone, I have to brace myself. Some of my best memories hiking the Pacific Crest trail have been getting to know the ONE person who just happens to sleeping in the same place as me, the person who spared me a night alone on the trail.

The main building of the Mount Laguna Lodge (which is also a grocery story and a post office) in Mount Laguna, San Diego County, California, USA.

When I stayed at Mount Laguna during my most recent hike, I stayed at the lodge for two nights, in a room which can occupy up to two people (they do not have any truly one-person rooms). I was hoping to get a roommate, not just to save money (though splitting the bill was certainly a major incentive to share), but so I could have a little companionship at night. That is why I chose a room with two small beds rather than a room with one big bed (the room rate was the same). The first night, I had the room to myself – which was not so bad, since it meant I had privacy – but I was happy when I got a roommate for the second night. We talked for hours.

So, I suppose I like sharing my shelter, but I am not so fond of sharing the bed itself.

What does any of this have to do with being asexual? My personal inclination is to say it does not have anything to do with asexuality. I do not have any sexual interest in bedsharing, but other people might, so I have to take that into account when I share a shelter. And I think the psychological benefits/costs which apply to me also apply to many people who are not ace. However, some potential considerations, positive (ZOMGOSH I want to be next to that hot person!!!!) or negative (I do not want to be tempted to have risky sex) may not apply to me because I am ace.

Gender, Intelligence, and Physical Beauty in the World of Jin Yong

Ah Zhu and Qiao Feng from the 1996 TV adaptation of Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils. Ah Zhu is possibly the most intelligent character in the story, yet her entire agenda seems to be serving or helping male characters.

This is part of the Rambling Series about Sexism in Jin Yong Stories.

There is a rule which applies to pretty much every major female character in the fiction of Jin Yong: she must be beautiful and/or intelligent.

Most major female Jin Yong characters are both beautiful and intelligent, but some are beautiful without being intelligent, and a very few – such as Cheng Lingsu (程靈素) from The Young Flying Fox (飛狐外傳) are intelligent – without being beautiful.

This rule does not apply to major male characters – a few are described as being physically handsome, and some of them are intelligent, but many of them – even the protagonists – are neither handsome nor intelligent.

The physical appearance aspect is fairly straightforward – the female characters are meant to appealing to readers who are attracted to females, whereas Jin Yong most of the time did not offer much to readers who are attracted to males (the most notable exception is Yang Guo, the only male protagonist who is described as being handsome – in fact, he is so handsome that he wears a mask to stop women from getting crushes on him). Feminist critics generally – and in my opinion, correctly – would say this is an example of objectification of women without equivalent objectification of men.

The intelligence aspect is a little trickier. In the Anglophone world, most feminist critics say they want more intelligent women in fiction, particularly women in leadership roles. Jin Yong’s fiction is not only full of intelligent women, some of them also rise to significant leadership roles through their own merits – for example, Huang Rong becomes the leader of the Beggars’ Sect, Ren Yingying not only leads the Sun Moon Holy Cult, she also returns the Wulin back to a state of peace, and so forth.

The rub here is that, whereas intelligence is generally considered to be good in the Anglophone world, it is not associated with goodness in the fiction of Jin Yong. The most intelligent protagonists are Yang Guo and Wei Xiaobao – Yang Guo is mischievous and considers helping the Mongols in their mass murder of Chinese, though in the end he works for good. Wei Xiaobao is an obviously immoral antihero, and Jin Yong himself says that it is wrong to follow his example. By contrast, the Jin Yong protagonists who are most obviously good in a moral sense are not very smart – and often need smart women to get them out of the fire. And many of the smartest characters in Jin Yong’s fiction are either morally grey or outright antagonists. In Jin Yong fiction, intelligence tends to make characters think that they don’t have to follow the rules or care about consequences to others, and if they are not restrained in some manner (by being taught Confucian principles and/or Buddhist principles, falling in love with a person more moral than themselves) they are bound to do more harm than good.

This is how the female characters get objectified for their intelligence – they are there so that the good male characters can make use of their intelligence without being tainted by the immorality which comes with intelligence. Furthermore, the female characters ‘need’ their less intelligent male lovers to offer them a moral center so that they do not sink into immorality. One of the many examples of this is Zhao Min and Zhang Wuji – Zhao Min is a badass, conniving Mongol princess who is both ruthless and clever enough to both take over her own family and rule all of China – but that all ends when she falls in love with Zhang Wuji, who is a Super Nice Guy and she wants him to like her. An even more extreme example is Ah Zi and Qiao Feng (though, to be fair, Ah Zi is not especially intelligent – but she is very sadistic) – to quote TV Tropes:

Morality Pet: A rare example of an older, stronger man being a young girl’s morality pet can be found in Demi Gods and Semi Devils. Xiao Feng is the only person who can bring out any sort of redeeming qualities in Ah Zi. Any good deed that Ah Zi ever attempts has been in the effort to seek his approval.

Meanwhile, Qiao Feng also gets a ton of use out of Ah Zi’s very intelligent (and mischievous) sister Ah Zhu.

There are, at most, two counter examples. One is maybe, maybe Wei Xiaobao and Shuang’er – Shuang’er is very subservient to Wei Xiaobao (even though he does not deserve it), but with her obedient goodness, she occasionally persuades Wei Xiaobao to be a bit less blatantly immoral. But I think this is a very borderline example. The better example is Yang Guo and Xiaolongü – he helps ground him so he is less inclined to being implusive and mischievous (and this is the only major example in Jin Yong fiction – well, except for Wei Xiaobao and some of his wives – of an intelligent male character being lovers with a not-particularly-intelligent female character).

I love the work of Jin Yong, and I love that it is full of so many complex and diverse female characters. But I cannot help but notice that the female characters are there to be used by the male characters – whether they are used for they physical appearance or used for their brains. And I am not sure that being objectified for one’s brains is much better than being objectified for one’s physical appearance.

And this raises the question: why do feminists often say they want more intelligent female characters? Do we really want more intelligent female characters, or are we really seeking something else and we just think having more intelligent female characters would be expedient to reaching that other goal?

How I Recommend Getting Access to Ace Fiction

In the past half-year or so, I ended up reading and reviewing a lot of ace fiction. Obviously, I had to gain access to it, and unsurprising, I now have Thoughts About How to Access Ace Fiction.

Generally, I recommend two methods of gaining access to ace fiction:

1) Borrowing ace fiction from libraries
2) Buying ace fiction

A method which I strongly discourage is piracy. It denies writers and publishers the income they have earned (libraries at least make some payment towards writers/publishers). First of all, it’s unfair. Second of all, writers/publishers not getting paid = less incentive to write/publish ace fiction.

A method which I neither encourage nor discourage is seeking review copies. Some writers and/or publishers are willing to formally or informally offer free copies in exchange for reviews. Since I have never tried to use this method, I cannot offer much advice.

Anyway, to my recommended methods…

Borrowing Ace Fiction from the Library

I have always lived in a place which has some kind of public library, and where I could get a library card. Thus, I do not have personal experience of living in a place without a public library, and cannot say anything useful to people in that situation.

If you are lucky, your local library already has a decent selection of ace fiction and all you have to do is borrow it like you would any other book.

However, at least in the year 2017, the odds are that you local library does not have a decent selection of ace fiction. This requires more effort on your part – specifically, requesting that your library adds more ace fiction to their shelves.

My local library’s website has a page called ‘Suggest a Title’ where I can ask them to add new titles. I fill out information such as title, author, publisher, and year of publication. They also give a little box where I can offer additional information. I always put the ISBN in this box to make it easier for the librarians to find the book, and they I put in a short blurb about why the library ought to add this book to their shelves. My blurbs typically are something like this:

I am asexual, and when I was growing up, I did not read any novels with characters who were explicitly asexual like I am. I want people like me to be able to read novels with characters like us, and right now, the library does not have a great selection of books with asexual characters. This book has an asexual character, and furthermore, it’s well-written, and that’s why it belongs on the library’s shelves.

(Feel free to copy and paste that as a template, though I recommend customizing the message for each request)

My success with getting my local library to get new ace fiction is about 50% – which means that my local library has substantially improved its selection of ace fiction since I started these requests (because the selection was not good to start with).

I cannot speak from all libraries, but my local library is willing to buy books from small publishers, and I once even got the library to buy a self-published book (it wasn’t ace fiction, but it still proved that the library is willing to add self-published books to the collection).

Of course, whether a library will acquire ace fiction partially depends on local factors. For example, an underfunded library is less likely to acquire new books. Likewise, a library which, say, primarily stocks books in Chinese may be reluctant to acquire books in English or other European languages (and most of the ace fiction I know about is only available in English and/or other European languages).

Even if you decide to buy a book rather than borrow it from the library, I recommend suggesting titles to you local library anyway to help other readers access ace fiction.

Now for my other recommended method…

Buying Ace Fiction

If you are in a financial secure position, I highly recommend buying your ace fiction. It supports the writers and publishers most directly. Plus, you never have to return your copy to the library. Or, more importantly, you can get access even if it’s not available at your local library.

Most of the ace fiction I’ve read in the past year I’ve bought myself. I admit that, when it was available at the library, I generally chose to borrow it, but I still feel I’ve done my part to financially support ace fiction, and borrowing from the library helps me stretch my money for buying more ace fiction. I also think that, even if one is financially secure, but new to ace fiction and uncertain, that it’s fine to choose the library over direct purchase if that makes it easier to give ace fiction a chance.

But how to go about buying ace fiction?

First of all, for various reasons, I refuse to buy anything from Amazon unless it is something I really want and find extremely difficult to buy elsewhere. Ace fiction does not fall in this category, because I have ways of getting ace fiction without Amazon. Also, I ONLY buy eBooks which are available without DRM. There are a couple of ace fiction titles which I was interested in but are sold exclusively sold through Amazon and with DRM, therefore I did not buy them. I even contacted one of the writers, and she promised that she would soon make it available for purchase through a store other than Amazon, and over a year later it’s … still only available through Amazon with DRM. Therefore, I have neither bought nor read it.

Right now, I’m not going to persuade you to avoid Amazon in generally, but I am going to make the case that it is bad to buy ace fiction from Amazon unless it’s the only store selling it. Why? To quote the Riptide Publishing FAQ…

Both our authors and ourselves get to keep a much larger share of the purchase price when you buy directly from us (or any other publisher site), which makes it easier for your favorite authors to spend more time writing new books. Third-party vendors such as Amazon may keep as much as sixty-five percent of your sale price, leaving as little as thirty-five cents on the dollar for the publisher and author to share.

That’s right, Amazon sometimes take a 65% cut of the sales price, leaving only 35% for both the writer and the publisher to split. So why to publishers still sell through Amazon? Because so many buyers will only buy through Amazon, thus they will lose out on sales if they refuse to work with Amazon. And it is precisely because Amazon has such market power that they are able to abuse small publishers this way (yes, I think Amazon taking a 65% cut of the sales price is abusive). I think there are other reasons to avoid Amazon, but I think this reason alone is pretty compelling.

As far as I know, other book retailers do not take such huge cuts, but they still take some kind of cut. I know that with small publishers in general, writers get paid the highest royalties for sales done directly through the publisher, and that publishers make more money per book from direct sales than from sales through third parties. Therefore, PLEASE buy direct from small publishers so that money goes towards the writers, editors, etc. rather than to Amazon.

To further sweeten the pot, small publishers frequently run sales to encourage readers to buy direct rather than buy through Amazon. Sometimes the discounts are as much as 40% (and more rarely, even more than 40%). Even with these discounts, the writer/publisher still makes more money than if you bought through Amazon. You save money, they make more money than if the sale had gone through Amazon, it’s a win/win. If you want to save money, it may be worthwhile to wait a while for a sale to occur (Cyber Monday tends to be a great time to get discounts, but there are often sales at other times of the year, such as holidays).

Self-published books are a little different since they rarely have a dedicated website for direct sales. When possible, I buy self-published fiction directly through Smashwords since they tend to give writers a better cut than other sellers. If it’s not available through Smashwords, I buy through the Kobo Store (which I find irritating, but given a choice between Kobo and Amazon, I will always choose Kobo). And if it’s only available through Kobo with DRM (which has happened to me once), then I refuse to buy (though I was eventually able to borrow a print copy of that book from the library, so I read it anyway).

But what if it’s legally available for free?

Well then, that makes things simpler (and much cheaper), and I don’t think you need much advice. Generally, fanfic and webcomics are free, and occasionally, prose ace fiction is also legally available for free.

Resources for Finding Ace Fiction

You could look at my book reviews, but maybe you don’t like my reviews or want to learn about ace fiction I haven’t reviewed.

A great resource is the Ace Reads tagpacker, as well as the Ace Reads tumblr with its reviews (obviously, I sometimes disagree with Agent Aletha, but I have great respect for her as a reviewer, and when we have reviewed the same work I recommend reading both of our reviews, especially if we disagree).

I also greatly appreciate the the ace fiction reviews at Just Love (though I do not always agree).

There are also the Aro and Asexual SF fiction database, these lightning reviews of ace webcomics, the Demisexuality in Fiction database, and this database of ace fanfic.

Two publishers, Less than Three Press and Riptide Publishing, also have good filters for asexual fiction: The Less than Three Press Asexual Filter and the Riptide Publishing Asexual Spectrum filter.

May you all find ace fiction that you like!

The Soundtrack of My Recent Pacific Crest Trail Section Hike

I recently returned from my trip to San Diego county. The main thing I did there was hike the southermost 101 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) (for the PCT geeks out there, I did most of Section A, but I did not hike the 8 or so miles between Barrel Spring and Warner Springs, and if you’re wondering why not, it’s because there is no public transit to Warner Springs, even though it’s actual community with a fire station, a post office, an elementary school, and a small shop, whereas Barrel Spring, which is just a water source next to a road, has public transit).

This is Barrel Spring. When I told the hikers there that a bus had dropped me off, they were astonished, because this is not at all the type of place one would expect to be accessible by public transit.

Anyway, one aspect of hiking the PCT is: playing music. A lot of hikers take music players with them, and listen while they hike. If they are really obnoxious, they play the music so loudly that other people hear them. If they are only mildly obnoxious, then they simply become dangerously unaware of their surroundings. There was one hiker listening to music who was so oblivious that he did not see that I was right in front of him until he was inches away from me and I said ‘boo’ in his ear. That turned out to be okay because I saw him and stepped out of his way, but if he could not notice a full-grown human blocking his path, I don’t know how he spots more hazardous obstacles.

That said I am fine with hikers choosing to listen to music as long as they are not obnoxious, and most are not obnoxious. However, personally, I fail to understand the point. Then again, I’ve never carried walkmans, iPods, or any other portable music playing device. I am quite capable of playing music in my head at will, and sometimes I have music playing in my head when I don’t want it. Why bother with the hassle of carrying a music player?

That said, here is the music which played in my head the most during my 101 mile hike through eastern San Diego County:

The “Raseir” theme from Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire – of all of the computer games I’ve ever played, with all of their theme music, why this theme? It’s certainly not a particularly good music theme. On the other hand, Raseir is a (fictional) city in the desert mountains, and I was hiking through desert mountains, so I suppose it might have been appropriate, but I think that this was just random.

The Anza-Borrego Desert, as seen from Mount Laguna (specifically from the Storm Canyon lookout point)

“You’re the Best in the World,” both the original Cantonese version and the new Mandarin version – yes, the Cantonese version is better, but I also like the Mandarin version, and both versions played in my head during my hike. The lyrics about the comparative heights of mountains were especially appropriate.

This is the peak which looms above Hauser Canyon. During this trip, hikers were actually comparing canyons more than mountains. Getting out of Hauser Canyon is the tough climb for northbound hikers, especially those who try to hike out of there in the afternoon when it’s hot and there is no shade (if you plan to do this hike northbound, here is my advice: DO NOT CLIMB THIS IN THE AFTERNOON! Do it in the cool, shady morning, in the late evening, or even at night, but not in the afternoon!). However, for southbounders, like myself, getting out of Hauser Canyon isn’t such a big deal – getting out of Chariot Canyon is the big uphill challenge for us. Meanwhile, none of the northbound hikers I met felt that hiking out of Chariot Canyon was notable (except that Chariot Canyon is the only place sheltered from the wind on that segment, but that’s more important for camping than hiking).

“Walker,” a Cantonese song (here is music video with graphic violence, and audio only) – sure, it’s a song which glorifies violence and dishonesty, but it’s also about being fearless and doing what it takes to reach one’s goals. Most importantly, it’s catchy, at least for me (bonus: it’s obviously not a romance song). And even the title “Walker” is fitting – I did a heck of a lot of walking!

I walked through a few burns during my hike. I don’t know what caused this specific burn, but most wildfires are started by humans.

“Roar” – you all already know about this song, right? I suppose it’s thematically appropriate, and more importantly, it’s catchy, so yes, it got stuck in my head.

I did not see any mountain lions during my trip, or any other animal which can roar (except humans), but I saw a lot of bunnies on the trail.

“Dao Jian Ru Meng” specifically the version by Dong Zhen – since I’ve already written a blog post about this song, I feel no need to say any more.

I didn’t see any swords or sabres during my trek, though I did see a few knives (I even had my own knife). There were a lot of yucca plants on the trail, and I learned through first-hand experience that the leaves are sharp enough to draw blood (thankfully, I was not seriously hurt).

The theme of the TV show Kung Fu – contrary to what the title suggests, this song is from a Hollywood Western, not an Asian martial arts drama. And I feel this was the most appropriate of all of the bits of music I frequently had playing in my head during my hike. I was, after all, trekking through the American West. Once one goes east of the San Diego metropolitan area, things get rural very fast. A local explained that it is because ‘East County’ (that is, the eastern part of San Diego county) does not have enough water to sustain a high human population density, therefore, the population density is permanently low. Historically, East County had mining booms, mining busts, bandits, gunfights, vigilantes, stagecoaches, and there still is cattle ranching (though not much, due to limited water) and the desert mountain landscape today.

You know why this building (from the late 19th century) is built like a stone fortress? It’s because the first Gaskill Store was attacked by bandits and had multiple holes left by bullets in the walls, so the owners wanted their store to have better protection. Some of the bandits escaped, but the ones which did not were hung by cowboys passing through town from a tree which was RIGHT ON THE PRESENT-DAY PACIFIC CREST TRAIL (though the tree died in 1975 and is no longer there). That is one of the more gruesome bits of PCT lore I’ve encountered.

So, now you know what songs were getting stuck in my head as I walked a hundred and one miles through arid hills and mountains. It seems the connecting themes, aside from a vague association with arid mountains, is that most of these songs are about exerting oneself and overcoming obstacles while remembering what’s important in life. When one is carrying water (which is heavy) through heat and/or wind, either going uphill or downhill (downhill puts a different strain on the body), possibly with little shade, it’s good to have a song about overcoming obstacles and appreciating the wonders of life in one’s head.