How Do We Redefine Normal?

 

Image description: To paraphrase a line in the film The Princess Bride, "My blog, his steel, and your strength against all this aphobia, and you think just one post about 'normal' is supposed to make me happy?" In my previous "Redefining 'Normal'" post, I used another image from The Princess Bride, that time of Inigo telling Vizzini "you keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means." And so this time, this image felt appropriate as I explore just how we can redefine normal, since it looks like Inigo is looking to Westley for answers and Westley is wracking his brain just as hard as I am. All kidding aside, today's topic is one I find very important and one I've thought a lot about, so I hope the ideas I put forth here might be helpful or thought-provoking. 

A few months ago, I wrote a post called “Redefining ‘Normal’” about the tendency that exists – both in media and real life – to claim “normal life” must look a certain way. As usual, I had to truncate a lot of my thoughts on the topic, otherwise the post was going to get unreadably long, so I didn’t get to dive as deep as I would have liked. While I got to talk about my own personal opinions on the subject, such as why it’s everywhere and how it functions, I didn’t get to really talk about the actual redefining portion of the topic.

In the months since then, I’ve been thinking about this concept more and more, especially since I’ve been exposed to even more instances of how people try to wield this concept of normal like a weapon. It’s cropped up in my real life and my fandom life in extremely unpleasant ways that you’ve probably seen discussed several times on the blog in the intervening time, and you’ve likely seen me continually reference the “Redefining” post as well. The numerous and often uncomfortable instances of encountering this topic have left me with a question, one I realized I didn’t get to unpack in the original post: How exactly do we redefine normal?

Using that original post as a jumping off point, I’d like to discuss some of my own thoughts about the societal definition of “normal” and how we can push back against it. I’m not here to be the word police, nor am I here to try and get certain concepts or ideas turned on their head; as I’ve said ad nauseum in other posts covering this and other subjects, there is nothing wrong with people valuing or pursuing the things I’ll be discussing. That’s why this series of posts is organized by the moniker of “redefining” because, rather than try and abolish the word “normal” or something equally ridiculous, I just want to encourage people to think about these concepts in new ways. These issues don’t just affect aspec people, but people of all kinds, so I think this type of redefining is something that ultimately benefits all people. With this in mind, what steps can we take to help others realize there is no set definition of normal? Here are just a few of my thoughts and opinions.

Content warning: Discussions of Aphobia/Asexual Discrimination

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“The Default Setting” – But Not The Only Setting

To start, I’d like to tell a story that will probably sound completely irrelevant to what I’m discussing today, but I promise it will go somewhere that makes sense. I have Italian heritage and as a result my family celebrates certain Italian holiday traditions, especially for Christmas. It’s common in the region of Italy where my family originated to celebrate Christmas Eve with a meal known as the “Feast of the Seven Fishes.” As such, every Christmas Eve dinner I’ve ever had has consisted of pasta (because of course) and several different types of seafood. I never questioned this. For me, it was totally normal.

So I’m sure you can imagine my confusion when, as a child, I watched Christmas movies or holiday specials that featured people eating other meals during their own Christmas celebrations. In fact, whenever I watched a movie growing up that featured a “Christmas turkey,” I actually mistook the meal for Thanksgiving, and it took me several years to realize that what I was watching was a different kind of Christmas meal very different from the one I myself was used to.

To me, the Christmas meal had always been so inherently associated with eating seafood that it didn’t even occur to me that other people might have a very different way of celebrating the holiday based on their own family traditions. Whenever I watched that media, I defaulted to what I knew and my own conceptualizations. Having spent my entire life eating fish for Christmas Eve, that is what I brought with me to this media and to these interactions. But I quickly realized that my normal was not the same for everyone, and would indeed be considered abnormal to some. But their normal is my abnormal.

Image description: A scene from one of my favorite Christmas movies, The Santa Clause, in which the dinner on TV is hilariously contrasted with the disastrous dinner the main character tries to make on Christmas Eve. You can probably imagine how much this confused me as a child, and I often wondered why Santa Claus was coming on Thanksgiving.

So who is right? The answer, of course, is neither and both. My own family’s holiday traditions, while not typical for what many other American families might do, are no less valid than another family’s traditions; the only difference is that the Christmas turkey is more commonly associated with the holiday and more typically portrayed, and thus it has been enshrined in the cultural ethos as more “normal” than what my own reality portrays. And so now I’ve arrived at my point; let’s take this same viewpoint and apply it to aspec issues.

Similar to my family’s holiday traditions, which might be seen as unusual or unrecognizable to some, I live a life that many people would likewise find strange. I do not experience romantic or sexual attraction, and I have no interest in engaging in these things for the sake of a partner, because I have no intention of finding one, nor do my future plans include things that are considered typical metrics of life, such as marriage or children. To someone who has or wants to have any of these things, my life looks extremely abnormal. But to me, it’s my normal everyday reality. By contrast, their normal everyday reality is not something I can fathom, nor something I find appealing, even though I can respect and appreciate that it works for them.

Much like there was nothing wrong with those Christmas meals I saw in movies and their existence does not make my family’s own holiday celebrations invalid, the same is true with these differences in life paths. There is, of course, nothing wrong with romance, sex, marriage, or having children. I am not dismissing these things, nor am I criticizing them. However, much like Christmas movies and specials tend to portray a more common version of holiday traditions, media of all kinds tends to portray more common versions of relationships, and more people in general tend to experience those as their version of normal. And, as I think my story about my own childhood proves, we tend to default to what we know, see around us, or have experienced.

It’s not surprising that most people see these types of relationships around them – in real life and in media – and that these things become what they default to when they imagine or discuss “normal” life. And again, as previously stated, these things may indeed be normal life for them. But they are not normal life for everyone, nor should they be seen as universal metrics everyone has to hit. Additionally, why is it assumed that people who do not have these things are automatically living less fulfilling lives and that they should be pitied if they don’t have these supposedly standard metrics?

Again, these things are not “normal” for everyone, nor are they things that all people universally want to pursue to make them happy. Just because most people tend to default to these things when they envision normal does not mean that all people should or will. Moreover, there are many things in life that seem to be default that people choose to opt out of, which is proof that these things shouldn't be an enforced norm, but should rather be treated as exactly what I just described – a default choice that doesn’t necessarily work for everyone and which some people may choose to opt out of.

To that end, I think one of the biggest things that would go a long way to redefining normal would be to stop talking in absolutes. The minute someone claims that “everyone” wants a certain thing, it gets picked up as a standard of normalcy, and one that is just obviously false. Of course not everyone is going to agree on something, but I think these absolute terms and phrases are more than just figures of speech. Rather, I think people use them to try and entrench certain attitudes at the exclusion of others – whether they realize they’re doing it or not.

In many situations, it seems like this way of phrasing things is casting certain opinions and beliefs out of a conversation entirely, as though trying to state that these opinions are meaningless or have no value, and thus don’t have to be respected. Of course, it’s also possible that people who use this type of language are just choosing their words carelessly, which is why I think it’s valuable to point out these instances. Heck, even I sometimes use the word “normal” when referring to other people around me, often devaluing myself in the process, and it’s a word that I tend to use when I feel bad about myself. It’s not a good pattern to fall into, but it is an easy one, which is part of why this segregation of “normal” and “abnormal” can become so pernicious.

But I’ve also noticed something terrific as a result – through talking about this issue with people close to me, they’ve started to see what I’m talking about in both regular life and media. In many cases, they’ve noticed the word “normal” even more acutely thanks to my openness with this topic, and will even remind me when necessary to not use the word “normal” to disparage myself.  Granted, because these are people who are already important in my life, such as parents and friends, they’ve already been exposed to me talking about these issues for years, so results may vary, but I still think it’s proof that discussing these topics with people we trust and who accept us can go a long way.

But what about when it comes to people we don’t know well or people who haven’t been exposed to aspec concepts? In a previous post, I discussed (or, more accurately, vented about) my feelings on the concept of aspec visibility, and how I feel people often see or acknowledge aspec identities, but don’t accept them. I believe this fact demonstrates quite clearly that we still have a lot of work to do when it comes to aspec representation, because I think only then will people really be able to realize that normal life doesn’t have to default to certain things.

Representation Is Important

Asexual and/or aromantic representation are topics I discuss all the time; in fact, the header of my blog makes it clear that the desire for better representation in media is literally the foundation upon which I’ve built all my analysis. And yet, I think the idea of representation can become somewhat abstract, to the point where I’m planning a post for early 2024 in which I discuss what this concept entails. For this post, however, suffice to say that depicting complex aspec characters whose stories demonstrate how being aspec impacts their lives is extremely important – and still sadly in short supply.

In my first post about “normal,” I discussed how aspec people often don’t have the tools to help themselves find a different path than the typical societally expected one, but I think this applies to allosexual people and would-be allies as well. Oftentimes, because these “normal” societal expectations are so entrenched, allosexual people likewise don’t have the tools to extend true acceptance, understanding, or empathy towards aspec people. Representation could be one of those tools. By showing not only aspec people living different lives, but people of all kinds living lives that may not be considered “normal,” I think we could begin to entrench the idea that normal life is in the eye of the beholder.

Showing aspec people resisting the “societal norm” is important – or even just people who don’t prioritize sex or romance but are never confirmed as aspec doing likewise. But even more than that, in my opinion, I’d love to see stories about these same types of people not just bucking these trends, but never having to worry about these trends in the first place. I think this is why I tend to be so hypercritical at times of science fiction media, such as my favorite sci-fi franchise, Star Trek, because this type of media is supposed to be creating an optimistic future. Just like these stories attempt to challenge and solve many of the problems found in society today, I’d like to see people like me represented in worlds where normal truly has been redefined and doesn’t mean what it does in the here and now.

There is another element of representation that I feel needs to be considered when we talk about redefining normal, and it’s an even harder one than just portraying these stories in media – and that’s welcoming these attitudes in fandom spaces. This is a topic I’ve discussed many times before, even just recently, so I’m not going to linger on it too much in this post. However, I will say briefly that the way the internet and fandom spaces allow this stereotype of normal to fester is a very real problem, especially in an age where social media impacts so much of day-to-day life.

The idea of “normal” in a fandom space is especially ironic to me, especially when you consider that many fandoms are criticized and maligned for being “outside of the normal.” Any sci-fi or fantasy nerd can tell you, I’m sure, about how the world often treats these niche interests as freakish and “not something normal people would do,” often degrading these things in the process. The stupidity of this attitude is something that’s been discussed for a long time, so I’m not going to unpack it here. But with this fact in mind, I’d also like to point out the surprising hypocrisy of how fans, who are probably treated as “abnormal” by society, then do the same thing to other fans.

Image description: A scene from The Big Bang Theory in which (from left to right) Sheldon, Raj, Howard, and Leonard are dressed up like characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation. As a nerd, this episode always makes me uncomfy because it features the guys being maligned so badly for being nerds that they feel a sense of shame for their own geekiness, an all-too-apropos metaphor for how the real world - and often the show itself - treats geeks. So it's even more ironic that the four guys often gatekeep other people from geekdome or even from just simply enjoying their own likes and passions - an all-too-apropos metaphor for real life fandom too.

For instance, any regular reader of the blog knows I’m a huge fan of BTS and that I often discuss the impact they’ve had on my life. You may also know that BTS as a band is often marginalized due to the assumptions people make about them, and their fans are often dismissively generalized as “twelve-year-old girls.” Naturally, this is not true (my twenty-eight-year-old self is living proof of that), and the fandom, known as ARMY, is made up of men and women of all ages, including famous celebrities like professional wrestler and actor John Cena, who is very much not a twelve-year-old girl.

Nevertheless, this attitude persists in the general public and liking BTS is often treated as a ridiculous, abnormal thing that is worthy of ridicule. One might think that this fact alone would bring some unity to the fandom, right? Again, if you’ve read my blog for a while, you know what I’m going to say; in fact, if you read the first “redefining” post, I already discussed the BTS fandom at length there, so I won’t belabor the point too much here. But needless to say, the BTS fandom, for all their kindness, acceptance, and tolerance otherwise, can actually be one of the worst offenders when it comes to trying to push a “normal” life.

The example of the BTS fandom becomes even more tragically ironic when you consider that BTS’s discography contains many songs about challenging societal norms. Just recently, one of the members, Suga (going by his alternate alias of Agust D) gave me a perfect lyric to discuss these metrics of supposed normalcy in his song “Haegeum,” whose title refers to lifting a ban or a prohibition – in this case, most likely the prohibition of free thought. In this song, he raps that “opinions are so transparently driven by interests” and states that people often end up shackling one another without even realizing it. If this doesn’t accurately describe fandom life, I don’t know what does.

Image description: A shot from the music video for Suga/Agust D's song "Haegeum"

But I believe it doesn’t have to be like this. You’ve probably noticed that I’ve gone to great lengths through this post and other posts on the topic to point out there’s nothing wrong with choosing to define your “normal life” in this way. I do my best everyday to remember that just because I don’t experience certain things doesn’t mean they’re wrong – and I believe some of these problems with normalcy would get better if more people used a little more consideration, as I discussed in the first section of this post.

How To Resist “Normal” If You Can’t Redefine It

As I said earlier, I do believe there are plenty of people who use “normal” and don’t mean anything by it. However, I know there are plenty of people who discuss “normal” life who are legitimately convinced that everyone shares their opinion, which is an alarming notion. Even more distressing, there are other people who likely believe that not sharing this opinion of “normal” is a bad thing that needs to be corrected.

It’s certainly possible that the points I’ve discussed above could change these people’s minds if they were more exposed to people who don’t meet these “normal” metrics, of course. However, it’s an unfortunate fact of reality that not everyone will redefine their beliefs about upholding “normal” no matter what we do. And in these instances, I believe it becomes less a matter of redefinition and more a matter of learning how to not be affected by their insistence on upholding these artificial standards.

I’m reminded of the old quote about judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree and how if that’s the metric you use, the fish is obviously going to feel like a failure. Much like a fish was not built to climb a tree, some of us are not built to hit certain benchmarks in life and that’s okay – especially since those benchmarks are as arbitrary as judging a fish by its climbing ability. If people choose to judge you on those things, that actually says far more about them than it does about you.

I actually had this happen to me at my last job, during which I found out that some of my coworkers used to talk about how weird it was that I wasn’t dating or interested in romance. These coworkers didn’t even know I’m AroAce – and, if I had to guess, likely haven’t heard of those identities in the first place – so they weren’t saying these things out of a place of discrimination or bias; rather, they were saying these things because, in their own definition of “normal,” that’s how life should be, and in their minds I am a strange outlier.

Again, this is what I mean when I say aphobia affects allosexual people too, because this type of thing can and does happen just as easily to people who should otherwise be seen as “normal,” but are choosing to live their lives in a slightly different manner, even briefly. And I think that fact alone is proof of why people defending their opinions by saying it’s just how “normal” people behave can so quickly become a slippery slope of nonsense. Who’s to say what “normal” really means? Those definitions can change so drastically depending on who you talk to, and so who defines what that term really means?

For that reason, although “normal” is such a ubiquitous term in our society and culture, it’s not something people can actually conform to, because you’re never going to hit everyone’s definition. And because of that, if we can’t encourage people to see a broader spectrum, I believe the first step we should personally take is figuring out how to rise above them. Not letting these things affect you is going to be different for everyone, and it’s likely going to be something of a constant battle – believe me, I know. Even I’m not always successful at it and, despite my efforts, sometimes these comments do bother me, because I know they don’t exist in a vacuum.

The fact that people still hold these attitudes, even in a day and age where we’re supposed to be more tolerant and aware than ever before, is deeply painful. This is why I believe those of us who can speak up should do so on behalf of those who can’t. This is also why I do things like book review posts or my “Ace Safe Space” lists; all these things are how I personally cope or push back against the supposed definitions of normal and, although everyone’s tastes will vary, I always sincerely hope that perhaps one of these things will be useful to someone else as they look for a respite from the world.

I also hope that all people can have a support system, whatever that looks like for them. We all need a place or a group of people where we know we’ll be safe, whether that’s an online friend group or one IRL, a biological family or a chosen one, the real world or a fictional place. And within those support systems and safe spaces, I sincerely hope we can come to realize that “normal” standards have been challenged for as long as they’ve existed. Therefore, removing ourselves from them doesn’t make us strange or unusual; rather, I believe, it’s actually a better metric of the human experience.

Image description: Another screenshot from The Princess Bride. "They didn't fall for the supposed definition of normal?! Inconceivable!" Okay, that's not the quote. But tell me it doesn't work?

So, to answer my own question of how we redefine normal: I think redefining normal is not something that will ever necessarily be done; rather I believe it’s something we’ll each have to do over and over again in our own ways and in our own lives. I believe it’s something that will only happen through our efforts and our examples, whether we’re aspec or not, and in my own life I hope it’s something that can be done more confidently as time goes on. And above all, I think it involves being bold enough to question what goes on around us, a skill I hope develops with practice.

I think we talk a lot about challenging the status quo, but we don’t talk nearly enough about questioning it, which I think is essential in this case. Again, I’m not the word police, nor am I the arbiter of good tastes or best practice when it comes to what’s best for all aspec people; I can only discuss things as I see them and as I’ve experienced them. I’m neither advocating for or even saying it’s possible to change the status quo of normal, and I don’t think it’s necessarily helpful to do so. But I do believe we should ask “why?” as I stated in the conclusion of my previous post.

While asking people “why” when it comes to these issues may help change their minds, I don’t think that should be the end goal of it; rather, I think we should ask “why” for our own sake. Asking "why" reminds us how fragile these supposedly rigid definitions are and allows us to make room for ourselves within them. In a world where strange, unusual, or unorthodox things happen every day, we’re not the weird ones for living our lives without romance, sex, marriage, having children, or any combination of those things. Instead, I’d argue the most abnormal thing is trying to shame people because of those choices, and that, I think, is one of the most important takeaways.