You’d probably think that a writer who hobbies in sex would want to see her children follow in her footsteps as they near adulthood. Well, I do want them to adopt flexible thinking about sexuality and an acceptance for sexual variations, but they certainly don’t have to follow in my “radical out” ways. I respect their individuality and know that that’s what tempers them. My daughter is a quiet and private individual, not one to draw attention to herself — not what’s required to be an opinionated sex writer. (Although she does well with the AIDS Day of Silence commemoration.) My son is a bit more like me, sitting on the fence between extroversion and introversion, but over the last year, we’ve faced a “situation” (for lack of a better word) that opened up a whole new texture to our notion of love and sex.
We’ve discovered that, on top of mild Asperger’s and a serious mood disorder, my son’s endocrine system is barely functioning. He produces virtually no growth hormone, barely any stress hormones, and — the real tip that something was wrong — hardly any sex hormones. Over the last six months, he’s gone through a cranial MRI, a bone density scan, a growth hormone test, quarterly blood work, and, next up, an adrenal gland test. One culprit was a certain medication he needed to control a certain aspect of mood, but it caused all sorts of quality of life issues that we switched to a cousin drug that virtually eliminated those issues. Doing so restored a certain amount of sex hormone functioning and now my son is progressing through puberty, this at age 17.
But it remains to be seen whether he’ll attain a fully functioning sexuality. A small number of people with brain/psychiatric disorders also have endocrine problems. It’s rare, but it happens. In the course of going through all this, we’ve had an open dialogue with our son about the issues surrounding this situation and one thing I’ve seen happening is he’s forming an identity around being asexual. Bear in mind, this kid’s so hormonally challenged that he doesn’t have enough of a sex drive to even masturbate. He’s yet to develop facial hair or an adam’s apple. His voice has yet to deepen. And he’s actually comfortable with this. It’s uncomplicated.
In fact, he’s so comfortable with it that he doesn’t want it to change. As I’ve said, I believe in respecting who my kids are and we’ve told him that we’ll support him. We’ll only ask him to try hormone supplements if they’re required to prevent long-term health consequences. So far, that hasn’t been suggested by his endochrinologist. To her, the size of his testes are growing just enough to meet whatever minimum she requires and, yes, she can tell just by touch.
Whether my son can ever father offspring isn’t important to me. Whether he can ever have a satisfactory sex life is a tad more difficult for me, but only in so far as he’ll be missing out on pleasure, and there, I only have to look at his comfort level with who he is now to understand that maybe he won’t be missing out on much. (“What you don’t know, you won’t miss.”) But because this kid is loving, it would pain me to see him go through life unloved. No one should go through life unloved. What an empty existence that would be.
However, maybe his forming identity will help him there. And maybe, thanks to Darklady writing about it, I can eventually hook him up with the Asexual Visibilty and Education Network. (Hurray once again for Wesleyan University!) There, at least, he’ll find his identity validated. Right now, he’s more interested in Dungeons and Dragons so it’ll have to wait. I think I’ll drop the founder a note of thanks.
Damn. I have a truckload of links but this is rant enough for one day. If I’m not too sleep deprived tomorrow, I’ll fork over a few of them, OK?
