Hi all,
Happy Pride Month! I hope you're having a good one
filled with joy and love and acceptance!
God bless,
Jenni
Ask a JABB Co-Founder-
The Pride Edition, Part II
The previous edition can be viewed
here. This time around, I chose to focus more on
asexuality but not exclusively.
If all angels are asexual, what's
the deal with Ed?
Ed was asexual the entire time he was an angel (and
demon). He only became gay when he became human.
Prior to that, he felt intense romantic love for Steve but not
sexual attraction. It very well could have happened that
Ed remained an angel and he and Steve carried on with a romantic
relationship a la Andrew and JenniAnn or Aziraphale and
Crowley. However, due to Steve's past, Ed wanted him to
have the marriage of his dreams. That was never coming
from a sexual place for Ed. It was purely wanting the best
for his partner. It was similar to Andrew sometimes
feeling badly that he couldn't marry JenniAnn and have kids with
her. It's not that *he* wanted to get married and
procreate in that way. He just really loved her and
thought she wanted that. So why did God let Ed become
human aka sexual and not Andrew? Because Steve actually
did want a marriage and sex whereas JenniAnn actually wanted
neither. Steve would have put those desires aside if
needed. But for what purpose? I think an even bigger
determinant was that Andrew is happy with his life and his
job. Ed was very much not. He lost his family, the
iwi he was assigned to. He lost his faith. For a few
years, his relationship with Steve was all he had. God saw
that and decided to use their marriage as a way to further heal
Ed so that, eventually, he can resume being an angel.
Also, this is God we're talking about. He has plans for
days. So there's a reason He would want someone around who
had experienced life as both an angel and a human... but the
reason for that is currently known only to God. Well...
and me. But from the POV of inside the stories, only God
knows.
JenniAnn and Shelby are both asexual but seem
different. Why?
JenniAnn is either heteroromantic asexual or demiromantic
asexual meaning she's sexually attracted to no one but
romantically attracted to men (or entities appearing as men) or
possibly solely romantically attracted to Andrew if demi.
Asexuality.org
aka AVEN defines demiromantic as "a type of grey-romantic who
only experiences romantic attraction after developing an
emotional connection beforehand." For JenniAnn, it boils
down to if you read her previous relationship with Eliot as an
actual romantic relationship or just two people caving to
societal expectations. In contrast, Shelby is aromantic
asexual. That means she feels neither romantic or sexual
attraction. In other words, she has no interest in
canoodling which is definitely something JenniAnn does with
Andrew. This is not to say that romance isn't important to
Shelby. It very much is. She just doesn't desire it
for herself. But Andrew's and JenniAnn's romantic
relationship gives her a sense of stability... so much that
she's the one who goes onto document their relationship and
several others for posterity.
Since God is all-knowing, He would have
known Gwen would die young so why would He assign Jamie to
her and not some other angel who wasn't going to develop
feelings?
I guess your take on this depends on who you center. If
you center Gwen then it seems like a kindness. She'd
suffered the death of her beloved mother and her mother's
partner, struggled with loneliness, and then been married off to
a jerk. She deserved to experience true love. It was
heartbreaking for Jamie but I think if given the choice between
never meeting Gwen and meeting her and losing her, Jamie would
choose the former 100 out of 100 times. It's also good to
keep in mind that God always knows what's coming. If Jamie
hadn't been assigned to Gwen then Liliwen very well could have
ended up raised by her terrible father. She would not have
been allowed to marry for love which would have wiped the Davies
family out of existence which means there would be no Cynefin
which would have quite possibly left a bunch of queer Welsh
people without a safe space. Rhiannon would not exist and
who knows where that would leave Vonnie. The ripple
effects would be huge.
In the end, every angel with a human anam cara is going to have
to experience their death. Whether that happens after only
a few years or after a few decades, it will still be
painful. It could still end in trauma for the angel.
But, thankfully, Heaven exists. They get to be together
again.
Loss of a partner is something humans experience every
day. I don't think the relevant angels feel they should be
any different... even if, at the time of loss, they experience
anger and sorrow.
Why does
almost everyone end up with kids?
I'm including this here
because of my recent epiphany that I think the common
understanding of procreation is really reductive. Don't get me
wrong, I recognize that a man and a woman having sex and
conceiving a child is procreation. But I think it's kind
of weird that people often use that as evidence that queer
relationships are going against God's plan. I especially
find this position odd when it comes from Catholic theologians
because in traditional Catholic teaching, Mary and Joseph never
had sex. Which means that by that strict definition, their
marriage was not procreative. So you're telling couples to
be procreative in this particular way while holding up as an
example a couple who, allegedly, were not that?
Okey-doke... So what do I believe?
I think Mary and Joseph aka Maryam and Yosef are a wonderful
example of a good marriage. I also believe their marriage
was procreative whether or not they conceived children
together. Regardless, they created the family that would
raise and nurture the Son of God. In my stories, I chose
for Maryam and Yosef to not have other biological
children. But absolutely I believe they procreated.
Because to me procreation can mean a man and a woman conceiving
a child. Or it can mean a child being conceived with
medical assistance like IVF. Or it can mean two or more
people of any gender expression coming together to create a
family to nurture children (including grown children.)
Sexual reproduction is a biological reality. I get
that. But the restrictive definition of procreation, to
me, disregards other biological realities like:
1. People die, sometimes with young children.
2. People conceive babies without necessarily being ready
or willing to raise those children.
3. People sometimes reject their children for any number
of reasons.
Andrew and JenniAnn have created a family by taking in an orphan
in Shelby (#1), a neglected grown child in Max (#2), and
abandoned children born to unprepared mothers in Belle and Avi
(also #2). With those four and Violeta, I absolutely
believe Andrew and JenniAnn were procreative. They created
a home and a family and continue to tend both and will continue
to do that until they go Home. If Roger and Loreena remain
together and, say, start taking in queer youth cast out of their
families, their relationship will, to my mind, be
procreative. In this way, I don't at all think procreation
is restricted to heteronormative people. I believe this
mindset to be respectful not only to queer families but also to
straight couples who are unable to conceive.
All this to say, I don't believe every relationship needs to be
procreative. I only mean that, to my mind, the "Gay people
can't procreate and, thus, are bad" argument is sus and hurts
not only queer people but also people who choose to be childless
along with people facing infertility. So I find a lot of
joy in exploring the more expansive view of procreation in my
stories hence a lot of people ending up with kids even though
that's not a part of my actual life.
Why did JenniAnn struggle so much with
coming out to Andrew as asexual when she knew he was also ace?
I think there were several reasons. Firstly, Andrew being
ace isn't really comparable to JenniAnn being ace.
Asexuality is a given with angels. In humans, asexuals are
definitely in the minority. I also think it's good to
remember that "When
You Are Real" was written back in 2010 and set in the same
year. The past decade has seen a lot of growth in all
forms of queer representation. Ace representation is still
lacking but at least you can find it if you look for it.
Growing up, my only experience of the word asexual was as part
of the phrase "asexual reproduction" in Biology class. I
had no concept of asexual as an identity. So JenniAnn
would have grown up in the same way. It was something new
to her, something she was still figuring out even as it dawned
on her that she was that. So "a bird who doesn't feel like
a bird" was easier for her to say. I don't think she had
any concern about Andrew rejecting her or thinking she was
weird. It was just a lack of comfort with the language for
her.
Looking back and projecting, I think it's also possible that
JenniAnn realized that with that admission, Andrew was probably
going to back down on encouraging her to find someone other than
him. Or, even if he did (like in "Abide With Me"), it
would be pretty hollow lip service. By the time "Abide
With Me" happened, Andrew thought it was the polite thing to say
because he knew he'd be away for, potentially, years. But
he didn't actually want JenniAnn to find someone else and would
have been hurt if she had and JenniAnn full well knew
that. So by "coming out," JenniAnn was making a commitment
to Andrew. Just because it was one she very much wanted
doesn't mean it also wasn't kinda scary to make.
Anyway, I hope this all makes sense. Sleep has been a lil
lacking of late!
This newsletter is dedicated to John Dye
for reminding all people that God loves them even if,
sometimes, it seems the wider society struggles to do so.
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(Photo Credits: The photograph used on this page is from
Touched by an Angel and owned by CBS Productions, Caroline
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