Queer Heretic Nun

I am a Queer Heretic Nun.

That's a bit of a paradoxical identity label, but it's the one that fits me the best.

Let's start with the Nun part first.

I live a monastic lifestyle under vows that include solitude and devotion to my own spiritual and intellectual development, supporting myself through the generosity of my audience. I undertake a lot of contemplative and meditative practices in order to refine my thinking and cultivate myself.

I'm also a Heretic.

I don't belong to any mainstream religion. I'm a spiritual anarchist - I don't do well with hierarchy. A heretic is someone who looks at the evidence and interprets that evidence on their own, rather than relying solely on the interpretation of others. That doesn't mean my interpretations are always radically different than other people - though they often are - but that I'm not relying on others to decide for me how I interpret something. This is across the board - religiously, politically, etc. I'm not going to just swallow the party line, I'm going to examine the evidence and come to my own conclusions.

And I am Queer.

Unlike most religious traditions that have nuns, I don't live under a vow of celibacy. Sexuality can be a source of personal growth as much as it can be one of personal degradation. My sexual and romantic orientations are outside of the norm - I'm aromantic/greyromantic. No desire for a relationship, and past relationships always just sort of happened because I clicked with a person. My sexual attraction is trickier - I like sex, a whole lot, but my baseline is just "horny and down as long as you haven't turned me off," but my list of turnoffs has grown so much that I'm mostly a Solosexual now - my only sexual partner is myself and that's a very satisfying relationship, so I'm cool with it.

That's the basic summary, but my relationship with the label Queer Heretic Nun goes much deeper than that and is constantly evolving, so this note is likely to evolve with it