Asexual-Society: You're Valid!!

If you think depicting a character as a sex-averse asexual inherently infantilizes them, that’s aphobic.

If you think depicting a character as a nonpartnering asexual inherently infantilizes them, that’s aphobic.

If you think depicting a character as a black-stripe asexual inherently infantilizes them, that’s aphobic.

If you think depicting a character who is any of those types of asexual inherently makes them inhuman, robotic, heartless, evil, monstrous, or a bad stereotype, that’s aphobic.

If you think depicting a character as sex-favorable means they can’t be asexual, that’s aphobic.

If you think depicting a character as partnering means they can’t be asexual, that’s aphobic,

If you think depicting a character as someone who has had or enjoyed sex means they can’t be asexual, that’s aphobic.

If you think depicting a character as someone who has experienced or does experience a little bit of sexual attraction means they can’t be asexual, that’s aphobic.

If you think depicting a character as a romance-repulsed aromantic inherently infantilizes them, that’s aphobic.

If you think depicting a character as a romance-averse aromantic inherently infantilizes them, that’s aphobic.

If you think depicting a character as a nonpartnering aromantic inherently infantilizes them, that’s aphobic.

If you think depicting a character as a green-stripe aromantic inherently infantilizes them, that’s aphobic.

If you think depicting a character who is any of those types of aromantic inherently makes them inhuman, robotic, heartless, evil, monstrous, or a bad stereotype, that’s aphobic.

If you think depicting a character as romance-favorable means they can’t be aromantic, that’s aphobic.

If you think depicting a character as partnering means they can’t be aromantic, that’s aphobic.

If you think depicting a character as someone who has had or enjoyed a romantic relationship means they can’t be aromantic, that’s aphobic.

If you think depicting a character as someone who has experienced or does experience a little bit of romantic attraction means they can’t be aromantic, that’s aphobic.

I’d been interning with her as an artist/executive assistant for some time. To put a long story short she’d developed a tremor that kept her from doing a certain amount of studio work, so in between sending emails and invoices for her I’d chip in and help with line art or drafting on longer projects. A lot of it was the two of us sitting in her basement studio, doing our own thing, waiting for the phone to ring. We got to talking a lot. I’d just moved across the country and was still finding my footing.

There was a handyman she had over occasionally — he was a personal friend who enjoyed her company more than she enjoyed his. She didn’t dislike him by any means, but he definitely had feelings for her that she didn’t reciprocate. One day, after he’d come over to repair something-or-other and left, she and I started talking about relationships.

She asked if I had a boyfriend. I told her I wasn’t interested in being in a relationship with anyone and that I’d never had a desire to be in a relationship. Admittedly, I was bracing for the “You’ll meet the right person someday” response. I knew it generally came from a place of care, but it never changed how much I dreaded to hear it. I really respected my mentor and I was prepared to nod along to whatever response she gave me. Instead of anything I expected her to say, she just kind of nodded and said, “Me neither. I think I’m — what’s the term — asexual?”

I was ecstatic. I told her I was asexual, too. I saw her sigh in relief, the same way I did. I couldn’t believe it.

We didn’t get much work done that day, we just started talking about our experiences. She’d been married once when she was younger and even during that period of her life her disinterest in a sexual relationship didn’t change. She had a roommate after graduating college who confessed to having feelings for her and she had to tell her “It’s not that I don’t like girls, it’s that I don’t like anybody.” The roommate harbored enough bitterness over this that they had to split ways. Her mother told her that she would quote “rather have a gay daughter than a daughter who didn’t fancy anyone at all” unquote.

I didn’t have nearly as many experiences as she did, but I was able to share my own for the first time. I shared how it was easier to say I was taking time to work on myself than to say I had no interest in being in a relationship. We talked about the words “You’ll meet the right person someday” and “You’ll know when you’re in love” and “Don’t worry, one day you’ll meet some guy that changes everything.” As if something was broken.

“I’ve been alive for sixty five years,” my mentor told me, “and I’ve never felt like I was missing something, even if everybody told me I was.”

Currently, my mentor lives with her parrot, her cats, and her backyard-wildlife pals in a house that she owns. She makes art and hosts community art groups and volunteers at care homes and is the most self-fulfilled woman I’ve ever met. And she loves her life. She loves the people she knows and they love her, too. If I could be half as cool as she is when I grow up, I think that’d be pretty amazing.

Today, 25 February, in 1971, New York newspaper The Village Voice published an article, titled Asexuals Have Problems Too. The article satirised earlier debates in the paper, which had argued over whether straight or gay people had things harder, positing that being asexual in a sex-obsessed world was the hardest of all. You can read the whole thing here.

Although the article was not intended to be taken seriously, it resonated with readers – some wrote in thanking the author for increasing the visibility of asexuality, others wrote in solidarity, hoping to learn more about how to support the ace community.

For my ace buddies and fellow demis.

I'll add smth here cos I learned after posting this on IG that people still aren't entirely understanding how scary and dangerous this is. Ppl kept saying to me 'I can still buy your book in shops though' or 'Its okay, I'll order your book into my library!'

I dont give af about my book lol No one outside of Ace ppl ever read it, its yearly sales don't even cover a month of expenses for me.

The thing you should all be concerned about is that a totally benign unheard of book about someone's every day life is being banned. And those laws listed above are passing through US government right now. One of those laws would make it so that any teacher/librarian in the US could lose their job/go to prison for simply sharing 'ideology'- and I don't mean only lgbtq folk, these laws are attacking black history, civil rights history, disability rep in books. Just talking about these things will now legally be considered a 'dangerous ideology'.

And once that's set into law, the US government has backing via law to go ahead and say 'if these books aren't legally allowed in schools, then they shouldn't be allowed in shops, either.' And from there it sets up a great argument for 'The dangerous content in these books is lawfully being removed from public, shouldn't we be lawfully removing the people living out/promoting this ideology too?'

I can see why ppl don't fully understand how dangerous book bannings are, if they're not familiar with the history of fascism. If you're interested, there are plenty of graphic novels that share this history via first hand accounts- Maus, Persepolis, Banned Book Club.

But guess what? You're on limited time to get these via libraries...cos all three of these books are on banned lists too, and they got nothing to do with lgbtq rep, and everything to do with warning ppl about fascism.

And the US government knows it can get away with this, because they are passing these laws as we speak and barely anyone is doing anything about it or talking about it. I've been trying to talk about it for years and no one does anything except say to me 'don't worry, I'll buy your book!' or say its a badge of honour that I have a banned book.

Like, that phrasing actually reeks of aphobia and allonormativity (consciously or not).

Asexuality is not a lack of sexual attraction, it's experiencing little to no sexual attraction. Aromanticism is not a lack of romantic attraction, it's experiencing little to no romantic attraction.

I do not experience sexual or romantic attraction, but I don't "lack" those things. Lack implies a deficiency, a sense of incompleteness or wrongness. To lack something means that you are lacking in it, and inherently assumes that's a bad thing. That might not be the intention, but the word "lack" is just so pathologizing that I just hate using it to describe something like orientation.

My orientation is not a problem or an absence of something, it's just what I am.

aggressively arospec week: arospec headcanons