Here Be Dragons

I had to recreate the song from scratch just to make this joke so you’re welcome lmao 

Disclaimer; I debated heavily on whether I should even write this. But with all my talk about how little sex education exists for asexual people, I’ve never taken a huge step towards explicitly describing the process of sex while ace from my own experience. It’s something that should be done, because very little of it exists.

This is a voice that needs to be heard for the asexual community as a whole. Also, there’s tons of non-ace allosexual people who have no clear comprehension of what goes on in the minds of aces under sexual duress. And more specifically, they don’t know what happens when you get a sex-repulsed asexual in a sexual situation. One that they willingly enter. Repeatedly.

Why is this information important? Because, chances are, this will be the first time you read a perspective like this. No one has ever given me answers about my aceness when it comes to sex. No one has ever taught my anything about sex education in the asexual experience. This is for all the aces out there. This is for all those people who have aces in their lives, and want to understand them. 

“But you said yes, didn’t you?” When come a scenario where the other party is unaware of my aceness or the true level of my discomfort, then they’re clearly not meaning any harm. I gave them consent through language that they understand. And that was my first mistake.

Asexual consent is not allosexual consent. When you’re not actually drawn to the other party, and you’re not interested in them sexually, then mutual sexual stimulation becomes something akin to a chore, or a favor. And that chore can so very easily become a stressor, and from there a danger. 

That’s not the case every time, of course. If we imagine sexual activity as a ‘dance’, then we can easily imagine a scenario where one person is interested in their dancing partner sexually, and therefore the act of dancing together is a sexually intimate moment for them. But the other person, an ace, simply enjoys the act of dancing together, or the act of dancing in general. And in that scenario, there’s no stressor.

But that’s never been the case for me. When I’m with another party, there’s obviously a completely different world happening in their mind. They’re seeing me, and the situation, through a lens that I don’t approve of, that I don’t empathize with. They’re getting something out of the situation that bothers me on a fundamental level. This ‘dance’ becomes a chore.

So when they give consent, it’s in a significantly different language than mine. They say ‘yes’ to something that I’ll never say ‘yes’ to. And from there, that imbalance of consent leads to disaster.

But they don’t know that. How could they? I certainly didn’t until it was far too late. But it’s affected me extremely adversely, in a similar way that my transness and my race has affected my sexual relationship in a white man’s world. It’s an issue of consent and how badly it can go when there’s a dearth of vital information.

“But what if you controlled the situation?” I’ve asked myself this question, and I’ve gone at lengths to test it. I didn’t want to live like this; my biggest regrets of my life are involving each and every awful night spent in these dangerous spots. I shouldn’t have gone to that party, I shouldn’t have done this. I should instead have done that. So I decided to try a different approach.

I got subs. The naughty kind, not the youtube kind. I looked for the most non-threatening, willingly-submissive people in the city. It always started out as a long talk beforehand (usually as a skype video call, as my preference, so they can see me outside the dom role) asking about their expectations, what their subspace is like, whether they want individual scenes or an extended episode, their experience, my experience, and so on. We started off on even ground, gearing up our tools and our knowledge of each other.

So what happens when I get full ‘control’ over the situation? Well, first of all, a sub/dom scenario gives an illusion of control. As a dom, your actions are for the benefit of the sub. You stick a bubble wand up their ass because they want to cry, never mind whether you got off on that shit or not. It’s a specific type of illusion that involves very real control, but it’s still not the control I wanted. I was again entering these dangerous spaces and expected to order people around because of something outside my control.

And when you take sexual activity out of the equation, it’s almost the same thing. I can get people to spend hours combing my hair or whatever, and have them do everything I ask of them without even touching upon sex. But to them, it’s all a clear act involving sexual attraction, which is something that’s not coming from me. In a very real way, they didn’t consent to me, even knowing well enough that I was ace.

“So what does sex mean to you?” I can easily imagine enjoying myself in a sexually explicit scenario, but the language and communication is markedly different. Masturbation becomes self-care, rather than a ‘precursor’ to sex. Skin-upon-skin contact has the context of taking a shower with your infant child, instead of a passionate act between lovers. Pleasuring genitals with whatever on hand is exactly what it is; it’s not elevated when done with someone you’re particularly fond of, and most of the time there’s no difference between your own stimulation versus someone’s inexpert fumbling.

Basically, sex to me is the same visually, but different through intention. And that’s what I’m missing in my sexual encounters, and also what I see missing in discussions involving sex and ace people. This is a gap that needs to be closed off. 

You can’t claim you’re sex positive, or inclusive, or lgbt-friendly without being aware of the ace experience when it comes to sex. It’s far past time that sex education includes what it means to be unnattracted to people in general, and how that affects sex as a whole.

So she asked him if he knew what that meant, and he was like, “Oh, yeah! One of my favorite characters on TV is ace! (Todd, from BoJack Horseman) I get that,” and it just made her entire coming out to him so much easier and more accepting and she’s so much happier now.

‘Cavern exploring’

A dA commission for GreenYoshi25! =)

“Springtime shower”