1to5SLCBisexuals

WE ARE MOVING!!

But not far. We are just changing URLs and making our page easier for our sustainability team to manage. So check us out as we start making out way over there. Same great B+/Sexually Fluid info from Utah, much more inclusive name. 

(via Bi Local: 1 To 5 Club Utah With Shauna Brock)

Robyn Ochs, an editor of Bi Women Quarterly who speaks nationally about sexuality, said she is dismayed at how much misinformation exists, even among LGBTQ people, about those who occupy what she calls,“the various middle sexualities.”

To that end, Ochs offers a definition of bisexuality that is more nuanced than what’s traditionally understood in mainstream media: “I call myself bisexual because I acknowledge that I have in myself the potential to be attracted — romantically and/or sexually — to people of more than one sex and/or gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way and not necessarily to the same degree.”

Each day of Asexual Awareness Week, I am tweeting links about asexuality. These posts provide an archive of the links. Feel free to share any that you find useful.

Living as a Sex-Favourable Asexual

An Aromantic Perspective- Feeling Emotionally Attracted to People

When “asexuality” wasn’t a word yet

Talking with aces of Indian heritage, part 1

Talking with aces of Indian heritage, part 2

An Ace in My Personal Space: Touch, Asexuality, and Queer Culture

Non-Sexual BDSM

The Scarlet Sash: Nonsexuality, Aversion, and Mythical Oppression

Why I Won’t Sexually Compromise: Asexuality and Relationship Expectations

A guide to safely dating while asexual

Attitudes Toward Asexuals (ATA) Prejudice Scale

First-of-its kind research on asexual coming out experience

Asexual Awareness Week 2015: Being an Ally

Notes from my experience of writing an asexual character

(A)Sexuality and Gender Identities at Writing with Color

22, Latinx, asexual and a lesbian

What is asexual history? Part Two: the 19th and 20th century

Interview With an Asexual Clarifying What I Got Wrong About Asexuality

The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality [book]

An Educator’s Guide To Asexuality

Understanding Asexuality [book]

A Parent’s Guide To Asexuality

Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives [book]

Asexuality Basics for Health Professionals Printable Info Sheet

Asexuality and Sexual Normativity: An Anthology [book]

Resources for Asexual Survivors of Sexual Violence

Asexuality and Race Resources

RSS Subscription Bundle for Asexual Blogs and other sites

Ace Zine Archive

For this ace awareness week, lets bring some non-English language resources, media coverage and interesting tidbits to your attention! This is a highly selective and by no means balanced overview of some interesting things I found. The selection is restricted by the languages I can access (which is romance and germanic languages). However, the one overarching theme is that all links are ace positive. 

Let’s start off in our own backyard. Bilinguals are everywhere in the English-language community. There are also several pieces which show a wider range of nationalities and experiences:

Asexual Agenda’s international voices series interviewed aces from all over the world.

the Asexuals Project by Laia Abril has people from several countries speaking about asexuality. (all spoken or subtitled in English)

The International panel at the Worldpride conference in London (2012) had several aces talking about activism and asexuality in their own countries.

Non-native speakers on their experiences in the English-language community:

Being a non-native speaker of English in the English language community comes with its own unique experiences. Discovering asexuality in English and then switching to your native language to talk about asexuality can be difficult as Kaz explained in “Muttersprache”. I also talked about this with Rutheress.

Katie talked about mediating your voice as an American ace in the international community.

I’ve talked about the need for the English-language community to be explicitly international and make room for international voices.

@harris-hijiri also talks about the Anglo/Americano-centricity and talks about the need for decentralisation and regional activism (part 1, part 2).

But there is plenty more to discover! Let’s put on our explorer hats and head into the non-English parts of the aceternet!

Spread the love: blogs in other languages:

Some Spanish-language blogs: on tumblr there’s @asexualidadhispanoamericana. There’s also the blog Mundo Heterogéneo (in Spanish and English) and Avenitas.

There’re also quite a lot of active German ace blogs. On Tumblr there is @germanaroaces​ and there are quite a few on wordpress. For a blogroll, see the website of AktivistA, the German asexuality group.

There’s a Tumblr dedicated to Asexuality 101 in Norwegian: @aseksualitet

Not an entire blog, but one blog post explaining asexuality in Indonesian, which gets into the basics as well as some of the scientific models for sexual orientations.

Outside looking in: media coverage & research:

@demigrayspeaks is currently publishing a series on asexuality on a website geared towards South Asians. In celebration of her series, here’s some good media coverage in an Indian publication. (English)

Academics all over the world are interested in studying asexuality. Elisabete Oliveira, a Brazillian researcher, is not only an active researcher, but also gives tv-interviews and has a blog about asexuality.

There’s the infamous 1% statistic based on a British census, but there are other statistics on the number of aces as well. A Dutch survey from 1991 (yes you read that right, 1991) found that 1.5% of men and 2.7% of women identify as asexual. (English)

Community activity:

This year’s English-language community census is open now. And there’s also a Chinese version. But did you know that the Spanish community has done quite a few community surveys as well? Compare their data from 2011, 2012 and 2013. Also the 2015 survey is open now.

This year, the German group AktivistA held their first conference. Summary here (English here) and hopefully the promised audio will be up soon, too.

Ace Awareness Week is worldwide. But the French also have a visibility day: Journée de l’Asexualité, on 26 April. There’s a Tumblr dedicated to it, and you can read the 2015 twitter contributions under #monasexualité.

Creativity:

A short German film about asexuality: Farbenlos? (with English subtitles)

A French webcomic with ace 101

A Dutch YMCA adaption about asexuality (The chorus: “Sing it with me: I am AAAAA-SEK-SUEEL”)

All over the world, aces turn to fiction to look for characters like them, or relationships outside the romantic/platonic norm:

@aceadmiral once reviewed the Japanese book 週末は家族 by Nozomi Katsura. (English)

@harris-hijiri posted a video about “Dream of dream-The phenomena as you” by Sitou Ryouko.

Sara from thenoteswhichdonotfit has written about asexuality, aromanticism and demisexuality in Wuxia. Here’s the first post (on the Condor Trilogy), but be sure to check her Wuxia tag for loads more. (English)

Not exactly the point of this linkspam, but considering the times I’ve seen people being genuinely surprised that communities in their own language exist: For aces searching for communities in their own language:

So, today is bisexual visibility day and I would like to share something. This day is super important for me, there was a time when I suppressed every thought of being something else than heterosexual. 

 One day (over a year ago) I decided to put my shit together and try to discover what was happening with me, it was time to know who I was. It was hard, I’m not going to lie, It was just myself, I didn’t tell anyone. Now I know that’s how it’s supposed to be done, you and only you discovering and deciding who you are. I didn’t even know that ‘bisexuality’ existed. 

Time passed and I got informed about the different sexual orientations, I sat down in my shower to think and eventually, I realized that I was bisexual, I’ve always been, I just suppressed it. Now, I’m happy with what I’ve learned about me and, even though, only my friends know about it. I´m okay with it. It has not yet reached the day I want and have the need to tell my family, but it will come.

So… That’s why this day is so important, I can finally embrace my bisexuality. 

BTW. It’s not that only today we are visible, but today we acknowledge that bisexuality exist and we can talk about it.

Shoutout to the people who can’t publicly celebrate because they’re not out.  You’re still a valid member of the community.  You don’t have any obligation to come out to anyone, ever, especially if it’s not currently safe for you to do so.  But if and when you do come out, the community will be here for you.

Shoutout to the people who aren’t sure if they’re bi or something else.  It’s okay not to know.  It’s also okay if you never find a label that completely fits you.

Shoutout to the people who are either bisexual or biromantic, but not both, and as a result may feel disconnected from the community.  If you feel like you’re bi, then you’re bi, and you will always be welcome to identify as such.

Shoutout to the people who chose to come out today!  You are so brave and I’m so proud of you.  And if you came out today but didn’t receive the type of response you wanted, remember that the bi community will always support you.

Shoutout to the people who, because of this week, are learning about bisexuality for the first time and may be starting to question whether or not they’re bi.  Know that we support you in your process of self-discovery, and that your identity is valid regardless of which label(s) (or lack thereof) you eventually decide on.