Identity Crisis

To the ones who always thought, yeah, of course I’m straight, how is what I feel out of the ordinary?

To the ones who maybe weren’t entirely sure what they felt, but they didn’t have the knowledge or the insight to realize they were aroace.

To the oriented aroaces who thought their other attractions were romantic/sexual, maybe because they didn’t understand the different kinds of attraction, maybe because they didn’t truly understand attraction at all.

To the sex/romance neutral/favorable aroaces who thought, well, I’m fine with these things, so I can’t be aroace.

To the ones who didn’t get that instant connection so many aro/ace positivity posts talk about when they found the aro/ace community, because they never really felt like something was missing.

To the ones who, looking back, might think they were blind for not seeing the truth, when really they were just doing their best with what they had.

You’re real. You’re here. You matter. Your experiences are important. You’ll figure yourself out one of these days, and you’ve already come so far.

Like really can we please start to grapple with how using gay to mean ‘the lgbtqa+ community’ and straight to mean ‘not lgbtqa+’ is alienating to a lot of members of our community. A lot of queer people aren’t gay. There are ‘straight’ queer people. They exist.

Asexual stories need to be told, so when BBC3 got in touch and told me that they wanted to cover the UK Asexuality Conference 2018 as part of a documentary on asexuality, I was excited to say the least. I would be speaking on two panels at the conference, providing some representation for Black aromantic asexual women. After coming out publicly as asexual last year, I have tried to use the platform I gained through fashion modelling to raise awareness for asexuality, so this opportunity was a perfect fit.

BBC3 were there from start to finish, filming the diverse display of asexual people I’ve ever seen. There were people from all walks of life – there were married asexuals, asexuals with children, transgender asexuals, Muslim asexuals, asexual people with disabilities, polyamorous asexuals, homoromantic asexuals, aromantic asexuals, teenage asexuals, and older asexuals. You name it, they were welcome and included.

We were filmed as we told our stories, such a powerful array of stories – some rocky, some smooth, but all equally empowering. BBC3 took a group of us aside for an in-depth group interview. The group was predominantly young and white, but it represented different types of asexuality and asexual experiences. But I soon realised that BBC weren’t interested in diverse experiences… They wanted the ‘lonely asexual’ trope.

When we sounded too positive, they were quick to put us in our place. They turned away from those of us who were happily aromantic, or happily in relationships, and drilled the singles for details about how it felt to be an unloved asexual who couldn’t find a partner. It seemed to displease them that some of us had even – god forbid – had sex and not hated every second of it. Quickly, they turned away from a guy who fit that category, rotated the camera to me, and asked, “If you had to have sex, how would that feel?”

“I wouldn’t have sex,” I answered.

“But if you had to, how would it feel?”

How would it feel if I was forced to have sex? Would a hypothetical rape make an aromantic asexual more interesting?

From then on, I sensed that BBC3 had an angle that they were sticking to, but I couldn’t have anticipated the patronising, whitewashed, exclusionary mess that they aired. They intelligently called the documentary, ‘I Don’t Want Sex,’ but what we actually got was, ‘The Undateables: Asexual Edition,’ and I was horrified.

I cringed as the cameras zoomed in on the presence of stuffed toys and action figures in one of the participant’s bedrooms, as if attempting to make her seem child-like. However, that was nothing in comparison to how I felt as an asexual guy was guided into a sex shop to test his levels of discomfort (which was obvious), or as they quizzed a girl on masturbation and vibrators in a room conveniently decorated with sexual images. I rolled my eyes as one of the participants eased an asexual guy through the art of texting a potential romantic interest, like teaching a child to read, and how an asexual girl not speaking to guys in a bar was treated as a cause for concern.  

Asexuality is not synonymous with innocence and a lack of social skills, but it seemed like BBC3 didn’t want the public to know that. They also missed the detail that asking asexual people about what they do with their genitals is as inappropriate and invasive as asking as transgender woman whether she still has a penis. It’s an obvious, needless attempt to try and gauge how seriously someone should take another’s asexuality.

I was running out of hope by the time the conference was included in the last five minutes of the show, but I was curious to see what BBC3 had deemed important enough to show. Out of the hours and hours of footage they had of me, they decided to show me wiping my eyes, as if crying at the brief and uninspiring conversation about asexual clothing choices that they decided to air. Only, they knew that I had eyeliner in my eye. We had laughed about it on the day, they had supposedly paused the filming while I had been given a tissue to solve the problem. If I needed any more reason to suspect that the portrayal of asexual happiness was too much to ask for, that was it.

The closing statements of the documentary added insult to injury. “Cute asexuals do exist.” That’s the message that was taken from the conference? When we sat together for over an hour and opened up to BBC3’s cameras like it was some kind of group therapy meeting, I didn’t realise that we were being observed to see which was us were ‘cute’ enough to date. Well, the boys were, at least. It was time to add the old ‘asexual people aren’t good looking’ stereotype to the growing list featured in this documentary.

I am not just upset because BBC3 took an empowering, celebratory experience like the UK Asexuality Conference and tried to turn it into dating show. What bothers me the most about this documentary is the narrow, stereotypical portrayal of asexual people and asexuality – and just in time for Asexual Awareness Week. I know that BBC3 had the opportunity to do better, but they decided not to, even though this documentary could be the first and only time that people see real asexual people on a mainstream platform.

Quirk: Making allosexual-type comments then laughing quietly to yourself for a few minutes because

Me, panicked: i like green

Roommate: but does it like mean anything?

so here’s the thing, as i understand it - most alloromantic and allosexual people have an easier time figuring out what they’re feeling for another person than aro and ace people, because the various attractions that can exist separately are usually all present and directed at one person at the same time. a standard allo person will say “i’m in love with them” and they’ll mean that they want to be in a romantic relationship (a sign of romantic attraction), kiss them and hold their hand (a sign of sensual attraction), be able to be emotionally intimate (a sign of emotional attraction), desire to have sex (usually a sign of sexual attraction) and that they find the looks of the person captivating (a sign of aesthetic attraction). and that usually comes as a full set!! which is fine, cool and absolutely no problem with that. it just can become confusing when it’s presented as Attraction that doesn’t consist of several different parts, but as a monolith. it’s clear that it does feel like one big thing and so it’s intuitively understandable for allos, but for a lot of a-spec people, those types of attractions don’t typically all appear together. and it’s the majority experience - the allo experience - that we’re comparing our experiences to. 

what does it translate to functionally?? this depends!! say you’re allo ace and experience romantic + emotional + sensual attraction to a person - you can form a romantic relationship that can mostly follow the allo relationship model, but maybe without sex. say you’re aroace and you experience sensual + emotional attraction and it may feel like “tfw you want to kiss but no romo. what do??”. what do indeed, when you’ve been hearing that usually wanting to kiss someone and be emotionally intimate with them means infatuation, but you don’t feel you want that romo. and the feelings may be very intense, you just can’t stop thinking about this person and you’d love to talk to them so much and then make out. and you may wonder what does it all mean, maybe you’re just afraid of commitment, because wanting to kiss someone sure is romantic, right?? 

as many people come to realize, no, a lot of actions considered romantic don’t have to have romantic intentions behind them, it’s just that for the majority they do and when that majority talks about their experiences, we assume that it’s universal and it’s not. the Attraction that is a monolith for them doesn’t have to be that way for us - we may feel a mix of different kinds of attraction towards different people. allo’s Attraction is perceived as a powerful force and our attractions can also be powerful, just different. it can also vary from one a-spec to another - we can personally have a certain mix that we usually feel towards friends, a certain mix that makes us want to ask another person to be our qpp and other a-specs may feel completely different mixes that are connected to friendships for them.