TotallyAce

While Swankivy wrote this in response to a specific person’s situation, I feel it’s got broad applicability, so I’m reposting it so that everyone can see it. Given the frequency with which aces run into problems with therapists, psychiatrists and other medical personnel, I’ll be reblogging this weekly so it stays available to anyone who needs it. It’s also linked from my sidebar.

do NOT like sex, even with someone you love

will NEVER have sex, not even 'to find out if you enjoy it,' because you don't want to

have NO curiosity about sex and do not write, read, or enjoy smut

are SEX-REPULSED and have to beg your friends to stop talking about their sex lives in graphic detail when you're together

You are not broken, weird, or alien

Your boundaries are real, and valid, and you deserve for them to be respected

You deserve to be both treated and regarded as an Adult by your sex-having peers

If any of your sex-having or sex-wanting peers cannot or will not regard you as an Adult and as a complete person because of your asexuality, your indifference to sex, your revulsion for sex, or your virginity, I need you to know something:

They are in fact the living, breathing proof that having sex does not grant either maturity or a fuller understanding of human nature.

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.

That’s 1972

29 years before AVEN was started online,

and 47 years before the present.

And that’s only the date that Manifesto was written, so asexuals as members of a community must have existed at least some time before that.

ACES!!! Look at this Scientific American article!!! It makes me genuinely so happy to read. We’re making it!!!!

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/asexuality-is-finally-breaking-free-from-medical-stigma/

I find it curious, as an ace person that there is a joke related to cakes because my hobby is baking and pastries.

This past weekend I came across a spirited discussion of addressing detractors who harass ace people. The conversation took place in the comments of a book review of my book, The Invisible Orientation.

It’s inappropriate for authors to respond to book reviews, even if someone’s being horrible or saying untrue things (that’s not the case here). So I don’t think it’d be very smart for me to join that conversation, even if they didn’t know I was doing so as the author. I think it’s very important that people feel safe having their own reactions to books (including mine) and don’t have to worry that the author will swoop down and shriek at them for giving them a bad review (this wasn’t a bad review, either). 

But the discussion they had reminded me of something I’d like to independently discuss, and that is this: how, and to what extent, ace people should address detractors.

One of the main things I saw in the book review conversation kinda came down to “Wow, it’s fucked up that this author is telling marginalized people that it’s their job to educate the ignorant. What she is suggesting is dangerous!” And I was pretty surprised that that was anyone’s takeaway.

Mostly because I am one of those marginalized people and I have been in MANY, MANY situations where I have been expected to engage on this topic, and it’s certainly not as simple as choosing to educate or not. 

Some of the people with whom I’ve had that terrible conversation were very close loved ones whose failure to accept my orientation was intensely hurtful, and it’s not always possible to “just walk away” or “refuse to engage” with certain people. (And though this wasn’t my situation, many of the people who need advice on how to make peace with detractors are minors, people living under someone else’s care, people with partners they can’t just up and leave, or people who do not get to choose their living situation for other reasons. They shouldn’t have to educate or defend the orientation, but sometimes doing so is preferable to other options.)

I found it very strange that the reviewer and some of the commenters believed the book was recommending engagement on these terms for every situation; one even specifically said I did not offer the option of “refusing to deal” with it. Weird, because the section in question was about how to deal with disrespectful people, and it is preceded by several acknowledgments that you don’t actually have to engage:

From the book:

Quote 1:

And why should you have to deal with such things? You don’t! If a question you are asked is too personal, you have the right act as revolted as you feel. There is no excuse for someone to ask for intricate and intimate details about your anatomy, your sex life, your masturbatory habits, or your possible trauma. Be really firm about it if this happens to you and you don’t find it appropriate— make it clear that questions like that are really offensive.

Quote 2:

If you’re uncomfortable dealing with these sorts of queries, pawn people off on other resources (this book, for instance!) or give general answers to specific questions.

Quote 3:

But what if you’re getting the third degree and getting backed into a corner? What should you do? Always try respectful responses first, but don’t be afraid of being confrontational if it’s warranted. If detractors insult you, reframe something about your life in an unflattering way and/or lie about it, make unrealistic or shame-based predictions, accuse you of anything they shouldn’t, or try to bargain with you about your obligations regarding dating or sex, you can feel free to either treat them like they’re ridiculous or end the conversation.

Quote 4:

You deserve respect and you shouldn’t be made to feel like you’re on the defensive when you’re talking about asexuality. You shouldn’t have to prove how you feel, feel as though your critic is automatically right if you can’t express yourself effectively, or feel that their education is your responsibility.

So … I’m pretty taken aback hearing that anyone who’s just read all of those quotes reported in their review that I’m dangerously insisting aces must engage with detractors and turn them into allies with no acknowledgment that they aren’t obligated to do so. I say explicitly that their education isn’t your responsibility. I still definitely feel that way.

That said, as an activist, many of my negative encounters have been with people I don’t personally know. The advice offered in the book is for any type of conversation partner, including the various impersonal attacks people like me deal with pretty much every time they try to offer education to those who would take it. 

I’ve been harassed in YouTube comments, contacted through e-mail and shamed every time I’m published, buried under sexual propositions and justification demands in private Facebook messages, mocked and scrutinized in the comments of every interview I’ve done, stalked in real life multiple times, and attacked on Tumblr by multiple generations of anti-ace brigades. The “rude” techniques and aggressive hand I’ve applied with some of those detractors have worked for my purposes in some cases: either in getting rid of someone, or in shocking them into realizing what a dick they’re being. 

It has happened multiple times that some troll lulz their way into my comments expecting a pearl-clutching snowflake and instead getting a rather reasonably worded fire hose of shit in their face. Sometimes it starts a fight. Sometimes it leads to “oof. I didn’t realize you were a person and not a funny concept and that I’m doing real harm by talking to you like that. I’ll stop.” I’ve had people apologize to me immediately or even years after the fact. I HAVE ACTUALLY created allies through talking to people the way they talk to me, sometimes.

I do not believe aces are obligated, ever, on any level, to use ace discourse to make allies out of assholes. But it isn’t wrong for me to say that some of us don’t want to approach every negative conversation with “it isn’t my job to educate you, so I will never educate anyone.” I am an ace educator. I get to choose the terms and I get to decide if someone deserves it, yes. But when people say “It isn’t my job to educate you,” I’m gonna also say that some of us, some who are educators, choose to make that our job. Maybe the person who reads that section of the book wants to join me.

So in case it was ever unclear, I want to go on record here saying that educating people on asexuality-related issues is up to you. Most ace people just want to be ace people, and they have a right to expect that their loved ones and anyone they disclose their asexuality to is going to be understanding and respectful. They don’t need to prepare for a life of constant patience and deference to people’s ignorance. They don’t need to tolerate harassment and grossness for some higher duty that’s theirs just by virtue of being marginalized. 

But if we do choose to have those conversations, I have lots of experience succeeding in my goals of educating those who will listen (and sometimes that’s not my conversation partner who becomes educated, but the people who learned from the teaching tool I made out of it). I don’t think acknowledging that some of us want to educate–and providing tools to do so–constitutes telling ace people as a collective marginalized minority that this is our job.

seeing stuff like this is so upsetting because these terms were well known and widespread in the ace community but because of exclusionists many people stopped using terms like this because they felt uncomfortable and unsafe.

i loved these terms when i was in highschool, i loved the feeling of community, but i lost that because i didn’t feel comfortable openly and proudly calling myself asexual.

Going through all those blogs and seeing validation, learning more things about my newfound orientation was so incredibly as a questioning and unsure 15 year old. It’s devastating to me that this community has fallen quiet so much. So I started my tags, hoping to spread some more positivity and maybe inform people. This community is full of incredible people and the fact that so little of them remain, it heartbreaking.

Anyways, please have fun with being ace! Say you don’t think about sex, you think about Batman. Say that cake is better than sex. Get yourself a pretty black ring and wear it on your middle finger. Draw art of playing cards, dragons, clowns, whatever fun thing you want.

Don’t let anyone convince you that you need to act ‘adult’ enough to be respected. Don’t let anyone convince you that pride flags are the only ‘real’ symbol.

And don’t feel like it needs to be this big serious thing. Everyone else IS making a big deal out of nothing, and attraction really isn’t that big of a deal. Don’t minimize other people’s feelings, but also don’t let them convince you that YOU have to care about this stuff and can’t make jokes.

not even (x)?

you’re missing out on so much.

that must be great not having to deal with the bad ones.

did something happen to you?

can they fix it?

“Asexuality” is a sexual orientation describing little to no sexual attraction

“Ayyyyy, sexuality!” is a guy at a bar imitating Chandler from Friends while talking about sexuality

“Aye, sexuality,” is a pirate giving his kids ‘the talk’