Linkspam: September 21st, 2018

Every Friday, we will share links to news, blogs, and anything else we find interesting.  We can’t catch everything, so you are invited to self-promote in the comments!

Ace Blogging

luvtheheaven talked about specifying asexuality with sex aversion.

jotdancing documented the Ace Discourse in January 2015.

jotdancing also brought to our attention another history of Aspec Discourse, recently published on the Aro Soulmate Project.

demiandproud wrote about not needing an explanation for her asexuality.

News & Outreach

Higashi Tomomi, a city councilor in Machida City, Japan, came out as asexual.  You can read her official statement in Japanese or an English recap provided by aceadmiral.

 

Question of the Week: September 18th, 2018.

How do you describe asexuality to other people?

If I’m talking to someone who I suspect is allosexual I go with ‘you know that feeling when you look at someone and go they are hot id like to have sex with them? Well that literally never happens to me’

If I’m talking to someone questioning or who I think can cope with more nuance I like to use ‘the absence of sexual attraction without other sexual stimuli’ because I think that clarification of ‘sometimes you may feel sexy ways in sexy situations but that doesn’t make you less ace’ can be really helpful for sex favourable aces.

I know others also like to talk about the different types of attraction, though I tend not too unless it’s relevant to the conversation

What do you like to discuss when introducing asexuality to new people, or is this a topic you avoid?

Asexuality as a hard limit (or: the cat is dead)

Content warnings: discussion of abuse (with a few examples given, including one having to do with food restriction) and boundary violation, discussion of anti-sex-averse sentiment, mention of sexual violence, animal death in the context of a metaphor

In the past few months, I’ve seen a lot of posts in ace communities stating that “asexuality has nothing to do with whether you want or like sex.”  This isn’t a new assertion, but it is one that often makes me uncomfortable for reasons that are hard to explain.  However, recently, Talia wrote a post using Schrödinger’s cat as a metaphor for how we should approach aces attitudes toward sex, and I finally figured out how to verbalize my discomfort.

The assertion that “asexuality has nothing to do with whether you want or like sex” is uncomfortable to me, because I specifically identify as asexual because I don’t want sex.  Asexuality, for me, is a hard limit.

Linkspam: September 14th, 2018

Every Friday, we will share links to news, blogs, and anything else we find interesting.  We can’t catch everything, so you are invited to self-promote in the comments!

News & Outreach

There will be an ace and aro hospitality suite at Creating Change 2019.

Calls for Participants/Submissions

Shalyse is looking for ace artists in the Dallas/Fort Worth area who might be interested in performing at a National Coming Out Day open mic-style charity event.

A Spanish ace film project is looking for partners to produce the film.

The Asexual Awareness Project (TAAP) is writing a book on asexuality and aromanticism and is looking for people willing to write testimonials. If you are interested, please fill out this survey.

The Asexual is looking for submissions for Vol. 2, Issue 4, themed on attraction.  Deadline December 10th.

Question of the Week: September 11th, 2018.

What program did you take in school or what did you wish you could take? 

Asexuality in early radical feminism, Part 2

In the first part of this series, I discussed asexuality in early radical feminism, in the late 60s and early 70s, focusing on two cases: Valerie Solanas, and Cell 16.  We found the word “asexual” being used in unfamiliar ways, alongside more familiar ideas that foreshadowed asexual thought.  Here, I will look at secondary sources that offered commentary on that history.

Breanne Fahs

First, we turn towards Breanne Fahs’ 2010 article, “Radical Refusals: On the anarchist politics of women choosing asexuality”, which is how I found out about Valerie Solanas and Cell 16 in the first place.  The interesting thing is that when Fahs’ article first came out, reception on AVEN was strongly negative. Andrew Hinderliter, who at the time ran the asexual research bibliography, spoke out against Fahs. He said that he wouldn’t normally criticize articles in his bibliography, but the low quality of this particular paper demanded it.

Carnival of Aces: Stages of Coming Out

The Carnival of Aces for August has been posted on Demisexual and Proud.  The theme was “Stages of Coming Out“.  Please take a look!

The next Carnival of Aces is being hosted by Ace Film Reviews.  The theme for September is “Asexuality Before AVEN”.  Get your submissions in before the end of the month!

Note that the Carnival of Aces is hosted by volunteers.  If you would like to volunteer, please see the masterpost for instructions.