Question of the Week: April 17th, 2018.

If you could send a message back in time to the earlier ace community, what would you say?

If I could change the way the ace community developed, it would be by introducing the idea of different levels of attraction way earlier.   There are still many people who have heard about asexuality but not aromanticism for example. I think that if at the time the ace community was starting to become more involved in the wider queer community there was a lot more discussion about the different types of attraction and this became more normalised, there would be many ace and aro folks that felt less othered today.

Do you have any advice or warnings for the early ace community?  Or positive messages you would like to share with them?

If you would rather answer this question to a different social group, I’m curious about those answers as well.

Linkspam: April 13th, 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

Nat Titman gave a history talk titled Asexuality BC (Before Cake), and has assembled the content of that talk in a blog post.

Rowan responded to our QotW with some thoughts on how you know when you want to be in a relationship.

Demisexual and Proud wrote two pieces about virginity.

Ace Community Activity

There will be a panel on Ace/Aro Atheists for OrbitCon.

Calls for Participants/Submissions

The Asexual journal has a call for general submissions (for things that don’t fit the themes of any of their other calls for submissions).

Question of the Week: April 10th, 2018.

How do you know if you want to be in a relationship with someone?

In Siggy’s recent post on gay coming out stories he writes that while crushes are a big part of coming to realize you are gay narratives “I knew I was ace when I understood what it meant that I didn’t have crushes on anyone. And then I knew I was gay when I understood that relationships don’t need to be built on crushes.” After reading his post I reflected on my past relationships and dates and thought about what feelings had let me know if I wanted to pursue people or stop seeing them. I didn’t come up with any clear answers.

I don’t know if I’ve had a crush. I think so? I remember being excited about people and I’ve had long term relationships. If I had to describe my feelings it would be like a trusted close friend that didn’t repulse me. We are so close I won’t freeze up if you touch my arm or kiss me. Way down the line I might even like it (but it’ll be more about my comfort and desire, not attraction).  You don’t repulse me doesn’t seem like a great indicator for a crush but it’s the best I get. I am internally cringing at the thought that a past date might even read this and see the uncensored version of what I felt (can you imagine honestly saying this to someone’s face?). After two dates the marker to continue becomes doesn’t repulse me, doesn’t bore me, and I genuinely like this person exactly as they are (or seem to be). I rarely get past the two date point because very few people meet all these qualities. As I write this I’m becoming more skeptical that I’ve ever had a crush.

Linkspam: April 6th, 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

Sennkestra wrote about the difficulty in differentiating between wanting to be with someone and wanting to be them.

The Asexual has released its Vol. 2, Issue 1, themed on asexuality and sex.

Sennkestra reports on the recent update to “asexual” in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Ace Community Activity

Bee Scott wrote a short play about an ace character called “Mission Creep”.  It will be showing in London.

Calls for Participants/Submissions

The Asexual is inviting agender people to submit to an anthology.

Keep Your Acephobia Out of #MeToo Conversations, Jaclyn Friedman

Ace readers, prepare to cringe. Consider this a blanket trigger warning for the rest of this post and most of the links. To my fellow ace survivors, I hope you are taking care of yourselves, and please don’t feel that you have to engage with this.

Teen Vogue published an article by Jaclyn Friedman entitled “Why Sexual Pleasure Must Be Included in #MeToo Conversations” — and of course it has the tagline, “Let’s refuse to be silenced about our sexualities, and celebrate them instead.”

Okay, fine, let’s do that. I’m refusing to be silent about my sexuality.

I am asexual.

Interacting with gay coming out stories as an ace

We’ve talked a lot about what it’s like to come out as ace, and we’ve also talked about how this is represented in ace fiction. But if you look for coming out stories, most of them aren’t about aces, they’re about gay people. So how do we interact with coming out narratives about gay people?

I’m sure we all have different answers, and I’d love to hear them in the comments. But we need to start somewhere, so I’ll begin with my perspective.

I am gay. I came out as gay when I was 21. I have a same-sex partner and I come out again every time I mention him to someone new. I have watched a lot of gay films, most of which include a coming out story. I am drawn to these stories, because they’re ostensibly about people like me. And yet, I feel that experiences like mine are entirely missing. Part of that is that I am ace, and the characters being portrayed are not. But gay coming out stories are so homogeneous, I have a feeling that more than just ace people feel left out.

Question of the Week: April 3rd, 2018.

If you could send a message back in time to yourself, what would you say?

There isn’t a lot I would change about my life.  Even the bad experiences taught me things and made me the person I am today.  If I could give a message to my younger self though, it would be to ‘learn how to identify and manage your feelings’ both because that is something that takes a REALLY long time to learn, and because I think I would have both better enjoyed the good times, and learnt more quickly from the bad, if I actually had some idea what was going on in my own heard at the time.

What would you like to say to younger you?  Do you have advice for your little self, or do you just want to reassure small you that things will get better (or worse!)