Thank you so much!!! I haven’t seen the movie with Liam Neeson but there’s a part in the book where it says that when Jean Valjean had trouble noticing that Cosette had a crush on Marius because he’d never had one himself, and I thought that maybe the reason why he seemed so uncomfortable at Marius and Cosette’s wedding was because he hadn’t realized that attraction was a real thing before then.
It’s Asexual Awareness Week and I want to try an experiment.
Ever since June, this blog has been posting pictures of aces spotted at Pride events, in order to show that we exist and we belong. Now I want to show where we exist, namely, that we’re everywhere.
Here’s what I want to do: I’m going to start with some blank maps and I want to fill them in. But I don’t just want to color in the states or countries when someone says “I’m in Nebraska!” or “I’m in Lichtenstein!” or wherever. I want pictures of visible aceness in all of these places. Ace flags at famous monuments, demi t-shirts on the street, gray-ace chalk markings at Pride, that sort of thing.
I’m going to need your help for this.
Here’s what I need you to do.
Grab an ace, gray-ace, or demi flag or acey clothing of some kind. (It’s okay if the flag is printed or hand drawn!)
Go outside. If you can go to a famous landmark or nice view of some sort, that would be great, but you don’t have to. A local park would be fine, even the sidewalk in front of your house would be okay in a pinch. (If you already have a good picture, you can just send that in. If you don’t have or can’t take a picture, an artist’s rendition of what it would be like to take an ace flag to someplace awesome in your local area will be suitable.)
Take a picture of the aceness wherever you are. You don’t have to be in the picture if you don’t want to, but some visible ace symbol has to be.
Submit the picture to acespotting, putting your state/province/country in the caption. You can do that here: https://acespotting.tumblr.com/submit And make sure you give me your location, since that’s the point of this experiment! Province/Territory in Canada, State/District/Commonwealth/Territory in US, and Country anywhere else. (If you’re logged in, your username will be associated with the picture, so if you don’t want that, you can either log out or use an “Incognito” or “Private” browser window to submit anonymously.)
I’m also going to need your help to track down aces in obscure places and convince them to participate. California will be easy. Nunavut will be hard.
I’m hoping that we can completely fill the Canada/USA/Mexico map by the end of Ace Week. I’d also like to get at least half of Europe filled in. And as amazing as it would be to get every single country on the world map represented, I think I’d be happy to get something on every continent. (Who knows someone in Antarctica?) And if your place isn’t really on the map (Like, say, Puerto Rico…), send something in anyway and I’ll get it added.
Hey y’all, with Asexual Awareness Week coming up (Oct 21-27th this year) here are a few things to remember!
• Asexuals are part of the LGBTQ+ community
• Asexuality is real
• Aces can choose not to celebrate/participate in any way
• Aces have every right to be proud of their identity
• Aces are lgbt+ regardless of their romantic orientation.
• Aces aren’t “basically straight” or any other complaint exclusionists have
• Asexuality is an orientation just like any other as well as a spectrum
• Greysexuals, Demisexuals, Cupiosexual, etc are all valid and also have a right to celebrate this week
• Ace Men exist
• Nonbinary Aces exist
• Not every Ace is Cis
• Exclusionists/Gatekeepers/etc are not welcome here
• AroAces exist
• Ace WLW exist
• Ace MLM exist
• Ace nblnb / nblm / nblw exist
• Poc Aces exist
• Disabled Aces exist
• Mentally ill Aces exist
• There are Aces of many different races/genders/ages/religions/etc
• Whether you’re an Ace still struggling with their orientation or an Ace who’s proud, or any other type of Ace, Asexual Awareness Week is for you and you’re valid regardless.
Feel free to add on!
so uh
this is my contribution for asexual awareness week
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.
what i want to emphasize at the end though is that – if you’re a-spec or questioning being a-spec, remember that you’re comparing yourself to the majority for who attraction can really work differently from yours and not only because you experience little to no sexual or romantic attraction and they do – it’s also that a lot of them can’t make distinctions between other kinds of attraction (hell, sometimes not even romantic and sexual attraction) and the guidelines they lay out (for example: “if you want to kiss, that’s a crush”) may just not fit your experiences. they also may describe their Attraction as the most intense feeling, but that doesn’t mean that all intense attractions are romantic and/or sexual. so question what the attraction actually means for you, don’t worry about the implications intensity has, and hopefully understand yourself a bit better
Since telling my Mum that I considered myself ace, I already noticed that she was a bit… too interested, if you want to say it like that. Asking for “signs”, or how being ace feels like… I tried to answer her to the best of my ability, giving her links to websites that would explain better as I ever could.
Today she said, very quietly, “Do you think I could be ace, too?”
And I said very carefully “If you think it suits you, I don’t see why not”
And my Mum, my strong, self-confident Mum, who never once has ever felt uncomfortable in her own skin as far as I know, beamed in relief. Relief.
Because she never knew. Because getting married young and bearing children for her husband (meaning sex) was expected of her. Because everyone gave her the feeling as if something would be wrong or broken about her if she didn’t want, didn’t do that.
Because her whole life long, she thought there was something wrong with her.
I’m honestly torn between feeling happy and relieved for her, and angry that humanity has such trouble with showing some understanding to those who don’t fit in the boxes society has designed for all of us.
Update: My
Mum was getting ready for bed when I noticed her humming loudly around her
toothbrush and I asked her what the good mood was about.
She beamed
around a mouth-full of toothpaste and said, very proudly and deliberately, “I
think I like that, being ace.”
And continued
on with her brushing, humming a bit louder.
(Or in
other words, I’m more than a little bit teary eyed.)
I had almost the exact same conversation with my Mom. We were talking about the LGBT acronym and explained that it’s LGBTQ and that some people add the PIA at the end as well. And she asked me “What’s the a?” So when I explained it she said immediately “Me. That’s like me.”
This is why I get so mad at people who think this is all just trendy bs, people just don’t have the vocabulary or permission to describe their lived experience.
This is the most wholesome thing I’ve ever read, bless this post 🙌🏼
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