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Ace Blackring in the Quest for Garlic Bread

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As you may know, I’m a collector of video games. All systems, all eras. I I like picking up asexual-adjacent games, like “Ace Attorney”, “Ace Combat”, “Ace of Aces”, “Cake Mania”, and “Dragon Warrior”. However, some of my most favorite pieces in the collection are the ones I had to import from an alternate dimension because they don’t exist in our universe. That brings me to the game I want to talk about today.

Setting the Scene

It’s late October 1987. Fatal Attraction and The Princess Bride are on top of the box office, Michael Jackson’s Bad is tearing up the charts, and millions of people are tuning into Cheers and Night Court every week. And Terrace Spring Publishing is about to release their first ever video game.

Terrace Spring knows nothing about the video game market. They do books. Their most popular series is the “Celebrate Your Own Identity” line of multiple-choice books. But, like many other companies in the late 80’s, they see an opportunity in the emerging world of video games. They hope to cross-promote, making games from their most popular books, and eventually making books based on their games.

But the investors are nervous. The Video Game Crash of 1983 is still fresh in the minds of their account balances, and a bad game could tank sales for the related book, and could bring the whole company down. And so, they strike a compromise: Terrace Spring can get into the video game world, but they have to start out with a low risk, unknown property. If it fails, they quietly sweep it under the rug and go back to books, but if it succeeds, it’s full steam ahead on this new strategy.

And so, Ace Blackring was born.

Discovering the Legend

My first encounter with Ace Blackring was in an eBay auction for video game ephemera. I like collecting the odds-and-ends of the video game industry. I have stuff like sales materials for terrible Mythicon Atari games, advertising mockups for Vexx, printing separations for Sam & Max, and a bunch of those box art cards that used to be in the flip up pouches they had in Toys R Us. I love that kind of stuff, because it’s so odd. Everyone has a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog, but how many people have a promotional poster for the Vectrex?

I came across the eBay profile of someone who claimed to be the manager of the Waldenbooks in Bellis Fair Mall in the mid-to-late 80’s. They had all sorts of great stuff, but I immediately forgot all about everything else they had when I cast my eyes upon this treasure…

WHAT.

IS.

THIS.

I don’t think I ever “Buy It Now”ed something so fast. Three days later, it was in my hands.

From the tapemarks on the back, it looks like this was a promotional poster that was probably put in the front window of the store to advertise the game. It’s not the best looking poster in the world, but there was a lot of bad photography masquerading for game ads in those days, so I’m not going to hold that against it.

With a name like “Ace Blackring” and a mention of garlic bread, you’d assume it’s an asexual-themed game, but it could just be coincidental. After all, “Ace of Aces” isn’t a game about someone trying to out-asexual all the rest of the people and become the president of the local meetup group. But the picture solidifies it. Black ring, right middle finger. Clear as day.

So how come I’d never heard of this game? And how can I get a copy?

A New Hero Emerges

It’s not easy to research the history of video games that aren’t from our timeline. It took me two years of diving into archives, pestering collectors, and scouring old computer magazines to dig up enough material for this post.

One piece of information I already had: I recognized the name listed on the ad. A.C. Evermore was one of Terrace Spring’s most prominent authors, having written “You Are Asexual”, “The Quiver of Aros”, and “Queer Space Patrol”, among countless others. Each of these gamebooks sold dozens of copies. My research found that Terrace Spring tapped Evermore to write the new game, so that audiences would know that they were getting signature Terrace Spring quality. (Having read You Are Asexual and parts of Queer Space Patrol, “quality” would not be a word I’d use for what comes out of Terrace Spring, but anyway…)

The game is a graphic adventure. These days, that means a point and click game, maybe even a fully-rendered realistic 3D world, but in those days, it meant a text adventure with pictures. With well-known behemoths like Infocom and Sierra On-Line already firmly established in the space, Terrace Spring and Evermore were going to have an uphill battle. With that in mind, they decided to carve out a niche, as they had done with the Celebrate Your Own Identity series, and leverage the power of their existing audience.

The Celebrate Your Own Identity books were queer-themed multiple-choice gamebooks. Each one focused on a character of a particular identity. In “You Are Asexual”, you were an asexual student fighting the administration at a fascist high school. In “Mx. It Up”, you were a non-binary bar brawler. In “The Quiver of Aros”, you were an aromantic time-travelling cyborg archer trying to take down an evil corporation. The planned games would be similar, although slightly more covert in their queerness.

But what should the game be about? When executives at Terrace Spring planned the development and production cycle of the game, they came up with a target release date in the middle of October, and immediately had their theme. Mid-October would be perfect timing for the gift-giving season around Ace Week, or, as it was still known in those days, Asexual Acceptance, Understanding, and Empowerment Day, which was observed on the Thursday closest to 10/24. And thus, Ace Blackring entered development in January of 1987.

As far as I can piece together from the scanned copy of a partially revealed invisible ink hintbook, in the game, you play as “Ace Blackring”, who lives in a town between the old west and the high seas. The story seems to be that all the garlic bread in town was destroyed in a fire, and now you’re on a quest to find more. You have to deal with pirates and cowboys and “Sheriff Manatee”, who I think is actually a manatee. There are lots of ace jokes, like not being influenced by some sirens, or using a condom as a balloon. The game seems like it’s a mishmash of genres and time periods and from the outline I have, I can’t tell if it works or not. For that, I’d have to play it, and to play it, I’d need to track down a copy.

So what do you think I did next?

Complete In Box, Like New Condition

Here we are, 35 years later and beyond the boundaries of reality, but I finally managed to track down a complete, in box copy of this game! Check out that box art.

First, they reused the same photo from the ad for the cover. The hand reaching for a piece of ghost garlic bread doesn’t really grab me, you know? But there it is. And honestly, there have been worse pieces of cover art than this. Not many, but some…

The second thing to note is the subtle change in the title. The ad said “and the”, while the box says “in the”. I honestly don’t know whether that was an intentional marketing change, a mistake, or if this copy of the game found its way into our universe from a different reality than the ad. Either way, interesting to note.

This copy is for both the Commodore 64 and the Atari 400/800. Companies used to use this multi-format release technique as a way to save money and reach both markets. They wouldn’t have to worry about having different inventory for C64 vs. Atari, and customers would be more likely to find the copy of the game for their computer. (Well, except for the fact that most places that sold games for computers would separate the software by computer type, so it would’ve ended up on the shelf with either the C64 games or the Atari games and owners of the others would never see it, but whatever…) The Commodore 64, being the best computer, almost always was on Side A of the disk.

Tragedy in the Coastlands! A fire has destroyed all the garlic bread, and you embark on a quest to get more. Honestly, sounds like a better story than trying to rescue the princess from the evil wizard for the thousandth time.

And check out those graphics! Hi-Res indeed!

I’m going to have nightmares now.

Admittedly, graphics for many of these types of games were really really bad, because the tooling to support graphical design on these computers was really really bad. You could do some phenomenal graphics despite the technological limitations, but most games, especially adventure games, didn’t. Good graphics were hard to do and took up a lot of disk space, and when you have 50 locations to draw, sometimes with multiple states, that is a lot of work for not much gain. After all, much of the competition (like genre-leading Infocom) didn’t even have graphics at all.

But seriously, though, technology aside, what the hell even are those things on the bottom picture? They’re supposed to be sirens?

Anyway, enough of the outside, let’s open it up and see what lies inside.

OMG. FEELIES!

I love feelies!

Feelies were a gimmick used by game publishers in the 80’s. Essentially, they were little Cracker Jack Toys (Cracker Jack still had toys back in the 80s, too.) inside the game box. They were meant to increase immersion and were sometimes used as copy protection, but usually they were just little toys. Let’s see what we have here…

Okay, so first of all… GARLIC BREAD. This game came with GARLIC BREAD.

And that’s not some plastic or cardboard replica of garlic bread, it’s the real deal, two authentic, genuine garlic breadsticks. I honestly can’t decide if that’s the most awesome pack-in item ever or the most disgusting. They were just loose in the box, which is really weird. I’m honestly surprised the box and everything in it wasn’t stained beyond recognition after 35 years of touching garlic bread grease. I’d warm them up and let you know how they were, but they’re from 1987 (and from another universe), so I’m not gonna do that.

Next up is this cute little axolotl figurine. I’m not sure what it has to do with the game, but since it’s a feelie, it’s bound to be something important. The box called it a “Lava Axolotl”, but it doesn’t really look all that lava-y to me. The image on the box also showed a pink one, but I got one that’s green with purple fronds. I wonder how many colors there were and if there’s something special about each one. I’m gonna take this little friend into work and sit them on my desk.

There were also these two pinback badges. One features the popular “Go Hug A Cactus” command, inviting someone to do something that they know would be unpleasant without needing to try it. It’s fascinating that asexual meme culture produces the same results across time and space. The other button is for something called the “Greater Coastlands Regional Fast Travel Authority”, which I’m sure is something that would be exciting to someone who’s played the game, but I haven’t played the game, so I have no idea what that’s all about.

The last feelie is a wooden code wheel. Code wheels were a copy-protection mechanism employed by some game makers. They ensured that someone with a pirated copy of the game disk couldn’t play very far into the game. They were comprised of several independently rotating discs, with small windows in them. At some point in the game, usually fairly early on, there would be a prompt for a secret code using the wheel. For instance, the game might ask about a “Purple Dragon”, and expect “4C3S” in response, but if it asked for “Gray Tea”, you’d have to rotate and look up the code.

Usually, these code wheels were made out of cardboard. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one made out of wood before.

Unfortunately, this code wheel isn’t very complex. Most code wheels had dozens of options, with hundreds, if not thousands of combinations, making it difficult or impossible to provide a list of answers along with the copied disk. This one has a total of 16 options. That would be very easy to write down. Some people could even memorize the entire list. While it’s interesting as an object, it’s next to useless as an anti-piracy device.

The final item in the box is the game disk. It’s a standard 5 1/4″ inch floppy, containing both the Commodore 64 version and the Atari 400/800 edition. If you’ve never seen a floppy, this is what they looked like. The envelope has the standard Rosetta Stone of Magnetic Media Dangers on the back.

Let’s Play!

This is the part of the post where I’d love to show you screengrabs and video from the game itself. I’d love to give a plot synopsis and dissect all the cultural references and marvel at the state of the ace community in 1987 and do all that stuff.

But I can’t.

I popped it in my trusty 1541-II, typed LOAD "*",8,1 as I’ve done so many times before, and…

Shhhshhhshhhshhshhh-crkcrkcrckcrk-shsh-crkcrkcrkcrk-shshshshshsh…

blinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblink.

Anyone who’s owned a Commodore knows the gut-wrenching horror of that sequence of events. The disk drive tries to read the disk, fails, makes a horrendous knocking sound, tries again, and then fails silently, the LED eternally blinking in despair.

The disk doesn’t work.

The back of the disk envelope doesn’t mention any dangers associated with interdimensional travel, but I’d imagine that whatever it was that brought this game to our universe probably involved a strong magnetic field.

The disk is frotzed. I can’t save the garlic bread.

Words do not begin to describe how disappointed I am.

And Then What?

My research indicates that Ace Blackring was the only game Terrace Spring ever released. I wonder if it’s because the game wasn’t any good or because all the fans were poisoned by that garlic bread. There are some references to a follow up game called “Quiver Arostone vs. the Onslaught of Amatonormativity”, but as far as I can tell, that didn’t exist beyond a vague “Coming Soon” promise on the Blackring’s warranty card. A.C. Evermore went back to writing the Choose Your Own Identity series, releasing the bestseller “What Is Love?” in February of 1988.

How Come You Haven’t Cured Cancer With All Your Free Time?

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I’ve heard this idea a number of different places, that somehow, asexuals have so much free time (because, as the story goes, we don’t spend as much time thinking about, seeking, or engaging in sexual activities) that we should all be amazingly accomplished.  According to some people, we should be building the unbuildable, solving the unsolvable, and conquering the impossible.  Often, great works of art are mentioned.  We should be painting masterpieces, composing exquisite symphonies, and writing novels would make Shakespeare and Hemingway rise from the grave to personally award us the Nobel Prize for Literature.  Sometimes people demand technological leaps like flying cars or warp drives or great humanitarian feats like ending hunger or making world peace.  But the thing we’re most expected to be doing with all our free time is finding a cure for cancer.

Because apparently, that’s how it works.

Free Time = Cure For Cancer.

BINGO!  Just like that.  That’s all it takes.

Let’s take a look at this claim, shall we?

First, on the face of it, it’s utterly preposterous.  In my case, with my free time, I collect video games and occasionally dabble in stereophotography.  Sometimes, I’ll even combine the two hobbies (as shown below).  But I know nothing about cancer.

L IS REAL 2401 — In 3D!

Let’s review:

  1. Knowledge of Vintage Video Games — Immense.
  2. Knowledge of Stereophotography — Practical, but limited.
  3. Knowledge of Oncology — Nil.

You can see how that might be a bit of a problem when it comes to my ability to discover a cure for cancer…  Unless it involves ColecoVision games, it ain’t happening.

 

Beyond that, what does that assertion say about people who aren’t asexual?  Apparently, a cure for cancer is just out there, ripe for the picking, and all it’s going to take is for someone to stop thinking about sex long enough to find it.  You’re telling me that there haven’t been ANY research scientists who’ve given it up for the cause?  They’re all so selfish that they’re willing to condemn millions of people to death, just because they’re that obsessed with sex?  “Well, I could find the cure if Rihanna weren’t so hot!”

Somehow, I don’t buy that.

Really, if all it took were devoting the time you’d normally spend thinking about sex toward finding a cure, cancer would’ve been cured long ago by some horny playboy who figured this out:

  • Giving up sex for a while = Lots of free time
  • Lots of free time = Cure for cancer
  • Cure for cancer = Instant mega celebrity
  • Instant mega celebrity = All the sex I want, when I want it, with pretty much whoever I want, for the rest of my life.

And yet, no one’s taken that deal?

 

Let’s dive further into this argument, shall we?  Whenever someone tries to make this claim, it’s always the extra free time that leads to the magnificent accomplishments.  It’s never some mystical power of celibacy or some side effect of freeing up neurons that are typically devoted to sexual fantasy.  It’s simply having more time to work on the problem.

So, why is it always a lack of sex that has to provide all that extra free time?   Why not something else?  I’d be willing to wager that there are a number of things that people do on a daily basis that take more time than dealing with sex does.  So, couldn’t non-asexual people drop one of those activities and have as much (if not more) free time than an asexual supposedly gets from being sexless?  For many people, their daily commute probably takes up more time than sex does.  If that’s the case, why doesn’t somebody keep the sex, work from home, and use all that spare time to cure cancer.  Hell, just think about all the incredible and amazing things that unemployed people must be doing all day!

(Then again, maybe they’d just fill that extra time gained by working from home or skipping reruns of Pawn Stars or whatever with more sex, which would defeat the purpose…  I’m asexual, so I don’t know how that all works.)

 

Clearly, everyone should be offended by the suggestion.  Asexuals should be offended because it’s clearly a snide and dismissive insult.  Non-asexuals should be offended because it implies that they’re all enslaved by what’s in their pants to the point that they can’t even resist it if it meant that they’d be able to cure cancer.  It’s just a ridiculous notion all around.

 

Then again, I did write a book in my free time…

Q & Ace: An Introduction to Asexuality

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I wrote this a while back for my friends and family.  I sent it to them when I came out.  It’s intended to be an overview of asexuality for someone who isn’t aware of what it entails and who was a bit blindsided and confused by an announcement from someone they’ve known for years.  Hopefully it’s useful for other people, too.

So, wait, what? You’re… Huh? What’s going on again?

I’m asexual. It’s a bit like being straight except I’m not into women.

Oh, so you’re gay?

No. Asexual. I’m not into men or women.

So, you’re a woman trapped in a man’s body?

No, I’m not transgender. I’m quite comfortable with the factory original parts and don’t see any need to replace any components.

Although, some people who are trans are also asexual.  They’re not mutually exclusive.

Are you missing pieces down below?

Uh, I don’t think so. Let me check…

…

Hang on a sec…

Ah, found it. Nope. All present and accounted for.

So, then, you’re saying down below doesn’t work or something?

Down below works just fine. It’s just I have no desire to interface my down below with anyone else’s down below.

You can clone yourself then?

No, different meaning of the word. Although, I’d have to say that binary fission would be an awesome trick for parties.

What are you talking about, then?

Asexuality means I don’t experience sexual attraction. That’s it. While other people are on an unending quest to find someone willing to test the repetitive compressive stress tolerance limits of their furniture, I’m on an unending quest to find a complete set of game cartridges for the Nintendo Virtual Boy. I’m simply not interested in having sex, although the customs and practices can be rather intriguing from a scientific or anthropological point of view.

You don’t want sex?

Right.

What, is it against your religion?

No.

Were you abused, then?

No.

Repressed or repulsed or something?

No.

They have a pill for that, you know.

That’s not what the pill is for. The pill is for people who are ready and willing, but not able. I’m perfectly able, just not ready and willing. Saying there’s a pill that’ll fix asexuality is like saying there’s a pill that’ll fix homosexuality. I’m not going to take a pill, feel a stirring in my loins, and suddenly want to sleep with the next woman I see.

What is wrong with you? Sex is AWESOME!

You can keep your sex. Red Alarm is awesome.

More Awesome Than Sex

You should try it some time. You might like it!

“You do not like them. So you say. Try them! Try them! And you may. Try them and you may, I say!”

I did try it. I didn’t care much for it. I mean, it was okay, I guess, but nothing spectacular. Nothing close to what all of you claim. Kinda boring, actually.

Wait, you had sex? Gotcha! That means you’re not asexual!

I had sex twice. Nine years ago. Call it a youthful indiscretion or whatever. I didn’t know I was ace at the time. I thought I was straight and that sex was what I was supposed to do at some point, and she offered. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Asexuality is a sexual orientation, just like being gay or straight. Orientation is not the same as behavior. A little bit of experimentation in college doesn’t make someone gay. A lesbian who wants a child and opts for natural insemination isn’t suddenly straight. I had sex for the experience and because I thought that doing it might make my libido turn on. It didn’t.

I don’t regret it at all. In fact, I think it’s good that I did try it, otherwise I’d probably have doubts that I’m really asexual because there’d be that chance that I would like it if I just tried it.

Maybe she just wasn’t any good. If you find someone good, you’ll change your mind.

Maybe she wasn’t. I don’t know. I don’t have any other data points to compare. But that’s irrelevant. I wasn’t put off by a bad experience. I never was really all that interested in it to begin with. She could have been the most mindblowingly skilled woman on the planet and I still probably would have said “Meh”.

It’s just a phase. It’ll pass.

19 years since puberty is “just a phase”? Well, I’ll give it another 20 minutes, but that’s it!

You could be a late bloomer.

I’m 32 and I’ve never been sexually attracted to anyone, not even a naked woman standing directly in front of me with her hands on my equipment. That’s not a late bloomer. Nothing was planted in my garden.

I’m so sorry for you. It must really suck for you.

No, it’s absolutely fine, actually. I don’t want sex. It’s not like I’m yearning to get laid but can’t, leading me to be a pent up bottle of frustration and sadness. I’m not missing out on anything because I’ve never felt anything to miss out on. It would be a bit like me telling you that your life must suck because you don’t want a copy of a game like Space Squash. You’d give me a funny look and shake your head in confusion over how I could possibly think that you’d be interested in that.

But sex is awesome! Everyone wants sex!

You can’t see me, but I’m giving you a funny look and shaking my head in confusion over how you could possibly think that I’d be interested in that.

By the way, weren’t these supposed to be questions?

Oh, right. So, uh… Aren’t you just putting a fancy name on celibacy?

No, not at all. Celibacy is the condition of not having sex, while asexuality is not feeling sexual attraction toward anyone. Think of it this way: Celibacy is “I don’t have sex because _________.” As in “I don’t have sex because it’s against my religion” or “because I can’t find anyone” or “because I’m in prison”. Asexuality is “Sex? Whatever. Please pass the cake.” So yes, I am celibate, but I’m celibate because I’m ace, not because I made some life choice to never have sex or just haven’t been able to get laid and have given up trying.

Not all celibate people are asexuals, and not all asexuals are celibate.

What you’re saying is that you can’t get laid and have given up trying?

Um. No. I’ve never even bothered trying because it’s just not that interesting to me. When I did have sex, it was entirely my partner’s idea, and it took a lot of persistence on her part to get me to the point where I said yes.

That’s a bit like claiming that I’m not interested in golf because I’m no good at it. No, I’m not interested in golf because it’s golf and it’s not interesting.

(Unless it’s Golf for the Virtual Boy.  In which case I’m all there.)

Why do you hate sex?

I don’t hate sex. I just don’t care about it. As far as aces go, I’m fairly sex positive. I’m not repulsed by it and I don’t have any problem with it. In fact, I find it secretly amusing when someone thinks that I’m offended by a sexual conversation and tries to steer things in a different direction. If I seem offended, it’s probably because I’m zoning out and not paying any attention because I have nothing to add to the conversation.

In the right situation, I might even be willing to give it another go. I just don’t feel any need to find myself in the right situation.

Anyway, go forth and fornicate, just keep your damn kids off my lawn.

So you can’t fall in love?

I can and I have. It’s definitely more than a friendship, it’s just not tied to sex.

Wait, how can you fall in love and still call yourself asexual? If you fall in love, you’re straight, gay, or bi. Pick one.

Sex does not equal love. Sexual attraction does not equal love. Many people are sexually attracted to people they do not love. Many people love people they are not sexually attracted to. And clearly, many people love people they do not have sex with. Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction, not the lack of capacity for love.

You’re just inexperienced. If you get out there and keep trying, you’ll come around.

Did you have to “get out there and keep trying” to decide you were interested in sex in the first place? And who knows, maybe you’ll really get into gay sex if you just “get out there and keep trying”. After all, how can you say you’re not gay if you haven’t tried it out?

And that wasn’t a question.

But you’re like totally socially inept. Sometimes you don’t even want to go outside if there are people on the street. Ever think that maybe you’re not asexual, but that you really just have some sort of social anxiety disorder?

I can’t imagine that my social anxiety issues would cause me not to feel attracted to anyone. It’s not a matter of just being too nervous to ask someone out on a date. If that’s all it were, I would still likely feel attracted, but be unable to approach them. On the contrary, I think asexuality and the social issues have a symbiotic relationship going on. I’m not attracted to anyone, so I never feel compelled to break out and try to talk to someone that I’m attracted to.

Then again, maybe both are caused by my deep-seated fear of having to share a closet with someone.

So, uh… Do you feel anything, uh, down there?

Of course I do. There’s nothing physically wrong with my body.

Wait a minute, how do you know that?

A: Like I said, I’ve had sex.
B: Equipment is tested regularly and has been found to be functioning within normal operating parameters.

“Tested regularly”?  So, that means you, uh…? How can you be asexual if you…  you know?

That has absolutely nothing to do with asexuality. Like I’ve said, asexuality is an orientation. It relates to who I find sexually attractive, namely, no one. You don’t need to find anyone sexually attractive for that, it’s a physical response.

Of course, that’s absolutely none of your business, but anyway…

Have you ever thought that maybe you haven’t met the right person yet?

Right, maybe I haven’t. But given that I’ve never found anyone attractive in all the years I’ve been looking and that everyone else seems to find multiple people attractive EVERY DAY, I think it’s fairly safe to say that she’s not hiding behind a tree, just waiting for me to walk by.

Why did you choose to be asexual?

It wasn’t a choice. As the song goes, “baby, I was born this way.” (Of course, the song doesn’t mention asexuality, but whatever. We’re there in spirit.)

How did you realize you were asexual?

Last year, I realized that I didn’t think about sex the same way as anyone else I’d ever met. I started to explore those feelings and came to discover that I wasn’t really interested in sex at all. And I’ve always been that way. During puberty, as a teenager, when I had a girlfriend, and now as an adult. I didn’t really understand it. There weren’t any signs that my hormones were awry and I wasn’t depressed. Perhaps most significantly, I hadn’t had sex in eight and a half years and it didn’t bother me at all. Everyone else seems like they’d go insane if they hadn’t had sex in eight and a half days.

So, I was a mystery to myself, a puzzle to be solved.

I like solving puzzles.

And so I went looking for answers. Asexuality was the one that fit the best, so I took it.

But hey, I’m a scientist. I go with the theory that fits the evidence. Right now, the evidence points toward my being ace. But in the future, I recognize that there may be some new evidence that’ll come along and disprove the theory. Should that happen, I’m willing to go where that leads.

Ace? What’s that?

Ace…xual. It beats “amoeba”.

Why are you telling me all this, anyway?

To spread awareness and hope it’ll contribute to a better understanding of asexuality. I see other aces facing ignorance and struggling with those who are unable or unwilling to understand. On top of that, asexuality is almost completely invisible. I mean, I’ve felt this way for at least 19 years, since puberty, possibly even earlier, and I didn’t even know this was an option until April.

I’ve been a supporter of gay rights for years. It would be hypocritical for me to be open in my support there, yet be completely silent about who I am, now that I know who I am.

I know that one of the greatest factors in someone being willing to accept homosexuality is to know someone who is gay. I know that if I’m open about who I am and how I feel, that all of you will gain a greater understanding of asexuality and be more willing to accept us. You won’t see asexuality as some scary alien concept. You’ll see me. (Granted, I can be a scary alien concept at times, though…)

Were you hiding all this time, then? What took you so long to come out of the closet?

I haven’t been hiding. I really just found out myself back in April. I’ve been confirming the hypothesis since then and trying to figure out how to say anything about it. And it’s not like I’ve been trying to pass or anything. Even before I made the discovery, I never went around claiming to be sexually attracted to anyone. I’m sure everyone who knows me had already figured out that there was something off here. I mean, I have this picture on my desk at the office:

(I’m not really sure aces come out of the closet, though. I think we come out of the pantry, because of the cake.)

Cake?

Yes. We have cake. That’s how we recruit people.

Recruit people?

Of course. Just like any other sexual minority, we recruit people to help carry out our sinister agenda.

Sinister agenda?

Yes. Say, would you like some cake?

 

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Some excellent resources for learning more about asexuality are the Asexual Visibility and Education Network, at http://www.asexuality.org, and the Hot Pieces of Ace YouTube channel, at http://www.youtube.com/user/HotPiecesofAce

Mario: Secret Asexual?

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Mario went from the ice covered reaches of the highest mountain to the depths of the ocean, from the parched desert to inside a volcano, he was shrunk to microscopic size, shot out of a cannon, harassed by a rabbit, smacked in the head by a giant pendulum, attacked by a carnivorous piano, choked on toxic gas, fell into an endless abyss more times than he can count, and even had his hat stolen by a monkey.  And for what?

THE PRINCESS PROMISED TO BAKE HIM A CAKE.

Talk about ace.