Tag Archives: asexual

NAAC2015 Roundup: Session 3 — Ace Content Creation

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The following is a summary and commentary on the “Ace Content Creation” breakout session, presented by Bauer and Sara Parker.

One of the more common reasons given for producing asexuality themed content is that people are creating the content they wished they’d encountered before discovering asexuality or wished they’d had when they were first telling other people about it.  The idea of “Be Who You Needed When You Were Younger” came up several times.

When creating content, be who you are.  Don’t put on a persona, don’t feel that you have to hide something about yourself because it will “make asexuality look bad”.

Make content for what you want people to know.  Pick topics that you’re passionate about.  You are not obligated to cover any topic that you are not interested in or don’t feel like you should be speaking about.

We don’t always have to agree on everything 100% of the time.  We’re big enough that disagreements are possible.

When talking to the media, give soundbites in the direction that you want the story to go, not necessarily where the reporter wants to take it.  Sometimes the reporter will have a story in mind, and it’s not your job to go along with that.  Also, you should push back when a reporter makes statements that are troublesome.  Someone in the audience recounted a time where a reporter was looking for “uncomplicated” asexuals to interview, where “uncomplicated” was code for cisgender, neurotypical, etc.  It is okay to call them out on that kind of attitude.  Ask questions of the reporter to get an idea of the story they’re looking to write.

We have power.  We can organize.  If someone launches some sort of campaign that erases or attacks asexual people in some way, we can come together and take them down, and we will have allies on our side.  This has been done before.

There was a call for asexuality to be included in sex ed curricula.  Many people expressed the feeling that if they had just heard the word when they were younger, if they’d known asexuality was a possibility, it would have helped them.  There was also a call for more education amongst therapists and health care professionals.

Asexuals in the media:  People wanted to see more ace representation in the media, not just in novels and movies or TV shows, but also in artwork.  There was a call for diversity in asexual representation, not just racial or gender diversity, but diversity in romantic orientation and personality types. “Reject the golden ring of asexual acceptance by society” was brought up, and I can’t remember whether that meant to move beyond the “unassailable asexual” or to move beyond the robot/nerd/antisocial stereotypes, but either way, both need to be done.

This session also went in-depth on dealing with homophobes, including some important safety information regarding glitter bombs:  Be sure to use cosmetic glitter, because regular glitter can scratch corneas and leave you open to lawsuits.  Other suggestions included having some prepared bible verses in support of asexuality (Such as Paul’s “It’s better to remain unmarried” letter or the “eunuchs by birth” remarks) to quote back, if someone tries to start quoting bible verses about how asexuality is a “sin”.

And finally, someone in this session brought up a need for a “Singles Night” at a bar – for people who want to remain single.

Linkspam:

These are some websites that were mentioned in the session and the discussion:

NAAC2015 Roundup: Session 2 — Articulating Asexuality

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The following is a summary and commentary on the “Articulating Asexuality: Explaining Asexuality to Non-Aces” breakout session, presented by Anicka Schanilec.

Giving a basic definition of asexuality isn’t all that hard.

But…

  • The general definition isn’t in terms that people readily understand.  “What is sexual attraction, anyway?”
  • Asexuality is not that well known or understood, so there isn’t a frame of reference to talk around.
  • The basic definition doesn’t really cover everyone.

So more information usually has to be given.

People are sometimes resistant to asexuality because:

  • They’re fighting for the right to express their sexuality freely, and see a group that isn’t all that into sex as a challenge to that.
  • They don’t really understand it, because they’re into sex and have heard the dominant cultural narrative that everyone must love sex or there’s something wrong.

You are often the only ace a person knows.

  • When you talk about asexuality, you become the “expert” or the “authority”.  You are expected to answer any question and speak for and act like all other asexuals.
  • You are not obligated to give answers.  You are not obligated to be a resource.  You can direct people at other sources of information, such as websites or videos.  You can also refuse to talk about it outright.

Comments From Other People:

  • For invasive questions, turn them around.  “Well, do you?”  This can often show that a line of questioning isn’t all that appropriate.
  • “It’s just a phase!”:
    • Being straight is never called a phase.  Being cis is never called a phase.  Yet many people identify as cis or straight before discovering that they’re really something else.
    • What’s wrong with phases anyway?  Maybe it is a phase.  Maybe it will change tomorrow or ten years from now.  That doesn’t change how you feel now.

Other Notes

  • Most people don’t split out sexual attraction from romantic attraction from other types of attraction.  That distinction can be difficult to grasp at first.
  • When talking about asexuality, it can sometimes help to pretend that you’re in an infomercial (And I really want to see someone make an asexuality informercial…  BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!).  It can be easier to talk about a topic if you remove yourself from it.
  • Treating asexuality as the same as celibacy is erasure on both sides.
  • Relationships are not everyone bag.  Some people just aren’t interested in them.
  • Sex is not a universally fulfilling activity.
  • If everyone were actually demi or gray, commercials for Axe Body Spray wouldn’t exist.

The session ended with a note that awareness of asexuality is “growing at a pleasantly alarming rate”.  The more awareness there is, the less work we’ll have to do to explain it to others, because they’ll already know about it.

Linkspam:

These are some websites that were mentioned in the session and the discussion:

NAAC2015 Roundup: Session 1 — How To Handle Detractors

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The following is a summary and commentary on the “How to Handle Detractors” breakout session, presented by Ivy Decker.

This session was essentially a live version of “Letters to an Asexual”, with an interactive audience participation segment.  Everyone was invited to write down invalidating or hateful or dismissive comments about asexuality that they’d received, and these cards were pulled from an envelope and discussed.

Here are some of the more notable points of the conversations:

“Evolution!”:  This comment claims that asexuality goes against evolution, that we’re going to lead to the demise of the human race, and therefore are against evolution, whose goal is the survival of the species, therefore asexuality cannot exist.

Remarks:

  • Humanity is in no danger of dying out due to the number of asexuals who aren’t reproducing.  There are over 7 billion people, and non-asexual people are doing a fine job of having children, even if we’re not.
  • This completely ignores aces who have or want children.  A lack of sexual attraction does not preclude the possibility of having children.  Also consider arranged marriages.  Many couples in arranged marriages were not attracted to each other, yet babies still somehow managed to happen.
  • It is a dishonest argument to make, unless one also uses it to attempt to discredit homosexuality.  (In which case, they’re still a jackass, but a consistent jackass.)
  • People who use “But…  Science!“ arguments like these generally don’t actually care about science.  They overlook the studies by actual scientists, doing actual scientific work who say that asexuality is a real think.
  • When someone says “What about the babies?”, they never actually care about the babies.
  • If the point of human existence is only to reproduce, then why isn’t menopause fatal?

“That’s not human”:  This comment makes the claim that someone who is asexual is inhuman or less than human, because sexuality is one of the fundamental pieces of what it means to be human.

Remarks:

  • You don’t get to define the humanity of others.
  • The “Best Thing Ever” is different for different people.  Some people are incredibly passionate about writing, and may feel that the fulfillment they get from writing is core to their human experience, but that wouldn’t give them the right to tell a non-writer that they’re not fully human until they’ve finished a novel.

“You haven’t tried me!”:  This comment tries to say that a person is asexual only because they haven’t yet experienced the sexual abilities of the person making the claim.  This is also known as the “Magic Penis” theory, although it is not specifically limited to that part of the anatomy.

Remarks:

  • This can often be scary and threatening.  In some cases, this remark can be followed up by unwanted action.
  • Although it’s usually said under the guise of wanting to help the ace person, it’s never actually about helping the ace person.  It’s about someone whose worth as a person is tied up in sex.  Some people can be personally insulted by a lack of interest in sex.
  • Even if the person weren’t asexual, there’s still no guarantee that they’d be attracted to or want to have sex with whoever was saying this.

“You’re just confused!”:  This comment tries to say that someone who says that they’re asexual doesn’t know what they really are yet, and that they’ll figure it out in time.

Remarks:

  • You know yourself better than someone else does.  If you’re not confused, you’re not confused.

“Special Snowflake!”:  This comment tries to dismiss asexuality as just being a way for someone to be “unique”.

Remarks:

  • Yes, you are unique.  Everyone is.  So what?
  • Many asexual people will tell you that discovering asexuality made them feel less alone, that finally they found other people like them.  Identifying as asexual brings a sense of community and inclusion, not of uniqueness.

“It’s just depression”/“It’s just autism”/“It’s just ________”:  This one attempts to invalidate asexuality by pinning it on some other cause.

Remarks:

  • “So what?  This is how I feel.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a result of _____, I still feel this way right now.”
  • “I felt this way before I was depressed.  That has nothing to do with it for me.”
  • This can often be turned around by saying “You just feel like you want sex because your hormones make you think that you do.”
  • For people who are depressed, autistic, disabled, socially anxious, etc., they can often be reluctant to come out for fear that it will make other asexuals “look bad” by giving the impression that all asexuals are depressed or autistic (etc.).  Additionally, they might fear that they would make the other group they’re a part of, by giving the impression that all disabled or socially anxious (etc.) people are asexual.  (See “The Unassailable Asexual” for more on this.)
  • Asexuality is an orientation, not a symptom.

“You’ll be alone!”:  This comment tries to say that someone who’s asexual will end up alone and friendless when everyone else they know gets married and has kids.

Remarks:

  • There is no guarantee that a straight person won’t end up as the “single friend”, but they never get this comment.
  • What does “alone” mean, anyway?  Why would other people getting married have anything to do with that?
  • There are different types of relationships, and not all of them are sexual in nature.
  • The word “just” in “just friends” carries a horrible implication that friendship is essentially meaningless and throwaway.

Other remarks:  Here are some of the other things said or brought up during the conversations that don’t really fit into the comments listed above.

  • “I didn’t become asexual because I found my boyfriend gross.  I found my boyfriend gross because I was ace.”
  • Sometimes ace parents are treated as “less adult” than their children, because their children feel that asexuality is a sign of immaturity or naivety.
  • When coming out, organic conversations can be more effective than a Big Sit Down Talk.  There’s usually less drama involved and less of a sense that it’s being forced on someone.
  • During sex ed or the “Birds & Bees Talk”, don’t treat asexuality as an afterthought or footnote.  Bring it up the same as other orientations.  Present it as a possibility.

And for the record, someone was playing the Ace Bingo card and “won” during this session.

People aren’t born sexually attracted to others, so when is “too young”?

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Q: People aren’t born sexually attracted to others, so when is “too young”? I’ve seen people speaking out about assigning themselves to a label (not just asexuality) and end questioning too early, as things are especially prone to change in teens.

That is a very good question, and not one I have a clear answer for.

Do I believe that there is a time when someone is “too young” to know that they’re asexual?  Yes.

Do I know where the boundary between “too young” and “old enough” is?  No.

I think it’s different for every person, just like how puberty kicks in at a different age for every person.

Certainly, there’s a statistical range, but in my ten minutes of searching, I haven’t found a good study on the subject to take figures from.  I found one that talks about the age of the first same-sex attraction, but not one about the first experience of sexual attraction in general.  Since it’s the only data I could find, let’s proceed as if it’s valid for all types of sexual attraction.  (Which it may not be.)

That paper says that the average age of sexual attraction is:

Boys:   Mean=9.6, SD=3.6

Girls:  Mean=10.1, SD=3.7

Skimming the article, I don’t see any mention of what the distribution of the sample is, so let’s go further away from attempting to come up with a sound conclusion here and assume it’s a normal distribution.

That means that by age 9.6, 50% of boys have had their first experience of sexual attraction, by 13.2, it’s up to 84%, and by 16.8, it’s almost 98%.

For girls, it’s 50% by 10.1, 84% at 13.8, and 98% by 17.5.

I’d say 84% is a high enough threshold of reasonable certainty, so the boundary between “too young” and “old enough” is 13.2 for boys and 13.8 for girls.

Which is an absolutely ridiculous claim to make and it should be rejected out of hand.

At this point, it’s important to note a few things that call into question the validity of this conclusion:

  1. We’ve made some assumptions and leaps that aren’t based on the data.  This is bad science.
  2. This model doesn’t actually allow for the existence of asexuality.  It’s going off an assumption that everyone will eventually experience sexual attraction, even if you’re +13σ off the mean.
  3. The data comes from some random study from 1996 that I found during a quick Internet search.  Has it been discredited?  Has it been refined or superceded by better data?
  4. Is the data itself completely flawed because the study subject might not even understand what they’re feeling?

Beyond just the process errors, even if everything is accurate, why not set the bar at 9.6/10.1?  According to the data, at that age, 50% of people have experienced sexual attraction, so if you haven’t, and you think you’re ace, you’ve got 50/50 odds of being correct.

Why not earlier?  We often look at asexuality as the fall-through case.  It’s where we end up after we’ve realized that none of the other orientations work.  Am I straight?  Don’t think so.  Gay?  Nope.  Bi?  Uh-uh.  Guess I must be ace, then.  But…  Is it really that way?  Did we only go through that because we didn’t know there was another possibility?  Is there a way to know that you’re asexual without treating it as “none of the above”, something that can be recognized at an earlier age?

I remember sometime probably in the 5th or 6th grade, seeing a pin that read “I’m Temporarily Celibate” at some novelty store.  I understood what that meant at the time, and thought it would be nice to have one that said “permanently” instead.  That’s a sign.  Were there others that were just not recognized?  Is there a way to recognize them?

Patterns of attraction can begin to form well before puberty kicks in.  I’ve heard of people who’ve known that they’re gay since they were five.  Why shouldn’t there be a way to know that you’re ace when you’re five?  As asexuality becomes more well known, will we start to decipher the clues?

Enough with all the theoretical stuff, on a more practical note, does it matter?  I will admit to not being in tune with today’s youth, but are there really that many 11 year olds going around erroneously claiming to be asexual, simply because they haven’t gotten the hots for someone yet?   Doesn’t strike me as something that’s widespread.  And even if there are, what’s the harm?  When I was 11, there were a lot of other kids who were fans of New Kids on the Block.  When 14 rolled around, they all liked Pearl Jam and Nirvana.  We never made them renounce their past of singing along to The Right Stuff.  Kids change how they feel about things.  Big deal.  People position “You’re too young” as a way to protect children from the ignorance of youth, but is there really a group that benefits from this advice?

What’s more likely is that someone might start to notice something about themselves when they’re 11, 12, 13.  They’ll start to notice that their friends are changing what they like to talk about.  14 and 15 come along and still no interest in girls (or boys, for that matter), and they start wondering why that is.  Then, by the time they’re 16 or 17, they’re like “Yeah, I’ve waited long enough, that bus ain’t coming”, and so they begin to openly identify as asexual.

Saying to a 16 or 17 year old that they’re “too young”, when they’ve spent years of introspection and questioning, when they’ve noticed that pretty much everyone else their age has expressed some level of sexual interest yet they themselves have felt nothing, that is nothing short of harmful invalidation.  There isn’t a shred of helpfulness about it.  It’s merely saying “I’m going to ignore your feelings and simply tell you that you’re wrong, because I choose not to believe you.”

And “You’re too young” doesn’t end at high school graduation.  It’s leveled at 20 year olds and 25 year olds and 30 year olds, too.  I believe SwankIvy has remarked that “You’re too young to know” lasts until it becomes “You’re too old to want sex anymore anyway.“  There isn’t an age that satisfies these people.  They’re like that normal curve up above:  No one is actually asexual, they’re just +13σ off the mean.

[It was noted in a follow up response that the logical conclusion of this illogical line of thinking isn’t just that no one is asexual, but that everyone is actually bisexual.  It’s just that most people haven’t found that special someone yet.]

So, all of this is why my answer to this question typically is:

If you’re old enough to understand what asexuality is, you’re old enough to know that you’re asexual.

What are your thoughts on aesthetic versus sexual attraction?

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Q: What are your thoughts on aesthetic versus sexual attraction?

As in, what are they?  Do I believe that they exist as separate concepts?  Or do I have experience with them?  Or did you want some other thoughts on the subject?

In grossly oversimplified terms, sexual attraction is the innate thought that you’d like to have sex with a particular person, while aesthetic attraction is the innate thought that someone is nice to look at.  The actual definitions are more subtle and nuanced and outside the scope of this post, so look them up, if you’re curious.

Do I believe that they exist as separate concepts?  Yes, absolutely.  When people describe aesthetic attraction, they tend to use phrases like “Pretty like a sunset” or “It feels like looking at a beautiful painting.“  When people describe sexual attraction, they rarely use words like “sunset” or “painting”…

Have I experienced them?

Sexual attraction, no.  When I first saw a naked woman in front of me, it was like looking at a road map.   Now, I like road maps, but people do not use the word “road map” when describing sexual attraction.  When I had sex with her, it was a logical decision that was not driven by any kind of urge or pull or whatever else it is that people describe when they talk about what sexual attraction is like.

Aesthetic attraction, yes.  There are some people who are simply more interesting to look at than other people.  It triggers something in my brain that I can’t really explain.  It’s very similar to the feeling when I’m standing someplace amazing (Like, say, across from Delicate Arch or at South Falls or at North Head Lighthouse at sunset), where I like looking at it, and I want to keep looking at it, even though it’s still the same the whole time.

Aesthetic attraction never has a sexual component to it.  I never become aroused, I never imagine them naked, and, in the past, when I tried to combine it with sexual thoughts, it just felt forced and awkward and out of place.

And now I want to go back to these places:

DSCF1534 IMG_2541 IMG_6140

 

What’s the hardest part about running a website about asexuality? What’s the best/worst response to your website (or book) you’ve received?

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Q: What’s the hardest part about running a website about asexuality? What’s the best/worst response to your website (or book) you’ve received?

The hardest part is definitely finding the time and motivation to work on them.  Lately, I seem to have gotten in a pattern where everything I do is a large project that takes a long time to complete.  I end up devoting a month or two of my time, and by the end of it, I’m burned out and don’t want to do anything for a while.

And so I take six months off.

WhatIsAsexuality.com was supposed to help with that somewhat.  There I was intentionally turning the site into bite-sized chunks that I could churn out in a few days.  That way, I could maybe get one or two out every month.

It hasn’t turned out that way.

Now, about the second part…

Best Response:  Every time someone mentions how something I’ve done has changed their life or made them realize that they were asexual or helped them explain asexuality to someone else.  That sort of thing is why I do what I do.  It is good to know that the effort is worthwhile and that I’m changing the world for the better in some small way.

Worst Response:  Leaving aside the hate and the trolls, the worst responses I’ve gotten are the ones that take a minor wording issue, and instead of helping me fix the issue, they go on a angry tirade about how I’m THE WORST THING IN THE WORLD.  And they tell everyone how horrible I am and how everything I do and have ever done and will ever do needs to be destroyed.  And never mind that I’ve posted several times, looking for feedback on the troublesome wording.  (I’ve even been attacked when I’ve been looking for feedback!)  And never mind that there are two diametrically opposed trains of thought and that no matter what you say, you’ll make one of them unhappy.  And never mind that it’s a handful of words out of several thousand, on a topic that is completely unrelated to what people are taking issue with.  It makes me wonder why I should bother.  What’s the point of doing any of it if you’re guaranteed to be attacked at the end.  Far too many people think that “activism” means “screaming outrage the loudest”, instead of actually working towards changing things.

Do you ever have sexual fantasies?

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Q:  Do you ever have sexual fantasies? If so, do you design them or are they subconsiously-sourced or are they the work of other people (a la pornography)? Do you find them arousing, enjoyable, and/or annoying?

Not really, but I have tried.  I’ve never really been all that successful.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a natural fantasy that just came out of nowhere.  It’s always been something that I’ve deliberately had to think about.

“I am going to have a fantasy now.  I am going to imagine a sexual situation.  I am going to imagine another sexual situation.  I am going to imagine…  Damn it, I lost my place and have to start over.”

Yeah, like I said, not very successful.

It takes a lot of mental effort to try to conjure up a fantasy and keep it going.  The more complicated and detailed it is, the more difficult it is.  With all the effort involved, it typically ends up more distracting than arousing.  Typically, I can only manage a few seconds at a time, so it’s just not worth it.

It was always strange to me to hear people claim that masturbation required sexual fantasy, because I managed just fine without them.

I can never mentally put myself into a pornographic scene.  It just doesn’t work that way for me at all.  I can’t imagine myself involved in that way.

How do aces/aros identify a lack of something?

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Q: How do aces/aros identify a lack of something? Without ever having known that something personally, I’m finding it difficult in my neverending journey of questioning myself.

I looked around at what everyone else was talking about, how they felt, what they were interested in, and realized that I had never felt what they were talking about.

Being a guy, and hanging around with other guys, the topic of “hot women” tends to come up once in a while.  Eventually, I just sort of realized that I never was interested in anyone they mentioned.

That actress is hot?

That model is hot?

That figure skater is hot?

That waitress is hot?

That coworker is hot?

The first few times, maybe they’re pretending, but not when this consistently happens year after year, person after person.  There was just no way that such a grand conspiracy involving pretty much every man I’d ever met would be possible.  So they had to be feeling something.

While I could reasonably accurately identify whether or not someone else would think someone was hot, no one ever triggered my own hotness sensor.  Discovering that “hotness” was not a concept that made intrinsic sense to me went a long way towards identifying that lack.

In a way, it’s sort of like detecting a black hole.  You can’t actually see it, but you can detect its effects, and so you can infer whether or not a black hole exists at a given place based on the presence or absence of these effects.

Since you discovered what asexuality was, and came to understand what it meant for you, have you ever felt conflicted about it?

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Q: Since you discovered what asexuality was, and came to understand what it meant for you, have you ever felt conflicted about it? I read your answer earlier about having been in a relationship previously, it came across that you were okay with it ending, and you mentioned that it just didn’t fit right. I was just wondering if at any point you found yourself wishing that you felt differently, wishing that you wanted it, even though you were/are fine being single and asexual?

At the time that relationship ended, I didn’t know that I was asexual.  In the following years, I did have the “Why don’t I care about sex/what’s wrong with me?” moments.  Those episodes went away when I discovered asexuality, though.

Last year, however, in the situation with the prospective relationship that didn’t even start, I did sort of want to feel differently.  Not really for my sake, though.  Not like I felt broken or wanted to be different, but that I didn’t want to hurt her.  I liked her, she was fun to be around, but I just wasn’t interested in a relationship, and I knew that was a disappointment, I knew that hurt her.  I wished that could have been different.

You’ve talked publicly about a lot of sexually explicit issues. How did you get to be so comfortable doing that?

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Q: You’ve talked publicly about a lot of sexually explicit issues. How did you get to be so comfortable doing that?

Honestly, I have no idea.

In some ways, there’s the anonymity.  That helps a lot.

In other ways, I don’t believe that those sorts of things should be as taboo as they are.

I also think that I don’t look at those issues the same way most other people do.

But I think the biggest reason is that I’ve forced myself to do it.  On a number of those topics, pretty much no one was talking about them, yet many people were curious about them.  It seemed like someone needed to talk about them, and since I was already talking about other things, why shouldn’t I talk about them?