The thing about being aromantic, asexual, or on the spectrums that a lot of people don’t seem to get is that compulsory sexuality exists.
Not just compulsory heterosexuality. Compulsory sexuality. Period. The idea that every person on the planet feels some kind of sexual and romantic attraction.
I grew up watching media, same as all of you, and how are people that are interested in purely sexual relationships depicted? As cold people. As cheaters. Usually it’s a straight man looking to use women. His character development almost always includes settling down. And people that don’t experience sexual attraction? Characters like Data from Star Trek or Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. Androids and characters coded as having a very specific type of autism. And even they have sexuality forced upon them by the writers at least once. With Data it happens in the second episode.
And then we try to explain this to people. Why we hurt ourselves and put ourselves in dangerous and uncomfortable situations trying to fix ourselves. Make ourselves feel sexual and/or romantic attraction. We bring up the bullying we endured. The things our therapists tried to fix about us. We talk about our trauma related to compulsory sexuality and you all just don’t hear us.
I’m so tired of it. I’ve been fighting the fight to be seen since I was fourteen! I’ve given talks in GSAs. I’ve written essays to educate. I’ve comforted other asexual people on the internet and irl. I’ve scraped and grabbed for community. I’ve done my very best to fight to be seen. I’ve healed from the trauma I put myself through in trying to fix myself. I’ve realized that I don’t need to be fixed. I’ve been as goddamned involved as an asexual person can be with the resources we have. I may be young but I have been fighting longer than most and I am so protective of the people just realizing that they’re aro or ace or demi or anything else. No matter how much older or younger they are than me.
And then some people on the internet decide that they get to undo everything I and so many other asexual and aromantic people have done. They get to decide that their trauma is more real than mine. They get to push me and my brothers and sisters and siblings out the door because they don’t see invisibility as oppression. They’ve held up their little sign that says “must be this oppressed to enter” and then held it up higher so that we didn’t fit.
Some of them told me “oh you can come in because you tick these boxes but that other box doesn’t count”
No. That box definitely counts. That box is just as much a part of me as any of the others and it is the one I have fought for the longest. Our community won’t be made invisible again. Invisibility is crushing. It is suffocating. Abuse and hatred of all kinds thrive in silence.
I feel alone sometimes. Like I am the only soldier holding a banner in front of a stone wall. But I am not alone, and you aren’t either. I’m tired of being casual. I’m tired of being seen as a rarity. A novelty. An android. A nuisance. I am none of these things. I, like every other arospec or aspec person, am a friend of dragons. Something that was hidden for so long, protecting itself and what it loves, but has the ability to be loud, dangerous, firey.
Asexual and aromantic people have been polite. Quiet. Because that’s what we feel we have to be. We can’t protest by kissing someone in front of a picket line. What can we do then? Talk. Write. Wear our colors. If we have to keep being polite and quiet about it, fine. That’s how we do. But let’s not be invisible. I will continue to let everyone that knows me understand under no uncertain terms that I am asexual. I will point to our aromantic siblings, sisters, brothers. I will tell you to look at them. Look at us. We exist. We are wonderful. We belong. In queer spaces, in the media, in the public eye.
If you are aro or ace people will tell you that they don’t care. They will ask why they need to know. But being yourself is a radical act. I know it is. We are often polite in this community. We don’t rally. We don’t look to change the world. We don’t depict ourselves as radical or challenging the establishment, but we are. We are. We have been from the moment we realized we exist. Our history is small. We are creating the early stages of it as we speak, but it is still rich. It is still beautiful. Even if we are spread out, I love this community so deeply. So completely. I probably won’t ever be a leader in this community or any other one. That’s not where my talents lie. But I will continue to push for us to be seen. I will write literature for us. I will talk. I will be as visible as someone like me can be. I will fight to make the words ace and aro and demi and grey just as well known as gay, ace, lesbian, bi, trans.
And there are so many of us out there doing the same. We are not alone. We have never been alone. And these people trying to make us alone won’t succeed. I know this. I feel it in my gut.
Thanks for listening to me rant.
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