reason #12345676543234678 why i will never forgive the ace community for what they have done to mainstream views of sexuality: about a month ago, an eleven year old girl messaged me on deviantart telling me she was asexual. she then asked me if i was asexual as well, and asked me for advice.
a little context for those who don’t know me outside of this tumblr: i work as an artist and youtuber, uploading speedpaints of my drawings. i have about fifteen thousand cumulative followers, many of them young teens. there are a lot of people who look up to me as a role model, and it puts me in a position of authority that while i didn’t ask for, it is my responsibility to wield in a way that sets a good example for young people.
i am also in college pursuing a master’s degree in education so i can teach middle school and high school. again, i am a role model in a profession that deals with teenagers, and part of the job is being able to help them.
so, imagine my shock when this eleven year old girl privately messages me over the internet, a complete stranger who is almost twice her age, to tell me that she does not have sex. and not only that, but to ask me, a complete stranger who is almost twice her age, if i have sex, and how to navigate her life as an ELEVEN YEAR OLD who does not have sex.
upon visiting her page, i found that it was plastered with stamps and graphics broadcasting this little girl’s relationship to sex to anyone who clicked on her profile.
here is what i told her, copy-pasted from my actual message:
I have been looking at this message and trying to figure out how to respond to it for a while now, but I’m afraid all I’ve got for you is something you might not want to hear:
You are not asexual. You are eleven.
The definition of asexuality is a lack of sexual attraction. As an eleven year old, it is perfectly healthy and perfectly normal for you not to be interested in sex because you are quite literally a child. And when I call you a child, I’m not trying to talk down to you or make you feel stupid, I am stating a fact: you are an eleven year old child. If a child can be asexual, then that means that children can also be sexual, and I can almost guarantee you that your classmates at school are not sexually active. The asexual label is not something you should be latching on to, especially when you are as young as you are.
Ideally, you shouldn’t know much about what sex is, and I am personally praying that your knowledge of this topic is limited, because it is something that will be explained to you in-depth when you are older, and I refuse to explain it to you because I am a stranger and I am also much older than you.
That being said, you should also not be putting stamps and stuff on your page saying that you’re asexual. The reason for that is because it is telling complete strangers how you, an eleven year old child, feel about the act of having sex. That is not information you should be giving to complete strangers, and it is not information you should be giving to me.
The thing about labels like this and the thing about calling yourself asexual is that it can trap you. It is actually very easy to become trapped in these labels and these ideas of who you think you are, and sometimes, that means that you have trouble moving beyond these labels and ideas. In other words, these labels can make it hard for you to grow. And when you’re growing up, you need to be able to embrace growth and change.
I know that a lot of people on this website have their sexual orientations listed on their page. And I know it feels like you know these people. I know it feels like you know me. But you don’t. These people, myself included, are strangers, and there is no way for you to know what they will do with the information you give them.
Which is why, for the sake of both your personal growth and your safety, I am begging you to detach yourself from this label and I am begging you not to broadcast this deeply personal information to people on the Internet that you don’t know. If you are ever feeling unsafe or insecure, I would be more than happy to direct you to professional hotlines and resources. But I am afraid that I can only provide you so much help myself, because it is simply not appropriate, professional, or legal for me as an adult to be talking about this kind of stuff with you.
That being said, I really do appreciate it that you felt comfortable with coming to me when you felt confused instead of bottling it up inside you, and if you ever need to talk to someone, there are always people in your life (not on the Internet) who will be more than happy to help you figure out our feelings, such as your parents, siblings, other family members, teachers, guidance counselors, and more. I hope you have an awesome day! <3
when i visited her page later that day, i was relieved to find that most of the graphics had been removed. she then messaged me back, saying that another girl in her class had told her about “all that stuff” against her will. it was at this point that i stopped replying. as a future teacher, my job depends on my ability to defer to the law in this type of situation, and it was quite simply not appropriate to continue the conversation as someone who is not a licensed mental health professional with this child that i do not know.
so, i let her be for a while. fast forward to today, when i went to her page again to check up on her, and found the asexual graphics had not only reappeared, but multiplied tenfold.
i am at a loss here. i absolutely refuse to contact her again, both for the sake of her comfort and mine, but it is physically painful to see the danger she is putting herself in. not only that, it is painful to see a child using this label. as thankful as i am that she came to me as opposed to anyone else, in my heart, i know that after getting my message, she immediately went to other people, who told her exactly what she wanted to hear. who told her that she was valid. who enabled her and every other creep who is invested in this little girl’s sexuality.
so, to the ace community as a whole, as the person who works with the children you’re recruiting, stop for a second. stop and think about what exactly you are doing here. again and again, you all insist that anyone can be asexual, and again and again you insist that your labels are safe and appropriate for children. and not only that they are safe to use for one’s self, but safe to tell grown adults with unknown intentions on the internet about, because “iT’S tHe SaMe ThInG aS bEiNg LgBt”. this little girl has been so brainwashed by your rhetoric that she is convinced she is different from other children because y’all have genuinely persuaded her into believing that her “normal” classmates are sexually active. that she is abnormal or queer for not having urges that no ordinary child should reasonably be having.
y’all are so desperate to paint yourselves as an oppressed, marginalized other in mainstream society that you have not only spread but encouraged the message that little children can and should be labeling their sexual preferences or lack thereof. what you are telling people like this little girl is that her relationship to sex is one that begins at a younger and younger age. we talk about the pressure on little girls to portray themselves sexually, but we need to talk about the other side of that, that being the pressure to describe and label their relationship to sex (whether it exists yet or not), inadvertently sexualising them by insisting on the inherently sexual nature of children and of a child’s asexuality as a “queer” deviation from this norm.
when i say the ace community has a pedophilia problem, i don’t mean in the child porn sense, i mean in the way it coercively sexualizes children by insisting on their capacity to be asexual, therefore insisting on children’s capacity to be sexual as well.
there is a reason i only give people the bare minimum amount of information they need to interact with me on the internet. mainly because, in the event that my administrator were to find me online in the future, i would not want to face discrimination or termination, but it is also because no one is entitled to that information about me. while i don’t hide anything about myself, i don’t hand it out to strangers either because again, i am a role model, and if i wouldn’t want my eleven year old followers doing it, i won’t do it either.
more than anything, i want people like this girl to know that privacy is more important than anything on the internet. strangers do not need to know this information about you. you do not need to know this information about you at this age. let yourself be a child. being a kid is wonderful. enjoy it. and don’t worry about sex or labels or anything else this website preaches until you’re mature, informed, and independent enough to make these decisions for yourself.
sincerely, a future teacher.
areudirty
kianamaiart
yousharknotpass
kaledo-art
tangentwithtanner
annaxmalina
theartofmadeline
blakekathryn
turnnoffyourmind
