‘asexuality’ as a personal descriptor for how you experience sex and attraction is completely fine, for adults.
but it doesn’t hold up as a social identity and that becomes extremely obvious whenever you hold it up to literally any other social identity. race, gender, class, ability, religion, sexuality, all of these are coherent identities that come with shared social, cultural, and political experiences. all of these are also things that children can be. all of them (except for race) can change over time of course, but children are still these things.
children can’t be asexual. point blank. to say there are asexual children is to say there are non-asexual children which is by definition sexualizing children, and extremely vile. this is also why ace =/= lgbt, bc children can be lgbt but they can’t be asexual.
im not even gonna get into all the ways the “asexual community” is non-cohesive bc it would take too long, but more importantly, the asexual/non-asexual dichotomy is false. made up. a lie. not grounded in any sort of reality.
i think conceptualizing “asexuality” as a social identity and presenting it as a go-to option if you’re even remotely uncomfortable or uninterested with sex is…. bad. it’s just bad! sex is COMPLICATED and personal and everything from your upbringing to religion to sexuality to race to gender to dysphoria to mental health etc is going to factor into your relationship to sex. minors are developing their sexualities. young adults are figuring out their rltshp to sex. grown ass adults are also still figuring it out!
if you have spent time with yourself reflecting on your rltshp to sex and figuring out with makes you happy and healthy, and the conclusion you came to is asexuality, that’s COMPLETELY fine. good for you!
but that’s not an identity the same way that someone coming to the conclusion that they love sex and having sex all the time, is also not an identity. and it’s also a conclusion that only adults can come to. to send any other message just makes it harder for minors to safely figure out their own rltshps to sex and attraction.
you literally have people suggesting to 15 year olds that they might be ace bc they’re “not interested in sex like all their friends are.” that’s bananas. completely ridiculous at best, actively damaging at worst. like that’s a literal child, and it’s completely normal for 15 year olds to not be interested in sex. again, if you believe a 15 year old can be asexual, what does that say about how you think of teenagers in general?
i think we’re too far gone in this current cultural moment to like, recalibrate people’s understanding of asexuality. and it’s worrisome. all i hope for is that minors aren’t harmed / repressing their sexuality even further / getting into situations that are unhealthy for them / etc as a result of this cultural moment.
turnnoffyourmind
snowghoul
blakekathryn
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