Non-Sexual and Non-White Intimacy
Alrighty - I’ve gotten a lot of questions from aces who’re hella confused about sensuality, and I’ve decided to point out something that I debated for a long time against sharing:
With all the ‘gal pal’, ‘bromance’, and ‘white people’ jokes we see, we risk missing on some important details involving sensuality and platonic intimacy. There’s an entire side to the ‘intimacy’ discussion that most of you aren’t aware of, and being unaware isn’t an ok thing; y’all don’t know about the diversity of intimacy because of neo-colonialism, whitewashing, and gentrification.
Water births being a ‘white hippie’ thing. Two men kissing ‘obviously’ being a case of heternormative washing. And so on. Behind a few of these bromance/gal pal/yt people joke hide not only whiteness, but a rhetoric that erases asexuality/aromanticism. And it’s time to address that.
Why? Because American views on intimacy erases non-American people of color, and also forces compulsory sexuality upon people in the ace spectrum. Being an ace of color, my patience is tried.
Listen; America is notoriously neurotic when it comes to intimacy. And only periodically throughout the centuries. In so many other places, kissing on the mouth is what friends and family do. My cousins and I were breastfed until past kindergarten, by our mothers, aunts, babysitters, and friends of family. I’ve seen, touched, and hugs many naked friends throughout my life, all ages across. What western culture sexualizes, not everyone agrees with.
Sexual attraction is described as the compulsion to commit sexual acts with a specific object of desire. Romantic attraction much the same, except not explicit. Sensual attraction similar guidelines, and so on. So what happens when one person’s ‘sexual attraction’ is another’s ‘I just want a goddamn cuddle, is that so damn important?’
When we see vintage footage of old-timey Americans who kiss, cuddle, and embrace each other’s bare skin, there is no doubt that many of them are same/multiple-gender-attracted. But a lot of you say so with absolutely no comprehension of the diversity of physical intimacy, and how different it is around the globe.
In so many other countries and cultures, you regularly cuddle, kiss, and touch your friends. When someone pulls out a camera and says, ‘smile!’ you drape your arms lovingly around your mate, and kiss them on the neck. And that photo is uploaded to facebook and all that jazz.
In modern day America, holding hands is literally second base. Our desire for physical intimacy has been heavily sexualized. And for some people, that’s a huge deficit to their wellbeing and themselves.
As an ace of color, I really don’t appreciate my desires for physical intimacy to be sexualized. I am very much compelled to touch, cuddle, and kiss people. Sometimes it’s romantic in intent, most of the time it’s not. But because of who I am, my actions are very much scrutinized as sexual. Which is very white sexuality and I want none of that in my life.
