Call me terrible, but aces who like and seek out sex make me, a sex repulsed ace, feel invalid. They are almost no different from anyone else, yet they ace like they're so ace. How can their asexuality be so important if it hides under how they're "normal"? Why are we so protective of these aces when they're at best almost allos(I don't mean to insult allos in any way), or at worst exclusionists? It just appalls me how we act like they're hated when really, they're treated so normally.
I really debated just deleting this and blocking the sender because it is so utterly antithetical to everything this blog stands for, but I think it needs to be addressed, because attitudes like this are a warning sign to me that history may be poised to repeat itself, and that will happen over my dead body.I’ve been around a long time. Like, before tumblr, before AVEN, before aces had anything like the community we have today, before we even had a consistent word for ourselves. That means I remember some of the early politics that Kids These Days weren’t around for, have no way of really knowing–including the downright ugly fights that dominated the mailing list days about how to define asexuality. There was a contingent of people, you see, that held that the only way to be Truly Asexual was to completely lack any sort of libido, and to abstain from sex entirely. These people were. Not nice people. They were the exclusionists of their time, and I mean that very seriously. Nearly every hateful, cruel, and self-spiting tactic you see in REGs on tumblr today was also levied by nonlibidoists and antisexuals at the time. They were absolutely vicious toward not only anybody within ace circles who wanted a broader definition of asexuality [the one we use today, eventually] but also toward non-aces or anyone who wasn’t celibate by choice, which resulted, among other things, in exactly the sort of homophobia and sex shaming that REGs accuse us of to this day.We, as a community, fought tooth and nail against defining ourselves in this way, and against both the ugly infighting it produced and the abhorrent behaviour it encouraged. We have been fighting tooth and nail ever since to move past that stain on our history, to define ourselves in a way that is safe and welcoming to all aces, and to ensure that we conduct ourselves in a way that aligns with the ethics of the communities we ally ourselves with, and to what we have decided is the ethical core of our own community. It sickens me to the core to be hearing views like this espoused again from inside our community. I will not stand for it. We will not stand for it. We didn’t then, and we won’t now. There is no right way to be asexual. There is no wrong way to be asexual. There is nothing at all wrong with aces who have, want, or seek out sex. There is nothing wrong with aces who are so repulsed by sex that they can’t even think about it. There is nothing wrong with aces who have no feelings about sex whatsoever. There is nothing wrong with aces who never have or will feel attraction. There is nothing wrong with aces who do occasionally feel attraction but still feel that ace identities best represent their experiences or that the ace community best addresses their needs. Asexuality is not behaviour. Asexuality cannot be hidden under behaviour, or opted out of through behaviour, and if some people feel like they need to try to do that, that is a reflection of an aphobic society pressuring people into closeting or otherwise denying themselves in an attempt to escape that oppression, not proof that they’re “normal” [also, feel free to never juxtapose “ace” and “normal” again, that’s gross].And, finally, this frankly drips of exactly the kind of sex-shaming we’re so often accused of, no matter how hard you try to hide it behind “no insult to allos.” It’s gross. Don’t do it. This is one of the most unsavoury asks I have seen in my time on this blog. Everything about this sentiment is unwelcome on this blog; keep it out of our inbox and keep it out of our community. Our gates are open. Our arms are open. Every ace is welcome, every ace is valid, every ace experience is a genuine ace experience, one worthy of consideration, protection, and acknowledgement. We have worked hard to build this community into what it is today. The gatekeepers of the past removed themselves from the rest of us and faded into oblivion and that is where I want their sentiments to stay.I’m not going to call you terrible, because I stand for a community where every ace is welcome and finds the resources they need to navigate their life and identity. But that cannot, will not, come at the expense of others.-Dew
