#ace activism

[leikeliscomet]

Getting into the aspec community's anti-love stance more on a personal level cus it's been me rubbing the wrong way for so long.

Society sees love and sex as the same so it doesn't make sense whenever the community acts like the marginalisation of certain types of sex wouldn't have any impact on romance whatsoever. That homophobes hate homosexuality but will give homoromanticism a free pass. There was a whole study, the MacInnis-Hodson study, that showed homophobes admitted they'd still discriminate against gay people if we don't have sex. Homophobes think gay love doesn't exist in two respects; that gayness is inherently sexual so 'love' between the same gender doesn't exist because it's only sexual and that gay love is perverted, sinful because it can involve sex and shouldn't exist. There is no way to be anti gay love that doesn't circle back to this. It's also weird that people unironically think puritans are pro-love if they're anti sex (and spoilers they're not anti-sex they love heterosexual reproduction) like no they're pro-marriage. Pro cishet monogamous marriage to be exact. There isn't a single context where they think gay love is pure. They've banned gay kisses, they've erased gay characters that don't have sex, there's a whole genre of homophobic Netflix where gay characters being physically close to each other is getting scrubbed and sanitised like this idea of pure uwu alloromantic love u lot are talking about doesn't include the gays. It's *never* included us. It also doesn't include Black women because look at the way writers and fandoms fight tooth and nail to avoid making Black women love interests. In fact it doesn't include any marginalised group society says is romantically undesirable.

The most important form of pro-gay love activism I always think of is queer Ghanaians and the anti-LGBTQIA bill that got passed. I can't visit my family in Ghana without being in danger. I either put myself at risk by connecting with my own roots or I never see them and stay 'safe' in the UK (and I use 'safe' in the lightest way possible). I think of queer Ghanaians and other queer Black Africans in the global south navigating the effects of colonialism on top of rampant queerphobia, violence and rape. The conflict of being proud of your Africanness whilst your country is killing you. I think of Angel Maxine and her creation of Love is Our Will and the full version, Kill The Bill Love Is Our Will and how as Ghana's first openly trans musician she's putting her life on the line everytime she sings about gay love. I'm never gonna see that as useless of 'uwu pure love allo things' like fuck no. Fuck that. It's an act of resistance and bravery. So yeah western aspecs giggling about gay love messages being useless when this shit is going on will always be dutty and ignorant to me for this reason.

It feels so weird when I call out amatonormativity and try to centre aroaces as an ace that experiences romantic attraction to have aspecs start shitting on alloaces and non-ace people's romantic attraction in my reblogs like I'm not the alloace and and 'allo queer' in question. I think it's cus people assume I'm aroace too so they feel comfortable saying these things. Or people know I'm not but the idea of being gay and asexual isn't sinking in cus I have a post talking about gay asexuality and people tagged it as aroace instead. Or this is some conditional support cus I cant help but notice the increase in acephobia I'm getting the minute I start focusing on the lesbian side of my asexuality. That aspecs have a bigger issue with the ace lesbian culture blog than they do the Black one.

Yes the 'love is love slogan' has limits, yes love is not the most important part of gay activism but that's literally why we have more than one ffs. You can care about multiple things at once. I'm sorry but if we can see how blatantly reactionary sex loses, don't have gay sex would make a pretty puritan sounding type of activist messaging, that proudly labelling ourselves anti-sex and that supporting sex negativity would sound fucking awful then making fun of gay love activism five seconds after it's giving hypocrisy. Like you lot either genuinely don't know enough gay history of theory so these posts are coming from ignorance or you do know and don't care. And that's worse.

Cus if we were doing up 'fuck love where women are expected to be perfect wives and mothers' 'fuck loving our abusers just because they're family' 'fuck the idea we have to love people unconditionally when they're hurting us' 'fuck the idea romantic love 'fixes' and absolves people for doing morally bad things' 'fuck the idea you have fall in love with the opposite gender/sex only' then i'd be all aboard but no we're (not me tho) making fun of the sexless uwu gays with romantic attraction... just like the rest of society.

[redbeardace]

Ace Activism Opportunities: Access To Sexual Things

Content warning:  This one talks about sex & stuff.

So, this topic is admittedly a weird one, and it’s one of the more nebulous subjects I’m covering in these posts.  I don’t really know what the problem here looks like, exactly, but it’s something I’ve seen come up here and there. Or maybe it’s that the problem is clear, but I don’t have a sense of what solutions would look like?  I’m not even sure what I should call this topic…

So anyway, the general idea of this problem is that there are a number of aces who are interested in doing sexual things of some kind, but don’t really have a way to approach or navigate that world.  The standard ways and the common advice don’t always work here.

How do you safely find someone who will accept your level of interest or disinterest and respect your boundaries when you might not even know what those boundaries are yourself?  How can you find someone willing to take part in a “test drive” or be willing to follow a strictly scripted scenario?  Things like one night stands or hook-up apps are largely built around the premise that all parties involved have a generally equivalent desire to proceed with at least a common baseline of activities, and refusing to take part is sort of a breach of etiquette.

Or there are aces who really enjoy sex of all forms, but who don’t do the romantic relationship thing, but also don’t feel comfortable with the fling with a stranger thing, either.

I have seen many aces who are into nonsexual kink, but haven’t the faintest idea how to approach getting into in-person activities.  They’ll often get blindly directed towards websites that aren’t an exact fit, and left without support.

I’ve seen complaints from people who are super interested in buying sex toys or kink gear, but are super turned off by all the other stuff they have to wade past in stores that sell it, whether online or not.

So much of the language used when talking about sex can be completely alien to many aces.  That ranges from basic instructions to advanced tips, from toy reviews to relationship advice.  Even just talking about what something is like can be wrapped in words and phrases that have no meaning.

There are even asexual sex workers out there.

And on top of all of this, there’s a cascading crush of stigmas and misconceptions and expectations that all slam down on asexual people who might be interested in sexual things.  You’ve got the puritan side, which says that sex is bad, so you’re bad if you’re interested.  You’ve got the free love side that sex is good, so you’re bad if you’re not interested enough.  You’ve got the non-aces who think that an asexual person who has sex disproves the entire premise of asexuality, and you’ve got the ace people themselves who think that they’re making all asexuals look bad by having sex.  And so on and so on.

Anyway, all of this is to say that there a problem here.  Probably a number of problems here.  And I don’t have the foggiest idea how to tackle them.  (Ace meetup group field trip to a sex club?  Cherry 2000 style sex robots?    Legalized/decriminalized/destigmatized prostitution with an a la carte menu?  I don’t know.  All my ideas sound like plot starters for bad movies.)  But it’s clear to me that there is room here for some ace activists to start dismantling and reshaping this area, to build spaces or come up with best practices on how to approach it.

[aktivistaverein]

Europäischer Ideenaustausch zum Nachhören

Auf Initiative der polnischen Organisationen Asfera und Tolerado fand am 15. Mai ein Erfahrungsaustausch zum Thema Ace-Aktivismus in europäischen Ländern statt. Mit dabei waren asexuelle Aktivist*innen aus Schweden, Spanien, Ungarn, Polen und Deutschland.

Wer mag, kann den Stream bei Tolerados Facebookseite nachschauen oder nachhören.

[theaceandaroadvocacyproject]

Creating Change, an annual queer social justice conference hosted by the LGBTQ Task Force (https://www.thetaskforce.org/creatingchange.html), plans on being much more inclusive of aro and ace folks for the 2021 conference, which will be virtual. Part of that includes videos from people in our communities answering these questions:

1) What does being ace or aro mean to me? 2) What can the LGBTQ movement do to include/support/achieve equity for ace or aro folks? 3) What would I like the broader community to know about me and others on the ace or aro spectrum?

The videos should be no longer than a minute, and will be edited together by the Task Force and then reviewed by TAAAP, AUREA, and Aces and Aros. You do not have to answer all three questions if you want to focus on one. After being approved, it'll be shown at the conference, but not made available outside of the conference.

We'd like as much diversity as possible in the responses, including diversity of ace and aro identities as well as other identities, including race, gender, and age. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to TAAAP via this email: [email protected]. (We may not check tumblr messages promptly so we do not recommend you reach out to us there.)

Please submit your video response to us in an email by December 12! Thanks.

[acehybrid]

So this has been something I want to talk about as an adult who didn't discover I am ace until 30.

The lack of knowledge on asexuality when I was younger really impacted me negatively. Because I ended up hurting people, by not understanding I was never going to feel sexually attracted to anyone. I also missed opportunities for dating because while I liked certain people, I rarely acted on it because I mistakenly believed I needed sexual attraction to even consider dating someone.

So I hurt people I cared about by not reacting to their interest in me. I missed having certain experiences with people I did feel romantically attracted to because I was waiting for sexual awakening.

And I blame our oversexualized society for that. If everything hadn't been so sex oriented when it talked about relationships(including religious oriented books on relationships) I might have better understood my own sexuality. I might not have been waiting for something that wasn't going to happen. I might not have unintentionally hurt people in my past. I might not have hated myself for something I have no control over. I might have actually dated some of the people in my past and might not feel so lonely and like a romantic failure now.

So yeah we need Asexuality to be better seen. We need more activism on the education of what asexuality means. We need to fight erasure at all costs. Because I can't stand the thought of people younger than me struggling through what I have. Especially when they want to date or a partner because they want/feel they need it.

And now that I know I am asexual I feel so free! I finally understand that I wasn't a picky jerk or that my standards weren't too high. I have finally been able to forgive myself for something that was out of my control. I understand myself so much better now and it is allowing me to move forward.

[aroace-avenue]

Aspec Activism in the Pandemic

I’ve talked a lot about what i imagine ace and aro activism to be. Restructuring care, mutual aid, affordable housing, building systems of support outside of amatonormative relationships ...

As much as these times call for distance and isolation, they also call care, love and activism. And I’ve been seeing so much of that.

Mutual aid groups seems to have popped up in every city. Many places are now offering substantial, ableit often still inadequate, support for affording housing. People are making so many things and making pre-existing things available to make  it possible for people to stay at home. and much more.

Now is a really good time to get involved in this work. Join a local mutual aid group, call your representative, organize a rent strike, reach out to your neighbours and friends. Ask for the help you need and offer the help you can.

I also want to point out that building these systems of support only work if we ask for what we need and give what we can. Don’t push yourself beyond your limits to help. And remember that asking for and receiving help are just as important pieces of the work as offering and giving.

[asexualawarenessweek]

October 2019 Carnival of Aces Round-up: Reaching Out, Reaching In

Thank you to everyone who participated in October’s Carnival of Aces! The theme this month was “Reaching Out, Reaching In.” Here are the submissions:

“Asexuality Activism Report Card” - @redbeardace

@redbeardace outlined core areas where ace activism is needed, and assessed the ace community’s work and accomplishments over the past year for each category.

“Ace Book Club” - Gwen Tolios

@gwentolios shared their experience with ace meetups, and how they filled their desire for community through an ace book club.

“On Being an Evangelist” - Ace Film Reviews

Blue Ice-Tea talks about not being good at evangelism within the context of Christianity, and how sharing information about asexuality with others has come much more naturally.

“Starting a New Community” - Aspec of Stardust

@aspecofstardust discusses the emotional process of beginning a new ace and aro student organization.

“2018-2019 Year in Review” - The Ace and Aro Advocacy Project

@theaceandaroadvocacyproject posted a video review of the work they have been doing, as well as the work they are planning to do in the future.

[redbeardace]

Ace Activism Opportunities: Health Care

The world of “health care” is a huuuuuuuuuge opportunity for ace activism, so I’m just going to briefly touch on just a few of the areas that can be explored.

Develop workshops on providing ace competent care.  Train doctors on what asexuality is, how to approach potentially asexual patients, etc.

Get the DSM-5 fixed.  The move from the DSM-IV to DSM-5, with its explicit mention of asexuality in an an exception for FSIAD and MHSDD, was a huge step forward, but there are still problems.  The mention of asexuality is hiding in scare quotes in a footnote that doesn’t even show up in the Desk Reference.  The exception calls for people to be “self-identified as asexual”, which is hard to do if you’ve never heard that asexuality is A Thing™.  The criteria for FSIAD and MHSDD both require “clinically significant distress”, but there’s no allowance for that distress being caused by everyone constantly telling you that you’re broken for not wanting sex.  Then there’s a more fundamental question about whether or not these are actually “disorders” at all.  Ace activism was instrumental in getting the improvements in the DSM-5, so it’s time to be making noise about getting some changes in the next edition.

Explore various ways to suppress or eliminate various bodily functions and features that many aces could do without.  Look at techniques for skipping periods with birth control pills.  Are there ways to safely get rid of erections?  Can an unwanted libido be turned off?  What options exist for hysterectomies or castration?  Are they safe?  What’s the process for obtaining one?  Are there processes/procedures/regulations/restrictions that stand in the way and need to be changed?

Work to end the pervasive and incorrect idea that everyone wants sex, that everyone who is lacking in sex is miserable, and that the only path to happiness is through lots and lots of sex.  Throw out the blanket “fake it ’til you make it” style advice.  Throw out the failed anti-depressants and sunless tanners being relabeled as sex cure-alls.  Don’t try to fix what isn’t broken.

Explore issues involving single people and medical care.

Look at tests and procedures which may not be necessary for people who are not sexually active.  For instance, are pap smears worthwhile for people who’ve never had sex?  Should guidance around those sorts of things be changed?  Should there be more outreach to aces letting them know the risk and giving them guidance for refusing potentially unnecessary or unwanted procedures.

Fight against conversion therapy, in all its forms.