#ace education

[certifiedsexed]

i was wondering if you know any good way to explain being sexually repulsed as an ace? people keep thinking I mean I'm against all sex and I have no idea how to help them get it.

Yeah, the spaghetti metaphor.

Some people like spaghetti, some people don't. You personally really dislike spaghetti but you don't have anything against people who like spaghetti or think spaghetti is evil, you just don't like to eat it.

That'd be my recommendation to explain but others might have more?

[acexualien]

Let's talk about sex, baby! pt. 1 of 2

💜 On day 3 of Asexual Spectrum Awareness Week 2025, I want to introduce you to the differences between political and personal stances on sex!

❣️ Did you know that the terms "sex-favourable" and "sex-positive" are NOT synonymous and mean two completely different things? Swipe to find out the meaning behind not only those two terms, but 7 terms in total!

[acespec-ed]

Friendly reminder that there is a difference between sexual attraction and libido!

Sexual attraction is feeling an urge to have sex with someone. When you see that special someone, you may feel arousal along with a magnetic pull towards that person.

Libido is being turned on in general. It is not always tied to a person. And you don’t have to be sexually attracted to a person to have sex with them. Desiring sex for the purpose of getting off is your libido speaking. Your libido doesn’t care who you’re doing it with as long as you are doing it.

If you never experience sexual attraction, regardless of whether or not you have sex or have a libido, you are asexual. 

If you rarely experience sexual attraction to the point where you feel like you don’t fit in with allosexuals, you might fall under the gray area of asexuality. 

If you experience sexual attraction and feel like you fit in with the rest of the world, good for you. Don’t shit on people for identifying otherwise.

[larphis]

Yeah. You're not asexual.

Quite intruiging anon that you seem to have a better understanding of my sexuality than me myself.

I am a sex-repusled ace person. The thought of sex with myself involved in any way disgusts me, however despite a lack of sexual attraction I still have a strong sense of aesthetic attraction to people. I couldn’t care less about having intimacy with them, but I still feel extremly drawn to people’s weird quirks and character traits.

Not to mention that asexuality is a spectrum, and demisexual people as well as people who have an active sex-life are also all a part of the ace community.

I would highly recommend using the time you are investing in trying to invalidate strangers sexualities in actually researching and educating yourself about all the different forms asexuality can take.

I am valid, and it took me years to accept that about myself, and I am not going to let that be taken away by someone who hides behinds the comforts of anonymity and has not exchanged a singular word with the person that I am.

Besides I use the asexual umbrella term because it’s easier to understand - for people like you who are clearly not educated about asexual people because it’s easier than me having to explain that I am aegosexual because almost no one would know what I am even talking about.

[the-desi-aro-ace]

People keep on saying that the LGBTQIA+ community adding more labels is unscientific and that the "QIA+" part does not belong in the community.

As if science doesn't evolve and change with more information. Everytime a new scientific discovery is made, science does not disregard it.

Let's take the example of the periodic table of elements. In the beginning, there were just 30 elements to arrange, but when we discovered more elements we did not deem them "unscientific" and stuck to the original version, did we?

Now we're discovering more sexualities and genders and we're just adding them to the already recognised ones, so what's the problem?

Scientific laws don't change, and sexualities and genders aren't scientific laws.

[ace-support]

If you're anywhere on the asexual spectrum you can submit questions/experiences/anything you'd like the community to know.

If you are questioning this is a safe space to ask questions to help figure everything out.

Anonymous asks are on.

If you are not on the asexual spectrum but are trying to educate yourself, you can ask questions here as long as they are not aphobic / offensive

[rotten-zucchinis]

I am actively *not* having sex with you right now! ( context: ace education & sex-ed )

I do a lot of ace educational work offline ( and used to do a lot of sex-ed ) [1]. 

Part of that work involves tackling the topic of how “compromising to have sex” and “compromising to not have sex” are very different things, and bringing up people’s latent assumptions about sexual entitlement. There’s an example I started using this year that people seem to really enjoy, to illustrate that. I’m finally getting around to sharing it online.

( It was a spontaneous idea, just like my impromptu chair demonstration for explaining queerplatonic/quirkyplatonic/QP relationships. Often those are the most effective. )

The example

When the idea of “sexual compromise” first comes up, people are often inclined to see “compromise sex” as parallel and equivalent to “compromise no-sex”. From a consent perspective they are very different. I could go into the theory, but in an educational context, that’s not usually helpful. So without even getting into any theory, it’s very simple to start laying out the landscape of consent...

I am actively *not* having sex with you right now. And I don’t need your consent for that. Tomorrow I will again actively be not having sex with you, and next Thursday too. And I’m also actively not having sex with that person over there, etc. I ( should ) get to decide that all on my own, and I don’t ( or shouldn’t ) need anyone’s input or permission to make that choice. ( And nobody is entitled to try to force me or try to make me change my mind. )

You don’t need someone’s consent to *not* have sex with them. But you absolutely do need someone’s consent to *have* sex with them.

Usually people laugh when I tell them that I’m actively not having sex with them ( especially if it’s a whole group-- such as all you people on tumblr right now seeing this post )! But it also usually makes the point rather effectively.

It’s also not uncommon for people to respond with something like “but we’re not dating”... ( either implicitly or explicitly stating that things would be different if we were ). Right away, that brings to the surface the issue of “sexual entitlement” even if people would deny that they believe in such things ( i.e., someone feeling entitled to sexually access someone else / someone else’s body-- usually some kind of dating partner, particularly in the context of monogamy ). And that’s useful, because it means we can talk about it, and it means there’s something to challenge. 

The educational context:

Starting from that humourous statement is actually a really efficient way to get to the point of challenging deeper and more insidious personal and societal values because people need to recognise they hold a belief before they can understand how it is influencing other things ( and before they can work on changing it ). People hold a lot of implicit and contradictory beliefs-- and aren’t usually aware of all of them. We are all influenced by the large-scale ideologies that “go without saying” in our broader social contexts, even if we deliberately try to reject them. “Unlearning” is a life-long process, just as learning is.

As an educator, if you start off trying to challenge a belief someone doesn’t realise they hold, it’s a lot more difficult to achieve any substantive change. ( It doesn’t usually go over well. ) People will very often superficially agree with things or agree to things in theory-- they may be very open to what you’re saying-- while also holding contradictory beliefs / ideologies that they aren’t necessarily recognising ( which would ultimately get in the way of ). Compulsory sexuality and amatonormativity ( not to mention neoliberal values ) are really sneaky and resilient, for example. 

If you can bring an implicit belief or ideology to the forefront quickly ( and ideally non-confrontationally ), then you can talk about it and challenge it. 

Education is by definition about change. Learning is a process of change. But it also takes time. People don’t always change their minds ( right away ), but that isn’t necessarily the goal of education aimed at challenging harmful ideologies-- the goal is long-term, substantive change, even if it isn’t quick change. Sometimes the change happens later, sometimes years later, and one particular educational event is usually only a small piece of that larger process. 

If you can bring up a value-in-action, then people usually start recognising they have a value, and can begin to see how that value is influencing their overall outlook. ( It’s hard to challenge a value people don’t recognise they have. ) That recognition is necessary for those people to be able to work on challenging the value long after the “educational encounter” is over. And people often will do that work and will often help others to do it too... especially when that involves a funny story for people to tell their friends.

I am actively not having sex with you right now and I am ( or should be ) entitled to make that decision all on my own, no matter what kind of hypothetical relationship context we might happen to be in. ( And if you or someone else disagrees-- as some people do-- then at least we can get a good idea of where the disagreement lies. )

Footnote:

[1] In many capacities in my in-person life, I am an educator, both informally and formally. I do a lot of ace educational work, and I tend to do it rather differently than most people seem to do it, both because of my politics and goals in doing this work, and because of my teaching background. ( I also don’t do it the way I sporadically throw copious amounts of words at the world via this blog. )

As an educator, I have had a lot of practice “educating” ( which doesn’t always mean “teaching” ). I have had “teaching education” both from activist-community spaces and academic ones-- which means that I’ve been exposed to various different ethical orientations when it comes to teaching and educating. I’ve studied pedagogy, principles of adult education and learning-centred teaching, and peer-based models, etc., and more mechanical things like learning outcomes-- including the affective domain. I’m not going to dig up sources to explain all that ( the resources aren’t hard to find via the googlemonster if people are interested and I’m writing this quickly because I have many other demands on my time ), and I’m not trying to write an educational piece about education. 

In the context of my life, one of the things I am is an educator, but when I throw words at this blog I am not doing it “an an educator”. This *isn’t* an “educational” blog. By that I mean that, while people might learn from things I write, people’s learning typically isn’t my goal ( it might be the sometimes-impact, but it’s not usually the purpose ). And more importantly, I am not writing words I post here as an “educator”. If I were writing about almost any of the topics on this blog “as an educator” the pieces would look very different.

[acesareroyaltytoo-blog]

Discourse

I’d really like to see a productive discourse discussion, where neither party villainizes the other just for respectfully holding a certain position, where each party treats the other with dignity, and where both parties really listen to one another and consider the views of the other, but also aren’t afraid to say “I think you’re incorect.” Don’t be afraid of being respectfully proven wrong, but be grateful for the opportunity to have your err’s exposed, because you’re genuinely seeking truth. Don’t be afraid to call other people out when they’re wrong either, but do it respectfully. Name calling, insults, and swearing at people is not productive. Listening to them is.

“Don’t raise your voice, improve your argument.” If you feel like you’re “loosing” a discourse discussion, maybe it’s because you’re not completely correct, and the person you’re talking to has made a good point. Maybe it’s for another reason, but consider that as a possibility. If you have to resort to childish, hurtful personal attacks in order to come on top, you’re just showing me that you know you’ve been proven wrong, and there’s nothing left you can do.

I wrote this message with both sides of ace discourse on my mind, specifically. Not just discoursers, and not just aces, but both. But I think this is just a good life principal for everyone: Encourage dialogue between a diverse selection of thoughts and beliefs, rather than shutting down dissenters. Put truth above your desire to be right, be open to the idea that you might be wrong, but also don’t be afraid to say “I think you’re not correct.” Treat each other with respect, and don’t resort to meaningless personal attacks. Your goal is to find truth, not to win an argument.