Yasmin Benoit is a British aroace activist and model. She is arguably the biggest aspec activist in the Western world right now. Because she is a Black woman who makes a living modelling, she has faced a lot of sexualization, being told she doesn’t “look asexual.” In response to this, she started the hashtag #thisiswhatasexuallookslike, to prove that asexuality doesn’t have a specific look. There is a long history of Black people being hypersexualized in media, and many people have the attitude that asexuality is a “white thing.” Within the asexual community, Black aces are very often overlooked, excluded, and erased. As minimal as ace representation is, there is even less Black asexual representation, and what little does exist is often ignored even in the asexual community. Black asexuals deserve to see themselves represented and their identities uplifted, so for @creatingblackcharacters’s Black History Month event, I did some drawings of some of my Black asexual characters; however small my audience may be, I hope that for any Black asexuals who may (now or in the future) be part of it, you can see this part of yourselves reflected in Aros Against Fate.
I wanted to draw *all* the Black asexual characters from Aros Against Fate but I ran out of time, so apologies to Taehogh, Mkera, Yna, Wnahé, Abhaonai, and Kjotar, who were further down on the list and didn’t get drawn in time.
[ID: a drawing of Lí, a dark-skinned Black teenager with curly red hair. They are wearing a dark blue sweater-vest with yellow stars and using forearm crutches. /end ID] Lí (they/them) is a main character and greyromantic asexual.
[ID: a drawing of Daanah, a Black girl with long locs pulled up in a bun. She has golden-brown skin and glasses. /end ID] Daanah (she/her) is a main character and alloromantic aegosexual.
[ID: a drawing of Fiitsãn, a Black boy with rosy dark brown skin and a big pink Afro. /end ID] Fiitsãn (he/him) is a main character and lithsexual.
[ID: a drawing of Līs, a Black teenager with blue braids and golden-brown skin . /end ID] Līs (he/they/she/xe/fae) is a main character and demisexual.
[ID: a drawing of Maaziariitna, a young woman-man with hairy blue skin and her hair in microbraids. /end ID] Maaziariitna (she/he) is a main character and lesbian asexual.
[ID: a drawing of Fiyavu Ozast, a young Black woman with dark skin and silver hair. /end ID] Fiyavu Ozast (she/her) is Rovian and Daanah’s older sister and aromantic greysexual.
[ID: a drawing of Juraji, a Black teenager with long black locs. /end ID] Juraji (xe/xem) is Halek’s queerplatonic partner and demisexual.
[ID: a drawing of Saafeera, a dark-skinned black woman with a very short Afro. /end ID] Saafeera is Rovian and Daanah’s mother and recipromantic recipro-demisexual and sex-repulsed.
Honorable mentions:
Taehogh (he/him), Halek, Lí, and Maaziariitna’s grandfather, aroaceflux.
Wnahé (they/she), one of Halek and Lí’s parents, asexual.
Kjotar (he/they), teammate of Kaelía, Līs, and Zhe’ārani, lithromantic and listed in my notes as “probably acespec.”
Abhaonai (he/him), teammate of Kaelía, Līs, and Zhe’ārani, alloromantic aceflux.
Yna (she/her), princess seeking to marry Jue and later Sei, frayromantic asexual.
Mkera (she/her), betrothed to Jue, asexual.
One of my major goals in Aros Against Fate is to celebrate aspec experiences, and Black aspecs are so often left out in conversations around aspec experience. Here I have specifically asexual characters as it was inspired by #thisiswhatasexuallookslike, but (as the title implies) aromanticism is huge in AAF, and Black aros (and aplatonics, and afamilials, and all Black aspecs) of course equally deserve to see themselves recognized and uplifted. I hope that one day we have a vast amount of diverse aspec characters in media much more mainstream than my little unpublished, unfinished, tumblr-and-google-docs story, and that Black aspec stories by Black aspec authors can gain traction within and outside of our community.
