So, I was not expecting this to blow up in any way or reach allos. I wrote this in frustration without even editing before posting. Sorry for the harsh and kinda vague opening. But also, I feel like I accidentally ragebated people into reading this post, so at least something good came out of this. To clarify:
This post very specifically was about oppression against sexual (and romantic) minorites. I don't mention anything about sex, gender or non-monogamy for that reason.
I wrote this mostly about how a-spec people are treated in progressive countries. Yes, in many countries all types of queernes is extremely oppressed, even so severely it's fatal. Also, it actually hard to even say anything about aphobia in less progressive countries, since studies about aces and aros aren't even really done there.
To respond to some reblogs and comments. I didn't mention some of the common ways of oppression since I didn't expected this post to be seen by allos. One such thing is erasure of our identity because "it's not real" or "lack of sexuality doesn't equal sexual orientation".
TW: sexual violence, skip to "end of TW". I barely touched on corrective rape of asexuals, mostly because it's such an uncomfortable topic to me, since I was constantly told how I "just need a good rape" since I came out at 16. Sexual violence is not uncommon in asexual community. People are often force to have sex or accept opening their relationship because "it's unfair" "they aren't satisfying their partner" and "need to sacrifice something too". The 2015 Asexual Community Census Summary Report found that:
18.5% of Asexual participants reported having had sex due to social pressure from a partner.
43.5% of Asexual participants reported having experienced sexual violence.
A different study on students from 2021 found:
More than 70% of asexual college students reported unwanted non-contact sexual experiences,
Over 50% experienced unwanted sexual contact,
Almost 25% were raped by coercion or physical force.
According to another paper, asexual individuals are 2.5 times more likely to report experiencing sexual trauma than allosexuals (also students).
I couldn't find statistics on corrective rape, not even a study using interviews, however there's a lot of people lived experience out there. Many people reported being threatened with it at least once. End of TW
Another thing are the quite famous in the community results of surveys about how asexuals are dehumanised. When participants had to judge how warmly they felt about individuals of different sexualites, asexuals were marked as least warmly of all (homosexuals, heterosexuals, and bisexual). When asked to assign different robotic and animalistic traits they dehumanised asexuals the most. They also indicated least amount of interes in interactions with asexuals or bisexuals after one meeting. When asked how they felt about hiring and renting to the four sexual minorites, asexuals were similarly unwelcomed as other sexualites. Shocking absolutely no-one, most people who were biased against aces were also generally queerphobic.
And like I mentioned, asexuality and aromanticism isn't included in anti discrimination laws. Why does it matter? Well, because hate crimes like those mentioned above are not legally recognized as hate crimes. If someone tries to convert (by rape, therapy, religious practices, or otherwise) a gay or bisexual it's recognized as hate crime, but when it's aro/aces it's not.
To touch on annulment of marriage, unlike divorce, it voids the marriage as if it never existed. The problem itself isn't that people who ended up not matching are parting. The issue is complex and some countries are up to task and some aren't. One example is Canada that doesn't include voluntary non consumption as a valid reason for being voidable. At least one side has to be unable to have sex for physical or psychological reasons. UK on the other hand defines it as not having sexual intercourse with the person you married since the wedding (does not apply for same sex couples) because of a wilful refusal or incapacity (physical or psychological). There've been some talk about this being changed after a case in 2021 of abuse. Not gonna lie, I haven't checked since if the UK still makes annulment a blaming game of who wronged who.
Oh, I have feelings about this too. It always annoys me, because it paints such a dormant picture of aromantism and asexuality. "Why are people hating on aro/aces? They're not doing anything!" WRONG. This post explains it pretty well.
On a slightly lighter note, (not really because transphobia), in 2015 Russia put a driving ban on people with disorders of sexual preference, which back then included people with fetishes, asexuals, crossdressers, and transgenders. This is such a silly thing to list as a reason for being unfit to drive safely.
Sources and other articles/papers to look at:
A very good article about corrective rape with lots of sources
A paper about corrective rape of lesbians, asexual women, and transgender men
Article about sexual violence against asexuals
Recent (2020) article about different types of social discrimination of asexuals
Article about general oppression of aces and its history
A paper about it ^ but in depth
Explanation of Allosexism
Stonewall's article about acephobia
About intra-community discrimination within the Queer Community of Aromatics
2015 study proving asexuality is different from Sexual Desire Disorder
Article that archived statistics about conversion therapy
Study about acephobia in UK
I bet you could update the fuck out of Wikipedia's acephobia page with this post.
