Hey, @rittz! Hope you don’t mind me responding to you here so I can keep everything nice and orderly on my end.
There’s an issue I have with this argument, you see. And it’s one I see a whole bunch.
“Linking the asexual community’s history to century old lgbt+ movements does not have bearing on contemporary discussion,” (if I may paraphrase) is a common view.
And while you and others are sort of correct, you are sort of not. It wouldn’t necessarily be relevant on its own; but contextually, it is.
If it was a matter of my saying “17th—20th century China had a prominent Lesbian-Asexual woman’s alliance in the Golden Orchid” then your point would make sense. Asexuals were prominent figures in one queer community, one time, in one culture? That would be nothing.
But it’s consistent. Throughout history, everywhere you find queer people you find asexuals among them.
Greek Antiquity, the cult of Dionysus being one of the more sexually liberated political-religious groups. They were associated strongly with sexual fluidity: sapphic love, achillean love, bisexuality, and asexuality as well. So much so, that among the many Masks of Dionysus in Ancient Greek culture and literature, there were aspects of him defined solely by either his bisexuality or his asexuality. Thus, chapter 4 of this handy book about archeological knowledge on all things Dionysus, the Cult of Dionysus, and the Theatre Dionysia, being called “The Asexuality of Dionysus.”
https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Masks_of_Dionysus/O_QkAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&bsq=isbn:0801480620
So, an ancient group of gender and sexual fluidity and diversity prominently features asexuality. Okay. Let us go on.
That comes far before the Golden Orchid Society, which we already discussed.
If you scroll all the way up, you see I give a timeline in my first post about the prominence of asexuals and asexuality in the queer community during the LGBT+ golden age in 19th century Germany. But to summarize:
The most famous gay scholar of the time—openly gay man, Magnus Hirschfeld—publishes “Sappho and Sokrates” as a defining document for straight people to educate themselves on queer folks with. Who does he include ion there? Trans folks, gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and—you guessed it!—asexuals! His contemporary colleague, Emma Trosse, wrote most frequently in defense of who she saw as being the most underrepresented in her community: non-binary folks and lesbians. And guess what? She was asexual. She wrote a paper on “counter-sexualities” at the time and came out in her own paper. Her work in the modern day is featured in the Schwules Museum, literally translated to the Gay Museum. So, clearly this asexual woman, married to a man was considered to be part of the community in her time AND our time, including by her more famed gay colleague, and the Gay Museum in Berlin.
(You can find all those links up at the top post)
Then I got up to America’s own lgbt+ renaissance. The Asexual Manifesto, the Kinsey Scale work, and subsequent rework, and testimony from members of the bisexual community all place us firmly in the lgbt+ community from the year 1940—1990.
(You can find links to Kinsey’s work, the context for it, the Asexual Manifesto, and more up at the top again!)
And here are references to the fact that, at the time of the original pride movement, we were considered a subsection of bisexuality, because we were mistakenly being defined by our lack of gender preference and sexual fluidity instead of our lack of attraction in general, with some choice quotes.
“Many bisexual respondents described bisexuality as a potential or as an essential quality that many people possess, but that only some people express through actual feelings of attraction or sexual behavior.
“According to this definition, people can be – and are – bisexual without ever experiencing an attraction to one sex or the other and without ever having sexual relations with one sex or the other.
“In contrast to lesbian respondents, most of whom define a bisexual as a person who feels attracted to or has sexual relations with both sexes, very few bisexual women define bisexuals as people who necessarily have these actual emotional and physical experiences.”
https://books.google.ca/books?id=RhWntJf7EpIC&pg=PA207&dq=%22many+bisexual+respondents+described+bisexuality+as%22&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22many%20bisexual%20respondents%20described%20bisexuality%20as%22&f=false
And an extra goody from an article by the Gay Liberator, 1971 “Trans Lib includes transvestites, transsexuals, and hermaphrodites of any sexual manifestation and of all sexes—heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, and asexual.”
https://voices.revealdigital.org/?a=d&d=BDHIIHBB19710101.1.10&e=——-en-20–1–txt-txIN—————1
Then we have today, where you really just have to look around to see asexuals. We’re here, hi! Go to pride and you’ll see us. Join an club and you’ll see us. Hang out in a sapphic server and you’ll see us. Talk to me right here! (Hello! I’m right here, being on the ace spectrum.)
So you see the issue I’m having correct?
“It doesn’t matter that asexuals were prominent members of a sexually fluid movement in ancient Greece, we’re talking about today!”
“It doesn’t matter that asexuals were prominent members of a queer feminist group from 16th - 20th century China, we’re talking about today.”
“It doesn’t matter that asexuals were apart of the 19th century queer golden age in Germany that first brought our movement in mainstream print, we’re talking about today!”
“It doesn’t matter that asexuals were part of the movement for pride and queer liberation from the 1940′s to the 90′s, and that asexuals alive today are old enough to remember being part of that movement. We are talking about literally right NOW kinda today!”
“It doesn’t matter that asexuals were a subsection of the bisexual community that only recently split off!”
And then, finally, the ask from that original nonny up there: “can you back up that cis straight people lacking sexual attraction have always been queer?”
Essentially, well sure, aces are here now, but it’s not like they ALWAYS been here!
When we point to ourselves as part of the community today, we are asked when we got here. When we point to how far back we’ve been here, we are asked, “how is that relevant to today?”
Because we were asked how long we’ve been here.
So if I’m answering in a LOOOOOOONG way, I hope you’ll forgive me. Because it’s clear that you need a line drawn between where we were, and where we are. I’m not sure if that’s because you were not present to the beginning of this conversation, or if it was because you were unaware of the history.
Asexuals have been in lgbt history for as long as there has been lgbt history. And we are present in the community today. The question is not, whether we are here, have been here, or not. The question is, are you going to accept that, or not?
Thank you for reading. I know it was a long reply to a short comment. But I hope it was useful.
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