asexual and aromantic people deserve to be treated kindly and with respect and dignity! regardless of what you think of their inclusion in the LGBTQ community, they deserve to be comfortable with their sexuality and they deserve to not be made feel that they are “cringey” or “invalid.” they deserve not to be harassed, they deserve understanding, respect and support on all sides!
please share what you came up with as an explanation for why you didn’t feel sexual attraction before you knew about asexuality because i feel like every asexual has a story. like there’s the classic “i thought everyone was just joking,” but there’s also “i thought i just wasn’t trying hard enough to be attracted to people” and “i decided ‘the thought of kissing them doesn’t make me want to throw up’ was attraction.”
common questions i see from people wondering if they’re asexual or recently realized they’re asexual
***cw: mentions of sex and trauma***
“can i know i’m ace if i’m a virgin?”
yes. asexuality is about sexual attraction, not the act of sex itself. you don’t need to have had sex to know if you are sexually attracted to people.
“can i be ace if i read smut/watch porn?”
yes. being asexual has to do with sexual attraction, which is different from sex drive. you can have a high sex drive and still not be attracted to people.
“is it okay to call myself asexual if it’s because of trauma?”
personally, i don’t think there’s an issue with identifying as ace if your lack of attraction stems from trauma. you aren’t “contributing to stereotypes” by using a label that helps you understand your attraction (or lack thereof), and you deserve to feel welcome in this community.
“i relate to [abc] which i’ve heard is an asexual thing, but i’ve never experienced [xyz]. could i still be ace?”
the asexual experience is varied and complex, and you’re not going to relate to everything any other ace has been through just because you share a sexual orientation. as long as you don’t experience sexual attraction, you are asexual.
“i’ve come to terms with being asexual. how do i tell people?”
my #1 coming out tip is writing a letter instead of telling them in person. this way, you can spend time making sure it sounds the way you want it to and you don’t forget anything you want to say (which is difficult to do while you’re talking, especially if you’re nervous), and it gives the person you’ve told time to process the new information and be able to think about how they want to respond. i would definitely recommend giving them a definition of asexuality if you don’t think they know what it means, and be prepared to answer their questions, though of course, you don’t need to answer anything that’s invasive or makes you uncomfortable.
you know what? i like being asexual. asexuality is good. using the label asexual makes me happy. i am comfortable being asexual and i wouldn’t change if i had the choice.
tip for anyone questioning if they’re asexual: if reading about people’s experiences with being ace consistently makes you think, “but doesn’t everyone feel like that?” you’re probably not allosexual
it’s weird how some people assume every asexual completely avoids every form of media with sexual content. aside from the fact that lack of sexual attraction ≠ hating sex, just because someone likes reading about or watching something doesn’t mean they want to do that in real life. i like reading about hybrid animal species, but i don’t want to become a liger breeder. my favorite books are a series of unfortunate events, but i don’t want to go to a boarding school where i live in a tin shack filled with crabs. i love learning about ancient rome, but i definitely don’t want to live there. so why can’t aces like watching r-rated movies?
Don’t fall for the ‘discourse’. The flag isn’t problematic. It doesn’t need a redesign. It’s just yet another time exclusionists hit and manage to actually make some people doubtful. But this flag has united us around it for years, it means a lot to us, it represents us, and we have a right to it. They can’t take it from us.
This is something I’ve been sitting on for almost a year, and I have to accept that it’s never going to express exactly what I want it to express, especially if I don’t share it with other people with other experiences that could expand on it. These are different types of asexuals I’ve seen in the community and different types of characters who frequently get headcanoned as asexual.
That being said, I can see how this might get oversimplified to “asexuals with feminine/neutral/masculine gender expression” but I want to emphasise it’s not actually about gender expression.
Cakes
Cakes are the asexuals who can be seen enjoying their food, playing with bath bombs, and dressing up in fabulous clothing such as lolita or new romantic. Cakes are likely to joke about “It took me three hours to get into this outfit, I’m not taking it off for anyone!” Cakes may feed into the stereotype that asexuals are prissy or stuck up, or they may get a bit continental with their kisses: a friendly greeting rather than an expression of romance. Sometimes both. They are likely to express passions, but usually towards food or comfortable living. People with a poor understanding of asexuality might say that they are replacing sex with other sensual pleasures, but that’s a very silly thing to say because allosexuals can enjoy food, fashion, and self-care just as much as asexuals.
Fictional Examples of Cakes:
The Eighth Doctor
Aziraphale
Bilbo Baggins
Cards
Cards are the asexuals who come off as intellectual and cold, even if their areas of expertise are far from the usual “intellectual pursuits”. A card is usually ready to verbally smack down people who don’t believe in asexuality with statistics, facts, and explanations of how their debating opponent has a very shaky grasp on biology. However, they may feel extremely frustrated or bored having these conversations over and over again and are rarely shy in expressing that. Cards sometimes, but not always, can present themselves as androgynous to some degree, but are usually neat and tidy in their fashion. They are also likely to be very funny people, often with dry or absurd humour. They are likely to express confusion or dismay over their allosexual friends’ behaviour, either out of genuine confusion or a rhetorical technique to try and get those who feel sexual attraction to examine their own thought processes. A card may find themselves “looking into the camera as if they’re on The Office” whether they’re a real person or not. Cards feed into the stereotype that asexuals are too absorbed by mental concerns to even be aware of their bodies. Fictional characters headcanoned as cards are often also headcanoned as autistic, but one does not necessarily preclude the other, not in fiction or real life. People with a poor understanding of asexuality might say they seem inhuman or mechanical, but cards are some of the first people to point out that a biological process shared by the entire animal kingdom is not a very good gauge of humanity.
Fictional Examples of Cards:
Sherlock Holmes
Spock
Katniss Everdeen
Dragons
Dragons are the asexuals who got really annoyed when they found out what Netflix and Chill meant, because they were ready with the blankets and popcorn. If cakes dress fancy and cards dress sharply, then a dragon dresses for comfort. They often don’t care about their clothing at all, or if they do it’s ironically or simply flying in the face of what many would consider stylish; ie. “Look at my ridiculous hat! Isn’t it the best!” Especially if said ridiculous hat is worn with their most lived-in jeans and a sweatshirt. Dragons are likely to start listing off all their interests and joke that they simply don’t have the time to be interested in sex as well. They might do this four hours into lying on their stomach watching Netflix, but those four hours of Netflix were well-spent. Often, dragons can be perceived as or wonder themselves if they are too attached to their possessions, but this is because they have decided to fill their lives with that which makes them happy, regardless of how that appears. If a dragon wants to sleep with thirty stuffed animals because they’ve been given a new one for every birthday, they aren’t going to let being thirty get in the way of cuddling their stuffed animals. Dragons may feed into the stereotype that asexuals are childish or hyperfocused on frivolous pursuits, but they can be wonderful friends because they’re fun to be around and they are just as likely to hoard a person as an item: if a dragon decides you’re one of their favourite people, they can be the most ride-or-die friend you have. If they’ve fully accepted that their life is fulfilled from interests they’ve chosen themselves, dragons can be some of the happiest people you’ve ever met. Of course, some people may say that they’re also some of the strangest people you’ve ever met, but no one consciously picks normal over happy. People with a poor understanding of asexuality might say dragons never properly grew up, but this is less a problem with the dragons and more a problem with how society expects adults to be boring and miserable.
