#aspec erasure
HELLO BEAUTIFUL ACES AND AROS, I’M ASKING FOR A FAVOUR THAT DOESN’T INVOLVE MONEY
Hi everyone! My name is Brittany, I’m a proud Australian biromantic grey asexual, and I need help.
I’m in my final semester of studying journalism, and for my final assignment, I’m researching asexual and aromantic erasure.
Now I’m looking to interview some other people (preferably people in Australia simply cuz of logistics) who identify with the asexuality and/or aromantic spectra. The assignment specifies that I CAN’T use anonymous sources, so you have to be OK with me using your name.
If you’d be kind enough to help me out with this, or you have any further questions, feel free to send me an ask or DM me. If you cannot, a reblog goes a long way. Thank you all :)
Could I please get a signal boost @fyeahsnowbert@silent-massacre@acesovertwenty@fuckyeahasexual@a-fandom-trashdump@whyarentlemonscalledyellows@theasexualityblog@argolane@slytherinvalues@snowbertlover@melthewriterchickactuallywriting
Thank you guys
@theultimatea: I’m reblogging because I can’t fit all this into an ask. I want to stress that I’m not writing all this out to be obstructionist or annoying; I just need more information to determine whether this will be safe for me–an Australian abrosexual aro–to participate in.
I don’t mind my author/professional name being used/referenced, but not my personal name and never my legal/deadname. How are you looking to handle trans and non-binary people with regards names and pronouns, may I ask? How are you looking to handle people who go by one name professionally and another legally? It might be good to specify what you mean by requiring a name, since names can be a difficult thing for non-cis aro-specs for reasons beyond outing as a-spec–and there’ll likely be other non-cis people in a similar situation where our use/professional names are okay but dead/legal names are right off the table.
(Likewise, as an agender person, I need to know that I won’t be gendered and correct pronouns used in reference to me throughout.)
I’ll also say that if the conversations on this blog mean anything, there’s a little anxiety to be had in the concept of aromantic erasure discussed by an alloromantic asexual writer. Unfortunately, it’s become a legitimate thing to fear in that I have seen articles and pieces by well-meaning aces that just end up being acts of further aro erasure. Is there space for aro-specs to talk about the aro erasure we’ve endured from alloromantic asexuals or are you only looking more at erasure from broader mainstream or LGBTQIA+ society? Are you looking at getting a range of perspectives from aro-aces, alloromantic aces and allosexual aros, including space to discuss aro erasure from allalloromantics?
How do you plan to handle the interview process? Is it via email or phone call or instant message or face-to-face meet-up? Are you able to be flexible with this depending on the access needs of the interviewee? Can you give any sense of how much time or how many sessions will be required? Are you looking to interview a-specs as the heart of the piece or are you looking to get snippets that serve as examples for the rest of your research?
What’s the scope, format, tone and length of this piece? Feature article or academic-style journalism? Who is your audience–other a-specs or allos? Is this remaining only an assignment or are you looking to publish this later on, be it on your own blog or in a publication? If you do later publish this, is there a chance for your interviewees to read over it beforehand?
Basically, I’m trying to determine how safe it is for me to give you my information, how you’ll use my information, how safe this will be for me as an aro respondant, if I can even participate as a disabled aro, and how my identity as as a trans/agender person will be respected if I participate.
OK! I’m going to try answer all your questions to the best of my ability!
I will use whatever name and pronouns any interviewee would like me to. The purpose of me using your name is because the assignment guidelines don’t allow me to use anonymous sources.
Before I submit my assignment, I plan on asking other aces and aros to listen to it (it will be an audio podcast-style documentary) to make sure I haven’t included anything that is potentially erasing and/or otherwise problematic. I’m happy to hear about aros’ experiences being erased within all communities and spaces, whether ace, LGBT+ or otherwise. I’m looking to get as many possible perspectives as I can, and ideally that would include allo aces, aro aces and aro allos.
Re: interviews, ideally I’d like face-to-face interviews because it is an audio piece, however there is some flexibility in that. We’re not really supposed to do phone/Skype calls, but this is negotiable and I think it’ll be OK once I explain to my lecturers that I’m interviewing people from our marginalised and relatively small community (or communities if you’re distinguishing ace from aro), most of whom aren’t in Australia and so face-to-face is difficult. Email isn’t ideal but it’s an option as long as it’s ok for me to say “So-and-so said…” in the audio. For face-to-face and phone/Skype call interviews, I intend for it to be only one session per interviewee. At the moment, I’m planning for the interviews to be snippets rather than the heart of the piece but this could change.
I intend for the tone to be in an academic journalism style, as it’s meant to be an audio documentary. It will run for about 20 minutes. I’m intending to make it for a general audience, to draw wider attention to the issue of ace and aro erasure. I intend to include it in my professional journalism portfolio, and will probably make it more widely available after it’s been marked, in one way or another.
I hope I’ve answered everything to your satisfaction :)
Thank you so much for taking the time to answer - I really appreciate that you’ve done so, especially with regards discussing your intent for checking and evaluation. I would genuinely love to see this becoming the norm in academic and journalistic pieces about a-spectrum identities and experiences!
Because of my auditory processing, I would make a poor phone/Skype interviewee, so I won’t contact you. (I’m only comfortable talking face to face or text on account of difficulty hearing questions, especially from strange-to-me voices.) If you desperately need an aro, though, and are having trouble finding other aros better suited to the format of your piece, let me know and we can figure something out. I am based near Melbourne, if that’s at all useful to you.
@galileoace,@sevenraptors–I’m unsure if you’ll be interested in participating or able to do so, but you’re Australian a-specs, so I’ll mention you just in case.
a lot of shit i hear in the discourse reminds me of actual things homophobes say irl and it’s… really troubling?
- “preteens identifying as ace is sexualizing!” whenever i headcanon a character as gay or bi/pan, my mom tells me, not everything has to be sexual. lgbt identities are viewed as inherently sexual and inappropriate for children.
- “why do you feel the need to talk about being ace? it’s tmi, no one needs or wants to know about your sex life except your partner.” i’m not against your lifestyle, just keep it in the bedroom, okay?
- “telling kids they can experience sexual attraction is grooming.” please stop conflating minority orientations to pedophilia, this has been used against gay people forever.
- “asexuality is a disease and doesn’t naturally occur.” do i even have to explain this one?
what i’m trying to say is that it’s really hurtful for me, an ace lesbian, to hear this rhetoric used against me by straight people because i’m gay, then go into lgbt spaces–which are supposed to be safe for me–and hear other gay people saying almost word-for-word the exact same things, this time directed against my asexuality.
please stop using these arguments. don’t repackage homophobic rhetoric and use it against a different minority orientation.
