was gonna leave my comment in the tags but tbh i’m silent enough about this as it is.
seeing stuff like this is so upsetting because these terms were well known and widespread in the ace community but because of exclusionists many people stopped using terms like this because they felt uncomfortable and unsafe.
i loved these terms when i was in highschool, i loved the feeling of community, but i lost that because i didn’t feel comfortable openly and proudly calling myself asexual.
they’ve hurt so many people and damaged our community badly and i will never forgive them for that. we deserve to use our own terminology and feel safe within our community.
sometimes i notice i haven’t seen “grace” (grey-ace) in a while and consequently wonder if i made it up.
I remember ppl - even other ace ppl - saying the card suit thing was “cringey” and “straight ppl aren’t gonna take us seriously” (sounds familiar?) So i guess the community wound up abandoning it. We were also having severe issues at the time with aces being stereotyped as “childish/immature” for associating things like cake, dragons, and space with asexuality, plus in general as most aces just don’t “get” allosexual things in media and irl. We were starting to be viewed as ignorant, virginal, childish, losers, etc. I haven’t seen an ace-cake thing in a good while now.
This was the infancy of exclusionary influence on us. I didn’t realize it did more damage than just closeting us. Whole symbols and terms have been lost. Community has been lost.
I remember three-four years ago I got myself into the ace community on Insta, and I came across these terms. People in these circles would talk about cake, space, dragons, and the black ring on the middle finger. Then, a year or two later, ace content fizzled out (I thought it was Insta’s algorithm figuring out that I knew all this and didn’t bring me the old stuff) and young aces had no idea what any of these were - including the black ring. Finding out young aces had no idea what the black ring meant nearly snapped my heart in two - I proudly wore the black ring, I drew characters with it, and it was my quiet way of communicating to others what my sexuality was. I was baffled at the lack of knowledge - and it turns out that exclusionists got their hands into our community and snuffed us out.
Anyways, we need to bring this back. I thought the card suite thing was cool, it taught people the different ways people can experience attraction, I loved making jokes about preferring cake, I loved wearing the black ring and talking about it with my fellow queer people at my highschool QSA club.
I’m sorry, people don’t know about the cake or ring anymore? I remember being welcomed with spams of cake gifs, photos, and MS Paint drawings. I also distinctly remember that the block solo ring in the midle was meant as reference to the Ace of Spades (black, solo, middle of card). Only thing I didn’t know was that other aces could represent a more refined nuance. Let’s see if we can get this all rolling again.
Welcome to anyone who is interested in helping with the culture revival.
Ijust lost my black ring today (3/25), otherwise I’d take a pic for y'all. It’s black with a very subtle purple & galaxy sheen to it. Gonna order a new one ASAP and I’ll be sure to get a pic once it arrives.
Ace of hearts! I identify as ace/ace-spec, I know I’ve felt attraction a few times, but so rarely I can’t really classify it more specifically.
I got a black ring a few months ago and I now wear it all the time (though I sometimes leave it by the sink after doing dishes ) and I have a collection of different ace pins I keep on my hiking backpack, my favorite sweater, and my work lanyard. I’m going to redo my nails in ace inspired colors soon so I’ll post my ring when I do and get both at once!
(Note to those asking about the black ring: middle finger of the right hand; the swinger community also uses black rings to indicate they’re open for encounters. From what I’ve seen the swinger community is well-aware of the ace black ring, and advises its members not to put theirs on the middle finger out of respect.)
