Asexuality needs to be recognised within LGBT+ because I was 20 the first time I EVER encountered the name for my identity, and three years into a relationship of forcing myself into/disassociating during sex because everyone says that "love and sex ALWAYS coexist". /Thread
I can't possibly articulate how that long-term trauma - enforced by lack of information, external expectation and deep internal guilt - has and will forever affect someone, but for the love of god, asexuality is not 'hesitation' or simply 'not wanting'. We wish it were that easy.
For perspective, imagine intimacy with a person you would NEVER have attraction to - literal /disgust/ at the idea - because you 'have to', then amplify that by crushing guilt when that feeling is toward the person you otherwise love and cherish with your whole heart.
THAT'S the experience of so many sex-repulsed aces, and that's what they have to go through when they a) are withheld from information or b) told 'it's not that bad, you're just being selfish' by the majority of the public who are currently so, so misinformed about asexuality.
Just as homosexuality is same-sex attraction, heterosexuality is other-sex attraction, bisexuality is same-and-other-sex attraction: asexuality is no-sex attraction. Zero. Zilch. Nada. And that's REALLY hard (and damn scary) to come to terms with in such a sex-normalised society.
And the reason people assume we don't need support and acceptance is because there's no ROOM for these discussions. Heterosexuals forever classify us as 'other', if they even know we exist beyond "frigid", "aren't there pills for that?" and "is that a challenge? ;)".
Asexuals are CONSTANTLY infantilised, and after all, what's the point of having a serious conversation with an infant?
The first and last person I've disclosed my asexuality to was a family member who proceeded to laugh and roll her eyes.
She works in the public health sector.
The first and last person I've disclosed my asexuality to was a family member who proceeded to laugh and roll her eyes.
She works in the public health sector.
Asexuality needs acceptance, needs support, needs to clear all the misconceptions surrounding it - and it can't be achieved without a greater platform than the one millions of vulnerable people reach towards when they start realising something about themselves is 'different'.
Asexuals DO NOT want to impose on ANYONE'S right to express themselves sexually, to feel liberated and empowered by the sexual freedom the LGBT+ community has fought SO hard and so long for to achieve. We have no agenda to 'convert' non-aces - asexuality. isn't. a. choice.
There are stories of literal elderly people in tears because they're only JUST discovering that their identities are valid. Youths who are terrified because they 'don't feel anything' and don't understand why. We need asexuality as part of the LGBT+ conversation, for them.
We want nothing more than for the LGBT+ community to thrive, to be accepted, to have each and every sexuality/gender identity realised and understood and be commonplace in society and the education system.
Let's be stronger together.
Let's be stronger together.
