I recently saw a question in an ace group I\u2019m part of, which gets asked kind of frequently: how old do you have to be before you can definitely be sure you\u2019re ace?\u00a0 What if you just don\u2019t know what you want yet because you\u2019re too young to try much legally?\u00a0 It\u2019s quite common for people to suspect they\u2019re ace but be afraid to claim the identity for themselves, either because they feel they\u2019re too young to know yet, or because they do things that are stereotypically seen as evidence for sexual interest (e.g. watch porn), or the like.\u00a0 A lot of aspecs feel a need to \u201cprove\u201d that they are aspec and are allowed to be in the group.\u00a0 I have multiple thoughts on this.\u00a0 The discussion this is based on was in the context of asexuality, but the same general points apply to identifying as aromantic as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thought #1: We\u2019re all starting from the wrong baseline<\/strong>. A lot of people approach it with the view that allosexuality (not being ace) is the default, and they need justification to say otherwise. The problem here is that allosexuality isn\u2019t<\/em> the default in the way society says it is – we shouldn\u2019t be starting with the question \u201cam I different,\u201d but rather, \u201cwhat am I?\u201d If saying you\u2019re ace seems like a better fit than saying you\u2019re allo, then that\u2019s good enough – all you need is a simple majority, not an unanimous vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thought #2: \u201cAre you sure you\u2019re allo?\u00a0 What if you won\u2019t know if you like sex until you try it?\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0 I write this jokingly, but the serious point in that is, our biases suddenly become a lot more obvious when we flip the tables.\u00a0 Returning to the age question, if you\u2019re too young to know you\u2019re ace, then aren\u2019t you also probably too young to say you\u2019re allo?\u00a0 If we can assume that someone is allo at, say, age 10, then what reason or right do we have to question it if another 10 year old thinks they’re ace-spec?\u00a0 It’s the allonormative version of saying a little kid can’t know they’re gay while simultaneously accepting that your 6-year-old has a (hereto) crush on a classmate. We shouldn’t be wildly changing the goalposts for how old is old enough depending on which specific orientation we’re talking about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thought #3: Labels are tools, not lifelong moral commitments.<\/strong>\u00a0 You don’t have to use the same ones your whole life.\u00a0 So you might think you’re ace now but realize or decide you’re not a few years down the road – so what?\u00a0 Are we all supposed to wait until we’re moving to retirement homes before claiming labels?\u00a0 Learning more about ourselves is a fundamental aspect of living life. And, some people actively change over their life, for example those who become ace due to trauma (caedsexual, if you\u2019re curious). Labels are just useful tools that you can pick up and put down as needed, not boxes that you’re committing to stay in for the rest of your life. If you want to identify as ace now, go for it and don’t worry about whether you’ll feel the same in 5 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thought #4: Watch out for stereotyped assumptions, too.<\/strong>\u00a0 So far I\u2019ve been focusing on people who know their experiences and may just be afraid of claiming a label for fear of being wrong or offending the community, but it\u2019s also the case that many people simply don\u2019t realize how much variety falls under the ace umbrella.\u00a0 For example, don\u2019t usually experience attraction but do on rare occasions?\u00a0 That\u2019s called greysexuality<\/a>, which is on the ace spectrum.\u00a0 Feel horny sometimes?\u00a0 You can be ace and horny, since asexuality is about attraction to others rather than your interest in sex itself.\u00a0 Like watching porn and fantasizing about sex even though you have no interest in doing it yourself?\u00a0 Guess what, aegosexuality is part of the ace spectrum too!\u00a0 Literally all being ace-spec means is that you don\u2019t, or rarely, experience attraction to others.\u00a0 Nothing in the definition says you can\u2019t be ace if you enjoy sex for its own sake or as an act of emotional intimacy, or enjoy a good R-rated joke, or whatever.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have no inspiration when it comes to writing a conclusion today, so I’ll just end with the usual: if you have any thoughts, feel free to drop a comment!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I recently saw a question in an ace group I\u2019m part of, which gets asked kind of frequently: how old do you have to be before you can definitely be sure you\u2019re ace?\u00a0 What if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,42],"tags":[22],"class_list":["post-319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aromanticism","category-asexuality","tag-questioning"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":320,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions\/320"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}