can<\/em> be.<\/p>\n\n\n\nA broad point that comes before anything else is that there\u2019s a divide between how I personally understand the term for myself, and the ways in which I think it\u2019s valid if others find other meanings in it. Some examples, combined with a discussion of different ways of thinking of asexuality and\/or orientations:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Who you\u2019re attracted to versus how.<\/strong> I think of being ace as \u201cwho\u201d for me, because I\u2019m a sex-repulsed ace, so since I\u2019m sexually attracted to absolutely no one and never want to be sexually active, \u201chow\u201d doesn\u2019t feel relevant to me since there are no viable \u201cwho\u2019s\u201d with which to explore the \u201chow.\u201d But if you\u2019re greyace, demi-, sex-favorable, etc., then \u201chow\u201d may be a much more relevant framing. And then there\u2019s the fact that it could come down to semantics a bit – if you\u2019re only attracted to people you\u2019ve established an emotional bond with, is that a \u201chow you experience attraction,\u201d or do you categorize \u201cpeople you have an emotional bond with\u201d as a \u201cwho\u201d? Either would work. TLDR: I use \u201cwho,\u201d but I see no reason they can\u2019t be equally valid options if others feel differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOrientation, or lack thereof?<\/strong> I personally think of asexuality as an orientation, because if \u201cgay,\u201d \u201cbi,\u201d etc. describe an orientation, I feel like ace should be equivalent, rather than \u201cthe one thing in the list that means the absence of one.\u201d That\u2019s just me, though – to my understanding, some do consider it \u201cthe lack of an orientation,\u201d and I feel that way about aromanticism so it makes sense. I\u2019m not aromantic in the sense that I have active feelings about it like I do sex, but in that romantic attraction feels like a foreign concept I don\u2019t understand and simply doesn\u2019t have a place in my life to have orientation-type feelings about in the first place. So the way I think of asexuality in that regard certainly isn\u2019t the only way.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOrientation versus identity.<\/strong> This is the biggest one for me. While calling myself ace of course stems from the term as an accurate description of my sexual orientation (I don\u2019t think anyone here would do it, but if this spreads around somehow, I want to be clear about that point before someone tries to claim \u201cI\u2019m just identifying as ace because it\u2019s a fad or I want attention\u201d based on what I say next), it\u2019s more than that (for me) – it\u2019s a marker of the community I\u2019m part of & who I get along with, an indicator of sorts for the perspective & thoughts I have on my society\u2019s attitudes & expectations about sex, and a special interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\nI love sorting and organizing things, and I like collecting flags, so asexuality gives me an opportunity to research niche terms to label things, that often come with flags if I find new terms for myself (because if I\u2019m actually going to get one, it needs to be somewhat relevant to me and not just a cool pattern). I like psychology and find \u201chow people work\u201d fascinating, so it\u2019s a lens through which to examine how society works (okay, maybe that\u2019s sociology, but whatever). I\u2019m a writer, and the need for more asexual and aromantic representation provides the focus\/direction I need to know what I enjoy writing and who my target audience is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asexuality is intertwined with being autistic for me – I feel like it\u2019s quite possible that I\u2019m asexual and aromantic partly because of the somewhat-atypical way I feel emotions in general. And there\u2019s established overlap between the two groups (12.32% of respondents in a survey of the autistic community identified as asexual), so I\u2019m generally hanging out with a few ace community members by chance when hanging out with other autists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Summary.<\/strong> So yeah, that\u2019s what being ace is to me as an individual. But also I am one individual – that\u2019s certainly not how everyone understands it for themselves, nor do I think it\u2019s the \u201conly right way\u201d to see it. Language is subjective after all, and part of the beauty of the ace community to me is the freedom and options people have to define themselves (or not) as they see fit, so while basic definitions should be generally consistent for the sake of functional communication (I certainly don\u2019t mean to convey everything I\u2019ve said here when I say \u201cOh, I\u2019m ace\u201d to someone at the bus stop I struck up a conversation with), I don\u2019t think there is one way of understanding asexuality. Within some common general understandings, it\u2019s a bit of a choose-your-own-adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSource for ace autism stat: https:\/\/autisticnotweird.com\/autismsurvey\/?fbclid=IwAR3wyD7QKwUQJ3lPY2Fd4mk0-9wGRWgrBS9obShTQT1TnOxEjQ5bcbERvvM#intersectionality<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nThoughts? Surprised this is less than a thousand words this month? (I am, based on what I\u2019ve drafted recently). Feel free to leave a comment!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(No image this month because my internet is lagging badly tonight and I’m not staying up late just to wait for Pexels to load things.) This month\u2019s Carnival of Aces topic is \u201casexuality and orientation,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asexuality"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374","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=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":377,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions\/377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}