Ace Liberation: Advocacy, Celebration, Education, and Solidarity (Blog)
Introduction
April 6 marks International Asexuality Day, a day dedicated to raising awareness about asexuality and celebrating the asexual community. In honour of this day, I wanted to offer this blog where I share some of my own experiences as an asexual and demiromantic person, and provide a framework for how to discuss the concept of asexual liberation.
My Journey of Understanding Asexuality
When I was in elementary school sex education, they largely focused on the idea of abstinence (abstinence-only sex education doesn’t work, but that’s a different blog). The teachers kept commenting about how “we know it will be hard to abstain, but…”. I always thought to myself that that was weird – it wasn’t at all “hard” for me because I didn’t have these feelings or urges they were describing.
I first came across the term asexual some time during my late teens. Essentially, “asexual” refers to a person who does not experience sexual attraction (or experiences lesser degrees of sexual attraction). Upon discovering this term, I did a deep dive into similar terms and discovered about the umbrella of asexuality and the different types of attraction people can experience. Through this, I was able to learn about the term demiromantic, which refers to people who do not develop romantic attraction until they have a prior relationship with the person. As I conducted this exploration, it felt like something clicked – I finally had a way to describe something that I always knew about myself.
During my teenage years, I did try out being in romantic relationships with folks, but quickly learned that I was confusing romantic and platonic attraction. I never really understood the urge to constantly be in a relationship – I didn’t (and still don’t) feel the need to be in a relationship in order to be “fulfilled”. I’m also not certain if I’ve ever experienced romantic attraction – everything that people describe as being “romantic” I also feel about my platonic friends. Sure, my “relationships” may fall outside of the “norm”, but they are meaningful to me, even if these are non-traditional.
If I would have had the language to describe my feelings, I perhaps would have felt less confused about my lack of sexual attraction. When people lack this language, they may feel excluded, isolated, and alone. This lack of language – and lack of representation – is a form of oppression, sometimes known as amatonormativity.
Understanding Amatonormativity
Just as it was a breath of relief finding the term “asexual”, it was a relief to find the term “amatonormativity”. Amatonormativity is the assumption that everyone should strive for a monogamous relationship in which the parties are married, live together, and have children in a nuclear household. Essentially, amatonormativity believes that this is the highest form of satisfaction. Everyone is negatively affected by amatonormativity – however, aromantic, asexual, and non-monogamous or polyamorous people often experience the effects of amatonormativity to a much greater degree.
Common examples of amatonormativity include:
The creation of a relationship hierarchy: where it is expected that you put your partner above everyone and everything else. Think about that friend who vanishes from your life when they start dating.
There is a constant pressure to be in a relationship. Society tells us that if we aren’t dating, we are inherently unlovable – think about all the messaging around not being single for Valentine’s Day! One major consequence from this is that people may feel pressured to stay in toxic, unhealthy, or abusive relationships.
Romance is competitive. Through amatonormativity, people are encouraged to fight with one another to get to the “top”, to find the “perfect partner”, and to “win” – think of the Bachelor/Bachelorette!
Additionally, married couples have access to special legal and financial benefits that unmarried people do not have access to.
Amatonormativity is shaped within every system – family, media, books, school, legal, medical, religious, and more. How many times have we turned on a movie about dinosaurs and there are unnecessary sex scenes? How many times do we watch a TV show and two people with decent chemistry (usually a man and woman, because heteronormativity exists too), are automatically “shipped” and assumed to be in a relationship? The assumption of romantic relationships (and corresponding sex) is so ingrained within our society, it is assumed to be almost as natural as breathing.
The result is that asexuality is not represented or discussed within popular culture. In particular, GLAAD conducts annual reports where they examine 2SLGBTQIA+ representation on television. Between 2021-2022, they found that, out of 637 2SLGBTQIA+ characters, only two were asexual. If you think back to the books, television shows, and movies that you often read or watch, how many of the characters are in relationships? How many characters are single (and happy being single)? How many are actually “out” as being asexual?
Representation is absolutely key for how we combat amatonormativity and the other systems of oppression that asexual folks have to face. Increased representation will help to increase education about the asexual umbrella, will help asexual folks such as myself see ourselves seen, and will normalize different types of relationships that people may experience. The more representation (especially representation written by asexual folks), the better. All of this is related to the overall theme of asexual liberation.
What Does “Liberation” Look Like?
Asexual liberation is liberating for everyone. As Angela Chen states in her book “Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex”:
The goal of ace liberation is simply the goal of true sexual and romantic freedom for everyone. A society that is welcoming to aces can never be compatible with rape culture; with misogyny, racism, ableism, homophobia, and transphobia; with current hierarchies of romance and friendship and with contractual notions of consent. It is a society that respects choice and highlights the pleasure that can be found everywhere in our lives.
With that in mind, I want to explore the theme of liberation through four lenses: the key themes of International Asexuality Day (IAD).
Advocacy
Asexual folks still face a lot of issues within today’s society, particularly within medical, employment, and legal settings. Within the medical setting, over 18% of asexual folks have experienced some type of discrimination (often within settings of reproductive and/or mental health care). Research demonstrates that only 1 in 10 asexual folks come out at work, and over half don’t come out at all. Meanwhile, the legal setting rarely recognizes non-normative relationships, which often places asexual folks and their partner(s) at risk for not having access to spousal support, benefits, and rights. This led to a landmark case in Sweden in which the court ruled that relationships without sex could still be counted as a legal relationship with legal rights.
What to do about it?
Find out if your workplace has anti-discrimination policies that explicitly include asexuality as a prohibited ground from discrimination (e.g. no racism, homophobia, aphobia, transphobia, ableism, etc).
Ask your healthcare/service providers if they have considered receiving training on 2SLGBTQIA+ inclusion and providing affirming care.
Celebration
IAD, like many other queer days (e.g. Trans Day of Visibility, Non-Binary People’s Day), provides a chance to highlight and celebrate asexual voices and perspectives! The theme of “pride”, which is central to the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, is based on both celebration and protest. With the numerous issues that asexual folks face, it’s important for us to have communities we can connect with where we can fully embrace and celebrate who we are.
What to do about it?
Lift up asexual voices by following asexual content creators on social media, reading books/blogs by asexual folks, and sharing asexual-related resources.
Education
A lot of people aren’t aware that asexuality even exists. There are also those both inside and outside of the queer community who believe that asexuals do not experience oppression and/or do not “belong” within the queer community – some people even try to claim that the “A” in 2SLGBTQIA+ stands for ally (it doesn’t – the “A” is for asexual/aromantic/agender. As much as we appreciate allies, they do not hold space within our initialism). Thus, a lot of education is needed in order to increase awareness about the diversity of the asexual umbrella.
What to do about it?
Educate yourself about what it means to be asexual.
Challenge your internal assumptions and biases about relationships.
Reach out to local pride organizations and find out what resources they have for asexual folks.
Solidarity
Asexual folks need folks to stand with us in solidarity, particularly against microaggressions and stereotypes. Examples of common harmful statements include:
“You’ll grow out of it/it’s a phase.”
“You only think you’re ace because of trauma/hormones/mental health issues.”
“You haven’t found the right person yet.”
Solidarity means standing with asexual folks and standing against discrimination in all its forms, including (and especially) microaggressions and stereotypes. This also feeds into the other themes of advocacy, celebration, and education.
What to do about it?
If you hear microaggressions and/or harmful stereotypes about asexuality, challenge these. Here’s a great resource on how to do that.
Conclusion
On this International Asexuality Day, let’s each commit to asexual liberation through the four themes of IAD – advocacy, celebration, education, and solidarity. Because fundamentally, we all deserve to live in a world free from normative assumptions that prevent us from being the truest versions of ourselves.
