remember that bit the other day where I was complaining that I wanted more numbers?

[sciatrix]

There's a new census going up as an Asexual Awareness project! Granted, the questions are mostly basic demographics, but it'll still be pretty cool to look at when the results are in.

And hey, they're learning--you do not need an AVEN account to fill this one out and it's actually being promoted in non-AVEN spaces! Mind, they've missed two asexual communities I can think of--neither asexual_fandom or the Transyada forum are mentioned--but this actually looks like AVEN-based asexual organizers taking baby steps to acknowledge other communities.

Comments

[kaz]

t's just that I also tend to be the sort going "well if you don't experience sexual attraction you're asexual, I don't care whether you're repulsed and nonlibidoist or whether you actually quite enjoy sex and have a ton of it for fun" and it's the latter sort I see sometimes going "well I don't feel quite asexual so I will ID as grey even though I don't experience sexual attraction."

This makes sense, but if I reverse-engineer that to "if you don't experience romantic attraction you're aromantic" it's clear to me how it's more complicated than that - that people can probably experience *something* that's borderline or where they're not sure whether it's sexual attraction or not, you know?

I agree with you about the people who say "I don't feel quite asexual", but then again it's their identity and... mm... I'd be more keen on showing them that there's room for all sorts of identities under "asexual". Like, if they're not identifying as asexual because they think you don't count if you do X or that asexual people who don't do X will kick them out, that sucks and we ought to do our best to show them it's not true. However, if they're not identifying as asexual because they just don't think they have that much in common with asexual experiences and know they *could* id that way if they felt it right... then it's their business, you know? I also think that for some people this is an intermittent thing and they later id as totally asexual-

man, the annoying thing about using "ace" as an umbrella term is that now "asexual" sounds so clinical but we don't have an alternative when we're talking about only-asexual not-grey-a. >>

(lol, and I've been once /again/ going "but am I really really nonbinary?" gah, the neverending questioning of self, and it sucks because so much of it is bullshit "you're not oppressed enough" that I /know/ is bullshit but that I can't quite get rid of.)

[sciatrix]

Eh, I suppose? The thing for me is that sexual attraction seems so much less complicated than romantic attraction, because it's contrasting a desire for sex--which is relatively easily defined, genital stimulation aiming at somebody's orgasm is the broadest one I can think of, and also sex is a relatively discrete activity--with a desire for a romantic relationship, which is considerably more complicated to define and also is defined in terms of mutual emotions and not a physical action you can see. I mean, it's generally fairly easy to figure out whether you've had sex--did you engage in genital stimulation aiming at orgasm for somebody? there you have it--whereas figuring out whether you're in a romantic relationship can be, uh, difficult.

Admittedly, possibly it could be easier for me say "that's easy to define" because I'm not grey-A but I do exist in the weird squishy confusing area for romantic orientation, so. Food for thought, that.

Agh, yeaaaah. I mean, that's the way I generally approach that issue in practice--not telling people how they should identify, but saying "asexuality encompasses all these very varied experiences, asexuality is not defined by behavior, it's about this specific form of attraction and I know people who engage in XYZ behaviors who are still asexual." And they can make up their own minds from that.

(oh god I know. And there's a big part of myself yelling that "GENDERQUEER IS A WORD FOR NONBINARY PEOPLE ONLY" except I... am not actually entirely sure that's true and oh god it's so confuuuuuusing. Do people ever get to stop questioning? It would be nice to fit into the nice clear areas more often, agh.)