[image transcript:
-Hallo!
– It’s Asexual Awareness Week, so I’m here to bring some awareness. Wooh!
– This is not going to be one of those comics with facts and figures about asexuality.
– Other people have explained this much clearer than I ever will, so I’m gonna post some links in the description for you to check.
– What I do want to discuss is how just sharing that type of information isn’t enough.
– You can know the theory and still not realize you’re asexual. (And thus, struggle with your identity)
– “Asexuality means you don’t experience sexual attraction”
– “…”
– How is that supposed to mean anything to people who don’t experience it in the first place?
– We literally no frame of reference here
– Something that can* happen becuse of this lack of reference, is assigning the wrong feeling to the concept of sexual attraction.
* and I do mean can, in no way does this happen to all of us.
– To explain that, imagine you equate ‘smiling’ with ‘happines’.
– But instead of wondering why, unlike others, you aren’t happen when you smile…
– … You assume that the other emotion you feel when smiling is happiness.
-The same thing can happen for sexual attraction. And once you have that mindset, ‘people who don’t experience sexual attraction’ will no longer resonate.
– Because you think you do, even though you don’t. (and the world isn’t gonna disagree)
– Personally I mistook ‘thinking someone is pretty’ for ‘sexual attraction’ for a long, long time.
– And although that can be part of it, it’s not the full range of that feeling.
– It’s really easy to be wrong in a situation where you only have dry info and no stories about people.
– So, please.
– If you participate in raising awareness for Asexuality,
– Don’t stop at sharing definitions and orientations.
– Share people’s experiences too.]
Reading about Asexuality didn’t make me identify as such, because it didn’t make me aware of a mistake in my thought pattern. Watching The Big Bang Theory connected the dots for me. I have to live with the fact that over ten years of soul searching was resolved by watching The Big Bang Theory, and I don’t necessarily wish that fate upon others. OTL
So share people’s experiences! Share media featuring asexual characters! Share anything that makes us as human and diverse as we are. I mean, share the facts too, but don’t just leave it at that. We have faces, we have lives and we have stories. And often, they’ll overlap with yours.
And when I say we need to share people’s experiences, I don’t just mean the ones of Very Specific People, share diverse experiences. Share the experiences of asexual POC, of asexuals with a disability, of asexuals of any gender, and of asexuals of any romantic orientations.
…Also I feel like I’m a little clumsy in my explanation but again, this is why I said I wouldn’t make a regular infographic, ahah.
Links to a few resources as promised!
adriofthedead’s great and informative comic: here
asexual awareness week website: here
AVEN: here
and theasexualityblog
starry-eyed 