Welcome to the round-up of submissions on the topic of ‘Stereotypes.’ You can see the call for submissions here: https://sites.smith.edu/aace/2023/02/09/call-for-submissions-stories-about-love/. Thank you to everyone who participated! We had three responses, from students at Smith College.

 

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1. Self-love is something I’ve struggled with all my life (as I’m sure many of us have) but recently I’ve been trying to make more of an effort to act on and express love for myself, even when it’s hard. This Valentine’s Day, I ended up making the whole day about self-love, and it was honestly a healing experience.

I had a major deadline on February 13th, so I’d been working to the point of exhaustion for the whole week prior, and then decided to take the next day off. In the spirit of it being Valentine’s Day, I decided to not just to sleep in, skip class, and treat myself to a little spa-day (which basically just meant doing all the basic self-care I’d been neglecting for the past week) but also taking myself out on a “date.” I gave myself a budget, got a nice lunch, and then did some shopping. I bought things that I’d always thought of as too much of a luxury to “waste” money on for myself, but would buy in a heartbeat if I needed a gift for someone else: expensive chocolates, fancy moisturizer, and cute stationary. I know my main love language is gift-giving, but buying “gifts” for myself is hard, because it feels frivolous.

I ended the day by getting ice cream, and sitting by myself, staring out the window as I ate, I felt completely happy. It was hard and awkward at first, but showing myself love felt so good that I wasn’t even bothered by all the couples out and about. If anything, I was just happy for them. I realized that their celebration of love was just as important as mine, and whether or not anyone else saw that, it only really mattered that I knew it for myself.

 

2. How do you write about love when love is a category that have trouble imagining yourself in? Society has coded love so insidiously as a romantic category, as a sexual category, that even as an aroace, someone who believes love can be separate, it is hard to convince myself that other things are, in fact, love. For instance, a big part of my personality is that I love books and reading. And yet here I am, wondering if I can really write a story about my relationship with one of my favorite books, and if that would count as love. So let me prove that it can.

Imagine.

A 13 year old girl, backstage at her dance recital dress rehearsal, only ten pages into the book she’s reading, and already fascinated. She goes and dances, and then comes back to her book. She reads more. It was her first real initiation into sci-fi, and it was also the first book that had a character with a disabled experience that she could fully identify with.

She eats up the first book, and then the second one, but then the third book in the trilogy hadn’t been published yet. Then when it comes out that summer, its still not out in the US because of publication deals. Her uncle gets her the book for Christmas. By this point, she has a new favorite series. When she gets an email address, one of the first things she does is sign up for the author’s newsletter. The author writes more, starts other series, and she reads them too. Her favorite series by the author evolves as more books come out.

Her attachment to these books started as fascination with science fiction as a whole and first character similar in a certain way, but it expands to the worldbuilding – and my, does she love the worldbuilding. She finds little easter eggs and questions and intriguing what-ifs. She starts writing what she would later know to be fanfiction. Some of those what-ifs turn out to be what if these two characters weren’t in a romantic and sexual relationship, but one character was in a lesbian relationship with a third, and had some more-than-friend arrangement with the first.

During the pandemic, she ventures out into online fandom spaces because learns there are other people chatting about these books, and she is really excited to talk to people about her favorite book. They ask questions of each other, and answer them, and read the new books alongside each other, and speculate about what they think is going to happen and why the characters are certain ways and everything. She stays up way to late some nights, messaging back and forth about the books with her friends. She is happy.

 

3. Love is friendship

Late night conversations sharing stories and laughter and tears

Sharing joys and sorrows, hopes and stresses

Joys found in those moments together

Studying together, grabbing lunch, hosting game nights, trading photos

Supporting each other, present for each other

Building community, building belonging

Welcome to the round-up of submissions on the topic of ‘Stereotypes.’ You can see the call for submissions here: https://sites.smith.edu/aace/2022/11/20/call-for-submissions-stereotypes/. Thank you to everyone who participated! We had two responses, from students at Smith College.

 

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1. Do you remember those YA novels where the main character is on some all-encompassing quest to save their country or world? The ones where they might have had a romantic interest and relationship but it’s pushed aside for the sake of the world? I do. On one hand, it was always refreshing to have a story where romance, sex, and relationships weren’t a main focus. As a young aro-ace, those stories were always a bit more special because of what wasn’t there – relationships.

Yet something was always off. I didn’t want to have to defeat a dark lord and lose a finger (LOTR), overthrow a totalitarian government (Hunger Games), or regain my rightful seat as a princess (I’m sure there is some example) to not have a romantic relationship. Asexual and/or aromantic people aren’t disinterested in different types of relationships because they are trying to address pressing calamities. Asexuality and aromanticism do not require justifications to be valid.

To be fair, this stereotype pops up most where there is implicit but not explicit asexual and/or aromantic representation. Its fine for a character or a person to not engage in relationships if they have too much else going on in their life, I just wish we didn’t understand these characters as asexual and/or aromantic. This stereotype primes people to expect a justification for our identities that is not necessary.

 

2. There have been times that I have felt like a stereotype – and sometimes that was validating (because clearly I fit the description) and sometimes that was invalidating (because there is pressure to make it clear that we aren’t stereotypes). And then other times I felt the opposite – that the stereotypes didn’t fit me well – and again, depending on the day, that could feel validating or invalidating. The thing about stereotypes is that there are a lot of them, and many of them are contradictory (e.g. the naïve ace vs the ace who makes all the sex jokes). Some are fun – that we all like cake and dragons – and others are problematic, whether because they conflate distinct experiences or because they are the only popular representation of asexuality or aromanticism. And there’s nothing wrong with fitting or not fitting a stereotype, but there is a lot of pressure to make it clear that stereotypes aren’t completely accurate any time we are discussing asexuality and aromanticism, and while that education work is important, it is also stressful. When someone describes a stereotype that fits me, I have to determine how to respond – how to say that that’s not accurate because it’s a stereotype but it is accurate for me, except that maybe I don’t want to share those personal details, but I also don’t want them getting the wrong impression … – and if there was greater variety of representation, maybe that would be less needed, but at the same time, that puts the pressure on creators to make diverse representations all the time and sometimes to not make representations based on themselves if they fit a common stereotype – which isn’t fair.

Welcome to the round-up of submissions on the topic of ‘Favorite Parts About Being Ace and/or Aro.’ You can see the call for submissions here: https://sites.smith.edu/aace/2022/10/14/call-for-submissions-favorite-parts-about-being-ace-and-or-aro/. Thank you to everyone who participated! We had six responses, from students at Smith College and University of Otago.

 

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1. I love that identifying as asexual and somewhere on the aromantic spectrum has made me feel free. Before I learned about the ace/aro spectrum and my place on it, I thought I would have to end up in relationships I wouldn’t enjoy, simply because I was “supposed to” have those relationships eventually. Realizing my ace- and aro-ness helped me understand that I don’t “have to” live my life in any specific way that I know won’t bring me joy! More and more, I’ve allowed myself to explore what I actually want in my future, rather than what I’ve been told to expect. I love my friendships! I don’t want to put them aside later on down the line for romantic and sexual relationships like society pressures people to do. I feel like I now have the confidence to imagine my life the way I’ve always wanted to see it.

 

2. When it comes to being aroace, I appreciate the experience and view it gives me, in which I can better empathize with others and feel better equipped to help people better understand themselves. Realising i was aroace improved my life enormously. I no longer had this huge question mark over my life and I could begin to understand why I felt so out of place and misunderstood for so long.

 

3. I think one of the most obvious perks to being asexual is not having to worry about STDs and pregnancy. Now, this isn’t necessarily specific to asexual people (there are a variety of reasons someone might not have sex or not want to have sex) nor is it true for all asexual people, but it’s true for a lot of us and, just personally, it’s great to not really be that worried when my period is late, because unless I’m the next Virgin Mary, it’s literally impossible for me to be pregnant!

One unexpected way I’ve come to really love my ace identity and the ace/aro community is through the knowledge that we generate by simply being non-sexual-and-romantic-relationship focused people in a society that prioritizes sex and romance. Listening to aromantic people talk about their experiences with love and friendship and inspecting how our society deprioritizes platonic love in detrimental ways has honestly been kind of life changing. Even though I am interested in romance and romantic relationships, being in this community has been so helpful in reshaping the way I think about romance and how I choose to structure my life around relationships and which relationships to prioritize, and for that I will be forever grateful.

 

4. What I love about being aroace is how freeing it is. My exposure to ace communities showed me that people like me could live wonderful and fulfilling lives regardless of whether we had sexual/romantic relationships or not. It allowed me the ability to reflect on my own feelings and desires more deeply. That led me to start using the aromantic label, and to start to explore my gender. And although I am still subject to societal pressures around sex and relationships, I don’t feel bound by them in the way I used to. I love that my identity throws into question so many of the things that society assumes are universal, and that me living into my identity might cause other people to rethink their worldviews as well.

And as I lived into my ace identity, I also felt more and more comfortable calling myself queer. I felt more comfortable being in queer spaces and participating in conversations there. I really felt like I belonged on my (very queer) campus and in my (very queer) friend groups. If I hadn’t started to identify as ace, I would not have the relationship to myself or the world that I have today. I am free to explore and to create my own future outside of what society prescribes. That’s both a daunting task and an incredible blessing.

 

5. As someone who’s alloace, I appreciate not having to worry about sex and all of the issues that it *can possibly* bring up (I know that they’re not guarantees). It just seems like a lot of work and stress, and it feels kind of relaxing to not have it be a concern in a relationship. Accepting and embracing my ace identity has allowed me to be fully comfortable in my skin. Before I knew I was ace, I believed the things people said about me: cold, emotionless, a late bloomer, etc. But not experiencing sexual attraction doesn’t make a person broken. I have a word, a whole slew of words, to describe how I experience attraction, and I’ve never felt better. And don’t get me started on the ace community. To be seen, validated, and understood is a beautiful thing. The ace spaces I’ve entered have been so welcoming and warm. We can bond over shared experiences and discuss the kind of visibility we want to see. Ace people receive so many assumptions about what it means to be ace that we don’t make those same assumptions about each other. That makes for a really understanding and non-judgmental community (one I’m so thrilled to be a part of).

 

6. The process of discovering I was aroace and then exploring what that meant for me helped me understand my life and my experiences, growing my self-awareness, and it helped when I later explored my other identities to have had that first experience of questioning already. It helps me explore who I am and what I want from life. The ace community was my first exposure to the complexity of identities, how definitions and experiences don’t always match up well, and how different identities can intersect. The ace community let me feel comfortable and legitimate in my experiences, and taught me that I don’t need to hide myself. I love the perspective on life that being aroace gives me.

Welcome to the round-up of submissions on the topic of ‘What We Wish People Knew.’ You can see the call for submissions here: https://sites.smith.edu/aace/2022/09/18/call-for-submissions-what-we-wish-people-knew/. Thank you to everyone who participated! We had three responses, from students at Smith College.

 

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1. One thing I wish more people understood about asexuality is that asexual people can have sex and consent to sex. Obviously, lots of asexual people don’t want to and/or choose not to have sex. Makes sense, considering we don’t experience sexual attraction (although that on its own can be difficult for people to grasp too, don’t get me wrong.) However, that doesn’t mean we’re incapable of consenting to sex, or that when we do choose have sex, it’s inherently non-consensual or harmful. Explaining that asexual people can be sex favorable, sex neutral, or sex repulsed can sometimes help people understand this, but still I think sex favorable aces confuse people. As a sex favorable ace, I want people to understand that I can have sex with my girlfriend, and that she is not pressuring me into it (or worse), because that idea is really hurtful to both of us. However, it can be hard to explain my experience in a way that will get people to understand without having to explain my actual experiences with sex, which is super personal, and not something I want to share most of the time! Sometimes, to avoid the conversation as a whole, I just let people think that we aren’t having sex at all. (And, depending on what your definition of sex is, maybe we aren’t! But that’s a whole other debate.)

 

2. One of the greatest “microlabels” that I have ever heard of is none-of-your-business-sexual/romantic. Faced with an intrusive friend, relative, acquaintance, or stranger who wants to know all of the private details of your life, you are already equipped with the answer: “My sexuality is none of your business.” “Whether or not I masturbate is none of your business.” “My romantic preferences are none of your business.” As long as there is not abuse going on, you are entitled to privacy.

Personally, I’ve not been faced with any noisy people asking details about my private life, however I know that many aces and aros have, questions others wouldn’t think of asking sexual or romantic people. To anyone who has ever been asked these questions: you are not compelled to answer. To anyone who has ever asked these questions: you are not obliged an answer.

 

3.

– A shared identity does not make us identical. We identify as ace and/or aro for a variety of reasons.

– Some of us are clear about our identities while others are questioning or find uncertainty or indefinableness central to their experience.

– Some of us have clear separations between different identities while others find them inextricably intertwined.

– Many of us are surprised and confused to learn that crushes/attraction aren’t made up and are actually as important to many people as they are made out to be in stories.

– The assumption that everyone will fall in love and get married is problematic because it leads those of us who don’t fall in love to feel like there’s something wrong with us.

– Some aces are willing to have sex in certain circumstances, but others are not.

– It’s hard to find music or stories without sex or romance.