Asexual people can kiss, cuddle, hug, make out, feel arousal, have a libido, want a romantic relationship, be in a romantic relationship, marry, have kids, think people are beautiful. have a dirty sense of humor…
Does that mean every asexual person wants or does all of that? No. There are asexual people who want/do some of these things, all of these things, none of these things. And all of them are “real asexuals”!
There are no rules – except for “You can do anything you feel comfortable with” and “You don’t need to do anything you don’t feel comfortable with”.
How do you date as an asexual? I mean honestly I have no idea what to do here. Dating apps are about superficial looks, and how am I supposed to explain to a stranger that I will recoil the second they try to gauge romantic chemistry with touch or kissing or some shit
There’s apps that let you specify stuff like that!
I’m not sure how active they are but ace-book, ACEapp, asexualcupid, and asexualistic are are specifically geared towards asexual folk.
OKCupid offers an asexual option and is pretty well recommended by queer folk, at least from what I’ve heard.
I don’t know if it has a specific asexual option, but Thurst is a dating app spedificialy created for queer folk (by a group of qwoc) with a lot of filtering options, so it might be a good place to check out.
Basically, whatever your orientation, if you’re a woman, woman-aligned, or look like a woman, you’re going to have to wade through a lot of crap on dating sites. It’s not cool, and it’s not right, but it’s where we’re at. But don’t let your asexuality hold you back from trying out these sites if you’re interested. With so many options, yeah, you’re going to turn down a lot of people and a lot of people are going to turn you down. But there could be people on those sites that also feel like you! And there will be people on those sites that are happy to date an asexual and/or touch-averse/repulsed person!
We’ve all got things we’re looking for or looking to avoid in a relationship. Just be open and honest. “I like dating, I want to date, but I’m not interested in kissing or becoming too physical.” Sometimes we gotta wade through the crap to find the gold. If you’re willing to put yourself out there, you could find some really good experiences, relationships, and people.
And it may take some experimenting to find what works best for you! Maybe that’s keywords in your profile. Maybe that’s avoiding dating sites/apps altogether. Maybe that’s only going to ace-specific sites. That’s something you’ll have to figure out. What makes you the most comfortable, what brings some sort of results your way, etc.
It’s certainly daunting to put yourself out there, especially when the world seems sex-obsessed, but you’re not alone. Good luck!
Okay, so ace discourse is going on. People are doubting themselves. In wake of that, I want to put here a list of things I wish I’d known when I first figured out I was asexual. Because when I first found out I was asexual and again when I figured out I was arospec I was terrified. So if you just recently figured out you’re aspec, ace, aro, arospec, or if you’ve known for a long time but the ace/aro discourse is making you doubt yourself, here are some things I wish someone had told me before I became confident in that part of my identity.
It is a real orientation.
Your hormones are most likely not out of whack, and even if they are that doesn’t make you any less asexual or aromantic.
You don’t have to have sex or be in a romantic relationship to be “normal”
You don’t have to abstain from sexual or romantic relationships to be ace or aro.
If you have split attraction and one of your attractions is solely to people of the other binary gender you still have a place in the queer community if you want it.
It’s okay to be confused and not even know what attraction is.
You are not heartless.
You are not broken.
You can’t be “fixed”
You don’t need to be “fixed”
Because like I said, you’re not broken.
Don’t force yourself into sexual or romantic situations you’re uncomfortable with in an attempt to seem “normal”. Just don’t do it.
Don’t put up with “you’ll find the right person” comments
Correctional rape is a thing and although it’s typically associated with lesbians and gays it happens with ace people too. Be careful.
If you’re twelve you’re not too young to be thinking about that, and if you’re eighty you’re not too old to be figuring it out.
If you want to be in a romantic relationship without sex then don’t stay with a partner that tells you that you’d have sex if you loved them.
When explaining things, be calm. I’ve found the majority of people will find it makes sense and are willing to learn. If they’re being a douchebag that’s when you get snappy. Not when people are just genuinely curious.
Don’t waste your time on aphobes on the internet or people that keep insisting that asexuality is just an orientation for people who don’t want sex or demisexuality just means you want to take it slow. They are wrong. Attraction or lack thereof is something out of your control and there are allosexual people that don’t like sex.
If you want to be really loud about your orientation that’s great.
If you want to keep your orientation on the down low that’s also great.
I know sometimes dealing with a world that constantly throws sex and romance at you is hard. You can do it.
It’s okay to be confused.
You’re not a freak.
You have a place in the LGBTQIA+ community. There’s a reason the long version has an A there.
Yes, people actually do feel attraction. They’re not all pretending or exaggerating, as much as it might seem like that.
You don’t have to be good at puns, but there will be a lot. Fair warning.
Being asexual or aspec is a beautiful thing.
Being aromantic or arospec is a beautiful thing.
The love you feel for your family and friends is not somehow inferior to romantic or sexual love.
You can be happy. Anyone that tells you that you can’t be happy without sex and/or romance is lying.
Embrace your pride flag. They’re all pretty cool. And there are a lot on the spectrums.
Your aro/ace headcanons are just as valid as the gay/lesbian/bi/pan headcanons.
Be aware of the alliance with the bi and pan people. They may seem like our complete opposites at first but they understand the erasure thing and are equally bad at puns.
This is a lightly edited form of the resulting email.
So the first thing to remember with a queerplatonic relationship is that they vary a LOT depending on who’s involved. My particular relationship is not necessarily what is regarded as the norm. If there even is a norm, which I like to think there isn’t. The main difference between myself and other folks who I see currently talking about their queerplatonic relationships is that I’m asexual and WTFromantic, and my queerplatonic partner is *sexual, *romantic. We’re also both poly, which is a bit of an added twist (or is it?) but doesn’t really matter here.
Second thing to remember: if I get too confusing, it’s okay and encouraged to ask me to clarify. Or to get a second opinion. Or both!
Third thing: a queerplatonic relationship essentially IS a friendship. That is the sort of bond that a queerplatonic relationship (QPR for short) is founded on.
There’s a good quote/definition by se-smith (here). “Queerplatonic is a word for describing relationships where an intense emotional connection transcending what people usually think of as a ‘friendship’ is present, but the relationship is not romantic in nature; people in a queerplatonic relationship may think of themselves as partners, may plan on spending their lives together, etc.”
To copy a different definition from my own notes (I know I ripped it off somewhere), a QPR is “a platonic relationship that takes on the supposed behavior and intimacy of a romantic one.”
So basically, a platonic relationship = a friendship, and a queerplatonic relationship = the most badass motherfucker of all friendships. BFFs? BFFs for LIFE. Does that make sense?
For example, I happen to be in a queerplatonic relationship with a person to whom I refer as “the roomie.” This is, in fact, because we now live together. We’ve done so for two years, and we were planning it for at least two to three years before that. We intend to continue living together indefinitely, potentially for the rest of our lives. To date, our friendship is about eight, nine years old.
I do have other friends, some who have been around for eighteen years, some who have been around for a few months, and a bunch somewhere in the middle. I can picture myself living with some of them as roommates for a while, sure. But not for more than a year or two, at least as things stand now. These aren’t people that I plan my life with, these aren’t people that I necessarily plan my life around. The roomie, on the other hand, is.
Some queerplatonic partners are more physically demonstrative and affectionate with their QPPs. They hold hands, they cuddle, they do things that most of society marks as ‘romantic.’ I’m also more comfortable around the roomie than I am most people, but that doesn’t manifest as hand holding, cuddling, kissing, or any of that generally ‘romantic’ display of affection. It doesn’t have to. I care a lot about my QPP, and that means that I wander around the house in my pajamas, headbutt him, let him headbutt me, and other things that I don’t really do with other people.
So here’s a weird question. Have you watched Clerks? Dogma? Any of those View Askew movies that Kevin Smith made? In Dogma, Jay introduces himself and his ‘heterosexual life partner’ Silent Bob. Not the first lines out of Jay’s mouth, but close enough. They are powerful, important moving forces in each other’s lives. In some ways, they have priority over anyone else. What those ways are can change depending on the QPR. Some don’t ever live together, some of us do, some even have commitment ceremonies, some like things a lot more casual.
When my roomie and I go out, people tend to assume one of two things: we’re dating, or we’re siblings. We’re really close. At some point, a lot of QPPs end up being faced with the question of “are you SURE you’re not in a romantic relationship?” I have a friend, I’ve known her eighteen years, I call her my sister. She insists that I’m dating the roomie. I’m not. I’ve had crushes before, and various romantic feelings. This is not like that. I love the guy, dearly, I do. But not romantically. And even with the crushes I’ve experienced, I can’t exactly quantify WHY or WHAT that difference is. I just know it’s there. But I also know this isn’t just an average friendship.
Similarly, the roomie feels differently about me than he does his romantic partners. They’re all ridiculously adorable together (<- my opinion, aka fact). But he’s said, when pushed by outside forces, some really nice things that I’m not allowed to repeat. Neither of us is extremely demonstrative, especially verbally. Possibly the opposite. So. I know he takes our relationship seriously. He also relies on me to understand when other friendships/relationships need a bit more time. Because at times that happens, but we always make sure to make time for each other in our often super hectic schedules.
The final, maybe fourth, thing to remember is that a queerplatonic relationship requires one HELL of a lot of communication, at least at first. Well, maybe not at first, but it really tends to work out better that way. It’s not how I did it, but my partner and I like to do three impractical and potentially backfiring things before breakfast. If you think that you’re headed into a queerplatonic partnership with this person, ask. If they don’t know the word, then talk about it! Other words have been used similarly in the past; platonic life-mates/partners, heterosexual life-mates/partners, and for the Animorphs geeks out there, there is shorm. A deep friend to whom one would never lie, someone knowing all one’s secrets, whose tail blade could be pressed on one’s throat without causing concern. Way to go, K.A. Applegate (and ghost writers), because that sums up me and my roomie pretty damn well.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter what words you use to get it across, or if you even use a title for it. What matters is finding out what’s going on clearly, especially if you’re confused. What’s right for you and your buddy is what’s right, and don’t worry about the rest of us. Okay? That’s the main thing, really. And a queerplatonic partnership doesn’t necessarily rule out the possibility of future romantic relationships, or even more QPRs either. At very least, that’s not how the roomie and I function.
(For more asexual sex ed, check out my ‘asexual sex ed’ tag)
Asexual sex-ed has been too long in the making. Currently, there is no dependable source of asexual-based sex ed. And that’s a huge problem.
So one of the things that we need to talk about is consent, and how it differs from allosexual consent. Risky sex is all too common amongst the lgbt+ community. And that includes aces.
This is vital information for everybody, not just aces. We all need to learn how to navigate sexuality safely, regardless of who we are, or who we’re doing the do with. Asexual consent is the kind of information that will save lives.
The Difference Between Asexual And Allosexual Consent:
When an allosexual person gives a ‘yes’, they’re saying yes in a particular language of desire. They’re saying ‘yes, I am attracted to you. Yes, I am driven to perform sexual acts to you. Yes, I actively desire to be sexual with you.’
And that kind of ‘yes’ does not exist in an asexual language. So when these two people say ‘yes’, they’re not consenting to the same thing. We’re not speaking the same language. They’re saying ‘yes’ to something we’ll never say ‘yes’ to.
When you’re not actually drawn to the other party, and you’re not interested in them sexually, then mutual sexual stimulation becomes something akin to a chore, or a favor. And that chore can so very easily become a stressor, and from there a danger.
In your typical high-school infosketch on what sexual assault and rape is like, you’ll get person A forcing themselves upon person B, while person B is crying, ‘I don’t want this!’ And that’s how we’ve been taught to recognize assault.
Thing is, aces are kinda inherently gonna never ‘want this’.
Consenting to something you don’t empathize with is a lot harder than if you did. So if you did not consent to be seen through a sexual lens, then being treated as a sexual partner would be non-consensual. And if the way your partner views you is non-consensual, then the sex itself is also non-consensual.
Except with asexual consent. We need to learn how to break a few rules.
Here, use this card until you don’t want to anymore! It gives you rights to all ace symbols and labels that make you happy. If you decide a different label is better for you, recycle this card and replace it with another that makes you happier.
Okay, so ace discourse is going on. People are doubting themselves. In wake of that, I want to put here a list of things I wish I’d known when I first figured out I was asexual. Because when I first found out I was asexual and again when I figured out I was arospec I was terrified. So if you just recently figured out you’re aspec, ace, aro, arospec, or if you’ve known for a long time but the ace/aro discourse is making you doubt yourself, here are some things I wish someone had told me before I became confident in that part of my identity.
It is a real orientation.
Your hormones are most likely not out of whack, and even if they are that doesn’t make you any less asexual or aromantic.
You don’t have to have sex or be in a romantic relationship to be “normal”
You don’t have to abstain from sexual or romantic relationships to be ace or aro.
If you have split attraction and one of your attractions is solely to people of the other binary gender you still have a place in the queer community if you want it.
It’s okay to be confused and not even know what attraction is.
You are not heartless.
You are not broken.
You can’t be “fixed”
You don’t need to be “fixed”
Because like I said, you’re not broken.
Don’t force yourself into sexual or romantic situations you’re uncomfortable with in an attempt to seem “normal”. Just don’t do it.
Don’t put up with “you’ll find the right person” comments
Correctional rape is a thing and although it’s typically associated with lesbians and gays it happens with ace people too. Be careful.
If you’re twelve you’re not too young to be thinking about that, and if you’re eighty you’re not too old to be figuring it out.
If you want to be in a romantic relationship without sex then don’t stay with a partner that tells you that you’d have sex if you loved them.
When explaining things, be calm. I’ve found the majority of people will find it makes sense and are willing to learn. If they’re being a douchebag that’s when you get snappy. Not when people are just genuinely curious.
Don’t waste your time on aphobes on the internet or people that keep insisting that asexuality is just an orientation for people who don’t want sex or demisexuality just means you want to take it slow. They are wrong. Attraction or lack thereof is something out of your control and there are allosexual people that don’t like sex.
If you want to be really loud about your orientation that’s great.
If you want to keep your orientation on the down low that’s also great.
I know sometimes dealing with a world that constantly throws sex and romance at you is hard. You can do it.
It’s okay to be confused.
You’re not a freak.
You have a place in the LGBTQIA+ community. There’s a reason the long version has an A there.
Yes, people actually do feel attraction. They’re not all pretending or exaggerating, as much as it might seem like that.
You don’t have to be good at puns, but there will be a lot. Fair warning.
Being asexual or aspec is a beautiful thing.
Being aromantic or arospec is a beautiful thing.
The love you feel for your family and friends is not somehow inferior to romantic or sexual love.
You can be happy. Anyone that tells you that you can’t be happy without sex and/or romance is lying.
Embrace your pride flag. They’re all pretty cool. And there are a lot on the spectrums.
Your aro/ace headcanons are just as valid as the gay/lesbian/bi/pan headcanons.
Be aware of the alliance with the bi and pan people. They may seem like our complete opposites at first but they understand the erasure thing and are equally bad at puns.
Karate, SPN Demonic Octopus Guardian 