Individualism is Killing The (Online) Aspec Community
You lot don’t wanna hear me, you just wanna dance. And eat garlic bread.
CW//: Antiblackness, homophobia, rape mentions
Intro
Since I learned I was asexual, I’ve been digging into everything I can find about aspec identity online. Learning my label, learning about amatonormativity, learning about compulsory sexuality, watching shows with aspec characters, looking for indie media with aspec characters and most importantly, trying to find other people like me or similar to me.
The place I was at when I first realised I was asexual 5 years ago until now feels completely unrecognisable. I was a “cishet” Catholic girl at the end of teenhood who’d barely heard the terms ‘asexual’ or ‘aromantic’ in her life to now speaking like an aspec encyclopedia. I say ‘compulsory sexuality’ and ‘amatonormativity’ now. I’m one of those asexuals who keeps talking aspec rights. I’m a nerd.
But whilst I know I’ve changed in my queer journey, the communities I’ve been involved in have not. When I was a baby ace, I needed to know aspec 101, distinguish your aro from your ace from your agender, what the cake memes were for, what the split attraction model is and so on. But 5 years on, half a decade mind you, the online community that was once my intro and a place that helped me learn more about myself now feels like a burden, a constant reminder of pain and like being a teenager again in Catholic secondary school; not standing the people I’m with and wanting to just go home.
Compulsory Sexuality in Asexual Advocacy
I am tired of asexual 101. There. I said it. I don’t care about explaining what asexuality is and isn’t anymore to people who aren’t asexual. Non-aspec people who engage in bad faith do not care about understanding asexuality, they care about debunking it. The question has never been ‘what is asexuality?’ the question is ‘should asexuality exist’ and for a lot of people, the answer is no. When JK Rowling attacked asexuality on International Asexuality Day on April 6th, a lot of asexuals and ace ‘allies’ were more offended at Joanne getting the definition wrong than the fact a white billionaire transmisogynist had incited hatred towards asexuality and nonsexuality as an extension of her fascism. The following conversation wasn’t about how transphobes are inherently anti-asexual because they use sexuality to establish gender roles, the shared struggle between trans and ace people and the necessity of a coalition between trans and ace liberation, addressing the fact trans asexuals especially trans ace men have the lowest life satisfaction rate in the UK compared to other LGBT groups or cis asexuals addressing the privilege of being cis and how it’s vital for trans asexuality to be included in ace media and content in a sea of predominantly cis asexuality. No. It was all about how Joanne thinks asexuals don’t have sex when it’s a spectrum and aces can have sex too. In a sea of JKR and her supporters spouting the usual anti-asexual jargon, calling asexuals mentally ill, saying asexual women should be raped and so on, seeing the clapbacks on internet aces going ‘well actually, bigot, asexuals CAN have sex!’ and ‘Omg JKR hates us so we’re queer now!’ felt like such a massive let down. Joanne thee white billionaire transmisogynist doesn’t ‘think asexuals can’t have sex’ she doesn’t want asexuals to exist, babes. She doesn’t give a shit!
Most people tolerate asexuality, but they don’t support asexuality. That's not the same. They think asexuality is valid but they don’t support it. They only support asexuality if it’s palatable to their own sexuality. In an attempt to push back on the very real infantilisation of asexuality (looking at you ‘but we can’t have kink at pride because of the aces’ discourse), but we’ve (not me!) walked back into compulsory sexuality and basing support of asexuality based on how well asexuals perform the sexual script, instead of supporting it in its own right.
Asexual 101 is filled to the brim with ‘debunking misconceptions’ of asexuality, listing features and characteristics of actual asexual people. A lot of ace allies and asexual influencers who educate non-asexual people’s go to form of ‘support’ for asexual people is just reassuring non-asexuals that we’ll still meet the sexual quota. No asexual ever has negative feelings about sex! No asexual is sex repulsed! No asexual is frigid! No asexual is a prude! No asexual has ever been raped or sexually assaulted! No asexual has a low libido! Asexuals have the dirtiest minds actually! Every asexual has that fictional character they’d fuck nasty! Every ace lesbian has that fictional man they go feral for! Asexuals can still have sex! Asexuals can still date! Asexuals can still love! Asexuals make great sex jokes! Asexuals write the best smut! Asexuals will hand out the water bottles at the orgy, guys! Asexuals still look hot! Asexuals still recognise that you are hot! Asexuals are normal, too! They’re normal! We swear!
None of this actually transforms into material support of asexual people’s sex lives or lack thereof. Asexuals can have sex until a demisexual says they’re demisexual because that ‘doesn’t exist’ and it’s just ‘normal’. Asexuals can have sex until it’s a greysexual because that ‘doesn’t exist’. Asexuals can have sex until it’s asexual sex workers and kinksters because if they were ‘really asexual’ they wouldn’t do that. Asexuals can have sex until it’s sex without sexual attraction because that’s immoral. Non-ace people support ‘asexual sex’ until it actually happens.
I don’t want people to support asexuals because we can do sexual things ‘normally’. I want people to support asexuals full stop. I’m sex indifferent. I like pussy rap. I find some sex jokes funny. I’m okay with sex scenes in TV/Film. But the point isn’t that asexual people doing sexual things is wrong. It’s that I, or any asexual, shouldn’t have to list all the ways we engage in sexuality, directly or indirectly, for people to support our asexuality. I shouldn’t have to list all the sexual things I support to prove my ‘sex positivity’ because my asexuality isn’t sex negativity to begin with. It’s a state of being.
There is so much advocacy for asexuals who can participate in (hetero)sexuality and how aces can fit into cisheterosexual society, but nothing in place for asexuals who won’t, don’t and can’t. Asexual people that will never have sex, asexuals who’ve never had sex, asexuals who had sex and didn’t enjoy it, asexuals who don’t masturbate, asexuals who don’t consume sexual media or ever enjoy it, asexuals who rarely if never talk about sex, asexuals who will never partner and have but won’t anymore, asexuals who will never marry and asexuals who will never have biological children are now the ‘harmful’ aces the #allos can never know about. It’s frustrating how a community meant to advocate for aces like this, including me, would rather shove us at the back of the house so the front looks good for the guests, the guests who aren’t even asexual, aren’t committed to supporting us in any material way or in any asexual communities.
Amatonormativity in Aromantic Advocacy
This, in turn, is also affecting the way aromanticism is ‘marketed’ towards non-aspecs too. There is so much emphasis on how aromantics can still date, aromantics can still love, aromantics can still marry and so on and so forth and it places more value in proving aromantics’ capacity for love romantic or otherwise, instead of addressing the loveless realities they have. The aversion of sexlessness also applies to lovelessness. Many people, including within the aspec community, are still uncomfortable with the idea of someone being without a partner and especially for life. It has replaced romance with friendship and now expects aromantics to essentially ‘repent’ for lack of romantic love by subbing it with platonic and queerplatonic love instead. The hatred of frigidity of asexuals shares similarity to the hatred of being a spinster for aromantics. In the same way the community hides its sexless asexuals, it also wants to hide its loveless aromantics. I see how exhausted my aromantic friends are and how their lovelessness is branded as ‘stereotypical’ in what was supposed to be their space to be loveless and partner-free in a society that judges them for it.
A lot of asexuals and aromantics online have not unlearned compulsory sexuality and amatonormativity, they have simply replaced romance and sex with each other or have replaced romance and sex with another form of attraction or activity to be essentialist about. Alloace spaces have called out the compulsory sexuality of sex as a core of romance just to replace it with romance as a core part of human life at aromantics’ expense. Aroallo spaces in response to alloace spaces’ amatonoromativity have now replaced romance with sex, claiming it as a foundational biological human component whilst romance is fake, throwing alloaces under the bus but also excluding aroaces from what was supposed to be a shared aromantic space. Aroace spaces in response to both have removed both romance and sex off the pedestal in what seemed promising, but now replaced them both with friendship and queerplatonic relationships, evangalising friendship because of its lack of sex and romance in a puritan-like fashion. Aspecs with other ‘little to nos’ like agenders, aplatonics, afamilials asensuals and more are now just scattered across ace and aro spaces, forming their own small groups, but essentially left behind because they have no ‘redeeming’ attractions to use to ‘prove’ their humanity.
Aspec Separatism
These growing aspec separatist movements online are doomed to repeat the same compulsory sexuality and amatonormativity which harms them. The unofficial alloace separatist movement (I say lightly because whilst there was a dominance of alloace content and spaces in the 2010s, they were under ‘asexual’ more than ‘alloace’ as a collective framework) spent too long on centering romantic love as the redemption for asexuals and focused on replacing enforced sexuality with enforced romance. As an “alloace” (I don’t like ID’ing as one for a lot of reasons written here), I wince every time an alloace article or video does the ‘but I can still fall in love’. I hate every single alloace dating guide that tells asexuals to have sex when we don’t want to as a form of ‘compromise’ or ‘duty sex’. I hate every single allo-ace dating guide that tells us it’s our fault for not compromising enough if our partners rape or assault us. I hate every single ‘sex is an important part of a relationship’ in the spaces for people who clearly want sexless romance and are not the same demographic as people who that applies to. I don’t care about allo-ace dating woes about how a non-asexual’s partner won’t fuck them anymore. I don’t give a fuck about any non-asexual person who comes into asexual spaces just to cry about how frigid their partners are and expect us to ‘fix’ their frigidity for them. I don’t want to sub my nonexistent sexual attraction with a performance of romance for non asexual people, abeg. This is not a Jane Austen novel!
In response to the jarring nonsense of the unofficial alloace ‘movement’, aromantic and aroallo separatist groups have sprung up, feeding into compulsory sexuality the same way alloace content fed into amatonormatvity, but for some reason this isn’t spoken about as much. Why on earth is sex now being used to spread essentialist rhetoric? The idea sex is more natural than romance because it has a biological component whilst romance does not (which is false because romance can spark biological responses too), that sex and friendship is ‘real’ when romance is not, despite the definition of sex being exclusive to cisheterosexual PIV for most of human history and friendships overlapping with acquaintances, that aroallos are more oppressed than aroaces and alloaces because they have sexual attraction and aces are “pure” in comparison, despite conservatives clearly being anti-asexual and the fact this exact same rhetoric was used by asexual exclusionists, is all compulsory sexuality. Just dipped in green.
A lot of this ideology is rebranded sex negative feminism word for word bar for bar but with romance. But instead of claiming sex is intrinsically oppressive, sex is intrinsically unnatural and sex should be abolished, it’s with romance. And the justification is that sex negativity is real, but romance negativity is not. But this is a complete misinterpretation of what sex negativity is. It’s never been negative feelings about sex, it is the systemic discrimination and pathologisation of non-normative sexuality. Romance with the absence of sex is classed as non-normative sexuality. Asexuality is classed as a non-normative sexuality. Interracial romantic relationships were classed as a non-normative sexuality. Romance with the same gender is classed as a non-normative sexuality. Polyamorous and non monogamous romance is classed as a non-normative sexuality. If society pathologises sexual attraction outside of what it deems acceptable and conflates romance and sex as the same, it will pathologise romance it doesn't consider desirable too. Marginalised alloromantics, gay alloromantics both ace and non-ace, bi and pan alloromantics ace and non-ace, trans alloromantics, ace and non-ace and people of colour, ace and non-ace, are not protected by 'alloromantic privilege'. These ideologies are not rooted in any material analysis or addressing of real-world power dynamics. Allosexual people can still be oppressed on the basis of sexual attraction, including aroallos and yet alloromantics of all identities, including alloaces, are claimed to be privileged. It’s ridiculous. (But to be fair, the concept of allosexuals being oppressed is something these spaces also struggle to admit)
The same website that used to mourn Bianca Devins, a bi asexual girl who was murdered now claiming her identity is a form of privilege. It’s sickening. Did being ‘alloace’ protect her?
Black aromantic theory and text acknowledges that romance abolition is not the goal but instead the abolition of relationship hierarchy. Black aromantics are fully aware Black alloromantics including, alloaces aren't their oppressors because Black sexuality, including romantic orientation, is discriminated against for all Black people and so romance and its privileges and oppression are circumstantial just like they are for sex. But conveniently, aromantic and aroallo separatism never brings that up. They also never bring up the antiblackness towards Black aros either.
These separatist movements are not concerned with forming real solidarity with other aspecs and they do not hold any real reciprocity for the aspecs they make demands of. Nor alloace, aroace or aroallo are protected classes. Each are marginalised for slightly different reasons, but still marginalised nonetheless. And yet, alloaces are specifically considered the most privileged or even oppressive group of the three, despite the various marginalisations alloaces can face and have faced. There are plenty of rightful calls for alloaces to address the material conditions of aroace and aroallo people and to interrogate amatonormativity, arophobia and puritanism, but I have rarely seen any collective call to or from within aromantic online spaces to address its rising compulsory sexuality, acephobia and homophobia. As an ‘alloace’, I’ve consistently called out anti-aromantic rhetoric and amatonormavity, from the narrative ‘asexuals can still fall in love’, the concept of loveless sex as dirty and the idea of romance as a human necessity, yet my calls for a returned solidarity from aromantics, to identify when homophobia is hidden as anti-romance and when anti-asexual rhetoric is hidden in sex positivity, have been met with pushback and dismissal by quite a few aromantics at this point. I have been told that homophobia is a niche issue in the aspec community, that my posts about asexuality are actually aromantic when they were for asexual lesbians, that I’ve pitted aroallos against alloaces, that I ‘blame’ aroallos despite clearly agreeing with their stances and that anti-romance aromantic content is justified, just a ‘joke’, even when the ‘jokes’ about the ‘delusion’ and ‘panic attacks’ of romantic attraction are clearly ableist and the anti love content, such as Love Loses, Love Doesn’t Win and No Romo are plays on pro-gay love messaging and can clearly fall into homophobic rhetoric. Especially when ‘no homo’ *is* homophobic rhetoric used by cishet men.
To call for an aspec group that holds 0 systemic power over you, a group that is also marginalised, to address your oppression whilst actively making excuses for why you can’t for them, including actively justifying their oppression, means you are not looking for allies. You’re looking for lapdogs.
Founding an ideology that is based on the removal of a human expression won’t work out. Sex negative feminism showed us this. It can be jarring constantly being told sex and romance are superhuman and natural if you're someone who doesn't take part, but it's correct and important to say to prevent reactionary rhetoric like this from happening. When anti-sex frameworks come into play, it is not a removal of all sex but to control, repress and restrict non-normative forms of sex and sexuality. Anti sex laws didn’t come for married cishet couples expecting their babies, but it did come for gay sex and sex workers. When it comes to restrictions on romance, it wasn’t cishet couples on the chopping block, but gay romance in media and interracial pairings being outlawed. Radical anti-romance frameworks from online aromantic spaces do nothing to distinguish marginalised romantic expression from conventional romantic expression, but want to abolish romance completely and do nothing to address that marginalisation, leaving non-conforming alloaces like myself erased but also not allowed to say anything about it because we have ‘alloace privilege’ apparently. I can’t commit to any anti-sex asexual frameworks either for the same reason. If it lumps the horny antics of my allosexual lesbian peers in with cisheterosexual sex for reproduction, then it will marginalise my lesbianism more than support my asexuality. If it also reinforces antiblack sexual stigmas towards Black allosexuals, then it will marginalise my Blackness more than support my asexuality.
Homophobia and Allorose Gays as ‘Oppressors’
The idea gay allo people both in a sexual and romantic sense hold systemic power to oppress asexuals and aromantics by having sexual and romantic attraction is a piece of online aspec rhetoric that needs to get in the bin. Then that bin needs to get set on fire. The refusal to read or interact with any lesbian, gay or bi theory simply because of the actions of LGB aspec exclusionists from 2015 has been detrimental to the growth of the aspec community. I can’t believe my eyes when I see aspecs claiming that Love Is Love and Love Wins are aphobic slogans created solely to erase aromantic people, that gay shippers are ‘forcing’ romance onto same gender pairings, that lesbians are more acephobic than every other group and that it’s okay to say gay couples and gay sex is disgusting because ‘they hate everyone equally’. It’s like watching anti gay debate videos from decades back but instead of a conservative baby boomer father in a suit, it’s a tumblr teenager with an aspec flag background picrew pfp. Though some of this rhetoric comes from aspec adults too and that’s hurtful in another way, because they grew up with that more normalised homophobia and biphobia of previous decades and still choose to commit to it. It’s frustrating seeing the blatant lies about gay activism being no more than marriage rights and ‘overly sexualised’ gay bars and the erasure of its anti-capitalist, anti patriarchy and pro sex liberation roots. Roots that are very much in line with supporting the needs of asexual and aromantic people, too, if online aspecs had bothered to read them.
The wildest thing is the allos who do hold power over aspecs are real and it’s cishet people. Most if not all the attacks on asexuality and aromanticism within recent years have come from cishet white conservatives (including ‘political lesbian’ Julie Bindel). Cishet people have always held power to dictate romantic and sexual rights. It’s not the gay leather daddies who put asexuality in the DSM. It’s not butchfemme lesbians taking aromantic books out of school libraries. It’s not poly bisexuals who push psychosexual therapy onto asexuals and aromantics. It was cisheteronormavity all along. And yet, the online aspec community doesn’t have smoke for it like it does for queer allo people. It doesn’t take a solid stance against cis heterosexual society because it wants to be a part of it. It would rather spend time begging non-aspec cishet people that they’re normal because a lot aspecs, deep down, wanna be just like them. It would rather coddle cishet asexuals and cishet aromantics than stand with gay, lesbian, bi and pan alloaces and aroallos and non-partnering aroaces, especially aspecs who are trans and non binary within these groups, who will never fit into cis heterosexual society, whether we have sexual attraction, romantic attraction or neither. It would rather take part in the demonisation of already stigmatised forms of romantic and sexual expression than stand with the non-aspec queers who are marginalised for their romantic and sexual attraction, when cisheteronormativity marginalises all of our identities. It would rather actively uphold homophobia out of spite for anti-asexual and anti-aromantic queer people instead of having the emotional maturity to fight it regardless of their intracommunal bigotry.
Sex and romance are not intrisically oppressive nor oppressed, but become those things based on the context of the society they exist in. ‘Allosexual’ and ‘alloromantic’ are not protected classes in the same way as white, cis and straight are. They can be oppressed too, and so any anti-allo framework, romantic or sexual, can ever be immune from the wider cultural, social and political context it exists in. Unless you are being specific to cisheterosexuals and cisheteromantics, you are always punching across and even punching down rather than punching up. And from what I’ve witnessed, allo ‘punching’ almost always disproportionally affects Black, gay and trans allorose people more than punch up correctly at white, straight and cis allorose people. This ‘allo punching’ almost always throws asexuals and aromantics who are Black, gay and trans under the bus the fastest too. Friendships can be abusive and toxic. Families can be abusive and toxic. Sensuality can be uncomfortable. Socialising can be uncomfortable. Are you lot gonna try to abolish all of these too? We have the right to not take part, but we cannot abolish parts of the human experience for other human beings. Not only is it reactionary, it’s selfish.
Online aspec spaces care about aphobia, acephobia and arophobia, but they do not care about compulsory sexuality and amatonormativity. They hate the discrimination towards aces and aros but haven’t unpacked the underlining essentialism that causes it. They still reject and are disturbed by sexlessness and lovelessness in what was supposed to be a safe haven for the sexless and loveless to be supported in a world where cisheterosexuality pathologises them for it. They would rather use a different form of attraction and activity to measure human worth, instead of killing the fascist thought in their heads that measures human worth to begin with.
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Aspec separatist groups are going to eat themselves. And it’s already happening. There’s already no collective alloace group from the fact we’re all romantically attracted to different people. Some of us aren’t safe around homophobic cishet aces or share anything in common with them outside of asexuality. I’m not safe around lesbophobic non-lesbian alloaces. Straight demisexual and greysexual alloaces or some grey and demi alloaces who are attracted to the opposite gender aren’t fighting for my sexless studfemme romance anytime soon. That’s why a lot of gay, bi, pan and lesbian aces are making gay alloace specific shit or hanging out in the tiny asexual inclusive spaces from non-asexual gays. Black stripe asexual groups are starting eat to themselves from now categorising romantic attraction and basic bodily arousal as sexual attraction and yelling ‘allosexual’ at each other for any hint of anything. There’s a big split between sex favourable and sex repulsed aspecs accusing each other of exclusionism, whilst us sex indifferent people are just vibing in the middle. I’ll be honest and say I sympathise more with the sex repulsed ‘side’ seeing as I’m pretty much tired of (white and non Black) sex favourable aces speaking over me every time I say that compulsory sexuality is bad and aces are allowed to not fuck. The aromantic separatist movement is splitting as the anti asexual rhetoric is leading to aroaces now getting kicked out and harassed by a niche of pro-aroallo accounts. Aplatonic aros of both aroace and aroallo groups are heading out because of the power of friendship aro activism isn’t for them. When aroace separatism and aroallo separatism, the black stripe ace groups, the ‘aces can still have sex and aros can still date they’re not freaks’ apologia and other groups made for punching across fail and end for good, I won’t even giggle about it, but instead I’ll just sigh. Sigh at how so much time was wasted at punching across at people who had no systemic power over them, how much solidarity went down the toilet and how long it will take to rebuild something that should’ve been there from the beginning.
Antiblackness and The Hatred of Black (A)Sexuality
If some of these takes about gay people oppressing aces and aros for dating and fucking sound very sheltered and privileged, it’s because they are. The online aspec community is predominantly white. Aspec identities are not white people shit, but white aspecs do take up the most space in aspec spaces, not just by number but actively asserting themselves as the sole authorities on aspec matters and it shows with the lack of self awareness when discussing privilege, power dynamics and material oppression. And it shows when it comes to race.
Aspec tumblr is definitely the most antiblack aspec space I’ve been in. That’s not up for debate. During Kendrick-Drake beef, white tumblr users of all sexualities showed their nyash by showing how ignorant they were about Black culture, especially Black American culture. When Black people of all labels spoke about how this beef was not the time to start saying Black people are violent and slutty and say that Kendrick Lamar’s name was giving basketball player, the white aspec tumblr community thought it was the perfect time to start talking about how much they are disgusted and scared by hip hop and rap artists talking about sucking and fucking on a trap beat, saying all kinds of shit about sex obsessed and disgusting allosexuals and the allos in question were Black people. Black aces were completely ignored and spoken over in that discourse. I had to call out a bunch of white aspecs who reblogged my Black ace posts when they were getting antiblack allegations because I didn’t sign up for token Black asexual duty and they accused me of sending them death threats and having a ‘hissy fit’. To this day, that “safe space” account never apologised and is still one of the most popular aspec accounts, racking up 1,000s of notes on the site (aroacesafeplaceforall, you can suck your mum). I’m also still not over white aspecs talking about how upset they were that ‘match my freak’ was about sex instead of a cutesy platonic phrase and how aspecs should take this piece of AAVE and make it a pro friendship slogan instead from the dirty allos, aka Black people. Again. Tinashe sweetie, I am so sorry.
The nonsense really doesn’t stop there. It’s Black aspecs being accused of bullying white aspecs. It’s white aspecs constantly calling Black people disgusting, sex obsessed and predatory under the guise of ‘allo’. It’s white aspecs coming to my Black asexual page for Black asexuals and actively telling us not to care about the racism they enact towards us. It’s white aspecs coming to said Black asexual page just to announce their whiteness. It’s white aspecs coming into Black asexual specific spaces to demand we teach them about racism, whilst ignoring every single Black ace activist who has been trying to teach white aspecs like them for years. It’s white aspecs nitpicking Black aspec representation and content but going up for white aspec creators with half the depth and white aspec characters with half the seasoning. It’s white aspecs constantly nitpicking Yasmin Benoit but always having grace for white aspecs in their activism, including the ones who’ve been outed for antiblackness and other dodgy antics. It’s white aspecs being completely oblivious about the fact Black aspecs are seen as Black before we are seen as asexual, aromantic or any other aspec label. It’s never being able to share how being Black intersects with your aspecness without white aspecs chiming in to make it all about them. They’ve never been sexualised for their race so it doesn’t happen. They’ve never seen racism from other white aspecs so it never happens. They’ve never experienced antiblackness so it doesn’t happen.
Sherronda J Brown in Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lense on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture (2022) highlighted this very issue:
‘Meanwhile, white queer activists have been invested in upholding white supremacy, because they continue to benefit from a system that affords whiteness and white people, even when they are also queer. What is true of whiteness in every space, even in "progressive" and "inclusive" spaces, is that it will always work to create some form of exclusivity as a means to reassert white superiority. Therefore white asexuals often claim asexual queerness as a property, just as whiteness itself is claimed as a property, a space that others are barred from entering into.’
I’d argue Brown’s statement on white asexuals claiming asexual queerness as property also applies to white aromantics, as they too see aromantic queerness as property and many Black aromantics have felt alienated from white aro spaces, plus as a Black asexual, I have been on the receiving end of antiblackness white aromantics too, not just white asexuals. I’d say any white aspec identity is fully capable of treating aspec identity as white property from the continued antiblackness and racism within the community that is unchecked and actively supported across various aspec labels.
I have encountered far too many white aspecs who treat marginalisation as morality and believe that their specific aspec identity shields them from other bigotries or being complicit in other oppressions. It is why white asexuals refuse to believe their views of hip hop and AAVE can be antiblack, why white aromantics who are not gay refuse to believe that their disdain for same gender romance can be homophobic and why white aroallo separatists refuse to believe that the essentalizing of sex for being biological and ‘abolition’ of romantic attraction can be anti-asexual, especially toward alloaces. They refuse to acknowledge overlapping oppressions and oppressions they can take part in or benefit from. They expect other aspecs and non-aspecs who are marginalised for their romantic and sexual attractions to be aware of anti-aspec rhetoric, but refuse to be aware of any other form of reactionary rhetoric that exists in wider society. Any and every call for accountability, shared acknowledgement and basic solidarity between aspecs and from non-aspecs is called aphobia. It’s the height of liberal individualism that treats identity as a matter of validity and a shield from any self-reflection and ignoring its wider political, social, cultural and historical context.
“Asexual Women Have It Easier Than Asexual Men”.mp4
The constant narrative surrounding aspec identity from white perspectives has bled into this bizarre normalised misogyny towards asexual women in particular. It’s true that women and nonbinary people make up the majority of ace communities, but this doesn’t mean asexual women have privilege over asexual men. The narrative that asexual women are seen and accepted as pure whilst asexual men are broken is a white one. White women get considered sexually pure, sure, but this has never been the case for Black women as we’re sexualised via the Jezebel trope. When people say ‘all women are asexual’ they aren’t talking about Black women. This also erases women who are in fact considered sexual beings, such as lesbian, bisexual, pansexual and trans women. Being coerced into being a sexual being is not and has never been ‘male asexual’ exclusive. And in reverse, not all men are accepted for displaying sexuality and desexualisation is not ‘female asexual’ exclusive. Black men are shunned for expressing their sexuality through the Mandigo trope, so in turn Black asexual men are stuck being punished for not fulfilling sexual stereotypes about them, whilst also shunned if they do take part. Conveniently, when people yell about the erasure of asexual men, Black asexual men are not the ones they push to include.
This white cis female v white cis male binary comes up again when discussing gender and aromanticism. (White and cis) women are encouraged to do romance whilst (white and cis) men are assumed to prefer sex, but again, women with multiple marginalisations, women who are Black and/or trans are considered romantically undesirable in conventional romance. Lesbian and bisexual women are seen as failures for not partnering with men and seen as predatory and confused for pursuing romance with women. And marginalised men, like Black men, are seen as sexually aggressive but not acceptable romantic partners in the same way white men are valued to be.
This extends to the agender label as well. When genderlessness is equated with androgyny and androgyny is associated with whiteness, then who gets to be agender? When Black women are masculinised but denied masculinity and when Black men are hated for their masculinity but are severely punished for performing femininity, then who gets to be seen as agender? When Black people are ungendered and shunned no matter how we present our genders, then again, who gets to be agender?
What is assumed to be aspec infantlisation or aspec innocence is really just white privilege. You’re assumed to be sexually pure when you’re actually a super kinky sexy aspec because you’re white. You’re assumed to be romantically desirable for the romance you don’t want because you’re white. You’re constantly assumed to be a morally, sexually and romantically clean person because you’re white, not aspec. Call me an emotionless Black lesbian ace but I don’t care for the ‘I hate being innocent’ cries from white aspecs, especially on the more sex favourable side. Must be so horrible for people to keep thinking you’re a clean and nice person. Wish the rest of us knew what that was like. Whilst the community continues to measure intracommunity privilege based on alloace vs aroace vs aroallo, and sex repulsed vs sex favourable and asexual vs greysexual vs demisexual and aromantic vs greyromantic vs demiromantic and now aplatonic vs alloplatonic, the one form of privilege (2 if we count cisness) that actually has a systemic basis is the one no one wants to address. And apart from Black aspecs, not a single white aspec space, whether it be ‘a’, demi or grey, repulsed or favourable, alloace, aroace or aroallo wants to point it out. The elephant isn’t just in the room, it’s living here rent-free.
Anti Victim/Survivor Rhetoric
Continued on from the respectability politics is the need to prove that aspecs, asexuals especially, are detached from sexual violence and how this rhetoric stigmatises aspecs who’ve experienced sexual assault and rape. Whilst rightfully distinguishing asexuality from aversion caused by trauma, the community treats the idea of asexual victim/survivors as intrisically harmful just for existing despite using asexual corrective rape and SA as a main argument to prove asexual oppression exists.
The community continues to treat sexual violence as a matter of personal responsibility instead of a systemic form of violence caused by patriarchy. This is clearly shown through the ‘compromise’ rhetoric in allo-ace dating, where an alloace being assaulted by their non-ace partner is seen as a failure to communicate instead of an act of violence. This is also shown in the ways asexuals respond to sexual violence. The need the prove that asexuality is not a sexual trauma response has turned into off-putting and frankly disgusting gloating of being able to ‘avoid’ sexual violence by virtue of being asexual. The ‘I’m so glad I’m asexual’ in response to other people, both asexual and allosexual, experiencing STDs, sexual assault, rape and unplanned pregnancy, do nothing but feed into existing puritanism by also framing these events as moral failures. When I’m around other asexuals who brag about never being catcalled, sexualised or assaulted because of the ‘privilege’ of being asexual, all I’m being taught is that as an asexual, I have failed. Their asexuality, which they mean ‘purity’, has kept them clean from the punishment of sexuality. My asexuality never shielded me from sexual violence. To them, I am unclean.
This is not exclusive to asexuality as the aromantic sides of the aspec community also feed into this idea of violence as personal responsibility when it comes to domestic violence. Whilst it is true that everyone in society is conditioned to place romantic relationships above friendship, the concept of alloromantics ‘choosing’ to stay in abusive relationships and ‘choosing’ unhappy marriages in contexts where there were little freedoms for one of the partners involved instead of being single, is textbook victim blaming. It’s also puritan to spread the idea that abuse is the consequence for pursuing romantic pleasures, that abuse can be avoided by staying single and that avoiding romantic desire makes a person ‘pure’.
When rape and sexual assault are unfortunately common in society, then how can we truly prove who the ‘real’ asexuals are? There are victims/survivors of every sexuality and from how common sexual violence is, if asexuality and aromanticism were caused by trauma, there would be a hell of a lot more of us. Aspec victims/survivors aren’t seen as having self awareness or mental ability to distinguish our sexualities from are traumas and this judgement comes from outside and inside of the community. We can’t ever disclose the sexual violence we’ve faced but our stories are constantly pried and plasted everywhere when it’s time to debate aspec oppression. Our experiences make a good anti-aphobia clapback but ultimately, we are told these experiences are our fault.
Collective Liberation > Liberal Individualism
Despite my long long long list of complaints, I actually have faith in aspec liberation, but just not from online aspec spaces. When we do get aspec lib, it will be off the backs of the most marginalised and least palatable aspecs. White aspecs of every single label will be benefitting from the work Black aspecs did, exhausted, alone and rejected because of their rampant antiblackness. When we finally destigmatise romance without sex, marriage without sex and no threat of consumation laws, abolish the concept of sex as romantic duty and end stigma toward sexlessness as a whole, it will be off the backs of sexless, frigid and prudish asexuals who were ‘harmful stereotypes’ on ace 101 lists. When we finally destigmatise sex without love, have legal and financial rights for non-partnering people, get QPRs legal recognition and destigmatise lovelessness as a whole it will be off the backs of loveless, non-partnering and single aromantics who were considered ‘emotionless’ and ‘cold’. When we finally get what we need for the aspec community, white, cis, straight asexuals and aromantics, especially cishet aspecs who were sex and romance favourable, will be the ones that reap its benefits and sing its praises whilst aces and aros of colour, especially Black aces and Black aros, trans aces, trans aros, bi aces, bi aros, lesbian aces and lesbian aros, gay aces and gay aros, fat aspecs, neurodivergent aspecs, victim/survivors aspecs, friendless aspecs and aspecs with little participation in cishet sex and cishet romance will have our work praised without a single apology for all the erasure, discrimination and isolation we faced in order to get it.
I will keep pushing for aspec rights, as in, our right to bodily autonomy in always having the right to say no to sex and romance indefinitely, push for aspec education, push to support my peers who are unpartnered for life, engaging in sexless romance and loveless sex, but I won’t keep pushing for the aspec community. Well, not online anyway. Well, not on my tumblr or twitter main and definitely not on reddit. With my aspec mutuals, my small aspec online spaces and offline places I go to, I have an actual safe space there, any actual community. With these people, I don’t feel fear or have to shrink myself down. We actually take turns letting each other speak and that is something so small yet so kind and so basic I have been lacking from online aspec spaces for a very, very long time. From the emotional whiplash between the intense joy of coming home from an aspec group meet to heading back into the aspec tumblr trenches, I don’t see why I should have to put up with being treated like this anymore.
In these places, I have aromantics who support and defend my lesbianism in the same way I defend their aromanticism, white aspecs who actually give a fuck about white supremacy and aspecs who are understanding of each others sexual and romantic stances. But in online spaces, from antiblack asexuals and antiblack aromantics, homophobic asexuals and homophobic aromantics, puritan asexuals, acephobic aroallos and that one white sex favourable usually demi or grey ace who yells ‘asexuals can have sex’ at me despite me making it clear I don’t want to, I think it’s time to go somewhere else. For Black asexuals, especially those who are LGBT too, we’re not welcome in larger online aspec spaces just like how queer people who are Black are not welcome anywhere else in the LGBTQIA community or welcome anywhere in society. And it is not a simple issue of representation or disagreement, but that other aspecs in these spaces enact the oppression we came to escape from. They don’t simply not think we’re not valid enough, but they genuinely despise our Blackness and our attraction to the same gender. I can’t have community with aspecs like that.
What could’ve been and should’ve been a space for pushing against compulsory sexuality and amatonormativity is now a place to assimilate into it. The wildest thing is not all of what I’m saying is new. Aspecs from decades ago have critiqued this very same issue and yet here we are over 10 years later still going through the same shit. It speaks volumes and yet many aspecs choose not to hear it. The online aspec community hasn’t got foundational leftist principles and is not committed to ensuring sexual and romantic autonomy and freedom for all individuals and nor is it in solidarity with other queer communities and movements. Instead, it’s a space too concerned with individual validation and individual representation over any real form of aspec liberation for the wider community. It doesn’t want to put aside ego for the benefit of other queer people. It is unwilling to minorly inconvenience itself to help each other or to even help itself. It is willing to ignore and refuse to engage with other queer theory and movements simply because they personally will not be represented there. Everybody complains how other queers get more representation than aces and aros and how aroaces stole the rep from alloaces and aroallos or how alloaces stole the rep from aroaces and aroallos, but nobody wants to actually make that representation or support the people who do. Everybody complains that there’s no aspec culture, but nobody wants to make it and stop stealing from marginalised forms of sexual and romantic identity to make said aspec culture. Everybody wants their personal experience reflected and represented but nobody wants to accommodate for anyone else. Everybody wants the village but nobody wants to be a villager. Everybody wants to be #valid but nobody wants to be free.
As long as compulsory sexuality, amatonormativity, homophobia, misogyny and antiblackness of the most privileged aspecs continues to be enacted and individualism keeps overshadowing community building, the online aspec community could very possibly die out, if not literally then symbolically. But some of us want to live.
I want to say something but idk what to say other than this is really well written and brought up points I needed to hear thank you