Ace Week, 20th – 26th of October

This week the Asexual Awareness Week takes place. It is a week full of offline and online activism to spread awareness about asexuality in it’s whole spectrum.

Ace Week (founded as Asexual Awareness Week in 2010) is an annual event that puts asexuality in the spotlight.

***

This will be a kind of personal post, explaining what the ace week is about, and how it touched me, and how therefore the collective will also take part in the ace week.

***

Firstly: Asexuality is valid, as much as any other sexual orientation. And secondly: I am superexcited, what a wonderful picture the people at aceweek.org are painting: The ace community has made significant headway over the years. Asexual representation in mainstream media continues to improve, major LGBTQ+ organizations now acknowledge and include asexuals, and ace community groups have sprouted up and flourished in cities around the world.

Based in the Netherlands, we Europeans know that we count ourselves to the west. Our mindset, our practices and our way of dealing/communicating and accounting for each other are really heteronormative, and (mostly [hetero-] sexual. This is why the ace week is superimportant for the queer and non-queer communities. Everyone need to lean that ‘The sex is an important part of one’s life’, where in fact, it is not. Sex always has to be consentual personal choice, whetther and in which way it takes place. And it is no ones’s business to judge, wether to have or not to have sex.

As they say, the fight for visibility and acceptance is still ongoing. Ace identities are often overlooked or misunderstood, and many aces still grow up not realizing that asexuality is an option.
Since the issues aces face are directly influenced by their other marginalized identities, many in our community—especially aces of color, disabled aces, and aces with other LGBTQ+ identities—can face significant barriers to equality and acceptance.

Asexuality was never offered as an option to relate to for child/teenie/adult self. It took me painfully long to realize that this is a possible and valid sexual orientation. When growing up on the countryside, where even homosexuality was verbally disgraced, I would not know about any of it. Heterosexuality was the norm. Moving to the city, there was also no visibility, it was taboo (at least as a topic in circles where I was roaming).
Sex or not having sex is taboo. But not having sex, that must have a reason, which is ‘not normal’.
After this strange test of braveness (the frist time having sex) plus the pressur e of doing it in a certain age span, I had relationships that weren’t that good, I just pretended they were.
Later on I realized that there must be something wrong. I got an endless amount of tips for what I should do to make ‘it’ feel nice for me, which is – in retrospect – hilarious. These tips did point out to something that is not taught in homes or schools – the lack of consent and of learning your kid that they have a choice. A choice to say no in every way, to fulfill what they are, to be themselves.

I wonder why we can’t just accept everyone’s own sexuality, without even asking for this. Can we stop sexualizing? Can we practice good consent? That would be amazingly great.

xx
mxsprout

***