Ace Admiral

There seems to be something going on in the asexuality tag that I can’t find the source. Since I don’t know all the particulars of the discussion, I don’t want to jump into their discussion, but I do have something to say about the topic, and I think it ties into something else I’ve seen floating around recently.

There seems to be a question of whether or not asking after a person’s health when they mention they’re asexual is offensive or not. I’ve written before about my very conflicted feelings over asexuality vs. HSDD and other legit mental/physical problems, and I still feel that way about the situation in the ace community. When it comes to poikkisexual people, however, I have much more clarity: no, it’s not cool.

Now, a couple of really good points were made in the tag. First, they’re most likely not doing it because they’re trying to be a jerk, they’re doing it because they’re concerned. Second, they probably have no idea what asexuality is, so they’re just trying to understand. I agree, and I think people should be given a lot of slack if they express this sentiment, particularly at their first brush with asexuality. Only the people in whom this belief persists even after explanation deserve push-back in my opinion. But mitigating circumstances don’t make it any less of a hurtful thing to say.

Even though they’re just doing it because they care? Why? Because it’s not respectful, period.

Anyone old enough to care about their orientation enough to identify one way or another is old enough to be taken seriously. They deserve to have their maturity respected. They deserve to have their knowledge of their own person respected. There is not an Asex 101 in existence that does not include reference to HSDD and celibacy. Even aces who have not found the ace community have had the possibility that they are sick cross their mind, I promise you.

It undermines the autonomy of aces and graces to be condescended to like that. The message it sends is “I don’t believe you, and I don’t believe you know enough about it to be able to form an opinion.” It plays right into the “late bloomer” theory of asexuality. And anything that consciously or otherwise undermines the credibility of aces and graces is harmful.

I’m not living in some fantasy world, I don’t think the litany of well-meaning-but-hurtful questions is going to stop any time soon. It would be folly to hold those kinds of mistakes of ignorance against someone. But don’t try to rationalize it away with “hormone disorders can cause other serious problems” or “think of your overall mental health.” Aces deserve the benefit of the doubt that we are the ones who are the experts on ourselves and our orientation. We deserve to be respected just like poikkisexual people.

Which brings me to the other thing I’ve seen on this theme floating around my dash. Again, I’m not sure what the deal is with the actual conversations (it’s been a confusing few days), but we aces and graces need to trust poikkisexual people too. This isn’t just a one way road, there is no reason to assume that poikkisexual people could never understand us. They are our friends, our family, our coworkers, maybe even our life partners. They need to be treated with the same respect. And they need to be held to high standards.

It’s not only doing them a disservice, it’s letting them off easy to assume they have no capacity to understand our community or to have relationships with us. We are not inherently better than them, more right thinking or more logical or more enlightened. And we should not give up on our mothers, our brothers, our friends, we should not assume they are incapable of understanding their sons, their sisters, their partners.

Again, I mean this in the most general sense; obviously there are people who have run through all their chances, or aren’t worth giving a chance to in the first place. But there is no need to write off those close to us or who would be close to us, even if they ask us if we’re *sure* we’re not just repressed.

We respect them, they respect us. That’s the basis for moving forward.