Ace Admiral

Um. well, that’s a bit of a complicated question.

The thing about the Japanese ace community is that it is 1) fractured, 2) slow. To speak to number 1, there are still people who are hung up on whether romantic aces and aromantic aces should be in the same group. Unlike AVEN, which unites English speakers for better or worse, the communities I see are small and insular, sometimes even just lone bloggers. Which brings us to 2: there’s a lot of stuff that hasn’t been updated in *years* on the Japanese internets about asexuality. It does not help that Japan does not have a particularly strong or visible LGBT movement for aces to piggy-back onto.

I am led to believe that offline spaces are better, but having never been to one, I cannot speak to it. I mean, you hear about in general the places sekumais hang out, but I am not sure where women are meant to go, if there are any spaces for women. I have a feeling this is more me being underinformed than anything, but until recently I have not had any queer-type Japanese friends, and even then, I don’t want to push the one I do have for information because then I would have to reveal why I want it and it’s complicated ._.

So, with that background, to answer your question: No, I have not personally seen any overlap. That’s not to say there isn’t any, but I sort-of doubt it, and here’s why: if you found the word 草食系, which is very well known and has people on the news and in dramas talking about it, why would you continue to search for a “sexual orientation”? I mean, the conceptual boxes of western and Japanese (eastern?) sexuality do not line up very well. And 草食系男子 are conceprually “straight,” as in, they are not a different sexuality, it just manifests less/differently, so there’s no need for those men to interact with the sekumai community.

But… I would also like to punt this question to anyone who may be watching and who knows better than I :D (you know who you are)