I've been feeling sexual attraction more often lately and...it's been making me question myself again.
This is not a coming-out post. Just the opposite, actually. And for that reason, I've been putting off writing it.
I've been wondering if I'm actually gray-ace or just a relatively disinterested (gray-romantic) bisexual. I never had much in common with the ace community, besides sharing their letter, a lack of interest in sex, and disliking romantic relationships (actually, many aces happily date and I have ace friends who have had boyfriends before. But it's apparently really hard for alloromantic aces to find and keep romantic partners because of the whole sex thing).
And really, being allosexual doesn't mean that I'm hypersexual, constantly horny, or ruled by my sexual desires (it's especially important for me to specify this because I'm part of several hypersexualized communities - bisexual women, nonbinary people, and allosexual aros).
I feel like I might have internalized the toxic mindset that allosexual means hypersexual when I was still identifying as ace. And you have to remember, I do have a background that's pretty steeped in sex-negativity and internalized homophobia and biphobia. No doubt that's influenced me.
But the fact that I internalized these things doesn't mean that EVERY SINGLE PERSON who identifies as ace has, or that every ace ever is sex-negative (which is different from sex-repulsed). I've considered myself a sex-positive feminist for a long time now; I have a sex-positive feminist friend who is sex-repulsed, a proud aromantic asexual, fights slut-shaming, supports sex workers, is pro-choice, and is a LGBTQIA activist.
And she's a Christian, born and raised. Both of us grew up around all the same bullshit that Christian girls are told about their sexualities. Both of us identified as ace at one point. She still does and I no longer do. The fact that I no longer do and that I internalized toxic beliefs about sexuality while identifying as ace says absolutely NOTHING about her or any other asexual or acespec person. They aren't me, and I'm not them. I just want to stress that. My own experiences are absolutely not an excuse to be acephobic, understand?
Good.
Now, the second reason I made this post.
As a non-ace bisexual myself, it would be hypocritical of me to claim that this blog is only for aces. That's why I'm opening it up to allosexual aros. If you're an allosexual aro and would like a position as a writer for our team, please let me know in the comments.
And because it's for alloromantic aces, aromantic aces, and allosexual aros, I'm thinking of changing the name. I picked "A Team Of Amoebas" as a reference to asexual reproduction and as an ace joke, but I don't want to lose my brand recognition either. Currently, my favorite name is The A-Team, but I'm open to suggestions.
Well, that's over with. Please return to your regularly scheduled programming.
This is not a coming-out post. Just the opposite, actually. And for that reason, I've been putting off writing it.
I've been wondering if I'm actually gray-ace or just a relatively disinterested (gray-romantic) bisexual. I never had much in common with the ace community, besides sharing their letter, a lack of interest in sex, and disliking romantic relationships (actually, many aces happily date and I have ace friends who have had boyfriends before. But it's apparently really hard for alloromantic aces to find and keep romantic partners because of the whole sex thing).
And really, being allosexual doesn't mean that I'm hypersexual, constantly horny, or ruled by my sexual desires (it's especially important for me to specify this because I'm part of several hypersexualized communities - bisexual women, nonbinary people, and allosexual aros).
I feel like I might have internalized the toxic mindset that allosexual means hypersexual when I was still identifying as ace. And you have to remember, I do have a background that's pretty steeped in sex-negativity and internalized homophobia and biphobia. No doubt that's influenced me.
But the fact that I internalized these things doesn't mean that EVERY SINGLE PERSON who identifies as ace has, or that every ace ever is sex-negative (which is different from sex-repulsed). I've considered myself a sex-positive feminist for a long time now; I have a sex-positive feminist friend who is sex-repulsed, a proud aromantic asexual, fights slut-shaming, supports sex workers, is pro-choice, and is a LGBTQIA activist.
And she's a Christian, born and raised. Both of us grew up around all the same bullshit that Christian girls are told about their sexualities. Both of us identified as ace at one point. She still does and I no longer do. The fact that I no longer do and that I internalized toxic beliefs about sexuality while identifying as ace says absolutely NOTHING about her or any other asexual or acespec person. They aren't me, and I'm not them. I just want to stress that. My own experiences are absolutely not an excuse to be acephobic, understand?
Good.
Now, the second reason I made this post.
As a non-ace bisexual myself, it would be hypocritical of me to claim that this blog is only for aces. That's why I'm opening it up to allosexual aros. If you're an allosexual aro and would like a position as a writer for our team, please let me know in the comments.
And because it's for alloromantic aces, aromantic aces, and allosexual aros, I'm thinking of changing the name. I picked "A Team Of Amoebas" as a reference to asexual reproduction and as an ace joke, but I don't want to lose my brand recognition either. Currently, my favorite name is The A-Team, but I'm open to suggestions.
Well, that's over with. Please return to your regularly scheduled programming.
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