#carnival of aces submission

[your-blorbos-are-queer]

Can I Please request An AroAce(Preferably Sunset Flag) Sydney(Dark Carnival by @Thrumples/@darkcarnivalcomic) Icon in this Style??:

I saw this and thought- this would be great for Sydney!

here you go! hope you enjoy!

[askanaroace]

A friend suggested I submit this post to the “Carnival of Aros."  It’s about my experiences as an asexual, probably aromantic, single Christian.  

[midnight1nk]

So, this week's episode...

[Spoilers below cut]

I'm absolutely terrified, it's not even funny. I can't even click it. But I have to... for the LOREEEEEEEEE... okay, let's-a go....

(The following is my live reaction:)

ay the TADC plug, of course

"Born to shit, Forced to wipe" - not smg3

wise words Three

also, the Ferris Wheel and rollercoaster thing is still there in the background (Ferris Wheel wedding, my beloved...)

I knew someone was going to bring up Meggy and her disappearance

LEGGY! MEGGY, WE'LL RESCUE YOU I PROMISE!!!

THANK YOU THREE for asking the right questions here

oh... not what I expected. at least the crew knows this is obviously Mr Puzzles

NAME DROP

OK, a LOT to digest here:

These are all the possible minigames that we might see in WOTFI. Well, at least all the attractions we could see...

a Mr Puzzles Chonk plush (in the bottom right)

a Tunnel of Love attraction... hmmmm.......

Huh, I didn't know this was by the coast of the Mushroom Kingdom. Or it could be an island/peninsula.

The what now, Leggy?

YEP I knew that once they found out, they would want to leave

...and of course, Mario wants to stay

Yeah, Luigi said it himself

but also, look at the Mr Puzzles cardboard cutout in the back, he's wearing Meggy's cowboy hat from Western Spaghetti

Alright, but before we go in, we gotta have a buddy system, guys

All these critiques are going to make Mr Puzzles lose himself even more than he already is

I think I saw someone posted about submitting a water gun game so congrats for getting in!

Leggy Plush!!

also spider-man plush... symbiote... venom... GOOP!4????

...Once Upon A Perfect SMG4?

[*points at Four and Mario*] The sillies

ok, but like, why is Three smiling like that while everyone else looks so disappointed?

They did the buddy system!

Bob: "Those dumbasses will see ANYTHING and get excited."

I feel seen and I don't like it.

I don't like this either. I already know this is a trap but like noooooo

Three just standing there like a dad watching over his kid

Someone else also submitted a mini-game involving a ducky fishing game

GOD DAYUM.... why did you have to pose like that, Three? You're not beating the allegations, huh.

Aw, Three really wanted to enjoy a carnival if Mr Puzzles wasn't involved (writers, write that down + carnival dates)

OK NOPE WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE NOW

🫵 🏳️‍🌈⁉️

oh c'mon now, it's just plainly obvious. Not that it should be surprising, everyone's part of the skittle squad (tm)

STRONG WOMEN we love to see it

...that can't be a real thing... can it?

same Luigi same

YES PLEASE CAN WE?

sorry dude, they really locked in

also what the hell is that building in the back?

Luigi (or rather the SMG4 fandom): "See? I can handle this! I'm not afraid anymore! Do you hear me? I'm not afraid-" [*horror jumpscare*] [*scream*]

NOT EVEN MELONY'S GOD POWERS COULD HELP US, WE'RE FUCKED

NOOOOOO NOT KAREN AND SAIKO

THREE WE NEED TO LEAVE NOW

NOOOOOOOO THREEEEE I THOUGHT HE WAS GOING TO BE THE LAST ONE TO MAKE IT OUT

[*sobbing*] he sent one last text to warn them :( he really does care

AND HE SENT IT TO FOUR [*head in hands*]

the contact names they have for each other.... (I'm not well)

WE GOTTA GO [*runs*] GET OUT GET OUT

Leggy... why did your face change like that?

WHAT WAS THAT CRYPTIC CAPTION?!

Mario, please don't sacrifice yourself... oh, thank god! They really are having me panicking for the smallest things

wait... OMG THEY SAW MY SUBMISSION! THEY SAW IT!

the mini-game challenge that I submitted:

Pop & Whirl: Everyone gets a bag of popcorn. The winner must keep all of their popped kernels in their bag, without dropping a single one... while being chased around the carnival by a collapsed Ferris Wheel (Professor Layton style)!

I DON'T CARE IF IT DOESN'T HAPPEN AGAIN IN WOTFI, I'LL TAKE IT. But if it does happen, I'll draw lawyer Meggy with a redesigned Ace Attorney-esque outfit (somehow)

please don't tell me the green pipe is also a trap...

...the exit door from TADC?

oh god, why does this remind me of the dark web?

and the eyes on the mushrooms... [*IGBP flashbacks*]

heh heh, funny mirrors... AH SHIT PUZZLES, DON'T JUMPSCARE ME LIKE THAT

actually, now that I think of it, Mr Puzzles hasn't revealed himself this whole time...

THE DIDNEY ENGINE ROOM?!

...holy shit

so was I right about us getting to see Mr Puzzles' "truest form" and the whole "Eye of Ra" thing?

are those his arms? and the circle things, it could be part of his cyborg texture but they also look like eyes.

the fog part is really interesting because they could've gone with any "spooky" color but they chose this. It's the creative vision, the one Didney had in this room.

This really reminds me of the goo from IGBP and Wren's wire simulation in Western Spaghetti, but also from this angle, a bit of Zero's "no legs" body design.

"His obsession becoming his identity" - Puzzles connected himself to the single star Didney had. You got it right, past Ink.

HUH?! YOU CAN'T END IT THERE

AND THEY GRAY-ED OUT OUTRO, NO MUSIC! IT'S ABOUT TO GO DOWN, GUYS

also congrats to Nikej1708241 for making it to the credits 🎉

.・-: ✧ :--: ✧ :-・.

That was a pretty solid episode ngl. Probably not as "plot twist-y"

(i know that's not a word) as the previous episode but my spaghetti gods, it delivered! Not Marty again, we may have to rethink this one.

Ok, I've made a list of all the attractions and mini-games there are in the carnival grounds in Puzzle Park:

Ferris Wheel

"Tender Tunnel" (Tunnel of Love attraction)

Merry-Go-Round carousel

Basketball arcade game

Hammer game

Bumper Cars

"House of Crazy" funhouse (also that fits Mr Puzzles somehow)

A spooky cart ride

Water gun game

Rocket ride

Arcade (just flat-out an arcade)

Clown Ball Game

(There's apparently a cafe???)

Ducky Pond fishing game

Pizza shop (....marty?)

It's probably not all of them, we would just have to wait and see, but if you submitted a mini-game that involves any of these, congrats, you likely got in!!!

I still very much enjoyed this episode and some of what I theorized could possibly come true. And some didn't, which is totally okay with me. I'll cherish the Ferris Wheel chase scene regardless :)

We still have to wait for a trailer or a special video in regards to WOTFI, which I will have to analyze and see what's to be expected. From the looks of it in this episode, it seems like it's up to SMG4 and Mario to rescue their friends one by one by completing the mini-games. The more people they rescue, the more help they can get to complete the games. And that includes saving Meggy at the end.

Now, personally, I don't want Mr Puzzles to die. Not yet. There is still a lot of potential that could go for him. A similar redemption arc just as Three went through. Puzzlevision 2. Goop!4. Marty. Anything could happen. Then again, he could die.

Now you might think he might not die because he has a plushie, but there's literally merch of Axol and Desti and they're dead. Puzzles isn't safe from this possibility.

Put in your final bets, my dear fellows, because nothing will ever be the same again...

[tabby-shieldmaiden]

Carnival of Aros April 2023 Roundup Post

Well, April is over. Which means it’s time for the roundup post for this month’s Carnival of Aros! This month, I asked for submissions centered around the theme of family, what are your thoughts on it and what you feel about it. Thank you so much to all who participated. Here are this month’s submissions:

Nothing Radical: https://nothingradical.blog/2023/04/23/how-society-delegitimizes-aromantic-family/

Sara Jakša: https://sarajaksa.eu/2023/04/my-though-on-finding-a-family-carnival-of-aros/

AskAnAroAce: https://www.tumblr.com/askanaroace/715817413045813248/april-carnival-of-aros-family-afamilial

Ace Film Reviews: https://acefilmreviews.wordpress.com/2023/04/29/family-wondering-what-could-have-been/

Rachel: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_zHaZQ5rAkvLN5iUcIHck64A74SUF_VL/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=109701227099189063791&rtpof=true&sd=true

Once again, thank you so much to all for participating in this month’s Carnival of Aros. I look forward to further conversations, and future Carnival of Aros events.

[trisockatops]

Being “Older” But a “Younger” Aro

This is my submission for December’s Carnival of Aros, “Getting Older” hosted by roboticanary! As an aside, the Carnival of Aros doesn’t get many submitters or hosters and could use more love, so if you’re aro, please think about joining in!

.

[Edit after I’ve finished: this is a very stream of consciousness piece, so I hope it makes enough sense!]

Though I feel old and weighed down by the world, I’m not really that old. But in the queer community, especially newer communities like the aro or nonbinary community, we tend to label people as “elders” really young. It helps that these communities are seemingly more online than off, where a lot of teenagers and young adults are. And when you discovered such an identity as a teenager and got to grow up with and watch the community evolve for a decade or so, you can easily feel like some sort of elder in the community.

With the aro community, I’m kinda of feeling the opposite. Though I’m 31 and have been involved in the ace community since I was a teenager (back when the aro community was still pretty firmly a subset of the ace community and hadn’t really managed to establish its own, separate community spaces yet - though there was a firm line that aromanticism was a different identity than asexuality), I wasn’t always aro.

I am caedromantic. I used to identify as pan/biromantic until trauma (abuse) ended up cutting my romantic attraction away.

Though even this happened pretty young (began exploring calling myself caedromantic around 21/22), my journey into the aromantic community as an aro rather than an ally was pretty slow. Though aspecs have always been welcoming, there is stigma against being aspec due to outside factors like trauma, and for a long time, this caused me to feel more like an invader than a member of the aromantic community.

For a long time, I felt oddly split down the middle. I preferred to simplify and ID as most others to aromantic rather than specifically caedromantic for ease and privacy. But a part of me couldn’t help feel like I was co-opting the aromantic identity. There are, after all, a lot of common aromantic experiences that I can’t really relate to.

Being asexual certainly meant I never related to my allo peers growing up. And I was both asexual and what one might think of as a “late bloomer” - at least compared to my peers. I knew around 10/11 that I was different from my peers when they started calling celebrities (and sometimes classmates) “hot”, the word dripping with a feeling I couldn’t name or understand but knew was something I could not relate to. For a long time, I thought of myself as having a “nothingness” because I was lacking something everyone around me seemed to have. But I didn’t have to come head to head with being asexual until I was around 16 or so and actually started having romantic crushes (of which, I couldn’t understand wtf I was feeling because I still knew it wasn’t the same as what my peers all felt, until I found AVEN and the word for people like me).

Still, though. Even being on the outskirts of my allo peers, that was an asexual experience. Not an aromantic one. I still eventually developed crushes. I know what romantic attraction feels like. The world of romance, though I’ve never been a strongly romantic person in personality, is not a stranger to me. I know what it’s like, so that sense of confusion and otherness that other aros grew up with isn’t something I can relate to. I always feel like I don’t belong when these conversations come up, even though it’s now been a decade or so since I experienced any romantic attraction, feelings, or inclinations.

Thus I rather waded into the aromantic community as compared to boldly diving into it, as I had with the asexual community.

But, the more time passes, the more my aromanticism settles on me, and the more I want to be a part of the community and show my pride. So, over time, I’ve gotten more involved. I ran (maybe will pick up again?) an aro/ace ask blog. I started following aro bloggers and creators. I spent time on Arocalypse. I volunteer for both AUREA and the Carnival of Aros now.

Which is how I’ve ended up being an “older” aro but a community “young’un”.

I started writing this post with my relationship to the aro community in mind, but now that I’m wrapping this up, I realize it’s also about my aro identity as a whole, and how I’ve accepted it more and more as I age. It’s easier to be a part of community when you can accept that you have a place there, and that claiming space, you are adding to the community - not detracting or stealing from it.

Thank you to all the aros who helped me along this journey, even just by staunchly being yourselves (or struggling to be yourself but being honest and vulnerable about it and showing me that I’m not alone). I hope that as I continue to age and grow, I can provide this sort of example and support to aros of any age coming to realize they are aro and/or trying to come to terms with being aro.

[stephen-deadalus]

Carnival of Aces Call for Submissions, March 2021

thought I’d post this month’s call for subs for the carnival of aces here as well as on wordpress (a bit late, lol)--but see below for more info! do draw/write/etc. something if you’re interested, as I’ve only gotten one or two subs thus far!

Hey all! I’m hosting the Carnival of Aces again this month! For more information on this project (or to volunteer to host it), see its masterpost on The Asexual Agenda. In short: I’ll propose a prompt for conversation, and those interested in responding to it can do so. At the end of the month, I’ll put together a post that links to everything submitted. Submissions can be anything I can link to in a blog like this one: other blog posts, images, videos, creative writing, music/sound files, etc. Comment below with links to what you’d like to submit, or email me at cbnk5@mail.missouri.edu. (If you’d like me to post your response for you–whether because you’d like it to be anonymous or for another reason–email me your submission, and I can post it here.) Finally–if you’re a Twitter person, feel free to retweet or respond to this call for subs here. You can find last month’s carnival call for subs here and its roundup here. The topic was “comparing ace spaces”!

Topic: dreams

Did I come up with this month’s prompt while sitting in my bathroom, journal in my lap? No one can prove it! There’ve been enough monthly carnival topics that I always feel like I’ll never be able to think of a new one, but somehow they happen! Posting this on the 2nd of March as it’s been a fairly rough week and a half (which, hopefully, will start looking up in a bit).

My topic idea for this week: dreams! I’ve been talking about them with a few people this month: weird ones that are actually quite nice, terrible nightmares, nightmares that objectively terrible but not as frightening as they could be, etc. The word recalls both unintentional scenes experienced during sleep or much more intentional goals crafted during waking hours. In regards to my ace identity: when I’m awake, I dream that more of my family would one day just get my asexuality; when I’m asleep, I dream about being in intimate relationships or moments that I think I only like because they’re not real, they’re brief, and they don’t feel so physical or embodied. Dreams can be feel very achievable or very impossible, or they can actually be impossible, paradoxical, unachievable.

Below are a few questions and prompts to get you started, if you’d like. Alternatively: I just made an online voice message box whose free version lets people leave messages up to 90 seconds. If you’d like, leave a message here, and I’ll compile those messages into a video/audio file to share at the end of the month! (Maybe a collage type of thing?)

Questions, prompts, and ideas (if you’d like)

What dreams do you have that are goals, achievable or not, or for yourself/others/the ace community?

Are your dreams ever ace-related? Or, do you ever connect the content of your dreams to your ace identity?

What’s something you dream of that’s impossible, or impossible for you/others/the ace community right now?

Try keeping a short dream journal and write a few words down every time you remind a dream you’ve had.

Compose a creative work (writing, drawing, collage, etc.) that depicts some aspect of your ace identity or experiences in a dreamy or surreal kind of way.

Leave a voice message about a dream you had/have here.

[ace-muslim]

Asexual Muslim resistance, activism, and self care: Creating Change 2017 and me

This post is for the February Carnival of Aces.

Author note: I originally intended to write this post soon after I got back from Creating Change a month ago. However, thanks to the start of my spring term Arabic classes the week after my return, to the emotional stresses of #MuslimBan that hit right after that, and to the need to get caught up on my other responsibilities while all this was going on, it’s taken me rather longer than I expected to actually get this post out!

I attended the Creating Change conference in Philadelphia from January 18 to January 22, 2017. I had several different goals for the conference, reflecting different facets of my identity and work:

connect in person with other aces

connect in person with other queer Muslims

attend anti-racism workshops to further my volunteer work with the Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative (MuslimARC)

attend organization building workshops relevant to the needs of MuslimARC

attend sessions on spirituality and self-care to help me in coping with burnout

The fact that I could further my interests in so many different areas of my life is why I was so excited to attend the conference. MuslimARC is not an ace or queer organization but since I have access to the resources that Creating Change offers due to my own ace and queer identity, I figured I might as well take advantage of it.

To my delight, I was able to attain all of my goals for the conference and benefit in each of these areas of my life.

Due to the way my asexuality, my being a Muslim convert, and my accessibility limitations intersect, I have difficult in connecting with groups in my local area. The Muslim spaces nearby that I am able to get to are usually not welcoming to me and not places where I fit in at all. I have been making efforts for the last several years to show up anyway because I hoped that even a flawed space would be better than nothing, which is what I have otherwise and what I had for most of the time since I converted.

Creating Change offered a chance to participate in spaces that are more inclusive of my identities. These spaces were limited - just one panel and one official gathering for each of my core identities (the ace inclusivity panel and ace caucus on the one hand and the Islamophobia panel and jumu’a prayer service on the other) - or on the margins (the unofficial ace hospitality suite and the unofficial queer Muslim caucus) but they did exist. While I could see ways these groups might fall short of providing all the support I need on an ongoing basis, within the context of the conference just the fact that they were there at all was enough.

Beyond just finding community spaces where I could meet others who share identities with me, I was able to have deep conversations with David Jay and with queer Muslim activist leaders Imam Tynan Power and Palmer Shepherd telling them my personal story and the issues I experience and even advocating for greater inclusion of asexual Muslims. The Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity (MASGD), which both Ty and Palmer are actively involved with, has not made any efforts so far to reach out to asexual Muslims or even acknowledge in their public materials that we exist and I emphasized to Ty and Palmer how important it is to mention aces by name because otherwise we will assume that we are not welcome. Meanwhile, I gave DJ a reference to my Asexuality and Islam website and a printout of asexual Muslim data gleaned from the ace census, so that he can amplify these resources.

The most valuable thing about these three talks was that although each group represents only half of my identity by itself, I was able to share all of myself with them. These were probably the most deeply validating experiences of the whole conference for me. And while there is still no actual asexual Muslim community (a continuing frustration of mine), I hope that my work in these conversations can help other asexual Muslims as individuals find the same validation I did.

Meanwhile, as I attended the Racial Justice Institute and a session on building sustainable funding for nonprofit organizations, I found that I was able to reference MuslimARC frequently, contribute usefully to the conversations based on my experiences volunteering there, and learn some tools and frameworks that will be useful to MuslimARC’s work. I even decided it would be useful to list MuslimARC as my organizational affiliation at future Creating Change conferences to continue building in this area. This was a pleasant surprise.

Two other workshops I attended with a racial justice focus, the Police Violence Institute and the alternatives to law enforcement session, gave me something I hadn’t expected - an insight into how Creating Change can be useful to connect ace youth, especially those from marginalized backgrounds, to LGBTQ resources that already exist to help address the larger systemic issues they face. I was able to talk with the head of an LGBTQ center in Colorado about asexuality, discover that they are already seeing ace youth seeking out their resources, and connect them with Asexual Outreach to get information and resources on asexuality. The opportunities for networking at Creating Change are amazing and next year I might print out some resources from Asexual Outreach to be able to give to people!

On the spiritual front, I made use of the Many Paths Spiritual Gathering Place as a prayer room - with five daily prayers, the logistics of being Muslim at a busy conference can be tricky and having that dedicated space out of the crowds made things a lot easier. I got to know the spiritual care team there and through the centering care workshop and the session on building an authentic spiritual path. Because of the limited space provided for Muslims specifically at the conference, and because Ty is only one person, the spiritual care team ended up providing me with a lot of support and friendship I didn’t expect to receive. Beyond this, some of the practices and ideas I gained from these sessions are things I am slowly working to implement in my life back home with links to both queer spirituality and anti-racist self-work.

Speaking of the unexpected, the conference pushed me way out of my comfort zone in multiple ways. I was initially very anxious about wearing both hijab and obvious ace gear at an LGBTQ conference where I wasn’t sure either identity would be fully welcome - but I spent five days as a very visible asexual Muslim and most people hardly blinked.

I did experience a few microaggressions, all related to being Muslim (none were related to being ace). While I was attending the Police Violence Institute a white woman acted to me in a way that I found rather tokenizing (”I’ve never seen a queer Muslim before! Can I have your business card?”) and I had to spend several minutes educating her about effective allyship (build relationships with the affected community and learn what they need you to do, then do that).

Also, at the end of the ace caucus, a white ace came up and asked me if I was a nun (yes, I consider this a microaggression). I also got this question from a random stranger while I was buying food in Reading Terminal Market one afternoon. Still, I was expecting a lot worse than this and I was really very pleasantly surprised by how unfazed most attendees were by me. Shout-out to the hijabis who have attended past conferences and paved the way for me.

Besides wearing hijab and ace gear all the time, I ended up on stage during the opening plenary session (me? shy Laura?) and even attended the lesbian caucus. I wasn’t forced to come out as anything (except as Muslim because I was wearing hijab) since there was just a large group discussion I listened to but didn’t take part in. But this was the first time I had made a public connection for myself between being homoplatonic and lesbian identity. I’m still hesitant to identify as an asexual lesbian specifically, but I took a baby step that evening and I’m proud of myself for that.

As if all this wasn’t enough, I participated in the Philadelphia Women’s March draped in an ace pride flag (and wearing an ace pride hijab) and shouting slogans like “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re fabulous, don’t fuck with us” alongside Mary and Brian, which was pretty freaking awesome. Between that and being at a session on combatting Islamophobia and then at a queer Muslim prayer service during Trump’s inauguration, I figure I put a distinctively asexual Muslim stamp on my resistance that I plan to continue.

Creating Change 2017 was a life-changing experience that for the first time brought my whole self together in a single activist space. I’m still struggling every day with burnout but this was just the self-care I needed to help me get through a very tough time.

[queerascat]

The Carnival of Aces is a monthly blogging event, focused on asexuality and the asexual spectrum. It is run by Siggy of the Asexual Agenda blog, but is hosted each month by different ace bloggers. The host chooses a theme, and anyone can submit blogs or videos on the topic!

So. Hello! I’m Sophia, and I’m the Carnival of Aces host for February 2018. I wanted to talk about mental health in relation to being ace. This is a topic that’s been done before in the Carnival, but it was quite a while ago and is a topic that’s really important to me.

If you’re stuck for ideas, here are a few [ ... ]

....in case anyone is interested in submitting something for this.

[asexualresearch]

Notes for the “Asexuality & Academia” Carnival of Aces from an (autistic) asexual academic

Submitted by CJ DeLuzio Chasin

Some Carnival of Aces readers will probably already be familiar with my name 1. I've published several academic papers about asexuality 2. And for a while, I was one of only 2 asexual people writing academically about asexuality (the other being Andrew Hinderliter). There are many more of us now—mostly students. Some are out about their aceness, some are not (so I won't name anyone). My participation in academic writing about asexuality is intrinsically linked with my own asexuality.

This post addresses 2 topics:

why I have written about asexuality academically, specifically as an “out” ace person (and more recently an autistic aromantic asexual)

what's involved in the peer-review process (for people who aren't already familiar with this) and why it isn't (yet) working “properly” for asexuality scholarship

Why / how I somehow ended up being one of the first out “ace” asexuality scholars:

I didn't start out wanting to write academically about asexuality. I actually tried to avoid it and have been studying other things in grad school—asexuality is not the focus of my research. In the first few years of my grad school experience, anything about asexuality beyond the basics (e.g., info that might be found within AVEN's FAQ's) would have been incomprehensible to an academic audience (and therefore unpublishable). Things were so basic that “this research finding has implications for asexual people and by the way, asexuality is a thing” was a viable academic paper/poster/presentation on its own 3. I wasn't really interested in committing myself to a career of doing ace 101 for academics— I was already doing enough of that in my community and everyday life.

But apparently, I can't help myself. Fumbling along hap-hazardly in my life, reacting to various things as the ace I am, there have been a number of times when I've been inspired to throw my thoughts at academic audiences. (Afterall, I am one of the aces with the capacity to produce academic-speak relevant to the specific disciplines primarily generating asexuality scholarship, and I was apparently one of the first to endeavour to do so.) At this point, I've published more about asexuality than anything else, so I've had to admit to myself that, despite my intentions, I'm something of an asexuality scholar. Part of that, though, is that I've been largely out of the “academic game” for the past few years for medical reasons— hopefully temporarily. The type of theoretical work involved in my writing about asexuality fits better within the context of my current limitations than, say, the type of intensive data-driven qualitative work involved in my ongoing (non-asexuality-focused) research. (The same applies to clinical-audiological applications of probability theory—my second-place topic, entirely unrelated to my main research area.)

The academic asexuality writing that I've done has been in my capacity as a member of a community that other academics and clinicians were studying (or treating), albeit as an academically inclined one— certainly not as “the voice of that community”, but nevertheless as “a voice from that community”. This writing is grounded in who I am as an ace person, saying things I have to say because I'm ace (largely either implicitly or explicitly in response to various misunderstandings surrounding asexuality in academic and popular spaces). For this reason, I have engaged in this writing as an “out” asexual person. The asexual part of my experience and identity matters to my academic writing about asexuality.

For similar reasons, I've also named some other aspects of my experience in this writing—specifically situating myself also as aromantic and autistic 4 in contexts where those things were specifically relevant. Naming myself publicly as autistic is something I thought long and hard about, especially because I can't take it back and don't know what the long-term professional consequences might be. However, academics have now started discussing “autism” when considering whether asexuality might “represent a symptom of a mental disorder (or a mental disorder itself,)” 5 even if some endorse a paradigm of neurodiversity or “neuro-atypicality”6. Because of this, I felt it was important for me to declare my presence as an autistic asexual within the academic conversation. Especially as someone whose name would already be recognisable to many asexuality scholars, situating myself as autistic partly functioned as an assertion that at least one of us autistic aces has been part of asexuality scholarship from early on (and therefore that others may already be present too).

At the same time, I am mindful that my (autistic) asexual positionality limits the kinds of arguments people would be willing to accept from me. Who I am, and the space I occupy in society, really matters to the academic writing I do about asexuality. My asexuality doesn't matter because I think it will make non-ace academics take me more seriously— I think my own asexuality actually makes some people less inclined to take me seriously when writing about asexuality. (In contrast, my whiteness does not make people less likely to take me seriously writing about asexuality, even if perhaps it should— my whiteness means that my asexual experience is very specifically a white asexual experience.) The reason my asexuality matters to my academic asexuality writing is because it's part of why I'm doing that writing in the first place... even if it limits what kinds of arguments I can make “work”. That kind of limitation is also part of why it's not always safe for people (especially students) to be “out” about various aspects of their identities, why I am cautious about which parts of my experience I share, and why I have chosen to keep certain things off the academic/public record. My interest in asexuality scholarship isn't “academic” really: it's personal and political. This isn't my career— it's my life.

And in deference to Chrysocolla Town's comment about scholars “who insist in presenting asexuality as an messianic ideology that will not only end cisheteronormativity, but also the patriarchy, traditional politics and capitalism”... I should note that I do believe that an ace-friendly social context would be radically different than the ones we have today. I believe that in order to re-shape societies in such a way that they would become genuinely hospitable to ace folks, some fundamental social changes would have to happen, including ending both cisheteronormativity and patriarchy. I don't believe that asexuality will create those changes, just by existing. But gosh darn it, I will work toward the revolution. (As I said, this is my life.)

Demystifying the Peer Review Process (as it applies to asexuality scholarship):

Anyone in academia will already be familiar with the peer review process, but there are a lot of ace community members who read the asexuality literature who've never been through grad school or the scholarly peer review process. I strongly believe that asexuality scholarship should be accessible to (non-academic) ace community members. Part of understanding the academic literature, though, is understanding its context. Academic publications need to go through the lengthy, complicated peer review process. Since ace discourse and community have developed so quickly, the landscape of asexuality has time to shift between when articles are first written and when they are finally published. Also, while the peer review process generally functions to improve the quality of scholarship by making it more of a collaborative project, that isn't really working yet when it comes to articles about asexuality, for various reasons.

So here's some info:

what happens during the peer review process?

making required changes while keeping the integrity of the text

post-acceptance: copy-editing, copyright transfer agreements and “open access”

quality of peer review and “relevant expertise” to review asexuality-related works

Logistics: what happens during the peer review process?

When an author submits something to an academic journal, the editor has a quick look at it. As long as the article seems like it reasonably fits the scope of the journal and the submission guidelines (e.g., it's the appropriate length), then the editor passes it along for peer review. The editor invites reviewers who have “relevant expertise” (based on their publication record or recommendations from colleagues with “relevant expertise”). For most scholarly publications, reviewers are not paid to review articles— it's considered a type of “academic service” that people participate in voluntarily because it's necessary to the project of having peer reviewed journals. In psych and social sciences, there are often around 3 reviewers. Things might be different in other fields of study.

The process is supposed to be “blind” (the reviewers aren't supposed to know who wrote the article, and the authors aren't supposed to know who is reviewing it). Invited reviewers who agree are sent an anonymous version of the manuscript and have a set amount of time to write up comments on the paper. (Reviewers who decline are often asked for recommendations of colleagues to serve as reviewers for the paper.)

Reviewers are tasked with giving (ideally constructive) feedback to authors and recommendations to the editor— for example, about whether the article should be accepted for publication, accepted conditional on some revisions, rejected but invited to resubmit when changes are made, or rejected outright (and not invited to resubmit the piece). Different journals have different options. In my discipline, reviewers have about a month to submit their reviews (although some journals have longer or shorter time frames). Reviewer time frames might be different in other disciplines. Depending on the journal and the editor's workload, sometimes the editor makes a decision quickly, while at other times, it takes months after the reviews are in.

The editor looks at the reviews and makes a decision, informed by the reviews but not necessarily limited by them—editors have a lot of discretion. The editor sends a decision letter to the corresponding author which includes their own feedback, saying which changes are mandatory and which are more discretionary. The letter includes the anonymous reviews in their entirety. Sometimes the editor interjects comments into reviews if the editor has a reason to disagree (or to tell the author that they either must follow or alternatively don't need to follow the reviewer's particular recommendation about something).

Typically, the author revises the piece and resubmits it along with a letter explaining how they incorporated the reviewer feedback, and if they didn't follow a particular reviewer recommendation, justifying why they didn't. Depending on the editor's original decision, that might be the end of things and the paper gets accepted, or it goes back to the same reviewers (or occasionally to a new set of reviewers if the original reviewers don't agree to re-review the paper).

Sometimes (but not always) reviewers get to see the other reviewers' reviews (also anonymous to each other)— typically though only after they've submitted their own review and/or after the decision letter goes out. Sometimes (but not always) reviewers get to see the decision letter send by the editor to the corresponding author. As the decision letter is typically addressed to the corresponding author, this can lead to anonymous reviewers finding out the authorship of the paper (meaning that reviewers might know whose work they are reviewing when they re-review manuscripts).

The pragmatic balancing act of revisions: making required changes while keeping the integrity of the text

There are often changes that are required in order for the piece to be published. If the anonymous reviewers want you to explain basic stuff, you need to include that explanation. (Often this is helpful because if they don't understand what you're talking about, chances are that your readers won't either. But it also means that a lot of the content will be redundant for ace community folks reading the research.) But the flip side of that, since journals have pretty strict word-limits (or page limits) is that you can only do so much in a particular paper. If the area of study (like asexuality) is still relatively new, it might not be possible to get to the more advanced analyses in a paper until at least someone publishes the basic introductory overview in an academic space. (Even if that info is published in many non-academic places already, academia requires the very basic things to be established in academic journals before authors writing about more complex ideas can take any of that content for granted.)

If your editor wants you to talk about a particular area in the literature, then you need to talk about it—you don't necessarily need to take the position the editor takes toward that literature, but you do need to address is. (For example, the only reason I discussed research measuring physiological genital arousal in my 2011 paper was because this was one of the editor's requirements. My discussion was a fairly harsh critique of that line of research, but I had to include something about it even though I would have preferred to avoid it entirely for various reasons.)

Different journals have different politics and particular topics that are considered important to address or even sacrosanct. While any decent editor will allow pieces from various different perspectives, including ones with which they personally disagree. Nevertheless, not everything will be acceptable in any given journal. The review process can sometimes be a balancing act trying to preserve the integrity of the piece while making it acceptable to the journal. This isn't always possible (but in theory authors will pick journals where their work will “fit”). Ideally, the final article will communicate something the author believe in, even if it's not the same thing the author set out to communicate in the first place.

Understandably, the peer review process often takes a long time. Depending on how many rounds of reviews happen, how long they take, the editorial queue, and how much time passes between the piece being accepted and actually being published, it's possible that a couple years will have passed between when you first submitted the piece and when it comes out. The discursive landscape can change so radically in that time, especially in the context of asexuality. Journal often list the “submitted on” and “accepted on” dates (along with other dates for revisions, etc.) when the articles are finally published. And many articles are published rather quickly “online first” these days (even if they aren't assigned to a journal for a significant period of time).

There's a lot that goes into shaping academic papers beyond what the people writing them have to say that's worth considering when you pick up an academic paper. Even academic papers are artifacts that are necessarily embedded within particular contexts and are best understood in that context. Why was a piece written the way it was? Why did an author make a particular argument— what other arguments were they explicitly or implicitly responding to? Some part of the “why” should ideally be because it's what the author wanted to say. But some of the answer will always have to do with what went on behind the scenes. Academic articles are strategic texts, created in particular contexts for particular purposes and with definite limits and limitations (like length)—just like other texts, except that the academic part of the context isn't necessarily obvious or accessible to readers.

After a paper is accepted: copy-editing and copyright transfer agreements and limits of “open-access”

When a paper is accepted (and any needed revisions submitted), it needs to be typeset. Depending on the timeline of the journal—whether they wait to typeset it until the issue of the journal comes along where it will finally appear, or whether they typeset it right away and post an “online first” version online, before it actually appears in an issue—the wait-times vary. But once it reaches typesetting, there's usually a quick turnaround time.

Authors might have a week or so to look over and provide corrections to the galley proofs. (This is important because sometimes they accidentally chop off a chunk of text, or maybe the editor re-words something to streamline the writing style that ends up completely changing its meaning. Or maybe they spell your name wrong repeatedly, or completely forget to include the names of co-authors...) Usually changes at this stage are supposed to be very small, and literally correcting errors that they make, but this is also the last opportunity to correct any content-errors (or to add any last minute details, especially if they are really small in terms of wording changes).

Typically, it will also be necessary for authors to sign over the copyright of the work to the publisher. Different journals have different copyright transfer agreements. This is a complicated issue. (It is extremely rare for journals to allow authors the possibility of keeping the copyright themselves, and Feminist Studies is the only journal I know of that does this.) Sometimes the copyright transfer agreements go as far as to prevent the authors from re-using their own work (or requiring that they pay the journal for the privilege of using it, just like anyone else)! They almost always disallow authors from posting the final version of their text online, either ever or for an initial period of time (e.g., 1-2 years after publication).

Often journals allow authors to go with the “open access” option where their work will be “open access” (i.e., not behind a paywall and therefore freely available online) forever. The catch, unfortunately, is that authors typically have to pay a fee of several thousand dollars 7 for this option, though there are some universities (especially in various countries in Europe) which pay the fees for their people. Basically, (if you're not from one of those universities), if you have a fancy research grant that will pay the fee, you can have your work be freely available, but otherwise, the paywall is unavoidable.

While there are a handful of “open access journals” (where all content is freely available), the quality of the peer review and standard for publication is (at this early stage) suspect in many of them which are legitimate scholarly publications; and many other “open access journals” are predatory journals (that charge authors fees to have their work published, and often forgo the peer review process entirely). Fortunately, legitimate scholarly open access publications are increasingly establishing themselves, particularly in the humanities— often as “online only” journals. Many academics in fields where there are viable open access journal options are choosing only to publish in those journals. (Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of “open access” journals in psychology—where much of the asexuality scholarship is coming from— are predatory journals.)

The journals themselves are directly making money from the publications, but they're alone in that benefit. Authors don't get paid for their publications in academic journals. In contrast, for example, if a fiction periodical or a newspaper include a piece in their publication, the authors—the fiction writer or journalist—will typically get paid for their work. Academic journals don't work that way. 8

Instead, this is in a system where academic publications are supposed to be written by professors—professors being paid to do academic activities including writing, and the publications themselves are “products” proving their productivity. Other people who write academic papers aren't being paid to do it. Any personal benefits of publishing are indirect. For example, grad students' publications help their careers insofar as they might ultimately lead to jobs (or at least are necessary preconditions for employment). And tenure-track faculty need to publish a certain number of papers in order to get tenure (i.e., “publish or perish”).

If academics aren't sharing their work publicly, it's generally because doing so would be breaking the law and risking significant fines and/or being banned from future publishing in scholarly journals... not because they'll loose money.

Quality of peer review and “relevant expertise” to review asexuality-related works

Until a couple years ago, it was almost guaranteed that most or all the people serving as anonymous peer reviewers for papers on asexuality were themselves only vaguely familiar with asexuality and existing asexuality scholarship. Now, from what I can tell, it's kind of hit and miss.

I have certainly had feedback from reviewers on my own work, and seen feedback on other people's work from co-reviewers, that revealed that those reviewers either did not know what they were talking about or didn't have the background to give meaningful feedback. This is slowly changing, as more and more people get involved in asexuality scholarship and therefore find themselves in the pool of people being asked to review potential publications.

However, with a few notable exception, most of the people working on asexuality-related topics are students (and early career professors). That's not a bad thing, but it does mean the the people publishing about asexuality generally have less experience with the peer review process than people publishing in many other areas 9. And that will impact the learning curve of new reviewers. People aren't typically ever formally “taught” how to give peer reviews. Reviewing is a skill people develop as they go, and model after the reviews of others on their own work, sometimes under the guidance of an academic supervisor. Students generally have had fewer reviews of their work to learn from. Also, students studying asexuality will generally be less likely to have invitations for peer review passed along by their supervisors than students studying other things (because their supervisors generally aren't reviewing asexuality-related manuscripts).

Typically (in my field at least) it is unusual for someone who is not at least a senior PhD student to be asked to review an article, and even then, they are often invited by referral from a supervisor. (Even if a senior student hasn't yet “proven” their expertise to their colleagues through their publications, their supervisor would know if they are ready for the tasks and can appropriately refer them.) This means that students studying asexuality will have to have garnered the attention of people who don't work directly with them (i.e., via their publications) in order to get invited to serve as peer reviewers. Fortunately, the number of people publishing about asexuality has massively increased over the past 5 years.

I am hopeful that within the next few years, most of the people serving as peer reviewers for manuscripts about asexuality will actually have “expertise” in asexuality / asexuality scholarship (and not just tangentially relevant “expertise”). And I believe that will significantly improve the quality of the peer review process.

Endnotes:

People are constantly misspelling my name, mistaking the two-letter “CJ” first-name for initials. My actual initials (“ “C. D. C.”), by sheer unfortunate happenstance, coincide with a major US body focused on disease (i.e., the CDC). ↩︎

Despite my somewhat technophobic sensibilities, I have a very rudimentary website for the sole purpose of making my asexuality-related work available to people in the community. Links to some of my papers are available there. However, because of how copyright transfer agreements work, what I'm legally allowed to post online is limited. But I am allowed to e-mail articles that are only available behind a paywall to people who specifically ask me for them (so please do!). My brother set up my website for me (in about 15 minutes) in a format I'd be able to update myself. As might be obvious to more technically inclined folks, it's a subdomain of his professional composer website—which is significantly snazzier than my simple list and which hosts some of his music for people to check out. ↩︎

For instance, this is a poster I presented in 2009 at the Canadian Psychological Association conference. In order to present it, I needed to give some asexuality 101 just so that people could follow what I was saying. Eventually, I'll get around to writing up it up as a paper now that I wouldn't have to spend a significant chunk of the paper explaining asexuality and justifying its existence. ↩︎

Chasin, C. D. (2017). Considering Asexuality as a Sexual Orientation and Implications for Acquired Female Sexual Arousal/Interest Disorder. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 46 (3), 631-635. DOI: 10.1007/s10508-016-0893-1. [currently available without a paywall] ↩︎

Brotto, L. A., & Yule, M. (2017). Asexuality: Sexual orientation, paraphilia, sexual dysfunction, or none of the above? Archives of Sexual Behavior, 46 (3), 619-627. DOI:10.1007/s10508-016-0802-7. [currently available without a paywall] ↩︎

Scherrer, K. S., & Pfeffer, C. A. (2017). None of the above: Toward identity and community-based understandings of (a)sexualities. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 46 (3), 643–646. DOI: 10.1007/s10508-016-0900-6. [currently available without a paywall] ↩︎

As much as peer-reviewed academic journals rely on unpaid service from academics to keep them functioning, the journals themselves are for-profit enterprises and not social services, for better or worse. Journals make money from the work of authors. The justification for charging very large fees for “open access” seems to be for the journal to get money upfront to offset the “lost future revenues” from article-sales that will no longer happen. ↩︎

Book-writing is the only forum where academics might directly benefit financially from their writing, and even then, that's usually limited to earning a small portion of the profits from writing/editing a book that sells many copies (i.e., the editors of popular first-year textbooks make significant money from them). Even then, contributors to edited books—e.g., books with pieces with a number of different authors— typically don't get any financial compensation at all, just like for journal articles. And books about more specific topics or “upper-level” textbooks (often written by a single author) typically sell few copies, so authors' royalties from them are typically also minimal. ↩︎

It also means that students researching asexuality don't benefit from the expertise of their supervisors as much as students doing other research, which can impact the ultimate quality of the work. Even single-author papers are typically informed by collective scholarship— and this is especially true for student-led publications. The networks of people able to add meaningful contributions to asexuality-related work are still underdeveloped: supervisors and peer reviewers have themselves mostly been topic-novices. So this work is going to be at a disadvantage when it comes to looking a the overall calibre of the scholarship. Hopefully this will change as these former students move into more senior positions and start supervising students of their own. ↩︎

[quietnqueer]

Why identifying as aromantic is important to me (as a 36-year-old woman)

Submission to the October 2020 Carnival of Aros on the theme of ‘Prioritization’. 

I identify as aromantic asexual (aro/ace). Both parts of that identity are important to me, but the aro one particularly so. Why? Because at 36 years old, society’s amatonormativity has more of an effect on me than its allonormativity.

In your teens and twenties, sex is a huge deal. There’s a lot of pressure to have sex and to be sexually desirable. But by the time you reach your mid-30s, this eases off. Your allosexual peers’ obsession with sex starts to wane, and you find less conversations about it taking place in your everyday life. In fact, if I were to admit to a 30/40/50-something allosexual person that I’m just not that interested in sex, I reckon there’s a good chance I’d receive a nod of recognition.

However, if I were to say that I’m not interested in having a relationship? That I intend to be ‘forever alone’? Well, that would raise eyebrows.  For in amatonormative society, partnering up and settling down with someone, in the form of a mutually exclusive, ‘romantic’ relationship, is deemed inevitable; essential; the natural order of things. As you get older, society can (just about) countenance you not wanting sex. But it can’t comprehend you wanting to remain single.

  When younger, aro people can get away with saying things like, ‘oh, I’m not looking for a relationship’, or, ‘I’m not interested in getting married’, in response to those seemingly innocuous, everyday questions we all get asked such as, ‘have you got a partner?’ and ‘are you married?’ Why? Because people assume that��s just your age talking, not your orientation. However, as you get closer to 40, being asked these kinds of questions can fill aro people with trepidation. How to explain that you’re just not that way inclined, when the overriding message from society is that you should be?

I remember a work lunch a few years ago, at which the conversation amongst my colleagues turned to talk about their husbands; how they met them; how they popped the question. Obviously, I had nothing to share on this topic, but that was okay; in my colleagues’ eyes, I was still young, with plenty of time to find My Man. I do wonder though, had I stayed in that job, how my colleagues’ attitudes towards me might have changed as the years went by and I continued to stay single. How would they have accounted for my singleness? With open-mindedness or prejudice?

For this is another issue aro people face as they get older. As the years go by, you become more conscious of what your family and any long-standing friends/co-workers might be making of your perma-singleness. Do they think me socially inept? Emotionally under-developed? Frigid? Pitiful? Just… not normal? Such is the stronghold amatonormativity has over our lives, that to lead a single life leaves you open to being perceived in all sorts of narrow-minded and unkind ways.

  This is why claiming an aromantic identity is so important to me at this stage of my life. Whilst I’m still not really ‘out’ as aro, just coming out to myself has made all the difference. Now I know who/what I am, people can make whatever assumptions they like about me; that I’m a socially inept loner, whatever; it doesn’t matter. Knowing I’m aro, I feel the sting of the prejudicial attitudes our hetero/amatonormative society has towards single women a lot less, and am a lot more secure in myself.

  Knowing I’m aro also helps when it comes to just being able to deal with everyday adult conversation; so much of which is centred around people’s dating lives, their married lives, their coupled-up nuclear family lives.  For alloromantics – i.e. the majority of people – their ‘romantic’ relationship, and the family they create around that, is the very foundation of their lives. So, of course this ends up being the subject of a lot of everyday chit-chat, whether at the family dinner table or round the office water cooler. But for those of us who are aro/arospec, these most ‘normal’ and mundane of conversations can be awkward at best and alienating at worst.

My aro identity provides a much-needed bulwark against this. Before I discovered aromanticism, when I found myself in conversations about marriage and dating and settling down, I would often end up feeling insecure and embarrassed because my lack of relationship experience meant I had no similar anecdotes or stories to share. And even though I knew I didn’t actually want a relationship, and felt on some innate level that I was destined to stay single, this didn’t stop me from wondering whether the fact I’d made it all the way to 30 without ever having been in a relationship, or gone a date, meant there was something wrong with me.  If I hadn’t discovered aromanticism, I can imagine these feelings of shame and embarrassment would only have intensified as I got older.

But now I know I am aromantic, I understand my non-existent relationship history to be a sign of my aromanticism, rather than of there being something ‘wrong’ with me, whether socially, emotionally, or physiologically. Again, this doesn’t mean I’m at the stage where I feel comfortable being all ‘I’m aro!’ when talking to people. But it does mean I can hold my head a bit higher when I find myself caught up in conversations in which everyone’s going on about their love lives.

  As I get older, it’s my aromanticism that makes me feel queer in the world. My peers, siblings and cousins are coupling up and settling down, and here I remain, steadfastly single. As a result, I become more conscious of how my lack of romantic attraction sets me apart from others more than my lack of sexual attraction. No one’s quizzing me on the details of my sex life, or asking me who I ‘fancy’, anymore. But people do enquire about my relationship status. And people are likely to make all sorts of not-very-nice assumptions about that 30/40/50-something woman in their midst who continues to stay single. This is why, now I’m in my mid-30s, I have more of a need to give a name to, and to understand, my lack of interest in romantic relationships, than I do my lack of interest in sex. Claiming an aromantic identity helps me to navigate the amatonormativity which is all-pervasive in everyday adult life; and to navigate it with pride.

[graces-of-luck]

Carnival of Aros: Round-up March 2021

I would like to thank everyone who participated in the March 2021 Carnival of Aros on the theme of Intersectionality and Inclusivity. I am grateful and humbled that people took the time to share their thoughts and experiences. I learned a lot by reading about their experiences, and I hope the rest of the community can be made better by these. Below is the list of submissions.

aroaceingit (she/they) wrote about how her/their aromanticism intersects with her/their disabilities and how this can make it hard to function. She/they expresses, “it’s also very hard for me to picture any future that doesn’t have me feeling and functioning the way I do now. And for that reason, I am afraid to be alone.”  

Isaac (he) at Mundo Heterogéneo discusses a couple of intersectionalities, such as cultural background, gender identity, and relationship cardinality. He ends with expressing, “What I expect from a community about its intersections is to follow the Latin proverb “primum non nocere,” first not to harm.”   

Temple Dragon (they/them) wrote about disability inclusion. They describe ways in which we can improve accessibility and better include those with disabilities. As a call to action, they ask us to “Please keep access features that became widespread during the pandemic going after it’s subsided, and continue to End Ableism.” 

Jason W./DerelictSpectre (he/him) shared his experiences in the aro community, specifically that of being Black (and South Asian). He ends with imploring “all nonblack aros and even other members of the LGBTQ+ community to educate themselves on black history, and remember to listen, uplift, support, and protect your fellow black members of the LGBTQ+ community.” 

Mesotablar the Apathetic Echidna (she/her) discusses how US culture has been dominating aromantic spaces and how this can affect how content and resources are shaped. She leaves us with some good questions: “What of the people making discoveries now? people from countries where the framework is not yet established? Will they see these resources as International or American?“ 

bedlaminthebigtop Part 1 writes about how essential intersectionality is, how POC are an integral part of the community, and that we need to stop conflating the aromantic community with being Western and White. “To all white aro people/organisations: Stop upholding whiteness as the default. That's not a real default, that's all you. It's manufactured. It's white supremacist. Stop making your activism and your resources and your education and your teams white-centric. Stop assuming that the community is white. Stop conceptualising the target audience of aromantic community resources as white. Your whiteness is not universal.” 

bedlaminthebigtop Part 2 details how amatonormativity intersects with white supremacy, specifically with regards to selective prohibition vs. promotion of marriage. The numerous ways marriage and amatonormativity are used as a white supremacist tool of oppression and coercion is discussed. “Marriage is, historically and contemporarily, a way to force BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ folks to assimilate into white bourgeois norms of monogamy and gender roles. So go on, keep fucking pretending that intersectionality is optional and marriage will save the LGBTQIA+ community.” As a last point, the absolute necessity of intersectionality is stressed.

I (graces-of-luck; she/ey) wrote about how my Latine heritage intersects with my aromanticism and express how the dominant Whiteness in the aromantic community has affected the development of my aromantic identity. “It’s been a process for me to discover what a Latine version of my aromanticism would be. I don’t know yet what that is, to be honest.”  I hope for more dialogue on intimacy and relationships that are culturally diverse and for more stories from Latine aros. 

CharCharChar (they/them) discussed how they are approaching making their local ace and aro group more inclusive and what concrete steps White people can take to do this. They provide some helpful resources and concludes with “Do the thing. Listen. Ask for help. Keep trying.”

Violet (she/they) wrote about how the pandemic has given her/them a lot of time to think, in which she/they questioned not only her/their gender but her/their political beliefs. She/they expressed the importance of solidarity and ended with “It’s time to stop letting our ignorance divide us.“

While there is much room for improvement, I’m inspired by the possibilities of making our aromantic community more inclusive, of lifting each other up as we experience multiple identities, and expanding the meaning and experience of what it is to be aromantic.

April’s Carnival of Aros will be hosted by Constance Bougie. The call for submissions can be found on his/their blog.

[specialagentartemis]

Carnival of Aros Round-Up from October 2020: Prioritization

The October 2020 Carnival of Aros theme, “Prioritization,” hosted by @jay-aro​, was a powerful one, and inspired many thoughtful responses - on the priorities of using different labels, on coming out, on using different community spaces, on getting married, and more.  However, a roundup of all the submissions was never collected.  Though I was not the host of that month’s Carnival, I thought it was a shame to see so many great entries languish, so here they are rounded up together for the first time.

🌿 🌿 🌿 🌿 🌿

Michelle (Quiet ‘n’ Queer): Why identifying as aromantic is important to me (as a 36-year-old woman)

As I get older, it’s my aromanticism that makes me feel queer in the world. My peers, siblings and cousins are coupling up and settling down, and here I remain, steadfastly single.  

Allos (menacingaro): COA 10/2020: Identity Prioritization

As someone who prioritizes my aromantic identity over any part of my sexual orientation and sometimes my own gender mayhem, I often find myself in some level of… I wouldn’t say conflict as much as I would say difference from most of the rest of the lgbtq+/queer circles I interact with.

Coyote (theacetheist): Not a Priority

This post, too, is about priorities, but to be more specific, it’s largely a post about deprioritizing. It’s post about my decision to deprioritize the romantic orientation model, and it’s a post about quoiromantic aces like me being deprioritized by a community that likes to claim us, and it’s a post about why getting hitched (as in married) is a logistical priority for me in way that has nothing to do with what gets prioritized in aro community discourse. It’s about politics and it’s about financial insecurity and it’s about the thought of dying. It’s about saying, and being, not a priority.

Kate (venatrixlunaris): Being Asked to Prioritize

I can't "prioritize" one orientation, my aromanticism or asexuality, over each other; that's not how I understand my own experience.  And finding spaces like PillowFort and the ace blogosphere that don't ask me to, that give me the space to figure out how to talk about it, has been liberating.  I have yet to find any aro spaces that allow me the same feeling of freedom to be my whole self.

HM (drivingthesehillsaway): Carnival of aros submission: October 2020

I’ve only had this label for a few months, but it’s so important to me. When I first discovered that I was asexual, I inhaled all the content I could find. But when I discovered that I was aromantic, I was running out of content very quickly.

aro-and-ace-memes-thoughts: Carnival of Aros October 2020: prioritization

Shifting my prioritization to aromanticism and engaging more with the aromantic community was very positive to me. The main focus on the aro community isn’t much “having sex without romance” (or like, isn’t comparable to the alloace focus on the ace community), but more the fact that we have few or no crushes, that is what we all have in common.

Sennkestra (nextstepcake): Identification For Whose Sake

In particular, my relationship with aromanticism is complicated by the fact that I prioritize my aromantic identity in community and activism work largely for the sake of others, and only secondarily for myself.

CharCharChar (charcharcharace): Internalized Arophobia: Be Nice

I realized prioritizing aromanticism (and becoming happier by shaking off my internalized arophobia) was something I wanted to do - but not yet. Self-growth isn't a race. There isn't a cut off date.

Briar Fenrirsbur (keeperofmykeys): Deprioritization

While I can find words to label my experience of romantic attraction and sexual attraction (and I have been able to use varioriented descriptions in the past), I don’t have a sense that my identity is split, really. I did the Questioning and the bi/pan/poly/omni ‘what am I?’ cycling when I was younger, and the simple answer is that I’m not straight.

Autumn (arias-hollow): Carnival of Aros: Prioritization

I'd say that my aromanticism has actually become increasingly important over time, as I used to be unsure if I was really aro/if knowing my romantic orientation was really important back when I only id'd as asexual, but now it's the identity I think about the most.

totakeke-mori: Carnival of aros 2020, prioritization

I think best of my aromanticism because it helped me put a word on what has always defined “me”.

🌿 🌿 🌿 🌿 🌿 

If I missed yours, let me know - and be sure to check out the July 2021 Carnival of Aros prompt, “Education”!

[askanaroace]

Lonelieness

Lonelieness is a weird feeling. Sometimes i think it seems like a great big visible separation and sadness, other times it is empty, invisible and hurtful.

I am aromantic asexual, and i feel lonlieness in my identity in lots of ways. My friends know about my identity as of recent, however i have found that them knowing has not helped me to feel not so isolated. Because of the lack of aroace awareness, they barely know what the words mean and even then we simply cannot relate. This means i feel even more alone as i cannot express myself without explaining and having questions about everything.

Additionally, i have never met an aroace person in the wild. I have seen great ace pride at events, which is great, but the lack of any aro celebration was scary. I felt anxious at pride for some of the time, knowing that the aro identity was not recognised amongst every flag, as i never saw others who shared my identity. Perhaps if some had, i might have even gone up to them and say how cool it was to meet a fellow aro.

Being lonely makes me feel anxious and cold. I think that in the future, in order to combat this, i will try to find more aro and ace groups in my area to maybe meet up with. Having a queerplatonic partner seem nice as well, someone you can empathise and share a deep bond with is great, and i hope that one day this can happen to me.

:)

-phoebefrog

[theaceandaroadvocacyproject]

Hi! I'm trying to figure out if I'm on the asexual spectrum and I don't know who to talk to. Can you help me?

At the end of the day, the orientation labels you use are your choice and yours alone. Reading about other people's experiences and choices may help, but other people cannot (and should not) prescribe you an identity. Generally, if you are continuously vibing with descriptions of other people's sexuality, then it might be that you share that sexuality/orientation. There will always be a few people - maybe many people - who use your orientation label that you do not feel closely connected to, and that's absolutely fine. Basically, if the label feels right, then you are free to use it and engage with that community, and there is nothing wrong with moving on if it starts to feel like a bad fit.

Some resources for you to consider are: the carnival of aros and the carnival of aces, in which people discuss many of their personal experiences with the identities, and some of the resources on our site. There are also a variety of forum spaces out there and a solid ace and aro presence on most social media platforms, so engaging with the social media spaces you are comfortable with may be helpful.

Carnival of Aces, archives and recent ones: https://asexualagenda.wordpress.com/a-carnival-of-aces-masterpost/

Carnival of Aros: https://carnivalofaros.wordpress.com/2021/06/04/june-2021-call-for-submissions-pride-and-solidarity/

TAAAP's Site: http://taaap.org/, I recommend the Creating Change presentations under our Projects tab and anything under Learn

Also sorry for the delay in responding to asks, the amazing (/sarcasm) site that is Tumblr didn't give us notifications until an ask we received yesterday, we will be slowly working through the ask box!

[allos-aro]

Carnival of Aros February 2021: Relationship Anarchy

Howdy y’all, I’m Allos, and I figured that February might be a good time to have the aro blogging community discuss the concept of Relationship Anarchy in relationship to aromanticism and amatonormativity. For more on the Carinval of Aros, check out the official WordPress.

As a primer, "The short instructional manifesto for relationship anarchy” written by Andie Nordgren may be helpful for those of you seeking out a description for relationship anarchy from an anarchist’s perspective. I am also interested in other people’s feelings about how relationship anarchy can be used to reorient how we view our interpersonal dynamics, regardless of how we personally code them (with new vocabulary or not) or how our societies code their significance.

To clarify, relationship anarchy is not specifically about welcoming polyamory into our lives. In my opinion, it’s more about how we value our interpersonal dynamics (whether they are romantic, platonic, familial, etc) and deconstructing the social hierarchy that amatonormativity constructs for us about how we “should” think about them (though if you have differing thoughts, it’s worth discussing imo!).

Some guiding prompts:

If there’s a part of the manifesto above that speaks to you or that you want to discuss at-depth, feel free to do so.

Vocabulary is a fairly fundamental part of how most human beings view themselves and their relationships to the world around them. How does vocabulary about interpersonal dynamics or relationships impact how you interact with them, and how would your understanding of relationship anarchy change that?

How does the framework of relationship anarchy fit within the context of fighting amatonormativity, which is a common sentiment I’ve seen around lots of aromantic-centric spaces?

As an aromantic, how could, or would, you utilize a framework like relationship anarchy in an ideal version of the world that catered to your specific interpersonal desires?

There’s been criticism of relationship anarchy being used as a scapegoat for terrible behavior in interpersonal dynamics, as well as its lack of practicality due to vagueness. In these complexities, what do you feel is worth, or not worth, considering when it comes to relationship anarchy?

The above two links are in response to when A Big Mean Lesbean hosted the Carnival of Aces in November 2016 on relationship anarchy. If anything in those posts resonates with you, feel free to discuss that as well.

Much gratitude to previous aspec discussion on relationship anarchy, and particularly towards Carnival of Aces in November 2016. I’m hoping for similar discussions.

To submit your thoughts, you can either message them to me here on Tumblr, or you can send your links to the email zhizhu @/ protonmail (dot) com, and I’ll collect them into a blog post at the end of February. If you would like your thoughts/comments anonymized, feel free to message or email me and we can arrange something, most likely hosted on this Tumblr. Deadline for submissions will be 9AM MST on March 1st.

Happy writing!