Asexuality is not a gender identity.
Asexuality has nothing to do with someone’s gender. There are asexual men, asexual women, asexuals who are transgender, and asexuals of no gender. Asexuality does not mean someone is unhappy or uncomfortable with their gender or the parts they were born with. Asexuality does not mean that a person is genderless.
Asexuality is not a relationship status.
On places like Tumblr and Twitter, I’ve seen many people say things like “Boys suck, I’m turning asexual now”. Asexuality is a sexual orientation, it doesn’t mean that you’re avoiding sex because of a bad relationship experience. If someone is avoiding sex, that’s called celibacy or abstinence, not asexuality. You can’t be temporarily asexual because of a bad break up, that’s just not how it works.
Asexuality is not a relationship cure-all.
Similar to the “Boys suck, I’m asexual” line, I’ve seen people say things like “I wish I were asexual, then I wouldn’t have any problems.” Asexuality does not mean that someone does not participate in romantic or sexual relationships. Many asexuals will end up in relationships, and those relationships can have just as many problems as relationships between non-asexual people. In fact, if an asexual ends up in a relationship with a non-asexual person, that can lead to all sorts of problems due to mismatched sexual interest.
Asexuality is not a dry spell.
If someone hasn’t had sex for a week, that doesn’t make them asexual. If someone hasn’t had sex for a month, that doesn’t make them asexual. If someone hasn’t had sex for a year, that doesn’t make them asexual. If someone hasn’t had sex for a decade, that doesn’t make them asexual. There isn’t some span of time that someone has to go without sex before they’re granted the title of asexual, because that’s not what asexuality is. Asexuality is about not experiencing sexual attraction, not a lack of sex.
Symbols of Asexuality
The Asexuality Flag
The Asexuality Flag (also called the “Ace Flag”) is made up of four equally sized horizontal stripes. From top to bottom, the colors are black, grey, white, and purple.
The need for a flag was driven primarily by the desire to have a symbol that belongs to all of us, something that we could use to identify as ace and represent asexuality with that was not tied to a specific group. Prior to its adoption, people would use things like the AVEN triangle or a half-filled heart, but those had problems which prevented their wider adoption. The AVEN triangle is, well, the AVEN triangle. It’s the logo of a single website that not every asexual person is affiliated with. The half-filled heart implies romance, which meant that many aromantics were uncomfortable using it.
In the Summer of 2010, a number of asexuality sites, led by users on AVEN, came up with a number of designs for an asexuality flag, then held a multi-stage vote to determine the winner. The selected design was created by AVEN user standup, and first posted at 4:36 PM on June 30th, 2010.
Some of the other designs included hearts and spades and triangles and all manner of other symbols. Some of the designs looked like country flags. In the end, the simple, four-bar design was chosen. This design avoids the unwanted connotations that specific symbols like a triangle or heart might have, it avoids any hint of national affiliation, and perhaps most importantly, it fits in with the striped designs of most other GSM pride flags.
(Plus, it’s really easy to draw.)
The four colors all have meanings:
Black: Asexuality.
Grey: Grey-Asexuality and Demisexuality.
White: Non-asexual partners and allies.
Purple: Community.
Since the flag was selected in 2010, its use has exploded. You can get buttons and bumper stickers and clothes with the flag on it. It’s been seen at pride parades around the world, and some flag makers now offer it for sale. Many asexuality related websites or blogs now incorporate the flag into their design. And, of course, people have even made ace flag cakes. Additionally, the black-grey-white-purple color scheme has been adopted by many aces as a way of indicating their asexuality. I’ve seen ace shirts, ace nail polish, ace friendship bracelets, ace headbands, and ace scarves. Even the cover of this book incorporates these four colors.
The flag first appeared in this post:
Black Rings
Some people will wear a black ring on the middle finger on their right hand in order to signify that they are asexual. There’s no particular significance to the color or finger selection. Black was chosen because it was a neutral color, while the right middle finger was chosen largely because a ring on the left middle finger would clash with a wedding band or engagement ring on the left.
Most of the time, the ring is a plain black band of some sort, made out of plastic, stainless steel, or hematite. Some people will opt for a fancier design, with an “Ace” symbol, or with purple and grey highlights.
The black ring symbol began in a thread on AVEN in June of 2005:
http://www.asexuality.org/en/index.php?/topic/9175-show-your-pride/
Cake
At some point, you may notice that some groups of asexuals seem to have a strange obsession with cake. This isn’t because asexuals are all secretly bakers. Rather, it’s because cake is clearly better than sex, something that asexuals and non-asexuals can agree on.
Some factions of asexual people have the view that pie is, in fact, even better than cake, while others claim this belief is heretical. A tense truce has existed between the two sides ever since the Confectionery Crisis of 2007. This author refuses to take sides in this debate,[6] and believes that any choice is the right one (including both or neither), as long as you’re walking your own personal path of truth.
A Bit of Attraction
So, you’re asexual. That means you can’t love anyone and are going to die alone, right?
Asexuality only means that a person does not experience sexual attraction. It doesn’t mean that they can’t fall in love. It doesn’t mean that they want to be alone forever. It just means that they don’t see someone and immediately want to jump their bones. There have been asexual people who have fallen in love and gotten married.
Wait, so… Some asexuals get married? What do they do on the honeymoon?
Play Scrabble.
(No, really.[7])
But how can you fall in love with someone and not want to have sex with them?
Love and sex are different things. Appreciation of beauty and sex are different things. It is quite possible to think someone is stunningly gorgeous and be dumb-struck in love with them and not be interested in having sex with them.