Ace Watch

Help Spread the Word?

asexualpocsunite:

A week or so ago I met a nice Tumblr person who was asexual, yet had no knowledge of Tumblr’s asexual community. The reply I got to an asexual post was along the lines of “I’m not alone”.

I’m sure we can all relate to that, so I’ve decided I’d like to start a comprehensive list to add to what I’ve already got going here; but for all the asexual blogs on Tumblr.

I’m actually thinking two lists- one for blogs specifically about asexuality, and another list of asexual Tumblr users. I can pull some things from the regular posters in the tags, but I’d love to be able to get everybody.

So please reply to or reblog this post with a note saying whether you’re asexual or your blog is about it (or both! If you’ve got more than one account, please also include!); or drop me a message or submission.

Let’s make sure we know where to find each other.

Listing of everyone and every blog I have so far here.

-SophiaPhilemon

I am making a list of asexuality-related blogs (blogs which are all about asexuality, as well as those which talk about it frequently, or else are written by asexual people). 

Any suggestions?

Carnival of Aces: Round-up for October

queenieofaces:

Welcome to this month’s Carnival of Aces!  During the month of October, people across the asexual community wrote about sexual education—how it has affected them, why it’s important, and how it could be better.

Dominique wrote about his experiences with sexual education at a Catholic middle school and high school in “On sex education, for the Carnival of Aces”:

The official curriculum on sex in my middle school consisted entirely of teaching us that we shouldn’t pressure each other into sex and that we were too young to be having sex anyway. In my first year of high school, I was subjected to a lengthy school assembly by a guest speaker who more-or-less attempted to convince us it would be dangerous and disgraceful for us to express our sexualities in any way other than following the Catholic model of “chastity,” which involves abstinence for unmarried people but is actually more restrictive and complicated than just that, and also prohibits masturbation, contraception of any kind, and deliberately entertaining sexual fantasies.

I wrote “Sex-positive sexual education and the asexual spectrum, or Queenie has dangerously many feelings about consent”:

I probably don’t have to tell you how dangerous this all-sex-is-good mindset is, not only for asexuals but for everyone.  Even assuming that people know that no means no, so much coercion can occur in an environment where consent isn’t explicitly talked about as part of the sexual landscape.  People can be coerced into having sex in order to become “sexually liberated” or so that the other party can “prove” that they’re “just repressed.”

Emily wrote about her somewhat unconventional sources of sexual education in “October Carnival of Aces Submission: The Internet as Sex Ed”:

This book, however, being aimed at pre-teens and young teens, did not tell me very much about the emotional realities of sex and consent. By the time I was eleven, I could probably tell you everything there is to know about a normal conception, going through puberty as a male or a female, how to buy your first bra, and what your options were for containing your menstrual flow (including cups and re-usable pads — I learned about those too!).

I couldn’t, however, tell you anything about how to know whether you are ready for sex, how to negotiate consent and boundaries, or anything like that. Maybe it’s because I just didn’t read those parts of the book (I don’t actually remember the book perfectly), but more likely, it’s because those areas of sexuality and development weren’t covered in books like that.

I apparently had more feelings than could be contained in a single post, so I wrote “An open letter to parents: how you talk to your kids about sexuality and gender actually matters a lot”: 

I was really upset when I started growing breasts.  I was an athlete: breasts were really inconvenient!  On top of that, my mother was a small chested woman, so I had always assumed I’d have rather unobtrusive breasts, but my genes had other ideas.

My mother’s response?  ”You should be happy; boys like girls with big breasts!”

Weirdly enough, that just freaked me out more.  Why would I want some sort of boy magnet attached to my chest?  Rather than ditching my sports bra when I left the playing field (like my mum wanted me to), I wore it all the time, because I didn’t want my chest to start attracting random men.

Ren wrote about how sex ed covered the basics well but never really moved beyond that in “Sex Ed”: 

Age 14: First kiss, from a strange boy at a school dance. It is wet and sloppy and anti-climactic. I will never see him again. Friends and I go shopping for clothes…I need the help and guidance. We tease each other about sex and boys, only none of us do it or know any. Girls at school bitch about my large breasts behind my back. Men approach me in the street and talk to me, trying to be ‘friendly’. I’m only 14, I think. My male PE teacher refuses to supervise a sex ed class in which we put condoms on bananas. Every other class does it, yet mine misses out because he refuses to do it and can’t find a substitute (apparently). I’m furious on principle; I already know how to use a condom from books, magazines and the Internet.

appalachian-ace, who apparently had even more feelings about sex ed than I did, wrote a five-part post about how to make sex ed GSM-friendly in “Thoughts Toward An Everyone-Inclusive Sex Ed” (part two, part three, part four, part five):

Knowledge of coming out – emotional responses to thinking about it or doing it, risks involved, how to evaluate when is right and who is safe – ought to be standard. And if the religious parents object, point out that it’s also valid learning for disclosing religious stances on desired number of children and birth control prohibitions to potential spouses. Even within a congregation views on these things often vary, more so within denominations.

codeman38 wrote about how to make sex ed less confusing and more relevant for aces in “Sex education: a confusing place for an ace”: 

I honestly think that I only figured out how much more interested everyone else in the class was than I was about sex when they started having the open question-and-answer sessions, and there was this…well,enthusiasm…that seemed completely unfathomable to me. It’s like the metaphorical lightbulb went off above my head at that moment, and I realized… wow, this isn’t all just hypothetical stuff to everyone here. This was actually relevant to them.

metapianycist wrote “Scattered ideas about sex education in relation to asexuals”: 

One of the questions in the call for submissions for the carnival involved considering whether or not asexuals need sex education. I think that asexuals do need sex education, not only because some asexuals will have sex, but because conversations of sexual ethics are applicable to physical touch in general, and asexuals are not immune from picking up harmful ideas about sex. It is also important to have an understanding of your own anatomy in the interest of general health. Since people in your life who are important to you may have different genital configurations than your own, it is similarly important to be knowledgeable of male-assigned anatomy if you are female-assigned and vice versa.

redbeardace worked on a graphic to teach “Asexual Sex Ed”:

A few years ago, you started to notice that some of your friends started talking about girls.  Now, many of them even have girlfriends.  A few have even started having sex.

But you’re not interested in girls like they are.  You don’t see why they think Sally is hot or why they’re so excited about what Jane is wearing.  You feel left out.

So, you start to think that maybe you’re gay.  A handful of the other boys at school have started liking other boys, maybe you do too? 

rainbowace argued for “why sexual education should be more about relationship education”:

One thing I got out of the posts for this month’s carnival is that not just the mechanics and tools should be taught in sexual education, and instead it should focus on making it clear that there is variability in attraction/libido/etc. I agree that this is very important. I think this relatively minor change will invariably help those who do not have sex feel much more comfortable with what they are learning. I also think that there are some changes to the curriculum that would benefit sexually active individuals, and perhaps reduce the harm done in imbalanced relationships. An important component to this is that, in my mind, sexual education should also focus on being a good member of a relationship.

(If you submitted something and I missed it, please let me know, and I’ll add it to the list ASAP!)

I wanted to take a moment to thank everybody who made this month’s carnival possible—all the contributors, everybody who signal boosted, all the people who let me bribe them into submitting (*cough*), everyone who put up with me bugging them about this carnival all month…  I had no idea how this would work out, ‘cause I’ve never run anything like this before (and I’m not super well-known in the ace community), but the number of submissions I got was kind of fantastic.  So thank you, all of you.  You are awesome.  High-fives all around.

Next month the carnival will be hosted over at Lunas Specto, and the theme will be fiction, to coincide with National Novel Writing Month!  I don’t know about you guys, but I am pretty darn excited for this theme.

If you’d like to host the carnival yourself, check out the masterpost.  I can vouch for hosting being a pretty awesome experience.