International Asexuality Day
Today marks International Asexuality Day, a day to recognise those within our LGBTQ+ community and shine light on the importance of awareness. You can check out the work we are doing for our More Than a Month campaign.
What is Asexuality, what does it mean to be asexual?
Asexuality is a sexual orientation, just like straight, gay, bi, pansexual.
Asexuality is defined as the lack of sexual attraction to others, or low or absent interest in or desire for sexual activity.
Asexuality is an umbrella term and exists on a spectrum. Asexual people (also be referred to as “Ace” or “Aces” ) may have little interest in having sex, even though they desire emotionally intimate relationships.
There are subcategories of asexuality which are:
Grey Asexual or Grey Ace: this is a grey area between asexuality and allosexuality (regularly experiences sexual attraction) in which a person may only experience sexual attraction on occasion.
Demisexual: This is a person who requires a deep emotional connection or bond with someone to experience sexual attraction.
It’s important to remember that asexuality is not the same as:
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Abstinence because of a bad relationship
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Abstinence due to religious reasons or celibacy
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Sexual aversion or dysfunction
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Loss of libido due to age or health
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Fear of intimacy
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Inability to find a partner
Asexual people still desire and experience romantic relationships and emotional bonds – they may experience falling in love, and they might choose to get married and have children too. Asexuality
How can you be an ally to asexual people?
Try to understand more about ace identities and understand that it’s a spectrum, two people that are asexual will not be the same.
Don’t ask questions about their sex life, however if they want to talk about it listen.
Drop the assumption that everyone needs sex or romance to be happy and to have functioning relationships. It’s easy to think that sex and romance is a part of all relationships because of media and the way we have been socialised in the western world, but it’s important to accept people’s choices and what suits them.
Call out when people undermine asexuality or engage in ace phobia and try to educate others along the way.
