Whilst summer plays host to the sunny, rainbow-filled Pride months, autumn is home to Asexuality Awareness Week; a week tasked with challenging the misconceptions that surround asexuality, offering a usually marginalised population a chance to voice their feelings.
If someone identifies as asexual it means they don’t experience sexual attraction to other people. I myself identify as grey-asexual, meaning I experience a lack of sexual attraction to others. I still feel romantically and physically attracted to people, but to this date I’ve never experienced sexual attraction. The only reason I identify as grey-asexual instead of asexual is because I don’t think I have enough dating experience to commit to the label yet. Asexuality is a massively misunderstood sexual orientation, which is what makes Asexual Awareness Week so important.
What people sadly fail to understand is that asexuality isn’t the same as celibacy or choosing not to have sex for religious or other reasons.
Asexuality isn’t a choice, no more than homosexuality is; we cannot choose who we’re attracted to, and we get no say on how we’re attracted to them either.
People who identify somewhere along the asexual spectrum face a huge amount of prejudice, from both inside and outside of the LGBTQ+ community. I’ve had people get angry at me and call me ‘stiff’, as well as people casting my feelings aside assuming I’m just ‘a late bloomer’. Like the rest of the LGBTQ+ sphere, there are high rates of mental health problems within the asexual community. I do struggle at times to find pride in my identity, as much as I hate to admit it.
The older I get the more different I feel from those around me, as they start to get into mature relationships with their partners. Not to mention the way relationships are presented in the media – almost every TV programme or film I watch which includes two adults who are attracted to each other seems to include a sex scene, or at the very least a sexual reference.
Sex isn’t just portrayed as a normal part of a healthy adult relationship, but an essential part, making people like me, who can’t relate to that aspect of relationships, feel alienated and ignored.
That’s why Asexuality Awareness Week is such an important event. It gives the asexual community a voice, allowing them to challenge the misconceptions around asexuality and raise awareness. This is especially important as not everyone believes asexuality should be grouped with other LGBTQ+ identities such as homosexuality or bisexuality. Some argue that asexuality should be grouped separately from gay, bi, straight etc identities, shown in many ways by the fact that Asexuality Awareness Week is in autumn, not summer.
Others take the view that, as asexuality faces a very similar prejudice, it has just as much right to be included in the LGBTQ+ collection as any other identity. It’s worth noting that asexuals themselves place on both sides of the debate, and arguing that asexuality is a separate entity is not necessarily arguing that asexuality is of lesser importance. Whatever you believe, there’s no denying that asexuals need a week like this to speak up about their feelings and stand up to the prejudice and hate they far too often receive.
So this week I have a challenge for you: speak to someone about the asexual spectrum. I don’t mean you have to start comparing sex lives, but whilst your sipping a pumpkin-spice latte you could mention the fact that it’s Asexual Awareness Week and get the conversation going. Stand in solidarity with people like me across the country and show your ‘purple pride’, educate your colleagues, friends, and family, and help to create a world where everyone can express their sexual orientation without fear of discrimination or hate.
Switchboard LGBT Helpline: 0300 330 0630
Samaritans: 166 123
Exeter Wellbeing Services: 1392 724381
Exeter Nightline: 01392 724000
Exeter LGBTQ+ Society: LGBTQplus@groups.exeterguild.com (Welfare Officer: Rebecca Munday)