『[4ｺﾏ]☆ノンセクシュアル☆』

the linked 4-koma comic strip and its accompanying blog post by Chii, a Japanese blogger and artist, is an “Asexuality 101″ type thing explaining the term ノンセクシャル / “nonsexual” (ie. alloromantic asexual) in Japanese. it’s part of a long series of 4-koma comics and blog posts that she’s doing on LGBTs用語 (”LGBT+ terminology”), another post of which is about Aセクシャル / “asexual” (ie. aromantic asexual).

anyway, in the linked comic and in various blog posts, Chii makes it a point to note that while both ”nonsexual” and ”asexual” are often collectively referred to as ”asexual”, that people often confuse ”nonsexual” and ”asexual” even though there is a big difference between the two. she then goes on to explain what it means to be what we’d call an aromantic asexual and an alloromantic asexual in English. she also talks briefly about amatonormativity and about how “nonsexuals” could be 「ゲイでノンセクシュアル」 (”gay and nonsexual”), 「バイセクシュアルでノンセクシュアル」(’bisexual and nonsexual”) etc since they experience romantic attraction.

but then things get a little (more) awkward (for me anyway) when she’s like “oh, and by the way ‘asexual’ in Japanese is a little different from ‘asexual’ in English because in English ‘asexual’ doesn’t distinguish between experiencing or not experiencing romantic attraction…. in other words, ”nonsexual” and ”asexual” is a Japanese way of thinking. (^-^;) look up 『アロマンティック・アセクシュアル』(”aromantic asexual”) to find out more info!”

…and then in the comments someone’s like “it’s surprising that in English speaking countries people don’t notice the difference between ”nonsexual” and ”asexual” because it’s so big! lulz”

and Chii responds “…i think it’s more correct to say that they separate it into ‘romantic’ and ‘sexual,’ but that’s kind of difficult isn’t it? （;´▽｀”

………..i’ve whined and moaned numerous times on this blog about how i feel about the state of ace terminology in Japan. in short, i hate it. HATE IT. it makes things harder for me and i have all kinds of feels about referring to myself or being referred to by someone else as ”nonsexual” rather than ”asexual” because of what “asexual” means here.

however, after reading the posts on this blog, i think i’m more motivated to dig and find out why/how ace terminology in Japan became what it is. finding out the reason won’t change how i feel about it (#$%@#%!), but it’ll at least be interesting in a sociolinguistic kinda way.