…wouldn’t it be great if there was more of a sense of intersectional community, comradery, and identity among aces who are also bi? among aces who are also gay? among aces who are also sans romantic orientation? among aces who are simultaneously a part of any other minority community (sexuality-based or not) in addition to also being ace…?
as i sit at my desk idly reflecting on things that have nothing to do with work, my mind wanders as it often does to the topic of intersectionality. more specifically, to the distinct lack of it that i often feel when engaging with ace spaces. i’ve noticed that whenever i do approach my ace identity through the lens of intersectionality– which is literally always, mind you– is when i’m most conscious of there being nowhere and no one for me to then turn to and engage with apart from the ace community at large and sometimes a friend who happens to share that particular intersection of experiences / identities. however, thanks largely in part to my own social ineptness, there are times when that isn’t enough.
a lot of times when that isn’t enough.
as a more or less “seasoned” ace finding themself in this position, what of those who do not even have what i do…? those who are so deep in ‘The Discourse’ as to not even feel that they have an ace community to turn to at all…? or ‘baby aces’ who may be new to navigating ace spaces and may find themselves struggling to reconcile a pre-existing identity with their newfound ace identity…?
i’ve thought about this idly on and off for a while, never making any sort of ‘progress’ (whatever that would even mean in this context) as i continually lack the time, energy, and/or mental wherewithal to devote to such thoughts. however, seeing as how these thoughts don’t seem to be going away and i am likely to have more time to dwell on them in the near future, i’m attempting to organize my thoughts into jumbled words now in the hopes of gaining insight from others to build off of later.
whenever i reflect on what i see as a deficit of intersectionality in ace communities*, i can’t help but also reflect on what seemingly exists for aromantic aces but seemingly does not [yet] exist (be it at all or simply not to the same extent) for other minorities within ace communities… and i pause.
please note that my reflection centers aro aces and aro ace communities because of their prominence both as a subgroup of people and as a subcommunity within the greater ace community (see: here). that prominence serves– at least in my mind– as the most readily identifiable example of what could potentially also exist for others…
…and that reflection does not come without its own weariness, but i digress.
i’ve come across various aro aces expressing the hurt that they increasingly feel due to current tension and ‘growing pains’ as aromantic communities increasingly, legitimately seek to distinguish themselves from the greater ace community. i sympathize with what i imagine feels like one’s singular, all-encompassing identity (see: ‘aroace‘ sans spacing) gets parsed into two distinct identities by others as a consequence of tension between the two communities.
as envious as i may be of the established history, community and comradery that i’ve observed within the aro ace community, it would be disingenuous of me to not also admit that i am decidedly not envious of the position that many aro aces now find themselves in as a consequence of that history. i acknowledge that the organic [sub]community that i am envious of has not come without its own struggles and that as much as i may sympathize with the position that some aro aces are in, i can never truly empathize with it. not only because i am not aroace-identified myself; more pointedly because my experience within the ace community has seemingly always been the inverse of those who strongly identify as both aromantic and asexual.
that is, from my very first encounter with asexuality in 2002 / 2003, it was the lack of distinguishment made between aromanticism and asexuality that made me quick to forfeit whatever identity or community i may have been able to glean from discovering asexuality. ten years later, it was the distinguishment made between aromanticism and asexuality that enabled me to reconcile and embrace an ace identity, but only at the price of splitting my lived experiences into two distinct categories, thus turning to a second community distinct in order to find support and resources for the parts of my identity where the ace community inevitably failed me.
or in other words, from the very beginning the ace community only ever truly fulfilled one need that i had for sexual identity, community, and comradery, whereas that may have not been the case had i identified as aromantic or as being on the aro spectrum in addition to identifying as asexual.
i can only guess that this is why i personally feel [unjustifiably] envious of aro aces’ experience of ace spaces & ace identity being uniquely intersectional for them, to the point of being inseparable; why i feel there to be a distinct absence of sexuality-based intersectionality in ace spaces & ace identity for myself beyond often performative uplifting of the SAM. somehow i doubt that i am the only one with an identity spread across two (three??) distinct sexuality-based communities (non-sexuality-based identities being a topic for another day) without access to spaces, community where those identities can exist comprehensively, intersectionally as a one…
looking elsewhere in search of an example of a sub-community within the greater ace community, i find myself also reflecting upon the consciously built and hard-won community of ace survivors by Queenie at Resources for Ace Survivors, as well as the consciously built community of ace professionals of the Asexual-Spectrum Professional Network by aceadmiral. both are inspiring examples of what could and arguably should exist within the ace community. there is a lot to be learned and gained from these examples of community, even if they are communities in a somewhat different sense from the more “organically” existing, intersectional communities that i dream of…
as i leave Japan behind and find myself in an awkward position with Ace Spec Japan— a community (in the loosest sense of the term) of foreign English-speaking aces in Japan that i inadvertatly instigated– i find myself acutely aware of the pitfalls of [sub]community building done on a closed platform such as a LINE, Discord or Facebook group and / or as the conscious effort of one or even two people.
what if that person(s) leave(s)…?
what if that person(s) burns out…?
what if that person(s) is unable to delegate tasks as one generally might in order to above burn out…?
what if that person is the only one with the initiative or ability to keep said community active...?
IF
{ want intersectional ace subcommunities }
THEN
{ build intersectional ace subcommunities }
…except i’ve tried that and it’s actually not as easy as it sounds.
how does one go about building sustainable communities…? and if one day i am able to find the answer to that question, what then? as much as i want and need intersectional [sub]communities to exist, i don’t know if i personally will ever be in the right position and / or qualified to do the work necessary to build them myself…
and yet i can’t help but idly think about trying. again. and again. because in my years of being active in ace communities, i have yet to see much in the way of a sign that the communities that i need will organically build themselves– or at least, not in the way that aro ace communities have, for obvious reasons. yet again i’m faced with that feeling of “if i don’t do it, who will?”
as if such a huge weight rests on my shoulders when in fact it doesn’t.
or rather, shouldn’t.
so. IF {subcommunity building}, THEN {…?}
because i really don’t know, but i see a problem that needs addressing and being envious of others has gotten me nowhere.
*ace communities are no more or less guilty of struggling with intersectionality than others, of course. however, for the purposes of this post, i am focusing on ace communities specifically.
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Coyote
huh. I’m not sure what to make of you saying that, because it seems like aro aces have been saying the opposite — that they feel ignored and overlooked a lot of the time. But I guess a group can be numerically prominent and discursively overlooked at the same time?
Vesper H.
my opinion is without a doubt biased in that it is subjective to my personal experiences and in no way factual. having said that, my usage of “aro aces” refers specifically to a coherent subset of people who self-identify as being aromantic asexual, not to be confused with “aroaces”, which is often used in the dichotomy of “alloro vs aro” which pits alloromantic asexuals against an entire spectrum of aromantic asexuals as if “alloromantic asexual” is even a coherent group of people in the same way that aroaces or aro aces more or less can be considered to be.
i’ve sidelined a rant of a post on this topic for forever now, but to me there is an important distinction between the lexical and semantic roles/usage of “alloromantic” and “aromantic”. one is an actual identity turned umbrella word for multiple identities, the other is purely a catchall word for “everyone who isn’t aromantic” and does not describe any coherent group of people as it is not a word that people generally use in reference to themselves, nor is it a word that people congregate around as people do with aromantic. it kind of not-so-low-key pisses me off that non-aro aces have their actual identities glossed over in order to be grouped together for the sake of piting one group against another.
tl;dr: i refer to aro aces as a prominent subgroup and subcommunity because in my humble opinion and experience they are the most coherent subset of people in the asexual community, as opposed to gay aces, lesbian aces, bi aces, etc who i view as existing as independent, separate subgroups of people– NOT collectively as “alloromantic asexuals” because to me, comparing alloromantic aces to aro aces is ridiculous.
Vesper H.
…so after sleeping 5hrs, i realize that i totally unleashed part of my aforementioned sidelined rant on you for no good reason and apologize for that. sorry. ;(
Sennkestra
@Coyote I think part of the point was (and @Vesper, correct me if I’m wrong), that if you look for spaces that cater to the intersectional experiences of a specific subset of the ace community, there have been far more attempts to make spaces catering towards aromantic asexuals than there have for almost any other group.
When it comes to romantic orientations specifically, for example, I can probably count to the double digits easily in terms of specific initiatives aimed at making specific spaces for aromantic aces (even if they haven’t been very successful and long lasting, there’s still been a ton of talk!). On the other hand, when it comes to other groups…I think I’ve seen like maybe 2-3 attempts to make spaces specifically for ace lesbians? And I think there was like one blog that focused on creating discussion about being bi and ace (and it was largel a personal blog). Not sure I’ve ever seen anything active dedicated to gay [esp. male] aces, at least not one that got enough recognition for me to hear about it.
So while aro aces at least have some spaces where they can gather and vent and share thoughts about how they interact with the rest of the ace community, even if they still have a lot of flaws, many other groups of aces don’t even have that.
Also, I think we should acknowledge that the fact that many aro aces are underserved by “generic” ace communities doesn’t mean that any other group is actually any better served – part of the problem with “generic” all-inclusive communities is that they become very “jack of all trades, master of none” situations – they can provide a decent starter community for a lot of people but at the same time they can never be 100% relatable or comfortable for anyone, even in an ideal situation – and of course real world communities are always far from ideal.
I think there’s also often a “grass is greener” on the other side mentality among sub groups, which can lead us to assume that since we aren’t being satisfied, it’s because the community is spending too much energy on some other group which is surely over served by now – while that other group may at the same time feel just as sure that actually, it’s completely the other way around. Which is why instead of treating communities as zero sum games (i.e. talk less about them so you can talk more about me!) it’s often valuable to try and keep building more resources all around – more resources are always better than less.
I think also that with things like romantic orientation and gender in particular, there’s also sometimes assumptions that LGBT aces are fine and don’t need more resources because they have general ace groups and general LGBT groups and they can just go to each of those on alternate days or something, or that heteroromantic aces should be fine because they can just go be accepted by romantic straight people every other day…but that’s not really how intersectionality works.
Vesper H.
thank you, Sennkestra, for clarifying when i could not.
and i do want to further clarify that i too am no less guilty of having a “grass is greener” mentality than anyone else. try as i may to keep it in check, i’m aware of failing at it at times.
@Coyote me mentioning the prominence of the aro ace [sub] community within the greater ace community was in no way meant to suggest that such prominence = less in need of resources, unfairly served by the greater ace community or anything else that suggests that aro aces somehow have it better or easier than other aces. i am aware that that isn’t the case and that the feelings of aro aces such as those that you mention are valid and make no attempt to disregard or belittle that.
Elizabeth
I’d love to see more sub-communities around different intersections. If there was a place for aces who are also bi, I’d probably join it, as long at it was hosted on a platform that’s accessible to me. I’m not sure I’d have that much to contribute, necessarily, since I’ve already said a lot of the things that weigh on me about being bi and ace, and it doesn’t come up in my life as often as it used to when I was younger and less established/settled in my various identities. But I’d at least pay attention.
looking elsewhere in search of an example of a sub-community within the greater ace community, i find myself also reflecting upon the consciously built and hard-won community of ace survivors by Queenie at Resources for Ace Survivors, as well as the consciously built community of ace professionals of the Asexual-Spectrum Professional Network by aceadmiral. both are inspiring examples of what could and arguably should exist within the ace community.
Hmm, well. RFAS has its own struggles with sustainability and burnout, and we’ll have to go through significant rebuilding efforts too because of technical issues, and issues with Tumblr’s recent censorship as well, potentially. I’m kind of at a loss right now about how to go about re-organizing in a way that allows Queenie and I both to delegate tasks and step away for a while when we need to take a break. I’m afraid that, although I’ve tried to set it up so that others on the team can step in to make their own posts and update pages on the site without going through an approval process first, I’ve probably just confused everyone even more. But it’s kind of hard to tell because the burnout is very widespread, so often it’s just that nobody is really able to work on RFAS stuff, or maybe only one person is ready to work on things but they need to have support in order to do it, so it has to wait.
Anyway, I don’t want to get too much into all of that. I just wanted to make sure not to give the impression that any of this is easy, or has already been won and there’s nothing more to work on.
I guess it kinda feels like, to me, that not only do communities not build themselves, but they’re also subject to erosion, and sometimes even at peril of getting washed entirely away.
Vesper H.
i can relate, both to being more established / settled in one’s identities and having less to say, as well as to the last thing you said. i fear that Ace Spec Japan is very much at risk of erosion if no one picks up the torch that i will leave behind, so to speak. sigh.
i figured that community building & sustaining through RFAS was / is still an ongoing thing. after publishing this post, it occured to me that what i would like to build is more than just a sustainable [sub] community; that community must be self-sustaining, because i do not have it in me anymore to be the one in preservation mode all the time…
best wishes to you, Queenie & the team, whenever you do navigate rebuilding RFAS and thanks for the insight.
yourecrashingbutyourenowave
I think, something that’s important for you and Vesper both to remember is that even if the spaces you created don’t last forever that you were still able to accomplish things and helped people out. Burnout is such a huge issue with activism especially because it feels like we’re not making any huge changes but the little things can still help out, and I think that the same applies for having to step back from activism.