Intersections of Identity and Pride: Part 2 Being Aro, Being Ace

 

I am continuing my July series exploring the "Intersections of Identity and Pride." This week is a longer post because it is a double feature exploring both my aro and ace (aromantic and asexual) identities. 

(I have been out of town for the past week, so please pardon me if this blog is less polished.)

I first identified as ace, and then after 10+ years of trying to figure out what makes something romantic (and it feeling very much like a "you know it when you see it" situation), I basically went, "Clearly I don't have a super strong romantic interest, so I will say I'm aro for now, and that is good enough."

Defining romance is very challenging in general since, at least from my point of view, what is considered, say, romantic in a story is actually toxic behavior in real life. You should not hang out on the street corner in case the other person changes their mind. You should not tell someone really close to their wedding that you have secretly always loved them, etc.

So what is considered romance? Here are several examples that were/are NOT romantic situations, even though if they were found in a story, they most likely would be.

Three Avenues once gave me 12 red roses that were extra after an event, which I still have after drying them.

My roommate and I often light candles during our "living room work parties," aka "body doubling," and we are sometimes eating dinner at the same time.

My loving parents often give me chocolate for the holidays.

The closest formula I can determine for romance is the following:

Romance = an action + love + being in a couple, thruple, or other arrangement.

(The last part has never applied to me, and I think it is the key ingredient).

Using Wentworth's language from last week, being aro is a loose, oversized outfit I feel neutral about but works well enough for me. I am fine with some romance in stories; I might someday want to be romantic with someone, but all in all, I prefer the idea of a nice queer platonic relationship (QPR).

On the other hand, being ace is one of my fundamental identities, which feels like an impeccably tailor-made suit. I identify as Ace because I have no interest in interacting with anybody's reproductive organs, full stop. It doesn't matter that I only learned about the term "asexual" slightly over a decade ago because, looking back, some examples from childhood include:

In middle school my frank "I am never going to have sex" comments oddly worried my school, to the point they had several conversations with my parents about it, which my parents were thankfully able to defuse. I think I knew my school was a bit worried but figured they were just being silly instead of personally internalizing feelings of brokenness.

Since I was a child, I have wished to be someone's "beard." I wanted a relationship for the perks, like going to the theater, cooking me dinner, or having long conversations, but knowing if the sweet gay guy wanted to do the "sex" thing, they could bother someone else with that nonsense, lol.

I thought discussions about sex were like childhood dreams of being an astronaut: common but rarely pursued. (Spoiler: from what I can tell, more people have had sex than have been in outer space lol.)

I would say I have an "anthropological interest" in sex and its portrayal in fanfiction. This means I don't kink-shame others, though occasionally when I am reading fanfiction, I do think, "Well, that's a choice LOL, but whatever makes the person or persons involved happy, assuming it involves enthusiastic consent between adults and is safe and sane, is totally fine."

While I have no interest in having sex, I don't feel threatened by other people's love lives (and reading fanfiction means I have read about more configurations of relationships, kinks, etc. than most people have LOL), so I really don't understand why some people feel so threatened by other people's love lives.

I am proud of being ace, having incorporated it into my pen name, the name of this blog, etc., but this spring someone created a "new" ace flag, which caused many of us to have feelings about identity and pride. I prefer the classic ace flag because of the purple, white, grey, and black color palette, in part because purple is my favorite color.

In the end the conversation around the "new" ace flag became more a debate about what should be the proper way to express our pride. Some commented, "Well, the old flag didn't represent me," and others replied, "Who were you to create a new flag?" "The new flag doesn't represent me." "You shouldn't claim to speak for the whole community," etc.

The suggestion of a new flag issue highlights the difference between trying to create an all-inclusive identity that is supposed to fit everyone equally well and considering identity as something personal that can fit well (in my case, being ace) or fit well enough (in my case, being aro) or fit poorly.