Saturday 29 October 2011

Asexual Visibility Week 7: Asexuality in the wider world

OK then, here it is. The end of asexual awareness week. I honestly didn’t think I’d make it through all seven days. For the last day, I’m going to do something different from what I did the last few weeks. No matter how hard I might try, I’m still only one ace. I can’t really claim to be a voice of the asexual community. The best I can do is say that there’s at least one ace who thinks like this. So the quality of writing in today’s article will be significantly higher than normal, because a lot of it won’t be mine. I’m going to give a list of good links to other asexual resources. The fact that its a Saturday and I'm lazy has nothing to do with anything.
These are mainly resources for allies. There are plenty which are really good, but are aimed at asexuals. Like http://youknowyoureasexual.tumblr.com, which I find hilarious, but which most non-asexuals would probably wrinkle their foreheads at in puzzlement. Also, you know how I said I wouldn't change what I'd written? In this case, that's not true. I'll keep this updated with any good links I find.
First off: AVEN. Probably the biggest single site dedicated to asexuality. The site is here, and they have a wiki here, which is fairly good for explaining the basics.
There are also plenty of other asexual blogs, vlogs and podcasts, such as Love from the Asexual Underground, Ace of Hearts (which no longer updates, but is good all the same), Asexual Explorations (the link goes to their blog, since that's what you're probably most likely to be interested in), asexy beast  Hot Pieces of Ace and the A-life podcast. If you have a question, feel free to ask me, but you could also try ask an ace, where your question may already have been answered.  All of them are very good, and they give perspectives on being ace which are different from mine. They have different styles - the Asexual Explorations blog is more academic in its focus, and the Ace of Hearts is more personal. If I had to recommend just one, it would probably be the vlog Hot Pieces of Ace. It's really good, and has the advantage of being pretty flickering pictures, which are easier to pay attention to. On the other hand, if you're still reading my stuff, you're probably immune to boredom. If you finish all that and you want more, don't worry, there's plenty. Put a search into google for 'asexual blog' and you'll get loads of stuff. Or look through AVEN's 'World Watch' Forum, there's generally quite a lot there too.
Other examples of asexual people: There are a few asexual celebreties, including Emilie Autumn. There's some suggestion that one of the New Testament prophets might've been ace (he talks about those who 'burn' for sex, and those who don't), although I can't remember which one. And there are asexual characters. Possibly Sherlock Holmes, definitely the Doctor no matter what anyone says*. A few other books have asexual characters too. Guardian of the Dead is a novel in which one of the main characters is openly asexual, and is a good read if you like fantasy. The main characters of Death Note are either asexual or sociopaths. Probably both.
If you want to help out, with visibility, got to AVEN. We have a shop, and loads of other stuff. The next event type thing I can remember off the top of my head is pride 2012 in London. We have a float (I have no idea what we'll be doing, but I'm hoping the comments about dressing up like cupcakes was sarcasm).
OK. That's all you get today. I'm rather burned out from the whole 'seven days of posts' thing. I might have something for you Tuesday or Wednesday, but I'm not sure.
*Including, should it come to it, Moffat.

Update 1/03/2012: Here's a pamphelt for you that I should probably have posted the first time. This is an article about asexuality which I haven't written an article on. This is the masterpost for the 'Carnival of Aces', and you'd probably be safe to assume that it's always going to remain a pretty good place to go to find people writing about asexuality. This is a blog with bits on asexuality which has another explanation as to why so many aces are in some way trans*, which is pretty much the exact opposite of mine (Or is exactly the same with the opposite emphasis, depending on how you look at it). And this gives a view which is probably pretty similar to mine. Or at least to what I meant to say, which is probably not exactly the same thing. Obviously, the entire site it's on, http://asexualnews.com/, is going to be pretty good as an asexuality link. It does give me really annoying ads, though, so apologies if that's a problem.

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