Thursday 27 October 2011

Asexual Visibility Week 4: Asexuality and the arts.

This is up late, isn’t it? The power cut really didn’t help. Still. It’s technically today (if this goes up literally instantly), at least where I am*.
Asexuality and the arts. I’m going to make a sweeping statement again: the arts are about creating beauty. You might argue that, but I think we can all agree that art which isn’t in some way beautiful isn’t really very good art. And I’m not just including the more traditional arts here, like drawing, sculpting and writing, but everything else under that category, like dance**, architecture and fashion design. I think those are art anyway, for the record, but they aren’t always what people think of when someone says ‘the arts’, so I thought I should make that clear.

The thing about beauty, though, is that there are, as I’ve said before (although possibly noone’s read it, since it was the last post before old acanthus was locked) two kinds: sexual and aesthetic. Sex has become a lot more acceptable in the last few years, and western society is, to put it mildly, rather sexual. It’s slightly annoying when it gets too blatant***, but I’m not going to say that ninety-eight and a half per-cent of the population should be silenced for my comfort.

The thing about the arts is visibility. There don’t tend to be that many asexuals in the arts. That’s partially because of visibility, but it’s a vicious circle – there aren’t many asexuals in the media****, so noone knows about them. Since noone knows about them, the media doesn’t include them. But there’s another thing too. Probably most asexuals don’t know they’re ace - we don’t exactly get a manual. Most of us don’t even know the word ‘asexual’ as anything other than a means of reproduction. And it’s rather hard to be absolutely sure you aren’t attracted to anything. And the arts have a tendency to portray sex as something you absolutely have to want. If you don’t clearly there’s something wrong with you. That’s not really a helpful message guys. Basically, the arts tend to be focused on sex, from TV and books with sex seen as an ultimate goal, a highly desirable prize, to fashion and dance which are often focused on bringing to attention to sexual characteristics of the subject.

The other thing is in how we can relate to things. Art is often seen by asexuals in a rather sexual way – there are asexuals who use art (like architecture, as well as painting and sculpture) to understand sexual attraction – indeed, some asexuals, as I understand it, treat humans as basically works of art (partially natural, but I personally tend to view humans mostly as a frame for clothing, jewellery, etc. So art has a rather odd relationship with aces – the culture of art tends to be a bit too sexual for our tastes – which isn’t bad for aces who know about it, but it’s rather annoying for people who don’t know they’re asexual. On the other hand, one asexual in popular bit of media**** can raise awareness massively, and aesthetic beauty is one of the easiest ways to try to relate to sexual beauty we have.

I’m pretty sure that’s not what I intended to write about when I planned out this week, but it’ll do. Tomorrow is the relationship between asexuality and gender. I do remember what I’m going to write about for this one, but I don’t know how well I’ll manage it.

* If it isn’t today where you are, please seek help from the department of temporal anomalies.
**Yes, that includes things like pole dancing – which is why I felt the need to mention it.
***Personally, I tend not to notice sexual content until it gets to the point where large numbers of people have already set off to storm someone’s office.
****Shut up Doctor. Noone ever notices that you’re asexual, since you never actually mention it, and it’s left slightly ambiguous anyway.

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