The Inclusive Community

After browsing through various forums and blogs dedicated to asexuality, I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the community.

I feel that it is far too broad. Inclusiveness is great, but too much and the whole group loses its meaning. For example, demisexuals. Just because you're not AS sexual as you think other people are, doesn't make you part of the ace community. It boggles my mind that some people claim to be asexual and then say how they actually do desire and enjoy partnered sex. Well, which is it?

The real issue here is the media. The media's got everyone thinking how they need to always want sex! You don't want sex right this second? Sure you do, you're just repressing it! This attitude leaves the "average sexual" (as opposed to hyper-sexual) with three options: (1)pretend ze does in fact want sex all the time, (2)actively speak out about hir difference, or (3)realize that ze is actually normal.

Unfortunately, fewer and fewer people are choosing Option 3. And the more people choose Option 1, the more other people feel alienated and choose Option 2. Now, I'm not saying there is no "demisexual" category between asexuality and average sexuals. I just think it's overused, misused.

Let's look at two cases:

Case A: "Joanna"
Joanna had never before wanted sex or thought of someone as sexy, and she began identifying as asexual. Several years later, she began dating someone. As she got to know this person, she became increasingly attracted to hir. They had sex, and Joanna enjoyed it. Eventually, they broke up, and Joanna realized that she only experiences sexual attraction to people she is already "emotionally" attracted to.

Case B: "Sarah"
Sarah always hears her friends talking about how hot people are. Sarah is only attracted to a specific type of person. She started identifying as a demisexual because she doesn't seem to experience sexual attraction as much as her friends. She had gone out with several people and had enjoyed the sexual relationships with them; some of them she didn't even feel emotionally connected with. She realized she desires sex, but continues to identify as demi because she feels her desires are less than others'.

Hopefully you can see where this is going, but just in case: Joanna is demisexual because on occasion she experiences sexual attraction to people she is already emotionally attracted to. Sarah is a normal sexual, who abuses the demisexual ID to deal with the peer pressure to always want sex. Do you see the difference? Demisexual does not mean "picky." It means you are only attracted to the inner beauty of your partner.

Everyone in the ace community is so worried about being inclusive, we are letting people blatantly abuse the labels we came up with. (And I say "we" to avoid grammatical confusion. I myself did not come up with the things.) As an aromantic asexual, I feel my group being stuffed away into a little corner, to make room for aces and demis with more normal-looking relationships.

Aromanticism, which was once the assumed secondary orientation of all aces, is on its way to being swept under the rug. In an effort to make asexuals seem "normal" to the general public, the demis and even the romantics are going to become center stage. "See, we have relationships too! We have sex too! We want to have sex! We're just like you!"

But we aren't. Asexuals are fundamentally different than sexuals--that's why the label was created, to express our difference. It is wonderful that so much diversity can be contained in one label, but we must be careful with it. We must present all faces, or else break up into separate groups.

And speaking of breaking into separate groups...
A Life's second episode talked about how AVEN has too much "hold" over the whole community, and I think this is a very accurate observation. I seem to be the only asexual who hasn't even joined the forums, let alone post regularly. We, as a community, need to branch out and create subdivisions. Keep AVEN as the overarching Ace HQ, but make new homes for demis, straight-aces, gay-aces, aromantics, bi-aces, and any others.

Without new branches, people will eventually get fed up and leave the asexual community completely. And then I won't be the only one bitching about too much inclusiveness.