Author: Jadey Holcomb

Finding Queer Validation Through Online Dating

A wild event has occurred in the world of this average asexual. Something crazy, something wild…something one could even call…unexpected.

I went on a date.

And I know what you’re thinking. “Jadey, you’re so hot and cool and smart of course you went on a date.” And yes, it seems like I should have suitors throwing rocks at my window and banging down my front door for a chance to get to know me and have the possibility to interact with all of this wit and charisma. But alas, I’ve been in a bit of a dry spell.

For a while I’ve been on the dating app we’ve all come to know and love called Hinge. And let me tell you, I was in the trenches. Everyone was ugly. The people who rarely (and I mean rarely) liked me were not my type. And when I finally did come across someone I liked, they never matched with me, or their conversation was dry to the bone.

Honestly, I was starting to get offended. I am incredibly cool. I have many interests and hobbies. I look hot on my profile and I only mentioned my love of Conan Gray an appropriate one time.

But it turns out I matched with someone I was actually interested in. Someone who seemed cool and funny – so we started messaging on the app. And then they asked for my number. And we started texting. And one thing led to another and I asked them on a date, and then we went on aforementioned date.

Now. All I really wanted out of this was something to add to the plot. To get to know someone. If something came about, awesome, but I wasn’t necessarily going into this date hoping to find the love of my life (besides I already found him, and we all know it’s Conan Gray).

And I simply liked the idea that I met this person, happenstance, because we were on the same app at the same time, and liked each other enough to meet in person. Even for a split second in time, the universe crossed our paths. We went from strangers to acquaintances, and I think that’s pretty cool.

My Hinge date and I did what every lesbian does on a date; we went on a picnic. But that was only after we met at a record store and picked up food to sit in the sun at a local park.

I had never been on a Hinge date, and I had never been on a date with a stranger. And when I told my Hinge date that, they said, “Yeah I could kinda tell.” To which I simply responded “Oh, I guess I’ll leave.”

And the date was kinda exactly what you would expect. We simply got to know each other. My goal for the evening was to make my date laugh, and I can confidently say I succeeded in that. In fact, that was what we did all evening, was simply laugh.

The most unexpected part of this date was how validating of an experience it was. There I was, on a homosexual date, and the expectation was to be queer. We had similar experiences in discovering our queerness, we both couldn’t see ourselves in fulfilling relationships with men, we both were active in our local queer communities. We talked about how our first dates were with men, how we realized we were queer at the same age.

I have a lot of queer friends, though my closest queer friends all experience attraction to men. There are aspects of our queerness that are strikingly similar, and there are aspects that are different. To be able to speak to a stranger, and to relate to them on such an intense level was honestly awesome. I felt so comfortable. We were in a public space, we were two visibly queer people, discussing queer topics, and I felt safe.

It was shockingly validating to speak to this person about my queerness. And when I mentioned my asexuality, they didn’t bat an eye. There were no awkward ace questions. No “What does that mean?” it was simply another fact about me, and a piece of my queer experience, and I couldn’t have asked for a better reaction.

Now. Let’s get to the juicy part. The question you’ll all probably wondering. Did we go on a second date?

Sorry to disappoint, but no. And honestly, I’m incredibly happy with that. We went on a date, we laughed a lot, and we never need to see each other ever again. I felt like we would be friends as opposed to interested in each other romantically, and from what I can tell, we’re on the same page about that.

So all in all, I would rate my first Hinge date a solid 8 out of 10. I looked hot. I was funny. I wasn’t kidnapped or worse, put in a painfully awkward conversation.

Shout out to the person I went on a date with. There’s a good chance you’ll never see this, but in case you do, now you can say someone wrote a blog post about the time they went on a date with you, so you’re welcome for that.

Finding Comfort in Queerness

Look who’s back. It’s been a while since my last blog post, I know. In fact, this whole year my blog has lacked the consistency of the near weekly posts I made during my first year of blogging. I do think about it pretty often, wondering why my consistency has lacked.

“Oh Jadey,” I ask myself, “why haven’t you posted on your blog?”

And in return, the little Jadey in my mind simply says, “I don’t have anything to say.”

I started this blog a mere few months after I came out. I was dealing with what it was like to be a queer person in the world. I was learning what my queerness and my asexuality meant to me. I was in my first relationship. I dealt with my first breakup. I started college and attended queer club meetings and I continued to find out more about my queer identity.

This past year I made a queer friend group that quickly became one of the most important things in my life. I applied to be the president of my campus’s gay club and got the job, which I’ll start in the fall. I’ve continued to find confidence within my identity, and now, I have found a quite cliche amount of “inner peace,” if you will.

My queerness has simply rooted itself deep in my bones and blossomed in a way of fact. I no longer feel confusion or difficulty in my queerness. Being queer, though a huge part of my life, has settled in a way I never expected.

And because of that, I have not had much to say to the public. But in reality, I find that an incredibly happy thing. My blog was once an outlet for all of my confusion and frustration and queer joy I was feeling for the first time. I needed a way to express myself instead of keeping my feelings bottled in. My blog became a diary of sorts, and the simple act of writing helped me articulate major life events. And it just so happens that I posted it on the internet for anyone to read.

Now of course, you never know what the future holds. In a month or two, something absolutely crazy could happen, and I could be writing pages and pages of advice and experiences and questions and music recommendations. But for now, all of this is to say, I’m at an incredibly joyful, comfortable place in my queerness.

I still identify as ace, and can never see that changing. I’ve let a few labels swim around here in there for my romantic orientation, but for now, I still find joy in being unlabeled, and using queer as an umbrella term. As the love of my life Conan Gray says, I “don’t give a fuck about labels.”

I’ve become more clear in how I feel as a queer girl, no longer worrying about labels to articulate my gender. Recently I’ve realized that at the start of my queerness, I changed my style to outwardly show my queerness to other people. Although I still do that, and find that it suits me best, I still love to lean hyper-femme, and have started to embrace that more.

I’ve been reading tons of queer novels, watching queer shows, and writing tons of short stories over the summer, obviously starring queer, and usually ace, characters.

So, that’s my update for you all. A quite joyous one I do have to say. Who knows what the future holds, this could be an update for the next few months, or the start of an explosion of blog posts.

Until then, stay gay!

An Ode to Queer Friendship: Creative Nonfiction Essays

Hey y’all. Today we have a bit of a different blog post. Wow. I know, you’re incredibly excited. During this past semester of school, I’ve found myself in a friend group that has become everything I’ve ever wanted. I know. So cliche. The thing is, I always felt like I was a bit different from everyone, and I always craved that friend group with people that really understood you for who you were. And now I have that and I couldn’t be more grateful. The love I have for my friends is indescribable, but I did attempt to describe it in these essays.

I always thought if I posted my writing on my blog, it would be fiction. But alas, here we are, and I have two nonfiction essays for you. I wrote these about my friends in my creative nonfiction class I took this spring. My favorite professor taught it, and had some kind things to say about these essays so I figured I should share them. I was nervous to take this class, as creative nonfiction is something I’ve never done before. I guess my blog could count, but my blog content is different from what I’ve done in class. I really felt that my writing improved in this class and I’m excited to keep honing my craft. Eventually I’ll share some fiction or poetry, but for now, here’s these two essays.

Note: I gave them each an alias that I thought fit their vibe so they could remain cool and mysterious.

Dear Aurora Borealis,

Do you feel cool that you’ve been mentioned in a Taylor Swift song? Or is it a kind of overused analogy, and now everyone thinks of Taylor instead of you?

I searched aurora borealis green

My friends and I saw you Friday night. We sat in a circle on the mossy gray carpet of my dorm room floor presenting slideshows we made. Our theme was “Friends as Songs,” though none of the song lyrics mention you. We spent hours compiling songs from our favorite singers, pasting lyrics into slides, psychoanalyzing each other on why each lyric reminded each other of our mutual love.

Nova remembered you first, interrupting our presentations. “I’m so sorry to stop this but we have to go,” she said in that serious tone you only reserve for emergencies where someone gets in a car crash or falls victim to an arsonist. “The northern lights are going on right now on the north side of campus.” It’s a mad dash to see you. I struggle to tie my shoes, so Nova and Gray sprint out, while Clara and Mavis wait for me before we chase after you through a midnight-lit campus.

Flying in a dream, stars by the pocketful

Panting in the dew-covered field is where we first see you. The slight green tinge crawling over the treetops. It’s surreal. I’ve only ever heard of you. Seen pictures and let the vowels of your name roll off my tongue while I imagined your gradient skies.

But it’s comin’ down, no sound, it’s all around

The sky is dark, a kind of navy blue we’ve seen before so we start running again, sprinting now to get a larger view of the sky. We’re sprinting over concrete and fields of grass until we make it down to a wooded path leading to a creek. I don’t know if you watch a lot of movies, but at this moment, we’re living in one. Running through the dark woods, one foot in front of the other, trees and darkness fogged over and trees streamed past us, a fuzzy haze of pine needles and overgrown grass.

This scene feels like what I once saw on a screen

We paused, tiptoeing over a patch of mud, balancing on a makeshift log bridge, before we’re running again, stopping in the middle of the field, Camas flowers billowing just slightly in the wind. We stand like a pack of wolves staring at the sky, in awe of your beauty. You were a bit distant that night, so we pulled out our phone cameras to reveal your bright purple, a shade eerily close to my own hair. In one image, I capture the backs of my friends, the four of them, standing shoulder to shoulder in silence as we stare at your star-sprinkled sky.

I can’t speak afraid to jinx it

Here’s the second essay:

a mostly platonic polycule appreciation essay

I’m starting to think I’m being lied to. And not like some sort of big gigantic lie like Santa or the American Dream. But I’m starting to think this idea of friendship and fitting in is made up. That everyone goes around feeling like everyone else fits in when in reality they don’t feel like they fit in. Because for years as a teenager I felt like I didn’t fit in. I did, of course. I did have friends. People I genuinely loved. And that’s the weird part. Because I felt like I should fit in. There were people who loved me and all that.

But I felt like people didn’t get me. But it turns out everyone feels like that. And it’s this facade that everyone is pretending like they don’t unfit. I thought maybe it was something with me. That I was gay. That I was asexual. That I was a girl who didn’t live in a traditional girl way who wasn’t interested in sex or boys. I did my makeup in a way boys didn’t like and didn’t try to be friends with the popular kids. I played the violin and didn’t talk in class but that is all so incredibly typical. It’s cliche how I felt unfit.

And then, get this, I go to college. And suddenly I fit in. Not suddenly. Just now. Just in these past few months. It took some time to get there. To meet people in classes and join clubs and dress how I want and be away from my twin sister and be forced to be myself because there was no one around to be except myself.

I’ve been trying to write about my friends. The people whom I didn’t know for twenty years of my life, now see everyday. I’ve been trying to tell the story of them. The humor and the silliness and the impact they’ve had on my life in just the few short months we’ve been together because it’s the kind of friendship you know will turn into years. We will look back and won’t remember how we even met.

We grocery shop together. Watch movies and make slime. Drink thorny birthday cake vodka before gay prom where I’ll wear rainbow gems on my eyes and chunky Doc Martens and my friends will dress like boys. And we will go to the beach. Make sand castles and go to hot yoga. Attend school concerts and clubs and make a shared Google calendar that is covered in colored boxes of time and more time and we call it evil because we should have no time to spend together but we somehow do.

And I wonder how we found each other. How we’re so similar yet all have our own quirks. Is it because we are predominantly queer, and if we’re not, is it the queerness that our existence brings in being ourselves? There’s a kind of raw honesty in being yourself. And we are all so ourselves it is impossible to not be yourself when we are together.

And if I could I would pick Clara and Gray and Mavis and Nova apart. I would take everything I love about them and just consume them. Let it rub off on me. If I was an evil scientist I would scoop out just a part of their brain on one of those tiny silver spoons people like to eat Yoplait yogurt with so I could have part of them in me. I’d take Clara’s drive. Her loyalty. I’d take Nova’s charisma and confidence. I’d scoop out a chunk of Mavis’s funny bone and take her intelligence too. I’d swallow Gray’s cool disposition and undisputed kindness.

And then maybe I would look in the mirror and I would see myself the way I see them. I would see all their perfections and I would be so happy. So grateful that I got to know them and that intimate friend group you see in movies and read about in books would be true. It is true. It’s right in front of me and I can’t believe it. It’s too good to be true. And that’s so fucking cliche but that’s the thing about love. All of a sudden you have it and it’s just like everyone said it would be but better.

20 Activities to do This Pride Month

Saturday marks the first day of pride month (my favorite month), so it’s only right I use my very intelligent brain to formulate a list of activities to inspire you to be extra gay this month. Plus, they’re a bit more interesting than “go to pride,” although that will be the first option on this list because come on, that’s part of the point. But maybe pride isn’t your thing, or you’re not at a place in your life where pride is something you can, or even want, to do. So, these are smaller things you can do to celebrate your pride.

Existence is protest! Happy pride!

Go to Pride

Duh. Now listen, you don’t even have to go to a big city pride event. You could go to a small city block party instead!

Make Friendship Bracelets

Make bracelets in the colors of your pride flag, or your friends flags! They could be traditional knotted string bracelets, made with beads, or both!

Make a Pride Playlist

Curate a playlist of all your favorite gay songs, or listen to mine!

Have a Dance Party to Your Pride Playlist

Decorate Clothes for Pride

You could paint rainbows on your pants, embroider a flag on a jean jacket, or bedazzle a cowboy hat!

Do Drag Makeup

Drag makeup will instantly make you cooler and hotter.

Go to a Drag Show

Maybe you’re not that into makeup, so you could watch people in drag makeup instead! Plus, you’d be supporting your local queer community.

Make Gay Cards

Make pride cards for your gay friends, or make posters and deliver them to all the gay people you know. This could be a whole adventure. You could surprise your friends, or gather them all up and make it a group activity. Go to the craft store, get supplies, decorate all day!

Add Your Pronouns to Your Social Media Bios

Bake a Rainbow Cake

Or bake a cake in the colors of your pride flag!

Watch a Gay Movie

Paris is Burning, But I’m a Cheerleader, The Life and Death of Marsha P. Johnson, the options are endless. It could be a fun movie, or a documentary and you could study up on your queer history. Get a blanket, make some popcorn, cozy up, and be gay!

Have a Pride Picnic

Gather your friends and put each person in charge of bringing a food the color of the rainbow, or, bake your pride cake together and eat it at the park!

Write a Short Story About a Little Gay Person

I do this all the time anyway, but if you’re not an English major blog owner like me, this could be a fun challenge!

Host a Talent Show

Gather all your gay friends and make them perform their unique talents. Or, if your only talent is being gay, lips sync for your life!

Dress up as Your Favorite Gay Icon

You’ll catch me as Chappell Roan.

Have a Slideshow Night

Recently my friends and I have done slideshow nights discussing our types, and assigning songs to each other. Next, we’re describing our gender as objects, so you could really do anything!

Tie Dye Clothes

Embroider Clothes

Or you could crochet, sew, do something crafty!

Make Earrings Out of Clay

Take another trip to the craft store for earring posts and clay, and create fun little shapes. There’s nothing gay people love more than funky earrings.

Give me $20

If you’re an ally, it’s mandatory to give all your gay friends money. I don’t make the rules. Or, if you can’t spare any change, you can read my blog and send it to your friends.

Donate

Okay, I’ll make this list have 21 ideas since the last one was kind of a fake. A super easy way to support the queer community is by donating. You could donate to small local organizations near you, or you could donate to The Trevor Project or other larger LGBTQIA+ organizations.

Okay. That’s all. Have a lovely pride month. I can’t believe we get to be gay for thirty days.

Actually Important Asexual Culture You Should Know

Since I usually write about my silly little ace life, I thought it would be cool to share some important aspects of ace culture that are beyond funny stereotypes about cake and rings. So, this post is a bit more legit. It’s not all garlic bread and puns. These are important roots for the ace community and we get a bit into queer theory (which is my favorite thing probably ever – besides Conan Gray of course).

AVEN and David Jay

David Jay is probably one of the most well-known asexuals in the community. Tired of asexuality being ignored, he created AVEN (Asexuality Visibility Education Network) in 2001 for aces and allos to gain education and talk to each other. It’s currently the biggest platform for asexuals to gather and communicate on the forums. There are over 130,000 members as of 2021, and I’m sure that doesn’t even include the daily visitors who check it out as I do.

As an asexual who frequented AVEN at the beginning of my sexuality crisis I can confirm that AVEN is actually a really special place for a lot of aces. There’s a great sense of community and it’s really nice to read stories and experiences of other aces when being ace can feel isolating. Plus, there’s book and movie recommendations, canon ace characters, surveys to fill out, and people to meet. AVEN is responsible for advocating for the DSM to change HSDD to be more ace-inclusive and not pathologize those who identity on the ace spectrum.

Although this is probably one of the most well-known parts of ace culture, it’s arguably the most important due to its prevalence in ace spaces and the work AVEN has done for the community.

A Prude’s Manifesto

“A Prude’s Manifesto” is a spoken word poem by Cameron Awkward-Rich, and although often heard about in the ace community, is often brought up in books on asexual/queer theory. This is one of the most prevalent asexual poems and probably one of the only ones you would find if you were to look up asexual poetry. The main idea of this poem is that Rich discusses things he would do rather than have sex as well as self-love, romantic relationships, religion, and asexuality. It is funny and beautiful and of course politically charged.

The poem begins with Rich saying “Here is a list of things I like more than having sex” followed by “reading,” “peeling back the skin of a grapefruit” and “riding my bike away from parties.” He says that “Love is a girl who slept beside me barely touching for two years.” Some of my favorite lines are “When I touch her it is with someone else’s hands,” “The best love I have ever known was sin or sacrilege,” and “I have been made ghost and reborn as flesh.”

Anyway. It’s just a stunning poem, and the spoken presentation adds such a personable layer. You should listen, and then probably listen again.

Ace Zine Archive

I’m going to be so real with you guys, I just recently found out about this. I’m currently reading Asexual Erotics which I mentioned in my last blog post, and that book discussed this archive, which I immediately Googled and checked out. It’s a super cool website where you can find online zines (a shortened magazine type publication) about being asexual. Some of the zines are artistic, while others are more prose and education based.

These are super cool to check out and it’s nice to see asexuality turned into artwork and other mediums. One of my favorite ones was on the intersectionality of asexuality and race, which was especially cool and interesting. You can check it out here: zine! (I recommend downloading to be able to see it best.)

Kinsey Scale X

The Kinsey Scale is a test to determine where one lies on the sexuality spectrum. One could score from 0 to 6, the former being heterosexual, to the latter being exclusively homosexual. However, there is a secret seventh option which is “X.” This is a marker for those who do not experience sexual attraction. This is incredibly interesting because although the test does count for the ace community, it labels them in a way that ostracizes them from the rest of the queer community by giving a letter instead of a number. On the actual graph itself, there is no actual spot for the ace community.

Although this scale was invented to show the fluidity of sexuality, I would argue it is binary and allonormative in nature. It assumes people are having sex and that they would fall into a category that can be prescribed a label. However, even though there are some flaws within this test, I can’t ignore the fact that Kinsey was doing research for the queer community that would be important later on.

Researchers acknowledged the existence of asexuals yet often left them out of further research. Later, in the early 2000s, more research was done on asexuality and it has been slowly included more and more into research on sexuality and in queer spaces.

White Washing in Ace Communities

This is a topic I’ve more recently come to know about, but it is in fact crazy, and by crazy I mean absurdly racist. Unfortunately, the ace community is made up of predominantly white people. Societally we’ve been known to protect white sexuality, especially for white women. Children and white women are expected to be asexual, while people of color, especially Black women, are hyper-sexualized.

Yasmin Benoit is a great example of this. She’s probably one of the other best-known ace activists besides David Jay. However, she receives an incredible amount of aphobic and racist backlash as she’s a lingerie model and goth in her daily-presentation. A lot of people don’t understand how a Black woman who is “sexy” in her career could be asexual, especially when there’s a long history of Black women being seen as exotic and animalistic.

This just goes to show the heteronormative violence in our society that women simply owe men sex for existing. It’s a misogynistic and objectification of women that has long been rooted in our culture.

There is a stereotypical white, nerdy, cisgender male as a prototype for asexuality. Those who are white, cisgender, overweight, or “ugly,” are also assumed to be asexual as an excuse or assumption that no one would want to date them and therefore are not having sex. This idea that one must look a certain way in order to be sexually attractive and desire sex is rooted in sexism, fatphobia, and obviously white supremacy. This makes it challenging for those who are people of color to be believed and have their identities validated when society has hyper-sexualized POC and desexualized many white people.

Okay. That’s all. I’m sure you all found this so interesting and cool and probably the best thing you’ve ever read. Until next week!

More Asexual Books You Should (and shouldn’t) Read

I wrote a blog post a couple months ago about books on asexuality that you should (or shouldn’t) read, and since then I’ve read a few more so it only makes sense that I should make a part two. And as always, I am gladly accepting recommendations/suggestions for books and authors to read!

Refusing Compulsory Sexuality – Sherronda Brown

At the end of the first blog post I mentioned that I was currently reading Refusing Compulsory Sexuality by Sherronda Brown, and oh my god that book changed my life.

Now, this could sound stupid to some, but this book really opened my eyes to white supremacy and how everything (sex, gender, patriarchy, politics) boils down to white nationalism. And sure, I knew about this, but as a white person, I live in a little bubble of privilege and am clearly naive to the difficulties surrounding race, because I’ll never experience life as a person of color. The way whiteness is so deeply tied to society and heteronormativity and sexuality is so deeply rooted it is almost unfathomable. And it is so interesting to learn how asexuality, and especially Black asexuality, goes against these cultural norms. This book discussed race, the hyper-sexualization of Black girls, the fear of the Black phallus, BLM categories on Pornhub, disability, colonization, discrimination of aces in the queer community, asexuality as a white identity, and literally so much more. If you’re interested in critical race theory, or queer and gender theory, I’m sure you would find this book fascinating.

Rating: 8/10

Would I recommend it? Yes 100%.

Would I read again? Yes. This book is definitely a scholarly one, so it is not the easiest read, but it is incredibly interesting and super educational.

How to be Ace – Rebecca Burgess

Like the last blog post, this was another book that, to my surprise, was a graphic novel. And by now we probably know I’m not the biggest graphic novel fan, but that did mean that I could read this book in a day. As an ace person who occasionally just wants to read a silly little book about another ace person, this was a great option. Rebecca simply just talked about how they realized they were ace and the experiences they had surrounding that (mostly in university) and how that coincided with their OCD and anxiety. The illustrations were cute and it had a happy ending so I don’t have any complaints.

Rating: 7/10

Would I recommend it? Sure!

Would I read again? Probably not. It was good, and an easy read, but I don’t find myself reaching for graphic novels often.

The Charm Offensive – Alice Cochrun

When I picked this book up I didn’t expect any characters to be ace, but the main character is demisexual! This book was one I saw on BookTok, and if you know me, you know I have let BookTok screw me over again and again. I see a book on BookTok, everyone says they love it. I get said book. I read book. I don’t like book. I get upset everyone told me to read mediocre book. I go on BookTok. I pick up another book. The cycle continues.

Well thank god this book broke that cycle.

The Charm Offensive follows Dev and Charlie through a split POV as Dev works on a television show – basically The Bachelor – and ends up falling for the bachelor himself, Charlie. This is obviously an issue as Charlie has just realized he’s gay, and is most definitely supposed to fall in love with a woman on the show he signed up for to fix his reputation. This book was so cute. It was funny and sweet and I read it so quickly. Plus, there’s a tiny short story the author published called A Charmed Christmas that gives a quick update on the characters in the future.

Charlie is demisexual and Dev, who is allo, is nothing but supportive of this part of his identity. The ace representation was subtle, but nevertheless there, and that’s all I could ask for.

Rating: 8/10.

Would I recommend it? Yes!!

Would I read again? In a couple years I could definitely see myself picking this one back up for an easy, uplifting read.

Kiss Her Once for Me – Alice Cochrun

Because I loved TCO so much I obviously had to read another book by Alice. And to (slightly less) of my surprise, the main character was once again demisexual. I would bet a decent amount of money this isn’t a coincidence and Alice herself is demi, so that means I’m probably supporting ace authors by buying her books and that’s a win/win situation!

KHOFM is a Christmas romance, though I think you could read it any time of year. Ellie and Jack had a meet-cute a year ago on Christmas that lasted only a single day, and due to some events we learn about later cause Ellie to run from the situation, leaving this perfect woman behind. In the present Ellie is still heartbroken over this amazing Christmas love affair. However, she is struggling to make ends meet, so she decides to join a crazy fake-marriage plan with her boss who promises to give her part of his inheritance he’ll earn only when he’s married. Ellie and Jack end up meeting again, and Ellie has to figure out if she should stay loyal to her faux-fiancé or follow her true feelings.

This was super cute and wasn’t as predictable as you might think. Plus, the character’s met at Powell’s Bookstore, and I’m currently writing a screenplay where the characters meet as Powell’s which is a crazy, but cool, coincidence.

Rating: 7.5/10

Would I recommend it? Yes!

Would I read again? Like Alice’s other book I could see myself reading this again a couple years from now.

Asexual Erotics – Ela Przybylo

Asexual Erotics is not for the weak. Be warned: this book is a challenging read. And as someone very interested in queer theory, someone who consumes queer media, reads queer and feminist theory for fun, and is currently in school for a minor in gender and sexuality studies, this book had me scratching my head in confusion.

This book is incredibly academic. However, it is also incredibly interesting. While there are some paragraphs and sentences my brain skims over with lack of comprehension, there are certainly some amazing lines. Working on Audre Lorde’s theory of erotic, Przybylo defines erotics as “energy of collective struggle to end oppression” and ties this theory into race, lesbian bed death, feminist theory, spinsters, and the asexual child.

In order to explain this, here’s some sentences I found incredibly interesting:

“Ianna Hawkins Owens discusses how compulsory heterosexuality has uneven racial histories, such that whiteness has tended to emulate an ‘asexuality-as-ideal’ as demonstrative of a form of innocence, moral, control, and restraint, while black people have often been positioned as hypersexual so as to justify enslavement, lynching, and other instruments of racism.”

“Kathryn Kent argues that in the postbellum period and the early twentieth century, marriage signified differently for white women and black women such that white women sought self-autonomy through refusing marriage while black women sought self-determination and entry into the public sphere through marrying.”

I haven’t completed this book in total yet, and I’m currently about half way through. I found the introduction to be interesting, and the first and second chapter to be interesting but definitely more theorizing than actually proving anything. However, the second half of the book covers topics I think will peak my interest, so I’ll let you know when I finish,

Rating: TBD

Would I recommend it? Yes! However this is not for the faint of heart.

Would I read again? I can see myself using this as an academic piece in classes and discussions on asexuality. I would probably re-read certain parts and not the book in its entirety.

Love Lies Bleeding, Young Royals, and More Queer Media I’ve Recently Consumed

If there’s one thing about me, it’s that if I watch, read, or even look at something, it’s going to be queer. In honor of that, here’s my thoughts on some queer media I’ve consumed over the past month:

Love Lies Bleeding

Last week I saw Love Lies Bleeding in theater, and it was crazy. First of all, I will state my bias and say that I am down bad for Kristen Stewart. She is, truly, so fine. So, was my main objective for seeing this movie my desire to stare at Kristen Stewart on screen for ninety minutes? Yes. Plus, I love gay people, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a gay movie in theaters.

Starting with the positives, this movie truly captures every lesbian experience and stereotype. Only lesbians will meet, have sex, and move in with each other the next day. Only lesbians will point a gun at their girlfriend to make out with her three seconds later. And, only lesbians will flee their home, bringing only their fluffy orange cat with them.

This movie was entertaining. Kristen Stewart was hot as hell. The auditory and visual components of this movie were insanely cool and the acting was genuinely good. I gave it a seven out of ten, although I could be convinced it was a 6 if you really tried due to the whack ending.

There were lesbians, murder, cover-ups, family drama, corrupt police officers, body builders, and some really weird bugs. Plus, the gay people in the movie didn’t die, so I consider that a win.

Now, that doesn’t mean this movie was perfect, because I certainly have some questions for the director. The ending was crazy. I assume it was a metaphor, but I could have gone without it. Also, there was a trauma induced throwing up scene, where Kristen Stewart was yakked out of the mouth of her jacked girlfriend, where she was a slimy larvae looking creature, and that was just plain weird. Plus, a lot of people died, and no one saw the murders happen?! I know the police are corrupt, but damn, not a single neighbor saw a body being dragged down the stairs?

If you want to see an entertaining- grungy-80s-horror-lesbian-film, this is the movie for you. 7/10.

Late to The Party

Taking a completely different direction from that movie, two weeks ago I finished Kelly Quindlen’s novel, Late to The Party. I had heard really good things about this on TikTok (my first mistake) so I decided it was one I needed to read. Upon getting this book in my possession I did in fact realize that dear Kelly is the same person who wrote She Drives Me Crazy which I thought was just an overall bad book with annoying characters and juvenile writing. Unfortunately for me, and for Kelly, her writing hasn’t really seemed to improve since her last book. However, I did like this book more, but that’s not to say it didn’t have its faults.

First of all, the main character was annoying as hell. The writing was mediocre and the one word I would use to describe this book would be cringe. The main character had serious pick me energy, and blamed literally everyone else for her issues when they were in fact all her fault. The main character was 17 and was convinced she wasn’t a real teenager because she hadn’t kissed a girl or gone to a party. She was acting like she was the least cool person ever. Let’s be real right now, this chick just got her license and she’s acting like she’s forty and never tasted ice cream. Get a grip.

Unfortunately being a creative writing major has ruined my ability to enjoy books, because the entire time I was reading this I was workshopping it in my head and giving it some serious edits. But it did make me feel hopeful for the future because if a novel with this mediocre writing could be published, surely someone will want to publish me when I write my own novel.

That was a lot of negativity. I promise there were aspects of this book I liked. I did appreciate how the book didn’t focus on the character’s coming out. I prefer queer books where the characters are simply just queer. And, I am a sucker for a coming-of-age book. Plus, I may or may not have been close to tears or crying multiple times during this book. It was actually sweet, and I love young gay people meeting other gays and falling in love. It was kind of giving found family and I love that.

I was also pissed when I went on GoodReads and found that everyone and their grandma was giving this book a five out of five. Come on…

If you want a mediocre but sweet book about young gay kids that simultaneously makes you want to chuck your book across the room and cry happy tears, this is the book for you. 5/10.

“Alley Rose”

Conan Gray’s third album is being released on April 5th, and he’s released his fourth single, so of course I’m feeling super normal and not at all insane about it.

But seriously, this song is so good. And I know what you’re thinking. Jadey, you absolutely eat up every single thing Conan does. And to that I would say, you’re completely right. However, with the last few singles, upon first listen I wasn’t crazy in love. Don’t get me wrong, they’re bops, but it took some time for them to grow on me. But when “Alley Rose” came out, oh my god. I was speechless. I was flabbergasted. I was shaking in my boots. I was listening on repeat 24/7.

If you want a heartbreaking love song with one of the best bridges Conan has ever written, this song is for you. 9/10.

Young Royals

The third and final season of Young Royals came out and I’m going to be so for real right now…if this story wasn’t about gay people it would be painfully boring. This show is incredibly slow. There’s about one sentence every five minutes. Plus, it’s in Swedish, so I have to decide between subtitles or an English voiceover that doesn’t match the mouths.

To continue being honest, I also haven’t finished the season yet…and if it doesn’t end with Simon and Wilhelm smiling and being happily in love I’m going to actually be so upset.

I won’t give this a for sure rating just yet…but I can assume I’ll give it a solid 7/10.

A Bit Fruity

Matt Bernstein is the creator of the podcast A Bit Fruity, and if I could say one thing to Matt it would simply be “I love you.” If you are in the least bit liberal, or even know someone liberal, you probably follow, or at least have seen someone repost, Matt’s Instagram. Matt posts a lot about queer news and education about the community. They’re funny, critical, and somewhat recently started a podcast. And it’s saying a lot that I love it so much because I am not a podcast girly. I can appreciate one, but they can get boring. Never Matt’s! They’re funny, well-thought out, and so so interesting. As someone deeply interested in queer theory and politics surrounding queerness, this podcast was literally made just for me. I’m truly hooked every episode. New episodes are released on Tuesdays every other week, and let me tell you, Tuesday cannot come soon enough.

Definitely another 9/10.

Childhood Signs I was Asexual and Queer

I’ve seen a lot of videos on YouTube where people talk about childhood signs they were gay or trans or non-binary or what-have-you, so today that’s what I’m going to share with you!

Now. I will say this is a bit different from other experiences and sexualities. The first is because little kids don’t experience sexual attraction (duh). So for the sake of this post, most of these statements are things I felt or thought about from the age of twelve (ish) onward. Additionally, there weren’t a ton of signs I liked girls as a kid because I genuinely did like boys, and my lack of sexual attraction definitely played a role in that. And of course none of these things made me asexual or queer. A lot of people could probably relate to some of these in some aspect, but for me they ended up connecting to my queerness.

Nevertheless, here are some childhood signs I was asexual:

I wanted to adopt kids.

Ever since the fifth or sixth grade I have wanted to adopt kids, and it was always a big if. Now, I’m not that interested in having kids, but if I did, I would still want to adopt. This is a personal preference but also in connection to my asexuality that you…uh… have to have sex to get pregnant, and somewhere in my inner subconscious I knew I would never do that. And in relation to this point we move onto our next one…

I didn’t want to be pregnant.

Getting pregnant…not for me. I have a distinct memory of being in the sixth grade and thinking I didn’t want to be pregnant because I would have to try to get pregnant and that was gross. I thought that was just me being an immature kid and I wouldn’t think that later but eight years later here we are.

Side rant, I think it has been way too normalized for straight couples to go on and on about how they’re trying for kids (given they’re trying to conceive “naturally”). Like, okay Jennifer, we get it, your husband is going down on you every night. I do not need that imagery. Time and place. Plus, Jennifer would go out of her way to say something weird about queer couples adopting or going through IVF. The hypocrisy is crazy.

I wanted to keep my last name.

I’ve definitely talked about this before but I have another distinct memory of being in the fifth grade and thinking I would only take my husband’s last name if it was really cool. I still agree with this but with a wife or partner. And I mostly just want to hyphenate my name with my partner’s if it sounds good. And if it doesn’t, no biggy, I’ll just keep mine and not have to go through the legal loopholes.

I never had a lot of crushes.

I never had a lot of crushes growing up and part of it made me feel mature because I wasn’t boy crazy. Even now, I still don’t crush on people very often. I thought a lot of the boys around me were gross and not up to my standards, and I still think that! However, now I know my asexuality plays a huge role in that. I don’t get crushes on people because I feel sexually attracted to them. I have to think they’re pretty aesthetically attractive or I know something about them that makes me see them as a good partner.

In middle school I had a friend I thought was so pretty and cool.

In the sixth grade I was friends with this girl who was in my orchestra class and she had dyed hair and I thought it was so cool. I remember thinking she was so pretty and I wanted to hang out with her. Now, I’m all for intimate female friendships and appreciating your friends’ beauty, but this sounds pretty gay. Looking back this was definitely the first crush I had on a girl, and Little Jadey didn’t even know! In her defense, the crushes I have on people do feel like a pretty intimate friendship, because I don’t have any sexual thoughts, so Little Jadey couldn’t have dug into it that much.

I thought I was a late bloomer (of sorts).

Now I wasn’t actually a super late bloomer. I wasn’t the first in any capacity, but I wasn’t the last. I didn’t have my first real crush until the seventh grade, and that was pretty late compared to my peers. Because of this, I figured I wasn’t interested in sex due to that, and in a few years, by the time I reached college, I would be interested. Now as an almost twenty year old college student I still don’t want sex. Wow! All these feelings I thought would arrive when I was a teenager never came.

I was fascinated by gay people.

One time in the eighth grade a woman came in as a guest speaker. She was with this other guy, and honestly I have no idea what they were even talking about. Probably about their job and college and giving us inspiration for what we could do or be in the future. Anyway, that’s not important. The important thing is that I just knew she was gay. The way she looked and the way she acted, and at the time I didn’t even know that much about the queer community. I just knew, and the whole time I waited for her to drop a hint about her wife or something, and she never did. And the sorta sad thing is, I still feel this way now. When I’m out and about I still get secretly excited to see other queer people. I don’t feel this way at school or with people around my age, because there are just queer people because it’s more accepted in my generation. However with adults I get excited because it’s pretty rare to see an older queer person. I hardly ever see trans adults who are grown up and happy, or gay men who are fathers or grandfathers. And unfortunately that’s due to a high suicide rate and the AIDS crisis.

All in all these things are memories and feelings I look back on and can see how they relate to my life now. It’s crazy to think about me as a little kid and know that Little Jadey has been queer all along, and she has so much to find out and love about herself.

I Tried Drag for the First Time, and the Queer Joy was Real

Over the past couple months I’ve been pretty hooked on watching Trixie Mattel on YouTube. I have always been fascinated with makeup videos and reviews and first impressions for the past seven or eight years. Trixie does such a funny and interesting take on that through her career of drag. Because I’ve been obsessed with her videos I thought it was only appropriate to start watching Rupaul’s Drag Race.

Now, I have heard of this show for years. I follow drag queens on social media and have watched multiple drag shows in person. However, I had never gotten around to watching the Drag Race. But about four weeks ago, I decided now was the time. I pulled up Hulu, clicked on season 10, and began watching.

When I told you I became immediately hooked.

Oh my god.

I am so utterly addicted to that show.

It’s so good. I can’t believe I’ve never seen it before. The makeup. The fashion. The camp. The drama. The jokes. The community. The queerness. The TRANSFORMATION! I love all of it. It is truly all of the things I love: gay people, fashion, makeup, and comedy, all wrapped into one show! The new season just came out, and after I finish my current season, you best believe I am going to watch the latest season and form so many opinions. (Update: I watched the first two episodes of season 16 and Dawn is my current favorite!)

All of this is to say, I had to try drag makeup of my own. I’ve wanted to try drag for a while. I was inspired by Trixie, and a lot by Chappell Roan. She does her own drag makeup and is heavily inspired by queens, and I really loved how she does drag as a feminine person.

So, here’s how the process went down:

I gathered inspo pics. I was inspired by Chappell, Trixie Mattel, Blair St. Clair on season 10 of Drag Race, and Phoebe Bridgers in drag from one of the boygenius shows.

Then, I started.

I layed down a ton of moisturizer, primer, and setting spray. I put on the most foundation I’ve ever used, contoured my face, and heavily applied concealer. After all of that I set it all with powder, then began contouring with a hot, hot pink. I added hot pink blush and contoured my nose with pink. I did a big winged out pink eyeshadow look with thick black liner and glitter.

I originally wanted to leave my brows alone because I didn’t have a glue stick to block them, and I didn’t want to try to take off all the glue. So instead I filled them in as normal because the look needed it. I applied highlight and false lashes (it was a lot harder than I thought), and finished with a pink lip.

This was a trusting process kind of experiment. At first I thought it all looked really messy, and I was questioning my makeup skills for a moment. I’m a pretty good makeup artist myself, but I was worried this style of makeup wouldn’t carry over. However, I persevered, and added finishing touches of glitter and more glitter, and everything pulled together beautifully.

Then I had to take a picture of my work, standing in the bathtub in my parent’s bathroom for the best lighting with a tripod and self timer. Plus, I documented the whole thing. I filmed my application process because a moment like this needed to be remembered. Who knows if I was ever going to do it again?! Turns out I did it again. I even bought some more makeup for it. It was so much fun the first time I was planning different looks from the moment I finished.

Miz Cracker came to drag race with a book full of pictures of her past looks for inspiration, and I think that would be so cool to make with the drag looks I create to see the improvement and how many different looks I can create.

It also made me feel really confident and proud of my queer identity. It was cool to be a girl doing drag, and it was cool to feel so confident in such a crazy look. Plus, I felt like I was doing a cool thing being an ace drag queen, because sometimes the queer community is caught up in celebrating queer sex that people forget you can be queer and never have sex.

Watching a show where everyone is queer and queerness is celebrated is really awesome. It makes me feel closer to the queer community and gives me hope for a more accepting world. The queens on the show are spreading so much queer joy.

I filmed the process of my drag look super casually, and ended up putting it on YouTube. Back in the day, I was really into making YouTube videos, but I haven’t posted in about a year. I decided this one would be fun to upload, so if you’re a reader who has never seen me this could possibly be a jumpscare. I also feel like I can communicate way better through my writing, and simply talking to a camera makes me either feel really fun and myself, or like someone who has never formed a sentence in their entire life, so take the video with a grain of salt. Anyway you can watch it here: Video!

Okay that’s all I have! If you’ve watched the latest season of Drag Race please let me know I need to know all the thoughts and opinions.

Similarities, Differences, and Commonalities Amongst Male and Female Asexuals: A Friend Interview!

You guys. It’s an exciting day in the World of Jadey and the World of Average Asexual. Why? Because I’ve made a friend! Plus, he’s ace! I know. We’re all shocked. Jadey knows how to make friends?!

It’s a very exciting day because he’s going to answer some questions about his asexual and aromantic identity for the sake of education and curiosity so we get to compare and contrast our ace experiences. I am so excited for this post. Personally I hadn’t met any ace boys up until this point in my life. The other ace people I know are female or AFAB non binary/gender nonconforming people. And we all know that there aren’t that many asexuals so anytime I get to talk to another ace person, let alone befriend them, is a very exciting day.

I’ve conjured up a handful of questions that I had my friend Nolan answer. I also answered the questions myself, and compared and contrasted some things I found interesting.

How do you identify? (Gender, sexuality, pronouns, etc.) How long have you identified as ace/aro?

Nolan: I consider myself male (he/him) and am demiromantic (only feels romantic interest in people they have a pre-existing connection with) and apothisexual (repulsed by sexuality all together). A recurring theme when talking to people that are aro or ace is that once they learned it was a thing, there was no doubt in their mind that it perfectly summed up their orientation. It’s no different in my case; when I learned of the two spectrums a couple years ago, I felt an immense weight lifted from my shoulders, as I no longer needed to justify my differences and could feel comfortable in my own skin.

Jadey: I’m a cis female and use she/her pronouns. I’m ace (as we all know by now) and my romantic orientation is queer/unlabeled. I’ve identified as ace/queer for about two and a half years.

Unlike Nolan, there was no magical click in my brain when I heard about asexuality for the first time. I’ve heard a lot of aces say that when they heard the term they immediately knew that was the label for them. Just like my understanding of my queerness, it took a long time for me to really understand what labels fit me and how I identified. However, once I came out as queer and ace I became super comfortable in those labels and feel super happy about being out and ace!

Do you feel that you fit into queer spaces?

Nolan: Yes and no. Almost all my friends are queer and I like learning about their experiences, but it’s something I’m relatively new to. As the leader of my college’s Neurodiversity Club, I’ve wanted to do a collaboration with the college’s Pride Club, seeing as our members are all queer. Since most of us aren’t active in the Pride Club, I think it’d be a perfect opportunity for us to explore the intersectionality of Neurodiversity and LGBT identities. In short, it’s a work-in-progress, but I look forward to establishing myself more in queer spaces.

Jadey: I do feel that I fit into queer spaces. I think my preference for women/gnc people definitely adds to my feeling of queerness. My aceness adds a layer different from the general queer population, but it feels queer nonetheless.

I also am in predominantly queer spaces. Yay! Gay people! Besides attending Pride Club, my major consists of a lot of queer people, and I surround myself with queerness in other aspects as well. I write about queerness and consume a lot of queer media. I do have some queer friends, but my closest friends are cishet. Thankfully they are all amazing allies and celebrate my queerness and are never afraid to make a gay joke when the opportunity presents itself.

Do you feel that your gender impacted how you came to terms with your aceness? Do you feel that it was harder to come out/accept your aceness because of masculine stereotypes of being sexual?

Nolan: Honestly, no. I’ve been a non-conformist for all my life, and that extended to my avoidance of sexual topics or ideas before discovering asexuality. With the family and friends I came out to, it wasn’t a challenge convincing them I wanted to live a celibate life (that was clear), but rather that it was an identity in the same vein as being gay or transgender. As they saw it, asexuality is a lifestyle choice defined by restraint instead of an absence of sexual feelings, and it’s a point I always try to make when explaining asexuality that while I’m proud of it, it isn’t a choice I made for myself.

Jadey: (For the sake of this question I’ll be answering it with feminine stereotypes.) I don’t think my gender impacts how I came to terms with my sexuality. When I was figuring it out I knew of a lot of other queer people and women, so it never crossed my mind that there was some sort of stereotype of female sexuality I needed to uphold. I also ever internalized any societal expectations of women’s sexuality, so there weren’t any obstacles I had to face to be comfortable in my identity. If anything, my asexuality and queerness make me feel less feminine. And this is by no means a bad thing. There are simply feminine experiences that I don’t experience as a sapphic asexual.

I guess aces are just non-conformists. It seems that our gender didn’t impact our experiences with our sexuality and the both of us didn’t struggle with preconceived notions of how we should experience sexuality.

Do you see yourself represented in the community (queer or ace specific)?

Nolan: I’d say so, especially as I meet more people from both communities. With asexuality there are a lot of variations, like demisexuality and cupiosexuality, and meeting more people has shed light on how many perspectives there are. Even so, when meeting someone from a different subset we still tend to see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, especially (cliché as it sounds) how nice non-sexual things are and that there’s too much emphasis on sexuality in today’s society. With the queer community I also feel well represented, with the intersectionality of neurodiversity and queerness being a consistent topic in the Neurodivergence Club since it’s something we can all bond over.

Jadey: I definitely see myself represented in the queer community largely due to my romantic orientation. There are less aces but there are still some. Plus, my existence allows other unlabeled aces to exist and know someone is like them!

There is definitely a niche understanding when meeting other ace people. It’s truly a feeling I can’t explain. Personally I feel quite a deep understanding and connection with other aces no matter how well I know them simply due to the fact that we both don’t experience sexual attraction, and there’s a language surrounding our identity a lot of other people, queer or straight, don’t get. I also definitely agree with Nolan that it’s easy to see yourself in other groups as well due to the intersectionality of my identity. I agree with a lot feminist discourse as well as queer ideology and those things can oftentimes go hand in hand.

Do you feel that you can’t relate to other men or do you feel “othered” by your aceness? (In other words does your gender play into how you might feel isolated by asexuality?)

Nolan: It may not feel like it in college, but there’s plenty of allosexual men that don’t make a big deal of sexuality, and since those are the men I associate with the most, I tend not to feel ‘othered’ on that front. Where it does become an issue is with me being arospec; I’m demiromantic, with this making me feel alienated from guy-friends that have more to say than I do on relationships. Even so, this kind of dynamic isn’t exclusive to men, it’s just easier to compare my romantic orientation to other men and feel ‘othered’ in doing so than with my sexual orientation.

Jadey: (Once again I’ll be talking about relating to other women.) I do sometimes feel that I don’t relate to other women due to my aceness more so than my attraction to women. It’s easier to say “boyfriend or girlfriend” for example, to create space for me, rather than include asexuality in discussions about relationships and significant others which is a popular topic in society, but especially with my age group. However, most of the time I feel that I fit in, and when I don’t, I would say it is because of my aceness and not other aspects of my identity.

Wow, some differences here! It’s interesting how we both don’t feel super alienated by our identities. I feel like cishet/allo people might think we do, but turns out we don’t! I would also agree that the people I spend time with aren’t very consumed with sex and sexuality, so that does help me fit into spaces.

Do you know other asexual men? (If you don’t, do you want to? Or does gender not matter when meeting/befriending other aces?)

Nolan: Not to my knowledge. I’d be thrilled to meet someone that was, since it could mean knowing someone with a similar outlook as mine, but I don’t think it could only happen with men. In fact, I have almost the same outlook on asexuality as some of the non-male asexuals I’ve met, so while it’d be exciting to meet another asexual man, I wouldn’t expect him to have the same perspective as mine. Overall, every asexual person has their own personality and experience, and I’ve learned not to expect anyone’s approach to asexuality to be predictable.

Jadey: I technically know one other ace guy (besides Nolan), but I didn’t know that he was ace until I graduated high school and we went our separate ways. So technically yes! But I definitely know a lot more female or non binary people who identify somewhere on the asexual spectrum. Gender doesn’t matter to me. I think it would be cool to be friends with more guys and ace guys specifically because it would be interesting to learn about their experience. However I’m happy to be friends with anyone no matter their gender or sexuality.

For the reader at home, it’s way more likely that women identify as asexual rather than men (this could be largely due to societal stereotypes of men being sexual, and the pressure they feel to uphold that. Booo toxic masculinity). The majority or asexual people I know are women, and the rest are trans or non binary. Because asexuality is such a vast experience, I know I wouldn’t be able to fully relate to any ace, but we would definitely have some commonalities.

Is your asexuality intertwined with your aromantic identity? Was it harder to realize you were ace or aro?

Nolan: I wouldn’t say it was harder to realize, but it was harder to accept that I was aro. The idea of having a romantic relationship appeals to me, and I didn’t want to be arospec if it meant not being able to connect with other people on that level. The honest truth, though, is that my idea of a happy and fulfilling relationship is vastly different from most people’s; my idea of intimacy involves sharing life experiences and opening up to another, but I balk at the idea of love that seems shallow or possessive, hence my discomfort with sexuality and serial monogamy. Overall, I’d say my asexual and aromantic identities are closely interlinked, but they’re also very different from the other, with sex being something I’m averse to while the idea of romance captivates me.

Jadey: Since I’m not aromantic, I’ll talk about my allo identity and the confusion I’ve had with that. I will say that my asexuality and alloromantic identity are more connected than I initially thought. For a while I questioned if I was on the aro spectrum, and for a split second did consider my romantic orientation on the aro spectrum. Now I don’t think it is. I’ve questioned if I might be demiromantic, but I figured if I enter into a relationship and develop feelings after a deep connection has formed, then I’ll know. However, I do think that my sex-aversion affects what I consider romantic in a relationship. For example, many people consider kissing romantic, but that feels super sexual for me and therefore I don’t want to do it! For my case, it was harder for me to realize I was ace than that I liked women. I figured that out first, and after/a bit during, it was something I considered. Once I realized my identity was not straight, I had more space in my brain to consider being ace. That took a long time because I was confused. No one really sits you down to explain sexual attraction and libido and all the things, so I had to search the web for ages to try and figure out what those things meant in a way I understood. Once I was able to do that I could begin to understand that sexual attraction was something I didn’t experience, and that made me asexual. During this time I was also afraid of being wrong. I simply just didn’t want to insert myself into an oppressed community and realize I was wrong and leave. Obviously, you can jump in and out of the community, and consider a million and one labels and you’ll always be accepted. At the time it was just something I was quite concerned about.

Wow, I had a lot to say about that. This just proves that the ace experience is so complex and different and interesting!!