Life’s been a bit too busy for my taste recently, hence my lack of activity (which includes creating fanworks, unfortunately). I made the mistake of signing up for no less than FIVE cons between Easter and mid-July. And in between I’ve been sick, right now with a bronchitis, so that’s fun. :/
Anyways, in the past weeks I’ve done something I’ve rarely done in my offline life: I’ve come out to people as aro-ace.
So far, I’d only identified as such to my mom and my best friend in so many words (who both took it as well as could be expected from people who have no experience with the queer community), although I’ve been quite clear about not ever wanting a relationship when talking to some people at work.
I definitely didn’t go into details with any of them, didn’t mention that the only sex I’m interested in is in my head.
But when I was seated next to a gay couple at a friend’s wedding a few weeks ago, we talked about the LGBTQ community, and I mentioned that I feel I belong to the Q part of the acronym, unless one adds LGBTQIA. And I brandished my pretty aro-ace ring. 🙂
One of them had actually done Queer Studies in his home country of Poland, and I had a short discussion whether asexuals belong under the queer umbrella. To his credit, though, he immediately admitted I was right when I asked him not to police my identity.
The other person I came out to happened to also be a gay man, my supervisor (and good friend) at the German cons I volunteer twice a year. I guess it’s easier to do with members of sexual minorities, and he’d just said that he found a passing visitor sexy, which I used as the opening to tell him that to me people are only sexy if they’re once removed.
He hadn’t really been aware of asexuality/aromanticism, but interestingly enough he’d also never really been in a relationship before meeting his now-partner when he was my age. So I guess I can’t really blame him for having a mild case of “Maybe you just haven’t met the right person yet.”
He immediately understood my brand of asexuality, though – he used the example of me being entirely comfortable drooling over Ethan Peck after he’d come to shake our hands (he really is even more gorgeous in person) but that I wouldn’t want him in my lap in reality. 😉
So overall my coming out experiences have been good, although they’ve made it quite obvious that even in the LGBTQ community aro-aces are not visible enough by far. Which is why I’m hoping that we’re slowly but surely getting more representation in the media – my latest favourite example are Aziraphale and Crowley from Good Omens:
I’ve read criticism that their gay love story isn’t explicit enough, but really, that’s just because we expect couples to share sexual intimacies – imho they 100% count as queer rep. Seeing them made my asexual heart happy, and I say this as someone who unashamedly gets her kicks out of shipping all sorts of pairings in often explicit detail. *g*