AVENues Issue #17
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Carolyn Lamb
Dec 6, 2008, 5:13:26 PM12/6/08
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AVENues Issue #17 - Saturday, December 6, 2008 (text version posted to the AVENues Google group / RSS December 6, 2008)
The full PDF version of this newsletter can be found here: http://www.asexuality.org/avenues/2008_12_06.pdf
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Asexual: A person who does not experience sexual attraction. Unlike celibacy, which is a choice, asexuality is a sexual orientation.
AVEN: The Asexual Visibility and Education Network, an online community and resource archive striving to create open and honest discussion about asexuality among asexual and sexual people alike.
AVENues: A bimonthly publication available online, created by members of the AVEN community in order to further showcase our thoughts and promote discussion by and about asexuals.
For more information, visit http://www.asexuality.org.
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CONTENTS
1. Asexuality and Disability
2. Identity Without the Politics?
3. Food For Thought
4. News
5. From The Forum
6. Aussie Meanderings: The Story of an Article
7. Asexuals All Over
8. Internet Spotlight
9. Media Reviw: WALL-E
10. Featured AVENite
11. Meetup Listings
12. Finite Hearts
The PDF version of this newsletter also includes a comic and art not available in text-only form.
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This summer, in Adams vs. Rice, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia declared a woman legally disabled because following her treatment for breast cancer she no longer felt able to enter into a sexual relationship. The court wrote:
As a basic physiological act practiced regularly by a vast portion of the population, a cornerstone of family and marital life, a conduit to emotional and spiritual fulfillment, and a crucial element in intimate relationships, sex easily qualifies as a "major" life activity.
Two issues ago, we asked you about this case as our Food For Thought question. We were expecting a few short paragraphs. But in this issue, we've got not one, but two full articles that were inspired by the topic. Enjoy!
Asexuality and Disability
by MANDREWLITER
This past summer, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia handed down its decision for the case Adams v. Rice, and the relevance of this case to asexuality has come up in the asexosphere. Kathy Adams had passed the foreign service exam and was eligible for service in the U.S. State Department anywhere in the world. Then she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent surgery to cure it. Though she recovered very well and her doctor said that the follow up medical treatment she would need over the coming years was very basic and would be available anywhere, the State Department revoked her clearance. Adams sued under the Rehabilitation Act of 1964, and part of the reasoning the court used to decide in favor of Adams is that a) sex is a major life activity, and therefore b) the loss of libido and change in physical appearance following a mastectomy constituted a disability directly resulting from Adams' breast cancer.
If lacking sexual desire is a disability because sex is a "major life activity," this seems to suggest that asexuality would be a disability under this ruling, though this implication is clearly not the court's intent. After learning of this case in a blog and reading the court's opinion, I rather foolhardily created a thread on AVEN, which I inappropriately titled "asexuality is now legally a disability." To try to set things straight, I'm going to attempt to explain what this case does and does not mean for the asexual community as I understand it. I'm not a lawyer, so take my description for what it's worth.
First, I want to clear up the confusion a lot of people have about this case. Sometimes when they hear about Adams vs. Rice, people are surprised. How is being disinterested in sex in any way relevant to Adams' job? This confusion arises from thinking like a normal human being, rather than a lawyer. The connection between her disinterest in sex has and her job is completely beside the point.
A large part of the case stems from the fact that the Rehabilitation Act of 1964 has some serious problems. In particular, rather than saying that the government could not discriminate against Adams on the basis of her having had cancer, it says that the government cannot discriminate against her on the basis of her having had cancer, if that cancer caused a disability. Moreover, "disability" has a specific meaning in the law: "An individual is disabled under the Rehabilitation Act only if she can show that she (1) has a physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more . . . major life activities, (2) has a record of such an impairment, or (3) is regarded as having such an impairment".
It is clear that Adams had cancer, but in order for her to sue under this law, she must demonstrate that her cancer impaired a "major life activity." Given that her doctor said that she was in exceptional health, the question is what major life activity was impaired. In a U.S. Supreme Court decision on a very similar law, that court had decided that reproduction was a major life activity. That precedent raises the question of whether or not it can be extended to saying that sex is a major life activity. Adams declared it was a major life activity; the lawyers for the State Department didn't contest this point (in my view, a tactical blunder on their part).
The State Department's entire argument was based on the fact that it had no idea that loss of sexual desire was a consequence of Adams' breast cancer, so it it could not be held responsible in this case. The court disagreed, saying that this interpretation would not provide as strong a safeguard to protect workers from discrimination based on irrational beliefs about cancer. For example, suppose an employer thought that people who had cancer should be fired to prevent other workers from catching it and fired an employee who had recovered from some form of cancer. If that person's cancer caused some sort of impairment, the employee would have protection under the Act regardless of whether the employer knew the exact nature of the impairment. Since the purpose of the law is to protect workers from discrimination based on irrational beliefs about cancer and other major health issues, the State Department's interpretation does not seem to be in accord with the purpose of the law.
With respect to asexuality, the question is what this case means for us. Technically, it means nothing at all. Suppose that it's as plain as day that asexuality is a disability if sex is a major life activity (a point I'm sure some lawyer somewhere would contest). This case still would not make asexuality a disability. In order for this decision to mean anything for asexuals, there would have to be another case within this circuit court's jurisdiction in which the question arose of whether asexuality was a disability, asexuality as a disability was of central importance for the court's decision, and Adams v. Rice was used as a precedent to decide the question. The possibility of that happening seems very remote. I am not aware of anyone who has been discriminated against in the workplace for being asexual. Furthermore, the state of New York even protects against employment and housing discrimination based on real or perceived asexuality by including asexuality in a list of sexual orientations in an anti-discrimination act. Everyone that I've read on the subject neither knows of any cases where this has been used nor expects such cases to arise.
Even if this decision has no legal implications for asexuals, some people may find it unsettling for symbolic reasons. While it does not make asexuality legally a disability, it may make it one logically. Some people may see the decision as being bad for asexual identity politics. Birdnerd's article below provides some thoughts on this subject.
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Identity Without the Politics?
by BIRDNERD
Everyone who's buckling down for the new Dark Age that Adams v. Rice has supposedly ushered in for asexuals (or, alternately, who's holding out for a handicapped parking tag), please get out your surveying equipment for a refresher course on mountains and molehills.
As mandrewliter has shown, the case has a great deal more to do with making the best of a badly written law and fighting discrimination in the workplace than it does with declaring asexuality a disability.
Despite the minor hubbub the case provoked on AVEN a few months back, the court's ruling in Adams v. Rice isn't talking to us (and likely isn't even talking about us). The court did not set out to rule that asexuality was a disability, and unless a similar case goes to trial in which an asexual argues precisely that, I don't think anyone particularly cares. (I'll grant, though, that legal precedent is a funny thing, and it's anybody's guess how the courts will actually use Adams v. Rice in the future, so we might at least keep our ears to the ground).
Our response to the ruling, I think, is a great deal more telling than the ruling itself. While the possibility that the precedent established in Adams v. Rice could eventually lead to the definition of asexuality as a disability is remote at best, the insinuation makes some of us uneasy. Here's a bunch of folks who may never have undergone any breast cancer treatment who, nevertheless, are also missing out on this "major life activity," the court seems to have said. If the plaintiff can be shown to be disabled, can asexuals? The question gives us the jitters coming from this quarter because it's certainly not the first time we've heard it. It's the old isn't-there-something-wrong-with-you-guys question again. We've grown used to fielding it from friends, family members and TV talk show hosts, but it seems somehow scarier once our interlocutor gets a gavel.
It's a question, though—a rude, insensitive, misguided question, mind you—but hey, sticks and stones and all that. While such a question does carry a certain symbolic weight in this context, it requires a prodigious act of imagination to extrapolate from the facts of the case some horny dystopia in which asexuals are institutionalized or medically "corrected" or what have you. Nobody cares that much, folks. People sometimes ask stupid questions. What's the big deal?
The subject we haven't broached yet is our somewhat unexamined relationship to the O-word. Our unease in the wake of Adams v. Rice got me wondering: are we being oppressed, here or elsewhere? Anywhere? I think we somewhat perversely like to imagine that we are. It makes us feel special. So we sit around our Internet message board with flashlights under our chins, telling each other this campfire story that someone or something is Out To Get Us. Yes, it's a mighty downer that we're overlooked and misunderstood, that more novels don't get written about us, that we have difficulty taking online dating quizzes, that advertisers apparently don't give a rat's ass about selling us shampoo, and that we have to answer stupid questions from well-meaning acquaintances. But seriously, is that oppression? Teen angst, maybe, and that's on a bad day. The one exception I can think of is that your shrink might try to fix you, but we do have a team in dialogue with the sexual dysfunctions workgroup for the DSM-V.
Our eagerness to concoct some sort of legal discrimination against ourselves has got me wondering quite a bit about asexual identity politics. Upon discovering that—statistically speaking, at the very least—we too were a minority, we took a cue from our resourceful older siblings in various other minorities and assumed that once we got enough asexuals together in one place, we would or should have an asexual movement.
The thing about being a movement, though, is that you're generally moving toward something. And we are, to an extent. At AVEN, we're after visibility and education—here we are, here's how we tick, let's-deconstruct-a-few-binary-oppositions-okay-thank-you-bye—good old 1990s-style "representation." We're out to let the novelists and the well-meaning acquaintances and the advertising agencies know that we exist; we're happy, well-adjusted people; we buy shampoo; and hey, if you find that you aren't gay, straight or bi, there's an option four.
So once we get the kids another box to check under "Sexual Orientation," can we go home? Is there anything we especially need to protest or lobby for? A part of me worries that our apparent ability to do identity-without-the-politics will earn us a reputation as the agreeable, complacent minority, the one legislators like because we don't impose on them to do anything, but I worry more that we'll whip ourselves into a paranoid frenzy over imagined injustices and earn ourselves a reputation as melodramatic nuisances.
So what do you think? Are we oppressed? What is asexual identity politics, if there is any such thing? What do we, as a community, actually want, and how do we propose to get it?
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Food For Thought
Birdnerd's article – inspired directly by the Food For Thought question two issues ago – brings us into this issue's question.
In what sense, if any, are asexuals oppressed, and how should this influence the goals of AVEN?
Send your answers – as long as an article, like Birdnerd's, or as short as a few sentences – to newsl...@asexuality.org. We'll publish our favorite responses, along with a new question, in our next issue.
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News
The AVEN Web site has been busy lately! We've gone through a number of major forum upgrades, created a new subforum ("The Chatterbox") for off-topic discussion, and are now discussing new developments pertaining to the AVEN front page, moderator re-elections, new moderator positions, and potential new chat software.
KBRD143 and GBRD143, two long-time members of AVEN and proud asexuals, were married on Oct 24th. Well-wishing AVENites from all over the world were able to watch the ceremony via a live webcast.
Coleslaw, AVEN's tech admin, gave a very successful presentation on asexuality at the University of British Columbia this past month. On Dec 4th, there was a fundraiser in New York City to finance the production for a film by Arts Engine called "Asexuality: The Making of a Movement". Other places where the topic of asexuality has been popping up include a core module for sociology, criminology and psychology students in England, the mtv3.fi Web site in Finland, the Spanish journal El Pais, the television show "Happy Hour" in Brazil, the blog "She Sheet", the "Trisha Goddard" show in the UK, leaflets by the Family Planning Association in the UK, and Tearaway magazine in New Zealand.
Still looking for asexual interviewees include a psychology of gender student at the University of British Columbia, a student filmmaker in London, the University of Montana in Missoula, a journalist for women's magazines in the UK, an undergraduate psychology student in Liverpool, the channel BBC 3, and the University of British Columbia Sexual Health Lab.
Meanwhile, please welcome the newest addition to the worldwide AVEN team – AVEN Czech Republic, at http://www.aven.czechian.net/ . We are also discussing what would be needed for a new Web site for Australians – Asexual Awareness Australia.
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From the Forum
A selection of posts from the discussion boards on the AVEN Web site
The comparison of sex to addictive drugs comes up repeatedly at AVEN and it seems to always get shut down. It appears to be politically incorrect to make the comparison. I think it is a valid comparison, or certainly a kickoff for a candid discussion. I would say that a former drug addict like KE6 has a valid perspective. I have known some addicts myself. They aren't raging maniacs; they just gotta have it, whatever it is, and all is well so long as they get it, whatever it is. With someone I've known recently it was Vicodin, and profligate waste of money leading to starvation at the end of the month. I had a recovering sex addict as a housemate years ago; that opened my eyes to the wide band of grey that separates sex addiction from so-called normative sexual behavior.
As for the itch itself, I absolutely know what it feels like, as much as an A can know. And I know just how to scratch it. But I have never had the itch for someone else, so I have never had to negotiate that treacherous bridge. I will grant sexuals sympathy; it must be tough. But without all the cultural overlay that wraps that itch in the package that Sally describes above, I find it hard to believe that it can't reasonably be scratched by oneself when the other person just says no. My experience in saying no (while also sometimes saying yes in hope for a breakthrough that never came) was that it got me labeled 'dyke' and 'frigid' and 'repressed' and 'sick' and it got me physically assaulted and almost raped. The sexuals that think that this behavior is OK need to be kicked around the block for starters.
Apart from the cheap-sex themes of pop culture that surrounded me as a young adult, my personal experience with sexuals who wanted to have sex with me was that at least half of them were compassionate, intelligent, interesting and respectful people. The others were jerks of one sort or another, sometimes masquerading as compassionate and intelligent. But even here, I don't lump all pigs together; there's a bell curve.
- osito, October 21, 2008, in Asexual Musings and Rantings
Okay, gender and sexuality theory glasses on. Coming out, even as something without explicit, though still implicit, stigma is frightening, because it is an admission at a fundamental level that the person coming out isn't "normal". That they are an other to the established, expected orientation, and thus must "come out", reveal themselves for the greater issue of visibility and stigma-removal. This act at its most basic, fundamental level is a conscious act of revelation of the self as an other. That's to put it academically, really F-ing scary, no matter who you are.
I mean, sure, a gay child, or a trans child has much more to fear in terms of physical violence and emotional alienation than most asexuals mainly because the people we come out to are often too confused to really hate, but it's not a wholly safe act either. Most people disbelieve us, requiring us to repeatedly other ourselves to the same people. Others react by wanting to cure us, a similar dynamic as was in play at the beginning of homosexual recognition by society.
And more importantly, the truth remains that the act makes one an outted other. And others are not treated well by society. Something outside, foreign, a challenge to assumptions often elicits a violent reaction from society once the joke period has worn off. People often find it easier to "remove" the other than have to try and integrate the other with their current belief system. This has yet to happen to asexuals, but that cultural knowledge has still been ingrained in us. We may not even think about it, worry about it, but the knowledge that coming out is a fundamentally courageous, dangerous act adds a psychological weight to the process.
We of the asexual persuasion do owe a lot to our gay and trans brothers and sisters for blazing this trail and making that act of othering oneself much less psychologically fraught, making the cultural narrative of it ending up well not foreign, but it is still not an easy task or a wholly non-dangerous one.
- Cerberus, November 6, 2008, in Asexual Musings and Rantings
To say "I'm straight" is just to say your sexuality is towards the opposite sex. To say "I'm a-sexual" is to really and truly question what sexuality is, which is fascinating.
- SlightlyMetaphysical, November 27, 2008, in "Asexual Musings and Rantings"
From the Forum posts belong to their respective authors and do not necessarily represent the official viewpoint of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network.
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Aussie Meanderings: The Story of an Article
by SPIRALLINGSNOWY
I don't see myself as doing anything special here on AVEN. Really. I know I'm a moderator, and I know some of the Aussie AVENites look at me as some kind of focal point in the moderation team – some of them want me to be the contact for the Web site too – but it's not every day that a major magazine from your local city contacts you. Maybe its because I'm a moderator and have a reasonable post count, but really, I was just minding my own business in my little asexual world, when I had a PM come up on AVEN one day. Admittedly, these days I receive more PMs than I have in the past, but this one caught my eye. A woman called Helen Vruk had made an account on AVEN, and had PMed me. She's a writer from Women's Day here in Sydney. She was looking for a couple in a happy sexless marriage, and hoped to find them on AVEN. She wanted to show that not everyone has the same sexual desires and needs and that relationships without sex can work.
Needless to say, I was bouncing off the wall. Women's Day? The biggest women's magazine for the 25-45-year-old demographic – millions of readers. I wasn't entirely sure what to write, let alone how to write it. It took a good 20 minutes for it to sink in fully that a major magazine had contacted us about asexuality, let alone me, and it was up to me to call the shots and bring the goods, so to speak. I called "I Am Sasquatch," one of my fellow Sydneysiders, to go "Oh my God, guess what just happened!" I just had to tell someone – well, someone for whom it would be a big deal as well.
It was just overwhelming that I'd been contacted. But I then had to go trawling through the members list, trying to find a married Sydney couple. And I couldn't find any.
Helen had said that she would prefer someone from Sydney but Australian was just as good, so I let my fellow Aussies on AVEN know, and Saj pointed out that there is a couple in Perth who are married, asexual and happy. And…. they were willing to be interviewed!
So I e-mailed Helen back and she was happy I replied. She had originally said she didn't expect that we would be able to come up with something, but was grateful that we had. I will be able to read the article before it goes to print. They usually do not do this, but as this is a sensitive topic, they will let me.
The interview has occurred, and I've had Galileo Ace (one half of the couple who was interviewed) tell me that it went down very well, with the interviewer talking extensively with them about asexuality. Hopefully I will have a chance to e-mail Helen back about the interview and find out a publish date.
It's really good to have some positive asexuality going on here in Australia, as we have very little visibility. This is the first Australian interview I've been a part of in the three years I've been at AVEN, and as our member count tends to linger lower than 100, with usually a handful or two of active members, it is good to be getting this coverage with Womens Day. In the Meetup Mart section of the AVEN forums, we have over sixty Australian members listed, and meets as well.
2008 feels like a promising year – well, what's left in it. I plan to get some more visibility happening our way. We have some great ideas for an Australian Asexuality Web site, and several awesome Web techie types and brilliant graphically able AVENites are working on some ideas. Some great discussion about the graphics has been occurring as well as what content to have on it. The next Sydney meet so far has eleven members attending, and it will be our biggest meet yet!
As Saj, a fellow Aussie, has put it, "It's a great time to be asexual!" And really it is. Things are looking up. Keep your eyes peeled for more Aussie visibility and musings from the "Great Southern Land" of Oz.
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Asexuals All Over
A selection of posts from all over the Internet
I met up with four fellow AVENites just outside the entrance to the Ballard Locks on Sunday. (Oh, and for those not in the know, the Ballard Locks is a cool little ship canal that allows vessels to pass from the fresh water of Lake Washington into the salt water of Puget Sound.) I even brought a purple banana to the meet-up (just as I had promised at last week's meet-up) – ha ha! It does exist!
We waited a bit for others to arrive, then went to the Lockspot Cafe, just a few feet away. We spent nearly two hours in that cafe, chatting and munching on Greek fries. Sally and Tikva were disappointed when they found out AVENguy had been at last week's meetup – alas, our "A-list celebrity" had come without them even knowing! :)
I then asked if anyone would be interested in a road trip down to San Francisco next summer for the gay pride parade. I had already mentioned it to Ily and DJ – our goal is to gather asexuals from Vancouver, Seattle, Portland and San Francisco and set up a booth at the parade. Everyone loved the idea, so I'm hoping we can really follow through with this…
It was dark and windy by the time we walked out to the Locks – not the ideal conditions to wear open-toed sandals… One of my favorite moments of the evening was when a group of frat boys walked past us with their bikes. It was pretty clear they were checking out Cyan and I (for me to notice, it must have been obvious!!). Frat boy #1 shouted out, "Hey, wanna party?" Then, Frat boy #2 chimed in "Yeah, I got a whole bag of party right here!"
Haw haw haw… I think it was Sally who smirked a moment later and muttered "If only he knew…" We then ran with the joke, suggesting one of us take the opportunity to educate the poor fools and that we (Aces) really knew how to party. We continued to "party" (a. k. a. talk) a bit more, while my toes slowly turned into popsicles and the wind froze my ears.
It took a while to defrost after the meet-up, but it was well worth it.
- theimpossiblek, October 28, 2008, on the blog "Ace of Hearts"
And new technology… do not get me started. I have a new interest in some form of technology as often as a teenage girl gets a new celebrity crush (that means every two weeks or so). Gaming laptops, ultrathin laptops (you have no idea what kind of state the MacBook Air ad put me in when I first saw it… I had a crush on a real person at the time, and the feelings were exactly the same, to the point that I once compared that person to the laptop – but I never told them, though, because they probably would not have understood how much it meant from me), ebook readers, and MacBooks: there is no single day in which I do not think about at least two of these. When I get bored in class, I browse the Internet for information on my favorite device of the moment. My friends think I am crazy. I usually say that I have transferred to laptops the kind of feelings and emotions I should feel towards romantically interesting people. I say it as a joke, but I think it is partly true.
- Rainbow Amoeba, November 11, 2008, on the blog "Rainbow Amoeba's Petri Dish"
Statements featured in "Asexuals All Over" belong to their respective authors and do not necessarily express the official viewpoints of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network.
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Internet Spotlight
Ace Linkup
Ace Linkup is a small friendship-based community managed by the AVENite Shockwave. It includes space to have friendly forum discussions and share creative works as well as a live chat room.
Love from the Asexual Underground
Formerly a podcast, Love from the Asexual Underground is now the blog of David Jay, AVEN's founder. In it, he chronicles important new developments in asexual visibility, theory and community, as well as discussing his own system of nonsexually intimate relationships outside of the friendship/romance binary.
Asexual and Proud!
Asexual and Proud! is Myspace's largest group for asexuals, boasting 228 members. The community is lighthearted and makes jokes about reproducing by budding; they are also involved in the campaign to get Myspace to include "Asexual" as an option in its sexual orientation field.
Asexualitic
Asexualitic bills itself as "the first free dating site for asexual people", (although, technically, A-Date, a part of the Acebook community, was constructed first). Asexualitic uses commercial personals software that works in five languages and includes forums, chat, private messaging, photo galleries, and complex person search techniques. It also contains some introductory articles on asexuality.
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WALL-E
by BLUE ICE-TEA
WALL-E
Written by: Andrew Stanton & Jim Reardon
Directed by: Andrew Stanton
U.S.A.; 2008; 98 min.
WALL-E operates on many levels: as a comedy, a satire, and a love story. For children it offers loveable characters, slapstick humour, and a moral about protecting the environment. For adults it offers biting commentary on chronic social ills such as consumerism, ignorance, and obesity. To everyone it offers a rather unusual romance: a love story about a couple of robots.
"He" is WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class), an ancient robotic trash-compactor on an apparently never-ending mission to clean up the Earth's garbage. "She" is EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), a sleek, space-age scout robot who has come to Earth looking for signs of life. Each has been created for a specific purpose; each has a "directive" to fulfill. Yet, when they meet, they discover a desire for something more, setting the stage for what appears to be a truly asexual romance.
Does it work? That depends on your point of view. On the one hand, the love story is almost painfully conventional. Both robots are clearly gendered, leaving no doubt that theirs is a hetero-romantic love. Their relationship also plays out according to standard gender clichés. WALL-E is shabby-looking, but plucky. Having fallen in love with EVE at first sight, he follows her around making puppy-dog eyes and trying to get her attention. EVE – looking like the iPod to WALL-E's toaster-oven – is consistently hard to get, but eventually falls for WALL-E after he rescues her from a series of scrapes.
At a basic level the very idea of robots falling in love – let alone a specifically monogamous, hetero-romantic kind of love - seems rather unlikely. At worst, it seems like an affirmation of heteronormativity that extends even into the inanimate world. But then, we're talking about a cartoon, after all. Does it have anything positive to say to asexuals?
Well, the thing about robots falling in love is that their relationship pretty much has to be asexual. Whereas we can infer off-screen coupling between other Disney heroes and heroines, it's pretty hard to imagine hunks of metal going "all the way". Or maybe "all the way" just means something different to them. Throughout the film WALL-E longs to hold EVE by the hand. That isn't his version of "first base"; it's the ultimate expression of his love for EVE and his desire to spend his life with her.
There's a lot here for asexuals to identify with. WALL-E and EVE may be robots, and thus free from sexual desire, but they still experience a full range of human emotions and express those emotions in very human ways. WALL-E feels lonely without EVE. EVE worries about WALL-E when he gets in trouble. They hug, they kiss, they hold hands, and, in one particularly beautiful scene, they even dance through space together. A final shot shows the two strolling hand-in-hand though a meadow. Clearly, these two characters are very much in love. The fact that sex never enters into their relationship does not diminish it at all – any more than it diminishes the love of asexual romantic couples. And if the relationship looks a lot like any sexual love affair, it just shows that sexual and asexual romances really aren't that different.
Ultimately, WALL-E's take on relationships is very conventional. A boy and a girl from different worlds overcome obstacles to be together and live happily ever after. But it also provides a model of an asexual romantic relationship. That alone might be enough to recommend WALL-E to asexual people everywhere. But if it isn't, there are also the cute characters, the biting satire, and the environmentalist moral.
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Featured AVENite: "Olivier"
Name: Olivier
Age: 42
Location: Miles upriver from the nearest town in subtropical Australia
Preferred Label(s): Heterosexual
Bio: My wife is the sort of asexual for whom even talking about sex/sexuality sort of counts as sex – so AVEN helps me get an asexual perspective without overburdening her. Also, as we were both unaware of her asexuality until a few years ago (we'd gone through dozens of excuses for a "temporarily" missing libido), AVEN gives me insights and perspectives to take back to her.
As well, we've got a very successful sexual/asexual relationship – in part due to the insights of some wonderful people here and on Apositive – so it seems only fair to share what we've learned with others finding themselves in similar situations.
How he found AVEN: Googling for ideas about things that were like sex, but not sex – basically things that could be enjoyed as sexual by me, but non-sexually by my wife.
The most important thing about AVEN: It's helped us make sense of things that had just never quite clicked before. If only visibility had been higher 20 years ago, we could have saved ourselves some heartache on both sides. Trying to work out the sexual dynamics of how to make a sexual/asexual relationship work is hard enough as it is. If you assume that both partners are sexual (as we did, having never heard of asexuality), it's nearly impossible.
Advice for newbies: Read up with an open mind – there are people here with a fascinatingly wide array of perspectives. And especially to sexual newcomers: read beyond the Sexual Partners board if you want to get even more insight into asexuality. And to asexual newcomers who are or have been in relationships with sexuals, read the Sexual Partners board for possible insights into your own relationships.
Other thoughts: I'm incredibly grateful that AVEN exists – when I found AVEN, problems with sex/sexuality were really putting a strain on our otherwise wonderful marriage. But understanding asexuality has helped us move past all that. Thanks to all whose insights helped us with that!
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Meetup Listings
More and more asexual people from across the world are meeting each other through AVEN – not only online, but in real life, too. Here's a look at some of the most recent meetups and some upcoming meetups. To see more meetups, or to organize your own meetup, hop on over to the Meetup Mart section of the AVEN forums.
October 21 - Meetup at Pegasus Pizza in Seattle, Washington
October 23 - Meetup and lecture by Coleslaw on asexuality at the University of British Columbia
October 24 - Meetup at My Thai Cafe in Chicago, Illinois
October 25 - London meetup at the Penderel's Oak pub
October 25 - Meetup at the Lindt Cafe in Sydney, Australia
October 26 - Meetup at the Ballard Locks in Seattle, Washington
October 26 - Mini-meetup at Tim Horton's in Ottawa, Ontario
November 8 - southwest UK meetup in Exeter
November 9 - San Francisco meetup at the Crossroads Cafe
November 15 - Northwest UK meetup at Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester
November 22 - Atom Thai dinner in Sydney, Australia
November 23 - Evening meet at The Eatery in Vancouver, BC
November 29 - Meetup at Starbucks in Bellevue, Washington
December 3 - Mini-meetup watching "Wings of Desire" at the Harvard Film Institute in Boston, Massachusetts
December 4 – Meetup and film fundraiser in New York City
December 6 - proposed London meetup at Penderel's Oak with ice skating
December 9 – Mini-meetup at the botanical gardens in Victoria, Australia
December 13 - proposed Sydney meetup
December 14 – proposed New York City meetup
December 27 - meetup at noon at the Titanic exhibit at the Gwiz museum in Sarasota, Florida
February 7 - lunch in York, UK
There are also "Office Hours" every Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. at the Granville Island Starbucks in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Note: If you do meet people from the Internet, please remember to be safe and meet in a public place. Tell some friends where you are going and when you expect to be back, and make sure you have taxi fare in case of an emergency.
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Finite Hearts
by RAISIN
Like brittle leaves that flutter downward,
Whispering against my cheek,
Beneath my feet as I move onward,
Fragile, broken, lost, and meek.
The secret to your fleeting pleasure
Is knowing what you need to treasure,
Be it the passion of the flesh
Or looks and glances that refresh
The tired rage of your desire.
So people pass like autumn leaves,
Like murderers and hidden thieves
That fail to spark, fail to inspire.
Like brittle leaves that flutter down,
My heartache doesn't make a sound.
Like dewdrops clinging to my fingers,
Sweet as nectar, thin as glass;
A scent of purity that lingers,
An innocence that never lasts.
The human body is inspiring,
But physicality gets tiring.
The same force that turns love to lust
Is that which grinds the dove to dust
(A dangerous preoccupation).
With weary mind and empty heart,
I sing my song and make my art,
And move beyond infatuation.
Like dewdrops clinging to my eyes,
My tears will fade but never dry.
Like prisoners you don't respond to
Glimpses of freedom from your cell.
You cannot see what lies beyond you,
Only what keeps you here in hell.
You curse the twist of fate that sent me
Home to my dreams, and you resent me
For holding on to what is real,
For sensing what you cannot feel.
But then you simply turn away from
The wonder of the evening sky
In favor of your lover's eye
So that your hearts will always stay numb.
Like prisoners you hang your heads,
Like filthy whores in passion's bed.
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Here's the deal:
AVENues is not written by high-faluting AVEN officials in a secret office somewhere. AVENues is written by you – by real live asexuals, demi-sexuals, not-sure-yet-sexuals, and their allies. That means that keeping things moving in here is up to you.
In every issue, we're going to need a ton of writing, and we're making it easy now by giving you a list of exactly what we want. Here is a list of what AVENues is made of:
News: If you were at (or know of) an event that had something to do with asexuality, we'd like to hear about it!
Opinion and theory: about asexuality. 300-1500 words is the best length.
Media: Have you spotted something asexual in a movie, book, song, or TV show? How are we being represented?
Poems and short stories with asexual themes.
The best of AVEN and beyond: If you're hanging out online and see a quote that deserves publishing or a hardworking asexy warrior who deserves recognition – no matter where from - then tell us about it!
Reader responses: We love getting letters, whether it's agreement with something, disagreement with something, questions, general comments, praise, curses, suggestions, or anything else you can throw at us! And it only takes a minute to answer the latest Food For Thought question.
Art and photography: Anything visual with an asexual or AVEN theme is well worth including, especially photos from AVEN meetups!
Fun: Comics, puzzles, recipes – give our inner child something to do!
Send it all to newsl...@asexuality.org, and remember, we'll write back to you within three business days.
The full PDF version of this newsletter can be found here: http://www.asexuality.org/avenues/2008_12_06.pdf
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Asexual: A person who does not experience sexual attraction. Unlike celibacy, which is a choice, asexuality is a sexual orientation.
AVEN: The Asexual Visibility and Education Network, an online community and resource archive striving to create open and honest discussion about asexuality among asexual and sexual people alike.
AVENues: A bimonthly publication available online, created by members of the AVEN community in order to further showcase our thoughts and promote discussion by and about asexuals.
For more information, visit http://www.asexuality.org.
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CONTENTS
1. Asexuality and Disability
2. Identity Without the Politics?
3. Food For Thought
4. News
5. From The Forum
6. Aussie Meanderings: The Story of an Article
7. Asexuals All Over
8. Internet Spotlight
9. Media Reviw: WALL-E
10. Featured AVENite
11. Meetup Listings
12. Finite Hearts
The PDF version of this newsletter also includes a comic and art not available in text-only form.
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This summer, in Adams vs. Rice, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia declared a woman legally disabled because following her treatment for breast cancer she no longer felt able to enter into a sexual relationship. The court wrote:
As a basic physiological act practiced regularly by a vast portion of the population, a cornerstone of family and marital life, a conduit to emotional and spiritual fulfillment, and a crucial element in intimate relationships, sex easily qualifies as a "major" life activity.
Two issues ago, we asked you about this case as our Food For Thought question. We were expecting a few short paragraphs. But in this issue, we've got not one, but two full articles that were inspired by the topic. Enjoy!
Asexuality and Disability
by MANDREWLITER
This past summer, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia handed down its decision for the case Adams v. Rice, and the relevance of this case to asexuality has come up in the asexosphere. Kathy Adams had passed the foreign service exam and was eligible for service in the U.S. State Department anywhere in the world. Then she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent surgery to cure it. Though she recovered very well and her doctor said that the follow up medical treatment she would need over the coming years was very basic and would be available anywhere, the State Department revoked her clearance. Adams sued under the Rehabilitation Act of 1964, and part of the reasoning the court used to decide in favor of Adams is that a) sex is a major life activity, and therefore b) the loss of libido and change in physical appearance following a mastectomy constituted a disability directly resulting from Adams' breast cancer.
If lacking sexual desire is a disability because sex is a "major life activity," this seems to suggest that asexuality would be a disability under this ruling, though this implication is clearly not the court's intent. After learning of this case in a blog and reading the court's opinion, I rather foolhardily created a thread on AVEN, which I inappropriately titled "asexuality is now legally a disability." To try to set things straight, I'm going to attempt to explain what this case does and does not mean for the asexual community as I understand it. I'm not a lawyer, so take my description for what it's worth.
First, I want to clear up the confusion a lot of people have about this case. Sometimes when they hear about Adams vs. Rice, people are surprised. How is being disinterested in sex in any way relevant to Adams' job? This confusion arises from thinking like a normal human being, rather than a lawyer. The connection between her disinterest in sex has and her job is completely beside the point.
A large part of the case stems from the fact that the Rehabilitation Act of 1964 has some serious problems. In particular, rather than saying that the government could not discriminate against Adams on the basis of her having had cancer, it says that the government cannot discriminate against her on the basis of her having had cancer, if that cancer caused a disability. Moreover, "disability" has a specific meaning in the law: "An individual is disabled under the Rehabilitation Act only if she can show that she (1) has a physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more . . . major life activities, (2) has a record of such an impairment, or (3) is regarded as having such an impairment".
It is clear that Adams had cancer, but in order for her to sue under this law, she must demonstrate that her cancer impaired a "major life activity." Given that her doctor said that she was in exceptional health, the question is what major life activity was impaired. In a U.S. Supreme Court decision on a very similar law, that court had decided that reproduction was a major life activity. That precedent raises the question of whether or not it can be extended to saying that sex is a major life activity. Adams declared it was a major life activity; the lawyers for the State Department didn't contest this point (in my view, a tactical blunder on their part).
The State Department's entire argument was based on the fact that it had no idea that loss of sexual desire was a consequence of Adams' breast cancer, so it it could not be held responsible in this case. The court disagreed, saying that this interpretation would not provide as strong a safeguard to protect workers from discrimination based on irrational beliefs about cancer. For example, suppose an employer thought that people who had cancer should be fired to prevent other workers from catching it and fired an employee who had recovered from some form of cancer. If that person's cancer caused some sort of impairment, the employee would have protection under the Act regardless of whether the employer knew the exact nature of the impairment. Since the purpose of the law is to protect workers from discrimination based on irrational beliefs about cancer and other major health issues, the State Department's interpretation does not seem to be in accord with the purpose of the law.
With respect to asexuality, the question is what this case means for us. Technically, it means nothing at all. Suppose that it's as plain as day that asexuality is a disability if sex is a major life activity (a point I'm sure some lawyer somewhere would contest). This case still would not make asexuality a disability. In order for this decision to mean anything for asexuals, there would have to be another case within this circuit court's jurisdiction in which the question arose of whether asexuality was a disability, asexuality as a disability was of central importance for the court's decision, and Adams v. Rice was used as a precedent to decide the question. The possibility of that happening seems very remote. I am not aware of anyone who has been discriminated against in the workplace for being asexual. Furthermore, the state of New York even protects against employment and housing discrimination based on real or perceived asexuality by including asexuality in a list of sexual orientations in an anti-discrimination act. Everyone that I've read on the subject neither knows of any cases where this has been used nor expects such cases to arise.
Even if this decision has no legal implications for asexuals, some people may find it unsettling for symbolic reasons. While it does not make asexuality legally a disability, it may make it one logically. Some people may see the decision as being bad for asexual identity politics. Birdnerd's article below provides some thoughts on this subject.
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Identity Without the Politics?
by BIRDNERD
Everyone who's buckling down for the new Dark Age that Adams v. Rice has supposedly ushered in for asexuals (or, alternately, who's holding out for a handicapped parking tag), please get out your surveying equipment for a refresher course on mountains and molehills.
As mandrewliter has shown, the case has a great deal more to do with making the best of a badly written law and fighting discrimination in the workplace than it does with declaring asexuality a disability.
Despite the minor hubbub the case provoked on AVEN a few months back, the court's ruling in Adams v. Rice isn't talking to us (and likely isn't even talking about us). The court did not set out to rule that asexuality was a disability, and unless a similar case goes to trial in which an asexual argues precisely that, I don't think anyone particularly cares. (I'll grant, though, that legal precedent is a funny thing, and it's anybody's guess how the courts will actually use Adams v. Rice in the future, so we might at least keep our ears to the ground).
Our response to the ruling, I think, is a great deal more telling than the ruling itself. While the possibility that the precedent established in Adams v. Rice could eventually lead to the definition of asexuality as a disability is remote at best, the insinuation makes some of us uneasy. Here's a bunch of folks who may never have undergone any breast cancer treatment who, nevertheless, are also missing out on this "major life activity," the court seems to have said. If the plaintiff can be shown to be disabled, can asexuals? The question gives us the jitters coming from this quarter because it's certainly not the first time we've heard it. It's the old isn't-there-something-wrong-with-you-guys question again. We've grown used to fielding it from friends, family members and TV talk show hosts, but it seems somehow scarier once our interlocutor gets a gavel.
It's a question, though—a rude, insensitive, misguided question, mind you—but hey, sticks and stones and all that. While such a question does carry a certain symbolic weight in this context, it requires a prodigious act of imagination to extrapolate from the facts of the case some horny dystopia in which asexuals are institutionalized or medically "corrected" or what have you. Nobody cares that much, folks. People sometimes ask stupid questions. What's the big deal?
The subject we haven't broached yet is our somewhat unexamined relationship to the O-word. Our unease in the wake of Adams v. Rice got me wondering: are we being oppressed, here or elsewhere? Anywhere? I think we somewhat perversely like to imagine that we are. It makes us feel special. So we sit around our Internet message board with flashlights under our chins, telling each other this campfire story that someone or something is Out To Get Us. Yes, it's a mighty downer that we're overlooked and misunderstood, that more novels don't get written about us, that we have difficulty taking online dating quizzes, that advertisers apparently don't give a rat's ass about selling us shampoo, and that we have to answer stupid questions from well-meaning acquaintances. But seriously, is that oppression? Teen angst, maybe, and that's on a bad day. The one exception I can think of is that your shrink might try to fix you, but we do have a team in dialogue with the sexual dysfunctions workgroup for the DSM-V.
Our eagerness to concoct some sort of legal discrimination against ourselves has got me wondering quite a bit about asexual identity politics. Upon discovering that—statistically speaking, at the very least—we too were a minority, we took a cue from our resourceful older siblings in various other minorities and assumed that once we got enough asexuals together in one place, we would or should have an asexual movement.
The thing about being a movement, though, is that you're generally moving toward something. And we are, to an extent. At AVEN, we're after visibility and education—here we are, here's how we tick, let's-deconstruct-a-few-binary-oppositions-okay-thank-you-bye—good old 1990s-style "representation." We're out to let the novelists and the well-meaning acquaintances and the advertising agencies know that we exist; we're happy, well-adjusted people; we buy shampoo; and hey, if you find that you aren't gay, straight or bi, there's an option four.
So once we get the kids another box to check under "Sexual Orientation," can we go home? Is there anything we especially need to protest or lobby for? A part of me worries that our apparent ability to do identity-without-the-politics will earn us a reputation as the agreeable, complacent minority, the one legislators like because we don't impose on them to do anything, but I worry more that we'll whip ourselves into a paranoid frenzy over imagined injustices and earn ourselves a reputation as melodramatic nuisances.
So what do you think? Are we oppressed? What is asexual identity politics, if there is any such thing? What do we, as a community, actually want, and how do we propose to get it?
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Food For Thought
Birdnerd's article – inspired directly by the Food For Thought question two issues ago – brings us into this issue's question.
In what sense, if any, are asexuals oppressed, and how should this influence the goals of AVEN?
Send your answers – as long as an article, like Birdnerd's, or as short as a few sentences – to newsl...@asexuality.org. We'll publish our favorite responses, along with a new question, in our next issue.
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News
The AVEN Web site has been busy lately! We've gone through a number of major forum upgrades, created a new subforum ("The Chatterbox") for off-topic discussion, and are now discussing new developments pertaining to the AVEN front page, moderator re-elections, new moderator positions, and potential new chat software.
KBRD143 and GBRD143, two long-time members of AVEN and proud asexuals, were married on Oct 24th. Well-wishing AVENites from all over the world were able to watch the ceremony via a live webcast.
Coleslaw, AVEN's tech admin, gave a very successful presentation on asexuality at the University of British Columbia this past month. On Dec 4th, there was a fundraiser in New York City to finance the production for a film by Arts Engine called "Asexuality: The Making of a Movement". Other places where the topic of asexuality has been popping up include a core module for sociology, criminology and psychology students in England, the mtv3.fi Web site in Finland, the Spanish journal El Pais, the television show "Happy Hour" in Brazil, the blog "She Sheet", the "Trisha Goddard" show in the UK, leaflets by the Family Planning Association in the UK, and Tearaway magazine in New Zealand.
Still looking for asexual interviewees include a psychology of gender student at the University of British Columbia, a student filmmaker in London, the University of Montana in Missoula, a journalist for women's magazines in the UK, an undergraduate psychology student in Liverpool, the channel BBC 3, and the University of British Columbia Sexual Health Lab.
Meanwhile, please welcome the newest addition to the worldwide AVEN team – AVEN Czech Republic, at http://www.aven.czechian.net/ . We are also discussing what would be needed for a new Web site for Australians – Asexual Awareness Australia.
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From the Forum
A selection of posts from the discussion boards on the AVEN Web site
The comparison of sex to addictive drugs comes up repeatedly at AVEN and it seems to always get shut down. It appears to be politically incorrect to make the comparison. I think it is a valid comparison, or certainly a kickoff for a candid discussion. I would say that a former drug addict like KE6 has a valid perspective. I have known some addicts myself. They aren't raging maniacs; they just gotta have it, whatever it is, and all is well so long as they get it, whatever it is. With someone I've known recently it was Vicodin, and profligate waste of money leading to starvation at the end of the month. I had a recovering sex addict as a housemate years ago; that opened my eyes to the wide band of grey that separates sex addiction from so-called normative sexual behavior.
As for the itch itself, I absolutely know what it feels like, as much as an A can know. And I know just how to scratch it. But I have never had the itch for someone else, so I have never had to negotiate that treacherous bridge. I will grant sexuals sympathy; it must be tough. But without all the cultural overlay that wraps that itch in the package that Sally describes above, I find it hard to believe that it can't reasonably be scratched by oneself when the other person just says no. My experience in saying no (while also sometimes saying yes in hope for a breakthrough that never came) was that it got me labeled 'dyke' and 'frigid' and 'repressed' and 'sick' and it got me physically assaulted and almost raped. The sexuals that think that this behavior is OK need to be kicked around the block for starters.
Apart from the cheap-sex themes of pop culture that surrounded me as a young adult, my personal experience with sexuals who wanted to have sex with me was that at least half of them were compassionate, intelligent, interesting and respectful people. The others were jerks of one sort or another, sometimes masquerading as compassionate and intelligent. But even here, I don't lump all pigs together; there's a bell curve.
- osito, October 21, 2008, in Asexual Musings and Rantings
Okay, gender and sexuality theory glasses on. Coming out, even as something without explicit, though still implicit, stigma is frightening, because it is an admission at a fundamental level that the person coming out isn't "normal". That they are an other to the established, expected orientation, and thus must "come out", reveal themselves for the greater issue of visibility and stigma-removal. This act at its most basic, fundamental level is a conscious act of revelation of the self as an other. That's to put it academically, really F-ing scary, no matter who you are.
I mean, sure, a gay child, or a trans child has much more to fear in terms of physical violence and emotional alienation than most asexuals mainly because the people we come out to are often too confused to really hate, but it's not a wholly safe act either. Most people disbelieve us, requiring us to repeatedly other ourselves to the same people. Others react by wanting to cure us, a similar dynamic as was in play at the beginning of homosexual recognition by society.
And more importantly, the truth remains that the act makes one an outted other. And others are not treated well by society. Something outside, foreign, a challenge to assumptions often elicits a violent reaction from society once the joke period has worn off. People often find it easier to "remove" the other than have to try and integrate the other with their current belief system. This has yet to happen to asexuals, but that cultural knowledge has still been ingrained in us. We may not even think about it, worry about it, but the knowledge that coming out is a fundamentally courageous, dangerous act adds a psychological weight to the process.
We of the asexual persuasion do owe a lot to our gay and trans brothers and sisters for blazing this trail and making that act of othering oneself much less psychologically fraught, making the cultural narrative of it ending up well not foreign, but it is still not an easy task or a wholly non-dangerous one.
- Cerberus, November 6, 2008, in Asexual Musings and Rantings
To say "I'm straight" is just to say your sexuality is towards the opposite sex. To say "I'm a-sexual" is to really and truly question what sexuality is, which is fascinating.
- SlightlyMetaphysical, November 27, 2008, in "Asexual Musings and Rantings"
From the Forum posts belong to their respective authors and do not necessarily represent the official viewpoint of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network.
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Aussie Meanderings: The Story of an Article
by SPIRALLINGSNOWY
I don't see myself as doing anything special here on AVEN. Really. I know I'm a moderator, and I know some of the Aussie AVENites look at me as some kind of focal point in the moderation team – some of them want me to be the contact for the Web site too – but it's not every day that a major magazine from your local city contacts you. Maybe its because I'm a moderator and have a reasonable post count, but really, I was just minding my own business in my little asexual world, when I had a PM come up on AVEN one day. Admittedly, these days I receive more PMs than I have in the past, but this one caught my eye. A woman called Helen Vruk had made an account on AVEN, and had PMed me. She's a writer from Women's Day here in Sydney. She was looking for a couple in a happy sexless marriage, and hoped to find them on AVEN. She wanted to show that not everyone has the same sexual desires and needs and that relationships without sex can work.
Needless to say, I was bouncing off the wall. Women's Day? The biggest women's magazine for the 25-45-year-old demographic – millions of readers. I wasn't entirely sure what to write, let alone how to write it. It took a good 20 minutes for it to sink in fully that a major magazine had contacted us about asexuality, let alone me, and it was up to me to call the shots and bring the goods, so to speak. I called "I Am Sasquatch," one of my fellow Sydneysiders, to go "Oh my God, guess what just happened!" I just had to tell someone – well, someone for whom it would be a big deal as well.
It was just overwhelming that I'd been contacted. But I then had to go trawling through the members list, trying to find a married Sydney couple. And I couldn't find any.
Helen had said that she would prefer someone from Sydney but Australian was just as good, so I let my fellow Aussies on AVEN know, and Saj pointed out that there is a couple in Perth who are married, asexual and happy. And…. they were willing to be interviewed!
So I e-mailed Helen back and she was happy I replied. She had originally said she didn't expect that we would be able to come up with something, but was grateful that we had. I will be able to read the article before it goes to print. They usually do not do this, but as this is a sensitive topic, they will let me.
The interview has occurred, and I've had Galileo Ace (one half of the couple who was interviewed) tell me that it went down very well, with the interviewer talking extensively with them about asexuality. Hopefully I will have a chance to e-mail Helen back about the interview and find out a publish date.
It's really good to have some positive asexuality going on here in Australia, as we have very little visibility. This is the first Australian interview I've been a part of in the three years I've been at AVEN, and as our member count tends to linger lower than 100, with usually a handful or two of active members, it is good to be getting this coverage with Womens Day. In the Meetup Mart section of the AVEN forums, we have over sixty Australian members listed, and meets as well.
2008 feels like a promising year – well, what's left in it. I plan to get some more visibility happening our way. We have some great ideas for an Australian Asexuality Web site, and several awesome Web techie types and brilliant graphically able AVENites are working on some ideas. Some great discussion about the graphics has been occurring as well as what content to have on it. The next Sydney meet so far has eleven members attending, and it will be our biggest meet yet!
As Saj, a fellow Aussie, has put it, "It's a great time to be asexual!" And really it is. Things are looking up. Keep your eyes peeled for more Aussie visibility and musings from the "Great Southern Land" of Oz.
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Asexuals All Over
A selection of posts from all over the Internet
I met up with four fellow AVENites just outside the entrance to the Ballard Locks on Sunday. (Oh, and for those not in the know, the Ballard Locks is a cool little ship canal that allows vessels to pass from the fresh water of Lake Washington into the salt water of Puget Sound.) I even brought a purple banana to the meet-up (just as I had promised at last week's meet-up) – ha ha! It does exist!
We waited a bit for others to arrive, then went to the Lockspot Cafe, just a few feet away. We spent nearly two hours in that cafe, chatting and munching on Greek fries. Sally and Tikva were disappointed when they found out AVENguy had been at last week's meetup – alas, our "A-list celebrity" had come without them even knowing! :)
I then asked if anyone would be interested in a road trip down to San Francisco next summer for the gay pride parade. I had already mentioned it to Ily and DJ – our goal is to gather asexuals from Vancouver, Seattle, Portland and San Francisco and set up a booth at the parade. Everyone loved the idea, so I'm hoping we can really follow through with this…
It was dark and windy by the time we walked out to the Locks – not the ideal conditions to wear open-toed sandals… One of my favorite moments of the evening was when a group of frat boys walked past us with their bikes. It was pretty clear they were checking out Cyan and I (for me to notice, it must have been obvious!!). Frat boy #1 shouted out, "Hey, wanna party?" Then, Frat boy #2 chimed in "Yeah, I got a whole bag of party right here!"
Haw haw haw… I think it was Sally who smirked a moment later and muttered "If only he knew…" We then ran with the joke, suggesting one of us take the opportunity to educate the poor fools and that we (Aces) really knew how to party. We continued to "party" (a. k. a. talk) a bit more, while my toes slowly turned into popsicles and the wind froze my ears.
It took a while to defrost after the meet-up, but it was well worth it.
- theimpossiblek, October 28, 2008, on the blog "Ace of Hearts"
And new technology… do not get me started. I have a new interest in some form of technology as often as a teenage girl gets a new celebrity crush (that means every two weeks or so). Gaming laptops, ultrathin laptops (you have no idea what kind of state the MacBook Air ad put me in when I first saw it… I had a crush on a real person at the time, and the feelings were exactly the same, to the point that I once compared that person to the laptop – but I never told them, though, because they probably would not have understood how much it meant from me), ebook readers, and MacBooks: there is no single day in which I do not think about at least two of these. When I get bored in class, I browse the Internet for information on my favorite device of the moment. My friends think I am crazy. I usually say that I have transferred to laptops the kind of feelings and emotions I should feel towards romantically interesting people. I say it as a joke, but I think it is partly true.
- Rainbow Amoeba, November 11, 2008, on the blog "Rainbow Amoeba's Petri Dish"
Statements featured in "Asexuals All Over" belong to their respective authors and do not necessarily express the official viewpoints of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network.
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Internet Spotlight
Ace Linkup
Ace Linkup is a small friendship-based community managed by the AVENite Shockwave. It includes space to have friendly forum discussions and share creative works as well as a live chat room.
Love from the Asexual Underground
Formerly a podcast, Love from the Asexual Underground is now the blog of David Jay, AVEN's founder. In it, he chronicles important new developments in asexual visibility, theory and community, as well as discussing his own system of nonsexually intimate relationships outside of the friendship/romance binary.
Asexual and Proud!
Asexual and Proud! is Myspace's largest group for asexuals, boasting 228 members. The community is lighthearted and makes jokes about reproducing by budding; they are also involved in the campaign to get Myspace to include "Asexual" as an option in its sexual orientation field.
Asexualitic
Asexualitic bills itself as "the first free dating site for asexual people", (although, technically, A-Date, a part of the Acebook community, was constructed first). Asexualitic uses commercial personals software that works in five languages and includes forums, chat, private messaging, photo galleries, and complex person search techniques. It also contains some introductory articles on asexuality.
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WALL-E
by BLUE ICE-TEA
WALL-E
Written by: Andrew Stanton & Jim Reardon
Directed by: Andrew Stanton
U.S.A.; 2008; 98 min.
WALL-E operates on many levels: as a comedy, a satire, and a love story. For children it offers loveable characters, slapstick humour, and a moral about protecting the environment. For adults it offers biting commentary on chronic social ills such as consumerism, ignorance, and obesity. To everyone it offers a rather unusual romance: a love story about a couple of robots.
"He" is WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class), an ancient robotic trash-compactor on an apparently never-ending mission to clean up the Earth's garbage. "She" is EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), a sleek, space-age scout robot who has come to Earth looking for signs of life. Each has been created for a specific purpose; each has a "directive" to fulfill. Yet, when they meet, they discover a desire for something more, setting the stage for what appears to be a truly asexual romance.
Does it work? That depends on your point of view. On the one hand, the love story is almost painfully conventional. Both robots are clearly gendered, leaving no doubt that theirs is a hetero-romantic love. Their relationship also plays out according to standard gender clichés. WALL-E is shabby-looking, but plucky. Having fallen in love with EVE at first sight, he follows her around making puppy-dog eyes and trying to get her attention. EVE – looking like the iPod to WALL-E's toaster-oven – is consistently hard to get, but eventually falls for WALL-E after he rescues her from a series of scrapes.
At a basic level the very idea of robots falling in love – let alone a specifically monogamous, hetero-romantic kind of love - seems rather unlikely. At worst, it seems like an affirmation of heteronormativity that extends even into the inanimate world. But then, we're talking about a cartoon, after all. Does it have anything positive to say to asexuals?
Well, the thing about robots falling in love is that their relationship pretty much has to be asexual. Whereas we can infer off-screen coupling between other Disney heroes and heroines, it's pretty hard to imagine hunks of metal going "all the way". Or maybe "all the way" just means something different to them. Throughout the film WALL-E longs to hold EVE by the hand. That isn't his version of "first base"; it's the ultimate expression of his love for EVE and his desire to spend his life with her.
There's a lot here for asexuals to identify with. WALL-E and EVE may be robots, and thus free from sexual desire, but they still experience a full range of human emotions and express those emotions in very human ways. WALL-E feels lonely without EVE. EVE worries about WALL-E when he gets in trouble. They hug, they kiss, they hold hands, and, in one particularly beautiful scene, they even dance through space together. A final shot shows the two strolling hand-in-hand though a meadow. Clearly, these two characters are very much in love. The fact that sex never enters into their relationship does not diminish it at all – any more than it diminishes the love of asexual romantic couples. And if the relationship looks a lot like any sexual love affair, it just shows that sexual and asexual romances really aren't that different.
Ultimately, WALL-E's take on relationships is very conventional. A boy and a girl from different worlds overcome obstacles to be together and live happily ever after. But it also provides a model of an asexual romantic relationship. That alone might be enough to recommend WALL-E to asexual people everywhere. But if it isn't, there are also the cute characters, the biting satire, and the environmentalist moral.
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Featured AVENite: "Olivier"
Name: Olivier
Age: 42
Location: Miles upriver from the nearest town in subtropical Australia
Preferred Label(s): Heterosexual
Bio: My wife is the sort of asexual for whom even talking about sex/sexuality sort of counts as sex – so AVEN helps me get an asexual perspective without overburdening her. Also, as we were both unaware of her asexuality until a few years ago (we'd gone through dozens of excuses for a "temporarily" missing libido), AVEN gives me insights and perspectives to take back to her.
As well, we've got a very successful sexual/asexual relationship – in part due to the insights of some wonderful people here and on Apositive – so it seems only fair to share what we've learned with others finding themselves in similar situations.
How he found AVEN: Googling for ideas about things that were like sex, but not sex – basically things that could be enjoyed as sexual by me, but non-sexually by my wife.
The most important thing about AVEN: It's helped us make sense of things that had just never quite clicked before. If only visibility had been higher 20 years ago, we could have saved ourselves some heartache on both sides. Trying to work out the sexual dynamics of how to make a sexual/asexual relationship work is hard enough as it is. If you assume that both partners are sexual (as we did, having never heard of asexuality), it's nearly impossible.
Advice for newbies: Read up with an open mind – there are people here with a fascinatingly wide array of perspectives. And especially to sexual newcomers: read beyond the Sexual Partners board if you want to get even more insight into asexuality. And to asexual newcomers who are or have been in relationships with sexuals, read the Sexual Partners board for possible insights into your own relationships.
Other thoughts: I'm incredibly grateful that AVEN exists – when I found AVEN, problems with sex/sexuality were really putting a strain on our otherwise wonderful marriage. But understanding asexuality has helped us move past all that. Thanks to all whose insights helped us with that!
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Meetup Listings
More and more asexual people from across the world are meeting each other through AVEN – not only online, but in real life, too. Here's a look at some of the most recent meetups and some upcoming meetups. To see more meetups, or to organize your own meetup, hop on over to the Meetup Mart section of the AVEN forums.
October 21 - Meetup at Pegasus Pizza in Seattle, Washington
October 23 - Meetup and lecture by Coleslaw on asexuality at the University of British Columbia
October 24 - Meetup at My Thai Cafe in Chicago, Illinois
October 25 - London meetup at the Penderel's Oak pub
October 25 - Meetup at the Lindt Cafe in Sydney, Australia
October 26 - Meetup at the Ballard Locks in Seattle, Washington
October 26 - Mini-meetup at Tim Horton's in Ottawa, Ontario
November 8 - southwest UK meetup in Exeter
November 9 - San Francisco meetup at the Crossroads Cafe
November 15 - Northwest UK meetup at Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester
November 22 - Atom Thai dinner in Sydney, Australia
November 23 - Evening meet at The Eatery in Vancouver, BC
November 29 - Meetup at Starbucks in Bellevue, Washington
December 3 - Mini-meetup watching "Wings of Desire" at the Harvard Film Institute in Boston, Massachusetts
December 4 – Meetup and film fundraiser in New York City
December 6 - proposed London meetup at Penderel's Oak with ice skating
December 9 – Mini-meetup at the botanical gardens in Victoria, Australia
December 13 - proposed Sydney meetup
December 14 – proposed New York City meetup
December 27 - meetup at noon at the Titanic exhibit at the Gwiz museum in Sarasota, Florida
February 7 - lunch in York, UK
There are also "Office Hours" every Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. at the Granville Island Starbucks in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Note: If you do meet people from the Internet, please remember to be safe and meet in a public place. Tell some friends where you are going and when you expect to be back, and make sure you have taxi fare in case of an emergency.
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Finite Hearts
by RAISIN
Like brittle leaves that flutter downward,
Whispering against my cheek,
Beneath my feet as I move onward,
Fragile, broken, lost, and meek.
The secret to your fleeting pleasure
Is knowing what you need to treasure,
Be it the passion of the flesh
Or looks and glances that refresh
The tired rage of your desire.
So people pass like autumn leaves,
Like murderers and hidden thieves
That fail to spark, fail to inspire.
Like brittle leaves that flutter down,
My heartache doesn't make a sound.
Like dewdrops clinging to my fingers,
Sweet as nectar, thin as glass;
A scent of purity that lingers,
An innocence that never lasts.
The human body is inspiring,
But physicality gets tiring.
The same force that turns love to lust
Is that which grinds the dove to dust
(A dangerous preoccupation).
With weary mind and empty heart,
I sing my song and make my art,
And move beyond infatuation.
Like dewdrops clinging to my eyes,
My tears will fade but never dry.
Like prisoners you don't respond to
Glimpses of freedom from your cell.
You cannot see what lies beyond you,
Only what keeps you here in hell.
You curse the twist of fate that sent me
Home to my dreams, and you resent me
For holding on to what is real,
For sensing what you cannot feel.
But then you simply turn away from
The wonder of the evening sky
In favor of your lover's eye
So that your hearts will always stay numb.
Like prisoners you hang your heads,
Like filthy whores in passion's bed.
--
Here's the deal:
AVENues is not written by high-faluting AVEN officials in a secret office somewhere. AVENues is written by you – by real live asexuals, demi-sexuals, not-sure-yet-sexuals, and their allies. That means that keeping things moving in here is up to you.
In every issue, we're going to need a ton of writing, and we're making it easy now by giving you a list of exactly what we want. Here is a list of what AVENues is made of:
News: If you were at (or know of) an event that had something to do with asexuality, we'd like to hear about it!
Opinion and theory: about asexuality. 300-1500 words is the best length.
Media: Have you spotted something asexual in a movie, book, song, or TV show? How are we being represented?
Poems and short stories with asexual themes.
The best of AVEN and beyond: If you're hanging out online and see a quote that deserves publishing or a hardworking asexy warrior who deserves recognition – no matter where from - then tell us about it!
Reader responses: We love getting letters, whether it's agreement with something, disagreement with something, questions, general comments, praise, curses, suggestions, or anything else you can throw at us! And it only takes a minute to answer the latest Food For Thought question.
Art and photography: Anything visual with an asexual or AVEN theme is well worth including, especially photos from AVEN meetups!
Fun: Comics, puzzles, recipes – give our inner child something to do!
Send it all to newsl...@asexuality.org, and remember, we'll write back to you within three business days.
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