Pride month: Reflections on Asexuality

This blog post is inspired by a conversation I had with a friend. For Pride Month, I’m planning on writing a couple of pieces, so today it’s time to tackle the umbrella term asexuality.

Growing up, this was a term never discussed. It took me until very recently to even hear about it. When I first heard about it, it was a mystery and I never quite understood it. However, the more I learn about sexuality and queerness, the more the term turns up. It’s taken me a while to reflect on it.

Under the “Ace” umbrella, there is a term called demisexual, along with many other terms like greysexual and allosexual. It gets even more complex when you consider sex-positive, sex-neutral, and sex-negative views on sex. And for people who are curious, we also have the romantic lens, where you can find attraction towards various traits. The point is, it’s a spectrum within a spectrum.

So what is asexuality? And the rest of the terms?

Asexuality is a sexual orientation characterized by a persistent lack of sexual attraction to others, or a low or absent interest in or desire for sexual activity.

So what about demi, grey, and allo?

For demi, that means a sexual orientation on the asexual spectrum where individuals experience sexual attraction only after forming a strong emotional bond with someone.

For grey, that means a sexual orientation on the asexual spectrum for individuals who feel sexual attraction infrequently, under specific circumstances, or at a very low intensity.

Finally, allo (allosexual) refers to the experience of regular sexual attraction to others, acting as a term for people who are not on the asexual spectrum.

Those are just the main terms under the Ace umbrella. It turns out things are a spectrum, not just here but in general. These are behaviors that have existed as long as humans have, we just did not have the words for them.

Which got me thinking really about myself. That raised some questions. After thinking about it for a while, I started to realize I did share some demisexual traits. Perhaps I am demi after all. Talking to my friend, he mentioned he was probably Ace. I spoke to somebody else who is poly, meaning they have multiple partners.

Therefore, this post exists. For me, I never really considered it and just thought I needed a strong bond to find real attraction. I have only felt that a few times. At other points, I thought I was just broken or gay. I am neither, for the record.

Pride month is for everybody and should not let ourselfs flattern things. As turns out spectrume exists. People like to joke about being so many letters true is. Human behavour is big and compliated. So many letters need to exist. Like flowers really and you don’t see people complaining about having to many flowers.