#26: Asexuality (Part 1)
COMMUNITY VOICE: Kj Swanson, PhD | HEALTHCARE EXPERTS: Bauer LCSW, Cody Daigle-Orians | COMMUNITY REVIEWER: Olivia Pinney
SHOW NOTES
Let’s talk terminology
Why does it matter?
Because defining an identity is more than just semantics!
It’s about making the invisible visible
Vocabulary gives people tools to find community (or, knowing what terms you can Google to find people with similar experiences)
Lastly, identity labels can framework to articulate lived experiences that come with that sexual attraction, things like stigma, unique health needs, and even joy, confusion and grief.
Ace and aro folks use a broad and nuanced lexicon to name what mainstream culture often leaves out. These micro-labels help folks describe specific ways attraction (or its absence) shows up in their lives
Core terms
A-spectrum
A catch-all term that refers to the wide range of ace/aro experiences
Reminds us that these terms aren’t binaries, but that there is a very large spectrum of experiences!
Ace = asexual
Someone who experiences little to no sexual attraction towards others
Kj reminds us that ace people can experience lust, though a core aspect of ace-ness is to not have that lust be directed at another person
Aro = aromantic
Someone who experiences little to no romantic attraction towards others
Someone can be aromantic without being asexual!
Demisexual = someone who experiences sexual attraction only after a strong emotional bond
Demiromantic = someone who experiences romantic attraction only after the presence of a strong emotional bond
Allosexual / alloromantic
Folks who do experience sexual or romantic attraction (think: literally any traditional rom-com)
Said more bluntly: allosexuality is to asexuality what heterosexuality is to…you get our point
More terms (let’s get a little queer theoretical)
Allonormativity = the assumption that sexual and romantic attraction are universal and necessary
Compulsory sexuality
The pressure to conform to those expectations (i.e. engage in romantic or sexual relationships)
An example: the expectation that romantic partners are meant to provide certain support (such as picking someone up from a medical procedure)
Why ace and aro folks are part of the queer community
Because queerness isn’t just about who you love—it’s about rejecting dominant, hegemonic cultural scripts that don’t fit
Ace and aro folks challenge the centrality of sex and romance in how we define connection, identity and structure of one’s life
As Sherronda J. Brown puts it: “[Aroace people] are made queer by virtue of our departure from cisheteropatriarchal gender and sexual norms, even as our departures lead us toward different paths.”
Why a-spectrum media representation matters
It helps folks recognize themselves in narratives that don’t center sex or romance,
It offers vivid, visceral examples of experiences that are often felt but rarely named which may, in some cases, prompt realizations about identity (see: Kj’s discussion re: Heartstopper)
It creates room for new stories that push against dominant cultural norms that center sex and romance
For some ace/aro media recommendations, keep scrolling below!
Coming out on the ace and aro spectrum
Finding a name for something you don’t feel
For many, discovering an ace/aro identity comes not from a spark—but from the absence of one
It’s not always about what you feel, but what you don’t—no crushes, no desire for sex or romance, even when it’s “supposed” to happen
That absence can feel disorienting in a world that treats attraction as inevitable, essential, and even a marker of maturity or success
All of this to say, the path to self-discovery can be mixed and complicated!
It can include grief, relief, joy, disorientation—and often, all of these emotions all at once!
Ace/aro people often internalize feelings of being “broken,” “late,” or “just not trying hard enough” – and undoing this self-stigma can take time and intentionality
Accordingly, the journey toward ace/aro self-awareness often includes deep self-reflection, and can stir up grief for paths one didn’t take (or couldn’t even seeas a possibility)
But to be clear: they also bring profound relief, clarity, and joy
When the pieces do click into place, many describe it not as adding a new identity, but finally understanding one they’ve had all along
RESOURCE ROUNDUP
Note: have an ace or aro recommendation? Send it our way and we will add it!
MEDIA RESOURCES
TV shows
Heartstopper - created by an ace person! Features an ace character (Isaac), and as Kj mentions in our episode, the romantic arc of the main protagonists held resonance with her as a demi person
Koisenu futari - j-drama with aro/ace representation!
The Boyfriend - while none of the reality show participants are ace or aro identified, the show was shouted out as a great one for the slow burn!
Sex Education - has an ace character
K-dramas - though few characters are explicitly ace/aro, popular for the extreme slow-burn of it all!
AZE, interdisciplinary journal of asexual, aromantic, and agender creators (azejournal.com)
Literary fiction with ace/aro characters (a brief list)
Loveless by Alice Oseman
How You Get the Girl by Anita Kelly (sapphic, demi representation)
Here We Go Again by Alison Cochrun (sapphic, demi representation)
Dear Wendy by Ann Zhao (YA, sapphic, ace/aro representation)
The Loudest Silence (YA, ace/aro representation)
Non-fiction books!
The Invisible Orientation by Julie Sondra Decker - for an in-depth look at sexuality
Ace: What Asexual Reveals about Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen - for asexual lived experiences
Against Sex: Identities of Sexual Restraint in Early America by Kara French - for a historical perspective
Compulsory Sexuality by Elizabeth Emens for legal concerns for aces
The Other Significant Other by Rhaina Cohen for platonic relationship exploration
Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J. Brown
Tangentially related – Relationality by David Jay
Podcasts
Sounds Fake But Okay (soundsfakepod.com)
NON-MEDIA RESOURCES
Thank you to our guests for sending these!
Referrals for Ace & Aro Friendly Professionals
AceRecommended.org
Groups for Aces & Aros
Acesandaros.org
The Asexual Education and Visibility Project (AVEN) at asexuality.org
The Aromantic-Spectrum Union for Recognition, Education, and Advocacy (AUREA) at aromanticism.org
The Aromantic-Spectrum Union for Recognition, Education, and Advocacy (AUREA) at aromanticism.org
General community resources
Ace Dad Advice (Cody’s website) - check out the “Training” page for educational resources!
The Ace and Aro Advocacy Project (TAAAP) at taaap.org
The Asexual Education and Visibility Project (AVEN) at asexuality.org
Statistics!
Ace: The Ace Community Survey Team’s annual reports at acecommunitysurvey.org
Aro: The Aro Census by AUREA at aromanticism.org/aro-census
TRANSCRIPT
[QHP THEME MUSIC BEGINS]
Kj: I thought having a name for something I already knew about myself wouldn't change anything, but actually I realized being a minority sexual orientation had affected everything in my life. Not knowing that my entire childhood and adulthood affected things, and it affects things now, of having lost all of that time to learn tools for myself, vocabulary for myself, options for myself, of how to know what I want and how to pursue what I want, and how to recognize something I might want when it's there.
Gaby: Welcome to Queer Health Pod. I'm Gaby. I use she/her pronouns. I'm a queer primary care doctor in New York City and I just saw Death Becomes Her on Broadway, which revived my love for camp.
Sam: I'm Sam. I use he/him pronouns. I have the same job title and I never go to the movie theater, but I recently saw Queer, and then I saw Baby Girl and both were, I think, definitely going to become queer media.
Richard: I love that Sam is going to movie theaters, and I'm Richard, I use he and him pronouns, and I'm also a primary care doctor, and I've been practicing longer than Sam and Gaby, so I get to go last and tell you that I have over twenty years of LGBTQ experience. And, as a full on Marvel nerd, I'm still loving my rewatches of Agatha all along in all its queer glory.
Gaby: And you are listening to Queer Health Pod Season three, episode seven, asexuality Part one
[QHP THEME MUSIC ENDS]
Gaby: At the top of this episode, you heard from – you probably guessed it: our community voice for this episode.
Kj: My name is Kj Swanson. She/her pronouns. I'm a white, female, middle aged, academic, but now primarily creative creative consultant, creative collaborator. Currently, my labels that feel helpful for me are, I am ace, or asexual, and demiromantic. I also like to say I'm demiaroace.
Richard: Don't worry, if you're furrowing your brow trying to recognize some of the words that were just said, you're listening to the right episode. The terms Kj used: asexual, aromantic, demiromantic, and a term that combines all of these, demiaroace – these are really the heart of this episode.
Sam: Before getting into all of the vocab, we wanted to take a step back and talk about why we think an episode on asexual and aromantic people, or the ace and aro community (which is shorthand) is so important.
Richard: Let's start broad. Asexuality and aromanticism refer to folks who don't necessarily feel romantic or sexual attraction. You will often hear these shortened: ace for asexuality and aro for aromanticism.
Gaby: We will revisit these later on in this episode, so if you have questions, we can and will answer them.
Richard: Now, critically, ace and aro folks have been around for forever. Scientists Nikola Tesla, composer Frederic Chopin, even Isaac Newton, all speculated to possibly be asexual. But despite this, ace and aro identities are not commonly understood by allosexual people.
Sam: Alright, this is your first vocab lesson. Allosexual and alloromantic are terms that describe folks who do experience romantic or sexual attraction in more “mainstream” or conventional ways. If you're wondering what we mean by that, please open your Netflix and refer to pretty much any romantic comedy movie for a prime example of allosexuality and alloromanticism.
Gaby: 27 dresses.
Sam: Fine, I'll be the first to admit that I watched the Netflix special that was essentially Magic Mike but not, but someone's lawyer said it was okay to produce it.
Gaby: Oh, I didn't watch that.
Sam: It was it was par for the course, but I maybe don't open that one if you are going to open your Netflix as instructed.
Richard: I should watch that one.
Gaby: Well, you can watch Red, White, and Royal Blue if you want a classic rom-com with a queer twist, but not an ace twist.
Richard: I do love that one.
Gaby: It's very good.I think regardless of whatever media you choose to watch, between our last line and right now, I think it's really important to point out that the issue here isn't just a lack of awareness of Ace and Aro identities. I. It goes deeper than that because there are a reasonable number of allosexual people who know the textbook definitions of either asexuality or aromanticism, but still don't really grasp why ace and aro visibility matters so much.
Sam: If you are one of those people, then we have an answer. First, identity labels are really good tools for building community and fostering connection. Like, how else are you supposed to know what to Google?
Richard: Is this what Reddit is good for?
Gaby: You have so much to learn. But labels do help you discover these corners of the internet and the world, really where kindred spirits exist. But beyond that, the labels actually have a different purpose because they serve to codify experiences. And so what I mean by that is that if you claim an identity like asexuality, it does more than just describe sexual attraction. It actually provides a framework to articulate lived experiences that come with that sexual attraction, things like stigma, unique health needs, and even joy, confusion and grief.
Richard: And yes, if you're still wondering, ace and aro people have a distinct and important lived experience that absolutely deserves recognition. That's the whole thesis behind this podcast episode,
Gaby: And in fact, ace and aro folks, if you think about it, navigate a world where both romantic and sexual attraction are the default or are assumed to be natural or unavoidable. This is a world where society is structured socially, culturally, economically, medically around these assumptions. And this is a concept called allo normativity. So allosexual, allonormativity you get the picture.
Richard: So, in a world where we're expected to live with romantic partners or spouses, how can you achieve joyful community living when long term romantic coupling isn't in your future? In a world that views sexual attraction as the default, how might your identity be pathologized by the healthcare community or viewed as something that needs to be fixed when, in fact, it gives you joy and peace?
Sam: This, as you can imagine, is a very exhausting set of assumptions to fight against day in and day out.
Gaby: So all of this gets at the why behind this episode, and now we're gonna get at the how. This episode is part one of a two episode series on the ace and aro community. Today we're gonna focus on setting a foundation, defining core terms, discussing how Ace and Aro folks fit into the queer community, and talking about some of the ways that folks commonly come into their ace and aro identities. And we're gonna do this all using Kj’s own story into her a-spectrum identity.
Sam: In episode two, we're going to drill down into the specific ways that folks with an ace and aro identity might engage with the world differently. From mental health settings, to the primary care office, to navigating intimate relationships, we'll cover a bunch of different scenarios.
Richard: So without further ado, let's get into it.
[TRANSITION MUSIC]
Gaby: As we enter the vocabulary section of this episode, I do want to remind everybody in the audience that we have previously established that my drag name would be Miriam Webster.
Sam: While a section on vocab doesn't seem like the sexiest thing to want to listen to, It's really fundamental, especially as the vocab is critical to How ace and aro folks define their experiences in the world.
Richard: So let's repeat a few terms that we defined up top. Asexuality, or ace, is a term that describes folks who don't feel sexual attraction. Aromanticism, or aro, refers to folks who don't feel romantic attraction. You might hear these combined under the umbrella term ace and aro, or A-spectrum.
Gaby: The prefix A here is key. A means not in Latin. So asexual means not sexual though I will say that Kj overall made a good point, which is that we shouldn't think of this as a strict “not” when in reality people often feel little to no sexual attraction, which allows for there to be a spectrum in both of those terms.
Sam: Gaby, how thrilled are you to be flexing your middle school Latin on this podcast, even though I think the prefixes are from the Greek?
Gaby: I'm even more thrilled that we're having an ancient language prefixed debate right now. But all of that aside, I do wanna make the point that asexuality and a romanticism actually don't necessarily need to go hand in hand, even though we're gonna often juxtapose these two equivalent terms.
Richard: Exactly. Some people may be asexual but not aromantic, or aromantic but not asexual, and that's just scratching the surface. There's an entire lexicon of ace and arrow identity terms or combination of terms out there.
Sam: Okay, but why is the Ace and Aro world so robust with its vocabulary?
Gaby: You know, I've got just the person to answer that question,
Cody: My name is Cody Daigle-Orians, my pronouns are they/them, and I am an asexuality writer and educator.
Gaby: And here's Cody talking about the importance of ace and aro terminology.
Cody: As ace and aro people have articulated their experiences more and articulated how they live, being ace and aro – it’s become very clear that it's not just simply that one way of experiencing sexual and romantic attraction. We recognize that there's a spectrum there. There's a lot of color and flavor and texture around different ways of experiencing being ace and arrow. So the community has created a large range of terms – broad labels in the community, also micro labels, which really zero one on very specific experiences – to talk, not just about how one is ace but real intricacies and details about how that shows up in their lives. So there are micro labels that talk about one's relationship to sexual activity or romantic activity. There are nuanced words that talk about how sexual attraction or romantic attraction is experienced. There's a very broad vocabulary that imagines all the ways in which one can experience sexual and romantic attraction.
Gaby: Asexuality and a romanticism aren't monoliths. And so the large number of terms reflects the many ways that ace and aro identities intersect, but also differ. And so to truly understand and support the community, we need to embrace language that illuminates how they see and navigate the world.
Richard: Yeah, and that's why, by the way, you'll hear us using the terms ace and aro a lot. Like the word queer, it's an umbrella term that makes room for all these different microexperiences that are a part of both asexuality and aromanticism. Have we defined all of the terms that we need to, kids?
Sam: We're still missing two big ones, demisexual and demiromantic, which were mentioned by Kj earlier in this episode as some of the identities she claims.
Richard: Oh, Gabitha? Oh, Gabitha!
Gaby: Demi has both Latin and Greek origins and is the word in both of these languages for half or partial. Sam may win here because this actually may come from Demeter who is the goddess of harvest, and that may or may not be where the word comes from, But anyway. The point is technically demisexual and demi romantic mean “partially” sexual or “partially” romantic. But that's a weird way of translating it because it doesn't necessarily mean that people are like 50% sexual or 50% romantic. Let's let Cody explain.
Cody: Demisexual and demiromantic describe people who experience sexual and romantic attraction only under specific circumstances.
Richard: And those specific circumstances are some kind of significant emotional bond or connection with another person
Gaby: Now you may be out there thinking to yourself, I also need a bond with someone before I feel sexual attraction. And this is a really common response for many people, but I will say specifically for people who are socialized as women, it does happen though to people of all genders.
Richard: I think there's a difference between not experiencing or minimally experiencing sexual attraction in the way that we sometimes conceive of it, where you need security or safety to allow yourself to feel sexually attracted to someone is different than asexuality or aromanticism, where that's not a spark that's like underlying and waiting to be ignited.
Gaby: And so saying that, “Oh, like I don't wanna go to the sex party.” That doesn't necessarily make you demisexual. It's really about identifying with the absence of attraction that persistently comes up in the way that you engage with the world, with relationships.
Richard: Despite what we sometimes see in the media and even sometimes in the queer media, casual sexual encounters aren't necessarily the way that we're socialized and many people need some kind of spark and people need to feel safe. People need to make out before they actually feel sexual with someone else. that's not what we're talking about here. That's different than asexuality, which is there's not this. saw a movie and saw someone acting in really sexy ways and then thought of them as sexy or sexual objects but just haven't had an encounter like that in my real life. There's a real lack of those feelings or experiences which doesn't mean that we don't like or which doesn't mean that folks who are ace or arrow don't like or love the people around them.
Gaby: I'll also say that our conversations with Kj were really clarifying here. She talks about the fact that in the way that she conceptualizes it, aceness means that there isn't lust directed at another person. So that, for me was really helpful to understand that an ace experience can include horniness or lust, just not specifically involving somebody else.
Cody: A lot of folks hear the definition of demisexual and think, "Oh everyone's like that. We all, we just want to have sex with people that we have connections to." But that is a too broad way of hearing that definition. Demisexuality in particular is about most of the time not having an experience of sexual attraction at all. But when a romantic or an emotional bond is created with another person, then the potential for that attraction happens and it can exist and is there. So it is essentially an ace or aro experience until there's a bond and then other possibilities open up.
Gaby: So the last thing that Cody says to me is really key, which is that Demisexuality is characterized by this timeline of like, nothing, nothing, nothing. No sexual feelings in this case at all until a bond is formed and then all of a sudden, like your whole world breaks open pretty abruptly.
Sam: Kj expands on that in a way I think is very illuminating.
Kj: With romantic attraction, it's that romantic interest is not going to be on the table until certain conditions are met. And those certain conditions do not guarantee romantic interest, otherwise I would have fallen in love with every friend I've ever had. For me, the only way I would ever be attracted to you is by spending a ton of time with you and growing a relationship. It's all growing onto the surface, and then every once in a while, a little green shoot pops up out of that soil, and it doesn't pop out, "Hey, I might like to get to know you better," or "hey, I think you're cute," it's, "I'm in love with you." so I go from nothing, to you're my entire universe. It's not this issue of, "Oh, I only have sex with people I know." It's that you're asexual until you're not. And when you're not, it's apocalyptic.
Sam: As you might imagine, the experience of demi attraction can feel out of place with more pervasive or common allonormative societal notions of intimacy, romance, and friendship.
Kj: To a demi person – Speaking for myself and hearing from many others – the concept of "friend zone" literally doesn't make sense to us. One, I don't really know what it means, but what I understand and how I see it depicted is that there's a crucial moment in gaining an acquaintance where they're either put on a potential partner list or removed forever. So the idea that like the more, you know, me the less opportunity there is for you to want to date me? Utterly confusing. There's a lot of things for demi folks, be they demisexual or demiromantic, where a lot of the default assumptions of dating culture, hookup culture, even friendship to some extent, work opposite for us.
Richard: I want to replay that last thing that Kj said
Kj: A lot of the default assumptions of dating culture, hookup culture, even friendship to some extent, work opposite for us.
Richard: Because it really gets at why ace and aro identities firmly belong under the queer umbrella. Cody sums this up really well.
Cody: Queerness is talking about people who are existing in ways that confront heteronormativity, both heteronormativity as a sexual orientation construction, but also as a gendered construction too. So asexuality absolutely fits that bill. Asexual people are not operating within the sexual rules that heteronormativity and allonormativity construct for us.
Gaby: And I'll drive this point home with this quote from this fantastic ace author, Sherronda J. Brown. The quote is as follows, "Ace people are made queer by virtue of their departure from cis, hetero, patriarchal gender and cis sexual norms, even as their departures lead them towards different paths."
Richard: This departure from the dominant or default is one of the big, powerful forces that connects ace and aro folks to the larger queer community. At the same time, there are important differences. Many of the identities within the LGBTQ umbrella center the presence of romantic or sexual attraction, which can leave ace and aro people feeling excluded, erased, or stigmatized within queer spaces. It's vital for the community to expand its understanding and make room for those whose identities challenge these norms in different but equally valid ways.
Gaby: Again, let's bring another Sherronda Brown quote. In order for asexuality to be understood and recognized as the queer identity that it is, sex acts and sexualization would first have to be removed from the center of dominant conceptions of queer identity.
Sam: How do ace and aro identities intersect with queerness in practice, not just in theory? To explore that, we've brought in our third and final guest, Bauer, who can help us unpack the data behind these connections.
Bauer: Hi, I'm Bauer. I use she, her pronouns. I am a therapist who specializes in the ace and aro population as well as the larger LGBTQ community and those who are polyamorous or ethically non monogamous. So I have a lot of statistical background knowledge from that. I get this really cool intersection of therapeutic practice where I hear very qualitative interpersonal experiences and also have done a lot of work with data around the ace and sometimes aro spectrum. I am also a data scientist. I Am a co lead of the Ace Community Survey team. We put out an annual survey to actually anybody around the world. And this year, we got to do it in a variety of languages, which was really cool.
Sam: And in Bauer's survey, which we'll dive more into in our next episode, she found, surprise surprise, that ace and aro identities have an overlap with other queer identities
Bauer: There's probably 12 to 15 different options for gender, and you can choose any that apply because we have found year over year The non binary population within the ace community is like 35 percent of our survey, or 35% if you also include people who are trans who are not non binary, but like specifically this group of people who are not identifying exclusively with a binary gender are like a tremendous portion of our community and they always have been and they still are.
Sam: 35% is a big number. The most recent data suggests that 0.6% of all U. S. adults identify as non binary or trans. And about 11% of LGBTQ plus Americans identify as non binary or trans.
Gaby: If you're wondering why this overlap exists, Bauer has some ideas.
Bauer: It seems like once people start questioning how things have to be, they start questioning many more things. And so if your sexuality is something you're considering, or your gender. Or a variety of other things, maybe you're neuro spicy or something. Something's question is on the table, it seems much easier to then also say, "I don't care what's expected of me." Or: "it's important enough to me to explore this, even if it's expected of me, and I might be uncomfortable because it is uncomfortable to go against everybody's expectations."
Sam: Bauer's research has demonstrated that, just like gender nonconformity, neurodivergence shows up in the ace and aro worlds at high rates.
Gaby: We're not gonna get into that too much because it's a little bit of a detour. But I just wanna point out that none of this is super surprising. It's part of this core recurring theme that's cropped up in QHP episode over episode over our three seasons. That theme is that living outside the expected quote unquote script of society can be really fucking tough. It can come with moments of stigma and oppression, absolutely. But it can also be a tool for liberation in that it can give us space to think critically about who we are, what identities are important to us, and how we wanna show up in the world.
[TRANSITION MUSIC]
Sam: Now that we've defined some fundamental ace and aro terminology, and situated it in a larger ecosystem of queer and neurodivergent identities, let's dial back to Kj's own story of how she came into her demiaro and ace identity.
Gaby: So Kj’s story to me touches upon what are really core parts of discovering an ace and aro identity. There's confusion, there's deep self-reflection. There's maybe grief, and there's also joy. And our hope is that in sharing her story, we're not gonna show you like the only path to discovering an ace or aro identity. But we're hopefully offering you a touch point for those of you who are navigating your path towards one of these identities. Or for those of you who are listening from a more supportive place, we're hoping to help you better understand and support the a-spectrum people in your life.
Richard: Kj's journey, like so many others, started as a teenager, trying to understand her feelings in a world shaped by assumptions about her attraction.
Sam: Same. Okay, but here's Kj.
Kj: My first kiss after a date as a teenager I felt nothing really liked the guy. It was a super cool night. I went up and told my mom, I was like, "we just kissed and I didn't feel anything" and she's "Oh, it takes a while for sparks to form."
Gaby: So much later in life. Kj, like fast forward, Kj grows up. Kj comes across the word demisexuality in her work as an educator, and something start to click.
Kj: I was teaching a queer theory class, and one of my students did an overview of “Here's things under the asexual spectrum.” And they defined the term demisexual. And I heard it and was like, "Oh yeah, that's probably me." But in my head, I was like, "Oh, there's a name for something I already know about myself, that doesn't change anything." And that term banged around in my head for about three years. I never did any research on it. It was just in the back of my mind of "Oh, there might be a name for how I move in the world and experience certain types of relationality."
Richard: But ultimately, it took an unexpected encounter with a TV show for Kj to realize that her Ace and Aro identity was not just applicable to her, but actually was liberating for her.
Kj: 2022. The charming and ubiquitously enjoyed Netflix series, Heartstopper, came out. The adaptation of Alice Oseman's graphic novels, or webcomics. And season one, which is all I had to go on, it's two British, high school boys – someone who discovers they're bi, someone who already knows they're gay. Somehow that, of which I have none of those categories rattled around and forced me to notice some things I hadn't noticed before. Narratively, there was something unlocked when I watched Heartstopper. It sent like a thousand radar pings on my, the history of my life. One of our main characters who forms a friendship with this young out gay guy, thus far, has never known himself to have the capacity to be attracted to a guy. So the whole relationship he's developing while they are getting closer, more trusting, just real affection for one another. He's approaching it without any of the barriers of questions of sexual tension because he didn't know that was an option for him. So it's not until he's basically head over heels for Charlie that Nick realizes he's attracted to Charlie. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, that is how I experience things like I don't get crushes. I've never had a crush." So there were a number of things in the narrative experience of this very sweet story. I'm a masculine spectrum-attracted woman. So, loosely hetero. And there was something about, having it be two people who don't really match anything about my experience – that there weren't patriarchal gender dynamics going on, or at least not opposite genderpatriarchal dynamics, that let me see things differently and be curious in a new way because it took out this whole massive structure that I have to always be navigating, which is male-female dynamics. So yeah, Heartstopper helped a middle aged woman come out as asexual, I did not know at the time that the creator, Alice Oseman, is aroace and that the second season would actually explore a character coming out as aroace. So now it doesn't even feel that special. But at the time I was like, this is the weirdest thing on earth. Yes, so three years of knowing the term and it floating around and then hitting a point where suddenly I said, but what if this actually matters? Doing a ton of research, feeling my whole universe flipped inside out and went positive to negative to positive. Yeah, it was a long summer of wonderful relief and discovery and resonance and validation and then grief and despair and loss all happening at once.
Gaby: The first thing I wanna zoom in on here is the importance of Ace and Aro representation in the media, which actually was a recurrent theme for all of our guests. And I'm gonna drop a bunch of media recommendations in our show notes. So. I'm just gonna go ahead and say it should be a well known fact at this point, if you listen to this podcast: I'm a huge queer media fan. I will always watch the lesbian holiday movie, even if the leads have no chemistry, are tragically not hot, or the plot makes no sense, which often it is all three at once, and I do thank you for your condolences.
Richard: Stanning for Kristen Stewart and Aubrey Plaza to end up together.
Sam: But she left her white gloves at the toy store, Gaby.
Gaby: Those are Happiest Season, and Carol references, for those of you not following along, I also cannot talk about Cate Blanchette further, or I'm gonna have to end this podcast just to fan myself. So I'm just gonna move on and say that, you know, I think one of the many, many reasons that I think that queer media representation is so important is present in kjs story. Like, yes, the main story, arc in Heartstopper, that TV show that she mentions. It isn't strictly or canonically, ace or arrow, but it really normalized and made visible a relational dynamic that held an ace like shape.
Sam: This kind of visibility is important for anyone who is underrepresented, but it is particularly so for Ace and Arrow folks, because textbook descriptions of these identities can be hard to wrap one's head around.
Kj: So we have a lot of micro labels under the beautiful ace umbrella, but for a lot of folks, you're trying to define a lack of something that you don't actually know what it is. Where you're like, "I don't think I experience romantic attraction, but I think don't really get what romantic attraction is."
Richard: And this is why Bauer is actually really intentional about putting her ace identity out there, for the way real world, or in real life visibility, IRL, might benefit others.
Bauer: And even for myself, I will intentionally say that I am asexual. Not because it's the best word to describe who I think I am, but because I know who I am. I needed the word to be able to Google something for quite a number of years, truthfully. But now, if I say I'm asexual, I'm saying it because it will give more information to the other person. That is important.
Gaby: Be the queer media representation that you wanna see in the world.
Richard: But actually.
Gaby: Just to say, I think this exact thread really comes out in K J's own story. There's this idea that she had the theoretical label of Demisexuality in her back pocket for a couple of years, and while she didn't have someone like Bauer that she encountered in the real world, it was seeing like demi-ness spring to life on the screen in Heartstopper that really moved the needle for her.
Richard: A second point to make about media representation, in addition to lesbian holiday movies, is that it doesn't just help people unlock their own ace and aro identities. Media representation can be really important because it creates narratives where romance and sex isn't the default option. In that way, it really pushes against the allonormativity, again, that dominant assumption that sex and romance will inevitably be a part of anyone's lives just for them to be happy.
Sam: And that is super key, because this assumption comes up for ace and aro folks again and again and again.
Cody: One of the really challenging things about being an asexual person. And I have lived this experience is feeling so bound and impacted by the expectations of other people. And so much. That shaped my early understanding and my early thoughts about myself as an asexual person.
Richard: What Cody is describing above isn't just allonormativity. He talks about the pressure to behave within others expectations of what's normal. That's a concept called compulsory sexuality, the idea that everyone should engage in sexual activity, and those who don't are somehow deficient or abnormal.
Gaby: if you're struggling to understand how these words are connected, think of allonormativity as setting the stage for compulsory sexuality. It creates an environment where sexual and romantic attraction are assumed to be universal, and then compulsory sexuality comes in and reinforces this by pressuring individuals to conform to these expectations. It's kind of the difference between heteronormativity and compulsory heterosexism. And actually comes from the same place like compulsory sexuality comes from a riff off of Adrienne Rich who came up with comped in the first place.
Richard: And these assumptions then lead to pressure, right, to conform to that or to make your identity match what society expects of you.
Sam: So the nuances here are very real, but the term is an important one, because when people finally do come into their ace and aro identities, they may look back on moments of their life in notice, or even grieve, moments where they were influenced by compulsory sexuality.
Kj: I have heard from so many aro/ace people who look back at choices they felt pressured to conform to expectations, whether that was getting married and having kids, whether or not they wanted to, or potentially non consensual experiences. I'm grateful that, don't know that I have a long list of those types of regrets, but I do daily realize things. If I had known X. I would have approached Y differently.
Sam: For example, that teenage era date Kj went on, and the one she described earlier in this episode.
Kj: When I look back at that relationship, I'm like, if I'd had the category of waiting to kiss someone until I wanted to kiss someone, it might have been sparks or I might have known that's not going to be a part of this relationship.
Gaby: And the more that Kj engages with and claims her a-spectrum identities, the more she realizes how important and legitimizing it can be at helping her make better sense of both her past and her future.
Kj: Even though I had a PhD in feminist theology and had been single I still had an internal operating system that said “human flourishing and fulfillment is marriage, house ownership, children, pet, 401k.” And I hadn't been living as if those were my goals, but I do think I was waking up every day feeling a failure at activating full, level up human status. So I leaned into, the dream of millennia of women. I was autonomous, independent, self directed, flourishing community around me. So it was time to enjoy and lean into all the gifts of that while releasing and accepting the loss of a hope that I had carried for forever. Once I identified that I was on the a-spectrum, it turned that crank that I was actually turning down every day of the desire for a partner, and it flipped it all the way back on to 11, basically saying, “You weren't working with all the information.” I was missing a whole chunk of information. There's part of that is It changed my future, potentialities for my future, because now I can think about what does it mean to pursue a partner when I know that I'm demiaroace.
Gaby: And those futures could mean something like, say just romantic coupling without sexual intimacy. But it could also look really expansive. And I'm actually gonna let Bauer paint the picture here
Bauer: I live in an intentional community. of queer humans, half of which just so happen to be ace or aro or somewhere on the spectrum. It's not necessarily a large part of their identity or what they lead with. But it's not surprising to me that adults choosing to live with other adults – share space, share a kitchen, share a toilet, dirty dishes – in a long term way end up being people who also identify in some way with an ace or aro spectrum. Because it is a longer term, more structured, more secure way to have community than just having a partner and living together. When I tell my friends and people I just met, or whoever, that I live in this kind of setup, most people are like, “Oh, that sounds really cool for you,” but they don't want to live with seven other adults. When I say it to a room of aces or aros or aroaces, they perk up. Just proportionally, the number of people who care about what I'm saying and are really interesting they, that, that group is more interested, and I think it's because it fulfills a need that is a need that everybody has, which is some amount of connection and security and being able to rely on somebody, somebody to pick you up from the doctor, like all those kinds of things. But people in the ace community have less access to it because there's less relationship structures that are well known and frequently represented and in practice than other orientations.
Sam: We're going to cover this concept in quite a little bit more depth in the second episode, where among other things, we're going to focus on the importance of community building for ace and aro folks.
Gaby: For now. I'm just gonna bask in like this abundance that can come from knowing what your relational needs are, and then the creative and yeah, sometimes non-traditional ways that people can come up with meeting those relational needs. For people who are interested in that particular theme I recommend our two episodes of consensual non-monogamy, which really touch upon this in a similar way.
Richard: There's a reason that we talk in the queer community about building chosen family as opposed to just having romantic and sexual relationships. Sam mentioned a second episode. I think it's getting to be time to wrap this up and get to that one. But the next episode about this is going to be a bit more resource focused, thinking about the ways that ace and aro folks can feel more supported and seen in a variety of contexts, including mental health and healthcare spaces.
Gaby: We are unapologetically trying to promote the thriving of Ace and Aro people.
Sam: And with that, we will leave you with a call to action from Kj.
Kj: My guess is a lot of folks would freak out at the thought of finding out they're asexual or aromantic. We've got all our cultural associations of asexuality as underdeveloped immature, childlike, and then with aromantic, you get really negative views of someone who has sex but can't make a commitment or has no emotional availability or you just use people, right? There's just a lot, there's negative associations with both sides of aspectum and aromanticism that can keep people from even asking themselves the questions. So an encouragement to be curious and be flexible. Yeah.
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Sam: QHP is a power sharing project that puts community stories and conversation with healthcare expertise to expand autonomy for sexual and gender minorities.
Gaby: Thank you to our community voice, Kj Swanson, our expert voices Bauer and Cody Daigel-Orians, as well as our community reviewer, Olivia Pinney.
Richard: Please help others find this information by leaving a review, not just stars, but also comments and subscribing on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Gaby: Yes, and for even more information on this episode's topic as well as links to the various things that we talked about, check out our website www.queerhealthpod.com. We are also on all social media with our handle @Queer Health Pod.
Richard: Thank you to Lonnie Ginsburg who composed our gorgeous theme music. We would also like to thank the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation who provided support for some of the tech on this podcast.
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Sam: Opinions on this podcast are our own and do not represent the opinions of any of our affiliated institutions. Even though we are doctors, do not use this podcast as medical advice. Instead, consult with your own healthcare provider.