Participation in The Asexual Community

[The A Life Team]

Hi, all!

The second episode of 'A Life', the asexy podcast, is now available! As always, you can take a listen at A Life Podcast or by subscribing on Itunes.

This episode, Henrik and Rebecca talk about the Asexual Community- why there wasn't one before AVEN, and how AVEN got to be the center of the community today, as well as how the community might expand in the future.

Happy listening!

~The A Life Team

[Astryda]

I wish I could attempt meetups, but it's not possible where I live. So whether I like it or not, AVEN is all I 'have'. I don't like blogs at all, so I don't read them, whether they're asexuality- related or not.

[Starscream]

I currently only participate in AVEN. I haven't gone to any meet ups, but it could be a possibility down the road. If I meet up with AVENites, it'll probably be a one-on-one meeting for the first time at least. I'd rather not hang out in big groups of people.

[Lord Happy Toast]

I checked yes for meetups, but must have been one-on-one things. One of which was planned right before hand (both of us happened to be free) and then announced on AVEN, but no one else came, and one had been in planning for months, and then all but two people bailed within a week of the meetup.

Is this thread supposed to be commentary on the podcast or commentary on the poll? Or whatever?

[The A Life Team]

It can be commentary on whatever you all want to comment on!

~The A Life Team

[Lord Happy Toast]

Then I'll copy (and expand) a comment I made on the A-Life blog to try to generate discussion here. I take a rather different stance on the "AVENcentric" nature of the asexual community. Rather than seeing it as a problem to be fixed, I see it as a) a logical consequence of historical factors and b) more of something being worked out on its own than a problem to be fixed. Before there were AVEN forums, there was Haven for the Human Amoeba, which was a Yahoo group. Because of it's nature, it was not an efficient way to have dialogue about multiple topics by a large number of people. David Jay purchased asexuality.org (which took a few months) and set up the forums to fill this need.

AVEN was not the only place around where asexual dialogue could take place. The asexuality commuinty on LJ actually slightly preceeded the AVEN forums, though these two have seen each other as complemenatry rather than in conflict. AVEN rose to prominence largely because it had the best design for enabling people to join in discourse about asexuality. Also, media articles pretty much all refered to AVEN and David is very media savy.

A huge part of the people on AVEN are those new to the asexual community trying to figure themselves out. For that population, AVEN is the main place to go, though the LJ community also does some of that as well (and Apositive a tiny bit.) Most people have their questions, they figure thing out, and then they leave. Then new people come, often with the same questions, and the cycle continues. It is a small minority that sticks around.

In talking about how you don’t think AVEN should have as prominent a place in the asexual community as it does, I think an important point is being missed: the only way some other site is going to do well is if it fulfills some perceived need better than AVEN does. When Apositive was new, it did this, and it had a lot of dialogue. At the time, there was felt to be a real need to talk about a lot of things beyond “Asex 101″. AVEN isn’t the ideal place to do that because of the demographics referred to earlier. Discussions on Apositive tend to be a lot more intellectual than ones on AVEN. After a while, the site just sort of fizzled because people had talked about the things they wanted to talk about. This year, a lot of work has been done to rework the site and to things discussion going again. This has had some level of success, but things there tend to be pretty slow.

Acebook is for personals, and it does this much better than AVEN. I have a site for promoting the academic study of asexuality (only static content), and it was developed largely because I saw a need for this. Blogs also also add to sources of ideas and information about asexuality; these provide a medium that can give people a better way to express their thoughts than forums can. (And they are much more readable, too.)

AVEN is good at doing what AVEN does. It's far from perfect, and many people have frustrations with it, but it plays a vital role. Alternatives to AVEN are (and I predict will be) only to the extent that they do certain things better, which pretty much always means having their own niche in asexdom.

[Porygon]

I would like to attend meetups, but being in Alaska I can't. I'll be in San Francisco for college in a couple of months, though! :D

[ghosts]

Hm... I wonder if there should be more options than the ones listed above? Other people have been involved in the community & visibility in other ways (interviews, giving talks at colleges, stuff like that).

[Brienne]

I think we need an official national (or international) Asexual meetup or conference. If we had one big official meeting for everyone, I think people would feel like they had much more incentive to go. You would get to meet a lot more people than at local meetings, and not have to worry about being the only person who actually attends.

[Jillianimal]

I'd love to go to a meet up :D but I haven't seen many in the NY area.

[Jockey]

I'm a member of an asexual dating site, and I very occasionally write an asexuality themed post on my blog. I've never attended a meetup and am not sure I feel a need to. So I didn't vote.

[mort paradis]

I very much want to attend meet-ups but the closest one to me is difficult for me to get to, plus, I don't have money to go. I've been trying to start one in my area- but there aren't that many in my area interested, and I'm starting to become busier with college and such.

I do have a vlog, which I need to update more often. While I do plan on discussing asexuality quite a bit, it isn't the main focus. (link in my sig.)

[Cicero]

I think we need an official national (or international) Asexual meetup or conference. If we had one big official meeting for everyone, I think people would feel like they had much more incentive to go. You would get to meet a lot more people than at local meetings, and not have to worry about being the only person who actually attends.

This happened to a certain extent in the UK with the national meetup in Birmingham last year. Although it was mainly the London crowd who attended (probably because it was the only established group at the time), there was a really good turnout, about 20 people, and for me at least it gave me the confidence to attend other meetups and even to organise a local one (which didn't work out at the time but has since happened). Then Joshua and others came along and started organising meetups in various places, so the UK meetup scene is currently very healthy. So even if you don't get a national meetup, all you really need is for someone who is willing to take charge and organise things well enough to attract people from further afield, which will breed familiarity and give others the confidence to do the same. Easier said than done of course, but it does work!

[spoonsfromdenmark]

I don't do a lot of exclusively "asexual" stuff but I am involved with Queers and Allies on my campus and try to raise asexuality awareness through that program. And I do read some asexual websites and online articles and occasionally come here but that's it. I mainly try to work through the LGBT movement.