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Do you think that ace symbols are known outside ace spaces?


UncommonNonsense

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UncommonNonsense

I've been wondering about this for a while.

I have an ace-flag themed bracelet I wear all the time (cloth friendship bracelet style) and a black ring. I have an ace flag pin that lives on my favourite hoody, and an ace flag themed zipper charm on my winter coat. I also have a couple of ace-related bumper stickers on my car.

But I've never actually met anyone IRL who knows what any of these things mean. People assume I just like purple, white, grey, and black... and while true, that isn't the reason I wear a lot of those colours. I rarely wear my real favourite colour (teal blue) at all, so why would I show such preference to colours that I like but aren't really favourites unless they held some meaning for me?

So this has gotten me thinking.

Do you think ace colours/symbols are known of outside ace culture? Have you met any non-aces who knew what the ace flag or purple triangle meant? Are ace symbols shown in your city/school/workplace/etc without you being the one to put them there?

If you believe that ace symbols aren't widely known outside our own spaces, how do you think we should go about making these symbols more widely known?

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Ace symbols are almost exclusively know only in the ace community and maybe a couple of LGBT+ communities.

Beyond that, I doubt anyone has any idea what those symbols mean. I have a feeling, if any symbol of ours is recognize, it will probably be the ring; and even then it will probably be mis-interpreted as a swinger's ring put on the wrong finger.

If anything, I would say our symbols are more or less mainly ways for us to find and identify other aces.


PS: Teal is a good color....I think there is someone on this site who always posts in that color, but I seem to have Lost their name.

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I don't think asexuality in general in well known. I myself didn't even known that was a real thing I could be until about a month ago. Only one person whom I told I was ace didn't assume I either wanted that to change, or that it was brought on by trauma I may or may not have experienced. I think with it not being well known as a real thing it's hard for ace flags or rings to be recognized. I wear an ace necklace and wear a ring that is close to an ace ring, and have never met another asexual.

I don't really think there is a ton we can do other than being more vocal when we can. I was asked by a co-worker of I could take his Valentine's day shift if I didn't have plans ("plans"). I laughed and touched my necklace saying something like "course I can, gotta live up to my ace necklace." It was a joke, but hey, now seven people know the meaning behind it.

I think it'll come in time. It might take a while though. My co-workers are diverse, but neither my transgender or lesbian co-workers knew or recognised the ace colors. I think the connection might start to be made when aces who are out are wearing the colors, using the flag, whatever the case may be. Maybe a reminder every so often that being asexual isn't a dry spell/being bad with the preferred gender/being a nerd/whatever else it is often equated with helps. I've had conversations like "I'm asexual." "Aw don't worry, you'll find someone! You're just a little awkward sometimes!" "No, I'm asexual. It's different than not finding a partner." I think it's just one of those words that gets used for other things, making it difficult in the long run. Kinda like how I can say my friend is gay and maybe I'm just calling him stupid.

Like I said, I think the small things like out aces wearing the colors and small corrections when they come up will help.

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One Winged Angel

I would imagine that most people outside of the Asexual community and the LGBT arena will have never heard of an Asexual symbol or colours. In fact, many have still never even heard of Asexuality in the first place!

On the other hand, the Ace flag and some of the symbols do look as though they have a meaning, so people may see it and wonder what it means. Personally I think if awareness is to be made of these things, they need to have "Asexuality" written upon them somewhere, at least for the time being.

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Dodecahedron314

Humorous anecdote supporting the recognition of ace symbols outside of ace-specific spaces: My nonbinary pan friend knew about asexuality and the colors of the flag before I did, and so when I came out, she said something along the lines of "I knew it! And now I know why I've always associated you with the colors purple, black, and gray." That's how I found out about the flag. :P

Humorous anecdote supporting the lack of recognition of ace symbols outside of ace-specific spaces: today I was hanging out in a coffee shop with LadyErszebet after our ace club meeting, and I was working on an afghan crochet tie since I'd just finished the scarf I'd been working on for a while. We were talking about what would happen if our university abolished frats and gave all the old frat houses to the queer, multicultural, and mental health groups that are all currently sharing one small building when a woman walked up and asked me if I was knitting or crocheting. I explained afghan crochet (it's kind of a mix of the two), and we got to talking about crafting and such. It just so happened that LadyErsz was wearing their ace hat today, and so they showed it to the woman, who complimented the color choice and how hard colorwork is in knitting, but displayed no sign of recognition of what the colors meant. The same happened when they showed her a picture of the grayro hat they're making (which is really cool btw). The punch line to all this is that right before leaving, the woman gave us a little elevator pitch and business card for...the Jehovah's Witnesses. Because the ace and aro colors aren't very well known, this obviously very religious woman had no idea that she'd just interrupted an extremely queer conversation between two extremely queer people. :lol:

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I've only every had one person outside the medical profession recognise asexuality.

They were commenting on my black ring, and me, being careful what I said as they had a young child with them, said that it meant I wouldn't be getting married to anyone of any gender, and the reply was " oh, are you asexual then?", but that's one person in 18 months

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As a straight UK middle aged bloke with a fair number of friends involved in LGBTASDBFDOVJNWEYNM+ (or whatever we're calling it today) community, I've never seen any reference to the flag or the colours, anywhere, ever.

Used as a logo, it could work like any branding - slap it on anything you like, and be friendly and informative when people ask about it. You're essentially selling the concept. But specifically as a flag, it's a bit of a weird idea. It sounds like you're going to fly it on a flagpost like a sect or something.

The other issue is having a clear, pithy message that goes with it. If the main asexual online community can't come close to agreeing a definition, you have no hope of creating a hook that the wider public can understand and get behind, especially as there's a virulent view ready to disparage asexuality as an orientation.

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colorsinlight

i'm not asexual, been part of the lgbtq+ community for 8-ish years.
other than (recently) coming into contact with asexuals on this forum, i haven't had any contact with anyone who was known to me as being asexual.
as such... i heard about the ring for the first time on the forum recently. didn't know about the swinger ring on the other hand either.
the flag... i am aware there are a bunch of different flags in the lgbtq+ communities, but i had never seen or heard of the asexual flag before coming on here.
i am aware of the rainbow flag and the bisexual flag but probably wouldn't recognize too many more beyond that.
i'm not sure if other lgbtq people are aware of the asexual flag or the ring.
hope this helps

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I'm pretty sure my local uni's LGBT+ group doesn't even know what asexuality is..

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Straight people will never* take responsibility and research orientations to better educate themselves, and public spaces are always straight dominated. So no, asexuality and its affiliated symbols are typically incognito unless you are in LGBT+/ace spaces.

*I'm sure there is one straight person out there who has researched orientations beyond them to prove me wrong, but I have never met one.

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It's not exactly anyone's responsibility to research symbols and their meanings..

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Autumn Season

Even asexuals from my region don't know ace symbols. *shrugs* There's one who didn't know what AVEN is. And honestly speaking I don't mind. Ace symbols are like insider jokes. They are nice but can be ignored most of the time.

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UncommonNonsense

Has anyone here ever put up an ace themed poster or left an information card in your city/school/workplace?

I put up asexuality awareness posters during Ace Awareness Week at City Hall, at all 3 local high schools, and at the junior high school. Unfortunately, even though I included one of my email addresses on the posters so I could be contacted, but no one has.

Would you feel at ease putting ace themed stuff up at your workplace or school? Do your feel that kind of exposure would be helpful, or not?

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Has anyone here ever put up an ace themed poster or left an information card in your city/school/workplace?

I put up asexuality awareness posters during Ace Awareness Week at City Hall, at all 3 local high schools, and at the junior high school. Unfortunately, even though I included one of my email addresses on the posters so I could be contacted, but no one has.

Would you feel at ease putting ace themed stuff up at your workplace or school? Do your feel that kind of exposure would be helpful, or not?

Back when I was in school it would have been appreciated, but my work places aren't really the right venues for that kind of thing.

And instead of leaving your email you should just leave Aven's address. People don't like to direct contact strangers cause Stranger Danger but are willing to follow website links. And if you leave the address on one of those tear off tabs you can see if anyone is biting.

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EmotionalAndroid

I don't think they are well-known outside the community. I have adopted the spade and the ace flag colors as my avatar on various non-AVEN sites/applications and nobody says anything. My sister often points out things to me in the ace flag colors, or with spades on them because she knows those are my "thing," but she has no idea why I really associate with them.

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UncommonNonsense

Has anyone here ever put up an ace themed poster or left an information card in your city/school/workplace?

I put up asexuality awareness posters during Ace Awareness Week at City Hall, at all 3 local high schools, and at the junior high school. Unfortunately, even though I included one of my email addresses on the posters so I could be contacted, but no one has.

Would you feel at ease putting ace themed stuff up at your workplace or school? Do your feel that kind of exposure would be helpful, or not?

Back when I was in school it would have been appreciated, but my work places aren't really the right venues for that kind of thing.

And instead of leaving your email you should just leave Aven's address. People don't like to direct contact strangers cause Stranger Danger but are willing to follow website links. And if you leave the address on one of those tear off tabs you can see if anyone is biting.

Yeah, I haven't ever put anything ace related up at work. This company just isn't the place. They don't put anything up that is personal, that's got anything to do with sexuality or orientation or romance, or anything unrelated to the work that the company does. Of course, my company is fairly small (~95 staff) and is quite conservative. They're a defence department contractor, and companies that work closely with the military and government tend to be very uptight and conservative. So, no... Putting an ace awareness poster up at work wouldn't be a good thing for me to do.

But I've worked in other places where staff were allowed, even encouraged, to post anything that mattered to them up in the break room or their workstations, as long as the picture was PG. People brought posters from bands they liked, invites to parties, pics of items they wanted to sell, personal artwork and writing (some of which was decidedly raunchy), religious items, information about causes staff supported, like animal rights, marriage equality, combating racism and domestic violence, etc. The places that allowed this were big, with over 6000 staff members, had a more liberal atmosphere, and at least gave lip service to equal rights for minority employees and women.

Every workplaces has its own culture and its own rules about what is appropriate. What will be embraced at one will be forbidden at another.

The posters I'd put up around town had AVEN's url, SwankIvy's YouTube channel, a few high profile ace bloggers' pages, and links to videos made by other aces. My email was little more than an afterthought, stuck on in case a local ace wanted to talk to another local ace.

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I don't even recognize the symbols myself to be honest... like if I saw a purple triangle somewhere I wouldn't automatically think ''asexual'' or if I saw the colors (I can never even remember them... purple, grey... aaaah?) I wouldn't automatically think ''oooh aceness'' ..I've been an active member on this site for two years now aha and I am pretty sure there are plenty of people here like me (who aren't up to date on the ''asexual symbolism'' etc) .. pretty sure if even a lot of aces aren't that aware of it, not too many people on the ''outside'' will be either :p

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Ace of Amethysts

Straight people will never* take responsibility and research orientations to better educate themselves, and public spaces are always straight dominated. So no, asexuality and its affiliated symbols are typically incognito unless you are in LGBT+/ace spaces.

*I'm sure there is one straight person out there who has researched orientations beyond them to prove me wrong, but I have never met one.

Even I think this is a little bit aggressive, but I see your point. :)

Ace symbols are almost exclusively know only in the ace community and maybe a couple of LGBT+ communities.

Beyond that, I doubt anyone has any idea what those symbols mean. I have a feeling, if any symbol of ours is recognize, it will probably be the ring; and even then it will probably be mis-interpreted as a swinger's ring put on the wrong finger.

If anything, I would say our symbols are more or less mainly ways for us to find and identify other aces.

PS: Teal is a good color....I think there is someone on this site who always posts in that color, but I seem to have Lost their name.

Echoing this. :P

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If any symbolism is likely to be recognized by outsiders, it might be the flag, but not necessarily all items in the flag colors, which may just appear to be in a distinctive color scheme that's used in a lot of products by coincidence. The flag itself may be recognizable as symbolizing a group of people, and it'd most likely be seen at asexual or LGBT events. I'm okay with wearing things in asexual colors without others necessarily knowing the symbolism.

I've never had anyone ask about the black ring yet, but I think the Ace of Hearts and Ace of Spades are useful identifiers within the asexual community, but may be the least likely to be recognized as asexuality symbols by people outside of it. Others might instead think it means you're a fan of poker before thinking the aces symbolize asexuality.

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Straight people will never* take responsibility and research orientations to better educate themselves, and public spaces are always straight dominated. So no, asexuality and its affiliated symbols are typically incognito unless you are in LGBT+/ace spaces.

*I'm sure there is one straight person out there who has researched orientations beyond them to prove me wrong, but I have never met one.

I posted a video by a straight girl in WW about asexuality and it's pretty good. She's actually kind of awesome. In fact, I know a few straight people who are amazing allies to the entire LGBTQ community and are more than willing to research these orientations.

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Blue Phoenix Ace

I've had this desktop wallpaper/lock screen going on at work for many, many months. Not a single comment on it having to do with asexuality. (You can use it yourself by the way, I made this fractal myself). http://www.erkenfresh.com/RaspberrySwirl.png

I also recently purchased a bunch of purple themed shirts. I started wearing them when I realized a lot of the men at work are also wearing purple shirts. Is that color in fashion this year or something? :)

RaspberrySwirlMini.png

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Like all campaign groups, the onus is on the asexual community to push its message so that everyone else takes notice. Expecting the mainstream to notice asexuality when it doesn't have any direct impact on them, and pick it out from the millions of other competing messages, and then spend time and effort researching it, is unrealistic. This isn't unique to asexuality, it's just how profile raising for anything, ever, works.

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TBH neither does anyone really care about trans people (except the bigots, I'll grant), and I still see that message pushed on campus a lot.

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Ace of Amethysts

To be honest, I don`t know why people wear ace symbols in public if the overwhelming majority of people don`t know what they mean and likely will never find out, so wearing ace merchandise to me just feels like I`m doing it to make myself feel good. (Disclaimer: I`m not against people wearing ace symbols. If they like to do it because it means something to them, then good for them. :) Just throwing my five cents in the topic. Also, I don`t actually own any ace or aro stuff.)

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I've been asked a couple of times why I was suddenly starting to wear a black ring or looking for one. Told them everything they would be able to understand.

Although my best friend thinks that I'm not ace but that I use asexuality as an excuse to wear a black ring. Go figure ...

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Considering there are so many symbols and colors for literally everything, you can't possibly expect people to know and recognize all of them, or even just yours specifically. (I just took a glance at a list of these awareness ribbon things and just thinking about that gives me a headache now.) And hidden messages usually just work within a given community.

And then there's also the fact that to the vast majority of people, rings are jewelry and colors are colors and they wear them just because they like them and don't care about hidden messages. Especially black.

I guess the flag has the highest chace, just because it's specific colors and designs deliberately put together and most people know that's what flags are.

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Some might know, some might not. I think that if a symbol or a color has meaning to you, then you should wear it with pride. If someone asks what do the symbols/colors mean, then just explain it to them.

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