(Possible) Presentation about Asexuality (and Aromanticism) to my class in College

[Piraatti]

I'm not sure where else should I put this, so I'm putting it here. So, I'm asexual and aromantic 17 years old Finn by the way and I joined AVEN to especially ask about this:

I've recently come across the opportnity to kind of spread the knowledge of asexuality and aromanticism. So, what do I mean by that? I've got two mandatory presentations in my vocational school (I think it's equilevant of college in some other countries? i'm not sure, Finnish education system is pretty unique), one of is for sex ed and is privately sent to the teacher (You know, you have to tell them what have you learned in sex ed and the teacher actually said "I don't know much, so if you know more, please educate me!") and the other is in Finnish/Literature? class and one of the chosen options was Sexual Orientations. It would be at least 10 minute (most likely PowerPoint) preseantation to my class and teacher.

So... What I'm asking should I go for it? Should I do Introduction to Asexuality 101 in Finnish and show it to my classmates? Should I include what I know about asexuality (and aromanticism and so on) in my essay to the sex ed teacher? I know it's not a big deal. In my literature class there's only about 15 people + the teacher, but... It's still an opportunity. The sex ed teacher seemed honestly open to learning more, so maybe he would take my essay to the people higher up and it would be included in sex ed in the future (I know, I know, like that's gonna happen...). Frankly I'm scared of how people would react and maybe I'll mess it up... But I kinda want to do it. I more than kinda want to do it.

So what I'm asking if I do do this, would you help me out a bit? Tell things you'd think be smart to include. Maybe I could show the presentation (Translated) and get your opinions before presenting it?

Sorry if that doesn't make any sense. Or if I posted this in the wrong place. I know it's just a little thing, but even the little things count when there's nothing else. Especially when there's nothing else.

[Luftschlosseule]

Hello Finn! (:
I would recommend that you keep the presentations simple, not overload them with text, because that may overwhelm your audience. It's not an easy topic, I think. You could liven things up with pictures, and when you speak and have the impression that they want more information, you'll tell more.

I don't know how you guys do presentations, but here for university it's much more of a pictureshow, a few statistics, and everything gets told so a presentations doesn't make much sense without the person talking.

Also, I think that it would be great to ... not overload it with specific terms, because it would look sterile and... I don't know, more like this is a theoretical thing than actual happening without outside influence. At the end, your audience should get the impression that some people simple happen to be ace and aro, which is okay. Unusual, but okay.

Just think about what you want them to know.

What are, in your opinion, the basics you should cover?

[Telecaster68]

Speaking as a part-time univeristy lecturer, I think it's a great idea. Some thoughts to bear in mind:

• You're doing two things - demonstrating to your teacher what you know, and showing you can communicate ideas to your peers. Look at the marking criteria and make sure you hit all those points.
• Start from what you think your audience knows (probably pretty much nothing), and build on that.
• Aim to get one or two big concepts over, rather than deluging them in factoids. Cover less information than you think you need to. Ten minutes isn't long at all.
• If at all possible, figure out a way of asking for their experiences - something like 'when you meet someone new, what do you notice about them?'. That'll draw them in and humanise the ideas. You'll get a bunch of answers, but steer it round to sexual attractiveness, and then go from that to explaining how as an asexual, you don't get that one. Then from that, into the various types of attraction, maybe, and how these differ from each other.
• See what infographics and even short videos you can find online to incorporate. That way, it's not just you talking.
• Tell stories where you can - our minds deal with these at a deeper, more memorable level than bullet points.
• If you can, don't use PP for everything. You're a human communicating with other humans, not a Slideshare soundtrack.
• Oh... and really, really, don't just make text heavy slides and read off them. As Luft says, use the slides as memory prompts and a structure, and talk round them. You'll find you know way more than you think you do, and speaking semi-spontaneously is far easier for people to engage with than reading out a script, which is harder than it looks to do well.

ETA: and practise it a couple of times. Apart from anything else, it'll give you an idea what ten minutes feels like when you're talking, and whether you need to cut or add material.

[JacTheSpaceAce]

This is an amazing opportunity, and good on you for making the most of it! I'm always a fan of trying to use short videos in presentations, as a way to show the audience a professional. There are a bunch of youtube videos that I'm sure you could use, like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGggJwDoAnM. Forthe presentation, you should first decide what you want to talk about and in what order, before you start creating a power point. Same goes for the essay. And especially for the essay, I don't know how academic your teacher wants it to be, but make sure you can back up your ideas with facts if necessary. Including your personal story is completely up to you. It could improve your work, but you also don't want the entire thing to be about you (I'm assuming). You need to do whatever makes you feel most comfortable. I know people's reactions can be scary, but you can't control that. You can only control yourself and how you go into those situations.

And don't worry about posting this thread in the wrong place. I think this is the perfect place for it. Also, yes, please feel free to share your presentation with us here at AVEN at any time. We're always willing to help :)

P.S. I agree with Tele, you should definitely practice out loud. Even for your essay, sometimes you catch mistakes or sentences that sound weird when you read it out loud.

[Piraatti]

Thank you for all the replies! Sorry it took me a while to reply.

It's really encouraging to see people responding to this so positively, and I've decided to really go for it. The essay it's later so I'm going to focus more on the presentation right now, but I'm going to use the materials I'm using in this presentation in the essay too.

This is what I'm thinking of doing:

1. Talking about the more common sexual orientations to establish common/understood definition of sexual orientation in the first place. In Finland people don't really talk about sexual orientations, gender and so on. It's considered too personal and mentioning it (If you aren't heterosexual of course) is considered oversharing in most cases. The way we talk about them when we do is pretty damn vague. Mostly because (until recently apparently) people didn't even use the Finnish equilevant of the word "attraction" really, you just said "like". Like "Gays are men who like men" and "Lesbian are women who like women". I'm not even going into the gender, because a) it's not part of my presentation b) It's just so wrong in some places it's ridicilous. Not in the "You burn in the Hell" way (Finns aren't really religious), but in the "I have no idea what I'm talking about" way.

So I'm going to establish the more common sexual orientations quickly and move into Asexuality in the lines of: "We are all aware of these orientations in one way or the other, most of the people in this room identify with one of these orientations, so I'm going to talk about commonly forgotten and just plain misunderstood sexual orientation. Sexual orientation that most people either don't know or believe exists. And that is Asexuality".

2. Asexuality 101: "What is Asexuality?" I've watched and read lot of Asexuality 101 lately to get a good look about how I should go about this. So what I'm thinking of doing is telling the basic facs about what asexuality is. You know, Asexuality is a sexual orientation, at least 1% of worlds population is asexual, I'll talk about how asexuality is a spectrum from asexual to (zed?allo?)sexual and that there's gray-area in wich you can be in. I'll try quickly to put sex-additues, and libido in there if there's time. Then there would be "What Asexuality ISN'T" in wich i would address common misunderstandings about asexuality. I got the idea from SwankIvy, I would talk about hings like that Asexuality isn't a choiche, it isn't new hipster version of celibacy or abstinence, it's not anti-sexuality, a phase you necessarily grow out of, hormonal inbalance, necessarily result of trauma or sing of mental illnes and so on. This will most likely be the hardest part for me.

3. Romantic orientations 101 and here is the other reason why i want to establish the more common sexual orientations in the beginning because that way it'll be easier to explain that some asexual can experience romantic attraction (wich is obviously different from sexual attraction). I'll talk about how asexual person can be homo/hetero/bi/pan/etcromantic and that people who aren't asexual can also have mitmatched sexual and romantic attractions even if for most people they align. When that is established I'll the jump to Aromanticism in similiar way that I jumped from common sexual orientations to Asexuality.

4. Aromanticism 101: "What is Aromanticism?" Like I did before with asexuality I'll talk about what aromanticism is. Like how it's valid romantic orientation, that people who aren't asexual can be aromantic, I'll discuss how Aromanticism is spectrum from aromantic to (zed?allo?)romantic and that there's gray-area that people can be on. I'd try to try to put romance additues in there, but I'm not sure if I have the time. Then again "What Aromanticism ISN'T?" section in wich i tackle common misunderstanding like that aromantic doesn't mean that they can't love or don't experience emotions, that it isn't sing of mental ilness and is a healthy mindset of it's own,that it isn't a phase or a choiche and so on.

5. I'd like to do short "Why it's important to talk about this" and Q&A section with some links to more information to the interested. I'd like to close with short talk about why is it important to talk about things like asexuality and romanticism even to people who don't fall on to that spectrum. I'd put a list of common questions and answer on the screen that I maybe didn't have time to addres on the course of the presentation wholly, I could move parts of "What asexuality is or Isn't" section here. I'd like to also put some links to people who want more infromation and then ask if they have questions not covered in the Q&A section. This is Finland so I'm not expecting anyone but maye the the teacher to ask anything.

Okay, this is the rough-ish outline about what I'm thinking of doing and I'm most likely (definetely going to) add or substact things from there. Please tell me what you think and critiques is alway welcome! More accurately I'm almost begging for it since I really don't want to mess this up.

Hello Finn! (:
I would recommend that you keep the presentations simple, not overload them with text, because that may overwhelm your audience. It's not an easy topic, I think. You could liven things up with pictures, and when you speak and have the impression that they want more information, you'll tell more.

I don't know how you guys do presentations, but here for university it's much more of a pictureshow, a few statistics, and everything gets told so a presentations doesn't make much sense without the person talking.

Also, I think that it would be great to ... not overload it with specific terms, because it would look sterile and... I don't know, more like this is a theoretical thing than actual happening without outside influence. At the end, your audience should get the impression that some people simple happen to be ace and aro, which is okay. Unusual, but okay.

Just think about what you want them to know.

What are, in your opinion, the basics you should cover?

Thanks for the advice and support. I'm going to try to make the PowerPoint as simple and concise as possible and just talk around it. I'm trying to as little as possible "jargon". I just realised that when I was mentally going trough things like I want to talk about there popped up lot of words that most people would have never heard before. It would be counterproductive to try to dump all the info on them so I'm constantly trying to remind myself to keep it shallow "This is Asexuality and Aromanticism 101!", I have to yell that at myself sometimes.

Speaking as a part-time univeristy lecturer, I think it's a great idea. Some thoughts to bear in mind:

• You're doing two things - demonstrating to your teacher what you know, and showing you can communicate ideas to your peers. Look at the marking criteria and make sure you hit all those points.
• Start from what you think your audience knows (probably pretty much nothing), and build on that.
• Aim to get one or two big concepts over, rather than deluging them in factoids. Cover less information than you think you need to. Ten minutes isn't long at all.
• If at all possible, figure out a way of asking for their experiences - something like 'when you meet someone new, what do you notice about them?'. That'll draw them in and humanise the ideas. You'll get a bunch of answers, but steer it round to sexual attractiveness, and then go from that to explaining how as an asexual, you don't get that one. Then from that, into the various types of attraction, maybe, and how these differ from each other.
• See what infographics and even short videos you can find online to incorporate. That way, it's not just you talking.
• Tell stories where you can - our minds deal with these at a deeper, more memorable level than bullet points.
• If you can, don't use PP for everything. You're a human communicating with other humans, not a Slideshare soundtrack.
• Oh... and really, really, don't just make text heavy slides and read off them. As Luft says, use the slides as memory prompts and a structure, and talk round them. You'll find you know way more than you think you do, and speaking semi-spontaneously is far easier for people to engage with than reading out a script, which is harder than it looks to do well.

ETA: and practise it a couple of times. Apart from anything else, it'll give you an idea what ten minutes feels like when you're talking, and whether you need to cut or add material.

Thanks for the advice and support! Haha, Finns have really bad habit of reading their presentations instead of actually presenting them and I'm trying my best to avoid that. I'm not sure if dragging the audience in the discussion will work.Sexuality is very private in Finland so I don't think i can bring people to talk about it, and Finns are very reserved. They aren't probably going to ask any questions at the end of presentation, so I doubt I'm going to be able to drag the into the discussion mid presentation. Even actual teachers mostly face wall of silence when they ask questions, and that's the norm. It's actually considered rude to talk when someone else is talking, so I really doubt i will be able to activate the audience. It's good advice though.

The 10 minutes is the minium, I think i can go over that. It's also group projectthat you can opt to do by yourself and the minium presentation time depends on how many people are part of the group. I think I'd be able to stect it to 15-20 minutes if i really need the extra time. I understand your point though. Time flies and crawls during presentation. There's simultaneously too little and too much time.

I'm really going to try to talk around the slides. Finns have especially bad habit of reading instead of preseting their presenatons. Thankfully I'm always been a bit of natural improviser.

Do you have any advise for stage fright? The things is, when I'm talking about something that interests me I start talking really fast and kinda start rambling (I've been told it's like I vomit words) and when I get nervous I start to stutter a bit and forget words and entire sentences. I don't mean like "What I'm going to say next?" type of way. I mean in the "What was the Finnish word for attraction? I only remeber it in English!" type of way. I'm definetely going to practice a lot, I dind't really think about it before, but I'm thinking of filming it and then watching it for mistakes and improvesement. Doyou have any other tips? Any help is apreciated.

This is an amazing opportunity, and good on you for making the most of it! I'm always a fan of trying to use short videos in presentations, as a way to show the audience a professional. There are a bunch of youtube videos that I'm sure you could use, like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGggJwDoAnM. Forthe presentation, you should first decide what you want to talk about and in what order, before you start creating a power point. Same goes for the essay. And especially for the essay, I don't know how academic your teacher wants it to be, but make sure you can back up your ideas with facts if necessary. Including your personal story is completely up to you. It could improve your work, but you also don't want the entire thing to be about you (I'm assuming). You need to do whatever makes you feel most comfortable. I know people's reactions can be scary, but you can't control that. You can only control yourself and how you go into those situations.

And don't worry about posting this thread in the wrong place. I think this is the perfect place for it. Also, yes, please feel free to share your presentation with us here at AVEN at any time. We're always willing to help :)

P.S. I agree with Tele, you should definitely practice out loud. Even for your essay, sometimes you catch mistakes or sentences that sound weird when you read it out loud.

Thank you for the help and support! I really like the video idea, but most of them would take the entire time if I'd show them wholly and they're all pretty much in English. Some of my classmates aren't very good at English so I can't do that, especially when this is actualy the Finnish Literature class, so i have to do it in Finnish. The idea is good and I'm going to use pictures and graphics though. I'm going to look at some introduction videos and use them as inspiration.

I'm scared about the one question i know for sure the teacher willask me after thepresentation: "Why did you choose this subject?". I'm not out to anyone but my mom and I'm not really planning to so that kind of scares the crap out of me. I'm still in middle of wondering how I'm going to handle that question.

Thank you for helping me out in this. I'm going to update my progress in the presentation and I wish that people would give me constructive critisism. Your ideas and advice we're really helpful and I'm going to try to make most of it! Maybe nothing really comes out of this, but at least I'd get a small taste of what it would be like to be an advocate. Maybe I'll like it and try to do it more on larger scale, you never know.

See you around! I'm now starting on the data collection, so it'll be a while before I'll be able to show any sort of PowerPoint.

[Scott1989]

Speaking as a part-time univeristy lecturer, I think it's a great idea. Some thoughts to bear in mind:

• You're doing two things - demonstrating to your teacher what you know, and showing you can communicate ideas to your peers. Look at the marking criteria and make sure you hit all those points.
• Start from what you think your audience knows (probably pretty much nothing), and build on that.
• Aim to get one or two big concepts over, rather than deluging them in factoids. Cover less information than you think you need to. Ten minutes isn't long at all.
• If at all possible, figure out a way of asking for their experiences - something like 'when you meet someone new, what do you notice about them?'. That'll draw them in and humanise the ideas. You'll get a bunch of answers, but steer it round to sexual attractiveness, and then go from that to explaining how as an asexual, you don't get that one. Then from that, into the various types of attraction, maybe, and how these differ from each other.
• See what infographics and even short videos you can find online to incorporate. That way, it's not just you talking.
• Tell stories where you can - our minds deal with these at a deeper, more memorable level than bullet points.
• If you can, don't use PP for everything. You're a human communicating with other humans, not a Slideshare soundtrack.
• Oh... and really, really, don't just make text heavy slides and read off them. As Luft says, use the slides as memory prompts and a structure, and talk round them. You'll find you know way more than you think you do, and speaking semi-spontaneously is far easier for people to engage with than reading out a script, which is harder than it looks to do well.

ETA: and practise it a couple of times. Apart from anything else, it'll give you an idea what ten minutes feels like when you're talking, and whether you need to cut or add material.

Thanks for the advice and support! Haha, Finns have really bad habit of reading their presentations instead of actually presenting them and I'm trying my best to avoid that. I'm not sure if dragging the audience in the discussion will work.Sexuality is very private in Finland so I don't think i can bring people to talk about it, and Finns are very reserved. They aren't probably going to ask any questions at the end of presentation, so I doubt I'm going to be able to drag the into the discussion mid presentation. Even actual teachers mostly face wall of silence when they ask questions, and that's the norm. It's actually considered rude to talk when someone else is talking, so I really doubt i will be able to activate the audience. It's good advice though.

The 10 minutes is the minium, I think i can go over that. It's also group projectthat you can opt to do by yourself and the minium presentation time depends on how many people are part of the group. I think I'd be able to stect it to 15-20 minutes if i really need the extra time. I understand your point though. Time flies and crawls during presentation. There's simultaneously too little and too much time.

I'm really going to try to talk around the slides. Finns have especially bad habit of reading instead of preseting their presenatons. Thankfully I'm always been a bit of natural improviser.

Do you have any advise for stage fright? The things is, when I'm talking about something that interests me I start talking really fast and kinda start rambling (I've been told it's like I vomit words) and when I get nervous I start to stutter a bit and forget words and entire sentences. I don't mean like "What I'm going to say next?" type of way. I mean in the "What was the Finnish word for attraction? I only remeber it in English!" type of way. I'm definetely going to practice a lot, I dind't really think about it before, but I'm thinking of filming it and then watching it for mistakes and improvesement. Doyou have any other tips? Any help is apreciated.

Not sure if too late now but I just saw this and was going to add some advice from recent presentation classes I did in work. Think Telecaster covered most of it. I'm not a giving a presentation expert.

Main points I'd say that I don't believe is already covered (forgive me if it was):

• Find ways to engage the audience. Nothing is more boring than reading text and listening to some go on and on like a Duracell rabbit. Ask question, even if you don't expect a response (but give it a pause for time for one). As mention before, tell personal experiences is great too.
• Body language means a lot. People will judge you on how you present it. Tone of voice is equally important (again avoid sounding like the Duracell rabbit voice guy in this clip
  )
• Text in PP should be bullet pointed. Gives basic points of the topic but you as the speaker expand on it and give it context. (similar to others saying don't make the PP text heavy, this is how you achieve that). They should be nowhere near the size of bullet points in my post here.
• Don't practise just the presentation, but how to answer any potential questions. One of my weaker points is how to answer an awkward question, but answer the rest with confidence.
• When speaking, think about each sentence as you say them (will help control you from speaking too fast).
• If you think you are speaking too slow, you probably not (and at the right speed). Think you are speaking at right speed, you are probably too fast. There is such a thing as too slow however.
• Bring a bottle of water. Take wee sips in between sentences, or sections. Again helps slow your speed down, and helps you think about what to say next. Doesn't need to be water, but something that you can play about with, but be careful with the choice to make sure it's not too distracting. A sip of a bottle of water is fine. Making a loud "Ahh" sound at the end of every slip isn't. Rolling a pen in your hand with no major movement noticeable by the audience should be fine. Continuously clicking it isn't.

Hope these help with this presentation and\or others.