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Asexual Awareness Week


kitchenwitch

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Hey everyone,

Next week is Asexual Awareness Week! This is an online project to increase visibility and awareness about asexuality across the internet. There's a few ways you can get involved:

1. Post things on facebook/twitter/tumblr/livejournal about asexuality next week. Whether it is debunking myths or smashing stereotypes or writing an open letter, anything helps. We're largely a creative community, and I'm sure everyone can come up with something that is appropriate for them (and their level of out-ness).

2. Change your facebook/twitter user picture! I have a whole bunch of graphics that I made that will start to appear on my facebook on Sunday (facebook.com/sarabethbrooks). Feel free to borrow them/use them for next week.

3. Come out! Next week will be a great time for visibility on the internet -- maybe it's the perfect time for you to come out?

4. Have some conversations. Online or offline, the best way for us to become visible is for us to talk about asexuality and how that fits into our lives.

5. Use your existing resources. If you have a blog, a news column, a school project, club meetings, regular online chats, weekly cake club, or anything else, use that as a resource to make people aware of asexuality. Our biggest resource is ourselves -- we're the face of this community!

I'm looking forward to a great week next week -- hopefully, this can become an annual event! It's gonna be awesome.

:cake:,

Sara Beth / KW

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I've written a sappy open letter; debating on whether I want to post it on Facebook as I'd rather random internet people read it than the intended recipient's other friends.

I think I'll tumblr it. :)

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I'm going to ask my friend at my old high school if his GSA is still around. If they are I'm going to ask if I can pop in and tell them about asexuality. :3

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I'm going to ask my friend at my old high school if his GSA is still around. If they are I'm going to ask if I can pop in and tell them about asexuality. :3

Great idea!!

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Ah man, if I wasn't already doing a National Come out Day event on AVEN, I would participate on the facebook thing. :( Oh well.

I can do other things though.

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I'm reeeeally looking forward to this!!! <3

I'm definitely planning on asexually spamming the hell out of my facebook/tumblr, etc, since I don't really have any in-person opportunities for ace awareness, alas. I might even borrow one of your graphics, Sara Beth! :D

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For those that don't have facebook or you as a friend. Would you mind posting the graphics on the thread as well so we can use them for people to post on their tumblrs or in other website-dealy-things?

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Asexual Awareness Week Sept 20-24!

What an oddly short week.

Very good timing I must say. Start of university for me and at the fair (where societies demand we join) I'll get in touch with the LGBT, which I was going to do anyway, and see what I can do.

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Drat I wish we'd known about this earlier. But good for you; this sounds like an awesome idea.

I'll try and add this to the AVEN Calendar, if I'm able.

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After being insulted in this board's chatroom ("come to Portugal and I'll change that for you!") I posted this on the forum. I know some people will probably correct parts of it lol but hey, I don't suppose anyone will write definitions that everyone agrees with...

This week is apparently Asexuality Awareness Week. I don't know who decided that or when, but thought I'd take advantage of it.

Chat peeps will know about asexuality, I've nattered on about it enough, and the majority of you have been very kind, understanding and curious. Some have obviously missed the point (maybe I'm just bad at explaining, who knows?)

After an 'interesting' conversation in chat earlier, I thought it might be an idea if I use Asexuality Awareness Week to communicate with the rest of the board so that it might be more widely understood and situations like that conversation might be avoided. Feel free to ask me questions about asexuality and what it is like to be asexual, I'm happy with friendly curiosity :D

As a preliminary thing:

~ I am asexual :)

~ Asexuality is when someone does not experience sexual attraction and surveys have placed it at around 1% of the population. The majority of asexual people have never experienced sexual attraction and continue not to throughout their lives.

~ It has been documented both in humans and animals (most commonly cited is an experiment on rams, in which about 1% of rams showed no interest in mating and tests showed they did not differ in brain structure or chemistry)

~ Asexuals tend to differentiate between different types of attraction:

Sexual attraction- physical attributes in a person that inspire feelings of wanting sexual intimacy.

Romantic attraction- wanting a relationship with someone (the close emotional bond, the special link between two people, the trust, etc)

Aethetic attraction- finding someone beautiful (commonly said as "finding someone like a work of art")

To put it another way, this might be experienced by straight girls who are jealous of female models.

Asexuals lack the first, but can experience the other two. It is possible to find someone sexually attractive without being romantically attracted to them (one night stands etc) and for asexuals, they can desire relationships but feel fulfilled in that relationship through expressing themselves verbally or emotionally and not physically. Some people ask "well, isn't a relationship without sex just a friendship?" To put this a different way, then a friendship + sex = a relationship. What makes sex with a partner different to sex with a friend? An asexual relationship is the difference between a sexual relationship with love, and "friends with benefits".

~ Asexuality doesn't mean "doesn't like sex". Some asexuals have not had sex since they don't feel the need to (and therefore cannot rightly say they don't enjoy it, just that they aren't interested) and others have had sex in order to "test" their feelings about it. Asexuals vary between "repulsed" (not willing to have sex) through "indifferent" (don't mind either way) to "sex-positive" (enjoying sex, can see the emotional benefits of sex within a relationship etc). The main reason for asexuals being sexually active is for the benefit of a sexual partner, but other reasons such as enjoyment or for children also occur.

~ There is currently no known cause of asexuality. Under pressure from societal expectations or from family and friends, many asexuals have sought out hormone tests, therapy, medications and reasons such as depression or childhood abuse and no reasonable explanation has been found. Many of the tests came back normal and while of course some asexuals are depressed or have a history of abuse, the majority of depressed or abused people are not asexual. Asexuality is considered to be a sexual orientation (at least by those to whom it applies...) or to some as the lack of a sexual orientation.

~ Asexuals can have libidos, it is just not directed at anybody. Human sexual biology is a complicated thing and isn’t just an on-off switch- by that nature, the complexity must include several “layers” and asexuals do not necessarily lack them all. To put it another way, asexuals find having a libido like the general feeling of hunger and not craving a particular food. Another analogy is that a straight man on a desert island surrounded only by men will have a libido but will not be sexually attracted to anyone around him. As a result of experiencing a libido, an asexual may partake of solo acts or may, especially if they are in a relationship, relieve these feelings with a partner.

That’s all I can think of offhand, again, feel free to ask me questions :)

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I'm participating!

On my LJ, I'm updating everyday with some new/more info about asexuality for my friends list.

Everyone has given very positive feedback!

It's here if you want to check it out!

Post #1

http://husbife.livejournal.com/45146.html

Post#2

http://husbife.livejournal.com/45379.html

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Facebook keeps trying to stop me. I wrote a note and painstakingly tagged over 300 people, only to find out that only about 15 were actually tagged. Now it won't let me tag anyone else so I am not sure how to get this note visible. any how here it is if you are interested:

http://www.facebook.com/notes/holly-debolt/asexuality/431850803365

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Nano, :cake: for you!

Thanks so much!

It's a lot of work, but I'm trying my best! and typing up the third post right now. I just have to try not to get behind in my homework!! :blink:

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I'm participating!

On my LJ, I'm updating everyday with some new/more info about asexuality for my friends list.

Everyone has given very positive feedback!

It's here if you want to check it out!

Post #1

http://husbife.livejournal.com/45146.html

Post#2

http://husbife.livejournal.com/45379.html

LOL at your gifs. some people take themselves so seriously. This was refreshing. very nice work

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I'm participating!

On my LJ, I'm updating everyday with some new/more info about asexuality for my friends list.

Everyone has given very positive feedback!

It's here if you want to check it out!

Post #1

http://husbife.livejournal.com/45146.html

Post#2

http://husbife.livejournal.com/45379.html

LOL at your gifs. some people take themselves so seriously. This was refreshing. very nice work

Haha, thanks!

I feel like it may ease any tension people ay have while reading it.

Sometimes it's overwhelming to get so much new information.

Also, I posted part 3. xD

http://husbife.livejournal.com/45822.html

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Nano, your posts are brilliant. Love the gifs, they are awesome :D

I outed myself on livejournal and linked it on facebook, and I'm bracing for 'the talk' with my mum this evening. But I've had a mostly good reception...I'm surprised at how great one of my sisters has been actually.

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Every week, radio stations get a long list of what National Whatever Weeks it is - National Blueberry Week, World Call-Your-Mum Day, that sort of thing. DJs read this stuff out when they've not got anything better to say, to be fair.

Had I known it was going to be Asexual Awareness Week before Sunday night, I'd have got in touch with the people who put the list together and let them know - and we'd have been on lots of radio stations up and down the country.

However, I don't pay a great deal of attention, so I just added it to the list we're using on my own station - where it was duly read out on Monday morning.

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Nano, I noticed "which ads do you think work for asexuals?" at the bottom of your responses... I'd say if it had animals or cake in it, it would have a better reaction lol

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Thanks everyone!

@Scarf

Thanks! I just love collecting gifs. xD

Good luck! That takes a lot of bravery!

@Salogma

I know right? It's Genius!

@~Acer~

haha, I probably should have used that answer! xD

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Thank you so much to everyone who's been participating this week. :) I'm glad there was so much interest and success! For those of you who came out as part of this week: THANK YOU. :cake:

There's been amazing response from the LGBT community. I'm still culling it all together, but I'll try to post some links here as I collect them.

I never did get back to the graphics for Facebook pages; I'm sorry about that. :)

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