Asexual Artist Creates Ace Spectrum Flag Using Unfurled Condoms?

[Pramana]

I'm starting this thread to invite opinions regarding the art installation Spectrum by self-identified asexual and artist Elyse Jones, featured in the April 1, 2018 edition of a journal titled The Asexual. I've posted links below, but to summarize briefly, the piece consists of a collection of condom wrappers stuck to a wall, arranged in the colours of the asexual flag. Some of the wrappers are unopened, others are opened and unfurled to varying degrees. The idea is to represent the asexual spectrum, including differing attitudes towards partnered sex and differing sexual interests (or lack thereof). For additional background, The Asexual journal is devoted to asexual identity politics, reflecting a worldview best described as "straight out of Tumblr".

So my questions are:
1. Is all asexual visibility good visibility?
2. If not, then is this at least good visibility? Or is it just pretentious and embarrassing?
3. If it is pretentious and embarrassing, then should the community criticize its own on these matters?

The Asexual journal's page regarding the art installation:
http://theasexual.com/article/2018/4/1/elyse-jones-spectrum

The Asexual journal's "About" page:
http://theasexual.com/about/

[EngineeRaven]

Well, proper visibility is good visibility, and I think this is proper visibility. Some people don't like explicit references to sexuality (and yeah, condoms are pretty explicit), but in my opinion it is art with a powerful message. I, personally like it.

But regardless of my opinion, hell yes! Every community has to be with constructive criticism towards its own art, that's how they grow.

[Ceebs]

Damn, I need to go to bed. Somehow I read the title as something to do with art made from used condoms. 🤢

[everywhere and nowhere]

I don't think that this work is pretentious or embarassing. It's an interesting and clever idea. I've seen worse things , and I'm fairly interested in "critical art". (The Polish artist Dorota Nieznalska had a lawsuit for her work "Passion", which consisted of a clip of a bodybuilder working out and an image of male genitalia pasted on a metal cross - the court was to decide whether she had offended religious feelings. I consider it justified to use even shocking imagery to show how male gender norms lead to men's suffering. Also remember that an exhibition is seen willingly, though certainly in case of shocking works the museum should warn about it beforehand.)

 

However, words such as "challenge the notion that all asexual people don’t have sex" tend to make a red light flash for me. I realize that the artist meant to show that some asexuals have sex and some don't, some asexuals do other sexual things and other don't. But still I consider the slogan "aces can have sex" a somewhat dangerous one, because I have repeatedly seen it being read as "aces should have sex in some circumstances" - and I deeply believe that no person who is uncomfortable with sex should try it, unless their feelings about sex change. No, I don't consider "Spectrum" a harmful work of art, but I'm just getting overly sensitive about asexual sex-positivity. I don't think that it's a good thing when people are suggested that not sharing sex-positive views makes them a bad person. And I'm just worried for not-really-sex-indifferent aces who end up being told that they should "give it a try" with sex. Since I believe that having unwanted sex is worse than feeling an unsatisfied desire, I worry for sex-averse aces who could end u having sex against themselves than I would care about sex-indifferent aces not being told loud enough that of course they could have sex for their partner's sake if they choose so.

[Claire1983]

I think it's a very interesting way to represent the variety of asexual experiences.  I don't think ALL visibility is good, some can be harmful, but I don't think this one is.  It just reflects the artists personal experience, which naturally may not be all inclusive, but that's the nature of art.  Art just like embarrassment is a very subjective thing.  What one person loves may not sit well with others, which I think is the message of the art piece that asexuality isn't one size fits all.  That said, it's art and as such is subject to criticism.  So criticize away if you feel so inclined, but I think that's going to be more of an individual that a community reaction.  

[Philip027]

Yes, yes, we get it, asexual people can have sex.  You don't need to make us look like goddamn hornbags in the process.  Sigh.

 

Definitely in the pretentious/embarrassing category.

 

8 hours ago, Pramana said:

"straight out of Tumblr".

What a shocker.

[everywhere and nowhere]

I thought a little about it and I decided that in some cases visibility can be a bad thing: when it's deliberately used to create some kind of false image. I just strongly recalled two cases - both are about trans people, not asexual people, but they show issues which can be meaningful to aces as well.

Case 1. "Replika" is a Polish LGBT+ bimonthly. At some point they introduced a regular section on trans issues calles "Trans-actions". It was also, more or less, the time when the transgender movement was being born in Poland. Earlier, since the 1980s, a few books were published (including two testimonies by Polish transgender people), every now and then an article appeared... So the first few "public" transgender people appeared in this section. The bad thing is that at that time they were still undergoing diagnosis and/or waiting for their case to be heard in court. (Polish has a strange procedure for legal gender reassignment. Even though we are not a common law system, there is no law on that and everything is based on previous jurisprudence. The petitioner has to sue their parents for "incorrectly determining their sex in the birth certificate" and then the case is heard before court. In is not understood as the parents' "fault", but is still painful for trans people who have accepting families, the verdict doesn't depend on the parents' approval, but still parents who don't approve of their adult child's transgender identity have a lot of possibilities to impede the procedure...) Considering that their doctor and even the judge could have access to what they have said for a magazine, it was kinda prudent for them to present themselves as "True Transsexuals". But the problem is that some of the information was obviously false. The sentence I recall best: "He realizes that the penis is not what defines a man, but he feels that it would allow him to feel more at home in his body". Perhaps they thought so at that point and later changed their mind, but I doubt it - we are talking about a person who later decided that "agender" fits them much better and quit testosterone. Most likely they were trying to present themself like this for the sake of a succesful diagnosis and verdict - but still, it meant lying to people within the community.

Case 2. A trans woman who is also my friend and has suffered a lot of hardships on her way to become herself. As a young person she married and had two children - rather a case of "intentional unplanned pregnancy" for her ex-wife, so that both families would let them marry and get away. She had always known that she felt a woman, but didn't see a way out and tried to supress it. Around the age of 40 she decided that she couldn't live like this anymore and that transition is the only choice for her. She had to divorce her wife (same-sex marriage isn't recognized in Poland and current jurisprudence in transgender cases says that the petitioner must be single before submitting their case to court). Her family didn't accept her, she even spent about a week living in her car. She managed to find some good job (at school age she had finished technical high school for railway employees and she got a job as a technical worker at the Warsaw metro). Her mother was trying to hinder her transition a lot. (I have described the procedure above. If the family is accepting, the case usually takes two hearings. In her case it were eight because her mother would constantly present new motions meant to impede the trial. And note that Polish courts are, unfortunately, slow, and usually at least some 2 months pass between subsequent hearings...) After the final verdict and the surgery she felt like finally a new life was starting for her, she started studying transport at the Warsaw Technical University, had prospects for a better post at work... And then she suffered a stroke. She is still disabled even though, fortunately, currently her rehab seems to be going very well. And on the top of that, for some time she put herself into a highly dysfunctional relationship... She is bisexual, now quite disheartened with men, but she felt as if being accepted by a man was the highest proof that she is a real woman. But her partner was only a nice person at the beginning and especially after her stroke, when she became dependent on him, he started drinking, beating and abusing her... (From this point of view it was a real courage for her to finally leave him despite her disability and to return to her tiny apartment shere she would be all alone. And I'm happy that I encouraged her former-current girlfriend to forgive her and come back.) At some point she wrote a book about her experience and even though the relationship was already going very bad, she probably wanted to make a better impression and claimed that she would like to marry her partner...

 

These are both cases of saying something untrue for tactical reasons. I can understand it, but it still doesn't make untrue claims more true. So if the asexual community did something comparable, it would be "bad visibility".

[Pramana]

8 hours ago, CBC said:

Damn, I need to go to bed. Somehow I read the title as something to do with art made from used condoms. 🤢

I'm getting ideas. From a Google search, it looks like there've been plenty of artworks made using condoms, but nothing obvious for an artwork made using used condoms. I think this presents an opportunity to create a radical postmodern masterpiece that'll blow up the Internet!

[TheAP]

Not my style of artwork, but she can create what she wants.

[utca]

I don't love it aesthetically, but I appreciate that she covered the wide spectrum of sexual feelings among asexual people in what read to me as a neutral tone. I don't think this is bad visibility at all.