Androgyny + Asexuality

[rawersace]

for quite some time i feel like i’ve never been completely feminine and i’ve always felt inspired by men’s style and personalities (i used to believe i had crushes on guys but i realized it was just admiration, which is what i consider my asexual version of a crush lol)

 

i’d say about 30% of the time i dress feminine (usually when i think i have a crush on someone but it turns out to be just a squish or another one of my personality admirations) and the other time i’m quite a bit on the androgynous side which is what i feel is more like me.

 

but yea i’m female by default but i dress quite androgynously and act a bit androgynous too which is why i tend to get along with straight men quite well (until they become attracted to me for some reason despite me treating them as a homie and i’m like oh no we could’ve been good friends!), i don’t consider my gender expression as fully female or male but somewhere in between and i wanted to know if that’s an asexual thing or if that’s just me? does anyone feel this way too?

[kiaroskuro]

There are lots of aces who are 'on the androgynous side', but so are many sexuals. No, I wouldn't say that androgyny is an asexual thing per se. For me it's more of a queer thing - even though I'm aware that the androgynous style is embraced by many straight people. Actually I was thinking about creating a thread about this topic.

[Sarah-Sylvia]

Yeah there's quite a bit of asexuals who're non-binary in some way, but it's definitely not heavily connected. I'm not fully sure on this, but I would say not being sexually attracted means you put less emphasis on being your default gender. There's actually a lot of pressure to be a masculine man if you're pursuing women, and same the other way around, so being asexual might make it easier to question those norms, and then further question your own gender. Just a theory. A gender theory

Even though I've thought about being a woman since my teens, I was still taking on the role that was given to me (as a guy), and I was attracted to women, so there was no way I was going to explore my femininity like I want to. It took all these years to wear on me until I decided that my gender is more important than my relationships. I so want to love and have romance, but I can't ignore who I am and how I want to be.

I used to think maybe I was androgynous as well, but I wasn't admitting to myself just how important my female self is. I've lost interest in the rest, even if it's useful and I'm still going to make use of it.

[Rynn]

23 minutes ago, Sarah-Sylvia said:

Just a theory. A gender theory

Hehe nice  

 

@rawersace

 

I do think there has to be some sort of relationship between ace-ness and gender-nonconformity. The correlation is far too strong to be coincidental. Just look at any of the Ace Community Survey's reports to see that. I don't know why this is the case though.

 

I've just searched for scholarly articles covering this, but it doesn't seem anyone has explicitly studied this. These three studies 

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1363460718790890 

https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.leidenuniv.nl:2443/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2014.898015 

https://rd-springer-com.ezproxy.leidenuniv.nl:2443/article/10.1007/s10508-011-9757-x 

came the closest, as in, they mentioned the existence of asexual nb's, but that's just about it. None did any research on the link between ace-ness and gender-nonconformity. And these three all under-reported the percentage of aces who are nonbinary (when compared to ace community survey reports). Other research generally includes only asexual men and women, often actively excluding those who refused to tick an 'F' or 'M' from their analyses.

 

It's been a depressing trek through google scholar & my digital university library tbh. I'm starting to question why I've so far bothered to fill in the many surveys that came along in AVEN's research forum. They just threw everything I wrote away apparently.

 

Quote

Little is known about the demographics of the asexual population. In Brotto et al.’s (2010) recent exploration of asexuality, 27 (12.6%) of 214 participants refused to provide information about their gender by not answering a forced choice question, and were therefore excluded from the analysis because they could not be sent the appropriate gender-specific second section of the survey.

Given the nature of the survey, the participants likely would have been aware that they could not access the remaining questions without providing gender information, and yet more than 10% chose to cut their participation short instead of claiming ownership of either an M or an F. Similarly, in Gazzola and Morrison’s (2011) recent asexuality research, seven (18%) of the 39 participants chose to self-identify,in terms of gender,as neither men nor women (i.e., four participants self-identified as two-spirit and three self-identified otherwise).

 

While this phenomenon may be a meaningless artifact, at this early stage of asexuality-related research, it is important not to dismiss prematurely the possibility of substantial gender diversity within the asexual population.

This guy (third article) comes the closest to defending nb inclusion, and he thinks gender-nonconformity may be a 'meaningless artifact.' That's honestly just painful to hear.

[rawersace]

20 hours ago, Laurann said:

Hehe nice  

 

@rawersace

 

I do think there has to be some sort of relationship between ace-ness and gender-nonconformity. The correlation is far too strong to be coincidental. Just look at any of the Ace Community Survey's reports to see that. I don't know why this is the case though.

 

I've just searched for scholarly articles covering this, but it doesn't seem anyone has explicitly studied this. These three studies 

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1363460718790890 

https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.leidenuniv.nl:2443/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2014.898015 

https://rd-springer-com.ezproxy.leidenuniv.nl:2443/article/10.1007/s10508-011-9757-x 

came the closest, as in, they mentioned the existence of asexual nb's, but that's just about it. None did any research on the link between ace-ness and gender-nonconformity. And these three all under-reported the percentage of aces who are nonbinary (when compared to ace community survey reports). Other research generally includes only asexual men and women, often actively excluding those who refused to tick an 'F' or 'M' from their analyses.

 

It's been a depressing trek through google scholar & my digital university library tbh. I'm starting to question why I've so far bothered to fill in the many surveys that came along in AVEN's research forum. They just threw everything I wrote away apparently.

 

This guy (third article) comes the closest to defending nb inclusion, and he thinks gender-nonconformity may be a 'meaningless artifact.' That's honestly just painful to hear.

this is all really helpful thank u ❤️

[Dawning]

I think that when you're ace, and therefore usually not trying to sexually attract people, it's natural to ignore sexy clothes and just wear basic stuff that would be considered androgynous because both genders wear it. If you're AFAB, when you notice that men's clothing tends to be better made, less trendy, and more practical, instead of being frustrated but still buying a red miniskirt, you buy stuff from the men's department.

[DolphinLover22]

On 12/13/2019 at 12:47 PM, rawersace said:

for quite some time i feel like i’ve never been completely feminine and i’ve always felt inspired by men’s style and personalities (i used to believe i had crushes on guys but i realized it was just admiration, which is what i consider my asexual version of a crush lol)

 

i’d say about 30% of the time i dress feminine (usually when i think i have a crush on someone but it turns out to be just a squish or another one of my personality admirations) and the other time i’m quite a bit on the androgynous side which is what i feel is more like me.

 

but yea i’m female by default but i dress quite androgynously and act a bit androgynous too which is why i tend to get along with straight men quite well (until they become attracted to me for some reason despite me treating them as a homie and i’m like oh no we could’ve been good friends!), i don’t consider my gender expression as fully female or male but somewhere in between and i wanted to know if that’s an asexual thing or if that’s just me? does anyone feel this way too?

I definitely feel like that. I've been trying to figure myself out for quite some time, and looking through AVEN threads, I came to realize I'm trans-masculine. I tend to dress more androgenous, but I'd like to dress more masculine. I have barriers with that (mostly people close to me that I know wouldn't understand), but I do feel like it's connected to my asexuality. I've never really felt the need to look "sexy", so short skirts, or things of that nature just never seemed to draw any attention to me. I loved dressing more like my brothers. Even now, people at work call me "sir", and it makes my heart happy 😝😝 I also feel the way you do with your "crushes" XD

[PoeciMeta]

14 hours ago, Dawning said:

I think that when you're ace, and therefore usually not trying to sexually attract people, it's natural to ignore sexy clothes and just wear basic stuff that would be considered androgynous because both genders wear it. If you're AFAB, when you notice that men's clothing tends to be better made, less trendy, and more practical, instead of being frustrated but still buying a red miniskirt, you buy stuff from the men's department.

Yeah. Despite being a trans AFAB, that is a big reason why I pick ''men'' clothes. 

[rawersace]

On 12/14/2019 at 9:17 PM, DolphinLover22 said:

I definitely feel like that. I've been trying to figure myself out for quite some time, and looking through AVEN threads, I came to realize I'm trans-masculine. I tend to dress more androgenous, but I'd like to dress more masculine. I have barriers with that (mostly people close to me that I know wouldn't understand), but I do feel like it's connected to my asexuality. I've never really felt the need to look "sexy", so short skirts, or things of that nature just never seemed to draw any attention to me. I loved dressing more like my brothers. Even now, people at work call me "sir", and it makes my heart happy 😝😝 I also feel the way you do with your "crushes" XD

Lmao!! I’m glad to know I’m not alone. I hope u get more in touch with ur masculinity like u wish to ❤️