Category: Claiming asexuality is a ‘white people’ thing

QAC 60 – Race, Culture & [A]sexuality: Support Asexual People Of Color
Asexual Awareness Week is a week set aside in October to not only show your pride as an asexual person, but to help raise awareness of asexuality and asexual people. sadly, some of the people who are most in need of increased awareness and resources are those who go unnoticed even within the asexual community itself.
 
it’s no secret that the Asexual Community, particularly in English-speaking countries, has a Whiteness Problem. or at least, i hope that it isn’t. there is more often than not a distinct lack of racial / ethnic diversity in asexual communities and spaces, which is why it ought to surprise no one that there is also a lack of resources and even awareness among fellow aces about the unique and diverse struggles and needs of aces of color.
 
with the bulk of asexual awareness, resources and discourse revolving around white faces and common narratives that are themself often derived from a uniquely white experience of what it is to be asexual, where is the support and inclusion for those for whom their racial, ethnic and / or cultural identity/ies inform their ace identity?
 
there are glaring ways in which asexual awareness efforts, activism and the asexual community in general have failed and continue to fail me as someone who is simultaneously asexual and black . it’s my hope that we all can work together towards a future where there will no longer be aces of color who find themselves on the outskirts of a community that claims to be welcoming and inclusive.
 
=========== LINKS ===========
“Colorful Ace YouTube Sampler” Playlist:
 
QAC 55 – Older Asexuals: Coming Out Later In Life | Questioning | Trauma
 
QAC 44 – Dear White People: About “People of Color” (POC) | A Rant
 
QAC 41 – Am I Asexual? | Never Too Young To Know
 
===============================
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
========= SOCIAL MEDIA ========
 
Snapchat: queerascat
Skype: nighstar
LINE: nighstar
Hangouts: queerascat at gmail dot com
email: queerascat at gmail dot com
 
=================================

Va-Va-Bullshit: How Latina ‘Spicy & Sexy’ Stereotypes Affect Asexual Latinas

Excerpts:

«Unsolicited advice from family members who “just don’t get asexuality” is a common occurrence, with Latinas recalling numerous times when they were told they “just haven’t found the right guy,” are immature or are in denial. But ideas about Latina bodies and sexuality also come from outside the family and beyond the Latino community. Greater society, perceiving Latinas as innately hypersexual, remark that asexual Latinas should “stop playing hard to get” and “take the stick out of their butt.” The underlying message in these comments, according to Foster, are always the same: You cannot possibly be anything other than what I say you are, and because I see you, Latina, as a sexual object, I have access to your body in a way that supersedes your autonomy and your right to your own body.»

«But characterizations of Latinas as inherently hypersexual and possessing contemptibly high fertility rates additionally produce another, more insidious form of harm; these myths make it impossible for asexual Latinas to exist in the country’s psyche, obliterating Latinas’ experiences from dominant discourses on asexuality and creating an unnecessary tension for asexual Latinas. Queenie, for instance, has been accused of abandoning her culture and trying to be white because, as a Latina, an identity embedded with notions of sexuality and motherhood, it’s thought that she can’t possibly be really asexual.»


Read the whole article here.