NELGBTC Conference: Thoughts on Sex, Queer Activism, Asexual Inclusion

[ceciliatan]

I’ve been so busy running from event to event to event this month that I haven’t had a chance to blog my thoughts from the NELGBTC Conference until now, 10-11 days later. NELGBTC is a queer student activism conference that moves around annually from campus to campus. I was invited by the SUNY Stony Brook TNG group and presented two sessions there.

Comments

[haikujaguar]

Honestly, I'm not sure asexuals should be thrown together with the rest of the letters at all. I've heard too many people say that they're not fighting the same fight. (Or that they're actually just repressed and they need medical help.)

[ceciliatan]

Well, I am. They're misunderstood, judged, and discriminated against by the mainstream in the exact same ways every other alternative sexuality is, and we're fighting for the same rights to choose who we love and how without being penalized for it.

[haikujaguar]

I dunno if I agree, and I say that with rue because the reason I don't is in your reply: you naturally associate the freedom to love with the freedom to express that love through sex--even if it's via a LACK of sex...! Many human beings make that association. I think the freedom to love without it being assumed to have anything to do with sex is... a lot harder for a lot of people to get their arms around. The more we associate asexuality with a "freedom to have sex in the way you want" movement, the more difficult it is to make that distinction.

I sometimes think some other name would have been useful, other than asexual. Defining yourself by what you won't do gives power and precedence, implicitly, to the people who do. And I don't think asexuality is some new thing, or even some rare thing. I think a lot more people have relationships like that, and have throughout history, than we know. We just fail to acknowledge those relationships as being as important as sexual ones.

[ceciliatan]

Well, if we assume asexuality comprises as many varied states of being as sexuality (as opposed to merely being a "lack") then it's not surprising that many asexuals are part of the LGBTQ+ movement and many might choose not to be.