The Gray Areas of Asexuality

The Gray Areas of Asexuality

Celebrate International Asexuality Day! Honoring asexual, demisexual, graysexual, & ace-spectrum individuals, we applaud your courage in living in a world that overlooks asexuality. Your unique experiences & identities show the need for visibility, and you're vital to our story. pic.twitter.com/hk9QTyUO0H

— Tabletop Gaymers Origins, June 19 (@TabletopGaymers) April 6, 2024

Okay, first off, be prepared for yer old boy Hank here to get some things wrong as I pontificate and ruminate on the grey...gray...greyish?...areas of the A in LGBTQIA+. If I come off as a bit of a curmudgeon, just laugh it off and walk on by. I might even just talk to myself a bit. Now that being said...UGH! It's not just asexual anymore? Now it has to be a whole spectrum of other experiences as well?!

Yes Hank, yes it does.

When I was a little twink growing into my Cub and Beardom, the idea of asexual being a part of my community was simply laughable. "They don't have sex? Then what does that have to do with being gay? Why are they included in my community?" Well as I've come to learn over the years, after I learned to shut my mouth and just listen and learn, my non-mainstream sexual identity isn't the only one around. What?! Le Gasp! Maybe that was the cis male side of me talking. But if I'm going to command recognition and honor for the way I lead myself as a gay man, I can't discount the personal experiences of those who may not fit my definition of non-mainstream sexuality. Seems like a no-brainer, but hey, this is sex we're talking about and gay men aren't exactly leading with our brains here!

So I thought I was good after embracing the L, B, and T. Now comes Q. And I. Okay, those I kinda get. Queer being more of a political moniker. "Not 'gay' as in 'happy' but 'queer' as in 'fuck you!'" And intersex (what we used to refer to as "hermaphroditism") while having nothing to do with the sex act puts the person way outside of the mainstream and clearly misunderstood by most people. So what community better to embrace them than us?

But A? Isn't that just a choice you're making to not have sex? Cue the sound of a record screech. Eh...no. That's celibacy. Okay, so here's what I've come to learn. Asexuality is a sexual orientation on par with being lesbian or gay. It's an orientation in which the person simply experiences no sexual desire. This is how I'm interpreting what I've been reading. Others may contest this simplicity, especially when you throw in discussions about libido into the mix. Then you have romantic feelings. It turns out people are separating romantic feelings from sexual ones, so you have those who identify as aromantic, but not necessarily asexual. wait, if I'm sexually active but not romantic about it, am I just a slut? Full stop, that's a whole other conversation, and one I should probably be having with my therapist!

So where does "graysexuality" come into play? What is a Graysexual? Again, simply put as my dumb lizard brain interprets it, someone identifies as Graysexual if they are basically asexual but have sexual attractions which can be rare (rare attraction,) low-level or mild senses of attraction, or situational attractions. As Ian Helms puts it over on Queerty: "Graysexuality, or gray-A, is a middle ground between asexuality (not feeling sexual attraction) and allosexuality (feeling sexual attraction). It describes people whose experiences with attraction don’t fit traditional labels."

Or as @Alypasta explains over at TikTok:

@alypasta Replying to @go stream portals NEOW let’s talk gray ace!! #aroace #aro #ace #acetok #asexual #asexuality #aromantic ♬ original sound - Andrew

Or to put it really simply, sexuality isn't just one thing. It's a spectrum, with a lot of, you guessed it, gray areas! @Jeanrachael on TikTok explains the variances of graysexuality in a way I can understand. With pie!

@jeanrachael #asexualspectrum explained w/ #pie #allosexual #asexual #demisexual #fraysexual #cupiosexual #graysexual #apothisexual #happypridemonth2021 ♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys - Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey

So, yeah. It's a lot to take in and suss through. As this swirls in my brain I often think why it's necessary in the first place to compartmentalize, to break this all down to smaller and smaller segments of sexuality with different names. Why can't it all just be Lesbian and Gay and accept that it's all a spectrum and we all fall somewhere on a line and let that be that? Because, Hank, we're not that simple. And there's a human need to find our individual tribes. I'll leave you with this from Acer writing for The Asexual Visibility and Education Network, a good starting resource if you find yourself questioning.

As humans, we are in general a social species, programmed to support each other in family units and communities and it seems often mob rule dictates what is normal, expected or acceptable behaviour. Especially in a modern society where the media projects these ideas into every facet of our lives, we are now educated very early on as to how life apparently is. No matter what our true feelings inside, we may now attempt to adhere to the ‘rules’ that we have collectively set ourselves. Individuality can be sacrificed to a greater or lesser degree in order to fit in with the consensus ideal and prevent rejection.

So embrace your individuality, and if that means that Pride for you means coming out as a demi-aro-situational ace...something...then let that flag fly! I'm sure there's one created just for you. No seriously, go look. You'll find it. There are hundreds of these things!

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