The message I receive isn’t unfamiliar:
Hi. I’ve been questioning myself lately, and I think I might be asexual. I relate a lot to the content you make about it, but I don’t think I totally fit the definition. And I don’t want to call myself ace if I’m not really ace. But I don’t know what I’d be if I’m not. It’s confusing, and I don’t know what to do. How do you know for sure that you’re ace, so I don’t get it wrong?
I get some version of this message all the time, projecting varying degrees of anxiety and doubt. Sometimes, they’ll lay out a sexual history, a detailed accounting of who did what, when, and with what level of success or enjoyment. Sometimes, it’ll be a list of confusing and seemingly contradictory feeling about sex. They’ll even include things they’ve been told when they’ve come out to other asexuals: “Well, that’s not really asexuality.” “That just sounds like you’re uncomfortable with sex.” “I don’t think you can (or should) call that ‘ace.’”
Consistent in these messages is the fear of getting it wrong, of claiming asexuality incorrectly. As if the claiming isn’t stressful enough. It’s hard to figure out who you are, but to add to it the anxiety of having that claim tested and quality controlled…
It’s an anxiety fraught with the fear of offending someone, of overstepping boundaries, of being called out, canceled, or publicly reprimanded.
It’s the anxiety of encountering the gatekeepers.
It takes a great deal of courage to define yourself as asexual, particularly when that definition sits so far outside the cultural norm. But when those of us who have defined ourselves as ace use those definitions as measures of other people’s aceness, we dilute the power of those definitions and jeopardize the health of the community we proudly place ourselves in.
Why do we gatekeep ace space?
The instinct to gatekeep in queer spaces is a protective one. It’s rooted in the long (often bloody and painful) struggle to even have any queer space to begin with.
Carving out space where it was safe to exist and to connect with others like you took generations of work. Queer space was drawn outside the lines, built under threat as an act of defiance. Queer space was prone to invasion and dismantling from the outside, so policing those spaces, ensuring they maintained their integrity and remained safe and secure, was essential for the spaces’ survival.
It makes sense that in asexual spaces the claim of asexuality would be examined and critiqued. Claiming asexuality is claiming a heavy cultural burden: misguided assumptions, infantilizing rhetoric, dismissal, rejection, and a widespread misunderstanding of the identity as a whole. What the allosexual world thinks of asexuals becomes the voice of self-doubt in our heads. So we want asexual space to contain only other asexuals, because we’ve learned, experience after experience, allos — even confused, well-meaning ones — make an ace space less safe.
Gatekeeping in queer space is also a form of self-definition. Validating or dismissing the legitimacy of another’s claim of identity is a way of clarifying our own “street cred” in that identity space. I can debunk your claim of ace, this says, because I am ace, in these specific ways. By proving what you’re not, I reassert what I am. And with so much of ace identity being amorphous and painfully nuanced, this kind of self-definition is appealing. If you can’t clearly articulate the shape of your identity, finding that articulation in its negative space can suffice.
Smash the Gatekeepers
That lack of clarity in defining ace identity, however, is why gatekeeping is dangerous for the ace community.
The experience of asexuality is difficult to describe. Culturally, we treat sex and desire as taboo, as subjects to be spoken of softly and shamefully, if spoken of at all. So, we don’t have adequate language for explaining attraction, libido, how those concepts interact and how they’re broken down. This lack of language makes sex and sexual attraction a constantly shifting target. We kind of understand it, and we sort of know how to define it. For asexual folks, this “kinda-sorta” language creates a one-two punch: not only are we only able to “kinda-sorta” describe the ins and outs of sexual attraction, we’re defining ourselves through not feeling this thing we only “kinda-sorta” have words for.
We’re also fighting the impacts of erasure. Mainstream media depictions of asexuality are shockingly rare. (You know you’re in a representation desert when the constant refrain is “But Bojack Horseman!” and you’re hard-pressed to follow that up with an actual human example of ace representation.) When you find ace representation, our depictions typically aren’t centered in the narrative and aren’t always shepherded by ace creators. By and large, you have to be willing to hunt down positive ace representation. And while it’s out there, it’s rarely positioned to have widespread cultural impact.
Visibility plays a large role in helping marginalized identities define and understand themselves. Positive, visible ace representations help ace folks and those questioning their identities see themselves through a mirror that’s not distorted by the dominant culture. They help ace folks measure themselves against who they are or could be, instead of what they aren’t or what they lack.
What helps ace and questioning folks the most is participation in an open, empathetic and supportive community. The community becomes the most powerful tool to define ourselves: through sharing our stories, comparing experiences, and locating ourselves in the pieces of what others are willing to make public about themselves.
Think of it as crowdsourcing identity, and it’s the most reliable way to figure yourself out when you lack a language and don’t see yourself in the world. Gatekeeping deprives us of our community’s strongest feature, and it robs questioning folks of the one handle they can count on to figure themselves out as asexual.
It doesn’t serve us — as individuals or as a community — to close ranks and parse out who’s really ace and who doesn’t measure up. It doesn’t protect us. Instead, it limits our ability to care for our own. It limits our ability to truly understand ourselves.
The healthiest version of the asexual community is one that embraces the uncertainty of being ace, welcomes the journey of the questioning individual, and fully validates the wide spectrum of experience that’s possible under the ace umbrella. The healthiest version of our community is one where identity isn’t a definition but an ongoing conversation, one in which we are made stronger by what we give and accept from each other.
I’m a 52-year-old woman who has only figured out in the last year that I’m aroace. It absolutely makes my life make so much sense, but also some part of me continues to question the identity because it seems almost too simple — was this really it all along?
To be clear, it sure was this all along. I remember telling people when I was a kid that I’d like to have kids but I never wanted to get married. And for years I didn’t know why I wouldn’t just “put myself out there more” to find a romantic partner. I really didn’t want one but couldn’t admit that to myself or anyone else.
Doubting myself or having anyone else doubt me because I happen to have a libido is just not helpful at this point.
Yeah, this could be me. I've heard from some people, including an ace YouTuber, saying that demisexuals are really a type of allo rather than a type of ace. I already have some imposter syndrome that's hard to kick without them reinforcing it. To their minds, the fact that I feel & act allo with my husband negates the fact that he's the _only_ person I've ever met who appeals to me, and even with him, it took a year of friendship, then falling in love with him before I wanted to so much as to kiss him.