Some People Find Sex Horrifying and Disgusting. I'm one of those people
My Ace Week Interview with The Ace & Aro Advocacy Project about Being a Sex-Repulsed Asexual
CW: mentions of rape and SA
I started a firestorm a few weeks back when I made a Twitter thread saying the asexual community treats sex-repulsed aces like “lepers”.
I had many people agree with what I said, and I had a plethora of people tweet back at me to say I was wrong for what I said or for how I said it.
I wanted to make the thread because I kept seeing the same thing repeated over and over again with regards to any discussion on asexuality. Whenever any ace comes out and admits they are sex-repulsed, other aces will instantly respond with saying “But aces can still have sex!”, as if to completely hijack that person’s moment or downplay that person as being a representative for asexuality, in general.
I said in the thread that I simply do not care to play respectability politics with anyone. Some people did point out how saying one is sex-favorable or sex-indifferent is not “respectability politics”. I agreed with them.
That being said, I do want to highlight that a lot of the discussion around asexuality seems to be about trying to gain the respect from an allonormative culture that doesn’t care about people unless sex is pertinent.
Yes, a lot of our discourse is about trying to educate people to asexuality, as most have never heard about asexuality in the first place.
However, quite a bit of the discourse seems to be about trying to gain the respect or accreditation from allos, as if to show allos we aren’t some alien species of the third kind. That is where a lot of the “But aces can still have sex!” part comes from.
I’ll say it like I said in my Twitter thread: I'm not sorry if you think being sex-repulsed is uncool. I don't care to be cool to you. I care to be true to myself, and I care to have my feelings validated.
I wanted to make a post about how sex-repulsion feels for me and how it feels to be sex-repulsed in a culture that is so obsessed with sex. I wanted to talk about the sense of alienation I feel being sex-repulsed in a culture that adores sex to exponential levels. I wanted to share my experiences being sex-repulsed, so that people could understand that it’s not easy in any way being sex-repulsed in a culture that pressures everyone into sex in some capacity. Being sex-repulsed and asexual is not easy in any way, that’s for sure.
I also wanted to highlight how finding asexuality was a huge relief on my shoulders. To quote what I said in my thread, When I discovered I'm asexual, I found the piece of myself that was missing. I found the freedom and peace of mind, finally being liberated from the compulsory sexuality that gave me no ability to say no to sex. The pressure on my head was taxing to my soul.
I felt free to fly for the first time when I learned there exists a group of people who don't experience sexual attraction and that I'm one of them. I found relief, now knowing I am under no obligation to have sex and that it's okay if I don't. I found my voice because of it.
So, I am going to post an old interview I did with The Ace and Aro Advocacy Project (TAAAP) as part of a series highlighting sex-repulsed aces. I had it saved under my archive a while back, but I figured I’d share it now, because it speaks to a lot of the pressures I and others face consistently being in a sex-saturated society.
There are 7 questions total, and I will answer each one in accordance, detailing my response. Each response will detail not only the extent to which sex repulses me and how much pressure I feel being sex-repulsed in a sexualized culture.
I hope this interview not only clarifies so many misconceptions that oftentimes are said about sex-repulsed aces, but I also hope this interview highlights how being a sex-repulsed ace in a sexualized culture is far from some pleasant stroll.
My Interview with TAAAP.
1. How do you define your feelings towards sex?
Tyger Songbird: Growing up, society always made it seem that sex is the greatest thing in the world, everyone biggest fantasy. For me, sex is my greatest nightmare. If someone were to ever try to initiate sex with me, I would instantly panic and disorientate from the anxiety. I am all good with people having sex, provided all parties consent. I am not disgusted by other people having sex. It’s that I hope to never be put into any situations involving sex.. Sex is something that’s always off the table for me. My stomach turns in nausea when sex is brought up in discussion. Saying you want to have sex with me would be the worst thing you could say to me. You would be threatening to rape me at that point.
2. How does being sex-repulsed or -averse intersect with being ace for you?
Tyger Songbird: They both work in tandem, I feel. For me, the fact I just have no interest with sex just feeds into my feelings of disgust with sex.
3. How is your experience in ace communities impacted by being sex-repulsed or -averse?
Tyger Songbird: Oftentimes, I feel we as an ace community are hyper focused on trying to appease the outside allonormative world that we alienate sex-repulsed & sex-averse people like me. We often say “Asexual people don’t experience sexual attraction.”, and then we add the caveat of “But aces can still have sex!”. When we as a community say that, I feel on the outside, as if who I am doesn’t matter or doesn’t count. It is like saying sex-repulsed aces don’t exist or aren’t significant to count. I care to be heard and have my experiences validated.
There are sex-repulsed aces, and we aren’t here to drag down the asexual community. We are living our experiences out. We just need to stop caring so much to appear as “cool” by the mainstream.
4. Does being sex-repulsed or -averse impact your intimate (romantic, sexual, both or neither) relationships? How so?
Tyger Songbird: I don’t have any intimate relationships by definition. All of my relationships are platonic. It does get complicated with them, since none of my in real life friends are asexual. We are on a different page, so to speak. Now, while they love sex and have sex in their life, , they don’t make me feel shame over it. I am just ostracized from their conversations, often.
5. How can ace communities best support you?
Tyger Songbird: Beyond just gaining more visibility, I just think we as a community can best support each other by realizing and celebrating our multivarious experiences in the community. I am not only sex-repulsed, but I am also black and live in the Bible Belt.
There are so many expectations placed on my head just from being placed into both contexts. There is bereft support with regards to aces who aren’t in places like the UK or in large metropolitan areas. We often don’t talk about the pressure of being born asexual and placed into purity culture in churches, where there is immense societal pressure to be married and have children. No one was talking about asexuality in my hometown. The fact there wasn’t any outreach to my area of the Bible Belt where I call home, it made it harder to discover asexuality and ultimately myself.
Asexuality seems like more of an distant and inaccessible sexual orientation to be when it’s never talked about. So, I feel we need to do create more community in small towns like where I grew up, for that kid like me who grew up searching for the answer as to who he was but couldn’t discover because no one was saying the word asexuality.
6. What do you wish ace people knew about you or other ace sex-repulsed or -averse people?
Tyger Songbird: I wish the sex-positive and sex-indifferent people that always try to score cool points with the outside world would realize the pain they bring to us sex-repulsed aces when they don’t use inclusive language. A simple acknowledgement of sex-repulsed aces and a simple “some aces are sex-repulsed and don’t want to have sex at all” really goes a long way. It takes the pressure off us from feeling like we have to conform to some “unassailable” asexual that is ultimately ridiculous in concept and just allows us to exist as ourselves.
7. What do you wish allo people knew about you or other ace sex-repulsed or -averse people?
Tyger Songbird: That being sex-repulsed and asexual is not an indictment on you as a person. My sex-repulsion is not a value statement of any kind towards anybody. It is not finding humans as gross. It is not saying that I am disgusted by you. It is simply all about me and my desire to never engage in sex and never be placed in situations involving sex. That is all.
There goes my interview. I hope this clears up a lot of misconceptions regarding being asexual. I hope this makes things much more crystal clear as to where I was coming from with regards to that Twitter thread.
Society puts the burden of responsibility on everyone to have sex, regardless if they want to or not. There is such a pressure upon everyone (most especially sex-repulsed aces) to have to engage in sex in order to fit the mold of what society says to be. The societal homogenization at large in terms of sentiment regarding sex really hurts aces like me from feeling comfortable enough to step up and say our true feelings. Each time someone says “Everyone wants sex!”, that only erases sex-repulsed asexual people, as if to say our voices don’t count.
The same is done whenever other aces interject over our experiences as sex-repulsed asexuals. Obviously, we all know aces can have sex and that there is such variation regarding asexuality, with sex-repulsed, sex-favorable, and sex-indifferent aces. My hope is that we all in the ace community coexist together to show that beautiful prism of our orientation.
There is no such thing as an “unassailable asexual”, as Julie Sondra Decker said. Trying to paint the picture of one is basically a way to faction off asexual people. I don’t stand for anyone trying to say one is not “truly asexual” if they aren’t sex-repulsed, and I call it out when I see it happen. The same needs to be said for attempts at erasing sex-repulsed aces. We all are aces at the end of the day because of our orientation, not because of our attitude towards sex. Let’s celebrate that diversity in opinion and feel delighted we all share the same umbrella.
Stay Fierce. Stay Fly.
—Songbird 💜♠️🏹🂡