Hey all! This post is a roundup of things submitted to this month’s Carnival of Aces. This month’s theme was less theme and more prompt: to write exactly 200 words about anything relating back to asexuality. (More details and optional prompts at that post, if you’re interested.) I think this is the most submissions I’ve ever gotten while hosting, so thank you to everyone who contributed! If you didn’t send something in but would still like to, feel free to comment here or on the original call for submissions, and I can add you below!
For more info on the Carnival as a whole, see its home blog here for more info.
Submissions
keygoose wrote about claiming pride, thinking about a forum thread on AVEN. “I’ve read a lot of generalizations about pride, from the supposed fact that people like me are never proud of it to the fact that ‘pride’ for one’s sexuality is odd because sexuality is a neutral fact about yourself, something that you can’t really be proud of, since it’s out of your control.”
Isaac wrote about being aro, ace, and agender in two 200-word sections, one in English and the other in Spanish. “By our very existence as asexuals, we defy many preconceptions of human sexuality, and we are erased because of this.” / “Por nuestra mera existencia como asexuales, desafiamos demasiadas ideas preconcebidas sobre la sexualidad humana, por lo que se nos intentan borrar.”
yickel talked about ace myths and being an ace trans guy. “I achieved the coveted romance and sex, ultimately. Nothing was ‘unlocked’ within me, like the mythology foretold. I remain aro and ace at the core. And coincidentally, I also remain male.”
rainbowcrowned shared a poetic post about asexuality as a whole. “Asexuality becomes contrast and complimentary concept to celibacy. Asexuality becomes a study in deconstructing rape culture. Asexuality becomes a language and community and theory of consent and nuance and biology and philosophy concerning sexuality.”
alittletree wrote about the concept of being “more than friends” with someone. “[I]f someone had told me two years ago I would actually fight to be able to do this (it was supposed to be an individual project), I would have thought them crazy (I hate working in groups, except with her). I sometimes think (half-jokingly) about our relationship as ‘more than friends’ in an academic/intellectual way.”
violetemerald reviewed the TV show Everything’s Gonna Be Okay. “I was disappointed the show claimed ‘all asexuality is’ is ‘that the person doesn’t want to have sex’. Still, it was a more nuanced representation than we often get on television, and including an allo/ace open romance where the allo partner has sex with other people, and I loved seeing that on TV for once.”
I made a tumblr post thinking about jobs and houses re: my being aro and ace. “I went on a walk yesterday and ended up in a neighborhood a few blocks away from me just staring at all the more upkept houses with their clean green lawns and thinking about how I’m looking for my first job after college right now. How much easier would things be if I wanted to have a partner or kids, even a roommate? Did single people own those houses? What kinds of jobs did they have, and what experience was required?”
sildarmillion wrote two posts, one thinking about inconsistent definitions of terms like “lithosexual” and another thinking about identity labels that make assumptions about other identity labels. “Are there more explanations for lithosexual that I’m missing? I suspect the real problem is with definitions. Lithosexuality might be using a different definition of sexual attraction.” / “Why does a label like ‘idemromantic’ exist? I wonder if labels like this are created because the original labels are interpreted from a very narrow and very literal lens.”
Elizabeth wrote an update about not having written about asexuality in a while. “How can even 200 words slip through my fingers like slithy toves? These past few months, I’ve wanted to return to writing about asexuality—had many thoughts, but struggled to disentangle them, make them digestible enough for this format. In truth, I’m bored of blogging. Genre feels like a cage.”
venatrixlunaris wrote about comfortably forgetting being aro and ace. “Sometimes, I’ve started to forget that I’m aromantic and asexual. Not in a way where I think I’m allo. In a way where I think I’m normal. A way where I know what I want and I’m basically comfortable with that, so sometimes I forget there’s a word for that.”
ulysses c/onstance bougie 
Mm… That’s not quite accurate. I’ve written LOTS about asexuality, actually, but what I was trying to say with that part you quoted is that none of it has been fit to publish, because I don’t think any of it would make any sense to anyone but me. Hence the Jabberwocky reference.
But that nuance kind of got lost in editing down the post so severely, I suppose. For me, this prompt was such a challenge because I’m the sort of writer who needs to write a ton of words to find what I’m trying to say, and then edit them down and reorganize them so they work. I also tend to write comprehensively, not in little bits and pieces. My work at the moment is too big to even fit in a regular blog post, so I really couldn’t figure out any way to excerpt it in 200 words in any way that would be really impactful (in a positive way), because without the context surrounding it, it just wouldn’t make sense. I had to abandon that idea and just write instead that I’m working on the beginning of something, but I don’t know exactly what form it will take yet. Whatever it is, it’s not going to be a blog, and it’s going to blend genres.
The exciting chaos of a new project (amidst major life changes) is more what I was trying to communicate… and the frustration of not being able to find the words to do so as well, lol.
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Fair (and apologies for the late reply)! If you’d like, I can edit/rewrite that line in the post, add this comment to the body of the post as a footnote, etc.!
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