The Conversation Continues: Aces Online, Our Zine Collection, and the "Ace Sex Wars"

ASexy Life (2010), p. 22.

As the internet (and web search functions) came of age at the turn of the 21st Century, asexual community networks took shape as email groups, websites, forums, and blogs. Perhaps the most influential of these is the still-running Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), founded by David Jay in 2001 (AVENwiki). AVEN’s forums are frequently mentioned in our zine collection, with discussions germinating in these forums and bleeding across multiple websites and blog networks. Zine contributors like Kelly credit AVEN for their discovery of asexuality, and subsequent self-realization (untitled contribution, Asexuality: Coming to Terms, p. 5); without the ace community’s robust, early internet presence, many may not have found the words to articulate their identity. Whereas previously, publications addressing asexuality were limited and geographically scattered, internet forums facilitated discussions, networking, and meet-ups that connected people on the asexual spectrum from around the world.

Our collection represents a dynamic period in ace discourse: from the early entries like Taking the Cake and Asexy Life to the later F-ACE-ing Silence issues, these zines grapple with broader goals of education and awareness as well as focused, intra-community debates about identity and intersectionality. Most importantly, these zines’ varied contributions offer intimate, predominantly anonymized insight into peoples’ experiences of their asexuality and how it coloured the way they saw the world.

The zines referenced in this exhibit have been digitized in the gallery at the bottom of this page. We encourage you to take some time to look at these time capsules and view these discussions first-hand!

Aces on Relationships: Family, Queerplatonic Bonds, and Symbols of ‘Asexy’ Life

Shvaugn, Lightning, ASexy Life (2010) p. 8.

"You say that you don't want me to miss anything... I keep hearing that over and over again, from you, the doctor, and the counsel[l]or..." - Shvaughn, Lightning, in Asexy Life (2010), p. 8.

One of the most frequently cited concerns within these pages is the topic of relationships -- platonic, romantic, and/or sexual.

Navigating relationships in a society that views sex and romance as compulsory has been an ongoing difficulty for people on the asexual spectrum. In Asexy Life (2010), contributor Ulrike described “forcing [themself] into the dating world” and the eventual resulting “disaster,” culminating in their being victimized by intimate partner abuse (p. 5). Contributor Melissa Maranto shared her frustration with her mother’s disbelief in her asexuality: her mother took Maranto’s vehement disinterest in romance as confirmation that she was hiding a crush (p. 18). Experiences of rejection and disbelief from loved ones are common within these pages: R. Adams was labelled “homosexual” by a friend after coming out as asexual to her, and describes their mother as “[at] first doubtful of such a thing [existing]” (p. 20). People like Shvaughn faced medicalisation from their family, having their identity questioned not just by their loved ones, but by doctors and counsellors as well (p. 8). Here, we can trace a direct line from the stigma of asexual feelings from the 20th Century to the 21st.

Omnes et Nihil, Where do zucchinis come from?, QueerPlatonic Zucchinis, p. 4-5 (~2015).

"In some dark, remote corner of the internet, history was being made the way history usually is, haphazardly, and quite by accident." - Omnes et Nihil, QueerPlatonic Zucchinis (ca. 2016), p. 5.

One of our zines, QueerPlatonic Zucchinis by Omnes et Nihil, addresses the importance of committed, platonic relationships in the ace (particularly aromantic) community. These relationships are non-normative bonds that challenge traditional ideals of romantic monogamy and heteronormativity; people in queerplatonic relationships reconstruct their family unit in an atypical, fundamentally queer way. Note the similarities to 20th-century feminist social circles.

This zine captures the spontaneous nicknaming of those in queerplatonic relationships as “zucchinis” on aromantic internet forums. Described as a result of the English language failing to produce a word for these bonds -- particularly as our society elevates romantic heterosexual pairings as the height of attachment -- this tongue-in-cheek term assigns a word to something that defies clear definition. It begs the question: how do we explain our complex feelings outside of the social conventions taught to us from childhood? What does a core relationship look like when we surrender the expectation of sex and romance? How can we avoid replicating systems of privilege and power within these non-normative relationships?

Maisha, Asexual Symbols, Taking the Cake, (2012), pp. 3-4.

Another, and perhaps the most enduring, symbol in the ace community is a slice of cake. This page from Maisha’s Taking the Cake described its origins as a symbol of congratulations on the AVEN forums. Maisha also noted her understanding of it as a sex-positive asexual: “cake is just as good -- and maybe better than -- sex” (p. 4)! Her zine illustrated several other community symbols of varying popularity, including a plain black ring worn on the right middle finger, the AVEN triangle representing the gray-a spectrum, and the ace of cards (p. 4).

F-ACE-ing Silence, Issue 3 (Front Cover)

Omnes et Nihil, F-ACE-ing Silence, Issue 3 (2015), cover page.

The early-2010s zines Taking the Cake, Asexy Life, and Asexual Feminism contain examples of sex-positive asexual viewpoints, with participants disrupting misconceptions about asexuality and celibacy (Maisha, Taking the Cake, 2012, p.4), extolling the benefits of sex for others while looking on in affectionate bafflement (Victoria Craven, Asexy Life, 2010, p. 16), and asserting the importance of free sexual choice in either direction for both feminist and asexual liberation (Fa S, Asexual Feminism, 2010, p. 17). However, as these positions became prevalent in asexual activism, asexual people who are sex-repulsed, celibate, or navigating complex traumas felt sidelined in their own community.

In 2015, online discourse about sex positivity crescendoed. The cyclical nature of these discussions throughout history was not lost on zine editor Omnes et Nihil. In Issue 3 of F-ACE-ing Silence, they compared the ‘Ace Sex Wars’ to the debates between sex-positive feminists and their anti-porn peers in the 1980s and 90s (2015, p. 2). This exhibit takes their comparison a step further by inviting you to consider the similarities of this discussion to those of the early 20th-century feminist circles, where women like Kathlyn Oliver and Alice Hamilton felt misunderstood and/or left behind by an increasingly sex-positive feminist movement. Contributors to F-ACE-ing Silence, Issue 3 described frustration at having to constantly reassure others that liking sex is okay whenever they discussed their own asexuality (Anonymous, 2010, p. 8) and concerns about consent and coercion arising from advocacy for “compromise sex” in ace/non-ace partnerships (Omnes et Nihil, 2010, p. 26).

If there can be any conclusion from these recurring discussions, it is that we must continue to hold space for the diversity of human experience in our queer communities. These perspectives encourage us to ask: What voices aren’t being heard? How can we balance awareness activism with mutual uplift? How can we make our queer spaces feel like home for as many of us as possible?