Only 8 days left to support Asexual Pride + Conference

AVEN is shaping up to have the biggest and best Pride ever. On Saturday we’ll have a full-fledged conference in Berkeley with the major leaders of the Ace Movement and a day full of workshops on everything from improving mental health services for aces to aces in popular television.  

Then on Saturday, anyone who wants to will march in the parade! We’ll have art, t-shirts, flags and a great banner.

If we raise $1000 we can cover the cost of the conference and the march, including catering, t-shirts, and pride parade registration.

If we raise $2500 we can cover the conference and parade plus print out tons of stickers and pamphlets. The stickers will be for everyone at the conference and for us to hand out at the parade. The pamphlets will be for us to hand out to organizations that want to do ace visibility (we get requests for them all the time and our stock has run out.)

Anything else we raise will go to printing more materials and to covering server costs for 2013.

Participants Wanted: Asexual Terminology Survey

avenpt:

My name is Andrew Hinderliter, and I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign.  My dissertation is about online asexual discourse, with particular interest in its development over time.  I ran one survey last January, and I am now conducting a survey on asexuality-related concepts and terminology.

To participate, you must be at least 18 years of age or older, be proficient in English, and identify as asexual, gray-A, or demisexual.  The  survey has a number of language-related questions, and it is asked that you do not look things up while taking the survey.

Click here to participate.

The AVEN backup boards

avenpt:

Unfortunately, AVEN is having some technical server problems right now, which is why the forums are currently inaccessible. We’re working to try and get it back up as soon as we can, but in the meantime we have alternate boards open here:

http://asexualityorg.proboards.com/index.cgi

Since it’s not connected to the same database as AVEN, you will need to re-register.

Our apologies for all the technical difficulties :(

The AVEN backup boards

avenpt:

Unfortunately, AVEN is having some technical server problems right now, which is why the forums are currently inaccessible. We’re working to try and get it back up as soon as we can, but in the meantime we have alternate boards open here:

http://asexualityorg.proboards.com/index.cgi

Since it’s not connected to the same database as AVEN, you will need to re-register.

Our apologies for all the technical difficulties :(

greenchestnuts: kuremu: Wow, fuck you too, Jezebel (or rather, not, being asexual, but you get the point). What is it about a minority sexual orientation that makes you feel entitled to use the term as a self-disparaging insult? Unless they’re an asexual themselves, your writers do not have the right to use asexual as shorthand for “uncool”. So, they’re stereotyping, and their stereotype is that aces DON’T like cupcakes?! I….what? I don’t even…literally the only way that I can think of asexuality affecting whether you have heard of cupcakes is the fact that aces are supposed to be obsessed with cake which would imply exactly the opposite of what they are going for here. also, original article here: http://jezebel.com/sweet-baby-jesus-dont-let-the-cronut-become-the-new-c-508463351
Pop-upView Separately

greenchestnuts:

kuremu:



Wow, fuck you too, Jezebel (or rather, not, being asexual, but you get the point). What is it about a minority sexual orientation that makes you feel entitled to use the term as a self-disparaging insult? Unless they’re an asexual themselves, your writers do not have the right to use asexual as shorthand for “uncool”.

So, they’re stereotyping, and their stereotype is that aces DON’T like cupcakes?!

I….what? I don’t even…literally the only way that I can think of asexuality affecting whether you have heard of cupcakes is the fact that aces are supposed to be obsessed with cake which would imply exactly the opposite of what they are going for here.

also, original article here: http://jezebel.com/sweet-baby-jesus-dont-let-the-cronut-become-the-new-c-508463351

Source: kuremu

metapianycist:

bessibels:

greenchestnuts:

mari: attention all asexuals who make frequent cake jokes and uncontrollably…

temporal-apparition:

attention all asexuals who make frequent cake jokes and uncontrollably blog about how much you love BBC characters

can you do the rest of us a favor and never post on the tag again because you idiots and your “FEELS” and “CAKE ISH BETTER THAN SEX XD” are the reason why many ignorant SJ bloggers…

1. No.

2. The anti-ace bloggers tend also to be anti-SJ bloggers, not the other way around.

3. I have zero interest in basing our community’s actions on the standards of people who willfully misunderstand us.

4. It is okay to be lighthearted and frivolous when talking about your membership in a marginalized group. Actually, it’s not just okay; it is sometimes empowering and crucial.

^^ THAT. (Bolding is mine.)

Also, no one should ever be pressured to be the perfect face for an entire orientation - there is no such thing as the unassailable asexual, and we shouldn’t pressure people to try.

Source: temporal-apparition

It's Complicated, Let Me Draw You This Graph: Asexuality and Reductionism

writingfromfactorx:

So I’ve been thinking about asexual culture and asexual perspectives lately. There were a few recent comments on an old post at Asexuality Unabashed on the topic, and then last week’s journal club got drawn out on a tangent about whether asexual people see the world differently than allosexual people, on the whole.

I often see people complaining that asexual culture boils down to cake, Sherlock and Doctor Who, and that it’s just an annoying collection of in-jokes. The thing is, I don’t actually think that’s true. I’m one of those people whose thinking about sexuality is very much a product of the time I’ve spent in ace circles, and I am always noticing that I think very differently about things than many of my peers. For that reason alone, I think there’s more to ace culture than the references that people often seem to think of.

So here’s one thing I think is central to asexual culture: a reductionist view of sexuality. 

Hey, I wrote a thing for the Asexual Agenda! If you’re interested in reading more, you should check out the link. 

very excellent post!

(via southpawscopic)

Source: writingfromfactorx

AVEN @ SF Pride - T-shirt design contest!

littlepaperfrogs:

nextstepcake:

Hey all you artsy types - 

Want a way to help out a cool group of aces, get some sweet chocolates, and earn my everlasting gratitude? 

AVEN is currently running a design contest to select a t-shirt design to be worn by all of us at pride, and we are really looking for submissions!

You don’t have to be ace to enter, and you can send in as many submissions as you want, so please consider it!

See more details here:http://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/87005-aven-sf-pride-t-shirt-design-contest/

For any artist followers of mine - if any of you would be interested in helping by submitting something we’d really appreciate it! You don’t have to be affiliated with the asexual community in any way to enter. Plus, you have a chance to win see’s chocolates, and those are pretty awesome…

Source: nextstepcake

Anyone Know of a Place That Sells Ace Charms?

sophiaphilemon:

I just found a charm bracelet this afternoon that doesn’t have any actual charms on it.

Also you can probably find charms of thing like say cake or ace of spade symbols form general charm places (online, or in craft stores). Also for charms in general places like antique stores that sell old jewelry can be cool places to find things.

On the Subject of Avalanche

cirius-black:

Hi, you are cordially invited to try out the asexual community linked here, rather than just taking the opinion of an ignorant douche as truth. If you have a mind of your own, this is the place for you. ^_^ Everyone is welcome.

First, a heads up - Avalanche is definitely not for everyone. If you have issues with being triggered by things, you probably shouldn’t visit, and it’s definitely not intended as a “safe space” (think 4chan style irreverence. Though not quite that bad). Still, I like seeing the ace community expanding and having places for different views, even if those views aren’t always my own, and there actually are some interesting discussions there that might be hard to have in other spaces. 

So, yeah, approach with caution, but if you’re curious feel free to check it out! 

Fistfelt: listenwithyourspirit reblogged your post: I wore a binder/tight sports...

fistfelt:

listenwithyourspirit reblogged your post: I wore a binder/tight sports bra for 5 days…

Well it’s not recommended nor is it safe to wear a binder more than 8 hours. SO no one really wears one for 24/7

I know that lots of people wear them for wayyy longer than they should (not that…

Also after a certain point a tighter binder doesn’t actually bind any better (and may possibly actually be worse). Maybe try a size up/looser setting the next time?

Seeing all the “definition” arguments on the tags make me cringe

not just as an asexual, but as a student of linguistics.

I often feel the need to bash my head into a table because seriously, language just doesn’t work that way!

Another thing about coming out

metapianycist:

the-low-and-the-lovely:

metapianycist:

I think it’s perfectly fine for someone to use “coming out” to refer to disclosing being pagan or having an invisible disability.

In addition to it being perfectly fine for disclosure of any non-heterosexual sexual orientation (including asexuality), any non-heteroromantic romantic orientation (including aromantic), any nonbinary gender identity, and any trans identity.

- a gay trans asexual who is sick to death of this “asexuals who say they come out as asexual are appropriating LGBT terminology!” argument that seems to stem from the idea that asexuals somehow have heterosexual privilege

“Coming out” is just an English phrase. It refers to disclosing any previously unknown information. You can find it also in phrases such as “come out of the woodwork” and “coming-out party” and in usages like: 

  • “Come out with it, man.” 
  • “I came out with the fact that I could not stand social functions, and happily my aunt, understanding my predicament all too well, excused me.” 

I took a quick detour to Wikipedia (yes, Wikipedia: so sue me, I have class in twenty minutes), under the sociolinguistic origin of the phrase, and it had this:

The present-day expression “coming out” is understood to have originated in the early 20th century from an analogy that likens homosexuals’ introduction into gay subculture to a débutante’s coming-out party. This is a celebration for a young upper-class woman who is making her début – her formal presentation to society – because she has reached adult age or has become eligible for marriage. As historian George Chauncey points out:

“Gay people in the pre-war years [pre-WWI]… did not speak of coming out of what we call the gay closet but rather of coming out into what they called homosexual society or the gay world, a world neither so small, nor so isolated, nor… so hidden as closet implies”[11]

In fact, as Elizabeth Kennedy observes, “using the term ‘closet’ to refer to” previous times such as “the 1920s and 1930s might be anachronistic.”[12]

  • Chauncey, George (1994). Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940.
  • Kennedy, Elizabeth. “‘But We Would Never Talk about It’: The Structure of Lesbian Discretion in South Dakota, 1928–1933” in Inventing Lesbian Cultures in America, ed. Ellen Lewin (1996). Boston: Beacon Press. p.25 and 214

Culturally, parts of the English-speaking population may have begun associating this phrase with a particular context — LGBTQA rights, Pagan identity, mental and physical health, and so on. Language adapts to culture. That’s a normal progression of events.

But it’s not a phrase exclusive to this one community. It may carry connotations of being associated with this community which vary from community to community, but it’s undeniably part of the wider English language. 

^ Thank you!

see this is why linguistics is so much fun :)

(via notunprepared)

Source: metapianycist