Thoughts on an Independent Demisexual Community

This is a post for the February 2015 Carnival of Aces, which I am hosting. The topic is Cross Community Connections.

One thing I have noticed recently, as the asexual community grows steadily, is the possible growth of a unique demisexual community, which faces unique issues, especially in relation to the greater asexual community. This idea of mine is still at the hunch level so I would love to know if others have observed the same or if I’m just making it up. I started to get a inkling of this from various posts I spotted in which demisexuals regarded themselves as significantly different enough from asexuals that they should have their own community. People actively asserted this through Demi Awareness Week, which included all demi- identities, including demigenders. While it didn’t gain much traction, I thought it was interesting that it happened at all.



On the AVEN forums, asexuals have their own category, with five forums, while demisexuals and gray asexuals share a forum in the “Identities” category, alongside aromantic spectrum people and gender identity discussion. I find this othering weird, especially because aromanticism and genders are very different from asexual spectrum identities. Demisexuals and gray asexuals share many of the same experiences with asexuals and are on the asexual spectrum, so I would expect the demi/gray forum to be under the Asexuality category.



I also notice that demisexuality blogs and posts about demisexuality do not get as much traction/interest as posts about asexuality. This reflects to me a lack of interest in specifically demisexual issues among the greater asexual community, which might have led to demisexuals feeling like they needed their own community. It might also mean that they need to advocate for themselves. While AVEN has issues, this attitude, which is present on Tumblr as well, is best symbolized by the way AVEN put demisexuals in a place other than the Asexuality category. And of course, I am constantly running into asexuals online (especially in less friendly places like Reddit) who don’t believe in demisexuality. We’re all very warm and fuzzy here on Tumblr, but what about the real world? As a demisexual, I hesitate to attend real life asexuality meet-ups for fear of running into intolerant asexuals.



I wonder if this is similar to how people in the aromantic community feel. I’ve seen people expressing sentiments of resentment that aromanticism is treated as just a tag along to asexuality, getting an obligatory mention in 101 materials. My guess is that the aromantic community will grow into its own more over the coming years, especially as we hear more from aromantic allosexuals and it gains greater awareness, but what will happen to the demisexual sub-community? Will it continue existing under the asexual umbrella, or will we see demisexuals make more attempts to form their own independent communities and assert the uniqueness of their identities?



Another parallel I’ve thought of is with bisexuality. I am an LGBT community outsider, so this is just my perception as an educated but non-participating observer. It seems to me that in general pride stuff, educational materials, etc. bisexuality is lumped in alongside homosexuality, so a person new to LGBT issues would not be equally presented with materials from all of the identities. While there are bisexual organizations, the primary organizations that advocate for bisexual people seem to be ones which deal with all LGBT issues. Even the term “gay marriage” erases bisexuals who would benefit from new laws, and bisexuals face erasure from other people who experience same gender attraction. The experiences of homosexual men are most often used as a representative narrative for all LGBT people when presenting to the general public.



While I would love to see a strong, standalone demisexual community, which works with the asexual spectrum community but isn’t dependent on it, I don’t think we will get there on our own. As I’ve said in the past, demisexuality is not taken as seriously as asexuality (and asexuality often isn’t taken seriously at all) and is more often written off as a trendy, Tumblr identity. Asexuality has the benefit of being in print in the DSM-V, but demisexuality does not; while it sucks that institutional validation has that much power, it would be amazing (and such a relief) to be able to point angry Redditbros to a source like that. I think demisexuality will have to depend on asexuality to get the traction it needs and may not achieve lift-off for quite a long time.



As I’ve said before, I would love to see us speaking on behalf of each other. I think people avoid this because they don’t want to be seen as speaking over the voices of the people they are trying to help. But I think it actually would be helpful if asexuals started discussions on how we’re treating identities related to asexuality. It is exhausting to be the only one advocating for yourself, all the time. In social justice communities, we talk a lot about how people of an identity should not carry the burden of having to educate others—but then who is supposed to be doing the educating?



I digress, but basically what I want to see is asexual people stepping in to support demisexuals. I think people on Tumblr are doing a great job, but we have to find ways to keep doing more. If you care about building this community and participating in it, then you need to continually find ways to make it inclusive for all its members, and amplify (not just support) everyone’s voices.

I’m not saying that blogs which have a focus should expand; I’m saying that blogs that discuss the asexual spectrum in general (especially educational ones), as well as activists who don’t have ace-specific blogs but still participate, should make every attempt be supportive of all identities where relevant. If you’re an activist, and you are specifically interested in helping asexual people, focusing your efforts on them, that’s great. But if you stay silent when you see demisexuals being excluded/invalidated, or do not take the time to include them when doing education and outreach outside the community, that’s an issue. Like I said: it is exhausting to be the only one advocating for yourself, all the time.



I would also like to see demisexuals help build their own community. Whether it branches off from the asexual community or not, it should be a strong community of its own. Spaces made specifically for demisexuals are always a good idea because while we share a lot with asexuals, we have distinct experiences as well, and these need to be treated distinctly. My hope is that as these communities grow organically, they will grow in a way that most effectively benefits everyone.

