FantACEtic

Until recently, I'd been of the firm opinion that identities limit rather than liberate. The rest of the world spend their time trying desperately to stuff everything they see into their pre-conceived compartments; I did not want to help them stuff me into one. Now, I'm not overly disdainful of compartmentalising as a whole. I'm a bit of a fan of evolutionary biology, and as such I understand exactly why we have this predisposition. We need the boxes to understand the world in which we operate. Dangerous predators, poisonous plants, distinguishing friend from foe - all had to be very well developed over the 2.6 million years or so since humanoid beings have been roaming the surface of the planet - in order for us to continue to be roaming today. BUT - I also think we need to be cognizant of this penchant for stuffing things into convenient boxes. It is the reason we've been fighting racism and all the other 'isms' that still plague us today. 'Us ver...

With less than 1% of the population identifying as asexual, it really isn't surprising that it is one of the least understood sexualities around. We're getting pretty good at thinking about homosexuality, bisexuality, pansexuality - and we're even getting much better at understanding gender and gender identity. Blind heteronormativity is, slowly but surely, being whittled away by a more individualistic, inclusive ideology that is sort of starting to realise that maybe, just maybe, everyone is different and everyone is entitled to their own sexual and gender identity. Nuts!! But there's a grey-and-purple elephant in the room that we're only just starting to look at properly. Asexuality is difficult to define, hard to explain and about as convoluted a sexual spectrum as you can find. The Ace community is definitely out there - but I personally have never met another person outside an online community who has said they identify as Ace. And judging from a lot of th...