Ace Dad Advice: What if the community doesn't feel like "community?"

If you have questions or need advice about asexuality, sex and relationships, send ‘em to acedadadvice@gmail.com.

E writes:

I've had something on my mind recently and was wondering if you might share some Ace Dad Advice on the topic, particularly because I resonate with your writings about your preference to celebrate our identities. Lately I've felt that the broader Ace community has been, for lack of a better term, kinda a downer. I started to feel this way before the recent turn of events, which seem to have thrown gasoline on the fire. The reaction to the news of late is understandable. But even so, it seems a lot of my interactions with the Ace community of late have boiled down to people fighting with other Aces about whether the community is too accepting or not accepting enough, complaining about the whole world hating asexuals and being out to get us, and, well, trauma dumping.

Every single one of these issues is 100% valid and I understand where it's coming from--I've been through and seen all of these things myself. But I recently find myself at a crossroads where I've been working to put these things behind me and trying to find peace and happiness in my life. And, to my surprise, I'm finding the Ace community seems to be a bit of a barrier to this. (As an example so you understand the kind of thing I'm thinking of, at a recent Ace-oriented event, the conversation ended up focusing on the best ways to scare away strangers at the grocery store or just around town so as to keep one's self safe from others). It's to the point where I've been wondering if, even though I'll always be Ace, it might be best for me to step away and get some distance from the community.

What are your thoughts on this? How does a queer person find mentors, peers and role models who they can relate to, but who are also--I don't really know how to put this--emotionally healthy and well adjusted? Is it possible in a community as riddled with trauma as ours is? Or is it best if I regard the Ace community as being something like the transitioning-out-of-religion groups that are very common in my area--useful for a period of recovery and self-discovery, but something it's best to leave behind when you're ready to move on and lead a more well-rounded life?

(Note: I don't know if you're religious or not and I mean nothing against religion by that last statement. It's just the best analogue I could think of in my own experience).

Hey E -

When I was in therapy working through my asexual awakening, I shared with my therapist a feeling I’d had in my many years in the gay community.

“I’ve always had this anger with other gay guys, because when I came out, I was supposed to be with my people. I was supposed to have found my community. But I feel out of place. And I don’t fully connect. And I keep trying and trying and I can’t find my place and —”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you keep trying?”

“Because I’m supposed to fit in and —”

“Why are you supposed to fit in? Because you’re all gay? Why do you think it’s your community if you never feel like you’re part of a community?”

Yeah. He got me there.

There’s a natural inclination to assume you’ll feel community among people who share some experience or way of moving through the world, particularly when that experience is one that’s marginalized by the mainstream culture. As ace folks, we’re outcasts, right? So when I find other ace people, we should be outcasts together. They should be “my people,” right? They get it. They know.

Plus, we’re told this is how it will go. We’re told that when we accept ourselves and slap a label on our experience, we’ll discover our labelmates and suddenly be “in the community.” We’ll belong in ways we don’t belong in the larger world. It’s one of the promises of coming out: you’ll step away from a world that didn’t embrace you and into one that does.

This misunderstands community. Or at least, doesn’t give us the full picture. Sure, we’re in community with other ace folks. We share identity. We share marginalization. We share the detrimental impacts of socialization and cultural/political systems. That’s community in the broad sense, one that holds the broader definitions of you in priority.

But that’s not the only way to understand community. Community is also deeper than that. It’s more complicated. Community is who sees you. Community is who supports you. Community is who you see and support. Community gives us things we need to thrive. There’s a community we seek that prioritizes who we are on a micro-level, on an interpersonal level.

While it’s amazing of both of these levels of community fulfill and empower us, it’s not always the case that they do.

I think it’s important (here and in most things) to acknowledge that multiple things can be true at once. For some, the “ace community” — that larger-sense community — can be all those things we hope community will be. For others, the community can be none of those things. Neither is more true than the other. (This is true for all communities, right?). What matters is the ability to let both things be true at once and recognize that, whichever it is for us in particular, that’s just how it is, it doesn’t speak to a failing in us or them, and we should be allowed to hold the feelings we hold without feeling bad about them or fear being judged by them.

So you’re not wrong in how you feel about “the community.” Maybe it only speaks to the broader senses of your self, but not the micro-sense. It’s not where you’re at. It’s okay to want a thing the larger community doesn’t give you. You don’t need to vibe with “the ace community” in order to be ace. In fact, I think sometimes, those folks who don’t vibe with the mainstream ace community are incredibly important: they expand the idea of what it means to be ace and they push our boundaries outward, including more lives and minds and experiences in the idea of what it means to be “one of us.”

We can love, support and work for the larger community while needing something different from the more intimate kind of community. As we mentioned before, multiple things can be true at once. As long as we examine our reservations with the larger community, recognizing they stem from things within us and not things about them, we’re good.

So how do you find your people? You release your need to try and fit in where you don’t. You lean into the things that are core to you, that bring you joy, that make you feel as though you’re living at 100 percent — lean into the things that you want community to feel like. And seek out those people. Find your space with them.

And be as deeply, powerfully and fully yourself there as you can. That’s what we seek our community for! If the way to be your gloriously full ace self is in space outside of the mainstream ace community, embrace that. The goal is to be the best versions of ourselves we can be, right? Go to where that’s possible.