An Ace Writer's Manifesto

Content Warning: mentions of aphobia, trauma, elitism, illness.

"What thoughts do you have that you want others in the ace community to know about?"


I fear I'm going to do ace rep wrong, that I'll never be free of internalized aphobia, that I'm rewriting my self-expression to be normal and popular and selling the lie to myself. Why is m/m ace romance my favorite combo when I'm AFAB agender aro ace? Did society get in my head and make me like that - make me think that's ideal and fun and what I want to express without realizing that's not me? 

I fear that the me I express would hurt the community because I am a sickly, traumatized, emotion avoider and want to pour those aspects of who I am into my story along with my asexuality. I want to strip away the "pathetic" parts of who I am and leave only asexuality, fill in the gaps with the tempered shmexiness of slow burn m/m ace romance. 

I fear that I'll trigger the elitists, that I'll feel their dislike and rage and hurt and know I triggered it and know I don't agree with them and know I want to support that human experience is complex and doesn't have to line up or be either-or and that maintaining the nuance to not erase any angle of the ace community is too heavy a burden to even consider starting. 

I fear that when I think I'm writing myself, I'm not. That it's been contorted by a lifetime of aphobia and amatonormativity. That male is neutral, female is weak, nonbinary is story-burden. That illness is sad and a story is incomplete without romantic love.

I fear that my spinning in circles is meaningless if I never write it. I fear the pressure of representing aces. I fear the intersection of my asexuality and sexual trauma becoming more real as I write about it. 

I fear giving my trauma to my ace character, that even if I'm nuanced in the story, the takeaway will be TRUAMATIZED ACE. 

I am distressed by the in-fighting; by an aphobic world that sets us to fight one another on how we are perceived; by the polarization and vitriol and cancelling and mocking.

I see my fear and distress and roiling vague negative emotions that repel me from telling my story. I set my fears in a box marked "save for beta readers". I breathe.

I write. 


For Carnvial of Aces: September 2020: Original prompt post

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