What is Ace Week?

Asexual Awareness Week, now known as Ace Week, is celebrated the last full week of October. This week is dedicated to raising awareness and expanding asexuality education. Asexuality is a sexual orientation where a person experiences little to no sexual attraction to anyone and/or does not experience desire for sexual contact. Just like other sexual orientations, it is not a choice, and is not the same as abstinence or celibacy, which is a choice. Asexuality is a spectrum, with those who experience no sexual attraction on one end and those who experience some or occasional sexual attraction on the other end. Some aces fluctuate somewhere in the grey area (grey ace or demi) and will have periods of no attraction to some attraction at different times. 

Psych2Go. (2018 October 19). 7 Thing Asexual People Want You to Know. [Video File]. Retrieved from 7 Things Asexual People Want You To Know - YouTube.

The Asexual Spectrum

The Asexual Spectrum infographic shows that for most aces, there is a decoupling of both your sexual orientation and your romantic orientation. For example, one could be asexual and and panromantic. That individual may experience little to no sexual attraction while desiring the romantic companionship of someone regardless of gender, and similar to sexual orientation, romantic orientation can also fluctuate at different times.

When asexual people are open about their sexuality, they can face acephobia and anti-asexual hate crimes (TW: mentions of sexual violence in link) and can include believing that ace people:

• are less than human or against human nature
• are deficient or broken; that it is a result of mental illness or sexual abuse
• have just not met the “right” person
• are confused or ‘going through a phase’
• cannot experience love and have relationships
• are just “prudes”; that asexuality is a choice rather than an orientation
• don’t face oppression and are damaging the LGBT+ cause.