The Huffington Post has decided to celebrate Asexual Awareness Week. They kicked off by featuring a video by the new asexuality YouTube channel, Everything’s A-Okay.
And I happen to be one of the asexual people who contributed to the video! The brief text part of the article it appears in also includes one quote from the video, and it happens to be something I said, though it was uncredited in the article.
Please check out “‘Everything’s A-Okay’ — Celebrating Asexual Awareness Week.”
I was interviewed for an article in my state’s queer paper, and today it was published. I discuss asexual discrimination, our relationship with the LGBT community, my past and my present in the community, and a few asexuality facts and figures. The article:
“We Are Interlopers,” by Gideon Grudo.
Unfortunately it is poorly edited with many typos (most notably, my name), and there are a few garbled quotes and unclear phrases, but I think most of what I was going for manages to come across.
I was on the Colin McEnroe Show on WNPR in Connecticut today. They did a spot on asexuality and I was one of four guests:
You can listen to the broadcast here. I weighed in on asexual discrimination and representation in the media; if you’re listening for my part, I am brought in during the last quarter of the program.
I was on a panel discussion on HuffPost Live this morning:
This half-hour news feature was hosted by Ricky Camilerri, and it included sex researcher Lori Brotto, journalist Dominique Mosbergen, and asexual activists David Jay, Micah R., and me. We discussed our personal experiences as asexual people, how intimacy works for asexual people, and how we fit under the queer umbrella.
It ended up really cool and it brought in a lot of attention, and it might be good for upping my publishing prospects for the nonfiction book, So You Think You’re Asexual. Stay tuned for good news!
I was interviewed for a six-part series on asexuality in The Huffington Post in the Gay Voices section. Dominique Mosbergen talked to me and several other asexual people about our orientation, thankfully (for once) going beyond 101. As of this post my specific materials are not quoted or linked yet, but they will be as the series progresses.
Please read “Asexuality: The ‘X’ In A Sexual World.”
I was interviewed in 429Magazine, a GLBT issues publication, on the topic of asexuality and how it fits into the queer spectrum. I’m quoted in this article:
Acknowledging asexuality on the queer spectrum by Morgan Welch.
As mentioned in my last post, I was one of the speakers on the Asexual Voices panel at Creating Change 2013 in Atlanta, a national LGBT conference that included asexual people in its workshop lineup for the first time.
I was one of four speakers. We had me (an aromantic asexual woman), Tristan (a gay graysexual man), Rin (a panromantic asexual agender person), and M. (a panromantic asexual agender person) on the panel. We all talked about our experiences with asexuality and the community, and gave a sixty-minute question-and-answer session, followed by a caucus of asexual people and allies. It was a good experience.
Besides the panel, I got to go to other people’s workshops and network with other folks in the queer community. President Obama sent a video in support of LGBT organizers and the community, which was really huge. And I got to meet David Jay (founder of AVEN), Sara Beth Brooks (founder of Asexual Awareness Week), the other panelists Tristan (of the Asexual Agenda), Rin, and M., and also Hannah (who was there for work stuff) and a couple other asexual people we went to dinner with.
David Jay did some report-outs from each day of the conference. Day 1 happened before I got there, and Day 2 and Day 3 include me in the videos.
I had a lot of good experiences, and now I’m ready to start working on my nonfiction book again. I already have a bunch of test reader volunteers, but if anyone reading this wants to be a test reader, let me know.
Today I’m heading to Atlanta, Georgia for Creating Change, which is the National Conference on LGBT Equality, put on by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. It is the largest yearly gathering of of activists, organizers, and leaders in the LGBT movement. And I’m one of them!
I’m one of the speakers on the Asexual Voices Panel. With three other asexual speakers and a moderator, my co-panelists and I are providing discussion of asexual experiences and outreach, with a thirty-minute presentation and a sixty-minute question-and-answer session.
(We had a last-minute change and Christina couldn’t make it. M. LeClerc from Boston is our replacement.)
We are also having an asexual caucus immediately afterwards.
Last year Sara Beth and David went to this same conference and there was a really warm response, with a high demand for our materials and an avalanche of interest when they screened the documentary movie (A)sexual (which I was in). We hope to make even more connections, learn more about allying with the larger LGBTQ community, teach people about our community, and have a lot of fun.
People at the conference can come to our panel at 4:45 on Friday. People at home can follow our tweets (#cc13) or check out the Livestream.
And since lots of people supported our fundraising campaign for the trip to Creating Change, we’ll also be preparing their rewards. Fifty-two people donated to our cause and I’m sure even more want to see us succeed, so we want to be able to show them some results. I hope to be able to share some pictures, videos, and stories when I come back, after which I will redouble my efforts to polish my nonfiction book (So You Think You’re Asexual: An Introduction to the Invisible Orientation). I’m going to take test readers for the first time, and probably go back to querying as one agent who’s followed up with me twice now seems to be dragging his feet.
My interview in Drake Magazine was published today.
Read some quotes from me and some other asexual people/asexual authorities in “Shedding light on asexuality: a misunderstood sexual orientation.”
Please note that the author of the piece, strangely enough, does not define asexuality correctly despite having talked to several experts on the subject. I’m curious about where she got this idea: “Asexuality is the complete lack of sexual drive and desire. Asexuals do not actively seek out sex or even get horny.” Asexuality is not the lack of sex drive or desire, and asexual people can indeed both seek out sex and get horny (not that they all DO). The author also opines that asexual people’s minds are never “in the gutter.” I know way too many asexual people with dirty minds to agree with that.
So take the article with a grain of salt.
(A)sexual is an independent documentary film about asexuality, asexual people, asexual people’s lives, and the making of a movement. I’m a major “character” in the film. It is available at the following places: Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, Vudu, Xbox Live, and PlayStation, or the trailer on Vimeo.
Stats:
Premiered: Frameline Film Festival – San Francisco – June 18, 2011
Other Film Festivals Shown: MIX COPENHAGEN (formerly known as Copenhagen Gay & Lesbian Film Festival), Reeling 2011: The Chicago Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival, Queersicht (Bern, Switzerland), Vox Feminae Festival (Zagreb, Croatia), New Orleans Film Festival, Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, NewFest Film Festival (New York).
Official description: Facing a sex obsessed culture, a mountain of stereotypes and misconceptions, and a lack of social or scientific research, asexuals–people who experience no sexual attraction–struggle to claim their identity.
(A)sexual follows the growth of a community that experiences no sexual attraction. In 2000, David Jay came out to his parents. He was asexual and was fine with it. And he was not alone. Studies show that 1% of the population is asexual. But in a society obsessed with sex, how do you deal with life as an outsider? Combining intimate interviews, verite footage, and animation with fearless humor and pop culture imagery, David and our four other characters grapple with this universal question and the outcomes might surprise you.
This independent documentary introduces the audience to the concept of asexuality–the sexual orientation of not finding anyone sexually attractive–and subjects viewers to both good information and popular misconceptions. Largely following the life and mission of asexual poster boy David Jay (founder of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network), we’re introduced to how asexuals handle intimacy, what the different kinds of asexuals are, what they do to spread awareness, and what the people who study them think.
(A)sexual is both a discussion of asexuality and a slice-of-life portrayal of how several asexuals live their lives, combined with information and commentary from sexologists, researchers, and random people on the street.