Are you someone who loves having sex but only because it feels great? Are you someone who hates sex? Are you middle-aged and still a virgin? Are you somebody who had a lot of sex but now just don’t feel like it? Are you someone who only wants to do it with someone special? Or are you just too content with self-love, if you know what I mean? Is any or all of the above asexuality?
Whether you think you’re asexual, or you think you’re not, you can never truly know unless you know what asexuality IS. Amirite? Here’s the thing, though, to understand asexuality, you have to deeply understand the concept of sexuality first. Ironic? Sort of.
If by this point you’re going, “Why does it even matter?“, allow me to explain. Between 1-2% of the population is estimated to be ‘ace’, or asexual. Sounds small, eh? What if I told you that’s the percentage of Indians who pay their income tax from the entire country’s population? Makes it worthy of attention now, right?
In a country as big as ours, if every 1-2 people in a 100 are asexual, chances are you’ve met rather many already, and that you may meet more. It’s possible someone close to you is asexual without knowing or realizing it, or coming out about it. It’s possible you will have to deal with it in your professional life someday. And it’s possible you might identify as one yourself.
While the discourse on the LGBTQ community in India has taken at least some form today, there is hardly anything on asexuality. Indians who identify themselves as ace have to usually stay closeted. Many are pretty much unaware of how to navigate their asexuality. Who do they ask for guidance? Not many medical and mental health professionals seem to be aware either. But this shouldn’t have to continue.
This weekend, Indian Aces is trying to make a small change starting with Delhi. A self/non-funded award winning collective of asexual folk from or in India, the group was started in 2014. Since then, the ace community has grown by leaps and bounds. They serve as an online community platform, generating awareness and receiving new members into their secret group on Facebook, as well as participate and represent in various LGBTQIA+ events and platforms that have so far been devoid of representation from the asexual community in India. The group also organises meetups all over India, and conducts independent research on the subject. And now, the group is set to conduct a workshop for professionals and allies to understand asexuality.
On July 2, Indian Aces will host the event ‘Asexuality 101’ which promises to not just be educational, but also sort of revelatory and a whole lot of fun (psst… free cake!). Apart from the workshop, there are fun as well as academic peripherals to suit everybody’s taste.
Registrations are open to all and the funds raised go towards further community building. And we can’t wait to get started!