sexual assault

Intersections: Being a Disabled, Non-Binary, Autistic, & Ace Survivor

By | 2018-04-09T22:56:12-04:00 June 28th, 2016|Categories: By & For Ace Survivors, Intersectional Issues, Personal Narratives|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |

Being non-binary makes things really hard. Almost all of the help for victims of sexual assault are gendered. The general mental health care professionals are fine with my asexuality at first — but as soon as I bring up what happened it becomes something to be cured.

On Sexual Abuse, Repulsion, and Aversion in the Asexual Community

By | 2018-04-10T00:14:30-04:00 August 27th, 2015|Categories: Personal Narratives|Tags: , , , , |

I questioned for a long time whether or not I was sex repulsed or simply sex averse. A quick Google search will tell you that repulsion and aversion are synonyms, but our community hasn’t always used them in their dictionary defined sense. I think that we’ve differentiated these terms to help us better describe ourselves. In most contexts “aversion” has been used to mean “strong dislike” whereas “repulsion” implies physical reaction involving disgust. In theory, neither of these things actually involve sexual attraction (which we define sexual orientation on), they just happen to frequently accompany the asexual experience. Unfortunately sex aversion/repulsion also frequently accompanies the aftermath of sexual assault. This posed a dilemma for me: If I did feel sexual aversion, was it the result of my asexuality or sexual trauma?

Challenges faced by asexual spectrum survivors of sexual violence (part 3)

By | 2018-04-12T00:49:31-04:00 August 6th, 2015|Categories: Education, For Activists, For Professionals, For Supporters, Rape Culture|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |

This series focuses on awful things people say to asexual spectrum survivors, sometimes out of spite, sometimes out of concern, and sometimes out of ignorance. Each section has a quote (or collection of related quotes) followed by a "translation" of the quote (or a distillation of the essence of the argument, if you will) and then commentary on why this is an awful thing to say.

Challenges faced by asexual spectrum survivors of sexual violence (part 2)

By | 2018-04-12T00:50:24-04:00 July 30th, 2015|Categories: Education, For Activists, For Professionals, For Supporters|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |

This series focuses on awful things people say to asexual spectrum survivors, sometimes out of spite, sometimes out of concern, and sometimes out of ignorance. Each section has a quote (or collection of related quotes) followed by a "translation" of the quote (or a distillation of the essence of the argument, if you will) and then commentary on why this is an awful thing to say.