Tag: asexuality

Asphalt River Lullaby

On the bus home from your 9 to 5

Fluorescent lights snuffed out in the night

Green island sleeping

Blanketed in darkness on the other side

City lights blurring through the window streaks

Your 10 year old iPhone screeches that you’ll lose your hearing

But any lower and you can’t disappear 

Deep into the songs of yesteryear

As the bus coughs and sputters over hopes and dreams

Midnight trains lifetimes and thousands of miles away

Coming back whenever you close your eyes

Dizzy with gratitude you found a warmer night

Yet wondering if there’s more to life

Would your problems disappear if only you’d drive?

Wondering numbly if you’ll be next-

Another headline lamenting the youngster with a bullet in their head

Until a voice says shouganai

You’ve made your bed, American, now lie in it

Aching to be on the other side

Nighttime wanderers and sirens locked safely behind

For your furry child to rub against your legs

Wondering if anyone else will ever be waiting

If that’s what you want anymore

If it makes a difference, in the end

For whoever will take your soul for the long haul

If your body doesn’t come with it?

Finding Harley Quinn

Staggering into the arms of my homeland that 36 hour night, I’m not sure why I chose “Suicide Squad” to drown out my fears at 20,000 feet. All I know is the moment a certain villainess was on screen, I was transfixed. The movie wasn’t anything amazing; I never watched it again. Yet, fast forwarding through tedious action sequences, unable to look away as this fierce, fabulous, unapologetic misfit broke out of her shackles, something clicked.

        Many moons later, I finally know what.

        I was never a fan of heroes or villains; I couldn’t keep straight who was Marvel and who was DC. Yet, as I dug through the ruins of the sham Alice I’d built for too many Hawaii nights, the clown queen’s sparkling apparition was burned into my vision. Wandering between jobs and “homes,” I found solace in every adaptation and AU of Joker-free Harley I could get my hands on.

        When the time came for my first con, the long coveted fluffy dresses and frilly costumes in the back of my closet faded to grayscale before my eyes. I couldn’t explain why, didn’t know her or myself well enough, but I knew there was only one character I wanted to play. Staying far away from the Harley I’d first met- the villain still marked by her toxic partner in the most literal sense- I pieced together a Harley esque look from a cheap wig and a thrift store hunt. In those short hours strutting down the streets as my own kind of Harley, everything seemed to fit.

        When the wig came off, I crumbled.

        Watching the best friend I’d grown to rely on grow further and further away while we lived in the same house, as he devoted all his attention to a love interest he didn’t even seem to like and sunk deeper into his avoidant attachment style by the day… myself clinging to an unhealthy filler friendship with an iron grip no matter how many red flags were waved in my face… I felt empty. Shaken off my comfortable little ledge, into the darkness I fell. Familiar figures of flesh or paper who had always brought me a dose of comfort suddenly left me cold. As I stared at the ceiling night after night, wondering where I’d gone wrong, if I’d ever find a true forever friend, a person- an Alice- who felt right, only visions of a black and red clad villainess could resuscitate me.

        Still caught in the last few bricks of a sturdy partition, I convinced myself I had those fluttery floaty feelings of yore, that legendary romantic attraction for my male filler friend. For a while it seemed he was all I had. I ignored every meeting that left me drained, every neon glowing warning sign… while imagining myself away in Gotham every night.

       At first I thought it was just that I wanted to be her, to be half as fierce and fabulous and unapologetic as I flaunted the queer misfit I’d always tried to bury.

        Then the fantasies flooded in. I didn’t want to be her half as much as I wanted to date her. And when I say date, I mean date- for as long as I can remember, I’d been allergic to the terms ‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend-‘ what a superficial term for someone who’s supposed to be your closest confidant, I’d think as I spent my childhood inventing melodramatic declarations like ‘light of my life’ and my adulthood just saying ‘partner in crime.’ Yet, when I thought of one Harley Quinn being my ‘girlfriend’ it only felt right.

        With the support of a new true blue friend and a job that I actually liked for the first time in my life, finally the fog began to clear.

        Long before my last grasp at straightness could leave for a study abroad, it dawned on me that I was sick of him- turns out he was sick of me, too. It was a relief when he left; the only thing I mourned was the time I’d spent clinging to someone who was so much like the old Alice I’d been trying to escape… clinging to a scrap of straightness as if it was an easy solution to everything.

        The last clouds dissipated and suddenly it was clear as day- my active physical aversion to my male high school squishes, the disgust I felt at the thought of dating a man, spending my adolescence only drawn to the prettiest boy K-Pop idols and bishounen, my college years drooling over drag queens; my repulsion for beards, thick body hair, big muscles, everything lauded as the ideal masculine specimen; the months I’d spent swooning over pretty girl customers at my retail job while overlooking the men; the countless nights imagining myself with Gotham’s clown queen in every way short of exchanging fluids… all along it was for a simple reason.

        I’m super gay.

        Sure, still asexual without a doubt, probably on the aromantic spectrum at that. Oriented aroace, homoromantic ace, grayhomoromantic ace- I still can’t resonate with these or any romantic labels, but it doesn’t matter. I know I never experience sexual attraction. I know that I am intensely attracted to women in emotional and physical ways I have not felt towards men- and I always have been, even when the fog of my own creation was too thick to even imagine what lay on the other side. That’s enough. The queer, the gay, the not straight identity, that’s what’s most important to me, yet I still wear the ace label on my sleeve. As difficult as it made my first attempts to seriously date, I couldn’t have it any different- it’s taken a quarter century to own who I am, attraction to women and nonexistent sexual attraction and all. I can’t and won’t hide or apologize anymore, no matter what the world thinks. Neither would Harley Quinn.

        Now that I’m on the other side, I finally know why I was drawn to her that endless night. For 25 years I’d been waiting for my own origin story. While mine is far from comic book worthy, just flipping on the lights in the corners I always so feared to tread, finding confidence, self worth, looking beyond empty escapes to find who I actually am,  it is everything I could never imagine I was capable of even a year ago. Who would’ve known that Harley Quinn would be the catalyst.

Somewhere Over the Golden Gate

It wasn’t until a very different Alice dazedly stepped off the plane that it hit me. It had been years and a lifetime since I set foot in my “home state” let alone the city I’d always wanted to call home. I’d left them both hoping never to return.

Yet, here I found myself greeting San Francisco as an old friend.

Wandering the echoing gray halls in search of a trace of the city somewhere beyond the airport walls, I was immediately drawn to the rainbow. In this gaudy display of pride wear was everything that colors my life now… and everything that hid away in California’s gray gay capital.

The city always beaconed like a ragtag refuge- full of culture and life and contradictions, finally there had to be a place for me waiting… right?

Somehow, the bright world of the outcasts, the wanderers, the dreamers, the artists all around me was ever out of reach as I walked the streets with only my little gray cloud for company. Slowly, slowly, I caught it- where the glass ended. Moments when I would admit my Japanese major or penchant for K-Pop apologetically; when I would bite back a natural response in favor of awkward silence; when I would insist anywhere you want was fine with me until friends were practically begging me to just choose a café.

Beyond my carefully crafted mask and a saccharine sugar coating, who was I?

Finally I tried shining a flashlight into the murky depths, but I couldn’t begin to see where the layers upon layers of masks ended and the truth began.

Too afraid what I’d find if I searched any further, I spent my cold nights blaming the city that was supposed to be my savior; surrounding myself with idol posters and Japanese books and fluffy dresses- empty artifacts of the Alice I showed the world. Surely this was my chance to fit into the crowd if I could just keep things simple- I was normal, just not in my hometown with more horses than people.

So I’d tell myself, trying and trying even as each new shiny box just didn’t fit.

Again I ran in the hopes of salvation- this time, overseas… dragging every last mask with me and acquiring dozens more on my journey. As they lost a few layers in sparkling Honolulu nights, only to grow heavier than ever under the lonely Nara moon, finally they all came crashing down.

Seeking refuge in the homeland I’d so wanted to escape, I spent months digging through the ruins. To this day I’m still searching. But it was more than enough.

~~

Choosing a rainbow lanyard emblazoned with “San Francisco” to accompany me to my new island home, I felt a sense of loss. I’ll never know what the city could have held for an unmasked Alice… yet in the end, what really matters is I found her. And whether I find my way back to fog city or somewhere else entirely, she’s always coming with me.

How (Not) to Start an Ace Meetup

I still couldn’t tell you how it exists; it shouldn’t exist. Yet, somehow, through almost three years and 5000 miles, its life support continues to beep away.

I started an ace meetup. Even with an ocean between me and the desperate passion project, it somehow lived on- if only on the screen like Ladonia- growing from 5 to 20 to 80 (almost) faceless members, all because I could never quite bring myself to pull the plug. Even as $60 was taken out of my account at times almost faster than the yen could roll in, even as the pandemic was in the end the only thing keeping it active at all as I hosted digital meetups from a different time zone…

To think I nearly gave up a thousand times.

When I crept into my first queer space in my very last year of college, I already knew I had to be the one. Somehow, as everywhere from Seattle to New York to any forgotten city in between nursed healthy meetups with thousands of members and dozens of organizers, in 19 years of community building there still was no official ace space in the state of Hawaii. Hawaii, the place I got to know as “rainbow island” in every sense of the word. Though Oahu only had one true queer club, though it could only beat rinky-dink Tokyo pride by a few onlookers (some of those protestors), the state steeped in LGBTQ+ history is exactly as queer as my ex San Francisco wishes it was.

Why, then, had the purple and green in the rainbow just never come together- was everyone just too far apart? Unlike in the bay area, we couldn’t simply hop in our car or on the BART a few hours; if you’re on another island, it just isn’t that easy. Is it that the ace community is just too “shy?” I’m not the first to observe what seems a distinctly ace spec tendency to hide in the deck and keep to oneself, and it’s no wonder- it was all I could do to drag my social anxiety to my first ace meetup. With the tales I’d read of rainbow spaces guarded by fire breathing dragons, it was only a world of heteronormative nightmares like I’d never known with not so much as a rainbow in sight that sent me running for that cave in the hopes of refuge. Yet, this doesn’t quite explain why even among other aces we’ve seemed to cling to the internet since long before the pandemic; it doesn’t explain how a classmate spotted the ace aro pride badges on my bag every day for an entire semester, never getting the nerve to say something until months later when introduced by her new ace roommate who happened to be my own ace friend.

Whatever the reasons for this isolation, my desperate posting in AVEN forums, acebook, anywhere I thought we might gather told me quickly that we EXISTED… it was simply that no one was quite willing to take that first step. And why should they? Devoting the time and energy to try and cobble together a community from zero, possibly for nothing?

Yet, I had to do it. Knowing even one ace existed not only on the same island but in the same college, just as afraid to be without a community… I waltzed into my first queer alliance meeting, hands shaking, poised for attack… Only to see four familiar colors hanging proudly next to the rainbow, trans and pan flags. I could have cried with relief- and that was merely my beginning with a community that would open its arms to me.

Two uncertain classmates turned into seven strangers on Discord brought together by forum pleas and campus posters. I wasted no time in trying to piece together a real ace meetup. Two were supposed to come to that very first little gathering. One showed. And again, that was enough- I was frankly amazed that it wasn’t just me sitting there alone in the Japanese food court.

The second time, it was. Having rushed out when I should have been getting ready for the college’s long awaited “Masqueerade” ball,  it was more than disheartening as I questioned for only about the thousandth time what the hell I thought I was doing. Where did I, introverted, bad at life, socially anxious and inept as I was, think I could get away with hosting not only a meetup group but essentially holding the weight of the entirety of the nonexistent Hawaiian ace community on my shoulders? Presiding over an uncooperative public library “Otaku Club” for a senior project and habitually fading into the background of San Francisco’s ace meetups, hardly able to get a word in edgewise, did not exactly qualify me for this kind of leadership.

With nowhere else to turn, I immersed myself in the queer alliance. Maybe I didn’t have that ace meetup group, but I found acceptance- not only of my asexuality, but of me– everything that had always made me feel like an alien suddenly, inexplicably, not weird but charming. Honestly, I wanted to give up on the meetup almost every week; it just didn’t feel like I had it in me- not the strength, the charisma, certainly not the mental health. I couldn’t have done it all alone. Just the want of a friend for support in life in general made me weak at the knees.

Yet every time I stumbled, the queer alliance made me feel seen and accepted and supported enough to keep staggering on. They gave me a community I hadn’t even known existed, let alone known I needed like sunshine and air. And it was there, miraculously, that I found even more aces. Though it took a semester, I even found my one and only consistent member and someone I still call my friend. While it lasted, she even fought to be my successor. And it was there that I finally understood-  no matter if there were inevitably occasional frequent meetups where it was just me alone in the food court, the group was important to people. Very important. Even if studying with two jobs and a hellish commute usually made it impossible for them to attend.

Throughout the year, I held a handful of meetups, some more formal affairs on our overpriced homepage when I finally bit the bullet, most simply a call into the void on Discord. Looking back, it’s nothing short of a miracle- and a testament that we really do need this community- that those ramshackle “meetups” once upon a time attracted anyone at all. It’s a testament that even now a handful of those 80 members have shown their faces on screen- and have sent message after message expressing gratitude even when they couldn’t attend.

And so I drag this group, weak but still kicking, through its third anniversary. Now that I find myself seeking refuge in rainbow island yet again, seeing an ace or two step off the screen once again, I am so infinitely glad I never let go.

The story of my first and only attempt to not just lurk in the corners of AVEN or the local meetup isn’t exactly a story of success or failure, it just is. But if anyone reading this is afraid of taking a leap to engage with the ace- or rainbow- community, just know that most of us are afraid, and that doesn’t mean you won’t make a difference. Know that if you’re not ready to try and herd even a few college aces let alone a state’s worth into the same room, that’s more than valid. In the end even the smallest gesture, so much as telling that classmate with the ace badge that you’re two of a kind before the semester is over, is making a difference in the community. In two years in Japan I’ve found that it is often the smallest gestures (or lack of) that really decide how much acceptance you’ll find. It is these gestures I so took for granted, from the smallest to the greatest, that have not only brought me back to the US, but made me think that maybe, just maybe, this rainbow colored garbage fire may actually be my “homeland.”

Asexuality in Japan: Resources

Ohisashiburi, internet. It’s been too long, but I know from too many all but fruitless searches that it’s hard to know where to begin to find communities and resources as an ace abroad in Japan even if you know the language. I can’t possibly let Ace Awareness Week pass without sharing all the resources and information I’ve come across thanks to hardcore searching and pure luck over my two years in Japan.

*Check back, this page will be updated ^^

I. Community

  1. Twitter

If you glean nothing else, just remember TWITTER. The ace community within Japan seems to exist almost exclusively on Twitter. Below you’ll find the main ace/LGBTQIA+ organization/community pages I’ve found.

にじいろ学校

Nijiiro Gakkou

https://www.nijikou.com/

This is THE place to start. Nijiiro gakkou is an LGBTQIA+ organization that mainly focuses on the QIA and they are VERY active in the asexual community. Keep a look out for the オフ会 (offline meetups) they host a few times a year (when pandemics aren’t a thing). They’re typically held in several areas of Japan, so don’t fret if like me you’re far from Tokyo. They’ll probably cost you between 1500 and 4000 yen ($15-$40) to attend, but considering they are often in a private space the organization rented out for the occasion you’re getting more than a meetup.com event for your money. They’ve held a few main types of gatherings:

Ace café meetups

Come for a fairly casual chat/discussion- albeit not as casually as you would probably get at a US meetup- in a small safe space. I can’t speak for all of them but the one I went to was a teeny tiny place ONLY open for the meetup, meaning capacity was limited but there was no danger of strangers overhearing, which seems to be an especially important factor to meetups mainly made up of locals.

“Ace House” meetups

According to descriptions, the Nijiiro rents a space for the day and divides it into two sections. There’s a more formal discussion in the morning where you may be divided up into the group of your choice, i.e. aromantic aces, aces looking for partners, older aces etc. In the afternoon there’s a casual meetup lacking the group divisions focused on socialization and having a good time.

Tokyo Pride

Nijiiro seems to march in Tokyo Pride every year- I joined them through Ace Spec Japan (below) in 2018. In fact, even if you’re not up to date with the organizations, if you know where they are in the parade line up, you can freely sign up to march with them at Pride itself so long as there’s space. In 2018 their theme was asexuality- I’d never seen such a sea of ace flags in my entire life. Though you may not have such luck every year, you’re sure to find no shortage of aces in attendance.

日本SRGM連盟　事務局

Nihon SRGM Renmei Jimukyokyu

(Formerly Kansai Aces)

https://acecommunitywestjapan.amebaownd.com/

This LGBTQIA+ organization with an emphasis on aces/aros follows and is followed by a LOT of aces in presumably the Kansai area. They make a lot of posts about newer identities to Japan (everything from grayromantic to some not widely accepted in the mainstream western community) which can be very helpful if you’ve ever wondered how to properly explain your identity in Japanese (even simply ‘asexual’ I found hard to explain in translation for a long time).

アセクカフェ　雲

Aseku Café Kumo

Yes, seriously, there is an “ace café” newly opened in Kyoto. Most of the time the facility’s a normal café, but three Saturdays a month within certain hours (usually 6-10 PM, it’s best to verify via Twitter) it becomes the Ace Café. Anyone can enter within the hours, no reservation required, with the rule that guests refrain from coming onto anyone, but it’s all about the ace. When I visited, it reminded me of well established ace meetups I knew in the states with the bonus of it being exclusively an ace space (versus in a public café) and it being 50 times easier to break into the conversation. It will probably feel a bit more formal than meetup groups in the US, though there is still certainly the chance for casual conversation, with the bonus that even the socially anxious and introverted would have to try pretty hard to spend the entire meetup unable to get a word in edgewise. If you want to engage with the Japanese ace community and happen to be anywhere near Kyoto, this is by far the easiest way to start- so long as you speak some Japanese, I can’t guarantee any English speakers here…

…or follow me!

Or just look at my following/followers lists- you’ll find the communities I mentioned above and quite a few other ace/LGBTQIA+ related figures.

2. Line

If you have any interest in Japan and you don’t have Line, download it now- it is THE form of (free) communication here even above text messages or phone calls (probably because unlimited plans for either aren’t really a thing here).

Ace Spec Japan

This is so far as I know the only foreign ace community in Japan, and it only exists via its line chat. If you can’t really hold a conversation in Japanese, then look no further- its members are vastly foreigners and it’s based in English. The group (according to its organizers, can confirm) tends to have only about 2 meetups a year during non pandemic times. These vary greatly depending on the whims of its most active members, though they are generally VERY casual and involve playing and sightseeing as several people will probably come from the opposite end of Japan. I’ve been to 2 in 2018 and 1 in 2019- once in Yokohama, Kanagawa, once in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, and once for Tokyo Pride. The group does seem to have a meetup for Tokyo Pride (and march with Nijiiro Gakkou) every year. It’s welcoming and English is spoken, so don’t hesitate to join! I’ve linked directly to instructions, but feel free to contact me if you have any trouble. It’s also a great way to find out if any foreign aces exist in your area and I don’t think it would be difficult to try and organize a meetup of your own- whether or not anyone would show up, though, I couldn’t tell you…

…If you want to connect with individual aces in the area (and speak Japanese):

~Reply to tweets by Nijiiro Gakkou

Occasionally they will make a tweet inviting people to respond. Few people tend to do so as Japanese twitter is a vastly different world from the terrifying wild west, so if you do you’re likely to get noticed. I actually found a close ace aro friend in the same city by replying to a tweet inviting people to say “I’m looking to connect with aces/aros in ______ prefecture.” Seriously. Digital fairy tales do happen- I just can’t vouch that they’ll end in “and they lived happily ever after.”

~Just follow ace organizations/activists/public figures

You’re not going to be the only one staring at organizations’ follower lists- you may just get a few odd follows from your ace comrades if you do so.

~Follow followers of ace organizations/communities

Silently following someone to express interest in connecting seems quite common on Japanese twitter- many a bio will mention they follow people silently out of shyness. Don’t be shy in following someone, and if someone follows you go ahead and follow them back. If you really want to connect, you’re better off sending the first message. I can’t guarantee a digital fairy tale, but the odds are good they’ll respond politely to a casual message.

~Use #アセクシャル, #Aセクシャル

These two seem to be the main asexuality tags, they’re worth a try though I’m not sure how helpful it actually is…

II. Resources:

If you want more information on the ace community in Japan or just how to talk about ace/aro topics in Japanese, start here.

Blogs:

Queenie

https://queenieofaces.wordpress.com/

Queenieoface’s blogs were the first and nearly the only information on aceness in Japan I could get my hands on when I researched back in 2018. She talks about her own personal experiences and more general aceness in Japan in quite a few posts. …And she and her writing are amazing, when I happened to meet her in person at an ace space here in Japan I had to refrain from fangirling.

Youtube:

なかけん

Ace aro activist Nakaken-san has made a few videos about ace, aro and X gender related topics. They’re fairly easy to understand even for a non-native speaker (though perhaps a step above Yuna-San in difficulty level) and are great for better understanding the topics from a Japanese perspective.

LGBTチャンネル

Fabulous fellow ace aro Yuna-san makes videos about a variety of LGBTQIA+ topics, including asexuality of course. They use clear, simple language that I for one had no trouble following. I do have to acknowledge I’m advanced-ish, I can get through an unsubtitled non-historical movie, but between the language used and the Japanese subtitles I think a variety of skill levels could get the gist. Their videos are great for obtaining the language to talk about ace/queer concepts and to better understand the state of the communities and general LGBTQIA+ understanding in Japan.

Books:

「アセクシャルと恋愛 ～日本のエースコミュニティ～: Asexual and Romantic.　Ace community (LGBTQ、SOGI、セクシャルマイノリティ、アセクシャル、アロマンティック、エース、マイノリティ、恋愛、発達障害、人間関係、生きづらさ、コミュニティ、SNS、福祉、心理)」By 月島　ゆな

「アロマンティック（aromantic）～恋愛感情と性的に惹かれる～ アセクシャルと恋愛 ～日本のエースコミュニティ～」By 月島　ゆな

The only books on asexuality and aromanticism in Japan I’ve encountered are these two self-published by Yuna-san as e-books on Amazon Japan (which you can purchase from using a foreign credit card). While I shamefully have yet to purchase them (out of second language exhaustion, they only cost about 100 and 300 yen) and have only read the previews, considering how well done her videos on queer topics are, I don’t doubt they have a wealth of information about ace and aroness in Japan that’s fairly easy to understand. In fact, if you’re anything like me and you find it far easier to read than listen in a second language, I would skip the youtube videos and give these a try.