also

[sciatrix]

So I was writing something, and I absentmindedly wrote down "in the asexual community..." and went on with my sentence.

And then I looked back at it and I thought about that phrase, and whether it really quite fit. The thing is, I don't think you can actually say anything about "the asexual community" any more. There's too many different asexual communities with too many distinct cultures to be able to make that generalization. This is awesome.

This has hit me pretty hard, guys. Because when I first started identifying as ace, you could legitimately say that--there was AVEN and there was basically nowhere else to discuss asexuality. Oh, there were maybe a few tiny, isolated pockets of discussion where individual asexuals found each other in other spaces to talk, but nothing big enough to have its own culture that wasn't essentially identical to AVEN culture.

But now we have lots of different communities! And the cultures are changing, and this is just so cool.

I'm going to go off and be happy about this for the rest of the day now. I love the fact that we're decentralizing and spreading out so very widely. And just... eeeeee~<3

Comments

[aceeccentric]

I have been trying very hard to say "communities" instead of community when I write things (though I know I slip up, because habit is to singularize things). I do remember deciding to leave AVEN in, er, 2004? 2005? and that being a decision to effectively leave the ace community. You would also think that I would remember the year at this point, but no such luck.

I'm glad also that we're having more specialized spaces -- isn't there a demi/gray forum up now? I know there's a sub-forum on AVEN at the moment but the only things I've heard about that are how plagued it is with people being anti-demi/gray (sigh).

It'll be weird in, say, 20-25 years when new teenagers are coming around finding themselves. Who knows what their entry points are going to be like and what they'll have to choose from?

Also, how weird would it be if any of the blogging now was still referenced? I guess we have no way to predict what it's going to be like since it's so Internet-based and we're still really building up our history now.

[sciatrix]

Yeah, my habit is to singularize things too, which is why I had that 'aha' moment in the first place. I actually left AVEN in 2005 and made a decision to come back to it in 2008 because I was feeling very isolated and badly needed an ace community to remind myself I wasn't alone, now that I think about it.

I know there's a demi/grey forum for sure, but I don't know how active it is. I've heard some of the drama around AVEN's new demi/grey subforum, too, and I can't say it surprises me at all.

I so want to see what ace communities looks like in twenty years' time. I really can't wait to see how it's changed and grown. When I think about the changes I've seen in the last five years alone, I feel very very optimistic that the next generation to come along will have a much better time of it. I hope so, anyway.

Man, I find it weird now when my blogging gets referenced now. The idea of it still being around and referenced in ten or twenty years' time is very difficult to wrap my head around.

[aceeccentric]

That was part of the reason I went back to AVEN in 2010, though it was mostly because that was the only place I could think of to ask some gender questions.

Interacting with the next generation is going to be really weird, but hopefully nice, yeah. Their experience is going to be so much different than ours was. I can't even begin to picture it. If I ever get a book published and keep writing that long it'll be doubly weird.

That only makes me want to get through the 20 years and make sure your blogging is still referenced. (I'm terrible.)

[greenchestnuts]

I love the fact that we're decentralizing and spreading out so very widely.
We are totally a slime mold. AN EPIC ASEXUAL SLIME MOLD.

[sciatrix]

OMG YES YES YES YES BEST METAPHOR EVER.

Especially since one of the cool things about slime molds? They have about a million different sexes, not just the male/female binary. Which strikes me as being very like the sheer diversity of gender identities I see in the ace community. :D

I think I'm going to take this comparison and cherish it and snuggle it for ever and everrrr. <3

[morethanx]

This is something I hadn't even realised, although I had noticed a difference between Tumblr and AVEN, for example. In between the shitstorms, that is. I thought a lot of the other communities (like Knights of the Shaded Triangle or Cakegasm) were either not very active or shut down. Am I missing something?

[sciatrix]

Nope, you're not missing anything about the forums--the only ones I'd call active are the Transyadas and AVEN, these days, although Apositive had its own distinct (if, ah, seriously not my cup of tea) culture.

I actually had ace cultures in various media in mind--there's Livejournal/Dreamwidth asexual communities, like here and the asexuality comm and asexual_fandom (which are THEMSELVES two comms I'd say have their own very different cultures). There's Wordpress/Blogger blogs, which are different from LJ/DW blogs in tone and focus, in my experience. There's Tumblr when it's not being overrun by the shitstorms, as you mentioned, which is different from all the rest of them. I can't think of any other nuclei of asexual community off the top of my head, but that doesn't mean there are any.

When I was coming to asexuality, everyone essentially had to go through AVEN. That's just not the case any more, and seeing that makes me really happy--it's proof to me that asexual communities and visibility efforts in general are really beginning to take off.