Hello! I took a month off in order to get school started (I’m a school bus driver). With all of the wonderful changes my government has put in place for this year, it was a bit of an exercise in patience, beyond the madness that is just the beginning of school itself. But all the kids are settled into the routine of school, my route is set, and we are ready to learn again, right?
Right. In proper school tradition, I am turning this article in late. This is last week’s article, and you’ll get another on Thursday. In honor of back to school, I thought I’d give a more in depth explanation of some of the concepts that I’ve touched on before. So, in anticipation of Ace Week next month, this month we will be going In Depth In the Normativities.
Today: Allonormativity.
First of all, what’s a normativity? It’s a commonly held belief of a society. When I say commonly held, I mean that it is so well ingrained into that society that no one even thinks to question it. Anyone who might question this belief is automatically thought sick, or mentally ill, or even someone who would like to tear down the very fabric of society. So these are beliefs that we hold so close to our hearts that to question them is to question our ideas of ourselves, what we think makes us good, makes us human.
With that in mind, know that this substack was written in Texas, from an upper middle class western, white perspective. These beliefs that I am talking about, and the objections that many aces will find with those beliefs will be filtered through that lens. I in no way claim to speak for all of the world when I talk about these normativities.
So. Allonormativity.
This is the belief that the search for sex is a biological need. That sex and sexual attraction is somehow coded into our DNA. The drive for sex and the experience of sexual feelings makes us human. In a way, you can see the logic of this viewpoint. I can see the acephobes now, clutching their pearls and demanding “What will become of the human race if it’s not true? There would be no children! We would die out!”
I have no objection to stating that sexual attraction and sexual desire are huge motivations for a lot of society in general. Society pushes it at us from almost birth. Sexual attraction is used in all media as a short cut for all the different kinds of intimacies that come with relationships of other people. Even talking about celebrities gets fraught with allonormativity. How often have you heard someone say, “Even gay men will want to fuck X actress.” or “You’d have to be dead to not find Y actor attractive.” I’ve said it in the past. It’s a well understood short cut for telling someone how beautiful you think someone is.
But here’s the thing. I find people beautiful without wanting to have sex with them. And I am not a gay man, nor am I dead. Nor, most importantly, is there anything wrong with me. I am not less than human because I don’t feel attracted to anybody.
And that’s where allonormativity breaks down. When sexual attraction gets tied to our humanity, aces get easily put into categories where they are the ones that are broken. They are the ones that are less than, found wanting, or are in need of fixing. This is what aces hear when they are told that it is “just a phase”, “don’t worry”. Or even “everyone is a little bit demisexual” or “asexuality is just an internet thing”. The underlying assumption is that, eventually, we will realize that we do have sexual attraction, and are therefore normal.
Heaven forbid we are actually on any part of the ace spectrum that does occasionally experience sexual attraction. Or acts on platonic attraction in a sexual manner.
So, now that we know about allonormativity, what can we do about it?
There was a truly excellent article on this in October of 2023 on the Sexual Health Alliance blog, and I’m going to heavily borrow from it.
Name it when you see it: When you hear the jokes. When you see the assumptions. When your grandma coos over the girlfriends your 5 year-old nephew has in kindergarten. That’s allonormativity (and, for that last, a bunch of other normativities that we will cover later in the month.) Name it. Own it. At least to yourself. You can look at it straight in the face and say “I don’t have to think that way. I am still a full person if I don’t think that way.” If you feel brave enough (and safe enough, watch out for yourselves out there!), you can even point it out to the people who are making the jokes and assumptions. Just be prepared to produce the powerpoint.
Don’t forget to navel gaze: You are trying to set aside assumptions that are so ingrained that most people don’t even think about them, much less think about questioning them. You might think, deep inside yourself, “I just need to wait until X,” or raise your eyebrows when you hear that someone has violated the “three date rule”. Even if you laugh at the 40 year-old virgin jokes, or assume that a virgin is less mature than another person. Even something as simple as the constant ace worry “ Because I am Ace, I will die alone.” All of that is internalized allonormativity. And like internalized homo- or acephobias, can be really hard to recognize when you are thinking it. Be just as hard on yourself as you are on others. That can be uncomfortable. But it is ultimately freeing when you can release yourself from the “stigma” of a belief that, at its core, is a bunch of nonsense.
Find more ace voices to listen to: Follow people on substack. Curate your tumblr. Listen to those diverse voices on podcasts. Watch the videos on tiktok. Read the Ace books. Sometimes all you can do is drown out the louder voice. Choose what you want to listen to.
Thanks for reading! As always, if you have any questions that you would like me to explore, feel free to reply, send me a DM, start a chat, send a smoke signal, carrier pigeon, however you want to contact me!