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ASEXUAL PUNK!!! & AVRUM'S ASEXUAL MANIFESTO


/art by me/
i am ASEXUAL! [click below for definition] someone who experiences little to no sexual attraction or has low/absent interest in sexual activity.

i coined the word "homoacephobia" .

i am a punk and a human rights activist for several years.

it's a big deal for me, so i speak about it a lot.
table of contents: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
WARNING!
below is my PERSONAL ASEXUAL MANIFESTO. it is slightly ROUGH AROUND THE EDGES and discusses DISCRIMINATION. i am not going to radically change it since i wrote it for myself! when you read it, keep in mind.

why do i keep coming up to this topic ?


because being asexual is a big part of my life.
i am extremely frustrated with how being asexual is treated within the LGBTQIA+ community and outside of it.
i have experienced violence that i shouldn't have experienced.
even in asexual spaces, i feel unheard, unlistened to, unsafe.
something really has to change about the discussion surrounding this topic, and i don't feel good being one of the people pushing for change, but it is what it is.

what are ways to be better ?


recognize ACEPHOBIA as REAL OPPRESSION.

acephobia (& arophobia by association) is real. people are oppressed for being asexual the same way lesbians can be oppressed for being lesbian and transgender people can be oppressed for being transgender.

acephobia exists on a SOCIAL oppresion level, with us being excluded from spaces, harassed, abused, treated as weird, boring, broken, immoral, scapegoats.
but acephobia also exists on LEGAL level, with new anti-lgbtq+ laws directly targeting and outlawing us,
and acephobia exists on a MEDICAL level: asexuality is still a diagnosable disease.

recognize that when someone doesn't include aspecon asexual or aromantic spectrums people in their queer activism despite knowing of asexual or aromantic existences, they are actively being discriminatory, and keep them accountable for so.

have more COMPASSION for asexuals.

non-queers often hate asexuals. queers often hate asexuals. ASEXUALS THEMSELVES often hate asexuals.
asexuals live having internalized a lot of shame and hatred against our own identities, and we need to fight that.
we need to be positive, kind to ourselves and not tolerate when others put us down.

asexuals need to not hate other asexuals within their own community simply for not sharing the same experiences and identities. we need to accept that asexuality means different things for different people, and that's okay.

we need to be kind and do less purity-testing of who has a "PROPER" identity vs "IMPROPER" identity and engage less in meaningless online debates, because our real enemies are acephobes. our real enemies are predators. our real enemy is the hostile allosexual culture and system that we live in.

if you're ace, be kind to a fellow ace.

if you're not ace, be especially kind to an ace.

we're all people and we all deserve respect and happiness.

do MEANINGFUL ASEXUAL ACTIVISM.
flags aren't meaningless. coining terms is not meaningless. posting posts about your identity is not meaningless.

however, we should also actively be doing the much more complicated, tough work of challenging and dismantling allonormativity and standing against compulsory sexuality.

we should ask for no discrimination. for all acceptance. for the kind of liberation that allows people to both engage and NOT engage in sexual activities.

SOME EXAMPLES:

1. we should have content and spaces which can be labeled as sexual or non-sexual, so people can make informed decisions and feel safe, with an understanding that demanding such labels/warnings IS NOT AUTOMATICALLY CENSORSHIP.

it is a measure protecting people with PTSDpost-traumatic stress disorder, kids, and repulsed people. don't you fucking dare to argue against that.

when Steam games have labels for explicit games, it means that people who are interested in such content can find it more easily, while people who aren't can avoid it more easily.

this is good. whatever the fuck corporations are doing isn't.

repulsed asexuals are not the ones who en-masse demand ID verification checks on websites or ban "sensitive content" from social medias. they are not the ones changing rules. all we want is to have a choice whether to consume something or not. tech corporations, its billionaires, its conservative politicians and terfs are doing bullshit and it's not some random repulsed asexual John and repulsed asexual Jane who asks them to.

all that would help is a little label of "hey, this contains [x]! are you okay with seeing it?"

if you post sensitive content, don't be a dick and tag it: i do that, too.


2. we need to be talking about the terms that we use and continue to develop the asexual branch of queer theory!

for example, asexuality, in it's wikipedia page, is defines as "lack of sexual attraction to others, or low or absent interest in or desire for sexual activity."

however if you've actually been in the community recently, you'll notice it largely socially shifted to focus only on "little to no attraction", without the "interest" part.

there are valid reasons for this change:
1) it helps people feel like their orientation is, well, a queer orientation akin to homosexuality or bisexuality with a clear definition, and
2) even if it says "or", for many it feels like an "and", so tying low interest to low attraction, even though the two do not always match together.

as of recent days though, i started to understand that i am much more asexual in the "not interested" way than i am in "no attraction" way - sure, i don't experience attraction, but that part barely affects me or my relationships or my life. i don't hang out with people who would doubt my feelings, and i am not particularly blind to knowing that attraction feels like. the absence of these feelings isn't something i write a lot about.

in contrast, my discomfort with social norms and such activities IS why i talk about being asexual. me not wanting a sexual lifestyle IS why i talk about being asexual. my "absent interest and desire" IS why i talk about being asexual.

in my personal experience, i find myself more similar to allosexual people who simply don't talk about sexual things a lot more than to entirely asexual people who do, and that seems to be part of the reason of why i don't feel great in asexual spaces.

is my solution to it that "asexual" should only mean "i hate sex and i never want to engage with anything sexual ever thank you?"

no! i think there is a reason why so many people love asexual as a term and find it useful. there definitely is value in it being a large umbrella term that includes different people and i don't want people to give up on it.

but if this is something that causes me to not have a sense of community, perhaps there would be some benefit in having additional terms that could talk about what I experience and that could clear out the confusion. perhaps something like "sexless", akin to aromantic "loveless".

it's also notably that some other people could benefit from "lifestyle" labels as well: it can sometimes be easier to understand if you want non-sexual relationships or not compared to whether you have ever experienced sexual attraction or not, because... what counts as attraction, exactly? it's a harder to define, slightly more subjective thing.

lesbians aren't just "those who don't feel attracted to men", they're primarly "those who want to be with women", and the focus on the second one is often what lets lesbians identify as lesbians easier and more confidently, even if for many the first still plays a role!



while asexual community does have terms for "stances", like being favourable / indifferent / averse, i don't feel like they always capture the depth of having a particular lifestyle.

and asexuality and aromanticism, in my opinion, due to it also often dealing with non-traditional relationships, would benefit from being studied together with polyamory, like in research of "AMATONORMATIVITY" (check out the term sometime.)

queerplatonic/alterous relationships and tetriary attraction too are such interesting topics that ONLY started to be researched thanks to asexual and aromantic movements coining these terms. we should keep up the good work and keep on exploring what asexuality can mean for different people and make it work for all of us!

3. be mindful of intersectionality and NOT throw people under the bus for a "simple" message.


there will be alloromantic asexuals. there will also be aromantic asexuals, equally as important.
there will be abled, mentally healthy asexuals. there will also be disabled asexuals, equally as important.
there will be sex-favourable asexuals same way as repulsed, and all kind of people in-between, and all of them will always, always be equally important.

if messages around asexuality always focus on combatting stereotypes through making generalized, no-nuance statements like "we're not ill!" or "not all of us hate sex!" or "we can still have romantic relationships!", we will be unable to capture the reality of asexual community as large, diverse, and including very much ALL people and even the very "stereotypical" ones that support the message that we're ill, hate sex, or don't have romantic relationships.

the problem is NOT them.

the problem is allosexuals making assumptions because they don't listen or know enough, and you can calmly explain to them that "no, asexuality means you have little-to-no attraction, but inherently it doesnt mean anything else. it really depends on the person", without needing to hide the "bad", "stereotypical" asexuals that might accidentally support allosexual myths.

asexual community is REPORTED to suffer from same centrism on the white, abled, and often default or priveleged people, the same way queer community in general does. but we need to be mindful more. we can and should build a community that supports each other and values each it's member and recognizes the complex identity or intersectionality that someone might have.
4. asexuals need to be visible.
Wähl Liebe Berlin 2025-02-15 - Lucas Werkmeister, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

it's hard and no one should be FORCED into an activism role. but if you, allosexual or asexual or somewhere undecided, happen to have energy to show support for asexual (as well as in general aspec) identity, there's no better time than today!

asexuals are treated as "less important", "more boring", "insignificant", "not really oppressed", and every time there's an ace or aro person in a queer space, there is an unspoken or sometiems even very outwardly spoken sentiment of "okay, but why are you ACTUALLY here? you got to be gay too right? or trans, at least?"

but the truth is, asexuality and aromanticism are of the same importance as the other queer identities. they deserve same support, love, pride, flags, kind messages, positivity as other identities, always; and as aphobia keeps on growing more and more popular, it becomes more and more important to be loud and supportive.

if you're ace, don't treat your identity as meaningless.
even if you feel like personally its "not that deep", especially due to being somewhere on the gray side of the spectrum, try to remember WHY you identify as this, and try to think about other people for whom it might be a lot more deeper. you need to understand that if you're asexual, to treat your identity as important is an act of self-care.

and if you're not ace, listen to ace people. listen to different kind of ace people. listen to your ace friends if you got any. try to be nice and show your support. bring up issues. clear misconceptions if you hear someone saying something that's untrue. question yourself and others on this topic and strive to be a good ally. talk vocally when we say we're discriminated against, especially legally or medically. we need your support. this pride, 2026, i made a punk vest almost entirely focused on asexual topic. there is a reason for why.

DEMAND BETTER.

demand people to question why they use "virgin" and "unfuckable" as insults.

demand queer organizations to focus on aspec issues.

demand queer research to include aspec people in their polls and statistics, study us, support us.

demand better fictional representation in media for asexuals.
and not just a fictional character or two ever made,
and not just one type of asexual, either,
and not in just in one type of media (primarly referencing adult comedy where asexuality can be a "funny" trope to bring up)
and not just as villians, side characters, or tokens.


demand equal rights for our aromantic siblings. for polyamorous people. for anyone who is fighting similar battle right now and need help. and not just for me or for one of your friends. why? because...

we're all in this together. and you can prevent an ending of
"then they came for me".
[END OF MANIFESTO. THANKS FOR READING THROUGH ALL OF THIS.]

P.S. if it wasn't clear enough: the writer of this manifesto is a sex-repulsed asexual and believes in better treatment of aspecs, as well as specifically repulsed aspecs.
you cannot support only one type of asexual people that you find easy to deal with.


repulsed people are valuable but we often face erasure or discrimination within the community, so i made an extra zine on the topic, focusing on repulsed aces, that can be found below! all aces are valid, i just wanna give some focus to this identity as it's one i bear.

wow! that was a long read. i'm very proud of it.
it's essentially a collection of the thoughts that were on my mind all this time, for years now, that i've been asexual and mistreated in various ways.
it is PERSONAL, not written with intent to represent every single asexual person ever and their needs - but just some main points that affect me and some of my peers the most and that i feel like aren't discussed enough.

in the next section of this website, i'd like to focus more on the

positive things

: think of it as almost-a-reward for me for writing out the whole manifesto, and for you the reader for having patience to get to see it!

banner by januscorner on tumblr

FUN FACTS! did you know...

  • the first usage of "asexual", as the specific word for orientation, was recorded by a Carl Schlegel, one of earliest modern gay activists in 1907, as he was advocating for "the same laws" for "homosexuals, heterosexuals, bisexuals [and] asexuals"? proof
  • the famous Kinsey scale (or Heterosexual–Homosexual Rating Scale) historically had an "X" for people who are not interested in sexuality? proof
  • asexuals are awesome? you don't nede proof for that, but...

☝️ my asexual punk vest. i made it all by myself and wore it at pride!

☝️ "ideal relationship"/gay yearning moodboard drawing of guy in colors of ace flag with text "make the absence something to be proud of"

☝️ cool drawing by leplig

84159515_tK4neWQO3DoJD9D.png121226594_WvAV358kwauc5Xv.png84102615_SEJDK3MZgCR6phm.png91126786_XFIYd9YeU5pKRuN.png85831817_pBD3zZkigW1JDDI.png
ribbons by creatureful

(by vidapon) (by jack-dawlia)

ZINE

made & published on 5th of october, 2026.
⚠️ WARNING! briefly mentions topics of sexual harassment as well as bad treatment of kids. not much detail but take care
click on the left side / right side to read or use the buttons!

ALT: front cover. "ADVICE FROM A REPULSED ASEXUAL".
there's a doodle of me, the author, person with long hair and glasses, doing a little X-mark sign with my fingers. the text says,
no and never are both ways to make a complete sentence.

COOL ADDITIONAL LINKS ON ASEXUALITY:

go back up?
tip: always be yourself.
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