Asexuality at the WorldPride 2014 Toronto Recap

Saturday, June 28th, was the International Asexuality Conference at Toronto’s Ryerson University. It was a big hit! A lot of people turned out for it! AVEN has a photo and video thread as well as a thread for conference feedback. A simple search for “asexuality conference” on YouTube will bring up some of the discussions. I’m sure more will be posted as well, and I’ll try to post more information as I find it. TheStar.com reported that the conference hosted the “largest gathering of asexuals ever”!

About thirty or so of us went out the dinner after the conference. Ivy had to leave for an interview with Canadian TV (I posted the link below)! I have also added a few more of her many web residences, and if you’re interested in more asexual news, I would suggest keeping up with her @swankivy account! The Bibliophibian posted a review of Ivy’s book that will be released in September of this year: The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality. Ivy has also published articles around the Internet on asexuality and her websites will guide you to them and keep you up-to-date. For example, here’s one she recently got published on TheToast.com: “‘Enjoy Your Houseful of Cats’: On Being an Asexual Woman”.

For the purposes of archiving, AVEN had a Facebook page and hashtag set up, and here are all the tweets tagged with #awp2014: https://twitter.com/hashtag/awp2014 And speaking of books, I would also like to include this free Smashwords ebook I recently discovered: What Do You Mean You’re Not Interested in Sex?: American Life and Law from an Asexual Perspective by Amanda C. Lee.

The WorldPride parade on Sunday was pretty amazing and a lot of fun to march in! I will have to post some photos on AVEN as soon as I have more time to sort them. It was a really great experience seeing so many people witness some real awesome asexual visibility! (Also, sorry it took me so long to get this post together; I’ve been swamped with work, school, housework, etc.)

Click here for the CTV News Video “Asexuality Conference held in Toronto,” featuring Julie Sondra Decker.

Second ever Asexual Conference at World Pride Toronto 2014

The second International Asexual Conference will be held at World Pride in Toronto this year, following the first Asexual Conference at the 2012 World Pride in London.

The conference will involve workshops, panel discussions and a full press conference. Some topics for panel discussions include the history of asexuality and the latest in asexual research. Read more here…

Posted on Pink News.

The International Asexuality Conference is also posted at the WorldPride website.

Only 2 days left to contribute!

Help Make AVEN World Pride Inclusive!

From David Jay:

We want to make the International Asexual Conference as inclusive as possible. To that end, we need to raise enough money to hire a team of American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters for the day ($3,300). Please help us welcome the Deaf people in our communities who want to participate in our conference, and who deserve to be able to do that just as much as everyone else.

On top of helping to make this event accessible to Deaf people who wouldn’t be able to benefit from the conference without your donations, you will also be helping build a positive relationship between the Asexual and Deaf communities so we can work together toward accessible asexual community events for years to come.

We are very grateful for all contributions.

Regardless of whether you can contribute, please register for the conference.

Reblogging: Call for projects at the International Asexual Conference

Reblogging: Call for projects at the International Asexual Conference

Got a project idea for raising asexual vis awareness? Want to attend the largest North American ace gathering in history? Click here to read more.

See you in Toronto!

Survey at All Out

LGBT organization currently has a survey available; they want your opinions! I highly recommend identifying yourself as “asexual” if it applies!

surveymonkey.com/s/allout

As for my survey on AsexualNews.com, only 37 AVENites responded, with 29 votes for “I didn’t know it existed until now.” Despite the small number of votes, there’s nothing wrong with a little visibility! Speaking of which, I have been overwhelmed with work so I need to catch up on asexual news too. As of today, there are some interesting issues on AsexualNews.com and Sara Beth Brooks, David Jay, Swankivy, and others are clearly working hard for the asexual community.

“Love Without Sex” Web Interview/Discussion

Originally aired November 26, 2012, this Huffington Post web interview discusses asexuality from a very honest and layperson viewpoint. There are no aggressive arguments here, and I think it would make a great resource to share with family and friends. You can view and post comments as well. Hosted by Janet Varney.

Guests include:
David Jay (San Francisco, CA), Founder, AVEN
Maddox (San Francisco, CA), LGBT Advocate and Educator
CJ Chasin (Windsor, Canada), Ph.D. Student in Applied Social Psychology, University of Windsor
Angela Tucker (Brooklyn, NY), Documentary Filmmaker

The webpage also cites an interesting resource: “Does Asexuality Fall Under the Queer Umbrella?” by Allison Hope, PR specialist and journalist, May 16, 2012. I think this particular matter is going to come up more and more as asexuality permeates into LGBT issues. It may take a while, but we’ll get there.

On a related matter, the (A)sexual documentary is now available in the USA on Netflix, according to Jeremy44 of AVEN. Click here to view the forum thread.

(A)sexual Film Review

I just had a chance to watch this film and wanted to submit some feedback for the community.

The documentary opens with people trying to describe a definition for asexuality, which often turned into the “asexual reproduction” we see in the animal kingdom. Their views are also interspersed throughout the film for definitions on “a relationship,” “love,” etc.

Featured are some of the common misconceptions of asexuality, which is still necessary to more fully explain the concept to those who are unfamiliar with it. We see David Jay trying to inform people about asexuality at a San Francisco Pride, a nonsexual couple enter into marriage, and even a brief clip of Janeane Garofalo doing standup and identifying as asexual. I think the documentary is very gratifying for other asexuals, who see it reinforced that they’re not alone, and that they can show this film to family, friends, and scholars for further recognition if they so choose.

The film also featured psychologists who had researched asexuality or self-identified asexuals and found nothing psychologically wrong with them because of their asexuality, which is always a great feeling. The professionals interviewed include (listed in no particular order):

1. Lori Brotto, Associate Professor, Department of Gynecology, University of British Columbia
2. Anthony F. Bogaert, Professor of Community Health Services and Psychology, Brock College (or Brock University)
3. Cynthia Graham, Clinical Psychologist, The Kinsey Institute
4. Carol Queen, Sexologist, Founder, Center for Sex and Culture
5. Dan Savage, Sex Columnist, who sunk to the level of the women on The View. He basically stated that there was no reason for visibility if there’s no sex happening. But I suppose it’s always necessary to at least supply the opponent’s viewpoint.

The film also featured some individuals in the asexual community, such as David Jay, Swank Ivy, and a few others, both young and old, who risked possible embarrassment of any intimate details for the sake of asexual visibility. To me, it seemed like it was all very much worth it. People need to know that it’s perfectly normal to not desire sex. Swank Ivy seems to be getting along just fine on her own. David Jay shared with us a deeply personal story that I think reaches further to suggest that we are all very much fluid in all of our identities and orientations: romantic, sexual, gender, etc. We change, we grow, we learn; it’s all a part of life. The most important point from all of this, I think, is that we are all able to identify ourselves however we choose.

Overall, a great film and definitely worth getting out there more!

(A)sexual is available at iTunes for $14.99 or Amazon.com.

(A)sexual at Arts Engine, Inc. (includes trailer) and Big Mouth Films.