WTF is an ACE?

Dear Readers,

it´s nice to see you here on „Discoveries of an Ace “ Let me introduce myself to you. I´m 38 years old and a „GRAY-ACE“.

„ACE“ in this case is an abbreviation of “asexual” or “asexuality”. If you ask google why it´s called “ACE”, it tells you that it´s a phonetic shortening. So it has nothing to do with being better than anybody else. Nevertheless, it definitely tells people that you are different.

Maybe you have never heard of asexuality or maybe you have, but you don´t know much about it, and honestly, as of 1.5 years ago, it was pretty much the same for me. I always associated asexuality with really disliking sex or having no sex drive. Probably I would have told you that Michael Jackson was supposedly asexual, but that´s about it.

But what does asexuality mean? 

According to the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), the definition of asexual is:

“Someone who does not experience sexual attraction or an intrinsic desire to have sexual relationships (or the adjective describing a person as such).”

(Source: https://www.asexuality.org/?q=general.html#def)

And that´s pretty much describing what you and I already knew. Nobody tells you that asexuality is a spectrum. It comes in a variety of shapes and sizes.

So you might wonder how I found out that I´m on the ace spectrum.

Well, I was lucky enough to have my best friend that told me. Knowing me for 20 years already, he knew all the struggles that I experienced with dating and having relationships. After a longer talk about how fed up I was with men ( in my case) always bringing up sex, he recommended looking into asexuality. It didn´t take me long to find out that I was in fact what is called grey-ace. 

And what does it mean to be a “grey-ace”?

According to the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), the definition for gray-ace is:

“Someone who identifies with the area between asexuality and sexuality (or the adjective describing a person as such). For example, they may experience sexual attraction very rarely, only under specific circumstances, or of an intensity so low that is ignorable and not a necessity in relationships. (Note: the spelling of gray/grey may vary by country.) “

(Source: https://www.asexuality.org/?q=general.html#def)

It may sound cliché or maybe even cheesy to some of you, but after browsing through the first bits of information and comparing what I´ve read to what I was feeling, I was very happy to see that “my spectrum” had in fact a name!

I´m an ace and there are more people out there like me!

I´m still very new to this topic although I did a lot of research. By talking to friends, family, and also people in general I quickly realised that it´s not a topic that is talked about a lot. It even sometimes is dismissed as “a phase”, “it´s not real” or the question “Is this really a thing?”

With this blog, I want to share my experiences with you. I want to create a safe space for people with the same experiences and for people that trying to figure out if they are on the ACE spectrum. But I also want to raise awareness about the topic in general. Asexuality is very real and can create big problems depending on the culture and society you are living in.

I want to invite you to join me on the journey through the Ace world!

Yours,
ACE