Worldpride 2012 and meeting David Jay



Some of the aces at the WorldPride parade

Good (insert appropriate word for the time of day at your locale), dear readers! I hope you’re enjoying Asexual Awareness Week. I’m here today to talk about a gathering of aces.

“How mysterious”, I hear you say! Well never fear, it wasn’t us aces deciding to take over and convert everything into a cake factory (that was a discussion point, but it was unfortunately forgotten when actual cake and tea was supplied to us). No, you see this year in July, WorldPride came to London. Since it was my first Pride, and almost five months since I started writing for this blog, I was really excited to go.

The day after WorldPride itself was the Asexuality WorldPride Conference, in which several important figures in the ace community stood to speak to a group of aces. There were some generally interested members of the public as well – the Metro, a free British newspaper distributed on transport in various cities such as London or Sheffield, ran a story on asexuality a few days before, and a number of people turned up as a result of reading that.



So what was it all about? Well, mostly it was a meeting of asexuals to listen to other asexuals and yes, there was cake. Of course there was cake. Also there was the tiniest burger I'd ever seen.

 

Look at this tiny burger!

Some of the history of the largest online asexual network ever created surprised me. I mean, I obviously didn’t think that it popped into creation as a fully formed idea (or do I? Mwuhahaha, I am so diabolically vague), but I certainly expected it to be the first large network for aces.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I found out that there were at least four other large (as in more than ten members, the Internet was young back then) sites that predate AVEN. Only one of these sites could be said to be similar to AVEN in its aims (that is, everyone is welcome as long as they identify as asexual). The others were quite unlike anything else anyone these days would recognise as “asexual” (unless they were using a different definition to what most people follow these days). One of these sites had decided that asexual meant a person who had the genitalia of neither sex.

Interestingly enough, this alternative definition stems from around the same time (or possibly even earlier) as when asexuality was first being considered as a label for human sexual orientation. It comes from a news article about a person called Toby, who was androgynous, externally sexless, and non-sexual. Even though Toby referred to themself as neuter, the association between the three different parts of Toby’s identity was planted in people’s minds. Unfortunately most people were unable to differentiate the three concepts, and so both asexuals and androgynous people at the time were sometimes subjected to the “oh you’re X? You must be Y as well!” argument.

These days most people have grasped the difference between the two (although there’s still very little by way of education on either). This is mostly thanks to the efforts of a certain high-profile website for aces. I think you know the one.

Before that site even got its own domain name, however, there was another site that used the definition that we currently use. Its URL was asexuality.livejournal.com. For a while this site was larger than AVEN. In fact, AVEN only really began to gain a following after the LiveJournal community’s creator (a certain Nat Titman, of Nottingham, United Kingdom) was asked by a young man called David Jay to help on the site.

It’s a long story since there, but all you need to know is that it’s no coincidence that the AVEN Wiki almost exactly matches the LiveJournal Wiki – Nat wrote both.

Another interesting part of the conference was the International Panel. It was great to hear from people who had different experiences – I know the Internet is a big place and it's easy to find anyone's experiences, but sometimes the loudest voices aren’t the most accurate.

I was impressed at how far some people had come – the panel had representatives from the US, Canada, France, Germany, South America and Israel. A few of the audience had travelled from places like the Netherlands and even Australia to visit the conference. It was an interesting spread of places and people.

One part of the talk that surprised me was when the panel was asked about whether religious influence in their country had affected their experiences when coming out. Johanna (from the deeply Catholic South American Colombia) said that when she came out as asexual, her family were initially very happy – as a rule, pre-marital sex is frowned upon in the Catholic faith. However, when they found out that she didn’t want children they weren’t quite as happy. Raising a big family is also important in Colombia. I didn’t expect this; I’d always been under the impression that certain faiths believe no sex was even better than post-marital sex. The more you know, eh?

International meetings would be a lot simpler with this (S)

There was also a discussion on whether asexual meetings (which tend to happen in the large cities where the transport links are good) should be held internationally. Would the British aces take the Eurostar to Paris and meet up with the French aces? Would Americans make the journey across the border to meet in Canadian cities?

The short answer? Maybe. I know, I know, not exactly the most inspiring answer, but that was the gist of it. The census from Italy was that they had trouble getting together for a meeting if it was in the city they live in (her words, not mine). French aces reportedly had similar problems. German aces already organised international meetings with geographically close German-speaking countries like Austria and Switzerland. The aces from America and Canada hadn’t thought about the idea before, but were very enthusiastic.

The representative from Israel looked a bit uncomfortable, and then mentioned the ever so slight tension between Israel and its neighbouring countries. It might not be not such a good idea there, then.



Look at how sweet he is!

There was a screening of the documentary “(A)sexual”, which focuses on the asexuality visibility movement, and on some details of AVEN founder David Jay’s romantic life. It’s an interesting and well done documentary, and I would suggest that you see it if you can.

 

In essence, it revolves around his early efforts to increase asexual visibility, including going to Prides and handing out leaflets, and also his own romantic life through the years. A fair bit of the film revolves around his romantic polyamorous relationship with a lesbian woman and a man. There are also interviews with multiple asexuals (both young and old) and asexual relationships.

Again, it’s a very interesting documentary, and it is available on iTunes for those who are interested.

He then gave a talk on his (more aromantic) attitude to relationships now and how, rather than forming close romantic attachments to one or two people, he preferred to form deep platonic relationships with many people.
 

On his interviews, David Jay is perfectly friendly and talkative. In real life, he is even more so. He even said yes when I asked for a photo, and then when I said “wow, I feel really short compared to you”, he actually knelt down for the photo. It was hilarious to see, and completely unnecessary. He even laughed when I called him the “Granddaddy Ace” (what, you don’t think it suits him?).

I don’t know why, but I have always kind of assumed that he just wouldn’t be as likeable offscreen as onscreen. I can safely say I was wrong, he was a lovely man!