You are excited, you tell yourself, because you're in love.
growing up aromantic
i don’t get it. logically, conceptually, i understand it.
To reclaim simplicity
I didn’t make it complicated, someone else decided that simple things did not include me.
Vol. 3, Issue 3: Aromanticism
AZE features the creative expressions of aro-spectrum authors for its aromanticism issue. Authors explore and critique how romantic expectations constrict our lives and relationships.
"love with no body"
And yet, at the same time, wanting it didn’t involve my body. No physical desire to speak of. It was never a necessary component. I just wanted to be close.
Aesthetic Attraction Is Poetry
I'll love you / and paint / your rainbow beauty / in a thousand words / or less.
STOPLIGHT
Every boy I’ve wanted to love
is a map I’ve torn before arrival
because I worried they’d leave me roadside when I say
this is the farthest I want to go.
Leaving Manhood
However, since I lacked the language to explain my desires, I felt shame for not having those experiences. Because having sexual and romantic relationships proves one’s masculinity to others, I never felt accomplished as a person.
Bound
My face cupped like a chalice in your hands as you kiss
my silk-bound mouth, pull my breasts free and tease them with hard fingers.
Untitled
“I’m going to count backwards from ten …”
I drift into a trance before she hits the count of 1.
You Need To Talk To Yourself
Since coming out as asexual, I’ve learned a lot more about what my kink means to me, and what it doesn’t. While there’s no doubt that I seek out tickling when I’m turned on, it’s not a turn on in itself.
Calculated
Pulling the trigger as I climaxed.
After all, revenge is a dish best served piping hot.
And
I get to choose whether I want something to happen, how much, when, who is doing it, and, most importantly, I get to choose when to stop.
a virgin who can drive, or: hail mary, full of grace
the thing is:
i have never actually wanted to have sex
in the mechanical sense:
insert tab A into slot B.
Aro-Ace Desire
There’s also the issues of fucked up desirability politics and racism. I enjoy fetishes, but to be fetishized is to be dehumanized.
Cleaning Off Things You Have Put in Your Vagina
This is something like a baptism
After all these years
Still trying to wash the forbidden
from the fruit
Critical Reflections on “Ace of (BDSM) Clubs” and Linking Asexuality to BDSM: Where are we Starting From?
…kink can be the space where they finally feel at home, or even more marginalized than before.
Vol. 3, Issue 2: BDSM / Kink
AZE invites ace, aro, and agender authors to explore the intersections between their experiences and BDSM / Kink.
“For he never makes love”: Reclaiming Asexual Representation in Julia Ward Howe’s The Hermaphrodite
Locating Laurence’s asexuality is an important act of reclamation for asexual history, as it demonstrates that asexuality is a necessary aspect of understanding the historical record of human attraction and desire.