what is AZE?

Volume 1, Issue 1 of The Asexual was released in Spring 2017.

AZE is an interdisciplinary journal publishing the written and artistic reflections of asexual, aromantic, and agender people. It was first established as The Asexual (theasexual.com) in 2016 with the intention of providing visibility to the expressions of asexual people in a sexual world. The central purpose of the journal was to exist as a space for creative and critical expressions, including personal essays, poetry, visual art, and academic writing.

Although originally focused on asexuality, the scope of the journal expanded to not just critique sexual expectations, but also romantic and gendered ones. With this transformation, the journal was renamed AZE in 2019. Appropriately noted by Janeth Montenegro Marquez, AZE was created “to give other queer individuals, queer BIPOC individuals especially, a space of community to explore their identities.”

why AZE?

Asexuality, aromanticism, and agenderness each represent a different aspect of being without or separated from sexual, romantic, and gendered expectations. When asexual, aromantic, and agender people express ourselves, we expose the restrictive nature of cisheteropatriarchy. When our expressions are put in conversation with one another, more avenues for reflection open – not just for ourselves, but for everyone.

The works of this journal question what sexuality, romance, and gender are made of and what deconstructing them could bring into our lives. They have collectively attracted tens of thousands of readers and inspired reflections in social media conversations, blog posts, books, peer-reviewed journals, and elsewhere. It is the tremendous response AZE has received that continues to push the journal forward.

AZE has a Patreon page here if you are interested in supporting its mission.

about the editor

Michael Paramo (he/him or they/them) is a researcher, artist, and writer born and raised on Tongva land (Orange County) in a Mexican-American family. Being on the ace and aro spectrums himself, Paramo manages AZE as a space for asexual, aromantic, and agender people to publish their creative works. His book Ending the Pursuit (2024) is a collection of academic, autoethnographic, and poetic reflections on love, intimacy, and desire unveiled through the subjects of asexuality, aromanticism, and agender identity. His research work broadly examines interconnectivity, transformation, and hybridity in the modern/colonial world from a queer and decolonial lens.

For more information, you can check his profile page here.

If you also live on Tongva land (the Los Angeles Basin area), check out tongva.land.

reception

Some community reception of AZE’s publications

“Thank you for writing this. It’s as clear and accurate a description of my own relationship to sex, sexuality and romance as I’ve ever read, and it’s incredibly validating. So grateful to you today.”
— Anne (about "'Meaningless Sex'" by Heidi Samuelson)
“Muchas gracias por escribir la reflexión. Es cierto que muchas personas todavía no consideran que hay diferentes tipos de relaciones, y que no todas las personas quieren y le dan más importancia en su vida a las románticas que a las amistades.”
— Rocío (about "My waking up" by Adolfo Gamboa)
“This had me tearing up. This is why I love poetry. This feeling, these words that I feel and think so often, you found them! You found them and distilled them in their purest, most frustratingly simple form.”
— Shade Oyemakinwa (about "A meditation on Love" by Lucy Parr)
“very very well written. great job of allowing others to gain strength from your personal story of a real world reveal of who you are and owning that identity. kudos mate. hope I can do the same very soon also.”
— josh (about "Lifting the Shroud" by Anzo Nguyen)
“Gender has always felt like an itchy sweater I wished I could just take off. I’ve only recently come to the word “agender” as something to describe myself with. Thanks for putting your experience into words — I see myself reflected in them and I’ve never had that before.”
— Tawny Rose (about "Pronouns are for Other People" by Heidi Samuelson)
“Reading this five months later, it tilted my world on its side. It almost felt like I ghost wrote this, almost the exact same situation happened to me over the course of abt a year now and good God, did it feel uplifting to hear another Asexual say that despite it all they weren’t afraid to admit that their asexuality wasn’t the problem. Thank you. This meant so much to me to read”
— Aayla (about "Your Asexuality is not a Problem" by Aurora Thornton)
“I appreciate you sharing your story. It is difficult to navigate the queer (lgbtqia+) community as a black person alone, but when adding a smaller identity like asexuality to the mix makes it even harder. I am happy that you have been able to find some community and figure some things about yourself. I hope your road eases a bit more as you grow.”
— Tylea (about "Asexuality and Me" by Danyi)
“Thank you for sharing your story. Sometimes it can be pretty hard to put yourself out there, but in the end, it can do so much good. It’s good to know that you’re not alone.”
— Rivers (about "An Asexual Awakening" by Emily Karp)
“This was beautifully written and for the first time captured my feelings on how I have felt all these years.”
— Luyanda Nzama (about "The Importance of Not Drowning" by Juste Phi)
“This poem got me thinking for several minutes straight. Thank you so much for putting into words feelings and thoughts I never even knew I had inside”
— Camila (about "Care, uncoupled" by UnYoung)

scholarly recognition

AZE’s publications are cited in the following scholarly sources

 

“Contested intersections: Asexuality and disability, illness, or trauma” by Anna Kurowicka. Sexualities (2023).

Cited AZE journal and 5 pieces published in AZE from 2017 to 2022

Ace and Aro Journeys: A Guide to Embracing Your Asexual or Aromantic Identity by The Ace and Aro Advocacy Project. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2023.

Cited AZE journal

“AZE Journal is an online publication of agender, aromantic, and asexual people’s creative expressions, including visual art, poetry, essays...”
— The Ace and Aro Advocacy Project (2023)

Ace Voices: What it Means to Be Asexual, Aromantic, Demi or Grey-Ace by Eris Young. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2022.

Cited “Significant Others: Aspec, Polyamory and Relationship Anarchy” by Jo Ross-Barrett (2020)

“In an article for a-spec magazine AZE Journal, writer and research Jo Ross-Barrett describes their experience of being in a polyamorous, anarchic relationship with multiple partners.”
— Eris Young (2022)

"Digital sexual identities: Between empowerment and disempowerment" by Nicola Döring, Deevia Bhana, and Kath Albury. Current Opinion in Psychology 48, 101466 (2022): 1-7.

Cited AZE journal

“Recent studies and reviews also look into digital asexual identities of people of color such as asexual male identified Filipinx on Tumblr or asexual Latinx in the aro/ace community journal AZE.”
— Nicola Döring, Deevia Bhana, and Kath Albury (2022)

"Towards an asexual-affirming communication pedagogy" by Ben Brandley and Angela Labrador. Communication Education 48, 101466 (2022): 1-7.

Cited "Interrogating the whiteness of the asexual community" by Michael Paramo (2017)

“Furthermore, when we presume that aceness is a feature of whiteness, by and for white folks, it creates a “cyclical perception” that can influence white aces “to feel more accepted in ace spaces in comparison with people of color” which concomitantly excludes and invisibilizes ace people of color (Paramo, 2017, para. 3).”
— Ben Brandley and Angela Labrador

"Chapter 8: The Multidimensional Nature of Attraction" by Stacey Diane A. Litam and Megan Speciale in Handbook for Human Sexuality Counseling: A Sex Positive Approach, Edited by Angela M. Schubert and Mark Pope. London: John Wiley & Sons, 2022.

Cited “The Multilayered Model of Attraction” by Michael Paramo (2018)

“In a 2018 essay “Beyond Sex: The Multilayered Model of Attraction,” Michael Paramo provided a comprehensive framework of attraction that expands and critiques the historical definition of attraction. In this model, sexual attraction is deprioritized and viewed as simply one type of attraction.”
— Stacey Diane A. Litam and Megan Speciale (2022)

"Asexual Latina/o/x Representation in AZE" by Janeth Montenegro Marquez. Feral Feminisms 10, no. 2 (2022): 13-15.

Cited AZE journal and “Pride and Prejudice” by Anna María Mengani (2018)

“AZE does a good job of creating a niche for individuals who crave it, and it includes authors and artists from diverse backgrounds who help create a diverse set of stories and theories that provide multiple points of view around asexuality, aromanticism, agendered embodiment, and other queer and trans identities. ”
— Janeth Montenegro Marquez (2022)
 

"The Self-Identification, LGBTQ+ Identity Development, and Attraction and Behavior of Asexual Youth: Potential Implications for Sexual Health and Internet-Based Service Provision" by McInroy, Lauren B., Brieanne Beaujolais, Shelley L. Craig, and Andrew D. Eaton. Archives of Sexual Behavior 50, no. 8 (2021): 3853-3863.

Cited “Considering Intersectionality and Accessing Asexuality: Sexualization” by Michael Paramo (2017)

“This complex self-identifcation by young people could suggest a dissonance where participants may feel and/or be perceived as both sexual and non-sexual beings (Paramo, 2017).”
— Lauren B. McInroy, Brieanne Beaujolais, Shelley L. Craig & Andrew D. Eaton (2021)
 
 
“These lines in Knife’s poem serve as a reminder not only of the radical nature of “deviant sexuality,” but also of the fact that “asexuality and blackness Are tied together.””
— Justin Smith (2020)
 
 

Glitter Up the Dark: How Pop Music Broke the Binary by Sasha Geffen. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2020.

Cited “Transphobia is a White Supremacist Legacy of Colonialism” by Michael Paramo (2018)

“When European settlers devastated the Americas, they “looked to the existing sexual and gender variance of Indigenous peoples as a means of marking them as racially inferior and uncivilized: a justification for a forever unjustified genocidal conquest,” wrote Michael Paramo.”
— Sasha Geffen (2020)
 
 

“Personal agency disavowed: Identity construction in asexual women of color” by Foster, A. B., Eklund, A., Brewster, M. E., Walker, A. D., & Candon, E. (2019). Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, 6(2), 127–137. https://doi.org/10.1037/sgd0000310.

Cited “Introduction” by Michael Paramo (2018)

“Asexual, an online journal dedicated to asexuality, recently dedicated an issue to the intersections of asexuality and race to promote a “message on the significance of prioritizing the voices of ace POC and decentering the whiteness of ace spaces.””
— Aasha B. Foster, Austin Eklund, Melanie E. Brewster, Amelia D. Walker, and Emma Candon (2019)