Words With Friends 6

Words with Friends episodes are bonus episodes where different members of Mama Dragons provide definitions for LGBTQ related topics. This episode includes the following definitions:

Asexual (Ace) shared by Marie Mulling from Texas

Aromantic (Aro) shared by Roxana Reguera from California

Allosexual shared by Tracey Anne from Scotland

Demisexual shared by Amy Hutchisson

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Transcript

JEN:   Hello and welcome. You are listening to In the Den with Mama Dragons. I’m your host, Jen. This podcast was created out of our desire to walk and talk with you through this journey of raising happy, healthy, and productive LGBTQ humans. We are so happy that you’re here with us.

Some of us need to learn a whole new language when our child tells us that they are LGBTQ+. We would like to help with that education, just a few words at a time throughout the year. You won’t learn everything you need to know, but you will get a basic starting point for future learning. Language changes rapidly. We invite you to enjoy how our language changes on this topic as our collective understanding grows. We’re grateful to the four Mama Dragons who stepped up to share with us the following:

 Asexual, Aromantic, Allosexual, and Demisexual.

 ASEXUAL – Marie Mulling

Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction to others, or low or absent interest in or desire for sexual activity. It may be considered the lack of a sexual orientation, or one of the normal variations thereof, alongside heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality. Being asexual, sometimes shortened to “ace”, is distinct from being celibate. Asexuality is about attraction, or lack thereof. Celibacy is about behavior. I was talking to a friend this week about how she had to do a lot of research on her own to figure out what asexuality meant to her. I think it’s helpful for all of us to have some kind of idea about it.

 
 AROMANTIC – Roxana Reguera

I started my rainbow journey on a learning curve. It took me a while to get pronouns and definitions. I hope this helps in your own journey. What is “Aromantic”? Aromantic is the lack of romantic attraction to anyone, or not having romantic feelings. Being aromantic, sometimes shortened to “aro”, is different from being asexual. A person can be asexual but experience romantic attraction, aromantic but still experience sexual attraction, or both asexual and aromantic.

 ALLOSEXUAL – Tracey Ann

An allosexual person is a person who experiences sexual attraction. It is the opposite of asexual. An allosexual person might identify as straight, gay, bi, queer, or some other sexual attraction. Why do we even need a word like allosexual? Isn’t this just normal people? The word “normal” is key. Let’s compare it to eye color. The vast majority of people on the planet have brown eyes, but when we talk about eye color we don’t say “people with blue eyes and normal people,” because even though most people have brown eyes, that doesn’t mean the people with blue eyes are abnormal. There are just multiple kinds of normal human eye colors. The same is true with human experience of sexuality. The vast majority of humans are allosexual. About 1% of people are asexual. Those asexual people are not abnormal, they’re just different.

DEMISEXUAL – Amy Hutchinsson

I tend to think of orientation in terms of who we are attracted to. But that’s really only a part of what makes up the complex layers and contexts of attraction. A person is demisexual if they experience sexual attraction only after having formed a strong emotional bond with someone. You can be demisexual and gay, or straight, or bi, or pan. You get the idea. Demisexuality describes the condition surrounding attraction. It’s one specific orientation under the larger gray asexual umbrella, which you might also hear called “Gray-sexual” or simply “Gray-ace”. Because Demis find attraction within existing connection to other people, they often take a “friendship first” approach to relationships. And it's not uncommon to first self-identify as asexual before recognizing they are actually demisexual. It’s important to remember people can and do change what labels they use for themselves as they better understand who they are and that no single label can fully describe any of us.

JEN:          Thanks so much for joining us here in the den. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends. We’d also love it if you could take a minute to leave us a positive rating and review on whatever platform you’re listening to us on. Good reviews make us more visible and help us reach more folks who could benefit from listening. But, review or not, we’re glad you’re here. For more information on Mama Dragons and the podcast, you can visit our website at mamdragons.org or follow us on Instagram or Facebook. And if you’d like to help Mama Dragons in our mission to support, educate, and empower the parents of LGBTQ children, donate at mamadragons.org or click the donate link in the show notes.