ace = asexual

[Mark Mandel]

I had to ask an online friend what this term meant in her blog. It seems to
be fairly common for "person who feels no sexual attraction to others"
(independent of feeling romantic interest), at least among such people and
those interested in them. Google reports "About 3,240,000 results"
(actually 492) for *ace* asexual*.

UrbanDictionary's definition #4, dated Dec 24, 2008, is

> Asexual to any degree. Using "ace" for "asexual" gained popularity on AVEN
> (www.asexuality.org) and has inspired the use of the spade as a symbol of
> the asexual community.
>


 In a very quick glanceover of the Google snippets, I've seen mostly dates
of 2012, one of 2010.

   - An asexual YA heroine? Why
not?<http://rj-anderson.dreamwidth.org/4034.html>(YA = "young adult"
[writing])
   *The post takes the word for granted. The writers' event "Carnival of
   Aces" [see next bullet] is mentioned at the top with no explanation or
   context. Other than that, this is the word's first use in the text, about 9
   paragraphs in.*
   On the other hand, I also didn't want to fall into the trap of treating
   asexuality in a careless, superficial way, or allowing the non-ace reader
   to mistake it for a symptom of Tori's abnormal biology (a key plot point of
   the story). So I spent a lot of time reading ace blogs and Tumblrs to find
   out what cliches and myths about asexuals to avoid and if possible, to
   directly address and counter them. I also made an effort to clarify that
   Tori's asexuality was not the result of trauma or scientific
   experimentation or her unusual background, by directly contrasting her with
   another character with a similar background and experiences who was
   demonstrably not asexual. As she observes in one of the book's flashback
   sequences:...
   - November 2012 Carnival of Aces
round-up<http://lunasspecto.tumblr.com/post/36935830963/november-2012-carnival-of-aces-round-up>
   November 2012 has been a great month for the Carnival of Aces, a blog
   carnival on asexuality and the ace spectrum. This month’s theme was
   fiction. ...

Mark Mandel

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