/u/aro_ace_icon on Pan here! What is it like being ace? What are your experiances?

there are some people who identify on the ace/aro spectrums because of trauma, much like there are people who might identify as lesbian because of trauma even though they experienced attraction to men before.

It's extremely rare for trauma victims to lose sexual or romantic attraction (in fact, statistically, they are more likely to become hypersexual) but they are absolutely still valid aspecs and we 100% support them.

However, a couple pervasive ace stereotypes are that "asexuality isn't real, it's actually just trauma" or "it's actually just a medical condition" and those are extremely harmful to the community as a whole. The overwhelming majority of us are born this way and the idea that we can be "fixed" with therapy or medication is frankly as harmful as saying gay people can be "fixed" with therapy or medication.

Basically, whatever you do, please do not equate trauma with any sexuality or perpetuate those ace/aro stereotypes:)

As for your character, avoid making aroace characters robots or other non-human entities (that's a harmful stereotype) and avoid making aroace villains some sort of sexual foil for the protagonist or villanizing their aroace traits. Not being able to feel romantic love doesn't make us evil, the same way feeling romantic love doesn't make someone a good person. Don't "fix" an aro or ace character in your story by making them feel love or some sort of sexual awakening for the first time as if that's the only way we can have a happy ending.

and otherwise just write them like any other character! They can outright declare their labels or else make clear that they aren't really concerned with sex or romance. We can be as friendly, affectionate, passionate, etc as anyone else:)

January 13, 2022 at 01:16AM