A OK

Weekly interviews with people on the asexual and aromantic spectrums. I started listening to the podcast because they interviewed Melissa Caruso, an author whose work I deeply love (The Tethered Mage, a fantasy trilogy), and it’s nice to hear aro/ace people talk about their experiences, they’re too often marginalized.
The podcast ended on 6 November 2020.

• Episode 6 with KM (they/them, ze/zir)! They talked about:
  • quoiromantism (not understanding what romance is all about)
  • being literally married to your best friend
  • identifiying as a non-binary lesbian (instead of “bi”, partly because they’re not attracted to men)
  • choosing the label that suits you best and who cares what other people think of it
    It’s a very wholesome episode!
    [CW: bigoted family, gatekeeping]
• Episode 3 with Nick, a trans visual artist. Some takeaways:
  • Taking HRT and going through a second puberty usually increases your libido, which feels weird when you’re ace and used to not having sexual attractions
  • The guest didn’t feel “queer enough” being “just ace” 😔 (gatekeeping is harsh)
  • “Just because you lack attraction doesn’t mean you lack something. You’re fine!”
• Episode 11 with researcher Yu-Chi (no pronouns) who is interviewed to talk about sexuality, gender, and… board games! I remember:
  • “if you assume something, assume it’s wrong” (about someone’s gender, or anything really)
  • nice stories about being ace
  • Yu-Chi talks about cooperative v. competitive games, and whether one setting is better for people to actually learn other people’s pronouns
    [CW: swearing, references to sex, references to misgendering.]
• Episode 12 with social worker Emery (they/them), who talks about:
  • being quoiromantic and questioning what feelings are
  • found families and queer platonic relationships (and needing a word more powerful than “friend”)
  • their coming-outs, some that went well, some that were met with incomprehension.
    [CW: brief mention of sexual assault]
• Episode 4 with Linnea Peterson, about (gray) asexuality and fanfiction!
  • The AO3 tag system is great, you can select precisely what you want to read so you already know you’ll like the writing and the characters.
  • Reading smut with bodies different than your own is apparently common with ace people.
  • The queer community is a safe place to talk about sex, so it can be uncomfortable for ace peeps.
• Episode 2 with theater artist Beth Ann Powers. Random takeaways:
  • it’s hard to find the ace/aro label, because you’re trying to prove a negative
  • friendly attraction can be confusing (but friends are great!)
  • Christianity loves the idea of celibacy so coming out as ace in a religious family can be seen as good… which is bad.
• Episode 13 with Soap Curtis, who discussed topics such as:
  • Discovering that romantic and sexual attractions do not always go together
  • Allosexual people breaking up their relationship because after a while they discover they can’t work with ace people
  • Depression and therapy (extensive CWs are in the episode description)
  • Her close relationship with her sister
  • Being ace allowing her to be a good “wingman”
• Episode 22, with ChasTitty Barre, a really nice and fun episode where she talked about:
  • burlesque (and how she experiences it as an asexual person)
  • realizing you can be ace but have romantic feelings
  • how she came up with her very punny name
  • queer platonic relationships and how they differ from friendships
• Episode 33, with an aroace guest who talked about:
  • exploring their identity through roleplaying IPL
  • language camps where you choose a name when you arrive (therefore you can try out things)
  • music and how much songs talk about sex and/or romance
  • the impact of hormones on your voice

• Episode 37 with Laura, a student in Finland. Topics went from wanting kids when you’re asexual (and how the two things are completely unrelated) to lots of book suggestions with ace/aro characters 🤩 Links in the podcast description!

• Episode 50, with the founder of AVEN. they talked about:
  • the creation of AVEN (he bought asexuality.org for 20$, it was the very beginning of search engines so his website became the top search result on asexuality, plus building the community)
  • co-parenting with another couple
  • “a relationship is like a plant: if I listen to it, I can help it grow, but I can’t make it grow”
  • amazing aro relationships