Visibility, Awareness, & Neutral Spaces

Hello all!

This is certainly not forensic or true crime related, but I'm here to share a bit about the importance of general visibility and awareness in work spaces as it relates to different orientations with a small bit about asexual since Asexuality Awareness week just passed!

Now you might be wondering the relevance of talking about orientation in a professional space or workplace, and the truth is that it's not. In theory, your orientation and identity should have nothing to do with your work and competency. What should matter most are your skills, experiences, and motivations. Not what get's your rocks off.

And yet here we are!

Think with me for a second here. When looking back on conversations you've heard or "been apart" of, what were the points of discussion and the general topic? What do you usually hear during the holiday season, especially around Valentine's?

I'm sure you've all guessed it; relationships! And more often than not you here, and sometimes see, heteronormative relationships ( behavior or attitudes consistent with traditional male or female gender roles and the assumption of heterosexuality as the norm).

If I had a dollar for every baby picture, steamy date night story, or even wedding process (and I say process to include everything from the proposal to the actual event) I've interacted with at work over the years, I'd have enough dough to buy Teavana back from Starbucks and bring back their physical locations!

For example, once while working my coworkers began to talk about their partners and the topic of dating and marriage came up. I'm usually very nonchalant about such topics because they seldom involve or relate to me due to my passive/ inactive roles in the conversation. But all it took was for one of them to turn towards me and ask the simple question "Hey what about you? Are you dating anyone?" They couldn't see it under my lab coat but I instantly started to nervously sweat and questions started to fire off rapidly in my head.

What do I say? Should I say anything? Is everyone here straight? Am I about to out myself at work?

In the end I quickly recovered from my brief panic and simply said I wasn't currently in a relationship, but the stress I felt from potentially having to explain myself was tiring. It almost rivaled the time someone jokingly made comments about an unfortunately placed mosquito bite that apparently looked like a hickey. I was already the only black person in my section, the last thing I wanted to do was tag myself with another label uncommon in the space. And looking back, if there was at least one other person I knew of at work that was openly not heterosexual, I probably would have been less on edge.

I say all of this to bring us back to how work and our personal life quite frequently gets overlapped and depending on the situation, is used to purposefully deter newcomers. Small talk and banter among coworkers is commonplace. We're all human after all, not many people desire sitting in silence and slaving away like robots all day. However, if one is not of our society's perceived "norm", some topics can become uncomfortable or even alienating. It's like being surrounded by a group of people excitedly raving about a new show that you only thought was okay or didn't like at all. So you just stay quiet to the side.

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Asexuality is the lack of "sexual attraction or an intrinsic desire to have sexual relationships (or the adjective describing a person as such)." Like all forms of attraction, asexuality exists on a spectrum that can very based on numerous factors like the frequency of attraction (does it happen sometimes or not at all?), attitudes towards sex, and types of attraction one may or may not feel. All of these factors can lead to different labels that fall across the spectrum on different points, but more often than not, asexual or ace is used as a simple umbrella term. (It's often easier to explain the umbrella term instead of having to give a mini lecture on the specifics.)

My goal here however is not to give anyone a crash course in everything asexuality, but a fairly important distinction I want to make is that asexuality is not synonymous to celibacy! With this, there are aces that are neutral and even positive towards sex, but also ones that are sex repulsed. Being sex repulsed means different things for different people, but it can vary from being repulsed by physically engaging, by the thought, or in some cases repulsed by talk involving it. There are aces that engage in sexual acts for numerous reasons as well as ones who don't engage at all. Both are equally valid in their identities, however this can make the prospect of dating difficult and talking about it even more tiring.

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"Sex sells," and because of this tiny little phrase, sex is ingrained into many levels of our life and is a common topic that pops up in conversation. It's in food ads, music, media, clothing, and many others as an effective marketing tool. But surely work would be a a neutral space where such wouldn't be appropriate to talk about?

Well, like any other common area or space where chatter is allowed, it can still come up.

Now I'm not here to say people should keep quiet about their relationships or stop sharing pieces of their life as they want too, I instead encourage visibility and awareness.

Visibility so people of the same or similar identities can be aware of each other's presences and feel more comfortable in spaces to feel validated or even share pieces of themselves if they so please. And awareness of the different identities that exist and an understanding that somethings can be mildly to extremely uncomfortable to talk about or hear about.

So by all means gush over your cute grandkids, share how your weekend went if you want, but try not to be too explicit and read someone's body language to make sure you aren't crossing a boundary! Be aware of who you might be talking to and adjust topics as the dynamic requires.

There's more to life than going to work 24/7, but there's more to people than simply heterosexuality or relationships based on heteronormative gender roles.

To learn more about asexuality feel free to visit the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) or take a dive into a few reddit pages!

Stay safe and be mindful!