September 23 is Bi Awareness Day. There are a huge number of bi asexual and aromantic people, some who identify as bisexual, some as biromantic, and some as bi-aligned in some other way. We are celebrating bi individuals who also identify within the aspec communities! Thanks as always to our contributors.
Introductions
Ella – Bi aroace
Karolyne (she/her) – I identify as Demi-sexual, Demi-romantic and Bi-romantic. My username is Gh05t_girl on Instagram and Twitter.
Max – I’m bi, demiromantic, and demisexual.
Tom – Demi-Biromantic and Ace
Questions
How do you feel connected to/define your bi identity?
Ella: I feel connected to my identity through the fictional stories i either work on myself or consume from either films or books but i consider myself to be bi-demiromantic/sexual and it makes watching characters who are fetishized or hypersexualized a bit harder for me even though I’m always glad for representation wherever i can get it.
Karolyne: I actually don’t feel connected to my bi identity very much. I am demi-sexual and demi-romantic. I realized I can find anyone attractive if I build a strong deep connection with someone. My ace and aro identity is more important to me than being bi but I often tell people I’m bi because they may not understand what being asexual and aromantic is. And many folks in the ace/aro community label themselves further than just ace or just aro. So part of me feels like I need to specify further because everyone else is. And there’s also some Aphobia in the queer community itself in thinking we arent queer enough. Even though, I know fully well that Aspecs are LGBT+ and I shouldn’t listen to anyone to thinks otherwise, I still struggle to feel queer enough to be in the LGBT so me using bi as a label, helps me feel more connected to the community. The Ace and Aro community is smaller in comparison to how many people are part of the bi/pan community.
Max: Bi identity for me is being capable of being attracted to people of any gender. I also relate to much of the gender non-conformity visible in the bi community. I’ve been fortunate in having access to a thriving bi community that welcomes aspec people, and spending time with them always reaffirms that part of my identity.
Tom: Honestly, I have some trouble identifying/connecting with my bi identity because I’ve always kind of felt like being Demi-Romantic and Asexual have somehow superceded/minimized it but lately I’ve been trying to connect with it more through interacting with Bi spaces online.
How does being bi or bi-aligned intersect with being aspec for you?
Ella: Being aspec and being bi-aligned is rather difficult because like i already stated no one wants to believe you can be bi if you’re aspec. The majority of people think bisexuality/romanticism is connected to a need for sexual and romantic activities even though that’s not always the case. It’s about attraction and so many people don’t get the difference between attraction and action.
Max: Being demi-ro/se, I’ve not experienced attraction very often or to too many people. I knew I was aroace long before I knew I was bi, about a 6 years difference in between those realizations. There have been occasions where people have not taken my bi identity as seriously due to my aroace identity, particularly the ace part, but luckily those occasions have become less frequent over the years. In general, though, it is hard for some people to understand that I’m bi without being actively or frequently engaged in romantic and sexual relationships. Many people still equate queer sexuality with having lots of dates and lots of sex.
How is your experience in aspec communities impacted by being bi or bi-aligned?
Ella: For me I don’t really mention being bi to the aspec people i know for the previously stated concerns, but in this case I’m always worried a friend will not believe me because they see aro aceness as no sexual attraction whatsoever and to many people being bi is the opposite of that.
Max: I don’t recall experiencing any negativity directly, since people generally aren’t willing to say nonsense to my face, but I have seen a general vibe in the community of people not understanding and sometimes not respecting that some aspecs experience attraction. Every once in a while there is significant social media drama with certain people believing that aspecs who experience attraction are somehow actively oppressing them or making their lives worse. Heads up – the call is not coming from inside the house, the issue is not ourselves, it’s the amatonormativity and compulsory sexuality of the society we live in and the people who enforce it.
Tom: It’s rarely, if ever, affected. I think largely because I usually put myself out there as AroAce first before being open about the specifics of what attraction I do feel. It’s usually positive though because I’m typically in spaces with other Aro, Ace, and Bi folks who are very open when I do talk about it.
How is your experience with other bi people or in bi communities impacted by being aspec?
Ella: I feel like oftentimes the bi community can be anywhere from super comforting and welcoming, of any level of bi a person might be, to hating and bullying on other lgbtq folks or other mspec folks and excusing this behavior by saying the other individual is biphobic. I think the most telling way to find out if a bi person or community is going to be welcoming of any aroacespec individual is by asking them their opinions on pansexuality, because chances are if they harass pansexuals then they’re not going to be as accepting. Most of my experience comes from the very few people I’ve come out to irl & in online communities, but i also feel like most of the people who i know irl are less likely to be rude.
Karolyne: I don’t involve myself in bi communities very much but many of my friends are bisexual. It’s nice to be with other people who experience the same kind of attraction as well and they are very accepting of who I am; my ace identity, aro identity or bi identity. But I do still feel disconnected to half of the bi community because my attraction to people is only romantic, not sexual. I still feel like I’m not completely part of the bi community because of this, but that’s not the bi community’s fault, I think this is only because my lack of sexual attraction to multiple genders. I cant relate to bisexuals who experience this sexual attraction. I experience demi-sexual attraction but it is still so rare.
Max: Most of my experiences have been positive. The negative experiences I’ve had, have been rooted in other bi people not understanding that bi and aspec identity can overlap. They get overly concerned with people “proving” their bi identity or having easily recognizable bi experiences, and as someone who is not frequently dating or fucking, I fail their personal bi litmus tests.
Tom: I rarely participate in Bi spaces online but in my interactions with the Bi folks in my friend group(s) it’s always been very positive and welcoming.
Which did you identify with first, bi or aspec? Whichever came second, did it make you question or change the first one?
Ella: I definitely identified as Bi far before I identified as aspec, but since I went from saying “im probably bi” to contemplating pansexuality and then deciding later on to change my thoughts so that I identify as both bi and pan with the bi aspect leaning towards my romantic attraction, rather than physical, i would say that latter decision was impacted by later on understanding in what ways I am aspec.
Karolyne: I first identified as asexual maybe in 2011 when I was 19 years old. Reason being is that I did like men and women, but at the same time, I didn’t. I didn’t know what I was or if there was a word for it. Because of my small attraction to women and feeling queer, I looked at all the orientations and found Asexual. It fit me perfectly. I never dated a woman before though and I was still questioning my attraction to them. I had only dated men, so I felt like, identifying as hetero-romantic suited me best but I only used this label for a year. I fell for a woman I worked with, we became best friends. She was also Bi. I found myself loving her the same way I loved my boyfriend thus confirming my theory that I’m bi-romantic. I started using this label for 9 years until I learned more about aromanticism and demi-romantic attraction. Above all, being demi feels like me because I don’t care about gender and I rarely feel any sexual or romantic attraction. I only continue to say bi because most people understand bi means that I can like more than one gender. It’s a useful tool for me to explain myself in the simplest way Allos can understand.
Max: I identified as aroace first and for several years before I experienced any attraction. When I did, I questioned whether I was aromantic and bisexual, or biromantic and asexual, or if I was experiencing attraction at all. It took me a while to understand that I could be gray-a or demi, and I had to spend a lot of time with or reading about other aspec people’s experiences with attraction before I was able to use those labels for myself.
Tom: I initially identified as Bi because at the time I was discovering my identity, I had never heard of the terms Aromantic or Asexual. When I did discover these terms, through Todd on Bojack Horseman, it drastically shifted how I identified. I almost immediately started identifying as Asexual and have spent the last couple of years wrestling with my romantic identity, which is Demi-Biromantic.
How can aspec communities best support you?
Ella: The best way any aspec community can support me is to imagine my existence. Erasure of combined LGBTQ identities happens all too often and I want more people like myself to feel safe and not have to keep acting like a textbook explaining and justifying everything about myself, but then again this isn’t solely something the aspec community can do for me anyone can do this.
Max: Do a better job supporting and advocating for gray-a, demi, and other aspec experiences. There are niches of the community that are still holding tightly to the idea that to be ace or aro means to experience zero attraction, to be repulsed by those activities, and that these things cannot occur on a spectrum. The parts of the community that do recognize the spectrum, often conflate it with being completely removed from the community at certain times of your life. As a demi person, even when I am experiencing attraction, I am still facing many of the struggles that the rest of the aspec community is dealing with. My “baseline” is very much aroace, and that doesn’t disappear when I experience attraction. I still can’t pass as alloromantic or allosexual.
Tom: I’ve yet to have an unsupportive interaction but likely by being warm and welcoming to anyone who falls under the umbrella.
What do you wish aspecs knew about you or other aspec bi or bi-aligned people?
Ella: I feel like I already covered this one but just to reiterate I would love for aspec folks to know that we exist and we’re just as aspec as they are. We’ll fight for the same representation in media as you do and we’ll welcome aspec folks as easily as any bi or bi-aligned person we know. We just want to be understood and feel validated like you do💙
What do you wish allo people knew about you or other aspec bi or bi-aligned people?
Ella: I wish allo people knew that not everything is about love and sex. Sometimes love doesn’t come as easy and it doesn’t go along with sex,and no feeling otherwise doesn’t make you any less human. Enough with the idea that being bi or bi-aligned means that you’re a player or a [insert derogatory name].
It’s about attraction and just because you love one person but could possibly be attracted to a different gender doesn’t mean you’re a potential cheater. Could it happen? Sure, but it’s just as likely for a straight and allo person to cheat as it is for any of us. Please afford us the kindness and safety that you would give any other human being. We all want to be able to love or not love in peace. No one should have to feel like they are monstrous for interacting with other humans differently, like for example with flirting, some of us not only can’t do it but don’t want to it’s not as necessary for a person who is aspec to be the flirty and social butterfly that is aligned with the common image of a bi person. See us for who we are and nothing more or less.
Max: I wish that more allo people understood and accepted that attraction can be a fluctuating thing over the course of one’s life and within a relationship. This is kind of understood by some allo people, but is often stigmatized and considered to be a sign of a failing relationship or a person who can’t settle down. Attraction can have its peaks and valleys and that doesn’t mean that your orientation, relationship, or personality is broken.
What do you wish other bi people knew about you or other aspec bi or bi aligned people?
Ella: I wish other bi people didn’t assume you experienced the world the exact same way as them. There’s always this feeling, that I know I’m not alone in feeling, that you’re not __ enough and with being both bi and aspec it can feel like you have to be one or the other explicitly and never both and yet we stand and we are sometimes both.
Once again we are not all going to be flirty or especially extraverted and oftentimes as a demi aro ace person im not going to relate to those memes with two celebrities and ones a boy and ones a girl and somehow they gave me my bi-awakening because no they didn’t and no I don’t understand why i was supposed to think they were “hot” when i was younger. I barely understand the meaning behind why some people are considered “hot” and others aren’t but that’s a whole other conversation. I want them to know that there are different ways to be attracted to other humans beyond the sexual. Sometimes another human being is aesthetically attractive and that’s all an aspec bi or bi-aligned person will notice. We’re not all a monolith, and it’s more fun if we accept each other rather than fight about who’s right.
Max: The bi community is continuing to make progress with this, but in general recognize that someone’s bisexuality may look very different from your own, and that doesn’t change that you are both bi.