As part of Bisexual Awareness Week, we are posting more Aspec Voices articles about bi aspecs. This is the second article that focuses on ace-spectrum people who identify as bisexual, biromantic, or bi-aligned in some other way. Thanks again to all our contributors!
Introductions
Alphena – I’m a Demi-Bi-Romantic Asexual, and I use They/She pronouns.
Aske – Biromantic asexual
Kimberly – I identify as Biromantic Asexual.
Maria – Bi asexual
Nicky Rodriguez – I usually just say I’m acebi, but I most identify with the gray-ace and bi-romantic labels.
Shai – I am probably a grey ace. Maybe just plain ace.
Questions
How do you feel connected to/define your bi identity?
Alphena: I feel very connected to it in how I’m romantically attracted to people. I’m romantically attracted to all genders, though, sometimes in different ways.
Aske: The way I define my bi identity is connected to my romantic and spiritual attraction to both male and females.
Kimberly: I define my Bi identity as simply Bi – not Bisexual since I’m not a sexual person. I still feel a connection with the Bi+ community though because I experience romantic attraction to my gender and genders different from mine.
Maria: One of the things I’ve known since I was a child is that I was Bi. I might not have known the name of it until later, but that reality was never in doubt. That means being Bi is something that has accompanied me all my life. There was even a time I didn’t know I was ace, but I knew I was Bi so that was the label I used for most of my life.
Nicky: I’ve come to define and feel connected to my bi identity through seeing my sexuality overall as fluid. Acknowledging and accepting my ace identity helped me understand my bi identity better and while my attraction ebbs and flows overall, I no longer questioned my attractions.
Shai: I see it as the potential to form a long term relationship with someone who is M, F or otherwise identified. I use bisexual because I had been using that term and fighting for it to still apply to me longer that the Pan identity has been in wide use.
How does being bi or bi-aligned intersect with being ace for you?
Alphena: For me, I’m ace because I’m not sexually attracted to people. But I love love, and my romantic identity is the root of that
Aske: For me my bi identity is a part of me that represents the only way I experience attraction.
Kimberly: I feel like my Bi-ness clashes with my Ace-ness instead of intersects. They seem to get in the way of each other sometimes. But I honestly think that’s because the world is SO sexual that it’s impossible to separate sex from sexual orientation. How to truly be Bi without having sex? How to truly be Ace but being romantically attracted to those who are not?
Maria: When I was coming to terms with me being ace and discovering what that meant for me in the past, the present and the future, being Bi was something I couldn’t see working at the same time. It took me meeting and reading about other bi or bi-aligned aces to understand they were not exclusive. So for a time there it wasn’t a good intersection. However, I now feel much more comfortable in my own skin and I think they can complement each other.
Nicky: Discovering my ace-ness let me discover my bi-ness because I could finally stop questioning my sexuality and begin to understand it. I stopped wondering whether there was something wrong with me.
Shai: Forgive me while I adjust my language to be more gender inclusive. For me, being attracted to more than one gender and being not attracted to any. I used to phrase it as being equally attracted to both genders and being equally unattracted to both genders looks pretty much the same. It doesn’t matter who it is, it takes a conscious effort on my part to be sexual.
How is your experience in ace communities impacted by being bi or bi-aligned?
Alphena: I don’t really feel like it’s made any impact in my experience in the ace community. I feel like it’s very understood to have a romantic identity, and that it’s respected.
Aske: My experience has never been impacted by being bi except for a bad situation I found myself in. It happened to me that some aces people did not understand that someone could be ace and be bi or bi-aligned at the same time so they repeatedly said to me that I was “just confused about my sexual orientation” . I was sure about the way I had defined my identity but that made me feel misunderstood and uncomfortable.
Kimberly: I find in the Bi+ and Ace communities that it’s a ‘pick one’ situation. Be Bi in Bi+ spaces and be Ace in Ace spaces. Ace is seen as sex negative and Bi+ is seen as a sexual buffet. If I’m open about being Bi+ – I need to also be polyamorous. If I’m open about being Ace, I need to at least agree to sporadic sex with a partner or/and also be open to a polyamorous relationship so my partners can still have all the sex they want.
Maria: I’ve never encountered anything but understanding and caring people. As I said before, it were other bi or bi-aligned aces who helped me understand who I was I, and how everything worked out.
Shai: I think many in ace communities are bi alligned/pan alligned. I find it odd to be ace and romantic to only one gender but that’s just me. I accept differing identities. But to me..equally unattracted is a equal state and very much bisexual. The issue is in the sexual part, so when it comes down to it I use biromantic, but bisexual is more easily understood. Most asexuals I meet seem very at ease with a bi sub-label or even primary label.
How is your experience with other bi people or in bi communities impacted by being ace?
Alphena: I actually dont feel comfortable in most bi communities, because I dont have the ability to join in a lot of the conversations that get brought up about sexual attraction. I’ve been made to feel like a fake bi for it as well.
Aske: In the bi communities that I had attended there were only allo people and it was hard to explain the way I felt while experiencing my being bi without sexual attraction.
Maria: I feel there’s still a lot of misunderstandings around the ace spectrum. There are those who tell you that you can’t be both, cause they will understand being bi as being sexually attracted by others, when in my case it doesn’t work like that. There’s still a lot to be done by the ace community in terms of visibility and educating others, I feel we are still the “invisible orientation” and that can lead to a lot of pain and questions, including from the broader LGTBIQA+ community.
Shai: Many of my bisexual friends who are not ace are more sexual in how they express themselves than I feel comfortable with. Sometimes it feels performative. Many do expect me to be sex-negative, and I find that annoying, but at the same time I can easily become tired of sex and they don’t. When I am in that mode, or not in a relationship, I feel less bonded to that community.
Which did you identify with first, bi or ace? Whichever came second, did it make you question or change the first one?
Alphena: I was out as Bi first. I thought I was sexually attracted to everyone, aware that I wanted different things from different folks, but the sexual attraction level was the same. Then I learned about asexuality, and man that changed my world view a lot. It made me question the bi identity to realize, yes, that same attraction level of 0 is the same, but I do have these very particular romantic feelings, and that’s what makes me, me.
Aske: I identified first with ace. Initially the self-consciousness of being attracted by males and females both in some kind of way that I wasn’t even able to define made me question my asexuality but when I realized that attraction was biromantic attraction I understood that there was no need to change the way I had defined my sexual orientation.
Kimberly: I identified as Bisexual first. When I embraced my Asexual identity it was incredibly hard to reconcile the two. How can I be Bi when I don’t want to have anything to do with sex?? I actually still have not reconciled the two identities – but I feel that’s because the LGBTQ+ community in general is highly sexual and highly sexualized. So it’s impossible to be a part of the community without having sex or being sexually desired.
Maria: I almost always knew I was bi. I remember being at school, when my friends started facing this or that boy and thinking “I like him, but I also like her!”. I didn’t understand that was not the “norm”, and it continued during high school. College was a whole new world that opened my eyes to see there were others like me, and that being bi was completely normal too.
When I started questioning my sexuality, later on, and started to open up to the idea of being ace, I had a rough time with being bi, yeah. Not because I resented it, not at all, but the questions around “Am I really ace?” multiplied. What if what happened was that I was a lesbian and I didn’t know? Did my experience experimenting sexual attraction varied if we were talking about men or women? How could I be attracted to both and, at the same time, to none? All those things you think about when trying to figure out your (a)sexuality were just multiplied by the sheer fact of having to review my past history with men and women. And then, of course, being ace kind of took over the way I identify myself: I am an asexual and biromantic woman, not the other way around.
Nicky: Ace came first! My general lack of attraction overshadowed who I found attractive, but once I understood my ace identity everything else fell into place.
Shai: I did not know ace existed until after I identified as bi (formally in the early 90s). I was in a relationship and trying to be more sexual to accomodate my partner and I thought asexuals hated sex and I was working hard to get more out of it (now I would call it a type of conversation therapy) and resented being thought of as asexual because it erased the progress I had made. Now I have a better understanding of ace not being about dictating the choices I could still make.
How can ace communities best support you?
Alphena: That my allo-passing relationship, whether it’s het passing or not, is still an ace relationship because I’m in it, and it’d be nice to have those more celebrated for being an ace relationship.
Aske: They can better support by behaving in a way that makes me feel free of being myself without being considered not ‘valid’ just because I’m ace but I’m also biromantic.
Kimberly: Because a lot of Aces have sex and/or are polyamorous, it would be nice to have more spaces for Aces like me who are sex repulsed and/or who are monogamous. I feel there’s more spaces for Aro Aces than Aces who want a completely sexless romantic relationship.
Maria: Visibility and education. Both within and outside the community. We are the invisible orientation, and we, the bi or bi-aligned ones, are just part of that. There is a lot of biphobia still in the world, and it’s disheartening to think you can encounter it in what is supposed to be a safe space, especially when talking about the LGBTIQA+ community.
Shai: Support for ace abuse survivors navigating the difficult space between my past and my true nature. A good solid definition of romantic because I do not know what the hell the difference is between friendship and romance and I keep debating as to whether I am aro or not.
What do you wish aces knew about you or other ace bi or bi-aligned people?
Alphena: Our sexuality and our Romantic identity are different parts of what keeps us as part of this beautiful spectrum. There’s so many different ways to be Ace, and we just want to celebrate what makes us the same with you.
Aske: I strongly wish aces knew that, because the ace community used to feel aroace-focused, ace bi or bi-aligned people sometimes feel marginalized.
Kimberly: I wish other Aces accepted that sex repulsed Aces exist and want community too. That though it is difficult, it is possible to be Bi+ and Ace.
Maria: We are not different to heterosexual, homosexual or pansexual aces. We face the same challenges coming out as aces, either with our family and friends, with potential partners or to the whole world. We have the same fears, the same hopes and the same goals (to be happy being who we are).
Shai: Some aces seem very against people being sexual, but I see action and attraction as very separate and I don’t see all sex as coerced, just meeting different needs in me than in my partner. I see this as a delicate balance. I don’t think either partner has a right to never compromise, and I think there are a growing amount of ace people who want an allo partner to compromise toward their needs but not the other way around. I think bi alligned aces may be more looking for a sexual or potentially relationship than those who identify primarily as ace. And we might need to feel more like we aren’t setting ourselves up for abuse when we work toward a compromise.
What do you wish allo people knew about you or other ace bi or bi-aligned people?
Alphena: That being bi-aligned doesn’t make us less ace, and being ace doesn’t make us less bi-aligned. Often it feels like All or Nothing, and we’re a spectrum of very different people.
Aske: I wish they knew that being bi or bi-aligned doesn’t mean being allo people.
Kimberly: I wish allo people wouldn’t force sexual activity and/or polyamory as a requirement to be with them. It’s virtually impossible for two Aces to find love together, so we’re forced to be with allos. We shouldn’t have be forced to have sporadic sex or enter polyamorous relationships just to keep their attention and be loved.
Maria: Being bi or bi-aligned doesn’t mean anything other than we can feel some type of attraction to both men and women. It doesn’t invalidate our experiences as aces, doesn’t mean we are lying, doesn’t mean we are gay or lesbian frustrated. Having sex with either of them won’t “cure” us, and our way to feel and express attraction don’t make us “teasers”. There are infinite ways to live this experience, and all of them are valid.
Shai: I wish allo people would stop treating me like a child or telling me I can change/should change. I think this goes for all ace spec people.
What do you wish other bi people knew about you or other ace bi or bi aligned people?
Alphena: I really think the Bi-Pan-Ace community faces a lot of similar struggles with “passing” relationships or being pushed into diminishing part of who we are, I feel like we should be a bigger community supporting and celebrating each other. We have a lot of intersectionality, and I think we could all celebrate that more.
Aske: I wish they knew that we experience our bi identity through being ace and vice versa.
Kimberly: I wish other Bi+ people knew that not all Bi+ people have sex. Some Bi+ people get all they need from strictly romantic relationships. That some Bi+ people are monogamous and that doesn’t make us less Bi.
Maria: I guess what I would want some of them to understand is that, for me, being ace comes first. Me feeling sexual attraction towards something has nothing to do with their genre, but with me and my circumstances. But that doesn’t mean I’m not as bi as them. I might not want to go to bed with someone, but that doesn’t mean the attraction I could feel is less valid than theirs. There are different types of attraction, and we all (allo, ace and bi people equally) would benefit a lot if we could learn more about it.
Nicky: I wish folks in general were more aware of the split attraction model! It’s helpful for everyone, I think, to be able to understand that we can experience different kinds of attraction that are each important and that me being acebi isn’t a declaration of indecision or confusion. Simply being aware of that, regardless of sticking to the specifics of how the model uses labels, helps avoid feeling alienated in a community just because you’re aligned along other spectrums. Bi and ace folks already face enough erasure and it’s doubly hard dealing with communities you want to feel at home in deciding you need to pick a side and prove particular aspects of your queerness to be “enough”.
Shai: I also wish the allos in the bi community would realize relationships don’t have to be sexual, and the very fact that I would absolutely date men/women/other means 1) I am not tampering my sex drive down out of repression or fear and 2) I face social stigma just as much as they do because I would never ever announce to anyone who saw me in a same sex relationship with a partner that we weren’t really having sex. Also, many bi people put sex as mire central to their identity than I am comfortable with. To each their own but the assumption I am very sexual and need that (from more than one gender) to feel whole gets tiring.