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hi everyone, it's Vesper! happy Asexual Awareness Week!
i'm so excited this year because there is SO much going on.
i've already made a couple of videos, one for an awareness and visibility project
and one for a collab with another youtuber. you might be seeing those videos around the internet soon.
i'm also working on a really big post for my blog for asexual people of color,
so also look for that this week.
but this video, i want to talk about something else.
to all the young aces out there and to all the young people who are questioning
whether they're on the ace spectrum or not,
this video is dedicated to you.
ALL the time i see young people
out there having their feelings and identities invalidated specifically
because of their age.
be it friends, family members, peers-- even counselors, therapists, whoever-- they all tell these
young people that they're too young to know whether or not their ace. and, hell,
is to the point that I see lots of young people even second-guessing themselves
because they've absorbed so much negativity from others who say that
they're too young to possibly know.
CAN a person REALLY be too young to know whether they're asexual or not??
this video might get a little long because i tend to be long
winded, so i'm just going to go ahead and answer that question for you now.
SPOILER ALERT: no. the answer is no. you can NOT be too young to know whether
you're asexual or not. i don't care if you're 12 or whatever. there is no such
thing as being too young to know yourself.
you see the funny thing about society is that society as a whole
holds heterosexuality on such a pedestal that everyone and everything else
gets scrutinized and held to completely different standards and rules.
when a 5 year old kid holds the hand of a classmate that happens to be
of a different gender, you don't see parents freaking out over that.
instead you hear "aww~"s, "isn't that cuuu~te"s.
you don't see them saying "WAIT A SEC!! they're only five years old!!"
"they can't possibly know that they're heterosexual!"
PSST! those kids are actually
only five years old! they might not be heterosexual!
that's just you projecting onto those kids.
when parents find out that their fifteen year old son has a girlfriend,
you don't hear about them tripping over themselves to sit their son down
and have 'the talk' about how he's too young to possibly know
whether or not he's heterosexual.
no. you hear about parents tripping over themselves to have 'the talk'
about safe sex and condoms.
"no, you're too young to have sex, but you're NOT too young to know"
"that you're heterosexual. good job having a girlfriend! that's awesome!"
"who is she?? we want to interrogate her!!"
the fact is that age doesn't matter. or rather, it shouldn't matter.
but society decides that it DOES matter only when it's convenient for society.
the same applies to experience, not just age.
perhaps you yourself are questioning whether or not you're ace,
but you've never been in a relationship, you've never had sex,
and because of that you're questioning whether not only are you too young,
but you're too inexperienced to know whether or not you're ace.
relax. you're not too young, you're not too inexperienced.
you do NOT have to have sex first and you do NOT have to be in a relationship
before you can know that you're asexual.
just like a heterosexual or anyone else can know that they're het or whatever
without having ever been in a relationship or had sex, you can know too.
maybe you're worried that even if you haven't experienced *** attraction YET in life
maybe there is a chance that in the future you will-- and i mean
no one knows the future, there IS a chance that you will.
or maybe you're worried that you don't even know what the hell up *** attraction
feels like to know if you've experienced yet or not.
as someone who has been there, let me reassure you that
it's ok. don't worry. the only thing that matters, as far as I'm concerned,
is how you feel NOW.
does asexual describe who you are NOW? if it does, there's absolutely no reason
why you shouldn't identify as asexual now. we live in the present, not in the future.
there's no way you can know the future, so go with what works for you now.
the only thing that matters is that you found word that helps you describe yourself.
that helps you connect to a community thousands-- millions of people
who are also like yourself. that you found a word that helps you know
that you're not alone and there's nothing wrong with who and how you are.
and if you do end up developing *** attraction,
and your identity does change sometime in the future, that's 100% okay.
people change and grow as a person all the time. just because your identity has changed,
or your understanding of yourself has changed, does not invalidate who you were
in the past and the experiences and feelings that you had.
"asexual", like identities in general, is just a word to help you communicate
information about yourself to other people.
if "asexual" stops being accurate or useful for you, for describing who you are,
then please feel free to discard it. your previous identity as an asexual
is still 100% valid.
if you do choose to come out as ace, and you are under absolute zero obligation
to ever come out to anyone as asexual, parents can be especially difficult sometimes.
why? because parents left today that they know their children
better than anyone else. that, plus their age and their life experience, can cloud
their judgment and our opinion about you, their child.
but the truth is that YOU are the only authority on your identity.
no one, even your parents, will ever know you like you know yourself.
you, my young friend, are hella lucky. you have the HUGE advantage of knowing yourself
better sooner in life than some of us. some of us didn't find out until our 20s
or even later. and as an ace who's 30, who didn't accept themself as ace until their late 20s
i am HELLA proud of you. i applaud you for being who you are now.
I make videos like this one so that people like yourself do not have the same paths
that I and many others before you have .
so please stand tall. embraced who you are,
love who you know yourself to be, and don't let anyone else make you second-guess yourself.
and older is as I call on YOU to support young aces.
make the ace community the community you wish you had had when you were younger.
thanks for watching