by Autarkeia | Graphics by Klyde Factes
If you’re anything like me, know this: being on the ace spectrum doesn’t make you less of a woman, a man, or whatever you identify with.
In elementary school, I dreaded one question above all others: “Who’s your crush?” When my teacher went around the class asking each student, I panicked—not because I had someone in mind, but because I didn’t. When I admitted it, I was told a word that would haunt me for years: abnormal. Everyone in this world must have a crush, right?
So, I did everything I could to become…normal. I forced myself to feel the spark when a guy courted me, or when I met beautiful women. I waited to feel what my friends described as shivers down the spine, heat rushing through the body, fast heartbeat, or butterflies in the stomach. I tried to imagine it, but without ever feeling it myself, their words blurred into abstraction. Was it like being electrocuted? Getting a fever? Gasping for air after running too fast? I had no reference point. I felt nothing.
The oversexualization in culture, mainstream media, and even in everyday conversations made me feel so out of place for not having the inclination towards those things. In movies and TV shows, intimacy must always lead to kissing, to sex, to something physical, sometimes even before people truly know each other. It sends the message, over and over, that sex is equal to love—that this is what it means to feel, to be human. It feels like I’m sitting at a grand feast filled with delicious foods that everyone wants to devour, and I’m just…not hungry.
It’s especially difficult as a woman in a deeply conservative country, where my future has already been predetermined: marriage and children. It is presented as the only path that can give life joy, worth, and fulfillment. So, I clung to the usual platitudes people offered: It’s just a phase. You’re a late bloomer. You’ll find the right person. Someday, you’ll change your mind. But the more I forced myself, the more draining and frustrating it became. Not because I can’t feel it but because I am forced to desire things. It reached the point where I wished, desperately, that it really was just a phase.
Well, it’s been twenty years. I have never had a crush on a man or a woman, nor have I desired a romantic or sexual relationship. And for the longest time, I thought that meant I was missing a fundamental human element—that my existence was an error. Abnormal.
Turns out, I’m not broken. I’m aroace: aromantic and asexual. Finally having a name for what I feel, and knowing I am not the only one, is like coming up for air after years of being drowned.
What Aroace Is (and Is not)
Many people don’t know that the A in LGBTQIA+ stands for asexuality and aromanticism. Asexuality (ace) is a sexual orientation characterized by experiencing little to no sexual attraction to others. While aromanticism (aro), is a romantic orientation characterized by experiencing little to no romantic attraction to others. They often overlap, but they are distinct. Someone can be ace but not aro, aro but not ace, or both—like me.
Asexuality is also a spectrum, encompassing many different experiences. Like other queer identities, it resists strict binary boxes. Some ace people are sex-favorable, others indifferent, others sex-repulsed; related identities include greysexual (rare or situational attraction) and demisexual (attraction only after a strong emotional bond), among many others. All of these identities live under the wider asexual umbrella.
Because it is so rarely represented, people often assume harmful misconceptions about asexuality. Unlike celibacy, which is a choice, asexuality is an orientation. It is not the suppression of desire but its absence or low presence—and like every other orientation in the LGBTQIA+ community, it is not a choice.
Then come the stereotypes. Some assume aroace people are heartless, cold or afraid of commitment, when in reality many of them are in loving, committed relationships or simply live full, contented lives. Others think something must have caused this—trauma, illness, hormones, religion—when for most of us, it’s simply how we are wired. And of course, there’s the “factory reset” trend: we just need to “try” romance or sex to be fixed. But most people don’t need to try everything to know it isn’t for them; you don’t have to jump out of a plane to know you’re not into skydiving. We’d never tell a straight person, “How do you know you’re not gay if you haven’t tried doing it with the same sex?” It’s as ridiculous as it sounds.
But none of this means we are against romance or sex. I like romcoms, novels, and love songs as much as anyone else. I’m genuinely happy for my friends in healthy relationships. But is love really confined to coupling and sex? Many asexual people experience romantic, aesthetic, intellectual, or sensual attraction without wanting to act on it sexually. We often prioritize friendships, close family ties, and queerplatonic partnerships. We feel. We connect. Aroaces simply focus on a deeper bond that is not rooted in attraction to bodies.
None of this is new, either. People with no interest in sex have been documented since at least the 19th century. What is new is the language and community that give us a way to name and share this experience.
In 2001, David Jay founded AVEN, the Asexual Visibility and Education Network, which helped bring ace identities into public conversation. The asexual flag was created in 2010, and International Asexuality Day is now observed every April 6. More recently, shows like Heartstopper, Sex Education, and Bojack Horseman have introduced ace and aro characters to mainstream audiences.
Still, visibility is far from enough.
Here in the Philippines, outside of a handful of articles and groups like Aromantic and Asexual Support PH, aroace identities remain little known and often misunderstood. Religion and conservatism frame heterosexual relationships as the God-ordained default. The endless stalling of the SOGIE Bill shows how hard it already is for queer Filipinos to gain basic recognition and protection. If society still struggles to accept people attracted to the same sex, what does it mean for those of us who aren’t romantically or sexually attracted to anyone at all?
For a community estimated at around 1% of the worldwide population, claiming space is an uphill climb. We’re often overlooked even within the rainbow family, treated as if our orientation is not “real.” Unlike gay and lesbian identities, which have slowly entered public consciousness, aroace people are still fighting to be seen, so much so that we’re called the “invisible orientation.”
But we exist. We have always existed.
Making Space for the Aroace
The prefix a- comes from the Greek alpha privative, meaning absence or negation. But my story, and the story of every ace and aro out there, is not about what’s missing. It is about the presence of agency, and the freedom to live a life that feels true to me, to us. Being aroace simply describes how we experience attraction — it says nothing about our capacity for love. A life without romantic or sexual attraction is not a lesser life. Once I stepped outside the assumption that love must hinge on romance or sex, I began to notice an abundance of love everywhere.
There is love in being there every week for your friend’s chemotherapy, in cooking everyone’s favorite dish after a long week, in building community support networks to help people, in laying your soul bare in a deep conversation, and in the friend who fights for you in rooms you’re not in. I have love for my books, in a hot cappuccino, in everyday kindness, in people marching together at rallies — and in the quiet, steady love I have for myself. These forms of love are just as fierce and magical as any love story.
Romance and sex are not the only or even “pinnacle” forms of connection. Other bonds—platonic, familial, communal, creative, intellectual—can be just as significant and meaningful. Even then, being left in my own company is not the worst future I imagine for myself.
This International Asexuality Day, if you’re anything like me, know this: being on the ace spectrum doesn’t make you less of a woman, a man, or whatever you identify with. It does not make you broken, cold, or incapable of love. It makes you someone who loves differently—not less.
I hope we make more room for stories, especially in the media, that are not always moving toward coupling, that don’t treat romance or sex as the only ending that matters. When we force everyone into strict either/or categories, we erase the real, complex lives of people who just want to exist, breathe, and be seen as they are.
Love itself is never confined to a single direction. It can exist between the same sex, the opposite sex, or outside romance entirely. It flows in every direction. Love, in all its forms, remains love.
Autarkeia is a pseudonym used by a member of the publication.
Pagbutlak 
Leave a comment