Asexual Awareness Week 2012

I know, I'm a bit late on this - in fact, I've just handed this project in, in a zombified "UUUURGGH" fashion as a result of a botched all nighter (crashed at 3AM) but here's a proper summary.

A little bit of background for people: asexuality, in the orientation sense of the word, is the absence of sexual attraction in humans. Unfortunately, they don't split in half when it comes to reproducing. That would be a cool ability for anyone to have, in my opinion, but ... yes. Asexuality is, to strip it down to its most basic meaning, to not experience sexual attraction towards any person of any gender.

Romantic attraction is something very different and many asexuals experience this, some don't (aromantic people), some people are aromantic but sexual, some people are aromantic asexual ... others even only experience romantic or sexual attraction when they feel a strong emotional bond to a person, otherwise known as demisexuality (or being demiromantic). There are people who feel they are in the 'grey area' and only experience low sexual attraction, or have only experienced it a handful of times. Some people are repulsed by sex, they think it's disgusting and would never even think of doing it - some people are more sex-positive and even partake in it if they enjoy the feeling that comes from it, even if they lack the attraction.

I digress. Like most aspects of sexuality, this is quite a confusing topic. But this is all part of Asexual Awareness Week.

Asexual Awareness Week was created to educate people about asexuality, and I knew when I started Issue-Based Illustration that I wanted to do something on this. There are some brilliant leaflets on there that get the point across in words way better than I do.

I know you're asking, and I can't exactly write a post like this and not talk about my own position on this, so here it is. It's not a personal life blog, so I'll keep it as short and sweet as poss: yes. In the words of the really quite wonderful Edward Gorey: "well, I'm neither one thing nor the other particularly. What I'm trying to say is that I am a person before I am anything else."

Let's get to the good stuff:

There's a running joke in the asexual community about cake. It's a bit overdone by this point, but I just love it and it's one of the most recognisable ones - cake, rather than sex. AVEN, the primary forum for asexual education, has a tradition of welcoming members with a red and white cake-emoticon (see where the cake on the shirt came from?)

When I submitted this to Streetshirts.co.uk, I had to go for a red colourway - but it looked pretty fantastic nonetheless. I feel this is the better one of the two shirt designs.

 This is the other shirt design I did, and although I feel it works, it's not quite as eye-catching as the cake design. I managed to get this on a dark purple and it looks pretty sweet - below, you can see the finished shirt designs on actual garments:

Good stuff, eh? I posted both designs to Tumblr and got some interest, so I set up a free shop with Streetshirts in case people were interested enough to buy. If people do, that's fab - if not, in October/November I'll be doing something for Asexual Awareness Week anyhow. I'll be getting in contact with my university's LGBT shortly and seeing if they're willing to help out.

Right - I'm off for another cuppa and a relax before the next project kicks in.