Inspired by Insomnia

I’ve noticed that there’s a bit of “STFU asexuals!” going on in the asexuality tag today, due to the responses to the House episode.  No, a tv episode misrepresenting asexuality isn’t the same as being beaten up for your orientation.  But does that mean that all minority communities should only take action on things that involve physical violence?  Of course not.  Physical violence is not the only expression of ignorance and hatred, and if we only rallied against it and nothing else, we’d never get anywhere. 

The House episode is being talked about, not because we want to let everyone know how oppressed we are, but because it is promoting problematic views of asexuals, and as a community, we need to figure out how to address and deal with them.  The first step of that is figuring out what the problems we want addressed actually are. 

So before you tell me to stfu and get over myself, that it’s just a tv show, that the situation depicted is actually possible, first let me tell you about how it is promoting harmful views of my identity, how media representations influence the bullshit responses that I have to deal with when I come out to people, and how important trying to change these assumptions and stereotypes is to me.