Stuck Behind the 101 For Ace Week

Elle Rose
5 min readOct 29, 2021
A background of pink and yellow flowers, somewhat faded. In the center is a gray square, on top is white text reading “Stuck Behind the 101 for Ace Week, by Elle Rose.”

Demisexual. The word was invented on AVEN forums in 2006. It was discussed after some people brought it sometimes feeling sexual attraction, or feeling it under a specific circumstance. Over time, more words have been invented to discuss existing between the space of allosexual and asexual, describing different specific experiences that we didn’t have words for. That’s what humans do; we think, we discuss, we invent ways to describe what we’re feeling that weren’t invented before.

Some who try to dismiss demisexuality specifically say that it was made on a tumblr role play forum, but a quick google search will tell you that’s not true; it’s a rumor made up to dismiss demisexuality. But maybe that’s because it was a word that didn’t exist for the experience until recently. When people hear that you are only ever sexually attracted to select people after a close bond is made, and that sounds ludicrous to them because it sounds like no one could have that experience because lots of people wait until a relationship is serious to have sex so that must be what you’re giving a fancy name and a flag to — well, rumors that dismiss it sound more realistic than the lived experience of it when the experience was only recently even named.

But I’m still here, still demisexual and graysexual (in my case, I use both terms) trying to figure out how to get past the 101 and…

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Elle Rose
Elle Rose

Written by Elle Rose

queer. demisexual. ADHD. disabled. writer. YouTuber. shy but chaotic. they/she. contact: secretladyspider@gmail.com