Here Are 5 Ways We Can All Support Asexual Youth

Here Are 5 Ways We Can All Support Asexual Youth

A few weeks ago, Miri Mogilevsky wrote a fantastic piece for Everyday Feminism detailing five very important, concrete recommendations for how to support asexual youth.

Here they are, boiled down to simple directives:

  1. Educate youth about asexuality.
  2. Believe asexual youth and normalize their experiences.
  3. Recognize that all sexuality is fluid.
  4. Don’t misappropriate asexual identities for sex-negative purposes.
  5. Promote visibility.

Why do we need this list? The article explains: “As it turns out, adults may fear and stigmatize teenage sexuality, but they simultaneously consider it so normal and expected that anything else is met with incredulous confusion.” The guiding principle behind all of Mogilevsky’s recommendations, then, is education – including self-education about asexuality. Resources such as the Asexual Visibility & Education Network (AVEN) are ideal for this.

As Mogilevsky sums it up perfectly, “Ultimately, of course, supporting asexual youth means understanding asexuality.”

 

Cover image courtesy of Shutterstock.