Carnival of Aces, Round 8

Oh my goodness, time really flies. Here's the round up for the December Carnival.


    Alex talks about falling in love with the idea of people here.

    Audacious Ace delves into romantic attraction here.

    Bagheist discusses personal experience with different types of attraction here.

    Elizabeth re-evaluates attraction on a personal level here.

    Heorrenda examines popular ideas of romance here.

    Miller uses the metaphor of wine to explore attraction here.

    Sciatrix writes about the difficulty of conceptualizing attraction here.

    Shoshana ponders personal experience of attractions here.

    Zed conveys uncertainty regarding attraction and gender here.

    And I myself consider the nature of attraction here.


I have to say, I think this has been a really awesome round. Thanks to all of you for your wonderful participation! The next round is scheduled to be hosted over at Confessions of an Ist.

Musings on the Nature of Attraction

[Look, look, I’ve still got an hour and a half left until December! …Yeah, I’m probably setting a bad example.]

Lately I’ve been feeling pretty skeptical about whether any kind of attraction actually exists independent of human creation. This likely stems from one of the classes I’m taking this semester – Sexuality in Western Culture – in which we’ve discussed sexuality and gender as social constructs. This idea immediately resonated with me. Being asexual and wtfromantic, I’d already been feeling dubious regarding sexual and romantic attraction. But once I started thinking about social construction and learned behaviors, I started to wonder about other forms of attraction as well. For example, the only type of attraction I experience with any consistency is aesthetic attraction. One day I thought to myself: Would I even find people aesthetically attractive if I hadn’t grown up surrounded by social cues suggesting that attraction as a “normal” human response? Does anybody know how to appreciate a quality film, beautiful music, good food, an engaging conversation, or even another person, until they’ve been conditioned by their surroundings?

I’m not really trying to make a definitive argument either way, because I myself am still not totally convinced one way or the other. However, I will readily acknowledge that just because attraction – in all of its depth and complicatedness – might be socially constructed, that doesn’t make it any less powerful. The same goes for sexuality, in fact. I wouldn’t dream of denying that people experience all kinds of attraction in many different variations, I myself among them. I believe that these thoughts and feelings are valid, whether they are inherent in human beings or not. But I do see great danger in assuming that any type of attraction is inherent in all people. Let me use my example of aesthetic attraction again. From what I can tell, aesthetic attraction seems to mean something different to every person who experiences it. It prompts different reactions, different responses. There may be similarities in our descriptions of it, enough that we can label our experiences with the same word, but the differences are still there. Deciding that everyone experiences one type of attraction in the same way – or experiences that type of attraction at all – means ignoring the copious variety of legitimate experiences that people actually have, as well as devaluing them.

That said, I think that the potential use in looking at attraction as socially constructed is that it reminds us that attraction is not innately the same for every person. Each person learns differently, right? Nobody is exactly alike, and thus, expecting everyone to fit into the same model regarding attraction (or relationships) is rather unfair and unreasonable.

So it seems to me, then, that the important question is this: Why do people experience or (construct) attraction in the first place? From my brief twenty years of existence and experience, I seem to be slowly concluding that the answer to that question is love. I think that everyone experiences love in some way, whether through family, friendship, or any of the countless kinds of attraction and relationships out there. Of course, love changes in its expression from person to person, from culture to culture. But it strikes me as the underlying force behind all different attractions and relationships. I suspect that people need to love, and to be loved, in some way. As a friend, a teacher, a student, a parent, a sibling, a partner, a pretty face, a great person to have a conversation with. The list could go on and on. We feel attraction because we are searching for love in some form. Love is the root of attraction, is the root of relationships, is the root of the human experience. At least, that seems like a plausible theory to me.

Carnival of Aces, Call for Participation

Hello all, and welcome to the eighth round of the Carnival of Aces! Some of you may be wondering, what exactly is a Carnival of Aces? Well, let me use the words of Sciatrix to elaborate:

"This blog carnival is an effort to encourage a variety of different voices to speak about asexuality from their own perspectives. Anyone can participate, but the responses should deal with asexuality or the asexual spectrum (grey-As, demisexuals) in some way. They should also relate in some way to the theme of each round of the carnival, which will change from month to month and will be chosen by the person hosting the carnival for that month.

The scope of this project is general–any post dealing with both asexuality and the theme of the carnival is welcome. Alternate forms of media are also welcome as long as they deal with the prompt! If you’re not sure whether your piece is okay, submit it anyway and we’ll figure it out.

What is a blog carnival?

A blog carnival is an event in which various people write posts around a single topic. These posts are then collected at the end of the carnival and linked together by the carnival’s host."

[From the Carnival of Aces Masterpost]

This month’s theme is Attraction. There seem to be many different kinds of attraction out there: romantic, sexual, aesthetic, emotional, intellectual, physical/sensual, etc. The asexual communities seem to be very interested in delving into the complex nature of attraction (and what that means to each individual). Therefore, here is your opportunity to write about your ideas, personal experiences, beliefs, or whatever strikes your fancy regarding the phenomenon of attraction.

Some questions to get you going:

- What does [fill-in-the-blank] attraction mean to you?

- What kinds of attraction do you experience – if any?

- How do you experience a specific type of attraction? What does it make you want to do?

- Do you get crushes/squishes? What kinds of attraction are involved? What do you want to do about a crush or a squish?

- How are certain attractions linked for you? Can you experience emotional attraction without romantic attraction, or sensual attraction without aesthetic attraction, or any other variation of the sort?

- Do you believe that attraction is a learned behavior or an inherent capability (or both)?

- Do you have personal stories dealing with issues of attraction/crushes/squishes that you want to share?

- Are there certain attractions that you wish were more commonly known about and acknowledged? What would that entail?

Basically, if you can work attraction into your post in any way, you’re golden.

Deadline: November 30. I should have the round-up posted by December 3 at the latest. You can submit after the deadline, and I will update the round-up to include your submission, but it must have been created before December 1 to count.

To submit to this round of the carnival: either leave a comment here or email me at reallyideallyemily [at] gmail [dot] com including a link to your submission. Most formats are fine, but keep accessibility in mind. For video or audio submissions, please include a transcript; for visual submissions, please include an image description. Also, I’m willing to host guest posts on my blog if you don’t have a blog of your own/would like to remain anonymous. Just email me and we’ll make arrangements.

I do believe that’s everything. Good luck, and I look forward to seeing all your wonderful submissions!