Well… I was out visiting family last week (so never doing that again, at least not that side of the family), so these past several days since I got back have been spent catching up on things, working on a sewing project, and trying to restore my reserves of sanity. Unfortunately, I haven’t really got back into the headspace that I need to write yet; I have three drafts that I’ve started, and then found myself unable to continue, and then started on a different one, repeat ad nauseum. So instead of doing that I thought I might as well just leave a quick note here on the various recent happenings that are relevant here.

New Zealand Wins Award For Most Asex-Friendly Country of 2008
Okay, there is no such award, but there should be! Probably the biggest news for the asexual community lately is the first ever explicitly asexual TV character. I’m sure almost all of you have heard about it by now, but for the sake of those few of you who don’t read Ily’s blog, I’ll post it here, too. The character’s name is Gerald Tippet, of New Zealand soap opera Shortland Street. I’ve actually known about this for a while, since one of my Kiwi friends is a long-time fan of the show, but what I didn’t know is that the asexuality storyline is now available to watch on YouTube, courtesy of user sootmouthnz, who gains >9000 Ace Points and levels up.

And… that was the good news. Here’s the bad:

U.S. Court Rules Sexual Relations Counts as “Major Life Activity,” Expands Definition of Disability
The story broke here, and Venus of Willendork brought it to our attention here. I don’t have much to say about it other than what I said in the comments, but really, I just didn’t expect M’s ridiculous conclusion to become reality. It hasn’t gotten that far yet, since this is about not being able to have sex rather than not wanting to have sex, but this gives us reason to be concerned. The definition of sexuality used is broad (read: vague) enough that with this precedent in place, it would be easy enough for some sue-happy entitlement whore to come along and say that their “inability to experience sexual attraction” constitutes a sexual disability (nevermind the inaccuracy, we can’t expect the courts to know about that). If that happens, I think I’ll move to New Zealand!

But although on a larger scale we continue to be ignored and invalidated (here in the U.S. at least), on a smaller scale I’ve met some friendly people lately. Some of you may remember my little experiment with online dating. Well, it hasn’t turned up any real prospects yet, but I’ve met a couple of asex-friendly people and had some interesting conversations. It seems awareness has grown, and OKcupid is a friendlier place than it was when swankivy joined, so hey, we are making progress!