The Erotic Worldmaking of Asexual and Aromantic Zines (original) (raw)

2021, QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking

In this article, we explore and discuss the role that zines play in asexual and aromantic community and worldmaking. Drawing on intersectional feminist zine studies and asexuality studies, we consider how zines, and in particular Taking the Cake, Brown and Gray, and An Aromantic Manifesto, have provided an important Do-It-Yourself (DIY) platform for asexual (ace) and aromantic (aro) people to navigate their identities, challenge compulsory sexuality, and reimagine ace and aro worlds. Adopting the framework of Lordean erotics, we focus in our analysis on how ace and aro zinesters navigate questions of queerness, gender, ability, race, and racism. We enter the little backroom in the stationary store where rows of zines are kept in place with twine. It's a queer little space but we might not find asexuality or aromanticism here, just as we didn't find it in the gay bookstore. Instead, we bring the a-zines with us-everywhere we go-in case the place needs them, in case someone needs them, in case someone doubting their own existence needs a voice to tell them that asexual and aromantic people do exist.