Last saturday there was a whole radio program on one of Italy’s main radio stations about asexuality that ended up just being two women giggling about how “those weirdos are sick, and they want to be proud of it! lol! but at least they don’t reproduce so the disease won’t spread”.
They said asexuals people are gross and need to be kept at distance. That we should become extinct as soon as possible. “keep the children far from this”.
Asexual people got mocked and insulted Nation-wide, and now there will be people that, not previously knowing what asexuality is, will think that we’re just dumb sick weirdos.
So yes, obviously there’s absolutely no stigma at all, no social backlash at all with being asexual, or god forbid aromantic. Yup.
I’m tired.
The good news is, people are reacting to this. I’ve seen this reported and criticised in several quite well-known newspapers, and the Italian lgbtq+ community is taking action against this kind of representation. A lot of people have attacked and/or questioned the two women, the author of the program and the program’s pages, and while I don’t think there’s going to be any kind of official apology (nor do I care: these people are horrible and an apology wouldn’t be sincere), it’s good to know that people are fighting with us and that we’re part of a bigger community, despite what some gatekeepers on here like to claim.
Be strong, ace friends!!
I was bored, so here’s a rough translation of the article.
“Asexuals are weird, they’re sick”, debate on the Radio2 broadcast hosted by Paola Perego
On Radio2, during the radio broadcast “Al posto del cuore”, asexuals have been heavily mocked.
Just few days ago we told you about “asexuals”, trying to explain what asexuality is, and today we have to talk about it again, because of what happened on August 4th on Radio2, during the radio broadcast “Al posto del cuore”.
The hosts Paola Perego and Laura Campiglio have indeed confronted the theme of asexuality, mocking it far and wide (HERE’s the recording of the episode, from minute 10). The two hosts have introduced the topic as “something we have to firmly say no to: asexuals”, then went on with an embarrassing, to say the least, verbal crossfire.
“Are they the ones who don’t get laid?”.
“No, worse, they reclaim this thing as a life choice. What’s next?”.
“But do they exist? Are there men as well? Men who have no interest in sex?” “Crazy but true”.
“According to recent studies, they’re 1% of the population: it’s a very widespread disease”.
“They’re sick, this is crazy”.
“These weirdos, because they are weird…”.
“They reclaim their life choice just like that, with no shame, I can’t fathom”.
“Aren’t they living a better life? They have no distractions and women can not shave…”.
“Paola, please, stop, you’re talking like an asexual”.
“This condition of theirs, this illness of theirs, let’s admit it…”
“There’s good news: asexuals for sure don’t reproduce, so they’re an endangered category”.These words have of course made the asexual associations of Italy flare up, who have been doing informative work, local and national activism for years, with their little means and with the effort and passion of many volunteers, to reduce the many commonplaces about them. Asexual people (for whom the data of 1% is to be considered outdated, there are numbers about 5% when it comes to the asexual “spectrum”) are victims of prejudices.
“A radio broadcast like this one, deeply offensive and disinformative, on air at 11 am of what is practically a holiday”, Gruppo Asessualità – Arcigay Milano, NovarArcobaleno, Arcigay Rainbow Vercelli Valsesia, Collettivo Asessuale Carro di Buoi and AVEN Italia stress through a public statement, “definitely didn’t bring anything good, especially toward those younger people who, as soon as they have “come out” to their families, will feel mocked like this, and thus invalidated and put to shame in front of their loved ones, and to those who are not “out” yet, but felt offended and treated as circus freaks on a national scale”.
Asexuality, we have to stress, is defined as a sexual orientation characterized by the lack of sexual attraction toward all genders. They started talking about asexuality during the studies of Alfred Kinsey, at the end of the 40s, who noticed a percentage of people (evaluated between 1% and 10%) who didn’t have sexual attraction toward any gender. The first asexual association, only virtual at the time (AVEN - Asexual Visibility and Education Network), was founded almost 20 years ago (in 2001). Asexual groups participate in the Pride on global scale since 2008. In Italy, the first asexual groups have participated to a Pride for the first time in 2014, at the Milano Pride. In 2018, the asexual groups have participated, in an organized way, in five Pride of the Onda Pride, and in at least three of these some activists of the asexual community were present as organizers.
“Visibility is one of the reasons of the existence of asexual associations and groups itself”, they go on. “We can, gladly, do without the visibility given by Radio2 in this way. We won’t ask for an apology from the hosts. We only ask, if media don’t have interest in talking about asexuality with awareness of the facts, to please not talk about it. They are free to talk about the summer adventures of some guy from a reality show. After all, it’s better to be useless than harmful”.
There is another article, actually! It was written yesterday, and it includes the answer from Marco Salvati, who is the author of the radio program. You can read it (in Italian) here.
I’m a little tired now and I don’t have the energy to translate the second article right now, but the summary is this: the two female hosts didn’t say anything about the matter anymore, and Salvati pretty much dismissed the whole thing and all the people who were hurt by this, saying something like “it was a joke, it’s crazy, now you can’t even tell a joke about supplì [supplì is an Italian food, T/N] because there’ll be an association for the defense of supplì that will sue you”, and… he’s probably an exclusionist as well, because he said that “trans and homosexual people are mocked and deprived of fundamental rights, but asexuals are not mocked because they have the same rights as single people, you can’t recognize them on the street so it’s impossible to make fun of them”.
I’m not even surprised. I’m just disheartened.
i hope all of those “we don’t hate ace people” exclusionists can find time between their acey incel jokes to remember how to pretend to look outraged.