“Physical Health and/or Our Bodies” – Round Up Post for the March 2018 Carnival of Aces

(This post has been cross-posted to my tumblr as well: http://luvtheheaven.tumblr.com/post/172508082527/physical-health-andor-our-bodies-round-up )

The “Carnival of Aces” is a blogging carnival where each month people are invited to write on a specific topic that is related to asexuality/the ace spectrum in some way.

Check out the masterpost of all of the other amazing topics previous carnivals have been on: https://asexualagenda.wordpress.com/a-carnival-of-aces-masterpost/

March 2018’s I hosted here on my blog. It was my fifth time hosting the Carnival within the past 4 years. (This was the call for submissions: https://luvtheheaven.wordpress.com/2018/03/01/physical-health-and-or-our-bodies-the-march-2018-carnival-of-aces-call-for-submissions/ ) The topic was “Physical Health and/or Our Bodies”. Thank you to all 13 of you who submitted. (There are 14 authors below if you include me.)

In no particular order:

1) socace wrote: https://almostalmost.wordpress.com/2018/03/09/carnival-of-aces-physical-health-our-bodies/

Which included thoughts like after puberty hit:

I hated my loss of androgyny, even without really knowing the reason why.

 

I grew increasingly depressed about those changes; I thought about suicide and started to self-harm.

2) Elbs wrote Asexuality, Fetish, and Sexual Dysfunction: https://acemindbreaker.tumblr.com/post/171491783818/asexuality-fetish-and-sexual-dysfunction-my

3) Rotten Zucchinis wrote “Invisible” chronic illness as an “invisibly” chronically ill ace: https://rotten-zucchinis.tumblr.com/post/172475544975/invisible-chronic-illness-as-an-invisibly

4) redbeardace wrote Physical Health, Our Bodies, and Asexuality: Some Vignettes: http://redbeardace.tumblr.com/post/171736607105/physical-health-our-bodies-and-asexuality-some

His post included a lot of good stuff on “Men’s Health” that wasn’t discussed in the other posts.

5) I, luvtheheaven, wrote a fairly similar post that was more a bunch of unrelated thoughts than a coherent single essay. Mine is from the perspective of a cis woman though: https://luvtheheaven.wordpress.com/2018/04/01/6772/

6) I received an anonymous guest post about PCOS & Pap Smears: https://luvtheheaven.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/guest-post-pcos-pap-smears/ (PCOS is Polycystic Ovary Syndrome)

7) (Purr)ple (L)ace submitted Fat Acceptance, My Eating Disorder, and Asexuality: http://purrplelace.tumblr.com/post/172446919913/fat-acceptance-my-eating-disorder-and-asexuality

8) Demisexual and Proud’s submission is more on the poetic side, Demisexual Body in Action: https://demiandproud.wordpress.com/2018/03/15/demisexual-body-in-action/

9) Dating While Ace submitted a post called Looking into the mirror which, in large part, discusses “Korean cultural beliefs on how women should look and behave” and how that affected her: https://datingwhileace.wordpress.com/2018/03/17/looking-into-the-mirror/

10) Perfect Number went above and beyond this month for this carnival, as she wrote 4 posts on these topics. They cover sex, sex ed, masturbation, fear, “lust”, and “sexual sin” from her perspective as an asexual who grew up in Christian purity culture. This is the linkspam collection of them: https://tellmewhytheworldisweird.blogspot.com/2018/03/asexuality-and-my-body.html

11) Elizabeth submitted Body Baggage: Chronic Pain, Trauma, Aging, and Asexuality: https://prismaticentanglements.com/2018/03/25/body-baggage-chronic-pain-trauma-aging-and-asexuality/

A small part of the post that I found really interesting is:

Because I’ve been writing about asexuality here for such a long time, under a sorta-pseudonym, and have developed this pretty sizable body of writing that is the primary way I interact with the ace community… I feel like my actual physical body is pretty invisible, and inconsequential to most of you reading this. There’s a disconnect there, between my physical self and my internet self.

12) A³ submitted Sleep Hygiene, which doesn’t tie back into asexuality at all in the blog post but is an asexual person’s perspective on the topic: https://acubedblog.wordpress.com/2018/03/25/carnival-of-aces-march-2018-sleep-hygiene/

This post convinced me to install a new program on my computer screen. I’m liking it so far.

13) Rowan’s is the second submission this month that brings up being ace and having PCOS! Also though, this post covers a number of relevant medical topics including sex drive (or lack thereof) and how doctors basically have certain Priorities: http://adventures-in-asexuality.tumblr.com/post/172422161028/priorities

Finally,

14) Rachel submitted a guest post, Asexuality and Poisonous Body Positivity: https://luvtheheaven.wordpress.com/2018/03/31/guest-post-asexuality-and-poisonous-body-positivity/

That post is great and has had my blog reaching a record number of “likes” in a day, actually.

I appreciated every submission this month; so many great perspectives!!

If you have a post you’d like to turn in late, if you notice I’ve forgotten to include a link to a submission, or if you have anything else you’d like to ask me or tell me about last month’s carnival, please feel free to let me know in the comments below! You can also still email me at pemk7@aol.com or contact me on tumblr (I’m luvtheheaven over there too).

• Asexuality
• carnival of aces