Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Asexuality at SF pride 2011

Last weekend, I went to a pride parade for the first time.  I marched in SF pride 2011 as part of the asexual contingent.

But first, the day before the parade, we had a party at David Jay's house.  Which, of course, means cake.

Cake!

I met a bunch of cool people, and a nonempty subset of those cool people are also well-known in asexual circles. Some shout outs: There was Dallas, the asexual sexologist.  Southpaw and Cale, vloggers on Hot Pieces of Ace.  Lizzie from tumblr.  Cerberus, who blogs at Singularly Bizarre, and is part of the Order of the Molly.  And of course, Ily from Asexy Beast, though I already knew her.  Some of these people came from very far away.

In previous years this party time was used to make signs for the parade, but this year we had someone design the art to give us a more organized look (to be shown further down).  So instead, we organized a conference on the spot.  We came up with topics, organized them into sessions, and had volunteer facilitators.  Topics included future directions for the community, asexuals on TV, the DSM, kinky asexuals, and so on.

On the day of the parade, we actually spent a lot more time waiting to march than actually marching.  We have to wait for everyone else to go first.  So we spent that time setting up and dancing.

 Click for a bigger picture of DJ dancing on roller blades, sporting our shirt and an asexual flag cape.

In front of us was some union group.  Behind us were Amnesty... and the East Bay Atheists.  I know some of them!  I have one last shout out for Greta Christina who was marching with the East Bay Atheists.  I stopped to talk to her at one point, but of course she has no idea who I am.

Ingrid and Greta

Since we had asexual flags handy, I commented that we have no pictures on the internet of these flags waving around in the sky.  Well, now we do.

Taking pictures of flags is so hard...

After the long period of waiting, we finally got to march.  Being in the group, I couldn't take any good pictures of this, so here's one that someone else took.

 Click for bigger.  Image credit: Amanda

Not sure what else there is to say about the parade, but it was a lot of fun.

After the march, I bought a shirt that said, "I'm not gay, but my boyfriend is". I'm sure slightlymetaphysical will get a kick out of that.

4 comments:

SlightlyMetaphysical said...

Oh, I totally approve.

I've just realised that being aromantic means I don't have any chance of double-ironically wearing that now. Maybe triple-ironically?

miller said...

I assure you that when I wear the shirt, it is at least triple-ironically.

monday said...

Hello, I'm trying to run an asexual inspiration tumblr and I was wondering if you would give me permission to post (with credit and link) your picture of the asexual flag. This is just about the only photo I’ve seen of it flying against the sky; I would really appreciate it.

miller said...

You have permission to use the photo.