“Indian Asexuals” India’s first initiative for Asexuals. It is taking an initiative to celebrate “Asexual Awareness Week” with its founder Raj Saxena. Now you guys might be thinking Who are “Indian Asexuals” and what is “Asexual Awareness Week”? How Indian Asexuals work? Why a complete week of celebration for Asexuals? Raj is sharing his story to answer all your questions:- I clearly remember, in 2011, when I was 18 years old, I was going through lot of mental confusion. Yes! Because for the first time I was moving to a Co-Ed college from a typical all boy’s school. None of my school mates were with me which further enhanced the already existing confusion.
I started working in a call center to financially support my family. In those days, I had social anxiety and didn’t normally talk to people, unless I had to, outside of my family and close friends. I was uncomfortable being around unfamiliar people. I never had a desire to touch or think of them in a sexual way, at most I may notice their good looks, but nothing beyond that. When it came to people I knew and I was comfortable with, there was no sexual attraction. By then, I wasn’t prepared aware but soon everything was about to change. While in college, all my classmates used to talk about female’s physiology and especially their private parts. Their vivid imaginations were full of females, most of them were occupied weaving these fantasies. For me, the mere thought of thinking this way was disturbing as I always appreciated females for their aesthetic beauty. Things were getting worse at my workplace with colleagues so often using internet to watch porn. Day in, day out this continued, with added fake stories every now and then. That time I had no option but to live with my team members and I couldn’t manage to sit somewhere else. Even a slightest mental flash of physical intimacy with any gender repulsed me always. I never found anyone sexually attractive. Years passed by, but nothing changed. One day I came to know that those people who are neither Heterosexuals nor Straights falls into Queer spectrum. Immediately, I googled and started reading more on it.
In 2012, while I was reading the full form of LGBTQIA+, I came to know about the word “Asexuality” for the first time. Having read about it, I started to identify my self as a Sex repulsed Asexual. It’s not the end of the story, I thought If I was once confused then there must be thousands of other people in India who might be looking for validation, answers to their questions and a label they can come under. We exist, to assure such people that they are not weird in any way, neither is it unnatural. In 2013, I started a Facebook page called “Indian Asexuals”. Till date, #Indian_Asexuals had organised 4 Asexual meet-ups in New Delhi and one meet in Chennai apart from that few workshops and seminars to educate people about Asexuality. As an organization, *We believe everyone has right to know about Asexual spectrum not only economically privilege people.* All our Asexuality awareness events are FREE without any ticket. #Indian_Asexuals is all about Free Help, Support, Education and Volunteering.
“The Asexual Awareness Week” which falls between Sunday 21st October, 2k18 till 27th October 2k18 is an international awareness programme for Asexual community. People have stereotype mindset about Asexuality. I must stress here, like other sexuality, Asexual spectrum is vast and diverse. As there’s a lot of misunderstanding among the people about what asexuality is, asexuality awareness and visibility weeks plays an important role in educating people about asexuality. Indian Asexuals will share one story daily on their social media accounts. So, if you would like to support us or you identify yourself as part of the asexual spectrum, or if you have a story that you would love to share with the world, you can contact Indian Asexuals on their Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter (@indianasexuals). You can follow them on Facebook page called “Indian Asexuals” and Insta account:- @indianasexuals You can write us on indianasexuals@gmail.com