A Tale of Two Communities

I am part of a community of people with a certain uncommon condition*, the statistics of which are often debated. This community exists primarily online, although there have been some offline meetings between individuals. Often members of this community come out to their friends or family, and unfortunately they are frequently told that they must be making up their experience, or that they are just trying to be special, or that they are mentally ill. Occasionally, television shows make specials about people in this community that sensationalize and rarify their experiences for the consumption of other "normal" people.

In other words, I'm a synaesthete.

The short explanation is that synaesthesia is a condition where a person's senses are "crossed," so to speak, so that they see letters and numbers as having colors, or see colors when they hear sounds, or experience shapes when they taste things, or see time in a graphical display (and many other examples). It's something that I found out about when I was 12 or so, through another friend who is synaesthetic. Turns out that my mother, my grandfather, and one of my best friends also are synaesthetes, so it may be more common than people think. It's the kind of thing that, when people hear about it, often gets responses of incredulity.

I bring this up mostly because I'm struck by the parallels between the synaesthetic and asexual communities, as evidenced in the opening paragraph, which easily could have refered to either one. One huge thing that makes the communities and their reception different (aside from one being a neurological condition and the other a sexual orientation) is the fact that synaesthesia is actually more supported by the medical field, psychology, and the general public than asexuality. But why is that?

Both synaesthesia and asexuality are often considered to be medical or psychological conditions by the establishment. And yet, asexuality is listed in the DSM-IV as a sexual dysfunction, while synaesthesia is completely absent from it. Most synaesthetes are extremely glad for this, because most view synaesthesia as neutral or a good thing in their life, not a harming factor. Perhaps I am going out on a limb, but I think many asexuals also view their sexual orientation this way (although I know that not all do).

The sheer fact that asexuality relates to human sexual behavior automatically classes it as something extra-important, because sexuality, for all our culture tries to make it taboo, is ridiculously central to our society. Synaesthesia has a much more pervasive effect on my life than my asexuality does - I can't escape my synaesthesia any more than I can escape words or sounds, whereas my asexuality only comes up in instances where sexuality is explicitly relevant. Due to the weight that society places on sexuality, however, asexuality becomes much more "shocking" and complicated to deal with in an interpersonal context.

When my synaesthetic friend wanted to tell her parents about synaesthesia, she brought it up impersonally and got a response of "they're just making it up." So I went and found a number of studies by reputable scientists and psychologists about synaesthesia and books written by synaesthetes about their lives, which could provide official backup for her experience. I am dismayed that there is really no equivalent to this for asexuals. There is virtually no scientific information about our sexual orientation, the most vocal ace-related psychologists out there tend to be firmly against our interests, and no books have been written by asexual people about asexuality. Usually, a solitary ace trying to explain their sexual orientation to friends or family only has their own feelings and the testimony of other people on the internet as backup. And infuriatingly, most people don't consider that a legitimate amount of "evidence."


I suspect that the disparity is due to a combination of the fact that no one ever wants to touch the science of sexuality and the fact that synaesthesia is seen as a "cool disability" by most people. This is harmful to both synaesthetes and asexuals (and other sexual minorites). The fascination with synaesthesia, savantism, Asperger syndrome, and other conditions that neurotypical people find "exotic" is not helpful to those people. I do not appreciate people making drug comparisons to my everyday experience, constantly asking me to "perform" my condition for their amusement, and people (including scientists) giving it uber-precedence just because they find it really cool.

In this society where heterosexual people are assumed the norm and given privilege based on that fact, being visible and accepted and not denied is a hugely important thing. But it is the privileged groups who get to "choose" what they want to become visible. And while I fear how sexual studies tend to get misrepresented, it doesn't mean we should be ignored just because it's seen as a taboo. Asexuality is rarely accepted either in the medical field or among the general population, so it's up to us to stick ourselves out there until we can't be ignored any longer. It's completely outrageous that we should even have to "prove" our orientation. To wrap this up cheesily, folks, THAT is why education and visibility is so important and seemingly so impossible.


*I use the word "condition" throughout this post because most synaesthetes find terms like "disability," "victim of," and "suffering from" offensive when referring to synaesthesia.