As a sexual orientation, asexuality is often considered the invisible orientation. In order to raise awareness of asexuality, asexuals celebrated Ace week, Oct. 20 – Oct. 26 this year. Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction. Ace is a phonetic shortening of asexual.

Ace week is part celebration and part campaign to spread awareness of asexuality. According to aceweek.org, while many LGBTQ+ organizations such as The Trevor Project, and National LGBTQ Task Force recognize and include aces, there is still very little recognition from the wider public. 

According to Noelle Spriestersbach, a social worker at WSHS and advisor to Westerville South’s Gay Straight Alliance, GSA had not heard about Ace week until very recently.

Bailey Hunt, sophomore, said, ”No one knows what it is. I have to tell people I’m a lesbian so I don’t have to explain it every single time.” 

Public awareness might be affected by the lack of representation of asexuality in the mainstream media. There are not many fictional characters that are asexual, two of the most prominent being Todd Chavez from “Bojack Horseman” and Jughead Jones from “Archie Comics”.

“There needs to be more representation on what ace exactly means,” said Megan Holmes, a student from Westerville North, “not just not feeling sexual attraction, because I hear it being misunderstood all the time.”

There have been asexuals included in story lines where their asexuality gets “fixed”. Such as an episode of House called “Better Half” where Dr. Gregory House doesn’t believe a woman that says she and her husband are asexual. He proves that the husband had a brain tumor that inhibited his sex drive and that the women was only pretending to be asexual for her husband.

“Oftentimes the only individual not interested in sex in a film or television show is a robot, android, alien, or some other inhuman creature,” said Benjamin Marks in “‘Sick, Dead, or Lying:’ A critical textual analysis of asexuality in pop culture.” Examples of this include Data from “Star Trek” who is an android, and the Doctor from “Doctor Who” who is an alien.

Also under the asexual umbrella is demisexual and gray sexual. According to AVENwiki, someone who is demisexual can not feel sexual attraction unless they already have an emotional bond with the person. Gray sexuals or gray-a are people who fall in a gray area between sexual and asexual, usually experienceing sexual attraction very rarely.

While asexuals do not feel sexual attraction many still feel romantic attraction. An asexual may also identify as gay, lesbian, bi, pan, or straight based on their romantic attraction. “I’d rather have hugs and snuggles than making out,” said Molly Bobel, senior.