Friday, May 3, 2013

A fantastic primer on atheism and asexuality

I'm going to start a new blogging series, with a fantastic premise:

Suppose that I suddenly acquired a large number of asexual readers.  How would I explain my atheism to them?  Suppose that I suddenly acquired a large number of atheist readers.  How would I explain asexuality to them?

Of course, I mean "fantastic" in the sense of "fantasy".  And it's a rather self-indulgent fantasy, I'll be the first to say.  Furthermore, it seems unnecessary.  Writing a primer doesn't require a large readership by any means!  But in practice, I tend to write very differently depending on who I think my audience is.

The "fantastic" aspect also allows me to drift from the series' fictitious purpose.  I'm not really writing this to educate other people, so it's okay if I miss some details, or if I present a rather one-sided perspective.  It's okay if the series is considerably longer than any primer ought to be.  The real purpose is for my own enjoyment.  It offers opportunities for me to explore my interests: intersectionality, and comparisons between movements.  And if some people find it useful as a real primer too, that's fine by me.

Feel free to play along with the scenario by asking questions.  Perhaps I will pretend that dozens of people asked the same question you did.

This introduction is incomplete without pointing out that one of the fictional scenarios is less fantastic than the other.  While I am not a well-known atheist blogger, I am a relatively well-known asexual blogger.

Ref: Asexuality 101 (my real primer on asexuality)

The Fantastic Primer series:
1. Introduction
2. Why I don't trust you
3. Yes, I'm one of those atheists
4. A skeptically-oriented Asexuality 101 
5. Atheism as minority, atheism as political cause
6. Atheism and asexuality: a historical comparison 
7. Why atheism and asexuality taste great together

0 comments: