Ep 187: Asexuality, Autism, and Comedy feat. Eliott Simpson
Listen to Ep 187: Asexuality, Autism, and Comedy feat. Eliott Simpson here!
(00:00)
SARAH: Hey what’s up hello. Welcome to Sounds Fake But Okay, a podcast where an aroace girl (I’m Sarah. That’s me.)
KAYLA:… and a demisexual girl (that’s me, Kayla)
ELIOTT: I’m a panromantic asexual that enjoys crumpets and long walks on the beach. That’s me, Eliott.
SARAH: talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else that we just don’t understand.
KAYLA: On this week’s episode: Autism and Asexuality.
ALL: — Sounds fake, but okay.
SARAH: It’s definitely “on today’s episode,” and not “on this week’s episode.”
KAYLA: Oh wait did I say that? Well, it’ll just bug a couple people.
SARAH: Welcome back to the pod!
KAYLA: M’eat vessel.
SARAH: M’eat vessel. Eliott, you’re a funny person. At the beginning of our pod we always do a m’lady but with a different word that starts with M. Do you have any off the top of your head?
ELIOTT: Ohh.
KAYLA: So much pressure.
SARAH: I know it is.
ELIOTT: Recently, over the past year I’ve come to terms with my identity, I’m genderfluid, or as I like to call myself, water boy because I’m fluid that way even though I’m male presenting. Probably, M’cautoboy let’s go with that.
SARAH: M’eat suit.
KAYLA: M’ichael Phelps?
SARAH: M’ichael Phelps.
ELIOTT: M’ichael Caine I’ll go with that.
SARAH: Alright, hitting on all of the necessary points here. Wonderful, okay. Obviously, we have a guest here with us today. Eliott, would you like to tell the people who you are?
ELIOTT: Oh right, hello everyone, I’m Eliott, 1 L, 2 T’s, makes an anagram of toilet, helps you remember. I’m a British-based autistic asexual comedian. I try to tell very horrendous terrible puns about asexuality and things such as that. I don’t know what I’m doing I’ll be honest, I’m just messing about, and people seem to be keep laughing and so I thought, “hey, I can start charging them now.” So, I’ll keep doing that until I die. And that’s where I am.
SARAH: Capitalism, baby.
ELIOTT: I know, it’s ruined me, I hate it.
KAYLA: Seems like an ideal setup.
SARAH: So we met Eliott when we did our Six Feet of SpACE fundraiser. We’ve been meaning to have you on forever.
KAYLA: Over a year.
SARAH: We’re finally here. We’ve made it. Truly a delight to have you with us. With that said, Kayla what are we talking about this week?
KAYLA: This week about and with—we’re just here to talk about Eliott. We’re not going to let Eliott speak. We’re just going to make Eliott sit here and talk about Eliott. And say “Eliott” as many times as possible.
ELIOTT: Finally. It’s about time.
SARAH: Yeah. Good.
KAYLA: But also, other than talking about Eliott, we’re going to talk about asexuality obviously and autism and the intersection thereof. Within and without. And in between.
SARAH: Okay. Yeah, this is something that I’ve been wanting to talk about because I think this is an interesting topic and I would like to know more about the intersection of these things. But I am not autistic so I couldn’t ask myself, so happy to have you here. I mean I guess to start, what was your process with questioning your sexuality with realizing you are ace, what was that process like for you?
ELIOTT: I feel like it’s common for a lot of fellow aces, usually around puberty stage around school time, when all my peers were getting really interested in pornography and sex, it was one thing I never got, never understood it, never had any interest and I was bullied mercilessly for that. And I spent many a year being confused. I wasn’t sure whether I was gay. I wasn’t sure I was straight, I wasn’t entirely sure. I knew I was different but that’s where the feelings of feeling broken and confused and wrong came in, which wasn’t a quite pleasant experience, as any ace will know. And it wasn’t really until I went to university and I actually saw the word asexual on the internet a few times I was like, huh that’s interesting. I didn’t immediately come to terms with it. It took me a good year after first hearing it to really properly do a lot of research into it. And the more I read it the more I was like, really, “okay this makes sense. Oh finally.” I was both happy and amazed, also very frustrated. It was in front of me the entire time. I could have just realized it a year ago. For some reason, I chose not to. Yeah, it began about when I’d say I was 19/20. One heavy night of research, and yep, sounds like what I am. And my life has been so much better and liberating ever since.
(5:00)
SARAH: I feel like the whole realizing in college is such a—or university as they say, literally anywhere else—is such a very aspec experience. Because it’s like, in high school you’re in such a bubble and once you get to college, it’s like, “oh, wait.” Hold on.
KAYLA: I do feel like that’s changing though.
SARAH: I hope it’s changing, I think it might be.
KAYLA: Cause I feel like I’ve heard from young aces, like teen aces, and they’re like, “yeah I knew what asexuality was and figured it out in high school.” And I’m like, how did you know what that means? Like in my high school, very few people were out as anything queer but I also come from a very conservative area. But we’re not that many years out of school but it’s already so different.
ELIOTT: Oh yeah, honestly a big part of it really is about how accessible the internet and information has been in generation. I was a late 90s kid so I was in high school when social media started. I think it happen to be the right time. Around the same time, Tumblr got really big and people used it and social media as a way of communicating information and education about asexuality. I just sort of happened to be university-aged when that was happening. But I think now we’re having a lot of younger aces who have access from the get-go from high school, which is good in some ways. The internet can be bad in many other ways but I think it’s good to carefully curating it in this way. Cause likely, the longer we’ve gone on, the more media representation there is. Cause I mean when I first knew I was ace I saw absolutely no ace representation on TV at all and now we have like, two. Which is more than we had before.
KAYLA: More than zero!
SARAH: A whole two!
ELIOTT: We have two now, we have something at least. It’s more than what we had. It’s literally more than double what we had, which was zero.
KAYLA: Did you realized you were panromantic around the same time as you realized you were asexual or is that a completely separate situation?
ELIOTT: Oh no the romantic orientation was a big part in realizing I was ace. I think that’s why it took me a good full year for me to embrace being ace before I first heard it because naturally as most people’s assumptions tend to be when you hear the word ace is, “oh, you can’t love, you can’t have any interactions at all.” Well, that’s not the case, I’ve definitely fancied people. I’ve fancied women, I've fancied men, I’ve fancied all sorts of people. That can’t be who I am then. But it wasn’t until again, doing further research and learning the split attraction. Found it, oh there is actually a romantic side, you can actually be a mixture of both. I realized I thought I wasn’t ace, pan was going to be the next best thing I would gravitate towards because I don’t really feel like saying, “oh I possibly couldn’t be attracted to a certain type of person.” I’d just be like, oh I’ll snog anyone, I’ll cuddle anything. As far as I will go.
KAYLA: Now you have the best of both worlds. You have pan and ace, so.
SARAH: Exactly. You got to have both.
KAYLA: Like a real Hannah Montana.
SARAH: Bringing autism into this, how old were you when learned you had autism, or were diagnosed—I don’t know what the terminology you prefer using is.
ELIOTT: I was diagnosed very young, I think as early as 7 or 8. It was never really well explained to me. I spent so many years—I don’t think I realized until I was 14 that Asperger’s was something that was autistic. All I was told was that I knew it was that term. Well, I’d get bullied a lot. People didn’t like me very much, I can’t talk to people very well and I’m very weird and everyone keeps drifting me away to this special corner to chew on a stick for a bit. And I was shied away to the school inspectors a lot. I thought I was an alien probably, I wasn’t quite sure. And I remember being taken to some tests by my parents and being told I had—what I called icebergers because I thought that’s what they said. I thought it was iceberger’s, they said “you have Asperger’s,” I went, “icebergers,” and they stared at me. They gave me a long-silenced stare. They didn’t correct me so I assumed that was right. “I’m going to call myself iceberger’s now.”
SARAH: I mean, that’s fair.
KAYLA: It’s more exciting.
SARAH: It is, it is exciting. It invokes thoughts of the Titanic.
(10:00)
KAYLA: Kind of like the hamburglar, do you have the hamburglar over there?
SARAH: Hamburglar, Titanic. So many.
ELIOTT: I’m hamburgers but only frozen meats. Give me frozen meats and I will stole them in my box fridge. A menace to society. I think again it’s weird because all I was told was that I had icebergers and that was it. They never really explained what it meant, what it was. All they’d told me was, “you need to have special time, where you have special needs.” I had to have special rooms to take my exams in because I couldn’t be around loud noise. So I had to have a special extra teacher that would take me to our classroom. I never understood why any of this was. Cause as far as I understand it, all it ever means is I kind of struggled to read emotions. I can’t really read emotional faces really well. I can’t process emotions very well so it’s very hard for me to detect sarcasm. Which of course has done wonders for a career in comedy hasn’t it?
KAYLA: I was going to say, that makes it very interesting. Because a lot of your comedy is quite sarcastic, so.
ELIOTT: That’s just the British renowned wit. This is the thing. I think being autistic, I think why I really love doing comedy, I think a lot of things are comedians are also autistic. That is a common trait we share. Obviously, a lot of us struggle with reading emotional signals, knowing when people are genuinely happy, angry, whether they’re sarcastic or not. But it’s like, comedy as a performance is really good for us because you can’t get more a clearer sign than something you’ve said has gone down well than a whole room of people laughing when you’ve said something. Cause everyone knows the rule of comedy. You go on stage, you say some words, and they like them, they’ll laugh at you. I know the rules now, I know how it works, I can’t get this wrong. I’m pretty sure I know how it works now. In that sphere, I think it’s why I feel comfortable doing it. It’s the only time I feel like I know exactly what people mean now when they react to what I’m saying. Whereas in social situations, I have no idea if people are saying this cause they want to get in bed with me or saying it because they want to sell me their car, I don’t know what the fuck is. I don’t know what shoot the shit means. Why would they shoot the shit, it’ll get shit everywhere. I don’t know.
SARAH: Seems messy.
ELIOTT: Seems very messy. I feel like I’m the worst kind of autistic because I irritate people and I’m shit at maths. I think that’s why it took me so long to realize, oh yeah, Asperger’s is autism. Every representation of autism I saw on TV was really super brainy, weird genius kid who’s really good at maths and is also going to murder people. I’m not good at maths. I’ve not murdered anyone in at least five years so I’m not sure that’s what I am.
SARAH: I haven’t had any homicidal tendencies recently so.
ELIOTT: I’m not a serial killer. I’ve killed a few people but they were a one-off so there’s no series to that. Exactly. I don’t know what my point was. Yes, I’ve always thought myself as a bad autistic because I’m not good at maths. But I’m also a bad asexual I’m a freelance artist cause you know I hate nudity but I get paid in exposure. What are you going to do?
SARAH: Honestly, all great points.
KAYLA: Just an enigma.
SARAH: I would like to emphasize for our listeners that this is a joke and there’s no such thing as a bad anything. Just emphasizing that for our listeners. Someone will take it the wrong way.
KAYLA: This is comedy.
ELIOTT: Yes! It’s why it’s terrible. Is this a stage now I’m on? I don’t know I feel like it gives you - not freedom - but to be what you want. People understand that whatever you say is to a degree of self-deprecation. Which is quite free if someone is autistic, that’s why outside though, I have no idea how anything I’m saying is being taken.
SARAH: Yes, because everything you do in life to some extent is a performance. But when you are doing standup comedy, you are getting direct clear feedback in a way you’re not getting anywhere else. That actually is really interesting to hear you talk about how standup and comedy, in general, is good because you’re getting that direct feedback. But I never thought about it that way but it makes sense. On that note, sort of, because your autism impacts the way you interact with people, did that impact your sexuality or did that impact your questioning phase because you didn’t have the same experience as everyone else not just in the autistic way but also in the ace way?
(15:00)
ELIOTT: Yeah, definitely a little bit. I kind of play up the weird fusion of autism and asexuality together in the standup I do in the comedy space. I don’t understand signals that other people mean. When someone says, hey, if I’m with a partner and I’m kissing them on the sofa to say “hey let’s take this upstairs,” I think, “well the sofa’s too heavy, we can’t lift it.” I take it way too literally and that was why I struggled to—that wasn’t why I wasn’t sure. I was like, I know for a fact that I take things literally, I don’t understand what people mean and I can’t tell when people are being flirtatious or being sarcastic or being mean or being nice. Is that an ace thing? Or is that an autism thing? Is that both? It is both. How much of each side is it? Am I only a little bit of both? Is it mostly one side or mostly the other side, and I’m not sure how I really figured it out. I can’t speak for anyone in either spectrum but in my experience, I do struggle with most people, picking up social cues, or emotional signals. The exception being people I know really really well, so, family members, or long-term best friends I’ve known for years and years and years. I’ve had a certain amount of time where I knew every single nuance they make or every expression, I’ve understood them very clearly. I think it was those long-term friendships that told me that I definitely was ace. Okay, I know you people really well, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to fuck you. I’m pretty sure it must be the ace thing. I would know by now cause you are hella hot but I just want to cuddle that’s all I want to do.
SARAH: Yeah. I feel like that’s such an interesting thing too because for me as a person who’s aro and ace, I have had the experience of not realizing I was flirting with someone, not realizing what I was doing was being construed as flirting. And so I can imagine having a whole other layer on that would not make it easier.
ELIOTT: I don’t know if you experience this but I don’t know why, I really experience whenever someone who isn’t ace and they try to hit on me and I tell them I am ace, they take that as an invitation to try harder, like “oh wow you’re really hot.” No, I’m not into it. “Oh, you don’t want to have sex? That’s really hot.” Goddammit. You can’t win.
KAYLA: I’ve only seen it rarely, the fetishization of ace people. I’ve seen a little bit on the internet in the past year I guess. And I didn’t realize that was a thing. I’d definitely heard of people hearing you are ace and trying harder, and that whole problematic thing like, “I can fix you” or “I’ll be different.” The idea of people thinking the fact that you aren’t sexually attracted to me makes me even more attracted to you, like it’s some—I have a thing for that, it’s very, eeghhh.
SARAH: I think people view it as a challenge and they’re like, “ooh, spicy. That’s a challenge.” And it’s like, “no that wasn’t an invitation.”
KAYLA: Like I’m not playing hard to get or anything. I truly do not want to, thank you, goodbye.
SARAH: For me and Kayla and for you Eliott too, we can be like, we have a podcast to prove it.
KAYLA: I have my comedy to prove it.
SARAH: Obviously not aspecs have that proof. And they shouldn’t have to. But it’s just annoying.
ELIOTT: Absolutely. And I think it’s really selfish when people do that. They don’t make it about you, they don’t make it about your personal experiences, they make it about them. Like, “oh, I can prove how sexy I am. I must be a true sex god, I can make the asexual want to have sex with me.” I see it in their eyes when they talk that way to me. That’s sadly one of the struggles I’ve had, especially in standup actually. One of the older comics of our generations who are quite unaccustomed to the modern ways of respecting people. I know, crazy right? Liberals ruining the world by giving us healthcare and well-paying jobs. I know usually the struggle I’ve had is—obviously, my onstage persona is much more energetic and in your face and eccentric, anybody you see on stage will know. I do that cause it emphasizes the comedy and the risk of that then is afterwards other acts will say to me, “oh wow that’s a really great character. I really love the idea of an asexual character.” Not a character, it’s me. Yeah I have an onstage persona, it’s still me, it’s my real experiences.
SARAH: It’s a heightened version of yourself.
ELIOTT: Yeah exactly. But some of them think, no, I’m just making it up. I’m like, no no that’s just who I am. But that kind of flicks a switch in their head. What? That can’t be right. And they immediately try and challenge me. I’m sure I can change your mind. And I’m like oh, that’s a few words away from threats.
(20:00)
SARAH: Yeah that’s also such a strange thing because if you are those things, it’s fine to joke about them because you’re informed on them and that is your life. If people are putting them on as a character, it’s like, well is that making a mockery of it? Is that old-school “comedy” that the “snowflakes these days” just don’t think is funny. Making fun of people?
KAYLA: The idea that someone who isn’t ace would be making fun of an ace person for their entire set is just—
SARAH: As a bit.
KAYLA: How could you think that’s okay? I guess that’s the weird thing with comedy right now, people are like, oh nothing can be funny anymore. Everything has to be POC—well. Everything has to be PC. You have the old comics, like, who’s the one we hate, is it Louis CK the one that’s awful.
SARAH: Yeah, sure.
ELIOTT: One of many. You’re not really narrowing it down. “Which one do we hate?” There’s a lot of them.
KAYLA: I feel like that’s a thing I hear older comics talk about. Comedy is so hard now cause I can’t say whatever I want. And you’re just proof that that is not true. You can be very “liberal” and PC and progressive and also still be very funny.
ELIOTT: Oh thank you, that’s what I try to do. I run a comedy night in Glasgow called the Diversity Quota which is all about getting a diverse set of comedians for every single set to prove that you can have amazing talent from any type of background. I think it’s good to cultivate an environment where there is not one type of person who dominates the entire set. You really cultivate an environment where there’s different nationalities and different sexualities altogether. No one feels overwhelmed and intimidated. What annoys me is that a lot of—and I hate typecasting—the older straight white men comics they run clubs, they always say, “I don’t get it. When I do a call I say, everyone’s welcome in my night. Why do I keep getting white straight guys? It’s not my fault there aren’t any women or gay people here.” You forget you’re assuming we’re already in an environment where everyone is at an equal playing field. You’re completely forgetting that it’s an incredibly male, white, straight-dominated industry, so it’s incredibly intimidating if you happen to be not that. If you’re anything other than a white straight male, it’s incredibly overwhelming to be the only one in the room who’s not that. And you get horribly treated. You face rampant homophobia and sexism all the time. It’s not enough just to say, welcome everybody. You have to put in the work, you have to get people from different backgrounds together. Make it the new normal.
SARAH: If you actually want that diversity, you as an old white straight comic, need to be creating a platform for that diversity. It’s not enough to be like, oh where are they? There must not be any funny fill-in-the-blank people. But it’s a lot more complicated than that and you’re an asshole.
ELIOTT: Couldn’t have put it better myself. Oh exactly. Thank you very much. I absolutely agree. Everyone keeps saying, it’s funny isn’t it that all these older comics keep saying, “ahh comedy’s dead. You can’t say anything these days.” I look around and literally advertisements like, 70 comedy nights on my Facebook wall just in the past hour. Why’re all these still gigs happening? Why are there so many new shows on Netflix?
KAYLA: It’s their brand of comedy is dead. Sorry you couldn’t adapt. Not my problem but goodbye.
ELIOTT: It’s funny how it’s a thing that we have the sense these days. The ability of any comic is to be able to read a room. And to reach the world to figure out what’s appropriate and what can be made fun of. Everyone loves Laurel & Hardy right? Back in the day famous silent comics. There’s a famous quote he once said. He has no idea what comedy is. He knows what’ll make people laugh and he does it. As simple as it is, that’s how it works. I hate the idea of cancel culture as well. I guess it’s not a new thing. Since the birth of society we’ve always looked down on people who say things that are really horrible and we don’t agree with. That’ll never change their behavior. Or change society’s standards. Naturally the more inclusive they get, the better they get. So don’t act surprised when people are being upset when you are being rampantly awful.
SARAH: Yeah, being held accountable is not the same as being canceled.
ELIOTT: Yes thank you.
(25:00)
KAYLA: Speaking of inclusion—I’m going to try to do a cute segue here. Do you ever find it difficult to feel included in the broader aspec community because you are autistic? I feel like I don’t often see people being autistic and ace and the experiences and challenges you were talking about. The struggle that you had realizing that you’re ace because of your autism. Do you ever struggle not being included because those conversations aren’t happening more, because you don’t see other people like you?
ELIOTT: That’s an interesting one. Hmm. I’m not sure actually. I don’t know that I do know any fellow autistic asexual people. I naturally meet fellow aces via these kinds of projects or via AVEN. It is safe to assume that if you meet someone through AVEN they’re probably ace themselves, why would they be there? They’re ace or aro on the spectrum somewhere. But asking, are you autistic is a very bold opening gambit when you first meet someone. I know that as much.
SARAH: Imagine if we all wore name tags around. Mine would be, hi my name is Sarah, I use she/her pronouns. I’m depressed and also anxious. And I have ADHD.
ELIOTT: I think we should, it’d save so much time. It’d make my life a lot easier. I think it’d make everyone’s lives easier.
KAYLA: Yeah I wouldn’t be mad at that.
SARAH: That’s fair.
ELIOTT: I’m not sure actually. I’m very very proud to be ace and very happy to talk about being ace and I’ve spent my whole career to teach people to be aware of it. Cause it’s such a still new, very overlooked thing. I don’t really go out of my way to tell people I’m autistic. It’s not because I’m ashamed of it or anything. I’m also very proud of be autistic. I don’t know if it’s because I see so much work and voices out there spreading awareness of it or maybe it’s because I genuinely don’t feel the need to bring it up unless there’s a reason to. I’m not sure actually. I’ve never really considered it before how it’s talked about in the ace community. I guess if there’s a conference, a panel or a talk or thing about it but yeah as far as I'm aware I’ve never really met another autistic or neurodivergent aces so I’ve never really had the chance to have this discussion before. So eventually yeah.
KAYLA: I’ve kind of thinking about that ever since reading Angela Chen’s book ACE. I think we brought this up in the episode we did with Liam about deafness of people with autism or who are neurodivergent or disabled or just live outside any norm in that way I guess, there is this weird balance of like autistic people, in general, might not want to be lumped in with asexual people because they don’t want people to think all autistic people are not sexual beings. And ace people don’t want people, in general, to think that people, in general, are autistic and that’s why they’re ace. There’s this kind of weird dissonance between the two communities of not wanting people to think they are each other. Neither of them are wrong and also many people like you are both. Sorry if I just blew your mind.
ELIOTT: You did.
SARAH: I know this is an audio medium but to our listeners, we just watched Eliott, we just watched their brain explode.
KAYLA: Out of the head their brain came out.
ELIOTT: Thank you, Kayla. I think you made me realize something I’ve actually been regressing for ages. I think as we all know with the very little ace representation there is in the media or things that are largely confirmed as—we can’t stand the Sheldon Coopers of the world. I personally detest that. I did my dissertation on readings of asexual characters in sitcoms like Sheldon and Abed and Moss things like that. And I generally think that because I detest those representations so much, I detest the idea that any character that exhibits no interest or preferences for sexual activities is also primary lumped as “oh they’re also an autistic nerdy nerd and they can’t talk to people and aren’t they strange, they talk funny. Let’s make fun of them. So weird.” It’s always those two things together, you very rarely see the autistic character or the asexual character as separate. They always have to be the autistic asexual nerd in so much comedy especially, in so much representation. I wonder is that because why I hate it so much that I go out of my way to not tell people I’m autistic? Cause I don’t want to perpetuate the idea that all ace people have to be autistic cause we’re not. I guess I do worry about if I go about being more open about that people are going to see me and think, oh it must be because you’re autistic then. They must be one and the same and I do worry about spreading those stereotypes. I don’t know. I’m worried I’m subconsciously playing tricks on myself. I question everything.
(30:00)
KAYLA: I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong. I didn’t bring this up to make you think that you’re doing anything wrong. But I do think it’s an interesting point because I feel like there are so many characters like the Sheldon Cooper, and the problem in my mind isn’t necessarily that there are characters like Sheldon that are coded as ace and autistic. The problem is that that’s the only characters. The problem is that there’s only a Sheldon. There isn’t a Sheldon and a diversity of other autistic and other aspec characters and so I can see that being—I feel like it wouldn’t be as much of a worry for you and other ace and autistic people if there was a broader diversity shown because then you wouldn’t be worried about feeding into some stereotype or whatever because there wouldn’t be one. But right now, with the exception of I guess, I don’t think Todd in Bojack Horsemen is autistic but with the exception of Todd and the character in Sex Education I don’t think they’re autistic. It’s all there is really.
SARAH: Yeah. This is a slightly different thing but I think the vibe is the same. For me, I do fall into a lot of the aroace stereotypes. I’ve never had a real relationship, I have no interest in sex, or dating or that sort of thing. I always feel the need to be kind of defensive when I’m talking about my identity because I feel the need to give the caveat that yes I fulfill this stereotype but not everyone does. And so I feel like it might be a somewhat similar situation where you don’t necessarily want to acknowledge the stereotype because that can in some way enforce it. But the reality is that you’re a person who’s both autistic and ace and you’re just living your life and that’s just the way it is.
ELIOTT: Yeah I hope so. That’s a much more positive way of looking at it. I don’t mind looking at it like that. But no I mean, Kayla is absolutely right. That’s what it is isn’t it, it’s all we have. We just have the trope of the autistic asexual nerd other than Todd and the Sex Education person. In broader culture when most people think about asexual, they think about autistic, socially awkward, a sort of nerdy culture. It wouldn’t be a shame if it was more than that but currently it’s all we have. And it’s why I’m apprehensive about—It’s absolutely the only stereotype there is. Cultivate an environment of more than that. But hey, we’re getting there bit by bit aren’t we.
KAYLA: True.
SARAH: We’re working on it.
KAYLA: Like Sarah said, that’s the hard thing about teaching anyone about asexuality, is everyone’s experience is so specific. If Sarah were explaining to someone this is what asexuality and aromanticism is, from her perspective you have to put that caveat of - but some aspec people do have sex, some aspec people do like to date. That’s the hard thing about aspec identities is that you have to constantly do, “okay this is my thing but I swear it’s not always like that. I’m not speaking for everyone.”
ELIOTT: Yeah, that’s an interesting way of both spectrums crossing. It’s the ace spectrum. The autistic spectrum is giant and massive and no autistic person is the same. Apparently, I’m very mildly on the spectrum I was told. I’ve always said I’m the chicken korma of autism. That’s how mild I am. I’m not quite tikka masala yet I’m not up there. I’m mild, I’m the threshold. But yeah it is weird sometimes to talk about both being ace and autistic. Like you say, all we can do is our experience, you can’t speak for the entire community cause it’s so massive. There’s so many ways you can fall on it, on either of them.
SARAH: Yeah. But because there’s so little representation, we’re kind of expected to represent everybody and it’s like, no please. Stop. I’m just a white bitch.
KAYLA: Please talk to someone else.
SARAH: I know you said you don’t advertise your autism so to speak but do you ever feel that people look at the fact that you’re ever autistic or ace and question one or the other? Do they say oh you must not actually be ace because it’s just the autism or has that not been an experience that you’ve had to deal with?
ELIOTT: Not that way around, but the other way around, yeah. People think that actually it’s because you’re autistic. It’s because you’re scared of socializing with people. That’s why I got the biggest crux of people thinking “oh, I can change you, I can challenge that, I can be the one to convince you around.” People think, they’re a little pushed aren’t they, once they delve into the world of socializing. You’ll be fine then, and you’ll be fine all of a sudden. Oh please don’t. I just want to sit in my corner and eat noodles and watch Star Wars.
SARAH: That sounds like the dream, Eliott.
ELIOTT: It is the dream and I’m doing it every day.
SARAH: Next time I’m in Glasgow, I’m going to show up and I’m going to say let’s eat some noodles and watch Star Wars.
KAYLA: Show up with some noodles and say hello? That’s such a weird way to put that though cause say your asexuality was informed a lot because of your autism. It’s still not like this person can come up to you and make you stop being autistic and then you would stop being—what do these people expect? Like, “I’m going to in one blow stop you from being autistic and asexual” and they’ll both?
SARAH: In one blow?
KAYLA: Like sex hahah.
SARAH: Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
KAYLA: I’m so cheeky or whatever they say.
ELIOTT: Who’s they?
KAYLA: You know, they.
SARAH: I think they is you know, British people in this context. No one says cheeky.
KAYLA: Don’t they say that, British people? Don’t they say cheeky?
ELIOTT: It is a word in the dictionary. It is a word that exists. Whether it’s used as you did I’m not sure. We’ll say people are a marvelous little scamp as far as we’ll go. We use the word cheeky to describe Nando’s. Are you aware what Nando’s is?
SARAH: Yeah, going to get a cheeky little Nando’s.
ELIOTT: The level of cheekiness, you can have cheeky Nando’s or impudent Nando’s and there’s plain rude Nando’s or there’s respectful Nando’s.
KAYLA: I’ve no idea what we’re talking about.
SARAH: Nando’s is food, it’s a restaurant, it’s a chain.
KAYLA: My favorite thing I’ve heard a British person say is being a sneaky sausage. I don’t think it’s a regular British thing, it’s just something I heard someone say on the British TV show Taskmaster and I said that’s a phrase for me now. Sassy sneaky little sausage.
ELIOTT: I love that show.
KAYLA: When’s Eliott going on Taskmaster that’s my question.
ELIOTT: That’s my dream.
KAYLA: Eliott for Taskmaster.
ELIOTT: Get a petition going, get it on Twitter. If I could go on Taskmaster one day, I’d be happy in life.
SARAH: #ElliotForTaskmaster1L2TsDontMisspelltheName otherwise it’s a wrong hashtag.
KAYLA: That’s a long hashtag. That’s a really long hashtag.
SARAH: If we’re going to tweet the whole sentence yeah.
KAYLA: We’ll get that hashtag started because I’m obsessed with Taskmaster and I’m obsessed with Eliott. And I need them together. Please and thank you.
ELIOTT: Oh thank you. Being aces we’re very tired of long things. That’s why it’s hard to do a long one.
KAYLA: That’s a good one.
ELIOTT: Thank you.
SARAH: That’s fair.
ELIOTT: We can’t all be winners guys, I have to fight out some of the duds. I’ll get the good stuff later. This is a testing ground for me.
SARAH: Hey!
KAYLA: You can’t put all of your good content here, people have to pay to go to the show. You can’t just give it away for free.
SARAH: This is just-
KAYLA: A trailer.
SARAH: A dry run. You’re throwing jokes at the wall.
KAYLA: And we’re the wall. Sarah and I.
SARAH: Okay. Thinking about the logistics of that. If we’re physically the wall, what are the jokes made of? Spaghetti? Because it comes from—
KAYLA: I don’t want to be here anymore. Quit the podcast.
SARAH: Okay, bye.
KAYLA: I’m going to leave the Zoom now, goodbye.
(40:00)
ELIOTT: At all the gigs I say I don’t want to be here anymore and they leave the room.
KAYLA: If I was a comedian, that’s how I would end every show. I would tell a really good joke, and then on a high, be like, I actually don’t want to be here anymore, bye. Just end it.
ELIOTT: I might have to use that. During lockdown I was offered to do a gig in a car park so you go onstage and people would be in their cars watching. And I do want to do that because I can’t do anything worse. It’s bad enough when someone walks out on you doing a set but to see a car noisily rev up and beep beep out of the car park, there can’t be anything more soul-crushing than that. I couldn’t bear to do it.
SARAH: I also feel like if people are in their cars, you can’t gauge reactions in the same way. It’s just not the same.
KAYLA: They honk though at the outdoor shows. They’re supposed to honk instead of laughing. Which is also just very loud.
ELIOTT: But then how’d they heckle? Surely the honking would be the heckling.
SARAH: Yeah I guess if they want to heckle they gotta stick their head out and go “you suuuck!”
KAYLA: Megaphone? Get through the moonroof. That’s what I would do.
ELIOTT: I was thinking what you said earlier about how it’s weird to have people think that the aceness was because of the autism and you can’t kill the autism. I was thinking with that what’s upsetting and what’s very dangerous for me in my experience people have seen that the aceness is a symptom of autism. “Oh we can’t hear autism, we can lower the symptoms at least. We can make it a bit more manageable but you’d act a bit more what you’d deem appropriate” which is already ableist bullshit and I hate that. I hate how autistic people are made to feel like we’re always wrong and we’re made to change to fit into society. Why can’t society be a bit better for us in the first place? Why do we have to be the ones to change all the time? Which is very upsetting and I feel the same way. And it’s similar to being ace too I think sometimes. I mean thankfully I have better friends now but back in the day. I don’t know how you feel about this but back in the day if I was in a social setting and we were talking about sex I was told that I had to pretend to get in on it and pretend to get in on it a lot which isn’t a thing that normal people do. It’s not normal. That’s why I left those friends, found new friends.
SARAH: Also if you don’t have a lot of experience or knowledge about the topic either, it’s not going to benefit you to try and jump in and do a lot of participating because then you’re going to be saying things and they’ll be “what are you talking about?” Is that how they think it works?
ELIOTT: Yeah, my favorite sex was in 1857 by Lord Nelson yes. And another thing. I have no idea. Oh boy. I was going to be really elegant and I forgot what it was.
SARAH: Story of my life.
KAYLA: That’s really the motto of this podcast.
ELIOTT: Listen if you think of it later, just interrupt us and start saying it because that’s what I do to Kayla.
KAYLA: Yes hello I would like to make a 180 degree pivot with the next question. It’s me Kayla with the next question. As an ace person and also I guess as an autistic person, how has dating been? I know a lot of ace people struggle in the first place with dating. And I don’t know if autism also makes that harder if you struggle with socializing. So I’m interested to hear about your dating experience.
ELIOTT: Oh it’s been horrible. Absolutely awful. Ugh, awgh, uugh.
KAYLA: Oh nooo.
ELIOTT: Not anymore, I’m pleased to say I have a wonderful perfect partner which I’m very very very happy with. But it has been a long arduous road to get there because I started dating before I realized I was ace. Before I knew I was ace or understood it. The autism was already a bit of a barrier cause I really can’t relate to some people, don’t know whether they’re flirting or not. I don’t know if they tell me a secret about Dick Cheney or the Iraq War, I don’t know what they mean by that. I don’t know what people mean. I don’t get it. But I think yeah. I don’t want to speak for the whole community but from aces I’ve spoken to, I know a lot of us have had similar issues I guess how and when do we decide to reveal we are ace? I’ve had experiences where I’ve been upfront about it immediately on the offset, saying what I am, and people who don’t know what that is being intimidated or overwhelmed by the sudden flux of new information and that’s why they go away, or wait a bit to go a few days to gradually reveal it. And they’re like, oh no you lied to me oh you awful imposter how dare you lie to me? I didn’t promise anything but alright. So it’s a can’t win situation.
(45:00)
SARAH: Nametags nametags nametags, way too much information on them, or tattoo it on your forehead.
ELIOTT: Oh that’s a good idea.
SARAH: It’s set in stone if it’s tattooed. If your identity changes then you will have to make an edit, I think maybe the nametag is best because it can be edited anytime. You know the game Heads Up? Just have one of those so it’s on your forehead. It can be quite big cause the name tag you’re kind of limited in size, especially for those people who have boobs. You can’t have it just, you know. So I think we have a heads up situation.
KAYLA: It’s kind of like a wearable Twitter bio. Where you can have all of your most pertinent information just kinda..
SARAH: So would yours look like your Twitter bio? Would it say Pfizer and ex-tap dancer?
KAYLA: yeah what’s my Twitter bio?
SARAH: You were so proud of it too.
KAYLA: My Twitter bio is the same as my Instagram bio and it’s really funny. Padya told me it was really funny. Cause I saw a TikTok like “we should put meaningless information in our Instagram bios but format it like people format their Instagram bios” when they put the date, when they started dating whoever. So mine’s really good everyone should look at it.
SARAH: I thought you were just going to read it to us right now.
KAYLA: No I want people to go to it and follow me so I’m not going to give that out for free.
SARAH: You’re going to give the handle at least?
KAYLA: No.
SARAH: Figure out how to spell her last name. Just guess.
KAYLA: If you go to our socials, it is there. I shouldn’t have to do everything for everyone, Sarah.
SARAH: We took a hard left and that’s my fault. I don’t remember what I was talking about. Dating as an ace. Dating as an ace. I don’t know where we were, it’s fine.
KAYLA: That is the review I’ve heard.
ELIOTT: It’s tricky. The more work we do with creating awareness, the more this becomes cultural knowledge people know what it is. That would immediately get rid of so many barriers because I think it sucks but I understand if you’ve never heard of it before and you’re suddenly meeting someone and recently being overwhelmed by a lot of information it’s a lot to take in. I get it. That’s why I’m happy with the partner I have because my partner, they were aware of it, slightly a bit because they like me as a person they really took the time to actually research it and actually fully understand it and immediately it was so lovely to me because they immediately told me, wow you’re someone who actually cares about my feelings and who I am to learn about what I am and no one’s ever done that before. No one I’ve dated have ever gone through the effort before, which is how I knew. Okay this is probably a keeper because they know how to use Google. That’s a skill.
SARAH: They are literate on the internet. Congrats.
ELIOTT: Aww, thank you.
KAYLA: It’s a low bar really.
ELIOTT: I know right it’s a low bar. It’s actually the bare minimum. Despite that, they’re lovely in other ways as well. They’re too lovely, they’re too perfect, they’ve kind of ruined my life because I can’t convincingly do sad loser comedy about being a self-deprecating untouched loser now I’ve got this wonderful partner. It’s ruining all my material.
SARAH: You’ve gotta find something wrong with them. There’s gotta be something. Everyone’s got this one thing that’s insufferable.
KAYLA: And make your entire comedy about that one thing.
SARAH: Just go really hard on criticizing that one part of your partner and then—
KAYLA: I think that’ll do wonders for your relationship, probably.
SARAH: Yeah I think that’ll be really good.
KAYLA:Me and Sarah are relationship coaches now.
ELIOTT: Aww, thank you. I will not be subscribing.
SARAH: That’s fair.
ELIOTT: Only because I got a good relationship. Out there you could help many people. I’m good though I’m solid. After you sorry.
(50:00)
SARAH: I was going to say that also fair given that the advice we gave you was horrible, so.
KAYLA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
ELIOTT: Thanks to my partner I also discovered a new nickname which I give to all allosexuals now. Because my partner’s allosexual and it’s really nice, it’s honestly not a barrier to anything. It’s because I’m dating someone who’s allosexual I took apart the world and was like, every time I go into a room now where I know is full of allo sexuals I’m going to burst in and go, Allo, sexuals! That’s how I introduce myself to them now, and hence the ice is broken.
SARAH: That’s beautiful. It wouldn’t work for me and Kayla unless we wanted to commit to the British accent.
ELIOTT: Unless you’re Cockney.
KAYLA: I could still—me and my boyfriend Dean do a lot of bad British accents around the home so I think I could easily do that, when he comes home from work maybe. Allo, sexual! That was a really good accent you’re welcome everyone.
ELIOTT: That’s not the worst I’ve heard, well done. I’m impressed, well done, Kayla. I’ll happily pay you to be my understudy for my show. One night Kayla, you come out and do the whole thing I’m sure it’ll be great.
SARAH: I’m now really quite concerned now about hearing Kayla’s British accent for that long. I think that’s alarming.
KAYLA: I think it’d be good. I think it’d be really good.
SARAH: I think I would be much better at it than you would be.
KAYLA: They didn’t ask you.
ELIOTT: I don’t deny that—
KAYLA: I was asked.
ELIOTT: I don’t deny that Sarah but I think you’d probably do a better job. But I think that Kayla’s accent for an hour long duration would be a lot funnier than anything I could ever say.
SARAH: You make a good point.
KAYLA: See now it’s comedy.
SARAH: You make a compelling point. I cede the floor.
KAYLA: This is tragic.
SARAH: Great! Before we wrap up, is there anything else you want to add? Anything you want to say to the people? Any shoutouts? I don’t know. I don’t know what your life is.
ELIOTT: Neither do I. That’s why we get along so well, we have so much in common. I’m not sure, I guess what to say. I love the ace community. I really love how the bigger we’ve gotten, the more diverse we’ve gotten, the more ways of expression we’ve found. I think that it’s really important that we have media representation, we have these amazing essays being written, books being written, I love seeing different ace talents from all stretches of the world. Artists and actors and comics. I think that is the big thing that’s going to make the big difference. I know a lot of people are fighting to get legislation for asexuality being recognized as an orientation, to be protected, as part of the equality act and that’s brilliant. I agree with that, we definitely should do that. We need to see real cultural change, it’s important to get the word out any way you can. If you like to create stuff, create stuff. Put your soul into it and tell people about your aceness. That’s the only way I found people actually listened to me. Before I did comedy I used to do campaigns, I used to do actions I told people about aceness in a very kind of serious way. And obviously it’s good to do that but the people who never heard of it before were very resistant to that and resilient. And I got branded the age old “woke” thing. Oh so preachy, so boring and up themselves. So preachy and breathing. I thought, oh if I do silly puns and jokes and prove them wrong, you can actually be liberal and a decent person and enjoy a good laugh and you can throw messages that way. Cause people forget how powerful art is and what great tool it is. Cause you can trick people into learning things and you can spread messages so easily through that. Because people don’t usually go out of their way to go to a place to be lectured to. But if you manage to teach people things. I know it sounds harsh but it’s true.
SARAH: They either pay a lot of money to be lectured to or they refuse.
ELIOTT: There are so many people I’ve done comedy to who have learned about asexuality through watching me through silly shit. I don’t want to get too much credit but I feel like a lot of people, especially older people I’ve met, I don’t think if they hadn’t seen me do that I don’t think they’d have gone out of their way to go to an asexuality talk or lecture or anything, I really don’t think they would. Sometimes you have to go along with—if you talk about what you’re passionate about and express yourself any way you can, I think the more we do that, the more messages you’ll get. I’ve always found that people have always asked me as well, do I get heckled a lot for being ace? No. I think that honestly as long as you’re making people laugh they don’t give a shit what you’re talking about. Again, comedy follows very strict rules. That’s why as an autistic person, I like it. It’s very strict rules that you have to follow. As long as people laugh that’s all that matters. It doesn’t matter what topic it is. I’ve found that people don’t really give me much flack for that. And I find it weird in general if people do. I find it so weird if people have a go at us for being ace. Because you’re having a go at us for not doing something. “Ah all those bloody asexuals coming our way and not taking our women. What’s wrong with them?”
SARAH: How dare they.
ELIOTT: Yeah, what’s wrong with our women they’re very good. Why won’t you take them?
SARAH: I think that is a really excellent point though because legislation advocacy in the more direct sense is really important. And it’s important for those things to set in stone and that sort of thing. But culture is really what changes people’s minds and seeing this kind of stuff in the culture and the arts and everything. So, hell yeah. I think that’s a lovely place to end it. A true delight.
ELIOTT: Exactly. Hell yeah.
SARAH: Kayla, what’s our poll for this week?
KAYLA: I think it would be cool to do a poll that asks that are you aspec and also autistic? Just to see how many people we have who are both you know?
SARAH: That could be fun.
ELIOTT: Ooh, I would love to meet people as socially awkward as I am. Cause I go to a lot of asexual meetups and I find that most of the time it’s just me awkwardly twiddling my thumbs going, “so, anyone else not fucked anyone this week?”
KAYLA: I mean that’s not a bad way though.
SARAH: I think specifically like aspec functions, they can be kinda hard though cause it’s the one thing we have in common is we don’t feel attraction. That’s not a thing you can talk about for 3 hours you know?
ELIOTT: Oh god yeah. I’m glad we have them. They’re good for solidarity and public community. I’m pretty content with my identity now so when I go to an ace social, yes we’re all ace, but I literally know nothing about you. Do you like bread? Oh dear we’re not going to get on.
SARAH: Bread please. Okay, that’s my poll. Kayla, what’s your beef and your juice this week?
KAYLA: My beef is depression because I have it. I have been having a depression week which makes it very hard to do all of the tasks I have to do. My juice is there’s a new season of Hell’s Kitchen happening currently, but it’s all young people this season, so people our age, so.
SARAH: Spicy.
KAYLA: Fun. Now I get to see Gordon yell at people my age.
SARAH: My beef is going back to the office in this economy. Not only is it annoying because my commute’s going to be awful but because it’s going to make podcasting much harder for me and Kayla, so.
KAYLA: I’m not excited. We have to go back to recording at 10 pm.
SARAH: My juice is BTS Muster Sowoozoo, Sowojoo actually but it’s a Z in the way it’s spelled. No one here knows what I’m talking about and that’s okay. Also In the Heights, that’s all. Eliott what is your beef and your juice this week?
ELIOTT: Ooh, my beef is plumbers because I had to have a lot of plumbing work in my flat this week and they’re very slow to respond and they don’t do a good job. I think it annoys me mostly because sex culture has made me think that plumbers come to our house absurdly quickly cause in porn they come in under an hour. If they were like that I’d have a lot more respect for porn for being realistic but they don’t.
SARAH: I feel like we have two different conceptions of plumbers. One of them is oh no their buttcrack is hanging out and then the other one is, they’re going to fuck you right now.
ELIOTT: Oh no.
KAYLA: Really diverse, really different.
ELIOTT: That’s the worst combination of things someone could have. I have a buttcrack showing and I’m going to fuck you.
SARAH: I guess some people would be into both. But, I don’t know.
KAYLA: I’m sure there’s some sort of kink for buttcracks.
SARAH: Specifically just—we’re not—I’m not going to get into this.
KAYLA: I wish we wouldn’t.
SARAH: This could go down a really bad snowballing hill. What’s your juice this week?
ELIOTT: I’m assuming asexuality and a buttcrack fetish will be next week’s podcast.
KAYLA & SARAH: Yep.
ELIOTT: Honestly quite boring but my juice is the new Castlevania season, my god it’s good. Some good shit. Get on the Netflix, watch that good stuff. Good sexy vampires with whips, which sounds like something I shouldn’t be into but I am.
SARAH: Incredible. We love that.
KAYLA: Sometimes it be that way.
SARAH: Sometimes it be that way. We also have a Patreon. Hoo de heckin hoo, it’s Sarah from the future here with your patrons - patreon.com/soundsfakepod.Hell yeah. Our $5 patrons that we’re highlighting this week are Jacob Weber, Amberle Istar, Rachel, Kate Costello, and John. Thank you for your contributions. Our $10 patrons who are promoting things this week are Mattie who would like to promote The Union Series by T.H. Hernandez, Derek and Carissa who would like to promote the overthrow of heteronormativity in support of: Melody, the Hamster - who is scheming to do just that and Aaron Free who would like to promote forehead kisses. Our other $10 patrons are Khadir, Potater, ChangelingMX, David Jay, The Stubby Tech, Simona Sajmon, Rosie Costello, Arcnes, Benjamin Ybarra, Anonymous, Sarah McCoy, my aunt Jeannie, Cass, Doug Rice, H. Valdis, Purple Chickadee, Barefoot Backpacker, The Steve, and Ari K. Our $15 patrons are Nathaniel White - NathanielJWhiteDesigns.com, my mom Julie who would like to promote free mom hugs, Sara Jones who is @eternalloli everywhere, Andy A who would like to promote being in unions and IWW, Martin Chiesel who would like to promote his podcast, Everyone’s Special and No One is, Leila, who would like to promote love is love also applying to aro people, Shrubbery who would like to promote the Planet Earth, Dia Chappell who would like to promote twitch.tv/MelodyDia, Sherronda J Brown, Maggie Capalbo who would like to promote their dogs Minnie, Leia, and Loki, Andrew Hillum would like to promote finding your words and your people during pride month, and Dragonfly who would like to promote not accidentally pausing your recording in the middle of the podcast. Our $20 patrons are Sarah T who would like to promote long walks outside and we have a new one, it’s HomHomofSpades, home home of spades, ho-I don’t know how to say it but they would like to promote getting enough vitamin D, which is very important, and I last year didn’t get enough. I don’t go outside. We’re in a panorama. Hello please also it’s 100 degrees. Anyway, back to the future, thanks to our patrons. Eliott, where can the people of the internet find you?
ELIOTT: Oh they can find me everywhere.
SARAH: You can give your home address if you’d like.
ELIOTT: You can follow me on Twitter, follow me home, I’m lonely. On Twitter and Instagram, I’m known as @socifacesimpson, one word. On TikTok now as well, doing TikToks and stuff like that. I’m on the YouTube, just Eliott Simpson. Same with Facebook and I think that’s everything social media wise. I always have dates where I do comedy and stuff. Now that the world’s opening up again I have shows going back on. I’m doing my show Asexy and I Know it which is all about asexuality and if anyone listening to this podcast is in London then you can catch it in person next month in London on the 17th of July.
KAYLA: I want to go.
ELIOTT: Come along. I’ll do a US tour eventually when I have the money which I know I’ll never have because I’m a freelance scum. But one day, in my head.
SARAH: Yeah, we can dream. Oh wonderful. Thanks for listening. Thank you so much Eliott for joining us. It was a pleasure to have you. You were a pleasure to have in class. Tune in not next Sunday for more of us in your ears.
KAYLA: And until then take good care of your cows.