With the one-year anniversary of Klay Thompson’s torn ACL now in the rearview mirror, a lot has changed for the Golden State Warriors. Not only did Kevin Durant exit for Brooklyn, but the Warriors battled other injuries throughout the 2019-20 season, ultimately landing in the NBA’s basement and falling short of trip to Orlando for the league’s 22-team restart. While the Warriors are generally discussed in different fashion to the rebuilding teams facing similarly extended off-seasons, Golden State does have a number of questions to answer, including the high-profile incorporation of Andrew Wiggins and a guaranteed top-five pick in the 2020 draft.

Still, the Warriors are still keyed by the trio of Thompson, Stephen Curry and Draymond Green and, as the league’s salary cap structure faces potential alterations, a massive price tag could arrive for Joe Lacob and company. After all, Curry, Thompson, Green and Wiggins are owed a combined $130 million (!) for the 2020-21 season alone and, in short, the franchise can’t afford for that foursome not to operate at the highest possible level.

With Wiggins, the Warriors knew they were “buying low” in an attempt to reconstruct a former No. 1 overall pick with considerable talent. With Curry, Golden State knows it has one of the best players in the NBA and a legitimate one-of-a-kind performer. And, with Green, the organization knows they have a top-level playoff X-factor, even if that elite performance may not show up for all 82 games.

For Thompson, though, the terrain is at least slightly less clear, as the now 30-year-old shooting guard recovers from a knee injury that kept him out of action for the entire 2019-20 season. Granted, the Warriors were greatly incentivized to keep Thompson off the court and, if anything, the extended layoff should be helpful to a player coming off an ACL tear. Thompson is in the middle of a five-year, $190 million contract, however, and that lofty salary brings a bit of additional pressure, along with the simple reality that Golden State needs its second-best offensive player firing on all cylinders.

It is possible that, as he recovers from a serious injury to begin his 30’s, Thompson may not recapture the same pure athleticism and explosiveness that he once held. To be fair, observers would not characterize Thompson as an uber-athlete even in his prime but, on the defensive end, Thompson does need his quickness to stay with smaller guards, as he often takes on major assignments in the backcourt. Thompson has always been underrated by advanced metrics, really on both ends of the floor, but his defensive impact is hard to quantify because it doesn’t come with steals and blocks. As he ages, that may be even more of a concern, especially if he transitions into simply being adequate after being a definitive positive during Golden State’s title runs.

Fortunately, Thompson does profile as a player that should age quite gracefully on the offensive end of the floor. To put it plainly, he is one of the best shooters in NBA history, knocking down 42 percent from three-point range at high volume for his entire career. Because Thompson rarely utilizes off-dribble moves to create space or advantages, his off-ball approach should also function well as he ages. Questions do arrive when prompted on just how much Thompson may decline, though, and his contract could become a talking point as a result.

Thompson is owed $157 million over the next four seasons and, even under the best possible circumstances, that is probably an overpay when considering his age and the recovery from injury. The Warriors likely knew this reality when they inked him to the five-year deal just weeks after his torn ACL but, with Durant now gone, Thompson may have more pressure as a scorer, much in the way that he did before Durant’s arrival in the first place. Curry will certainly operate as Golden State’s No. 1 option but, as evidenced by Thompson’s famous takeovers in high-profile playoff situations, he might be the club in the bag that the Warriors are more reliant on now that their hybrid, do-everything option in Durant is off the table when it counts.

While it would be silly to worry too much about Thompson, it is also fair to point out that the Warriors need him more than they did in their two previous runs to the NBA Finals. Green isn’t the same offensive player that he was in his absolute prime and, while Wiggins (and the first round pick) could conceivably return value in the coming years, there is a great deal of uncertainty with almost everything outside of Golden State’s “Big Three.”

That isn’t to say that Thompson won’t be given time to reacquaint himself with the rigors of an NBA season. On the whole, the Warriors may prioritize deep playoff runs, at the expense of the regular season, more than just about any franchise. From an overarching standpoint, Thompson may be the most under-discussed part of the Warriors’ next phase, though, and they essentially can’t afford — both on the floor and financially — for him to be less than a top-level player by the time the 2021 Playoffs (and beyond) arrive.

“While the LGBTQ+ movement has made increasing strides in the past decade, for many in the community, the workplace is still a challenging place to be their most open, authentic selves,” Sonos shared in a statement. “With that in mind, a small group of employees at Sonos joined together in early 2018 to establish an employee resource group (ERG) to help the entire company work towards creating a more welcoming, supportive atmosphere for all LGBTQ+ employees.”

Listen to Full Spectrum here.

Previously on the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War: It was time for a St. Valentine’s Day Massacre Inside Your House as Bob Holly became the new Hardcore Champion, the Big Boss Man was kidnapped by goths, and Vince McMahon got his ass beat by Stone Cold Steve Austin inside (and outside) a steel cage before unleashing the debuting Big Show and still losing.

If you haven’t seen this episode, you can watch it on WWE Network here. Check out all the episodes of classic Raw you may have missed at the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War and Best and Worst of WWF Monday Night Raw tag pages. Follow along with the competition here.

Hey, you! If you want us to keep doing retro reports, share them around! And be sure to drop down into our comments section to let us know what you thought of these shows. Head back to a time long forgotten when WWE TV was fun to watch, and things happened!

And now, the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War for February 15, 1999.

Best/Worst: Giant Bomb

Now that In Your House: St. Patrick’s Day Slaughter is in the books, the main event for WrestleMania XV is etched in stone: Mankind will defend the WWF Championship against Royal Rumble winner Stone Cold Steve Austin. And by, “etched in stone,” of course, I mean that it will be the plan between 11 on Sunday night and roughly 10:55 on Monday.

Mr. McMahon, seen here making a face like an angry chicken, opens the show by asking two things of Commissioner Heel Turn and the proposed Mania-eventers: a truce with Stone Cold, on the condition that he apologizes, and closure to the Rock and Mankind Last Man Standing match from last night that ended in a physically improbable steel chair double knock-out. Rock and McMahon manipulate Mankind and Shawn Michaels into agreeing to a WWF Championship ladder match for the night’s main event, which seems like a terrible idea considering the past month of non-stop beatings Mankind’s taken and the fact that McMahon literally just debuted a new, 7-foot tall henchman. Vince is immediately like, “ha HA, you FELL FOR IT, also here’s the special guest referee for the match at WrestleMania, MY NEW 7-FOOT TALL HENCHMAN!”

Meet Paul Wight, a gamma-radiated Bob Seger in a “no gimmicks needed” t-shirt. That’s a brave shirt to wear when you debuted as the fake son of Andre the Giant who lives in a mountain full of cold water and works for a cartoonish cabal of wrestling super villains who will sign you up for a monster truck sumo battle, stand by and watch as you are killed, and then reanimate your corpse in time to have a Devil’s Triangle with a mummy.

The funny part is that they give him a gimmick almost immediately — he becomes “Big Nasty,” which then becomes “The Big Show” — because “guy in the Corporation who is slightly taller than Test” isn’t very marketable. Maybe they should’ve given him a “smokes cigarettes” gimmick.

Sure enough, it turns out to be a BAD idea to put the WWF Championship on the line in a ladder match 24 hours after a Last Man Standing match, six weeks before WrestleMania, when your challenger’s the chosen hero of your evil boss and they just debuted a new guy who’s as tall as the ladders. Mankind puts his sock in Rock’s mouth at the top of the ladder and looks like he’s going to win, but Gimmickless Paul shows up, gives him AAAAAH THE CHOKESLAM off the ladder, and formally ends the Rock vs. Mankind feud (for now) by giving Rocky his third WWF Championship in three months.

I’d recommend checking this out if you’ve never seen it, if only for anthropological reasons. This is the Mankind vs. Rock match everyone’s forgotten, even though it’s ostensibly the most important one as it blows off this leg of the rivalry and sets the stage for WrestleMania XV. Even the “bad” Rock and Foley matches are really good. I’d also recommend watching it to see what happens in the rare instance when Stone Cold Steve Austin’s ability to speak into a microphone breaks. Listen to him on commentary during the match and take a drink every time he says, “make no mistake about it.” He drops one at the very end of the match when the camera’s on him and you can see his brain and face think, “Jesus Christ, son, why do I keep saying ‘make no mistake about it?’”

Pour one out for Mick Foley, by the way. The guy’s been the MVP of the show for months now, is one of the most popular and respected performers on the show, and whose title win “turned the tide in the Monday Night Wars,” but in one chokeslam he goes from facing Stone Cold Steve Austin in a championship main event at WrestleMania to slumming it with Big Show in the middle of the card and (20-year old spoiler alert) having to win a match just to ref the main event. That’s always going to feel a little disappointing. Foley prime was wasted at WrestleMania. At Mania 13 he fails to win the tag titles by getting counted out. He won a dumpster match for them at Mania 14, but is right back to getting his ass kicked and being helpful at best at 15. The guy hits his arguable career peak right before 16, but “retires” a month before it and ends up being the saddest part of a bad main event. I’d say he didn’t really get his true “WrestleMania moment” at all until his match with Edge at 22, and even that’s just about his willingness to fall backwards into fire.

And Now, In A Completely Unrelated Story

The Ministry of Darkness, seen here looking like The Ministry of Dark Hallways, drop a bombshell on the WWF Universe: The Undertaker is not the leader. He answers to an unidentified Greater Power. Think of him like The Pope, and the Greater Power like God. That’s the relationship. But who is the Greater Power, Austin? Who is the Greater Power all along?

In case you missed it, the “heart and soul” of the Corporation, The Big Boss Man, was abducted by the Ministers at In Your House: St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. “Heart and soul” are the Undertaker’s words, not mine. If your heart and soul are both a disgraced Georgia prison guard who used to wear a Confederate flag patch on his shoulder and handcuffs people to things so he can beat them with a night stick, you’re either Vince McMahon or the United States government. Or, in our current situation, you’re both.

But yeah, no, Boss Man was kidnapped at the pay-per-view and we find out on Raw that he “escaped.” Undertaker helpfully confirms that they kidnapped him but let him go to send a message that they can take anyone they want, whenever they want, and presumably indoctrinate them in the glowing blue light of the Lord of Darkness. Technically The Brood make things darker than The Undertaker but you know what, let’s not split hairs. Boss Man interrupts and challenges The Ministry to a six-man tag team match, and neither the unreliable explanation for what happened to Boss Man between Sunday and Monday nor the Corporation vs. Ministry six-man ending two minutes in with a theatrical non-finish clues the viewers in to the collusion.

Before we get to that, though, let’s take a step back and recap the Monday night adventures of Sunday Night Heat’s worst announcer, Shane McMahon.

Best/Worst: That’s A Nice European Championship, Would Be A Shane If Something Happened To It

Triple H, who is a good boyfriend who did not deserve to be betrayed and abandoned, congratulates Chyna on pinning him at St. Valentine’s Day Massacre because it’s the “first time [she’s] ever been on top of a man.” I wonder why she wanted to stop being a silent bodyguard for your dick-pointing and do good work for the people who run the company where you both work?

H and X want a rematch and call out Chyna, who shows up with future best friends Kane and Shane, ready to kick assonance and take names. Shane gives Chyna the night off for good behavior and ends up getting challenged in her place — “little bitch” is bandied around — which Shane agrees to, pending X-Pac putting the European Championship on the line. A singles title being defended in a tag match? What is this, Monday Night Raw?

wait

Fun note: Shane says he doesn’t have “proper ring attire” and they call him a “puss,” so he decides to just wrestle in sneakers, windbreaker pants, and a football jersey. Yes, Shane McMahon’s in-ring attire for the next 20 YEARS is based on this one instance where he wasn’t ready for or expecting a match. Really puts Shane into context, doesn’t it?

After some classic Shane-O-Mac Ground and Pound, Kane counters a Bronco Buster with a chokeslam of sorts and clears up Chyna to pass the European Championship to Shane behind the referee’s back. Shane blasts Pac with it, pins him, and becomes European Champion in only his second match ever. As you may be aware, this begins the curious trend of Shane being shoveled into a number of angles and matches and always over-performing in the ring, which stays pretty great until it starts blowing up in our face circa 2016 and stays mind-numbingly terrible until modern Smackdown creatively craters.

Now that we’ve covered Shane’s sudden but inevitable title victory we can jump back to the Corporation vs. Ministry six-man, which ends with Shane being revealed as Undertaker’s latest occult kidnapping victim. It’s only temporary, however, as Undertaker merely abducted him to give him a folder of mysterious information he wants delivered to Shane’s father at the top of the corporate ladder. Is that what was in the “lockbox” Vince wanted from Shane a few decades later?

You’d think Undertaker’s nine-year relationship with Vince McMahon as one of his top stars would’ve afforded him the ability to deliver paperwork WITHOUT having to seize and threaten his family members, but here we are. What, Gangrel can’t run errands? You’ve got to put on your best Satanic bath robe and kidnap folks and interrupt six-man tag matches in the middle of Raw for what could’ve just been an e-mail? Undertaker’s got a great career ahead of him in middle-management. We find out where this is going over the next few weeks, but I hope the folder just contained a single sheet of paper with I’M EVIL, YOU GUYS ARE EVIL, LET’S DO BUSINESS written on it in Mideon’s tit blood.

P.S. if you are one of Vince McMahon’s other children, you should really start locking your doors.

Worst: Shamrock, Unlucky In Love

While we’re on the topic of people making terrible life decisions, let’s talk about Ryan Shamrock.

Her brother, Ken, is world famous for being both a combat sports champion and a complete maniac who blacks out at the first sign of trouble and starts throwing hands at anything that moves. She decides to go watch him perform at a WWF show and, despite everything I typed in the first sentence, thinks it’d be a good idea to be visibly turned on by the Canadian porn star wrestler who very clearly wants to piss off her brother. After Ken attacks, Ryan decides the next best step is to star in an amateur porno with her new porn star boyfriend, start accompanying him to the ring to help him cheat in matches, and serve as an implied prostitution go-between for the porn star and a guy who chooses to call himself, “Mr. Ass.”

Val’s first relationship in the World Wrestling Federation saw him flirt with another wrestler’s family member while she sat in the crowd, make shower porn with her, use her as leverage in a wrestling feud, and then callously dump her out of the blue when the feud was over. At In Your House, Val Venis won the Intercontinental Championship with help from Ryan, ending his feud with her brother. So Ryan, who I should remind you is a wrestler’s sister who Val flirted with as she sat in the crowd until she made shower porn with him and let him use her as leverage in one of his wrestling feuds, comes to the ring with him like, “things are great, NOTHING bad’s gonna happen to me today!”

After she helps Val retain the Intercontinental Championship against Bill Ass by falling off the ring apron and pretending to hurt herself — a trick she must have picked up from one of her boyfriend’s OTHER short-lived ex-girlfriends — Val celebrates by bringing her into the ring and unceremoniously dumping her.

To make matters worse, Monsieur le Cul finds her backstage and tries to offer her at least Two Words of support, but Ken, who is still out of his mind but in the right to assume someone else at work is trying to hook up with his hot stupid sister to take the piss out of him, jumps and relentlessly throttles him. You live by the ass, you die by the ass, Billy. You’d think this would all be building to a multi-man Intercontinental Championship match at WrestleMania featuring all the “important men” in Ryan Shamrock’s life, but you’d be forgetting what happens when cocaine hits the ventral tegmental area of Vince Russo’s brain and makes him hit “randomize” on his plans.

Can Never Unsee: Val Venis Debuts A Signature Move

If Alex Wright tried that move he’d kill a man. Also, hahaha what the fuck

Eventual, Hilarious Best: The Bart, The

Bob Holly won the Hardcore Championship at In Your House by pinning Al Snow in the sand down by the river, and that motivates him to grab a live microphone and cut the worst-ever version of the Dolph Ziggler, “I’ll been BUSTING MY ASS here for X AMOUNT OF YEARS and everybody KNOWS I’M THE BEST but MANAGEMENT KEEPS HOLDING ME DOWN FOR SOME REASON” promo you’ve ever heard. Imagine Dolph if he was Chris Cooper’s character from American Beauty. That’s Bob Holly. Bob successfully defends his newly won leather strip with broken shards of metal glued all over it against Steve Blackman when Blackman is attacked from behind by Droz and an enormous, apparently rubber fire hydrant wrench. I wonder if Sting’s baseball bat could cut that wrench in half?

The important development comes after the match, when Bob proclaims his general hardcore greatness and is confronted by the man who knows him better than anyone: his former New Midnight Express tag team partner and Brawl for All winner Bart Gunn.

In case you can’t quite place it, Bart looks like Randy Orton would’ve looked if he’d wanted to be a pro wrestler, but didn’t grow up related to a bunch of them. He wrestles like it, too. Bart signs his name on the figurative dotted line for a shot at the Hardcore Championship on next week’s show, and we’re finally getting some closure to the “Bodacious Bart couldn’t knock out Bombastic Bob” plot point from the tournament that every human brain’s thought process has consigned to oblivion.

The best part? The announce team mentions in passing that boxer, toughman, and former Marc Mero antagonist Butterbean is interested in a Brawl for All match against Bart. Sure enough, here’s Beano in the crowd giving a thumbs up and looking like Bill Cosby had a baby with Tony Soprano.

Keep your head on a swivel, Bart.

Wait, that actually might’ve been the problem.

Also On This Episode

News has broken that Sable’s going to be on the cover of Playboy magazine, so she’s MEAN all of a sudden. No heel turn, no gradual change. One week she’s a happily waving hero to the people and the less fortunate, and one week she’s wearing sunglasses, using the phrase “each and every one of you” — a true WWE heel signifier if there ever was one — and openly dumping on the stalker who helped her win that strap match against Luna Vachon. To illustrate, please enjoy this picture of her looking like Vampirella stepped into The Matrix while sauntering through ankle-deep sludge in an arena back hallway. Use a cup when you get water, guys, damn.

In other “women’s division” news, a wholly untrained Debra McMichael gets wrestling gear and steps into the ring as Jeff Jarrett’s tag team partner to take on D’Lo Brown and Ivory. It’s as good as it sounds. The referee loses control pretty quickly and calls it a double disqualification, which Debra punctuates by shattering one of Jeff’s balsa wood guitars on Ivory’s back. I wish she’d hit her in the back of the head instead, so Ivory could maybe get amnesia and not realize she worked hard enough to go from the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling to the WORLD WRESTLING FEDERATION only to still be wrestling people who barely belong to be on G.L.O.W.

Next Week:

It’s a banner week for Raw is War as one of WCW’s worst tag teams joins the roster, Chyna faces X-Pac one-on-one in the kind of match they’re still telling us they “can’t do” 20 years later, and a teddy bear loses an Inferno Match. All this and more when Raw Remains War, next week!

Despite some behind-the-scenes drama at the beginning of the year, the Obi-Wan series starring Ewan McGregor appears to be moving along after a brief moment where it looked like Disney+ was ready to place the Star Wars show in carbonite.

In a new interview with ACE Universe, McGregor revealed that he’s looking forward to making the show, which he says will use the revolutionary StageCraft technology that was developed for The Mandalorian. The brand new filming technique uses a room encompassed in LED screens for a more immersive and easy-to-change environment. The tech was recently showcased on Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian, which offers an in-depth look at the production on the hit Disney+ series, and apparently, McGregor is a huge fan. Especially after what he went through while making the Star Wars prequels. Via Forbes:

“I think I am going to enjoy it much more…(the prequels) were all blue screen and green screen and it was hard to imagine, but nowadays I think things have moved on so much, and I think a lot of what you see is gonna be what we see on the set,” McGregor said about the new series. “I don’t know if you’ve seen the behind-the-scenes of The Mandalorian series, but they employ that incredible screen…it’s pretty amazing. It makes you feel like you’re in the place, it’s going to feel realer for us as actors. And I think we’ll be using some of that technology on our show.”

While the Star Wars prequels boasted some groundbreaking technology of their own thanks to George Lucas’ constant drive to push the limits of visual effects, the films were also famously created in a massively empty green screen room, which some of the actors did not enjoy. It’s also why, if you re-watch the prequels, particularly the last two, you’ll notice a lot of scenes involve characters just walking and talking inside clearly CGI backgrounds. But in fairness, those movies are almost 20 years old, and if it wasn’t for the work done on them, there’d be no The Mandalorian.

Lucasfilm had to learn to make Yoda walk before it could make Baby Yoda… sip soup? It’s progress.

(Via Ace Universe)

Before he was one of the leading voices in the Black Lives Matter movement (and this little movie called Star… something), actor John Boyega was best known for playing Moses in Attack the Block. The 2011 science-fiction film didn’t do boffo biz at the box office ($6.2 million worldwide gross), but the instant cult classic won multiple accolades, including the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Los Angeles Film Festival, and according to director Joe Cornish, he’s met with Boyega about a sequel.

“I met with John a couple of months ago to talk about it. We’ve always had ideas after the first one. But obviously we’ve both been busy doing different things,” Cornish, who directed last year’s ’80s throwback The Kid Who Would Be King, told the Script Apart podcast. “In a way, the longer you leave it, the more interesting it is. So that’s all I’ll say.”

He continued:

“When it came out, it put a lot of people’s backs up, because it has a very unusual protagonist and arc. It’s wonderful that people are revisiting the film… Most of all, it’s a moment for John, and it’s a moment for hopefully some social change. To be a tiny little part of something that I hope is much, much bigger is exciting.”

“I don’t know if I’m going to have a career after this, but f*ck that,” Boyega said during his speech. Between Cornish and Jordan Peele and Rob Delaney and Cathy Yan and so many others who voiced their approval, he doesn’t have to worry about that.

(Via Empire)

Boundary-pushing Venezuelan producer Arca is gearing up to release her record Kick I next week, which boasts unexpected features from artists like Björk and Rosalía. So far, Arca has shared the singles “Nonbinary” and “Time” from the album. Now, the producer offers another glimpse of her experimental sound with “Mequetrefe.”

“Mequetrefe” is a slang word that Arca would hear growing up in Venezuela. The word was commonly used in a derogatory way towards men, but here, Arca reclaims the phrase, flipping the script on its colloquial use to instead portray a new archetype of masculinity. In a statement, Arca shares that she wants the word to bring forth tender imagery: “The song ‘Mequetrefe’ invokes the tenderness behind expressing who you are without shame, and the confidence and bravery it requires, because expression of gender-nonconforming self-states in a public space can often result in static within your environment.”

Along with gearing up for her album’s release, Arca is finding unique ways to stay engaged with fans. The producer recently unveiled a giveaway contest through her social media. Fans who pre-save her album on streaming services can enter to win the black, glittery heels she wore in her 2017 video accompanying the track “Anoche.”

Listen to “Mequetrefe” above.

Kick I is out 6/26 via XL. Pre-order it here.

J. Cole has received a lot of feedback since releasing “Snow On Tha Bluff” last night, and a lot of it has been non-positive. Cole’s latest musical peer to weigh in is Chance The Rapper, who is on Noname’s side in this situation.

In a tweet that seemed to address the song, on which Cole offers criticisms of Noname, Chance (who has collaborated with Noname before) wrote, “Yet another L for men masking patriarchy and gaslighting as contructive criticism.” He followed that up with, “They both my peoples but only one of them put out a whole song talking about how the other needs to reconsider their tone and attitude in order to save the world. It’s not constructive and undermines all the work Noname has done. It’s not [Black women’s] job to spoon feed us. We grown.”

One of Chance’s followers noted, “All I’m saying is, please don’t put your fans in this bind of choosing between two GOATS. Go talk to your brother and delete the tweets. We don’t want to see black women tore down but we don’t want to create a division between two excellent black men either.” Chance responded, “We can have different points of views on things. I’m not tearing anyone down, I just think it was wrong to make a song about her. I can’t feel any other way about it.”

Chance continued, “Everybody’s argument on either side is, we can’t personally attack each other if we really want to see a revolution. I can agree with that and can apply it in my own life. I wish we could learn that w/o two artists I admire having a public dispute.”

One user wondered why Chance was discussing this in a public setting, writing, “But couldn’t you talk to Cole like a man? like not on this platform smh.” Chance responded, “U mean like how he privately addressed Noname?”

Find Chance’s tweets below.

Nervously, I reached into my purse and pulled out my ID, flashing it to the bouncer. It was 6 p.m. and I’d just come from work. My roommates were supposed to meet me, but they were always late, and tonight was no exception. So, it was with a pounding heart that I faced the crowd alone, trying to find the least threatening person to approach.

It was my first Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) meeting, specifically for those in the LGBT community, and I thought I’d found my people. Queer and political, sign me up. But as I took a closer look at those milling around, I realized that the space didn’t look that different from what I was used to. I was still in the minority, because of both my race and gender. I was still being talked at by men who thought they knew more than me. I was still around people who seemed to assume that everyone wanted sex.

One of the only other women in the group came up to me and said “It’s good to see another one of us here.” “Another what?” I asked, a bit confused. “Another lesbian,” she replied easily, as if it were obvious.

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But that was not true. I’m not a lesbian. I’m asexual. And I had thought that coming to a group geared toward LGBT individuals—the full acronym being LGBTQIA+, where the A stands for asexual (also known as “ace”)—would have allowed me the opportunity to meet others who identified similarly.

After figuring out that I was asexual, I thought finding community would be easier

I’d done all the hard work of figuring out that I was ace—I thought that finding a community would be easier. After years of internalizing heteronormativity, of consuming various movies and books where sex and relationships were presented as the ultimate goals, it was no wonder that it took me such a long time to realize that I didn’t want that. And even longer still to accept and embrace that part of my identity, to realize that there were others who felt the same way. There was a whole community out there if I could just find them.

With the DSA LGBT event, I finally thought that I had. It turned out that it wouldn’t be that simple. I kept attending events with queer and LGBT+ labels attached to them, hoping that I’d find someone who would understand. But I was realizing that just because we shared the queer label did not mean that we shared experiences. Many understood being different, sure, but not the difference that I felt. They still experienced sexual attraction, just not of the heteronormative variety. Sometimes, these spaces were even more sexualized as people felt comfortable expressing themselves in ways they couldn’t in everyday life.

To find other ace people, I had to look elsewhere

When I was unable to find the community I was searching for by going to in-person events, I turned to the internet. Once I knew the terminology, I was able to search on various social media sites. I started following a blog on Tumblr that posted about ace topics. I began to see others post about experiences that mirrored my own.

It was on Instagram that I found a community of ace individuals in New York, where I live. They posted various resources for asexuals and even hosted monthly events. What I’d so desperately wanted earlier, an in-person community, was suddenly within my grasp. The page posted about a new support group for asexuals, and I decided to go.

What struck me first was that the room was diverse—there were a lot of non-cis men and a lot of POC folks. The organizers were women of color. As people began to share their stories, I felt a sense of calm envelop my body—I had found people who understood me. They had been uncomfortable in high school because they didn’t understand everyone’s desire to have sex. They had faced challenges navigating dating when sexual intimacy was something that may not even be on the table. They were older and wiser and made me feel like it was all going to be alright.

I may not feel like I belong in all queer spaces, but I’ve found a queer space that fits me. This space, and the people in it, provide me with the confidence to live my life authentically, to embrace the ace part of my identity. And when I inevitably encounter those who don’t understand me, I know I’ve got a place to go for support.

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Moisturizers, toners, and serums galore.

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