Aesthetic Attraction: How Ace and Aro Folx Shatter the Mold

Title of Event: Aesthetic Attraction: How Ace and Aro Folx Shatter the Mold

Description of Event: This workshop explores Aesthetic Attraction, Aesthetic Intimacy, and embodied Aesthetic Pleasure, moving beyond a narrow focus on visual beauty or sexualization. We will examine how aesthetics can include appearance, style, movement, voice, scent, texture, and atmosphere, and how these elements function as meaningful experiences without requiring sexual or romantic intent.

Drawing from Ace and Aro community scholarship and activism, we will look at how people within these communities shatter expectations through examples like the archetype of the Dandy, asexual kink such as pup play and rope play, and the #ThisIsWhatAsexualLooksLike viral movement.

Finally we will discuss ways to support individuals in identifying and expressing their own aesthetic “flavor” once disentangled from social expectations around desirability, sex, and romance.

This workshop is especially relevant for Asexual and Aromantic people, clinicians, educators, and anyone interested in more expansive ways of understanding attraction, intimacy, and embodied experience.

Learning Objectives
1. Define Aesthetic Attraction, Aesthetic Intimacy, and Aesthetic Pleasure using Aspec-informed frameworks, and distinguish these concepts from sexual and romantic attraction.
2. Identify ways Ace and Aro communities challenge normative assumptions about aesthetics, desirability, and legitimacy, using specific examples discussed in the workshop.

Date of Event: July 30th, 2026

Time of Event: 12pm-1:30pm Pacific

Location: Online Synchronous

Presenter/Speaker: Aubri Lancaster

Contact Name: Aubri Lancaster

Contact Email: aubrilancaster@gmail.com

Event Website: AestheticAttractionJuly2026.eventbrite.com

AASECT Approved CEs: 1.5