Porous borders are intentional. Aces offer up all these terms to whoever might benefit, and one line of thinking is that anyone can identify as ace if they like. The purpose is not to encourage people to behave rigidly as a condition of being accepted, but to embrace complexity and let people identify how they wish and allow their sexualities to change and overlap. The ace world is not an obligation. Nobody needs to identify, nobody is trapped, nobody needs to stay forever and pledge allegiance. The words are gifts. If you know which terms to search, you know how to find others who might have something to teach. They are, like Lucid said, keys. Intellectual entryways to the ace world and other worlds. Offerings of language for as long as they bring value.

— Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen (Page 27)