I was having such a nice morning until this steaming hot pile of trash showed up on my feed! Lets talk about it! Step by step now.
(No I am not censoring names, and no I am not reblogging aphobe trash takes.)
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Okay lets talk about this for a second. Strong start, “I think most/all aro’s need therapy”. Newsflash for you compadre, not feeling romantic love is perfectly fine. Idk how many times us aro’s have to say it but romance is not what makes us human. This is just rehashed rhetoric that we have seen time and time again and I don’t wanna spend too much time on it, “Not feeling sexual attraction must be a health issue”, “being a homosexual must be a health issue” its all been said before.
Thank you for letting us know you aren’t a doctor btw, never would have guessed by your obviously factual trash takes!
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You almost had a good point on this. Sexual Orientation is not a choice. However, you fell flat in the second half there. I want to make this clear to any and all aro’s, ace’s, and anyone questioning reading this. There is nothing wrong with relating your experience to past trauma. It doesn’t mean you aren’t really aro or ace, and it doesn’t mean you need therapy to “fix” something in you so you start to feel Romantic or Sexual attraction again. End of story.
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Final screenshot and again you almost had a point here. Asexuality and Aromanticism are real orientations no matter if you like it or not. Again though, you fall off. Aromanticism is not a health issue. Like I said in the beginning, orientations in the community have always been called health issues by people from homophobes to aphobes. People who come to terms with their Aromanticism or Asexuality after experiencing a trauma are not “faking it” and no matter how it came about or how a person came to terms with it, what they are feeling is “Real Asexuality” and “Real Aromanticism”.
As a final note, never let posts like this one discourage you from exploring your identity. Trauma does not invalidate your orientation, and trauma does not suddenly make what you are feeling a medical issue that needs to be “fixed”. No matter how you come to terms with your orientation (whether that be through processing or relating it to past trauma or trying on labels as you explore) the only thing it’ll ever make you, is yourself. No romo losers, have a lovely day
If you’re an “ally”, aka a decent cishet human being that isn’t intersex, then good for you, but you’re not a part of the LGBTQ+ community.
The A is for Aromantic, Asexual, and Agender, and I’m tired of the acephobia going around claiming that we’re not a part of the community/we just want to be special/we just want to be oppressed/we’re using up resources/etc when those same people think the A means Ally.
1) We are a part of the community.
2) We aren’t appropriating anything. We are not heterosexual, cis, and/or heteroromantic, so we belong in the community.
3) We don’t want to be oppressed. No one with sense wants to be oppressed. The acephobia you and society spouts is a form of oppression. The measures taken to “correct” asexuality is oppression. The fact that asexuality was considered a disorder not too long ago is oppression. The fact that it’s hard to be out as ace is oppression.
4) “Using up resources” my ass. If one ace person doesn’t need them, that’s great, and they won’t use them, obviously. If another ace person does, who are we to deny them? Why is it a problem because we’re ace? If a gay person doesn’t need resources and another gay person does, no one shits on gay people for “using up resources others need”. No one assumes a trans person is taking resources when they don’t need them just because they’re available. What’s with the idea that ace people would?
TL;DR Acephobia is disgusting, Asexual, Aromantic, and Agender people belong in the LGBTQ+ community, and the A in LGBTQ+ does NOT stand for Ally.
And yes, this was sparked by the rampant acephobia after Jaiden Animation’s video. Do better, be better.
hi as pride month draws near for june reminder that cishet aces/aros are not LGBT and don’t belong in our spaces
And like, just a reminder that people like op are the people I don’t want to share my spaces with.
Every time I see an exclusionist on here and I click their profile they’re like 17 or 19 or maybe 21 at best.
And that’s fair- it’s not like people that age can’t have opinions or be right, they’re people.
But when I think about how long it took me to work out my own damn sexuality, gender, and all that crap, and how gently I stepped once I realised I was queer, and how much listening to people I did to see who the hell was out there…how much I am STILL learning about people who have different experiences…
…it feels really odd to see people this young being so secure in their belief of who should be excluded from the community.
Not how to support and include, to help and support, but how to exclude.
Like…being confident in your own sexuality at 19? Fuck yeah, good for you, I’m happy you had a better chance and an earlier start than I did.
But… telling other people they’re not queer enough to be in ‘your’ space?
Your space? Not mine anymore? Huh.
I’m over here at 35 still listening and learning and trying to understand everyone’s perspectives, discovering that sexuality is even more complex and nuanced than I know…and all these people barely out of their teens are talking like they know everything there is to know about being LGBT, ever. Like it’s all been written down, stamped, sealed, confirmed by some Authority.
Mmmm. No. Just… have an ounce of humility. Try gaining some perspective, please.
You haven’t lived long enough to even really listen to real life aces, to really think about what LGBT means. I don’t mean this as an ageist insult, I just really think that this kind of shit deserves TIME- hell I know it deserves time and thought because I am STILL unlearning bad assumptions and behaviours, and STILL meeting people who define themselves outside of the frame that I was once taught meant ‘LGBT’.
And you, a teen raised in a world that’s still pretty fucking homophobic and doesn’t recognise half of what the LGBT community itself has taken years to acknowledge, you think you know it all?
Because you’re online?
While you’re here, read some posts where ace people talk about how they’re treated. Forget semantics for a while: read the experiences.
I’m online too, I have been for some time. Doesn’t make me right, but experience is of some value. Experience in listening to queer people who aren’t quite like me, that is, in trying to understand how I am similar, instead of trying to figure out how they do not belong. In how people rework things, figure out how they can be less harmful, more inclusive, more representative of all those who are marginalised.
See, Q is queer but also often Questioning. It’s still important to let people be Questioning, there is an astounding amount of queerphobia in the world and we are NOT done working out the labels. We may never be.
Not so long ago, the T in lgbt was under question. Bisexuals are still being excluded.
So I’m being told I don’t matter by people who weren’t even born yet when I realised I wasn’t straight. They’re skipping right over all the reflection and going straight to self-affirmation by exclusion.
Which, again- if you are born into a world where you never have to question your identity, oh good grief I hope that’s real for everyone some day.
But we’re not there yet, yanno? And I resent being told that after all these years of soul-searching and careful, very careful questioning of whether I belong and how I can be a good member of the community, people arrive so 100% certain of their claim to being LGBT that the first thing they do is try to kick others out.
tl;dr I was here first and I’m not amused.
My general feeling when These Kids start yelling about who does or doesn’t Belong in the collection of the broken, hurt and strange that is the queer community:
Pride month is an especially shitty time to tell queer people that they’re not queer enough and that they’re not welcome.
You are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. That’s it. Aces aren’t LGBT.
I mean for one your forgetting a bit of that. Like the Q+.
Mod Bethany
The full acronym is LGBT.
I love me some ahistorical bullshit
The “full” acronym at one point was “GL”, after lesbians fought against male homosexuality being the “face” of the movement (i.e., the Alliance for Gay Artists (AGA), founded in 1982, was renamed the Alliance for Gay and Lesbian Artists shortly thereafter; and the Gay Activists Alliance never included “Lesbian” in their title).
The “full” acronym at another point was “LGB”, only after bisexual activists campaigned fiercely to be included, and is often still not even included in acronyms
The “full” acronym at yet another point was “LGBT”, only after trans activists campaigned fiercely to be included
Queer was added to the acronym after it was reclaimed and re-politicized by ACT UP off-shoot Queer Nation in the early 1990s. LGBTQ has been a thing since the 90s.
ONE Archives, which is the largest repository of LGBTQIA+ materials in the world and was founded by some of the principle members of the early (1950s-60s) homophile movement, which led to the gay rights movement post-Stonewall, uses the full acronym LGBTQ on their website and also freely uses the word “Queer” interchangeably.
As of 2014, NOW (National Organization for Women) agreed to switch to use of the full LGBTQIA acronym, and it likely isn’t the only large social rights organization to have done so
Many LGBTQ+ magazines use LGBTQ, including One(which has existed in some form since the 1950s) and The Advocate, use LGBTQ or LGBTQIA as the full acronym and regularly use “queer” as a phrase (and, in fact, some articles have welcomed asexual people and their narratives as part of the queer experience).
The acronym is constantly evolving. It’s not static. To claim otherwise is blatant ignorance. The modern-day LGBTQ+ community is a result of decades of political activism, social inclusion, and community outreach. It’s nota rigid structure that operates by a strict set of rules about who can and cannot join.
The full acronym is LGBT. Cishets don’t belong in the community. Aces aren’t inherently lgbt. We don’t want our oppressors in our community.
“we don’t want our oppressors in our community”
as if trans people don’t already have to deal with their oppressors (cis people) being in their community
as if LGBTQIA+ people of color don’t have to deal with LGBTQIA+ white people in the community
as if LBTQIA+ women don’t have to deal with GBTQIA+ men in the community
as if disabled LGBTQIA+ people don’t have to deal with able-bodied LGBTQIA+ people in the community
the LGBTQIA+ community is huge and consists of people with multiply-overlapping identities and privileges. we all (unless you’re a cis, able-bodied, wealthy, white gay man) have to deal with a member of our oppressing class in the LGBTQIA+ community
ETA: “Straightness” is a position of power. Ace people, even if they are in heterosexual relationships, do not necessarily perform “straightness” in ways that are acceptable to the Straight class.
No other way to really throw that out there so. Pretty much for the reasons denoted in the things I’ve been posting today. Being a-typical, put at a disadvantage, or even having your identity being slightly frowned upon/erased/joked about, while not fun, is not equivalent to oppression and systematic discrimination and abuse.
I think there are A LOT of issues/oversights with a lot of the language and phrasing of “sexual privilege”. It creates this very binarist, erasing dichotomy that oversimplifies a lot of people’s lived experiences based on culture or personal experiences. A lot of aspects of it can be really slut-shaming, too.
Everyone’s personal level of expression and sexuality needs to be acknowledged and respected. More relationship models that don’t necessarily involve sex need to be recognized and respected and shown for what they are. But let’s be careful and not step into douchebag territory by appropriating language and privilege checklists for every time you’re inconvenienced.
First, I’d like to echo the points greenchestnuts has made that equating the problems aces face to “lightly frowned upon/erased/joked about” betrays an ignorance of the subject matter. It seems from the notes you’ve dropped the “asexuality isn’t an orientation”/“hetero ace and queer ace” line (a friend corrected you and you don’t think that anymore? Is that right?), so I’ll leave that be. But I would like to talk more about haffurupufu’s point, which is, there is a difference between “there is no such thing as sexual privilege” and “asexuals aren’t oppressed.” Given the bit I’ve bolded from the original and some of the things you’ve said in the notes, you seem to be arguing for the latter, despite the title implying you are talking about the former.
I personally have a lot of conflicted feelings and doubt about “sexual privilege,” and I always have. Those reservations come not from the relationship of the asexual community to the heterosexual majority, however, they come from the relationship between the asexual community and other sexual minorities. It is an undeniable fact that ace-spectrum orientations are not heteronormative. People denying the existence of sexual minorities, or trying to “correct” the behavior of sexual minorities, or hurting people because they are a sexual minority are all heterosexist actions, whether the sexual minority in question is asexuality or not. That aces should be marginalized under a heteronormative framework is not something of which I have any doubt.
The question of sexual privilege is a different one. It asks, are all sexual people inherently valued over asexual people by virtue of their sexual orientation? This is the sticky subject, this is the one that gives a lot of people pause and/or offense. And, to be quite frank, I don’t have an answer for you. I have read a lot of persuasive arguments in favor of the existence of sexual privilege, but still something in me holds back. I have no issue with people voicing their opinion one way or another on sexual privilege, because I think it’s still very much an open question.
But like I said earlier, that is different from accusing aces of “appropriating language and privilege checklists for every time you’re inconvenienced.” That denies that ace-spectrum orientations are valid, that they are not heteronormative and therefore face heterosexist headwinds, and most importantly that there are things most aces experience that are worlds beyond “inconveniences.” We are not talking about a sub-culture, or a club, or a community of shared belief. Someone’s sexual orientation, which they did not choose and cannot change, needs to be taken a little bit more seriously than that.
I just went through the most exhausting debate online. It was my fault, I should’ve just blocked all of them from the beginning.
I swear if I get one more reply, I’m deleting that comment altogether.
Long story short, someone replied to a comment of mine with “maybe they have seggs every night”. (You don’t need the context, just that.)
To which I replied with, “every night? yikes”
Now a person replied to that with, “why yikes?”
And I said, “well that’s gotta hurt, right? give you rashes or smth?”
And they were like, “nope. what kind of seggs have you had that gave you a rash?”
Naturally, I responded with, “oh no, I’m asexual so no smex for me, I was just making an assumption that sounds logical to me”
And this as*hole of a person says, “plenty of asexuals have seggs, don’t use that excuse”
Which bewildered me to no bounds. I said, “huh? Yeah I already know that some asexuals have seggs? That’s not the point here”
After that, it was basically me and them going back and forth the same bullsh¡t, other people joining in.
That first person kept saying that I shouldn’t say “I’m sex-repulsed because I’m ace”, when I never said that. And even if I did, so what? I would’ve probably had seggs if I hadn’t found out I’m asexual so there’s definitely a correlation there.
Was I in the wrong? Is it illegal for me to say that seggs is overrated and gross to me? Should I just keep my mouth shut and only talk freely in our safe spaces instead?
Next time someone says that ‘aphobia’ isn’t a thing, show them this.
This is why it’s so important to educate people about asexuality. Through my work, I’ve encountered many people who aren’t just ignorant when it came to asexuality, they’re aggressively against it. There are asexual people who don’t want to come out just so that they don’t have to experience remarks like the ones I’m reading out there.
I’m looking to speak to British aces who have experienced any kind of acephobia at their current workplace or in healthcare/public services? If you have this experience, please leave a comment so that I know to contact you directly, or feel free to contact me at [email protected]. Anything you say can/will be kept anonymous.
I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to discuss asexual representation in the media on such an esteemed platform. Thank you to everyone, particularly Adam Key, who made this possible in a national lockdown. I hope you like it. I’ve been waiting a while to say this… Thank you for listening to my TED Talk!
Activist and model Yasmin Benoit dispels the myths around asexuality, ‘the invisible orientation’.
The conversation around sexuality and the spectrum of gender identity has expanded greatly in recent years. We’re finally beginning to explore all of the details, nuances and diversity of the topic, and acknowledging communities that have too long been shunned by society. But there’s one community – my community – that has been left out of this step toward inclusivity.
I started to realise I was asexual around the time my peers around me realised they weren’t. Puberty kicked in, hormones went flying, kids stopped wanting to just play together and started fancying each other instead. They became a lot more curious about their sexuality and wanted to express it.
But I just wasn’t feeling it; I didn’t get all the drama. In fact, I even switched to an all-girls’ school because I thought, without boys, everyone would stop caring so much about sexandrelationships, and would just chill out. Yeah, I was very wrong.
In secondary school, it became even more obvious that I wasn’t feeling the same as the other teenagers – and they didn’t like it. They started quizzing me constantly about why I felt the way I did.
“Are you gay?”, “Is it a mental disorder?”, “Is there something wrong with your genitals?”, “Did you get molested as a child?”, “You’re probably just underdeveloped or a late bloomer?”, “Surely you’re just being too picky?”, “You must just be unlovable or unattractive to everyone?”
My physical and mental health was up for debate. But back then, at 15, I didn’t really have an answer. That’s when one of my classmates said, “Maybe you’re asexual or something.” I’d only really heard the word 'asexual’ used about organisms in biology class, not in the context of human sexuality.
So I Googled it and thought it sounded like me, but at the time, there was so much disinformation online that I wasn’t 100% sure. Besides, when everybody keeps telling you there must be something wrong with you, after a while, you start to wonder if they’re right. You begin to doubt yourself, to question your own life experiences, your own thoughts and identity.
It wasn’t until I started talking to other asexual people – strangers online whose experiences, finally, reflected my own – that I started to realise I wasn’t alone. This wasn’t some sort of grand turning point though. It would take a number of years to stop doubting myself and my identity; a natural consequence of being pathologised and gaslighted for so long. Through launching my activism career to raise awareness of asexuality and aromanticism on my platform, I met an entire population of people like me. I attended the UK Asexuality Conference in 2018 and was greeted by hundreds of people who showed me the true diversity of the ace community.
There are asexual people who, like me, experience little to no levels of sexual attraction, and have no sexual or romantic – that’s the 'aromantic’ part – desire towards other people. But I learnt that there are a lot of asexual people who still experience romantic attraction and vice versa. I know many married asexual people, and aromantic sexual people – I’m sure we all know someone who’s not really into dating or relationships, but still loves sex! I know people in our community who are parents, grandparents, husbands, wives, young, old, Black, white – and they are proud of who they are.
The problem is, those stereotypes and toxic misconceptions I heard as a 15-year-old from my classmates at school? I still hear them today. We live in a society obsessed with relationships; where to love and be loved by another person is not only the ultimate aspiration, but the expectation.
Until asexuality becomes part of public discourse and representation, we will continue to be misunderstood, told that there’s something wrong with us, overlooked in education and legislation, and medicalised (and medicated). Women like me will continue to be dismissed as unlovable, ugly, frigid and boring. This is especially true for Black women, who are so hypersexualised, that to be a Black asexual woman seems entirely contradictory to people.
But I live a perfectly happy and fulfilled life as a Black asexual, aromantic woman. I don’t need a partner to complete me – I’m complete just the way I am. That’s why I use my platform to fight against asexuality stigma, dispel myths and help empower the ace community.
For allies, as always, the first step to show your support is by educating yourself, and to start normalising asexuality by including it in your conversations. That way, conversations around sexuality will inevitably become more inclusive and comfortable for the ace community. Asexual people will – finally – begin to feel seen.
We deserve to be seen.
Yasmin is the co-founder of International Asexuality Day, taking place this year on 6th April. Found out more internationalasexualityday.org.
I was 10 years old when I started to wonder if there was something wrong with me. I realised I was asexual around the same time as my peers realised they weren’t. In late primary school, the boys and girls didn’t want to play together anymore - they ‘fancied’ and wanted to 'go out’ with each other. I watched girls fighting over boy drama in the cafeteria and wondered what had gotten into everyone.
That’s when I decided I’d attend an all girls’ school under the naive belief that, in the absence of boys, none of the girls would care about sex or dating. I quickly discovered that a same-sex environment had the opposite effect.
By the time I was a teenager, my peers started to wonder what was wrong with me. The sexual frustration was turned up to 100, which made it all the more obvious that I wasn’t reacting the same way as the other teens. While their sexuality was directed towards any nearby boy, a poster of a boy, or even each other, mine wasn’t directed anywhere. And other people wanted to work out why that was more than I did.
Before believing that it was just my innate sexuality, it was easier to assume that I was gay and in denial. Maybe I was molested as a kid and I’d forgotten about it, but been left with psychological scars. I could be hiding a hidden perversion – my dad asked me whether I was into inanimate objects or children when I told him that I wasn’t attracted to men or women. I might be a psychopath, unable to empathise with people enough to deem them attractive. The theory that held the most weight was that I was 'mentally stunted’, and I was treated as such. I started to wonder if they were right.
At 15, I learned the word asexual. It was during yet another analysis session of my sexuality at school. I described myself as not being attracted to men or women for the thousandth time, and someone suggested I might be “asexual or something.” With a quick Google search, I realised I wasn’t alone. Asexuality is a term used to describe those who experience a lack of sexual attraction and/or low levels of sexual desire towards others.
It wasn’t a mental or physical disorder, or a personality flaw, or anything related to my appearance or my life experiences. It wasn’t the same as being celibate, or anti-sex, or just being a ‘late bloomer.’ It was a legitimate sexual orientation characterised purely by a lack of sexual attraction or desire, meaning that it had no implications on whether an asexual could masturbate, or actually enjoy sex, or have children, or be in a romantic relationship. There were no limitations, just a way to bring a lot of people under one united umbrella.
I had finally found an answer to everyone’s question… only, no one else knew what the hell I was talking about. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop them from spewing the same ignorant views I had been hearing for years.
To an extent, I can’t blame them. It’s been almost 10 years since I discovered the term and it is barely part of public consciousness. It isn’t included in sex education or any conversations about sexuality. We’re left out of policies, pathologised in psychiatry and there is next-to-no representation for asexual people in the media. You can count positive examples on one hand. Most of the time, asexuality is either a fleeting reference, the butt of a joke, or a trait in a character that’s either an alien, robotic, or evil – a manifestation of their lack of empathy. Think your Sheldon Cooper, your Data from Star Trek, your Lord Voldemort.
Especially for women, it’s seen as a symptom of their prudishness, unattractiveness or overall blandness, which needs to be resolved by the end of the plot so they can be complete, appealing, lovable people. After all, being virginal is a good thing, perpetual sexual unavailability is not, particularly when you need a loving sexual relationship to be whole. Even our non-fiction portrayals tend to conform to stereotypes and perpetuate a ‘woe is them’ narrative. And among all of these things, they’re probably white, occasionally East Asian, but never Black. Black people are hypersexualised to the point where that would become contradictory and confusing for the audience. And that’s what I would end up being.
When I first mentioned on social media that I was asexual, I had no intention of becoming a voice for the asexual community. It seemed too unlikely to contemplate. After all, I was a Black gothic student from Berkshire who got sat on at school because I was that invisible. On top of that, my work as an alternative lingerie model meant I was far from the girl/boy-next-door like the asexual activists who had come before me. But, apparently, that’s what the community wanted. From there, my activism took off.
I quickly found myself becoming one of the community’s most prominent - but unlikely - faces. I used my platform to raise awareness for asexuality, empower asexual people, dispel misconceptions and promote our inclusion in spaces we’ve traditionally been left out of. From incorporating asexuality into lingerie campaigns, speaking at government institutions, being the first openly asexual person to appear on LGBTQ+magazine covers, and opening asexual spaces, my work has been intersectional if not a little controversial.
I had never experienced hatred online like I have since speaking openly about asexuality. Only through my work did I become aware of acephobia and the exclusionary discourse surrounding what at first seems like an inoffensive and discreet orientation. It’s shown me how important asexuality activism is, and it’s made me aware of just how diverse, powerful and unique the asexual community is. How they stand up for the rights of others even when we’re ignored ourselves, how they’ll never let their invisibility stop them from developing their own unique culture, history, and progressive understanding of human sexuality and love.
This week is Asexual Awareness Week, an occasion founded by Sara Beth Brooks a decade ago. It’s one of the few times in the year that the community demands to be seen and people start looking.
For Asexuality Awareness Week, model Yasmin Benoit answers the question ‘what is asexuality’, and busts some common myths about what it means to be asexual.
I realized I was asexual around the same time my peers seemed to realize that they were not. Once the hormones kicked in, so did a nearly universal interest in sex for those around me. I thought sex was intriguing, but never so much that I wanted to express my sexuality with someone else. I had no sexual desire towards other people, I did not experience sexual attraction, and that hasn’t changed.
I didn’t learn that there was a word for my sexuality until I was 15, after being interrogated for the millionth time at school about my orientation, or lack of it. After doing some Googling as soon as I got home, I realized for the first time in my life that I might not be broken, that I wasn’t alone in my experience, and that it wasn’t a defect I had somehow brought on myself. I had spent the entirety of my adolescent life trying to answer people’s invasive questions without having the language to explain that I was just an asexual girl.
But even after I found the language, I had only solved half of the problem. We are taught in grade school that we’ll become sexually interested in others, but never that not being sexually attracted to anyone is an option. Because we’re not taught about it, no one else knew what I was talking about when I tried to come out to them as asexual.
Many don’t believe asexuality is real, and that makes the experience of navigating our heteronormative, hyper-sexualized society as an asexual person even harder. I’ve spent my life battling misconceptions about it and so have many other asexual people. Now, I try to use my work as a model and activist to raise awareness and change the way our society perceives asexuality and asexual people. This Asexual Awareness Week, I’m busting some of those myths about my orientation.
Now, let’s separate fact from fiction:
Myth: Asexual people have no sexuality ✘
Truth: Asexuality is considered a sexuality, just like bisexuality, heterosexuality, and homosexuality. I often phrase it as being a sexual orientation where your sexuality isn’t oriented anywhere—because it isn’t actually the same as having no sexuality or sexual feelings. Asexual people have hormones like everyone else. It isn’t uncommon for asexual people to masturbate and there are asexual people who still have sex for various reasons and gain enjoyment from it. Some asexual people are romantically attracted to others, but not sexually attracted. Since asexuality is a spectrum, the ways in which asexuality is experienced can vary in different ways.
Myth: Asexuality is a lifestyle choice ✘
Truth: This misconception stems from the idea that asexuality is a choice and not a legitimate sexual orientation. Asexuality is often confused with celibacy or abstinence, probably because they can manifest in similar ways. In contemporary society, celibacy is often defined as being sexually abstinent, often for religious reasons. Sure, for many asexual people, their asexuality means that they aren’t interested in having sex with other people, but that’s a result of their orientation—not their beliefs about sexual behavior. Celibacy is a lifestyle choice, asexuality is not. Asexuality also shouldn’t be confused with being an incel. People don’t decide to become asexual because they can’t find sexual partners or because of any other circumstances. It isn’t a state of being when you’re going through a “dry spell,” nor is it a choice any more than being gay or straight is a choice. It’s just the way we are.\
Myth: Asexuality is an illness ✘
Truth: The assertion that asexuality is a mental or physical disorder is incredibly harmful to asexual people and has led to false diagnoses, unnecessary medication, and attempts at converting asexual people. For example, Female Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder and Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder — which are characterized by low or absent sex drive — are in the DSM-5 and have been thought of as a medical diagnosis for asexuality. But the difference is that people who have HSDD are bothered by their lack of sexual drive, while asexual people are not. But even the inclusion of HSDD as a diagnosis is controversial — some argue that people who are asexual might feel distress at their lack of sexual desire because of lack of acceptance in society. Asexuality is not the result of a hormone deficiency, or a syndrome, or a physical or psychological ailment. Research has said as much. We don’t need to be treated or fixed.
Myth: Asexual people have anti-sex attitudes ✘
Truth: There are asexual people who are repulsed by the thought of sex, or by the thought of having sex themselves. I fall into the latter category. However, that feeling does not necessarily extend to what other people are doing. The misconception that asexual people are against other people expressing their sexuality, and that all asexual people can’t stomach conversations about sex, is quite an alienating one. It leads to asexual people being left out of important discussions about sexuality. It is entirely possible and incredibly common to have sex-positive attitudes and be asexual.
Myth: There are barely any asexual people ✘
Truth: Don’t let our lack of visibility and representation fool you. There are a lot of asexual people out there, but many of us aren’t entirely out, and some haven’t realized that there’s a word for what they’re experiencing due to that lack of visibility. While research into the asexual population is lacking, its estimated that around 1% of the population is asexual—but that’s based on a studies where the participants have likely known what asexuality was and been out enough to identify that way. It’s likely there are more asexual people than we know of, but even if we did only comprise 1% of the population, that’s still tens of millions of asexual people.
Myth: Asexual people just haven’t found the right person yet ✘
Truth: The idea that asexual people just need to meet the ‘right person’ who will unlock their sexual desire and ‘fix’ their asexuality is one I’ve always found quite perplexing. It’s an argument that seems to be applied to asexuality more than other orientations. You wouldn’t tell a straight guy that they just “hadn’t met the right man yet" as an explanation of why he’s attracted to women. I’d like to think that most wouldn’t tell a gay man that they “hadn’t met the right woman yet” either. It suggests that our sexuality is reflective of our company, that no one we have ever seen or encountered has met our standards, and thus we haven’t experienced sexual attraction to the extent that the term ‘asexual’ could be applied.
This assumption ignores and invalidates all of the asexual people who have found the ‘right’ person—the asexual people in happy, fulfilling, loving relationships or who have had them in the past. Because, yes, asexual people can still have romantic relationships, or any other kind of relationship. The validity of a relationship is not and should not be based on how sexually attracted you are to that person. This statement also plays into the notion that asexual people are “missing out” on something and haven’t truly discovered our entire selves, that we are incomplete because of our innate characteristics or our life experiences. This isn’t true either.\
Myth: There’s an asexual demographic ✘
Truth: Even though most people don’t know much about asexuality, they still have quite a specific idea about what asexual people are like. I’ve often heard that, as a black woman and a model, I don’t look or seem asexual. We’re stereotyped as being awkward white kids who spend too much time on social media and probably aren’t attractive enough to find a sexual partner if we wanted to. And if we are attractive enough, then we should tone that down as not to ‘give mixed signals.’ But there is no asexual way to look or dress. Asexual people have varying ages, backgrounds, interests, appearances, and experiences, just like those belonging to any other sexual orientation. So please don’t use the term “asexual” as an adjective to describe someone you think is sexually unappealing or as an insult, because that’s only perpetuating this harmful stereotype.
Meet Yasmin Benoit, the activist vocal on the visibility of asexuality, aromanticism, and of LGBTQ+ people of colour.Can you tell us about who you are and what you do?
I’m a model and aromantic-asexuality activist from Reading, England. I entered the fashion industry with the goal of providing more diversity, then I decided to use the platform I had gained from modelling to raise awareness for asexuality and aromanticism. Since finishing my Master’s degree, that’s been my main focus.
You started the #ThisIsWhatAsexualLooksLike which has broadened people’s understanding of asexuality, why was this something you felt inspired to do and how have things changed since you started the campaign?
I was inspired to do it because I felt like more people needed to be doing it. The outcome of the asexual community’s invisibility was staring me in the face my entire life. I was often told that I don’t “look asexual,” because I’m not what people picture when their understanding of asexual people comes from stereotypes. #ThisIsWhatAsexualLooksLikecame as a direct response to that unfortunately common idea.
I wanted to dispel the misconception that there’s an asexual way to look or dress, that there’s an asexual type or demographic. “Asexual” looks like me, or anyone else in our diverse community. I think the campaign introduced quite a lot of people to my work and played a part in people seeing me as an asexual representative of sorts. Every time I see asexual people using the hashtag and feeling empowered by it, it warms my heart.
A lot of the discussions about sexuality often leave out asexual identities, why do you think this is?
I’ve been trying to work that out for a while. There’s no clear, good or justifiable reason for it at this point in time. It seems like such an obvious thing to include. I’d say that it’s because it isn’t included in mainstream culture in general, but that’s a ‘chicken or the egg’ situation. At present, I think some people don’t want to go there just yet. They think that if they’re talking about anything that involves the L, the G, the B, or the T then they’ve done their part and don’t need to go further than that. They don’t think we need visibility because they haven’t heard about asexual people being discriminated against. That doesn’t mean it isn’t happening, though.
What do you think some of the misconceptions about asexuality are and why do they exist?
I’ve heard a ridiculous amount of misconceptions about asexuality. There’s the belief that we’re just incels, that we’re asexual because no one would want us anyway, that is a mental disorder, a physical disorder, a side-effect of trauma, a cover for another sexuality, or a cover for some kind of hidden perversion. People get it confused with celibacy, not wanting to have sex or not being able to have sex. There’s the misconception that it’s an attitude, like being anti-sex and thinking other people shouldn’t be having sex, or that we just haven’t found the “right person” yet.
I’ve had multiple people tell me that it’s the side effect of veganism, which is particularly bizarre. They come from a lack of education and miseducation. People aren’t taught about asexuality. It isn’t part of mainstream consciousness. Our society places so much emphasis on the importance of sexual attraction and romantic relationships that it breeds the belief that asexual people and aromantic people just need to develop past their “issue.” People need to realise that it isn’t an issue and what we’re taught about sexuality is just a small part of the picture.
How can we foster a sense of community while in isolation?
Keep creating, keep sharing, keep talking, keep reading, keep watching, keep filming. I know it feels like the world is at a standstill, but we need to keep going. I just encourage everyone to keep expressing themselves and supporting each other.
The fact that people still think that the A stands for Allies, and they’re more accepting of that than aspec people (people on the asexual/aromantic spectrum) is frustrating. Almost everyone who falls under the + needs more representation, especially intersex people.
If there is one thing you could say to oppressors of queer people, what would you say?
Oppression isn’t just a hot topic for morning breakfast shows, or isn’t just something to comment on under a Facebook post. It really impacts people’s lives. It affects their sense of self, their relationships, their future prospects, their safety. That isn’t a reflection of who they are, but of the world around them. If you want to leave something positive behind, make the world a better place for everyone.
Who inspires you?
My first choice is my mum, of course, for being a hard worker, a leader, and an amazing parent and friend who raised me single-handedly while having a successful career. I’m inspired by people who take risks and sacrifice something to help others. I’ve always cited Munroe Bergdorf as being my activist inspiration, especially as we work in similar industries. She got an unnecessary amount of slack for drawing attention to racism and transphobia, but it didn’t stop her.
What parts of the queer community do you feel needs more representation?
The asexual and aromantic community for sure. The fact that people still think that the A stands for Allies, and they’re more accepting of that than aspec people (people on the asexual/aromantic spectrum) is frustrating. Almost everyone who falls under the + needs more representation, especially intersex people.
Do you feel it is crucial as visible queer people to set boundaries so you don’t give too much of yourself?
I do, but I’d be lying if I said I’d worked out exactly how to do that. As an introvert in an ironically visible position, I’m still getting the hang of this whole thing. It’s hard to know when you’re off-duty, if you’re ever off duty. Or what to keep private and what to make public when who you are is being used as an example, and your story is being used to help others. It can also be draining having to explain everything to everyone all the time, or people feeling entitled to your life story at every opportunity. Sometimes, I just want to be like, “Google it. I’ve written articles, done interviews, there are whole web pages about it.”
Are you optimistic about the future for queer people?
It’s a hard question because I feel like we’re all on different trajectories at the moment. Trans rights are going backwards in some places, gay rights are going forwards, biphobia is evident even inside the LGBTQIA+ community, asexual and aromantic people have been gaining more visibility and representation, but we’re decades behind everyone else. Intersex issues are only just being bought into the conversation. I’d like to think that things will get better for everyone, though.
As a 26 year old multi-romantic asexual, I’m so thankful to the older biro-bisexuals who’ve been seeing the parallels between the treatment of ace and aro individuals with the treatment of bi individuals, even when they’re not on the aro or ace spectrum themselves, and actually saying something about it.
There’s a lot of biphobic and panphobic arguments concerning the exclusion of aces and aros, but you’re not even stopping there but talking about how arguments against aces and aros are almost word-for-word with your own lived in experiences with biphobia, and I really, really appreciate your allyship.
Often, there is a pressure in LGBTQIAP+ spaces to fit into a “queer” mold. While many G&L individuals don’t experiences this pressure, those with the ability to be attracted to a gender other than their own do. This pressure leads a lot of bisexual, pansexual, and asexual people feeling like they don’t belong in Pride events, especially with their different-gender partner by their side. When we…
Q: How to be “Queer Enough” to “Deserve” to go to Pride? A: Be Queer!
and always remember that all sorts of LGBT people were actively were involved in the Stonewall Riots, then all working together immediately started organizing new, more radical, activist, LGBT+ Liberation Groups (x)(x)(x)(x) and that it was in fact a young, radical, progressive, feminist, Bisexual+ Woman who first conceived of and then chaired the committee that organized the 1st Pride Marches and Festivals that we we now continue to celebrate worldwide every June
This is. A bit weird but. Like I’ve mentioned recently, I’m part of a group of people trying to create a local queer collective. And I’ve learnt some time ago, that one of the members of this collective is aphobic. Like “I don’t feel like saying ‘acephobia’ or ‘arophobia’ because they don’t exist” level of aphobic.
Which is bad enough, and honestly it doesn’t make me want to interact with her because, what an asshole lmao. The problem is, she’s a trans woman. So, it doesn’t feel good to outright dismiss her as an asshole, even though I don’t have the energy to educate her. If I see her and it comes up, I’ll just spam her with sources, whatever.*
Another issue arise though: excl/us/ion/ism, as we all know, is pretty popular among…te/rfs. So, while I don’t want to use up my energy for an aphobe, I can’t help knowing having this kind of bullshit in her head is dangerous for her (also, let’s be honest, it’s really fucking dangerous for the aspec people in her life, but it’s apparently not important to care about us so). So, while my actual main goal in wanting to make her change her mind is, the safety of one particular aroace person I know (they’re close), I’m also genuinely worried she might end up hurting herself because of her wrong beliefs. And I don’t know if showing/explaining to her how te/rfs have popularized aphobia and thrive on it would help? Like, trying to appeal to her own interests at first before getting her to care bout other people and trust/believe us?
I have no idea on if this would work or not. I don’t know her that much, we’ve barely met, and I don’t want to put the work into an aphobe with no garanty that they’ll at least change to be respectful of aspec people.
So yeah it’s a bit of a complicated situation. Maybe I just shouldn’t care but like I said, there’s this aroace person I care about in this equation. Thoughts?
*On that, I have some pretty convincing studies/reports about acephobia, but not so much about arophobia? I’m thinking about the GLSEN report that is very good for aces, but they didn’t care enoguh about us to survey aro people
listen it’s nice that the crewniverse went all “it’ll never be said in-show but peridot is the show’s aroace rep!!!!!!!” but FUCK does it feel utterly meaningless.
like, “dumbledore is gay” level of tokenism. it’s not the first time it was said that peridot is aspec. they had TONS of time to try and figure out how to slip it into the show. just one word. i mean it’s STEVEN UNIVERSE. this show is ALL OUT with the lgbt+ rep… except with aspec people apparently? our representation is just a production footnote? and how fucking HORRIBLE is it that the crew person who let us know about peri’s identity is aspec themself? imagine working on this show, doing storyboards, pouring your heart into a character that’s supposed to share your identity, to be your rep - and see it never get to be said?
i’m just… su, i really do love you, but you fucking let us aspecs down.
been seeing a lot of disgusting “uhhhh well i’m not gonna believe it until rebecca says it”-type comments and that’s EXACTLY why we fucking NEEDED peri’s identity to be EXPLICITLY CANON.
Can we also talk about how her identity was confirmed in relation to how she feels about shipping?
I’m SO tired of the “aro who is obsessed with ships because they’re ‘interesting’ stereotype. People are really so incapable of comprehending the concept of anyone living a life without romance, so they try to replace it. If the aro doesn’t want romance for themself, clearly they must be overly invested in other people’s relationships to make up for it! Right? Like yes, there are aros who are into shipping and that’s fine, but aro identities should not be talked about exclusively in relation to shipping.
When your rep feels like a side character poorly written circa 2016 Voltron fanfic, that’s not good rep. I’m really not happy about this. I know we’re supposed to all be cheering and throwing ourselves at the SU team’s feet for being ~brave~ enough to write an aroace character, but fuck, do I REALLY have to thank someone for giving me a single stale bread crumb?
There’s already a great breakdown of why people need to stop being shocked about asexual kids being treated like crap by their parents of the church. Why the question “Why would someone kick a kid out for not having sex?” is ridiculous and needs to stop.
And I don’t want to derail that breakdown, so here’s my own post.
As a personal experience, when I first tested the waters with my religious and homophobic family to try to come out as asexual, I sort of casually worked it into the conversation about “hey do you know there’s this thing in the LGBTQ group called asexuality?”
My sister-in-law looked confused, asked “like abstinence?”
I said, “No, they just don’t want sex.” (I know, not wholly accurate, but I was testing the waters)
I don’t know how to describe to you the expression of disgust that came over her. I had seen her discuss gay people before, trans people before, but had never seen her display that level of revulsion.
I don’t know why. I can’t answer why. Why would this thing that I am be so fucking repulsive to her? I don’t have the fucking answer. But the point is: it happened.
I am fortunate that I came out when I was an adult, financially independent, and living on my own.
I am fortunate that my family’s reaction was pretty mild.
Asexual kids and many asexual adults (because our system if fucking broken) aren’t that fortunate.
Joking about the “why” isn’t going to fix shit. Providing support and validation for asexual people will.
Cute how people who say this shit dont say transphobia doesnt exist just because shitty parents might kick out a trans kid because they think it’s because they’re gay. It’s all terrible and parents being bigoted and neglectful and abusive. To parents like that it doesn’t matter if you’re gay or trans or ace, it’s all the same to them and they don’t want you in their family.
Using this as a “gotcha” to belittle the experiences of those who’ve gotten kicked out after coming out with the bonus of not even being believed for what they came out as is disgusting.
If you’re someone who’s so wrapped up in your exclusionary ideology that you’re denying the experiences of fucking children kicked out of their homes and abused after coming out, for the love of whatever you believe/don’t believe in, fucking re-evaluate.
Also to everyone like “this fake, aces don’t get offered conversion therapy”
In this recent UK study cis asexuals were the most likely to have conversion therapy equal to cis gay/lesbian people. And the most likely to have it offered.
Stop basically yelling Fake News!1 and re-evaluate why you refuse to listen to victims of abuse.
Also people should stop reblogged this with “why would a parent kick a kid out for not having sex??.”
1) Stop equating sexuality to behavior. Don’t do it with gay people, don’t do it for ace people.
2) Faith based groups, especially those who are not pro-LGBTQ don’t magically see aces as acceptable. They view them as not-straight therefore wrong.
3) If you are abstinent it’s supposed to be a sacrificeyousuffer through to show your strong faith. Sex is meant to be your reward for being married. Being abstinent in a faith based groups works until you are meant to get married, be fruitful, or summit to your husband. The moment you decide you don’t want any of that for yourself now or in the future it’s a seen as a problem.
4) You’ll note that lots of number 3 is sexism, sex negativity, and the forced continuation of nuclear families something that directly and indirectly adds to homophobia and transphobia. And instead of saying “hey this ace, this victim of abuse, gives us an opportunity to discuss all of those wrongs in society, plenty of people just reblog “but why would you kick a virgin out??”
Learn what asexuality is, and how our fight for liberation has benefits for everyone.
Sexual attraction and romantic attraction are both ridiculously hard to describe even if you do feel them and yet we’re supposed to do that so people know what they are
But I think one part of the definition that gets lost on literally everyone who tries to explain either is the word “feel” that I used right up there
You feel it
It is a feeling
The difficulties in describing it accurately can then be understood if you tried to explain other feelings to people without using synonyms in your definition. For instance, assume you’re speaking to someone who has never experienced anger. Now try to describe it without using words like “mad” or “irritated” or anything like that. What does it mean to be angry? Is it just when you wanna beat somebody up? Well, most people don’t do that so clearly anger is not a common experience. Wait, it’s not that? So what is it? You feel physically warmer and your muscles tense up when you’re angry? So if I went out to the desert and started exercising, i would feel angry? No? Then what is it?
Not so easy, right?
And yeah sure, these feelings don’t start at the same time as when you start feeling anger every now and then, but they’re still feelings. Once your definition of romantic or sexual attraction is no longer describing a feeling, it’s no longer a definition of either. But it’s difficult because it’s so much easier to describe how the feeling may manifest rather than the feeling itself and your description of how it manifests for you may not perfectly match someone else’s lived experience. It’s also so much easier to compare it to other feelings the other person may have felt before. It’s so easy to do everything except describe the feeling itself.
Now you get a bunch of people who openly state “we don’t feel this common feeling ever”. Sure, if you’re unclear on how this person is using their terms, asking them is great. But you have to ask while being aware that they’re describing a feeling. And then you have to interpret their description as though it were an attempt to describe a feeling they literally just told you they have never felt in their lives because that’s literally what you’re gonna get.
So many false definitions of asexuality and aromanticism are based on describing them as wants and actions. Imagine describing anger like that. Imagine feeling anger but trying to explain that to somebody who thinks anger is when you wanna beat the shit out of someone or when you do just that. Except you don’t want to hurt anyone, you just want to get away from whatever is making you angry and idk draw some vent art. Imagine that person then telling you you must not actually be angry based on that. Then you explain it to them and they claim the word anger must not mean anything cause they don’t understand your definition. And now you’re even more angry cause you really didn’t need to be dealing with this person’s bullshit today. You see why we’re tired? Why aces and aros are sick of having to explain over and over what asexuality and aromanticism are because nobody wants to think of sexual and romantic attractions as feelings and not things that you do or think about doing? I, in particular, am sick of seeing aphobes mention asexuality, aromanticism, and attraction just in general because I can’t even be certain they’re using any of those terms right even though we have explained over and over again what they mean.
Please stop claiming asexuality is when you don’t have sex or that aromanticism is when you have sex and then don’t call the next day. Asexuality and aromanticism both describe the absence of certain feelings. The fact that you never felt the need to use more specific words to describe your feelings of attraction to others does not change that.
There’s already a great breakdown of why people need to stop being shocked about asexual kids being treated like crap by their parents of the church. Why the question “Why would someone kick a kid out for not having sex?” is ridiculous and needs to stop.
And I don’t want to derail that breakdown, so here’s my own post.
As a personal experience, when I first tested the waters with my religious and homophobic family to try to come out as asexual, I sort of casually worked it into the conversation about “hey do you know there’s this thing in the LGBTQ group called asexuality?”
My sister-in-law looked confused, asked “like abstinence?”
I said, “No, they just don’t want sex.” (I know, not wholly accurate, but I was testing the waters)
I don’t know how to describe to you the expression of disgust that came over her. I had seen her discuss gay people before, trans people before, but had never seen her display that level of revulsion.
I don’t know why. I can’t answer why. Why would this thing that I am be so fucking repulsive to her? I don’t have the fucking answer. But the point is: it happened.
I am fortunate that I came out when I was an adult, financially independent, and living on my own.
I am fortunate that my family’s reaction was pretty mild.
Asexual kids and many asexual adults (because our system if fucking broken) aren’t that fortunate.
Joking about the “why” isn’t going to fix shit. Providing support and validation for asexual people will.
We have terfs who admit that ace discourse was their first step towards radfem ideas. We’ve had multiple break downs of how terfs and radfems try to radialize other people by using ace/bi/pan/nb/queer/etc. discourse. We’ve had multiple break downs of how popular exclusionist arguments use the same faulty logic and arguments that radfems use.
Can exclusionists maybe finally admit that this is a problem and either drop the discourse entirely or try to come up with arguments that aren’t copied from radfems?
This is really important to recognize, because exclusionists don’t often want to recognize this dirty little truth about their community.
note how the “queer is(always)a slur (and should never be used, even to talk about yourself or the queer community or queer academia)” nonsense is directly mentioned as point 2 on the aphobe to TERF pipeline
Sorry for all this, but since I’ve been blocked I can’t actually directly respond.
It’s great that you think that A became Asexual from Ally when AVEN forced the issue, but… AVEN formed in iike, what, 2000?
I can personally remember A being Asexual in the 90s, before that event.
My partner remembers it from the 80s, and points out that sometimes there were two As (Asexual and Ally) and sometimes two Qs (Queer and Questioning).
I know Marsha P. Johnson and Silvia Rivera were influential in the late 60s and early 70s, but they did not start the community. They were organizers IN the community that already existed. And they were in NYC. The communities in the midwest and California were not entirely identical back in the before times. Hell, the lesbians and the gays couldn’t always be in the same room with one another and stay polite.
The internet has homogenized this stuff some, but back in the 80s and 90s things weren’t quite as consistent as they have become.
The ‘X’ that Kinsey discussed were absolutely part of the existing queer community, even if they weren’t calling themselves ‘ace’. Same people.
I can’t remember citations, but I’m pretty sure if you go dig up some of good old Magnus Hirschfeld work that you’ll find that pre-WWII queer community in Berlin (ie, the San Francisco of Europe at the time) included discussions of people we would recognize as Asexual.
History is long and complicated. It’s a great story that Aces and Aros are cishet and straight and not part of the community, but it’s a story. It’s revisionist history. It disagrees with my lived experience (I’m old).
The thing that really cheeses me off about this whole conversation is that back in the 80s and 90s you had this exact conversation, except it was about the ‘B’ or the ‘T’. Not the ‘A’. Now, the people making these kinds of exclusionary statements are excluding the ‘A’ from the LGBT. And they use the same kinds of arguments. B people are either straight (and therefore not part of the community) or confused gay people (in which case they were fine). T people aren’t ‘really’ women, so they don’t belong in lesbian spaces. Really they’re just gay men who like dressing up or they’re straight men who don’t belong in the community because they’re some kind of fetishist.
It’s always about peeling off some of these queer identities and reducing them to the ‘actually gay’ part (who are okay, if strange, and part of the community) and the ‘actually straight’ part (who are our oppressors, and don’t belong and are evil and sneaky and trying to horn in on our community and make us unsafe and doing it for attention).
It’s a conversation that makes us poorer every time we have to go through it.
People who aren’t ace don’t get to decide what ace issues are, or which ones are most important.
And don’t y’all comment with any “but the cishet aces!” crap because ace issues affect more than just cis straight aces, and if you can’t see past your exclusionary rhetoric to know that, then leave.
not that this is a new thing but i geniunely hate that inclusionists argument for ace people being lgbt almost always includes words like “weird” or “abnormal” like. the point of tbe lgbt community is N O T that we’re weird or abnormal, its so we can do something against oppression and even if it wasnt and it was only for people who have something in common (being lgbt) cis het/aro aces dont have that in common with us !! the community was never about us being “weird” “abnormal” and stuff, saying that (especially when the aces that ARENT lgb or t say it) jus sounds homo/transphobic. cishet people calling us weird and abnormal isnt new.
ive seen people be like “but aces arent cishet and thats what being lgbt is about!” and forget to note that SOME are, and some are gay and bi. aro aces arent the only aces. even if you dont want it, the statement “aces are lgbt” lets cishet people into the community. if aces cant be cishet they also cant be gay or bi.
What are you talking about? I’m an inclusionist and I haven’t seen this. Are you talking about how people say that aces and aros are affected by heteronormativity? Us saying that aces and aros aren’t straight isn’t saying that non-straight people are weird or abnormal.
I think aces and aros can be cis and het, but they’re not the same as fully cis straight people. Cis straight people do not have a marginalized orientation, whereas aces and aros do. That’s how we have something in common with other lgbtq+ groups.
ive seen so many people say “lgbt is about being weird and aces arent cishet so we are included ” maybe you havent personally done it but ive seen it a lot. cishet aces are ,, still cishet in basically the same way that non ace cishets are cishet. theyre never gonna like the same gender, theyre not gonna be trans ever. theyre gonna live the normal cishet life, jus without sex.
Alright, can you give me examples? While I haven’t said this myself, I also haven’t seen this in the inclusionist community that I interact with.
If you would listen to cis het aces and aros, you would hear how their experiences differ from cis straight people. Cis straight people treat anyone who doesn’t solely identify as like them as different. Saying you’re ace or aro, despite any other factors, changes the way they perceive and treat us.
Also, asexuality doesn’t mean celibate or sex-repulsed. The definition is about experiencing no attraction.
i assumed you meant the ones that dont have sex, considering the ones that do have absolutely no fucking difference from cishets outside of their personal enjoyment.
i’ll look for the examples, they kinda got drowned on my feed thingy so its hard 2 find sbsbs. also? you dont need to? tell cishet people youre a cishet ace like ur sex life is personal theyre not gonna perceive you differently ESPECIALLY if youre one of the aces that do participate in sexual stuff.
Not having sex isn’t the only thing that differs asexual cis straight people from allo cis straight people. Being asexual or aromantic in itself differs them from allo cis straight people. Through asexuality and aromanticism, you’re still impacted by ace and aro issues, including patholization, corrective therapy, sexual assault & harassment, etc. as well as dealing with the stereotypes and prejudice people have of ace & aro people, all of which increase once you include another intersectional identity (aces/aros of color are impacted by aphobia differently than white aspecs, disabled aces/aros are impacted differently than abled aspecs, etc).
These things don’t just go away if you’re cis and straight. People aren’t suddenly okay with the idea that not experiencing a common type of attraction is normal and real. People don’t suddenly stop referring ace people to therapists or doctors when they come out, or comparing us to inanimate objects and dehumanizing us. The bigotry and prejudice doesn’t go away. And neither does the erasure or the experience of having your orientation differ from the majority of society.
My ace identity affects me in some of the same/similar ways my bi and trans identities affect me, and that wouldn’t just go away if I were cis and straight.
The more I’m on Tumblr, the more I’m tempted to base my master’s thesis on how asexuality and aromanticism are actively harmful by pushing people into further social isolation.
If the only social interaction you get is through romance or sex, you need help. Join a club, man.
