The number of times I have been delighted by witty banter only to find out later that I was “Flirting” is both unfortunate and disappointing.
“haha so what about that guy, huh?”
Me: what about him
“Well you seemed super into him”
Me: what why
“…dude you were flirting all night”
Me:
Me:Whoms't™™
I found out several of my female coworkers were planning on trying to get our male coworker to ask me out because “You guys kept flirting” but I was like “We were literally just goofing around. Like we literally just told jokes to each other. Literally just stuff that friends do, the same stuff you and I do.” I was definitely 100% NOT flirting but everyone thought I was
“You were laughing at everything TJ did!”
“He paper clipped a banana to the ceiling, Isabelle. That’s fucking bonkers”
I feel like my asexuality might be something that is jarring for some people to consider but it’s literally a part of myself that I cannot fucking change lol
hi sorry for this extremely long rant but i just have to finally be able to talk to someone because i am so?? tired??? of not being allowed to say literally fucking anything????? like there literally are so incredibly few words a-specs have permission to use on this website or else we have to face The Discourse Police and i’m so goddamn tired of it?
i can’t say that i’m ace, no matter the context, because ew that’s tmi nobody wants to know about my sex life, i need to learn my place and realize that my orientation is too filthy for decent people to discuss in public. i can’t say that i’m aro either because everyone knows all aros on earth are just misogynistic frat boys and why would i want to associate with that toxic community anyway? actually ace and aro are both useless labels, and also they’re homophobic and inherently bigoted and no good person would use them even if they felt ace or aro because the community is evil, so really it’s best never to use either word at all. if someone asks what my orientation is i’m supposed to just. fucking scream i guess.
i can’t say that i was raped for being ace (and can’t even THINK the words “corrective rape”), even though my rapist literally told me that was the reason and that he could fix me, because i guess i’m just too fucking stupid to understand the circumstances around my own abuse and need random internet strangers to explain my own experiences to me and what the REAL reason was, because my rape is just a talking point in the tumblr #ace discourse.
i can’t talk about my rape or other abuse at all actually, because if i do i’m either lying/exaggerating or i’m guilt tripping and being manipulative and trying to bully my way into the community by preying on people’s emotions. but if i DON’T talk about my abuse then it never happened and can never possibly happen to any a-spec ever because other people said so and, hello, where’s the proof that aces are ever abused?
i can’t talk about how my mother asked why i couldn’t have just been gay instead of aroace (“i can tell people my kid is gay, how am i supposed to explain that you just don’t love anyone? that’s soulless, they’re going to think i did something terrible to you to make you that way”), because that’s a disgusting lie and an anomaly and mentioning it or acknowledging that it was a real thing that actually happened to me is violently homophobic and gross, and it’s not like anyone ever asked me to talk about it or prove that it happened (except when they do) and i’m probably lying anyway.
i can’t say the word allo or people who don’t know what that word means will come crawling out of the woodwork to tell me how it is Bad and Homophobic and Wrong based on the incorrect definition they decided on, so i have to other myself by saying non-ace instead. BUT, sometimes someone will come along and remind me that i’m not supposed to say that either because wow, don’t i know that saying someone isn’t asexual is implying that they’re very sexual and their orientation is inherently sexual and i must think all those Dirty Allos™ are just thinking about sex all the time, why am i so goddamn homophobic?
i can’t use words created for me as an aro person like squish or qpr, even though i need them, because lol don’t i know those words are useless and stupid and just jokes because people who don’t need them decided they are? better not even think about saying them unless i want my post derailed into a joke fest by discoursers trying to play “how many csa survivors can i trigger and upset in one post”.
i can’t talk about how i knew that i was different and weird from as young as nine or ten, because gross don’t i know that only literal pedophiles believe someone can know they’re ace before they’re eighteen? i can’t even THINK about how little fifth grade me used to cry alone in my room wondering what was wrong with me and if i really was a freak or a baby like the other kids said i was because i’d never had a crush, or else i’m a fucking pedophile and also probably homophobic somehow.
i can’t make positivity posts, can’t tell members of my community that they’re great and valid and not broken because gross why am i enabling a horrible community like the ace one, and lol cishets don’t even need positivity? also no matter what the post is about and no matter how much i don’t mention being lgbt+ at all, it will still inevitably get derailed to “k but aces aren’t lgbt” so if it’s not a good mental health night i probably shouldn’t make a positivity post at all, because lol aces don’t deserve simple positivity or validation without Discourse attached.
i can’t talk about aphobia because it doesn’t exist, and i still haven’t learned my lesson re: internet strangers knowing my experiences better than i do i guess, but most importantly i can’t talk about aphobia happening in real life because i’m just lying or making shit up to guilt trip people, and if i happen to get caught saying that irl lgbt+ spaces are more inclusive than tumblr then somehow i’ve just admitted that aphobia doesn’t actually exist in any context and no one actually hates aces or aros, wow discourse is done, everyone can go home.
i can’t talk about the split attraction model at all unless i’m calling out how terrible and awful it is, because someone once had internalized homophobia and that is the fault of not only the model itself but also of every person who uses the model or finds it helpful, and Good Aces don’t condone the sam (even though without it i literally can’t exist in discourse land because ace and aro are both only modifiers, not orientations, so i guess i don’t have an orientation and am just a void with two modifiers both modifying nothing, but i can’t talk about that either unless i want to get called cishet and yelled at for tokenizing aro people, why does The Ace Community hate aros so much?).
i can’t say “gatekeeping”, can’t use the actuallyasexual tag, can’t say “space ace”, can’t use certain *literal memes* because every word an ace ever says is somehow stealing from someone or somehow homophobic or is just generally Bad in some vague way nobody ever fucking explains.
and i am just. tired. really, really goddamn fucking tired. it feels like that’s the only word that can describe how i feel about everything at this point, so i guess i should say it as much as i can now before someone comes along to take the word ‘tired’ away from my a-spec ass too.
in case you don’t know, it’s pride month !!!!!! be yourself and be proud of you!! also remember that YOU ARE VALID, DONT LET ANYONE TELL YOU OTHERWISE!!!! ❤️❤️
was gonna leave my comment in the tags but tbh i’m silent enough about this as it is.
seeing stuff like this is so upsetting because these terms were well known and widespread in the ace community but because of exclusionists many people stopped using terms like this because they felt uncomfortable and unsafe.
i loved these terms when i was in highschool, i loved the feeling of community, but i lost that because i didn’t feel comfortable openly and proudly calling myself asexual.
they’ve hurt so many people and damaged our community badly and i will never forgive them for that. we deserve to use our own terminology and feel safe within our community.
sometimes i notice i haven’t seen “grace” (grey-ace) in a while and consequently wonder if i made it up.
I remember ppl - even other ace ppl - saying the card suit thing was “cringey” and “straight ppl aren’t gonna take us seriously” (sounds familiar?) So i guess the community wound up abandoning it. We were also having severe issues at the time with aces being stereotyped as “childish/immature” for associating things like cake, dragons, and space with asexuality, plus in general as most aces just don’t “get” allosexual things in media and irl. We were starting to be viewed as ignorant, virginal, childish, losers, etc. I haven’t seen an ace-cake thing in a good while now.
This was the infancy of exclusionary influence on us. I didn’t realize it did more damage than just closeting us. Whole symbols and terms have been lost. Community has been lost.
I remember three-four years ago I got myself into the ace community on Insta, and I came across these terms. People in these circles would talk about cake, space, dragons, and the black ring on the middle finger. Then, a year or two later, ace content fizzled out (I thought it was Insta’s algorithm figuring out that I knew all this and didn’t bring me the old stuff) and young aces had no idea what any of these were - including the black ring. Finding out young aces had no idea what the black ring meant nearly snapped my heart in two - I proudly wore the black ring, I drew characters with it, and it was my quiet way of communicating to others what my sexuality was. I was baffled at the lack of knowledge - and it turns out that exclusionists got their hands into our community and snuffed us out.
Anyways, we need to bring this back. I thought the card suite thing was cool, it taught people the different ways people can experience attraction, I loved making jokes about preferring cake, I loved wearing the black ring and talking about it with my fellow queer people at my highschool QSA club.
I’m sorry, people don’t know about the cake or ring anymore? I remember being welcomed with spams of cake gifs, photos, and MS Paint drawings. I also distinctly remember that the block solo ring in the midle was meant as reference to the Ace of Spades (black, solo, middle of card). Only thing I didn’t know was that other aces could represent a more refined nuance. Let’s see if we can get this all rolling again.
Welcome to anyone who is interested in helping with the culture revival.
Ijust lost my black ring today (3/25), otherwise I’d take a pic for y'all. It’s black with a very subtle purple & galaxy sheen to it. Gonna order a new one ASAP and I’ll be sure to get a pic once it arrives.
Ace of hearts! I identify as ace/ace-spec, I know I’ve felt attraction a few times, but so rarely I can’t really classify it more specifically.
I got a black ring a few months ago and I now wear it all the time (though I sometimes leave it by the sink after doing dishes ) and I have a collection of different ace pins I keep on my hiking backpack, my favorite sweater, and my work lanyard. I’m going to redo my nails in ace inspired colors soon so I’ll post my ring when I do and get both at once!
(Note to those asking about the black ring: middle finger of the right hand; the swinger community also uses black rings to indicate they’re open for encounters. From what I’ve seen the swinger community is well-aware of the ace black ring, and advises its members not to put theirs on the middle finger out of respect.)
I finally finished this year’s fanarts, as always just celebration, no offense of any kind intended, and as you know labels are not always super defined so I chose one but they may belong to more than one, hope you enjoy them and Happy Pride!!!
I finally finished this year’s fanarts, as always just celebration, no offense of any kind intended, and as you know labels are not always super defined so I chose one but they may belong to more than one, hope you enjoy them and Happy Pride!!!
hello friends! I first joined the tumbl in 2010 because this was where the asexual community lived. it has since been deliberately and systematically destroyed by the Discourse, but that’s a rant for another time. the point is, I miss having that community — I’m 30 now, and feeling the lack of it in a way I haven’t since I first found the word in college.
I’m wondering if anyone knows where I can find my fellow asexuals these days? are there forums still? is aven still even a thing? are we hanging out on discord? what blogs should I be following? are there ace writing groups? because I would fuckin love me an asexual writing group, be it fan or original fiction. literally where my people at?
thanks babes!
There are still blogs like mine that weathered the hate and i know of a few discord communities but nothing as wide spread as I recall back in 2010.
I think this means what we need to do is go around and drag everyone who was around in 2011 out of retirement and get them back here for one last heist.
1) AVEN is still a thing but plenty of people use other spaces/it’s not as much of a monolith as it probably used to be. There’s other groups now like TAAAP(this specifically links to their page with other ace & aro groups/resources)
2) there’s definitely stuff on discord but I don’t particularly have recommendations. https://disboard.org is a website where you can generally search for discord servers by topic (like “Asexual”) but it can be a bit hit or miss.
3) you might want to check out carnival of aces for writing stuff, there’s monthly prompts people write for. Also there’s generally zines that pop up every now and then.
4) in terms of public social media spaces, tumblr is probably the best at this point, Twitter is like 5 years behind us and more discourse-y. I don’t have specific blog recs but if you search “Asexual” (or “actually asexual” to help avoid off topic stuff) you can probably find blogs you’d like. (Also filtering by recent is generally good when you want blogs that are actually active)
5) there’s definitely ace & aro fandom specific servers for some fandoms if you’re into fanfiction stuff, though they may not be particularly active or easy to find.
Also you only mentioned asexual so I’ve only listed asexual or general a-spec stuff that I’m aware of; if you also have interest in aromantic stuff, I can suggest more resources (I interact more with the aro community than the ace one).
ALT
