#shipwars
“queerbaiting in real life” you mean exploring self expression regardless of the outcome bc it’s good for you and not owing it to people to come out???
queerbaiting is a marketing technique real people aren’t products or your fictional blorbos even the mega celebrities are owed privacy jesus christ
a lot of shit i hear in the discourse reminds me of actual things homophobes say irl and it’s… really troubling?
- “preteens identifying as ace is sexualizing!” whenever i headcanon a character as gay or bi/pan, my mom tells me, not everything has to be sexual. lgbt identities are viewed as inherently sexual and inappropriate for children.
- “why do you feel the need to talk about being ace? it’s tmi, no one needs or wants to know about your sex life except your partner.” i’m not against your lifestyle, just keep it in the bedroom, okay?
- “telling kids they can experience sexual attraction is grooming.” please stop conflating minority orientations to pedophilia, this has been used against gay people forever.
- “asexuality is a disease and doesn’t naturally occur.” do i even have to explain this one?
what i’m trying to say is that it’s really hurtful for me, an ace lesbian, to hear this rhetoric used against me by straight people because i’m gay, then go into lgbt spaces–which are supposed to be safe for me–and hear other gay people saying almost word-for-word the exact same things, this time directed against my asexuality.
please stop using these arguments. don’t repackage homophobic rhetoric and use it against a different minority orientation.
*interracial couple exist*
Toxic fandom: I will dedicate years to invalidating this couple.
*two white people exist in the same universe*
Toxic Fandom: I will ship these two regardless of history, chemistry, probability, narrative, or logic. This is canon and the gospel of the Gods.
Good bi representation is not and never will be about characters being “gay enough” for gay people and lesbians to pretend that they’re not bi. Good bi representation is about having a diverse range of bi characters.
aggressive reminder that while y’all don’t have to headcanon any unlabeled multisexual characters as pan, y’all need to start acknowledging that there are more than three sexualities and that bi isn’t the default for “not straight or gay”, therefor they could very well be pan. stop erasing us.
And How to Respond to Them
Using aro-spec / ace-spec identities to sideline characters in a story, isn’t the kind of representation aro-spec / ace-spec people want. This is quite often done to remove the character as a relationship option or to shift focus on characters who are not aro-spec / ace-spec. In doing so, people are basically confirming that the kinds of relationships we form are less important. They are also confirming that our existence is less important. Our stories are less important. How our aro-ness or ace-ness intersects with other experiences is less important. That is a problem for us.
What is not a problem for us, is when aro-spec / ace-spec people choose to see themselves in characters whose experiences are similar to their own. There is a big difference between us interpreting characters as such, and people who are not us interpreting characters as such in a faux-support move. We are invested in the characters being representative of us. We do not see our identity as a simple plot device. The addition of our identity to a character does not take anything about them away. It adds nuance to that character. There’s nothing wrong with that. At all.
I can understand people being upset and resistant to anyone erasing one part of a character’s canon identity in order to include a headcanoned identity. However, this happens to many different characters of different identities. I have seen this often happen to non-binary or non-binary coded characters, who are interpreted as strictly binary by fans. I have seen the very very few aro-spec and ace-spec characters we have erased by fans, who don’t care about how being aro-spec or ace-spec would play out in a relationship. So, it happens to everybody, but I’ve only seen aro-spec / ace-spec folks yelled at for doing it.
Point is, don’t be fake about your support. Don’t use aro-spec / ace-spec people as pawns in your fandoms. If you’re going to represent us, do it because you want to represent us. Not so you can write us off. Also, don’t punish aro-spec / ace-spec people for actually being invested in their representation. We are not the problem. Wanting to see ourselves in fiction is not the problem. Being aro-spec or ace-spec shouldn’t be treated like a punishment. When you address people using aro-spec / ace-spec identities to sideline characters, maybe don’t alienate actual aro-spec / ace-spec people when you address it.
If, in fact, you find people using our identities dishonestly, that is not the time to reinforce the idea that aro-spec / ace-spec identities are a punishment. That is not the time to alienate aro-spec / ace-spec people, by explaining how not aro-spec or ace-spec a character is as if being aro-spec / ace-spec is abnormal. The best thing to do is ask someone why they interpret someone as aro-spec / ace-spec. Why is it that this interpretation is being revealed while the character is being treated as less important or less valuable to a relationship? It is not a bad thing to be us. It is a bad thing to use us to treat others as less-than.
