luv being queer

Hi I'm tory and I love having bi/ace solidarity w myself. Asexual and biromantic nb/genderqueer, 26yo and white, she/her or they/them. formerly ace discourse sideblog, now queer stuff sideblog. If you have questions about asexuality, I'd love to help out!

[dismemberment-on-a-tuesday-night]

People anywhere on the asexual spectrum, how do you identify?

Sex repulsed

Sex neutral

Sex favorable

It fluctuates

Something else (put in the tags)

Nosy allosexual

Voting ended onFeb 15, 2023

[ace-angel]

the "something else" for me is what i call sex intrigued - i've never had sex, i'm definitely curious enough to try it if the circumstances arrive, but i don't feel it's something crucial missing from my life and i'm not actively seeking it out.

[ace-angel]

when i'm feeling normal, being ace is just a regular thing about me, like a favorite color or a food allergy. but when i'm feeling low it becomes a part of the swirling black hole of emptiness that consumes my energy and emotions and life. looking at art and going outside and cooking and reading make me feel nothing, a gaping void where feelings should be. looking at people i could hypothetically be attracted to and feeling nothing? doesn't help.

[swampgallows]

“tbh we might have clowned on [aros & aces] a lil too harshly” bigotry. the term you’re looking for is bigotry. denying communities their vocabulary and ability to safely exist because you think you’re the personal arbiter of which identities are “valid” is bigotry. minimizing and infantilizing and harassing entire groups of people based on their orientation is bigotry. aphobia isn’t some forgettable phase of being cringe as a teenager, it’s bigotry that inflicted long term damage to these communities.

[swampgallows]

These notes are heartbreaking. There are hundreds of aspec people describing in detail how they went back in the closet or lived in denial or in fear because of the malice, harassment, and ignorance toward aromantic and asexual people. Aspec positivity tags used to be full of porn and gore. This included pictures of the corpse of a teen girl who came out as asexual the day before she was brutally murdered—and Internet strangers responded by debating her orientation.

Aphobes tried to argue that only lesbians could experience corrective rape, or that it was somehow appropriating a term exclusive to South Africa, or that an asexual person willing to have sex could not be correctively raped. They insisted any evidence of oppression was either misdirected or fabricated. Being an entry in the DSM until 2013 and developing medication specifically for treating the condition didn’t count. 

They told us all of our words were either stolen or stupid: allistic people tried to say that “aspec” was specifically about people on the autism spectrum; “zucchini”, squash, and other innocuous aspec terms and motifs (black rings, playing card suits, cake, space, dragons, etc.) got ridiculed to death; QPRs as a concept are derided as “just friends” and irrelevant to anyone but aspecs, who themselves are deemed irrelevant. In fact, the “clowning” quote in the OP was in the notes on a post of mine about the importance of recognizing queerplatonic relationships. 

Aphobes insisted that aspecs couldn’t speak other languages, that it’s a “white people thing”, that teenagers are just trying to feel special, that it’s a side effect of SSRIs, that we’re “basically straight” (straight-passing, i.e. erased). Anything to deny us our existence. Anything to minimize us, to keep us invisible and silent, to blame us for intracommunity issues, to invalidate us. 

I got attention for getting angry in 2018, and I’m still angry now. This has been happening on tumblr for over a decade. It’s been known for a long time (and even admitted by terfs themselves) that aro/ace exclusion and trans exclusion go hand in hand and contribute to terf rhetoric. When you hurt us, you are hurting your own community. Arguing that aspecs do not belong is not “discourse”. It is bigotry.

[ace-angel]

just saw someone's dni include "pedo apologists" and I would like to know. who the fuck. they think is going to purposefully label themselves as such and obey your dni. I've been called a "pedo apologist" before but always, always by conservatives as a stand-in for "supports safe sex ed in schools" or "supports trans children". so idk maybe don't borrow their dogwhistles?

[antimasculist]

grabbing you by the shoulders shaking you violently does it matter does slur discourse fucking matter. who cares if a gay guy says dyke who gives a shit if a lesbian says faggot why is this the hill youre dying on

[antimasculist]

slur discourse has rotted everyones brains its not a matter of "being x means you can say y" its a matter of respect. why are you saying this word? what does it mean to you? in what contexts are you saying it? are you using it to hurt people? these are the things we should be asking when faced with the reclamation of a hurtful word, not "do you have enough stamps on your Gay Sex card to earn a life-time guarantee FagPass"

[ace-angel]

the idea that purity culture doesn't hurt aces is so ridiculous when you think about it for more than about five seconds because purity culture isn't just saying "don't have sex". purity culture is "don't dress like that" "don't consume this media" "don't think about what kind of sex you might or might not like" and especially "you are saving yourself to have the right kind of sex one day, whether you want to or not".

[ace-angel]

looking back it's almost funny how much people on this site used to deny the link between terfs and aphobia. under an article about asexuality posted recently on twitter by stonewall uk, every single negative comment is from a terf account. every one! and there are dozens.

[ace-angel]

sometimes it's like, am i a lesbian? i mostly think about dating women and then the guy i liked in college posts some tasteful shirtless pics and it's like nooooo haha i continue to be bi

[satanfemme]

when people try to make their (shallow at best) feminism sound inclusive to nonbinary people but accidentally let slip their prejudices in the process. "men aren't pretty, women and nonbinary people are pretty." "fuck men, I only like women and nonbinary people." and ofc the classic "safe space for women and nonbinary people, no men allowed." like damn that's crazy. can't wait until you find out about nonbinary men too though 😑. or, can't wait until you find out about masculine nonbinary people in general tbh, cause I know they're not who u have in mind with these statements. by choice and not there's nonbinary people out there who look and present exactly how u imagine binary men do, of all ages, and maybe you need to wrap your cute little head around that before even attempting to speak on "nonbinary rights" or whatever.

[satanfemme]

like, if ur including 18 yr old she/they demigirls who don't want to go on T but always wear pronoun pins in your activism, that's great. but if you want to speak on nonbinary people as a whole group, you're also speaking on 30-something year old he/him men who're already balding, who have full beards, who are stealth as cis men (if not cishet men) in their workplaces, who aren't twink-y and who might not own a single piece of make-up, and who may or may not be physically transitioning. And when they say they're nonbinary they're just as nonbinary as the first example I gave.

this is why "men vs non-men" doesn't work. some people are both. some people aren't both, but by your prejudice standards might cross the line. ffs some nonbinary people are a woman and ALSO a man. there is no secondary binary you can salvage out of this. and if you don't reframe your nonbinary activism to include these people and support these people too, you are a bad activist and frankly being transphobic -- not only towards masculine nonbinary people, but also towards the feminine/androgynous nonbinary people who you're not so subtly trying to simplify to "woman-lite".

[ace-angel]

controversial perhaps but I don't really like the "are you a she/they or a they/she?" kinda mindset I've seen a lot of recently. I know some people starting listing "they" first because they kept getting called exclusively the more gendered pronoun, but to me it defeats the whole purpose of going by both sets of pronouns if I now have to pick which one is first.

[ace-angel]

me getting masc-er and my amab nb friend getting femm-er meeting in the middle high fivin'

[ace-angel]

hey can you come pick me up? people are trying to make a perfect, rigid system for applying labels to bi and lesbian women without their input again. oh obviously with subtle misgendering and a complete dismissal of much of queer history. five minutes? thanks

[acespec-ed]

You might be sexually attracted to that person if…

- You think sexual thoughts about the person out of nowhere

- You feel aroused upon seeing the person outside of a sexual setting

- You find yourself wondering what the person is like in bed and what their genitals look like 

- You want to have sex with that person because your body is screaming for sex with that one person in particular.

- Seriously though if you’re already horny and that person is there you will feel all hot and sexually aroused and might drool a bit and fantasies of doing X-rated things to that person will fly through your mind and your body will literally be screaming for that person to take you or for you to take that person. Even just thinking about that person while horny can do this to you.

- TMI but if you get off while fantasizing about you having sex with that person, the orgasms can be absolutely mind-blowing and may even give you leg cramps.

- You really do “just know.”

You might not be sexually attracted to that person if…

- You make a conscious effort to fantasize about sex with that person, mainly to see if you actually want to

- You feel aroused during a sexual situation, but that arousal has more to do with the activities instead of the specific person. Alternatively, you just don’t feel aroused at all.

- You feel aroused at random, but it’s directed towards no one

- You want to have sex with that person because you want to make them happy or are just horny and want to get off with a partner or want babies or want money or literally any other reason aside from your body screaming for sex with that one person in particular.

- TMI but if you try to get off while fantasizing about you having sex with that person, you may get bored and start thinking of other things. Or, you may start fantasizing about that person doing sexual things that don’t involve you in which case aegosexual might be worth looking into.

- You just don’t know.

If the “you might be sexually attracted” list boggles your mind, you are possibly asexual.

If the “you might not be sexually attracted” list boggles your mind, you are possibly not asexual.

If you can relate to the “might not be sexually attracted” list, but also feel like you’ve experienced some of the things on the “might be sexually attracted” list, it may be worth checking out some acespec identities.

(Disclaimer: This is strictly based off of my own experiences as acespec and is meant to be a guide for people questioning sexual attraction. Overall, you know yourself best and I’m not gonna tell you what you’re feeling or how to identify.)

[aegosexual-moments]

These types of lists are always so helpful!

A big one too, I think is, you may fantasize, but the people in your fantasies are never YOU. They’re fictional characters or your OCs but they’re never you specifically. And if they are it’s an idealized version of you.

That top list makes me realize I’ve never experienced any of that, it’s kinda like when I stumbled into an ask Reddit about what sexual attraction felt like and I went “yeah, I have never felt THAT way and whatever I feel isn’t sexual attraction”

[zymomonasmobilis]

here it is, the info I’ve always wanted to see, breaking down attraction vs not-attraction in intense, analytical detail

[thoughtlessthinkythoughts]

Here’s a few more for aces who do experience aesthetic attraction and who aren’t repulsed, because goodness knows these are the ones that confused me when I was figuring things out. If you have sexual fantasies that involve things being in a certain situation or having things done to you, but you aren’t visualizing anything or imagining specific people, you might not experience sexual attraction

If you’ve ever had the thought “masturbation is better than sex because it is more efficient and skips the boring bits,” you might not experience sexual attraction.

If you find someone attractive, but the thought of seeing them with their clothes off isn’t more attractive, it probably isn’t sexual attraction. (A naked body is just a naked body. But people are so lovely when in a look they’ve picked out to express themselves.)

If you occasionally notice body parts considered sexual and think they look nice, but do not want to do anything sexual related to those parts, it might not be sexual attraction. (I will occasionally think someone has nice boobs or a nice butt, and I assumed that was sexual attraction for a long time. But I’ve learned that for allo people, thinking those things leads to them having a response of “therefore I want to tap that” which is absolutely baffling to me. Also, again, those thoughts don’t lead to “and therefore I want to see them without clothing.”

If your response to something that seems to be making others horny is very similar to your response to those videos of “oddly satisfying” things, it might not be sexual attraction.

[ace-angel]

Uh hi! So i came out as bi-curious but now that I've said it I'm unsure if i really am. If you don't mind me asking, how did you know you were bi-romantic?

this is going to sound a bit silly, but at first it was very much a "well, why not?" type of thing. I realized I was asexual first, and only then was I able to realize I also like women. being gay or bi is really sexualized in mainstream culture and especially in christian culture, it was always framed to me as "do you want to do bad and sinful sex things with women? or do you want to have a nice husband who you love?". the concept of two women being in love was really not a thing, especially when I was a teenager in the 00s, in the rural midwest. once I realized the feelings I'd had for a boy or two were actually romantic attraction, I thought, why wouldn't I be able to feel the same for girls? and looking back, i totally had those feelings for girls around me. I just didn't realize that was what I was feeling at the time! from there I started spending more time in spaces with wlw, online and in college, and found a lot of their experiences relatable. I made a point to deliberately notice when i found women pretty until it kind of became second nature. and i also started thinking about dating and living with a woman a lot, in a way that first felt uncomfortable because of my strict catholic upbringing, but now feels completely normal and comfortable. I don't know if I'm the best person to give advice, but usually straight people don't spend much time questioning if they're bi. you can feel free to just call yourself bi, and if you find yourself mostly or only in "straight" partnerships, that's totally okay! maybe you'll realize it was just a phase, or maybe you'll find you love being open to relationships, sex, and attraction to all genders. I wouldn't worry too much about finding the correct answer; in my experience it makes itself clear over time.

[ace-angel]

It’s a lovely day to just take a second in order to remember that you’re an absolute wonder and that you should honour the wonderful person you are inside and out. <3

thank you so much anon! this goes for the 666 people following me also. take some you time today.

[ace-angel]

it's very funny to me when people call me a cishet as an insult bc even if I were wrong about my gender and was actually a cis woman... I still like women you fools, that's not hetero behavior

[ace-angel]

also on GOD I will answer some asks tomorrow. most of them are nice! hell yeah!