A-spec positive

Name's Pet. Aroace, (?)gender, 24. ask for my main if you want it. If you have any questions, concerns, complaints etc, feel free to message me or ask me anything! I'm available for anything, even if you just want to talk. I'll try to keep this blog discourse free but sometimes some posts get through. REGs, mysoginists, racists, anti-SJ's and other assorted bigots will be blocked on sight.

[stormloup]

“Ace people can still have sex! Aro people can still date!” SHUT THE FUCK UP SHUT THE FUCK UP SHUT THE FUCK UP SHUT THE FUCK UP

Forcing aro and ace people into amatonormative relationships is NOT the woke take you think it is you aphobic pieces of shit. And yes, I know what y’all in fandom are doing with your favorite aro/ace characters. I know damn well that when you ship an aro character with an allo character you’re not putting them in QPRs, you’re not writing that relationship within the lens of the aro character’s identity. You’re just reassuring yourself because “oh thank god, aro/ace people can still date, they can still have sex, they’re normal!!”

WELL GUESS WHAT YOU PIECE OF SHIT. NO WE’RE NOT FUCKING NORMAL. WE GET SHAMED BY OUR PEERS, BY OUR FAMILIES, BY OUR CLOSEST CIRCLES BECAUSE “OH YOU JUST HAVEN’T FOUND THE RIGHT ONE YET”. WE GET DRUGGED AND TORTURED BY PSYCHOLOGISTS BECAUSE ACE AND ARO PEOPLE STILL GET SENT TO CONVERSION THERAPY EVERY-FUCKING-WHERE. WE GET RAPED EVERY FUCKING YEAR BECAUSE OF OUR IDENTITIES.

Society thinks we’re sad little freaks who need correction because we don’t fit into the patriarcal, heteronormative norm. You’re no better than the people who discriminate against us for our identities when you tell aro and ace people that they should still date and have sex. Fuck you.

[black-ace-culture-is]

Compulsory sexuality from a Black lense is essential to me. I can never divorce compulsory sexuality from white supremacy when it's one of its tools. It's also hilarious to me how people who consider themselves to be anti racist on here bend over backwards to avoid addressing how white supremacy affects sexuality just as much as gender. White sex favourable people whether they're ace or not have done a 180 on puritanism, that sexuality outside of specific parameters is intrinsically bad and assumed and declared that their sexual attraction and sexual desires are intrinsically progressive and morally good by virtue of being sexual. 180 on puritanism isnt even a fully way to describe this action because under white puritanism, this action is fully accepted. White sexuality has always been equated with purity in a moral sense as well as a physical sense. White sexuality has always been considered intrisically good whether its religious celibacy, sex to produce a white Christian child, sex as duty within a white cis heterosexual relationship, the idea all vaginas and nipples must be and are pink, "flesh coloured" sex toys and objects being light coloured, the idea white performers are the most desirable... it's always been the default.

Black sexuality on the other hand, both of ace and non-ace Black people has always been demonised and shunned. Queer tumblr will boldly declare this is an anti puritanism zone, but continue to create moral panics about rap and hip hop for having the same 'freakiness' they claim to accept. Being a freak comes with terms and conditions. It's an exclusive club. Being a "sexual degenerate", "pervert" and a freak are aesthetics white sex favourable people can take part in for pleasure meanwhile Black people of any sexuality have been killed, targeted and sexualised for these exact same tropes, regardless of how much sex we do or don't take part in. Whilst being assumed to be innocent and sexually infantilised is an inconvenience and an annoyance, it is a form of white privilege Black people don't have access to and a form of privilege white sex favourable people are oblivious to. We can't be uwu soft hand holding beans. We cannot take part in horniness, sexiness and kink and be redeemed by whiteness directly afterwards. Whilst being uwu and fluffy is an inconvience for them, it is a luxury for us.

Under compulsory sexuality, Black asexuality is regressive. It's stereotyping, it's racist for Black people to be asexual simply because sexual attraction and sex are absent or there is very small amounts bc sex is "intrinsic" to the human experience and it's bigoted to say no. But raceplay, slaveplay, BBC, ebony and other Black fetishes are progressive solely because they provide sexual pleasure to the white person who takes part in it, even if the sexual pleasure is rooted in our oppression and dehumanisation.

[black-ace-culture-is]

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH BLACK ASEXUALS!

Shoutout to Black British aces, Black American aces, African aces, West Indian aces and all Black aces across the diaspora.

We may be small in number but we're out here! We've always been the backbone of the ace community through it's activism. No matter what the larger community throws at us, we belong here. Not as guests or visitors or basic shoutout posts every blue moon, but as ourselves.

Shoutout to us. Black aces who stan Yasmin Benoit, Black aces who yell rap lyrics they can't relate to, Black aces who are the only Black ace they know, Black aces with that copy of Refusing Compulsory Sexuality, Black aces with their own Black ace OCs, Black aces who love Selah Summers, Black aces digging for their representation, Black aces tired of that one family member asking when they will have kids, I see you all and I honour you. Let's go Black aces let's go!

[weirdcatlive]

[luxiomahariel]

with pride month coming up, please do not forget about trans men, transmasc people, nonbinary people, intersex people, and people with culturally exclusive identities

[luxiomahariel]

happy pride month!

please do not forget about trans men, transmasc people, nonbinary people, intersex people, and people with culturally exclusive identities! 🏳️‍⚧️

[arotechno]

there is a certain subset of queer identities—aromanticism and asexuality and their related spectrums of identities perhaps being chief among them, at least if we're talking about widely used umbrella-type labels—that the larger queer community, by and large, views as secondary or auxiliary identities that don't warrant the same... real estate, i guess, as "regular" queer identities.

i'm not interested in playing the identity politics "who is oppressed the most/more deserving of attention?" because (a) it's irrelevant and (b) i'm a white american so i REALLY don't have a horse in that particular race. what i AM interested in is the apparent bias that many people have against aspec identities and the fact that the overwhelming majority of people seem to view aspec identities as "lesser" queer identities.

i'm not talking about, like, current legislative battles or things like that (see previous paragraph). i'm talking about the frankly patronizing way that aspecs get treated when we try to talk about literally anything that affects us. you call someone out for an aphobic comment and you get accused of "making it about you" or you get told something that boils down to "well i'm a REAL gay so i can say what i want and your feelings don't matter." even in a less insidious sense, other queer people have often spoken to me like i don't Get It because i'm not REALLY queer. it's like being told to go sit at the little kids' table while the adults are talking. it's frankly insulting to try to talk about something and have your inbox flooded with a dozen people all telling you that YOUR problems are less important and no one cares and we have to deal with "real" queer people's problems first and then we can deal with you and your silly complaints.

again, it's not a contest. but i've had people i love say things like "queer women" in front of me and know they mean wlw (shoutout to straight trans people by the way, this is one of our common struggles 🤝), and when corrected people stumble over themselves to avoid saying they only meant REAL queer people. even if they don't realize it. they see aromanticism and asexuality as lesser forms of queerness that don't need to be mentioned unless the situation specifically calls for it. "queer" by default to a lot of people means a very specific thing. and it shouldn't. because that defeats the whole point of the word as a community term.

[scribbleymark]

“It’s time for queer communities to abandon the hierarchy of trauma that supports acephobia with the myth that asexuals do not have ‘enough’ trauma related to our sexual identity to be considered queer. Trauma is not a factor by which queerness should be measured. In fact, I argue that queerness should not be measured at all. If our goal is to arrive at a reality in which none of us have to endure or die from queerphobic abuses—whether institutional, individual, interpersonal, structural, public, or private—then these abuses should not be such a significant part of how we regard queer identities. If we largely define queerness by whether or not we experience these abuses 'enough’ to be considered authentic, what room does this leave us to embrace our queer identities outside these abuses, especially when our collective goal is to dismantle them altogether? Is a queer child who grows up loved and affirmed in their queerness any less our comrade than the queer child who grows up hated and suppressed for theirs? Would we not welcome them both with open arms?

Excluding asexuals from queerness under the belief that we do not experience discrimination and trauma 'enough’ only serves to reproduce the same harms as cisheteropatriarchy. Being subjected to and harmed by compulsory sexuality, rape culture, and acephobia is traumatic, and the denial of this works to obscure the very ways in which asexuals have been harmed by people within queer communities. Allosexual queer folks have absolutely been spectators to asexual queering; they have even been participants in moments where we have been queered because of our relationship to sex, attraction, and desire. Acephobic exclusionists must hold two opposing ideas at once in order to maintain their dissonant belief system that if asexuals are not discriminated against in the same ways and to the same degree that they are, then that discrimination either cannot count or must not exist at all. They hold this belief even as they themselves actively participate in that discrimination, and even as they acknowledge that the discrimination faced by other queer folks can and does differ across gender, sexuality, race, class, disability, and more.

So I ask: What exactly is the connective tissue between the experiences of those who call ourselves queer? What is the distinct criteria that supposedly disqualifies asexuals from being able to claim queerness or even exist in 'LGBTQIA+’ spaces, despite the presence of the A in the acronym? Is it discrimination, invalidation, and violence based on their sexual or gender/sex variant identities? Is it failing to perform heterosexual or cisnormative social scripts and being ostracized for it? Is it institutional mandates and unwritten rules that don’t take their sexuality or gender/sex into consideration, or are specifically designed to other people like them? Is it having their very existence and the validity of that existence up for constant debate? Is it feeling invisibilized in mainstream media and cultural artifacts because the relationships or gender/sexes depicted therein rarely, if ever, reflect their own experience with these things? Is it feeling largely isolated and distinctly barred from being able to relate in social settings where the conversations operate on the assumption that everyone involved has a universal experience with sexuality or gender/sex, and that experience is typically a cisheteronormative one?”

-Sherronda J. Brown, Refusing Compulsory Sexuality

[mons7errr]

transandrophobia is real

trans men face unique challenges due to being trans men

this does not mean that they are more or less oppressed than trans women

trans men and trans women should stick together to fight against transphobes, not fight about who has it worse. we both have it equally bad.

if you think trans men don't deserve a term to describe their unique oppression then please unfollow me

[homoidiotic]

"Tranz Portraits" by Del LaGrace Volcano, from the book Sublime Mutations

1. Alexander Goodrum 3. Stephen Whittle 6. Jude Patton

[bumblewyn]

quarterly reminder that asexuality only reflects on someone's lack of sexual attraction to other people and has nothing at all to do with libido/horny fantasies/ability to have sex/desire to masturbate etc.

[jeans-marrow]

Can we give it up for the one and only, Yasmin Benoit

As we were saying, you can't fight aphobia without fighting terfs.

Her first response to JK + The Tweet under the cut

[funfettitoonz]

he’s stronger than you think!

[queenjulia24]

HOLD UP HOW WAS I NOT AWARE OF THIS

[lichpire]

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.

[atasteforsuicidal]

sometimes i notice i haven’t seen “grace” (grey-ace) in a while and consequently wonder if i made it up.

[slenders1ckn3ss]

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.

[cobraonthecob]

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. 

[kriss-watches-stuff]

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.

[haunting-kind-of-high]

This is the exact reason I started my #ace positive and #aro positive tags. I remember learning about asexuality and thinking it was cool, but not for me (yet). I remember ace visibility day where people would post selfies with an ace card to signify their orientation like in the original post. I remember going through the tag and following every ace blog I could find, turning notifications on and scrolling through their blogs endlessly to learn more about it. I haven’t gotten a notification for any of those blogs in ages.

Going through all those blogs and seeing validation, learning more things about my newfound orientation was so incredibly as a questioning and unsure 15 year old. It’s devastating to me that this community has fallen quiet so much. So I started my tags, hoping to spread some more positivity and maybe inform people. This community is full of incredible people and the fact that so little of them remain, it heartbreaking.

Check out my tags if you ever need to. Maybe I’ll add more tags to my list to do whatever I can in support

[lunazepotato]

People said that Tumblr isn't a great place to post original art that isn't fanart, but I'm doing it anyway because I haven't got the motivation to draw anything else

Happy pride month lads! 🧡💛🤍💙

from an aroace potato :)

[nothorses]

So I wanted to put this together not because anyone needs to see all of this stuff, or read every word here, but because I think compiling these kinds of posts is useful when we’re talking about transmasc issues in the community.

There is, frankly, way too much for anyone to go through and dissect here. It’s exhausting, and it stressed me out just trying to find the posts to make this. I’m not going to go through everything here and point out why it’s all wrong. I don’t have that kind of time.

What I’m saying is that there is a problem.

Not that the problem is worse than anyone else’s, not that it’s the only problem, not that nobody else has problems on par with or even worse than this.

But there is a problem.

Transmascs are made to feel unwelcome- intentionally or not. There is dwindling space, there is less and less room for our voices. Less support for our perspectives. Less compassion for our experiences.

There is a hostility growing, an assumption that trans men are inherently violent people- are the oppressor. That we must be stopped, that we must be kept out of the community, that our oppression doesn’t matter or worse, doesn’t exist.

I lay this out for you because I want it to be clear why I and others are trying to build space for a healthier community for transmasculine folks; spaces that support and validate them, that are compassionate, trusting, and understanding (without allowing room for misogyny or transmisogyny). I want it to be very clear why I make the posts that I do, why I think it’s so important to change the broader understanding of transmasculine struggles and transphobic oppression. 

I’m exhausted after compiling this. A lot of these posts are recent; this year, or within the last few. Some of them are older. Some of them are from my own inbox, or comments off my posts- and I left many of the posts I found out, too, prioritizing the ones that make sense without the surrounding context and the ones that contain their entire message, stated, and easy to understand. These posts are from other trans men, trans women, nonbinary people- from within our own community.

I just want folks to understand that this is something that exists, that people believe, and that can and does permeate spaces in ways we might not see right away. This is important. This matters. This isn’t okay.

[nothorses]

when people say that baeddels didn’t exist, or that they weren’t “that bad”, this is the shit they’re downplaying & erasing. this is not a distant memory from 2014, either- again, these screenshots were from no earlier than 2018 when I took them in 2020.

[macleod]

"Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević." — Anthony Bourdain

Henry Kissinger (1923 - November 29, 2023)

[aroacesafeplaceforall]

tumblr stop banning me

hey folks tumblr has once again blocked me from reblogging or posting anything, I’m so sorry. I’m again on my alt account that I luckily have linked to this one but please for the love of fuck get @staff s attention and get them fixing this problem.

this has gone on too long and it’s affecting people other then me! Please share share share and reblog and reblog and reblog, @ all you mutuals in the replies just do it!!! Likes don’t do shit for getting something fixed

#tumblr staff fix this

[ladyofthebookcase]

OH SHIT ITS ACE AWARENESS WEEK!!

(meme made by @7-crows-in-a-trench-coat)

[lopa124]