Hello there! Hope you're having a nice holiday time!
First of all, I want to thank you for creating this blog. While I'm not sure if I'm sex favourable or not (though most probably I am), it's really nice to see another perspective on asexuality that's often forgotten about. I think more people need to understand that having sex doesn't remove the person's asexuality the same way dating someone of the opposite gender doesn't remove a person's bisexuality. So I'm really happy this blog exists.
Secondly, if it's not too much trouble, I would like to ask about the history of ace community on tumblr. You mentioned in one of your reblogs that there was a thriving ace community on tumblr, so can I ask how it was compared to now? Sorry if this sounds a little weird, I wasn't on tumblr back then so I don't know.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read. Have a nice day/night.
Hi! Awww, thank you!! This was such a lovely ask to receive. I'm glad this blog can be a resource for you, no matter what you come to understand about your sex favorability. I agree, I think it's important that all sides of asexuality get represented, and that all asexuals feel seen and validated regardless of their preferences and actions.
As for talking about the history of the ace community on tumblr (not a trouble at all! Feel free to ask as many questions as you want!), I can only share my own experience.
So I've been on tumblr since around 2010/2011ish, and tumblr is where I learned about asexuality.
There was a time, back then, when most of the ace blogs that I followed shared a pretty broad array of ace experiences. Sex favorable asexuals were never at the forefront, but they were often mentioned and included in your run of the mill positivity and pride posts. We were an understood and included part of the asexual community. There were blogs like acesovertwenty and sexfavorableaces that were active and thriving. There was very little infighting, and moreso it was heated reminders that asexual ≠ aromantic (something we're still fighting to this day, unfortunately).
And we had a CULTURE. Asexual pride rings were discussed everywhere. Everyone knew the meanings of the flag colors by heart. We had words like "asexy", and new memes were posted every day. There was definitely a level of 2010's cringe to all of it, but we were happy, and we were proud, and we were free.
We weren't necessarily always included in the broader queer community, but we weren't villainized, either.
Then terfs and radfems came in and started a smear campaign against asexuals. We were part of the "queer is a slur" rhetoric they started, an attempt to eradicate the most inclusive word in our community that our ancestors fought and died for us to reclaim. They started asserting that we were "basically straight", "not really queer", and "infiltrating the community". And so much of the tumblr queer community latched onto that HARD. On an old blog, I once had to shut off all asks for 24hrs because a bunch of aphobes decided to harass me for making a single post about my pride ring on the same day as the Pulse attack anniversary (after I'd already made over a dozen posts about Pulse).
I think that was honestly the beginning of the end. A lot of asexuals got driven off tumblr entirely thanks to the harassment. Many others adopted a very exclusionary view of asexuality (see the current vitriol towards sex favorable aces).
Not necessarily related to that, but around the same time, one of the biggest names on tumblr in the asexual advocacy scene decided to harass Yasmin Benoit (another prominent asexual activist) over on twitter in a very obviously racially motivated attack based solely on a tweet Yasmin made that the other blog misunderstood, and instead of admitting they were wrong they just kept doubling down on her. The rest of the mods on that blog defended the racist attack, and Yasmin severed her alliance with them as an activist group (and I stopped supporting or following them, as well, and to this day you'll never catch me reblogging from them, though they have reblogged a few of my posts, ironically. Probably because I know recently they got called out for never talking about sex favorable asexuals). And, on that note, the asexual community has ALWAYS had issues with racism, and they've only gotten worse since such a big blog basically said it was okay. So I understand why so many POC aces either left or keep quiet about their experiences. Tumblr has neber been safe for them, and it's only gotten worse.
There used to be so many older asexuals on tumblr. It wasn't uncommon to find aces who were in their 20s and 30s running active pride blogs of all kinds of experiences. Now all of the ace blogs feel very young and very one note. It's sad to see our community lose pretty much all culture, and instead just circulate the same old 2010's cake and dragons memes and turn it into an exclusionary, sex-hating judgement club. I miss when our community was vibrant, diverse, and thriving.
Anyway, to end on something a little lighter, I do hope that we can bring back the asexual community, at least a little bit. That's part of why I started this blog. We need more older aces being loud and proud about our asexuality, and we need to bring back the diversity of the ace experience!
