"You can't headcanon ... as aroace! They have a partner!" Where did your "Aroace people can still date!" go
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@aroace-ventplace
"You can't headcanon ... as aroace! They have a partner!" Where did your "Aroace people can still date!" go
Some of you really need to realize that aspec identities historically have not and are not being used in the way you all describe.
Aspec identities are not being used to infantalize disabled characters because infantilization of disabled people is viewed as the LACK of a sexuality. It's viewed as a disabled character not being able to consent. it's viewed as a disabled character not being viewed as an adult but a child. It's viewed as a disabled person being too stupid to know themselves. it's viewed as a disabled person having no agency. Asexuality is not the enemy of disabled representation. A disabled character being asexual or aromantic doesn't mean the character is a child, that they cant consent, that they have no agency. To say it does is to also be stereotyping aspec identities in the exact same way. Disabled Aspec people exist in real life (hi that's me!). Their existence is not your enemy.
Aspec identities are not being used to erase gay characters. they are not being used to stop shipping. You know what sexuality a character has when the creator doesn't want them to be gay or shipped in a gay ship? STRAIGHT. HETEROSEXUAL. They make the character heterosexual because why the hell would they make a character aromantic or asexual, a queer fucking identity, if they don't want the character to be gay? They wouldn't! they make them STRAIGHT.
You all are so fucking aphobic to the point of making up issues that don't fucking exist and blaming it on aspec identities when that shit has never happened and still isn't happening. You will instead see aspec identities and stereotype them like everyone else in order to push some fake conspiracy theory that asexual and aromantic identities are being used to erase and stereotype OTHER groups like DO YOU HEAR HOW INSANE YOU ALL SOUND? You all are living in another reality of your own making and it'd be laughable if it wasn't so bigoted.
Few things get me madder than "Progressive Leftists" fighting tooth and nail to argue that aro-spec and ace-spec identities are Problematic and Ableist in and of themselves because they shit their pants at the mere sight of someone headcanoning a character as aro/ace-spec, seemingly going against whatever the sacred ship of the week is
And I mean, some people straight up like they're martyrs for shipping in a world where the dirty aros and aces can get their grubby hands on their blorbo bingos
Will never forgive so much of fandom for being openly aphobic while trying to paint it in a progressive light by saying "this character is autistic coded/disabled in canon so actually saying they're aro or ace is infantilizing and deeply damaging to these real life communities" as if neurodivergent and diabled aros and aces don't exist, and CLEARLY saying that they don't view these as legitimate orientations themselves because they can only conceive of being aro and ace as a trait as "infantilizing" or "de-sexualizing" in and of itself
aro people can totally be romance favorable and/or be in romantic relationships, and it’s a spectrum! and it’s fiction at the end of the day!
ace people can totally be sex favorable and/or be in sexual relationships, and it’s a spectrum! and it’s fiction at the end of the day!
ok, great, great, allo person, but why is it that the only time you acknowledge the aro/ace spectrum and the different labels on it, the spectrum of favorability, and the spectrums of what people are okay with is when you wanna ship the canonical aro/ace/aroace character (sometimes even fully repulsed ones who explicitly don’t like that stuff or want a relationship) and/or write them in smut? that’s not allyship as far as i’m concerned and it sure feels disrespectful.
btw shoutout to those who feel they are aspec because of their autism. To the aros, aces, apls, afams, and everyone else who feels their orientation is a direct result of their neurodivergency. Your feelings are valid, and you're not "just reinforcing stereotypes" by being yourself, bc you're not a character in a story, but a real person with real, lived experiences. I see you and I feel you
every time someone aggressively misreads my posts discussing arophobia and amatonormativity in fandom and gets pissy at me about Trying To Take Away Shipping Forever >:( i become double the big mean romance repulsed bitch who won't shut up about it that i was before btw. just so you know. This Is A Promise.
I've def. said it before but I find the widespread popularity of soulmates deeply confusing for many reasons, but most fundamentally because if God came down out of heaven and pointed out one specific person in all the world I just had to fall in love with, I feel like the only dignified and self-respecting option is to tell him to get fucked and never talk to them out of spite?
does anyone else remember when peoples talking point against asexuality being a queer identity was to make up a cisgender heterosexual but aromantic man who wanted to get in to all the lgbt society meetings or was that just an embarrassing thing people i knew did
the question was always "do you really think that guy should be allowed in" and it was like.... first off you made him up to get mad at for some reason. second off yeah he can come in if he wants. hes aromantic of course he can. other stuff doesnt matter to me. what are you a cop. why are you policing peoples identities so hard
I think it's worth pointing out that this isn't just a touchy-feely thing: being aromatic obviously affects your chances of getting married, and marriage is, in most countries, a privileged status. Queerness isn't just a matter of personal identification, it's also a matter of how people relate to state institutions.
Hot take but I really do think that some of y’all need to consider how/why/when/how often you’re making fun of straight people for being straight
I do it too, I’m not going to pretend I don’t make jokes about the hets, or the down with cis bus, or whatever
But I recently befriended a cis, straight dude and I have watched him be dismissed, degraded, and unambiguously insulted for the perceived “crime” of being straight — all in queer environments where he is allegedly “completely welcome” and surrounded by “friends”
This guy is not a toxic person! But I have seen him be made to feel so small and like his comfort and safety in those spaces are conditional on his silence and acceptance of being treated like a human dunk zone, and I think that some of y’all have had so much shit from straight/cis people that the second you feel like you’ve got an inch, you want to luxuriate in the perceived catharsis of bullying someone who— actually —doesn’t deserve it
And until he very, very carefully mentioned to me in private that it makes him feel bad, I didn’t even clock that I was involved in doing that, that it had become so instinctive for me to make casual jokes like that, and that— well meaning or otherwise —I had been contributing to an environment that made someone I really really like feel like shit
So, I dunno, I think maybe some of y’all should think about that too
Coming back to say that while a lot of the responses to this post have been mainly positive, some folks have an attitude that it should be something that my friend— or any cis, straight man —should just be able to get over, because fuck ‘em, that’s why, because they’re in a queer space and they should shut up and accept it, because you suffer as a queer person and they should have to suffer too— regardless of whether or not this specific person has done anything to wrong you
I’m gonna say this point blank— you’re a tar pit if you think this way
Your suffering does not make you special, you are not granted brand new permissions to be belligerent and cruel because you have been treated poorly, straight people aren’t an oppressed class, no, but they’re people who are entitled to the same amount of basic decency that you, yourself, are entitled to
It feels good when you’ve been treated like shit to then go forward and treat other people like shit. That’s what you’re admitting. Does it make you feel good to do harm? Are you proud of that? Are you comfortable with being that kind of person? Because I dunno about the rest of you— but I realized I wasn’t, and it turns out it’s pretty fucking easy to change
More acephobes than you might think will actually use their acephobic rants to segue into their anti-sex work stances, especially their anti-porn stances, or vice versa (anti-porn rants that swerve into acephobia). Taken out of context, this sounds like a contradiction... until you realize the specific belief of these people is that porn "rots the brain," eventually making its viewers incapable of "normal" sexual attraction and desire.
In the eyes of the anti-porn acephobes, this is subsequently taken both as one of their reasons that porn is bad, and one of their reasons that asexuals (especially sex-favorable or kinky asexuals) are somehow upholding sexual oppression. Unsurprisingly for an anti-sex work stance, this belief relies on a sex-negative misapplication of feminism, as well as a pathologization of sexuality (in this case, asexuality).
Now, where does that pathologization come from? The same place pathologization of queerness and sexuality usually does: religious purity culture. To say that "porn will make you incapable of the 'right' sexual desires" is a very, very typical conservative Christian belief. It ties into the "moral" obligation to "save" your sexual "purity," so you can have the "right" kind of sex (read: monogamous cishet sex in wedlock) — and especially in the case of women, to "please" your cishet male partner.
In fact, most moral panics about something, anything, "turning the kids [insert queer identity]!" follow this blueprint. The queer identity in question is the threat to fundamentalists because it could induce a departure from monogamous cishet sex in wedlock, and/or pose a closely related threat to the cishetero-patriarchal status quo. There's been a dangerous rise in overlap between transphobic and acephobic conspiracy theories, alleging that gender-affirming care turns children asexual — with the implication, almost too obvious in the eyes of the conspiracy-peddlers for them to bother mentioning, that asexual trans bodies are bad because they inherently depart from the one "natural" and "healthy" relationship to sex, where conveniently, the only relationship to sex that's allowed to be "natural" and "healthy" is the specific one that cishetero-patriarchy demands. Anything else is "deviant," and worse, "hurting the children."
So, returning to "porn causes asexuality" conspiracy theory? Well, when it comes from acephobes who are outside of the queer community, and in particular, acephobes who openly affiliated with right-wing Christianity, it's disturbing but not surprising. They are, after all the ones who invented this genre of conspiracy theory. They are compulsory sexuality's biggest proponents.
But when it comes from acephobes who are in the LGBTQ+ community? Who didn't invent these conspiracy theories, and are in fact themselves harmed by their slightest variations? It's disturbing for a whole additional reason — the fact that these culturally Christian beliefs are going unchallenged. It's disturbing that conspiracy theories and pathologizing statements about queerness are circulated when they overlap so heavily with homophobia and especially transphobia. It's disturbing that their anti-sex work attitudes, in and of themselves, could lead them down the SWERF/TERF pipeline — particularly if they already lean towards radical feminism, and/or beliefs about "fake identities" and "invaders to the Community."
Therefore, refusing to interrogate and unlearn culturally conservative beliefs — sex negativity, compulsory sexuality, and their underdiscussed overlap — has effects on the whole queer community, including but never limited to asexuals. We all suffer when sex-negative, queerness-pathologizing theories are perpetuated. For that reason, we need to speak up to shut that bullshit down, before it can spread and fester.
TL;DR: Acephobes, both inside and outside of the LGBTQ+ community, blend culturally Christian anti-porn attitudes with recycled homophobic, transphobic, "corrupting influence turning the kids queer" tropes. De-platforming any validation of this rhetoric, no matter who it targets, is vital to collective queer liberation.
in general if you want to enjoy your ships and romantic interpretations of character dynamics without running into the territory of amatonormativity and casual fandom arophobia i think a good standard approach is if you’re going to refer to the dynamic you see as romantic, there’s just no need to bring the idea of friendship or platonic relationships into it at all! i talk a lot about how people get very habitually and jokingly mean about nonromantic relationships in a way that’s really hurtful and upsetting to me as an aromantic person, and people often get very defensive in response, how it was just a joke, it’s not that deep, it’s just shipping, etc. so my best advice if you want to continue enjoying your ships and jokes and lighthearted fun in fandom without hurting aros and others who value nonromantic relationships, just stick to uplifting what you like, and not bringing up alternatives at all!
comments like “they were so in love here” or “they’re soooo gay for each other” or “this was so romantic” might be annoying to me on the basis of standard affection or care or whatever else, but that’s a me problem and there’s nothing harmful or wrong about it. just don’t bring platonic relationships or friendships into it, because at that point that’s where the shitty behaviour arises, because that’s where the purpose is almost always to put them down in comparison. i.e. “there’s no platonic explanation for this” or “who looks at a friend like that” or “sure they’re juuuust friends [based on some degree of intimacy or care or concern etc]”
you can have fun and enjoy your ships and make lighthearted jokes and posts without being amatonormative and casually arophobic!! it’s perfectly possible and easy. when in doubt you just don’t need to reference nonromantic relationships in your ship posts at all. celebrate what you enjoy! don’t put down what you don’t.
honestly like. the way people have been talking about anything furry adjacent or polyam people or, and you'll be pissed at me for saying it, but asexual people too shows me that there hasn't been much movement in changing the ideology through which sexuality etc. is viewed. the goalposts were just moved either because what is acceptable to say publicly changed or because you realised you yourself were LGBT and you moved to window of normalcy to include you but not those other freaks. it's honestly pathetic how nasty it is
simply having a character who is multiple marginalized identities about which people have misconceptions is not inherently applying those misconceptions to that character. if written sensitively and with proper research to all aspects of their identity, an asexual autistic or fat character is in no way inherently desexualizing of autistic or fat people, and there are plenty of autistic and fat ace people who deserve to see themselves represented. if written sensitively and with proper research to all aspects of their identity, an addict trans or non white character is in no way inherently demonizing of trans people or people of color, and there are plenty of trans people and people of color with addictions who deserve to see themselves represented. etc etc etc. yes, people with bigoted ideas about those marginalized identities will write them in bigoted ways, but that is very much not the case across the board, and the only reason a person could have to be automatically suspicious of anyone applying those marginalized identities to characters is if they themself hold bigoted beliefs about those identities.
can ace and aro hcs be used to desexualize and infantilize characters from marginalized groups? yeah! I've certainly seen that happen, and it's shitty. is it in any way inherently desexualizing and infantilizing to hc a marginalized character as ace or aro? absolutely not. those things are only bad when they're executed badly. if someone has preconceived bigotry about aspec identities and women/queer people/disabled people/people of color/women/fat people/etc., that will bleed through. if someone is just suggesting a character is aspec then. that character is just aspec. no one's sexual agency is being taken away by saying "I think this character knows themself well enough to have explored their capacity for attraction and found it's different from the norm" or "I am also this marginalized identity and I see my aspec experiences reflected in this character," and if you respond to that by immediately jumping to "you're doing this because you want to cruelly take away this character's ability to fuck," you are indeed being Quite Clearly And Obviously Aphobic.
happy ace awareness week
“ace people can still have sex or engage in sexual activities” and “no one, including ace people, is obliged to have sex, enjoy sexual activities, media, or kinks, and it’s super okay to never engage in any of those things if you don’t want” are ideas that can and should coexist
for ace awareness week i will be dressing up as an angry bitch which is what i already am 100% of the time so there will be no effort put into this costume. anyway i’m always glad to see content out there for aces who are not sex-repulsed and who retain their ace identity regardless of sexual activity, but i hope we can blast this weird fucking stigma once and for all against sex-repulsed aces as being somehow aligned with puritanical values just because restrictive christian culture encourages celibacy. aces in general have been through the blender for everything ranging from just “being embarrassing” to serious accusations of homophobia/discrimination against other queers just for being ace thanks to rhetoric originating from actual bigots that want to divide the lgbtq+ community for their own twisted little purposes and i just want to say from the bottom of my heart if you fall for that shit in your adulthood you either have a lot of shit to (un)learn or you are in fact just a fucking idiot
there's a way some people will talk about sex averse/repulsed asexuals where like. they won't say they think sex averse people are childish or selfish just have hang ups or are inherently conservative, and they probably don't think they think that, but when they talk about sex aversion they sound like they're talking about spoilsports who want to ruin everyone else's fun. "you don't have to have sex with anyone, but sex is really important to a lot of people, so you have to accept that lots of people will be upset or break up with you or write you off from the start. you don't have to talk about sex, but you can't ask people not to bring it up around you because that's implicitly shaming them. you don't have to watch sex scenes, but if you ever state that preference then you have to make it abundantly explicitly clear that it's just a personal thing and not an ethical objection because if you say 'I don't like sex scenes' you sound sex negative." just the constant undercurrent assumption that it is always solely the responsibility of the non-normative people to quietly stay away from the parts of the world that weren't built with them in mind with no acknowledgment or compassion for the fact that, even when that's necessary, it's still really tiring to always have to do all the legwork yourself.
crazy to me that sex-favorablity is a rotely accepted type of asexuality in pretty much all ace spaces (blogs, social groups, activist organizations, books, friend groups that just happen to be largely asexual, etc) but the idea of ace people who enjoy sex is still treated like this obviously ludicrous out-there punchline by tons of people on here who otherwise claim to support asexuals