A frustrating thing about Tungle Ace Discourse is how whenever someone presents a critique of concepts like “demisexual” etc as they are defined and executed etc in these discussions, people act like they are attacking individuals’ experiences of libido, love, etc. “I don’t know how useful a term like this is, especially in this context” is inevitably met with “But DEMISEXUALS EXIST AND ARE VALID!” and it’s like… we’re not saying that people who feel that way don’t exist! Neither I nor anyone I engage with on this subject is telling you you don’t feel the way you feel. What’s being critiqued here is not the legitimacy of your individual interpretation of desire and so forth, but rather the language and specific baggage that this specific framing of that interpretation carries within discussions of sexuality and identity, especially the ways that this framing positions those experiences and interpretations as inherently other and inherently in opposition to “allosexual” sexualities.
It’s frustrating because it’s impossible to have a respectful and illuminating conversation if when you present a concern regarding a specific manifestation of a specific cultural thing, it constantly gets spun as you telling someone they’re lying about their own feelings. I have no interest in telling someone else whether or not they fit any definition of the term “demisexual” or whatever, because that’s not my goddamn business, but I DO wish that more people would ask themselves WHAT practical purpose that serves in their life, and whether that purpose holds up if they accept that they aren’t entitled to intimate knowledge about how other people experience and feel about sex, desire, specific cultural obsessions with sex and sexualizing (and desexualizing) certain people… and that making assumptions about this is usually a pretty shitty thing to do. Simply asking people to think about these issues in the context of racism, homophobia, misogyny, transphobia, and on is not an attack on the legitimacy of your individual feelings. To say that it is sounds to me a lot like the “how can I have privilege if sometimes I’m sad?” argument, and that’s boring to me, sorry.
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