This is an incredibly disingenuous reading of my post, and you’re attributing arguments to me that I never made. In fact, the positions you’re accusing me of denying or ignoring are ones I explicitly acknowledged and agreed with elsewhere on this same post. Here is something I said in a reblog responding to a different comment on my post:
It’s similar to the issue of kids vs. no kids. If one partner wants kids but the other doesn’t—there is no way to “compromise” there. It’d be different if one partner wanted one kid and the other wanted three; in that case, both partners want kids, so perhaps, there’s a way to compromise on the amount.
With the issue of sex in a relationship, if one partner wants sex and the other wants no sex at all, it’s inherently a violation of consent for the partner that wants no sex if they’re forced in some way to have sex. It’s not possible to compromise, and in this sense, it’s a fundamental incompatibility in the relationship. It’s not “selfish” to not want sex, and I hate how often society frames the partner who doesn’t want sex as selfish, when the issue isn’t one of being selfish; it’s an issue of incompatibility. (X)
Your own comment asserts this exact point.
I know you’re replying to more than just my post, so I won’t speak on behalf of the other commenter, but it’s also worth noting that they don’t even identify as asexual. I sincerely doubt they were discriminating against non-ace people in the way you’re suggesting.
And, it’s simply unrealistic to claim that “ace people can have and enjoy sex” has never been weaponized. Asexual people who never want sex are routinely pressured with that exact phrase, and many of us have experienced it being used to invalidate or dismiss our boundaries. There are countless posts on that exact phenomenon, if you feel like searching through the Tumblr ace tags. Of course, the phrase is important and valid when it’s used to affirm ace people who do want or enjoy sex, but it is also very often used to invalidate those of us who don’t.
Anyway, what my post was actually about:
The inspiration for the main post came from a not-insignificant number of asexual people who were extraordinarily clear with their partners from the beginning—saying “I will never want sex, ever,” with full transparency—and whose partners entered the relationship accepting those terms. Then later, those partners revealed they assumed that “never” was flexible, temporary, or negotiable.
Is that incompatibility ultimately a dealbreaker? Often, yes. But the socially conditioned pressure on the sex repulsed or low libido ace partner to override their own boundaries and “try anyway” is enormous. And that was what the post was addressing: the internal and external coercive pressure that exists even when no one is trying to be malicious.
Nothing I wrote framed sexual desire as coercive. Nothing I wrote implied that people who want sex are aggressors or are “monolithic.” I was addressing a specific cultural script—one that affects ace people regardless of whether their partners are perfectly respectful, loving, and compatible in every other way.
Then, you mentioned that couples therapy is often the place where negotiation happens. I agree, and I didn’t say that wanting to negotiate is unethical. What I said is that many therapists default to a framework where:
the ace or low-desire partner is automatically framed as “selfish” or “withholding"
the sexual compatibility issue is not treated as an incompatibility but as a moral failing, and
the pressure to “meet in the middle” consistently falls on the person with less desire.
That’s not theoretical to me. In my own individual therapy, where I wasn’t even asking for help with this dynamic, my therapist immediately assumed I was “depriving” my allosexual partner by being sex-repulsed. That’s how normalized this narrative is.
You also accused me of downplaying sexual intimacy. I never did. I never said sexual intimacy isn’t important. I never said wanting sex is coercive. I never said allosexual people are aggressors. I never said relationships with sexual components are inferior or unethical. You projected every one of those claims onto me.
asexual people are socially taught that our “no” is temporary
our boundaries are implicitly framed as negotiable
even in supportive relationships, the fear of abandonment does not come from the partner, but from culture
consent requires the possibility that “no” can be permanent
None of those statements devalue sexual desire. They simply assert that a “forever no” is valid.
Finally: you are conflating sex negativity with sex repulsion.
These are not the same. Ace people can be sex-positive and still be sex-repulsed. Ace people can be enthusiastic advocates for other people’s sexual agency while wanting no part of it themselves.
This is a common misunderstanding, and I would ask you not to rely on that conflation while accusing others of promoting acephobic stereotypes.
In short, if you had read my post in good faith, you would have seen that I agree with many of the core points you laid out, particularly regarding incompatibility and the ethics of consent. What I object to is the way your comment reframed my post into an argument I never made, while dismissing the very real structural and societal pressures faced by sex-repulsed asexual people.
Nothing in my post claimed that compatibility issues disappear. I said the opposite: incompatibility exists. My point was that many asexual people override their boundaries because of cultural messaging, not because they think incompatibility magically doesn’t matter.
You interpreted my post as an attack on allosexual people. It wasn’t. It was a critique of the assumptions and pressures that harm ace people—and which are widely documented within ace communities.
I would appreciate if you engaged with what I actually said rather than the positions you imagined I was endorsing.
