@gayaceness - Tumblr Blog

inclusionist: asexuality is a spectrum!! it's not black and white!!

inclusionist: *uses terms "monosexual" and "allosexual" and talks about monosexual/allosexual privilege*

aces: um, i thought sexual attraction was a spectrum??

inclusionist: yeah but gray aces just fit in the ace category!

aces: but they feel sexual attract-

inclusionist: look if your ace-spectrum sexuality doesn't work with my inclusive terminology that's not my problem

love when people clearly forget that gay aces exist and then try to back-pedal over their arguement so hard they ruin it because they don't want their homophobia to show lol

#im aware that person is bi btw #you can be bi and homophobic yknow

prof-grace-aspen

dirtyfruit

replied to your

post

If you’re only attracted to one gender, you are…

so where do gay aces fit, exactly

Original post:

https://trappist1-tony.tumblr.com/post/157995554388/if-youre-only-attracted-to-one-gender-you-are

(Note: I personally use the split attraction model. I experience romantic and sexual attraction as two separate feelings, so if you don’t experience them as separate things, this may not make any sense.)

A gay-asexual person is asexual.

Monosexuality means you have to feel sexual attraction of some kind and only to one gender.

A gay-ace is not monosexual, because they don’t have sexual attraction. The gay part of the label implies they have queer romantic feelings; I don’t know if you’re using gay as an umbrella term or not, so I’ll just list some examples:

A gay-ace guy, using the most traditional definition of the word “gay”, would only feel romantic attraction to other guys.

A lesbian-ace woman would only feel romantic attraction to other ladies.

If you wanted a term for single-gender romantic attraction, you could use monoromantic to match up with monosexual!

gayaceness

okay well that’s a completely wrong definition of asexuality to start with but i'll get to that in a minute

you're creating a seperation between asexual and non-asexual gay people that many gay aces have a problem with. here you're saying that a person's sexual activity or level of sexual attraction divides them from other members of their community. it's the same line of thinking as gold-star lesbianism, where you aren't a 'real' lesbian unless you've had sex, and only had sex with women. you have no authority to separate asexual lesbians and gay people from their non-ace community, and the fact you're trying to by saying "well, you could just call yourself monoromantic, but you're not part of that community because you're not sexual!" is not only offensive, but also -

a) ignorant of gray-sexuality, which is conveniently ignored in most discussions of monosexuality/allosexuality (primarily because of your "you either feel attraction or you don't!" wrong definition, stated above)

and b) defeats the purpose of separating people between 'monosexual' and 'non-monosexual', because now you have 'monoromantic' as a category where monoromantic people are implied to have privilege over non-monoromantic people, which means asexuality is not inherently mono or non-mono, and any implication that gay monosexuals have privilege over cishet asexuals is negated by them being on equal terms in their mono-attraction.

so by saying "just call yourself monoromantic!" you're dividing communities into categories that frankly don't exist and exclude entire groups of people, while also defeating the point of having the term 'monosexual' in the first place.

so i really don't get why you're bothering to use it if you're just going to trash it like that. not that it shouldn't be trashed to begin with.

#your daily reminder that 'allosexual' and 'monosexual' are not only homophobic but also paradoxical #and it's time to stop using them #this is my ace discourse blog btw same user as before

also if u ever see a post or point you want me to tackle just hmu, otherwise ima just keep remindin yall that cishet aces are cis + straight and aren’t LGBT+

#once every three or four months i'll crawl out of my crypt to make sure nobody forgets #thank god the Discourse is slowing down tho we're all tired lol

actually i rose from the dead to make a list of things that are cancelled:

- cishets being in the LGBT+ community - the terms 'allosexual' and 'monosexual' - anybody who doesn't include cishet ace/aros as LGBT+ being labeled an 'aphobe' by default - cishets of any kind calling themselves LGBT+ slurs - the implication that being gay and being ace are mutually exclusive - the implication that cishet aces wanting to be called LGBT+ is an "ace" problem and not a "cishet" problem, as if it's sga aces' fault the cishets are Like That lmao

gayaceness

clearin up my stance:

as far as i’m concerned, ace/aro people don’t benefit from heteronormativity, since they aren’t actually hetero. they might not be as oppressed as other identities, but if they want to identify LGBT+, i’m okay with that, since they aren’t technically cishet. this also applies to people who identify as “just ace” or “just aro” without using the SAM, since some people don’t distinguish romantic/sexual attraction.

the only identity i really have a problem with including is cishet aces, since they still oppress and benefit from the oppression of all other LGBT+ identities, and especifically benefit from heteronormativity.

they might not all benefit from hypersexual culture, but that’s not qualification to be LGBT+, since many non-ace people don’t as well.

pantycourse-blog

if you’re straight then you benefit from heteronormativity. it’s troubling that you don’t understand that, especially since your url is “gayaceness”. with logic like this, you’re only insinuating that gay aces aren’t really gay either since you believe asexuals and aromantics can’t be straight.

also you shouldn’t be “okay” with cishet aros/aces trying to identify as lgbt because they are just as the label implies: cishet. even if they’re “just ace” or “just aro”, if they aren’t oppressed under homophobia and transphobia, they don’t have a place in the lgbt community. not using the SAM doesn’t make a damn difference. this community was established to combat homophobia and transphobia, not a club for someone to join just because they identify as a sexuality other than straight.

and don’t start with all this “hypersexual culture” nonsense lmao. first of all, hypersexuality is a serious condition people struggle with and it shouldn’t be used as a synonym for over-sexualization. that aside, if you bothered to even observe what was really happening in our culture, you’d notice that the victims of over-sexualization are women, not asexuals. what’s happening is misogyny, not anything else

gayaceness

so did you even read my post or

i'm not talking about straight aces. i'm talking people who are both ace AND aro, or who could be defined as ace/aro but identify only as "aromantic" or "asexual" because they aren't using the split attraction model. i'm not talking demi or gray ace, i mean 100%, completely ace/aro, uninterested in anyone.

i am literally the person who made that post about how saying straight aces arent straight means gay aces arent gay so you're preaching to the choir on that point frankly, all because you don't really seem to get what i'm talking about.

i'd like you to point out the part in my post where i said "i'm okay with cishet ace/aros identifying lgbt". i'm pretty sure i explicitly said i'm NOT okay with that. "just ace" and "just aro" means "not het". unless you think someone who doesn't experience hetero attraction is het somehow by virtue of not being sga.

i think it's perfectly fine for you to have the opinion that ace-aro people (JUST ace-aro people) are not LGBT+, because they don't experience oppression. that's a valid perspective to have. i just personally don't mind if they identify LGBT+ because they don't benefit from heteronormativity and aren't het, even if they aren't necesscarily oppressed, either.

and again, i've preached nonstop about how over-sexualization is largely a result of misogyny and heteronormativity, not anything else. and like, my original post even talked about how that's not the same as what LGBT+ people experience and is part of the reason why cishet ace/aros aren't LGBT+.

what post are you even responding to???

i'm an inclusionist because a) aces have tried to create their own communities before, only to be raided by non-aces with porn, hate, etc. and b) non-ace straight people don't see ace ppl as normal, and they probably can't create their own community because that would put them in danger. what are your thoughts on this? also, do you think aphobia is real? i think it is because a many of my acespec friends have been subjected to rape because they needed to be "fixed". sorry if this is annoying btw

the LGBT+ community is not defined by what cishet people do or don’t see as “normal”. LGBT+ people are not defined by their “abnormality”. that definition opens up the way for a lot more cishets than just ace people to try and join the community - hence all the kinkster bullshit that’s going on, too.

creating a community won’t put ace people in any more danger than we would already face for being ace, which is by no means even close to what LGBT+ people face whether they’re out or not.

i think asexual people experience prejudice from uneducated people, but i don’t think aphobia exists as an institutional form of oppression. discrimination and prejudice are different. asexual people face the latter. LGBT+ people face the former.

i say this as someone who has had a partner try to “fix” her. for two years.

non-ace people (LGBT+ and cishet) face rape from partners for not consenting to sex, too. non-ace cishet women frequently face rape to ‘fix’ their lack of consent. some of them even could be identified as ace, but choose not to be. i’ve talked about demisexuality, normalization of ace identities to prevent prejudice, and why this fact in particular makes it especially clear that ace people are not LGBT+ before. read my past posts if you want to hear about it more in depth.

i’m an exclusionist because i have experienced treatment as both an asexual person and a gay person, and anyone who says the former is remotely close to the latter just doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

cishet people will never belong in this community, especially when they still actively benefit from its oppression.

#rape tw

clearin up my stance:

they might not all benefit from hypersexual culture, but that’s not qualification to be LGBT+, since many non-ace people don’t as well.

i legit only just found ur blog but i love u already

I was gonna write a really long post but it sounded confusing so I'm just gonna say you're really cool!

thank you!!!!

gay ace guy here. i love how succinct and detailed your posts are and how patient and down to earth you seem. you're basically one of my favorite exclusionists, keep being awesome!

awww thank you! that means a lot! lesbian and gay ace solidarity yo

inclusionist: you just need to be educated on what it’s like to be asexual

me, an asexual:

gayaceness

saying that cishet aces aren’t straight because their asexuality takes away their straightness DIRECTLY states that gay aces are not gay because their asexuality takes away their gayness

either gay aces are gay and cishet aces are straight, or cishet aces aren’t straight and gay aces are forcefully robbed of their identity to be inclusive to cishets

does that sound like a good movement to yall? cause my gay ace ass doesn’t think so

ungracefulace

There’s a short and long answer for this. The short answer is that straight people are a privileged group and that aces, even heteroromantic ones do not gain access to those privileges because straight people, aka the ones who decide who has straight privilege, so not see any asexuals as straight.

Long answer:

With the Straights, they refuse to see anything that isn’t 100% them as one of them. This is the basis of straight passing privilege or passing privilege in general being bullshit. Human beings when being discriminatory discriminate not against what the other group is, but what they are not. The majority of transphobes arent against trans people for being trans, they are againt them for not being cis. Same with homophobes, racists, xenophobes, ableists… Even though they do attack these oppressed groups for what they are, the anger stemmed from what they are not.

There has even been a study on this that more concisely says what I’m saying about straight people (though it is terribly clinical). The whole article is definitely worth a read if you truly want to understand why asexuals are oppressed and discriminated against, link here, but the most important part that I want to bring attention to is this

In a recent investigation (MacInnis & Hodson, in press) we uncovered strikingly strong bias against asexuals in both university and community samples. Relative to heterosexuals, and even relative to homosexuals and bisexuals, heterosexuals: (a) expressed more negative attitudes toward asexuals (i.e., prejudice); (b) desired less contact with asexuals; and © were less willing to rent an apartment to (or hire) an asexual applicant (i.e., discrimination). Moreover, of all the sexual minority groups studied, asexuals were the most dehumanized (i.e., represented as “less human”). Intriguingly, heterosexuals dehumanized asexuals in two ways. Given their lack of sexual interest, widely considered a universal interest, it might not surprise you to learn that asexuals were characterized as “machine-like” (i.e., mechanistically dehumanized). But, oddly enough, asexuals were also seen as “animal-like” (i.e., animalistically dehumanized). Yes, asexuals were seen as relatively cold and emotionless and unrestrained, impulsive, and less sophisticated.

What about this makes you think that someone who hates aces is going to make the distinction of “except for the straight ones!!”? THis is why, at least for me, I can’t count het aces as straight

gayaceness

Nice source. That guy also said this:

Marlon asks readers to engage in an interesting exercise: swap out the “c” in “racist” with a “p”. Ask yourself whether being a non-rapist is enough. Presumably not – you likely describe yourself as being anti-rapist. As such, Marlon argues, you wouldn’t buy an album or vote for someone who is a rapist. The same applies to racism; it’s not enough to not be racist, it’s important to be opposed to racism.

Psychological research clearly demonstrates that, in contemporary Western society, open expressions of prejudice are becoming increasingly rare and are themselves stigmatized (e.g., Hodson, Dovidio, & Gaertner, 2004).

Implying he thinks people who don't actively, consciously prescribe to racism aren't actually racist. This also shows how outdated this article is, even being just 5 years old, since it’s implying that 'open expressions of prejudice' are somehow rare in the year where a sexist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic child molester got elected president, and the guy who legalized gay segregation in 2015 in Indiana is his VP; and that people wouldn't actively vote for a notorious rapist, even though a rape icon is literally the POTUS right now.

But it’s not like elected officials being rapists or prejudiced is new. So I don't really trust him to be socially aware, no matter how academically he may qualify as a source, given he seems completely blind to the issues he claims to be an authority on. Which is all the more evident, considering:

His article does nothing to cover the entire ace-spectrum (like demi/gray sexuality), so it's not remotely applicable to all cishet aces, because not all cishet aces are "purely" asexual.

He clearly doesn’t take into account the SAM, and is putting a divide between homosexuality and asexuality that doesn’t exist, which is one of my biggest peeves in ace discourse, given that I‘m both gay and ace. He obviously doesn’t understand the effect of romantic orientation on asexuality, and categorizes all asexuals into one big outlier, which tells me he’s likely talking about aromantic asexuals, not every kind of asexual that exists. So this study probably doesn’t even cover cishet aces to begin with. He uses terms like "either sex", implying there are just the two, which even entry level biologist students know is false.

He uses prejudice and discrimination interchangeably, which is ignorant of the sociological implications of those two terms. Even high school sociology classes will teach you that prejudice and discrimination are different things.

This becomes a problem when he makes claims like “vegetarians are discriminated against”, which implies an institutional oppression of vegetarianism. Which is really funny.

His study was conducted via him basically directly asking conservative, misogynistic republicans "Do you hate asexuality?" and then asking them if they would rent to or hire an asexual person.

He interchangeably uses male and female asexuality, ignoring the complicated social constructs around both, which means his results may be strongly colored by an ignorance of misogyny, rape culture, and its role in asexual women being particularly ostracized - but that is a result of both those things, not of any institutional "aphobia" itself.

And, lastly, he said this:

“Group X” is targeted for its lack of sexual interest even more than homosexuals and bisexuals are targeted for their same-sex interests.

Which, as a gay woman, makes me sick. He only lists housing and employment discrimination (in a study that he himself ran, interviewing extreme conservatives), but that's somehow comparable to capital punishment? Mass murder? Segregation? Imprisonment?

So no. Your source wasn't really worth anything. Kind of weird that you thought an asexual person needed to be educated on her own sexuality by a guy who doesn't even understand the difference between female and male asexuality or the existence of more than two sexes.

Your question is irrelevant because it assumes anyone educated enough to understand that romantic attraction and sexual attraction exist as linked yet distinct concepts would be the person discriminating against a cishet ace. Your source does not distinguish between romantic and sexual orientation or make any effort to define its terms, so its extremely muddy terminology could very well (and most likely does) see "asexual" as inherently "not straight" under the presumption that the asexual person does not experience romantic OR sexual attraction.

I severely doubt Hodson briefed his hyper-conservative polling pool on the difference. He even directly says that only people who don’t know about asexuality very well responded negatively:

Those with more negative attitudes were higher in right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, sexism, traditional gender-role endorsement, and reported lower previous contact (and less desire for future contact) with asexuals.

Which not only doesn’t validate your point, but contradicts it.

Billy Bob Joe isn't gonna know shit about the split attraction model, so if a cishet demi-ace identifies straight, he's not gonna be like "but you only sleep with people you know personally and trust, you absolute freak". In fact, most Billy Bob Joes will say that's normal, and only react negatively to the introduction of a term for it, because they think it's silly to make words for "normal" things.

Gay aces have to struggle to be accepted as normal. Straight aces have to struggle to be accepted as abnormal. That difference alone should tell you that cishet aces aren't LGBT+.

#long post yo #rape tw

if you think ‘aerf’ is a legitamate word i want you to look at the blog and twitter of the person who made it and see how they’re treating the trans women of color criticizing them lol

#calling it 'mob harassment' and saying they'll be happy if those people get stalked #it's a shitty word made by a shitty person #don't use it #ace discourse

who could ever look at the word ‘aerf’ and think ‘ah, yes, that sounds reasonable to say’ and not ‘did a dog just throw up???’

#protip: don't use that shitty goddamn word #it's ironic how the person who made it talked about terf ideology but seems to be actin a lot like a fucking terf right now lmao

gayaceness

saying that cishet aces aren’t straight because their asexuality takes away their straightness DIRECTLY states that gay aces are not gay because their asexuality takes away their gayness

either gay aces are gay and cishet aces are straight, or cishet aces aren’t straight and gay aces are forcefully robbed of their identity to be inclusive to cishets

does that sound like a good movement to yall? cause my gay ace ass doesn’t think so

goobra

trisabelle

I think it’s really important to remember that there is a difference between sexual orientation and romantic orientation. One can be straight, cis and asexual, but they aren’t an ace and cisgendered heterosexual because that doesnt work. They are ace and heteromantic. While their gender is cis and their romantic orientation is hetero, their sexuality is not straight, and therefor they do have a spot in the lgbtq community (I know you didn’t say they do or don’t have a spot but I feel this is important to say)

gayaceness

if homoromantic = gay, heteroromantic = straight.

if being ace disqualifies a heteroromantic person from being considered straight, then being ace disqualifies a homoromantic person from being considered gay.

you’re saying gay aces’ sexuality isn’t gay because it’s not homosexual, which is wrong, because any degree of attraction they do feel is still explicitly gay. your logic doesn’t work when you take into consideration other ace-spec identities, like demi or gray, which mix romantic and sexual attraction.

so, like i said. either all split-attraction asexual people are defined by their romantic orientation into ‘gay, straight, bi, etc’, or none of them are. and the latter is homophobic.

and, no, cis straight people are not LGBT+.

trisabelle

Their identity consists of BOTH romantic and sexual orientations. You can’t ignore that their sexual orientation is not heterosexual specifically so you can reject them from a community that they have a place in, that’s not fair to them. Being on the ace spectrum includes you in the lgbtq community, even if though apparently many of the people in it don’t..

gayaceness

you’re not listening to me.

romantic attraction affects sexual attraction, even if a person’s sexual attraction is on the ace-spectrum. the two are not seperate concepts. acting as if they are shows a complete misunderstanding of asexuality and all of the identities it encompasses.

your arguement flat does not make sense. it only works if the ace person in question isn’t demi or gray, so it’s exclusionary itself, for one thing. and for another, it’s still refuted by what i’ve been saying over and over.

romantic attraction determines overall sexuality as much as sexual attraction does. This is the entire point to the SAM. unless you want to tell me that only homoromantic homosexuals are gay, you cannot tell me that only heterosexual hetero-romantics are straight.

i AM asexual. and i disagree with you. asexuality is not a loophole that lets cishet people worm their way into a community whose oppression they actively benefit from. aromantic asexual people are LGBT+ in my book because they do not experience any form of hetero attraction, and therefore can’t possibly be considered cishet, but cishet aces/aros do and can.

so, just like every other cishet person, they aren’t LGBT+.

trisabelle

You say I’m not listening to you but I am. But it doesn’t feel like you’re listing to me. I am not saying that a heteromantic asexual is not straight, I am saying that because they are ace they have a place in the lgbtq community. And nothing that I’ve said has excluded demi or gray aces/aros, unless you’re hearing something different than what I’m actually saying. Being ace, demi, or gray (wether romantically or sexually) means that you don’t fit what most cishets consider the ‘default’ just because they don’t want to accept a spectrum of any kind. So they do deserve a place with us; even if they do not necessarily get as much discrimination as the rest of us.

gayaceness

maybe it's less that you're not listening, and more that you just flat don't understand.

this whole thing started because you said an asexual hetero-romantic person's sexuality is not straight. the entire point of the original post is that it is.

this is because their romantic attraction is still straight. so if they are demi or gray, and do experience sexual attraction, that attraction will be hetero. it might not be CALLED "heterosexual", but it is - it's only labeled something else to establish the degree of the person's experience. your arguement had excluded demi and gray aces, because you stated that ace attraction couldn't be defined by heterosexuality - but demi/gray sexuality are.

what, exactly, is the difference between an ace person and a non-ace person to you? a lot of non-ace identifying peoples' reactions to gray/demisexuality is "isn't that normal?", so it's frankly impossible to say who is or isn't ace spectrum, just because most people are probably what we consider ace-spectrum and don't know enough to see themselves that way.

a gray asexual person will still have sex, they just don't have it as much as a non-ace identifying person might - and even then, there's really no strong definition for when someone is or isn't gray ace.

your arguement takes two people who have the exact same experience - a gray-ace identifying person, and a person who only experiences sexual attraction half the time, but doesn't consider themselves non-heterosexual at all since they still have sex on occassion - and says one of them is LGBT+, and one of them isn't.

the literal only difference is that one says they are gray-ace, and one says they are heterosexual.

the LGBT+ community can't be defined by an 'identify how you want to get in' policy. it can't include people whose only difference to cisgender hetero-romantic heterosexual people is the word they use to describe their experience.

there is nothing a cishet ace-spectrum person experiences that another cishet person couldn't besides the prejudice that comes from general ignorance about what the word “asexual” means. and even that typically isn't a severe reaction.

the LGBT+ community also can't be defined by anything that deviates from 'heterosexual norms', because there are a lot of things that don't fit heterosexual norms. Polyamory doesn't fit heterosexual norms. Femdom bdsm doesn't fit heterosexual norms. That doesn't mean all cisgender, heterosexual, hetero-romantic kinksters and polyamorous people are LGBT+. The way they experience sexuality isn't considered "normal" by society, but that obviously isn't the qualifer to fit into the LGBT+ community.

Same goes for cishet ace people.

And, even then, I would argue that some ace/aro identities are perfectly “normal”.

Demisexuaity is pretty normalized.

Cishet aro men are plenty "normal" by society's standards. A straight guy who sleeps around but doesn't commit to a romantic relationship is pretty celebrated by most men and media, even if he doesn't fit the picket fence 1950s nuclear family mold that in no way defines cultural norms in the U.S. anymore.

So your argument is conditional even in that aspect, because not every ace or aro identity is necessarily "abnormal" or ostracized - and, again, when it is, it's usually just because the people in question don't know what asexuality or aromanticism mean, so they react negatively to something they don't understand. Not the thing itself.

#this isnt like gender where it's pretty clear cut and dry if you're trans or cis #nonbinary people arent any less trans just because they don't fit the established scale #so there's a pretty simple 'youre it or you're not' idea there #asexuality is different because it's modified by the romantic orientation it's paired with #and the assumption by some people is that the two are completely seperate #which isn't true at all

gayaceness

saying that cishet aces aren’t straight because their asexuality takes away their straightness DIRECTLY states that gay aces are not gay because their asexuality takes away their gayness

either gay aces are gay and cishet aces are straight, or cishet aces aren’t straight and gay aces are forcefully robbed of their identity to be inclusive to cishets

does that sound like a good movement to yall? cause my gay ace ass doesn’t think so

goobra

trisabelle

gayaceness

if homoromantic = gay, heteroromantic = straight.

if being ace disqualifies a heteroromantic person from being considered straight, then being ace disqualifies a homoromantic person from being considered gay.

so, like i said. either all split-attraction asexual people are defined by their romantic orientation into ‘gay, straight, bi, etc’, or none of them are. and the latter is homophobic.

and, no, cis straight people are not LGBT+.

trisabelle

gayaceness

you're not listening to me.

romantic attraction affects sexual attraction, even if a person's sexual attraction is on the ace-spectrum. the two are not seperate concepts. acting as if they are shows a complete misunderstanding of asexuality and all of the identities it encompasses.

your arguement flat does not make sense. it only works if the ace person in question isn't demi or gray, so it's exclusionary itself, for one thing. and for another, it's still refuted by what i've been saying over and over.

i AM asexual. and i disagree with you. asexuality is not a loophole that lets cishet people worm their way into a community whose oppression they actively benefit from. aromantic asexual people are LGBT+ in my book because they do not experience any form of hetero attraction, and therefore can't possibly be considered cishet, but cishet aces/aros do and can.

so, just like every other cishet person, they aren't LGBT+.

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