I need to rant.
The thing about being aromantic, asexual, or on the spectrums that a lot of people donât seem to get is that compulsory sexuality exists.
Not just compulsory heterosexuality. Compulsory sexuality. Period. The idea that every person on the planet feels some kind of sexual and romantic attraction.
I grew up watching media, same as all of you, and how are people that are interested in purely sexual relationships depicted? As cold people. As cheaters. Usually itâs a straight man looking to use women. His character development almost always includes settling down. And people that donât experience sexual attraction? Characters like Data from Star Trek or Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. Androids and characters coded as having a very specific type of autism. And even they have sexuality forced upon them by the writers at least once. With Data it happens in the second episode.
And then we try to explain this to people. Why we hurt ourselves and put ourselves in dangerous and uncomfortable situations trying to fix ourselves. Make ourselves feel sexual and/or romantic attraction. We bring up the bullying we endured. The things our therapists tried to fix about us. We talk about our trauma related to compulsory sexuality and you all just donât hear us.
Iâm so tired of it. Iâve been fighting the fight to be seen since I was fourteen! Iâve given talks in GSAs. Iâve written essays to educate. Iâve comforted other asexual people on the internet and irl. Iâve scraped and grabbed for community. Iâve done my very best to fight to be seen. Iâve healed from the trauma I put myself through in trying to fix myself. Iâve realized that I donât need to be fixed. Iâve been as goddamned involved as an asexual person can be with the resources we have. I may be young but I have been fighting longer than most and I am so protective of the people just realizing that theyâre aro or ace or demi or anything else. No matter how much older or younger they are than me.
And then some people on the internet decide that they get to undo everything I and so many other asexual and aromantic people have done. They get to decide that their trauma is more real than mine. They get to push me and my brothers and sisters and siblings out the door because they donât see invisibility as oppression. Theyâve held up their little sign that says âmust be this oppressed to enterâ and then held it up higher so that we didnât fit.
Some of them told me âoh you can come in because you tick these boxes but that other box doesnât countâ
No. That box definitely counts. That box is just as much a part of me as any of the others and it is the one I have fought for the longest. Our community wonât be made invisible again. Invisibility is crushing. It is suffocating. Abuse and hatred of all kinds thrive in silence.
I feel alone sometimes. Like I am the only soldier holding a banner in front of a stone wall. But I am not alone, and you arenât either. Iâm tired of being casual. Iâm tired of being seen as a rarity. A novelty. An android. A nuisance. I am none of these things. I, like every other arospec or aspec person, am a friend of dragons. Something that was hidden for so long, protecting itself and what it loves, but has the ability to be loud, dangerous, firey.
Asexual and aromantic people have been polite. Quiet. Because thatâs what we feel we have to be. We canât protest by kissing someone in front of a picket line. What can we do then? Talk. Write. Wear our colors. If we have to keep being polite and quiet about it, fine. Thatâs how we do. But letâs not be invisible. I will continue to let everyone that knows me understand under no uncertain terms that I am asexual. I will point to our aromantic siblings, sisters, brothers. I will tell you to look at them. Look at us. We exist. We are wonderful. We belong. In queer spaces, in the media, in the public eye.
If you are aro or ace people will tell you that they donât care. They will ask why they need to know. But being yourself is a radical act. I know it is. We are often polite in this community. We donât rally. We donât look to change the world. We donât depict ourselves as radical or challenging the establishment, but we are. We are. We have been from the moment we realized we exist. Our history is small. We are creating the early stages of it as we speak, but it is still rich. It is still beautiful. Even if we are spread out, I love this community so deeply. So completely. I probably wonât ever be a leader in this community or any other one. Thatâs not where my talents lie. But I will continue to push for us to be seen. I will write literature for us. I will talk. I will be as visible as someone like me can be. I will fight to make the words ace and aro and demi and grey just as well known as gay, ace, lesbian, bi, trans.
And there are so many of us out there doing the same. We are not alone. We have never been alone. And these people trying to make us alone wonât succeed. I know this. I feel it in my gut.
Thanks for listening to me rant.
Allo people can reblog this.
For the siblings I love
