Asexual and Aromantic Positivity

this blog supports everyone on the Asexual and Aromantic spectrum please check tagged posts and FAQ

[what-even-is-thiss]

Talking to allo people who haven’t really interrogated how society has told them to view sex feels like that bit in SpongeBob where Patrick keeps failing to put his hand on the lid

[what-even-is-thiss]

Sex is just a thing. No it’s just an activity. It doesn’t have to be… no listen it’s just an activity. An activity. It’s just a thing. A thing. No it’s not the same for everyone it’s just an activity. No it’s a value neutral activity. An activity. An activity.

[what-even-is-thiss]

I’ve been experiencing this lately with people trying to argue with me about my views on sex work.

“You can’t compare sex work to other types of work because having sex you’re not enthusiastic about is really traumatizing”

I’m sure for a lot of people that’s true but for me sex and masturbation occupy a similar emotional space to brushing my teeth or doing the dishes and I certainly don’t feel traumatized about it and I know for a fact that I’m not the only person who feels this way.

Also I think that someone physically and violently forcing me to brush my teeth might end up being traumatizing.

Sex is so taboo and mythologized that people have forgotten the mechanics of it.

Yeah sex might be sacred and important to you. To me it’s a chore I’ve gotta do sometimes. Like cooking. I love cooking and put great importance on it and who I do it with. A lot of people just cook to live though.

Yeah if to you sex has a lot of emotions caught up in it I’m not gonna tell you that you’re wrong for feeling that way. That’s normal. It’s not a universal experience though. And if you can’t accept that, then too bad. Other people’s personal realities don’t exist to confirm your personal worldview.

[specialagentartemis]

Aro and ace activism is housing reform, is well-funded public housing, is an expansion of affordable housing, is allowing single people to get affordable and public housing, is rent controls to make it possible for single people to be able to afford to live alone on a single salary.

Aro and ace activism is healthcare reform, so that no one needs to rely on a spouse for health insurance, so that healthcare is available to everybody regardless of income, so that no one’s lived experiences or basic dignity are dismissed or overridden by doctors

Aro and ace activism is well-funded and expansive public transit, so that you don’t need to have someone on hand to drive you places if you are incapacitated, so that you don’t have to pay for an ambulance if you need to get to the hospital quickly

Aro and ace activism is disability and elder care services, so that no one needs a spouse to care for them, so that no one needs children to care for them, so that marriage is not a bind for disabled people, so that people on disability who want to and can live alone can

Aro and ace activism is community-building, it’s public events, it’s free social activities, it’s mutual aid, it’s activities that bring community members together without socializing relying on just a romantic partner

Aro and ace activism is developing a culture of believing when people tell you who they are and what they want rather than assuming you know them better than they know themselves

Aro and ace activism means a better world for people without “normative” desires or “normative” social support, which means a better world for everybody

[bearmoods]

you can’t complain about heteronormativity and then call aroaces straight

[oh-good]

I realized it's been a decade since "ace discourse" harassed an entire community off of this website

I still don't forgive people for their behavior towards asexuals and I never will

Exclusionist behavior will never stand. I've seen what it leads to and it was not okay.

[breastmilklover3000]

Stay strong

[holdyourbreathfornow]

The bestest boy

[knifearo]

aroace nonbinary people you are everything to me. shout out to the bitches who just said "nah i'm not doing any of that"

[rainyinjanuary]

HAPPY ACE WEEK BTW

[thirteens-earring]

I love ace ppl bc they’re like you know you don’t have to right. And it’s true. you dontttttt have to

[thirteens-earring]

[ As long as people don’t know about asexuality—hell, forget about the label, so long as they don’t know that saying no forever and for any reason and in any context is okay—sex education, sex therapy, and popular depictions of sex are incomplete and people don’t have the relevant information to fully consent. Sexual rights should not be assumed and self-determination must never end upon entering a relationship. You can give a no with zero caveats in each and every situation, full stop. You can say no if someone loves you and you love them back. You can say no for the rest of your life. ]

Angela Chen, Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex (2020)

[demonprincex]

asexuals have been speaking and writing for years about the fact that many of us have sex -- that indeed, many of us are incredibly sexually active and that our asexuality comes from us having a non-normative experience of sexuality that makes us especially likely to be stigmatized and oppressed alongside our fellow kinky queer siblings -- but people just do not listen, or worse act like it's laughable and cringey for us to be sexual beings. then they go on acting permanently confused by the idea that asexuals can have sex. we already told you. many times. in fact for many of us the depraved, gay-ass ways that we have sex are very central to us being asexual.

[stjohnstarling]

Eroticism is simply one of the basic modes of human expression and the fact that it terrifies people who have built their lives out of repression and self denial is only more reason to make erotic art. They will not stop with their own lives, they want to punish anyone who doesn’t conform to the same standards of cruelty they heap on themselves. But of course it will not work. It has never worked before. Even under the most adverse conditions beauty has always found ways of flourishing. We refuse to hide or live in shame and fear. We will make beautiful that which they find repulsive. 

[1greenameba]

Ok , but what abt ace pepole ?

This kind of post always seems to forget that asexual pepole exist ...

[boomstab-papa]

Please don't try to pull that. "Pro-eroticism is anti-ace" is tired and bad ace discourse. Ace adults are adults. We know how to avoid things we don't like. Asexuals simply aren't clamoring for an extinction of erotic art or eroticism. Also the post said it was "one of the basic modes of human expression" not "THE basic mode and everyone's required to participate". Nobody's forcing you to engage with it. If you don't like it, then you're free to avoid it. Go engage with other art. The post didn't forget.

The post said "Stop trying to censor erotic art just because someone else doesn't like it. It won't work."

Signed, An Ace

[ober-affen-geil]

Did you know that Eddie Redmayne wrote his thesis on International Klein Blue because even though he is colorblind? It's not because he can't see the color, it's because he can see it differently than everyone else.

Aces can and do experience the beauty in erotic art. We just don't experience it the same way Allos do.

Lines of movement, displays of skill in a medium, unique and interesting ways to portray the body...there are many, many ways to appreciate a piece of art that do not involve the sexual reaction the piece was perhaps intended to invoke. Being ace does not prevent us from seeing and enjoying the same thing Allos do. Just changes the way we do it.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

I am so tired of allosexual people stealing our voices to use as a cudgel in a fucked up purity war. No the post doesn't forget asexual people exist. I (asexual) also think that erotic art is important, because everything doesn't have to be about me specifically to have artistic value. You'll find some ace people clutching their pearls about how icky sex art is for gross degenerates and should be banned but they aren't there because they're ace. They're there for the same reasons that the allo people are. Purity police, stop pretending that your weird anti-sex obsession is somehow about supporting us. You don't speak for me.

[cacodaemonia]

Exactly. And the op is specifically talking about people who repress or deny their own urges and want to do the same to others. One of the main aspect of being ace is that we're not repressing our sexual urges—we simply don't experience sexual attraction to others the way most people do. Plenty of us, including myself, enjoy consuming and creating erotic art and writing. Some ace people don't like any of it.

None of that has anything to do with policing or suppressing the creation of erotic art.

I don't know if people who cry 'what about asexuals?' when purity wank comes up just don't understand what being asexual means, or if they're trying to use a minority group to support their views. The latter is an extremely common tactic among the anti-fiction/erotica/fun crowd, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case in many of these situations. I can't speak for the second poster in this thread, but hopefully they were just confused about what asexuality is. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[jamierthanyou]

as an aroace, im particularly dangerous, because i wont fuck or marry. i only know how to kill.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Asexual people who feel pressured into having sex when they don’t want to and queer people that are afraid or ashamed of having sex even though they want to are actually being repressed by the same societal forces but nobody seems to want to talk about that

[what-even-is-thiss]

Society at large wants you to experience sex in a very predictable way. It might feel like the “other side” of this problem is actually more societally accepted but this isn’t true. Society not only demands that you have sex but it demands you have a specific type of sex in a specific type of body with a specific type of person with another different specific type of body.

Having sex with a body outside the norm or with a person outside the norm in a way outside the norm is seen as rediculous. So is opting out of sex altogether. In reality both are seen as unacceptable.

The desires of those who don’t want sex and those who want sex that’s seen as abnormal by society may be different but the thing that’s stopping us from living how we want is the same.

[anistarrose]

The sentences "Asexuals can still have sex" and "Aromantics can still date" need to go up on the high shelf for everyone except aces and aros talking about their own experiences. From now on, everyone else has to use the revolutionary new phrase "Asexuals and aromantics can do whatever the fuck they want forever."

[this-is-exorsexism]

I love the girls in the discord group but they could stop making eggs jokes at me after I've asked them not to that would be even more to love.

I am not an egg! I am nonbinary! I actually already tried the girl thing, thanks! Makes me dysphoric as hell.

I can like long socks and metal music and my computer, and sometimes pick the girl character, and still be agender thanks!!!

Most games make me pick so I just swap which one I use every other time to keep that nb feel. So yes sometimes that's the girl. But I'm not an egg and I shouldn't have to tell you details to have that respected!

this is exorsexism.

[atransparenteye-deactivated2025]

Thinking about how being bisexual and non-binary constantly puts me in situations where I’m told that I will eventually “pick a side”. Which has led me to subconsciously (and sometimes bubbled up as consciously) feel like I’m not yet settled into myself, like I have to keep exploring to figure out my final form. Which means I’ve lost a lot of time I could have spent enjoying and making a home in the version of myself that I AM. I deserve to feel happy and at home in this self, regardless of where future roads may take me.

[this-is-exorsexism]

nonbinary people 🤝 bi+ people 🤝 ace/aro people

being seen as not fully formed humans for not having “picked a side”, having our identities seen as a time bomb waiting to reveal “who we really are” (cis/binary trans, allo gay or allo straight)

[stargazing-enby]

And that's that on that.

[stargazing-enby]

Apparently I wasn't done 🤔

[lymmea]

These are FABULOUS, OP, but can I suggest one to the riff of "QUEERNESS IS NOT DEFINED BY THE AMOUNT PEOPLE HAVE SUFFERED"?

[stargazing-enby]

Thanks! Here you go 🥰

Some other additions:

Inspired by @unicorn-in-the-library:

And because @surfs-up-roxy wanted an ace one:

I didn't want to make the message ace-specific because I wanted to make a point of how all of the above include aspec people, but I tried to use an ace colour palette for the background :) I also think the message applies especially (even if not exclusively) to the ace community!

Hope you like these 🥰

[prismatic-bell]

@rockmarina possibly “all labels were made up at one point, stop being an ass”?

[stargazing-enby]

I played around with the concept a bit, I hope you like it anyway!

I feel like this also needs to be said:

[oddler14]

[ID:

Image 1: (in white text, on a background of rainbow watercolors) Gatekeeping hurts queer people who are questioning.

Image 2: (in white text, on a background of rainbow paint strokes) Gatekeeping hurts more queer people than it protects.

Image 3: (in white text, on a background of pastel watercolors) How about you let people question their gender and sexuality in peace.

Image 4: (in white text, on a photo of the rainbow pride flag flying in a blue sky) People don’t owe you a chronicle of their life experiences and feelings for you to decide whether they belong in their own community.

Image 5: (in white text, on a marbled pink background) I don’t know how to tell you this, but you are not the queer police.

Image 6: (in white text, on a background of multicolored textile) Stop siding with our oppressors.

Image 7: (in white text, on a photo of pieces of chalk arranged in a rainbow on asphalt) Not every queer person’s experiences need to be like yours.

Image 8: (in white text, on a background of shiny, rainbow chunks of metal (?)) Mind your own damn business.

Image 9: (in white text, on a mottled black & rainbow background) Let people change labels.

Image 10: (in white text, on a photo of a full moon in a dark sky) There’s no such thing as not being queer enough.

Image 11: (in white text, on a background of paint strokes in pink, white, magenta, purple and dark blue, the colors of the genderfluid pride flag) Vocabulary is designed to be constantly reinvented as human societies evolve, and labels aren’t the exception.

Image 12: (in white text, on a background of pink, purple, and turquoise) Gatekeeping is a product of privilege.

End ID]

[stargazing-enby]

Thanks so much for the image descriptions!

Here's one more addition per @secretlycrazyhummingbird's suggestion:

[Image description: (in white text, over a black background with trees decorated with multi-colored lights) Queer people don't have to make themselves palatable to deserve respect. End ID]

[stargazing-enby]

And another one, per @mixed-bag-of-tricks's suggestion!

[Image description: (in white text, over a wooden background with curved boards the colours of the rainbow) It's okay to use a label even if it doesn't fit perfectly. End ID]

[stargazing-enby]

...you know what, I think the message of this post really boils down to this:

[ID: (in white text, over a black background with striking rainbow lights) gatekeepers are nothing but bullies. End ID]

And I'm really glad this post has helped so many people feel a bit less alone in their struggles. Bullies have made a LOT of damage in this community—have made so many of us feel like impostors, like trenders, like maybe we were making up the things we were feeling—and it makes me so happy we're all pushing back against their hateful, narrow-minded, queerphobic rhetoric.

Keep it up, everyone 💪🏼

[stargazing-enby]

Happy pride month to the post that marked the beginning of my journey to overcoming internalised queerphobia

[transfemboygirl]

it's almost pride month again. what a great reminder for Please Be Normal about these people:

- aromantic people who aren't asexual.

- asexual people who aren't aromantic.

- cishet aromantic and cishet asexual people.

- aromantic men in general.

- intersex people who are trans.

- intersex people who are are cis.

- intersex people who are cistrans/tris and those who are neither.

- intersex people who are cishet.

- intersex people in general.

- nonbinary people who don't personally identify as transfem or transmasc.

- nonbinary people who don't want to be androgynous.

- cis people who use neopronouns and/or xenogenders while still feeling cis fits just fine.

- people who feel gender dysphoria or misgendered when referred to by they/them, especially after telling you not to use they/them.

PART TWO.

⚠️ Do not use they/them if talking about me to others in reblogs/comments. I have neopronouns in my pinned post ⚠️

[v0idwraith]

It’s asexuality day!

How did you figure out that you’re asexual?

Talking with friends

A pride informational leaflet

Related a bit too much to an asexual character

The previous option but specifically if said character was Jonathan Sims

Youtube

A quick google

A much longer google

Other (put in tags)

I’m not asexual? (yeah right)

No actually I’m not asexual/nuance

Voting ended onApr 13, 2025