for people in the notes looking for âelderâ aces, i just wanna say that iâm 28 years old and am also desperately searching for that representation. i first found out about asexuality through tumblr when i was 21 and started identifying as asexual when i was 21-22 (around 2012). iâve sought other online ace communities but nothing compared to tumblr. i mean, props to aven for existing as a repository of resources but in terms of just chatting with other aces âin the wildâ as it were, tumblr was the perfect place.
but then this fucking shit happened. around 2015 is when it really kicked into high gear. âdiscoursersâ or exclusionists or aphobes or however you want to refer to them consider asexuality to be a joke and that everyone who identifies as ace is a cringey cishet college-aged white girl who loves dr who. recycled biphobia, homophobia, and even terf rhetoric made its way into the mainstream tumblr conscious by reframing the arguments to target ace people (youâre only X because youâre ugly/canât get laid; you arenât part of the community if your partner is of a different gender; maybe something happened to you to make you this way; have you had your hormones checked?; by accepting this identity you are allowing the oppressor to infiltrate our spaces; etc.). you know, in case you think this is just about âsnick snackâ memes.
this has alienated ace people of color, who already struggle with desexualization/hypersexualization, disabled aces, ace survivors, trans aces, mentally ill aces, neurodiverse/AUTISTIC ACES (you guys get REAL fuckin nervous when i highlight that the majority of your jeering about acesâ perceived awkwardness, missed social cues, infantilization/dehumanization, or âunfuckabilityâ/âcringey-nessâ are repackaged ableism, especially considering that a good percentage of the ace community is also autistic), and both young AND older aces.Â
younger people are being discouraged from exploring the possibility of being asexual by exclusionists for reasons that vary from internalized homophobia to asexuality being a side effect of SSRIs. they are being told that they are âactuallyâ something other than what they say they are, or that they are broken, or that theyâre too young to know, or that our ace identity is simultaneously something that must be excruciatingly examined to determine its âcauseâ yet so irrelevant that itâs unworthy of discussion or representationâânobody cares that you donât want to have sexâ. i WISH i had known about asexuality as a teenager, as a kid. I wish i had saved myself from so much grief, abuse, pain, and corrective rape by not subjecting myself to experiences that i hoped would âfixâ me.Â
and older people like me, who in the grand scheme of things is uhhh really not that much older than the majority of tumblr, are ridiculed for having a presence on tumblr in general, let alone as an asexual person. aces over 30? 40? 50? unicorns. conjured rhetoric. people straight-up donât believe they exist. people ten years my junior attempt to deny and erase the lived history of aces by saying asexuality was âinventedâ only ten years ago. i have been terrified of attempting to enter Q* spaces irl because i have heard from even my IRL gay friends that aces do not belong, that âitâs not important enough to form an identity aroundâ, that we are not oppressed enough or we just desperately want to be oppressed.Â
i have only heard in passing of people much older than i am who are ace. i have absolutely zero examples to turn to of people like me continuing to live a long life or any evidence that i am worth loving unless i become a parent, which i donât want to do. when youâre a teenager thereâs more discussion about sexual boundaries, but what about dating in my 30s? what adult is going to be satisfied knowing i can never validate their sexual attraction, unless they were ace like me (less than 1% of the population)? am i forced to be alone forever? you can imagine how bleak my future feels.Â
it pisses me off that iâm seen as a curmudgeon who âjust doesnât get the young peopleâs humorâ when i have to beg people that i consider friends, for the eight billionth time, to stop making/reblogging jokes about how âcringeyâ aces are or are tongue-in-cheek declaring themselves to be aphobes, and then those people try to assuage me with respectability politics about how itâs about âTHOSEâ aces on tumblr and not, yknow, me, who is âone of the good onesâ. and since the jokes themselves are so juvenile, it further compounds on the poor social graces and stoicism assumed of asexual people if Iâm getting upset over ace war criminal moodboards or whatever the fuck. EVERY time i post about asexual ANYTHING on tumblr, to this day, i lose followers. without fail. people dont bat a lash when i spam 20 untagged posts in a row about a fandom they dont care about but i post two positive words about asexuality and theyre gone.
the environment promoted on tumblr condemns asexuality as a social deficit, as an attack on other Q* identities, as a subject of derision and embarrassment, as an identity lacking in âwokeâ capital, and makes every effort to expunge us from communities we have already belonged to in favor of making our own while also actively seeking out and dismantling those communities. if tumblr really is in its last days, i sincerely hope that these awful practices will die with it.Â
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