I really love the continued trend of people blaming the asexual/aromantic community for harming questioning kids who just might be suffering from internalized homophobia.
Like yes how dare we as a community remind people that it’s ok if you don’t want to have sex or be in a romantic relationship!! We truly are monsters for welcoming people who say they are ace/aro into our community and giving them help and resources and answering their questions!!
I mean yeah we are def just trying to brainwash more kids to our side, because that totally makes sense! I mean we clearly have something to gain from forcing the ace/aro label on people, right? We couldn’t possibly be trying to help questioning people remember that they don’t have to put themselves in sexual/romantic situations if that is uncomfortable for them since you know, only most of us have done that and come to regret it!
In all seriousness, I wont deny that there are a lot of people with internalized homophobia who are scared to explore that side of themselves and will come to realize that they are not ace/aro, but where is the harm in us giving them a safe place/identity to use until they can come to that realization on their own? I would rather that these people not force themselves into romantic/sexual situations if that makes them uncomfortable or scared. Closeted lesbians who think they are ace aren’t going to be convinced of their true identity by forcing themselves to have sex and date girls. That’s not how being questioning works.
And tbh ace/aro people face a LOT of gas-lighting in the world, you really think we are gonna welcome new a-spec people by constantly reminding them that they might not be a-spec and that they should think hard about it before picking a label? Because a lot of queer people are constantly gas-lighted and facing that when you have finally found a label that makes you feel safe, regardless of if that label is going to stick forever, is just going to make these people feel even more lost and confused and possibly drive them back into the closet forever.
No community, be it the gay or lesbian or bi or pan or ace, should immediately start questioning new people to make sure that they are “really” that identity, and I have NEVER seen ANY other community come under fire the way the ace/aro ones have for this kind of thing. There is no one out there attacking lesbians for making questioning bi girls think they are gay, there are no mass crusades against pan folks for not interrogating questioning gay men, why should we attack ace/aro people for this?
Besides like...questioning is HARD. And when you do find a label that fits it can act as a safe place to further explore yourself. Like a port in a storm or an anchor, you feel grounded and accepted for once and there are people around you who want to help, and that is very, very helpful for those who are unsure. And after these people have found somewhere to explor themselves they might find out they are actually gay or bi and move on, and guess what?? Ace/aro people will support that!!! I have never in my life seen any ace/aro person lament the loss of a lesbian who thought they were ace/aro, we have been happy that they finally found who they really are and we are gonna celebrate that!!
I mean really where is this whole “ace/aro people are hiding gay people from exploring their own internalized homophobia” argument coming from why do you think that’s what we want to do? What the hell would we have to gain from that? More ace people? I don’t want people who are really gay to force themselves to be ace, and neither does the community as a whole.
And if you get right down to it it really isn’t our fault if that does happen, we shouldn’t have to constantly be on the lookout for signs of lesbians sheltering themselves in asexuality, because when someone says they are a certain identity WE BELIEVE them! I would be shitty not to!!
All of these arguments really boil down to aphobia, there’s no way they don’t, because there is no way to properly combat an issue like this that doesn’t force ace/aro people to berate and interrogate each other all to hell to the point that our identity is seen as a “last option” or doesn’t exist vocally or even exist at all.(Which like, do you want the reverse to happen? Do you want questioning a-spec people to force themselves to be gay or bi? To blame lesbians and bisexuals for “sheltering them and not making them think critically about their attraction”, to claim that gay people traumatized them by accepting and helping them? Because that’s the logical conclusion to this line of thinking. And when it’s turned around you can see how shitty of a thing to say it is.)
It’s aphobic strawman bullshit and I’m sick of seeing people parrot it.
