#aspec identities

[cherryaire]

Could we please stop putting a bunch of aro stuff in ace week? And vice versa? They take place months apart.

If you're both, great. But making most of what gets seen aroace defeats the purpose of celebrating ASEXUALITY and asexuality alone. It alienates anyone who isn't both. The same goes to flooding the aro tag with aroace stuff at the end of February. It's about the one thing, nothing else.

Not all aspec people are aroace and by acting like they are, you're being incredibly exclusionary.

[yellowdaffodils-76]

I’m so tired of my identity being debated. I’m so tired of non-aspec people trying to dictate how I should be experiencing attraction. A lot of well-meaning people will treat asexuality and aromanticism as interesting theory. Like they’ll acknowledge us but they’ll say things like “I think these identities are valid, but what do you guys think? What are your opinions on these identities?” And I’m like wtf?? They are valid whether you think they are or not. And then there’s the people who think asexuality or aromanticism is just an internet thing, just a Gen-Z thing, just an attempt to seem special, just an attention-seeking thing, just a white thing, just a female thing, and I’m always struck by just how little the average person knows about aspec identities.

Idk if I’m putting across all that’s on my mind but I’m just so frustrated. Why are aspec identities always treated as something interesting to be debated and not the valid queer identities that they are? How much longer will aspec people have to fight for their voices to be heard? For accurate and abundant representation? For awareness? For common fucking decency and respect?

[aspec-manga-snom]

Aspec Manga Rec: My Astilbe

A one shot so the post will spoil most if not all of the plot. A piece that debates the nature of aromantic and asexual identities directly. There are some gatekeeping sentiments around the nature of labels and the spectrum of both identities, but, I believe if this was written with the knowledge of the labels of being demiromantic or demisexual, the story would be much more conscious of them, so trigger warning for that sentiment.

Despite this, I think this warrants a rec for the fact of acknowledgment. Mentions of sexual themes and aphobic themes of society.

Authored by Amupaka, the story follows two women, Kanade and Aoi. Aoi has been struggling to connect with others as she cannot seem to make herself fall in love with others despite pushing herself to conform and dress to appease potential partners. On another night of this routine of trying to find someone that she could love she meets Kanade, who after hearing about this mentions that Aoi might be aroace, just like Kanade.

This identity seems to be very freeing for Aoi, letting herself be free of expectations and norms and living life how she wants to. The two of them very quickly become friends and confide in one another their life problems and stuggles of a love expecting society.

The story turns when Aoi begins to have a crisis of newfound identity as she begins to fall in love with one of her coworkers after learning to trust and care for him. After telling Kanade telling this, she expresses:

She feels betrayed by her friend falling in love when she couldn't.

A Sidebar about This

In a more aware context, I think that Aoi's character is incredibly a textbook example of a demiaroace. She only forms a romantic and sexual connection with her coworker after a deep emotional connection with them. The author introduces some context of possible romantic trauma in highschool towards Aoi, but it is never made clear if she was the one denying herself love or if she fits the labels. Either way, the sentiment that Kanade expresses here is incredibly divisive nowadays and has been the source of much online discourse. While the two characters reconcile, this should still be addressed and acknowledged as a reductive view of aspec identity. People can fall in and out of labels because they are just that, labels. They create a meaning for self that doesn't need to last forever.

Sidebar Over

We are shown Kanade's attempts to fall in love all met with failure of herself, even experimenting with her sexuality assuming that she wasn't straight until she is met with the revelatory introduction of the words asexual and aromantic. We don't spend much time in the conflict as Aoi expresses that she wouldn't have been able to be happy without Kanade's influence and that Kanade would always be a part of her life no matter what.

I think that this isn't the best representation of aspec identity, but it is a welcome step in the right direction of acknowledgement of the pressure and assumptions that society puts on aspec people.

TLDR:

Direct addressing of aspec identities and the pressure that society places upon them to conform to concepts of romance and family life. While there are some ideas that are reminiscent of past ace discourse, a modern lens makes the story read differently than it is written.

[plato-bfs]

acquiromantic : feels limited or alterous attraction but is open to both romantic and nonromantic relationships. similar to how a panromantic person may be open to both homoromantic and heteromantic relationships, an acquiromantic person may be neutral in preference between romantic and platonic relationships.

title derived from acquiescence - to accept without protest, as accepting either romantic or platonic relationships without protest

flag colors display neutral tones, representing neutral feelings towards different types of relationships

(created and designed by brennon lane, user @plato-bfs)

[ace-xual]

So what if someone's sexuality is influenced by their trauma? Why does that matter? Humans are complex beings, and our intersecting identities, experiences, and backgrounds all inform one another. Someone who has experienced sexual trauma is not going to experience sexuality the same way they would have if they had not been traumatized.

If they feel most comfortable describing themselves as asexual because they are not interested in sexual activity due to their trauma, how does that affect you?

No two asexuals are going to have the same exact relationship to the label asexual, nor identify with it in the same way. That doesn't mean either one of them are wrong with their identity choice.

Furthermore, if someone chooses to identify as asexual due to trauma and then later chooses another identity, that shouldn't matter either. People switch labels. Sometimes our sexuality changes, and sometimes we find a label that better describes us.

Worry about how you can support them and their identity, and not whether it's "correct" or not.

[questioning-aspec-culture-is]

I made a blog for aspec identities i post information cards the blog name is @aspec-identities

this seems helpful!

[kalinara]

On Aspec Identities

I’ve “joked” before that I know that it’s Pride Month, because as soon as June 1 comes around, I suddenly get to see a wonderful flood of aphobic bullshit on my dash.  

Sometimes the people who reblog this shit aren’t themselves exclusionists.  At least I’d like to think they aren’t, given that they’re mutuals who follow me, but out of ignorance, they join in on mocking what they don’t understand.

My block button gets a nice workout during Pride.

Anyway, since I do think (hope) that some of the people reblogging this nonsense do so because they are genuinely clueless, I’m inspired to write this post.

--

It’s very common, during Pride and otherwise, to see people mock the idea of aspec identities.  For example, “fraysexual”, in which people only experience sexual attraction to people they don’t know very well, for example, celebrities.

It’s very common to see otherwise well-meaning people mock this idea.  “I’m attracted to Chris Hemsworth!  Does this mean I’m suddenly LGBTQ?!”

I don’t want to attack their reading comprehension, of course, but they’re missing something obvious in that definition: the word “only”.

If you are a woman and you are attracted to Chris Hemsworth, then you’re probably straight.  Or bi.  But if you’re ONLY attracted to Chris Hemsworth and NO OTHER MEN in the world...then maybe something else is going on.

Lesbians will often talk about compulsory heterosexuality and that’s a thing that asexual people experience too.  Society has an expectation of allo-straightness and it’s very hard to define a negative, so it’s very common for a young person to express attraction to a fantasy, someone safely out of reach.  Most of us will never meet Chris Hemsworth in real life, certainly we’ll never get invited to have sex with him, so we don’t really have to parse through whether this is something we really want to do.  And well, if we’re not interested in the real life men that we know, it’s probably because they just don’t measure up.

Now, I think lesbians have one advantage in this case that asexual people don’t have.  And that’s that they do feel attraction to women.  It’s suppressed, and it may take a lot of time to realize it, but it’s there.  And once you feel the real thing, I think that it makes it easier to see the “attraction” to Chris Hemsworth for what it is.

Most asexual people don’t have a “real thing” to put the fantasy and cultural programming into perspective.  It’s very hard to define a negative, and often you end up doing that by defining everything else around out.  That blank space is what’s left.

And that’s why aspec identities exist: because society has a really complicated relationship with sexuality in general.  A physical sex drive can complicate matters too.  Because that’s a thing that most people have.  Hormones and gonads and all that.  And if you think growing up with all those impulses is confusing already, try it when you don’t have a sexual orientation to direct it.

So that’s, I think, where a lot of these identities come from.  Identities like fraysexual and lithsexual (sexual attraction ONLY if it’s not reciprocated) sound weird to an outside observer, until you understand that the end goal is not to have sex!  The end goal is to process what we’re feeling and not feeling and define it for ourselves.  

As a young person, I didn’t know I was asexual.  I thought there was something wrong with me.  I’d grasp at straws and think to myself that I must be straight, because I liked slash fanfiction.  Because I liked erotica.  Clearly I just never really had the opportunity to have sex.  I have very specific trait preferences.

And then the invitation came!  From someone who was objectively very attractive.  He* was beautiful, a live action and real life version of the characters I’d read about, amazingly smart, great sense of humor.  I’d fantasized about them for a long time before this moment.  (More accurately, I should say “They” as later, they came out as non-binary.  At the time though, I’d believed them to be male, just as I’d believed myself to be female.  People are complicated.)

The fantasy was real!  There was no better time!  And....all I could feel was a resounding “NO.”  I liked them a lot.  But...no.  No.  (They took the refusal with good grace, they were really great!)  The aftermath was rough on me though, because I no longer could fool myself.

I don’t consider myself lithsexual or fraysexual because in my case, the attraction wasn’t so much to the person as to the fantasy of being straight.  But people come in all variations, and we can only really define ourselves.

Ultimately, aspec identities aren’t about you unless they apply to you.  But for us, they can be a literal lifesaver.  I spent a long time thinking I was broken.  Why could I feel a sexual response when reading erotica but not want to have sex?!  Obviously I can’t be asexual if I feel SOMETHING, right?

And then, and then, at the age of thirty or so, I stumbled across the concept of autochorissexuality.  The idea of a disconnect between self and sexual desire.  And I realized, wait.  There I am.  You can’t imagine the sense of relief.

THAT’s why these identities exist.  It doesn’t MATTER if you understand them.  It doesn’t MATTER if you think they’re valid.  They’re for US, not you.  And it costs exactly 0 dollars to shut the fuck up about something that has nothing to do with you.

[aroaceingit]

I feel like it’s really hard to come out as aromantic or asexual (or as an aspec identity). So few people even know that aromantic and asexual are even a thing, so coming out can turn into an entire vocab lesson of trying to explain your identity. And if the person doesn’t believe it, then not only are you explaining it, but now you have to defend your identity. So you have to first gage if a person would be supportive of a queer identity, but then you have to gage if they would understand/accept/support an aspec identity. So most of the time, it’s so much easier to just not say anything. But then you feel like you’re hiding something and that you can’t share that part of yourself. And when someone says something aphobic or amatonormative, you feel like you can’t challenge it without bringing up your identity. And you don’t know if you can trust that person with your identity.