#ghiraheeheeheem

[megapotatosaurus]

Here we go again guys, @rebelbaze replied once more.  I hope you’ve all been enjoying the show.  For those of you wondering when it’s gonna end, the answer to that is right now.  This will be my final response.

Full comments on this post.

“Yeah, dude, you’re LGBT because you’re pansexual. Not because you’re demi. […] YOU are just as pansexual as any other pansexual out there. You aren’t a watered down pansexual. Aren’t less of a pansexual. Which means cis straight aces aren’t any less cis or straight han their peers. And that means they share exactly zero meaningful experiences with me. I share as many experiences with a man who likes to be pegged by his wife as I do with cishet aces.” -rebelbaze

Well, I sure am glad to hear that I'm not a watered down pansexual.  That sounds terrible!  Painful, even.

However, I'm also cis.  Am I oppressing you?  Because obviously I'm no less cis than any other cis person. Ain't no watered down cis any more than a watered down pan.  So why do I belong in your group, but not a cishet ace?

And who knows, maybe you do share some meaningful experiences with a guy who likes pegging.  Maybe you both like the same brand of tea.  Maybe you've both terrorised 'outsiders' on the internet.  Who knows.

“Asexuality isn’t a sexual orientation, it is a modifier to sexual orientation the same way “kinky” or “polyamorous” is.” -rebelbaze

So asexuality is a 'modifier' now. What does it give, +1 to Wisdom?  +5 to Empathy?  Oh wait, that's impossible, because you're ace too apparently.

And when you say that asexuality isn't a sexual orientation, you're extending your attack from just cishet aces, to all aces.  Sooo... that whole thing about not being aphobic? If it walks like an aphobe and talks like an aphobe, it's an aphobe.

“You do realize I’m not a single individual claiming cis straight aces aren’t LGBT right? Like, I am drawing on a four year degree studying LGBT history and have realized that there aren’t ANY mentions of ace people in the LGBT community before 2015?” -rebelbaze

I don't know what the fact that you studied LGBT+ history says about the “edcuation” system over there, but whatever you learned about history, it sure hasn't informed your present very well.

If you knew anything about LGBT+ history, and the present trends, you would know that you are not on the right side of it.  You're not on the right side at all.  It's only going to become broader, more open and welcoming, more intersectional.  That's the way we're driving it. Because while there are angry and toxic and very vocal members who want to shut out those who 'do not belong,' they are very fortunately in the minority still.

And I assume if there aren't many mentions of ace people before then, it's because that's when they began gaining more awareness.  A lot of the literature I've seen on asexuality has been dating from around 2014, 2015, 2016.  But it certainly was a thing before then.  Brotto et al.'s piece on asexuality dated from 2010, and had certainly been in the making long before that.

But more than that, just because these things weren't commonly known doesn't mean they were never a thing.  It could well be that ace people have never been able to identify themselves as such until asexuality was coined and gained more presence.  This is why visibility is so important.  If bisexual, ace, pan, genderfluid, trans people are visible, then others will discover themselves, too. And these people deserve a place in the movement that fights for all forms of sexuality and gender identity.  And they deserve to take that place safe in the knowledge that no one is going to pounce on the chance to tell them that they don't belong.

“Me loathing cis straight aces isn’t internalized aphobia. I don’t hate them because they’re ace. I hate them because they’re cis and straight.” -rebelbaze

And I'm very sorry to hear that.  Ultimately, your hatred helps no one, and hurts you.  I noticed that on your blog you reblogged some quotes from Carrie Fisher earlier today, including: “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”  The more you continue with this way of life and mindset, the more it will sit like poison in your stomach and eat, eat, eat away.

Let me tell you something.  Your hatred is not hurting cis straight people. Cis straight people are fine.  Cis straight people don't care about what LGBT+ people think about them, they aren't impacted by it.

Your hatred is hurting ace people.

I know it's hurting ace people, because in the few short hours I've been making posts here debating with you, I've had them approach me and tell me how brave I am, what a good job I'm doing, how they've battled with you and others like you for so long and are so tired of fighting.

Please, rethink your stance.

------

I'm going to stop conversing with you now.  Just a few final points. Many people use the image of talking to a brick wall to describe how it feels to talk to someone who will never listen, who won't even consider your thoughts or opinions.  I say to you now that talking to you has not been like conversing with a brick wall – it's been like kicking around a piece of gravel.  An obstinate, ultimately irrelevant little piece of stone.  The kind of stone that gets stuck in your shoe for a while, then you hammer it out and forget about it.

Stop making yourself irrelevant.  If you would stand up beside your fellow aces, it would only make the movement stronger.  As it is, you're barely even weakening it.  People are just frustrated, and won't engage with you after a while.

Finally, a favourite quote of mine, attributed to St. Augustine: “The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it.  Let it loose, it will defend itself.”  I promise you, with all certainty, that anyone who has read this exchange between us with a reasonable mind, some compassion in their heart, and an interest in enacting true social justice has agreed with my points, not yours.

I really do hope for your own sake, as well as everyone else's, that you will learn to look inside of yourself, confront your destructive emotions and eventually find peace.

[triforce-princess]

*raises hand* Can I suggest HW Ghirahim for a future screenshot pack? ^_^ ♥

I was actually considering it for this Wednesday!

[ghiraheeheeheem]

It's not really a nickname suggestion but your url inspired me to PICTURE THIS: imagine - an alternate universe Ghirahim. He lives in France and is unbelievably, head to toe, the biggest French stereotype known to man. He is vain; he still loves his hair and stripping provocatively. He is arrogant and rude. He has an affinity for art and a weakness for beautiful things. He is effeminate, but that doesn't stop him possessing a desirable chain of lovers. He is known to the world as Ghirahonhonhon.

I’m fucking sobbing holy shit

[megapotatosaurus]

hey guys, rebelbaze responded!!  once again in the comments of my last post rather than a reblog so if you want to see their full comments just go to that link.

“Your argument is largely based on not understanding wht the LGBT community is for, what its activism looks like, and what LGBT specific resources could do. Please edcuate yourself further.” -rebelbaze

Sure, I’m always looking to educate myself further on LGBT+ matters.  But I know perfectly well what the LGBT+ community is for.  It’s for people like me, and @ghiraheeheeheem and everyone else with a sexuality or gender identity that has been oppressed and erased for centuries.

“Nah, my request for “better sources” was sources not from tumblr, not with studies that are a. old enough to be obsolete and b. have been debunked, and c. did not directly contradict the point they were trying to make that aces face “similar” discrimination to LGBT folk. Which, again, none of his sources proved AND neither do any of your sources. The discrimination you are talking about most closely resembles MISOGYNY not homophobia or transphobia“ -rebelbaze               

So, I went to the trouble of providing you with actual published research from scientific journals specifically concerned with human sexuality and that’s not the kind of evidence you want or consider valid.  Aaaaaalrighty then.  Also, neither of the papers I cited were directly trying to prove that aces face similar discrimination to other LGBT+, they were analysing the experience of ace people using interview techniques and questionnaires and in the case of Brotto et al., some evaluation scales.  They neither contradicted nor supported the point, I merely drew the connection in support myself as there was discussion of asexuals facing the kind of discrimination LGBT+ people do face.

However, I did go and find another article which I think you will like and find helpful to your understanding of the topic :]  It’s called “Making Sense in and of the Asexual Community: Navigating Relationships and Identities in a Context of Resistance“ by CJ Chasin, 2015.  The original article is here and once again I would be happy to provide you with the full text for free by email or some other means if you cannot access it, just message or /ask me.  It actually makes a point of discussing and positively comparing the experience of the asexual and homosexual struggle - that is say, an actual qualified researcher and social psychologist who has reviewed all of the literature on the topic (because that’s what this paper is, a review and discussion of the available literature on the topic) agrees that the experience of homophobia and aphobia is “parallel” (Chasin, 2015) in society.

So.  Want any more sources?

Moving on:

“And, like, cishet aces ARE invading the community using the EXACT same rhetoric kinky cishets, polyamorous cishets, and even pedophile cishets have used in the past (and present!) to attempt to say that they are oppressed and part of the LGBT community. Our oppressors trying to get into our spaces and say we owe them support can be codified as nothing other than invaders.” -rebelbaze

Oh boy, I love it when asexuals get compared to pedophiles and other sexual deviants!  (Not to suggest that kinks and polyamory are deviant, though that’s certainly what @rebelbaze is suggesting by thoughtlessly lumping them all in with pedophiles.)  Kind of reminds me exactly of how homosexuals get compared to pedophiles!  Not to mention the way trans people get compared to pedophiles!  Hmmm!  Aphobia and homophobia and transphobia are so not equivalent!  Nobody’s pulling the exact same shit on absolutely everybody who has some kind of ‘abnormal’ sexuality or gender identity!!  Especially not people within the very LGBT+ community which is supposed to be promoting and supporting the rights of these people to exist!!!!

Come on.  Can you really not hear yourself?  I mean, in all honesty, you seem very concerned about the oppression of our people and that could be an admirable trait if used properly.  But if you use the same weapons against others in our group that our oppressors do, can’t you see you’re no better than them?  There’s no shame in coming to realise that you’ve been misinformed about an issue.  In fact, it’s more admirable to admit that you were wrong than to continue arguing yourself into a corner based upon a lie, and a vicious and destructive lie at that.

I’ll address one more point on that topic:

“Because, again, the LGBT community isn’t about anyone who is marginalized (otherwise FURRIES can make a better case than cishet aces, as furries have had their conventions literally GASSED), it is about those SPECIFICALLY oppressed by homophobia and transphobia. Like, can you name a single major LGBT Issue that wasn’t based around homophobia and transphobia?” -rebelbaze

How about biphobia?  Because that’s a very real and distinct thing from homophobia, more similar to aphobia in many ways.  Bi people are routinely erased, told they’re “going through a phase”, that they’re not welcome in the community because they can potentially fit in with the heteronormative ideal (oh look it’s what we’re discussing right here right now but for ace people) or that they’re actually just straight but horny or actually secretly gay, just the same way asexuals are told that they’re repressed or just victims of abuse, just the way that gay men are often theorised to have been victims of abuse.  I could keep looping around and linking up all of the different x-phobic arguments: they have more that binds than separates them.  And asexuals, as noted in each of my papers, also have the unique challenge of not being understood by ANYONE who experiences sexual attraction.  They’re doubly cursed and doubly vulnerable to people such as yourself telling them they don’t belong.  Which is why I am of the opinion that we should be extra welcoming to all kinds of asexual people, cishet or lesbian or gay or genderqueer or trans or whatever else, because there are even less people who understand them than the sexualities with a much larger and well-established movement and publicity.

And one more LGBT+ issue not based around homophobia/transphobia  - how about the experience of LGBT+ POC?  As you’re arguing that misogyny/rape culture issues have no place in this debate, you could also argue that race issues should be kept out of the LGBT+ space, but once again, in my opinion those who face extra marginalisation in society should be invited in and allowed to celebrate and express themselves using the context of their own experience.  Like I said in my last post, just because they might not fit your image of who belongs in your group doesn’t mean they don’t belong.  It’s a very broad spectrum and so we need a broad gaze.

Our struggles are all different, but equivalent, and each legitimate.  In the face of so much institutionalised hatred, we must support one another, not weaken the movement with in-fighting and cruelty using the very weapons used to oppress us.

[megapotatosaurus]

Oh good another response!! This is my reply to @rebelbaze’s comments on this post.

“We can talk about LGBT issues and racism without saying all people of color are LGBT. Likewise, we can talk about aphobia and LGBT intersecting without saying all aces are LGBT.”  - rebelbaze

But that’s just the thing - if you’re asexual, you belong in LGBT spaces.  You don’t need a different gender to qualify.  I’m cis demipansexual, go ahead and tell me I don’t belong in LGBT spaces.  Go ahead.  You wouldn’t be right.  You’ll never be right.  Soz.

“Please NEVER fucking compare me to cis straight people EVER again.” - rebelbaze

As long as you keep using the language of oppression, it’s easy to draw the comparison.  I really can’t believe you can’t hear yourself like, at all.

“Cis straight aces, cis straight aros, and cis aroaces ALL benefit from my oppression as a bisexual agender ace.” -rebelbaze

How?

And, just so you know, nobody benefits from your putrid attitude towards your fellow LGBT+ people.

“LGBT people faced actual consequences and hate campaigns" -rebelbaze

Actual consequences and hate campaigns, hmmm, you mean.... kind of like what you’re doing to aces?

“A single person saying something is “parallel” to homophobia doesn’t a. actually mean it is or b. qualify as a meaningful consensus, especially when asexuality is still being argued as to whether or not it even counts as an orientation.” -rebelbaze

You’re right, a single person claiming something doesn’t make it true, which is also true for your claim that cishet aces don’t have a place in LGBT+ spaces.  However, I would have hoped that the word of a scientific observer who has studied all of the available literature on the topic and drawn connections between the experience of homophobia and acephobia would hold some water for you, if you were a rational thinking human being.  If you want me to link you to magazine articles or blogs or something, that’s basically asking for pap over something that has gone through a lengthy editing and peer review process and been verified by not just one but MANY experts as being factually correct and the best piece of work that it can be.  I’m not saying all research articles are infallible at all, I’m just saying, they’re well-thought out, and not just the product of an individual person.

Anyway.  Moving on.

You claim that acephobia is just the same thing as misogyny repackaged - and in a strange way, I’m about to say you’re right, because your internalised hatred towards ace people when you claim to be ace yourself is like the internalised misogny suffered by many women.  I’m going to hark back to one of your comments on an earlier post: "every LGBT person i know loathes cishet aces".  It’s a psychological principle that people subconsciously externalise their beliefs - they’d like to believe that everybody was like them, that they aren’t the only one with these thoughts or feelings.  Taking the external factor out of that statement, it reads as “I loathe cishet aces.”

I’m really sorry you’re so full of hatred.  And I’m sorry that your experiences with cishet aces have been bad.  But instead of projecting your suffering onto an entire group of people, can you practise forgiveness?  Or if not forgiveness, the understanding that whoever has hurt you is not representative of the entire group of potentially hundreds of thousands or millions of people.  Roughly 10% of aces identify as straight, based on Brotto et al.  That’s a lot of people to exclude.  Heck, even if it was just one or two people, it still wouldn’t be right.

Everyone has internalised hatred of some kind, but you need to counter it, not embrace it.  Stop embracing hatred and stand instead for every asexual who is looking for somewhere to belong.  They are LGBT+.  They don’t need a non-cis gender identity to qualify.  Their sexuality is enough.

Also, leave @math-is-magic alone.  They were engaging with me, not you.  I won’t allow you to force other people into an argument on my post.  From the messages I’ve received since making these posts, it’s clear that aces on this website are tired of you and people like you, with your aggression and hatred constantly pointed at them.  You’re talking with me right now.  I’m not tired.

[megapotatosaurus]

so there’s an argument going on over on my main man @ghiraheeheeheem ‘s blog about whether or not cishet aces have a place in lgbt spaces.  it’s been years since i actually had time to waste arguing with people on the internet but i had knee surgery on friday so it’s either this or watch a few more episodes of hells kitchen and let’s be honest hell’s kitchen can wait when there’s social issues afoot

so all of @rebelbaze’s responses are in reply form so it’s not possible for me to quote all of it aside from copypasting but check out the comments on this post if you want to read them all.  Just a few points I want to pick up on:

“Anyways, for the second time tonight, please come to me with better sources. Because literally every single LGBT pereson I know loathes cishet aces and the way they'ev tried to invade the community. Mainstream organizations sucking up to them doesn’t count. Mainstream organizations have ALWAYS sucked up to cishets. Always.”- rebelbaze

This is the part that made me really want to jump in.

Firstly, if “better sources” i.e scientific research that categorically proves that cishet ace people belong in lgbt spaces is what you want, you’re not going to get it, because first of all, if a paper on such a specific topic existed it would be very obscure and difficult to find amidst the mountains of other literature, and secondly all notable journal-published literature on the ace experience as we understand it is dating from roughly the last two or three or four years - so it’s an extremely new field of research which is just starting to get more researchers looking into it.  He is not going to be able to present you with a legitimate academic article that says “cishet ace people belong in lgbt spaces” because it doesn’t exist.  And frankly, would you read and actually listen to it if it did?

Secondly, I don’t think you will ever realise how disgusting the second half of your comment up there is.  “Every single LGBT person I know loathes cishet aces and the way they’ve tried to invade the community.”  What a disgusting thing to say.  Please avoid such sweeping and hurtful statements.  With me and @ghiraheeheeheem combined, you’ve now met two LGBT+ people who do not loathe cishet aces, so never use a statement like that again.  You do not have the right to speak on behalf of the entire community.  And your use of the word “invade” is total othering.  In one sweeping statement you have totally contributed to the marginalisation and stigmatisation ace people receive.  “Invade” makes it sound like we’re all at war with each other.  If you must think of the struggle of LGBT+ people like a war, then place yourself on the right side - the side of all others who are stigmatised and marginalised and routinely discriminated against and erased, not just the ones who are like you.

To return to the topic of published literature, if you visit this link you will find the original source for one very interesting and comprehensive qualitative interview-based study i have found about the ace experience and its relationship to wider society and community: “Freedom, Invisibility, and Community: A Qualitative Study of Self-Identification with Asexuality” by MacNeela and Murphy, 2015. The full body of the text also includes references to a lot of other work done on the same topic.  Without proper access you won’t be able to view the full text without purchasing it but if you’re really interested I could get a copy to you.  To summarise the most relevant points of it, while it doesn’t state that cishet ace people belong in LGBT spaces because again, that is such a specific topic and opinion/conjecture rather than observable fact, it does state that asexuals are routinely de-legitimised as not belonging to any space within society, not just heteronormative society but society where the focus is on sex in general, and that sexual people in general have trouble accepting that not feeling sexual attraction is a legitimate thing.  It also states that there is considerable intersectionality between asexuality and other LGBT+ identities such as genderqueer, and following a reference cited in the article, I found this study - “Asexuality: A Mixed-Methods Approach” by Brotto et al., 2010, - which contains sex and gender information about the asexual participants, again I could probably send this to you if you would like.  9% of 56 interviewed ‘males’ and 12% of 133 interviewed ‘females’ identified themselves as “heterosexual” - this is not an insignificant proportion amongst generally non-sexual people.  If you’re going to gatekeep and say that one kind of ace person is welcome in the community because they have non-heteronormative identity and sex preferences, but another portion of it is not because they’re conforming to heteronormative society - well, all it’s really doing is just drawing up arbitrary lines about what kind of sexuality and gender identity is “acceptable” to you.  And isn’t that exactly the kind of discrimination we suffer at the hands of heteronormative society?

In this struggle, you need to decide what kind of person you want to be: someone who acts as a keymaster, as a judge or a sniffer dog deciding which people belong in your narrow in-group, which people are worth fighting for - or someone who knows that we all have equivalent struggles, we all suffer the same mistreatments for being different, for not feeling sexual attraction the same way society wants us to.  You state that ace/aro struggles “aren’t similar enough to LGBT struggles to make them LGBT” - I contend to you now that not only are they similar, they are identical.  Ace/aro people are fighting the same battle now that gay/trans people have been fighting the better part of this last century - it’s just that their struggle is only newly gaining awareness.

As one final point, I’ll pick up on something from your very first reply:

‘Misogyny is “similar” to transphobia in that it’s discrimination based on gender but you still wouldn’t say “all women are LGBT because misogyny is similar to transphobia.”’ - rebelbaze

You’re totally right.  Nobody would say that, because that’s a ridiculous thing to say.  Making false equivalencies is no way to add legitimacy to your argument.

[megapotatosaurus]

@ghiraheeheeheem @ghirahims-left-shoe omg someone posted actual footage of your wedding on youtube!!

[megapotatosaurus]

Old English!!!

oh god i’m so sorry for not noticing these asks for some reason my inbox doesn’t seem to show sometimes when i get a message i’m so sorry friend anons

Anyway, Old English: You’re stranded on a desert island, who do you bring with you?

Oh man I thought this said “WHAT do you bring” and I was like duuuude like a flare gun or some shit, clean drinking water, idk, but it’s a person so… my response is automatically to try and think of someone who would be useful to me in a survival situation…. hey i know, I’m gonna say @ghiraheeheeheem , because i know there’s nothing he’d like more than to be trapped on an island with me :] forever and ever.  best friends