TW: Rant post, acephobia.
Okay, now I don’t like making posts like this, mainly because I don’t enjoy expressing my anger if it’s not in a constructive way. But for the love of Christ can we please stop sexualizing ace characters???
How is it that when I look up Kankri Vantas (A CANONICAL CELIBATE CHARACTER), it doesn’t even take me half a scroll to find some weirdo art of him. I’m not saying don’t ship Kankri or whatever, since he does canonically feel flushed, but he had never been shown a desire to pail with someone. He’s ace, but that doesn’t mean he’s aro. THE VICE VERSA IS ALSO TRUE! Just because he feels romantic feelings, doesn’t mean he’s not ace.
Do you know how many times I’ve PERSONALLY been told, as someone on the Ace-Spectrum, that I just need to “loosen up” or that I’m “not valid” because for something I have no control over. The worst part is that it doesn’t even come from weirdo right-winged assholes. It comes from people WITHIN the LGBTQ+ community, because despite being known as the “most accepting community”, the second I don’t conform to some sexual-normative criteria/mindset, I’m the weird one, it’s somehow “not natural”. Isn’t that literally the same thing that 70-year old conservatives say?
And what do I always get as a response when I bring up this over-sexualization of characters who are ace? “It’s just their headcanon.” or “Well it’s not explicitly confirmed, only implied.” But I guarantee you that if I said that Dirk was only implied to be gay, or Rose never explicitly said “I’m a lesbian” and therefore I could ship them with a differently gendered character, suddenly it’s not good. Suddenly it’s bad, but not when it’s an ace character like Kankri, nooo.
Because for some moronic reason, despite this whole community being built on the idea of “equality”, ace characters are always treated as a prize and are objectified because people think being ace is the equivalent of shaking my ass in your face and going “ooh, you can’t have this.” WHEN IT LITERALLY FUCKING ISN’T! It’s the complete opposite! We see other people and go “While I may wish to hold a romantic relationship with you, I cannot feel sexual attraction and therefore do not wish to have sexual relationships.”
Why are we so disregarding of character’s sexualities when they’re ace or aro? It’s not even something hard to respect their canonical labels. It’s not silly or funny or anything. It’s acephobic and makes the entire point of the LGBTQ+ (that being that we’re all equal) an utter joke! “Yeah we’re all equal, but not if you’re ace.” It’s such bullshit. Again, not saying you can’t ship them, but sexualizing them and similar things is just disgusting and disrespectful.