The Bowery Presents
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@theowritercal
Something something asexuality in media that doesn't talk about sex otherwise tends to be synonymous with aromanticism send post.
what's up, coming at you as one of those dirty-minded smut enjoying asexuals handing out water at the orgy or whatever the fuck people say. anyway, lately i get this kind of insidious sense that people think of sex-favorable aces as the "cool" aces. like "hey don't worry man, i'm asexual but you don't have to do anything to accommodate it." And of course it's a spectrum/umbrella, people can be asexual and sex favorable, i know that from experience. But i worry it's also seen as the *more palatable* version of asexuality.
So here's the reminder that you are not weird or prudish or childish or mean if you don't want people talking about sex around you. You are not morally reprehensible or puritan or fascist if sex makes you uncomfortable or upset. if someone tries to make you feel ashamed of that discomfort, or pushes your boundaries on purpose just because they can, they're the ones in the wrong for not respecting you. Never, ever compromise yourself for the sake of people who think you're less than for how you feel and who you are.
And right back at you (general) as a sex repulsed ace towards grey-aces and sex-favourable aces - people saying you're 'disgusting' or 'not a real ace' for having a... more complex? (is that the best way to put it?) a more complex relationship with sex and sexuality - they're wrong.
We should never stand for being used as a weapon to hurt others in our community. None of us are truly unilaterally accepted and supported -- we can and should support each other. We don't have to have the same experiences to do that.
what's up, coming at you as one of those dirty-minded smut enjoying asexuals handing out water at the orgy or whatever the fuck people say. anyway, lately i get this kind of insidious sense that people think of sex-favorable aces as the "cool" aces. like "hey don't worry man, i'm asexual but you don't have to do anything to accommodate it." And of course it's a spectrum/umbrella, people can be asexual and sex favorable, i know that from experience. But i worry it's also seen as the *more palatable* version of asexuality.
So here's the reminder that you are not weird or prudish or childish or mean if you don't want people talking about sex around you. You are not morally reprehensible or puritan or fascist if sex makes you uncomfortable or upset. if someone tries to make you feel ashamed of that discomfort, or pushes your boundaries on purpose just because they can, they're the ones in the wrong for not respecting you. Never, ever compromise yourself for the sake of people who think you're less than for how you feel and who you are.
I know I'm asking the void on this account but would anyone happen to know of any stories that:
-Have explicitly gay/bi/mlm main characters
-Said characters are adults
-The story is not about being gay/bi/mlm (a romance should be there but as a secondary thing to the main plot)
-Is nonsexual (the characters don't have to be explicitly asexual)
-Lighthearted (no horror, tragedy, etc.)
-Sincere (there can be humor, but nothing that comes at the expense of characters being genuine with each other)
Bonus:
-Fantasy setting
I watched Savy Writes Books's second video about the show Love on the Spectrum, and I thought it brought up an interesting conversation about autism, a/sexuality, adulthood, and agency.
The series mainly showcases autistic people who abstain from sex for religious reasons or aren't interested at all. That, combined with the way the show portrays the cast's behaviors, interests, etc., the non-autistic audience has a tendency to come away from it thinking of autistic people as uniquely wholesome but also lacking in agency. This is true even for the cast members who meet a lot of common markers of adulthood (getting married, living on their own, owning businesses).
When one of the cast members mentioned having a sexual partner, audience members got uncomfortable. Some grew concerned at the idea of the partner being neurotypical. For a show that's supposedly dedicated to busting misconceptions about autistic people's ability to navigate romantic relationships, it's weird that it avoids the topic of sex so much that so many people can come away thinking that autistic people shouldn't have it.
It creates this weird dynamic where viewers see autistic adults as too childlike to have sex, even if they're adults doing other adult things. (Savy pointed this and most of the above points out.)
It also kind reveals that viewers see people who don't have sex as more childlike, even if they're adults doing other adult things.
And sex aside, the ways that the audience and some of the cast member's parents treat them as forever children reveals how much disrespect is tolerated not just at autistic adults but at children. They're expected to sit politely while their day to day struggles are treated as entertainment fodder and their authority figures talk down on them like they're not in the room.
Tumblr post 1: Stories are all too grimdark and such it is fash doomerism to assume reality is evil What we need in these times is stories that inspire hope that is truly revolutionary
Tumblr post 2: Stories are all too fluffy and happy and such it is fash revisionism to shy away from the darkness What we need in these times is stories that are cathartic and unsettling that is truly revolutionary
MORAL: All storytelling is evil (telling lies)
addendum: all these stories about heroes going through dark times but overcoming them with effort and friendship are sooooooo cringey.
all these stories about individuals overcoming obstacles are unrealistic. we need more stories about people coming together to overcome oppressors
all these stories about the power of friendship are sappy and trite. stories should have a single protagonist who either has or develops the strength to overcome obstacles, not a bunch of weaklings who have to get together to be strong enough to actually do anything
Taking a cursory look at fandomyuriindex, it's backing up a suspicion I've had that one of the big things accounting for a lack of f/f pairings in fandom is guy-focused media / media with more male characters being more popular.
It feels like the easier way to combat this isn't to expect fandoms to get more interested in f/f ships in the media they're already watching, but to get more people watching, reading, and playing media that focuses more on girls.
This also leads into the deep-rooted issue of "guys' media is for everyone and girls' media is only for girls (and therefore lesser)."
Then there's also the issue of guys being seen as the default gender that everyone can relate to while girls tend to be othered. Media that writes female characters with as much respect as its male characters can only do so much to combat the internalized and externalized misogyny people have from being ingrained with that worldview.
Taking a cursory look at fandomyuriindex, it's backing up a suspicion I've had that one of the big things accounting for a lack of f/f pairings in fandom is guy-focused media / media with more male characters being more popular.
It feels like the easier way to combat this isn't to expect fandoms to get more interested in f/f ships in the media they're already watching, but to get more people watching, reading, and playing media that focuses more on girls.
I wish it wasn’t a hot take that a story in which two characters of any gender prioritize their purely platonic relationship over any other romantic or sexual interests they might have is a textually queer story
tumblr is Doing Things again
A smarter person could word this better, but different forms of long-form writing has differing expectations of quality. Though anyone can write anything they want, people are going to judge the same quality of writing differently based on whether it's fanfic, original fic, indie published, trad published, etc.
Fanfiction probably has the lowest expectation of quality. Readers are familiar with the the source material it's connected to, so that does some of the heavy lifting. This isn't to say that all fanfiction is low quality. I know there's fanfiction on par with classic literary fiction in terms of technical skill, and ultimately, fanfiction is free and done for fun, so it shouldn't be held to a specific standard anyway.
There was this oneshot fanfic that explored how the main cast reacted after a certain death. Everyone was written perfectly in character. Overall, it was a really touching piece about the ways grief can manifest and how it changes over time, even if it never goes away. It also had a lot of run-on sentences, which sometimes made it difficult to tell what was going on. I loved it anyway.
Had it been original, I might not have finished it.
Freely available original fiction is pretty close to fanfiction in terms of expectation with one big difference: The author is solely responsible for making the reader care. Character establishment, worldbuilding, setup & payoff, etc., these are all things the author has to provide on their own, and they have to do it well enough to make a reader stick around. So long as it's free, readers are willing to give some leeway, even if more work needs to be put in than fanfiction.
Once money is involved, standards get harsher. I've seen writers and readers alike sneer at the thought of indie published books under the assumption that they're not good enough to become traditionally published. It's a shame, because as I understand it, trad publishing picks up works based on whether they'd be popular, not necessarily good. Some real gems are independently published. That being said, the lower barrier of entry allows for more flaws to get through.
The next step up in terms of expectations is traditionally published genre fiction. Obviously, expectations are going to vary depending on the genre, and these expectations tend to fall in line with tropes. Genres require certain tropes. You can't have a romance novel without a couple, and you can't set historical fiction in the future. Science fiction and fantasy are harder to pin down, but if one of those stories are indistinguishable from a contemporary novel, it's probably going to disappoint readers. Stories of any genre can still find their own ways to be subversive within these tropes, but each genre has subgenres, and the smaller the niche, the more tropes it'll have to adhere to. Ultimately, the success of genre fiction stories depends on whether the readers find it entertaining.
Finally, there's literary fiction, which is hard to define but most people think of it as the written equivalent of high art. It's artsy and has capital-T Themes that it's expected to deliver on. It may not be as popular as genre fiction, but it's expected to be written by those with high technical skill and have something interesting to say.
I don't really have a conclusion to this. It's just something I thought about after hearing about a book that has the looks and acclaim of literary fiction but is written with tropes and a plot structure that rarely shows up outside of fanfiction. I haven't actually read the book, so I can't really comment on it. I just think it's interesting how these expectations can affect how a story is judged.
Wow! I just looked over and saw 40+ notifications in my activity, which never happens to me. I feel like a bug under a rock that @/fuckyeahasexual just happened to lift up. I'm happy people enjoy my post?
Tumblr is a magical place.
Wow!
Wow! I just looked over and saw 40+ notifications in my activity, which never happens to me. I feel like a bug under a rock that @/fuckyeahasexual just happened to lift up. I'm happy people enjoy my post?
Tumblr is a magical place.
I'm thinking about two of my characters' relationship to certain adulthood markers.
Both are sex-repulsed asexuals. One is probably some flavor of aromantic. They character wouldn't mind being in a romantic relationship, but they're so sex-repulsed that the mere thought of having to have a discussion about sex with a partner makes them uncomfortable, especially when they feel like they'd be rejected for wanting no part in it. They don't mind being single, though. The other is alloromantic and hopes to be in a romantic relationship someday.
Neither drinks alcohol. The aroace isn't interested, and the alloace has an adverse reaction to drinking it.
On top of this, both characters are whimsical, naive, timid, and come off as childlike. The aroace is fine with being seen this way. Adulthood is something they felt was forced upon them, and though they come to accept the responsibilities it brings, they feel fully comfortable never meeting markers of adulthood that don't align with their preferred lifestyle. The alloace, on the other hand, resents this. They associate childhood with a lack of agency and potential for manipulation. Because of that, they want to be taken seriously as an adult and feel insecure about their inability to engage in adulthood markers like alcohol or sex.
I don't have a neat way to wrap this up. I just think they're neat.
Having some thoughts about compulsory sexuality, especially how posts about sex positivity vs censorship have an unfortunate tendency to cast people who are less willing to engage with sex as the cause and the symptom of puritanism when puritanical people are usually pretty pro-sex (within very narrow parameters that they weaponize against everyone else).
Tl;dr: Ending stigma around sex = Good. Implying less sexual people are losers / bad queers / oppressors = No thanks.
Bringing a sort of "what these two have going on is undeniably queer even if they don't end up together romantically or sexually" vibe to the story that I'm not sure how anyone is going to react to to be honest.
everyone's all about queer subtext until it's aromantic or asexual
