a discourse side blog

cis heteromantic aces and cis heterosexual aros are straight, not lgbtq; cis aroaces are neither straight nor lgbtq, but they do benefit from homophobia and transphobia ||| i id as bi or queer, depending on comfort levels of the ppl around me ||| previously id'd as aspec and while my feelings have not changed, i no longer id as such as i find the community harmful (homophobic, transphobic, antisemitic, racist, etc) and don't particularly feel comfortable discussing my level of interest in sex and/or romance with literal strangers ||| currently questioning my gender, probably nonbinary, possibly agender; they/them pronouns for now ||| white ||| i'm an adult and also consider my blog as more of an archive (that i eventually want to have fully tagged), so i mostly reblog without additional commentary, but if you're a minor and uncomfortable, please feel free to block me (if you send me a message telling me that you're blocking for that reason, it would be helpful for me, but it's not required) ||| otherwise, i pretty much only block terfs and the cowards who reblog me and immediately block me to get the "last word"

[heterophobiclesbean]

why “allosexual privilege” isnt real and why everyone (ace or not) is punished for their sexual (or nonsexual) expression because of the fact that sexual expression is used to justify violence for other existing power structures and because sexual expression itself is not an arbiter of privilege

I think the thing so many aces miss in the conversation about the way society views sex is that yes, you’re 100% right in the fact that we live in a highly sexual society! You cant watch a TV show these days without being blindsided with sex scenes that you (or anyone else) never asked for.

But that doesnt mean that everyone who isnt asexual benefits from these things either. The assumption that there is some sort of privilege with being non-ace because of the amount of sexual content we are exposed to all the time is just a misinterpretation of reality.

Because really the only people whose sex is socially acceptable is straight white cis men. Just because we all see sex everywhere doesnt mean that all people are materially or socially rewarded for having sex. Whether or not the type/frequency someone has sex is entirely based upon other factors, almost always reliant upon other existing oppressions like racism, sexism, transphobia, etc.

Being averse to the sex we are shown frequently in advertisements, movies, and other forms of media is not a product of being ace. It’s a product of being something other than a cishet, white, able-bodied, upper-middle class man. Having sex, wanting sex, seeking out sex, and having sexual feelings are not things people in general are rewarded for. They are things oppressors are rewarded for as an expression of dominance and freedom over the oppressed.

Ask yourself this: when I think about who experiences societal benefits for having/wanting/seeking out sex, am I thinking about the general population or only a specific subset of people? Does every individual reap some sort of benefit from being non-asexual, or is it actually entirely dependent on other factors?

Are black men rewarded for having/wanting/seeking out sex, or are they demonized as predators that need to be stopped to protect white womens virtue and often punished for sexual behavior they didnt even engage in?

Are trans women rewarded for having/wanting/seeking out sex, or are they similarly seen as predators out to “trick” cis men into sleeping with them, or even reduced entirely down to a sexual fantasy (“autogynephilia”) instead of understood as actual human beings who might just have human desires?

Are gay men rewarded for having/wanting/seeking out sex, or are they at best mocked and emasculated for being “effeminate” and at worst sent to conversion therapy or killed to curb their sexual desires?

Are disabled people rewarded for having/wanting/seeking out sex, or do disabled people actually experience some of the highest rates of forced sterilization, alongside immigrants and native peoples, to take away their reproductive rights and take away their sexual agency, or turned into a fetish for an able-bodied person to get off on?

Are bi women rewarded for having/wanting/seeking out sex, or are they actually dehumanized, subject to the highest rates of IPV in the LGBT community because of their perceived hypersexual nature, and literally seen as sex toys incapable of having boundaries by straight couples looking for a ~freaky~ night?

What about all LGBT people in conversion therapy, is them wanting to fuck other people of the same gender helping them or is the entire program designed to traumatize them out of that desire?

Are black women rewarded for having/wanting/seeking out sex, or are they too highly sexualized and dehumanized, viewed as hypersexual and mannish, painted as “welfare queens” trying to “trap” a man into 18 years child support?

What about all women in general? Are women rewarded for having/wanting/seeking out sex, or are they literally told from the age of twelve that having sex is like being a piece of gum that has been chewed, or a flower that has been crushed, or a piece of tape stuck to skin that will lose its adhesive, or that sexually active women are sluts and that they are “asking” for abuse, or that their unwanted pregnancies are “punishment” for sexual promiscuity and they deserve to be saddled with a child they cannot afford, do not want, are unable to care for, etc in an attempt to stop them from behaving in that behavior?

Who actually experiences any sort of benefit for being a sexual person? Is it anyone who experiences sexual attraction, or only people with other specific privileges who are allowed to express their sexual desires without punishment? And if having sexual feelings/desires/attractions actually doesn’t automatically grant somebody more privileges in society, if it is something dependent on other factors and something that is actually used to punish marginalized people, then how can anyone claim that having those sexual feelings is a privilege? Does that even make sense? Does it even make sense to divide society into two classes of people and claim that the one that experiences no actual benefit by virtue of their sexual attraction alone has privilege over the other? Does that seem like a useful line to draw in terms of privilege considering whether or not someone is punished or rewarded for their sexual behavior has nothing to do with the act of engaging in that behavior and everything to do with who it is engaging in that behavior?

Wouldnt it follow that the sex we are all exposed to is not a result of sexual attraction being a unuversslly rewarded experience or behavior, but actually a symptom of already existing oppressive structures that allow those who are not punished for their sexual attractions, the cishet abelbodied wealthy white men, to be in charge of the media? Wouldnt it follow that we see all that sex not because society as a whole is enjoying and benefitting from it, but because the sex is put there specifically by the people who enjoy and benefit from it because they are otherwise privileged?

And none of that is to say somebody cannot be punished for not experiencing sexual attractions in a similar manner to how somebody can be punished for their sexual attractions. Any expression of sexuality (or lackthereof) that goes against the desires of the oppressor will be punished. That includes women who dont want to have sex with their boyfriends, men whose lack of sexual desires makes them a target with their peers because of their inability to fulfill their dominsnt role as a man, trans women who refuse to be seen as sex objects for straight men to use and abuse, lesbians who do not want to sleep with men, bi women who do not want to be in threesomes with random couples, etc.

Any expression of sexuality can be used as an excuse to justify violence, but it isnt the expression of sexuality that incites that violence; it is who is engaging in that expression of sexuality is allowed or not allowed to based on existing privileges. Sex, and lackthereof, has always been a weapon for justifying and enacting violence against oppressed peoples, not the driving cause behind being oppressed or privileged.

[minors-are-map-allies-too]

just to be clear: are u saying asexuality isnt an orientation, and is just a result of sex in general being un-rewarded?

[thethingsididntsaytoyou]

stop playing dumb.

this post is discussing how society punishes anyone who is not a white cis het ableboded man for their sexuality or lack thereof and that’s why “allosexual privilege” is a rotten concept. that in no way invalidates asexuality as an orientation and if you think it does, that’s on you, not this post.

maybe try reading it again.

[lesbx]

there is no part of the terf ideology that has anything to do with ace discourse. literally none at all. if you think it does then you fundamentally misunderstand what terf means and you are beyond help. stop watering down the issue of transmisogyny. trans women are enough to fight for, we are enough to grieve for, and our problems are enough to stand up for on their own, so it makes absolutely no goddamn sense to make the issue about an entirely unrelated topic bc you can’t muster up the empathy for us to not twist the discussion around your internet arguments. tme ppl can and will reblog just keep your mouth shut for once

[colorisbyshe]

every time i say something mean about aces, someone inevitably cites something about ace history that’s pre-Zoe O’Reilly’s 1997 work “My Life as an Amoeba” and literaly all of it is SWERFs (the spinster movement), Radfems (that picture of the girl listing identities like lesbian separatist, bisexual, asexual), or fucking Alfred Kinsey, the dude who excused and defended pedophiles. I hope you know political lesbians go under the radfem umbrella, so that’s part of my demonic ace sources list.

The one non-demonic source of asexuality pre-1997 is a piece about trans liberation, a cut out article removed from context, that talks about how trans liberation must include all trans people—gay, straight, bisexual, or asexual. Which doesn’t say asexuals were LGBT if they weren’t L G B or T but rather that no trans people should be left out of trans liberation. No one argues all straight people are LGBT despite it being listed there.

The fact of the matter is asexuality meant wildly different things before the early 2000s when AVEN came into existence, where there was an entire debate about asexuality should mean (and it was then decided it could mean whatever people want). And that since the early 2000s, the ONLY sources for ace activism and movements is AVEN... the antisemitic, homophobic, racist, bigoted cesspool. So your entire ace history is just “bigoted shit pre-2000” and “bigoted shit, likely lifted from tumblr, post-2000”

not to mention there is no actual... activism attached to any of this to cite. just opinion pieces cause all the ace community seems to do is opine and whine. there’s no tangible activism tied to ending rape culture. just about being considered “queer enough” or adding to “anti-sexual” rhetoric

has ANYONE seen ace work that wasn’t just based in saying “we’re just like the gays I swear” or uncomfortable jokes at the expense of people who have sex (which ironically enough includes large swaths of the ace community)

[colorisbyshe]

i need to clarify before anyone cries on this post, this isn’t me saying ace identity is INHERENTLY tied to “problematic” activism or anything like that. but rather aces in 2020 NEED to be aware of what they are citing when they are “defending” ace history/supposed ace inclusion (not to mention all the SWERF/radfem sources NEVER actually say aces are LGBT considering those aren’t LGBT sources).

Having problematic organizations/movements in your past doesn’t invalidate your current existence, the LGBT community has more than its fair share of those, BUT you can’t use them to make points defending yourself in the present. That’s it!

But that’s hard for aces because there is no real ace past before AVEN.

Asexual as a term meaning non-sexual and what we now call aroace existed before AVEN and was used in a variety of ways BUT it did not exist as a COMMUNITY until AVEN. And no one wants to claim AVEN because... well... it’s AVEN.

The solution to “What the fuck is ace activism if I can’t cite SWERFs, TERFs, and “Oh, Did I cite pedophiles without calling the cops on them??? OOPSY!” Kinsey” is to look to the future rather than the past. Rather than creating ahistorical takes like “Aces were at Stonewall” (they weren’t), talk about what aces CAN be doing RIGHT NOW and in the future.

Talk about what goals you want to have in ending rape culture and how you’ll achieve that. Talk about how those goals mean ALLYING with LGBT AND feminist movements makes sense, cause it DOES make sense to ALLY together. Talk about how the mistakes of AVEN and Zoe O’Reilly can be used to learn to do better in the now.

That’s all it takes to reform your image. Actually DO activism instead of just whining at LGBT people for not including you and being upset when your Radfem #330 source isn’t acceptable to us.

[heterophobiclesbean]

why “allosexual privilege” isnt real and why everyone (ace or not) is punished for their sexual (or nonsexual) expression because of the fact that sexual expression is used to justify violence for other existing power structures and because sexual expression itself is not an arbiter of privilege

I think the thing so many aces miss in the conversation about the way society views sex is that yes, you’re 100% right in the fact that we live in a highly sexual society! You cant watch a TV show these days without being blindsided with sex scenes that you (or anyone else) never asked for.

But that doesnt mean that everyone who isnt asexual benefits from these things either. The assumption that there is some sort of privilege with being non-ace because of the amount of sexual content we are exposed to all the time is just a misinterpretation of reality.

Because really the only people whose sex is socially acceptable is straight white cis men. Just because we all see sex everywhere doesnt mean that all people are materially or socially rewarded for having sex. Whether or not the type/frequency someone has sex is entirely based upon other factors, almost always reliant upon other existing oppressions like racism, sexism, transphobia, etc.

Being averse to the sex we are shown frequently in advertisements, movies, and other forms of media is not a product of being ace. It’s a product of being something other than a cishet, white, able-bodied, upper-middle class man. Having sex, wanting sex, seeking out sex, and having sexual feelings are not things people in general are rewarded for. They are things oppressors are rewarded for as an expression of dominance and freedom over the oppressed.

Ask yourself this: when I think about who experiences societal benefits for having/wanting/seeking out sex, am I thinking about the general population or only a specific subset of people? Does every individual reap some sort of benefit from being non-asexual, or is it actually entirely dependent on other factors?

Are black men rewarded for having/wanting/seeking out sex, or are they demonized as predators that need to be stopped to protect white womens virtue and often punished for sexual behavior they didnt even engage in?

Are trans women rewarded for having/wanting/seeking out sex, or are they similarly seen as predators out to “trick” cis men into sleeping with them, or even reduced entirely down to a sexual fantasy (“autogynephilia”) instead of understood as actual human beings who might just have human desires?

Are gay men rewarded for having/wanting/seeking out sex, or are they at best mocked and emasculated for being “effeminate” and at worst sent to conversion therapy or killed to curb their sexual desires?

Are disabled people rewarded for having/wanting/seeking out sex, or do disabled people actually experience some of the highest rates of forced sterilization, alongside immigrants and native peoples, to take away their reproductive rights and take away their sexual agency, or turned into a fetish for an able-bodied person to get off on?

Are bi women rewarded for having/wanting/seeking out sex, or are they actually dehumanized, subject to the highest rates of IPV in the LGBT community because of their perceived hypersexual nature, and literally seen as sex toys incapable of having boundaries by straight couples looking for a ~freaky~ night?

What about all LGBT people in conversion therapy, is them wanting to fuck other people of the same gender helping them or is the entire program designed to traumatize them out of that desire?

Are black women rewarded for having/wanting/seeking out sex, or are they too highly sexualized and dehumanized, viewed as hypersexual and mannish, painted as “welfare queens” trying to “trap” a man into 18 years child support?

What about all women in general? Are women rewarded for having/wanting/seeking out sex, or are they literally told from the age of twelve that having sex is like being a piece of gum that has been chewed, or a flower that has been crushed, or a piece of tape stuck to skin that will lose its adhesive, or that sexually active women are sluts and that they are “asking” for abuse, or that their unwanted pregnancies are “punishment” for sexual promiscuity and they deserve to be saddled with a child they cannot afford, do not want, are unable to care for, etc in an attempt to stop them from behaving in that behavior?

Who actually experiences any sort of benefit for being a sexual person? Is it anyone who experiences sexual attraction, or only people with other specific privileges who are allowed to express their sexual desires without punishment? And if having sexual feelings/desires/attractions actually doesn’t automatically grant somebody more privileges in society, if it is something dependent on other factors and something that is actually used to punish marginalized people, then how can anyone claim that having those sexual feelings is a privilege? Does that even make sense? Does it even make sense to divide society into two classes of people and claim that the one that experiences no actual benefit by virtue of their sexual attraction alone has privilege over the other? Does that seem like a useful line to draw in terms of privilege considering whether or not someone is punished or rewarded for their sexual behavior has nothing to do with the act of engaging in that behavior and everything to do with who it is engaging in that behavior?

Wouldnt it follow that the sex we are all exposed to is not a result of sexual attraction being a unuversslly rewarded experience or behavior, but actually a symptom of already existing oppressive structures that allow those who are not punished for their sexual attractions, the cishet abelbodied wealthy white men, to be in charge of the media? Wouldnt it follow that we see all that sex not because society as a whole is enjoying and benefitting from it, but because the sex is put there specifically by the people who enjoy and benefit from it because they are otherwise privileged?

And none of that is to say somebody cannot be punished for not experiencing sexual attractions in a similar manner to how somebody can be punished for their sexual attractions. Any expression of sexuality (or lackthereof) that goes against the desires of the oppressor will be punished. That includes women who dont want to have sex with their boyfriends, men whose lack of sexual desires makes them a target with their peers because of their inability to fulfill their dominsnt role as a man, trans women who refuse to be seen as sex objects for straight men to use and abuse, lesbians who do not want to sleep with men, bi women who do not want to be in threesomes with random couples, etc.

Any expression of sexuality can be used as an excuse to justify violence, but it isnt the expression of sexuality that incites that violence; it is who is engaging in that expression of sexuality is allowed or not allowed to based on existing privileges. Sex, and lackthereof, has always been a weapon for justifying and enacting violence against oppressed peoples, not the driving cause behind being oppressed or privileged.

[deactivatingsoon666]

There is literally nothing inherantly wrong with asexuality or polyamory or anything like that

Literally the sex/relationship life (or lack thereof) is only the business of those involved.

It just isn’t inherantly lgbt

This is kind of why I cringe at exclusionists being called aphobic, I support asexuals and their community, they just aren’t a part of *my* community

[deergirlegodeath]

when i say im against mogai it means im against legitimately harmful terms like “dreadsexual” and “lithsexual”, endless useless terms that perpetuate internalized homophobia, and gross tmi things like “autochorrissexual”

i DO NOT care if a 14 year old identifies as stargender and uses fae/kit pronouns that is literally the least of my problems and does not affect anyone negatively at all

all i want is to reassure the health and safety of lgbt people, thats it!

[anacephobiaproject]

[handwritten in red and purple: “Don’t use “allo” it’s really freaking weird for u to assume about others sexual attraction levels.”]

This is an example of hate.

[youcanthurtmetheseshadesaregucci]

gay person: when you reduce to me to nothing but a label saying that i participate in sexual relations, despite you knowing nothing about me, i feel incredibly uncomfortable and disrespected

this asshat: THIS IS ACEPHOBIA!!! GAY PEOPLE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO BE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH SEXUAL HARRADMENT FROM ACES!!! THIS IS AN ACE HATE CRIME!!!

[demisexualmeansnormal]

Things that literally never happen

“Sorry, you’re not fucking enough to rent this apartment.”

“Your marriage isn’t recognised in this State/country, cos you’re simply not having enough sex.”

“Sorry, we ran a background check on your job application, and it seems you’re not really interested in sex, and we don’t think that reflects will on this Corporate Big Box.”

“sorry, we can’t cover your diabetes medication, because your medical record says you’re not really into sex.”

On the other hand…

LGBT people are legally denied housing, quite regularly, on the basis of being lesbian, gay, bi, or trans.

Marriage rights for LGBT people have been contested because of local laws. (This isn’t really no longer an issue in the States, tbqh, just all around. All the federal recognition of SSM rights means is there is no legal reason for any one State to deny a marriage certificate, and that federal tax filings aren’t going to be contested.)

Trans people are denied employment, and quite legally, over things as benign as a legal name change.

Trans people are denied healthcare, even for things that aren’t related to transitioning, on the basis of being trans.

While there are certain things that are of concern to asexuals, none of it applies to what the LGBT community has been working for. Your civil rights and liberties are not being denied or threatened on the basis of simply being asexual.

If you’re gay-ace, lesbian-ace, bi/pan-ace, or trans/nb-ace, then you’re already LGBT; but if you’re CISgender and HETeromantic, in addition to being asexual, you are CIS-HET you have literally nothing in common with LGBT people.

Build your own community, there is nothing stopping you, but you have no right to ours.

[dead-tribadist]

why i stopped identifying as ace

i know, I just recreated my blog and now I’m talking about Things. 

look, no one is arguing that asexuality is a real thing.  in fact, I used to call myself ace too.  I had an ace flag background, I had an ace ring – all of it. 

and you know what? nothing about my attraction has changed since then. even though I dropped the asexual label, I’d still be a firm member of the community if I decided to call myself ace. 

but I don’t. and i never will again. and here’s why: 

y’all are homophobes.

yes, you’ve heard it before! but now it’s coming from an asexual who felt so alienated and embarrassed by your actions that she will never come near your community anymore. 

you take tragedies, murders, and violent acts against sga people and turn them into some kind of oppression contest against you. you make everything about yourself, constantly.  you talk about sex more than any quote-unquote “allosexual” I’ve ever met.

you make posts about how an std-plague would be so cool because only aces would survive.  you take valid criticisms of your garbage behavior and cry “aphobes!” and put your fingers in your ears.

newsflash: you’re not oppressed because you don’t want sex.  yes, sexual situations may make you more uncomfortable than others, and finding a compatible partner might be rough, but those aren’t systematic.  

when I told my mom I was ace, she said “you haven’t met the right person.” rude, yes, but pretty normal for a mom response.

when I told my mom I liked girls, she sent me to conversion therapy and told me if it didn’t stop, I had to leave.

you see the difference? let’s be real: probably not.  you’ll probably tell me I’m either lying or generalizing.  but I want you to know this: you are the reason I don’t feel safe in the “ace community,” and you are the reason no one wants you in our safe spaces.  leave us alone.

[tenitchyfingers]

“We chose the term “asexual” to describe ourselves because both “celibate” and “anti-sexual” have connotations we wished to avoid: the first implies that one has sacrificed sexuality for some higher good, the second that sexuality is degrading or somehow inherently bad. “Asexual”, as we use it, does not mean “without sex” but “relating sexually to no one”. This does not, of course, exclude masturbation but implies that if one has sexual feelings they do not require another person for their expression. Asexuality is, simply, self-contained sexuality.”

— The Asexual Manifesto, Lisa Orlando and Barbara Getz, 1972

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Note the date, people:

That’s 1972

29 years before AVEN was started online,

and 47 years before the present.

And that’s only the date that Manifesto was written, so asexuals as members of a community must have existed at least some time before that.

So, no: we are not just Tumblr trenders. Get out of here with that.

[m-in-a-moonrock]

Also note how this clearly states that the words asexual was chosen specifically because others words implied that sexuality was bad or that the person might have made a “superior” choice in giving it up, and that IS NOT part of being asexual. 

Associating sexuality and sexual attraction to something bad has never been inherently part of asexuality unlike what aphobic people on here keep saying. It has always been their own internal shame and issues about sex that they keep projecting on to us.

[archangelic-aeon]

@gillygeewhiz (who I can’t tag for some reason) Didn’t you mention something about asexuality described in the Asexual Manifesto was something akin to political celibacy?

[gillygeewhiz]

This is the post I mentioned it in before, but I didn’t go into much detail. The link in the OP is to the full transcription of the Asexual Manifesto, which links further to an analysis by the person who transcribed it; neither is very long or dense so I recommend giving them a read for anybody who’s interested in this part of “asexual” history. (Coincidentally in the comments of that analysis, the author discusses the erroneous assumptions of this very post.)

It’s pretty obvious if you actually read it that what the Asexual Manifesto describes isn’t what AVEN or any asexuals in the post-internet age would consider as asexuality. The Asexual Manifesto was published through a radical feminist group and what the author describes as asexuality is not separable from radical feminist ideology.

Indeed, what the Manifesto describes is pretty much political celibacy. It’s political lesbianism but taken to such an extreme that it eschews all sexual relationships, out of the belief that sex and relationships are by nature exploitative tools of the patriarchy, no matter which genders are involved. The “asexuality” of the Manifesto is explicitly a feminist statement and personal choice, not a sexual orientation.

As far as “community” goes, this seems to be the first record of people coming together under the banner of “asexuality”. The author invented the label for the concept she created for the Manifesto, so it’s unlikely there was ever any kind of “asexual community” prior to 1972. Any semblance of a historical asexual community in the ‘70s did not exist until after this document was published and would have been based on the feminist interpretation. (Apparently it was popular with a small group of theorists at the time, so I say this because there might have been historical feminist-asexual community after ‘72, but there’s no meaningful record of it so obviously the movement didn’t get big enough or last long enough to impact the asexual community today.)

Furthermore, the Manifesto was initially made with the input of only the two people credited, and after the first draft one of them (Getz) dropped out of the project and didn’t want to be associated with it. It was then heavily rewritten, so the published document only represents the political opinions of one woman (Orlando), not the experiences of a community. Not surprisingly, considering the contents of the document, the author describes her version of asexuality as “a choice, and an experience, not an identity”. She’s critical of both the idea of asexuality as an identity (i.e. an innate orientation) and identity politics as a whole (which most of the modern asexual community partakes in), so the post-internet idea of asexuality definitely wasn’t what she had in mind when she wrote the Manifesto.

TLDR, besides sharing a name and some superficial attitudes about sex, there’s nothing connecting the “asexuality” of the ‘70s to the asexuality of today. Modern-day asexuality does have a history prior to Tumblr, but AVEN sprung up on its own out of discussions that were happening in chatrooms in the ‘90s, without the input of a niche group of feminists from the ‘70s. Asexual individuals may have existed, but we weren’t “always there” as a cohesive group in history until we had the internet; the asexual community is a solidly 21st-century phenomenon.

[bi-kisses]

Asexuality having radfem history was not something I expected to learn but wow

[bisexualmanifesto]

This history is what I corrected someone on and then I got called an aphobe. Like…please dont rely on radfem history

[sourpunchgay-blog]

Ace person: I’m asexual but I have sex, but it’s not the same as an allo doing it

Me: why

Ace person: well I love my partner and we do it to grow closer and be intimate, it’s also fun!

Me: *eyes roll to the back of my head, spiders fall out of my mouth*

[umbrextheumbreon]

Ace person: I’m asexual but I have sex

You: why

Ace person: well I love my partner and do it to be closer to them, though I’m uncomfortable with it I’m still happy to be close to them

You: what is this, people that have different ways of expressing love? IMPOSSIBLE!

[sourpunchgay-blog]

just put your spouse in a position where they’re not sure if you’ve consented because you’re uncomfortable just fucking do it

[star-aphobe]

also… nice job misquoting op; op literally used the reason “I love my partner and we do it to grow closer and be intimate, it’s also fun” in the context of “not the same as an allo doing it”… correct me if i’m wrong op but the point is that non-ace people have sex for this literal exact reason. acting like only ace people have sex out of ove and a need for intimacy is 1) wrong, 2) rude as fucking hell lmao

[sakkaya-ditthi]

Seriously what the hell is with aces and being like “yeah I hate sex but I do it because it makes my partner happy…” that’s horrible, like, fucking horrible for both of you

Your partner would feel guilty for wanting sex, and you’d be miserable having sex, that’s just so unhealthy in so many ways. That’s incredibly damaging and coercive for both of you. If you hate sex that much, find a partner whose sexual habits match your needs, because that’s a serious dealbreaker right there.

[transsexual-activist-deactivate]

What does these fake aces think the reason ~allos~ fuck?`

You’re not better than ~allos~, you’re not purer, you’re not more romantic, and tbh, you’re probably not even ace lmao

[tomcats-and-tophats]

wait what's wrong with the split attraction model? if it makes people happy then it makes people happy, esp ace folx who find themselves needing a way to explain that they're not aro or aro folx who need a way to explain they aren't ace. like... if it isn't hurting people then what's the purpose of making fun of/actively targeting people who are just trying to use words to describe themselves?

The split attraction model hinges on an over-literal reading of words that were pathologically applied to LGBT people to describe our orientation as a whole, in a way that coercively sexualizes us. And, because people are still missing this, “-sexual” refers to gender, not solely “wanting to bang”.

Think of, like, every negative stereotype you know attached to the words “bisexual” and “homosexual”. They probably have something to do with us being sexually ravenous predators with no real regard for our partners. It’s almost like there’s a reason that the latter is considered offensive at best, and a full-on slur by many.

When you decide “bisexual” isn’t enough, or that “gay” isn’t enough, and that you also need “biromantic” and “homoromantic”, you are suggesting that “romance” is not inherently included (or, at the very least, prioritized) within gay and bisexual identities. Can you not see how this is deeply hurtful and plays into some of the most significant stereotypes about us? Not to mention, the idea that romantic and sexual attraction are so easily separated makes it VERY easy for many of us to push ourselves deeper into the closet. Thank FUCK I wasn’t on this site as a young teenager, because instead of confronting the reasons why I was terrified of the idea of dating another girl (surprise: it was fear of homophobic repercussion), I would’ve just said I was a “heteromantic bisexual” and called it a day and thus set myself back five years.

You can be a bisexual ace, or a gay ace, or, yes, even a straight ace, because who you’re attracted to - which is literally All That These Labels Are Supposed To Mean - is not the same thing as how you are attracted to them. The identities do not contradict each other, and to claim that they do is to claim truth in some age-old homophobic garbage.

tl;dr the split attraction model is actually actively hurtful, and also, “folks” is a gender neutral word

[stopsmokingweloveyou]

david jay, the cishet gentleman who made the asexual pride flag is a homophobe and pervert but i don’t see anybody leaving yall out of pride. hes never apologized for his actions, whereas miss emily gwen (creator of the lesbian flag) is literally not even involved in ace discourse. i understand that you all hate dykes but yall could stand to be a bit less blatant about it

[wefjeoiwjfopqwwjfpojqwep-deacti]

Heres a source on this and David Jay also being an anti semitic piece of garbage

[gloxinian]

not even going to check the notes but in case anyone there is playing semantics of “oh david jay wasn’t the one who designed the flag” - ur right!  he didn’t.  what he DID do was create AVEN and the AVEN triangle which were both used to design and create the current ace flag during a flag design contest on AVEN.  So yeah, David Jay’s design choices and David Jay himself were involved in the flag’s creation and thus impact the new flag.

saying that the ace flag is fine despite this WHILE also saying it’s ok to leave lesbians out of representation bc u “heard emily gwen was an aphobe” is a double standard and u (as in ppl who do this) should really think abt why u think it’s ok to only place this standard on lesbians.

[colorisbyshe]

i would LOVE to hear your thoughts about why the "bi lesbian" label is so prevalent while no one identifies as a "gay bi man". As a lesbian, this shit has really been bothering me, and i can't even speak out on it for fear of being labeled a bigot

Oh, it’s the same reason why compulsory heterosexuality applies to all women but ONLY women whereas heteronormativity is a broader term--misogyny, patriarchy, whatever term you wanna lob at the idea that women cannot have valuable lives without being a complementary yet lesser partner to a man.

The idea that men and women should be together hurts all people, don’t get me wrong, but the biological/social “arguments” behind that are solely at the expense of women. It’s the idea that women cannot survive on their own and that men NEED a partner who will serve them, bear their children, and do whatever they want.

The idea that women can find fulfillment in other women and ONLY other women shucks this idea that we were made to serve men and cannot find value, safety, longevity without them. Women can be whole on their own is an absurd idea in this structure but the idea that women can live even FULLER lives with other women is nearly nonsensical under the ideas of heteronormativity, as it proposes an equality in relationships that can’t exist even in the wokest of m/f relationships (even in m/f relationships where tha man isn’t a misogynist, often structural inequalities they can’t change can negatively impact the relationship, such as the woman not having the same opportunities outside the relationship).

The idea of men being able to exist without women is like... an “obvious” idea in this culture. Men are strong and self reliant (except for when it comes to doing housework but lol... we know how that goes). And men uplifting other men is something already celebrated via sports, war, whatever the fuck. And that shit has already been homoerotic.

OBVIOUSLY gay men still experience homophobia and OBVIOUSLY bigots would RATHER they be with women. I’m not saying mlm don’t experience this shit.

But society doesn’t revolve around the idea that men can’t exist without women or that they must serve women. That they were pulled from women’s rib just so that the women won’t be lonely or have to fold their own laundry. They aren’t the domestic and emotional labor workforce of the nuclear family.

Women, all women, are pressured to be with men through compulsory heterosexuality and that manifests in labels like “bisexual lesbian.”

I WILL say I HAVE seen men identical as bi and gay at the same time, so this isn’t a “no men do it” type situation; we don’t have to erase other victims of this shit for my point to be salient. Somewhere floating around on this hellsite is a dude that used to aggressively argue with me that it wasn’t internalized homophobia that he couldn’t see himself romantically dating men but he sure did love to fuck them and so what if he’s not really happy with women, he can date them.

It’s just that that’s much more rare and much less a goal for society to push.

Chipping away at the label lesbian so it can include men is much more to the benefit of the men in society than chipping away at “gay man,” which doesn’t benefit (straight) men as much. Though gayness always having been an umbrella term has played its role too.

This is a multifaceted issue but the crux of it is “bi lesbian” happens much more because of misogyny and the idea that women only exist to cater to men. And are forced to rely on men for stability.

[colorisbyshe]

That post about exclusion itself being terf rhetoric is giving me fucking brain damage omg terfs didn’t come up with the concept of people of one kind “invading” another group! Also radical feminist ideas about biological determinism where “biological men” are inherently violent and sexually predatory and women are like “innocent prey” or whatever have literally nothing to do with aces?? Good to know no one on tumblr can read I guess

I don’t like to dismiss this as “aces can’t read” or whatever. It’s deliberate weaponizing of trans women’s suffering (often by cis people and non-trans women) as a way to silence other LGBT people.

You’re right--the transmisogyny by TERFs (which is about excluding trans women from women’s spaces, not trans people in general from LGBT spaces, which a lot of people don’t seem to understand) is a very, very specific thing. It is an act of oppressors (cis women) excluding those they oppress (trans women) while LGBT people excluding “aces” is the opposite; it’s the oppressed keeping out their oppressors.

They aren’t comparable in any way. And the people making these comparisons know that. They know that because they agree that cishets aren’t LGBT. It’s just there are “special” cishets who are. Or maybet hey dont think aces can be cishet.

But they know that exclusionary behaviour is not all “equal.” That some is good and even necessary and some is bad.

They just don’t care about TERF’s actual rhetoric and harm towards trans women. The details don’t bother them. They just need to use trans women as a silencing tool because they know most LGBT people in these discussions love and care for trans women and would never want to exclude them, and therefore think that our want to include trans women will blind us to the fact that... cishet aces are nothing like trans women.

Inclusionists pull this “You’re just like ________” rhetoric a lot. There was a solid year where non-Jewish inclusionists compared LGBT people to nazis for saying queer is a slur because “that’s just like their censorship!” Being anti-MOGAI made you a transmed even if you were a non-dysphoric nonbinary person (like me!). It’s just like racism, sexism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, and even “just like Trump’s stance on immigrants” (something actually said to me).

It’s egregious comparisons of such HEINOUS things that the accusation itself is meant to silence you because if you continue to push against it, you’re confirming that you’re just like [x].

Doesn’t matter what [x] is, it just has to be scary enough that you don’ want to confirm it.

They don’t care about the ACTUAL real life suffering [x] causes, it’s likely they’ve never actually experienced it and it’s just an abstract concept to them. It’s just a metaphor for cishet ace suffering at the hands of Mean LGBT People. That’s all it is to them.

I’m not kidding when I say I have seen comparisons to literal segregation and “separate but equal” from these people.

And it’s because they don’t care. It’s not “LOL ACES CAN’T READ” or  “ACES DON’T KNOW SHIT!”

They know. They don’t care. Don’t give them the benefit of the doubt with “lol aces can’t read.” They can. They do.

They just don’t care. They aren’t stumbling into ultimately bigoted and harmful comparisons, they’re happily indulging in them.

[colorisbyshe]

i fucking hate to make an ace discourse post in 20 fucking 20 but it really needs to be said and i KNOW this is gonna come off as a smarmy “i told you so post”

but i’ve been on twitter recently and there is a fucking DELUGE of people promoting the idea of “bisexual lesbians” (never bisexual gay men but like… that’s a tangential dialogue for another time). this idea that you can be bisexual and a lesbian at the same time is a direct product of the split attraction model.

this is the EXACT shit i was talking about when I said rhetoric from ace community is not compatible, at all, with the LGBT community.

sexualizing the -sexual suffix so “bisexual” SOLELY means “SEXUALLY attracted to the opposite gender” so someone can be bisexual and “homoromantic” is ACTIVELY harmful to lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals. it sexualizes bisexuals without consent and COMPLETELY redefines what gayness is so it can include attraction to the “opposite” gender.

and this is just one example of how ace inclusion–not just the inclusion of cisgender, straight aces but also the prioritization of ace ideals–hurts the LGBT community. the rhetoric that you can have sex with people you aren’t attracted to to “make it work” romantically is conversion therapy rhetoric. Ace inclusion makes it seem like the LGBT community is about our relationships to sex when that just isn’t true. Ace inclusion means “desexualizing” LGBT spaces so as not to upset asexuals. All this shit AND MORE is happening in real time and I’ve watched it get worse and worse, hand in hand with the commercialization of LGBT pride and the liberalization of LGBT activism.

ace rhetoric is eroding LGBT identities. the idea of the “bisexual lesbian” and other mogai microidentities where you parse every single aspect of your identity into a different label is actively harming vulnerable LGBT people.

and, no, this isn’t me saying “even LGBT aces have to go,” but this is me saying that putting ace identities at the forefront of ANY LGBT discussions leaves a lot of space for harm for LGBT people. and that any fucking ace rhetoric besides “it’s okay to not feel sexual attraction or want to have sex” comes at the expense of LGBT identity.

genuinely, the concept of “bisexual lesbian” is a direct product of the ace community and it has caused lesbians and bisexual women irreparable harm. and aces should be ashamed of this because this is what they have been defending for years.

this is the EXACT shit we said would come out of the split attraction model and now we have TEENAGERS telling strangers and adults “i’m sexually attracted to [x genders] but only romantically into [y]” and y’all think this is okay. even if it weren’t fucking INSANE to say lesbians can be attracted to men or that bisexuals can be half gay or half straight, you’d STILL be out of fuckng line having KIDS center identities around SOLELY sexual attraction.

i’m ripshit pissed

[colorisbyshe]

i am saying this with everything i have–there is NOTHING positive to come out of the ace community that couldn’t have been identically accomplished by simply saying “you don’t ever have to want sex, you don’t owe anyone sex, it’s okay to not sexually desire anyone” which is shit feminism has already been doing.

[harlivy]

the lesbian flag being removed from the daily google doodle because of the lesbian flag creator's supposed aphobia is not something i thought i would have to experience at any point in my life and yet

[harlivy]

so here's the 4 thumbnails that all include the "sunset" lesbian flag which is most commonly accepted within the community

And the final draft:

As you can see, there is no lesbian flag at all in the final draft which is explained by the artist in the tweets below

[hwrdak]

isn’t the creator of the ace flag a huge homophobe?? and yet they put it on there anyways with no hesitation but the lesbian community has to put up with this bs all the time??