Complicated Agnostic. Sex-Positive (and Repulsed) Asexual. Neurodivergent. To conclude, another adult trying to figure out what the heck is even going on.
being anti-amatonormativity in a romance centered world is like watching half the people you know put all their eggs in one basket and then drop the basket and all their eggs break and they’re crying and swearing they’re never gonna do that again and then a month later they have all new eggs in a new basket and they tell you the problem was they didn’t have a strong enough basket or fresh enough eggs and then they drop the fucking basket again.
(this post is about putting all your time, energy, and care into one relationship, about staking all your happiness on a romantic relationship, effectively making the entirety of your joy and stability dependent on one person who could exit your life for any number of reasons no matter how great the relationship seems. it’s about the societal expectation to build your entire social life around one long term relationship, putting all your eggs in that basket, so to speak, instead of tending to larger social network and maintaining a variety of strong connections so that even if one very important relationship comes to an end, you won’t be losing your whole social life in one fell swoop.)
obligatory mourning of the dream of finding true love after society tells you true love will solve all your problems and the crushing reality of realizing you will never really find someone who completes you
Sometimes I realise that being asexual/aroace who's never actually come close to holding hands with a man or dealing with break ups or relationship drama even when I thought I was straight is kind of a flex, actually.
Even at 13 I was the shy, introverted, straight edge (no drinking, no smoking, no substances) nerd girl (Also struggling with my weight since I turned 16 didn't help feeling unattractive anyway) who was "more focused on studying" and expected the cute jock to notice her (despite being in an all girls school) and didn't drop out at 16 and got pregnant.
Also, I was that girl who would go to the computer room and binge D&D Wikipedia articles and play Pokémon and WoW unironically.
Makes sense, looking back. I came out at 23 when I suddenly realised "Oh, I'm sex repulsed asexual!! I don't need to have sex with anyone if I don't want to!! If sex grosses me out, I can just choose not to have it! And that's valid!" Also pretty sure I've been aroace since I was 10 because romantic comedies and dramas were so confusing and boring!
The concept of a prayer warrior is kinda crazy cause it would seem to imply that you have to fight to be heard by god (why? Is Daddy not listening to his children?) and also that some people can do it better than others. Are they more sincere? More faithful? Do they know how to ask god for help in the way he likes it best?
If you imagine an all powerful loving god who is always listening, it really doesn't make sense that he couldn't answer the prayer for healing from the person who doesn't really believe it will happen or who asks for it poorly. Prayer is this mystical mysterious thing, a power that gets amplified by faithfulness and also quantity (Christians are always trying to get more people to Pray For You when something bad is happening) and yet this seems totally unaligned with the supposed character of their god.
how prayer is portrayed/used in Christianity is one of my BIGGEST pet peeves because it makes no sense.
"Our god is morally perfect and all powerful and has a set in stone plan for how everything is going to go, but also he'll let your grandma die of cancer unless we get at least 50 people to tell him not to.
Then the morally perfect god that never changes his mind and always does the right thing will change his mind about his plan and do the right thing that he wasn't planning on doing."
Don't get me STARTED on how they do the most blatant Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy and rationalize every good thing as "An answered prayer from God!!" and every bad thing as "God's mysterious ways..."
in the past i've described my experience of being an ace with a sex drive as being hungry with no appetite, but actually my experience is more like being hungry and never going out to eat because i always have all the tools and ingredients to make exactly what i want, exactly how i want it, at home. i don't want other people in my kitchen and i certainly don't want to be in anyone else's kitchen. love reading about fictional kitchens, though.
As an asexual it’s so wild to me how normal having sex is like people just be casually doing that shit, what do you mean like everyone I know has had sex a bunch that’s Crazy, what the hell? what do you mean it’s weird that I haven’t and don’t want to?? what do you mean that’s real and not just that thing from tv ????
the whole your loved one isnt really dead! they’ll be resurrected if they believe in jesus! is the biggest obstacle to actually processing death in a healthy way. i was raised and then coerced into believing that and with effort i finally shed it. but knowing everyone else around me believes it wholeheartedly but also have never learned to grow through grief is a challenge. i’ve had to learn how to deal with this on my own because they’re not a help in that department and because i don’t have those beliefs anymore. and to know that i’m actively trying to heal from that while everyone else is telling me no believe what i believe is just cruel
I think a lot of people (my past self included) cling to Jesus/God mostly because they're lonely and they need a friend. I see it in those tiktok girlies who go on "dates" with Jesus, I see it in my past self who called God my father and took comfort in the fact that, even if my real parents hated me, at least I wasn't totally alone, I see it in the people whose entire testimony consists of weeping about how God just loves you so much, sooo so much guys, like you can't even imagine the vast oceans of his love!
I think the injunction to turn Christianity into a relationship (not a religion) encourages people to make God into their idealized fictional boyfriend, their volleyball with a face painted on the side, their imaginary friend. It takes people who are very lonely and desperate for connection and promises them unconditional love, support, care, and acceptance if only they give themselves over to Jesus. It sounds so comforting. But Christianity can't make good on those promises. A pretend boyfriend who makes you feel like the most important person in the world and who will always love you no matter what you do is a mirage. He can't make you laugh, or take you to go get ice cream when you're sad, or think any new thoughts, or hold you, or be there for you. He can't do the dishes for you when you're sick, or challenge you when you're wrong. He only ever exists as a pale reflection of you.
Encouraging people who are desperately in need human connection to eshew that in favor of an imaginary friend, doesn't help them, it isolates them and keeps them trapped in that isolation by hiding it behind a pretty illusion. Which is why it makes me furious when people say "God loves you!!!" Because there is no real love there. It's a soft covering over a cold, wire, monkey-shaped frame. It's empty. It's a lie.
Trigger warnings for conversion therapy, rape, and acephobia in general.
Recently, a woman published this article about her experience in couples' therapy. Her experience matches with what most asexual people say is normal for therapists and doctors to put them through: conversion therapy and repeated rape to try to make them stop being asexual (needless to say, it did not work, because conversion therapy is pseudoscience and does not work).
All the therapists responsible for this, in this woman's case, self-described as liberal and LGBT+ friendly. This is why asexual people say that the current LGBT framework and LGBT-inclusive education for healthcare providers is not enough to stop conversion therapy, and demand that asexuality be included in these programmes.
[...] I figured out I was asexual. My husband, at first, was fine with this, though he insisted that we continue to have penetrative intercourse, as he considered such sex to be the ultimate connection and a necessary form of love. But penetrative intercourse made me want to vomit.
I never wanted to have it again and, instead, I needed us to find new ways of connecting. On our own we couldn’t figure out where our two realities might intersect so we decided to try couples counseling. I had done individual therapy on and off for decades and found it immensely helpful. I assumed couples counseling would be helpful as well. And so, between December 2014 and October 2017, my husband and I took part in a cumulative 26 months of therapy across three therapists (one LMFT and two psychologists who specialized in family and relationship issues).
This, looking back, was one of the worst decisions of my life.
I do not use the word trauma lightly when I say that my time in couples counseling was traumatic. Here is what I heard in those spaces over and over again from people that my husband and I had approached as experts: I was not okay as I am. My husband’s wants were normal while my wants were unimportant. It didn’t matter that intercourse made me feel like I was being raped. It didn’t matter that, to me, having sex with my husband was the same as having sex with a stranger or a relative or a child—that it felt just as wrong, just as nauseating. It didn’t matter that the only way I could get through sex was by imagining I was repeatedly cutting my throat or hacking at my wrists (I found those visualizations more comforting than inhabiting my body during sex). Sex between spouses was essential to any healthy and committed relationship, said our therapists, and we needed to fix what was wrong with me. The only alternative offered was divorce which was, for me, out of the question due to economic, family, and mental health reasons.
Many of us in the ace community have been told by family members, significant others, and popular culture that we’re broken, that something is wrong with us, that we’ll be fixed or cured if we just have sex with the right person (or, maybe we need our hormones adjusted, or maybe we need sex therapy and sensate focus exercises). But I had not imagined hearing this from therapists my husband and I had turned to for help, just as I did not expect the focus of couples therapy to become the erasure of my sexual orientation.
I’m guessing my husband’s needs were prioritized over mine because his were familiar to the therapists. They understood my lack of sexual desire as something that needed adjustment (to be fair, the DSM had medicalized asexuality via “hypoactive sexual desire disorder“ up until the DSM-5 in 2013). One therapist told me I was making my asexuality up as a way to control my relationship. She said she was knowledgeable about LGBT issues and she had never heard of asexuality. How did I know it existed? She told me that in New York, intercourse is an expectation of marriage by law. It wasn’t just her: none of the therapists were familiar with asexuality as an orientation. [...]
Part of surviving that time of marriage counseling—and I use the term surviving literally, as with each therapy session I slid further down the steep slope of depression and suicidality—was writing in my journal after those sessions. Some entries drift into notes about ways to kill myself [...] Eventually I knew I wouldn’t be okay—I would probably in fact be dead—if I continued these sessions.
[...] The number of young people who are identifying as asexual is striking and worth noting. Ten percent of LGBTQIA+ youth identified as asexual or ace spectrum in a 2020 Trevor Project survey. What this means, in my mind, is that therapists will soon be encountering asexuals in greater numbers—and this concerns me. Are marriage and family therapists ready to help asexual clients, particularly those who may be in mixed-orientation relationships? [...]
The therapists my husband and I met with presented themselves as liberal and progressive. They positioned themselves as LGBT supportive, a safe space, because they allowed that men can want to have sex with men, and women can want to have sex with women—but they could not imagine other queer possibilities, such as a committed and deep love without intercourse. [...]
When people ridicule raising awareness about asexuality's existence (and it's not only JK Rowling), when they claim asexuality shouldn't be included in the queer community, these are the results it leads to.
She's also shared her experiences with him in an interview with Robert Brink:
An interview with one of professional skateboarder Dane Burman's underage victims and an exploration Jamie Thomas' complicitness regarding h
Black asexual women can be groomed by cishet white men and those men can be 'allies' in queer spaces and gain large platforms, whilst Black asexual women are abused, harassed, smeared, slut-shamed for sexual attraction we don't have and blamed for sexualisation we don't want. Again, this is what antiblackness with compulsory sexuality looks like. This is what misogynoir looks like as Black asexual women.
Believe Yasmin Benoit.
Believe victims/survivors.
Black asexuals exist and this rape culture riddled antiblack world is what we're existing in.