Let's stop with the infighting
I, and many others in aspec spaces, have recently seen a rise in infighting, exclusionism, erasure, etc. and it's getting genuinely exhausting. I strongly encourage everyone to take a step back, consider what's happening and how others are feeling, and remember that other aspecs are not your enemies. Amatonormativity, allonormativity, compulsory sexuality, etc are the enemy.
I have been seeing attacks coming from all sides of aspec communities, and it makes me feel ill to think about. I get the frustrations that everyone is raising, I truly do, but taking things to the point of personal insults, stereotyping, exclusionism, and general cruelty helps no one, and only leads to further issues.
I am, personally, a romance and sex averse/repulsed (depends on the day), non-partnering, bold-stripe aroace (I experience no romantic or sexual attraction). I want to be very clear about where I fall on the aroace-spectrum, because it is relevant to my interpretations of what has been happening and my exposure to it.
I have, unfortunately, seen a lot of cruel comments about my type of aroaceness (which, for simplicity's sake, I will be calling "the far end of the aroace spectrum"). Not just on Tumblr, but on Reddit, on Twitter, and on Bluesky. Things like calling people on the far end of the spectrum: heartless, robotic, monsters, evil, bad stereotypes.
Often, this sort of thing is in reference to a character (and their desire to ship a character) but saying "But aros/aces can date and have sex! This [aro/ace] doesn't have to be a heartless monster!" or "I'm headcanoning this character as alloromantic demisexual because not all aces are that bad stereotype!" are direct insults towards me and my orientation. It's inherently implying that there is something wrong with my identity, and that only those who are grey-aspec or favorable are okay. It's implying that anyone on the far end of the spectrum is somehow lesser, bad, or broken.
My being romance/sex-repulsed is part of my orientation and identity, not just a preference. My being non-partnering is part of my orientation and identity, not just a preference. My being a bold-stripe aroace is part of my orientation and identity, not just a preference. These are immutable characteristics of myself that I keep seeing get insulted and demonized. And that demonization is aphobia.
Aspec people are not immune to being aphobic, especially via unconcious biases influenced by allonormativity. I am not immune to being aphobic. I have had to do serious work to set aside my biases and open myself up to understanding identities like aplatonic and afamilial when I first learned about them. Hell, my internalized arophobia was so bad that I didn't realize that I was aromantic for years.
Shipping a character is one thing. Using aphobic and allonormative arguments to justify doing so is another entirely, and it feels like no one is bringing this up.
No one, that is, except for exclusionists.
Because, apparently, aspec gatekeeping is back, and I am sick and tired of this bullshit. Grey aces are ace. Demi aces are ace. Cupio aces and aego aces and acefluxes and acespikes and every other acespec microlabel under the sun is ace. And the same goes for the arospec, aplspec, afamspec, etc.
Asexuality, at it's most simple and widely accepted definition, is experiencing little to no sexual attraction. I feel like this conversation has been had 7,000 times and I don't know what else I can say that hasn't already been said.
I don't even know what else to add, except that if anyone tries to exclude my fellow aspecs from this community, they will be blocked from every single one of my blogs, IMMEDIATELY, without question. If you think that aspec identities that are favorable or indifferent or partnering or experience that little attraction aren't part of this community, go ahead and block me, too. I'm tired of aspec exclusionism and gatekeeping.
Also, let's not forget that plenty of allos are being weird about all aspec identities in this whole mess. The number of alloroses I see talking about "but it's a spectrum!" and then absolutely not representing or considering that at all in their shipping is actually disgusting.
Like, how disrespectful is it to demisexuality for an allosexual person to say they intend to write character as demisexual, only to not at all represent or consider any of the ways that being demisexual might affect the character or their relationships or anything, and just treat them as just "a bit prudish"? (this is an actual thing I have seen pretty frequently). It seems so objectifying! It's like weaponizing someone's identity just to not even give them what was promised!
Or how so many people tend to treat QPRs as "romance lite", when they are not at all the same thing!
I don't have a good conclusion to all this, except stop fighting each other so much and fight allonormativity more.
