Writing Ace

Writer. Gray-A. Not quite an activist, but maybe one day.

[writer-ace]

Today in the funniest things doctors have ever said to me, my allergist told me my body is like North Korea.

[writer-ace]

My maybe hot take is that "genderless" clothing is meaningless if your designs don't actively account for people with a large chest.

And that doesn't mean "oh just go up a size or four" it means that you actively make clothing that fits properly with a large chest.

[kateammann]

Happy Pride Month to all of my fellow aces!! 🖤🩶🤍💜

[maemaybe]

I don't know who my intended audience is here, so whoever needs to hear this, I am begging you to learn to participate in conversations that are about things you aren't interested in.

Part of socializing and having friends is being a good listener even when you don't actually give a shit about the subject.

Your are hurting other people's feelings when you bluntly respond with "Anyway..." and then change the topic.

It can not always be about your preferred topic.

You are being rude. Yes, even if you are neurodivergent. You can be both autistic and rude.

[writer-ace]

People talk about how fandom loves queerness and cares so much about queer representation but the reality is that (even putting the race, religion, and disability piece aside) when you look at what people write fandom loves a fairly narrow set of queerness: primarily, cis bi and gay men who end up with men and, to a lesser extent, cis lesbian and gay women who end up with women, occasionally trans men, a pretty narrow form of non-binary people, and sometimes aro/ace women whose aro/aceness conveniently makes them not a romantic threat and sex favorable ace men.

Fandom as a collective has very little love for trans women, for many of the countless types of non-binary identity like genderfluid or bigender, for ace people who don't want sex but won't be relegated to the side, for aro people whose aroness isn't just an excuse to get them out of the way.

Fandom doesn't love queerness so much as it loves imaging gay men fucking.

[writer-ace]

Actually my biggest piece of advice to people (but especially anyone who popped up in the notes of my "you should do small talk" post or other similar posts to say how much they hated it) is that you should be friendly even if it's more work.

Thank people doing a service to you. Thank the bus driver, the cashier, the security guard, custodian, the maintenance worker. Say hi. Hold the door for people.

[writer-ace]

Every time I see a post or a video an autistic person talking about how autistic people all use words properly and we're the ones who communicate so well while allistic people are all liars and use words wrong and are all passive aggressive and don't know how to communicate clearly, and I don't immediately start screaming, I should receive a gold star. Or like. Another Snorlax.

[writer-ace]

I'm going to add on to "straight people are welcome at Pride" with "there are straight queer people and they always belong at Pride and if that bothers you then you need to work through your ace, aro, and transphobia on your own time instead of making it their problem."

[writer-ace]

A hill that I will actually die on is you either need to learn and follow basic etiquette of a place you are visiting or you don't get to be upset when people get mad at you about it.

Know what side of the escalator people stand versus walk on. Know when rush hour is, if you're somewhere with rush hour, and don't be in the way of commuters if you are going to be out during it. Know how to pay for things, especially public transit.

If you're in the way because you're lost? Sure, whatever, not your fault. If you're in the way because you are ignoring a basic rule that everyone around you is following? You should be instantly teleported out of the location until you learn how to exist in society.

[writer-ace]

Hot take: gen Z's "I don't owe anyone anything" and doctors' "I'm not in customer service" are the same thing.

[writer-ace]

Pride is coming up so I'm thinking about the stupid kink at Pride conversations again. And to be clear I am pro-kinky people at Pride. Be free. Do whatever. Go for it.

But.

I do think that there is often this rhetoric that basicaly boils down to "you are a bad person if you express any discomfort with kinky stuff at Pride" and I think that that is also a problem.

There's two main reasons:

Saying "I am uncomfortable when I see this at Pride/in public/etc." is not the same as saying "Because seeing this makes me uncomfortable, it should be banned." The latter is a policy statement; the former is just an expression of emotion. Condemning everyone who is made uncomfortable by seeing kinky stuff at Pride is a great to keep out a lot of people who are queer or active allies to queer people.

There are a lot of extremely valid reasons why someone may be made uncomfortable by seeing kinky stuff. Someone who grew up conservative, even if they are working through it, may still be uncomfortable seeing it. Some children (and their parents) may be uncomfortable seeing it. Some ace people may be uncomfortable seeing it.

Discomfort is just a reaction. It's just a feeling. It's not a condemnation, just as expressing that discomfort is not a condemnation.

It also doesn't necessitate alleviating that discomfort. Pride will always make people uncomfortable. If everyone was comfortable with it, we wouldn't need it.

Here's an example: if my lapsed Catholic mom ever came to a Pride parade with me, I know for a fact that the kinky stuff would make her uncomfortable, and she might tell me that. That doesn't mean she hates queer people, or even kinky people. It also doesn't mean we should keep out the kinky stuff to make my mom happy. It doesn't even necessarily mean that she would want them to keep the kinky stuff out (I don't know her take on this and haven't asked). It's just a feeling.

[writer-ace]

I think part of the masking/unmasking negotition with yourself needs to be recognizing that not all of your unmasked reactions are necessarily good ones.

Not because they're not socially acceptable, but because they might be actually hurtful to other people.

And it's okay! Literally everyone has shitty reactions to things sometimes, and part of being a good member of a community is learning how to navigate, channel, and at times suppress your shitty reactions to things.

Figuring out how to identify which specific reactions of your might be harmful (rather than just less socially acceptable) I think is an important part of figuring out how to unmask. When you're told that so many of your default reactions are "bad" it can be hard to tease out what is "people don't like this" bad versus what is "against social norms" bad versus what is "actually hurtful" bad (and those can all overlap but they don't always).

[macklesufficient]

hard to swallow pills dot jpg. the reason people don’t like when you infodump about your uwu favorite things isn’t because they don’t like hearing about deep sea ecosystems or anime blorbos or whatever it may be. it’s because talking /at/ someone is selfish. have you asked the other person any questions? do you care what they have to say? would you willingly listen to them infodump the same way or would you (be honest) stand there and wait for your turn to talk? people not responding well to your tedtalk on the thing you like isn’t because they’re normies who hate ‘nerd stuff’, it’s because you have substituted conversation for verbal masturbation. hope this helps

[mojana]

I understand what you're trying to argue as far as normative social conventions. But infodumping in this way is usually discussed in the context of autism, and I find it imperative to point out to you that autism is a disability specifically marked by struggles in nonverbal communication. This is also why the etymology of autism ("aut" -> self) implies selfishness and why autism historically was known as a "low empathy/sociopathic" disease.

I am going to assume your goal was not to be ableist. So I will explain how this differs in autistic communication: As an autistic person, if someone else infodumps I do not see this as selfish. I might not be interested, but I don't ascribe meaning to it as selfish. I just think, "wow this person really loves X!" And i know that if they spent 30 minutes listening to me, I owe the same to them. It is a way of sharing interests and directly getting to the point in conversation.

Neurotypicals will observe this dynamic differently and again ascribe or assume it as selfish, but its a different communication paradigm. I genuinely prefer listening to someone infodump for 2 hours than dance around conversation topics that are superficial at best. Calling it masturbatory implies an intent that I don't think is there when someone is not aware or able to understand certain social rules. Struggles with turn-based communication is literally in the diagnostic criteria. This is, again, what defines autism as a disability.

If you have an issue with how someone else is communicating, then don't engage with them. Just as much this person "should be aware" of the social rules and dynamics, you also have the responsibility and ability to disengage or leave if you're not interested. You have always three options: share back (match their communication style), steer (emulate turn-based communication) or completely disengage. You are within your right and choice to not communicate or engage with someone you find annoying, you don't have to "listen" because you think it would be rude to not.

[writer-ace]

As an autistic person I have experienced both selfish and non-selfish talking at me, and here's what I see as one of the core differences:

To me, selfish talking at someone (whether it is infodumping or not) involves monopolizing conversation to the point where the other person is unable to participate except by engaging with that one specific topic, especially in situations where disengagement is not an option.

Here's an example: a few years ago I was traveling with a friend, where we were going to an event together and sharing a hotel room, so disengagement was complicated at best. During that trip, she turned nearly every conversation into being about the same topic, even steering my attempts to talk about my own things or literally anything else back into the sole topic she wanted to talk about.

Not every autistic person experiences the same symptoms, obviously, and so it is difficult to talk about autistic people as a collective when it comes to things like the ability to successfully engage in turn-based conversation. I have relatively fewer issues with that specific piece, so I recognize that it is difficult for me to speak to that.

But I think that there are people (including autistic people) who will engage in more selfish forms of talking at someone (purposefully disregarding explicitly attempts to redirect or disengage, taking advantage of people they know are unable to disengage for whatever reason) because it is easier or more comfortable or less work or simply because they want to talk about that thing so much. And the purposeful part is key here--I'm not talking about "oh I missed a cue trying to redirect" but "they asked if we could talk about something else and I actively ignored them because I really wanted to keep talking about this."

I love telling my friends things! I love my friends telling me things! But part of why that works is that it is reciprocal, and also we are interested in hearing what each other has to say.

But I wouldn't enjoy some random person making me sit through their soliloquy about idk golf or whatever.

And some people don't want to sit through a 2-hour infodump on anything, in the same way that some people don't want to sit through a conversation dancing around superficial topics. It doesn't make them a bad person to not want to sit through it, and it does mean that they will probably dislike (or at least be annoyed at) the person infodumping at them.

[writer-ace]

I feel like when I see autistic adult characters clearly written by non-autistic authors, including in fanfiction, the options are:

Sheldon Cooper-esque

Manic pixie dream girl

Weirdo hacker who doesn't talk to anyone but is So Good At Hacking

The stereotype of an autistic child

And they all irritate me, but the last one definitely irritates me the most. If you are writing about an autistic adult, write about an autistic adult. Don't just take the Austim Speaks version of an autistic child and stick them in a bigger body.

[penny-anna]

the current twitter discourse du jour is cervical smear tests for some reason and here is my take: there absolutely is a widespread assumption that if you have a vagina and are over a certain age you'll be habituated to vaginal penetration and this is self-evidently heteronormative and sexist and im honestly amazed that more people don't seem to register it fdkjghfdjk

[penny-anna]

it's not just an issue w smear tests. was investigated for PCOS not too long ago and when i was referred for an ultrasound absolutely nobody thought to mention that it would be a transvaginal ultrasound. if i hadn't happened to do my own research i would literally have found out on the day of the appointment?? i remain baffled by this

[penny-anna]

anyway a lot of people on twitter responding to 'actually smear tests are painful for some people' with 'oh well I suppose if you have some kind of medical condition it might be painful' and it's well the thing is people with medical conditions exist in real life

[penny-anna]

oh the other one is 'well the nurse will be super nice and will make sure you're comfortable and will switch to a smaller speculum if necessary' and i'm like you must know that isn't true. like c'mon. even if all your cervical smear experiences have been positive you must be conscious of the fact that some medical practitioners are assholes about stuff like this. a more helpful statement might be 'your nurse should make sure you're comfortable and if they don't then you don't have to put up with it'.

[penny-anna]

They are doing this discourse again and as a result I have a couple of working examples of the problem described in the OP:

'speculums open you up less than sex' *loud incorrect buzzer noise* what kind of sex? Not all kinds of sex involve penetration. Why are you assuming that everyone who has a cervix is having penis in vagina sex?

'if you can have penetrative sex you can get basic medical care' ok. If I can't have penetrative sex then what??

'so all these people who are afraid to get a pap smear have never had sex?' yes some adults have never had sex. I don't know what's so unfathomable about that.

[penny-anna]

anyway so i realise the OP is kind of, mid-argument so here is my actual point best as I can express it:

there is a widespread assumption that if you are an adult with a cervix then you will be having penetrative sex and that, therefore, vaginal penetration in a medical context will be no big deal for you.

this is untrue as a) not everyone is having penetrative sex and b) not everyone who is having penetrative sex finds penetration in a medical context painless and untraumatic.

the result of this is that people for whom cervical smears are significantly painful and/or emotionally distressing are not universally properly accommodated and supported in medical settings.

which is a problem bcos the cervical smear is a very important cancer screening and if a person knows or suspects their medical needs will not be accommodated they might opt not to do it.

[ot3]

there's a certain subset of people on this site who have built their entire sense of self around being ~neurodivergent~ to they point where they become hostile to the very idea altering their behavior or speech to suit the social norms of a given situation. and even just seeing pretty neutrally phrased etiquette advice that they are not obliged to follow feels like a personal attack against them. and its quite frustrating to watch because these are also Often the people who are constantly posting about how lonely they are and how they don't understand how everyone else seems to know how to socialize with each other. They have somehow never intuited the connection between categorically rejecting etiquette and their resulting inability to initiate or maintain friendships.

like yes dude us other autistic bitches have had these problems too but social norms being less intuitive and harder to pick up doesn't mean it's impossible. it is a skill you can learn like any other if you stop acting like the people trying to teach it to you are snuffing out your divine spark or whatever, and stop plugging your ears whenever other people tell you how they want to be treated.

i think ultimately frustrates me the most about this behavior is that it's just such an insanely selfcentered understanding of human interaction. you think that conversation and behavior You don't personally see the purpose or value of has no purpose or value at all. and instead of trying to meet other people half way in their expectations of how relationships develop, you expect them to instead abandon all their criteria for socializing in favor of yours because you believe your own social framework is innately superior.

on a related note one of the single most poorly received pieces of internet friendship advice i've ever given here was "unless you have a specific reason to believe otherwise, internet strangers don't want to hear about your OCs and DND characters the first time you're speaking to them." people haaaated that one. kind of straightforwardly lets you understand exactly what people like this believe about how relationships are formed and should function. a lot of them want an audience more than they want friends because they don't know the difference.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

idk man I'm thinking a lot about the discourse being reported in this post and my own post about crushes, which has garnered a lot of responses like this one

and I don't know exactly what to do with this yet but I'm fascinated, in a really upsetting way, by the way some of these people seem to conceptualize romantic and/or sexual attraction as an act of violation that no one should do to people they like and care about. if nothing else it raises some really compelling questions about what they think actually goes on between people who have sex and/or romantic bonds with each other if that's not supposed to be something that happens between friends.

[runawaymarbles]

It's also so depressing how damaging this mindset is down the road. Those tags were kind of the going social logic my last few years of high school, and so while I never had internalized homophobia in the "being gay is icky" sense, boy did "any romantic or sexual attractions to your FRIENDS is HORRIBLE and WRONG and you NEED TO CUT THAT OUT because it's a BURDEN TO THEM AS A PERSON AND THEY JUST WANT A FRIEND, THEY DON'T DESERVE YOUR WEIRD SHIT" do a fucking number on me that I spent my 20s trying to sort out.

[writer-ace]

I don't disagree with any of this, but I think that, in some experiences, the act of having a crush on someone is different from the act of telling someone you have a crush on them, specifically in regards to how the telling can then put a social burden or expectation on the person who was told.

With the way that society prioritizes romantic relationships over platonic relationships, and the way that culturally we are expected to celebrate romantic love, there is some level of social expectation that, if someone tells you that they have a crush on you, you are supposed to either "give them a chance" or in some other way adjust your behavior to account for their feelings. Their romantic or sexual feelings for you now become something you need to keep in mind when engaging with them.

For example, if someone has told you that they have a crush on you, by some set of social expectations (at least based on reading a fuckton of romance novels and such), you're then not supposed to talk about romantic feelings you have for other people, talk about dates you go on, etc., because it might hurt their feelings.

It's not exactly the same, but when I was in high school a guy I barely knew asked me to prom, and I had countless people including a teacher pressuring me to say yes--and it is, I think, the same general principle. I was supposed to "give him a chance" because he had expressed romantic interest in me, and that's how it goes.

(I did say yes, we dated for eighteen months, and it was Not Good.)

All of this is to say that I absolutely agree with you that having a crush on someone or being romantically or sexually attracted to them in some way is not harmful or a burden on them. But I think it's also important to recognize the ways in which amatonormativity can turn someone telling you that they have a crush on you into a clear set of social expectations that can be burdensome or fundamentally harm a relationship.

(What is the solution? I don't know. I'm not saying never tell anyone you have a crush on them. Just that dismissing the feelings of people who have felt hurt or burdened by the experience isn't really fair either.)