I want to make it clear first that I do not want your donation.
I use the term queer because it is more inclusive than lgbt, outside of lgbt excluding anyone who just isn’t included in that tiny acronym I have found it very white-centric, and to be honest to the point of erasure. In one of our more recent articles we discussed the bate, and transgender people in native american communities. And in that research I found many other cultures that had and used terms that were different than transgender, or gay. And this is not the first time that white people have tried to label other communities and it is never a good thing, so I am not comfortable overriding any label they gave themselves, and queer is very purposefully non-specific, whereas LGBT could be one of four things queer is any sexual or gender identity that strays outside what society considers “normal” and does not attempt to label anyone, just say that their label is outside of what society may have expected.
And it is my slur to reclaim for myself and my art and it is no ones job to police how I decide to use it.
Also I know what dog whistle terminology you are using here, and yes, I do include asexual and aromantic people in my articles, and I do not care if you do not like that. Asexual and aromantic people have a history as well and they deserve to be able to learn about it.
And now I want to explain why I do not want your donation.
This is my project, and it is run along with my amazing business partner Grace, but in the end it is mine. I choose in which direction it goes and what I write about, and I am not going to be pressured by money into changing my mind. There is a reason I have made the decisions I have, I am on patreon so I am very firmly my own boss, my patrons are there to support my project, and I love all of them for it, but they do not get to decide where this project goes. I do. And if they don’t like it I understand them withdrawing their support but will not change my art to avoid that. And you clearly feel very entitled to decide where my art is going, and I want to say-as kindly as possible- I don’t want your support. I don’t want support that is an attempt at control, and there is no amount of money you could give me to sell out the asexual/aromantic community.
So go support some other project, because you can’t control what happens here.
(My girlfriend wanted a post with bunnies.) To be clear: it’s also fine not to have sex, and compulsory sexuality is a problem too, but this post is a response to slut-shaming.For more like this, follow sexedplus or visit sexedplus.com.
Hey y’all, with Asexual Awareness Week coming up (Oct 21-27th this year) here are a few things to remember!
• Asexuals are part of the LGBTQ+ community
• Asexuality is real
• Aces can choose not to celebrate/participate in any way
• Aces have every right to be proud of their identity
• Aces are lgbt+ regardless of their romantic orientation.
• Aces aren’t “basically straight” or any other complaint exclusionists have
• Asexuality is an orientation just like any other as well as a spectrum
• Greysexuals, Demisexuals, Cupiosexual, etc are all valid and also have a right to celebrate this week
• Ace Men exist
• Nonbinary Aces exist
• Not every Ace is Cis
• Exclusionists/Gatekeepers/etc are not welcome here
• AroAces exist
• Ace WLW exist
• Ace MLM exist
• Ace nblnb / nblm / nblw exist
• Poc Aces exist
• Disabled Aces exist
• Mentally ill Aces exist
• There are Aces of many different races/genders/ages/religions/etc
• Whether you’re an Ace still struggling with their orientation or an Ace who’s proud, or any other type of Ace, Asexual Awareness Week is for you and you’re valid regardless.
IM LAUGHING SO HARD I DIDNT THINK SEXUAL DESIRE WAS A REAL THING LIKE I ALWAYS SAW PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT HOW THEY WANTED SEX BUT I THOUGHT THEY WERE JOKING OR EXAGGERATING OR SOMETHING THATS WHY IT WAS SO HARD FOR ME TO REALIZE I WAS ACE BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WENT WITHOUT SAYING SEX ISNT THAT IMPORTANT IM 19 YEARS OLD I CANT STOP LAUGHING LITERALLY 99% OF THE POPULATION EXPERIENCES SEXUAL DESIRE AND I THOUGHT IT WAS A JOKE
This is pretty much the definition of being an ace person, tbh, and I’m so glad.
this is literally the #that sounds fake but okay meme im dying
#ME#I THOUGHT SEXUAL ATTRACTION WAS RARE#AKA#HOW TO FIND OUT YOU’RE DEMI (via @miseryauthoress)
Honestly, every single cheating plotline never made sense because “but why do you have to have sex with them? just don’t??”
^^^^ Every single cheating plot line ever I was like: What is so hard about keeping your pants on what is your problem??
…do you have any idea how hard it is to do literary criticism that will get published when your reaction to at least 75% of character motivations is this makes no sense whatsoever why do they even care?
When people ask you why you don’t date someone just to try, and when you answer that well you’re not interested in that person, they explain that usually you don’t like the person at first, but you might fall in love after having dated a little while
and you’re just?????? but what?????????? is the point of dating someone if you don’t like them??????????????
what do you mean the point is making out and sex????????? why would i want to do that with someone i don’t already like?????????
I have literally experienced all of these.
ALSO when you go on one date and your friends are like DID YOU LIKE THEM?? And you’re like…. I just… met them…. how can I tell… I don’t understand….
Omg… @azaleecalypso and @dollopheadsandclotpoles Those are the most maddening, infuriating conversations and at 47 yrs old, I STILL have no idea why I would ever be ‘into’ someone I don’t know, or why in the hell I would ever want to spend a whole evening with someone I have no interest in. Or what the expectation even is. It make zero sense to me. I really wish I could say that I’d eventually figured it out, but…nope. Still don’t get it.
What’s really irritating is when your friends think you’re being coy. As though you’re totally into this guy somehow and you’re just pretending like you’re not so you don’t have to be vulnerable and admit it or something. And they get all smiley and there are these knowing ‘gotcha’ looks that make you super uncomfortable, because you really have no idea what’s going on. And you literally have to get loud and blunt and angry to get them to knock it the hell off.
It ain’t so easy being ace/demi. Don’t let anyone tell you it is.
I did a very quick, sketchy comic because I was extremely inspired by this post. (Credit to @pinkdiamondprince for the original post.)
The entire analogy was just fantastic and so, so accurate, and I wanted to make a comic for it, even if it’s very sketchy because my attention span is nil.
With my own eyes, I just saw a lesbian on twitter say she was being oppressed by asexual folks because their flag is everywhere, and it’s asexual people’s fault that lesbians are now ‘the last on the conveyor belt in the LGBT community’.
Like. Dude, if you need a scapegoat for your suffering, capitalism is right there. Institutionalized religion is also a great contender. Saying asexuals caused all your suffering because their flag is slightly older and therefore more recognisable than yours is like. my god, have a snickers.
No. No. If they want a scapegoat, turn to the TERFs. There was a perfectly good lesbian flag that was well known in the 90s, that nobody uses anymore because the TERFs took it over. It was known and used before the ace flag was a glimmer. You want to be pissed, get pissed at the part of your own community who is trying to set up walls. Take that shit back if you want it. Use it while holding signs of trans sisterhood. You gave your flag up and are looking for recognition for a new one. That’s why your flag isn’t well recognized yet. Signed a transgender man, former part of the lesbian community for ~14 years.
You want to be pissed, get pissed at the part of your own community who is trying to set up walls.
This is so important.
We need a tag or shorthand phrase for “that thing where the TERF/SWERF/radfem crowd invades lesbian communities, makes it seem like any attack on them is an attack on the lesbian community, drinks all the punch, poops on the floor and leaves the next generation growing up without symbols or a cohesive community”, because it’s fucking happening again.
This is the older lesbian flag, the one that got grabbed by radfems /
TERFs / SWERFs and that very few anti-radfem / anti-TERF lesbians ever
made a concerted effort to reclaim. The Labrys flag:
It was created in 1999, eleven years before the creation and popularization of the ace flag. That gets thoroughly ignored, because it’s not convenient to the radfem rhetoric of ‘lesbians are the most oppressed members of the community EVER’
(uhhh…. trans women of color would like a word? Trans people in
general? I’m not even going to get into m-spec people and every study so
far showing that our parameters re: everything from rates of sexual
violence to poverty are much worse than those of both straight and gay
people, because that’s not the topic of this post).
I want to be very clear on this. When a young lesbian who’s been brainwashed by radfems says that ‘lesbians are the last on the conveyor belt in the LGBT community’, what she means is ludicrous nonsense such as this:
all those ace pride flags? They should be lesbian pride flags instead, because under her beliefs, lesbians deserve absolute prioritization over other members of the community, on the basis of being ‘most oppressed’
the community being seen as a coalition of EQUALS IN MUTUAL SOLIDARITY isn’t
acceptable (at least not at more than shallow, declarative level),
because acknowledging equality of marginalized orientations and refusing
to build the community under a hierarchy is seen as ‘de-centering lesbians’
remember what radfems actually said, in opposition to ‘queer’ as a term? ‘Queer de-centers and erases lesbians / lumps lesbians in with bisexuals anddeluded men (hella transphobic code for trans women) and stops them short of naming their actual homosexuality.’ Changing the discourse to be solely about personal harm was a move of genius
attention being given to issues that affect ace/aro people / activism for ace/aro people
automatically takes away valuable time, valuable resources and valuable
effort, that should have been spent on lesbian issues instead – therefore, any sort of ace/aro-centric work and the presence of ace/aro people is harmful to lesbians.
hell, attention being given to issues that affect bi/pan people / activism
for bi/pan people automatically takes away valuable time, valuable
resources and valuable effort, that should have been spent on lesbian
issues instead – therefore, any sort of bi/pan-centric work and the
presence of bi/pan people (particularly ones that aren’t ‘SGA’) is harmful to lesbians
insert
the exact same thing about nonbinary / genderqueer people, about trans
people (though most of the Usual Suspects haven’t quite gotten to the
point of open and blatant transphobia), about intersex people (it’s my theory that this is at the base of that sudden and widespread campaign of ‘drop the I, intersex people are making their own community’, even
in the face of many intersex people who fought like hell for their
right to remain included and to keep the letter. Some, like @vergess, got rewarded for their effort by being called ‘pedophiles’ and being run off Tumblr)
And I could keep going! The spearhead of radfem infiltration within lesbian communities if two-fold – one, the rhetoric of ‘you are the most oppressed and any sort of attention being paid to these superfluous identities directly harms you’ and
two, the notion that radfems are the ultimate champions of lesbian
rights, the ones who will make certain that lesbians are always centered
and prioritized. That’s how you end up with large recruitment into
radfem ranks of young, inexperienced lesbians, who (naturally) feel
flattered, protected and prioritized. That’s how radfems can shield
themselves of criticism for their fuckery, by saying that any criticism
of radfem rhetoric is an direct attack on lesbians. That’s how you end
up with wankery such as ‘TERF is a slur used to demonize lesbians.’ It’s
my prediction that in several years’ time, the currently-in-use lesbian
flag (the lipstick one) will end up as much of a widespread symbol of
radfems as the older Labrys flag, in the exact same way that the other
flag was taken over.
What’s the solution? Widespread acknowledgement that no one is owed automatic centering solely on the basis of their identity and that the community wasn’t created to serve the needs of predominantly one or two groups. Thorough education on what ‘equality’ and ‘solidarity’ actually
mean in the context of the struggle against
cis-perisex-heteronormativity and actually implementing them in
practice, rather than keeping them on as empty buzzwords.
Acknowledgement that just because one has suffered under oppression, it
doesn’t mean that others haven’t as well and that acknowledging and fighting against the oppression others deal with doesn’t lessen or ignore one’s own.
That is such a lovely flag, though. Someone please shove a trans icon on top and reclaim it as an inclusionist lesbian symbol.
I am allo as fuck. I experience lots of romantic attraction. I get crushes all the ding dang time, of all sorts. (Side note, I didn’t really understand the concept of a ‘squish’ for a long time, because I had never had a crush that didn’t have some sort of I MIGHT LIKE TO DO A SEXY THING component. And then I realized I totally have a squish on Reggie Watts from the Late Late Show. I just want to snuggle and talk about Westworld? But I’m like super crushing on him in a snuggly friend way?)
Anyway. Here’s the thing. Like. I can choose to either be an inclusive person who stretches out my arms and says, “come on up, bring that bit of wood you’ve been clinging to, and add it to our raft so that our raft is bigger, and we will all weather the storm together. I can see that you are hurt and tired, and I, too, am hurt and tired. And together we have a better chance of surviving.”
Or.
I can shove people off the raft, have a smaller raft because people aren’t bringing me their life jackets and bits of flotsam they’ve been clinging to, have a shittier crew on that raft because we’re all focused on who should and shouldn’t be on the raft rather than how we can get the raft to a safe harbor and take care of everybody on it until we get there.
Those are the choices. The only reason to shove someone off the raft is if they’re actively, that individual, a danger to people on the raft, because no one ends up clinging to flotsam in the middle of this metaphorical ocean unless they belong on the ding dang raft in the first place. They’re all on the big sturdy SS Cisheteroalloperipatriarchy. They don’t need our raft and they don’t want it.
Clearly, I choose the first one. And I’m glad to welcome you up onto my raft. The seas are high and choppy, and we’re not gonna make it if we have to weather these waves alone.
Asexual Latinas & How Latina Stereotypes Hurt Them – This article covers the research of Aasha Foster, a doctoral student at Columbia University doing research on the intersection of race and asexuality. Isn’t that so exciting to see?! I don’t often see the experiences of poc asexuals written about or discussed, and it’s important to delve into these ‘invisible’ divisions of the lgbtqia community; bringing out the voices of asexual people of different racial, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds can help broaden the community in acceptance and sympathy towards people’s individual experiences.
Among other things, the article shares Milo’s story. Milo is a 25-year-old asexual-agender Mexican-American who expressed their frustrations that their ability to bare children had become “a family commodity.” They experienced negative pushback from their family, who felt Milo’s gender and sexual identity clashed with traditional cultural ideals.
Take note that neither the article nor Aasha Foster name the hyper sexualization of latinas an “asexual issue.” The article concludes by stating “until the myth of the overtly sexual, va-va-voom Latina is put to rest, we as women will continue to be affected. Some in more ways than others.”
If you have further interest in Aasha Foster’s doctoral studies, I found the abstract of a research paper she’d done work on, entitled Identity Formation Among Asexuals of Color, with her peers at Columbia University. Here’s a snippet – “Findings from this project
will contribute to our understanding of the impact of
identity integration on overall psychological wellbeing for
individuals with multiple minority statuses.” (HOORAY, amiright??)
Queer Fiction Writer 