aroace-ventplace

[aroace-ventplace]

"being queer is about love" hmm actually being queer is about defying societal norms about gender and sexuality and does not depend on feeling love at all

#rb #oh my fucking GOD this is the poll account that tried to start shit about aroallo men a few months ago #and then tried to charge money to take the poll down. absolute clown shoes behavior #go away you fucking losers. leave aros the fuck alone

[aroace-ventplace]

There’s still debate about split attraction on my dash why do you people even care

#rb #'why the hell do you care' is a good summary of identity/SAM/microlabel discourse in general #some people use the split attraction model because it fits their experiences. simple as that. mind your fucking business

[aroace-ventplace]

every once in a while, i see posts about including the sex stripe in the rainbow flag and it's like... i know not having sex is supposed to be included in that, but i still wouldn't use it myself because i never feel represented/included in that way by the wider queer community; it feels like outside of aspec spaces ppl always equate queerness with having sex and it's quite alienating

oh BOY do i hate the way gilbert baker sex stripe discourse goes down around here. getting this out of the way first: it's incredibly well-documented that the stripe was removed because it was difficult to get that shade of pink. people who try to obliquely blame aspecs for its removal as part of the ol' "asexuals are homophobic" narrative are straight up wrong.

...anyway. yeah, the equation of queerness with sex is a MESSY-ass thing. is sex historically and personally important to a lot of queer people? yes. does mainstream society's oversexualization of queerness fuel a lot of bigotry and stigma? also yes. does the emphasis on sexuality within queer spaces alienate people who lack that connection with sex? also ALSO yes. it's a complicated thing, and i just wish people would acknowledge that as queer as sex can be, NOT having sex is absolutely queer as well.

the way i see it, there isn't (or shouldn't be) one monolithic "queer community" - a queer space that centers sexuality and a queer space that avoids it are both equally "queer," and the existence of one does not cancel out the other. a lot of queer circles do seem to focus on sex, and people like you and i will likely always feel alienated in those communities... but it shouldn't matter, since the people in those groups don't represent "real" queerness any more than we do. that's the mindset i try to stick to whenever i find myself feeling disconnected from "mainstream" queer culture - yeah, we might be very different when it comes to some things, but our experiences are both different expressions of queerness that are (to use a somewhat trite phrase) equally valid.

#ask #anonymous #and of course this is all easier said than done lol #i definitely don't expect to magically be able to cure that deep feeling of alienation. i feel it often and fighting it is a CHALLENGE #ive just been. trying to work on changing my mindset around it #asexual

[aroace-ventplace]

i pity people who say “yeah it’s nice to see these two characters as friends but their relationship becomes so much more meaningful if you see them as romantic.” how has the dredges of the amanormative world poisoned you this bad? have you never had a friend or wanted a friend who changed your life for the better? or if you do i feel bad for them because of so obviously little you value them

#rb #good post op sorry it attracted the exact kind of people who make fandom absolute hell for aros #yes i DO hate romance and i DO hate shipping. die mad about it!

[aroace-ventplace]

"being queer is about love" hmm actually being queer is about defying societal norms about gender and sexuality and does not depend on feeling love at all

#rb

[aroace-ventplace]

i need therapy about this but mentioning my asexuality to any (mental) health professionals sounds like a great way to get offered conversion therapy, which is not what i said

#rb #GOD is this real. even if a therapist is ‘lgbt friendly’ that absolutely doesnt guarantee that they won’t be aphobic #i can’t even bring up being aro/ace to any of my therapists out of fear that they'll treat it like a condition to be fixed #and honestly a non-zero percentage of that fear is also a result of how fucking terrible tumblr was about aspecs from 2015 onward #like. im thinking of that (relatively) recent post about betterhelp parroting aphobic talking points from the worst era of the discourse #pros of having a 'modern lgbt-trained' (terminally online) therapist: idk they might know your microlabel #cons: they might be getting their Queer Knowledge(tm) entirely from 2015 tumblr. where hating aspecs was fucking 'progressive' and trendy

[aroace-ventplace]

i hate amatonormativity.

i hate how being single is considered bad. i hate how the older you get, the worse society treats you if you lack a partner, especially as a woman. i hate how i am not believed when i say i don’t have a crush. i hate how a romantic relationship is seen as the best relationship there is. i hate the relationship hierarchy. i hate how sexualized everything is. i hate how people would just never get it if they knew the true reason i rejected them. i hate being aromantic in a hetero- and amatonormative society, not because i hate my identity, but because i hate the way it is treated. i hate how i am not taken seriously. i hate how i am told i can, or will, be fixed. i hate how i am treated as a broken half rather than a content whole. and i hate romance, by god, how i hate it. i hate seeing a couple on the street knowing i will never have what they do. i hate unnecessarry romance in media. i hate that romance in itself is a plotline. i hate kissing. i hate hand-holding. i hate dates. i hate that i can’t do any of those without it being considered romantic. i hate that romance and sex seem to go hand in hand. i hate the insistence that i will have that one day. i hate that i am ‘too young to know’ and i hate soulmates and i hate those stupid fucking tropes.

i hate amatonormativity.

#rb

[aroace-ventplace]

"being queer is about love" hmm actually being queer is about defying societal norms about gender and sexuality and does not depend on feeling love at all

#rb

[aroace-ventplace]

if you see a male character kiss a male character, you assume they are gay.

if you see a female character kiss a female character, you assume they are a lesbian.

if you hear a character say they don't feel like their gender, you assume they are trans.

so why do a-spec characters have to jump through so many loops?

a character saying they've never had a crush or don't want a relationship or that they don't understand romantic love is so often ignored or used as fodder for other queer or autistic headcanons (reinforcing stereotypes that aroace people are secretly gay or always autistic)

why is it that our stories are always "up to interpretation"? why do we have to wait for the words aromantic or asexual to be said to be taken seriously? why is it that even when characters say they don't want relationships, fans will scream and cry about sex/romance favourable aspecs and qprs?

when it comes to gay and trans characters, even the likes of bisexual lighting is often treated as though it canonises their sexuality. for aroace characters, even the most explicit coding possible is swept under the rug in favour of other "interpretations"

i'm so tired of fighting for representation just to have it ignored and minimised by fans. let characters be aroace. please.

#rb #yet again everyone goes crazy about queercoding until it comes to aspecs. funny how that works #theres also always biphobia wrapped up in this but i (aroace) am not the best person to unpack that

[aroace-ventplace]

Amatonormativity as horror send post

#rb #soulmates could be peak horror if people werent such fucking cowards

[aroace-ventplace]

keep seeing posts like “if you leave me a paragraph long ao3 comment I will propose to you.” Thanks? But…no thanks. I’m aro and this is not coming across how you want it to. This is tumblr, the “fuck the heteronormative system” website, surely we can come up with a better Ultimate Expression of Love/Appreciation than marriage

#rb #yeah this is absolutely on the petty side but i hate the tumblr stock phrases for expressing appreciation that are like #‘kissing you on the mouth’ ‘mutuals we’re making out sloppy style’ ‘i hope [x inspiring person] got their dick sucked/pussy eaten/whatever’ #my sex/romance repulsed ass does NOT enjoy seeing that shit

[aroace-ventplace]

"you can't say these characters are only friends when they clearly have a more deep and meaningful connection" allos shut up forever

#rb #lmao. like yeah i get the urge to combat heteronormativity with gay readings of characters #but you realize you can do it without shitting on aspecs. it truly is not that difficult.

[aroace-ventplace]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

#rb #genuinely ​i love how the wording of this poll treats alloromanticism like it’s not the default lol #people who… DO experience romantic attraction 🙄 (fucking weirdos) #anyways being aro kicks ass and i think some of you guys need to learn to enjoy life as a complete person. on your own. individually #but that’s just my aro opinion

[aroace-ventplace]

whenever i block horny tumblr users it feels like im hitting them with the roblox ban hammer

horny on main? not on my non-fucking watch

#rb #slowly but surely curating my utopic tumblr ecosystem where sex doesn’t exist #being horny ain’t bad and it’s your right to be horny on main #likewise: being sex-repulsed ain’t bad and it’s my right to block you

[aroace-ventplace]

for the asexuals who hate sex. the asexuals who love sex. the asexuals who couldnt care about sex any less if they tried. the trans and nonbinary asexuals. the asexuals with queer romantic leanings. the asexuals who are heteroromantic. neurodiverse and/or disabled asexuals. this ones for you *my first bullet enters jfk's back*

#rb #thanks. hold on what was that

[aroace-ventplace]

Happy International Asexuality Awareness Day!

Despite the best efforts of exclusionists (bigots) to obliterate our communities here on Tumblr, we're still around and have been all along. Be aware of us. Because you can't get rid of us.

Also a good day to remember the exclusionist/aphobe to TERF pipeline is a real thing, because they literally all use the same arguments just swap out the target and there's TERFs on record admitting they use ace exclusionism to recruit people.

Anyway, aces from all across the spectrum are still here, and we're not going anywhere. It's been our home longer than it's been the home of those who want to get rid of us, and we're happily getting up to all kind of fun.

#rb

[aroace-ventplace]

An ace pride mushroom in honor of International Asexuality Day. Happy Ace Day to my fellow aces!

As I was working on this I also spent some time reflecting. I've been out as ace for over 15 years now, known I was ace for over 20 years, and in that time I have definitely seen a change towards more acceptance and awareness of asexuality. 20 years ago it was pretty much a miracle that I stumbled onto a description of asexuality on a web forum. It was a very invisible and seldom talked about sexuality. In many of the years since it felt like all we ever got was invalidation an ridicule.

Even in more recent years a simple mention of asexuality by an lgbtq+ organisation or advocate would usually result in a storm of laugh reacts and general heckling. Plus the usual statement that aces don't belong in the lgbtq+ community... Don't see that as often now. So that's something to be happy about at least. It's slow but it is happening. Looking back I'm also really happy about the language that has developed for talking about asexuality. When I came out there wasn't as much nuance and it was hard to even explain to people what asexuality was, because I just didn't have the words to describe stuff like split attraction, or the differences between attraction and libido, etc...

#rb #we are certainly in a better place now #anti-aspec bullies may not have gone away but they are definitely quieter now #i hope aspec kids are having an easier time being out on the internet these days