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xiaq · 3 years

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Hi, I have a question re:sex and Christianity. Small background: I still go to church, and I still live with my parents even though I'm not much younger than you, because housing is very very expensive where I live (pretty common here, I would say about 2/3 of my friends live with their parents and we are decently privileged kids)

Anyway. How does one get over purity culture? To be clear, I've never been told in church not to have sex, I've never gotten the gendered lessons that you got. But I am terrified of having sex. My first real, multi-year relationship just ended and while there was hand stuff etc, there was never any p in v sex (lol I feel 12). But I still had insane anxiety about being pregnant despite being on bc. And I think its because I know my parents would be so disappointed if I had sex. And if I was pregnant I could imagine all the gossip. And honestly I think im from a pretty open church, b/c one of our previous ministers kids recently got married at 8 months pregnant and lots of church people were at the wedding and supportive and her parents were there and everything.

I dont even think I particularly like sex, i might be on the ace spectrum, but how do I remove it from all the anxiety that's tied to it so I can even give myself the chance to find out???

(Asking because it seems like you've been pretty open about purity culture/removing yourself from it)

CW for sex talk (again)

How does one get over purity culture?

Oh man. That really is the million-dollar question, huh? Obviously, I can only answer re my personal experiences, and this is something you should talk to a therapist about, but I can tell you how I’ve tackled it with my therapist at least.

Purity culture is, at its core, an ideology that is perpetuated by shame. If you’re indoctrinated into purity culture when you’re a kid, the concepts become baked into the way you construct your identity, your perception of self, and your perception of your sexuality. It’s practically intrinsic, by the time you’re an adult, to feel shame any time you’re reminded you have a body, much less a sexuality.

According to the chapels I sat through every week as a kid, a girl's body could be 3 things: an intentional stumbling block for men, an accidental stumbling block for men, or unnoticeable. Women were to strive for the third option so as to keep their (and their male friends/authority figures) purity intact. After all, if a boy, or even your male teacher, had impure thoughts about you, it was your fault for tempting them (which, holy shit. I still can’t believe that was a thing I bought into for so long. If my 45 yr old grown-ass teacher had impure thoughts because he could see my 12 yr old collarbone, that sure as hell wasn’t my fault. But I digress.) The Only time a woman’s body can be something else, is when she gives it to her husband, at which point she must suddenly flip the switch in her brain that she is now allowed to be a Sexual Being and she must perform Sexual Duties despite living in outright fear of her own body and sexuality for years (decades?) up until this point. Jesus take the wheel.

Purity culture isn’t a thing you can just decide to walk away from if you’ve grown up in it. Because its ideology is insidious and internalized. So first you need to submit to the fact that you’re going to be fucked up about sex. It sounds like you’re there. Second, you need to interrogate what you believe. If you’re leaving religion behind entirely, you’ll approach removing yourself from purity culture differently than if you still identify as a Christian. It sounds like you might be the latter, which meant, for me, separating what’s actually biblical and what’s shitty, contrived, doctrine that I was told is biblical but is actually more political than spiritual. This helps you address the shame issue.

You need to throw away I Kissed Dating Goodbye and Lady in Waiting and all those ridiculous books you read and reread in the hopes of somehow obtaining impossible marriage perfection and look into actual scripture interpreted within its historical context. I could write a book on this, but the TL;DR is that the text of the Bible was written, translated, curated, and changed multiple times over thousands of years by human beings with human biases and, often, personal and/or political agendas. It contradicts itself! Reading it as it is—a flawed historical document—rather than some sort of God-breathed perfect document—is incredibly freeing. When you do, you’ll probably realize that purity culture is bullshit on a spiritual level. Which is a good start, if that matters to you. Because any time you start to feel shame or guilt you can ask yourself: does God actually care if I wear a bikini or touch a dick I’m not married to? Probably not. Wear the bikini. Touch the dick.

The most important therapy session for me was when my therapist asked what I would do if I got to heaven and God was actually the God I’d been raised to fear. What would I do if he condemned me for being bisexual and having premarital sex and becoming educated, for arguing with men, and failing to isolate while menstruating, and wearing mixed fabrics? If Montero had come out at the point, I probably would have said I’d pole dance down to hell. Instead, I said I would spit on heaven’s gates. If a god that cruel and that pointlessly demeaning really exists—a god who would create in me condemned desire—I won't worship him. The good news is, I’m 99% sure he doesn’t exist. At the very least, he isn’t supported by scripture.

Okay. The final thing you need to do is figure out what you actually want, sexually speaking. This bit is probably the hardest. I’m still in the early stages of this myself. You say: “I dont even think I particularly like sex, i might be on the ace spectrum, but how do I remove it from all the anxiety that's tied to it so I can even give myself the chance to find out???” Bro, I wish I had an easy answer for you. For me, whenever I’m feeling anxious about Sex Things, I tell myself: 1. My God does not equate my worth to my sexual habits. 2. My partner does not equate my worth to my sexual habits. 3. I do not equate my worth to my sexual habits. It seems silly, but reminding myself of those three things is massively helpful. If, after I’ve sorted through those, I’m still anxious or uncomfortable, I stop doing the thing. I evaluate. Am I overwhelmed and I need to try again some other time? Do I just not like the thing? Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Sometimes you change your mind. Sometimes you just don’t know. That’s why having a partner who you trust and who’s willing to patiently explore your interests (and respect your disinterests) is so important. Half the battle, for me, was having a partner who told me they’d be ok with no sex at all. Because that took the pressure off me. If the bare minimum they need is nothing, then anything more than that is a bonus! Hooray! This is maybe TMI, but let me tell you. I thought I was asexual* right up until I was able to have moderately non-anxious sex. Never in my life did I think I would initiate a sexual situation but… I do now. It’s a fun thing to do with a person I love and, holy shit. I am furious that I nearly missed out on it.

Finally, re birth control: I don’t know how you can approach that fear in a way that works for you. If you don’t want to ever have penetrative sex, that’s fine! If that’s a point of anxiety you can’t get rid of, then don't push yourself to do it. If you find out you like other sex things, do the other sex things! If you don't like doing any sex things, don't do any sex things! Also, have you considered sleeping with people who can’t get you pregnant? Always an option if it’s an option you want to consider. ;)

Okay. I hope this was even a little bit helpful. Sorry if it’s a little convoluted, I typed it up in bursts during my work breaks.

*This is not at all to say that asexuality can be “fixed." Rather, it’s to say that things like purity culture can drastically confuse your sexuality in general. If you’re asexual, then this process is still important to discover what you like/dislike. Then you can be explicit about those necesities and find a partner who’s a good fit (if you want a partner at all, that is).

#purity culture #sex talk #christianity #sex and relationships #sex and religion #mylife #answered asks #aspec #cw sex

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marinsawakening · 5 years

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don’t reblog this maybe but this intracommunity aro/aspec discourse has really highlighted how my experiences with being aroace differ from the majority of the aroace community and it makes me. uncomfy.

(I was gonna do the following section in the tags but it got too long so. enjoy the rambly post I guess.)

It’s so weird too??? In almost all ways, I’m the most stereotypical aroace to have ever aroaced; I’m sex- and romance repulsed, I do not want either sexual or romantic relationships, I want a qpr (I realize that wanting a qpr is not the norm outside of aro communities, but this assumption does kind of tend to exist within aro communities, although from what I’ve seen that has certainly died down), I found out I was ace in my late teens and figured out I was aro a year or two after that, I do not nor have I ever experienced any type of romantic or sexual attraction (aka I’m not gray-ace or gray-aro), I’m not an oriented aroace, etc.

Unlike with my trans/nb identity I tend to actually relate to the wider aroace community; it’s by far the easiest queer identity I have because I generally fall within the parameters of what’s ‘expected’ of an aroace 99% of the time. There’s really only two major exceptions:

I do not find it difficult to distinguish between my aromanticism and my asexuality. They are not the same for me. I see my asexuality and aromanticism as two separate identities that just so happen to coincide.

I consider my aromanticism to be a LOT more important than my asexuality. Really I’m more aro(ace) than aroace if you get what I mean.

And BOY are those differences highlighted by the recent discourse.

Like, I know that to aroaces who already feel alienated by the aroace community this must seem eye-roll-worthy, and I acknowledge how lucky I am that I (mostly) managed to feel safe and comfortable in the aroace community (albeit it more on the aro side of things than on the ace side), but like??? I’m really unused to feeling so alienated from the aroace community and it’s uhhhh unfun.

But honestly in this discourse? I just cannot at all relate to or get behind the aroace community’s approach to it. I don’t feel threatened by the idea that we might have a complete separation from the ace community. As a matter of fact, that’s what I want. If it were up to me and I didn’t have to take the feelings of anyone else into account, I’d want a complete separation between the ace and aro communities. I’d want to maintain strong ties between the communities, obviously, but I’m so fucking tired of being grouped together with the ace community. I want the aro community to be able to stand on its own as the ace community’s equal, not their younger sibling who still needs guidance. I want us to be our own thing without relying on the ace community at all. I want a complete separation of asexuality and aromanticism.

I acknowledge, however, that this is likely not practical. There are too many aroaces tying us together, and we share too much history. It would be unfair to aroaces who cannot separate their aromanticism and asexuality and/or just don’t want to choose like that to just implement a complete schism without regard for consequences. I acknowledge that. I still want it.

It’s not that I hate the ace community. I really don’t. I honestly don’t feel as bitter towards it as a lot of the aro community seems to. I really think that the ace community is one of the most welcoming communities I’ve ever been in; they helped me understand my asexuality in a way that lifted me up and made me secure in it, and I’m really thankful to them for helping me through that vulnerable time. I think that it’s amazing what the ace community has managed to achieve in such little time; barely a decade ago, we were nothing, and now, we are steadily on our way to becoming a widely recognized sexuality, with well-organized groups and clear objectives. It’s seriously impressive.

At the same time, however, they royally screwed up my aro education, to the point where even though I was very, VERY clearly aromantic I was extremely hesitant to adopt the label, and it wasn’t until I actually managed to get involved in the aro community via a mutual that I actually started embracing it; in fact, before I talked to that mutual, I was really only peripherally aware of the existence of an aro community. I did not understand what a qpr was. I did not understand how the aromanticism was a spectrum, or know any aro identities outside of aro, gray-aro, and demiro (it was thanks to another mutual that I got off my initial high horse about greyro identities and actually started researching them with an open mind, by the way. I’m still definitely not perfect and consider them to be my largest blind spot in the aro community, but at least I’m trying to learn). I was not aware of any aspects of aro culture, or at least they didn’t register (white ring, arrows, etc. etc). And those were really just minor things.

The big kicker for me is that, honestly, my experience with the way the ace community treated aromanticism was. kinda different from what most aros seem to have experienced. Maybe it’s the people I interacted with, the blogs I followed, idk, but whatever it is, I got the impression that my aromantic traits were part of my asexuality. I never really felt like the ace community was pushing the ‘aces can love!’ message too hard; instead, I got the opposite. I got posts joking about how aces don’t get crushes. About how aces are annoyed with romantic subplots. I got essays written where the author stated that they don’t feel romantic attraction because they are asexual. I got posts about how characters who said “I don’t understand/want romance” are ace. I got ace activists who talked about being aroace without ever mentioning the ‘aro’ part, or who mentioned it in passing at best, and who often still positioned themselves as authorities on aromanticism despite that. All the time that I’ve spent in the ace community, and I consistently saw asexuality conflated with aromanticism. I still see it every time I go into the ace community. It’s why I’m not active in it anymore.

As a result, I did not understand the impact that my aromanticism had my life, or even that I was aromantic at all; I got the impression that all my aro traits could be ascribed to my asexuality. As a result, I spent a long time identifying as a non-SAM-using ace, then as an aroace who strongly favored their asexuality, and then an aroace who didn’t think their aromanticism could be separated from their asexuality. But, as I have stated earlier in this essay, I can separate them. Very easily, even. I just didn’t have the proper tools yet to identify my aromanticism. This was also the reason why I thought my asexuality was more important; I didn’t have the proper tools to recognize my aromanticism, and with that, the effect it had on my daily life.

(Disclaimer: I’m obviously not saying that all aroaces who consider their aromanticism to be part of their asexuality, or who can’t distinguish between them, or who favor their asexuality are going to have the same experience that I did. Plenty of aroaces won’t. I’m just talking about a personal experience.)

The ace community screwed up my aro education by failing to recognize that aromanticism is not a facet of asexuality. While the ace community loves to remind everyone that aces can still feel romantic attraction, they are blindsided to the fact that aros can still feel sexual attraction. That aromanticism is not inherently tied to asexuality, and that the experiences of aroaces who cannot seperate their aromanticism and their asexuality aren’t universal in the aro community by any means.

I can forgive the ace community for not educating me on things coined by or primarily used by aros, such as qpr’s, aro culture elements, and greyro identities. They are not required to keep up with every step that our community takes. I cannot forgive them for failing to provide me with basic information on aromanticism other than the acknowledgement that it existed, for consistently conflating aromanticism and asexuality, for failing to give me the proper resources to figure out my aro identity, when we are supposed to be ‘connected’ communities.

TL;DR: my aro education got severely fucked up by the assumption that all aros are asexual, and if it hadn’t been for a complete fluke of striking up a conversation with someone who happened to be involved in the aro community, I might have never been able to properly appreciate or recognize my aromanticism.

You can see how these experiences kind of overlap with those of allo aros. Obviously, they’re not the same, like at all, but the fact of the matter is that I can relate to the bitterness that allo aros feel towards the ace community. Often a lot more than I can relate to aroaces’ feelings towards the ace community, be they negative or positive.

And because of those experiences, you can see why I’m distrustful of letting the ace community stay intrinsically connected to the aro community. They are larger, and therefore have a louder voice and more reach; if we, as aros, don’t grow on our own, outside of the ace community’s shadow, I’m genuinely unsure of whether we’ll ever be able to reach our full potential. Because as it stands, the majority of aros will need to go through the ace community first, and I think they’ve sufficiently proven to be wholly inadequate in providing aros resources to figure out their aromanticism. And frankly? I don’t want the ace community to be the primary educators on aromanticism. That’s a recipe for disaster no matter what. I want the aro community to be the go-to place for information on aromanticism, and that can only happen if we are as loud, as big as the ace community.

I don’t relate to a lot of aroaces’ torn feelings between the ace community and the aro community, because in my case, that choice was made a long time ago: it’s the aro community. It will always be the aro community. While I’m thankful towards the ace community for sheltering me when I was vulnerable, and while I will always stand with them if they need to fight against assholes or need to spread awareness, and while I’ll probably never really drop the ace label and will occasionally participate in ace-centric discussions, they are not my priority, because I was never theirs. There is no love lost between me and the ace community. My aromanticism is the part of me that is most prominent in day-to-day life, and it’s what I consider to be the most important because of that; the aro community is tiny still, struggling to gain recognition and find a direction, and it needs my support more than the ace community ever did.

Furthermore, in this discussion, I strongly believe that the aro community needs to prioritize the feelings of allo aros, and other non-asexual aros and aros who do not feel comfortable in the ace community for other reasons. While we aroaces are definitely important and should obviously have a say in the way the community is heading (I mean. Duh. We’re aro), I’m uncomfortable with aroaces taking charge of community conversations because I feel like that’s just a repeat of what’s been happening in the wider aspec community for a long, long time: ace people taking charge, leaving less-recognized aros in the dust. Obviously, a large part of that is due to my own personal experiences with aces talking over aros for the majority of my aro education, and I’m (perhaps irrationally) scared that the same thing is going to happen here. But a large part of it is also due to the fact that, as is, aroaces are the largest voice in the aro community; this is an undeniable fact. It would be easy, way too easy, for us to unknowingly drown out the voices of allo aros, when we should be amplifying them and giving them a place of honor. The ace community’s problems with aromanticism affect non-asexual aros the most and in unique ways, and I feel like they should be leading the discussion surrounding it no matter what, really.

But I feel kind of like a traitor to aroace people because of this. My needs for the aro community obviously don’t align with that of other aroaces; I’d be willing to let relationships with the ace community burn entirely if it meant securing a spot for the aro community, which would obviously fuck over aroaces who DO need the ace community and want to participate in it, and aroaces who just simply aren’t capable of separating their aromanticism from their asexuality. I just fundamentally cannot relate to those needs and the feelings that come along with it. I just can’t.

As a result, aside from reblogging some posts, I’ve been mostly quiet about my personal opinions on the topic. I do not feel like I’m the right person to be involved in this discourse; as an aroace, I have too much emotional baggage surrounding the ace community to advocate for their needs and I have been absent from the ace community for too long to have a good grasp on it anyway; and as an aromantic plain and simple, I do not feel like I should be leading this charge anyway because of my asexuality. While I find it bad to split the aro community in terms like that (I don’t believe that this discourse is a simple matter of aroaces vs. allo aros; it’s much more complicated than that, and I’ve seen aroaces and allo aros supporting each other, and of course there’s also non-SAM-aros and greyros/grayaces to consider in this discourse, which I haven’t really seen come up yet aside from a handful of posts), it really does often feel like this is the split around which the discourse is centered. And it sucks to not easily be able to identify with either ‘side’, and to lose the security I thought I had in the (aro-leaning side of the) aroace community.

This is probably the last I’m going to say on this intracommunity issue on my own; I’ll be reblogging posts and watching it go down, but I don’t feel like I’m in any way equipped to really have meaningful say in this discourse. I might change my mind later on, but as of now, this is where I stand: confused, mainly.

#my posts #personal #aro stuff #ace stuff

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lamujerarana · 5 years

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Do you think that other being speculated to be on the ace spectrum, Reed would be romantically attracted to other genders than female?

Yes, definitely! I mean, in the first place, (I hope?) we all know about that canon alternate universe where Reed is married to Johnny instead of Sue. So there’s at least one universe where he is openly and canonically into men. Personally, I wish he’d married Ben instead and I resent the fact that there are no canon BenReed universes, because there should be. @androidavenger and I agree that it’s because Marvel is afraid of how powerful and convincing Ben and Reed’s love for each other would be. They’re practically married already in 616, so seeing them together as a romantic/sexual couple would probably feel pretty natural.

I personally think of Reed as being a sex-favorable/indifferent bi ace with a low libido (but pan or poly or any mspec label works for me). Like, if Sue wants to have sex, he’ll oblige and enjoy it, but he just rarely feels inclined to seek it out himself, and when he does, it’s more about the intimacy and romance and showing Sue that he loves her than anything else. (I wrote a longer post about Reed being coded as ace in canon, which you can find here.) He definitely experiences romantic attraction to some degree, though, since he canonically fell in love with Sue at first sight. But I could see him being somewhere on the aro spectrum because it’s not like he gets romantically attracted very frequently. Sue and maybe Alyssa would be the only two people he’s ever been romantically involved with in canon, which is…not a lot. I also think it explains why he’s so over-the-moon in love with Sue – he’s never really felt that way about anyone before or since.

Personally, and I admit that I ship them pretty hard, I do think that Reed’s relationship with Ben is probably the one that has been framed as the queerest. I have a very hard time seeing his relationship with Ben as anything other than queer. But I do admit that the fact that Reed doesn’t seem to experience sexual attraction means that it’s a bit harder to find panels where he comments on Ben’s looks or gets flirty with him, although I can show you plenty of panels where Ben gets very fixated on Reed’s attractiveness and/or flirts very openly with him.

But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any panels where Reed expresses a deep and abiding love for Ben that is even framed in romantic terms and couched in romantic phrases.

More beneath the cut!

I mean, he says this about Ben in Fantastic Four v1 #51:

“You know how I felt about Ben! He was more than just a friend!” has very clearly romantic connotations, as does the fact that he’s willing to die for Ben. And Ben echoes that sentiment – as well as Reed’s willingness to die for him – later on in Fantastic Four v1 #382:

There’s also just the fact that Ben, Reed, and Sue pretty much already act like they’re a thruple and always have, and if polyamory wasn’t so taboo, they probably would be. They make sense as a thruple, they balance out each other’s flaws perfectly and keep each other in check, they love each other deeply, and frankly, they just need each other. I’ve seen, for instance, people say that Sue’s the one who functions as a check on Reed, but that’s just not true. For one thing, Sue is pretty vicious and ruthless herself, thank you, MUCH more so than Reed, who tends to be gentler, kinder, and more forgiving than Sue. Sue and Reed 99% of the time make their plans together, and Ben is normally the one who functions as their conscience. See Authoritative Action for a perfect example of that. But what I’m getting at with this is that Reed and Sue very much need Ben.

Even just in canon, Ben, Reed, and Sue are pretty committed life partners. They all live together and Ben and Reed have done so for the entirety of their adult lives, from 18 years of age to 40. They are also raising their kids together – kids that Reed and Sue canonically think of as being just as much Ben’s children as they are theirs:

Sue’s horror there stems from the fact that they ARE Ben’s kids, of course. He takes care of them just as frequently as Reed and Sue do. Sue is a CEO and philanthropist and Reed is a busy scientist – frankly, Ben takes over childrearing duties pretty damn often. Again, the three of them work well together as a thruple.

Ben even tells Sue at one point that he loves Reed almost as much as she does, and this while Reed and Sue were technically still on their honeymoon. From Fantastic Four v1 #44, which, you’ll notice was written all the way back in the 1960s:

But the most romantic BenReed story, in my opinion, is Hereafter. In the previous arc, Ben is murdered by Doom, and Reed spends a full hour frantically trying to bring him back to life. When he can’t, he completely falls apart. He shuts down, won’t talk to anyone, and throws himself into figuring out a way to get Ben back, because not even death is taking Ben away from him. When he does figure it out, he calls Sue and tells her that he can’t stand not having Ben by his side…so he’s going to Heaven to get him back. Reed literally can’t live without Ben. Johnny and Sue decide to join Reed on his mission, and when they get there, they pass through each one’s idea of Heaven. Sue’s is a nice, safe day with her kids, Johnny’s is camping with his parents, and Reed’s…Reed’s idea of Heaven is Ben’s face in the shape of a puzzle that he has to assemble. As though there is something about it that he’s trying to figure out, but hasn’t quite managed to yet (his romantic feelings for Ben, maybe?). This is from Fantastic Four v1 #510:

So, yes, Reed’s idea of Heaven is canonically Ben’s face. I think too that this is a great parallel – what Reed perceives as the mystery of Ben – to Reed’s rapturous love letter to Sue a few years later in Fraction’s run, in Fantastic Four v4 #4, where he calls her the mystery he’s never quite been able to figure out.

His feelings for Ben and Sue seem awfully similar, don’t they?

Anyway, Hereafter climaxes with Reed having a meltdown because Ben announces that he doesn’t want to go back to his life and Reed blames himself for Ben’s death and just can’t handle the idea of life without Ben. Ben realizes at this point that the reason he hadn’t been able to get into Heaven is because he couldn’t bear to leave Reed, so he snaps Reed out of his meltdown by promising, over and over, that he’ll never leave Reed.

I swear to god, I have read romances that are less romantic than this scene.

But also it makes sense that they care about each other this deeply. Ben and Reed are extraordinarily close and have been since they were college roommates. They’ve been inseparable since college. Once they graduated, they kinda just…kept living together the rest of their lives because they couldn’t stand being apart – in earlier canon, they joined the army together during WWII because they didn’t want to be separated after college. Ben’s said he loves Reed so much he’d die for him, Reed’s said the same about Ben. Ben, Reed, and Sue have gone on romantic island vacations together. Ben used to call Reed “lover boy” and “pretty boy” VERY regularly, and Reed never complained. He still occasionally calls Reed “baby,” and Reed acts like it’s totally normal for his supposedly platonic BFF to be calling him pet names. Ben also apparently is in the habit of wolf-whistling at Reed when he’s looking hot, and Reed doesn’t mind. Tweaking their relationship to make it explicitly romantic/sexual is just…not much of a stretch. Their love for each other is already intense, their relationship close and intimate, and I’d be lying if I said that Ben hasn’t pretty overtly flirted with Reed. He even once promised to kiss each of Reed’s fingers, which just. How is that even remotely straight, Marvel?

I could also write whole separate posts about the queerness of Reed’s relationships with Black Bolt, T’Challa, and Victor.

#starkshipper #sorry this is so late lol!#benreed #reed richards #ben grimm #hmm this is making me want to write a story #where ben and reed are basically dating #but it takes reed a while to figure it out #set in college #probably #sue helps them figure it out #and they all date #asks

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groundramon · 5 years

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I don’t really know how to word this without immediately knowing that tumblr could accuse me of a fuckton of different buzzwords, but I’m going to try to anyways - and hopefully if any hyper-woke people find me, they’ll tell me how I should better word myself in the future instead of immediately calling me an abuse apologist or some shit.

But anyways, here’s a hot take - people of minority groups can be abusers. Sometimes, they can abuse people for their minority status. Sometimes, people lie about sexual assault. Sometimes, people use their mental health or identity or race or whatever as an excuse for being a despicable human being. How do I know? Because I’ve had it happen to me, over and over and over.

I am: a trans, LGBT+, mentally disabled + ill, DFAB person. I am also: a white, able-bodied fuckboy who lives in California, one of the most progressive states in the country, even in its conservative areas. I am on both sides of the spectrum, and the times when I see minority statuses being abused are usually from the groups that I’m a minority of.

For example, I was harassed (and arguably sexually abused, however because I couldn’t find those comments that could’ve made him face legal consequences for all he’s done, I struggle to say that this is the case - additionally, I was never his target, just my art) by an autistic man online when I was younger. It’s the reason why I can’t interact with the HT/TY/D fandom and why I won’t be seeing the third movie (keep in mind this happened right before the second movie, and I went to see that one because it legitimately interested me - this one seems heterosexual AND reminds me of my abuser’s dragon OC, which he guilt tripped me into drawing for him as his form of porn). He ruined an entire franchise for me because he harassed me so badly. He guilt tripped me in about how hard it was being autistic (and threw in some comments about how teens think they have it “so hard with their anxiety and depression” when “they really have no idea”, to a teenager struggling with identifying anxiety and depression - i didn’t believe that bullcrap but I did fall for his autism sob story) and convinced me to do art trades with him which were just redraws of my own stuff, and he’d repeatedly spam me and yell at me and guilt trip me to finish his work if I so much as read his note without responding. He drained my motivation for DeviantArt along with my love of a franchise. This man was also a serial harasser/spammer, he did this to MANY people, including other minors. I wasn’t a specific target - honestly, I think I was pretty low on his priority list, considering he only tried to come back a few times. The kicker? I’m pretty sure I’m autistic, even though I had no idea back then. At least, I sure do have a lot of symptoms of autism now that I look back.

Not good enough for you? Okay. How about the fact that a relative of mine tried to convince my aunt that she (my aunt, not the relative) was sexually abused by my paternal grandfather as a child, sending my aunt into a mental breakdown because she couldn’t remember anything like that and had no idea? My aunt is the weak link in our family, she’s adopted and felt othered for it, and lived away from the rest of our family for a long time. She recently started getting involved and just happened to be attacked by a known financial and mental abuser in our extended family right when she started getting back involved. I’m thankful that my dad and my uncles were able to help her get a better picture of her father. Keep in mind that I don’t have a positive image of my paternal grandfather, because he smoked and gave my dad + uncle health problems due to it - and I personally consider that an accidental form of child abuse, in a way. But he was NOT a fucking incestual pedophile. It infuriated me to hear that, despite never meeting him, and having a negative overall impression of him.

How about another? My step-step-grandmother (long story) has accused my deceased uncle of being a money-hungry monster and stealing all of her rightful money after his father/her husband died. We’re in a court case to get the inheritance we deserve from her now, but she only ever brought this up AFTER he passed away. When informed about his dead, she bitched about how he made her loose money, and how she was struggling despite using up all of my mom’s inheritance (from her step-father AND her mother). Because you know, that’s what you do when someone dies. My uncle was the only uncle on my mom’s side to make it to my birthdays, his family gave my mom and I a place to stay when we ended up stranded down south due to a bad head injury my dad got (also long story) and we didn’t have time to make it back home and we didn’t want to just leave my dad there. My uncle was probably the nicest, kindest family member I had. His funeral was the first funeral I went to, and there were TONS of people. He was a Christian man who lived by true Christian values, and plenty of people testified this at his funeral. People I’d never even met before. This old woman accused him of stealing her money (where did it go?? his wife is fucking broke now that he’s gone!), never caring enough to visit her, ect. This old woman, who never even responded to my birthday invitations let alone came, who never made any attempt to make a mutual outreach to us. She expected us to do all the work, and when we decided it wasn’t worth her ignoring and rejecting, we stopped. And then she accused us of abandoning her. This is an old woman, but she’s still an evil person - or an evil person who is now just a shell of evil, unable to even remember a time when she didn’t believe these lies that she told herself.

And don’t get me started on how this applies to ace discourse. Heaven forbid I compare the ace/aro experience to another LGBT experience! It’s only okay if I compare it to the straight experience (which i do btw, because i KNOW we benefit from homophobia unless we’re also sga) even though it has 99% more in common with the LGBP experience than the straight experience. This isn’t an inclusionist vs exclusionist thing - this is just COMPARISONS. It’s like saying murkrow looks like a crow - like yeah, no shit sherlock!! doesn’t mean murkrow is just the same as a real life fucking crow!!! And god, haven forbid you talk about real aphobia and how it affects real aspec people. Immediately every allo in the area will jump on you about how that’s just misogyny and rape culture and blah blah blah. Then what about when it happens to men? What about when it happens to nonbinary people? What about when it has literally nothing to do with gender or being forced to have sex, and is just a constant feeling of being othered and excluded? Forgotten and not believed? Constantly doubted that your experience is real? And then to be told that the very bigotry you suffered was just a part of a bigger issue, instead of specifically about a part of your identity....bullshit. There IS overlap in certain social issues. Race affects how homophobia and transphobia affects a person deeply. Same with misogyny and race. So of course there’s overlap. But to say that aphobia doesn’t exist, I’m sorry - I don’t say this lightly, but that’s unconscious gaslighting. (there is no better term than that - believe me, I looked. My point is that I don’t believe it’s intentional, but LGBP people, trans or not - you NEED to stop doing this. You ARE unconciously gaslighting aces and aros. This is not anecdotal, there are statistics and you refuse to believe them, despite pointing at just as credible statistics to prove your own points. You say we can’t use anecdotal evidence, but then go on to use it yourself. Intentional or not, you need to quit it.)

I really don’t want to talk about how race and this stuff intertwine because I really don’t have any experience with that as a white person. All I know is that groups of POC can be bigoted towards other groups of POC, and they can even be bigoted towards people of their own race.

Which leads me to the most important part of this post: The fact that minorities can abuse majority groups, even if its on the basis of their minority group, does NOT mean that minority groups are not oppressed.

Just because a few women lie about being raped, doesn’t mean that all women who say they were raped are lying. Just because an autistic person abused me, doesn’t mean that all autistic/mentally disabled people and mentally ill people are scary. Just because aphobia is real doesn’t mean that non-SGA aces and aros don’t benefit from homophobia to a certain degree. Just because homophobia kills doesn’t mean that aphobia isn’t just as real. Just because the LGBT community has a habit of gaslighting victims of aphobia doesn’t mean that the LGBT community oppresses the aspec community. Just because POC can discriminate against or even hold systemic power over another POC doesn’t mean that they aren’t both oppressed by white people.

Abuse is not oppression. Oppression is a repeated, prolonged offense of cruel and unjust control. None of my anecdotals “prove” that oppression for these groups isn’t real. Because I’m part of these groups, and it’s my opinion that it IS real. But my anecdotals are also still valid. It is not problematic to point out when someone uses their minority status to abuse and manipulate others. It is not problematic to call bigoted, cruel mentally disabled people problematic for being manipulative and abusive. Their disability is not an excuse. Their identity is not an excuse. Their experience may be a reason, but not an excuse. But neither is your experience. Let people talk about their individual experiences AND the wider issues of oppression as a whole. They don’t have to be opposite faces of the same coin, and it’s sad that we act like they do.

#stormy speaks #also i would just like to point out that ive never been abused by a person of color for their minority but i have by like every other group #just wanted to point that out incase anyone missed it #just. just sayin! just sayin @ racists!

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paradoxiii · 6 years

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15 through 20??

15. Favorite song?

Probably Dog Days Are Over by Florence + The Machine. I know it was really popular when it came out, but I couldn’t really tell what the lyrics were so I didn’t care much for it. Then, almost two years ago now, I actually got around to watching a lyric video of it, and… it just kind of resonated with me. I was having a really tough time, but I just kept telling myself that if I can make it to college, it’ll get better.

16. Favorite movie?

Aaaaaaa, it’s hard to pick one, but at the moment my favs are Black Panther, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005), The Time Machine (2002), and Heathers.

17. Who would be your ideal partner?

Ohhhhhh man, you caught me at an interesting time for this question. First of all, dorks are my kryptonite. Any dork I know irl, there’s a 99% I’ve had at least a lowkey crush on at some point. It’s really very frustrating.

Along those lines, my ideal partner would be rather intelligent as well as compassionate. A bookworm who shares maybe a few of my interests, but is more knowledgeable in areas I’m not too great in (which is pretty much everything but I am interested in astronomy, genetics, physics, and computer science even though science/math don’t really like me). They could listen to me ramble about my story ideas and help me along the way of writing them.

In regards to appearance, I’ve found quite a variety of people attractive, but they get bonus points if they have dark hair, wear glasses, and if their hair is shoulder length or longer (more androgynous or male-aligned folks can get away with it being a little bit shorter).

Also, it’d be great if they know how to drive (I’m still learning), and liking cats is a must, and I’d prefer that they at least don’t hate dogs. And… I think my ideal partner would also be somewhere on the ace spectrum. When it comes to sexual things I like verbal teasing, but I’m usually neutral anything further than plain old making out. For some reason, I’m more inclined towards sexual actions when I’ve gotten comfortable with an allosexual s/o, even though it’s rare that I enjoy it.

Anyway, with all that said, I watched some Criminal Minds the other day, and every time I see even one episode of it… I spend the next few days obsessing over it… and especially Spencer Reid. So… yeah. The timing on the “ideal partner” question has been impeccably chosen.

18. Do you want children?

No, I’m not a fan of kids. I’m always worried about being too tough or too lenient, and I don’t like dealing with gross stuff (I’ll do it if I have to though). I find it unlikely that I’ll ever want kids, but I won’t say it’s impossible. Oh, and I don’t like the idea of going through pregnancy. If I ever do want kids, I’ll be adopting.

19. Do you want a church wedding?

Nah, I’d rather just go to the courthouse in a nice dress with some close friends. That shit is expensive and nerve-wracking.

20. Are you religious?

My answer is actually pretty similar to yours! I’m agnostic, meaning I believe there may or may not be some sort of higher power(s), but for me personally, I would like to think there’s at least something after death. Sometimes I think about it really hard and I get frustrated because I feel like I’m so close to the answer but can’t quite reach it.

Thanks for the ask from this thing I’m linking to in case anyone else wants to have me ramble about myself!

#ask #zanderjerrymander #@zanderjerrymander #rambles

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getinthefunvee · 3 years

Text

mobile-friendly rules

GENERAL INFO

❔ #getinthefunvee

❔ semi-private: will generally only write with mutuals, but very happy to meet new people.

❔ exclusivity: is pre-pubescent and used as a cliquey gatekeeping & ostracising mechanism 99% of the time. I do not practice character or ship exclusivity; I will side-eye you if you do, and I will not tolerate it on my dash, and I will lay the verbal smack-down if I see you using it to bully someone else. I've been playing with some muns for nearly 5 years, and at least one for more than a decade; if anyone was going to be an exclusive, it would be those friends, but exclusivity = possessiveness and it's really, really not the way to roll your adult relationships. Note: if you choose to make me your exclusive Tony for any reason (ie, if you generally hate Tony interaction and want to avoid it, emotional safety reasons, whatever) please give me a heads up. Please be aware that, as stated above, I will not do exclusivity in return.

❔ basic etiquette: human decency is expected. Do not attempt to god-mod (it's so 90s), force-ship, engage in pass-aggro nastiness, harassment, or any other asshattery. Thanks.

❔ Personals et al are very welcome to follow and 'like' RP posts and to reblog non-RP content. Please don't reblog RP threads you aren't participating in; it's creepy, and I will call you out on it.

❔ multi-muse, side & personal journals: I will not follow you back if you run a multi-muse blog or RP from your persona that heavily features muses from fandoms I’m not familiar withl; I really need to limit dash clutter in order to be able to focus. (ADD & autism are gr8 that way.) That doesn't mean I won't RP with you on your multi-muse blog, and I'm very happy to RP with side blogs, but I will not RP with personals.

❔ OCs, female characters, obscure canon characters: This shouldn’t need to be said, but: Yes please! I look for fully-formed characters whose creation you've put thought into; this goes for 'popular' canon characters in equal measure.

❔ crossovers: Please check with me first to make sure I'm familiar with your fandom.

❔ cut your replies: Please cut your replies & repost asks as new posts when replying. (note: this is not the same as 'read mores'; I'm happy to explain the difference.) I will not follow you if you never cut your replies.

❔ You must have rules or, at the very least, your age stated somewhere on your blog. I will always read your rules before interacting, and I ask that you please do the same.

ABOUT THIS BLOG

❕ est Dec 2012

❕ 21 or over for intermittent content which may not always be tagged; I will generally not play with you if you are under 21 as I may not be comfortable writing certain content [because I'll feel like a dinosaur]. I will not RP with anyone under 18 years old, regardless of thread content or your geographical location's 'legal age.' This is not up for discussion, though I'm happy to explain the legal ramifications (for you and your RP partners around the world) of lying about your age. tl;dr I'm not going to jail so you can have smut. Thanks.

❕ safe space: This blog is fiercely inclusive. I make a point of avoiding ableist or bigoted language and terminology. Please come talk to me in chat or send an ask and tell me if I screw up. note: If you ever need to talk about anything, or if you're having a really bad day, I'm here for you & wouldn't want you to feel alone. Seriously. Come talk to me. I do have chat set to mutuals only thanks to the huge influx of spam messages I was getting, but you can always unfollow me after we’re done talking (I won’t be upset) or send me an ask if that's easier.

❕ triggers: I will tag genuine triggers when asked (please don't conflate squicks with triggers). I don't have any triggers, but I prefer not to see child abuse, domestic violence, incest, or pregnancy on my dash; if you regularly include that content, I will generally unfollow. Please see below for a comprehensive list. Triggers will be tagged 'triggery thing tw' and added to the tag dump post.

❕ formatting: usually no fancier than small text +/- 66x66 or 100x100 icon (depending on the size you use), but I will try to match your style. If you need any special formatting to make it easier for you to read, please tell me. I'm very happy to comply.

❕ pre-established relationships: I'm happy to discuss these.

❕ readmores: used rarely, but will always use for explicit dubcon/noncon content & graphic stuff.

❕ memes: generally mutuals only but will always be tagged as 'mutuals only', so if you don't see that, feel free to interact. I do my best to observe reblog karma but don't expect you to; it's all good.

❕ open posts: will be tagged clearly; generally open only to mutuals, sometimes character-specific (will specify in tags).

❕ shipping: multiship; not ship exclusive. Shipping is dependent wholly on muse interaction and never guaranteed. Tony is demiromantic and pansexual; he may or may not be open to poly setups depending on verse. He's experimental, inclusive, and flexible. Got a kink? Bring it. BDSM? He'll want to know your safeword. Three/four/eightway? He's probably into it. That in mind, I'm on the ace spectrum (see below) so mature-content threads aren't going to be that common and will generally, though not always, fade to black.

YES PLEASE

✅ duplicates, multiple 'canon' realities, AUs, cross-fandom, What Ifs

✅ crossovers, especially within Marvel & DC

✅ AUs: love, love, love. Give me your tropey coffee shop AU; better yet, give me your research-worthy Mesopotamian AU, time-travel AU, etc. I'm utter trash for Sentinel!verse (and if you don't know what that is, come at me).

✅ plot-development, complex characterization

✅ conscious, intentional, creative abuse of grammar/syntax

✅ any gender identity/lack thereof; sexual orientation/lack thereof; neurodivergent characters; disabled characters

✅ LGBT, non-cis/het, POC, or other minority versions of canonically white cis straight Christian etc characters

✅ female versions of canonically (cis)male characters

✅ dark, edgy, angsty themes up to and including psychological & physical torture, abuse, and character death

✅ complex and conscientious portrayals of trauma and mental health issues

NO THANKS

❎ self-insertion (omnipotent manic pixie Gary-Stu/Mary-Stu characters make me cringe)

❎ pages of ooc

❎ pages of graphic porn

❎ you RP nothing but smut of a variety that squicks me, such as (below) and don't put it behind readmores: - A/B/O, especially if it involves 'mating'/'breeding', pregnancy (esp cis male or cis female pregnancy), etc. Really major squick; - BDSM that uses an abundance of misogynistic language like 'slut'; 'daddy/mommy' themes; pet play; romanticising unhealthy abusive relationships ('50 Shades of Nope' comes to mind) by framing them as consensual BDSM.

❎ consistent grammar/spelling errors (note: ignore if English isn't your primary language; I’m happy to help if that’s something you want, and I speak a few languages so I might be able to RP in your language)

❎ lots of family/baby/child content

❎ 'child of'/'sibling of' & non-canon family member/friend characters

❎ anthropomorphic, furry, or 'real people' characters

❎ SuperWhoLock, anime

❎ gatekeeping, canon-snobbery, constant negativity

❎ erasure of any minority group (ie male versions of canonically female characters; suspiciously white FCs for canonically POC characters, etc)

❎ messianic anything; proselytizing

ABOUT THE MUN

✩ ari (aka kai), 30s, London (GMT)

✩ working in medicine, re-qualifying for med school entry; usually not around much Tue-Fri due to work (replies are sometimes queued & I'm usually happy to do short stuff like texts during the week)

✩ thoroughly spoken for; married to cap.co.vu (but thanks for asking *fingerguns*)

✩ introvert: very social at times (I tend to 'read' as an extrovert), but I need more distance when out of social energy. Feel free to ask me about this. I will love you forever if you respect the need for space, and will not like you very much if you insta-pounce 10x daily when I've gone quiet.

✩ jewitchy = unrepentantly jewish + low-key hedge witch (observant Reform/Conservative Jew; dash of pagan)

✩ grey-a + demi, greyromantic, as impossibly flirty as Tony Stark

✩ ADD, autism (psa: you can be super direct with me), major depressive disorder, EBS (epidermolysis bullosa), mild anxiety (when out of social energy)

✩ sharp-spoken, sharply-dressed, stickler for punctuation, polyglot, menace to society, method RPer, (mostly) good human being, guaranteed at least 80% carbon-based lifeform, will use elbows on the Tube, well-travelled, great ass (thanks, yoga!), hearts horseback riding, BDSM, dismantling the patriarchy

✩ ask box is always open, Discord available by request, IM/chat is gr8

If you feel like it, send me your favourite trope as a way of letting me know you've read these. I'm not going to ask for any sort of specific symbol, codeword, etc to prove it, but I will presume you have and act accordingly. If you feel compelled to acknowledge any specific parts that jump out at you or query something that doesn't sit right with you, we'll probably be bffs.

#|| mobile links #|| pls don't reblog thank

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musicmanic00 · 5 years

Text

1. Depends. Actual text message. I don't have the emotional capacity to unpack that right now. But the actual last person I texted, through Snapchat, honestly I love her with my whole heart, but she's ace and we've both seen each other naked and it probably wouldn't be weird

2. We are I a weird polyamorous open relationship thing. But I hate her because she's at a Panic! At The Disco concert and I'm not

3. Entirely depends on the drug. Weed who gives a fuck. Acid, go for it. But meth, cocaine, or heroine I'm not about.

4. Eight letters. And I hate it. I hate anything thing me to family

5. Sober, was just a goodbye kiss

6. Yes. Definitely. Some I got but fucked up. Some I should have gone after but avoided.

7. You see that's a deeply personal matter of a close friend and not my story to tell. The second to last message I received was "Not a whole penis" and you'll have to ask for that story

8. Who the fuck knows it's been a lot

9. My front door

10. 6 years ago and hopefully never again

11. Literally whatever liquid I can, that's not coffee

12. My floor, cause you know, it's cosy

13. I'm on the autistic spectrum with sever clinical depression and crippling anxiety, existing is hard with other people. But poly and open and loving everyone is easier

14. I would have walked that day. All my problems would be gone. But I wouldn't have fixed things with someone so who knows. Fixing someone I hurt and who hurt me, or a stable life elsewhere

15. If I'm locked anywhere it's a problem, will lose my mind

16. Sunny and warm it's too cold and dreary in this state for rain to be fun

17. No, and that's weird because its basic as fuck

18. Pajama pants

19. Ummm idk what kinda relationship it could be but who knows

20. A few actually, some romantically, some platonically, and some just want to fuck me

21. Nope, not first, middle, or last names even

22. YOU AINT MY FRIEND IF YOU STRAIGHT! By that I mean everyone's a little queer. They definitely bi af tho

23. Former employer, they weren't capable of humanity

24. I have 6 and need more, SO MANY MORE

25. At least once a day

26. Tiny mutt, had to have some kinda chiuaua

27. Half in, half out. Mainly dry enough to not soak the bath mat completely

28. Nope

29. Seeing as how my body is degrading itself I think I'm old relative to that, but I'm imortal so who the fuck is to say I'm not a tiny spec in the universe

30. I'm bad at talking, text I can do better and easier

31. Absolutely soul crushing terrible

32. Septum omly

33. Warm weather is life and if you choose cold you're insane

34. Emily and Fee mean the world to me and even though they are far away I couldn't imagine life without them. I love them with every fiber of my being

35. Fling or open relationship when I can love everyone I love

36. I'm immprtal and insane, nothing simple about it

37. Got a Snapchat of the song high hopes, but watching TV so not listening to music

38. Yes, I have soul crushing guilt

39. Emily and Fee know most of it

40. Wild crazy adventures for each of them

41. While typing this

42. My life is falling to pieces and I have no job and 5 days to find one before all hope is lost and no way to come back from it

43. I've met them once, but they designed a tattoo that is life or death important to me and they are one of the most important people in my life

44. Pretty sure I answered this but former boss. They are below worthless

45. Depends on who

46. Slightly okay but that's a false hope haha

47. Julie helped me sell things

48. Black with a rainbow dinosaur

49. Not necessarily, like they say things aren't beyond repair but they don't quite grasp the situation

50. Yep

51. Never, they crazy and don't exist sometimes but I don't hate them

52. Yep, took some serious shit to end that crap

53. Not in Ohio, but down south, when you can have a gentle rainstorm that's peaceful and can take a walk in. Up here it's all terrible and gross and you can't even enjoy it from inside

54. I'm an alcoholic so it's hard to judge, tho she does get horny when drunk and I can't handle a high sex drive

55. YEP, tho most usually find out pretty easy

56. So much so, but sometimes my body hurts too much to be comfy

57. Ask me yourself and that's obvious, I'll avoid eye contact till I know you well

58. Most of my friends are non men

59. No but I definitely could, after all I call her my fiance

60. I stopped wearing it everyday but I had some pirate bracelets that I never took off, got some jobs that made wearing them dangerous and never got back into wearing

61. Fuck yes, if the ghosts or whatever Kill me then I'm dead and my problems are gone, if not, I had a fun evening in a haunted house and I love the paranormal. Plus a million dollars to solve ALL my problems

62. Been in relationships that last year's, they were terrible, been in short relationships that were wonderful, all depends on the people

63. Nope, single back then

64. I find it comfortin

65. A cat stretched to get scritches, and was too busy in bliss to notice they we're stepping and fell off the counter, then immediatly upon getting themself back together, jump back up for scritches

66. 22, 23, and 32, those the last one kissed me

67. Do them myself obviously, fuck that money bullshit

68. Idk why but first thing to come to mind was zebra

69. None on my car, they all on my shitty computer

70. Probably lil Wayne, used to like a few Luke Bryan songs but the work dj ruined them

71. Is blackberry still a thing? Android for sure, no apple

72. About a year ago, on a wild adventure

73. Hard pass

74. I think grey, but you can't see them, so many gay and emo flags and posters, plus an octopus tapestry

75. 23

76. Not at all

77. :( No

78. Kjs

79. Nope!

80. South Carolina and the border of Georgia and Florida

81. The moon is gay and witchy

82. Absolutely not haha

83. I hop to never see them again

84. Does pep band count?

85. Into the spiderverse

86. Nope

87. Eithers fine but good like finding heels in men's 15

88. Yeah, how old is this ask chain?

89. I hated my curly hair and spent years keeping it down, not that I'm not against it, it won't curl anymore

90. Ran away but was always captured

91. Any and all, tho haven't swam in over a year...

92. Yessss

93. Nooooo

94. It's complicated

95. CRYING

96. Labor day fireworks show

97. Google pixel has a dope camera

98. Still do sometimes

99. Usually when I drink I am awake until I'm sober

100. Absolutely not 101. Definitely not, but have been with someone who wanted to get pregnant, refused to have sex and got out as fast as possible 102. We R who we R 103. It's a frozen wasteland, too damn cold 104. God no, it's a dumb idea

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