#happened when me being trans was brought up and me being aroace | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

butch-bakugo · 2 years

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Not to be an ass but yeah...

This lesbian was assaulted.... This trans woman was found dead.... Bi women get beat up on trains and are more likely to be hurt by their male partners than straight women..... This trans man died defending lesbians in germany.... These gay men are in camps in russia... This nonbinary person was killed.....

Amazing how you hear about violence aginest gay and trans people but i litterally cant find a single vetted article that shows violence aginest aro/ace pple for "aphobia". Like its always these excuses;

Aroaces face corrective rape! the "corrective rape" was not corrective and happend because the aroace person said no to sex and it was just mysogny because the aro/ace person was afab n would you look at that, the rapist was a cis man. Thats mysogny. Not to mention 80% of aro/ace people are cis women, trans men and afab nonbinary people aka the people raised litterally taught from birth that sex is not something for them to enjoy and they exist to please.

Doctors consider lack of sexual/romantic attraction to be a symptom instead of an orientation! Because lacking the desire for sex and relationships is a hallmark sign of trauma, abuse and mental illness. Its litterally symptom #1 to struggle with sex and commitment when your traumatized and ive litterally never met a not-traumatized aro/ace. I know this because im a traumatized aro/ace and no, "aphobia" isnt traumatic. Honestly, even if your aro/ace as a result of trauma, thats valid, just make sure your healing and that your honest about it.

Well, when i wore my ace pin, someone called me a queer! Thats a sign that me, being cisgender and heteroromantic asexual, am really queer! Experiencing misplaced oppression at the hands of homophobic and transphobic people dosent suddenly make you gay or trans. Also, they dont know what any of the flags mean so why tf would they care that you dont fuck unless its Tuesday? They just assume all little pins with a bunch of colored stripes mean child groomer gay pedo tranny, not demiaroace or wtf ever. They litterally only hate you because they assume you fuck the same gender or dont identify as ur brith sex. Thats it. It also dosent help that you go running around saying "im SOOO gay" and "im such a dirty little queer." When you are neither. When you say ur gay, they are gonna think ur gay. If they know ur cis and het and dont have sex, they dont give a fuck.

Well, your theory falls apart that aro/aceness is mostly brought on by trauma and mysogny when trans women, amab enbies and cis man aro/aces exist! Ok, you still havent disproven my point because 1. transfems and amab enbies usually have gender dysphoria which, speaking from my own experiences, complicates sex and makes it harder. Gender dysphoria is a mental illness and unless you bring to me 5 examples of cis het men who identify as aroace, you dont get to use them as a gotcha. Ive been gay for almost 10 years and ive still never met one, online or irl.

I also never stated that aro/aceness was purely brought on by trauma/mental illness and mysogny, its something that can just naturally happen. Ive just never seen it genuinely happen. Usually the person has trauma/mental illness or is afab or is trans or all three. All of these things, according to proven psychology, can affect the sex drive, attraction and desire for committed relationships.

Thats why every aro/ace you see is either really young and in pain, still healing from trauma or is older and admits to holding on out of spite or admit that its trauma related. There are always gonna be exceptions but unless those excepts make up more than 25% of a thing, im not considering it something totally stand alone. Its also why every ex-aro/ace carries the same story: they identified with it when they were younger and healing from some traumatic shit, they got older and got help, they healed and magically they werent adverse to sex and relationships. That dosent happen with gay pple or trans pple usually. Like 70% of today's aro/ace people are allo 5 years later. If not 5, then 90% by 10 yrs. If not 10, then 99% by 20 yrs.

Its not a coincidence. Adversity towards sex and relationships usually has a foot in the graves of social oppression, trauma/abuse and mental illness. Usually once someone feels empowered by their minority status, heals from their trauma and copes with their mental illnesses, they arnt aro/ace anymore. I speak from experience watching pple i knew when i was 13 go from traumatized and a "romance and sex repulsed" aroace transmasc nonbinary kid who hates allos and gags at sex scenes to being 20 and seeing them all just be ur average bisexual transmasc nonbinary person who kisses and fucks like everybody else. They might throw an arospec or acespec label in their like demi- or -flux but its usally just labels that mean that they are normal person who dosent fuck on sight or isnt always thinking about sex.

Im not saying that every incident of aro/aceness is a result of trauma/abuse, mental illness and bigotry but i am saying that coming to terms with that shit usually makes someone less aro/ace. Im also mentioning how many times ive seen aro/ace people throw out excuse after excuse and label after label that all boil down to telling someone to stop getting therapy and just identify as this because "all labels are vaild and inate to you. You'll always be this." Then they mob you when you get help and openly say your not aroace anymore and ur labled a "traitor" who "wasnt an actual aroace and is just a troll" cause you dare to talk about rhw toxicity and fandomization the aroace communities suffer from. I know this cause im aroace and i dont touch those communities with a 10ft pole. Aint happening. I see a person with a demigreyromantic pin and i turn the other way hopeing to got they didnt see my aro one cause i refuse to talk to pple like that.

The definitions of romance and sex are fluid for a reason and just because you think you dont fit the societal definition of a "average amount of sexual and romantic attraction" dosent mean ur right about society and dosent make you akiocupioangleddemiaroacefluxspike, i promise. All these bajillion labels fall apart the moment you mention that its completely natural for a human's desire for sex and romantic partnership is supposed to fluxuate over the course of your life and multiple things influence it. Im not opposed to microlabels and sexuality modifiers and other things people do in an attempt to find community with others who have the same experiences as them and i never have but what i am saying is that little shit like that dosent oppress you on a societal scale and never has and to think critically about yourself and others to understand that what your feeling isnt always the truth and emotions can betray you.

You arent always a trustworthy person and its always best to make long term decisions on a full stomache, a mid mood, in clean clothes and plenty of energy with enough time to be sure. Quick decisions can fuck you up and the amount of spite and toxicity coming from the aroace communities when you even so much as glance critically at them is worth a few months of deliberation before you go in full speed. Just dont come crying to the normal aroaces when you hit a brick wall 5 ft in and get bombarded with cishet sob stories of people who lost their partner cause they didnt disclose their aroace status, cupcakes and dragons, the gay dads kicked me out copypasta and a bajillion people claiming that their oppressed with their only sources being "trust me bro" and " how dare you question my experiences". If you arnt 100% informed, ur on a hundred blocklists just for mentioning that you dont like the ace flag or some meaningless shit like that.

Trust me, dont bother.

#levi speaks #listen i know the nb community can be irritating and cringey sometimes #i know the trans man community can suck sometimes #but exactly nothing compares to the vitrol and cringe that seeps from the aro ace and aroace communties here #like i dont support cringe culture #but hearing a person whose only oppression is being demiromantic tell me they have it worse than gay people #and the amount of homophobia serophobia and racism youll be smacked with #is re-dick-you-lous #its a crab bucket #you see fully 30 year old disney adults audibly gagging cause of a kiss in a kids movie #and people sayong valentines day is as bigoted as like columbus day #people coming us with apocolypse movies where the virus is sexually transmitted and the herione is aroace #without any sympathy or care for ya know THE AIDS EPIDEMIC #people litterally coining slurs #cause theres no slurs for aroace people #whole blogs dedicated to screaming about lgbt merch that didnt include them #you think im joking #but im litterally not #its insane and i will never associate #i dont even tell pple im aro because of that shit #jesus christ #im more embaressed of being aro than proud #Please let it all just burn down already

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blind-radio-waves · 2 years

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6, 10 and 31

6. What made you realize your current labels fit you?

I don't know, honestly. I never labeled anything until I actually became Host, not even gender wise despite living as a man from like... the age of eight. I knew I was Bi, that one came pretty easy, I don't know if there was a Moment, or I just looked at the past I remembered at the time and went yeah that seems right. Demi was harder. I already spoke a bit on how being Ace was never a thought in my mind while being Author, with unhealthy coping and all that, but it was even a bit hard recovering as Host. The Jims and I didn't talk to much then, and even then, I didn't know they were aroace. I mean, I did, but they didn't tell me, so I pretended I didn't. I do that with a lot of things.

But it was one of those moments of researching, and came across something, I don't remember what, I do know it was something in the library, not too old, but old enough that it brought me question, and it had essentially definitions of various sexualities, and ace caught my eye, simply because I hadn't heard of it past the Jim's being aroace, and even then, I wasn't entirely sure what that was either.

And then it just kind of clicked. I didn't experience that sexual attraction. When I sat down to think, properly, of the people I found attractive, it was never really sexual? It was aesthetic, it was romantic, but in the initial thought, the one moment that sparked the attraction, there was no thought of anything sexual.

Until Mal came into my life and threw a curveball at me. THAT oh boy, was THAT a moment. I then had to do more digging, but if you want that story, this is getting long enough already, and I have two more questions to answer. Essentially, found Demi, realized it fit the new information I had (thanks Mal you bastard) and switched it over. I still call myself Ace a lot, since it's also an umbrella term, and I spent so long with it that I'm still a bit attached.

My gender is an enigma even to me, I just flung the label trans man onto myself and called it a day to be completely honest.

10. When did you realize you weren’t cishet?

I realized I wasn't cis when i was honestly really young, something about being the youngest daughter in the family didn't sit right with me, and I ended up talking to the Jims, and they were honestly really good about it, as good as they could be in the great depression with very little resources or understanding about that kind of thing. I also never really had a Aha moment with my sexuality, it was one of those things that just happened. Author ended up wandering into one of the random bars, got hit on, and was like Well Alright This Is Happening Now. That happened... at some point. The timeline of my life is quite confusing to try and pinpoint things on.

31. A trope about your identity that applies to you?

I mean... I guess for trans man, just, being generally small? I dunno, that's the only one I can think of.

#the host ask blog #god this is long #i can talk about my realization im demi with mal if you want just #this is long as hell already

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wandering-aloneo-o · 2 years

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alright, i forgot to post this and it's been a hot minute since this happened but i think it's too great of a story to just delete so here you go

okay so, it is finals week for me, which means projects, tests, and stress. yay!

anyway, for german we had to make a food thing, say german words, and bring the foods to school tomorrow. seems simple, right?

HA, NOPE NOT AT ALL.

we decided to make meringues, which if you don't know, is somewhat tricky. but we'll get back to that later.

the few weeks prior, me and friend decided that we'll probably have to sleep over to get the baking, recording, and editing all done. slight dilemma though, my dad, who's time i was on (divorced parents, woohoo!) is a bit of a square. and the friend i was doing this with is a trans male, myself being cis female. my dad is against opposite sex sleepovers (and even though im aroace, still understandable) and wasn't entirely sure how to deal with this situation.

now we had brought this up to him a few weeks ago, but only TWO DAYS AGO did he really talk about it and make a decision, which was thankfully a yes. so now we had to decide on a time, which ended up being 1:30pm.

now my friend THOUGHT (this im important for later) he had all the needed ingredients, besides melting chocolate. so on the day of the sleepover, me, my dad, and one of my siblings got in the car to go go go. (friends house is about 45 minutes away)

we went to smiths and got the melting chocolate, and two other things mein vater needed. should easily get there in time, right?

sadly, wrong. my sibling wanted to get a fish, and had made an appointment with some people to pick it up today. well, that's just a few added minutes, right? no, not only was said fish in the OPPOSITE DIRRECTION but it was also 45 MINUTES IN SAID DIRRECTION.

now, i'm a little ticked at this point, since me and my friend had tried to persuade my dad for WEEKS beforehand. but oh well, don't want to make him mad and change his mind.

so we go to get this fish, but on the freeway exit, theres a crash (no one noticably hurt) so we had to go around that. now the sibling is the one with the navigation, and no offence, but sibling is not the best navigator, so we get a wee bit lost for a little while.

now before we were heading to get the fish, we were going to be like half an hour late, due to my dad wanting to take a shower, but just,, not taking it for a bit? anyway, by the time we have this fish, we're going to be. a. hour. late.

is that somewhat inconsiderate of my dad? yes. but was i going to bring it up? no, my goodness no. that funny man when he feels like he's getting attacked has quite a temper.

so we keep driving, and get there at 2:25pm. not great, but what are you gonna do? now my friends family is going to have home roasted chicken for dinner, which takes time, and means we wouldn't be able to start cooking for our project.

dinner was good tho, and me and friend got to carve the chicken which was pretty cool. so now it's some time around 5 or 6, and meringues take about an hour to bake, two to cool, and we have to make and record parts of the process.

we record the into first, it took a few takes, but we got there. now, we needed four eggs, which friend had. the thing about meringues is they are not the easiest to make, as i mentioned earlier.

you only need the egg whites, and if any contamination gets in, INCLUDING A BROKEN YOLK, the you have to completely. restart.

friend has a nifty yolk seperator, so should be easy, done just like that, right? WRONG. we had two done good, but the third yolk broke, ruining the whole thing.

and. we only had. four. eggs.

by now, its like 8:50pm, but luckily a neibour near by has extra eggs, thank god. so we go over, get the eggs, apologise profusely, and go back.

we break another yolk, but we got more eggs than needed, so it's okay.

now we come back to where friend thought he had all we needed. turns out, there wasn't enough cream of tartar. oh dear.

BUT LUCKILY the SAME NEIBOUR also has that soo... back there we go! we finish up with the cream of tartar and bring it back, but friend doesn't want to bother them more, so we leave it on the doorstep.

by now we're tired, we honestly don't care anymore, we just want this done. and because of this, we forget. to add. vanilla extract. which was also one. of our. scripted. steps.

by this time it's too late, we've already funneled the foods, so what do we do? we position the camera so you can't see that the mixing bowl is empty, and we pour that bitch in there.

(this is the point where i had stopped typing)

anyway we cooked the stuff and recorded and ate some and it was good (even without any flavoring lmao)

#it was a struggle lol #but in the end we had fun and got a good grade #and that's all that really matters #food #meringue #school

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purple-demon-comics-47 · 3 years

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30 Days of Autism Acceptance Day 4 - Topics not usually discussed

CW/TW for a bit of capslock usage

I actually did this on the 3rd because i really wanted to talk about these things fnsnsm

April 4th: Are there any topics regarding autism that you feel don’t get discussed enough?

Well, quite a few

1) LOW EMPATHY

At first it doesn't look like a topic not that discussed but honestly the ammount of stuff relating to empathy is made by autistic people with hyperempathy and/or demonizes low empathy and how there's so much of it in representation and how it's bad. And it tires me. I barely have any empathy, it fluctuates between very very very low levels. Only twice in my life i had periods of hyperempathy, every other time it was very low or none. This doesn't make me a bad person and representation of low empathy is not bad, it's just not well represented.

I'll put a link here of a post i made a while ago about this.

Also its very ableist towards other neurodivergencies like psycopathy, besides other autistic people.

Please just stop equating empathy with being a good person and compassion/sympathy with empathy. I do not have empathy but i have a lot of compassion and sympathy. They're not the same thing.

2) Gender/orientation and autism

It's not that unpopular of a topic but i just like hearing other autistic people talking about their relationship with gender and orientation related to autism fjdndms

As for me i don't think it affects my gender and orientation as in "i am aroace/trans/gay because of me being autistic", for me i think it's more like me being autistic brought it up to myself more easier and paradoxically didn't made me realize as soon as i realized. Because i honestly don't care if what i did wasn't for girls or that other people were having crushes and i didn't. Im just vibing. So that didn't made me realize earlier than i did, which is not bad by itself, i think it's good that i realized later because i then had the terminology for my feelings.

And made me realize easier because i already didn't go with societies expectations and didn't care about that so i analyzed my feelings without that much pressure from social expectations, gender roles and social rules.

3) Food

Weirdly enough i don't feel like food is talked as much, when it affects me and other people a lot. It certainly is talked about but it feels weirdly not as much as i feel it should. Maybe because it affects me a lot

I have problems with many foods, some foods i literally can't see as digestible to me (like tomatoes). I literally don't eat any vegetables and stuff besides potatoes, rice and black beans (gotta thank these last two for my country, love ya Brazil~💚💛💙/genuine), i have problems eating lots of meat (like non dry chicken breast, pork, a lot of fish, ORGANS CAN FUCK OFF. I'll hate you forever if you trick me into eating an organ).

This is due to the not seeing some food as food, but also with texture and taste problems. I gag and get nauseous with fat, i can't swallow things with onions very present and noticeable. It's not ARFID, Ive researched it and I'm sure it's not my case, but it also should be talked more about.

And also the whole harassement and guiltripping related to these food problems.

4) How it affects your body

Doesn't happen a lot to me but i saw in some blogs that gastrointestinal issues is quite prevalent between autistic folks. So I'd like to hear more about that and other body funkyness.

I think that's all i have to say

#30daysofautismacceptance #2021 #alec talks #long post #caps tw #caps cw

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catdemontraphouse · 4 years

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I can say this here cuz nobody who uses tumblr seems to vtube nor does anyone seem to know I have this blog save for a few close friends... this has been really bothering me lately and I rly just need to like... air it out like say it and get rid of it. So apologies for the post in advance. Please do not reblog

I’ve been involved in a community called “vtubing” for a little while now. It’s virtual YouTubing, like think Kizuna Ai of AI channel, though she’s produced by a company, while very many of us are indie self-produced content makers. It’s like being a YouTuber but with an emphasis on anime art and emerging tech?

I was inspired to do it out of my own love for video production and comedy. I wanted to have fun while bringing a smile and joy to other people. I know how brutal life can be, and so I think, I want to be happy and have fun and if I can brighten someone’s day even a little while I try to enjoy life, that’s a good thing.

At first everything was quite positive. Ive met some really wonderful people that truly care about the community and their craft. They openly assist and share help with people, they show up to one another’s events to cheer on friends, etc. which is so heartwarming! But here’s the thing....

I noticed from the moment I began connecting with other English speaking vtubers on twitter and YouTube... the Japanese vtubing scene is NOT very similar to the English one. While virtual camgirls and things like that certainly do exist in the JP community, the English community is excruciatingly more geared towards sexual content and there is palpable peer pressure to conform to that mode of presentation. I have no issue with erotic virtual yotubers themselves, I support sex workers’ decisions to conduct business through online virtual methods. In fact I think ProjectMelody, the most successful English vcam girl has a hell of a hustle going!

That said, it’s toxic as FUCK (no pun intended) when the success of vtubers greatly hinges on their willingness to be “lewded” I.e. sexually objectified, playing to particular kinks, etc. I don’t normally tell people I am aroace off the bat. I try to avoid the topic entirely because often it ends poorly when people find out. But I could sense the oppressive aura of toxic “straigtness”TM wafting in the air the minute I joined in on the English vtubing community and stopped being a lone wolf. So I had to put it out there. Yes I felt that awkward about the “lewd” culture that I outed myself to an uber straight presenting community.

There’s actually a decent percent of the folks in our community who are LGBT come to find out, some openly so, while others are closeted. Maybe it’s cuz I have tumblr brain, but it’s just so alienating and weird to never see it brought up. We have openly trans women in our community but nobody ever talks about trans pride or anything. Nobody ever talks about being gay or anything. It’s very odd to me. It’s just a sea of “huhuhu anime boobies huge haha sexist remark objectify women openly some against their will, show me tits and I’ll give cash” literally Simp this, simp that.... shut up? Please?

There’s a really disturbing new trend of increasingly younger and younger girls “debuting” and being lured into potentially dangerous scenarios with money “donations”/ fame within the vtubing and streaming scene. The providers of said benefits seem to use this to try and gain sexual/romantic attention or favors. It’s quite troubling. I can just feel soon this boiling sea of bile is gonna overflow and something terrible will happen. I am concerned for these young girls. Many of the folks who have expressed concern about this are actually men. There are a lot of men who vtube that see these things firsthand and are vocally upset about it.

I’m just really tired of the whole thing. Not only is it creepy, but it’s caused this whole competition/animosity between vtubers who’ve been around a while and are being ignored and these new girls who get literally thousands of subscribers and money donations when they’ve never even uploaded a video yet.

I truly enjoy making content as a vtuber and it makes me happy to know I have brought smiles to so many people and made some rly wonderful friends. I may have to step aside from the vtubing community and go lone wolf again due to this situation. It makes me disappointed because I do really honestly enjoy all the heartfelt moments that do happen every day. But right now there’s just too much awful energy surrounding the whole thing. it’s just so toxic and I need to cut it outta my life and return to making videos alone for only myself and whoever happens to pass by. I do not want to continue to feel uncomfortable and peer pressured, like I’m never gonna change and it’s tiring seeing everyone else scramble to adjust to this new nightmare when so many of them are good people.

There I’m done I have written this solely for the purposes of clearing my mind and I do not expect anyone to read it or care. I am not looking to tackle this problem, I am not looking to incite any kind of reaction. I am just stating how I feel presently. This too shall pass, it’s a waiting game.

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dragonheartetk · 5 years

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So, I wanted to talk about a type of post I’ve seen going around on Tumblr, which has also ended up on Instagram, that is really starting to bother me. It’s the type of post where and aro (often an aroace like myself) is talking about how aromisic the ace community is, and how this aro is done with the ace community and/or is expecting a formal response for the ace community.

And these posts leave me so confused because, that’s not how this works? I’m not going to go up to the lesbian community and demand that they stop being acemisic, because that doesn’t make sense beginning to end. One, there is no way to go up to the entire lesbian community. Even if I managed to contact every lesbian on Tumblr, that still is far from all lesbians. Two, if I somehow magically contacted every lesbian in existence, they still aren’t going to give a unified response. They aren’t the Catholic church, there is no formal “lesbian opinion”. And three, just because I have seen a number of acemisic lesbians on Tumblr doesn’t mean that lesbians in general are acemisic.

The general build of these posts are “The ace community hurt me really badly. These are the things that they do that are hurtful to aro people. I brought these issues to the ace community. They did nothing. Due to this, I’ve written off the ace community (though I still don’t have an issue with aces themselves).”

And while I’ve rarely seen the issues that they talk about outside of posts discussing those particular issues, I can see how unthinking aces could be very hurtful to aros. I happen to exist in a very positive, accepting, mindful pocket of ace culture, but that doesn’t mean that these much less healthy areas of the community don’t exist. I acknowledge this, and as I have been made aware of these issues, I will do my best to educate when I come across this behavior. But it is also important that these aros acknowledge that my part of the ace community exists, also. There are large swaths of the ace community that show so much love and support for their aro siblings.

And it really bothers me when I see people writing them off as part of some systematically bad community. That is simply inaccurate to the ace community. We are a diverse, varied community with so many flavors and views. Stop shoving us all into the same box. Continue to educate, please. And those of us who are worth your time will notice, care, and continue the work.

The ace community has many issues, yes, like every aspect of LGBT+, there is a tendency to ridicule that which is not like us. But that is not our whole community, just as that is not the whole of gay, trans, or any other part of LGBT+.

If you’ve written us all off for the actions of a portion of us, good riddance. I doubt that you would fare so well if judged by the actions of the worst people of the groups that you belong to. (Are you suggesting that the aro community has no issues? That is my community, too, and I can tell you that we have issues.) If you are expecting some unified response from us, you’re delusional. We aren’t an organization, we are a collection of people with a shared trait. You’d have as much luck getting a unified response from Superwholock.

I am sincerely sorry that aces have hurt you. I am sincerely sorry that aces have contributed to amatonormativity. And I will do what I can to fight that. I will not stand by and allow it to happen, should I be witness to it. We are strongest together, so please, join with us as aros and aces have and do so often. I will fight with you, and I will fight for you. And if you write us off, I still will, because I know that you are not your community. Just as I am not mine, and those that hurt us are not their community.

Enmity will help no one. Solidarity has always served us in the past, and it will continue to do so, as long as we allow it.

#ace #aro #asexual #aromantic #aroace #intercommunity issues

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flowisk · 7 years

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6, 17, 18, 28

6. how do you feel how do you feel about pride month?uhh? mixed feelings. it’s nice that there’s a celebration to unite the community, and i like to see people being happy about their identities. the colorful icons are cute. (id be willing to mix up some pride icons for friends with my basic photoshop skills if they want one) seeing people have discussions about the community and their experiences is nice.uhhh i feel i get to see a lot of discourse about my identity which isnt as fun. endless ace discourse when looking up anything related... lots of passive aggressive messages over the course of the month. honestly partially exhausting.but idk i go to an lgbt centre during the month so, they have some activities that are fun? ish? too. a lot of its educational for people outside the community. but there will be a pride march.17. what’s your biggest pet peeve when it comes to lgbtq characterization in media?‘this character’s gay but we’re not going to mention anything about them aside from the fact they’re gay’ ‘this gay character is going to die’ those are both super common.honestly barely any trans representation that isn’t super fucked up. clinging to hourou musuko. what can i even comment about on that?interestingly, i think i’m facing that some of the most diverse representation of queer characters comes from prison shows. although i thank those shows... that spells a problem to me. we have... intersectionality issues.also like, characters gotta be either gay or straight. look: this is actually super common. like if you prove a character has had romantic attraction towards a dude they can’t have attraction towards women or vice versa. like this is sometimes used in the logic of shows themselves? ‘we’ve proved they’re gay/we’ve proved their straight’.also whenever ace shit is brought up it’s like... it’s always brought up with this ‘could someone ever be like that???’ and like. as much as i love the show it comes from, im just remembering when i was watching that show and they pulled out the.... ‘i dont think arthur’s gay... i think he’s A’, not only not, but it gets dismissed right after by his bf going ‘no one’s asexual theyre just confused’... ...we also had that weird stuff with ‘fake lesbianism’ when a character could be bi, as i said (but id have to write paragraphs about that arc). lovely show with a gay character i love dearly but it’s not nice to other orientations haha.18. what’s your favorite parts of lgbtq characterization in media?i like how it’s becoming more nuanced... also like how more openly available to children it’s becoming.like? steven universe? people can complain about w.e issues they have with it. but. as far as openly queer characters? in a show aimed at children? it’s unprecedented. before su we have that joke at the end of paranorman. and like. that joke at the end of paranorman? wasn’t much. but it shocked me when it first happened because mentioning being gay or queer in any way in cartoons is unprecedented unless it’s a disney cartoon staff member coming out of the shadows years later to be like ‘psst that character was gay we just couldn’t show in the cartoon’.man people talk about how pearl’s gay dating episode was a waste, or this or that, but it was just... something fun. something with this certain aesthetic. something... someone being gay and having a wingman to themselves and having other characters encourage them to flirt with someone and. it was? rare. ruby and sapphire, pearl, they’re characters i’d never have seen as a kid and regardless of fandom su make me really happy for that. we now have two gay moms in clarence as well, who are the parents of one of the main kids and that’s also nice? just. more casually queer characters means a lot.i like the spread of queer characters in video games (even if i think they are scared to put queer men in them... video games have an issue with queer men). i like that even video games you might not expect to will sometimes include representation, that i recently played a game with poly pan trans bugs that included an aroace character, that i have gay options in games aside from me creating gay villages in sims like i did when i was little. its uh. nice.i like stories that talk about lgbt stuff and mental health but i find some people want to pull away from that... i think because so often it ends in tragedy. id just like stories that talk about mental health and lgbtq characters in nuanced ways, where the characters live their lives after. but to talk about both of those things is important to me. i see mental health issues reduced to ‘edginess’ lately and i find that uncomfortable.28. what’s the most annoying question you have ever gotten?‘are you related somehow?’ jk jk that ones kind of funnyprobably ace stuff weirdly. like someone at my lgbt centre talking about how he didn’t think ace people could really exist, very authoritatively. and then i talked about it and then he still went on. ‘but how could they really?’uh, ‘do you want a dick?’ some other stuff my mom asks me. parents are p bad about stuff in general tho.

#replies #long post #necromin

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bonesandblood-sunandmoon · 4 years

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Aro Community Wishlist

CoA prompt for Nov 2019 - “Aro Community Wishlists” [Call for Submissions].

A by no means exclusive wishlist:

Resources: For mental health professionals.

Despite previously internally freaking out about disclosure to the intake counselor, I actually stuck with simply answering questions without diving into explanations. I vagueblogged about it, but it would just take a little tweaking to phrasing on their questionnaire to reduce the mental translation.

Q: How long was your last [context: romantic] relationship?

Thanks for assuming that I’ve had one. Now, instead of filling in the amount of time, I have to add an answer the system wasn’t prepared for.

Q: How many intimate [translation: sexual] partners have you had?

Please just cut to the chase if you mean sex because intimacy isn’t exclusively sexual, and I’ll wind up with a different answer than what you’re trying to ask if I pick apart what an intimate partner means. (My first thought was emotional intimacy after having a question where I had to answer if I had someone “as a support”, but I can overshare emotional shit with far more people than I’ve “been sexually intimate with”.)

I would also appreciate if I knew I could mention quoi, greyro, or the aro spectrum in passing without needing to walk the therapist I’ll be assigned (for the actual counseling) through basic terms. I made a point of asking for an LGBTQ-aware therapist in order to hopefully avoid that for basic trans terms, but I honestly don’t know what they’re going to know yet.

Resources: For other health professionals.

It kind of depends on the area in question if a medical person really needs to grok a-spec identities or could get by with introductory knowledge, but if someone’s intake questionnaire only asks me about sexual orientation, I would ideally like to know they’d understand my answers if I were honest. This whole five answer deal doesn’t give me a lot of faith - 1) Hetersexual, 2) Homosexual, 3) Bisexual, 4) Other with space to write in, and 5) Choose not to disclose. I must admit that I wouldn’t really expect every medical specialist to ask, but if I have to get referred to someone dealing with sexual health, I really wish someone could offer them some training or something.

(Please not that I used ‘a-spec’ on purpose here. I know aros don’t want to be lumped in with aces while forming a separate community, but if we’re talking about updating that intake questionnaire and general awareness, someone should also be brought in to cover the ace part. As much as the split attraction model isn’t helpful for some a-spec people, it provides a quick way to explain why anyone is even trying to talk about aromanticism when the question was about sexual orientation. And fixing the gender choices under that section (also vented about). Like, thanks for the attempt, but please, actually do the LGBTQIA+ friendly thing right.)

Intra-Community: If general aro spaces are set up to be romance free for the romance-repulsed, what do the romance-confused do?

It’s where the quoi in the greyro/quoi really shines through, but I struggle with how I’m supposed to warn for romo [link] or contribute to something like RomoAlert [link]. Granted, some of these questions are community level works in progress, but when romance is a nebulous, ‘red-orange, qamuSHa', 4i’ situation, it can come across like it’s horribly easy to set off romance-repulsion and make fellow aros uncomfortable. [qamuSHa' means “I love you” in Klingon, which is being used as ‘language I assume the reader also does not know’ in the metaphor.]

Intra-Community/Subgroup: So . . . those quoiromantic folks?

It’s one thing to opt out of interacting with specific romance-repulsed users, but if I extend non-interaction to general aro spaces, I wouldn’t really have much of an aro community to interact with. It’s possible that spaces that make room for romance-favorability might be easier to navigate because I won’t be setting of someone’s repulsion on accident, but that doesn’t really solve the larger issue of how to handle quoiromantic interaction within aro spaces. (Not to mention that romance-favorability is sometimes talked about as if it’s a small, confusing, practically mythical section of the aro community, so telling quoiromantic people to just go hang out with the romance-favorable aros doesn’t actually come across as helpful.)

At least on tumblr, there’s a lot of pride merchandise and including quoi in aro-spec lists, so I’m writing from the assumption that quoiros are supposed to be included in the aro community. (See “(What) does the aro community want (with) quoiros?” [link] for a more uncertain take.) I’m not entirely sure where else people who don’t jive with romantic attraction, don’t understand it, and may not be able to differentiate it from other forms of attraction are supposed to go. Maybe quoiros could chill with the idemromantics, some of the nebularomantics, who knows how many others. *shrug* But, like, what will the aro community do?

I’m not saying that quoi/greyro people like myself should take over the limelight and be the focus of general aro resources, but sometimes, there’s a feeling akin to thinking your carpool group will remember you (you have a designated seat in the back and everything) only to realize that they’re rushing to your location because the driver forgot you. I don’t want to become the driver of the carpool just so I’ll get remembered, y’know? Mostly, I don’t want to feel like an afterthought that’s inconveniencing others with last minute accommodations, or something along those lines.

Subgroup: Aros who may experience hypersexuality.

I know I’ve seen acknowledgement (#positivity), but that doesn’t feel the same as actually addressing hypersexuality. Hypersexuality is talked about separately from allo/ace as self-identifiers because it’s not a sexual orientation, so a hypersexual aro may be allosexual, asexual, gray, demi, etc. However, when it comes to how aro community spaces are talked about, discussions of sex and sexuality can get roughly sorted under alloaro, so it’s likely a hypersexual person of any sexual orientation will utilize alloaro resources unless sex related discussions are not designated as happening in solely alloaro spaces.

~ Do aroaces want their own spaces for any discussions of hypersexuality in the aro community? Do they want to utilize ace community spaces? What about aros who aren’t comfortable with and/or don’t use the allo/ace division? I’m honestly not sure, but the impression that any aro who needs a space that allows sexual discussions is an alloaro means the seemingly common reassurance that alloaros aren’t “using” or manipulating sexual partners can fall flat.

Now, I am *not* saying that all hypersexual people, across the board, do in fact use and manipulate people, but it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see how hypersexual aros can be portrayed as an example of a negative stereotype or be misinterpreted as attacking alloaros if they come in with questions or concerns about manipulating people.

~ How do hypersexual aros balance talking about negative symptoms/side effects/episodes, which may for example involve impulsively hooking up, with the need for alloaros to have an environment that’s affirming of such experiences?

~ How do hypersexual aros balance talk of management tactics (celibacy, reducing sexual encounters, etc.) with pushback that a less than welcoming attitude is bringing in sex negativity, or accusations that an ace is trying to take over the conversation?

Hypersexuality doesn’t always manifest as partnered sex, but it’s the most immediate example that I can think of that intersects with common alloaro talking points. Also, I must admit that I’m not 100% sure to what extent flirting and romantic impulsivity are tied to allo-allo expressions of hypersexuality (in which starting a new romantic relationship is tied up together with the sexual impulsivity), or romantic impulsivity is a possible manifestation of hypersexuality that’s not separated out in most resources.

(It’s only been through brief mentions in personal perspectives from others describing their (hypo)mania that I’ve seen some specificity about romantic impulsivity (focusing on flirting), but I’m not aware of any of them being on the aro spectrum. I’m also not sure how separate this may be for others who experience hypersexuality.)

#My writing #aro spectrum

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