#the reason I identify as aro and bi is that I am on the aroace spec and don’t like using micro labels | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yardsards · 2 years

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being trans makes you lgbt. But being aspec doesn’t. If you were cis, straight, and not dating someone who’s trans or otherwise lgbt, you wouldn’t be part of lgbt. It’s more of a descriptor like calling yourself a girl or a boy, not that you would. Being ace and trans or ace and bi or ace and gay would keep you in lgbt. But being just ace or aro isn’t quite as qualifying as a lot of aspec think it is. Unfortunately We’ve seen a lot of aspec people say things against trans and gay from perspective that cannot truly give them say. Unfortunately we’ve seen aspec admit to believing in “drop the t” while screaming acecourse and wanting to stop feeling oppression. A lot of the problems with acecourse are that aspec still receive worlds more respect and validity from outside communities because from those outside perspectives at least they aren’t gay or trans degenerates and perverts. We believe this is the true reason acecourse garnered a cringe history, because it was playing with the fact that straight people were identifying themselves as ace to put themselves within the community because it was in fact trendy and all of a sudden they could reap the benefits of attention coming with being seen as valid by a large part of the tumblr community, while also spreading hate and opression and preaching drop the t or claiming transmed arguments against a community that actually deserves support. Read or don’t it’s all good, but have a nice day regardless

i'm probably wasting my time replying to this but i'm gonna go over some of your points in case you're actually willing to learn. i may come across as angry at times, but i am just so tired of this kind of thing and i struggle to express myself with complete calmness and patience in regard to this kind of thing:

"being trans makes you lgbt. But being aspec doesn’t."

you don't get to tell me which parts of my identity are queer and which ones aren't. i have the lived experience of being trans. i have the lived experience of being aroace. using that knowledge and those experiences, i can wholeheartedly tell you that they are equally queer identities. i identified as aroace before i identified as trans, and i was just as queer in that period as i was after i realized i was also trans.

"If you were cis, straight, and not dating someone who’s trans or otherwise lgbt, you wouldn’t be part of lgbt."

okay this is gonna veer off topic from the ace thing but I just gotta say: WHAT??? you think dating a trans person makes you part of the lgbt community??? if a completely straight man dated a trans woman, that would not inherently make him lgbt: to say otherwise is to imply that his girlfriend is not a real woman and that is, y'know, pretty transphobic. jesus christ.

"But being just ace or aro isn’t quite as qualifying as a lot of aspec think it is."

who are you to come up to me and say you know our experiences better than we do??? who made you the expert on what it's like to live as an aspec person???

it's very ironic that you are talking about what you think our experiences are without actually having the perspective of what it's like to be us, immediately before claiming that we do that to the rest of the queer community.

"Unfortunately We’ve seen a lot of aspec people say things against trans and gay from perspective that cannot truly give them say."

this is not unique to aspecs; unless you are somehow every single lgbtq+ identity all at once, there are gonna be some experiences you don't understand and can't speak on. like, cis gays say shit about trans people despite not knowing what it's like to be trans all the fucking time. and some of them are, in fact, extremely fucking transphobic! you would (hopefully!!!) not say that all lesbians should be kicked out of the queer community just because some individual lesbians are terfs; after all, why should an entire orientation be kicked out the community just because a few assholes happen to also use that label?

"Unfortunately we’ve seen aspec admit to believing in “drop the t” while screaming acecourse and wanting to stop feeling oppression."

again, a few shitty individuals does not mean an entire orientation is bad. and honestly i saw A LOT less transphobia from the ace and aro community than i did from cis gay men and lesbians. and many of those shitty "ace people" were very obvious troll blogs but yinz were too blinded by your search for reasons to hate us that you missed it. this is not to say there weren't ANY shitty ace people, because every label with more than a few dozen people using it is gonna have some horrible people, but this problem was not uniquely bad in the aspec community.

"preaching drop the t or claiming transmed arguments against a community that actually deserves support."

(lumping this one in with the previous two) again, in my anecdotal experience, the aspec community actually tended to be more accepting about that kind of shit than a lot of the general lgbt community was. a lot of cis gay people were transphobic and a lot of binary trans people were transmeds/hated nonbinaries (and again! this does not mean that gay ppl and binary trans people are bad! a few assholes does not make an identity bad!). asexuals, aromantics, nonbinaries, (and sometimes bi/pan/etc. people) were often all lumped together as cringy trendy tumblr identities and spat on by the rest of the community. i, in my anecdotal experience, saw very few ace inclusionists (let alone actual asexuals) be shitty about nonbinary people. almost all of the transmedicalists i have come across have also been exclusionsists.

"A lot of the problems with acecourse are that aspec still receive worlds more respect and validity from outside communities because from those outside perspectives at least they aren’t gay or trans degenerates and perverts."

show me where the fuck that respect and validity is. cuz i sure as hell haven't received it. i've been told i was going to hell for "ignoring gods plan" because i didn't plan to get straight married and produce children (and this was before i realized i was trans!). i tend to hide my sexuality from bigots just like i hide my gender, but sometimes i bare myself to the wrong people and i get backlash for BOTH of those things, treated like i'm broken or a freak or degenerate. and you might say "but doesn't the bible encourage celibacy?" but the thing is, most bigots don't actually care about what their holy text says and really just use it as an excuse to persecute minorities that they already find repulsive.

"because it was playing with the fact that straight people were identifying themselves as ace to put themselves within the community because it was in fact trendy and all of a sudden they could reap the benefits of attention coming with being seen as valid by a large part of the tumblr community, while also spreading hate and opression"

straight people can also just straightup lie. like, a cishet girl could log on here and pretend to be a bisexual trans woman and no one could prove that wrong. it's the internet. lying like that to spread hate would actually be A LOT easier than claiming to be an identity that was already facing scrutiny. like, asexuality is not the only orientation a cishet person could call themself online.

not to mention how similar a lot of your sentence sounds to the shit people have said about nonbinaries. i lived through the "nonbinaries are just cis girls lying for attention" era on here. this is a recycled argument.

-----

read this and take it to heart. then read some of the notes of that post and listen to the aspecs there talk about the bigotry they have faced, both offline and online, from lgbt+ people and from cishets. don't act like you know our experiences better than we do.

#eliot posts #aphobia #acephobia #asexual #aroace #trans #nonbinary #transphobia mention

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genderqueerdykes · 1 year

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Questions about sexuality - and romance alignments -a lot of labels come off like, they don't so much ascribe to a truth so much as a perception+box. But that makes it really hard to figure out what labels to use. Like; for a lot of people, aroace means zero sexual and romantic attraction - and I don't see a lot of people treating it as a spectrum. But for me, I've only ever been sexually+romantically attracted to my gf and her system - no one else. Am I aroace? And then there's demi, but I don't see that used as much. And I'm bi-oriented? Or should i just say bi? Is specifying polyamory too much? I question and doubt every label because I worry about misunderstandings and exclusionism. Mainstream definitions seem to be getting more rigid in who can use them. I was excited to discover m-spec lesbianism before I saw a lot of conversations about "men invading". The way the binary genders are viewed are also very strict. It's a bit overwhelming.

it can definitely get overwhelming at times, i get that! i'm sorry to hear it's been frustrating to research

i think the biggest thing to keep in mind is the boundaries on most identities are not quite that rigid. for a lot of people, aroace can mean 0 attraction, but for many it's used to denote that they're on the aro- and acespectrums, which includes a very wide variety of experiences. i'd also like to say demiromantic and demisexual are very popular terms, and are used very widely, i think the reason they're not seen quite as much at the current moment is because a lot of people aren't as open about it due to a lot of extremely violent aroacephobia from a few years ago. it's been hard for the aroace community to find a footing and it's unfortunate, because the experiences are varied and valid

also ignore any and all rhetoric involving "men invading" lesbian spaces, it's rad fem / t erf rhetoric and it's not worth your time. men are allowed to be in lesbian spaces, lesbians are allowed to identify with male genders, lesbians are allowed to date men, and lesbians are allowed to be attracted to multiple genders, lesbian does not have to be an exclusive identity. i am an m-spec lesbian, myself =) it has never been and will never be a bad thing to be a bisexual, polysexual, pansexual or other multisexual identity lesbian. bi lesbians have been around as long as the community has. lesbians can and do have a wide variety of experiences with sexuality, gender and attraction

things are very confusing at first, but i think eventually the bubble will burst, so to speak, in your mind and you'll have that moment where you realize it's okay if you play with the boundaries of things a little bit. queerness is at its core about pushing the boundaries of what we are societally taught to believe is the "correct" way to go about relationships, and it's okay if you don't fit 100% into a rigid textbook definition of something that can be neatly laid out on paper. you are a person with nuance, and it's okay if your labels have nuance as well

hope you're able to figure things out, identity is confusing and whenever you read about labels online, they can seem like very strict boxes you have to put yourself in. whenever you meet people who identify with these things and see how their identities present, though, those lines become a lot softer, and often times harder to see, and that's a good thing. take care of yourself, good luck in your journey

#asks #answers #questioning

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bisexualsdeservebetter · 2 years

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bi aroace anon here.

so, I think you misunderstood how I identify; I am a bi-oriented aroace, as I do not experience romantic or sexual attraction and my tertiary attractions (mostly aesthetic and alterous) are bi in nature. within the aroace community, those of us who experience tertiary attraction in a specific gender-related pattern are known as oriented aroaces, thus we have homo-oriented aroaces, hetero-oriented aroaces, and bi-oriented aroaces.

favorable/neutral/averse are “sub-labels” of sorts, which clarify my comfort with/willingness to partake in romance or sex. essentially, favorable means “I’d like to date/have sex”, neutral means “I’d date/have sex if my partner really wanted to, or to relieve stress, or because I want the experience”, and averse means “I’d never date/have sex”. these sub-labels are mainly used in the aro and ace communities, but they can be applied to anyone, regardless of sexuality. and regardless of what sub-label I fall under, I’m still aroace because I don’t feel romantic or sexual attraction. I will never look at someone and thing “oh, I want to date/f*ck them” but I might be alright with have sex for other reasons, which I mentioned above (partner wants to, stress relief, curiosity). even sex-favorable people can be ace; they’d be the ones having sex because it feels good, or it’s fun, or it makes their partner happy. and I don’t think it should be at all a debated point that people can have relationships, particularly sexual ones, without necessarily being attracted to their partner, regardless of whether or not they’re ace, or straight or bi or gay or lesbian.

neptunic is similarly a sub-label, because it only serves to clarify what “kind” of bi my attraction is, that being (aesthetic and alterous) attraction to those both the same (unaligned nonbinary people) and different (femme-aligned nonbinary people and girls) from me (genderfluid, which I consider an unaligned nonbinary identity). so my attraction fits the definition of bi (both homo (same) and hetero (different)) but excludes some hetero attractions (to boys and masc-aligned nonbinary people) and neptunic is just a term to convey this concept in fewer words. I can understand how you might dislike it because of its similarity to micro-labels and such, but in the end, my attraction is still bi and neptunic is just a further descriptor (a rough equivalence would be that the sentences “the blanket is soft” and “the blanket is soft and fluffy” are not mutually exclusive, just like “I’m bi” and “I’m bi and neptunic”; it’s more descriptive, but neptunic is inherently bi, just like fluffy is inherently soft)

regardless of sub-labels, my (tertiary) attraction is bi and I’m aroace. thus, I am a bi-oriented aroace, who also happens to also be romance-averse, sex-neutral, and neptunic.

I wanted to clarify this because it seemed like you didn’t understand that aroaces can still experience attraction (which can be hetero, homo, or bi) and that people have sex without attraction all the time (and that has no bearing on their sexuality). if this makes you rethink your position on whether or not I’m part of the bi community, cool, but I’m not trying to change your mind; I just wanted to correct a misunderstanding/clarify what I was saying

sending love 💕/p

Look I appreciate your effort here but I think you and I fundamentally disagree on a lot of things. You're not bi, bi is attraction regardless of gender and you've said yourself that doesn't describe you. I do not support micro labels of any sort, I don't think you're actually asexual, and I don't really buy into the split attraction model.

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itsoktocallmegay · 6 months

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(Redo of my entry post, will edit and re-edit when I feel like it.)

Name Collection: June/Penny/Hunter/Moth/Gabriel/Trixie/Ace/Aro/Peachie/Pear/Sapphy/Sky/Tempest/Luna/Sunny/Celeste (This isn't my full collection, just what I'm most comfortable sharing. Know this will be forever changing, but I will try to update it when I can. I'm trying these out, so please bear with me here.)

Pronouns: He/They/Xe/Fae/Doe/Fawn/Pup/Cat/Bun/Crow/Star/Cloud/Luna/Night-Nocturne/Pear/Peach/Honey/Rose/Aro/Ace/Imp/Moo/Berry/Shark/Void/Chaos

Preferred Terms: My preferred honorifics are Mx. (pronounced mix) and Mistrum. I am most comfortable being called Boy/Girl/Enbian/Xenbian. I prefer not to be called Dude or Bro. Calling me A dude is ok, it just feels different for me.

Alterhuman: I am questioning whether I’m Alterhuman in some way but am having trouble finding info on alterhuman identities that aren’t Therian and Otherkin. Currently I identify as demihuman and Copinglink. Personally, I feel that a lot of my relation to being alterhuman is trauma related, but I’ve always felt a connection to being nonhuman from a young age, so it’s hard to pinpoint where one begins and the other ends. I do experience species dysphoria on some level, I think, and I do identify with some aldernic terms that my dysphoria relates to. I am still new to alterhuman identities and other labels related to that, so this is subject to a lot of possible updates in the future. I’m not sure if I want to keep up with my alterhuman identities on here.

Gender: I currently identify as Rozurfluid, Genderfloren, Genderslyphen, and Fluidflux for the most part. I am usually multigendered and ID with the term boygirl as well. I am more comfortable IDing as a Nonbinary Boy and Nonbinary Girl than using the terms Man or Woman for myself. I do consider myself on the Agender spectrum and identify a lot of my girl-aligned genders with being more agender-aligned. I have been considering using the term Gxrl for that reason. My boy-aligned and girl-aligned genders do not always feel masc or fem-aligned in the typical ways, and I feel like a fem-aligned boy and a masc-aligned girl usually. I usually ID as a Rosboy and an Azurgirl at the same time. I am also Aprogenderspec and at times feel full of gender but removed from most other gender alignments. This could fall under Anonbinary, as well as my xenogenders, but I am exploring that label a bit more before I fully identify with it. I also collect a lot of xenogenders but will not be keeping up with those on here. I typically consider myself to be androgynous in some way, shape, or form since I feel a weird mixture of genders, lack of gender, and fem/masc-alignments at the same time (the exact mixture changes sometimes also.) My NDs do affect my gender a lot, so I do ID as Nuerogender as well. This also goes into why I ID as Traitblur, being that my personality also affects my genders a lot (most specifically my xenogenders.) I am considering identifying as abrogender as well because I relate to the term a lot, but either way, I will still identify with the other terms I have been identifying with.

Mspec Orietation: I am Mspec and ID as both Bi and Pan because I feel a connection to both terms personally. I am a questioning Abrospec as well and am still trying to figure out that part of myself atm. Because of my multigenderedness, I ID with the terms DiamSapphillean, Achilligirl/Turigirl, and Sapphboy as well.

AroAcespec Orientation: I am on the Aspectrum and am a Partnering, Heartless Romo Arolovic AroAce. I am Romo favorable, Sex Ambivalent, Touch Ambivalent, Platonic Ambivalent/Favorable, and QPL favorable. I Also ID as a Grey-AroAce/Angled AroAce/AroAcespec and do experience some romantic and sexual attraction, though neither are typical attraction and are very hard for me to discern from platonic or aesthetic attraction, etc. at times. My relationship with attraction is very complicated, so I mostly ID as AroAcefucked-weird. I am also AroAceflux and both fluctuate between Aspec identities and from Allospec to Aspec (I am not sure I ever feel fully Allo however.) At times I feel DemiAroAce or ReciproAroAce and do consider myself on those spectrum at times. I ID as CupioAroAce and BambiSapphic AroAce as well.

Tertiary Orientations: I am still questioning on most of my tertiary attractions, but I have been thinking more about it lately. Currently I ID as Pan-Platonic/Pan-QPL but am questioning Omni-Platonic/QPL as well. I also ID as Pan-Aesthetic. I am also questioning whether I am on the Aplatonic Spectrum as well because I have a complicated relationship with the platonic attraction and referring to others as my “friends.” Atm I am questioning if I am Demiplatonic or ReciproPlatonic or Aplatonicflux? I mostly ID as Pan/Omni Sensual (I’m still questioning on which one,) but I do think I’m on the Asensual spectrum. I feel like I mostly fluctuate between Orhcidsensual/Cupiosensual/Demisensual/Asensualflux?

Relashionship Orientation: I ID with relationship orientations more than lifestyle, and I will admit that I have little relationship experience outside of my current one and have never had multiple partners before, so my polyam orientation is mostly in theory and still have a lot of things to sort out life-wise. I currently ID as Ambiamflux and PolyAffectionate. I am open to QPRs and am considering being open to other relationship types like Soft Romo relationships or Waverships.

Disabilities: I am not sure how many physical disabilities and neurodivergencies I have, but I will list these: Autism, ADHD, OCD(idk what types,) Severe Generalized Anxiety(I don't remember if Social Anxiety is a diagnosis,) and Depression, and multiple Phobias(phobias like thalassophobia for example, I'm not going to list all of my phobias.) I also have 8+ Allergies, including food allergies, Polyarthritis, TMJ, and PMDD. I also have Parasomnia. I'm not sure what exact sleep disorder I have, but based off of my symptoms, I definitely have one. There are other disorders I am trying to figure out if I have them or not, but I am unable currently. I was not properly informed about my diagnosis and was diagnosed young for some of these, so I do not know exactly what I have and may also have undiagnosed disorders.

Credit for my profile pic: https://potato-lord-but-not.tumblr.com/

Link to Picrew I used for my profile pic: https://picrew.me/en/image_maker/1473879

#intro post #long post #text post #redo of intro post #lgbtq #my pronouns #name collection #label collection #my orientations #my genders #pinned post #my identity is complicated and forever changing so please don’t expect consistency here

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nasturtiumsforbreakfast · 7 months

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If it’s not too personal a question, how did you realize you were aro?

I realized I was aspec a while back and thought it was clear cut asexuality, but I find myself much more inclined to the idea of sex than romance (ik aces can want sex but my ideal relationship is like, best friends who have sex which seems pretty aro)

Most of the time it doesn’t bug me to not know if I’m arobi or acebi but I love to hear from other aros how they found their identity!

Hello!

Of course it's not too personal! (I post far more personal things here than "how did you figure out you were queer" haha)

Very similar to how you say here, tbh, simply

This might get long, so here's a readmore

As a teenager, at first I thought I don't like the idea of doing the same as everyone around me, all that pairing up, y'know - I didn't know about the split attraction model (is it still called that?) then, and I'm still working on my body image issues a decade later tbh, so I thought - don't like the idea of penetrative sex + don't want PDA, must therefore = asexual aromantic

Then I um "had an experience" with my best friend at the time, who came out that week (after) as a trans man - years before I knew that of myself - so then I thought, Oh! I do like sex! - or at least, y'know, fully clothed making out that made me cum. Uh. So, I can't be ace?? But I'm still not sure about the "sex with men" bit (I was 16/17 at this point, and not very uhhhh knowledgeable) and I still don't want to date someone, and women are ????, soooo, still aroace, right? (I didn't have a word for it til I was 18, at that point I think I said to myself something like "I just don't fancy anyone")

Then I looked into it a bit more, found out about AVEN, and all the different names for all sorts of things - I forget most of them now, but there's a one where you like um like masturbation or uh doubles-in-theory but not in practice? And I thought, Ah, that sounds like me!

Through all of this I'm also slowly figuring out my gender, too (??? -> must be a girl, right? -> no? -> no! -> genderqueer -> transman -> (now) agender transmasc) and sort of flopping about going "is it that I don't like sex or that I don't like my body?" and while I do sort of have the answer to that one now (do like sex, don't like penetrative really, working on the 'liking my body' bit, have not had the opportunity to try "doubles" so the jury's out on that one) um. I've forgotten where that sentence was going okay new paragraph

Anyway somewhere there with the "lots of new words" thing, I realised like if uhhh if the pressure's off y'know, if I'm kinda allowed to think about stuff just in theory, instead of um. thinking about it in practice? that's not a thing. idk the word. Anyway, I found myself a bit more freedom in thought, and realised that, oh, actually, I am bisexual (in the way most people use pansexual, nowdays, but I like bi better as a word, idk - this realisation is only sometime in the last 2, 3 years, tho I've been calling myself queer for simplicity's sake for about 8, 9 years)

During all this, I haven't had the opportunity much for "romance", not that I want it - or, at least, I didn't want it with those specific people, and haven't found myself daydreaming about anyone else, so while I identify as aro and can't really see that changing, I spose no one can see the future (unless that's the amatonormativity speaking)

Basically my two oh three actually experiences have been

- best friend snogging, I moved country that week, he came out to me on facebook messenger and I said "you do you" basically cs I didn't know what else to say, and then we texted as friends for 6 months or so

- friend from work asked me out to dinner and I didn't know it was a date until he insisted on walking me to the train and kissed me on the cheek to say goodbye, and then I had a panic attack on the way home overthinking everything I'd done

- friend (aroace) asked me out over lunch and I said yes cs I couldn't see a reason not to, spent the day at their house holding hands and being introduced to the online polycule (what!! Obviously fine but uh quite a lot), went home, panicked, spent three days overwhelmed with the windowblinds closed and then texted them to say 'sorry but no thank you :(' (paraphrasing) but we still are alright friends I think

Uhhhh so maybe it's uh maybe it's all that ^ or maybe I am aro, but right now, and for all of my past, relationships don't really appeal to me, I can't imagine that like applied to my life and I don't want to - so I'm aro! I feel comfortable and happy with the word as it applies to me, y'know

I explain it to my mother as like "it sounds like too much fuss", and she's just divorced so she laughs and agrees, and it is basically true, really haha

I don't know how much that's helpful, but there you go anyway

I say anyway too much. Hm. Anyway. Bye.

#asexuality #aromantism #ace #aro #whyyyy does the readmore keep moving ffs

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cerulean-chanterelle · 1 year

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hey gang! first post about my thoughts on sex and romance in this aro-ace blog! first lesson of the blog is:

what is attraction?

now this is extremely central to pretty much everything else im going to teach you about my experience, so let's get into it first and foremost!

romantic attraction:

romantic attraction is how romantically interested in someone you are. how much you want to date someone and spend romantic, intimate time with them. as an aromantic, i have no romantic attraction to anyone. this was originally quite confusing, as feeling indifferent to both men and women meant that i held them in equal romantic regard (nothing) which misled me onto believing i may be bi or pan.

generally however, i felt like i was more attracted to women. this was in fact: gender envy! (and a whole can of worms I'm not getting into in this post lol)

generally, having no basis for romantic attraction meant that i thought that totally platonic relationships *must* be romantic, because what else could they be?

turns out that all my "crushes" were just 'squishes'. a platonic term meaning i mistook my wanting to be ppl's friend as wanting to date them (cringe)

sexual attraction:

sexual attraction. woah boy.

sexual attraction is how sexually attracted you are to someone. how much you desire sexual interaction with them, and how much you are comfortable around them sexually. (guaranteed you can be super sexually into someone and still uncomfy with actual nakedness/sex because of any number of reasons)

as a sex-repulsed asexual, i do not experience sexual attraction. however, some asexuals, generally alloromantic asexuals (alloromantic and allosexual meaning the opposite of aro/ace. i.e experiencing those attractions), still have sex. this can be from reasons including feeling intimacy to a partner, to seeking sexual stimulation, to even something as simple as fun exercise.

as a sex-repulsed asexual, the idea of having sex with anyone is mentally and physically repulsive to me. now, you may take this as some form of immaturity, and in fact many asexuals are often infantilised because of their identities. put simply, this is bullshit. in fact, i am quite literally the kinkiest person i know (a bag of worms we will open later) and am incredibly open and comfortable with sexual topics and media (hence me making a blog to talk about sex lol).

as an aro-ace, i was first introduced to the idea of aromanticism, which i instantly identified with. this came with some fear on my part that i was aromantic allosexual, and was some shallow sex-crazed whore who didnt love people. looking on it with any amount of diligence, i realised almost immediately that i in fact wasnt even sexually into people. however, allosexual aromantics do exist and are totally fucking valid, so old me was dumb lol.

aesthetic attraction:

oh boy im trying to keep this first one short so my whole sexual experience isnt boiled down into a single barely legible post, but its hard lol.

aesthetic attraction is quite literally how much you like how someone looks. it can apply to anyone, even those you aren't romantically or sexually attracted to. this is (and absolutely was in my case) sometimes confusing for aros, aces, and aroaces because it seems like the aesthetic attraction you get is probably this romantic or sexual thing you've heard so much about even if u totally don't get it.

for me realising the ways that aesthetic attraction differed from romantic and sexual attraction was literally life changing. it was my 'oh shit' moment for my asexuality.

welp, thats post one of this blog! next up: libido and why aroace ppl still get horny!

#aromantic #acespec #sexuality #aroace

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sosoane1 · 1 year

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Are you a sapiosexual?

No... yes? Im not really sure🤷

I've never put much thought into micro lables :/

So that means its time to over share and breakdown my attraction as precisely as i can! Under the cut because this is very long.

I generaly identify as Pan oriented aroace with a preference for woman (also i saw between sex indifferent and sex positive), but i tell people im asexual panromantic because its easier to explain and i dont owe anyone a breakdown of my sexuality.

But now ive done a bit of google and can break it down a little further:

I think i belong somewhere between Cupiosexual (doesn't have sexual attraction but does desire sexual action) and Aegosexual (someone who experience a disconnect between then and the subject of arousal). Both seem close enough to what i feel, and like i said i never put much thought into it so 🤷🤷

Im not entirely comfortable calling myself aromantic because i do feel romantic attraction but i still identify strongly with the community. Its only under the orianted aroace that ive started to realized that i might be under the aro spectrum. So i guess i identify with grayromantic (rarely feels romantic attraction) and quoiromantic (cant difference between romantic attraction and other attractions). But like i said i dont strongly identify as aromantic, i do have romantic attraction.

Okay so that was for all the stuff im not attracted to haha, for what i am attracted to which was your original question:

Sapiosexual, yes, no maybe? I mean, i like people, not they're looks but they're mind and thats the main reason i identify with the pan lable (i could just as easily identify as bi, im fine with both but i have a preference for pan for personal reasons) even though i am very strongly leaning with woman.

I have alway known that i liked woman but i have never identified with lesbian. (That maybe because im NB but 🤷🤷)

I should also mention that while i dont identifier with poly. I also can't say that i would refuse to be in a poly relationship if given the chance. I think poly relationships are very cool and i definitely see why they exist.

I dont really care about what someone has in their pants or what they look like(but i do prefer the female form(its so disturbing saying it like that)) i prefer they're personality and i need to know them to get any attraction, other then aesthetic attraction.

Answer: in conclusive, i will continue to identify as pan orianted aroace with a preference for woman who's sexpositive/sex indifferent, and tell people im asexual panromantic. But now i know that i can identify with some microlables but not particularly strongly. Hope this answers your question kind stranger.

#humm so there you have it #i dont really like to identify strongly as anything other the ace and nb #other then that i exist and if other persive me that is theyr problem #moon answers #its a strange subject that makes me uncomfortable so i forced myself to analyze it this morning #but like if i like someone i like them i dont look further at it #love is love and thats all #okay ive said enough for a morning goodbye

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acesndogs · 2 years

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So I (she/her) was dating a guy and then I came to the realization that if I had to choose between spending the rest of my life with him or with my best friend, a striaght female, I would choose my female best friend. Me and the guy ended up breaking up for unrelated reasons.

I don't want s*x with her. I don't want to make out with her. I just want to.... Be with her very very strongly. It's like yearning but not in a romantic way I don't think?

Is this just a strong platonic love? Like maybe I'm aroace bc I can't differentiate the love I feel for her versus the love I feel towards men? Am I reading myself wrong? I'm definitely ace but bc of this I've really been looking at the aro side of things. What's the difference between a Bi Ace and an Aro Ace???

I've always felt more strongly towards friends then towards any of my romantic partners. Like even guys wise. If I was really close friends with a guy I felt really confused but I didn't want to do anything with him just be with him.

It's not like I'm a teenager. I'm a young adult in my 20s. I'm just... Very very confused rn.

The difference between platonic and romantic feelings can be very hard to differentiate. I think as humans we try really hard to understand ourselves and put things into boxes. This is not a bad thing but it can get in the way of feeling secure. I just want to say that what you’re feeling for your friend is valid and you’ve done nothing wrong to your ex-boyfriend. I’m not really sure what to say exactly but I hope this helps?

An AroAce is someone who doesn’t feel romantic attraction and BiAce is someone who feels romantic attraction to more than one gender but no sexual attraction.

You can be AroAce and still have preferences though!

I identify as a lesbian AroAce because even though I don’t feel romantic attraction, I would still want a romantic relationship with a non-man.

So there is lots of liberty when it comes to identifying ourselves, and I say just use whatever feels right.

And if you don’t want a romantic relationship that’s also okay!

Stay Safe, I know this was sort of a ramble of an answer but I hope it helps :))

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angelaries · 2 years

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i am once again questioning and i was wondering if lesbians could help me out…

i currently identify as aroace. now, given my track record, this is something that’s not surprising. i’ve literally never dated anyone. ever. i identified as bi for like 6 years before entering my first year of uni (i’m in my last year currently, 22 y/o) and being like ??? there’s so many women and men here and yet the thought of a relationship with any of them is terrifying and so uncomfortable. for a while i forced myself to be attracted to women to satisfy that ‘bi’ part of me. after reading about being aroace i realized that sounded a lot like me. but for some reason, even after a year, i’m still so confused. i know i don’t feel anything towards men. but i have no idea where i stand with women. when i think about it in a general sense, having a romantic relationship with women where i am out & openly sharing my relationship gives me discomfort. sometimes it’s a lot of discomfort and sometimes i’m like ‘hey, maybe this isn’t so bad’.

the reason i’m extra confused is because of how i feel towards a certain online friend of mine. she’s aro, and i love talking about being aromantic with her. but sometimes i feel so much for her that it confuses me, mostly because she’s the first person i’ve ever been able to open up to without feeling like … it’s a chore? talking to her emotionally feels so easy. i love it that she trusts me, and that she loves that i trust her too. i think about dating her and like it doesn’t seem terrible, it would make sense given how much she supports me. but at the same time, what i feel, feels like it’s not being captured by the word romantic. like it feels too big for the word romantic. idek if that makes sense. i want us to be together , without having to explicitly state it. but even if we did get together i’m not sure if what we have would change by much? it’s just the name of our relationship wojld change. i don’t mind the thought of kissing her, but again, i’ve never met her irl so idk how well that’s translate to real life. i’m not opposed to the thought of her being my ‘girlfriend’ if we got into a relationship, as the term to me is more for convenience than anything else.

i also feel like i should mention i’ve never felt this way about anyone in my immediate vicinity, ever. sometimes i think this is just a hyper fixation because she cares about me and i’m scared of my future, being alone and how that would look. also, i am so mentally ill. like 💀 so very lonely and sad all the time, and i have OCD with sexual orientation obsessions thag probably interferes with my questioning. and i only started questioning / feeling like this when the pandemic hit. if i had found out i was aroace pre pandemic, i would’ve thought there’s no other way i can be anything else, but now i just feel like i’m faking it.

i know this is super long i’m so sorry, but i’m just so tired of feeling confused and anxious all the time. i would like nothing more than to go back to feeling how i did pre-pandemic; not caring about relationships, happy to be by myself & single in the future. now i feel like that’s not possible for me at all, given how bad my mental illness is & how confused i am. if anyone has any help, i’d love to hear it :(

#aromantic #asexual #aroace #aromantic asexual #lesbian #questioning #lgbtqia #queer #please someone help me out i am so tired of fighting my brain i just wanna stop thinking #questioning lesbian

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rjalker · 3 years

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Hey hi I just don’t know what they are, so can you explain what a bi lesbian is?

(Made with speech to text, please forgive any typos)

I'm not a bi lesbian, so I'm not able to give personal experience, only repeat what I've learned, but they are people who identify with both the bisexual and lesbian labels at the same time, for many reasons.

Historically, bisexual women have always belonged under the lesbian label, because "lesbian" meant simply "women who are attracted to other women", not exclusively women who are exclusively attracted to women. Like WLW or sapphic.

(And this is not ancient history. This wasn't hundreds of years ago.)

There's also the split attraction model to consider, where people could be romantically attracted to both women and other genders, and then sexually attracted to women, or vice versa, or any combination thereof.

The split attraction model, for anyone who's not aware, is where you, well, split your attraction up between "romantic" and "sexual" attraction. It's usually used by ace and aro-spec people, but other people who find it helpful also use it.

And it's important to note that bisexual does not just mean "men" and "women", it means two or more genders. Men and women are not the only options. Non-binary people exist as a spectrum of genders, and they are included in the bisexual (and pan, and omni) label, and again, I am not non-binary, I can only go off of what I've seen non-binary people say, but a lot of non-binary people are not comfortable being automatically included in the lesbian label, because it misgenders them, so that's another reason people use the bi-lesbian label, to further include and avoid misgendering non-binary people.

And some nine binary people are comfortable being included in... this is probably bad way to phrase but I can't think of any other way-- the attraction range of a lesbian, and that's fine too. But that doesn't change the fact that some non-binary people aren't.

There are many reasons for someone to identify as a bi-lesbian, and if any of my followers or anybody who sees this post would like to add on more, feel free, since I'm aroace and cis and can only say what I've seen.

TERFs, aphobes, panphobes, anti-MOGAI, exclusionists of any kind, MAPs, anti-antis, proshippers, do not interact :)

#bi lesbian #queer #???#idk what to tag this as?#mspec #mspec lesbian #bi-lesbian #solidarity or die #MOGAI

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aro-culture-is · 4 years

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What is your opinion, are allo-aros straight? I mean because Aro-aces definitely aren’t, but what about Aro people who are still attracted to that other gender?

are you seriously asking this?

if this is a genuine, like... "I have little to no exposure to allo aro ppl" then read the rest of this paragraph:

If you can conclude that aroace people definitely aren't straight, why the hold up for people who have, as you've phrased it, any hetero attraction? The phrasing seems to imply that you don't consider bi/pan/a-spec people inherently queer, which I find rather disturbing. I firmly believe that if the queer community closes our doors when a community agrees that they truly are queer, we have failed as a community and we are allowing conservatism via respectability politics into the queer community. The only time I consider allo-aro people straight is if they identify themself as such. I am not in the business of labeling other people against their wishes, especially within the queer community.

if you've consider yourself in anyway experienced in the aro community, read the first paragraph and then this:

Do you seriously think that expressing any attraction to a gender you consider het should count as inherently an oppressor class? Do you think that being a-spec, especially aro, is inherently NOT queer? Are you unwilling to consider the huge list of reasons that's bullshit? Unfollow and block me, and let the door hit you on the way out.

- mod kee

#aro #aromantic #actually aro #actually aromantic #ask #not aro culture #arophobia #allo-arophobia #mod kee #if its the latter then im Big Mad

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equalseleventhirds · 4 years

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quick disclaimer before fic: this is not meant to excuse or absolve melanie and georgie of outing jon; what they did was wrong and they should not have done it. instead it is an... examination of a character who is Maybe working some things out but, due to Internalized Issues, is harshly rejecting it both for herself and other people. (i’m aware i wrote something with the exact same FUCKING premise back when i was in the sh*rl*ck fandom dear god don’t read that linked fic it is from a deeply shameful time of fandom i only linked it as proof i did the same thing before. almost like i’m still working through the same stuff via writing fanfiction. hm.) (further discussion on THAT in post-fic notes; i wanted to keep it under the cut for personal reasons.)

furthermore: warning for discussion of sex (but not explicit depictions of sex), characters experiencing aphobia both internalized and not, mention of sexism wrt jobs, characters outing other characters without their consent (more than once, and more than just jon), and mention of consensual but unwanted sex (as in, consent was given, but the consenter did not enjoy it, and consented due to expectations).

- - -

It starts with: “I don’t, I, I usually can’t—Lately. I mean. Lately I can’t.” Melanie shuts her eyes so she won’t have to see Georgie, her hand on the sheets, judgment questions in her eyes. “Since I got—shot. It’s more difficult, is all.”

“Melanie—”

“You can still try,” she says, the words falling too fast, too panicked. “If you want, sometimes other people—and it’s fine! I’m always, it’s fine to try. Sometimes I do. I just might not. You know.”

“You might not orgasm,” Georgie finishes for her. It’s hard to tell how she’s feeling about it—until her fingers brush Melanie’s chin, turning her face up.

Reluctantly, Melanie opens her eyes, and then she’s glad she did. Because Georgie’s smiling, not a mocking smile, gentle. And they said this was just, just casual, just between friends (there’s too much going on with ghosts and the Institute and Georgie’s ex sleeping on her couch when he isn’t being kidnapped for it to be more than that), but Melanie’s glad Georgie is smiling.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Georgie says. She’s sitting up now, not lying almost-not-quite between Melanie’s legs anymore. She looks gorgeous, naked and cross-legged on that horrible mattress with a microfiber sheet wrapped around her shoulders, and Melanie wants to curl up in the sheet with her and eat the leftover pizza from earlier and fall asleep together with grease on their hands.

No. Focus. “It’s okay,” Georgie says again, gentler. “If you can’t right now. If you don’t want to. You certainly gave me a lovely orgasm—”

“—or three—”

“—yes, thank you, and if you’d rather just call it there, I’m not pushing it. As long as you enjoyed yourself.” She frowns, suddenly, glancing down at Melanie’s hands. “You… did enjoy yourself? I hope we didn’t—”

“I did!” She always does, when it’s other people coming, when she gets to be touching warm skin and watching someone fall apart. It’s… nice. “It’s just, you know. I got shot.”

(And isn’t that a convenient excuse, she sneers in her own head, and it sounds like Toni refusing to come back to the team, it sounds like the most sarcastic videos about her breakdown, it sounds like Elias. Isn’t it convenient that now you can blame your little problem on blood flow, or nerve endings, or stress. Never mind that you didn’t have those excuses a year ago. Or two years. Or back when you had a real girlfriend, and you always said yes but she got tired before—)

Georgie tucks a strand of hair behind Melanie’s ear. “Okay, good. If we, you know, try this again sometime? If you’re feeling better? Then I can try.” She stops, licks her lips, watches Melanie’s expression. “Or I can… not try, if you’d still prefer that. Later. You know. If.”

“I’m not—” And she’s rushing again, always rushing, she doesn’t even know if she and Georgie will ever—

“No, I know! It’s fine! But like—Look, this isn’t exactly new for me, you know? If that’s something you want. Something you don’t want. Or I, I’m saying it’s not a problem, if you do or don’t want me to make you come in the future, or even if you don’t want to have sex at all, I mean, when we were dating Jon didn’t—”

That’s where Georgie stops, as if talking about Jon is too much, as if she hasn’t been speaking Melanie’s secret insecurities out loud in bed like it’s something they can talk about, as if all of this hasn’t already been too much and too terrifying already.

Melanie stands up, grabs the comforter as a makeshift cloak (because Georgie has the sheet, and suddenly she isn’t sure she wants to share the sheet with her). “Right.”

“I’m just—I have a friend. Who you might talk to, if you wanted to talk about this.”

She steps away from the bed, towards the door. “Sure. Pizza? I’m hungry.”

The problem is, Melanie doesn’t much like Jon. He was such a dick about the Youtube thing, and about her statement, and about Sasha. And even though she knows (sort of) that part of it hadn’t been his fault, she still isn’t going to talk over her disinterest in sex with him. It’s mortifying. Even if he wasn’t her boss. And Georgie’s ex. And currently out of the Archives, anyway.

But she wants to talk to somebody, about Georgie’s words running around and around and around her head, about the sheer panic mixing with almost-relief and then the visceral no no no churning low in her stomach that had made it a struggle just to choke down her pizza. She wants to ask someone is this normal, am I allowed, is it even enough to be halfway to ‘not at all’ or should I just suck it up. She wants to talk that out desperately.

It’s just… she doesn’t have many friends left, after her whole fall from Youtube ghost hunter grace. She’s not going to ask Georgie about it, any more than Jon, although for pretty much the opposite reason. Who’s left? Her shiny new coworkers? Tim, who seethes and hates everything and everyone in the Archives? Martin, who’s still upset that Jon so much as spoke to her while he was on the run? Basira?

When Melanie met Sasha—the real Sasha, the one apparently no one but her even remembers—she’d been the only woman in the Archives. And Melanie had chatted with her about haunted pubs, and maximizing SEO, and how to talk to people who’d seen a white dog while they were drunk and thought it was a ghost. And about their jobs, of course, which led to both of them scoffing about the sexist bullshit of academia and how someone like Sasha could be just an assistant and the only woman on her team.

And then Elias hired Melanie to replace… the thing that replaced Sasha. Hired another woman to replace the only woman. You learn to see patterns from the kind of person who might say diversity the same way as toilet plunger: something necessary, but distasteful. Melanie was filling a role he needed filled, and she could live with that.

And then Basira.

Who wasn’t there because she wanted to be, of course, but was still there. Was still another woman in the boy’s club of terror they’d apparently signed on for. Could maybe, maybe, be someone Melanie could connect with. Someone she could talk to.

Maybe.

“Do you know if he and Jon ever…?”

“No clue, and not interested!” She’s laughing, about to just dismiss it out of hand, but… maybe. She can feel the questions she never asked Georgie, the words sharpening their claws on the edges of her mind. The no, not me, not allowed sinking in her gut.

“Although…” Make it light. Make it interesting. Make it about someone else. How to hook an audience without having a public breakdown and becoming a— “According to Georgie, Jon… doesn’t.”

It feels wrong as soon as she says it. Like she’s dirty. Like she’s lying. Like a thousand eyes are looking at her, watching her, waiting for more. Make it a story. Engage your audience. Like it’s 2013 in a convention hotel room and Pete just told everyone Don’t worry, Mel likes girls actually, and even though they were all fine about it that moment of sharpshock terror in her throat as they all looked—

“Like, at all?”

The one thing she never learned was how to stop talking. “Yeah.”

“Yeah, that does explain some stuff.”

And that’s… it, really. That does explain some stuff. Jon is a dick, has always been a dick, overfocused on work and not on other people, and that does explain some stuff. Right. Yes. Like her last girlfriend had told her, about all you do is work, I can’t even get you off. An explanation, just like she always knew it would be.

It doesn’t really matter. She has a boss to go kill.

“I think,” she says, slow, like every word is being dragged out of her, “that I might not like. Sex. As much as, you know, people do.”

“You’re a person,” her therapist says, firm, and she has to bite back a sarcastic laugh.

“Right. ‘Course.”

- - -

post-fic notes: i myself personally have previously identified as: heteroromantic gray-ace, heteroromantic ace, aroace, aro gray-ace, aro bi, bi, arospec bi, aro bi again, and aro bi but sex ambivalent. part of that has been natural progression and change; part of that was bcos some people i considered friends got very into aphobic discourse, and i internalized a lot of what they said. in recent months i have been examining my sex ambivalence (sometimes repulsion) and considering what that means about whether or not i am on the ace spectrum. i’m still thinking about these things. i’m still, deep down inside, afraid of the aphobic people i respected and cared about hearing about this.

in part i wrote this to work through some of My Own Shit regarding this. in part i wrote this bcos i will get my grubby little aspec hands (bcos regardless of anything else, i am aspec, whether that’s ace or aro) on every character i can. yes, even the ones who did an objectively shitty thing to jon, the one canonical ace character. bcos sometimes people (like me) internalize things and make mistakes.

#absolutely not beta'd or britpicked or even edited much #i needed to get this out and now it's late but i'm WORKING THROUGH SOME STUFF #uhhhh ambiguous ending about melanie's like! decisions! identity! feelings!#ambiguous if she or georgie EVER talk to JON #nothing is resolved! nothing is fucking good and light and happy! it's all MESSY #it's also so long i'm so sorry but melanie spent a lot of time looking at georgie and then a lot in emotional turmoil so like #what can ya do.#anyway. fuck it. posting a thing.#fanfiction #algie writes things #the magnus archives #hopefully i have rambled long enough this doesn't get maintagged sry if it does ignore me i needed this for ME #and i guess like. i do want other ppl to read it. but i do not want to maintag it. u kno how it is.#NOW WITH EDITING

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posi-pan · 3 years

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I would like to say that as someone who now identifies as aroace, that identifying as pan (and later demipan) was one of the most important parts of my journey. I went from straight, to lesbian, to bi, to (demi)pan, and I think the reason I stuck so long with pan the longest was for a lot of reasons. One of them though is that the pan community taught me so many great lessons and gave me great advice on how to handle all the ins and outs of my identity, that I was allowed to be who I wanted with no real judgement, how to have strength and certainty in my identity even when exclusionist bigots are screaming in my face, and a whole lot more.

Pan/Aro/Ace solidarity is where it's at and I am always going to be so thankful to blog-owners like you and in general communities like the pan community for being the awesome people in a far bigger community that seems so hellbent on making everything harder for everyone.

So..a big thanks to the pan community from me and probably a whole lot of other people who have had a similar experience to mine! You guys are awesome and so, so incredibly in your identities!! Hopefully everyone else will eventually come to agree on that, as well.

lots of love to you anon 💜💚

#asks #anonymous #pan positivity #aroace #asexual #aromantic #pansexual #panromantic #panalterous #pansensual #panaesthetic #panplatonic #long post

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necropsittacus · 2 years

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tbh it’s kind of depressing having to come to terms with the idea that there just...isn’t an orientation identity label that’s going to feel Just Right or like being true to myself or like home or whatever people are “supposed” to feel about these things

i do still feel connected to being aro, and i know there are people who use that as their sole identity, but just being aro and nothing else doesn’t seem to sit quite right either, though i might get used to it; i don’t honestly feel particularly connected to bisexuality, as it’s mostly just kind of been a “i guess i’m this by process of elimination” identity, the way most people are going to interpret the term doesn’t feel like it’s reflective of me,* and i don’t. really relate to the way i tend to see people talk about being bi in a more ‘active identity’ and less ‘process of elimination’ sense?

i’m too worried about stepping on people’s toes or Not Doing It Right to identify as gay, even though i’ve seen other people with similar ranges of potential attraction identify that way; my impression is very much that there’s more scrutiny around who counts for that than there is for identifying as bi

asexuality doesn’t really seem to apply; aspec microlabels can be more accurate but i can’t really be bothered with the idea of microlabels both for “annoying to explain to people who aren’t Online(TM)” and “i’m unhealthily invested in not being yelled at for my identity” reasons. sort of the problem is that i’ve had sexual attraction pop up often enough that it doesn’t feel comfortable or honest to just describe myself as aroace but not often enough that i have enough of a dataset to draw any real conclusions about the range of people i’m attracted to, so any claims i make about that are necessarily based mostly in hypotheticals and what narratives about who i am i feel drawn to and things like that, and that...really doesn’t seem to be how it works for most people?

i know a lot of people do just identify as “queer” without further specifying but the idea of doing that really doesn’t make me happy tbh, so i just keep ending up back at “bi because it seems like it’s the least likely, in the kinds of social spaces i witness, to cause people to yell at me or scrutinize my attractions or lack thereof too closely.” a lot of identity label discourse seems to assume that like...if you’re not straight you’re Going to fall into an identifiable category of being “gay” or “bi” or “aroace,” and i’m just. not sure that’s the case for me?

*yes i’m aware that “oh it can be attraction to any two or more genders, you can be bi without being attracted to both men and women” is the understanding in a lot of my spaces but for some reason i have the impression that if i tell someone irl or who isn’t very engaged with a certain kind of queer space that i’m bi, they’re going to assume i mean attraction to men, women, and, if they’re reasonably aware of trans issues, nonbinary people

#dont rb please #txt #vent post cw

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