Q&A

Q&A: “You don’t think allosexual privilege exists?”

anonymous said:

So from what I gathered in your latest responses. You don’t think allosexual privilege exists, but do you think allosexism exists?

A lot of what Amber says about the word allosexual also applies to monosexual like grouping people with their oppressors, some gay people being okay w/ the word but not everyone being fine w/ it, ignoring the fact that a lot of gay people hate the word monosexual, “monosexual privilege.” There r so many posts like the 1 blvkandasexual posted except about monosexuals & bisexuals. Would u consider posts like that homobphobic?

Amber’s response seems to argue against the use of the word allosexual on some level, but I thought you were okay with the word?

That entire thread and everyone’s responses to it (including yours tbh) makes it seem like the word allosexual is inherently homophobic, biphobic, panphobic, etc. like what??? Can you clarify your stance.

(in response to these posts)

i’m not sure whether all four of these asks are from the same person, but since they were sent in close succession and are about the same thing, i’m going to group them together and reply to them all at once. at the same time, i’m going to make this a masterpost of sorts on my feelings about these words.

i probably should have been clearer about this before, but Amber of @perksofbeingaro and i are at odds in our opinion about the word allosexual. this is why i haven’t signal boosted her response directly by reblogging it and why i tried to provide @blvkandasexual with other views on the word by providing links for further reading.

as to not leave any future room for doubt, here is my longasswinded opinion.

i am absolutely in favor of the words monosexual, monoromantic, etc. “mono” is a word that i use not to talk about privilege nor to even talk about a specific person, but to talk about my own experiences navigating a world where sexual and romantic attraction to only one gender is assumed to be the default for everyone. obviously if someone does not want me to refer to them as mono i will refrain from doing so, but i generally do not go around labeling people mono to begin with.

i am absolutely in support of the words allosexual, alloromantic, etc. despite its pitfalls (not all of which i even agree with), “allo” is a word that i use not to talk about privilege nor to even talk about a specific person, but to talk about my own experiences navigating a world where sexual and romantic attraction to anyone is assumed to be the default for everyone. obviously if someone does not want me to refer to them as allo i will refrain from doing so, but i generally do not go around labeling people allo to begin with.

no, i do not feel that the terms allo* or mono* are inherently homophobic, biphobic or anything else. as i recently attempted to explain to @metapianycist, something that a person says may be problematic, invalid, offensive, homophobic, biphobic, etc, but the words allo* and mono* are not in and of themselves the problem.

although i do not entirely agree with what was said, i linked to this post previously because it kind of gets at my feelings regarding the words allosexual and monosexual grouping people with their oppressors. that feeling being that the same could be said about a million other words, so i fail to see how that is an argument against the existence and usage of these words.

  • “cisgender” – indiscriminately groups all cis people together, regardless of power dynamics. (hint: some cis people are oppressors, some the oppressed.)
  • “men” – indiscriminately groups all men together, regardless of power dynamics. (hint: some men are oppressors, some the oppressed.)
  • “working class” – indiscriminately groups people together based on economic class, regardless of power dynamics. (hint: some working class people are the oppressors, some the oppressed.)
  • “American” – indiscriminately groups people together based on nationality, regardless of power dynamics. (you get the picture.)
  • “human” – indiscriminately groups every single human being together, regardless of power dynamics. (please tell me you get the picture.)

so a person doesn’t want to be grouped together with their oppressor. fine, i get it. i won’t use a word in reference to you if you do not want me to. however, this argument of being grouped together with oppressors does nothing to argue against the validity of the existence and usage of a word. furthermore, people seem to be only using this argument in situations when it’s convenient for them to do so. why is that?

in your ask you said that i don’t think that allosexual privilege exists, but i have never once said that, even if i have reblogged or linked to something that led you to believe that.

every single assertion that i have come across saying that allosexual privilege (or monosexual privilege) isn’t a thing and is inherently homophobic, biphobic, etc does not make sense to me. every single one seems as ridiculous as saying that white privilege is inherently homophobic, biphobic, etc.

people: “allo/mono privilege” groups lgbt people with their oppressors!
me: white privilege groups white lgbt people with their oppressors.

people: “allo/mono privilege” ignores the fact that gay/lesbian/bi/pan/etc and/or single-same-gender-loving (see why saying allo/mono would be easier than this?) people do not hold power over non-allo/mono people!
me: and…? even within the same group of people (eg. white people) there are (white) people who do not have power over other (white) people. despite that, there are still (white) people who are more privileged than others. on top of that, that doesn’t stop them all from having white privilege.

people: being allo/mono is not a privilege!!
me: never said it was. but at the same time, even within white (or any other) privilege not all white (or any other) people are equally as privileged as one another. just because some allo/mono people are not as privileged as others does not mean that those people do not still have some form of privilege.

people: asexual/aromantic/bi/pan/etc people don’t face oppression!!
me: whether a person faces oppression or not is beside the point. however, lots of white people don’t face the oppression that white lgbt people face. they all still have white privilege.

actually, while we’re at it, let’s take this one step further.

people: society hypersexualizes gay, lesbian, bi and trans people and these words are not helping by attempting to normalize or erase our experiences.
me: it’s absolute bullshit that society hypersexualizes anyone, without a doubt, and there are some people using the words allo/mono who are guilty of hypersexualizing lgbt people as well. however, that is a fault of those specific people and the bullshit that they are saying, as well as being a fault of society at large. the problem lies there, not in the words allo / mono.

people hypersexualize and fetishize black people, describing them with words like “chocolate” and “ebony”, for example. this is without question wrong and it angers me to no end, but as much as i despise the words used in this context, the words themselves aren’t the problem, people are. society is.

now when it comes to my opinion about allosexism and monosexism, all of the above still applies, but my feelings about arguments of power dynamics and institutionalization in general are especially relevant. i do not agree that something has to be institutionalized or that power dynamics are the deciding factor over whether something is real and worth putting a name to and discussing, but those arguments (along with the above) seem to be the biggest ones that people put forward against words like allosexism and monosexism. i personally do not agree with that.

so now that i’ve written a short novel about my feelings on these two words, i’ll leave you and everyone else to try to tear them apart. i do not consider myself to be an expert on anything and i am most definitely open to learning, but as of now this is where i stand on these issues.

YouTuber and Blogger, Vesper is an American expat currently living in Japan.

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