note: this post has been ported over as-is from Tumblr for my own future reference. anonymous submitted: (i had a long question, so, i hope it’s ok to use submit instead of sending multiple asks.) as a disclaimer, i ask this as an ace person who usually just ids as queer ace or grey ace. i’m not asking to be combative or make anyone feel bad.
anonymous said: hey i just wanted to comment towards your post about the fracturing of the asexual community. i think that has to do with the history the ace community has on tumblr. two, three years ago, the argument wasn’t whether aces belonged to the community; the argument was ‘you aren’t asexual if you aren’t sex-repulsed’, which was debated and disputed for a very long time until terms like grey-, demi-, that sort of stuff started to come out and become more popular and accepted. the discourse used to be ‘a is for asexual, not allies’ and about being sex repulsed. and i think that the struggle to find validity in /their own community/ has caused a lot of splintering that has affected how people treat the ace community today. NOT to say they are to blame for how they’re treated, by any means, i don’t want it to come…
actually acknowledging the fact that they do not exist as two mutually exclusive groups of people, ie. aromantic asexuals vs (allo)romantic asexuals.
EDIT 1/20/2017: if after reading this post you get pissed off, have questions or other things you’d like to say to me, please read this. while at work, i was scrolling through my Twitter timeline and noticed a bunch of tweets by people who are upset about recent news about how the popular Archie character Jughead, who is canonically asexual, will be portrayed on CW’s “Riverdale”. that is, that Jughead “will have romances with women and, of course, burgers”. people are responding to this by tweeting things like “keep Jughead #asexual” at the show’s Twitter account and saying how they’re not going to watch the show because of #asexual #erasure. curious, i checked out the article that i initially thought was at the root of these tweets and was astounded by what i actually found in the article. i quickly added my frustrated 2 cents about how aces were responding to…
anonymous said: So, I’ve seen some people claim the ace community is racist, transphobic, and that hetero-romantic and aromantic aces don’t belong in the LGBTQ+ community. I was wondering, do you think there’s racism in the ace community? I’ve never noticed any, but then I’m white, so that’s not rlly my call. I think maybe it has to do with the use of the term allosexual, which has been said to have racist and transphobic roots. What’s your opinion on “allosexual”, and do you think “het aces” shld be included in the LGBTQ+ community? there are racist (and transphobic) people everywhere and the ace community is no exception to that. however, there being racist (and transphobic) people in the ace community doesn’t make the entire community racist (or transphobic). that would be an overgeneralization. people have made the claim that the term allosexual is racist and/or transphobic, but i…
anonymous said: As an asexual person, I don’t really think zedsexual is the way to go. It is not only etymologically nonsensical, but sounds “like something tumblr would make up” to the outside observers. This is just something else that will make people not take us seriously. Isn’t there another way? Maybe, some positive prefix? I know in other languages there is such thing but I’m not sure about English. anon, while i personally don’t care for z/zedsexual either, i also don’t care for people criticizing a word because it sounds “like something tumblr would make up.” as if a word being coined on Tumblr automatically delegitimizes or discredits it. as if i or anyone else should avoid a word just because other people assume the word is somehow connected to Tumblr and that that is automatically a bad thing. anon, i realize that you yourself probably do not…
i keep putting off talking about this topic because of feels and because i’m lazy stuff, but it’s 1:30am on a work night, i’ve just responded to an email from someone asking me about this topic and i’m too tired to censor myself or to overthink what people may think of my opinion. what a perfect opportunity to share my thoughts on Tumblr! let’s cut and paste.
anonymous said: Do you think its okay for me (personally) to reject the idea of romantic orientation? I don’t feel like I fit with aromantic either. Romantic orientation just doesn’t feel like a useful concept to me. I feel like I can’t even distinguish “romantic attraction” and “sensual attraction” and whatever. The way I’m attracted to people is in a way that I can’t pick apart: all the feelings go together and nothing stands out as ‘this specifically is romantic attraction.’ Can’t I /just/ be asexual? without a doubt you can (and should) feel free to discard or reject the idea of romantic orientation etc etc in regards to yourself if you do not find the concept to be useful to you. there is absolutely no requirement that you identify or describe yourself as anything. honestly, it would do the asexual community good to recognize that romantic orientation (among others)…
