sometimes i think about how growing up in Las Vegas has affected me. usually this is triggered by something reminding me that growing up listening to house & trance music on the radio isn't exactly common, or when i happen to have an occasion-- for whatever reason-- to question my own apparent insensitivity to public displays of nudity, sexual innuendo, etc. even when it comes to more mundane things...
i’ve said this before on Tumblr, but it’s time to make it “official” on YouTube: i don’t identify as biromantic or panromantic anymore. in fact, i don’t identify as “-romantic” anything anymore. after years of quietly questioning my experience of so-called “romantic” attraction, all the while trying to navigate spaces which obviously didn’t have someone like me– someone who neither felt comfortable being assumed “[allo]romantic” nor “aromantic”– in mind, i finally opted to discard romantic orientations (for myself) all together. rather, i identify as a bi ace. as a pan ace. although if i’m being honest, more often than not as a queer ace or more simply as “queer”. but what exactly is the difference between “biromantic ace” and “bi ace”? after over a year of having identified as the latter, it seems to me that thanks to amatonormativity and the general normalization of romantic orientations in ace communities, people don’t see…
songsandtimetravel said: Ok. So I got a very flirty personality. My flirting however is I’d say 90% non sexual, and the other 10% is with the people I feel a mutual sexual “connection” with. I know that my friendliness have been confused with sexual attraction before with non-ace people. I love my personality but as I get more involved with the queer and non binary community I get get to know more Ace-people too, and I don’t want to come off as overly sexual or make them uncomfortable.Got any thoughts on what I can do? sorry for taking so long getting back to you. not sure if you even still want to hear my thoughts, but… i think that the situation that you’ve found yourself in is reflective of an overarching problem within society as a whole rather than being reflective of a problem with flirting or your personality.…
….you know, considering how much talk there is in the ace community about how asexuality and aromanticism exist on a spectrum– of “grayness” and differing types of attractions with occasional attention paid to diversity of one kind or another– it both amazes and frustrates me how so many of the same people who speak of these things still seem to operate based on the very same assumption that exists within society at large: that everyone is (allo)romantic and / or (allo)sexual by default unless explicitly stated otherwise. while i understand that aces (and aros) internalize and subsequently have to unlearn amatonormativity and sexnormativity (and heteronormativity) just the same as everyone else and that there’s also likely an element of self-defense / self-preservation involved, it is beyond frustrating every time i see or am subjected to microaggressions from aces who adhere to the very same “______ by default unless otherwise stated” mindset that…
anonymous said: Hi again, I’m the anon who sent the ask about my friend saying ace/aro ppl are not LGBT+. I guess the reason why I asked here is because I wanted to get a broader opinion other than just hers because I was taken aback when she said that. I’ve read up on it a bit more and I get that Ace/Aro can be cis and hetero but the ace/aro identity is still there…. so I literally don’t get how they can’t be part of LGBT+ according to her, so I’ll talk it out with her. Thanks for the resources, good stuff. (re: this post) based on my observations, often the people who focus their gatekeeping efforts on cisgender heteroromantic asexuals and / or cisgender heterosexual aromantics are people who view asexuality and / or aromanticism as a “blank slate” or lack of orientation. something to be overlooked in…
content warning: mentions of sex and abuse; talk of consent issues. this is the second of what has now become three posts that i’m writing about my personal experiences with sexual abuse / violence and consent issues, the first of which can be found here. this post focuses on how my ability to consent may or may not have been affected by not knowing about the existence of asexuality prior to consenting to sex in past relationships. even though there are those who insist that consent is as simple as “yes” or “no,” that there is no gray area involved– you either consented or you didn’t– for lots of people consent can be more complicated than that. in my time on Tumblr, various posts have come across my dashboard on the topic of consent and/or agency, specifically in the context of being asexual. sometimes when i read one of those posts, some…
anonymous said: Hi. I’m pretty sure I’m bi, but I’m on the ace spectrum and the way mainstream media sexualizes wlw relationships so dramatically is making it really hard for me to figure everything out. Does anyone else struggle with this? How do I get past it? i can’t speak for anyone else but myself, but at the same time i am fairly certain that many people (ace spectrum or not, woman themself or not) struggle with the hypersexualization of women in general in the media and trying to figure out one’s own feelings in spite of that hypersexualization. however, you’re not just anyone. trying to figure out your feelings in the midst of all this hypersexualization as a woman loving woman (wlw) yourself (or so i assume; apologies if i’m wrong) makes the stuff in the media feel all the more potent and difficult to navigate, i think. wlw…
i was going to do my usual live-tweet thing where i vent my frustrations with various things i see on Japanese TV on Twitter, but i took too many photo receipts and have too much to say for Twitter, so i’ll just blurb about it here. warning: long post ahead full of many hastily taken cellphone photos of my tv. mobile users, i am so soooo sorry. trigger warning: offensive ignorance, transphobia
anonymous said: Thanks for your most recent post re: saying no/transphobia/people’s need to express “no” being prioritized over the well-being of trans people. I think you cut to the heart of it – it’s not reasonable to ask trans ppl (like me) to deprioritize discussing transness and transphobia once sexual consent gets brought up. That also assumes, IMO, that trans people are never in the group of ppl who need to say no and don’t have the tools?? Which, like, trans people (and trans women especially!) are targets for sexual violence and are often *especially* lacking access to “no”. Also I think it ties really grossly into “trans women as rapists” tropes (I’m AFAB so I hope I’m getting it right) – the fact that (presumably cis) people’s consent immediately becomes the ONLY IMPORTANT THING once trans people start talking about desirability and transness speaks to how cis people honestly…
like “heteronormativity” and “amatornormativity”, can we please make “sexnormativity” a thing? simply put: sexnormativity: the assumption that sexual attraction and/or a desire for sex is a universal trait that everyone shares. the ace community has long since been battling sexnormativity as it plays a large role in a/acephobia. however, aces are not the only ones suffering from sexnormativity. people who are repulsed by and/or adverse to sex people with “low”/”high” libidos teenagers young adults seniors survivors of sexual assault/abuse and so many more literally anyone and probably everyone is affected by sexnormativity to some degree or another at some point in their life because sexnormativity ties into so many things: peer pressure, stereotypes, hypersexualization, desexualization, heteronormativity, amatonormativity, slut-shaming, victim blaming, trauma invalidation, erasure, parental/familial expectations and the list goes on. awareness and discussion of sexnormativity needs to go beyond the confines of the ace community. please let this be a thing that the world is made…
