This Is Fine.
in 2015, i wrote a random, word vomit of a post about being “WhenTheStarsAlignHyperRo[mantic]” while offhandedly reflecting back on what little ‘data’ i had to work off of in trying to figure out my own experience of romantic attraction (or lack thereof). it was the first second (in so far as i remember) time i had questioned not being (allo)romantic outside of my head (& journal) while shrugging off identifying as being on the aromantic spectrum.
landscapes and fissures: navigating ace terminology in Japanese & English
the following post was written for the May 2018 Carnival of Aces on the subject of “Nuance & Complexity“. it may or may not be cleaned up and cross-posted to the YouTube channel Queer As Cat in the future. —— some feel that people in (English-speaking, anglophone) ace communities are “overthinking” things. that the amount of words and identities (also referred to as “microlabels”) which have been coined in such communities is not only “overdoing it,” but even potentially harmful. i’d hope that this would go without saying (but understand that it doesn’t), that i disagree with the former and vehemently reject the latter. regardless of whether i or you or that random person over there petting the stray cat that’s out in the street right now feel such terminology to be useful to us personally, the fact remains that others do and there is immense value in that.
“the ace community goes overboard with words?” i.e. word vomitted “nah”
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.
Q&A: “I share very similar feelings on the topic of asexuality [in Japan]….”
anonymous asked: I share very similar feelings on the topic of asexuality. I am also an asexual living in Japan, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I just recently learned the words and meanings for Aセクシュアル and ノンセクシュアル. Since I am not aromantic, that would mean I’m “nonsexual,” but I feel like the “A”/”ace”/”asexual” word itself is a big part of my identity. I feel a little upset over it. I want to still identify as asexual, but I also don’t want to confuse and have to explain thoroughly everytime. Thoughts? Ty! (for those interested, see: [ these ] [ relevant ] [ posts ] and [ this page ] of links) i felt and still feel the same way, so i just use Aセクシャル / アセクシャル / Aセク and deal with whatever confusion or misunderstanding may eventually result from that on a case-by-case basis. that, or i straight up…
Q&A: “I thought that my feelings for a certain someone was platonic, but…”
anonymous asked: May I ask you a question? For a long time, I thought that my feelings for a certain someone was platonic, but after reading up some things you wrote (mainly, “romantic = wanting to be as close as possible physically”), I suddenly feel uncertain. I don’t know if I’m having a crush or a squish. The bottom line is that there is this person I’m fond to be with, and want to help out 24/7. I don’t want to be in a relationship with him but tbh I’ll take anything I can. What do you think? hi, anon. sorry for taking so long to respond to your ask. you’re more than welcome to ask me a question, although i may not have an answer for you. before i respond with my thoughts regarding your situation, i feel the need to express confusion at having ever said what you’ve…
that feel when no words
that feel when you finally have a use for relationship terminology, but none of it makes sense to you because all of it is predicated on the assumption that you subscribe to the dichotomy of “romantic” vs “[queer]platonic”– not to even mention the equally taxing concept that is “alterous”.
Q&A: “Can a maverique person consider themself man or woman-aligned?”
anonymous said: You may have answered a similar question before, and if so I apologize, it’s possible that I missed it! I was wondering, can a maverique person consider themself man or woman-aligned? And if a person considered themself woman-aligned and maverique, could they consider themself sapphic, or would you say being sapphic is inherently at odds with being maverique? Navigating the recent alignment discourse as a maverique has been rough for me, and I’d like to hear your thoughts. hi, anon. no worries. i’ve answered a similar question before, but not on this blog. check out what i said [ here ] over on @maveriques. i’m afraid that my answer to the question you’ve asked has not changed at all since responding to the linked ask. that said, i’m really sorry to hear that recent aligned terminology (i’m not caught up at all on any related discourse) has been rough…
Q&A: “I identify as homoflexible, it’s what fits me best, but I didn’t realize it was biphobic…”
anonymous said Hi I saw your post about homoflexibility and I wanted to ask you about it. I think I identify as homoflexible, it’s what fits me best, but I didn’t realize it was biphobic and I’m really freaked out because I don’t want to be biphobic it’s just what fits me best. I don’t consider myself bi because while I occasionally can have attraction to guys I don’t want a relationship(or sex) with a guy, I just don’t. But I’m not a lesbian either because I can occasionally experience attraction to guys. hi anon, first of all, sorry for taking so long to respond to your ask. i hope you’re well. i’m guessing that the post that you’re referring to is this one? as i tried to make clear in the original post, i was only voicing my own personal qualms with common definitions of homoflexible (and heteroflexible) and…
Ash Hardell’s “The ABC’s of LGBT+” in Japanese!
…..annnd look what i randomly* stumbled across at the bookstore tonight. Ash Hardell’s “The ABC’s of LGBT+” in Japanese! even Amazon Japan doesn’t seem to have it yet, but somehow Kinokuniya has it? which makes absolutely no sense, but hey! not complaining. it’s a complete translation of Ash Hardell’s book, including a lot of ace and non-binary terminology such as aceflex, quoiromantic, genderfluid and maverique transliterated phonetically into Japanese approximates.** even the [English] pronouns section is translated into Japanese, which i kinda have feelings about as to how helpful that and / or phonetic translations will be for Japanese people who will be approaching this book from a cultural and linguistic context that is not the same as that of a native English / germanic or romance language speaker. that said, at a glance, there does seem to be added explaination of English grammar to help non-English speakers better understand gender…
Q&A: “…is there are word for “aromanticism” in Japanese?”
livingxvxfaith said: Hi Vesper! I was wondering, is there are word for “aromanticism” in Japanese? For アセクシャル/アセクシュアル there’s アセクシュアリティー, but I can’t find an official Japanese noun companion for アロマンティック… hi. 🙂 ‘aromanticism’ is phonetically transcribed as アロマンティシズム in Japanese, but it’s very rare that i see anyone actually using that word. actually, even アセクシャリティ / ‘asexuality’ isn’t used often. outside of perhaps academia or writing where someone is discussing sexual orientation(s) in an abstract or objective way, it’s more common to use adjectives or adjective phrases… that is, if any distinction is even being made between ‘asexual(ity)’ and ‘aromantic(ism)’ at all. ……but anyway uhhhhhhh. yeah. アロマンティシズム is the word you’re looking for, although there’s nothing particularly ‘official’ about any of these words or language in general? unless we’re talking French or something.
