• Q&A

    Q&A: “I wonder if we can use ‘pan’ for not only sexual attraction than why not the rest of them…”

    anonymous said: You know I wonder if I could identify as bi or pan. Because I am certainly asexual and wtfro/aro but my sensual, aesthetic and platonic orientations are pan I think? And if we can use that for not only sexual attraction than why not the rest of them.   there are people who use prefixes like bi-, pan-, homo-, hetero- etc to describe the other types of attraction that you mentioned. for example, pan(-)aesthetic, bi(-)sensual, homo(-)platonic etc. these words aren’t common, but i’ve definitely seen them in use, primarily within the ace and aro communities on AVEN and Tumblr.

  • Q&A

    Q&A not Q&A: ” 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…”

    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…

  • [A]sexuality,  [Random] Thoughts,  Queer[ness]

    re: allosexual and zsexual

    this is a great post that others ought to read and i just want to throw out my personal opinion on this topic so that it’s on this blog somewhere for future reference: i personally despise the word ‘sexual’ being used as a general catch-all for non-asexual people, largely because of what is said in the OP. when zsexual/zedsexual was first proposed i, like many, turned by back on the word allosexual because zsexual seemed like such a great idea to me at the time. that said, i personally no longer care for it for various reasons, the main two being that: i don’t like how the “A-to-Z” conceptualization positions asexuality and non-asexuality as two points on either end of a binary linear system. as a quasi-linguist and native English speaker myself, i don’t care for how English speakers are using the roman alphabet in such an arbitrary way. not everyone…

  • [A]sexuality,  Q&A,  Queer[ness]

    Q&A: “…do you think there could be other types of attraction?”

    anonymous said: I know a lot of the time in discussions about asexual identities people break down attraction into 4 different categories: sexual, romantic, aesthetic, sensual (well and sometimes platonic). But do you think there could be other types of attraction? Sometimes I see people and I feel /something/ but I wouldn’t really categorize it as one of those – argh its so confusing! Am I just experiencing one of those types of attraction in a strange way?? without a doubt there could be (read: probably is) more to attraction than the categories that the ace and aro communities tend to refer to. attraction, as with feelings in general, is an insanely complex thing that most certainly cannot be neatly boxed into or described by categories. it doesn’t get said enough that not everyone even finds the existing categories helpful or meaningful in describing their attraction(s). you could be experiencing…

  • Q&A

    Q&A: “what is romantic attraction vs sensual?”

    anonymous said: i haven’t heard of sensual attraction until recently but i’m having a hard time separating it from romantic attraction? like what //is// romantic attraction vs sensual? sorry if this is a really basic question!   not a “really basic question” at all! honestly, the world at large doesn’t even distinguish between different types of attraction, they’re all considered to be part of the same thing. it’s the asexual and aromantic communities that started dissecting attraction into different categories and it can be very confusing at times. within ace and aro communities, attraction is commonly broken up into 5 categories: platonic, aesthetic, sensual, romantic and sexual attraction. see these posts to find out the basics on all of them: [ 1 ] + [ 2 ]

  • [A]sexuality,  [Random] Thoughts,  Queer[ness]

    sexnormativity

    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…

  • Gender[queer],  Queer[ness]

    “maverique” v3.0

    [ maverique — definition reworded 06/21/14 ] a faded yellow, white and orange pride flag on which black text reads: maverique /mav ˈrēk/ franglais coined by Vesper H. from the English eponym “maverick” and the French suffix “-ique”. pronounciation is “mav-REEK”,  rhyming with “antique”. a gender characterized by autonomy and inner conviction regarding a sense of self that is entirely independent of male/masculinity, female/femininity or anything which derives from the two while still being neither without gender nor of a neutral gender. this is the third rewording of the definition of maverique. i’ve tried to do away with some of the larger words found in previous definitions while still making the meaning of the word clearer. what do you think…? i’m preparing to make a page and/or secondary Tumblr account dedicated to maverique and once wording of the definition seems more or less stable, i’ll record a video about it too. 🙂

  • [Random] Thoughts,  Gender[queer],  Queer[ness]

    maverique: why i coined the word

    there are words being coined for this and that all the time, especially on Tumblr, so i feel like i should explain why i’ve coined the word “maverique” and why i feel like the word “neutrois” is no longer enough for me. before i begin, however, i want to make it clear that i am NOT coining a gender identity. i am simply coining a word and applying it to an already existent gender which the English language currently lacks a word for. genders themselves are not coined nor invented. my gender has never changed; i have always been the gender that i am. what’s changing is the word i use to describe that gender because now, finally, i have a word that is more accurate. i have identified as neutrois for over a year… why am i changing that now? how is maverique different and why is neutrois no longer enough?

  • [Random] Thoughts,  Gender[queer],  Queer[ness]

    hmm….

    so i just stumbled upon a new gender that has recently been coined by someone else called “aporagender”. aporagender: Aporagender is a term newly coined, meaning a gender separate from male, female, and anything in between while still having a very strong and specific gendered feeling. I have a checklist for if your gender if aporagender: Your sense of gender is stronger than that is “normal” (I hate saying normal to describe this but I can’t think of a better way to do it) Your gender is completely and totally not male or female and while i like it (it’s actually similar to the gender i’m coining, maverique), i agree with lithrobotics about the problematic wording. wtf does having a sense of gender that’s stronger than “normal”, “average” whatever word you want to use even mean? this is highly presumptive, arbitrary and meaningless. sorry, creator of this word. i also agree about the use of “checklist”. i didn’t…

  • [Random] Thoughts,  Gender[queer],  Queer[ness]

    “maverique” v2.0

    [ edit: please see the reworded definition here. ] a faded yellow, white and orange pride flag on which black text reads: maverique /mav ˈrēk/ franglais coined by Vesper H. from the English eponym “maverick” and the French suffix “-ique”. pronounciation is “mav-REEK”,  rhyming with “antique”. a non-binary gender characterized by autonomy and inner conviction regarding a sense of gender which is unorthodox, unconventional and entirely independent of conventional concepts of gender. this is an updated description of maverique with the (current) design of the maverique flag faded in the background for ease of reading. i’m trying to keep things shorter and concise compared to the last version, but in doing so i feel like i may be making this more difficult for others to understand…. feedback would be much appreciated. :/