ace-sweater

[ace-sweater]

I wrote a long, angry explanation, rolled my eyes, then deleted it all...

A kiss on the cheek or forehead? No, totally platonic. But let's not get cutesy, we all know that's not what the poll is about.

A peck on the lips? Eh, mostly romantic.

Making out? Mostly sexual. If you suck lip for longer than 30 seconds most allos are going to assume things are moving south.

Kinda hate how the ace/aroace community thinks sexuality is only about touching genitals...

(i’m trying to figure out something. aces’ and aros’ opinions on this especially are appreciated, but all are encouraged to vote (and rb for larger sample size yada yada you know the drill))

*edit: to those voting “other/it depends” i am once again humbly asking for your explanations. i’m hopelessly confused here

[ace-sweater]

"Oh, you don't like kissing or cuddling and don't get crushes? Those are aromantic things, so you must be aro."

No. I'm ace. Not aro. Just as it's rude to base someone's sexuality off of the gender of their partner, it's also rude to assume my romantic orientation based off of what I'm comfortable doing around other people (especially people I've only met a few times.)

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Diversity win! The children's cartoon character where no one in the cast will go through any romantic/sexual growth is aro/ace/aroace!

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Truly experiencing the opposite of a gay panic, the aro/ace dread, when I think somebody has a crush on me

[ace-sweater]

Man, I’d love to ask whoever posts spam in the asexual tag what their goal is. Is it purely aphobic trolling? Do they think we’re actually a bunch of incels who will jump at the first sight of a panty shot? Do they think the ace community is actually way bigger than it is?

[ace-sweater]

Combination of two.

I’ve come out to my other lgtbq friends, but I kind of regret it. They give me vibes of accepting ace people because they know they should, but not because they understand why. Sometimes I worry they treat me differently now that I came out as ace, along with some weird assumptions (they started slipping up and using “they” pronouns for me because??? All other ace people they know are nonbinary I guess?)

On the other hand, if I came out to my family, I’m pretty sure they’d support me. I just haven’t yet because I know they’d have questions, and I wasn’t confident about expressing my feelings until very recently. Also I’ve been fine talking about my experiences as an ace person, like “You know, most people I just don’t find attractive” and “I’m actually very comfortable being single” without saying the word “asexual”. And honestly, most people I express that to (especially women) completely agree lol.

Just kinda curious

Y’all should totally share your experiences if you’re comfortable

I feel like it’s an important aspect of the aro/ace experience that isn’t talked about enough

[ace-sweater]

I have a lot of ace moments in my life but one of them was when my therapist asked me to list “things that give me pleasure” and I basically gave her the first verse of “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music and she was like ok you completely missed the point of the question. To this day I’m not sure what she wanted. Did she really want me to say things like latex underwear or thigh strokes or boobs? A good sunset is way more pleasurable tbh. Like if she meant sexual pleasure she really should have specified.

[ace-sweater]

Ugh, I am getting so fed up with the aro/ace community. I don't want to gatekeep, because the two communities are already gatekeeped to hell and back, but it's gotten to the point where I'm starting to hate the aroace community and will take people more seriously when they say they're ace OR aro but not both. Because at least then they've thought about the fucking difference.

As an ace person who is NOT aro, it feels like asexuality got pushed aside to mean ONLY do you want to touch someone's genitals. I want to love the JaidenAnimations video because it is such a good explanation of my experience as an ace person, but then she goes and pulls the rug out from under asexuality by saying "And all that is what it means to be aromantic! What does it mean to be asexual? Teehee that's private!"

And I'm for sure NOT aromantic. I have had more romantic feelings for people than physical/sexual. I've had romantic feelings for people I'd be embarrassed to admit, but they're not accompanied by physical desire.

Our community is so fucking bad at explaining attraction. We just say "Asexuality is a lack of sexual attraction. Aromantic is a lack of romantic attraction" and end it there. Like what the fuck does that mean? Tautology much? I have learned so much more about attraction from my allo therapist than the entire aspec community put together.

And if I had a dollar for every person who claimed to be aromantic but then described being absolutely infatuated with another human (I wouldn't be rich but I'd have more than a few dollars.) Like what do people actually think love and romance means? If you squeeze sexuality out of the picture and make romance into a physical thing then yeah, I guess it is possible to "not love" someone but then also talk about how you'd die for them and how jealous you are that you're not the number one important person in their life.

And now because aromantic got pushed into its own narrow box we're seeing bullshit like "aplatonic." Not gatekeeping that requires me to chant "thou shall not gatekeep" like a fucking mantra every time I see it.

[ace-sweater]

From the substack post above, which contains the link to a preprint of the academic article:

When I began my research, I planned to compare the experiences of asexual men, asexual women, and “beyond the binary” asexuals. I ended up interviewing 77 people under the asexuality umbrella. But there was a major problem. About a third of the people I interviewed didn’t really fit into any gender category. These individuals felt that gender presentation and/or identity was unimportant, pointless, and/or oppressive. They didn’t want to be understood through the lens of gender. I ended up coining the term “gender detachment” to describe these feelings (though, as some you helpfully pointed out, there are other terms, like autigender, neutrois, etc. that get at similar ideas).

[ace-sweater]

so the author of the article on gender detachment and asexuality (post on tumblr) has finally released a preprint of the article. its not peer-reviewed yet and its basically a preview but if anyone is interested you can read it here

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I worry I'm starting to drift apart from the ace community because I've noticed a lot of what I consider part of my asexuality is being more and more attributed to being aromantic. Like, I love JaidenAnimation's video Being Not Straight, but literally everything she said about being aromantic is how I view my asexuality.

I made a poll on kissing and the vast majority of people see kissing as mostly or entirely romantic. And this is exactly the opposite of how I feel. Obviously there can be romantic emotions around kissing, but it's a physical act of physical pleasure. It kind of requires a certain degree of physical attraction. Or crushes. I mostly see crushes talked about as a romantic thing, but the stereotypical crush is the shy highschooler dreaming about the cool sports star that they never even talked to. While it's not impossible to have romantic feelings for someone you've never met, it's not considered "normal" by most allos.

To me sexual attraction is an intense form of physical attraction. And physical attraction is wanting to be physically close to someone, or feeling happy when someone is physically close. I feel like society as a whole is so bad at talking about attraction that when we talk about asexuality, we just say "lack of sexual attraction" and stop it there with no further explanation. And it worries me that it's leading people to believe sexual attraction is only about sex. And well, kissing isn't sex. Crushes don't require sex. So it must be romantic, right?

Also by the way, I totally believe that sexual crushes and romantic crushes exist, and speaking as a graysexual alloromantic they actually feel very different from one another. But I don't want this to go on any longer.

[ace-sweater]

Being (gray)asexual is like... Mining for diamonds

Everyone has a diamond mine. When you're young, life tells you that one day you'll find a diamond in the mine. You'll carefully mine it out of the rock wall and bring it out in the open for everyone to see. That sounds fine, you think, you're not really against this diamond system and having a diamond sounds nice, conceptually.

You're getting to the age where your classmates are starting to talk about their diamonds, now appearing in their mines. Some have even taken them out to show others. You haven't really seen any diamonds yourself yet though.

"It's fine," the adults in your life tell you. "Young people are pretty bad at mining diamonds. The diamonds they mine won't last. You're better off waiting."

It's college. Your walls are still pretty barren. You think you see something glimmer on the ceiling. A diamond! It's pretty far out of reach though. You'll have to completely upend your life to get even a chance of mining it. Nah, you're not that desperate. You don't pay that diamond much attention.

You're an adult now, with a job. Over the years you see a few more diamonds in places you can't reach. One's tucked away in a crevice called "wrong sexuality." Another's on the ceiling again, already married. Damn, how unlucky are you? All your friends have brought diamonds out of the mine at this point.

...You start thinking about that, actually. Not only have all of your friends found diamonds, many have found multiple diamonds. They bring them out of their mine, keep them for a while, then discard them. Bad fit, they said. And then they go back into the mine, and several weeks or months later they have a new diamond.

Shit, how are these people finding diamonds so quickly? You've been at this for years and you've never even been a place to start mining one.

You're in your late twenties now, far too late for that "late bloomer" excuse. If you want to find a diamond, you're going to need to work for it. No more passively walking through the mine waiting for one to pop up right in front of you.

You start exploring places you wouldn't have gone to. You inspect as many rocks as possible. You think you see some glimmer!? Nah, it's just a smooth rock.

People tell you that sometimes you need to visit rocks multiple times before you can be sure if they're diamonds, so you do that. Nope, still rocks. You ask your family how many visits it takes to know for sure if its a rock or a diamond. "As many you want!" I want zero just give me a damn number to follow.

You're getting frustrated and you're starting to think there's something wrong with your mine. You voice your concerns to your friends, but they just tell you that it takes time. Diamonds are rare after all. You're not so sure. We can only see into our own mine, and you assumed everyone's looks like yours.

You start to ask people how many diamonds are in their mines. People freeze, act like you just spoke in the demon's tongue. You learn pretty quickly that apparently this is not a proper question to ask. Or worse, most people don't even understand the question. Why is it so hard?

Eventually you learn that when people are in a committed relationship, it's taboo to talk about diamonds. I don't have diamonds, my wife is my only diamond! For fuck's sake I'm not asking you to mine more diamonds, just tell me how many there are. You're not expecting me to believe that as soon as you put on a wedding ring all the diamonds turn off like a switch.

Your friend offers to help you with your diamond-finder app. (You hate the damn thing, but at least using it guarantees you won't find your next diamond on the ceiling again.) She flips through a few profiles and freaks out. "Look at THAT diamond!" Dear that's a rock. It's shaped like a diamond, cut like a diamond, but it doesn't sparkle like a diamond.

Your friends are starting to return the favor of asking dumb questions. "What kind of diamond are you looking for?" I'm looking for a fucking diamond. Your mom and sister say they didn't think their husbands were diamonds at first. In front of the husbands. Oops, backpedal. You're not letting them off the hook so easily. So when was it fam? How long did it take for them to become diamonds? (Still would like a concrete number for that.) Sorry, taboo question. We don't talk about the diamond mines.

At this point you admit it. You're that identity with the barren diamond mines. You connect with other people and at least we can all agree and vent on our problems. But you've never been the type of person who feels a lot better knowing other people are suffering with you.

You start to think maybe smooth rocks are the best you're going to get. You start to doubt yourself that those diamonds in your past were even diamonds. Some of the other people in the community seem happy with their smooth rocks. But it kills you inside to think about having to treat a rock as if it was a diamond. Besides, who wants to be with someone who think's they're a rock? Everyone thinks they're diamonds.

You start to wonder if you even need a diamond. Honestly? You don't. You'd be totally fine going the rest of your life diamondless. But there are advantages to having a diamond. Help you raise a family, shared income, less lonely. And you're not giving up just because it's hard.

You alternate going back and forth between being frustrated that your active searching brings only rocks, and being frustrated that you're not doing enough to search for diamonds. And you're not even on step 1, you're on step 0. What are the chances that your first diamond will even work out? So many people toss their first diamond. And their second, and their third. And those are just the diamonds you know about, not the diamonds they couldn't mine due to being in unreachable places.

Then one day it hits you. You're slogging through the mine, not even trying, and you turn a corner and bam! Right in front of you, eye level, is an absolutely brilliant diamond. It's beautiful, everything your friends and family and society promised it would be. It sparkles and gleams and makes you happy just looking at it. You're reminded that diamonds aren't just shiny rocks. You're smiling, you want to be close to it, your brain stops working around it. This is what it means to be a diamond.

You get your mining gear. DON'T. FUCK. THIS. UP. You got one shot. Your friends are rooting for you but they don't understand. This is the first time in thirty years of your life that you've been in this situation. Failure could mean another thirty before this comes around again. Er, fifteen, you'll cut off the years you were a kid.

Finally, you ask it.

"No."

You're a good person. You know what "No" means. You've said no to countless other miners over the past few years. You back off. The diamond is in a spot where you constantly pass by it for non-mining related purposes, though.

You know you need to start searching the mines again. Who knows? Maybe you'll get super extra lucky and another diamond will be right around the next corner? But it's unbearable thinking about all the fruitless effort. And there's a diamond right. there. It said no but... Maybe after some time, it'll say yes? Maybe the person who already laid claim to the diamond will discard it. Happens all the time. You're a good person but absolutely shameless enough to grab that rebound.

So you wait. And wait. And you know you can search the mines at the same time as waiting on this diamond. You know that but...

It's been a year. Give it up. Your family consoles you. Says there's plenty of fish in the ocean, plenty of diamonds in the mine. Back to square one.

No, back to square zero.

[ace-sweater]

Having your workplace celebrate Pride is definitely weird as an ace person. On the one hand it's like, you recognize asexuality/aromanticism is a valid identity right? There better be an A in that + on the end of your LGBTQ there. But on the other hand, it's 100% not my company's business to know I'm ace, since it has nothing to do with outward signifiers like one's partner or pronouns.

[ace-sweater]

Loving the number of replies I’m getting so far! Though reading through some of the tags I should have probably clarified the kind of kissing. Suddenly curious if everyone replying “platonic” are just talking about small pecks on the cheek or lips or are some of you platonically using tongue out here

[ace-sweater]

The fact that it’s even the aromantic colors make it even funnier.

[ace-sweater]

Understanding that you are aroace is also understanding that you see "Fuck, marry or kill" differently.

Like what do you mean you don't see all of these things as "Thing you don't want to do number 1, thing you don't want to do number 2 or thing you don't want to do number 3"!?!