#I'm an aro who has sex and this affects me as much as it affects anyone else

[tossawary]

I finished Volume 3 of SVSSS, which encompasses the main story, and currently have my bookmark sitting at the first chapter of the Airplane Extras in Volume 4. I took a bunch of quote pics but have yet to review them and add thoughts.

Every time I read SVSSS, I forget how... incredible... the inside of Shen Yuan's head is. He's fascinating.

Like, he's misogynistic (even while criticizing Airplane's own misogynistic writing), he's homophobic, AND he's transphobic. Not in a way where I think he thinks anyone deserves fewer rights than anyone else (I think he's generally a nice person, although, holy shit, I would not trust this man to craft policy of any kind) or would prevent anyone from living however they chose to live, a lot of his problematic bullshit stays inside his own head as he tries to understand the world around him using the stallion novel formulas he was given, but he's carrying around SO MUCH unexamined bias that supports his refusal to examine himself and his own desires.

Some of it reads (presumably intentionally) a LOT like the kind of conflicting, problematic bullshit a lot of queer people carry around inside their heads as they struggle to untangle themselves and their beliefs.

And while I do wish that Shen Yuan had been forced to confront and address his misogyny and transmisogyny even further than it does come up (in part because it is DEFINITELY affecting the way he thinks about gay men as well, including and especially Binghe), I do kind of... appreciate on some level that he thinks this way? From a character standpoint? Because I think it's probably realistic for a privileged young man spending a lot of time on the internet reading shit like PIDW to look at the world this way. And it's clear even through his own narration that his blindness in certain areas is causing him a lot of trouble. While I do have criticisms and personal wishes, I do appreciate the depiction of personal character development that is just... a cringeworthy mess of internalized bullshit the whole fucking time.

Also, it's SO funny to me that he reads as SO aro-ace-spectrum to me (probably gay, but generally detached from sexuality and possibly also partially from gender) AND he actually knows... the word asexual, I don't think he has a very broad understanding of asexuality... but he knows the word and yet doesn't personally identify that way. He mentally accuses both Luo Binghe (main story, before finding out Binghe is into him) and Liu Qingge (Succubus Extra) of being asexual for showing no interest in women, only to fail to reflect on how he ALSO demonstrably has no lasting personal interest in the women around them, which doesn't read as very genuine to me.

(EDIT: Again, I am not against a bisexual Shen Yuan interpretation either! I am willing to be persuaded by any author who wishes to tell a particular story. But Shen Yuan's attraction towards women often reads personally to me as very shallow and possibly insincere.)

"I willingly read PIDW, that proves I'm straight!" he sincerely thinks to himself, even though his favorite wife is the one without explicit sex scenes and he also admits to skipping over a lot of them.

"I'm able to tell when women are beautiful, that makes me straight!" thinks the guy who mentally censors nudity whenever demon women lose their clothes, and keeps telling us how "the average reader" of PIDW would react to these beautiful women instead of conveying his own attracted reactions. His actual reactions are generally centered on a woman's narrative significance. The only people he personally seems to find attractive are Luo Binghe and maybe Liu Qingge.

Though my interpretation was that he does probably experience sexual arousal and have a sex drive (see his username), which probably helps with his conviction of straightness, I'm not sure that there's any mention of Shen Yuan even masturbating at all in the entire main story of SVSSS? He never tried to hook up with anyone. Sex is apparently not a priority for him.

(EDIT: He does seem to enjoy sex with Binghe in the "Bing-mei vs. Bing-ge" Extra. He loves Binghe and likes the closeness and the physical pleasure. I appreciate the indication that they're working on moving on from the AWFUL intercourse pushed by Xin Mo's possession and possibly also the System's Scenario Pusher.)

And Shen Yuan seems to view women as being and behaving Fundamentally Differently from men and gay men as behaving Fundamentally Differently from straight men (as soon as he learns Binghe is into him, he thinks about how Binghe isn't behaving like the characters in his sister's gay, non-con, BDSM erotica novels), seeing everything through the lens of novel tropes, such that he seems to view sex and sexuality and gender as being deeply mixed with a person's personality. So he can't be a gay man, because he's too "Normal", in his mind at first, because he doesn't behave like his own mental image of "How Gay Men Behave" (or "How Women Behave / A PIDW Wife Behaves"), while also demonstrably not being anything like "the average reader" of PIDW and also apparently not caring too much about his own masculinity? Like, I do think he likes being the gentleman scholar of Qing Jing Peak, he does like appearing dignified and strong and cool, he doesn't like losing, he doesn't really like playing "damsel in distress" roles, and I do think he likes being gallant towards women, but he's not too concerned about seriously competing with figures like Luo Binghe or Liu Qingge? He's happy enough to back down and let someone else take the lead if necessary. He puts up with being put into the roles of female leads even if it embarrasses him and he rolls with the punches to his pride easily enough. He seems to have decided his Sexuality By Default, so it does make me have a lot of thoughts about whether or not he's potentially going with Gender By Default / Convenience as well.

Someone get this man some amateur and academic literature on gender and sexuality (and a lot of other stuff), stat, so he can ignore it, probably.

[galaxythreads]

hi,

I'm fascinated by ur Loki works, and since I'm currently rereading all my favourites I wanted to ask about your general headcanons for Loki, and your opinions on all the movies and appearances Loki had. Basically, could you please talk about Loki, because i feel like my idea of Loki and your idea of Loki are similar. bye!!

"Do you want to rant at me about your favorite character?" I mean. do you want my first born?

general headcanons:

there's this scene in Loki: Where Mischief Lies where Loki has a throwaway line that talks about how it never matters when Thor hits him even if it gets violent and it rotates around in my head like a microwave all the time. Such an interesting concept that Thor took things too far but Loki never said anything because that's Just What Siblings Do TM

Loki's hair is soft to the touch, not greasy, because I will die mad about loki's hair in ragnarok

loki steals clothing. This is something you can see in all my fics, he's constantly stealing things from everyone.

Loki is ace, never had sex, and isn't interested in changing that. I don't think he's aro, I think he is interested in romantic love to some extent, but I think sex is just mid to him

loki's magic pokes at all five senses. It's something you can see, taste, hear, touch, and smell

loki got "food poisoning" a lot as a kid because his body was made for jotun stuff and like. asgard doesn't have that

Loki has a moral code, and there are lines he won't cross

loki doesn't lie that much, people just gave him the name because he's shifty and it was a rumor that was started by thor that he lies all the time

loki and thor's relationship has only gotten more complicated as they've gotten older and they have the brain chemistry to process things better, look at their childhoods and go, uh, bro, wait a minute

frigga wasn't a very good mom to loki, even though she tried

Loki can cook

loki uses magic less now that he's older, not because he's not good at it, but because he just like. he uses more subtle magic, and he doesn't need to turn his magic into a glowy show when he could just punch you in the face

loki is a man of few words

loki being captured and watching him lose his mind is straw that broke the camel's back for Gamora, who left shortly after he agreed to help thanos

loki wasn't mind controlled per se in the first avengers, the scepter was just affecting his feelings, but not more than anyone else? Loki was just genuinely tortured/coerced into this by thanos and they didn't have to force him to do anything. he was too terrified to say no. scepter was just an added bonus to cement the control

loki absolutely has permanent spinal damage from his time with thanos

I have a bazillion of these i could literally go on for ages.

---

thoughts on movies:

Uh. Okay. um. How do I say this without getting slain? I...do not think, objectively, that any of the Thor movies are good movies. I think they have fantastic concepts, and wonderful characters, and I adore poking at them, but I think one of the reasons that they're so beloved is because of their potential not because of what they are. People love thinking about what could have been and what they wished happened, because there's very little that's actually satisfyingly completed about the films.

Because the Thor movies are not...It. You kind of have to go hunting for outside material for pieces to be connected together and thor 2 has lots of issues that not even thor 1 could have dreamed of, and Thor 1 is just. A disaster, narratively. I think Thor 3 is definetly the most well put together movie, which sucks because it's the one that botched the characters beyond repair. You either have good characters and awful story or fantastic story and terrible characters with no inbetween.

Trying to talk about why I don't think the movies are good - objectively, as movies - has never ended super well for me, but yeah, i just. I don't. I don't think they're very good. I can break it down in more detail if anyone is interested, but there seems to exist two opinions on tumblr: you either think thor 1 - tdw is an untouchable master piece or you don't and there's nothing good to say about them at all.

I have endless praise to give the movies, but that doesn't mean I don't have criticisms, because, good lord, they suck in some places. Loki's character arc is the most baffling mishandle of a character that I have ever witnessed, and yes, I mean this from the get go. Connecting thor 1 - thor 2 takes some mental math.

Thor 1: Interesting set-up for Loki's character, I like how careful they are with setting him up to make sure that his arc was clear and the line between victim and villain was really blurred. They did a good job on making him sympathetic, and revealing an interesting concept with him and Thor, even if I don't think it was executed as well as I wanted.

Avengers 1: adore poking at Loki and Thanos's relationship here. I cannot get enough of it. I like writing with the avengers mostly because of all that didn't happen in the movie that I wished had. There's so many narrative secrets that don't get addressed or glossed over and I just want it picked apart

Thor 2: i enjoy seeing Loki and Thor working together, Loki's deteriorating mental stay in prison is always fascinating, and generally tdw is my favorite movie and portrayal of loki. It's what I usually base all my fics off of is how he acts in this movie. 10/10, will sing praises

thor 3: my loathing for this movie has shriveled considerably since i saw it the first time, but i'd still be hardpressed to say i liked anything they did with loki's character. Loki is self-sabatoging constantly, and his character makes no sense whatsoever. he is the village idiot, and like, i'm not really into that.

Infinity War: Honestly, i'm just gonna say it - i really did like what they did with loki in this movie. Like yeah, I wanted him to help and be an important part of the story, yeah, of course, but I also appreciate from a writing perspective what a powerful move killing him off before the credits was. Loki was the Big Bad of the first avengers and murdering him set the stakes amazingly. It carried Thor's entire arc, and it felt like a shroud that was layered over the movie. I know a lot of people didn't like it, but I appreciated what they did with it, and I like the tragedy.

---

Appearance:

not a single scene in ragnarok with him it it did not make me want to chew off my foot, his character design was awful. I will never understand why everyone was drooling over the black suit, it looked like it was bought from walmart and then the wrinkles smoothed out with a flat iron. His hair is greasy af for no reason, all of his clothing looks cheap and ugly. there's nothing impressive or visually interesting about him. the choice to remove his colors so hela can take them will never not be annoying to me even though hela is my baby child

thor 1 has the best hair, in my opinion, but he also looks stupid as hell in his armor. loki's design, to me, works best when it has long lines and it's flowy and/or soft. visually nice:

and like the reason it's visually nice is because it's soft and doesn't make me notice tom hiddleston's hips. The moment i'm aware of his hips i get irritated as hell about it, because idk man, loki just. he does not look good when you're aware he has hips. tom hiddleston is like fine, somehow? i don't know why it doesn't bother me when he's wearing whatever he wants to - i also just like. do not care - but with loki i'm just like. oh good LORD stop making me aware of your hips.

It's why i can't stand his ragnarok suit but would sing praises over the thor 1 one.

It's something that's just like. confounded me forever, because i don't even know why it bugs me so much, but every time i see his TVA outfit, thor 1 armor, or that stupid ragnarok suit i want to shoot a canon ball into the sun.

Give the man a suit coat or do not put him in a jacket. loki has lots of skills but pulling off a jacket is not one of them.

He needs to look haunted, like, in general. Or like an 18th century tired man. it's integral for his character to me.

things that make galaxy happy:

loki soft hair

loki having suit coat or suit coat equivalent

things that will send her into a ranting, unwanted, nitpicky rage

loki greasy hair

loki dressed in jackets

[confused-disaster32]

Hi! So you can call this a rant or a vent or whatever I don't rlly care - I just wanted to put some of my opinions out there bc it is eating me inside out to keep my opinions on Alastor's sexuality and all of the discourse about him being shipped to myself.

Also i'd like to state that I'm writing this as someone who is aroace but has no actual wish to be in a romantic relationship and actually struggles to so much as picture what that's be like for myself. I would also like to state how I'm not speaking for the whole community and others will have different opinions to myself.

Firstly - aroace is a spectrum (as someone who is on the aroace spectrum btw) and I completely agree with ppl who say that it is a spectrum and shipping has always existed and you can't rlly stop an entire fandom. My only problem is when ppl completely ignore that he is aroace while doing this, bc to me it seems like there's so much potential to having him have to go through those types of emotions and to write him off as if he's completely allo not only can make some people feel unseen but also just isn't as fun.

Also I kind of believe that he'd possibly date someone for the entertainment - like even if he didn't exactly feel romantic attraction maybe he'd be willing to be around someone closely bc he might like the reactions he'd be getting. (example: he might've stayed in a relationship with Vox maybe not out of pure attraction but if he found out that affection could make the TV short-circuit? He'd be interested)

Adding to that, I personally do not actually ship him with anyone romantically due to his character + the fact that I am projecting my own distaste for romance on him but you do you ig.

Also, on the note of nsfw around him - sometimes you cannot stop a fandom, rule 34 exists and some people who are asexual sometimes may want to have sex and all of that stuff. Personally I think he'd probably be sex-repulsed due to the fact that he canonically has issues with being touched.

ALSO, i personally think that way too many people are brushing over the idea of putting Alastor in a QPR - like that would literally be so awesome.

Alastor x Rosie? Cute af (to me Rosie gives of aro vibes too, but more romance - favourable) like they're already besties and honestly I think that Rosie would defo help him figure out about his identity considering that he's quite obviously not all that sure about slang and stuff.

Vox x Alastor - It has the potential to be SO FUCKING FUN like, you get to experiment with how they feel for each other, maybe what Alastor's got going on bc he died before being aroace was rlly a thing and he'd be confused about how he felt about Vox for sure.

Lucifer x Alastor - I quite like it, ik that Lucifer is supposed to be with Lillith but she did take an extremely long hiatus on her family up in heaven so i think it's okay. Plus the idea of them bonding and becoming close due to Charlie is wonderful.

Even angel and Alastor - maybe after Val Angel doesn't want a super sexual relationship - maybe he's not all that interested in something purely romantic either and though I love huskerdust this would still be pretty cool.

Really all I'm saying is; be considerate. Incorporate the fact that Alastor is Aroace, even if you do ship him - in or out of QPRs - and ofc sometimes writing someone who is part of a group ur not in is difficult (coming from someone who often struggles in writing especially when it comes to romance) but taking a crack at it might actually turn out to be rlly cool.

But please don't ignore his aroace-ness, there's not a huge amount of aroace characters out there and acting like someone isn't can be annoying for ppl who want to find rep around their identity, esp if they haven't seen much before (I can relate and he was one of the first aroace characters I was introduced to after I found out what it meant).

So yeah, that's my piece.

[luffy-is-aroace]

Do you have the source in which Luffy was confirmed aroace? I’m making a project on the ace and aro communities that includes a list of aro, ace, and aroace rep in media and I can’t find where it was confirmed, but I hear everyone say he is. Thank you.

luffy is very very much aroace coded but neither he nor the author have ever directly said the words "luffy is asexual" - one piece's canonical queer rep is limited to transgender characters

that being said, here's the relevant passages, and some context if its needed:

in chapter 516/episode 411, luffy stumbles across boa hancock, the worlds most beautiful woman, in the bath. she has an ability to turn people to stone when they feel some amount of "love, lust, or adoration" to her; ie. when they are attracted to her. heres how it goes:

this is the first time hancock meets a man who isnt affected by her power. it basically suggests that, by not turning to stone, hes not attracted to her at all.

eventually, she develops a crush on him, and she wants to marry him, which he outright rejects (chapter 598)

in regard to the "mero mero" moment, a fan noticed a discrepancy, and asked the author about it in the SBS corner from volume 54. luffy had previously responded to the naked body of a woman the way all the other guys did. oda decided to blame it on luffy imitating his friend

"That's not the Luffy we know." "When Luffy is alone, his reaction is what it was with Hancock. He's interested, but he's not entranced by her." Luffy acting in a certain way because Usopp does - going along with the mood of the moment, or performing, or however you want to say it - feels awfully aspec to me. It's definitely a common aspec experience to try and force yourself into amatonormative - or, in this case, I guess allonormative? - behavior.

In the SBS for volume 88, oda was asked about why luffy called a woman a "beauty" at one point. The response:

Luffy understanding physical attractiveness as a classification, understanding it but not caring about it - that suggests he probably doesn't experience aesthetic attraction (appreciating someones appearance, disconnected from sexual/romantic attraction). this definitely speaks to my experience as an aroace individual.

also, this isnt necessarily evidence for luffy specifically, but moreso a general answer - in the SBS for volume 34, oda was asked if there would be romance between the main characters, and he brushed it off:

my impression, personally, is that Oda is generally fairly uninterested in pursuing any romantic relationships between his main characters.

in conclusion, I personally feel like the evidence here suggests that luffy is aroace, or at least aspec, given some of Oda's wording (which is probably a little up to interpretation, given it's been translated from japanese). His answer in volume 54 has always felt like a retcon to me, like Oda only came to a conclusion of sorts on this when Luffy met Hancock, and had to go back and find some reasoning for why Luffy would have responded that way. Luffy, more than anything, wants to have an adventure, and romance and sex aren't part of that for him.

I'm not gonna try to police how people view Luffy. it's not healthy for me to do that - luffy and his aroaceness is something that's very very personal to me and itd be way too messy. In addition, in the past I've had people point out that this evidence would only necessarily suggest luffy isnt attracted to women, and he could be gay; I personally don't see him that way, and I seriously doubt Oda would make that choice in canon, but people can do what they want. I think, however, it's pretty telling that a lot of aroace and aspec people see themselves in him.

This morphed into something of a modern take on my thesis here instead of just answering your question; sorry about that. I'd be interested to see your project when you're done, if you're able and willing to share!

[selfidentifiednerdyprude]

Individual choices vs systemic forces

This has come up a lot, especially with me being dumb enough to stand up for myself on a certain post about kinky aces and wholesomeness that's going around, so I'm making a post to clarify the issue.

Tl;dr you can do whatever you want forever, I don't care, it literally does not affect me one bit if an ace person is involved in sex/kink or an aro person is involved in romance or an aroace person is involved in both.

I would like to lessen the forces that make people feel like they HAVE to do these things, but it is straight up not my place to police whether anyone CAN do these things.

The thing is, nothing I say on this blog is ever about individual people making choices about what's best for themselves. "There are people in happy and healthy relationships that look like the ones that hurt me, and this is fine" has been a guideline of my writing about how I was harmed by the kink community since I started writing about how I was harmed by the kink community.

My work concerns itself with compulsory sexuality and amatonormativity, and the ways it harms everyone, including alloromantic allosexuals.

My quarrel is not with people making the choice to be sexual or romantic in whatever way they choose— it's with the system that elevates these choices to be more than choices.

It's not with the kinky ace who writes erotica. It's with the system that uses kinky aces who write erotica as "proof" that ace people are worthy of respect— because we shouldn't need proof that we're worthy of respect. We are people, regardless of how sexually inclined we are or aren't, and we belong here.

It's not with the aromantic person who chooses to enjoy romantic content or enter a romantic relationship. It's with the system that uses romo aros as "proof" that aro people are worthy of respect— because we shouldn't need proof that we're worthy of respect. We are people, regardless of how romantically inclined we are or aren't, and we belong here.

It's not with any individual person who, through their informed individual choices, has more proximity to romantic/sexual culture than me. It's with the way that some of us having those preferences is taken as proof that all of us are able or willing to conform.

I will defend to the death the right of any aspec person to make what they've decided are the right choices for themselves in their personal relationship with romance and sexuality. I will always stand against a system that elevates those who are willing to participate in those things over those who are not.

So if it wasn't clear: sex, kink, and romance favorable people are welcome here. But any attitude that views those preferences as more respectable, acceptable, transgressive, or "cool" than averse/repulsed perspectives will always be called out as the disgustingly aphobic bullshit that it is.

I care so much about all of us. I want us all to be free.

[chiisana-sukima]

follow up to the question you just answered (tho I'm a different anon), when did you first get into fandom? what was it like back in the day?

I read what I would now consider my first fic when I was thirteen. It was split into two traditionally published Star Trek novels, but they were whumptastic, barely sanitized Spirk (no sex, but omg the "Ill die for you, give up everything for you, endure horrible torture, etc" vibes were off the charts). And while I can't say they awakened something in me per se--because I had already read a bunch of other raunchy queer scifi by other authors--they were certainly my first taste of transformative works, and I've been in fandom on and off since I became old enough to drive to cons a few years later.

Why is that romulan chick there when this is sanitized gay porn? No idea, its been years since I read these.

I went to Star Trek cons when I was in my twenties and still know some of the con runners from that time. There were, to put it bluntly, a lot of raves and a lot of sex lol. It was a more open time period in some ways, or at least it was open enough my whole friend group basically all banged.

Otoh though, there wasn't nearly as much language to think and talk about identity. I think The Youth TM have really stepped up around issues of gender and sexuality in ways that are net huge positives, including for older queers who can now identify ourselves in ways that may always have been central to us, but which we didnt have language to express (I still call myself bi and queer but can now also say I'm nonbinary/genderqueer and aro--both of which I have been for as long as I can remember but only have words to discuss now). We banged a lot back then (which was great! no regrets!) but didn't know ourselves very well.

I didn't become what I'd call active in fandom on a regular basis though until the 1990s. I was a manga translator in the late nineties/early 2000s and ran a small scanlation team. There wasn't as much Discourse about what kinds of content are acceptable then as there is now, but Discourse springs eternal, so there were a bunch of other kinds of wank instead. My team was international, and we ended up splitting over a weird mix of factors that included one of the members being incredibly racist due to childhood trauma during the Yugoslav wars, my own anxiety over customs opening all my packages from Japan, and an attempt by a traditional publishing company to co-opt all the scanlators as contractors for shit wages and no benefits.

I took a long break and then came back into fandom on the fic reading/writing side in 2015, and I love it here a lot. AO3 is the best thing since sliced bread. Even though I worry about purity wank and the panopticon and how that's all affecting people growing up now, I think overall fandom is a better place for the togetherness that the internet has bred. It's much more accessible now compared to when I was young, and it's easier to find your own little tribe of weirdos who match your freak pretty exactly.

[cowboylikedean]

Inside the (a)Romance

For those of you who don't know, I have been in the first really like... real feelings... romantic relationship of my life for the past 10 months. Being romance replused sex indifferent aroace has really shaped my experience of this relationship. This relationship is romantic, but it is not allo and I think it would be helpful for me, other aros, and also allos to pick it apart and discuss how my romance repulsed aromanticism has affected my experience of this relationship (and also how my partner's patience has been paramount in making it work) in a new series inside the (a)romance.

I'm going to post about different stages and conversations of our relationship. This first post is kinda gonna be an overview of things that are contextual and important including my identity words and conception and also outside things that are not romance related like our history.

My identity

I identify my romantic orientation with the following words and phrases: aromantic, romance repulsed, sensuromantic. None of this has changed. My definition of sensuromantic changed and my romance repulsed label got a *exception... but all three of those are still my labels. I'm going to break down in parts to explain their meaning before and after.

Aromantic

This is the easiest label because it's barely changed. I am aromantic and my definition of that is that I am not oriented to feel romantic attraction. That has not changed. I am still not oriented to feel romantic attraction. I just happen to feel it towards him. I don't expect that to ever happen again. This hasn't changed much because I already had an exception. I had an almost-someone I had romantic feelings for in high school. We never dated because he wanted to keep it secret from his friends and I thought I was worth more than that. I've regretted not going for it anyway and hoping that after we were really good, he would want to tell his friends because I thought that was my only shot at understanding romance. Now I have another shot! So that barely changed.

Romance Repulsed

This one has changed a tiny bit, but not much. I am romance repulsed and I define that as I am turned off and made uncomfortable by displays of affection defined romantically. For example, when I was just out of high school, we went to visit my dad's family out of state at the end of July. We were there during my sister's birthday. My sister's boyfriend asked my dad privately and got my grandma's address and had flowers delivered to my sister at my grandma's house on her birthday. The whole family thought this was soooo sweet and I thought it was sooo uncomfortable and creepy. It felt overbearing and gross. I said that if a partner did that to me, I'd be creeped out and that would be a possible reason to end a relationship. When I thought about a friend doing this for me, however, it sounded SOOO sweet! It was the definition of the romance that made it feel gross and overbearing. However, if my partner did that for me, I'd be really so endeared. So this remains true for everyone except my partner. Just like with "aromantic," how I already had an exception and I just added one, my partner became my only exception here.

Sensuromantic

This is a term I coined like 10 years ago when everyone was coining microlabels before the terf-lead aphoboia ruined the aspec communities of tumblr (which btw by the WAYYYY the 2013-2015 period of time where the queer communities were made on tumblr is hitting the mainstream now and I just feel so much grief). The definition I went with was that sensual attraction "takes the place of" romantic attraction for me. The role that romance plays in other people's lives, sensuality plays in mine. I knew that I had squishes where I desperately wanted to hug and cuddle, but I also knew I had no intention for those squishes to be defined romantically. So this definition where sensuality was in the place of romance made sense. I can pinpoint the moment romantic feelings began for me in my current relationship... that's a whole post in and of itself, but it was after a very soft and sweet cuddle session. I have changed my definition that a sensual relationship is required for romantic feelings to begin. This makes sense with my high school almost someone too because we had some touching and hugging there that lead to those feelings being romantic.

Some outside things and context

I'm just going to list some stuff that's important to note before we fully get into it:

At the beginning of my current relationship, I had another partner... a qpp life partner. We were engaged and had covid not happened, we'd be filing for divorce right now. This relationship was deeply devastating for me and soooo much about myself is being redefined right now

Another reason a lot of me is in flux is my mother died in April of this year. It's the worst thing that will ever happen to me and I still can't believe it happened.

I have had one other committed relationship defined romantically. I thought I had romantic feelings for her, but I didn't. There are many things about that relationship I regret, and even moreso now that I know what an actual reciprocal romantic relationship feels like.

I am SAM aroace and my sexual orientation is absolutely a part of this story, but it isn't the point of this series. I will likely be doing a long post about it as a part of this series, but it's not the focal point. Because I'm SAM, I can focus a lot on my romantic orientation without discussing my sexual orientation.

So that's my intro post to this series! Look out for more! The next post will talk about that moment I mentioned in the sensuromantic section for when my romantic feelings started!

[holdoncallfailed]

hey, ace person here! I've messaged you before about feeling similarly "left out" of a lot of cultural milestones including dating+sex and I totally sympathize with there not being more discussion about how to live your life as a young adult in the absence of those things. and I agree that sometimes the identity labels definitely get in the way of that discussion.

the asexuality label has felt less and less helpful as I've gotten older, and lately it just makes more sense to say that I'm straight or straight ace, because there is a very small demographic of the opposite gender who I am interested in, and when I do pursue a partner that's the kind of person I want to be with, so it seems like a helpful shorthand. however it still feels useful for me to say that I'm on the asexuality spectrum, because it's very clear to me that my experience of the cultural norms of sexual attraction/dating just do not conform to the ways that other people experience them.

as someone who is also decidedly not aro I also tend to stay out of ace spaces because it annoys me how the two get conflated and how everyone has the idea that asexuality = not having sex/not wanting to have sex/not dating. the sex negativity in those spaces can be super annoying and immature. like for me at least my asexuality is literally just an absence of sexual attraction which is all that asexuality is supposed to mean but it gets wrapped up in all these other cultural meanings about partners and romance and whether or not you want to have sex which is really not what it's about and not the point at all.

also personally the "queerplatonic" label has always bothered me because it seems to be implying that relationships without sex/romance are so wildly different that we need to invent a different term for them. like, you can just have a relationship without those things or a friendship that includes them, the terminology doesn't really matter, all that a relationship is is an agreement between two people.

I think identity in most cases is going to have more nuance and complexity than any single identity label will convey, and I also get exhausted of the microidentities bc like, at the end of the day, my relationship with sexuality (or lack thereof) will not be easy to explain no matter the shorthand. and maybe your lack of dating/sex experience has something to do with being on the asexuality spectrum, and maybe it doesn't, and there still needs to be room for those people in discussions, too. because it's totally normal for sex not to be a part of your life, whether you want it to be or not.

and like yeah, my biggest problems that arise from ny asexuality are not whether or not I'm included in the LBGT+ club, they're more about how the perception of being outside of cultural norms affects me and how people treat me because of it.

idk exactly what my point is but these are complicated ideas and it's hard to talk about. also I get the sense, though I may be wrong, that you personally do actually want to be someone who dates but doesn't know how to go about it, and I greatly empathize with the bitterness that comes with feeling left out from something you desperately want. it might not be something that I ever understand in the way that other people do, but there is still room in the world for people like me and you to have relationships. and I hope that if that is something you want that you find it someday; and if it isn't, I hope you can find the acceptance in yourself that this doesn't mean you're broken or wrong and that there is just as much value in being a single person in the world.

I hope that none of this comes across as rude or snarky, I'm just interested in the discussion and it really is a complicated topic. enjoy the rest of your day~

not rude or snarky at all, thank you for such a thoughtful message especially the last bit, i appreciate it a lot. 🥲

i agree with a lot of what you said and i think you've phrased it all much more reasonably than i would (could?) have lol so i also appreciate that.

i guess my leeriness of the term 'asexual'/its definition as a 'lack of sexual attraction' is that for me PERSONALLY it's not so much a lack of attraction as it is an attraction + lack of follow through. like, i feel attraction toward women and i have a libido but neither have intersected to the extent that i felt compelled to act on it. like why would i try to get another person involved when i could just not go through the trouble of all that. but also i'm aware that that has to do with the deplorably low image i have of myself which i'm allegedly working on with my therapist lmfao...

so in that vein i think i would actually say i would prefer 'asexual' to be understood as a lack of sex because in my mind my issue with having a relationship is that i'm there too, rather than the other person. and it disturbs me to consider that as an immutable identity as opposed to an objective state of being because i know how much it's intertwined FOR ME with my own self-esteem issues but i realize that doesn't apply to everyone. but all of that is very difficult to convey succinctly in a way that doesn't seem pathological. but i guess it is kind of pathological for me personally so.

and anyway there ARE people like yourself who genuinely just don't experience sexual attraction and that's it! so it isn't your or anyone else's fault that that language does fit your experiences (or theoretically could/should). i guess i am resentful of not having the language in the first place and then having the conversation obscured even further by all this gooooooofy microidentity discourse.

i would like to be able to just live as a solitary woman and have that be a neutral 'lifestyle choice' like idk having a pet or not having one. but that is not possible. and i would argue that the 'ace pride' stuff contributes to its impossibility just from the other direction. idk lol

it's just frustrating that evidently there was some move toward trying to address this stuff on a wider level but it doesn't appear that it was a particularly productive dialogue except on a very granular personal level. but tbh maybe that's OK and also just the nature of these sort of conversations about the human experience...regardless of what Society says people can understand each other one-on-one if they both want to understand each other.

it's very clear to me that my experience of the cultural norms of sexual attraction/dating just do not conform to the ways that other people experience them.

i think even just describing it very simply like that without any labels or identities attached is much more meaningful and easy to understand. and i guess it doesn't have to be so hard to just say it. even if it's just to myself

[halliescomut]

Love Sea Episode 1 Thoughts

My overall thoughts and musings for Ep 1 of Love Sea. Disclaimers: I did not read the novel. I may talk about Mame's use of problematic tropes and overall troubling storytelling, but I may not. I'm not here to grade the quality of her work. Mame as a creator is known for specific issues, and I'm not necessarily ignoring them or approving of them just because I don't call them out. I have seen every Mame show multiple times, so I am indeed well aware.

Okay getting started on ep one, I will start with my two 'complaints' that are sort of connected. The tone of the episode has some pretty wild swings. The most notable is on the boat when Rak is upset, and then it cuts to what is probably 15 minutes later when he's calmed down and they're flirting again. The tone shift is just kind of disorienting in the instance. The tone shifts throught the rest of the episode seem more based around who is the 'subject' whether Mut, Rak, or Mook and so make more sense, but are still kinda sharp. Secondly, while I know Mame isn't they type to take things slow really, I did kind of feel like the hug on the boat was a bit too soon. It's not that it was necessarily out of character for Mut, because I don't think it was, but just that he still doesn't know Rak so going in for that hug was really a leap.

What I did like:

I'm very much a fan of the country mouse, city mouse type of story, and just the general humor that comes from having a CitySlickers kind of plot, so I do enjoy the bits of humor related to Rak now being in a pretty rural community, and I'm hoping that the opposite does present similar comedic opportunities when Mut goes to Bangkok with Rak. That being said it is a bit of a fine line between fish out of water humor and kind of degrading someone because they aren't familiar with an environment they never had the ability or opportunity to experience, so hopefully that line is tread carefully.

I'm interested in learning more about Rak and his kind of writing hang ups. The information that gets introduced is that Rak writes romance novels, but he can't write sex scenes if he's not like actively involved in a sexual relationship.

I'm wondering if this will be an explicit inclusion of and Ace or Aro character, which is fairly rare in media overall, but especially in Thai BL, when having a character say they are explicitly gay is a fairly recent development. Mame in particular has been overall more inclusive of different sexualities, having explicitly Pansexual and Bisexual characters, as well as Gay and Lesbian characters. And there are many valid reasons to read Ae from Love by Chance as Aromantic or Asexual (or both really) but it's is never explicitly said. So having Rak be Aro would be a wonderful step forward there. Overall I'm interested in how this particular storyline plays out.

We don't really learn much more about Rak this episode, which feels appropriate, because he's meant to be closed off. So I imagine we will learn more about him as Mut learns more about him. I do know that there are people that find characters like Rak, Sky, or even Type off putting as they're often very rude in order to keep people at arms length, but I do have a soft spot for cranky characters with emotional walls. IRL their behavior would be frustrating and I would not appreciate it, but in fiction I will allow it and often enjoy it.

As far as what we learn about Mut, he is interested in money, but he doesn't want it just for nothing. He makes it clear that he really only wants it in trade for doing the work he's been hired to do, which does indicate his overall honorable personality. We see that he's pretty beloved and trusted by his community, which kind of confirms that honorability. If he were some shady beach bum people wouldn't trust him the way they do. We also see that Mut takes active interest in his community and it's members, so it's clearly mutual respect and affection. It's pretty clear to me that this is shown to us, the audience, to reinforce that Mut for all of his playfulness is a responisible and kind person, so we feel comfortable with him pursuing Rak. I think it's also something likely to be observed by Rak in future episodes to help him feel more secure with Mut.

Overall, outside of setting up the story and initial attraction with Mut and Rak, there isn't a whole lot else of note. We do get the introduction of Mook and Vi, the GL side couple. They have two very short scenes, so we truly don't learn a lout more than their names, and we're all aware that the GL side couple in Wedding Plan was lacking, so here's hoping this attempt it better.

The views and the setting of the episode are absolutely gorgeous, and there are some very long shots that take in that environment and setting. It's something that I don't know is necessary, but I definitely understand the reasoning since it is some really beautiful scenery.

I was also a bit concerned with how 'similar' Mut and Rak would be to Prapai and Sky, and while there are clearly parallels, I don't feel like it's a cut and pasting of them into a different setting.

Additional kind of negative note: don't love the line reinforcing colorism "your pale skin shows you're pure of heart"...it's not great. Especially when you combine it with them leaning into a common colorism casting trope of a darker complected actor playing a 'poor' character and a paler complected actor playing a 'rich' character. Like yes the difference in complexion would make sense since Mut and the other members of his community would just be outside often and for extended periods, it's still kind iffy. Also not a huge fan of the whole conversation about hair removal and the reinforcement of that beauty standard. Granted it's up to an individual what they want to do with their own body hair, but it does still set an unrealistic standard and that's unfortunate.

[dazedpuppydairies]

Sometimes I feel conversations surrounding ace-spec and aro-spec experiences are presented to monolithic. Of course I'm not referring to when people are specifically describing their own experience; however, when speaking about the communities as a whole I wish there was more emphasis on the diversity of experiences amongst ace and aro people. I'm not saying this is always an issue in ace and aro spaces, but it has negatively affected me personally. If this isn't something that you've noticed that's fair. Maybe this is a niche topic, not sure.

For example when people broadly say aromantic people don't date that generalization feels exclusionary to me. A lot of aromantic people myself included do date and even if most aromantic people don't date it doesn't make that generalization a good representation of the community as a whole. I have a similar issue when people broadly say asexuals don't have sex. My friend's old partner one time essentially harassed me in my own discord server for identifying as a sex favorable asexual because I was apparently misrepresenting the community. She also repeatedly told me it just sounded like I'm demisexual.

Though I don't personally identify as demisexual or demiromantic myself I do have the impression this issue is part of why demi people are often so othered. I've noticed this in the ace community especially, demisexuals are sometimes othered and seemingly seen as kind of separate from the ace community. I think this is also because demisexuality is a very misunderstood identity too. I just wanted to highlight demi erasure because I think it's a part of this conversation even though I'm not demi myself.

I think in conversations about asexuality and aromanticism it's sometimes forgotten the orientations describe having little or no sexual and/or romantic attraction. Having little or no attraction doesn't necessarily dictate your desires. Yes asexual and aromantic can also describe a disconnect from normative societal expectations, due to feeling repulsed by sex/romance, or being uninterested in sexual/romantic relationships, but they're not mutually exclusive. You can have little or no sexual attraction or romantic attraction and still be interested in sex and/or dating. You can want to participate in traditionally sexual coded and/or romantic coded things and still be asexual and/or aromantic. Both are valid experiences that should be equally represented while defining the community as a whole.

Rather than saying, "aromantic people don't date" if that person said, "a lot of aromantic people don't date" I feel simply including the "a lot of" part would make the statement so much more inclusive. I recognize that it's likely most asexuals don't engage in sex and it's likely most aromantics don't engage in romance as a part of their asexuality or aromanticism, but that doesn't change that there's still a chunk of ace and/or aro people who do.

I feel kinda bad making such a big deal of this, but again it is something that has genuinely negatively affected me. I understand do to amatonormativity not being interested in sex or romance can be an extremely alienating experience in our society and I want to respect that. I understand why it's so important emphasizing the validity of not being interested in a sexual or romantic relationship for example and I want to uplift aces and aros with that experience so I feel kind of shitty making a big deal out of this. I recognize because I do date for example in that way I fit more into amatonormative standards and I'm not trying to overlook that. At the same time as an aroace who does participate in sex, dates, etc I often feel like I don't exactly belong in either space which is very frustrating.

I just wanted to share my feelings on this and feel free to give constructive critique.

[that-disabled-princess]

Hey uhm... if you don't mind, I have a question for you. I saw in one of your recent posts that you're a fellow non-SAM aromantic. Are you out to anyone irl as aro? If so, how did you explain the whole labeling your "sexuality" (as in, general orientation) without actually labeling your sexuality? Because I kinda wanna come out to my best friend as aromantic and I'm not sure how to do it. I have thought about coming out as aroace (as my experiences are a lot closer to ace than allo) but I'm not really comfortable with the ace label as I simply don't know if it's really accurate. Plus, I'm afraid my friend would miss that I'm aro and just call me ace whenever the topic of orientation comes up (without any bad intentions but still). But I also don't want my friend to assume I'm sexually interested in people.

Do you have any advice, perchance?

(Unrelated to that, I'm happy I found another physically disabled non-SAM aro on here)

Hi! Sorry it took me a minute to answer this, I wanted to give this ask a thoughtful answer.

I am out to irl people as aro. My best friend and my immediate family are the only ones I'm really out out to, though. I don't tend to take the time to explain it unless I actually need to because... you're right. It is so, extremely difficult explaining what being aspec means and all the little nuances of the a-spectrum.

I don't think I ever properly came out to my family either until this year. Just... made some aro jokes and let them assume whatever they wanted. I stopped coming out with every new update a couple years ago. My family is supportive and accepting, and our mom doesn't pressure us into any sort of relationship or anything like that.

Clarification: When I say "family" here, I mean my immediate family only. We're not even gonna touch my extended family.

Now, I did identify as aroace for a bit before realizing I wasn't exactly asexual. But my aromanticism has always been a bigger part of my identity, so as far as I can remember, dropping the asexual label wasn't a huge deal to anyone.

At the beginning of January, though, I did try to explain the concept of being aro without being ace to my family. Since my sibling is aroace, I'm not sure they (my sibling) really got it, but they did accept it. I explained that sexual and romantic attraction are two different things, and that you can feel one without feeling the other. We were running an errand, so it was a bit of a... rushed explanation.

If I'd had more time to explain the differences, though, these would've been some of the examples I used:

First off, one-night stands are a thing. You don't have to be romantically attracted to someone to be sexually attracted to them or to have sex.

You can also have a crush on someone without wanting to bang them.

Therefore, sexual and romantic attraction can be felt separately and are two different things, and alloaces and aroallos and non-SAM aces and aros are valid.

As for your concern about others assuming you're sexually interested in people: for me personally--and I've seen other non-SAM aros talk about this--my aromanticism affects the way I experience sexual attraction. I experience sexual attraction, but not Like Allos Do. My romantic orientation is aro, and my bisexuality is also aro. In a way, it is much closer to the asexual experience, only none of the acespec labels feel right. I don't know what being non-SAM aro is like for you, though, but it sounds like your experiences might be similar, so maybe this explanation can help?

And as for coming out as something you're not... The want to do that really is something, huh?

I'd say it's better to be honest if you're in a safe enough place to do so. (And this is coming from someone who originally came out as a lesbian due to internalized biphobia.) Be honest with your friend and be kind to yourself. Let your friend know that you're still working through some stuff and still figuring things out. If they're a good friend, they'll understand that.

I hope this is helpful and that everything goes/went well, love 💚💚

[aro-culture-is]

hello i’m so sorry to bother you but i think i might be aroace

i already have worked out that i’m ace, but recently i’ve really been questioning if i’m also aro

i’ve been in a relationship before but it lasted a week and the most we did was hold hands. i’ve been identifying as a lesbian for a while.

anyway my reason for questioning was that i don’t really think i can feel anything? i’ll see a pretty girl and go oh she’s cute but i don’t really feel anything more and i feel like i’m supposed to. recently i think a girl was crushing on me, but when i thought about kissing her, i felt really sick.

i still really, really, want a relationship, and i know im not interested in men at all.

i just don’t know what i am and i kinda hate myself for it

hi! it sounds like this has been a pretty rough time for you. I think it might be worthwhile to consider a few things here - the way you're describing your feelings sounds to me like you are actually pretty sure that you're aroace, but that you don't want to accept it.

in that case, i have a few thoughts. first of all: take a deep breath. it's okay. i promise you that this is not some kind of terrible fate. it's just one of many, many ways of being. there's a few different things you might want to think about while you process this self-discovery. for one, society often encourages a view of life in which romantic(/sexual) monogamous relationships are seen as The Ideal, and that life will be sad and unfulfilling without it. I don't know how much time you've spent talking to folks in their later years of life, but I can tell you that I've met plenty who never married and describe a happy life. it might be worthwhile to read up on amatonormativity to get an idea of this social pressure, and think on how it affects your feelings.

this isn't to say you can't still want a relationship, but, in my experience, I find that it's very worthwhile for many new aros to start with truly exploring if they want a romantic relationship, or if they want a happy and fulfilling life, and thought that meant they had to have a romantic relationship. if you do still want a romantic relationship - you're far from alone! even if you feel neither romantic nor sexual attraction, you're in good company. the same way that asexual folks can have sex for a variety of reasons, including enjoying it, aromantic folks can engage in romance. as long as everyone is comfortable, labels aren't really a big deal. do what you enjoy.

some labels that may lead you to communities or ideas that I suspect might help: romo aro is a term for aro folks who want romantic relationships, oriented aroace (such as lesbian aroace) is a term that may be worth looking into if you feel some attraction to women that doesn't fit well into romantic or sexual categories, and romance favorable aromantic works exactly the same way sex favorable asexual does - a quick way of saying "i'm a(-ro, -sexual) and i enjoy (romance, sex)".

I hope this helps!

[altschmerzes]

Hey you don’t have to answer this obvs if it’s something you don’t want to share/talk about but I’m curious how did you meet your wife/navigate getting married in an aromantic way? I kinda feel like I might be aro and I’m getting older and feeling like. I want a partner and I don’t want to be alone but I don’t know if I really feel romantic love, and I just feel kinda hopeless about finding that, but it’s nice knowing there are people who do find it.

absolutely, yeah!!! i love to talk about my relationship honestly, for a lot of reasons (it makes me feel very happy and warm inside, and i love to talk about this wonderful thing i have in my life with this wonderful person, i am a Wife Guy for real) but also for exactly this reason too - bc i don't think a lot of people know that what we have, what we're doing, is an option. or if they do think of it, they don't think it's realistic or something that can actually happen.

i spent a long time thinking that what i wanted, the thing that would actually make me happy, that i daydreamed about just... it was a nice thought but the odds that i would be able to actually have it were so low that it didn't warrant thinking about at all. i wanted a partner, someone i could live with and raise kids with and build a life together with, and i wanted it completely platonically. i didn't want romance and i didn't want sex either but i did want intimacy, emotionally and physically. i assumed this would only be possible with another aro(ace) person, because i didn't think anyone who wasn't aroace would want that, or that it would be like. unfair somehow, or asking someone to give enormous things up to be with me. (this was all a bunch of jumping to assumptions and internalized bullshit, btw. my fiancee is a lesbian and is just as happy as i am, wants our marriage and our life together, exactly the way that it is, just as much as i do - and has been extremely patient and kind in reassuring me of this.)

(haha this got long again, it usually seems to when i'm talking about My Aro Experience and relationships and em sldj. further under the cut-)

and then it was like, well, i already have no idea how i'd meet another aroace person irl, and even then i have no idea if we'd be compatible. if we'd have the same values and vision for our lives. if they'd want kids. if they'd be comfortable with the kind of physical affection i really wanted to engage in. etc. so i just kind of told myself that y'know, it would have been nice if i had the option of not being alone, but i didn't, so i had to just get used to it. (and it is perfectly fine if someone wants to be alone. that's great. that's a huge thing the aro community is fighting for all of the time. but i did not want that. i just thought it was the only choice i had, if i wasn't willing to force myself into a romantic and probably sexual relationship i didn't want.

my wife and i actually met quite a while back, when we were like. sixteen or so, online. we've been friends for a really long time. which is why when im asked how long we've been together by people who don't know our relationship is platonic, or that i'm aro, or whatever, i have a hard time answering it XD. because like, our engagement was the first we'd ever decided to Be In A RelationshipTM, but if you think about it as a progression of the same relationship we've always had, just as dating before an engagement would be, we've been together for like. coming up on close to ten years.

figuring out navigating our relationship has been a little difficult at times but mostly it's been absolutely wonderful. difficult mostly in the sense that there's no script for this, nothing set out that tells us this is what a relationship like ours is supposed to look like, or usually looks like. we've had to figure it out ourselves. but also that's one of the things that's really been wonderful about it. we can decide at every single point what it is we want, what it is that'll make us happy.

like - at first we decided to have separate bedrooms when we moved in together after we finished our respective degrees/got married/got immigration all sorted out. and then after sharing one when we went to my hometown to introduce em to my family we were like. well. we were fools, huh. so, turns out we're sharing a bedroom. (and i'm... really happy with that, particularly, because it turns out i sleep really well when em and i are together. i used to write a lot about characters sleeping in the same bed, cuddling, etc, and i still do, but i always sort of assumed it was completely obvious i had no idea what i was talking about bc it couldn't possibly be the way i described it. and now that i've been there, it's better.)

the rest of the world is a little trickier, haha. it's a little weird and bad sometimes that people are constantly assuming i'm in a romantic relationship, tbh. even in the aro community i see a lot of people talking like the only people around are nonpartnering/single or in romantic relationships. and the rest of the world, people who don't know i'm aro or who do but like.... forget that a lot? or assume it's changed or doesn't matter or something? is kind of exhausting and uncomfortable. for the most part, we don't bother explaining the nature of our relationship to people. this is also something we talked about! we discussed how much we wanted to clarify or contextualize, and decided that ultimately like... with the exception of people we're very close to, and in contexts like this (fairly anonymous post on ye olde internet with the ability to immediately block anyone who clowns on it), it's really nobody's business unless we decide it is and we're cool with just letting people assume whatever. that doesn't mean it doesn't suck sometimes, but it's a calculus i've made and we've made together.

anyways, just. there you have it!!! i trust my fiancee and i love them and they love me and our greatest priority is always making sure the other person feels safe and loved and respected. and i feel that in every conversation we have. it's a unique situation and we've had to figure a lot of things out along the way, and that's included a lot of conversations i just don't know how to have, but we've figured it out together. i felt hopeless for a really long time, too. i wish i could go back and tell myself in the past where i'd end up. and that's part of why i keep talking about it so much and so openly, so that people know they don't have to just... there are options, y'know? options for going after what you want and talking about what you want with anyone in your life who you have a significant relationship with. i could've cheated myself out of the best thing that's ever happened to me by assuming it just wasn't possible. i'm so glad that i didn't.

[butterfly-apocalypse]

Mild vent post about inter-aro/ace community friction and ace discourse under the cut:

Saw a post just now that rubbed me the wrong way really badly (I had OP blocked, but I was visiting someone's blog and they reblogged it so I saw the post anyway [shakes fist at sky]. It's kind of nice when your choice to block someone is validated though!).

The post was talked about how aces who choose to engage in sexual relationships are making an effort to be fight misinformation and to be accepted, which usually comes in the form of acknowledgement that some asexuals may choose to have sex when discussing ace experiences. The post also discussed how aces who have been affected by being pressured to conform get rubbed the wrong way by seeing so many discussions about the asexual experience acknowledge that aces can still have sex. The overall point of the post was that "everyone gets annoyed at each other when it should be peaceful."

And like yeah! I think the post hit the nail on the head, I think that's exactly what's happening. However there were like. Two things about the post that PARTICULARLY rubbed me the wrong way: 1) Framing both groups as equally valid in their irritation and 2) describing the effort to include the experience of sex-favorable aces as "don't worry, aces can still conform!"

Because for 1) a group being annoyed and speaking against the fact that experiences other members of their community are being represented and acknowledged (and sometimes even emphasized to combat a history of a severe lack of representation and acknowledgement) are doing harm to their fellow community members. No community is a monolith and PARTICULARLY not the aro/ace community. The experiences of aces who choose to engage in sexual relationships matter SO MUCH and have almost no mainstream discussion that I've seen. It is the MORE INCLUSIVE and more responsible thing to do to acknowledge the many many many different "asexual experiences" if you're going to discuss them at large.

I think the irritation at other people being included comes from a lack of understanding other aces lived experiences and a heightened concern over how other people using the same label differently as you do affects people's impressions. Visibility and acceptance are not a pie. More visibility and acceptance for sex-favorable aces does not mean less visibility and acceptance for sex-repulsed or otherwise celibate aces. Regardless of how much more common acknowledgement of sex-favorable aces has become on certain online spaces, I think it would be hard to argue that the experiences of sex-favorable aces has come anywhere close to overshadowing other ace experiences.

It's COMPLETELY FAIR to have different spaces, different discussions, etc. specific to difference experiences! But when discussing asexual experiences AT LARGE, it's Not really fair to be upset that different experiences are acknowledged.

For 2) framing aces who choose to engage in a sexual relationship as "choosing to conform" feels so unfair. Like, yes, you could say that by engaging in a sexual relationship, they are following societal expectations and are therefore conforming. But that's SO FOCUSED on what external impressions of the relationship are when SO MUCH of the asexual experience IS INTERNAL. Are bisexual women who choose to date men "conforming?" You might say so from the outside, but what is that accomplishing?

Anyway, I just....sigh.

I've been verbally assaulted in real life by a fellow queer person who insisted that I would abusing and lying to my then girlfriend if I choose to be sexual with her OR that she would be abusing me OR that if I actually WANTED to participate, then I wasn't allowed to identify as asexual. I have been in so so so many conversations with other aro/aces where I say something and the response is "Well, I'm ace, so I don't [thing that I just said I do or enjoy]." It feels deeply invalidating! It feel straight out of 2nd grade hearing people say stuff like "I'm a girl, so I don't like superheroes." or "I'm a boy, so I can't wear a dress." and so also "I'm ace, so I don't like E-rated fanfics." and "I'm ace, so I can't write smut."

Furthermore, I've seen more and more of an unholy mix of treating aro/aces as a monolith with purity culture. Ace Discourse did so much damage to the community and the community growing back is so steeped in sex-negativity. "I'm better because I'm not bogged down by sexual attraction" and "Sex scenes in shows and movies should all be removed, there's never a reason sex needs to be included," are VERY UNDERSTANDABLE and VERY VALIDLY ill-received by the rest of the queer community and people who have fought so hard for sexual liberation. (These were not random examples or exaggerations, they were from a conversation I had less than 24 hours ago in real life.)

SO MUCH of the queer community relies on sex-positivity/sex-neutrality and that genuinely does actually include aces. Sex-positivity/neutrality takes sex from being some All Important Arcane Sacred Ritual that is either Blessed or Evil into a natural activity that's part of life that many people choose to engage in or not engage in for a variety of reasons. It removes the "inherent significance" from it as well as the taboo. It removes ANY expectation, including the expectation that sex is necessary.

Anyway. I think that's all I have to say for now. I'm getting off my soap box.

Tune in next time for rant about how Ace Discourse primarily relies on cisheteronormativity and conflating sex-negativity for asexuality!

[worldweaveralicya]

Writing Attraction

Ah yes, attraction. That whole topic is extremely complicated (not just in writing). And believe me, it's important to explore the general topic of attraction in almost any story.

"But Alicya, I don't write about romantic/sexual relationships!" Who said that attraction is just romantic or sexual? Just as I said, attraction can get really confusing. Generally, when you're writing attraction, it's important to think about two things first:

The nature of the attraction your character is experiencing

The way they express that attraction

We'll get into the basics here, don't worry.

The Nature of Attraction

Let me introduce you to my buddy SAM. Otherwise known as the Split Attraction Model. Its modern interpretation stems from the people within the aro/ace community describing their sexuality (or lack of it) in a more easily understandable way. Simply put, the model proposes that general attraction is composed of distinct attraction types. Those types can coexist, but they don't have to.

As a writer, it's important to understand what kind of attraction your character experiences. Here are some types of attraction:

Aesthetic Attraction "I want to look at them." Your character admires another character's aesthetic appeal. They like their facial features and/or style. They're just nice to look at.

Platonic Attraction "I want to be their friend." Your character wants to become another character's friend. They like their personality and want to hang out with them.

Romantic Attraction "I want to date them." Your character has a crush on another character and wants to be their partner. They are completely enamored by that special person.

Sensual Attraction "I want to touch them." Your character wants to be physically close to another character, but it's not sexual. Think hugs, handholding, play fighting, and maybe a kiss.

Sexual Attraction "I want to bone them." Your character said "smash" and wants to have sex with another character.

Feel free to mix and match as you go! Attraction is fluid, so you can change things as your story progresses. Either way, attraction between characters is what makes them develop bonds.

The Expression of Attraction

Okay, hear me out: You can learn a lot about the expression of attraction through anime culture. Specifically, researching different dere types can be inspiring! Dere types refer to specific character tropes relating to how they express affection. Those tropes are mostly about romantic attraction, but you can translate them for other types as well.

Although I'd advise you to not stick too much to those tropes. Otherwise, you might end up creating a silly caricature.

Still, you can use dere types as rough guidelines for how your characters express their attraction. Here are some dere types, but there are so many more you can look up online.

Deredere "You're really important to me." A deredere tends to be really romantic and is very honest about their attraction. They are sweet and openly affectionate.

Tsundere "It's not like I like you or anything, idiot." A tsundere hides their attraction by overcompensating. So they tend to get really mean or even physical with the character they're attracted to.

Kuudere "I don't particularly care about you." A kuudere is calm, calculated, and cold as ice. They don't like showing their emotions at all, but they become very caring after opening up to someone.

Yandere "If I can't have you, no one can." Yanderes are batshit crazy. They may appear sweet and innocent, but they absolutely will get violent and extremely possessive of someone they're attracted to.

Dandere "I... I'm really not sure about this..." A dandere is unbelievably insecure and won't talk unless approached first. They prefer to keep to themselves and are often plagued by social anxiety. However, they can get pretty talkative after feeling more comfortable with someone.

Et cetera, et cetera...

I may get more in-depth about some of these subtopics in future posts. And I'm always open to suggestions! That said, I hope some of this was helpful. Until next time, keep weaving words!

[potatopossums]

partnered aro here.

i have been having some thoughts about what it's like to be in a relationship, even if it's difficult to label what type of relationship it is (romantic, queerplatonic, alterous, etc.). I've also been having some thoughts about my queer identity in regards to how my aromanticism affects my lesbianism and vice versa, and their relationship to gender. it's probably worth a larger post, but if anyone is curious or has comments to add about their experiences, please feel free to ask/comment/reblog/direct message.

incompletely, things I've learned so far whilst in a partnership:

Sex is cool to think about but not so much fun in practice..... irl, it can be absolutely fabulous; it can also be alright; it can also be a little boring and uncomfortable. the best part is, i don't have to do it if i don't feel like it. that's pretty cool. who cares if my medication is lowering my libido (and who cares if my meds aren't the problem, and I'm just a sex-favorable/neutral ace).

Sex usually consists of me pleasuring my partner and jerking myself off afterward, and I'm okay with that...... it's not always one-sided giving (and if you honestly think that giving to your partner is one-sided by default, as if you're suffering through the giving and waiting painfully for your turn, you really need to reevaluate how you're doing sex, because I'm sitting there enjoying watching my partner, exploring her body, listening to her breathing, reacting to her movements, and all of that is very enjoyable for me while I'm giving. orgasm is not the end all be all of sex). plus, i don't tend to receive orgasms because i have vaginismus, which doesn't allow others to penetrate me. i can penetrate myself and achieve orgasm when I'm controlling everything, but it is uncomfortable and painful still for others to control penetration, which is required for my orgasm. that said, i also receive external, non-penetrative touch and stimulation (such as receiving head: wowie 😵‍💫🥵). for where i am, I'm comfortable with things, and that's great.

Sex with myself is so good..... my brain has always been really good at thinking up fun scenarios that excite and turn me on. i know exactly what images push me to orgasm. i like orgasming. thanks to my medications, the orgasms aren't as strong, but i know what time of day to masturbate so that i actually can orgasm. i don't always masturbate nowadays, but when I do, it's a really lovely self care moment, and i wish masturbation was talked about that way more often. it's not for everyone, but I've definitely heard masturbation referred to as anything from "something lonely, loser singles do" to "not nearly as good as being with someone" and i honestly beg to differ on both of those. masturbating is not an indicator of loneliness or inadequacy, and it's not some second-rate pleasure in comparison to sex with a partner. masturbation is its own action, its own thing, and it has no moral or status implications. i love doing it, and i always have, and i love doing it alone.

I get the most out of sex when it's framed as a sensual experience, rather than a sexual one..... like ok, I'm not the best at figuring out the difference between sexual versus sensual, but I'm mostly interested in what feels good. if the only thing that separates them is genital touch or sexual arousal, then fine. but sometimes non-sexual touch arouses me sexually! so, in my mind, what is the point of separating them, i ask! if sex feels good, then it was a good sensual experience. if you're not paying attention to how things feel regarding your five (5) senses during sex, I'm not sure what else you're paying attention to? i mean, no shade to paying attention to other things that don't fit in the senses category, and no shame to people who categorize these experiences differently. those experiences and perspectives are valuable and wonderful! for me, it's just all sensual, even if it's sexual too. sexual gratification, for me, is in a sensual category (and also a mental one, but usually my mental additions to sexual experiences are visual in nature, such as picturing a scene/location or a fictional character).

this is all i have for now, but if i think of more things, I'll reblog and add more to this list.

as always, i welcome discussion on these topics, as it is so important for our community to share and connect over similar and differing experiences! celebrating these things about ourselves is essential to our pride, and we deserve to be ourselves fully and openly.