#ace discourse //

[tttano57]

Thanks @changeling-droneco, it means a lot. I joined Tumblr before the rise in acephobia (I cried when I first saw the word for asexual) and I'm still here, but in a shrunken community once again. Thanks for looking out for all the ace/aro folks here.

Honestly, as someone asexual and probably some flavor of aro goy myself, im so sorry to all the asexual and aromantic jewish folks who has to deal with the biggest ace and aro blogs not shutting up about palestine and everything, especially fuckyeahasexual, who has taken ZERO steps in caring for jewish aces and has been INCREDIBLY antisemetic going as far as to yell at people who so much as donate to ao3 instead of gaza, accuse israel of being the main perpetrator of october seventh, spreading intense amounts of blood libel, and more.

It is utterly heartbreaking to see a blog that was once a safe spot for rallying around a shared identity turn so bitter and cruel and actively damaging. You all deserved a safer place to celebrate your asexual and aromantic orientations, and to not be shamed for simply existing, you arent a traitor, or a monster, or anything like that.

Jewish aces and aros are as valid in your identities as any other ace or aro, and im so sorry that so few aces and aros seemed to have learned from the coordinated attacks on our identity/right to exist, and proceed to do the same bullshit to you. I'm sorry for the utter failure of the queer community for jewish queers just in general. It's disgusting, its horrific, and you deserve so much more then just this one ace's apologies

[a-polite-melody]

Oh actually.

Many of the tumblr queer “discourses” have centred around identities which are erased or invisible.

A common tactic of people trying to deny others language in these “discourses” has been to look at the people describing their less visible experiences with oppression, and then scream at them, “oh my god you just want to be oppressed SO badly!!”

It’s a direct weaponization of the invisibility of the experience to further erase that experience.

Basically an, “obviously, if this was a real problem we would have heard about it before now and so you’re making this up to seem oppressed, even though you’re telling us the reason we don’t see it is because of lack of visibility, we don’t believe you and are further going to erase your experiences.”

[knifearo]

"asexual discourse" is so funny cause dude that's not discourse and it's never been discourse. it's not an argument and it's not a conversation bitches are just yelling at us unprompted and then making up people to get mad at 😭

[resdayn]

whats wild to me is i blocked thousands of people during the peak years of ace discourse. now that its ramping up again (against transmascs this time) when i go to block shitheads they are already on the list. way to say you are still licking TERF (conservative) boots in 2024. embarrassing!

[infiniteglitterfall]

"clout" tho.

What kind of "clout" do you get by having a negative, antisemitic experience?

Like, it ALMOST made sense when bigots always used to claim that aces/aros were just CLAIMING to be oppressed "for clout."

Because their argument was that we weren't oppressed, therefore we weren't queer, and vice versa.

To say that about a group that is a favorite target of white supremacy, that went from #2 in U.S. hate crimes to #1 over the past year, is really goddamn BLATANT bigotry.

It reeks of white supremacy, frankly. It sounds like all the white supremacists on Twitter who mock every marginalized group for "thinking" or "pretending" they're oppressed.

how did she know you were visibly Jewish? Are you just making shit up for internet clout

This is re the person in the supermarket who was wearing a Palestine shirt, entered the aisle I was in, looked at me up and down multiple times before leaving and only going down the aisle after I left

I absolutely wish I could face reveal rn. But I can't for my own safety.

I look visibly Jewish. Like most people who look at me, do so and go "jew". I have a very Jewish nose which I love very much which has been passed down by my ancestors.

I look so visibly Jewish that when I was 8, I had a boy come up to me at school who I didn't know, and at the time I wasn't walking around telling people I was jewish, and say I have a jew nose and bullied me for being jewish.

When I was 13, I had a different boy come up to me, also say I have a jew nose and follow me around school telling me that I'm disgusting and that he was going to gas me himself.

Earlier this year, I wasn't wearing my magen david as I stopped for my own safety, and these two teenage boys made fun of my nose and called me a kike.

I wish I was making all of this up for clout.

I would trade all the antisemitism I have experienced to make it that I never have and am lying.

Whether you like it or, judaism is an ethnoreligion, jewish features are a thing. People can tell what is Jewish features and what isn't.

And by sending me this ask, you have participated in real antisemitism which I am going to use for "clout"

[xx-slug-xx]

“Your fantasies equal your real life desires”

I’m fucking asexual? I have no desire to do anything I fantasize about irl. Same with a shit ton of other people who are aspec?

Tbh, I think it’s just queerphobic, specifically aphobic but other shit too, to say “your fantasies are what you want irl.

It’s not just aspecs either. I know a fuck ton of lesbians who fantasize about fictional men. They are not any less lesbians because of their fantasies though.

I could go on with more about how it’s a stupid argument, and even how it’s ableist in certain contexts, but I’ll save that for other posts lmao

[aroace-ventplace]

…can’t believe i need to say this in 2024, but if you see a tumblr blog that’s an obvious sockpuppet, just block them. don’t give them any attention.

for those who weren’t aware, a sockpuppet is an account that someone uses to pretend to be someone they aren't, usually for the sake of accomplishing a particular goal. "asexual" sockpuppets were used extensively in tumblr's ace discourse years (which reached their peak in 2016-2019). aphobes and exclusionists made blogs where they roleplayed as exaggerated aspec caricatures, trying to paint asexuals as childish, ignorant, bigoted, etc - in a word, "cringey." crazey-acey-in-spacey was an especially notorious example of a sockpuppet that a lot of people took at face value, since their deliberately outrageous behavior (falsely) confirmed a lot of the biases tumblr users already had about aspecs. it's NEVER worth engaging with any of these accounts - don't feed the trolls, as they used to say.

ways to spot an "asexual" sockpuppet:

makes a lot of statements that are intentionally tone-deaf and offensive. especially look out for sudden mentions of race/analogies to racism ("ace genocide," "ace reparations") - a common tactic in the acecourse days was to paint asexuality as a "white" orientation, and to suggest asexuals were racist.

references other infamous sockpuppets like crazy-acey and the "warm milk aceggot" post.

makes claims about famous people being aspec, especially people who are known for bigoted beliefs. it was very common for aphobes to make asexual moodboards of people like thatcher or trump; they did this to paint aspecs as out of touch with reality and the wider queer community, and to strengthen the association between asexuality and bigotry.

use of the words "acey" or "asexy." some people do use these words in a positive sense now, but anti-aspec shit-stirrers used them a lot back in the day to imply asexuals were stupid and childish. (and if we're being honest? autistic, too. the aphobic parts of tumblr had a VERY strong undercurrent of ableism.)

this one's a bit less common, but watch out for references to christianity. one widespread aphobic talking point is calling asexuals "puritans" and suggesting that they're aligned more with conservative christianity than the rest of the queer community. aspec christians certainly exist, but given the history of this site, it's just better to double-check aspec accounts that bring up christianity out of the blue when they're engaging with other blogs.

it can be hard to tell the difference between a sockpuppet and a genuine aspec account if you don't have the exact same amount of 2016 tumblr brainrot as me, so feel free to message me and ask about anything you're not sure about - my dms are always open 👍

[heartless-aro]

There’s no tumblr experience more aspec than having to go to the search bar on someone’s blog and search “asexual” or “aromantic” before following to make sure they weren’t Like That about aspecs back in 2016

[imsoglitter]

Apparently there's people trying to justify the (ongoing) exclusion era of this website by saying that the ace community is the source of no kink at pride discourse. Now I realize that my experiences aren't necessarily universal, but given that every acespec person I've met irl is super into kink, and most of the ones I've encountered online are as well, I think that perhaps they are just making up bullshit again

[chisecco]

tbh i miss when ace discourse didnt exist and being lgbt or queer wasnt a competition on how oppressed and miserable you could be in the eyes of internet strangers

like when you could just say "i am not cis and/or straight therefore i am one of you" and people would receive you with open arms instead of saying that your identity that goes beyond the acronym is invalid and harassing you with death threats and sending you gore and snuff just because you dont exactly fit under The Big Four Letters

[anarcho-catboyism]

If you were someone who was anti-Ace during Ace Discourse and anti-Neopronouns/Xenogenders during Neo/Xeno Discourse and anti-Nonbinary during Nonbinary Discourse, but you've now accepted those things, except now you're Anti-Bi Lesbian, then you never learned why what you were doing was wrong and simply followed the crowd.

You still have internalized phobias that you never addressed, you still have issues regarding controlling other people's queer experiences, and until you actually and genuinely sit back and realize WHY being Anti-Ace, Anti-Neos/Xenos, Anti-Nonbinary etc. Was wrong, you are always going to be the bigot in the community. Learn self introspection, learn why you continued to be against queer identities you didn't understand, or you will always find yourself on the wrong side of the goalpost, and you will never grow.

Take a second to think about an argumentative sentence you've used and replace "bi lesbian" with any other queer identity you used to hate and you'll realize that at the root of it all, it's the same queerphobia but with a new subject to target.

[hiriamcdaniels]

Don't make me tap the sign

[a-frog-in-a-bog]

I keep seeing posts about how damaging ace discourse was to aces and while I’m glad we’re talking about tumblr’s bullying problem I think some of you have selective amnesia bc the war was DEFINITELY being fought from both sides. For every post calling asexuals cringe or lonely turbo virgins there was at least one reply or comment or post saying shit like “ok have fun dying of aids” or “I’m a bi ace which is exactly the same as being bisexual except I’m not a slut” or “ace culture is not having to worry about spreading STDs”.

Nearly every post made by a trans woman discussing transphobia was derailed by someone making it about asexuality instead (unfortunately this is still common on tumblr) and posts about gay sex or attraction were flooded with comments about those nasty dirty allos. Lesbians who expressed frustration about not being able to talk about their sexual attraction to women without aces “fixing” their posts to make them pure and wholesome were characterized as mean dykes and aphobic. And the shit that people posted after the pulse shooting was thinly veiled homophobia— do you know how many posts I saw that were along the lines of “well maybe if you gays were nicer to aces we’d donate blood” or “ace culture is hearing about the pulse shooting and wondering who would want to go dancing at a sweaty club when you could be home reading”.

And idk if people realize this but kink at pride discourse was born from ace discourse. The sheer amount of posts that were like “stop sucking face at pride I’m ace and it grosses me out get a room” or “pride is supposed to be a safe space for aces too nobody cares that you like to get tied up and fucked in the ass” or “as an aroace it makes me uncomfortable to see people wear nothing but leather harnesses stop making pride sexual”.

We absolutely should be calling out the people who posted graphic porn in the ace tag or harassed aces by calling them broken and unloveable bc that’s fucking horrendous and unacceptable but don’t act like every asexual on tumblr was an innocent smol bean posting garlic bread memes and minding their business bc the shit thrown at lgbt people in the name of ace discourse was awful and damaging to see, especially as a teen coming to terms with my sexuality

[certified-moth]

the most common trait i see in aro/ace exclusionists is the fact that they treat aspec identities as neutral. like any other part of someones identity immediately wins out. if an aro person is sexually attracted to men, that attraction is the determining factor in if they are queer. theres just a total refusal to imagine that aromantic and asexual experiences are a major determining factor in the way we experience life

i think it just goes to show how little some people are willing to engage with a variety of aro and ace people and understand how they experience the world. lack of attraction is not neutral, our entire world is shaped around romantic and sexual attraction and relationships. i think a lot of them would genuinely be surprised at how similar gay and aspec experiences can be if they were willing to actually listen to us

[resdayn]

yet another parallel between ace discourse and transmasc discourse:

2017: "aces arent nearly as oppressed as lesbians so they dont need to be in the community! nobody is hatecrimed for being ace."

"2024: "trans men arent nearly as oppressed as trans women so they dont belong in the community! nobody gets mad at someone becoming more masculine."

Meanwhile, aces face the highest rates of conversion therapy among ALL queer people. Transmascs have the highest rates of suicide and sexual assault among all trans people. This will be true whether exclusionists like it or not. Oppression is not a competition. Anyone who acts like it is reveals their own fundamental misunderstanding of intersectionality and queer solidarity.

[a-polite-melody]

“The transmascs are co-opting our kink and it doesn’t even make any sense!!!”

is only slightly less absurd than

“The aces are stealing purple from bisexuals because of their flag!!!”

It’s just a pre-set attitude that any and everything associated with the bad out-group Must Be Bad, and if there’s any similarities to us or things we have it must be malicious in order to accumulate more and more ‘evidence’ that this out-group is harmful. It’s meant to be another bullet point on a callout post that people don’t really look all that hard at because, “wow that’s a lot of bullet points.”