#also yes the double standard where soemone would dislike if anyone shipped a lesbian character with a man

[thefirstpaleontologist]

I saw someone argue that shipping an aroace character with anyone is not the same as shipping a gay man with a woman. Which is so annoying to me cause yeah okay there’s a spectrum but it is so annoying to see it being used as a loophole to avoid a characters canon sexuality.

Just because they could date or have sex despite not feeling attracted isnt a good defence for the assumption that they therefore would. Dating and sex is a choice one can make regardless of level of romantic or sexual attraction. But that doesn’t mean attraction and sexuality therefore don’t matter when creating a relationship. Attraction and sexuality are a defining aspect of making the choice to date or have sex with someone. And I think making the choice to do so when you aren’t attracted to that gender is a big deal.

Im absolutely not saying you can’t write fanfic and make fanart or whatever of ships that involve an aroace character, but preferably it would be in addition to the acknowledgment of their canon sexuality and preferences. Fanfic and fanart can and should be fun forms of exploration and expression. And I am well aware that ships might just be silly little explorations of interesting character dynamics rather than any serious desire to see these characters get together in canon. It’s all fine and I do this stuff too.

This is entirely just about some of the defences people are using when doing so, because the argument that attraction and sexuality doesn’t matter when it comes to aroace charcaters dating and having sex is in fact no different than shipping a lesbian character with a man by the kind of logic I keep seeing people use.

Honestly this wouldn’t even be an issue if there was more (or literally any) aroace rep because then so many apec peoples wish for good rep and identity acknowledgment wouldn’t be reliant on one popular character. But because it is it just feels more important to want people to portray them right in fandom :/

If you wouldn’t ship a canon gay (mlm) character with a women, then you shouldn’t ship a canon aroace character with ANYONE