#and talk about my own asexuality

[crescentlyautumn]

You know what’s funny? How I can say that I headcanon a character as somewhere on the ace spectrum and/or aro spectrum, and within minutes I am being treated as if I am somehow very unintelligent and know nothing of the world.

[kewpiekills]

it blows my mind that you and so many other wonderful smut artists arr asexual..... ur goated!!!!!!!!!!! and ur not even grttin high off your own supply!! thats crazy 2 me. keep living ur life i think you should be allowed to kill whoever you want

i mean i do definitely jerk off to my own stuff, but not all of it is necessarily what i’m into, i’m not sex repulsed if that makes any sense! and there are so many more fetishes i find so so cool and interesting but do not sexually interest me that i’d love to draw someday…

sex and erotica is a very complex thing to draw so it’s such a fun challenge to take on as an artist. as someone who takes on nsfw commissions it’s always such an honor to make art about people’s most secret and personal desires, it’s such a bit responsibility but i love shouldering it!!

[miitopia-cake]

Some of you really need to realize that appreciating and including other people's queer experiences does not undermine your own and you need to leave them alone.

[triptychofvoids]

Howdy howdy, this is kind of based on the last ask-and-subsequent-answer, but what are your feelings towards your partner like? Like, what does it feel like? I’m also aroace, or at least I think I’m aro, but it’s kinda hard for me to figure out whether I love my friend romantically or platonically. I don’t think I’ve ever been in love before, and we’re both autistic so I see love kinda differently than what’s portrayed in media. I’m just having trouble parsing my feelings, and I think it might help to hear about your experiences/thoughts, if you’re cool with sharing! I know it’s a spectrum so it’s not going to be the exact same for you as it is for me, but I think it’d at least help give me a perspective other than my own and the perspective of nt people/media!

Anyhoo it’s really cool to see another aroace person living happily and comfortable with his identity. Just…you’re cool.

from one autistic aroace to another, i assure you that your difficulty parsing feelings is not solely unique aheh.... well! before i get into answering this, ill have to state that i am certainly not the stereotype.. namely, i am the opposite of the sex/romance adverse person many people tend to think of when they hear aroace...

now, when it comes to my feelings towards my partner (without getting too detailed) ive found i often dont differentiate between platonic and romantic very well at all. for the longest time i never even thought there was a difference between the two, and i still struggle to differentiate them even now. however, from what ive learned, most people that are not aromantic have a list of behaviors and feelings they would consider inappropriate to do with/feel towards a friend, and that they would only do/have with a romantic partner in most cases. but my personal opinion on it is that a platonic relationship can be just as important and valuable as a romantic one, but its up to you to determine what sort of behaviors you are wanting to engage in with another person, and see if that want is mutual. in my case with my own partner, that includes affection and things that are probably seen as romantic to most! but like i said, i dont see the act of being affectionate as something purely romantic or platonic. it just is, and you have to decide if thats something you want or not. i could go on but i think you get the idea. its confusing, and the line is very thin in my experience.... my partner is also someone i consider to be one of my best friends, and the friendship aspect came before the committed relationship aspect, if that helps!

when it comes to the sexual side of things (again, without getting into too much detail) you still have to do some self-reflection and decide what it is that you want or do not want! but one thing that i can talk about from experience is that most people that are not asexual will feel sexual attraction simply by looking at their partner, and i do not. hence me being asexual aheh.. but there are many other kinds of attraction! in my case i do find my partner to be pleasant to look at, but i like to use the comparison of a piece of art or a landscape. as in, a beautiful sunset can sometimes seem like you are viewing heaven itself but generally speaking that beautiful sunset, pretty as it is, will not be sexually arousing. i also think its important to know that there is a difference between libido and attraction and it can be good to keep that in mind when looking at other peoples (or your own) experiences as well.

so... there is just a very small amount of my experience and thoughts on the matter. my feelings as an aroace person who is favorable towards romance and sex are likely going to be very different from an aroace person who is sex/romance adverse though. the point being, that having little to no romantic/sexual attraction is the core of being aroace, but beyond that its entirely up to the individual what their wants and needs are! i am happy to share my experiences though!

[contagious-watermelon]

there's just something about being called (just) ace by your aroace friend even after only ever referring to yourself as aromantic

[full-of-malice]

really annoying and exhausting when people only want to acknowledge aspecs and arospecs to further their own agenda and help uphold purity culture. they love using the identity of asexual as some sort of gotcha moment, as if to flaunt how little they actually know or care about us like okay then

[anaid-queen]

thoughts on Astarion and asexuality

by a certified asexual ✌

yes, Astarion confirmed during Act II that he's only ever used sex as a tool (for as long as he's been a vampire anyway, which we learn later has been more than 80% of his life so far), either for his master because he was forced to or (more recently) for himself - to seek protection and trust, from you. he literally compares it to something disgusting to force himself through. but does that mean he's asexual?

yes, he talks about sex feeling "tainted" to him after he used it so much to lure Cazador's victims (and apparently, not just because it usually worked, but because he had to..? he doesn't specify, but lbr i wouldn't put it past the bastard to make it a rule of some kind, especially if he picked up on Astarion disliking it), but he also talks about being less disgusted by (quote) "beautiful" people (though he also conceded that in the sum of it all, that barely even mattered).

and he jokes about it being "almost [...] a challenge" to not have sex for a while (though it's unclear whether he thinks the player wouldn't be able to hold out, since it's supposed to be on his (Astarion's) terms?), and by the end of the romance arc, you can choose to have sex with him again and he'll enjoy it. all in all, it mostly really sounds like he's deeply traumatized (i mean duh, but yk, also sexually traumatized) and just needs a while to work through that (if you don't give him that time he'll go through with it once more but then break up with you, fyi) and not like he actually doesn't enjoy sex, never has never will.

i know he was not written as asexual.

[ and yes i also know that asexuality doesn't mean having no desire for / feeling disgusted by sex, i know. but the day ace rep is portrayed any differently in media is still ages away, so i'm working with "character intentionally written as ace = character written as not enjoying sex" here. ]

But.

is it so wrong to feel elated at the thought that he could be? to interpret him that way? especially when he says "I don't think I want you to think of me in terms of sex. I don't know if I want anyone to." (and says the second part so softly, eyes downcast, utterly devoid of theatrics or feigned nonchalance - almost like he's surprising himself with that thought, and voicing it openly). I felt that so much. upon you inquiring further, he snaps almost defensively that he wants to be seen as a person, which i know, i know, easily works back into the trauma narrative of him not being seen as a living (well yk) being that has feelings. it clearly doesn't necessarily mean he dislikes being seen as a sexual being, just that he's more than that and is sick and tired of being reduced to it.

but something still jumped in me at that line. 'please don't look at me and think of sex' is a frequent thought in my mind, and looking at me and thinking of seduction is a joke and a half - i don't dress it behave it or talk it, ever. but nonetheless, the... fear, almost? is still there. (and maybe the very reason i take care not to send any contradictory signals, but that's a topic for a whole 'nother post - this isn't about me).

i just. do i think Astarion was intentionally written as asexual? no. do i think he should be, and that there's something wrong with seeing him or preferring him as allo? absolutely not either! but i believe just as much that it's valid to read him or prefer him as ace. and yk, obv everything is valid, canon is your sandbox and your headcanons are your own - but in this case, it's really, really close to being in the text. he resonates with a lot of us, one way or another, and i think that's beautiful.

[timove]

Certain moments really remind me that yes, I am, indeed, asexual

[pinewoodpipit]

Some of my thoughts about writing smut which I thought I'd share.

For those who don't know, I'm on the ace spectrum, and I also have disabling health issues which affect my intimate life. I am not going to go into any more detail than that, as it's private. That said, though, it proves to be a challenge when writing smut, as I'm approaching it from the perspective of an outside observer.

I think sex scenes can be used just like any other scene; like a fight scene, I enjoy writing them from the viewpoint of exploring characters, and ideally progressing their growth and/or the plot in each encounter. Not every sex scene will do this - I've written smut one-shots which don't really explore characters, and those are because it's actually a fun kind of scene for me to write from a technical standpoint, outside of storytelling.

I see very often that people reduce erotica to just being mindless porn, or indicating that writing with smut in it has inherently less substance and worth than writing without it, regardless of how carefully written the smut is. I pretty vehemently disagree with this viewpoint.

Sex scenes, in my opinion, are a writing tool, just like any other. Writing good sex is a skill of its own and it's one I'm still developing, but it's absolutely something that has worth, and I think it's a huge shame that so much of the writing community treats it with some kind of contempt, as if it's somehow inherently lesser than, when sex is an incredibly important and human topic, and suggesting it shouldn't be talked about can be an incredibly slippery slope to the kind of tight-lipped purity culture attitude which leads to shaming people for having sex within queer communities, and other such dangerous things.

I have a fic about ace-spectrum Fade upcoming where I plan to talk about this topic a fair bit, but I wanted to talk about it here, too. I'm very passionate about it. Purity cultures regarding sex, particularly between queer people, is a dangerous thing to back into that can very easily lead to conversations which frame sex (particularly LGBTQ+ sex) as some kind of perversion rather than something completely natural, and I will always defend erotica as an art form as valuable as any other.

[mkzmerryfriend]

I always forget about how sex in media makes me feel (because of the asexuality) and then I get hit with the “will you romance this character?” and I’m like “yeah! :)” and then. can you guess. what happens immediately after.

And I just pull out my phone and no longer want anything to do with the character I have romanced

[throes-of-warm-tornadoes]

you know what. i’ll say it. i think some everlark shippers get too comfortable talking about katniss and peeta fucking. like, yeah. considering they have kids, and considering how feral they were for each other throughout the trilogy, i’m sure that is something they do. and i think that sex in general is just interesting to explore. but i also think some of yall go too fuckin far. i don’t want to see fan art of peeta in the nude and i don’t want to read about katniss being fucked out. these are children. minors, dare i say, from the start of the book until the very end (minus the epilogue, obviously. but that was just like one page). “but i’ve aged them up” are you hearing yourself?

[t4tstarvingdog]

okay say what you will about "comphet" and "settling," and maybe this is my arospec-ness showing, but i don't feel any attraction to women (romantic or sexual) and would still be 100% down with being in a relationship with one and even marrying a woman. i am pretty much entirely gay when it comes to actual attraction, but mostly consider myself bi or pan when it comes to my approach to relationships, and i just? think that maybe it'd be cool if more people recognized that however other queer people approach relationships and sex when it comes to gender, it doesn't negate their identities. it doesn't mean it's comphet. it doesn't mean it's secretly harming them. sometimes people just choose to have sex, or be in a relationship, or whatever, and it might not "align" with what you think their label ought to be, but it sincerely does not matter at all. it's not your sexuality, or your romantic orientation, or your own personal understanding of yourself, it's theirs. and it doesn't make them bad at being queer, it just means that they're human and get to 1. make their own choices and 2. not conform to other people's ideas about themselves

[flufflecat]

happy pride month, im so glad to see people doing fun new varieties of ace discourse this year -_-

[gently-decaying-flowers]

some super incomprehensible rant under the cut lmfao

generally speaking my home life caused me to grow up too fast

i see everything- every decision- only in how it will impact my adult life. i’ve never “relished” in being a kid.

there’s so many other factors like neurodivergency, figuring out sexuality yadda yadda that affect how i think

i was talking with my friend late last night about how it’s hard to determine what a relationship is supposed to be and i was mostly speaking on the difference between romantic and sexual attraction from the view of an asexual person. how in all medias romantic attraction is tied to wanting sex with someone and i grew up thinking that’s was love was

and now i’m like- what even is romantic attraction? i need to come to terms with the fact that i will never experience attraction the way “normal” people do. i so badly want a relationship but it’s hard when i don’t even know what that means, and when i think about it i just get stressed and any feelings i thought i had just disappear

maybe they weren’t real in the first place then

on top of that, i can’t get crushes for so many other reasons

no one really knows me as charlie except for my few friends who i don’t go to school with anymore. that means no one at my school knows me- so if i even think i have a crush on anyone i realize there’s no way it would work and i just get sad

and on the topic that started this- growing up too fast. i can’t acknowledge that i have feelings for someone unless i can envision my future with them. because what’s the point? wasting time and energy if it won’t impact my life forever?

and no one else my age things like that- so no one else would even care about the relationship as much as i do. i learned that the hard way.

it just feels really lonely. i have friends who understand- i mean ive met the friends who im going to have for the rest of my life so i dont have to worry about dying along obviously. but its hard feeling and knowing i want something that’s going to be impossible for me until i become an adult, lean into who i am, and find a person who feels the same way i do.

[c4t1l1n4]

It’s so annoying trying to read xreader as an AroAce. Like, I don’t want to fuck Loki of Asgard, I want to be his friend.

[batri-jopa]

In heteronormative narrations a single-female-friend character is most often depicted as a threat for the couple/marriage. Threat for the girl that is. Like: beware, this bitch is single! so "obviously" her main goal is to steal your guy because, you know, she's a desperate selfish erotically-starving bitch...

Well, I can't speak for other single ladies but in the most couples I know - if I were to brake the relationship I'd rather run away with the girl🤷