#anti aspec

[ugly-anarchist]

People on this site cannot or intentionally refuse to distinguish between systemic oppression and lateral mistreatment and it's a massive problem.

Me talking about how other queer people target me for having masculine traits isn't me saying that cisallohet perisex men are oppressed for being men and feminism sucks and lesbians are evil.

Me pointing out how late diagnosed autistic people treat me like an other for getting a diagnosis early isn't me saying late diagnosed people are privileged and have power over me.

Me saying that aroaces have mistreated me and pushed me out of aspec spaces as an alloaro isn't me saying that aroaces are my oppressors and they don't belong in aro spaces.

"Can the people who are in the same community as me but have different experiences please stop treating me like shit" isn't me saying that I'm the most oppressed person on the planet and no one but me suffers. I'm just asking you to stop treating me like shit. That shouldn't be a controversial statement.

Not everything is about privilege and oppression, sometimes people are just dicks and maybe it's you.

[knifearo]

“there are always more fish in the sea!” babe no offense but i just really sincerely do not want to go fishing

[transonlyspace]

reblog to jumpscare an exclusionist

(note: i found this on pinterest and its probably really old ant i didnt notice that some of the flags are wrong sry)

[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

[a-polite-melody]

Framing the discourse surrounding trans men and mascs coining a term for the intersectional oppression that we face as a “transmasc vs transfem discourse” is such a huge pet peeve of mine.

Similarly to how I disliked aspec discourse being framed as “aspec vs LGBT”—before the usage of the phrase “ace discourse” blew up—because of that framing giving validity to the idea that aspec inclusion could be harmful to our community. When, actually, what was happening was that a part of our community that has endured erasure were trying to do things to combat that erasure often through the coining of new terms such as aphobia and were being helped by other people within the wider LGBT+ community, even those who weren’t aspec themselves. And a loud-but-vocal minority of people who wanted to make sure their spot in the “who’s the most oppressed” hierarchy wasn’t disrupted and didn’t want to wrestle with the idea they had unchecked internalized biases got angry and tried to oust that entire identity sub-community and the people who had been supporting them by framing the bid for visibility of aspecs as a plot to overshadow or remove the movements for support of “more oppressed” LGBT people than aspecs.

And… reading the above… I think you can see why I’m making this comparison in how we’re framing discourse.

[amalgamezz]

things that allos do that make aspecs accuse them of being aphobic:

mocking their labels and vocab

invalidating their existence

trivializing their experience

excluding them from the queer community

comparing them to paedophiles and MAP groups

comparing them to their oppressors

things that aspecs do that make allos accuse them of being homophobic/queerphobic:

existing

talking about their personal experience and headcanons

expressing their wish to be included in the queer community

[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

[henry-or-something]

Me: oh cool! a canon aroace spectrum character that is well fleshed out. I never see rep of someone with the same sexuality as me. I hope the fandom appreciates this queer representation.

The fandom: *one of the most shipped characters* ArOaCe PeOpLe StIlL dAtE!!1!

Me: ...

[reinanova]

i can’t believe aphobia is the hill yelena shippers are willing to die on. like shit the fuck up already and let us have our ONE canon aroace character. jesus fucking christ we are not asking for a lot so i don’t understand why it’s so fucking hard to accept one popular character is aroace

no other queer identity gets this kind of hate by fandoms but guess what? you can pry canon aroace yelena out of my dead fucking hands

aphobia about aroace yelena is the hill you want to die on? GOOD. canon aroace yelena is the hill i’m prepared to kill for

line up aphobes, i’ve got some blades that are thirsting for blood

[whereserpentswalk]

So, I'm not against people shipping Lisa and Taylor, but it feels wrong when people say it's somehow homophobic that they aren't together, especially because Lisa in canonically aroace.

Like, Lisa is really good aro/ace representation, something we don't have a lot of, and had almost none of back in 2013. The fact that she's never seen as broken (even though it's likely her shard took away her ability to be attracted to people, it's still not seen as a tragedy.) The fact that she's able to live a successful happy life, and she's never seen as missing anything. The fact that she's an archetype we basically never think of ace/aro characters as inhabiting. The fact that her costume is ace flag colored (though that was almost certainly unintentional). Saying she should have been allo for the sake of your ship is the opposite of wanting better rep.

Also, just like, the implication that her relationship with Taylor wasn't meaningful because they weren't fucking just seems wrong to me. Like, Lisa was Taylor's first real friend after what happened to her with Emma. They were both bright lights for each other in really dark circumstances. They probably understood each other better than anyone else did. Lisa was still there for Taylor after she had become something too powerful to really be human. Taylor was unquestionably a better person for knowing Lisa, and Taylor was probably the person cared most about, at least during the Skitter era of the Undersiders. (I would say more but I'm trying to avoid serious spoilers). And saying that that relationship could only be romantic, or that it doesn't matter or isn't as meaningful if it's platonic, is fundamentally looking at an aromantic character and saying she should be allo, or that her story is more meaningful if you head cannon her as allo, which is unquestionably aphobic.

Happy aro week. Ship what you want but don't demand your ships become cannon, especially when one of the characters is aro.

[knifearo]

like it's honestly kind of ridiculous at this point

[noballoonsinspace]

felt like I was forgetting something about tomorrow but then I remembered oh yeah kind of a big day how could I forget

Happy Dracula eve!!!

[cheezewhis]

Ok I wanted to be mostly positive, but it is super disheartening to see how quickly the Thunderbolts* tag got flooded with shipping stuff because every time someone points out that Yelena is supposed to be aroace, a bunch of people jump in with "AROACES CAN STILL DATE! THEY CAN STILL DATE! THEY CAN STILL HAVE SEX!"

And like....yeah I know that because I'm aro and understand that it's a spectrum of identities......but I have a sneaking suspicion that you're only saying that to absolve yourself of the erasure you're doing and that you're not actually interested in the nuances of aspec identities.

Again, I don't want to be negative, and I'm certainly not against shipping. I do think that shipping doesn't reflect irl beliefs or anything....I guess it really just makes me sad? We have this whole movie about mental health and friendship and family and all people can do is act like romance will fix everyone.

[eparchclass]

Asexual / AroAce / Aromantic O5 Council + Ethics Committee logos

[infiniteorangethethird]

another year, another aro art piece on Valentine's!

Seriously though, who would choose boring ass romance over a kickass dragon bestie and your own cave. Like. Come on. Not me that's for sure

[lovelessrage]

[Image ID: A drawn meme in a simple, doodled style.

In the top section, a standing gymnast is captioned "sex negativity, especially around sexual autonomy, is a global issue". They take a step forward, captioned "aroallophobia is a global issue". They stick their hands out and pose, now captioned "therefore both can be an issue in the aspec community, as all members have been subjected to societal norms".

In the bottom section, a person swings off a gym bar, captioned "if i didn't see it, it doesn't happen". Two people, one leaping in the air and another swinging on the bar by their ankles, is captioned "i'm talking about the allos! no, those allos. yes there's a difference, you don't count as a real allo". A fourth bends their legs upward on a balance beam, captioned "okay but sex is just actually awful and disgusting and only justifiable for reproducing. idk why you'd defend it". A fifth flies over a burning car with a jet pack, captioned "that person was only joking, and jokes can clearly never be bigoted!". /End ID]