#as someone who is ace and arospec

[so-you-melted-22]

Honestly, I forget how little representation there is for ace and aro people every year, until pride month rolls around.

There are all these posts going around recommending queer movies and books and tv shows and comics and what not and it covers most identities and has a wide variety of different stories, but if there is anything with aces or aros included it’s always the same three shows. It’s kinda sad and annoying.

Most (of the few) depictions of asexual and/or aromantic characters are in tv shows aimed at highschoolers, which isn’t wrong, but once you’ve graduated it stops being particularly relatable. I wish I had some extensive history of aro-ace film and literature where I could pick and choose based on my mood and personal preferences. Instead I have to scavenge the internet high and low for something that might possibly have characters that are like me. Wether or not the rest of the plot seems enticing to me be damned.

[mothmans-cumrag]

Is there a word for if you're not completely ace because you like sex, but you don't like sex in romantic relationships, but you're not aro because you do love people romantically, you just don't like romance in sexual relationships???

I've been calling myself somewhere on either spectrum but I do wonder if there are other people for whom it is similar??

[lilyrosegold]

To those who counter any general discomfort people have with aro and/or ace characters being shipped romantically or sexually with “but aro and aces can still date/have sex/be in relationships”- that’s is true but, do you actually care about the complexities and nuance of navigating romance and/or sex as someone who falls on the aroace spectrum or are you just looking for an easy way to not get hate for blatantly ignoring a character’s identity in favor of your shipping?

[a-confused-loser-venting]

update.

pride was so cool and i had so much fun

[pain-is-too-tired]

I think i just realized why how Piper's identity is view by the fandom bothers me so much.

Of course outside of the fact her choosing to be unlabeled/no rush labeling herself is either not known or ignored. That kinda can make sense in a way since I know most people skimmed over her scenes talking about it or refuse to read those books at all and learned she had a girlfriend from second hand in fandom.

But think why it's really rubbed me the wrong way(outside of taking away representation that's hardly seen) is i never see her labeled as anything other than Lesbian or Bi in fandom. Not even Pan.

The character with the least restrictive view of her own identity is view restrictivly by most of the fandom.

One the reasons I wish her being unlabeled was represented more by Fandom is because of how much pressure there is to have a label. To be put in a box. And usually if a person(irl or a character) is shown or told to be queer in anyway. Either liking the same gender or not liking/showing interest with the opposite gender, them being Bi or especially gay(as some even erase the chance of a character being Bi as well, though I've also seen some force a bi hc on a canon gay character just for shipping but that's a diffrent topic-) is seen as the default if you're not straight.

So it feels oddly telling that many saw a character who chose not to rush choosing a label for herself and decided that she must be Lesbian or Bi and nothing else pops up in the conversation. It really feels like people are trying to push her into a label just to do so. I'm sure most are just projecting onto her or just having fun with hcs, but her being seen so restrictivly by the fandom makes me feel like it's something else there.

Idk, maybe I'm thinking too hard on it. Just something I noticed recently thought I bring up.

That being said. Shout out to those small few fans out there who write/draw her as queer/unlabeled yall amazing and I love y'all 💛

[professor-beaker]

Just remembered that time when i was 12 in church activities where we were filling out getting to know you activities and in the "ideal future spouse" section i just put a big question mark

And then when we wrote letters to our future selves detailing our dreams for the future i never once mentioned a boyfriend

Man i love a good foreshadowing narrative

[nebulastarss]

My experience with being aroace:

Me at 13: I've never been good at telling the difference between romantic and platonic love, so I'll just say I'm pan till I figure it out

Me at 14 near the end of that same year, reading the asexual definition: Oh ok that makes sense. Haha, no wonder I think everyone's so overwhelmingly horny.

Me, later: there's different ones for romantic attraction?? Panromantic asexual till I figure that out too I guess.

Me, discovering aromantic: oh. Well, I should've guessed that really.

[cl0ckworkqueerness]

[trigger warning: mention of sexual assault]

the specific breed of queer queerphobia is just as if not more frightening than non-queer queerphobia, specifically in this case as it relates to acespec/arospec people (terms which will hence be combined into "aspec" for the sake of clarity, see the tags for a quick note about this)

if it's not already clear from my posts, i am very supportive of the silenced, erased, and shunned parts of the queer community. i involve myself a great deal in breaking down the walls that queer people have decided to erect in order to determine who does and doesn't get to call themselves "queer". nothing breaks my heart more than seeing other people who experience the world in a way starkly different from perisex, allosexual, alloromantic, cisgender, heterosexual people, get shunned from a family who also experiences the world in such a difference way, simply because it's not different "enough", or not different in the way they want to be different

aspec people will always unquestionably be queer, regardless of anything else that would or wouldn't make them queer. period.

aspec people should not and should never need to "justify" themselves to attend pride, not just "as an ally", but as someone whose relationship with romance and sex (the act) differs from what is expected of a "normal" person. they are inherently different, they are inherently queer. full stop.

aphobia exists, regardless of whether or not you follow your blatant bigotry with "no it doesn't". you cannot erase your shittiness by following up your shittiness with "by the way, I'm not being shitty". and if you know you are being aphobic, and you are proud of such a thing, rethink the way you see queerness as a whole. you are a vile human being, and should unlearn the oppression olympics. you not only are an athlete in it, but you are the obstacles. you are the fucking problem.

aspec people regularly face discrimination and harassment for being aspec. the comments of "why do you refuse to give me grandkids" and "maybe you just haven't found the right person yet" and "you're broken" and "you're going through a phase" have all been said about gay people, about lesbians, and about aspec people. aspec people face violence for being aspec. aspec people face corrective rape for being aspec. aspec people face crocodile tears claws that intend to "help", aspec people face blood and claws that intend to hurt, aspec people face real, visible hatred. and even if they weren't "oppressed enough", WHICH THEY UNDENIABLY ARE, 1) there isn't an oppression goal someone needs to hit to become valid, and 2) queer people should not be defined by the oppression we face, anyway.

"b-b-but what about cishet asexual people!!!" i have never seen a sentence less scary in my life. cishet people can be queer, you know? cishet people can be intersex (if they choose to identify as queer), cis people can be asexual and aromantic, pericishet people can in fact be demisexual and heteroromantic, and guess what? they're still queer. they still differ from what's "normal". they're still allowed to pride, because pride is not meant to gatekeep.

pride is meant to celebrate our differences, to fight against those who try to suppress us, and to unite those who feel crushed by the heel of normality.

so don't fucking do their job for them.

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

questioning sexuality is so exhausting

[solitaireships]

Just got asked out by my coworker 🧍

[aroaceinthestreets]

AroAce at the Theater

I don't know what it is about stage productions but they just really bring out the aestethic attraction in me.

I forget about that though, because I don't see live theater much. People describe aestethic attraction like looking at a nice painting, so I tend to think of it as looking at someone and going "Yeah, I guess you look nice. By which I mean your features certainly are in the correct places. Anyway"

But let me tell you, I watched a community production of Something Rotten with my friends the other day (which is a play that already makes me feel very aroace) and as soon as Shakespeare walks on stage I'm just like,

Hehahaeheheh OMG Do a spin! Do it again! What is that expression? I obsessed with it. Do it again. Please never leave the stage. I just want to look at you forever

I was leaning forward in my seat to look at this guy, and that's so strange for me.

This happens to me way more when I watch stage productions than anywhere else and it feels weird but also exciting and good

[ampersand-echo]

you could be arospec and acespec if you only feel at least a little attraction to every gender

-i suppose i could-

[Echo consider this for a moment, then shrugs.]

[batri-jopa]

OP tags and also

The idea of being aromantic used to feel so alien to me like it was something that could never be me but these days it's just the most natural thing ever

[professor-beaker]

Im kinda glad i fell on my face because a guy said to me today "id be tempted to kiss you if your lip wasnt so scabbed"

[aroacesafeplaceforall]

You lot really will just ship anything won’t you?

Ace allo character -> “they’re not aro tho and you can still be acespec!!”

Aro allo character-> “they’re not ace tho and you can still be arospec!!!”

Aroace character -> “aroace is a spectrum therefore I can ship them!!”

Romance repulsed aro and ace character -> “there’s always exceptions!!! You can still ship them they’re not sex repulsed!!”

Sex repulsed ace and aro character -> “there’s always exceptions!!! You can still ship them they’re not romance repulsed!!”

Sex and romance repulsed aroace character -> “there’s always exceptions!!“

Sex and romance repulsed aroace character who never will have a partner the author wrote and said that multiple times like it’s part of the plot that they don’t -> “there’s always exceptions!!“

But I bet y’all are real different when it comes to a lesbian or gay guy getting shipped with someone of the opposite gender

[all-pacas]

house in 2024:

foreman: arospec but deeply in denial of it. but in a way it's so uncomfortably obvious to everyone. will make comments about how wilson constantly getting divorced doesn't mean anything because no one WANTS to be married or involved with anyone? in the 2024 version of the ace episode, foreman gets to be the weird problematic one, because obviously SEXUAL attraction is real but why would these people be together if they're not even doing that? that's the only reason you'd even pretend to date someone, to fulfil the biological necessity of sex, there's literally no other purpose, and meanwhile everyone is like. foreman. my guy

cameron: the kind of deeply heterosexual cis girl who loves to talk about how she is an ALLY and LOVES GAYS and always uses pronouns and it's so well intentioned but she makes every conversation about how she WISHES she were gay/bi so she could be EVEN MORE SUPPORTIVE. 13 gets sick of this and takes her out and it's a disaster, cameron is an absolute tourist about it. her problematic trait is that in her quest to be supportive she absolutely tokenizes people a little.

chase: kind of bi, but also sick to death of all the "oh of course you are you're such a girlie/pretty boy/twink" jokes so he doesn't talk about it much. his problematic trait is that he refuses to Be An Ally or Talk About Gay Stuff, like they have a kid worried about coming out to his parents and chase is like nothing to do with me see ya. semi-closeted because he hates to be labeled/judged by his looks and vibes.

13: still bi, sick to death of cameron asking her why she is dating men if she's into girls

kutner: doesn't believe in labels, total black box, he could plausibly be anything. there's a betting pool but the show never reveals the results.

park: they/them lesbian. house likes to misgender them on purpose but always as a man. is this better? worse? anyway he gets punched. not out to their parents. at all. there's a subplot about this.

wilson: even more ex-wives, refuses to comment or speculate, nothing has changed.

taub: so fucking confused but trying his best

adams: openly lesbian. house jokes it's why he hired her. she still flirts with chase to get him to do stuff for her and it still works.