#because i always hc as more on the ace spectrum than exclusively gay

[feliciamontagues]

Not Edgar-gate 2.0!

[dollypopup]

So, I wasn't gonna post anything about this, honestly, but because I was directly asked, here's my 2 cents!

First, I want to thank you for saying you trust me with this! I'm also on the ace-spectrum, and I'm a queer, bisexual woman, so I do have a lot of empathy with you and everyone else who was down for queer rep.

(Also, I do not have Anon turned on for my asks. I absolutely respect your privacy, but I've been harassed before, and if people want to come at me, they can do it with their whole chest. Similarly, if people want to come TO me, I'd love to be friends!) I want to start off with the fact that whilst I understand that you believe the article, I don't. Call it the skeptic in me, or my media literacy classes during my grad program or denial or what have you, but we live in a huge era of misinformation. A tabloid is not likely to be any kind of reliable source, and a random reddit user even less so. It's like making a balloon full of pudding and having a clown say it's helium. We're not going to know until the needle pops it. Surely, no one would ever lie on the internet.

That being said, as much as I yearned and wanted for Demi Colin to be confirmed, it's not set in stone, and so it couldn't have been taken away from us. Honestly, even being ace-spec, a lot of the HC of Demi!Colin started putting a bad taste in my mouth when I realized that a lot of this predominately cishet fandomw as doing it as a means of keeping Colin 'pure' for Penelope, and that struck me as incredibly acephobic. Sure, they were HCing him as one of us. . .but not because it fit with his character or provided a rich and interesting arc for him to explore, but more so that his identity was an extension of their hopes and wants for Penelope. It wasn't for him as a character, but for him as a prize. And that made me so very sad, so my dream of Demi!Colin died when I saw that happening so frequently. Us Demi and Ace folks deserved better than that, and we continue to.

Either way, I think you are absolutely allowed to feel your disappointment! This is a frustration safe zone! There was a lot of potential this season, especially for Colin, that I feel has been dropped. But even IF that article contains some truth (big, heavy IF). . .idk, I see it through the lens that lot of us Demi folks have had sex. Even no strings attached sex. I know I have. Was I disassociated from it for a lot of the time? Yeah. Was it satisfying? No. But did it happen? It did. I chose to take part in it, and they were experiences that helped me grow. And I am no less Demi for it! IF this article is true, instead of us freaking. . .I feel like it could tell us a lot about Colin's character.

He is a man who has had, largely, no good role models in his life. Not in this regard. Who does he have to guide him? Anthony? Literally said he should have taken Colin to brothels. Benedict? Hell, he had a threesome himself. Why wouldn't Colin be out here thinking 'This is what Men do, this is what my brothers do, why not?' Colin is young. He's 23 still trying to find himself. And the entire idea of 'oh, he's a nerd! no way he's had threesomes' lol, like nerds aren't kinky? Come on, I'm a nerd and I've done way more than people would assume I have. He was traveling for months, and I think this really isn't as huge a deal as we're making it out to be. I ship Polin exclusively, and I love the idea of them having their firsts together, but I'm also not angry otherwise. In my mind, he's still demi. Just like he'll always be ND, even if it isn't confirmed.

Sidenote, o want to touch on something that is somewhat unrelated to your post, but something I'm seeing a lot is the whole 'it's dehumanizing for him to watch two women!' or 'it's lesbian fetishization!'

from the very bottom of my heart, as a gay woman, people saying that can eat me. These are the same people who didn't care about any of our representation, before. They didn't care about having lesbian characters, didn't bring them up. Now that it affects their (largely) het pairing, and specifically Colin as a perfect prize in a pairing he has largely been denied a narrative within, we're talking pieces and pawns for their discontent? No, I refuse. There are legitimate criticisms that can and should take place about Bridgerton's lack of care toward wlw, and especially that our only representation may actually just be a lesbian performance for the sake of a threesome, but this is not a criticism on COLIN. It is a criticism on the PRODUCTION. Because if we had queer women in the series before, it wouldn't be an issue. However, I refuse to have my sexuality used as a 'ewwww gross! look what they're doing! isn't that soooo wrong?' gotcha moment by people who just don't like his character. If we're gonna have a conversation about it, we should have a conversation about it based purely on our actual desire to protect and care for queer women. Not using us as stepping stone soap boxes to prop up an argument.

Queer people are really done dirty in the Polin fandom, and this is proof of it. Demi!Colin is important to me, and he continues living on in my heart and my fics, and even if it turns out that he's fucked up and down the Amalfi coastline and watched live porn, that won't make him less demi to me, personally. Ace spec people's experience with sex is all unique, and honestly, watching seems very in line with Colin's character. I don't agree with peeps who call it weird or gross that he watches porn.

This is an incredibly puritanical fandom, and I find it more and more evident as I spend time in it. The entire 'suffering' 'penance' 'deserve her' 'grovel' train was already very clear in that regard, and then people only wanting Colin to be a virgin so he remained 'pure' and 'untarnished' (legit takes I had to read with my own eyeballs) for Penelope was so Catholic on main that it made me feel insane.

Us ace-spec peeps deserve to be and should have the space to be upset at any developments taking place! We also deserve to be free from people doing pseudo pearl clutching and hiding behind feminist and queer-friendly language to disguise that they're just upset that Colin is getting anything at all in his storyline that centers around him and his own discovery outside of Penelope. Even if he isn't a virgin, he can absolutely still be Demi, Anon! And I hope that brings you some comfort.

Am I a fan of the threesomes foursomes moresomes and live porn speculation? No, not particularly. Am I livid furious throwing up about it? Also no. This series has betrayed me and disappointed me in so many ways, but so has the fandom. I guess I'm accustomed to it, now. But I want to reiterate that we should not believe everything that is posted. Some rando on a reddit forum confirming a tabloid article does not investigative journalism and peer review and confirmed sources make.

But in the event that the season does disappoint and gives us some baffling storylines: this is where fanfic can be such a comfort. It's how a story lives on in perpetuity. I've written trans!Colin and queer!Colin and demi!Colin and virgin!Colin and bdsm!Colin and all sorts! We can give we everything we want. It's our playground and it's meant to be fun.

But over my dead body will I believe a Sun UK article lol

[carewyncromwell]

This is going to sound weird, but I think I'm an ace?? I don't really know though. I've looked it up before and it's kinda confusing all the labels and such, but also makes sense to me??? Since the description says carey is an ace, could you please explain it? Like what's it about, and how did carey find out she was one? How does she know that she's not Pan? Does she come out to others? Sorry if this is a bad ask :(

Hi, Anon! Well, like Carewyn, I identify with the asexual spectrum, though I’m still romantic...so hopefully going into my experiences (which colored Carey’s) might help? Naturally everyone’s experience is a little different, even if they’re the same or a similar sexuality, but sometimes one can find common ground. all the same.

First things first, one must split asexuality up into some categories, for it is a spectrum:

Asexuality (Ace) is feeling little to no sexual attraction. One can feel romantic or even aesthetic attraction even if they don’t have much interest in or are actively disinterested in sex. Some ace people are also sex-repulsed, meaning they are actively turned-off by sex, but a lot of ace people aren’t. People who are asexual can still have sex or masturbate and even enjoy it, but generally don’t have as much interest in it as straight/gay/bi/lesbian/pan/etc. (A.K.A. allosexual, meaning “feeling any kind of sexual attraction”) people do. Some people on the asexual spectrum like to use this word rather than any of the following terms as it’s the most all-encompassing and recognizable, even though asexuality in general still isn’t very well-understood in mainstream society.

Demisexuality (Demi-Ace) is only feeling sexual attraction after creating a close emotional bond with someone.

Graysexuality (Gray-A) is only feeling sexual attraction very sparingly or in limited amounts.

Asexuality can also be refined further depending on what if any kind of romantic attraction one feels.

Some asexuals don’t feel any romantic attraction at all. These people are asexual/aromantic, or aro-ace. These sorts of people are perfectly happy just experiencing platonic love. They also sometimes enter into what are called queerplatonic relationships, which are individualized and customizable relationships that sort of play with the conventions of what’s generally classified as “romantic” and what’s classified as “friendship” (for instance, some queerplatonic relationships involve hand-holding, others don’t; some involve sex, others don’t; some involve two partners living together, others don’t; some involve exclusivity with one partner, others don’t).

Some asexuals, however, do feel romantic attraction, at which point they can be split in a similar way as sexualities are, except romantically. This is how you get people who are asexual/homoromantic (being romantically attracted to the same gender), asexual/heteroromantic (being romantically attracted to the opposite gender), asexual/biromantic or panromantic (being romantically attracted to multiple genders), and so on.

For me, I only first suspected I might be asexual as an adult, as when I was a teenager I hadn’t even known it was a thing. Before then, I’d been romantically attracted to and dated both a woman and a man, and looking back on my experiences, I was very aware of how much less interest I had in intimacy compared to my partners. I just always found myself getting bored whenever we’d share long, deep kisses or restless whenever we were cuddling too long, even if I really enjoyed being with my partner. Whenever sex would come up, I was just never really that interested -- especially in comparison to how interested I’d be in going out and doing things with my partner, like going to the movies or watching a show or even just having a spirited debate about something. When I was younger as well, I always felt very out-of-the-loop whenever anyone my age gushed about how “hot” a celebrity was or made sexual innuendos. It’s not that I didn’t know what the innuendos meant or that I was a prude, either -- there were plenty of times I’d use those terms myself or write “lemon” fanfictions for my fandoms, to fit in -- but I always felt like the things that drew me to people were different than what drew other people to them. My crushes were almost never about how “sexy” someone was -- if anything, I most frequently ended up getting crushes on people for their singing voices. (Yes, I’m serious. XDDD) I’d also have trouble relating to people talking about a certain woman having a great ass or a certain guy’s muscles because my brain really just doesn’t split people up into pieces like that. I’m much more likely to find someone beautiful because of their sparkling eyes or their bright smile than because of their body -- it’s not that I can’t see someone as beautiful all the way around, but it’s much more of an aesthetic attraction, like one might feel toward a piece of art, than anything that gets you hot and bothered. And it took me a long time before I really could figure out the difference and therefore why I had such difficulty relating to the allosexual people around me. At times it made me feel stupid or, worse, like there was something wrong with me. I felt like maybe I’d just been born missing something, and it made me that much more afraid to even open myself up, because I felt like I wouldn’t be able to be what anyone I might fall in love with would need me to be. Fortunately I learned otherwise, and now I feel a lot better, now that I understand this aspect of myself. It also makes it a lot easier for me to talk about LGBT+ issues and about romantic relationships with other people, now that I can better explain where I fit on the spectrum!

I see Carewyn, like me, only really learning about what asexuality is as an adult, and once she did and did the proper amount of soul-searching, she came out to her friends about her identity. I personally HC her “unofficial twin” and fellow Fireball Charlie Weasley being aro-ace and her future love interest Orion being gray-A, so that definitely helps a bit...and I also HC several of Carewyn’s other friends as LGBT+ too, including her ex-boyfriend Andre Egwu, so they’re all pretty accepting. ^.^