#by the way i am asexual

[dead-inside-demiboy]

Im sorry but being aromantic and/or asexual is such a beautiful, complex identity that opens up almost endless possibilities and interpretations about sex and romance and relationships and struggles within those,

and i will always absolutely LOATHE how both the outside and the aro/ace community itself have boiled these identities down to just "doesnt have sex" and "doesnt date"

[ale-arro]

been going a little bit insane about this sentence from Ace by Angela Chen for the past week

[thetisming]

amatonormativity: a romantic partner should be the most important person in EVERYONE'S life

NOT amatonormativity: MY romantic partner is the most important person in MY life, but i understand this is not the same for other people

allosexnormativity: EVERYONE should have sex and sex is something EVERYONE needs/wants/should want

NOT allosexnormativity: I PERSONALLY enjoy sex and love having sex because it makes ME feel good, but other people dont feel the same and that's okay

platonormativity: having friends is important for EVERYONE and EVERYONE needs/has/should have friends

NOT platonormativity: having friends is important to ME and I PERSONALLY love having friends, but there are people who dont and theres nothing wrong with that

faminormativity (is that the word?): family is important for EVERYONE and EVERYONE needs to have their family

NOT faminormativity: family is important to ME and I PERSONALLY need my family with me, but other people dont feel the same and i understand that

lovenormativity (again, not sure if this is a word): EVERYBODY feels love and there's something wrong wiith you if you dont

NOT lovenormativity: I PERSONALLY feel love and love people, but not everyone does and that's completely okay!

NOT amatonormativity: i dont have friends/have any desire to have friends, i am happy with other relationships/no relationships at all

NOT platonormativity: i dont have any desire to be in a romantic relationships, and i am happy with my platonic relationships

NOT allosexnormativity: i like hooking up with people and having one night stands or friends with benefits

NOT faminormativity: i care about my family deeply and am close with family members

NOT lovenormativity: i feel love for people i care about

it's not normative to personally enjoy something, so long as you respect that other people simply arent like you and aren't going to like the same things as you. taking down normativity is a two way street, allos and aspecs need to do it. support your local aros, aces, apls, afams and other aspecs today! remember to challange all normativities, and to not enforce other normativity by saying how bullshit other normativities are!

nothing is universal. romance is not universal. sex is not universal. friendship is not universal. family is not universal. love is not universal. nothing is universal.

[scarlct-vvitch]

i know i attract more ace followers than anything else lmao so y'all better show up for this one

[ink-stains-and-constellations]

Why are there not, like... platonic x reader fics. Like, I don't wanna date these characters, I just want to hang out with them and crack jokes and banter and get takeaway and play videogames and maybe even hug and bop them on the head and just have affectionate platonic physical contact??? I want to read a fic about being friends with them, and yet all I can find is romantic reader insert fics.

[spaceacekid]

The more I read about asexuality the more I realise no two experiences are the same, this spectrum is so broad and that's awesome actually

[vbrosclips]

s5e8 - The Devil's Grip

[lucabyte]

sorry loop if this looks gay to the viewers

[kittykatninja321]

Post-Flashpoint comics have been trying to push the idea of Jason as a ladies man and each time I have just not been convinced I say this with all the love in my heart I will concede to the fact that Jason Todd has had sex maybe 3 times. If I’m being generous

[darlingofdots]

like I do think we need to acknowledge that being asexual can suck. I'm proud to be queer and I'm happy for everyone whose experience is different but for me, specifically, being asexual sucks. If I had the choice, I would change this about myself. The ways in which it affects my life are frustrating and upsetting to me and it's not just a question of accepting myself or 'coming to terms with' who I am, it is a very real impact on my interactions and relationships with other people, my existence in my community, and what the rest of my life will look like. I think it's important to talk about this not only in the context of the very real discrimination and exclusion that asexuals experience as a consequence of acephobia but also just the frustration of having so many choices and experiences taken away from you just because of your orientation

[thefangirlinsideofme]

tumblr is such a great website when you're trying to figure out your sexuality because apparently that's the hot topic in the world like everyone needs to know who's fucking who like it's their business, so conforming to these societal urges of strangers of "i need to know whats between your legs and also who you'd like to put there", i started questioning myself

i wanted to be able to be normal

but it didn't fit

i didn't fit

i was never actively looking for it, but i noticed that my experiences concerning relationships and sexuality kind of weren't like what i saw on tv

and i was baffled when i found out not everyone thinks that sex scenes in movies or tv shows were a goddamn waste of time and probably only made it on the screen to lengthen the epidode to their expected duration. no they were put there on purpose. and i was like why????

then i came across the term asexuality, and it was like the sky opened for angels to descend upon my horizon and sing the hymn of my people; i was literally like YES OMG THAT which i didn't say out loud because it happened while i was watching tv with my whole family and that was kinda awkward

after that i didn't put much thought into it. i made offhanded comments about it to a friend one time but i never mentioned it to anyone else because why. it's not something that just comes up in conversation and i never understood the hype around coming out (just MY opinion, i know a lot of people draw strength from saying their truth out loud YOU GO PEOPLE TELL EM SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOP)

ANYWAY

the point of this is

i found tumblr and, just, all the thoughts, doubts or questions i still have about myself i never bothered to answer because i literally don't care enough about knowing myself, all of that though, just comes up on my dash. just randomly. posts that reassure me. posts that are just like OMG EXACTLY YOU PUT IT INTO WORDS

in a world where no one in my life really gets asexuality, tumblr is a place where i don't have to feel like the odd one out.

and they really wouldn't get it. my family. they'd be supportive and nice about it obviously, but i don't think they'd be able to understand really what it means and frankly i'm too awkward to explain it to them but that's also totally fine because i know they love me for me, even the parts they don't know about.

and just for myself when i think i might be faking all this for attention while i'm telling no one about it (make it make sense), ace tumblr finds me with a hot chocolate, a blanket and a hug and says hey i've put this ace feeling into words do you relate and i cry and say yes yes i do thank you ace tumblr

and then i'm fine again :)

[abyssal-author-and-artist]

okay okay okay I know we have the explicit ace and aro rep in Sif and Mira BUT have you considered

Sex neutral ace Isa (that's a very neutral reaction to "drawings of people doing fun things" you've got there. Very neutral. Surprising for someone who's very easily flustered)

and aromantic M'dame Odile! Bonding earring conversation where she says it's not really her thing, anyone? Sounds to me like everyone in this cast is aro and or ace.

[dreamsy990]

some of the less nice thoughts about being aroace

extras below the cut

sketch

closeups on my favorite panels

bonus: adios

[heartless-aro]

Does anyone else find it sort of upsetting how widely popular House M.D. has seemingly become in online queer spaces with how violently acephobic and intersexist it is? Like, I don’t want to pretend that it’s only queerphobic towards aces and intersex people, because the show definitely engages in its fair share of early-2000s-typical casual transphobic and homophobic language, and I do think it’s pretty biphobic that, from what I remember of the show, they made 13 (the one canonically bisexual character) a promiscuous party girl tm.

But the show is extremely vitriolic towards intersex and asexual people, and I wish that the people who treat it like a haha funny toxic yaoi show would at least fucking acknowledge that. The show actively reinforces the ideas about intersex bodies which are used to justify the nonconsensual mutilation of intersex children. And the way the show treats asexuality is abysmal. I saw someone on here once say that it’s “funny” that House is canonically aphobic, as if it’s just a joke that the House episode about asexuality actively supports the idea that asexuals are all either liars or medically unwell and in need of “fixing”. Why is pro-conversion therapy rhetoric suddenly funny when it’s directed towards us?

I’m not saying that no one is allowed to enjoy the show at all. Hell, I used to really enjoy it too, at least before I got to the asexuality episode (shortly after finding out I’m ace and before I had ever seen even a single other representation of asexuality in mainstream media). But like. Can people at least stop outright ignoring the absolutely detrimental effects this show had on the ace community and the intersex community?

[unityrain24]

hate when people refer to sex as "the bedroom." also hate how "slept/sleeping together" is a way to say "had/having sex together." why do you hate romance. why do you hate platonic. why must everything be about sex. did you really have to use platonic/romantic/nuetral terms and make them about sex. can't you just use sexual terms for sexual things.

[dukeofthomas]

Jason Todd's the aroace guy who doesn't realize he's aroace but is also not oblivious to how big a driving force sexual attraction is for other people. He's the type to dislike and judge men for thinking with their dicks so much and kind of think himself better than them because of the fact that he doesn't