#demi & ace

[gray-ace-space]

a while back i posted screenshots of a conversation with a demi friend who afaik is otherwise cishet and extremely not on tumblr. i guess he's just gonna be a recurring character on this blog.

here is me (badly) explaining the deal with unicorns and dragons to him, and a message he had for acespecs in response.

make armadillo ace a thing. do it for him.

[scretladyspider]

demisexuality can be so hard to explain because it’s misconstrued as you just wanting to trust the other person before you have sex with them. and I get why the misconception happens. But demisexuality differs in that there isn’t sexual attraction at all before that bond forms.

I think what people have difficulty with is the idea that there are people out there who aren’t experiencing sexual attraction at all until a certain point, if ever, because we’re taught that sex, libido, and sexual attraction are all the same, both in and out of queer spaces.

And when you’re learning about asexuality and demisexuality, you may learn that people have romantic and aesthetic attraction separately from sexual attraction, and that sexual and romantic attraction aren’t necessarily intertwined, and that may challenge your worldview on sex.

But “I trust you enough to have sex with you” isn’t the same as “I’m not sexually attracted to anyone but you, and the reason I’m sexually attracted to you now after we’ve established this close bond is literally because of the bond of trust we’ve been able to form”.

It’s easy to see how those can get conflated. On the surface, if you’re unfamiliar with asexuality, they may sound the same. But it’s important to acknowledge the difference between “no sex until I trust you” and “no sexual attraction unless I trust you and maybe not even then”.

Demisexuality is housed under the asexuality spectrum. It’s part of the gray area between being allosexual and asexual. It’s part of why the definition for asexuality includes “little to no sexual attraction”. It’s a mostly asexual experience with an asterisk.

While being demisexual may have impacts on a persons sexual activity, even demisexuals have a varied relationship to the act of participating in sex. Libido and sexual attraction are not always intertwined either, which can make telling the difference tricky.

I think of sexual attraction as libido that has a compass. Since I rarely ever experience sexual attraction, but do have libido, it’s noticeable for me when that libido actually has a direction to go, rather than being a floating, nebulous, independent thing.

Remember, not everyone is demisexual. There’s a difference between waiting to have sex and not having sexual attraction at all until a certain point. This also inherently ties demisexuality to romantic attraction and relationships, and not all demisexuals are alloromantic.

But if you read what demisexuality is and think “everyone is like that” or “that’s just being a woman”, you either 1) are demisexual 2) don’t understand what it is or 3) both. And it’s okay to not know. Just as long as you’re willing to try to learn.

[aspec-helpless-romantic]

I wish there was a dating app/site that focused on people on the aroace spectrum.

Like, not a full-on dating app.

Just somewhere where it'd be normal for me to come on and say "Hey, I'm demi-aroace, so I don't like you like that right away, but I'd love to meet new friends, and have a chance to develop deeper feelings while the other side is aware that it's a possibility and something I'm looking for!"

Somewhere for other aspec people to come to look for platonic/queer-platonic life partners.

Somewhere where it wouldn't be weird to look for purely platonic relationships with sex and relationships that are romantic but without the sexual aspect.

Somewhere where being open about being queer (with a focus on the aroace spectrum), being disabled, or any other thing that isn't "normal" and accepted in the typical dating pool, y'know?

Maybe we should all go back to making and being active in forums so it wouldn't be tied to someone having to work for hours to create a functional and marketable app :/

[rentrysource]

basic pride pixels (feel free to req more)

In order- pride flag, lesbian, omnisex, nonbinary, mlm, agender, sapphic, achillean, aromantic, demiace, asexual, genderqueer, bisexual, demiaro, polygender, polyamory, pansexual, pomosexual

[foxprints]

Happy Ace Visibility Week!

💜🩶🤍🖤💚

[astridmargrethe]

I’m so sick and tired of all the pornbots/pornsites cluttering up my feed/messaging me these days. I feel like all I’m doing on here now is blocking bots 🤬🤦🏼‍♀️ I’m ACE! Leave me alone! I’m not interested 🤬

[snowed-leopard]

MANNCO PRIDE PT 2: SEXUALITY!

part two to my only slightly too late pride month project... aheh

Gender | Sexuality | Other | Some Xenogenders | Robotkin

(as asks come in and I get additional requests more links to extra may be added) ((Other includes both rainbow flag variations and some flags like the bear flag and questioning flag. ))

QnA is in the Gender post! go check there for how I want people to ask for a flag I may have missed on. I'm very sorry if I did btw, I promise it was not intentional, you're still valid I'm just a dumbass.

[wingedwhitelioness]

Happy Ace Week 🖤🩶🤍💜

With a ghostly touch 👻

[forsapphics]

Diya from Butterfly Soup

Art by @ ally90440 on Pinterest (x)

[asexualcherry]

For the aego's!

And the demi's!

Autumn is colorful, just like the community!

Use it as you like!

Requests via Ask.

[gray-ace-space]

here's the thing about me and smut. i don't read about my favs fucking every night before i go to sleep because it gets me off. i do it because it's soothing. no matter how shitty things are, i can go to this little bubble where everything is safe and perfect. i don't know when it became a foundational coping mechanism for me, but it is now.

[scretladyspider]

Let’s talk about what demisexuality is not.

First off: what is demisexuality? We have to establish what it is to talk about what it isn’t.

‘demisexuality’ describes not experiencing sexual attraction until a close bond is formed. This doesn’t mean demis are attracted to everyone we bond with, and we can have differing desires towards sex. Demisexuals may or may not be demiromantic — they’re not one and the same.

While demisexuals can also be demiromantic, this isn’t true as a rule. Just like being asexual doesn’t necessarily mean you’re aromantic. It’s possible to be both, nothing wrong with that — but they’re not inherently synonymous.

*For some people who are aroace, include demi aroaces, their sexual and romantic orientations are deeply intertwined and there isn’t a big difference between the two. Other people use the split attraction model, which recognizes a difference in sexual and romantic orientations.

Many people think that “everyone is demisexual” because they read the definition and say “oh, that’s just being normal”. They’re confusing not experiencing sexual at ALL with waiting until a relationship is serious to have sex.

Demisexuality is a sexual orientation. The thing people confuse it with is a decision regarding sexual behavior that can be made regardless of orientation— the decision to wait to have sex until you’re emotionally close. That decision can be made by anyone, demisexual or not.

Often people read the definition and say “I’m demisexual, I wait to have sex until it’s not just sex. I want emotional fulfillment too.” When it’s explained that demisexuals rarely have sexual attraction and only under certain conditions does it occur, one of two things happens:

they misunderstand and assume that demisexuals are also experiencing sexual attraction without the bond and just not acting on it, or

they begin to understand that there’s a difference between sexual attraction and action.

More often than not it’s the former.

It’s interesting that this misunderstanding happens when demisexuality is described because allosexuals (people who aren’t ace) abstain from sex all the time but still feel sexual attraction. There’s this underlying assumption that everyone experiences sexual attraction.

But… just imagine that feeling of not being attracted and expand it. It’s doubtful that you experience sexual attraction to every person you see is physically attractive. Just expand that and there you go. Or imagine it like not seeing a particular color until you suddenly can.

Demisexuals aren’t all cisgender and heteroromantic. But there’s nothing wrong with demis who are! If ace isn’t enough for you to respect someone is LGBTQIA+, you don’t understand or accept asexuality or the orientations under its spectrum.

Demisexuality is NOT “just being a woman”. Demisexuality also isn’t “the patriarchy convinced young girls not having casual sex was a sexuality”.

There’s so much wrong with both of these, and they tie together, so I put them together here. Not only does this thinking see cis women and feminine people as being inherently “more” asexual, it robs allos and aces alike of bodily autonomy towards sex and sexuality. It bleeds out from conservative Christianity — it’s the same ideas that lead us to abstinence only sex “education” and that women must be sexually available at all times or their husband will cheat to “get his needs met”. Saying that cis women & feminine people are just all demisexual or ace removes the bodily autonomy of those who want sex and those who don’t by assigning a culturally acceptable narrative as more important than lived experience. But sexuality isn’t limited by cisheterosexism.

The truth is there are still a lot of people learning they’re under the asexual umbrella as educators and advocacy groups get education out there, and even in queer spaces asexuality isn’t always accepted, let alone its spectrum. A lot of people don’t even know it’s an option!

In addition, and partially because of, tropes like this, asexuality and everything under it are considered more “feminine”. Sex is seen as a symbol of status and depending on your gender and presentation, that status gets lowered or raised depending on the number of partners had.

Cis men and masculine aces exist, and also have to contend with cultural pressures to “perform” sexually, whether they want to or not. Erasing these experiences doesn’t help further acceptance towards asexuality or just sexuality in general.

And! Cis women and feminine people can have and enjoy casual sex! Others don’t but still experience sexual attraction regularly. Being allosexual isn’t limited to the masculine. Libido can also exist without sexual attraction. Human sexuality is just not as narrow as you think.

That’s where I’ll leave this one. Remember, it’s okay to be demisexual. It’s not okay to dunk on a group of people you didn’t bother to try to understand. Keep an open mind. There’s room at the table for learning, not bigotry.

[aro-comics]

May's Comic (Part 1)

Full comic available here on Issuu!

Important Content Warning for this Section - there are mentions of suicide in the first few pages.

Didn't realize there's a limit of 30 images per post, haha. I will be uploading the rest of this series in parts then over the course of the next few hours (by the time you read this, anyway)

Full transcript can be found here for ease of reference.

[thebeesbox]

Day 19 of Drawing Pride Flags as Foxes: demisexual flag

[allegoriesandepithets]

Large Pixel Size Demi- Flags

[PT: Large Pixel Size Demi- Flags]

Demisexual ~ Demiromantic

Demiplatonic ~ Demiqueerplatonic

Demialterous ~ Demisensual ~ Demiaesthetic

All flags are 3000x2000 pixels.

@tertiary-attraction-archive @radiomogai @liom-archive @imoga-pride

[eatingramyeon]

question for everyone that is aro/ace/aroace or anything else on the ace/aro-spec

is there any site where I can download for free books based on our labels? it can be any type of book fiction or non-fiction

pls let me know !!