#first off he could just be bi. or he could be experiencing compulsive heterosexuality and keeping up appearances as a closeted gay 16 year

[galaxytale]

all that said idk how to help you if you cant read between the lines sometimes especially when it comes to depictions of characters in media who are heavily canonically associated with LEGITIMATE, OBVIOUS, and WELL KNOWN symbolism that would point to them as being LGBT+ - especially when its stuff that isnt actual stereotypes but instead considered community symbols that would be well known or recognized by the in-group in question.

[lblwlw]

Hello!

First post here, but I have a long history with tumblr. Tumblr has always sort of been a place for me to escape because few of my friends ever had my URL/followed me. This time it’s a little more important.  

CW: Brief mentions of sexual occurrences with men, brief talk of depression, nothing too serious or graphic

TLDR; I’ve suppressed my gayness on accident for basically my whole life, identified as bi, married a man, realized I’m gay, am now figuring out my life.

Warning, this is a LONG post.

I have always been been fascinated with sexuality, more specifically same sex relationships. I was always interested in the idea of being in a same sex relationship but told myself, “no, that’s not me”. Eventually in middle school I played with the idea of being bisexual when I learned what that meant. I said, perfect. I can tell my internet friends I like girls, too, but I won’t have to tell anyone else and I can just worry about boys then at school and for my parents. I had a few crushes on boys, but the thought of actually dating them terrified me and so I very rarely did more than think about them a lot and just tell my friends that I was “too ugly” or whatever else, or “too awkward.” What they didn’t know was that through MySpace I met a girl and had a huge crush on her. We talked a lot and we said we were dating. I never really told anyone. That eventually fizzled out. 

Over time I got bullied a couple times because classmates found my MySpace and found that I identified as bi. I quickly learned it was something I didn’t want to talk about. I dealt with a lot of anxiety and depression throughout all of school. In high school I steadily crushed on one boy almost all four years, but looking back I think I really just enjoyed and wanted to be his friend. Or I just kind of picked him as the one I liked the most so I had a crush to be a normal girl. I dated two boys the entirety of high school, the first one I broke up with because once he finally asked me out (after I “liked him”) and we did relationship things, like kissing, I was not all about it. It didn’t feel right. I thought, maybe I just didn’t like him. Next boyfriend, I wasn’t entirely objected to kissing him but it wasn’t my favorite. It got more frustrating when he wanted to do more. I wasn’t so opposed to him touching me, but when it came to touching him I was like “this ain’t it”. I stayed with him anyway, hoping I would “get over it” until he broke up with me. I wonder now if he could tell I wasn’t into it.

There was actually a time in which I thought, maybe I should date girls? One of my friends was dating a girl, and I thought that was wonderful. I went to her to tell her that I had been thinking maybe I’d rather date girls. I totally blocked this conversation out of my head until recently.

Once I was done with high school I was discouraged but tried to date a few different guys. None of them went that fantastically. If I met them online, I usually came up with a reason we couldn’t meet. “Maybe this just won’t work” It was fun to talk and flirt but when it came down to bringing it into real life I’d panic because that meant kissing a guy again, and possibly having sex. It made me totally uncomfortable. Finally I said, “I wish I was just into girls, ugh.” Remembered that I was, and that I should try it finally. I matched with this sweet girl that was about a year younger than me. She seemed so put together and so kind. We went on a few dates, getting ramen, fancy cupcakes, riding on a trolly in the city, etc. I remember when I got to kiss her in public and I was SO pumped to be seen doing that! Another time, I believe I drove her home but we parked away from her house and made out in my car. I still remember so much of it vividly. 

Eventually I realized that if I was seriously dating her, she would want it to be known. I’d have to face my fears and tell my family. For some reason, this absolutely terrified me. It shouldn’t have but it did. I thought through my options, and decided I should just find a nice guy that will love me and spend my life with me so I don’t have to do this anymore. I did the unspeakable act of basically just ghosting her and pursued a guy from work who, realistically, kind of freaked me out. Thanks to good old compulsive heterosexuality, I read this as my attraction to him. Thankfully, he was pretty easily attracted to me. I recall early in the relationship wishing I hadn’t done that awful thing to that girl, and that I wish I was still dating a girl. Nothing was technically wrong with my relationship that I had now, but something felt off. Like I was missing something. I tucked that away somewhere in my head and enjoyed building an amazing friendship with this man. I did love him, and I still do. He’s kind, he’s sensitive, we have a lot of shared interests and he’s taught me so much intentionally and unintentionally. 

We got married last year and while I felt grateful I had this amazing person beside me, I remember a part of me wondering if this was right for me. I had this weird little empty pocket somewhere in my heart. That I had given up my young adulthood maybe, and that I could have experienced being with... a woman, for real. I thought, I wish I could have met my husband later in life, maybe. Maybe then I’d have gotten my desires for women out of the way and then been with him forever. Because I do love him, he’s a good person and deserves to be loved. I enjoyed the wedding as a big party that I got to have with my family, but I just remember wondering where that extreme excitement was that everyone always described. Was I broken?

Now over a year later, I was sitting at home one day feeling lost and depressed. I had been on TikTok and saw all these young people having fun and I wished that I had spent more time trying to have fun in the past, before I got married. I thought, I could do it now, but what if something happened and I somehow I fell for one of these girls while being with my husband? Wait... why would I even think that? I started to really analyze this thought. I thought, if I was bi like I had always identified, why could I not be happy with my husband? Well, I was, but something was missing. This thought popped into my head: Oh no. What if I am gay? 

What?! Why would I think that? That’s crazy. I would have known as a kid like everyone says. Right? That’s how that works. I chalked this up to feeling like I was missing out and tried to stop thinking about it. It was hard not to, though. And so I googled one morning while out listening to the birds, after escaping bed before my husband rose to avoid his intimacy: “lesbian married to a man”

This article came up about a woman who had been married to a man for many years and they had kids. She started to question herself, and her attraction to him. I don’t remember all of it but I remember getting really uncomfortable but also having this weird sense of calm. That finally, I felt like I identified with something. I wasn’t really sure though. I sent a message to the lady who wrote the article. She replied a week later telling me that she had a podcast called Lesbian Chronicles. I said, okay, I need to listen to this. I listened to about two episodes or so when they mentioned this thing called “The Master Doc” and the reddit sub called Late Bloomer Lesbians. I was like “Holy crap, a community??”

I logged onto reddit for the first time ever. I saw all these women posting in similar situations to me. I found “The Master Doc” and “Straight women don’t say...”

It was like a light bulb went off. Oh my god, everything makes sense! Maybe I’m NOT broken! I remembered all the women that I had crushes on. All the times I thought about women but told myself I was just “weird” and tried not to think about it. I always thought, no I can’t be gay because I wasn’t sure of it as a kid. Now I realized that women especially are fed a straight narrative. It’s “normal” to not be attracted to men the way they are to you. It’s normal to not totally enjoy sex with men... When I learned that we’ve been told this, and it isn’t really true... I wanted to cry. Now I was in the biggest “pickle” ever. I have this man who loves me, who I said vows to swearing I loved him the same forever. Did I just accept who I was and what I did and live with it? Did I break up with him? That seemed to harsh. I heard a lot of women in the same position say they spoke to a therapist. I immediately googled therapists in my area that specialized in LGBTQ+ issues, sent an email ASAP, and felt a little bit of relief. I knew this was real because after years of playing with the idea of seeing a therapist, this came so naturally when I needed help with this.

Now I am here. I feel very confident that I am gay, and my dad knows now. I tried to bring it up with my husband but it didn’t go very well. He currently thinks that maybe I’m just a sad bisexual who hasn’t been able to express her bi-ness. I am at a point a conversation needs to happen again. I told myself when my lesbian flag and pin came in the mail, I would talk to him again. It’s being delivered today. I am terrified, to say the least. It feels so wrong to “betray” this man who has dedicated to much time and work to giving us as good a life as he can. But I need to live my truth. It will come. I’m low-key excited for it. I hope maybe this helps someone going through the same thing.

-Anonymous Married Lesbian

[sapphogirls]

I hope its okay to come to you with this but i dont really know whom else to talk to. So i came out as a lesbian a few years ago and it was a really big deal to me. But sometimes i catch myself being attracted to guys and imagining myself with them. I used to write this off as a result of compulsive heterosexuality or something but i dont think that's it. I think I'm genuinely attracted to them. I know that bisexuality is valid and in no way something to be ashamed of (++)

(++) but whenever i feel attraction to a guy i’m overcome by a sense of guilt. As if i am somehow “a bad lesbian”. Whenever a guy I am attracted to flirts with me I tell him that I’m gay to erase any chance of something happening. I just dont know how to make these feelings stop and i wonder if maybe someone has experienced sth similiar or has advice for me?

——————————————————————

ive gone through something like this very recently. i identified as lesbian for about two years of my life and it was very important for me to uphold certain lesbian ideals. it wasn’t until a certain guy came along and i absolutely freaked out over liking him. ive had trauma in the past when it came to men, so whenever i liked a guy i just labeled it as compulsory heterosexuality to protect myself. i genuinely believed that men could never be loving and that anything to do with men was bad. i also thought that since the way i am attracted to girls is more “typical,” i guess you can say, (ie i fall for them easier, i am attracted to girls more often, etc) than how i am attracted to men. it takes a lot more time for me to trust a man and love one, but just because it takes time doesnt mean that its not worth it and it doesnt mean that i dont have the capacity to love men. one of my best friends is bi and she is in a relationship with a man rn, and their relationship really did prove to me that loving a man can be just as fulfilling as loving a woman, and its one of the main reasons why i switched the the “bisexual” label. i also feel so much more free, i dont feel pressured to like men or to not like men. i feel a 100x better calling myself bi rather than a lesbian, it is a much more natural fit for me.

however, that is just my experience! the guilt feeling that you have could be from rejecting someone nice that does deserve to be in a relationship. but just because hes a nice guy doesnt mean he has to be in a relationship with you. you really have to ask yourself if youre okay with not being in a relationship with a man, if you’re okay with always choosing women first over a man in terms of a relationship. this is just something that you have to determine for yourself. and if it is compulsory heterosexuality, please dont think of yourself as a bad lesbian because i know plenty of lesbians who deal with this sort of thing, and it does not make them bad. but whatever happens, i hope you know either way you’ll be accepted by a community!

-Mod Olivia

[huachengsimp]

Thoughts on my sexuality

I think I might be a lesbian. The more I think about it, the more I realize I’m not sexually or romantically attracted to men. I don’t look at a man’s v-line or their abs or their jawline and think “Oh hot damn, I want him to fuck me!” I’ve never craved being with a man. Not like I am with women. I literally have days where I’ll fantasize all day about laying in bed with a girl or us sitting in the tub and how the water glistens off her breasts. How soft her skin would feel and what she would taste like. I can picture myself being with a woman how I’ve never pictured myself being with a man. This has confused me for the longest time because when I was younger, I had crushes on boys. But the more I think on it, I was always forcing myself to get crushes because other girls were. They would ask me which boy did I like and I’d never have an answer. I would literally randomly pick a boy out of my class and proclaim I have a crush on him.

 Not to mention I didn’t understand sexuality until I was much older. I was taught homophobia and had to work really hard to actively unlearn all that. When my cousin came out, it forced me to confront this brand new world. I was a really passionate “straight ally” and learned everything I could about it. I told myself that when I was sitting in the dark movie theater with my best friend that the sexual fantasy I had about her was just the after effect of my cousin coming out. I remember being 15 and watching the band T.a.T.u and yuri amvs of final fantasy characters on youtube. I was telling myself that I was curious. And I was. I remember being excited and not understanding that excitement when in fifth grade I undressed in a room with my best friend, Amber. Or how I would see random older girls in the hallway in middle school and literally break my neck trying to look at them. I told myself that this was because they were pretty and I wanted to look like them or it  was just their hair was so pretty.

 I wasn’t crushing on them, I was admiring them. When I joined tumblr, it wasn’t until I graduated high school that I started realizing this was a romantic attraction. I would see pictures of girls or porn gifs from lesbian blogs and get a tingling in my abdomen that I had never experienced with a boy before. So I labeled myself as bi. But I thought that I couldn’t possibly be anything other than straight because I didn’t know when I was old enough to talk. My cousin knew really young that he was gay! Surely I would have been the same if I really was bi or gay. I convinced myself that I was only feeling this way towards women because my uncle had ruined all feelings I had towards men by slipping his hand under my clothes. And this is surely a part of why it took me so long to figure it out. I was so shy and hated myself and thought myself so beneath other people that I wouldn’t even look them in the eyes. I was gross and fat and unlovable. Men didn’t want me due to my body so I was worthless. 

Of course I later realized how wrong this was and have now become more confident in myself. So I became comfortable calling myself bisexual. I only had two distinct experiences with men when I was young. One was having a huge crush on a guy from second grade all the way to middle school. The other was getting turned on by experimenting with a childhood boy friend who was my first kiss. But looking back on it, I wasn’t attracted to either of them. When my first kiss declared me his girlfriend even though I couldn’t tell people, I was more excited of the idea of a boyfriend. I was a late bloomer. I didn’t date all throughout my school days. Unless you call boys chatting me on the phone as “dating.” I don’t. I only seriously dated one boy who lived two hours away from me that I met at a friend’s birthday party. We grew close quickly due to common interests. He was bisexual and it was him I went to when I started questioning. Then we started dating because I was lonely post graduating and he was the only peer I had to talk to. I convinced myself I liked him even though when I masturbated in front of the cam for him, I felt nothing but emptiness and a sense of wrongness. 

When he kissed me and slipped his tongue in my mouth--the first ‘french’ kiss of my life--all I could focus on was how gross his breath smelled and how wet and slimy his tongue felt in my mouth. I was literally thinking to myself, “This is it? This is what making out with a boy feels like?” I waited for it to be over and went to rinse my mouth out with mouthwash when he was in the bathroom. Then I tried again because surely I was doing it wrong. But I chickened out at the last second and let him kiss my neck instead. I didn’t--couldn’t--want his tongue in my mouth again. I looked up countless articles about why I wasn’t feeling attracted to him. He was nice! We had so much in common! Why didn’t I like him? I cried at night because I didn’t feel love towards him when he proclaimed he loved me. So I ended it. I chalked this up to being inexperienced and surely the right man would come along. 

Three years passed and I was 100% certain of my attraction to women. I came out to my aunt, mom, dad, and step brother, as well as a few close friends as bisexual. Occasionally I would see attractive men on tv and think they were attractive. That counted as a crush, right? Right? Suddenly it wasn’t my budding feelings towards women confusing me, it was my feelings towards men. I had crushes on them before so I couldn’t possibly be gay! But the more I embraced my queerness, the more I craved being with a woman. I signed up on dating sites and wished that I lived in a bigger city and closer to gay bars. I craved a girlfriend. I listened to lesbian music playlists on Spotify and pictured myself dressed nicely and kissing and sleeping with women. I pictured their heads between my legs when I masturbated. I had never had these thoughts towards men. Not ever. I never lay awake at night and pictured kissing boys. I prided myself on not being boy crazy and a sensible teen. Well, now I understand why. The bisexual label is slowly starting to feel stifling. My mom still thinks I will eventually find a man. A good country man who will treat me right. But I don’t want that. When I picture going through the rest of my life without being with a woman, I feel depressed. When I think about never being with a man, I feel indifferent. I wouldn’t miss them. I don’t crave dick. I don’t look at ripped men gyrating and feel turned on. Instead I just cringe. When girls scream with lust, I literally can’t understand it.

 Coming out to myself is the hardest part. Part of me is still convinced that I’m bi and lean more towards women. And if that was the case, that would be fine. Nothing wrong with being bisexual. But then I spent all night watching coming out stories on Youtube and heard the phrase “compulsive heterosexuality.” Basically it means that since straight is the default, girls grow up assuming they are supposed to be attracted to boys. I think that defines what I experienced. I am not straight. I’m beginning to understand that I’m not bisexual, either. I think I’m gay. I am a lesbian. It feels freeing to say, yet stifling at the same time. What if I find a man attractive one day? What if I fall in love with one? If I re come out as a lesbian, then everyone will think I was faking it if I get married to a man. 

Typing it out, it sounds stupid. That is a lot of assumptions and what ifs. It’s not anyone’s place to define my sexuality for me. If I say I’m gay, then I’m gay. This will take time to fully accept. I’m still afraid of re coming out to my mom. I know she won’t care, but there still is something scary in closing out all possibilities of ending up with a man. I feel bad for this because bisexuals are always faced with people saying that they’re secretly gay and in the closet. By taking a label I no longer feel comfortable with, I am contributing to bisexual erasure and stifling my own homosexuality. Again this is still a journey I’m confronting. Trying to find out where you fit on the spectrum is both terrifying and thrilling. But I hope by writing out these thoughts I can find some sort of clarity. And I hope I can one day confidently say to everyone that, “I am a lesbian.”

[cerullos]

You don't have to answer. Reading the responses to that reblog about ace struggles made me really sad. The way you talk about the ace thing in general makes me sad. And I really like you, actually. I know some in the ace community are homophobic fucks. And a lot of ppl in the gay community are transphobic. And a lot of trans people are biphobic. And a lot of bi people are sexist. Ad infinitum. This doesn't have to be the oppression olympics. Intersectionality is the only way out of this mess.

And it’s true. Ace people have not faced systemic oppression. It’s hard to systemically oppress someone when you systemically refuse to acknowledge their existence. Is that as bad as being electrocuted? No. But is that the point here? Why say that? Why amplify that kind of divisive message? We just want to belong somewhere. You can believe this or not, but we’re dying here. The LGBT community has been the only safe place I’ve known my entire life. To figure out years later that I was labeling..

myself wrong? It was the most terrifying feeling I’ve ever experienced. It still is. It’s like we don’t exist. One person was shitting on people who say they’re ‘gay ace’. Why? Can’t I still fall in love with women, despite not experiencing sexual attraction? Don’t you think I would rather enjoy sex with my partner? Being able to give her what she needs? Not being left again and again? Loneliness is a very real pain. And gay ace people exist. I exist. And let me tell you, we’re lonely as fuck.

Straight people see us simply as gay, and treat us that way. So we’re getting electrocuted too. Sexual, gay people tell us we’re ‘cis/het’ liars trying to steal their community. So we have no safe space. We can’t find partners. Our friends, family, and fellow LGBT ppl don’t understand us or even believe in our existence. We are constantly questioning out own existence. I don’t mean to flood you. I realize that’s what I’m doing. But I’ve seen this kind of post coming from your direction a few…

times now. And I feel like maybe this will make you think a bit about what it might feel like to not ever experience the thing EVERYBODY is talking about. Building their lives around. To feel like your broken. Like you’re gonna die alone. Being constantly told you’re not real, your feelings aren’t valid, your struggle is silly. You’ve got a lot of followers. And being ace has made me full on suicidal in the past. So just. Think about it. Gay ace is a real thing. Can you see how you might have…

privilege over a person like that? everyone in my life sees me as gay. I fall in love with women. and yet here we are. can’t you see how I might want to be in your shoes? At least you’re real. At least you have a community. At least you have *some* representation that rings true to your experience. At least you could get a girlfriend that loves you and build a life without either getting dumped for not putting out or subjecting yourself to sex when your body doesn’t want it.

Anyways. I’m not writing this because I want you to answer anything. I’m just hoping you’ll read it and think about it a bit, maybe. If you have, thank you. I really like you Christine. Not trying to be a bitch. But I doubt I’m the only one whose feelings get hurt when you amplify the ‘ace people are cis/hets trying to crash the LGBT community’ noise. - With love in my heart, from a long time follower.

okay, this is long but i’m going to try to keep my answers as succinct as possible. i don’t know if this was your intention, but elements of this message feel vaguely guilt-tripping, despite the fact that none of what you’ve mentioned here presents an argument i haven’t already seen and strongly disagreed with.

“ I know some in the ace community are homophobic fucks. a lot of ppl in the gay community are transphobic. And a lot of trans people are biphobic. And a lot of bi people are sexist […] This doesn’t have to be the oppression olympics. ”

two things: one, you’re referring to lateral aggression in every instance but the first. what i mean by lateral aggression is that it occurs between two people–within the same community–who experience oppression along different axes (e.g. a straight trans person and a cis gay person). in contrast, a cis straight ace man who engages in homophobia and/or transphobia is not “laterally aggressing” his victim, he’s oppressing them. the reason LGBT people have become so vocal against inclusion of cis straight aces is because their oppressors are now gaining entrance to their exclusive spaces, and speaking over them. and whereas a lesbian can voice her discomfort with this on tumblr, she’s forced to stay silent at her local GSA for her own safety.

two, this isn’t an issue of a “handful” of violently homophobic people in the ace community. the founder of aven–david jay–was a homophobic white cishet man, and the platform on which he built his activism was homophobic. moreover, oppression against (straight, cis) ace people is not enforceable, because who is and isn’t ace depends entirely on the decision to identify as such! there are (as the ace community has been told many, many times) plenty of LGBT people (if not most) who have a complicated relationship with sex and sexual attraction due to abuse/assault, compulsive heterosexuality, dysmorphia, etc. none of these people can be considered “allosexual,” even if they (for perfectly valid reasons) decline to share this information publicly! these people deal with many of the same issues you’ve mentioned here (e.g. choosing between getting dumped or engaging in sexual acts when they would rather not), although they would likely attribute this to homophobia, misogyny and rape culture, not aphobia.

also: the “oppression olympics” is nonsensical and offensive and i wish y’all would stop passing that term around. yes, the LGBT community’s history is absolutely rooted in oppression of same-gender attracted and trans individuals! and yes, the community exists to actively oppose legislation that exists to oppress them, and to provide resources for those affected. the community was not founded in order to provide comfort to people who feel outcast from society for [x] reason. when you make this claim (or when you sarcastically liken the community to an exclusive “club” one gains entrance to by virtue of being oppressed) you miss the point entirely. it’s watering down the mission statement and end goal of this community, plain and simple.

“And it’s true. Ace people have not faced systemic oppression. It’s hard to systemically oppress someone when you systemically refuse to acknowledge their existence.”

i find this argument (which is repeated often) to be ridiculous when the LGBT community has years of coherent history, and AVEN (and the popularization of identifying as asexual in the first place) has only gained prominence within the last decade or so. on top of that, as any oppressed individual will tell you, (and, again, something that has been repeated very often and rarely acknowledged) hypervisibility is dangerous to the oppressed! black and latinx trans women and gay men are the most endangered members of the LGBT community because it is impossible for them to “hide” themselves.

this alone should make it clear to you that what the LGBT community want and what the ace community want are two very different things–so what exactly would their shared goal in activism be? what purpose would expanding the community to include straight cis aces serve other than comforting individuals who resent being excluded? LGBT people may share the ace community’s desire for representation in media, but visibility–within the context of their everyday lives–is exactly what’s getting them killed. the pulse shooting is obviously the most recent example of this, but it’s one of many.

“One person was shitting on people who say they’re ‘gay ace’. Why? Can’t I still fall in love with women, despite not experiencing sexual attraction? Don’t you think I would rather enjoy sex with my partner? Being able to give her what she needs? Not being left again and again? Loneliness is a very real pain. And gay ace people exist. I exist. And let me tell you, we’re lonely as fuck.”

you’re introducing a very different argument here, and one i obviously don’t agree with. if you’re a gay ace, you belong in the LGBT community. i’m sorry you’ve been told otherwise. but if this entire passage (and the several paragraphs following it) are meant to convince me of this, i don’t know what to tell you? i’ve said before that–based on my history and  relationship with sex and sexual attraction–i could easily identify as an ace lesbian. i don’t, for some of the reasons listed above, and personal reasons of my own–and i don’t benefit from failing to identify as ace in any material way.

“And I feel like maybe this will make you think a bit about what it might feel like to not ever experience the thing EVERYBODY is talking about. Building their lives around. To feel like your broken. Like you’re gonna die alone. Being constantly told you’re not real, your feelings aren’t valid, your struggle is silly.”

i’m genuinely sorry you’re feeling this way, but again, if you think this is an experience LGBT people (ace or otherwise) don’t share, then i’m not the one turning a blind eye here.

“At least you’re real. At least you have a community. At least you have *some* representation that rings true to your experience. At least you could get a girlfriend that loves you and build a life without either getting dumped for not putting out or subjecting yourself to sex when your body doesn’t want it.”

you need to consider that you are making assumptions about what i want from a relationship based on the fact that i don’t publicly identify as ace. this is another thing we’ve been repeating constantly: you cannot do that, and therein lies one of the issues with asexuality as a framework for oppression. also, even on the off chance that i had a perfectly healthy relationship with and desire for sex (which–as i’ve said–very few people in the LGBT community do) none of us can just “get a girlfriend.” to suggest it’s more difficult for ace people is ridiculous when LGBT people have had to resort to dating apps and LGBT-exclusive spaces in order to find people to date in the first place. and before you say that similar spaces don’t exist for aces: they need to be built, just like ours were. the onus is on adult aces, not “allo” LGBT people.  

and, again, what an ace person would potentially want from an ace-exclusive space is not what an LGBT person (provably, historically) would want from an LGBT-exclusive space. ace condemnation of sex and sexuality is valid at the individual level, but it can be suffocating (and, yes–oppressive) to LGBT people who have fought long and hard to take pride in their sexuality. telling LGBT people that their love and “PDA” is “dirty” and “impure” is nothing new or progressive, it’s textbook homophobia, and those attitudes are damaging to us.

“Anyways. I’m not writing this because I want you to answer anything. I’m just hoping you’ll read it and think about it a bit, maybe. If you have, thank you. I really like you Christine. Not trying to be a bitch. But I doubt I’m the only one whose feelings get hurt when you amplify the ‘ace people are cis/hets trying to crash the LGBT community’ noise. - With love in my heart, from a long time follower.”

look…i hate to tell you this because i don’t think you mean any harm, and i’m not trying to attack you–but, as i think i said earlier, none of the arguments you’ve presented here are new to me. these are arguments that have been addressed and derailed by LGBT people (many of them ace themselves) multiple times, to no end. what you’ve mentioned here highlights an important point, and that’s “hurt feelings.” those are the stakes for straight cis aces–those are not the stakes for LGBT people (and i include LGBT aces in this statement). but i haven’t “learned” anything from these messages–i’ve never plugged my ears and ignored the arguments of straight cis aces, i’ve listened to them very carefully. and they’ve informed my opinion on this matter–an opinion that hasn’t changed and will not change. if that’s upsetting to you, you can unfollow–i won’t hold it against you!